Opinions on the Election Results

This seems to be a fair estimation of the election results and what may be coming (Hint: It's not everyone being forced to gay-marry, join a mosque or abort your babies and change your gender!) From Adam Russell Taylor at Sojourners...

Here are some of my hopes and prayers for what this political realignment can mean for the future of America and for the ongoing role of faith in our public life.

1. End of election denialism 

   It’s important to celebrate the degree to which our election system held, and our democracy worked in this election. This reality can be far too easy to take for granted, particularly in the face of so many efforts to suppress voters, undermine confidence in the system, and sow fear and confusion in an effort to deter voting. A record early voting and a historically high turnout were always the best way to defeat these efforts and prevent further democratic backsliding. My hope and prayer is that Trump and his allies will continue to accept the results and that this election will enable our nation to turn the page on election denialism.

2. Political momentum against corruption 

   The outcome will build enough political will to seriously redress corruption in our system, from gerrymandered districts to no-bid contracts and pay-to-play pardons and much more. Democratic Senator John Ossoff and Senator-elect James Talarico’s campaign messages focused a great deal on connecting the Trump family’s corruption with people’s material struggles. While nearly $12 billion was spent on these midterms, it is heartening that Elon Musk’s attempt to buy the election failed and seemingly backfired. Nine in ten voters called government corruption a crucial or major factor in their vote, edging out cost of living (89%), according to NBC News exit polling. This signals an electorate that is fed up and ready for change. This change can include some measures that could even gain bipartisan support, such as banning Congressional stock trading and taking measures to further restrict money in politics.

3. Repudiation of Trumpism

   Voters were clearly dissatisfied with the cost of living and the economy. But I read the results as not only a rebuke of Trump’s policies, from mass deportation, the Iran war, and policies that have exacerbated Americans’ economic struggles, but also of his often hateful, pugnacious, and narcissistic style of politics. I pray that this outcome lead to deeper spiritual transformation, and be the rebirth of a more hopeful and unifying politics that replaces a zero-sum, us-versus-them approach with a politics of unity, compassion, and courage. This stunning loss should force a reckoning within the Trump coalition that pleaded with voters to look the other way on Trump’s increasingly cruel, vindictive, and incompetent approach to politics.

4. Changing the narrative of Christians in politics

   For far too long, Republicans have acted as though they have a monopoly on God, while too many Democrats have been reticent to talk about their faith, ceding the religious vote to the Trump coalition. This election turned that paradigm on its head, with many faith-forward Democratic candidates leading successful campaigns. From Senator-elect Adam Hamilton in Kansas to Talarico in Texas to Representative-elect Lindsay James in Iowa, and more, our new crop of elected leaders seems prepared to break partisanship’s hold on Christianity. My hope is that their voices in our national politics can continue to help to change this narrative and offer a more hopeful faith-inspired leadership that prioritizes justice, loving our neighbor, and advancing the common good.

5. Progress on common ground solutions to real economic struggles and pain 

   The new Congress will need to act boldly in passing legislation that directly addresses the cost of living crisis and people’s deep economic hurt and precarity. While I want to resist being naïve, this landslide outcome could even open the door to new opportunities for the new Democratic majority to find common ground with a president who is much less ideological than his party. Trump has spent much of his second term focused on vanity projects and an unpopular war, and he can now plainly see where this has led him with the American public. Might this electoral reckoning inspire Trump to start thinking about different ways to actually improve his abysmal approval ratings, enabling bipartisan conversations and breakthroughs on popular policy issues like raising the minimum wage or expanding and making the child tax credit fully refundable? 

https://sojo.net/articles/opinion/what-im-praying-after-midterms

Helen Keller News

After ten years as an Employment Specialist at Mattingly Edge, I have a new job: DeafBlind Employment Specialist for the Helen Keller National Center.

https://www.helenkeller.org/hknc/

My role will be much the same - assisting adults with disabilities to prepare for and find meaningful employment so that they are better prepared to take part in the good life that we all hope to have. It's just now, the people I support will be more specifically in the DeafBlind realm. (And, fyi, DeafBlind, spelled just like that, is the way our job candidates and clients preferred to be identified.)

I'm so grateful for the opportunity to work with Mattingly Edge these last ten years. They are doing the meaningful work of fighting for justice and opportunities for all. They truly recognize how deeply true it is that our diversity makes us great and that equal opportunities for all is a basic human rights issue. I'll continue to be a fan of my colleagues there.

