I just got done watching a PBS pledge drive show entitled, "From Jesus to Christ." Oh brother. One of the highlights of this massacre of human intelligence was the illusive Q document. No sooner does one of the guests on the series finish explaining how the document Quelle (a.k.a. "Q" - translated: Source - not the guy from Star Trek either) is a theory and no one has ever found it or seen it, then they go on to quote Scripture but cite it as coming from Q. We were also told that St. Luke embellished Acts into a classically-styled romance, that the Gospels were written non-literally but taken by Christians wrongly as literal, and that none of the Gospel writers knew really what happened with Christ's passion.
Every once in a while I have to waste half an hour of my time watching this ridiculous sort of intellectual excrement just to remind myself that the war on souls by the Enemy is a constant world-wide blitzkrieg. Whenever PBS opens the cell door on this sort of rabid monstrosity, more and more people risk infection.
Of course I remember this sort of scholarship from my time at seminary. The chaps in Ft. Wayne didn't foist this kind of nonsense on us. No, rather they admirably taught us how it works so that we could see the mass unbelief that turns its gears and the shockingly wretched scholastic method employed and yet somehow passed off as worthy of human consumption.
I am aware that there are some very wise and learned people who have bought into higher critical methods, yet somehow have made it work out so that it doesn't interfere with the faith once delivered to the saints. While I may disagree with higher criticism and those Orthodox that choose to accept it even in part, I am glad that in Orthodoxy the faith comes first, and human opinions are left in that realm. For in Orthodoxy the Truth isn't drummed up from the speculative research of men; Truth exists both in historical continuity and mystically in the eschatological wholeness of the Eucharist - and the Way of Life that is with it, in it, and through it. The idea that unbelief makes one unbiased is untenable. There is no neutral ground between belief and unbelief, for there is no neutral ground between bondage to sin, death, and the devil and redemption in Christ.
This kind of faithless speculation dressed up in cap and gown and paraded about by PBS doesn't make me want to give them any money for their pledge drive. I wish they'd stick to educational kids programming and cooking shows. Kyrie eleison!
Every once in a while I have to waste half an hour of my time watching this ridiculous sort of intellectual excrement just to remind myself that the war on souls by the Enemy is a constant world-wide blitzkrieg. Whenever PBS opens the cell door on this sort of rabid monstrosity, more and more people risk infection.
Of course I remember this sort of scholarship from my time at seminary. The chaps in Ft. Wayne didn't foist this kind of nonsense on us. No, rather they admirably taught us how it works so that we could see the mass unbelief that turns its gears and the shockingly wretched scholastic method employed and yet somehow passed off as worthy of human consumption.
I am aware that there are some very wise and learned people who have bought into higher critical methods, yet somehow have made it work out so that it doesn't interfere with the faith once delivered to the saints. While I may disagree with higher criticism and those Orthodox that choose to accept it even in part, I am glad that in Orthodoxy the faith comes first, and human opinions are left in that realm. For in Orthodoxy the Truth isn't drummed up from the speculative research of men; Truth exists both in historical continuity and mystically in the eschatological wholeness of the Eucharist - and the Way of Life that is with it, in it, and through it. The idea that unbelief makes one unbiased is untenable. There is no neutral ground between belief and unbelief, for there is no neutral ground between bondage to sin, death, and the devil and redemption in Christ.
This kind of faithless speculation dressed up in cap and gown and paraded about by PBS doesn't make me want to give them any money for their pledge drive. I wish they'd stick to educational kids programming and cooking shows. Kyrie eleison!
2 comments:
Ben, your discovery of Orthodox perspective reminds me of the blessing that I've received in Holy Mother Church. Faith handed down, the deposit of Truth "trumps" all sorts of speculation. No more scoring points in argumentation.
Sort of keeps one focused on the one thing needful, eh?
Christ is born! Glorify Him!
Yup.
Bias is a very big intellectual defect.
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