Elitists Are Guilty Of Elitists

Critics argue that such funds, which are often used for the purpose of constructing or decorating extravagant cathedrals, ought to be used solely for the benefit of the poor and needy. In contrast, Fr. Havens expressed that all things which are good and beautiful glorify God and He has given us talents of creativity and craftsmanship that we may glorify Him. In other words, places of worship are constructed and beautified so ornately, not necessarily to be lavish or to abuse donations, but because giving and doing one’s best represents strong devotion to God and willingness to remember Him always. Our best and most beautiful creations can emphasize God’s eternal capacity to create, to organize and create life and meaning where there was only unorganized matter

In this passage, King’s presentation of logos is genius. He effectively shows the clergymen two sides of the community, the one of complacency and the other of hatred and cynicism. In this excerpt he does not attempt

Upside-down prestige isn’t calculated by the height of our rung on the social ladder. In God’s inverted kingdom, greatness is signified by our willingness to serve. Service to others becomes the yardstick of stature in the new kingdom” (pg 229).

Some ways the holocaust was implemented was the use of propaganda, the relocation of people to Ghettos, the creation of laws to strip people of their rights, and the use of technology to increase the efficiency of the machinery of genocide. I think one of the most effect sytstem was using propaganda because a picture is worth a thousand words. Seeing how the Nazis used propaganda and how that system was very effective and terrible.

In "All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale”, one is able to get a decent sense of the hypocrisy of religion through writing by the Onion. An annual bake sale is hosted by St. Mary’s church, where the masses are fed with homemade baked goods, and friendly competition crosses the line and leads to sin. Whether it is Mrs. Betty Wicks who “commits the sin of gluttony at every St. Mary’s bake sale, as well as most Friday nights at Old Country Buffet.” Or the young and beautiful Mellissa Wyckoff who catches the eyes of many married men, this essay showed how even a church event seems to be teeming with sin. Even in the final sentence of the essay, the speaker Coyle mentions how a “Guess Your Weight” booth was excluded due to so many people showing pride or envy.

The concept explored in Equus with Alan crippling his god took regular idolatry further than most instances. I often associate idolatry with Timothy Keller’s definition of idolatry: “An idol is something that we look to for things that only God can give.” In Equus, Alan’s boyhood experience of Christ’s picture being replaced with the horse altered his psychological state and view of God. Alan’s altered mental state led him to try to replace Christ with Equus. However, rage consumed him when his secular religion revealed a Christian truth: God sees everything. Alan’s frustration manifested in blinding the horses shows a potential outcome of extreme idolatry. This book provided new insight for me into the nature of idolatry. I connected this

Officers are the ones who protect the people. They need respect from the communities and the society.“If I get knocked down six times, I will get up seven times”(White). Police officers go through a lot of things on patrol, but they never give up. They do everything by their might in order to serve and protect. Officers who patrol are the ones who interact with the community everyday. In the green bay area, each year Green Bay Police Department (GBPD) patrol officers’ respond to or self initiate over 80,000 calls for service in the city of Green Bay. That is an average of 219 calls for service per day and equals almost 1 call for service per resident of the city. “Although call volume spike during the warmer weather, the patrol officers handle at least 3,000 calls per month, even in the dead winter”(GBPD).

(This is the part where you can get excited, because that was definitely an idolatry reference.)”7 How can the gathering of Christians to receive the gifts that God gives be an idol? It is, in fact, the very definition of the Church in the Smalcald Articles, “That God, a sever-year-old child knows what the Church is, namely, the holy believers and lambs who hear the voice of their Shepherd [John

The Hellenic world worshipped beauty. The cult of the body was born from the Greeks, as well as rhetoric, the art of speaking “pretty”, the whole problem is when the appearance has no essence. When the label does not match the content or the cries of the preachers are not cries of the heart, but only expedients of those who want to call attention to themselves. I see so many people today who play, sing and preach in the church trying to impress. They have the need for people to see them. When I see falsettos, in order to demonstrate how well they can sing, and preachers in need of self-esteem trying to just promote themselves, I see the spirit of Greece. The more impressive are the people that feed this pride disguised in good preaching. In the first century, the Pharisees acquired a religion of rituals and outer manners, which was condemned by Jesus who called them "hypokrites" (the actors) because they were staging a spirituality without internal content. They were defined as whitewashed tombs, cute on the outside and rotten on the inside, that represented a role, as many of their spiritual descendants today, whose ethics are just aesthetic.

