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Posted on 01/11/2008 5:12:12 AM PST by SJackson
By Mark D. Tooley Like most Protestants, Methodists honor but do not typically pray to the Virgin Mary. But an official with the United Methodist lobby office in Washington, D.C., apparently makes an exception for the "sassy sister savior" when she is redefined to embody the Religious Left's political ideals: a Mary socialist. Neal Christie, who is the Sassy sister-savior, The Virgin Mary of the Gospels left no recorded remarks about the Roman Empire's less than sterling human rights record. But she evidently has very strong views about the Bush Administration's "torture" policies, among many other issues dear to the Religious Left. Christie's prayer continued: Pacing the perimeter of Manger Square, What are all those "refugee camps" around Manger Square? Probably they belong to persecuted Palestinians, who after 60 years still supposedly have no place to go. Why are these victims still homeless? Is it because the Arab world never wanted to resettle them, preferring instead to showcase them as a living argument against Israel's existence? No, the liberationist Virgin Mary is instead setting herself against the "Empire" and its "client states," who are the real authors of global suffering. No doubt on bended knee on Capitol Hill, Christie kept praying: So when today's bloated Herods run wild like malaria, Famously, another more prominent Religious Left spokesman Jesse Jackson compared King Herod to then-Vice President Dan Quayle at the 1992 Democratic Convention. But Christie seemed to liken the infanticidal puppet of Rome more broadly to America as global hegemon: corrupt, predatory, and militaristic. The litany of his prayer went on: When Herod makes the White House and Congress a backroom playhouse; Who knew that the Virgin Mary was so very politically outspoken?! Her recorded words in Scripture are largely confined to thanking God for her role in the Incarnation. Millions of Christians frequently recite her words of praise towards the Almighty: My soul doth magnify the Lord. But in the Religious Left version of Mary's concerns, the mother of Jesus is more concerned about President Bush's veto of proposed enlargements in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The congressionally approved increases would have extended federal subsidies of medical coverage to children of families making $80,000 a year. But everyone knows that the Virgin Mary favors socialized medicine and views increases in SCHIP as an important incremental step. After all, Mary did exclaim in her sacred exhalation: He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. Traditional believers of course understand the "He" of this Scripture as God. But the Religious Left often instead prefers to think of Big Government, and not the Lord, as the ultimate dispenser of justice and mercy. Perhaps Christie should have saved himself the trouble of addressing Mary and instead prayed directly to a divine personificaton of The Welfare State. The Virgin Mary of Scripture and history, who witnessed her son's unjust execution by the state, could indeed have issued a seering political critique of the rulers of her day. Instead, she was more concerned about the transcendent and the eternal, joining with her son's disciples to perpetuate a Gospel of salvation and holiness, not intense political activism. In vivid contrast, the Religious Left always strains to reduce Christianity down to a lobby campaign for the domestic statist causes du jour. And its "prophetic" international stances routinely condemn America and its allies but almost never cite genuine perpetrators of torture and oppression. Maybe the Religious Left should ponder Mary's authentic words: He hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart. Mark D. Tooley directs the United Methodist committee at the Institute on Religion and Democracy. |
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Catholic ping.
Hijacking the Blessed Mother, not a good idea. :(
Methodist leadership seems to leave few stones unturned in discovering ways to twist Christianity into something more “hip”. This ought to full up those empty pews.
Not.
The BVM naked in our cathedral? Who knew?
Personally, I would choose water boarding over crucifixion ever single time.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
Well said. It is remarkable that the UMC continues to exist as a substantial institution. Membership decreases every year. Research indicates that the cause is anti-Biblicism in its seminaries. Yet the leadership says, “This cannot be. We must redouble our efforts to secularize our once great movement.”
There is no courage among its clergy who are cowed by the rigid authoritarianism of the Council of Bishops. It’s missionary zeal is blighted by avowed Marxists at the Board of Global Missions on Riverside Drive. Its theology most closely resembles the Unitarians of the 60’s.