And, I'm so grateful for the opportunity to have this new role at HKNC. I've always been a fan of Helen Keller and the work she started (note - she didn't start this specific organization, which has been around since 1967, a year before her death) of seeking equity, inclusion and justice for all. She was such a strong and intelligent woman and a great writer. In addition to her work on behalf of those with disabilities, she was also a warrior in the fight for rights and the vote for women and a radical devotee of the better ideals of socialism (equal opportunity for all, justice for all, systems put in to place to make such things possible). So, to honor this new beginning, I'll start with some Helen Keller quotes.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.”

“The few own the many because they possess the means of livelihood of all ... The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor. The majority of mankind are working people. So long as their fair demands - the ownership and control of their livelihoods - are set at naught, we can have neither men's rights nor women's rights. The majority of mankind is ground down by industrial oppression in order that the small remnant may live in ease.”

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”

“Be of good cheer. Do not think of today's failures, but of the success that may come tomorrow. You have set yourselves a difficult task, but you will succeed if you persevere; and you will find a joy in overcoming obstacles. Remember, no effort that we make to attain something beautiful is ever lost.”

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…Unless you fail to make the turn.” [!!]

"It can't be unreasonable to ask of a society a fair chance for all. It can't be unreasonable to demand the protection of women and children and an honest wage for all."

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

If you're not familiar with Keller, now's a good time to start reading. She would greatly approve!

"Holy, the Firm"

Another saint has joined the Beloved Community Beyond. Rest in Peace, Annie Dillard.

“Here is the fringey edge where elements meet and realms mingle, where time and eternity spatter each other with foam.”

“Thomas Merton wrote, “there is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.” There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.

I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.

Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock-more than a maple- a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

“...The mockingbird took a single step into the air and dropped. His wings were still folded against his sides as though he were singing from a limb and not falling, accelerating thirty-two feet per second, through empty air. Just a breath before he would have been dashed to the ground, he unfurled his wings with exact, deliberate care, revealing the broad bars of white, spread his elegant white-banded tail, and so floated onto the grass. I had just rounded a corner when his insouciant step caught my eye; there was no one else in sight. The fact of his free fall was like the old philosophical conundrum about the tree that falls in the forest. 

The answer must be, I think, 
that beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. 
The least we can do is try to be there.”

“I am a fugitive and a vagabond, a sojourner seeking signs.”

Rest in the Peace of Wild Things

NOTE: It appears to me that people can not current post comments on blogger. Not sure why. Hopefully that will get fixed.

We lost a giant this week, in a week long blitz of great people passing.

Rest in peace, St Wendell. Join the beloved community, the membership of saints, along with Dolly, Tim and Gloria.

But do the Lords of War in fact hate the world?

That would be easy to bear, if so.

If they hated their children and

the flowers that grow in the warming light,

that would be easy to bear.

For then we could hate the haters and be right.

What is hard is to imagine the Lords of War may

love the things that they destroy.

As I have read the Gospels over the years, 
the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion 
but came instead to found an unorganized one. 
He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples 
into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, 
into the houses of sinners and publicans, 
into the town and the wilderness, 
toward the membership of all that is here. 
Well, you can read and see what you think.

Protest that endures, I think, is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: 
namely, the hope of preserving qualities in one's own heart and spirit that would be 
destroyed by acquiescence.

The only true and effective "operator's manual for spaceship earth" 
is not a book that any human will ever write; 
it is hundreds of thousands of local cultures.

Rats and roaches live by competition under the law of supply and demand; 
it is the privilege of human beings to live under the laws of justice and mercy. 
It is impossible not to notice how little the proponents of 
the ideal of competition have to say about honesty, 
which is the fundamental economic virtue, 
and how very little they have to say about 
community, compassion, and mutual help.

And having returned from the woods, 
we remember with regret its restfulness. 
For all creatures there are in place, hence at rest. 
In their most strenuous striving, sleeping and waking, dead and living, 
they are at rest. 
In the circle of the human we are weary with striving, and are without rest.

A good community, in other words, is a good local economy.

Love the "Sinner." Period.

This is not quite right or finished yet, I don't think, but I wanted to put down these thoughts while I'm thinking about them...

"Love the 
'sinner'
hate the 
'sin'"
is a problematic suggestion

Rationally, morally and from a simple place of common grace
it's presumptuous and condescending
and I'd suggest, just not helpful or 
loving
(thereby making mockery of the first premise
as if one could love the poor pathetic "sinner" that one looks down upon)

Rather:

Love the sinner

Hate the conflating of all human failures with intentional evil

Love the sinner

Hate the oppression - sure
and not only hate the oppression

but take an active stand against the oppressors 

But
"Love the 'sinner...'"?

How about this:
Love the human

even in our imperfection
because, why not?

Maybe, love the human who is imperfect 
(ie, all of us)
as God loves all of us
just because 
Just because we are family, 
we are one, 
we are the Beloved of God
and who are we to dispute a Loving God?

Yes, yes, 
we must hate the oppression and those who abuse
we must take actions to
ally with and protect those who are being abused and oppressed

but most of us in our daily lives?
we're not choosing to abuse
to harm
to oppress

We're just being imperfect humans and
while that can be awful enough
it's not like it rises to the level of Evil

It's sufficient to keep in mind that this term
SIN
which has been so badly abused through the centuries 
sinfully so, indeed,
in the original texts and languages simply meant
missing the mark
trying one's best but not quite hitting the target

That is, 
simply imperfect
not evil.

The more I ponder conservative human theories about "sin natures"
the more I'm convinced of the harm of those theories
at least in how they're implemented.

"Why Was Poor Lazarus 'worthy' of Heaven?"

 

I was asked by a conservative Christian (who was referencing the parable of Lazarus and the rich man):

Why is poor Lazarus worthy of heaven?

It's that sort of presumption and arrogance, I'd suggest, that is most of the point of this parable. By way of reminder, here is the parable:

There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and 
lived in luxury every day. 

At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 
and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. 
Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

Note: This is an exceedingly wealthy man who lived in his privilege, which privilege allowed him to either not know or not care (or know and not care) about Lazarus and his misery.

BUT, whatever the rich man thought or cared, God loved Lazarus.

Continuing:

“The time came when the beggar died and 
the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.

Why? Because God loves us all and that begins with the poor and marginalized. God is the great welcome-r and grace-giver to humanity, and especially the poor and marginalized.

The rich man also died and was buried. 
In Hades, where he was in torment, 
he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 
So he called to him, 
‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and 
send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water 
and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’

The rich man, in his presumption, ONLY thinks of Lazarus finally as someone who could be ordered around. He didn't care about Lazarus (or about God, if you take Jesus' teachings seriously) in life and he still didn't care about Lazarus even in his deathly precarious, painful position. Lazarus is a tool, nothing else.

WHY is Lazarus "worthy" of heaven? is missing the point entirely. Of course, Lazarus is included in the great welcoming arms of God and the beloved community of Jesus. That's just a given, for Jesus, throughout his teachings. It's a message of God so loved the whole world... it's Jesus' message of good news of grace and welcome. Of course, Lazarus was welcome.

The point then is, 
Why DIDN'T Dives consider Lazarus worthy of grace and welcome or even simple respect?

It's an attitude of rejecting the Beloved Community of God - and that attitude is a deliberate choice to separate one's self from God because, as Jesus makes clear, God is found in the beloved community. You can't love God if you don't love, ally with, befriend, lend support to and welcome Lazarus and the other poor and marginalized. Taken with the Sheep and the Goats parable and in the context of the One who came to proclaim good news to the poor and marginalized, it's rather hard to miss that point or fail to reach that conclusion.

A Curse, to the Fourth Generation

"You shall not bow down to them [false idols] or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, 
punishing the children for the sin of the parents 
to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 
but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments..."

As always, I'm engaged with conversations with conservatives who believe the best of the white privileged male protesters on days of infamy like the January 6th uprising or nearly every Pride Parade, and one thing that I believe these people are missing is the context of oppressor and oppressed.  

If these conversations and protests were just between two privileged white guys who were very opinionated about their sports ball teams or favorite pizza and THAT conversation got heated and went back and forth, both from an equal footing position, no big deal. Team one, team two, you're wrong, you're right, okay, whatever. 

This is not that. 

In one recent conversation, the conservative posted a video where there was a white guy protesting against abortion rights and health rights for women. In that example, the white anti-abortionist (in THAT example) remained fairly calm and low-key. In another example, I had offered the story of the interaction (cited in a previous recent post here) of the six white nationalist men protesting at this year's Louisville Gay Pride Day. In one, we're talking about rights for women, in the other, we're talking about equal rights and opportunities for LGBTQ folks and their allies. In still other instances we might be talking about the rights of folks with disabilities or the rights of people of color or immigrants. 

In each of those cases it is vital to remember that we are talking about 
groups who have been historically abused, 
oppressed, 
maligned, 
demonized, 
harmed, and 
killed 
on the one hand and the oppressors on the other. In such cases, even if an abortion opponent manages to be calm in delivering his message calmly in a public protest, and even if the oppressed and their allies were to get loud and yell, we must remember there is a historic memory of abuses towards women and denying the rights to women. That makes it a charged situation for those on the side of the oppressed. Trauma is a real thing caused by the real world history of abusive oppressors. 

And in each of these cases, the oppression is not ancient history. It's still a fresh, recent thing, in our lifetimes only - and truly into our children's lifetimes - has it started to get a little bit better. If LGBTQ folks and their allies or women or others get their ire up and respond a bit frantically in the face of oppression rising back up, that's understandable. We're talking about human rights and people are rightly, strongly and righteously emotionally defending human rights and warning against returning to days of oppression. 

In other words, even if the supporters of historic oppression remain relatively calm (and often, they don't), that's not to their credit. It doesn't win them any points.

Picture Jesus pulling together a whip to drive out the money changers from the temple. Righteous burning active anger against oppression. God and reasonable people are rightfully outraged at oppression. 

And so the trauma lives on, the curse from our repressive fathers into the third and fourth and fifth generations. It's not like you can flip  a switch and turn slavery off on one day, for instance, and say, "Okay you're free. All is forgiven. Everybody's cool now." Oppression, harm and genocide don't just "go away" that way. There was and continues to be active harm, ongoing harm caused by that oppression and it doesn't go away in a day.

Likewise the trauma experienced by all these other groups: women, LGBTQ folks, those with disabilities, immigrants. That trauma is a curse in their and all of our lives, including the lives of the oppressors and their descendants. Those who would downplay the trauma from that oppression need to understand what they're asking when they're asking people to be calm in the face of oppression rising back up. 

Talarico, "All Religions" and a Lesson in Reading for Understanding

Craig, on his blog, asked a question that has an obvious answer but thought it was worthwhile to provide that obvious answer here. He's speaking of words from the Texas state representative, James Talarico, who has some words to say about all faith traditions are an equal pathway to God... to the divine mystery universe..." words to that effect. Craig asked:

If you find the "all faith traditions" are an "equal pathway" to the "divine mystery universe", can you really be considered an expert in Christianity?

I. First of all, you need to read for understanding. For instance, by saying this, do you think that those religious ones (whether naming themselves Christian, Muslim or otherwise) who support slavery, who support forced marriages, who support child abuse or killing of innocents... do you think that Talarico is saying that THOSE human religious traditions are all equally valid and equally the way to Truth?

Can you acknowledge (even without Talarico even having to say it) that, of course, that is NOT what he's saying?

It's a reasonable question with only one reasonable answer, given what YOU know about Talarico. Do you think he's counting the "religion" that kills children or gay folk or that forces marriages and deprives women of rights as one of the "equal pathways..."?

Because the answer is clearly NO. Anyone who can read for understanding can understand that.

Do you understand that? (I asked of Craig, but ask of anyone who visits here, as well.)

II. Okay, given that THAT conclusion is ridiculous and out of hand wrong, what IS Talarico saying? To be 100% sure, you'd have to ask him or read more of what he's said to get a more complete understanding of his philosophies. But I can guarantee that what he is saying is almost certainly something like this:

A. There is only ONE truth (or, if you prefer, set of truths). The ultimate Truth is Love. Love, grace, justice, welcome, acceptance, greeting... you know, LOVE. Love is the One Truth.

B. As Jesus said: 

Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth...

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth...

etc. 

3. Again, there is only One Truth, and that Truth is Love. That which many of us would name as God, for God is love, as the texts say. God is love. Love is God. And from love, we reach grace, welcome, justice, kindness, solidarity, the beloved community of God. THAT is the ONE Way or Truth which Talarico is speaking of.

For those of us who read for understanding and don't start out from a presumption of guilt for those who disagree with us, it's pretty obvious.

Can you acknowledge that this is almost certainly what Talarico is speaking about?

Or, even if you can't acknowledge it, can you see it's likely what he's speaking of here?

