Capitalize

In an earlier post I noted as an aside that the historic use of the pronouns in relation to Jesus or God was to capitalize them.   Yet in a number of quotes I used the "christain" authors chose not to capitalize those pronouns when referring to Jesus.  This practice has continued as things move through the comment threads.  Yet we see the terms; "Jesus' Way of Grace", "Way of Grace" capitalized.   One must wonder why those terms which never appear in the Bible, do not have any sort of actual recognized specific definition., are never ever used by Jesus are capitalized as if they are somehow some codified biblical doctrine.  This is especially curious in light of the failure to capitalize pronouns referring to Jesus.    One has to wonder is the use of capitalization is intended to send a message about the author's view of Jesus, as opposed to his views of an unbiblical "doctrine".

Why?

I wanted to take a look at how folks look at the teachings of Jesus.   There are a lot of facets to this, so I am going to try to not cover too much in any single post.   To me it seems like the place to start is with the question, "If we should follow (or heed, or obey, or take seriously) the teachings of Jesus, what is it about either the teachings themselves or about Jesus that makes them worthy of being followed?".   Why should we follow Jesus teaching?    It seems that if we can't lay that foundation, then none of the rest of it really matters.

Back in the day, it was fairly common to hear people who were not Christian say things like “Jesus was a great moral teacher.”.   This kind of thing is what prompted C.S. Lewis to come up with the “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic” formulation as a response.   Now things are a bit different.   We live in a culture where people who claim to be Christians say things like the following.

 (Note, historically the pronouns referring to Jesus are capitalized to indicate His divinity.  One must wonder why to writers of the following quotes, who all identify as a Christian, chose not to capitalize.  Is it possible that it is a way to minimize or deny Jesus claims to divinity?)

“The original sin of Christianity is to think it’s about Jesus.”

“Jesus may have been a historical figure, but most of what we know about his is in the form of legend.”

“Many liberal or progressive Christians have already let go or de-emphasized belief in Heaven, that the Bible is literally true, that Jesus is supernatural, and that Christianity is the only way.”

“But without the supernatural stuff, the teachings of Christ were not original or even that progressive.  Nobody would give a shit if they didn’t think he was the creator of all time, space, and matter.  Hell, some of his teachings were flat out draconian.”

“Of course Jesus didn’t exist prior to his time on earth. Jesus was the name of a certain flesh and blood man born at a certain time early in the first century of the modern era.”

“The search for the historical Jesus that has gone on since the enlightenment is an act of creativity at least as much as discovery.”

“Another view gaining popularity is that Jesus was not an historical person. Instead  he was a composite figure created over time.”

“1^st century Jesus is not as inclusive and feminist as I would like.”

“I think he is often harsh and is pretty consistently a jerk to his closest followers, deriding them for their lack of understanding while he intentionally speaks in abstract riddles.”

At the same time, within the scope of people that identify as Christian, that the very existence of Jesus is up for grabs, and the veracity of the words attributed to Him is “determined” by casting lots, how do we respond to Jesus?

We also hear this kind of thing fairly often.

“Let us, please, take Jesus exactly at his word”    

“But let us please take Jesus at his word and take THAT word seriously, if we are going to be followers of Jesus.”

“And we should seek to embrace them all, if we are followers of Jesus.”

“We should seek wisdom and truth in all these teachings, seems to me.”

“Jesus followers should rationally follow Jesus’ teachings. All of the ACTUAL teachings.”

“My point was to follow Jesus teachings.”

“Perhaps we really need to hold more tightly to Jesus teachings?”

“We ALL should do better at heeding those teachings.”

“And I am quite specifically speaking of following Jesus teachings, that was my point.”

“I’m positing that we, who follow Jesus, should follow his teachings.”

So where does that leave us?

What does that do to the teachings of Jesus?

How should we treat the teachings of Jesus?

Can the two positions above both be considered Christian?

Are Jesus’ teachings objectively “good” or “right”?

