Sunday Smiles

David Strom 2:30 PM | April 07, 2024
David Strom

If you are a Catholic you are familiar with Divine Mercy Sunday, which falls on the second Sunday of Easter (today). 

Saint John Paul II emphasized its importance and ensured that it was made an especially prominent feast day. The technicalities don't matter if you aren't Catholic, but its import in the Catholic calendar is for anybody interested in understanding the core tenets of Christianity. 

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Divine Mercy Sunday reminds us that at the core of Christianity is the recognition of the inherently fallen nature of humanity. It combines the truth that to be human is to be flawed and that God loves us anyway. We are weak and flawed, but through God redemption is possible for anybody. God loves even the fallen. 

3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

11 “No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

Christianity does not teach a "let it all hang out" theology, as Left-Christians now claim. God does want us to live within a prescribed moral framework. The woman caught in an act of adultery was indeed sinning, violating God's law. 

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Jesus was teaching not that sin was acceptable but that men stoning her was an act of arrogance. 

"Go now and leave your life of sin" was Jesus' reaffirmation of God's law, just as his failure to condemn her was a recognition of the possibility of redemption. 

It is in this context that I saw this post by the inimitable Laura Loomer, who is not just crazy as a loon, but also a horrible person in need of her own redemption. 

The context was Michael Knowles, a strong Catholic, interviewing Nala Ray who has found God and given up her OnlyFans career. 

Jesus' message to Nala is surely: "You are welcome in God's house." Loomer's is the social version of stoning: exile." 

Some of the most devoted pro-life activists have themselves had abortions. Some of the most powerful evangelists have been horrible sinners who repented. Many Christian saints were among the worst people before conversion. 

Condeming evil and embracing forgiveness are not opposites; they are two sides of the same coin. Taking joy in evil acts--evangelizing for evil--requires condemnation not just because it violates God's law but also because it destroys the souls of those who commit these evils. Repenting doesn't only cleanse one's soul, but invites others to do so. 

The rejection of "gender-affirming care" by former practitioners--something happening often enough in Europe--is an occasion of joy. Finding God is always a good thing. Living in the truth is something we should always strive for--and invite others into. Repentence isn't just a personal rejection of evil--it is a public reaffirmation of goodness.

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Anger at sinners is not incompatible with a willingness to embrace them when they reject their sins. If Marci Bowers, the President of WPATH, awoke one day to realize that she has evangelized for evil and committed himself to opposing it I would shout it to the world. It would be hard to forgive him--we are fallen, after all, and weak in the flesh--but God would I believe call us to embrace the repentant. 

Loomer's reveling in hatred for a woman who has repented strikes me as, itself, an embrace of evil. If she is weak and cannot forgive I understand completely; that she calls on all of us to embrace that same weakness strikes me as reprehensible. 

Knowles is, in my judgment, completely right to embrace and platform this woman who is now inviting others into God's community. Grace ultimately comes from God, and we all need it. The Pharisees portrayed in John 8:3 were themselves being called into God's grace, and implicitly accepted it by turning their backs on doing evil. Recognizing your own sinfulness is a call for forgiveness. 

The ultimate sin is placing yourself above God and God's law. That is what Loomer is doing here. 

I am certain Ed could do much better in dealing with the theology here, so forgive me if I have fallen short. But you get the idea. 

On to the smiles. Feel free to slag my imperfect theology in the comments! 














































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