dagblog - Comments for "Mitt Romney is looking Christ-like."

I know. I know. The guy has

Oxy Mora — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:51:55 +0000

In reply to .......But if Romney jumps on

I know. I know. The guy has no moral fiber whatsoever and I have absolutely not one ounce of charity left for him.If there hadn't been some great contributions from Artsy and others I would just erase the damned post.

.......But if Romney jumps on

The Decider — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:05:32 +0000

In reply to Mitt Romney is looking Christ-like.

.......But if Romney jumps on the band wagon of distorting the contraceptive issue as one about freedom of religion, I will never again say one kind word about the man, especially not---that he is Christ-like....

Sorry to break the news to ya, Oxy...

Tonight's debate, Romney jumps on the distortion bandwagon regarding contraception.

Martin Bashire just

Oxy Mora — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

In reply to Mitt Romney is looking Christ-like.

Martin Bashire just interviewed Craig Mitchell, the black minister who was part of the panel of five men in the Issa hearing.

In answer to the question of whether he believed Onama is a Christian he gave the standard response that "He says he is." Moreover he wouldn't know unless he were to meet him and ask him questions. In fact, in his church, he would not accept the profession of faith of another person unless he was able to personally question them.

Even in the Baptist church I grew up in, there was never an inquisition of what one believed in when one "answered the call, walked down the aisle and accepted Jesus."

There is a consistent plan among the religious right clergy to deny Obama his birth, his faith and his legitimacy in the Presidency.

Not to beat a dead horse, but

Oxy Mora — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:21:24 +0000

In reply to you can be blessed with

Not to beat a dead horse, but it's funny you mention W. in this connection. He is a descendant of Anne Hutchinson or the Bay Colony. She pushed the "covenant of grace" to a new level, claiming that she knew who was and who wasn't "predestined". Kinda sounds like W. looking into someone's eyes and instantly understanding their soul.

Ha! Thanks for playing. Your

Oxy Mora — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 16:15:41 +0000

In reply to And their special talent was

Ha! Thanks for playing.

Your link takes one to an article which repeatedly misspells "Arminian" as "Armenian", from which I conclude a certain lack of something.( beliefs stem from Jacobes Arminius, 1591, who was Dutch, nor Armenian)

While I am also not a scholar, "Arminian-ism", is the opposing argument to predestination and "unconditional election", and having to do with "good works", is a dominant theme in Protestantism---from the time of the Puritans and Cotton Mather to the present day.

What the author was trying to get at is that the Puritans believed in predestination but from time to time tried to up the ante with good works. But too many good works would lead to "Arminianism". Even today "Arminian", is an epithet that one Christian hurls at another in disgust. As recently as last week an article emanating from the Southern Baptist Convention accused members of it's own church of dangerous tendencies in an article called "Calvinists are Encroaching". (Turns out there are two schools of thought on whether Calvin embraced Arminianism". The defense against this article came in the form of the argument that Calvin wasn't an Arminian. so, therefore it's o.k. to be a Calvinist in a Southern Baptist Seminary.

The arguments of last week are a direct transplant from days of John Winthrop in the Bay Colony.

Rick Warren, author of the "Purpose Driven Life", a book founded on the doctrine of "unconditional election" is not so dogmatic on whether "Arminianism" is a negation of unconditional election.

I do not excuse Mather's

Oxy Mora — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:10:00 +0000

In reply to On old Cotton, I did a little

I do not excuse Mather's complete involvement in the Salem trials by such things as his later views on innoculations.

As for property rights, etc., it is clear that in George Burrough's case, witchcraft was indeed a cover for a vendetta against him by Mather and Putnam. Three out of the five members of the Court were members of Mather's church.Vigilantism would be too kind a word for what Mather did to Burroughs.

"Go live someplace else under another government" is equivalent to what Santorum is saying.

