Christ's Words Today
“Woe to you scribes and Pharisees! You pick out
gnats while you swallow camels whole.”
Yes, such were the words of Jesus Of Nazareth to the religious leaders during His earthly ministry. Their moral priorities were truly
topsy-turvy; but sadly human nature over two millennia forward has not
changed and Christ’s words are as applicable to most religious leaders
today as they were then. Think, for example, of the Spanish past
cardinals with their own seats reserved within certain Spanish
bullrings.
Yes, think of the prominence given during so called
Catholc Feast Days in Latin countries when animals are barbarically
exploited as an expression of so called sport: live goats thrown out
of church towers as on the photo below.
Yes, and live birds are frequently encased in pots to be bayoneted
- during festivals commemorating saints! - by blind folded young
thugs. And other animals are goaded and prodded through the streets
until they drop exhausted and are then mutilated.
Ah yes, all
this in countries where a worn out mother who finds herself once again
pregnant, is denounced and sorely rebuked if in the confessional she
admits to using or condoning contraception aids. And if – due to
loyalty to such a churches teaching - she were to find herself
pregnant with complications and both the life of herself and of her
unborn in serious danger, such a church then states that she must be
willing to die in order to save her latest. Well, I ask, how far
removed from its teaching can a church remove its teaching from that
compassionate teaching of Jesus as revealed in the four accounts of
the gospel?
Indeed, that such a branch of Christendom should
have the audacity to consider itself the most authentic one just
reveals how far its evolving doctrines have parted from the simple
message of New Testament scripture in which all the apostles – apart
from Paul – were married; and he, being a past rabbi of prominence was
most probably a widower! What is more, this branch of Christendom,
which so vocally denounces the abortion of a foetus, has equally down
the years emphasised that a life that has not received valid baptism
can never enter Heaven! Well, if this is so; then why are they so
determined to oppose abortion? Their reasoning – or to use theological
terms: apologetics! – is not at all consistent. Indeed, such a branch
of Christendom is the victim of its own boasted ‘semper eadem’.(always
the same)
However, the opposite extreme of so-called Christian
expression is surely little better?. I refer to the various ‘post
reformation’ Protestant examples as they exist today. Indeed, none
could be more dogmatic than those of the Calvinistic slant. And one
that very much comes to mind is that of Dr Ian Paisley’s creation: his
own ‘Free Presbyterian Church Of Ulster’. He is, indeed, one with whom
our paths have sometimes crossed - and though as straight as a die! -
such a theologian’s views concerning the animals having a soul, are as
off key as that of any Roman opponent!
Yes, indeed, modern
Puritanical expressions of Protestantism are as bigoted and,
seemingly, immovable as that of the flimsy rock of Catholicism. For
both of them: animals appear to exist on this planet, mostly, in order
that humans may eat them. Consequently, frail little lambs, rather
than touch the heartstrings, appear to touch the taste buds of the
palate! Their appearance, rather than moisturizing the eyes with tears
of compassion, awakens the moisture in the mouth in anticipation of a
so-called carnivorous delicacy!
Well, need one wonder that the
majority of these ‘humans’ are on a downward slope, through
desensitisation, that leads to hell? Yes, and all bolstered up by
chosen expressions of religion which are as far removed from the
teaching of Jesus as the moon is from cheese! Yes, expressions
moulded by viewing all the Old Testament scriptures as being as
infallible as assumed Popes!
Indeed, on one extreme we have
within Christendom the dogmatism and ‘assumed’ inerrancy of a leader
while speaking ‘ex.cathedra’; while to the other extreme, we have the
dogmatism and ‘assumed’ inerrancy of a Bible. Yet the latter is not
one book but a volume; and, indeed, its concepts of God vary and
evolve from one book to the next, for it is not something that has
come down to us from Heaven – as the assumed Koran or the book of
Mormon – but, largely, a compilation of records and histories of a
past Judaism’s quest for God; influenced by priests, sages; and not
least: their prophets!
Consequently, the morals of one period
of the Old Testament are sometimes at loggerheads with those of
another, and to deny this is to frequently find ones self, reading one
part of scripture which contradicts another. For two single examples
– from a host of countless more! -: Genesis 1:29-30 implies that
humans should be vegetarian whereas Genesis 9:3-5 affirms that
humans should be carnivorous. Yes, and Genesis 8: 20-21 implies that
ritual slaughter and animal sacrifice is pleasing to God while Micah
6:6-8 implies it is abhorrent, as do countless other scriptures.
Thankfully, more recent Christian evangelists, from the time of
the Wesleyan Revivals of the early nineteenth century - while not
approving of past Jewish ritual slaughter of animals as approving to
God – did use Christ’s agonising death upon the cross as a true and
willing substitutionary sacrifice of His sinless self to atone for all
our sins considered worthy of our own death!
In an age of
dogmatic sects, each with a neat, cut and dried interpretation of the
Bible, insecure folk can so easily be drawn in to either a church
claiming absolute infallibility or some opposite equally dogmatic sect
or fellowship in which - once entered - you are encouraged to believe
that you hold the truth with the rest of them, and that all outside
have erred or are in spiritual darkness. Hence, to be pitied and
prayed for!
Indeed, in such narrow and dogmatic atmospheres
‘where to stray is to lose not only the fellowship and favours of the
group, but to possibly damn ones destiny’; there is, obviously, no
room to discuss or favour the passing destiny of ‘dumb’ animals!
‘Life is short and eternity is long.’ Consequently, human salvation
is about all that matters to those attending such groups. That is if
one is to avoid years in Purgatory or eternity in Hell, rather than
playing a harp in Heaven!
Indeed, such self-centred
expressions of Faith make the term ‘Christianity’ stink every bit as
much today as it did centuries previous when it tortured heretics
during Catholic Inquisitions, and later burned witches through even a
more enlightened Protestant Commonwealth!
Go on to
Why Are Churches so ineffective and nonchalant concerning Animal cruelty?
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