III. Given that, what is Talarico saying, then, when he suggests he affirms the notion that "all faith traditions" are "equal ways" to God? Is he not saying that ALL True religions (being that which looks out for the poor and marginalized, as St James noted... just another way of saying, True religion is that which loves and embraces...)  are just different ways of thinking about love of God, love of this creation, love of humanity, love and care for the poor and marginalized..? I'd be willing to bet you $100 that this is pretty close to his intention here.

And so, true religion being Love, then that is True whether or not you're a Muslim living into love, or a Jewish person living into love, or a pagan living into love, etc. It might look a little different, it might have different songs and different prayers, but Love is Love is Love and ALL that Love are of God, as our holy texts say.

Dear friends, let us love one another, 
for love comes from God. 
Period.
EVERYONE WHO LOVES has been born of God 
and knows God.

~St John

So, with all of that clarification, to answer your question:

If you find the "all faith traditions" are an "equal pathway" to the "divine mystery universe", 
can you really be considered an expert in Christianity?

YES. Obviously so. Of course.

And those religions and human traditions that embrace hate and harm? Well, those are not a religion at all, or at least not a true religion, according to St James. And those who DO love and embrace the poor and marginalized, they ARE of God and of the True Religion, according to St James, St John and Jesus Christ, our Savior, who saves by Grace, which is to say, by Love. 

Normal is a Cage, Too Small

They want things to return to normal
but normal is a cage too small.
They want the "peace" of Our absence
but that's no peace, at all.
They want a compliance, an acquiescence
they want the obedience of adolescents
they want to bully and silence and demand.

But, no.
Hell, no!
We will not quietly surrender, we will NOT be banned.
We'll take a stand -
metaphorically or otherwise -
and we'll make a plan with our own demands.

And this is the demand
(or at least, the beginning of our demands):

We will work hard and
we will take part in communing
and any who are refusing that Great Including,
they will be the ones losing out
they will be the ones banned by their own sad plans
to choose a world that is smaller and more plain
to live in a place with less grace
less joy, less love, less sane and humane

But
the Beloved Community,
the Beloved Economy,
the beloved home
of inclusion and diversity and equity...?
We will rise and we will live and we will swarm.

That is our future.
This is the new norm.

Happy Pride to the Beloved Community

The great, positive, uplifting thing about Pride and LGBTQ events is the sheer love and grace and sense of nurture. There was a Pride parade today in Louisville and people were laughing, smiling, hugging, holding hands, greeting one another, rainbows, colors, beauty, joy, singing, fun... welcome, welcome, welcome!

And this beautiful crowd of people? They were young and old and black and white and all ages and colors in between. They were grandmothers and grandbabies and people with disabilities and their allies and straight and LGBTQ... it was truly the beauty of all the world and diversity. And, as always, there were a handful of protesters - in this case, six white guys, one wearing a Nazi/white power "Jerusalem cross" symbol - gathered in a little knot and shouting down curses and hate. "You're going to hell!" they yelled. "Your church is NO church!" they shouted at me, seeing my church name on my LGBTQ friendly shirt.

Venom, bitterness, hatred, demonization, arrogance. You have to wonder what such groups hope to accomplish by contrasting their messages of hate and bitterness with the love, grace and beautiful joy and welcome messages from the Pride side? WHO would want to be part of that? You can see in one of the photos that, while most people just ignored them and their pathetic little pamphlets of "good news," when people DID accept the pamphlets, they just tore it up. Who needs that sort of hate and villainy? It's just sad and pathetic and I could almost pity them, if they didn't do so much damage in their vengeful arrogance and rage. One last point, a tip for other conservative religionists: If the churches who are opposed to LGBTQ folks just existing and being truly want to try to make a positive impact, they could come and protest the neo-Nazis who are being the face of conservative religiosity on their behalf.

Trillionaires, Bloodfights and Prospero

On nearly the same day that the world's first

trillionaire

was birthed

unnatural and misshapen and unholy,

I went to see the story of Prospero,

the antagonist of Poe's masterpiece

The Masque of the Red Death

A summary of the story:

The Masque of the Red Death is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. It follows Prince Prospero, who retreats with a thousand wealthy courtiers into a sealed, fortified abbey to escape a devastating plague known as the Red Death. After months of seclusion, Prospero hosts a lavish masquerade ball in seven color-coded rooms. At midnight, a mysterious figure appears dressed as a victim of the Red Death. When Prospero confronts the intruder, he drops dead, and the revelers discover the costume contains no tangible form beneath it. One by one, the partygoers die as the Red Death claims them all. The story is a powerful allegory about the inevitability of death and the futility of trying to escape it through wealth and privilege.

