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Happy Easter! — 47 Comments

  1. Happy Easter, neo and commenters! I’ve enjoyed listening to your conversations throughout Lent, but I’m happy to be released from my self-imposed gag order.

  2. Happy Easter to all from east-central Alabama, where the azaleas are in bloom.

    Great Easter column by Roger Kimball:

    https://amgreatness.com/2024/03/31/easter-reflections-george-washingtons-farewell-address-in-todays-america/

    Kimball compares Washington’s farewell admonitions from 1796 with the state of affairs in the country today. The comparison is infuriating and discouraging. Kimball ends thusly: “But this is Easter, a holiday commemorating a miracle. That is good, because we are going to need one.” Amen to that.

  3. Dana Loesch is in good form today: “Easter: Jesus Visibility Day”
    _________________________________

    There are two things wrong here. One: we see too much trans activism, not too little. It’s a tiny segment of the population struggling with a mental issue and it’s overrepresented by an astronomical margin in entertainment. That’s on purpose. Two: we see too little Jesus. We see too little of Him not just in our entertainment, but in our daily life, even in the way we treat others. None of us are immune.

    –Dana Loesch, “Easter: Jesus Visibility Day”
    https://danaloesch.substack.com/p/easter-jesus-visibility-day

    _________________________________

    I’m pro-Freedom. I may roll my eyes at Trans Visibility Day, but I am chafed at how far Christians, unless they make their obeisance to Woke, have been shoved to the back of the bus.

  4. Neo seems to think Easter is about dyed eggs. She is perhaps secular, even an atheist, but I still believe He Is Risen, before multitudes of witnesses, and so gave rise to Christianity, which is the foundation of Western Civilization. The New Testament is in part a historical document.

  5. Christos Anesti…Alithos Anesti. It’s always good news. Blessed Easter y’all!

    “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” – 2 Corinthians 5:21

    “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us & sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.” – 1 John 4:4

    “For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures and that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures…”
    – 1 Corinthians 15:3-4

  6. Cicero:

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

    I am sure Neo knows what Easter is about. She isn’t one of your average bears or bunnies.

  7. Neo says clearly that she is not Christian. That being so, I appreciate her good wishes for this Holy Day which is very important to me and to other readers.

  8. As a long-time follower, I believe Neo is basically secular.
    I am not; after decades of wandering in the wilderness, I read John Paul II and Benedict, was humbled and moved by their intelligence, fund of knowledge, and devotion. Of Lutheran North German background, I found my way to the most Catholic city in the entire US. I do not believe that was by accident!

  9. Cicero:

    Your very words:

    Neo seems to think Easter is about dyed eggs.

    Just a clue to you. Neo didn’t say anything about what Easter means to her or how she understands it. An apology might be warranted.

    Have a wonderful holiday!

  10. Happy Resurrection Sunday!

    I am happy to note that the two shopping malls near me (both more or less diminished) are closed for the holiday!

  11. neo is great about Easter, Christmas too.

    Joe Biden OTOH…

    I didn’t realize this was the first “Transgender Visibility Day.” I saw that it was decreed for March 31 and figured I just missed it last year. But this means the Biden administration dropped the first TGVD right on top of Easter.

    How does this make sense? It’s either an intentional or unintentional thumb in the eye of religious Christians and during an election year.

  12. well considering the 2012 convention booed God and affirmed Allah, don’t ask me to explain it, except it validates the Salafi view of things, (salafi is one of those words that the DNI doesn’t want to allow into the public square,)

  13. Happy Easter to folks!

    Last year was actually the first Transgender, etc. day. March 31 then, too, so I don’t think this date choice is specifically directed at Easter.

  14. Yes, this Transgender Day has been observed in previous years, but only Biden has ever felt called to issue a Proclamation about it, which he did on Good Friday, effective Easter Sunday. This could have been handled more carefully to respect the feelings of observant Christians, of whom there are still many. And Governor Hochul didn’t need to add insult to injury by lighting up NY landmarks in “transgender” colors tonight. It’s hard not to see this as aimed at believing Christians to some extent.

