We have entered a time to reflect on incarnational reality – the presence of God both with us and within us.
The Nativity by Gari Melchers
With awe we marvel at the birth of Jesus and the reversal of power. God humbly took on the appearance of man and became man’s servant.
We remember our own birth from above which opened our eyes to the reality of the kingdom of God on earth. Two realms – heaven-and-earth – together in our temple being.
We now acknowledge that new creation poured into well-worn no longer flexible ways of religion that have stretched to the limit and become brittle will be lost in the process. New wine needs new wine skins, for new wineskins are able to expand by grace as needed.
And we admit that the inappropriateness of trying to redeem things with a new unshrunk patch of legalism will cause more damage than what it attempts to fix.
We accept that new creation means the renewal of the present world rather than its abandonment and replacement by some other kind of world altogether.
We retell the course of events before Advent and the promises fulfilled.
We contemplate ultimate purposes and ultimate or final things.
We acknowledge the darkness that surrounds us and remains with us. We turn once again to the True Light that defies the darkness. We light candles and say “The Light of Christ”.
We sing “Joy to the World” with the longing and expectation of the world being put right with the return of the King as he establishes his reign of justice, mercy and peace.
But hold on. I wonder what sort of advent we’ve fallen into.
Recall this advent advert?
“The Great “Reset”, nee “Build Back Better”, is the scheduled advent of a man-made new world order and, we are told, a “better future”. Should we hope that with this advent things will be put right? Will the “The Great “Reset” bring joy to the world? Will it bring justice, mercy and peace? Will it bring relief from the burdens of life? So far, the Build Back Better Plan/Inflation Reduction Act has created more burdens.
Will the arrival of “The Great “Reset” bring peace on earth, goodwill toward men? Or will it, like critical theory and The Accuser, constantly find fault and offer no hope of forgiveness and redemption? Will it promote more ill will, division, and hate?
Will the arrival of “The Great “Reset” advance beauty and truth and goodness? Or will we recoil in horror at its manifestation? Will it be antihuman? Will it be Beastly?
With the arrival of “The Great “Reset” will the darkness that surrounds us now increase? Human forces and agencies were not able to contain the Gerasene demoniac.
What is the telos of “The Great “Reset”? Will it be like the kingdom of God on earth which turns everything upside down – power, privilege and wealth. Or, will it promote a world where the loudest, strongest, wealthiest, and most privileged people prey on the less fortunate. Will it be the Californication of America?
Will the arrival of “The Great “Reset” be good news that will cause great joy for all the people? Or, will this advent be the start of a countdown to the collapse and the end of the world? Will human trafficking end? Will drug trafficking end? Will justice be blind? Will depression and suicides decrease? Will it be a time of depopulation?
Herod the king, in his raging, Chargèd he hath this day His men of might in his own sight All young children to slay. -Coventry Carol
Will the arrival of “The Great “Reset” mean that the meek, the mournful, and the merciful are held in contempt so the rest of the world can have the “right” to ease and comfort?
Should we hope that with the advent of the New World Order that things will be put right? Should we expect justice, mercy and peace? Or should we expect pseudo-justice, pseudo-mercy and pseudo-peace in the form of pseudo-religion? Socialist activist and communist party leader in Italy Antonio Gramsci is one of many who promoted the latter:
“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, Socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”
Do you want the infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media and the transformation of the consciousness of society in the New World Order? Have you already joined this religion? What sort of advent have you fallen into?
Maybe you should take a look at the advent of the man-made New World Order:
Here’s the best summary video I’ve seen of the advent of the NWO and what is coming for you, me, and our children and grandchildren. It begs the questions “Why was I born at this time?” and “Which advent do I choose?”
To put things right, per a globalist worldview, the UN has an 2030 goal agenda. The virtuous-sounding goals touch on andseek to monitor and control, through digital technology, every aspect of human life for a “better world”. But, DO NOT Be Fooled!
To exist in the UN’s 2030 NWO society, people will have to submit their biometrics to the digital industrial complex. Each will be assigned a digital carbon footprint identity to monitor and control their behavior. Freedom, human agency and human dignity will be a thing of the past. Religions will be replaced with materialism.
Digital socialism and communism with centralized assets and resources will ration out resources to each person deemed socially responsible. The world court, world police, and the world health organization will control everyone via digital currency and digital IDs.
UN’s 2030 agenda goals:
The oldest liturgical prayer that we know: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
This advent, you can either pray the incarnational prayer “Come, Lord Jesus!” or the Globalist prayer “Come, Klaus Schwab!”
~~~~~
A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF TWO MYTHS THAT DRIVE CULTURE: THE AXIAL AGE AND DARK GREEN RELIGION
“Most people, I believe, do not comprehend the way in which each of us is inevitably caught up in what theologian Ched Myers has called the “war of myths” – a battle of overarching stories that claim to explain life (what it’s about, where it’s going, and what its purpose is).” – Iain Proven, retied E. Marshall Shepherd Professor of Biblical Studies (Old Testament) at Regent College.
The contemporary world has been shaped in part by two important and potent myths. Karl Jaspers’ ‘axial age’ myth as narrated by Karen Armstrong and others and the myth of the ‘dark green golden age’ as narrated by David Suzuki and others. Both myths contend that to maintain balance we must return to the idealized past. In this lecture, Iain Provan engages critically with both myths, explaining why we should not embrace them and why it matters if we do. This was recorded at the University of British Columbia Graduate and Faculty Christian Forum.
“We have a ruling class in the United States defined by its hatreds. Not its loves, not its hopes, but by its hatreds. They hate all kinds of people, large groups of people: the deplorables, the bitter clingers, America’s entire blue-collar population, the unfashionable people. They’re hated by the people who run our country.
But no one is hated more by them than a man called Alex Jones.”
Ep. 46 The Alex Jones Interview
TIMESTAMPS:
2:46 Alex Jones predictions 15:07 Deplatforming 21:59 Dividing us on race 25:37 The border 28:09 Austin 32:12 New World Order 42:09 Brian Stelter demon video 50:57 Depopulation 1:07:51 Food 1:13:51 Whiskey 1:16:22 Presidential… pic.twitter.com/IsJAQDUzDc
“I thought about safety, security, good jobs, good education — all that stuff is very important to my family and my community,” she recalled. “And when I broke down those values between Democrats and Republicans, to me it was obvious who stood up for my values.”
“We calculate the toxicity of the vaccine for all ages,” explained Dr. Rancourt, “given the number of doses given worldwide to conclude that 17 million people would have been killed by this vaccine.”
The paper is based on 17 countries in the Southern Hemisphere and equatorial region. A definite causal link is shown between many peaks in all-cause mortality and rapid vaccine rollouts. The authors quantify the fatal toxicity risk per injection, which is exceedingly large in the most elderly.
The peer-reviewed study, published in the journal Epidemiology and Infection on Nov. 13, analyzed mask use among 3,209 individuals from Norway. Researchers followed them for 17 days, and then asked the participants about their use of masks. The team found that there was a higher incidence of testing positive for COVID-19 among people who used masks more frequently.
Between 2021 and 2022 when most of the now-fully vaccinated world got jabbed, cancer deaths skyrocketed, particularly among young people, according to data from the United Kingdom’s Office for National Statistics (ONS).
We are entering a season of celebrating Good News. But hold on. There are some, the same some since before 2016, who are now heralding a disastrous 2024.
Today, at the top of media’s Richter scale of catastrophic “Oh Nos!” and bumping “climate crisis” to number TWO is word of a disastrous new year as speculated in The Economist magazine article Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 !!!!
To add to the hysteria known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, unhinged Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe said that Trump “will end democracy as we know it.” Wow!!! What a power calculus!!
Joe, hyperbolizing on a New York Times Op-Ed [“Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent”] went beyond calling Trump an authoritarian. He implied that Trump’s a murderous fascist: “he will imprison” “he will execute” enemies if reelected. Scarborough knows this because of “his past”. (I’d like to see those press clippings. Anyone?)
N.B.: MSNBC is where people go to completely lose all touch with reality because Orange Man Bad.
Here’s Mika man:
Joe Scarborough:
"Trump will imprison, he will execute whoever he is allowed to imprison, execute, drive from the country. Just look at his past. It’s not really hard to read.” pic.twitter.com/NC0vo48xAe
And there’s more from the ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ MSNBC:
“Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “everybody should vote for” President Joe Biden if they wanted democracy to survive.” Wow!!! Again!!!
Before we exit the land of the unhinged, there’s another unbalanced MSNBC political contributor who weighs in on Trump: former Democrat U.S. Senator of Missouri, the very rich Claire McCaskill.
McCaskill claims that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler!!! In the process of loathing Trump, McCaskill also has to mock MAGA supporters. You should know that the schtick of MSNBC contributors – our hoity-toity betters – is making their viewers feel superior to the deplorable hoi polloi.
The above insanity should tell you that the Left – Wokes, LGBTQ+ mafia, Antifa, the climate overwrought, BLM, race hustlers and all – are terrified of Trump. And they want you to be terrified of him, too. They see their world, supported by the vast administrative State that sustains their power and control over America, as threatened by Trump. For, in Trump’s next term, he will begin to pull apart the leviathan deep state apparatus that destroys Democracy and America itself.
That and the Left’s constant lawfare against Trump is an indicator to me that Trump is the right man for the job. He’s about saving what’s left of our Republic – namely, the Constitution, free speech, the right to bear arms, religious freedom, and due process which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (14th Amendment).
The Left, on the other hand, want to abandon all that. The Left wants to seize life, liberty, and property and create a system of producing and distributing collectively owned goods via a centralized government that plans and controls the economy. The left’s economic reforms increase centralized state control to the extent that private ownership becomes virtually impossible.
See Mao’s Great Leap Forward for one example of the effects of collectivization. A Progressive’s collective communist State means that all labor, money, and production go to the State and the State determines who benefits and who must go without based on political loyalty.
And see North Korea for the Left’s brand of “Democracy!” which the braying MSNBC crew says is under threat and not because of their dictatorial ways but because of the guy who wants to keep them from their dictatorial ways.
Trump has also shown that he wants to ensure our country’s sovereignty. And that means a closed border with legal immigration. He also wants to safeguard America from another war. The Left, under the Biden regime, has shown us that open borders with constant war and anarchy are its will.
Another indicator that Trump is right for the WH job is that there are those, not just domestically but internationally, who want Trump and those around them out of the picture, e.g., Iran-linked hitmen. Trump is bothering all the right (evil) people.
Going forward, I sure don’t want someone representing me in the WH who folds or capitulates under pressure. I sure don’t want appeasers and accommodationists like members of Congress. I sure don’t want someone who, at one time in Indiana, looked the part of a respectable Christian leader but turned out to be a squish: Don’t Ever Forget That Mike Pence Threw Religious Liberty Under the Bus | National Review
Results, not presentation, earn my respect.
And though New Yorker Trump could always pick out better words and phrasing to explain his thoughts and his frustrations with the stolen 2020 election, he wasn’t chosen to be president in 2016 and 2020 and once again in 2024 because he’s a poet laureate or a pastor or a prefab politician. Trump’s a producer for the American people.
The firing-on-all cylinders low-inflation economy (before the subterfuge of COVID) and the strong dollar Trump delivered – both are being destroyed by the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the American people as are the times of peace Trump fostered.
Since the illegitimate President took office in January 2021, our southern border has been invaded. Biden-Mayorkas have allowed in (6 million +) all kinds of illegal immigrants including narco-terrorists, gangs, CCP migrants, Hamas terrorists, and more unsavory types along with fentanyl and disease. 2024 will be disastrous as the effects of the open border hit home.
Under the corrupt, compromised, incompetent, and incorrigible Joe Biden, Americans now risk getting pulled into wars on three major fronts: Europe, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. That didn’t happen under Trump.
But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .
Unlike those who are “ashamed” or “embarrassed” by Trump and want to condemn his unrefined ways as being beneath them, my working life was spent in the real world outside the cloisters of academia, religious organizations, and armchair punditry. I learned which people get things done and what needs to get done.
