#and john was like the preacher or something but he acted less like himself and more like one of those crazy street preachers

[amandabe11man]

had the most insane dream about how Saw XI would go and it was so spectacularly bad that it reminded me of reading SNK's last chapter 😭 there was one cool part, but it was made pointless a couple minutes later

[buzzdixonwriter]

Don’t Let The Screen Door Hit You On The Way Out

”It’s never the crime, it’s always the cover-up.” Watergate Lesson #1

Y’know, some bastards need to be cancelled.

The liars, the hypocrites, the betrayers of trust public and private.

The “do as I say, not as I do” anusoids.

Dropkick those bozologists right outta here.

The problem is not people who screw up -- people screw up all the time.

It’s not ideas that later prove to be in error or just plain bad -- all of us at one time or another believed something we now know to be wrong.

No, the problem is those who set themselves us as moral exemplars and then betray the very moral example they proclaim.

Ska-rue those dips.

Cast them into the outer void.

Cast in point: The drugging rapist comedian spent their entire professional career stressing high principles and values, openly saying “look at what I did and do likewise” while deriding members of their own community for not obtaining the heights they did.

A good hunk of that time they spent drugging and raping victims, paying them off to keep silent so they could drug and rape more victims.

Look, back in the day Bob Hope was a notorious philanderer but he and his wife had an understanding and Hope never promoted himself as a moral exemplar (quite the opposite!).

So to find out Hope engaged in consensual adultery with the tacit approval of his wife is neither a big shock not does it undermine any message he sought to convey.

On the other hand, the drugging rapist comedian did espouse a message that millions saw as valid, and they held themselves up as an example for their fans to aspire to.

If we learned said comedian was a garden variety philanderer like Bob Hope, their message and example would be somewhat tarnished but not destroyed; consensual sex gets a tsk-tsk and nothing more, especially if the spouse doesn’t object (and said comedian’s spouse damn well knew what was going on yet didn’t think raping victims drugged into unconsciousness was a deal breaker of a marriage ender).

Some people today hope to this disgraced comedian will die soon so their comedy can be enjoyed publicly again.

Why?

Any good from this rapist’s life has already been done in whatever charitable donations and scholarships they provided, whatever inspiration they gave audiences to help them better themselves before learning of their crimes, and stylistic / topical insights gleaned by other comedians.

The rapist’s comedy routines and TV shows -- all family friendly and morally high minded -- now ring hollow and taste sour.  Whatever comedic insights the rapist had to offer have long since been absorbed by those who followed.

Leni Riefenstahl created two monstrous documentaries -- Triumph Of The Will and Olympiad -- that glorified Nazism while at the same time inventing the cinematic language for depicting mass movements and covering sporting events.

Nobody today ever need watch her original films in order to learn those lessons; thousands of film makers and videographers have applied them elsewhere and the technical lessons remain valid even when divorced from their racist origins.

So be it with the rapist comedian.

Let those who learned from their routines reinterpret those lessons in a form that noi longer contains a poison pill.

Case in point: The comic-turned-film maker presented their work -- no matter how funny the material – as a serious examination of modern moral values.

And, dang, the c-t-f certainly fooled a lot of us.

In their defense, the c-t-f always claimed in public to be a really terrible person, but this was all just c-y-a.

Of course those public admissions were all self-depreciating self-mockery, look how thoughtful and complex the c-t-f films were, how they examined modern life, look how they laid bare the contradictions and conundrums of the human condition.

Then it turns out the c-t-f could not keep their own knickers up and wreaked havoc on a dozen or more lives, rendering all their opinions and observations as worth less that a wadded of soiled toilet paper.

Yeah, the rapist comedian’s crime are worse by at least two orders of magnitude, but the c-t-f only misses a charge of incest by the barest of technicalities.

And it doesn’t matter that c-t-f’s spouse at the time is a batshit crazy homewrecker themselves -- c-t-f knew this then and chose them as a spouse and contributed to the chaos being wreaked in that family.

So, no, you can’t pose your films as Important Serious Examinations Of Modern Morals when you’re acting in a way that would get Dr. Freud to say, “That’s some seriously fucked up shit.” 

Open reprobates like John Waters and Russ Meyer never need worry about failing audience expectations; they’re upfront and honest about their perversions and peccadillos (and to be fair to them, they never screwed up the lives of others the way the c-t-f did).

I used to love the c-t-f’s work and eagerly looked forward to each new one.

Not any more.

You can never trust that viewpoint again, and even the earlier, funnier work is now called into question.

Case in point: This one is smaller, more localized, but I have personal knowledge of it and it’s emblemic of a far larger, far more vast problem.

The retired pastor tried to stay busy, volunteering at their local church and nearby nursing homes, and proposing an outreach for runaway abused teen girls.

It came as quite a shock to learn the retired preacher had been caught in a classic honey trap sex sting:  They texted what they thought was a 16 year old girl but turned out to be an adult investigator trolling for sexual predators.

The retired pastor got probation and registered as a sex offender.  There was a big public confession and an apology to their church, a contrite promise of repentance, and a big heaping helping of forgiveness all around.

There but for the grace of God, right…?

The retired pastor wanted to resume the runaway abused teen girl project.

Oh, they would have nothing to do with it directly, of course.

Just be available to advise others as needed…

Well, that waved more red flags than a May Day celebration in Tiananmen Square.  Even assuming the retired pastor was incredibly naïve -- more naïve than any retired pastor has a right to be -- the sheer optics alone would be incredibly bad.

And the chance of somebody finding out and filing a complaint for reasons real or suspected would put the church sponsoring it at terrible risk.

Dude, you screwed up.   That door is shut to you.

Organized religions are imploding right now, and no matter what faith or denomination, the reason is inevitably the same:  Predators of all stripes infiltrate the structure to find victims.

Sexual abuse ranks high, but there’s also financial abuse, emotional abuse, and just plain old abuse of power.  

It’s ultimately the exact same problem as that of the rapist comedian and the comic-turned-film maker:  Hypocrisy.

Religious leaders are as human as anyone else, few are the plaster saints we make them out to be.

And there are those who make mistakes, and those who hide their personal peccadillos from others (word among the BDSM community is that quite a few religious leaders enjoy those reindeer games), but those have the common fucking sense not to videotape themselves (remember, if you make a copy of anything you’re giving the universe tacit permission to share it and if the copy is digital, the sharing is compulsory).

The worst part is that the very victims of these predators are not only quicky to forgive these abuses and let them continue, but viciously turn on those victims that dare speak out against their abuse!

This is the reason organized religion is collapsing:  It’s become a cesspool of sexual predators and con artists.

Church leaders who decry the declining numbers are eager to blame a lack of spiritual discipline, a loss of faith, cultural influence, and of course that ol’ standby, Satan hizzowndamsef.

But when you ask people who left why they left, the answer is almost always they grew tired of being taken advantage of.

Physician, heal thyself. 

The problem we face today is that too many people impose standards on others they are not merely incapable of following themselves (which would be a sad but typically human failure) but are utterly unwilling to even make the attempt.

We need so-called cancel culture.  We need to expose hypocrites, denounce their hypocrisy, and deny them access to new victims.

Don’t feel sorry for the bastards who get caught, get angry over the harm they inflict.

    © Buzz Dixon

[tabernacleheart]

[Saint Paul calls himself "the chief of sinners",] but what have we to say about that word 'chief'? Is not that exaggeration? Well, yes and no. For every man ought to know the weak and evil places of his own heart better than he does those of any besides. And if he does so know them, he will understand that the ordinary classification of sin, according to the apparent blackness of the deed, is very superficial and misleading. Obviously, the worst of acts need not be done by the worst of men, and it does not at all follow that the man who does the awful deed stands out from his fellows in the same bad pre-eminence in which his deed stands out from theirs. Take a concrete case. Go into the slums of Manchester, and take some of the people there, battered almost out of the semblance of humanity, and all crusted over and leprous with foul-smelling evils that you and I never come within a thousand miles of thinking it possible that we should do. Did you ever think that it is quite possible that the worst harlot, thief, drunkard, profligate in your back streets may be more innocent in their profligacy than you are in your respectability; and that we may even come to this paradox, that the worse the act, as a rule, the less guilty the doer? It is not such a paradox as it looks, because, on the one hand, the presence of temptation, and, on the other hand, the absence of light, make all the difference. And these people, who could not have been anything else, are innocent in degradation as compared with you, with all your education and culture, and opportunities of going straight, and knowledge of Christ and His love. The little transgressions that you do are far greater than the gross ones that they do. 'But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford,' said the old preacher, when he saw a man going to the scaffold. And you and I, if we know ourselves, will not think that we have an instance of exaggeration, but only of the object nearest seeming the largest, when Paul said 'Of whom I am chief.' Only go and look for your sin... Take a dark lantern, and go down into the cellars. And If you do not find something there that will take all the conceit out of you, it must be because you are very short-sighted, or phenomenally self-complacent. What does it matter though there be vineyards on the slopes of Vesuvius, and bright houses nestling at its base, and beauty lying all around like the dream of a god, if, when a man cranes his neck over the top of the crater, he sees that that cone, so graceful on the outside, is seething with fire and sulphur? Let us look down into the crater of our own hearts, and what we see there may well make us feel as Paul did when he said, 'Of whom I am chief.' Now, such an estimate is perfectly consistent with a clear recognition of any good that may be in the character and manifest in life. For the same Paul who says, 'Of whom I am chief,' says, in the almost contemporaneous letter sent to the same person, 'I have fought a good fight; I have finished my course; I have kept the faith'; and he is the same man who asserted, 'In nothing am I behind the very chiefest apostles, though I be nothing.' The true Christian estimate of one's own evil and sin does not in the least interfere with the recognition of what God strengthens one to do, or of the progress which, by God's grace, may have been made in holiness and righteousness. The two things may lie side by side with perfect harmony, and ought to do so, in every Christian heart.

But notice one more point. The Apostle does not say 'I was,' but 'I am chief.' What! A man who could say, in another connection, 'If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature; old things are passed away' -- the man who could say, in another connection, 'I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God' -- does he also say, 'I am chief'? Is he speaking about his present? Are old sins bound round a man's neck for evermore? If they be, what is the meaning of the Gospel that Jesus Christ redeems us from our sins? Well, he means this. No lapse of time, nor any gift of divine pardon, nor any subsequent advancement in holiness and righteousness, can alter the fact that I, the very same I that am now rejoicing in God's salvation, am the man that did all these things; and, in a very profound sense, they remain mine through all eternity. I may be a forgiven sinner, and a cleansed sinner, and a sanctified sinner, but I am a sinner -- not I was. The imperishable connection between a man and his past, which may be so tragical, and, thank God, may be so blessed, even in the case of remembered and confessed sin, is solemnly hinted at in the words before us. We carry with us ever the fact of past transgression, and no forgiveness, nor any future 'perfecting of holiness in the fear' and by the grace 'of the Lord' can alter that fact. Therefore, let us beware lest we bring upon our souls any more of the stains which, though they be in a blessed and sufficient sense blotted out, do yet leave the marks where they have fallen for ever.

Alexander MacLaren; Commentary on 1 Timothy 1:15

[englass]

Shadows Before Dawn

Pairing(s): Joseph Seed & The Deputy

Warning(s): Grief

Word Count: 1,149

A/N(s): AAAHHHHH, IT’S FINALLY HERE!!! THE FANZINE IS FINALLY HERE!!! 🎉😆🎉 Massive shoutout to @unclefungusthegoat for not only organising all of this, but for allowing me to be a part of it! ❤️ Ngl I was super anxious about signing up to this, to the point that I almost didn’t. If it wasn’t for the encouraging words of my darling @seedlingsinner and the sweet reassurance from @unclefungusthegoat I may have let my insecurities get the better of me; but I’m so glad I didn’t ❤️ It was an absolute honour to be able to work on this and an even bigger privilege to be able to work alongside my amazingly talented partner @deputy-rice-pudding, I couldn’t have done it without you hun!!! ❤️ Now, enough sentimentality. Here’s my entry (and a link) into the Far Cry Fanzine 2020, Tales From The Bunker!!!

– – –

The bunker is an awfully quiet place. A concrete prison where remnants of the past can roam with a newfound vigour; memories brought to life in waking dreams and in the shadows of flickering lights. Free to wander without preamble or disruption as they are glimpsed only by those that remembered them. Their silent reenactments a curse to the guilt-ridden, their unspoken words a jeering echo; the cold halls that they perform in becoming a haven for the dangerous and consuming thoughts that come to heel at their sides like loyal hounds. A breeding ground for the demons that plague one’s own mind with accusing verdicts and anarchist vices.

Everyday a new struggle as ‘what ifs’ and paths untraveled are considered and agonised over, battled with by a wavering resolve and a shaking faith; old wounds perpetually bleeding from the only two living occupants within this stoney tomb, still standing on seperate fronts despite the shared banner that now looms hauntingly over them. If only the shadows of abandoned comrades and lost family did not torment them so.

Joseph knew that this would be tough. Knew that the coming years following the Collapse would be a challenging test. Not only for himself, but for his brothers as well; and for the many that had believed and followed them as loyally as they did. Giving their lives for the protection of their new family, for the sanctity of the Project, and for the future that it had promised them. That he had promised them. Regretfully though, Joseph no longer knew if there was anyone left to believe in that promise anymore; the world above and its occupants all laid to waste in the wake of the great Collapse.

At any rate, his prideful companion certainly did not believe.

The Deputy had been a trying obstacle during the last few months of the Project’s preparations. A constant force of opposition to all they sought to achieve; a catalyst to spark the flame of rebellion, and ignite this Holy War between them all. Joseph had hoped to be able to tame that fire of theirs. To suppress that wrath that burnt like a blazing hellfire within their eyes. To lead them onto a different path, astray from the destruction they would bring and the lives they would take with it. He had glimpsed so many possibilities: he had seen them beside him, seen them as a figurehead within his family. He had seen the good they could do, the hope they could inspire in his people and salvation they could bring to his brothers. He knew the Deputy could save them.

Yet, those visions never came to pass.

Not one day goes by without Joseph thinking of his family. Wondering, under the judgement of God and the scrutiny of silence, how things could have been different. Wondering, under the hungry eyes of his own guilt, if he could have done more to save them. Everyday he replays the news of their fates, remembers the eulogies he did for them, and the nights spent weeping and praying that they did not suffer. Mourning their loss and the final goodbyes that he never got to say to them, their bodies never recovered; and he regrets that everyday. He hates the Deputy for that everyday.

It took him over a decade to find his brothers again, years of fruitless searching and constant heartbreak, and within the course of a few weeks he had lost them all over again. They had been taken from him all over again. All he has left of his brothers now, of John and Jacob, are photographs. Mere snapshots that told you nothing of who they were, of the horrors and hardships that they had endured throughout their lonely lives. Impersonal and tainted by the intentions of the Resistance, marked red by the target that those misguided sinners had drawn upon them. Yet, those photographs are all he has left.

Joseph is alone all over again; the Deputy a mere ghost that walks the halls with tired, bitter glares. Slinking away like a shadow confronted by the dawn the moment Joseph enters the room. A reluctant and wholly unwilling companion that no doubt curses his every breath, just as surely as they curse the day they met him. A sentiment that is occasionally reciprocated.

Which is why it was so surprising to the older man when, in a moment of weakness (his brothers’ photos clutched tight in his hands as silently suffering tears slide down his cheeks and blur his vision), the Deputy wordlessly sits beside him. He startles at their appearance, ever quiet and discreet, as he looks at them. Straightening himself as a weak, but no less caring, smile comes to his face. A slight tremor in his voice as he poses them a small question of delicate concern -- “Is everything okay, my child?” -- forever playing the loving role of ‘Father’; despite the pain that the title now carries.

The Deputy glances at him, shifting uneasily under his curious stare. Fingers picking and rubbing at the thin blanket beneath them, before they look away. An unusual hesitance in their eyes that Joseph is not used to seeing colouring their typically defiant eyes. Now more than ever though they just look exhausted, unsure and strangely distant; bottom lip taken lightly between their teeth, as they appear to debate something that the preacher is not privy to. He lets the silence hang for a moment, old memories and the regrets that follow them silent as Joseph waits for his reluctant child to finally open up to him. Trying not to hope that this is the time that he has been waiting for, the time when they finally start to accept–

He blinks, clear blue eyes widening as he looks to the hand that has cautiously fallen upon his shoulder. Arm around his back, coaxing with the smallest amount of pressure, as they gently lean towards him. Their other arm coming to wrap around him as a fractured breath slips from them, the sound shattering the stilted silence. Before he truly realises it Joseph too is leaning into them. Willingingly accepting this small, and potentially fleeting act of compassion.

He thinks he hears them murmur something, a condolence or apology he knows not, but still Joseph holds the sentiment close. Grips it just as tightly as the photographs of his deceased brothers; the Deputy’s actions alone a much desired recompense.

Truly, it is a step in the right direction, he thinks. A sign of a silent promise made, and the will of God at play. A reassurance that Joseph will get through this; that they both will get through this. He is the Father after all, and they are his child. They are a family now, in this till the end, and together they will surely live to see that promised dawn.

[class-wom]

Little Richard, a founding father of rock and roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form, died Saturday. He was 87. The musician’s son, Danny Penniman, confirmed the pioneer’s death to Rolling Stone, but said the cause of death was unknown.

Starting with “Tutti Frutti” in 1956, Little Richard cut a series of unstoppable hits – “Long Tall Sally” and “Rip It Up” that same year, “Lucille” in 1957, and “Good Golly Miss Molly” in 1958 – driven by his simple, pumping piano, gospel-influenced vocal exclamations and sexually charged (often gibberish) lyrics. “I heard Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, and that was it,” Elton John told Rolling Stone in 1973. “I didn’t ever want to be anything else. I’m more of a Little Richard stylist than a Jerry Lee Lewis, I think. Jerry Lee is a very intricate piano player and very skillful, but Little Richard is more of a pounder.”

Although he never hit the top 10 again after 1958, Little Richard’s influence was massive. The Beatles recorded several of his songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and Paul McCartney’s singing on those tracks – and the Beatles’ own “I’m Down” – paid tribute to Little Richard’s shredded-throat style. His songs became part of the rock and roll canon, covered over the decades by everyone from the Everly Brothers, the Kinks, and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Elvis Costello and the Scorpions. 

