Rohr Goes Onss of it All

I keep thinking I'm finished with Rohr but then I go on listening.  I did want to find out what he thinkis about sin and salvation though.  He uses the term redemption in a very odd way but the term salvation hadn't come up in anything I'd heard.  So Isearched on it and a talk came up titled The Christian Meaning of Enlightenment.  Which is of cours a term from eastern religion which he's also into, as was an earlier Monk, Thomas Merton.  So he stats out defining enlightenment using the term light from scripture.  Eve ntually he gets to salvation.

The first thing he says is that Catholics are taught that salvation is a healing that occurs after death that finaloly makes you right with God.  I'd never heard that one before.  I know Catholics don't teach the gospel of salvation so that Catholics are very likely not to be saved no matter how much they may make Jesus their exclusive focus, and that's pretty sad, but exactly what they are tuaght I haven't known.  

He goes on showing that the term salvation is presented in scripture as past, present and future, just as Protestants teach, having already occurred, occurring in the present and still future.  By grace ye have been saved.  gOD HAS BEEN PLEASED TO RECONCILE ALL THINGS TO hIMSELF.   

i JUST WENT BACK AND LISTENED TO THE WHOLE THING AGAIN, TAKING SOME NOTES.  i'TS HARD TO TAKE NOTES ON HIM, SINCE EVERY FEW WORDS USUES MEANINGS THAT HAVE NOTHING WHATEVER TO DO WITH cHRISTIANITY.  oH THE TERMS ARE cHRISTIAN BUT THE MEANINGS HE GIVES THEM AREN'T.  iT'S AS IF YOU ARE STARTING OUT WITH A RECIPTE FOR PAELLA AND AS YOU FOLLOW IT YOU CHANGE EVERY INGREDIENT FROM ONE THING TO SOMETHING ELSE UNTIL WHAT YOU END UP WITH IS BEEF STROGANOFF.  oR YOU ARE MAKING TIRAMISU AND END UP WITH A BLACK FOREST CAKE.  tHE TERMS, THE INGREDEITNS ARE THATT DIFFERENT.    tHIS ISN'T cHRISTIANITY AT ALL BUT WHAT IS IT?  wELL YESH, A HERESIY OF SOME SORT THAT CALLS ITSELF cHRISTIANITY, BUT IT'S GOT BITS OF PSYCHOLOGY IN IT AND BITS OF bUDDIHIMS AND BITS OF WHO KNOWS WHAT, MAYBE TSTUFF HE MADE UP HIMSELF.

trtO hIM THE lIGHT OF THE wORLD ISN'T JUST cHRIST HIMSELF IT'S A PRINCIPLE WE ALL PARTICIPATE IN.  sAME WITH THE INCARNATION, IT ISN'T JUST jESUS WHO INCARNATED, BUT THE WHOLE CREATION WHICH WE ALL PARTICIPATE IN.  tHE PA...  PHONE RANG SO LOST MY TRAIN OF THOUGHT.  oH WELL.

oH THE INCARNATION IS WHE WHOLE CREATION.  yES AND PARTICIPATION IS SOMETHING WE SOMEHOW LEARN TO DO THROUGH CONTEMPLATION OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, RECOGNIZE THAT WE'RE ALREADY SAVED OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, WE ALREADY HAVE THE hOLY sPIRIT AND SO ON.  wHAT A BUNCH OF NONSENSE BUT i THINK THAT'S PRETTY MUCH WHAT HE'S SAYING.  aND HE CALLS jESUS TGHE FIRST NONDUAL THINKER OF THE wEST, A BIG COMPLIMENT OF COURSE, BUT cHRISTIANITY ITSELF IS DUAL AND THAT'S A NON NO, THE CAUSE OF ALL THE PROBLEMS IN THE WORLD.  oH DEAR WE MUSTNLT MAKE DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN iSRAEL AND hAMAS i GUESS, NOT THAT HE MENTIONS THIS ONE, OH DEAR OH DEAR OH NO OH NO,  .  tHERE ISN'T A GOOD SIDE AND A BAD SIDE, WE MUST STOP THINKING THAT WAY.    

