A college physics course experiment was an eye-opener. The purpose of the experiment was to measure the earth’s gravitational acceleration from an object in free fall. (See PDF below for an example). But that day in the physics lab the experiment took on greater significance. I found out that God has two books – scripture and science – and the books go hand in hand.
As I see it, scripture provides the origin and context for all understanding. From the ancient cosmology starting point In the beginning God created the heavens and earth to John the Elder introducing us to the incarnation of that cosmology – Jesus, the way, the truth and life.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:1–3)
Science can explain the material world, the mechanisms of creation and the forces (gravity, tension, spring, etc.) at work on earth in sublime mathematical terms. In fact, four fundamental forces make it possible for humans (and scripture) to exist in the habitable zone called earth.
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I grew up in a Sola Scriptura universe. I attended Baptist and Bible churches for the first half of my life. I attended Moody Bible Institute after high school. These institutions posited the trinity of scripture, right living, and evangelism. These mattered most in that constrained cosmology. The material world seemed immaterial to those who preached and taught, except for tithing and the payment of room and board.
In that context, gospel songs seemed to promote a disdain for the physical world:
This world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue; The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door, And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.
This world is not my home? Hmmm. Why did God create the material heavens and earth? And why did God bother giving material creation order and function to fashion a temple where He could dwell with man, as described in Genesis 1 and 2? Why bother setting up a temple garden? Are we meant to look down on creation from some heavenly perch?
During those times of sermons and studies, I heard nothing about the material nature of things or of science. By its avoidance it implied, for me at least, that the material world was linked with “the natural man” and the world, the flesh, and the devil. As such, the material world needed to be done away with the parts of me that were sinful (Col. 3:5). There was also the highly popular but errant end-time teaching and best-selling books describing a rapture that would whisk believers away from corrupted earth.
But that day in the lab as I calculated the acceleration due to gravity, I understood that a force acted to keep me on the earth. I also realized that I had come across a companion book to scripture.Scripture says Jesus holds all things together (Col. 1:17). Science says that gravity is the force the holds everything in the universe together.That day I realized that the Lord was increasing the magnitude of my cosmology with a down-to-earth experiment.
Science offered me new insight into God the Creator. Matter matters to God. Holding things together matters to God. Jesus offering his body and blood as true food and drink in the material elements of bread and wine took on new meaning.
Why study the mechanical nature of things? Why study science? For several reasons: Everything in the natural world is a sign, a trace, an echo, an image and a sacrament of the triune God. The goodness of God is diffused into His good creation. As such, everything in creation has been given a profound relationality with a space to be and a sense of particularity so that it is encountered and not just used.
Why study the science of things? Because God made them to be studied. God made the unpredictability of quantum physics for us to puzzle over, to reflect on and then to uncover its mysteries, e.g., light as both particle and wave. The contemplative exercise is necessary for science. And, it what’s required for our theology of the mysterious three-in-one Trinity.
Why study the science of things? Because nothing is stamped on the bottom, “made by God.” That’s for us to find out. We were created to look into mysteries and to be scientists.
Of course, there are people who are terrified of looking at information that doesn’t align with what they have been told for so many years. When I told my mother that I accepted the thinking that the universe came into existence with the Big Bang some 13.7 billion years ago and the theory of evolutionary creationism, she told me “That’s heresy! I have no doubt that she prayed for my soul after that call. Mom is now with the Lord. Her concerns have been allayed.
I have read and been wowed by many science texts including books about genomics, quantum physics, astrophysics, and the periodic table. I’ve learned that God creates in particular and yet everything created is related. Electrons are relational to protons and neutrons. The periodic table reveals that relationality.
As I recorded data that remarkable day in the physics lab, I said “This is soooooo cool!” I felt an incredible sense of awe and wonder. I had found the relationality of scripture and science.
And he is ahead, prior to all else,
And in him all things hold together
–The Letter of Paul to the Colossians 1: 17
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An approaching moving day and what it involves prompted this post. As with every previous move, I need to sort through things to see what stays behind and what goes forward. The same process of sorting out of what makes sense to keep applies to one’s reasoning and faith, to one’s understanding of science and scripture, and to achieving maturity.
Just the other day I received email from a local Democrat representative, one of our Build Back Betters:
Dear Friend,
Every day, I hear from constituents about the financial stress and anxiety they experience as a result of rising prices of necessities like groceries and gas. I understand the worry this creates. That is why I put together an update on how I’m fighting inflation with resources to help lower costs for you and your families.
But let’s be clear: Big oil needs to be held accountable for their role in the sky-high prices we are experiencing. Last year, the five largest oil companies made over $75 billion in profits, the highest increase in seven years. This gouging along with Russia’s unwarranted aggression in Ukraine has led to supply chain issues and higher prices for American families. That is why I introduced the Stop Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act to hold big oil companies accountable while providing families a $100 monthly tax credit to offer immediate relief. (Emphasis mine.)
From her website:
How is it that under Trump we didn’t have “rising prices of necessities like groceries and gas.” How is it that under Trump there was no energy crisis? And no Putin-Ukraine conflict? Do you think the 40-year high inflation has to do with the current Democrat regime policies and not with corporations and oil and gas companies, the Dems favorite scapegoats?
First, he declared open war on domestic American energy, from pipelines to drilling, prioritizing a radical eco agenda over dependable and affordable American domestic energy. Then, he and Chuck and Nancy embarked on a truly exorbitant borrowing and spending spree that sent interest rates and prices for nearly every conceivable physical asset soaring. Finally, he issued draconian and unscientific workplace vaccine mandates – many of which still remain in place – that prevented full staffing in key industries like trucking and logistics for supply lines. -Steve Cortes
Supposedly, the Stop Gas Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act would lower energy costs for Americans with a tax rebate. Households will receive a monthly, advanced, and refundable tax credit that will be phased out for single filers earning more than $75,000 and joint filers earning more than $150,000 per year.
You see, Democrats create a problem, blame someone else (e.g., corporate greed) and then offer for us to keep our money (e.g., I’m fighting inflation with resources) as a panacea.
Not only have Joe Biden and the Democrats created horrible economic conditions with uncompromising Green energy policies, they are intent on harming people with uncompromising mandates and vaccines. Whatever is good, Democrats do the opposite.
You won’t get reality from the effete and greedy corporate media – CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, NYT, WaPo, etc. No. Instead, you get their social-emotional learning narratives. Democrats, like the rep above, parrot media narratives.
I have questions that the media won’t delve into:
Why is the U. S. involved in a proxy war to uphold a corrupt socialist oligarchy and jeopardizing our national security and readiness?
Why is Joe Biden trying to escalate conflict?
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden says of Vladimir Putin. pic.twitter.com/9QY9QidUZS
Macron is criticizing Biden for calling Putin “a butcher”. The French president says it’s not constructive.
“I would not use that kind of language. If a ceasefire is to be brokered, we must not escalate — neither through words nor actions.” pic.twitter.com/REzBTzJWc5
The U.S. is sending $33 billion in aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, this is Los Angeles.
You can be sure that media coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is a distraction. It is meant to have you look away at what is happening here at home – the invasion on our southern border (2 million+ in 2021 and soon, 2022 also) and the devastating Green economic policies that destroy life as we know it to save the planet, save face and pad bank accounts.
Why is the media focused on Ukraine’s border when our southern border is being overrun by all kinds of opportunistic moochers?
Why is the Biden regime promoting illegal immigration? Foreigners wanting a better situation than the one they fostered in their own country is not sufficient legal ground for their immigration to take place.
Why are NGOs like Catholic Charities aiding and abetting the takeover of our country?
Why? “Corporations and liberal non-profits are currently organizing a mass invasion of the United States, endangering our national security and the safety of our communities.” – Rep. Lance Gooden
Why are Obama/Biden and Democrats afraid of truth (i.e., losing control of the narrative that hides their evil ways), hence the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” akin to Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth)?
What is the Biden crime family hiding? Nina Jankowicz formerly worked as an advisor to the Ukrainian government under a Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship.
Every dictatorship has a propaganda arm—a “Ministry of Truth.” The Biden Administration has now formally joined the ranks of such dictatorships with their creation of the so-called “Disinformation Governance Board.” pic.twitter.com/iMnrqksaJJ
Don’t listen to the noise. Listen to the signal. Listen to adults who speak in adult reality terms.
We discuss the economy, Ukraine, Covid vaccine, and more w/ Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dave Brat, Dr. Peter Navarro Naomi Wolf: The Untold Dangers Of The Covid Vaccine For Pregnant Women; Dave Brat/Peter Narro’s Analysis Of The Crashing American Economy
The Left loves ESG. The Left hates humans. Climate change is just another scheme to hate on humans. And, another litigious way to transfer money and control:
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink believes in “forcing behaviors.” “Behaviors are going to have to change and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at Blackrock, we are forcing behaviors”
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-1 to advance a proposed rule requiring public companies to disclose climate risks. . .
The main intent of the rule is to make it easier for left-leaning asset managers like BlackRock, public pension funds and trial lawyers to bully companies. Public companies will be liable for climate disclosures the SEC deems inaccurate or incomplete.
Across the country, we’re in the midst of an unprecedented explosion in homeschooling and alternative education. The main triggers were Covid-19 shutdowns and masking policies. But parents were already frustrated and revolting — even in some of the most liberal cities — over radical social agendas and poor academic results. Today, we investigate the mass exodus from America’s public schools.Public Schools | Full Measure
“Meat prices have increased about 14% from February 2021 and will go up even more. Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.” Teresa Ghilarducci, the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research.
in the Christ shall all be made alive -1 Cor. 15: 22
Many years ago, an interim pastor at the church I was attending asked me to go with him to Pacific Garden Mission in downtown Chicago. This pastor was involved PGM’s Unshackledradio broadcasts. On this occasion, he and I ministered to those who came in off the street. I played a couple hymns on my trumpet. He gave a simple gospel message. Those attending received a hot meal after our brief service.
During my student days at Moody Bible Institute, I visited other Chicago rescue missions. I would play my trumpet and, with others in our group, give a brief witness to my faith in the Lord. Telling the forlorn and broken sitting before me that I was raised in a Christian home and received Jesus as my savior at eleven years old – I was coming from a place nowhere near where these folks had been.
But the gospel has a way of speaking into memories and of stirring folks to reflect on their life. Some wept upon hearing childhood accounts of home. From recollections, whether good or bad, the gospel points people in the direction of rescue from a life gone prodigal.
On each occasion, as I walked into the meeting room of the rescue mission, I encountered the smell of alcohol, urine and of unwashed bodies and clothes. My eyes met with a scene of loss – each figure a shell of their former self.