As a business partner in a multi-million-dollar manufacturing enterprise for many years, I found out who was needed and what was needed to bring success to both employees and the bottom line. The things that Trump got done during his first term allowed me to get things done in the Kingdom of God.
N.B.: There are imperfect people like Trump and tax-collector Matthew in the kingdom of heaven. (Mk. 2:15-17). So, it is best for the offended and the ‘high-minded’ to stick with the gospels and to stay away from tea leaves.
Consider a Trump economy. With a thriving economy, I am able to support myself and give to help others in need in a closely tied relationship. But under a Leftist Joe Biden economy, disposable personal income shrinks. Financial survival kicks in. And worse.
You should be aware that Leftists are intent on neutralizing Christianity and its charity. As mentioned above, the Left wants everything to be funneled through the State and the State to be the only effect on society. This is what Progressives do. They make everyone and everything dependent on ruling class ‘good will’. And that is the substance of State media’s MSNBC and their ilk.
So, while the prophets of Baal, enflamed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, shout louder and slash themselves with swords and spears in the hope that viewers will pay attention to their frantic prophesying and let their fire rain down on Trump, let’s turn to the Good News that has already come down from the heavens with its fire poured out through the Holy Spirit.
The beginning of Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον or euaggélion – literally, “God’s good news.”):
This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Anointed King, God’s son.
Everything in Scripture (and specifically Isaiah 40-55) up to this time pointed to the Kingdom of God on earth. Mark writes (vs.14-15):
After John’s arrest, Jesus came into Galilee, announcing God’s good news.
“The time is fulfilled!” he said; “God Kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”
“Turn back”? When Jesus launched the long-promised kingdom of God on earth, allegiances and lifestyles began to change direction, as he began to talk about and show what that meant.
Jesus spoke of kingdom of God in parables and directly, as in Matthew 5-7. He showed what the kingdom of God meant – unclean spirits are cast out (Mk. 1:39), people are healed (Mt. 4:23), there is restoration (Lk. 15) and resurrection (Jn. 11:38-44). And, that the kingdom of God on earth was a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Mt. 5:17-18).
When he taught his disciples how to pray, he prayed
May your kingdom come,
May your will be done
As in heaven, so on earth
I wonder. Is that prayer being realized? Instead of allegiance to King Jesus the ultimate restorer and to the kingdom of God on earth, have the followers of Jesus become accommodationists of the world to fit in and find ease?
Have the followers of Jesus understood what the good news is? Have they reduced the gospel (euaggélion) to the formulaic four spiritual laws and an escape from the world into heaven?
Below are two podcasts that offer an understanding of the Good News and the kingdom of God on earth. Download and listen as you enter the season of celebrating the birth of a King who brought us good news and a kingdom.
But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. Daniel 7:18
We, the King’s holy ones, are to herald the good news of God’s Kingdom with a new way of life to a world that sees answers in profoundly short-sighted ways rather than in the Way of King Jesus. And then . . .
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” Rev 11:15
~~~~~
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn’t about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.
A year of determination, the help of world-renowned doctors, and this mother’s research exposed the world to the known toxins in the Covid-19 vaccines that nearly killed her son.
“In 2021, after my then 21-year-old son went from running miles a day to walking with a cane, diagnosed with a rare, catastrophic blood disorder, this mom knows it is time for vaccine injury victims & families to ignite an intelligent, rational conversation about what the mRNA vaccines put into our bodies. We don’t buy food or health products without reading the labels and knowing the ingredients, and it’s time we do the same with the vaccines for our children.”
Livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely given a range of veterinary drugs to prevent disease, and some of those drugs could potentially impact the health of those who eat their meat.
Thousands of vials of biological substances — including some labeled “HIV” — and a freezer marked “Ebola” were found inside a secret Chinese-owned biolab in California which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FBI initially refused to investigate, according to a House committee report released Wednesday.
“This is really a massive cover-up. And I suspect it’s because there’s many more links to the funding, and there was probably discussion of the funding,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).
Know this: the issue, whether abortion, gender, sexuality, racism, capitalism, equality, colonialism, Jews or some other oppressor/oppressed power struggle– the issue is never the issue. The revolution is the issue. The key question of any revolution is who holds power, as Lenin wrote.
Many of the revolution’s WOKE reactionaries are blinded by the mythic romance of revolution. Pursuit of revolution itself is seen as something valuable, as taking part in something stylishly ‘Che Guevarean’ and adventurous and something to be passionate about. It may be a religion for some.
The revolution’s WOKE reactionaries are OK with creating suffering and totalitarianism as long as the rhetoric is about total transformation, whatever that entails.
The revolution of the hour: for the destruction of the Western world; we are to be the causalities and they, the martyrs in their romantic myth.
I’ve learned how true revolution takes place. It’s not through mad passions but through everyday empathy and love and the tiny alterations of the heart and mind that move us in that direction . . .
~~~
Literary critic Joseph Epstein, with the title of his book-length essay, asks The Novel, Who Needs It? Turns out, I do, as it offers “truth of an important kind unavailable elsewhere in literature or anywhere else.”
So, I’ve made it a point to read the realist fiction of Russian writers – Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and others along with Chekhov’s short stories.
With a sense of moral urgency, fiction-writing has always been serious business for Russians. The great writers were the truth-tellers, the prophets, the voice of the voiceless, and the conscience of a nation— “a second government,” as Alexander Solzhenitsyn once put it.
Why read great novels and Russian literature today? Gary Saul Morson provides his reasoning:
Like realism in painting, the realism in Russian fiction captures life with an accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of life. It rejects flowery idealization, fantasy, and supernatural elements, and presents close observation of the human experience which can lead to personal discovery.
Life’s most important questions are explored in Russian fiction. The open-endedness of the writing leaves one to ponder the choices one is making. Literary realism can be grounding.
Ultimately about ideas, superior fiction shows how ideas -ideology and love for two examples – are played out in the lives of the characters. Over time, with tiny alterations, they change their minds –- and you see their conversion. Character development in literary realism is important.
“A single novel can touch on the wildest adventure but also dwell on the most private personal psychology,” writes Epstein. He gives the example of Moby Dick. I went with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina for the latter.
Anna Karenina (1878), a novel about love and the family, explores the lives of its characters. Some pursue romantic love and others develop mature love. There are heroes and villains in Tolstoy’s most pro-family story.
The consequences of infidelity and the compromises made for forbidden love begin to add up for both Anna and Stiva. In contrast are those well-married and living a rather prosaic life – Kitty and Levin. Over time and with many intimate conversations to understand each other, they have matured from romance to love and found contentment.
Tolstoy at 68 years of age, had just finished Anna Karenina. It has been said by some that as he wrote Anna, Tolstoy was going through a spiritual crisis. He perhaps goes through a very similar spiritual conversion as does Levin.
Tolstoy had been as baptized and raised according to the principles of the Orthodox Christian Church. But later, at eighteen, he said “I no longer believed in anything I had been taught.” I see that as a typical eighteen-year-old response to what feels confining and irrational.
But Tolstoy moves from staunch atheist to a firmly spiritual person. He believed that God was the answer to the type of carnal excess and groundless passions found in the Anna and Vronsky relationship.
Were Levin’s thought processes and his spiritual journey, his tiny alterations of consciousness, also Tolstoy’s spiritual journey? We get a sense of spiritual crisis, of spiritual revolution, and of spiritual maturation in the following four excerpts.
Tolstoy narrates the birth of Levin’s son almost entirely from the new father’s point of view. The birth of his son sparks a spiritual breakthrough in Levin.
Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 13
One night, Kitty awakens Levin with news that her labor has begun. Levin is beside himself, aware only of her suffering and the need to alleviate it. Kitty sends Levin to fetch the midwife and the doctor and to get a prescription from the pharmacist. As he heads for the door, Levin hears a pitiful moan.
“Yes, that’s her,” he told himself, and clutching his head, he ran downstairs.
“Lord have mercy! Forgive us, help us! He repeated the words that suddenly came to his lips out of nowhere, and he, a nonbeliever repeated these words not only with his lips. Now, at this moment, he knew that neither all his doubts nor the impossibility of believing with his reason, which he had known in himself, in any way prevented him from turning to God. Now all that flew from his soul like dust. Who else was he to turn to if not to the One in whose hands he felt himself, his soul, his love?”
“His reason suspended out of intense empathy, Levin, an unbeliever on rational grounds, finds himself praying, and not “only with his lips” (738). Why he, an atheist, prays sincerely at this moment becomes for him a riddle touching on life’s essential meaning. Desperate to do something but with nothing to do, Levin simply has to endure, a state that (as we shall see with Karenin) provokes the soul torn from its habitual responses to experience the sublime.”
Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 14
Levin is floored, angry that the pharmacist preparing the opium and the doctor drinking his coffee are so laid back – taking their time – about the approach of the birth. He’s in such a state he can’t think straight. For them, the birth was an ordinary event. But for landowner Levin, who had been primarily concerned with farming and agricultural and was writing a theory book about it, there was no place to catalog the event.
Levin has no way to analyze what is happening. “All the usual conditions of life without which it is impossible to form a conception of anything ceased to exist for Levin. He had lost the sense of time.”
When Levin hears Kitty’s first scream, Levin is nonplussed. He has so bonded to Kitty over time that, in empathy, he suffers intense agony. He had experienced the same intense feelings and helplessness as his brother was dying.
“He knew and felt only that what was transpiring was similar to that which had transpired a year before in the provincial town hotel at his brother Nikolai’s deathbed. But that had been grief – and this was joy. Still, both that grief and this joy were identically outside all of life’s ordinary conditions; they were like an opening in that ordinary life through which something sublime appeared. What was transpiring had come about with identical difficulty and agony; and with identical incomprehensibility, the soul, when it did contemplate this sublime something, rose to a height as it had never risen before, where reason could not keep up.
“Lord, forgive and help us,” he repeated to himself incessantly, feeling, in spite of such a long and seemingly total estrangement, that he was addressing God just as trustingly and simply as during his childhood and first youth.”
Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 15
Watching his brother die, Levin thinks that death is a cruel joke – you live, suffer, struggle and suddenly cease to exist. Now seeing his wife in such a painful state and thinking she is dying, he is beside himself: he “had long since given up wanting the child. He now hated the child. He didn’t even wish for her life now, he only wanted a cessation to these horrible sufferings.” New life brings new suffering.
But with the birth of his son and being anchored to life by his new family, Levin then understands that death is merely part of life. He maturely concludes that if one lives “for one’s soul” rather than for illusory self-gratification, the end of life is no longer a cruel trick, but a further revelation of life’s truths.
“If Levin had been told before that Kitty was dead, and that he had died with her, and that their children were angels, and that God was standing before him, he would have been surprised at nothing. But now, coming back to the world of reality, he had to make great mental efforts to take in that she was alive and well, and that the being howling so desperately was his son. Kitty was alive, her suffering was over. And he was inexpressively happy. This he understood and it made him completely happy. But the child? Where had he come from, and why, and who was he? He simply could not understand, could not get used to the idea. It seemed to him something superfluous, something extra, which he could not get used to for a long time.
Anna Karenina, Part 7, Chapter 16
A changed man.
“At ten o’clock the old prince, Sergey Ivanovitch, and Stepan Arkadyevitch were sitting at Levin’s. Having inquired after Kitty, they had dropped into conversation upon other subjects. Levin listened to them and during these conversations could not keep from recalling what had come to pass, what had happened prior to this morning, recalled himself as he had been yesterday, before all this. It was as if a hundred years had passed since then. He felt as if he were on some in accessible height from which he was making an effort to descend in order not to insult the people he was speaking to. He spoke and thought incessantly about his wife, the details of her present condition, and his son, to the idea of whose existence he was trying to accustom himself. The entire feminine world, which had taken on for him a new, previously unknown significance since he had been married, now in his mind had risen so high that his mind could not grasp it. He listened to the conversation about dinner yesterday at the club and thought, “What is happening with her now? Has she fallen asleep? How is she feeling? What is she thinking? Is my son Dimitri crying? And in the middle of the conversation, in the middle of a sentence, he jumped up and left the room.”
