
What’s Going On-Marvin Gaye
THIS SIDE OF PARADISE
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Fortitude is The Way’s Forward
September 13, 2025 Leave a comment
About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. Acts 19.23
Charlie Kirk – devoted husband, father, and follower of Jesus – was assassinated. Churches must speak of his faithful, courageous outspoken Christian witness and of his martyrdom.
Yet, there will be Christians and churches that will balk at any mention of Charlie Kirk, intimidated by the same silencing forces behind the assassination. They will remain silent while evil celebrates.
From Bluesky To Reddit, Democrats Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Assassination; Trump Slams Radical Left | ZeroHedge
There are church leaders who will not talk about Charlie the man. Rather, they will talk about coming together as a people. “Aren’t we supposed to be one?” “Politics divide us.” So, they tiptoe around evil afraid to name it and who is doing it, afraid of division in the ranks and a possible loss of the ministry they created.
But this is not a time for cowering and equivocating. This is not the time to play to Karens, to those who clutch pearls, to those with delicate sensibilities who cluck in disgust at anything they don’t approve of.
This is not a PBS kumbaya moment. This is a time to see what you see, name it, and to gird up your loins to do battle with the reality of evil and that requires naming it.
This is a come to your senses moment. Charlie Kirk was assassinated for speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was not a tragedy, a happenstance, just another act of violence. This was a deliberate act of evil against Charlie, the Church, the Lord and his kingdom on earth.
Jesus spoke of the evil intentions within the human heart. Those included murder. And the Apostle Paul wrote of the outward characteristics of those who defile themselves with evil intentions (2 Tim. 3):
“You need to know this: bad times are coming in the last days. People will be in love with themselves, you see, and with money too. They will be boastful, arrogant, abusive, haters of parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, implacable, accusing, dissolute, savage, haters of the good, traitors, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a pattern of godliness but denying its power. Avoid people like that!”
If you need evidence of the above, go on social media.
Many church leaders do not understand that the church is both a ministry of reconciliation and a ministry of the sword and division. Jesus came to reconcile the world to himself, not by generating political peace for a particle group (the Jews) but with a sword that separated truth and error, light and darkness, good and evil (Matt. 10:34).
The ministry of the sword says “Avoid people like that!” The ministry of the sword says that there will be The Great Divorce based on the choices we make.
Unlike the world, with its message of looking for deliverance down and in where evil intentions lie, the ministry of reconciliation is about putting lives and the world to right by looking up and out beyond ourselves for our salvation. And so, the ministry of reconciliation entails reckoning with what Paul said to Timothy: “all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”
Jesus’ ministry was one of public and private dialog. Hearing his discourse, some became followers of The Way. They accepted that Jesus was the Way to the Father and the Truth about God, the world and themselves, and the Life that death could not extinguish. And some walked away to become followers of their own dark and vain imaginations.
Charlie Kirk, like Jesus, pursued truth in the public square. And like the Apostle Paul in a public square in Ephesus, he persuaded and drew away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. This was bad for local business (Hence, the epigraph. See Acts 19.)
Some accepted Charlie’s words and joined in the pursuit of truth. Others mocked and protested him and continue to do so after his assassination. Like with Jesus, we see again how much the darkness hates the light and wants to extinguish it (Jn. 3: 19-21).
There are those who think they know Charlie via the main stream media. I’ve heard Christians justify their disdain of Charlie and what he stood for with their moral authority. Clearly invested in their tribal reputation, I heard them spout chapter and verse of their righteous indignation in podcasts and in articles. They say, in effect, “We want nothing to do with him and his ilk.”
But the man’s public life was there for all to see. He aligned it with his understanding of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He refused to call darkness light or exchange reality for comforting illusions. He refused to serve lies, like so many Christians. Charlie was not intimidated by the darkness. He had fortitude. That was his way forward and that is The Way’s forward.
The Lord detests the way of the wicked,
but he loves those who pursue righteousness. Prov. 15:9
~~~~~
Charlie Kirk’s Witness to a Pagan Shows What Separated Him From Most Other Conservative Leaders
Links:
On the left-wing social media app Bluesky, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is being celebrated like a national holiday. The entire site reads like a grotesque party, with users cheering, laughing, and even dancing over the murder of a young husband and father, shot down for the simple crime of thinking differently.
And it doesn’t stop there. The mob on Bluesky is now taking it even further by openly naming other conservatives they want to see assassinated next. Like this is some kind of “Hunger Games” to them.
Go to this link to see screen captures of who they want killed:
Calls to ‘haul’ Bluesky CEO before Congress grow LOUDER… – Revolver News
House Dems shout ‘No!’ when Boebert requests spoken prayer for Charlie Kirk
Pawn Star demands action for Charlie, people are very angry. (Language)
“I support Charlie Kirk’s killer. He did us a favor, I would have killed him myself”
Tens of thousands #WalkAway after seeing celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s assassination…
Watch Live: Tyler Robinson, 22, Named As Suspect In Charlie Kirk Assassination | ZeroHedge
~~~~~
Mozart
Introitus
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Entrance
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.
Thou, O God, art praised in Sion,
and unto Thee shall the vow
be performed in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come.
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.
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Filed under 2025 Current Events, Christianity, Culture, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with Assassination, Charlie Kirk, Christianity, culture, faith, God, Jesus, politics