When We Recognize The Monster In Us

A profound example of that can be found in the perceptibility of new soldiers to post-traumatic stress disorder, which often occurs because of something they watch themselves doing, rather than because of something that has happened to them. They react like the monsters they can truly be in extreme battlefield conditions, and the revelation of that capacity undoes their world. And no wonder. Perhaps they assume that all of history’s terrible perpetrators were people totally unlike themselves. Perhaps they were never able to see within themselves the capacity for oppression and bullying…

- Jordan Peterson. The 12 Rules For Life: An Antidote To Chaos 

Not Mental Entertainment But People Who Support Communuty

"Bhagwan (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh) didn't want people who were coming for mental entertainment. He wanted people who can support community." 

- Ma Anand Sheela (Wild Wild Country Documentary)

Leaving Intimacy Behind? Theology Gone Wrong

"'Aren't theologians trying to learn about God and help others do the same?'
'Oh, yes, there are a great many who are. But theologians have the same
problem all people have, and they can fall into plastic religion as easily as the next. Thus, the drift in a few religious scholarly circles is not really about knowing God. It's more about mastering God. Then you can develop systematic theologies to explain away the problems. It becomes a nice religious formula and can limit relationship with God to an intellectual ascent. You see, theology is necessary and can be a very healthy thing, but it can also be the empty husk of life people cling to when they leave intimacy behind.'" 

- (The Bastard Tree. M.C. Lang)

With every Crown Comes The Guillotine

"With every crown comes the Guillotine. Without the guillotine you can not wear the crown. And it was my fate. But, why does one have to put somebody under the guillotine? Because of their strength. They want to destroy their strength. And inspit of guillotine they still haven't kilked me yet. They haven't killed my spirit yet.  No matter where I go I Will always wear a crown." While I'm not afraid of being under guillotine,"
- Ma Anand Sheela
(Wild Wild Country Documentary)

God is Cruel Like Me? Oh Boy!

I once saw God, as through a window l peered;
He was just as I suspected,
just as I feared.
So selfish and cruel He appeared to be;
So very ugly,
so unlike me.
Then I looked deeper, still deeper with time;
T‘was a minor all along,

and the image was mine," 

- Ty Gibson

You thought I was just like you. —Yahweh (PS 50:21)

17 You hate my instruction and cast my words behind you. 18 When you see a thief, you join with him; you throw in your lot with adulterers. 19 You use your mouth for evil and harness your tongue to deceit. 20 You sit and testify against your brother and slander your own mother’s son. 21 When you did these things and I kept silent, you thought I was exactly like you. Psalms 50:17-21 (NIV)

Love Moves And Grooves

“As in a marriage, love doesn’t stand still.” 

~ N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began

Focused On The Right Object

"The aim, as in all theological and biblical exploration, is not to replace love with knowledge. Rather, it is to keep love focused upon its true object." 

~ N.T. Wright The Day The Revolution Began 

Keeping Our Nerve Sundays

This is what what "Ekklesia" is about. 

"It is vital that we keep our nerve, say our prayers, and pressed forward." 
~ N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began.

Understanding Meaning Of The Cross In Each Generation

"But when belief is challenged either by Skeptics or by Voices within ourselves, we need to look hard not simply at relevant biblical texts, but also at are traditional formulations of what precisely we mean by saying that Jesus "died for us." Each generation of Christians and each Church in its own way needs to do this. The task is difficult.

~ N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began 

One-line Summaries No More

"We constantly need to press beyond the one-line summaries and the popular slogans." 

~ N.T. Wright. The Day The Revolution Began

When What We Know For Sure Is Not Sure

"It's not what we don't know that gets us in trouble. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so." 
~ Mark Twain

Unpatriotic Persecution Of Christians

"Christians were not persecuted by the Roman Empire for telling people how to go to heaven when they die—Rome didn’t care about religious postmortem ciaims‘ Christians were persecuted by the empire for being viewed as unpatriotic and for confessing that Jesus—not Caesar—is Lord."      ~ Brian Zahnd (twitter)

Postmodernism has No Gratitude - Do You Have it?

The first thing you might want to note about postmodernism is that it does not have a shred of gratitide. And there is something pathologically wrong with a person who doesn't have any gratitude. Especially when they live in what, so far, is the best of all possible worlds. And so, if you are not grateful you are driven by resentment and resentment is about the worst emotion you could possibly experience apart from arrogance. 

Resentment, arrogance, and deciet; there is an evil triade for you. And if you are bitter with everything that is going on around you despite the fact that you are bathed in wealth there is something absolutly wrong with you."

Jordan Peterson

Justice

If you tyranize people bad enough they will actually hurt themselves to hurt you. So they are willing to take a hit to reckaim justice, let's say."

Jordan Peterson.The Psychology Behind an Efficient Capitalist System. Jordan B Peterson on the Jocko Podcast

Send Intellectuals to the Farm To Learn Said Mao

Might Solve many of our countries problems.
 

"One of the most controversial policies of the Cultural Revolution (Mao) seems to have been that of sending the intellectuals to the countryside to work and learn from the people."

Carol Hanisch (Feminist who staged first protest of Miss America Pageant)

Communist Misogynistic Chivalry- Don't Mistreat My Wife Mr Stalin

How Misogynistic, that men stick up for women.  

“TO COMRADE STALIN (COPIES FOR: KAMENEV AND ZINOVIEV):
“Dear comrade Stalin!
“You permitted yourself a rude summons of my wife to the telephone and a rude reprimand of her. Despite the fact that she told you that she agreed to forget what was said, nevertheless Zinoviev and Kamenev heard about it from her. I have no intention to forget so easily that which is being done against me. I need not stress here that I consider as directed against me that which is being done against my wife. I ask you, therefore, that you weigh carefully whether you are agreeable to retracting your words and apologizing, or whether you prefer the severance of relations between us."

SINCERELY: LENIN, MARCH 5, 1923 

~ Read by - Nikita Khrushchev. Speech, "On the Cult of Personality and Its Conssequences." 1956

Bad Temper Stalin Leadership Character Lacking?

"Lenin made a completely correct characterization of Stalin. He pointed out that it was necessary to consider transferring Stalin from the position of [Party] General Secretary because Stalin was excessively rude, did not have a proper attitude toward his comrades, and was capricious and abused his power. " 

- Nikita Khrushchev. Speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Conssequences. 1956

Vladimir Ilyich said: “Stalin is excessively rude, and this defect, which can be freely tolerated in our midst and in contacts among us Communists, becomes a defect which cannot be tolerated in one holding the position of General Secretary. Because of this, I propose that the comrades consider the method by which Stalin would be removed from this position and by which another man would be selected for it, a man who, above all, would differ from Stalin in only one quality, namely, greater tolerance, greater loyalty, greater kindness and more considerate attitude toward the comrades, a less capricious temper, etc.”

- Nikita Khrushchev. Speech On the Cult of Personality and Its Conssequences. 1956

Heaven Is a Brain Fairytale

 “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”

 Stephen William Hawking, 1942 - 2018    

Let Us Bang Shoes

1960, Oct 12 Nikita Khrushchev's Shoe-Banging Incident.

(During the 902nd Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960. Khrushchev supposedly pounded his shoe on his delegate-desk in protest at a speech by Philippine delegate Lorenzo Sumulong.)

"And when Mr. Khrushchev brandishes his shoe at the United Nations and hammers the table with it, no colonized individual, no representative of the underdeveloped countries laughs. For what Mr. Khrushchev is showing the colonized countries who are watching, is that he, the missile-wielding muzhik is treating these wretched capitalists the way they deserve."
 - Frantz Fanon 1961, revolutionary philosopher

You Need Skills, Not Sexual or Racial Traits

In an attempt to avoid hard work, a job, or any other sort of labor or toil that is required to become a self-reliant, self-sustaining adult who is a contributing member to society, Millennials have rapidly replaced skills and talent with "traits."  Understand that traits you are born with have no value because they do not offer, nor produce anything of value to society.  Be you black, white, brown or Asian, or male, female, straight or bi, those are things you were born with and did nothing to earn.
Unfortunately (for the Millennials anyway), society doesn't pay for traits.  They need skills.
The iPhone you like, the electricity you use, the food you eat, the clothes you wear were not produced by a man's "blackness" just as the car you drive was not produced by a woman's "pansexuality."  It was produced by hard working men and women who dedicated their time to learn a skill or trade and then sacrificed part of their finite lives WORKING to build the things you consume and enjoy today.