And all that reminds me--I

artappraiser — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 07:01:20 +0000

In reply to Exactly, jolly! And that's

And all that reminds me--I recall reading an article summing up recent scholarly research on the Salem witch trials in the last couple years. Where it was proposed, through close study of maps with the house locations, and arranging reports of what happened chronologically, and getting deep into contemporary land and property records, that the accusations and subsequent hysteria all really arose from disputes about property and related jealousy and vendetta. It was extremely interesting and very persuasive.

Unfortunately, had someone with some power realized that at the time, probably wouldn't have helped much if it was vocalized. As crying witch then was worse than, say, someone in our time accusing the teacher neighbor that you hate of child sex abuse; it was more like crying fire in a crowded theater.

you can be blessed with

jollyroger — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:57:29 +0000

In reply to Exactly, jolly! And that's

you can be blessed with riches too

Hey, if Jesus can be W's political thinker, he can be my stock adviser...(Now if I can just figure out what that crucifix-shaped stain on my wall street journal is trying to tell me...)

Exactly, jolly! And that's

artappraiser — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:37:45 +0000

In reply to And their special talent was

Exactly, jolly! And that's why I don't think Santorum is equivalent at all; it's the populism thing. Mitt would make a far better Puritan! To me, Mitt is very like a Puritan. Which is why I always seem to seeing the old WASP tradition in him in so many ways.

Where I think a lot of confusion comes in is that in the last few decades, evangelicals have started preaching prosperity doctrines. But they never used to, that's a new thing.

God given prosperity, and a chosen elite is however something that Yankee Mayflower descendants (I know, I know, Pilgrims and Puritans are not one and the same, that's beside my point) have long believed in, they just felt it wasn't proper to talk about it publicly.

The two still don't sync, however. The prosperity doctrines preached by evangelicals in corner store churches or in fancy megachurches are that if you just believe, no matter who you are, no matter how low, you can be blessed with riches too. That is not Puritan, far from it!

On old Cotton, I did a little

artappraiser — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 06:25:04 +0000

In reply to Your comments spurred some

On old Cotton, I did a little checking myself. I did remember my studies correctly, Wikipedia has a sort of roundup of the mid-20th century scholarship:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_Mather#20th_Century_and_Ongoing_Revi...

as well as getting into the 19th-century revisionism right above that.

I think it's important to get oneself into the mindset of a small fragile insular community of the time, in a "new world" just starting to build itself. Where witches were believed to be a very real threat by most. And threat to their current lives and their eternal lives. And of a panic so much stronger than like of terrorists under the bed today. Mather at least tries to get a grip on this to make it in a rational legal and tempered proceeding. To our minds, his rules of evidence and beliefs area just as zany as some of the panicking young girls, but within his society he was actually being radical for trying to interject some reason into it.

Earlier in the wikipedia entry reminds me of the smallpox innoculation controversy; I do remember reading on that and that is really where I got my strongest impressions of him. He was pro-inoculation, really pushed for others to look into it, argued that it was not against the will of God, and that was pretty radical. But I don't think you can jump from that to understanding him as an Enlightenment man like some of the later founders. People aren't there yet, their minds aren't making those kind of connections. Everything is spiritually and faith related only because there really isn't an alternative. But he is very open to changing rules! Going to the scriptures and looking and saying, you're all wrong, there's no prohibition against this or that there. Overall, as a preacher, he's much more into the general spirit of Christ's teachings, of kindness and charity and generosity, etc. That's quite forward for the time. When you take it to witches, though, that's different, that's the devil right there on earth trying to get people, him you've still got to fight. At least he didn't go for vigilantism.

I do find this interesting, though:

Bachmann and Santorum who use the word "freedom" in the older, Puritan sense of "freedom to do the right thing" and who believes it is government's job to tell us what the "right thing" is. To me, this perfectly encapsulates the core ot the religious right.

Kennedy is looking at what the current wingers have inherited from Puritan theology. But I still don't see a whole lot of good or usefulness in the analogy. In Cotton Mather's little world, there was no freedom of religion, it was basically already a theocracy where you were indeed told what to do by the government, if you wanted to practice another religion, go live someplace else under another government.