Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000

RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

Countrymen,

ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT

A prophetic/theological condemnation of Koranolatry and, in the faux-Christian orbit, its analog, Bibliolatry, is required.  The issue is an ancient one: idolatry, the result of the constant impulse in man to over-value himself and results of his and/or nature’s creative and self-transcending capacities.

The relevant topic is the distinction between civil law, which can be both accomplished and enforced, and religious law, which can be neither accomplished nor enforced, nor is meant to be.

Making religious law civil law — which is the perversity the non-establishment clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States aims to prevent — is an ancient error, called idolatry, especially in Semitic societies.

As recorded in the Bible, the first great existential/doctrinal controversies in the Christian orbit — doctrinal controversies always pertain to existential matters — was between those who wanted to make religious law civil law — called Judaizers by modern scholars — and those who said no, religious law expresses our essential nature, not our existential condition, and so it must be used as a reminder of who we really are, not as a rule for how to navigate this sea of ambiguity called life.

Sharia, like Torah, Ten Commandments, Sermon on the Mount, etc, is religious law.  It cannot be accomplished or enforced, and when effort is made to do either, the generation of despair(1) and desperation(2) are required for the futile and therefore brutal execution of it to carry forward.

One problem is, American Christianity is shot through with Bibliolatry, right from the start.  Americans are prone to idolatry not only in their pop culture but, more dangerously, in their religious assumptions, practices and preferences.

Separatists (the “Pilgrims” at Plimoth Rock) and later the Puritans sought to make religious law civil law.  They came here to accomplish that mission — and failed, as must happen.  Their failure birthed the “other” New England religious movements, which were prolific, though all related to Unitarianism.  Unitarianism was an early indicator of directions to be taken at its source, Madrassa Harvard, which was founded as a Puritan Seminary.

Madrassa Harvard’s Unitarianism, in its iterations through the years, to include the American version of Fabian Communism, is chiefly responsible for the triumph of anti-Constitutional, “Communist,” “progressive,” “liberal,” “humanist” “reductionist,” messianic collectivist education and politics in the United States.  Communism itself, both Bolshevik and Fabian, is a religious heresy based on trying to make religious law civil law, that is, reducing religion to legalism as is done in Mohammedan and Jewish orbits.

Madrassa Harvard today is to the United States as the Papal Inquisition was to Medieval Europe and the Roman Inquisition was to Europe of the Renaissance.

“Christian Fundamentalists” in the United States descend from New England Separatists and Puritans and also, importantly, from continental radical evangelicals and German Protestant Orthodoxy.  Their Bibliolatry, of various specifics, makes them heretical Christians.

So to counter Koranolaters installing Sharia in place of the constitutions of all the countries of the world — their goal — we in the United States are on weak grounds morally because historically and still strongly we sponsor our own version of idolatry of a sacred text.

We call it “Christian Fundamentalism” or “Evangelical Christianity” but it is neither.  It is a sectarian movement descending from mixed sources and taking the form of revivalism and biblical literalism, which is to say, entertainment and Bibliolatry.

The word Fundamentalism refers to German Protestant Orthodoxy of the 17th Century.  Pat Robertson, Jimmy Swaggart, Oral Roberts, Jim Bakker and their would-be copiers blend Fundamentalism with an emphasis on personal autonomy from radical evangelicals of the Reformation and an emphasis on revivalism from the Great Awakening(s) in New England and the American South.

Today, so-called Christian Evangelicals or Christian Fundamentalists are elements of the entertainment industry, not members of the Church.  Their churches are, at best, NGOs, as are mosques and synagogues.

That Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity is a major political support for a necessary and productive operation to drain and clean the Middle East cesspool calling itself Islam accounts in part for the bitter partisanship we experience regarding not only that operation but also the question of human nature and destiny in general.

The full accounting for “Christian Fundamentalism” and “Evangelical Christianity” must include also a general, justified and reasonable existential resistance to the triumph and tyrannical hegemony of philosophical positivism in the large organizations and mechanisms of modern American society.

The crunch is coming at the point of land use, foreshadowed by recent demands in England to turn over land to the purview of “Sharia” administered by clerics.  That demand is here also and its purveyors take pleasure and strength from the fact that our public discourse generally suppresses analysis and remark of their “Offense to Islam” ideology and their use of it to blackmail individuals, groups and institutions.

Despite their occasional good thinking on matters of interest to their guild or their employers, our columnists — the “commentariat” someone calls it — really are ignorant regarding radical phenomena.  Ralph Peters states accurately it is more than ignorance, it is willing support.  The American entertainment industry, which includes the “news media,” is, as he says, an enemy combatant fighting alongside Mohammedan Jihadis against the United States, to annihilate her very being.

