Your Knowledge is a Sin

Occidental scholarship is a fraud. It comes with its own knowledge, the way a guest comes to a potluck meal with his own communion bread. By definition, if you bring it, it is not the Eucharist—it is a McDonald’s Happy Meal. It feels good—like a cheap date—but after you are done, all that’s left are empty calories, with a portion of your proceeds donated to the military-industrial complex.  It does not matter what you know or where you studied. It does not matter what religion you are. Your titles, degrees, institutions, fields, backgrounds, religions, and affiliations are all useless and pointless. Harvard is not your reference. Shake them off, habibti, and recite Genesis 11:4 in Hebrew. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Still, you are not getting the point. Why? Because you “love God,” so you say, as long as he leaves some room on his throne (with all due respect) for you and your impressive body of human knowledge. No thanks, O “son of man,” says everything else that has breath “under the sun.” All that matters is what is found in the text—and guess what, anyone can find what is found, with no need whatsoever of your wide-ranging liberal arts, your think tanks (the imaginary ones, and the ones that come pre-loaded with projectiles), your humanities,  your thought leaders, your thought followers, your influencers, your systems of thought, your sophistries, your pundits, and your corrupt apologists. The so-called “gray area” of Western self-infatuation is a trap set by those foolish enough to seat themselves on the dread throne of the Judge, as though they have the authority, let alone the ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Alas, they do not, and they cannot. Thus, Paul condemns their sophistry to the dustbin of congressional hearings in 1 Corinthians. “Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?”Do not answer that question. Not even to yourself. As disciples, we have but one task. Not to answer human questions but to deal solely with what is written: the commandments of God and to do them. Those who supplant God—not only to examine  but to relish the supposed gray area—lapse into something far worse than self-righteousness:Inaction. In the end, they may do something, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with the artifacts found in the text. Their “doings” pertain to what they “bring” from their “body” of “human knowledge.” In other words, such fools sit themselves on their own throne, issuing their own commands according to their own preferences, ignoring what has been commanded by God in the text. I know, I know. This is the point in the homily where someone incapable of hearing will raise their hand on behalf of Descartes to ask, what do you mean by “what is found,” as if upon seeing five dollars on the sidewalk, they would not pick it up. The only thing worse than a liar is the one who lies to himself. For, indeed, the New York Times looks for excuses, and universities search for complexity, but we preach unvocalized consonants. To the New York Times, a stumbling block; and to academics foolishness, but to those who are called, Christ the power of God: Under a Bedouin tent. Christ the wisdom of God: A cup of Turkish coffee and sweets, far away from the stupidity of institutional cruelty and the insanity of human boasting. For, “as it is written, ‘LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN THE LORD.’” Richard and I discuss Luke 5:19-20. (Episode 514)

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