If forgiveness means saying, “That’s OK” to things that aren’t OK then none of us should forgive. Forgiveness is not about pushing ourselves to the limit of what we can tolerate. Susan Shapiro in the Washington Post Eight Times It Might Be Healthier Not to Forgive makes the point that whenever forgiveness begins to sound like “you have no reason to still be upset” it shifts the blame from offender to the person harmed. Forgiveness is not about saying “that’s OK” about things that are not OK.

Ordo amoris was defined by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century, but best exposition on this heirarchy is in Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summa_Theologica

1. There is an order in charity, and God is the principle of that order. God is to be loved out of charity, before all others. The other beings that are to be loved out of charity are, so to speak, lined up in their proper places, subordinate to God.

2. God is to be loved for himself and as the cause ofhappiness. Hence, God is to be loved more than our neighbor, who isloved, not for himself, but for God.

3. And we are to love God more than we love ourselves. What we love in ourselves is from God, and is lovable only on account of God.

4. A person rightly loves himself by charity when he seeks to be united with God and to partake of God's eternal happiness. And a person loves his neighbor as one to whom he wishes this union and happiness. Now, since seeking to obtain something for oneself is a more intense act than wishing well to one's neighbor, a person manifestly loves himself more than he loves his neighbor. As evidence of this fact, consider this: a man would rightly refuse to sin if, by sinning, he could free his neighbor from sin.

5. While we love ourselves more than we love our neighbor, we are required to love our neighbor more than we love our body.

6. And we rightly love one neighbor more than another - our parents, for instance, or our children. In this we violate no law so long as we do not withhold requisite love from any neighbor.

7. Our dearest objects of charity among neighbors are those who are closest to us by some tie - relationship, common country, and so on.

8. The tie that is strongest of all is the tie of blood. Hence it is natural that we should love our kindred more than others.

9. And in those related to us by blood there is an order. St. Ambrose says that we ought to love God first, then our parents, then our children, then the others of our household.

10. We are to love father and mother. Strictly speaking, the love of father precedes the love of mother.

11. A man loves his wife more intensely than he loves his parents. Yet he loves his parents with greater reverence.

12. It seems that we love those on whom we confer benefits more than those who confer benefits on us.

13. The order of charity, since it is right and reasonable, will endure in heaven.

In fact, Aquinas, being Aquinas, even offered objections to his thesis and defended against the objections.
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3026.htm

During 2024, but particularly during the election, we were assailed by warnings of the boogeyman of "Christian nationalism." No one was ever quite sure what it was other than using Christianity as a guardrail for public policy and guaranteeing Christianity had a place in the public square. Both of these ideas were insufficiently inclusive to satisfy the secular left.

JD Vance appeared on Sean Hannity's show on Wednesday, and, in my view, he gave a masterclass on how a Christian worldview provides answers to difficult problems. The intertwined issues were immigration and foreign aid.

Jack Poso 🇺🇸
·
Jan 29, 2025
@JackPosobiec
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JD VANCE: There is a Christian concept that you love your family and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens, and then after that, prioritize the rest of the world

A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. //

Immediately following this, he was hit by leftists shouting, "No way, that's not Christian." //

This is the type of stuff that is not only wrong, but it is such a grotesque misrepresentation of Christian thought that it drives many people away.

I had to look him up, but Rory Stewart is someone who is supposed to be important when up and has his trousers on.

Rory Stewart @RoryStewartUK
·
A bizarre take on John 15:12-13 - less Christian and more pagan tribal. We should start worrying when politicians become theologians, assume to speak for Jesus, and tell us in which order to love… //

JD Vance @JDVance
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Just google “ordo amoris.” Aside from that, the idea that there isn’t a hierarchy of obligations violates basic common sense. Does Rory really think his moral duties to his own children are the same as his duties to a stranger who lives thousands of miles away? Does anyone? //

What is ordo amoris? It is the Christian idea of "properly ordered love." All love is not equal. We are told to love God above all else, something the left ignores. In the same way, they use the English word "love" interchangeably for the eight Koine Greek words for love, those rendering love for God the same as homosexual sex because, you know, "love is love."

