SAME STUFF, DIFFERENT DAY

Posted by Pistol Pete

Notice to all web surfers who stop by:if you’re looking for the best in all things political in and around the beltway,with thoughtful columns and interviews with today’s movers and shakers….you’re in the wrong place.We are a collection of disparate souls with nothing in common except for love of country and a sunny exterior that sometimes belies a raging inferno under the surface.Chrissy is our leader–kind,thoughtful and a whiz on the computer.Mind your manners or you’ll wake up one morning with your credit rating slashed.Bob is her consigliere,who is also no slouch with all things electronic.Cross her and suffer the consquences.Aussie is our foreign correspondent,making our site a truly international one.Hoot is obsessed with feathered birds of prey with buggy eyes.Mindful Webworker operates our bordello.Things are slow,so for now he’s running it by hand.Every organization has to have one individual who’s only useful as a bad example.Parents tell their kids,”if you don’t straighten out,you’ll wind up like him.” That’s me;Pistol Pete’s the name,lunacy is my game.Women love me,fish fear me. On one hook I can string a minnow,night crawler,leech and a chicken liver.I guess you could call me a master baiter.It’s my job.It’s what I do.

Now that the medication has kicked in,lets kick this pig.

A few thoughts on Gun Control

Tweeted @ @marklevinshow:

Chicago has the toughest gun laws in Country. This year 446 school age children have been shot and 62 killed in Chicago!

Tweeted @WilliamTeach:

Weird how Dems weren’t calling for gun control when Islamist went on a rampage at Ft. Hood

The following is excerpted from http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/335987/gun-owners-segregationists-and-jim-sleeper-charles-c-w-cooke by Charles C.W. Cooke:

Anybody who bothers to look up 1857′s Dred Scott v. Sandford decision will notice right away the court’s awful observation that if slaves were permitted to enjoy full citizenship rights, then they would — shock horror! — enjoy the right

“to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”

This, the court thought, would be disastrous.

The fear of blacks with guns is not, of course, new. The very first gun-control measures in American history were designed to keep arms out of the hands of blacks and Indians:

The Massachusetts and Plymouth colonies both prohibited the sale of guns to Indians in the early seventeenth century, and the “Black Codes” of the mid-eighteenth century required French colonists in Louisiana to disarm and beat “any black carrying any potential weapon.”

Many pre-Civil War state constitutions went further, reserving the right to bear arms … to “freemen,” which, naturally, meant whites. After their damnable cause was lost, the KKK picked up and ran with disarmament as a way of keeping blacks down.

As Adam Winkler has observed, “gun control” was “at the very top of its agenda.” The Democratic party’s “Black Codes,” which barred former slaves from owning guns in the (segregated) post-bellum South, were passed for the same purpose.

It is no accident that the first draft of the 1871 Anti-Klan Act contained a provision that made it a federal crime to

“deprive any citizen of the United States of any arms or weapons he may have in his house or possession for the defense of his person, family, or property,”

for that was exactly what segregationists set out to do.

Robert Franklin Williams’s classic work, Negroes with Guns, tells a tale of the KKK’s systematic attempt to disarm black Americans — and of the National Rifle Association’s work in forming a counter-group called the “Black Armed Guard” — as late as the as the 1950s.

As Williams points out, it was guns in the hands of his family that saved their lives and allowed them — literally — to fight the KKK and their allies.

The Seven Churches of Revelation, part six

If you’re new to this series, you can catch up here:

Part 1 @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/03/the-seven-churches-of-revelation/

Part 2 @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/09/the-seven-churches-of-revelation-part-two/

Part 3 @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/13/the-seven-churches-of-revelation-part-three/

Who were the Nicolaitans? @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/11/17/who-were-the-nicolaitans/

Part 4 @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/14/the-seven-churches-of-revelation-part-four/

Part 5 @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/16/the-seven-churches-of-revelation-part-five/

A Brief Review of History @ https://polination.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/a-brief-review-of-history-313-to-1000-ad/

Book of Revelation, Chapter 2, Verses 12-18:

To the angel of the church in Pergamum, write this:

The one with the sharp two-edged sword says this:

I know that you live where Satan’s throne is, and yet you hold fast to my name and have not denied your faith in me, not even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was martyred among you, where Satan lives. Yet I have a few things against you. You have some people there who hold to the teaching of Balaam, who instructed Balak to put a stumbling block before the Israelites: to eat food sacrificed to idols and to play the harlot. Likewise, you also have some people who hold to the teaching of [the] Nicolaitans. Therefore, repent. Otherwise, I will come to you quickly and wage war against them with the sword of my mouth.

Whoever has ears ought to hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the victor I shall give some of the hidden manna; I shall also give a white amulet upon which is inscribed a new name, which no one knows except the one who receives it.

I’ve introduced my idea about the seven churches being periods in church history; I’m not at all sure I’m right so take all this with pounds of salt. Please. That being said …

Pergamum seems to work beautifully as a type for the church during the early Middle Ages (roughly 313 AD to 1,000 AD).

The description of Jesus as “the one with the sharp two-edged sword” refers to the passage shortly before (Rev 1:16) where Jesus is described as having a sharp two-edged sword coming out of his mouth which is a clear references to Hebrews 4:12-16:

Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

No creature is concealed from him, but everything is naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must render an account.

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin.

So let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help.

Consider how apropos are references:

to a sharp sword penetrating joints and marrow for this period when barbarian and Muslim warriors invaded repeatedly;

to Jesus as high priest and to his throne for this period when Christianity became the official state church;

to discerning reflections and thoughts of the heart for this period when the Church developed a sophisticated theology;

to the word of God for this period during which the Church assembled the canon of the New Testament; and,

to holding fast to our confession for this period when the Church formulated a creed.

I was intrigued by the TWO in two-edged sword when considered with the TWO broad strokes of this period in Church history:

1. The struggles for dominance between Church and State.
2. The division of the Church between East and West.

Pergamum was the center of the official pagan religion of the Roman Empire and the site of the oldest temple of the imperial cult. (Cf. The letter’s references to Satan’s throne where Satan lives and where a faithful witness was martyred.)

In 330 AD, the Christianizing Emperor Constantine declared Constantinople the new capital of the Roman Empire. Thus, Pergamum works well as a meaningful type for both religious centers, Rome in the West and Constantinople in the East.

Neat, huh? There’s lots more to talk about with this letter. For now, let me just end with this factoid:

Tradition has it that Antipas was a disciple of John who became Bishop of Pergamum and was burned to death there, ca. 92 AD, in a brazen bull-shaped altar. But there is apparently no surviving record of Antipas apart from this brief mention in Revelation.

Sources:

Eerdman’s Handbook to the History of Christianity [Eerdmans Publishing, 1977]

The New Bible Dictionary [Eerdmans Publishing, 1962]

http://www.usccb.org/bible/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon – note alt spelling

http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1474

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople