Maybe the Pop Tart needs to meet the Tattoo-Removal Nun.
Alleged singer Britney Spears recently took her devotion to trendy Kabbalah spirituality a bit too far, and got herself inked on the neck with some Hebrew letters. However, due to an unexpected error in the editing process, the resulting tattoo meant... well, nothing. Ya gotta watch out with those right-to-left languages, they'll get ya every time.
Anyway, it's just as well, because Kabbalah forbids tattooing, and now you'll be able to count your visits to the dermatologist as an act of piety. Mazel tov, honey.
Ladies and gentlemen, yet another case that proves:
Stupidity is contagious.
I don't think the pop-American version of Kabbalah forbids much of anything. I have it on a higher authority (People magazine) that the dumbed-down Kabbalah that celebrities are boasting about was started by an unemployed Jewish salesman in the 1960s. His son runs a chain of spirituality centers (none dare call them synagogues!), and he is quoted in People as saying that "you can be Christian and practice Kabbalah," or some such nonsense.
Yes, I realize that to be Christian you have to believe that Judaism is wholly true, but the context indicated that he thought you didn't need to be any particular religion to participate.
My colleague the specialist is Asian art is always getting students who walk into office hours (having never shown up to ask a question about, say, the midterm) and ask her to write the characters for "Strength through Weightlifting" or "Lacrosse Pride" or some such so they can get a tattoo of 'em.
I keep telling her we need to do a photo essay on the funniest misapprehended ones on campus. I've sent her the Britney link!
Methinks that Kabbalah is part and parcel of the "Jewish fables" that St. Paul warned Titus to warn the Cretians againt. (Titus 1:14, verses 11-16 for context)
Ms. Spears was raised a Southern Baptist. It's a shame she has forsaken orthodox Christian teaching for a lot of hocus pocus.
Ah, but Ken, what are the definitive tenets of the Southern Baptist Convention? Methinks they;re whatever Southern Baptists say they are.
There are certain essentials of the Christian faith. To spiritually prostitute oneself to familiar spirits and mysticism and fables and myths are clearly outside of Scriptural teaching. And since the SoBaps are all about Scripture, well, obviously it doesn't take a Magisterium to tell you that Kabbalah is crapola.
I myself am not a Southern Baptist, but clearly the milquetoast whiney ones among them like Jimmy Carter are certainly an aberration and certainly not in the ascendency of theological thought within that denomination.