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Believe it or not, the Kwanzaa holiday has its root in explicit anti-Christianity. It also has roots in a strange alliance between white racists and black nationalists. I was involved in legal struggles involving it in the early 1990s and was retained by a bi-racial group concerned about its mandated use in neighborhood schools that were teaching an inverted racist theory.
WISCONSIN SENATOR GLENN GROTHMAN spoke out bravely against the prospect of Kwanzaa being made a national holiday. He was interviewed on CNN this morning by an apparently naive and/or agendized CNN employee. He has agreed to be my first guest for the first half-hour of my coming Saturday morning show on www.themicroeffect.com.
The Kwanzaa people, BTW, were also promoting WALDORF / STEINER education in the public schools, were using Farrakhan as a speaker for their Detroit area events, and were working together with such people and groups as WHITE ARYAN RESISTANCE, SPOTLIGHT, SOUTH AFRICAN BUND and other groups dedicated to WHITE SUPREMACY.
Both groups wanted to have ruling rights over their respective constituencies and were working hard to abolish the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
I will post more on this later. I will talk about it on my talk show tonight, Thursday, January 3, 2013, as well.
Constance
Dear Readers:
Happy New Year to you!
I am working diligently on preparation of my new book. I'm sorely tempted to do one on my experiences over the past 32 years on this project: Who helped? Who hindered? Converts and reverts. I'm updating Hidden Dangers, but think that the story needs to be told from my perspective. The disinformation people have certainly been busy over the years. It may well be time to name names.What do you think?
I have much on my mind. Newer cults are active, sometimes posing as small independent Christian churches. I know of one very destructive one in the metropolitan Detroit area. Its "pastor" who likes to double as a musician and celebrity TV interviewer has convinced naive followers that he is God's prophet. He claims first hand views of heaven and hell. There is little doubt in my mind that he will one day have a first hand view of the latter should he not repent and change course.
I continue to review my library and past years' work. My dear friend Dorothy Margraf frets with justification that people are taking the New Age Movement too lightly. The New Age interpretation of their failed Mayan "end of the world" prophecy is that we have now entered the New Age.
To help sober all up on where the New Age is heading, it is instructive to see where they have been and what they have claimed. Alice Bailey's THE RAYS AND THE INITIATIONS has an intriguing passage about the Holocaust. It was necessary to cleanse the world of the subraces. Here's a 1943 dated passage from pages 75-76 of that Lucis [Lucifer] Trust published book:
One of the purposes lying behind the present holocaust (World War II) has been the necessity for the destruction of inadequate forms. This destruction could have been brought about by an act of God, such as a great natural catastrophe or a universal epidemic, and such had been the original intention. Humanity was, however, swept by forces that carried in themselves the seeds o( destruction, and there was that in humanity which responded to those forces. Therefore the Law of destruction was permitted to work through humanity itself, and men are now destroying the forms through which many masses or men are functioning. This is both a good and a bad thing, viewed from the evolutionary angle . . .I will do my radio program tonight on www.themicroeffect.com. However, starting this weekend, I will be broadcasting live for two hours on Saturday mornings from 10 to 12 Eastern time. Pacific time will be 1 to 3 p.m. Joe McNeil believes I will reach a wider audience at that time. Please let us know. Please participate in the chatroom, if you are able, and vote for the program at www.talkstreamlive.com, when we are live on the air.
I have much to share with you and plan to do so very soon.
Stay tuned!
CONSTANCE
84 comments:
I can hardly wait to read your new book! yes, name names! Paul and John did. 2Tim. 4:14, 3 John verse 9.
"The New Age interpretation of their failed Mayan "end of the world" prophecy is that we have now entered the New Age."
Fine. They can all go harmonically converge on some Mayan pyramid and hopefully an asteroid will land on them.
"The New Age interpretation of their failed Mayan "end of the world" prophecy is that we have now entered the New Age."
I don't think they ever had in mind some sort of physical happening. What they have done is prepped many minds on an international level to be more comfortable with all of the changes taking place. As I have said, the New Age movement has had no ceremonial, no passage of time, markers such as religions have. Planned change was too gradual for the general public to notice what was happening. Significant dates as to when a new age was to have begun ranged all over the decades. As an analogy, let me suggest that when a champagne cork is being pulled, it is gradual. Then there is a pop. The pop was December 21.
Now I'm seeing the term New Age appear much more publicly.
I posted somewhere on this blog, Lucis Trust people wrote in one of their recent letters the time was right now. A Republican insider said on the Ulsterman blog that Obama has big plans for the third year of his second term to turn the US global. He said, "I’m starting to sense that getting Obama re-elected was to set up that 3rd year agenda. The real globalization push. Taxes, immigration, guns, environment, currency, healthcare mandates, the domestic drone program, all of it and more will come together in that third year if they control the White House and Congress. All of it will be finalized. Everything the globalists have worked for all this time will come together during that third year of Barack Obama’s second term."
Should your book be a history of your exposing the New Age agenda? Earlier it might have been easier. Now you need to be able to exercise tight control physically and legally based on what you know. Though it would make fascinating reading, you would be making a major sacrifice for too few people who would just use the information for gossip. I just watched the movie For Greater Glory which was about the Mexican people's revolt against Calles who wanted to do away with the Catholic church back in the 1920s when the Theosophists had control of governments in the area. There are no more people ready to go on horses into battle for a cause, and even if there were, times have changed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_Mexico
I know that was only one part of the New Age agenda, but for this blog it is an important concern.
This was your June 2012 review of the film. http://cumbey.blogspot.com/2012/06/very-important-movie-greater-glory.html
Credit where credit should be given.
More information can also be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War
I think that one of the strongest weapons against all this, to motivate the people (let's face it, the majority) in USA and elsewhere who are either not Christian or think globalism is good for various reasons, is to attack it on pragmatic grounds.
unity is bad because if something is wrong in some part, there is
1. nowhere to run from it,
2. in the case of economic market fluctuations and even disease and vermin hitching rides, things that 100 years ago would stay mostly local, or continental, would go worldwide quickly.
the concept of quarantine should be applied beyond the range of mere disease.
Also, policies and laws not a good fit for some places would be imposed on them anyway, consider flaws in any central planning situation.
the dishonesty and games of Delphi process and the redefinitions deceive people making sure most who would disagree don't get to know about a meeting till after it is over, and in some procedures just being at a meeting, even to disagree, is counted as showing support. Agenda 21 plays this a lot.
I am very disturbed to see the term "stakeholder" in govt. and military docs to be found at http://publicintelligence.net this term, which refers not to normal legal owners or even immediate neighbors who can be immediately impacted by someone's use of their property, but a great range of normally irrelevant and even only potential future members of the normally irrelevant who are artificially and wrongly counted as relevant by the Agenda 21 system.
On the 26th of December, 2012, the Mille Lacs Messenger, a Minnesota county newspaper, published the following letter of mine.
Agenda 21
In response to Brett Larson's recent column about the United Nations' Agenda 21 programme I would like to say: This agenda for the 21st Century was signed by 179 nations at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Among other things, it called for a Global Biodiversity Assessment of the state of the planet. Prepared by the UN Environmental Programme, this GBA gave UN leaders the information and science they needed to further develop their global management system. Its environmental crisis predictions justified their mission to [bring about] a major reduction of the earth's human population, major lifestyle regulations for industrial civilization's middle class people, and the establishment of a new world religion, an eco-religion - a religion that will be an earth-centered syncretistic blend of the world's religions.
Archbishop Javier Lozano Barragan, a world renowned theologian, called the UN lead global ethic movement, a movement that is a part of Agenda 21, an "eco-religion". He said it manifests itself "as a new spirituality that supplants all religions, because the latter have been unable to preserve the ecosystem."
The GBA concluded on page 763 that "the root causes of the loss of biodiversity are embedded in the way societies use resources." The main culprit being the world view of societies based on Biblical scriptures. "This world view is characteristic of large scale societies, heavily dependent on resources brought from considerable distances. It is a world view that is characterized by the denial of sacred attributes in nature, a characteristic that became firmly established about 2000 years ago with the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religious traditions." The document also states that the "Eastern cultures with religious traditions such as Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism did not depart as drastically" from healthy environmental values, including a self-sustaining respect and reverence for nature.
The earth centered religions include the aboriginal religions of the Western hemisphere and African, reconstructed versions of pre-Christian European pagan religions, and the beliefs of an occasional world renowned so-called "Catholic heretic" like the theologian Rev. Matthew Fox, a person who has given his support for some of my global initiatives.
The earth centered religions are the spiritual wing of the UN lead New Age environmental movement. They worship the Great Spirit and look on the Earth and its biosphere as a living being to be celebrated and almost worshipped. They believe that mankind's proper mission is to learn to live in harmony with the Earth and its life forms, rather than to dominate them.
Putting an end to the current international system that subjugates and dehumanizes aboriginal peoples, which includes a central foundation part of our USA system, is a big part of the UN leaders' global management agenda for the 21 Century.
Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer
Wahkon
Good news on the update of the Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow.
Yes, Constance - you should definitely name names!!!
Happy New Year to everyone.
I agree with Joe McNeil that you will reach a wider audience with your radio program on Saturday morning from 10:00-12:00 PM.
I think - though I am not a lawyer - that in naming names you can avoid trouble if you stick to very overt, documented (with docs in the book), words and actions that are not open to interpretation in more than one way. (borderline cases would be, oh, so and so isn't New Age just looking to keep the peace, and that comes under the heading of unbiblical compromise, so still attackable as that.)
N E W S F L A S H!!!
Believe it or not, the Kwanzaa holiday has its root in explicit anti-Christianity. It also has roots in a strange alliance between white racists and black nationalists. I was involved in legal struggles involving it in the early 1990s and was retained by a bi-racial group concerned about its mandated use in neighborhood schools that were teaching an inverted racist theory.
WISCONSIN SENATOR GLENN GROTHMAN spoke out bravely against the prospect of Kwanzaa being made a national holiday. He was interviewed on CNN this morning by an apparently naive and/or agendized CNN employee. He has agreed to be my first guest for the first half-hour of my coming Saturday morning show on www.themicroeffect.com.
The Kwanzaa people, BTW, were also promoting WALDORF / STEINER education in the public schools, were using Farrakhan as a speaker for their Detroit area events, and were working together with such people and groups as WHITE ARYAN RESISTANCE, SPOTLIGHT, SOUTH AFRICAN BUND and other groups dedicated to WHITE SUPREMACY.
Both groups wanted to have ruling rights over their respective constituencies and were working hard to abolish the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.
I will post more on this later.
Constance
this wierd looking coalition of racist groups you would think would hate each other is actually not odd or new. Though some of them are potentially competitive - black supremacy vs. white supremacy - they share an ideal of racial separatism. Elimination of the 14th Amendment would be bad for all of them, because it would put the rest under the heel of whoever was in power which of course is probably the secret desire of many.
An interesting coincidence - Kwanzaa goes from December 26 to January 1. The Holy Nights of the Anthroposophical Society go from December 26 to January 1.
Christmas trees have a pagan root, but I still put one up every Christmas. Doesn't make me a pagan. Everyone who celebrates Kwanzaa is not out to subvert anyone or the 14th Amendment. That's just making a mountain out of an ant hill. Not every rumor is necessarily factual.
Just because white people don't like or care for Kwanzaa doesn't make it evil. Mardi Gras is still filled with immorality making it far worse, yet many Christians celebrate it. To say some congressman is brave for standing up to this is a total misunderstanding of what courage is. Kwanzaa is not a threat to him or anyone or a declaration of war on Christmas (which is a total fictional figment of the Fox News imagination). I would rather see people coming together to celebrate their heritage than to hear about the violence and poverty that plagues them and only tears them apart.
I think the truth lies between the extremes presented on this kwanzaa thing. The intention may have been to wean blacks off Christianity, but as I recall from reading about it, kwanzaa just talks about values (which are not inconsistent with Christianity) and doesn't drag in false gods, though what goes on nowdays may be another story.
Christmas trees aren't pagan. This started with Luther putting candles on trees to represent the True Light of Christ coming into the world.
The thing out of Jeremiah used against Christmas trees is not about these at all, but describes the process of making an idol of wood overlaid with gold.
There is a lot of false information circulating among Christians, partly due to Hislop's sloppy research, and incl. nonsense like Constantine altering Christianity and setting The Bible canon at Nicea, which wasn't even concerned with the canon this being already established by useage from Apostolic times. Baptists or some of them claim a pedigree including everyone ever opposed by Rome, which in fact incl. some terrible heretical groups like the Albigensians. Of course this is in total ignorance of the history of Christianity especially in the eastern empire.
Christine, Constantine didn't "alter Christianity" doctrinally but he certainly changed the church. It became fashionable to join, and consequently filled with nominal believers, whereas before that it had been full of believers willing to give their lives for Christ as He had for them. The church leaders of Constantine's time were seduced by the worldly influence and wealth that he offered them. At that stage didn't know any better, but they certainly should have done. They should have welcomed his interest and offered humbly to instruct their new Emperor in the faith, but instead they let him interfere over churchly decisions (eg about the Donatists) and fell for Satan's oldest trick, temptation.
OK the Albigensians were heretical, but they were documented as leading more moral lives than Catholics; and is their dualism any excuse to send a Crusade against them to wipe them all out as Innocent III did? And were their practices any more heretical than prayers to Mary in which SHE is asked personally to do things reserved in holy scripture for Christ?
1. Constantine only made Christianity legal. persecution stopped except in a few outlying spots. Justinian was the one who made it the official religion of the empire, and I agree, this can be problematic. Of course, you must realize, that separation of church and state is a modern concept. all the pagan states had their official gods they served and bribed, and Christianity replacing paganism was
not a bad idea in one way, but I have a saying.
When it is too easy or convenient to become a Christian, or too inconvenient not to be a Christian, you get a lot of fake Christians.
Marian excesses grew apace especially in the middle ages, and got worse and worse. I am Eastern Orthodox not Roman Catholic.
Albigensianism would have eradicated Christianity of any recognizeable standard doctrine if its spread was not contained. MAYBE that crusade was a bad way to do it, such measures make hero martyrs and drive survivors underground, harder to convert.
It is perhaps instructive, that in the history of application of popular mob violence and soliciting government violence to enforce religious positions in Christianity, it was the arianist heretics (denied full divinity of Jesus Christ) who started this.
