#it's a universal church it's good to have freedom for theology

[francesderwent]

me reading or watching anything Catholic: but why would they say that? I would never have said that. I would never have thought about it that way. why is that the way they’re thinking about it?

the lightbulb going off hours later: ohhh it’s a nature and grace thing isn’t it. it’s absolutely an underlying nature and grace thing. they said that because they are wrong about nature and grace.

[droids-in-disguise]

Good Omens 2 making me think a lot about religion and religious deconstruction.

For context, I grew up Baptist, went to Catholic school for jr. high, and attended a private Christian school for my undergrad.

I grew up being told that the Bible was the ultimate source of truth, that is was the guidebook for our lives as Christians, and that, most importantly it should be taken literally.

I started wrestling with the concept of queerness when I was in jr. high. By then I had joined tumblr and had a best friend who was openly pan. But it was still a problem, because my church's reading of the Bible was that being gay was a sin. I existed very much in that "hate the sin, love the sinner" space that so many Christians seem to think is the appropriate answer. I also realized that despite being told that my church was doing Christianity the "right" way, these Catholics seemed to be just as sure in their conviction that they were doing it the right way.

In high school, I could sometimes privately admit to myself that the label "asexual" felt good, but more often than not I would lie to myself and say I was just too busy with grades and extracurricular activities to commit time to dating boys. I certainly never came out to anyone.

Ironically, it was the theology classes I took in college combined with the freedom of living away from my parents that helped me to finally realize that the Church as I knew it did not have the final say.

I learned that Biblical canon was not always set in stone and that it varies from denomination, that Hebrew and Greek words can have more than one translation or even no direct translation in English, I learned about liberation theology, and about womanist/feminist interpretations of scripture. Outside of theology class I took classes focused on Islamic history and literature. I had conversations about faith with my Muslim, Jewish, and Pagan peers. I met queer people who were both queer and Christian and who didn't see these identities as conflicting.

I had an old, hardass British lit professor who said something once during our study of Paradise Lost that I'll never forget, and that was that he believed God was like a diamond or some other precious gemstone, and that that all the different groups of Christians, Jews, and Muslims were all just seeing different facets of the same thing. Apparently this statement was something he had once told university higher-ups and it nearly cost him his job.

Despite all the deconstruction and the private acknowledgement that the church I grew up in did not have a monopoly on truth, I still went to church for years after. I did have the good sense to stop going to my parents' church and found one that was much more progressive and openly accepting of queer people, but even still it was hard to separate how much of me was there because I wanted to be there and how much was out of obligation or some sense of needing to reclaim my now tarnished view of the Church. I'm not sure where I sit now, only that I don't think I can be the one to create change from within, I am too damaged and tired for that.

All of this is why I think I relate so deeply to Aziraphale and the journey his character has undertaken, and why claims that he behaved out-of-character in the finale or that his coffee was drugged irritate me so much, because in another universe where I'm Aziraphale, I could see myself doing and saying the exact same things.

Letting go is hard, it's been painful and traumatic for me, I can't imagine what it would be for a being like Aziraphale with a much longer history.

There's such a strong desire to believe that it's only some of the Church that's bad and that if we have enough good people on the inside we can change it for the better.

Aziraphale has been hurt by Heaven and he's realized that Heaven is just as capable of doing bad as Hell (in many ways what Heaven does is more sinister because they won't admit to the bad and hide behind the façade of goodness and moral superiority), but he's a people pleaser and he's been an angel for so long, he can't just let go of his community and everything he has ever known no matter how poorly he has been treated by said Heavenly community. So then he gets this offer, work for Heaven, be in charge, make a difference. He can keep Heaven and Crowley, have his cake and eat it too. Of course he takes the job.

Crowley has had the outsider perspective for longer, he was the first to start asking questions. Perhaps there was a time when he too would've said yes to the Metatron, but now he knows better.

"We don't need Heaven, we don't need Hell. They're toxic!"

Aziraphale hasn't reached the same level of understanding that Crowley has, that no matter how many times he goes crawling back, Heaven will never truly accept him or be the place for him.

They way this story has been told over the past two seasons has been magnificent. Just as I can pinpoint all the different moments in my life that have helped to unravel what I thought I knew, we as the audience get to watch Aziraphale have these revelations too. In the first season we have the ineffable plan and this idea that armageddon is necessary and that Aziraphale shouldn't be the one to question it, but he does question it because he loves humanity, sees their goodness, and can't understand why a good God would allow them to be destroyed.

In season two, I found the bits surrounding Job to be especially poignant. First the shock that Heaven would condone the killing of children, then the realization that Crowley wouldn't kill the children or the goats going against his demonic "nature" proving Aziraphale's assumptions wrong, and finally the fear that lying would make him into a demon and the surprise when this turned out not to be true.

I have a feeling that by the end of season 3, when we get it, we will have the satisfaction of seeing Aziraphale and Crowley finally on the same page and I for one can't wait.

[churchblogmatics-blog]

Books for spiritual formation

Books that have left an indelible mark on my understanding of God or the Christian faith in some way. My spiritual development is unfinished, so this list is unfinished - I'm always open to suggestions

Soren Kierkegaard

The Sickness Unto Death - Explained how sin works psychologically, illustrates how it can be its own punishment

Works of Love - What it means to love, what it costs, what it gives us

Fear and Trembling - What faith means, its miraculous nature

Karl Barth

Evangelical Theology - What theology actually means, how the gospel is good news

The Epistle to the Romans - Shows the need for continual reformation of thought within the church, introduced (to me) the idea of God's freedom in communication to man

Church Dogmatics II.2 - Election is good news! It is God willing to choose humanity despite sin - universal reconciliation can and should be hoped for

The Journal of John Woolman

What undying commitment to justice means, what it looks like

Martin Luther King Jr

Letter from a Birmingham Jail - Made me understand how Romans 13:1 can be integrated into radical politics

A Gift of Love - Brought to life 1 John 4:20

A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving

A narrative illustration of unwavering faith

The Imitation of Christ, Thomas Kempis

What we're saved to, salvation has a telos

Flannery O'Connor

Wise Blood - Life without Christ, the perils of sola scriptura

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Shows grace as an intrusive lived experience

Marilynne Robinson

Gilead novels (Gilead, Home, Lila) - Rich illustration of Imago Dei

When I Was a Child I Read Books - Bolstered my understanding of the 8th commandment (reading with charitable intent, in interactions with others in life and on the page)

What Are We Doing Here? - Illustrates what the glory of God means in daily experience

Garry Wills

What Paul Meant - Paul and Jesus were of a unified mind, stop reading Paul as a bible thumper, start reading him as a man who loved dearly and wrote with urgency on live issues

Religio Medici, Thomas Browne

Ecumenism is a beautiful thing and should be strived for in all Christian communities

The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton

The gospel brings peace of mind and soul, searching for peace is a valid epistemology

Eichmann in Jerusalem, Hannah Arendt

Wickedness is not inevitable, it arises from moral and intellectual sluggardliness

The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Learn to love the church, it is the arms of Christ; great exegesis of the Sermon on the Mount; great companion to the book of James

White Evangelical Racism, Anthea Butler

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by racism at the root

Jesus and John Wayne, Kristin Kobes du Mez

Evangelicalism did not emerge from theological first principles, it is a diseased expression of the faith informed by misogyny at the root

C.S. Lewis

The Great Divorce - Eternity begins now, sin is its own punishment and grace is its own reward

Till We Have Faces - God has compassion and patience for those who wrestle with him, to summon the boldness to contend with God can be a blessed thing

The Courage to Be, Paul Tillich

The dynamics of Christian faith explained in the abstract

As I Lay Dying, William Faulkner

The thinness of intellectual assent, the richness of faith

The Denial of Death, Ernest Becker

Explanation of the existential need faith meets in the language of continental philosophy

Confessions, St. Augustine

The most theologically and philosophically rich testimony besides that of St. Paul

An Unpublished Essay on the Trinity, Jonathan Edwards

What is the trinity, why is it important

John Milton

Areopagitica - Enforced virtue means nothing

Paradise Lost - Human beings are worth saving even if they aren't deserving of God's favor

Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud

Illustrates the necessity of grace by exploring a world through the assumption of its absence (excellent foil to A Gift of Love)

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

Thomas Cromwell has disconnected from Hak Ja Han and all the Moon sons, but still believes in Sun Myung Moon and original sin.

THE BETRAYAL OF SUN MYUNG MOON AND WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT

Memorial Day, May 27, 2024

As they have every year for over five decades, tens of millions of Americans on this Memorial Day are remembering and honoring the heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country and the freedoms it represents and upholds. These sacrifices hold particular meaning because they were most often made in foreign lands on behalf of people of other nationalities who were victims of unjust aggression or oppression.

Earlier this year, hundreds of millions of Christians around the world paused to remember and commemorate a similar but more universally significant sacrifice by Jesus, who gave his life to save the world from evil. His goodness and life of selfless service to humanity have from the earliest days of the church inspired Christians to honor him every year at Easter.

Why is Sun Myung Moon not Honored in a Similar Way?

It’s not quite 12 years since Sun Myung Moon passed into the Spirit World, on September 3, 2012. He was honored by his followers at a massive funeral, and for several years his death was commemorated by his widow, Hak Ja Han, together with other leaders and members of the Unification Church. However, already that tradition has largely been diminished to irrelevance as faithful Unificationist hearts and minds have been re-educated by Hak Ja Han to focus on her as the central figure of God’s providence, to learn her new theology of the Only Begotten Daughter (OBD), and to accept her claims of God-like status and accomplishments. She now insists that all members be absolutely obedient to her.