Little Richard’s stage persona – his pompadours, androgynous makeup and glass-bead shirts – also set the standard for rock and roll showmanship; Prince, to cite one obvious example, owed a sizable debt to the musician. “Prince is the Little Richard of his generation,” Richard told Joan Rivers in 1989 before looking at the camera and addressing Prince. “I was wearing purple before you was wearing it!”

Born Richard Wayne Penniman on December 5th, 1932, in Macon, Georgia, he was one of 12 children and grew up around uncles who were preachers. “I was born in the slums. My daddy sold whiskey, bootleg whiskey,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. Although he sang in a nearby church, his father Bud wasn’t supportive of his son’s music and accused him of being gay, resulting in Penniman leaving home at 13 and moving in with a white family in Macon. But music stayed with him: One of his boyhood friends was Otis Redding, and Penniman heard R&B, blues and country while working at a concession stand at the Macon City Auditorium.

After performing at the Tick Tock Club in Macon and winning a local talent show, Penniman landed his first record deal, with RCA, in 1951. (He became “Little Richard” when he about 15 years old, when the R&B and blues worlds were filled with acts like Little Esther and Little Milton; he had also grown tired with people mispronouncing his last name as “Penny-man.”) He learned his distinctive piano style from Esquerita, a South Carolina singer and pianist who also wore his hair in a high black pompadour. 

For the next five years, Little Richard’s career advanced only fitfully; fairly tame, conventional singles he cut for RCA and other labels didn’t chart. “When I first came along, I never heard any rock & roll,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “When I started singing [rock & roll], I sang it a long time before I presented it to the public because I was afraid they wouldn’t like it. I never heard nobody do it, and I was scared.”

By 1956, he was washing dishes at the Greyhound bus station in Macon (a job he had first taken a few years earlier after his father was murdered and Little Richard had to support his family). By then, only one track he’d cut, “Little Richard’s Boogie,” hinted at the musical tornado to come. “I put that little thing in it,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970 of the way he tweaked with his gospel roots. “I always did have that thing, but I didn’t know what to do with the thing I had.”

During this low point, he sent a tape with a rough version of a bawdy novelty song called “Tutti Frutti” to Specialty Records in Chicago. He came up with the song’s famed chorus — “a wop bob alu bob a wop bam boom” — while bored washing dishes. (He also wrote “Long Tall Sally” and “Good Golly Miss Molly” while working that same job.)

By coincidence, label owner and producer Art Rupe was in search of a lead singer for some tracks he wanted to cut in New Orleans, and Penniman’s howling delivery fit the bill. In September 1955, the musician cut a lyrically cleaned-up version of “Tutti Frutti,” which became his first hit, peaking at 17 on the pop chart. “’Tutti Frutti really started the races being together,” he told Rolling Stone in 1990. “From the git-go, my music was accepted by whites.” 

Its followup, “Long Tall Sally,” hit Number Six, becoming his the highest-placing hit of his career. For just over a year, the musician released one relentless and arresting smash after another. From “Long Tall Sally” to “Slippin’ and Slidin,’” Little Richard’s hits – a glorious mix of boogie, gospel, and jump blues, produced by Robert “Bumps” Blackwell — sounded like he never stood still. With his trademark pompadour and makeup (which he once said he started wearing so that he would be less “threatening” while playing white clubs), he was instantly on the level of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and other early rock icons, complete with rabid fans and mobbed concerts. “That’s what the kids in America were excited about,” he told Rolling Stone in 1970. “They don’t want the falsehood — they want the truth.”

As with Presley, Lewis and other contemporaries, Penniman also was cast in early rock and roll movies like Don’t Knock the Rock (1956) and The Girl Can’t Help It (1957). In a sign of how segregated the music business and radio were at the time, though, Pat Boone’s milquetoast covers of “Tutti Frutti” and “Long Tall Sally,” both also released in 1956, charted as well if not higher than Richard’s own versions. (“Boone’s “Tutti Frutti” hit Number 12, surpassing Little Richard’s by nine slots.) Penniman later told Rolling Stone that he made sure to sing “Long Tall Sally” faster than “Tutti Frutti” so that Boone couldn’t copy him as much.

But then the hits stopped, by his own choice. After what he interpreted as signs – a plane engine that seemed to be on fire and a dream about the end of the world and his own damnation – Penniman gave up music in 1957 and began attending the Alabama Bible school Oakwood College, where he was eventually ordained a minister. When he finally cut another album, in 1959, the result was a gospel set called God Is Real.

His gospel music career floundering, Little Richard returned to secular rock in 1964. Although none of the albums and singles he cut over the next decade for a variety of labels sold well, he was welcomed back by a new generation of rockers like the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan (who used to play Little Richard songs on the piano when he was a kid). When Little Richard played the Star-Club in Hamburg in 1964, the opening act was none other than the Beatles. “We used to stand backstage at Hamburg’s Star-Club and watch Little Richard play,” John Lennon said later. “He used to read from the Bible backstage and just to hear him talk we’d sit around and listen. I still love him and he’s one of the greatest.”

By the 1970s, Little Richard was making a respectable living on the rock oldies circuit, immortalized in a searing, sweaty performance in the 1973 documentary Let the Good Times Roll. During this time, he also became addicted to marijuana and cocaine while, at the same time, returning to his gospel roots.

Little Richard also dismantled sexual stereotypes in rock & roll, even if he confused many of his fans along the way. During his teen years and into his early rock stardom, his stereotypical flamboyant personality made some speculate about his sexuality, even if he never publicly announced he was out. But that flamboyance didn’t derail his career. In a 1984 biography, The Life and Times of Little Richard, written with his cooperation, he denounced homosexuality as “contagious … It’s not something you’re born with.” (Eleven years later, he said in an interview with Penthouse that he had been “gay all my life.”) Later in life, he described himself as “omnisexual,” attracted to both men and women. But during an interview with the Christian-tied Three Angels Broadcasting Group in 2017, he suddenly denounced gay and trans lifestyles: “God, Jesus, He made men, men, he made women, women, you know? And you’ve got to live the way God wants you to live. So much unnatural affection. So much of people just doing everything and don’t think about God.”

Yet none of that craziness damaged his mystique or legend. In the 1980s, he appeared in movies like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and in TV shows like Full House and Miami Vice. In 1986, he was one of the 10 original inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1993, he was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Grammys. His last known recording was in 2010, when he cut a song for a tribute album to gospel singer Dottie Rambo.

In the years before his death, Little Richard, who was by then based in Los Angeles, still performed periodically. Onstage, though, the physicality of old was gone: Thanks to hip replacement surgery in 2009, he could only perform sitting down at his piano. But his rock and roll spirit never left him. “I’m sorry I can’t do it like it’s supposed to be done,” he told one audience in 2012. After the audience screamed back in encouragement, he said – with a very Little Richard squeal — “Oh, you gonna make me scream like a white girl!”

[naromoreau]

Blind Date

Thank you so much to my amazing friend @outranks for betaing this and encourage me in every step to write this. Also a big thanks to the lovely @starsandskies for giving me her insight of John which I greatly appreciate.  _________________________ Pairing: Rook (Not a Deputy yet) x John Seed Rating: SFW, no warnings.  Pre-Game events

To abandon her old life was the hardest decision she'd taken knowing fully well it was the only way to get out of that shroud of toxicity. David had sworn with words that had punched her in the gut, not to leave her alone until she'd finally forgive him, something Rook knew was not gonna happen in the next month. Year. Hell, probably never. It wasn't as much the act as the treason, the lies and deceit that now felt like venom sluicing down her throat. It was wrath and it was consuming. It shouldn't hurt like this, she was better off, yet head tripped over heart 99 times out of 100. 

Not knowing where to go, calling Kim had seemed a brilliant idea. Much to her chagrin they hadn't seen each other in a long time, despite have been partners in crime in school, and pretty much sharing the tiniest detail about each other’s life once they were away. Those phone bills had been sky up high. Even after she married Nick, who was everything Rook could’ve asked for Kim, they were still as thick as thieves. 

So, in seconds Mrs. Rye had had everything decided, coaxing Rook to move back to Montana where they’d be waiting for her. It sounded like the perfect set up. Away from the constant hubbub and chaos New Jersey was. 

Her old Chevy roared up the highway, as the corn fields passed in a blur. It’d been a hell of a long trip but somewhere between the sight of the far away mountains and the mauve streaks of the sky, Rook felt a bit more at ease. She spotted the sign of Fall’s End at the distance and decided to drop by the closest grocery shop to buy the stuff she needed to prepare her killer spaghetti bolognesa to thank Kim and Nick to allow her to stay with them. Her mouth watered at the thought. 

The car skid to stop just outside the only visible store Rook could find. The place was small, crammed with supplies and the man in charge was attentive and polite. She glanced around. There was just another person aside her, who now fidgeted with something standing next to a pile of toilet paper. Rook looked at him as she passed by and her brows arched. He was definitely the most handsome man she'd seen. Just a little taller than her, trim and lush beard and brown hair slicked back. When he tipped his head up, a breath caught in her throat. Blue eyes clear as country sky stared back at her, icy hue making her words stutter in her mind. 

The corner of his lip quirked slightly in a smile that she decoded as a form of remote acknowledgement of her presence, so she nodded and made an stately retreat. 

Right. Pasta. 

It was ridiculous. The way her knees trembled a little when she finally seized the pasta and the tomatoes. She didn't know the man. For all Rook knew he could be married, engaged, or plainly not into her. And really. She was just tangling her thoughts when the reality was they were nobodies to each other. 

Rook sighed.

The only thing left to pick was the parmesan. Memories of her mom's recipe huddled in her mind once she stood in front of the cheeses and picked the one she remembered. 

"You don't want that, darling, it's nearly… inedible." 

It was that man. His voice was sinfully sweet, a tinge of pleased satisfaction falling thick from his tongue. 

"Excuse me?" 

The fact that he just called her 'darling' before insulting her childhood memories, kicked her sudden infatuation to the back of her mind. 

"That… cheese you just picked-- it's definitely heinous, a crime to use it in a good bolognese," he said, looking inquisitively at the ingredients she carried clutched to her chest. "This one on the other hand…" A tattooed hand offered her a different one, as she watched a smug grin come alive on his face. 

"Thanks. But I think I'll go with this one."

A wave of annoyance was starting to shatter her polite smile, as she sidestepped him, walking to the check out. 

"Suit yourself, dear."

Rook knew it was far better to ignore the taunt, but again, she wasn’t known for being the smart type. “Are you a professional cheff perhaps?”

The man just laughed. A short, sharp sound that made a shudder wrack her spine despite her best efforts. “I’m a lawyer.”

Huh. “Ah, well, yeah-- thanks.”

“I’m not wrong, dear.”

She clenched her jaw, waving a goodbye as his final words brushed her on her way to the register. 

She was about to leave the store, when the same honeyed voice greeted her from the store’s TV. 

"The salvation is within your reach, join us at Eden’s Gate--" 

‘Lawyer my ass’. The man was a fucking preacher. 

“Fucking televangelist.”

Apparently you couldn’t trust people in this town. 

___________________

Hope County was as idyllic as a bucolic painting but far more interesting. Her life in Rye's household was proving to be oddly cheerful even if half the time Rook was forced into the pleasant inaction of a well-tended guest. The grey dawns creeped one after the other and slowly, slowly, she started regaining a little of her previous balance. Thick amounts of anger, heavy as tar, fizzled out with every day she spent trudging across golden barley fields. 

That was, whenever Kim and Nick had to go to business in town, leaving her on her own. Otherwise, Rook was always hedged by activities ranging from helping Kim to administer the property, to assist Nick with never ending tuning and 'reparations' of his plane. Which Rook suspected had a bit more mileage than was safe, not that she would’ve voiced that thought in front of its owner. The man was head over heels for Carmina, the seaplane. 

"Pass me the torque wrench, Rookie.” 

Rook heard Nick’s huff from beneath one side of the plane, where he was bent trying to determine the source of the jarring sound of metal scratching metal everytime he turned on the engine. 

She fumbled in the tool box until it produced what she was looking for. "Here."

"It was just routine crop-dusting," he mumbled more to himself than Rook, "dunno what coulda got wrong."

"Bet you'll figure it out soon enough."

"I'm fuckin' counting on it, tell you that-- A friend and I go on testing flies on the weekends, y'know?" 

"More like dick measurement contests, but with planes, you mean." Kim chided in carrying a tray of sandwiches and three beers. 

Nick almost jumped on the spot, hitting his head with the open door of the plane. "It ain't like that, Kimmie, you know that."

"Yeah, right." Kim rolled her eyes an sipped her beer, an amused smile tugging her lips. 

"John's a good guy," Nick said. 

"Who’s John?" Truth was that Rook wasn't as interested as to actually want to know, but she didn't want to seem rude, after how amazing they'd been with her. Asking didn't cost anything. 

"A guy who moved here 'bout couple years ago," Nick said, "nice guy but keeps pretty much to himself except for--" 

"The dick measurement contests," Rook and Kim offered in unison with devilish twin grins, the words a slap on Nick's face. 

"Very funny you two," Nick groused. 

Kim sauntered to Nick and kissed him, softly, nothing more than a chaste peck on the lips. The way Nick clung to her waist, receiving every bit of what she was giving with complete rapture, as if they hadn't  kissed almost a hundred times already that day, struck Rook right in the middle of her current train of thoughts. Even in their best moments, David had never been like that, had never shown an ounce of the joy that reeked from Nick every time he held Kim. 

He'd never loved her and now she knew it. Suddenly Rook felt ill. 

"C'mon," Kim said with a dreamy smile, holding Nick's hand, "let's have some lunch."

-------------------

A month went by in a heartbeat and Rook started thinking about getting a job and settling there. Coming back to her roots, in a sense. 

“I’m glad to see you smiling again, honey,” Kim said after putting in the oven the result of their hard work.  

She had been trying for the last half hour to teach Rook how to make the perfect crust for an apple pie, after she ate six slices and demanded to know the magic behind it. Now they both sat at the isle, sipping two cold ones. 

“Yeah, kinda hard not to in a place like this-- I mean it’s… breathtaking.” 

Kim smirked. “It has its ups and downs, like every place I guess. You never meet too many new people.”

“But I mean that’s good in a way, right? You get to deepen your relationship with the ones you already know?” 

It was so different from the rhythm of living in New Jersey. Always fast. A ceaseless flow of new things that after a while were always not enough. Like David. And maybe that’d been the problem. 

“You thinking about that asshole, huh?”

Rook just sighed. “I mean-- maybe that was the problem, we moved in together too fast, I don’t know--”

Kim set her beer down, and placed one hand over one of her own. “No, sweetie. The guy was always an asshole, trying to pretend he wasn’t one. Knowing him more-- less, it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

Rook let out a soft, dry chuckle. She knew that, but trying to understand how all went to hell in a handbasket was helping her to realize this time, she wasn’t the failure. 

“I should’ve listened to you, Kimmie.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not your signature move,” Kim said, voice tinged with amusement.

Rook laughed, the joke unspooling the frayed, worn out tension curling up inside her. 

“How do you meet good people?” Rook asked, not really expecting an answer. 

“I guess-- I guess it’s a matter of you know-- just knowing people.” Kim arched a brow. “Do you wanna start dating again?”

“See, I don’t know. Yes? No? I don’t--” Rook sighed. “I just wanna know people, like you said, and maybe then-- who knows.”

Kim nodded along her stuttered monologue, her eyes glinting with what Rook identified as a sudden idea. She knew Kim’s ideas were to be feared or celebrated. “What about John?”

“Who’s John?” It took Rook point-three seconds to realize who Kim was talking about. “Nick’s weird plane friend?”

“He’s not weird and he’s a good man.”

“Yeah, I don’t know about that. I mean--”

“He’s really good looking,” Kim said, pointedly.

“So you think I can be convinced with the promise of a pretty face, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously, Kimmie, you think so little of me,” Rook said with faux offense, sporting a half-grin. She wasn’t totally opposed to the idea and she trusted Kim above all. Maybe this could be a good onset, and it didn't matter if things went sideways or if the guy ended up being a self absorbed prick that just took a swim in a barrel of cologne: it was a step in the right direction. “Fine, but make sure he’s into this too. I don’t wanna spend time with a guy who feels I ambushed him.”

“No worries, honey. I’ll take care of everything.”

__________________________________

 She admired the view in the mirror for a few long seconds, trying to convince herself it was not such a bad idea. Rook had never considered herself beautiful, but she was pleased by her reflection. The plain navy blue dress she'd packed almost without thinking, seemed fitting yet comfortable which was exactly what Rook wanted. She didn't want him to think she was trying too hard, especially if he wasn't going to return the favor. The silky fabric caressed her fingers as she glided them over the skirt, trying to fix any visible creasings. The nervous squirming in her stomach intensified as she went down the stairs, to meet the Ryes. 

"Ain't you a sight for sore eyes, honey," Kim chirped, with a big grin on her face. 

Rook tucked a strand of golden hair behind her ear, painfully conscious of her own blushing. "You think so?" 

"Bet your money on it." Kim gave her a reassuring smile, before holding her hands. "Nick's gonna take you there-- John insisted you two should have dinner at his ranch which I think is nice, 'cause the Spread Eagle is good and Old Gary is a nice guy but the place isn't suited for a proper date."

Rook quirked a brow. "He has a ranch?" 

"Yeah, I think you'll like it."

This was it. The physical display showing she was kicking her past to the curb, ready to start anew. Rook blew air hard, shaking her head and her carefully combed curls.

"It'll be fine, honey, and you can always call either me or Nick if you want an early pick up for whatever reason, m'kay?" 

Rook nodded before hugging Kim. 

"Thanks, Kimmie-- for everything."

Kim's eyes glinted, smiling warmly. "Go have fun."

-----------------------------------

Rook shivered when a current of wind blew up, her dress whipped around her body by it. The night sizzled with warmth, suiting for the end of July, yet Rook clutched her arms as if it was freezing before stepping through the threshold of the house. 