. . .
“Her gaze, bright in any case, shone even more brightly the closer he came. On her face was that same alteration from earthly to unearthly that one sees on the face of the dead; but there it is farewell, here a welcome. Again agitation similar to what he had experienced at the moment of the birth overwhelmed his heart. She took his hand and asked him whether he had slept. He couldn’t answer and turned away, convinced of his own weakness.
~~~
These four excerpts offer an opening into the ordinary life of Levin and Kitty. Other characters, the novel’s headliners Anna and Vronsky, go through significant turmoil over their decisions. Dolly, whose husband Stiva was unfaithful, stands out. But not for bad decisions or for the number of mentions, but for her care and love. She simply does what is needed and shows Christian love.
“In this novel, Christian love produces monstrosity, and real saintliness, if the term can be so used, is inconspicuous. It does not sound a trumpet.
Any doctrine that defies human nature and everyday practices will, if backed by sufficient force, create much greater suffering than it sets out to alleviate. A movement that is truly “revolutionary” – that, like Bolshevism, sets out to change human nature entirely – will create evil on a scale not seen before the twentieth century. Tolstoy saw Christian love, revolutionism, and all other utopian ways of thinking as related errors. If so, they are errors of our time, and perhaps prosaic goodness offers the best hope of correction.”
I would correct the above with “Tolstoy saw insincere Christian love . . .”
~~~~~
The Abiding Truths of Russian Literature – A Conversation with Gary Saul Morson
The Abiding Truths of Russian Literature – A Conversation with Gary Saul Morson
2017 marks the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, an event that tragically reshaped Russian and Western history. How such an extraordinary event, and the ghastly regime it produced, could ever have happened depended not only on a great war, and the theoretical arcana of Karl Marx but, perhaps even more, on the outlook of the Russian intelligentsia and its assumptions about its social role. These same psychological and ideological predispositions continue to be found among intellectuals today. Hence, understanding the cultural setting of the Russian Revolution also helps us understand some of the more dangerous currents in contemporary intellectual life.
I sat down with a close friend the other day. I asked him about his early church experience, as I am interested in church dynamics.
Here’s what Dan (not his real name) said during the interview:
“My parents attended a Baptist church in Chicago before moving to the suburbs. I was a kid and just remember old buildings with a fusty smell and pictures to color. After the move, we started attending a Bible church. I was eight years old.
“I don’t remember a single sermon. But I do remember the church sanctuary. I sat there Sunday mornings and evenings for maybe twenty years.
“There was a plaque on the back wall above the choir loft. It said “God is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silent. Hab. 2:20.
“Front and center was a large wing pulpit. Three large minister chairs were behind it along the choir loft. A piano on the left and an organ on the right flanked the platform.
“On the main floor in front of the pulpit was the oak communion table. “This Do In Remembrance of Me” was carved on the front. The table held the offering plates and a flower arrangement.
“To the right of the platform and behind a large rectangular hole in the wall was the baptistry. A landscape was painted on the walls surrounding the water tank.
“Opposite the platform, sixteen rows back, was the entrance to the sanctuary. A clock was centered above the double doors to let the minister know when to end the service.
“Rows of blond wood pews filled the space between the front and back with an aisle down the center and along each end.
“The side walls were painted-beige cinder block. Each wall had three windows of tinted-amber bubble glass. Forest green curtains bordered two sides of each window.
“The walls around the windows were bare except for a wooden rack near the organ. It held the numbers in attendance at the service and at Sunday school the week before. An usher counted attendance every Sunday.
“That’s a twenty-five-year snapshot. I don’t recall that room ever changing.”
I asked him about the service.
“Prelude. Hymns. Lots of choruses about leaving earth and flying away. Sermon. Calls for salvation and rededication of your life. Postlude. Every Sunday.”
I asked him about memories that stick out.
“Let’s see. There was the leader of the boy’s club. He let us run around and be crazy one night each week. One time he took us to a construction site to show us what he was working on. He was a carpenter.
“There was an adult Sunday School teacher who visited a nursing home once a month. He had me come with him on those Saturdays. I’d play a hymn with my trumpet. Afterward he would give a short devotional.
“And there was this interim minister – there were lots of them – who got me my first job as a clerk in a Camera/Photo store. One time – I was twelve or thirteen – he had me come with him downtown to Pacific Garden Mission. I played my trumpet and he spoke to those who had come off the streets of Chicago.”
I told Dan that he only mentioned certain men as memories that stick out. Then I asked if anyone had mentored him.
“No one from church. Only my trumpet teachers did.”
I asked him to explain.
“I started playing the trumpet in third grade. My uncle gave me a beat-up Conn trumpet that he longer wanted to play. In the Junior High School, the band director wasn’t crazy about the look or the sound of my horn. So, he switched me to French horn for two years. But my heart was with the trumpet. I asked my parents for private lessons.
“Before I started lessons – this was during eighth grade – my father and I went to an instrument store. He bought me a brand-new Bach Stradivarius b-flat trumpet. The horn was a beautiful and expensive gift. I felt affirmed.
“My first trumpet teacher was a high school principal who also played trumpet in big bands. The first question he asked me: What trumpet players did I listen to? I told him Herb Albert. He just shook his head.
“He told me who I should listen to and to what pieces of music. He began giving me exercises to practice. Major and minor scales. Tonguing exercises. I’d have to play them for him the following week.
“The summer before high school I took what he taught me and practiced like crazy. The high school concert band director had sent out the requirements for entering the band. Those included playing major and minor scales and site reading.
“A month before my freshman year began, I was called in to audition for the band director. I played all the scales and sight read what he put in front of me. He was pleased. I was in the concert band – first trumpet section right behind the first chair trumpet, a sophomore.
“My junior year of high school the band director Mr. Gies became my second trumpet teacher. He also played the trumpet semi-professionally.
“What happened was this: the guy who sat first chair was a stellar trumpeter but he needed to be replaced. During the summer the first chair French horn player became pregnant. Both would soon be leaving the school. So, the band director began one-on-one time with me.
“Over several months Mr. Gies and I met in the school auditorium during an open period for both of us. Playing the trumpet in that auditorium, that sanctuary, was like no other experience. With those unstifled acoustics I could open up and project a nice broad sound.
“Mr. Gies asked me how I practiced. I shared with him the Carmine Caruso method for building chops. I learned the method from my first trumpet teacher, Mr. Lichti.
“I told him that the method involves interval training, articulation, range and produces endurance. With it, I had developed an extensive range -double high C to over an octave below the treble staff. The method had formed my sound to that point.
“Sitting together offstage, Mr. Gies and I worked through the Caruso method along with the Clarks – Clark Technical Studies – which are exercises used for the development of fingering technique.
“I cherished that time alone with the band director. In between playing an exercise we talked about anything and everything. And sometimes we were silent and it felt comfortable.
“We practiced together the rest of my junior year. I was ready for the first chair trumpet position when the other guy left.
“My third trumpet teacher was at a Bible school. After high school I entered a Christian Ed/Music program. The Christian Ed program was a bust but the music program was a blessing.
“I took private lessons from the concert band director, Mr. Edmonds. Unlike the other teachers, he was an established pianist with perfect pitch. He had a different take, a different sound in mind, for my horn – a precise centered pitch. He was also a composer. He adapted classical music for our concert band to play.
“In between playing my practiced exercises and being critiqued, the director and I would talk about anything. I shared with him the challenges I was facing. My practice time was limited because of my studies and the time spent listening to classical music for music appreciation class. And I had a part time job. He prayed for me at the end of each lesson.
“Like back in high school, I sat first trumpet second seat behind a sophomore in the concert band. But at an outdoor band concert, Mr. Edmonds had me solo the opening trumpet lines of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Procession of the Nobles”. And when The Gaither Trio – Bill, Gloria, and Danny – came to town for a couple of concerts and needed some horns for the finales, Mr. Edmonds offered his two first chair trumpet players. The private lessons and my practice gave me opportunities to play.
“Looking back . . . sitting next to a trumpet teacher week after week, I learned from those who knew what to listen for and who to listen to. Mr. Lichti, for example, helped me realize that I had “deaf spots” in my listening. To develop my “ear”, I began to listen to Adolph “Bud” Herseth, principal trumpet in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. I wanted to emulate his bel canto sound and his musical acumen.
“To accomplish this, I had to take a risk. You see, with one-on-one instruction you cannot hide, you can’t fake or pretend. You play your horn and the truth comes out. Sloppy practicing is immediately revealed and so is the need for discipline. You need another’s knowledgeable perspective to grow as a musician. Words or notes alone are not enough.
“The three trumpet teachers I mentioned invited me into their musical realm, which was both affirming and daunting, as I was made me accountable to them. In the role of apprentice, they imparted to me trumpet knowledge, technical ability, and a love for the craft.
“And now that I think about it, I take it back. The man who took me and others to his construction site and the man who took me with him to the rest home and the man who took me with to the Chicago mission and got me my first job were mentors. They influenced me just like the trumpet teachers advanced the formation of my horn playing.
“You asked about my early church experience. I’d say that there was lots of scaffolding but no formation. For me, there was really nothing life changing about going to church and sitting in silence listening to someone standing behind a pulpit. But there was with people I spent time with.”
End of interview.
~~~~~
Church culture: “Tragically, in recent years, Christians have gotten used to revelations of abuses of many kinds in our most respected churches–from Willow Creek to Harvest, from Southern Baptist pastors to Sovereign Grace churches. Respected author and theologian Scot McKnight and former Willow Creek member Laura Barringer wrote this book to paint a pathway forward for the church.”
In this podcast, theologian Scot McKnight and his daughter, Laura Barringer, join Julie Roys to discuss their latest book, A Church Called Tov: Forming a Goodness Culture That Resists Abuses of Power and Promotes Healing.
While their first book explained the characteristics of a “tov,” or good, culture, their latest book tackles the next challenge—transforming ingrained toxic cultures into tov ones.
Pivoting Your Church from Toxic to Healthy | The Roys Report
Two options guided my early incorrigible years: “Either you do what I say or your father will deal with you when he comes home” “Either you clean you room or lose your allowance” “Either you are home by 9 or you will be grounded.” The church, too, presented two stark choices: “Either you get saved and go to heaven or you go to hell”; “Either walk the straight and narrow or walk the wide way of the world.”
The either/or binaries of my early childhood were meant to prepare me for life. I learned that if I wandered off into “or” territory there was sure to be consequences. My parents guided my behavior from their own experience of walking within binary guard rails.
They had learned that from the simplest safety issues to the most important issues in life, honest straightforward either/or choices are required. My late mother shared one such either/or choice.
My father, having grown up in the Dutch Reformed church where smoking was the norm for men, was given a choice by my mother when she was dating my father: “Either you stop smoking or that’s it.” Thankfully, my father didn’t “or” the situation. I wouldn’t be here if he did.
With knowledge of their own either/or choices and exposing me to the either/or choices of the book of Proverbs, my parents either/or’d my youth. Binary guard rails were set in place for my time in Jr. High and High school.
When I attended Moody Bible Institute after high school (early 70s), the binary thinking infused in me by the church came into question.
A first-year class called “Personal Evangelism” was taught by Mr. Winslett. During that semester Mr. W described different religions. As he did so he labeled the churches of the Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness and others as cults. When he came to the Catholic church, he said it was a cult because Catholics worshipped Mary, had a pope, and put tradition ahead of scripture. I remember hearing this and thinking that we’re better than all of them. But something felt off.
The highly partisan Mr. W, a representative of MBI, had sallied Catholicism: MBI represented real Christianity and Catholicism, a “cult”, did not; either you are with us in Bible first thinking or you are not one of us. (Mr. W was the only teacher I met a MBI like this. But there are many who preach and teach the same binary “us and them” thing.)
