In an article gearing up for the Easter season, the Jesuit author reflects on how Judas has been portrayed through the years, noting that a pillar of the church no less than Chrysostom used Judas as an occasion to unfairly portray Jewish people.

Chrysostom (the name means “golden mouth,” a tribute to his skills as a preacher) was one of several saints whose writings were tinged with — and contributed to — the virulent anti-Semitism common at the time. Judas was evil not only because he had betrayed Jesus, but because he was Jewish.

Chrysostom sees the suicide of Judas as foreshadowing the suffering of the Jews, and comments on this approvingly. In his Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles, he writes: “This desolation [his fate] was a prelude to that of the Jews, as will appear on looking closely into the facts.” That one of the most influential figures in the patristic era could write so cruelly shows not only the rapid assimilation of anti-Semitism into Christianity, but the hardening of the Christian imagination against Judas.

(source)

Martin goes on to deal with other examples – in the Renaissance and later periods – of Judas being used as cannon fodder.

Is this really an accurate way to handle the data, or is there another angle for reading Chrysostom?

Fortunately, the original text that Martin cited is easily available thanks to CCEL. Chrysostom’s text Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles is there nearly in full, and you can access the relevant section here.

A few thoughts:

1. Exactly where Martin quotes, there are two footnotes, with the editor pointing out how incomplete or difficult the text reads. That at least should give us pause, noting that it is slightly unclear exactly what point Golden Mouth was trying to make.
2. In these footnotes, the editor himself takes a stab at trying to untangle Chrysostom’s point. He suggests, based off a sentence earlier than Martin’s quote and passage from the Gospel of Matthew, that Chrysostom is emphasizing the burial of strangers/heathen, etc. Following remarks by Josephus, the editor suggests that the “prelude” that the Jews were looking forward to was actually the AD 70 sacking of Jerusalem, where many “strangers” and soldiers died there. I’m not saying the editor is correct, but that it is a more thought out and reasoned response (and, I concede, more charitable) than Martin’s.
3. If the editor’s suggestion is remotely accurate, and Chrysostom is hinting at the Destruction of Jerusalem, then the problem is theological all the way back to the words of Jesus, not anti-semitism on the part of a Church father. Jesus Himself prophesied the demolition of temple and town (see John 2).
4. This whole section of Chrysostom’s begins with him praising Peter and the disciples for their godliness, decorum, churchmanship, etc. You know, praising the Jewish disciples. The line of demarcation here is not ethnicity (they were all Jewish) but repentance to Christ.
5. I am in no way a Chrysostom expert, nor a patristics scholar. I lament that, too often, there was an anti-semitic bent in some parts of Christendom. (A reality that should be wholly perplexing and discouraging considering that our religion is the worship of a Jewish carpenter.) And there may have even been some of that latent here in the Golden Tongue. But I’m not certain that Martin’s reading of the Church father is completely fair.

Ok, that is certainly enough from me. Can any patristic scholars weigh in here?

Do you think this constitutes a racial slur on Chrysostom’s part?

From The Telegraph:

…Lobbyists naturally believed that all you had to do to allow gay marriage was to extend to same-sex couples exactly the same law as applied to existing, heterosexual marriages.

Too late, they discovered, this cannot be done. Civil servants, confronted with the embarrassing task of working out what defined the consummation of a homosexual relationship, faltered. Since homosexual acts have no existential purpose and no procreative result, consummation is a meaningless concept. From this it followed that the Government could come up with no definition of adultery in a homosexual marriage. A law designed to be equal, is not. Under the Bill, non-consummation will not be grounds for divorce in same-sex marriage. Nor will adultery.

By accident, then, the Government is introducing, for the first time, a definition of marriage which has no sexual element. Yet it refuses to face the logical consequence of this surprising innovation. If sexual intercourse is not part of the definition of same-sex marriage, why should blamelessly cohabiting sisters not marry one another in order to avoid inheritance tax? Why should father not marry son? Why shouldn’t heterosexual bachelor chum marry heterosexual bachelor chum? What, come to think about it, is so great about the idea of monogamy, once sex and children are removed from the equation? Does the word “marriage” any longer contain much meaning?

And if Equality is the highest of all moral aims, how can the Government possibly justify not extending the gay right to a civil partnership to heterosexual couples who, at present, have no such privilege? If this Bill becomes law, all these matters will be litigated over, right up to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Against such outcomes, as he painfully well knows, Mr Cameron can make no provision.

Possibly the House of Commons, where mere politics reigns and virtually no time has been permitted for debate on the Bill, will fail to think through these issues, although revolt is growing. But precision and fairness in framing our laws are subjects in which the House of Lords rightly claims a key role. The Government faces trouble there.

Up until now, many of the opponents of gay marriage have felt inhibited. Look, for instance, at the sotto voce response of the Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, usually so eloquent on social questions that stretch well beyond his denominational boundary. Listen to the rather uncertain bleats that have emerged from Lambeth Palace in recent years. Respectable people are truly terrified of being thought anti-homosexual. In a way, they are right to be, because attacking people for their personal preferences can be a nasty thing.