The word radical means rooted and is properly used as a descriptive symbol for something having its own source of existence, its own origin, as from depths and ground.  Who is not radical is not alive because they have no source.

The self-promotion and politicization of trivialities by entertainers (journalists, writers, editors, stars, moguls) as matters requiring public thought, discussion and decision are a dis-service to the nation.  They are an attack against the nation.

And where are theologians in the public arena?  Are there theologians who deserve the name and to be heard?  The existence of those questions measures the poverty of our estate as a nation.  No nation can live off its root in the Divine Life.  It connects with that root or it dies.

Since the crunch is at the point of land use, here is a land use idea for religions that can be justified from the doctrine of compelling government/public need used recently by the United States Supreme Court in ruling for the City of New London, CT, in a question of private land use.  To implement this or any other idea for answering the compelling need in question, a deep, broad approach must be developed to illumine and overcome the integrated networks that will oppose the idea.

There are two compelling government/public duties: keeping the peace, including warding off internal and external attacks, and guaranteeing land use for building culture up and out (Greek economos).  The word economics does not mean “making money” and economics is not about “making money.”

Economics is building up and out all aspects of culture including financial affairs and much more besides.  Economics is the law of expansion in operation as religious, cultural and moral creativity.

These compelling government/public needs should be aimed at properties owned by “religious organizations,” to include properties on which stand churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, etc.  With a few exceptions, land currently guaranteed to “religious organizations” should be guaranteed to general economic purposes.  All governmental jurisdictions must guarantee that they are.  This need is actually a necessity for keeping the peace, as is explained in the essay To Religion Parks From Religion Wars and its amplification here.

Bring those who assert that religious law is civil law under genuine civil law.  Wake ’em up!

Religious groups should be assigned space in a religion park that is owned by the city/county, which receives dues from each religious group as from renters, or, as a new condo type in which the governmental entity holds the majority vote.

Perhaps one park of one or two full blocks for each area of 27K-citizens.  One central prayer hall for all, quiet, that can hold 2700 people max and one building, holding 270 persons maximum, for each of the religions, to include all of their respective sects and denominations.  That is, one building only, to seat 270 people, for each major religion.  Let the sects and denominations of each religion get along together with each other in that building.  The rest is park and schools, or better, ecumenical retreat facilities, a lovely, quiet place to just BE.  Make the religions live together and make the sects and denominations within religions work together.  This is a necessary role for government given contemporary circumstances

The two compelling government/public needs mentioned above drive the solution of Religion Parks to head off Koranolaters (promoters of Sharia as civil law) and Bibliolaters (promoters of Torah, Ten Commandments, Sermon on Mount, etc., as civil law) before they start gun fights in our streets and spread even more intimidation through our schools, churches, corporations and governments than already they do, especially Mohammedans and Jews.

Idolatry is the most dangerous threat to culture because it spawns fanatics.  Only idolatry can spawn fanaticism.  All fanaticism is driven by an idolatry.

Idolatry occurs in all religions and always starts from idolatry of a sacred text, taking its descriptions of man’s essential nature — expressed in those texts as religious law — as comprising civil law, about which, in fact, sacred texts are silent because they are incompetent, being otherwise purposed.

Man can neither fulfill nor enforce his potentials, which are expressed in religious law and which he experiences, rightly, as unambiguous.  For this immutable reason humanism must always fail its goals.  Man not only can but must fulfill and enforce his actuality, which is expressed in civil law and which he experiences, thankfully, as ambiguous.  This is the immutable reason religion, regardless of how denominated, must always succeed its goal.

(1) Martin Luther.

(2) Saudi “Religious Police” and Vatican and academic “Inquisitions.”

Update 1: And Al Saud intends to keep it up.

Update 2: An American Evangelical Pastor, Jeff Sanders, writing at PJMedia has made an excellent start comparing Bible and Koran:

Startling Similarities (and Contrasts) Between the Bible and the Quran

Six Startling Contrasts Between the Bible and the Quran

I commented twice:

Jeff, with this work you tread the specific path blazed by Reimarus in his posthumously published Fragments.  Parallel and even wider paths — in text criticism of sacred literature — were trod by Jesus, Paul, Jerome, Augustine, Francis, Luther and Tillich.

As you must know, Muslim scholars disallow text criticism of the Koran on pain of death.  Always have, especially after they rewrote Mohammed (mostly the second part of the Koran).  In this way they made idols of both the book and the man.  Thus their intemperance with respect to the same.

However, by pushing into civilization and countries developed by the Latin Church, said Muslim scholars have driven into the world’s most efficient and successful idol shredder.  Did they but know it.  Part of their angry posture now is conjured by their frustration at having realized their mistake … of walking into their nemesis thinking they were spreading the glory of Allah.

and:

Excellent, thanks!!!  For even more extensive examinations in the same direction, by an Anglican Vicar, Linguist and Theologian, see The Rev. Dr. Mark Durie.

