Monday, April 25, 2011

Emmaus ramblings

Easter Monday used to have the Emmaus story from Luke's Gospel, with the risen Jesus surprising some disheartened disciples on the road. My FB friend ER reminded me that back in my church career, I referred to Christianity as "organized disappointment." Sometimes my own cleverness disconcerts me.



The Caravaggio

Even if you don't watch reality shows regularly or all the way through, seeing bits of them frequently certainly leads one (aka, me) to suspect that they are as structured and predictable as programs which are explicitly scripted. Like so much. Unexpected progeny of TV wrestling.

Tom Cruise playing seduction-artist Frank TJ Mackey in Magnolia (1999): being interviewed by a black female reporter...weirdly prophetic of his actual manic behavior with Oprah...and a dash of what's his name...uhhhh....Charlie Sheen.

Gas prices are certainly in the news. But does anyone else notice that food prices are really high?

Two fascinating science programs, one on the Big Bang, the other on Earth. Both computer-animated descriptions of how each one happened, according to current knowledge and theories. Mind-bending stuff. The theory of water that they included was that it all came from small bits of water in unnumbered meteorites that hit the earth for 20 million years. Makes you wonder how old that stuff is in your glass. And the speculations of theoretical physicists and cosmologists --things such as Planck time-- make the Trinitarian theologies of the Greek Fathers seem like kindergarten.

Wrote my Mormon pal Dave about our new commonality. HBO ran a series on Mormons behaving badly, and well, and strangely: Big Love. And now Showtime is playing out the Borgia papacy. The dark sides of our respective religious heritages exposed by secular media. (Just in terms of dramatic interest, I have to say that HBO's The Tudors was a much better written piece than The Borgias.)

Speaking of Mormons and Trinitarian theology, they are a good example of why it makes nothing but PR PC sense to say that Christians and Muslims "worship the same God."*  Mormons accept the Bible, and they have the Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But of course they add other scriptures that reinterpret it. And the Mormon Trinity bears little resemblance to the Christian Trinity beyond shared names. Just for starters, the Mormon "Heavenly Father" was once a man and he eventually progressed into godhood. You can see the difference. As I have said, Mormons are not Christians any more than Christians are Jews, even though Christians are called "the Israel of God." Each group lays claim to its predecessors' tradition, but adds something so new that the parent religion must reject it. So it is with Islam. We share a certain set of common traditional materials, but Jews, Christian, Muslims..and Mormons...interpret them in ways that are mutually exclusive and incompatible.

Some Mormons say that their Christianity is undeniable, given the name of the faith as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. By that measure, Mary Baker Eddy's "Christian Science" is also Christian. And her version is as wildly different from the faith of the 2000 year old Apostolic Churches as is Joseph Smith's, although she is a radical idealist while he is a strong materialist. You can't tell a book by the title on its cover.

Why do people who supposedly value "diversity" (see above) also want to erase it?

One more week before my gym closes. Only a few guys left. Equipment being sold off. It's sorta like working out in a morgue.

Trailer for Lost Weekend (1945) contains this line: "One woman loved him too much to let him lose his soul. Another one wanted him enough to take him without it." No comment.

*If you ask a Muslim to admit that Bahais worship the same God that they do, they will never admit it. So why should Christians admit this of Muslims? Or Christians and Jews of each other? Whatever happened to diversity? 

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