Songs For Men To Serenade Their Wives
Jack's secret weapon in the "battle of the sexes". These songs work wonders with wives when men find themselves in the 'dog house' or banished to the 'shed' ... which we invariably do. ☹️
"The Wonder of You" is a song written by Baker Knight. It was originally recorded by Vince Edwards in 1958, but this recording has never been released. In an interview with a DJ from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ray Peterson told the story of how Baker Knight confided that "The Wonder of You" was originally written as a gospel song.
In 1959, "The Wonder of You" was first released by Ray Peterson as a single.
The Wonder of You - 1959
These Joe Cocker classics work well too.
You are so Beautiful
Hymn For My Soul
Something
These Are the Days of Our Lives
If all else fails ..... tell her you love her and mean it.
Or else.
#husbandshaverightstoo
#safespacesformen
#me too
0This post will self destruct should any woman should view it ... 🙃
This post will self destruct should any woman view it
ReplyDeleteQuite right, we don't want those womanly types learning all our manly man secrets, do we, fellows? Feel free to share some more. 🥸
Manly man secrets , booze, football/rugby/cricket depending on time of year, sex.
DeleteWe are a simple sex. Sometimes I wonder how the early father's found the time .
You poor dears. Only one of those things is remotely enjoyable!
DeleteThese days, it only Football and Cricket that Happy Jack finds enjoyable - or possible!
DeleteSo ... what is the "one" you were referring sweet maiden?
Well, I can't say I've ever enjoyed a hangover or any kind of sports, but other than that I couldn't possibly say!
DeleteLain, there is great comfort to be found in simplicity. It also keeps to many distractions at bay!
DeleteIt's really very spiritual.
@HJ, Considering your age and health, it's probably better you don't know 😎
Delete@ Gasp ... 😵
Delete@Prof, very spiritual. I've heard that cricket is the closest thing to eternity that one can experience in this life!
DeleteYes, it's best HJ doesn't know. We must look after our elders!
@ Lain
DeleteYou do know eternity is timeless and transcendent? One doesn't notice time when one it outside of it. So then, this is a good analogy for the art of Cricket.
@HJ
DeleteI certainly agree about the timeless nature of cricket. I remember having to watch a game once on the village green. I sat under the shade of a venerable ancient oak tree, which, as I recall, had been a mere sapling when the game started.
@ Lain
DeleteWell, it's probably is beyond the understanding of girls who really should stick with softball and netball.
@HJ Good point, well made.
Delete@ Prof G
DeleteOne has to try to stay one ahead of Lain! 😈
Jack is indeed trying!
DeleteThe truth is, of course, that girls' minds are far too evolved to be arrested by such quaint pursuits as hitting things with sticks. 😇
@ Lain
DeleteYes, they use their tongue as weapons and use adopt passive-aggressive tactics, 🤣
Set point (that's a tennis expression, btw)
@Lain, if only that were true, we wouldn't have to be forced into believing that women's sports were in any way comparable to men's.
DeleteLike women's Cricket 😖
@HJ we try to avoid engaging in battles of wit with men, it's not ladylike to pick on unarmed opponents.
Delete@Prof this proves my point, of course. Women aren't as 'good' at sports, because we've evolved beyond it. It's like watching a modern human try to make a stone axe using an antler for a pick!
@ Lain
DeleteGame, set and match to Happy Jack. ✌️
@HJ as my dear mother often says to papa; yes, dear 😁
Delete@ Lain
DeleteSo unworldly! Men know all about this ploy and are content to let wives have the 'last say' (or think they have), happy in the knowledge we have achieved our primary objective, whatever it is at the time.
In Cricket vernacular this is known as a "googly".
That's what we allow you to think, of course.
DeleteThis, in boxing vernacular, is known as a Sunday punch.
It is good you are learning about the noble art of manly boxing. This is progress. How can it be a knockout when the husband get's his way and the wife concedes?
DeleteExperienced men know the worth of a Bolo punch.
@Lain, evolved😂😂 watch women's rugby and say that again with a straight face!
Delete@ Jack
DeleteThis is, of course, what we want you to think. Women play the long game.
@ Prof
Women's rugby is a patriarchal tool of oppression!
Lain, these aren't oppressed women. I'm not sure what they are, but I'm certain they are not oppressed.
DeleteFor anyone who doesn't know what a googly is, you can look it up on the internet.
Delete@ Lain
ReplyDeleteMen need a 'safe space'!
