Tag: martyrdom

Our Daily Links: Doin' The Math Edition

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God spends $390 million lobbying Washington every year.

Jonathan Jones writes at The Guardian about the now-iconic photo of 84 year old Occupy activist Dorli Rainey after being pepper sprayed in Seattle:

America is a religious nation and I can’t help thinking that either the people in the picture, or the photographer, consciously or unconsciously reached for an image from the iconography of Catholic faith. No movement, in its early history, recognised the power of martyrdom more thoroughly than Christianity did. Obviously, martyrdom is a Christian concept. To die for the faith, by being pinioned to the ground and beheaded – say – or crucified upside down, was to imitate Christ, to reenact the suffering of a God made flesh.

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Our Daily Links: Doin’ The Math Edition

Posted on by

God spends $390 million lobbying Washington every year.

Jonathan Jones writes at The Guardian about the now-iconic photo of 84 year old Occupy activist Dorli Rainey after being pepper sprayed in Seattle:

America is a religious nation and I can’t help thinking that either the people in the picture, or the photographer, consciously or unconsciously reached for an image from the iconography of Catholic faith. No movement, in its early history, recognised the power of martyrdom more thoroughly than Christianity did. Obviously, martyrdom is a Christian concept. To die for the faith, by being pinioned to the ground and beheaded – say – or crucified upside down, was to imitate Christ, to reenact the suffering of a God made flesh.

Continue Reading →

The Field of Martyrs

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Mary Valle: Wow! Rachel Donadio reports in the New York Times that Pope Benedict has proclaimed that “sins inside the church” are the greatest problem in his organization; and that “forgiveness does not substitute justice.” These are Benedict’s strongest words on Pontifigate: encouraging! However, he was somewhat vague on the cleanup (which is a sort of human oil spill: ongoing, resisting easy solutions, far, far worse than you expected) offering that the church has “to relearn ‘conversion, prayer, penance.'” One wonders if they’ll take Vatican exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth up on his offer to exterminate the devil in St. Peter’s. It couldn’t possibly hurt at this point: why not give a Vatican exorcism a try? Continue Reading →