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"He's beginning to look like the Malcolm Tucker of the Catholic Church."

Actually, without the jacket, tie, and dress shirt, I think he'd look a lot more like Onslo. Our Hyacinth would never tolerate Richard looking like him. She'd have him on the stricted of diets in two seconds.

How long before somebody calls him "The Archbishops Rotweiler"

Biblically speaking, I think s*** is quite mild.

While not wishing to encourage verbal abuse, I do think we may sometimes forget that Jesus himself was not exactly a "nice", "politically correct" and "charming" person in what he said to people of whom he was critical. Here are some examples from Matthew chapter 23, which are directed, not at "miserable sinners" (such as those struggling with sexual issues), but at the religious self-righteous:

"...you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much A SON OF HELL as yourselves." (v.15)

"...you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are FULL OF DEAD MEN'S BONES and all uncleanness." (v.27)

"SERPENTS, BROOD OF VIPERS! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?" (v.33)

In the same chapter Jesus also called the scribes and Pharisees "hypocrites", "blind guides" and "fools and blind" several times over.

I am not aware of Jesus using such inflammatory language against a "sexual sinner", such as the Samaritan woman, whom he met at the well, or the woman caught in adultery. But the self-righteous who looked down on others and who persecuted those they perceived to be morally weak, were the objects of our Lord's complete scorn and contempt.

If Jesus Christ appeared in some churches today and spoke like this he would be seriously rebuked and told, in no uncertain terms, that he had a "critical and rebellious spirit" and needed deliverance ministry!

If we look at the Jesus of the Bible, we can be assured that this Jesus - the real Jesus - is not conducting a crusade or witchhunt against gays or others who struggle with sexual sin, but we can certainly deduce that he condemns the attitudes and practices of the modern day Pharisees.

So why doesn't the Christian Church today major on condemning self-righteousness and hypocrisy as Christ did? Instead, we see the exact opposite.

Which leaves us with a sobering thought ... how much of the Christian Church today is actually really genuinely "Christian"? (A quick reading of Matthew 7:21-23 might concentrate the mind!)

LSV

Thank God for you. I shall go to bed tonight (alone!)a happy man!!!

Wonderful post LSV - I sometimes fear that my occasionally acerbic side is the most Christ-like thing about me.

Looks like the Irish spin doctors have something that may be too big to spin. The Catholic Church is damned in another report of widespread long standing sexual abuse of children that went uninvestigated and may go unprosecuted. So much for EU laws as well.

LSV

I knwo you missed the discussion RJB and PM had on this. Although we didn't agree on sexual ethics, and I don't think we agree on Biblical Authority, we did all conclude that Religious Pride was the greatest obstacle to the Kingdom.
I think OT has added his name to the list. And now you have also, completely unprompted. It's interesting given our very different starting points. You really can't read the Gospels and miss this.

GV

LSV, very valid points. Which is why I maintain that if Jesus the Nazarene were alive today, he would likely be an atheistic humanist. I don't get a kick out of the sort of PostModern verbage of "Emergent Christianity" (cf. Peter Rollins etc), but I've previously suggested that Jesus might be a handy enough story scaffold or mnemonic for the secular ethical life (although he is of course not above criticism, and the stories about him are often not actually *true*).

I have no problem with people calling other people s***s if they deserve it; what I *do* have a problem with is the assumption that because someone is associated with a "religion" that that gives them some sort of moral authority. We *expect* priests and nuns and vatican mouthpieces etc to be more moral - WHY, precisely? Theistic morality is a dud; it provides no reliable basis for moral behaviour in theory, nor better moral behaviour in practice (perhaps even a LOT worse, given the emotional, physical and sexual abuse of which the Catholic Church is guilty at a corporate level).

So the fact that this "spin doctor" turns out to be a nasty piece of work abusing his "authority" should not come as a surprise at all.

#4 - romejellybean -

I have just noticed that I may be, completely unintentionally, guilty of a little bit of plagiarism (although I suppose it's not really plagiarism if I trangressed in ignorance!)

Your post #14 on the "Scotland, Ireland and 'the Aberdeen Case'" thread makes a biblical observation remarkably similar to my post #3 here (about how Jesus spoke - or rather did not speak - to the woman caught in adultery), which was written later the same day.

Spooky!

I won't make the sceptics among us cringe by saying "perhaps Someone is saying something", but, you never know, perhaps Someone really is!!

All the best, Al

LSV

I actually did go to bed a happy man after I read your post. I thought, well there's at least one guy out there who actually sees this particular truth.

But then when I got to bed I thought, maybe the truth is, if I was talking nonsense on that post about the woman caught in adultery, there's at least one other eejit out there who agrees and who is obviously as BC (Biblically Challenged) as I am.

"Perhaps someone is saying something"

Yip, YOU were!! Not God, (do you notice that everyone wants to believe that THEIR words come from God? Kinda stifles debate if you've only got your own human, infallable, unenspired words.) You were actually arguing that people should love. You've come to that realisation without being God. You've arrived!!

And anyway, why do they always call that text "The woman caught in adultery" or "The Woman caught committing adultery" or "The woman who was a sinner." ?

Before we've even started to read what happened, we've already been told who the baddy is, and yet, when you go on to read the story, she aint the baddy at all!!

Now that is spooky!!

fallable not infallable!!

RJB. the "woman caught in adultery" story was a late addition to the tex, not present in the originals. It's probably an interpolation of a story about a different holy man, Honi the Circle Drawer, and not Jesus at all.

Carry on. :-)

Yes, Honi, the drawer of circles. I suppose that would him a sort of spin doctor.

Thanks Helio, I learn everyday.

However, thats not really my point. The people who are arguing that Jesus told her to "Go and sin no more" and are placing, I think, an undue emphasis on it, believe that it was Jesus.

Whether it was or not, they are still misinterpreting the message the author of the text was trying to convey.