rELIGION IS TRANSFORMATIVE HE SAYS, TAT'S THE WHOLE POINT AND DUALISM PREVENTS THIS TRANSFORMATION.  wELL cHRISTIANITYH is TRANSFORMATIVE, WE ARE TRANSLATED FROM THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD TO THE kINGDOM OF gOD THROUGH THE DEATH OF cHRIST.  tHAT SORT OF TRANSFORMATION IS NOWHERE IN rOHR'S PLAYBOOK.  tRANSOFMRATION HASSOMETHING TO DO WITH RECNOGNIZING AS i SAY, THE ABOVE .  hE HAS NO CLUE THAT IT'S ALL ABOUT jESUS, HE ACTUALLY DENIGRATES THE ROLE OF jESUS, REDUCES HIM TO A MESSENGER OF THE TRUTH.  aND NOT THE TRUE TRUTH OF COURSE, SOME OTHER TOTAL WEIRDNESS.  i SUPPOSE THIS IS GOING TO END UP AS THE RELIGION OF THE aNTICHRIST IN THE END BECAUSE OF COURSE IT COMES OUT OF cATHOLICISM ALTHOUGH IT DOESN'T WEVEN AFFIRM MUCH OF CATHOLICISM.  

oH cATHOLICS.  iF ONLY i COULD SAY THIS RIGHT AND GET A BUNCH OF THEM TO SEE THE TRUTH AND FLEE SUCH ABSOLUTE NONESENSE.  

i HAVE A BUNCH OF NOTES BUT i'M NOT TOING TO GET TO MOST OF THEM.  bUT AT THE END HE SAYS cHRISTIANITY HASN'T TRANSFORMED THE WORLD AS IT SHOULD.  wOW DOES HE NOT KNOW HISTORY.  cHRISTIANITY TRANSFMORMED THE WEST HAND OVER FIST THROUGHOUT THE LAST TWO MILLENNIA.  tHERE WOULD BE NO ORPHANAGES OR HOSPITALS WITHOUT chRISTIANITY, NO mAGNA cARTA, NO dECLARATION OF iNDEPENDNECE OF cONSTITUTION OF THE uNITED sTATES, NO CHARITY ORGANIZATIONS  cHARLES pURGEONS' chURCDH ALONE FOUNDED SIXTY SEVEN OF THOSE.  nO RED CROSS, AND YES, NO CAPITALISM EITHER i SUPPOSE ALTHOUGH THAT IS THE ONLY ECONOMIC SYSTEM THAT MAKES AN ENTIRE SOCIETY PROSPEROUS RATHER THAN CONCENTRATION THE WEALTH IN THE TINIEST OF UPPER ECHELONS.  aND THE lEFT DOES NOT GET THAT AND MAY NEVVER GET IT.    i WISH i COULD WRITE WITHOUT SO MANY MISTAKES BUT EVEN IF i SHOWOW DOWN AND TRY VERY HARD i GOOF IT UP AT EVERY TURN.  iT'S LIKE i WANT TO WRITE A PARTICULAR WORD BUT A DIFFERENT WORD GETS WRITTEN.  sOMETHING WRONG WITH MY POOR HEAD.

yES ALL cREATION WILL BE SAVED, BUT NOT ALL HUMAN BEINGS.  lEARN THE TRUTH YE FOLLOWERS OF A HERETIC LIKE rOHR.  oH i'LL TRY TO COME BACK TO THIS.

Reading it Straight from Revelation rio

 I've been shaking off my preconceptions about the Book of Revelation based on the Pre Trib eschatology and just trying to think it through as it presents itself to me.  When I do that I find first of all that the Sixth Seal of Revelation Six sounds like the beginning of the Great Tribulation, its announcmeent.  Now I'm finding it hard to understand how we have been supposed to understand it as coming in the middle of the tribulation sequance IF that sequence IS to be understood as the seventieth wek of Daniel.    

