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Entry: Patriots, Not Haters Link: http://www.takimag.com/site/article/real_patriots_dont_hate#9740 Post contents: Now to the question, With whom is charity to begin? I certainly have sympathy with Boyd Cathey’s view of charity beginning at home, if not agreement. I have as much said so myself in my calling my country Piedmont NC, extending outward with circles of slightly less affection until I reach the border of Dixie. The New Testament is also an authoritative Catholic Church document. It has some teachings which are, for me, “hard sayings”. With Whom (upper case) charity is to begin first is stated bluntly in the logon found in Luke 14: 26-27. The second place where charity is to begin, or to continue, is discussed in the parable found in Luke 10: 29-37. To rip Bible verses out of context, so beloved by Reformational and Counter-Reformational polemics, is to do them violence. To capture the context and the co-text, I recommend to readers consequently to read the entire “Greater Lucan Insertion” of Luke 9:51-19:46, our Lord’s journey to the holy city, almost half of the gospel, almost all the pericopes found only in Luke. Contrast the logon cited to its other version, Matthew 10:37-39, where the logon is softened a bit. Luke-Acts (it is one work) has Luke’s “Replacement Theme”, i.e., Christianity replacing gradually Judaism, set in the form of a journey, beginning in a very Jewish setting in Luke 1, and ending at the very end of Acts in Rome (interesting place to end, eh?). Matthew has a “Fulfillment Theme”, Christianity fulfills the Jewish faith. (John, it seems to me, has a “Transformation Theme”, with Judaism as a proto-Christianity that our Lord transforms. Mark has more urgent issues than these particular themes, he writing to a church under fire). With this context and co-text recovered, I still find the logon and the parable disturbing. The logon surely shocked the original audience, in a culture with so much emphasis on family and tribe. To recover how the original audience heard the parable, just replace “The Good Samaritan” with someone you utter despise, as Our Lord's Jewish audience did the Samaritans. For some sad souls who writeback it would be “The Good Negro” who finds a Klansman beat up on the side of the Road. For some, it is “The Good Catholic” who finds an Orangeman (or vice versa). For many, it’s “The Good Neocon”. For me, I suppose it would be the “Good Gestapo Agent”. Seen this way, the parable, disturbing enough, demands a certain kind of obedience against our inclination, as does the logon. Yet not to find the Gospel disturbing is not to recognize one's need for Grace. This obedience to the Gospel's demands and the cost of discipleship, however difficult, ought be good enough for us. This life is indeed the time not of comfortable ideas, "warm fuzzies", or entertainment, but of cross-bearing. Mr Purcell himself has a broad definition of where charity is to begin. Behind him is a tradition. Sent at: 2008 11 22