Christine I am disappointed that you will not wholeheartedly condemn the genocide against the Albigensians conducted merely for their beliefs, which were between them and God. Every man is responsible for his own soul.
You need to check your church history. Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in AD381. Justinian was two centuries later.
Kwanzaa is part of the New Age Afrocentric movement.
Go here to see the CNN interview with Senator Grothman. You can also read an expose of the movement. http://christocentric.com/main/?p=2803#comments
The ebooklet she offered is now $3.95, but a sample is at Kwanzaa: Cultural or Cultic at the top.
Maat, tied to Kwanzaa is an Egyptian goddess. That's certainly paganism.
When research had to be done on foot there were excuses for not knowing such things, but now if you are interested in something, know what there is to know about it.
There Christine goes, again hijacking the thread with a theme of her choosing. As I wrote, Obama style controlling. It's interesting to watch how easily it is done.
Conservative websites are making others aware of a petition on the
White House website which wants signers to label Catholic church a hate group for its stand on marriage.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/white-house-petitioned-to-label-catholic-church-a-hate-group/
http://tinyurl.com/alttzy7
Interestingly a Catholic "marriage equality" group takes a stand against the petition and advises "The petition was posted on Christmas day 2012 on the "We the People: Your Voice in Our Government" website, which was established by the Obama Administration to create more direct communication between Americans and the White House." This makes clear where the petition originated. Other news articles haven't pointed that out.
http://tinyurl.com/amdf27e
Now say very slowly, "Yes the Obama administration is tied to the New Age movement."
first off, while beliefs are between you and God, you will be judged for them and the Albigensians were rapidly converting all Langedoc from truth to lies endangering their souls. this was viewed as a public safety issue so to speak.
They also considered suicide a sacrament.
Now I did say that that crusade was probably not the best way to deal with things.
Sorry about the historical gaff, it
has been a while since I checked on the antics of emperors.
http://www.officialkwanzaawebsite.org/index.shtml
no mention of Egyptian or African false gods incl. maat, but sons-of-ra seems to have gotten a variant going,
these sound like kemetics in origin,
kemetic is the egyptian reconstruction overt paganism (reconstruction tries to duplicate instead of just borrow here and there).
http://www.sons-of-ra.org/about.htm
http://www.sons-of-ra.org/writings/Karast%20Maat%20Kwanzaa.pdf
perhaps where you are this is the dominant form or it has infiltrated over the past decade.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
there were as usual with the Albigensian crusade as much political as religious interest involved. And the crusade was touched off by the Cathar (Albigensian) murder of a papal legate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogomilism
seems to have its origin from the Bogomils, some of whom took the anti marriage and anti physical world line of thought to homosexuality from Bogomil we get the word bugger from a French word referring to Bogomils.
The dualist position blasphemes God by denying His is the Creator of heaven and earth, all matter is evil. (in this they are brothers to Hindus.) Jesus and The Holy Spirit were identified with the archangel Michael.
Bogomil doctrines seem to have infiltrated Russia (its wierder sects) and Europe, in the latter laying the groundwork for extreme views that went beyond Luther.
Christine, the Albigensians were converting Languedoc because they lived more moral lives - although that should be more true of the Christians according to the NT. What would be the right way to deal with the fact that the Albigensians were also heretics? (1) Kill them all; (2) Cause the church to raise its game and live its scriptures?
I am appalled that you will not unequivocally condemn the genocide against the Albigensians. What do you mean by saying it was political? It was political because Innocent III offered the land of murdered Albigensians to those who could crusade against (ie, murder) them. When a religion becomes Established as the religion of State, as had happened to Christianity by then, heresy becomes treason becomes political. That is why we Christians were persecuted for three centuries, and only someone who has forgotten that fact could advocate using the same laws against others who lived peacably. Do you think that the murder of a single papal legate who excommunicated Raymond of Toulouse (murdered probably by one of Raymond's knights) justifies the massacre of tens of thousands? Are you happy that the Byzantine Emperors launched pro-active campaigns against the Bogomils and Paulician dualists on the basis of their beliefs? Or that Manichaeism became punishable by death in 382AD (Theodosius again)? Would you like to murder the Zoroastrian in the flat next door?
This Christian website devotes a great deal of time to pointing out that the New Age has a veneer of tolerance but is underneath red in tooth and claw. Unless you clearly condemn the Albigensian crusade then you are no better and we Christians can be accused of hypocrisy.
Christine, the Christian woman who did the research on Kwanzaa did it from the original writings of Karenga who started the thing. She also attended his meetings as her sister was involved.
Looking at the website it looks to me as if he decided to go commercial and needed to clean up his act to make it more acceptable.
It says so much that David Icke gives Karenga his blessings.
http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?t=97309
You've probably never stepped into an Afrocentric bookstore. Nice try at whitewashing another New Age activity.
I know nothing of Kwanzaa except the little bit I've read and no I have not been in an Afrocentric bookstore.
I don't try to whitewash the New Age.
I also know nothing of what David Icke says about Karenga because I don't pay attention to icky Icke anymore and only did a little in the past.
the only mat mentioned in the official for public consumption stuff is the kind you sit on. like a hard rug. you can see that at the wikipedia link.
however, I am not surprised if he had a hidden agenda, and wanted to use Kwanzaa to get people weaned off Christianity.
the whole family and tribal group focus thing is a problem in itself when run amok, once this is too solid the next step is some official religion of the group. Such as among tribal societies now. group cohesion can interfere with the Gospel.
Kwanzaa by being non religious and anyone of any religion can do it, is ipso facto potentially of use to those who would use it to steer people away from Christ, and the fact it is positioned around Christmas time seems to be a bad thing like competition.
I hadn't thought about kwanzaa in years, it always struck me as a silly effort to be African using a made up American hodge podge.
now as for the Cathars, sure, moral lives can help convert people to false doctrine, especially if the false doctrines aren't heavily pushed at the early stage. Just look at Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism.
of course improving the church's game would be better. However, the doctrines at issue were New Age type also.
and I already stated that violent measures can be counterproductive.
there is a difference between living a moral life because one loves the Creator of the physical world and wants to use His things as He stipulated, and living an apparently moral life because one hates the physical world and doesn't want to use it at all. This was the perfecti style.
Zoroastrianism is not dualist in the same sense in that it does not posit the physical realm as evil and not the creation of the Most High God, but rather posits a war between good and evil going on, though it tends to see the two forces as equal. It also drifted from Zoroaster's original teachings in that he opposed the soma or haoma ritual and it came to incorporate it. By the time of the Christian persecuting Persians, it had even become fire worship. Zoroastrianism not being a missionary faith is not much of a threat to Christianity anyway.
But people influenced by slipshod statements of Zoroastrianism apparently founded the dualist systems that are not alien to New Age of the holy grail type.
nice try at whitewashing a segment of proto new ageism in the middle ages.
Christine, I normally try to be polite but on this occasion I can only say that you disgust me. You divert into differences between dualistic systems in the usual attempt to show off your (highly fallible) knowledge, and accuse me of trying to whitewash mediaeval dualistic sects simply because I condemn genocide against them and because I point out what Catholic missionaries (and Bernard of Clairvaux) themselves said, that they had superior moral behavior. I asked you more than once in the clearest terms whether you unequivocally condemned mass murder committed against such people and you have equivocated, merely saying that "violent measures can be counterproductive" and that "crusade was probably not the best way to deal with things". PROBABLY?