The door had been left open, a clear statement of how peaceful and quiet this side of the County was or of how much John trusted his neighbours. She could feel her heart drumming under every inch of skin, from her toes up to her temples. Her eyes swiveled down to the perfectly set table at the side of the great living room, and she let out a small gasp of surprise. It was definitely far more intimate than any scenario she'd expected. 

The room was dimly lit and she almost missed the man standing next to the fireplace with his back turned. 

When she took a step forward, the click of her heels against the floor seemed to snap him out of his silence and he swirled to face her. 

Oh. Oh no. 

"Ah, Rook, it's such a pleasure--" 

The words were cut in a dry halt, while a glaze of confusion set on his face. Apparently he was as dumbstruck as she was. 

Rook was trying her best to not let her jaw hit the floor, because "plane John" was the "parmesan guy", as she referred to him in the abridged version she'd given to Kim. In Rook's book the guy was a total jerk and a liar. Definitely not someone she wanted to spend the evening with. 

He recovered quicker than her. "I didn’t know you were staying with the Ryes," he said with a saccharine voice. 

"There was no reason for you to know it,” she said with her chin held high. "I'm sorry-- this was a mistake--" 

"On the contrary, my dear," he said, taking a few steps in her direction, his eyes drinking in the sight of her, "I believe this is a very right encounter." 

Rook gulped despite herself. He had no damn right to be this handsome: perfectly tailored black trousers and white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, he could've passed for a model if he wanted to. She bit her lip to cut the spell. 

"You lied to me," Rook blurted out. 'And insulted my choice of cheese,' she wanted to add but it didn't seem like a proper claim. 

His brow creased. "I beg your pardon?" 

"You told me you were a lawyer but I saw you on that televangelical infomercial." 

She didn’t know what she was expecting but it certainly wasn't him huffing a laugh. "So you jumped to the conclusion I should've been lying because lawyers aren't men of God?" 

Rook wasn't feeling as confident in her assertion as a minute ago, nevertheless, she retaliated. "Actually the opposite, I think."

John finally broke in an honest, clear, ringing laugh that was as annoying as it was enticing. What a contradiction this man was. 

"Well, normally you'd be right, but it does happen that I am both," he said, walking to the table and reaching a hand in her direction. "I can tell you all about it if you stay with me for dinner."

Rook weighed the options in speed mode and agreed. After all saying no over the parmesan, would've been a whole new level of petty even for her. 

She took the hand drawn in her direction and her cheeks flushed when he closed his fingers around it. It felt warm, and a little rough, and something wild fluttered in her stomach at the contact. It'd been ages since she'd felt like that, like the central focus of attention, like he was the lucky one having her there. 

Her heart tumbled again when he reluctantly let go of her hand to pull the chair for her. A small gesture done with the ease of something that came natural, not just for show. 

"Thank you," she said. 

He nodded and flashed another dashing smirk in her direction. Thank God she was sitting because by now her knees were jello, courtesy of those striking blue eyes. 

"I have to say I wasn't expecting my date to be the beautiful stranger I met a month ago," he said in a frank tone, sitting at her side. "I often wondered if you were still around."

Rook almost let out a goofy giggle. She shouldn't have let it rattle her that much but the fact that he called her beautiful, aside from making wonders for her ego still hurt by the betrayal, in that matter of factly tone, just brushed aside some of her doubts about him. 

"Do you say the same to all your dates?" She quipped. 

By some magic trick her question made his composed manners crack a little. A light blush spread over his nose and cheeks. "I haven't had a date in years if I have to be honest." 

For the first time that night, she smiled at him. "Then we're in the same boat."

"Better to say, the same plane," he said serving her a slice of a handmade lasagna, the smell making her stomach rumble of hunger. 

"I bet you are as head over heels with your plane as Nick is with his," she scoffed. 

"Not true, darling," he said, "as much as I like Affirmation, my plane that is, things are just meanings to an end." He leveled his gaze with hers, almost breathtaking under the candlelights. "I reserve love just for people."

Rook shuddered under his veiled words and for a moment found herself wondering how would it be to be loved by him. It was silly, and utterly naïve. She was floundering in spirals of ifs when the truth was he was only being polite and she was being delusional. 

"Shall we?" She asked gesturing to her plate, swallowing her inconvenient thoughts. 

John's eyes lingered for a few seconds on her, his mouth quirked in a smirk. "Of course."

-------------

By the end of the meal Rook had learned everything there was to know about John Seed the lawyer and PR of Eden's Gate Project. 

She wasn't a woman of faith, considering herself mostly a respectful audience rather than willing participant but John had been so convincing she'd agreed to join him for the Sunday service next week. 

A pang of regret assaulted her for thinking bad of him for so long when in all honesty he seemed a good person, if well, a bit overeager about his beliefs, culinary and religious alike. The whole night had left her under the impression than despite his candor on the questions she asked, there were a lot of things unsaid especially surrounding his upbringing. 

She knew he had siblings, part of Eden’s Gate as well, and that his whole life now revolted around it. He seemed too perfect to be truth and when the night was over, she found herself wanting this wasn't just a one time thing. 

"I had a really great time," she said taking her phone out of her purse to check the time and dial for Kim. 

"It was a pleasure-- no, a delight, to have you with me tonight and I hope is not a bold assumption to think this was not a one time only thing-- or am I wrong?"

Rook's heart pounded heavily in her chest. "No, you’re not," she said with a soft smile. 

This man was certainly in his own league.  When her eyes finally fell to her lockscreen, she bit back a scream. It was 2:00 a.m. 

Probably seeing the distress on her face, John leaned forward, a hand placed over hers. "Is something wrong? "

"It's-- it's 2:00 in the morning!" she yelped, "I can't -- damn, I can't call Kim right now, it'd be so rude."

He huffed a short laugh. "Don't worry, darling. I'll take you there."

He stood up, offering her a hand that she took quickly, thinking about how inconsiderate she'd been with the Ryes. At least she had her own key. 

"Thank you, so much, I don't -- I don't wanna bother you though, it's quite far."

"Nonsenses, my dear. It's my pleasure."

She hadn't realized he was still holding her hand, when he stopped right at the threshold of the house. 

"I know--" He chuckled, and cleared his throat, clearly nervous, and Rook's knees bucked at his proximity, "I know I have no right asking this of you, but-- may I kiss you, Rook?" 

There was a slight waver in his otherwise confident request, Rook found endearing. She would've been lying if she said she hadn't toyed with the idea more and more as the night progressed, imagining the scrape of his beard over her chin, the hard press of his mouth over hers-- 

"I'd very much like that," Rook answered, thanking her stars she wasn't croaking out of pure nervousness. 

She felt her cheeks burning as he closed the distance between them, painfully slow, blue eyes delving into hers as if to pry into her soul. 

His hand slid up, thumbing at her jaw, fingers resting against her neck, warm and gentle. Rook's heart galloped when he leaned in, not diverting her eyes from those magnetizing blues. Her breath came in shallow exhales when finally his lips brushed hers, soft and slightly damp. Tentatively first, shy eagerness that untethered with every second passed. 

Rook closed her eyes, taking in the sensations, flitting and stark, careening through her. Kissing someone hadn't felt like this in a long time if not ever. A kiss capable of send jolts of pure exhilaration and new-formed vertigo to the farest corner of her being. She could feel every inch of his chest pressed to hers, warm and solid, his tongue sliding along the seams of her mouth, and every movement drove her further away from heartache, further away from the feeling of hollowness. So quickly, so effectively. It felt so right. And it was scary. 

She broke the kiss, gauging the impact of how screwed up she was. 

"Is everything alright?" John asked, lips swollen, breathing coming out in small puffs. The whole sight and the pitch of his rough voice wreaking havoc on Rook's gut. 

"Perfectly." She allowed herself a genuine smile that he promptly returned, holding her hand and finally guiding her to the black SUV parked at the garage. 

"Thank you for that, my dear," he said with a pitch that made her half-formed hopes, gain reality. "Now, let's take you home."

Hope County looked beautiful and daunting at night. Dark blue scattered with silver glimmer of distant stars.

Sitting at John's side Rook felt alive. She could even say she forgave David. She didn't care at all about it anymore, because if it meant coming here, and coming here meant meeting John, then it wasn't all tragedy. 

Living here was going to be perfect, and she was going to seize every second of it. In that moment John turned his head to look at her and she was struck by the sheer glee waving back at her from those clear blue pools. A light squeeze of her hand as a silent reassurance. 

Of what? Rook wasn't sure yet, but she was determined to find out.

[rheyninwrites]

Hitchhiker Part 2

Jacob and Rook were finishing their beers, getting ready to head to the cabin Rook hoped she’d be able to find. Whitehorse had hit the road about two seconds after dropping the key and map in her hands, ready to get home as soon as he’d made sure that the second trainer wasn’t going to cost the county extra. He was an asshole, but the kind of guy who was an asshole because that’s what he had to be in this kind of town in order to get respect. You could look in his eyes, or see the way a smile twitched under his bushy mustache, and know it was all an act in a heartbeat. Jacob felt like he could understand that, at least a little bit. He’d spent more than half of his life putting on a face that never really felt like him, for one reason or another.

As he got into the truck, he wondered to himself why on earth he was trusting this woman. There was a time when he’d have instantly mistrusted anyone who offered him kindness, assuming it was some kind of trick to get him to lower his defenses. He still struggled with that most of the time, biting back cruel words that came to the tip of his tongue unbidden if anyone so much as held the door for him. But since he’d gotten back in touch with Joseph, he felt more like he had to try. He felt he owed it to him.

In the years since he’d last saw him, Joseph had become a preacher, taking over one of the two still functioning parishes in Hope County. He’d had his own struggles, falling into drugs and depression for many years after losing his wife and child, before ending up in rehab and falling in love with a girl twenty years younger than him but, in his words, “infinitely wiser”. It was her who had lead him into the church, so devoted that she’d officially changed her name from Rachel to Faith. She helped him get clean, got him healthy and on medication for the schizophrenia that had unknowingly plagued him for most of his life, and he’d contacted Jacob, crying. It was the first time Jacob had heard from him in years, and he was begging him for understanding, to forgive him for distancing himself after Jacob had been through so much to protect him. He was only a bit younger than Jacob was, so he had some memories of the time they’d spent together in foster care, unlike John. When his brother begged to see him, how could he deny him? His brothers had always been both his weakness and his strength.

A long ride down dark and winding roads, and Rook’s old truck pulled up in front of a cabin that looked barely big enough to turn around in, much less for two people to live together in for the next month. The exchanged tentative glances as they approached, and as she opened the door, Rook let out a low whistle and shook her head. When she stepped aside to let Jacob in, he could see why.

There was a single twin bed, pushed up into the corner right beside the bathroom door. It may once have been a set of metal bunk beds, but the top half of it had been mangled a long time ago. The bottom half didn’t look too stable, either. Still, when Rook checked the mattress, it seemed alright, no holes or mysterious stains. It was foam, too, so there was no worry about broken springs. Unfortunately, it was also the only place to sleep. The only other furniture was a single broken dining chair. Rook quickly checked the stove and fridge, finding them in working condition, and then made sure all plumbing was appropriately functional.

“Believe it or not, I’ve been put up in worse.”

She walked back outside, returning with a large duffel bag and a garbage bag she flung on the floor in front of Jacob. While he looked on, she pulled the mattress off of the bed frame and scooted it against the wall beside the door. It only occurred to Jacob after she was done that he probably should have helped her, and then she was busy rummaging through the garbage bag, so there wasn’t exactly anything he could help with. Instead he stood there, nervously opening and closing his fists and feeling useless - not a feeling he was used to. Eventually, she pulled out a set of sheets and handed them to him, asking him to put them on the bed. Grateful for something to do, he went to work immediately, while Rook used the blankets that were left in the bag to make a pallet near the mattress. When they were done, Rook turned to him.

“Do you want the mattress or the pallet tonight? I was thinking we’d switch out. That saves the argument about who gets which.”

“I was thinking that you could just take the mattress, since-“

“I swear, if you say ‘since you’re the girl’ I will completely rescind my offer.”

“I was actually going to say ‘because you’re being so nice to me’. I feel indebted to you, and I don’t like that feeling.”

“Then work your ass off to repay me.” Rook ran her fingers through her hair again, “Listen, I’m gonna jump in the shower. Feel free to rummage through my bag to see if there’s a book you like, or a snack you want.” She took a set of clothes to the bathroom, then locked the door behind her. She was being nice to him, but she wasn’t about to let herself be stupid.

Jacob quickly changed into a different t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants, ready to be out of his still damp clothing. He laid his jacket over the broken chair to dry, and hung his pants and shirt on the remains of the bed frame. By the time he’d finished, he heard the bathroom door open, and instinctively looked over.

Jacob’s stomach flopped. Maybe it was just because it had been so long since he’d been interested in someone, or maybe it was just her, but he didn’t think he’d seen anything prettier in his whole life. It wasn’t even like she was wearing anything revealing, just an old t-shirt and a pair of shorts, her wet hair hanging half over her eyes. He found himself watching her as she crossed the room, eyes fixed on her legs, and mentally chastised himself for it. He wasn’t here to date, he was here to see his brothers. As if on cue, Rook asked him if he was planning on seeing them tomorrow.

“It’s Sunday. One of my brothers is a preacher, so he won’t be free in the morning. I can probably meet him after, though.”

“Ok. Just let me know when and where to take you..”

Jacob shook his head. “I don’t want to bother you any more than I already have.”

“It’s not a bother, really. Besides, how are you gonna get there if I don’t take you?”

He had to admit, she had a point,.

The next morning, they were sitting in a church parking lot together in Rook’s truck, watching people stream out of the double doors and get into their cars. As the crowd thinned, a couple appeared in the doorway, holding hands and waving to the last remaining churchgoers. Jacob’s heart lurched.

“Nervous?” Rook asked. When Jacob didn’t answer, she reached over and put her hand on top of his where it sat on his knee. “It’s gonna be fine. I’m sure of it.”

It was just then that Joseph must have caught sight of his brother, because he cam running over, a smile spread wide across his face. Jacob barely had time to get out of the truck before he was wrapped in a warm embrace. Rook thought he looked a little uncomfortable, but to his credit, he tried his best, putting his arms around his brother and patting his back. When Joseph ended the hug, he reached up and put his hands on his brother’s face, tears streaming freely. A young, blonde woman who must have been Faith approached, rubbing a hand on each of their arms. Joseph started asking Jacob a million questions before stopping suddenly.

“Why don’t we all get lunch? Faith always makes an extra big meal on Sunday, so there’s plenty leftover to make plates for people in the county who need it. That way we can all catch up.” Joseph nodded to where Rook sat. “Your girlfriend is welcome as well, of course.”

Rook and Jacob both stumbled over themselves to correct the misunderstanding, eventually getting the whole story out. Joseph insisted even more zealously that she join them then, with Faith joining in, but Rook declined as politely as she could, feeling that the reunion would probably be better if it were private. She waved them goodbye and headed back to the cabin, watching with a smile as a bewildered Jacob was lead away.

Jacob came in the cabin later that night, knocking politely before he entered. Rook was laying on the pallet, legs resting against the wall while she read a book. When he entered and she heard the sound of a car pulling away, she shifted to a sitting position, looking at him curiously.

“You don’t want to stay with your brother now?”

Jacob shook his head. “They’re nice, and I’m glad Joseph’s found something that makes him happy, but I’m not really into religion.”

Rook nodded. She felt the same.

“Besides,” Jacob said, “Ive got work tomorrow. Right?”

Rook smiled. “Of course.”

[emblem-333]

William Jennings Bryan and American Socialism

No matter how many times we are confronted with the similarities of history we as human beings do the same exact things our predecessors did. We like to believe we are in uncharted territory, that there is something inherently special about the times we currently live in. Or, that we’re in the “end of history.” In reality, history never ends. Humanity never ceases evolving — or devolving. As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the disgruntled electorate grow angrier at how they’ve become ignored largely by their representatives. The only time we’ve encountered such a scenario in our nation’s history is The Gilded Age when the oligarchs in the country amassed a substantial sum of wealth dwarfing the income of the average American by embarrassing margins. Unlike today where it’s mostly tech giants destroying the country, in the later half of the 1800’s post-Civil War it was the rail roads and Wall St. exercising their respective monopolies to crush the growing force of organized labor.

Laborers were harassed, threatened, beaten by their employer for the mere request of better wages, manageable hours and basic human rights. In the days predating socialism arriving on the shores of the U.S the laborers were labeled as unruly strikers self-centered and uncaring towards the betterment of the country. The elite had their allies in the press smear the name of the poor constantly and populists campaigns seeking to reform a clearly broken system ended up dead on arrival. Even the book ‘The Wizard of Oz’ took pot shots at the farmer, laborers and populism in general. Victor Fleming portrayed the fraudulent utopia of the Emerald City as commentary of the issuing of greenback currency in lieu of Americans using the gold standard. In the middle of the Gilded Age, farmers had taken out loans when greenbacks were accepted currency. When times got rough President Grover Cleveland made greenbacks virtually useless and forced farmers to pay their debts back via the gold standard. This devalued their currency whilst rising up the inflation of the loans they’ve taken out. Greenbacks only have value due to the country agreeing at the time that it is such. The third party known as the “Greenbacks” sought to undo what they deemed to be an injustice towards the agricultural class.

While the Democrats favored the south they hardly were open to drastic change being proposed by the populists. Collective bargaining and making illegal for the government to seize land under “intimate domain” to build more railroads was frowned upon, even something as human as child labor laws were seen as harmful to the stability of the American economy. Never mind the economy seemed to crash nearly every couple of years.

Like it or not, but class warfare usually brings about economic justice for the downtrodden. The idea it doesn’t is a farce perpetrated by those either woefully and genuinely ignorant or wishing to protect their own capital. When the poor and the middle class unite to battle the oppressive elites it’s far more productive than if we fight amongst ourselves. But the below classes need representatives to champion their respective causes and unite the wings. In the days predating effective activism in the United States the best you could hope for is a representative forging his path, climbing the ladder of D.C and acting as your voice. That voice turned out to be former Nebraskan representative William Jennings Bryan. Bolstered by populist James B. Weaver his party fused with the populist democrats and managed to overtake the Bourbon establishment at the convention. Curiously, Bryan’s running mate was a wealthy shipbuilder named Arthur Sewall of Maine. Sewall never served nor had any experience in government. He was picked to possibly finance the underfunded campaign. The propaganda machine of the Republicans working in consort with gold Democrats did more than damage the populist Bryan. Losing, albeit competitively. Thus began Bryan’s reign over the party even though himself wouldn’t be elected to the Oval Office in either of his three attempts.

Perhaps if Bryan had chosen a more experienced candidate as a running mate his chances would’ve been maximized. It’s not like Sewall’s money did anything to assist Bryan. If anything it damaged his standing amongst the populists who were so dissatisfied at his nomination they nominated their own Vice President for the Bryan ticket. Initially, Bryan wanted second-placer Richard Bland Missourian representative as his running mate. However, Bland wished to run for his old congressional seat. Publisher John R. McLean of Cincinnati also was in the running finishing runner-up to Sewall. McLean was a railroad merchant and like Sewall his nomination likely spurs the further left wing of the party as well. Other names tossed around are governor Claude Matthews of Indiana. A moderate populist who broke up some strikes during his brief term. Matthews was lockstep on Bryan on social issues like prohibition of alcohol. Maybe his nomination would work as a mea culpa to the Cleveland delegation? The best option for Bryan was Iowan Governor Horace Boies. A supporter of low tariffs (a forgotten hallmark of Bryan’s candidacy), pro-silver and generally a decent liberal.

Bryan was far and away the most progressive nominee the Democrats — or the Republicans have ever put up. A fiery preacher demanding the direct election of senators, an end to child labor and proponent of Women’s Suffrage. Bryan was no doubt ahead of his time and paid the dear price electorally for it. The public wasn’t willing to jettison the norms to such a degree Bryan was proposing and left him at the altar. Much of his populist ideas were adopted by Theodore Roosevelt forcing Bryan even further to the left. Calling for a Universal Basic Income and local ownership of utilities in future campaigns.

Hindsight is 20/20, but Bryan would’ve been likelier to win if he picked a representative from a crucial swing state to balance the ticket and compromised on some issues, except the free coinage of silver. Though outside of the agricultural states it posed little to no incentive to the industrial workers of Illinois, Ohio, and other states making up the Rust Belt. Bryan likely needed to be more of a hawk on issues such as American Imperialism. In real life he’d support and volunteer himself for service during the Spanish-American War. In his religious eyes Bryan saw his country as liberators to the Cubans from the dreaded imperial Spanish. Bryan could drawback troops after the war was won and leave Cuba to govern itself and our relations with them would have been drastically altered for the better.

After winning Iowa by 942 votes Bryan bested McKinley in the electoral college 225-222. Bryan sweeps the south, excluding West Virginia, and does surprisingly well in the Midwest and west. Losing just Illinois, Wyoming, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota. I campaigned as a crusader against tariffs in the heartland and in the industrial areas I promised not to overturn any apple carts by reforming labor laws. I managed to sell myself in moderate states like Iowa by appealing to their needs beyond the issue of silver. For the industrial worker the coinage of silver meant very little to them. What they wanted was basic human rights in the workplace. Bryan was their ally only he couldn’t manage to sell himself to them in real life.

To be fair to Bryan it is unlikely for someone of his caliber to have won given the circumstances. The poor economy and its subsequent blame was placed at the feet of the outgoing Cleveland. Fortunate enough to dodge the recession of 1890 which cost his successor Benjamin Harrison a second term. The Panic of 1893 ensured Cleveland wouldn’t be popular to challenge for a third term. Perhaps if Cleveland won re-election in ‘88 and McKinley succeeded him, imposed the unpopular “McKinley Tariff” designed to protect American goods and encourage the purchase of said goods. In the 1890 midterms Republicans were routed and by ‘92 the House, Senate and Presidency were under Democratic control.

Say this happens in 1894. The McKinley Tariff is vetoed by Cleveland when it was initially proposed in ‘90. President McKinley institutes his plan once he enters the Oval Office. Our allies Great Britain institute retaliatory tariffs against the United States and the recession of ‘93 is McKinley and his party’s baby. This’ll make it easier for the challenger Bryan to win in ‘96.

Chances are, Bryan pushes hard to get the United States out of the darkness of capitalism and into the light of socialism-lite. Bryan believed in a workers' right to unionize. He wouldn’t have used military force to put down strikes. He’d work to end child labor laws, regulate the standard workday to eight hours, and regulate financial sectors and bust up monopolies. Basically, Bryan is a better, though less bombastic Teddy. While Bryan in his old age, no doubt increasingly bitter at his string of his defeats, clutched to his bible during the Monkey Scopes Trial and embraced the KKK, the younger Bryan was more idealistic, pacifist and less set in his ways. In no way could he be mistaken as crusader for the downtrodden non-white people. But neither were the Republicans. Anti-Lynching laws weren’t passed until Calvin Coolidge did so in the late 1920’s. The Republicans dominated the White House in those days losing just four presidential elections between 1860 and 1928.

Not only does the United States image in the long term benefit from Bryan’s pacifist foreign policy — I doubt Hawaii is annexed during his presidency — you also have the Progressive Era arrive sooner with the Democrats leading the charge, the typically conservative party migrates to the more liberal Republicans for solace. The republicans at this time were friendly to big business and were beginning a downward spiral into laissez-faire capitalism. It took the miraculous arrival of Roosevelt to prevent both parties becoming stooges of the railroads and standard oil. Though Wall Street enjoyed preferential treatment because of course.

The electorate would be subjected to a gigantic realignment. The Republicans benefiting from the states ran by financiers, the Democrats still holding the south due to their confederate ties and further west where silver was very popular.

No doubt Bryan was a novice, but he was an effective novice. Despite having no experience in foreign affairs Bryan negotiated 30 peace deals during his stint as Secretary of State and preached neutrality during the run-up to U.S involvement into World War 1.

Bryan changes the makeup of the entire country. His Jacksonian ideals reverse the trajectory of where we were heading, eventually becoming the global powerhouse we are right now. Bryan likely keeps his throne until his death in 1925. So how the United States interacts with the European powers, the rise of the Soviets, among other entanglements is drastically altered. Perhaps Eugene V. Debs stays a Democrat and is a powerful force in Bryan’s administration. Maybe he’s a Supreme Court Judge? The United States potentially could become a proto-Soviet state only without the gulags and constant string of mysteriously disappearing government officials speaking out against those in power.

At the end of Bryan’s life the country he leaves behind is less imperialist, more reliant on agriculture and the wealthiest don’t exercise such power. Perhaps the worst of the Great Depression are avoided even if the Republican Party instantly takes power back after Bryan’s death.

The socialist movement stalled right around 1920. The Progressive Era assuaged many Americans away from the more radical ideology. Instead of the Industrial Revolution you’d have the Proletariat Revolution and it simply never end during Bryan’s reign.

Going further down the pike term limits are introduced after Bryan winning seven of them. So this completely does away with Franklin Roosevelt and puts the New Deal in question. Though the country is still smelling the fumes of Bryan’s presidency somewhat so much of his more ambitious legislation such as government work programs. The National Recovery Administration designed to establish a code of fair competition, to eliminate the cut-throat methods of industry likely isn’t shot down in the case of Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States. The NRA is basically the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with shark teeth for choppers.

Americans missed out on Bryan, but I don’t blame them. Bryan simply couldn’t sell himself to people who weren’t farmers.

Bryan: 225, 7,035,243

McKinley: 222, 6,736,978

Palmer: 0, 132,629

[sleemo]

Edge of Darkness

From the Marines to the Emmys to the most powerful cultural force in the galaxy, for ADAM DRIVER, finding his path has been a long, hard battle. Now, for STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI, in a role he never imagined could be so complex, the brooding face of millennial angst faces his toughest fight yet. Spoiler alert! 

—British GQ, December 2017

His face shrouded beneath a hood, Adam Driver strides toward me. Shoulders hunched, fists jammed into jean pockets, he lets out a low whisper, “Hi. I’m Adam.”

The mixed messages – simultaneously worrying he’ll be recognised and that he won’t – hang in the air awkwardly as Driver surveys our spot, a near-empty New York City café. Neither fear is well-founded; there is no flock of fans to notice him and yet there is no mistaking the actor, his grey hoodie notwithstanding.

“I try to disguise things, but it just doesn’t really work for me,” Driver says, shedding the sweatshirt. “I honestly just look the way I look and it’s difficult to blend in because I’m tall and I look strange. I shouldn’t put a judgment on it.”

Others have judged his appearance more favourably. Driver has been dubbed a “cure for the cookie-cutter leading man” and “a millennial sex symbol”. Which may or may not be a compliment. Although few phrases are as loaded as “unconventionally attractive”, it’s as if those two words were combined expressly to describe Driver. Exaggerated ears; hooded, slanted eyes; long nose with a boxer’s bridge; broad mouth and lips – his disparate features coalesce into a surprisingly appealing whole.

“I guess I never think about it like ‘I am a leading man’ or ‘I am a sex symbol.’ It’s strange to hear that stuff. I don’t think I could have imagined it,” says Driver. Yet, there was his visage on Gap billboard ads; in American Vogue with a black-horned ram slung across his shoulders; in a close-up at the Emmy Awards, where he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor three years in a row for his part in HBO’s Girls; and cast eternally in plastic as a Kylo Ren action figure for Star Wars: The Force Awakens – masked and unmasked versions available. (“Not bad,” he says of the likeness, “but my head and face are a lot bigger.”) Passers-by who once stopped him to ask, “How could you do that to Hannah?” in reference to the bad-boy behaviour of Driver’s character in Lena Dunham’s runaway-success television series, now ask, “How could you do that to Han Solo?”

“It’s a lot,” Driver says, “every part of my life. If we rewound to ten years ago, I would not have said that this is what my life would be.

“And now this music,” he waves his hands at the piano composition streaming through the café like pretentious Musack, “is making that sound so emotional. It isn’t helping, you know?”

Far from angry, the brooding face of millennial angst is smirking. At 33, Adam Driver’s signature intensity hasn’t wavered, but interest in being a tortured artist has. He’s aware of his tendencies – toward anxiety, analysis and absolutism – and is taking steps to temper them. Still, it’s a struggle, seeing good fortune as anything but a cause for self-flagellation.

If we did rewind ten years, we’d see why. Driver was a Gordian knot of clenched intensity. Enrolled at New York’s Juilliard performing arts school, he was so aggressive that his comments made fellow students cry. Every morning he would have six eggs for breakfast, then run five miles to the school from his home in Queens. He would eat a whole chicken for lunch and, during his day at the prestigious drama school, perform random feats, such as 1,000 push-ups.

“That must’ve been an obnoxious thing to be around,” he says, shaking his head. “I was trying to make it as extreme for myself as possible. Now it just makes me so tired and annoyed.”

I’ve met Driver in a peaceful, leafy corner of the Brooklyn Heights neighbourhood that he and his wife, Joanne Tucker, call home. It’s a square precinct full of baby strollers that belies the borough’s hipster cred. “I like sleepy, quiet places,” Driver explains, “because my job is very loud.” Right now he’s savouring a respite from work, the first in a five-year sprint to stardom and even letting himself idle a little. Driver, who has made a career of ill-at-ease eccentricity, is starting to feel comfortable in his own skin.

He genuinely enjoyed himself on the set of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which will be released in cinemas this December. “The first one was all ‘You can’t fuck it up,’ you know? There was a lot more hanging out this time,” Driver says. “Then there are just practical things, like I have a lightsaber. That’s fun.”

Whatever the outcome of the larger battle between good and evil, the Resistance and the First Order, never underestimate the power of Driver’s light side. ”I had heard about Adam’s intensity before I worked with him, but he’s also really fun and funny,” says Rian Johnson, The Last Jedi’s director.

There was one emotionally charged scene that they shot over and over. “Every time the guy holding the clapper marked each take, Adam just starts trying to steal his shoe,” Johnson recalls. “It was hilarious. And then Adam goes straight into it with all the intensity of Kylo Ren. He just added a sense of play that made the process really click.”

Neither Johnson nor Driver can say what the scene was about or who else was in it. They are acutely aware of the cone of silence that surrounds the Star Wars films, suitably enough, like a force field. “There’s probably something in my contract, I don’t know – but it’s kind of unbelievable that no one has told me, ‘Don’t say anything,’” Driver explains. “It’s just implicitly understood.”

With plot points guarded like state secrets, even the tiniest perceived leak sets off an online feeding frenzy. Internet scribes grab at every quote, often misreading them. “You have to clarify truthful things you’ve said that people read these false things into,” Driver says. “It can be frustrating.”

After several years of sidestepping spoilers, Driver is practised at the art of obfuscation. His evasive manoeuvres are near perfect.

On whether he enjoyed acting opposite Daisy Ridley, who plays Rey: “That’s hard to answer. I mean, people assume that we’d spend time with each other. Maybe our characters see each other in the movie?”

On whether he had scenes with Carrie Fisher: “It’s hard to answer without being vague.”

On whether the lightsaber scar on his face, which came courtesy of Rey in The Force Awakens, was moved for the new film: “I noticed a lot of things.”

On whether Kylo Ren’s story has a happy ending: “Not saying yes or no. But continue.”

On whether Han Solo might have known Kylo Ren would kill him: “That’s interesting.”

On whether he appears with his mask off: “Yes, I can answer that. You’ll see it off in the new trailer, so I’m not giving anything away!”

Other times, Driver playfully embraces the absurdity of it all. “I can’t say anything, but what if I signal you,” he jokes. “If I just start sneezing uncontrollably…” He fakes a loud achoo and exclaims, “Bingo! Harrison Ford’s ghost returns!”

When I ask him about Kylo Ren’s mysterious order of Dark Side disciples, the Knights of Ren, he waxes whimsical. “We can talk about them. Peter, Paul, John… No, I was thinking of The Beatles. Except wait – there’s Peter. He was too ambitious on the tambourine. Now you know: the last Knight of Ren is Ringo Starr!”

On this particular mid-September day, the internet is abuzz with new speculation that Ridley’s character, Rey, is the daughter of Princess Leia (also Kylo Ren’s mother). This theory would take any romantic tension between her and Driver’s Kylo Ren into the realm of incest – territory that the first Star Wars trilogy explored with a kiss between Mark Hamill’s Luke Skywalker and Carrie Fisher’s Leia.

“Yeah, my uncle and my mum made out,” Driver says, with a laugh. “Which Mark still talks about. He’s like, ‘Luke kissed his sister. How could he do that?’ I guess he hasn’t seen Game Of Thrones, you know?”

The Last Jedi marks the final film in Fisher’s storied career. Like the rest of the cast, Driver was shaken by the actress’ death last December at age 60. “It’s hard to talk about it without saying generic things,” he says. “Like, ‘It’s shocking,’ but it was. Or ‘It’s incredibly sad,’ which it is. I mean, it is all of those things.”

Driver brightens as he recalls Fisher’s wit on display at Comic-Con before the release of The Force Awakens. “The whole cast was downstairs in a conference room, talking through what’s supposed to happen at this big event. She was like, ‘Just pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit.’” Driver pauses for a moment then laughs. “So now I pretend I’m down to earth and you know what? People really do love that shit. They eat it up.”

The image of Driver that people have consumed is not so much down to earth as intense and uncompromising, the all-or-nothing avatar of millennial manhood named Adam Sackler, Driver’s character in Girls. Ever since Driver landed the part, originally a cameo called simply “Handsome Carpenter”, the notion he really was that id-driven artist has, like the life of another charismatic carpenter, been taken as gospel.

In the public consciousness, Driver’s backstory is as extreme as his alter ego’s: a Midwestern misfit enlists in the Marines after 9/11, then studies acting at Juilliard – and finds he’s an outlier in both worlds. The truth is both less and more dramatic.

Born in San Diego, California, Driver is the son of a preacher. When his parents divorced, Driver moved with his mother back to her native Mishawaka, Indiana, where she was soon remarried to a Baptist minister. As a teenager, Driver was a poor student who dabbled in pyromania, trainspotting and climbing radio towers. A fan of the film Fight Club, Driver started one with some friends. “Just seeing the angst, I thought it would be a good idea to emulate it.“

Acting offered Driver a way out of the tiny town he called a shithole. “I applied to Juilliard when I was graduating high school and didn’t get in, so I was like ‘Well, fuck it. I won’t go to college, then.’” Instead, he set off for Hollywood and what he thought would be overnight stardom. “I’d always heard the stories of people striking out and finding success,” he says. “Why not me?” The dream lasted as long as his hand-me-down 1990 Lincoln Town Car did. After it broke down outside Amarillo, Texas, the repairs cost Driver nearly all the money he’d saved. When he finally limped into Los Angeles, Driver spent two nights in youth hostels. The only agent he signed with was a real estate agency, which took him for the rest of his savings. Having landed neither an apartment nor an acting gig, Driver arrived back in Indiana a week after leaving.

Following the 11 September attacks, Driver did not, as some retellings suggest, march down to the recruiting station. Instead, he enlisted in the Marines several months later. “My stepfather pushed me into it a little bit, which was good – I was grateful for it,” Driver says. “It followed an argument where he was like, ‘You’re not doing anything!’ I’d gotten this brochure in the mail. He was like, ‘Why don’t you just join?’ I was like, ‘No, I’m not going to join the Marines.’ Then I thought about it more. I had this sense of patriotism and wanted to get involved. I also had no prospects. I was living in the back of my parents’ house, working as a telemarketer.”

From the start, Driver’s time in uniform had a profound effect on him and his worldview. “The patriotism, the idea of country, doesn’t go away necessarily, it just turns into something else,” he says, reverently. “Not a big, sweeping idea, but this group of people you’re serving with, and that becomes your world, and it becomes sacred.”

Going into the Marines, Driver had a seemingly straightforward goal: “I’m going to be a man.” But rather than reinforce clichéd concepts of masculinity, military service put the lie to them. “You have to put implicit trust in the people to your left and right, and when they demonstrate that they’re looking out for you, that their own safety is secondary to yours, then all that kind of guy shit goes away and there is no ego,” Driver says. “There is no posturing, no need to say how much of a man you are, whatever that even means. You prove it with your actions.”