I was raised Protestant. Differences of Protestantism and Catholicism were minimally noted in my church. But I had read about Luther, the Ninety-five Theses, and the Reformation. I knew about the abuses and corruption of the Catholic church. Those include Johann Tetzel selling indulgences.
But faith in God and his salvation coupled to Mary, the pope and tradition were not Christianity deal breakers for me. For without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
Instead of imposing exclusionary theology, abide by the words of the old hymn: “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform . . . God is his own interpreter, and he will make it plain.”
Years later I came across the same “us and them” attack. I brought my daughter to an Awana program going on at a Baptist church. On the night that she and I were to race the Pinewood Derby Car we had crafted together, the speaker bad-mouthed the Catholic church during a promotion for the Baptist church we were standing in.
He said something to the effect that their Baptist church wasn’t like the unsound Catholic church. I was shocked. There were members of that Baptist church and other churches in attendance. What did they walk away with that night?
I’ve seen this attitude surface so many times by haughty either/or Protestants. I’ve also seen it in either/or Catholics. Both groups interpret Church teaching in a narrow way, then argue that whoever disagrees with their tightly wound interpretation must—by the fact of that disagreement—be in opposition to Church teaching. The Either-Or fallacy used by both Protestants and Catholics: “I can’t be in error therefore YOU must be!”
Another anecdote of the “us and them” attitude: One night I was sitting in a donors meeting listening to a presentation. The Episcopal church I attended wanted to annex and refurbish the house next store and make it ministry usable. At front and center of the room that night was a picture board showing the proposed design. The crossway from the existing church building to the house showed a cross in relief in the arc above the passageway. One woman remarked that we should get rid of the cross because “we’re not Baptists.”
Look. Our family and church backgrounds teach us to think in opposites – basically in terms of good and bad. We are presented with two options and they appear as your only options and mutually exclusive. We then bring unmediated polar extremes into adulthood.
Either/or thinking integrated into our lives and then reinforced by our respective cultures can produce a worldview in stringent binary terms: as a one or zero. Black-and-white thinking is used to reduce the world to something we can handle which then provides a sense of certainty and security. But “a one or zero” thinking can be adversarial, dividing people into “us vs. them.” A few examples:
“I am right and you are wrong.” (How does that work out in marriage? With our neighbors?)
“If you’re not with me, you’re against me. I have friends and enemies but not acquaintances.”
“Either I win or I lose in this situation.”
It can also produce all-or-nothing false dilemma fallacies which are really manipulative setups:
“If you care about your neighbor, you will get vaccinated” and “Putting others first will get us through he pandemic” “Getting vaccinated is loving your neighbor as yourself.”
“Social solidarity is the most precious tenet of our democracy.”
“You’re either pro-choice or anti-woman. There’s no other moral stance.”
“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”
“Either you let your child change their gender or they will commit suicide.”
“You are either racist (by not agreeing with me) or you are anti-racist (by agreeing with me).”
“If you are against LGBTQ books in the library you are a book banner.”
“If you question what is being taught in public schools, you are a domestic terrorist.”
“If you question the 2020 election you are a MAGA extremist.”
“If you don’t accept the climate science consensus (or COVID science consensus), then you are a science denier.”
Either/or “us and them” thinking tends toward exclusion and not embrace. It tends toward absolutism, authoritarianism, fundamentalism and judgement. We see it in Hamas’ attack on Israel. We see it in climate activism. We see it in cancel culture. We see it in the murderous history of totalitarian regimes. We see it in church teaching and we sing it: “Onward, Christian soldiers, marching as to war.”
We see it in the teachings and practice of Christians, Muslims, and the Progressive Left which would have us believe that they are the opposite of conservative either/or thinking while mandating their own anything-goes version of it. Theology, ideology and government policies are marketed with the dichotomy of good and bad.
It seems that many have retained their childhood’s unyielding binary worldview. It is used as a defense mechanism, as a means of protection from the “hazards and vicissitudes of life”. (From the statement made by FDR when he signed the Social Security Act.)
I’ve seen the binary thinking defense mechanism employed by Christians. Though it comes across as holding fast to the faith and Sola Scriptura, faith vs. science messaging reduces the supposed conflict to “us vs. them” binary thinking which allows no quarter for God’s revelation in nature as revealed by science. Yet, God has revealed himself in both scripture and nature. Science is a tool for understanding God’s revelation of Himself in the physical world.
When I told my eighty-nine-year-old Godly mother that, based on research, I believed the universe to be billions of years old and that God used evolution, she didn’t reply “That’s interesting. Tell me more.” She said “That’s heresy!” Her defense mechanism alarm bell went off. She was reacting from what she had been taught and how she had been taught to think about what she was taught.
Becoming emotionally invested in extremes may lead to the exclusion of people, as “Heresy!” suggests. Such binary thinking can produce unrealistic portrayals of others and it can become used, as mentioned above, as a weaponized defense against others.
Certainly, there are people who watch news commentators because they relish the mocking and “owning” of the opposition. Certainly, there are people who go to church for the same reasons. But there is nothing mature about participation in bad mouthing others. I see nothing of this in Jesus.
I come across Jesus-whipping-the-money-changers-in-the-temple memes on social media. These are extrapolated as Jesus is “destroying” his enemies, so we can do the same. Horrible nonsense.
Relying solely on binary thinking is intellectual and spiritual laziness. An open both/and questioning mind is not a slippery slope and it’s not anything-goes Progressivism. Seek truth and not the comfort of tribal consensus.
Consider that no one has all the information – not your pastor nor MBI nor Anthony Fauci nor climate scientists. It’s OK. Consider that not everything is black and white. Knowing the difference and knowing when to introduce AND with “perhaps” is wisdom.
The Creator of the universe is not a small-minded Person. He holds a universe of disparate thought, theories, and faith in his hands. He is not threatened by any of it. A follower of the Creator of the universe lets God hold the messiness and uncertainty of life in His hands and does not feel threatened.
Finally, a reductionist’s worldview makes it incredibly difficult to hold space for the uncertainty and messiness of others. But there is a better way, a much better way: love and maturity.
Love is great-hearted; love is kind,
Knows no jealousy, makes no fuss,
Is not puffed up, no shameless way,
Doesn’t force its rightful claim,
Doesn’t rage or bear a grudge,
Doesn’t cheer at other’s harm,
Rejoices, rather, in truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things;
Love hopes all things, endures all things.
As a child I spoke, and thought, and reasoned like a child; When I grew up, I threw off childish ways.
I Cor. 13:4-7, 11
~~~~~
(Note: I’ve summed up a lot so as to make this post accessible. I was involved in the Jesus People movement during high school. Along with those in the movement I questioned a lot of the binary thinking of the church. I’ll share that story in another post.)
~~~~~
Science and Faith
In this episode, we focus on the apparent tension between science and faith.
“Many people believe that science and religious faith are bitter enemies with conflicting views of the universe. One the one hand there is the scientific account of the origins of life and then there is the story of universal origins told by the bible. But is this tension real, or is it based on a deep misunderstanding of what the Bible is and how it communicates?
. . .
“Consider this a crash course in reading the Bible as an ancient cross-cultural experience.”
Kate Boyd has been learning to live out her faith in the messy middle in a culture that rewards picking a side. While her journey didn’t begin with a conflict between science and religion, her story explores the complexities of understanding the Bible in today’s context and anyone who has struggled with issues of science and faith will resonate with this conversation.
Wearing camel hair clothes with a leather belt, eating locust and wild honey – that’s not the way, truth and life of today’s celebrity preachers. No. The wilderness figure of the unentangled Forerunner was light-years away from metropolitan Evangelical-industrial-complex pastors.
John the Baptist had none of the trappings of celebrity mega-church preachers, not even the dressed-down attire that some celebrity preachers wear so as to not put too much emphasis on appearance while placing emphasis on their appearance and calling attention to themselves.
John the Baptist didn’t dress like swanky celebrity preachers, who call attention to their prosperity gospel. He didn’t dress like royalty.
The Forerunner didn’t promote himself. He said “Someone a lot stronger than me is coming close behind” and “Look! There’s God’s lamb! He’s the one who takes away the world’s sin! He’s the one I was speaking about when I said, ‘There’s a man coming after me who ranks ahead of me, because he was before me. I came to baptize with water – so that he could be revealed to Israel.”
The Forerunner was a doormat. He laid down his life to make way for the One who would lay down his life for the world, of whom, John told the crowd, he was not worthy to undo his sandals.
John the Baptist didn’t preach impediments. He didn’t preach a prosperity health and wealth gospel or a power of love and positive attitude gospel. He wasn’t a reed bobbling in the winds of culture. The Baptist announced a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins – not a “you can do it” message.
The Baptist wasn’t a culture warrior. He didn’t preach mushy church talk. He didn’t entertain. He didn’t cajole. He didn’t try to impress with his knowledge. He didn’t preach social justice. Dressed in penitential garb, John called for repentance and criticized a King for his wicked ways.
His wasn’t a ‘you gotta get saved so you can go to heaven’ message. There was no ‘what’s-in-it-for-me’ retribution principle sermon. No. He declared a person, a lamb, a Holy Spirit baptizer, a realized hope. John’s message was for those who had ears to hear: repent and be baptized and I’m not the center of attention.
John the Baptist didn’t have a large auditorium with a worship band and multi-media productions. His message drew huge crowds out to a wilderness riverside. The whole of Judea and everyone who lived in Jerusalem went out to the desert to see the spectacle of a hairy wild-eyed Elijah standing in a river calling for confession of sins, repentance and a plunge in the river.
John the Baptist didn’t have degrees, references, prestige or the charisma of a “winning personality”. The bona fides of the crude and unorthodox John were the words that came out of his mouth and all the prophets and law that had made their prophecies before he came on the scene.
John the Baptist had none of the revenue streams of the modern-day mega pastors. He had no salary. He didn’t receive perks and special treatment. He wore and ate and lived off the land.
The Baptist had no social media accounts or TV presence. He had no royalties from book sales, no online webinars, no DVD sales. He didn’t sell “merch”. He didn’t offer boat cruises and trips to the Holy Land (well, he was already there) and receive a free trip in return. He had no brand or image to protect. There was no John the Baptist newsletter promoting his ministry, detailing the number baptized, and asking for donations.
John the Baptist didn’t have a $6 million church-owned lakefront mansion. Like the son of man, John the Baptist had nowhere to lay his head except when it was time to give up his life. John’s head, laid on a platter, was a gift from King Herod, “that fox” who regularly enjoyed listening to John’s disturbing words.
The Forerunner heralded the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, not his own. Sent from God, John came as evidence about the life that was the light of the human race so that everyone might believe through him. He prepared the way, not for himself but for the One who was to come. John eschewed self-promotion, celebrity, and the creation of a following. He wasn’t Forerunner “forward”.
Is that the way, truth and life of today’s celebrity preachers?
The following text were referenced: Matthew 11: 7-15; Mark 1: 4-11; Luke 1: 57-80, 13: 32; John 6:6-36
Can’t see the forest from the trees? Can’t see anything but a thicket of theology? Maybe it’s time for stepping back, reassessing, and gaining a broader perspective . . . for the future of your faith.
In 1944 Robert Thornton, a young African American philosopher of science, wrote to Albert Einstein. Thorton had just finished his Ph.D. and was about to begin a new job teaching physics at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayaguez. Thornton wanted to introduce “as much of the philosophy of science as possible” [the “forest”] into the modern physics course that he was to teach the following spring. He was hoping for support. Einstein offered this reply:
“I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of methodology as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today—and even professional scientists—seem to me like somebody who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest.A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering.This independence created by philosophical insight is—in my opinion—the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth. “(Einstein to Thornton, 7 December 1944, EA 61–574)[i] (Emphasis mine.)
Writing in A Theory of Everything (That Matters): A Short Guide to Einstein, Relativity and the Future of Faith,[ii] the former atheist and currently Oxford’s Emeritus Professor of Science and Religion Alister McGrath[iii] writes that “For Einstein, it was important to develop a unified Weltbild – a coherent and comprehensive way of seeing our world – that would allow individual trees to be seen and appreciated for what they were while at the same time seeing them as part of something greater.[iv](p93).
