What's funny about Jesus is the enormous push in American society to market him as pro-family.
Time and time again, Jesus shows he distinctly sees family ties as more often than not athwart God's purposes.
Also, I think it was interesting that the diarist seems to interpret Christ's "I will set A against B" bit in the Gospels as meaning that family members would get into divisive spats about points of doctrine.
Are you sure? Christ often appealed to his listeners' common sense and intuitions. Do you really think he'd want a mother to disown her own daughter because of differences of opinion over doctrines that have little or nothing to do with actual, practical spirituality? The question is a good one because these kinds of rifts based in creed-based ingroup mentality do happen.
For me, I can see where Christ might have been saying that, when you grow spiritually, sometimes this does produce a "drawing away" from people who had been close; for example, family members who may not be willing to come with you on your journey of spiritual growth and discovery.
That I can see; and its application is much broader than just to family.
The minute you begin to banter over theological semantics, interpretation and translation, you completely remove the alleged divinity of your so-called "Holy Books". The only consistent religious proposition is one of literalism, as the act of selective metaphoric interpretation sacrifices the infallibilty of the divine author, as it includes the potentiall fallible interpretations of the reader (whether he be Islamic, Jewish or Christian). And clearly, the literalist interpretation is a laughable and often immoral position to consider defending. Mr. Hitchens is alluding to this larger point in his works on scriptural criticism.
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In other words Jesus is saying he is here to change peoples minds?
ReplyDeleteSo it when from threatening to verbose. I tell you, that man needed an editor!
What's funny about Jesus is the enormous push in American society to market him as pro-family.
ReplyDeleteTime and time again, Jesus shows he distinctly sees family ties as more often than not athwart God's purposes.
Also, I think it was interesting that the diarist seems to interpret Christ's "I will set A against B" bit in the Gospels as meaning that family members would get into divisive spats about points of doctrine.
Are you sure? Christ often appealed to his listeners' common sense and intuitions. Do you really think he'd want a mother to disown her own daughter because of differences of opinion over doctrines that have little or nothing to do with actual, practical spirituality? The question is a good one because these kinds of rifts based in creed-based ingroup mentality do happen.
For me, I can see where Christ might have been saying that, when you grow spiritually, sometimes this does produce a "drawing away" from people who had been close; for example, family members who may not be willing to come with you on your journey of spiritual growth and discovery.
That I can see; and its application is much broader than just to family.
The minute you begin to banter over theological semantics, interpretation and translation, you completely remove the alleged divinity of your so-called "Holy Books". The only consistent religious proposition is one of literalism, as the act of selective metaphoric interpretation sacrifices the infallibilty of the divine author, as it includes the potentiall fallible interpretations of the reader (whether he be Islamic, Jewish or Christian). And clearly, the literalist interpretation is a laughable and often immoral position to consider defending. Mr. Hitchens is alluding to this larger point in his works on scriptural criticism.
ReplyDeleteSo a generic comment which does not admit Hitchens' lack of knowledge of the Bible's most basic contents, concepts and contexts.
ReplyDeleteOh well.
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aDios,
Mariano