When Driver was not allowed to deploy to the Middle East with his unit, after suffering a broken sternum in a mountain biking accident, he was despondent. Although he fought to stay on active duty, Driver ultimately received a medical discharge.

He decided to apply to Juilliard again and this time got in. The transition from the Marine Corps to a New York City drama programme was jarring. During Driver’s second year, in an effort to bridge his past and present vocations, he launched a non-profit called Arts In The Armed Forces with his then-girlfriend, now wife, Tucker. Driver was able to carry a discipline and teamwork into his studies, but it didn’t stop him from feeling he’d gone soft. “I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m wearing pyjamas doing acting exercises where I’m giving birth to myself or being a plant or moving around in jelly,’” he says. “Then again, even now, I’m like, ‘What am I doing?’”

After a brief fallow period after graduating from Juilliard, Driver says he learned to hate everyone in the audition room. He didn’t like TV and almost skipped his audition for Girls entirely. Instead, he dazzled the show’s creator, Lena Dunham, and the one-episode part Driver had read for was expanded into a central one. In audition after audition, Driver made a similar impression on a series of noted directors. Even before Girls aired, Steven Spielberg cast him in Lincoln, in which he played a telegraph operator opposite Daniel Day-Lewis. “He was very nice to me,” Driver says of the legendary method actor. “He would still talk in character, but very nice.”

In particular, Driver’s unusual, instinctive style made him a favourite of indie filmmakers. He landed meaty roles in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and a series of films by writer-director Noah Baumbach: Frances Ha, While We’re Young and The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected). He played the lead in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson and shared top billing in Steven Soderbergh’s heist comedy Logan Lucky. When Martin Scorsese was finally able to make his passion project, Silence, after two decades, he sought out Driver. Similarly, Driver recently wrapped shooting on The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, which Terry Gilliam had been trying to make for 17 years.

And yet nothing Driver had done remotely prepared him for Star Wars. He had grown up a fan of the original trilogy, but had little faith in outsized film franchises. “I’m leery of big movies – a lot of them sacrifice character for spectacle,” he says. “When they’re bad, it pisses me off – you can just tell it’s made by a bunch of executives somewhere.”

Despite his initial trepidation, the complicated nature of Kylo Ren put Driver’s concerns to rest. “It was all about story and character and playing someone who doesn’t have it all together. Making him as human as possible seemed dangerous and exciting to me.”

Driver was drawn to an idea that JJ Abrams, who wrote and directed The Force Awakens, had. The man behind the mask was not a man at all, but rather a young person struggling to come of age. “I remember the initial conversations about having things ‘skinned’,” Driver recalls, “peeling away layers to evolve into other people, and the person Kylo’s pretending to be on the outside is not who he is. He’s a vulnerable kid who doesn’t know where to put his energy, but when he puts his mask on, suddenly, he’s playing a role. JJ had that idea initially and I think Rian took it to the next level.”

Driver is on a roll now, discussing what excites him: character and narrative and cinematic influences. The original Star Wars was an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s 1958 film The Hidden Fortress, he says, and the link lives on in the new trilogy, in which concealed identities drive the narrative. Then he lets it slip. “You have, also, the hidden identity of this princess who’s hiding who she really is so she can survive and Kylo Ren and her hiding behind these artifices,” Driver says, apparently dropping a massive revelation about Rey’s royal origins.

Perhaps he’s unconcerned and Rey’s parentage is less dramatic than imagined by fans, who posited that her father is Luke then trumpeted that her mother is Leia. Or it could be that, in passionately holding forth, Driver is simply unaware he’s revealed anything, much less a major spoiler. In any case, he doesn’t skip a beat. “The things that made it personal to me,” Driver continues, “I’ll keep to myself, but I think everybody can relate to the idea of almost being betrayed.

“Wow, this music is killing me.”

As the café’s latest piano piece reaches its crescendo, I ask Driver if he tapped into his own experiences with his dad and stepfather and he reverts to evasive manoeuvres.

“I may leave that one. I have strong convictions about not talking about family, for many reasons,” Driver says. “It’s not as if the answers for Kylo are found in my relationships with my parents.”

In The Last Jedi, director Rian Johnson saw Driver go light years beyond his own experience. “Adam was always pushing the context of the character,” Johnson says. “He’s put in this unhealthy environment and goes through the worst of youth, the selfishness and volatility, he’s representing that side of adolescence.”

Of course, these days immaturity and insecurity are no strangers to power. “It makes complete sense how juvenile he can be,” Driver says of Ren, who prefers lightsabers over Twitter for his tantrums. “You can see that with our leadership and politics. You have world leaders who you imagine – or hope or pray – are living by kind of a higher code of ethics. But it really all comes down to them feeling wronged or unloved or wanting validation.”

Even more topical and even more touchy was the decision to play Kylo Ren like a radicalised extremist. “We talked about terrorism a lot,” Driver says of his early conversations with Abrams and Johnson about his character. “You have young and deeply committed people with one-sided education who think in absolutes. That is more dangerous than being evil. Kylo thinks what he is doing is entirely right, and that, in my mind, is the scariest part.”

The demagoguery drives him to the most famous film patricide in galactic history, as Kylo Ren kills Han Solo in the shocking denouement of The Force Awakens. “When I watched the premiere, I felt sick to my stomach,” Driver recalls. “The people behind me, when the scroll started, were like ‘Oh my god. Oh my god. It’s happening.’ Immediately, I thought I was going to puke. I was holding my wife’s hand, and she’s like, ‘You’re really cold. Are you OK?’ Because I just knew what was coming – I kill Harrison – and I didn’t know how this audience of 2,000 people was going to respond to it, you know?”

One person in the crowd who appreciated that scene was Han Solo himself. “We were sitting on this catwalk in between takes,” Driver recalls, “and Harrison was like, ‘Look what we get to do. Just look what we get to do.’ Meaning, look at how lucky we are that this is our job, you know? To see someone at that point in his career still get excited like that hit me. It’s like, ‘Oh, right. I need to take this in more.’”

As if on cue, a couple stop and introduce themselves. “I love everything you’ve ever done,” the wife says. “Everything.”

“Thanks a million. Yeah. Hi, I’m Adam.”

As fan encounters go, it is respectful and pleasant, but not even a whimper of what will soon follow come the release of The Last Jedi.

For all the ways in which he’s made peace with his success, Driver, who is almost pathologically private by nature, remains uncomfortable with notoriety. “I’m not in the world the same way I was before,” Driver says. “It’s completely changed my life. My anonymity is gone. But who I am as a person is the exact same. I think. Or, I hope.”

Soon after, we exit the café, as Driver is heading home for some quiet time. He stops in front of a bicycle locked to a fence. “It only looks bourgeois-hipster because of the saddle,” Driver says, adding that he’s only just added the leather Brooks seat. “I bought the bike for $200 back when I was at Juilliard,” Driver says. “Besides the seat, it’s the same crappy bike I’ve had for forever.”

Driver pulls his hoodie up over his head and as he starts pedalling off turns back to me. “Remember,” he says. “Pretend you’re down to earth. People love that shit. Right?”

The Last Jedi is out on 15 December.

[jmyers104]

Charles Spurgeon: The Life and Legacy of the Prince of Preachers

Introduction

If John Calvin was the church’s greatest theologian, Jonathan Edwards the church’s greatest philosopher, and George Whitefield the church’s greatest evangelist, then Charles Haddon Spurgeon is certainly a contender for the title of the church’s greatest preacher.[1] What Spurgeon said of John Bunyan could also be said of himself: “Prick him anywhere, and you will find that his blood is Bibline.”[2] Charles Spurgeon was a Gospel-centered preacher whose life was driven by zeal for evangelism, a rock-solid belief in the sovereignty of God, and an unwavering commitment to the truths found in Scripture. This paper will show how these commitments shaped and influenced his life, how he articulated these truths in his preaching, and how his dedication to such truths saw him through the toughest challenge of his ministry – the Downgrade Controversy. The purpose of this paper is to give the reader a greater appreciation for God’s work in and through the life of Charles Spurgeon, a commitment to be available to God so that he may use the reader for his purposes, and a passion to stand firm for the truth and expose false teachings when necessary.

Early Life and Influences

Early Life

           Spurgeon grew up in a Christian environment. His mother was a godly woman. His father, John, and his grandfather, James, were ministers of Independent congregations.[3] At an early age, Spurgeon was exposed to Puritan works such as John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, Richard Baxter’s Call to the Unconverted, and Joseph Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted. While Spurgeon developed an affinity for Puritan works early in life, it would be another decade or so before he actually became a Christian.

Conversion Experience

On January 6, 1850, young Spurgeon was making his way to a Sunday morning church service. Because a violent snowstorm prevented him from going to the church that he was planning on attending, he decided to attend a Primitive Methodist church. The pastor of that church was unable to make it to the service, so a layperson preached from Isa 45:22, “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth!” (NKJV). Recalling the events of this service some time later in life, Spurgeon emphasized that this speaker was a rather simple man with little or no biblical training. After about ten minutes of repeating and paraphrasing this verse, this man was “at the end of his tether.”[4]

It was at this point that something rather unusual occurred. Given the fact that this was a rather small congregation, visitors were easy to recognize from the pulpit. “Young man, you look very miserable,” the layperson shouted to this visiting teenager.[5] This startled young Spurgeon, as it would with any one of us. The speaker went on to say, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but look and live.” Spurgeon recalls, “I saw at once the way of salvation…I had been waiting to do fifty things, but when I heard that word, ‘Look!’ what a charming word it seemed to me! Oh! I looked until I could almost have looked my eyes away. There and then the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun.”[6] Prior to this experience, Spurgeon struggled with the idea that he would be punished for his sins. He simply could not see how a man as sinful as himself could experience full and total forgiveness for sins. Perhaps there were some decent people out there in the world who could attain such forgiveness, but Spurgeon did not think that he was one of them. However, after his conversion, Spurgeon could say with conviction and certainty, “I felt as sure that I was forgiven as before I felt sure of condemnation.”[7]

Because Spurgeon was so convicted of his sinful and hopeless state prior to conversion, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was Christ who saved him. Moreover, he affirmed that Christ alone had the ability to save him. “My evidence that I am saved does not lie in the fact that I preach, or that I do this or that. All my hope lies in this, that Jesus Christ came to save sinners…I am loved with as much love as if I had always been godly, whereas aforetime I was ungodly.”[8]

Spiritual Condition of the Land

           The zeal and fervor experienced at conversion translated into his life. Like Paul in Acts 9, Spurgeon immediately began proclaiming Jesus. Unfortunately, the rest of his country did not share the enthusiasm Spurgeon had for the things of God. The people in Spurgeon’s day were not like the Corinthians in Paul time who were so overtly wicked and perverted. These people were much more dignified in their sinning. While they were externally religious, they were cold and hard-hearted. Like the church in Ephesus, they had abandoned their first love (Rev 2:4). A nation that had once been stirred to their depths by men like George Whitefield was now indifferent and apathetic towards God’s Word. Murray writes, “There was no scarcity of eloquence and culture in the pulpits, but there was a marked absence of the kind of preaching that broke men’s hearts.”[9] In quoting another contemporary writer, Murray writes concerning the typical church service: “Should the preacher let fall his handkerchief on the Psalm-book, or give one thump louder than usual with the fist ecclesiastic, that will be noted, remembered, and commented on, while there is all but total oblivion of the subject and the nature of the discussion.”[10] In a phrase, this was a land of lifeless traditionalism. These things were especially true of London and the Baptist Chapel and New Park Street.

           Spurgeon was the right man placed in the right placed at the right time. He preached the light of Christ in such a way as to obliterate the darkness of this lifeless traditionalism. For example, Spurgeon was known to say things such as this: “You have always taken an easy seat in the chapel. You never saw a revival; you do not want to see it.”[11] Members of New Park Street Chapel recognized Spurgeon’s talents early and invited him to preach at their church. Shortly thereafter, at the age of 19, Spurgeon became their pastor, and he remained their pastor until his death.

Numerical growth took place almost instantly. Their facility, which could hold roughly 1,200 people, had to be enlarged to seat 1,500 people. It was not long, however, before this too became insufficient. The congregation then began meeting in Exeter Hall, which could hold about 5,000 people, but even this facility became too small. Eventually, they built the Metropolitan Tabernacle, the largest Protestant house of worship in the world.[12]

Biblical and Theological Foundations

Priority of Preaching

           Spurgeon placed a high premium on preaching. He understood the importance of preaching for the sake of evangelizing the lost and sanctifying the church. Furthermore, he knew how crucial it was to not take the responsibility of preaching lightly. He once said, “It were better for me that I had never been born than that I preach to these people carelessly, or keep back any part of my Master’s truth. Better to have been a devil then a preacher playing fast and loose with God’s Word, and by such means working the ruin of the souls of men.”[13]

           Spurgeon would preach up to ten times a week. Because of his intense preaching schedule, some people grew concerned that preaching so often would damage his health. Spurgeon saw just the opposite scenario as his reality. Addressing these concerned people, Spurgeon once said, “We find ourselves able to preach ten or twelve times a week, and we find we are the stronger for it…‘Oh,’ said one of the members, ‘our minister will kill himself…That is the kind of work that will kill no men. It is preaching to sleepy congregations that kills good ministers.”[14] He considered it a joy to serve the Lord through preaching, even if it destroyed his health.

           Spurgeon could be classified as an “evangelistic expositor.”[15] He was an expositor in the sense that he drew his messages from books of the Bible, but unlike his predecessors who would preach through those books verse-by-verse, he would generally take a verse and use it as a catalyst to proclaim the Gospel. His unique presentation of biblical truths captivated audiences. According to Murray, “Spurgeon took ‘commonplace’ truths and subjects that had come to be regarded as somewhat dull and heavy, and presented them in such clear and forceful language that men could hardly prevent themselves from being gripped and stirred to their depths.”[16] People were gripped and stirred to their depths by Spurgeon’s preaching because he was first gripped and stirred to his depths by the Word that he was preaching.

           Perhaps the most important contributing factor to the success of Spurgeon’s preaching ministry was his dependence on prayer. “May God help me,” Spurgeon declared, “if you cease to pray for me! Let me know the day and I must cease to preach. Let me know when you intend to cease your prayers and I will cry, ‘O my God, give us this day my tomb, and let me slumber in the dust.”[17] Spurgeon could preach in a way that captivated men and women, as well as handle the Word with reverence and awe, because he was a man of prayer who urged his congregation to be people of prayer. He knew better than to rely on his gifts and talents alone for success in ministry.

           The priority of priority of preaching in the life of Spurgeon resulted in his founding of the Pastor’s College. During his lifetime, he saw almost 1,000 men trained for ministry in his college. Furthermore, his sermons were distributed across the globe. Lawson notes, “Through the printed page, Spurgeon’s congregation was estimated to be no less than a million people.”[18]

Centrality of Christ

           Spurgeon’s entertaining style of preaching may have been what attracted people, but it was the content of his sermons that transformed lives. The overarching theme in all of his sermons was his focus on Christ. Spurgeon believed that if we wanted to see souls converted, Christ must be preached in every sermon; there is no use in preaching if we are not going to preach Christ. But Spurgeon did not simply preach a text and add a Gospel invitation at the end of the service. He saw Christ in every passage and sought to make Him the focal point. Spurgeon himself said, “I take my text and make a beeline to the cross.”[19] To him, the sermon that does not point to Christ is the sermon “that will make the devils in hell laugh, but might make the angels of God weep.”[20] Specifically, Spurgeon preached concerning Christ’s nature, death, resurrection, and exaltation. Each one of these aspects will now be looked at in turn.

           Spurgeon preached Christ as the God-man. “He is not humanity deified. He is not Godhead humanized. He is God. He is man. He is all that God is, and all that man is as God created him.”[21] He clearly saw the importance of the Savior being fully God and fully man. Because man sinned, man had to pay the penalty. But no finite, sinful human could take away the sins of the world. That is why God the Son stepped down from heaven and put on human flesh. In order to solve the sin problem, He had to do it as a man. But although He was man, He maintained the full deity of God (Col 2:9) so that He could remain sinless and atone for sins. Furthermore, only an infinite God could atone for an infinite amount of sins in a matter of hours. To put it plainly, “If Christ was not God, we are not Christians…for nothing short of a divine Savior can ever deliver us fro, the infinite wrath of God.”[22]

           Christ’s sacrificial death was also a crucial element in Spurgeon’s teaching. “The heart of the gospel is redemption,” according Spurgeon, “and the essence of redemption is the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ,”[23] which took place on the cross. While all Christian doctrine was important to Spurgeon, he believed that the death of the Son of God was the most important.

           But if Christ had not been resurrected, Christians are to be pitied above all peoples (1 Cor 15:19), for without a resurrection, we do not have forgiveness of our sins. Spurgeon knew this, and he referred to Christ’s resurrection as “the cornerstone of Christian doctrine.”[24] He firmly believed that Christ’s sovereignty, our justification, our regeneration, and even our future resurrection all depend on the resurrection of Christ. His resurrection vindicated His crucifixion and ensures that no sins will ever be held against the true child of God.

           Now that Christ has been raised from the dead, He enjoys an exalted position at the right hand of the Father – the highest position of honor and authority. This was yet another important Christological truth that Spurgeon heralded throughout his ministry. Of course, this reality carries with it some significant implications for the Christian life. According to Spurgeon, “You cannot have Christ for your Savior unless you also have Him as your Lord.”[25] “A man who is really saved by grace does not need to be told that he is under solemn obligations to serve Christ. The new life within him tells him that. Instead of regarding it as a burden, he gladly surrenders himself – body, soul, and spirit – to the Lord.”[26]

Commitment to Calvinism

           Spurgeon sought to exalt Christ in every sermon. It is no coincidence, then, that Spurgeon was a Calvinist, for He saw in Calvinism the greatest expression of Christ’s supremacy. He did not teach Calvinistic doctrines simply because his heroes in the faith did, but because he saw these doctrines as biblical. In his own words, “We believe in the five great points commonly known as Calvinism. We look upon them as being the five great lamps which help to irradiate the cross.”[27]

           Prior to being converted, Spurgeon did not understand the “doctrines of grace.” When he first started following Christ, he believed that it was by his earnest seeking for Christ that he attained salvation. One night, as he pondered several questions, he came to understand that it was Christ who was seeking him:

How did you come to be a Christian? I sought the Lord. But how did you come to seek the Lord? The truth flashed across my mind in a moment: I should not have sought Him unless there had been some previous influence in my mind to make me seek Him. I prayed, thought I, but then I asked myself, How came I to pray? I was induced to pray by reading the scriptures. How came I to read the Scriptures? I did read them, but what led me to do so? Then, in a moment, I saw that God was at the bottom of it all, and that He was the author of my faith, and so the whole doctrine of grace opened up to me, and from that doctrine I have not departed to this day, and I desire to make this my constant confession: “I ascribe my change wholly to God.”[28]

           This was not merely experiential for Spurgeon. He ascribed to Calvinist doctrines because he saw them as having biblical roots. These were not teachings that John Calvin innovated, but great pillars of the faith. To Spurgeon, to be a Calvinist was to say, “Salvation is of the LORD” (Jonah 2:9). Indeed, Spurgeon saw this as “the essence of the Bible.”[29]

           Naturally, as a staunch Calvinist, Spurgeon taught human inability (total depravity of man), election, particular redemption (limited atonement), effectual calling (irresistible grace), and final perseverance (perseverance of the saints). While holding fast to these doctrines, Spurgeon maintained a biblical balance by preaching man’s responsibility to come to God. To him, God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility “are two lines that are so nearly parallel that the human mind that pursues them farthest will never discover that they converge, but they do converge, and they will meet somewhere in eternity, close to the throne of God, whence all truth springs.”[30]

Enthusiasm for Evangelism

           Spurgeon strived to maintain a balance between God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. Lawson notes, “Spurgeon held these twin truths – divine sovereignty and human responsibility – because both are unmistakably taught in the Bible.”[31] There are dangers in emphasizing one to the neglect of the other, but Spurgeon was extremely successful in preaching both doctrines in a way that complemented each other. Many fail to see how these two truths can be reconciled. But Spurgeon states, “I never have to reconcile friends. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility have never had a falling out with each other. I do not need to reconcile what God has joined together.”[32] The result was a passionately evangelistic ministry. To quote Spurgeon, “We believe in predestination; we believe in election and non-election: but notwithstanding that, we believe that we must preach to men, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall be saved,’ but believe not on Him and ye are damned.”[33]

           Soul winning was Spurgeon’s primary mission, and his desire for people to be saved can be seen clearly and vividly in his preaching:

If sinners will be damned, at least let them leap to hell over our bodies. And if they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees, imploring them to stay. If hell must be filled, at least let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions, and let not one go there unwarned and unsprayed for.[34]

With this as his heart cry, he employed various means to ensure that as many people as possible would come to Christ. These means included open invitations; loving appeals; and, when necessary, severe warnings.

           Unlike his hyper-Calvinist contemporaries, Spurgeon would extend Gospel invitations to everyone. Arnold Dallimore observes of Spurgeon’s preaching,

Almost every sermon contained especially toward its close, an entreaty of this nature – warning, begging, pleading, urging the sinner to come to Christ…He did not ask people to walk to the front of the auditorium, raise a hand, sign a card, or perform any outward action. But throughout each sermon and especially as he drew it to a close, he pleaded with unsaved hearers to believe on Christ, and he expected them to do so then and there.[35]

These invitations were not cold or unloving. Spurgeon could not understand how ministers could deliver rigid discourses in an unloving manner as if they did not care for their hearers. It was with love that Spurgeon delivered his invitations to come to Christ.

           While Spurgeon lovingly called men and women to faith and repentance, he used severe language when necessary, for it is better to use harsh words and see hard-hearted people get saved than to use sugar-coated words that make them feel good all the way to hell. “I do not threaten,” said Spurgeon, “because I would alarm without cause, but in hopes that a brother’s threatening may drive you to the place where God hath prepared the feast of the gospel.”[36]

Foundations Applied in the Midst of Controversy

Background and Origin

The Downgrade controversy was the greatest conflict of Spurgeon’s ministry. The roots of this controversy can be traced back to 1873. During this time, the Baptist Union’s constitution moved from a doctrinal base to a more functional base. For years, conservatives were unhappy with the decline, but they did not have much of a voice until Spurgeon came along.

           There are at least two explanations for how the controversy got its name. First, in March 1887, Spurgeon’s paper, the Sword and Trowel, published an article entitled “The Down Grade.” According to McBeth, this article “painted a dismal picture of moral and doctrinal decay in the denomination, with prayerless churches, indifferent laity, and unbelieving pastors who spent their time in worldly pursuits like the theater rather than in Bible study and fervent preaching.”[37] While Spurgeon did not write this particular article, he would go on to write an article on this controversy almost every month until his death. Second, according to Steve Lawson, “(Spurgeon) compared the Baptist church to a train that had crested a high mountain pass and was barreling down the steep grade, gaining speed as it plummeted. The further it descended this slippery slope, he contended, the greater its destruction would be.”[38] While Spurgeon wrote a great deal concerning the Downgrade, his complaints could be boiled down to three specific issues: the decline of prayer meetings, worldly ministers, and the decline of doctrine. Of the three, the third became the primary issue.

Withdrawal from the Baptist Union

When he did not receive the support he thought he would, Spurgeon attacked the issue with even greater tenacity, saying things like, “A new religion has been initiated, which is no more Christianity than chalk is cheese.”[39] Why was so Spurgeon so adamant about pressing this issue? Because the saw it as an attack on the doctrines of the Savior whom he loved so dearly. Indeed, the Downgrade demonstrated that the Word of God was no longer the “rule of faith.”

In 1887, Spurgeon withdrew from the Baptist Union. He addressed his withdrawal in the November 1887 edition of the Sword and Trowel: “It is our solemn conviction that where there can be no real spiritual communion there should be no pretence of fellowship. Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.”[40] The decision to leave the Baptist Union was not a rash decision; he “saw the Secretary and the President again and again…and only left the union when nothing could be done.”[41]

The Union Strikes Back

           In January 1888, four doctors of divinity from the Baptist Union’s Council met with Spurgeon to see what it would take to maintain the denomination’s unity. Spurgeon’s solution was that they adopt a definite evangelical basis of faith.[42] Spurgeon sensed that the men came with another purpose in mind. This feeling was affirmed when the Council issued a “censure” on him after hearing a report back from the four men. Lawson writes, “In a sad twist of history, it was seconded by his brother James, his co-pastor at the tabernacle, who mistakenly believed the motion was calling for reconciliation.”[43] Spurgeon was so grieved by the whole controversy that it ruined his health. In his final years, he is described as “a sad, isolated, and sick man.”[44] He died in 1892 at the age of 57, a few short years after he was censured by the Baptist Union.

Conclusion

           At his funeral, a Bible was placed on his coffin. The Bible was opened to Isa 45:22, “Look to Me, and be saved, All you ends of the earth!” (NKJV). Lawson comments, “By this, even in death, Spurgeon pointed people to Christ. With his passing, he had fought the good fight, finished the course, and kept the faith.”[45]

           In summary, Spurgeon was a man with a gifted mind, captivating rhetorical abilities, and a deep joy for the things of God. Because of his devotion to Christ, he fought vigorously for God’s Word even when he was the minority. While not everyone has Spurgeon’s particular giftings, there is much to learn from him. May we strive to be Gospel-centered people who love Christ and share him with the lost. May we resolve to be unwavering and uncompromising when the world wants us to conform to our standards. And may we commit all our efforts to making God’s name famous among our families, co-workers, and anyone else who will listen so that they may look to the Lord and be saved.

       Bibliography

 Bebbington, David W.  Baptists Through the Centuries:  a History of a Global People.  

Waco, TX:  Baylor, 2010.

Bush, L. Russ, & Tom J. Nettles.  Baptists and the Bible.  Chicago:  Moody, 1980.

Dallimore, Arnold. Spurgeon. Chicago: Moody, 1984.

Elwell, W. A., ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book                              House, 2001.

Harmon, Dan. Charles Spurgeon: Prince of Preachers. Uhrichville, OH: Barbour Pub.                Inc., 1997.

Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon. Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                     Publishing, 2012.

McBeth, H. Leon.  The Baptist Heritage:  Four Centuries of Baptist Witness.  Nashville,

TN:  Broadman, 1987.

Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012.

Nettles, Tom. Living by Revealed Truth: The Life and Pastoral Theology of Charles            Haddon Spurgeon. Scotland, U.K.: Mentor, 2013.

Partner, Daniel, ed. The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon. Uhrichville, OH: Barbour                 Pub. Inc., 2009.

Spurgeon, Charles. Charles Haddon Spurgeon -Autobiography: The Full Harvest 1861-1892                    Volume 2. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1981.

 [1] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust      Publishing, 2012), 1.

[2] Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 35-36.

 [3] Elwell, W. A., ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book                                   House, 2001), 1146.

[4] Partner, Daniel, ed. The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon (Uhrichville, OH: Barbour                Pub. Inc., 2009), 29.

 [5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid., 33.

[8] Ibid., 35.

[9] Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 21-22.

[10] Ibid., 22.

[11] Ibid.

[12] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 8.

[13] Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 41.

[14] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 14.

[15] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 8.

[16] Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 31.

[17] Ibid., 37.

[18] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 8.

[19] Ibid., 2.

[20] Ibid., 102.

[21] Ibid., 91.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Ibid., 93.

[24] Ibid., 96.

[25] Ibid., 100

[26] Ibid.

[27] Partner, Daniel, ed. The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon (Uhrichville, OH: Barbour                Pub. Inc., 2009), 12.

[28] Partner, Daniel, ed. The Essential Works of Charles Spurgeon (Uhrichville, OH: Barbour                Pub. Inc., 2009), 54.

[29] Ibid., 58.

[30] Ibid., 65.

[31] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 22.

[32] Ibid., 62.

[33] Ibid., 63.

[34] Ibid., 84.

[35] Dallimore, Arnold. Spurgeon (Chicago: Moody, 1984), 80.

[36] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 83.

[37] McBeth, H. Leon.  The Baptist Heritage:  Four Centuries of Baptist Witness  (Nashville,

TN: Broadman, 1987), 302-303.

[38] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 15.

[39] McBeth, H. Leon.  The Baptist Heritage:  Four Centuries of Baptist Witness  (Nashville, TN:  Broadman,             1987), 303.

[40] Murray, Iain. The Forgotten Spurgeon. (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 2012), 153.

[41] Ibid., 154.

[42] Although the Council did eventually draft an evangelical document, Spurgeon rejected it on the basis that it left room for those who did not hold the common interpretation.

[43] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 16.

[44] McBeth, H. Leon.  The Baptist Heritage:  Four Centuries of Baptist Witness  (Nashville,

TN:  Broadman, 1987), 302-303.

[45] Lawson, Steve. The Gospel Focus of Charles Spurgeon (Sanford, FL: Reformation Trust                            Publishing, 2012), 17.

[septembersung]

I can forgive Protestants and Protestantism for most things.

I can forgive Protestants for the Know-Nothing Party and their murderous Philadelphia Nativist Riot, the Intolerable Acts, Bloody Monday and the Orange Riots in New York City in 1871 and 1872. I forgive them for the “Blaine Amendments” which forbade tax money be used to fund Catholic parochial schools.

I can also forgive them for the KKK and for funding the Mexican atheist genocidal maniac Plutarco Ares Calles in his efforts to kill Catholics during the Cristero Wars. I can forgive them for calling any, and all, popes, the “Anti-Christ(s)” and “Whores(s) of Babylon.”

I also forgive them for supporting Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy by which the Church gained many of her modern martyrs. In addition, I forgive them for the Recusancy Acts and the fictitious, so-called “Popish Plot.” I forgive them also for the fact that as a Catholic, I shall never sit upon the British Throne though literally everyone else is allowed to do so.

I can forgive Protestants for The Troubles in Ireland and Oliver Cromwell and his engineered Potato Famine and the slaughter and military occupation of that country. I forgive them for the enslavement of 50,000 men, women and children who were forcibly removed from Ireland and sent to Bermuda and Barbados as indentured servants―America’s first slaves.

I forgive them for the Canadian Gavazzi Riots and the Orange Order and Ontario Regulation 17 that doomed Catholic schools in Quebec. I won’t even mention the American Protective Association and their Canadian counterparts, the Protestant Protective Association as I’ve chosen to forgive. I also forgive Protestants for forcibly converting Catholic convicts and political prisoners to Anglicanism in Australia something that Moslem terrorists have been doing for 1400 years.

I forgive Protestants for 500 years of venom and vitriol spouted by every street preacher and door-knocker―the seething anti-Catholic hatred that is at the core of primitive Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism and Jehovah’s Witnesses―but not them exclusively. Indeed, it makes up a great deal of traditional Anglicanism, Methodism and many other forms of “mainstream” Protestantism.

I forgive Protestants who refuse to refer to Catholics as “Christians.”

I also forgive them for intentionally ignoring the 1500 years that occurred prior to Martin Luther when everyone in Western Europe who was a Christian was, by necessity, a Catholic.

I forgive them for Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, the inspiration for the current assault upon religious liberty in America and Europe. Don’t worry, Jack Chick and your ignorant and poisonous “Chick Tracts” and for calling Catholics, “Mackerel Snappers”―all is forgiven.

I forgive Martin Luther for foisting a desecrated and greatly redacted Bible upon the world pretending that God “would have wanted it that way.” Luther removed seven books and parts of three others from the Old Testament―the fullness of which is called the Septuagint and was used by Christ himself when he walked among us.

And I also forgive Martin Luther for accepting funding from Suleiman the Magnificent, the Sultan of the Muslim Ottoman Empire as he “struggled” to succeed from the Catholic Church. Luther schemed to throw Christendom under the bus for fun and profit as he urged his fellow Protestants to side with the Muslim Turks in defeating the Catholic Church and, with it, Europe. Suleiman even extended his munificent kinship to any and all Protestants in Hungary and Romania now that they were no longer “Christian” (i.e., loyal to the pope). The sultan urged Luther and Protestants to unite under the Muslim banner to defeat both the emperor and the pope. Please recall that Suleiman the Terrorist wanted nothing less than to wipe Christianity from the planet―talk about politics and their strange bedfellows!

But all is forgiven … I swear it.

I forgive Protestants for the ridiculous 700 Club television show and their tiresome attacks on the One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. I also forgive Protestants for taking 500 years to realize that Sola Scriptura is a great deal of nonsense and that even Luther had a strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary―the first Christian, the Mother of God and, indeed, the second most often quoted individual in the Gospels.

I also forgive Protestants for their cognitive dissonance in simultaneously insisting that: 1) everyone is allowed to interpret the Bible as they wish and they are all equally correct and 2) Catholics are wrong in the way they interpret the Bible no matter how they do it.

I forgive Protestants for their anti-Catholicism, which is what historian John Highham called “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history,” and what historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr. has called, “the deepest-held bias in the history of the American people.”

I also forgive Protestants for their support of the violence towards Catholics during the so-called “Enlightenment” and for the development of Freemasonry and the Brazilian “Religious Question” and the Columbian La Violencia and the Michelade Massacre of 1567. By the way, Freemasonry’s exotic magicalism greatly contributed to the development of Mormonism, Unitarianism, Seventh-Day Adventism, Christian Scientists and Jehovah’s Witness’ Arianistic perspectives.

For all of this, I have nothing but forgiveness for them.

I forgive Protestants for making Fr. Nicholas Copernicus put the brakes on his heliocentric theory and data until after his death even though his friend, Pope Paul III, urged him to publish while the scientist was still alive. Apparently, Fr. Copernicus hoped to avoid upsetting Luther and Melanchthon who were both contemptuous of the priest’s heliocentric paradigm and feared that his theories would further alienate Protestants against the Church from which they originally sprang.

This isn’t an empty Christian platitude―I truly forgive them for the Great Tragedy, that is, their sixteenth century split with Rome.

I also forgive them for John Calvin’s, Ian Paisley’s and the Westboro Baptist Church’s reductive, tiresome and poisonous bluster and posturing. I further forgive Protestants for their support and schadenfreude as they stood back and did nothing during Spain’s Red Terror and during Hitler’s repression of the Catholic Church especially for The Night of Long Knives. But my forgiveness isn’t limited to only this opprobrium. Indeed, I also forgive Dutch Protestants’ explicit support of the Tokugawa Shogunate when they slaughtered tens of thousands of Japanese Catholics in the sixteenth century.

I forgive them one and all for the 500 years of anti-Catholic stereotypes typical in their literature as in Edgar Allan Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum, Paul Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress and Ann Radcliffe’s The Italian.

I forgive them for their support/coddling of the rabidly fundamentalist atheist “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” which was originally an explicitly anti-Catholic organization called “Protestants and Other Americans United for Separation of Church and State.”

I forgive all Protestants for crucifying European history with their insidious and indecorous “Black Legend” which poisoned the minds of hundreds of millions of people who would rather believe lies about the Inquisition rather than risk reading a book on the subject.

I even forgive Protestants for the countless false prophecies concerning the end of the world that have proved time and time again to be absolutely false. As an aside, I also forgive them for ignoring Scriptures that specifically explain how to distinguish between one of God’s real prophets and a false one:

You may wonder how you can tell when a prophet’s message does not come from the Lord. If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord’s message. That prophet has spoken on his own authority, and you are not to fear him. (Deut. 18:21-22)

In addition, I forgive Protestants for ignoring Christ’s own words (the red-letter words) when he commissions St. Peter as the Church’s leader:

And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build My church, and not even death will ever be able to overcome it. (Matt. 16:18)

And like the previous passage, Protestants will ignore the salient fact that Christ’s One, True, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church will never fail. Not even the Gates of Hell will prevail against it. If follows that if an organization that claims to be inspired by the Holy Spirit actually fails miserably, that means the Holy Spirit wasn’t truly with them such as the Anabaptists, the Shakers and the Puritans. 11 Protestant churches close every day in America. It’s impossible to determine how many close every day around the world. There are 41,000 Protestant churches around the world currently and that means at least 40,999 are completely wrong. This doesn’t include the many tens of thousands of Protestant churches that have failed in the past 500 years. God clearlyisn’t dictating different messages to intentionally sow discord, confusion and lies … however, this does remind me of another lesser spirit who enjoys doing exactly this (John 8:44).

