{"id":79,"date":"2007-12-11T13:21:59","date_gmt":"2007-12-11T19:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/?p=79"},"modified":"2007-12-21T22:57:41","modified_gmt":"2007-12-22T04:57:41","slug":"katherines-christmas-message","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/katherines-christmas-message\/","title":{"rendered":"+Katharine’s Christmas message"},"content":{"rendered":"

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Christmas message<\/a> is poignant, lovely, and strong. “In what form will you find the Christ child this year?” asks +Katharine, a question that is so familiar as to be almost iconic. I’ve read the message very carefully, though–it’s short–because I first read a critique of it, a particularly vicious and mean-spirited critique, I might add, that was featured at Stand Firm<\/i><\/a>. The original includes some sneering at the Spanish text claiming that it is pidgin Spanish, which it isn’t, and is published at MJC<\/a> (The Midwest Conservative Journal<\/i> – Copyright by Christopher S. Johnson), where it is followed by a long piling-on of vituperative comments.<\/p>\n

But it is the Stand Firm<\/i> commentator who deserves some first prize for gratuitous nonsense–I can’t quite think of a good name for it. That eminent critic removes from its context a sentence that reads, “Indeed, Jesus is understood as that helper for all who fail, by the world’s terms, to save themselves,” and uses it as the opportunity to deliver a lesson in “theology,” to wit:<\/p>\n

No one can save themselves, Kathryn [sic]. NO. ONE. While terribly old fashioned of me, may I recommend Romans 3:21-26 for devotions this week?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am imagining a scenario in which the presiding bishop turns to her critic and asks without rancor or any touch of irony, “Master, what must I do to be saved?”<\/p>\n

I am also thinking that +Katharine is now the target of a hate campaign similar to the one that has dogged the footsteps of Hillary Clinton . . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s Christmas message is poignant, lovely, and strong. “In what form will you find the Christ child this year?” asks +Katharine, a question that is so familiar as to be almost iconic. I’ve read the message … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/julianlong.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}