My safe space is the kitchen sink, I've never yet seen the wife there😈
DeleteI once knew a bloke whose mum had had her gas pipes fixed by Joe Cocker back when he was a Sheffield lad.
ReplyDelete@ Gadjo
ReplyDeleteJack was at the Isle of Wight festivals in 1969 and 1970 - well, he was there in body, not necessarily in mind. So who he watched is fuzzy and a bit of a blur.
Well, that certainly beats my anecdote! I do hope that you were there to pass around religious tracts.... though if it had been to listen to Jimi Hendrix I would not have blamed you.
Delete@ Gadjo
DeleteJack had just abandoned pre-seminarian preparation having discovered the fair sex! He left the Church, more accurately avoided Our Lord, (so he thought) joined the Young Socialists and sowed his 'wild oats, so to speak.
@Jack
DeleteWe all have a past! Mine also involved music festivals, though somewhat later in history (and I suspect somewhat better organised) in Denmark with a Viking lady who I wanted as my Mrs, and yet God, thankfully, had a better plan.
@ Gadjo
DeleteThe truth in Calvinism is that we are saved by God's grace and that the Holy Spirit draws us to Christ. Where they're in error is in claiming that grace is irresistible.
Thank God Jack came to his senses when he met his now wife in 1976 and it was "love at first sight".
@HJ I have less of an issue with the 'irresistibility' (properly understood) of God's grace - a better translation of the Greek of Jn. 12:32 is 'I will drag all people to myself', which certainly implies that those who 'kick against the goads' will eventually be reconciled with God.
DeleteCalvinism's core error is its misanthropic denial of human cooperation in salvation, which necessitates the creation of a whole class of people whom God has created simply for the pleasure of destroying. This blasphemously turns God into a petulant and immoral child, renders the whole of creation pointless and the incarnation as a piece of theatre (presumably for God's amusement, as the Inspector would say).
@Jack
DeleteIn my experience we largely agree about that particular theology, though I would say that the rot sets in earlier with the 'T' of TULIP - the other 4 points of Calvinism follow on from that - with 'total depravity' being taken to mean (an unbiblical) total inability to respond to the Gospel, leading to a determinism and a select elite reminiscent of gnosticism, and rendering the whole incarnation a rather unnecessary rubber-stamping excerise of previously made decisions, plus what Lain said.
Great it's Christmas though.
@ Lain
DeleteOh, Jack knows having engaged in 'discussions' with the likes of Anton, Martin, Watchtower, and many others on Cranmer.
When he first started blogging Jack had no idea of the true nature of this heresy. He was familiar with 17th century Jansenism in the Catholic Church and it's lingering effects even now; e.g., re Leonard Feeney. However, he never discussed it with it's adherents.
@Jack
DeleteI'm fairly sure that Anton was not an adherent - he seemed unusually ambivalent about that particular issue. Carl, however, really ought to give us chapter and verse on it, but in my experience he drops out of those conversations early.
@ Gagjo, re: Carl. He's wise in some respects to do so. Why defend and argue your faith if you're secure in it. His philosophy is " know your enemy". If you tracked his upticks, you'd have noticed he supported the comments by his co-religionists.
DeleteCalvinism, within itself, is a tightly, logical system. From a Catholic perspective, it fails because it contradicts Scripture. It's the same with Arminianism. This theological movement arose in response to the Calvinist doctrine of double-predestination. Again, from a Catholic perspective, this too contradicts Scripture by placing too much emphasis on human effort and will.
@Jack
DeleteI really do not think Carl is wise in this respect. I feel secure in my faith and yet I would defend it against all-comers, and if they showed some of it to be faulty I hope I would have the good grace to reconsider my positions. Maybe I was never sectarian enough to get the most out of Cranmer!
Calvinism and (classical) Arminianism are not the only positions available to Protestants.
@HJ
DeleteThe concept of 'knowing one's enemy' is incoherent in Calvinism, since there is nothing that even the most determined heretic can do to steal away the salvation of the 'saved' - nor is there anything that the most inspired preacher can do to save the soul of the damned. Which always makes me wonder why they get so upset and angry about Catholic 'idolatry' and atheists refusing to accept their 'gospel' or stop being gay, when by their own logic it makes no difference whatsoever to anybody's eternal destiny.
Calvinism is the only Reformed heresy officially repudiated by a council of the Orthodox Church. This article gives an interesting summary of why its beliefs are incompatible with Christian doctrine. The site is run by a former Lutheran (I think) pastor.