But what I can’t forgive them for, not yet at least, is their insipid restorationism―the idea that God somehow made a mistake 2000 years ago when he gave control of his, One, True Church to the Catholic Church and the papacy whose progenitor was St. Peter as testified by Christ not once but twice in the New Testament (Matt. 16:18-19, John 21:15-17).

Restorationism is the belief that Christianity should be restored to how it was during the Apostolic Era using nothing but Scriptures―a project doomed to failure. Their goal to re-establish Christianity in its original form has been a part of Christianity for 2000 years and, indeed, St. Francis of Assisi hoped to “get back to the basics” also but he didn’t make the mistake of believing that God had made a mistake in putting St. Peter and his successors in charge. Rather, he hoped to refocus the Church―not to change dogma and authority.

This is not something that can be generously glossed over as their previous genocide of Catholics on multiple continents or even the desecration of our holiest places over the past 500 years. The trillions of Protestant lies about Catholics are as naught in comparison to this blasphemy.

To suggest that God was somehow mistaken in anything he does is scurrilous impiety and profane heresy.

Luther’s “Ecce ego sto!” sounds more and more like Lucifer’s “Non servium!”

Restorationism is anathema. God makes no mistakes (Ps. 19:7-10). He doesn’t mumble or backpeddle like Allah (Ps. 12:6-7). He’s not confused or addlebrained (Neh. 9:6). He needs no assistance from anyone or anything (Col. 1:6). His decisions are final and perfect in their love and justice (Prov. 16:10). He doesn’t need to explain himself (Rom. 1:20). He accepts no counsel (Ps. 33:11).

When God bestowed stewardship upon Peter and his successors, God didn’t mean “well … you can be in charge until people in the sixteenth century come to know better.”

Restorationism is beyond comprehension. God isn’t imperfect and thus, anyone who worships an imperfect God isn’t worshiping the Trinity (Ps. 18:30).

Muslims also celebrate a restorationism of sorts in that they believe Islam is what Allah always had in mind but was simply not sure how to implement it successfully until the advent of Mohammad. They believe that both Jews and Christians have become corrupted along with their sacred scriptures, which are “untrustworthy” due to Allah’s machinations. And that only they have a perfect and complete understanding of God’s “true plan.”

Sound familiar?

But if this is true, as in the case of Protestantism, then how did God’s message get garbled in the first place? Wouldn’t God have known his message was going to get hinky? If he’s omniscient and omnicompetent he would. A lesser god would easily fall into this error.

How was he so foolish in trusting the wrong people initially? How could mere mortals come to realize something that he couldn’t (Job 38:1-41:34)?

But, more importantly, how can we ever trust this imperfect deity now that new messengers, none of whom are divine, have come along? Perhaps this deity is confused once again. It’s a slippery slope and one that is easily proven wrong.

I don’t see a difference in what these Christian restorationists believe and that which Islamic restorationists proffer. It’s not odd that Protestants had received Muslim financial, political and ideological support 500 years ago―birds of a feather, as it were.

But the main reason I condemn restorationism is that it’s a non-starter. If someone believes in evil grand conspiracy theories, they make themselves out to be the hero/champion that God has been looking for. It’s up to them and no one else! They are the thin holy line that separates Order and Chaos―between Heaven and Hell. And as they are assured of their sanctified state, anything and everything they think, say and do is acceptable. After all, this is what “God wanted” all along…

[romancatholicreflections]

21st January >> Sunday Homilies & Reflections for Roman Catholics on the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

Sunday Homily

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Gospel reading: Mark 1:14-20

vs.14 After John had been arrested, Jesus went into Galilee. There he proclaimed the Good News from God.vs.15 “The time has come” he said “and the kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the Good News.”

vs.16 As he was walking along by the Sea of Galilee he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net in the lake – for they were fishermen.vs.17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fisher of men.” vs.18 And at once they left their nets and followed him.vs.19 Going on a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John; they too were in their boat, mending their nets. He called them at oncevs.20 and, leaving their father Zebedee in the boat with the men he employed, they went after him.

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We have four commentators available from whom you may wish to choose . Scroll down to the name of the commentator.

Michel DeVerteuil :     A Trinidadian Holy Ghost Father, late director of the Centre of Biblical renewal . Thomas O’Loughlin:  Professor of Historical Theology, University of Wales, Lampeter. Sean Goan:                    Studied scripture in Rome, Jerusalem and Chicago and teaches at Blackrock College and works with Le Chéile Donal Neary SJ:         Editor of The Sacred Heart Messenger and National Director of The Apostlship of Prayer.

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Michel DeVerteuil Lectio Divina with the Sunday Gospels www.columba.ie

General Comments

On this Sunday, we begin the continuous reading of St Mark’s gospel, which will be interrupted during Lent and Easter but will eventually take us to the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem in November of this year.

The journey begins in Galilee, the northernmost province of Palestine. This is where Jesus lays the foundation for his work of salvation. You might like to stay with this context of the passage – the humble beginnings (even in relationship with the rest of Palestine, Galilee is on the periphery) of what was to become a mighty work which has still not been completed.

The passage is in two sections: – verses 14 – 15: this first section is a summary of the preaching of Jesus; – verses 16 – 20: the call of the first disciples. The first section is short, but every word is precious. Stay with the context of “after John had been arrested,” remembering the enormous impact that the Baptist had made on the whole country, and gauging from that the traumatic effect of his arrest. Yet, what seemed to be the end of a movement was the beginning of something new.  Take “the kingdom of heaven” in a down-to-earth way, as an expression meaning the kind of society which would correspond to what God wants. “Is at hand” means that it is within our grasp.

This second section is a may seem artificial at a first reading, but it is the classical story of the moment of grace, sudden and yet totally natural in the sense that it seems to happen so easily, like a ripe fruit falls in our hand. The two calls are clearly meant to be similar – St Mark is telling us that this is how a call always works out.

Prayer Reflection

Lord, we thank you for the changes that have taken place in our world. They happened so suddenly and unexpectedly – yes it is always how moments of grace happen. Like when John the Baptist was arrested and it seemed that the movement of religious renewal in the country had been blocked, but that was the occasion for Jesus to go into Galilee and proclaim the Good News from God. So it was in those Eastern European countries and countries where violent regimes take control People just knew that a new era was at hand, they must change their ways of thinking and acting, and trust that something great and wonderful was in store for them, even if for a while there is suffering. Thank you, Lord.

“Some would consider our hopes utopian. It may be that these persons are not realistic enough, and that they have not perceived the dynamism of a world which desires to live more fraternally.”  …Pope Paul VI, Populorum Progressio

Lord, the role of the Church is to preach the good news of God to the world, and the good news is that the Kingdom of Heaven is within our reach, if only we repent and believe that it is possible. Lord, we pray for all the preachers of the gospel, especially those who give homilies at Sunday services. Teach them not to be abstract in their preaching, but to proclaim the Good News of God as Jesus did – as new possibilities which are at hand. They must of course preach repentance – but not as an imposition from outside; rather, as good news within ourselves, good news which we can trust.

“To destroy human power nothing more is required than to be indifferent to its threats and to prefer other goods to those which it promises. Nothing less, however, is required also.”  ...R.H. Tawney Lord, your Son Jesus knew how to break the power of evil. When John was arrested, he went into Galilee and preached the good news that the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand.

Lord, in the modern world we are accustomed to calculate things before coming to decisions. We have feasibility studies, computer printouts and charts. Eventually we think that personal relationships can be planned too, like choosing a marriage partner or a friend, picking those we want to work with us on a project. But we cannot plan those decisions. These things work by a kind of instinct, like Jesus walking along the Sea of Galilee and seeing two fishermen casting a net in the lake and then saying to them, “Follow me” and they left their nets and followed him.

Lord, when we want to start some work, we like to start with the spectacular. Teach us the way of Jesus, that when the time for action comes we should go to the periphery of life and choose a few companions, letting the kingdom grow from there.

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Thomas O’Loughlin Liturgical Resources for the Year of Matthew www.columba.ie

Introduction to the Celebration During this coming year we are going to read our way through the gospel preached by St Mark. And today we hear about Jesus’s first actions in inaugurating the kingdom of God. He proclaimed the good news that we should repent and begin life afresh; and he gathered about him the first members of his new people. Here, now, today, we are gathering as that new people, gathering around him and listening to him in the Liturgy of the Word; and then with him we are going to offer thanks to our heavenly Father in the Liturgy of the Eucharist.

Homily Notes

1. There is a strange surprise in today’s gospel if we just look at it for a moment. Right at the start we hear Jesus’s great message: begin life afresh and believe in the good news that God loves us. This is exactly what we should expect: the story of a great prophet’s teaching should begin with his core message  Then, immediately after that, we are not given any further explanation of this teaching., but we are told abour how he recuited his first followers. We have all heard this so often that we forget that this is really strange, but it is.

2. For most people today, whenever they hear talk about Jesus, their first reaction is to say that he is a great religious leader, a prophet, or a teacher who said many wise things about how people should lead their lives. This is nothing new: many at the time of Jesus looked on him in just this way — a figure to be compared with Moses or Elijah or one of the prophets. To many in the first years of Christianity as it spread around the ancient world, it seemed as if Jesus was simply a Jewish equivalent of a Greek philosopher: a wise man offering advice on how to live life well. Similarly today, many compare Jesus with the Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, or some well-respected wise leader.

3. The basic idea in all these comparisons is that what we are seeking a wise teaching by which to live our lives. Alas, for people on this quest, very little of the gospel can be considered such ‘teaching’: indeed, this year, when we read Mark’s gospel, we find that 37% is taken up with the account of the final days in Jerusalem. It is all about Jesus’s life and death, not about how we should live our lives.

4. Anyone who looks on Jesus as just a wise teacher will be very surprised that what they think is a book of his teachings, a gospel, moves from his message directly to the comparatively ephemeral matter of his organisational arrangements.

5. But the fact that this way of looking at Jesus is in the air around us must prompt us to remind ourselves about a few matters that are often so taken for granted that they are forgotten.

6. Jesus is our teacher, but he also the One sent by the Father to build up the new community. This is why Mark moves immediately from the core teaching to the call of the first members of this new people.

7. Jesus not only teaches us the way to the Father, he unites us to himself within the church in order to present us to the Father.

8. To follow Jesus is to not only listen and agree with his message, but to be willing to work with others he has called to build the kingdom.

9. Mark preached his gospel to help us know who we are as a people — those who have chosen to become one with Jesus in baptism; he did not imagine that he was writing down wise religious sayings.

10. For the people of the gospel, to hear the call of Jesus to start life afresh is also to hear the call to follow him as his community.

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Sean Goan Let the Reader Understand www.columba.ie

Gospel Notes

With this gospel we have the beginning of the proclamation of the good news in Mark. Jesus is portrayed as discerning that the time is right for people to respond to the preaching of the kingdom. The essence of his message is simple: it is time to repent and believe. Behind the word to repent there is a much stronger meaning than simply ‘Be sorry and start again.’ Rather Jesus is looking for conversion, a change of mindset and attitude that will leave us open to God and allow us to trust that the news really is good. The radical response of the two sets of brothers shows something of what is intended, they leave their nets and they follow. The road they are taking will bring them to places they never imagined and will show them that following Jesus is a constant challenge to put themselves entirely into God’s hands.

Reflection

Both readings today warn us about the dangers of being self-obsessed. The parable of Jonah speaks very clearly of the dangers involved in imagining that we are better than everyone else. Such an attitude blinds us both to the goodness in others and the graciousness of our God whose mercy reaches out to all.

Paul is trying to get across to groups, who are trying to outdo each other in terms of their Christian virtue, that they don’t have to go making radical changes to their lifestyle in order to be faithful to the gospel.

It is much more important that in the ordinary details of their daily life and relationships they are guided by the love of Christ.

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Donal Neary SJ Gospel Reflections www.messenger.ie/bookshop/

The Ordinary

There’s something very ordinary for a fisherman about washing nets. Daily work, done with some drudgery but knowing that it is essential for a good catch of fish which would feed the family at this time Jesus called his first apostles.

There is something sacred about the ordinary. About bathing a child, loving a spouse, daily employment, family time and all that goes to make up our days.

In the middle of all this God can surprise us and call us into his service. Our expectation is sometimes different – that we need long times of prayer to find God, or read about him, or do big things for him.just as  the smallest things are done out of human love, God is found in the ordinary.

The old Irish spirituality had blessings for everything – for milking a cow, cleaning and dusting a room, visiting the sick and many more. there were prayers for meals, for a safe journey and a happy death. Our Irish spirituality found God as much in mountains and people as in the church, and often more so.

Maybe the disciples remember in difficult times the way they were called in their ordinary work, and found their ongoing call to follow the Lord in the ordinary of their lives for the rest of their lives.

Give me O Lord a love for the ordinary; remind me how ordinaryyou were for so much of your life. Amen.

[what2watch2night]

BRIMSTONE

If you like a little bit of horror in your March Madness, a fearful film, more dark than gory (for nothing!) and cleverly thought, or if you just fancy watching anything like THE WITCH; BRIMSTONE is one for you!

Award season is over, spring has sprung, your TV schedule is madness with all the new seasons and new flavor and blockbusters are coming in hard and soon FAST & FURIOUS ;)

Still  there must always be a little bit of room left for the “quiet ones” wether sleeper hits like GET OUT ( we shall talk about next week) or the “Indie-buster” masterpiece a la LOGAN. And  so if you happen to have a couple of hour and if you are looking for something that will change from the “usual” than BRIMSTONE is a very good choice!

WHAT IS IT ABOUT: Basically, and like THE WITCH it is about a small excluded community of settler living life the “religious way” trying (too) hard to keep the devil at bay …or so they thought.

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Watch it to witness another Guy Pierce performance because the man can do no wrong and his performance in BRIMSTONE is an easy A. It will be more impactful for those who see it while watching WHEN WE RISE ( or like us who saw it months ago but who  will always think of Guy as the guy in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert ;) )

Watch it because it has a solid cast, but #funfact John Snow and Melissandre are in it (and it seems The Lord of Light graced her with better “range ” than him, as he is playing a slightly less different version of John (Or is he just acting himself all the time!? …Guess we’ll never know until we know!))

Still, the rest of the cast is convincing and Dakota Fanning is bringing the right balance of strength and pure innocence (something the Fanning sister do very well apparently!) to the role.

But once again a kid stole the show! Ivy George is another one of those child actor with a foreseeable good future in Hollywood. And after browsing her IMDB you might soon realize that she is good at creepy… Which is great news because a young actor doing the creepy child very well in movie tends to have more (“creepy child” roles leading ) to a decent career in the biz ! Again asks the Fanning sisters!

Watch it because there is a lot of movie out there, and although this subject has been treated in some wayS or otherS before ( in a nutshell, religion +oppression +early settlement+ fanatic devotion +preachers sinners + good vs evil=> Fear +Punishment+vengeance+retribution + sinning for the greater good) this one is quite genuine and not overused…Like a great companion for RAVENOUS, another Guy Pierce creepy lowkey movie .

Watch it because despite being possibly categorize as a Mystery-Thriller- Western = art-house the film might be slow-burned doesn’t disappoint in term of suspense. Until the very last scene the viewer is left in ‘the dark’, and even as the credit rolls the heavy shadow of  doubt (yep it is one of those sadly..so many questions so few answers!)

Watch it because it is still Women’s month and some might rightfully argue that this is somehow a story of a lady who despite the grim of her life and obstacle of these dark decided she had to be brave and face “evil”… different time same struggle, being a free human being and survive…

And last but not least, in “How is this a thing”, like mentioned before, BRIMSTONE will make you wonder “how come Guy Piece never got nominated for an oscar of being one of the more “constant actor in the business” Seriously, between this scary performance and the one in and WHEN WE RISE ( just one of many examples) there is a 360 degrees of separation! Here is another living proof that TALENT IS also IN THE RANGE (eg. Streep in DEVIL WEARS PRADA and Streep in “The Dingo stole my baby” = RANGE! ;) ) 

All aside BRIMSTONE is one of those film you decide to watch at a film festival knowing nothing about ( or going in a theater last minute on a rainy day , or picking the first VOD as you don’t want the hassle of spending 1 hour to choose  between 50 option!) and will oddly meet the expectation and stay with you as it is strangely but sadely be somehow relevant today…and that itself is scary!

But that ending though…

PS: Yes THE WITCH meets WESTWORLD could work if you could describe it in 4 words!

[watchmanis216]

Foibles: Of Mice, Men, and Bunny Tracks

“The Heart of man is the greatest imposter and cheat in the world. God Himself states it, ‘the heart is deceitful above all things.’” Matthew Mead, Puritan Preacher 17th century London; Almost Christian Discovered

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The danger of any people is that in their blindness, they see perfectly. It is here between the morbidity of idiocy and the sheer determination of people to elude the truth that wars begin. Of most danger is that the America which was borne and bred out of the bloodshed of those Americans who cherished liberty from the heavy burden of government and the rule of tyrants shall once again be taken captive by the same evil which America broke free from. How shall a people stand if in the sway of political correctness and in the pride of their own souls, they do not see the enemy before them. For say they, I looked and wondered where be the enemy? But as I saw, so saw I that indeed, “We are the enemy”!

“But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation while it is practicing iniquity and extravagance and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candor, frankness, and sincerity, while it is rioting in rapine and insolence, this country will be the most miserable habitation in the world; because we have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” —John Adams, To the Officers of the First Brigade of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, 1798

Foibles: Of Mice, Men, and Bunny Tracks

Today in America we have Mice, some Men but not plenty, and as those in Washington and in the liberal press go about looking for enemies, the one they choose is Donald Trump. Along with him as a target is anyone who may have voted for him or have sympathized with him. While Islamic terrorism, open borders, and open immigration are not an enemy to these people, it proves that trying to protect America is viewed as an enemy.  Free elections, democracy, and giving someone a fair shake in the Presidency is also not in the cards for the liberals who funded by Soros and others continue their war.