Certainly the seals must represent God's judgments on the world, that's the whole point.  Jesus qualified to open the book that unleashes this judgment on the world because He died to restore us to our pre fallen state.  The Creation iself is redeemed in that act.    Well I'm going to get into territory I don't understand well enough if I keep going in this direction so I'll stop it at this point.

But that is so clearly a beginning point, a very dramatic beginning point, not just a switch from an earlier form of llighter judgment to the outpouring of Godd's wrath, or so it seems to me as I read it.  A great earthquake, the sun going black, the mooon turning to blood, stars falling from the sky, men hiding themselves for fear of the wrath of Him who sits on the throne and the lamb.  It's hard to see this drama coming as a sort of puncutation in the middle of the Tribulation as I've been trying to do, it is so clearly a beginning.  

The first five seals COULD occur within the last week of Daniel but I keep thinking that since they don't have to, it makes sense that they might not have, but represent god's judgments over the milennia since Christ's death, resurrection and ascension.  I've had a problem with the martyrs under the alter in the Fifth Seal for some time.  If all those first seals occur within a very short time period, two or three years, it's hard to fit all those martyrs into that framework.  And I don't understand how we can separate out sdifferent groups of martyrs.  The Middle Ages produced milions of martyrs under the hand of the papacy, fifty million proto Protestants plus seventeen million Jews and others.  It's hard to see them as having been absorbed into the Rapture, which of course they must have been if the Pre Trib story is correct, while some other group is formed within a few years of the Tribulation as if they were some special group of martyrs.  

But mostly I'm concerned with the fact that the Sixth Seal seems so clearly to be announcing the Wrath of God, and it is the first mention of it in the opening of the scroll.  That makes the Seventh Seal the Wrath itself, and since it opens in Chapter Eight with a half hour of silence in heaven it seems pretty clear that here we are hnow for the first time in the time period of the Wrath, and that nothing before it really fits that designation.  

The first four seals do seem to describe pretty ordinary events on earth throughout history.  The firth seal does seem to refer to the martyrs of the first two millennia.  And point to martyrs yet to come.  to join the mm.  And if they are to join them that wmeans the REapture can't have occurred yet.  This does make quite a garbled mess of the Pretrib system but I can't help it.

So from Revelation eight on we are in the period of God's Wrath which I take to be THE Great Tribulatgion as described by Jesus in Matthew twenty four and foreshadowed as well in the book of Daniel among other scripture messages.  

In Chapter eight we get the first four trumpets of the seventh seal which destroy trees and affect the sun and the waters of the earth.  In chapter nine which I have to study more we get the fifth and sixth trumpets which are also called the first to three woes, locusts that stin g like scorpions and I forget the rest.  Now we are up to the last tru mpet of the last seal and in chapter ten an angel comes down to assure us that with this final outpouring God's wrath will come to an end.  

I'm not sure how to put together the next few chapters s far as the timetable is concerned.  In eleven we get the measuring of the temple with the trampling of the outer court by the Gentiles for forty and two months.  Then we get the preaching of thte two witnesses for the same period of time though referred to as a thousand two hundred and sixty days.  After this we get the announcment that the last trumpet is about to sound, the third and final Woe and when it sounds there is jubilation in heaven as we hear that God' now possesses the kingdomes that had belonged to the earth before the judgment.  

But first we are apparently taken back to the historical context, if that is the right way to look at Revelation twelve as we see Israel giving birth to the Messiah and the dragon who is Satan trying to devour her child the Messiah who is to rule the world, and her being protected for that same three and a half year period we heard about in chapter eleven.  But I strt to lose my sense of things in this part of it.  

I d do still have to note that after all the judgment THEN we hear the announcement of the marriage suppoer of the lamb and that for me just blasts the whole idea of the pre trib rapture of the Church to be in heaven durin gall these events, during which supposedly we experience that marriage suppoer.  Perhaps some pretribber can show me how I'm misreading this timing but at this point I'm stuck with it.  I still have NO idea when to think of the Rapture as occuring as I read all this.