This is a stunning and disturbing development. After all, Unificationists always looked up to her as the female representative of True Parents, such that all she had to do to be their temporal leader was to build on the incredible foundation laid by her husband through his life of sacrificial service and immense suffering. Instead, she has taken brick after brick from his foundation to build an edifice in her own honor, while step by step diminishing his importance in the eyes of members and the world.

The truth is that everything she claims as her own legacy was earned through the shedding of blood, sweat and tears by her husband in his life of service to God and humanity. It was he who defeated Satan in spirit and gave us the profound insights of the Divine Principle, the core teaching of the movement; it was he who won over hundreds of thousands of dedicated members in countries around the world; and it was the sacrificial efforts of these members that provided the funds to build the global movement.

She has tampered with core Divine Principle scriptures to give herself a central providential role above that of her husband’s; she has renamed many of the organizations he founded to make them part of her legacy; she has sold off providential properties to raise funds for her own pet projects; and she has sought to secure her legacy by erecting two massive statues of herself standing alone surrounded by adoring little people.

All of this has been carried out under cover of a clever deception, a grooming of Unificationists into believing she has always known the Principle and seen the errors of her husband. She ungratefully omits to remind members that it was he who made her his spouse in 1960, when she was a mere 17 years old (she was 11 when he founded the Unification Church as HSA-UWC in 1954), or that through their marriage she was elevated to the position of True Mother while still a teenager.

Full text as PDF HERE

___________________________________

Adam and Eve were married before the Fall, so the interpretations Sun Myung Moon borrowed from other new religious groups in Korea make no sense except as a means to manipulate people. Original sin was invented hundreds of years after Jesus. LINK

Sun Myung Moon’s explanation of the Fall of Man is based on his Confucian ideas of lineage, and his belief in shaman sex rituals.

In the 1952 Divine Principle, Jesus was married.

‘The whole thing about the messiah is a human construct’

The Divine Principle: Questions to consider about Old Testament figures

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

SCP-XXXX: “Ava”, chapter 4 preview

Just a tidbit of what I’m working on.  Hope you guys are still excited for this!

SCP-XXXX: Do you mean it?

Dr. Young: Mean what?

SCP-XXXX: About all this.  Will you really teach me about cells and stuff?

Dr. Young smiles.

Dr. Young: Yes, Ava, if you’re willing to learn, I will teach you.  Do you like learning about science?

SCP-XXXX shrugs.

SCP-XXXX: It beat bible study by a mile.  Though that might have more to do with the teachers.  Sister Agatha taught all the science classes, such as they were.  She tried to make it a little fun… even did the whole mini volcano thing during the geology unit.  We thought that was the coolest shit.

Dr. Young: I’m not a geologist, but the study of volcanic activity is fascinating.  I’m sure the library here has books on it if you’re interested.

SCP-XXXX: I think I’ll stick with biology to start, not that rocks aren’t cool as shit.  Thanks, Bea.

Dr. Young: Of course, Ava.

Approximately 5 seconds of silence elapse.

SCP-XXXX: So… what about you?

Dr. Young: Hmm?  What about me?

SCP-XXXX shifts forward in her chair, shifting her weight to either side in a semi-regular rhythm.

SCP-XXXX: Well, obviously you like learning about science, but did you always want to study animals and cells and stuff?

Dr. Young taps her pen against her notepad.  3 seconds of silence elapse.  SCP-XXXX leans back and flushes.

SCP-XXXX: Sorry, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.

Dr. Young smiles at SCP-XXXX.

Dr. Young: Given all the questions we expect you to answer, it’s more than fair for you to ask some in return.  I apologize for my absentmindedness.

SCP-XXXX: Oh, no worries.  It’s chill.

Dr. Young: To answer your question, no.  For a long time, I didn’t want to pursue a career in science at all.  I was always fascinated by it, but I never even considered earning a degree in it until I entered university.

SCP-XXXX leans forward again.

SCP-XXXX: What did you think you wanted to do?

Dr. Young: Don’t laugh when I tell you.  It seems quite strange in retrospect.

SCP-XXXX: Wouldn’t dream of it.

Dr. Young: Well… I actually wanted to study religion, and eventually join the church.  I was raised Catholic, and my family was very devout.

SCP-XXXX: Are they doctors too?  Or… religion-studiers or whatever?

Dr. Young chuckles.

Dr. Young: The term you want is theologian.  But no, they were politicians, diplomats.  When I showed less than zero interest in politics, they pushed me to study theology as the only suitable alternative.  They never neglected my education, so I knew that I enjoyed science before but… I also thought that a life devoted to faith would be good for me.

SCP-XXXX: Until?

Dr. Young: Until it came time for me to choose my classes for the first term, and I chose a biology elective.  I took it for fun, I never thought it would cause me to change anything about my path in life.

SCP-XXXX: But it did.

Dr. Young: But it did.  It didn’t happen all at once.  Actually, in hindsight, it was quite slow.  One class turned into more, but I continued to pursue my theology degree well into my third year.  At first, I thought that studying both would give me a richer understanding of my faith, and in many ways it did.

SCP-XXXX: Meaning?

Dr. Young shrugs.

Dr. Young: I believe that there are higher powers out there in the universe.  But what shape those powers take, I have no idea.  God may look nothing like I always imagined Him, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

SCP-XXXX: …But he could be a weird tentacle guy.

Dr. Young laughs.

Dr. Young: He could be.  But there’s a kind of freedom in not knowing, don’t you think?  When you’re certain you know how the world works, you become limited within its perceived rules.  It’s only when you open yourself up to the possibility of being wrong that you can recognize how little you actually know about anything.  It’s a frightening revelation, but an exciting one too.  The rules you thought you were rigid and clearly defined fall away, and a universe of new potential opens up in their wake.  There’s something divine about that, I think.  A single moment of seeing the world as He must.

Approximately 2 seconds of elapse.

SCP-XXXX: So you’re, like, smart smart, huh?

Dr. Young laughs.

Dr. Young: What do you mean by that?

SCP-XXXX flushes and wiggles in her seat.

SCP-XXXX: I mean, like, you know stuff, but you also know stuff about stuff.  Shit, that sounds so stupid.  Forget I said anything.

Dr. Young: I understand what you meant.  It’s not stupid, Ava, and neither are you.

SCP-XXXX: Yeah, sure…

Dr. Young leans forward and rests her hand flat on the table.

Dr. Young: You’re not stupid, Ava.  Uneducated, perhaps, but that isn’t your fault.  And we’re going to fix that now, aren’t we?

SCP-XXXX looks away and bites her bottom lip, and then grins at Dr. Young, who grins back.

SCP-XXXX: Yeah, I guess we are.

[eternal-echoes]

“In all honesty, one must observe that in the late Middle Ages we find trends in theology which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit. In contrast with the so-called intellectualism of Augustine and Thomas, there arose with Duns Scotus a voluntarism which, in its later developments, led to the claim that we can only know God's voluntas ordinata. Beyond this is the realm of God's freedom, in virtue of which he could have done the opposite of everything he has actually done. This gives rise to positions which clearly approach those of Ibn Hazm and might even lead to the image of a capricious God, who is not even bound to truth and goodness. God's transcendence and otherness are so exalted that our reason, our sense of the true and good, are no longer an authentic mirror of God, whose deepest possibilities remain eternally unattainable and hidden behind his actual decisions. As opposed to this, the faith of the Church has always insisted that between God and us, between his eternal Creator Spirit and our created reason there exists a real analogy, in which - as the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 stated - unlikeness remains infinitely greater than likeness, yet not to the point of abolishing analogy and its language. God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as logos and, as logos, has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, "transcends" knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone (cf. Eph 3:19); nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Consequently, Christian worship is, again to quote Paul - "λογικη λατρεία", worship in harmony with the eternal Word and with our reason (cf. Rom 12:1).[10]”

- Pope Benedict XVI, MEETING WITH THE REPRESENTATIVES OF SCIENCE - Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, 12 September 2006

[black-paraphernalia]

       DR VERNON JOHNS

Born: April 22, 1892, Darlington Heights, VA 

Died: June 11, 1965, Washington, D.C.

Dr. Vernon Johns was an American minister based in the South and a pioneer in the civil rights movement. He is best known as the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Father of six children

Education: The University of Chicago, Oberlin College, Boydton Academic and Bible Institute

12 Things about Vernon Johns, a Devoted Preacher, and Pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement;

The Man Who Laid the GroundWork 

for

 Martin Luther King Jr.

Johns was born in Darlington Heights, Prince Edward County, Virginia. Three of his grandparents had been enslaved. His paternal grandfather was hanged for killing his master.

In 1915, Johns graduated from Virginia Theological Seminary and College.

While at Oberlin, Johns was highly respected by both his classmates and the faculty; he was chosen to give the annual student oration. After graduating from Oberlin in 1918, he attended the University of Chicago’s graduate school of theology.

In 1926, he was the first African American to have his work published in Best Sermons of the Year.

In 1929–33 Johns served as president of Lynchburg’s Virginia Theological Seminary and College. He was unable to stabilize the school’s finances and was forced to resign. He returned to his family farm for several years.

On one occasion, he paid his fare on a bus in Montgomery, and was directed to the back in the custom of segregated seating. He refused to sit there and demanded, and got, his money back.

He persuaded black women to bring charges in court against their white rapists, and he helped the women with their cases. No one was convicted, but just getting the white men into court was an achievement.

In 1947 Johns found his way to the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. In spite of his eccentricities, its black-elite congregation liked his preaching and his leadership. Within two years, however, he started to speak out about racial issues and to castigate his congregation for ignoring them.

He sometimes ruffled feathers among his upper- and middle-class congregation by selling his farm produce outside the church building.

Following his departure from Dexter, Johns continued to speak at churches and colleges throughout the United States. At King’s request, he returned to Dexter as guest preacher for its 79th anniversary service.

