Defined By Action Not By A Name

Though I haven't looked it up in my archive I know I've gone over the pop-atheist resort to the "No true Scotsman" line to show that it's not at all applicable to Christianity which means fidelity to, Gospel of Jesus, certainly, its central core teachings as set out.  It is not possible to define what it means to be a "Scotsman" which is determined by the nationality of ones ancestors.  The extent to which the named identity is not a matter of the choice of the person being labled is the extent to which that categorization doesn't apply.  

In the case of Christianity, the authenticity of the identity is, in every way, intimately tied to what Jesus taught by way of the conduct of his followers, conforming to his moral code in your life IS the definition of authenticity in being a follower of Jesus.  He, himself set that standard in a number of his sayings. 

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”  John 13: 34-35

 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  Matthew 22: 37-39

. . . whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me . . .  whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me  Matthew 25: 31-46 

No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.  Matthew 6: 24

Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  Matthew 16: 24

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?  Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.  A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.  Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.  Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.  Matthew 7: 15-20

There are others along the same line, these are just what come to mind right now. 

Jesus is the definitive authority in how to be a true follower of Jesus, what the later word, which he never used, "Christian" is supposed to mean.  If you want to make the observation that that would disqualify a lot of the people who trade in that word and, especially, those who make themselves rich out of it, Jesus indicated he expected that to be the case, he certainly had deeper insights into human character and society than the traditional, superficial, I'd say insulting, conventionally pious presentation of him is.  

As even someone like Noam Chomsky has admitted, "the Gospel is radical".  The Gospel is radical as The Law and The Prophets are radical, even in terms of secular-materialist-atheist radicalism.  It has been one of the most important tasks of the devoted servants of money,*  Mammon in some translations, that they cover up the radicalism of the Gospel of Jesus in favor of turning it into a gossipy, dishy vehicle for salacious monitoring of other peoples' sex lives, often by those who enjoy the most evil uses of sex, themselves.  The "Most Christian Kings and Princes" of European history are full to the top with people like Henry VIII who were totally and completely self-indulgent, quite a few of those princes and monarchs were also ministers and priests during the long stretches of degeneracy in the "Christian" hierachies of various churches, Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant.   I will point out that as I'm typing this one of the most flagrant examples of that, the arch-enemy of Pope Francis, Cardinal Raymond Burke is making common cause with the neo-fascist Steve Bannon and those around Benedict XVI to mount a sort of modern anti-papacy because Francis is too Christian to suit them.  

Bannon, seeking new fields to conquer after being fired by Trump two years ago from his job as a White House adviser, says he has the support of powerful Americans and prominent Catholics, among them Cardinal Raymond Burke. Their rallying cry is the pope's failure to solve the sex abuse crisis which, Bannon says, threatens to bankrupt the church and force it to liquidate its properties. Perhaps it was the editing of Engel's reporting, but Bannon focuses on the property, not on the victims.

Bannon's populist nationalism remains an uneasy concept to fit into a Catholic framework. Ever since Paul convinced Peter that the church should forego mandatory circumcision for converts, emerge from its Judaic cocoon and fully embrace the Gentile world, Catholicism has stood for universalism. The papacy long battled European kings who wanted to control the church for nationalistic ends, and, when Catholics came to the United States, they were often perceived as agents of a hostile foreign state, charges that derailed the 1928 presidential campaign of Al Smith.

Now Bannon has taken up the nationalist mantle against the Pope. Following Trump's lead, he has advised European nationalist parties to continue their anti-immigrant agitation. This stands in marked contrast to Francis.

Engel also points to another part of the Bannon appeal. Francis still enjoys popularity ratings that Trump, for one, could only pray for. But there is a segment among Catholics who have heard Francis about the dangers of unbridled capitalism, echoing earlier popes yet with a greater fervor growing out of his Latino roots. That group doesn't like what it's hearing.

As Engel puts it, Bannon's movement is funded by those "who think the pope is bad for business."

Bannon, while taking that support with its promise of big money, takes the pope's view of Catholic teaching personally.

"This is the problem. … He's constantly putting all the faults of the world on the populist nationalist movement," Bannon told Engel about why he opposes Francis.

While support for Bannon's agenda may be negligible in the pews, the fact that he is claiming the allegiance of a sliver of influential Catholics is appalling. Bishops in particular need to be clear which side they are on: The pope's? Or Bannon's emerging anti-Francis movement? Nothing less than the very survival of a unified Catholic church is at stake.

This is a modern version of the hijacking of Jesus by the Antichrist of Mammonism.  As can be seen, many members of the hierarchy have been part of that. 

*  I have come to the conclusion that all materialist philosophy will, in the end, end up serving Mammon, serving injustice and inequality, I think Communism will always, in every case, end up creating its own oppressive, gangster elites as it has in every country where it has been tried.  There is no more oppressive billionaire class, anywhere, than the one which rules China, no more oppressive economic elite than the one in North Korea, no doubt that Putin and his band of post-Communist-former-communist gangsters aspire to those levels of control, in the fullness of time, in his case corrupting the Russian Orthodox leadership was a vehicle for him to get to where he has now.  It's no wonder that he's making common cause with the same crowd Bannon AND FRANKLIN GRAHAM serve.  They are all servants of money.