“A coherent and comprehensive way of seeing our world” is the point of a Theory of Everything (That Matters):
“One of the central themes of this volume is the need to reflect on Einstein’s belief that it was possible to hold together – if not weave together into a coherent unity – his views on science, ethics, politics and religion.”[v] (p89)
Einstein sought a unified theory of everything. That makes him an “excellent dialogue partner”[vi], per McGrath. Without naming a contentious issue but implying a context of Christianity vs. science, the professor asks “What might a Christian learn from Einstein? How does Einstein inform and engage with a Christian ‘big picture’ of the world?”
To help us understand Einstein’s way of thinking, the “short guide’ places Einstein in history (WWI, WWII, a Jew in Nazi Germany, Atomic weapons) and in line with a science great- Issac Newton.
Newton had published (in 1687) his Principia “which set out his three laws of motion, the modern concepts of force and mass, and the new and deeply counterintuitive concept of universal gravitation.” (p31) Newton had a hand in developing differential and integral calculus and discovered that white light is made up of colored rays. From one genius to the next.
1905, Albert Einstein worked as a clerk in a Swiss patent office. His job was not challenging so he began thinking about physics problems posed in physics journals!
We learn about the Einstein’s brilliant theoretical account of the photelectric effect and the nature of light which challenged the classical notions of the nature of light.
“Although Einstein went on to gain worldwide fame after the end of the Great war for his general theory of relativity, a Nobel prize in 1921 for his explanation of the photoelectric effect, the roots of that latter fame lay in a series of four groundbreaking articles in he published in the leading journal Annel der Physik (Annals of Physics) in 1905.”[vii] (33)
McGrath provides simplified explanations of Einsetin’s revolutionary theories, including the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity (developed using thought experiments), the equivalence of matter and energy (e=mc²), and the general theory of relativity (converting gravitational physics into the geometry of space-time, space-time being an elastic structure which is deformed by the presence, in its midst, of mass-energy).
Beside noting Einstein’s outside-the-box scientific achievements, McGrath also has the reader see that Einstein cared about greater issues. Here, McGrath quotes Einstein:
“By painful experience we have learnt that rational thinking does not suffice to solve problems of our social life. Penetrating research and keen scientific work have often had tragic implications for mankind, producing, on the one hand, inventions which liberated man from exhausting physical labor . . . but on the other hand . . . creating the means for his own mass destruction.”[viii]
Einstein, as McGrath explains, was not a religious man in the sense of religious ritual. He was aware of Jewish texts but he was not a practicing Jew. And though Einstein did not believe in a personal God, he did not shut out a belief in a ‘superior mind’ behind the universe. This belief came out the awe and wonder he experienced in discerning the complexity and coherence of the universe.
McGrath remarks that “Einstein’s approach was to treat science and religion as two distinct aspects of our attitude to our universe. . ..
“His core aim was to consider the relationship of two different realms or modalities of human thought: science (facts) and religion (values).”[ix] (P123) He quotes Einstein: “Science can only ascertain what is, but not what should be.”[x] (p125) McGrath goes on to say . . .
“Tensions arise, Einstein suggests, when religion intervenes ‘into the sphere of science’ – for example, in treating the Bible as a scientific text – or when science attempts to establish human ‘values and ends’.”[xi]
Professor McGrath, with A Theory of Everything (That Matters), would have us consider that there are Two Books revealing “Divinity”- Christianity’s scripture and natural sciences. The “Two Books” metaphor, as McGrath notes[xii], emerged during the Renaissance when the natural sciences took off, with the aid of telescopes and microscopes and experimentation, and replaced the church-controlled narrative about nature.
Encouraging a dialog with Einstein’s coherent and comprehensive way of seeing our world, Professor McGrath would have us, I believe, begin to think beyond what we think we know and what we swear to and use to accuse others of being deceived (see below).
We live in a scientific universe, not just a theological universe. With that in mind, I hope that you will read this book. I recommend the book for homeschoolers. The science is written for laymen. A thinking-outside-the-box philosophy of science like Einstein’s is good for one’s education and faith. Thinking that includes both scripture and natural science will enrich your faith. And who knows what you may discover as you venture beyond the thicket!
And why was the tree stumped? Because it couldn’t get to the root of the problem.
I hope you will listen to the podcast.
Alister McGrath – Journey of Science Journey of Faith
This podcast discusses two of Alister McGrath’s s more recent books: A Theory of Everything (that Matters) and Narrative Apologetics. The conversation ranges from talking about Einstein’s religious beliefs and how they open a door for exploring the relationship between science and theology, to the importance of storytelling for Christian Apologetics.
During the podcast, Alister mentions that he had received a microscope as a child.
When I was about ten-years-old, my father gave me a microscope for a Christmas present. I was delighted. All my other childhood gifts had been, shall I say, for kids. The microscope came with specimen slides, so I could start my discoveries that day.
Except for that one wonderous time, I was not raised to think about science. And nature, where I had spent a lot of time as a child, was not something you thought about except for the weather. It was just there.
I was raised to think of everything in terms of scripture. Nature was taught and preached as Psalm 19, six literal days of material creation, a worldwide flood, and as a place to escape and be raptured from, as in “this world is not my home I’m just a-passing through . . .” This became for me a fragmentary view of things, especially as I engaged others with my scripted view of the universe. To be honest, most of my church experience has been intellectually stifling.
So, I began to read books about physics, astrophysics, genomics, and other science texts. I took an interest in astronomy and ornithology, the study of birds. (Astronomers stay up very late and bird song seems to happen early in the morning, so I have to change my ways.)
I also read and researched the contexts of OT and NT scripture using the works of scholars like John Walton, Richard Bauckham, N.T. Wright and others. I wanted to grow intellectually and engage my imagination. And that is why I found McGrath’s book so interesting. I wanted to know more than what had been handed to me.
I also starting memorizing whole passages of scripture, as memorizing individual verses is taking them out of context. You see the latter often mis-used on social media. Memorizing whole passages of scripture – I’ve memorized four Psalms and five-and-a-half chapters of the Gospel of Mark – puts me into the context. With the Psalms, I am the one reflecting and reminding myself of God’s sovereignty and of His loving care for creation. With the Gospel according to Mark, I feel like I am there. In Mark 6:37, for example, when Jesus says to me, “You give them something to eat” what do I do?
Each of us is born into a passed-down way of understanding the world that later informs our judgements. Einstein’s cultivation of a philosophical habit of mind, his questioning attitude, provided his independence of judgement. That is something I share with Einstein.
Speaking of in terms of scientific advancement, Einstein writes about challenging a handed-down way of thinking in his “1916 memorial note for Ernst Mach, a physicist and philosopher to whom Einstein owed a special debt”:
“Concepts that have proven useful in ordering things easily achieve such an authority over us that we forget their earthly origins and accept them as unalterable givens. Thus they come to be stamped as “necessities of thought,” “a priori givens,” etc. The path of scientific advance is often made impassable for a long time through such errors. For that reason, it is by no means an idle game if we become practiced in analyzing the long commonplace concepts and exhibiting those circumstances upon which their justification and usefulness depend, how they have grown up, individually, out of the givens of experience. By this means, their all-too-great authority will be broken. They will be removed if they cannot be properly legitimated, corrected if their correlation with given things be far too superfluous, replaced by others if a new system can be established that we prefer for whatever reason. (Einstein 1916, 102”)[xiii] (Emphasis mine.)
“What might a Christian learn from Einstein? How does Einstein inform and engage with a Christian ‘big picture’ of the world?”
~~~~~
“Abandon the urge to simplify everything, to look for formulas and easy answers, and to begin to think multidimensionally, to glory in the mystery and paradoxes of life, not to be dismayed by the multitude of causes and consequences that are inherent in each experience — to appreciate the fact that life is complex.” ― M. Scott Peck, (1936–2005), American psychiatrist and best-selling author
[i]Letter to Robert Thornton, dated 7 December 1944. Einstein Archive, Reel 6-574
As I finished reading the book and started writing this post, I became engaged in a conversation on social media. My intent was to propose a different perspective than what I would call a locked-in “fundamentalist literal” perspective. Below are the screen captures.
Andrew Torba, CEO of GAB, posted the initial comment of the Tower of Babel below. Note the number “likes” for what he posted. Some of the replies were from those who thought it more Christian nonsense. I stepped in with my comment and then someone began commenting back. Here’s the dialog:
“Regrettable errors” is a deplorable defense in the mishandling of sexual abuse in a church. But that was the response of a Bishop who failed to act quickly on allegations against a lay minister.
As reported by Kathryn Post on Sept. 30, 2022, “A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.”
As you’ll learn, Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese had made a “secret appeal “to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. This deliberate act began a power struggle with Foley Beach, primate and archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.
The following reports by Kathryn Post and the abuse survivor’s accounts that include grooming are disturbing to read and more so for me. I knew the leaders – the “shepherds” – involved in the “regrettable errors”.
I attended the Church of the Resurrection for many years. Stewart Ruch became pastor of “Rez” while the church gathered in the auditorium of Glenbard West High School before moving to Wheaton. I lived around the corner from Stewart and Kathryn. I was in small group with Eirik Olsen and Randy York, now priests in Bishop’s Ruch’s close-knit diocese. My thoughts follow the reports.
How would you assess the handling of the sexual abuse situation, the attempted cover up, and the ensuing power struggle from the following reports? Is Bishop Ruch’s paltry mea culpa and a claim of spiritual attack a CYA defense designed to protect himself from discredit and from being discharged from a coveted position? What Say You?
“(RNS) — In July 2021 Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese, went on leave after making what he called “regrettable errors” in handling cases of abuse in the diocese.
By that time, many who attended the roughly 30 churches in Ruch’s diocese knew that the missteps Ruch was referring to had to do with his delay in informing them of the accusations against Mark Rivera, a volunteer leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, an Upper Midwest Diocese church in Big Rock, Illinois.”
~~~~
What had happened was this, according to Bishop Stewart’s Letter Regarding Devastating Situation in Diocese of May 4, 2021.
“Two years ago, on May 20, 2019, Mark Rivera, a volunteer lay leader (with the title of Catechist) at Christ Our Light in Big Rock, Illinois, was accused of a sexual offense against a minor. Christ Our Light was part of the Greenhouse Missionary Society, which is within our diocese. When Greenhouse leadership learned of this accusation, Mark was immediately removed from his position as Catechist. On June 10, 2019, Mark was arrested and jailed in Kane County.”
“(RNS) — Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor in a conservative Anglican denomination who was convicted in December of felony child sexual abuse and assault, was sentenced on Monday afternoon (March 6) to 15 years in the department of corrections.
Judge John Barsanti of Illinois’ 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Kane County granted Rivera the minimum sentences for his crimes. The judge earlier found Rivera guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old (a Class X felony) and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 (a Class 2 felony). Rivera will get credit for time already served in jail and spent under electronic monitoring and will be eligible for parole before completing his full sentence.”
The mother says leaders in the Anglican Church in North America pressured her not to report her daughter’s abuse allegations
“In May 2019, Cherin’s 9-year-old daughter told her that she had been abused by [Mark] Rivera. She reported the alleged abuse to [Rev. Rand] York, believing that her great uncle and the others in church leadership would protect her daughter.
According to Cherin, who asked that her last name not be used in order to protect her daughter’s identity, church leaders not only failed to report the allegations to the police or to the Department of Children and Family Services, but some also pressured her not to go to the police.
Despite this pressure, Cherin reported the alleged abuse to the police. In June 2019 Rivera was arrested and later charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse. He is currently out on bond.
In November 2020, Rivera’s neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg, reported to the Kane County Sheriff’s office that Rivera had raped her twice between 2018 and 2020. The Kane County Sheriff’s office would not comment beyond saying there is an ongoing investigation. Rivera’s lawyer did not respond for comment. (Emphasis mine.)