The homeless – alcoholics, the drug dependent, the bankrupt, the mentally ill, the despairing, the dis-owned by family and friends – sat scattered among the rows of chairs. Some folks were asleep sitting up. Some were laying across chairs asleep. Some were mumbling things unintelligible. And some sat up looking despondently at the floor. The body language: “I’m adrift, aching and alone.” The sign out front: “JESUS SAVES”.
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Are you having a real struggle? Come to me! Are you carrying a big load on your back? Come to me! – I’ll give you a rest! Jesus invites his listeners to put on his yoke and take lessons in humility from him. Arrogance is a heavy burden to carry and to defend (Matt 11: 28-30).
It’s the sick people who need the doctor, not the healthy ones. I came to call the bad people, not the good ones. Jesus responds to the grumbling legal experts when they see him eating with tax-collectors and sinners (Mk. 2: 17).
You see, the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. Jesus responds to the grumbling observers of the faith-based salvation of chief tax-collector Zacchaeus (Lk. 19: 1-10).
After all, God didn’t send the son into the world to condemn the world, but so that the world could be saved by him. Jesus is reconfiguring the Pharisee Nicodemus’ notion of salvation (Jn. 3: 17). Jesus says that he will be lifted up just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert. This, Jesus explains, is how much God loved the world. And so, everyone who believes in him should not be lost but may share in the life of God’s new age.
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The Gospel According to Mark chapter 4 records the rescue of a small fleet of fishing boats crossing the sea. A big windstorm came up and began filling the boats with water. Life and livelihood were in jeopardy. The fishermen were freaking out. Jesus, however, was sleeping soundly on a cushion in the stern in one of the boats. They woke him up.
Jesus got up, silenced the wind, and told the raucous sea “Shut Up!”. Things calmed down at once. The rescued, whose alarm at the tempest shifted to awe-struck terror of the rescuer, said to each other “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says!” Their crossing continued over to the land of the Gerasenes without further incident.
Chapter 5 of Mark’s gospel account records three rescues. The narrative begins with Jesus and the small fleet of fishing boats arriving on the shore of the land of the Garasenes. They are suddenly confronted by a man with an unclean spirit. He emerged from a graveyard which is where he lived.
The man is wild. No one can physically restrain him, not even with shackles and chains. But the wild man’s attention is captured. He runs up to Jesus and falls down before him.
Jesus questions the man and hears that that man is possessed by a hoard of demons calling themselves “Legion”. The demons, knowing that Jesus will deal with them, want to be rescued in their own way. They beg Jesus to not send them out of the country. They want to be sent into a nearby herd of pigs. Jesus lets it happen and the pigs rush down into the sea and drown.
The herdsmen’s reaction, not unlike the fishermen’s reaction earlier, was of utter terror. They began telling everyone about what had happened. People came to Jesus. They saw the man who had once terrorized the countryside. He was seated, clothed and in his right mind. When eyewitnesses told the crowd what had happened to the man and to the pigs, the people were afraid. They begged Jesus to leave their district. The man who had been rescued, however, asked to go with Jesus. Jesus wouldn’t let him.
Go back home. Go to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he had pity on you.
The rescued man goes out and tells what Jesus had done for him. Everyone is astonished.
The next two rescue accounts in Mark’s gospel account involves two people of different social and economic status: a named man – Jairus, a synagogue president – and an unnamed woman. Mark intertwines these accounts.
Jesus, having crossed back over the sea, is quickly surrounded by a large crowd on the seashore. Jairus arrives. When he sees Jesus, he falls down at his feet and begins pleading.
My daughter’s going to die! My daughter’s going to die! Please come – lay your hands on her – rescue her and let her live!
Jesus goes off with the man. And a large crowd follows pressing in in him. Enter the unnamed woman.
Mark tells us . . .
A woman who’d had internal bleeding for twelve years heard about Jesus. (She’d had a rough time at the hands of one doctor after another; she spent all she had on treatment and had gotten worse instead of better.) She came up in the crowd behind him and touched his clothes. “If I can just touch his clothes,” she said to herself,” I’ll be rescued.” At once her flow of blood dried up. She knew, in her body, that her illness is cured.
Jesus knew at once that power had flowed out of him. He asked who it was that touched him. The woman of low estate, trembling, made herself known to Jesus.
My daughter, your faith has rescued you. Go in peace. Be healed from your illness.
(I am reminded of another close encounter rescue: four men carried a paralytic on a stretcher, bringing him to see Jesus. The crowd was so thick around Jesus they couldn’t get near enough to ask for the man’s healing. So, they opened up the roof and lowered the stretcher with ropes. They placed the man right in front of Jesus. Jesus noticed their threads of faith and said to the paralytic Child, your sins are forgiven! (Mk. 2: 3-5))
As Jesus was speaking to the woman, some very sad people arrived from the synagogue president’s house.
Your daughter’s dead. Why bother the teacher anymore?
But that didn’t stop Jesus from rescuing the girl.
Don’t be afraid! Just believe!
Jesus said no to the crowd following him (Too much commotion already?) and went to the synagogue president’s house with only Peter, James and John. When they arrived, there was all kinds of weeping and wailing going on.
Why are you making such a fuss? Why all this weeping? The child isn’t dead; she’s asleep.
Mark tells us that they laughed at him and then. . .
Jesus put them all out. Then he took the child’s father and mother, and his companions, and they went in to where the child was. He took hold of her hand and said to her, “Talitha koum,” which means, “Time to get up, little girl!” At once the girl got up and walked about. (She was twelve years old.) they were astonished out of their wits. Then he commanded them over and over not to let anyone know about it, and told them to give her something to eat.
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The demoniac was cut off from himself and society because of what possessed him. Jesus ‘hog-ties’ the “Legion” and plunders the “strong man” domain (cf. Mk 3: 23-27). Jesus expels the unclean spirits and liberates the man from his living death. The image of God is restored. The man wants to go with Jesus but Jesus won’t let him. Jesus sends the unshackled man away so that people will see and hear from the rescued man himself: “Go to your people and tell what the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he had pity on you.”
The woman with the continual hemorrhaging was cut off from just about everything and all the time due to her ritual impurity (Lev. 15:25). She had exhausted her resources to find a cure. Then, by faith, she reached out and touched Jesus, God’s holy one. He rescues the woman from her living death – the constant loss of blood from her womb. She is restored to holiness, purity, and wholeness.
Death, the ultimate separation and defilement, tore the twelve-year old girl from her family. Because of her father’s pleading Jesus comes to her bedside, takes hold of her hand and restores the life that had flowed out of her. She is rescued, reconnected to her family, and is no longer a defilement.
(Note: It is interesting that in Mark’s account of the woman and the girl (5: 21-43), touching and being touched is mentioned six times. Ritual purity – maintaining holiness – was a daily and vital concern for a Jew. Physical contact would trigger any Jew who followed Scripture’s instructions regarding purity.
Jesus didn’t ignore the ritual purity laws in the process of rescue. Instead, he neutralized the effect of the law by restoring the woman and child. By stopping the flow of blood and making her clean, Jesus ‘neutralized’ the ritual impurity of her touching him. By raising the girl to life, Jesus ‘neutralized’ the ritual impurity of touching the dead (Num. 5:1-4; 19:11-22; 31:19-24))
When Jesus announced “The time is fulfilled. God’s kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news (Mk. 1: 15) he began to show the world what the kingdom of God on earth means: God would reclaim creation – his temple – and rescue his image-bearing humans.
In these rescue accounts and so many others, Jesus is not asking about the salvation status of the individual. He is not asking them if they want to go to heaven when they die. He is not rescuing people to have them later sent off to become a disembodied spirit in some heavenly realm somewhere over the rainbow. No. Jesus wants those in his kingdom to do what he has done. Death is a short interlude. As with the twelve-year old girl, Jesus will take you by the hand, get you up and get you back at it. Death is not a retirement home.
The four gospels (and the epistles) tell us that Jesus interfaced with his creation – as heaven and earth – for its salvation. (Think of heaven as God’s space.) We read that the kingdom of God on earth, as Jesus taught and lived, is about rescue, rebirth, healing, faith and not fear, touching and being touched, making all things new, new creation, new wine skins, wholeness, sound minds, and about the Genesis to Revelation project – God dwelling with man (Rev. 21: 2-4).
The world’s salvation, epitomized in another Tower of Babel campaign – Build Back Better – is another take on rebuilding systems and institutions and on redesigning people and society to save the planet and to benefit the elites.
Much of today’s social justice activists work to force their salvation onto you. They want society to work in certain way. Hence, pseudo-moral campaigns like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG), and the coming social credit scoring.
As I see it, Jesus didn’t do social justice – changing systems and institutions to save people. Jesus has a human connection with people and so much so that he went to the cross for their salvation. You won’t see one politician going out of their way to sacrifice anything. And, what do social justice activists sacrifice?
Jesus spoke against the self-righteousness that’s behind much of today’s social justice activism. And, he didn’t coerce anyone to be rescued. He didn’t force salvation onto anyone. People came to him with their faith and open hands. He responded to their need.
The difference between the world’s salvation and Jesus Saves is the difference between putting yourself into the hands of a bureaucracy and some ism and putting yourself into the hands of the Infinite-personal God in Jesus.
What’s that you say? You’ve just arrived from Cyprus and you are new to the area? And, you’ve heard some incredible things? You want me to tell you all that’s happened? Come in for some water and …some bread.
Where should I begin, stranger? There is so much that has happened the last three days – the last three years, in fact! And long before now! Since you are a visitor from Cyprus, I will start with some necessary background so you will understand why my husband and I are so giddy.
My husband Cleopas and I – I am Mary – settled many years ago in this fertile valley below Jerusalem This area is known as Emmaus. We call this place Motza. Our village is about 30 stadia from our beloved Jerusalem.
As you have seen, it is a well-watered area with rich soil and an abundance of willow trees. During the Feast of Tabernacles celebration many come to our valley and gather willow branches. They take the willow branches and stand them up on the sides of the altar with their tops bowed over the altar.
Our valley has many springs watering it. Our people come down to one of Motza’s springs to get water for baking their matzo for the Feast of Unleavened Bread.
I’m sure you noticed the Roman Centurions stationed here. My husband says it is a strategic position for them as they can protect the ascent to Jerusalem on the road leading from Jaffa. And, it is strategic in the ways I know of. Cleopas has overheard some of them saying that they would like to retire here because of the many springs and because north of our village the valley widens offering them plenty of room for settlement and for growing food.
My husband and I are simple farmers. But life for us and our people has not been so simple. Many of us have long desired to be freed from the rule of those who do not worship the One true God. When the Babylonians overtook Jerusalem and carried our people away into exile it was the Isaiah the prophet who spoke for us …
O Lord our God,
other lords besides you have ruled over us
but we acknowledge your name alone.