But the single biggest question I have is why do these people think we should “heed”, “follow”, or “hold tightly” to the teachings of Jesus?  

What is it about those teachings that are authoritative enough that we should follow them?

"If Jesus was not God incarnate, if Jesus was a composite, does that make the teachings ascribed to Him more or less worthy of being followed.

Again, willing to take some heat for this.

Y'all know all of those reasonable, rations, common sense, incremental restrictions on guns that the American political left trots out every time there is a "mass" shooting in the U.S.?

That's pretty much exactly the gun control laws France has.

I'm not trying to politicize this as much as to point out that gun laws are virtually ineffective against the types of vile human beings who perpetrate these kinds of actions.

Works, not Faith?

"I'd say we find great blessedness in Jesus' Way of Grace, where we work, share, eat, pull together to build the Realm of God. AS and WHEN we walk in this Way of Grace, building this Kingdom of God, the poor literally are fed and blessed and have opportunities for justice"

I could be wrong, but the above sounds like someone who is advocating a works based salvation.

I'm willing to take some risk with this one.

I have no doubt that some will rush to label me a racist or accuse me of some sort of blanket condemnation of entire ethnic groups or people before they even read this, yet I'm willing to take that risk.

Let me start by saying that there is an undeniable history of treating groups of people negatively based on their physical appearance, ethnic background, religion, or gender.  I think that it is safe to say that these behaviors are not limited to any one particular group and frequently are directed at those in a subset of the larger group that one identifies with.   I also think it's safe to say that the situation is significantly better than it was as recently as 50 years ago. 

With that said, what in the world is going on?   We have instance after instance where some group gets all worked up and protests based on an event or event that either didn't happen or didn't happen the way it is portrayed.

We can start with the case in Florida where the "white" Hispanic guy killed the young black guy in what amounted to self defense.
Then we have the "Hands up, don't shoot." incident which we now know didn't actually happen.

Then we have the university professor in Texas who goes public about her stop by the police for "walking while black", except that when the video of the encounter is produced we find that her version of events is virtually entirely false.

Now we see the "protests" at Mizzou and we are learning that some (most) of what set this off (Including the "resignation" of university officials who have a demonstrated track record or dealing harshly with previous racially charged issues), is at best exaggerated or at worst false.   We find that the guy protesting "white privilege" actually comes from significant wealth.   The guy who claims he's "never" felt "safe" at Mizzou is a grad student who has continued to re enroll at this hotbed of hatred for 16 semesters. 

We see the lionization of a black young man who was shot by police while he was innocently driving along in a car.   Oh, well he was trying to run over said policeman in said car, but that's just a minor irrelevant detail.

I could go on, but why?    The bigger questions is, when confronted with the reality of the actual situation why do so many choose to ignore the reality and continue to perpetuate the false narrative?

Where this behavior seems problematic is that it trivializes the instances of real actual racially motivated actions that actually do take place.   It's like the old fable about the boy who cried wolf, at some point people are going to get so tired and inured to all of this fake outrage, that they will cease to be moved to action when real outrage happens.

It seems like this is a symptom of a larger problem, we have a political philosophy that is based on emotional response to outrage, whether it's real or made up.    Take a look at the interview that Neil Cavuto did with the spokesperson for the "Million" student march.   Listen to her answers when she is asked reasonable questions about the ramifications of what she wants to accomplish.   When confronted with the fact (easily and objectively provable by the way) that it is impossible to tax the "1%" at a level to accomplish what she is advocating for she blithely responds with something like "I just don't believe that.".   If you live in a world where you can just wish away objective facts with so little concern, how do you think these folks will respond when confronted with real life outside of academia.    (BTW, this is a young woman enrolled at an expensive private university, in a degree program that she admits will not provide her with a job that will allow her to pay her student loan debt, but thinks she's going to teach in a secondary school somewhere).     Who thinks this is a good life plan?

Ultimately this isn't about racial stuff as much is it is about a culture/political philosophy that thrives of perceived "offense" and is perfectly willing to jump on and perpetuate a false narrative as long as they perceive that it will benefit their short term political/social goals.

When I look around the urban areas where I build houses for low income families, when I walk/drive through Port au Prince, St Louis du Nord and Port de Paix, when I see my youngest son's pictures from Moyo and George Zambia, when I see the medical center in Goma built by my church to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the congregation, not to mention when I watch the news, I see enough real suffering and problems to get upset about that it makes me wonder what it is that makes folks settle for manufactured outrage over incidents that didn't happen when they could actually channel that into tangible help for real people facing real problems.  

Personally, I think it's driven by the same impulse that makes people think that re tweeting a hashtag is actually making a difference.   I think it's because it's hard to see actual individual people actually suffering and to deal with them as individuals.   It's easier to jump on a manufactured bandwagon with the rest of the crowed than it is to take the time to think things through and get involved in a real tangible way. 

To twist a saying to make my point.  "It's easier to give a man a fish, than to teach him to fish. It's even easier to appear to give a man a fish.  It's even easier to tweet about some guy who doesn't have a fish..".   Unfortunately it seems we are moving toward a culture that is more interested in APPEARING to be doing something about a fake problem than to actually be doing something about a real problem.


UPDATE

 1.  It seems that the gentleman who took over as president had a hand in organizing the protests that caused the "resignation" of the previous president.   Smells like a conflict of interest to me.

2.  It seems as though some of the oppressed Mizzou students are feeling a bit left out since the terrorist attacks in Paris are getting more coverage than they are.

http://www.barstoolsports.com/barstoolu/mizzou-protestors-are-upset-that-the-terrorist-attacks-in-paris-are-getting-more-attention-than-them/

What Makes Good Guns Go Bad?

In the wake of this most recent shooting incident, there is a renewed cry from those on the left to ban guns.   But if we look at the numbers, a bigger question emerges.   What is it that makes a certain number of guns go bad?   It is estimated that we have approximately 330,000,000 guns in the United States, yet the number of crimes committed with guns appears to be in the thousands (less than 500,000) or so are used in crimes of any sort.   Just to be on the safe side let's say it's 1,000,000.    What that means is that less than 0.003% of all guns are used in some sort of crime every year.   But since these guns are environmentally conscious they probably recycle which means that the number of guns used in crimes is most likely less than the number of gun crimes committed.    FYI, I suspect that each gun commits more than one crime per year.   But, let's stick with the 1,000,000 or 0.003% to be safe.

What we are left with is that 99.997% of guns in the Unites States are solid law abiding guns who don't do anything wrong.   

So, once again, what is it about that 0,003% of guns that makes them go bad?   What can we do to help these guns stay away from lives of crime?

Does it really make any sort of rational sense to punish the 99.997% of guns who live their entire lives doing absolutely nothing wrong, for the behavior of the 0.003% of bad ones?

Obey (edited)

My question, in light of the KY county clerk and her recent incarceration for contempt of court is;

"Are elected officials expected, required, obligated, or bound to obey, abide by and enforce the laws as they currently exist whether they personally agree with them or not?"

It seems to me that it is reasonable to expect the people elected to office should either obey current law or step down.

EDIT

Now, this is one answer to the question.

" The answer to your question is, of course, yes, I expect elected officials to do their job, as a general rule. Unless and until their job causes them to do harm, then they should rightly not do their job."

While I am hoping for, and will edit this to reflect it, clarification it seems as though there is an assumption that "...do their job..." includes things like obeying, abiding by, and enforcing the laws of their jurisdiction whether they agree with them or not.   But, if one looks at the totality of the response, that isn't clear.    The notion of causing harm is interesting as well, as it seems as though it is possible to be faced with two competing "harms" and having to choose one or the other.   It also seems to equate the "harm" of inconvenience, with physical harm.   That notion seems problematic to me.    I'd love some more specific input.