This seems apt, this weekend, as many powerful people gather to "celebrate" death and gore and power and privilege - a caged fight orgy of violence and twisted toxic masculinity. Always, the privileged invited to such parties, at great cost to the poor.

“There was much of the beautiful,

much of the wanton,

much of the bizarre,

something of the terrible,

and not a little of that which might have excited disgust.”

There's so much to be said.

"Prospero and his court are indifferent to the sufferings of the population at large. They intend to await the end of the plague in luxury and safety behind the walls of their secure refuge, having welded the doors shut to ensure no one enters or leaves."

~The prophet Poe

“Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom:

She and her daughters were arrogant,

overfed

and unconcerned;

they did not help the poor and needy."

~The prophet Ezekiel

Prospero, sadly, is the perfect role model for today's toxic conservatism and the echoes of today's realities is truly prophetic.

Moving Past Milk, 2

 

Stan said, with ZERO support...

Sin is not primarily horizontal; it is vertical.

A crime against a neighbor is finite. A crime against the infinite God is not.

and then, presumably to support these unsupported guesses, Stan said:

This is why Scripture describes sin as lawlessness (1 John 3:4), rebellion (Isaiah 1:2), enmity against God (Romans 8:7), and falling short of His glory (Romans 3:23). Sin is not merely doing wrong; it is rejecting the God who is right.

Looking at his proof texts, then, 1 John 3...

Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.
But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins.
And in him is no sin.
No one who lives in him keeps on sinning.
No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.

Okay, some points, right off the bat. John is clearly speaking metaphorically or figuratively, here. Even the conservative religionists are glad to acknowledge that even THEY "continue to sin" after coming to "know" Jesus.

Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?

No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all.

Isaiah 1...

Hear me, you heavens! Listen, earth!
For the Lord has spoken:
“I reared children and brought them up,
but they have rebelled against me.
The ox knows its master,
the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
my people do not understand.”

It's a passage where Isaiah is speaking specifically about a rebellious Israel, saying ISRAEL (in this specific time and place) does not understand.

Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?

No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all. As we see in reviewing Isaiah (whether listening to rabbis or just regular people reading the book), the "guilty" groups in Isaiah, the ones who are threatened with just punishment, are those who specifically ARE rebelling (ie, not everyone) and even more specifically, the rich and powerful who would abuse the poor and marginalized.

No, it's literally NOT offering any support for Stan's theory.

Romans 8...

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

This passage is not talking about a condition of all humanity, only those who live "according to the flesh." Which goes undefined and is obviously figurative/metaphorical language.

Setting that aside, is there ANY support in this passage for Stan's theory that " a crime against the infinite God is not finite..."?

No. It's just literally not saying anything about that. At all.

Moving on to Romans 3. This chapter, I'll note, contains the infamous, "There is no one good, no not one..." line, which, itself, is a quote from the OT, from Psalm 14 which says, in part, that there ARE no good, there are "none who seek God." Pretty inclusive (although not support for Stan's theory). BUT, if you keep reading, you will see what you always see in the OT warnings against the evil - it's ultimately a warning to rich oppressors to quit harming the poor and marginalized. "They (the evil ones) devour my people," God says. "You evil ones frustrate the plans of the poor, but I am their refuge..." As we see in context, the psalmist is not saying here that there are NO good people, rather, it's indictment upon the rich oppressors.

And not what Stan is saying.

But moving on and getting to the verse in question...

now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify...

ie, don't oppress the poor and marginalized, over and over that is made "known," made clear IF one is reading the OT in context and not ripping passages out of context. Continuing...

This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Which speaks to God's grace and acceptance of all those willing to be part of the beloved community of God, BUT, it doesn't address Stan's theory. At all.

So, yes, Stan IS throwing out all sorts of verses out there AND he's making many claims. But do ANY of the verses support ANY of his claims?

Objectively, no.

Oh, one more claim from Stan that I skipped past:

Sin is not merely doing wrong, it is rejecting the God who is right.

Do ANY of those passages say that? 

Literally, no. Not in those words or any other words that suggest that.

More later.

I am curious (if you fellas are going to answer anything here), do you suspect that we WILL find any biblical support for Stan's theories that he keeps throwing out with no support? Do you suspect that at some point near the end, he'll finally be able to say, "And HERE is the verse that ties all those other verses and my many unsupported claims together..."?

I have to say, given past experience, the answer is almost certainly, No.