Why is there so much political hatred today?
It’s not just online discussion, where it can seem that everybody hates everybody. Nor is it just the Church, where the Francis papacy has heightened differing positions that are often expressed in political terms. The polls confirm that polarization is real, even among the general public.
It’s an alarming situation, since St. Augustine tells us that common loves are needed to make a community. People have different theories about why it is happening. The simplest theory is that the other guys have gone crazy and chosen obvious evil. That might be true, since if everybody thinks everybody else is insane, there must be a lot of insanity around.
But we should stand back a little and try to get some perspective.
The need for common loves is basic. To make a political community, something has to support cooperation, trust, and willingness to sacrifice. That’s not easy to bring about, and the obvious way to do it is with common loves that are broadly accepted and relate to things that are fundamental and enduring.
That has made religion, along with basic human ties like kinship and a long history of life together, the usual basis for political order. That’s never worked perfectly, since nothing human does, but it’s how the world has generally bumped along.
But people today view such things as unjust and even bigoted when treated as the basis for political community, since that means that some people get preferred. Mr. O’Hara, whose ancestors have lived in County Sligo for hundreds of years, will have advantages there over Mr. Ohara from Kyoto, and the reverse will hold true in Japan.
What, people ask, is so important about the happenstance of birth and a slight difference in spelling?
Instead, they believe, political community should be based on laws that affect all equally, and on universal values that inspire them. But not all universal values will do. God and the Good, Beautiful, and True are universal, but they aren’t considered universal enough, since different people—and different religious and cultural groups—understand them differently.
In the end, the only universal value that’s good enough turns out to be universality itself—in other words, the principle that everyone and everything should be treated the same. If we are to have a political community of the kind now considered legitimate, it must be based on an attachment to equality.
But how well will that work? Equality, like other versions of justice, sometimes eliminates real oppression, or at least opens opportunities. But it’s not central to most things we care about, and rarely determines whether we’re satisfied with the choices we make, successful in pursuing them, or happy in our personal relationships. And it’s usually connected to resentment of those who seem to have some sort of privilege. So how much love will it really inspire?
Also, efforts to promote it—when taken to the extremes necessary when something so abstract and demanding is made an ultimate standard—suppress real goods and bring their own forms of oppression. How, for example, can we be allowed to associate with the people we love, and praise and promote the things we value, when that freedom means that the people and goals favored by the majority, or by the rich and powerful, will receive more social support than others?
Equality thus means that attachments other than our attachment to the system itself must be weakened for the sake of nondiscrimination. But the latter attachment, even if real, seems unlikely to endure. Liberation from particular ties may seem like fun for a while, but how happy will the weakening of family life and unforced local community it brings make anybody?
Most basically, perhaps, equality is never real, since every society depends on hierarchy. If everything is to be equal, there have to be people who decide what that requires and have the power to enforce it. These people will not be equal to the rest of us, and if they’re like every other privileged group, they won’t limit their privileges to those necessary for their social function.
Even their necessary privileges will be extensive. Love of equality is too much at odds with the human tendency toward particular attachments to prevail through unforced consensus. So it will have to be supported by a system of propaganda, censorship, and regulation. If you don’t like it, you’ll be shut up and forced to comply.
Worse, the weakness of the love supporting the system means it will need other, less appealing supports. The usual solution has been to promote the common love of getting stuff. So governments now promise both equality and ever-increasing prosperity. But that can’t motivate much mutual loyalty or willingness to sacrifice. Also, it can’t be guaranteed, and it’s led to a system of deficit-supported payoffs that can’t last forever.
The obvious alternatives for motivating collective political action include fear, envy, and hatred of real or supposed enemies, including people who seem to have privileges. Such sentiments are easy to stir up in a society in which human connection and mutual trust are weak, and they always seek out a focal point. So, a system of equality will become a system of scapegoating as well.
A system that puts equality first thus presents itself as one of universal love, with particular concern for the disadvantaged. But it becomes more and more a system of suspicion, envy, division, and hatred. Since everyone must pretend to feelings he does not have, it becomes a system of lies and hypocrisy as well.
With all that in mind, it’s not surprising that the most vigorous attempts to do away with economic and legal inequality—for example by communizing property and instituting a system of people’s courts—have resulted in the most extreme and violent inequalities imaginable. Who wouldn’t rather put up with our present system, or for that matter with rule by George III and a parliament of British landowners, than with Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot?
