“O God, impress upon me the value of time, and give regulation to all my thoughts and to all my movements.”
— Thomas Chalmers
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“A piety which concerns itself only with man’s soul and leaves the world to the devil is a profane piety”
— R.J. Rushdoony
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“Faith stands in antithesis to works; there can be no amalgam of these two (cf. Gal. 5:4). That we are justified by faith is what engenders hope in a convicted sinner’s heart. He knows he has nothing to offer. And this truth assures him that he needs nothing to offer, yea, it assures him that it is an abomination to God to presume to offer. We are justified by faith and therefore simply by entrustment of ourselves, in all our dismal hopelessness, to the Saviour whose righteousness is undefiled and undefilable. Justification by faith alone lies at the heart of the gospel and it is the article that makes the lame man leap as an hart and the tongue of the dumb sing. Justification is that by which grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life; it is for the believer alone and it is for the believer by faith alone. It is the righteousness of God from faith to faith (Rom. 1:17; cf. 3:22).
It is an old and time-worn objection that this doctrine ministers to licence and looseness. Only those who know not the power of the gospel will plead such misconception. Justification is by faith alone, but not by a faith that is alone. Justification is not all that is embraced in the gospel of redeeming grace. Christ is a complete Saviour and it is not justification alone that the believing sinner possesses in him. And faith is not the only response in the heart of him who has entrusted himself to Christ for salvation. Faith alone justifies but a justified person with faith alone would be a monstrosity which never exists in the kingdom of grace. Faith works itself out through love (cf. Gal. 5:6). And faith without works is dead (cf. James 2:17-20). It is living faith that justifies and living faith unites to Christ both in the virtue of his death and in the power of his resurrection. No one has entrusted himself to Christ for deliverance from the guilt of sin who has not also entrusted himself to him for deliverance from the power of sin. “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. 6:1, 2).”
— John Murray, from Redemption: Accomplished and Applied, p. 130-131
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John Calvin’s commentary on Ezekiel 18:17 explains how justification by faith apart from works relates to the good works we must do to be saved. Calvin’s formula, to be precise, is not “justification by faith alone” but “justification by a living faith alone,” or even “justification by a working faith alone.” The phrase “justification by faith alone” is ambiguous – it can be true or false, depending on how it is taken and what is meant:
“Thus it still remains true, that faith without works justifies, although this needs prudence and a sound interpretation; for this proposition, that faith without works justifies is true and yet false, according to the different senses which it bears. The proposition, that faith without works justifies by itself, is false, because faith without works is void. But if the clause “without works” is joined with the word “justifies,” the proposition will be true, since faith cannot justify when it is without works, because it is dead, and a mere fiction. He who is born of God is just, as John says. (1 John 5:18.) Thus faith can be no more separated from works than the sun from his heat yet faith justifies without works, because works form no reason for our justification; but faith alone reconciles us to God, and causes him to love us, not in ourselves, but in his only begotten Son.”
Richard Gaffin explains Calvin this way:
“Taken by itself, Calvin considers the statement “faith without works justifies” to be ambiguous. It “needs prudence and sound interpretation”; it is “true yet false,” depending on the way it is read. Pinpointed grammatically, Calvin is saying:
a) when the prepositional phrase “without works” is taken adverbially, that is, as modifying the verb “justifies,” then the statement “faith without works justifies,” is true (faith is the sole instrument of justification);
b) when “without works”is taken adjectivally, that is, with the noun “faith” (=”without-works faith”), then the same statement is false.
By itself (faith-alone!), Calvin asserts, faith does not justify, “because faith without works is void.” Again he says, “faith cannot justify when it is without works, because it is dead and a mere fiction.” He is saying in effect, to focus the balance of his remarks: “faith, with its works, justifies without works”; or also, “with-works faith (or “not-without-works faith”) justifies without works.”
In this passage Calvin is on the proverbial razor’s edge, where we occasionally find ourselves in sound theologizing. Certainly, he is not saying here what he emphatically denies elsewhere, that one must do a certain amount of good works or obey God for a certain amount of time before one can be justified. Rather, his comments highlight what is expressed later in the Westminster Confession, namely that faith as “the alone instrument of justification” is “not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith, but worketh by love” or, more importantly, Paul’s characterization of justifying faith as “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6; cited by the WCF at this point). Here, in a particularly striking and instructive way, Calvin accents how inseparable (yet distinct) good works are from faith, as the alone instrument of justification. Such works are – I would not hesitate to add for Calvin, although he does not say so explicitly here – are necessary as “the fruits and evidences of a true and lively [that is, justifying] faith” (WCF, 16:2).”
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Marxists are clueless about wealth creation. They’re all about seizing wealth that has already been created – and then they destroy that wealth along with all that went into creating it, which is why Marxism always ends in poverty. Marxism is antithetical to the creation mandate of Genesis 1. Marxism is parasitic.
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If America completely withdraws support from Israel, what happens? If Israel loses America’s unconditional shield of protection, what changes in the Middle East?
Does Israel get annihilated?
Does Israel do the annihilating?
Is it mutually assured destruction?
Is there a regional war that drags in other players?
Does another nation like China or Russia step in and take our place as an ally, exchanging support for Israel’s advanced tech, intelligence, etc.? Would Israel shop itself around to another ally? How does the balance of global power change? Israel is a small but not insignificant nation – a change in Israel’s political alliances would shift many other pieces on the chessboard.
What happens in American politics if the special relationship with Israel ends? What happens to AIPAC money? What do politicians do who have relied on it? Does another pro-Israel political party form? Does it split either of the major existing parties? Would ending the relationship reveal just how deep Israeli influence goes and what other issues it has wrapped its tentacles around?
The one thing that is certain is that America withdrawing from Israel will not increase the chances of peace in the region, and will almost certainly increase the chances of a larger scale war than we have seen in sometime. That doesn’t mean we should not end the relationship; it could very well be in America’s best interests to do so. And it’s not like the region has been stable with our support; it is torn by war this very minute. While I do not like supporting secular, socialist nations like Israel (which has lower per capital debt than the US), I also think we have to consider the ramifications of completely cutting off our relationship so we can be prepared for the fallout. What does it do to American influence and prestige and perceived trustworthiness as an ally? What does it do to our intelligence in the region – does it increase our vulnerability in some ways? What does it do to the reserve status of our currency? What does it mean for our relationship with other Middle Eastern nations?
While I am not a fan of our current relationship with Israel, abandoning that relationship does not automatically make the world a better place even if it good for us to take that step.
An “America First” foreign policy will be more isolationist than what we have now, with our “forever wars.” We do need to remove ourselves from various entangling alliances. But we should also consider all the contingencies and possible repercussions.
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I asked Grok the following question: What would happen to Israel and in the Middle East if America completely withdrew support from Israel?
Grok answered:
If the United States were to completely withdraw all forms of support from Israel—including military aid (currently around $3.8 billion annually), diplomatic backing (such as vetoes in the UN Security Council), intelligence sharing, and economic loan guarantees—the outcomes would be multifaceted, uncertain, and highly dependent on variables like Israel’s internal adaptations, responses from regional actors, and global shifts in alliances. This scenario remains hypothetical, as US-Israel ties have endured through various administrations despite tensions, including recent divergences under the Trump administration as of February 2026 on issues like Iran policy and Gaza.  Below, I’ll outline potential short- and long-term effects based on analyses from experts, think tanks, and public discussions, drawing from a range of perspectives to avoid partisan bias.
Short-Term Effects on Israel
• Military Vulnerabilities: Israel relies heavily on US-funded systems like the Iron Dome for missile defense and precision-guided munitions. Without replenishment, stockpiles could deplete within months during active conflicts, forcing a shift to less precise or domestically produced alternatives, potentially increasing civilian casualties on all sides and straining Israel’s operational tempo.  Operations in Gaza or against Hezbollah might become unsustainable after about a year, leading to a “holding pattern” or forced de-escalation due to shortages.  Israel’s qualitative military edge could erode against threats from Iran and its proxies, heightening risks of escalation without US intelligence or joint tech projects that have historically bolstered defenses. 
• Diplomatic Isolation: The US has shielded Israel from international sanctions and UN resolutions (e.g., via Security Council vetoes). Withdrawal could expose Israel to measures like UN Chapter 7 interventions, arms embargoes, or boycotts from Western allies like Germany, potentially branding it a “pariah state” similar to apartheid-era South Africa.  This might accelerate global scrutiny of policies in the West Bank and Gaza, prompting internal political shifts or resistance from hardline factions.
• Economic Strain: Annual aid supports defense industries and offsets costs, while loan guarantees enable low-interest borrowing. Immediate cuts could lead to layoffs in tech and military sectors, fiscal pressures, and a dip in investor confidence, though Israel’s robust economy (with strong exports in cybersecurity and AI) might mitigate total collapse.   Some argue this could force efficiency gains, like ramping up domestic arms production and exports, currently restricted by US agreements. 
Long-Term Effects on Israel
• Adaptation and Independence: Israel could pivot to self-reliance, reforming laws to attract foreign investment (e.g., emulating Singapore’s model), boosting tourism, and accelerating weapons manufacturing.  Without US pressure for restraint, policies might harden, such as annexing parts of the West Bank or taking more aggressive stances against threats in Lebanon or Gaza, potentially shortening conflicts through decisive force rather than prolonged engagements.  However, skeptics warn that without US backing, Israel’s survival could be jeopardized, as historical precedents (like the 1973 Yom Kippur War) show the value of American resupply in crises.  
• Internal Politics: Hardliners like Netanyahu might frame the shift as a path to “independence,” maintaining settler policies but with reduced impunity.  Over time, domestic pressure could push for policy changes, such as negotiations with Palestinians, to avoid isolation—though this is speculative and depends on leadership.
Effects on the Middle East
• Emboldened Adversaries: Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis might grow bolder without the US deterrent, testing Israel’s borders more aggressively and expanding influence.   This could lead to heightened instability, including risks of broader wars, humanitarian crises (e.g., in Gaza with over 1 million displaced), and disruptions to shipping lanes like the Red Sea, spiking global oil prices.  Recent US-Iran talks (five rounds in 2025) highlight how withdrawal might derail diplomacy, allowing Israel to act unilaterally against Iranian targets and provoking retaliation. 
• Shifts in Alliances: Normalization deals like the Abraham Accords could falter, as Gulf states reassess ties without US guarantees.  Conversely, some experts suggest adversaries like Syria wouldn’t immediately attack, and reduced US involvement might foster regional integration or de-escalation, as local actors prioritize their own interests over US-driven conflicts.  Powers like Russia and China could fill the vacuum, offering Israel alternative partnerships but at the cost of US leverage in the region. 
• Palestinian Dynamics: In Gaza and the West Bank, Israeli operations might stall due to resource limits, potentially creating space for ceasefires or negotiations—but also risking renewed violence if groups like Hamas retain arms.   Broader peace efforts, like the ongoing US-backed Gaza plan requiring Hamas disarmament, could collapse without enforcement. 
Broader Global Implications
• For the US: Withdrawal might signal unreliability to allies worldwide (e.g., Taiwan, Poland), eroding American influence and inviting challenges from China, Russia, and Iran.  Losses in shared intelligence could expose US troops and infrastructure to threats, while economic ripple effects (e.g., higher energy costs) hit domestically. [12] Public opinion polls show growing US skepticism toward aid, with many voters opposing further military support amid perceptions of Israeli actions in Gaza. [1]
• Uncertainties: Outcomes aren’t inevitable; Israel has a history of resilience, and regional actors might not capitalize on the shift due to their own constraints. Some views frame this as a “moral reset” for the US, while others see it as a strategic blunder. [12] [13] Real-world precedents, like US retrenchment elsewhere, often lead to instability rather than peace. [9]
In summary, while Israel might adapt and even strengthen in some areas through necessity, the immediate risks include heightened insecurity, economic hardship, and regional turmoil. The Middle East could see a power realignment favoring Iran and its allies, with potential for both escalations and unexpected diplomatic openings. This analysis draws from diverse sources to reflect the complexity, but actual events would hinge on unpredictable human decisions. 
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Brad Wilcox charts the female fertility window:
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Marxism has always been about anarcho-tyranny:
“A Communist system can be recognized by the fact that it spares the criminals and criminalizes the political opponent.”
— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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“Washington, DC is Hollywood for ugly people.”
— Ben Sasse, on politicians wanting to be social media stars more than statesmen
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A culture that cannot tell its own story will end up living in another culture’s story. It is ripe for capture.
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“In one hundred years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college.”
— Joseph Sobran
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“Feminism tells women that they are strong enough to run nations, lead armies, build empires, and even walk on the moon.
But at the same time will tell you that motherhood would destroy, and derail you.
Apparently, women are powerful enough to rule the world, just not powerful enough to raise a child.”
— Elizabeth Stone
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“Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
— Winston Churchill, in a letter to his mother
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Things that make you go hmmmm….
In Ezekiel 23, when God judges Israel for her whoredom/fornication (both literal and spiritual), the form that judgment takes is interesting. The women cut their breasts off (= transgenderism) and they sacrifice their children to their idols (= abortion). Meanwhile, they continue to go to church….
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Rumination — thinking over ways one has been wronged again and again, replaying the video of our hurts in our minds — leads to bitterness, anger, and depression more than most anything else. This is why so much therapy backfires and makes things worse — it encourages constant rumination on every little bad thing that has ever happened.
If you’re going to ruminate, ruminate on your blessings. That kind of rumination leads to thanksgiving, and thanksgiving breaks us free from depression more than anything else.
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Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing at all.
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“Don’t become what they call you. They call you a hater – don’t become one.”
— Tucker Carlson
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“If the Holy Spirit was withdrawn from the church today, 95 percent of what we do would go on and no one would know the difference.”
— Tozer
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James warns against friendship with the world. Friendship with the world includes wanting the world’s approval, living under the progressive gaze, avoiding giving the wider culture any offense. This is worldliness. Obviously, James has much more in view when he speaks of friendship with the world, but this is one the greatest manifestations of friendship with the world in the church in our day.
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“First, I wish you to hold that the principle point in this discussion is, that our Lord Jesus Christ (as he himself says in the gospel) has placed us under a yoke which is easy, and a burden which is light. Hence he has knit together the society of his new people by sacraments, very few in number, most easy of observance, and most excellent in meaning; such is baptism consecrated by the name of the Trinity: such is the communion of the body and blood of the Lord, and any other, if recommended in the canonical Scriptures”
— Augustine, quoted in Calvin’s Institutes 4.19.3
(This quote was supposed to appear at the bottom of page 163/top of page 164 in my book “Measures of the Mission.”)