Ten people in all have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a volunteer leader in the Anglican Church in North America.
“Church leaders and members in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, of the Anglican Church in North America, trusted Rivera’s spiritual authority. According to reports from former Christ Our Light Anglican Church parishioners, they dismissed his frequent physical affection — his habit of kissing young girls on the cheek or inviting teenagers to sit on his lap — as “just Mark being Mark.””
After 9-year-old child told her mother that Rivera had abused her, “nine additional people have made allegations of abuse by Rivera, including child sexual abuse, grooming, rape, and assault, and Rivera has been charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse of the 9-year-old. To date, the diocese has publicly acknowledged only some of the allegations, and according to abuse prevention advocates, has downplayed the access he had to children and others while in church leadership.”(Emphasis mine.)
““Both my diocese and the ACNA got hit this summer by a vicious spiritual attack of the enemy,” Ruch wrote to the denomination’s top official, Archbishop Foley Beach, on Jan. 14. “I believe this is the case because both entities are doing robust Gospel work, and Satan hates us.”
“I have decided to come off of my voluntary and temporary leave of absence effective March 7, 2022,” Ruch announced to Beach. “I believe my calling as a bishop who is responsible for leading and pastoring my diocese requires me to return to my work of service, preaching and oversight.”
The ongoing investigative process, he further said, was neither “canonical or, more importantly, biblical.”
Despite an advising chancellor and others expressing solidarity with Ruch through some ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo, “others say that Ruch and other leaders have made the situation worse by defending the church instead of attending to Rivera’s alleged victims.” (Emphasis mine.)
~~~~
“A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.
The probe into events in the Upper Midwest Diocese, conducted by the investigative firm Husch Blackwell, also found that an ACNA priest did not report abuse by a lay pastor to the Department of Child and Family Services, claiming a church lawyer told him he was exempt from mandatory reporting laws. It also found that Bishop Stewart Ruch III and others allowed a church volunteer to have contact with teenagers after he had lost his teaching job for inappropriate behavior with students.” (Emphasis mine.)
Returning from self-imposed hiatus, ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch works to regain trust
“After 16 months of a self-imposed hiatus after admitting to mishandling sexual abuse allegations in his diocese in Wheaton, Illinois, Bishop Stewart Ruch — a charismatic, controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America — is taking steps to revive trust in his leadership. But a meeting last week held to soothe concerns of members of Church of the Resurrection showed he has work to do to restore trust.”
At a staged meeting where “Ruch and other leaders at Resurrection sat in armchairs in front of a packed church, according to church members who attended . . . Ruch read several statements, answered questions chosen from those submitted by congregants and read by church leaders. Ruch answered by reading from a script.”
“It gave me hope that the church realized that they needed to make some institutional programmatic changes or implementation and policies that would make it clear to everybody what their roles were when and if these kinds of crises hit,” one Resurrection member told RNS.
“But Ruch and other church leaders also appeared to want to manage the narrative about the bishop’s handling of the case and his return. Attendees were asked not to record the meeting, and clergy, accompanied by two police officers, were stationed at the sanctuary entrance. Audrey Luhmann, who stopped attending Resurrection in person over her concerns about church culture and who has been an outspoken member of ACNAtoo, an anti-abuse advocacy group, was barred from entering the meeting. ACNAtoo also reported that another clergy staffer tried to compel an alleged abuse victim’s mother to leave the meeting.” (Emphasis mine.)
“Archbishop Foley Beach, the primate of the Anglican Church in North America, accused his denomination’s highest court of attempting to stop an investigation into an Illinois bishop’s alleged misconduct.
“According to a statement Beach issued Wednesday (June 7), Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese made a “secret appeal” earlier this year to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. After the tribunal issued a stay order, Beach and other denominational leaders questioned the impartiality of four tribunal members. He also asserted that the denomination’s bylaws don’t give the tribunal authority to issue a stay order.
“This power struggle, which had been conducted behind closed doors for months, broke into the open Wednesday with Beach’s Sept. 7, 2022 “Update on the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.””
A 10-person board of inquiry found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial for violating denominational bylaws.
“Bishop Stewart Ruch, a controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America, will be brought to a church court trial, according to an announcement published to the denomination’s website on Tuesday afternoon
On July 10, a 10-person board of inquiry selected by the denomination’s leader, Archbishop Foley Beach, received a presentment (or list of charges) against Ruch. The board submitted a public declaration on Friday that said at least two-thirds of the board found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial. Specifically, per the denomination’s bylaws, they found grounds to try Ruch for violation of his ordination vows, for “conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power” and for “disobedience, or willful contravention” of the denominational or diocesan bylaws.” (Emphasis mine.)
Per Wikipedia: “ACNAtoo formed in June 2021 when Joanna Rudenborg took to Twitter and alleged that she had been raped twice by ACNA catechist Mark Rivera and decried the subsequent mishandling of multiple survivors’ allegations by leadership in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.”
“Ursa” alleges that Christopher Lapeyre abused his power as a teacher and mentor to groom her while she was a minor and enter a manipulative sexual relationship with her when she was a very young adult.
As mentioned above, I had personal connections with Stewart and Kathryn Ruch, Eirik Olsen, and Randy York while attending Church of the Resurrection during its GWHS days. I was in a small group with Eirik and Randy and their wives. Wheaton College grads, Stewart and Eirik and Randy and their wives, Jeannie and Kaye respectively, are especially close.
I’ll start by saying that I knew each of them to be decent people who expressed love for the Lord.
-It is said that after a spiritual crisis, Ruch returned fully to the Christian faith in September 1991.
-Stewart had been the rector of the Church of the Resurrection since 1999 and later consecrated as the first bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest on 28 September 2013.
I knew Stewart to be a high-spirited guy whose heart, as he said from the platform, was for evangelism. He came across to me as someone who could spur excited devotion but also as someone all over the place. So, I was surprised that a young inexperienced guy who was known to have panic attacks was made rector of “Rez” and doubly surprised when he was made a bishop.
Though a decent guy who loves the Lord, Stewart was in no wise of the caliber needed for those positions. Stewart, in my estimation, was not a spiritually mature candidate for either position. His becoming pastor was one of the main reasons I left “Rez”. Another was that there was a “Leanne Payne” contingent that concertedly wanted Stewart in those positions. (More about my Leanne Payne experience in a future post.)
As revelations of the mishandling of sexual abuse under Ruch’s oversight became known to me, I was confirmed in my assessment of Stewart.
Eirik Olsen and Randy York are working priests and leaders in Ruch’s diocese. I know them as very capable in the business world. They both operate in a corporate milieu that does not tolerate sexual misconduct. HR depts rush in to handle allegations. So, I was surprised to find that they were slow to act in these matters.
I understand the scriptural criteria for accusations in a church setting. I also understand that sexual abuse and the grooming that precedes it happen in private. Allegations of abuse turn into “he said she said” scenarios. Two or three witnesses are not around to corroborate allegations. In matters of alleged abuse, a wait-and-see-what happens attitude, as reported above, leads to more abuse.
If there is any question, you separate out the alleged perpetrator immediately and provide counseling for the alleged victim. You don’t make excuses for the alleged perpetrator. Blind allowance is not an act of grace. You work to uncover, not coverup, what is taking place. In general, when someone is reluctant to press an issue, are they compromised by similar issues?
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you.
From the accounts presented above – remember Mark Rivera was found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to 15 years – one does not let more chips fall where they may before acting. Act to sort out what is true from the posturing obfuscations.
And one does not hide behind a subjective defense of “spiritual attack” to fend off accountability. If Bishop Stewart can sense a “spiritual attack on himself and the church, why didn’t he (and Leanne Payne-discipled others) sense it around Mark Rivera and the abused in Big Rock?
Incompetence by all three men is my finding. And a lack of spiritual discernment on the part of all three men and the church that put them in those positions. Stewart must be removed from his position.
Putting well-liked good-natured people into positions of oversight is deceptively easy. If you want to test someone’s maturity before placing them upwards, place them under the direct oversight of someone spiritually mature and give them a responsibility for several years. If you don’t know what spiritual maturity is then learn, not from books, but from obedience to Christ in all things.
Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you, not under compulsion, but gladly, as in God’s presence; not for shameful profit, but eagerly. 1 Peter 5: 2
If one member of the body suffers, all members suffer with it. 1 Cor. 12: 26
What Say You?
~~~~~
Added 5-22-2024:
“On Monday, a group of ACNA clergy published an open letter expressing concern that there have not been public updates about a promised church trial for Ruch since November 2023. The letter pushes for regular updates on the trial’s progress and for information about why Ruch has not been inhibited, or limited in his duties, because of his alleged laxity in the past.”
An ACNA bishop, Todd Atkinson, tapped to assist during Bp. Stewart Ruch’s (short term) absence, was removed from ordained ministry after a church trial found he had engaged in inappropriate relationships with women and interactions with minors.
I watched him park his black Mercedes. I watched him cross the parking lot. He was angry talking on the phone. I watched him sneer at a man get out of a car next to his. I watched him looking at his watch. I watched him enter the home. My son Edward.
I watched over him in my belly. I watched him at my breast. I watched his first steps. I heard his first words.
I heard his loud voice from my chair by the window. I heard my name. I heard “Five minutes.” I heard the front desk “Over there.”
I watched him come over. I heard “Mom, I’m here.” I felt a kiss on my head. I smelled cigar and bourbon. I saw my face cringe in the mirror. I saw him look in the mirror. “Sit down,” I said.
“I don’t have much time,” he said.
“Where you off to?” I said.
“My new business Going Beyond Inc.,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Human enhancement technology,” he said.
“What’s that?” I said.
“Life extension. Changing and improving humanity with technology,” he said. “Well how you been?”
“I’ve been here where you put me,” I said.
“I asked how you are,” he said.
“I’m eighty-seven years old have trouble reading, hearing, walking, eating, pooping, Jim is gone, and my only child has business to attend to,” I said.
“I come as often as I can get away,” he said. “Besides,” he said, “I pay them good money to look after you when I’m not here.”
“You better get on with it” I said. “Things are not improving here.”
I saw him place a twenty-dollar bill on the lamp stand.
“Have them buy some of that candy you like,” he said.
“I’ll rent a son,” I said.
I watched him look in the mirror one last time. I felt a kiss on my head. I smelled cigar and bourbon. I heard “Bye mmmm.” I watched him walk away.
I heard his loud voice from my chair by the window. I heard “Next month” “Keep eye on her.” I heard the front desk “Oh, she’s not going anywhere.”
I watched him leave the home. I watched him cross the parking lot. He was angry talking on the phone. I watched him looking at his watch. I watched him look over his car on the passenger side. I watched him get in his Mercedes. I watched him drive off. My son Edward.
Joe Vukov, Associate Professor of Philosophy and the Associate Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University Chicago, helps to explain the pitfalls of both extremes—on one side, the transhumanists (who embrace technology as a way to become more human) and on the other, the neoLuddites (who shun certain kinds of technology)—and begins to clear a path somewhere in the middle.
Like a thief in the night, artificial intelligence has inserted itself into our lives. It makes important decisions for us every day. Often, we barely notice. As Joe Allen writes in this groundbreaking book, “Transhumanism is the great merger of humankind with the Machine. At this stage in history, it consists of billions using smartphones. Going forward, we’ll be hardwiring our brains to artificial intelligence systems.”
“Let us not be charlatans and let us state openly that you can’t figure out anything in this world. Only fools and charlatans know and understand everything.”
There’s an old curse that goes something like “May you live in interesting times.” Well, we certainly live in interesting times. High drama, not peace and tranquility, seems to be what is desired by many and readily offered by “fools and charlatans”. Our world is vexed with constant convulsive commotion.
Why would some seek the dramatic instead of peace and tranquility? I’ll answer with conjecture so as to not be considered a fool or charlatan: there seems to be, by the amount of anger and discontent portrayed in the media, to be many unhappy people in the world.
Could it be that unhappy people have a need to remain unhappy? Could it be that unhappy people thrive on passion-evoking conflict to give them something to rage against and to feed their emptiness? A melodramatic life has a history – a story of critical moments that can be exploited and readily referred back to. The unhappy never let a crisis go to waste. And misery loves fellow travelers.
A prosaic life, on the other hand, has no dramatic history. Someone I just came across on social media noted the difference:
“When I look at the world on social media, life has never been worse. When I look at my real life (family, career/finance, general enjoyment, etc), life has never been better.”
Is high drama readily offered by “fools and charlatans? Here’s Bill Nye: “It’s very difficult to tie any specific weather event to climate change, but if you like to worry about things, this is a great time.”
“After Tropical Storm Hilary hit California this week, MSNBC ran to TV children’s show host Bill Nye to hype climate change, a typical move by the far-left cable news outlet. . ..
BILL NYE ON CLIMATE CHANGE
"People like to throw around the expression 'new normal.' It's not going to be normal, it's going to get worse and worse, probably," @BillNye says of landmark tropical storm #Hilary.
Dog bites man. Not news. Man bites dog. Front page news.
Westerly winds dry out non-native grass on Maui. Not news. Downed power line sparks wildfire. Westerly winds cause rapid spread of wildfire. Climate Change!!!!
Below, some of the Lies for the Taking being served up for the frustrated unhappy people who desire to bring everyone down to their level of misery. (Conjecture?)
(See previous posts for links that debunk many of the lies coming out of the mouths of “fools and charlatans”.)
The Lies of the Climate Concerned:
We’re all gonna die unless . . .
King Charles III has launched a catastrophe countdown clock. It will tick until 2030, a year in which he predicts “serious consequences” if the world doesn’t effectively address “climate change.”
“As President Joe Biden prepares to visit Maui, the Hawaiian island devastated by the deadliest wildfire in U.S. modern history, lawmakers and climate groups are begging the White House to do more to prevent future climate-related disasters.
Their argument: If the latest environmental catastrophe won’t spur the president into action, what will?”
Here’s Tedros, Director-General of the World Health Organization, with more climate crisis fear porn to bring about centralized control.
The Lies of the Optics Concerned – Maui:
“While en route to Maui, three weeks after the wildfire that devastated the Hawaiian island began, White House spokesperson Olivia Dalton said President Joe Biden will “make sure that he communicates to that not only have we been there since day one, has he been there since day one.””
During his speech in Milwaukee, the president appeared to forget the name Maui, referring to the island as 'the one where you see on television all the time.' 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/Ao5DWp8PJb
NEW: President Biden once again tries to make the Maui fire that killed ~500 people about himself by telling a story about how he almost lost his corvette in a house fire.
You can always count on Biden to tell a story that didn’t happened.
Judge Jeanine Pirro GOES OFF over Biden's visit to Maui:
"He has a lack of empathy, he is egocentric, he has got a condescending smirk whenever anybody asks him a question from the press, he is lying, and he's narcissistic." pic.twitter.com/wCbzLvDtpe
Dr. Gottlieb is connected to the FDA, to Pfizer, to the CIA, and more. See Dr. Malone’s article at link below for more on the “pretty concerned” Dr. Scott Gottlieb.
Dr. Malone writes . . .
“Propagation of Fear porn based on fake news and hype is now a validated method for Big Pharma to control governments and their populations. But are people buying it this time around?
“One of my primary care physician colleagues wrote this to me yesterday:
“Who would’ve thought that Covid would resurge as a concern for so many! I’m getting bombarded with calls and request for ivermectin, folks who are testing unnecessarily. Absolute panic out there once again.
“To further the suggestion that another lockdown scare is in the forecast, yesterday the US Department of Health and Human Services announced funding of $1.4 billion to “support the development of a new generation of tools and technologies to protect against COVID-19 for years to come” according to a press release” (Emphasis mine.)
How do we prepare for the typical fall flu season? With “a physician that will help you determine the correct dosing of Vitamin D3 and zinc, as well as be willing to prescribe multi-drug, early treatment protocols against COVID, and one that isn’t going to pressure you or your family into unnecessary shots.”
“We employ doctors who aren’t afraid to utilize effective, simple, and safe treatments for viral infection through the intelligent use of prescription medicines that have been around for years, and in some cases, decades. By focusing on the pathology of the toll that viral infections take on the human body, we’ve discovered that some off-label medicines can be more consistent, effective, and safe than new experimental treatments.”
“We’ve already been over everything you need to know about “Eris” here. Long story short, “Covid” is just another made up name for the flu, and the “variants” are coats of paint they slap on the narrative to try and keep it looking fresh.
“In that same article I theorised Eris’ existence was a need to keep Covid alive, and that is part of it…but I also missed something obvious: The next round of Covid “vaccines” hits the shelves next month.” (Emphasis mine.)
The Biden administration has announced a plan to encourage all Americans to receive a Coronavirus booster shot during the upcoming fall season to respond to an apparent wave of infections.
Despite the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noting a rise in virus-related infections and hospitalizations, the White House highlighted that the overall infection rates remain relatively low.
“According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the overall levels of COVID-19 in the country are very low. (Emphasis mine.)
Santa Monica, which is in Los Angeles County, has an extremely low rate of COVID-19 hospital admissions.”
“Positivity rates for the COVID-19 test are similarly low across the country, including in California.”
But that doesn’t stop fools and charlatans imposing mask mandates and people going along with the drama.
Do Not let them do this to your children. Say “NO!” to masks and mandates.
“College students and others across America should be preparing for mass protest against mask mandates citing a First Amendment right to engage in political speech, which refusing to wear a mask can be construed as in any environment attempting to mandate it. The second they mandate wearing a mask, it’s a political issue, so refusing to wear one in such a condition can be construed wholly as a political statement. The First Amendment provides strong protections for political speech.” – James Lindsey (Emphasis mine)
The new Covid regulations are a test. Are we unified in our distrust of them? Will we fight each other? Are we still controllable? Will we take it? Overreact? They will come in waves of escalating provocations that take more and more while making less and less sense.
“A brief list of some of the COVID lies we have heard over the last couple of years (with thanks and acknowledgment to Dr. Scott Atlas):
-SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has a far higher fatality rate than influenza virus by several orders of magnitude
-Everyone has a significant risk of death from COVID-19.
-No one has immunity, because this virus is new (“novel”) and so expedited vaccine development and deployment is essential.
-Everyone is dangerous and spreads the infection
-Asymptomatic people are major drivers of the spread of disease.
-Locking down- closing schools and businesses, confining people to their homes, stopping non-COVID medical care, and eliminating travel will stop/eliminate the virus.
-Masks will protect everyone and stop the spread.
-Immune protection can only be obtained with a vaccine.
-Natural immunity conferred by infection and recovery is short lived and inferior to vaccine-induced immunity.”
“Who was responsible for these lies?
Deborah Birx (who was trained by Anthony Fauci).
She wrote virtually all official White House guidance to state Governors.
This usurped constitutional authority of states to set public health policies.
Not a lie: “The President took office determined to move beyond these failed trickle-down policies and fundamentally change the economic direction of our country.” (Emphasis mine.)
No conspiracy theory: Bidenomics is high inflation and high interest rates – for Democrats and Republicans; people going back to work after COVID is not creation of new jobs.
The U.S. dollar has been so mishandled and degraded under the Biden regime – by Janet Yellen, Jerome Powell and Congress – that countries are turning to other currency.
There’s a pervasive attitude held by many Washington insiders – respectability. Put in a turn of phrase from Princess Bride, they would say “We are men of respectability, MAGA doesn’t become us.”
The “respectable” hoity-toity see themselves as morally and intellectually superior over the rather distasteful hoi polloi. They are disconnected from the common folk. They relate to them with contempt, with sneering media comments, and through opinion pieces – prescriptions as to how the little people should think and act – like them.
The “respectable” see themselves as lofty and undeniably important – as ruling class. Washington and the media abide them because they are controlled opposition.
Who are these “respectable” people? They include National Review writers, Bill Kristol, David Harsanyi, George Will, Jonah Goldberg, David French, Mike Pence, Indiana Senator Todd Young, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier.
Three presidents – Nixon, Reagan, and Trump – were threats to the administrative state that had incubated during FDR’s three terms and has grown enormously since. The administrative state reacts aggressively when its tentacles, that reach into all sectors of society, come under attack.
And so it was that Nixon was assailed with Watergate and left office. Reagan’s focus on the Cold War may have been the reason why Washington didn’t mess with him.
Today, with unjustifiable impeachments and indictments, a hostile constantly sniping media, and a stolen election, Trump has been mercilessly attacked by the leviathan administrative state that wants not only to maintain its status quo but, even more so, wants to increase its scope of influence over every citizen.
The “respectable” people mentioned above are in on the attack. Justice for them is that which leaves them feeling smug.
‘You’re Wrong’ With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 59: ‘Rich Men North Of Richmond’
The Lies that Indict Saying Contesting Elections is a Crime:
Common knowledge. Hillary Clinton contested an election. Al Gore contested an election. Stacy Abram contested an election. Amy Klobuchar contested an election. And others. None of these were indicted.
“The victims this time are Trump and his friends. But it could be you next time, and it will be. “A boot stomping on a human face forever,” as Orwell said. Again, it’s happening now, and it can kill America as we know it.” (Emphasis mine.)
“The Democrats are so far out of line that I can barely comprehend it. They’ve created an incredibly tenuous racketeering charge and indicted lawyers who were legally representing their clients for practicing law. This is beyond the pale.
“The Democrats and the Fulton County DA are criminalizing the practice of law.”
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”
You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice, nor shall you be partial to a poor man in his lawsuit.
— Exodus 23:1-3
If you have been on the receiving end of a lie, you know that lies are meant to manipulate. We’ve recently seen that lies pervert justice and indict. We’ve also seen that lies are involved in stealing elections, defrauding voters and dividing the public.
Lies used politically are meant to produce homogenized thought. Lies were used during COVID and now with the Climate Crisis narrative. And what better fear porn drama can be conjured up than a campaign to “combat online misinformation” (that works to keep truth from getting a foothold)?
Who better to deliver the fear porn drama of lies than know-it-all “fools and charlatans” or as they’re called today “the experts”? They were paraded out for the COVID “pandemic” and for the Climate “crisis”. And now for the COVID “variant crisis”.
If you accept and submit to the lie, you’re in the club. If you reject the lie, then the lie has set you up to fail and power sweeps in to “correct” you. If you don’t accept the lie, you’re considered to be an extremist, a cult member:
John Kerry now says you’re in a “cult” if you disagree with his views on climate change. pic.twitter.com/ymDh3bAK4c
Lies set you up to fail – being called names, being indicted, exclusion, etc. – if you do not accept them.
Lies blend contexts, as if they were the same thing, e.g., slavery at one time in the U.S. and all whites are racist.
Lies project onto others. (Watch CNN & MSNBC for examples.)
Lies create anxiety. (“Is he or she telling me the truth? What should I believe?)
Lies oppose human growth and well-being.
Lies destroy the spiritual growth of others and work to preserve and protect a sick world, the world of the unhappy.
When a lie is found out you may find yourself cursing the lie and the liar. Or you may vote for more lies and more drama, interesting times being desired.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.” ― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
Mask mandates will not fly; tell your lawmakers we will not comply.
Mask mandates, and even Covid jab mandates to attend school seem to be returning in some states. And the rumor mill is churning that even more are coming down the pike from the Biden administration.
Regardless if these rumors are true or not, or if more colleges and more hospitals follow suit, one thing remains the same: We will not comply.
Mandatory medicine and mandated interventions such as social distancing and mask-wearing have no place in a free society. Citizens have the right to make responsible decisions about what is best for themselves and their children based on their own unique circumstances.
Email your lawmakers now to urge them to do their part to make sure that mask-wearing remains voluntary. Use link below.
I sent the following Word Doc, composed from the Stand For Health email to lawmakers, to the Governor of Indiana and Indiana’s Health commissioner. Use the document to send to anyone in your state that needs this message.
