Cardinal Pell, Phillip Jensen and time for an iconoclastic joust with earth mother worshipping idolators ...

(Above: sheesh, is that a graven image or what? Take it away and see if anyone complains).

So what news this ordinary time Sunday, tempus per annum, from the churches and their leaders?

Well who'd have thought it, but Cardinal George Pell reveals himself to be a pagan as well as a believer in Satan's almighty, overwhelming presence in the world. No wonder swallowing the gnat of climate change science is so difficult for someone who brings such a rigorous scientific view to metaphysical entities ...

Not following? Then please explain this then in the belatedly read Sunday Terror column Madrid W.Y.D.:

Mother Nature achieved what determined groups of protesters could not in Madrid last week-end. Fierce rain and winds halted Pope Benedict's W.Y.D. sermon for more than 15 minutes.

Mother nature? A slip of the pen, or a pagan animist confusion of goddesses, priestesses and other wretched proponents of the matriarchy? Or even worse, Mother Gaia!

The earliest written and safely dated literal references to the term "Mother Earth" occur in Mycenaean Greek ma-ka (transliterated as ma-ga), "Mother Gaia", written in Linear B syllabic script (13th/12th cent. BC). The various myths of nature goddesses such as Inanna/Ishtar (myths and hymns attested on tablets in the third millennium B.C.0 show that the personification of the creative and nurturing sides of Nature as female deities had deep roots. (and way more on mother nature at her goddess, priestess riddled pagan-loving ways at her wiki here).

But wait, there's more:

The storm had been building all day in the 40ºC heat, but the onslaught on the Saturday night Vigil congregation of 1.5 million pilgrims was sudden and violent. It was as though the Evil One was protesting.

The Evil One? Code for the Pope, well known in some circles as the anti-Christ? Or perhaps Satan herself? Face it, if you're on the side of god, you've picked the wrong god when it comes to the weather.

But surely, with god sending signs and portents through earthquakes to Pat Robertson, and through Hurricane Katrina to decadent gays and music lovers, she might have thought of sending a message to the pilgrims that a cold shower would do them good?

Whatever. It seemed a fine old time was had by all, and Pellism turns out to have a Franco-loving streak a mile wide:

The wounds and divisions in Spain from the 1930's Civil War still run deep and Zapatero's Socialist government, unexpectedly elected after an Islamist attack on the Madrid Metro, has reopened those wounds, with a vigorously anti-Christian social agenda. "Mother" and "Father" are no longer official terms, replaced by "progenitor A" and "progenitor B."

Sob. The wretched Socialists, all the fault of the Islamics, still fighting the Civil War from the wrong side, and rampantly anti-Christian in a way that Franco never was, as he clutched the mother church to his bosom, and smote the unbelievers mightily.

During the Franco years, Roman Catholicism was the only religion to have legal status; other worship services could not be advertised, and only the Catholic Church could own property or publish books. The Government not only continued to pay priests' salaries and to subsidize the Church, but it also assisted in the reconstruction of church buildings damaged by the war. Laws were passed abolishing divorce and civil marriages as well as banning abortion and the sale of contraceptives. Homosexuality and all other forms of sexual permissiveness were also banned. Catholic religious instruction was mandatory, even in public schools. (and more on the concordat between Franco and a corrupt church at the wiki here).

Ah the glory days. Bring back Franco the second, the pond says, and let the world return to normal.

Perhaps Cardinal Pell would then consider heading over to Spain to head a revitalised church. True, it would be a tragic loss for Sydney, but it seems they know how to bung on a bigger and better world youth day, and perhaps the Cardinal could return Spain to the good old days, when it looted, pillaged, ravaged and raped South America with the connivance and consent of the church?

Well it's going to be hard for the Calvinists at the Sydney Anglicans to top this vision of a new world order, but they do their best thanks to the right-thinking efforts of the visiting heavy hitters:

“[Lennox] is a great challenge,” said Bishop Ross Nicholson from Tasmania. “The New Athesits seem to be making ground within our society and it’s good to hear someone who says that the ground that they are building is shaky, sandy ground. It’s a great intellectual challenge.” (What are you going to stand for?)

Damned new and angry atheists, they need a course in architecture if they keep building on sand, and it wouldn't hurt for them to lean how to spell either. Think they can escape the google search engine by calling themselfs Athesits? Let's see them try.

That said, it seems Oxford mathematician Lennox berating the atheists was a better fit than the passionate, emotional John Piper speaking at the Anglicans big oxygenated pow wow in Katoomba:

Now let me be as clear as I can - Piper’s theology is not medieival mysticism! But his illustrations kept locating glory in the heavens. He did not speak about the glory of God being seen in the cross. It would be supremely unfair to judge him by this silence - the man has written books on the cross that I haven’t read! But my question is where Piper’s schema could take you rather than where he is. If heavenly glory is the main game, and the cross is penultimate to that end, then doesn’t that sound more charismatic than evangelical? Won’t faith become secondary to the more ultimate experience of joyous delight in God? Will preaching push people to visions of heavenly rapture or to the shame of the cross? (Day Three - Finding joy in God's glory).

Ah yes, and sad to say, we too haven't read Piper, but fancy being more charismatic than evangelical, and forgetting the shame and guilt of the cross!

Speaking of the cross and symbolism, what better segue could you find to throw across to Phillip Jensen's latest outing in Picking an Idol, wherein he broods about art and religion (with some implications in relation to paintings and statuary of the cross).

It's a great relief to learn that the bible doesn't forbid art per se, but it does warn us that idols are suss.

