Blog Continues Here...

Human Rights Commissions Debate in the Globe and Mail

For updates to this blog, and for an archive of greatest hits, update your bookmarks to jordanstratford.blogspot.com/

NT Wright Hates St. Ratford, Heaven

Arch-Anti-Gnostic But Really Smart Bishop NT Wright (who took a public swing at me in US News & World Report last year, as you'll recall) declares a jihad against Catholic schoolchildren, Governatrix Maria Kennedy Shriver Schwarzenegger and HEAVEN ITSELF.

We don't go to heaven, we chill in our graves after death 'til Jesus shows up and makes us all ZOMBIES. So why do we tell Timmy that Fluffy is heaven with Jesus? Because Jesus lied to that guy that time...

Wright: There is Luke 23, where Jesus says to the good thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in Paradise." But in Luke, we know first of all that Christ himself will not be resurrected for three days, so "paradise" cannot be a resurrection.

So Jesus was JUST KIDDING about the whole Heaven thing. Anyway, the upside to getting rid of Heaven (I wonder what the listing price is and if this has something to do with the subprime mortgage crisis?) is that it proves the Leftbehindists are wrong wrong wrong.

TIME: That's very different from, say, the vision put out in the Left Behind books.

Wright: Yes. If there's going to be an Armageddon, and we'll all be in heaven already or raptured up just in time, it really doesn't matter if you have acid rain or greenhouse gases prior to that. Or, for that matter, whether you bombed civilians in Iraq. All that really matters is saving souls for that disembodied heaven.

I love this article so much I think I may have peed my pants.

Dianne Sylvan Gets It Right

Dianne over at Dancing Down the Moon has an excellent list:

Here are the things I don't care about:

I don't care what the name of your religion is.
I don't care what the names of your gods are.
I don't care how old your religion is.
I don't care if your great-great-whatever grandmother passed down your famtrad Book of Shadows under the watchful eye of the Inquisition.
I don't care if an entire civilization worshipped your Goddess for ten thousand years.
I don't care if you made Her up based on manga or Tolkien or a dream you had...

What do I care about?

I care that your religion has made you a kinder, more compassionate person.
I care that you can hold down a job.
I care that you're growing past whatever happened to you as a child or last year.
I care that your gods help you become stronger without coddling you.
I care that you are willing and able to adapt and change as your life does.
I care that you care about the Earth.
I care that you care about someone and something outside yourself...

Go read the whole thing

Wiccans Need Not Apply To Judge Toronto Beauty Contest

So a Wiccan who also practices reiki (gasp!) and reads tarot (horrors!) wins beauty contest A and is invited to judge beauty contest B. And then is uninvited...

"We just got her bio a week ago and we don't agree with it," said Karen Murray, Miss Toronto Tourism pageant director. "We want someone down to earth, not someone into the dark side or the occult."

"We need a judge who has an upright reputation and we would be proud to introduce to the audience."

"Our board of directors has eliminated her as a judge as tarot card reading and reiki are the occult and is not acceptable by God, Jews, Muslims or Christians. Tarot card reading is witchcraft and is used by witches, spiritists and mediums to consult the dark world."

I wonder how many Jews and Muslims they consulted on this issue.

Source

Blog Moving Soon...

So this blog shall disappear shortly, to be replaced elsewhere by a more "column" style format and an archive of the "Top 40" highest-ranked and most-commented articles from the last three and a half years. Stay tuned for the new URL.

I think it's fair to say that blogging has been very good to me.

The Magdalene Prayerbook

... has turned into a total re-write. I am currently looking at a bucket of random paragraphs. Oh, editorial narrative arc, why have you forsaken me?

Care about the environment? Eat less meat

Last week, Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the United Nation's Nobel Prize-winning scientific panel on climate change, asked the world to "please eat less meat." Speaking at a press conference in Paris, he said meat was a very carbon-intensive commodity, a fact established by UN research showing that livestock production creates more greenhouse gases than all forms of transport combined. [...]

It's interesting to note that he followed his statement by saying: "This is something that the IPCC was afraid to say earlier, but now we have said it."[...]

Then there are the dreaded V-words: vegetarian and vegan. Few politicians or environmentalists want to face the jokes, media backlash and libertarian "consumer freedom" zealots who will accuse them of forcing Canadians to eat only salad and lentils. The same sort of people who fought against mandatory seatbelts and restrictions on tobacco would shift their public relations and spin machines into high gear.[...]

Global demand for meat is projected to double between 2001 and 2050, meaning billions more animals will be raised in intensive, inhumane conditions.[...]

Encouraging the public to cut back on meat would also have major health benefits. The World Cancer Research Fund recently urged consumers to limit consumption of red meat to 500 grams per week and to avoid processed meats completely. (Vegetarians and vegans figured out the health advantages of a meatless diet long ago. That's why they have lower rates of obesity, heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, hypertension and other diseases.)

Cutting down or cutting out meat is a win-win-win policy. Not only does it help the fight against global warming, but it saves countless animals from factory-farm suffering and it's good for you.

It's just too bad so many people are afraid to talk about it.

– The Globe and Mail

How long before the spin on this story is blamed on;

• The Gay Agenda
  
• Islamofascists
  
• Zionists
  
• "liberals"
  
• Al Gore
  
• Xenu

?

Twenty Two Songs for Mary Magdalene

In the beginning
we are together Achamoth

First
the word poured out on this barrenness

Second
in the flourishing of infinite love, consecrated

Third
and now wisdom, restored and enthroned

Fourth
and husband, anointed from alabaster

Fifth
brought deeper

Sixth
heiros gamos; Logos, Sophia

Seventh
for The Merkabah

Eighth
the weight of silver coins

Ninth
the hidden riches of secret places

Tenth
is the roar of their machines

Eleventh
for yearning

Twelfth
for a hanging man

Thirteenth
in the place of skulls

Fourteenth
we catch the blood in the cup

Fifteenth
and beg for the body

Sixteenth
stones torn at death's own failure

Seventeenth
a star in the heavens, where perhaps stars should stay

Eighteenth
but the moon knows no blood

Nineteenth
for the invincible sun

Twentieth
for the raising of the veil

Twenty-first
to the Pleroma, the Fullness

Harry Potter Teaches Gnosticism, Vatican Continues Whining. Also, The Golden Compass.