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My book “Measure of the Mission” is being translated and the translator is trying to figure out what to do with the title. He asked what I meant by “measures” in the title. My reply:
“Measures” means something like “dimensions” or even “standards,’ so “Dimensions of the Mission” or “Standards of the Mission” could work. Or if “Measures” is taken musically, it could be “Rhythms of the Mission” or “Cadences of the Mission” also work. I liked the word “measures” precisely because it stretches out in several directions, as does the book.
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A thought on the current debacle in the Middle East:
The Jews might want to genocide Hamas and the Arabs, but the reality is that if they really wanted to, they could have already done it. Jews don’t usually go around chanting “death to Arabs” or even “death to Muslims” so I don’t think they’re attempting full on genocide.
Hamas and other manifestations of radical Islam most certainly want to genocide Israel – and America, for that matter. If they could, they would. Their death chants prove it.
This is not to minimize actual atrocities committed by the Israeli army. The magnitude of those atrocities depend on who you trust to give you information and what filter you use to process it. On the one hand, Israel probably has killed quite a few civilians; on the other hand, Hamas makes that almost inevitable because they know it will create backlash against Israel. They use Western virtue to demoralize the West.
The whole thing is a mess. There is no peace without the Prince of Peace.
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Remember, the Crusades were fought to rescue Christians in the Middle East from ungodly oppressors. Maybe it’s time for another Crusade. Everyone is so wrapped up in what Israel and Hamas are doing – meanwhile the plight of Middle Eastern Christians is largely ignored and they suffer greatly. Who will care for Christians in the region? Who looks out for their interests as their population declines?
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Race is real but it’s not a uniform. It does not assign you to a team. There are good and bad people, faithful and unfaithful people, in every race. The antithesis that divides humanity in two is not racial, it is Spiritual.
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“Nostalgia is history after it’s had a few drinks.”
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After 70AD, when the temple was destroyed and the old covenant ended, Jews no longer have a special covenant relationship with God. God does promise to convert them in the future – Romans 11 – but unbelieving Jews are enemies of God and the gospel, just like all other unbelievers.
The modern nation state of Israel is like any other nation. It has no special divine promise to a land – though it has the same right to exist and defend itself as any other nation.
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All modern conservatism has conserved are the victories of progressivism.
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A wise citizenry will never elect a man to office who can be bribed or blackmailed.
Our lobbying system today is largely about bribing our elected leaders. The Epstein files seem to indicate Epstein did what he did to gain leverage — essentially to blackmail political leaders.
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If we treat our nation as an economic zone, we cannot be surprised if immigrants do the same. If Americans do not love America, why should we expect immigrants to? The same progressives who disdain America welcome in outsiders who will do the same.
By contrast, those who love America want to preserve and defend her. They only want people coming here who also love America and will therefore assimilate.
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Historically, Islam’s immigration strategy is simple: Act as a victim when a minority, then overtake when a tipping a point is hit.
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Islam and Israel are both problems and present a very different set of challenges to American and to the church.
I think we have to fight on both fronts.
Some underestimate the real sinister influence of Israel and the way it has tentacles wrapped around American political leadership.
Others underestimate the Islamic threat to the West and are naive about how Muslims infiltrate, playing the victim when small in number, then take over once they hit critical mass.
The Israeli threat is subtle and covert, the Islamic threat is more overt over time. Israel uses its money to gain power/leverage/influence. Muslims embed themselves in politics, mainly on the left, and then weaponize our niceness against us.
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I watched some of Michael Knowles’ interview with “Clavicle.” Maybe I’m just old school. Or maybe I’m just old. Maybe the world has passed me by. But I don’t know how Knowles got through that interview with a straight face. How did he not double over in laughter at points? I just found it so ridiculously hilarious. The funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. It was absurdly funny in an almost surreal way, like “what planet is this from?”
Do other Gen Xers feel the same way? I mean, growing up in the 1980s, life was fun. And you didn’t have to hit your face with a hammer or inject yourself with drugs to get a date. I guess we Gen Xers caught the last chopper out of Saigon. I feel sorry for young people today. Sorry it’s come to this. Sorry society is so unnatural that men and women don’t even seem to like each other much, even though attraction to the opposite sex is the most natural thing in the world.
I am glad for the little Christian bubble in which I live. At least we have maintained some level of sanity amidst the madness, even for the younger generation.
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Clayton Wood with a wise overview of anti-Semitism:
“You Cannot Talk About the Jews
Let me tell you about the time someone tried to buy my silence.
A friend came to me with a message from someone too cowardly to deliver it personally. The nonprofit I run would lose funding if I did not stop posting on Facebook. That was the threat. Not a conversation. Not a disagreement. A financial ultimatum delivered through a middleman by someone who could not look me in the eye.
I went to my board. I told them the threat existed because they deserved to know. Some of them had concerns. I prayed hard and I wrestled with it and I came to the same place I always come to.
I am a Christian called to speak the truth in love. I will not be cancelled for being a jerk. I will not be cancelled for being ungodly. But I will be proudly cancelled before I am silenced by money or fear.
That shocked some people.
We live in a fear based age.
A few years ago the reliable audience for these posts was my mom and my mother in law, Susan and Karen, who cheered on every word. God bless them both. Over time that changed. People began finding me at youth sports events, pulling me aside, telling me they read everything I wrote. On COVID. On Trump. On BLM. On police brutality. On law and justice and the welfare state. I would get messages from people who told me I was going to hell or that they hated me. I would also get messages, sometimes on the same day, from people who said they agreed with everything I wrote but were afraid to hit like. Afraid to share. Afraid to be publicly associated with words they privately believed were true.
I have had politicians tell me things in private they would never say publicly. I am not going to violate those confidences. I mention it only because I am deeply aware of what fear does to people who have something to lose.
It seems to me that fear is decreasing. The threat of cancellation for what you say or like or share has less power than it did three or four years ago. But it is still real. It still shapes what people say, what they share, what they will admit to believing out loud.
Most people have a price. When they encounter someone who cannot be bought and will not be threatened into silence, it unsettles them. Because if you cannot be bought and you cannot be silenced, you cannot be controlled.
I am telling you this story because it is the context for everything I am about to write.
You cannot talk about the Jews.
Not honestly. Not carefully. Not even admiringly in some circles. The moment you engage the subject with anything other than complete deference, someone will call you an antisemite. I have seen it happen to careful people. I have seen it happen to people who love Israel. I have seen it happen to Jewish people themselves.
And I am going to talk about it anyway.
Mel Gibson said horrible things during a drunk driving arrest. Vile, inexcusable things. He also spent years as one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars before that night, and he has worked in Hollywood since but he lived in exile because of what he said about Jews. Roman Polanski drugged and raped a thirteen year old girl and fled the country to avoid sentencing. He continued to receive standing ovations at the Academy Awards for years afterward. Harvey Weinstein was one of the most powerful men in the film industry for decades while an open secret of serial sexual predation surrounded him like a fog.
None of that got them permanently cancelled.
But say “Jews run Hollywood” and your career changes that day in incredible ways.
I want to be honest about what I think of that statement. It is reductive. It flattens complexity into a conspiracy. It ignores the actual reasons Jewish people have been disproportionately successful in entertainment, finance, academia, and media. But the irony is real and it is worth naming. A community that survived centuries of being excluded from land ownership, guilds, and traditional European professions developed extraordinary skills in the areas they were permitted to enter. That is history, not conspiracy. And the fact that success in those areas now reads to some people as sinister control is a problem worth examining honestly rather than suppressing with accusations.
Jews are, as a group, among the most intellectually gifted people on earth. This is not a controversial statement among people who look at data. It is a remarkable and documented fact.
Of the 965 individual recipients of the Nobel Prize between 1901 and 2025, at least 220 have been Jewish or had at least one Jewish parent. That is 22 percent of all Nobel laureates. Jewish people represent approximately 0.2 percent of the world’s population. Their share of Nobel Prizes is therefore roughly 110 times their proportion of humanity. Across every category, Chemistry, Economics, Literature, Peace, Physics, Physiology and Medicine, the pattern holds.
America would not have built the atomic bomb first without Jewish geniuses fleeing Hitler coming to work for us. That is not a small thing. It may be one of the most consequential facts of the twentieth century.
Why are Ashkenazi Jews so extraordinarily intelligent as a group? The honest answer involves culture and selection. Jewish tradition places enormous value on Torah scholarship. The students who memorize and master the texts are honored, respected, supported financially, and tend to have families. Over many generations, communities that reward intellectual excellence with status and resources will produce more intellectual excellence. This is not a conspiracy. It is not magic. It is a culture that took the development of the mind with profound seriousness for thousands of years and reaped the results.
Recognizing that a group is remarkably intelligent is not a critique. It is a fact that deserves to be stated with the admiration it warrants.
Yes, Jews are disproportionately represented in Hollywood. Yes, Jews own a large share of the largest distributors of pornography in the world. I am not going to pretend otherwise.
There are industries, including parts of entertainment and media, that many Christians rightly critique, where Jewish entrepreneurs have been disproportionately present. That fact does not make those industries Jewish in nature, nor does it make Jewish people collectively responsible for them.
This is not a vast coordinated conspiracy. It is smart people making their way in a world that for most of Western history refused to let them own land, join guilds, or enter most traditional professions. They went where they could go. They excelled where excellence was possible. Some of them turned their extraordinary brilliance toward things that make the world better. Some turned it toward things that make the world worse.
That is also true of every other group of human beings who have ever lived.
I despise the ideas of the Frankfurt School. Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse and their colleagues built an intellectual framework that profoundly reshaped Western academia and cultural criticism. I believe their ideas weakened family, faith, and civic cohesion in ways that have been deeply destructive. My disagreement is philosophical and civilizational, not ethnic.
Criticizing Karl Marx is not antisemitism. Criticizing the Frankfurt School is not antisemitism. Criticizing Benjamin Netanyahu’s prosecution of a war is not antisemitism.
Mark Zuckerberg is Jewish. I am grateful for Facebook. It is not perfect. It does some real harm. But it is essentially a neutral tool that allows people to connect and communicate, and it started as a lonely smart college student trying to meet people he found attractive. You are able to read me right now, because of his invention. I am not complaining.
The Jewish bogeyman is a real and dangerous thing. When people cannot explain their failures, their frustrations, or the complexity of the world, the temptation to find a single group pulling the strings behind the curtain is ancient and persistent and evil. It destroyed six million people in living memory. It is growing again.
But the cure for the Jewish bogeyman is not to make honest conversation about Jewish influence, Jewish institutions, and Jewish power impossible. The cure is more honesty, not less.
Honesty requires distinguishing between individuals, institutions, and entire peoples. When those lines blur, justice dies.
If you leave this essay thinking I am blaming Jews for the world’s problems, you have misread me. Collective blame is the essence of antisemitism. I reject it completely.
AIPAC is one of the most powerful lobbying organizations in Washington. Tucker Carlson repeatedly calls it a foreign lobbying group. He is wrong about this, and the distinction matters.
AIPAC is an American organization. Its members are American citizens. It advocates for a strong American relationship with Israel, but it operates under domestic lobbying law, not the Foreign Agents Registration Act. It is not a foreign government office. It is not registered as an agent of a foreign state.
Every major allied nation has organizations in Washington advocating for policies favorable to their interests. The British American Business network promotes Anglo-American trade ties. The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum advocates for closer American-Indian cooperation. The American Turkish Council and the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council do similar work for their respective relationships. None of these are routinely described as foreign lobbying groups in political conversation.
AIPAC is not different in kind. It is different in effectiveness.
Its influence is a function of highly engaged American citizens participating in their democracy. You can argue that its influence is too strong. You can argue that American policy has at times tilted too far in one direction. Those are legitimate debates. But describing AIPAC as a foreign entity subtly suggests that American Jews advocating for Israel are agents of a foreign power rather than American citizens advocating for convictions they hold sincerely.
That distinction matters.
Israel has been a real ally of the United States. During the Cold War it was a strategic counterweight to Soviet influence in the Middle East. Israeli intelligence cooperation has been valuable. Much of the aid the United States provides to Israel is spent on American manufactured military equipment, strengthening our own defense industry. The relationship has been mutually beneficial.
Alliances are not control. Cooperation is not subordination.
Allying with Israel against the Soviet Union made strategic sense. Allying with Israel against radical Islamist movements that openly call for the destruction of both Israel and the United States also makes strategic sense.
That does not mean Israel is in charge of American foreign policy. The United States remains sovereign. Our Congress authorizes funding. Our President commands our military. Our interests are debated and determined by Americans.
It is possible to debate the wisdom of specific policies without slipping into narratives of control.
American foreign policy decisions are made by American officials accountable to American voters. Influence is not control, and alliance is not submission.
The Anti-Defamation League was founded to defend Jewish people from defamation and to secure justice and fair treatment for all. That second part of the mission is important. For decades the ADL understood that Jewish safety was linked to the protection of minority rights more broadly. They marched with Martin Luther King. They filed briefs against school segregation. They understood that a country that would strip rights from one minority was a country that could strip rights from any minority.
Today the organization operates at significant scale. Its annual revenue exceeds one hundred sixty million dollars. It remains deeply involved in hate crime tracking, law enforcement training, and counter extremism research. Real antisemitism is rising, and Jewish communities deserve serious institutional defenders.
But the ADL is also facing a credibility challenge.
In October 2025 the FBI cut ties with the ADL entirely. Director Kash Patel said the bureau would not partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs. The immediate trigger was the ADL including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA in a glossary of extremism. After the backlash the ADL removed the entire glossary from its website.
Over time the definition of antisemitism used in public debate has expanded in ways that many observers find confusing. When 40 percent of your antisemitism incident count comes from anti-Zionist chants rather than actual threatening behavior toward Jewish people, you have changed what you are measuring. When sharp criticism of Israeli government policy is categorized alongside explicit threats against Jewish people, the categories blur. When you call Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization of Jewish people, the photo inverse of neo-Nazis, you have lost the thread.
This is not a minor issue. When the definition of antisemitism becomes elastic, accusations lose moral force. In a moment when actual antisemitic violence is measurably increasing, when elderly Jewish Holocaust survivors are being attacked with flamethrowers in Boulder, when Israeli embassy staff are being shot outside museums in Washington, clarity matters more than ever.
An organization charged with sounding the alarm must guard its credibility carefully. When credibility weakens, the people most harmed are the very communities the organization exists to protect.
The boy who cried wolf is not just a story about honesty. It is a story about consequences.
Here is what I believe with my whole heart.
