By DAVID YOUNT
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
According to Dr. Seuss, there is but a single Grinch who seeks to steal Christmas. But each spring there also seems to be a veritable army of grinches set out to steal another holy day.
In recent years, every spring has opened the hunting season for those discrediting Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed to be the Son of God, died for the sins of humankind, and conquered death for believers and unbelievers alike. That's what Easter is about.
The revisionists will have yet another go on May 9 and 16 with a PBS miniseries purporting to provide "a first-ever, first- person account of the most notorious reign of religious persecution of all times."
According to advance publicity, "The Secret Files of the Inquisition" will offer "an epic, yet intimate look at the thousands of innocent men, women, and children who suffered during a reign of terror that spanned more than six centuries' _ a saga of "murder, betrayal, terror, and torture."
There is clearly a commercial market for books, articles, and programs aimed at revising the Christian story out of all recognition or denying it altogether. This season the profitable new books on the subject of religion are by revisionists Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Jeffrey Archer.
In every case, God's critics are not content to admit disillusion and quietly abandon their personal religious faith. Rather, they become missionaries of religious doubt and denial.
Lest we applaud these revelations as the triumph of secular investigative journalism, the Vatican itself took the initiative to open its archives on the Inquisition, suggesting it had nothing to fear from the critics. Welcoming filmmakers, the late Pope John Paul II trusted that Christians would examine the subject "in a spirit of sincerity and open-mindedness."
The Inquisition was initiated to defend the Church against the revisionists of an earlier era. In short, it aimed to protect the truth against lies that claimed to be truer. In contemporary secular America we tolerate all sorts of heresies, preferring the freedom to hold opinions that are fashionable at the moment. Christendom held, on the contrary, that in the matter of salvation only the truth can make us free.
In 13th century France the Cathar sect created new requirements for being a faithful Christian _ forbidding marriage, commerce, and bloodshed, and confining themselves to a vegan diet, insisting that this was the only way of life worthy of salvation. The Inquisition originated to defend ordinary Christians against these purer-than-thou puritans.
In subsequent centuries the Inquisition' power was abused, but more by politicians than by the Church. Still, during the ages of Faith, the civil penalty for stealing a sheep was to be hanged, whereas the inquisitors were typically content to give a penance to a repentant heretic.
The era of Inquisition has not passed. Congressional hearings demand the truth under threat of imprisonment. When we try terrorists, we do so because their violence is based on a revisionist reading of their religious faith. Fortunately, most Christians remain immune to the revisionists.
(David Yount's 10th book, "How the Quakers Invented America," will be published this summer. He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount(at)erols.com)
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Everything becomes clear
I see. The Cathars deserved to be exterminated because they were arrogant, but the Inquisition didn't do (much) extermination so they're okay really.
Atheists are dangerous fanatics because they insist on thinking and knowing as opposed to believing and praying. In fact, they're kind of like the Inquisition was. But they're much worse because the Inquisition only tortured and killed thousands (almost none at all really), while the atheists...um...well they're bad people anyway.
It was secular politicians who made the Inquisition go bad, not the church which controlled it.
And terrorists are revisionists. They're fundamentalists too but...they're revisionist fundamentalists. It's the same thing really, you know. Anyway, if you read the bible in a nonrevisionist way, it's got no violence in it at all - only liberals read death and killing into it.
You are rather confused.
secret files
Wow, talk about revisionist. You claim to have written 10 books. I'm picturing you waring a monk's habit(?), hunched over a candle-lit table, furiously typing. suddenly you grab a pencil to scratch an itch underneath the tinfoil hat you wear around your mom's basement.
/How the Quakers Invented America sounds like a laugh riot.
penance
"whereas the inquisitors were typically content to give a penance to a repentant heretic"
If you confessed you got to be strangled before they burned you. If not, they just burned you alive. How Kind, Loving and Thoughtful.
Face it, you can't Torquemada anything.
badumpbump.
Try watching it first
Lest we applaud these revelations as the triumph of secular investigative journalism, the Vatican itself took the initiative to open its archives on the Inquisition, suggesting it had nothing to fear from the critics.
...Which is noted at the beginning of each episode of the programme. Why not try watching them before pontificating? I saw this series on British TV a couple of weeks ago - of course it was a bit sensationalist in places, but on the whole it was a responsible series looking at issues like the Cathars (whom you seem to think deserve what they got anyway), the rise of Giovanni Carafa (Pope Paul IV), and the tragedy of Edgardo Mortana (the Jewish boy kidnapped by Gaetano Feletti, Inquisitor of Bologna, in the C19). There was also a decent enough discussion of the political and religious dimensions of the Spanish Inquisition. The main fault was with some dodgy false beards in the historical reconstructions.
Your last paragraph is simply an embarrassment. The inquisition is like "congressional hearings", and the inquisition's enemies - ranging from it's victims through to the documentary-makers - can therefore be compared to terrorists. Also, I didn't know that terrorists were tried in the USA because they had undertaken a "revisionist reading of their religious faith". I assumed that it was rather because they had broken laws designed to protect people and property.
The Grinch Who Stole Christmas A Cathar Allegory
So, I'm thinking The Grinch is the church and the Whos the Cathars practicing Christianity from the word of Mary Magdalene and Jesus from his Book of Love in possession of the Cathars. The Grinch tries to be a bully at the seige of Cathar Castles, trying to starve them out and make them denounce their religion, stealing their christmas trees and all. But they keep singing and walk into the fire, just as the Cathars did. Hmmm! The Grinch as a grail/bloodline allegory. So that means One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish represents the three bloodlines of Mary Magdalene, two blue boys and one red girl bloodline. The girl going to France and starting the Cathar religion.
Thanks for the heads up. I'll be sure to watch it. Can't wait. Thanks again.
"confused"? To say the least...!
For a short piece, there is so much logic-muddling here that it's hard to know where to begin...
OK, here's one to pick from among many: whether it's alleged terrorists or attorneys general, modern hearings are based on what you DO; not what you THINK. Unlike the Holy Office of il Papa's Thought Police.
Apparently, the author thinks the Inquistion was a Good Thing. This guy writes books? Incredible.
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