The German government has embarked on an advertising campaign to brand mothers as ‘climate killers’. You absolutely know that this is all part of the ‘depopulation agenda’.
The only solution to the alleged “Climate Crisis” the Left will accept is Communism. What a surprise.
Property tax means you never own your property. It means you rent it from government.
Truth, beauty and happy go together.
By the Riverside by Belgian artist Emile Claus 1920
“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
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“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
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
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
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“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
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
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.
*****
“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
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“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
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“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
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“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
**
“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
*****
“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
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
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
*****
“…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
*****
Cindy Wity 
You and Euaggélion
November 26, 2023 Leave a comment
We are entering a season of celebrating Good News. But hold on. There are some, the same some since before 2016, who are now heralding a disastrous 2024.
Today, at the top of media’s Richter scale of catastrophic “Oh Nos!” and bumping “climate crisis” to number TWO is word of a disastrous new year as speculated in The Economist magazine article Donald Trump poses the biggest danger to the world in 2024 !!!!
To add to the hysteria known as Trump Derangement Syndrome, unhinged Joe Scarborough of MSNBC’s Morning Joe said that Trump “will end democracy as we know it.” Wow!!! What a power calculus!!
Joe, hyperbolizing on a New York Times Op-Ed [“Trump’s Dire Words Raise New Fears About His Authoritarian Bent”] went beyond calling Trump an authoritarian. He implied that Trump’s a murderous fascist: “he will imprison” “he will execute” enemies if reelected. Scarborough knows this because of “his past”. (I’d like to see those press clippings. Anyone?)
N.B.: MSNBC is where people go to completely lose all touch with reality because Orange Man Bad.
Here’s Mika man:
Trump Acquitted of Inciting Insurrection, Even as Bipartisan Majority Votes ‘Guilty’ – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
And there’s more from the ‘sound and fury, signifying nothing’ MSNBC:
“Former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that “everybody should vote for” President Joe Biden if they wanted democracy to survive.” Wow!!! Again!!!
Before we exit the land of the unhinged, there’s another unbalanced MSNBC political contributor who weighs in on Trump: former Democrat U.S. Senator of Missouri, the very rich Claire McCaskill.
McCaskill claims that Donald Trump is “even more dangerous” than dictators Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler!!! In the process of loathing Trump, McCaskill also has to mock MAGA supporters. You should know that the schtick of MSNBC contributors – our hoity-toity betters – is making their viewers feel superior to the deplorable hoi polloi.
The above insanity should tell you that the Left – Wokes, LGBTQ+ mafia, Antifa, the climate overwrought, BLM, race hustlers and all – are terrified of Trump. And they want you to be terrified of him, too. They see their world, supported by the vast administrative State that sustains their power and control over America, as threatened by Trump. For, in Trump’s next term, he will begin to pull apart the leviathan deep state apparatus that destroys Democracy and America itself.
That and the Left’s constant lawfare against Trump is an indicator to me that Trump is the right man for the job. He’s about saving what’s left of our Republic – namely, the Constitution, free speech, the right to bear arms, religious freedom, and due process which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” (14th Amendment).
The Left, on the other hand, want to abandon all that. The Left wants to seize life, liberty, and property and create a system of producing and distributing collectively owned goods via a centralized government that plans and controls the economy. The left’s economic reforms increase centralized state control to the extent that private ownership becomes virtually impossible.
See Mao’s Great Leap Forward for one example of the effects of collectivization. A Progressive’s collective communist State means that all labor, money, and production go to the State and the State determines who benefits and who must go without based on political loyalty.
And see North Korea for the Left’s brand of “Democracy!” which the braying MSNBC crew says is under threat and not because of their dictatorial ways but because of the guy who wants to keep them from their dictatorial ways.
Trump has also shown that he wants to ensure our country’s sovereignty. And that means a closed border with legal immigration. He also wants to safeguard America from another war. The Left, under the Biden regime, has shown us that open borders with constant war and anarchy are its will.
Another indicator that Trump is right for the WH job is that there are those, not just domestically but internationally, who want Trump and those around them out of the picture, e.g., Iran-linked hitmen. Trump is bothering all the right (evil) people.
Going forward, I sure don’t want someone representing me in the WH who folds or capitulates under pressure. I sure don’t want appeasers and accommodationists like members of Congress. I sure don’t want someone who, at one time in Indiana, looked the part of a respectable Christian leader but turned out to be a squish: Don’t Ever Forget That Mike Pence Threw Religious Liberty Under the Bus | National Review
Results, not presentation, earn my respect.
And though New Yorker Trump could always pick out better words and phrasing to explain his thoughts and his frustrations with the stolen 2020 election, he wasn’t chosen to be president in 2016 and 2020 and once again in 2024 because he’s a poet laureate or a pastor or a prefab politician. Trump’s a producer for the American people.
The firing-on-all cylinders low-inflation economy (before the subterfuge of COVID) and the strong dollar Trump delivered – both are being destroyed by the Biden administration’s willful neglect of the American people as are the times of peace Trump fostered.
But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .
Since President Biden took office in January 2021, Americans have faced increasingly higher prices for food, gasoline, and other common household items. And while prices have been going up, wages have been going down, placing additional stress on family finances. This, per The Biden Inflation Tracker. This per Full-Time Nurse and Mother Breaks Down as She Discusses Tough Financial Struggles Under Bidenomics — Family Living ‘Paycheck-to-Paycheck’ Despite Decent Income (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hᴏft
Since Biden took office Home sales fell to a 13-year low in October as prices rose (cnbc.com),
Since the illegitimate President took office in January 2021, our southern border has been invaded. Biden-Mayorkas have allowed in (6 million +) all kinds of illegal immigrants including narco-terrorists, gangs, CCP migrants, Hamas terrorists, and more unsavory types along with fentanyl and disease. 2024 will be disastrous as the effects of the open border hit home.
Under the corrupt, compromised, incompetent, and incorrigible Joe Biden, Americans now risk getting pulled into wars on three major fronts: Europe, the Asia Pacific and the Middle East. That didn’t happen under Trump.
But MSNBC stands by their man Biden . . .
Unlike those who are “ashamed” or “embarrassed” by Trump and want to condemn his unrefined ways as being beneath them, my working life was spent in the real world outside the cloisters of academia, religious organizations, and armchair punditry. I learned which people get things done and what needs to get done.
As a business partner in a multi-million-dollar manufacturing enterprise for many years, I found out who was needed and what was needed to bring success to both employees and the bottom line. The things that Trump got done during his first term allowed me to get things done in the Kingdom of God.
N.B.: There are imperfect people like Trump and tax-collector Matthew in the kingdom of heaven. (Mk. 2:15-17). So, it is best for the offended and the ‘high-minded’ to stick with the gospels and to stay away from tea leaves.
Consider a Trump economy. With a thriving economy, I am able to support myself and give to help others in need in a closely tied relationship. But under a Leftist Joe Biden economy, disposable personal income shrinks. Financial survival kicks in. And worse.
You should be aware that Leftists are intent on neutralizing Christianity and its charity. As mentioned above, the Left wants everything to be funneled through the State and the State to be the only effect on society. This is what Progressives do. They make everyone and everything dependent on ruling class ‘good will’. And that is the substance of State media’s MSNBC and their ilk.
So, while the prophets of Baal, enflamed with Trump Derangement Syndrome, shout louder and slash themselves with swords and spears in the hope that viewers will pay attention to their frantic prophesying and let their fire rain down on Trump, let’s turn to the Good News that has already come down from the heavens with its fire poured out through the Holy Spirit.
The beginning of Mark’s Gospel (εὐαγγέλιον or euaggélion – literally, “God’s good news.”):
This is where the good news starts – the good news of Jesus the Anointed King, God’s son.
Everything in Scripture (and specifically Isaiah 40-55) up to this time pointed to the Kingdom of God on earth. Mark writes (vs.14-15):
After John’s arrest, Jesus came into Galilee, announcing God’s good news.
“The time is fulfilled!” he said; “God Kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”
“Turn back”? When Jesus launched the long-promised kingdom of God on earth, allegiances and lifestyles began to change direction, as he began to talk about and show what that meant.
Jesus spoke of kingdom of God in parables and directly, as in Matthew 5-7. He showed what the kingdom of God meant – unclean spirits are cast out (Mk. 1:39), people are healed (Mt. 4:23), there is restoration (Lk. 15) and resurrection (Jn. 11:38-44). And, that the kingdom of God on earth was a fulfillment of the Law and Prophets (Mt. 5:17-18).
When he taught his disciples how to pray, he prayed
May your kingdom come,
May your will be done
As in heaven, so on earth
I wonder. Is that prayer being realized? Instead of allegiance to King Jesus the ultimate restorer and to the kingdom of God on earth, have the followers of Jesus become accommodationists of the world to fit in and find ease?
Have the followers of Jesus understood what the good news is? Have they reduced the gospel (euaggélion) to the formulaic four spiritual laws and an escape from the world into heaven?
Below are two podcasts that offer an understanding of the Good News and the kingdom of God on earth. Download and listen as you enter the season of celebrating the birth of a King who brought us good news and a kingdom.
But the holy ones of the Most High shall receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever—forever and ever. Daniel 7:18
We, the King’s holy ones, are to herald the good news of God’s Kingdom with a new way of life to a world that sees answers in profoundly short-sighted ways rather than in the Way of King Jesus. And then . . .
Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying,
“The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord
and of his Messiah,
and he will reign forever and ever.” Rev 11:15
~~~~~
On Earth as it is in Heaven
Anglican Bishop, and New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright makes clear, Jesus’ good news wasn’t about giving advice, or founding a new religion, or even where a soul goes when the body dies. Jesus was inviting his hearers into a new way of understanding Israel’s ancient story and the cosmic significance of its sudden fulfillment.
Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright
Trinity Forum Conversations | Reading Scripture with N.T. Wright (transistor.fm)
~~~~~
Jesus and the Kingdom of God
Jesus bringing the Kingdom of God to the world looks much different than what his friends, family members, and Jewish community thought.
Jesus & the Kingdom of God (bibleproject.com)
~~~~~
Informed Dissent:
A year of determination, the help of world-renowned doctors, and this mother’s research exposed the world to the known toxins in the Covid-19 vaccines that nearly killed her son.
“In 2021, after my then 21-year-old son went from running miles a day to walking with a cane, diagnosed with a rare, catastrophic blood disorder, this mom knows it is time for vaccine injury victims & families to ignite an intelligent, rational conversation about what the mRNA vaccines put into our bodies. We don’t buy food or health products without reading the labels and knowing the ingredients, and it’s time we do the same with the vaccines for our children.”
The Shot Heard Around The World – A Mother’s Anthem (substack.com)
Livestock raised in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) are routinely given a range of veterinary drugs to prevent disease, and some of those drugs could potentially impact the health of those who eat their meat.
Common Drug Used by Pork Industry Has Human Cancer Risk (mercola.com)
Thousands of vials of biological substances — including some labeled “HIV” — and a freezer marked “Ebola” were found inside a secret Chinese-owned biolab in California which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FBI initially refused to investigate, according to a House committee report released Wednesday.
Pathogens labeled ‘HIV’ and ‘Ebola’ found inside illegal Chinese-owned biolab in California (nypost.com)
“This is really a massive cover-up. And I suspect it’s because there’s many more links to the funding, and there was probably discussion of the funding,” says Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).
HHS and NIH More Secretive Than CIA on COVID Origin Documents: Sen. Rand Paul | EpochTV (theepochtimes.com)
~~~~~
Brace Yourself For What’s Coming in 2024 – Victor Davis Hanson – YouTube
Victor Davis Hanson Warns America: ‘Brace Yourself for What’s Coming in 2024’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance
Rate this:
Filed under 2023 current events, 2024 Election, Christianity, cultural Marxism, Gospel of Mark, Gospels, Kingdom of God, media, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary Tagged with democrats, Jesus, Joe Biden, media, MSNBC, politics, progressives, the Gospel, The Kingdom of God, Trump