I also don't think Anton was a Calvinist; as far as I could work out, his was a more eclectic mix of different Reformed ideas, some Messianic Judaism and process theology.
Of course! Calvinism itself is divided now, as is Arminianism. due to the growing acceptance of Molinism and God's "middle knowledge".
DeleteThis is an acceptable position for a Catholic too as no pope has ever rejected it. It challenges the stoutly Thomist position. One pope was about to declare it heretical in the 16th century - and died!
@ Lain, yes your correct about Anton, Jack just wanted to gratuitously criticise him without a two day exchange ensuing. Mea Culpa.
DeleteAs for Carl, he likes to attempt to expose the supposed weakness in synergism. But his main aim is at the authority of the Bishop of Rome. He repeatedly fails (wilfully or in ignorance) to see the differences between the Extraordinary and Ordinary Magisterium of the Church; and the difference between infallibility and indefectibility.
Then that's a difference shared with the Orthodox Church, some of those within her have as strong a repulsion for the Latin Church as the Reformers.
{Present company excluded)
When Jack reads some of Pope Francis' encyclical's and his sermons and off-the-cuff comments {Jack wishes he wouldn't} he adopts an approach more familiar to the Eastern Church than that of the West.
@HJ
DeleteBut if Calvinism is true, it shouldn't matter a jot what the Bishop of Rome does. The elect are saved, the reprobate are not. It's entirely out of our hands, and objecting to anything makes as much sense as screaming at the TV that the group of teenagers really shouldn't go into the obviously haunted house.
Much of the Orthodox hostility to Rome is cultural. The wrongs of the Crusades, and the perceived abandonment of the eastern churches into the hands of Muslims by the west have left deep scars (the latter not entirely unjustified when one compares the current general Western apathy towards the regular martyring of Eastern Christians to the outrage when a street preacher is prevented from insulting homosexuals in public).
@ Lain
DeleteThat's the secular response of the West. A foreign policy dominated and driven by the interests of those in coalition. As for the current Church, St John Paul was a remarkably brave servant and ambassador for Christ.
That said, there are various situations that the Vatican has acknowledged. Currently, for example, it is facing serious decisions about China.
@Jack
DeleteWell, not just the secular response. I remember far more comments on Cranmer's site decrying nurses being told to remove their cross necklaces than Coptic Christians being blown up at their Easter Liturgies. I recall one particular commenter positively approving of the destruction of ancient Buddhist carvings and Catholic statues of the Theotokos in the Middle East.
@ Lain
DeleteOh, Jack thought you were referring to the Vatican's responses.
I knew a Liverpudlian once who sang "You'll never walk alone" as an evangelical praise song - "Walk on, walk on, with Christ in your heart"
ReplyDelete@ Little Hobb
ReplyDeleteAn understandable adaptation. :
@Lain and HJ, if you think of sin as something being in opposition or disobedient to God's will, the thought games you can play with Calvinism are numerous.
ReplyDeleteFor example I've idly wondered if it's God's will that you don't accept his Grace, have you sinned by not accepting his Grace, or are you obedient to God's will? If so how can your rejection be sin?
@Prof
DeleteIf it's God's will that you don't accept his Grace, have you sinned by not accepting his Grace, or are you obedient to God's will? If so how can your rejection be sin?
That's also a good question to ask of Judas! My guess is that a Calvinist would reject your premises. As I understand it, if you're destined not to be saved, it's not that you don't accept god's grace, but that you're simply not offered it, so there's nothing to receive or reject (and obedience is a work anyway, and those are popish doctrines!) Grace is extended only to the elect, for whom it is irresistible.
The idea of sin in the West is heavily influenced by secular Roman legal codes and medieval ideas of feudal obedience (see, particularly Anselm of Canterbury's influential 'satisfaction theory). The predominant western setting for the drama of sin and salvation is therefore the court room. Sins are the 'crimes' we commit before God when we do that which God forbids. Salvation entails Christ somehow serving the sentence for those crimes that is rightly ours. The Alpha Course material uses the example of a judge who fines a criminal, then gets down from the bench and pays the criminal's fine in their place.