What to do? The simple-minded way to escape from a system that puts equality and abstract reason at its center is to go for inequality and irrationalism instead. That’s been tried, and it’s led to catastrophe. One interpretation of Nazism is that it looked at Soviet communism, kicked out the hypocrisy about equality and reason, and kept what was real: tyranny and terror.
But, someone might ask, what’s the relevance? Kamala Harris may be on the (theoretically) egalitarian side, Donald Trump on the side opposing that, but concrete similarities to Mao and Hitler are hard to find, in spite of absurdly overheated claims to the contrary.
Even so, some of the same dynamics are at work. We’ve seen enough suspicion, envy, division, hatred, and even violence to last us for a long time. Nor do the problems seem likely to go away, since we seem locked into equality as an ultimate standard, and nothing better is visible on the horizon. “Wokeness” has supposedly receded somewhat, and MAGA has taken a stand against it. But the anti-woke Right has proposed no alternative standard other than “winning” and “Team America” in the case of MAGA, and “let’s be a bit more sensible” in the case of more genteel conservatives.
Genteel conservatism can do little more than slow things down, since it lacks vision, and a vision like “Win Team Win” may promote a more functional society to some extent, but the benefits are likely to play out soon. What is needed are strong and substantive common loves, but it is easier to call for them than bring them about.
Human beings remain human beings, and darkness is never uniform, so practical improvements in our public life are undoubtedly possible, and we need to support them. But what we really need is love of God. Without that, an order worthy of human nature becomes impossible.
Toward the end of Mater et Magistra, Pope Saint John XXIII spoke of “the absurd attempt to reconstruct a solid and fruitful temporal order divorced from God.” Our basic political goal must be to heal that divorce. If we heal it in our own lives, we will be in a position to persuade others, and it may catch on.
If we don’t, what hope is there for ourselves or the world?
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“…equality is never real.”
It is only real, when , in respecting The Will of God, the result is human flourishing.
We read: “Who wouldn’t rather put up with our present system, or for that matter with rule by George III and a parliament of British landowners, than with Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot?”
For whatever it might add to this conversation, Benedict XVI had this to say about the acts of Stalin and Hitler and even our own politics of mere conviction…
“As Paul had affirmed (Rom 14:23), no one may act against his own convictions. But the fact that one’s conviction is naturally binding at the moment one acts does not mean a canonization of subjectivity. One who follows the conviction at which he has arrived, never incurs guilt. Indeed, one must follow such a conviction. BUT guilt may very well consist in arriving at such perverse convictions by trampling down the protest made by the anamnesis of one’s true being, The guilt would then lie on a deeper level, not in the act itself, not in the specific judgment pronounced by conscience, but in that neglect of my own being that has dulled me to the voice of truth and made me deaf to what it says within me. And this is why criminals like Hitler and Stalin, who act out of deep personal conviction, remain guilty [….] ‘Clear thou me from hidden faults’ (Ps. 19:12)” (Ratzinger/Benedict, “Values in a Time of Upheaval”, 2006, pp. 96-7).
“Who wouldn’t rather put up with our present system, or for that matter with rule by George III and a parliament of British landowners, than with Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot?”
******
My ancestors definitely were fans of George III. That earned them a one way ticket to a Nova Scotia refugee camp.
🙂
My 5th great grandfather was a Tory or Loyalist. He too ended up in Nova Scotia after two years in prison. He died alone and poor in Nova Scotia. Curiously, King George did not do much for his American subjects who were loyal to him. As Oscar Wilde said “no good deed goes unpunished.”
Actually Britain kept its word in evacuating its Loyalists -including those of colour. There’s still a settlement of descendants of Black Loyalists in Nova Scotia today.
Sometimes doing what seems right can bring real hardships. Loyalty can bring suffering also. But a new life in the Canadian wilderness beats slavery on a plantation any day I think.
Thanks for the citation. I’ve often wondered about this kind of situation.
It reminds me of interviews with former Khmer Rouge – “at the time, we thought it was all for the best.” Many – including Comrade Duch, who ran the horrific Tuol Sleng prison, later became Christian, because it offered the possibility of forgiveness.