Now, we are back in our land and still the pagans lord over us. So, we wondered: Would our God act again to bring us out of this exile as he took us out of Egypt? And, when will God resurrect Israel and restore her as a nation? When will the messiah, the Anointed One and Son of the Most High from the line of David, restore the house of David? When, when, when …when would God redeem his people and set up his everlasting kingdom on earth?
On many Sabbaths, as we gather in the synagogue, words from the Torah are read. And then the words of the prophets – the haftarah. We all felt the hopelessness and despair in the words of the prophet Ezekiel: “our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.” Our leader would then pray these words:
Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation.
Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked. You are God my stronghold. Why have you rejected me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy? Send me your light and your faithful care, let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy mountain, to the place where you dwell. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God, my joy and my delight.
I will praise you with the lyre, O God, my God.
Yes, there were times of renewing hope and rejoicing. This past fall my husband and I and pilgrims from Cyrpus and from faraway lands went up to Jerusalem for the feast of the tabernacle. We carried with us willow branches and olive branches to build to sukkah – our temporary booths. When we all gathered together, we shouted praises to God, sang the songs of Aliyah and waved our fragrant lulavs – our willow branches and palm fronds – before the Lord in a spirit of thankfulness.
After the feast, we walked home with the pilgrims on the Emmaus road, the same road that brought you here. Our hearts were burning with expectation as to what God would do. There was much animated discussion about the events of those seven days. And, it all centered on Jesus. You must know about him, don’t you? How can anyone not know?
That day as we walked along we talked about his feeding the five thousand by the shore of Galilee. We talked about our seeing him healing the blind and the lame. And, Lazarus had been raised from the dead! We marveled that demons were being cast out and at Jesus’ authority over them. And, his words! No one ever spoke like he did about the Moses and the prophets. We discussed how our religious authorities despised him and wanted to do away with him. This made us all fearful, as it would negatively affect our synagogues. Yet, they each said that many were believing in him as the one who was to come.
But Miriam told the group that that even his brothers did not believe in him. She learned this from a young doctor named Luke, whom she met at the feast. He told her that Jesus’ brothers wanted Jesus to show himself publicly so that he could become well-known. “Show yourself to the world!” they said to him. They wanted to put Jesus in a situation which would make him prove he is the Messiah. But Jesus told them “My time is not yet. The world can’t hate you, but it hates me, because I am giving evidence against it, showing that its works are evil”. He told them to go up to the feast. Miriam said that Jesus went up later in secret and now we know why. There was a considerable dispute in the crowds. Some said “He’s a good man and others “He’s deceiving the people!” There were those who hated him and wanted to do away with him.
Ruth told us about the twelve-year old Jesus. His family had gone up to Jerusalem for Passover. When they left to return to Galilee with a caravan of friends, they had traveled a day’s journey before realizing that Jesus wasn’t with the group. He had vanished! So, they went back up to Jerusalem and searched for him for three days. They couldn’t find him anywhere. When they finally did put their eyes on him, he was sitting with the teachers of the law. He was listening to them and asking questions. Those listening to him were amazed at his answers to their questions. But, Mary was neither amazed or happy. She scolded him for disappearing. “Child”, she said to him, “why have done this to your father and me? We have been frantically searching for you”. Jesus told his mother, “Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I would have to be getting involved with my father’s work?” They didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Wasn’t his father a carpenter?
Oy, there is so much to tell. I will focus on the last few days and on what happened to Cleopas and me this afternoon. What happened the last few days in Jerusalem we learned from the Jesus’ disciples as Cleopas and I were in Jerusalem for Passover. I can tell you that it was a time of weeping and anguish.
As you may have heard, on the night of Passover Jesus was captured by the authorities – ours and Roman. Though he had done nothing wrong he was sentenced to death on a Roman cross. Our authorities pushed for this, shouting “Crucify him! Crucify him!” Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea and then released by Pilate to the angry crowd. Jesus was crucified like a common criminal. When we learned of this our hearts were broken, our hopes were dashed. “What good is a dead messiah we asked each other? We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” God be praised! There is more to tell you!
We were in Jerusalem this morning. We heard many, many accounts and rumors of visions and of Jesus’ tomb being empty. The disciples were at a loss as what to make of it all. Peter had gone off to see for himself and confirmed that the tomb was indeed empty. But he was as perplexed as the rest of us. We waited for while longer to see what might come of it all and then we decided to head home. Now, this is the part I’ve been waiting to tell you… I can barely …
Cleopas and I headed home to our village. Along the way we discussed all that had happened that morning. We argued, too, about what it meant. As we walked a stranger approached us and began walking with us. He was not at all familiar to us but he must have overheard us. He started the conversation:
Rowan LeCompte and Irene Matz LeCompte, “Third Station of the Resurrection: The Walk to Emmaus” (detail), 1970. Mosaic, Resurrection Chapel, National Cathedral, Washington, DC. Photo: Victoria Emily Jones.
“You’re obviously having a very important discussion on your walk. What’s it all about?”
We stopped walking and turned to him. He must have seen that we were both downcast. Cleopas answered the stranger. “You must be the only person around Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s been going on there the last few days.”
“What things?” he asked.
“To do with Jesus of Nazareth. He was a prophet. He acted with power and he spoke with power, before God and all the people. Our chief priests and rulers handed him over to be condemned to death, and they crucified him. But we were hoping that he was going to redeem Israel!
And now, what with all this, it’s the third day since it happened. But some women from our group have astonished us. They went to his tomb very early this morning, and didn’t find his body. They came back saying they’d seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Some of the folk with us went off to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they didn’t see him.”
“You are so senseless! So slow in your hearts to believe all the things the prophets said to you! Don’t you see? This is what had to happen: the Messiah had to suffer, and then come into his glory!”
At this point, we were quite perplexed. Who is this stranger and why is taking this so personally? We were both taken aback by the zeal and authority with which the stranger spoke. We searched his face for answers to what we didn’t recognize in all of the Sabbath words. He began walking and we followed.
We listened to the stranger explain Moses and the prophets and all of Scripture in terms of the One who was to come and ransom Israel and bring her and the whole world out of exile. He told us …
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; Do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”
As he spoke, it was like we were no longer walking down the Emmaus Road. We were on top of a mountain. Our eyes were opened to a vista that went far beyond anything we had known. Everything we had been taught, everything we had heard and seen, began to take on new meaning. He went on to talk about a kingdom on earth and about new creation. His words astonished and exhilarated us. Wonder and joy flooded our hearts.
We reached the intersection to our village. We turned down our road. The stranger kept walking down the Emmaus road. We called after him urging him to stay with us. He kept walking. Cleopas finally ran up to him and pleaded with him to stay with us. “Sir”, he said, “the day is almost over. Stay with us.” The stranger agreed to come with us.
We invited him in and gave him a bowl of water and a towel to wash his hands and feet. We gave him water to drink. We sat down to a small meal. The stranger took the bread up into his hands and prayed, giving thanks for the meal. He then broke the bread and gave it to us. It was then …it was then …it was then that we were shocked beyond belief! Our jaws dropped and we looked at each other with wide open eyes. Cleopas and I saw that the stranger was Jesus, the resurrected Jesus! And, as soon as we saw him, he vanished from our sight! Poof!
We were speechless. The Anointed One and Son of the Most High was walking with us and talking with us and sitting down to eat with us! Everything we hoped for had come true in our sight, as Anna the prophetess foretold and Simeon prophesied! … Our eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the sight of all people!
Now, our new friend, Cleopas and I have to return to Jerusalem to tell our brothers and sisters all that has happened this afternoon. We must break bread with them. Come with us and you will see him, too!
As we walked the 30 stadia back up to Jerusalem, Cleopas and I kept pinching each other. We walked and danced and walked and ran and clapped. We kept saying “Do you remember how our hearts were burning inside us, as he talked to us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?” Cleopas, in his booming voice and with a smile on his face, kept repeating “For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your holy one to rot in the grave” and the words our Sabbath leader prayed:
Why are you cast down, O my soul
And why are you disquieted within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him.
We both shouted “Hosanna! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
The Cypriot, not sure what to make of all this, watched us from a distance. There was an amused and perplexed look on his face.
Adapted from the Gospel according to Luke (2:41-50)
“…I’m telling you the solemn truth: unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains all by itself. If it dies, though, it will produce lots of fruit…
…Now my heart is troubled,” Jesus went on. “What am I going to say? ‘Father, save me from this moment’? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.”
At the cross. At the burial. At the empty tomb. Three wait-and-see days. Three women.
The gospel according to Mark begins with the ushering in of “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son” (Mk. 1:1). Composed of short narratives that could be easily visualized by those who heard its reading, Mark’s terse and unembellished gospel clears a straight path so that the reader can see and perceive Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises (Mk. 1:3).
For example, Mark uses literary bracketing (inclusio) to focus in on that fulfillment. Two accounts of blind men receiving their sight bracket Jesus telling his disciples (three times) that he will be rejected, handed over to the authorities, killed and then rise from the dead after three days. (Beginning Bracket: Mark 8:22-26; End Bracket: Mark.10:46-52.)
Because of their own unwillingness to really really look at Jesus (cf. Mk.8:25) the disciples do not perceive Jesus as the fulfillment of God’s promises through death and resurrection.
At a mission critical point in the gospel account -Mark chapter 8 – Jesus reproaches his disciples for their lack of understanding. We learn from the brutally honest account that those closest to Jesus, each with two good eyes and two good ears, still did not grasp that the Messiah had to be crucified and then rise again. We hear that in Peter’s repudiation of that mission (Mk. 8:32).
Peter is Mark’s principal eyewitness source of what Jesus said and did and of the disciple’s reactions. But after the end of Mark chapter 14, where Peter’s denial is recorded, Peter and the male disciples are nowhere to be seen or heard from.
Three women are introduced into the passion narrative (Mk 15). They are the source for Mark’s passion account. They are eyewitnesses of what occurred at the cross, at the burial and at the empty tomb.
Earlier in the text, Mark wrote of the blind gaining sight, of those with two good eyes not seeing and not perceiving what was taking place. Mark now places emphasis on seeing that would lead to perceiving and, hopefully, to belief. He records the seeing of the women seven times:
Henry Ossawa Tanner
At the cross. Some of the women observed from a distance. They included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. They had followed Jesus in Galilee, and had attended to his needs. There were several other women, too, who had come up with him to Jerusalem. (Mk. 15: 40-41).
(Note that Mark added that these women had also been with Jesus for most of his ministry. He is telling us that they had observed Jesus from his early ministry to the empty tomb. These women likely heard Jesus teach his disciples new things: about him being handed over to be killed and his rising from the dead after three days. (Mk. 8:31-32; 9:31-32; 10:32-45)
At the burial. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses observed where he was buried. (Mk. 15:47)
At the empty tomb. After the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they could come and anoint Jesus …” who’s going to roll the stone away for us?”