In the East, however, the setting is the hospital. Sin is a sickness and Christ is the physician. When we speak of sin, we aren't concerned with specific acts so much as the disposition of the heart. Our model of sin and salvation par excellence is that of the Prodigal Son. The sins of the son lie not in him squandering his inheritance and womanising and so on, but in his turning away from his father and leaving the relationship. The state of the heart is the disease, the acts are simply symptoms. When he changes his heart (which is the literal meaning of the NT Greek word for repentance) and comes home, his father accepts him with open arms and - penal substitutionary atonement adherents take note - demands nothing in recompense. It's also worth noting that salvation in the Eastern Church is about becoming healed of our spiritual inclination to turn away from God, and striving to become perfectly one with Christ in this life (and so in the next age), as St. Paul says (Gal. 2:20). It's not about having our sins erased so we can 'get into heaven' when we die: the forgiveness of sin is almost a byproduct of that healing, not its primary aim.
In Western thought, the incarnation and resurrection is necessary because it forgives sin, and everyone has sinned since it is impossible to live a sinless life (and someone who lives a sinless life would require no saviour). In Eastern thought, the incarnation and resurrection are necessary to unite God and man ('God became man that man might become God' - St. Athanasius), something no human could achieve; therefore even someone who lives a sinless life (were that possible) still requires Christ.
@Jack
DeleteNo, I know that PSA isn't the Latin position. The OC, likewise, has no 'official' position on the atonement, leaving it as a mystery, but explicitly rejects PSA. Anselm, whom I linked in my reply to Prof, above, forces salvation into a feudal framework whereby justice requires satisfaction for offences, and PSA takes this idea and runs with it. The East, on the other hand, views justice not in terms of legal punishment, but in terms of perfecting all things. Thus, justice (and by extension salvation) is simply the return of the created order and human kind to their original states, i.e. in perfect relationship with God. There's nothing to 'pay off', in the transactional sense.
Almighty God is celebrated as justice, as distributing things suitable to all, both due measure, and beauty, and good order, and arrangement, and marking out all distributions and orders for each, according to that which truly is the most just limit, and as being Cause for all of the free action of each. For the Divine Justice arranges and disposes all things, and preserving all things unmingled and unconfused, from all, gives to all existing beings things convenient for each, according to the due falling to each existing thing. - St. Dionysios the Areopagite.
I always find Luther's scatological obsession unsettling! Your post cuts off before you quote him, btw.
@Lain, Calvinism troubles me, because whilst at its heart it is unjust, you can see within the bible shadows of it. And the story of Judas is one such example and I do ask the question when I read that chapter in the bible.
DeleteI have taken an interest I Orthodoxy for a while now due to another ex Cranmer poster. And I do feel more comfortable with it's explanation of the impact of the fall and sin. And whilst I find HJ's link to the Catholic Church's understanding of sin interesting, it does for me at least also encompass a problem I have with an approach that the church has to such topics.
I agree that Calvinists would say that Grace isn't offered to all, but as they also say Grace isn't deserved by those who receive it, you are left with an unjust and vengeful God.
But God does offer grace to all, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, so that whosoever believeth in him shall have eternal life.
Martin had a very strange response to that, he'd simply state that as God didn't extend Grace to all, it couldn't be true. Which for a Bible literalist is very odd.
This whole being born stinking of sin is just un-biblical.
Anyway I'm rambling! Suffice to say if I was convinced that Calvinism was correct reading of the Bible, I would bail out.
@ Lain
DeleteJack meant to delete that final paragraph - too morbid.
On Cranmer, Jack recalls one commenter (a Calvinist) insisting babies who die before they are born or before baptism, go to Hell.
This is one of the most disturbing (if not demonic) of Luther’s quotes:
”Conceived in sorrow and corruption, the child sins in his mother’s womb. As he grows older, the innate element of corruption develops. Man has said to sin: ‘Thou art my father’—and every act he performs is an offense against God; and to the worms: ‘You are my brothers’—and he crawls like them in mire and corruption. He is a bad tree and cannot produce good fruit; a dunghill, and can only exhale foul odors. He is so thoroughly corrupted that it is absolutely impossible for him to produce good actions. Sin is his nature; he cannot help committing it. Man may do his best to be good, still his every action is unavoidably bad; he commits a sin as often as he draws his breath.”
(Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J: A Biblical Defense of Catholicism)
@ Lain:
DeleteEdited Repost:
@ Lain
It's not the Latin Church's position concerning the Passion and nature of atonement. There is no settled doctrine on this. What is rejected outright is a forensic imputation of justification and God pouring His wrath on His Son. For Catholics, Christ's sacrifice was a self offering of Himself to His Father; an offering that opens us to an infusion of grace by uniting ourselves with Him.
Protestant soteriology is that of imputed, extrinsic justification. Man is merely covered up by God’s declaratory justification.
Luther in a part of his table talk, said, “I am the ripe shit; so also is the world a wide asshole; then shall we soon part.” We know where Calvin took this!
