From Chaplin

Chaplin is one of the most important figures of entertainment. He embodied the humanity of mid-early 20th century progress. Here is his speech from "The Great Dictator". It's a beautiful speech. I hope you'll enjoy. Please excuse the music and the extra cuts. I wasn't able to find a clip without background music, naturally for a more dramatic feel. Either way, it's moving.

Themistocles

From Plutarch: "...on one occasion, when Themistocles was serving as general, Simonides of Ceos asked him to stretch a point in his favor and Themistocles told him: 'You would be a poor poet if you sang out of tune, and I should be a poor magistrate if I did people favours contrary to the law.' Another time he made fun of Simonides by pointing out that it was nonsense for him to attack the Corinthians because they lived in a great and handsome city, while at the same time he had portraits made of a face as ugly as his own." Ah, those Greeks!

Education

What's so dangerous about a "free education"? We have it for our formative years, and a continuation of that shouldn't be bad. It makes no sense that people attack the idea of providing for a free college education. I understand it's "not free", but neither is our military. We spend an absurd amount of money on it, and much of it is superfluous. Here's a list of countries that provide education for Americans...for free. We, as a nation, have been failing our children and ourselves. We fight, and threaten to kill for our guns, but are silent about helping our children learn. We cannot continue to claim to be pro-family, if we continue to be against anything beneficial to them.

Quoting Croesus

"No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace- in peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons." He immediately followed: "It must have been heaven's will that this [his attack against Cyrus the Great] should happen." Sadly, it is our nation's god that wills us to war: money. War profits are milk from Satan's teet.
NOTE: This was quoted from Herodotus' Histories.

From the Jesus Blog

Here is the whole post, penned by Anthony Le Donne, from the Jesus Blog.

Jesus is a Socialist Loser

The gospel according to Donald Trump is pretty clear: the world is full of lots of losers and a few winners and the the winners deserve the glory. This is not a quotation from Trump. This is not a paraphrase. This is the persona that Trump has created for himself over the past 30 years of public life. This is the gist of what Trump is all about and I doubt he'd try to nuance my summary because nuance is for losers.

There has been a rumor circulating that Donald Trump called Jesus a "socialist loser." This too is not a quotation from Trump. He didn't say it and (now that America has hit rock bottom) now that he is a viable nominee for the GOP he won't say it. In America, nobody campaigns against Jesus.

But let's be clear: in Trump's America Jesus certainly looks like a socialist loser. If we're talking about the historical Jesus who disavows wealth and is crushed by Roman execution, Jesus is a loser. If we're talking about the Pauline Jesus who empties himself to the lowest possible status (cf. Phil 2), Jesus is a loser. If we're talking about Luke's Jesus who founds a community of common wealth, Jesus is a loser. The Jesus of John's Apocalypse is a "winner" of sorts, but still probably a bit too lambish within Trump's economy. Most importantly, Jesus in various ways and in various portraits identifies with the disenfranchised. Jesus clearly resides on the wrong side of Trump's wall.

-anthony

From Larry Hurtado's Blog: "Early Christianity on Sexual Abuse of Children"

This is a good, quick read on the history of perceptions of Christianity and sexual abuse of children. 

The sexual abuse of children has now become a major and publicly recognized concern (and high time too!).  A recent study by John W. Martens shows that for early Christians, too, it was a major concern, and that this is reflected in what appears to be a distinctive early Christian vocabulary to refer to the practice:  John W. Martens, “‘Do Not Sexually Abuse Children’: The Language of Early Christian Sexual Ethics,” in Children in Late Ancient Christianity, eds. Cornelia B. Horn and Robert R. Phenix (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 227-54.

As Martens notes, there was a whole Greek vocabulary for the practice of having sex with children:  “pederastia” (“child-love”), “pederastes” (“child-lover”), etc.  Indeed, Roman-era poets and others celebrate the practice, and it seems to have been tolerated widely.  It was particularly slave-children who likely suffered the most.  But (and this is Martens’ contribution) in early Christian texts we see what appears to be a rejection of these benign and condoning terms in favour of terms to express forthrightly that the practice is evil and destructive.

In Christian texts from the second century onward, the person who engages in sex with children is called a “paidophthoros” (“child-corrupter/abuser”), and there is the prohibition, “do not corrupt/abuse children” (“me paidophthoreseis“).  Our earliest instances are in Epistle of Barnabas (10:6; 19:4) and Didache (2:2).  These terms seem to have been coined by early Christians to re-label and condemn the practice and those who engage in it:  Not “child-love,” but “child-corruption.” https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/early-christianity-on-sexual-abuse-of-children/

Read this rest with the above link. 

-Steven C 

From the Jesus Blog

This is from the Jesus Blog.

"Rick Perry cites Jesus' Profit-ic Libertarianism

Today I received (via FB) this word of wisdom from New Testament scholar and Fortress Press editor, Neil Elliott:

One man who would be president cites Mark 14 to dismiss concern for the poor (who "will always be with you"). That's not just insensitive and callous: it's bad Bible reading. Deuteronomy 15 was the likely background for Jesus' words: "SINCE there will never cease to be some poor and needy on the earth, I [GOD] therefore command you, 'Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.'" Better Fortress Press resources make the point -- Emerson B. Powery, for example, in TRUE TO OUR NATIVE LAND: AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN NEW TESTAMENT COMMENTARY (2007); Raquel Lettsome in FORTRESS COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT (2014); etc.

Thank you, Neil. "