  15. they have made it very clear the contempt they have for ‘bitter clingers’ like us, with that garish display on the White House grounds, the idol making of the Nashville shooter,

  16. Kate:

    Thanks. I read something like that and overreached in my earlier comment. Yes, “It’s hard not to see this as aimed at believing Christians to some extent.”

    …believing Christians…

    neo refers to “secular Jews” and we understand what she means.

    “Secular Christians” seems like it would mean the corresponding thing, but because Christians aren’t as strongly linked by ethnicity, the phrase doesn’t land right.

  17. Huxley (et al.) ” “Secular Christians” … phrase doesn’t land right.”
    Around 2008 Razib Kahn, Heather MacDonald, and three other bloggers started the “Secular Right” blog. The various postings discussed religion and other issues from a secular, but conservative, person’s view. It lasted about 3 years or a little longer, and then petered out as (presumably) most of what needed to be said had been said. This link gives a short summary: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/us/19beliefs.html

    I understand the Christian resistance to accepting homosexuality as “normal”, as I believe their are 5 verses/ phrases in the Bible prohibiting it. But I don’t quite understand the Christian religious resistance to transgenderism, except as a parallel abnormality with even less well understood mental/physical sources or causes. I am far from a biblical scholar but I have not heard of any scriptural prohibitions against transgenderism or people (and children) holding that belief. It seems to be a situation rather orthogonal to the core religious canon.

    It can be argued that we all have abnormalities of one form or another, and that homosexuality and transgenderism are two somewhat pronounced variants thereof, but also restricted to a fairly, or very, small fraction of the population.
    It strikes me that most of the comments here addressing transgenders are really more political than religious, per se: against the activists, medical personnel, and Leftist’s agenda to deny the reality of mental issues and moving pell-mell to hormones and surgery, etc., especially on children. I concur with the political views but don’t see the religious connection.

    What am I missing?

  18. @ R2L > “What am I missing?”

    Genesis 1: 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

    That’s about as core as it gets.

    Transgenderism is never forbidden in the Bible because no one had invented the surgical and pharmaceutical mutilations necessary to practice it.

    Cross-dressing is frowned on; that’s about as close as the ancients got.

    Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God.

    What is happening today would be unfathomable to them.

  19. @ R2L > “I have not heard of any scriptural prohibitions against transgenderism or people (and children) holding that belief.”

    As complex and far-ranging as the Biblical injunctions are, they can’t cover everything.

    As King Benjamin tells his countrymen in the Book of Mormon, at the end of a long sermon on being righteous which covers much the same territory as Leviticus and Deuteronomy:

    Mosiah 4:29 And finally, I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them.

  20. R+L

    Abnormalities, at least in Eastern Orthodoxy is sin, or, missing the mark. The Church Fathers and Mothers have left enough writings behind to allow us to reasonably infer what scripture means even for modern times.

  21. R2L–AesopFan quoted the Genesis verse which fundamentally asserts that there is a Creator. That is what is at stake, Creator or no Creator. As it happens Rod Dreyer addresses your question in his latest Substack. A small excerpt wherein he quotes from something he wrote in 2013 and how he would adjust it if he had foreknowledge:

    “In classical Christian teaching, the divinely sanctioned union of male and female is an icon of the relationship of Christ to His church and ultimately of God to His creation. This is why gay marriage negates Christian cosmology, from which we derive our modern concept of human rights and other fundamental goods of modernity. Whether we can keep them in the post-Christian epoch remains to be seen.

    If I had it to write again, I would rather say that the normalization of trans is the final triumph, because it has succeeded in negating fundamental biological truth in the minds of those who accept it — which happens to include the ruling class of the Western world. That is to say, the Sexual Revolution has gone so far in replacing the old cosmology with the new that it allows and indeed requires people to deny biological truth, for the sake of allowing erotic self-definition to set the bounds on reality.”

  22. No sure it’s “erotic self-definition”.

    More like the embrace of an intense—and prescriptive—psychopathology, including an ideology of mutilation (especially of children) under the guise of “Human Rights”(TM)…which, under the carefully perverted strategizing of the LEFT, has become THE universal excuse for teaching, encouraging and promoting deviancy and HATRED.

    File under: First we kill…the family.