For your information I am a committed Trinitarian Christian. DualISM is repugnant to me but dualISTS are human beings, something you have clearly forgotten.
Nice try at being as intolerant as the New Age. You have just given Constance's readers the most appalling impression of Christians. Repent!
first off you show your priorities are flawed. "tolerance" is not the big deal truth is the big deal. The New Age isn't bad because intolerant that merely gives it teeth.
second, you have to consider the time and standards and norms when this happened.
I am not advocating this approach today. I am not sure it was a good idea then. handing off property of the conquered to the fighters against them was part of the feudal system anyway and most of history. A good draw to get warriors in a low tech war environment, and pretty normal regardless of religious disputes or lack thereof.
The crusade did offer surrender terms, it wasn't a strict massacre except when they refused to surrender.
The BIGGEST PROBLEM with this sort of thing, is the danger to the truth itself - to the average person it can call the truth into question, and make one afraid to seek answers to doubts and questions afraid to talk to catechizers etc., and thus increase the population of nominal Christians.
and don't think the protestant scene isn't full of them also. even in the clergy. That is why you have so many people converting to more interesting and demanding faiths or rather cults who are from a nominally Christian background. And that is also why so many run amok as soon as they are away from social restraints at home when they go to college elsewhere. at the apex you get those hundreds of arrests and suits and prosecutions for sexual abuse by protestant clergy detailed with info sources at that link posted more than once in a previous comments section,and then there were two interesting incidents, a recovering devil worshipper who on going to a church recognized among the clergy leaders of the satanist cult she had been in so wouldn't go there anymore, and the report of another that, probably in the 1990s, the pastor of a very large Baptist church in Denver, well, that was his day job. In real life he led a satanist group.
Just as I figured Christine. Again, regarding Kwanzaa, you just let your fingers type away with the barest of knowledge, if any, guiding them. If Constance filled the comments section with magic rituals, she would do less damage than she is doing by letting you post. People would know to avoid them. There are still some people who trust you know what you are writing about. God help them.
A too late correction. Constance posted the wrong Pacific time for her show, going in the wrong direction from the 10 am EST she gave. Maybe next week I'll catch the show. It's 7am Pacific, 8am, 9(CST) and 10(EST). I probably missed a huge amount of good information on Kwanzaa.
Constance, can you give a summary of what we missed?
"you have to consider the time and standards and norms when this happened."
No I don't Christine, the people who perpetrated genocide against the Albigensians claimed to be Christians, so it is legitimate to hold them against the standard of the gospel rather than the standard of the world. Can you really imagine the Christ of whom we read in the four gospels taking part in the Albigensian crusade? I hold protestant pastors to the same standard too and if you think you are needling me by trying to divert the subject like that then you should think again. Am I 'judging' these people? No more than I would judge whether to run or to fling the door open wide if I were a dualist and they knocked on my door; no more than I would judge whether to let them look after my children for a couple of hours.
Now, for the third or fourth time, will you deny that the church should EVER take up mass arms against peaceful persons who believe something different about Jesus Christ from what we believe? Please feel free to give as lengthy a reply as you wish provided you include a clear Yes or No. And please consider what non-Christians will think of us if your answer is that crusades vs peaceful heretics is sometimes OK.
It's all very well to say that heretics can lead Christians astray and divert them from the path to heaven so let's kill them. That was the argument used by the Inquisition too, so was waterboarding - the Inquisition's favorite technique - OK? In the last analysis every man is responsible to God only for his own soul.
It is hard to give an answer. Some principles however... Jesus said that if His kingdom were of this time His followers would fight to save Him from Pilate, "but now My Kingdom is not from hence." That is for later when He comes back.
All actions of the medieval church in the west, were taken on the assumption of amillenialism, no literal reign of Christ on earth, He just comes back to do the Judgement, but the millennium is the Church ruling on earth. post milleniallism is just a more aggressive form of this. That is why as AD 1000 approached, and again AD 2000 you had this chiliastic hysteria developing. They thought the thousand years of the Kingdom ruling on earth through the Church and believing rulers, was coming to and end. (Another thing we can blame St. Augustine for, along with the filioque and radical predestination, is this idea of no literal reign by Christ on earth. The chilast warp of course was that the reign itself was lim8itedin time, actually Christ will reign forever but the thousand years is when the devil is so fully bound he can't tempt anyone, even whisper to unbelievers, mistakenly RC and EO think he is fully bound now at least as regards believers in good standing, but Revelation says he won't be able to tempt the nations, which is hardly the picture now.)
Any procedure taken on such flawed premises is bound to be flawed.
There might be circumstances when some kind of enforced limitation of freedoms and ability to hold political power or secular teaching positions would be appropriate.
I too could divert this debate to show off how much I know about eschatology, but I am not going to. Do you not realise, Christine, that God Himself gives people freedom to believe whatever rubbish they like? THAT is the key precedent and we should not violate it.
So it might be OK in some circumstances to mass-murder heretics but not pagans? That would follow from your stance.
To any dualists reading this: Christine is being thoroughly unbiblical here and please do not suppose she is representative of the church's core document, the New Testament.
Christine,
Are you being paid to disrupt, water down, mis direct,
obfuscate, overload and or obfuscate this blog ?
It's a direct question that you can answer with a yes or a no.
whoops, one "obfuscate" would have been enough,
( though in your case I could see you obfuscating the obfuscation.)
Any organized ideology is going to have a political side, if only to protect its institutions in a world of diverse ideas.
The Catholic church has had a political side since it grew from wandering missionaries to a more organized way of spreading the word. It still has a very big political side. How else could it keep an international organization cohesive.
The Cathars grew from much smaller organizational ideologies as any book on Gnosticism can show. It became a political force also. As a review of a book on them stated, "At their apogee, the Languedocian Cathars created a church structure, including bishops, deacons and other officials for different areas, and enjoyed the support (either passive or active) of much of the southern French nobility." http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/231 Cathars were not the gentle folks they are now portrayed to be. Then the Catholic church fought back in the only way it thought it could. It was losing the battle of words and rather than go down, it decided to go down fighting. Should it have stayed passive? To this day the actions it took have haunted and overshadowed the good it has done. Yet it is still around. New Agers throw those actions of hundreds of years ago in the face of Catholics.
We are seeing a repeat of Cathar history in the New Age movement. In numbers monotheists control the culture. While New Age leaders speak noble thoughts about their fellow humans, the political side operates in full force behind the scenes. It has already led to destruction. Monotheists who attempt to fight back with words are demonized. New Age leaders know monotheists, well except for Israel, will do nothing more to defend their institutions. The political side of Islam resembles the Cathars and New Age leaders. Talk one thing, do another.
I have no idea how it will all work out. I have no idea how soon End Times will make it all work out for the good.
"Any organized ideology is going to have a political side, if only to protect its institutions in a world of diverse ideas. At their apogee, the Languedocian Cathars created a church structure, including bishops, deacons and other officials for different areas, and enjoyed the support (either passive or active) of much of the southern French nobility."
