Hellfire and brimstone sermons
The editor of The Irish Catholic, Gary O’Sullivan, says ‘the Church should apologise to and seek forgiveness from people it has hurt.’ The Church? Hurt people? Oh surely not.
Commenting on Cardinal Seán Brady’s call on people to return to confession, Mr O’Sullivan warned that many feel it is the Church that needs repentance before they will darken its door again…Among the past wrongs he challenges the hierarchy to apologise for are frequent hellfire and brimstone sermons promoting a false God of fear and punishment, clericalism lacking any Gospel humility, and preaching about Limbo and the burden it placed on suffering mothers. Mr O’Sullivan wonders if the bishops will also apologise ‘for the way clerics spoke about sin and the unnecessary guilt it placed on people’s shoulders, the excessive piety which allowed a rich and rational faith to descend into folk religion and superstition, or for turning a blind eye to corruption among politicians and the elite of our society while excessively concentrating on the minor infractions of the poor’.
What I keep saying. It’s not just the horrible physical abuse, it’s the foul sadistic mental torture, the threatening and frightening and consigning. Bad, bad, very bad.
Good on you, Irish catholic. In my opinion, a church that promotes a more “rational faith” is a church that dies quicker.
I can only approve of the thought.
Bravo, Mr O’Sullivan! I’ve just been rereading some Karl Barth lately (don’t ask!). It is not possible for the church to apologise for hellfire and brimstone sermons, because that is what Christianity is all about, for Christ’s sake!
What Christianity says, in brief, is this:
All human beings are burdened with sin from the moment of their birth (or conception — take your pick). What they deserve is to suffer an eternity of torment. And there is no way that they can free themselves. No amount of good living will do it. They have to claim — I’m not quite sure how this is done — the sacrifice of Jesus for their sakes. If they do this, then they will be saved, and live eternally in bliss, enjoying God forever (as the Westminster Catechism says). If they don’t, they will live eternally in the fires of hell. And remember, Benedict has told us that these fires are real, and they really do what fire does to human bodies. No doubt,as the Qu’ran says, bodies will be repeatedly restored so that they can be burned over and over again for eternity.
There is nothing in Christianity, and in the ‘mysteries’ that are celebrated this weekend, which changes this story. Remember the old easter hymn: ‘the gates from heav’n’s high portals fell.’ Thousands, maybe millions, will be singing those words this Sunday. Remember what it means. Belief permits you to escape the eternal suffering that otherwise inevitably awaits you.
Until Christianity can apologise for this, it can’t apologise for anything else that Mr. O’Sullivan wants an apology for. It is in the nature of Christianity (and, I believe, any other religion) to hurt people. They all do it in the guise of love, but they torment people just the same.
Yup. The hellfire thing is perhaps the item I hate most about religion. It’s no joke – people suffer torments of fear because of it. It’s foul, foul, foul.
So there will be (one of these fine days) a very temperate holy, godly, sanctified knock coming to my (humble) door? In addition, it, by all accounts, will not be the un-saintly Jehovah Witnesses calling. However, instead, it will be a divine, saintly, virtuous, consecrated, sublime representative of Christ Jesus from the Roman Catholic Church.
(All aghast)
What have I (the rest of us) done indeed to be so commendable of such an honourable, praiseworthy, and privileged and principled visit? I am enormously over the Vatican moon. I shall have to purchase some beleek and liebfraumilch. (For what I am sure will be a very enlightening/soul-searching (agape) occasion).
BTW. I was baptised at the pro cathedral. You can get a glimpse in the Audio& Video of where I uproariously, raucously hollered for the very first time.
This announcement, from my perception, is being made at a very strategic time. Both child abuse reports from the industrial schools of Ireland and that too of child clerical sexual abuse is due out later this year. The Church is desperately trying to cover its backside.
IT IS JUST TYPICAL.
Thank you Eric McDonald. This struck me: “a false God of fear and punishment,” On what does he base this? The Jehovah of the Bible is a right bastard, especially in the Old Testament (although he’s pretty nasty inm the New as well). What the “moderates” forget is they are cherry-picking and selectively reading just like the fundies!
Brian, what we all have to recognise is that we all read selectively. Religious people seem to clam an immunity to false readings, but, in the end, we all do it. The real question is whether we’re challenged for doing it or not. This was James Mill’s excellent contribution. The more controversy, the more likely it is that we will end up with something closer (only closer though) to the truth. When people complain about offence, and keep some voices silent, the only thing we get is the next voice.
Yup. The hellfire thing is perhaps the item I hate most about religion. It’s no joke – people suffer torments of fear because of it. It’s foul, foul, foul.
| OB | 2008-03-21 – 19:42:31 |
But serves them right for their irrational beliefs. No?