Mangled Thoughts

Through the 80’s, despite the formal separation of Church and Govt, the Church ( plural usage of the denominations) was converted into a defacto extension of the appratus of govt. in its socialisto reaches, through `Social Welfare’, `Education’, `Unemployment programmes’ . In Victoria, for example, nuns and clerics in central diocesan H.Q., thus relieved of the onerous and inconvenient burden of even just attempting to reflect some Apostolic life, they otherwise volunteered for just like bloody politicians who whine about the strains of office and their great burdens ( sure, some burden plotting to steal more loot and decalre many more at the stroke of a pen criminals) waxed lyrically about the merging of , say, Diocesan `Education Committees’ with the Victorian Govt. `Department of Education’ - and Christian parents are perplexed as to why too many schools seem to be no less squalid than govt. owned zoos! The Chuch is dominated by those who define Christianity as socialism, indeed , Christ is defined as the divinised socialist man, and clergy, year in, year out, find twee biblical verses as `proof texts demonstrating’, the end of christianity is the realisation of socialism perfected.When they run out of twee `proof texts’, some are prone to what, it can be said rather confidently, so confidently it is certain, is outright, naked contradition of the Christian confession, summed up in the Creed, a contradiction which is, not might be, it is, outright heresy in the order of the fusion of gnosticism and docetism and arianism.

Is the socialist definition of the creed what christians are supposed to attest to with their lives? Not, `do as I say’, but by their lives, and clergy might be reminded of that important condition attest with your own lives, and not coercion of others by little tin pot dictators who are nothing but kept men and women inclusive of the clergy, out of the double act of the Christian turning to the Trinity and the turning of the Trinity to the individual. as an act of faith alone.

Today’s clergy excoriate the notion of the inidvidual as some nasty capitalisto - neitzschean’s false ideology ( yah, they really don’t have a grip on that chpa’s argument at all ). Even without arguing from Christianity, it can be safely said the clergy face a few stubborn obstacles, all of them physical: each man , woman, and child is definitely an individual and not, as the socialists pretending to be Apostles maintain; merely manifestations of some mystical lumpenmasse called man, incarnated into `mere material bodies’, of which, therefore, the individual is not but, instead, material existence has the unfortunate result of subjective experience which can be mistaken for individuality. Whatever might be meant by God, noting that in any case, `god(s) ‘ was nothing more than a polite form of address, as Sir or Ma’am are, with no implications, therefore as to what a god might be. Essential to Christain faith is individuals are above all things except in, the embrace with the Trinity. As for theology, distinct from straight confessional utternace, formualtion of same into statements examplified by the creed, and paraphrases of all that, it is not a `sceince of god’ at all.

The gracious indwelling of the Holy Spirit effects of the Christian what Christ was unconditionally. The confession, Jesus is truly son of the Father, one whose life as such is confirmed by the Resurrection, the Father’s Raising of His only Son. Jesus, Son of Man is the term expressing his divine relation, Son of God, the man who is truly a man whose life is manifestly that of a `saint’.

The book of Revelation is not some code of millenariast `prophecy’. Sir Enoch Powell was partially correct on, it is an allegory on Christian faith and the Church. A Jewish writer, thus expounding his themes through one of the Jewish modes of relating matters of faith sacred, myth. Those `baptised’ in the Holy Spirit, and continue in faith are saints. St. Paul makes that exact same point in I Corinithians, though his expression is `New Adam’, `New Man’ and other rationalised usage of motifs originating in the genre of legend. The Novum of the Revelation in Christ is the the redefinition of the relation between man and god, which, is at once also the end of religion, which is reflected in what the Church ecclestiacal once was until Constantine,a set of traditions unified in liturgical expression, and which expression conveyed and still does convey, if conducted soundly, the kernal of what is believed in the service of faith and as an act of faith in that which is believed, with the faith which what is believed is believed.

Faith is not `knowing’, contrary to the gnostics, inclusive of Plato, Hobbes, Descartes, sociologists and etc. It is existential, it is the reality, as all the apostolic writers point out existential, confirmed by the use of psyche which does not have the sense of soul’body or mind-body dualism, but in the fact of one’s existence, the reality of being alive, the core of one’s existence and thus, all that one is as a man.Speech, it follows, and one isalso firm on it, act, and not some mystogoguiccal coda to something called mind.

Dulaism has nothing to do at all with what is an article of christian belief, man is immortal.

In that last respect, Liturgy is simultaneously an epistemolical and ontological grounding of which not just faith alone but, what faith is an action of, life lived out of and with and to the Trinity.

The root apostolic experience is what they sensed and understrood by that of not just the ressurection but `Pentecost’, too, which is the completion of the revelation. Neither in the N.T., the writings of the Fathers from the sub-Apostolic Age through to Age of the Fathers, nor in the Doctrinal Formulae of Christ and Trinity which, in reality, are consistent, linguistically, elaborations of the early confessional expressions which are litgurgical in form, the object of which is summed up by one word, praise, praise in response to grace come to man ,each one. Christ is the future, the future is come, in the resurrection of Christ, thus too, any who turns in faith the end comes as the action of the Holy Spirit. That is one of the core things of liturgy: in the Mass, the Christian is attesting it with their life and sure belief, Christ is Risen, that the Father has Raised the Son, that baptised in the Holy Spirit, they too are raised with Christ, by the Father, in the Holy Spirit.

Thus, in a sense, read backwards from the resurrection, for an adult, Christes-masses is yet also the passion and easter christessmasse, the day, the Father had attested and glorfied the one who attested him. Always, though, a day for children.

Jesus doesn’t assert he is son of Man, that is the confirmation and glorification by the Father of the Son, with and through the Holy Spirit, of the Father that that is indeed who he is, by, with, and through the Holy Spirit that this man , Jesus of Nazareth is indeed His Son, indeed Son of Man and not just a Son of God. The adult in the act of faith, and not religious duty, confesses it. Liturgy is the time for it and nothing else summed up in the dismissal: Christ is Risen, He is Reisen indeed: for that is the subject of the liturgy, each Christian proclaims the Gospel by their lives, their lives are its book, for they witness in the liturgy of the mass and proclaim, Christ has Risen.

A merry christmas and christesmasse to all.