Then, when they looked up, they observed that it had been rolled away. (It was extremely large.) (Mk. 16: 1-4)
So they went into the tomb, and there they saw a young man sitting on the right hand side. He was wearing white. They were totally astonished.
“Don’t be astonished,” he said to them. “You’re looking for Jesus of Nazarene, who was crucified. He has been raised! He isn’t here! Look – this is the place where they laid him.
“But go and tell his disciples – including Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there, just like he told you.” (Mk. 16:5-7)
The earliest manuscripts of Mark’s gospel account end at 16: 8:
They [the three women] went out, and fled from the tomb. Trembling and panic had seized them. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
This is a curious ending for a gospel that begins with “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son”. Mark clearly wanted the readers to perceive Jesus as the Messiah, God’s son. He clearly wanted the reader to take in the crucifixion of the Messiah and his bodily resurrection. Why end good news with fear and trembling?
Mark’s gospel account may have had a longer ending. If the original manuscript was written on a scroll (likely), the edge of the scroll containing his ending may have deteriorated. This also happened to many dead sea scrolls.
Later copies of Mark contained appended text (Mk. 16: 9-20). This text may have been added by a scribe in the second century who was familiar with Luke’s gospel account. There are similarities. Mark’s promise of “the good news of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son” has been restored- fulfilled – with the added text. And so was Mark’s emphasis of those not perceiving what is taking place.
Mark’s narrative emphasis on hardness of heart leading to unbelief – rejecting what has been seen and heard by eyewitness accounts– is reinforced in the added text:
When Jesus was raised, early on the first day of the week, he appeared to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told the people who had been with him, who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that he was alive, and that he had been seen by her, they didn’t believe it.
After this he appeared in a different guise to two of them as they were walking into the countryside. They came back and told the others, but they didn’t believe them.
Later Jesus appeared to the eleven themselves, as they were at table. He told them off for their hardness of heart, for not believing those who had seen him after he had been raised. (Mk. 16: 9-14)
At the cross. At the burial. At the empty tomb. Three wait-and-see days. Three women seeing seven times. Eleven hard-hearted disciples. And you? You still don’t get it? (cf. Mk.8:21)
All God’s promises, you see, find their yes in him: and that’s why we say the yes, the “Amen,” through him when we pray to God and give him glory (2 Cor. 1:20)
The eyes have it. Amen.
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“Nowhere in early Christian literature do we find traditions attributed to the community as their source or transmitter, only as the recipient. Against the general form-critical image of the early Christian movement as anonymous collectivity, we must stress that the New Testament writings are full of prominent named individuals . . . Compared with the prominence of named individuals in the New Testament itself, form criticism represented a rather strange depersonalization of early Christianity that still exercised an unconscious influence on New Testament scholars.”[i]
[i] Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., Grand Rapids, MI), 2017), 297
Just a few centuries before the first Palm Sunday, Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) promoted to his followers the notions of another ancient Greek philosopher, Demetrius (c. 460 – c. 370 B.C.). Demetrius’ had proposed the theory of Atomism to account for nature.
The theory in brief: the universe is a material system governed by the laws of matter. The fundamental elements of matter are atoms. Random, unguided ‘atoms’ smash into each other, thereby creating the world and life as we know it. Epicurus went on to tweak Demetrius’ theory by saying that atoms do not always go in straight lines but can “swerve, avoiding atomism’s inherent determinism and allowing for free will – just like the gods.
Per Epicurus, the gods were off somewhere happily doing their thing unconcerned about anything. They existed without needs, were invulnerable to any harm, and were generally living an enviable life, not anxious about anything. As such, they exemplified what Epicurus’s followers should seek to attain in their limited human nature.
For Epicurus, the purpose of philosophy was to attain the happy, tranquil life, characterized by aponia, the absence of pain and fear, and by living a self-sufficient life surrounded by friends. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of the body and the soul and should therefore not be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, that the universe is infinite and eternal, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space. –The Epicurus Reader
Epicurus also taught that nothing should be believed except for that which was tested through direct observation and logical deduction – believed via the sensate and reason. Based on such thinking along with having the viewpoint that the gods were distant and uninvolved and therefore unrelated to ‘thinking’ and ‘sensing’ man’s life, man had to make do with the atoms he had been dealt. Don’t look to a personal God for help.
What was most important in Epicurus’ philosophy of nature was the overall conviction that our life on this earth comes with no strings attached; that there is no Maker whose puppets we are; that there is no script for us to follow and be constrained by; that it is up to us to discover the real constraints which our own nature imposes on us. ―The Epicurus Reader
As Epicurus evaluated the Greek and Roman gods of his time and man’s attempt to please and cajole the gods to obtain favors, it would make sense for him and his followers to deduce that “there is no Maker whose puppets we are”. And, for Epicurus to further reason the problem of evil paradox:
“The gods can either take away evil from the world and will not, or, being willing to do so cannot; or they neither can nor will, or lastly, they are able and willing. If they have the will to remove evil and cannot, then they are not omnipotent. If they can but will not, then they are not benevolent. If they are neither able nor willing, they are neither omnipotent nor benevolent. Lastly, if they are both able and willing to annihilate evil, why does it exist?” ― Epicurus
The Epicurean paradox was answered with another paradox: What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? Psalm 8:4
In the fullness of time, including Epicurean times, the Lord of the universe put on human flesh – dust fashioned from the created elements including about 18% carbon – to deal with the problem of evil. There was nothing ambiguous or theoretical or abstract about the appearance of God’s own son Jesus. There was direct observation -seeing, hearing, and touching – by his followers.
Philosophers and atheists, before and after Epicurus, pronounced judgement on God for all the evil in the world.
The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven. – George MacDonald, C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce
To address evil, Jesus announced the kingdom of God on earth. What was begun in Genesis – the ordering of material creation to build God’s temple on earth so that God would dwell with man – was reinstated by Jesus. This blueprint or worldview was on the books long before Epicurus arrived on the scene. And so is the record of God’s faithfulness. God, as revealed in Jesus, puts things to right.
Jesus entered space and time flesh and blood to pronounce judgement on evil. He did so without equivocation. Jesus did not succumb to pleasure seeking to avoid pain. He did not succumb to Satan’s temptations to find happiness. Evil unclean spirits were cast out. Hypocrites were denounced and death itself was overturned. Jesus suffered the full force of evil on the cross – an act of redemption from evil’s ransom.
The King of Glory wept over Jerusalem and his chosen people. The Israelites had so often rejected their reveal-to-the-world-the-one-true-God vocation. They had not been faithful stewards of God’s vineyard. Did Epicurus see no difference in their God and the Greek and Roman gods?
On that first Palm Sunday, just a few centuries after Epicurus taught that there was no personally involved God, the King of Glory, emptied of his glory, rides a donkey into Jerusalem to meet evil head on and to put the world right. The “Epicurean Paradox” would be addressed and soundly answered.
What will you do with the knowledge that the infinite-personal God, embodied in human form, speaks to the very human concerns behind Epicurean philosophy?
The article drew me in with the transition mentioned in the title. The first paragraph offered more detail about the move:
. . . Beth Moore left the Southern Baptist Convention in 2021 and soon after was seen in a photo serving Communion at an Anglican church.
The article went on to disturb me as I read of the appalling way Christians treat other Christians. The author, Rick Pidcock, relates some of the ‘ex officio’ and corrosive reaction to Beth Moore prior to her leaving the SBC in 2021.
At the Truth Matters Conference in 2019, which was a gathering to celebrate John MacArthur’s five decades of ministry, Todd Friel asked MacArthur to play a word association game with the two words “Beth Moore.” To which, MacArthur famously replied, “Go home.”
MacArthur’s henchman Phil Johnson added, “The word that comes to my mind is ‘narcissistic.’”
Then MacArthur jumped back in to say: “Just because you have the skill to sell jewelry on the TV sales channel doesn’t mean you should be preaching. … The church is caving in to women preachers. … Women are not allowed to preach.”
Dear God! A celebration of five decades in ministry and grown men on a stage mocking a woman in public? Is this how Christian men should treat a Christian woman and even when they think they possess all the Truth that Matters (and, apparently, none of the grace that matters)? I understand, though. Some men want to play Elijah.
One would think that after five decades Mr. Sola Scriptura would have learned that Christians were not given the Word of God for the purpose of belittling and calling down fiery scorn onto women of faith. The Word, its understanding by the spirit, and the fruits thereof are given to inform our love, our grace and our prayers for others along with our worldview.
It remains to be seen if John MacArthur and his henchmen are mature Christians. Was Beth Moore present to defend herself against the scorners? And, did those present smile and laugh in agreement? Will MacArthur speak to Beth Moore, confess what he did, and ask for forgiveness? It remains to be seen.
Women are not allowed to preach: MacArthur’s authoritarian intransigence reminds me of another insular authoritarian: Dr. Anthony Fauci. During the media’s COVID pandemic Fauci preached “the science” dogma. If you disagreed with “the science” you were declared a heretic, exiled from social media and from any and all discussion. Period. And like MacArthur, Fauci has a fan club to ensure that the doctrine-of-what-he-says is in your face. Science Matters.
The behavior of the Truth Matters men gives the appearance of a pride of place smack down, their use of authority and power as “Truth is what I say it is”.
Their behavior also recalls the either-or-or thinking of James and John – the “sons of thunder” as Jesus calls them (Mk. 3:17). Either you think and do as I say and get with the program or you are against us and we will demand that you stop. And if you don’t accept us then we will call down fire from heaven and burn you up, just saying.
“Master,” commented John, “we saw someone casting out demons in your name. We told him to stop, because he wasn’t part of our company.”
“Don’t stop him,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who isn’t against you is on your side.”
As the time came nearer for Jesus to be taken up, he settled it in his mind to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers ahead of him. They came into a Samaritan village to get them ready, and they refused to receive him, because his mind was set on going to Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Master, do you want us to call down fire from heaven and burn them up?” He turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.
Do those, who sit in the seat of scoffers (Ps. 1:1), think that Beth Moore is now a heretic because she serves in a capacity they adamantly deem to be unfitting for a woman?
Apparently so, as the article states:
When Reformation Charlotte recently discovered that Beth Moore was wearing a robe and serving Communion in her new church, they called her an apostate, posted screenshots of the service and of the church’s volunteer schedule, and reminded the world of their prediction that “it would only be a matter of time before Beth Moore becomes full-on gay-affirming.”
Slippery slope arguments are not arguments. They are cheap shot syllogisms done to create fear and disdain among the hearers. Slippery slope arguments are prayer avoidance techniques – why talk to God about this when I can foresee the future because I possess all the Truth that Matters? In this instance, it is the grease on the slopes of Truth Mattershorn.
