This is EXCITING! I needn’t remind any of you that the Cainites were fourth century Gnostics who honored both Cain (as the first human to rebel against the Demiurge*) and Judas Iscariot (as the agent who – with Christ’s permission – acted as the agent of Christ’s sacrifice, and was thus rewarded with secret esoteric knowledge**). This particular heresy was long thought to have died out with most other contemporary Gnostic sects; but it must have gone underground, and survived. And now Charlie Rangel, of all people (I assume that he’s a high-level initiate), has given their presence away with his claim that Judas Iscariot later became a saint! The things that we can learn!
Of course, there’s always the alternative: Charlie Rangel’s knowledge of Christianity approaches that of a battered parakeet’s.
Moe Lane
PS: It’s 2010, people: the GOP has been doing its recruiting. I gather that Rev. Michel Faulkner (Baptist minister, community leader, former NY Jet) is looking like he’ll be the eventual Republican candidate.
*As you know, the Demiurge was believed by Gnostics to be the true creator of the physical universe; as the Gnostics were of course mystics who hated the material world, that meant that they equate the Demiurge with both the Old Testament God and Satan. The early Church went to some trouble to, ah, dissuade that interpretation of Scripture…
**Which they just happened to have, in the ‘Gospel of Judas.’
Crossposted to Moe Lane.
Moe Lane
Dan Spencer
Dan McLaughlin
Jeff Emanuel
Saint Jude
spaceman_spiff Saturday, April 3rd at 9:47AM EDT (link)Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes
And is not the same person who is named Judas Iscariot.
Steph C (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 9:57AM EDT (link)http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=127
“[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
Hillbilly Politics
Rangel is a lost cause, though... nt
mschmitt (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 10:07AM EDT (link)usque ad finem
Depends on one's perspective.
Steph C (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 10:18AM EDT (link)From his perspective he is the most wonderful man to ever walk the earth.
“[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.” –Candidus in the Boston Gazette, 1772
Hillbilly Politics
Rangel began as a "steam controller"
texasgalt (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 11:01AM EDT (link)but now is just another money changer temporarily driven from the Temple.
He remains, however, of the protected class, in a league of his own.
This actually makes sense...
mschmitt (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 10:00AM EDT (link)As a Cainite, he would view Cain as a good man who invented murder to enable us to deny murder. This would explain perfectly why St. Rangel (he is a saint, right?) would invent so many new forms of tax cheatery. After all, wouldn’t it be his moral obligation, so that we may choose not to behave as he does?
usque ad finem
Now I get it!
Wing Zero (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 10:35AM EDT (link)THAT’S why Dingy Harry said paying taxes was voluntary.
1-21-09 – We are so screwed… Wait… maybe not just yet.
Maybe cuz Judas' sin didn't begin with betraying Christ but with that little issue of the moneybag
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 11:09AM EDT (link)How ..,. liberal … of him.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
Kowalski - imprecise title should read "but included at least" -nt-
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 11:11AM EDT (link)Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
Disgusting.
Veronica (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 1:52PM EDT (link)And on Easter weekend.
Just like higher taxes and greater entitlement programs during a bad economy.
These guys have no sense of timing.
Pure self-gratification, as evidenced w/ the laugh. All of them.
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Pray as if everything depends on God, and work as if everything depends on us. – St. Augustine
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Cain and Abel
churchillian (Diary) Saturday, April 3rd at 4:10PM EDT (link)Abel: Imitated the first sacrifice of God to make coats of skins for a covering for his father and mother which they taught to him. That’s real worship. He didn’t have to work much to make it, just look after the flock.
Cain: Worked hard, toiled, and glorified himself in his work. There was a curse pronounced on the earth to not produce abundance, and what it did produce took immense effort. No doubt vegetables/spice/etc. were delicacies, and expensive (according to our understanding from a free market supply aspect). Cain was no doubt infuriated that God did not honor his works, and so murdered his brother, the lazy hangabout who did little but lean on his staff all day.
There are two kinds of work, good works and dead works. Labor which points to an accomplishment of God in worship (a narrow category), and labor which is profitable for nothing (which is a broad category).
Gnostic teaching is bass-ackwards. What little they actually get right always comes about for the wrong reasons. Like Abel, Cain was offering sacrifice to God and worship, only one of them was approved…only one offered it for the right reason, in the right fashion, in a word, in the right heart.
There is nothing new under the sun.
