Sic Transit Gloria America

“Jesus is Lord” is Revolution in Creed. It is the assertion that the secular, non-Christian state is, in fact, irrelevant. The real gov’t to which one owes allegiance is the Kingdom of God. It is an assertion of the reality of that Kingdom over and above any experience to the contrary.

“Christ is Risen” is Revolution in Creed. It is the assertion that the social understanding of things is refuted. The cultural ways of doing things - of propitiation, of superstition, of darkness and terror - are all meaningless.

“Jesus is Lord” is not a creed coupling religion and politics: quite the contrary. It unhitches the church and the state. It makes the Church an embassy: and as with any embassy, when one is on the grounds of the embassy the laws of the host country do not matter. The embassy is the political realm of the sending state.

“Christ is Risen” is not a Creed that divides the secular from the spiritual. Quite the contrary: the two are forever more than “linked” they are the same. If the Church is the embassy, this creed asserts that the “grounds of the Embassy” are everywhere.

Props to the Street Prophets, it seems that, once again, there is no difference of import between the parties, as Obama Supports FISA Legislation:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) today announced his support for a sweeping intelligence surveillance law that has been heavily denounced by the liberal activists who have fueled the financial engines of his presidential campaign.

In other words, there is no hope offered by Obama of the staying the transformation of AmeriKKKa into an ever-stronger police state.

There is no hope offered by McCain, either.

We are screwed. And you know what they say, once you go black…

Or…

• We can remember that no state is God’s kingdom.
• We can stop trying to make the world over in our version of God’s image and we can simply live it.
• We can stop pretending that either the stupid party or the evil party (pick one) is going to be better at doing God’s will.
• We can live as if God’s justice is the only justice needed.
• We can live as if God’s peace is the only peace possible.
• We can live as if God’s freedom in Christ is the only real freedom available.
• We can remember that “Jesus is Lord” is the most politically radical thing ever said; that “Christ is Risen” is the most poetically anarchistic thing ever said. Ever.

And we can live as if it is true.

Paul suggests that we follow the Emperor in as much as the Emperor’s law does not contravene the will of God. Paul wrote that at a time when both the public and private virtues as understood by the state were in nearly complete accord with Christian teaching. Paul may have been right then, but he hasn’t been right since Constantine - as the Church has confused politics with God. The triumph of the state over the church has nearly destroyed any semblance of the Revolutionary Anarchism of Jesus. If we try to recapture it (which we must) today, I think we shall have a harder time than ever; and we shall be killed for more violations than just impiety.

Under a dictatorial state which forbids liberty, how do we live the liberty of Christ?

Through Death and Resurrection.

Jesus is Lord, Christ is risen: the revolution has already happened and we need only live it. We don’t need to live as if it were true. we need to live it as Truth.

Don’t get me wrong: it will mean taking stands which may be seen as political stands. But there is a difference. We don’t need to legislate our Kingdom into being. It already exists. This will mean disagreements. Some people will say X is the way of the Kingdom and others Y. I think we can overcome those differences as long as we live into the Radical Inclusion of the Eucharist.

Jesus dined with sinners, prostitutes and those in positions of political power. Their lives changed, yes: but after they had been included in his life.

If coming to Christ is a death then let’s live the radical message: “Kill them all and let God sort them out!”

We have a world to overthrow - one in which there are enemies and outcasts. We need to live into the Eucharistic Kingdom that we’ve been proclaiming - but failing to live in - for much of the last 1500 years. There are no enemies and no outcasts anymore. Anywhere.

Time to get busy.

Baby Steps

By TIny - stupid - baby steps, the police state advances. TSA outlaws flights to those who refuse to show ID: but you’ll be fine if you only “forgot” your ID.

Telling a lie is fine: asserting the rights of any American… not.

The Real Question

John McCain vows to continue Bush’s illegal warrantless wiretapping program: where does the other candidate stand? For that matter, where does either candidate stand on the loss of freedom we’ve suffered for the last 8 years?

Your Tax Dollars Spent

To make you feel, you know, safe. True or False?

Less Freedom. More Fear.

In Los Angeles.

I’d really like to ask the folks running for president what they want to do about the loss of freedom in the USA…

Fear Mongering at home.

You’ve got to love this headline from The Buffalo News:

Flurry of reports of abduction attempts shows higher awareness, despite false alarms

The headline tells it all: There’s be a whole spate of reports of attempted abductions. They were false alarms.

In other words, there’s been a whole spate of false alarms.

Read the story. It repeats the same story three times: the incident not reported until “four days later” - can you hear the scary music? Everything is reported in the most macabre and gothic manner. I hope you’re afraid to let your children out of the house ever!

Hell. The paper makes me afraid to be a middle-aged man. I love this one:

Adults, especially middle-aged men, have to be aware that whether they’re looking for their dog or for some scrap metal, they have to be careful about their actions and comments to pre-teenage children.

This reminds me of the “National Gang Initiations” that were supposed to be going on a few weeks ago. They were reported, at the behest of the local police, in all the Buffalo papers and even on the local NPR Station. The same reports were totally ignored in other cities where they were sent. In a totally unrelated event, this week, several members of a gang were actually arrested in Buffalo.

The federal agents had been watching them for more than a year. NPR reported that “this was the only National Gang in Buffalo” thus putting the lie to their earlier story about “national gangs” etc… Sigh. even the local NPR station can’t be trusted to keep the news straight. I’m thinking Buffalo is some kind of testing ground for stories to counteract parents who are raising their children right - without fear.

See: if you are terrified and timid, you raise your children to be even more terrified and timid than you are. Where you are afraid to drink coffee with sugar, they will be afraid to enter Starbucks.

This is what the real terrorists want: fear gives bullies control. But perfect love drives out all fear.

Hoax?

CBC reported this afternoon that the entire phone call accusing the polygamists in Texas may have been a hoax. Evidently there is a woman in jail in Colorado for giving false information to authorities.

But the Judge is still keeping the sect’s children behind bars.

You know.

For genetic testing.

Freedom of Religion in the American Reich.

Welcome to the American Reich

I love this line from a Gov’t Memo:

the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.

Please note: Domestic.

As for you people with the wrong blood: well, torture is legal for you, just as it was for the Jews.

Personally, I’d like to have a definition of “domestic” and “Military action”.

These decisions were made without benefit of court and without benefit of congress: in other words, by Executive Fiat.

I still wonder if we will have an election this year.