Chili

I think GakuseiDon makes a very good point but it will be a long time coming before America becomes a Catholic nation and that is what this man has against him, yet the spirit prevails deep inside us and is why we like his self assuring smile.

GakuseiDon

It was more along the lines of the "transcendental" part, placing Obama as a pre-existing symbol for African-Americans, as well as a symbol of hope for all the world.

A qualified "Yes" to all three questions.

Please move this thread to the appropriate forum.

mountainman

Dear Toto,

The author of Paul was pitching his rhetoric at those who identify themselves with the nation of christians. Everything that the author of Paul wrote was written with "nationalistic appeal" to the nation of christians. Dont you see this?

Best wishes,


Pete

Toto

Christians were not a nation at the time Paul wrote. In fact, the modern nation state had not been invented. Eusebius called Christians a "tribe." For Paul (or whoever wrote his letters) nations were Greek or Jewish, and all were one in Christ.

I don't know where this thread goes.

Toto

Okay, chew on this.

Paul is alleged by some to be a gnostic, or maybe a crypto-gnostic, or perhaps he adopted gnostic language.

Walker is a modern post Christian feminist new age type - which owes a lot to gnosticism.

Is that the link?

Chili

Drop the -ism Toto. To be Christian is our "aboriginal heritage" as man that therefore knows no borders or fences or even names such as Christian. Liberty knows no boundaries and every Christian in Christendom is gnostic and the -ism is whereby we are boxed-in like a fence around our house to makes it ours, which in reality is just the other way around: it owns us.

To be American in America is OK but let the senate be the upper house that knows no borders to make it a nation that appeals to the rest of the world or even universe if you like that word better, and Catholic in that sense of the word.

spamandham

Have you not assumed something about when the letters attributed to Paul were written? What is that assumption based on?

The modern nation state obviously didn't exist, but regions of authority governed by various rulers did.

The topic regards speculation of Paul's Christ based on what Paul says in teh Bible, and Obama is merely being used as an example, so I think BC&H is appropriate.

GakuseiDon

Yes, something worth considering. I've often thought of how concepts change when they are 'one step removed' from their source. For example, where 'Son of God' goes from being someone favored by God in a Jewish setting, to someone who is literally a demigod in a Roman setting.

It's the point where the metaphorical becomes the metaphysical. A new generation of gnostics could knock out a few troublesome sentences from Walker's article and produce a pre-existing supernatural figure quite easily. As long as they are the ones who pass on the original article, they could correct any 'mistakes' and turn 'The One' from a human into 'The Divine One', promised throughout the generations.

Toto

There is only that one reference. Your neo-gnostics would have to remove the rest of the piece, or rewrite it. I think you are grasping for something, but haven't found it.

Have you done a study of how neo-gnostics think? There's probably more material than there is for the early church.

GakuseiDon

Well, no they wouldn't have to remove or rewrite the rest of it. Again, I'm not trying to advance the HJ/MJ debate. It has nothing to do with a-historicity. This is more about how a human being is transformed into a divine figure.