No Christian woman should ever be treated in this way. And, certainly not by a group of authoritarian church leaders who believe they have rightly divided the word of God by cutting women out of heralding the Good News.
Two of the three reasons Jesus summoned, appointed, and named twelve “apostles” was 1) to be with him (as eyewitnesses), and 2) to be sent out as heralds (of what they witnessed). (Mk. 3:13-15). * Let us be reminded that many, many of the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, crucifixion and resurrection were women. They heralded what they saw:
Some of the women were watching from a distance. They included Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of the younger James and of Joses, and Salome. [From the beginning] They followed Jesus in Galilee, and had attended to his needs. There were several other women, too, who had come up with him to Jerusalem. (Mk. 16: 40-41)
After Jesus’ crucifixion and burial, and when the sabbath was over, it is Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome who bought spices so that they could come and anoint Jesus. They find the stone rolled away. They are greeted by a herald.
The angel tells them to go herald the news (Mk. 16: 7):
But go and tell his disciples – including Peter – that he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You’ll see him there, just like he told you. (What, Jesus talked to women? Women receive revelations from God?! Isn’t that setting up a slippery slope scenario?! And go tell the Matterhorn of the church?!)
Does anyone think that these women – and so many other female eyewitnesses of the ministry of Jesus, e.g., Mary and Martha and the resurrection of Lazarus – does anyone think that these women didn’t herald in their community and synagogue what they witnessed?
And who can forget that two disciples (Cleopas and one unnamed- likely a woman named Mary) met Jesus as they were walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus on the day that Jesus rose from the dead. They invited Jesus to come home and eat with them. (Luke 24)
Women are not allowed to preach. Huh? What about the female apostle Junia (Romans 16:7)? Junia minsters in partnership with Andronicus and Paul, is well known to the apostles and is a fellow prisoner (for preaching?). It is very likely that Junia had seen the risen Lord.
You may not hear this acknowledged in your androcentric church: beyond a Proverbs 31 characterization of the “good wife”, women are featured prominently in the incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection narratives in the gospels. And women, like those mentioned above, continued to herald the events of those narratives to the growing church and to all who would listen. (I use the word “herald” in the Apostle-choosing sense noted above so as to not trigger certain males with the word “preaching”.) The topic of women in ministry deserves a dedicated post.
Now, I don’t know much at all about Beth Moore. But with regard to the ongoing slander of a Christian sister, I agree with the apostle Paul: When people persist in sin, rebuke them openly, so that the rest may be afraid. (1 Tim 5:19).
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As mentioned above, the article drew me in with the transition mentioned in the title. The author uses Moore’s evolution to relate his own journey from Baptist to Anglican. He notes at one point that he is no longer Anglican because his spiritual journey kept going beyond where the Anglicans were willing to go. He goes on to say . . .
The Anglican Church drew me in from my Baptist heritage because it acknowledged my exile and gave me space to move. While I was there, it gave me a taste in the particular for what is true everywhere. But ultimately, it allowed harmful voices within its walls to speak to my children and built walls for women and LGBTQ people that I believed needed to be knocked down.
Pidcock goes on to acknowledge My Baptist-to-Anglican journey may be different than others.
My own church progression has been from Baptist to Evangelical Free to Anglican. My journey has also been about breaking down walls but not in the sense and direction that Pidcock is willing to go to – I will not be an LGBTQ activist. The walls that kept me from growing spiritually were within me and surrounded the outer court – the church setting.
For example, the Bible church services I attended during much of the sixties and seventies seemed to reenact the ‘62 and ’71 Billy Graham crusades in Chicago. Sunday services had calls to walk down the aisle and commit your life to Christ. Then, it was understood, one was supposed to go to church, straighten up and fly right. Church approved options were “go into ministry” and “become a missionary”. Church approved options for women: women could dream of being a pastor’s wife or a missionary wife. Tra-la.
Wasn’t there more to the Christian life than talk of sin, judgment, and salvation and producing more expositors of sin, judgement, and salvation? What did it mean to walk in the spirit and to abide in Christ? To grow up in Christ? And, I never once heard a sermon about serving Christ as an engineer, high school band director, artist, writer or poet. Secular occupations were not deemed Godly enough, I guess.
There was and still is a part of Just as I Am before my commitment to Christ that needed to grow and not linger in the aisle of salvation sentimentality. I became disheartened and disillusioned by the church. I felt intellectually and spiritually stunted just being there. Sure, there was plenty of Bible teaching. But getting Bible knowledge was not enough for me. (Sounds heretical, doesn’t it?) And, it seemed that the church wanted to remain Just as It Was. I wasn’t the only one to notice.
During the late ’60 and into the ‘70s I was involved in the Jesus People movement in Chicago. Our local group often read from the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. The contrast between the church in Acts and the church I was attending was stark. I didn’t respond well to the disparity.
I began a prodigal journey that, like the parable account, brought me all kinds of loss. Looking back, it wasn’t until I began attending an Anglican church in my fifties that I began to lead a redeemed and productive journey. The author of the above-mentioned article put it this way regarding his own transition to an Anglican church:
For many people who come from conservative Baptist backgrounds, finding the Anglican communion feels like coming out of exile and returning home to everything that had been growing in you for years.
Those words resonate with me in this key regard: the Anglican church I attended offered the Real Presenceof the Lord in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the pinnacle of the Anglican liturgy, not preaching. I realized that that is what I have been looking for all of my life: a confirmation of the presence of the Lord in the elements and in me as I partake.
“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” T.S. Elliot, Little Gidding
In the Anglican church setting the Book of Common Prayer informs the liturgy with readings, collects, the prayers of the people and rites. I savor this type of intellectual atmosphere. The liturgical format allows me to listen and think and grow. Rick Pidcock put it this way:
While my theology was shifting, the liturgies felt like anchors that were keeping me from getting swept away. And in the liturgy of the Eucharist, I could receive an experience of the presence of Christ with all my senses.
How did this transition happen? Before coming to the Anglican church, I tuned out Bible teachers. I cleared my head. Preaching and personalities were getting in the way of my understanding. I avoided the either-or thinking of the John MacArthurs. I stayed away from “red in tooth and claw” Christianity.
As revealed above, there are those “sons of thunder who believe they have a right and are justified to talk and act the way they do because they walk around with their body of truth and must defend it from outliers and Samaritans. During much of my life I operated the same way. I was judgmental, lacked grace, and hurt many along the way. I was just like the “sons of thunder”. But Jesus would have none of that.
I acknowledged my own sorry disposition and began a self-imposed apprenticeship to understand Jesus and his worldview. I read extensively outside what I have been taught, assessing the new knowledge against the old. Walls were breaking down. I began to view the Christian life as a series of spectrums. (See the article’s quote of Thomas McKenzie’s The Anglican Way.)
During the apprenticeship process, my eyes were opened to many things, including . . .
-The either-or thinking that uses the pulpit to make fun of others and speaks of grace as something only doled out when you are acceptable.
-The reductionist young earth creation account that I was taught in ‘Bible” churches. A “plain reading” of Genesis is vastly different for the ancients who read Genesis than it is for moderns who impose their version of “plain reading”.
In short, Genesis begins, not with the material creation of the universe, but with the ordering of and function-giving to the preexisting non-functional material creation. The ancients reading Genesis understood that a cosmic temple was being built.
What happens within the 7-24-hour days? Day One God gave humans the function of time. Day Two God gave humans the function of weather. Day Three God gave humans the function of food. Each function is necessary for a human-oriented world.
Days Four to Six parallel Days One to Three but now roles are assigned to functionaries. Humans are given the image of God imprint.
Day Seven is when God has complete setting up his temple and now sit down (the earth is his footstool) to oversee his work. Humans are given the responsibility to care for the cosmic temple. This is where God and man are to dwell together.
-The certainly of the presence of the Lord in the Eucharist. Scripture says this is so and I have experienced it. My life has changed.
-God declared (imputed) me “righteous” in the law court scenario Paul presents in Romans.
-There is no such thing as the “rapture”. That is a misreading of the text. God will not abandon his creation. He is rebuilding the temple: Don’t you see? You are God’s temple! (1 Cor. 3:16)
-We are saved not just so that we get go to heaven when we die. More reductionism. Rather, we are born again so that Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. As new creations we are to advance the kingdom of God on earth, reflect God’s glory on earth, his cosmic temple, and wait for our Lord’s return to put things to right. “Heaven” is just a short-term way station before “new creations” return to earth with the Lord.
-Memorizing large portions of Scripture enables me to meditate, gain insight, instill the word into my life, and cross reference and contextualize Scripture. I have memorized four Psalms and the first five chapters of the Gospel According to Mark.
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I will always have a desire to explore and push myself further than where I am now. Once I know what is out there, I will reflect back on where I started and understand it using my new knowledge.
Having gathered what I have learned and the tools acquired over time, I have become a journeywoman for Christ. Where the Lord uses me is up to Him. When he does, the world won’t end and the gates of hell will not prevail against the church.
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* Could it be that one reason Jesus chose men to be apostles was not for a “created order” motive but for very practical ethical reasons. Spending 24/7 time with women would raise questions and offer temptations to everyone involved.
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Miroslav Volf and N.T. Wright talk about the future of the Church:
“Episode_1743 economy, biolabs, Ukraine, serfdom, w/Steve Cortes, Don Jr., Dr. Naomi Wolf, Dr. Robert Malone, John Solomon”.
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Informed Dissent:
The COVID-19 crisis of 2020 to 2022 has exposed for all to see how evidence-based medicine has been corrupted by the governments, hospitalists, academia, big pharma, tech and social media. They have leveraged the processes and rationale of evidence-based medicine to corrupt the entire medical enterprise.
Of course, the New York Times should be teaching by example. In fact, it has not supported free speech, protected the First Amendment, or allowed honest debate. It has not allowed competing perspectives about the most important issues of the day. It has been a mouthpiece for greedy corporations and corrupt government officials.
Moderna’s co-founder created a quantum dot tattoo to track the vaxxed. The company is now using AI to generate endless mRNA jabs. Welcome to Transhumanism, Inc.
In this world of spiritual warfare, theological compromise and Republicans losing the White House, there lives a group of men, mostly white, who put on their armor, saddle up and ride into the glorious battlefield known as Twitter. They alone wear the belt of truth as they stand firm against the wiles of the Devil.
Who are these men? They are the Theobros.
Their mission? Correcting women’s theology on Twitter.
There are many who say, “O that we might see some good! Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!” Psalm 4: 6
The day came when Jesus arrived at a synagogue in Capernaum with a small group of swarthy fishermen. The leader of the synagogue asked the newcomer to speak to the gathered. The reaction of those assembled is recorded in the gospel according to Mark (1: 22).
