Sunday, November 27, 2022



Worshippers left 'in tears' as Cambridge dean claims Jesus was TRANSGENDER after row over Christ's wound having a 'vaginal appearance'

A work of art is no authority on truth. Nobody knows what Christ's wound looked like. But the C of E is not Christian anyway. They are the Devil's mockery of Christianity. The Bible tells us that homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord but the C of E even has homosexual bishops. Their actual religion is Leftism, not redemption. We can expect nothing Holy from them

Church worshippers cried 'heresy' at the Dean of Trinity College as they left a sermon claiming Jesus may have been transgender 'in tears'.

But the view of a transgender Jesus is 'legitimate', according to Dr Michael Banner, the Dean who stepped in to defend the claim made at a Sermon last Sunday that Christ had a 'trans body'.

Dr Michael Banner, the Dean of Trinity College, was backing up junior research fellow Joshua Heath, who displayed Renaissance and Medieval paintings of the crucifixion depicting a side wound that he likened to a vagina in front of the congregation.

The side wound 'takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance', said Heath, whose PhD was supervised by the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

'In Christ's simultaneously masculine and feminine body in these works, if the body of Christ as these works suggest the body of all bodies, then his body is also the trans body,' claimed the researcher.

Heath used the 1400th-century painting Pietà with the Holy Trinity by Jean Malouel, on display in the Louvre, to illustrate his point, according to The Daily Telegraph.

French artist Henri Maccheroni’s 1990 work 'Christs' also appeared during the sermon, as did the Prayer Book of Bonne of Luxembourg.

In a letter to the Dean, one worshipper said: 'I left the service in tears. You offered to speak with me afterwards, but I was too distressed. I am contemptuous of the idea that by cutting a hole in a man, through which he can be penetrated, he can become a woman.

'I am especially contemptuous of such imagery when it is applied to our Lord, from the pulpit, at Evensong. I am contemptuous of the notion that we should be invited to contemplate the martyrdom of a ‘trans Christ’, a new heresy for our age.'

Others said they felt unwelcome in the church, adding that the children attending were visibly uncomfortable.

But Banner wrote a letter defending the sermon, seen by The Telegraph, saying: 'For myself, I think that speculation was legitimate, whether or not you or I or anyone else disagrees with the interpretation, says something else about that artistic tradition, or resists its application to contemporary questions around transsexualism.'

He said however that he would not issue an invitation to someone who he thought would deliberately seek to shock or offend the congregation, or who he anticipated would speak against the Christian faith.

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NZ has more in common with Orwell than Magna Carta

By OLIVER HARTWICH

Two new bills take the integration of Māori custom into the NZ legal system to a new level; one that negates equality before the law.

There was a time, not so long ago, when countries in the common law tradition had comparable legal systems. Yes, there had always been differences between, say, the law of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Still, their basic approaches to legal matters were similar.

New Zealand was also a member of this family of common law jurisdictions. In one respect, that is by not having a written constitution, New Zealand was actually quite like Britain, the historic source of the common law.

But times are changing, and in few places are they changing as rapidly as in New Zealand. Something radically different is emerging in New Zealand’s legal system. It may still be rooted in the common law, but it is increasingly incorporating traditional Māori concepts.

This is a recent development, albeit one with a long prehistory. For one and a half centuries, New Zealand law and Māori custom (tikanga) have sat side by side. But their interactions were limited, and the only laws enforceable were those laws passed by Parliament and made by judges. State-made law was dominant over tribal rules.

Over the past few decades, Australia and New Zealand have witnessed the gradual recognition of customary title. In Australia, the landmark case was Mabo. In New Zealand, the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal was the primary step to consider historic grievances over breach of the 1840 Treaty.

At least in principle, recognition of customary title is reconcilable with the common law. Indeed, the New Zealand Foreshore and Seabed Act 2004 was passed as a statutory codification of the common law tests for establishing communal property rights not extinguished by statute or adverse possession.

However, two Bills proposed by the New Zealand Government to replace the Resource Management Act go much further than that. More than any other legislation before, the Natural and Built Environments Bill (NBE) and the Spatial Planning Bill embody what are presented as Māori legal concepts. Whether these really give enough certainty to justify treatment as legal concepts is now a vital matter for New Zealanders.

Right at the start of the NBE, the Bill states the following goal: “The recognition of, and making provision for, the relationship of iwi and hapū and the exercise of their kawa, tikanga (including kaitiakitanga), and mātauranga in relation to their ancestral lands, water, sites, wāhi tapu, wāhi tūpuna, and other taonga.”

All these words and terms probably need to be translated for an Australian audience. Tikanga, for example, is the body of Māori custom. Kaitiakitanga is the Māori concept of looking after the environment. Mātauranga Māori is the body of Māori knowledge, which includes both factual knowledge and mythology.