It seems to me this is why Christ emphasized the sin against the Holy Ghost, and the Church obstinate doctrinal error. If your basic understandings are wrong there’s no limit to what you might do.
From what I’ve observed recently, Wokeness has moved to the Right as well.
The “Right” understood how? As the left, who control almost the entirety of modern communications, including the verbal engineering of definitions, characterizes what they call the “Right?” Or do you simply describe submission?
Some people still view the idea of unchangeable truths about the human condition, and those who defend this idea, such as the Catholic religion, as unacceptably intolerant.
Why no common love, dear James Kalb?
Surely the cause is ‘spiritual deficiency’ not political nor psychosocial . . .
“But I (the LORD Jesus Christ) say to you:
‘Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.'” Mt 5:44
“But I (the LORD Jesus Christ) say to you:
‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly.'” Lk 6:27-28
“Bless those who persecute you, never curse them, bless them.” Romans 12:14; see also Romans 12:17-21
“In this way we distinguish the children of GOD from the children of the devil; anyone not living a holy life & not loving others is no child of GOD’s.” 1 Jn 3:10
Why are such crystal-clear instructions ignored?
Could it be there are many non-regenerate people in The Church, even at high levels.
Only those who have made a sincere & enduring decision to seek GOD in Christ & perseveringly follow His commands are able to be regenerated by The Holy Spirit.
No decision to faithfully pursue obedience = no Holy Spirit regeneration = no capacity to comprehend & joyfully obey Jesus’ instructions.
Lack of eager obedience to obey has consequences. When will we wake-up . . ?
To those who’d say: “This is too hard!” we might reply: “Just try it!”
CHRIST’s yoke really is easy, His burden really is lite . . !”
I have, in my dotage, come to the conclusion that in politics the alleged distinctions between conservative and liberal, leftists and rightists are no longer useful as their empirical referents are chimerical at best. There’s no question in my mind that a polarization in politics exists. The fact is that politics is downhill from culture. And the polarization in our culture is palpable and conforms indeed to what Christ told us as found in the Gospels.
For my thinking, the polarization in politics, as it is in culture, comes down to a simple bifurcation. There are those who acknowledge God in their minds and hearts and their life practices clearly convey a worship of the Creator God. Mind you, there are those who give a begrudging assent to the existence of God but the personalization of their assent ends there; they do nothing discernible to suggest that God is the ultimate authority over their lives.
So the polarization in politics is between those who frankly openly deny God’s existence and look for what they worship and will obey elewhere. A subgroup of these are those whom I referred to above – those who are nominal deists but practical atheists. The second political group are those who believe in God, acklowedge His authority over their lives, give proper obeisance to God in private and in public and clearly demonstrate in their lives that nothing is more important than God.
This is how I now divide the public discourse in politics. It also happens to be how I deliberate about matters in various religions – including our own Catholicism- because even though there are many who profess to be Deists, their lives give little or no evidence that such a belief rules over the conduct of their everyday affairs. For those who decry that such a poalization exists, I’d say go back and read through the Gospels. Christ clearly recognizes this reality but warns us that we must come down on one side or the other.
Concerning “the absurd attempt to reconstruct a solid and fruitful temporal order divorced from God.”
We need ever to recall that New World Order was formented by enemies of Catholicism: that the antithesis of Faith is Politics.
Post-Conciliarism surges from the expressed desire to throw open the windows and find accommodation with New World Order. An unlikely alternative to evidence of infiltration would be an extremely naive hope that the Church could better impact New World Order’s luciferian Political Project for humanity from within rather than from without.
What occurred practically was a fundamental shift from 2000 years of conservation of the Faith to its surrender at the service of Politics : the adoptuon of interreligious politics within the council texts was the means to shifting Catholicism towards the servitude of an alternative Political project: the atheistic “brotherhood of man”. An exageration?
Is the Vatican’s signature on UN Agenda 2030 not the aboutissement of Post-Conciliarism, the Catholic Church actively adopting and promoting a Political project for humanity which stands fundamentally at odds with the Faith professed Ad33-Ad1962? Fewer carbon emissions aside, it means fewer Catholics, and adopting the ideology of Inclusion – Diversity and Equity.
“The Francis papacy has heightened differing positions that are often expressed in political terms”
The catastrophic bifurcation between pre-conciliar Faith and Post-Conciliar Politics has created an internal tension within the Church which has been falsely framed as Conservative-Liberal. This has merely been a convenient papering-over the fundamental shift from Faith to Politics, framing the situation from an NWO perspective.
Can the Catholic Church return to defending her Divinely Commissioned Catholic Project for humanity or is she now doomed to serve New World Order’s Fratelli Tuti under the umbrella of a luciferian super-state?
Faith or Politics? The root of Catholic anger lies there…
This is an interesting discussion. I’ll be the first to admit, I fall woefully low on the academic ladder in the disciplines of psychology, philosophy, theology etc. So I will go to the simple straight and narrow commentary. Where did society go astray from the basics of truth and to love one another as Christ says, as I have loved you. Have we forgotten our origins have come from God’s love for us. And in that He teaches us truth and then, as in Psalm 117, Go out to all the world and tell the good news. I ask, have we completely turned our back to accepting truth and then teaching it to others. Going to our own interests, our individual sense of being superior to others which leads us away from the basic truth to love one another. Does truth unite us and self interests divide us? We should ask ourselves this question in a thoughtful and sincere way. We have different talents and interests, but all of it should be grounded in truth, thus we serve one another in the truths of the Gospels proclaiming the Good News.
“And He said to them: Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every créature.
He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be condemned.”
Jesus Christ, Son of God.
Mark 16:15-16
Faith in Jesus Christ or Post-Conciliar Interreligious Politics?
To be clear, I do not hate anyone. That said, there is no making peace with a person or political party that promotes the uncut evil of the killing of the unborn. There is no acceptable or justified middle-ground compromise with evil. Arguably, half of the American population have abandoned God and with that vacuum enters all manner of evil. Abortion. Homosexuality as an accepted “alternative lifestyle” to be celebrated. Secular humanism, which is in fact their religion. The other half of the population at least evidences some residual Christendom. The meeting of the diametrically opposed two, two religions in direct opposition, is not and will not be pleasant, hence the “political hatred.”
Good points and true. Viktor Frankl, the Viennese psychiatrist and concentration camp survivor wrote that there are two types of people in the world, and only two: those who are decent and those who are not. Those who are decent need to stand firmly and apologetically against the darkness and evil of our age.
He was a great thinker. I’ve learned a lot from him.
“Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.”
Viktor E. Frankl
Whence the chaos? The concise answer is the Marxist endeavor across Church and society to engender chaos in order to undermine the pillars of Western Civilization. This demonic enterprise is succeeding mightily during the past seventy-five years to a degree that is frightening. The continuing abandonment of Christian doctrine by the Church and other Christian communities, the virulent atheism of the Academy, the marginalization of the religious impulse by secular society, the reemergence of fraudulent Islamic ideology and now the bold embrace of Marxism by our Democrat Party accelerate our cultural decomposition. With the rise of AI it is sure to be magnified.
Our new Holy Father articulates a concern over AI. He need address the cesspool in our backyard before he takes on the beast itself.
The non-intellectual answers are found in Sacred Scripture –
(See 2 Thessalonians Ch2)
”
Therefore, God is sending them a deceiving spirit so that they may believe the lie, that all who have not believed the truth but have approved wrongdoing may be condemned.”
God has been most generous by sending several spirits since Jesus’ ascension into Heaven –
Muhammed
Martin Luther
Robespierre
Carl Marx & his cast of his horrific legacy, including Lenin, stalin, Mao, and in these times, Putin, Xi & Kim.
So, since the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ into Heaven, humanity has never been lacking in having any number of deceiving spirits among us at any given time.
2Thessalonians also touches on the great apostasy, in which we are now living, to quickly (God’s timescale) be followed by the antichrist. We know that the whole purpose, effort and intent of the illuminati is to lay the political, economic and social foundation for “their Guy”.
What human history contains is a chronicle of Almighty God actively separating the wheat from the chaff, which peaks during the reign of antichrist.
One of you said that politics is what remains of a society that has rejected God. It is not denial of God. Like ignorance, there is less culpability in denial. A logical, calm, calculated decision to reject comes from having carefully weighed both sides, including having full knowledge of the ramifications and consequences of accepting or rejecting both options, then making the choice. The individual souls that are in hell, made their selection with full knowledge of the consequences of their actions and made said choice with complete and unhindered free will.
Now, why is everyone arguing?
