Joy

Our Sunday School class lesson was recently about Joy, not the gleeful emotion, but the Joy which can, and should,be experienced by Christians even in times of severe persecution.

This is the joy expressed by Paul and Silas singing in prison after they were beaten and chained to a damp stone wall. The joy with which Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stepped into the oven, The joy of Daniel in the lion's den. The joy of Job after his children were killed and everything he owned was stripped away. The joy which can best be described as peace or calmness.

Our class discussed exactly what the Christian Joy is. The best answer: the Christian Joy is the absolute knowledge that our God is in total control. He cannot be surprised or thwarted and those who belong to Him cannot be removed from Him. He is Love and works everything out for our good. Our good is to become conformed to Him.

Superbook

"Superbook , also known as Animated Parent and Child Theatre (アニメ 親子劇場 Anime Oyako Gekijō?), is an anime television series produced by Tatsunoko Productions in Japan in conjunction with the Christian Broadcasting Network in the United States." (Opening sentence of the Wikipedia article about Superbook.)  It uses a children's science-fiction/time travel story to present stories from the Bible.  The first 26 episodes aired 1981-1982, and the second 26 in 1983.  A new computer generated image version of the series is being produced by the Christian Broadcasting Network.

Reruns of the original series currently are being aired in the United States, Chile, the United Kingdom, and the Philippines.  An episode of the original series, "The Patience of Job," is here.

I Hope She Didn't Realize What She Was Doing

First, let me say again as I have in the past: This is not a political blog.  When I do comment on a political subject, it is because it touches on some religious issue.  I am not a member of any political party or movement and do not intend to be in the future.

Froma Harrop is a syndicated columnist whose columns appear in over two hundred newspapers  She comments on business, economics, and politics. On 25 March 2011 her posted article was "Some praise for a few tea partyers."  The word "partyers" appears at first glance to be misspelled, but instead of "partiers," she is referring to members of the American Tea Party movement.

The Tea Party is a conservative political movement named for the Boston Tea Party (1773) in which a group of men boarded a British ship in Boston harbor.  In protest of what they considered to be unfair taxation and a lack of political representation, they dumped overboard the entire cargo of British tea, turning the harbor into a giant teacup.

In discussing issues concerning the Tea Party movement., Ms. Harrop said, "When it comes to my sanity, the tea party often taketh away. ... Nothing else they do would earneth more praise."

Ms. Harrop probably intended to be "cute."  What struck me almost immediately was something else.
The use of archaic English brings to mind the English of the King James Bible. and the phrase, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away," which, by the way, does not occur in the King James Bible.  The popular phrase is a misquotation of Job 1:20-21.

"Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,  And said, Naked came I out of my mother's womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD." Job 1:20-21.  Read the book of Job and you will know what this holy man was talking about.

What I perceived when I read Ms, Harrop's article was twofold:
1. An erroneous identification of the Tea Party with conservative Christianity.  While many Tea Partyers are Christian, many are not.  Some are motivated by social, economic, historical, and philosophical concerns.  Many conservative Christians are wary of investing their allegiance in political parties.
2. The use of "taketh" and "earneth" could be viewed as a sarcastic swipe at conservative Christians. This may not have been Ms. Harrop's intent.