A television film, Road to Freedom: The Vernon Johns Story (1994), written by Leslie Lee and Kevin Arkadie, was based on an unpublished biography by Henry W. Powell of The Vernon Johns Society.

David Anderson Elementary School in Petersburg, Virginia, was renamed as Vernon Johns Middle School. In 2009 was adapted as the junior high school for the city school system

SOURCE BY: Carla D. Wilson Laskey -  Using words to inspire, motivate, and encourage us all to positively impact the world for the greater good of all! https://linktr.ee/CarlaDee

BLACK PARAPHERNALIA DISCLAIMER - PLEASE READ

ALL IMAGES FROM GOOGLE IMAGE

[sweetbleu7]

The United States' portrayal of freedom is juxtaposed with its need to maintain wholesome morals. Americans consider themselves to be a liberated people all whilst holding the strong puritanical paragons offered in The Bible. Conservative values are presented in the media, as sexuality and non-traditional lifestyles are erased. What is viewed in the media reflects the actions of society, this reasoning is why the clean image is maintained. If permissive messages are portrayed in a film it gives the appearance of normalcy. As the United States becomes more progressive and inclusive our media continues to have a firm grasp on its ethics. Movie ratings give the public a way to judge what movies contain vulgarity at a glance. Many consumers base a movie’s “watchability” and content on its rating. Due to the rating system in place, movies that do not align themselves with the straight standards in place, are throttled. This prevents the possibility of multiple modern stories from being projected the way they were intended, if at all.

Religion is at the core of American history, making it of great significance to our modern values. The Puritan settlers left Europe for the “new world” to exercise religious freedom. The Bible’s scripture is what many of these people shaped their lifestyles around. Many political decisions and wars were started in this nation under the belief that it was “god's will”. God was a strong force in Abraham Lincoln’s reasoning of the Civil War, stating: “God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. ... I am almost ready to say this is probably true -- that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet” (1862). Christianity has sat contiguously with politics throughout history. In 1973 the Supreme Court ruled banning and state-regulated abortions as they saw fit, was unconstitutional. Members of the church vocally protested their opposition to this ruling, with the belief that unborn babies have the right to life. In the 1960’s The American Psychiatric Association had homosexuality categorized as a mental disorder. The Bible states blatantly “Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination” (Lev.18:22). At the time Homosexual sex was punishable by fine or life in prison. For many people the bible is a source of ethics, laying an infrastructure for how to lead an archetypal life. The bible lays it out as avoiding sins which by definition are immoral acts considered to be a crime against religious laws of conduct. Those who follow theology are steadfast and believe it is the most legitimate way to live and use it to justify their beliefs.

In 1922 President Harding elected the Postmaster General William H. Hays to regulate the salacious film industry and protect the values of the American people. The Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) was formed with the purpose of informing producers on what can and cannot be in films for the public's consumption. Hays believed that his duty was to the youth and parents of America. He wanted to shield young people from being exposed to sin, as opposed to protecting freedom of expression. In 1930 the MPPDA, now the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) introduced A Code to Maintain Social and Community Values in the Production of Silent, Synchronized and Talking Motion Pictures, otherwise known as the “Hays Code” (National Coalition Against Censorship). Hays said in 1930, “The code sets up high standards of performance for motion picture producers. It states the consideration which good taste and community value make necessary in this universal form of entertainment”. The code set out to censor films that lowered what is morally typical, films containing “wrong-doing, evil, or sin” (Hays 1930) were targets. These established rules like couples sleeping in separate beds prohibited excessive violence and no mention of adultery in a film.

In 1968 under Jack Valenti, the MPAA set a standard of film ratings to inhibit children from being introduced to “lewd” content instead of outright banning them. The ratings: General Audiences (G), Parental Guidance (PG), Parental Guidance under the Age of Thirteen (PG-13), Restricted (R), and No Children Seventeen or under (NC-17) are used to categorize films to this day. Although the ratings do not have to be accepted by the film’s producers, it has come to be a form of censorship. Valenti was quoted saying “If you make a movie that a lot of people want to see no rating will hurt you if you make a movie that few people want to see no rating can help you. Ratings have nothing to do with box office.”, calling it “Valenti’s Law” (Valenti 1977). Unrated films are commonly forgotten or unknown to the general public. Movies with NC-17 ratings are put in the same category as pornography, receiving no commercial advertising, and most chain retailers will not carry these films.

MPAA raters are parents, whose job is to speak for all American parents by giving movies a designated rating based on what they think children should view. Raters are kept secret from the public to reduce the pressure that could be projected onto them. This is intended to keep a rater’s judgment from being swayed. However, with the current system, there is little room to avoid bias. With a room full of parents, it is easy to get the same opinion on each movie they view. Due to the limited diversity, the MPAA raters can make the judgment for not only America’s parents but moviegoers as a whole, whereas other groups of people have no say in the ratings. Ratings are given on a film-by-film basis, with little guidelines of what puts a film under a certain rating. Raters can choose what they deem acceptable or lewd. Guidelines are not given to filmmakers on what is too outlandish for a film to receive its desired rating. A difference in opinion can be the source of contention for raters, filmmakers, and consumers. Filmmakers can make changes to their movies and re-submit them to reach their desired rating, this leads to scripts being changed to play to a rater’s sensibilities. Raters are consultants to the film industry, but they are not required to judge objectively. A MPAA rater can use their personal beliefs to change screenplays making the movie they would rather see.

Many filmmakers and consumers alike have argued that the MPAA does not judge films objectively, often giving movies with similar content different ratings. The movies American Beauty and But I’m a Cheerleader both contain scenes featuring its main character masturbating. Initially, American Beauty received an R rating whereas, But I’m a Cheerleader received an NC-17, because of its masturbation scene. The main disparity between the two films is American Beauty centers itself on a heterosexual middle-aged man and But I’m a Cheerleader’s title character is a teenage girl questioning her sexuality. American Beauty also features murder, infidelity, abuse, extortion, the pursuit of a relationship with a minor, and a stereotypical homosexual character. But I’m a Cheerleader only features homosexuality and the depiction of homosexual relationships. This cognitive dissonance between the two movies is created through how our society views sexuality and violence. Sex is a major culprit in films receiving an NC-17 over an R rating. Sex is more worrisome than violence in the mind of a parent, the Parents Ratings Advisory Study in which parents were surveyed on their opinions on exposing children to sex or violence is a reflection of that. In the study “80% of those surveyed are more concerned with their kids seeing graphic sex scenes than with graphic violence” (Luscombe 2015). This concern only strengthens when the sex in question is between a same-sex couple.

What is seen in the media is a reflection of society as a whole. By raising up a nation on The Bible’s words, we are still living with the need to be as chaste as our ancestors. The industry of film censorship is a caricature of what happens when the need to preserve what is good becomes jaded. The MPAA states that the film rating system “does not evaluate the quality or social value of motion pictures”, despite the power a rating can hold over a movie. What we allow in our movies is in correlation with what our society deems okay. Movies and the media provide the public with the values and norms that add structure to society. By disseminating only, the films that fit strict moral guidelines, the landscape of our society is changed. Movies depict a world where it is more normal for violent acts to occur but human sexuality is not This is a direct indication of our society's attitudes towards those subjects and what is normal in the real world. It’s as if the MPAA is not only trying to protect children from impending sinful behavior but the American culture as a whole.

[existentialcatholic]

How do Divine Revelation (Word of G-d) and Faith contribute to an understanding of the moral life?

When I was in high school, one moral issue I had to confront was that of academic honesty. As a “smart” student, I had rarely not known the material well enough to score well on exams. Admittedly, I cheated on an exam once in my life – on a Bible verse memory test in fourth grade – and felt so guilty that I swore off the practice. However, my junior year was different because I had acquired a learning disability from a head injury. I had a reputation (as well as grades) to uphold, and I was willing to do so at almost any cost. On a small scale, I was considering the purpose of honesty in the smooth functioning of society. As I look back on that period in my life, I consider what my understanding of morality was at that time, and how I knew it was necessary. Specifically, as a graduate from a Catholic high school, I consider how the material I learned in religious formation and theology classes helped me understand the moral repercussions of my choices.

Divine Revelation contributes to an understanding of the moral life by providing an infallible guide for the metaphysical view of morality, or the high-level concepts that guide morality. Morality must exist because we cannot achieve the common good – or even a notion of the common good – without it. Even from a secular point of view, having a moral standard requires more than one’s own decisions. Through faith in G-d and in Divine Revelation, believers have access to an infallible moral standard to help guide one’s moral life.

What is morality? Why do we need more than ourselves for morality?

Morality refers to freedom of, and responsibility in, one’s actions. Moral questions are those of good and evil: questions of what ought (or ought not) to be done. In his work Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant wrote that morality comes from autonomy: one’s ability to make choices with a universal law in mind. Even from a secular perspective, Kant recognized that morality refers to how one’s actions relate to this universal law. The universal law he had in mind, of course, was the categorical imperative: “act only in accordance with that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it become a universal law” (Kant, Ak 4:421). A universal law is one that extends beyond the self to apply to all.

Morality depends on the existence of universal law. It requires more than the self because the idea of morality requires a standard, and the attempt to provide our own standard does not hold logically or practically. Paul VI writes in Humani Generis that “The human mind . . . is hampered in the attaining of such truths" as the relationship between G-d and man (HG 561; CCC 37). Barriers to this knowledge include “the impact of the senses and the imagination” on the will and “the disordered appetites which are the consequence of original sin” (HG 561; CCC 37). In other words, we know that our minds and souls fail us in the task of living a good life. Where do we look, then, for a moral standard?