Because they were good citizens. As for the Cathars creating a church structure, you might need to reread the New Testament to see what church structure God, rather than man, set up. There were many episkopoi per congregation rather than vice-versa, ie no hierarchy above congregations that could get politicized at natoinal level - there was just "the church in place A", "the church in place B" etc.
"Then the Catholic church fought back in the only way it thought it could... Should it have stayed passive?"
While I believe that Christians have the right of physical self-defense, do you believe that the church should contend FOR ITS FAITH using spiritual weapons or physical ones?
You are right. Battles should be fought using spiritual weapons. Jesus set a bad example when he, as God who could have used the best of spiritual weapons, when he went physically against the money changers. There might have been many more times if he was around for more than three years.
I answered your question, now answer mine. What do you think that act of physical aggression on the part of Jesus was to teach followers?
Being God, he knew that what he did would be written for his followers? Was he teaching them to be more self-controllded than God?
Don't play silly ethical games in order to attack the Catholic church.
Dear Anon@2.45pm, my target is not the Roman Catholic church but any Christian today who thinks it is OK in principle to execute heretics. (Christine is Orthodox, you might recall.) Read the account of the moneychangers again in the various gospels; Jesus never laid hands on any human being in that encounter.
I am shocked at what the conversation on this thread is revealing. I am not ashamed of Christ but increasingly ashamed of Christians.
"Jesus never laid hands on any human being in that encounter."
you read it again. He made a field expedient cat o' nine tails whip and drove them out. What does that tell you? Okay, so His HAND or fist maybe didn't touch them, but a whip of knotted cords hits as hard as a hand or fist. The only things He didn't touch were the innocent doves in cages who unlike the innocent cattle, had no way to leave when moved to do so, He told the moneychangers to "take these things hence."
And I doubt they didn't try to resist which means some physical contact (failed on their part) probably occurred besides the whipping.
That of course is not execution.
I should have said that not only did Jesus not lay hands on any person in that encounter, he didn't lay a whip on anyone either. Rather he whipped up a riot among the animals, whose owners preferred to chase their money than stay put. Masterful tactics. Anybody who thinks this incident (or letting those demons go into the Gadarene pigs) was cruel to the animals is free to remind Him of their views on the Day of Judgement.
"then He went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in it." Luke 19:45
Mark 11:15 Matt. 21:12
details: "And He found in the Temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords,
HE DROVE THEM ALL OUT OF THE TEMPLE,"
notice it says He drove the humans out, and goes on to say
"WITH the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers' money and overturned the tables. And He said to thosewho sold doves, "Take these things away! Do not make My Father's house a house of merchandise!""
now as for the Gadarene swine, this incident was a clear warning to those who might wrongly pity homeless demons, because the demons being given a new home immediately trashed it driving the pigs crazy and causing their deaths.
Also, it was probably a rebuke to Jews who were keeping the pigs in the first place.
Again, the Temple scene is not a warrant for execution, but it is not a nonviolent and no physical impact on humans scene either.
Again,
I answered your question, now answer mine. What do you think that act of physical aggression on the part of Jesus was to teach followers?
Skip Christine's answer. I did. She doesn't run every conversation although she tries.
What you don't say, Christine, is that the quote you provide about the whip is not from the synoptics but from John 2, and is the only mention in any of the four gospels of a whip. In full: "He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the Temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables."
So he whipped up the cattle and overturned the tables of the moneychangers, but did not whip nor touch any of those persons - exactly as I said. The animals bolted and their owners followed them - literally following their money - and also to stop the stampede before it killed somebody and they became liable.
Enough of this incident(s?) It is in no way comparable with the execution of peacable heretics and the deplorable failure of at least two Christians here to condemn such unequivocally. O what a dreadful impression of the church you give to non-Christian readers of this blog. God told the Israelites never to forget that they were once slaves in Egypt. Let us, the church, never forget that we were persecuted in our early centuries in the Roman Empire. I fear that some of us have.
"What do you think that act of physical aggression on the part of Jesus was to teach followers?"
Keep the Temple holy. You may not use direct physical violence against people to this end, but anything short of it physically speaking front. If you are tempted to overstep the mark, remember Whose Temple it is and that He is perfectly capable of taking care of Himself.
PS Ignore the word "front" above
re read that part about John and yes I DID give the John cite, why is it important if it is of the synoptics or not, you think John is fraudulent or riddled with additions and errors, it merely gives more details.
IT SAYS HE DROVE THEM, the sellers etc. out and then the cattle are mentioned. Of course the whip was laid on the humans. Without special revelation to the contrary, you have to assume it was, and the order in which the statements are made, He saw the sellers, He made the whip, He drove THEM out, and after that the cattle are mentioned, clearly, HE WHIPPED SOME HUMANS.
Probably John had to add details he saw, because silly people were twisting the shorter account to leave out impact on humans, when common sense says it occurred.
Not all driven out were cattle sellers, there were others, and a credible threat of effective force and a fear drove the rest. John wrote his Gospel last, c. AD 90.
"re read that part about John and yes I DID give the John cite"
You gave a quote from John at 4.01pm but did not say where it came from, whereas you gave the chapter/verse refs from the synoptics but not the quotes. Nothing much wrong about that but you are grumbling about my comment "What you don't say, Christine, is that the quote you provide about the whip is not from the synoptics but from John 2". That comment is perfectly accurate.
"why is it important if it is of the synoptics or not, you think John is fraudulent or riddled with additions and errors, it merely gives more details."
What on earth in your own head makes you think I might accept the synoptics but doubt John?
Christine, you may assume what you like about John 2 but it is not safe to infer from it that Jesus definitely whipped people. It could perfectly well be read as a summary that he drove all out, then John goes into the details of how. If the scenario is as I suppose, that he whipped only the animals and overturned the tables, then any eye witness summarising the incident later would certainly say that He drove the moneychangers out.
I rechecked that post, and I apologize, you are right, I was so busy typing the text I forgot the cite. John 2:14-15 and I misunderstood your remark. but I am not inferring anything not obvious from the text. He made a whip and drove THEM out, them referring obviously to the sellers, and drove out the cattle with them. simple. you have to do a lot of inferring and reading into the text, to assume even in the shorter accounts in
the synoptics that no impact physically was made on any human. Absent specific statement to the contrary, and there is none, you can assume a whipping scene includes that. Especially a multi flail whip, when only a stick would be needed to start the cattle out.
Well, anonymous, it seems you want to add to the writings in the Bible in order to attack the Catholic church. If you want to add information, look at the situation historically.
http://jdstone.org/cr/files/jesuscleansingthetemple.html
Question, did Jesus come to the temple as a Jew or as a gentile? The temple was open to gentiles. Had he converted out of Judaism? Was an incident elaborated on in order to foster the growth of Christianity, to separate Jesus' ideas from that of Judaism?
Now if there are such possibilities in the story of the moneychangers, what has been elaborated on in order to demonize the actions of the Catholic church?
Judaism teaches rules of behavior. Christianity teaches rules of behavior. Flawed human beings ignore the rules of behavior they have been taught no matter how important and moral those rules are. The rules still exist to guide everyone. The Catholic churches continues to teach those rules. They do not hold up as moral examples those who have broken the rules.
