#he is a reflection of evangelical doctrine and american violence

[pespillo]

i need white toh fans who keep playfully saying Belos isnt racist, sexist or homophobic and "just hates witches" and implying hes actually progressive in any manner or that hes actually queer or some shit to shut the fuck up a little actually because its not that fucking funny or cute 😊

[pimaryblog240-blog]

Heritage or Hatred? How a Mountain in Georgia Has Split Public Opinion

Written by Steven Murray

The dialogue about what to do with confederate monuments found across various states in the USA has created a substantial rift in the social and political fabric of our society today. Those who oppose the existence of monuments and statues that portray key figures or carved and constructed snapshots of battles that occurred during the Civil War claim that the existence of these monuments glorify a dark time in the history of the United States where white supremacy reigned as the ultimate doctrine. These opponents support, and in some cases, demand the removal of what some consider to be historical landmarks in order to acknowledge the hatred and vitriol that these monuments represent. Another ideological camp exists in regard to this issue that claims that by removing such monuments, we are attempting to rewrite history or make disingenuous amends for the mistakes of others from the past. These proponents of keeping these statues and memorials standing say that by acknowledging their existence, we will always be faced with a remembrance of history in such a way that will translate to future generations understanding what the Civil War and the fight for the abolishment of slavery and equal rights for African Americans truly entailed. While these opposing views have staked their cultural and political claims on statues in metropolitan and urban areas primarily, the state of Georgia is faced with the decision about what to do in regard to a 400-foot-tall carving of Confederate generals that has been etched 42 feet deep into the side of a 15-million-year-old mountain face, known as Stone Mountain. 

 A closeup view of the carving itself. 

The New York Times recently covered a story that involved the gathering of 2,000 Evangelical Christians at the base of Stone Mountain in an attempt to “depoliticize and bring restoration and healing to [the mountain].” This congregation was led by Reverend Ferrel Brown, whose family has a deeply rooted history in the racial oppression and segregation of African Americans in the South. Brown descends from a confederate general who founded the Ku Klux Klan that wreaked havoc upon African Americans nationwide in an attempt to instill fear and a coerced understanding of supposed White supremacy. Brown met here with his congregation in an attempt to denounce his familial legacy and bring about healing to a place that the New York Times refers to as a “carving [that] is explicitly protected by state law, and is the centerpiece of Georgia’s most visited tourist attraction…[that was officially] opened to the public on…the hundredth anniversary of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.” 

In a state that has desperately attempted to rebrand and rebuild itself in the wake of a vast history of racial violence and oppression, local Georgians like Brown are “impatient to turn the page.” However, this sentiment is not shared by all residents of Georgia. 

The Smithsonian writes that a Democratic candidate for Governor of Georgia, named Stacy Abrams, tweeted that “…the visible image of Stone Mountain’s edifice remains a blight on our state and should be removed”. This public denouncement of Stone Mountain by a key figure in Georgia is historically at odds with the arguments of those who supported the Confederacy during the Civil War. The same Smithsonian piece cites a statement from 1914 by John Temple Graves of the “Atlanta Georgian”, which reads, “Just now, while the loyal devotion of this great people of the South is considering a general and enduring monument to the great cause ‘fought without shame and lost without dishonor,’ it seems to me that nature and Providence have set the immortal shrine right at our doors.” This same writer had also written that "the negro is a thing of the senses…[and] must be restrained by the terror of the senses.” Brian Kemp, candidate for the position of Governor in Georgia made a statement cited in the New York Times where he said that Stone Mountain must be “[protected] from the radical left” and that “We should learn from the past – not attempt to rewrite it.” Regardless of the intentions or motivations for rallying for the removal or maintaining of the carving in Stone Mountain, the fact that is this particular piece of Confederate memorabilia maintains a certain scale and magnitude that would make its removal or alteration an undertaking that would be vastly more complicated than the removal of other such memorials in other locations. 

 A picture showcasing the size and scale of the memorial. 

AJC writes that the removal of the monument is unlikely due to state laws and the financial constraints that it would bring to the overall project. However, the writer consulted with geologists who were asked to put their political views aside to objectively examine whether or not it would even be possible to remove this carving. AJC discusses how Ben Bentkowski, president of the Atlanta Geological Society, said that “removing a gigantic sculpture off the side of a mountain is not a trivial undertaking”, however, he and other geologists have claimed that “removing it is an achievable, if costly, engineering feat.” This same piece outlines how the use of explosives would be the quickest and most efficient way to tackle the huge undertaking. Regardless of the economic and engineering feasibility of the removal of the Stone Mountain monument, there still remains a debate as to whether it should even be removed at all. 

The Guardian quotes Michael Thurmond, an African American board member of the Stone Mountain Parks, as saying, “ “[The carving] presents an opportunity to teach this generation and the next generation how movements based on racism, based on bias and prejudice are ultimately defeated.” Thurmond’s stance is that the monument should remain intact in order to teach about the history surrounding racism and the motivations for the Civil War. The Guardian continued on to quote a visitor to Stone Mountain whose great-grandfather had fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War, as she asked "What’s the point? Someone spent a lot of time. It’s an artistic piece. So I don’t see the point in making a big deal out of it.” 

 A snapshot of the 2018 National Confederate Memorial Day meeting at the base of Stone Mountain. 

Historian Joseph Crepino, professor at Emory University denounced the monument in the Guardian piece and provided yet another perspective to this ever-complicated issue of Confederate monuments. “As a historian, I’d like to see it preserved as a historical artifact, so that future generations can remember how deluded older generations were. And how different the past has been,“ says Crepino, who also stated that he’d like to see a change in state law immediately that would allow for the removal of the Stone Mountain memorial.

So where should the country stand on this issue? Should we all take an objective stance against the doctrine of racism espoused by the individuals who erected this monument by removing it from existence entirely? Should it be relocated and preserved in a museum where residents of Georgia and abroad can visit to bear witness to the deluded deception and tribal groupthink that allowed for its construction in the first place? Or, should it remain untouched and acknowledged as a representation of history that would otherwise be impossible to remove due to its scale and size? These questions pose many intricate problems that should be confronted and dealt with immediately.

However, it is this writer’s opinion that physical representations of the doctrine of the Confederacy in the Southern United States should in no way, shape, or form be kept in such an overtly public space where they can be misinterpreted as symbols of the preservation of hatred and violence in America today.

The Gubernatorial candidate Stacy Abrams who was referenced earlier in this piece who called for the removal this monument has been urged by other political figures in Georgia to back off of her concerted stance against Confederate monuments. She has since been quoted as saying that it is no longer an issue that is at the forefront of her campaign. The New York Times quotes former Democratic lieutenant governor Mark Taylora as saying that "It is not a good issue for democratic candidates.” It is in my opinion that this type of thinking is reflective of the problems that we face in regard to political action when cultural issues such as this are at stake. The removal of the monument at Stone Mountain shouldn’t be a political talking point that is deployed in the hopes of garnering votes, but it should be a key issue in the development of dialogue that questions what kind of society the United States wishes to be. In order to firmly establish and reinstate ourselves as a nation of freedom, unity, and empathy, the monument of Stone Mountain should be removed from its location immediately. Whether it should be completely destroyed or preserved in a museum remains to be established. And besides, this is not the issue that should even be at the forefront of this discussion. Before Georgia decides what do with the remains of the monument, we should unite as a nation and urge, or perhaps even demand that this monument be taken down from the mountain face found in The Stone Mountain Park in Georgia effective immediately. 

A photoshopped picture of Outkast replacing the Confederate generals, as posted by a clever Reddit user. 

[glittergummicandypeach]

In the Name of the Father, Son, and Q: Why It’s Important to See QAnon as a ‘Hyper-Real’ Religion | Religion Dispatches

In a May 13th article published in The Atlantic, Adrienne LaFrance offers her readers a deep dive into the QAnon movement. The article argues that when surveying QAnon, we’re not only examining a conspiracy theory, we’re observing the birth of a new religion. LaFrance underscores this argument by highlighting the apocalypticism found in QAnon; its clear-cut dualism between the forces of good and evil; the study and analysis of Qdrops as sacred texts, and the divine mystery of Q. 

Following the mass suicide of the Peoples Temple in Jonestown in 1978, historian Jonathan Z. Smith wrote an essay locating the study and definition of religion within an academic context, where he highlights that “almost no attempt was made to gain any interpretative framework” of what occurred at Jonestown by academics. Adrienne LaFrance’s article on QAnon makes clear that the movement and its believers demand to be taken seriously. Her piece acts as a springboard to ask the question: Can QAnon be considered a religion? 

Though many enjoy mocking the QAnon conspiracy theories and those who profit from them, it’s important to note that the movement’s adherents firmly believe in the theories—even to the detriment of their families and communities. Therefore, in an effort to avoid the mistakes of the past and to better understand the movement as it continues to grow and evolve, I suggest that we view QAnon as a “hyper-real religion.” Sociologist Adam Possamai, who coined the term, defines it as “a simulacrum of a religion created out of, or in symbiosis with, commodified popular culture which provides inspiration at a metaphorical level and/or is a source of beliefs for everyday life.” Or, to put it more simply, a religion with a strong connection to pop culture. Based on Jean Baudrillard’s work on hyper-reality and simulations, hyper-real religion is based on the premise that pop culture shapes and creates our actual reality, with examples including, but not limited to: Heaven’s Gate, Church of All Worlds, Jediism, etc. As a movement in a constant state of mutation, QAnon clearly blurs the boundaries between popular culture and everyday life.

What this means is that technology and the marketplace of ideas have inverted the traditional relationship between the purveyors of religion and the consumers of religion. Thus, we see religious doctrinal authority (that is, those who can contribute to the religion’s teaching) being created by popular culture. 

For example, the QAnon cosmology (how the world/universe appears; what it looks like; its characteristics, and types of creatures that populate it) and anthropology (ideas about human beings, their origin and destiny) are rooted in conspiracy theories, historical facts, and mythical history from film and popular culture. As such, Terry Gilliam’ Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is recommended by QAnon followers as evidence of the effects of Adrenochrome; The Matrix’s blue pill/red pill scene is used to frame the choice to either be a part of the Great Awakening or to remain “asleep”; and the slogan “Where We Go One, We Go All” is from the film White Squall, whose official YouTube trailer’s comments section is filled with QAnon followers (the top-rated comment, with over 5,000 up-votes, reads “Thumbs up if Q sent you here”). The prophetic figure of the movement, known only as ‘Q’ , also regularly references movies in their QDrops, as demonstrated from the screenshots below:

The QAnon theology (conceptions of the sacred, gods, spirits, demons, the ancestors, culture heroes and/or other superhuman agents) is rooted in American evangelicalism and neo-charismatic movements developed in the 1970s and 1980s—specifically theology involving a worldwide cabal that controlled governments and aimed to control the freedoms of people through technology, medicine, and liberalism. For example, QAnon reworked elements of the Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) panic (aka “satanic panic”)that originated in the U.S. in the 80s. SRA was the belief that a global network of elites was breeding and kidnapping children for the purposes of pornography, sex trafficking, and Satanic ritual sacrifice. 

Furthermore, QAnon adopts the language of spiritual warfare found in many neo-charismatic movements. Based on some of the data analytics work I’ve done, Ephesians 6:11-18 is the most shared verse among QAnon adherents. Given the verse’s apparent condemnation of governments, the reaction of QAnon to the pandemic is rooted in the language of spiritual warfare, especially when addressing conspiracy theories surrounding 5G, ID2020, Bill Gates and vaccines, HR 6666, etc. Since the start of the pandemic, QAnon have spread a false racist theory that Asians were more susceptible to the coronavirus and that white people were immune to COVID-19; they’ve promoted drinking bleach to cure the virus; that COVID-19 is a Chinese bioweapon and that the virus release was a joint venture between China and the Democrats to stop Trump’s re-election by destroying the economy. If that weren’t enough, they also played a key role in promoting the Plandemic video and the ObamaGate and #FilmYourHospital hashtag; and forced Oprah Winfrey and Hilary Duff to come out with statements declaring that they are not pedophiles.

When taking into account how much neo-charismatics, American evangelicalism, theological conspiracy theories, and spiritual warfare is influenced by the distrust of the everyday reality as being false (with their reality being ‘true’), one could make the argument that QAnon theology is not only influenced by pop culture, but is in fact, deeply rooted in the conception of the sacred within a hyper-real world.  

Some might argue that a hyper-real religion isn’t a “real” religion because it’s invented, but scholars of religion don’t validate or discredit claims of what constitutes ‘true’ religion, because it’s true to the people we study. As a scholar of religion I study what people do when dealing with the sacred, rather than try to validate the religious message or experience. What people do when dealing with the sacred is routinized over time as believers construct their religion. All religions, hyper-real ones included, are socially constructed and are thus invented. QAnon is blatantly invented as it openly uses works of popular culture, media, entertainment, American evangelicalism and conspiracy theories at its basis, that have been organically developed across time and space by a community of believers. Belief in QAnon reflects a created hyper-real world based on such theories. 

This is unsurprising, as Travis View stated on PBS’s The Open Mind “we’re living in an age where conspiracy theories are promoted at the highest levels of power, when it wasn’t that long ago conspiracy theories were the pastime of the powerless.” Similarly in 2018, Joseph Uscinski stated that QAnon is different from normal conspiracy theories. “Conspiracy theories are for losers,” he told the Daily Beast’s Will Sommer, “you don’t expect the winning party to use them.” 

By framing QAnon as a hyper-real religion, it can offer insight into the confusion that people feel when discussing the movement, which is critical for observers, scholars, and decision-makers who need to take QAnon seriously. The past months have highlighted how QAnon is a public health threat, a threat to national security, and a threat to democratic institutions.

The essence of conspiracy beliefs like QAnon lies in the attempts to delineate and explain evil; it’s about theodicy, not secular evidence. QAnon offers comfort in an uncertain—and unprecedented—age as the movement crowdsources answers to the inexplicable. QAnon becomes the master narrative capable of simply explaining various complex events and providing solace for modern problems: a pandemic, economic uncertainty, political polarization, war, child abuse, etc. 

The result is a worldview characterized by a sharp distinction between the realms of good and evil. The movement accomplishes this by purporting to be empirically relevant. That is, they claim that QDrops are testable by the accumulation of evidence about the observable world in fighting evil. Those who subscribe to QDrops are presented with elaborate productions of evidence in order to substantiate QAnon’s claims, including source citation and other academic techniques. 

However, their quest for decoding QDrops masks a deeper concern: the more sweeping a conspiracy theory’s claims, the less relevant evidence becomes—notwithstanding the insistence that QAnon is empirically sound. At its heart, QAnon is non-falsifiable. No matter how much evidence journalists, academics, and civil society offer as a counter to the claims promoted by the movement, belief in QAnon as the source of truth is a matter of faith rather than proof.

Therefore, rather than ask questions like, How can people believe in QAnon when so many of its claims fly in the face of facts?, we should instead ask What are QAnoners doing with their belief system? QAnon believers have committed acts of violence in response to QAnon conspiracy theories. Elected officials or those campaigning for elected office have campaigned on QAnon. Those studying and combating the movement need to move beyond viewing it as a mere conspiracy theory; QAnon has grown beyond that. We are, as Adrienne LaFrance asserted, witnessing the birth of a religious movement. QAnon as a belief system only appears to be dependent on Donald Trump’s presidency and his ability to remain in power. Whether we will be speaking of future or former President Trump, the person known as Q will likely fuel the movement for a long time to come. Q will continue to claim special insights, knowledge, and frame things for their followers in terms of their enemies’ alleged ambitions. 

If Donald Trump wins in November, QAnon will be vindicated in their beliefs and say this is what God has mandated, reinforcing the belief that they are right. If Trump loses, it will be attributed to the Deep State Luciferian cabal and they will have a role to play in fighting against the fake government that’s replaced Donald Trump. 

QAnon has become a hermeneutical lens through which to interpret the world. Already we’ve seen a formalized QAnon religion at Omega Kingdom Ministries (OKM). OKM is part of a network of independent congregations (or ekklesia) called Home Congregations Worldwide (HCW). The organization’s spiritual adviser is Mark Taylor, a self-proclaimed “Trump Prophet” and QAnon influencer with a large social media following on Twitter and YouTube. At OKM, QAnon is a hermeneutic by which the Bible is interpreted; and the Bible, in turn, serves as an interpretive lens for QAnon. Furthermore, QAnon is built into their evangelical Christian rituals. OKM may be a sign for what’s to come in terms of QAnon’s proximity to evangelical and neo-charismatic movements in the U.S.

In categorizing QAnon as a hyper-real religion rather than a decentralized grouping of conspiracy theorists, it provides an analytical framework to quantify and qualify QAnon-inspired acts of violence as ideologically motivated violent extremism. Furthermore, there’s an increasing overlap between QAnon and the far-right/Patriot movements on Telegram, a messaging app that has attracted extremists because due to its privacy protections. From the perspective of national security, we need to be prepared for more acts of violence by QAnon believers as it’s proven to be a catalyst for radicalization to violence, terrorism and murder.

By considering QAnon as a hyper-real religion, it becomes possible to frame how QAnon has found resonance not only within the American electoral system, but with populists around the globe. This is especially important not only in the context of elections, but also when framing the global response to the pandemic and public health. Policy makers at all levels need to take the QAnon ideology seriously when planning strategies to mitigate the spread of the novel coronavirus.

QAnon may not be a recognized religion, a tax exempt 501c3 institution, or the kind of traditional brick-and-mortar religion most are familiar with. However, by framing QAnon as a religion—in particular, a hyper-real religion—we create a framework that helps us better study, report and understand QAnon. More importantly, it demonstrates that the movement needs to be taken seriously and has the socio-political and behavioral impacts that other religions have. In doing so, it provides a pathway to protecting our societies and institutions from the public health, democratic, and national security threat that QAnon potentially poses.

This content was originally published here.

[ramrodd]

Is the Christian Bible correct?

Quora Moderation has censored this commentary for offending their IT sensibilities and questioning their collective omniscence

COMMENTARY:

Additional Dialogue with Ross Whittle

Nope. There is nothing about the bible that is correct. It is a collection of ancient myths. Some people, such as yourself, are desperate to cling to faith, and thus take outrageous leaps to overlook this and find some truth- in your case “perceptive doctrine’. from this, It seems you take something you believe is good- capitalisms- and then interpret something ELSE you like- the bible- to reflect that. The fact the Jesus teachings are far more socialist than capitolist is irrelevant to you. You will see things as you wish them to be.

When confronted with this, you will retreat to another typical Theist trope- you will ignore answers that contradict you, and simply re-ask the question as if it has not been asked.

I’ve outlined a few of the multitude of instances where the bible reflects huge immorality. You simply display a total LACK of morality, so I understand you cannot comprehend this. Perhaps if it had been YOUR family killed in a religiously inspired massacre, you might feel differently.

I don’t agree there IS a “perspective doctrine” as you outlined- it seems a complete distortion of what little in the bible might be redeemable- it, for instance, in no way reflects “do unto others.

You are example of someone who can be completely without morals while claiming morality, so you are a living embodiment of my claim.

Tom Wilson: Well, unlike you and Dick Harfield, I’m not making any moral claims for myself: I’m not in a position to judge. Nor do I claim to be a person of faith: I know The One and have had a working relationship with the Holy Spirit since 1954.

Knowledge and faith are not the same same thing.

You haven’t confronted me with anything novel nor enlightening. As I have said from the get-go, I get the gist of your complaint, which you have just recapitulated on the basis that you expect to be able to beat me into submission with your puny dialectic, and I’m bored with it.

The Bible is divine literature. It’s complexity is infinite and, like the Lotus, blossoms eternallly to the humble pilgrim, but is manifestly unavailable to those who refuse to submit to its pulse.

As far as holocaust, I know what that is. I’m an Army brat. I lived in Europe as a child at a time in Germany just past the moment when a loaf of bread could get you a blowjob in Berlin. I’ve been to Hitler’s bunker in East Berlin when the godless commie cocksuckers were in charge and I’ve been to their magnicent cemetary for the Soviet cucumbers who died taking Berlin. It’s a vast park, like something out of the English estates of Downton Abbey, only emphasizing the the horizon with a huge sculture of Yaweh, Queen of Battle rising from a small hill that rises above the tree line. The Soviets call her “Rodino” or “Mother Russia” but she is the feminine aspect of The One described in Revelation 4.2. It’s one of the secrets of the Torah, the actual ontology of God abiding in the narrative.

The cemetary had a long, broad Paris-style side walk up to the sculpture and on the right were 10 or 12 mass graves that held 10,000 soviet soldiers as I remember. I’ve been to Verdun where one of the memorials is a marble shelter 25 - 30 metres long that keeps the elements from a row of rifles with bayonets sticking out of the ground, waiting for the signal to go over the top and unto the attack when the trench collapsed on the soldiers who were issued those rifles. “To Keep and To Bear” means something to me so outside your prissy little League of Nations existence that it may as well be a Sanskrit quotation at the beginning of a T. S. Eliot play about cats.

“Pearls before swine” comes to mind with every sentence of every one of your responses. If I wasn’t satisfied with writing for my own amusement, I wouldn’t waste my time in your useless attempts at resembling critical thinking and dialectical competence.

The fact that you are appalled at the slaughter in the bible means that you accept the historicity of the Bible and, consequently, the existence of The One. I was raised to matriculate at the US Army Command and General Staff College in the fullness of time, beginning in 1952. Since then, I’ve been to Verdun and Vietnam. If I had stayed in the Army and retired as a general, I would have caused 100,000 casualties learning my trade. Killing is an essential element of the Clauswitz Paradox.

Jesus. of the Gospel of Mark, provides the Christian model for the sworn servant leader of the American republic and Cornelius, the centurion featured in Acts X, provides the Roman model for the sworn servant leader of the American republic.

The centurion is not a myth. S/he represents a profound military innovation that became an essential element of the trajectory of the Roman empire for 500 years. The difference between Real Warfare and True Warfare is the difference between the Samurai and the Centurion. The Samurai is. literally, a creature of the mythos while the Centurion is a creature of the rule of law.

I was raised by centurions to be a centurion. It was a conscious aspiration of mine as a vision quest from 1962 until I got to Vietnam in 1970.

I was confirmed as a Christian in the Chapel of the Centurion at about the same time, 1962 or so, but I already had a working relationship with the Holy Spirit before that moment. I literally saw myself preparing to go forth as a knight in the white armor of the Crusade marching as to war. As I say, I have knowledge of the one, and, at the same time, I developed a deep faith in the training I was getting as a soldier from ROTC until Jungle Training in Panama before.

In Vietnam, I was confronted by an existential dilemma that required me to make a choice between continuing to believe in myself or in the US Army. It was a no brainer. I lost faith in myself. I still knew Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but not in my own moral compass. So, I left the Army.

So, all your representations of moral superiority are totally wasted on me, no matter how secure you may feel in Bart Ehrman’s apostasy. My opinion is that his whole “Born Again” conceit was phony from the get-go: he just did it high school because all the popular girls were doing it and he wants to be popular. And he built a career as an Evangelical pastor flogging the Pro-Life heresy until he went to Princeton and met Dale Martin, a gay Christian professor who flirts with apostasy because it makes his New Testament History and Literature course at Yale popular and Bart realized he could be even more popular at Chapel Hill by going full apostate and it’s working as well as Jared Kushner’s crypto-Nazi business plan he acquired from Robert Murdoch.

And you’re just another mongrel baying in that ant-theist evangelical imperative. I’m not writing for you. I am witnessing for combat veterans totally mystified by what they have discovered about the American civilian culture since they left the spiritually cloistered cacoon of the infantry squad. They are coming from an ecology where the violence of the Bible was part of their job description to an environment dominated by people like you and the IT folks in Quora Moderation whose entire concept of the violence in the Bible is circumscribed by the boundaries of video games defined by the League of Justice and Gal Gadot.

The Book of Job, the oldest book in the Bible, establishes the reality that you cannot unknow God once you have encounted God. That’s why my opinion is that Bart Ehrman is a phony: he either never has encountered God in his “Born Again” mode or did and has found it profitable to deny God.

Free Will isn’t just a theological construct: it is structural to the human psyche. God cannot violate individual sovereignty, morally (that is, intellectually): the individual must voluntarily expand his or her boundaries beyond the personal wisdom, which is to say, beyond the finite horizon of trust into the mind of God.

The whole purpose of the Bible is enlarge the population of humanity which has exercised their personal Free Will to come to know The One. The only unforgivable sin is to deny the Holy Spirit because it is a sin against the self, a form of suicide, to not embrace the personal responsiblility for their own Free Will and project their intellectual boundaries beyond the box of needless ignorance and frightened atheism.

I first read Marx in 1962, when I was 15, on the basis that it is essential to understand your enemy. As a prospective career Army officer like Alexander Vindman, the Soviets were my enemy and I read Marx to learn how to strike to kill the enemy, like the mongoose studies the cobra. So, when someone like you is determined to display his ignorance of the economics of the Bible as a dialectical gambit, it’s usually not worth the effort to help you lift the burden of your ignorance. I mean, the only difference between a Bernie Sanders groupie and a MAGA hat forever Trumper is the object of their affections.

Marxism is based on the same fallacy as the 18th Amendment. Our entire strategy in Vietnam was based on this fatal flaw in the Soviet system. Because of Vietnam, the Soviet Union no longer exists.

However, it is important to understand that Vietnam came down to a contest between Marxism and the Harvard Business Model and Marxism won precisely because people like Robert MacNamara agreed with your economic model.

Currently, Donald John Trump* is running America the way Robert MacNamara ran Vietnam. Strictly speaking, there is no one in the Old Testament like Donald John Trump*. King David comes close, but all those oriental despots were the law: Donald John Trump* just operates above the law, the basis of his lie, cheat and steal “Art of the Deal” crime family business model. He is trying hard to become the law, like an oriental despot, or Stalin. with the help of Moscow Mitch and Bill Barr, but he, Donald John Trump*, isn’t an oriental despot of the Old Testament.

He is more like Nero in the context of the New Testament. Cornelius, the centurion featured in Acts X, was part of the Xth Legion stationed in Caesarea that participated in the investment and reduction of Jerusalem anticipated by Revelation. Our annual calendar is based on this existentially certain moment which anchors events around 70 because the number is numerologically significant figure of speech in the literature of the BIble. According to Richard Carrier. the dates on all your checks are based on mytholog, because the year 70 wouldn’t exist if the Cross hadn’t happened in 33 and the Cross in 33 wouldn’t have become a pivotal moment in history if the Romans had not been witness to the moment of Resurrection. The Gospel According to Mark is a military report from the front in Palestine to the Emperor in Rome, via Theophilus in the Preaetorian Guard, based on contemporary intelligence records and the debriefing of Peter from inside the Jesus insurgency, aka “the Christians”, Roman soldier slang for the Jewish cult that emerged from the Resurrection.

It isn’t so much that your dialectic produces a puny argument: it’s that your anti-theism requires a willing suspension of disbelief Job was totally incapable of attaining and, if Job, who was Righteousness, itself, couldn’t do it, who am I to attempt the same self-delusion.

I make no claims of morality. The purpose of the Bible is epistemological and the purpose of epistemology is moral clarity.

I’ll settle for that.

*(impeached)

[pope-francis-quotes]

9th September >> Pope Francis' Complete Homily during the celebration of Holy Mass in Medellín today. Dear Brothers and Sisters, During the Mass on Thursday in Bogotá, we heard Jesus calling his first disciples; the part of Luke’s Gospel which opens with this passage, concludes with the call of the Twelve. What are the evangelists reminding us of between these two events? That this journey of following Jesus involved a great work of purification in his first followers. Some of the precepts, prohibitions and mandates made them feel secure; fulfilling certain practices and rites dispensed them from the uncomfortable question: “What would God like us to do?” The Lord Jesus tells them that their fulfilment involves following him, and that this journey will make them encounter lepers, paralytics and sinners. These realities demand much more than a formula, an established norm. The disciples learned that following Jesus presupposes other priorities, other considerations in order to serve God. For the Lord, as also for the first community, it is of the greatest importance that we who call ourselves disciples not cling to a certain style or to particular practices that cause us to be more like some Pharisees than like Jesus. Jesus’ freedom contrasts with the lack of freedom seen in the doctors of the law of that time, who were paralyzed by a rigorous interpretation and practice of that law. Jesus does not live according to a superficially “correct” observance; he brings the law to its fullness. This is what he wants for us, to follow him in such a way as to go to what is essential, to be renewed, and to get involved. These are three attitudes that must form our lives as disciples. Firstly, going to what is essential. This does not mean “breaking with everything” that does not suit us, because Jesus did not come “to abolish the law, but to fulfil it” (Mt 5:17); it means to go deep, to what matters and has value for life. Jesus teaches that being in relationship with God cannot be a cold attachment to norms and laws, nor the observance of some outward actions that do not lead to a real change of life. Neither can our discipleship simply be motivated by custom because we have a baptismal certificate. Discipleship must begin with a living experience of God and his love. It is not something static, but a continuous movement towards Christ; it is not simply the fidelity to making a doctrine explicit, but rather the experience of the Lord’s living, kindly and active presence, an ongoing formation by listening to his word. And this word, we have heard, makes itself known to us in the concrete needs of our brothers and sisters: the hunger of those nearest to us in the text just proclaimed, or illness as Luke narrates afterwards. Secondly, being renewed. As Jesus “shook” the doctors of the law to break them free of their rigidity, now also the Church is “shaken” by the Spirit in order to lay aside comforts and attachments. We should not be afraid of renewal. The Church always needs renewal – Ecclesia semper reformanda. She does not renew herself on her own whim, but rather does so “firm in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel” (Col 1:23). Renewal entails sacrifice and courage, not so that we can consider ourselves superior or flawless, but rather to respond better to the Lord’s call. The Lord of the Sabbath, the reason for our commandments and prescriptions, invites us to reflect on regulations when our following him is at stake; when his open wounds and his cries of hunger and thirst for justice call out to us and demand new responses. In Colombia there are many situations where disciples must embrace Jesus’ way of life, particularly love transformed into acts of non-violence, reconciliation and peace. Thirdly, getting involved. Even if it may seem that you are getting yourself dirty or stained, get involved. Like David and those with him who entered the Temple because they were hungry and the disciples of Jesus who ate ears of grain in the field, so also today we are called upon to be brave, to have that evangelical courage which springs from knowing that there are many who are hungry, who hunger for God, who hunger for dignity, because they have been deprived. As Christians, help them to be satiated by God; do not impede them or stop this encounter. We cannot be Christians who continually put up “do not enter” signs, nor can we consider that this space is mine or yours alone, or that we can claim ownership of something that is absolutely not ours. The Church is not ours, she is God’s; he is the owner of the temple and the field; everyone has a place, everyone is invited to find here, and among us, his or her nourishment. We are simple servants (cf. Col 1:23) and we cannot prevent this encounter. On the contrary, Jesus tells us, as he told his disciples: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16); this is our service. Saint Peter Claver understood this well, he whom we celebrate today in the liturgy and whom I will venerate tomorrow in Cartagena. “Slave of the blacks forever” was the motto of his life, because he understood, as a disciple of Jesus, that he could not remain indifferent to the suffering of the most helpless and mistreated of his time, and that he had to do something to alleviate their suffering. Brothers and sisters, the Church in Colombia is called to commit itself, with greater boldness, to forming missionary disciples, as the Bishops stated when they were gathered in Aparecida in 2007. Disciples who know how to see, judge and act, as stated in that Latin-American document born in this land (cf. Medellín, 1968). Missionary disciples that know how to see, without hereditary short-sightedness; looking at reality with the eyes and heart of Jesus, and only then judging. Disciples who risk, act, and commit themselves. I have come here precisely to confirm you in the faith and hope of the Gospel. Remain steadfast and free in Christ, in such a way that you manifest him in everything you do; take up the path of Jesus with all your strength, know him, allow yourselves to be called and taught by him, and proclaim him with great joy. Let us pray through the intercession of Our Mother, Our Lady of Candelaria, that she may accompany us on our path of discipleship, so that, giving our lives to Christ, we may simply be missionaries who bring the light and joy of the Gospel to all people.

[devinsena]

Christian Voters Need To Value Human Life

The pro-life cause has long valued its allies in American Evangelicalism. However, the political philosophy of some within the Southern Baptist denomination may alter the long-existing alliance between the pro-life movement and Southern Baptist voters.

Thomas Littleton, a pastor and investigative reporter, recently shed light on a little-noticed event at the Southern Baptist Convention in June of 2018, noting the event’s importance regarding the protection of the preborn.  

Sharing the stage were Mark Dever and Jonathan Leeman. Dever is the founder of 9MARKS and the pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. According to its website:

“9Marks exists to equip church leaders with a biblical vision and practical resources for displaying God’s glory to the nations through healthy churches.”

Jonathan Leeman is the editorial director for 9MARKS and an elder at Cheverly Baptist Church, located in suburban Washington, D.C. He is also the author of a new book, How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age. This book was the subject of the 9MARKS event. The concerning comments and views communicated during this event are the subject of this article and will be expounded upon below.

Before proceeding, however, it is important to note that Jonathan Leeman earned a master’s degree in Political Philosophy from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), a “democratic socialist” institution founded in 1895 by Fabian Socialists to advance the societal goals of The Fabian Society.

What is The Fabian Society?

Founded in England in 1884, “the Fabian Society was named after the Roman general Quintus Fabius Maximus who used tactics of attrition and delay (what we might now call guerrilla tactics) rather than direct military confrontation to defeat the enemy. Thus one might describe the tactics of the Fabian Society as one of ‘intellectual guerrilla warfare’ against free market societies.”

In 1910, the Irish playwright and political activist, George Bernard Shaw, designed what is known as the “Fabian Window,” which depicts the founding members of The Fabian Society, along with several other prominent Fabians, molding a “new world.”

One feature of the Fabian Window illustrates the nature The Fabians:

“The window explicitly reflects the goal of the Fabian Society to portray an outward role contrary to its real character, i.e. to use deception in pursuing its ultimate aim. Specifically, a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing is the image which appears in the shield above the world being wrought in the Fabian mold. This biblical reference comes from the New Testament and a sermon by Jesus warning that false prophets come in sheep's clothing, but are actually ravening wolves. Authors such as G. Edward Griffin, in his book The Creature from Jekyll Island, have given voice to the reality that this shield image highlights the distinguishing feature of the Fabians as compared to the communists, in that the Fabians desire to create a socialist state using subversive tactics, as opposed to the communist method of revolution and violence,” (emphasis mine).

The “Third Way”

To bring about “the new world,” Fabians have often advocated for the introduction of “economic planning, public ownership, and economic equality of socialism” into public policy, marketing such efforts as a pursuit of a new, “liberal democracy reconstructed into a benign and democratic socialism, a "third way" between communism and capitalism,” (emphasis mine).

According to the Fabian Society (1):

“The Third Way is the route to renewal and success for modern social democracy.”

According to the Fraser Institute, because developed nations now spend a significant amount of annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on entitlements, far more than previous generations, “it is now far more difficult politically for governments to increase (especially direct) taxes to finance additional expenditures on social programs. This reality has led to the explicit pursuit of the middle-class voter by centre-left politicians and parties.”

Thus, “the strategy underlying the Third Way movement may be viewed as an astute political marketing response to a decline in traditional class loyalties and, consequently, traditional partisan loyalties.”

The Fabian Society, Eugenics and Abortion

Additionally, the Fabian Society has a history of supporting eugenics:

“The Fabian Society, founded in 1884 to advance the cause of democratic socialism in England, saw scientifically driven reproduction and socialism as complementary doctrines. Under the current capitalist system, they reasoned, humans were divided up into segregated classes with little to no reproductive interaction. Such a social arrangement was an obstacle to human evolutionary progress, as it prevented the genetic front-runners in each class from combining forces. Socialism, by eliminating material inequality and class prejudice, was the royal road to a utopian, genetically enhanced future for all. English biologist Julian Huxley championed selective breeding as a way to prepare humanity for the advent of a pacifist-socialist world state in which the capitalist vices of selfishness and greed would be bred out of human DNA.”

In fact, “[a] co-founder of the Fabian Society, Havelock Ellis, was also president of the Eugenics Education Society and the mentor of Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America,” (emphasis mine).

2018 Southern Baptist Conference

Spring boarding off of the title of Jonathan Leeman’s new book (How the Nations Rage: Rethinking Faith and Politics in a Divided Age), the politics-centered 9MARKS event at the 2018 Southern Baptist Conference was entitled, “Nations Raging, Church Unchanging.” The event was structured as a Q&A discussion.

As reported by Tom Littleton, throughout this interactive discussion, Jonathan Leeman “blend[ed] the Third Way Rhetoric of his Fabian Socialist education into this SBC discussion of politics without anyone noticing.”

Littleton elaborated:

“Dever and Leeman took questions from the audience of Pastors and ping ponged the discussion between themselves, covering topics like ‘how to pray for the government,’ ‘voter guides,’  ‘community service,’ ‘racism,’ — all pointing the pastors to a Social Justice position as a sort of Third Way middle ground that is ‘biblical,’” (emphasis mine).

You may watch the full video of the event by clicking HERE.

Race, Abortion, and Single-Issue Voters

Forty-eight minutes into the discussion, Dever posed the following scenario-based question to Leeman:

“What about one-issue voting? I think that one of the things that most separates white and black Christians in America is one-issue voting. I think white Christians think this is the only moral way to approach voting. I think they’ve never thought of any other thing, generally.

I think a lot of our African American brothers and sisters realized, like a long time ago, that, ‘Well, there are going to be a bunch of different issues that are going to affecting us and I can vote for a candidate who I disagree with about some very important issues that I don’t believe they’re going to get anything done on, but that I agree with them on these other issues that I think are going to help a lot of people.’ Can, even if you don’t adopt that thought yourself, can you allow space for that in your church as a morally legitimate argument and option?

…But I think a lot of white Evangelicals think that [one-issue voting] is the only morally legitimate position, or the only position to be argued to have moral legitimacy and… I would certainly like to question that.”

For many devout Christians, across the spectrum of skin pigmentation, the murder of babies in their mothers’ wombs is the single greatest factor in determining which candidates for whom to vote.

“Among evangelicals, Pro-life Voters are their single biggest obstacle to [Fabian] social change in the Church.”

By framing the above scenario-based question as a matter of race, Dever “asserted that one issue voting is the root of the racial divide he purports to exist among white and black Christians.”

Leeman’s response was telling. Right away, Leeman asserted:

“Yeah, I think that one of Satan’s greatest successes is dividing majority and minority Christians politically in part through that particular issue [abortion]…

Uh, because you have a party on the Right who’s Pro-life, a party on the Left who demonstrates at least more overt concerns for issues concerning minorities, and so… majority culture Christians gravitate this way, minority culture Christians gravitate that way.

Satan is psyched over the issue [abortion]… especially because he sees division in the church, and we don’t trust each other.

‘You’re voting for them [a pro-life candidate on the Right]? Well, you must not care about justice. I don’t even know if you love Jesus.’ Right? I question your Christianity…”

“Differently-Calibrated Consciences”

Leeman’s solution to the problem of a Christians being divided by their stance on abortion is for the church to legitimize what he calls, in Orwellian “New Speak,” differently-calibrated consciences.

To illustrate his point, Leeman provided the following scenario of what a pro-choice voter may reason, regarding the abortion debate (emphasis mine):

“So… ‘[T]here have been Republican pro-life quote/unquote candidates in the White House for the last number of decades and the laws haven’t been overturned and, meanwhile… let’s just say, hypothetically, that the welfare policies of these [Democrat] candidates actually decreased the number of abortions in such-and-such a state and actually brought the number of abortions down, and so, although they are pro-choice, I think they have actually helped the abortion issues as opposed to your Republican candidates.’

Therefore, I am going to leave space for that particular [Pro-Choice voting] option for Christians… [Unless the Pro-Choice candidate is] a pro-nazi or a pro Klu Klux Klan candidate, [or] a Communist Party candidate in China.”

There are a couple of serious flaws with the scenario that Jonathan Leeman uses as a way of inducing a “Third Way” synthesis in the minds of the pastors in the audience.

First, the human subject of his scenario is that of a pro-choice voter. Yet, the conscience reasoning of the voter, illustrated in Leeman’s example, is truer in form to that of a pro-life voter who is reaching a point of a pro-life values-driven compromise.

Second, the welfare policy achievement – reducing the number of abortions - of Leeman’s “hypothetical” Democrat candidates is not supported by evidence.

Does welfare decrease the number of abortions?

Dr. Michael J. New is an Assistant Professor at the University of Alabama who received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford and did post-doctoral research at the Harvard-MIT data center [who] performed three different regression analyses (standard statistical techniques designed to find correlations between different sets of numbers) on the data examining the impact of welfare spending and state anti-abortion laws on the abortion rates of states.

New determined “lowered state spending on welfare correlated with lower abortion rates, even after considering other factors.”

While, in his “hypothetical” scenario, Jonathan Leeman used the fact Roe v. Wade has not been overturned, thus abortion remains legal, as an example of the failure of pro-life politicians, Leeman failed to consider incremental progress at the national and state level.

A report by The Charlotte Lozier Institute, summarizing “the academic research that analyzes how the legal status of abortion impacts the incidence of abortion,” notes:

“[A]n extremely broad body of economic and public health research clearly indicates that various legal protections of unborn children reduce the incidence of abortion. Furthermore, there is also a significant body of academic research which shows that even incremental pro-life laws prevent some abortions from taking place.”

Final Thoughts

I reached out to Tom Littleton who first reported on the event at the Southern Baptist Convention with Dever and Leeman, and I asked his thoughts on the importance of Christian believers to value human life.

His thoughts are poignant. Thus, I leave you with his words:

“Paige, Hello, The importance of being pro-life for Believers is a matter of the deepest Biblical conviction on the value of life and that only God has the power to give and take it. The church cannot care for the helpless if we ignore the most vulnerable . We can not truly value life if we are willing to employ nuance and dishonest talking points about when it begins.

There is no shorter route to Divine judgement than to fill a nation’s land with the blood of innocents, and the church that does not cry against the sacrifice of its young on pagan altars is no prophetic voice - whatsoever. The person who will stand in the pulpit (or place of influence) and attempt to weaken, dilute, or pervert the conviction of the Believers on this issue are criminal or insane, or both.

No amount of political engagement, cultural relevance, or pragmatism can excuse the guilt of these false prophets equating “pro-life” as a merely Republican, political, or secondary issue.

It is a conviction that Life - all Life - is God's most precious temporal gift; eternal Life being His most grand promise.”

Citations: 1. Blair, Tony. The Third Way: New Politics for a New Century. Fabian Society pamphlet, September 1998.

source http://humandefense.com/christian-voters-need-to-value-human-life-2/

[epistolizer]

Christians For The Most Part Not Responsible For America's Mess

There is one thing that Americans will agree on and that is that the country is in a mess. The socio-economic situation totters on the brink of collapse with deficits and debts poised to consume in wholesale the total value of the nation's wealth. Upon hearing of trial verdicts or police actions not to their liking, like clockwork certain predictable segments of the population no longer simply utilize their constitutional rights to articulate their disagreement but instead like invading hordes loot and pillage their way through the inventories of merchants that had nothing whatsoever to do with the initial perceived miscarriage of justice. Elsewhere, parents and children reluctant about sharing facilities in which the most private of acts take place with members of the opposite of sex are accused of fomenting the most vile forms of bigotry.

Astonishingly, the elites of the mainstream media insist that the way to resolve this crisis is not by returning to at least the rudiments of the principles that usually lay the foundations of both personal success and cultural vitality. Instead, what such technocrats seem to counsel is how those still holding to that foundation are in large part responsible for the widespread decay. To such minds, the only way to restore a semblance of social tranquility is to for the most part eliminate the Judeo-Christian influence with an inordinate amount of that effort directed against the conservative Christian component.

The first step in neutralizing the Christian influence in order the bring about what Barack Obama categorized as a fundamental transformation of the American way of life is to coerce, cajole, and manipulate conservative believers across the various interpretations of Christianity into altering their foundational conceptions of the Afterlife. At the most basic, the faithful contend that those believing in Christ after enduring the struggles and vicissitudes of this world marred by sin will be welcomed into their reward of unending bliss in a perfect realm referred to as Heaven. Those having come to the end of their earthly lives without coming to faith in Jesus Christ will be punished in unending torment likened unto interminable darkness and fire understood to be Hell.

This approach is evident in a April 16, 2012 “Time Magazine” article by Jon Meacham titled “Heaven Can Wait: Why Rethinking The Hereafter Could Make The World A Better Place”. In his analysis, Meacham does not believe that the concept of Heaven should be taught necessarily as an objective doctrine that provides comfort to those realizing that whatever personal suffering with which they are afflicted is likely not to be resolved this side of the grave. Rather, the validity of the concept of the Afterlife is to be determined in terms of its temporal utility. In other words, what value can we (or rather the elites that run society) get from it now in terms of manipulating mere commoners into complying with prevailing ideologies and revolutionary fads.

Borrowing from the interpretation of Anglican Bishop and New Testament scholar N.T. Wright, Meacham writes, “What if Christianity is not about enduring this sinful, fallen world in search of a reward of eternal rest? What if the authors of the New Testament were actually talking about a bodily resurrection in which God brings together the heavens and the earth in a wholly new, wholly redeemed creation?” To most, this sounds a whole lot like a distinction without a difference.

Most that have studied the End Times know that there will indeed be a new Heaven and a new Earth with the likelihood of there being travel back and forth between the two. Those residing in what has traditionally been thought of as Heaven or the New Jerusalem that will be floating above the Earth sort of like a gigantic extraterrestrial mothership will most likely be believers that died prior to the Resurrection. On Earth will likely dwell those that, through the grace of God, survived the Great Tribulation or the descendants of such born during the Millennial reign of Christ with its focus upon Israel, a remnant of which will come to faith in Christ upon realizing the error of that nation's rejection of the Messiah inherent to systematized Judaism.

Of course many Christians are not aware of these truths. Hardly any theologies teach these things boldly with the exception of a handful of dispensational or premillennial theologians concentrated in Fundamentalist, Charismatic, or conservative Evangelical circles. Most such as mainline Protestants such as the Episcopalians and Roman Catholics undermine interest in these passages of Scripture by teaching that these are not to be taken literally but are merely a convoluted literary metaphor regarding the ongoing struggle between good evil. Devout yet hardline Reformed and Presbyterian types insist that the events detailed in the prophetic passages of Scripture haver already taken place on what seems to our contemporary times the distant past.

Interestingly, in the version of Heaven that we are to be allowed to retain as a result of the graciousness of the ruling technocrats and their religious functionaries that they have apparently co-opted, the notion of the Resurrection seems to be little more than an unconnected holdover. For this description of what might still be called the Afterlife (for lack of a better term) doesn't really sound all that different than what we are already experiencing as business as usual.

Meachem writes, “But if you believe the world will be destroyed at the very last day while the blessed look down from a disembodied heaven, then you are most likely going to view things of this world in a different light than someone who believes there will be a bodily resurrection or an earth that is to be ..'our eternal home'.” From this difference, Meachem concludes, “Accepting the latter can mean different priorities, conceivably putting issues like saving the environment up their with saving souls.”

Perhaps there is some truth to the old adage that some are so focused on Heaven that they are no earthly good. However, from the eschatological expectation as articulated by Jon Meachem, those focusing on the terrestrial counterpart of a new Heaven and a new Earth don't seem to fully take to the implications of the concept of “new”.

For as articulated here, Meachem seems to assume that these glorified bodies will simply continue to exist in the same old world that we have always known subject to the all-to-familiar ravages of entropy and decay. He does not seem to take into account II Peter 3:10 how the present elements will melt away in a fervent heat. So why shouldn't the new Earth be as free from death and disease as our new bodies unless Meachem believes that once we die physically we will be plagued with having to endure this process yet again?

Interestingly, this desire on the part of otherwise secular progressives such as Meacham articulating their subdued spirituality is not so that the world we inhabit at the moment might be made a better reflection of the goodness and righteousness conceptualized in its most undiluted form in the presence of God. If anything, the motifs and symbols of belief are only being invoked in a last ditch effort to be do away with the adherents of traditional religious perspectives once and for all.

In his analysis, Meachem observes that these differing understandings of Heaven are in part responsible for the profound division characterizing contemporary American society and politics. But instead of admonishing those with their minds in this world to instead look up so that they might elevate their decorum and character, it is those holding to traditional understandings of virtue that are being asked --- and in certain instances even threatened and commanded --- to take a back seat and assume a posture of silence.

For example, an article published in December 2012 at Yahoo News was titled “Does the GOP need a religious retreat?'. In the analysis, it was pointed out that America is growing increasingly secular and perhaps even antagonistic towards viewpoints that could be categorized as traditionally religious in their orientation towards concepts such as family and morality. But Evangelicals were not applauded for standing by their beliefs in the face of overwhelming societal pressure the way contemporary media and culture for the most part in the celebratory manner often lavished upon the Amish.

George Mason University Professor of Public Policy Mark Rozell is quoted as saying, “The way Republicans speak is turning off the youngest, fastest growing groups in the country --- Latinos and significantly the unchurched, those with no religious affiliation. To them, the Republicans are proselytizing.”

But at least proselytizing denotes an effort to get someone to change their beliefs through rational persuasion or a verbally articulated appeal. These secularists and their radical progressivist allies simply demand immediate acquiescence to their ultimatums or else, with that often up to and including threats of violence.

Reflecting upon the tendency of the rising generation of believers not to stand for their beliefs and to simply cave to the demands of the encroaching culture, George Mason University Professor of Political Science James Wilcox is quoted in the same article as saying, “Young evangelicals don't look at the country as a battlefield...They see the 'War and Religion' narrative as nonsense; they see churches thriving ... and the extent of religious pluralism in this country.”

If this is how young evangelicals see the world, America is worse off than we think. For it means these individuals are not aware of what is going on around them or have incorporated into their own perspective a number of presuppositions that do not belong to a Christian worldview.

It has been said that, if fish could talk, they would still not be able to explain how it feels to be wet. By that, it means those that know nothing else are not usually the best ones to rely upon to explain a particular situation.

The youth and young adults of today have know nothing but overwhelming theological compromise, social decline, and cultural degeneracy. For example, even the Southern Baptist Convention, despite experiencing what many scholars of religious history would categorize as a conservative resurgence commencing in the closing decades of the twentieth century, is now publishing a gender neutral “linguistically inclusive” version of the Bible. And even that is apparently not enough capitulation to the advocates of political correctness.

At the 2017 annual meeting, a resolution was ultimately passed condemning the alleged racial superiority of the so-called “Alt Right”. But while some organizations and ideologies classified under that particular designation indeed peddle a number of questionable assumptions regarding race and ethnicity, the Alt Right is much broader and more complex for the Southern Baptist Convention to dismiss the spokesman of such a broad category outrightly so quickly.

After all, the Southern Baptist Convention did not come out as forcefully against Black Lives Matter and the accompanying protests resulting in upheaval leading to the considerable destruction of private property of individuals and businesses in no way directly responsible for the questionable police actions and ensuing judicial verdicts that led to this palpable outage.

An op-ed published in the 10/25/10 edition of USA Today titled “In God-fearing USA, Where Is The Decency?” blames the lack of civility in American politics on Evangelicals. The essay goes on to provide a couple of examples of this phenomena as well as figures attempting to slowly turn around the ship of state.

As a foremost example, the column's author Tom Krattenmaker details the outrages of Senator David Vitter of Louisiana. For a campaign ad categorized as “punching below the belt” against public benefits for illegal aliens, Vitter is condemned for utilizing images of “dark skinned” Mexicans pouring through a hole in the fence. Would it have been more accurate to have filmed the piece with the buxom fair-skinned actresses from the Telemundo telenovellas who, though Hispanic, have a significant European heritage if they were to submit their samples to one of those fly by night DNA registries constantly advertised on TV?

The column pointed at Senator Vitter's hypocrisy of basing many of his public policy pronouncements on a Judeo-Christian foundation despite Vitter having been caught in an affair with a prostitute. Fair enough.

But ironically, unless one wants to base sexual morality on a Biblical foundation rather than a slippery slope of everyone determining that which is right in their own eyes, aren't those outraged at Vitter's alleged hypocrisy actually the biggest hypocrites of them all? For if we really shouldn't get involved in between of what goes on between two consenting adults, what is so wrong with prostitution so long as the adults involved aren't forced into against their will if the Ten Commandments have been eliminated as the overarching behavioral guideline? After all, it is doubtful Senator Vitter selected the toothless meth addict in the alley behind a local convenience store or in the parking lot of a fleabag motel.

If our bodies really are ours to do with as we please, what's so wrong with what Senator Vitter did? Under the paradigm of radical existentialist bodily autonomy allowed to fester in other sectors of social policy and culture, the only thing Senator Vitter and his lady of the evening really are guilty of are failing to comply with technically obtuse and nearly impossible to understand taxation and labor laws.

The USA Today article that goes on from an incident that is only wrong ultimately if one buys into the exact traditionalist morality that these radical secularists are actually calling for the elimination of to suggest that the real reason America finds itself in the tumult that the nation is mired in today is because of the failure of politically active Christians and conservatives to compromise on a number of fundamental beliefs in favor of a nebulous “civility” that attempts to emphasize the decorum found among a variety of often disparate worldviews and ideologies. These principles have been apparently elaborated more fully in a document known as the “Contract For Civility”.

Of such lofty-sounding endeavors, the discerning are often cautious as more often than not they are little more than mechanisms by which to box in or handcuff those coming closest to abiding by the standards of righteousness. The Civility Project was conceived of by a number of Evangelical Christians and Jew Lanny Davis. That's right, politically astute observer of current affairs, THAT Lanny Davis.

For those that might not be as familiar, about the only reason anyone knows about Lanny Davis is because he has pretty much made a career of publicly defending the Clinton's no matter what. Because of the hypocrisy of having such a celebrity promoting an effort lecturing the rest of us on how we are and are not to behave in terms of how we express our innermost thoughts and beliefs, many have refused to get on board or even reneged over having signed the document to begin with following additional reflection.

Because of the reluctance to bind oneself to the civility covenant, Krattenmaker further laments, “Speaking of those hardball rules, another seems to require that thou shalt not acknowledge anything good about anyone or anything on the other side of the figurative aisle.” If Lanny Davis is to be upheld as the sterling example to which we troglodytes and peons are expected to aspire in terms of public deportment, since his notoriety is owed for his links to the Clintons, did he denounce Hillary Clinton for her categorization of those that simply voted for Donald Trump as “deplorables”. Interesting, isn't it, how all of the compromise is expected from those on the right side of the aisle while those on the left are applauded for looting and prancing down the streets in costumes depicting the unmentionables of the female anatomy?

Praised as a religious leader courageously championing civility in these uncouth times is Jim Wallis of Sojourner''s Magazine. Krattenmaker applauds the numerous Bible verses soaking through his own civility campaign such as Ephesians 4:31 (“Put off falsehood and speak truthfully”), Ephesians 4:31 (“Get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, and slander, along with every form of malice”) and James 1:19 (“Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry”).

Considering these Scriptures in relation to Sojourners Magazine, the discerning cannot help but feel a little bit conflicted. On the one hand, it is almost touching that Sojourners is taking God's Holy Word seriously for a change in light of the publication's endorsement of wanton carnality such as gay marriage as well as providing a forum for those that regularly undermine orthodox theology such as Brian McLaren. On the other hand, one is almost overcome with a sense of profound disappointment upon realizing that Sojourners has no intentions whatsoever of holding its allies to these behavioral guidelines but merely inclined to invoke them to curtail the liberties of religious traditionalists duped into these sorts of agreements.

For example, during the 1980's, “Sojourners Magazine” backed the Sandinistas of Nicaragua. As avowed Marxists, did these insurrectionists “get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger, brawling and slander”? Most certainly not as each of these are intrinsic strategies from the Communist playbook on the way to seize power.

It must be granted that picking sides in Third World political conflicts is difficult. In terms of upholding human rights, the Contras backed by a number on the political right such as Oliver North were little better. However, “Sojourners Magazine” doesn't even apply the standards of civility the publication is calling for in the contemporary early twenty-first century American context not yet irrevocably marred by upheaval or bloodshed that could be characterized as widespread or pervasive.

Of political conservatives, voices at Sojourners such as Jim Wallis would ask that the tone and exaggeration of vocalized outrage be downplayed and pulled back. Therefore, to be consistent, shouldn't this prominent organ of the press also admonish leftist protest movements similarly?

“Sojourners” did nothing of the sort. If anything, the exact opposite strategy was pursued.

For example, “Sojourners” did not condemn Occupy Wall Street as radical extremists given over to inexcusable violence directed at the private property of commercial enterprises or even churches. Instead the magazine extolled Occupy hooligans as prophetic voices and counseled churches susceptible to this form of propaganda to aide and abet the flagrant subversion and vandalism by bestowing items of charity upon these wanton insurgents and even opening up their sanctuaries as places of respite. It would probably take a miracle of God to get the body funk out of the carpet and off the pews should any church heed such a call given that many Occupy activists aren't exactly renowned for their adherence to conventional grooming practices.

As part of the call for civility, the social engineers behind this manipulation campaign insists that we are to downplay our differences in the attempt to emphasize instead what we have in common. It is hoped that the result will be a bland pluralism in which we will surrender to the realized stupor that most viewpoints and systems are pretty much the same with no one's values really better than anyone else's. Yet the end result, as usual, is that traditional religionists and those of an allied conservative mindset are the ones expected to adopt affirmative quiescence for the sake of sociopolitical cohesion or face the consequences.

One such article embodying the spirit of “all values are equal except those questioning the secularist hegemony” is titled “Of Course Evangelicals Are Backing Trump: Their Beliefs Are Illogical And Contradictory”. While focusing primarily upon the initially perplexing incongruity of many deeply devout Evangelical conservatives politically backing Donald Trump who rather matter of factly lived life as an existential reprobate, the article also highlighted a number of policy areas Christian Conservatives are expected to compromise over if any sense of social harmony is to be restored to American politics and culture. Of Christians willing to betray a variety of the faith's most basic assumptions, the author gushes, “Luckily, these sorts of doctrinally orthodox, thoughtful, tolerant and compassionate Christians are growing within evangelical groups. I think it's even fair to say they''ll make up most of the next generation of Christians. They're among the most intelligent and wonderful people I know.”

Now lets take a moment to consider what his author is saying. In civic pronouncements, the resident of the twenty-first century is indoctrinated that it is no longer sufficient to begrudgingly put up with those with whom you disagree. Instead one is obligated to explicitly affirm the way and by what creeds everybody else decides to live their lives.

Yet in his essay, Mack Hayden says that these allegedly orthodox, thoughtful, and compassionate Christians that find Donald Trump “politically reprehensible” are the most wonderful people that he knows. And what is it exactly that makes these people so wonderful?

Why believing, in terms of politics, almost identically with Mack Hayden of course! But by making this sort of judgment, how is he fundamentally different than any other absolutist that insists that not all values or ideas are equal and in terms of how this impacts close relationships it is the proverbial my way or the highway?

And just what is it that makes the Evangelicals that go along with a considerable degree of Trump's initial agenda if not the glaring personal shortcomings of the President so “deplorable” in the words of Hilary Clinton and echoed in the sentiments of the Mack Hayden article?

Hayden writes, “If evangelicals want to reduce the size of government, they must argue with Paul about whether Christians should rebel against government at all. If they want to try to influence government with levitical commands against homosexuality, they must ask themselves why they aren't similarly trying to influence it to legislate morality when it comes to charitable giving.”

Hayden carries on, “If they want the redistribution of wealth, to be considered anathema, they must disagree with both the Old and New Testaments. If they believe God created the heavens and the earth, they must answer why they don't want to protect it. If they want to cry out for the rights of the unborn, they must be able to answer YHWH's admonitions and Christ's questions about why they tried to keep the refugee, and the immigrant, or the disadvantaged from assistance.”

Of these typical conservative Evangelical policy positions, Hayden characterizes these as marked by “illogicality and contradiction”. But instead the situation would be better characterized as one of profound worldview differences.

For example, if Evangelicals want to reduce the size of government, what does that have to do with failure to heed Paul's admonition about rebelling against government? More disturbingly, is Mark Hayden saying that the only legitimate government is a totalitarian one large enough to control all aspects of existence?

The injunction Hayden is probably referring to is Romans 13. Though Mr. Hayden would probably have few qualms about turning the United States into a comprehensive bureaucratic regime along the lines of the Soviet Union and what Americans are likely to end up with if religious conservatives adopt the kind of political pacifism he is apparently calling for, at the moment the United States is not the sort of regime where ultimate authority rests in an office held by a single human being or even a plurality of archons.

Rather, the distinction of the highest temporal authority governing America is instead the U.S. Constitution. The legitimacy of that particular document, in turn, is derived from “We the people.”

As such, the people calling for limited government are not the ones in a state of rebellion. That transgression is being committed by the elected officials and assisting bureaucrats extending the power that they have been vested with into areas over which they have not been granted an explicit foundational mandate.

Next Hayden conjectured that if Trumpist Evangelicals want to influence government with Levitical commands against homosexuality, they must also legislate morality in regards to charitable giving. Once again, Hayden proves that Scriptures cannot be correctly understood unless one has the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.

With the exception of hardline theocrats of whom it must be admitted have a disturbing degree of influence beyond their number, very few Evangelicals advocating a social philosophy inspired by the Bible are advocating a position regarding homosexuality based solely upon the Book of Leviticus (from which the adjective “levitical” utilized by Mr. Hayden is derived). For although the New Testament punishments against physical pleasure beyond the bounds of heterosexual marriage are not as extreme or as explicit as those of the Old Testament, the condemnation of such cannot be denied unless the theologian or exegete is deliberately going out of their way in order to contradict a plane reading of the text. It says in Romans 1: 26-27, “Because of this God gave them over to shameful lusts... In the same waythe men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another . Men committed indecent acts with one another, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion ”. This disapproval is further emphasized in I Corinthians where it says, “Do you not know that the wicked will not inherent the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexual offenders, nor thieves, nor the greedy, now swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.”.

As such, given the nature of this revelation, the Christian holding that God does indeed offer forgiveness to anyone willing to confess that they are a sinner and that nothing can be done to wash away the stain of sin but to claim that one has been washed in the shed blood of Christ does not necessarily want to see the same penalty imposed as that under the Old Covenant with Israel. However, it does not follow that these sorts of relationships should then therefore be allowed with all of society then compelled to celebrate them for fear of the retribution likely to follow from exhibiting an insufficient degree of enthusiasm.

Mr. Hayden then adds to his snide remark incorporating charitable giving into those aspects of morality that can be legislated. He writes, “If they want the redistribution of wealth to be considered anathema, they must disagree with both Old and New Testaments.” Once again, he proves what a dangerous thing incomplete knowledge can be.

Both the Old and New Testaments do teach the importance of charitable giving. However, nowhere is this admonishment to be construed in a coercive manner.

The smart alack critic might respond that, in Old Testament Israel, Deuteronomy 14:22 orders those living under the Covenant to give give a tenth of what they have to the Lord. So is that the premise they really wish to argue from?

Alrighty then. What the text is calling for is for donation into the centralized storehouse of the Lord.

In other words, the contribution was to go directly into the coffers of the centralized institutional religious authority. So would Mr. Hayden like to call for the establishment of a national church that he would be required to give to irrespective of whether or not he agreed with the organization in terms of doctrine and theology.

In the New Testament in particular (that portion of Christian Scripture the reprobates like to invoke when they want to insist that God is really no longer into punishing that which used to be categorized as sin), the model extolled tends to be more voluntary in nature. II Corinthians 9:7 assures that God loveth a cheerful giver.

That means God wants us to give what we want to give. Seldom is anything done under the compulsion of the threat of violence (which in essence what every law is) done cheerfully. God realizes that, in this so-called Dispensation of Grace, He will have more flowing into His coffers by allowing believers to do so on their own than if He fires and brimstones the faithful into coughing up what they owe like the proverbial mafia goon twisting the arm of a resentful shopkeeper.

Apostates advocating the idea of compulsory collection and redistribution of resources love nothing more than the account from the Book of Acts detailing how many in the early church pooled together what they did happen to have for common benefit. These textual critics that any other time go out of their way to downplay or even poo poo the Biblical narratives describing supernatural intervention in this particular instances amazingly don't seem to mind pointing out how Ananais and Saphira were struck dead by the Holy Spirit for retaining for themselves a portion of the proceeds from selling a piece of property.

About the only correct conclusion liberals draw from that account is that Ananais and Saphira died. The rest of the interpretative argument they make is entirely incorrect.

For starters, Ananais and Saphira were not struck dead for refusing to submit fully to what those advocating assorted varieties of liberation theology would insist was a primitive form of Communism or for keeping some of this profit for themselves. What they were struck dead for was lying about the matter.

If anything, the Apostle Peter confirms a position very pro-private property in its underlying orientation. In Acts Acts 5:1-11, he affirms that the property was their's to do with as they pleased and that, if they did not want to, Ananais and Saphira were not obligated to give the church a single cent if they did not want to.

What the couple did not have a right to do is get up there before the congregation and tell everyone that they were handing everything they had made from the sale of the property under consideration. So much for Mack Hayden's insinuation that the Scriptures endorse a systematic redistribution of wealth to the point of taxation being punitive in nature rather than to simply provide needed services.

Mr Hayden continues in his diatribe, “If they believe that God created the heavens and the earth, they must answer why they don't want to protect it?” Once again, Mr. Hayden has revealed just how little he knows about conservative Evangelicals as well as most areas of public policy.

Granted, one might find a few nut job preachers that insist that, since Jesus is to return soon, there is little reason to be good stewards of the natural resources God has blessed humanity with. What Christians, conservatives, nationalists and populists disposed towards Trump have a problem with is just how broad the scope of environmental preservation has become in terms of regulatory intrusion.

For example, there are instances where a transient puddle on private property has come under government purview as a wetland or navigable waterway. Some of the very first pieces I ever published in the mid 90's were about a municipal ordinance that forbade homeowners from removing trees from their own property.

Mack Hayden finishes his litany exposing just how ignorant he is regarding a variety of public policy issues with the following statement. “If they want to cry out for the rights of the unborn, they must be able to answer YHWH's admonitions and Christ's questions about why they tried to keep the refugee, the immigrant, or the disadvantaged from assistance.” Oh where do we begin with this one.

For starters, in speaking out for the rights of the unborn, what is being called for is the most basic right of them all. That is, of course, namely the right to life itself or, to put it more bluntly, the right not to be murdered.

Individuals profoundly motivated by their religious convictions to speak out on public policy issues who are opposed to unlimited immigration such as Pat Buchanan have never called for the execution of illegals whose primary crime was the violation of U.S. border law. It is because all people are made in the image of God that all people --- irrespective of their nation of origin – must be made to abide by these sorts of regulations for the benefit of all people.

Since at least the development of different languages at the Tower of Babel, it has been part of God's creation plan in terms of social organization for people groups of assorted commonalities such as language, culture, and even physical characteristics to conglomerate together usually in definable geographical territories. As a result, governments --- for good or ill is not the purpose of this observational analysis at the moment --- are instituted to protect those dwelling within a particular jurisdiction.

Throughout the course of history, the state, kingdom, or empire administering a respective territory can either be hostile to those arising from beyond its borders or it can be for the most part welcoming or at the least benignly indifferent. In either case, the purpose of government is to foremostly protect those with a recognized status or those outsiders that have not violated objectively established criteria for the purposes of being extended welcome.

Requiring those that wish to enter to abide by a set of preestablished laws and procedures, if anything, is both an affirmation of the basic underlying humanity of the migrant as well as protection of it. For to overlook this sort of transgression is to assume that the violator is not much more than an animal unable to abide by civilized standards. And a monitored border and ports of entry selective as to whom may pass beyond such scrutiny are a deterrent to the kinds of human trafficking and resultant exploitation that turn the American dream into a nightmare for those victimized by the deliberately nefarious concerned with advancing their own benefit even at the expense of violating the image of God in one of the most egregious ways possible.

Apparently, Mr. Hayden upholds as the ideal by which the migrant and the destitute are to be treated the Mosaic law of the Old Testament. Does that include those aspects that the unregenerate such as himself would categorize as harsh by twenty-first century American standards?

