The Judas Syndrome
Evangelical Leader Threatens to Use His Political Muscle Against Some Democrats
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put some Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they block Supreme Court appointments. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/politics/01dobson.html?th
Because I had a strong family heritage in American protestantism -- my grandfather, Charles Foster Kent (below), was our leading biblical theologian at the beginning of the 20th century -- I decided to spend 3 years in the late 1950s studying theology with the best -- Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary and others of our major theologians -- both past and then contemporary. I watched with sadness (along with the bulk of my fellow ex-theology students both from UTS and later Mansfield College, Oxford) the decline not only of protestantism, but the sudden reversal of the modernizing trends (Second Vatican Council) within Roman Catholicism that might have saved it from its Waterloo of pedophilia and reactionary sexual phobias -- which represent the cruel fact that the institution has been unable to retain its best priests, nuns, and theologians, nor recruit their replacements.
Modern religions are dying, as did the pantheons of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians -- hence their dangerous last gasp attacks on fellow humans who threaten the wavering authority of these men of third rate spirit and mentality. Dobson above is all too typical of this breed -- hypocritical we often discover in their personal behavior, bent on power and control over other humans to their detriment. Anyone who has seriously studied Christianity at its roots and in its historical development knows that such individuals are the ultimate destroyers of what at times has been a great, if ambiguous, tradition. Hate was not the name of the game of Jesus of Nazareth who has been so terribly betrayed time and time again by the sons of 'Judas' since his own cruel death.
"By their acts ye shall judge them," said Paul, who nevertheless, was one of the worst of this breed of betrayers with a message of hatred for unconverted Jews, gays, women (especially young widows) -- and his synchophantic Roman patriotism! ------------------------------------------------------------------------
KENT, CHARLES FOSTER: Congregationalist; b. at Palmyra, N. Y., Aug. 13, 1867. He was educated at Yale (B.A., 1889; Ph.D. 1891); Yale Divinity School (B.D., 1891), and the University of Berlin (1891-92). After being instructor in the University of Chicago (1893-95) and Professor of Biblical literature and history in Brown University (1895-1901), he became, in 1901, Woolsey professor of Biblical literature in Yale University. Besides his work as editor of The Historical Series for Bible Students (in collaboration with F. K. Sanders; New York, 1899 sqq.), he has published: The Messages of the Bible (1899 sqq.); Library of Ancient Inscriptions (in collaboration with F. K. Sanders; 1904 sqq.), and The Student's Old Testament (1904 sqq.), he has written Outlines of Hebrew History (Providence, R. I., 1895); The Wise Men of Ancient Israel and their Proverbs (New York, 1895); A History of the Hebrew People: The United Kingdom (1896); A History of the Hebrew People: The Divided Kingdom (1897); A History of the Jewish People: The Babylonian, Persian, and Greek Periods (1899); The Messages of the Earlier Prophets (1899); The Messages of the Later Prophets (1900); The Messages of Israel's Lawgivers (1902); Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History (1904); Israel's Historical and Biographical Narratives (1905); Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament (1906); Israel's Laws and Legal Precedents (1907); Founders and Rulers of United Israel from . . . Moses to the Division of the Hebrew Kingdom (1908); Heroes and Crises of Early Hebrew History (1908); and Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah (1909). -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Unhappily my grandfather died relatively young in 1925 at 59 -- some years before my birth -- so that I could not know him personally except through his students, many of whom became dear friends and mentors.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK James C. Dobson, the nation's most influential evangelical leader, is threatening to put some Democratic senators "in the 'bull's-eye'" if they block Supreme Court appointments. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/01/politics/01dobson.html?th
Because I had a strong family heritage in American protestantism -- my grandfather, Charles Foster Kent (below), was our leading biblical theologian at the beginning of the 20th century -- I decided to spend 3 years in the late 1950s studying theology with the best -- Reinhold Niebuhr at Union Theological Seminary and others of our major theologians -- both past and then contemporary. I watched with sadness (along with the bulk of my fellow ex-theology students both from UTS and later Mansfield College, Oxford) the decline not only of protestantism, but the sudden reversal of the modernizing trends (Second Vatican Council) within Roman Catholicism that might have saved it from its Waterloo of pedophilia and reactionary sexual phobias -- which represent the cruel fact that the institution has been unable to retain its best priests, nuns, and theologians, nor recruit their replacements.
Modern religions are dying, as did the pantheons of the ancient Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians -- hence their dangerous last gasp attacks on fellow humans who threaten the wavering authority of these men of third rate spirit and mentality. Dobson above is all too typical of this breed -- hypocritical we often discover in their personal behavior, bent on power and control over other humans to their detriment. Anyone who has seriously studied Christianity at its roots and in its historical development knows that such individuals are the ultimate destroyers of what at times has been a great, if ambiguous, tradition. Hate was not the name of the game of Jesus of Nazareth who has been so terribly betrayed time and time again by the sons of 'Judas' since his own cruel death.
"By their acts ye shall judge them," said Paul, who nevertheless, was one of the worst of this breed of betrayers with a message of hatred for unconverted Jews, gays, women (especially young widows) -- and his synchophantic Roman patriotism! ------------------------------------------------------------------------
KENT, CHARLES FOSTER: Congregationalist; b. at Palmyra, N. Y., Aug. 13, 1867. He was educated at Yale (B.A., 1889; Ph.D. 1891); Yale Divinity School (B.D., 1891), and the University of Berlin (1891-92). After being instructor in the University of Chicago (1893-95) and Professor of Biblical literature and history in Brown University (1895-1901), he became, in 1901, Woolsey professor of Biblical literature in Yale University. Besides his work as editor of The Historical Series for Bible Students (in collaboration with F. K. Sanders; New York, 1899 sqq.), he has published: The Messages of the Bible (1899 sqq.); Library of Ancient Inscriptions (in collaboration with F. K. Sanders; 1904 sqq.), and The Student's Old Testament (1904 sqq.), he has written Outlines of Hebrew History (Providence, R. I., 1895); The Wise Men of Ancient Israel and their Proverbs (New York, 1895); A History of the Hebrew People: The United Kingdom (1896); A History of the Hebrew People: The Divided Kingdom (1897); A History of the Jewish People: The Babylonian, Persian, and Greek Periods (1899); The Messages of the Earlier Prophets (1899); The Messages of the Later Prophets (1900); The Messages of Israel's Lawgivers (1902); Narratives of the Beginnings of Hebrew History (1904); Israel's Historical and Biographical Narratives (1905); Origin and Permanent Value of the Old Testament (1906); Israel's Laws and Legal Precedents (1907); Founders and Rulers of United Israel from . . . Moses to the Division of the Hebrew Kingdom (1908); Heroes and Crises of Early Hebrew History (1908); and Kings and Prophets of Israel and Judah (1909). -----------------------------------------------------------------------
Unhappily my grandfather died relatively young in 1925 at 59 -- some years before my birth -- so that I could not know him personally except through his students, many of whom became dear friends and mentors.
posted by Ed Kent at 6:01 PM
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