Since this blog is about the New Age movement, I challenge you to use your scalpel to show the differences between what the New Age movement preaches and what it does. My guess is you won't do it because your goal is to demonize monotheism. You are anonymous and so we have no proof that you are the Christian you claim to be.
http://jdstone.org/cr/files/jesuscleansingthetemple.html
what is the point of this link? the writer at least twice refers to the authors of the NT as UNKNOWN writers, and as for the reference to Temple police, either their intervention was divinely inhibited, or the occasion for some more direct action against them by Jesus, or they secretly approved being either believers in Jesus as were a majority of the populace, or they knew right from wrong enough to dislike what was going on but lacked the guts to do anything or seek to organize to do anything for fear of being reported for such talk and punished.
As least the speculation at the link has a historical basis, whereas your comments come from?
Yes, the selected biblical writers archived in the New Testament are basically unknown. We get some of their autobiographies in the writings themselves.
The New Testament is accepted for many reasons. There is historical continuity, plausibility, some documentation from other sources, continuity from Judaism and the wisdom in the information itself. More than anything belief in Christianity is a matter of faith in the writings and in the institutions supporting those writings. That's been enough for several thousand years. Christianity works whether one looks at it as being supported by the hand of God or just for logical reasons. It works for individuals and communities through time and space.
One needs to face the fact that the apostles and their followers were human beings doing missionary work for a new religion. If dealing with that can shatter anyone's faith, that faith is based on shallow reasoning.
No the NT are NOT unknown. And even liberal scholars are saying the whole NT was written before AD 65 except John and Revelation.
St. Irenaeus was disciple of St. Polycarp who was disciple of St. John the Apostle of Jesus Christ. Irenaeus in AGAINST HERESIES supports the standard attribution of writers of NT.
The churches received and used as authoritative those things the Apostles gave them, and the Apostles were operating in that regard under the direction of The Holy Spirit of Whom Jesus said He will lead you into all truth, plus they were versed by Jesus Himself Who opened the OT Scriptures to them on what was the continuity to OT.
Sure they were human, but God was directing this foundation of the faith.
Hi Constance - all the best with your new book. I'm looking forward to reading it when it's published.
I haven't been around for a long time so a big friendly 'Hello and Happy New Year' to you Constance ... and all of the kind souls who helped me in the past and might still pop in from time to time. :)
~ K ~
Christine, good for you. You are full of faith.
Anon@6.16pm, I am not attacking the Roman Catholic church (an organisation which you were the first to mention between us) but the view among some Christians that it is acceptable in some circumstances for a politically empowered church to execute peacable heretics merely for their views. I gave an example where Rome did this, but history is not my concern. It is the prevalence TODAY of this view that bothers me. Check this thread to see that I first attacked this view in Christine who is not Roman Catholic.
"did Jesus come to the temple as a Jew or as a gentile?"
Jesus lived his life in total loyalty to his father; he was a Jew so this included keeping the Law of Moses, although not every Jewish tradition. However he was also divine and, had he wished, he had every right to wander into the holy of holies at any time. The time was not right during his first coming.
"Since this blog is about the New Age movement, I challenge you to use your scalpel to show the differences between what the New Age movement preaches and what it does. My guess is you won't do it because your goal is to demonize monotheism. You are anonymous and so we have no proof that you are the Christian you claim to be."
In which case you also have no proof I am not Christian, contradicting your preceding sentence. I have said that I am a Trinitarian (and evangelical) Christian. If you think I am lying about that, there is no point in further dialogue.
It doesn't take a lot of thinking to know who you were attacking as being behind the attack on the "peaceful" Cathars. Do you really think this is the first time that attack on Catholicism has taken place? Anyone who knows about the New Age movement knows that people promoting New Age have gone after the Catholics, in Mexico, in Germany, and now in Europe and America that I can document.
You won't go after the New Agers because I challenged whether you were a Christian? How interesting. I do wish the Catholics who posted here in the past were again posting.
this is probably the same anon who claims that I don't know anything about the New Age when I posted a definition that shows there are two major forms, the pop occult and the spiritual ascension exteriorize the hierarchy stuff that feeds into a political thing. This anon never dares attack Constance of course, yet anyone who pursues similar lines of research or statements as she did in her books and many other anti New Age and even neutral New Age description sources do, comes under attack from an anonymous poster.
I have long suspected this person has an agenda. It may be simple NAM or it may be something more complicated like a Christian sunk in the new spirituality (that has also infected RC a lot, I am working on serious problems in Osuna's work that inspired Theresa of Avila). The so called mystical contemplative thing in EO is minimal and heavily guarded with warning about spiritual deception.
One is not supposed to go off into trances but get focused on God all the time.
As long as comments focus on political developments, breathlessly worrying over the antichrist hiding around the corner, this anon is happy. Clearly, the real dangers are more immediate stuff. Precisely what he or she doesn't like being looked at.
Many New Agers dislike the NWO because it is not peaceful and so forth, and not anarchistic and of course Agenda 21 would eliminate rural living. But if your only concern is world politics, you are no real threat to NAM which is as much about "spirituality" and occultism as about politics.
Any practical suggestions about tools to use to attack the NAM that might hit them where some of them live so to speak, or to work against the mind blurring deceptive Delphi Technique of political "dialog" and deception in general and sustainable this and that Agenda 21 in particular gets the non mad.
now I will sit back and wait for another anonymous explosion about my being ignorant and/or a New Age agent or a troll.
"the pop occult and the spiritual ascension exteriorize the hierarchy stuff that feeds into a political thing" That about sums up the New Age movement. Can't argue with you Christine.
"Clearly, the real dangers are more immediate stuff." You astound me with your brilliance Christine.
"Many New Agers dislike the NWO because it is not peaceful and so forth, and not anarchistic and of course Agenda 21 would eliminate rural living." "and deception in general and sustainable this and that Agenda 21 in particular gets the non mad."
I must leave for now. I can't take any more. Keep me from this encyclopedic knowledge.
Dear 1.00am, you wrote "It doesn't take a lot of thinking to know who you were attacking as being behind the attack on the "peaceful" Cathars."
Anybody with any literary sensitivity can see for themselves above that I was mentioning the Albigensian crusade in a historically factual manner as something I was trying to get Christine and an Anon (you?) to condemn unequivocally, which unhappily they didn't. If I wanted to attack the Roman Catholic church on this thread then I'd do it explicitly. But I don't.
Granted that the Cathars did not queue up obligingly to be executed by de Montfort and other leaders of that crusade, but have you evidence to back up your repeated suggestion that they were not peaceable?
"You won't go after the New Agers because I challenged whether you were a Christian? How interesting."
In fact I've written my own essay against New Age which I circulate among church friends privately.
It is hubristic to claim to know what is going on inside the head of somebody whose name and affiliation you don't know. I suspect you are trying to exploit the fact that as an Anon I can't prove my motivation beyond stating it simply in order to needle me. I wonder what your own motivation is.
Just 5 minutes spent on the comments section of this block and I need a nap already........
If there were just information and links shared and a whole lot less opinion and judging we would all benefit.
How about Christine leading the way (since she can't move over and let others by) with that instead of leading this blog into the ditch every time???
I know I'm jumping in on this a little late, but as always, better late than never!
