Cosplay Christians Are at it Again

In the “Anything Goes” Gnostic dream world of Progressive Christianity, one can dress up their politics to pose as a Christian persona for emotive performance art . . .

Woke Christian Leaders Issue Letter Against Rise of ‘White Christian Nationalism’

Michael Austin at Gateway Pundit writes:

A coalition of left-leaning evangelical Christians issued a new open letter against the Trump administration and what they claimed is a rising tide of “white Christian nationalism.”

In recent years, legacy media outlets and Democratic leaders have linked a rise in distinctly Christian conservative political engagement to “Christian nationalism,” denouncing the notion that America is an historically Christian people and country.

The “open letter”, with its condemnations and call to resistance expressed in Christian-speak, is an implicit denunciation of ICE, the Trump administration, and any notion of Christianity that hasn’t bowed the knee to the many flags of Progressivism. It comes with an appeal to join the troupe of Cosplay Christianity. You can add your name to a list of those who have bowed the knee.

The website: A Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy | Stand for Justice & Faith — Act Now

From the coalition’s Why We Write:

We are facing a cruel and oppressive government; citizens and immigrants being demonized, disappeared, and even killed; the erosion of hard-won rights and freedoms; and a calculated effort to reverse America’s growing racial and ethnic diversity– all of which are pushing us toward authoritarian and imperial rule.

What confronts us is not only an endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny. It is also a Christian faith corrupted by the heretical ideology of white Christian nationalism, and a church that has often failed to equip its members to model Jesus’s teachings and fulfill its prophetic calling as a humanitarian, compassionate, and moral compass for society.

Therefore, as Christians in the United States, representing the breadth of Christian traditions and one part of our nation’s religiously plural society, we are compelled to speak out more boldly at this time.

~~~

I am compelled to boldly reply. So I’ll start by addressing reality and what these posers have willfully ignored: what has been cruel and oppressive:

Millions of foreign invaders have entered our country illegally. They have been allowed to do so under the globalist open borders Biden Regime. They have been allowed to enter without vetting, vaccines, health monitoring, and financial means of support. U.S. citizens – our neighbors – have been forced to bear the brunt of this invasion. This, while there has been a legal means to enter the country especially if you needed political asylum from persecution, e.g., white South African refugees.

The effects of the mass invasion of opportunists, per Matthew Dickerson, Director of Budget Policy:

“This surge has imposed a significant human cost, with communities across the United States grappling with the consequences of human and drug trafficking.

“A substantial financial price has also been paid by American taxpayers. Many illegal aliens become eligible for taxpayer-funded welfare programs, costing billions of dollars annually.”

Is the Cloward-Piven strategy being used to overthrow the system?

In 1966, sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven developed a political strategy aimed at creating a crisis in the welfare system by encouraging mass enrollment. The manufactured emergency sought to overload welfare agencies, crash the system and trigger a crisis that would expose its inadequacies and force the U.S. government to implement guaranteed income and create a more “equitable” society.

Most of the invaders are on taxpayer-funded welfare. Because of this and other free stuff, Democrats expect them to vote for Democrat candidates and more Big Government dependency. The Democrat’s corporate donors expect cheap labor.

This is the coalition’s inversion of the Good Samaritan story. Rescue 20+ million invaders from ICE and then have them pay you back with votes and cheap labor. Of course, the coalition doesn’t want you to know this. They want focus to be on big bad ICE and on Christians who say “Stop.” The coalition’s list of cosplayer signatories shows who approves of such.

Minnesota Elections Official Finally Admits What We All Knew About Illegals Voting

What has been cruel and oppressive for our neighbors has been the invasion of M.S.13 affiliated narco-gangs that are selling drugs and recruiting new members. Fentanyl deaths and overdoses have followed in the wake of the invasion. Our vulnerable children are being trafficked, pimped, and killed. The coalition would have us focus our compassion, our “Christian” empathy, on the “stranger in our midst” and not on what the “stranger in our midst” is doing to our children.

What has been cruel and oppressive for our vulnerable neighbors: the “strangers in our midst” have committed fraud, robbery, sexual assault, exploitation of a minor, aggravated assault, manslaughter, rape, and murder.

Recently reported:

Illegal alien Israel Flores Ortiz, 19, is facing nine counts of assault and battery for groping girls at a Fairfax County high school he was attending. Victims and parents have alleged that Ortiz approached about 12 girls from behind in crowded hallways, grabbed them between the legs and groped their private areas, . . .

I doubt that you will hear or read anything bad about the foreign invaders via MS NOW, CNN, NYT, WaPo, The Atlantic, and legacy media. The propagandists want you to believe that the foreign invaders are victims of “cruel and oppressive” law and order deportations. The “vulnerable”, the coalition implies, are the foreign invaders and not our U.S. neighbors who are being demonized, disappeared, and even killed by the foreign invaders.

Here’s a reality check for the cosplayer Christian: Arrested: Worst of the Worst

What has been cruel and oppressive are the non-citizen truck drivers who don’t speak the language and don’t know the rules of the road and are on the highway maiming and killing our vulnerable neighbors.

Another Illegal Alien Trucker Leaves a U.S. Citizen in Critical Condition.

What has been cruel and oppressive: those who have been radicalized by anti-ICE indoctrination biting the dust. Renée Good and Alex Pretti died putting up resistance to ICE that so many on the Left and the coalition of cosplay Christians have advocated for.

Good, armed with a Honda Pilot SUV and main character syndrome, drove into an ICE officer. Pretti brought a military-grade handgun to a protest. Instead of remaining calm and standing back to protest, they came armed and ready to fight the criminal-removing ICE agents. 

~~~

Let’s move on to another of the coalition’s absurd claims:

What confronts us is not only an endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny. It is also a Christian faith corrupted by the heretical ideology of white Christian nationalism.”

Progressive Christianity is heretical. Even AI knows this:

“Progressive Christianity is a modern movement within Christianity that emphasizes social justice, inclusivity, and a re-interpretation of traditional doctrines. It seeks to align Christian beliefs with contemporary values and often draws from various theological perspectives, including feminist and liberation theologies.” (Emphasis mine.) AI left out gender theology, eco-theology, and prosperity theology.

Progressive Christianity, a mix of theo-ideologies under the cover of Christianity, seeks political power to “overcome” any form of Christianity that says “Stop!” Its methodology is not much different than the religion of Islam.

Islam uses fear as a motivator to bring about submission to Islam. The Gnostic religion of Progressivism uses fear to bring about submission to woke social issues and a never-ending desire for top-down change.

Fearmongering is essential to Progressivism’s conversion therapy. Deconstructionist sermonizers use “cruel and oppressive” “endangered democracy and the rise of tyranny” “white Christian nationalism” “extremist” and “right-wing” to scare those (diagnosed as) Trump obsessed and deranged. They soon take possession of them and keep their boot, the administrative state, on their neck. The Biden/Harris regime gave us insight into that tyrannical rule. And so did the days of COVID.

See the pattern of manufactured threats to produce doomsday frenzy leading to submission:

How could we forget the constant scare tactics during COVID? The media dashboards of COVID cases, hospitalizations, and deaths? How could we forget the cruel and oppressive authoritarian rule accompanying the propaganda that mandated masks, lockdowns, social distancing, church closures, and vaccines? How could we forget the consequences if we didn’t bend the knee to “the science”?

Pandemic politics was used as a test to see if people would submit to the tyranny of Progressivism’s one rule scientism. Progressives Anthony Fauci, Francis Collins, and Rochelle Walensky were the primary mouth pieces for COVID scientism (and of so much deceit about mitigation, natural immunity, Ivermectin, and COVID origins).

With the likes of charlatans and false prophets with climate models, we have been subjected to doomism and the pressure to submit to the narrative (and the globalist wealth transfer schemes required to ‘mitigate’ warming and bring every country under one imperial globalist rule)?

MS Now and CNN voiced 24/7 “Democracy!” alarmism during Trump’s presidential campaigns. The talking heads wanted their viewers to be scared out of their minds about Trump. The talking heads now want their viewers to be scared out of their minds about ICE and Christian Nationalism and people looking into the 2020 election fraud and any law that would stop Progressives from taking over and telling us what to do.

NBC News reports Progressives’ latest attack on basic common sense:

“The SAVE Act is nothing more than Jim Crow 2.0. It could disenfranchise millions of American citizens,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said last week.

This, while the Save Act’s “Support now includes 71% of self-identified Democrats, 83% of independents and 76% of Black voters.”

Pattern recognition tells us that The Call to Christians in a Crisis of Faith and Democracy is more of Progressives’ histrionics – this time dressed up in the cloaking of Christianity. The call is meant to persuade people to see the moral world as inverted – law and order bad; lawlessness, ad hoc justice, lawfare, chaos, and “Anything Goes” Christianity as good. Ergo, people are to hate Trump, his administration, ICE, and Christians who are not Progressive.