We'll leave the ongoing theological debate to others (you can start here at the wiki on Idolatry) but it's a relief to see that the line on the commandment commanding that you shall not make yourself a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth is softening a little in Calvinist circles - though it does seem reasonably clear to the pond.

Luckily Jensen is on the case:

So when does a work of art become an idol? The old litmus test was to remove it – if nobody complains it holds little significance for them and can be returned but if people complain it probably is an idol. Of course it depends on the nature of the complaint. But when people say that they cannot worship God without the object it certainly has become an idol for them. That is why ‘religious’ art in church buildings, which are associated with a concept of worship, is considerably more dangerous than the same artwork hanging in a public gallery.

Yes indeed, vigilance in the church is still much needed, and any fancy schmancy pantsy art might well reek of Romanist tendencies.

Thanks to the vigilance of iconclastics practising iconoclasm through history, much art, architecture, symbols, monuments and statuary has been destroyed through the ages, and way more done with great vigour, enthusiasm and passion by followers of religion than has ever been managed by angry atheists (though we must credit the likes of Stalin and Mao with trying to match the iconoclasts).

Who can forget the inspirational Calvinist Iconoclastic riots of the sixteenth century?

Though the reformers were united in their criticism of images of saints, they nonetheless differed in their opinions of how to treat the existing works that filled the churches. Whereas Luther treated the removal of the images with relatively little passion, and would probably have removed them from the churches without any fuss, his colleague, the theologian Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (c. 1480-1541), adopted a far more radical stance. After the municipal authorities of the town of Wittenberg had issued an "Order of the town of Wittenberg" dated January 24, 1522, demanding the removal of pictures from the churches, only three days later Karlstadt issued a tract concerning the "doing away of the pictures." In it he complains that, a full three days after the edict, the works of art had still not been removed. This led to the first Iconoclastic Riot at the beginning of February in the city church of Wittenberg, where the "idols in paint" were torn down by Karlstadt and his supporters. (here)

Thereafter a fine old time was had by all, with art works, altar paintings, crucifixes, statues of saints smashed and destroyed, and holy water mocked, and yet they talk about rampant new atheists!

Does Jensen yearn for the good old days? Well he's inclined to be a little circumspect:

However, the simple litmus test of removal is not the only indicator of idolatry. Over-reacting to questioning can indicate an idolatrous commitment.

What's that you say? How dare you question the pond's affection for its Star Wars' figures?

The over-reaction is usually expressed in an unwillingness to listen to the question and to accuse the questioner of rejecting the practice wholesale. So to question the suitability of a particular artwork is taken to indicate a complete rejection of all art. The questioner is deemed a Philistine or Puritan iconoclast of limited experience and a narrow unspiritual mind. Over-reaction like this is often an indicator of dependency on something other than Christ.

Yes, wouldn't want to be an iconoclast, though what fun could be had vandalising St Peter's basilica and its attached museum. Because deep down we should remember that Catholics are idolators:

Such over-reaction also helps understand the usefulness of seeing our attachments as ‘idolatry’. For today there are certain touchy subjects, for example miracles, music, emotions, career, that are often met with the over-reaction: “you do not like or believe” in miracles for today, or the value of music, or the place of emotions or the role of work. These are not matters of sin, but if our attachment to them is too great they can be expressions of idolatry. And idolatry is sin.

So there you go. Much has been done but much remains to be done. While Cardinal Pell restores decency to Spain, Dean Jensen can inspire dozens of decent Calvinists to tour around the world demanding to know why the flock are idolaters, and their churches full of expressions of idolatry. Damned sinners the lot of them ...

Phew, with these kinds of burdens, sometimes it's a relief just to be a quiet athesit sitting in a corner wondering where all this passion and fury and judgmental opinion-making comes from ...

How did that bus sign put it? Relax, likely as not there is no god, so just enjoy music, dancing, sex, fornicating, art, pictures, icons, picking your iconic nose and anything else that gets you through the day

(Below: how to knock over a church the Calvinist way, a Frans Hogenberg copper engraving of the the Calvinist Iconoclastic Riot of August 20, 1566, found here. Looks pretty sinful to the pond).

Speaking of music, we were most disturbed to see this kind of music-making featured on the front page of the Anglican website.

It is of course common knowledge that the devil has all the best tunes, that music is the devil's work, and that music and dancing led quickly to debauchery sin and sloth even quicker than masturbation leads to blindness. Here's hoping the band below didn't play any tritones, truly The Devil's Music.

Naturally the cardigan wearers at the ABC, always stout-heared idolators, have made a program called The Devil in Music, but you can't hear it because of intellectual property rights.

Right, time for another campaign! Let's start by banning Wagner and Black Sabbath and Paganini and Robert Johnson and the Rolling Stones and intellectual property rights ...

And now our reading for the day:

Blood and thunder prophet: ...And the bezan shall be huge and black, and the eyes thereof red with the blood of living creatures, and the whore of Babylon shall ride forth on a three-headed serpent, and throughout the lands, there'll be a great rubbing of parts. Yeeah...
False prophet: ...For the demon shall bear a nine-bladed sword. Nine-bladed! Not two or five or seven, but nine, which he will wield on all wretched sinners, sinners just like you, sir, there, and the horns shall be on the head, with which he will...
Boring Prophet: ...Obadiah, his servants. There shall, in that time, be rumours of things going astray, erm, and there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi-- with the sort of raffia work base that has an attachment. At this time, a friend shall lose his friend's hammer and the young shall not know where lieth the things possessed by their fathers that their fathers put there only just the night before, about eight o'clock. Yea, it is written in the book of Cyril that, in that time, shall the third one... (thanks be unto Monty Python's Life of Brian).