Jewish people are among God’s most remarkable image bearers. Their history is a story of extraordinary suffering and extraordinary resilience. The Holocaust was one of the greatest evils in human history and it happened within living memory. The fact that antisemitism is rising again in America should alarm every person of conscience regardless of their politics or their theology.
I love Israel. I am friends with Jewish people. I hold the history of the Jewish people with deep reverence.
And I can say all of that and still tell the truth about AIPAC. And the ADL. And the Frankfurt School. And Hollywood. And the difference between a legitimate conversation about power and influence and a conspiracy theory that turns Jewish people into a bogeyman responsible for everything wrong in the world.
Tucker Carlson is contrarian by nature. He is intelligent, instinct driven, and unafraid of backlash. When someone tells a man like that you are not allowed to discuss this subject, they guarantee he will discuss it.
That is human nature.
Tucker was told, explicitly, that he could not talk about the Jews. I believe that. I understand why that prohibition infuriated him. When you are not antisemitic and you are falsely accused of antisemitism for asking honest questions, the accusation loses its power to regulate your behavior. And when the people making the accusation have cried wolf so many times that the word has lost its meaning, a man with Tucker’s temperament is going to push back hard.
If the gatekeepers respond to every difficult question with accusation rather than argument, the accusation loses its power. And once it loses its power, a man like Tucker will push harder.
That is where the real danger begins. Because pushing back against overreach is healthy. But in the process of pushing back, he has sometimes amplified voices that are not interested in truth at all. People who do not share his instinct for honesty. People who have agendas that have nothing to do with truth.”
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Some dispensationalists have believed that a temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem and animal offerings reconstituted. It should be obvious, from Hebrews and the rest of the NT, that this would actually be blasphemous. The NT is very clear the church is the temple, Christians are priests, and the sacrifices we offer are Spiritual sacrifices of praise and service.
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After about 30 years of preaching, I have to confess there is nothing I like more. I am never happier than when I am in the pulpit expounding Scripture. It is not always easy, but it’s always a thrill to declare God’s Word to God’s people.
When I first started preaching, it was not this way. I liked preparing to preach. I liked having preached. But I did not like preaching itself. But over the years, it has become my life’s greatest joy. I never feel more at home that when I in the pulpit, proclaiming the gospel and applying God’s Word. I intend to preach for as long as I physically can – or as long as the elders will let me. Like Jeremiah, the fire is in my bones.
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I finally got around to listening to Marco Rubio’s Munich speech. It was really excellent. A superb defense of Euro-American Western civilization, including its Christian roots. Rubio expressed pride in Western Christendom which was refreshing. This speech, combined with his Charlie Kirk memorial speech, locks Rubio in as one of the very best Republicans at this level of government in a long, long time.
Nick Freitas gives clips and commentary here:
Freitas called it “Reaganesque,” and I’d agree. Rubio does not speak with Reagan’s punchiness, but he definitely has gravitas. The speech was one of those “adults are in the room” moments. It had lots of memorable and quotable sections. At this point, I’d say Rubio and Vance are both solid front runners for the ’28 Republican presidential ticket.
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Christopher Sandbatch on SEC schools as the new prestige institutions:
“Elite schools of the Northeastern corridor have begun shedding their aspirant prestigees directly onto the Southern public colleges, and these institutions built to hold the region together (and, admittedly, to shield its inhabitants from the radiative effects of the Empire’s hegemonic culture) are being reimagined as destinations for people whose own regions have long served as the country’s default importers of credentialed youth….
The SEC school is increasingly constructed in national discourse as a cultural “elsewhere”: a place of spectacle, excess, ritualized sociability, and stylized gender performance; a place whose public meaning is carried less by laboratories and clinics than by tailgates, stadium light, and choreographed pageantry. It becomes legible as “The South” in quotation marks, a set of signs that can be consumed at a distance. One does not have to believe that the students themselves consciously think in these terms to see the structure. A region that is still treated as backward, parochial, or morally compromised is now (again) also alluring because it is imagined as unburdened by the neurotic disciplines of the Northeastern meritocracy. The difference is that the older contempt and the newer fascination share a common mechanism: both reduce an institutional world to an aesthetic object….
The tension between these frames, the SEC as aesthetic object on one hand and the SEC as functional institution [producing professional and technical graduates to staff the institutions of their states] on the other, produces many of the aggravations that now surround the “coolness” narrative. Observers who approach the South as a cultural novelty often speak as though these universities were newly invented as entertainment complexes; resorts that happen to have classrooms. Observers who approach prestige as a Northeastern monopoly often speak as though any influx of Northeastern students must be an error or a fad, because they cannot imagine legitimacy moving in that direction. Both positions miss what is actually taking place. The institutions are not becoming Northeastern; the Northeast is, in a limited but real sense, becoming institutionally dependent on the South for an increasingly large share of its own middle- and upper-middle-class reproduction….
To see this clearly is to return to the original purpose of the land-grant and flagship system, and to notice what has changed around it. The older American regime could tolerate regional specialization because it assumed the stability of the national core: prestige flowed from a small set of recognized centers, and the periphery sought recognition from them. But in a period when the centers increasingly appear as engines of moral and bureaucratic dysfunction, and when the costs of the credentialing path have become grotesque, the appeal of institutions grounded in visible competence and coherent social life grows. This does not mean that the SEC school is a new Harvard, nor does it mean that it produces the same kind of national elite. It means that the old prestige grammar no longer exhausts the ways Americans are now seeking legitimacy, security, and a workable adulthood. ….The SEC flagship, once an organ of regional self-maintenance, is becoming — by recruitment strategy and by the failures of other institutional ecologies — a site where legitimacy is redistributed. The observers who continue to read this through inherited prestige frameworks will keep mistaking it for spectacle. The more accurate reading is structural: an old apparatus of competence is being asked to absorb not only its own region, but a portion of the country that it once presumed it would never need to…
If the SEC flagship is becoming a site where legitimacy is redistributed, it is not because it offers a more pleasing youth culture. It is because the prestige regime that once monopolized legitimacy has grown detached from visible function. Its institutions still confer status, but the connection between certification and competence has become increasingly abstract. By contrast, the Southern flagship remains legible. It is still visibly tied to the reproduction of engineers, nurses, administrators, and the professional classes required to keep a society operational.
This distinction is difficult to state within the language of credentialism, because credentialism recognizes recognition, not function. Yet function is precisely what these institutions were built to preserve. Their authority was never meant to rest on symbolic superiority, but on their ability to reproduce competence for civic ends.” [emphasis added]
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Some X posts I’ve made on Boomers:
For 1500+ years, however imperfectly, Christian sexual morality informed Western civilization and made it incredibly prosperous. Sexual chastity and lifelong monogamous marriage were the norm for centuries. The Boomers destroyed it in one generation.
On the one hand, the Boomers are the most conservative generation alive at this point – they are the most reliably red voters we have
On the other hand, the Boomer generation has wreaked all kinds of havoc in our culture
My advice to younger men who are frustrated with the Boomers: instead of just saying “ok Boomer” in a mocking way, make a respectful argument for why the Boomer is wrong and you’re right
This is a point I’ve made as well – the Boomers are considerably more conservative, politically and otherwise, than younger generations (including my own Gen X).
In the past, generations got more conservative as they aged – people who were fairly liberal in their late teens and early 20s got more conservative as they got older.
Why did they get more conservative? It’s usually attributed to the 3 M’s – marriage, mortgages, and multiplication.
But if the younger generations are not getting as married at the usual rate, if they aren’t buying homes, and if they aren’t having children, will they move in a more conservative direction?
In particular, having a huge number of unmarried, childless, political active aging women is going to change things – these will be women looking for the state to play surrogate husband.
Women who do not have the safety and security of marriage always look to the state to provide that safety and security, eg, socialized everything.
Then there is the fact that the Boomers have been a more competent generation than those that have followed.
I get the sense that there are quite a few offices and job sites where the boomers are the only ones who really know how to do some critical stuff.
No, they are not as tech savvy as the younger generations, but they have a lot of other skills that younger folks don’t.
All that to say: as much as the Boomers have screwed things up, it’s entirely possible for things to get worse after they’re gone.
I’d love to see a conservative backlash amongst Gen Z, but it’s not clear yet that will happen. x.com/jonharris1989/…
We’re the Han Solo generation. Detached. Aloof. Low key. And, yes, we like to think we’re above the fray while remaining contrarian. The Boomers cast a long shadow over us, and just as we were entering into our prime years, the younger generation stole the spotlight.
I agree the boomers get slandered a lot
The boomer generation got a lot of things wrong, but the seeds of most of those things were planted long before them
I think the boomers were also a very competent generation and will be missed in many ways when they’re gone
One example: contrary to what some claim about boomers spending their kids’ inheritance, the data suggests they will be passing a massive amount of wealth on to their heirs
I agree. The Boomers experienced unprecedented prosperity, which was inevitable for America after WW2. And we fell into the sins that are typical of a highly prosperous people. As a Gen Xer, I’m not blaming Boomers as such; my generation contributed plenty to ongoing sexual degradation, as has every generation since. But it is worth noticing how fast everything changed.
Bill Peacock:
“It wasn’t the Boomers, Rich. It was the effect of two world wars on America. After each war, millions of American men returned home with some very bad habits (for instance, lung cancer was very rare in America until WW I GIs brought smoking back home from Europe). World War II saw many American women also pick up a lot of bad habits after replacing men in the workplace. The 1920s were a time of very loose morals in America. The 1950s were the same. As you know, much of the church was in great decline during this period. All this was well before any Boomers came of age.If you want to make this generational, blame it on the Greatest Generation. The Boomers may have brought all this out of the closet, but they were just following in their parents’ and grand parents’ footsteps. The decline was multi-generational. And so has been the turnaround, with pre-Boomers (Sproul, MacArthur, Robertson, Dobson) and Boomers (Piper, Keller, D.A. Carson, Alistair Begg, Wilson) helping to bring revival to the American Church.”
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The language of “rights” has been perverted in post-Civil Rights Act liberalism.
In the classic sense, rights are given by God, not government. The government protects rights but does not grant them.
In the modern sense, rights tend to be most anything someone wants. I have a right to what I want to have a right to. Rights are not grounded in much of anything other than desire. Rights are fluid. Rights are granted by government.
In the classical view, rights are things you are owed by society, which is why rights were always strictly limited. They must be universal and they must be pre-political, not generated by the government.
Consider some examples/thought experiments: If you have a right to birth control, that means other people have an obligation to provide it. If you have a right to health care, presumably the government has to give it to you. But think about it: who is obligated to give you that health care? Are doctors expected to work for free? Obviously not, so that means someone else pays. Is everyone expected to pay equally for your “right” to healthcare? Not according to left. The rich should be taxed to pay for it. So a right to health care becomes the obligation for other people to pay for that health care. And who gets to decide what counts as health care? Does steak every night for dinner count as health care? Is sex a part of health care? Who says? And who is obligated to provide for those things? We could run the same thought experiment with a “right” to housing, to a job, to childcare, etc.
Again, this is why the classic definition of a “right” has been tightly defined. Rights do obligate other people. For example, a child has a right to life and a natural right to his mother and father — and the mother and father normally have a natural obligation to care for their child.
But most rights do not activate obligations on the part of others. My right to free speech does not obligate you to do anything. My right to life, as an able bodied adult, does not obligate anyone to provide for all my needs – it just means no one has the right to physically harm or kill me in ordinary circumstances.
In the classic view rights are inalienable – they are inherent in each person as an image bearer. But that does not make rights absolute or unconditional. My right to free speech does not give me the right to crash your wedding or interrupt a church’s worship service. It does give me the right to lie under oath or commit slander. Rights are governed by divine law; they are not autonomous.
The right to worship or the “free exercise of religion” is limited too. No has a right to worship an idol. Such false worship might be tolerated in a Christian society, but it is not a right. Freedom of religion does not give you the right to do whatever you want (eg, drug use, child sacrifice, jihad, polygamy, etc.) so long as is it done in the name of a god. Just as freedom of speech does not cover libel, slander, or yelling “fire!” In a crowded theater when there is no fire, so freedom of religion has limits.
Rights have to be carefully guarded even as they are tightly defined. The law of God defines our rights. I have a right to my own property – but no right to yours as well, and if I steal your property I have denied you your rights. As punishment, I might have to make restitution – handing some of my property over to you as compensation for harm done. Of If I murder someone, I forfeit my right to live. The state can properly execute me. If I am a convicted criminal I might forfeit my right to move about freely (imprisonment) or to own a firearm. If I have a highly infectious disease, society as a whole might have the right to quarantine me.
I have the right to marry someone of the opposite sex, provided they are of age and consent to it. But no one has a right to marry a sibling or first cousin or someone of the same sex. Right are natural — they are grounded in nature, the natural order, the creational design.
Voting is not an inherent right, though rulers should normally rule by the consent of the governed. But how that consent is set up is a matter of prudence that vary in time and place. We tend to think of voting by all individuals of a certain age as a right, but it is actually a socially constructed privilege. Women gained the “right” to vote with the 19th amendment, but they were not being denied a natural right prior to that.
Again, the only way to establish rights is to draw them out of divine law – revealed in Scripture and built into the natural/created social order. We do have obligations to one another, but the law of God defines those obligations – and therefore defines our rights too.
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Lent is the season of the church year focused on Christ’s warfare, temptation, suffering, and crucifixion. Corresponding to that, it is the season when we focus on the Christian life as warfare against sin and taking up our crosses each day.
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“When the Church is absolutely different from the world, she invariably attracts it. It is then that the world is made to listen to her message, though it may hate it at first.”
— Martyn Lloyd-Jones
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From 10/24/24:
The poverty gospel has actually made pretty significant inroads in evangelical and Reformed circles over the last generation.
Ron Sider was a well known proponent of the poverty gospel. His most famous work was entitled Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger and, frankly, proposed many of the worst conceivable attempts to address global poverty. Later in life Sider did come to appreciate the way market economics helped to raise the global standard of living far more than statist/socialist programs; he was willing to give capitalism some credit. But he never got over the supposed link between wealth and guilt. Along with other left leaning evangelicals, he advocated a form “simple living” or “minimalist living” based largely on a misunderstanding of key money texts in the gospels. David Chilton responded to Sider and completely decimated his arguments in his fabulous book Productive Christians in a An Age of Guilt Manipulators. The title says it all. I highly recommend reading Chilton.