There are dark forces at work to deconstruct the U.S. by diluting its historically Christian history and people with invaders and to colonize Americans under One World globalism. The deep state, CIA, George Soros and others – know how to dress up deception for their purposes.

~~~

My replies to the coalition’s (in bold) “points”:

The government-sponsored cruelty and violence we are witnessing stands in total opposition to the teachings of Jesus.

First of all, notice how the coalition wants the focus to be on deportation efforts and not on the government-sponsored cruelty and violence we are witnessing that came about with the invasion of millions of foreign invaders under their Joe Biden. (MS NOW, CNN and the rest of liberal media do not report what the invaders are doing to people, so cosplayer Christians never hear about it.)

The religious leader’s statement above is meant to stir up an angry mob just as what happened when an angry mob shouted for Pontious Pilate to arrest and crucify Jesus because of his growing influence – his cruelty to the religious leader’s narrative. Jesus was a threat to the power of the influencers. He was doing violence to their lock on truth and practice.

Did you ever hear Jesus tell his disciples to rise up against Roman authority? No. Did you ever hear Jesus tell his disciples to rise up against Pax Romana? No. Did you ever hear the apostle Paul tell Christians to rise up? No. They spoke of spiritual warfare and cautioned about false teaching. (And, so will I.)

Pax Romana (27 BCE to roughly 180 CE) established a stable government, reformed the military, and created a system of laws that maintained order across the empire. Military power was used to suppress revolts and ensure loyalty among the provinces, promoting peace through strength. Rome’s power created a political and cultural order in which people could trade, travel, and thrive in relative safety. But contentious Jews did rise up. They did not want Roman authority over them in any form.

The Jews’ Great Revolt against Rome in 66 CE led to one of the greatest catastrophes in Jewish life. During the summer of 70 AD, the second temple was destroyed. It is estimated that as many as one million Jews died in the Great Revolt against Rome. Jesus and Paul had taught that the kingdom of God is not brought about by political power but by the gospel’s power to transform lives.

Now we find cosplayer Christian zealots inciting revolt against ICE and the Trump administration that are responding to the voter mandates of restoring law and order and safety to American citizens. Both are working to clean up the disastrous, chaotic, and dangerous mess the Biden regime created. They are working to bring stability to our country. Why won’t these religious leaders work with them? Because they did not want any authority over them except their own.

What good are the coalition’s intentions if the real effects that they have will be considered moral in their Gnostic dream world have an entirely different effect on people’s lives?

Why didn’t the coalition talk about government-sponsored cruelty and violence when Biden acted like a petulant child and undid President Donald Trump’s immigration policies from his first term? Biden opened the border and flooded the country with illegal invaders, many of whom kill, maim, rape, and drug to death our neighbors? Arrested: Worst of the Worst

During 2022, the huge spike in inflation created during the Biden regime, mostly by federal spending, caused many to suffer. Would Jesus approve of placing such a burden on the poor and vulnerable? Did the coalition speak out then? No. Taxpayer money was supporting “Anything Goes” Progressivism around the world.

Freedoms and rights once assumed to be secure are being stripped away, redefined, or selectively applied.

They say that “Decades-old civil rights protections are being dismantled.” You mean your invention of “the constitutional right to abortion” being dismantled? You mean Obergefell v. Hodges being over turned? You mean the right to define reality, e.g., gender?

This same coalition, under the banner of “Anything Goes” love, no doubt supports abortion on demand, gender ideology, LGBT-ism, critical race theory, George Floyd-worship, crisis environmentalism– every Woke issue their deep state CIA masters tell them to empathetically support.

They say that “Governance is being hollowed out and replaced with corruption, intimidation, and the normalization of lawlessness.” Look to Democrat run states and cities for corruption. Look to Democrat-appointed AGs and judges for loyalty tests, intimidation, and the normalization of lawlessness. Look to rogue judges who work to usurp the executive branch and the will of the people. They accrue power unto themselves. I would have no doubt the coalition’s cosplayer Christians are OK with these abuses of power. Political power is their end game and that end justifies their means.

They say that “The architecture of democracy and the rights secured by the separation of powers are being eroded from within, while we are told to accept it as “law”, “order,” or “God’s will.”

See the above response. “God’s will”? It’s the U.S. Constitution’s and the people’s will.

Foreign invaders do not have U.S. citizen rights, so they can’t be taken away.

Foreign invaders can leave on their own with dignity or we can deport them with dignity, as CBS News reports:

The federal government is now paying $2,600 to undocumented immigrants to self-deport if they use the Customs and Border Protection Home App. That’s up from $1,000 when the initiative started a year ago. On top of that stipend is a free flight to their home country.

Freedom and rights are being stripped away from legal citizens when laws are selectively applied to favor the foreign invader and not our citizen neighbors.

Freedom and rights are being stripped away when laws are selectively applied to favor the criminal and the not victim. Is the coalition OK with ad hoc justice, i.e., justice that sidesteps the law to achieve a certain supposed ideal outcome (equality, say) for the criminal? Is the coalition OK with ad hoc justice that releases criminals back into society to commit heinous crimes? Will the ideal outcome cause others to suffer?

Economist Thomas Sowell, in his book A Conflict of Visions, writes about the “unconstrained vision.”

This is the belief, based on the Rousseauian Theory of “Natural Goodness” that human nature is essentially good and that ideal solutions exist for every problem. Proponents of this vision have a distrust of traditional institutions and advocate for significant changes to achieve a perfect society. Compromise is viewed as unacceptable.

Judges of the “unconstrained vision” believing that human nature is essentially good and that ideal solutions exist for societal problems will use direct ad hoc individual decision making to seek an ideal outcome regarding a criminal or illegal migrant person before them. Their perspective often results in a disregard for the complexities and trade-offs involved in human nature and the cost to society at large

Is the coalition OK when judges release repeat criminals to go free so they can commit more harm to the vulnerable?

As reported:

DHS Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis stated, “This activist, Obama-appointed judge RELEASED Carlos Antonio Flores-Miguel, a criminal illegal alien from El Salvador and MS-13 gang member, from ICE custody.”

And

Family goes after Soros-backed prosecutor for allowing illegal to murder their daughter…

Obama Judge Orders Release of Four-Time Deported Illegal Alien MS-13 Gang Member with History of Rape | The Gateway Pundit | by Cristina Laila

No doubt, the coalition is OK with the massive lawfare campaign waged against Trump and his administration because they are working to deconstruct their avenues of political power in the deep state. When the don’t get their way, Progressives lash out. But WWJD?

Their statement says that they oppose unjust laws. But does the coalition oppose the unjust application of laws and the two-tier justice system of the last several years meant to persecute political opponents?

Sadly, the crisis is not only political—it is one driven by a moral and spiritual collapse showing up in alarming levels of polarization. Our faith is being tested. Christians cannot pretend otherwise and must make a decision to act.

Polarization? Faith being tested? The majority of Americans not having faith in your Gnostic dream world? If you had faith in God you would go to your knees and pray for those in authority, and make supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Instead, you rise up.

Act? You mean by any means necessary?  You mean throw away your lives like Renée Good and Alex Pretti?

We choose to resist, calling forth the righteous demands of our faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus.

“Righteous demands”? When you call people and laws “cruel and oppressive”, “extremist” and “right-wing”, you shut down discussion. Jesus (and Charlie Kirk) discussed. You demand.

You mean a faith rooted in the obtuse morality of Progressivism, don’t you?

You mean a faith rooted in your liturgy of resistance and Rules for Radicals by Saul Alinsky, don’t you?

You mean a faith in “a comprehensive national civic uprising”, the communist revolution that NYT op-ed columnist and Christian cosplayer David Brooks alludes to?

As Christians, we must never preach nationalism as discipleship, confuse American and Christian identity with whiteness, or mistake allegiance to modern-day Caesars for faithfulness to Christ.

No one but you, cosplayer Christians, think this way. No one but you, cosplayer Christians, confuse Christian identity with whiteness. No one but you, Christian cosplayers, disciple people for allegiance to DEI.

Their statement is interesting given the fact that white Christian nationalists developed the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and settled this country. Is Progressivism to be the new ultra-nationalism?

A Christian loving their country, their home, and their rootedness is not wrong. Why speak of “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey?” Read Leviticus 20:24 and Exodus 3:8.

Therefore, we commit to: Protect and Stand with Vulnerable People

Will you protect the vulnerable who are now afflicted by illegal invaders committing horrendous crimes? There is no mention of that in your cosplay performance.

Will you protect the vulnerable who are hurt by those released with no bail or jail time? No. There is no mention of that in your cosplay performance.

Or, are you, who are dressed up as ‘principled’ Christians, protecting your own vulnerable political power? You see your political power endangered by the current administration. You saw what happened in the 2024 election. You see the current administration looking into the corrupt voting practices that occurred during the 2020 election. The 20+ million invaders represent to you a ready-made voting base.

Catherine Salgado, at PJ Media:

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries basically admitted that the Democrats’ disgusting shutdown theatrics are all about fury over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) preventing illegal aliens from taking American jobs and blocking them from voting in our elections.

 . . . Illegal immigration sure looks like the [Democrat Party’s] solution to Republicans taking away their slaves. And illegal immigration is their solution to having no policies that appeal to American voters.

(Emphasis mine.)

Democrats, of course, are fear-mongering about the Save America Act so they can continue to defraud and disenfranchise their American neighbors with non-citizen votes.

Top Democrat Accidentally Reveals What Her Party Really Fears in the SAVE Act – PJ Media

Americans support SAVE America Act’s photo ID requirement, but Democrats reject it

It wasn’t that long ago that these same Democrats wanted everyone to wear a mask, to stand six feet apart in a line, to stay out of a church, to be isolated in COVID camps, and to get a vaccine passport. Now, they do not want voters to have to ID themselves as American citizens. We know why.

~~~

“We will always stand in solidarity with those who are most vulnerable among us.”

I wonder. Did any of these cosplayers denounce the assassination attempts on President Trump or the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Were they silent? Are they selective in their compassion and mercy?

I wonder. Do they stand with those who have been hurt by the foreign invaders?

I wonder why London Buses Must Now Be Equipped With Stab-Kits | ZeroHedge. Who are the vulnerable?

~~~

Another cosplayer Chrisian, this time dressed as a Catholic Cardinal – Illinois’ Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago – presided over an outdoor Ash Wednesday mass and a community procession.

His performance, acknowledged by the Left’s narrative monger MS NOW, was done “in solidarity with the immigrant communities being ruthlessly targeted by the Trump administration.”

“God does not need papers to know who or where you are,” Cupich told attendees. “The world may look at your legal status, but God looks at your heart.”

I wonder. Did Cardinal Cupich one day decide to be a Catholic Cardinal or was there a process that made him a cardinal? Was there a process to become Catholic?

Jesus knew what was in man’s heart. He said that what comes out of the heart are evil intentions—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. So, the Cardinal’s “heart” statement is a call to be sentimental about the foreign invaders, some of whom are now living out their evil intentions.

I wonder. Would Cardinal Cupich consider Jesus ruthless when he separates the sheep and the goats and separates the wheat and the chaff? Have some people made themselves vulnerable on the last day?

~~~

More Catholic cosplayers: U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) 

 S.A. McCarthy at the American Spectator: The Bishops’ Misplaced Priorities: Immigration eclipsed abortion as the central political concern of America’s Catholic leadership.

A U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) spokeswoman cited by [The Atlantic’s Francis X.] Rocca stated that “human dignity and national security are not in conflict.” That’s true. Stringent immigration enforcement is in line with the perennial teachings of the Catholic Church and is, in fact, in accord with the virtue of justice. The arrest and detention of those who have violated the law (in this case, federal immigration law) is not a violation of human dignity, nor is returning foreigners who have abused U.S. hospitality and services to their home countries. In fact, it’s something of a merciful move.

Regarding the foreign invaders – the wolves, McCarthy writes

Shepherds ought to protect their flocks from wolves. Instead, we find them demanding that the wolves share our pastures. (Emphasis mine.)

I’ve heard the “human dignity” defense used to approve of all kinds of unholy things. See S.J. James Martin.

~~~

This coalition of Progressive cosplayers want you to think they are above politics with their holier-than-MAGA posturing. But they are not apolitical. Their version of Christianity is “Anything Goes” with a will to political power. They want to be Caesar.

We were warned about them and their antics by Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James:

For certain intruders have stolen in among you, people who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly, who pervert the grace of our God into debauchery and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. . . these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones.

This coalition of Christian cosplayers subordinate the claims of Scripture to the values of secular progressivism (DEI) and call the result “faith rooted in the teachings of Jesus.”

I am reminded of the Pharisees when they, in the same hyper-spiritual way, added a set of rules (values) about the washing of hands before eating above scripture. Their focus was on the exterior performance of ritual and not on the evil intentions coming out of the interior.

This outward manifestation of ritual purity, enforced by the Pharisees, allowed someone to focus on the practice and not on the evil intentions lurking inside. Jesus denounced them, calling them hypocrites, for focusing on the pretense of spirituality and abandoning God’s word which would expose their intentions. Mark 7: 1-23

This coalition of cosplayer Christians is beating the academic world ‘s drum of globalism, cosmopolitanism, postcolonialism, DEI, and open borders advocacy. Their deconstructionist formulations declare all hierarchies unjust save their own which is they see as required to self-righteously denounce all authority but their own.

This coalition of Progressive cosplayers de-centers scripture to have people focus on “the poor little foreigner in our midst.” They subordinate the claims of Scripture to the moral machinations of secular progressivism (DEI) and call the result ‘the gospel.’

Isaiah: They honor God with their (virtue signaling) lips but their hearts are from Him. All in vain they seek to Worship God. All they teach is human commands.

This coalition of cosplayer Christians focuses not on the laws that have been broken and the invasion of millions of unvetted people who do not share our values, who will not assimilate, and who will use America for their own benefit. They focus on a platitude-contrived issue.

Isn’t it something how this coalition is very concerned about Christian Nationalism and authoritarianism but not at all concerned about theocratic and authoritarian Islam taking over areas of our country and creating no-go zones in our land.

Christopher Hitchins Barely Touched Upon Islam’s Predations – American Thinker

See how women are treated in Iran and Afghanistan under Islam. 

The MSM and the press have spent years talking about “Christian Nationalism,” often using the phrase to target Christians who are Trump supporters. But the same media runs cover for Islamic attacks, the latest being a man who yelled “Allahu Akbar” and threw bombs into a crowd of anti-Islamic protesters outside Gracie mansion. The protestors were protesting against what they described as the “Islamic takeover of New York City.” 

This cosplay Christian performance is one of projection. They accuse some Christians of wanting to destroy democracy with Christian nationalism. They blast deportation as unchristian. But they want to do away with democracy by keeping millions of non-citizens around to vote so as to establish their authoritarian government run by elites.

I wonder . . .

Do these cosplay Christians, who so care about others, willing to denounce Zohran Mamdani’s wife, Rama Duwaji, for liking posts on Instagram that supported Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7? Do they support Jihadi socialism?

Is declaring the rising tide of “white Christian nationalism” just another application of the victim -oppressor power dynamic narrative that so many seem to accept as a given?

Are the signatories also people who would see the Minnesota Somalis fraudsters as vulnerable and in need of billions of taxpayer money. Do they think that laws and the system are unjust so being fraudulent is necessary? Is stealing taxpayer money just a given these days because there are unfair things in the life? Is it really OK to steal from taxpayers by allowing in 20+ million invaders who mooch off the system and send money back to the country of origin? Isn’t such wealth transfer back door socialism?

Is this coalition against remigration – immigrants returning to their home country? The members could pray over them and send them back home with their blessing. Would these who pose as “principled Christians” let that happen?  Would they claim the concept of encouraging people to go back home is somehow based in right-wing extremism so as to keep their imported voters and low-cost workers here for their use?

Don’t be duped. Naïve Christians will eat up Christian sounding words and phrases. But this ploy is meant to induce hatred toward Trump and the majority of Americans who want the invaders to go back home.