The problem is learning skills and trades that are in demand takes time, hard work, not to mention the work itself you need to spend on providing something of value to society.  And this life of labor is such a terrifying threat to some Millennials they have even created entirely made up genders that do not exist and are not a thing, solely for the purpose of fooling themselves into thinking they have value and/or are of value to society.

(Captain Capitalism. What Gen Z Can Learn from The Millennials. Monday, March 12, 2018.)

Cult Of a Great Individual

"After Stalin’s death, the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do anything, is infallible in his behavior.....
Because not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult of the individual....."

- Nikita Khrushchev On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" 
(Speech to 20th Congress of the C.P.S.U. Speech Delivered: February 24-25 1956; At the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU February 24-25 1956, Khrushchev delivered a report in which he denounced Stalin’s crimes and the ‘cult of personality’ surrounding Stalin. This speech would ultimately trigger a world-wide split)

Law of Denunciation

"Section 12 concerned itself closely with the conscience of our citizens: it dealt with the failure to make a denunciation of any of the types listed. And the penalty for the mortal sin of failure to make a denunciation carried no maximum limit!..... He knew and did not tell become the equivalent of "He did it himself."

- 1930's Russian Law, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.

Give Holy Friendship

"Like the sacramental use of water and bread and wine, friendship takes what's common in human experience and turns it into something holy.” 

~ Eugene Peterson 

Practicing Violence Against Time

"Hurry is a form of violence practiced on time. But time is sacred." 

- Eugene Peterson

Intelligence Doesn't Guarantee Love, But Holiness Does

So true. We can have all the knowledge and IQ in the world, but it is no assurance of love and kindness. We can be as intelligent and not good, moral, or kind. It is not an oxymoron.

However, if we are "Holy", we must love and be kind. We can not be holy without it. To hily and unkind and unloving is an oxymoron. 

"The hour in our life in which we are best employed is the hour in which we best love Jesus. 

A soul does good to others not in the measure of its knowledge or intelligence but in that of its holiness."

~ Charles de Foucauld. Meditations of a Hermit

Degenerating Into A Money Making Machine

“I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news” 

― John Muir

Front Porch Visitation Or Back Deck Isolation

"Most of us live privately and individualistically, isolated and cut off from one another. Instead of front porches for visiting with neighbors and passersby, our backyard decks are sheltered behind fences.
We no longer stroll on sidewalks, with opportunity to chat with pedestrians, homeowners and shopkeepers; rather cars move into and out of garages with automatic doors. As we drive, we keep windows closed; all the better to enjoy heat or air conditioning, music, or cell phone diversion. In the meantime we grow impatient with folks who drive slowly or hesitate a second too long at stoplights. Then we do not wish a Buen Camino! but honk horns or display certain fingers instead. No doubt many of us face challenges, but often we're not aware of what others undergo, with no sense of appreciation for their great struggles."
(Arthur Paul Boers. The Way is Made by Walking)

Stuff Your Eyes With Wonder

“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.”

― Ray Bradbury

Walking The Roads of Nature For The Soul

"While calling ourselves intelligent, we’ve lost touch with the natural world and, as a result, lost touch with our own souls. I believe we can’t access our full intelligence and wisdom without some real connection to nature!

.... Francis of Assisi (c. 1182-1226), spent many days, weeks, and even months walking the roads of Umbria and letting nature teach him. Francis knew and respected creation, calling animals, sun and moon, and even the weather and the elements his brothers and sisters. Through extended time in nature, Francis became intimately connected with non-human living things and came to recognize that the natural world was also imbued with soul. 

Almost all male initiation rites—including those of Jesus and John the Baptist (see Matthew 3:13-17)—took place in nature, surely for that reason."

~ Richard Rohr 

Our Enemies Don't Sing Our Songs

This writing captures communism, totalitarianism, and state Authoritarianism very well. Don't bother reading his poetry as it is unbearably depressing in every aspect imaginable. - My opinion!

"And he who sings not with us today
Is against
Us!"

~ Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930). Russian Soviet poet, playwright, artist, and actor. Ideological socalist and Communist. Strong admiration of Lenin, but later did not like state interference in art. Died by Suicide. 

Lies To Discredit Intelligent Voices and Thinkers

Russia ..... typical historical Totalitarian tactics to take down intelligent voices and thinkers. 

"This particular unrelenting wave (1937, 1945 and 1949) grabbed up anyone at all at any moment. But when it came to outstanding intellectuals in the thirties, they sometimes considered it clever to fabricate a case based on some conspicuously shameful violation (like pederasty; or, in the case of Professor Pletnev, the allegation that, left alone with a woman patient, he bit her breast. A national newspaper reports such an incident  - and just try to deny it."

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago 

The Only Use Totalitarianism Has For Religion

"And, always, there were those who refused to become NKVD informers. (Among them were priests who refused to violate the secrecy of the confessional, for the organs had very quickly discovered how useful it was to learn the content of confessions - the only use they found for religion."

1934-1935 Russia 

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago 

Victims Of Our Own Ideologies

"Famous revolutionaries, theoreticians, and Prophets, seven years before their own inglorious destruction, welcomed the roar of the crowd, not guessing then that their own time stood on the threshold, that soon their own names would be dragged down in the roar of "Scum!" "Filth!""

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago 

The Mole Of Totalitarianism

"As we begin to understand our judicial practices, we realize now that the public trials were only the surface indications of the moles tunnel, and that all the main digging lay beneath the surface."

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago 

Extrajudicial Reprisals

"It would have been impossible to carry out this hygienic purging, especially under wartime conditions, if they had had to follow outdated legal processes and normal judicial procedures. And so an entirely new form was adopted: extrajudicial reprisal, and this thankless job was self-sacrificingly assume by the Cheka, The Sentinel of the Revolution, which was the only punitive organ in human history that combined in one set of hands investigation, arrest, interrogation, prosecution, trial, and execution of the verdict. 

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag Archipelago. 

Fabricated Dreams And Illusions

".... the modern and postmodern self largely lives in a world of its own construction, and it reacts for or against its own human-made ideas. While calling ourselves intelligent, we’ve lost touch with the natural world ......" 
~ Richard Rohr

Rules Of Radicals

Insightful about where the rage comes from.  

“One acts decisively only in the conviction that all of the angels are on one side and the devils are on the other.” 

~ Saul Alinsky. Rules For Radicals

".....statement from Rules for Radicals “We are always moral and our enemies always immoral.” The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the immorality of the opposition...." ~ David Horowitz

Human Nature Is Our Problem Utopia Can't Exist

"Naturally, the first reaction of conservatives to this advice will be to reject it. Conservatives do not want to behave like leftists, who see politics and government as a means for transforming the world and the people in it. Temperamentally, conservatives are cautious because they know that the problems the world faces are caused by human beings, not by the social institutions that progressives plan to change. Social institutions reflect who we are far more than they shape what we will be. Therefore, all political “solutions” are imperfect; all will fall far short of their goals; all will require constant reforms to fix the additional problems they create........

Conservatives are realists who believe in the constitutional skepticism that guided the Founders. They know that human nature — not society — is the insurmountable obstacle to equality and justice, and that a democracy works only through compromise and respect. Democrats pay lip service to this wisdom but don’t really believe it. There is no compromising utopian goals, and they will accept no lasting modus vivendi with those who oppose these goals."

David Horowitz

National Debt Is Indentured Service Of Our Children

"Massive deficits are not accounting problems; they are a war on the freedom of the individuals — particularly the young — who must work to pay off the government debt instead of working to enhance their lives"  

~ David Horowitz

Libeals Don't Understand Conservative. But Conservatives understand Liberals.

"Jonathan Haidt and his colleagues… sought to discover how well conservative and what Haidt terms ‘liberal’ (i.e., progressive) students understood one another by having them answer moral questions as they thought their political opponents would answer them. “The results were clear and consistent,” remarks Haidt. “In all analyses, conservatives were more accurate than liberals.” Asked to think the way a liberal thinks, conservatives answered moral questions just as the liberal would answer them, but liberal students were unable to do the reverse… Haidt and his colleagues found that progressives don’t understand conservatives the way conservatives understand progressives... and it goes a long way in explaining the different ways each side deals with opinions unlike their own. People get angry at what they don’t understand, and an all-progressive education ensures that they don’t understand.

- Jonathan David Haidt (/haɪt/; born October 19, 1963) is an American social psychologist and Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University's Stern School of Business.[1] His academic specialization is the psychology of morality and the moral emotions.

Reacting To Our Own Constructions

".... the modern and postmodern self largely lives in a world of its own construction, and it reacts for or against its own human-made ideas. While calling ourselves intelligent, we’ve lost touch with the natural world and, as a result, lost touch with our own souls. I believe we can’t access our full intelligence and wisdom without some real connection to nature!"

~ Richard Rohr 

Clinging To The Past Blocks Participation

"People who cling to the past and resist change have a hard time participating in God’s and their own future."

~ Richard Rohr 

Subservient And Incapable Of Discretion

"The fact is that censorship always defeats its own purpose, for it creates, in the end, the kind of society that is incapable of exercising real discretion. In the long run it will create a generation incapable of appreciating the difference between independence of thought and subservience."

Henry Steele Cammager. Helped define modern Liberalsim in North America. 

He Knew The Frustration and Irritation

We thank you that Jesus took our human body upon him, so that we can never again dare to despise or neglect or misuse the body, since you made it your dwelling-place. 

We thank you that Jesus did a day's work like any working man, that he knew the problem of living together in the family, that he knew the frustration and irritation of serving the public, that he had to earn a living, and to face all the wearing routine of everyday work and life and living, and so clothed each common task with glory. 

We thank you that he shared in all happy social occasions, that he was at home at weddings and at dinners and at festivals in the homes of simple ordinary people like ourselves. Grant that we may ever remember that in his unseen risen presence he is a guest in every home. 

We thank you that he knew what friendship means, that he had his own circle of men whom he wanted he wanted to be with him, that he knew too what it means to be let down, to suffer from disloyalty and from the failure of love. 

We thank you that he too had to bear unfair criticism, prejudiced opposition, malicious and deliberate misunderstanding. 

We thank you that whatever happens to us he has been there before, and that, because he himself has gone through things, he is able to help those who are going through them. 

Help us never to forget that he knows life, because he lived life, and that he is with us at all times to enable us to to live victoriously. This we ask for your love's sake. Amen
~ William Barclay. Prayers for the Christian year

Come Still Your Hunger

"The church is not an institution forcing us to follow its rules. It is a community of people inviting us to still our hunger and thirst at it's tables."

~ Henri Nouwen Reaching Out

Too Powerful For War

"I was driven by the realization that we can no longer afford conflict - certainly not on the scale of the world conflagrations of the twentieth century. Our technologies of destruction have become too powerful. The potential consequences of war are literally apocalyptic."

~ Jordan Peterson. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote To Chaos

When Church is Quite Unbearable

“Quite unbearable.”

Written in Bonhoeffer’s diary entry in 1939 in New York where he attended church at Riverside, the church Rockefeller had built for Harry Emerson Fosdick. Fosdick was a great liberal.

"The whole thing was a respectable, self-indulgent, self-satisfied religious celebration. This sort of idolatrous religion stirs up the flesh which is accustomed to being kept in check by the Word of God. Such sermons make for libertinism, egotism, indifference. Do people not know that one can get on as well, even better, without “religion”?.....Perhaps the Anglo-Saxons are really more religious than we are, but they are certainly not more Christian, at least, if they still have sermons like that. I have no doubt at all that one day the storm will blow with full force on this religious hand-out, if God himself is still anywhere on the scene.

~Eric Metaxas. Bonhoeffer:Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy

God- Be In My Head

Written in the 13th century in Sarum England.

God be in my head, and in my understanding;
God be in my eyes, and in my looking;
God be in my mouth, and in my speaking;
God be in my heart, and in my thinking;
God be at my end, and at my departing."
~ Sarum Primer

Missing Little - But Losing much

"If you miss me, you miss little.
If you miss our church, you miss much.
If you miss our Christ, you miss everything."

----on  the back of pastor's calling card. Dr. Gary L. Hearon, Antioch Baptist Church, Waynesville, NC

Lord Where There Is Hatred May I Bring Love

Lord make me a channel of thy peace,
that where there is hatred I may bring love;
that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;
that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;
that where there is error, I may bring truth;
that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;
that where there is despair, I may bring hope;
that where there are shadows, I may bring light;
that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.
Lord, grant
that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;
to understand than to be understood;
to love than to be loved;
for it is by forgetting self that one finds;
it is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.
~ Malcom Muggeridge. "Something Beautiful In God"

Dropping Baggage

"As you spiritually mature, you can forgive your own—and others’—mistakes. You can let go of everyone who hurt you, your former spouse, the boss who fired you, the church, or even God. You have no interest in carrying around negative baggage."

~Richard Rohr

What Bad Religion Desires

"Bad religion has always favored escape, passivity, irresponsibility."

 Louis Evely. In The Christian Spirit

To Busy To Hear Anything

  How are we to know, or find out what the Will of God is?...... The difficulty comes when there is a conflict of loyalties, or a choice between two apparent gods. At such points many feel unaware of any guidance, unable to discern or understand the signals of God; not because the signals are not given, but because the mind is too troubled, clouded and hurried to receive them.  

“He who is in a hurry,” said St.Vincent de Paul,  “delays the things of God.”  

~ Evelyn Underhill. The Spiritual Life

Robbed Faith

Poor Little-faith! Hast been among the thieves?

Wast robb’d? Remember this, whoso believes,

And gets more faith, shall then a victor be

Over ten thousand, else scarce over three.

Christian, in Pilgrims Progress

The Soul Her Sacred Page

"One Holy Church of God appears
Through every age and race,
Unwasted by the lapse of years,
Unchanged by changing place.
......

The truth is, her prophetic gift,
The soul her sacred page....

....
With bread of life earth's hunger feed;
Redeem the evil time!

----------

~ Samuel Longfellow. Hymn: One Holy Church of God Appears

Commune With Or Exploit

"The future can exist only when we understand the universe as composed of subjects to be communed with, not as objects to be exploited."

—Thomas Berry

You Are Part Of A Universe Story

"The . . . universe is not simply a place but a story—a story in which we are immersed, to which we belong, and out of which we arose."

(Journey of the Universe, philosopher Brian Swimme and historian Mary Evelyn)

A life of Requirements, or Relationship?

Theologian Marcus Borg (1942-2015) wrote:

The gospel of Jesus—the good news of Jesus’ own message—is that there is a way of being that moves beyond both secular and religious conventional wisdom. The path of transformation of which Jesus spoke leads from a life of requirements and measuring up (whether to culture or to God) to a life of relationship with God. It leads from a life of anxiety to a life of peace and trust. It leads from the bondage of self-preoccupation to the freedom of self-forgetfulness. It leads from life centered in culture to life centered in God.

Current Wisdom Killed Jesus

""Bad” people didn’t kill Jesus; conventional wisdom crucified him."

~ Richard Rohr

I Get Too Much Praise

"Luke’s Gospel presents the same message in the opposite form: “Alas for you when the world speaks well of you! This was the way their ancestors treated the false prophets” (Luke 6:26). Too much praise is probably an indication that it is not the full Gospel. In either case, Jesus himself clearly knew that his teaching would turn conventional values on their head."

~ Richard Rohr