Catholic morality draws on the three sources of human reason, human experience, and Divine Revelation to teach how Catholics should make right decisions of good and evil. Human reason, or one’s own wisdom, is a source for both ethics and moral theology. When we rely on our unaided conscience or the “voice of reason,” we look to human reason to help us make decisions. Human experience refers to the wisdom of others, either in our time or before it. When we consult other people and consider their advice, we look to human experience. Divine Revelation, as described below, is a source of wisdom from G-d rather than humanity.

What is Divine Revelation?

When we consult Divine Revelation, we look to the wisdom of G-d, as passed down to us in His Word and its interpretation. Divine Revelation includes both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines Sacred Scripture as “the speech of [G-d] as it is put down in writing under the breath of the Holy Spirit" (DV 9; CCC 81). It defines Sacred Tradition as “the Word of [G-d] which has been entrusted to the apostles by Christ the [L-rd] and the Holy Spirit,” given so “they may faithfully preserve, expound, and spread it abroad by their preaching" (DV 9; CCC 81). Sacred Tradition includes the application of Sacred Scripture to the life of believers.

The apostles handed on the Gospel both orally and in writing (cf. CCC 76). Their successors, the bishops, have preserved the execution of this task in their teachings. We need the help of the apostles’ successors, the bishops, because Scripture provides principles for living a faithful life but is not sufficient as a rule of faith. Especially as time and technology advance, believers must apply the same moral principles given to us through Natural and Divine Revelation to new questions. G-d wants us to have infallible answers to these questions as well as older ones, so He gave us the college of bishops to help the Church find answers to those questions.

What is faith?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines faith as “a gift of [G-d], a supernatural virtue infused by Him” (CCC 153). It comes from G-d and allows us to act in accord with His will. In the sense of being a human act, faith is the cooperation of “the human intellect and will . . . with divine grace” (CCC 155). It is an obedient response to G-d that recognizes and allows us to act in a way that is free. Having and using faith allows us to love freely what is true, good, and beautiful.

Faith enlightens reason without replacing it or denying its significance. Specifically, faith frees reason up to help us understand what we want to understand, viewing our object of understanding in the “grand scheme” of how the world operates. Reason alone can help us find knowledge. With the cooperation of faith, that reason elevates to wisdom. With wisdom, we practice a right understanding of the world and our place in it, including how we ought to interact with it.

How do Divine Revelation and Faith contribute to our understanding of morality?

Divine Revelation acts as an unearned and free guide to the moral life. Saint Pope John Paul II described Divine Revelation as “the true lodestar of men and women as they strive to make their way amid the pressures of an immanentist habit of mind and the constrictions of a technocractic logic” (FR 15). In other words, Revelation guides how we act in the face of pressures to act, according to presence of G-d in the world and the limitations of human reason.

Faith contributes to our understanding of the moral life by giving us another source of information and guidance for how to lead truly good lives: not just lives of enjoyment, but lives of goodness and virtue. Reason alone gives us two sources of information for the moral life: our own, and that of others. Through faith, the “inner eye” opens “to discover in the flux of events the workings of Providence” (FR 16). Faith helps the believer to gain an idea of G-d’s plan for creation and our lives, reaching beyond one’s own idea of the matter.

Faith also grants us certainty in our understanding of the moral life. Through faith, we gain greater certainty than through human knowledge alone “because [faith] is founded on the very word of [G-d] who cannot lie” (CCC 157). Acceptance of any moral standard requires faith in the solidity of that standard and in the logical solidity of its source. If we were to rely only on human wisdom for our moral standard, we would have to put all of our faith in human wisdom to help us live good lives. However, as many on the path of wisdom can attest, gaining wisdom includes gaining knowledge of how little we know and understand. Through faith, we place our trust in G-d, whose Word is truth.

Conclusion

In the end, I made it through high school without cheating on any exams. I used Divine Revelation with human reason and human experience to help me reach a decision. First, from the 10 Commandments and the Catechism, I remembered that lying is wrong because it violates and offends the virtue of truth. Second, I reasoned that cheating was wrong because there would be no standard of academic performance if it were okay for everyone to cheat all the time (extra points if you caught the reference to the categorical imperative). Third, I remembered my father’s advice, given to me the day that I cheated in fourth grade: no grade is worth losing your honor by cheating. When I realized that my choice of whether to cheat would affect my relationship with truth, as well as with G-d, my choice was easy.

---

Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Edited and translated by Allen W. Wood. Rethinking the Western Tradition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

John Paul II. Encyclical Fides et Ratio. 14 September 1998. At the Holy See, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html.

Paul VI. Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation Dei verbum. 18 November 1965. At the Holy See. https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19651118_dei-verbum_en.html.

Pius XII. Encyclical Humani Generis. 12 August 1950. At the Holy See, https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_12081950_humani-generis.html.

[nijjhar]

Spiritually dead University Theologians have no idea of God, the Middle ... Spiritually dead University Theologians have no idea of God, the Middle Candle of Menorah. https://youtu.be/kQ4gikCkWp8 Last Sunday 15/01/2023 to enjoy the Feast and I noticed in the Chapel Six big candles and no large and thick Candle of Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. bigger than the six of Yahweh. It is from this Bigger Candle of Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. the other six candles (David's Cross of works) are lit. Instead of the Middle Candle of God, they put a metal icon of Christ Jesus. How could the dead icon light the Candles? Then, they were standing before the wooden idol with folded hands and praying as if that special wood is God. It is the same wood we burn but the artisans have carved it into idols and made it worshipful. By worshipping the dead wooden gods they have forgotten the living God within themselves who could teach them the Gospel Truth through logical reasoning. But such spiritually dead theologians are incapable of taking the New Wine on top of the old dead letters wine, the Jewish Leaven forbidden by Christ Jesus. Whilst the Gnostics are living Christs of our living Supernatural Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc. But the ears of University Professors of Theology are waxed more than those of the Jerusalem University - Matt 12v43-45. So, do not think that such University Theologians are more knowledgeable than the illiterate Shepherds looking after their sheep and possessed New Skin capable of holding the New Wine and the Good News of the birth of Jesus with Christ in his heart was broken to the Shepherds and not to the deaf and dumb university theologians of dead letters. The holy spirit is nothing else than "common sense", which in Punjabi is called "SURTTI". How spiritually blind they are that they do not know our Father lives in His Temple and is not alienated in heaven Yahweh, Brahma, Khuda, etc., the creator of Pots, our physical body and he is the demiurge. Our Supernatural Father stands for RIGHTEOUSNESS and no wonder most countries are corrupt. Much more in my other 8300 videos and in the seminars if you are interested. Holy spirit, common sense, shatters the fetters of the dead letters, the Holy Books. JESUS HAD NO ONCE-BORN DISCIPLES BUT THE TWICE-BORN LABOURERS. His twice-born Labouring Solitary Brethren/Friends were called “Talmudism or Sikhs” and not the once-born natural disciples of the crook Rabbis who disciplined them through the moral laws of Moses. These Rabbinic Disciples did what their Rabbis told them to do – Once-born Hindu/Jew being the Disciples of their Brahmin/Rabbi, they are spiritually blind – HINDU ANAH. Thus, Saul being the Disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel did obey him obediently as required of him and persecuted the Labourers of Jesus but in his own heart or sub-conscience, he was not happy. For the Disciples doing what their Rabbis tell them to do, they are called spiritually blind with no Freedom or Freewill. Thus, the substitutes “Disciple and Lord” are the corruptions by the Messianic Jews to set up the same Temple system from the yoke of which Jesus set us FREE by giving his own life as the Lamb of God. Or these robed hireling Dog-Collared Priests in the Churches of Mammon have fulfilled Matt. 12v43-45 making the situation worse than before the arrival of Jesus, the First anointed Christ of our Supernatural Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc.: BIRTH OF JOHN, THE BAPTIST, AN IDEAL RABBI MATT 13, V52:- https://youtu.be/RNXvv-WwdI4 and the Proofs of the Virgin Birth of Jesus: - www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bojes.htm The Second coming of Jesus:- Satguru =Christ Nanak:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/550Nanak.htm FAMILY OF OUR SUPERNATURAL FATHER ELOHIM, ALLAH, PARBRAHM, ETC.:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/famofgod.htm Royal Vineyard of our Royal Supernatural Father Elohim, Allah, Parbrahm, etc.:- http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/vineyard.pdf St. Photina, the Samaritan Woman at well John. Her Five Husbands were spiritual and not physical. Here are their names:- http://www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/photina.htm Luke 8,16-18. Jesus said to the crowd: "No one who lights a lamp conceals it with a vessel or sets it under a bed; rather, he places it on a lampstand so that those who enter may see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not become visible when you put the Lamp on the Lampstand, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light such as the blasphemers Tony Blair and Bush that Saddam Hussein had WMD but none were found by a Major General of the British Army but he won’t proclaim the hypocrisy of Blair and Bush. Take care, then, how you hear. To anyone who has, more will be given because he loves exposing the hypocrites such as COE headed by Queen or King who glorify the soldiers who died killing and looting people, and from the one who has not or hides it as this Major General is doing, even what he seems to have will be taken away." www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/bookfin.pdf www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/johnsig.pdf Trinity:- www.gnosticgospel.co.uk/trinity.pdf

[voidingintotheshout]

Today’s Wikipedia, rabbit hole is, when trying to find out when one of my favorite shows 9-1-1 is putting out another episode I found out that actor Rockmond Dunbar has not been in the current season because he cited religious exemptions to The Covid mask and vaccine requirement as part of the  Church of Universal Wisdom, A religious group that I’m a little scared to look into. Apparently he is looking into litigation for wrongful termination because of this. Like, I just wanted to find out if they put out an episode this week. 

Update:

I did a little bit more research and unsurprisingly they are associated with the anti-VAX movement here’s a summary from a vaguely reputable website?