Ah well.  I still want to believe the pre trib rapture tna dhtat very soon we will all be snatched off this ever worsening worldly planet.

But I got ahead of myself.  In Chapter twelve after the woman we get the dragon and then in chapter thirteen we get the beast from the sea which has the same seven heads and tten hors of the dragon and the characteristic of rhte fourth empire of Daniel's vision of the four empires in Daniel eseven, plus the information that this represents a man identified by the number six hundred and sixty six.  ]

That is revealed with the arrival of the other beast, the one with the horns olike a mab who spaks like a dragon and causes the world to worship the beast from the sea which is identified by the number  666.  Antichirst and false prophet.  We are being ingroduced to the players in this drama but I'm still have trouble knowing where to place them in the times scheme.   The extreme threat to the saints is emphsized with the description of the beast from the sea, the great patience of the saints, this is apparently part of God's wrath?  ut iI thought for some reason that what the Antichrist does is to be understood as man's wrath and not God's.  So I'm confused about that too.

I grasp who the players are at least, the Antichrist and later the woman who rides the beast in Revelation seventeedn but putting it all together eludes me.

Al well, I'm into the part of Revelation where I need to study a lot more so paerhaps I should end this heare.

Woopsie.    Just had the whimsical thought that a nuclear bomb is going to explose in my neighborhood right now and I won't have to bother figuring out the end times scenario, where the rapture fits into it and all that.

America Against the Good Guys? How Can That be?

 Some subjects are too much for me and that includes the war in Palestaine.  At the moment the most offensive scariest part of it is the response on American university campuses supporting the evildoers against the victims.  We've been in a period f good for evil and evil for good for quite some time now but this goes beyond anything I even thought possible, that they would come out in the open like this and wholeheartedly embrace this satanic evil.  In America.  While our government is working hard to prevent Israel from responding as they should and have every right to, to get rid of this neightoring threat tot ehri existence .  The world is upside doewn beyhond my understanding.

Source of the garbgling

 I do enough garbling on my own without any help, but I've been having the impression that I might be getting some help and just now as I listened back to the previous post I noticed that wone line I'm sure I got right was garbled completely.  I'd written "Phone range" and only a few of the letters ended up on the page.  Like the time I was writing in Word and got a message warning me that someone else was editing that page.  I rthink now that something like that is going on here too.  Only I don't get a warning message

mORE rOHR, uNIVERSAL cHRIST, dRIVING mE cRAZY

  I continue to listen off and on to Ri_chard Rohr, still trying to get a better sense of what he's trying to do although in a way I ought to know enough already.  BBut I did just find him giving a definition of the uniersal Christ.  Finally.  Christ is a name for the collective he says.  Huh?  And it's a collective

Christ is the naming of the eollective.  Those are his words.     Good ness that is willing to carry and include badness.  

I might have lost a word or two in there shuttling back and forth between his page and this one.

The naming of the eollective.  Huh?  He says before this that he's following the Franciscan point of view which is based on the line in Colossions about how all things are recapitulated in Christ.  

All things recapitulated?  I find in Colossions that all things were created by Him  bugt don't find recapitulated.

Anywasy all the gospels give us a singular Christ, not a universal Christ and if one phrase in one of them suggests to the Francisionans something else it's out of syc with the message.  

Willing to include badness?  What on earth does that even mean?  Chirst died to PAY FOR our badness as it were.  His death was a badness though a goodness in its result.  What is this guy talking about?    

Again he goes back to Creation and not the fhe Fall.  We are living in the world of the Fall, we are not living in the world of the Creation.  that was distorted by the Fall and then destroyed y the Flood and everthing is governed by falleness in this world.  The original Creation was perfect, perfectly good.  That is far from the world swe are living in though of course there are sime principles we still hvae from the Creation, the principle of birth and growth which he also mentions for instance.  the image of god is till in us though buried under velils of fallenness as it were.    I'm talking nonsense I fear, trying to cope with this incomprehensible idea of a universal Christ.