They were astonished at his teaching. He wasn’t like the legal teachers; he said things on his own authority.
The hearers were εξεπλησσοντο – astounded, amazed, struck out of their wits, and were being knocked out. No second or third-hand hearsay accounts from Jesus.
Continuing the valid data stream (ευαγγελιου: Mk.1:1) begun of Peter’s eyewitness account of Jesus the Messiah, God’s son, Mark reports (Mk. 1:23-26):
All at once, in their synagogue, there was a man with an unclean spirit.
(You will read in Mark’s gospel account that the presence of Truth, very Truth, causes vile things to come crawling out of the woodwork and be exposed for what they are.)
All at once . . .” What business have you got with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” he yelled. “Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are: you’re God’s Holy One!”
“Be quiet!” ordered Jesus. “And come out of him!”
The unclean spirit convulsed the man, gave a great shout, and came out of him. Everyone was astonished.
Those in attendance were awe-struck not just by word but also by deed – the exorcism.
“What’s this?” they started to say to each other. “New teaching – with real authority! He even tells the unclean spirits what to do, and they do it!”
In chapter two of Mark’s narration (Mk. 2: 3-12) Mark reports the reaction of another gathered group to the healing of a paralyzed man. You know the story?
After ministering to people in the open country – the crowds were becoming massive – Jesus returned to Capernaum. When word got around that Jesus was at home, a large crowd gathered once more with the result that people couldn’t even get near the door as he was telling them the message – God’s kingdom was arriving.
Four people arrive carrying a paralytic on a stretcher. They can’t get near Jesus because of the crowd. So, with know-how and dogged determination to bring about the restoration of one of their community, the four neighbors create Plan B: open up the roof and lower the stretcher. (NB: The men didn’t lower their expectations. Their faith finds a way to place their ‘concern’ into the hands of God.)
Jesus saw their faith, and said to the paralyzed man, “Child, your sins are forgiven!”
Legal experts, who were among those gathered in the house, were likely there to investigate “mis-information”. Notice their reaction in the presence of True Authority.
“Who does this guy think he is. It’s blasphemy! Who can forgive sins except God?”
Jesus, knowing in his spirit that thoughts like this were in the air, poses a question to everyone’s Who does this guy think he is question.
“Is it easier to say to this cripple ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your stretcher, and walk’?
“You want to know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins?”
Not just by the word of forgiveness but also by deed, Jesus turns to the paralytic and tells him to Get up, take up your stretcher, and go home.
The man got up, picked up his stretcher in a flash and went out before all of them.
Everyone was astonished, and they praised God. “We’ve never seen anything like this!” they said.
The authority by which Jesus forgave the man’s sins and then raised him up to new life amazed the people who witnessed it all. They had never visualized that this would happen – We never saw it on this fashion. They were so filled with awe, in fact, that they began to glorify (δοξάζειν, doxa) God, reimagining what it meant for God to dwell with man in his temple on earth. Themes of redemption, restoration, and resurrection were invoked that day when the hand of God reached from Scripture into their lives:
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits— who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live[a] so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
Not everyone’s reaction, though, was recorded by Mark. That reporting would take up volumes. No doubt, though, that the four men who carried the stretcher were relieved of their burden and went back to their community to rejoice with the healed man.
Let’s go on to reactions of fear, as recorded in Mark (chapters 4 & 5).
In chapter four we read about Jesus teaching a massive crowd as he stands on a boat just off shore. The evening of that same day, Jesus and the disciples sail over the sea to the land of the Gerasene’s.
Chapter five records Jesus encountering a man with an unclean spirit – a “Legion” of unclean spirits. The man’s brutish behavior undoubtedly frightened the people living in that area. They tried to restrain him but without luck.
Well, in between the off-shore teaching and reaching the far shore where the untethered demon-possessed man lived, a big wind storm blew up. The boats that Jesus and his followers sailed in began to fill with water. Jesus, according to Mark’s/Peter’s account (Mk. 4:38), was asleep on a cushion in the stern. (I would have no doubt that standing in the hot sun on a boat projecting your voice for hours would exhaust anyone.) They wake him up.
He got up, scolded the wind, and said to the sea, “Silence! Shut up!”
The wind died and there was a flat calm. Then he said to them, “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”
Great fear stole over them. “Who is this?” they said to each other. “Even the wind and the sea do what he says!”
Terror gripped the disciples. They were in the presence of . . . who? It appears that their reaction indicates a petrifying reimagining of Jesus as God with us.
The disciples certainly had been taught in synagogue to fear God (Deut. 10: 12-13). It appears that their reaction also indicates a reimagining of what it means to fear God – not just holding ultimate respect for God but also holding onto the reality of his sovereign power over all creation. They undoubtedly knew of God holding back the Red Sea so Israel could cross over and escape the Egyptian army. Now this! Right in front of their eyes!
Their fear would become a proper φοβος (phobos) or phobia and not an irrational phobia, of say, pagans. The disciples had seen God and lived to tell.
Fear abounds in Mark chapter five when Jesus does what no one had the ability to do: tie up the “strong man” and plunder his house (Mk. 3: 27). Jesus exorcises the man with the “legion” and commands the unclean spirits to enter a herd of pigs per the request of the spirits. The spirits didn’t want to leave the country. (My guess: the unclean spirits were given territory to control by the Satan.)
The herd of about two-thousand pigs rushing into the sea and drowning caused a panic.
The herdsman fled. They told it in the town, they told it in the countryside, and people came to see what had happened. They came to Jesus: and there they saw the man who had been demon-possessed, who had the “legion,” seated, clothed and stone-cold sober. They were afraid. The people who had seen it all told them what had happened to the man – and to the pigs. And they began to beg Jesus to leave their district.
The unknown and uncontrollable had happened. Folks were awe-struck, gob-smacked, and beside themselves with fear.
We then read that Jesus got back into the boat and the recovered soul asked to go with him. Jesus wouldn’t let him.
Go back home,” he said, “Go to your people and tell them what the Lord has done for you. Tell them how he had pity on you.”
He went off and began to announce in the Ten Towns what Jesus had done for him. Everyone was astonished.
All men did marvel. And it could be said – as taken from the Greek wording – that people in the brief accounts mentioned were astounded, amazed, awe struck, put out of place, knocked out and beside themselves with fear. The hand of God will do that.
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Tell me. What blows you away? Announcement of a new iPhone? A blockbuster sale? A blockbuster movie? Is it the computer-generated imagery (CGI) that Hollywood keeps cranking out? CGI has never block-busted me, not even fantastical sci-fi smash hits. I don’t marvel at Marvel comics on the big-screen. What’s to believe about what it offers? People in funny costumes role playing about saving the earth from made up monsters? (It unsettles me when I hear grown men talking about Star Wars and Spiderman movies. Ant Man?!)
What causes you to be afraid? It could be any number of things.
The hand of God may astonish you and make you wondrously afraid. Any fear should not be to the point of begging Jesus to leave, as the account above details. One of scripture’s most repeated commands is “Fear not”.
Ask Jesus to heal your imagination so that you will see the hand of God at work in your life. Then let the hand of God astonish you and make you reverently afraid. You will come to REAL-ize that you are I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
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Personal note: Shane (1953) is my favorite western. No CGI used. No PC. No soy boys involved. Just homesteaders in Wyoming territory defending their homes and farms against a bully named Ryker.
Ryker claims ownership and rights to the range. He ultimately brings in a hired gun to deal with the homesteaders and the mysterious Shane, a hired hand on a homestead.
The parallels to the abuse of power today are striking.
Special request: Congress members, including Nancy Pelosi and Lindsey Graham, should be made to take sobriety tests before they deliberate, pass laws and speak to the public in their capacity as congressional representatives.
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One can pretty much tell what the media wants you to focus on by the changing yards signs of the virtue signalers in your neighborhood. Around me the signs have changed from . . .
If you have ever gardened you know that stewardship of the garden matters.
Now that mask mandates are being discarded in blue states ahead of mid-term elections and the troll Anthony Fauci is back in his hole, and the COVID-political vortex is dying down, it is time for a State of the Stewardship accounting.
Exposed recently: piles of toxic waste – noble lies, half-truths, and flat-out lies – have been dumped into our lives. So-called stewards of science, media and capitalism have poisoned the soil of our lives and have done so with impunity.
A FOIA request by TheBlaze forced Pfizer to unmask documents it tried to keep hidden for 75 years. We learn from those documents that the Biden cartel took $1 billion of your tax dollars and paid, via HHS, nearly the entire corporate media to push the deadly vaccine, and hide its adverse effects.
In response to a FOIA request filed by TheBlaze, HHS revealed that it purchased advertising from major news networks including ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as cable TV news stations Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, legacy media publications including the New York Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, digital media companies like BuzzFeed News and Newsmax, and hundreds of local newspapers and TV stations. These outlets were collectively responsible for publishing countless articles and video segments regarding the vaccine that were nearly uniformly positive about the vaccine in terms of both its efficacy and safety.
The propaganda was perpetrated by the national COVID-19 Public Education Campaign which “aims to connect with Americans from a wide range of backgrounds. . . .to build confidence in vaccines, . . . Through a nationwide network of trusted messengers . . . The Campaign uses products . . . such as . . .Comprehensive vaccine confidence ads created for multiple platforms (radio, TV, social, digital, print, out-of-home”” to increase public confidence in and uptake of COVID-19 vaccines, . . .”
Interesting correlation:
Just the other day I went through company training about cyber security. I learned the following:
Phishingis the act of sending email that falsely claims to be from a legitimate organization. This is usually combined with a threat or request for information: for example, that an account will close, a balance is due, or information is missing from an account. “Act first, think later!” And,
Vishingis a form of phishing using a telephone to the prospective victim.
So, based on these definitions and the above revelation . . .
Vaxxing as a form of phishing using media with its pretense of legitimacy to cajole and threaten its victims to “Vax first, think later!”
We also learned about some of the effects of the toxic waste dumping: The Pfizer Vaccine Only has 1,291 Side Effects! The adverse effects include everything from heart attacks to strokes to ALS to paralysis to clots.
Evil stewards have manipulated, deceived, misled, scammed, and lied to us. We have been cajoled to accept things that are not true e.g., two weeks to flatten the curve; a one size fits all response is required for COVID; the vaccine is effective. Toxic waste has been dumped into the landscape with the effect of hurting and killing many.
Because of toxic stewardship, people who could have avoided the hospital and death were told by government authorities that readily available lifesaving therapeutics would not work. “Go home,” they were told, “and wait until things get bad before coming to the hospital”.
Because of wrong-headed and willful authoritarian stewardship, life has been turned upside. People have lost jobs. Businesses have closed. People, young people, have committed suicide. Parents and grandparents have died with no family by their bedside.