That latter part makes mātauranga Māori a fuzzy source of legal principles. Judges familiar with Māori culture may purport to distil the legal significance of such terms. However, tribal elders and some experts emphasise they differ in meaning for each iwi. Meanwhile, other experts, including the only Māori judge on the Supreme Court, assert that it is not for the courts to declare tikanga or to change it. It is only for them to ascertain if from its tribal custodians.

The draft NBE legislation purports to define some of the terms, but always with a degree of circularity.

Thus, for example, “kaitiakitanga means the exercise of guardianship by the tangata whenua of an area in accordance with tikanga Māori in relation to natural and physical resources.” The problem is that there is no readily accessible standard meaning of precision in any of the Māori terms in that “definition”.

These terms are not just legal or political puffery. They present as core elements of the Bill. Tikanga is mentioned 31 times throughout. Mātauranga Māori comes up 26 times. Kaitiakitanga can be found in seven places. They all beat “property right”, which only features three times.

The Bill also states that Māori customary law applies to “all persons exercising powers and performing functions and duties” under the Act. This is besides their role of “giving effect” to the principles of The Treaty of Waitangi.

The role of Māori concepts within resource management will be pervasive. The same applies to the legal standing of Māori tribes (iwi), who feature not fewer than 153 times in the Bill.

This Bill takes the integration of purported Māori custom into the New Zealand legal system to a new level. It prominently enshrines various Māori concepts as sources of law which may not be properly known even to most New Zealand lawyers, let alone lawyers in other common law jurisdictions.

We may thus see the emergence of a new legal system in New Zealand – and perhaps a new system of government, too. The new system seems unlikely to be compatible with key elements of the rule of law, as generally understood. Its roots may remain in the common law, in its adherence to forms and procedures.

But New Zealand’s new system expressly negates equality before the law. It does so by selectively granting rights on public and private property use. Under the Bill, Māori will have some exclusive powers to decide on how resources are used to change the environment. Mind you, “environment” is defined widely to cover both cultural and economic matters, not just nature.

New Zealand is heading away from other great common law jurisdictions in the terminology and philosophy it applies. The NBE marks a radical withdrawal from the broader family of the common law.

Perhaps the proponents of this Bill are unaware of this possibility. They may also regard the embedding of indigenous customs into statute as part of the normal evolution of the law. The NBE is not the first piece of legislation to move in this direction.

But maybe the Bill’s supporters would not even be unhappy if a long-term outcome were to be New Zealand leaving the family of common law jurisdictions and defining its unique place in the legal world. That would be an act of decolonisation, a radical break with the past.

Whatever the motives of the legislators, the Bill warrants wider discussion. Yes, it is “just” a Bill about resource management (important as that is). But it is a dramatic step on a path towards a different legal system: one defined by tribal concepts – and by tribes apparently unconstrained by their non-Māori neighbours.

By its historic origins, going back to Magna Carta, the common law was a system that (sometimes imperfectly) tried putting everyone under the same law. Not even the king was above the law, and when he tried to ignore that principle, it could cost him his head.

What we are witnessing in New Zealand is the emergence of an altogether different system. It has more in common with George Orwell’s Animal Farm where “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Perhaps New Zealanders are happy to be heading there. Who knows? So far, at least, they have not been asked. It might be worth asking them.

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The traditional fairy tales are now too GRIM for children

In case readers have missed the pun: The heading above contains an allusion to the German Gebrüder Grimm, who authored a famous collection of folk tales

Many much-loved traditional fairy tales are inappropriate, outdated and too scary for young children, according to young Brits.

Forty-six per cent of Brits under 30 believe that traditional fairy tales, including Hansel and Gretel and Rumpelstiltskin, are inappropriate.

As many as 90 per cent of young people believe that the tales are old-fashioned, as 89 per cent of people surveyed said they perpetuate gender stereotypes.

Seventy seven per cent believe that the classic stories are sexist.

A quarter of parents said they wouldn't read 'offensive' tales to their young children at bedtime.

Hansel and Gretel, a story in which small children roast a witch to death in her own oven, was voted the most inappropriate, by 46 per cent of people asked.

Little Red Riding Hood was next on the naughty list, with 28 per cent saying the fable of the wolf in the woods was unacceptable.

Generation Z do not like Rumpelstiltskin either, as a quarter of people asked said it was inappropriate.

The Snow Queen, The Three Little Pigs and Beauty And The Beast are also under fire, according to the under-30s asked in a survey of 2,000 Brits.

However, some traditional stories remain popular. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White And The Seven Dwarves were the most popular nostalgic tales.

The Little Mermaid is also a fan favourite. Disney is launching a live-action remake featuring Halle Bailey as Ariel next year.

The live-action remake of The Little Mermaid will be released next year. The story, which remains one of Britain's favourite fairy tales, was made into an animated film (left) in 1989. The remake features Halle Bailey as Ariel

Many of the stories have been developed from the Brothers Grimm, who published folklore in the early 19th century and popularised many of the tales.

Nearly a third of Britons said they were shocked to discover some of the scarier elements in the original versions of the stories.

In Snow White And The Seven Dwarves, the evil Queen wants to eat Snow White's organs.