The Mice are rats, or a better term maybe cockroaches that have gotten into the American system and have chosen to undermine the constitution and the American way of life. The so called Men in the picture are anyone with testosterone and the sexual anatomy that God originally gave them. And The Bunny tracks are those systemic failures of a people to really see what is ahead of them and the real enemy which lay in their future. In short, the recent election of Donald Trump which followed 8 years of the liberal, left leaning, communist and socialist agenda of Barack Obama has shown just how far down the proverbial rabbit hole of destruction we have fallen. For a people in America, we cannot see the truth for the mud of oblivion which is being launched by the left wing media types and the political hacks in DC.

Let me digress for a minute. As I thought on this article, I was sweeping up my sidewalk and driveway. It was one thing I could take care of today. After a horrid winter some time ago which killed off all our trees, we have now laid to rest all of them. The branches, twigs, and remnants still remain to some respect. We have more to cut and the yard is the worse it has looked since we moved here. The lawn was the best in the area, and it was here I did gardening and planting and busied myself with things I enjoyed to do. As I surveyed it, I know with work; it will come back. But as I did clean up this morning; America, DC politics, and the divide in this country is not something that can get fixed. I might add, much less do anything about it!

The forces dividing this nation have taken root and what is more the systemic problem here in this nation is one of God, faith, and repentance. Today we herald multi-culturalism, homosexuality, transgenderism, lesbianism, fornication, murder, and many other things that are the rule of the day. We have cast off Christianity and the one True God. In its place under Obama we have pushed Islam and actually saw an uptick in the attacks on Christians and their businesses who wanted to stand on the principles of their faith.

It is true here that we are a lawless people and really have not one clue as to what is right or wrong. At the beginning of this article I quoted 17th century preacher, Matthew Mead. The likes of this Puritan preacher would have been drawn and quartered if he was preaching in London today like he was back then. The riots from Muslims and Christians alike would be expansive as they battle the heretic Mead and his preaching. The same thing would happen in America if he came here to preach his message.

But as America has fallen headlong into lawlessness and the iniquity which it has embraced, the silence of the major churches, denominations, and Pastors are the loudest of all.  The preaching of the Gospel of Christ, the continuance of the Christian faith in America, and the freedom of practicing our faith are all in jeopardy today. The voices today do not call for repentance.

Instead they herald a cry for blood and vengeance over the election of Donald Trump. I have heard, seen, and read so many who openly called for Trumps assassination that this is truly unreal. Very few of those saying these things are ever taken to task for it. In fact, the thing to do is to threaten and aim such verbal assaults on Donald Trump.

I can hear the dismay of Michael Moore over Trumps election and his administration. Moore calls for his downfall and to put Hillary in his place; his voice which echo’s over the land can be heard and repeated by thousands of liberals who believe he is right.

On the heels of a New York Times story saying members of Republican President Donald Trump’s campaign had multiple interactions with senior Russian intelligence officials, Moore hopped on Facebook and wrote that it’s “what we all suspected. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what was going on: TRUMP COLLUDING WITH THE RUSSIANS TO THROW THE ELECTION TO HIM.” He then suggested that Hillary be put in his place. The Blaze

Moore is nuts, but the problem is; there are many just like him. Just as radical, and just a hateful. He just as soon as see America and her way life return to what he thinks is correct. That means liberal socialism, and not one conservative voice allowed to speak up.

Star Treker, George Takei took to the media to blast Trump as well. He views Trumps order to stop immigration like to the days when the Japanese in America were put into camps. This by far is the biggest stretch of imagination to date.  Today is nothing like World War 2; although George was young at the time and with his parents was put into a camp. But realize at the time the Japanese did bomb Pearl Harbor, Germany had pretty much ran all over Europe and the world by then.

At the time Americans literally feared a Japanese invasion.  You cannot judge history and what happened by just looking back. Even as a child Takei had no sense as to truth, all he saw was injustice.  But the situation is not even close to the same although Takei wishes to stretch the truth. In World War 2, the Japs were the cause of the problems. If anyone is to blame it is the Japanese and not America’s policies at the time. If the Japs had not of attacked, then there would have been no camps.

George Takei has taken out of context what happened in World War 2 and compares it to a limited 3 month immigration/refugee stay in order to see that those coming in are properly vetted.  Even Obama did this during his rule as President.

Takei said Trump signed his travel ban executive order just like President Franklin D. Roosevelt did with the Japanese internment order in the early 1940s, “with a broad brush characterizing one group of people as terrorists.” Trump in late January temporarily banned travelers from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering America — a measure that a federal judge later halted. Trump acted in the name of national security, much as Roosevelt did in 1942 when he authorized the relocation of several thousands of Japanese Americans into internment camps after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Takei said.

The issue here is that Muslims in the world are the terrorists and I can name you where Christian persecution exists and in many cases it is Islamic terrorism and war that causes it.  Although many times it is simply Islam which persecutes Christians, like in Pakistan, Indonesia, Sudan, Yemen, and other places.

At the Orange Coast College in Costa Mesa, student Caleb O’Neil recorded a video of a “human sexuality instructor telling a class that Republican President Donald Trump’s election was an act of terrorism”.  The fact that such an idiot of an instructor said this and was allowed to say it to students shows how liberal classrooms in California have gotten. O’Neil literally got suspended for taking the video. In fact, the student cannot get back in school until he meets with the dean of students.

Right now Trump’s White House is besieged with leaks and the Left wing media, democrats, and Trump haters all smell blood. They have successfully taken out Michael Flynn and have eyes on Steve Bannon, and others who work alongside Trump. Then they are determined to take down Trump with a mighty stroke.

The problem is Obama’s hold-overs that are in place.  These people are virulent, anti-capitalist, socialist leaning wackos that have not been ferreted out of the place.  

Obama and his loyalists, it seems, will remain in the center of the political fray, officially and unofficially, in an organized effort to undermine the Trump administration…the leaks are part of a larger, loosely organized effort now underway to preserve Obama’s legacy. This effort involves Obama-era officials still inside the federal government, former Obama staffers working in the private sector, and Obama himself.  Obama had eight years in the White House to secure his legacy. Any efforts on his part to undermine his successor aren’t just an affront to the principles of our democracy; they’re an admission that he and his acolytes never put much stock in democracy to begin with. The Federalist

Today the Foibles of those running DC, the government, the spy agencies, and the left leaning wacko newspapers can be seen everywhere. From specialized anti-Trump hit pieces to jumping on the issues that heralding Trumps possible downfall, the media has it covered. In fact, the worse besides ABC, CBS, NBS, MSNBC, CNN, and others is the MSN network and its own windows 10 app that covers the news. It is a minefield of Anti-Trump coverage and hit pieces. It is so bad I have stopped using it as much. They run and re-run old Anti-Trump news, and add to it.

The voices I have included in this piece are limited. There is enough out there to write several books on. To me, I will go back outside; clean up and make my world where I live a little cleaner and brighter place. I don’t expect America to change, or the churches to speak up, nor will the Pastors to do anything like really preach Holiness or the gospel. But I can change some things around me. But as for Washington DC, the Presidency has changed but Barack Obama, George Soros, and other liberals are in place in close proximity of DC politics. Nothing will change anytime soon and in fact things could get much worse.  Between the socialist types like Soros and Obama and the globalists, America as we know has no chance of being brought back from the dead. America is on life support and much to the chagrin of those watching, we can identify with the danger to our society and way of life.

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Shalom, until next time;

The Watchman Dana G Smith

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Are There Errors in the Bible? How to Treat the Bible?

By Zhang Ming

In my years of believing in the Lord, the status of the Bible was supreme and holy in my heart.

 Because it is written in it, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2Timothy 3:16). Then, I thought every word and sentence in the Bible was given by inspiration of God, so the Bible was absolutely reliable; there were not any errors in it, and it carried the highest authority. So I read it every day, treating it as a holy book, and even as God.

One day, however, when I carried out spiritual devotions, some scriptures attracted my great attention. When reading 2 Samuel 24:1 and 1 Chronicles 21:1, I found the two verses both record that David numbered the people, but their meanings vary greatly. 2 Samuel 24:1 records: “And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” But 1 Chronicles 21:1 records: “And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.” One verse says it was Jehovah God that moved David to number the people, but the other says it was Satan that provoked David to do that. Seeing this, I was suddenly confused: Why are there different records of the same thing in the Bible? What’s more, there is a great difference between them. Isn’t all scripture given by inspiration of God? How could there be errors in it? It couldn’t be. I kept studying the Scripture, only to find some errors in other records. For example, 2 Chronicles 36:9 records: “Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem: and he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD.” It says it was at eight years old that Jehoiachin began to reign, and he reigned three months and ten days; while in 2 Kings 24:8, it was at eighteen years old that he began to reign and he reigned three months. In addition, the words that the Lord Jesus said to Peter in New Testament also are different. Luke 22:61 records: “Before the cock crow, you shall deny me thrice.” But Mark 14:72 records: “Before the cock crow twice, you shall deny me thrice.” There is still another example. In Matthew 27:5 Judas hanged himself, but in Acts 1:18 he died with his body bursting open. Obviously, these verses show that there are errors in the accounts of the Bible. How could this be? The Bible is inspired by God! I was really puzzled: Could it be that the Bible isn’t inspired by the Holy Spirit? At the time, I was sunk in the deeper thought. Recalling the years when I had believed in the Lord, I always thought that all scripture was given by inspiration of God. So, I put it above all else, and I even saw it as a heavenly book, and a holy book. Today, if I hadn’t personally seen these by studying the Bible, I couldn’t have believed that there are so many deviations in it. How did this come about? In confusion, all I could do was pray to God: “Oh Lord, isn’t the Bible inspired by the Holy Spirit? Didn’t the Holy Spirit instruct people to write it? How can there be so many mistakes in it? Oh Lord, I am really confused with this. May You lead and guide me to understand the reason.”

One morning, when I was reading the Scripture, some verses caught my notice. It says, “For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us, Even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word; It seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things from the very first, to write to you in order, most excellent Theophilus, That you might know the certainty of those things, wherein you have been instructed” (Luke 1:1-4). I was truly astonished when reading those words. I read and re-read the verses repeatedly, “For as much as many have taken in hand to set forth … Even as they delivered them to us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses.” I suddenly understood: These epistles were recorded according to what the preachers said, not according to the authors’ personal experience. Then, how could there be no deviations in the Bible? The authors wrote the epistles based on what they had seen and heard, and on their own understanding and knowledge. How can those be on behalf of the inspiration of God? If all the scriptures really come from the inspiration of God just like the foretellings of prophets and the prophecies of Revelation, how come there are errors in them? Thank the Lord for leading me to know: Not all scripture is inspired by God. For example, the Four Gospels were written according to what the disciples had seen and heard, not according to the direct inspiration from God. The Acts, which records biographies of the Lord Jesus’ disciples who preached His word, is not the inspiration from God, either. I understood that most of the scriptures in the Bible were written by people who followed God according to their personal memories and others’ preaching to record what they had seen and heard during God’s work. Thus, it is no wonder that there are errors in it and it is mixed with human will.

My heart was heavy with this matter. For many years I had believed in the Lord, I never heard anyone in the entire religious world said the fact that there are deviations in the Bible. Now I saw that with my eyes, but I couldn’t be completely certain about that. So I continued seeking and often prayed to God, asking Him to lead me to find more bases so that I could understand it clearly. Thereupon, I sought in another spiritual book and I read these words, “Today, people believe the Bible is God, and that God is the Bible. So, too, do they believe that all the words of the Bible were the only words God spoke, and that they were all said by God. Those who believe in God even think that although all of the sixty-six books of the Old and New Testament were written by people, they were all given by inspiration of God, and a record of the utterances of the Holy Spirit. This is the erroneous interpretation of people, and it does not completely accord with the facts. In fact, apart from the books of prophecy, most of the Old Testament is historical record. Some of the epistles of the New Testament come from people’s experiences, and some come from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit; the Pauline epistles, for example, arose from the work of a man, they were all the result of the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment, and they were written for the churches, were words of exhortation and encouragement for the brothers and sisters of the churches. They were not words spoken by the Holy Spirit—Paul could not speak on behalf of the Holy Spirit, and neither was he a prophet, much less did he see visions. His epistles were written for the churches of Ephesus, Philadelphia, Galatia, and other churches. And thus, the Pauline epistles of the New Testament are epistles that Paul wrote for the churches, and not inspirations from the Holy Spirit, nor are they the direct utterances of the Holy Spirit. They are merely words of exhortation, comfort, and encouragement that he wrote for the churches during the course of his work. So, too, are they a record of much of Paul’s work at the time. … All he said that was edifying and positive to people was right, but it did not represent the utterances of the Holy Spirit, and he could not represent God. It is an egregious understanding, and a tremendous blasphemy, for people to treat the records of a man’s experiences and a man’s epistles as the words spoken by the Holy Spirit to the churches!” “If the Four Gospels all came from the Holy Spirit, then why was it that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each said something different about the work of Jesus? If you don’t believe this, then look at the accounts in the Bible of how Peter denied the Lord three times: They are all different, and they each have their own characteristics. … Carefully read the Four Gospels; read what they recorded about the things that Jesus did, and the words He spoke. Each account was, quite simply, different, and each had its own perspective. If what was written by the authors of these books all came from the Holy Spirit, then it should all be the same and consistent. Why then are there discrepancies? Is man not extremely foolish, to be unable to see this?” From these words, I understood that a part of the Bible was from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, but most of it came from people’s records. Because each person had his own experiences and understanding, moreover, the levels of their education and caliber were different, thus what they recorded was different and the deviations were unavoidable. For example, the Four Gospels all were the record of the work of the Lord Jesus, but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John each recorded differently, each with their own characteristics. So, the Four Gospels which were recorded by man should not all be regarded as the inspiration of God. Besides, the letters written by Paul, Peter, John and others arose from the work and experiences of man. Because of their burden toward the churches, they wrote letters to exhort and encourage the brothers and sisters of the churches. Although the epistles were edifying and helpful to man, we cannot treat them as the words spoken by the Holy Spirit. Only then was I really certain that not all scripture is given by inspiration of God. From this, I knew my past understanding was too erroneous.

Afterward, I read this passage in this spiritual book, “The Bible is a historical record of God’s work in Israel, and documents many of the foretellings of ancient prophets as well as some of the utterances of Jehovah in His work at that time. Thus, people all look upon this book as holy (for God is holy and great). Of course, this is all a result of their reverence for Jehovah and their adoration for God. People refer to this book in this way only because the creatures of God are so adoring of their Creator, and there are even those who call this book a heavenly book. In fact, it is merely a human record. It was not personally named by Jehovah, nor did Jehovah personally guide its creation. In other words, the author of this book is not God, but men. The Holy Bible is only the respectful title given to it by man. This title was not decided by Jehovah and Jesus after they had a discussion amongst each other; it is nothing more than a human idea. For this book was not written by Jehovah, much less by Jesus. Instead, it is the accounts of many ancient prophets, apostles, and seers, which were compiled by later generations into a book of ancient writings that, to people, seems especially holy, a book that they believe contains many unfathomable and profound mysteries that are waiting to be unlocked by future generations. As such, people are even more disposed to believe that this book is a heavenly book. With the addition of the Four Gospels and the Book of Revelation, people’s attitude toward it is particularly different from any other book, and thus no one dares to dissect this heavenly book—because it is too sacred.” From these words, I was even more certain that the author of the Bible is not God, but men; in other words, it wasn’t directly recorded by Jehovah God, much less by the Lord Jesus, but by those prophets, apostles and seers. The Holy Bible is merely the respectful title given to it by later generations, not out of God’s will. It’s only that we think it too holy and even treat it as a heavenly book.

Thinking back, the reason why I worshipped the Bible so much was just because I didn’t know the inside story of the Bible, and in my heart, I treated it as a heavenly book, and a holy book. Through seeking, I finally had an understanding of the inside story of the Bible and knew how to treat it correctly. In the Bible, the words of Jehovah and the Lord Jesus, the prophecies of Revelation and the words of God conveyed by prophets—these all are the words of God. With a heart that reveres God, we should treat these words cautiously and cannot be irreverent to them; what’s more, we should treat them as an important part of equipping ourselves at ordinary times. However, for other words like the historical records, the epistles of the apostles, the Psalms and the Proverbs, although some of them came from the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, yet they were not inspired by God. Therefore, we should treat them correctly. We cannot blindly worship them, nor treat the words of man in the Bible as the words of God, much less use the Bible to replace God’s place in our heart. Believing in God, we should neither worship the Bible blindly nor think that belief in the Bible is belief in God. Of course, we cannot despise it or deny its value just because of a little human will or the deviations. Although there are errors in the human records, yet the work God did is always true. The value of the Bible completely lies in its record of and testament to the first two stages of God’s work. From the Bible, we can know the utterances and deeds of God, and can have knowledge of the omnipotent wisdom with which He created and rules over everything, and it is very helpful for us to know God, follow and worship Him. But the words and work of God recorded in the Bible contain only a very limited portion, not all His words and work. Especially the words of Revelation that God inspired to John is what He will accomplish during His work in the last days, which isn’t recorded in the Bible. In order to hear the voice of God in the last days, we should seek God’s work and words outside of the Bible, instead of confining His work and words to the Bible. When treating the Bible correctly, we will be after God’s will, because it is God that we believe in, not the Bible. Only God is the truth, and the ever-flowing wellspring of living water of life. Only by closely following the footsteps of the Lamb can we gain God’s promise.

Thank God for guiding me and allowing me to have a new understanding of the Bible. I knew the Bible isn’t entirely inspired by God. Exactly, it is only a bridge to help us to know the work of Jehovah God and the Lord Jesus. The Bible cannot be mentioned in the same breath with God, nor be treated as God. Otherwise, it will be a great blasphemy against God. Thank the Lord for allowing me to walk free from the mistaken viewpoints and know how to treat the Bible correctly. All the glory be to God!