Patterico's Pontifications

4/16/2017

Happy Easter

Filed under: General — Dana @ 1:46 pm



[guest post by Dana]

Happy Easter to you and yours. Easter, the day we celebrate the resurrection of Christ and the Hope we have in Him. Because who wants to go through this life, with its inevitable trials and tribulations, heartaches and sorrows, without some sort of solid Hope to hold onto? My feeling is, if one’s hope is in the goodness of man, then this life is doubly-bound to be one rough and disappointing ride. And to what end?

With that, Ross Douthat has an interesting column today about saving the mainline churches, and why he believes it is essential that liberals, particularly, attend these traditional house of worship:

For the sake of their country, their culture, and their very selves, liberal post-Protestants should find a mainline congregation and start attending every week.

Do it for your political philosophy: More religion would make liberalism more intellectually coherent (the “created” in “created equal” is there for a reason), more politically effective, more rooted in its own history, less of a congerie of suspicious “allies” and more of an actual fraternity.

Do it for your friends and neighbors, towns and cities: Thriving congregations have spillover effects that even anti-Trump marches can’t match.

Do it for your family: Church is good for health and happiness, it’s a better place to meet a mate than Tinder, and even its most modernized form is still an ark of memory, a link between the living and the dead.

Douthat also has an exhortation for atheists as well:

Finally, a brief word to the really hardened atheists: Oh, come on. Sure, all of that beauty and ecstasy and astonishing mathematical order is because we’re part of a multiverse or a simulation or something; that’s the ticket. Sure, consciousness and free will are illusions, but human rights and gender identities are totally real. Sure, your flying spaghetti monster jokes make you a lot smarter than Aquinas, Karl Barth, Martin Luther King. Sure.

Just go to church, guys. The mainline churches’ doors are open. They need you. America still needs them.

(Note: this post did not get published late on Easter Sunday because the author was at church. It was because of pancakes. Blueberry, to be specific. Although a believer (but not a liberal), I have happily not attended church for many years, in spite of Douthat’s encouragements.)

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)
–Dana

29 Responses to “Happy Easter”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (023079)

  2. Douhat’s mask is off. This column is a response to Insta’s “if you think you suffer under the religious right, you will really suffer under the non-religious right”.

    urbanleftbehind (e5ee53)

  3. He is Risen, Dana, the fact that is not the preeminent belief is why those churches are dead.

    narciso (25b23f)

  4. And Hillary Clinton is still not President.

    Jim (a0d3dd)

  5. Faith is meant to be shared in community, Dana. Not merely for the reasons doubt puts forth.

    narciso (25b23f)

  6. The government provides. End of story for progressives.

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  7. CHCH – whay’s missing? UR

    But Seriously, if the thief, crucified on Jesus’s right, could get into heaven without attending a mainline church, what could stop others? All he had to do (mostly) was ask, right? Of course right!

    I’ll be seeing you in Heaven, Dana – hopefully, mot too soon.

    felipe (023cc9)

  8. Leftists have done enough damage to churches and turned them away from God. Keep the left and their anti-Christian actions away from church.

    NJRob (43d957)

  9. Agreed narciso. God bless.

    NJRob (43d957)

  10. Thank you, Dana, for this. I, too, consider myself to be religious and yet have not attended church in many years.

    The community aspect is worth considering. I admit that. Though, truth be told, I cannot speak about faith on campus. At least Christian faith.

    I envy the pancakes. We made puffy apple pancakes this morning, and talked about the Resurrection, and what it means to each of us.

    Simon Jester (ce31a5)

  11. Douhat’s mask is off. This column is a response to Insta’s “if you think you suffer under the religious right, you will really suffer under the non-religious right”.

    urbanleftbehind (e5ee53) — 4/16/2017 @ 2:18 pm

    link?

    NJRob (43d957)

  12. @ Simon Jester,

    I envy the pancakes. We made puffy apple pancakes this morning, and talked about the Resurrection, and what it means to each of us.

    I love that you did this. This is the sort of “church” I can get behind. That is not to discount sound teaching and study of the Word, but the examination of faith with one’s family is just as vital. When I discovered that I was more honest about my own dark and sinful heart than the man standing in the pulpit presuming to tell me how I should live, while secreting his own moral failings and denying their existence, I just decided enough with the middle man. That is the beauty of our relationship with the Lord: it’s personal, and it’s one-to-one. For now, in this season anyway, the simple and less complicated is where I thrive.

    Dana (4f8b6e)

  13. Happy Easter from Pismo Beach, California!

    Colonel Haiku (d62236)

  14. And that says it all, doesn’t it Simon, but one can probably proselytize Islam all day long.

    Too days re 2 Peter, was all about the the requirements of being a christian.

    narciso (1be593)

  15. Dana, when I was young, I attended a Methodist Church every Sunday. My mother’s family was Catholic, and my father was originally LDS. Neither practiced, neither went to church, and they certainly didn’t know the Bible well.