@Prof
DeleteI personally don't think that God 'willed' Judas to do what he did, but he certainly foresaw it. It wasn't an act of obedience, but of deepest betrayal (perhaps showing that God can bring light from the darkest acts). I wonder, too, if he repented at the end.
You might find this reflection on Judas interesting.
I am otherwise engaged this afternoon (social butterfly that I am!) but I'll reply more fully to you and HJ later on.
@ Lain - Judas and his eternal fate is worthy of reflection.
DeletePope Francis' papal motto is: “Miserando atque eligendo,” ( "having mercy, he called him.”)
Mercy comes before Judgement.
I don't believe he willed it either, but it is a rational reading of the event. Which is why I used the term shadow, and because it's a rational reading, it unsettles me. I don't believe it, but I can't simply dismiss it.
DeleteIt'll be my Presbyterian background!
HJ, I remember the first time I heard about Calvinism/predestination, I was actually shocked that anyone would see this as being from a loving god, as the implications were obvious. Would God send a baby to hell? No.Never. So Luther is simply wrong. And diabolically wrong.
Delete@ Prof G
ReplyDeleteThat's not how sin is seen in either the Latin or Eastern Orthodox Churches.
Here's a Roman Catholic take on sin:What is sin?
It needs a slow read. The footnotes reference key teachings the Magisterium of the Church. So a thorough understanding would take years!
It took a good few years to complete. This link gives the history of this.
Ok I've read the start and I'll read more tomorrow and I'll be honest, whilst I'm sure all I've read so far is true, I don't see that ultimately conflicts with what I said. In, what I will admit is very simplistic, sin is what God says it is. Ultimately Adam and Eve sinned because when they ate the apple, they did so disobedient to God's will. You can say it was through pride or whatever, but that is simply what leads to the disobedience.
ReplyDeleteI can't help but feel that there is something slightly legalistic about the document.
But I will finish it
@Prof
ReplyDeleteCalvinism troubles me, because whilst at its heart it is unjust, you can see within the bible shadows of it.
To quote Rev Timothy Lovejoy, 'the Bible says a lot of things'. St. Paul wrestles with this in Rom 9-11, where he struggles with why the Judaism of his time rejected Christ. He hypothesises that perhaps God creates vessels of wrath for the purpose of destroying them in order to demonstrate his power, but concludes that is monstrous. Strangely, these passages seems to have become inverted, particularly through Calvin, and taken as descriptions of what God actually does.
I do feel more comfortable with [The Orthodox] explanation of the impact of the fall and sin. And whilst I find HJ's link to the Catholic Church's understanding of sin interesting, it does for me at least also encompass a problem I have with an approach that the church has to such topics.
From your other post, I presume that problem is legalism.
I think this partly stems from the scholastic period, when theologians became interested in setting down ordered accounts of Christianity in ways inspired by the ancient philosophers. Then, at the Reformation, the various branches of Western Christianity were forced to codify their teachings in a way that never happened in the East, where the predominant challenge came from Islam, and produced particularity precise definitions of what they believed: the various incarnations of the 39 Articles and BCP, the Catholic Catechism, Calvin's Institutes, etc.
The Catholic Church was particularly affected by the loss of the monasteries. Historically, one would have a spiritual director and a Father Confessor (often different people). Your Confessor dealt with sin, your spiritual director guided you in your relationship with God. This was usually the role of a monastic, who lived constantly in prayer. Without the monasteries, these two roles collapsed into the parish priest. It's easier to deal with a list of 'thou shalt nots' than to accompany each parishioner into the depths of the spirit and it's easy to fall into transactional legalism. I don't remember ever being asked about my relationship with God as a Catholic.
The OC maintains the two distinct roles. We're all expected to have a spiritual director; not only super religious types or candidates for ordination have, as is often the case in the West. I make my confession to my parish priest, but my spiritual father is my abbot.
The OC, though, has a lot of rules, and some people can become extremely legalistic about them (obsessing over whether one sinning by using mouthwash containing alcohol during a fast period where wine is forbidden, for example). This misses the point. In the OC, its rules are not a checklist, but more like a toolkit that an experienced spiritual director will use to deepen your unique relationship with God. There are very few 'musts'.
I'd point you towards the Mull Monastery YouTube channel, of which I am a huge fangirl. Orthodoxy is really something that can only be understood when it's lived.
Lain, legalism is a bad description on my part, I just can't think of a better word. The term is a loaded one. But until I can think of better it will have to do.
DeleteAnother issue with the way Calvinism justifies this random issuing of grace, is it's argument that it's done this way, so that the receiver of grace can't 'boast' of it, as they have done nothing to deserve it. It is a gift we can't accept as that maybe becomes a temptation to boast!
DeleteWhat a bizarre argument! I don't boast of a present given, I don't say it is deserved when my wife gives me a present.
I don't see by saying yes, thank you to an offer, I would have anything to boast of, who would boast of saying yes! Don't we actually express gratitude? And why would you express thanks for a random act? Why thank God simply because you have won the lottery of Grace? So for me at least the basis of the argument given just doesn't stand scrutiny.
It is simply false.
@Prof
ReplyDeleteI agree that Calvinists would say that Grace isn't offered to all, but as they also say Grace isn't deserved by those who receive it, you are left with an unjust and vengeful God.
Exactly so. I find talk of 'deserving' (or not) God's love absurd: true love is never deserved. I don't love my parents because they deserve to be loved, and goodness knows they don't love me because I've earned it! The Calvinistic god is vain, unpleasant, partial, stingy and psychopathic. He is too human.
Martin had a very strange response to that, he'd simply state that as God didn't extend Grace to all, it couldn't be true. Which for a Bible literalist is very odd.
Martin has a closed religious system that makes sense to itself. Sadly, he's unable to see that it requires God to be a monster. Forcing the rest of Scripture to conform to favoured verses is an easy trap to fall into.
This whole being born stinking of sin is just un-biblical.
Amen, amen, amen.
Martin may have a closed religious system, but its got holes in. You are either a literalist or not. What Martin typically did when a verse he didn't like was highlighted, he'd not engage with it, he'd simply point out a verse he preferred or denied that the verse should be there at all.
Delete@Jack
ReplyDeleteThat's a horrible outlook. How can anyone who has met Christ even begin to imagine that's true? And what difference does baptism make to a Calvinist?
St. Isaac the Syrian wrote, 'Do not call God a rightful Judge, for His rightful judgment is not seen in your deeds. True, David called Him a righteous judge and rightly, but the Son of God has shown us that God is good and merciful even more. Where is His righteous judgment? We were sinners, but Christ died for us.'
PS have the comments gone weird for everyone or is it just me?
Trying out a new format .... we'll see how it works!
ReplyDeleteBe patient!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete@Jack, it's confusing!
ReplyDelete@Prof
legalism is a bad description on my part
It's my main gripe with the Western churches, I think it's apt.
Calvinism justifies this random issuing of grace .. the receiver of grace can't 'boast' of it, as they have done nothing to deserve it. It is a gift we can't accept as that maybe becomes a temptation to boast!
That's a strange argument, not least because some Calvinists are the most boastful people I know! I think that believing oneself part of God's predestined elect from before time while the majority of humanity will burn forever is a massive ego trip. That's one of the main reasons I don't believe it can be anything but a human invention. My litmus test is quite simple: does this humble me? It's of God. Does it puff me up? It's of man.
I don't believe he willed it either, but it is a rational reading of the event ... I don't believe it, but I can't simply dismiss it.
It's one rational reading of events, but does it fit with the character of God revealed in Christ Jesus? No, he who said that there is no greater love than to lay down one's life for one's friends and entered fully into our lives and deaths is not one to delegate his dirty work to someone else. Remember, too, that Judas was only one small piece of the puzzle: the Jewish authorities, the temple guards, the crowds, the deserting disciples, Pilate, the centurions were all necessary parts of the crucifixion. Did God will this upon them as well? That's a slippery slope to compete determinism, where nothing we do matters.
I wouldn't dismiss any reading of scripture (unless it's plain bonkers), but I think it's safe to consider that idea and lay it aside.
What Martin typically did when a verse he didn't like was highlighted, he'd not engage with it, he'd simply point out a verse he preferred or denied that the verse should be there at all.
Yes, I experienced his refusal to engage with the other 99.9% of scripture and stick to one favourable verse! It's a Procrustean System, wonderfully named after the Greek myth of Procrustes, a rogue blacksmith who lured weary travellers into his lodgings to sleep in his iron bed. If the traveller didn't fit perfectly, he would take his hammer and hammer them out if they were too short, or take his saw and cut off some limbs if they were too tall. It makes everything fit to a predetermined standard, regardless of how much damage one does to it.
Life is all about peacefully accepting outward change, whilst remaining inwardly tranquil
ReplyDeleteDodoism