Thursday, January 12, 2006

 

Chrismation and Desecration

From a Wall Street Journal article (January 5, 2006) by June Kronholz:
Insisting that God "certainly needs to be involved" in the Supreme Court confirmation process, three Christian ministers today blessed the doors of the hearing room where Senate Judiciary Committee members will begin considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito on Monday.

Capitol Hill police barred them from entering the room to continue what they called a consecration service. But in a bit of one-upsmanship, the three announced that they had let themselves in a day earlier, touching holy oil to the seats where Judge Alito, the senators, witnesses, Senate staffers and the press will sit, and praying for each of the 13 committee members by name.

"We did adequately apply oil to all the seats," said the Rev. Rob Schenck, who identified himself as an evangelical Christian and as president of the National Clergy Council in Washington.
The other two wacko clergy were Patrick Mahoney and Grace Nwachukwu.

Holy oil is usually applied to the head, not to the rear end. This bizarre incident got me wondering if there are scriptural examples of anointing objects rather than people. The article on anointing by A.R.S. Kennedy in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible gives the following examples:Some claim that the Hebrew translated by "sweet calamus" (qaneh bosem) at Exodus 30.23 really means cannabis, which would thus be an ingredient of the holy anointing oil. I doubt it, but I wonder what the Three Stooge Ministers were smoking. They seem to have forgotten another passage from Scripture (John 18.36), uttered by the founder of their religion:
My kingdom is not of this world.



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