In scripture there is no Christ but the Messiah or Anointed One, translated Christ in Greek, chosen by God and sent to save us from our sins.  How you can even get an idea such as Christ is the naming of the collective out of that is so far beyond me I can't even think of a way to bridge the idea from the true idea.

jThen he goes on to say that Christ is the life principle?  Yikes.  How do they come up with this stuff?  By Him were all things made that were made, but that doesn't make Him a life principle, it makes Him the Divine Maker of all things.  

I'm tryihng not to be driven crazy by this.

Oh here we go.  He focuses on the Creation Story because he thinks we were wrong to focus on genesis Three which is the story of the Fall.  He doesn't give umuch of a reason why he rejects the Fall as the place to go to understand our world, it seems to come down to the simple fact that he likes the Creation story.  

he seems to think there was an option.  How could there be?  Original sin or the fact that the first disobedience of God changed everything explains everthing.  It explains our world in a way the perfections of Creation certainly don't.  Creation was perfectly good, this world is both good and gbad, shot through with eviel.  I remember the moment when I understood that original sin explains everything.  It was an extremely satisfying moment forme.  Wow. Yes.  that's why it's all so dangerous and violent and hateful in this world.  Yes.   the Creation story doenas't explain that.

Original blessing he sys.  He likes that.  Well, yeah, but that's not a description of this world or of any of us for that matter.  We're fallen, the world is fallen, we won't have a world free of sin and evil until Jesus returns.

The collective goodness that is willing to carry and include badness.  That's his whole statement.

Huh.  the goodness that is Christ, Jesus The cHRIST, DIED AS RESULT OF OUR BADNESS TO DO AWAY WITH THAT BADNESS SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT BADNESS AND TO FIT US FOR A RENEWED CREATION OF ALL GOODNESS.

hERE WE'VE GOT THIS LOVELY CREATION STORY SAYS rORHR, BUT FOR SOME DANGE RESONSON, HE SAYS, WE PREFERRED TO START WITH gENESIS THREE.  GOLLY gOSH WE PREFERRED TO?    oH YEAH THAT'S BECUASE MEN LIKE TO HAVE PROBLEMS TO SOFLVE ACRCRODING TO HIM OR SUOME SUCH NONENESS.   nOT THAT THE ACT OF DISOBEDICNECE SIMPLY CHANGED ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING, CHAGNED US, CHANGED THE WORLD WE LIVE IN, INTRODUCED EVIL WHERE THERE HAD BEEN ONLY GOOD, BROUGHT IN DEATH AND DISEASE AND HATRED AND BAD FEELINGS.  nO, WE SIMPLEY ACCORDING TO HIM preferred TO START WITH gENESIS tHREE.

nO HE THINKS IT WAS JUST A CHOICE.  wE COULD JUST START WITH gENESIS oNE BUT STUPIDLY WE STARTED WITH gENESIS TGHREE.  

wE CAN'T JUST HAVE jESUS AS A REMEDY FOR SIN ECAUSE THAT PUTS US IN CHARGE OF HISTORY HE GOES ON TO SAY.  hUH.  wHAT?  

THIS GOES ON AND ON AND i MAY OR MAY NOT COME BACK TO IT.  oNE OF HIS INTERVIEWERS SAYS SOMETHING ABOUT REDEMPTION BEING A RECOGNIZTION OF THE CONNECTEDNESS OF ALL THINGS AND THE UNIVERSAL cHRIST SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT HUMANITY IS OR OSMETHIHG LIKE THAT AND THE IDEA THAT OUR BODIES ARE BAD WHICH WAS NEVER TAUGHT IN cHRISTIANITY BUT IS A GNOSTIC IDEA THAT WAS PERHAPS TAKEN OVER BY THE cATHOLICcHURCH AT ONE POINT THOUGHT i'M NOT SURE OF THAT.