But the course of the Same-Sex Couples Bill is gradually revealing that the question here is not much to do with homosexuals. It is to do with marriage itself. Are Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg wiser than every mainstream religion, thousands of years of history and the almost uniform practice of every civilisation? Put the question like that, and the answer is plain. But I do not want to be rude to our well-meaning rulers. All I want to ask is, “Are you quite sure you know what you’re doing? If not, please pause.”

Read the whole piece by Charles Moore at The Telegraph

on filming To the Wonder

So, for example, he recommended that Kurylenko read The Idiot with a particular eye on two characters: the young and prideful Aglaya Yepanchin, and the fallen, tragic Nastassya Filippovna. “He wanted me to combine their influences — the romantic and innocent side, with the insolent and daring side. ‘For some reason, you only ever see that combination in Russian characters,’ he said to me.”

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As prompts for the actors, Malick shared representative works of art and literature. For Affleck, he suggested Fitzgerald, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. (Affleck read Martin Heidegger on his own, having known that Malick had translated one of the German philosopher’s works as a grad student.) For Kurylenko, he also recommended Tolstoy and Dostoevsky — specifically, Anna Karenina, The Brothers Karamazov, and The Idiot. “Those books were, in a way, his script,” she says. But he did more than give the actors the books; he suggested ways to approach the texts and characters to focus on. So, for example, he recommended that Kurylenko read The Idiot with a particular eye on two characters: the young and prideful Aglaya Yepanchin, and the fallen, tragic Nastassya Filippovna. “He wanted me to combine their influences — the romantic and innocent side, with the insolent and daring side. ‘For some reason, you only ever see that combination in Russian characters,’ he said to me.”

source

A man stood up at a conference and said, “Missional is the new ‘seeker’… the church finally getting its hands dirty.” Someone asked me to respond to him.

When we say missional, what we mean is:

God’s church is so saturated in the gospel and the mission of Jesus, that they see themselves as the sent ones of Jesus in all of life, to make disciples who make disciples, so that the earth is saturated with people who love Jesus and God is glorified in all things. That’s what I mean when I say missional… I want you to understand there are lots of definitions out there, but I when I say [missional] that’s what I mean.

Could you get behind that definition of “missional?” Why or why not?

Certainly, some terms need to be parsed out. As much as I appreciate Vanderstelt’s ministries, I’m not sure his definition of “God’s church” is the exact same as the Reformed confessions. Nevertheless, there is a lot of good here to chew on.

Vanderstelt also suggests that we ought not quibble over terminology: Why I’m tired of Hearing About “Missional”.

For more, go back to WSCal’s 2008 annual conference Missional & Reformed: Reaching the Lost & Teaching the Reached. The audio lectures up for free are:

• Why the Mission Needs the Marks of the Church
• The Mission and the Confession of the Church: Friend or Foes?
• Why the Marks of the Church Need the Mission
• Mission According to Paul
• Mission in a Pluralistic Age
• Mission and Missions: Evangelism in the 21st Century
• Missional and Reformed (Q&A Session)

Michael Horton sums it up: “The mission of the Church is to evidence & execute the marks of the Church.”

Amen.

What will keep you from a life crippled by regret? What will bring you hope?

There’s only one medicine that can cure the cancer of regret.”Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:13).

Ed Welch states on this verse: “He is reminding us that life in Christ rests in what Jesus has done and looks forward to what he will do. We are visionaries. We look ahead. We hope. We aim to be drawn by the beauty that is almost within reach rather than be restrained by the regrets of the past.”

This is Paul’s line of thinking in Philippians 3:12 – 14

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Jesus’ past is your future when we rest in Him by faith alone.

Where are you prone to regret? As you look at your marriage, your job (or the one you wish you had), the past decisions, the child rearing… or the lack thereof, it is easy to think about what could have been. Where do you look back with regret?

How do we deal with regret? Through repentance. Welch again:

Maybe you believe your regrets will be your protective talisman to help make sure you don’t repeat past sins. That makes sense and sounds spiritual, but it’s a false gospel. It is the sweet mercies of God that compel us to fight sin. One way to identify the nefarious nature of regrets is that they do not give mercy the prominent seat at the table. These regrets might be so stubborn that they will only leave through repentance. While you have been repenting of your perceived contribution to past regrets, the real reason to repent is much closer to the present: you are saying, “Lord I don’t believe that you cover my past, though you probably cover the pasts of other people, and I certainly don’t believe that confidence in your goodness and hope for tomorrow is even permissible.” Call it unbelief. If you want to get nasty, call it pride, in which you believe yourself rather than the Lord. Either way, repent.

I have my own regrets—you have yours. God’s mercies are stockpiled even higher.

Amen. Repent and believe!

John Calvin, prayer concluding his 1st lecture on the book of Daniel
(HT: AC)

When it says further down “Most Millenials Want Both,” caveat lector: I assumed it meant most millenials want a good marriage and good parenting. That’s not what it says. While they want both marriage and parenting, the overall premise that parenting is more important than marriage is emphasized throughout the research.

Read the whole thing here.