Video Meliora, proboque; Deteriora sequor

Andrew Greeley in The Jesus Myth:

We can see that many of the religious ideas and movements in Jesus' time have their counterpart in our own day. The Sadducees, the corrupt, politically minded heirs of the ancient church, were an Establishment. The Pharisees were liberal reformers filled with self-righteousness and zeal.
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Even the "situationalists" or the "contextualists" end up almost necessarily with some new form of systematic morality, though usually one which takes a more benign view of sexual aberrations than the older systems-- a view which is in its turn often rooted in a simpleminded misunderstanding of psychoanalysis...[The Beatitudes have] little to do with the sloppy sentimentality of those contextualists who are bent on justifying premarital sex at any cost.

Interesting comments in view of the Episcopalian mess...