Strength to denounce the charlatans
Apr 08, 2007
In an age of spin doctors and political correctness, Cardinal George Pell, Sydney's Roman Catholic Archbishop, is as refreshingly direct in his Easter message as the motto of the Catholic See of Sydney "Be Not Afraid".
(The Sunday Telegraph, April 08, 2007) The motto comes from the account of Jesus walking on the Sea of Galilee that appears in the gospels of Mathew, Mark and John.
Those familiar with the Bible will recall the miracle of Jesus feeding the masses with five loaves and two small fish and later collecting a dozen baskets of scraps in an earlier version of Clean Up Australia.
After that display of good neighbourliness, He temporarily fled his overly-enthusiastic followers, only to be seen walking over the waves by a boatload of disciples as they hit stormy weather on the crossing to Capernaum.
"Be of good cheer, it is I; be not afraid," He called.
Peter, answered and said: "Lord, it if be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water."
When Peter left the ship however and began walking to Jesus, he saw the boisterous seas and was afraid. He began to go under and called to be saved.
Jesus immediately caught him by the hand, saying: "O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?" It was a sink-or-walk proposition.
Unlike the numerous goats which lead many of the Christian flocks across Australia today, Cardinal Pell is not an equivocator, he doesn't strive to make his homilies as inoffensive and as meaningless as possible in the hope of ameliorating the masses.
He believes in right and wrong, and not in the faddish moral equivalency that appeals to the churches of appeasement that litter the land.
He is not afraid of saying that his God, the One he believes Christians proclaim at Easter, is "radically different from the gods and goddesses of Eastern religions and different too from the God described in the Quran".
Radically different. Not the same, but dressed up in saffron robes, or the same but just without Mohammed, or L. Ron Hubbard, or whoever the latest cult leader may be.
Same-same but different, as Asian hucksters are wont to say, doesn't wash with the cardinal.
This is a smack in the face for all the pursuers of multi-faith worship who are determined to blur the significant differences between the Christian God and the rest, in the vain hope that the kumbaya crowd will have their eyes closed so firmly shut when they are swaying arm in arm with whoever happens to be alongside that they won't notice that their neighbour's views are actually diametrically opposed to their own.
This is an assault on those who demur about standing up for Christianity because, for many, to do so would be to offend the new commandment, thou must not be judgemental.
In fact they have already surrendered their critical faculties to others who will make the easy and the tough decisions for them.
Cardinal Pell said God often struggles for press coverage in Australia, but had been doing better lately "perhaps because the violence of a small number of Islamic terrorists has prompted us to rethink our religious beliefs, or absence of belief".
He also observed that we are uneasy about the climate, and the threat of global warming.
Wryly, he said it is to be hoped the "one true God will accept all those carbon credits" but he also noted that God is not an insurance broker and his Son had more than his share of trouble.
"Neither did Jesus say anything on global warming, although he said much on the struggle between good and evil, meaning and fear, love and hate," the Cardinal observed.
Christianity, like all religions, is based on an assumption of faith. Faith, as we are reminded at Easter, that Jesus rose from the dead.
By their very nature, faiths cannot be tested by scientists.
Which is why those who have embraced the cult of human-induced global warming are backing their faith, not science, and must ignore the realities of the geological record, the atmospheric record, the solar record and the polar records if they wish to cling to their belief.
There is no evidence that Jesus was against science but there is plenty of evidence that he was opposed to false beliefs and distortion of His religion, Judaism.
That so many turn from the facts and find grim solace in fearful embrace of new faiths in the so-called secular age is not without irony.
Nor was Cardinal Pell lacking in irony with his supposition that the actions of terrorists may prompt some people to rethink or discover their religious beliefs.
Peter questioned Jesus because he was afraid, and he started to sink. When he accepted Jesus, he was saved.
Today, too many people don't question what is passed off as religion because they are afraid.
Cardinal Pell called upon Christians to address the challenges in their own hearts and families and communities before moralising about distant worlds, which we are usually powerless to change.
But the message "Be not afraid", which Jesus offered to Peter, is worth remembering when the new pseudo-religionists start pushing their dogma.
Be not afraid, and challenge the charlatans who would control through fear.
Strength to denounce the charlatans