First of all great show this past weekend Constance and I'm thankful to getting the evite to listen to your show which I knew nothing of before hand. I've been out of the blogging world for a while and just jumped back in to make a commentary on Senator Grothman's persecution of his Kwanzaa statements.
Thanks for linking to my website as it is loaded with Kwanzaa info in addition to my ebook. But I did want to respond to Christine on this board about her comment regarding Kwanzaa being non-religious.
I had ignored Kwanzaa for the longest until I became infuriated when my children's schools rejected saying anything about Christ and tried to get my kids to participate in Kwanzaa celebration during the Christmas season in the 90s. That's when I began publishing all my notes on Kwanzaa to show that it is indeed very religious, and created to be an alternative spirituality to Christianity as well as alternative holiday to Christmas. Karenga even called his 7 principles of Kwanzaa (the Nguzo Saba) principles comparable to other religions in one of his earlier books on Kwanzaa - Kawaida Theory (1977).
This information I have tried to get out as much as possible and my research has been used by many to also try to convince people that if Kwanzaa is going to be in the schools, then so should the REAL meaning of Christmas - Jesus Christ!
I'm an ordinary person, not even a writer before Kwanzaa came along. But in the late 70s and early 80s I took Karenga's books that I had to over 4 leading black pastors in Los Angeles, and none of them wanted to tackle Karenga and Kwanzaa. I decided to tackle it myself the best way I knew how.
Anyways, more later and again thank you Constance for mentioning my link!
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=16691
Obama: military chaplains don't need conscience clause
email print
CWN - January 04, 2013
From Our Store: Defining Issues (eBook)
President Barack Obama has charged that a provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, ensuring conscience protection for military chaplains, is “unnecessary and ill-advised.”
In a statement issued upon signing the bill, President Obama said that the conscience-clause protection—which stipulates that chaplains cannot be required to perform ceremonies that violate their beliefs—is unwise. He instructed Defense Department officials to ensure that “the implementing regulations do not permit or condone discriminatory actions.”
Right-o
We have Obama's word that the regulations he supports do not permit discriminatory actions. And we know, right-o, that what he wants is better for us than anything those chaplains may have learned in their religious studies.
http://www.discernment-ministries.org/StrangeFire.pdf
a very good article about The Rise of Gnosticism in The Church.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070314025453/http://piercedforourtransgressions.com/content/category/5/15/52/
defense of penal substitutionary atonement against false claim that its a recent idea.
Anonymous 5:40
The books Massacre at Montsegur and Forbidden Faith, The Gnostic Legacy.
Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't condone the physical attacks by the Catholic church. I described how I believe they came about. If one pokes and pokes a bear, then one would be stupid not to know the bear will attack back. The Cathars showed as little restraint in their political activity as did the Catholic church.
http://www.amazon.com/False-Dawn-Religions-Initiative-ebook/dp/B006AAKYB4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1322517298&sr=8-2
Lee Penn's False Dawn now on kindle for $7.99 from one of Constance's links, but in case anyone missed it here it is.
Dear 12.46pm, this is your usual respondent. When I ask for evidence that the Cathars were not peaceable folk I expect better than two book titles without author names or dates of publication. I am perfectly prepared to believe it provided that you can give evidence of a history of pro-active Cathar violence based on reliable witnesses from contemporary sources that takes into account witness bias (of both sides). Of the two books whose titles you give, none of the seven Amazon.com reviews of Massacre at Montsegur mentions any such Cathar violence (although people may not unreasonably mobilize once they realise that an army determined on genocide is marching on them). Also, it is possible to read 3/4 of the chapter on the Cathars in Forbidden Faith by putting the word "Cathar" into Amazon's "search inside this book" facility, and there is no hint there of pro-active Cathar violence. I am aware of one incident, the murder of the papal legate sent to Raymond of Toulouse. Can you add to that list of one fatality?
"Don't put words in my mouth. I didn't condone the physical attacks by the Catholic church."
You have stopped well short of condemning them though, even though you have to date provided no evidence that the Roman Catholic church was under any physical provocation.
"I described how I believe they came about. If one pokes and pokes a bear, then one would be stupid not to know the bear will attack back."
This grievously blurs spiritual battle (where I would side with the Catholics) with physical battle (where I would side with the Cathars).
http://www.russianbooks.org/montsegur/montsegur2.htm
this indicates that there was some kind of disorders and plotting leading up to all this, politics in the mix as usual.
http://www.russianbooks.org/montsegur/montsegur3.htm
revolts against the French Crown after the assasination. provocations beyond heresy issues, in other words, existed.
I wrote: "I am aware of one incident, the murder of the papal legate sent to Raymond of Toulouse. Can you add to that list of one fatality?"
Christine just has done: a few years after tens of thousands of Cathars were massacred, a small band of Inquisitors, whose job was basically to torture people into confessing heresy, was set upon in Cathar country and killed. But we still remain a vast distance from the claim made by Anon of (most recently) 12.46pm that Cathars were not peaceable folk. It is staggering that this Anon should use the imagery of Cathars poking a powerful animal and being surprised when it fights back. More apt would be Catholics taking a thousand firebrands to a surrounded flock of goats and being surprised when one or two of the male animals charge them in desperation before being cut down and roasted.
This same Anon says that I am whipping up anti-Catholicism here, but appears blind to the fact that his or her posts are responsible for escalating discussion of the obviously morally indefensible Albigensian Crusade. That is centuries in the past and my only concern is that Christians today of any denomination should not share the mindset of those crusaders that heretics should be put to death merely for what they believe. If you believe that you are really no better than the KGB, saved or not.
Anonymous 1:42,
You aren't a professor in a college class I'm attending, you are not a judge of a thesis paper, you aren't my husband, you aren't my boss. You've provided nothing except your own opinion and one fact and yet you expect me to provide you with hours of research? Honey, are you looking at the wrong person! I have the books. You read Amazon reviews. We aren't equals in this discussion. There is nothing in what you have written that suggests you should have that kind of another's time spent on your suppositions.
Forbidden Fruit is a pro-Gnosticism promotional book suggesting it as a good thing which we should move toward accepting. It is here under the label New Age.
If you are looking for a violent confrontation between the two sides started by the Cathars, you need to study the art of war. The Cathars weren't about to take on the Catholic church until they had a strong enough following. They were still building their organizational strength. It was no spiritual, taking place in words only, battle that was forming. You can see it clearly in retrospect by looking closely at the New Age movement and what has happened under the banner of New Age.
Well, you will have it your way by example in the coming years. Christians and Jews are passively standing by, watching the New Age movement grow. Doing nothing, hoping that God will take care of it all because they have faith that God knows they are on the right side. Not even engaging in any pitched battle of words as took place in the years before the Inquisition. Some hotheads may try to physically take on the NWO, part of New Age. Forget it. Can anything else, besides prayer, be done? No. At this time the Gnostic/Cathar/New Age people have numbers power on their side. They have by stealth used words that lull the monotheistic opposition.
I do hope you are around to see it all take place. Then you can intellectually write to members of the underground church you belong to about what should have been done.
anonymous 3:34 PM, please email me infowolf1@aol.com I would like to brainstorm strategies for survival.