Follow the stewards of “the science”? No. Instead, follow the profit motive that propagates a vaccine narrative that dumps happy talk into our lives. Ask yourself. Do any of the vaccine PSAs contain risk information?
The LORD detests lying lips, but he delights in those who tell the truth. Prov. 15:22
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A recent TV PSA says that getting vaccinated means going back to normal. Implicit in that ad: you do not control normal. And, “normal” compared to what? Healthy soil or a landscape of contaminated soil?
Apparently, “normal” requires a controlled opposition. And, a controlled opposition requires a mediated atmosphere. Hence the masks, the mandates, and the media blitz of a COVID doomsday model over the past two years.
Hence the climate change doomsday model being marketed now to replace the COVID crisis. Again, “Act first, think later!”
Hence, the fascistic ideological programs that impose regulations on what we say, think, accept and live by: DEI, CRT, ESG, LGBTQXYZism. A handful of people – who do not know you or care what you think and hold to be true- want to tell you how to steward your life.
I was a loyal Soviet citizen until the age of 20. What it meant to be a loyal citizen is to say what you are supposed to say, to read what you are permitted to read, to vote the way you are told to vote and, at the same time, to know that all this is a lie. In fact, the reality is different, but the reality you can discuss only with your friends and the family.
Now consider, for example, ESG. Do you know that ESG will be controlling your life in the near future?
ESG is the acronym for Environmental, Social, and (Corporate) Governance, the three broad categories of interest for what is termed “socially responsible investors.”
“Each of the three elements of ESG investing – environmental, social, and corporate governance – comprises a number of criteria that may be considered, either by socially responsible investors or by companies aiming to adopt a more ESG-friendly operational stance.”
Using ESG metrics is an extended version of Marxist Critical Race Theory- scoring, reshaping, and mastering the financial world using Marxist tactics. It is form of control. Not only do they want to control what companies do by mandating adherence to green, social justice, and approved political views, but they want to control the entire supply chain that even supports the company. In essence–they will control everything. Only those companies who align with their ideology will be allowed access to banks, receive financing, and participate in our nation’s financial processes.
Big Banks are going in this direction. Credit card companies are going in this direction. McDonalds has joined the ESG mob. Companies that want to appear to be socially responsible and environmentally conscious in the eyes of social justice Pharisees will seek to avoid or minimize reputational risk. And that means avoiding you, if necessary, to appear socially conscious.
Consider that your bank account – business or personal – or your credit accounts will be cancelled because your “reputational risk” (ESG language) doesn’t fit with the globalist’s metrics scoring, reshaping, and mastering the financial world.
(Side note: The means to control is creeping in everywhere.
Last fall, OSHA was demanding a list from companies of over one-hundred employees: who was vaccinated and who wasn’t and being tested. When I submitted my religious vaccine exemption document to my employer last fall, I asserted four exemptions: from vaccines, masks, testing and being put on a list.
I had become aware prior to that time that ADP and other payroll services were offering to put vaccine status on pay statements. I did not want my vaccine status to be known and to later have it be considered an ESG-type “reputational risk”.)
Controlled opposition will come about through the takeover of your property. This will occur through digital technology that people have taken into their lives with abandon. How, you ask?
Stewards of the U.S. dollar are devaluing the dollar with printing-press dollars and, with terrible foreign policy, the dollar’s demise as the world’s reserve currency. There is now talk of a central bank digital currency.
A cash-less digital currency means that you will become a slave and your property will be under the control of the fascistic One World system – do what they say ESG and otherwise or you will not have access to your accounts.
The coming “normal” requires a controlled opposition. So, you and I will be managed and controlled by unjust and unfaithful stewards who currently mismanage our resources.
We can fight ESG:
Use local banks or credit unions instead of big banks. Hold gold, silver and precious metals. Crypto? Crypto may soon be regulated by you know who.
I remember the stewardship of the milquetoast Jimmy Carter (1977-1981). UGH. I remember the gas lines, the hapless foreign policy, Carter’s “Malaise Speech” and the misery contained in the misery index.
Jimmy Carter (D) quoted the misery index extensively during his 1976 Presidential campaign to unseat Ford, even though Ford actually presided over a declining Misery index. Carter, on the other hand, presided over an increasing misery index of his own, starting his term at 12.72% and increasing to levels well above Ford’s highs. Carter’s misery index peaked at 21.98% in June of 1980. His misery index was still above 20% come November 1980, so Reagan (R) was able to use Carter’s own words and the misery index against him in the following election and make Carter a rare one-term President.(emphasis mine)
I remember the Jimmy Carter years because the misery being produced by the Kackle and Hide-n stewardship of the U.S. economy makes its so. Stewards of the U.S. economy have created the highest inflation since January 1982.
3-10-22: The gas station down the street has the price of regular gas at $4.59+/gal. During the last administration the cost of gas at the same station was around $2.29/gal.
Why does the Biden regime want to shut down U.S. oil and gas production and make the U.S. – you and me – dependent on foreign sources for both? Does it make any sense whatsoever to hamstring America energy production for climate change whims? Where is the discussion?
On his first illegitimate day in office, “lunch bucket” Joe signed an executive order to shut down the Keystone pipeline thereby choking off U.S. energy independence and eliminating over 10000 jobs. Did anyone hear a discussion about doing this? Was there talk about the intended and unintended consequences on the majority of Americans? Or, was this done to appease others?
Did Biden make this mindless decision so as to look good in the eyes of his globalist superiors and to throw a bone to a handful of climate and environment fanatics? Forcing everyone into EVs is insanity.
The 1.5 trillion dollars Omnibus bill is an orgy of spending. The U.S. does not have the money to spend. This bill is reckless and irresponsible stewardship of taxpayer money. The bill will add to the national debt and make future U.S. citizens globalist slaves to that debt. The stewards of appropriations in Congress are terrible money managers. They have disregarded their fiduciary responsibility to U.S. citizens.
The Left – Progressive democrats and many on the Right – want people to believe that they are the magnanimous ones. They offer you all kinds of goodies – single payer healthcare, student loan payoff, COVID stay at home money, and yadda yadda yadda – with all kinds of rights. It cost Progressives nothing to offer other people’s money and rights that effect the rights of others.
Look around. Consumer prices have risen 7.9% compared to last year. Commodity prices have increased. We are likely to see a recession in the third quarter of this year.
During the last administration, America was energy independent, inflation was low (see above) and misery was going away. “Orange man bad” stewardship of America was positive and life affirming. Under the Biden regime, the stewardship is reckless, careless and destructive. The Regime has no clue about the common man – there is a massive disconnect between us and the Progressive Left.
President Joe Biden told Congress Tuesday evening in his State of the Union address to pass legislation to lower insulin prices — after he suspended, and then rescinded, former President Donald Trump’s executive order to lower them.
As under the COVID “public health” stewardship, we will continue to witness Democide.
Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to others. Prov. 12:15
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A controlled opposition requires messaging and stewardship that subverts.
This past week the woman’s professional network at my company invited me to celebrate International Woman’s Day (IWD):
Happy Women’s Day!Annually, March 8th is celebrated as international women’s day; a global holiday to commemorate the cultural, political, and socioeconomic achievements of women. This year’s theme is Break the Bias. Thank you to all of you for continuing to break the bias. Today – celebrate by writing a thank-you note to a fellow employee that inspires you by breaking the bias or write yourself a love note praising yourself for who you are and how you break the bias (or bonus point for doing both).
When you go to the Break the Biaslink you get the following gobbledygook meant to warm the cockles of your heart.
Imagine a gender equal world.
A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination.
A world that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive.
A world where difference is valued and celebrated.
Together we can forge women’s equality.
Collectively we can all #BreakTheBias.
A week or so before IWD, the Women’s Professional Network met for a Community of Practice (COP) session. The topic was the stewardship of your mental health. Apparently now, using the IWD messaging, one is to blame others for the stewardship of your sorry life. Finding-fault-with-others Marxism is rampant.
I’ll #BreaktheBadNews: IWD is a meaningless participation trophy recognizing a Leninist-feminist approach to life: forsake your family and live for some ideological notion of equality.
(I wonder. Does “equality” mean that males can participate in women’s sports?)
Note to self: More of the feel-good break-the-bank-money is being appropriated by the stewards of equality in Congress for more messaging effluence:
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he will ask Congress for $2.6 billion for foreign aid programs that promote gender equality worldwide, more than double the size of last year’s request.
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Many people, stewards of their property, put fences around their yard. Many put alarm systems on their property. Many put up chicken wire around their gardens to keep rabbits out. People protect what they have and what they want to see flourish. But, the current unfaithful stewards of America do not protect what we have. They don’t seem to care if Americans flourish.
Often on social media: an open borders policy is touted as being humane and a magnanimous Christ-like gesture. But a one-sided open borders policy is leaving America exposed to whatever.
Would you leave your computer open to a computer virus? The operating system could be exposed to malicious software.
Such a virus could alter the way a computer operates. It is designed to spread from one computer to another. The virus operates by inserting or attaching itself to a legitimate program or document in order to execute its code. In the process, a virus has the potential to cause unexpected or damaging effects, such as harming the system software by corrupting or destroying data.
The virus is capable of reproducing itself and usually capable of causing great harm to files or other programs to many other networks. Some viruses use your information and some lock up your computer with ransomware. One is held hostage by the virus.
An open borders policy is an attack not only on your health of your own operating system, it is a pernicious attack on the sovereignty and operating system of a nation.
An open borders policy is not about helping refugees fleeing bad circumstances as advertised. An open borders policy is about corrupting America and holding it hostage for globalist purposes.
Politically bent unjust stewards (where is the justice if Americans are exposed to all kinds of injustice?) have put in place an open borders policy which leaves Americans unprotected and at the mercy of whoever and whatever comes in.
Americans, many of us, are generous fair-minded people. We welcome those immigrants who come in lawfully and want to assimilate. The open orders policy is not American. Rather, it is a globalist one-world tactic to dilute American values and produce a subservient class of people for the currently-being-fabricated globalist community of worker ants.
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If you have ever gardened you know that stewardship of the garden matters . . . if you want things to flourish.
This post has been a brief accounting of the current state of stewardship. All told in this ledger, the current stewardship has been inept, negligent, cruel and manipulative. And deadly.
The people who presented themselves as the source of truth about a fabricated pandemic continue to present themselves as climate change experts, economic experts, cultural experts, and foreign policy experts. This kind of stewardship should scare the heck out of you.
Media, as we learn above, serves the interests of the intelligentsia and globalists because there is status and money to be had by doing so. Truth is no longer a journalist’s bread and butter. Insta-“Likes” are. The media, with a profit and status-as-power motive, facilitates the degradation and servitude of humanity by promoting the templates of globalization that are repugnant to most people.
