Our sins will go with him when they put him in the hole...See!

Tertullian  was an early, North African father of the church and theologian who really captured the essence of Christianity's view of itself...Interestingly, the dude became an early version of the end-timers, pissed that Rome was delaying the arrival of the anti-Christ.

We are a body knit together as such by a common religious profession,  by unity of discipline, and by the bond of a common hope. We meet together  as an assembly and congregation, that, offering up prayer to God as  with united force, we may wrestle with Him in our supplications. This  strong exertion God delights in...But it is mainly the deeds of a love  so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See, they say, how they  love one another, for they themselves are animated by mutual hatred.  See,they say about us, how they are ready even to die for one another, for they themselves would sooner kill.

But, as Matthew cites the poor guy that gets blamed for all of this, "By their deeds shall ye know them..." In a piece of irony worthy of Evelyn Waugh tossing back Carlsberg with Kierkegaard and bumming smokes off Chris Hitchens, there's this bit of rock and roll opera :

JERUSALEM -- Israeli police rushed into one of Christianity's holiest churches Sunday and arrested two monks  after an argument between monks erupted into a brawl next to the site of Jesus' tomb....

The story provides an overview of the nonsense associated with this over the decades. More detail of the history of the place is here. The Ottomans got tired of the nonsense between the Franciscans and the Greek Orthodox, and cut the baby. poorly and ultimately into six shares. As a result, riots have occurred over such substantive issues as moving chairs into the shade, leaving doors open or closed, or the placement of a fucking ladder.

Under the status quo, no part of what is designated as common territory may be so much as rearranged without consent from all communities. This often leads to the neglect of badly needed repairs when the communities cannot come to an agreement among themselves about the final shape of a project. Just such a disagreement has delayed the renovation of the edicule, where the need is now dire, but also where any change in the structure might result in a change to the status quo disagreeable to one or more of the communities.                  

A less grave sign of this state of affairs is located on a window ledge over the church's entrance. Someone placed a wooden ladder there sometime before 1852, when the status quo defined both the doors and the window ledges as common ground. The ladder remains there to this day, in almost exactly the same position. It can be seen to occupy the ledge in century-old photographs and engravings.

And, Crusader AXE was wondering if there was going to be enough to write about. Tiffany is a kind mistress, and the Christian orders better hope that she's in charge and not their guy; she wouldn't care, but Joshua ben Joseph will be PISSED at the nonsense done supposedly out of love of him.

Comments

[Rick98c]

How freaking childish and primitive do you have to be to believe in magic rocks and magic buildings? So magic they are worth killing and dying over?

[Rick98c]

Oh yeah, and all this over the concept of God who is all about love.