I don’t think that it can be described as political hatred, at least not from one side.
In the 1950’s one side may have wanted to spend 20 billion dollars on road construction and the other side only 10 billion. They could compromise on 15 billion.
Today one side wants all the abortion they can get, and the other side opposes this.
One side wants same sex showers and the other side does not.
One side says people, including minors, can change their sex, and the other side opposes this.
There is really no room for compromise on these issues. We are not only in a political battle, but a religious, spiritual, moral battle. There will be winners or losers, but not compromise. In fact, I would say the more fight and the less compromise the better.
Yes. We can compromise in politics but not with evil. Those are two different things.
But one side of the political spectrum is evil.
Yes, Crusader we do find more support for certain evils on the Left but the Right has its troubles, too. We really have to separate ourselves from politics when making moral decisions. Politics can lead us into wanting to belong a “team” and checking off the required membership boxes. Christianity is not something political. It’s a relationship with Christ, not the GOP or any other party.
mrscracker, I am not advocating a relationship with the GOP. It is not a matter of trying to make heaven on earth. But we are all affected by society, maybe especially our children and grandchildren. The present administration is not perfect, but the previous administration advocated for the killing of the unborn, transgenderism, sex changes for minors, etc. We can either exercise the Benedict Option and withdraw into our own circle, or we can do what we can to make a more christian society – and however unpleasant that may be, it does involve politics.
For sure, Crusader. That’s why I voted for Trump. The other side was so removed from everything right and decent. There was no other option for me.
But I’m not checking off every MAGA box either.
Hey Crusader, lighten up! Surely there can be a middle ground of compromise like, say, an appeal to the conveniently ambivalent term “fraternity”…
Two points:
FIRST, for Christians we then have a graced fraternity, and for Catholics the sacramental “Mystical Body of Christ” with its head. For Muslims, they have the parallel (but not equivalent!) “ummah,” which is reportedly blind to differences in race and nationality and stuff like that.
SECOND, but, wait, it’s almost as if the ummah and Mosque are a substitute of sorts for Christianity and for the Church! That is, a substitute but with the divinity of Christ denied; the Church with its “head” cut off!
Islamic “fraternity” in their words:
“An Islamic State to begin with, must encourage social harmony. In accordance with the famous verse of the Qur’an (XLXIX:10), ‘The believers are but a single brotherhood,’ the first characteristic of the Islamic State is fraternity [!]. This verse asserts that Muslims, whatever their country, race, color, or language, are members of a single brotherhood. Among the believers, white and black, rich and poor, master and servant, Arab and non-Arab, all stand together and enjoy equal rights and bear equal responsibilities in running the State [the fused Mosque/State?]. The force of Islamic brotherhood is such that even blood relationship counts for nothing. A non-believer [say what?], thus, even if connected with a believer by blood ties, falls into a totally different category [!]” (Farooq Hassan, “The Concept of State and Law in Islam,” 1981, p. 40).
SUMMARY: All fraternities are equal, but some are more equal than others! So, the unbridgeable gap between Islamic “beliefs”—as yet another natural religion, versus “faith” in the person of Jesus Christ—the supernatural revelation.
Peter, there is also a fraught fraternity amongst demons, but it means nothing.
Only Catholicism Ad33-Ad1962 had the answer for humanity: baptism into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Faith.
All other forms of fraternity – amongst victims of atheism, islam, LGBTQetc, freemasonry – are mistaken arising counterfeits for the brotherhood in Jesus Christ.
The problem is the syntheis of Catholicism with World Order: resulting in the Post-Conciliar Novos Ordo Church.
This has finally yeilded the ultimate abandonning of the Catholic mission Ad33-Ad1962 and adoption of the New World Order project of a relativistic Brotherhood of man: Fratelli Tuti.
At the price of Apostasy from Catholic Truth, an alternative project which promises the false freemasonic dream of a brotherhood of man has been adopted.
Will Pope Leo XIV reaffirm Catholic Truth, or proceed with the New World Order schema laid out by his predessor’s signature of UN Agenda 2030 and Synodal Democracy?
Catholicism or Fratelli Tuti?
Please read : mistaken naturally-arising counterfeits
James Kalb attorney at law and described here also an ‘independent scholar’, images in a sense Thomas Reed Powell, law professor and President of the American Political Science Association.