For example, even if Old Testament Israel did allow sanctuary to outsiders, it is doubtful such sojourners would have been allowed to propagate alien beliefs and ideologies in opposition to those held by the Chosen People. Of the suspicion of outsiders holding to worldviews at variance with Biblical revelation the Mosaic law advocates according to Deuteronomy 7:3-4, “Do not intermarry with them. Do not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons, for they will turn your sons away from following me to serve other gods, and the Lord's anger will burn against you and quickly destroy you.”

If we as Americans are to grant the refugee and others in need assistance because that is how we are admonished by Scripture, does Mr. Hayden intend to embody the sort of consistency he is calling for by modifying this nation's public assistance programs to mirror those described in the Bible? As such, does Mr. Hayden intend to call for the elimination of most benefit transfer payments? Don't worry, the needy and unemployed will be able to eat.

Using the example of Ruth and Naomi, the truly needy would be more than welcome to gleen the leftovers dropped in the fields or even from those crops that the government provides subsidies for farmers are to destroy or don't quite meet some arbitrary aesthetic standard regarding appearance but have little to do with nutritional quality.

If that is still deemed too cruel by assorted twenty-first century standards, those wanting more contemporary prepackaged meals could be required to put in labor at an establishment something akin to a food bank. For if these individuals have vitality enough to piddle away on smartphones or the carnal gyrations that result in the conception of additional children,, there is no reason they cannot at least stock shelves and sort through boxes a couple hours per month at minimum.

In the clash of values, the discerning observer of civic events cannot help but notice that it is always the conservatives that are ordered to compromise or to be held responsible for the pending societal collapse. This tone is evident in an Associated Press story published on 2/15/2013 titled, “Unyiedling GOP Politicians Doing What Voters Ask”. Of what the article categorizes as “those who stubbornly refuse to compromise”, such a strategy is seen as a “tactic that some see as damaging the GOP brand and pushing the nation repeatedly to the brink of fiscal chaos.”

So did the journalist composing this piece also publish a companion essay detailing how Democratic recalcitrance is just as much gumming up the work of government? If anything, would it not be the Democrats pushing the nation at an even faster rate towards financial ruination?

After all, at least in theory anyways, the assorted streams of conservatism that tend to galvanize around the Republican Party usually urge an approach towards governance extolling a degree of financial restraint when possible. The liberals that usually gravitate towards the Democratic party are the ones that seldom ever met a spending program that they did not like and often in the forms of programs and policies that the government of a free people ought not to be involved with in the first place.

By Frederick Meekins

[encephalonfatigue]

where is christ in christmas?

There is a mystifying cliche that sometimes circulates this time of year: ‘they’ have taken the Christ out of Christmas. While I think it is very questionable Jesus would want to have anything to do with the capitalist spectacle that is ‘Christmas’ today, I would say (for that very reason) there is certainly some truth to the assertion that Christ has been removed from Christmas. I would also suggest that saying ‘Merry Christmas’ instead of ‘Happy Holidays’ laughably seems to do nothing to remedy this situation.

I have used this quote in past Advent reflections, but I think it should be an idea Christians perennially return to each Advent. The Anglican theologian and physicist John Polkinghorne wrote:

“In Advent, we think about the coming of Christ, particularly that first coming at Bethlehem and the final coming at the end of the age… But the truth of the matter is that Christ comes to us everyday, anonymously in the people in need who cross our path.”

Matthew 25 has Jesus remind his listeners that whatever they do to the least of these they do to him. 

Yet this emphasis has often been treated rather dismissively, not only by conservatives, but even an anarchist like Jacques Ellul wrote in “Anarchy and Christianity”:

“In the 1970s we saw the same tendency in the so-called liberation theologies. In an extreme form a strategy has been found to make possible association with (South American) revolutionary movements. A poor person of any kind is supposedly identical with Jesus Christ.”

This is only to say, in my view, that liberation theologians are precisely the ones who show us what is demanded of those who actually want to keep “Christ in Christmas”. Liberation theologians are not abolishing Christ and replacing him with the poor, but finding God in those who suffer in the world, and in my view that is not something worth trying to put down.

Pope Francis said that it is “always right” to give something to someone in need, saying further that if "a glass of wine is the only happiness he has in life, that's OK. Instead, ask yourself what do you do on the sly? What 'happiness' do you seek in secret?" I think living out grace in such a radical way for the Christian depends on her recognizing Christ in all who are in need, like Pope Francis suggests we do.

The real ‘war on Christmas’ is waged every time a single mother is forced to work extended holiday shopping hours at her minimum wage job away from her children. It is then that Christ has been taken out of Christmas. Every time a migrant worker from Latin America and Caribbean has to work thousands of kilometres away from his family during the holidays under very poorly enforced labour laws, with no ability to switch jobs away from an abusive employer or access affordable health care, Christ has been removed from Christmas. Each poor ‘stranger’ turned away from the border back to a land devastated by structural adjustment and brutal colonial history (a land in which they daily fear for their lives) is another instance Christ vanishes from Christmas.

Saying ‘Happy Holidays’ is not what is taking the Christ out of Christmas. The cause of this tragedy occurs each time we give Christ no food when he’s hungry, give him nothing to drink when he’s thirsty, welcoming him not when he’s a stranger, clothing him not when he needs warmth and cleanliness, not caring for him when he’s sick, and neglecting him when he’s in prison (Matthew 25:42-43). There’s a lot of this sort of inaction this season, and most seasons for that matter. And I say this as someone most implicated in such passivity. If Christians want Christ back in Christmas, we might start acting like it, rather than wishing our Muslim and Jewish neighbours ‘Merry Christmas’.

The Question of Ecclesiology

Now Matthew 25 is a very important text. Conservative scholars love pointing out that when Jesus is talking about the “least of these” he’s talking about other “people of the Way” or “Nazarenes” (as Acts calls them), or what we more commonly know as “Christians” today. Now let us imagine for a moment that this interpretation should be the case, Christians have still so radically failed at even this low bar that we cannot at all escape from our glaring hypocrisy unscathed.

Let me proffer an example: the migrant caravan and the broader issue of Latin American migration across the American border. A Washington Post article, drawing from a poll they conducted with ABC, states that:

“75 percent of white evangelical Christians rated “the federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants” as positive, compared with 46 percent of U.S. adults overall, and 25 percent of nonwhite Christians.”

Almost 90% of the Latin American population identifies as Christian, and it’s safe to say the large majority of the people in the migrant caravan and people arriving at the American border are Christians. Yet it’s really hard to square white evangelical Christianity with even the most conservative interpretation of Matthew 25. When Jesus was a stranger, a child refugee running away from state-sanctioned violence (Herod), we welcome him by detaining him, separating him from his parents, and then throwing him out back into Herod’s reign of terror?

Dorothy Day once wrote that the Catholic Worker movement was 

“not a Christian or religious community, we are an inn by the side of a road. We have no common sense. We do not say no.” 

Catholic Worker houses, hotbeds for Christian anarchist organizing, are famous for accepting basically anyone who shows up at their front door in need of a place to stay. Rowan Williams points out that Day wrote that text about being “an inn by the side of a road” the day after Christmas in the 1970’s. In that same text Day goes on to quote Saint Teresa of Avila who wrote that “life is a night spent in a disorderly inn”. Williams went on to dismantle any easy romanticization of these Catholic Worker houses, as they were often significant violators of health codes, and were sometimes places of violence in which Day felt extremely unsafe and insecure under the threats some residents made against her. Day and her friend Peter Maurin were exemplars of people who took Matthew 25 very seriously and radically welcomed all in need, for they saw Christ in all these people, even the ones that threatened them with violence. And even beyond individual action, Maurin stated that his overarching goal in life was to make the world an easier place to be good. A political order that does not incentivize selfishness and competition, but encourages solidarity, cooperation, and mutual aid.

Anyways, I think the text of Matthew 25 itself radically problematizes hegemonic conceptions of ecclesiology that buttress easy boundaries that situate people as either clearly belonging or not belonging in ‘the Church’, and hence worthy of Christian care and mutual aid.

In a fantastic episode of the Magnificast podcast, Zach Dimiele elaborates on the ecclesiology of Leonardo Boff, a liberation theologian who even a firebrand communist and atheist like Fidel Castro kept on his bookshelf. Dimiele makes a very interesting point that in Matthew 25, at Christ’s return the people ask Christ when they fed (or did not feed) him, clothed (or did not clothe) him, welcomed (or did not welcome) him, et cetera. And in so doing, they show that they are unable to recognize Christ, because Christ’s body has parts that are sometimes not recognized as Christ’s own. Dimiele concludes that “the body of Christ is ultimately a body with porous and expansive borders. Connecting this idea with the thought of Michael Polanyi, I suggest that the church is body with parts that it cannot apprehend.”

There are of course limits to this line of thinking, as Christ’s body cannot be a universalized conception imposed on all peoples to universally characterize them as either belonging or not belonging to some universal liberative project. However, I think Matthew 25 has potential for problematizing easy ecclesiological formulations that are quite pervasive in the Christian tradition. If there are people that are clearly not recognized as part of Christ’s body, it is likelier to be the rich and the uncompassionate, than some doctrinally deviant people, for upon Christ’s return it is the uncompassionate who are not recognized by Christ in Matthew 25.

John Hick locates the modern version of this incarnational theology (which Dimiele draws from) back into the existential theology of Bultmann and its resulting notion of the ‘Christ-event’:

“The notion of the Christ-event seems to have appeared first in Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation of the New Testament according to which Christian faith is a response, not to the largely unknown Jesus of Nazareth, but to the present notion of Jesus as the Christ; so that whenever ‘the Christ’ is preached this is ‘a continuation of the Christ Event’”

This approach is often explained by people like Marcus Borg with a distinction between the historical Jesus and the Jesus of tradition (who continues by way of preaching, along with other Christian practices). I think Bultmann’s views are rendered quite well by a joke I once heard Hauerwas tell, though Hauerwas says it was just a joke that was circulating Yale or Duke when he was there. It goes something like this:

The Pope phones Bultmann who he sees as an important Protestant figure who needs to hear about this big news. Bultman answers the phone, and after minor polite exchanges, the Pope gets down to business: “I have some really big news to share with you. Some of it is good, but some of it is rather bad… I will start with the good news. The archaeological team has gotten back to me with a groundbreaking discovery. They have confirmed to me that they have found Christ’s tomb. That is the good news… The bad news is they also found his body inside.” The Pope hears a long pause on the other line, feeling quite worried how Bultmann is taking this heavy news. Finally after some time, Bultmann replies… “So… he really did exist.”

That was a bit of a tangent, though Bultmann was particularly known for such a project of demythologizing the Christian faith, and the joke associating him with the ‘Christ myth theory’ does give a sense of his reputation as a skeptic. Bultmann’s emphasis then was an existential one rather than a metaphysical or historical one. John Hick then goes onto describe how this “Christ-event” Christology was elaborated in a more communal direction in which ecclesiology and Christology coalesce together:

“in the work of another New Testament scholar, John Knox, the Christ-event has an ecclesiastical (and thus social) rather than an existential (and more individual) meaning. The Christian faith is not centred in the person of Jesus of Nazareth alone but in the church's developing memory - not, however, ordinary literal memory but a metaphorical 'memory' - of him as its divine Lord (Knox 1967, 2f.). For Knox, 'The phrase "Jesus Christ our Lord" designates, not primarily an historical individual in the past, but a present reality actually experienced within the common life' (Knox 1967, 2). Indeed, 'The Church is the distinctive Christian reality . . . And it is because the Church is [Christ's] body and, in history, his only body, that we often use the words "Christ" and "Church" interchangeably, saying "in Christ" when we are wanting to refer to what it really means to be - and really to be - in the Church. It is this embodiment or incarnation (that is, the Church) which is most immediately - indeed alone is immediately - known . . . And so I say again, the Incarnation originally took place, not within the limits of an individual's individual existence, but in the new communal reality, in principle co-extensive with mankind, of which he was the creative centre' (Knox 1967, 66-7).”

This in some sense is the idea behind the famous poem often misattributed to Saint Teresa of Avila, though far more likely by the Methodist minister Mark Guy Pearse (1842-1930), and Quaker medical missionary Sarah Elizabeth Rowntree. This poem goes:

“Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body.”

Now if this notion of Incarnation by itself seems too similar to some unhelpful forms of Death of God theology or its antecedent Hegelian pneumatology, I will just briefly admit that this may likely be the case. I then want to ask what does it mean to have faith, for that might be the question that has yet to be properly addressed.

What is Faith? To What Telos?

Evangelical Christians claim to be a ‘Bible-believing’ bunch, and some of them can spend hours schooling you in Pauline justification, saying Christianity is not about what you have to ‘do’ but what Jesus has already ‘done’. I think an interesting road into this is Paul’s quotation of Habakkuk in Romans 1:17: “The one who is righteous will live by faith.” Yet what does it mean to live by faith? Maybe we should take a closer look at the eschatological text in Habakkuk 2 which Paul is drawing from:

“For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay. Look at the proud! Their spirit is not right in them, but the righteous live by their faith. Moreover, wealth is treacherous; the arrogant do not endure. They open their throats wide as Sheol; like Death they never have enough. They gather all nations for themselves, and collect all peoples as their own.

Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!” How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge? Will not your own creditors suddenly rise, and those who make you tremble wake up? Then you will be booty for them. Because you have plundered many nations, all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you— because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth, to cities and all who live in them. “Alas for you who get evil gain for your house, setting your nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm!” You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork. “Alas for you who build a town by bloodshed, and found a city on iniquity!” Is it not from the Lord of hosts that peoples labor only to feed the flames, and nations weary themselves for nothing? But the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.

The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you, and shame will come upon your glory! For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you; the destruction of the animals will terrify you—because of human bloodshed and violence to the earth, to cities and all who live in them.”

If there ever was a text for Advent 2018, Habakkuk 2 would have to be it. Advent is naturally a messianic season, and as such it recognizes there is something to be saved from. Well for one, a world where there is such thing as ‘wealth’, which in our world, is just another word for extreme inequality.

Advent people might already be aware that wealth is treacherous, as Jesus said “Woe to you who are rich” (Luke 6:24) which he learned from his mother who said the powerful would be dethroned and the rich sent away empty (Luke 1:52-53). Jesus already said “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God,” (Matthew 19:24). So, in light of all that, how can any Christian valourize Donald Trump of all people, or anyone of the executive class on that shameful Forbes yearly billionaire list: Gates, Musk, Ortega, Arnault, Branson, whoever? James 5:1-3 reads: 

“Come now, you rich people, weep and wail for the miseries that are coming to you. Your riches have rotted, and your clothes are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you, and it will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days.” 

Advent is an anticipation of those last days, and James gives a dramatic suggestion of what we might expect.

We know imperial governments and MNCs continue to open their throats wide as Sheol, just as in the days of explicit colonialism, gathering pools of cheap labour for themselves like Death itself, expropriating from these children of God what does not truly belong to neither Empire nor MNC. They have plundered the lands under colonialism and extracted resources from the periphery into the core. And like Joseph did for Pharaoh, leveraged the poor’s newly formed desperation in the the wake of plunder, and craft them into dependent debtors owned by centralized power.

How much of the US economy depends on the manufacture of arms? How many towns and cities built on bloodshed and iniquity, people labouring only to feed flames? The Guardian reports that in Yemen, “Since 2015, more than 28,000 thousand people have been killed or injured,” under the US-backed Saudi-led coalition. This past August, a school bus was bombed and 44 children were killed by laser-guided bomb manufactured by the US multinational corporation Lockheed Martin. If this is not the sort of human bloodshed that Habakkuk speaks of and all this is not the “violence to cities and all who live in them” he refers to, I’m not sure what is.

A 2016 UNEP report on the water quality situation of the formerly colonized world’s river systems estimates that: 

“severe pathogenic pollution affects around one third of all rivers, severe organic pollution around one seventh of all rivers, and severe and moderate salinity pollution around one-tenth of all rivers in these regions.” 

Water that humans and animals alike rely on, which have been devastated by capital, which ceaselessly moves into regions with no capacity to hold MNCs accountable for their reckless productive practices. In the past five decades, average animal (mammal, bird, fish, reptile, and amphibian) populations have declined by 60%, and in that same time span 20% of the Amazon has vanished. If that is not violence to the earth I’m not sure what is.

How many Christian policymakers in the US claim that migrants from Latin America are violent and dangerous and should be kept out. Not only is that false, as large-scale studies consistently show either a negative correlation of immigration with crime rates or none at all. Yet even if the connection were true, what would it mean for Habakkuk to condemn those who “set [their] nest on high to be safe from the reach of harm!” (Harm which doesn’t even exist.) What does it mean for Habakkuk to claim that in doing such actions: 

“You have devised shame for your house by cutting off many peoples; you have forfeited your life. The very stones will cry out from the wall, and the plaster will respond from the woodwork.” 

What is Trump’s wall crying out today? The core always builds around itself in such a way to freely allow capital to flow in, but to keep out the very children of God who have been exploited brutally at the periphery.

Sarah Ngu in her podcast Religious Socialism talks about various people of faith gathering for ‘Jericho walks’, where for example they circumambulate around an ICE building calling for Trump’s wall to crumble down as the walls of Jericho fell in the book of Joshua. I find this fascinating because this type of performative protest is taking one of the most genocidal books in the Bible (which has been an endless source of justification for violent colonialism) and making it into something that counters that tendency. This draws from a rich tradition of this type of subversive reclamation of biblical texts which show up for example in Civil Rights protests to tear down the walls of segregation. Paul Robeson’s beautiful rendition of “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho” is a beautiful example, which is still used in protest against Israel’s walls constructed on Palestinian territory.

A cluster of anarchists who call themselves the “Friendly Fire Collective” (who have members from various faith backgrounds including Catholicism, Quakerism, Islam and Wicca) also enacted a traditional Catholic exorcism at their local ICE building, casting the demons of White Supremacy out of the building, which I thought was a wonderful idea. They talk a bit about it in another Magnificast episode. Friendly Fire’s occupation of the ICE building was eventually raided rather violently by police and people’s heads were bashed and rosary beads torn from their hands and stomped on.

Many of these religious acts of protest are also involved with the New Sanctuary Movement, which is one of the few remaining widespread acts of civil disobedience churches still engage in by illegally harbouring undocumented peoples within their buildings and in the houses of their congregants to protect them from deportation or detainment. I learnt about this fascinating network of people of faith in Mary Jo Leddy’s book “At the Border Called Hope”, and her engagements with the movement while helping to run Romero House in Toronto which helps refugees make a home for themselves in Canada and navigate the monstrosity that is Canadian bureaucracy.

I see these small acts of resistance against state power as prefiguring the end of such unjust orders and the true Advent of God’s kindom. These are the acts of faith that I think are true to Habakkuk’s text that Paul refers to. It is a faith in the end of an unjust order, of Empire. It is the rejection of passive nihilism and the will to start crafting: “our freedom by cutting holes in the fabric of this reality, by forging new realities which will, in turn, fashion us,” as the anarchist collective CrimethInc wrote. In this season of Advent we should hold fast to Mary’s Magnificat which encourages us in this anticipation of a kindom already under way: 

“He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.”

It is this radical orientation to resist power that Jesus was fostered within as a child, and to which we inherit as Christians. And it is in fact a part of a long prophetic Jewish tradition. The flattening imagery echoes Isaiah 40:4 which surfaces in Handel’s Messiah.

This is the prefigurative revolutionary task to “prepare the way of the Lord”. It’s Advent now and we have some work to do.

[delwray-blog]

THEY WANT TO OUTLAW THE NEW TESTAMENT

THEY WANT TO OUTLAW THE NEW TESTAMENT The Anti-Defamation League, the ADL says the New Testament Is Anti-Semitic and our own U.S. State Department agrees and says the English New Testament Is “Anti- Semitic”. ADL’S Foxman: New Testament Is Anti-Semitic Abraham H. Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, believes anti-Semitism will last as long as Christians accept the New Testament's "lie" that the ancient Pharisees were responsible for the death of Christ. In his recent book: Never Again? The Threat of the New Anti-Semitism, Foxman claims this "deadly" deception has caused untold Jewish suffering through the millennia. Such New Testament-generated hate culminated in the Holocaust, he claims - but it breaks out afresh as the "Christ-killers" charge is inferred in Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ and readings from the "anti-Semitic" Christian story at Easter. Foxman says another wave of global anti-Semitism and persecution of Jews could be on the way unless Christians agree to ignore large sections of the New Testament. What sections will probably be on his "must censor" list? Certainly, it would include Christ's incendiary attacks on the Pharisees, whom He called "whitewashed tombs, full of dead men's bones." Foxman would also censor the Apostle John: "He who has the Son has the life; he who does not have the Son does not have the life... Who is the liar but the one who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and the Son." In the book of Revelation, recorded by John, Jesus says those Jews who reject Him are "the synagogue of Satan," 6 another passage Foxman would certainly cut out. But most importantly, Foxman would censor the multitude of passages in all the Gospels that reveal a pharisaic conspiracy to entrap and finally murder Christ. The book of Acts squarely lays the blame for the crucifixion upon the Pharisees and the nation of the Jews.  To please Foxman, St. Paul's clear indictment must also be omitted: "The Jews...killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and drove us out. They are not pleasing to God but hostile to all men." Foxman claims Jews were not responsible for the crucifixion and that Roman officials masterminded Jesus' death. But only one "Roman official" is mentioned in the New Testament as authorizing the crucifixion; Pontius Pilate was a weak-willed political opportunist, reluctant to condemn Christ. He was coerced by an entire Jewish Sanhedrin and a mob of Jewish citizens who screamed, "Crucify him! His blood be upon us and on our children." Foxman's Case against the New Testament Foxman summarizes his case against the New Testament: "Over the last century, a growing preponderance of evidence and scholarly study has demonstrated that the execution of Jesus was instigated primarily by the Roman authorities who ruled Palestine in the first century C.E., not by the Jewish people. And the anti-Jewish rhetoric that mars several books of the Christian New Testament has been shown to reflect not historical fact but the rivalry at the time the books were written between Jews who followed Jesus and those who did not. "Nonetheless, versions of the Gospel narratives that emphasize Jewish guilt (rather than the responsibility of the Roman imperial authorities who actually imposed and carried out the death sentence) were included in the Christian canon. As a result, with every annual reading or reenactment of the story of the death of Jesus in Christian churches, millions of Christians imbibed the notion that the Jews had been guilty of the worst crime in history. Into our own time, the deicide libel has been used to justify hatred of Jews and violence against them, including from Christian pulpits. Through the centuries these denunciations have led to countless outbreaks of violence against Jews, including murderous pogroms, a bitterly ironic betrayal of the legacy of the man Christians revere as the Prince of Peace. "For almost two thousand years Christian teachings drove the spread of anti-Semitism throughout Europe and beyond. (As we'll see, the current explosion of anti-Semitism in the Moslem Middle East is fueled largely by myths and doctrines that originated in Europe.) The story of Christian anti-Semitism is a long, complicated and tragic one. Scholars such as the late Dr. James Parks have traced a direct line from ancient Christian teachings on Jews and Judaism to the death camps of Hitler." Christians Still Guilty According to Foxman, Christians in modern times are also very largely responsible for the Holocaust. "...many Germans and Austrians who spent the week murdering Jews then went to church on Sunday, apparently seeing no inconsistency in their actions and it's also true that the political and social atmosphere in which the persecution and killing of millions of Jews could be seen as broadly acceptable could not have existed without the tacit acceptance of the Christian churches - as well as the ingrained anti-Semitism of twenty centuries of dogma, doctrine and preaching that demonized Jews...because Christians and the Christian churches had spread hatred of Jews for so long, it's impossible for Christians - and in particular the Catholic Church - to regard themselves as passive or innocent bystanders during the Holocaust. The killings could not have happened without the sins of millions of Christians - sins of commission as well as sins of omission." Modern Christianity, Foxman asserts, is thus based on hateful, vengeful lies spread by the New Testament. He says the evangelism practiced by devout Christians is also anti-Semitic. "Although it is supposedly motivated by love for the Jews, this idea [that Jews should be converted] is inherently anti-Semitic in that it implicitly denigrates the value of Jewish belief." The threat of Religious Right But Foxman's allegations go farther still. He says we should fear Christians because they want to take over America! They are "part of a broader strategy to transform American government into a wholly owned subsidiary of the evangelical movement... They seek the power to impose that faith on everyone in America, replacing pluralism and tolerance with theocracy." Ironically, Foxman thus becomes one of the "conspiracy theorists" he usually rails against. Foxman's ADL exerts enormous influence over at least half million Jewish members of B'nai B'rith worldwide. His dark warnings about the Christian threat helps explain the eagerness of many Jews to oppose Christian symbols, ceremonies, holidays, and values. Foxman is trying to instill a guilt complex in Christians and a desire in the Jewish people to resist, restrict, and ultimately persecute Christians; ADL/B'nai B'rith hate laws were created for this purpose. To stimulate Jewish anger at Christians, evil Jewish leaders are creating a truly Big Lie: that the New Testament is inherently evil, anti-Semitic and violence-generating - a book which, like Mein Kampf, should not be read. How Should Christians Respond to Foxman? Bible-believing Christians remain extremely reluctant to identify evil Jewish leaders for what they are (Jewish). Such truthtelling, however, would be very constructive. It would embarrass the Jewish community into restraining their brethren in Jewish "civil liberties" groups and the media. Tragically, lack of specificity from evangelicals only gives a green light to evil Jewish leadership, hidden behind a media they control. Eventually, they will convince not only the Jewish people but the world that Christianity is the most hateful and hurtful of the world's religions. A generation from now, our media-reared children may regard Christianity as deserving outright persecution. The power of Foxman's blame-throwing against Christians inheres in his presumption that all who have ever called themselves Christians are indeed Christians. This allows him to lump together in "collective guilt" those who, throughout history, were Christian in name only with those who do in fact epitomize the words of the gentle Jesus. Christ commanded us to love our neighbors and bless our enemies. Anyone who behaves in a malicious persecution manner toward Jews, especially to the extent of the medieval barbarities and pogroms, is not a Christian. A true Christian is simply not responsible for the misdeeds of counterfeit Christians, nor is the New Testament. Nowhere does the New Testament remotely hint that Christians should persecute Jews, nor does it provide even one example of such persecution. On the contrary, the book of Acts contains at least 20 instances of Christians being persecuted at the urging of Jewish leaders. This is the kind of persecution that ADL's national executive board member, Philadelphia district attorney Lynne Abraham, brought down upon 11 Christians in Philadelphia in 2004. They were jailed and threatened with 47 years in prison and $80,000 fines each, for the "hate crime" of witnessing to homosexuals on a public sidewalk. Should Christians Change the New Testament? Can Christians accommodate Foxman and disregard the New Testament? Not without destroying Christianity - the New Testament defines Christianity. No Christian can omit or de-emphasize any part of the New Testament. To do so is to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, an act for which Christ will be ashamed of that person on the Day of Judgment. After 300 years of blessing from Christian America, a nation established on New Testament values, it is time for Foxman to face reality. Jews, far from being harried victims, have been the coddled darlings of evangelical New Testament-believing Christians since at least the 17th century. Foxman and Jewish leaders should stop raking up the past and count their present blessings - blessings which would never have come upon them except within a civilization upholding Christ's New Testament message of love and forbearance. The church must stand resolutely against Foxman's demands that it denies the New Testament. It is Foxman's persecution complex which must end. U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT SAYS NEW TESTAMENT IS “ANTI- SEMITIC”? Evangelical lovers of Israel would never believe that our government could consider them anti-Semitic. Yet the U.S. State Department’s new “Department of Global Anti-Semitism” now defines anti-Semitism in a way that makes Bible-believing Christians into anti-Semites. Here’s how: The State Department’s 40-page Report on Global Anti-Semitism cites a recent example of “anti-Semitism” in Poland. “...the pastor of St. Brigid Church in Gdansk told parishioners during services that Jews killed Jesus and the prophets.” (p.22) What’s wrong with that? According to Jewish leadership: plenty. Jewish leaders say it was this millennia-old accusation that ultimately led to the Holocaust: to millions of Jewish “Christ killers” being herded into the prison camps and gas chambers of Auschwitz, Dachau, etc. “You can’t get any more anti-Semitic than that!” they protest. IS THE NEW TESTAMENT “HATE LITERATURE? Yet, think about it. Isn’t that accusation exactly what Mel Gibson portrayed in “The Passion of the Christ?” Isn’t that exactly what the New Testament teaches in passages too numerous to list here? Scripture says evil Jewish leaders, helped by Jews gathered at the Feast of the Passover, collectively pressured the Romans to crucify Christ. From the Book of Acts alone come powerful indictments of the Jews. “...let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom ye crucified.” Acts 2:36. “Men of Israel...this man...you nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.” Acts 2:22,3. “Men of Israel...Jesus, the one whom you delivered up...you disowned...put to death the Prince of Peace…” Acts 3:12-15. “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye had put to death by hanging him on a cross.” Acts 8:30. These words - that the Jews killed Jesus - were spoken by the pastor of St. Brigid Church in Gdansk, Poland. If he is anti-Semitic according to the US State Department, then so is the New Testament! So are you as a Bible-believing Christian! NO CHRISTIANS ARE SAFE Most Christians “spiritualize” the above Scriptures, saying we are “all” guilty for the crucifixion. Yet it is clear that as long as any Christians believe the “anti-Semitic” New Testament to be the inspired word of God, he, also, is not safe from being labeled “anti-Semitic” by our government. Christians can also expect such derision from Jewish “civil liberties” organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, which is always eager to marginalize Christians into those our “tolerant” society should disapprove of. Even Mel Gibson, who believes personally that we are all guilty of the crucifixion, was not immune from attack by ADL as anti-Semitic. This is ominous for Christians because in countries dominated by hate laws, such as Canada, public criticism of matters Jewish, or “anti-Semitism,” is a hate crime punishable by harsh fines and imprisonment. IS PERSECUTION COMING FROM ADL/B'nai B'rith? The State Department’s Report on Global Anti-Semitism was not written by the State Department. It was “ghosted” by the international Jewish religious, educational, fraternal and charitable organization, B’nai B’rith and its Anti-defamation League. Only they could marshal such an extensively detailed report from 50 countries, utilizing their worldwide “hate crimes” statistics-gathering capacities. Far from being a “far left” kooky Jewish minority, not representing mainstream Jewish attitudes, B’nai B’rith International describes itself as the “body and soul” of organized Jewry. Its half million Jewish members constitute a powerful lobbying base, setting up anti-hate bureaucracies (and ending free speech) in many of the more than 50 countries in which B’nai B’rith is established. This anti-Christian, international Jewish religious organization, uniting synagogue and state, is creating a federal hate-crimes Gestapo. Its “Department of Global Anti-Semitism” is laying down outrageous definitions of the “hate crime” of anti-Semitism that make Bible-believing Christians into anti-Semitic “haters.” MAKING LOVERS OF ISRAEL INTO ANTI-SEMITES Why is ADL/B’nai B‘rith putting the noose of anti-Semitism around tens of millions of Christians? Present actions by B’nai B’rith worldwide indicate that persecution of Christians tops their agenda. In fact, the history of modern, international, evil Jewish leadership is one of just such persecution. In my 345-page book, “Israel: Our Duty…Our Dilemma,” I document how in 1917 international Jewish financiers, including Jacob Shiff (head of what later became Chase Manhattan Bank), the English Rothschilds, and the German Warburgs, along with a host of Jewish Bolshevik leaders, toppled the Csar and established communism in Russia. The eventual death toll from Soviet communism: 66,000,000, millions of whom were Christians. Last October 10th, ADL/B’nai B’rith lashed out in unprecedented fury against eleven Christians in Philadelphia for the “hate crime” of witnessing to homosexuals. Through ADL national board member, Philadelphia D.A. Lynne Abraham, ADL/B’nai B’rith attempted to incarcerate those Christians for 47 years in prison with fines of $80,000.00 each. Throughout the western world and Europe, ADL/B’nai B‘rith hate laws are now indicting evangelical Christians. Cases against Christians in Canada, Sweden, England, Italy, Germany, Australia, and New Zealand have taken place or are in progress. In dozens of other countries under ADL/B’nai B’rith hate laws, Christian testimony is now intimidated. OMINOUS SIGNS In Canada, B’nai B’rith’s federal anti-hate law was passed by Parliament in 1971 after at least five years of B’nai B’rith lobbying the law was designed to end Christian truth-telling and evangelism, as well as criticism of matters Jewish. The same is true of provincial hate laws, also orchestrated by B’nai B’rith Canada and the Canadian Jewish Congress. A pastor in northern Canada recently told me that as he handed out gospel tracts in his town, a policeman informed him that such “proselytizing” is now a hate crime under the provincial law. If he continued, he would be arrested. I asked a Christian friend in Toronto what would happen if he said publicly that the Jews had Christ crucified. He replied, “Up here, everybody understands that to do so would be playing with fire. If someone complained, the police would come and you might be charged.” As Rabbi Daniel Lapin recently warned, evangelical Christians are “under relentless attack” by “secular Judaism” (i.e. ADL/B’nai B’rith). This cannot but increase as B’nai B’rith continues rapidly to establish anti-hate bureaucracies with the help of its 2,100 lodges and chapters worldwide. THE WAY OF ESCAPE How can Christians escape persecution as anti-Semitic hate criminals in the years ahead? One way is to deny Christ: remove yourself as far as possible from any association with Christianity. The other way is to affirm Christ to the limit. We can trust His guidance and protection so completely that we no longer fear man. When we do that, we become a force for truth-telling and righteousness such as the world has seldom seen - just like the apostles in the Book of Acts. They shook the Roman Empire. We can shake the New World Order. As Congress reconvenes, members of the House and Senate will give full consideration to ADL/B’nai B’rith’s federal anti-hate bill, “The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2005,” HR 2662, S 1145. It is now before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. Lovers of freedom must protest this Orwellian legislation to their members of Congress. It will create a vast federal anti-hate bureaucracy in America identical to Canada’s, ending free speech. Also, protest the “Department of Global Anti-Semitism.” Although it has not yet been given an official title, the “Department of Global Anti-Semitism,” approved by Congress and President Bush on Oct. 17th, is now being set up in the US State Department. Demand from Congress that all funding and authority for the “Department of Anti-Semitism” be ended. If there is to be such a department, demand that Congressional hearings be held to formulate a balanced definition of “anti-Semitism” that protects Christians and critics of Israel. Protest to Members of Congress, toll-free 1-877-762-8762 The US State Department comment line 1-202-647-4000 By Rev. Ted Pike NPN Email Alerttruthtellers.org

[trendingnewsb]

We’re at the end of white Christian America. What will that mean?

