RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
Theologians and clergy have been preaching from pop culture rather than to it. For this reason world politics are at a mess.
Pop culture is Manichaean: it revels in sensuality and sanctimony simultaneously. This means it is suicidal.
What should theologians and clergy say to pop culture?
Typologically, they should say what Domingo Félix de Guzmán (St. Dominic, OP) said to Albigensians, also known as Cathars, the soi-disant pure ones, who prefigure today’s soi-disant pop culture. Give them the catechism in digestible forms, and especially its inner essence in clear statements.
Tell them Duty is God, Work is Worship and Labor is Prayer.
Tell them The Mundane is The Divine, The Law is The Christ and The Family is The Holy Spirit.
Tell them to lift up their hearts because they belong to God, they are God.
Tell them the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity is the catechesis of science. It describes what the world does, it illustrates the dialectics of process and piety, it arises from phenomenology, not speculation.
Tell them Words are Being Itself, Language is the Logos of Being and Poetry is God.
Tell them bodies are clothes God wears.
Tell them they are to God as One is to One, Three is to Three and Nine is to Nine.
Tell them they are what they think and assume they are not.
Tell them no one needs empowerment because every one is power and can be trusted to be just that.
Tell them self-esteem is impossible because it depends on others and self-confidence is desirable because it attaches to achievement.
Tell them Faith is Reason and Reason Faith, Subject is Object and Object Subject and God is You and You God.
Tell them Freedom is Trust in God, Happiness is Work One Should Be Doing and Righteousness is The Strength That Holds The Consciousness Bound To Truth.
Tell them there never is and never will be equality of opportunity, ability, result or status. Also there never is and never will be equality before the law, moral or intellectual standards or any other institution or principle, and we have Parables in the New Testament and Words there of Jesus the Christ to confirm the fact. Not to mention our and our ancestors’ direct experience.
Tell them the only equality in this or any other world is the equality of Being, the commonality of Creatureliness. Beyond that fundamental, everything is different and in flux.
Tell them The Glory of The World is fleeting and The World Taken As The Glory of God is permanent.
Tell them Reason is Revelation, Logic is Logos and Thought is The Almighty.
Tell them their natural state is ecstatic anticipation of Eternal Life.
Tell them they underestimate their abilities and powers.
Tell them to be confident and grand.
Tell them Song is Beauty, Laughter is Truth and Dancing is Bliss.
Harvey Cox and soi-disant liberation theologians thought to bring God down to man. This made them revolutionaries obliged to de-engineer reality. It also moved to them mountains of money and fountains of fame because pop culturalists — Manichaeans — can and do reward with the same those who insist they, the sensuous and sanctimonious, are the measure of all things.
I thought to bring man up to God. This made me, relative to Cox and certain Communists masquerading as Christians (liberation theologians, as if there is another kind), a counter-revolutionary. I remain that, relative to those individuals. On my own right and in my own terms, I am simply a cripple whom God has touched, a garden-variety orthodox Christian mystical philosopher, a son of Sathya Sai Baba (in person) and a student of Paul Tillich (though not in person).
For the first time in my life I can see the path of preaching. I know what to say. What a Comedy!
Update 1: From Power Line: Science and Scientism.
Update 2: Americans Have Lost Confidence In … Everything.
Update 3: Belfast Pastor Faces Prison For Grossly Offending Islam.
AMDG – VICTORY