aLL STUFF THAT COULD DRIVE ME CRAZY, REDUCE ME TO GIBBERING, IF IT HASN'T ALREADY.

aND THE MISTAKES ARE GETTING WORSE SO i REALLY MUUST STOP.

bUT HOW THEY COULD TAKE THE WORLD cHRIST AND MAKE IT REFER TO ANYTHING OTHER THAN gOD'S ANOINTED sON OUR sAVIOR FROM SIN ....  HOW?

aN REDEMPTIOMN A SENSE OF THE CONNECTEDNESS OF ALL THINGS?  wHAT?  REDEMPTION IS SALVATION FROM SIN, IT'S TAKEN OUR FALLEN NATURE AND THROUGH THE DEATH OF cHRIST ON THE cHRIST RESTROED US TO SINLESSNESS.  nOT THAT WE'LL GET TO EXPERIENCE THAT UNTIL THE NEXT WROLD BUT THAT'S WHAT IT DID AND THAT'S WHAT IT IS AND IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ALL THIS OTHER  WHATEVER IT IS.

i'VE GOT TO STOP. 

lATER.  rEDEMPTION IS THE RESTORATION OF THE oRIGINAL bLESSING PERHAPS,.  pERHAPS THAT'S A WAY     wE CAN'T START WITH ORIGINAL BLESSING BECAUSR E OF THE fALL WHICH CHANGED EVR

pONE ANG, LOST IT LL.

BUT FOUND OUT SOMETHING ABOUR THE COLLECCTIVE.  aPPARENTLY HIS IDEA IS THAT SALVATION IS COLLECTIVE.  Quotes variojusus scriptures to that effect.  Yes all of this and that will be saved.  Yes all creation groans for the ultimate revelation of the sons of God.  Yes salvation is bigger than individulas but it is first and foremost individiuals and to leave that out is to miss the whole point.  It is because we are saved, who committed the oirignal sin and caused the whole crdation to fall, it is becvause we are saved that the creation is going to be resotored.  We will not be returns to the returned to the original belssing it's going to be better than that, the Original blessing Plus.  We will no long er be innocent as Adam and Eve were, wei will be good and unable to sin.  

Look, he traidtion got it right.  God made sure that in the end we did not go off track in our understand ing of His word, and of the plan of redemption, any of it.  If we stick to the tradition and seek many counselors and pray and truly want to know the truth we will have it.   I'm sick of those who come along to tell us how tradition got it all wrong.  Well yeah the Catholic Church sure got a lot of things wrong but no, there is a thread that carries the truth and he is taking us off the truth.  He thinks he's following tradition but he's got a very weird idea of tradition, there isn't anything even in the heresies that fittss what he's saying.  he's a heresiy unto himself.

 tHEY HATE cHRISTIANITY WHICH OFFERS THEM ETRNAL LIFE BUT LOVE iSLAM WHICH WANTS TO KILL THEM ALL.

cIBTENOKATUVE PURSUIT HITS BRICK WALL FOR ME

 bEEN POKING AROUND TRYING TO GET A CLEARER SENSE OF THE WHOLE FRAME OF REFERENCE OF rICHARD rOHR BUT i'M GOING TO GIVE UP FOR NOW.  mAYBE i JUST DON'T HAVE THE PATIENCE TO TRY TO GRASP WHAT HE MEANS BY DUALISM OR THE uNIVERSAL cHRIST AND i DON'T WANT TO MISCHARACTERIZE HIS POINT OF VIEW, BUT GOOD GRIEF cHRISTIAINITY IS DUALISTIC, reality IS DUALISTIC i DON'T GET THESE EFFORTS TO TRY TO EMBRACE BOTH AS IF IT COULD BE DONE.  aND OF COURSE i REJECT THIS IDEA THAT cHRIST IS ANYTHING OTHER THAN jESUS, the mESSIAH PROPHESIDED FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO COME AS sAVIOR FOR MANKIND, A SINGLE HUMAN BEING ANOINTED BY gOD FOR THIS PURPOSE, gOD AND mAN IN ONE PERSON.  tHERE IS NO chRIST BEYOND THIS PERSONAL cHRIST.    i GUESS PEOPLE LIKE THE IDEA, FOR SOME REASON THEY DON'T LIKE THE TRUE cHRIST, THE TRUE DUALISTIC NATURE OF REALITY AND SO ON SO THEY DO AWAY WITH IT IN THESE OTHER CONCEPTS THAT TAKE THE TERMINOLOGY AND BLAST ITS JORMAL MEANINGS.