After accounting for eight out of 10 Americans in 1976, white Christians are now a minority, a study has found. The political implications could be profound

America is a Christian nation: this much has always been a political axiom, especially for conservatives. Even someone as godless and immoral as the 45th president feels the need to pay lip service to the idea. On the Christian Broadcasting Network last year, he summarized his own theological position with the phrase: God is the ultimate.

And in the conservative mind, American Christianity has long been hitched to whiteness. The right learned, over the second half of the 20th century, to talk about this connection using abstractions like Judeo-Christian values, alongside coded racial talk, to let voters know which side they were on.

But change is afoot, and US demographics are morphing with potentially far-reaching consequences. Last week, in a report entitled Americas Changing Religious Identity, the nonpartisan research organization Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) concluded that white Christians were now a minority in the US population.

Soon, white people as a whole will be, too.

The survey is no ordinary one. It was based on a huge sample of 101,000 Americans from all 50 states, and concluded that just 43% of the population were white Christians. To put that in perspective, in 1976, eight in 10 Americans were identified as such, and a full 55% were white Protestants. Even as recently as 1996, white Christians were two-thirds of the population.

The historic Lutheran Trinity church, in Manning, Iowa. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

White Christianity was always rooted in the nations history, demographics and culture. Among North Americas earliest and most revered white settlers were Puritan Protestants.

As well as expecting the return of Christ, they sought to mould a pious community which embodied their goals of moral and ecclesiastical purity. They also nurtured a lurid demonology, and hunted and burned supposed witches in their midst. These tendencies to millennialism, theocracy and scapegoating have frequently recurred in Americas white Christian culture.

Successive waves of religious revival, beginning in the 18th century, shaped the nations politics and its sense of itself. In the 1730s, the preacher Jonathan Edwards sought not only the personal conversion of his listeners, but to bring about Christs reign on Earth through an increased influence in the colonies.

As the religious scholar Dale T Irvin writes: By the time of the American revolution, Edwardss followers had begun to secularize this vision of a righteous nation that was charged with a redemptive mission in the world.

This faith informed the 19th-century doctrine of manifest destiny, which held that the spread of white settlement over the entire continent was not only inevitable, but just. The dispossession of native peoples, and the nations eventual dominance of the hemisphere, was carried out under an imprimatur with Christian roots.

In the late 20th century, another religious revival fed directly into the successes of conservative politics. Preachers like Billy Graham and Jimmy Swaggart in spectacular revival meetings and increasingly on television attracted millions of white converts to churches which emphasized literalist interpretations of the Bible, strict moral teachings and apocalyptic expectations.

In the south, the explosion of evangelical churches coincided with a wave of racial reaction in the wake of the civil rights movement. After being a Democratic stronghold, the south became solidly Republican beginning in the early 1970s. The Republican southern strategy used race as a wedge issue to attract white votes in the wake of the civil rights movement, but it also proffered a socially conservative message that gelled with the values of the emerging Christian Right.

In succeeding decades, Republicans have used this mix to help elect presidents, put a lock on Congress, and extend their dominance over the majority of the nations statehouses. Leaders of the Christian right became figures of national influence, and especially in the Bush years, public policy was directed to benefit them.

Members of the United House of Prayer For All People are baptized by fire hose, a church tradition since 1926, in Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The author of The End of White Christian America, Robert P Jones, says it is remarkable how fast the trend is moving. In 2008, white Christians were still 50% of the population, so that theres been an 11-point shift since Barack Obamas election.

According to Jones, there are two big reasons for this shift.

One is the disaffiliation of young people in particular from Christian churches. That is, especially among the young, there are proportionally fewer Christians. If trends continue, that means that there will be fewer and fewer Christians.

While two-thirds of seniors are white Christians, only around a quarter of people 18-29 are. To varying degrees, this has affected almost every Christian denomination and nearly four in 10 young Americans have no religious affiliation at all.

The youngest faiths in America those with the largest proportion of young adherents are non-Christian: Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. This reflects the second big driver of white Christian decline: both America and its family of faiths are becoming less white.

The big picture is the steady erosion of Americas white majority. Due mostly to Asian and Hispanic immigration, and the consolidation of already established immigrant populations, white people will be a minority by 2042. This will be true of under-18s as soon as 2023. According to Pews projections, in the century between 1965 and 2065, white people will have gone from 85% of the population to 46%.

Perhaps inevitably, this is being reflected in a more diverse religious landscape.

Martin Luther King Jr once lamented: It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 oclock on Sunday morning. Even now, historically black denominations exist on parallel tracks with almost exclusively white churches, with little or no changes to their racial makeup.

But other churches are beginning to reflect the countrys increasing diversity. The Catholic church provides a stark illustration.

In the 1980s, white people outnumbered non-white people in Catholic churches by a 10-to-one margin. Now, thanks mostly to a large number of Hispanic parishioners, and the apostasy of young white people, Jones says that the church is almost reaching parity, and in many areas of the country the church is majority Latino.

From the colonial period onward, explains John Turner, the vast majority of white settlers would have considered themselves Protestant.

While the most ingrained narratives of North American history depict it as a haven for minority sects, this varied considerably by colony. People talk about the US as a Christian nation, but a better description would be a white Protestant nation that often made life uncomfortable for other groups, says Turner.

He points to anti-Catholic nativism in the 19th century, which was driven by a belief that the world is divided between Christ and anti-Christ, with Catholics on the other side of the divide.

This frequently led to violence. In 1834, a mob burned an Ursuline convent near Boston. On 6 August 1855, known afterwards as Blood Monday, 22 people died when another mob attacked an Irish Catholic neighborhood.

In 1854 the American party also known as the Know Nothings won 42 congressional seats on a populist, anti-Catholic platform. Two years later, their presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, got a fifth of the vote.

The Mormon temple in Bountiful, Utah, sits above the Great Salt Lake at dusk. Photograph: Joel Addams/Getty Images/Aurora Open

Another example of Protestants making life uncomfortable for others was the persecution of Americas own Mormon church, founded in 1830. In the 19th century, Turner says, many Protestant Americans rejected the idea that Mormonism was really a religion at all.

Early Mormon history was marked by a series of violent attacks by non-Mormons, and subsequent escapes to new gathering places.

This repeated ostracism and violence led eventually to their overland trek to the Great Salt Lake, far from their often murderous Protestant antagonists, where they founded Utah.

From the 1890s and especially during the Great Depression, Jews were the victims of both ambient antisemitic sentiments and violent hate crimes, especially in the cities of the north-east.

The story of American Protestantism has not been all about persecution, of course. Protestant clergy and lay people have played a part in progressive struggles from abolition, to the civil rights movement, to manning the barricades in Charlottesville. Many mainstream denominations have a decidedly liberal cast on social and economic issues.

Politicized white Christian identity remains a potent force on the right. Jones points out that the Republican partys base has remained overwhelmingly white and Christian, with their decline inside the GOP tent much less dramatic than in the nation as a whole: their share of the Republican voting coalition declined only slightly over the past decade, from 81% in 2006 to 73% now.

Republican policies and priorities continue to reflect this influence. In the platform adopted at the nomination of Donald Trump, the party affirmed commitments to anti-abortion measures (including the defunding of Planned Parenthood), condemned the supreme courts decision to allow same-sex marriage, and promised to bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses who refused service to same-sex couples.

Trump himself has issued an executive order that prevents the enforcement of the so-called Johnson amendments, which stop organizations with tax-exempt status from engaging in partisan political campaigning. These measures have limited the political advocacy of churches on the Christian right, and Trumps move (which he overstated as a repeal) is a reward to evangelicals.

Even Trumps promises of a wall and an immigration crackdown reflect the values of white evangelicals, who among all faith groups are the most hostile to immigration.

White Christians are wedded to the GOP; Hawley remarks that white Christians remain the base of the GOP, and I would expect them to remain so.

Members of the St Elizabeth Parish celebrate the crowning of Saint Mary in Topawa, Arizona. Photograph: Max Becherer/AP

In a two-party system, the overwhelming whiteness of the Republican party has seen Democrats following the trends, and becoming more diverse. Democrats are heavily favored by black and Hispanic Americans, including Hispanic Catholics, by young people, and by the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans.

For years, these trends have produced optimism among Democrats their coalition appears to resemble Americas future, whereas the Republicans appear mired in the past, with a shrinking base. Even Republicans have been growing alarmed: the famous autopsy document produced by Reince Priebuss RNC in the wake of Mitt Romneys defeat urged the party to reach out to Latinos with, among other things, meaningful immigration reform.

A glance at the present, however, shows Republicans in charge of Congress, the presidency, and a majority of statehouses, and Trump looking to implement the stridently anti-immigrant, Christian right-friendly platform he was elected on.

Turner says that in the short term, changing demography will not necessarily guarantee election results: For a long time people have been saying that the marriage of Republican politics to white Christians was a losing game, but it wasnt last year.

And it bears saying that nothing guarantees that Latinos, African Americans, or other non-white groups in America will remain loyal Democrats. White Christianity is not an immutable category. After all, white Catholics and Mormons formerly the targets of Protestant persecution have themselves become a part of the white Christian coalition.

Last week John Judis, previously a leading advocate of demography is destiny predictions about an emerging Democratic majority, recanted, remarking: Whiteness is not a genetic category, after all; it is a social and political construct that relies on perception and prejudice. A century ago, Irish, Italians, and Jews were not seen as white.

Jones, though, thinks that even if the trends arent decisive in the short term, sooner or later these demographic realities will show up in national elections. He adds: We need to remember how close the 2016 election was.

He says there is a lag, but by 2024 the changes will have become electorally decisive, and for Republicans the problem will increasingly be that when one part of your base is so large and vocal, it becomes hard to pivot.

Republicans white Christian base in large part wants to slow immigration or even halt it altogether but it may be that that ship has sailed.

If Republicans cannot change, they may find that the country has changed around them.

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[catholicwatertown]

Pope at Mass in Medellin Colombia: 'Remain steadfast and free in Christ'

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Saturday at the Enrique Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellín, in both Latin and Spanish, in memory of St. Peter Claver, Jesuit priest, who was an apostle to the African slaves.

In his homily, the Pope reflected on the cost of discipleship.  He said one should not feel secure merely by following certain precepts, prohibitions, and mandates, dispensing oneself from the uncomfortable question: “What would God like us to do?”

Instead, the Holy Father said God wants us to follow Him in such a way as to focus on the essential, to be renewed, and to get involved. He said these are the three attitudes which must form our lives as disciples.

"Missionary disciples", he said, ought to "know how to see, without hereditary short-sightedness; looking at reality with the eyes and heart of Jesus, and only then judging." These, he said, are "disciples who risk, act, and commit themselves."

In conclusion, Pope Francis invited those present to remain steadfast and free in Christ, in such a way that they manifest him in everything they do; take up the path of Jesus with all their strength, know him, allow themselves to be called and taught by him, and proclaim him with great joy.

Please find below the full text of the official English translation of the Pope's prepared Homily:

“The Christian Life as Discipleship”

Medellín – John Paul II Airport

Saturday, 9 September 2017

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

During the Mass on Thursday in Bogotá, we heard Jesus calling his first disciples; the part of Luke’s Gospel which opens with this passage, concludes with the call of the Twelve.  What are the evangelists reminding us of between these two events?  That this journey of following Jesus involved a great work of purification in his first followers.  Some of the precepts, prohibitions and mandates made them feel secure; fulfilling certain practices and rites dispensed them from the uncomfortable question: “What would God like us to do?”  The Lord Jesus tells them that their fulfilment involves following him, and that this journey will make them encounter lepers, paralytics and sinners.  These realities demand much more than a formula, an established norm.  The disciples learned that following Jesus presupposes other priorities, other considerations in order to serve God.  For the Lord, as also for the first community, it is of the greatest importance that we who call ourselves disciples not cling to a certain style or to particular practices that cause us to be more like some Pharisees than like Jesus.  Jesus’ freedom contrasts with the lack of freedom seen in the doctors of the law of that time, who were paralyzed by a rigorous interpretation and practice of that law.  Jesus does not live according to a superficially “correct” observance; he brings the law to its fullness.  This is what he wants for us, to follow him in such a way as to go to what is essential, to be renewed, and to get involved.  These are three attitudes that must form our lives as disciples. 

Firstly, going to what is essential.  This does not mean “breaking with everything” that does not suit us, because Jesus did not come “to abolish the law, but to fulfil it” (Mt 5:17); it means to go deep, to what matters and has value for life.  Jesus teaches that being in relationship with God cannot be a cold attachment to norms and laws, nor the observance of some outward actions that do not lead to a real change of life.  Neither can our discipleship simply be motivated by custom because we have a baptismal certificate.  Discipleship must begin with a living experience of God and his love.  It is not something static, but a continuous movement towards Christ; it is not simply the fidelity to making a doctrine explicit, but rather the experience of the Lord’s living, kindly and active presence, an ongoing formation by listening to his word.  And this word, we have heard, makes itself known to us in the concrete needs of our brothers and sisters: the hunger of those nearest to us in the text just proclaimed, or illness as Luke narrates afterwards.

Secondly, being renewed.  As Jesus “shook” the doctors of the law to break them free of their rigidity, now also the Church is “shaken” by the Spirit in order to lay aside comforts and attachments.  We should not be afraid of renewal.  The Church always needs renewal – Ecclesia semper reformanda.  She does not renew herself on her own whim, but rather does so “firm in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel” (Col 1:23).  Renewal entails sacrifice and courage, not so that we can consider ourselves superior or flawless, but rather to respond better to the Lord’s call.  The Lord of the Sabbath, the reason for our commandments and prescriptions, invites us to reflect on regulations when our following him is at stake; when his open wounds and his cries of hunger and thirst for justice call out to us and demand new responses.  In Colombia there are many situations where disciples must embrace Jesus’ way of life, particularly love transformed into acts of non-violence, reconciliation and peace.  

Thirdly, getting involved.  Even if it may seem that you are getting yourself dirty or stained, get involved.  Like David and those with him who entered the Temple because they were hungry and the disciples of Jesus who ate ears of grain in the field, so also today we are called upon to be brave, to have that evangelical courage which springs from knowing that there are many who are hungry, who hunger for God, who hunger for dignity, because they have been deprived.  As Christians, help them to be satiated by God; do not impede them or stop this encounter.  We cannot be Christians who continually put up “do not enter” signs, nor can we consider that this space is mine or yours alone, or that we can claim ownership of something that is absolutely not ours.  The Church is not ours, she is God’s; he is the owner of the temple and the field; everyone has a place, everyone is invited to find here, and among us, his or her nourishment.  We are simple servants (cf. Col 1:23) and we cannot prevent this encounter.  On the contrary, Jesus tells us, as he told his disciples: “You give them something to eat” (Mt 14:16); this is our service.  Saint Peter Claver understood this well, he whom we celebrate today in the liturgy and whom I will venerate tomorrow in Cartagena.  “Slave of the slaves forever” was the motto of his life, because he understood, as a disciple of Jesus, that he could not remain indifferent to the suffering of the most helpless and mistreated of his time, and that he had to do something to alleviate their suffering. 

Brothers and sisters, the Church in Colombia is called to commit itself, with greater boldness, to forming missionary disciples, as the Bishops stated when they were gathered in Aparecida in 2007.  Disciples who know how to see, judge and act, as stated in that Latin-American document born in this land (cf. Medellín, 1968).  Missionary disciples that know how to see, without hereditary short-sightedness; looking at reality with the eyes and heart of Jesus, and only then judging.  Disciples who risk, act, and commit themselves.

I have come here precisely to confirm you in the faith and hope of the Gospel.  Remain steadfast and free in Christ, in such a way that you manifest him in everything you do; take up the path of Jesus with all your strength, know him, allow yourselves to be called and taught by him, and proclaim him with great joy. 

Let us pray through the intercession of Our Mother, Our Lady of Candelaria, that she may accompany us on our path of discipleship, so that, giving our lives to Christ, we may simply be missionaries who bring the light and joy of the Gospel to all people.

(from Vatican Radio)

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Hit & Run Commentary #111

A missionary said that Christians ought to share the Gospel with those that do not look like them.  But shouldn’t the Christian also be willing to share the Gospel with those that DO look like them, even if this includes White and Americans?  If missiological theory now holds that it is often best to let the natives reach out to other natives if at all possible, why should Whites and Americans be chastised if they are most comfortable with reaching out to other Whites and Americans?

A missionary praised a letter by Adoniram Judson to his prospective father in law essentially berating him that he was a bad Christian if he did not consent to surrender his daughter to a man readily admitting he was unfit to provide for her in the name of missionary outreach. That’s certainly a ballsy approach to persuade a father to grant the hand of his daughter in marriage.

Reflecting on a missionary’s admonition on the need to genuinely respect Muslims, a pastor confided that in public he is careful not to directly look at Muslim women for fear of offending their high moral standards. First, if Muslim women do not want to be looked at, they can return to their excrement pile homelands. This is America. If you are a woman and you don’t even want to be looked at, don’t come here. Given that where many of these women come from they can pretty much be raped if caught in public unaccompanied by a male family member, one would think simply being looked at would be a welcomed improvement.  If Americans are obligated to pander to this extent to the Islamist adversary, this global worldview war is already lost. What other defeatist postures are Christians obligated to assume? Are believers in Bible Belt states such as North Carolina now expected to eliminate their thriving pork barbecue culture?

Because of the wave of a missionary’s hand, the congregation of a Baptist church where the pastor once regularly went out of his way to emphasize what a wretched religion Islam is  is now harping how believers are obligated to show “genuine” respect to Muslims such as at least hearing out what the Koran has to say.  One must ask will such an open approach now be extended to Catholics, science fiction enthusiasts, and women that wear pants?

If ever criticized in Independent Baptist circles for my interest in science fiction and comics, I might just ask how is this different than the “genuine” respect and interest we are now obligated to manifest on behalf of Muslims.  If I was any good at outstretching my hand and expecting something to be placed into it, I should have claimed I need funds for outreach to ComiCon.

Of Adoniram Judson, he and his first wife lost their first child through miscarriage, their second child eight months after his birth, and their third child sixth months after his first wife’s death.  Of the 13 children he sired, only six survived. Given that these deaths were likely attributable to the squalor endemic to the heathen world, though he is worthy of praise as a missionary, is anyone going to have the courage to point out that he was a lousy husband and father?

Baptist functionary Paige Patterson ahas been castigated for remarks suggesting  that teen boys often display an enthusiastic appreciation for female physical attributes.  If these marms are eager to chastise men for determining a woman’s worth based on the size of her measurements going to be as eager in disabusing the young women that the value of a man is determined by the size of his bank account or the horsepower of the automobile that he drives?

Because the thoroughfare is named after the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis Highway in Northern Virginia is slated to be renamed Richmond Highway.  But since Richmond was also the capital of the Confederacy, shouldn’t that name itself also be just as offensive? If we are to be consistent, shouldn’t the entire city of Richmond be “renditioned”  in a manner similar to that which occurs on the USA drama “Colony” in order to remove this geographical “trigger”?

A 104 year old scientist who technically wasn’t terminally ill killed himself at a Swiss suicide clinic.  Is there no reason he couldn’t have waited a few days

Technically, isn’t the Captain Marvel being foisted upon the movie going public in the upcoming film actually just Ms. Marvel from the comics before these periodicals become hyper-political?

Regarding this level of abuse that Southern Baptist functionary Paige Patterson is alleged to have endorsed.  Does that consist of actual hitting or is this merely of a man simply articulating disagreement with a woman and raising his voice in reply to a voice that was first raised at him?  Do these Dana Carvey-style good church women intend to say anything about the increasing number of women that mistreat and disrespect men as well?

If professional sports teams can ban fans living outside of certain zip codes from purchasing play off tickets or from wearing the paraphernalia of the visiting team as in the case of the NHL playoffs, why should we give a flip when these enterprises cry a river about decreasing attendance at these high priced competitions?  If people want to be berated and ordered about in a surly manner, they can just go to the DMV.

So will authoritarian progressives feigning opposition to human oppression to the extent that all vestiges of the Confederacy from statues to road names must be obliterated from public consciousness toss hissy fits as vehement against the erection of an 18 feet tall Karl Marx statue paid for by the Red Chinese in his hometown of Trier, Germany to celebrate the bicentennial of the deadbeat philosopher?  

In a tweet, Maxine Waters quipped, “How many diet Cokes did Trump consume while he gulped and waited for the defeat of his pedophile candidate?”  How is Trump’s consumption of diet soda any more outrageous than those in her preferred constituency known for their proclivity for gape soda? Roy Moore might have dated a few a bit young for his age. But unlike many in the community this particular legislator claims to represent, at least Moore did not leave these gals with a litter of out of wedlock children in his wake.

If it is unacceptable irrespective of what statutory law allows for 30 year olds to date 18 year olds because such young minds are impressionable and easy to manipulate into compliance, why is it acceptable to manipulate those of that age into giving their lives in their country’s wars?  Is not the government making promises of education and enlistment bonuses not much different than a man promising to lavish nice things upon a compliant young woman?

It is insisted that Confederate statues should only be allowed to exist if these memorials are placed in an historical context.  That means they must be exhibited in a way so as to maximize the amount of White guilt elicited. So if exacting nitpicky detail is the ultimate goal, will additions be made to the Martin Luther KIng memorial pointing out that he fooled around on his wife, denied a number of fundamental Christians doctrines, and that he received support from a number of avowed Communists likely themselves at the behest of the Soviet Union?  Or is this one of those instances where we are supposed to overlook Russian meddling in American affairs but are expected to react as if it is the opening scene from Patrick Swayze’s version of Red Dawn if subversive operatives are accused of conducting under the table discussions with Trump administration representatives?

Outrage erupted when Ben Carson observed that a good measure of poverty is actually a mindset.  Are those jacked out of shape that this is a criticism of individuals or that government complicity in the welfare racket has been exposed.?  This mental shackling has ensnared nearly all of us to some degree. When considering an undertaking or an enterprise, often thoughts  no longer dwell upon  do I possess the skill need to succeed or what will happen if the idea we think is so great turns out to be a flop. Rather, we calculate is it even worth the effort given the penalties likely to be incurred for failing to comply with with the intricacies of complex taxing regulations or even the violence one is likely to incur for criticizing ideas contrary to the orthodoxies of entrenched elites.

Homeschool activist Kevin Swanson suggests avoiding the public library because of books on the shelves that promote the homosexual agenda rather than simply avoiding those books. Among certain fundamentalist sects, attendance at places such as amusement parks, beaches, and the cinema are also forbidden. Children probably shouldn’t visit museums either because their impressionable minds might be exposed to evolution. Extending this logic a bit further, one supposes these youngsters should not be allowed to go to the supermarket either because they might catch a glimpse of the condom display or the heaving bosoms of the tramps on the covers of Cosmo magazine or those trashy paperback romances. So when is the homeschool child ever allowed to leave the house? Even if they aren’t allowed to date, won’t their mail order brides be exposed to assorted carnal evils racing through the airport on their way to the cordoned off family compound? If those from this Evangelical sociological subgrouping are to live lives this sheltered or separated, on what grounds do such thoroughgoing Protestants gripe about cloistered monks and nuns?

Mitt Romney has condemned the selection of Robert Jeffress to offer the opening prayer of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on the grounds that the Baptist minister is a religious bigot.  So what Romney is saying is that it is unacceptable for someone to articulate why they are reluctant over religious grounds to vote for a candidate running for elected office but perfectly acceptable to exclude that individual from a public event over refusal to embrace religious universalism.  Technically, Romney is not much different then philosophically from the Romans that tossed Christians to lions in the gladiatorial arena. If dedicated temple Mormons like Mitt Romney really do believe no religion is better than any other with all sincerely held paths leading the individual to an eternity with God in Heaven, why does his sect spend so much time canvassing the neighborhoods of the world with missionaries many of whom have been strongarmed pretty much into this service taken away from their families?

President Trump is being criticized for acknowledging the hero in the Waffle House mass casualty incident three weeks after the fact.  Had Trump thanked the individual at the time, the President would be accused of being a media whore having to interject himself into the story.

By Frederick Meekins

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We’re at the end of white Christian America. What will that mean?

After accounting for eight out of 10 Americans in 1976, white Christians are now a minority, a study has found. The political implications could be profound

America is a Christian nation: this much has always been a political axiom, especially for conservatives. Even someone as godless and immoral as the 45th president feels the need to pay lip service to the idea. On the Christian Broadcasting Network last year, he summarized his own theological position with the phrase: God is the ultimate.

And in the conservative mind, American Christianity has long been hitched to whiteness. The right learned, over the second half of the 20th century, to talk about this connection using abstractions like Judeo-Christian values, alongside coded racial talk, to let voters know which side they were on.

But change is afoot, and US demographics are morphing with potentially far-reaching consequences. Last week, in a report entitled Americas Changing Religious Identity, the nonpartisan research organization Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) concluded that white Christians were now a minority in the US population.

Soon, white people as a whole will be, too.

The survey is no ordinary one. It was based on a huge sample of 101,000 Americans from all 50 states, and concluded that just 43% of the population were white Christians. To put that in perspective, in 1976, eight in 10 Americans were identified as such, and a full 55% were white Protestants. Even as recently as 1996, white Christians were two-thirds of the population.

The historic Lutheran Trinity church, in Manning, Iowa. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

White Christianity was always rooted in the nations history, demographics and culture. Among North Americas earliest and most revered white settlers were Puritan Protestants.

As well as expecting the return of Christ, they sought to mould a pious community which embodied their goals of moral and ecclesiastical purity. They also nurtured a lurid demonology, and hunted and burned supposed witches in their midst. These tendencies to millennialism, theocracy and scapegoating have frequently recurred in Americas white Christian culture.

Successive waves of religious revival, beginning in the 18th century, shaped the nations politics and its sense of itself. In the 1730s, the preacher Jonathan Edwards sought not only the personal conversion of his listeners, but to bring about Christs reign on Earth through an increased influence in the colonies.

As the religious scholar Dale T Irvin writes: By the time of the American revolution, Edwardss followers had begun to secularize this vision of a righteous nation that was charged with a redemptive mission in the world.

This faith informed the 19th-century doctrine of manifest destiny, which held that the spread of white settlement over the entire continent was not only inevitable, but just. The dispossession of native peoples, and the nations eventual dominance of the hemisphere, was carried out under an imprimatur with Christian roots.

In the late 20th century, another religious revival fed directly into the successes of conservative politics. Preachers like Billy Graham and Jimmy Swaggart in spectacular revival meetings and increasingly on television attracted millions of white converts to churches which emphasized literalist interpretations of the Bible, strict moral teachings and apocalyptic expectations.

In the south, the explosion of evangelical churches coincided with a wave of racial reaction in the wake of the civil rights movement. After being a Democratic stronghold, the south became solidly Republican beginning in the early 1970s. The Republican southern strategy used race as a wedge issue to attract white votes in the wake of the civil rights movement, but it also proffered a socially conservative message that gelled with the values of the emerging Christian Right.

In succeeding decades, Republicans have used this mix to help elect presidents, put a lock on Congress, and extend their dominance over the majority of the nations statehouses. Leaders of the Christian right became figures of national influence, and especially in the Bush years, public policy was directed to benefit them.

Members of the United House of Prayer For All People are baptized by fire hose, a church tradition since 1926, in Baltimore, Maryland. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

The author of The End of White Christian America, Robert P Jones, says it is remarkable how fast the trend is moving. In 2008, white Christians were still 50% of the population, so that theres been an 11-point shift since Barack Obamas election.

According to Jones, there are two big reasons for this shift.

One is the disaffiliation of young people in particular from Christian churches. That is, especially among the young, there are proportionally fewer Christians. If trends continue, that means that there will be fewer and fewer Christians.

While two-thirds of seniors are white Christians, only around a quarter of people 18-29 are. To varying degrees, this has affected almost every Christian denomination and nearly four in 10 young Americans have no religious affiliation at all.

The youngest faiths in America those with the largest proportion of young adherents are non-Christian: Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. This reflects the second big driver of white Christian decline: both America and its family of faiths are becoming less white.

The big picture is the steady erosion of Americas white majority. Due mostly to Asian and Hispanic immigration, and the consolidation of already established immigrant populations, white people will be a minority by 2042. This will be true of under-18s as soon as 2023. According to Pews projections, in the century between 1965 and 2065, white people will have gone from 85% of the population to 46%.

Perhaps inevitably, this is being reflected in a more diverse religious landscape.

Martin Luther King Jr once lamented: It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is 11 oclock on Sunday morning. Even now, historically black denominations exist on parallel tracks with almost exclusively white churches, with little or no changes to their racial makeup.

But other churches are beginning to reflect the countrys increasing diversity. The Catholic church provides a stark illustration.

In the 1980s, white people outnumbered non-white people in Catholic churches by a 10-to-one margin. Now, thanks mostly to a large number of Hispanic parishioners, and the apostasy of young white people, Jones says that the church is almost reaching parity, and in many areas of the country the church is majority Latino.

From the colonial period onward, explains John Turner, the vast majority of white settlers would have considered themselves Protestant.

While the most ingrained narratives of North American history depict it as a haven for minority sects, this varied considerably by colony. People talk about the US as a Christian nation, but a better description would be a white Protestant nation that often made life uncomfortable for other groups, says Turner.

He points to anti-Catholic nativism in the 19th century, which was driven by a belief that the world is divided between Christ and anti-Christ, with Catholics on the other side of the divide.

This frequently led to violence. In 1834, a mob burned an Ursuline convent near Boston. On 6 August 1855, known afterwards as Blood Monday, 22 people died when another mob attacked an Irish Catholic neighborhood.

In 1854 the American party also known as the Know Nothings won 42 congressional seats on a populist, anti-Catholic platform. Two years later, their presidential candidate, Millard Fillmore, got a fifth of the vote.

The Mormon temple in Bountiful, Utah, sits above the Great Salt Lake at dusk. Photograph: Joel Addams/Getty Images/Aurora Open

Another example of Protestants making life uncomfortable for others was the persecution of Americas own Mormon church, founded in 1830. In the 19th century, Turner says, many Protestant Americans rejected the idea that Mormonism was really a religion at all.

Early Mormon history was marked by a series of violent attacks by non-Mormons, and subsequent escapes to new gathering places.

This repeated ostracism and violence led eventually to their overland trek to the Great Salt Lake, far from their often murderous Protestant antagonists, where they founded Utah.

From the 1890s and especially during the Great Depression, Jews were the victims of both ambient antisemitic sentiments and violent hate crimes, especially in the cities of the north-east.

The story of American Protestantism has not been all about persecution, of course. Protestant clergy and lay people have played a part in progressive struggles from abolition, to the civil rights movement, to manning the barricades in Charlottesville. Many mainstream denominations have a decidedly liberal cast on social and economic issues.

Politicized white Christian identity remains a potent force on the right. Jones points out that the Republican partys base has remained overwhelmingly white and Christian, with their decline inside the GOP tent much less dramatic than in the nation as a whole: their share of the Republican voting coalition declined only slightly over the past decade, from 81% in 2006 to 73% now.

Republican policies and priorities continue to reflect this influence. In the platform adopted at the nomination of Donald Trump, the party affirmed commitments to anti-abortion measures (including the defunding of Planned Parenthood), condemned the supreme courts decision to allow same-sex marriage, and promised to bar government discrimination against individuals and businesses who refused service to same-sex couples.

Trump himself has issued an executive order that prevents the enforcement of the so-called Johnson amendments, which stop organizations with tax-exempt status from engaging in partisan political campaigning. These measures have limited the political advocacy of churches on the Christian right, and Trumps move (which he overstated as a repeal) is a reward to evangelicals.

Even Trumps promises of a wall and an immigration crackdown reflect the values of white evangelicals, who among all faith groups are the most hostile to immigration.

White Christians are wedded to the GOP; Hawley remarks that white Christians remain the base of the GOP, and I would expect them to remain so.

Members of the St Elizabeth Parish celebrate the crowning of Saint Mary in Topawa, Arizona. Photograph: Max Becherer/AP

In a two-party system, the overwhelming whiteness of the Republican party has seen Democrats following the trends, and becoming more diverse. Democrats are heavily favored by black and Hispanic Americans, including Hispanic Catholics, by young people, and by the growing number of religiously unaffiliated Americans.

For years, these trends have produced optimism among Democrats their coalition appears to resemble Americas future, whereas the Republicans appear mired in the past, with a shrinking base. Even Republicans have been growing alarmed: the famous autopsy document produced by Reince Priebuss RNC in the wake of Mitt Romneys defeat urged the party to reach out to Latinos with, among other things, meaningful immigration reform.

A glance at the present, however, shows Republicans in charge of Congress, the presidency, and a majority of statehouses, and Trump looking to implement the stridently anti-immigrant, Christian right-friendly platform he was elected on.

Turner says that in the short term, changing demography will not necessarily guarantee election results: For a long time people have been saying that the marriage of Republican politics to white Christians was a losing game, but it wasnt last year.

And it bears saying that nothing guarantees that Latinos, African Americans, or other non-white groups in America will remain loyal Democrats. White Christianity is not an immutable category. After all, white Catholics and Mormons formerly the targets of Protestant persecution have themselves become a part of the white Christian coalition.

Last week John Judis, previously a leading advocate of demography is destiny predictions about an emerging Democratic majority, recanted, remarking: Whiteness is not a genetic category, after all; it is a social and political construct that relies on perception and prejudice. A century ago, Irish, Italians, and Jews were not seen as white.

Jones, though, thinks that even if the trends arent decisive in the short term, sooner or later these demographic realities will show up in national elections. He adds: We need to remember how close the 2016 election was.

He says there is a lag, but by 2024 the changes will have become electorally decisive, and for Republicans the problem will increasingly be that when one part of your base is so large and vocal, it becomes hard to pivot.

Republicans white Christian base in large part wants to slow immigration or even halt it altogether but it may be that that ship has sailed.

If Republicans cannot change, they may find that the country has changed around them.

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