“The Congregation of Universal Wisdom asserts that injection of any medication or other man-made substance would violate the sanctity of the body. The organization is operated by Walter P. Schilling, D.C., who had said that is was incorporated in New Jersey in 1975 and in 2000 had a total membership of “4,423 Souls” in 24 states, with 2,427 members in New Jersey, 1,255 in Florida and 409 New York. To join, families must state the name and birth date of each family member and include a dated statement that they will aspire to live by the group’s tenets. The “customary donation” for a family lifetime membership is $75.

The group’s religious tenets (shown below) express fundamentalist chiropractic theory in religious terms. They say, for example, that “the ministry will be constituted by those sufficiently trained in the art, philosophy and theology of the laying on of hands to the vertebrae” and that “the laity . . . shall be composed of those seeking spiritual and physical health combined by unequivocal adherence to the principles of the Congregation and the laying on of hands on their vertebrae.” They further state that the use of medication—whether by ingestion, injection, application, or inhalation—is a sacrilege.

In September 2000, the Syracuse Herald American reported that the mother of 5-year-old Victoria Turner was suing the local school district for denying her daughter’s entrance into kindergarten. The lawsuit claimed that the district was violating the child’s constitutional right to religious freedom.”

It goes on from there but that’s as much information as I needed. I’m so tired of this bullshit.

Just for the record, though, I have no problem with him leaving because of principles that I think are silly. He’s absolutely allowed to vote with his feet. Everybody is. I’m just tired of this being a discussion point. I’m tired of people who want to be around vaccinated people not being allowed to have that because some people want to exercise their “freedom“ to not be vaccinated. I’m frustrated that we as a society can’t just say that vaccinations are a public good and if you don’t want to vaccinate your kids, then don’t bring your kids around other people. I also think the idea of a religion about divinely ordained chiropractors is completely and utterly crazy.  i’m too much of a coward to say out loud that not wanting to vaccinate your children against childhood diseases should count as child endangerment, but I am definitely thinking it. 

[apenitentialprayer]

John Milton and the Satanic Quality of Globalized Trade

In a July 4th article highlighting differences between traditional Christian and modern secular definitions of freedom, John Betz (professor of systematic theology at Notre Dame University) made this fascinating comment:

Moreover, if we consider that our free market is now more global than the Catholic Church, and that it promises to be more unifying of the nations than any religion ever could (as its apostles confidently tell us), bringing peace to the world through its own form of free exchange, its own commercium admirabile, it is without a doubt a kind of simulacrum of the kingdom of God – if not a veritable counterfeit.

This statement, in which our capitalistic, industrial, consumerist economy is framed as an idolatrous alternative to the universal Kingdom, may find some resonance with the thought of John Milton. David Hawkes argues that Milton connects the concept of the globalization of trade to the rise of Satan in the following passage of Book II of Paradise Lost:

Meanwhile the adversary of God and man, Satan, with thoughts inflam’d of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight: [...] As when far off at sea a fleet descry’d, Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape Ply, stemming nightly toward the Pole; so seem’d Far off the flying fiend.

(II.629-632a, 636-643a)

So, in an epic simile, Satan’s journey to earth (God’s newest world and object of Satan’s imperial designs) is compared to traveling merchantile ships. More importantly, as Hawkes points out, the locations these ships are returning from are all areas with British colonial presences; Bengal, on the Indian subcontinent, would only come under direct rule of the British East India Company after the Battle of Plassey in 1757; but they already owned castles and forts in the region as early as the late 1660s. As the British developed into a world military power in addition to a world economic power, they would be able to apply increasing pressure to the Mughals and other Hindustani ruling dynasties in order to get more beneficial trade deals. By 1857, the beginning of the era of European High Imperialism, large swathes of the subcontinent would be under direct rule of the British Crown, while the rest could be bullied by colonial rulers. Ternate and Tidore were both ports in Indonesia, a source of tension between the Dutch and British colonial powers. Long after Milton’s time, in the first decade of the 19th century, the British would take both of these by force, having played native factions against each other to support their interests. The Cape, i.e. the Cape of Good Hope, was a stopping point along the British maritime trade routes to the east, and so heavily associated with colonial economic development; it is a resting stop on the way to bringing exotic, “oriental” goods back to the normal, “occidental” metropole. (As it so happens, the Cape of Good Hope would come under British rule in 1814, after a series of conflicts and having been exchanged between Portugal, the Netherlands, and France. Would Milton have been anticolonialist? I don’t know enough about him to know. But it’s interesting how prophetic this passage is; that, less than two centuries after Milton linked British colonial trade to Satan’s conquest of earth, the British had conquered those locations just as Satan did.

[wisdomrays]

TAFAKKUR: Part 433

THE MAIN FACTORS IN THE SPREAD OF ISLAM: Part 2

A. J. Arberry has also pointed out that the reason for the spread of Islam is Islam itself and its religious values. (Aspects of Islamic Civilization, p.12)

He writes:

‘The rapidity of the spread of Islam, noticeably through extensive provinces which had long been Christian, is a crucial fact of history. The sublime rhetoric of the Qur’an, that inimitable symphony, the very sounds of which move men to tears and ecstasy…and the urgency of the simple message carried, holds the key to the mystery of one of the greatest catalysms in the history of religion. When all military, political and economic factors have been exhausted, the religious impulse must still be recognized as the most vital and enduring.’

Brockelman, who is usually very unsympathetic and partial, also recognizes the religious values of Islam as the main factor for the spread of Islam (History of the Islamic Peoples, p.37). Rosenthal makes his point as follows: ‘The more important factor for the spread of Islam is the religious Law of Islam (Shari‘a, which is an inclusive, all-embracing, all-comprehensive way of thinking and living) which was designed to cover all manifestations of life.’ (Political Thought in Medieval Islam, p.21).

Besides many other reasons which are responsible for the spread of Islam, it is the exemplary life-style and unceasing efforts of individual Muslims to transmit the message of Islam throughout the world which lie at the root of the conquest of hearts by Islam. Islamic universalism is closely associated with the principle of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf (enjoining the good) for Islam is to be spread by Muslims by means of ‘amr bi’l-ma’ruf. This principle seeks to convey the message of Islam to all human beings in the world and to establish a model Islamic community on a worldwide basis. The Islamic community is introduced by the Qur’an as a model community: We have made of you an Ummah justly balanced, that you might be witnesses (models) for the peoples, and the Messenger has been a witness for you (2.143). A Muslim or the Muslim community as a whole thus has a goal to achieve. This is the spread of Islam, conveying the truth to the remotest corner of the world, the eradication of oppression and tyranny and the establishment of justice all over the world. This requires the Muslim to live an exemplary life, and thus the moral and the ethical values of Islam have usually played an important part in the spread of Islam. Here follow the impressions of the influence of Islamic ethics on black Africans of a Western writer of the nineteenth century:

‘As to the effects of Islam when first embraced by a Negro tribe, can there, when viewed as a whole, be any reasonable doubt? Polytheism disappears almost instantaneously; sorcery, with its attendant evils, gradually dies away; human sacrifice becomes a thing of the past. The general moral elevation is most marked; the natives begin for the first time in their history to dress, and that neatly. Squalid filth is replaced by some approach to personal cleanliness; hospitality becomes a religious duty; drunkenness, instead of the rule becomes a comparatively rare exception chastity is looked upon as one of the highest, and becomes, in fact, one of the commoner virtues. It is idleness that henceforward degrades, and industry that elevates, instead of the reverse. Offences are henceforward measured by a written code instead of the arbitrary caprice of a chieftain–a step, as everyone will admit, of vast importance in the progress of a tribe. The Mosque gives an idea of architecture at all events higher than any the Negro has yet had. A thirst for literature is created and that for works of science and philosophy as well as for the commentaries on the Qur’an.’ (Quoted from Waitz by B. Smith, Muhammad and Muhammadanism, pp.42-43)

The tolerance of Islam is another factor in the spread of Islam. Toynbee praises this tolerance towards the People of the Book after comparing it with the attitude of the Christians towards Muslims and Jews in their lands. (A Historian’s Approach to Religion, p.246). T. Link attributes the spread of Islam to the credibility of its principles together with its tolerance, persuasion and other kinds of attractions (A History of Religion). Makarios, Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch in the seventeenth century, compared the harsh treatment received by the Russians of the Orthodox Church at the hands of the Roman Catholic Poles with the tolerant attitude towards Orthodox Christians shown by the Ottoman Government and prayed for the Sultans (T. Link, A History of Religion).

This is not the only example of preference by the followers of the religions for Muslim rule over that of their own co-religionist. The Orthodox Christians of Byzantium openly expressed their preference for the Ottoman turban in Istanbul to the hats of the Catholic cardinals. Elisee Reclus, the French traveller of the nineteenth century, wrote that the Muslim Turk allowed all the followers of different religions to perform their religious duties and rituals, and that the Christian subjects of the Ottoman Sultan were more free to live their own lives than the Christians who lived in the lands under the rule of any rival Christian sect (Nouvelle Geographie Universelle, vol. 9). Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the Muslim Turks by stating that it was luck for the Romanian people that they lived under the government of the Turks rather than the domination of the Russians and Austrians. Otherwise, he points out, ‘no trace of the Romanian nation would have remained,’ (La Crise de l’Orient).

