Thursday, April 12, 2012

Those Who Do Not Gather With Me, Scatter: What NewsWEAK got wrong in the gospel according to Andrew Sullivan

Andrew Sullivan proposes not just a separation of Church from State but of Christ from the Church. When liberals like himself are not professing that the laity should separate from the Bishops it's the Protestants who assume that the Bible can be separated from the Church or even that the faith can be practiced outside of the realm of religion. Yet here again the practicing homosexual Andrew Sullivan wants a decapitated Church, he would like the head of the Church separated from the Church the body of Christ, a.k.a "The Church" and is the second person since the Freedom From Religion organization posted a call for liberal Catholics to leave the Church. It should not seem odd that a practicing homosexual and an atheist organization are the ones trying to tear people away from their salvation.
New York Times, March 09,2012
 Fox News Shows NY Times Double Standard

Over and over someone like Andrew Sullivan or Thomas Jefferson believes that they have a superior theology to that of the Magisterium, or the teaching office of the Church. It is usually one person or a small circle of people but none as large as the Bishops and Cardinals, their consulted theologians and scholars who actually establish, through and with the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity who guides the Church and the deposit of faith granted by God. However, they never take this into consideration.

Thomas Jefferson's 'Bible'
Andrew Sullivan writes about his 'brand' of Christianity, he espouses Thomas Jefferson and  St. Francis of Assisi.  Most of what he said about St. Francis was valid and it is a credit to him to take such a great saint as an inspiration but like the PFARRERINITIATIVE, the rebelious priests in Austria that are demanding female ordination, they and he should imitate St. Francis's obiedience and humilty to the Holy Father and the Magisterium. Thomas Jefferson,on the other hand,  espoused a doctrine of separation of Church and State via a metaphorical 'invisible wall'. He cut out those passages and references spoken by Jesus which given his deist inclinations made no reference of the supernatural and focused entirely on what he considered a "... benevolent code of morals" . This would presume to leave out not only the miraculous healings but essentially the very declaration of Jesus to be the son of God and bring salvation to mankind in the form of eternal life. Thomas Jefferson's Jesus referred only to moral recriminations. Jefferson literally cut such passages from the book referring to the bulk of the bible according to Sullivan as a "dunghill" but the words of Jesus (exclusively on morals one supposes) as "diamonds". This is the man that the United States believes is so clever with his metaphorical wall of separation. In no other area of writing is this kind of hacking viewed as legitimate or ethical but here we have Jefferson splice away those parts of Christ's words he holds dear and leaving the rest in the waste basket. How does he know what words Christ spoke outside of the context of the Gospels brought to us all via Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Similarly Martin Luther during the sixteenth  century removed seven books from the Bible's old testament, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, and I & II Maccabees, he was also going to remove Hebrews, James, Jude, Revelation, and books of the Old Testament but due to political peer pressure recanted. These are the type of people along with Andrew Sullivan that believe their theology is far superior on their own individual account than that of the Magisterium guided by the Holy Spirit. They do not add anything, unlike the Holy Church who actually decided in the synods of Hippo (393), Carthage I & II (397 and 419) which books would literally consistitute the Bible or Holy Canon.  The denial of the truth is so great in these cases once one has of course read the Bible that one can only recall the words of Jesus, namely that Jefferson and Sullivan suffer from spiritual blindness. It is just one more of these strikingly obvious departure from standard accepted ethics which makes a spectacle out of the individual to the common observer. Again, in no literary circle is hacking a text for one's own purpose, literally taken prose out of context and chapters out of a book considered legitimate, nonetheless we have exactly that happening here and people still blissfully revere Thomas Jefferson and Martin Luther without a dollop of conscientious incredulity. Although it is evident that neither Jefferson who claimed to be a 'real Christian' an obvious oxymoron and Luther were more a part of the world and could not see the Spirit of Truth. (John 14:17). It is equally clear that Sullivan is blind and it is equally sad that the print journalism trade has been so imperiled that this article was published by Newsweek and the New York Times daily news paper sells it's liberal slanted paper for $2.50 a piece, a day. If it had a decent circulation it wouldn't need to charge quite that much, not for something that isn't going to deliver an objective view of the world but merely to cater to what one as a liberal wants to read like political porn.