The ground was cursed to Cain after the murder, not before
Adjoran (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 3:46AM EDT (link)Cain’s sacrifice was unacceptable because he did not offer the best of his crop, while Abel offered his best fatted lamb.
Cain’s pride and jealousy fed his anger, which led to murder because they allowed him to hide the truth from himself, that God’s rejection was solely his own fault.
Theological statements should really only be made upon substantial grounds
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 4:21PM EDT (link)which for the Christian means that the holy Scripture must be finally authoritative. Your argument fails this test in several particulars.
There is no mention in the text of any context of “best of” as God’s standard of acceptance. There is however, as Churchilian pointed out above, already an earlier reference to the necessity of the blood sacrifice. The theme of the acceptable sacrifice–always requiring blood, therefore the death of a substitute–is developed throughout the rest of Scripture to its culmination, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain!” And the handful of God’s later rebukes for not bringing the “best of” were always in the larger context of blood.
No offense intended, but the “best of”=”acceptable” logic could at best culminate in a “gospel” involving the disciples returning from a shopping spree bearing bushels of fine produce to the chief priest. Thanks, but I at least need a more substantive sacrifice for my justification. Only the death of the undeserving Lamb, for generations prior to Christ done by the believing in hopeful anticipation, and then fulfilled in that most dreadful confrontation when the Father rejected the Son, will suffice. Abel was under the same sentence as Cain and his parents, but his sacrifice demonstrated not only that he accepted God’s verdict against him as holy and righteous, but that the same God who had clothed his parents with an alien righteousness–through blood–would do the same for him.
Also, though of lesser import, your title is simply wrong–God had cursed the ground in Adam’s hearing immediately following the fall.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria
truly
churchillian (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 4:47PM EDT (link)very sound doctrine…the offerings were specifically tied to certain things, and blood was always required for sin, when a meal offering of barley or some other vegitation is mentioned it is “for bringing iniquity into rememberance” or the “meat” offering (not meat as we know it today, meat in the King James sense of food in general) mentioned as cakes of unleavened flour done as a “memorial” and the leftover would be holy after the fire. I don’t way to say it’s good doctrine yet, but the memorial I think is between Cain and Abel here, and good works and dead works, and the only reason an offering of “meat” or meal would be “acceptable” is because it points to the blood of Abel, the only thing I consider for the time this was given to be something worth memorializing.
Name
churchillian (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 4:21PM EDT (link)Abel means “emptiness” or “vanity” something transitory or unsatisfactory. Hebel, from the root word habal to “be or act vain”
Cain means to get or create, could also mean redeem or can be derived into “lance” or a quick strike and even “provoke to jealousy” qayin or qanah
I don’t think his name signifies Abel’s character attributes, just a lesson in works here. It’s a story of how man is in the process of redemption. If you are redeemed everything you work for seems like vanity against working for the glory of God, everything else in life will be unsatisfactory and transitory when held against a work that actually means something. Meanwhile, if your working specifically for creating your own good, or redeeming your own works you will be provoked to jealousy by those not laboring in a curse, those who don’t seem to have worked as hard, but gain the blessing. His yoke is easy, and the burden light. The hard work has been done, and the debt paid.
Good works, and dead works. Approved and disapproved.
Your view of scripture is one-dimensional.
You obviously didn't read Genesis...
churchillian (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 3:30PM EDT (link)…so you’re either a troll, or you’re just being stupid… Genesis 3:17-18
Also, he text says nothing about the “best” it says the firstborn of the flock.
read up, stop giving error
Moe, about Michel Faulkner ...
CincoSolas_del_Bronx (Diary) Sunday, April 4th at 5:45PM EDT (link)Is there an official RS stance on him or the race yet, or is it too early, or has it been deemed a lost cause? I have not known how to interpret the non-response to Tim Schieferecke’s earlier announcement.
I’m not in NY-15 at the moment, but was in pre-family years and could be again if it moves to the north or east. While I don’t know Mike personally, I have heard about him with some regularity; the pastor he mentions in the 3rd paragraph of his bio–”he lived in the Bronx with a family whose head was a Pastor of a house church and ran a drug rehab center”–has been my pastor since soon after Mike moved down to Manhattan.
He’s spent a long time coming to this moment; I hope we can at least keep an eye on him.
Those dreading urbanization should remember that though the Kingdom of God first appeared in a temporal Garden, at the end of the book it is established in an eternal City. (paraphrase, James M. Boice)
soli Deo gloria