The Muslims’ attitude towards the people they conquered is quite clear in the instructions given by the rightly-guided Caliphs: ‘Always keep fear of God in your mind; remember that you cannot afford to do anything without His grace. Do not forget that Islam is a mission of peace and love. Keep the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) before you as a model of bravery and piety. Do not destroy fruit-trees nor fertile fields in your paths. Be just, and spare the feelings of the vanquished. Respect all religious persons who live in hermitages or convents and spare their edifices. Do not kill civilians. Do not outrage the chastity of women and the honour of the conquered. Do not harm old people and children. Do not accept any gifts from the civil population of any place. Do not billet your soldiers or officers in the houses of civilians. Do not forget to perform your daily prayers. Fear God. Remember that death will inevitably come to every one of you some time or other, even if you are thousands of miles away from a battlefield; therefore be always ready to face death.’ (Andrew Miller, Church History; Ali lbn Abi Talib, Nahj al-Balagha)

A historical episode which Balazouri, a famous Muslim historian, relates, tells about how pleased the native peoples were with their Muslim conquerors is of great significance

When Heraclius massed his troops against the Muslims, and the Muslims heard that they were coming to meet them, they refunded the inhabitants of Hims the tribute they had taken from them, saying: ‘We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.’ But the people of Hims replied: ‘We like your rule and justice far better than the state of oppression and tyranny in which we were. The army of Heraclius we shall indeed, with your help, repulse from the city.’ The Jews rose and said: ‘We swear by the Torah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter the city of Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted.’ Saying this, they closed the gates of the city and guarded them. The inhabitants of other cities–Christians and Jews–that had capitulated did the same. When by God’s help the unbelievers were defeated and Muslims won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with singers and players of music, and paid the tribute (Futuh al-Buldan).

To sum up, although most Western writers, under the instigation of biased Orientalists of the Church, have alleged that Islam spread by the force of the sword, the spread of Islam was because of its religious content and values, and ‘its power of appeal and ability to meet the spiritual and material needs of people adhering to cultures totally alien to their Muslim conquerors’, together with some other factors. Some of these factors are the tolerance which Islam showed to people of other religions, the absence of ecclesiastic orders and hierarchy in Islam, mental freedom and absolute justice which Islam envisages and has exercised throughout the centuries, the ethical values it propagates, and Islamic humanitarianism, universalism and brotherhood, and its inclusiveness. Sufi activities, the moral superiority of Muslim tradesmen, the principle of ‘enjoining the good’, and Islamic dynamism and the magnificence of the Islamic civilization contributed of their own to the spread of Islam.

The main religious qualities which attracted people to Islam were:

(i) the simplicity of the theological doctrines of Islam based on the Divine Unity;

(ii) rationalism of the Islamic teachings;

(iii) the complete harmony of the Islamic ideals and values with human conscience;

(iv) the inclusiveness and comprehensives of Islam, covering all aspects of physical, mental, and spiritual life of individuals and societies, hence the harmony of religion and life which it established;

(v) the lack of formalism and mediation;

(vi) the vividness, dynamism and resilience of the Islamic theology, and its creativity and universalism, and its compatibility with established scientific facts;

(vii) the cohesion and harmony of the Islamic principles, and

(viii) the shortcomings of other theological systems.

[howwelldoyouknowyourmoon]

The Moon family are performers. The Unification Church is their theater stage. Their play is fiction.

The Moons and Hak Ja Han have other stages for adapted dramas: The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, Universal Peace Federation, Sanctuary Church, HSA-UWC, CARP, CAUSA, Professors World Peace Academy, Freedom Leadership Foundation, Ambassadors for Peace, etc. Peace is a good buzzword to bring in the punters.

The Divine Principle is the manufactured basic narrative. See Sun Myung Moon’s theology used to control members

(Note: Adam and Eve did not exist as actual people therefore the “Fall of Man” is just a story with no basis in fact. But it makes a good drama and is useful for putting guilt on women.)

The following is based on the ideas of Erving Goffman (1922 – 1982) a Canadian-born sociologist, social psychologist, and writer, considered by some “the most influential American sociologist of the twentieth century”. His major areas of study included the sociology of everyday life, social interaction, the social construction of self, social organization (framing) of experience, and particular elements of social life such as total institutions and stigmas.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erving_Goffman

______________________________ From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dramaturgy_(sociology)

Dramaturgy has been used to depict how social movements communicate power. Robert D. Benford and Scott A. Hunt argued that "social movements can be described as dramas in which protagonists and antagonists compete to affect audiences' interpretations of power relations in a variety of domains." The people seeking power present their front stage self in order to captivate attention. However, the back stage self is still present, though undetectable. This is a competition of power, a prime example of dramaturgy.

There are three stages: The Front Stage Within society, individuals are expected to present themselves in a certain way; however, when a person goes against the norm, society tends to notice. Therefore, individuals are expected to put on a costume and act differently when in front of the 'audience'. Goffman noticed this habit of society and developed the idea of front stage.

The Back Stage Goffman explains that the back stage is where "the performer can relax; he can drop his front, forgo speaking in his lines, and step out of character."

Off-stage Common backstage out-of-character communications include: Treatment of the absent: derogatory discussion of the absent audience or performers affecting team cohesion. Staging talk: discussion of technical aspects of the performance, gossip.

Borders/regions Borders, or boundaries, are important as they prevent or restrict movement of individuals between various regions. Performers need to be able to maneuver boundaries to manage who has the access to the performance, when and how.

Many performances need to prevent the audience from getting some information (secrets). … Secrets There are different types of secrets that have to be concealed for various reasons: • Dark secrets: represent information about the performing team which could contradict the image the team is presenting to the audience. • Strategic secrets: represent the team's goals, capabilities and know-hows which allows the team to control the audience and lead it in the direction the team desires. • Inside secrets: represent information known by the team and are seen as something that is shared only with other teammates to increase team bonding. • Entrusted secrets: secrets have to be kept in order to maintain the role and team integrity; keeping them demonstrates trustworthiness. • Free secrets: the secrets of another, unrelated to oneself, that can be disclosed while still maintaining the role. Disclosure of such secrets should not affect the performance.

Roles There are three basic roles in Goffman's scheme, each centered on who has access to what information: performers are most knowledgeable; audiences know only what the performers disclosed and what they have observed themselves; and outsiders have little if any relevant information. These roles can be divided into three groups: Roles dealing with manipulation information and team borders: 1. The informer: a pretender to the role of a team member who gains teams trust, is allowed backstage, but then joins the audience and discloses information on the performance. Example: spies, traitors. 2. The shill: this role is an opposite of the informer; the shill pretends to be a member of the audience but is a member of the performing team. His role is to manipulate the audience reactions. 3. The spotter: a member of the audience who has much information about the performance in general. The spotter analyzes the performers and may reveal information to the audience. Example: food critic in a restaurant.

Impression management refers to work on maintaining the desired impression.

______________________________

Erving Goffman – The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life

Sun Myung Moon makes me feel ashamed to be Korean

Sam Park, Moon’s secret son, reveals hidden history (2014)

Nansook Hong reveals the Backstage

The Social Organization of Recruitment in the Unification Church – PDF by David Frank Taylor, M.A., July 1978, Sociology

Allen Tate Wood on Sun Myung Moon and the UC

[fairfieldthinkspace]

Ignatian Spiritual Exercises at Fairfield University

Thomas J. Fitzpatrick, S.J.

Fairfield University

                       On January 1st, 2014, I joined the Jesuit Community at Fairfield University.  I was 77 years old.  I had been Superior/Director of the Jesuit Center in Amman, Jordan, for 14 years, and the Superior/Director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, for 10 years.  These long years in the Middle East in the center of the Arab/Israeli conflict proved in an ironic way to be personally and professionally a significant preparation for what I was to do at Fairfield University. In the extended exposure to the extreme, tragic, human pain of the Middle East, I lived with a constant sense of inadequacy and helplessness; I failed in Arabic and Hebrew; I lost my theology.

Upon my return from the Middle East to the United States my Provincial Superior asked what I wanted to do.  I responded I was too exhausted - depleted – to answer specifically, but I had the inspiration to say I know what I do not want to do: I do not want to be in charge of anything anymore, and then the particular grace - I just want to talk about God.

I joined the Fairfield Jesuit Community with the intention that maybe I could help out in spiritual direction or other pastoral endeavors for the community. I came with no official connection with the university, no paying job.  I had the freedom to discover what I possibly could do, what I would like to do, where I could be a help. I was free of institutional and bureaucratic strictures. Guiding people in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises captured my attention.

I began to look the place over, identify people who might possibly be interested in the doing the spiritual exercises. I wandered around the university and began literally to knock on people’s doors.  I had no plan – just search out and relate to members of the university community.

One of the first persons I spoke with was the Vice President of Student Affairs.  After several conversations he decided to accept my invitation to walk with him through the full Ignatian Exercises. That the exercises went so well for this vice president and that he talked with others about it, the door was opened to other administrators:  top university administration, vice presidents, deans; eventually it bled over to members of the board of trustees.

I highlight in the success I experienced several factors:  my health, my spiritual journey, my method in attracting individuals. I end with several developing programs.

HEALTH

Upon returning from the Middle East in the fall of 2007, I was burnt out more than I wanted to admit.  I was granted sabbatical time to pray and think in peace and quiet. I for a good period of my life had been aware of the over consumption of our culture, but now returning from long exposure to extreme poverty I was now much more confronted by excessive consumption. But, in fact, I must confess I had long been an over-consumer myself. In the Middle East I payed little attention to my health – I ate and drank merrily.  In this phase change from the Middle East, looking ahead into the now elderly and uncertain period of my life, I took a radical step and became a teetotaler and vegan – overnight. In becoming a non-drinking vegan the biggest difficulty was social: people close to me thought I was crazy. They changed when after a year and a half I lost 125 pounds.

The motivation of the radical change was multi layered. The state of my health was the immediate stimulus, but because of my long years in the Middle East, the motivation went deeper. I had been exposed to hungry people in the world – people who spend most of their time and energy seeking food. (In Amman, Jordan, I had a good friend, Sr. Annie, whose full time occupation was  helping people obtain food. All donations I received for the poor I passed on to Sr. Annie for her continual quest for food for the poor). Now back in the States, I was confronted with the irony that in our over consumptive world many of us spend energy keeping food away.  I, then, in becoming a vegan and non-drinker, in keeping food away, interiorly in the presence of God consciously identified with the poor. To be sure, the poor do not get what I deny but the gesture is humanly very significant for me. People sponsor running events for various reasons – running for cancer, for example, or gay rights. I was not drinking, not eating for the poor. This motivation deepened the reason for the restriction of consumption. Another insight was very helpful in staying with the discipline necessary for this new regime: the continuing mindfulness that in table fellowship people are more important than the food.