~~~

It’s no secret. Progressives love to dress up and show the world they care.

It is of no matter to these performance artists that Jesus said “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven” and “when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matt. 6: 1-6)

~~~

~~~

Another Christian Cosplayer: Texas’s Democrat senatorial candidate James Talarico

Stephen Soukup, writing at American Greatness, asks Is James Talarico Really a Christian X-Ray?:

David French’s praise for a progressive Christian candidate reveals a deeper problem in modern moral thinking: feelings and intentions now outweigh doctrine, truth, and the consequences of policy.

In the article . . .

Consider, for example, French’s declaration that Talarico is a good man and a good candidate for public office because “he acts like a Christian.” He has “his heart right,” spreads “hope,” and says that he’s tired of “being pitted against” and being “told to hate” his neighbor. That, apparently, makes Talarico a good—or at least properly acting—Christian. . .

 . . .French declares that Talarico “acts like a Christian,” he never explains how, never provides any examples of his Christian behavior, or explains how they might be more “Christian” than the good deeds of his Republican opponents. French thinks Talarico is a good and decent man, not because of any acts he can relay to us, but because of a feeling he has. French likes Talarico. French feels good about him and his religious expression, which again makes Talarico the real Christian in American politics.

(Emphasis mine.)

From Even in Texas, Democrats Can’t Leave Woke Behind: James Talarico is too woke for conservatives and too white for liberals.

Because of his religious acting credentials, David French endorses Talarico:

“Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years,” Never Trumper David French fawningly wrote in the New York Times.

Such statements—which depict Talarico as a normal, middle of the road “Moses”—contrast sharply with his beliefs from just a few years ago.

On race, Talarico sounded exactly like a white Ibram X. Kendi.

Richard Kirk at Townhall: Talarico, With His Left Hand on the Bible: Calling Texas’s Democrat senatorial candidate James Talarico, even derisively, a “bible-banger” is a disservice to bible-bangers. 

Talarico’s forays into theology are prime examples of Nietzsche’s atheistic critique, “The text has disappeared under the interpretation.”

Talarico clearly criticizes Christians (smeared as Christian Nationalists) more than any other group. The state rep even vilified this largely conservative cohort for using the bible (plus, I would add, common sense and reliable science) to oppose sex changes for minors. Those who did so in the state capital, he thundered, not only harmed children, they also dishonored scripture for the sake of a “hateful amendment.” Stated without leftist distortion, Talarico believes Christians harm children if they oppose their mutilation. Instead, he embraces the faux science of propagandists who inundated our culture with the bizarre notion that even pre-teens are capable of evaluating the lifelong medical and psychological consequences of transition decisions. In short, Talarico inverts biblical teaching and slanders Christians who seek to protect “little ones” from the ravages of a mass delusion.

Joseph Chalfant at Townhall writes in his article James Talarico Quietly Deletes Endorsement Page Showcasing His Most Radical Supporters

An archived version of Talarico’s site showed that he was proudly backed by groups like Houston LGBTQ+ Political Caucus, the 134 PAC, Stonewall Democrats, and Mothers Against Greg Abbott. . .

The groups who have backed Talarico have espoused a radical, pro-transgender agenda for children as young as seven-years-old, promote “drag queen story hours” for kids (which are subject to prosecution in Texas), and have pushed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies on Texans. Another group fighting for Talarico, the Stonewall Democrats, set out on an agenda of “holding candidates accountable” should they not toe the line of far-left transgender ideology.

The Waco chapter of Indivisible has also backed Talarico, which has called ICE operations to remove dangerous criminals from American communities a “Terror Machine” and labeled the Minneapolis surge as an “invasion.” 

~~~

I never use the term “Social Justice.” Justice is always social. Modifying “justice” with “social” is a contrivance of Progressivism to have you focus on their designated woke issues and not on what is going on behind the scenes to negate democracy.

If you are an enabler of progressivism’s values, an SJW, and a virtue signaler, then you serve a purpose for Progressivism. Otherwise, you are just a “right-wing extremist.”

~~~

Added 3-28-2026:

Dr. Malone warns there’s a dangerous ‘mole’ working inside the CDC… – Revolver News

Where There’s a Will, There’s No Want of Foolish Ways – Two Tales

The Ass and His Driver

Milo Winter -1919

An Ass was being driven down a mountain road by his master. As they made their way, the Ass suddenly stopped and looked down the steep slope. He could see his stall at the foot of the mountain and thought, “That way is much quicker!”

Without listening to his master’s calls, the Ass stubbornly turned aside and headed straight for the edge of the cliff. His master, seeing the danger, grabbed the Ass by the tail and tried to pull him back. But the Ass would not listen and pulled with all his might.

“Very well,” said the master, letting go, “go your way, you willful beast, and see where it leads you.”

The foolish Ass tumbled head over heels down the mountainside.

The Ass and His driver

Stubborn fools are difficult to teach or reason with. They refuse to dialog and listen to any contrary voice that would pull them back from the edge of their foolish decision. Wisdom pleads with them to go a safe and sound way. But willful beasts, lacking any wonder about possibilities and fixed on the certainty and infallibility of their impulsive choice, fall headlong into ruin.

Stubborn fools dismiss wisdom as conventional and not progressive, not reactive, not quick enough to achieve what they want. Stubborn fools rush into ruin.

Stubborn fools, aka useful idiots, love their ideological isms –socialism, communism, globalism, Progressivism– for the ism and those who promote it do their thinking for them. Everything thought and done is reduced to the certainty their ism holds for them –their stall at the foot of the mountain. Stubborn fools do not expand their personal bandwidth to see beyond the ism. They refuse the wisdom of the ages that would reveal to them the ruinous outcomes of their isms. The “warmth of collectivism” murdered millions last century.

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. … Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing at a scale calculated in the millions.  ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Revolutionaries are stubborn fools, certain of the ism-ends they want to achieve. They use Direct Action, believing that the ends justify the means and any means necessary must be used to forcefully pull away from wisdom. They react impulsively and go headlong over the cliff to their certain end bringing many with them.

Consider what has happened and continues to happen on the streets of Minnesota. One stubborn fool, armed with a Honda Pilot SUV, drove into an ICE officer and another brought a military-grade handgun to a protest. Instead of remaining calm and standing back to protest they came armed and ready to fight the criminal-removing ICE agents. Both stubborn fools fell headlong into ruin. As they say, FAFO.

Proverbs 14:12 – “There is a way that seems right to a person, but its end is the way to death.”

Proverbs 14:15 – “The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps.”

Proverbs 22:3 – “The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.”

Here’s another tale:

The Wolf and the Kid

Milo Winter – 1919

A frisky young Kid had been left by the herdsman on the thatched roof of a sheep shelter to keep him out of harm’s way. The Kid was browsing near the edge of the roof, when he spied a Wolf and began to jeer at him, making faces and abusing him to his heart’s content.

“I hear you,” said the Wolf, “and I haven’t the least grudge against you for what you say or do. When you are up there it is the roof that’s talking, not you.”

The Wolf and the Kid

The lively young Kid taunted the wolf, not out of bravery, but out of circumstance – being placed on the roof out of harm’s way.

Mocking fools don’t speak truth to power. They don’t even see the truth of their own situation. They deceive themselves. It was the roof that was talking, not the Kid.

Mocking fools on social media ridicule others from the ‘safe distance’ of anonymity.

Mob mentality and social media provide a false sense of security for Mocking fools.

The provocation of Mocking fools is meant to cause conflict and chaos.

We have seen mocking fools on the streets of Minnesota taunting and badgering ICE agents who are removing illegal migrant criminals from the city.

Proverbs 18:2 – “A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion.”

Proverbs 29:8 – “Scoffers set a city aflame, but the wise turn away wrath.”

~~~

Where There is Wisdom Life Thrives

Before the 13.8 billion years of our cosmic history that have been utterly dependent on the four fundamental forces of nature -gravitational, electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear- to make matter and life possible (anthropic principle), there was Wisdom.

“The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,
    the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
    at the first, before the beginning of the earth. . .

“I was beside him, like a master worker, and I was daily his delight,
    playing before him always,
playing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the human race.” Prov. 8:22-31

Wisdom’s finely-tuned masterwork of a space-time cosmos and our own habitable zone called Earth makes it possible for everyone, including a variety of fools, to exist and test reality.

~~~

The Great Stage of Fools

“When we are born, we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.” ― William Shakespeare, King Lear

Simple fools are the naïve, gullible, seducible, easily persuaded. They might be open to wisdom or to folly.

Wisdom calls to them:

Proverbs 1:22 – How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?

Proverbs 7:7 – And I have seen among the simple, I have perceived among the youths, a young man lacking sense.

~~

Stubborn fools are stupid fellows, dullards, arrogant ones. They are foolhardy, stupid, silly, and insolent.

They are simpletons who hate knowledge (Prov. 1:22).

Stubborn fools take no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion (Prov. 18:2).

Stubborn fools delight in mischief, in doing wrong (Prov. 10:23).

Out of the mouth of a stubborn fool comes folly (Prov. 15:2).

Stubborn fools feed on folly (Prov. 15: 14).

~~

Mocking fools are the scoffers, jokers and clowns. They rain down ridicule out of their lofty arrogance. They enjoy stirring up people. They have contempt for wisdom, good judgement, and harmony.

Scoffers cannot find wisdom (Prov. 14:6).

Scoffers are an abomination to everyone (Prov. 24:9).

When scoffers are driven out, strife, quarreling and abuse cease (Prov. 22:10).

Avoid the presence of scoffers (Ps. 1:1).

~~

Sensual fools indulge in evil and depravity. Their senses are alive but their conscience has been seared closed. They are crude and ignoble and don’t care. They are self-destructive, morally blind, volatile, and rash. They know the truth but disregard it.

The way of sensual fools is right in their own eyes (Prov. 12:15).

Holding a sensual fool accountable, one receives ranting and ridicule without relief (Prov. 29:9).

~~

Hardened fools are stupid wicked people. Morally bankrupt, they are willfully ungodly. They live as if God doesn’t exist. They are fully committed to folly and total depravity. They are vile.

