Hattip to commenter Nate Winchester.
So here’s the thing: In my opposition to the ugly and evil policies of the Trump Administration and its conservative Christian supporters, my approach has been strongly influenced–ironically–not by “liberalism” as my critics always assume, but by conservatism, and particularly my respect for my Dad and what he endured fighting Nazis in World War II.
Mark Shea, May 4, 2019
Go here to read the rest. Leaving aside that it is a completely insane analogy, Shea and other Leftists would regard the vast majority of American troops who fought in World War II as being Nazis for the views they held on race, sex, homosexuality, nationalism, etc. Invoking the past to support political actions of today is always fraught with peril, but I doubt if Shea sees this, as history has never been his strong suit.
“Uh and how exactly are they the Nazis?”:
“Because I call them the Nazis!”
Just calling someone a racist, misogynist, hateful, unfair, homophobe or Nazi is all the evidence needed by the left today to make those names the truth. This house is now considered a car, a dog is a cat, a man is a woman, woman a man. What is unsaid by the left is that there is no absolute truth. My response is: Really? No absolute truth? Is that the truth? Absolutely?
Who needs recreational drugs? These idiots are already in la la land.
Mark Shea makes an easy foil that being the only value of his presence on earth.
The question I have is will history repeat itself because the efforts to revise history or distort history has become the norm.
The push for Socialism and the hatred for capitalism is a sign that the indoctrination centers across this land of the brave have been making progress.
The Michael Moore’s and Hollywood’s little pink darlings are helping to pave the way for a revisiting of brutal events.
Disrespect for police, the constitution and innocent until proven guilty (Judge Cavanaugh’s experience ) could be signals that history will repeat itself once more.
T. Shaw mentioned a while back to store up ammo.
I think it’s a piece of advice that should seriously be considered.
It calls to mind the exchange I had with him in the comments to this post:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/markshea/2019/05/mission-creep-2.html
SHEA: I’m speaking in the context of Facebook, not in the context of basic human rights. No internet provider owes Nazis a thing. No American owes them their time or energy in listening to them. And yes, I like isolated Nazis. I want more isolation for them, not less. Ostracism is good for them and even better for the rest of us. They’ve been pariahs since 1945 and I see no reason not to go on forcing them back into the shadows of shame and rejection. If they want to repent, I’m happy to welcome them back to polite society.
ME: All well and good….
Until society declares you to be the nazi.
SHEA: Yeah. That is definitely the real danger we face: https://www.theatlantic.com…
“The use of Fashions in thought is to distract the attention of men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is least in danger and fix its approval on the virtue nearest to that vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running about with fire extinguishers whenever there is a flood, and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gunwale under. Thus we make it fashionable to expose the dangers of enthusiasm at the very moment when they are all really becoming worldly and lukewarm; a century later, when we are really making them all Byronic and drunk with emotion, the fashionable outcry is directed against the dangers of mere ‘understanding.’ Cruel ages are put on their guard against Sentimentality, feckless and idle ones against Respectability, lecherous ones against Puritanism.”
C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Letter XXV
Thank you for yet again demonstrating the conservative genius for being 100% wrong about everything.
Even some of his defenders said he went to far in that one. He never seems to think about how this will bite him in the future.
“He never seems to think about how this will bite him in the future.”
Considering his capacity to reverse positions on a dime, it will sooner or later, unless his conversion to rabid Leftism is his last which I doubt. As for his quotation from CS Lewis, it is nice to comprehend a passage before citing it.
If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, I would never think anyone could be so foolish as to say ‘I’m sure they’ll only come for those evil people I despise … they’ll never come for me, I’m awesome.’ But my boys say that’s something they’ve noticed in college. The whole reason so many young people they hear support changing the Constitution or rewriting the Bill of Rights or getting rid of the burden of presumption of innocence is because, by their own account, they’re sure their awesomeness will prevent anything happening to them. You’d think such idiocy would be lost after the last century. Instead, it’s gaining steam.
On another front, I see Mark is praising Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa for saying she’s leaving her too-white Evangelicalism behind to search for God. She makes it clear the search may end up in a mosque, a temple, a synagogue, or anywhere.
“I’m still on this journey and have a list of other synagogues, temples, mosques, and parishes I’m going to visit before I decide if I belong at any of them. But at least for today I felt fed. I felt like I was with other people who were tapping into that same connection I feel to my Mr. Miyagy, and listening to what it was saying.”
But she’s done with evangelical Christianity in America that, according to her, is ‘too white.’
“[If] American Christianity is built for white people, then is it true Christianity at all?”
Mark praises her decision to be anywhere but with white Christians who aren’t liberal. And yet he continues to improve his station as a professional Catholic apologist.
“[If] American Christianity is built for white people, then is it true Christianity at all?”
If race is on your mind in a search for God, race is all you are searching for and race is all you will find. Lord save us from racist anti-racists!
and particularly my respect for my Dad and what he endured fighting Nazis in World War II.
His father was career military, first in the Army Air Corps (1940-45) and then in the Air Force (1950-65). Since he was discharged in June 1945, would wager he wasn’t in the Pacific theatre. At one point, he was stationed in California. His father’s rank in 1943 was ‘technical sergeant’. I gather technical sergeants did serve on bomber crews. Shea hasn’t been shy about complaining about drone strikes in the past. Hmmm…
The best thing to do is complain to every Catholic outlet that publishes Mark Shea’s writings. Ensure that every Catholic outlet is aware Shea is no more Catholic than a baboon howling in the grassland.
Yep. That what he teaches is false and completely against even the loosest definition of the Christian Faith (we won’t even discuss his behavior), and yet continues to improve his profile and get more opportunities from Catholic outlets suggests a problem somewhere in the system.
Poor Shea.
Seriously, there’s got to be something going on that he doesn’t have the basic self-examination to go, hm, who is actually charging along with the ‘spirit of the time’?
“If race is on your mind in a search for God, race is all you are searching for and race is all you will find.”
That’s what I thought. Beyond Mark cheering her decision to leave her Christian upbringing to find God anywhere no matter where as long as she comes closer to the political Left, it was her nakedly racist sentiment that caught my attention.
David, your veiled attack on the Church you abandoned is duly noted.
How on earth is Mark “improving his profile”? He has lost jobs (and platforms) since he has become so uncharitable in his public postings. He is no longer with the Register. He very seldom has a speaking engagement these days. If that is improvement, I’d sure hate to see the reverse.
ISTM that, in this particular regard, there’s not much wrong with “the system.”
Your continuing attempts to paint Mark Shea as the Face of Contemporary Catholicism come across as a rather strange form of kicking against the goad.
Ms Kamer, not sure what you’re talking about for folks abandoning the Church and attacking it, since nobody here signed as David (did something get deleted again?)
That said, Shea has a radio show, now.
https://radiomaria.us/catholicandenjoyingit/
He seems to have parted ways with Catholic Answers, which would explain fewer speaking engagements, but I have no idea how to even check.
He’s still recognized publicly as a ‘face of contemporary Catholicism’ for things like The Catholic Weekly of Australia. (blogger page: Mark Shea is an American author, blogger and all round Catholic savant whose writings have sometimes gotten him into trouble, but for all the right reasons. Er, alright, then….)