This change in consumption and the discipline necessary to maintain it was to become a very important factor in the flourishing of my spiritual life and apostolic work at Fairfield University.

SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

In the long years in the Middle East I did accomplish some degree of creativity; I founded the Jesuit Center in Amman, Jordan, assisting the local church in a number of ways.  And then in Jerusalem, as director of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, I was responsible for the members of the Jesuit Community and 25 international students each year in their quest for higher degrees in biblical studies.  I had close ties with Bethlehem University and Hebrew University. (At Bethlehem University I founded the Cardinal Martini Leadership Institute.) The struggle in doing ordinary daily work was within the larger social, economic, religious turmoil of the Arab/Israeli conflict which weighed heavily upon my heart, and was the on-going challenge for my faith journey. But that extreme human tragedy – with its pain – has happened to be a significant grace for my success at Fairfield University.

The only way I could have not only survived in the Middle East, but also attained some creativity, was through the depth of my journey with God. I know myself as having been graced by God over my whole life. It was the very movement of God that I went to the Middle East in the first place – at 50 years of age. God was nudging me to do something radically different in my service of him and his people – so I went off and immersed myself in the Arab world.

As a result of becoming a tee totaling vegan, I began to experience a pervading sense of ‘integration.’ In my life journey with God I now sensed an overarching grace – let’s call it – evenness with God. God had been always there in the darkness, the pain, the joys. But I do not know of any phase in my life when I felt more integrated – mind, spirit, heart, body – than in this elderly phase. Sparked by the radical change in consumption, I grew especially in a deep sense of harmony between body and spirit. I have in recent times, to the amusement of people, described myself as “this rather old, somewhat well put together, happy, sexually alive celibate.” Now, if there is any doubt, I stress very explicitly and strongly that the change in consumption and the sense of integration are most significantly founded in the on-going breaking through of God in my whole person.

So, I arrived at Fairfield University at 77 years of age to do what I could in leading people through the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. I describe my spiritual journey and interior state because if anyone wants to know how the success could be repeated the spiritual aspect is the most important and that perhaps is not able to be institutionalized.

I had lost my theology in the Middle East—well, in fact, I had been losing it over decades prior to the immersion in the Middle East. I had been changing profoundly in a way of thinking about myself, the church, the world for a very long time. The Middle East put a cap on that. In the extremes of the Middle East it became easier for me to realize and accept that the symbolic world I had constructed out of my education did not help in meeting the realities of life for me and others today. There may be a helpful analogy from married life. A couple over years may be living out their lives with a verbal description of their relationship that has become a façade. And they maintain that inadequate image of themselves and project that to others. But then because of some very great trauma (perhaps the death of a child) the relationship may easily fall apart; their symbolic representation of their marriage is too weak adequately to include the experienced tragedy. The erosion of my symbolic universe – my theology – was significantly quickened by the tragedy of the Middle East.      

Significant with the loss of a theology is the loss of an institution – the specific institutional form that was kept afloat by a specific theology. Notice, however, the loss of a theology is not the loss of faith – and the loss of the institution is not the loss of the church.

Therefore, out of a long spiritual journey, I arrived at Fairfield University in 2014, characterized by a spirit of joy, peace, a sense of integration, wanting to communicate with people, in an open honest way, the full sweep of belief in Jesus, putting together in an authentic freshness a joyful talk about God in the midst of over consumption and deteriorating institutions. That is how I describe most significantly my success in leading many trustees, administrators, staff and faculty in the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises.

 GATHERING RETREATANTS

On the practical level, one factor in the success has been particularly important, and that is that I have personally invited people into the exercises. I knocked on doors, had brief, passing conversations at various socials, and asked about people.  Sometimes the process of personal interaction took several years before the individual entered into the exercises.  With some I engaged in spiritual conversation without doing the exercises formally. Some requested to begin the exercises after one conversation.  In one instance a person said, “At last you have come.”

Someone asked me once if all these people entering into the spiritual exercises were prepared. I said ‘No!’ I don’t know who is prepared.  When I did the spiritual exercises at 18 years of age upon becoming a Jesuit in 1955, I was not prepared.  That month was the darkest period in my whole life journey with God.  The exercises are very flexible because people are unique; the journey is unique for every individual; the relationship with God is unique. There is no absolute template for everybody. When I did the exercises as a very young Jesuit in a group of about 30 other young Jesuits, we were preached to about four times a day. There was the assumption that the result would be the same for all. That method of doing the exercises imaged the strength of the authoritarian institutional form of the Catholic Church at that time. That overpowering authoritarian, institutional method of doing the exercises was to collapse in about fifteen years, with the return to the original method of guiding people on a one to one basis.

I have wondered in guiding a few people whether I was actually guiding them through the Ignatian Exercises. Whatever, these retreatants did find God and lives were significantly changed. With some it did not matter if I called the process the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises or some other strain of mainline Christian spirituality.

After about two years of engagement in walking with many in the exercises, the Executive Vice President, Kevin Lawlor, who himself had done the exercises, informed me that I should be paid for what I was doing. I had along the way dropped some hints in this regard. I was giving more time and energy than for a full time job. So when I was 80 years of age the Executive Vice President created a special position for me. He said that the President and he were creating this job so I could continue to do what I was doing. What a dream job description:  just do what you do!

CHALLENGES

After I began searching out possible candidates with concentration on administrators, issues quickly arose; for one, boundaries. I had no formal training as a spiritual director – a guide in the full Ignatian Exercises. In the early 1980s when I was Assistant Rector at Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, I engaged in much spiritual direction and retreat guidance for Jesuits preparing for ordination – I was learning on the job. As a part of my job I was coordinator of those priests on the faculty who were spiritual directors for the scholastics. We met monthly for conversations stimulated by cases I composed.

In 2014, at the beginning of my engagement in leading administrators in the spiritual exercises at Fairfield, I had a sense of how I should relate with them – keep my personal distance. I had this shadowy image that in the usual state of affairs people would go to retreat houses for retreats, after which they would never, or rarely, meet again with their guide.  So I felt it appropriate after finishing guiding individual through the exercises at Fairfield University to keep my distance. But the people I was guiding did not go away after the exercises. We worked in the same community. After finishing the exercises people found it normal to continue relating with me in different ways. Continuing on in spiritual direction was fine, but then the challenge for me arose when relationships began to diversify.

The story that best exemplifies this issue arose in my relationship with the Executive Vice President. He had created the paying position for me in the university. For a few curious reasons I then reported to him.  Soon after that he mentioned I was on his staff and he wanted me to attend his staff meetings. This was a surprise and I did not know if this was appropriate because of my relationship with him and the number of vice presidents on his staff whom I also had guided in the spiritual exercises. Would they be content to have me attend meetings on the running of the university when I knew them so very personally from walking with them in the spiritual exercises?

Well, I did begin to attend the staff meetings of the Executive Vice President. A bit uneasy about the very first meeting, I planned to arrive just a few seconds before it began; the participants did not know I would be joining them. Once I entered the room I knew immediately this would go well. The expressions on the faces of the Executive Vice President’s staff were of welcoming and joyful surprise. I have attended more than 60 meetings over the last 4 years, and have lead off each meeting with a prayerful reflection.

In dealing with this issue of diversification and complexity of relationships, reflections on Ignatius and the other founders of the Society of Jesus helped.  Ignatius invited his student friends to do the spiritual exercises. They eventually did not only relate as retreatant to director of the exercises, but they stayed together as friends, companions. They continued and developed an on-going spiritual and working relationship out of which eventually emerged the Society of Jesus. In the Society of Jesus in the present era a particular position has served me well in describing relationships I enjoy with many who have done the spiritual exercises at Fairfield University: Formation Director. In becoming a companion with those I have walked with through the spiritual exercises, I am a sympathetic listener on all levels of human life. I am a personal and professional coach. I am a friend. In all these relationships consciousness of the presence of God is explicit, or just a smidgeon below the surface. Diversification of relationships is a continuing process of discernment.

A further thought has been helpful in reflecting about diversification of relationships. Culturally there is strong pressure to privatize religion. Business is here and religion is over there. So, in the board room, religion and spirituality would have very little, or no, place. With my presence and participation at staff meetings, business and belief are more integrated. There are boundaries worth breaking down if we define ourselves as a Catholic, Jesuit University.

Again another reflection of the positive aspect of my relationship on campus in a diversified way with those who have done the spiritual exercises, is that in our contemporary business world there is easily the feeling among employees that nobody really knows me here. The atmosphere of corporations and universities is easily one of anonymity. With the numbers of people I have walked with I enjoy an immediate and joyful human and even deep relationship in whatever circumstance I engage with them. We have become companions in a common endeavor.

 DEVELOPING PROGRAMS

As the number of administrators and trustees doing the exercises began to increase - now at 47 - I grew in awareness of the significance of forming a community of those who have done the exercises. The Ignatian exercises were meant as an individual experience, an experience for the person to become as humanly conscious as possible of how God is present and of how they are present to God at this moment in his/her life. What is the communal message here? How does a community take shape out of this common experience? Again the experience of the early Jesuits is helpful. The founding Jesuits stayed together, they discerned out of their common spiritual experience, they founded the Society of Jesus.