The hardened fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is no one who does good (Ps. 14:1)

~~~

Some Thoughts

-From the first tales we learned that the foolish ass had an end in sight and a way to that end that seemed right. But by taking that way, he became gravity’s free-falling object.

-The lively young Kid, so sure of itself atop a roof, poured down insults on the wolf. But the Kid didn’t consider the gravity of the situation. He would soon be placed back on the ground.

“For there is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of men”- Ishmael in Moby Dick by Herman Melville

-The foolish have false appraisals about themselves and about reality. Because of this they act recklessly.

BREAKING | 39 Democrats (and Don Lemon) now face criminal charges for storming church in Minnesota.

-“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” -Alexander Pope’s 1711 poem An Essay on Criticism

-Fools are repeat fools: “Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who reverts to his folly.” Prov. 26:11

Need an example of the so stubborn fool-minded they are no earthly good?

From Do Democrat Cities and States Love Rolling in Their Own Filth?:

Were Democrats raised in a barn?  It’s far worse – they were raised in places like San Francisco where sanitation standards are not far from street poop capitals like India.

There’s just something about left wing government that attracts a stench.  Maybe it’s the laziness and the entitlement of socialism.  Maybe it’s the inevitable economic malaise beating people down until they no longer care about the state of their surroundings.  Maybe leftists simply revel in decay, like pigs in their own filth.  

Examples of this lackadaisical gutter dweller mindset are rampant.  Wherever Democrats are in control, crime and a river of putrescence follows. . .

The bottom line is, there are better ways to manage US cities and their infrastructure.  Conservative states and cities show this on a daily basis.  Democrats simply do not want to listen.  For whatever reason, they love the smell of their own farts. (Emphasis mine.)

-Fools revel in Bad Bunny vulgarity. America’s future looks vulgar

-Isn’t much of the rottenness, suffering, and evil in the world caused by fools. One such depicted fool is Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Some became fools through their rebellious ways
    and suffered affliction because of their iniquities. –Psalm 107:17

“We all enjoy evil, or why would there be so much of it? Most derives from people like us. Thinking of it as superhuman or alien allows us to persist in it.”
― Gary Saul Morson, Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter

-Fools love to rant about “oppressors” but fail to see that they oppress themselves and others with their foolish and often destructive responses to “oppression” (Democratic Socialism, Open Borders, and DEI).

-We should learn to evaluate our world not in terms of Left and Right but in terms of Folly and Wisdom.

-Fools self-deceive and find ways to explain and exculpate their behavior. They have alibis:

“This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of our own behavior) we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded with my mother under the Dragon’s tail, and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.” (Emphasis mine.)  ― William Shakespeare, King Lear

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard

– “A learned fool is more a fool than an ignorant fool.” ― Moliere

-One can gain wisdom about what it means to be human from reading (not viewing) children’s books such as Pinocchio, The Velveteen Rabbit, The Little Mermaid, Charlotte’s Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, and with stories such as Hans Christian Anderson’s Ugly Duckling and Grimm’s Cinderella. These stories will impact the moral imagination more than any Christian “how-to” books and sermons with cajoling platitudes. See Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Imagination by Vigen Guroian for what is conveyed in these and other stories.

-Spanish Jesuit priest named Baltasar Gracián wrote The Art of Worldly Wisdom in 1647. Gracián elevates prudence above all other virtues. As Gracián defines it, prudence is the ability to see clearly, think ahead, and act deliberately rather than reactively. “It is far easier to prevent than to rectify,” he writes. (Emphasis mine.)

-Thomistic philosopher Josef Pieper, in his classic work The Four Cardinal Virtues, sums up the virtues in this way: “Prudence looks to all existent reality; justice to the fellow man; the man of fortitude relinquishes, in self-forgetfulness, his own possessions and life. Temperance… aims at each man himself.”

-Some talk of pan-psychism – a view that everything in the physical universe has a relational consciousness and that consciousness is the basic ingredient of reality.

I believe Wisdom is the consciousness in all matter, for wisdom has been around from before the beginning of the world. Wisdom ordered and finely-tuned the universe for our existence. Wisdom holds everything to together.

Wisdom calls us to the wonder and order of the universe, to the relational consciousness in all things, and to an understanding of where it comes from and what it means for our lives.

Wisdom calls for us to receive the wisdom she offers. For, Where There’s a Will, There’s No Want of Foolish Ways.

Wisdom cries out in the street;
    in the squares she raises her voice.
At the busiest corner she cries out;
    at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing
    and fools hate knowledge?
 Give heed to my reproof;
I will pour out my thoughts to you;
    I will make my words known to you. – Prov. 1:20-23

Over two-thousand years ago, Wisdom walked the streets of Galilee calling to us in the same way.

The apostle Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthian church that Jesus is “the power and wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).

To the church in Colossae, Paul wrote (Col. 1:16-17)

For in him all things were created,

In the heavens and here on earth.

Things we can see and things we cannot-

Thrones and lordships and rulers and power-

All things were created both through him and for him.

And he is ahead, prior to all else,

And in him all things hold together;

-I am well aware of folly. Earlier in life I acted foolishly at times and went over the cliff with my desires. My folly affected both myself and those around me. Later, I put away childish things and grew out of foolishness.

~~~~~

Have we become so left-brain oriented that we only focus on one thing and go for it ignoring the right-brain’s grasp of the whole situation and warning us away from impulsivity?

Why Contemplation & Wonder Are Essential for the Future of Humanity

“The very, very last thing we need now is more power. What we need is more wisdom. And if we had sufficient wisdom, then more power would be useful. But if we had more power but not the wisdom required to know how to use it, we cannot help but destroy ourselves and the world.” -Dr. Iain McGilchrist

“The stakes of our time are no less than power vs. life.”- Nate Hagens

How can spiritually healthy and aware individuals lead the way towards societal change rooted in wisdom? How can focusing on the well-being of our closest communities create ripple-effects of emergence for broader humanity? Finally, how can embracing wonder and humility throughout our lives – in the face of our scariest challenges – guide us towards a more interconnected and sentient humanity?

Podcast here:

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is a Quondam Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, an Associate Fellow of Green Templeton College, Oxford, a Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and former Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinical Director at the Bethlem Royal & Maudsley Hospital, London

Iain is the author of a number of books, but is best-known for The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (2009); and his book on neuroscience, epistemology, and ontology called The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World (2021).

~~~~~

Does Eustace eventually shed his arrogance and self-centered behavior?

The Inside Story

I heard about him. A man who healed a man with a horrible skin disease. The healed man went and told everyone. So much so that the healer had to go out to the open country because of the crowds. But now people are saying that the healer has returned to Capernaum.

I’m in a bad way, you see. A bad way. I am a stiff ruin of a man. I constantly need the help of others. I move when others move me. I live only as others take care of me. I dress, eat, go to the bathroom, seek alms – all with the help of others. I am paralyzed.

I heard that my neighbors are being healed. I needed help, transport, to get to the healer. Four friends are carrying me to him.

But the crowd! Oh, the crowd outside the door where he is! We can’t get through to him! I plead with my friends and they improvise. They carry my stretcher to the roof over where the healer is. They’re digging a hole right over him.

As they dig, pieces of the roof and clay dust fall down into the room below, landing on heads and beards.

A group of us, legal experts in the Law of Moses and in Jewish traditions and practices, came here today to hear what this Jesus guy is saying. He’s gotten a lot of attention lately. We’ve heard all kinds of rumors about this carpenter that some are calling a prophet. We must keep an eye him. We don’t want false prophets and would-be messiahs running around stirring up the people. And, we sure don’t want a Roman Legion coming down on us.

There is a large crowd standing outside. Inside, the room is full. Dust is flying everywhere making it hard to breathe. People are coughing. While we are sitting here, some crazy people are up on the roof breaking through it to gain access to this guy. Why destroy a roof? What is this all about? Hush, we tell people, so we can hear.

Now a stretcher is being lowered through the roof. On the stretcher is man who looks almost dead. He must have sinned or his parents must have. Isn’t that how these things happen?

Jesus looks up at the four people looking down through the hole in the roof and then he looks down at the paralyzed man and says “Child, your sins are forgiven!”

The nerve! How dare that guy talk like that! “It’s blasphemy!” we mutter to ourselves. “Who can forgive sins except God?”

The carpenter must have sensed that we were protesting him going too far. He turned to us and asked “Why do your hearts tell you to think that?” Well, we knew why. Then he says . . .

“Answer me this. Is it easier to say to this cripple ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘’Get up, pick up your stretcher, and walk’?

Perplexed, the legal experts stroked their dusty beards and remained silent.

You won’t believe what happened next. But you should. The healer asked the experts “You want to know that the son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins?” He looked down at me and said “I tell you, get up, pick up your stretcher, and go home.” And just like that I was able to get up, pick up my stretcher in a flash and go out before them all.

When everyone saw me bounce off the stretcher, grab it and run out, they were utterly astounded. They began praising God saying, “We’ve never seen anything like this!”

~~~

Astounding things occur in (this amplified retelling of) Mark’s gospel account (2:1-12). No doubt, the newly-called-to-follow Simon (Peter) was in the room when these things occurred and that he later related them to Mark for the gospel account. And that is how we have the inside story about a man imprisoned in body and soul paralysis being released by forgiveness and healing.

Forgiveness, as used by Mark in this account – (αφεωνται)- recognizes that a debt exists. Forgiveness here is not a demand for rightful retribution. It is not an expunging of a fault. It is a reaction to a fault, not for payback, but to cause growth away from that which generated the fault. I understand this forgiveness as a response to one’s metanoia (turning around) from that which created the debt and wanting to operate differently. In other words: “We both see where things went wrong and I forgive you. Now go forward in a new direction.”

This was the case for the cripple. Transformed, the forgiven and healed paralytic can walk back to family and community restored in body and soul. Knowing forgiveness and healing, he can now impart the same to others and seek reconciliation with those he wronged.

Before these astounding things occur in the account above, Mark writes at the beginning of his gospel of a foretold messenger who will clear the way for the arrival of Good News – of Jesus, the Messiah, the son of God.

John the Baptizer appeared in the desert announcing a baptism of repentance, of metanoia, for the forgiveness of sins. The voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord’ drew a lot of attention. All of Judea and everyone living in Jerusalem came out to him.

Those baptized by John decided to metanoia (turn around). They decided to confess their sins, to be plunged beneath the water of the river Jordan as a sign of repentance and forgiveness, and to be lifted back up.

I wonder. Did the paralytic hear about John the Baptizer? Did he want to go out to him and be baptized but couldn’t? Did he hear what John said about Jesus: “See! The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world!?

Did the paralytic hear about Jesus saying “The time is fulfilled! God’s kingdom is arriving! Turn back and believe the good news!”? (Mk. 1:14)

What we do know is that the cripple is brought to Jesus, lowered down into a room into the presence of Jesus and is then raised up forgiven and healed.

Forgiveness spoken by John and by Jesus is a present-tense action of something that has been completed and has effect now as opposed to a situation that might be or is wished for, or is commanded to be. That should encourage everyone to come to Jesus.

~~~

The way of the Lord is the way of forgiveness. It is the way of lifting off a burden, the way of lifting up from a state of stagnation and morbidity.

One of the primary Hebrew terms translated as “forgive” is ‘nasaʾ which means “to carry, lift up, or to bear away.”  That is what occurs in the above account, first in the actions of four determined people showing what it means to bear another’s burden and then with the proclamation of forgiveness.

The four, bearing the weight of the paralytic across town, lift him up to a roof top and then down through a hole to a place of healing. With utter resolve they bring the paralytic to Jesus. Jesus recognizes the sureness of their trust in him to lift the man’s burdens and proclaims “Child, your sins are forgiven.” The burden you carry, the burden others carried on your behalf, has been lifted away. Get up and walk a new way.

~~~

Another utterly astonishing thing occurs but its context is not immediately apparent. Remember the Tower of Babel, the ziggurat built for someone to be able to climb up to the heavens and access God? In the above account, people climb up to a roof top to lower a stretcher into a room where God is on ground level.

Incarnation Day

Three Luci Shaw poems for Incarnation Day

~~~

It is as if Infancy were the Whole of Incarnation

One time of the year
the new-born child
is everywhere,
planted in madonnas’ arms
hay mows, stables
in palaces or farms,
or quaintly, under snowed gables,
gothic angular or baroque plump,
naked or elaborately swathed,
encircled by Della Robia wreaths,
garnished with whimsical
partridges and pears,
drummers and drums,
lit by oversize stars,
partnered with lambs,
peace doves, sugar plums,
bells, plastic camels in sets of three
as if these were what we need
for eternity.

But Jesus the Man is not to be seen.
We are too wary, these days,
of beards and sandalled feet.

Yet if we celebrate, let it be
that he
has invaded our lives with purpose,
striding over our picturesque traditions,
our shallow sentiment,
overturning our cash registers,
wielding his peace like a sword,
rescuing us into reality
demanding much more
than the milk and the softness
and the mothers warmth
of the baby in the storefront creche,
(only the Man would ask
all, of each of us)
reaching out
always, urgently, with strong
effective love
(only the Man would give
his life and live
again for love of us).

Oh come, let us adore him-
Christ–the Lord.

~~~

Kenosis

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.
He is so new, his silk skin has not yet
been roughed by plane and wooden beam
nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,
of blue-white milk, of curving skin
and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb
of a warm heart’s repeated sound.

His only memories float from fluid space.
So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door,
broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,
wept for the sad heart of the human race.

~~~

Mary’s Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest…
you who have had so far to come.)
Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.

His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world. Charmed by dove’s voices,
the whisper of straw, he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed who overflowed all skies,
all years. Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught
that I might be free, blind in my womb
to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must see him torn.

Wayward Christian Empathy

Want to see what Christian empathy tends to look like?

No. This pop-project isn’t satire. The Church of England, so obsessed with its moral performance, really did cover the interior of the oldest cathedral in England in graffiti in order to represent themselves to the world.

As reported by The Independent,

The installation created by poet Alex Vellis is designed to contrast with the ancient, traditional architecture in the church to offer new interpretations of faith and worship. 

Per the partnered gay priest and dean of Canterbury, David Monteith, “There is a rawness which is magnified by the graffiti style, which is disruptive. There is also an authenticity in what is said because it is unfiltered and not tidied up or sanitised. Above all, this graffiti makes me wonder why I am not always able to be as candid, not least in my prayers.

“This exhibition intentionally builds bridges between cultures, styles and genres and, in particular, allows us to receive the gifts of younger people who have much to say and from whom we need to hear much.”

“Mr Vellis said the language of the graffiti was “of the unheard”.

He added: “By temporarily graffitiing the inside of Canterbury Cathedral, we join a chorus of the forgotten, the lost, and the wondrous. People who wanted to make their mark, to say ‘I was here’, and to have their etchings carry their voice through the centuries.”

Reading the motivation behind the Church of England’s self-vandalizing approach to empathy, one has to wonder, as with many decisions made in our times, – where are the adults? And what is next on the empathy checklist? Will the CoE leaders, in order build “bridges between cultures, styles and genres” and to “welcome the stranger,” get tattoos and piercings? Hand out drugs and needles? Perform a satanic mass?

The understanding, resonating, and self-differentiating human voices of previous centuries are becoming the “chorus of the forgotten, the lost, and the wondrous,” the voices “of the unheard” in the Church of England, throughout Europe, and the U.S. Those voices are deemed non-empathetic and must be shouted over with graffiti.

Those who, with ancient wisdom, made their mark of truth, beauty, and goodness, must now be overwritten with graffiti.

The desire to look like the world, like walking in another’s shoes, as inclusive and pluralistic, is beneficial for the state and its open borders immigration policies which deface homelands and cultures with graffiti.

Per Olivia Murray at American Thinker,

“Canterbury Cathedral, a sixth-century English church—making it more than 1,400 years old—has gotten a paint job…in graffiti. And as it turns out, this act of vandalism wasn’t an act of street delinquency, it was actually commissioned by the church’s stewards. . ..”

“Call me crazy, but this seems counterproductive. Real Englanders, Brits by blood and spirit, with an undying love for their culture and home, are beyond fed up with what the Dean of Canterbury calls “marginalized communities.” These “marginalized communities” are parasitic, they’re destroying the cohesion of England and the nation’s society, and they’re given preferential treatment by the government, that’s ostensibly, representing the English people.”

Murray continues:

“Progressives really have an extraordinary ability to turn something unbelievably precious and beautiful into utter trash—how can you make Canterbury Cathedral look like a derelict warehouse in an inner city, or resemble a dirty freight train car?”

~~~

Christian empathy tends to be wayward, moving away from truth, beauty and goodness and toward a seamless identity with what those in the world think they need and want – a trait that Jesus never had.

Christian empathy tends toward a desire to be seen as acceptable to the world so that the world would, by virtue of such, respond – a trait that Jesus never had.

As we read the hymn in Philippians 2, we learn that Jesus made himself accessible to the world.

As we read in gospel according to John 2:13-25, we learn of his distinctiveness from the world, from what those in the world thought they needed and wanted.

When the Court of the Gentiles within the temple ground, the place designated for believing Gentiles to pray and worship became cluttered with the clink of coins, the braying of animals, and the sounds of commerce, Jesus, “Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, with the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.

Note in the above accounts of the desecration of the cathedral, the SJW go-to descriptor ‘marginalised communities’. This indicates the current naming convention that paints humans in the Marxist graffiti of “oppressed” and “oppressor” while avoiding terms that speak of repentance and redemption.

~~~

It is easy to snicker in utter disgust at the perversion of an ancient cathedral, but what are Christians doing with what they have been given? Are Christians preserving the good, the true, the beautiful that has been passed down? Are Christians adding or subtracting to what we’ve been given. Are Christians looking at screens all day?

Should Christians continue to build churches that look like commercial buildings? It seems that after the reformation, Protestants decided that beauty wasn’t utilitarian so why bother with it.

Are we composing music that goes beyond the folksy and often cloying church worship music? Are we writing operas, symphonies, fugues, sonatas? Hymns with actual embedded theology?

Are we creating works of art and literature that draw people to them or are we on screens and social media all day looking at and posting pictures? Early Christian art showed the immanence of God—his closeness to us—and his transcendence, his otherness. The Chosen is not art. It is redux sentimentality akin to watching a rerun of a Billy Grahm crusade or using crayons to color a Jesus picture.

Are we writing poetry that examines life – the wounding, the good, the true and the beautiful? Or, is that the purpose of MSM? Knowing God involves both spiritual and sensory engagement. Poetry can express both.

None of the above prompts are utilitarian and instantly beneficial. Hence, some will avoid a second thought about them.

From stained glass to straining for attention, the graffiti installation recognizes the ego in rebellion to the good, the true and the beautiful while virtue signaling empathy. Not only is the installation profane, it is an act of profound laziness. Evil is lazy and does not promote the spiritual growth of another.

The church of England, the dancing daughter of Herodias, offers its beguiling movements to please guests and the reigning authority. This while John the Baptist, who called people from all strata of society including King Herod to repentance, sits tied up in jail, his head to be removed with the axe of “Silence!”

Want to see what Christian empathy tends to look like?

The Brave New World’s Arch-Community Songster of Canterbury

There is an intense irony here that gets to the heart of the self-inflicted problems of the Church of England today. Sarah Mullally has been very clear on the kind of Church she believes in – she’s a supporter of LGBTQ+ rights and activism, she has strongly backed asylum and migration, she is a self-declared feminist, and she is both politically and it seems religiously progressive. As Bishop of London, she boasted about representing a diverse and multicultural city, and put her experience in handling diversity as one of the key qualifications and evidence of positive experience she could bring to being the Archbishop of Canterbury. (Emphasis mine.)

“The Church of England has lost 80 per cent of Anglicans on the planet” « Quotulatiousness

Added 10-18-2025:

Helen Andrews | Overcoming the Feminization of Culture | NatCon 5

Helen [Andrews] argues that the rise of “wokeness” wasn’t born from Marxism, academia, or even Obama-era politics. That in itself had people shocked. Helen theorizes that it actually came from something way simpler… the quiet but steady feminization of America’s most powerful institutions.

Somebody finally figured out how ‘wokeism’ started – and no, it wasn’t Obama or Marxism… – Revolver News

Helen Andrews wrote in The Great Feminization | Compact

“Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently . . .

Everything you think of as wokeness involves prioritizing the feminine over the masculine: empathy over rationality, safety over risk, cohesion over competition . . .

“The threat posed by wokeness can be large or small depending on the industry . . . The field that frightens me most is the law. All of us depend on a functioning legal system, and, to be blunt, the rule of law will not survive the legal profession becoming majority female. The rule of law is not just about writing rules down. It means following them even when they yield an outcome that tugs at your heartstrings or runs contrary to your gut sense of which party is more sympathetic. 

“The problem is not that women are less talented than men or even that female modes of interaction are inferior in any objective sense. The problem is that female modes of interaction are not well suited to accomplishing the goals of many major institutions.”

~~~~~

“THE EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF UNCIVILISATION

1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.

2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.

3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.

4. We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.

5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.

6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.

7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.

8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.”
― Paul Kingsnorth, Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto

Why I’m Taking Music & Art Lessons – Margarita Mooney Clayton

The Satisfaction of Making Art – Margarita Mooney Clayton

~~~~~

From St. Augustine’s Confessions (Book 10, Chapter 27). St. Augustine reflects back on his own conversion from a life of profligacy to one of love and intimacy with God.

Chapter XXVII.-He Grieves that He Was So Long Without God.

Too late did I love Thee, O Fairness, so ancient, and yet so new! Too late did I love Thee For behold, Thou wert within, and I without, and there did I seek Thee; I, unlovely, rushed heedlessly among the things of beauty Thou madest. Thou wert with me, but I was not with Thee. Those things kept me far from Thee, which, unless they were in Thee, were not. Thou calledst, and criedst aloud, and forcedst open my deafness. Thou didst gleam and shine, and chase away my blindness. Thou didst exhale odours, and I drew in my breath and do pant after Thee. I tasted, and do hunger and thirst. Thou didst touch me, and I burned for Thy peace.

https://orthodoxchurchfathers.com/fathers/npnf101/npnf1027.html#P1660_683954

~~~~~

The Ghent Altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb) (1432) by Jan van Eyck

Fortitude is The Way’s Forward

About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way. Acts 19.23

Charlie Kirk – devoted husband, father, and follower of Jesus – was assassinated. Churches must speak of his faithful, courageous outspoken Christian witness and of his martyrdom.

Yet, there will be Christians and churches that will balk at any mention of Charlie Kirk, intimidated by the same silencing forces behind the assassination. They will remain silent while evil celebrates.

From Bluesky To Reddit, Democrats Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Assassination; Trump Slams Radical Left  | ZeroHedge

There are church leaders who will not talk about Charlie the man. Rather, they will talk about coming together as a people. “Aren’t we supposed to be one?” “Politics divide us.” So, they tiptoe around evil afraid to name it and who is doing it, afraid of division in the ranks and a possible loss of the ministry they created.

But this is not a time for cowering and equivocating. This is not the time to play to Karens, to those who clutch pearls, to those with delicate sensibilities who cluck in disgust at anything they don’t approve of.

This is not a PBS kumbaya moment. This is a time to see what you see, name it, and to gird up your loins to do battle with the reality of evil and that requires naming it.

This is a come to your senses moment. Charlie Kirk was assassinated for speaking the gospel of Jesus Christ. This was not a tragedy, a happenstance, just another act of violence. This was a deliberate act of evil against Charlie, the Church, the Lord and his kingdom on earth.

 Jesus spoke of the evil intentions within the human heart. Those included murder. And the Apostle Paul wrote of the outward characteristics of those who defile themselves with evil intentions (2 Tim. 3):

“You need to know this: bad times are coming in the last days. People will be in love with themselves, you see, and with money too. They will be boastful, arrogant, abusive, haters of parents, ungrateful, unholy, unfeeling, implacable, accusing, dissolute, savage, haters of the good, traitors, reckless, puffed up, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding a pattern of godliness but denying its power. Avoid people like that!”

If you need evidence of the above, go on social media.

Many church leaders do not understand that the church is both a ministry of reconciliation and a ministry of the sword and division. Jesus came to reconcile the world to himself, not by generating political peace for a particle group (the Jews) but with a sword that separated truth and error, light and darkness, good and evil (Matt. 10:34).

The ministry of the sword says “Avoid people like that!” The ministry of the sword says that there will be The Great Divorce based on the choices we make.

Unlike the world, with its message of looking for deliverance down and in where evil intentions lie, the ministry of reconciliation is about putting lives and the world to right by looking up and out beyond ourselves for our salvation. And so, the ministry of reconciliation entails reckoning with what Paul said to Timothy: “all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

Jesus’ ministry was one of public and private dialog. Hearing his discourse, some became followers of The Way. They accepted that Jesus was the Way to the Father and the Truth about God, the world and themselves, and the Life that death could not extinguish. And some walked away to become followers of their own dark and vain imaginations.

Charlie Kirk, like Jesus, pursued truth in the public square. And like the Apostle Paul in a public square in Ephesus, he persuaded and drew away a considerable number of people by saying that gods made with hands are not gods. This was bad for local business (Hence, the epigraph. See Acts 19.)

 Some accepted Charlie’s words and joined in the pursuit of truth. Others mocked and protested him and continue to do so after his assassination. Like with Jesus, we see again how much the darkness hates the light and wants to extinguish it (Jn. 3: 19-21).

There are those who think they know Charlie via the main stream media. I’ve heard Christians justify their disdain of Charlie and what he stood for with their moral authority. Clearly invested in their tribal reputation, I heard them spout chapter and verse of their righteous indignation in podcasts and in articles. They say, in effect, “We want nothing to do with him and his ilk.”

But the man’s public life was there for all to see. He aligned it with his understanding of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He refused to call darkness light or exchange reality for comforting illusions. He refused to serve lies, like so many Christians. Charlie was not intimidated by the darkness. He had fortitude. That was his way forward and that is The Way’s forward.

The Lord detests the way of the wicked,
    but he loves those who pursue righteousness. Prov. 15:9

~~~~~

Charlie Kirk’s Witness to a Pagan Shows What Separated Him From Most Other Conservative Leaders

Links:

On the left-wing social media app Bluesky, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is being celebrated like a national holiday. The entire site reads like a grotesque party, with users cheering, laughing, and even dancing over the murder of a young husband and father, shot down for the simple crime of thinking differently.

And it doesn’t stop there. The mob on Bluesky is now taking it even further by openly naming other conservatives they want to see assassinated next. Like this is some kind of “Hunger Games” to them.

Go to this link to see screen captures of who they want killed:

Calls to ‘haul’ Bluesky CEO before Congress grow LOUDER… – Revolver News

House Dems shout ‘No!’ when Boebert requests spoken prayer for Charlie Kirk

Pawn Star demands action for Charlie, people are very angry. (Language)

“I support Charlie Kirk’s killer. He did us a favor, I would have killed him myself”

Tens of thousands #WalkAway after seeing celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s assassination…

Watch Live: Tyler Robinson, 22, Named As Suspect In Charlie Kirk Assassination | ZeroHedge

~~~~~

Mozart

Introitus
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.
Te decet hymnus, Deus, in Sion,
et tibi reddetur votum in Jerusalem.
Exaudi orationem meam,
ad te omnis caro veniet.
Requiem aeternam dona ets, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat ets.

Entrance
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.
Thou, O God, art praised in Sion,
and unto Thee shall the vow
be performed in Jerusalem.
Hear my prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come.
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may perpetual light shine on them.

Lip Service

The Observant Observer

Is Israel’s Restoration Project Under Attack?

Tevye Lev, Opinion

Gennesaret. The Pharisees, together with legal experts from Jerusalem, were on the scene to investigate Jesus when they witnessed some of his followers eating with unwashed hands – a brazen breach of a long-held practice of ceremonial washings and ritual purity rules.

The Pharisees, as do all Jews, never eat without first washing their hands. This is to maintain the tradition of the elders, who when they come from the marketplace, never eat without first washing. There are other traditions too: the washing of cups, pot, and bronze dishes.

Known for strict Torah observance by way of oral tradition, the Pharisees consider that being ritually impure is to be morally impure. One rabbi described eating with unwashed hands as no different than lying with a harlot.

As our readers are aware, the Pharisees claim that the Law that God gave to Moses consisted of the written Law and the oral traditions of the Jewish people, the oral law being an interpretation of the Torah according to what they believe to be the spirit of the Law. It consists of a collective body of ordinances that have evolved from the Law to regulate religious observances and the daily life and conduct of the Jewish people. 

Ritual hand washing is seen as an extension of Moses’ directive to Aaron and his sons for them to wash their hands and feet prior to entering the Tabernacle.

A legal expert described the ritual before partaking of a meal: “First you wash your hands to make them clean, and then perform the ritual to make them spiritually clean. You recite a prayer during the ritual washing: ‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord, King of the universe, who sanctified us by the laws and commanded us to wash the hands.’”

 As part of a renewal movement, the Pharisees are working to purify Israel from worldly influence and bring about the conditions for the national restoration of Israel based on the near-at-hand expectations of the prophets.

They instituted synagogues so we could gather locally and not have to travel to the temple and be under literal Torah observance. At the same time, they insist on the binding force of oral tradition and show no mercy towards those that subvert those customs. When Jesus’ followers didn’t wash their hands before eating, they became immediately suspect of breaking oral tradition.

Word here in Jerusalem is that Jesus has been on a whirlwind tour throughout Galilee proclaiming the “good news of the arrival of the kingdom of God.” Religious leaders have taken note and are concerned about anyone claiming to be the revolutionary, as others had failed and have made things worse for the Jews. Pharisees and legal experts went to Gennesaret to look into Jesus.

The Pharisees-from an etching by Friedrich Ludy

When confronted about his disciple’s blatant break with the tradition of the elders (not washing their hands before eating), Jesus clearly took issue with what he considers to be progressive revisionist practices that generate spiritual pretenders. He quoted the words of the prophet Isaiah:

These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
    but their heart isn’t in it.
They act like they’re worshiping me,
    but they don’t mean it.
They just use me as a cover
    for teaching whatever suits their fancy.”

He went on to state that the Pharisees were setting aside God’s commands to preserve human tradition. He provided an example, focusing on what he considered to be another application of their revisionist interpretation of the Law with their use of Korban – something to be offered to God or given to the sacred treasury in the temple.

He began by quoting Moses: “Honor your father and mother” and “Anyone who slanders father and mother should die.”

Jesus contended with the Pharisee’s practice of telling people that in lieu of giving to their parents they could redirect their gift by calling it “Korban,” thereby leaving their parents without the help they need. He seems to be implying that instead of honoring parents and thereby God as the Law would have it, this practice is actually an insult to both.

He went on to say that the result of this revisionist interpretation of the Law that they zealously promote and enforce, and others like it, is to nullify God’s word.

It is reported that Jesus then called the crowd together and said this:

“Listen to me, all of you, and get this straight! What goes into someone from outside does not make them unclean. What makes someone unclean is what comes out of them.”

Is Jesus doing away with ritual purity or is he suggesting something else?

Are the Pharisees hypocrites when they show their piety and devotion to God with hand washing?

Is Jesus undermining the Pharisee’s Israel restoration project that is attempting to force into effect an end of history kingdom of God that they approve of?

Here in Jerusalem, the Pharisees are forming councils to censor and block any attempts to circumvent their restoration agenda which includes oral tradition.

(The above is based on the gospel of Mark 7: 1-23.)

~~~~~

Here’s an inciteful take on Deuteronomy that will revise what you thought you knew.

The Gospel According to Moses

For the renowned scholar, Dr. Daniel Block, Deuteronomy is the “Gospel according to Moses.” Moses’ farewell pastoral addresses call God’s people to remember his grace in salvation, covenant relationship with him, and his revelation of a way of blessing in a lost world.

Daniel I. Block, “The Gospel According to Moses: A Commentary on Deuteronomy”

Daniel I. Block, “The Gospel According to Moses: A Commentary on Deuteronomy” (Inspirata Publishing, 2023) – New Books Network

Remaining Podcasts here:

Daniel I. Block, “Hearing the Gospel According to Moses Volume 2: Chapters 12-23” (Inspirata, 2024) – New Books Network

Daniel I. Block, “Hearing the Gospel According to Moses: Chapters 24-34” (Inspirata, 2024) – New Books Network

~~~~~

Here’s an excellent April 3, 2025 PBS/Frontline documentary of things you won’t hear from MSM including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. Put away political animus to gain insight. (Some coarse language.)

Trump’s Power & the Rule of Law: Steve Bannon (interview) | FRONTLINE

~~~~~

Osvaldo Golijov’s “Tenebrae”: Melismatic Echoes of Couperin

In Western Christianity, Tenebrae occurs in the final days of the Holy Week, and commemorates the sufferings and death of Christ. It involves the gradual extinguishing of candles, leading to a void of darkness.

Metaphorical darkness, light, and space formed the inspiration for Tenebrae, a 2002 chamber work by Argentine composer, Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960).

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose, 1885 – 1886 – John Singer Sargent

Snakes Alive!

A countryman returning home one winter’s day found a snake by the hedge-side, half dead with cold. Taking compassion on the creature, he laid it in his bosom and brought it home to his fireside to revive it. No sooner had the warmth restored it, than it began to attack the children of the cottage. Upon this the countryman, whose compassion had saved its life, took up a club and laid the snake dead at his feet.

Aesop’s The Countryman and The Snake

~~~~~

The foolish take pity on snakes. Thinking to help creatures out in the cold cruel world, they bring them home and the creature’s true nature is revealed. Suffering follows.

The foolish do not take care to bestow their benevolence upon proper objects. And so, not having yet been bitten, the foolish continue to empathize with snakes.

Snakes on the Brain

The foolish take pity on and work to bring home MS-13 gang members, wife abusers, and human traffickers e.g., Abrego Garcia.

The foolish bring home a false premise of multiculturalism believing that all cultures are equal in some undefinable sense.

The foolish bring home DEI creatures and their true nature is revealed in the sorry outcomes.

The foolish bring home, with ad-hoc justice and zero-bail policies, criminals who are not fit to live in a community. Repeat offenders reveal their true nature.

The foolish take pity on unvetted (legally and health wise) invaders and bring them home by creating “sanctuary cities” and alerting them to the approach of the countryman, and by hiding them.

The foolish take home Hamas sympathizers and warm them by the fires of Marxist/critical theory/anticolonialism ‘higher education’. Thus embraced, their true nature is revealed. Their “freedom of expression” is to bite those empathizing with them.

The foolish take pity on invaders and rally behind rogue district court judges appointed by Biden and Obama who act unconstitutionally to block deportation of the invaders.

The foolish take pity on CCP snakes by letting them purchase U.S. farmland where they can breed.

The foolish take pity on and want to hold on to government programs of waste, fraud, and abuse that produce more snakes and snake bites, including “sex changes, LGBT activism, a “DEI musical,” a transgender opera, and birth control,” and terrorism, e.g., USAID.

I have known some as bad as the Snake.

Those with no sense will not only take a snake to their bosom, they will also take fire to their bosom, as Proverbs 6:27-35 tells us.

Disorder in the House

The foolish order their Mr. Rogers neighborly affections with Progressivism’s morally-relativistic calculus that breeds chaos, injustice and societal harm.

In the current cultural milieu given to Marxist victim-oppressor ideology, taking pity on a snake, a lowly creature, can provide a feeling of dominance and power. It can also make the snake-pitier feel virtuous. Benevolence upon improper objects follows: take pity on snakes, say nothing of their bite, and virtue signal your empathy to the world.

It helps Progressive sensibilities that the deep state media doesn’t show the consequences of snake-pity and holds snake-pitiers innocent of any biting consequences and that social media “Likes” flow with snake-pity empathy, and there are handshakes after sermons that wrangle scripture to have it mean that bringing a snake home is a loving thing.

And why not. Doesn’t the Good Book tell us to love? Isn’t that the Jesus way? And isn’t that the Woodstock way e.g., “Love the one you’re with?” Isn’t that the abstract universalist platitude way, e.g., “All You Need is Love?” Isn’t that the sentimentalist way, e.g., “love is love?” Isn’t that the social justice way, e.g., “Love is picking winners and losers?”

Prudent people bestow their benevolence upon proper objects. Prudent people focus on ordering their loves and not on joining fools who take snakes to their bosom. Here, I address the latter group, Progressive Christians who misplace empathy and disorder their love.

Empathy that cedes wisdom and objective reality for acts of trendy “social justice”, love so disordered will come back to bite them and the ones they love and those who go on to live with the consequences of their ‘empathy’!