Ordo amoris was defined by Saint Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century, but best exposition on this heirarchy is in Saint Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica.

1. There is an order in charity, and God is the principle of that order. God is to be loved out of charity, before all others. The other beings that are to be loved out of charity are, so to speak, lined up in their proper places, subordinate to God.

2. God is to be loved for himself and as the cause ofhappiness. Hence, God is to be loved more than our neighbor, who isloved, not for himself, but for God.
   .... //

In fact, Aquinas, being Aquinas, even offered objections to his thesis and defended against the objections.

Then Vance returned to Mr. Stewart.

JD Vance @JDVance
·
Replying to @JDVance
I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: the problem with Rory and people like him is that he has an IQ of 110 and thinks he has an IQ of 130. This false arrogance drives so much elite failure over the last 40 years.
4:11 PM · Jan 30, 2025

Just as the Constitution is not a suicide pact, neither is Christian Theology. Just as we use the Constitution to order our public lives, we should use well-formed Christian thought to order our personal lives and, through those lives, order the nation. //

anon-todh
2 days ago
Christian hospitality is to welcome the stranger as demonstrated by Jewish law. Welcoming is to offer them food and shelter as they pass through, not to permanently support them. Jesus fed the 5,000 but did not open a housing agency and focus his work there. //

streiff anon-todh
2 days ago
food, drink, clothing, shelter, medical care...and then back home.

Laocoön of Troy anon-todh
2 days ago edited
In fact after Jesus fed the 5K, parts of the crowd followed him to another part of the lake looking to be fed again.

"They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.”

John 6

Jesus was there to teach them about himself and God. Most of the rest were there to get another free meal. //

Indylawyer
2 days ago
This is true, but I suggest there is a more relevant distinction to be made: charity is an obligation of individual Christians, often exercised in churches and other organizations. It isn't something that can be done through involuntary taxation. Christians can and should be aiding strangers whom they find in their communities, just as the Good Samaritan aided the Jewish stranger who fell into his path. But it's not compassion for the government to tax people to do it, nor is it compassion for the government to forsake its duties to protect its own citizens by allowing mass migration - particularly when it is largely facilitated by criminal gangs.

At first, I was going to just respond in the comments, but after a few attempts, I decided it would best be an article of its own.

He said:

I've always been somewhat bemused by the notion that God lost in the Garden of Eden, that Satan won, and that there was this mad scramble in Heaven to come up with a "Plan B".

Ask yourself this, "If Adam and Eve weren't supposed to fall, why didn't God just start over again with a new couple in the Garden of Eden? Had he lost the power to create such a couple?"

When you realize that the Fall was planned from the beginning, it all makes sense. //

This presents the idea that God had written this drama from the beginning, which would logically lead to the idea that our fates were already decided beforehand. This is a topic that inevitably gets brought up when discussing God at length, which usually triggers a debate between free will and determinism. I can assume the commenter takes the side of determinism, at least in some capacity.

Personally, I take the side of free will. //

To get back to my commenter, the reason God let us fall even though He knew we were going to is because he is a God who knows that love and free will are intermingled, and you cannot have one without the other. //

In Deuteronomy 30:19 God is directing Israel to make a choice with Moses as his spokesman saying, “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." Here is God offering the choice to do as one pleases, but points out which way is the right way, which is a habit of God's throughout humanity's existence. //

So then we have Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi. These two have actively campaigned, promoted, and paved the way for legislation that makes/keeps abortion a legal procedure. But if you're a faithful and practicing Catholic, you don't believe this is morally correct. In fact, you believe it is morally wrong. There are groups like Catholics for Choice who think abortions are ok, but they're really just support groups for people who feel guilty and need others in the pen with them to make them feel less guilty. These people are nominal Catholics who reject one of the core teachings of the Church, and so they should just go join another outfit more aligned with their views. //

What disturbs me, though, is that we have two people who wave their Catholicism in our faces, and yet they still support the act of abortion. This makes them nominal Catholics who use their faith to further their own political careers...in my opinion. And this is bad. //

Biden and Pelosi, though, are a lot worse than these people because they use their positions as legislators to further what their Church calls a moral evil, all the while claiming and touting their Catholicism. How do they square that circle? Well, they simply tell us that while they don't personally believe in abortion, as lawmakers, they cannot force their religious views on their constituents who want abortion to be legal. How virtuous of them. And they promote abortions to make the voters happy so that they won't get kicked out of power by them. This is also known as "Selling Your Soul." You surrender your values on morality to serve another diametrically opposed to your own. //

There's no room to thread the needle here for a practicing Catholic. And what we have in Biden and Pelosi are two individuals who have been, unfortunately, temporally successful in doing just that. And now, each with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel, I wonder what goes through their minds. Pelosi is probably thinking that she'll change God's mind by hook, crook, or bribery. And Biden? Well, he's going to visit the pope shortly. Maybe he'll be looking for absolution from Francis.

Worldview is most simply described as a person’s or a people’s way of viewing and thinking about the world. It includes beliefs about a creator (God), the physical world, humankind, the beginnings and continuance of human life, death and the end of human life and afterlife. It also includes beliefs about peoples’ interaction with a creator, the physical world and other people. Worldview matters, particularly when considering the role it plays in education. While often not explicitly discussed, the beliefs and assumptions that form worldview affect every aspect of curriculum, instruction and administration. //

Our belief as Christians about who God is, who we are as men and women, God’s relationship with us, the mystery of the Trinity, the virgin birth, death and bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ all have implications for how we live, love, learn, worship and what we believe our purpose to be in the world.

We’ve gone from not trusting the feds to not trusting the local police in Altoona, PA.

But it is just asking questions. Can I ask one: Do any of the people just asking questions have monetized Twitter accounts?

It’s a social media-driven phenomenon. During the Dominion Voting v. Fox News case, we got the inside text messages of Fox News hosts, including Tucker Carlson. It turns out almost all of them thought Trump was full of crap and the “stolen election” stuff was a lie.

However, their public thoughts were more obtuse or contradicted their private thoughts. Surprisingly, people preferred to believe Tucker Carlson questioned the election and had Trump’s back rather than believe his private thoughts conveyed to friends and colleagues that both doubted Trump’s claims and said, “I hate him passionately.”

Now, everybody is just asking questions. It is a clever way of seeding doubt and then watering it.

First, you cast doubt on the local police in Altoona, PA. Or just highlight Mangione’s questions. Then you sprinkle in doubts about federal prosecutors and investigators in something entirely different, tie it all together in the name of just asking questions, and hope your Twitter account is monetized for the traffic.

The Rubes will believe it, hopefully.

Too many are willing to believe it.

In The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis wrote about men without chests. But he also had this:

[Y]ou will find that you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on ‘seeing through’ things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to ‘see through’ first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To ‘see through’ all things is the same as not to see.

People just asking questions are not trying to see through things. They are hoping to make you see nothing, so you must rely on them. Too many people are. In the end, we have a nation that trusts no one and nothing and, therefore, is unable to get answers while asking questions.

Luigi Mangione began his descent into rage by just asking questions. He saw through the system and saw through whatever might be on the other side and finally saw nothing except revenge. He explained away the explanation itself and, on the other side, found violence.

Now, people who just a few days ago insisted something must be wrong because the police should have surely arrested someone quickly because look at Lee Harvey Oswald will now question who got arrested because it just seems so damn convenient.

Our society is dangerously close to spiraling out of control. The people who intend just to ask questions are helping sow the seeds, and those who, because of their distrust of “the system,” cannot grapple with basic answers will be the tip of the spear.