  23. Saw a popular magazine at the sales desk of Barnes and Noble the other day. It’s lead title suggested that all that is wrong with America is the fault of Christianity. The baby boomers with MA degrees are passing around reference to an old book that says the same thing. Sorry, can’t remember which book it is. I think it was written in the 1920’s?

    Hold on white people–you did actually build a better world. Not perfect, but at least it had hope–the essential ingredient for any progress in making the world a better place. With the WEF people in charge there will be no hope.

  24. Yes, Barry Meislin. Radicals are deconstructing the family and human nature itself.

  25. Anne:

    “Somebody’s Struggle?” was that the book?

    I would expect such an article from “The Atlantic,” or some other fount of elite thought.

  26. A surprising and important announcement:

    Harvard University has announced a new focus on the discovery of truth and the stimulation of scientific and technological progress. Consistent with this initiative, Michael Gibson and Danielle Strachman of 1517 Fund will serve as co-presidents. Peter Thiel will join the board.

    Thiel is well-known for, among many other things, the Thiel Fund, which provides funding to creative people who choose a career path not including college. The 1517 Fund is a venture capital fund focused on non-traditional founders.

    This date–April 1, 2024–will be long remembered for this very significant announcement.

    https://twitter.com/William_Blake/status/1774795827128770945

  27. Transgenderism is never forbidden in the Bible because no one had invented the surgical and pharmaceutical mutilations necessary to practice it.

    I think that is part of it although I have known of cross dressing for years. If adults want to do this, I am OK with it. The “advocates” seem to be crazier and seeking attention whereas the adults would seem not to want attention. With kids, I think it is part of the post “smartphone” insanity.

  28. Happy Easter Monday, Neo.
    If you were in Bratislava, I’d come by to visit you — after whipping you and dousing you with water.
    Like we do with women who we care for. (My wife, daughter, mother in law, etc.)
    In Slovakia. The women then deliver sweets, food, & liquor. Ain’t that great?

    Have a great day.

  29. Not specifically about transgenderism (not long ago they were called transsexuals), but related:

    “Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?

    But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.”

    –1 Corinthians 11:14-15

  30. But I don’t quite understand the Christian religious resistance to transgenderism, except as a parallel abnormality with even less well understood mental/physical sources or causes.

    R2L:

    I mostly steer clear of Christian doctrinal issues. Not my circus, not my monkeys.

    However, transgenderism is clearly is a culture war issue in no small part used as a cudgel against conventional Christian morality.

  31. The Christian doctrinal position is that God creates humans as male or female, and that this created reality cannot be changed.

  32. Kate:

    I don’t know what happened to me Good Friday 2001. I was somewhere else for months. Arguably I still am.

    However, Christian doctrine has never made much sense to me other than a larger reality flattened into two dimensions or a pragmatic construct for evolutionary survival.

    I know many Christians wouldn’t accept me as a Christian. I’m not sure I do either. But Something Happened and I live with that.

  33. Yesterday I went back to a Christian book that impressed me back in the 2000s, “Healing” by Fancis MacNutt, a Roman Catholic priest who became involved in the Catholic Charismatic movement, from there to spiritual/physical healing.

    In his most well-known book, “Healing” he describes an encounter between Christian priests and some Native Americans who were on fire with their faith:
    ______________________________________

    [Native American] Now who likes Jesus? Raise your hand!
    (Here the priests … all raise their hands hesitantly.)

    How many of you ever heal anybody?
    (Here only two hands go up.)

    How come? How come you know Jesus and you no heal nobody?
    (Dead silence.)

    –Francis MacNutt Ph.D, “Healing” p.268
    ______________________________________

    In the New Testament Jesus was strict on hypocrisy, marriage and the treatment of children. Mostly he taught love and healing. Doctrine, not so much.

    At least that’s my reading.

  34. huxley, I am not one of those who thinks that being Christian is merely an intellectual exercise. Saying the right Creed or making the correct public profession of faith doesn’t get you into heaven. The purpose of right teaching in churches ought to be to encourage right behavior and prevent wrong behavior. Without the proper underpinning it’s so easy to decide that wrong is right. Only look at all the alleged Christians who are pushing chemical and surgical sex changes on children, and the unlimited killing of children in the womb.

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