Should we prioritize the foreigner above our family, our community, and our church? Isn’t the well-being of those closest to us more important than the migrant pursuing opportunism by crossing the border illegally? (Many illegals wave the flag of the country they left behind.)

Oh, I forgot. Many SJWs ‘exist’ on social media and in pulpits but don’t live in the communities affected. Snake bites – the raping and killing and stealing and fentanyl deaths and the zapping of community resources – Deep State Media doesn’t mention consequences of snake pity. Instead, Deep State Media is focused on vilifying snake deportations. (No pearl-clutching, please.)

A state government using taxpayer dollars to pay for housing, medical, legal and other expenses for the invaders is not on your radar – yet. Empathy that results in rape, murder, harm, and loss to your family, your community, your church, and your country – that snake hasn’t bitten you yet.

The Progressive snake preys on the naïve, on the sentimental, on those lacking wisdom and discernment. Figures in Christianity have brought home that snake and its dangerous nature. The result: moral relativity; prioritizing political correctness over truth; prioritizing the foreign over the familiar, the stranger over kin; abstract humanitarianism over the concrete needs of one’s community; disordered ordo amoris.

Disordered love is the basis of much confusion and chaos and corruption today. Disordered love can result in political disarray, protests, cultural demise, and a moral relativity that abstracts reality to gain social credit.

The breakdown of ordo amoris (order of love) explains benevolence upon improper objects It explains bringing home a snake. You cannot claim to love “the world” if you harm those closest to you in the process. And closing one’s eyes to the consequences of mis-placed empathy isn’t loving.

Order in the House

Imagine you are invited to a symphony orchestra concert. The program features atonal music.

 The music lacks a tonal center or key. It sounds off, as it does not conform to the ordered system of tonal hierarchies and harmonious structures that characterize classical music.

The vagueness and generality of the sound is annoying. Dissonant and jarring, it is characterized by disorder – pitches in new combinations and familiar pitch combinations in unfamiliar settings.

By the end of the first movement, you’ve heard enough and walk out.

~~~

The new pope Leo XIV, the first Augustinian Pope, criticized J.D. Vance’s views on the Catholic teachings on caring for others, as well as President Trump’s immigration policies.

This past February, then-Cardinal Prevost challenged Vice President JD Vance on X, repeating a headline from The National Catholic Reporter: “JD Vance is wrong: Jesus doesn’t ask us to rank our love for others.”

I find such criticism rather strange and out of touch with the Order of St. Augustine that Prevost joined in 1977. The criticism sounds like Progressive politics that appropriates Jesus because it has no moral authority its own.

St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas said that love must be ordered. One must love God first, then family, then nation. (The following summaries are from The Order of Love by Sean Ring. Document below.)

Augustine’s hierarchy of love can be summarized as:

God above all – The highest love is due to God, as He is the source of all good.

Self properly ordered – We must love ourselves rightly, seeking salvation and holiness rather than selfish pleasure.

Family and kin – Natural obligations to parents, spouses, and children take precedence over others.

Community and nation – A just love of one’s people and homeland follows from natural bonds.

Strangers and humanity at large – Charity extends to all, but not at the expense of higher obligations.

St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica says that love should be given according to moral proximity, explaining that natural law thru justice and governance dictates a preference for those closest to us:

We owe special care to our families because they are an extension of ourselves.

The common good of a nation is more relevant than abstract global concerns.

Charity is universal, but obligations are graded, meaning the duty to kin and community is stronger than to distant strangers.

Ordo Amoris

Put God first – Moral order flows from divine truth.

Prioritize family and community – Nations and families are not arbitrary constructs but natural hierarchies of love.

Exercise prudent charity – Helping others should not come at the expense of justice or the destruction of one’s people.

Reject false universalism – Love for all does not mean an equal obligation to all.

~~~~

Today’s education system is focused on a Marxist victim-oppressor ordering.

Christian education should focus on Ordo Amoris, the order of affections. Children must be taught the order of priorities: what is most important and what is least important. This isn’t to say a given item is bad, but that it’s not as high in our affection (or priority list) as something else.

Teaching that involves such wisdom and discernment would be a guide to relationships and moral obligations and a protection against the modern sentimentality that distorts true love.

C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man:

“St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought. When the age for reflective thought comes, the pupil who has been thus trained in ‘ordinate affections’ or ‘just sentiments’ will easily find the first principles in Ethics; but to the corrupt man they will never be visible at all and he can make no progress in that science. Plato before him had said the same. The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful.”

The apostle Paul: “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.” Gal. 6:10

Charity begins at home. Societies thrive when love is ordered correctly. ​ But fools bring snakes home.

In pity he brought the poor Snake
To be warmed at his fire. A mistake!
For the ungrateful thing
Wife & children would sting.
I have known some as bad as the Snake.

Aesop’s The Farmer and The Snake

The apostle Paul: “So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all and especially for those of the family of faith.” Gal. 6:10

~~~~~

The Budget Savvy Travelers@thebstravelers

A Danish man—just a regular guy—gets confronted in his own country by a group of migrants who flat-out tell him: “This isn’t Denmark anymore. We’re taking over.”

That’s not integration or assimilation. That’s demographic conquest. These aren’t whispers in the back alleys—these are bold, open declarations: “We have 5 children, you have 1. In ten years, you’ll be gone.”

You’re not going to hear this story on CNN, MSNBC, or from the latte-sipping globalists at the UN—but this is what’s REALLY going on in Denmark right now.

While the mainstream media distracts you with puff pieces about Trump trying to “buy Greenland”—like that’s some kind of planetary emergency—the REAL crisis is happening on the streets of Europe. The globalist experiment is unraveling, and the social engineers want you asleep at the wheel.

Let me break this down for you—this is not immigration, this is replacement. It’s part of a globalist plan, and they’ve been cooking this up for decades: flood sovereign nations with unvetted mass migration, break down cultural identity, dilute national pride, and then centralize power in unelected bureaucracies like the EU and the World Economic Forum.

And yet—what’s the big scandal on the evening news? “Trump wanted to buy Greenland!” Give me a break! That’s not a scandal, that’s strategic resource acquisition! But they don’t want you thinking strategically. They want you guilty, distracted, docile, and outbred.

This is a warning. This is a five-alarm fire for Western civilization, and they’re telling you it’s a candle flickering in the wind. Denmark is the canary in the coal mine. What happens there will echo across Europe and the West if people don’t wake up, reclaim their identity, protect their borders, and stand up for truth, sovereignty, and survival.

WAKE UP, BEFORE YOU’RE ERASED.

~~~~~

Why, in a land that prides itself on welcoming migrants, are so many gang members from migrant communities? And is it Swedish society that is the ultimate culprit, or the migrant communities themselves?

How Sweden’s multicultural dream went fatally wrong

~~~~~

Added 5-14-2025:

THE MATT GAETZ SHOW EXCLUSIVE: FIRST LOOK INSIDE CECOT’S TREN DE ARAGUA WARD

~~~~~~

At The Still Point

Scientific, philosophical, and theological inquiries have their limits. Each pursuit provides head knowledge, but the interior life requires more – to understand with the heart spiritual reality beyond the habitual binary thinking that feels safe but limits our ability to see the truth of things in the wholeness of reality.

The continual practice of prayerful contemplation at a still point will support the interior life. A passionate pursuit of the Real will involve our imagination which is more important than knowledge. For, our imagination can take us on a journey beyond the pedantic to places of mystery, wonder, suffering, truth, and beauty.

Do you want a faith that sees beyond terrible reality? A faith that takes on a Giant named Despair[i]? Practice prayerful contemplation continually.

Poetry can help us contemplate the Passion of Christ – what I call, using T.S. Eliot’s words, “the still point of the turning world”[ii]

 The Agony by George Herbert invites us to a garden and then a cross to fathom the depths of sin and of love.

The Agony

Philosophers have measur’d mountains,
Fathom’d the depths of the seas, of states, and kings,
Walk’d with a staff to heav’n, and traced fountains:
But there are two vast, spacious things,
The which to measure it doth more behove:
Yet few there are that sound them; Sin and Love.

Who would know Sin, let him repair
Unto mount Olivet; there shall he see
A man so wrung with pains, that all his hair,
His skin, his garments bloody be.
Sin is that press and vice, which forceth pain
To hunt his cruel food through ev’ry vein.

Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine.

Crucifixion – Nicolai Ge

[i] The Pilgrim’s Progress: Part 1: Giant Despair and Doubting Castle

[ii]  “At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is… Except for the point, the still point, there would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” – T. S. Eliot (Burnt Norton). https://www.themarginalian.org/2015/11/18/t-s-eliot-reads-burnt-norton/


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A selection from the chapter Gethsemane, in the “The Lord” by Romano Guardini:

After saying these things, Jesus went forth with his disciples beyond the torrent of Cedron, where there was a garden…” (John 18:1) “According to his custom” adds Luke.

And they came to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, ‘Sit here, while I pray.’ And he took with him Peter James and John, and began to feel dread and to be exceedingly troubled. And he said to them, ‘My soul is sad, even unto death. Wait here and watch.’ . . .

Jesus’ consciousness of the world’s corruption is not grounded in the world and therefore the prisoner of existence. It springs from above, from God, and enfolds the whole globe, seeing as God sees: around existence, through existence, outwards from existence.  Moreover, Jesus’ divine consciousness, before which everything is stripped and lucid, is not extrinsic, but intrinsic, realized in his living self.  He knows with his human intellect, feels the world’s forlornness with his human heart. And, the sorrow of it, incapable of ripping the eternal God from his bliss, becomes in Christ’s human soul unutterable agony. From this knowledge comes a terrible and unrelenting earnestness, knowledge that underlies every word he speaks and everything he does. It pulses through his whole being and proclaims itself in the least detail of his fate. Here lies the root of Christ’s inapproachable loneliness. What human understanding and sympathy could possibly reach into this realm in which the Savior shoulders alone the yoke of the world? From this point of view Jesus was always a sufferer, and would have been one even if men had accepted his message of faith and love; even if salvation had been accomplished and the kingdom established alone by proclamation and acceptance, sparing him the bitter way of the cross. Even then, his whole life would have been inconceivably painful, for he would have been constantly aware of the world sin in the sight of a God he knew to be holy and all love; and he would have borne this terrible and inaccessible knowledge alone. In the hour of Gethsemane its ever-present pain swells to a paroxysm.

*****

Do you have Empathy for Real Victims? Or, has your “empathy” become toxic – aligned with the lawlessness and ‘anything goes’ morality of Progressivism? Are your loves disordered? Are lesser things loved above greater things (e.g., strangers over kin), leading to personal and societal decay?

The mother of Rachel Morin, the Maryland mom of five brutally raped and murdered by an illegal alien in August of 2023, on Wednesday joined a White House briefing to urge the media to share her daughter’s story.

“Tell the truth,” Patty Morin said. “Tell like how violent it really is.”

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media with a Special Guest, Apr. 16, 2025

‘Tell the truth’: Mother of Maryland woman slain by illegal alien urges media to share her story

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As Democrats work themselves into hysterics over Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a now-deported El Salvadoran man (aka, ‘Maryland Man’) at the center of an intense court battle, several new details about ‘St. Abrego’ have surfaced in the last several days – most recently that the Biden administration flagged him as a ‘suspect alien’ who was potentially involved in “human smuggling/trafficking” following a traffic stop hundreds of miles away from his Maryland home, according to DHS records reviewed by Just the News.

Human Trafficking Too? Biden Admin Flagged Deported El Salvadoran As ‘Suspect Alien’ | ZeroHedge

What deep state media (MSNBC, CNN, NYT, WaPo, The Atlantic, et al) won’t tell you:

Wife of Abrego Garcia in court documents — My husband beat me many times.

Violent restraining order filed against Garcia.

Days of Waiting, Watching, and Waning?

We, a community of those who confess the lordship of Jesus Christ, met on the Lord’s Day to hear again about the Day of the Lord. For us and for Rome, religion and politics are one. Under Roman rule we live with conflicting sovereignties. We met to hear about the ruler of the kings of earth returning to put things right.

