Friday Funnies Contest: What's wrong with this statement?

David Brooks
Noted Bible Scholar

In his op-ed for The New York Times yesterday, David "Know Your Bible" Brooks attempts to invoke Messianic sanction for his argument:

In Corinthians, Jesus tells the crowds, “Not many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

Okay, folks. Have at it. Brooks makes two (possibly three) glaring errors in introducing the biblical quote.

Can you spot them?

H/T to Sarah Pulliam Bailey via Twitter.

UPDATE: A revised edition of Brooks's column has now been posted, correcting one of the errors but keeping the other two in place.

In Corinthians, Paul tells the crowds, “Not many of you were wise by worldly standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”

This is so bad in so many ways

From time to time, some liberal "journalist," blinded by an emotional attachment to an ethereal ideology of egalitarian utopianism, comes out with a piece so stupefyingly insulting to the intelligence of the average third grader that a substantive rebuttal is unnecessary. A case in point is this stream of consciousness post by Brent Budowsky on The Hill's Pundits Blog. Lay aside, for the moment, your political biases and persuasions and try to read this drivel objectively without coming away with the impression that Mr. Budowsky is a self-loathing misandrist.

In my latest column, Supreme Court on trial, I initiated a new discussion about how five conservative men on the Supreme Court have joined partisan Republicans in the war against laws and programs that serve women. In June we will remember the anniversary of the infamous 5-4 Supreme Court decision discrimination defeating women opposing against Wal-mart, when the five men joined fellow Republicans against efforts to win pay equity for women and end discrimination against women. It will not help Republicans to put South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who is highly unpopular at home, on the presidential ticket with “war against women” politicians such as Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, John Boehner and Ron Paul.

Actions have consequences. Policies have impact. Court rulings have results. The Supreme Court conservatives have joined and at times led the war against women on a range of issues, especially in decisions that hurt women and support those who discriminate against women in hiring, promotion and pay. The Wal-mart decision was a disgrace. Republican opposition to equal pay for women is a disgrace. The vulture capitalism of Mitt Romney is a disgrace. The Ayn Rand-like reactionary budgeting of Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan (R) is a dagger in the hearts of programs that serve women. The Austrian economics of Ron Paul is from the wrong century and the wrong continent, and profoundly hurts women.

If the Supreme Court throws out the healthcare law as unconstitutional it will foment a powerful political backlash and escalate the judicial front in the war against women.

The Supreme Court is indeed on trial with the American people and the high court of history.

The five men on the Supreme Court who promote these wars against women decisions and join with war against women Republicans should step back, uphold the law and begin acting with judicial impartiality. They should stop acting like partisan Republicans and extreme ideologues with an agenda that dishonors the law, and does grave damage and injustice to the women of America.

For what it's worth, Mr. Budowsky's "latest column," which he hawks at the beginning of the article, is even worse. Oh, and in case you're wondering, I can't figure out what "decision discrimination defeating women opposing against Wal-mart" means, either.

UPDATE: Twitchy has a roundup of some of the more hilarious micro-critiques of Budowsky dotting the Twitter landscape.

More good news: Olbermann canned by Current TV

Television is once again an Olbermann-free zone! The vile liberal commentator has been canned by Current TV.

Current TV said Friday afternoon that it had terminated its relationship with its lead anchor Keith Olbermann, scarcely one year after he was hired to reboot the channel in his progressive political image.

In a letter to viewers, the channel said Friday, “We created Current to give voice to those Americans who refuse to rely on corporate-controlled media and are seeking an authentic progressive outlet. We are more committed to those goals today than ever before. Current was also founded on the values of respect, openness, collegiality, and loyalty to our viewers. Unfortunately these values are no longer reflected in our relationship with Keith Olbermann and we have ended it.”

Mr. Olbermann will not be given an opportunity to sign off. Starting Friday night, the former New York governor Eliot Spitzer will replace him at 8 p.m., according to the letter to viewers. His program will be titled “Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer.”

The decision to dismiss Mr. Olbermann was unanimous among the senior managers of Current, according to a person familiar with the matter.

It came after months of infighting between the famously temperamental Mr. Olbermann and his bosses at Current, including David Bohrman, the channel’s president, and Joel Hyatt, its chief executive. The fighting spilled out into public view last January after Mr. Olbermann declined Current’s requests to host special hours of election coverage, apparently out of frustration about technical difficulties that had plagued his 8 p.m. program, “Countdown.”

Who you gonna believe -- the leftist media or your own lying eyes?

Despite what logic may be lead you to conclude by mere appearances, Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at Oklahoma Christian University, who recently testified at the House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on religious liberty, is obviously not a woman.

Since when did the media become concerned about anti-Catholic bigotry?

This is rich. The liberal media, which have derided and besmirched the Roman Catholic Church for opposing abortion and gay marriage, mishandling the discipline of pedophile priests, and refusing to ordain women, are suddenly concerned about the "anti-Catholic views" of a church attended by a Republican presidential candidate.

Taking a page from President Obama’s political playbook, Michele Bachmann has formally left a church in Minnesota accused of holding anti-Catholic views.

According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.

Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.

Earlier this week, the Atlantic reported that that the synod’s website contains a statement that equates the pope with the antichrist. The writer, Joshua Green, also spoke with Hochmuth, who explained the statement thusly:

"Some people have this vision of a little devil running around with horns and red pointy ears. (Martin) Luther was clear that by 'antichrist' [he meant] anybody who puts himself up in place of Christ. Luther never bought the idea of the Pope being God's voice in today's world. He believed Scripture is God's word."

The matter has been tailing Bachmann for much of her political career. She was asked about the church’s statement in 2006, when she was running for Congress.