Sixty-four scholars and theologians have signed on to a “Wesleyan witness,” a six-part, 62-page document they hope will shape the future of Methodism, define orthodox Wesleyanism, and ground more Christians in the story of sanctification and restoration through grace. //

“The Faith Once Delivered” was first drafted in January at a summit for “The Next Methodism.” Scholars allied with the evangelical wing of the United Methodist Church, as well as holiness and Pentecostal denominations, came together, formed five working groups, and co-wrote statements on five theological topics: the nature of God, Creation, revelation, salvation, and the church. A sixth section on eschatology or “the fullness of time” was added later.

What Does it Mean to be Human? Part 3--Free Will
Imago Dei, meaning of life, What am I?, What is human? //

Philosopher Alvin Plantinga defines an agent who has free will as one who is free to perform a morally right action and free to refrain; “no causal laws and antecedent conditions determine either that he will perform the action, or that he will not”.(1) In the literature, it is generally defined as follows,

Free will:

The ability to make a decision that satisfies two criteria:

a. the decision was not determined by any antecedent conditions and,

b. the person could have decided otherwise,

where ‘determined’ means it was caused to happen such that no other result was possible. The conditions leading up to the outcome were such that the result was “carved in stone”. This is in stark contrast to bringing some influence to bear on a decision or putting pressure on a person to make a particular decision. Influence is compatible with free will; it can be considered and overridden by the person making the free decision. So even if we have a proclivity, propensity, or an almost overwhelming desire to say “yes” to something that we know is not good for us, we can override those powerful influences and say “no”.

Judges 12:1-7 (ESV)

The word “shibboleth” comes from this passage in the Bible. It is a word that those in the tribe can say and others cannot.

Every group has words foreign to outsiders—words the others cannot say or will not say. These words set people apart as inside or outside the tribe.

In postmodern Marxist thought, shibboleths give power. The existing powerful people say things, and the way to reverse power is to shut them up and say new things. Get everyone saying the grass is blue and the sky is green, and pretty soon, the sane people are the ones who look crazy.

As I have written before, progressives exist on the left and right. They are about the acquisition and control of power, not ideas. Power is the only idea, and they will say and do anything to gain that power. Part of using that power is tribal control and identity. //

Here’s the tell that we are dealing with idol-worshipping progressives.

One of the very first thoughts uttered by these people was not for the care and concern of American citizens in harm’s way but for the potential to deny them power politically. They made it about Trump and the election. That was their primary reaction.

You need to understand that they don’t care about the truth. They are trying to separate the true believers from everyone else. If you are willing to embrace the absurd with a straight face, you’re on the inside. You can say shibboleth.

If you are unwilling to embrace it, you are on the outside. It is a very Marxist behavior.

They have no guiding ideology and no real principles. They want power. Like progressives on the left, the progressives on the right are willing to grow and wield government power to reward their friends and punish their enemies. And, increasingly, their enemies are those unwilling to side with the absurd idea that the government is conjuring hurricanes to steal elections.

This is, needless to say, unhealthy, and yes, again, this is a rightwing equivalent to the absurd leftwing progressive demands that we refer to girls as boys and, upon transition, retroactively embrace that Caitlyn Jenner always was. The pregnant girl in the movie Juno was actually played by a boy all along. //

Romans 1:21-23 (ESV)

What you need to understand is that the dramatic shift towards foolishness, lust, and mythology does not know earthly ideological parameters. It will happen across the spectrum of people, and we are watching it happen in real-time, including here, as people have given up the worship of God for power. They seek a political savior for spiritual problems and what they’ve done is embrace the spirit of the age as they reject the Holy Spirit.

All of life is theological, whether you acknowledge it or not. When a person gives up the sound theology of God and His sovereignty, they begin to utter the shibboleths of the stupid. As Paul warned Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” 2 Timothy 4:3 (ESV)

Kintsugi, meaning “golden joint” or “golden repair,” is a Japanese method lacquer masters use to remake broken teaware. The lacquer seals the pieces back together, then gold powder accentuates the cracks between pieces rather than hiding them. Tea families would even keep fragments for generations, seeking a master who could put them together into something more beautiful than before. It is a challenging and meditative craft.