But the deeper problem, he said, is that the books advocate gnosticism, the idea that a select elite can develop special powers and gifts through specialized knowledge that is hidden from most mortals -- or "muggles," as normal humans are called in Rowling's books...

The future pope praised Kuby's attempt to "enlighten people about Harry Potter" and the possible "subtle seductions" that can distort children's thinking before they mature in the Christian faith.


– Catholic News Service

They're still going on about this. And yet somehow every time a Vatican half-wit claims that Harry Potter, with its themes of loyalty, self-sacrifice, commitment, friendship, and the triumph of love over death = Gnosticism, I want to kiss these guys on the lips. Plus, they call us a select elite, which is tremendously silly, but I'll take what I can get.

In other childrens-lit-that-annoys-the-brocaded-elderly news, I went to see The Golden Compass on the weekend and thought it was fabulous. Again, the story is about courage, loyalty, commitment, and pluck-in-the-face-of-totalitarianism. The film is VERY careful to not make the Magisterium look like the Church (in fact they're more wizardly, even occult). If Catholicism as a whole (and I don't believe it is, mind you) is pointing at the screen saying "These evil guys are cutting off the souls of children and want to control the universe with ignorance! That's exactly us!!" and getting their vestments in a bunch, then so be it.

So I have to ask, Mr. Dumb Vatican Secretary To Whom They Always Pass The Microphone, do you really think that rank and file Catholics are this totalitarian cliché that you seem to want to present them as? Okay, granted, for most of its history Catholicism has been a totalitarian cliché, but that's only because the Empire collapsed and there was a job opening. If Paganism or Judaism or Gnosticism took over the Absolute Power Corrupting™ job, I doubt we would have done any better. Regardless, during the last century the RCC has proved it can use its powers for good instead of (okay, as well as) eeeevilll, and you, Mr. Dumb Vatican Secretary To Whom They Always Pass The Microphone, are making the people who house the poor and feed the hungry look bad, which I'm pretty sure is not your job.

[Personal note to "JoJo": Call me for another PR pep-talk, my usual rates apply]

Update:

Best His Dark Materials Review yet.

Gnostic Mass: January 20th 3 PM

The Regina Coeli (Queen of Heaven) Parish of the Apostolic Johannite Church in Victoria, British Columbia will be performing the AJC Sophianic Eucharist at the Church of Truth, 111 Superior Street in James Bay. All are welcome.

Number Six!

Living Gnosticism is number six on Amazon under "Gnosticism", ahead of Pagels and Williams.

UPDATE: Moved up to number five as of 10:30 this morning.

Priests clash at Church of Nativity

BETHLEHEM — Robed Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity on Thursday as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning.

...But the cleanup turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church's section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.

Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue. Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly injured.


The Associated Press

Christians, man, what are you gonna do? Haven't these guys discovered pointless flame wars on the Internet like the rest of us?

Archbishop of Wales' Anti-Fundamentalist Christmas Message

One of the great problems our world faces is the growth of fundamentalism. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a religious movement based on strict adherence to certain tenets held to be non negotiable”. And the words non negotiable say it all – because fundamentalists believe so strongly in the truth of their convictions that they assume they are right and any contrary opinion is wrong.

A new phenomenon has arisen in our country however, what can be called atheistic fundamentalism. It advocates that religion in general and Christianity in particular have no substance and assumes that most people will accept their premise that faith has no value and is superstitious nonsense.

To have a coherent and rational debate about the tenets of the Christianity is perfectly natural. To have a virulent, almost irrational attack upon it claiming that what is being said is self evidently true is dangerous, not just because it refuses to allow any contrary viewpoint but also because it affects the public perception of religion. It leads, for example, to local authorities calling Christmas ‘Winterval’, to hospitals removing all Christian symbols from hospital chapels, or to schools refusing to put on nativity plays, or allowing children to send Christmas cards with a Christian message, or airlines refusing staff the freedom to wear a cross round their necks.

All of this is what I would call the new ‘fundamentalism’ of our age and any kind of fundamentalism, be it Biblical, atheistic or Islamic, is dangerous, because it allows no room for disagreement, for doubt, for debate, for discussion. It leads to the language of expulsion and exclusivity, of extremism and polarisation, and the claim that because God is on our side, He is not on yours.

Solstice: Gloria In Profundis

Little light shining,
Little light will guide them to me.
My face is all lit up,
My face is all lit up.

– Kate Bush, And Dream of Sheep

Christmas Present Spoiler: You're Getting a Chicken

Or maybe a goat, if you're good. Or a radio. Or a bucket. Or a water filter.

We're giving our family and friends proxy gifts this year: we're donating to Oxfam, who will in turn buy a vet-checked chicken and a year's feed to a family in a developing nation. It's a great thing for kids, because they can name the chicken and look up the country on a globe and learn about how important their chicken will be to the family who's looking after it for the child. A great opportunity to tell them what Christmas is really for, and how incredibly easy it is to change the world.

And corporate gifts? Who needs yet another whatever? Tell your clients they got a $58 goat named after them in Chad, and the milk will keep 4 children healthy while saving their eyesight. Or a $20 water bucket that keeps mosquitos out, or $22 worth of water filtration to provide potable water for an entire village?

How about $39 worth of tools? Or a $105 bike that will create a small business and connect villages? Or a $15 radio that can act as a virtual school, promote democracy AND coordinate emergency planning?

Oxfam Unwrapped

A View From The Cheap Seats of the Anglican Train Wreck

As some of you may know, The Episcopal Church in the United States has been weathering tremendous pressure over its openness and acceptance of gays and lesbians to Holy Orders, just as it did decades ago with its decision to accept women to the same roles. A few weeks ago, most of the clergy and laity of a conservative diocese in California – let's call them the Joaquinites – decided to schism away from the Episcopal Church. (A diocese can't leave, as it's a jurisdiction; a chunk of territory. TEC will replace the bishop and clergy and keep going with its fine work in the area, actually taking care of people).

The bishop and folks of the breakaway group have aligned themselves with the ultra-conservative fundamentalist "Southern Cone" region of the Anglican Communion, which is breaking all the rules by operating outside of its territory. In the meantime the openly homophobic and misogynist Archbishop of Nigeria has set up a kind of parallel-universe-Anglican-Church on American soil.

[While I'm aware both of these unkind epithets are overused, the Archbishop in question advocates for imprisonment of those who even openly *support* gay rights, let alone those who seek them for themselves. Same guy who whipped a Christian mob into rioting against Muslim families, killing 70. So yes, the Archbigot wins the overused epithets. He's a freakin' monster. Deal.]

Here's the thing. The Episcopal Church is the only legitimate branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States. The only one. So the new AmeriNigerian bishops, while certainly valid bishops, cannot be understood as Anglicans anymore. Ditto for the breakaway Joaquinites. After all, Anglicanism was founded on the basic principle of praying next to people who disagree with you – and these guys certainly aren't doing that anymore, despite the invitations by the progressive/liberal/inclusives to keep praying together. And unlike several fringe groups (cough, goes the Indie Cath priest) who allow bishops "in general", the Anglicans have always had "landed" or territorial bishops. The breakaways aren't doing that anymore either.

In comes the ref, by which I mean the way-too-late UberArchBishop of Canterbury. He blows the whistle and says, yes, The Episcopal Church is the only legitimate branch of the Anglican Communion in the United States. He's throwing a party later and everybody's invited, but the crankies (and the Nigerians and their friends) aren't going to come if there are any legitimate American Anglicans there. They plan on throwing their OWN party later on, and guess who's not invited? High school much? Oh, and the UberArchBishop also said, and quite rightly, that the crankies weren't legitimate, which really made them 31 flavours of hissy fit. Like, totally, OMG!

I would go even further, and question whether or not these guys, who clutch their KJVs (so what if the translation is pants? It has the best poetry) mightily to their righteous chests, are even Christian anymore. I can do that, because I'm not one. Relax, kiddies, this is an outsider perspective, remember? It does seem to me that the "historic faith" has, as I've blogged before, has three columns; scripture, tradition, and reason. Certainly, they have scripture. They're thumping the bible in ways that would do a baptist proud. I mean, their women aren't keeping silent in church, which makes the baby Jesus cry, but they're sure as hell working on that one (Women's Ordination is next on the chopping block for the Joaquinites). But they reject the tradition of their own communion utterly with this whole non-local bishops thing, and certainly any sense of reason has long flown out the stained glass window with these guys. So all they have left of their Christianity is their soteriology (salvation-mechanism) and a kind of literalist bible thumping that had zero to do with Christianity for its first millennium-and-a-half-and-then-some. Anglicans have always bent over backwards to be "catholic" in the broader sense: these new guys seem, by comparison, roadside snake-handlers.

Their response is of course that the Anglicans in America aren't really Anglicans; Anglicans in Canada are no longer Anglicans, and hey, even the Anglicans in the UK aren't Anglicans anymore (because the UberArchBishop won't let them throw their tantrum unhindered).

Right, well. Setting all that aside, what I really want to say to the new folks who find themselves in self-exile, is, Welcome. You've found what is the ecclesiastical equivalent of the Island of Misfit Toys. Take a seat. Not that one, it's John's. The first thing you're going to need to do is pick up a copy of The Many Paths of the Independent Sacramental Movement, because that's what we call our little island, and you're pretty much marooned here. This is the land of bishops who aren't bishops of anywhere in particular, Catholic bishops who worship ancient Roman gods, Anglican priests who are also druids, GLBT clergy, and even the odd Gnostic priest who is also a Witch who worships Sophia, Goddess of Wisdom. Go figure.

Down the hall is the Star Chamber of the SSPX - they ran away from home because their dad didn't hate Jews enough for their liking, just as you ran away from home because your mum didn't hate gays. Buy them lunch, you should get along like a house on fire.

Authority and Dust

"If there is a God, and he is as the Christians describe him, then he deserves to be put down and rebelled against."

This is from Philip Pullman, author of the very-very-Gnostic-and-not-even-vaguely-atheistic His Dark Materials trilogy, the first volume of which has been made into a children's film. Haven't seen the film, will, loved the books. Pullman is being called an atheist about every minute and a half by the slack-jawed inbred yokels who insist that their Santa-Claus-cum-demiurge version of the Infinite Divine is a person, and one to be both feared and worshipped. Well, he's not. I also utterly reject this Sunday-School-cartoon-character as having anything to do with God. Does this make me an atheist?

I don't believe in God, I Know.

When Pullman kills off the Authority in his books, he's doing us all a favour. Rather than the mad Archon against whom the characters rebel, Pullman sides with the Dust, a barely detectable essence of permeating Divinity; a concept of God far more subtle, demanding more reflection, than pray-n-obey. I can see why the Zeus-worshippers don't care too much for Dust: They want their God throned, bearded and lightning-bolt chucking.

The Magisterium is a metaphor for absolute power corrupting absolutely; to equate that with the Roman Catholic Church is to assert that Rome is exactly that corrupt power – an assertion I reject. I don't deny that the RCC has been this in the past, but certainly not in my lifetime. Get over it.

HDM eschews the cookie-cutter formula for youth fiction, in which only a virgin can break the curse, only the innocent can see the magic. CS Lewis would rather kill off the innocent in a train wreck to keep them innocent forever, rather than have them become mature, sexual, thinking grown-ups. We are to pity the survivor who has to face the adult world and envy the mangled corpses who remain in blissful ignorance for eternity.

Pullman paints a universe in which the children must grow up to become powerful: they must learn and make difficult choices and noble sacrifices. Their courage comes not from blind trust that Aslan* will save them, but rather from an increasing sense of their own maturing integrity. Pullman prizes individuation over innocence, and I can certain see how a culture obsessed with prolonging childhood into one's thirties would react with squeamishness at such an idea.

>*[Don't get me wrong, I love Aslan as a neo-Mithraic archetype and I think he's handled very well by Lewis. It's just that bravery comes easy to a literary character knowing that when they leap off the building, Superman will save them. It's a cheap courage.]

"The Secret" and "Zeitgeist": Revolting, Irresponsible and Exploitive

Shame on the producers, promoters and, yes, even the supporters of "The Secret" and "Zeitgeist". These are the Gospels of Powerlessness cloaked in a language of power.

The Secret: You create your own reality, so you should use it to get a red sports car* or a better job or more money. If you get hit by a bus, it's because you secretly (ha!) wanted it to. (*This criticism from a guy who owns so many red sports cars he just gave one away for free, true story).

Zeitgeist: All of society is a con controlled by the elite; you can't stop them, but at least you can fear and hate them.

People hunger for a liberating message, and are prepared to cast lauds upon the bearers of that message. So with that message comes a real responsibility which "The Secret" and "Zeitgeist" abdicate: no no, we're just here to be clever. Or specifically in the case of "The Secret", we're just here for the merchandising.

What's the takeaway of the Secret? Callousness. If a 4 year old starves to death in Darfur, if a teenager grows up in America without health care or ever learning to read, it's because they "created their own reality". If you have cancer, you deserve it, because somehow you thought you deserved it and were too stupid to realize you didn't actually deserve it, but now you deserve it because you chose it which proves you're stupid.

So much for foreign aid or third world debt relief or Red Cross donations. All those earthquake and tsunami victims "created their own reality", and The Secret says I can save my VISA dollars to buy a new tiny dog for my handbag. How does this not make you a jerk, exactly?

Now I'm not discounting for a moment the power of visualization, the fact of synchronicity, and the tendency of objects in systems to attract like objects in like systems (mangled as "the law of attraction", which it is not) – I'm among other things a Witch and I wholeheartedly subscribe to magic – but you don't create reality; reality creates reality. What you can create are opportunities within that reality, but even then you still need tools with which to leverage these opportunities. Tools like literacy, education, democracy, health, justice, and access to capital. If you want to see change in your (or anyone else's) experience of reality, you have to invest in these tools. It's that simple. Be the change you wish to see in the world, but don't be a materialistic red-sports-car-coveting creep that "The Secret" turns everybody into.

[By the way, the Whitman quotes are forgeries, the "science" isn't even *close* to science, and did Shakespeare really know The Secret? He died impoverished, alone, and unheralded. Nice Secret.]

What's the takeaway of Zeitgeist? Smugness, knowing that the bad guys, "international bankers" (in a time-tested nod to anti-Semitism) run the world and want to implant you with technology, creating a one-world-government. Anyone who thinks this is anything other than a YouTube version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is an idiot.

The number of factual errors in the film is staggering, as is the assault on logic throughout. I don't think there's a date in the first half hour that isn't off by centuries. Were there countless pre-Christian templates for the Jesus myth? Absolutely. Did these expressions continue after the Christian era, such as the portrayal of Christ as Apollo and Orpheus? Indisputably. But there are enough real facts to support this that the producers didn't have to go making things up – which is exactly what they did. I have no doubt that anyone with a passing interest in Classics or Egyptology or early Christian history cringed mightily throughout the sloppy and downright stupid first act of the film. (Remember, this is coming from lil ole heretical me, here.)

The "911" chapter of the movie is likewise brimming with factual errors and wild supposition, callously exploiting the victims of that tragedy for brief internet notoriety. The Federal Reserve chapter is such patent nonsense that anybody with access to Google can see what a steaming pile it is. I'm hardly a fan of George Bush, but did he really quote Hitler? Um. No, no he didn't. Is the Fed a private bank unaccountable to a democratically elected Congress? Do I really have to spell that out? For a film that says "the others" are lying to you all the time, this movie is somehow trying to outdo "them" in its ambitious fabrication. I believe the term is "bullshit". The producers think you're stupid enough to swallow it. Are you? Are you really? This vile, lying, nasty little film – Jackass with a real body count – is supposed to make you afraid, make you angry, and make you blame "the elite".

(This is somehow contrasted by a feel-good globalism that says we should all get along. But I guess that "get along" doesn't mean open borders or trade or treaties or travel, because that's the ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT "they" want you to accept. I guess we'll all get along by sulking in our parents' basements and Googling "black helicopter" stories, but, y'know, globally.)

Here's the news flash: If you're reading this, you ARE the elite. If you can read, have access to clean water and a fridge, have ever been immunized, can legally vote, and have possessions totaling in value of a thousand dollars you are one of the richest, most powerful people on the planet and no kvetching about student loans or credit card debt or minimum wage jobs is going to change that profound and basic fact.

Well, now that you're elite what are you going to do about running the world? What are Americans going to do about the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security and the restoration of constitutional democracy, or their declining literacy rate coupled with a soaring infant mortality rate? What are Canadians doing about the appalling conditions on the Rez, or about a Prime Minister who willfully sabotaged Commonwealth carbon talks? What are you, my dear elite world-ruling reader, going to do about climate change, about access to capital for the developing world, about AIDS and malaria and hepatitis and sweatshops and "suicide seeds" and genital mutilation?

Learn. Organize. Act. Vote. Donate. Educate.

Noblesse oblige. You're in charge, nobody else. So suck it up, put down the pablum of these repulsive and exploitive films, and get to work.

Sincerely,

A university-educated upper-middle-class media-literate white male.

Gospel of Judas controversy

Over on the Palm Tree Garden we've been chatting with Dr. April DeConick of Rice University about her new book, The Thirteenth Apostle. She's been terribly long-suffering and gracious about our non-academic questions.

She's just put an opinion piece in the New York Times about, among other things, the ghastly mishandling of the Gospel of Judas text by the National Geographic Society and the release of an inaccurate and misleading translation to the public.

Readers might remember I took an intensive on both The Gospel of Mary and The Gospel of Judas with Dr. Bruce Chilton last year as part of my DMin. studies, and we walked carefully through the (now admittedly flawed and corrected) NGS translation in its public-release form. So I'm not altogether unfamiliar with the content.

Now I have been trying to get hold of a copy of Dr. DeConick's book, with little success thus far. But in the meantime I do have her comments from her excellent blog, the PTG thread, and the NYT piece. Please understand I do not question her scholarship, but I do question the fact that some of the things I'm hearing don't make any sense. For instance:

While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.
Several of the translation choices made by the society’s scholars fall well outside the commonly accepted practices in the field. For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”

Now my good friend and Coptic scholar Jesse has confirmed that, during the period of authorship of this text, daimon did in fact equal demon. The problem that remains is this: that in both previous and later eras, the word "daimon" does mean "spirit"; or perhaps a closer translation would be "intelligence" or "spiritual entity" with neither explicitly positive or negative association. This is how everybody from Socrates to Jung has used the word; everyone except, apparently, the authors of second century Christian and related documents. Like I said, I haven't read the book, but this just doesn't "feel" right, although I acknowledge it as "accepted".

Next problem:

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

There are a LOT of contradictory (and clearly personal to the authors) cosmologies in Gnostic literature. Where is the evidence to support that the authors of Judas were familiar with one in which Ialdabaoth was "the thirteenth"?

Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians’ belief in the atoning value of Jesus’ death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

While it would, in this assumed scenario, compromise "the atoning value of Jesus' death", how could this in any way diminish the effectiveness of the Eucharist? This simply doesn't follow.

And finally,

Judas is a frightening character. For Christians, he is the one who had it all and yet betrayed God to his death for a few coins. For Jews, he is the man whose story was used by Christians to persecute them for centuries. Although we should continue to work toward a reconciliation of this ancient schism, manufacturing a hero Judas is not the answer.

We have to touch on the fact that there's at least one other document from that era called "The Gospel of Judas" which seems to be unrelated to the one we have, aside from the title. Setting that aside, when I first heard of the "appointed Judas" version, it rang true with me. In fact it always has.

Either Judas was part of the plan all along and integral to Jesus' salvific death and resurrection (which proves that Jesus knew what he was doing) OR Judas was the bad guy, Jesus never saw it coming and the salvific death of Jesus was pretty much an accident. Christianity is going to have to make up its mind.

Why did Christianity vilify Judas, and yet make Pilate a folk hero cum lay-saint for centuries? Without Pilate, so the reasoning goes, there would be no Crucifixion. Well, likewise for Judas.

I look forward to finally getting my mitts on a copy of Dr. DeConick's book and perhaps having some of my questions addressed.

Living Gnosticism Now Available on Amazon.com

Just click on the cover!

ONE Campaign Succeeds in Liberia Debt Relief

Yesterday, Masood Ahmed, Director of the IMF's External Relations, posted an open letter on the IMF's website announcing that they finally took the step necessary to move forward. Some key excerpts:

I am pleased to inform you that on November 12, 2007, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has secured adequate pledges from member countries for the cost of the IMF's debt relief to Liberia

ONE used it's two-and-a-half-million-strong membership to pressure the International Monetary Fund to provide debt relief to Libera, enabling that country's government to actually spend money on its citizens for the first time in 14 years. That means roads, schools, hospitals, sanitation, agriculture and policing. That means hope. That means life.

Extraordinary.

Revised, Expanded, Retitled

About a year ago I handed a copy of my first book to Dr. Bruce Chilton (author of Mary Magdalene: A Biography), who graciously scribbled all over it and handed it back to me with a look that can only be described as cheerful sympathy. Now, it was a "trade" book, and something of a rant, truth be told, and never meant to be scholarly. That being said, his insight was of course extremely valuable.

One of the most common comments I received about the book (aside from the sensationalist title) was "I loved it, I didn't understand it." Also for a great number of people, the book was difficult to buy. But I was and am encouraged that many connected with it and use it in the manner I'd hoped; as a compass to navigate the shifting waters of a deep and sparkling myth.

So, it's really the same book, better organized, about 2 words a page of edits, with a few new bits and a new title. A tune-up in a new edition rather than a rewrite. And it will be available in bookstores and amazon early in the new year.

In all things I am scattered

In all things I am scattered, and from wherever you wish you collect me.

– Gospel of Eve

Religious sect fears extinction in Iraq

He points to scars on his face and shoulders.
"They said, 'You are an infidel, and this is an Islamic state. Either you pay the jiziyah (a tax that Islamic governments once levied on non-Muslims) or it is hallal (religiously sanctioned) to kill you.' "

The kidnappers demanded that the goldsmith pay a $100,000 ransom.

"If you do not give us this, how would you like to be killed -- by shooting or beheading?" they asked him. "We will send your head back to your family in a bag."

Jabar, 42, belongs to the Mandaeans, a tiny religious sect that survived for 2,000 years in Iraq and Iran. Now scattered by Iraq's bloodshed, its leaders fear the sect will disappear.

Not Jews, Christians or Muslims, Mandaeans venerate John the Baptist in rituals revolving around water. Their religious leaders still speak a dialect of Aramaic that is closest to that of the Babylonian Talmud.

"They are one of a variety of groups that appeared around the same time as Christianity ... offering alternative interpretations -- in the case of the Mandaeans, one that scholars have identified as Gnostic," explains Nathaniel Deutsch, a Mandaean expert at Swarthmore College. "The Mandaeans are the one community ... that still survives from this period, and that is extraordinary."


– Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

Wrap Cover Final

And that's that, off to John at Apocryphile Press in Berkeley. All going well, it should be available at your local bookstore shortly and on Amazon by Christmas. I'm starting to line up dates in January/February for Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, and the San Francisco area. I'll keep you posted.

Back of the Book Blurb

Twenty two centuries ago in Alexandria, a sect of philosopher-poets fashioned a myth the strands of which weave through Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Greek philosophy, and inspire the legends of the Holy Grail. Long banished to the realm of notorious heresy, the myths of the Gnostics ("knowers") took root in the fertile imagination of the nineteenth century's artistic movements and esoteric circles, bearing fruit in the daily spiritual practice of thousands today. In 1945, a library of Gnostic writings surfaced from the Egyptian desert, allowing the movement – after 1500 years of propaganda and slander – to speak with its own voice. Rich in imagery, nostalgic in tone, Gnosticism quietly restores Wisdom to her place as a Goddess in Western religion, reveres Eve as the first saint, and acknowledges Mary Magdalene as foremost of the Apostles.

From the music of Tori Amos and David Bowie to CG Jung and The Matrix, Gnosticism's themes and deep questions resonate in contemporary culture. This book is about and for modern Gnostics; examining and illustrating their integral world-view flowing from ancient and once-forbidden scripture.

"Combining insight and scholarship with unequivocal clarity, this in-depth yet concise book should be the first read by anyone seriously interested in the subject... Stratford's work rises as a force and luminary in the horizon of modern Gnosticism."
– Bishop +Rosamonde Miller

The guts of the thing are off to the press, I just need 2 hours of childcare to finish the cover. Flintstones Chewable Valium™ anyone?

At Midnight...

... I was drinking absinthe in a Bollywood-themed oyster bar surrounded by drop-dead gorgeous women, talking theology and poetry and playing "Barrel of Monkeys".

I love my life, I really do.

Spring 2006: A Phone Call From An Old Associate

INT. NIGHT: Spring 2006. THE MONSIGNOR's bedroom. Camera pans across a sleeping MONSIGNOR, in the room's dim light we see a mobile PHONE on the nightstand. The PHONE rings, lighting up.

THE MONSIGNOR (answering phone, rubbing eyes): Mmm? Hello?

On the other end is THE SECRETARY, male, mid 30s, Italian accent.

SECRETARY: Bon giorno, Signore. Please wait while I connect you...

THE MONSIGNOR: Um, yeah, okay.

A new VOICE, this one an older male with a German accent

VOICE: Good morning.

THE MONSIGNOR: Well, well, well. Look who's come crawling back.

VOICE: Don't kid around, I'm serious. We have a problem.

THE MONSIGNOR: What is it this time? Another Jesus mummy? DNA samples cropping up in dead French monarchs?

VOICE: Worse. Well, not worse. Annoying.

THE MONSIGNOR: Lay it on me.

VOICE: Dan Brown.

THE MONSIGNOR: You're kidding me. You haven't dispatched the albinos?

VOICE: Our budget is not what it once was. You of all people should know that. I need some advice.

THE MONSIGNOR: What, him, personally?

VOICE: No no, it's the Templar thing. So much attention, so much interest. We have to stop it.

THE MONSIGNOR: But there's nothing there to stop. Everybody loves an underdog. There'll be a movie or two, then the whole thing will blow over once the merchandising revenues tap out. You know that.

VOICE: Yes, yes. It's just a mosquito in the hotel suite with these guys. Reporters calling asking for a tour of the basement, that sort of thing.

THE MONSIGNOR: Say no.

VOICE: I tried that. I need something else, something definitive.

THE MONSIGNOR: I see. But I'm not exactly on your team, Jojo. What's in it for me?

VOICE: Your usual payment, I suspect.

THE MONSIGNOR: (pausing, savoring). Yes. Yes I think we have a deal.

VOICE: What to do? How to make the Templars go avay?

THE MONSIGNOR: It's going to get worse, you know. Next year is the 700th anniversary of the arrest.

VOICE: You think I don't know that? This is why I call you now. There could be marches, people all over the vorld dressing up in armour with red crosses demanding revenge. It's a nightmare. These Templars are poster-boys for sympathetic heretics!

THE MONSIGNOR: Okay, well.... embrace and smother. Why don't you pardon them? Tell everybody they were never heretics to begin with, they were good loyal Catholics and the whole thing was a huge misunderstanding. Blame the French.

VOICE: Bah! Clement the fifth did that already, right after the executions!

THE MONSIGNOR: Jojo. Baby. You think I didn't know that? But what are the odds that Vatican-beat reporters are gonna look that up?

VOICE: (pause) I see.

THE MONSIGNOR: I hope so.

VOICE: The Joan of Arc play?

THE MONSIGNOR: The Joan of Arc play.

VOICE: So you're saying we do a public apology for persecuting innocent, faithful Catholics, maybe a requiem Mass somewhere...

THE MONSIGNOR: Now you're thinking, Joey baby. If you can't thrust, parry. Deflect the whole thing.

VOICE: Yesss.... yessss... perhaps a beatification or two... for the holy martys of the faith. "No heretics here!"

THE MONSIGNOR: That's what I love about you, man. One shove in the right direction and you fly with it. Just make it a pre-emptive strike. I'll arrange a leak that you're doing some digging, and a month before the anniversary you announce you'll pardon them all is if it was news, as if you'd never HEARD of ole Clem five.

VOICE: This is perfect. Danke. Thank you so much.

THE MONSIGNOR: And now there's just the matter of my payment...

VOICE: (clears throat, pauses) Your kung-fu is the greatest.

THE MONSIGNOR: I'm sorry? What was that? I didn't catch that.

VOICE: Okay! Your kung-fu is the greatest! I said it.

THE MONSIGNOR: Aw, sweet, sweet music. Anything else?

VOICE: Ve are done here.

click

THE MONSIGNOR: (chuckling) Anytime, Jojo. Anytime.

FIN

Getting the book out the door

... always takes longer than you expect. I try to fool this by expecting a very short period of time, thus even if that time is doubled it's still reasonable. But of course the universe is on to me.

So, light posting.

Now, if anybody has something for the Ask a Gnostic Priest I can probably do that pretty quickly.

Anyone?

Buehler?

Save The Gnostics - New York Times

THE United States didn’t set out to eradicate the Mandeans, one of the oldest, smallest and least understood of the many minorities in Iraq. This extinction in the making has simply been another unfortunate and entirely unintended consequence of our invasion of Iraq — though that will be of little comfort to the Mandeans, whose 2,000-year-old culture is in grave danger of disappearing from the face of the earth.

The Mandeans are the only surviving Gnostics from antiquity, cousins of the people who produced the Nag Hammadi writings like the Gospel of Thomas, a work that sheds invaluable light on the many ways in which Jesus was perceived in the early Christian period. The Mandeans have their own language (Mandaic, a form of Aramaic close to the dialect of the Babylonian Talmud), an impressive body of literature, and a treasury of cultural and religious traditions amassed over two millennia of living in the southern marshes of present-day Iraq and Iran.

Practitioners of a religion at least as old as Christianity, the Mandeans have witnessed the rise of Islam; the Mongol invasion; the arrival of Europeans, who mistakenly identified them as “Christians of St. John,” because of their veneration of John the Baptist; and, most recently, the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein, who drained the marshes after the first gulf war, an ecological catastrophe equivalent to destroying the Everglades. They have withstood everything — until now.


– Nathaniel Deutsch, New York Times

The Gospel According to St. George

New Rule: Just because your tattoo has Chinese characters in it
doesn't make you Spiritual. It's right above the crack of your ass.
And it translates to 'beef with broccoli.' The last time you did
anything spiritual, you were praying to God you weren't pregnant.
You're not spiritual. You're just high.

– George Carlin

A few things about the book.

So now the book is "out in the wild" for blurbs, and after that it goes off for line-edits and final proofreading, spellchecking all the typos I made in the last round of edits. I can often do a first draft typo-free, but I always bugger it up with the edits. Ironic.

A few things about the book.

It's quite a short book, about 100 pages. There's not a lot of detail, and there's quite a bit of repetition. Why? Because I didn't write this book for Gnostics so much as I wrote it for Gnostics' moms. It's a very general introduction that takes a quick tour around the borders of "what's going on here" and attempts to answer a few basic questions. What is Gnosticism? What is gnosis? Where does this come from? Do you believe in God? Are you Christian? Don't you guys hate the world? Why is Gnosticism in the newspaper all the time? Stuff like that.

It has no footnotes, and no index. I don't go into a lot of expository detail, so you're not going to learn much about all the dead people. There are lots and lots of really good books about dead Gnostics, and almost nothing about live Gnostics. This is a book about live Gnostics. Footnotes could easily make the book twice as long, and all the footnotes would be citations of who said what to what reporter in what publication in what year, or worse: which academic said what about which dead Gnostic in what book. Now, I happen to care about that sort of thing, but I bet the person you're handing this book to won't.

The book used to have a pretty large glossary and a chronology. But really, does your mom care about the difference between Bardesanes and Basilides? I took out about 40 pages of extra stuff like that. The book still introduces you to ideas such as the Pleroma and Aeons and Emanations, and uses a lot of simple metaphors. There's quite a bit about the what of things and not too much about the why. I wrote this to be "the first book" for those interested, but certainly not "the last book". It's not comprehensive by any means, but it's designed to whet your curiosity.

So the book is chatty and light, stressing poetry and praxis over rationale and dates and theology. Perhaps the next book will be about deeper and tougher questions about the Gnostic take on the nature of reality and good and evil and fate and free will and reincarnation and , but this initial book is a starting point. I wanted to make something extremely accessible.

News: Caitlín Matthews wrote a blurb!

In this book, Gnosticism steps clear of the theological tangles that have been woven about it to reveal a way of spiritual liberation. Jordan Stratford traces Gnosticism's wise thread from source to its essential place in daily life. 
 

- Caitliín Matthews, author of Sophia:Goddess of Wisdom, Bride of God.

Well, yes, she's awfully clever and that's exactly what I wrote the book to do.

Stay tuned.

Living Gnosticism - Cover Art Preview

Autumn Conclave Photos

Vesting before Mass




Rev. Stu and Rev. Lance prostrate during Dioconal Ordination



Rev. Mr. Shawn Johnston takes vows of the Order of Ste. Esclarmonde



The new Deacons offer Communion



Msgr. Jordan, Bishop Shaun, Father Scott, Deacon Lance, Deacon Stu, Brother Shawn

Many thanks to all who attended and made this gathering such a joyous success, and congratulations to our new deacons and brother!

A new force in popular culture

Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun

Davies believed this Christian sect, which rose up soon after the death of Jesus, was suppressed because church fathers didn't like their claim that Jesus taught the route to God was through individual insight, a goal associated with Buddhist and Hindu enlightenment.

I'll soon get to whether Gnosticism (pronounced naw-sti-sism), which rejects belief in Jesus' resurrection as the way to salvation, is a spiritual worldview people today might seriously want to adopt.

But there is no doubt Gnostic ideas have become a force in popular culture, especially through movies such as The Da Vinci Code and The Matrix series, as well as Blade Runner and Minority Report (both based on science fiction novels by Philip K. Dick.) Gnosticism also shaped the influential psychologist Carl Jung, the poetry of William Blake, the Theosophy of Helen Blavatsky and the Jewish mystical tradition known as Kaballah, which the singer Madonna has recently embraced.

Gnosticism is in vogue in part because of the waning power in the West of the once-mighty Christian church. Sometimes the backlash against the church has a knee-jerk quality to it, but it is nevertheless luring more people to feel suspicious about whether church authorities are telling the complete story about the origins of Christianity.

Here's how Davies puts his thoughts about Gnosticism in my book, Brave Souls: "The church worked on the theory that salvation is free; as long as you believed, you were saved. But the Gnostics thought you had to have some brains. The Gnostics taught that salvation, or enlightenment, could only be achieved through an inner journey."

Davies, despite being an active Anglican, maintained the early church fathers also couldn't stomach Gnosticism's heterodox emphasis on Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom, which represents a feminine aspect of the divine.


– Read the whole thing

Gnostic Facebook Thingy

Did you know that if you go to someone's facebook profile, mine for instance, and click on the word "Gnostic' in the religion field of the profile, you get a listing of all the people in your area network who have listed Gnostic as their religion?

Also facebook has a healthy and growing "Gnosticism" group. Just saying.

Conclave of the Apostolic Johannite Church for the Feast of Sophia: Thursday, September 6, 2007 to Sunday, September 9, 2007

Queen of Heaven Gnostic Church (Regina Coeli Parish AJC) is delighted to host this autumn's Conclave of the Apostolic Johannite Church in Victoria, British Columbia. Events are to be held at the Church of Truth, 111 Superior Street in James Bay.



All events open to the public unless otherwise noted

Schedule:

Thursday evening:
Clergy dinner, limited space available, please let me know if you'd like to attend.

Friday:

9:00 Blessing and Contemplative Prayer

10: 00 Opening Mass

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Workshop - The Kabala of the Letters with Avielah Barclay

15:00 Mass Workshop (closed)

Friday evening: Dinner out (Location TBA)

Saturday:

10:00 Diaconal Ordination Mass

12:00 Lunch

13:00 Apostolic Council Meeting (closed)

15:00 Presentation and Discussion, St. Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary

16:00 Presentation: Introduction to Gnosticism by Jordan Stratford

17:00 Evening Mass: Descent of the Holy Sophia

19:00 Dinner out

Sunday

10:00 Brunch out (Chinatown)

Publish or Perish vs. Publish and Perish

If the CEO of Doubleday or Random House writes a book, is she self-published?

I was on a panel a few years ago debating this issue - I was hired to work with a small publisher whose titles were excluded by the local publishing industry awards because they weren't considered a "publisher" but rather "an organization that helps authors self-publish" – a distinction that doesn't seem to make sense to anybody. Anyway, the industry association decided that, in the above scenario, an author who happens to own or run a publishing company is not, in fact, self-published. The whole discussion struck me as a tad fallacious, if not goofy.

Now, I personally own a small publishing company and have published about a dozen works for other authors over the years. It's been a side-of-the-desk revenue stream, which tends to take a back-seat to other projects, but it brings in enough that it's worthwhile continuing. I've missed some great opportunities because other projects have demanded priority, but I've made some interesting things happen regardless. I have the same resources that much larger publishers have: in-house book design, an ISBN database, a network of printers and shippers (I've used Lulu as a US online-processor and drop-shipper along with different players in the UK and Canada), access to Amazon and Books In Print, barcoding, professional PR strategies, etc.

I decided to publish my first book myself because it had a very limited audience, I doubted I'd crack a thousand copies and most 3rd party publishers will royalty an author less than a dollar a copy. If I'm wearing both hats (author and publisher) I keep both royalties and am not at the mercy of another publisher's slate.

Now, enter the new book.

I've talked with three established publisher's you've no doubt heard of and have their titles on your shelf somewhere. They've all been very supportive and want to see the thing. Of course, none of them will give me an advance or anything, but neither will I if I publish the thing myself.

I have this idea that a different publisher gives the book some credibility – but how much of this is illusory? I mean, most people will buy the book on Amazon and a smaller number will buy it in certain stores. I don't think they're going to say "Oh, this was published by House X, that must mean it's been vetted by professionals and that really matters when I decide to read a book or not." So I'm likely being a little goofy myself here.

Odds are I'll just publish the thing myself, use a local printer for bookstore orders that come in via BIP, and use a third-party fulfillment/drop-ship house for online orders that come in via the website and Amazon.

Or does the third-party cred in fact matter? Thoughts?

Preface to My New Book, Living Gnosticism

Most modern bookstores will offer a dozen or so works on the Gnostics and their Gospels. Each of these texts will leave you with the understanding that Gnosticism is something odd that happened 1800 years ago or so, and that the Gnostics now belong to the realm of historical curiosity rather than religious experience. You are unlikely to encounter the living, challenging tradition that is playing out in the lives of thousands who will meet this weekend for prayer, celebration, debate and community action.

You'll read elsewhere that Gnosticism is elitist, misogynist, secretive, and world-hating. But the Gnostic scriptures themselves speak of a philosophy that is universal; reveres Eve as the first Saint and Wisdom as a Goddess; is intimate rather than occult; and finds Holy Wisdom under ever stone and within every tree. You'll hear that Gnosticism is dualist, claiming two equal and opposing gods; but Gnosticism has always taught that we are all aspects of an infinite one-ness.

Most baffling of all, contemporary readers will be told that the word "Gnosticism" is so vague and contradictory that it never really existed – despite a rich continuum of seekers, history, and scripture. Part of the challenge in studying Gnosticism is that it has never been a monolith, never had a canon of orthodoxy. It has always been less of a "set" and more of an intersection of overlapping themes. The themes themselves have an elusive, dreamlike quality that presents many challenges for scholars used to tidy classifications.

Most of the confusion arises from identifying Gnosticism with much later, distinct movements: Marcionism and Manichaeanism. While each of these borrowed from earlier Gnostic ideas, they veered vastly from Gnosticism's original course – denying gnosis, the intimate understanding of Divinity that is the core of Gnostic experience – and therefore cannot be credibly regarded as part of Gnosticism at all. The distinctions are as sharp as Buddhism from Hinduism; as Christianity from Judaism. Worldly denial, radical dualism, and disregard for the Old Testament can be found in later movements, but nowhere in Gnosticism per se.

Compare all these contradictions with the abiding reality of Gnosticism; an inclusive, participatory religious context that invites, inspires and nourishes. At the very center of Gnosticism is the enlightened moment of gnosis; an immediate, intimate and unique encounter with the Mystery and our place in it. Many schools of religious teaching in the West have rejected this transformative experience, due in part to the fact that it demolishes both Original SIn and the authority of scripture, setting in thier place the Sacred Flame of our kinship with the eternal. Yet Gnosticism has never been extinguished, surviving in the shadows of orthodoxy, flowering throughout the centuries as myth and mysticism. Gnosticism prizes art over polemic, intuition over theology, curiosity over obedience.

Seeing this contemporary phenomenon, it's easy to categorize Gnosticism as "just another religion", with a core of religious texts, churches, clergy, rites for certain days of the year – and in a very real sense that's true. But Gnosticism is also a way of seeing; a technique for working with a set of tools that begin with a specific myth, but does not end there. Gnosticism is ultimately pragmatic, adapting to the spiritual experience and imaginative daring of each explorer. While this book illustrates a picture of contemporary "organized" Gnosticism, most Gnostics are solitary confreres, contemplating and creating in coffee shops and living rooms. While Gnosticism can express itself via a tradition of incense and candles and sacraments, it is equally expressed in art galleries, in charity, in social action – and in discrete moments of liberating clarity.

What I Did On My Summer Holiday Away From The Blog

Sorry 'bout the dust. We'll be back in shape shortly.

I finished the new book. I brushed up on my Latin. I caught up on my reading. I revised the liturgy. I renovated the office. I planned for conclave next month. I prepared for my doctoral dissertation declaration next month. Plus work and family stuff.

So, as my Google ranking slips lower due to the neglect, I hereby banish the downward trend by invoking the magic words gnosis, Gnosticism, Sophia, Sophianic, Abraxas, Valentinians, Sethians, and hot nude naked college girls gone somewhat inappropriate.

There, that should do it.

Bruce Chilton Reviews Pagel's, King's Reading Judas

To make its case against seeking martyrdom, "Judas" relied on a widespread theology, best known in the Epistle to the Hebrews from the Christian Bible. According to the innovative argument of the Epistle, when Jesus died on the cross, he was the perfect sacrifice that accomplished every sacrificial requirement, and therefore obviated all further offering. In "Judas," that means that Jesus sets aside every form of sacrifice — the ritual of the temple in Jerusalem, the pagan slaughter of animals, as well as Christian martyrdom. That is the reason why Judas helps Jesus to sacrifice himself in this fascinating Gospel.


– Dr. Bruce Chilton

Statement of the Apostolic Johannite Church in response to the Anglican Church of Canada’s General Synod Resolution on Same-Sex Blessings.

It is with profound sadness that I read the news of the defeat of the resolution to allow an individual diocese to allow for same-sex blessings within its individual parishes. Laity and Clergy alike had approved the resolution but it was narrowly defeated by the House of Bishops by a vote of 21 to 19.

Nevertheless, given that the resolution had passed both the laity and clergy previously, it is not without a measure of hope and optimism that this resolution will, in time, be passed.

The Apostolic Johannite Church continues to affirm and uphold the Ninth Principle in the