[The Urban Sombrero]

Jesus came to us after a 400 year long silence in which God did not speak to man. Not via the prophet and not at the personal level we see happening so often in the Old Testament.

Thus the orthodoxy had 400 years of treating God's Holy Word as if it were a "living document." As the result, something over 6,000 codicils, generated by men amended God's law by that point. In short, it was a mess and so was the state of affairs within the Church of that day.

Christ was rejected by the Church because He did not conform to the expectations of the religious leaders of the day. Partly because they misinterpreted Scripture, and party because they were more than comfortable in being the authority of God in the framework of the theocracy which was the nation Israel. Thus they said, "We will not have this man to rule over us."

The spotless reputation and the body of Christ was therefore pilloried by the Jews. And in just the same way men are doing it in our day, and in the ultimate twist of irony, man judged God and His motives in the person of Jesus, Who was and is The Savior and Judge of man. Now, if you want to equate God's elect (the saved) with what you're calling the hyper religious of Christ's days on this earth, I suppose you can get away with it. However, you would be wrong. And from your little speech, I take it your struggle is a lonely one being the only guy in the room who knows what he's talking about and all. But somehow I get the impression that you will soldier on against the odds anyway.

No, Justice Scalia had it right. Originalism is the only way to fly, as was evidenced by the Lord Himself when He came to earth and referred to the leaders of the Church as snakes and sons of their father, the devil. Those were the first men to dare to change the Word of God, with the word of man. I prefer the method which chooses to change not so much as one jot or one tittle.

I enjoyed your analysis until you conveyed the idea that the United States was conceived as a second sort of Israel.