    I was very interested in religion, and read a lot of theology. I told my minister that I was thinking of becoming a minister.

    He smiled, and said something that makes me laugh. He said that I might make a fine Jesuit, but that I seemed to like girls a lot.

    He was being funny and nice. And he was very accurate.

    My Church is the universe, and I am honored to share that wonderful ceiling with you on this day.

    Simon Jester (ce31a5)

  16. Well we must admit we are all sinners, , something many congregations forget.

    narciso (1be593)

  17. I have not been a church goer in years. The last time I attended Mass might have been in Notre Dame cathedral many years ago. It was so beautiful my Protestant wife talked about converting.

    I have also attended, but not on Easter, Mass in St Peters said by Pope John Paul II at the gorgeous Bernini altar.

    Come to think of it, that was the last time as it was after Paris.

    During the Mass, an Italian man standing behind us goosed my wife.

    Mike K (f469ea)

  18. Happy Easter from Cape Cod.

    mg (31009b)

  19. I was very interested in religion, and read a lot of theology.

    I went through a phase like that in college. One of the books I read was “In Search of Historical Jesus,” by by Albert Schweitzer The book seems to be out of print now. It was an early attempt by a theologian who became a doctor and who was the greatest Bach organist in the world at the time.

    A medical school classmate spent a summer in Africa with him and said he would play incredible organ solos at night in the jungle.

    Mike K (f469ea)

  20. Been in Saint Peters, impressed by it, but the sight of people praying on their knees in front of papal mummies was distinctly wierd, to put it mildly. (Canonized popes are displayed above side altars. I don’t know if John Paul II has been exhumed yet and given his niche in the basilica.)
    No mass was being said, so we got a good look at all the artwork, including the Pieta. The Sistine Chapel stands much higher in my memory, especially the Last Judgment. (I saw it just after the restoration was completed.)

    kishnevi (fd381b)

  21. What I meant to post, the promo material from a newly issued CD. The punch comes at the end.

    Recorded in Cuba, acclaimed pianist Simone Dinnerstein s new album, Mozart in Havana, may be her most ambitious to date and is a testament to the ability of music to cross all cultural and language barriers.

    Dinnerstein collaborated with the virtuosic Havana Lyceum Orchestra to perform . Mozart in Havana is a return to Dinnerstein s origins as a musician. Her connection with Cuba started early with Solomon Mikowsky, a Cuban émigré who became her piano teacher when she was all of nine years old. Mikowsky would tell stories of his childhood in Cuba and the country s many musical influences. When he inaugurated the Encuentro de Jóvenes Pianistas (Meeting of Young Pianists) festival in Havana in 2013, he invited Dinnerstein to play, which she accepted without hesitation. Returning to the festival in 2015, she played for the first time with the Havana Lyceum Orchestra and was deeply impressed. Within a year she had returned to Havana to record Mozart s Piano Concerto Nos. 21 and 23, or what would become Mozart in Havana. The recording was done over three long, sleepless nights using donated strings and recording equipment brought in by Grammy® winning producer Adam Abeshouse.

    http://www.arkivmusic.com/classical/album.jsp?album_id=2251065

    kishnevi (fd381b)

  22. Happy Easter from several points along US 41 in from one Lake County to another.

    Had to get that in quick, as E. Orthodox Easter is actually today as well.

    urbanleftbehind (847a06)

  23. Happy Dyngus Day! (not kidding. look it up.)

    Ed from SFV (3400a5)

  24. I’m a church-goer (I’m a conservative white male too, so the Venn diagram is pretty predictive), and I confess that I don’t look forward to Easter mass because of all the seasonal Catholics who show up on this one Sunday (when I was a kid, one of my parish priests used to delight in reminding the Easter congregation that “we are open for business the other 51 Sundays of the year too”). But now, as I am getting older, I do delight in seeing the adorable children who show up on Easter, the little girls in their sweet dresses and the little boys in their starched shirts and bow ties). I am a firm believer in the power of church as a community, and believe as Douthat does that liberals would be better served by being familiar with belief (and not just belief in government).

    JVW (5de783)

  25. This is a large part of the problem, much of the congregations skew older, no without renewal they will either away.

    narciso (1be593)

  26. May the blessings of HaShem the Father, HaShem the Son, and HaShem the Holy Ghost be with you and your family.

    Michael Ejercito (462fbe)

  27. I love church, too, JVW, and especially the larger congregations on holidays. What matters is that they come.

    DRJ (15874d)

  28. i like to see the black ladies on easter cause they do it proper

    happyfeet (28a91b)


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