We are a house church in Ephesus, a major seaport and capital city in the Roman province of Asia. The city stands at the entrance of a valley that reaches far into the province with highways to other important cities in the region. As a major trade route, Ephesus connects east and west. It also connects travelers with gods and goddesses.

Our city is renowned for the Greek temple devoted to the goddess of fertility Artemis or Diana. Images of Diana, crafted by local artisans and sold in the market place, are a big business. Likenesses of Nike, the Greek goddess of victory, are seen on coins, sculptures, and architectural reliefs, triumphal arches, and monuments. Nike or Victoria is important to the Roman military. She represents speed, strength, and victory – characteristics of Rome’s overwhelming force.

As I said, our city is governed by Rome. Symbols of Roman power are everywhere you turn: statues, iconography, rituals, festivals. Several cohorts of Roman soldiers are stationed here. Our city is a center for the imperial cult.

There are two temples in the city devoted to the worship of the emperor. Images of the emperor, declaring him to be the “son of god”, are on the coins we trade with. Citizens are obligated to pay homage and offer worship to the ‘divine’ emperor. We do not do this, as there is only one divine Lord and ruler of us all. This defiance puts us in constant tension with our overseers.

Our community in Ephesus began when the apostle Paul passed through on his way to Jerusalem. He left with us Aquila and Priscilla, a couple of Jewish tentmakers he worked with and taught in Corinth. They were to teach us the Way of Jesus. Paul promised to come back if he could.

While Paul was away, a Jew named Apollos came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures. He spoke with great fervor about Jesus and began to speak boldly in the synagogue. He vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah.

When Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos speak, they learned that he only knew of the baptism of John. So, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately.

When Paul returned, he asked if we had been baptized in the Holy Spirit. We said no. We hadn’t heard about the Holy Spirit. He then asked into what we were baptized. We told him John’s baptism. He explained that John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus. 

We were then baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Paul had laid his hands on us and the Holy Spirit came upon us. We spoke in tongues and prophesied.  Our hearts were filled with love, joy and peace. We shared the Way of Jesus with the Ephesians.

For three months, Paul preached in the synagogues. He spent three months speaking to the established Jewish community. But the Jews were not willing to accept gentiles into their church community. In spite of that resistance, over the next two years Paul baptized Hellenized Jews and gentile converts.

During his stay in Ephesus, Paul performed many miracles and exorcisms. Many in our city renounced their idolatrous ways. They rid themselves of images of Diana. This caused a riot with the craftsmen who made a steady profit from selling them.

The apostle later wrote a letter to our church. He wrote it from a prison in Rome, as Tychicus told us when he delivered the letter and read it to us.

Paul wrote about our redemption and prayed that we would see the hope that we were called to. God, he said, has made known to us the secret of his purpose just as he wanted to be. It was set it forward in Jesus as a blueprint for when the time was ripe. The plan was to sum up the whole cosmos in King Jesus – everything in heaven and earth.

Not long ago we received a letter from John the Elder. John had been a Jewish high priest” who had officiated in the Jerusalem temple early in his life. Because of his proximity to Jesus, John the Elder was an eyewitness of the events surrounding Jesus – his teaching, his miracles, his death, and his resurrection. John was at Jesus’ crucifixion and given charge over Mary. He eventually brought her with him to Ephesus.

In his pastoral letter for the churches in the province, John contrasted those born of the world and those born of the father, light versus darkness, truth versus falsehood, righteousness versus sin, love of the Father versus love of the world, and the Spirit of God versus the spirit of the antichrist

John warned us about antichrists in our community. He said to test the spirits to see if they are from God as many false prophets have gone out into the world. The test: “every spirit that agrees that Jesus the Messiah has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” These last, he said, are the spirit of the antichrist. We heard that it was coming, and now it is in our midst.

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As is our habit when we meet and share the Lord’s table, we sing psalms and listen to the teachings of Jesus from the elders. We reread pastoral letters sent to us. We hang on every word, as we are a small community surrounded by every kind of darkness.

We also hear the prophets read. As the Jewish believers have told us, the Day of the Lord that brings judgement on the tyrannical rulers and salvation from tyrannical rule has been in the hearts and minds of God’s people for hundreds of years.

And how could it not be when Joel the prophet wrote “Alas for that day! For the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty.”

And Amos the prophet wrote “Woe to you who long for the day of the Lord! Why do you long for the day of the Lord? That day will be darkness, not light.”

And Isaiah the prophet wrote “Enter into the rock and hide in the dust from the terror of the Lord, and from the glory of his majesty. The haughty eyes of people shall be brought low, and the pride of everyone shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.”

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Recently, I, Dionysius, an elder in our church, received a long letter from the island of Patmos. It was written by John- not John the Elder but John the prophet. John is a common name. I introduced the letter to those gathered:

“This letter is sent from John, a brother and partner in our suffering. He received a message from He Who Is and Who Was and Who Is to Come – Jesus, the Messiah, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. It is addressed to the seven churches in Asia.

 “Here is the message to our church here in Ephesus:

“These are the words of the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, and who walks in among the seven golden lampstands. I know what you have done, your hard labor and patience. I know that you cannot tolerate evil people, and that you have tested those who pass themselves off as apostles, but are not, and you have demonstrated them to be frauds. You have patience, and you have put up with a great deal because of my name, and you haven’t grown weary. I do, however, have one thing against you: you have abandoned the love you showed at the beginning. So remember the place from which you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at the beginning. If not – if you don’t repent – I will come and remove your lampstand out of its place. You do, though, have this in your favor: you hate what the Nicolaitans are doing, and I hate it too. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the spirit is saying to the churches. The tree of life stands in God’s paradise, and I will give to anyone who conquers the right to eat from it.”

This word affected us greatly. Our work and endurance of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ was recognized by him. We did as John the Elder said. We tested and then purged from our midst false prophets and antichrists. We took a stand against the Nicolaitans, idolatrous enemies of God.

But our love, born out of the love with which Christ first loved us and gave himself for us, had become a joyless sense of order. We were going through the motions, like those who worship idols. Over time, the truth worth dying for was not going out to the people Christ died for.

When Paul laid hands on us and we received the holy spirit, we were passionate about the love that brought us in, making us sons and daughters of God. We were passionate about sharing this love with the Ephesians.

I reminded everyone that the apostle Paul had ended his letter to us with “Grace be with all who love our Lord, King Jesus, with a love that never dies!”

Had our waiting and watching, and wanting a reckoning of those who claim ultimate power over us turned us inward and away from the love of Christ for the world?

We needed to reorient our hearts, minds, soul, desires, actions, and pursuits toward our first love, a love not defined by our circumstances but by the love that gave itself up for the world on the cross. If we don’t, our lampstand, our witness, will be removed and we will be like all the other religious practices around us.

As I continued to read the letter, Jewish believers in our community spoke of Daniel’s apocalypse and the coming of “one like the son of man.” Here, John wrote of “one like the son of man” standing in the middle of the seven lampstands and speaking to him.

The letter went on to reveal, as prophecy and apocalypse, a cosmic vision of “what soon must take place.”

With mythical imagery, things on earth – things well known to us – and things in heaven were interacting. What happened on earth affected things in heaven. What happened in heaven affected things on earth.

Imaginations took off as we recognized forces fighting against the true God and his kingdom on earth.

The dragon or serpent we understood as the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God. The beast or sea-monster was a deified Roman Emperor using military and political power for tyranny and economic exploitation. The second beast or earth-monster was the promoter of the imperial cult. It set up the image of the emperor to be worshipped and enforced its worship.

Babylon is the city of Rome exploiting the world for economic prosperity. The woman giving birth is Israel. The number of Nero’s name was 666.

The letter also provided counter-images to what we see daily in Ephesus.

God’s holiness is depicted with flashes of lightening, rumbling, peals of thunder, a violent earthquake, huge hailstones, and glory beyond all glory. There are scenes of a tree of life, a glassy sea, new creation, and the New Jerusalem.

Before the return of Christ and the final establishment of His eternal kingdom on earth, the long-prophesied Day of the Lord will bring judgements upon those -the living and the dead -who’ve turned away from God to worship the Beast.

With Seven seals, Seven trumpets, and Seven bowls, God’s wrath is revealed against all those in heaven and on earth who will not acknowledge him as the Sovereign God.  

The letter began with Seven golden lampstands. They are the seven churches in Asia – bearers of light in our dark world.

Our prophetic mission here in Ephesus is to witness to the Ephesians and to the world that passes through our city before the terrible Day of the Lord, before “what soon must take place.”

Our witness is to bring about repentance and the conversion of all nations to the worship of the true God. So, we must endure all hardship and persevere to give witness to the truth worth dying for with the same love with which Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. We must not turn inward.

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Eternal Father, strong to save

Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep
its own appointed limits keep:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

O Christ, whose voice the waters heard
and hushed their raging at thy word,
who walkedst on the foaming deep,
and calm amid the storm didst sleep;
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

Most Holy Spirit, who didst brood
upon the chaos dark and rude,
and bid its angry tumult cease,
and give, for wild confusion, peace:
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.

O Trinity of love and power,
our brethren shield in danger’s hour;
from rock and tempest, fire and foe,
protect them wheresoe’er they go;
thus evermore shall rise to thee
glad hymns of praise from land and sea
.

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Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Cultural Marxism

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss Communism’s transformation into a popular political position in the United States.

In “Marxism, Socialism, and Communism,” professors of history, politics, and economics look at Marx’s life and writings, the misery and brutality in the Soviet Union, the atrocities of communist China, and the proliferation of Cultural Marxism in America. They explore how many ideas animating American politics today are rooted in Marxism, and yet how they differ from Marx’s thought. By taking Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the Frankfurt School seriously, we can see the injustice and evil inherent in all strands of Marxism. We also better understand the critiques of communism made by Mises, Hayek, and Solzhenitsyn. We are, therefore, better equipped to defeat it. 

Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Solzhenitsyn, Mises, and Hayek

Marxism, Socialism, and Communism: Cultural Marxism – Hillsdale College Podcast Network

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The Culture of Convenience and Comfort:

What has happened to our ability to sit in discomfort? What has happened to our stamina for life, especially life when it gets hard?

As an employer of more than 350 people over the past decade, I’ve seen a shift in the younger generation. Many don’t seem to know how to tolerate even mild discomfort. There’s a deep urge to escape anything that doesn’t feel good—whether through substances, screens, sugar, or distractions. And I can’t help but trace this trend back to childhood: when we hand kids a screen so we can finish dinner in peace, when we give them sugar to soothe a meltdown, when we teach them—without ever saying it out loud—that the goal is to feel good all the time.

We’ve created a culture that treats discomfort like a pathology. If something is hard, we assume it must be wrong. But that’s not how life works. 

Pain, struggle, and uncertainty are baked into the human experience. Maybe it’s not discomfort that’s the problem—but our inability to face it.

Yes, we should limit screen time. Yes, we should cut back on sugar. But more importantly, we need to stop teaching our children that discomfort is something to be avoided at all costs. It’s okay to be bored. It’s okay to be hot, or tired, or challenged. Just because something feels bad doesn’t mean it is bad. Most worthwhile things—motherhood, entrepreneurship, marriage, community, growth—will feel hard at some point. That’s not a flaw. That’s the path.

Are we raising a generation of escape artists, or are we raising people who can stay present through difficulty, learn from it, and grow?

The Epidemic Beneath The Surface: Disconnection, Discomfort, & The Death Of Resilience | ZeroHedge

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Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2)

In this second podcast Dr. Karyne Messina, a psychologist, psychoanalyst, author and NBN host discusses the problems the emerge when children watch screens and digital devices too much. Dr. Messina talked about this topic with Dr. Harry Gill, a well-known psychiatrist who also has a PhD. in neuroscience. In this episode the focus was on Erik Eriksson’s 5th stage of development, Industry versus Inferiority. They discussed one of the greatest difficulties they see in their young patients who contend with way too much screen time. 

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2)

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (2) – New Books Network

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The top picture reminds me of the playground I had as a kid: