Dallas Morning News stealth homophobia. Has Christopher Vinck, who glorifies self-repression of being Gay, tell us what the reason for the season is. DMN does it again.
Dallas Morning News needs to be viewed with extreme caution.
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Arrogant and Homophobic Christopher De Vinck in the Dallas Morning News.
Christopher De Vinck has the article, “The further we get from Bethlehem, the further we get from Christmas,” in the Dallas Morning News, (DMN), Dec. 9, 2023.
This is the link.
There is a presumption in Vinck’s article that we should all be celebrating the holidays for a Christian reason. From his article.
I look at the Christmas decorations this year and see again a clear movement away from the birth of Jesus nearly 2,000 years ago. I see a two story blow-up Christmas tree. Across town there are illuminated dinosaurs wearing Santa hats. The streets in December look more and more like Las Vegas.
What an arrogant assumption that these are necessarily Christian decorations and that we are all celebrating a Christian holiday season, rather than a holiday seaon or a religions season of our own choosing.
Then there is a little dismissive snobbery here also. The article has a lot of snobbery actually.
There is the unstated assumption that Christians set the standards of human behavior for the rest of us.
There is this statement:
But our red and green lights and illuminated Santa Clauses and blow-up snowmen do have an origin: the birth of a boy who grew up and offered to the world a different way of thinking about who we are and how we ought to treat one another.
A lot of people are just celebrating the holiday season, and as most people know Christmas trees pre-andate Christianity. Also, people can use elements for their own purposes. You can’t presume people are Christian or practicing Christianity just because they are putting lights on a tree. They might be doing it because it is pretty.
He talks out of both sides of his mouth and pushes a lot of fables. He also dragoons people into Christianity.
Whatever we believe concerning the divinity of that boy, something extraordinary happened a little over 2,000 years ago that changed the way we do everything in our lives today. All the evil in today’s world, all the lies, the greed, the invasions, the brutality, the hunger for power and prestige, all the darkness is, still today, directly competing with what this man from Bethlehem preached hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
Regardless of what our beliefs are we are supposed to assume that the birth of Jesus was an extraordinary event, and world history is about what Jesus said. Vinck goes on to assert that somehow the world is fallen because we aren’t all celebrating the holiday as a Christian like him.
Vinck thinks the holiday season is the property of his brand of Christianity. If you don’t sign up for his specific Christian holiday season, the world is going to decline.
Dallas Morning News published de Vinck again. 12/23/2023
https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2023/12/23/i-misplaced-christmas/
Does this sound like one of those Christians who is anti-Gay, let’s investigate.
I did some intense Googling and I simply couldn’t find out what Church he goes to. It appears his parents were intensely Catholic, but nowhere could I find out what church he is a member of. This is sort of odd, since writing up sentimental Christian books seems to be his occupation.
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Christopher%20De%20Vinck/author/B00JUJD5ZY
I think he is Roman Catholic since he writes about Catholic Priests he has known and is a contributor to the National Catholic Reporter. He is published by Catholics Publishers.
https://www.ncronline.org/authors/christopher-de-vinck
https://publications.madonnahouse.org/collections/christopher-de-vinck/christopher-devinck
https://store.loyolapress.com/search?keywords=Christopher%20de%20Vinck
https://paracletepress.com/products/things-that-matter-most
If he is a Roman Catholic, he is the supporter and believer that homosexuality is a sin. He has no moral credibility to make or assert any moral idea or opinion.
The evidence of his dispicable homophobia.
Christopher De Vinck is the editor of the book, “Nouwen Then: Personal Reflections on Henri,” Zondervan, 1999.
https://www.amazon.com/Nouwen-Then-Christopher-Vinck/dp/0310224624
There are two review blurbs with this book, but the review from the Library Journal has this line in it. The review discusses another biography of Nouwen, by a person named Ford.
One of his books was titled The Wounded Healer, and BBC producer Ford's well-written biography reveals just how wounded Nouwen was. While not a tell-all, Ford's book perhaps provides more detail on Nouwen's personal life than many readers will care to know. Still, it does show the human side of a spiritual writer who has touched many people, Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish alikeAa restless spirit whose personal crises, which were the substance of his writings, were so much like the personal crises of the ordinary believer.
What was it about Nouwen’s personal life that Ford provided more details “than many readers will care to know” and what were these “personal crises” that were inspirational to his writings?
This paper explains what makes Catholics think he was heroic, Nouwen suppressed being Gay.
https://www.nouwenlegacy.com/papers/nouwenstudies.pdf
From the essay, “A Spirituality of Imperfection,” excerpted from a Ph.D. dissertation by Wil Hernandez, 2006.
Drawing upon such determination, Nouwen confronted what most assumed to be the crux of his struggle, which was dealing with his homosexual orientation. Michael Ford’s revealing portrait of Nouwen exposed this largely hidden struggle and depicted the priest’s sexuality as “a source of deep anxiety and conflict” due to his unbending “commitment to live out his vow of celibacy.”34
Celibacy was no small issue for Nouwen who understood well the complications of trying to live a chaste life (RD: 169). Still, he faithfully committed to conduct his “hidden and secret life” with purity of heart no matter what (SJ:24). For someone whose craving for human love and affection seemed insatiable, the protracted struggle could be punishingly painful. To the best of his closest 12 friends’ knowledge, “Nouwen may have struggled, but he made no compromises with his convictions.”35 “
That was Nouwen’s “imperfection,” he was homosexual, and that is why he is considered a great hero, he committed to be a homophobe for Christ.
Nouwen’s denial of his homosexuality makes him a hero to other Christians doing the same. This is an article in the Catholic magazine. Crisis.
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/a-case-of-mistaken-sexual-identity
This is another article lauding Nouwen’s denial.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/priest-writer-mentor-misfit
To the Roman Catholics Henri Nouwen is a great hearo for his destruction of himself as a Gay person in service of their homophobic dogma.
Christopher Vinck is not the editor or author of any other biographical work. He is married and has children.
Vinck is vile.
This is the person who the Dallas Morning News has chosen to give us a rather tired lecture trying to use the holiday season to push Christianity on everyone.
The Dallas Morning News is two faced on the issue of Gays, a few token articles to flatter some Gay leaders or give the city of Dallas some gloss to make it look like other cities, but all the while carrying water for the dark undercurrents of homophobic and extreme Christianity.
No Q Spirit, he isn’t a saint, he isn’t a hero, he is a tragedy and was an enemy of Gays.
His life story is pushed to make homosexual self-hatred and self-repression somehow glorious.
This link shows you some of the silliness that some Gay Christians all too often are prone to with their giggly loopy logic and their eyes not quite focused thinking.
https://qspirit.net/henri-nouwen-homosexuality/
This isn’t true of all Gay Christians, but some undermine the Gay community.
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