As the importance of the communal aspect grew on me, I created a program to cultivate that: regular seminar luncheons for those who have done the exercises on prayerful/reflective discussions of the gospels. The lunches are funded by the President. The purpose of this seminar is to continue prayerful reflection on the gospels, but also in doing it communally to forge a community of administrators, faculty, staff, by hearing one another pray and reflect on their belief. As the first Jesuits stayed together and founded the Society of Jesus, so – I have joked – those of us at Fairfield University who have done the spiritual exercises, perhaps could found a contemporary religious order. This is not going to happen. But the example of what the first Jesuits created out of their common spiritual experience could be an inspiration and encouragement for us to consider what we could create communally in enunciating and living out the meaning of Fairfield University in the contemporary world. And this would be much larger and have far greater power than what we could do individually.

Discernment will continue at Fairfield University about diverse possibilities of integrating Ignatian Spirituality with all various aspects of university life.

[septembersung]

Based on the discourse crossing my dash, it looks to me like what a lot of people are missing the in the censorship argument are three important things: 1) agreed-upon definitions of the words they’re using (censorship, free speech, right) 2) social context and 3) Catholic doctrine.

Let’s take these issues one at a time.

Would censorship work as public policy on a mass scale today in America? No. Should it? You can argue both yes and no, depending on which perspective you’re answering the question from: moral or political.

Here’s one approach to the “yes” answer: It’s about morality, which, and I’m addressing my fellow believers here, we know to objective, not relative or subjective, and knowable by reason even by persons without faith, for the natural law is written on the heart of man. Look at it this way: If you, the reader of this post, presumably a Catholic or at least some kind of religious conservative if you’re reading my blog, think that schools and media should have decency standards to protect the innocent, especially children, or that porn should be illegal, or that the gender ideology should be excluded from classrooms, or that you the parent should have the right to decide what educational materials and media your children consume and when, then you are in favor of a kind of censorship.

Would such bans, say on porn or certain kinds of material in media in the name of public decency, be a kind of censorship that violates the American right to free speech? In the Constitution, “free speech” was written to mean individuals are to be protected from governmental reprisal when they criticize or challenge the government. It was a political protection for political topics for a people whose politics had not become morality debates and who shares a common morality. Similarly, freedom of the press is supposed to mean the press is not a propaganda arm of the government. Nowhere is any individual granted a Constitutionally guaranteed right to fling whatever filth they want on the public. And certainly not when the public cannot agree on what constitutes “filth.” 

All of that remains true and we can see that censorship of any sort, even common sense moral safeguards like a ban on pornography, are not going to fly or be workable in a society like today’s America, which is where we get to the “no” answer. America is secular, which means default atheistic, and, especially today, is radically pluralistic, which means there is exactly nothing that all or even a majority of its citizens hold in common, neither in culture, morals, political ideals, or religion. We recognize that a secular - let’s be absolutely clear what we mean - an atheistic government, particularly a supposedly pluralistic-population-representative one owing its legitimacy to “the people,” does not have the authority or the ability to create and enforce uniform standards of legal morality. Laws that deal with morality, whether it be public decency or murder, are borne out of the social mores and religious convictions of its people, and taken as a unified citizenry, Americans have none. 

But here’s the kicker for us Catholics. We are obligated to believe that Jesus Christ is the true King and rightful master of every soul, whether that soul believes in Him or not, and the rightful supreme ruler of every nation, whether that nation believes in Him or not. We celebrate this every year on the feast of the Kingship of Our Lord Jesus Christ. In the traditional Roman celebration of this feast, the emphasis is on His social kingship. In the Novus Ordo, it’s on His spiritual kingship. The emphases are different but they are both true and both present in each. 

This is where “error has no rights” comes from. Now we’re in the realm of theology and doctrine, not political philosophy. Is there any creature who has the “right” to defy the King of the Universe? Catholic teaching clearly and consistently has always taught: no. We have the ability to do it, because we are rational free beings. If we reject God, He will honor that choice and we will spend eternity without Him, in hell. But we do not have a “right” to do it. “Freedom” in Catholic teaching has always meant freedom for excellence, not “license to do anything you want,” because sin and error are not freedom, but slavery - sin - the “wages” of which is “death,” as St. Paul says. We do not have a “right” to sin. (To address the inevitable objection: Does this mean we ought to force conversions? No. Forced conversions are sinful and illegitimate, as the Church has always taught, and I wrote about elsewhere.)

This truth, about the universality of Christ’s kingship and the duty all souls owe to him, does have an application in political philosophy. What binds on individuals binds especially so on leaders of individuals, including the state. Numerous popes (among other sources) have written extensively on the duty of states to support the genuine and objective best welfare of their people. The popes have again and again decried the “godless state” as an offense against God and a serious problem that will lead societies into terrible trouble and souls into hell - precisely because the godless state is in a state of rebellion against God and against its duties to its people. 

Now consider much of the history of nations, before nations became secular - that is, atheist. Even after the unity of Christendom was broken by the splitting of Protestants from the Church, for some time Europe had culturally cohesive states with a unified moral code. They understood that some things, in morality and in philosophy, are wrong. They are sins, and as sins, are dangerous to the salvation of souls and to the commonweal. Souls and society stand or fall together. This understanding of the importance of protecting the innocent, fulfilling the virtue of religion (giving to God what is His due), and serving the objective best interests of the people, is how you arrive at a conclusion like, “no one has a right to disseminate atheistic literature.” 

The Catholic Church has always upheld censorship as a just power of legitimate authority, particularly for the Church herself (after all, she kept a famous Index of banned books for a very long time,) and in some measure by the secular state as well. Note the distinction between the Church’s use and the state’s use. They are distinct, but historically, have overlapped; sometimes the state is the proper authority to enforce something, and sometimes the Church.

The example of the family is instructive; it’s on a scale we more easily comprehend. If you are a good father or mother, do you allow people you think wrong and dangerous to come into your home and start teaching your children their wrong and dangerous view of the world and terrible habits? Of course not. The younger and more innocent, and therefore the more vulnerable, your children are, the more important this is. My oldest is only just approaching the age of reason, so I say this with vehement personal conviction. Grossly undervaluing the vital necessity of protecting the innocent (of all ages) is a major mistake being made by an awful lot of people, and we can look around our society and see the consequences of that.

Now pay attention, because, even if you’ve followed this far, this is the point where a lot is lost in translation on this topic. Analogies only go so far, obviously, so let’s take it a little further: 

Children grow up. Good parents are actively involved in what their children are learning and are helping them absorb information in a healthy and age-appropriately nuanced way. This includes, at the right time, introducing them to error. I think what most blows me away about the discourse I’ve seen is how people are equating “error has no rights” with “enforce totalitarian groupthink where no one can ever ask questions.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Asking questions, challenging the truth in your own mind, coming to grips with it, is essential for forming mature thinkers and especially mature believers. This was as true in Christendom, in a unified, Catholic society where censorship could be reasonably understood and employed, as it is in our pluralistic, atheistic society. The difference is we no longer have the safeguards of a moral and just society - we have to reinvent the wheel in our own families, and try to create that safe and stable environment in which our children can be formed in virtue and grow in truth and holiness. 

Okay, so much for children and the family as an analogy. But we’re grownups, right, and and society as we’re discussing it is made up of grownups, who are supposed to do this truth-pursuing, virtue-growing, salvation-striving thing for themselves, right, on our own, and we don’t need a nanny-government hanging over our shoulder! Well - wrong and right. From the Church’s point of view, we are all children, and we do need that guidance as grownups. Not from a nanny-state, certainly not in today’s context where there’s no organization less authorized or qualified, but from the Church, our holy Mother. Which is why things like Index of prohibited books existed. To protect the faith and the innocence of ordinary people who do not have the time or the expertise or the sheer stamina to wade through all the absolute garbage and damaging stuff out there to “figure it out” for ourselves. 

Let’s be clear. Such a list didn’t stop people who wanted to from reading those books. To be even clearer, having a unified Catholic culture did not stop people from being unbelievers, from asking questions, from speaking and writing their views and having debates. The famed medieval disputatio was not all (or, ever,) “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin,” nor were debates and wrestling with faith and the big questions of life just for monk-academics. What we’re talking about is a culture that, as a whole, understood and agreed upon the most important foundational truths of the world, and had safeguards in place to preserve society from those forces which would tear it apart. I’m asking you to seriously think about that, as a Christian, who believes that getting souls to heaven is the most important thing there is. Are you really willing to argue that such a view of a healthy society is not a good thing? (I didn’t say “think it’s perfect” or “think it’s without flaws”, but - do you really think it’s not a good thing?)

Remember I am writing to you, my fellow Christians, who, I hope believe with me that salvation is the single most important goal. I didn’t write all this out to be like “yeah man, let’s burn all the Dawkins books and throw all the atheists in jail and get Congress to pass another amendment promising fines for non-Christians.” I just spent the last hour or so of my life writing this out to hopefully help you see that what this discourse is dancing around - with a lot of really unpleasant to watch flying-off-the-handle all around - are some extremely serious and already well-defined issues in Catholic thought, and actual doctrine that’s being run roughshod over. When it comes to the faith and philosophy, just because it shows up as an argument on tumblr doesn’t mean we can afford to indulge a knee-jerk reaction. 

tl;dr: “Censorship” is not a dirty word. It does not mean advocating for thought control and no debate or asking questions about anything ever. It does not mean punishing people who are wrong. It is, instead, a practice defended and adopted the Church when exercised by legitimate authority in the service of the objective truth, the rights of God, and the best interest of souls and society. 

I really would like to believe that most of the Christian community on tumblr is capable of thinking on issues like this with a little bit of caution and nuance. When we talk about issues that touch on everything from dogma to political philosophy to Church-approved ways to help safeguard the salvation of souls, we could all use a little more education on the topics involved (myself included!) - and a little more level-headedness.