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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Commenting on the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Coronation Sermon

Nobody has made a post about the coronation yet. There weren't any major culture war incidents. It went off without a hitch in other words. I'm reaching to find something to talk about. Here is my reaction to the sermon given by the archbishop of Canterbury during the ceremony. The sermon states the ceremonial role of the British monarch in plain terms and tries its best to skirt around the fact that the king has no power. He likens Charles III to Jesus. Here is the full sermon:

https://www.episcopalnewsservice.org/2023/05/06/archbishop-of-canterburys-coronation-sermon/

We are here to crown a King, and we crown a King to serve.

What is given today is for the gain of all. For Jesus Christ announced a Kingdom in which the poor and oppressed are freed from chains of injustice. The blind see. The bruised and broken-hearted are healed.

That Kingdom sets the aims of all righteous government, all authority. And the Kingdom also sets the means of all government and authority. Jesus doesn’t grasp power or hold onto status.

The King of Kings, Jesus Christ, was anointed not to be served, but to serve. He creates the unchangeable law that with the privilege of power comes the duty to serve.

Service is love in action. We see active love in our care for the most vulnerable, the way we nurture and encourage the young, in the conservation of the natural world. We have seen those priorities in the life of duty lived by our King.

Today we have the honour of being in this Abbey with so many who show such love; you work with charities and organisations, you build community, you serve the nation in Armed Forces, in emergency services, and so many other ways. Next door are 400 extraordinary young people in St Margaret’s, whose lives speak of service. Around the world in the Realms and Commonwealth are so many more. You live your lives for the sake of others.

The unity you show, the example you give, is what binds us together and offers societies that are strong, joyful, happy and glorious. They bear heavy weights for us.

The weight of the task given you today, Your Majesties, is only bearable by the Spirit of God, who gives us the strength to give our lives to others. With the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the King is given freely what no ruler can ever attain through will, or politics, or war, or tyranny: the Holy Spirit draws us to love in action.

This is promised by Jesus who put aside all privilege, because, as the first reading tells us, God will give all things for our sake, even His life.

His throne was a Cross. His crown was made of thorns. His regalia were the wounds that pierced his body.

Each of us is called by God to serve. Whatever that looks like in our own lives, each of us can choose God’s way today.

We can say to the King of Kings, God Himself, as does the King here today, ‘give grace that in thy service I may find perfect freedom’.

In that prayer there is promise beyond measure, joy beyond dreams, hope that endures. By that prayer, for every King, every ruler, and, yes, for all of us, we are opened to the transforming love of God.

The archbishop likens Charles III to Jesus, not by elevating Charles to the level of a god, but by bringing down Jesus to the level of a man. Christians believe that Jesus was both a man and a God. The fact that he was and is an omnipotent deity is essential to Christian theology. But having the limitations of a man is what makes the telling of Jesus' life in the Gospels a compelling story. The archbishop's sermon depicts Jesus as a very talented preacher who relies on the power of persuasion to save souls. This aspect of the Gospel story most closely resembles Charles III's role as archon basileus of a parliamentary democracy. But unlike the British monarch, Jesus had real power to back up his preaching.

The sermon oversells what Charles III can accomplish with mere persuasion. It states with confidence that "showing unity" and "giving a good example" are sufficient to "bind us together", to "offer a society that is strong, joyful, etc." and to "bear heavy weights". By speaking of the ceremonial role of the British monarch as sufficient to accomplish the duties of kingship, the archbishop leaves no consideration for what happens if persuasion fails to produce the advertised results.

I was raised Christian but became an atheist a long time ago. When I think back on Christianity, there are certain concepts that that strike me as peculiar. One of these is the concept that a one's salvation may hinge on a chance encounter with another person whose intervention changes one's life for the better. It strikes me as chaotic, random and therefore unfair. My naïve understanding of Christianity when I was a Christian was influenced by growing up in an individualistic culture and a school system organized along individualistic lines. Every person was tested by God individually, I imagined. Sharing notes or copying answers from other test takers was not part of the test. I believed my choices in life would just determine whether or not my soul was saved. But the thought that my choices in life could be the determining factor in making somebody else a good person literally never occurred to me, and if it had, it would have greatly discomforted me. I would have perceived it as an added burden. Again, it would never have occurred to me that other people were sharing the burden of making me a good person. I would have perceived the sharing of responsibility only as an increased burden. I imagine that people raised in collectivist cultures perceive the sharing of burdens as generally resulting in a decreased burden. The concept of a mutually supporting community taking collective responsibility for the salvation of their souls is probably much closer to how people thought about Christianity in the past. It almost gives me warm fuzzy feelings, but I still find the chaotic, random nature of it discomforting.

Service and helping people is the unifying theme of the archbishop's sermon, but there is something lacking in his call to service. I like to help people. I like to be of service. I like giving people presents. I like teaching. I'm pretty good at it. But something I don't try to do is influence friends and family and coworkers to make them better people. I shrink from any situation where somebody is doing something immoral that I could intervene to correct. It's one thing teach somebody practical knowledge, and quite another to stage an intervention.

Christianity used to take the collectivist approach to saving souls. It wasn't enough to lead the horse to water. Responsible people had to dunk the horse's head and make it drink. The king was often the one doing the dunking. Since the time of the Glorious Revolution, the power of the state has grown enormously. But liberal democracies impose artificial limits on how they use their enormous power. Faced with equine dehydration, or any other societal problem, the solution must be more education, free counseling and state-sponsored therapy. It's fitting that the land of the NHS should refer to kingship as a service. The solution is always a service. Yet there remain certain classes of societal problems that are best solved—or that can only be solved—by issuing a command.

When I think back on Christianity, there are certain concepts that that strike me as peculiar. One of these is the concept that a one's salvation may hinge on a chance encounter with another person whose intervention changes one's life for the better. It strikes me as chaotic, random and therefore unfair.

For what it's worth (not that I am trying to get you back in the fold or anything), that is not really true as far as I know. The way I was always taught is that God deals with people with their circumstances taken into account. So if you consciously reject Jesus, you will likely be judged unrighteous after death (though in the end only God knows, at best we can just speculate). But if you just wind up never having heard of him during your life, that isn't going to factor in. Instead you would be judged based on how much you tried to do right insofar as you were taught it, and what your conscience nudged you to do.

Obviously Christianity has many different schools of though, so there are probably Christians who really do believe that if someone in an isolated Amazon tribe dies without ever having heard of Jesus, they're going straight to hell. But it definitely isn't what I was taught, at least.

So if you consciously reject Jesus, you will likely be judged unrighteous after death (though in the end only God knows, at best we can just speculate). But if you just wind up never having heard of him during your life, that isn't going to factor in. Instead you would be judged based on how much you tried to do right insofar as you were taught it, and what your conscience nudged you to do.

The reasonable course of action for all sensible Christians who truly believe this is to limit the world's knowledge of Christianity as much as possible and make talking about Jesus absolutely forbidden for every member of the faith, for anyone who tells someone who has never heard of Christ about him risks that person's eternal damnation.

No different to how the reasonable course of action if you're Buddhist is to embark on a crusade to eliminate all life. Can't reincarnate if there is nothing to reincarnate into...

I certainly don't hold to the view that non-Christians can be saved while remaining so, but I don't think that what you said necessarily follows, since if it's easier to be saved through Christianity than through non-Christianity, that would be one reason for the difference. (for example, if living a sufficiently righteously life is hard, but there's forgiveness of sins with Christianity, that would explain why evangelizing could make sense)

But I do think belief in Christianity is necessary for salvation.

This is commonsensical if you assume that (a) God is omnibenevolent and (b) you have an independent standard of what is good/evil, but it goes against several widely held Christian doctrines - Original Sin (we are all born with a mortal sin that requires repentence through Christian belief), the idea that knowing of Jesus is an especially good thing as far as eternal life goes (not a logical implication of John 3:16, but certainly hinted at in context) and the idea that Christianity is a prerequisite for salvation (strongly suggested by "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father, except through me").

This was one of the main things that made me into an atheist. In particular, it made me think that Christianity seemed an awful lot like a mystical Jewish group that morphed into a gentile religion, rather than the intervention of a God who actually loved all humans. As Jesus Christ Superstar put it, the peoples of the Red Sea had no mass communications... Unfortunately, they also didn't have an all-powerful God (with a record of intervening in human affairs, to the point of drowning > 99% of its population) to help spread their message around the world.

Making them a natural place for a mystical group to develop and talk of miracles, but not a natural group for an all-powerful God to use to spread his message. Of course, you can explain all that in an ad hoc way, but at that point I was finally unwilling to believe more improbable stuff to support my apologetics.

Actually, the belief that they're damned is a pretty normal belief, I'm pretty sure.

Among the Roman Catholics, there's the teaching of Extra eccleasiam nulla salus—outside the church there is no salvation, although I'm not sure what Vatican II did to things. The council of Florence has a statement saying that neither pagans nor Jews nor heretics nor schismatics will be saved. Eastern Orthodoxy I think has at times expressed similar thoughts, although I know that universalism is also kind of popular among them, at least in the present day.

Protestants are more varied, I think, but I think with the emphasis on sola fide, there should be the same belief.

Christianity really is an exclusive religion. As Christ says, "I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father, except through me." John 3:16 is perhaps the most famous verse in the bible: "For God loved the world thus: he gave his only begotten son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." Paul writes, "For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe."

If you're wondering, how is this just, well it's not as if Christians think they don't deserve hell. Their own salvation is an enormous gift, and it isn't as if it's owed to everyone else that they come to believe in Christ.

Edit: It looks like I understated the effect of Vatican II, Vatican II seems to have reinterpreted the things I was saying so as that they're probably not representative of current Catholic teaching.

I was taught in catechism class people who were not introduced to Christianity could still be saved if they lived righteous lives. So, unless the people writing the official catechism textbooks were heretics or it’s changed in the last 20 years that’s the official line from the church.

I imagine you're right. Aren't there teachings about the necessity of grace, though, given that the Pelagian controversy was a thing? And wouldn't pretty much everyone have committed a mortal sin at some point (and so they wouldn't be considered to have lived a righteous life, as you put it), as well as there being original sin?

Not disagreeing that is probably the official line, just unsure how some of that works.

The mechanism of theoretical salvation for the righteous non-Christian is still the grace obtained through the sacrifice of Christ, as it is for the innocent unborn, and for youths before their personal age of accountability.

They would have to be someone who, were they not ignorant of or memetically poisoned against the gospel, would repent of and turn from wickedness, and plead Christ’s blood before God’s throne.

So then why do Christians spread the gospel? First, because He told us to. Second, to assure salvation and hope to any who feel lost in this world’s turmoil.

That's a reasonable take, but I don't think it's quite the same as what @Hyperion was saying. You seem to be saying those who would have believed would be saved, while he was saying that those who did the best available to them would be saved, which are not the same.

(I'm not sure that the link you put is arguing what you are saying, since it seems to say that everyone still is guilty at the end—just saying there are differences of degree, if I'm reading it rightly.)

I disagree with both, though.

The scriptural evidence is somewhat interesting. The main thing that comes to mind is some imprecations of Jesus:

Matthew 11:21 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. 22 But I tell you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you. 23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. 24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”

It's definitely not saying here that Sodom and Tyre and Sidon will be in paradise. But it seems like they will have a less severe judgment.

I think one thing to be kept in mind is that our salvation is fundamentally not based upon our deservingness, but Christ's. It's not that people are good enough but just in the wrong situtation, never hearing the gospel, etc. No, rather, conversion is rather a work of God in those who are wicked and undeserving.

Yeah, I gave a hot take on the most permissible salvation scenario I can reasonably consider possible. It’s not likely to shake out that way.

It doesn’t really work, but people, and religions, contain multitudes. You see this in all religions where they compromise their previous beliefs for various reasons and that becomes the new orthodoxy only to then compromise them again during the next crisis.

The catholic dogma was interpreted this way at the time of the Council of Florence (see also Dante), but it stopped to be long before Vatican II. For example:

To be in the communion of the Catholic Church and to be a member of the Church are two different things. They are in the communion of profession of her faith and participation of her sacraments, through the ministry and government of her lawful pastors. The members of the Catholic Church are all those who with a sincere heart seek the true religion and are in unfeigned disposition to embrace the truth wherever they find it. It never was our doctrine that salvation can be obtained only by the former.

John Carroll, first bishop of the US.

For the protestant, I don't get it. I was taught that they believe in fate, so that your salvation was decided by God before your birth and your actions don't matter, but I'm no expert.

You can't "reinterpret" defined dogma. That's what defining a dogma means.

"For, the doctrine of faith which God revealed has not been handed down as a philosophic invention to the human mind to be perfected, but has been entrusted as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ, to be faithfully guarded and infallibly interpreted. Hence, also, that understanding of its sacred dogmas must be perpetually retained, which Holy Mother Church has once declared; and there must never be recession from that meaning under the specious name of a deeper understanding" - Dei Filius, First Vatican Council 1870

As for the dogma itself:

"Furthermore, we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff." - Unam Sanctam, Bull of Pope Boniface VIII promulgated November 18, 1302

With regards to John Carroll, of course he's going to be wishy-washy like that. Maryland is surrounded by protestants. If he went around telling people they had to swear allegiance to the pope to be saved, the Establishment Clause might have been under some early pressure.

Well it was also the opinion of vatican II that everyone could be saved on his own merits, if they did not reject jesus. So it seems that you can actually reinterpret dogma, because that's what vatican II did. Just like the catholic church always had a dogma that you could not make money from money, yet there are catholic bankers now.

Let's say that person A asserts both that X, and that no future interpreters may gainsay X.

Then a century later, person B asserts both that not X, and that future interpreters may contradict A.

If both A and B are church leaders, it would be easy to say that B is simply mistaken. However, I think a better way to look at it may be that there are two separate churches, "A-type catholicism" and "B-type catholicism".

(If however B-types then go around asserting that they are and have always been A-types, we may have a problem.)

I think it's a little more complicated that, since Catholics are loath to admit that the dogma has actually changed.

What's actually going on is that they're reinterpreting X so that they don't have to agree with the actual sentiment, so that they can affirm X while denying what X was originally supposed to mean.

As was pointed out elsewhere, that's kind of hard to reconcile with some of the things said in Vatican I about reinterpretation not being okay, but there are sort of ways to get around that, via what seems like it's quite possibly a reinterpretation.

It depends how you define catholicism, but it seems to me that there is in practice only one type of catholicism. They recognize the same pope, they go to the same churches. That is why you can actually reinterpret dogmas, even if you said you couldn't. Because the dogmas are defined by the catholic community, not the other way.

Who exactly are "the catholic community"? There's a lot of variance out there.

And why does that allow reinterpretation? I'm afraid I'm not following.

More comments

Ah, revealed-preference dogma. :)

I agree with you. But that reads to me like it's contradicted by some of the things that Vatican II says about tradition in Dei Verbum, along the lines of Newman.

I think there are ways to get out of some of that—Bellarmine thought that only the canons and other select parts of councils are infallible, I believe, and what you cited first wouldn't fall under that.

But there is the following from Dei Filius, which is an anathema, so everyone would agree that it's infallible:

If anyone says that it is possible that at some time, given the advancement of knowledge, a sense may be assigned to the dogmas propounded by the church which is different from that which the church has understood and understands: let him be anathema.

Unfortunately, that particular statement is a little ambiguous—the argument could be made (I think it might be unclear, there are features in the text of Dei Filius that could support either interpretation), that that anathema, when it has the word here translated as knowledge (scientia in latin), refers to non-theological sciences like psychology, not to theology.

I would prefer that it were less ambiguous, since I have Catholic friends to argue against who like the idea of development of dogma, but that's how it goes.

(Also, someone else attempting to use the set of texts you pointed out to argue a formerly Catholic friend into more anti-Vatican II beliefs did result in that person leaving Roman Catholicism)

Given the last canon of Dei Filius of Vatican I, it's at least questionable to me whether you should be able reinterpret dogmas like that (although I haven't actually read any Roman Catholic scholars to see how they approach that canon of Vatican I—it probably is a little ambiguous).

Well, I'm not sure how settled it was. Maybe he was trying to do something else, but the following from the Syllabus of Errors from 1864 at least reads as intending to prohibit some of what Carroll was there affirming (although maybe there's some other way to take it):

(15) Every man is free to embrace and profess that religion which, guided by the light of reason, he shall consider true.—Allocution "Maxima quidem," June 9, 1862; Damnatio "Multiplices inter," June 10, 1851.

(16) Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation, and arrive at eternal salvation.—Encyclical "Qui pluribus," Nov. 9, 1846.

(17) Good hope at least is to be entertained of the eternal salvation of all those who are not at all in the true Church of Christ.—Encyclical "Quanto conficiamur," Aug. 10, 1863, etc.

(18) Protestantism is nothing more than another form of the same true Christian religion, in which form it is given to please God equally as in the Catholic Church.—Encyclical "Noscitis," Dec. 8, 1849.

(those were condemned by Pius IX)

At this time, not all protestants really have a doctrine of predestination, but they should. Like under Thomas' understanding, you're predestined, but you also are condemned because of your own actions.

I was taught that they believe in fate, so that your salvation was decided by God before your birth and your actions don't matter, but I'm no expert.

In my experience only some Protestants believe that (notably Calvinists). Though, I also like the explanation I've read from Catholics. God exists outside of time, so he sees all of your life in one instant, like a single endless now. Therefore he knows what will happen, but you have free will nonetheless.

I realize that not everyone will jive with that explanation, but I personally rather like that one.

Right, I think that might end up being isomorphic to the Molinist interpretation, depending on how things fit into that. You still have to account for how any of that relates to God. Is it all dependent upon God's will in some way? Is any aspect of it independent? God being eternal doesn't make all the problems go away, since I would image there would still be some doctrine of providence.

I'm pretty sure Luther did not believe in free will, though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Bondage_of_the_Will

It seems to me that for the catholics God knows (before your birth) if you will be saved, while for the protestants (at least those who don't believe in free will), God decides it.

Actually, that depends on the Catholic in question. The two predominant ideas on predestination are the Molinistic and the Thomistic views, I believe. Thomas Aquinas would see God as predestining, while Molina sort of would. (Predestinating which choices are instantiated, but not the output of the choices themselves, if I understand it correctly.)

Dominicans vs. Jesuits.

I disagree with the ad hoc social justice theology, because the Kingdom of God is not of our world (John 18:36). One of the most significant problems facing Christianity is the failure to read the plain wording of Jesus’ teachings, that we share between brothers (Christians in the Church) and lay down our lives for our friends (fellowship in the Church). Christians are not golems designed to do good for outsiders continually. They are designed to help Christians and make Christians, which is why so many of the passages on charity speak about brothers and little ones (in Christ). The Apostles did everything for Christians, they formed churches and shared wealth among Christians and did not go around healing atheists. Of the non-Christians, they said not even to share a meal with them! Any charity done to a non-Christian without the purpose of conversion is wasted.

The Parable of the Good Samaritan has been manipulated by false teachers who suppose that, despite every single parable possessing greater meaning in each word chosen, this parable simply means “do good to everyone”. Indeed, instead of Jesus saying “do good to everyone”, he wastes his words contriving his only parable with no greater meaning. A Samaritan, the original Jews / true priestly line of Israel, who are the neighboring faith of the Jews? No reason this is added. A man traveling from Jerusalem, the home of the Jews? No reason added. Encountering a man half-dead, on a path, and doing what was sufficient to save his life? Nope, no reason this part was added. How about when Jesus refuses to heal the Canaanite woman unless she humbled herself, saying “it is not right to throw the bread to the dogs”? He must have just been speaking in tongues, …

So the Archbishop should have elevated the masses to the mysteries of God instead of picturing Jesus as a SJW, IMO. But as for the King humbling himself? I find this beautiful. The only problem with a hereditary monarchy is that they lack the right moral training. Consider also in Philippians 2:

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Consider the end result. Are you making knees bow? Are you making tongues confess?

I'm confused about your reading of the Good Samaritan Parable.

The Samaritans aren't the friendly neighboring faith to Jesus's jewish audience, they're the heretical near outgroup. The Jews had demolished their temple in the previous century and in Jesus's time the Samaritan's profaned the temple mount by scattering bones on it. The parable is given in answer to a questioner asking 'who is my neighbor' that they should love as themselves. Before the heretical Samaritan helps the injured man, a priest and a levite refuse to help him, possibly because they value ritual cleanliness so highly they don't want to touch the man who may be dead. Jesus ends the parable by asking which of these is the injured man's neighbor.

Casting the hated heretic as the merciful unexpected neighbor rather than the high status fellow Jews suggests a broadening of the boundaries of who is a neighbor we are commanded to love, not a limiting of it to co-religionists.

As you mentioned, Jesus was against the religious developments of the Pharisees and was also critical of the Sadducees (who may be “Levites” in this parable). Their focus on purity laws, criticized abundantly in the Gospel, means that they could not touch a corpse without great inconvenience. The man is described as half-dead. Hyrcanus who ordered the Samaritan temple destroyed was aligned with the Pharisees IIRC. As Jesus came for the “lost flock”, and as he’s shown elsewhere friendly to Samaritans, I don’t think he or his followers considered them the out-group. In John 4 it’s mentioned that his apostles were surprised he was talking to a woman, but didn’t ask her what her business was, as they did with others considered the out group. He then stayed with them and apparently converted many of them.

The only criticism against the Samaritans by Jesus, as far as I know, is that the woman had five husbands. An interesting aside, in that passage, what’s translated as “no dealings with Samaritans” could be translated as “no joining up with Samaritans.” Perhaps these five husbands allude to the five books of the Pentateuch which the Samaritans believed to be holy only, and Jesus is coming to her as the one which represents the joining of the five books of the Torah. The husband motif is elsewhere found in the Bible, and this also allows us to make sense of why the woman twice repeats “he told me all that I ever did”.

It's kind of one of Jesus' things to be associating with people who would ordinarily be expected to part of the outgroup (tax collectors, lepers, "sinners" and yes, Samaritans), instead of the religious leaders. What do you mean by "he didn't ask her what her business was"? Are there numerous other examples of him doing that?

I wouldn’t phrase it like that. Jesus helps all manners of sinners because that’s one of the things God is for: a physician who heals the sick. He is not so much “associating with the out-group”, which for him are the Pharisees that he despises and curses, as showing us what God is. His associates are the Apostles, who are not sinners except the foretold Judas. I think we can be sure that this is the point because it’s specified exactly in the passage where he reclines with tax collectors etc:

Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance

Yes, Jesus is there for the healing of the (spiritually) sick. But the Pharisees most certainly are sick, they just might resent being told so.

But I suppose that doesn't contradict your overall point about the good Samaritan, so let's address that. I think what Jesus is saying is not "which person shoud be your neighbor: Priests, Levites, or Samaritans." I think the priest and the Levite are set up as supposed to be thought of as exemplary keepers of the law (remember, this is all set up in the context of asking what is the greatest commandment of the law, and then this is something of an exposition of the second greatest), but what Jesus is saying is no, you should have compassion instead, despite being a Samaritan and so being much worse on the keeping-the-law scale, as they would think. Perhaps along the lines of the "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" in the prophets. But the question is not whether we should treat the Samaritan as a neighbor, it's that the Samaritan was treating the Jew as a neighbor. Again, Jews and Samaritans didn't exactly get along, so there's a picture there of transcending the ethnic boundaries.

At least, that's how I read it. Thoughts?

I'm not saying Jesus personally saw Samaritans as his outgroup, I'm saying that the Jewish man he is telling the parable to did because most Jews at that time did. It's unexpected that a Samaritan would help a Jews in the parable just as it is unexpected that a Jew would ask a Samaritan for water in John 4.

While it's true that there is supposed to be especial care for other Christians, it should not be unique to them.

The Samaritans were not at all looked upon favorably. See in John, where there is the woman at the well, and it's unusual that they are talking with one another (and not just because of different sex).

As to the not eating a meal with them, the main quote that I'm seeing this for (and by all means, bring up any others), is 1 Corinthians 5:11: "But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one."

Because it specifies someone who calls himself a Christian, I take this more as saying not to eat with professed Christians who do not live that out, not that it's talking about unbelievers.

For something showing both that there should be more care for Christians, but also that there should be care for everyone, see Galatians 6:10: "So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith."

Of the non-Christians, they said not even to share a meal with them!

Are you referencing 1 Corinthians 5:11?

I always took pretty much the opposite interpretation of that verse.

9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people; 10 I did not at all mean with the sexually immoral people of this world, or with the greedy and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. 11 But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is a sexually immoral person, or a greedy person, or an idolater, or is verbally abusive, or habitually drunk, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a person. 12 For what business of mine is it to judge outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church? 13 But those who are outside, God judges. Remove the evil person from among yourselves.

New American Standard Bible

Thank you for correction, my memory was quite off. Although there is also the “don’t be unequally yoked with unbelievers” in 2 Cor 6:14, and then the ‘those who don’t care for their relatives are worse than unbelievers’ in 1 Tim 5:8.

If you associate with immoral outsiders, doesn't that make them into insiders, who you are forbidden from associating with? And doesn't that then make them into outsiders again, so you have to associate, so you then can't associate...?

No, hanging around with a Christian doesn't make you a Christian.

I have always found Christian theology fascinating, despite being an atheist. The scriptures are self-contradictory, and it's thousands of hours of entertainment to watch people tie themselves into knots trying to interpret them coherently. I can imagine Calvinist theologian James White being quite offended at the archbishop's sermon. He takes the position that yes, Christ is king, and that does mean that we exist to serve him. He directly connects the decline in emphasis of the Lordship of Christ to the decline of the temporal power of monarchs. The bible is chock full of references to the kingship of God and "The Kingdom" because that is the analogy that people at the time those books were written would have best understood. In a world with ceremonial kings that don't do anything, is it any surprise that people have invented a ceremonial God that doesn't do anything?

The scriptures are self-contradictory, and it's thousands of hours of entertainment to watch people tie themselves into knots trying to interpret them coherently.

Per my understanding (I'm sure there was some theologian at some point who had a dissenting view), the Mystery of the Trinity is a literal contradiction that must be embraced. If you ask "was Christ fully mortal in every sense, subject to all the limitations of mortality?" then the answer is "yes". If you then ask "was Christ fully divine in every sense, subject to none of the limitations of mortality?" then the answer is again "yes". The contradiction is not to be interpreted away; the contradiction is the whole point.

The contradiction is not to be interpreted away; the contradiction is the whole point.

Saying that X is a Mystery and that X is a contradiction are not the same thing.

I think it's usually understood to be beyond the capacity of human understanding, but not contradictory.

My favorite is Matthew 24:36:

“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone."

It uses trinitarian language, but does not have an orthodox conception of the Godhead. People usually say "something something hypostatic union" to get around the Son not knowing, but does the Holy Spirit know the day and the hour? Sure sounds like he doesn't.

One of these is the concept that a one's salvation may hinge on a chance encounter with another person whose intervention changes one's life for the better. It strikes me as chaotic, random and therefore unfair. [...] The concept of a mutually supporting community taking collective responsibility for the salvation of their souls is probably much closer to how people thought about Christianity in the past. It almost gives me warm fuzzy feelings, but I still find the chaotic, random nature of it discomforting.

I find this to be one of the more beautiful aspects of Christian thought. Life isn't always fair. Coming to an understanding of the intense burdens that have been placed upon your shoulders simply for existing, burdens that you didn't ask for and had no foreknowledge of, offers a powerful antidote to the modern obsession with rationality without thereby causing a descent into total nihilism. Along similar lines:

"I like Schelling's nice totalitarian view; his idea is that even if you have no choice, you are still fully responsible for it. [...] It was forever decided, determined in the very fate of Judas, that he will betray Christ; he didn't have a choice. It was his destiny. But nonetheless he's fully responsible for it. [...] Schelling's solution of this enigma, which you find already in Kant, is a wonderful one. It's kind of a transcendental a priori act, it sounds idealist but it's not, it's very close to what in psychoanalysis we would have called the choice of the fundamental phantasy. In some kind of atemporal a priori act we are, as Sartre would have put it, responsible for our project; for what we are. Of course in our temporal reality we experience this as our nature, you cannot change it, but fundamentally at an unconscious level we are responsible for it. And this is how Freud already answers this boring Foucauldian reproach - before Foucault's time of course - that psychoanalysis is comparable to confession. You have to confess your blah blah. No, Freud says that psychoanalysis is much worse: in confession you are responsible for what you did, for what you know, you should tell everything. In psychoanalysis, you are responsible even for what you don't know and what you didn't do.

I find this to be deeply resonant. Others will find it to be nonsense. There's no accounting for taste.

I find this to be one of the more beautiful aspects of Christian thought. Life isn't always fair. Coming to an understanding of the intense burdens that have been placed upon your shoulders simply for existing, burdens that you didn't ask for and had no foreknowledge of, offers a powerful antidote to the modern obsession with rationality without thereby causing a descent into total nihilism.

If you pair this with the modern tendency to demand that life be fair for others, this sort of thing just results in the believer accepting all the burdens of the world -- not just those placed on themselves, but those placed on others who refuse to bear them -- on their own shoulders. It's asking to be taken advantage of.

sent out a Hindu to read the Epistle

There are Hindus who regard Jesus as an avatar of Vishnu.

these rhythm negros jiving for no reason

What year is this person living in‽

time traveler who thought he was watching Charles II's coronation

Those gospel people were wildly out of place and did feel like they were just there for diversity points.

Not that it stopped the usual suspects on ITV and the BBC bitching about how white everyone was, so as ever, it's a completely wasted effort to try and appease these racists.

I did think Rishi reading "We give thanks to Jesus Christ our Lord, who is the son of God and etc. etc." was particularly farcical.

I guess it just feels like an extra notch in the subsumption of British particularism into the soup of globohomo when the Establishment doesn't respect the culture enough to even try to maintain the kayfabe. I mean, sure, I doubt Bojo's a sincere Christian at heart and him reading epistles would be rank hypocrisy, but even purely nominal Christianity is better than official Hinduism. With Rishi, you know it's just his mouth making sounds and the words are not believed. With Bojo, you'd merely strongly suspect it.

Much was made during the Trump years of "Why are you supporting this man who from his actions clearly doesn't give a shit about the white working class", and the answer was often "I can't get positive actions from any of the candidates, so I'll take the one that at least one pretends to care over the others who don't even bother with the pretense". Having a Hindu read homilies during the King's official pledge to protect the Christian spirit of Britain? That has to me the taste of a ceremony that didn't even pretend to care about the ancient mores of the sceptred isle.

neutered the Hinduism of wealthy British Hindus (even of high caste

Minor nitpick on the "even of high caste".

From my personal experience current gen urban/wealthy higher caste Hindus are among the most deracinated groups in India or the diaspora.

You will find more genuine faith or adherence to tradition among the middle caste Hindus or Christians/Muslims of all castes.

It’s one thing I deeply respect about Judaism and Islam. They stay true to the belief and won’t allow people to go beyond the limits.

I don't know. Perhaps if I thought Rishi Sunak actually believed in the roster of multi armed animal gods. But realistically, his Hinduism is just as fake as the fake Christianity of the average UK politician.

Even from the perspective of Christianity, scripture isn't a magic spell and Bibles aren't totems - it shouldn't really matter who reads it.

It doesn't seem like you need to be racist in any sense to find it odd that they chose a non-Christian to read Christian scripture on this occasion. The blatant racism of the person objecting to gospel music only delegitimises any other concerns he might name.

So in that spirit: the presence of Sunak at the coronation isn't inappropriate, nor is it inappropriate for him to take part in some capacity. Muslim, Jewish, and Hindu leaders appeared later in the ceremony to present items to the king. Being a Hindu doesn't disqualify Sunak from taking part in the coronation.

But you'd think that the reading of scripture specifically is something that ought to be done by a Christian, or at least by a person who believes it.

But you'd think that the reading of scripture specifically is something that ought to be done by a Christian, or at least by a person who believes it.

I've been at some catholic weddings where the readers were atheists that were never christened. And there was no political pressure to be inclusive or progressive. So I don't think most people care about that.

Was there a eucharistic sacrifice at these weddings? If there was, I think some rules were broken.

How about that gospel music isn’t a British thing?

I suppose I'd say that seems like a rather arbitrary place to draw the line, and it would make me suspicious of the complainant's motives. I can't recall any requirement that everything at a coronation must meet some standard of Britishness, and neither do I know how you'd define Britishness in this sense anyway. Indeed, it seems that previous coronations have often included elements we would associate with other countries, most famously France.

And it seems as though Charles III and his household should have the right to select the music they wish at their coronation. The gospel music was skilfully performed and appropriate to the gravity of the occasion.

French art or music makes sense in that France and Britain are inextricably connected. See eg 1066.

Gospel music on the other hand seems…quite unrelated. Random even.

It's common in many states in the Commonwealth of Nations, of which Charles is titular head. It's also practiced in some of the Caribbean nations of which Charles is king, and I believe Afro-British in the UK itself also sing gospel music. For that matter it's a popular form of Christian music that even many people of no African heritage sing - I've sung gospel music in church before, even though I have no ancestral connection to Africa.

It doesn't seem unreasonable for Charles' coronation to include elements reflecting the cultures of countries that he rules, and again, if he or his household wish to include that music, is any more justification necessary?

It depends if you see the monarchy as merely the head of numerous states, or the head of a British state and other countries.

That is, including elements of Caribbean culture in with the British culture suggests the monarchy is ecumenically. Some in contrast see this monarchy as particularly British. Hence why some would be upset without being as it was put above racist.

Perhaps not, but he's also the king of the commonwealth, and gospel is pretty popular in Africa and the Caribbean.

Don't get me wrong, I still hated it. It completely jarred with the rest of the service. But a Nigerian Anglican choir could have worked well.

Except most Nigerian Anglican churches are looking to officially break from the Church of England: https://www.wsj.com/articles/conservative-anglicans-call-for-break-with-archbishop-of-canterbury-over-same-sex-blessings-2564937b.

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