May 17, 2015
Burning At the Stake, 2015
A last report, for awhile, from Ireland. The Republic is much agitated right now over “The Referendum,” a national vote scheduled for May 22, ostensibly for or against “Marriage Equality.” YES and NO signs, advertisements, handbills, lapel buttons, billboards, and colored balloons infest the normally Spring-green landscape. Speeches, sermons, television ads, comedy routines, and chat-show conversations have addressed little else of late. Almost every lamppost in Dublin city has signs, almost every street corner in little Leixlip village has proponents who accost pedestrians.
It is widely predicted that the YES vote will prevail, granting even more liberal “rights” (or removing existing “wrongs”), at a level of 60-70 per cent.
This campaign, for all its inherent issues, is a subset of Ireland’s recent obsession with joining the 21st century in a variety of ways. Long a depressed economy, it enjoyed the “Celtic Tiger” of rapid growth not long ago, only to crash in major fashion, due in part to over-expansion and the worldwide depression seven years ago. It climbs back, aiming toward a voice in European and world affairs. In civil matters it is taking a quantum leap to join societies with permissive policies on sex, drugs, abortion, and such.
It is a rather startling social revolution for this formerly traditional and traditionally Catholic country. Only in 2013, for instance, anti-abortion restrictions were modified; and recently even the sale of contraceptives was not allowed.
Much of the attitude adjustment largely is deemed to be part of a seismic reaction against the Catholic Church, its hidebound activities and dominance in Irish life. More than its counterparts in Latin European nations, or as with “state churches” in the Protestant north, the Catholic Church permeated every aspect of social and political life, and institutions like the educational system. When the fossilized church and especially the multitude of appalling sex and pedophilia scandals reached critical mass, the critical Mass became irrelevant to millions of Irish.
Church attendance and membership drastically is down; local churches have merged or closed; and the voice of the clergy suddenly is reviled. Traditional Protestant and new independent Christian fellowships have gained adherents, but not at a rate that mirrors Rome’s loss.
This is the background of the scene in Ireland, and the details surrounding the Referendum vote. But I would not be addressing it here except for its role as a manifestation of the larger profile of my recent and frequent concern, the post-Christian West. The “Marriage Equality” referendum is about marriage in the same manner as “birth control” is about birth. Ireland already permits civil unions, and the perceived flaws in pertinent codes could be addressed by simple, even bureaucratic adjustments.
No, the discussions about marriage equality, so-called, are not designed to guarantee or preserve so much as to attack and destroy. The YES proponents immediately and continually refer to LSMFT, or whatever, classifications, as well as Q for Queer… in fact, 41 various sexual classifications (a bureaucratic word for deviations). Surely some of these orthographical gymnasts comprise microscopic populations, their bizarre practices not merely obscene but obscure. I am civil libertarian enough to maintain that rights do not depend upon numbers.
Lord knows, when practicing Christians themselves have been reduced to small numbers, we likewise will seek basic protections.
But the advocates of the New World Order have something else in mind than being champions of women with wieners. Like the crazies of the French Revolution, who sought to abolish calendars and ordinary social constructs, the moral sociopaths in our midst want to re-write the Pledge of Allegiance; supersede Mr, Mrs, and Ms with honorifics reflecting peoples’ sexual pastimes; outlaw men’s and ladies’ toilets; and criminalize the reading of most Bible passages.
It constantly astonishes me that our generation of nitwits thinks than they know better, in every area, than hundreds of previous generations and scores of world cultures, and all the perceived and inherited wisdom of civilizations’ evolution. The advance of years does not automatically result in “progress” in morals, arts, and other fields of human endeavor. In truth, the human race has regressed except in a few areas like medicine and industry.
Our toys are shinier, but they are hollow and quickly grow obsolete. The human race, instead of reverting to our great theology, or great traditions, or great standards of creativity, chases more and more chimeras and wills-o’-the-wisps. Instead of an increase in moral clarity, we are, as the Bible says, like dogs returning to our own vomit.
The things that astonish me, just mentioned, pale in comparison to my amazement at the number of Christians who allow or even promote the current and ongoing lunacy. The Bible, for instance, is clear about God’s disapproval of “abominations.” It is obvious (alert for professional loophole-hunters) that Scripture nowhere describes, except disapprovingly, homosexual sex.
Yet many Christians defend “marriage equality” on the basis of collective guilt for unknown and various folks who insulted homosexuals. Is the rape and pillage of biblical standards, Western traditions, and the foundations of our national life justified – worth it – because of ancient nastiness? If Christians are confronted by God in judgment and asked why they condoned and promoted deviancy and abominations as He proscribed, and if their only answer is “a desire not to hurt peoples’ feelings,” can that meet a requirement of a just God?
Pastors: is your desire to be politically correct, your need to attract new members (never mind the ones who will desert you), your denial of biblical commands, so strong that you think, in 2015, that your wisdom is superior to Almighty God’s?
