I, for one, would not mess with the Swiss guard. They are highly trained AND they wear those ridiculous outfits. Someone willing to wear that orange and blue nonsense with that coffee filter collar while brandishing a halberd is not to be trifled with.

This is about Saint Paul. According to tradition, Saint Peter was the first bishop of Rome (and, thus, the first pope). Different guys. Paul was basically the first Christian theologian.

Hate to break it to you, but we already have this. It’s known as Evangelicalism.

(And yes, I know that there are decent folks in the Evangelical world; I’ve met them. But, overall, the movement has become a cesspit of fascist-aligned nationalistic heresy that doesn’t even really seem to believe in the person at the center of Christianity. Also, the great irony of your example is that the American branch of Henry VIII’s church–the Episcopal Church–is now considered too woke to be Christian by these people.)

I tend to maintain belief in the miraculous aspects of the stories. But this is one where I can accept the “non-miraculous” telling (because, as the saying goes, “it’ll preach”). Whether or not Jesus actually multiplied fish and bread through miraculous means, the thrust of the story is still true: Jesus can take what seems meager and make it into something that benefits multitudes.

Oh I know! I grew up around King James-only people. The committee tasked with finding a new pastor for my church growing up was deeply split over this issue with some members claiming that the New King James translation celebrated the “Mark of the Beast” (this is because the NKJV used a Celtic knot as its logo; yes, the famous symbol associated with helping illustrate the doctrine of the Trinity).

Kind of related story: I had a lisp growing up and went to a speech therapist. Reading the King James out loud was difficult because all the -th suffixes ran counter to my therapy. So I started swapping the -th suffixes with -s whenever we’d read aloud from the Bible (like in school or congregational settings; no one seemed to notice). To the point that this is now just what happens when I read “olde English.” Which was never a problem until I became a priest in the Episcopal Church and the early morning services tend to use what’s known as “Rite I” which maintains the older English of previous prayer books (the people who go to such services take this very seriously). And so I’d have to consciously undo this habit when celebrating at Rite I masses.

[sighs heavily] Yes

One of the biggest mistakes resulting from the Protestant Reformation’s push for the proliferation of Bibles was the belief that one can just pick the thing up and read it like it’s any other book, divorced from the tradition that wrote and shaped it. The whole idea that God assembled 66 books and bound them up in leather and dropped it from heaven is both foreign to the vast majority of Christian thinking throughout history AND grounds for a very dangerous heresy (turning the Bible into the “ultimate” revelation of God, rather than Jesus being that or at the very least redefining the Trinity as “Father, Son, and Holy Scriptures”).

The funny thing is, is that the same people who hold to an idea that if everyone read the Bible the world would be better are the same who offer selective readings and ignore/downplay the parts they don’t like (as we see in this proposal).

I grew up Southern Baptist, was in church EVERY Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening. I also went to the school attached to our church from first grade through high school and was extremely involved in our youth group. I wound up having a bit of a messy break-up with the Southern Baptists and, after about two years of relative spiritual aimlessness, I found the Episcopal Church (which is quite different from the Southern Baptists, what with our women and Queer clergy and openness to a variety of things now deemed “woke”). I remember the Sunday when I heard both the reading and a sermon from Matthew 24 (the part where Jesus talks about His return and says “what you do for the least of these you do for me”) and, I swear, I’d never heard that part before then. If I had, we must’ve just glossed over it. But it was like hearing from a completely different religion and made me really excited about being a Christian.

I’ve read the Bible through many times. Both in times of belief and in times of doubt. I wound up becoming an Episcopal priest. I’d argue that the more someone reads the Bible and truly studies it the less likely they are to remain “literalists” when it comes to the Bible. Which also has the effect of broadening one’s view of God.

TBF, the Antichrist (as popularly understood) doesn’t really show up in the Bible and is a character created largely in the 20th century by Voltron-ing together a bunch of obscure passages. In the Bible, the term is used like four times and refers to people who are, literally, anti-Christ. (source: am Episcopal priest who escaped fundamentalist Christianity and has spent an inordinate amount of time studying the Apocalyptic writings in the Bible)

POE-TAY-TOES

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Almost choked on my lunch over this meme

But no word on why the meteor was naked?

I grew up in a fundamentalist environment and heard tons of crap about how beards were bad or whatever. Never made sense to me, Jesus had one. Soon as I left high school I grew a beard (dirty-ass chin-strap because it was the year 2000 lol). I’ve sported a full beard pretty much ever since. It gives me a jawline, plus I enjoy the feeling of spite.

Not really near Honolulu. About an hour drive from Honolulu, on the North Shore. But same island (not Maui or Big Island)

I live on O’ahu (same island as these towns, but they are several miles away from where I live, on the North Shore). This is some serious stuff. I posted a few links over on my Mastodon account, but if you’re interested to learn more about what’s going on, please check out the Honolulu Civil Beat. They have several stories going on with excellent journalism–particularly an investigative story they did on this very dam that showed Dole (the pineapple company; also the family that led the overthrow of the Kingdom) has known for around FIFTY YEARS that this dam was unsafe but have kicked the can toward other entities to try and fix it rather than pay for it themselves.

EDIT: Link to Civil Beat’s homepage. Probably the best journalistic outlet in Hawai’i: https://www.civilbeat.org/

Like with a toddler or a puppy that one is training. You give praise for the good decisions and they just might starting making other good decisions in order to get more praise.

I feel that. Here in Hawai’i a lot of our emergency services, etc. only use Twitter. Finding information can be difficult otherwise. I imagine in some places it’s basically impossible.

Seriously. Why is it so hard to find information about restaurants on the internet? And why can’t you post your damn menu?!