It’s important to understand that Sider’s “poverty gospel” and socialist politics go together. Sider has no concept of Christians taking dominion, building a godly civilization, restoring Christendom (which would take heavy financing on the part of God’s people), etc. Christians don’t need wealth because we have no cultural mission (except to encourage socialism). He has no problem with Christians basically functioning as serfs of a secular state. In his view, we can voluntarily reduce ourselves to poverty (or minimalist living) because they state will take care of our basic needs. But he is wrong; there is nothing pious about this. This is not trusting the Heavenly Father to care for us, as Jesus taught in Matthew 6. This is statism. This idolatry of the state. And trusting in Caesar to take care of us is just as wicked as trusting in Mammon. Sider does not renounce idolatry; he exchanges one idol for another.
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In place of the poverty gospel (it’s righteous to be poor), the prosperity gospel (if I’m righteous I’ll be rich), and the popularity gospel (if I’m popular, I must be righteous), stands the productivity gospel (God calls me to be fruitful so I work hard as I trust him to bless me).
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From 12/28/25:
Too many Christians hoard their wisdom rather than share it. We need to preach what we practice.
At greater length:
I’ve noticed over the years that some pastors are unwilling to preach the very wisdom they have practiced and that their families have benefited from.
For example, I know pastors who had their wives stay home and raise their children. The kids were greatly blessed by having a homemaker, rather than a careerist, as a mother. But these same pastors refuse to preach this truth to their congregations, even though it has biblical grounding (e.g., Titus 2). They do not want to offend anyone, especially women, by taking a controversial stance on the domestic/homemaking role of women. And so the congregation does not benefit from the wisdom the pastor practiced in his own life. He hoards his wisdom rather than sharing it.
Tim Carney and Rob Henderson have demonstrated that America’s successful class does not share its wisdom with the lower classes; in fact they often promote laws and policies that clash with reality – and they pay no price for their advocacy of these policies while the poorer classes do. Henderson refers to this kind of virtue signaling as “luxury beliefs.” The upper classes are comfortably ensconced in communities where they are insulated against the worst effects of the very policies they advocate. For example, they can promote the egalitarian policy of doing away with honors classes in public schools, but their own kids are not harmed by this idiocy because they have their kids in private schools. Another example: America’s upper class often advocates for open borders, which gives them access to cheap labor (housecleaners, carpenters, etc.); this is portrayed as virtuous even though severely hurts the job prospects and economic opportunities of the lower classes in America.
Another example: Upper classes prove their liberal virtue by advocating for DEI, even as they manage to get special opportunities for their own children (nepotistic hiring in their businesses, legacy admissions to elite colleges, etc.). Upper class people are far more likely to get married, far less likely to have children out of wedlock, etc., even though they promote those destructive tendencies in the wider culture. America’s most successful people generally live far more conservative lives than one would think given that they usually advocate for more liberal policies. The conservatism of their lives accounts for much of their success; their liberal policies hold down the lower classes, eliminating competition for their children. The hypocrisy of the upper classes is largely hidden, and even gets disguised as progressive virtue.
This is what it comes down to: If the American upper crust really wants to help the lower classes, they will need to preach what they practice (insofar as it is real wisdom). They will need to share their wisdom rather than hoard it.
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John Papola has neatly described the basic problem with liberalism today: liberalism has a God-shaped hole. To put it another way, modern liberalism is just classical liberalism secularized; it is classical liberalism with God taken out of the picture.
The values of liberalism are basically synonymous with the American founding era. Liberalism is basically just Americanism. When America was Christian, the system worked pretty well. When America abandoned the faith, the system no longer worked. We can debate whether or not the American system had the seeds of its own destruction embedded within it from the beginning. I do not think any system can sustain the faith or virtue of a people — only the grace of God can do that — but there were flaws inherent in the system from the start and over time those flaws were exploited to undermine the system. The system was only going to work as long as the kind of people it was designed for continued to exist.
Again, in “classical liberalism,” the kind of liberalism that existed at America’s founding, God actually filled that hole and so liberalism worked quite well. It was adequate to the task of governing the kind of people Americans were at the time. The founding fathers claimed the American constitutional system was only suited for a Christian and virtuous people — and they were right. At the nation’s founding and in its early history, the populace was largely Christian in faith and character. The church played a central role — nine of the thirteen original colonies had established churches and even the colonies that did not have established churches were highly ecclesiocentric in that what the church did mattered. The Presbyterian General Assembly rivaled Congress for cultural power, prestige, and influence up into the first third of the nineteenth century. The pulpit was pivotal in the founding of our nation, and continued to be the prow of American culture for quite sometime after the founding.
But something went badly wrong, especially around the time of the War Between the States. This became increasingly evident in the second half of the nineteenth century as the bad fruit started to manifest itself. The veneer of Christian faith was still there. We were still plausibly a “Christian nation” up until the middle of the twentieth century. But the heart of the matter was dissipating, and this became increasingly evident after 1865. In the North, the “burned over districts,” weary from the emotionalism of the Second Great Awakening, turned to a mix of romanticism/mysticism and secularism/rationalism. The mainline northern churches denied orthodoxy, started ordaining women, and turned from the gospel to the social gospel. The South remained more solidly conservative and Christian, but Christians retreated from culture and politics. The South still had faith, but the quality of the faith had changed — it had become privatized. Whereas in the North, the excesses of the Second Great Awakening producing secularism, in the South it produced fundamentalism — and with it, the privatization of the faith. Faith and politics would be kept separate. This had already begun to happen with the “spirituality of the church” doctrine, developed before the war to excuse Southern pastors from having to address the slavery issue. But it went into overdrive after the war.
The classic liberal order of America’s founding was dealt a severe blow by the War Between the States. The Civil Rights Movement one hundred years later finished it off. We adopted the rolling revolution of cultural Marxism. It wasn’t called that at the time, obviously, but that’s what it turned out to be. While there were legitimate grievances the civil rights legislation aimed to correct, it would have been far better to allow those grievances to be corrected organically, without the force of law, as Chad O. Jackson has argued. The real thrust of the civil rights movement was not to make America just, but to make America Marxist. The purpose of a system is what it does, and the system of civil rights adopted in America steered us hard in a Marxist direction, constantly looking for new victims to champion. We turned from a constitutional republic to identity politics. We replaced Christian compassion with toxic/suicidal empathy.
And so, yes, Americanism — our particular brand of liberalism — has a God-shaped hole in it today. It also has a church-shaped hole. God no longer plays the role he played in our nation’s founding and neither does the church. We have a civic religion that continues to borrow language and categories from the Christian tradition — “one nation under God,” “in God we trust,” and so on — but the faith that made liberalism work is no longer there en masse as it once was. What God are we confessing to trust in with the motto embossed on our money or in our pledge? It’s an unknown god, every bit as much as the one enshrined by the altar Paul encountered in Athens.
America is now at a crossroads. We are faced with a choice. We can continue down the path of woke progressivism (with a dash of Islam thrown in), which will mean the complete disintegration of our nation. Or we can save the classic liberal order by repenting and turning back to Christ. But there’s really no third option: it will be Christ or chaos. We cannot be classical liberals without Christ, because classical liberalism requires a Christian people with Christian faith and Christian virtue. To put it another way, classical liberalism needs some form of Christian nationalism or it is dead. Only some form of Christian nationalism can breathe life back into the classical liberalism of the founding era.
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Some people are suggesting we should do away with the term “anti-Semitism” because the left has weaponized it against Christian orthodoxy. In addition, it’s a politically charged term that gives Jews their own special category, as if they were some kind of privileged or protected class of people.
Several thoughts/responses:
*There’s nothing wrong with using specific terms that are not found in the Bible to describe what’s happening in the world around us. We do it all the time, of necessity. We are not limited to biblical terms in describing sins.
*By this logic, it would be wrong to speak of “misandry,” because it would turn men into a special protected class. By this logic, it would be wrong to speak of “anti-whiteness” because it’s a politically charged term. Etc.
- Sure, lots of terms get weaponized and become so overinflated they are not as useful as they should be – racism, misogyny, sexism, anti-Semitism, etc. have all been misused and overused (e.g., applied in cases where there is really no such sin). We all acknowledge that the left especially likes to use these terms as slurs against anyone on the right – though conservatives living under the leftist gaze can do the same thing to a lesser extent if they think someone goes “too far.” But these labels can also be specifications of real sins, and we must not give up on that reality. These sins, including the sin of anti-Semitism, are particular species of a broader genus. I’m not willing to concede the dictionary to those who misuse these terms just yet, because the exact same thing will happen with any new set of terms we create. Replace “anti-semitism” with “Jew-hate,” or “racism” with “ethnic-vainglory,” and we’re having the exact same discussion about those terms in 5 years (assuming they catch on enough to register in the broader discourse).
- In most cases, the problem is not the term, which has a legitimate use, but the intent of those who use the term and how they use it.
- I’ve seen the term anti-Semitism weaponized in illegitimate ways. But I’ve also seen real anti-Semitism. We have to budget for both. Anti-Semitism does exist and it needs to be identified for what it is.
- Anti-semitism, as I would use the term, would not give Jews a unique/privileged position, but would describe those who have a unique and sinful hatred of the Jews as such. It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the modern-nation state of Israel. It is not anti-Semitic to tell Jews they must repent and trust in Christ to escape God’s wrath. But nevertheless there is still such a sin as anti-Semitism.
- The real problem with the term anti-Semitism is that it is too imprecise. The reference is obviously Jews, but there are many Semites who are not Jewish, religiously or genetically. Indeed, many non-Jewish Semites hate Jews.
- Wilson has made the point that we should teach and live in such a way that these accusations get thrown at us – but we should also live and teach in such a way that these accusations are false. I agree with that.
- If someone wants to propose an alternative term for anti-Semitism, I have no problem with that – but it will have to be a term that actually identifies the sin in a way that people know what we are talking about. To deal with this sin at the genus level is not enough – we have to get down to the species level.
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“St Augustine defines virtue as ordo amoris, the ordinate condition of the affections in which every object is accorded that kind of degree of love which is appropriate to it. Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought.”
— C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man
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Alasdair MacIntyre once said, being asked to die for the modern managerial, bureaucratic nation-state is “like being asked to die for the telephone company.”
Here’s a more complete version of the quotation:
“The modern nation-state, in whatever guise, is a dangerous and unmanageable institution, presenting itself on the one hand as a bureaucratic supplier of goods and services, which is always about to, but never actually does, give its clients value for money — and on the other as a repository of sacred values, which from time to time invites one to lay down one’s life on its behalf. . . . it is like being asked to die for the telephone company.”
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William Carrol Bark explains the vital role Augustine played in disentangling the church from the Rome:
“It remained for Augustine of Hippo, however, to accept the challenge of his time on the highest intellectual plane and state the case for the rising Christian culture in his powerful philosophy of history. He saw that it was necessary not only to reply to the gibes of the pagans, but also to scotch the popular identification of the welfare of Christianity with the welfare of Rome. Though he doubtless thought of the problem primarily and immediately as one of apology, he was unquestionably aware that the whole meaning of history for Christians was also involved . . . His recognition that Christianity must be cut loose from the Roman State was not timeserving; naturally in his philosophy of history the civtas dei would always be independent of the destines of worldly states . . . His accomplishment was to prepare the minds of his more thoughtful contemporaries and successors for the possibility of a change in the political state of affairs as they knew it, and to enable them to adapt themselves to this change.”
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People often wonder why America has such a stronger conservative, Christian presence than Europe. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one is that many of Europe’s most faithful and energetic Christian families came to America, which had the effect of at least partially hollowing out European spirituality. Of course, many came here seeking religious freedom, so they were people of deep conviction.
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As kids come of age, those kids will do the best whose parents need them for identity and self-worth the least.
The only thing worse than a grown child leaving the home is that grown child not leaving the home.
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Undermining the creation order is always a more effective revolutionary tactic than arguing against God’s existence.
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Let’s be real.
Trans-women are men.
Trans-men are women.
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Nationalism may produce conflict between nations, but multiculturalism produces conflict within nations, as it destroys national unity and coherency.
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What is feminism really about?
“I want to see a man beaten to a bloody pulp with a high-heel shoved in his mouth, like an apple in the mouth of a pig.”
— Andrea Dworkin
“The end goal of feminist revolution must be… the abolition of the nuclear family.”
— Shulasmith Firestone
“The nuclear family must be destroyed… Whatever its ultimate meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively revolutionary process.”
— Linda Gordon
“If life is to survive on this planet, there must be a decontamination of the Earth. I think this will be accompanied by an evolutionary process that will result in a drastic reduction of the population of males.”
— Mary Daly
“No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Women should not have that choice, because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one.”
— Simone De Beauvoir
“I feel that ‘man-hating’ is an honorable and viable political act.”
— Robin Morgan
“The proportion of men must be reduced to and maintained at approximately 10% of the human race.”
— Sally Miller Gearhart
“The more famous and powerful | get the more power I have to hurt men.”
— Sharon Stone
“The first condition for the liberation of the wife is to bring the whole female sex back into public industry, and this in turn demands the abolition of the monogamous family as the economic unit of society.”
— Frederich Engels
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A Christian should be a Christian wherever he goes and in whatever he does.
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While America is clearly defined by certain propositions, those propositions do not define what it means to be an American. In other words, propositional nationhood is and always has been a lie. We do not deport citizen who disagree with the propositions. They continue to be American. I certainly wish all Americans would believe the basic propositions that defined us in the beginning — the kinds of propositions found in the opening to the Declaration of Independence. But nationhood, like familyhood, can never be boiled down to ideas or abstract concepts.
—
Charles Spurgeon on evolution/Darwinism:
“Does Revelation [Scripture] teach us evolution? It never has struck me, and it does not strike now, that the theory of evolution can, by any process of argument, be reconciled with the inspired record of the Creation. You remember how it is distinctly stated, again and again, that the Lord made each creature ‘after his kind.’… Besides, brethren, I would remind you that, after all these years in which so many people have been hunting up and down the world for ‘the missing link’ between animals and men, among all the monkeys that the wise men have examined, they have never discovered one who has rubbed his tail off, and ascended in the scale of creation so far as to take his place as the equal of our brothers and sisters of the great family of mankind. Mr. Darwin has never been able to find the germs of an Archbishop of Canterbury in the body of a tomcat or a billy goat, and I venture to prophesy that he will never accomplish such a feat as that. There are abundant evidences that one creature inclines towards another in certain respects, for all are bound together in a wondrous way which indicates that they are all the product of God’s creative will; but what the advocates of evolution appear to forget is, that there is nowhere to be discovered an actual chain of growth from one creature to another, — there are breaks here and there, and so many missing links that the chain cannot be made complete. There are, naturally enough, many resemblances between them, because they have all been wrought by the one great master-mind of God, yet each one has its own peculiarities… Even where one species very closely resembles another, there is a speciality about each which distinguishes it from all others.”
Spurgeon called Darwinism one of the “new systems of philosophy and infidelity which are constantly springing up.” Elsewhere, he wrote:
“I, for my own part, believe there is a great gulf fixed between us, so that they who would pass from us to you (again turning to the gorilla) cannot; neither can they come to us who would pass from thence. At the same time, I do not wish to hold an argument with the philosopher who thinks himself related to a gorilla; I do not care to claim the honour for myself, but anyone else is perfectly welcome to it.”
—
Charles Spurgeon on Islam:
“Mahommedans’ religion might be sustained by scimitars, but Christians’ religion must be sustained by love. The great crime of war can never promote the religion of peace. The battle, and the garment rolled in blood, are not a fitting prelude to “peace on earth, goodwill to men.” And I do firmly hold, that the slaughter of men, that bayonets, and swords, and guns, have never yet been, and never can be, promoters of the gospel. The gospel will proceed without them, but never through them.”
“He who religiously obeys Mahomet may yet be doing grievous moral wrong; but it is never so with the disciple of Jesus: obedience to Jesus is holiness.”
“This book (the Bible) is more than a book,—it is the mother of books, a mine of truth, a mountain of meaning. It was an ill-advised opinion which is imputed to the Mohammedans at the destruction of the Alexandrian Library, when they argued that everything that was good in it was already in the Koran, and therefore it might well be destroyed.”
“I have heard that an Englishman has professed himself a Mahometan because he is charmed by the polygamy which the Arabian prophet allows his followers. No doubt the prospect of four wives would win converts who would not be attracted by spiritual considerations. If you preach a gospel which makes allowances for human nature, and treats sin as if it were a mistake rather than a crime, you will find willing hearers.”
“I have made it a College exercise with our brethren. I have said—We will read a chapter of the Koran. This is the Mahomedan’s holy book. A man must have a strange mind who should mistake that rubbish for the utterances of inspiration.”
“When Mohammed would charm the world into the belief that he was the prophet of God, the heaven he pictured was not at all the heaven of holiness and spirituality. His was a heaven of unbridled sensualism, where all the passions were to be enjoyed without let or hindrance for endless years. Such the heaven that sinful men would like; therefore, such the heaven that Mohammed painted for them, and promised to them.”
“And we must remark, first, what a singularly loving one it is. Imagine Mahomet on his dying bed saying to his disciples, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” what would be his command? “Go ye, therefore, with sharp scimitars, and propound faith in the prophet, or death as the dread alternative; avenge me of the men who threw stones at the prophet; make their houses a dunghill, and cut them in pieces, for vengeance is mine, and God’s prophet must be avenged of his enemies.” But Christ, though far more despised and persecuted of men, and having a real power which that pretended prophet never had, says to his disciples, as he is about to ascend to heaven, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” It is the voice of love, not of wrath. “Go and teach them the power of my blood to cleanse, the willingness of my arms to embrace, the yearning of my heart to save! Go and teach them. Teach them no more to despise me, no more to think my Father an angry and implacable Deity. Teach them to ‘bow the knee, and kiss the Son,’ and find peace for all their troubles, and a balm for all their woes in me. Go ye; speak as I have spoken; weep as I have wept; invite as I have invited; exhort, entreat, beseech and pray, as I have done before you. Tell them to come unto me, if they be weary and heavy laden, and I will give them rest; and say unto them, ‘I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, but had rather that he should turn unto me and live.’” What a generous and gracious command is that of the text, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.””
“We have in the midst of us to-day our Leader. He is not gone from us. If his flesh and blood be absent, yet in body as well as spirit he lives, adorned with the dew and beauty of his youth. As for the Mahomedan, his leader has long ago rotted in his coffin; but ours lives, and because he lives, his truth and his cause live also. We have with us to-day a Leader whose power is not diminished, whose influence in the highest heavens has suffered no impairing. He is universal Lord. Oh, let our efforts be worthy of the power which he has promised; let our zeal be in some respect akin to his zeal, and let our energy prove that the energy divine has not been withdrawn.”
—
Second Helvetic Confession on the obligations that come with baptism:
[In baptism, God] separates us from all strange religions and peoples by the symbol of baptism, and consecrates us to himself as his property. We, therefore, confess our faith when we are baptized, and obligate ourselves to God for obedience, mortification of the flesh, and newness of life. Hence, we are enlisted in the holy military service of Christ that all our life long we should fight against the world, Satan, and our own flesh. Moreover, we are baptized into one body of the Church, that with all members of the Church we might beautifully concur in the one religion and in mutual services.
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Calvin’s comments on covenant children brought to Jesus for blessing in Matthew 19:14:
“Jesus declares that he wishes to receive children; and at length, taking them in his arms, he not only embraces, but blesses them by the laying on of hands; from which we infer that his grace is extended even to those who are of that age. And no wonder; for sin the whole race of Adam is shut up under the sentence of death, all from the least to the greatest must perish, except those who are rescued only by the Re-deemer. To exclude from the grace of redemption those who are of that age would be too cruel; and therefore, it is not without reason that we employ this passage as a shield against the Anabaptists. They refuse baptism to infants, because infants are incapable of understanding that mystery which is denoted by it. We, on the other hand, maintain that, since baptism is the pledge and figure of the forgiveness of sins, and likewise of adoption by God, it ought not to be denied to infants, whom God adopts and washes with the blood of his Son. Their objection, that repentance and newness of life are also denoted by it, is easily answered. Infants are renewed by the Spirit of God, according to the capacity of their age, till that power, which was concealed within them, grows by degrees, and becomes fully manifest at the proper time. Again, when they argue that there is no other way in which we are reconciled to God, and become heirs of adoption, than by faith, we admit this to adults, but, with respect to infants, this passage demonstrates it to be false. Certainly, the laying on of hands was not a trifling or empty sign, and the prayers of Christ were not idly wasted in air. But he could not present the infants solemnly to God without giving them purity. And for what did he pray for them, but that they might be received into the number of the children of God: Hence it follows, that they were renewed by the Spirit to the hope of salvation. In short, by embracing them, he testified that they were reckoned by Christ among his flock. And if they were partakers of the spiritual gifts, which are represented by Baptism, it is unreasonable that they should be deprived of the outward sign. But it is presumption and sacrilege to drive far from the fold of Christ those whom he cherishes in his bosom, and to shut the door, and exclude as strangers those whom he does not wish to be forbidden to him.”
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“Anything worth doing takes at least three generations.”
— Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
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The future of the world is not Orwell’s vision of a boot stomping on a human face forever. It in the prophet’s vision of Jesus’ foot crushing the serpent’s head forever.
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“Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft”
That’s what this is like – there seems to be a demonic energy at work in these mobs
These kids are completely brainwashed by public schools, social media, and Hollywood propaganda
This is not really protest – it’s rioting
Those who are interfering with the legitimate law enforcement work of ICE are traitors to their own nation
This is a clash of civilizations
It’s the culture war slowly turning into a kinetic war
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Men, with Valentine’s Day coming up, keep in mind that the very first words spoken by a human in the Bible came from a man praising his wife in Genesis 2. The first recorded human speech we have is a man singing a love song to his wife:
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man.”
—
Statecraft is soulcraft. All civil law is legislated morality that shapes the consciences and convictions of the people. Civil has a pedagogical function, training citizens in virtue (or in vice, as the case may be).
—
Two cultural changes we must make:
First, we must re-stigmatize premarital sex. Fornication is at the root of so many of our problems. It is tied in to abortion, abuse, fatherlessness, and divorce. It is well established that marriages in which both spouses have waited until marriage to have sex are happier and more stable. There is less baggage brought into the marriage. Fornication leads to guilt, shame, envy, and mistrust. It’s not just that saving sex for marriage usually makes sex in marriage better; it’s that saving sex for marriage is a discipline that makes us into the kind of virtuous persons who can make marriage work. “For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality; that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God; that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified. For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.”
Second, we must de-stigmatize use of the rod in parenting. Obviously the rod can be misused by parents. But when the rod is used consistently, lovingly, and in the context of verbal teaching, it is very effective in training children to be self-controlled. There is no substitute for the rod in most cases. Discipline, as Hebrews 12 teaches us, has to be painful to be effective. God authorizes parents to use the rod. And yet in today’s world, many parents opt for “gentle parenting” which ends up encouraging the child to become an entitled narcissist. Spanking, rightly done, is redemptive: “If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.” The rod is a form of love: “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” The rod opens the child up to receiving wisdom and instruction: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.”
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Many Christians who do not want to fight the culture war say that it detracts from evangelism.
There are two main problems with this. First, there is no virtue in hiding what we actually believe. And there are many non-Christian “reality respecters” who are impressed by biblical teaching on practical and cultural issues. So speaking to these issues is a way of evangelizing those people. Many people have been led to the faith by Christians who did not shy away from culture warring – from speaking the truth on issues like feminism, male/female polarity and attraction, transgenderism, the divine design for nations, the biblical job description of the civil magistrate, etc.
Second, the Great Commission is not just about winning souls but building Christian nations. A discipled nation requires more than just preaching the gospel in a narrow sense – it requires teaching the nations everything Jesus commanded, which means the whole Bible. The Bible speaks to the controversial issues of our day, and so the church should as well. The Bible is not just a book of redemptive truths; it is not just a book for personal discipleship; it contains blueprints for civil justice and for social life as well. If the church refuses to speak where God has spoken, if the church refuses to apply the Bible to the practical issues of life, she is being unfaithful to her charge to teach all Jesus has commanded to the nations and to proclaim the whole counsel of God.
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Anti-FV is incompatible with the Westminster standards on the most important FV issues
Paedocommunion is the one exception obviously – but even that is still consistent with the Standard’s principles of ecclesiology
Anti-FVers do not believe baptized children are Christians, and members of God’s kingdom, house, and family
Anti-FVers do not believe the sacraments become effectual means of salvation
Anti-FVers do not believe we will be openly acquitted in the day of judgment
Etc.
They are dishonest hypocrites to try to claim the confessional high ground on any issue other than paedocommunion
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“Imagination magnifies small objects with fantastic exaggeration until they fill our soul, and with bold insolence cuts down great things to its own size, as when speaking of God.”
— Pascal, pointing out that fallen imagination makes created things big and the Creator small
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With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it’s a good time to remind women: You can have equality or romance but not both. Pick one or the other. You can’t say you want equal treatment when it suits you and then special treatment when it suits you. That kind of double standard is dishonest and hypocritical.
If the sexes are the same, that sameness will kill the sexual polarity that drives attraction and makes romance possible. If the sexes are the same, everyone might as well be gay.
If you want romance, you have to have sexual polarity. You have to recognize the sexes really are different – with different glories, different purposes, different domains, different roles to play in the home and society, and different life trajectories. The future of civilization depends on recovering this creational order.
The ideology of equality (that is, egalitarianism) has steamrolled everything in its path and will destroy civilization itself if not stopped. It is the existential crisis of our age, smashing marriage rates and birth rates. Without marriage and family, we have no future – or whatever future we do have will be filled with a lot of loneliness and misery.
The ideology of egalitarianism is at war with the way God made the world. It not only creates a war between the sexes, it is a war on the sexes, feminizing men and masculinizing women. An androgynous or unisex society that tries to flatten out all distinctions is a death wish.
If the sexes are really basically interchangeable, there is no reason why a man should pursue a woman, pay for a date, buy her flowers, open her door, cherish her, or propose marriage. Someone has to initiate the relationship; someone has to lead while the other follows. But in an egalitarian society, there is no script for anyone to conform to. There is no hierarchy or order or pattern. The result is the chaos and lack of family formation we see today.
Egalitarianism is an attack on the sexual dance between male and female God designed from the beginning. Men are to be protectors, providers, and leaders. Women are glorifies, helpers, and nurturers. Going against God’s design is like running your hand against the grain of a piece of wood – you’re going to get splinters.
So, we have to choose: equality or romance, equality or family, equality or civilization, equality or a future. To choose equality is to choose death.
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What if the “promised land” in the Middle East belongs to Christians?
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“Should I date a woman who is committed to her career?”
There are 2 kinds of career oriented women
There is the kind of woman so committed to her career, so committed to “independence,” that a man cannot change her mind even if she really likes and respects him
She will put career first because she’s been brainwashed into thinking it’s important
She has become a feminist and will not move off it
Sometimes these women have a child and then change their minds then once the hormones flood in, sometimes they grow old and alone and regret their life choices — but you cannot take your chances with this kind of woman
“Big career aspirations” are a red flag
Then there is the kind of woman who is career oriented for now, but only because she has to do something with herself while waiting for the right
She wants to be a wife and mother but will not be idle in the meantime
This kind of woman is marriageable provided the workplace has not hardened her – she knows wife and mother is her true calling and looks forward to being a worker at home, raising children, etc.
That woman is marriageable
She is just waiting on a man to change her situation and is trying to be productive in the meantime
I would tell every young man to stay away from a feminist woman – you cannot assume you will change her
Feminists always have “big career aspirations” and want to live like men
They’ll put their kids in daycare and go back to work because the career is “high status” and stay-at-home-mom is not
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Ordo amoris is just a way of recognizing that grace does not destroy nature (families, nations, etc.); rather, it restores nature.
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In today’s world, there is more racism against whites than by whites.
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The same God who brought Israel out of Egypt raised Jesus from the dead.
Or perhaps it would be better to say: The God who brought Israel out of Egypt is the same God who hung on the cross and rose from the grave three days later.
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From 8/29/24:
Did you know that in Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species, when he finally gets to the point where he needs to give solid evidence of his theory, he says, “In order to make it clear how, as I believe, natural selection acts, I must beg permission to give one or two imaginary illustrations”?
Darwin did not have evidence for his theory; he just had an active imagination
150+ years after his book put forward the theory of evolution, all scientists have to offer as proof are still “imaginary illustrations”
There is no hard evidence for evolution
None
It’s a theory – or really, a philosophy – riddled with holes
There is absolutely no reason why Christians should feel the need to subordinate their interpretation of Scripture to it
There is absolutely no reason to be intimidated by it or silenced by it
Instead, we should be pointing out the emperor has no clothes
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From 9/10/24:
“‘Darwinism’ happens just now to be the current manifestation, which the fashion of the day gives to the permanent anti-theistic tendency in sinful man.”
— R L Dabney
In other words, Darwinism was the just fashionable form idolatry took, beginning in the second half of the 19th century
It was the latest way for man to suppress the truth in unrighteousness
It’s still fashionable, in neo-Darwinian form, but many of us will live long enough to see it go out of style
It’s influence and purchase is waning, as it continually gets shot full of holes
—
From 8/27/24:
It’s amazing how many people have been brainwashed by the pseudo-scientific theory of Darwinism
So many cultural disasters are downstream from that foolishness….