THAT'S WHERE i AM RIGHT NOW.  iT WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE THE ENERGY AND THE MOTIVATION TO DO A THOROUGH JOB ON ANY SUCH CONCEPT OR PERSONALITY LIKE RORH BUT i HAVE TO REMIND MYSELF THAT i'VE NEVER ASSUMED THAT ROLE HERE.  iT'S NOT MY ROLE, i DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A SCHOLAR THAT \\\\\ WHO RADS EVERYTHING AND CAN PUT A DOZEN MOVING PARTS TOGETHER INTO A COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF SOMETHING.  i WANT TO TRY TO GET THE ESSENCE OF SOMETHING AND HOPE TO MOTIVATE OTHERS TO PURSUE IT.  

gOOD IS GOOD AND BAD IS BAD AND i JUST CAN'T MAKE SENSE OUT OF ANY ATTTEMPT TO ....  i DON'T EVEN KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THEY ARE TRING TO DO WITH THEM EXCEPT NOT ALLOW THEM TO BE CLEARLY DIFFERENTIATED.    i'M so RELIEVED TO LIVE IN A UNIVERSE WHERE gOOD IS GOOD AND BAD IS BAD AND TO KNOW THAT GOOD WILL WIN IN THE END.  nOTHING COULD MAKE ME HAPPIER.  aND cHRIST IS MY sAVIOR.  wE MADE NO MISTAKES ABOUT THAT.  rOHR HAS US MAKING A MILLION MISTAKES ABOUT ALL OUR ORTHODOX BELIEVES.  oH WELL, DISMANTILING REALITY AND TRUTH SEEMS TO BE THE PROJECT OF THE FORCES OF EVIL TODAY AND IF THEY CAN SEE IT AS SOPHSTICATED THEY'LL O FOR IT.  iN THE PROCESS OF COURESE THEYU MAKE A PATHETIC STRAW MAN OUT OF THEIR OPPOSITION.  tHEY WAY THEY CHARACTERIZE ORTHODOZXY, THE BELIEFSZ OF THE TRUE cHURCH, IS MOST DEPRESSING.  oLD WHITE BEAREDED MAN ON A THRONE IS SUPPOSEDLY OUR IDE A OF gOD?  gOOD GRIEF.  i GUESS HE PICKS OUT A SMALL SEGMENT OF THE cHURCH AND MAKES IT STAND FOR THE WHOLE SO HE CAN DISMANTLE IT AND LAUGH AT IT AND PRETEND IT'S WHAT WE ALL THINGK. 

hE ASO LAUGHS AT THE IDEA THAT EATING AN APPLE IS WHERE IT ALL STARTED, MAKING THAT RENDING OF THE UNIVERSE IN ONE ACT OF DISOBEDIENCED INTO A TRIVIAL SILLINESS.  hE EVEN CALLES IT SILLY.   nO IDEA OF FALLENNESS WHATEVER.  tHAT WE ARE BORN FALLEN, BORN IN ORIGINAL SIN, WHICH MEANS BORN WITH THE SIN NATURE THAT ACT OF ISOBEDIENCE BROUGHT ON US.  wE NEED REDEREDEMPTION FROM THIS, THAT'S WHAT SALVATION IS ALL ABOUT.  THIS SWORLD IS NOT NORMAL.  hE SEEMS NOT TO GRAPS THIS SIMPLE BIBLICAL FACT.  tHIS WORLD IS FALLEN.  oH HE KNOWS IT'S BROKEN AS HE PUTS IT, BUT HE DOENS'[T SEEM TO KNOW THAT THIS IS WHAT WE NEED TO BE SAVED FROM.  i'M SURE i'M MANGLING WHAT HE WOULD SAY TO SOME EXTENT SO i SHOULDN'T GO ON WITH IT.  sO i'LL JUST HAVE TO LET HIM GO ON DISMANTLING REALITY FOR NOW.  

