logos redux

…Whether this relationship drifts towards a domestication o the Church or a churchifying of the State does not only depend on the arrangement itself–state church, concordat, or separationist-but is influenced by the development of the society too. As for the ’separationist model of the United States, what the Founding Fathers originally had in mind was freedom of belief in an ecumenical sense–as the peaceful coexistence of different Christian churches, whose respective influences on public life were possible and desired in the framework of the constitutionally prescribed non-preferential treatment of any one of them. After all, the Fathers of that constitution were for the most part Christians of the kind who wished to fulfill their call to contribute to the welfare of society. What was admittedly in tension in the thinking of the Founding Fathers–that is, genuinely liberal and specifically biblical elements–is countered by a one-sided solution brought about by the post-Christian liberal trend of American society, a solution which at the same time promotes the dissolution of the fruitful tension between state and churches. The view of the ‘cult’ as the reserve for ‘the practice of religion’ corresponds to the liberal notion of ‘mere belief’. So what was once thought of as a limitation of the state, whose neutrality forbids the preferential treatment of any particular denomination, is remoulded into the limitation of the exercise of religion. One might almost say that the social dissolution of the tension between state and churches or religions is pursued as the dissolution of political worship.

Bernd Wannenwetsch, Political Worship, 239

Luther saw quite clearly that people for whom the gospel is theory, a ‘human figment and idea’, are bound to demand that it must now be put into practice. The pattern of theory and practice leads them astray, so that they say: ‘Faith is not enough, we must now perform works’. In other words, sanctification must be added to justification, in a second act, as the human response to God’s word. Luther saw that in the very same degree to which the word that initiates faith pales in theory and idea, the demand that idea be realized in practice is inevitable. The theorization of faith is matched by a moralization, ethicization of life… If faith is neither a theory nor the praxis of self-realization, but passive righteousness - God’s work in us, which we experience sufferingly and thus die to justifying thinking as well as to justifying action - then faith is by no means thoughtless, any more than it is inactive. On the contrary: through faith, thinking as well as action becomes new.

Oswald Bayer as quoted by Bernd Wannenwetsch in Political Worship

Here’s a link to an article by Ann Coulter discussing Obama’s autobiographical book. I’m not a big fan of Coulter, and she’s her usual cheeky self in this review, but some of the quotes she cites are hard to ignore. I really believe Obama is a fraud and his campaign is a con. If these quotes reflect anything of his views (and I can’t see how they couldn’t) then he’s quite obviously Machiavellian in approach.

They went to bed, as reason was and right,
For wives, albeit very holy things,
Are bound to suffer patiently at night
Such necessary pleasures as the King’s,
Or others’ who have wedded them with rings.
Her holiness - well, she must do without it
Just for a little, and that’s all about it.

From “The Man of Law’s Tale” in Neville Coghill’s translation of The Canterbury Tales. I guess this goes to show that the notion that sex is a dirty necessary evil has quite a pedigree from Augustine and the Patristics through Chaucer and right on up to our own time.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you;
I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

When my enemies turn back,
they stumble and perish before your presence.
For you have maintained my just cause;
you have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.

You have rebuked the nations; you have made the wicked perish;
you have blotted out their name forever and ever.
The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins;
their cities you rooted out;
the very memory of them has perished.

But the Lord sits enthroned forever;
he has established his throne for justice,
and he judges the world with righteousness;
he judges the peoples with uprightness.

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
And those who know your name put their trust in you,
for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.

Sing praises to the Lord, who sits enthroned in Zion!
Tell among the peoples his deeds!
For he who avenges blood is mindful of them;
he does not forget the cry of the afflicted.

Be gracious to me, O Lord!
See my affliction from those who hate me,
O you who lift me up from the gates of death,
that I may recount all your praises,
that in the gates of the daughter of Zion
I may rejoice in your salvation.

The nations have sunk in the pit that they made;
in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
The Lord has made himself known; he has executed judgment;
the wicked are snared in the work of their own hands. Higgaion. Selah

The wicked shall return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.

For the needy shall not always be forgotten,
and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.

Arise, O Lord! Let not man prevail;
let the nations be judged before you!
Put them in fear, O Lord!
Let the nations know that they are but men! Selah