Kalb has a deep interest in the moral dynamics affecting societal conflict, accommodation, simply getting along. Even though we may have a religious sensitivity to events, much remains a mystery to be explored.
Commentaries posted here express awareness of complexity rather than categorization, absence of God, Marxist influence.
“One who follows the conviction at which he has arrived, never incurs guilt” Beaulieu quoting Benedict XVI offers an intriguing proposition regarding evil doings and guilt. But then Benedict goes on to say, “But guilt may very well consist in arriving at such perverse convictions by trampling down the protest made by the anamnesis of one’s true being”.An exceptional intellect seeking to correct a logical absurdity that if one believes they’re correct their evil deeds are not their responsibility. This dynamic is at the issue posed by Kalb’s question Why Political Hatred? A very tricky question.
Placed in context of Benedict’s formula of conscience it’s because all the haters believe they’re justifiably hateful. But wait! Are all haters hating scot free of moral responsibility? Paul thought so. Was it that the Apostle was simply following the Law doing God’s will, and the Pharisees who crucified Christ were not?
Christ as always has the answer. We’re all guilty due original sin and our propensity to sin. Therefore, forgive your enemies, your political adversaries. Pray for them. Sin is irrepressibly perceived due to the natural law within. That sin we should hate. Insofar as our brother do not hate, but love as I have loved you.
God save us from willful blindness. But it’s hard to know our own motives, and it can be hard to distinguish willful blindness from refusal to be pressured or cajoled into a false position. Oremus invicem.
It used to be that a personal and probing examination of conscience–one that gets beyond the routine checklist and into the more “hidden faults” (Ps 19:12)–might actually detect willful blindness or even a few less conscious “false position(s).”
But, hey, this “anamnesis of one’s true being” (see 3:06 A.M., above) is difficult stuff, and therefore not fluidly progressivist enough, and very rigid and backwardist. Beware the sacramental life!
To be political or to be apolitical, that is the question.
Br Jaques,
If Catholic Faith is the antithesis of NWO Politics, avoiding NWO Politics would be the safer option for the good of one’s soul; being sucked into a spiral of NWO Political hate is spiritually harmful by design?
Dear Brother. The US judiciary is supposed to be apolitical, especially SCOTUS. The current Supreme Court is comprised of 6 RIGHT and 3 LEFT. All appointees of a Supreme and highly suspect politician. I pray for their conversion to sanity and love.
Per a recent book review of “The Thomistic Response to the Nouvelle Theologie” by Dr Edward Feser the Traditional Church and the modern church after Vatican II now have mutually exclusive definition of truth, the objective truth in conflict with the subjective truth.
Looks like a great book.
I note there were “worries that too much emphasis on dialogue with modern thought could compromise the uniqueness of Catholic truth or lead to relativism.” Here we are…
As learned commentors have already stated, there were and are 2 types of people: 1. those who seek GOD and passionately desire to lovingly obey GOD’s commands in Jesus’ ‘Lamb of GOD’, ‘Power Under’, deferred eternal victory way.
The ancient Psalmists summarized it well: “Wait upon The LORD”.
In contrast: 2. a majority of people who chose the ‘Power Over’, Darwinian Survival of the most aggressive, ‘victory NOW’ way that sidelines GOD’s commands.
The first group are said by Saint Paul to be “in The Holy Spirit of GOD”; the second group are said to be “in the flesh” and “worldly” and even “devilish”.
Think: the commandments for a seriously Catholic Christian contain all that Moses gave PLUS their fuller & far more powerful framing, by Jesus Christ. For example:
we can link the main Commandments, seen as universal gift, to our 5 + 5 fingers.
HAND ONE
Thumb: “With all my heart, mind, body and soul I will worship the one God who is LOVE, revealed by Jesus Christ.”
Index Finger: “I will have no other god nor any idol; not my family; not myself; never a political party; and certainly not money.
Middle Finger: “I will not use God’s name profanely; I will not swear oaths, for my ‘yes’ is yes and my ‘no’ is no.”
Ring Finger: “I will keep the Sabbath Day holy, in the way Jesus taught us.”
Little Finger: “I will honour my mum and dad.”
HAND TWO
Thumb: “I will love every person and not hurt or kill anyone, nor think evil of them, nor hate or take revenge.”
Index Finger: “I will maintain sexual purity and faithfulness in thought, word and deed.”
Middle Finger: “I will not steal; I will not rob others of their reputation.”
Ring Finger: “I will not tell lies, deceive, nor cheat.”
Little finger: “I will not covet for God in Christ is providing all I need”.
———————————————————
Notes
In Exodus 20:1-17 and in Deuteronomy 5:6-21 the Semitic Ten Commandments reflected Jewish cultural belief in the cleanness of the right hand (the first five commands) and the uncleanness of the left hand (the second five commands). Tough in those days to be born left-handed!
Remaining true to Moses’ original, today’s Catholics can hold these Commandments with a positive, personal, ecumenical, and egalitarian hermeneutics, extended by Christ’s New Testament teaching of love and of deferring to others out of respect for GOD.
A common resolve among Church leaders at all levels to get every Catholic parish, every Diocese, and all the Roman Curia back to honouring & obeying these divine treasures graciously given us by GOD would surely transform our worldly society, instead of the world’s ungodly, conflictual spirit radically polluting the Church (Catholic, Orthodox, and Other) as we see everywhere these days.
Is there anything more eternally basic than the Divine Instruction:
“If you love Me, obey My commands to love GOD and love others as yourself.”
How can the commandments be obeyed if they have not been taught & memorized?
This is not a limited perspective. Yes: it’s given for the sake of Catholic believers. YET who could deny the whole of our global society would benefit enormously if every Christian (apparently, there’s billions of us) lived & witnessed this brilliant, Christ-anointed way of behaving, that is GOD’s Kingdom Come!
We are well positioned to radically change this world, if only we choose.
Howcome our Church leaders decided we had to synthesise with the conflicting world, rather than persevere in showing it the humble path of our Servant King?
Ever in the mercy & grace of The Lamb; love & blessings from marty
The important point is – Salvation is not to be found in politics, and never will be. So, to attempt to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth by means of earthly politics, is a futile effort indeed.
We have to win the Kingdom of Heaven by doing God’s work, not man’s.
Dear Paul Rasage, I agree with you.
The killer error in doctrine is the idea that WE are building The Kingdom of GOD. That WE are making the world a better place. After 2,000 years of mayhem how blind can we be? This universe, this world, this humanity intrinsically decays; it’s NOT renovatable!
Instead: by believing in, working for, and lovingly witnessing to The Kingdom of GOD, as Jesus Christ and His Apostles showed us, we are offering an option to everyone in the world. Human beings are endowed with reason & personal free-will. GOD instructs us to offer all of them the choice between Life Eternal, or death & damnation.
That’s why we, followers of Christ, have been instructed to shout this Good News from the roof-tops; never to conceal it, but to let it shine in every room & place we go to. Never counting the cost, always trusting GOD to bless our work & defend us, in the most precious privilege of salvaging souls.
There are quite a few Catholics who grasp this simple but essential truth;
SALVAGE not Renovation.
They understand that creation, this universe (in all its science-baffling complexity) has one salvific purpose; a universal yearning for GOD’s children to be revealed! see Romans 8:19.
[actually, Romans 8:1-39 is still, today, white-hot from The Holy Spirit of GOD.]
In AD 57, Saint Paul was on his way from Ephesus to Corinth when he wrote this epistle to the church in Rome. [As a side issue,: how amazing that between Pentecost `AD 33 and AD 57, Christianity had rapidly spread everywhere, even within Rome!]
Paul entrusted his awesome letter to Phoebe (a ‘deacon’ and a ‘presiding officer’) to take to the Christians in Rome. Paul asks the Romans to assist Phoebe in her apostolic work. What a wonderful subject for a painting: as Paul, still on fire with his miraculous conversion by The-Resurrected-Christ-in-Person, hands over this key text of our Church, to such a faithful servant of Christ as Phoebe!
All of this is, as Paul teaches us, for ONE purpose: “I made myself all things to all people in order to save some at any cost; and I still do this, for the sake of the Gospel, to have a share in its blessings.” 1 Corinhians 9:22-23
When The Church shakes off the mirage of renovating the world & gets on with the Christ-given work of salvaging some at any cost, why, then the Blessings will flow!
What are we waiting for?
Corrections
“Dear Paul Rasavage, I agree with you.”
“1 Corinthians 9:22-23”