Andrew Sullivan has proven through his essays this one in particular, that homosexuality doesn't start with sexual preference for same sex, it ends with it. Pride, a clear subjective demand to not perceive the truth. It is no wonder that it wasn't enough for the American Psychiatric Association to remove homosexuality from the list of psychiatric disorders but it's kissing cousin as well, narcissistic personality disorder. You see, it becomes evident that when one tries to remove a portion of reality from the whole that individual is suffering from a psychiatric break down. Often as Catholics we are asked to justify the faith according to the rationalist values of the world. That is because like Jefferson the entire super natural dimension of our religion is repudiated. It has been said that hell is a prison with to which those who reject God incarcerate themselves with the lock to the cell door being on their side of cell door, a form of barricade to keep God away. Observing these men it certainly seems to be the path that they are on. For instance,  at no time has Andrew Sullivan mentioned any biblical passages, not could he because almost anyone he could have sited would have contradicted his thesis. That he can have Christ without His bride the Church is a bit of the Protestant (and let's be clear, Protestant does mean people who protest...outside of the Church) attempt to have a bible without the Church and a faith without a religion, difficult feats to justify theologically.  The salvation of souls, the bride of Christ, the Church was after all the entire purpose of Christ suffering and crucifixion, the sacrifice of the lamb as a reparation for sin and as a means through the Holy Eucharist, the body of Christ, that when consumed remakes us in His divine nature and holy enough to share in His heavenly and eternal abode.

So what is it that Sullivan believes Christ mission was here on earth? Referring to Christ passion and crucifixion he writes,

" The Cross itself was not the point: nor was the intense physical suffering he endured. The point was how he conducted himself through it all-calm, loving, accepting and radically surrendering even the basic control of his own body and telling us that this was what it means to truly transcend our world and be with God."
That's right, what is after all important to ever narcissistic homosexual, comportment. How one behaves, how they carry themselves, their style is the very essence and value of all their existence.
No matte how heretical, deceptive and satanic you are, always carry yourself in style, style is everything.

 These passages from Christ, Andrew Sullivan's, self personified, which is characteristic of homosexuals, a difficulty with separation Like those he apparently choose to Ignore no different than his icon Thomas Jefferson.


 [30] He that is not with me, is against me: and he that gathereth not with me, scattereth." Matthew 12:30

"[16] You have not chosen me: but I have chosen you; and have appointed you, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain: that whatsoever you shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you. [17] These things I command you, that you love one another. [18] If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you. [19] If you had been of the world, the world would love its own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. [20] Remember my word that I said to you: The servant is not greater than his master. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my word, they will keep yours also." John 15:16


What we have in this, what should we call it, cover page opinion piece? What we have in Newsweek on magazine stands across the country is a sign of the times. We live in an era where print journalism is dying and it's thrashing about in a public pool, drowning directly underneath our nose. The magazine itself was, I am told, only a few pages thick, (I actually did not see on any stands in my local supermarket and no I didn't go looking for it as I haven't read Newsweek for years along with millions of others). Undoubtedly more than a few were surprised that such a previously acclaimed news magazine published an essay of such low merit at all, in fact 'Christianity In Crisis' wasn't even a news story. In the same way the Brooklyn Museum in October 1999 held the  "Sensation" exhibit in order to attract more people to the struggling museum out of financial necessity rather than good art. Newsweek may have published this essay for the same purpose to cause a sensation and attempt to maintain some relevance and increase profit. Yet, that is not to say that there isn't a genuine attempt to devalue religion and Catholicism in particular at the same time. Yet, it does seem that the liberal alliance in the news media has it's back against the wall itself when it comes to changing times and the rise of electronic media. We will see a lot less of them than they will of us. The devil prowls about to scatter the few he can because he knows his time is short.

Marshall McLuhan wrote in the Gutenberg Galaxy that the medium is the message and foreseen the global village where there would be more vision based communication and subsequent mass illiteracy and rampant anti-intellectualism. The village was filled with primitives. This is happening today before the eyes at those of us who are not spiritually blind thanks be to the Paraclete. Nonetheless, it is indeed a strange sight to see.

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