The nasty stepsisters in Cinderella mutilate themselves in some versions of the story to try and fit their feet into the small shoe that Prince Charming brings them.

Nearly 25 per cent of parents worried about their children being frightened by the fairy tales, and a quarter wouldn't read certain stories to their children before bed if they thought they were outdated or old-fashioned.

Despite their reservations, nearly half of young Brits are still happy to use the traditional tales to teach children about morals. A quarter say they have happy memories of being read the stories as children.

The figures come from a survey commissioned by Twinkly, a lighting brand that has created its own colourful lighting effects inspired by the popular children's stories.

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What is 'Stochastic Terrorism' and Why It Worries Free Speech Advocates

There’s a new bogeyman gaining traction in the world of left-wing academic and online discourse around current events, and it goes by the name “stochastic terrorism.”

Loosely defined, it is the notion that demonization or criticism of an individual or group in society on mass media and social media inevitably leads to acts of violence against that individual or group. The word stochastic, from the Greek stokhastikos — meaning to aim at or guess — refers to outcomes that may appear random but are actually probable, just not predictable.

Stochastic terrorism, in the discourse of today’s commentariat, is the end result of unchecked hate speech. Because the left believes hate speech only comes from one direction on the political spectrum — the right — then the purveyors of that speech must be called to account for the real-world violence that results from their opinions or commentary. “Free speech is killing us,” the New York Times declared in 2019.

The phrase first gained widespread usage in certain circles when an assistant secretary in President Obama’s Department of Homeland Security, Juliette Kayyem, now teaching at Harvard’s Kennedy School, used the phrase in reference to a mass shooting in 2019 at a Walmart at El Paso. Ahead of the attack, the white perpetrator had posted a racist, anti-immigrant screed on 8chan. Most of his victims were Latino.

In a piece in the Washington Post, Ms. Kayyem placed blame for the El Paso shooting at the feet of President Trump. Mr. Trump’s rhetorical winks and nods, his language about Hispanics and immigrants, and his failure to shame his fringiest supporters created an atmosphere in which attacks like El Paso, while not predictable, are probable, she claimed.

“Public speech that may incite violence, even without that specific intent, has been given a name: stochastic terrorism, for a pattern that can’t be predicted precisely but can be analyzed statistically,” Mr. Kayyem wrote. “It is the demonization of groups through mass media and other propaganda that can result in a violent act because listeners interpret it as promoting targeted violence — terrorism.”

More recently, the phrase has been trotted out to describe a shooting during a drag show at a gay nightclub at Colorado Springs last weekend, when five people were murdered. Voices on the left had been warning for weeks that something like it was going to happen and had already found a culprit for any violence — conservatives who have been campaigning against the hyper-sexualization of children in schools and the larger society.

In recent months, those conservatives have been railing against drag shows advertised as “family friendly.” Online activists have posted a steady stream of videos depicting children participating in such events, along with diatribes against “gender-affirming” medical care for confused adolescents and videos of public school teachers bragging about the myriad ways they attempt to persuade schoolchildren that gender is fluid and biological sex a fallacy. None of the videos are fake. They are merely broadcast to an audience that otherwise might not have seen them.

Writing in the Advocate, an LGBT magazine, Christopher Wiggins blamed these activists and their counterparts in conservative media for fomenting an atmosphere in which an attack like that at Colorado Springs was inevitable.

“Far-right influencers have set their sights on the LGBTQ+ community, specifically the transgender community and drag queens, to generate a divisive culture war issue in the run-up to the recent midterm election,” Mr. Wiggins wrote. “For months, experts have warned that the attacks targeting the LGBTQ+ community were not only bigoted but also dangerous.”

The attack, Mr. Wiggins continued, is prima facie evidence that the stochastic terrorism described by Ms. Kayyem is alive and well in America. There is, he said, a “direct correlation” between online criticism of radical gender theory and “angry and potentially violent extremists.” That the shooter’s lawyers said Tuesday he is “non-binary” and prefers “they/them” pronouns — the imprimatur of an enlightened progressive as opposed to a knuckle-dragging conservative — is apparently irrelevant.

The ultimate aim of these attempts to rebrand hate speech as terrorism is to silence the voices that the left finds offensive or disagreeable — mission creep for the speech police. Writing in Scientific American earlier this month, author Bryn Nelson of Seattle suggested that the key to combatting stochastic terrorism is “turning off the source of fuel.” Americans must, he said, strengthen and enforce laws against hate speech and incitement to violence.

There are those who believe, however, that the pendulum has already swung too far in favor of suppressing speech. Speaking to the Sun in March, one of America’s most esteemed judges, Laurence Silberman, who passed away on October 2, warned that the current climate surrounding the First Amendment is “worse than McCarthyism.” He called freedom of speech “the most fundamental American value” and repression of it “un-American.”

If the increasingly shrill voices on the left succeed in equating with terrorism criticism of drag queen story hours and medical intervention to prevent adolescents from going through puberty, then Silberman could turn out to have been, if anything, understating the danger to American values.

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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