This is not Ireland’s challenge alone: this crisis faces all of the Christian West, all of the rotting corpse of post-Christianity. The Trojan Horse of “Marriage Equality” is emblematic of the wide range of history’s second Revolt of the Angels – man thinking he knows more than God (if a God there be in their eyes), choosing time after time after time death over life, degeneracy over decency.
For it is an assault on our families and our future, as much as on “unfairness” or the Church Triumphant, when homosexuality assumes the mantle of a protected species. When deviancy is promoted in state-run schools. When the traditional family is demoted and supplanted. When expressing opinions such as here will be a crime that would send me to prison. When the Sexual Whatevers are no longer content with being allowed civic protections but must attack the word and the concept of Marriage (a Sacrament, an Ordinance, to the religious).
If this be hate speech, make of it what you will. The lunatics have been running the asylum for some time, actually. Soon they will staff the Thought Police, the Conscience-Gulags, the Gas Chambers of Freedom. In the year of our Lord 2015 the prophets and apostles of the New World Order have set fire to the stakes on which are lashed our heritage and our futures. Soon, believers themselves will feel the flames too.
“Eighty and six years have I served him, and He never did me any injury. How then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” — Polycarp, a Disciple of John the Apostle and Bishop of Smyrna, before he was burned at the stake for his faith.
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Having just been in England and witnessing their election the same prevailing effect of doing away with right, in promoting wrong are very much in effect. Thank you Rick, for opening our eyes that the distruction of the postmodern Christian world is worldwide. It is time for every Christian to be on on knees.
The history of gays being assaulted, murdered and tortured amounts to “insults”? And you have the gall to compare yourself to Polycarp the martyr? “Conscience-Gulags” and “Gas Chambers of Freedom”, in capital letters no less. You don’t even come of as sounding sane much less justified. Reading this ludicrous chicken little drivel reminds me of my racist grandfather screaming at the television every time Sanford and Son came on. It makes me queasy and sad. Thank God, and I’m sure God is pleased, that your type of mindset is fading into the minority voice it should be.
Rick Marschall believes the law should conform to his exact religious beliefs, which means that people outside his religion should apparently be punished for their lifestyles. I’m sure he has similarly choice words for Jews and people who eat cheeseburgers (since mixing meat and milk is another Leviticus abomination).
Marschall also slipped in the ‘SMF’ initialism into the ‘LGBT’ initialism, and went out of his way to emphasize the word ‘Queer’, which he didn’t bother to explain (i.e. people who are attracted to any gender)–probably because he wants to use it as a slur. So you know there’s a LOT of love in that Christian heart of his.
If Marschall wants to convince people that gay marriage is a bad thing, he has to come up with a better excuse than “It says so in a book I like!” and ranting about ‘1984’.
The author of this trashy expression of ignorance reminds me of his fellow Hollywood televanelgiist, Jimmy Swaggart
For starters, his rant is based on one poll of doubtful credibility. The poll included in addition to the 50 states the city of Washington, D.C., a Democratic Party stronghold of government workers, who are atypical of Americans generally.
What if instead of the Leftist bastion D.C. had included Puerto Rico, which may in the near future achieve statehood? Puerto Rico is approximately 85% Catholic.
Other pollesters haven’t detected any dramatic fall in the numbers of Catholics.
Quickly: I am not a televangelist; not from Hollywood (neither is Brother Swaggart); I did not base my essay on a poll, anyway not one where government workers skewed its results — I take a breath to wonder about the relevance of your points — Puerto Rico and Catholicism, if they pertain at all to my point, are generally backsliding to the degree as the rest of American society; and “pollesters” have indeed detected a diminution in the Catholic population — just as the Catholic Church itself has. (See http://www.realclearreligion.org/articles/2015/06/13/what_to_do_about_decline.html ) I am happy, however, that I touched a few nerves with this essay, because the differences in our society must be more clearly delineated as the ultimate crisis comes.
Ha Ha Ha! If you call Jimmy Swaggert brother I know your totally lost. Those fake tears he used to shed when he needed money or after he got caught with a hooker? I mean that was the funniest shit on TV back in the day! Your arguments are bad enough but that? You’ve lost any credibility you might of had with that post. The ultimate crisis you mention is already PAST TENSE in case you didn’t notice. By the way, your not touching nerves, just funny bones( or maybe something else if your Jimmy Swaggert).
I don’t mind responding to nitwits; it is a slow day. “Brother” (capitalized) is not only his title — as in, um, President Obama — but also using irony, obviously lost on you. Nice language, by the way. And nice grammar/ spelling — it is Swaggart, not Swaggert, about whom you are an expert; it is, properly, “might have,” not “might of”; and three times you wrote “your” (possessive) when you mean “you’re” (contraction). When someone reads this to you, ask him or her to explain it.
Nice, correcting the errors caused by my dyslexia. Very substantive response. Very condescending. Very Christ like and delightfully pastoral. That is the tactic of someone who has no rational rejoinder to criticism. I would prefer to be prone to errors in spelling than errors of judgement like you. That leaves me more convinced that you are in fact the true “nitwit”.