What we love about this practice is its emphasis on maintaining the fragmentation. Or as we like to call it in our line of work, the wounds. Kintsugi considers how something that was broken, no matter how badly, can be put together into a creation that is even stronger and more striking. //

This idea of “new creation” is also central to Restoring the Soul’s mission because it reflects Jesus’ journey on the cross and post-resurrection appearance. He chose to be a wounded human, appearing to his disciples with nail marks in his hands still showing. As Isaiah 53:5 says, “By his wounds we are healed.” His wounds created a path to restoration for us, no matter how shattered we are. Through Jesus, we are kintsugi pieces, new creations: ourselves, but even more beautiful than before.

Jesus accepts and loves us with all our flaws, imperfections, and painful experiences. He offers you an opportunity to be created anew, filled with rivers of gold — to be as valuable to yourself as you are to God.

Once we open the path to the stars, we set humans on a quest for eternity that this life can never fulfill. //

All but a small few have no idea whether we can colonize Mars. The technological subjects overawe most minds. But all must consider whether we should colonize Mars and eventually other planets in distant solar systems.

We, indeed, face a fork in the road of human destiny, and we should consciously plot our course. //

Musk has given a compelling philosophical defense of multiplanetary colonization. In an interview with Google co-founder Larry Page, Musk said that “human consciousness is a precious flicker of light in the universe, and we should not let it be extinguished.” //

In Perelandra, the second book of his Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis described the motivation behind humanity’s quest for interplanetary colonization.

“It is the idea that humanity, having now sufficiently corrupted the planet where it arose, must at all costs contrive to seed itself over a larger area: that the vast astronomical distances which are God’s quarantine regulations, must somehow be overcome. This for a start.”

He warned that if man ever had “the power … put into its hands” to reach distant planets, then it would “open a new chapter of misery for the universe.” //

Maybe we can tolerate some losses of native extraterrestrial species for the preservation of the human species. And maybe humans will perpetually land on worlds with nothing but raw materials. But we need to determine whether God gave us our native terrestrial ball to govern, as Lewis contended, or whether he gave us a universe to govern. //

Once we open the path to the stars, however, we set humans on a quest for eternity that this life can never fulfill. The only hope of eternally maintaining the light of human consciousness is in the Holy Spirit. Musk’s dream for mankind might turn into a nightmare that stretches across galaxies and millennia.

Free will

God created a perfect world, yet gave Adam and Eve a way to reject him by accepting something that would remove their innocence. Why offer them a choice? Why not leave it perfect?

Because without a way to reject God, their love would have been meaningless.

God goes to great lengths to make sure people can choose to love Him without violating their free will. That plays heavily into the idea of deus absconditus, or "hidden god". God is hidden, but wants to be found. Thus, you ensure that the majority of those who find Him are actually those looking.

Predestination

I think the confusion that surrounds this issue is largely rooted in the question of free will. If God wants us to be saved, will we not be saved? If God wants you condemned to Hell, will you not be condemned? There is some level of truth there, but it misses that God does not throw Free Will out the window to accomplish this.

God orchestrates the universe. He knows every decision that can be made, and what decisions will, in fact, be made. Take Luke 13

13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.

Jesus is speaking here, and this verse illustrates predestination perfectly. Jesus spent time doing miracles in two cities that bore no fruit. Indeed, we see Jesus do many things that do nothing to promote faith. What is positively mind blowing is that Jesus is saying that if he had done those same miracles in Syria they would have repented wholeheartedly. So... why not go and do those things there?

Jesus' ministry was primarily to the Jews. Other miracles will be done in those places later, but Jesus was trying to get the Jews to repent first and foremost. In other words, God was showing love to the Jews by giving them miracles He knew they would reject, so they could be seen from a different perspective later.

[Deconstruction] has little to do with objective truth, and everything to do with tearing down whatever doctrine someone believes is morally wrong. //

it was very personal and it focused on the human beings who have come out of this, rather than on whether a certain kind of theology is right or wrong. //

If deconstruction means nothing more than changing your mind or correcting bad ideas, then I can say I deconstructed by switching from AT&T to Verizon. //

Deconstruction is not about getting your theology right.