Every year during Holy Week the mainstream media conducts its own special ritual called the anti-Christian hit piece.
The formula goes like this. Find some author who says that everything that Christians believe and hold dear is a lie. Report all his/her assertions as if they are fact without bothering to address the mountains of scholarly work over centuries that contradict his/her primary assertions.
Some years it the “Real Jesus” or the “Real Mary” or the “Real Bible,” but the purpose is always the same. Everything you believe is a lie. Happy Easter.
This year, CNN begins the annual dance with this Palm Sunday lede.
This year’s entry is 4 myths of the Book of Revelation. I was intrigued by the title since the book of Revelation is often misunderstood, but alas and alack. Same ol’, same ol’.
The bottom line?
- The man who wrote it was not St. John.
- The man who wrote it was not even a Christian.
- It was “forced” into the Bible over the protests of some early church leaders.
- The book is only to be interpreted as an allegory for the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD and may not be interpreted any other way, ever. It cannot have more than one meaning. No way, no how.
- There were lots of other books of “revelation” that were “suppressed” by early Church leaders for their own misogynistic ends.
- The book is so hard to understand that Princeton professors can’t even understand it (even though she writes a book about it) and if a Princeton professor can’t, what chance do you have.
So there you go. I have to go now so I can question how I have been so foolish all these years.
April 1, 2012 at 6:03 pm
Pagels is still writing? Ugh. No one in academia takes her seriously, only the new atheist types.
April 1, 2012 at 6:13 pm
It will be a parade of dissidents all week…more John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar than you could ever want (which for me is measured in single digit seconds).
April 1, 2012 at 7:06 pm
Thank GOD I have a brain and well grounded in faith, I dont fall easily to crass lies. VIVA CRISTO REY!!!!!! PA SIEMPRE!!!!
April 1, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Ah, Holy Week: that glorious time of year when the atheist crackpots we can happily ignore for 51 weeks make their way into our newspapers and onto our televisions to publicly ridicule our faith!
April 1, 2012 at 8:45 pm
This is how they manifest their guilty consciences every year. How pathetically tiresome.
April 1, 2012 at 9:07 pm
This is also the time of year when frumpy, polyester pants liturgists stuff themselves into body stockings and prance around with ribbon wands. These are the high holy days of Crazy, Bossy, and Embarrassing.
I used to love the Triduum; now I dread it. If I get hit with a stray ribbon streamer again this year, I am going to yank it and string someone up like a bass.
April 1, 2012 at 9:32 pm
@ Blackrep – You need to get in your car and drive until you find a new Parish.
April 1, 2012 at 10:48 pm
Just imagine if this riduculed the Islam or Jewish faith. The Jewish and Muslim communities would not put up with it. It would be universally condemned and rightfully so. We live in a culture that does not understand our theology nor the seven sacraments. We live in a world of ignorance. I have no doubt that many of those people mean well, but are sincerally wrong.
April 1, 2012 at 11:12 pm
@the mysterious: I disagree that these individuals do not understand or mean well. St. Pio said that he was a mystery to himself, yet, St. Pio did not tred on the sensibilities of those believers who are given the grace to know the Truth.
April 2, 2012 at 1:29 am
"4 myths of the Book of Revelation: Why we love to lose ourselves in religion."
The big swindle in this book is that the author is calling a belief, a Religion. The author tries to confuse Religion, man’s response to the gift of Faith from God, and a proof of the existence of God, the God, WHO instructs man’s intellect in the formation of His Word with a belief. The author tries to confound Religion with man’s belief, any belief in whomever and in whatever man chooses to believe. The imperfect, reasoning attributed to imperfect human nature, accepted and believed to be infallible in its belief of whomever and in whatever man chooses to believe. An idol of pride in man’s choice of belief in himself and of whomever and in whatever man chooses of himself to believe.
Belief may be called religion if it is the Truth. The Catholic Church chooses for men in Whom to believe. If the TRUTH is not the Truth, then, it is a lie. The Truth is Jesus Christ. If Christ is not the Truth, then He is a lie. The infallibility of the Catholic Church rests in the Holy Spirit of Truth, knowing, keeping and teaching the Holy Truth of Jesus Christ. So, WHO owns the right leg driving the demons out of heaven? And, whose boot is on the neck of Satan as he falls like lightening from the sky? WHO is like unto God. Not a question. A statement about the WHO of God.
April 2, 2012 at 2:49 am
I find this interesting, because they attack what their daddy the devil wants most to attack at the given time. It is interesting that the main attack is now upon the book of revelations.
Barb
Fiat Voluntas Tua
April 2, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Barb:"It is interesting that the main attack is now upon the book of Revelations." I do too.
April 2, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Our local newspaper had a holy week story about how hard it is for the local atheists who have to live in the Bible Belt.