(Case in point: Our October cover story is on heretics.) However, the November issue might be an exception: In our Reviews section, Wesley Hill reviews a new book, God Mocks: A History of Religious Satire from the Hebrew Prophets to Stephen Colbert. The author, Terry Lindvall—the C. S. Lewis Chair of Communication at Virginia Wesleyan College—also lists his top 5 favorite books of religious satire in this issue. Wesley's review of God Mocks taught me that Martin Luther was crass, and probably wouldn't have been allowed to teach Sunday School. An excerpt from the

Thomas F. Mathews’ 1993 book, Clash of the Gods, offers an interpretation of the origins of early Christian art that deviates away from the theory of the “Emperor Mystique,” in which Christian images are borrowed from imperial iconography, and instead suggests that pagan iconography has a greater formative impact. Sourcing the works of early twentieth-century art historians who support these ideas of imperial influence, Mathews attempts to make a convincing argument for the latter. However, his book is highly criticized by many of his contemporaries who argue that his vision is as one-sided as that of his predecessors, and as such, offers little in the way of evaluating the relationships between pagans and Christians in context to the creation and understanding of these images. By discussing the views of Mathews and his critics, and aligning their work with theories on the power of images, this

Richard Powers once said “The history of art is the history of iconoclasm, the history of some new voice saying that everything you know is wrong.” What does Mr. Powers mean by this statement? To understand what he means we first have to go back and look at what iconoclasm means. Iconoclasm means the doctrine or practice of an iconoclast, which in turn means a person who criticizes or opposes widely accepted practices and beliefs. To further understand the statement said by Mr. Powers we will also have to look at the history of iconoclasm, current iconoclastic events, study when the desire of preservation of icons becomes a form of worship, and whether the worship of the icon is the same as worshiping the beliefs or practices they represent.

“This ‘new’ wealth was often was spent on display items to reinforce prestige, much like the rulers above them. This also allowed people to patronize Renaissance artists.” (Wilde,

Times have changed in the venerated world of those devoted so greatly to the love of the lord, yet in this change has aroused a nuance of thinking of how that love should be portrayed to the masses. Many factions have been roused and felled throughout the many ages of Christianity, many holding greater disdain for their fellow believers than even that of the infidel. In all realizing that some of these paragons of virtue have no real admiration for the religion of which they stand as advocates, but that in their lust for power they use the Church as their proxy for attaining greater strength and influence.

This elevation highly represents the overall theme that materialism plays an almost biblical role in society. The other way to analyze the list is that the “Bibles” are brought down to the very materialistic level of the other listed cosmetics. Another aspect to note is that “Bibles” is plainly listed, not the first or last mentioned item, but somewhere in the middle. Both ways conclude that the cosmetic, material items compare at the same level as the “Bible's” paired along with them. Another list comes with a comparison of paired items that contradict each other's importance; “... Or stain her honor, or her new brocade,/ forget her prayers, or miss a masquerade,/ Or lose her heart, or necklace, at a ball;...” (Pope II 106-107). The first description used in each line is something of importance, as staining honor, forgetting prayers or losing her heart all have serious implications and consequences. But then those more serious actions are paired with trivial material ones; staining a new brocade, missing a masquerade or losing a necklace at a ball. The material actions paired with important ones really unify them as being on the same level of importance. The contradiction is removed and materialism is elevated.