oH YES.  fORGOT.  hE THINKS IT'S TERRIBLE THAT lUTHER CHARACTERIZED US AS A PILE OF MANURE OR SOME SUCH.  i'M NOT AWARE OF THAT QUOTE BUT IT DOES SOUND LIKE lUTHER'S STYLE.  oF COURSE HE'S TALKING ABOUT OUR FALLEN NATURE.  nOT THE IMAGE OF gOD IN US BUT OUR FALLEN NATURE.  wHICH cALVIN CALLS TOTAL DEPRAVITY, ANOTHER CONCEPT rOHR RIDICLES.  iT'S JUST ANOTHER WAY OF DESCRIBING HOW WE LOST OUR ORIGINAL PERFECTION WHEN aDAM AND eVE  DISOBUYED gOD.    wE LOST OUR CONNECTION WITH gOD, LOST THE ACTUAL SPIRITUAL FACULTY WHICH CONNECTS US WITH GOD, ALL INHERIT A FLESHLY BODY WITHOUT THAT SPIRITUAL CAPACITY, THAT'S WHAT TOTAL DEPRAVITY IS.  nOT THAT WE AREN'T MORALLYH GOOD IN SOME CONTEDXTS BUT THAT WE AREN'T CAPABLE OF THE GOOD WE HAD AT THE cREATION, THAT WAS FULL OF NTHE HATURE OF gOD.

  AND HE DENIGRATES jESUS, "lITTLE HUMBLE" jESUS HE SAYS, AND THINKS IT CRAY THAT IN SOME ART HE IS ELEVATED TO THE ROLE OF A KINGLY gOD.  bUT HE SEEMS TO HAVE READ THE BIBLE, HOW DID HE MISS THAT jESUS WAS ALWAYS BEING CALLED THE ONE WHO SPOKE WITH AUTHORITY, UNLIKE THE SCRIBES AND PHARISEES, AND IS PRESENTED IN THE bOOK OF rEVELATION AS kING OF kINGS AND lORD OF lORDS, AND WAS ALMOST KILLED A NUMBER OF TIMES FOR CLAIMING TO BE GOD.  sCRIPTURE TELLS US THAT THE FALLEN NATURE H

tHIS WORLD IS A BATTLEGROUND BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL.  i SUPPOSE THAT SOUNDS FAIRYTALEIST TO SOME MINDS.  aND EVEN MORE FAIRYTALEISH THAT WE ARE SENT A HERO TO SAVE US FROM THE EVIL, the cHRIST OR aNOINTED oNE, PROMISED FROM ALL THE WAY BACK IN eEEN TO SAVE US FROM OUR SINS.  wHAT ON EARTH WOULD A uNIVERSAL cHRIST DO ANYWAY?  the cHRIST DIES FOR hIS FOLLOWERS SO THAT WE DON'T HAVE TO GO TO hELL FOR OUR SINS.  wE THEN RECEIVE hIS NATURE INTO US, gOD IN US THE HOPE OF GLORY, AND WILL SPEND ETERNITY WITH hIM IN A NEW WORLD FREE OF SIN AND EVIL.  yEAH PRETTY FAIRYTALEISH.  bUTG WONDERFULLY TRUEtOO BAD rOHR AND HIS FOLLOWERS WILL MISS OUT ON THAT.