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From 8/23/24:
The two biggest hoaxes ever foisted on the human race are Darwinism and the papacy
Since the Pope has fallen for the hoax of Darwinism, I consider it a slightly bigger hoax than the papacy
The climate change hoax comes in third place
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“Do not think that you are saved if you are a drunken pig day and night. This is a great sin, and everybody should know that this is such a great iniquity, that it makes you guilty and excludes you from eternal life. Everybody should know that such a sin is contrary to his baptism and hinders his faith and his salvation. Therefore, if you wish to be a Christian, take care that you control yourself. If you do not wish to be saved, go ahead and steal, rob, profiteer as long as you can… But if you do want to be saved, then listen to this: just as adultery and idolatry close up heaven, so does gluttony… Therefore be watchful and sober. That is what is preached to us, who want to be Christians… A drunkard is not dissuaded from his drinking by reason any more than a murderer, an adulterer, whoremonger, or usurer…What should move you is that God forbids it on pain of damnation and loss of the kingdom of heaven.”
— Martin Luther, Sermon on Soberness and Moderation, 1539
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“A civilization is not destroyed by wicked men; it is destroyed by weak men who cannot defend what is good.”
— G. K. Chesterton
—
“We do not want a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world. The great marches of civilization have not come from the clever, the adaptable, or the fashionable. They have come from men who stood still while the rest of the world rushed past them, and who held fast to certain moral truths as to a rock. Progress itself depends upon the retention of permanent things. A civilization is not destroyed by wicked men; it is destroyed by weak men who cannot defend what is good.”
— G. K. Chesterton
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Drugs dealers are secular witches. Mind/consciousness-altering drugs are a form of pharmakeia, which is sorcery/witchcraft.
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“When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are the legislators.”
— P. J. O’Rourke
—
On legalism and antinomianism:
In the first place, I’m not sure that “legalism” and “antinomianism” are the best categories for what seems to me at least to dominate contemporary “Bible Belt” religion in the U.S. today. Sure, there are some antinomians (in theory) who believe that you can be justified without being sanctified—even without continuing in faith. Sure, there are some who say that the third use of the law (guiding believers) is no longer in effect. In their view, referring to the Ten Commandments as normative for how we should live would be going back “under the law” in the sense that Paul condemned. I’m also sure that there are legalists out there. But the portrait of the preacher threatening card-players with the fires of hell is a distant memory, replaced by the smiling motivational speaker telling you how you can have your best life now if you follow his seven easy principles.
That’s where I think it all gets so tricky. We’re using theological categories when one of the most transformative events in our churches has been cultural: namely, what Philip Reif called “the triumph of the therapeutic.” What we’re dealing with today in the majority of cases, I believe, is not accurately described as either antinomianism or legalism, but a pragmatic and narcissistic appeal to moralism. It’s not “stop going to parties or you’ll go to hell,” but “follow these ten principles and your life will be a party.” It’s “principles for living” on any number of life management topics, mining the Bible for quotes, but for the most part ignoring the interests of the text itself.
So you can’t really call this antinomian: it’s full of imperatives (rules, steps, principles, motivational tips—some kind of “To Do” list). But you also can’t call it legalistic, because the reference point isn’t really salvation or damnation—or even God, but me and my happiness or unhappiness. God only makes a cameo appearance. The whole paradigm is what sociologist Christian Smith defines as: moralistic, therapeutic deism. Say what you will about the legalists and antinomians of yesteryear, but despite their heterodoxy, they were more interested in the Triune God and in interpreting and applying Scripture than a lot of what passes for evangelical preaching today.
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The Bible is designed to be ready typologically – there is foreshowdowing and fulfillment.
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Is America a “melting pot”? Perhaps in one sense, this could be a fair description of the way a variety of (mostly white European) settlers to this nation formed a new ethnicity, now called “American.” But the term itself was coined by a Jewish playwright, Israel Zangwill, who intentionally sought to undermine America’s Christian heritage and replace it with a new secular identity.
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An all-Spanish Super Bowl halftime show is eerily reminiscent of Isaiah 29:11-12:
“For by people of strange lipsand with a foreign tongue the LORD will speak to this people, to whom he has said, “This is rest; give rest to the weary; and this is repose”; yet they would not hear.”
When your land is filled with strange tongues, God is judging your nation. The whole half time show was a double humiliation ritual, attacking the American part of our identity and the Christian part of our heritage. This is nothing new, but since this is the year of America’s 250th birthday, you’d think maybe they want to at least pay lip service to patriotism.
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Ironically, socialism and communism which are supposedly about distributing power and wealth as widely as possible end up with power and wealth in the hands of very few.
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“Once an industry is created, it will influence politicians far more than politicians will influence it.”
— Ed Gogek
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From 6/12/25:
I often point out that there is no reason to think Jesus is coming back soon and many reasons to believe his final return may be a long time off. There are several lines of evidence that point in this direction (e.g., the Bible speaks of God’s faithfulness to thousands of generations, the Great Commission must be completed before Jesus returns so he can inherit the nations as his redemptive possession, etc.). But whether you are convinced of those arguments or not, I think there can be no question that Christians have been far more effective when they take a long-term view of history rather than when they think Jesus is coming back at any moment (and probably very soon!).
A few examples: The Christians who began work on the cathedrals in medieval Europe knew they would not live to see their completion, but they also knew most anything worth doing takes more than one generation to accomplish. That’s a good reminder in our instant, “what have you done for me lately?” society. When Arthur Guinness began his brewery, which went on to become one of the greatest Christian companies in history, he signed a 9000-year lease on the land. That’s what you call thinking long-term! Older versions of the Book of Common Prayer had tables for calculating the date of Easter out to 8400 AD.
I have never been able to authenticate the veracity of this story about the oak beams in the dining hall at Oxford, but it illustrates the point very well:
“New College, Oxford, is of a rather late foundation, hence the name. It was probably founded around the late 16th century. It has, like other colleges, a great dining hall with big oak beams across the top. These might be eighteen inches square, and twenty feet long.
Some five to ten years ago, so I am told, some busy entomologist went up into the roof of the dining hall with a penknife and poked at the beams and found that they were full of beetles. This was reported to the College Council, who met in some dismay, because where would they get beams of that caliber nowadays?
One of the Junior Fellows stuck his neck out and suggested that there might be on the College lands some oak. These colleges are endowed with pieces of land scattered across the country. So they called the College Forester, who of course had not been near the college itself for some years, and asked him about the oaks.
And he pulled his forelock and said, “Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’.”
Upon further inquiry, it was discovered that when the College was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the dining hall when they became beetle-infested, because oak beams always become beetle-infested in the end. This plan had been passed down from one Forester to the next for four hundred years. “You don’t cut them oaks. Them’s for the College Hall.”
A nice story. That’s a way to run a culture.”
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From 9/14/25:
Looking back over the last 5+ years, it’s really impressive how conservatives/the right/Christians did not simply throw in the towel and swallow black pill back in January 2020. Instead, we fought back and have totally shifted the momentum in the country. It’s like Chesterton said: “The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God’s paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle – and not lose it.” That’s what we’ve done: everything looked lost, we fought back anyway, and found that we really can turn our country around. Yes, there is a lot more work to be done. We’re only in the beginning stages of what needs to be accomplished. But just when it looked like the culture war was over, and the left could declare total victory, the right staged an astounding comeback. This chapter of our nation’s story will make exciting fodder for historians in the future. The right was a heavy underdog, but pulled off a huge upset. Who knows what the future holds, but there are countless reasons for optimism right now.
Every political movement has its flaws and its riffraff (see, eg, David’s band of outlaws who joined his movement in the wilderness in 1 Samuel 22). That’s true of our movement too. But the quality of leadership, the widespread respect for the Bible and the church, and the kind of cultural/political discussions taking place on the right (like overturning Obergefell) are in sharp contrast to the explicit “celebration” of perversion and the total lack of leadership in the Democratic Party. The differences really could not be more stark. The left has no vision for the country. They have no love for America and her heritage. They want to drive God and prayer out of public life. The left is all about promoting sexual deviance and the coming climate catastrophe. It’s all about accusing normal, decent people of being racists and bigots. It’s all about advocating for the most shallow form of racial identity politics and the divisiveness of cultural Marxism. It’s all about government-run grocery stores (like that’s never been tried!) and the willingness to use political violence, including mobs, riots, and shootings. The two sides of the political spectrum are further apart than at any time in our nation’s history (including the War Between the States, when at least both sides professed to worship the same God).
But the contrast of right vs left is not the only contrast worth noting. The right of 2025 is completely different from the right of previous generations – and it’s so, so much better on the whole. This is why I think today’s right is so much more potent than in the past. We are better historically informed, more widely grounded in the Christian faith, and more willing to actually fight back instead of getting steered and manipulated by the left’s false accusations. And now that left’s accusations are no longer working, the total lack of substance on the left is being fully exposed. The left is morally and intellectually bankrupt. The right has a treasure of riches.
Charlie Kirk deserves a lot of credit for the vibe shift that has taken place, especially among young men. Kirk’s martyrdom likely cemented a whole generation of men to the right. Kirk’s role in the 2024 election cannot be overstated. What I appreciate most about Kirk is that he presented a fully integrated worldview at just the time when many Big Eva-type leaders were telling us we needed to go silent on political/culture war issues for the sake of evangelism. Kirk took the opposite approach, constantly mixing evangelism and politics, and it paid huge dividends. He proved that fighting the culture war and evangelizing the lost go hand in hand. He showed how the Christian faith answers not just the “How do I get my sins forgiven?” question, but all the other major cultural and political questions of our day. He could move seamlessly from talking about Jesus as the only way of salvation to talking about the importance of marriage and the wisdom of the second amendment. In Kirk’s on-campus apologetics, as well as in his life, everything was integrated under Christ’s lordship. May God give us more like him.
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Church with weak leadership vs strong leadership and women’s Bible studies. Sexes need their own spaces.
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A lot of therapy is the exact opposite of what scripture would say to do
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Empathy makes you cruel to those outside your circle
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One of the worst things that can happen in the church is for people to rebel against legitimate applications of the Word of God to daily life by labeling those applications “legalism.” In such cases, the charge of legalism is being used to mask willful rebellion.
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If I could wave a wand and change two societal realities, it would be to re-stigmatize premarital sex and de-stigmatize spanking children.
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As Christians, we have to raise our fertility rate to keep/rebuild Christian civilization but it won’t be enough to have children. We must keep them in the faith. Otherwise, we are just providing our enemies with reinforcements. Faithful Christian parenting and covenant succession are the need of the hour.
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“If you look at the world, you’ll be distressed. If you look within, you’ll be depressed. But if you look at Christ, you’ll be at rest.”
–Corrie Ten Boom
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If America wants God’s blessing, per Genesis 12:3, we should bless the faithful church because Christian’s are the true family of Abraham. We should use our political leverage in other nations to stop the persecution of Christians and to ensure that the church has the freedom to worship and carry out her mission.
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There’s no such thing as a trans kind. No one is born in the wrong body. Transgenderism is a satanic lie.
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Jews cannot be saved be without turning to Jesus.
In Romans 9, Paul says he is willing to be damned if it would save his people. That makes no sense if they are already saved.
In Romans 11, Paul puts the salvation of Israel in future tense which makes no sense if they are all presently saved.
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Christians need to act like what they believe is really true.
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From X on 11/17/24:
I’ve been a CREC pastor for about 20 years now and there’s rarely been a dull moment. We are far from perfect, but we are faithful, often in ways that other denominations are not. We are the torch bearers of Reformed catholicity and high church Calvinism.
One thing I’ve noticed is that when we get criticized intensely in the public square – usually in a social media format – it just causes our churches to grow. The people who are already with us in the CREC recognize that most of the criticisms launched our way are lies and slanders, so they’re not going anywhere. And other people who hear criticisms often take a closer look and discover the CREC has exactly what we they were looking for, they just didn’t know it existed.
The CREC obviously varies from church to church, as does any denomination, but it has a few constants that keep people coming back no matter how much people on the outside try to damage our reputation. We have vibrant singing and fiery preaching. We have happy families and we strongly support Christian education. We are not afraid to teach on the controversial topics of the day, as God’s Word bears upon them. We are liturgical but not stuffy or snobbish. We produce elites but are not elitist. Our pastors and elders have backbone but are also tender shepherds.
With great leadership coming from our presiding minister, @uribrito, we will continue to grow, in the US and around the world. From what I have seen, many men in other denominations have honest theological disagreements with the CREC – that happens because Christendom is still divided, and we are happy to have dialogue in such cases. Good Christian men do not always agree on everything. But many, many of the enemies of the CREC have a sinister agenda. They attack us under false pretenses; whatever they might claim about their reasons for opposing us, our *real* offense to them is our biblical fidelity. But their attacks have backfired and will continue to. If they really don’t want the CREC to grow, the best thing they could do is leave is alone. The more we get talked about, the more people have their eyes opened to what has been the best kept secret in Christendom for a long time – namely, the CREC offers vibrant, joyful, and courageously truthful churches, filled with happy and spiritually healthy believers. Whatever attacks come our way, by the grace of God we’re not going anywhere and we’re not being pushed off of our biblical foundation.
TLDR: At this point, by God’s grace, the CREC has become anti-fragile.
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If Israel has returned to the land without repenting, it’s not a fulfillment of prophecy.
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Russell Moore and Ray Ortlund criticize the Bible Belt and celebrate its demise and the corresponding rise of secularism and Islam.
Meanwhile, even atheists are admitting that Christian culture is superior to the alternatives.
For example, in a 2024 interview, Richard Dawkins said, “I call myself a cultural Christian… I like living in a country which has a Christian kind of atmosphere… If I had to choose between Christianity and Islam, I’d choose Christianity every single time.”
Likewise, in a 2017 speech, Douglas Murray said, “We’re Christians whether we know it or not… The West is based on Christian values.”
Tom Holland and Jordan Peterson have made similar admissions about the cultural and civilizational importance of Christian faith.
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There will never be peace in the Middle East until those people groups involved in conflict come to the Prince of Peace. We know from the record of history, the only thing that can dissolve deeply seated racial, religious, and ethnic hatred is the love of God, revealed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. When churches replaces mosques and synagogues, when missionaries replace soldiers, when Bible replace bombs, there will be peace. Sure, secular peace treaties can provide temporary cease fires. But only Christianization can bring lasting peace.
Europe was once filled will warring people groups that treated one another terribly, viewed one another as subhuman, and fought with each other constantly. There were brief periods of peace brought about by imperial force, but deep and lasting peace only came to Europe when the gospel arrived. Pax Christi was greater than Pax Romana. The gospel created Europe as a diverse yet coherent civilization, full of truth, beauty, and goodness – cathedrals, music, art, civil order, and so on. When Belloc said, “Europe is the faith,” he was being provincial and making an overstatement. But he was also on to something – the gospel reconciled peoples and formed them into Christendom, aka Western civilization. There was nothing natural about it – man’s natural state in a fallen world is poverty and warfare. The gospel brought transformation.
Likewise, the only lasting hope of peace in a region like the Middle East is for Christendom to spread there. Only a Middle Eastern Christendom can bring lasting peace.
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Our obsession with freedom now means seeking freedom from reality itself. But this isn’t freedom at all. It’s slavery in disguise.
True liberty is ordered liberty. It is structured and bounded liberty.
How free are you to play a game of baseball if there are no rules? It wouldn’t be baseball anymore. The rules are necessary to give you the freedom to play.
No rules means no freedom.
“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts” (Psalm 119:45)
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Many nations in Africa today still practice slavery.
africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyl…
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“Every time we look to Christ on the cross, he seems to say to us, ‘I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing. Your curse I am suffering. Your debt I am paying. Your death I am dying.’”
— John Stott
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Paedocommunion:
If Jesus blessed little children (Matthew 19), why are not they not allowed to partake of the cup of blessing (1 Corinthians 10)? If the kingdom belongs to them, why not the feast of the kingdom? If covenant children could be brought to Jesus physically, why can they not be brought to him sacramentally?
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If health care is a right, meaning government has to provide, why can’t sex be a right since sex is a part of health – and if so, how would government provide it?
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“Christ leads me through no darker rooms than He went through before.”
–Richard Baxter (1615-1691)
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At this point, I just budget for a certain amount of craziness pretty much everywhere
Keeps me from getting too riled up when I encounter it
I think part of the problem is that the times we live in require us to thread certain needles that uncareful thinkers just aren’t capable of
It’s possible to say that immigration is a real problem AND white identity politics is not the solution
Many things that get social media clicks solve nothing in the real world
It’s possible to acknowledge problems with the American/Israel relationship or the role some subset of Jews have played in the rise of progressivism without becoming anti-Semitic, scapegoating the Jewish people, or re-narrating WW2
My go to question on this is, “Yeah, but have you seen what Paul wrote about Gentiles?”
Most people just want to go all in on some simplistic extreme position because it’s easier
Especially among struggling young men, the desire to offload their frustrations and failures on some other group is a real problem – whether it’s women, or Jews, or whoever, it’s a pathetic cope
And I say that as someone sympathetic with their plight in today’s world
I actually think Newsom or some other Dem winning in ‘28 would refocus Christian conservatives on what really matters – discipleship, family formation, localism, etc.
A lot of conservative Christian infighting is a “luxury” of having Trump in the White House and the illusion that things can be fixed politically
We are far beyond any kind of political fix to what ails us
Trump was never anything more than an emergency measure that tapped the brakes on our downward slide
The sad thing is, we will look back on this 4 year window and realize most of us wasted this time bickering instead of doing productive things for the kingdom
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Francis Schaeffer on defensive voting:
“The Christian should be the realistic one. We should realize that it is going, in our generation, one way or other. We must realize therefore that as we are losing our culture in other realms we are going to lose our culture in this. We must drag our feet in the loss of economic freedom.
Often we must vote not for a man but against a man. Maybe that is the only way to vote in a post-Christian world. You have to vote against a man who is going to take you the fastest toward the loss of economic freedoms. Often we cannot vote for anybody. We have to vote against somebody. Simply because they are going to take us faster in the direction in the loss of liberty.
And if we lose the economic liberty be sure, be sure, be sure there will be a loss in the political liberty. And Christians will get caught in the wheels. You won’t have the freedom to tell the lost world about the Gospel with the loss of freedom.”
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The church lives by the gospel. Because the gospel defines the church, it is of crucial importance that we possess a deep and abiding knowledge of it. As one Puritan aptly observed, a Christian without knowledge of the gospel is like a soldier without ammunition—a believer who does not know how to navigate the gospel resembles a soldier unfamiliar with his weapon. We must know the gospel.
To explore this, consider two key New Testament passages that complement each other: 1 Corinthians 15:1–11 and Romans 1:1–7. In Romans 1, Paul introduces his gospel to a church he has never met, as he plans to visit Rome and use it as a base for further missionary work westward. Before even introducing himself fully, he launches into a description of his gospel—an introduction to it. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul reminds the believers of the gospel they had already received, offering a refresher. Thus, these texts provide a primer for those new to the gospel and a reminder for those in danger of forgetting its fullness.
All Christians agree at a fundamental level that the gospel centers on Jesus as Savior and the church as the saved community. Preaching the gospel means preaching Christ; receiving it means receiving Him; believing it means trusting Him. Yet sharp disagreements often arise over the gospel’s precise nature and definition. One reason is its vastness: the gospel possesses many facets and dimensions. When Christians emphasize one or two aspects while downplaying others, groups can mistakenly believe they hold different gospels, when in reality each possesses only part of the whole. The gospel is expansive because the human problem is multi-faceted, requiring a correspondingly rich remedy. Shrinking it leads to personal impoverishment and ecclesial division.
While we cannot exhaust every dimension, the following aspects—drawn primarily from Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 15—illuminate the gospel’s richness. These facets build our identity as a gospel-centered church and strengthen faith and assurance.
1. The gospel is Christological.
It concerns God’s Son, Jesus Christ (Romans 1:3). Paul declares that Christ died, was buried, and rose again (1 Corinthians 15). The gospel is fundamentally a message about the person and work of Christ—the eternal Son who became incarnate, entering our humanity and history as Emmanuel, God with us. As the God-man, He alone reveals God fully and accomplishes what we cannot. Salvation is found in no one else; Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). Paul resolved to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2), for in Him the scroll of God’s redemptive plan is unsealed (Revelation 5). The title “Christ” (Messiah, Anointed One) points to Jesus as the promised Davidic king. In the ancient world, “gospel” announced royal events like a new emperor’s accession. The Christian gospel proclaims Jesus’ ascension to the Father’s right hand as King of kings. His lordship redefines power: He serves and saves His subjects. The gospel is good news of what God has done in Christ, not mere advice or self-improvement techniques.
2. The gospel is theological (and Trinitarian).
Paul calls it “the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1), rooted in God’s eternal plan and love. God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and sent His Son. The Father’s love initiates; the Son accomplishes; the Spirit applies. The gospel is the joint work of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—not an angry Father appeased by a loving Son, but a loving Father sending His Son. It addresses our deepest problem: separation from God caused by sin. Jesus unites Himself to us in humanity, bears our sin, and absorbs God’s wrath on the cross. God’s wrath against sin is integral to the gospel (Romans 1:18; 2:5). Proclaiming wrath is part of gospel preaching, yet Jesus rescues us from it (Romans 5:9; Ephesians 2:3). Salvation means being saved from wrath through Christ’s substitutionary death. God no longer holds our sins against us; they are paid in full.
3. The gospel is historical.
Planned in eternity, it unfolds in real history. Christ’s death and resurrection are factual events (1 Corinthians 15). If they did not occur, there is no gospel—we remain in our sins. These events inaugurated a new age: death defeated, sin’s reign broken, resurrection life begun. Every Christian confession (e.g., “crucified under Pontius Pilate”) anchors faith in verifiable history, distinguishing it from mere ideas.
4. The gospel is biblical.
It was promised beforehand through the prophets (Romans 1:2) and occurred “according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:3–4). The entire Bible interprets these events: the Old Testament promises Christ through words, types, rituals, and figures; the New Testament announces fulfillment. Scripture is a unified witness to Christ from Genesis to Revelation.
5. The gospel is apostolic.
Paul ties it to his apostleship (Romans 1) and what he received and passed on (1 Corinthians 15). The apostles were eyewitnesses commissioned by the risen Christ. Their testimony is authoritative and unchangeable; we transmit it faithfully across generations, resisting cultural reinvention.
6. The gospel is ecclesial.
It creates a new community—the church—as a new humanity under the last Adam. The gospel forms interdependent fellowship reflecting Trinitarian love, expressed in sacraments, preaching, and discipline. The church is integral, not optional; God’s plan centers on His people collectively.
7. The gospel is personal.
While corporate, it demands individual faith—enduring, obedient trust in Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1–2; Romans 1:5). Faith unites us to Christ, sharing His death to sin and life in righteousness (Romans 6). It fosters honesty, humility, and cruciform living—sacrifice leading to resurrection life.
8. The gospel is public (and political).
It calls nations to obedience (Romans 1:5), discipling all spheres under Christ’s lordship. Sin corrupts every aspect of life; the gospel renews them. Jesus’ kingship challenges all rival authorities.
9. The gospel is to be preached.
Paul preached, and people believed (1 Corinthians 15). It is proclamation of absolute truth, enfolding us into God’s story rather than fitting Christ into ours.
10. The gospel is gracious.
It is God’s free gift (Acts 20:24; Titus 2:11). Grace accepts us as we are, shatters pride, humbles us, yet transforms powerfully. Obedience follows grace like thunder follows lightning. There is more mercy in Christ than sin in us.
In sum, the gospel is Jesus Christ—God’s gift to us. Let us receive Him, rejoice in Him, and trust Him always.
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The gospel stands at the heart of the Christian faith, and its meaning is both rich and multifaceted. To understand it fully, we must see it from several complementary angles. The gospel is Christological, theological, historical, biblical, apostolic, ecclesial, personal, public, proclaimed, and gracious. Each of these dimensions helps us grasp the depth and power of what God has accomplished.
First, the gospel is Christological: it is about Christ. As Paul writes in Romans 1, the gospel concerns God’s Son, Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul summarizes it plainly: Christ died, was buried, and rose again. To know the gospel is to know Christ—his person and his work. He is the eternal Son of God who became man, entering our humanity and our history. The gospel is therefore incarnational. The one who is fully divine, one with the Father and the Spirit from all eternity, took on human flesh to accomplish what we could never accomplish for ourselves.
As the Gospels proclaim, he is Immanuel—God with us. Because he is fully God and fully man, he alone reveals God to us and accomplishes salvation for us. Jesus himself declared that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one comes to the Father except through him. Salvation is found in him alone. In Revelation 5, only Christ is worthy to open the scroll of God’s redemptive plan. He is the meaning and center of history.
Even the title “Christ” captures the essence of the gospel. It means “Anointed One,” equivalent to “Messiah.” In the Old Testament, kings—especially David—were called anointed ones. Jesus is the promised King from David’s line, the fulfillment of those earlier figures. In the ancient world, a “gospel” was a royal announcement, such as the birth or enthronement of a new emperor. Similarly, the Christian gospel is the royal proclamation that Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, has ascended to the Father’s right hand and now reigns as Lord. It is not good advice about what we must do; it is good news about what God has done.
Second, the gospel is theological. It is not only about Christ but about God. Paul calls it the “gospel of God” in Romans 1. Its origin lies in God’s eternal plan and love. The New Testament repeatedly declares that God sent his Son into the world. Christ’s mission was the Father’s mission. The Father gave his Son up to death and raised him on the third day. The Son offered himself to the Father as a sacrifice through the Spirit. The Father sent the Son to us in the Spirit; the Spirit works in us to bring us to faith in the Son, and to know and trust the Son is to know and trust the Father. The gospel is therefore deeply Trinitarian—the unified work of Father, Son, and Spirit. The gospel is the work of the Triune God.
This means the gospel does not portray a reluctant Father persuaded by a loving Son. Rather, the Father’s love sent the Son, and the Son willingly obeyed the Father. From beginning to end, the triune God works out our redemption.
The gospel is also theological in that it addresses our deepest problem: our broken relationship with God. Sin has erected a barrier between us and our Creator. In the gospel, God breaches that barrier. Christ unites himself to us in our humanity and bears our sin on the cross. To bear our sin is to bear the full weight of God’s righteous wrath against it. Scripture speaks frequently of this wrath. Later in Romans 1, Paul declares that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness. Yet in Romans 5, he proclaims that through Christ we are saved from wrath. In Ephesians 2, we are described as “children of wrath” apart from Christ. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul speaks of the coming wrath and of Christ who rescues us from it.
To understand salvation, we must understand what we are saved from. Jesus truly saves—he rescues us from God’s just judgment by bearing it himself. Because he has paid the penalty in full, believers can be received into God’s family with favor and forgiveness.
Third, the gospel is historical. Though planned in eternity, it was executed in time. In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul emphasizes that Christ’s death and resurrection are real historical events. If they did not happen, there is no gospel, and we remain in our sins. These events occurred in space and time. As Christians confess in their creeds, Christ was crucified under Pontius Pilate—a historical figure anchoring the gospel in history. Because the resurrection truly happened, a new age has dawned. Christ’s victory over death inaugurated a renewed creation that will be consummated at his return.
Fourth, the gospel is biblical. Paul insists that Christ died and rose “according to the Scriptures.” The events of Jesus’ life are not isolated facts; they are the fulfillment of God’s promises. In John 5, Jesus says that Moses wrote about him. In Luke 24, the risen Christ explains how the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms point to his suffering and glory. Hebrews describes the old covenant as a shadow of the good things to come. From Genesis onward, the biblical story anticipates and culminates in Christ. The Old Testament is promise; the New Testament is fulfillment.
Fifth, the gospel is apostolic. Paul ties the gospel to his apostleship, explaining in 1 Corinthians 15 that he passed on what he received. The apostles were eyewitnesses of the risen Christ and were commissioned to proclaim his message. The gospel we confess is the one they heard, saw, and handled. It is not ours to reinvent or reshape according to cultural trends. The church is called apostolic because it faithfully transmits this original message from generation to generation.
Sixth, the gospel is ecclesial—it creates the church. Jesus forms a new humanity around himself. As the “last Adam,” he is the head of a new race. The gospel does not merely reconcile isolated individuals to God; it gathers them into a community. The church reflects the relational life of the triune God. Fellowship, preaching, sacraments, and discipline are not optional extras but expressions of a gospel-shaped life together. The Christian life is meant to be lived within this redeemed community.
Seventh, the gospel is personal. While it creates a community, it also calls for individual response. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, “We preached, and you believed.” The events of Christ’s death and resurrection are objectively true, but their benefits are received through faith. Faith is reliance upon Christ—entrusting oneself wholly to him. It is enduring and obedient; Paul describes it in Romans 1 as the “obedience of faith.” True faith produces transformation.
By faith we are united to Christ. In Romans 6, Paul explains that we share in his death to sin and his new life of righteousness. The Christian life becomes cross-shaped—a life of sacrifice that leads to resurrection life. Union with Christ reshapes our identity, motivations, and character.
Eighth, the gospel is public. Paul speaks in Romans 1 of bringing about the obedience of faith among all nations. The gospel proclaims that Jesus is Lord—not only of private hearts but of the world. It is therefore inherently political in the sense that it announces a new King whose authority challenges every rival claim. The reign of Christ has implications for every sphere of life—social, cultural, and political.
Ninth, the gospel is to be preached. The New Testament consistently presents it as a proclamation. In Acts, the apostles boldly announce Christ’s death, resurrection, and reign. Dialogue may have its place, but the gospel ultimately demands proclamation as truth. It is the true story of the world, the story that defines the meaning and purpose of history.
Finally, the gospel is gracious. Paul calls it the gospel of the grace of God. In Titus, he writes that the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation. Grace means that God saves sinners not because of their merit but because of his mercy. Grace humbles us, shattering our pride and self-sufficiency. It declares that we are utterly dependent on Christ. At the same time, grace transforms us. As Paul testifies in 1 Corinthians 15:10, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” Grace not only forgives sin; it empowers obedience. Where grace strikes like lightning, transformation rolls like thunder.
In the end, the gospel is Jesus Christ himself—God’s gift to the world. It is the announcement of who he is and what he has accomplished: his incarnation, death, resurrection, and reign. It reconciles us to God, gathers us into a new community, reshapes our lives, and renews the world. To receive the gospel is to receive Christ, to trust him, rejoice in him, and live in the power of his grace.
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Responsibility and authority always go together.
Responsibility without authority is slavery.
Authority without responsibility is tyranny.
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G. K. Chesterton on courage:
Take the case of courage. No quality has ever so much addled the brains and tangled the definitions of merely rational sages.
Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. ‘He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,’ is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even of quite earthly or brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if we will risk it on the precipice.
He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity, and I certainly have not done so. But Christianity has done more: it has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living and him who dies for the sake of dying.”
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We just had a Super Bowl halftime show, the most watched annual event in American culture, an event that theoretically should bring Americans together, performed entirely in a foreign tongue. We just had 20 million+ illegals stream across the border during the Biden administration because our chief executive decided to not do his job and enforce laws put in place by democratically elected representatives and signed into law by democratically elected presidents.
In light of all of that, only a Congressman could be dumb enough to ask “Why do you think white Americans feel like their culture is being erased?”
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The Super Bowl halftime show has been an insult to Christians for a long time. But now it’s also a humiliation ritual for normal Americans.
Isaiah told the Israelites that when their land was filled with people speaking a foreign tongue, it was a sign of divine judgment upon their nation.
The instinctive response of American Christians to Bad Bunny’s show is to be angry and point fingers. That’s understandable, but Isaiah would tell us our first response should be repentance. Anger has its place because of what got us here; but repentance is more basic. It would be wonderful to have better political and cultural leadership, but what America needs most is the favor and blessing of God. And we can only get that through widespread repentance.
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Evangelism got turned into a marketing strategy during the Second Great Awakening, and we’ve never really recovered.
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God always intended special revelation and natural revelation to form a single system of revelation. Special revelation predates the fall and natural revelation continues to be operative after the fall. Special and natural revelation have worked in tandem from the beginning.
For us today, that means the Bible and nature continue to work together. We need both, and never one without the other. Special revelation is a fact of human experience every bit as much as natural revelation. The Bible presupposes natural revelation and natural revelation must be interpreted through the lens of Scripture (“the spectacles of Scripture,” as Calvin said). Nature points us to the God who has revealed himself in the Bible, and the Bible often points us back to nature as the revelation of the Creator’s design and a source of wisdom.
Natural law and biblical law cohere and are perfectly consistent. While natural revelation does not contain the gospel in itself, it certainly includes built-in illustrations of the gospel (eg, John 12:24). And Scripture speaks not only to the way of redemption; it addresses man’s personal and social life in this age as well. If grace restores nature, this is exactly what we should expect. The Bible does not only address heavenly, eternal, or salvific matters; it addresses every area of life and culture because the Savior Scripture reveals is Lord over everything.
Western civilization was built by utilizing truths drawn from both Scripture and natural revelation. Some say we should rely only on arguments from nature in the public square today since we live in a diverse, pluralistic society. But that is non-sense. The modern progressive does not believe in nature/creational design any more than he believes in Scripture as divine revelation. Pointing to nature is just as futile as quoting from Leviticus in a society like ours. Appeals to nature are not neutral; they are just as “religious” as appeals to Scripture. Christians should use all the tools at our disposal, drawing from Scripture and nature, to make our case for our vision of society. Jesus is the Lord of all creation; his lordship cannot be confined to a narrow ecclesiastical or redemptive realm. The same God who authored natural revelation authored special revelation, and fallen man is just as adept at suppressing incontrovertible arguments from nature as he is at suppressing the truths revealed in the self-authenticating Scriptures.
John Frame is one of the best on this:
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Note that even when Paul talks to Gentiles that have converted to Christian faith, he contrasts their way of life with the Gentile way of life. See Ephesians 4:17ff for an example — they are to no longer “walk as the Gentiles do.” Of course, he recognizes they are still Gentiles (see Ephesians 3:1, 6 and 1 Thessalonians 4:5) but they are now Gentiles who have been incorporated into Israel (see Ephesians 2:11ff and Galatians 2:12). This would like telling American converts to Christian faith they are to no longer live as Americans do — they are still Americans, but they are a new and different kind of Americans, indeed, they are Christian Americans. And Christian Americans, while still recognizably American, will live differently from other Americans.
The same thing happens in 1 Corinthians 10:1 where Paul says to a mostly Gentiles congregation that “our fathers” were called out of Egypt. The Gentiles now have Moses and the patriarchs as their fathers; they have been grafted into the line of Israel. The story of Israel is now their story. They have new citizenship in God’s holy nation and heavenly city. Sure, they are still Gentiles with that ethnic heritage as well. If you were Roman before becoming a. Hristian, you are still a Roman afterwards. But they have been Israelitized. They are now members of the Israel of God. That new identity does not just overlay their old Gentile identity. It transforms the way they live out that Gentile identity. They are now part of a new humanity, and so the way they live is being transformed. The old identity doesn’t die but it does get remade.
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Once upon a time, a person’s identity was largely found in their local community, where there were real relationships and accountability. With the rise of social media, identity has been digitized and globalized, with very little accountability. People do not know the real “you,” the know a digitized “you.” And that may or may not be identical to the real “you.”
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On drugs and witchcraft:
What counts as “pharamkeia”? Historically, the use of drugs was a part of it, as the lexicons affirm, though certainly not the whole of it. The term gets translated as “socerey” or “magic arts” more often than witchcraft, but witchcraft is definitely in the OT background to the terms.
Since those who practice “pharmakeia” will not inherit the kingdom of God, we need to know what it is. But Scripture does not spell it out in detail. I’m especially interested in how pharmakeia relates to drug use.
Does marijuana use count as pharmakeia? Using pot is probably more akin to drunkenness than witchcraft. But I do think at least some psychedelics open the door to demonic influence/encounter/possession for those who were already so inclined, even if not used in an explicitly religious context. These drugs are dangerous; people often do not understand the forces they are messing with when they take consciousness-altering drugs.
Of course even drunkenness might also open the door to the demonic in some cases, given the way Paul contrasts being filled with the Spirit vs. being filled with wine. If you’re not filled with the Holy Spirit, you are easy pickings for demonic spirits, especially when you use substances that lower inhibitions and self control.
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Paedobaptism and the culture wars:
Baptists cannot really construct a Christian civilization because there is no generational continuity. They have to rebuild church in each generation from scratch.
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“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done, then they begin to hope it can be done, then they see it can be done–then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
— Frances Hodgson Burnett
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“What is necessary will be incredibly painful.”
— Rupert Lowe
More politicians need to admit this reality instead of just telling people what they want to hear. Obviously optimism sells (cf. Trump’s “you’ll get tired of winning) but we also need a heavy does of realism.
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Fake history is even more dangerous than fake news.
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“Immigration without assimilation is invasion.”
— Charlie Kirk
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Jesus is never anxious.
ADDENDUM: What about his prayers in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Obviously, there was no sin on his part in Gethsemane, so he was not anxious or fearful in that sense. But I certainly think he was emotionally horrified at the prospect of the cross, not only the physical suffering and the shame, but the cup of divine wrath he would soon drink to the dregs. If there are non-sinful forms of anxiety or fear (and perhaps there are – see 2 Cor. 11:28), then he experienced them. He certainly experienced grief and pain to the fullest extent.
But he was not anxious in the sense of being worried. He was fully confident his Father would raise him from the dead. He went to the cross for the joy set before him.
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This is a kind of American diversity I can support:
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Follow up to my sermon from 1/18/26:
Last Sunday in my sermon, I talked about how many Christians have apostatized or compromised because they want to appease the left and ingratiate themselves to those with the most cultural power. I named names — and I do that for two reasons: First, because I want you to have a concrete idea of the kind of thing I am talking about. Naming names shows these are real problems, not imaginary ones. And second, because biblical writers often named names and I am following their example. Paul often mentions those who have apostatized or opposed his ministry by name — such as Alexander and Hymenaeus in 1 Timothy 1:20, and Demas in 2 Timothy 4:10, and Alexander the Coppersmith in 2 Timothy 4:14. Other times, Paul mentions larger groups by name — like the Judaizers in Galatians and the false apostles in 2 Corinthians, with the understanding that the recipients of his letters will know exactly who they are. It would be like mentioning “the Democrat party” in a sermon — it would not be an individual name, but everyone in the audience would know who and what is being discussed. Naming names is a reminder that we really all are responsible to God for how we live, and will have to give an account at the last day (2 Corinthians 5:10).
If you’re interested in reading more about ways in which the left has infiltrated conservative Christian circles, the best book is Megan Basham’s Shepherds for Sale. It is disturbing, but I highly recommend it. She deals with some of the names I mentioned in the sermon (like Russell Moore and David French).
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On the marriages in Genesis 6:
In Matthew 24, Jesus makes reference to people doing perfectly normal things in the days of Noah – eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage – and nothing indicates there was anything strange or unusual about these marriage, eg, demons mating with human women. The same kind of thing will be happening in the lead up to his final coming.
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“The myth of “artificial boundaries” drawn by ignorant Europeans is one that dies hard. In fact, as the French scholar Camille Lefebvre has shown, colonial administrators went to great lengths to figure out where boundaries should be drawn. In doing so, they made use of extensive local knowledge. Later demands by critics to redraw borders along ethnic lines, she argued, “had the paradoxical effect of erasing the history of African political structures and the role of the local populations in defining colonial boundaries.” This reflected a racist idea “that the essence of Africans is to be found in their ethnicity.
What is true is that these political boundaries did not always coincide with ethnic boundaries. Many ethnic groups ended up on different sides of borders because carving up “ethnic homelands” would have been both impractical as well as, in Lefebvre’s view, racist. If there is a “high-handed” assumption at play, it is the assumption of later critics that Africans are essentially tribal and need to be organized on tribal lines. Thus borders should be redrawn not based on political, social, and economic logic but on ethnic essentialism. When the apartheid state of South Africa created such ethnic “homelands,” they were roundly derided because they created ethnic ghettos cut off from modern lines of economic and political life. Yet the “artificial boundaries” critique of the borders resulting from the Berlin conference is an appeal for just such apartheid-style “homelands.””
— Bruce Gilley, In Defense of German Colonialism
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While there are certainly peaceful Muslims, Islam is never peaceful. It is an inherently violent, savage, and sensuous religion. While many Muslims are generally decent people, the religion of Islam is demonic.
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A few notes on Tucker Carlson (written on 2/17, just before my appearance on his show on 2/23):
I respect Tucker for continuing his education in public. It’s obvious he’s just thinking out loud sometimes — and that’s not a bad thing. It’s honest. He’s obviously still in process, still learning, which should be true of all of us. He has been humble enough to change his mind and admit that he changed.
Tucker is also given to Trump-like levels of hyperbole at times which makes it easy for him to be misunderstood — like when he says he “hates” Christian Zionists “more than anyone else.” The reality is that Dispensationalists (= Christian Zionists) are wrong about their reasons for supporting modern Israel, along with several other things, but they’ve also been the backbone of conservatism in the US for the long time now, based on sheer numbers alone. Those Christian Zionists are a huge proportion of red voters in red states — we need them, even if they are wrong about Israel in particular and eschatology in general.
Tucker’s views on Israel are controversial, obviously. He could take what I (or any classic covenant theologian) might say about “the church as the new Israel” and use it to fuel an anti-Israel fire. The main thing I want to counter is treating the modern nation of Israel as “special,” whether in a good way or a bad way. My strategy in these discussions is to start out by pointing to Jesus as the true Israel and work out everything else from that. The modern nation-state of Israel is a secular society and should be viewed as such.
Tucker is one of the “good guys” and an ally in the grand scheme for two reasons. First, he has continued to stand against the sexual revolution when much of the conservative world has caved, . He has not made peace with Obergefell. He knows men and women are different. Second, he rejects identity politics wholesale in an era when identity politics is swallowing everything up. He’s not anti-Semitic, no matter the accusations. He may be overeacting to his neo-con days and trying to atone for the sins he committed in that era of his career. But I think his criticisms of Israel’s present war are genuine. I simply don’t have enough information I trust to make definitive comments on the current war, so I’ll leave that to the side. My main concern with where Tucker is right now is the way he seems to grossly underestimate the Islamic threat — combining squishiness on Islam with an anti-Israel stance is stepping into a trap.
I don’t think the Fuentes interview was a good idea, but if he was going to do it, it should not have been a softball interview. He needed to throw a few more high-and-inside pitches to Fuentes.
I’m not sure I’d agree with Tucker’s criticisms of free markets. That’d be a topic for further discussion.
What Tucker really needs (assuming he doesn’t have it) is a good pastor who could lead him through all of these issues with an open Bible. While I’m sure I would have significant disagreements with Charlie Kirk’s pastor, I’m glad Charlie had a pastor.
I find Tucker to be incredible likable, a dogged pursuer and defender of the truth. He’s sincere and genuine. He operates by instinct which might sometimes get him in trouble, but he’s humble enough to keep learning and growing. We need more men like him, especially in journalism.
[Note: My visit to Tucker’s show has been rescheduled.]
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