The church of my father has spurned me and taken up with the whore of Babylon.
What? Have the Methodists been taken over by 14-year-old hip-hop “artists” with attention deficit disorder?
As a catholic, this always urks me. As catholics, we ask Mary to pray with us and for us! We ask her to intercede on our behalf.
Today's lie of the day.
Saints preserve us...seriously.
Wait! That sure sounds like abortion to me!
Are they protesting the disposal of the remains of thousands of murdered infants in the solid waste management facility?
Must be an oversight. Surely the real Mary, the real Jewish Mother, is pro-life, but this makeshift-messiah "sassy sister savior" would be pro-choice. I assume.
Also, Mary was a virgin when she bore the Messiah. How does that play with the Feminists?
Funny, when I go through the Hail mary, I do not recall any “sassiness” nor any feminist codswollop.
Hail mary = Hail Mary
Sorry!
What is it with leftists and bad poetry?
Speaking of such - from http://www.catholicconcerns.com/MaryWorship.html
COMPARING CATHOLIC TEACHINGS ABOUT MARY
WITH MODERN GODDESS WORSHIP
Goddess worship is not ancient history. It is going on today. It is practiced in Wicca and a variety of modern pagan religions. (Wicca is a religion based on witchcraft. It involves goddess worship, rituals and spells.)
The credibility of goddess worship has been increased through its acceptance by university professors and its incorporation into textbooks. Wiccan doctrines are being promoted in publicly funded, accredited colleges and universities. Nursing school textbooks are overtly promoting goddess worship, including textbooks written by the National League for Nursing (an accrediting agency for nursing schools). (Note 16)
In the following table, I will compare Catholicism’s version of Mary with the goddess who is worshiped by Wiccans and modern pagans. My reason for doing this is that Wiccans and modern pagans live in modern America. If I compared Catholic doctrine about Mary with the goddess worship of ancient civilizations, it would seem remote and far removed from the real world. It would seem like a legend instead of real life.
As we will see later in this article. Overt goddess worship has infiltrated a number of main-line Protestant denominations. There have been some conferences in which Catholics and representatives of various Protestant groups worshiped the goddess Sophia and openly said that Jesus Christ is irrelevant. (Later in this article I will give some detailed information about those conferences, along with Internet addresses of articles about them.)
All Christian groups need to guard against goddess worship. According to the Bible, God’s people are not supposed to worship any other deities. The Old Testament prophets often rebuked the people of Israel for worshiping “foreign gods.” The people who worshiped the goddess Sophia at those conferences were doing the same kind of thing that the ancient Israelites did. They claimed to be God’s people, but they were worshiping a “foreign god.” (In this case, a goddess rather than a god.)
I am a Methodist and this bothers me, but I don’t see evidence of this in my church.
What is really disturbing is that some of my offerings are probably going to support this crap.
Nonsense!Prove it?
The idiotic article you posted is from a person who does not even exist-Mary Ann Collins
In any event,whoever wrote it is not very bright and in the spirit of the evil.NOT Christ!
Where in the world is Mary Ann Collins?
from...
http://www.speroforum.com/site/article.asp?id=1799
What is unusual is that Mary Ann Collins cannot be located other than on her web site. She states on her web site that her father and pastor cautioned her not to give any personal information. Collins obeyed them with such zeal that many Catholics and Protestants alike now question whether she exists at all or is actually a creation devised by a person or people to credibly spread disinformation about the Catholic Church. In this information age it is fascinating to find someone about which there is no concrete information. No one has admitted ever knowing or seeing her. No one knows where she lives or what she does for a living. She has never given an interview, including anything as innocuous as speaking at a local church to promote her discoveries or books. This is a level of privacy not achieved even by Jack Chick, a famous and notoriously reclusive distributor of anti-Catholic materials.
If you researched your history you would find that the Catholic Early Church Fathers like Blessed Saint Irenaues spoke out against sophia worship.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0103130.htm
I hope you’re not trying to compair the goddess sophia to Our Blessed Mother?
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