The current stewards -our ‘betters’ the intelligentsia – include university know-it-alls, Progressive politicians, Progressive Jesuits, globalists, members of the World Economic Forum, and their ilk. These would have us submit to the jab of cultural repudiation.
We are to forsake what we hold to be true and value including the garden stewardship commission given to us by God in Genesis. Without question we are to accept the jabs of their moral effluence. These stewards cultivate the same lie that’s been around since the garden: “Do this. It’s for your own good.”
If we resist it is because we know better or feel instinctively that something is wrong and we need more information.
The wise don’t make a show of their knowledge, but fools broadcast their foolishness. Prov. 15:23
And while the typical thing is for shrewd snake-like stewards to blame others for the bad and even horrific outcomes of their stewardship, we must see through their lies and hold these stewards legally and voter- wise accountable – politicians, office holders, the media, and church leaders. Don’t go along to get along.
I recommend that after every State of the Union speech that there be a State of the Stewardship speech.
Humankind has been entrusted with the responsibility to tend to God’s kingdom on earth. We, as stewards, will be held accountable.
Readings:
The Parable of the Talents – Matthew 25:14-30 Find out about the “worthless slave”.
The Parable of the Dishonest Manager – Luke 16: 1-13
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Personal note: I do not like being lied to or manipulated. So, I haven’t watched CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, ABC, CBS, NBC or any of the legacy media. I will not read the NYT or any newspapers except for the comic and crossword puzzle sections.
Clearing the air of climate change apocalypse: an intelligent conversation on cost benefit analysis, fracking, energy innovation, the Paris accords and more:
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 
Biden Times
May 1, 2022 Leave a comment
Just the other day I received email from a local Democrat representative, one of our Build Back Betters:
Dear Friend,
Every day, I hear from constituents about the financial stress and anxiety they experience as a result of rising prices of necessities like groceries and gas. I understand the worry this creates. That is why I put together an update on how I’m fighting inflation with resources to help lower costs for you and your families.
But let’s be clear: Big oil needs to be held accountable for their role in the sky-high prices we are experiencing. Last year, the five largest oil companies made over $75 billion in profits, the highest increase in seven years. This gouging along with Russia’s unwarranted aggression in Ukraine has led to supply chain issues and higher prices for American families. That is why I introduced the Stop Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act to hold big oil companies accountable while providing families a $100 monthly tax credit to offer immediate relief. (Emphasis mine.)
From her website:
How is it that under Trump we didn’t have “rising prices of necessities like groceries and gas.” How is it that under Trump there was no energy crisis? And no Putin-Ukraine conflict? Do you think the 40-year high inflation has to do with the current Democrat regime policies and not with corporations and oil and gas companies, the Dems favorite scapegoats?
Yes, it is Biden’s Inflation: NOT Caused by the Ukraine Crisis (substack.com)
First, he declared open war on domestic American energy, from pipelines to drilling, prioritizing a radical eco agenda over dependable and affordable American domestic energy. Then, he and Chuck and Nancy embarked on a truly exorbitant borrowing and spending spree that sent interest rates and prices for nearly every conceivable physical asset soaring. Finally, he issued draconian and unscientific workplace vaccine mandates – many of which still remain in place – that prevented full staffing in key industries like trucking and logistics for supply lines. -Steve Cortes
Supposedly, the Stop Gas Price Gouging Tax and Rebate Act would lower energy costs for Americans with a tax rebate. Households will receive a monthly, advanced, and refundable tax credit that will be phased out for single filers earning more than $75,000 and joint filers earning more than $150,000 per year.
You see, Democrats create a problem, blame someone else (e.g., corporate greed) and then offer for us to keep our money (e.g., I’m fighting inflation with resources) as a panacea.
Greed? Price gouging? Pritzker signs bill doubling Illinois gas tax (illinoispolicy.org); Fact check: Pritzker’s gas tax delay doesn’t ‘lower prices’ | Madison – St. Clair Record (madisonrecord.com)
Not only have Joe Biden and the Democrats created horrible economic conditions with uncompromising Green energy policies, they are intent on harming people with uncompromising mandates and vaccines. Whatever is good, Democrats do the opposite.
This Is Big: Naomi Wolf Confirms Big Pharma Was Adding Varying Amounts of Active Ingredient to Batches of COVID Vaccine (VIDEO) – Survival Magazine & News – Bushcraft Prepper Offgrid SHTF Blog & Conservative News
Batch codes and associated deaths, disabilities and illnesses for Covid 19 Vaccines
You won’t get reality from the effete and greedy corporate media – CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, NYT, WaPo, etc. No. Instead, you get their social-emotional learning narratives. Democrats, like the rep above, parrot media narratives.
I have questions that the media won’t delve into:
Why is the U. S. involved in a proxy war to uphold a corrupt socialist oligarchy and jeopardizing our national security and readiness?
Why is Joe Biden trying to escalate conflict?
Why is the Biden regime sending our tax dollars to Ukraine and involving the U.S. in this conflict?
Why “The $800 million (weapons) assistance program”
Why is the Biden regime requesting $33 billion more taxpayer money?
Biden Announces Another $33 Billion in Economic Assistance to Ukraine — As US Economy Crumbles, Inflation Hits 40-Yr Highs, Gas Prices Skyrocket, GDP Declines (thegatewaypundit.com)
The U.S. is sending $33 billion in aid to Ukraine. Meanwhile, this is Los Angeles.
You can be sure that media coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict is a distraction. It is meant to have you look away at what is happening here at home – the invasion on our southern border (2 million+ in 2021 and soon, 2022 also) and the devastating Green economic policies that destroy life as we know it to save the planet, save face and pad bank accounts.
Why is the media focused on Ukraine’s border when our southern border is being overrun by all kinds of opportunistic moochers?
Why is the Biden regime promoting illegal immigration? Foreigners wanting a better situation than the one they fostered in their own country is not sufficient legal ground for their immigration to take place.
Why are NGOs like Catholic Charities aiding and abetting the takeover of our country?
Why? “Corporations and liberal non-profits are currently organizing a mass invasion of the United States, endangering our national security and the safety of our communities.” – Rep. Lance Gooden
Why are Obama/Biden and Democrats afraid of truth (i.e., losing control of the narrative that hides their evil ways), hence the creation of the “Disinformation Governance Board” akin to Orwell’s 1984 Ministry of Truth)?
What is the Biden crime family hiding? Nina Jankowicz formerly worked as an advisor to the Ukrainian government under a Fulbright-Clinton Fellowship.
*****
Don’t listen to the noise. Listen to the signal. Listen to adults who speak in adult reality terms.
Naomi Wolf: The Untold Dangers Of The Covid Vaccine For Pregnant Women; Dave Brat/Peter Narro’s Analysis Of The Crashing American Economy
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Informed Dissent:
BREAKING REPORT… Naomi Wolf on War Room – FDA Failed to Mention Heart Damage to Teens When Approving Pfizer Vaccine (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)
Newly Released Pfizer Documents Reveal COVID Jab Dangers (mercola.com)
“I cannot say this enough times: Covid vaccine restrictions are ending not because the mRNA vaccines have succeeded but because they have failed.”
The Covid vaccine era is ending already – by Alex Berenson (substack.com)
Whoops! The TOGETHER Trial actually showed that ivermectin worked. (substack.com)
Revolver Exclusive Study: COVID-19 Lockdowns Over 10 Times More Deadly Than Pandemic Itself – Revolver
WOW! 30 YEARS AGO DR. ROBERT WILLNER ACCUSES ANTHONY FAUCI OF GENOCIDE (bitchute.com)
Tucker Carlson Tonight 04/11/22 (FULL SHOW) (bitchute.com)
Tennessee Makes Ivermectin Available Without Prescription – UncoverDC
Naomi Wolfe stunner… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
Dr. Wolf: COVID Vaccines and Pregnancy
Headwind—Dr. Robert W. Malone (theepochtimes.com)
Democrats are evil:
Lawmakers reject amendment to prevent monitoring of unvaccinated (reclaimthenet.org)
Coerced Consent:
No Insurance Payments: The Next COVID Shot ‘Mandate’? (mercola.com)
Where DEI won’t go:
The Left loves ESG. The Left hates humans. Climate change is just another scheme to hate on humans. And, another litigious way to transfer money and control:
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink believes in “forcing behaviors.”
“Behaviors are going to have to change and this is one thing we are asking companies, you have to force behaviors and at Blackrock, we are forcing behaviors”
The Securities and Exchange Commission voted 3-1 to advance a proposed rule requiring public companies to disclose climate risks. . .
The main intent of the rule is to make it easier for left-leaning asset managers like BlackRock, public pension funds and trial lawyers to bully companies. Public companies will be liable for climate disclosures the SEC deems inaccurate or incomplete.
Gary Gensler Stages a Climate Coup – WSJ (archive.ph)
Alternative Media:
Manifold Productions
It’s not only CNN personnel:
DOJ Accidentally Publishes Bombshell List of Elites Caught In Sex Cult — The Republic Brief
Homeschooling, not grooming:
Across the country, we’re in the midst of an unprecedented explosion in homeschooling and alternative education. The main triggers were Covid-19 shutdowns and masking policies. But parents were already frustrated and revolting — even in some of the most liberal cities — over radical social agendas and poor academic results. Today, we investigate the mass exodus from America’s public schools. Public Schools | Full Measure
The Solution To the GQ (Groomer Question) – Gab News
Senator Ron Johnson is a Truth Warrior and COVID hero (substack.com)
De-Programming Feminism: Feminist Propaganda in Disney Films Part 1, “The Little Mermaid” (substack.com)
Our Children, Our Grandchildren are under attack by the Democrat Left:
Kaiser Permanente Ad Says ‘Too Bad’ to Those Who Say Drag Queen Story Hour Is ‘Too Much’ | Newsbusters
Creepy: Biden Goes “Off Script” To Tell Teachers That Kids Are “Yours When You’re In The Classroom” – Summit News
Advice from the Disconnected:
More… Bloomberg News Offers Tips For Americans Struggling With Inflation: Let Your Pets Die (thegatewaypundit.com)
Let them eat grass:
“Meat prices have increased about 14% from February 2021 and will go up even more. Though your palate may not be used to it, tasty meat substitutes include vegetables (where prices are up a little over 4%, or lentils and beans, which are up about 9%). Plan to cut out the middle creature and consume plants directly. It’s a more efficient, healthier and cheaper way to get calories.” Teresa Ghilarducci, the Schwartz Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research.
No hock, Sherlock:
Inflation Stings Most for Those Earning Under $300,000 – Bloomberg
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Filed under 2022 current events, Culture, democrats, Economics, Immigration, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, The Great Reset Tagged with Build Back Better, democrats, economy, Illegal Immigration, inflation, Joe Biden, politics, The Great Reset, Ukraine