"Rev." Lauren Van Ham Made Some Bad Points

Hostile Architecture = Ticket to Hell · "Rev." Lauren Van Ham Made Some Bad Points

The link where I find this outside my inbox involves:

The Imperative of a Two-State Solution: A Path To Peace for Israel/ Palestine
Column by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz on 23 November 2023
https://progressingspirit.com/2023/11/23/the-imperative-of-a-two-state-solution-a-path-to-peace-for-israel-palestine/

For my own part, I definitely do not take issue with Palestinian rights, I am not sure that's the best solution, but neither is continued harrassment of Gazawis at checkpoints.

Q: By A Reader

How is Christianity being affected by the Fundamentalist attitude towards belief?

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

Dear Reader, ... ~ Rev. Lauren Van Ham

[No objection to her courtesies]

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

This question is timely and so relevant given the many headlines in our media that could suggest fundamentalist Christian perspectives to speak for all of Christianity. In general, fundamentalism offers one answer and a concrete way of thinking. In an uncertain world, having an answer to hold might offer reassurance, but it usually also means less tolerance toward complexity, diversity, or doubt.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

The question is if she means speaking for "all of the ChristianS" or speaking for "all of the Christian RELIGION" — the media headlines she is thinking of obviously seem to be by journalists aware of the fact that Progressive Christianity is NOT Historic Christianity, meaning that on some level at least, at some degree of Approximation at least, contemporary Fundamentalist Christianity is.

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

Within a fundamentalist view of Christianity, a strong emphasis is placed on the cross — that because of Jesus’s death and resurrection, our missteps are forgiven. But what about all that Jesus did before he died? Jesus’s death hardly absolves us from ignoring his instructions to embrace everyone, especially the outcasts; to reject any marketplace that allows a few to get rich by enslaving others; and to be in relationship with all that lives, celebrating the divinity in all beings.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

Given the preference for companies that do not donate to Planned Parenthood, I think Fundamentalists are pretty aware of that. Plus, the picture she is giving is more about Protestant than Catholic versions of Fundamentalism.

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

And then there is the Bible. In short, biblical education is important and best not left to the ones trying to win an election. Christian Nationalism, we know, uses sections of the Bible to speak for all of the Bible, as though there were “one” biblical worldview, which is completely untrue. Written over hundreds of years by many authors, each responding to social concerns and political power moves of that moment, the Bible is exclusive in one spot and inclusive in the next. It is not possible to believe everything in the Bible – but the parts we do believe say a lot about the kind of Christianity we practice.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

It totally is possible to believe EVERYTHING in the Bible, provided one does not believe in the Bible ALONE.

God is one, does not contradict Himself, and each hagiographer was divinely prompted to speak and write what God wanted and in doing so divinely preserved from contradicting what God knows and wants us to know.

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

When a fundamentalist interpretation promotes hate, causes and perpetuates harm, or allows a political system to rise in authoritarianism, we are living again in the Roman Empire (guess what?).

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

It seems Lauren Van Ham has at least anti-Rome biasses in common with Protestant Fundies.

Don't get me wrong. I believe the Empire of Rome was the fourth beast of Daniel, BUT specifically as a Senatorial Republic without any permanent Monarch (one monarch for six months in a crisis or two dyarchs in a normal years is a very downplayed monarchic function.)

When Nero started persecuting Christians, he did so in at least purported obedience to Senatus Consultum de Bacchanalibus. When Rome ended the 280 year long period of initial persecutions, it was an Emperor who did so, when the Edict of Milan was signed by Constantine.

Some Protestants seem to fear the reintroduction of an Austrian or Holy Roman Emperor would be reintroducing the Fourth Beast. I consider the Emperor was rather o κατεχων while the Mystery of Evil was at work in the Senate. I therefore consider the reintrouduction of the Fourth Beast in its damageable dimension was already the work of lots of Republican Revolutions.

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

Jesus calls us to dismantle such accumulations of power and to do so humanely, with creativity.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

In fact, the Roman Empire was not all that power accumulated.

In the Holy Land, you could have a representative of Rome, along with a local leader. Some of what the texts say about the arrest and Crucifixion of Our Lord suggests that Rome was even outsourcing parts of the power to the Temple. Rome did not hold full sway over each locality in all respects, but rather for instance prevented wars between the Holy Land and Syria (as there had recently been between the Maccabees, not yet Roman protégés when this started, and the vassal of the Senate who is known as Antiochus IV Epiphanes).

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

He used stories to teach and to liberate. His parables encourage self-reflection. His opposition toward those misusing power was incredibly effective!

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

No quarrel with that. Concentrating powers over many lands in one city and misusing power are very different things.

And he modeled ways, always, to make otherwise empty religious practices come alive with relevance and meaning because he prioritized relationship and creativity.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

I don't know what you mean by "empty" practises. Some practises were on occasion emptied, by making the one offering a sacrifice impure (offering a corban to the temple while denying the luxury to a father or whoever the father was intending to give it to, offering sth on the altar while bearing a grudge to someone or knowing one had wronged someone), and He insisted on moral purity. Obedience to parents (in licit things which are within the parents' chosing, see St. Barbara whom we will celebrate in 10 days for an exception), peaceful relations to the neighbour.

Answer

by Rev. Lauren Van Ham

Centering liberation, justice, and radical love for all beings, the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) offer a glimpse at how Jesus walked in the world and give us operating instructions to which we can all aspire. Within the Beatitudes, we find a list of ways to live with ourselves and others that both beg introspection and call us toward meaningful, visible action. May this be the Christian community’s roadmap away from any inaccurate interpretations of Jesus’s embodied invitation for us all.

Comment

by Hans Georg Lundahl

Not just the Beatitudes, but also the Sheep and Goats.

However, neither of these passages includes anything disparaging to the Young Earth implication of another very practical passage (on marital indissolubility), Mark 10:6. Or to taking a cue from Jesus' action in chosing 72 and then 12 males as Apostles, and therefore not recognising Lauren Van Ham as clergy.

Nor do they preclude being moderately Roman (in the secular sense), with a preference of Emperors over Senate, and of Habsburgs over the Julian dynasty.

Here I end and wish my readers all the best, including not to be misled by Progressive Christian guilt by association tactics to promote misreading Genesis 1—11 or 1—50 as myth ... and therefore somehow not fact.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. John of the Cross
24.XI.2023

Sancti Joannis a Cruce Presbyteri, Confessoris et Ecclesiae Doctoris, sanctae Teresiae in Carmelitarum reformatione socii, cujus dies natalis decimo nono Kalendas Januarii recensetur.