My own contributions to the subject is here.

Update 3: The biggest roll up of them all, if true, and I suspect it is: MBS has ordered text criticism of the Haditha.  I learned of this from a commenter, James Dill, at a post by Steven Hayward at Power Line.  Hayward has been following the Saudi internal cleansing for Team PL.  Here are comments others made and to which I responded chasing this subject at Steven’s post:

James Dill:

Exegesis in Sunni Islam?

According to the Saudi Minister of Culture and Information Awwad Bin Saleh al-Awwad, a council of senior scholars will be established for the complex and will consist of prominent Hadith scholars in the world.  They will, the UAE’s National tells us: … look to “eliminate fake and extremist texts and any texts that contradict the teachings of Islam and justify the committing of crimes, murders and terrorist acts.”

Why is this potentially such a big deal?  Because the texts that they’re talking about potentially assessing as fake and eliminating are among the Ahadith (hadith).

David R, Graham:

Thank you, I had not seen this.  And yes, this IS a VERY BIG deal.  (Sorry, heuristic considerations drove me to the caps.)

For years I have mentioned that text criticism (of the several standard types) of Islamic literature, including Koran — and if they do Hadith, they will get to Koran, as Zafar implies, because of the logic of the effort — is the only sure way to defeat the Salafi and Shia Jihads (hegemonic puritanisms, which all puritanisms are, e.g., SJWs/Progressives/Lefties here today).  So, some Sauds grasp that fact as well.  This is indeed good news.

Luther’s 95 Theses rested on and invited text criticism of key Christian literature, to include the Bible.  Text criticism was their engine and the engine of the Reformation.  So yeah, Hayward is right, the Arabs had their Enlightenment before they had its precursor, Reformation.  An irony there is that Wahhab commenced the Salafi Jihad specifically to counter the several (by country) Enlightenments in the orbit of the Latin Church.

The Bush/Obama/Brennan/Clinton/McCain/Deep State/Globalist New World Order delenda est, thanks to text criticism.

Alan Saunders:

If only the British stood by their WWI allies the Hashemites.

David R. Graham:

Alan Saunders Indeed. Both Lawrence and Allenby argued for the Hashemites.  The British FO (i.e., The East India Co., who needed coaling stations along the east and west coasts of Arabia), their suspected (and actual) traitor St. John Philby (Kim’s father) and the puritan stoner Woodrow Wilson flipped British/US policy to favor sheep stealer Ibn Saud, who had sat out the war, unlike Faisal the Hashemite, who fought the war and whom Lawrence and the British Army (Allenby) supported doing so.

It was a geo-political betrayal of the first water by Wilson and the British FO.  Later, the American Charles Crane, representing Standard Oil, standardized US-Saudi relations by setting up ARAMCO after oil was discovered in eastern Arabia, al Saud lands and some not, but soon to be.

Hashemites left western Arabia, moved to Iraq and Jordan, but left in western Arabia the congeniality (Mutazilite Islam) with modernity MBS is now exploiting to draw tourism there.  Basically, al Saud has decided to make an effort — historically, they shun labor, prefer theft and slaves — to become self-reliant.

Amit Rege:

I hope the new Saudi rulers stop their funding of mosques and charities across the world.  This will defund the radicals all over the world.

Steve Hayward:

Precisely.  I’ll be looking for information about that in the coming months.  It’s very high risk for the crown prince: it was the Shah’s modernizations in Iran in the 1970s that helped fuel the fundamentalist revolutions against him.

David R. Graham:

Steve Hayward modernizations were land ownership changes, deep ones, forced.  White Revolution.  Impacted ayatollahs, who led the counter-attack.  Difference now, I think, is Saudi clergy-police also want modern world (facts), having been convinced (battlefield, al-Sisi, Trump) Salafism is a losing bet.

So, yes, key indicator will be whether or not Saudi funding of Salafi mosques/clerics around the world scales down or not.  I am very glad you are on this one, probably, IMO, the single most important generative engine currently functioning.  And POTUS Trump approves it.

Stuff is going on to which we, or at least I, have no access.  I get the feeling things officially talked about as in the future are things about which decisions are already made and executions in train.

The world is sated with analysts.
It is desperate for craftsmen.
And by world I do not mean voters.
I mean the dimension of spirit, geist, pneuma.

If you lie, cheat or steal,
you have no prestige in this world or the next.
If you tolerate those who lie, cheat or steal,
you are condemned in this world and the next.

Update 4: The Rev. Dr. Mark Durie: Ishmael Is Not The Father Of The Arabs

Update 5: Robert Spencer: Muslim leader calls for removal of parts of Qur’an that ‘promote terrorism,’ Muslim cleric calls for his beheading

AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA