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just recently I saw an ad for Hyundai
which relies strangely enough on
people's religious devotion to soccer
the ad opens up and you see a group of
people coming very reverently into
church they have a little soccer ball in
a kind of monstrance people are in
sensing it with a sensor shape like a
soccer ball but as they're walking in
what you can hear are the people singing
the Latin Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata
Mundi Lamb of God who takes away the
sins of the world so it's taken right
from the Roman liturgy then we
flash-forward to a scene where a man
kneels down in the attitude of a
communicant he opens his mouth but
instead of the host he receives a slice
of pizza I also saw something coming up
from Comedy Central evidently is going
to be a show about Jesus as a regular
guy who escapes from his oppressive
father to live in New York now I will
comment today anyway about the obvious
double standard that obtains in regard
to mocking Christianity and say Islam
but I'd like to draw attention to this
perhaps quaint sounding idea of
blasphemy what is blasphemy well that's
may is an attack on God or the things
associated with God
usually a verbal attack or a written
attack it's from the Greek word that
means to injure and so it's seen as kind
of you know injuring God but Thomas
Aquinas specifies something because you
don't mind you up until recent years
there were anti-blasphemy laws in most
states in our country and in the Middle
Ages Aquinas said that blasphemy is a
worse sin than murder
because murder attacks a creature but
blasphemy attacks the Creator but again
Thomas says that blasphemy is an act of
injustice why because we owe God thanks
and praise because God has given us our
very existence so above all we owe to
God thanks and praise blasphemy
undermines that it attacks God and
therefore it's an act of great injustice
but here's what I want you to see
and Thomas helps us here it's not as
though God is injured by the act of
blasphemy
God can't be injured God can't be
affected negatively by his creatures God
isn't rendered less than God he's not
insulted in a kind of emotional way
rather precisely as an act of injustice
blasphemy hurts us here's why we Oh God
highest thanks and praise in that act of
thanking God we rightly order ourselves
in making God the highest priority
the rest of our interests and
preoccupations fall into right of
ranking into right order an image I've
used a lot over the years is the Rose
window in the Gothic churches because it
illustrates this point in the center of
the Rose which is a great circle is a
depiction of Christ there's the divine
and then around that Center in these
ordered harmonies or all the other
pictures and they're all connected by
spokes the idea is they represent your
mind you will your passions your body
your public life your private life all
of you if Christ is the center of your
life the rest falls into harmony around
it okay what's blasphemy blasphemy is an
attack on the center it's a kind of
denigration of the center in active
injustice which leads therefore to the
falling apart of the individual more to
it as a society we are meant to honor
God when we don't when we denigrate God
then we as a society fall apart we as a
community disintegrate right that's why
I think they properly saw years ago
there was a kind of social implication
for blasphemy it was bad for the society
we see it now is just a kind of a point
of fun I'm being you know dangerously
irreverent I wonder are you attention
with that word reverence in mind to one
my great heroes Bob Dylan Dylan recently
issued a Christmas album it was kind of
controversial but why is Bob Dylan
issuing a Christmas album but when you
listen to it what strikes you is how
traditional it is Bob Dylan sings many
of the traditional religious hymns about
Christmas I just read an interview where
this guy said to him you know what
struck me was how how reverent your
readings are you know that you were
trying to be a countercultural or Dylan
said to him well oh why not
I mean they're their Christmas songs and
isn't there enough irreverence in the
world and what really struck me about
that was Bob Dylan all through his
career has seen the relationship between
giving highest honor to God and the
establishment of social justice he sees
as the biblical authors do the tight
relationship between those two things
okay I don't think for a second we
should bring back anti-blasphemy laws
I'm not concerned about that but I do
think we should look with careful
attention to this issue and perhaps
attend to to Bob Dylan someone who knows
a thing or two about relating honoring
God to the establishment of justice and
society
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