“It's abhorrent, it's religious bigotry,” Bachmann said then. “I love Catholics, I'm a Christian, and my church does not believe that the pope is the antichrist, that's absolutely false.”

Green asked Bill Donahue, the fiery president of the Catholic League, about the synod’s assertion. "Clearly, that is anti-Catholic," he said.

Obama left his church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, in May 2008 after incendiary sermons by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright surfaced in the heat of his bitter presidential fight with then-Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Anyone familiar with the history of the Reformation knows that confessional Lutheranism, the kind still practiced in the conservative Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS) and Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) with which the Salem church is affiliated, has little or no use for the Roman papacy. The media in America, however, appear to have become aware of this only recently. Mollie Hemingway at GetReligion attempts to set the record straight.

Apparently the media think that Catholics are both ignorant of the Reformation and also very fragile and easily offended. So let me break this “news” from the 16th century. You may want to sit down. OK, here’s the deal: There was something called the Lutheran Reformation. A man named Dr. Martin Luther joined with various other Reformers in protesting the abuses of a man named Pope Leo X. It’s true, it really happened. And the Catholic Church said that anyone who believed in justification by faith in Christ alone was to be anathema. And that is a very not nice word. And the reformers said that the papacy was the anti-Christ talked about in Scripture.

I know this must be very difficult to hear. I’m sorry I had to be the one to tell you. Please, Catholics and Lutherans, put down your arms and go back to peaceful coexistence in Wisconsin and Minnesota. Have a hot dish meal. It will be all right.

Moreover, the sensationalism built up around the term "antichrist" has further clouded the media's understanding of the centuries-long theological dispute between Catholics and Lutherans. Thank you, Hal Lindsey, John Hagee,and Tim LaHaye for stirring that pot. The Salem church's statement, cited above, clarifies the matter rather well.

Some people have this vision of a little devil running around with horns and red pointy ears. (Martin) Luther was clear that by 'antichrist' [he meant] anybody who puts himself up in place of Christ. Luther never bought the idea of the Pope being God's voice in today's world. He believed Scripture is God's word.

So, too, does this essay by Sarah Morice-Brubaker.

What we have here is a theological dispute over whether the office of the papacy can, by God’s grace, participate in the mediation and redemption ultimately performed by Christ (the Catholic view); or whether such an office can only ever set itself up as a fradulent rival to the mediation performed by Christ (the WELS view). I mean, I actually think that’s an interesting theological dispute; but this is not necessarily the kind of action movie antichrist envisioned by those who expect a physical rapture, a period of tribulation, and an epic cosmic battle between Jesus and a slick-talking demonic United Nations official (not necessarily in that order).

In other words, the term "antichrist," as used by Martin Luther and his spiritual heirs, is a far more benign term than the "antichrist" of pop culture American evangelicalism. The former is a biblical term for false teachers and schismatics who undermine the church's witness (1 John 2:18ff). The latter is a clever invention of Christian fiction with no real basis in Scripture. The dispute between Lutherans and Catholics centers over the interpretation of the biblical term, not the fictional character of popular lore. While, over the years, the discussions may have become a little more cordial, the dispute is no less real. The media, however, are not interested in serious matters of theology or biblical interpretation. They are only interested in further dividing Christians against Christians in order to further solidify the position of their own faux Messiah, whose chances for re-election next year are appearing more and more grim.

Media fantasy of the week (again!): The "ordination" of female "priests" in the "Catholic" Church

The Roman Catholic Church does not ordain women to the priesthood. Never has, never will. Anyone who thinks otherwise is living in the same fantasy world as Dawn Reiss, the author of this pathetic piece from TIME/CNN. To point out the theological, ecclesiastical, and factual errors in her story would require a library larger than that of ancient Alexandria. It should be obvious to anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of church doctrine, polity, and practice that Reiss's purpose is not to report news but to advocate an agenda or, more accurately, indulge in a fantasy while thinking she is advocating an agenda.

Alta Jacko is the mother of eight children. She is also an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church. Jacko, 81, who earned her master's degree in pastoral studies from Loyola University, a Jesuit Catholic school, says being a priest is what she was called to do.
Officially, of course, the Catholic Church's Canon Law 1024 says that only baptized men can receive holy orders. But there is a movement against the no-women rule; it began eight years ago when a cluster of renegade male clerics (including a European bishop whose identity the female priests won't reveal in order not to risk his excommunication) ordained the first women. Now, in Jacko's hometown of Chicago, three women have entered the priesthood.

It should go without saying that Alta Jacko is not now, never has been, and never will be "an ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church." The "movement against the no-women rule" is about as significant as Harold Stassen's presidential ambitions. Suffice it to say that a "bishop," European or otherwise, whose name cannot be revealed for fear of excommunication would barely have the authority to ordain men, much less women.

Priceless: TODAY show anchor flubs commencement address . . . BIG TIME!

Will someone please help me up off the floor? I've fallen down laughing and cannot get up.

Peppering in the names of distinguished alumni is an easy way to boost commencement speech. But TODAY show news anchor Ann Curry learned the hard way that the names have to be from the right schools.

Curry delivered Saturday’s speech to graduates at Wheaton College in Massachusetts, referencing the esteemed careers of a trio of alumni — reverend Billy Graham, film director Wes Craven and politician Dennis Hastert.

As the AP reports, the only problem was that each of those distinguished graduates went to another Wheaton College — in Illinois.

Graham, Hastert and Craven would have had great difficulty earning the East Coast education. Up until 1988, Wheaton (Mass.) was an all-girls institution.

Curry quickly copped to her mistake, releasing a statement on the university website: “I am mortified by my mistake, and can only hope the purity of my motive, to find a way to connect with the graduates and to encourage them to a life of service, will allow you to forgive me.”