Dear 3.34pm, I am indeed not your professor; nor was I claiming any authority over you. If I were your professor, however, I should insist that you improve your low standards of scholarship by learning how to back up your assertions with proper references.
Or are you coming out fighting as a smokescreen because you actually have no evidence that the Cathars were a physically bellicose bunch? Your comments about what they WOULD have done are another example of shoddy academic practice that any history professor would stamp on instantly as professionally improper. History is more contingent than even educated guesswork can allow.
academic practice unencumbered by understanding of history patterns and how to understand from a military intelligence angle things observed, makes for bad thinking. you can predict behavior by preparations leading up to it.
A lot of self defense and spot trouble ahead of time depends on exactly this.
Anonymous 3:18
Tens of thousands? Just what authoritative source provided that vague number.
I hesitate to use Wikipedia, but here goes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
"The Cathars did not recognize the authority of the French king or, evidently, the Catholic Church, and so initially a delegation of friars was sent out to assess the situation in the province of Languedo." Just what part of not recognizing the authority of the French king was spiritual?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathars
"It is now generally agreed by most scholars that identifiable historical Catharism did not emerge until at least 1143.." I have difficulty believing that in roughly 800 years the movement grew to even more than tens of thousands, especially when the beliefs were against those of the controlling Catholic church. Perhaps someone has authoritative information about the size of the movement.
We should add to the discussion the view of the Catholic church. http://www.ewtn.com/library/answers/inquis.htm
"In the 50 years of the operation there were no more than 5000 executions, which was small in comparison to the total executed for other crimes in the same period." Also "The Cathars then were as dangerous as terrorists today, and brought fear, cruelty, bloodshed and war wherever they had sufficient numbers. In southern France it took the full armed power of the King of France to overcome them."
I don't claim to be an authority on the topic. My interest is in the comparison between the Gnostic beliefs of Cathars and New Age leaders.
There has been no growth in civil behavior if one looks around the planet at what humans do to each other. That's why we still need monotheism.
Anonymous 3:51
I can understand your growing frustration as you are unable to support your suppositions. Rather than anger you more, I will stop posting on this topic. All of this discussion is probably just entertaining a few people.
"Tens of thousands? Just what authoritative source provided that vague number."
I was being conservative, for in one town alone, Beziers, a Catholic source records a death toll of almost 20,000; see footnote 17 of the reference you provide yourself, Wikipedia's article on the Albigensian Crusade.
""The Cathars did not recognize the authority of the French king or, evidently, the Catholic Church, and so initially a delegation of friars was sent out to assess the situation in the province of Languedo." Just what part of not recognizing the authority of the French king was spiritual?"
You do not seem to be aware that this was the period during which the coalescence of various regions into what would become known as France was taking place. We are not talking here about an 1860s-style secessionist movement from long-established borders.
Moreover, it was not the king of France (as its borders then stood), Philippe II, who launched this crusade, but Pope Innocent III - whose appeal to Philippe to join in was rebuffed. (Philippe permitted his knights to go, but not as his own army - see his Wikipedia entry.)
You quote EWTN as saying that "The Cathars then were as dangerous as terrorists today, and brought fear, cruelty, bloodshed and war wherever they had sufficient numbers. In southern France it took the full armed power of the King of France to overcome them." We now know that EWTN was wholly wrong about the involvement of the king of France; and what evidence does EWTN provide for cruelty, bloodshed and war perpetrated by Cathars? This is all rather strange, because Catholic missionaries themselves said that the Cathars were peaceable. (Arch-Catholic Bernard of Clairvaux siad as much in his 65th sermon.) You have still not provided any evidence that any decent historian would recognise for the claim that the Cathars were violent - ie, contemporary evidence sieved through a bias filter.
"the Gnostic/Cathar/New Age people have numbers power on their side. They have by stealth used words that lull the monotheistic opposition. I do hope you are around to see it all take place. Then you can intellectually write to members of the underground church you belong to about what should have been done."
I can tell you what we should be doing right now: offering Jesus Christ non-coercively to people; acting as living examples; and, in democratic countries, making arguments (from what Catholics call natural law, not from revelation) for moral laws and against immoral laws. We have no guarantee from heaven that even all that would succeed, and if persecution comes then I should count it the greatest privilege to give my life for Jesus Christ as He gave His life for me. Christine talks of survival strategies, but she might do well to heed John 12:25.
So that's what I'd do... what I would not do is adopt an end-justifies-the-means viewpoint and fight evil with evil, which was Innocent III's consistent policy. May it not be yours.
Anon@4.30pm, yes I too am content to let readers decide which of us is able to support his or her assertions with proper historical evidence.
In answer to the OP: I would greatly enjoy an updated version of "Hidden Dangers" or any other book by this author.
As to naming names, as much as is legally possible (assuming the truth is still permitted as a defence) YES!
I was so hoping to see constructive discussion on the Original post by Ms Cumby. After reading the back-and-forth diatribes by supporters and detractors of the harlot church, I realize that I can never again regain that 15 minutes.
Ron Jones,
I posted information on Kwanzaa at 11:43, 9:45, 7:39, 1:36 and information that led to the 10:37 post. And your addition to information on Kwanzaa appeared where?
"Civil authority had no claim on a Cathar, since this was the rule of the physical world. The goal of a Cathar was to become perfect. Cathar missionaries would point out examples of clerical immorality and would contrast that behaviour with uprightness of their own actions. They took special attention to point out the grievances the people of the south received from the French kings, and exalted a local sense of nationalism and independence."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albigensian_Crusade
clearly this was getting to be political and eventually a totally independent state capable of military action would have been set up. nationalism is of the flesh like St. Paul and St. James warn about any kind of partisan zeal which results in confusion and every evil work.
In addition, it was hypocritical, because since NO civil authority had any claim on a Cathar it follows that they would not respect the authority of even a pro Cathar state set up in southern France.
Their endura was to die of starvation and dehydration (remember Terri Schiavo? that sort of thing) which was enforced on anyone who had received the consolamentum to make sure they died in a state of grace.
I think this situation would have become unspeakable if left to itself for another 200 years or less.
Oh, yeah, seems they hated the cross on the excuse that Jesus was crucified on it, but demons hate this sign also, so what was really going on their hearts?
And rumors of homosexuality....a modern gnostic type said he liked buggery, whether homo or hetero because that way his seed could not reproduce and this stuff that had to do with maintaining the physical universe went into the poop.
The Bogomils apparently got into this, and some of the dandy type homos seem to have thought of their so called love as something higher than the hetero linked as it was to such lowbrow materialism as family and reproduction.
Like I said, a Cathar nation would have become unspeakable after a while left to itself.
That doesn't make the inquisitors and crusaders all that wonderful either. But sometimes one evil is squared off against another.
I am still trying to find indications of Cathar and similar groups being incl. to violence in theory they were sworn to nonviolence, but perhaps that was only the perfecti.
Studying this, I again stumble on indications, that the mind body spirit is good matter is evil contradiction, that sexual inclined new agers blame on Christianity, actually began among pagans.
I have a new post up with critical material from the Club of Rome.
Constance
It's definitely time to name names. Actually, it's biblical. Paul confronted Peter to his face in front of everyone. We are even warned to "rebuke in the presence of all that they may fear." 1 Timothy 5:20
Thank you for your work and I cannot wait for your new book.
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