The blessings God promised to Abraham flow out to the world through Jesus and the Spirit.
—
Easter forces us to choose our empty:
Either the tomb is empty of Jesus’ body, or life is empty is of all meaning.
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It’s not just Good Friday. It’s The Best Friday.
What’s so good about it? If you were on death row and an innocent substitute offered to die in your place so you could go free, you’d consider that a pretty good day.
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If what needs to be done to save our country isn’t popular, elections that are nothing more than popularity contests aren’t going to work.
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I’m not a preterist about Romans 11 precisely because I am a preterist about so many other NT passages
—
Chad O. Jackson gives an insightful assessment of what Nick Fuentes is doing:
I think Jackson is right. It’s not that Fuentes is a psyop or a Fed. But he does serve an analogous purpose. He says mostly true things and does so under the banner of white supremacy and racism – which has the effect of making his true ideas less attractive and less palatable to the mainstream. Fuentes actually aids and abets the left by making true rightwing/conservative ideals seem vile and hateful.
Why does Fuentes take this unwise approach if he’s really interested in winning? Feuntes says he’s Catholic but I think he functions more like a nihilist. In the end, Fuentes is about building his own kingdom, not God’s kingdom.
Much of Fuentes’ content is right; but his framing is wrong. This is why I have pointed out repeatedly that it is possible to argue against DEI, for borders and deportations, and so on, without ever resorting to racial identity politics. Similar content; different framing. I’ve addressed this many times.
Of course, some of Feuntes content is not good; some of it is vile. But the things he gets right are often packaged in a way to appeal to certain demographic of young men, but because of the packaging, they do not encourage those young men to grow in virtue or maturity. What kind of fruit is Fuentes’ work bearing in the real world? Compared to Charlie Kirk is he actually helping young men live in a way that leads to flourishing? Is he helping men lead productive, fruitful God-honoring lives?
The point of “no enemies to the right” is that we should not attack our own if it’s going to help the left. But what if the way that some of “our own” present their ideas actually helps the left? Then what?
For the record, I don’t think Fuentes is a plant. If he was – or if was more a genuine “real world” threat, I think you’d see the left talk about him more. They’d use him to divide the right. They’d use him more to discredit the right. Maybe that will happen in the next election cycle. But to this point, he’s still largely ignored by the left. As soon as they find him a useful wedge, they will start talking about him so that all the national level Republicans will have to denounce him (cutting them off from the same young men who were a vital part of Trump’s coalition).
It should also be noted that Fuentes himself most certainly does not practice NEOTR/”no enemies on the right.” He spends plenty of time attacking virtually everyone else on the right.
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Presbyterians read the whole Bible from beginning to end.
Baptists pick up the story two-thirds of the way through and try to figure out what’s going on.
There are places where the NT draws analogies/parallels from the OT, where the Baptist position would demand a contrast, e.g. 1 Corinthians 10:1ff.
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“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”
— Alexis de Tocqueville
Tocqueville understood that America, despite not having an officially established national church, was an ecclesiocentric nation, shaped more deeply by her pulpits than any other cultural force. If America is going to be made great again, it will be through the reformation and restoration of her churches first and foremost. Goodness is the key to greatness, and goodness comes from the gospel. There can be no great nation without great churches, great pastors, and great preaching. America will not sise above the level of her churches.
—
When the left is not in power, they talk about the Constitution, how important it is to protect it, and how the right is violating it.
When the left is in power, the Constitution is conveniently ignored.
This is the left’s most powerful tactic — using the Constitution to block the right when the right is in power, and setting it aside so they can do what they want when they are in power.
Conservatives have to understand that leftists are not playing fair and they are not saying by the same rules.
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We’re not far away from new cars being tools of AI government surveillance. That means you’re not really going to own your car anymore.
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1488990582699909
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“Liberalism is not only a political ideology but also a global metaphysics of disintegration, a virus that erodes all forms of identity…
We must go beyond the three ideologies of the twentieth century—liberalism, communism, and fascism—and build a Fourth Political Theory that affirms the dignity of peoples, cultures, and traditions.”
— Alexander Dugin
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AI is not not going to dethrone Jesus. The technocracy will never undo the Christocracy.
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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
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People today have everything they want and nothing they need.
—
An old post recycled here:
The faithful local church is the most important institution on earth and in history.
The church is Christ’s body, his corporate representative on earth.
The church is Christ’s bride, the supreme object of his love and affection, protection and provision.
The church is the temple of God, his home, indwelt by and built by the Spirit.
The church is the city of God, the new and heavenly Jerusalem, the capital of God’s kingdom.
The rivers of living water flow out of the church to flood the world with grace and righteousness.
The tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of nations, are found in the church.
The church is the true synagogue, the gathering place of the new Israel.
The church is God’s new humanity, entrusted with multiplying redeemed image bearers and filling the earth with discipled nations.
To the church have been entrusted the tools and weapons that build God’s kingdom in the world and bring new life to sinners – the preaching of the Word, the singing of psalms, and the administering of the sacraments.
The church may not look like much a lot of the time. She might look weak and ineffectual (and many times, this is due to her own sin and compromise). But the faithful church has a hidden power, the power of God’s kingdom, the power of God’s Word, a power she is called to unleash in the world to bring about its transformation.
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“Racism in our country could have earned a well deserved death. But, it has been resurrected by race hustlers or poverty pimps such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and many others in the civil rights movement who make a living on the grievances of blacks.”
— Walter E. Williams
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Faithful Christians will reject Chrislam, the view that Muslims worship the same God we do and believe in the same God we do.
Faithful Christians will also reject Judeo-Christianity, the idea that Christians and Judaism have the same God and non-Christian Jews are still in a special/saving relationship with God despite rejecting Jesus.
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Like so many fake hate crimes, the SPLC paid people to be racists so they could fight racism.
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This is a podcast i did with Bryan Dawson of 1819 News a while back on immigration and assimilation:
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This is a podcast I did with Bryan Dawson on 1819 on the topic, ‘Is it time to find a new church?” I think it’s one of the best podcasts I have done:
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Here’s a podcast I did with Bryan Dawson for 1819 after Charlie Kirk’s martyrdom:
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Back in December of 2024, I did a fun interview with some CREC guys in Buffalo on the Federal Vision and related topics. You can get that interview here:
https://buffaloreformed.substack.com/p/episode-3-the-rich-lusk-interview
In January, 2025, I did this interview with CREC pastor Nathan Zekveld:
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Some thoughts on the preterist vs futurist readings of Romans 11:
There were about 4.2 million Jews in the world in the Apostle Paul’s day. About 1.1 million were killed in the Jewish War, with another 100,000 enslaved.
In the book of Acts, we find that thousands of first century Jews were converted to Christian faith. See Acts 2:41, 4:4, 21:20. Many priests were converted; see and Acts 6:7 and consider that Hebrews was likely written to priests living in Jerusalem on the cusp on the war with Rome in the mid 60s. These priests were pressured to join their countrymen in defense of the temple, but Hebrews shows them that would be disastrous.
But note: thousands is only a tiny fraction of millions. When there are millions, thousand is no where close to “all.” This is one reason I remain a futurist about about Romans 11:12, 25-26. There simple weren’t enough Jews converted prior to 70AD to fulfill the promise. If there had been a major conversion of Jews before the destruction of the temple, that would have left a mark on history.
The full inclusion of Israel will only happen after the fullness of the Gentile nations have come in. All Israel will be saved at some point in the future when a mass conversion of Jewish people takes place. That has not yet happened. Their restoration will be on scale commensurate with their first century hardening. That remains to take take place.
I am not a preterist about Romans 11:25-26 precisely because I am a preterist about so many NT passages. But those preterist passages have to do with judgment on Israel. The consistent message about ethnic Israel’s destiny before 70AD in the NT is not “all Israel will be saved,” but “all Israel will be judged.”
John the Baptist had already announced that impending judgment on an unrepetant people in Mathhew 3. The axe was already laid to the root of Israel’s tree (which means, in the language of Romans 11, most of the natural branches on the tree are going to be pruned off).
Jesus continued this theme in his ministry. He cursed the fig tree, represneting Israel because it failed to bear fruit during his ministry (Luke 13). He told parables about a coming judgment — the kingdom was about to be taken from the Jews because they rejected their King and their city was about to be burned (Matthew 21-22). He pronounced woes on their leaders in Matthew 23, and said their house — the temple — was being left desolate, ripe for destruction. He gave a detailed account of the temple’s coming destruction in the Olivet Discourse. In Luke 19, he warns that because of Israel’s unbelief, Jerusalem will soon be surrounded by enemies.
The apostles continued this theme of an impending judgment on that generation of Jews. The book of Hebrews is about the end of the old covenant order. Paul says the Jews are under wrath in 1 Thessalonans — a wrath that was poured out on them en masse in 70 AD.
Preterists will say Paul gives no indication of going beyond the first century context in Romans 11, but I would reverse that – Paul gives no hint that the process he describes of Gentile conversion provoking Jewsish conversion will come to an end in 70AD. The process he describes is taking place on a small scale prior to 70AD in Paul’s own ministry – he personally wants to provoke Jews to jealousy. But nothing suggests that process ends in 70AD, even after Israel ceases having a covenantal relationship with God as a people.
Frankly, it’s remarkable Paul makes no reference to the coming destruction of the temple if that will end the process in view.
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An incomplete but helpful list of passages in the NT that describe a coming judgment on Israel/Jews of the first century, culminating in the destruction of the temple in 70AD:
Gospels:
Matthew 3:7-12 (Warning from John the Baptist): The axe is laid to the root of the tree of Israel. John warns of coming judgment and wrath upon Jews if they do not repent.
Matthew 21:33-46 (Parable of the Tenants/Wicked Vineyard Tenants): The kingdom of God will be taken away from unfaithful Israel and given to others; judgment on those who kill the son/heirs. (“Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits.” v. 43)
Matthew 22:1-14 (Parable of the Wedding Feast): Invited guests (Israel) refuse and kill servants; the king destroys their city in anger. (“The king was angry, and he sent his troops and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.” v. 7)
Matthew 23:29-39 (Woes to the Scribes and Pharisees; Lament over Jerusalem): This generation will face judgment for killing prophets; Jerusalem’s “house” (temple) left desolate. (“Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation… Behold, your house is left to you desolate.” vv. 36, 38)
Matthew 24:1-35 (Olivet Discourse, esp. vv. 1-2, 15-22, 34): Temple destruction foretold; abomination of desolation, great tribulation, flight from Judea; “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (“Not one stone will be left here upon another that will not be thrown down.” v. 2)
Matthew 27:25 (“His blood be on us and on our children”) A self-imprecation of the Jews, calling down judgment upon themselves.
Mark 12:1-12 (Parallel to Matthew 21 parable of the tenants).
Mark 13 (Parallel Olivet Discourse to Matthew 24).
Luke 13:1-9 (Repent or Perish; Barren Fig Tree): Warning of perishing unless repentance; fig tree (Israel) given limited time before judgment.
Luke 13:34-35 (Lament over Jerusalem): Parallel to Matthew 23; house left desolate. (“Behold, your house is forsaken.” v. 35)
Luke 19:41-44 (Jesus Weeps over Jerusalem): Enemies will surround, destroy the city and children, because they did not recognize the time of visitation. (“They will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” v. 44)
Luke 20:9-19 (Parallel to Matthew 21 parable of the tenants).
Luke 21:5-36 (Olivet Discourse, esp. vv. 20-24): Jerusalem surrounded by armies = desolation; days of vengeance; wrath on “this people”; fall by sword and captivity. (“But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near… these are days of vengeance, to fulfill all that is written.” vv. 20, 22)
Luke 23:27-31 (To the Daughters of Jerusalem): Weep for yourselves and your children; days coming when they will say blessed are the barren; “what will be done when the wood is dry?” (implying judgment).
Epistles:
Romans 11:1-32: Jews hardened, unbelieving branches broken out of the covenant tree
1 Thessalonians 2:14-16: The Jews who killed Jesus and the prophets oppose God’s message; “wrath has come upon them at last [or to the uttermost].” (Direct reference to ongoing/final judgment on those who persecuted the church.)
Revelation: The book as a whole is about the transition from old covenant to new covenant. It is about the “divorce of Israel,” the destruction of the temple, and the inauguration of the millennium/church age.
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Gentile believers are Israelized.
Jewish non-believers are Gentilized.
That is to say, Gentiles who believe in Jesus become citizens of the holy nation, the Israel of God. Jews who reject Jesus have no covenant status, meaning they are not God’s people.
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John 20:27-28 presents us with an utterly unique and previously unheard of view of God: It shows us the wounded God, the battle-scarred God, the God will nail-prints in his hands and a spear-piercing mark in his side.
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Modern American evangelicalism is almost as different from classic Protestantism as classic Protestantism is from Roman Catholicism.
For some thoughts along these lines, check this out:
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“The Reformation is the historical name for the religious movement of the sixteenth century, the greatest since the introduction of Christianity.”
— Philip Schaf
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A note on transubstantiation:
Was Jesus thinking about Aristotle when he said, “this is my body?” Did he want his disciples to be thinking about substance and accidents?
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A note on feminism:
When it comes to sex differences, it’s important to keep in mind that treating different things equally is as problematic as treating equal things differently.
Men and women are both equal but different; equal but not that same. And so treating them the same in the name of equality is actually an injustice.
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“Single-mother households are roughly six times as likely to live in poverty as married-couple households. The insecurity French wants to solve with more government is, in most cases, the absence of a husband.
The welfare architecture Democrats built and Democrats want to expand, running from SNAP and Medicaid through housing assistance, child care subsidies, and universal paid leave, is designed to make the absence of a husband economically survivable. It rewards the family structure that produces the precarity. Material support without marriage education treats a symptom. We must treat the cause.”
— Josh Wood
Anyone who truly in favor of “social justice” must be pro-marriage, anti-fatherlessness.
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The data confirms it again and again: The real crisis among young people today is on the female side, not the male side. That’s not to say young men are doing fine. But the crisis among young women is far worse.
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An old podcast I did on Federal Vision issues with Deacon Jonah:
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If I got scammed, say, by a Nigerian prince asking for my bank information in an email, I’d be embarrassed that I fell for it. I’d be ashamed and humiliated that I was so gullible. I’d be horrified at how stupid I was. How could I have been taken in by such obvious fraud?
Do any Minnesotans feel deeply shamed and humiliated by the way their state got scammed by Somalian “learing centers”? Is anyone horrified that they essentially gave out their credit card information to a “Somalian prince”? Does it bother you that Somalis and others laughing all the way to the bank about how stupid you are? Does it both you than many long time Minnesotans are struggling to make ends meet while foreigners who hate America are living high off public funds?
Do any progressives feel embarrassed and horrified at how they got duped by the SPLC? The SPLC was paying people be to be racist so they’d have something to fight, some way of justifying their existence. Do any of the people who got scammed by this “Nigerian prince” of hate crimes feel stupid? Humiliated? Shamed?
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There is so little real racism, the SPLC had to pay people to be racists.
Turns out the real racists – the real hate group – was the SPLC.
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Most journalists today are oddly incurious about many things.
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“If God is not like Jesus Christ, he ought to be.”
— Lord Byron
“God is Christlike, and in Him there is no unchristlikeness at all.”
— Michael Ramsey
“We must look at no other God than this incarnate and human God.”
— Martin Luther
“The face of Jesus is identical with the face of God.”
— T. F. Torrance
“He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
— Jesus
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“Here we have to do with a theological principle which is of immense importance in pastoral care. How often people have said to me: ‘Will God really turn out to be what we believe him to be in Jesus Christ?’ That is a question I have been asked on the battle field by a young man who had barely half an hour to live: ‘Is God really like Jesus?’ Questions that which gnaw at the back of people’s minds but which they suppress and which come to surface only in moments of sharp crisis and hurt, tell us of the insidious damage done to people’s faith by dualist habits of thought which drive a wedge between Jesus and God.
Fearful anxiety arises in the human heart when people cannot connect Jesus up in their faith or understanding with the ultimate Being of God, for then the ultimate Being of God can be to them only a dark, inscrutable, arbitrary Deity whom they inevitably think of with terror for their guilty conscience makes them paint harsh angry streaks upon his face. It is quite different when the face of Jesus is identical with the face of God, when his forgiveness of sin is forgiveness indeed for its promise is made good through the atoning sacrifice of God in Jesus Christ, and when the perfect love of God embodied in him casts out all fear. But all that depends upon the identity between Christ’s mediation of divine revelation and reconciliation and his own Personal Being as Mediator.”
— T. F. Torrance
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“Something we notice as we go throughout Scripture: again and again the leaders of the people of God are tough men. These are not pushovers: just about every man that you meet in leadership in Scripture is a man who has killed someone. Now we don’t think about that enough because we have a very effeminate idea of leadership. But these men were tough men because they are guarding the people of God; they are guarding against wolves, against bears, against lions—that is what shepherding meant within that context. Shepherding was Moses striking the Egyptians with his rod; shepherding was David killing the bear and the lion; shepherding is Christ laying down his life for the sheep; shepherding is Moses driving away the false shepherds.”
— Alastair Roberts
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From Timothy Leary’s autobiography, “Flashbacks,” conversing with Aldous Huxley, about drugs:
“The question that haunted our work in those early days was: how could we introduce these methods for mind expansion to society? I raised this issue with [Aldous] Huxley one day at the [Harvard] Faculty Club.
“Why don’t I come over to your place tonight, ” he said. “We’ll take the drug and ask our expanded brains that question.” Around sunset / built a fire while Aldous stacked the books he had brought with him on a coffee table, then stretched himself out on the couch. We each took psilocybin.
For the next three hours we listened to music-Bach, Mozart, African drums, Indian chants, Ravi Shankar. Occasionally we waved reassurance to each other or murmured of bliss.
Aldous sat up, lanky legs crossed, and looked at me quizzically. “So you don’t know what to do with this bloody philosopher’s stone we have stumbled onto? In the past this powerful knowledge has been guarded in privacy, passed on in the subdued, metaphorical obscurantism of scholars, mystics, and artists.
“But society needs this information,”/ said passionately. My anti-elitist button had been pushed.
“These are evolutionary matters. They cannot be rushed. Work privately. Initiate artists, writers, poets, jazz musicians, elegant courtesans, painters, rich bohemians.
And they’ll initiate the intelligent rich.
That’s how everything of beauty and culture and philosophic freedom has been passed on.”
We fell into silence. The fireplace threw dancing colors around the room, a meadow of serenity. Huxley’s eyes were closed• A beatific smile played around his thin mouth. Suddenly he clapped his hands against his bony leg. “Your role is quite simple. Become a cheerleader for evolution. That’s what / did and my grandfather before me. These brain-drugs, mass-produced in the laboratories, will bring about vast changes in society. This will happen with or without you or me. All we can do is spread the word. The obstacle to this evolution, Timothy, is the Bible.”
From “Flashbacks,” pp. 43-44
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It’s interesting to note that many who say they want a strong central executive are criticizing Trump for going to war with Iran without congressional approval. How do they think a “Protestant Franco” or “princely executive” is going to be held accountable? Sometimes you have to be careful what you wish for…
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“Prophecy shows that a time is coming when the Kingdom of Christ shall triumph over all opposition and prevail in all the world. The Romish antichrist shall be utterly destroyed. The Jews shall be converted to Christianity. The fulness of the Gentiles shall be brought in and all mankind shall possess the knowledge of the Lord. The truth in its illuminating, regenerating, and sanctifying efficacy shall be felt everywhere, so that the multitudes of all nations shall serve the Lord. Knowledge, love, holiness, and peace shall reign through the abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Arts, sciences, literature, and property shall be consecrated to the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. The social institutions of men shall be regulated by gospel principles, and the nations as such shall consecrate their strength to the Lord. Oppression and tyranny shall come te an end. The nations, instead of being distracted by wars, shall be united in peace. The inhabitants of the world shall be exceedingly multiplied, and pure and undefiled religion shall exert supreme dominion over their hearts and lives so that happiness shall abound. This blessed period shall be of long duration. It will be succeeded by a time of general defection from truth and holiness. and of the prevalence of ireligion and crime. This will immediately precede the second coming of the Son of man from heaven.”
— J. G. Vos, summarizing the postmillennial hope
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A podcast I did on Christian Nationalism a while back with the Lancaster Patriot:
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So President Trump wants to spend money studying witchcraft:
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You could pick 140 random rednecks from the state of Alabama and they’d do a much better job than our current state legislature.
[Reference point for the youngsters: William Buckley famously said, “I would rather be governed by the first 2,000 people in the telephone directory than by the Harvard University faculty.”]
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“What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?”
— George Eliot
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“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.”
— Frederic Bastiat
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I despise adding “maxxing” to a word. It’s weird and effeminate.
But I have to give John Papola credit for coining the term “taxmaxxing” to describe what socialists like Mamdani are doing with the economy. We can never tax our way to prosperity. We can never tax our way to productivity. Some level of taxation is necessary, but excessive taxes (over 10%, if we go by the rule given in 1 Samuel 8) is a drag on the economy.
Papola points points out facts that should be well known. At a certain tax rate, government revenues actually begin to decline. Supply-side economics has been empirically tested in the real world again and again, and it’s always been verified. Lower taxes mean more investment, more innovation, more growth, more job creation, more goods and services.
Papola also points out that governments at most every level are operating at a deficit that will ultimately be unsustainable. When Democrats in particular talk about “taxing the rich,” it is never for the sake of a future orientation, to drive the deficit down. No, it is always so that some new government program can be instituted. Papola points to many Democrats who want to tax not only incomes, but also tax wealth — the most detrsuctive and wicked form of taxation there is. These people do not understand how wealth is created, maintained, or enlarged. They have no sense of stewardship or fiscal responsibility. They lack any kind of future orientation.
Papola points out how ridiculous the policies of Mamdani are. New Yorkers voted for higher taxes and they are getting them, good and hard. Mamdani’s brilliant, never before tired idea of opening a government run grocery store is going to cost $30 million and won’t open until 2029. This is a problem a truly free market could serve faster, better and no cost to citizens at all. But regulations prevent it. Mamdani’s taxing of the rich is leading to a very predictable result — the rich are fleeing the city to escape the new taxes. Papola is right: Mamdani is the perfect avatar for the global elite class. Mamdani does not care if his policies actually work or help working class people. He just wants to look good in the eyes of other elites. He just wants to be able to boast about his progressively-approved virtue. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Progressives and socialists are modern day Pharisees, bragging about their own righteousness while laying burdens on the backs of the people.
https://youtu.be/uWtHet5j5lQ?si=BBFsIxedV0I0kPpq
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A Good Friday service is not like a Civil War reenactment. We are not pretending to not know how the story ends. Rather, the point of the darkness and reverence of a Good Friday service is to express awe at our Lord’s suffering on our behalf.
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Ironically, communism, which is an entirely materialistic system, fails to produce material results. This is why so many who have lived under it have lost faith in it.
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It’s undeniable: Our culture is changing and changing rapidly. The question for us is just as obvious: Will we change with it? Culture changes continually. But the Word of God does not change. In 1 Corinthians 15 and 16, Paul commands us to be “steadfast, immovable” (1 Cor. 15:58) and to “stand firm” (1 Cor. 16:13). If the culture moves away from God, we must make sure we do not move with it but stay firmly planted on God’s unchanging truth. We certainly should change — but we should change by growing and maturing in wisdom and faithfulness. If our culture is not maturing in these ways, then when the culture changes, we cannot change with it. Standing against the culture as a counter-culture is certainly not easy, as it requires courage and resilience, but it is the calling of the church. We do not want to stand out just for the sake of standing out; we do not seek to be different just for the sake of being different. We want to stand out as people known for love and truth because love and truth are the marks of Christ’s disciples.
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Why so-called “pro-life welfare” is not the answer and why marriage remains a crucial “social justice” issue in America
https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2019/04/50939/
https://townhall.com/columnists/starparker/2019/12/04/marriage-and-pregnancy-reduce-crime-n2557421
https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/03/research-proves-no-1-social-justice-imperative-marriage/
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The Westminster Larger Catechism’s exposition of the seventh commandment points out that one way we violate this law is by the “undue delay of marriage.”
The 17th century Anglican priest and poet Robert Herrick put this truth in poetic form:
To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.
This is not an endorsement of all of Herrick’s work – he was definitely weird. But today’s young feminist women, who think they can put off marriage indefinitely while pursuing career, freezing their eggs, etc., would do well to heed his wisdom and seize the day.
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“The Socialism of the Christian era was based on the idea that ‘all mine is yours,’ but the Socialism of [today] is based on the idea that ‘all yours is mine.”
— Winston Churchill
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LGBTQ is all about sexualizing politics and politicizing sex.
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The so-called manosphere has existed for 20+ years and I’ve followed a good bit of it for most of that time. The content was always a mix – part vile, part helpful. Many men would say writers and podcasters in this online men’s space was transformative for them in a good way. The manosphere has somewhat died out now because so much of its content has been mainstreamed. But there was always one constant in the manosphere: it was about self-improvement. Even when the goal was fornication, the content was aimed at helping men level up in most every area of life. The red pill was always about men maximizing their potential in career, in the gym, in relationships. A huge section of the manosphere has been taken over by Christian men, which is not a surprise. The manosphere was always about enhancing masculinity, even if the version of masculinity was often flawed.
Contrast that with what has become known as the womensphere. The content of these podcasters is entirely vile. It’s almost all sexually degenerate. Very, very little of it is about improving women as women, eg, how to be a good girlfriend/wife/ mother, how to develop domestic skills, etc. Steven Crowder has understandably referred to it as the whore-o-sphere. In this way, the respective male and female spaces online reinforce the double standard that feminism has imposed on us: men are held to high standards, women are held to no standard at all.
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There is a lot of anti-whiteness in our culture today, much of it from people of color and recent immigrants. To this point, white men have borne the brunt of anti-whiteness, especially in the form of DEI, getting passed over for jobs, promotions, etc. It’s all documented in Jeremy Carl’s book The Unprotected Class. But how will white women be treated if and when whites become a minority in America (especially those women without a husband or father to protect them)? My guess is not very well, unless something significant changes.
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What are feminists fighting for? How much feminism is enough?
https://www.eviemagazine.com/post/when-will-feminism-be-enough
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I asked Grok to assess how the NT presents the Roman Empire — is it mainly positive or mainly negative? The answer is not perfect, but not bad:
The New Testament’s portrayal of the Roman Empire is nuanced and mixed. It reflects the complex reality of living under Roman rule in the first century: pragmatic acceptance of Roman order and authority as part of God’s providence, combined with implicit (and sometimes explicit) critique of imperial power, idolatry, and injustice. The empire provided a stable context (roads, peace, common language) for the gospel’s spread, but ultimate loyalty belongs to Jesus as Lord, not Caesar.
Positive or Neutral Elements
Several passages present Roman authorities and structures in a relatively favorable light, often to show that Rome was not the primary enemy of the early church (Jewish opposition frequently was) and that God can use even pagan powers:
Roman officials as somewhat fair or protective: In the Gospels, Pontius Pilate repeatedly declares Jesus innocent and tries (weakly) to release him, only yielding to pressure from the Jewish leaders and crowd (Matthew 27; Mark 15; Luke 23; John 18–19). In Acts, Roman governors (Felix, Festus) and officials often protect Paul from Jewish plots, and Paul appeals to Caesar for a fair hearing (Acts 23–26). Roman soldiers and centurions are frequently shown positively: a centurion’s great faith amazes Jesus (Matthew 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10); Cornelius, a centurion, becomes the first Gentile convert (Acts 10); another centurion at the cross confesses Jesus as the Son of God (Mark 15:39); and centurions treat Paul kindly or save his life (Acts 27).
Submission to governing authorities: Paul writes in Romans 13:1–7 that “there is no authority except that which God has established” and Christians should submit to rulers as God’s servants who punish evil and reward good. This includes paying taxes (“give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” – Mark 12:13–17). Peter echoes this in 1 Peter 2:13–17. The idea is that ordered government prevents chaos, even if imperfect.
Practical benefits of the empire: The Pax Romana (Roman peace), roads, and Greek as a common language enabled Paul and other missionaries to travel and preach widely. Paul himself used his Roman citizenship for protection (Acts 16, 22). The NT often shows Rome intervening to keep the peace when Jewish leaders stirred trouble against Christians.
These elements can give an impression of positivity, especially compared to the sharper hostility toward certain Jewish leaders in the Gospels.
Critical or Subversive Elements
The NT is far from uncritically pro-Roman. It repeatedly undermines imperial claims:
Jesus as true King/Lord: Titles like “Lord” (Kyrios), “Son of God,” “Savior,” and “Kingdom of God” directly echo (and rival) Roman imperial propaganda about Caesar. Jesus’ birth narrative in Luke 2 contrasts the true peace-bringer (Jesus) with Caesar Augustus. The temptation account has the devil offering Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world” (implying Rome’s empire among them) — which Jesus rejects (Luke 4:5–8; Matthew 4).
Empire under judgment or satanic influence: Revelation portrays Rome (as “Babylon” or the beast) as a violent, idolatrous, oppressive system destined for God’s judgment (Revelation 13–18). Some see echoes in the Gospels and Paul: the cross itself was a Roman tool of terror and humiliation, which the NT reclaims as victory over the powers (Colossians 2:15).
Critique of power and injustice: Jesus warns against lording it over others like Gentile rulers (Mark 10:42–45). Paul and others suffered imprisonment and execution under Rome (Paul was likely beheaded under Nero). While widespread Roman persecution of Christians ramps up after the NT period (especially under Nero), the texts assume conflict is possible when loyalty to Christ clashes with emperor worship or unjust demands.
Scholars debate how “anti-imperial” the NT is — some see subtle subversion throughout (e.g., “Jesus is Lord” as a direct challenge to “Caesar is Lord”), while others argue the focus is primarily theological (kingdom of God) rather than political revolution. Christians are called to live as citizens of a heavenly kingdom (Philippians 3:20) while submitting where possible, obeying God rather than humans when commands conflict (Acts 5:29).
Overall Perspective
The New Testament does not present the Roman Empire as evil incarnate or the main villain (Jewish religious leaders often fill that role in the passion narratives). Instead, it views Rome as a temporary, God-ordained (but fallen) power that God sovereignly used to prepare the world for the gospel — while insisting that Christ’s kingdom is the true, ultimate reality that will outlast and judge all empires. Loyalty to Jesus relativizes all earthly authorities: honor them, pay taxes, live peaceably, but never worship or give them what belongs to God alone.
This balanced view helped early Christians navigate life under Rome without unnecessary revolt, while maintaining a distinct identity. Later persecution (post-NT) tested this further. The portrayal is “positive” only in the limited sense that Rome is not demonized as the root problem — sin and spiritual powers are — and God can work through it. But the NT’s deepest critique is that no empire can claim the allegiance or titles that belong to Christ.
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“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
— Frederic Bastiat
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We have to leave room in the life of the church for Acts 15:39 situations. If the apostles could have sharp disagreements with one another over matters of judgment, and go there separate ways without anathematizing one another, we can too. Sometimes thing just don’t work out. Some situations in a fallen world cannot be resolved this side of judgment day. Sometimes good people just come to different situations about complex situations.
We can go separate ways while still recognizing one another as brothers. Not every disagreement has to end in an excommunication or condemnation. We must keep a sense of proportion.
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“Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.”
—Samuel Johnson
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Parents, give your kids a childhood, not a smartphone.
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“When you have essentially a decline in religion, an increase in the secular nature of society, for most people, they need something to fill that void. So they adopt a religion – the woke mind virus takes the place of religion.”
— Elon Musk
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“A man has to risk making his wife unhappy,” says my husband, “in order to make her very, very happy.”
— Marilyn Simon
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Against pacifism, for self-defense:
“I am not a pacifist, because pacifism in this poor world in which we live, this lost world, means that we desert the people who need our greatest help. As an illustration: I see a great big burly man that is beating a little tiny tot to death….If he won’t stop, what does love mean? Love means I stop him in any way I can….”
— Francis A. Schaeffer, Conflicting World Views: Humanism versus Christianity
Someone who attacks an innocent person with deadly intent forfeits his right to safety/life. Pacifism is the refusal to stand up to injustice; it is complicit in injustice.
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Dabney on feminism, women’s suffrage, and women in public/political life:
“These new excitements and temptations will utterly corrupt the character and delicacy of American women. It is indignantly asked, “Why should politics corrupt the morals of women more than of the ‘lords of creation’?” Suppose now we reply: American politics have corrupted the morals of the men? Suppose we argue that the retort is so true and just and the result has actually gone to so deplorable an extent, that were the female side of our social organization as corrupt as the male side has already become, American society would crumble into ruin by its own putrescence? It is better to save half the fabric than to lose all. And especially is it better to save the purity of the mothers who are, under God, to form the characters of our future citizens, and of the wives who are to restrain and elevate them, whatever else we endanger. Is it argued that since women are now confessedly purer than men, their entrance into politics must tend to purify politics? We reply again that the women of the present were reared and attained their comparative purity under the Bible system. Adopt the infidel plan, and we shall corrupt our women without purifying our politics. What shall save us then?”
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“[Rome’s] hierarchy is an absolute spiritual monarchy culminating in the Bishop of Rome, who pretends to be nothing less than the infallible Vicar of Jesus Christ on earth. It proudly identifies itself with the whole Church of Christ, and treats all other Christians as schismatics and heretics, who are outside of the pale of ordinary salvation.
But this unproved assumption is the fundamental error of the system. There is a vast difference between Catholicism and Romanism. The former embraces all Christians, whether Roman, Greek, or Protestant; the latter is in its very name local, sectarian, and exclusive. The holy Catholic Church is an article of faith; the Roman Church is not even named in the ancient creeds. Catholicism extends through all Christian centuries; Romanism proper dates from the Council of Trent.”
— Philip Schaf, The Creeds of Christendom, vol. 1, p 83f
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The attack on the post-war consensus (PWC) has treats the post-WW2 order as the ultimate explanation of why everything has gone wrong in the contemporary West. “The Holocaust narrative is why we can’t have a country. The Holocaust narrative is why we can’t have nice things.” Of course, this plays right into the Jewish scapegoating that is so popular today — the Jews are behind every evil in the West and cannot be criticized because the Holocaust gave them permanent victim status. But this is far too simplistic.
First, America was already trending in a socialist/progressive direction long before our victory in WW2. Yes, the arrival of Jewish cultural Marxists to Columbia University to being the Frankfurt School to America in 1935 was tragic. But the North was already moving hard in a hard leftward direction after the War Between the States. The Second Great Awkening turned much of the North into a secular “burned over district” and something had to fill the void. Liberalism, rooted in rationalism and Darwinism was already playing that role. The arrival of the Frankfurt School did not make America go left; we were already going left, and that’s why the Frankfurt School found fertile ground here. The post-war consensus, in the sense of the rise of progressivism, is really the post-Civil War consensus. The perfect representation of this, as Clarence Thomas’s recent address at the University of Texas pointed out, was Woodrow Wilson. We got the federal income tax, prohibition, and woman’s suffrage BEFORE we got into WW2. The pre-war consensus in America was already trending in the wrong direction. Feminism and globalism (“making the world safe for democracy”) were already in ascendancy.
But second, many of the really terrible things that people associate with the post-war consensus did not really start to make inroads in America until the 1990s. During the 1950s, American experienced something of a mini-revival. We were the good guys in the Cold War. We were godly Americans, fighting against the godless Soviet Union. Patriotism and prosperity were reaching great heights. But then the 1960s happened. The birth control pill, the sexual revolution, drug cultured, and the pop culture of rock’n’roll turned America in a different direction. The mid 60s gave us the Hart-Cellar Act, changing immigration patterns, and the “War on Poverty” turning us into a welfare state. No fault divorce was introduced in 1969 and abortion was legalized in 1973. The globalization of the economy, which would hollow out America’s industrial capacity and completely change the job market, began slowly at first, starting with Nixon foolishly opening trade with communist China in the 1970s, but accelerated in the 1990s under Clinton, after the end of the Cold War, with various “free trade” agreements (which were not really “free market” agreements at all). The real economic disaster of the post-War consensus was really the post-Cold War consensus.
None of this is to deny the major changes that took place in America or the West after WW2. But to draw a straight line from WW2 to the LGBTQ+ movement or Biden’s open borders is way to simplistic of a narrative. And the claims that go along with it — that the wrong side won WW2, Hitler was a Christian prince, “the Holocaust didn’t happen but it should have,” and so so — is utterly wrongheaded, morally, historically, and politically. Feminism was already winning before we got into WW2. Socialism and progressivism were already on the rise before WW2. And it wasn’t until a full generation after WW2, with the end of the Cold War, that the offshoring of American manufacturing happened on a wide scale. There are many, many other factors besides the Holocaust/Jews-as-victims narrative that contributed to the decline of America and the West into the moral and economic abyss we are in today. Sadly, many young men who have listened to a few podcasts but never read a book are falling into an overly simplistic historical narrative that makes real solutions to our problems harder to find.
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“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.”
— Frédéric Bastiat
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“The politician attempts to remedy the evil by increasing the very thing that caused the evil in the first place: legal plunder.”
— Frédéric Bastiat
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Helen Andrews has showed definitively showed why women must “go home.” So long as women en masse are entering the workforce, wokeness is here to stay. We are at a fork in the road: We can either continue down the path of feminism/wokeness, leading to the destruction of society, or we can repent, get back to God’s creational design, restore marriage and birth rates, and renew Western civilization. Which path will we choose? There is really no third alternative. It’s Christ or feminism. It’s God’s creational design or the end of civilization.
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“Some of us who fought against egalitarianism or what gets called “wokeism” were doing so from sincere motives, shaped by historic biblical Christianity. And along the way people came into our orbit who seemed to share that same commitment.
In some cases, that’s proven true. In many others, it’s become clear they simply had a good eye for a trend and wanted to repurpose it for attention, audience capture, or influence. Others were drawn to the arguments, but not anchored in the full weight of Scripture. They had no brakes.
Opposition to egalitarianism, in some quarters, turned into a real hatred of women. Opposition to wokeism, in some cases, turned into a real hatred of minorities.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve been criticized by people who say that while I had some good instincts early on, I wasn’t willing to “go all the way,” and therefore I must be an egalitarian. That’s not true. I am willing to go all the way, so long as “going all the way” doesn’t mean absolutizing one biblical principle in a way that forces you to reject other biblical truths. The whole thing has to stay together.
Take the doctrine of God. You cannot let your commitment to the oneness of God erase the threeness, and you cannot let your commitment to the threeness erase the oneness. That’s how you end up in heresy, whether modalism on one side or Arianism and tritheism on the other.
The same kind of collapse is happening right now. We’re watching the rise of a new “orthodoxy” that isn’t orthodox at all. In some cases the shift was fast. In others it’s been gradual. But either way, it’s a mess.
Part of what makes it murky is the constant demand to name names and issue public denunciations. Some of the loudest voices making those demands are themselves drifting toward or committed to egalitarianism or watered-down versions of the very errors they claim to oppose. Others are right to reject this new false orthodoxy, but they’re mixed in with people who are simply reactionary and unstable.
The result is a spectrum. On one end, men calling for real theological reformation. On the other, a disastrous slide into further deformation. Between them, a lot of confusion, pressure, and noise.
The task is to stay anchored to the whole counsel of God, even when that means disappointing people on both sides.”
— Michael Foster
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Josh Howerton has pointed out there are three types of rulers in the OT:
- Josiah-like leaders: Good leaders who do good things, righteous leaders who do righteous things.
- Jehu-like leaders: Flawed leaders who are used to destroy greater evils, but imperfectly.
- Jezebel-like leaders: Evil leaders who do evil things.
This is a helpful paradigm. Biden falls into vategory 3. Trump falls into category 2. This is why so many Christians voted for Trump over Biden — not because he is good, but because, even as a flawed man, he is being used by God to destroy greater evils. Sadly, there are a few Christians who want to treat our present Jehu as if he were a Josiah and act as if he can do no wrong. Meanwhile, we have other Christians who want to treat our Jehu as if he were actually a Jezebel, and can do no right.
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Any genuinely pro-life, anti-abortion platform must also be a pro-marriage, anti-fornication platform.
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Jesus’ resurrection is the paradigm and prototype for our own resurrection. His past resurrection is a revelation of what our future resurrection will be like. His resurrection is called the firstfruits, which means there is a greater harvest to come.
In John 20, we find that Jesus still had scars from his crucifixion in his resurrection body. Thomas wanted to see the nail prints in his hands and the wound on his side.
The hymn “Crown Him with Many Crowns” gets at the meaning of this:
“Crown him the Lord of love; behold his hands and side, rich wounds, yet visible above, in beauty glorified.”
If Christ is truly the prototype of resurrection, then this is what his wounds mean for us: Your sufferings in this life will be transformed into glory in the world to come. All the sad things will still have been sad — but the sad things will be glorified and beautified. Your scars will be transfigured.
Frodo captures this well in Tolkien’s LOTR: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue? What’s happened to the world?” In Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, this is the “deeper magic” that Aslan knew but the wicked witch did not – a deeper magic that makes it so that “Death itself would start working backward.”
Likewise, the Apostle Paul gets at this in 2 Corinthians 4, where he says our present afflictions are working for us an eternal glory; our present sufferings are light compared to weight of glory that will be ours.
This life is full of crosses to bear, but a crown of glory awaits all who are in Christ Jesus by faith.
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Israel has too much influence on our politics. There are too many Muslims in America. Both of these things are true. The answer to the Israel problem is not Chrislam, as if we had to mix Christian faith with Islam to oppose to Jewish/Israeli power. The answer to the Muslim problem is not Judeo-Christianity, treating Judaism and Christianity as if they’re basically on a continuum. Syncretism is never the answer to anything. The answer is the unvarnished gospel — Jesus alone as the way, the truth, the life.
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Keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is a worthy objective (despite protests from Pope Leo). I’m not dogmatic about the present war. But as I’ve noted before, war in that part of the world has rarely accomplished anything worthwhile, from the Crusades to the present. It seems we’re stuck in no man’s land. Either take over Iran like a real empire and run it with brute force or just let it be so that nations closer to Iran can deal with it their own way. A nuclear Iran would be bad for the Middle East, especially Israel, but it poses no immediate threat to America since they have no war of dropping a nuke on us even if they get one.
Yes, I know much of the world depends oil that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. If America’s role is to be the savior of the nations, then we need to solve the Hormuz problem. But, again, if we’re going to be an empire, then let’s act like an empire and take over. But if that’s not our role, then we should not try to solve the problem ourselves, apart from other nations that need that oil even more than we do. The problem is that we have been stuck in half-way measures in that part of the world for far too long – a kind of semi-Empire, spending our treasure and spilling our blood, fighting wars we will not allow ourselves to win.
My sense is that the American people really do not want the expense, sacrifice, and responsibility that a real empire requires. We end up fighting other people’s wars with no real benefit to America. That’s not a sustainable option. Half-way measures do not accomplish anything, especially in the Middle East.
Bottom line: If America wants to be an empire then we need to act like one. If we don’t want to be an empire, we need to stop sort of acting like one.
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Husbands, stop submitting to your wife and start leading her.
Wives, stop controlling your husband and start submitting to him.
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Fathers, what will your children say about the home they grew up in when they get older? What will they say about your marriage? About their childhood under your fatherhood?
You get only get one shot at family life. There are no do-overs.
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Every family needs a mission. The husband and father must define this mission. He must provide the direction. He is the thermostat in his home. He is the captian of his family ship. Are you building a home where Christ is honored? Is the home cold or warm? Are the children loved, protected, provided for, and disciplined? What direction are you headed?
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A post from 10/22/25:
Why is it so important for Christians to be covenantal and postmillennial (besides the fact that these doctrines are biblical)? Because rival worldviews are covenantal and postmillennial in their own way. Progressivism, Marxism, Islam, etc. are all worldviews that claim ownership of children and expect global victory.
For Christians, the covenant promises mean that God claims our children. He makes promises to a 1000 generations. “I will be a God to you and your children after you.”
To be postmillennial means we believe the Great Commission will be fulfilled, in history, before Jesus’ final coming. The nations will be discipled. Cultures will be Christianized. Kings and their people will bring their treasures into Christ’s kingdom. “Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.”
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The land promise made to Abraham has to find its yes and amen in Jesus.
The nation-state of Israel is currently outside of Christ on the whole – so it’s
presence in the land cannot considered a fulfillment of a divine promise.
Unbelieving Jews are still branches on the ground, disconnected from Christ, severed from the covenant tree. Yes, the beloved branches, but they are still an enmity with God. They are beloved but still broken out until they convert.
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Acts 3:21-25 presents a real problem for dispensationalists
Dispensationalism says these days of the church were not foreseen
Peter says these are the days the prophets foresaw
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Wokeness will never go away as long as women are in the workplace en masse and feminine sensibilities, feminine forms of conflict resolution, and so on are allowed to dominate public life. Wokeness has not been defeated. It only ends when women “go home.”
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When a husband fulfills his calling faithfully, his headship is a blessing to his wife, his children, and generations to come.
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After Adam and his wife sinned, God called out Adam. Why? Because Adam was head over his wife, and therefore responsible for what happened in the Garden.
Husbands should take note: You must give an account to God not only for your personal life as an individual, you will give an account for the state of your family.
Many men want the benefits of authority without the burdens. They want to escape responsibility and blame others rather be held accountable. This is effeminacy.
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Headship is baked into creation. Patriarchy is part of the architecture of reality. It is inescapable. A man may be a good head, a tyrannical head, an abdicating head — but he is the head, for better or worse.
Headship is fundamentally about representation. The husband represents his family. He is responsible for his family. He is not at fault for all the sins of his family, but he is responsible for them. He is the captain of his ship. He may not be the one who scrubs the deck, but he is responsible to make sure it gets done.
The model of the husband’s headship is Christ, who loved his bride and gave himself for her, who took responsibility for his bride and sanctified her.
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“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?”
— Frederic Bastiat
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James Wood on the second, or civil, use of the law:
“The Reformed tradition accords great value to the “second use” of the law. The first use of the law reveals our sin so that we might turn to Christ. The third use guides believers in their behavior. The second use operates outside the Church. It constrains sin and wickedness in society, protecting the righteous from the unjust. The law performs this role, says John Calvin, “by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment,” curbing those who “have no regard for rectitude and justice.” Martin Bucer, the first-generation Reformer who mentored Calvin, contends that the “impious may be compelled” by public forces “to contain their impiety within themselves and to feign piety” so that their ungodliness does not damage the piety of others. Though such persons “make hypocrites out of themselves, rejecting in their hearts the piety which they publicly profess,” Bucer argues that “they will only harm themselves, not others.” Bucer believes it is a duty of civil rulers to preserve the social conditions for faith by suppressing public impiety, “rather than permit [the impious] to pour out the virulence of their impiety upon others, and to draw away in this manner many who are weak.” Bucer’s rulers in a sense inflict “hypocrisy” on the ungodly, and in so doing they perform a “pious” service for society by restraining public vice and preventing the corruption of the impressionable.”
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I certainly think demon possession is real, which means there is a place for exorcism. I’ve never done an exorcism but I do think they’re real and sometimes successful.
However, I do not think exorcisms require the elaborate techniques Roman Catholics employ.
In the Bible, exorcism is generally accomplished through simple means, by word, prayer, and fasting.
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“Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.”
— Frederick Bastiat
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“But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
— Frederic Bastiat
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“When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will.”
— Frederic Bastiat
I would caveat this quote, as I do not think every nation should engage in trade with every other nation. A Christian nation should be reluctant to engage in trade with a socialist or Marxist or Islamic nation because those nations cannot be trusted to play by the same rules. It would be interesting to hear what Bastiat might say about modern globalism and the way it has hollowed out so many once great industrial national economies. Bastiat’s work presupposed a Christendom situation, in which nations could be expected to play fair. Workers in an industry in one nation were not competing with slaves or subsidies in another nation, like we have in today’s globalism.
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It’s interesting that so many reality-respecting non-Christians now see the benefits of Christian civilization. They are not Christians themselves but see that Christian culture is superior to any alternative. They recognize that widespread orthodox Christian faith is good for society. From Joe Rogan to Jordan Peterson to Richard Dawkins, the necessity of a public Christian faith is making a comeback. Some of these reality respecters, like Louise Perry, eventually become believers because they find that if Christian faith is true sociologically, it must be true spiritually as well; if Christian faith explains the natural world, it must also explain the supernatural world; if the Christian faith is good and beautiful, it must also be true.
James Wood makes an excellent case for Christian culture here, building on the work of men like T. S. Eliot, and challenging the anti-Christian culture stance of men like David French and Russell Moore, while also pushing back at the likes of Nick Fuentes:
https://firstthings.com/in-defense-of-cultural-christianity/
Some quotes from the article:
“More than two centuries ago, Søren Kierkegaard attacked the established church of his native Denmark. He denounced it for encouraging outward “Christian” behavior rather than authentic belief. People identified as Christian out of a desire for social respectability, and the pressure to conform produced complacent, inauthentic Christians. “Where all are Christians,” argues Kierkegaard in Attack Upon Christendom, “the situation is this: to call oneself a Christian is the means whereby one secures oneself against all sorts of inconveniences and discomforts, and the means whereby one secures worldly goods, comforts, profits, etc., etc.” Christianity becomes a “game” one “play[s].” Rather than marking its triumph, “Christendom” midwifes Christianity’s demise.
Figures such as David French and Russell Moore appeal to Kierkegaard when they celebrate the decline of “Christendom” and “Bible Belt near-Christianity”—euphemisms for a culture that promotes Christian faith and practice. In the summer of 2024, French penned an op-ed against the placement of the Ten Commandments in public-school classrooms, a staple of an older American civil religion. According to French, such measures merely produced hypocrites who mouthed the words but failed to change their character. Moore, meanwhile, argues that cultural Christianity produces “nominal” Christians and drives non-Christians into the closet. Social forces might pressure individuals to attend church or remain in their marriages and take care of their kids. “But that’s hardly revival,” says Moore.
Rather than lament the death of cultural Christianity, Moore argues, we should celebrate it as a boon for evangelism. He claims: “It is easier to speak a gospel to the lost than it is to speak a gospel to the kind-of-saved.” Those who keep Judgment Day in view will find that “cultural Christianity is worse than no Christianity at all.” In an essay occasioned by the cultural “conversions” of former New Atheists, Moore echoes Kierkegaard: Appreciation for the civilizational benefits of Christianity co-opts the faith and hollows it out. The sentiment is shared by John Piper, who invokes the words of Christ in Matthew 23 against those “who think outward conformity to religious tradition without the inward reality of faith is a Christian aim.”
Until very recently, cultural Christianity was at its lowest ebb in American history. Whence the urgency of today’s critics?….
Notwithstanding the “vibe shift,” most of the prominent figures who have embraced the label of “cultural Christian”—figures such as Tom Holland, Joe Rogan, Richard Dawkins, and Elon Musk—have done so reluctantly, with all sorts of qualifications. They know it doesn’t bring social benefits. Far from angling for prestige, which no longer attaches to Christianity, they simply recognize that the great achievements of the West arose from Christianity and cannot long survive apart from it. And they represent a growing constituency that is recoiling from the social wreckage caused by progressivism and turning to Christianity in the hope of finding resources for reconstruction. Though they cannot yet bring themselves to believe, they encourage others to recognize the good of a culture shaped by Christianity. Is this hypocrisy? And would such a culture merely produce hypocrites?
We should first define our terms. “Cultural Christianity” refers either to the relationship of “cultural Christians” to the Christian faith, or to the broader social phenomenon of a “Christian culture.”
A “Christian culture” is one in which public institutions and the balance of social power encourage Christian behavior and promote Christian ideas of the true, good, and beautiful. In The Idea of a Christian Society, T. S. Eliot explains that “the Christian can be satisfied with nothing less than a Christian organization of society—which is not the same thing as a society consisting exclusively of devout Christians.” Such a society should, according to Eliot, make Christian behavior more common and attainable. At minimum, the social conditions should not oppose Christian conduct. Decades earlier, the Dutch Reformed theologian and statesman Abraham Kuyper emphasized that to call a culture “Christian” is not to say that it consists entirely of regenerate Christians, or that it has been transformed into the kingdom of heaven. Rather, the adjective “Christian” adjoined to “culture” simply witnesses to “the fact that public opinion, the general mindset, the ruling ideas, the moral norms, the laws and customs there . . . clearly betoken the influence of the Christian faith.” Signs of this influence might include things like posting the Ten Commandments in schools and courthouses to honor the biblical foundations of our public morality and system of justice. The civic calendar, though accommodating other religions, will emphasize Christian holy days. A Christian culture is one in which identifying as a Christian is “normal,” and civil and social instruments promote conformity to biblical morality and patterns of thought….
At this point, an important distinction must be drawn. Not every appeal to “Christian identity” qualifies as cultural Christianity. To appreciate Christianity as a civilizational inheritance, to desire a culture that is shaped by its moral vision, or even to identify publicly with its symbols while one’s faith remains unsettled, is categorically different from invoking Christianity as a mere tribal marker or ideological weapon. The former acknowledges, however imperfectly, Christianity’s authority and normative claims; the latter turns the faith into pagan identitarianism adorned with Christian symbols. Where Christianity is abused to baptize sectarian resentment and racial animus, the problem is not hypocrisy but sacrilege.
The charge of hypocrisy commonly directed at cultural Christianity is a red herring. Its framing discounts the possibility that many “cultural Christians” are on the path to genuine faith. No responsible believer would accuse a spiritual seeker of hypocrisy for attending his church before converting….
Though I generally reject revivalist presuppositions about what constitutes genuine faith and its cultivation, it is evident that revivalist ministers appealed to and built on assumptions that their audience already possessed, and that those assumptions were effects of cultural Christianity.
Cultural Christianity was again at work in the third quarter of the twentieth century, when American religious adherence peaked. After years of religious decline, postwar America embraced its Christian identity, especially as it positioned itself against atheistic communism during the Cold War. In 1954, the phrase “under God” was added to the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” was put on postage stamps, and then on all American currency the following year. The evangelism of the 1950s through the 1970s operated in this environment. Billy Graham launched his evangelistic “crusades” in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1947. They really took off in the mid-to-late 1950s. His longest crusade took place in New York City over sixteen weeks in 1957; in 1962, D. James Kennedy launched his “Evangelism Explosion” project; and in 1965, Bill Bright released his wildly successful “Four Laws” evangelism tract. These efforts triggered a massive number of conversions.
Christian culture primes people for belief by providing what Peter Berger terms a “plausibility structure.” As praeparatio evangelica, it makes the gospel not just comprehensible but plausible. The famous “Kennedy questions,” for instance, employed to good effect in the “Evangelism Explosion” campaign, only made sense to people who assumed the existence of a God, a moral order, and an afterlife.
We can no longer take such a shared framework for granted. However, the wreckage of the post-Christian world functions as a negative plausibility structure. Anti-woke cultural Christians recognize that the West’s secular trajectory is unsustainable. Their appreciation of the civilizational goods of Christianity, their longing for a return to some form of “Christian culture,” has the potential to lead many nearer to genuine Christian faith. This is one reason I reject the presumption that cultural Christianity is promoted by hypocrites and produces only hypocrites. This is obviously not true….
Contemporary evangelicals, in particular, struggle to account for goods other than conversion, goods that matter in this world rather than in the next. Moore, for instance, dismisses a culture of marital fidelity as “hardly revival,” and similar voices suggest that restraining evil or encouraging public virtue may even prevent people from receiving the gospel with a saving faith. Everything is judged by whether it conduces to conversion…
The real difficulty, then, is not that Christian language or norms are endorsed and promoted without perfect sincerity, but rather that late-modern observers struggle to distinguish partial submission to the good from outright rejection. Evangelicals, shaped by revivalist and voluntarist assumptions, too often dismiss as worthless any good that is not clearly linked to inward regeneration. By contrast, Scripture and the larger Christian tradition are patient and supple, able to recognize incomplete but sincere conformity, weigh multiple goods, and attend to both the spiritual and the social effects of outward practice. External conformity can restrain evil, inculcate virtue, and render the gospel intelligible within a common moral world. Hypocrisy remains spiritually perilous for the hypocrite—but it is hardly the gravest threat to society. The greater danger is a culture that no longer expects even public allegiance to the true, the good, and the beautiful, thereby depriving itself of the formative conditions in which faith has historically flourished.”
Read the whole article. It’s excellent.
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“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
— Frédéric Bastiat
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In the mind of the progressive, America is a land of such great opportunity that we are obligated to let everyone in the world immigrate here. At the same time, America is the most evil, racist, backwards country in the world (which raises the question why immigrants would want to come here).
Likewise, in the mind of the progressive, America provides more jobs and wealth than anywhere else in the world which is why we need to welcome as many immigrants as possible, but the free market capitalist system that created those jobs and wealth is so evil it must be abolished and replaced with a statist socialist economy that will crush jobs and wealth.
There’s no way to make the progressive worldview make sense, so don’t bother trying.
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Dismantling the “independent girl boss” myth:
https://firstthings.com/the-myth-of-the-independent-girlboss/
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Its crazy to think that if those pesky Corinthians had not been dividing at the table, Paul would never have written 1 Corinthians 11, and all Presbyterians would be paedocommunionists. To be blunt, the sin of the Corinthians continues to reverberate with implications down to our day.
The whole anti-pc argument comes down to one passage in 1 Corinthians 11 – a passage that actually corrects errors that didn’t even involve children.
Ironically, Paul’s correctives in 1 Corinthians 11 get weaponized into a way of excluding children, even though children had nothing to do with the problem, and excluding them actually perpetuates the very problem of a divided body that Paul is seeking to address.
The warnings in 1 Corinthians 11 are twisted in such a way that churches end up doing the very thing Paul is warning them to not do — dividing the body of Christ.
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Unless I’m missing something, Christians have been mostly silent on Trump’s executive order to study psychedelics. This is a disaster in the making. Every time you read the word “psychedelics,” just substitute the word “witchcraft.” Psychedelics are not the answer to our nation’s “mental health crisis.” They are a doorway to the demonic.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/04/17/trump-psychedelics-psylocibin-research/
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/18/nx-s1-5789859/psychedelic-treatments-mental-health
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“Women can sue their bosses for running a workplace that feels like a fraternity house, but men can’t sue when their workplace feels like a Montessori kindergarten.”
— Helen Andrewes
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Why do Roman Catholics have more political power than Protestant evangelicals in America?
Roman Catholics were outsiders to America and had to figure out a way to gain influence in American culture just to survive – and they have done so very successfully.
Evangelicals thought of America as their own nation and took for granted there would always be a Protestant hegemony – which turned out to be a bad bet.
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Men pay more in taxes than women and women receive far more benefits from the government than men. Welfare distribution is heavily slanted towards women.
Men don’t get health care discounts, but far more taxpayer money is spent on women’s health care than men.
Women get affirmative action/DEI type benefits over men when it comes to scholarship and job opportunities. Many jobs that produce very little value are created just so companies can hire women.
Family courts still generally favor women when it comes to custody, child support, and alimony. Men pay far, far more money to women in alimony than the reverse.
Women get softer penalties compared to men when they commit the same crime.
Men suffer over 90% of work-related injuries and deaths. Many women will say “I don’t need a man” when in reality their entire comfortable, modern lifestyle depends on the hidden sacrifices of men who designed, built, and maintain the infrastructure of civilization.
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Looks like the the Roman Catholic Church is blessing sodomites again. Oh well, what do you expect from a church with a bunch of sodomite priests.
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Like the faked hate crimes in recent years (shout out Justin Smollet!), the SPLC shows the demand for racism far exceeds the supply. The left needs racism as a political cudgel. It has to manufacture hate to justify its existence.
Thomas Sowell was right: “Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists.’”
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“You’ll never get a good job.”
“You’ll never find a wife.”
“You’ll never own anything.”
This is the relentless black-pilled messaging all around young adults, especially young men.
A huge part of pastoral ministry today is training Christian people to be propaganda-resistant.
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The Allie Beth Stuckey/David French debate was largely a disappointment. ABS asked some hard questions at a few points, but mostly let DF get away with all kind of logical and moral incoherencies.
DF is a man who has completely lost his way. He has no moral compass at all – he just says whatever his progressive overlords allow him to say.
The funny thing is that DF constantly exhibited all the problems with empathy that ABS points out in her book.
No empathy for J6ers, but no mention of the Minneapolis riots that Democrats endorsed.
No clue about the abortion issue.
He became empathetic with Ukraine after visiting, but shouldn’t he also visit Russia to make sure his empathy is running in the right direction?
A foreign policy stuck in several decades past.
He complains about Trump’s libertinism, which would be a fair point if he applied the same standard to the personal lives and public policies of the Democrats. Biden and Harris have lived libertine lives. The policies of the Democrats are open celebration of libertinism from top to bottom – shout your abortion, drag queen story hour, transing the kids, LGBTQ+ at all costs, anti-marriage and anti-family, pro-socialism, men in women’s locker rooms, etc.
DF’s total incoherency on the pronoun issue and his unwillingness to consider the logic of the pro-life position requires its criminalization are proof he is morally clueless.
His over the top praise of Talarico is proof he is also theologically clueless.
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“A dog barks and stands at bay if he sees anyone assault his master. I should be indeed remiss, if, seeing the truth of God thus attacked, I should remain dumb, without giving one note of warning.”
— John Calvin, Letters (Volume 1)
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The first amendment does not prohibit the establishment of a Christian America. It is not a roadblock to Christian nationalism. It forbids a federally established church by Congress, but does not forbid government in general from promoting the true religion.
There were hard established churches in 9 of the 13 original colonies. We had Sabbath/blue laws, obscenity laws, and blasphemy laws. We had national days of prayer and thanksgiving to the Triune God.
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Thomas Sowell points how uncanny it is that government programs have the opposite of their intended effect. The “War on Poverty” created more poverty, sex education created more teen pregnancies and STDs, and anti-crime policies (eg, trying to treat criminals as victims of society) created more crime. I would add the “War on Drugs” probably created more drug use.
Of course, the architects of these programs – our elites – make excuses and then go on to write the new round of laws and policies. But it’s enough to make wonder what their real intentions were….
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How did the church get feminized?
Prior to the Industrial Revolution, piety was gendered and if anything, male piety was privileged. in the classical conception, the word for man, “vir,” was obviously related to the word “virtue” because virtue was heavily male-coded. There was a place for feminine piety, but it was sheltered inside masculine piety.
Since the Industrial Revolution, this has been reversed and gendered piety has largely been lost. There were some reasons for this. Men fell into a variety of relatively new vices with the new lifestyle that the Industrial Revolution brought in, especially gambling and drunkenness. Women pushed back against the male vices, eg, women’s temperance unions. The whole “men are demons, women are angels” motif arose at this time. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, angels were usually depicted as male. Afterwards, the pictures primarily as women and children.
Overall, this shift has been a disaster. The church has been feminized, which means its theology has been liberalized. Worship has become less liturgical, more emotional, more effeminate. There is such a thing as feminine piety, of course, but it must be complementary to masculine piety, not supplanting it. The feminization of the church has not actually encouraged feminine piety; it has driven out masculine piety.
Further, when men in fought in major wars – such as the Civil War, WW1, and WW2 – many men were away from their home churches for years and others were killed. The church more and more became a female domain. Clergy began to more and more cater to women. When men came back from war, they found church was no longer welcoming to their masculine nature. Most pastors were more like “the third sex” than the kind of men that military veterans were accustomed to having as authority figures.
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What does it mean to be a man in evangelicalism?
Masculine piety has become entirely negative – it’s about what to avoid rather than what to do. Masculine piety is described in a way that an 85 year old grandma could be masculine.
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When the servant-leadership model is applied to marriage, the woman effectively becomes her husband’s boss. Servant-leadership is a form of role reversal. She determines what counts as service so he can only lead with her permission. She determines whether or not he is doing a good job. She writes his job description and she grades his performance.
The term “servant leadership” goes back to 1970s business culture, coined by Robert Greenleaf. It did not originate in the church and it does not have a long history in the Christian tradition. It is a novelty we should reject.
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Why must pastors be male?
Obviously the Bible says so, but why?
The pastor must be male because he is the vicar of Christ, representing the husband towards the bride.
But actually, being male is not enough. Pastors must be masculine. Masculinity is not bravado or machismo. A masculine man does not need to talk about it. But a pastor does need to be masculine because pastoral work (done right) requires specifically masculine virtues. The job description of the pastor is inherently masculine.
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Masculine presence is not a technique. It is character. It is gravitas. It is strength. It is responsibility and authority. It is sacrifice and leadership.
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Masculinity is an anxiety reducer. Masculinity provides calmness in the face of chaos.
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The cosmos is patriarchal. For example, in the Bible, the man is made first and represents the whole race in himself. The man names the woman. The man is the head of the household and the household bears his name. A homeland is a fatherland, deriving its name from the man who founded it. Etc. Again, patriarchy is built into reality.
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Feminism can never work in the long run because it is an attempt to defy reality.
Patriarchy, by contrast, goes with the grain of reality.
Feminism is at war with reality, patriarchy is at peace with reality.
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Just think: if those pesky Corinthians had not been causing divisions amongst themselves at the Lord’s Table, Paul would never have written 1 Corinthians 11:17ff, and we’d all be paedocommunionists.
The entire anti-paedocommunion argument rests on Paul’s corrective teaching in 1 Corinthians 11. It’s really the only argument there is. And yet, in that passage, Paul says nothing about children. He’s addressing division in the body, which was mainly a rich vs poor divide (those who gorged themselves vs those who went hungry). Paul calls on those causing the division to prove themselves worthy by the manner of their partaking. He calls on them to discern/recognize the body of the baptized. But his words get twisted into a prohibition of young covenant children from partaking.
Again, if the Corinthians had not so messed up the table with their disunity, there’d be no anti-paedocommunion argument because 1 Corinthians 11 would never have been written the rest of the Bible is so firmly in favor of including covenant children in covenant meals.
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God is the ultimate servant. He serves his people. He is a Servant-Leader.
But this does not make God a simp. God serves from strength, not weakness. God serves in accord with his mission. God is not a people-pleaser. God serves his people by doing what is best for us, whether we like it or not. God serves us, but we do not get to dictate how he serves us.
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Jesus is the Son of David so whatever throne he sits on is by definition a Davidic throne. We are not waiting for a millennial kingdom when Jesus finally sits on the throne of David in Jerusalem. He is already reigning as king from the heavenly Jerusalem.
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How are Jews of today related to Jews in the Bible?
They are ethnically (and to some degree biologically) related, but they are not covenantally related, since the covenant of which they were a part of came to an end in 70AD.
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Robert Gagnon on the most recent would-be Trump assassin:
“The attempted assassin of Donald Trump, Cole Allen, received a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering from Caltech (California Institute of Technology) 9 years ago, the West coast equivalent of MIT, an elite “top 10” school in the nation with the highest average standardized test scores for entering students. While he was at Caltech, he was involved in a Christian student fellowship group. He grew up in a conservative Christian household. His Dad is an elder at Grace United Reformed Church, which describes itself as a “Bible-believing church” that follows the “infallible word of God.” I didn’t pick up any anti-Christian rhetoric in his “Manifesto,” though obviously something radicalized him to the left politically. When he heard that the Trump administration was trying to restrict gun ownership by “trans” persons, he sent out a social media post encouraging such persons to buy guns while they still could. Allen had also attended a No Kings rally in California and was a part of the group named ‘The Wide Awakes.!’”
Looks like this kid grew up conservative, turned the left (as do many young people today), and got radicalized by a constant stream of progressive propaganda/lies.
Trump has lived a sexually immoral life. No question. No one in my circles who voted for Trump would defend that. But the charge that us a pedophile is….wild. There is more evidence for that kind of perversion in Biden’s life than Trump’s (cf. Ashley Biden’s journal). Pretty much everything Trump has been accused of Biden has been accused of with equal, if not greater, creditability.
The really sad thing is that America is stuck with a bunch of sexually immoral, profligate choices for leadership. The two sides/two parties are certainly not morally equivalent (the Republican platform is infinitely more friendly to Christians), but it’s a sign of degenerating culture than degeneracy is no longer disqualifying.
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Nick Freitas on the logic of abortion:
“Leftists view human life through the lens of “does this make ME happy.” If yes…than human life is a joy. If not, then it is to be destroyed.”
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1 I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew
He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;
it was not I that found, O Savior true;
no, I was found of Thee.
2 Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;
I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea;
’twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,
as Thou, dear Lord, on me.
3 I find, I walk, I love, but O, the whole
of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee!
For Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,
always Thou lovedst me.
— Jean Ingelow
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“Posterity: you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.”
— John Quincy Adams
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Dispensationalism is inherently pessimistic. “We lose down here,” as John MacArthur said. In Dispensationalism, every dispensation has to end in failure. So the church will fail in her mission of necessity. Things will get worse and worse until we get raptured out.
And while Dispensationalism is philosemitic, on the Dispensational scheme, millions of Jews will go through the Great Tribulation, resulting in their massive slaughter. Not exactly a rosy picture for the Jews.
It’s just strange that Dispensationalism ever became so popular. It’s a wildly complex, “connect the random dots” kind of theological system.
Because Dispensationalism has been so discredited at the academic level,I think it will continue to die out. It will largely go away with the Boomers. Interestingly, when Steve Deace wanted to interview a dispensationalist on his show recently, he had an octagenarian on to represent Dispensationalism. That’s probably fitting.
Dispensationalism’s errors go far beyond its eschatology. It gave us the no-lordship “carnal Christian” theory, especially popularized by Zane Hodges, which makes perseverance and obedience unnecessary to salvation. Insofar as some Dispensationalists have actually promoted the anyinomian “once saved, always saved” view, it really is heretical. Other dispensationalists have taught that Jews are saved apart from faith in Christ simple because they are Jews. I do not consider most dispensationalists heretics, but some certainly have been.
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Men make more money than women overall, but women spend vastly more than men. Men tend to produce more, but women are the primary consumers/purchasers.
In the Christian realm, most Christian publishing is aimed at and marketed for women. This is true even of books written for men because they will be primarily be bought for husbands by their wives.
Likewise, churches today tend to cater to women, on the assumption they will decide where the family attends church. The music, the programs, the children’s ministry, often even the preaching is female coded.
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The church says to men “godliness is sexually attractive to godly women.”
The red pill says to men “women are attracted to men who win status competitions with other men.”
The church is lying. The red pill is speaking the truth.
This is one reason why the church lost the confidence of young men.
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As I’ve said before, the womanosphere is far worse than the manosphere:
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I have never been hard-core on the “repeal the 19th amendment” thing.
I do think the 19th amendment radically changed America for the worse. It moved us away from a household-based order to identity politics and the radical autonomy of the individual.
I do not think it is intrinsically immoral for women to vote. In my church, I inherited a system in which women vote and we’ve never changed it.
The line I’ve used about women voting in our political elections is, “I don’t mind women voting – I just wish they were better at it.” The history of our nation would look very different – in a good way – without the 19th. We’d much more conservative on virtually every front.
But to be clear: the 19th amendment is not going away anytime soon, if ever. It’s not a serious priority for anyone I know. Conversations about repealing it are, at best, interesting thought experiments.
But we can mitigate the worst effects of the 19th amendment on American culture and politics by restoring family life, getting women out of the work force and back into their homes, and building a more sensible family-friendly economy.
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A Passover Seder for Christians is dangerously close to what Paul warns about in Galatians 4:9-11:
“[9] But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? [10] You observe days and months and seasons and years! [11] I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain.”
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Insofar as dispensationalism insists on keeping Jews and Gentiles separate, it comes dangerously close to the Galatian heresy, denying the unity of Jewish and Gentile believers in Christ. Postmillennialists and Dispensationalists both agree that Romans 11 promises a future mass conversion of Jews. But they see the timing and result of that conversion very differently.
For Postmillennialists, Jews will be converted by the preaching of the gospel en masse after the fullness of the Gentiles nations has come in. When the Jews turn to faith in Christ, they will be incorporated into the church and become one with Gentile believers. When Jews become Christians, the broken out branches are grafted back into the same olive tree as Gentile believers. Jew and Gentile are on in Christ.
For most versions of Dispensationalism, Christians get raptured out of this world at the beginning of the 7 year Great Tribulation, or the middle of the Great Tribulation, depending on which dispensational scholar’s view is under consideration (side note: most postmilliennialists would claim the Great Tribulation of Matthew 24 has already happened, in conjunction with the Jewish War vs Rome, culminating with the destruction of the temple in 70AD). In the dispensational scheme, the Jews are “left behind” in the rapture, but then converted during the Great Tribulation. They suffer horrifically under the reign of the Antichrist until Jesus comes again to end the tribulation period and inaugurate his millennial reign. Jews who convert are never made part of the church because they have their own distinct plan.
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Whereas Muslims have been overt enemies of Christian civilization, non-Christian Jews have often been covert enemies of Christian civilization. Whereas one works by conquest, the other works by subversion.
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“God could decide to destroy modern Israel with a giant fireball from heaven on account of this festival by the Dead Sea and there would be no injustice done. That is true enough and amen. And it is equally true that Iran’s hatred of Israel is irrational and wicked. Israel has every right to have an iron dome and to shoot down every Iranian rocket that comes at them. Israel has no right, not to mention no ability, to shield themselves from the wrath of a holy God. In a conflict between Iran and Israel, I am with Israel. In a conflict between Israel and Jehovah, a conflict that would be evidenced by the fireball, I am with Jehovah. That is one thing and pretty straightforward.
It seems to me Jeremiah can spend a good portion of his book outlining the reasons why God’s visitation of judgment on Israel by Babylon would be holy, righteous, and good. He can also write another book, Lamentations, grieving over the whole thing. Only a simpleton could think that Jeremiah was contradicting himself. But my interlocutors still want to sneer at me.
If I grant that such a giant fireball would be just, then why am I out there shilling for Israel? Why give the time of day to such a wretched country?
I will give you another excellent reason, one that helps us to make yet another much-needed qualification. We are also just such a wretched country. A giant fireball could consume every major American city and surprise, also no injustice done. If a medium-sized asteroid landed on every place in America that has hosted an out and arrogant pride event with an impotent and quiescent church watching, what would this do to your property values? You know, because it would be right near where you live, like Jerusalem is near the Dead Sea.
I can love Israel despite her apostasy the same way that I love America despite her apostasy. And here’s another place where it is needful to rebuke the peculiar forms of blurry vision that Jew hate always induces. It is thought that they are having this huge sodomy fest by the Dead Sea because they are Jews. So kill them all and let God sort it out. We on the other hand have all our sodomy celebrations here in America in spite of the fact that we are Americans. That is because these armchair bigots believe in the essential goodness of the American people, which is pretty convenient, and that we are a people who’ve been temporarily led astray into the sodomy stuff by, you guessed it, the Jews. When they give Americans this most gracious carveout, they are secretly using this as a proxy for white Americans.
But if the Bible is to be believed, as I’ve repeatedly asserted elsewhere that it must be, there’s one place where we must acknowledge a true ethnic equality. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about blacks or whites or Asians or Laplanders or Jews or Navajo or Russians and Poles or Arabs and Italians. No matter what, the heart of every man is black as the inside of the devil’s coal scuttle.
How do you think this rationalization would fly on the day of judgment? “The Jews that thou did give us, Lord, they did give unto us the pride parade permit, and we did gyate.”
You might want to defend yourself from this charge of double standards even though you dwell in a country that is just as secular and wicked as Israel is being by saying that you personally object to all the homo stuff here in America. You protest it. You stand against it. You don’t like it. I see.
And are there no Jews who object to the homo stuff? There most certainly are. And you need to get out more. You nevertheless lump them in with the gayim just because they are Jews. Very well then. I will lump you in with the gay policies of San Francisco just because you are Californian and with the gay policies of Manhattan just because you are a New Yorker and with the gay policies of Minneapolis just because you are a Minnesotan. Stop whining, man. Stop making excuses. The judgment with which you judge, you shall be judged. Matthew 7:1-2.
You must think this method of assessment is entirely fair because it is the measure that you apply to everybody else. “Therefore, thou art inexcusable, oh man, whosoever thou art that judgest. For wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself. For thou that judgest doest the same things.” Romans 2:1. At least that’s how God says he’s going to approach it.
Suppose there were an invisible recording device that is hanging around your neck. Every moral judgment you apply to the Jews will be recorded, distilled, and translated into a moral code with your favorite identity subbed in for the noun Jew. Then you and your identity will be judged accordingly. How will it fare with you?”
— Doug Wilson
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In his debate with Allie Beth Stuckey, David French made a counter-intuitive argument that abortions decline under Democrat Presidents. This argument is simply false:
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A note about today’s anti-natalism:
It’s quite interesting that today, young women are less likely to want to get married and have children than young men.
Why is this?
A couple thoughts.
First, this is a very risk-averse generation, especially young women. Having children is always risky — it risks health, it risks finances, it creates new vulnerability, and there’s the risk that the child will grow up to break your heart.
Second, social media has trained young women to think of themselves as products who need to attain perfection — and then stay perfect. A mom is not going to be perfect in the ways that social media demands.
None of this changes the fundamental fact that marriage and children are natural, and the rejection of these gifts/vocations is unnatural for most people.
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It’s quite odd that Christians who have no real liturgy in their own worship services will do a Jewish liturgy, put on Jewish vestments, do Jewish rituals, etc.
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Liberalism in classical form (= the American founding) was quite friendly to the church. Liberalism grew out of Christian view of society and human nature. But it also had flaws, which allowed it to morph into modern, secularized liberalism, which has obviously been very hostile to Christian faith and the church. One of the major flaws in classical iberalism in it classical form was that it was only implicitly Christian, not explicitly Christian. As Conquest’s Second Law notes, this means it was going to eventually move leftward. And it did. Liberalism fell for the myth of neutrality, and in doing so created a naked public square. But nature abhors a vacuum – and will be clothed – and so the public square was quickly clothed in secular dress. Pretending to be religious neutral, liberalism had no way to stand up the very forces that would destroy it. And here we are.
Now, modern liberalism is all about the radically autonomous individual, only considered free if he can construct his own identity and his own version of reality. The promise of modern liberalism is “you shall be as gods.” But man is really bad at playing god.
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The church is public and political but in a very different way from the state.
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“The Church commands recognition as the Bride of Christ; it represents Christ reigning, ruling and conquering. Its claim to prestige and honor rests on the eminent idea of representation. . . . it does not conceive Christ as a private person, does not conceive Christianity as a private matter, something wholly and inwardly spiritual, but rather has given it form as a visible institution. . . . Like every worldwide imperialism that has reached its goal, the Church seeks to bring peace to the world.”
— Carl Schmitt
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Paula White needs to go home. Please.
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A Christian economics is a form of capitalism in that it holds to private property and rewards responsibility, initiative, and diligence. But it is not an unrestrained, autonomous freedom. The market is bracketed. The market is not allowed to swallow up everything. Not everything can be bought and sold. The market is bounded by moral imperatives. The market is subjected to creational design and nature. To put it another way, a free market must be a moral market.
In a Christian economy, the role of the state is not central planning or ownership of the means of the production, as in socialism or Marxism. The state would not control the economy or the price of money (interest rates). The state would certainly be the judge, to make sure contracts are properly enforced and the market operates with just weights and measures. The state would not usurp the role of individuals and families in providing for themselves, saving up assists to be passed along as inheritance to future generations, etc. But the state would keep the market properly bounded. The state’s welfare function would be very minimal since this is best left to the church’s diaconate, private charity, and family systems. Thus, there would be a built-in pressure for people to work, to form families and keep them in tact, etc. The incentive structure would move with the grain of creation. Taxes would be kept minimal because the role of the state would be minimal.
The economic role of the state would be appropriate forms of policing the market so that only lawful goods and services and sold. Honesty in advertising. Transparency in transactions. No buying and selling or people or their organs. No conscious-altering drugs. No porn. No abortion or surrogacy. Etc.
Many of the critiques of capitalism that are common today from the left and the right are really critiques of the the people and their character. Markets cannot make people moral.
A Christian economy in a Christian nation will have a more or less free market within the nation. But trade across nations would be restrained. Christian nations trading with one another would generally be free. But a Christian nation would be reluctant to enter into trade agreements with nations that are enmity with God – such as Islamic and communist nations – since they cannot be expected to play by the same rules.
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Nick Fuentes has become the model for a new kind of grifter – people who are profiting off our national decline without doing anything to really stop it. If Fuentes really wanted to save America or promote his Roman Catholic Christianity, he’d take a different approach. The problem with his method is that the many true things he says are wrapped up in a way that is bound to make them unpalatable to most people who might otherwise be sympathetic. I do think Fuentes really cares about growing the kingdom of God; I think he cares about growing his own personal kingdom.
My point is not that it’s problematic that he offends leftists. I do that too. The problem is that his vileness and cynicism alienate many good people who benefit from hearing many aspects of his message. But that messaging is put into a medium that goes far beyond the pale in insulting women, praising Hitler and Stalin, etc., he ends up undermining the right more than actually expanding its reach.
I’ve done the Fuentes vs Kirk thing before, but I’ll repeat it: Kirk held to many of the same positions but packaged them in a way that was attractive and fruitful. I don’t see Fuentes bearing much good fruit – including in his own life. Fuentes is never going to get married and have children. He is not the future because he has no future. If he did happen to marry and have children, he would have to mature – and the messaging would change accordingly.
Since he is Catholic, I wonder how often he actually goes to mass and confession. I wonder what kind of relationship he has with his priest.
Fuentes is smart and funny. He is also vile and cynical. He represents the degenerate right. The net effect of his work is to make young men angry and hopeless. His message is nihilistic, not constructive. He has the same net impact as much propagabda from the left: to wear men down until they check out.
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Totally speculating/spitballing here:
I have often wondered if the Achilles Heel of the American political structure is not the court system (SCOTUS) but Congress, particularly the way Congress keeps the President weak. Yes, Presidents can work around a “do nothing” Congress with executive orders, but I wonder if there would have been a better way to do things.
The balance of powers set up in the US Constitution is brilliant, in that it provides checks and balances. But it also keeps the executive, the President, from functioning as a proper executive. Congress, like a committee ends up spreading responsibility too thin. No one is ever held accountable because no one is really in charge and can pass the blame on to others. Congress is like a group project in middle school – except even the competent, hard working of members of Congress cannot get the project done because the do-nothing members of Congress can block it by apathy. And of course the President can get very little done because he can only act in most areas if he does so in concert with Congress. Congressmen can easily hide themselves by holding bills in committee forever so they never come to a vote. Congress can do far too much by doing nothing. Congress can strangle things by not taking action.
What if it instead of requiring laws to pass through Congress and then get signed into law by the President, the President could act by executive order, but Congress’ role was to veto the President? This would give the President real executive power – and with it, real executive responsibility. But it would also force Congress to take action when the President does. The can veto the President – so checks and balances are still in place. But the cannot hide themselves away like a bureaucracy. They’d have to function like a watchdog, monitoring the actions of the President. To do nothing would be to ratify the actions of the President. But they do have the power to hold him check when needed.
This system would actually be more like the government found in the church. The archbishop or bishop can act as he sees fit – but there is a council or presbytery to hold his power in check, to override or cancel his actions as needed.
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The history of Christendom is the history of a culture based on this idea of spiritual universalism – which was more than an idea, because it was embodied in the superpolitical society of the Church. With the conversion, first of the Roman Empire and then of the barbarians, there was formed a community of peoples sharing a common spiritual tradition. . . . More than this, it created Europe. For the European continent is the result of the European culture and not vice versa. From the physical point of view Europe is not a unity. . . . Nor is it a racial unity, for from prehistoric times it has been a melting pot of races and a meeting ground of cultural traditions of the most diverse origin. . . . Europe was Christendom: it was the society of Christian peoples
— Christopher Dawson, Judgment of Nations, p. 205
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Jesus is the Word made flesh.
Why does John call Jesus the Word?
As the eternal Word of the Father, he and the Father are one, and have been communicating for all eternity.
As the Word of the Father, he is the one through all things were created.
Most of all, as the Word of God, he is what God wants to say to us.
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Michael Clary with some very sensible recommendations about how Christians should view Jews and the modern nation of Israel:
“This being the case, what does it mean for Christians and Jews in our day? Here are three simple conclusions we can draw.
First, unbelieving Jews have no special covenant standing before God. This cuts against the dispensationalist view which has exerted significant influence in evangelical circles. Dispensationalism holds that ethnic Israel retains a separate covenant status and prophetic future distinct from the Church. That view is wrong. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, and there is no salvation apart from explicit faith in Jesus Christ (Eph 4:5-6). If you have an unbelieving Jewish neighbor or coworker, treat him like any other unbeliever. Be kind, share the gospel, treat him with respect, but do not defer to him or grant him a special status he does not possess. He has rejected his Messiah. That is the most important thing to know about him.
Second, the Bible does not require the United States to support the nation of Israel. This is the same principle as the above point at scale. Many sincere Christians believe America has a divine obligation to stand with Israel because the Jews are God’s chosen people. But that’s simply not true. The only people who can rightly be called God’s chosen people are Christians—we are the true circumcision, the true Jew, the Israel of God. Modern unbelieving Jews have no covenant standing with God. Just because the nation of Israel happens to be called “Israel” and occupied by Jewish people, it has no special status before God. We may choose to support them if doing so serves our national interests, but that is a political calculation, not a theological obligation. No verse of Scripture requires it.
Think of it this way: if the apostle Paul were walking through Tel Aviv today, he would not be talking about Iran or bombs or Bibi Netanyahu or the Gaza strip or foreign policy. He would feel grief in his soul because they are his kinsmen according to the flesh and they have rejected their Messiah. His concern would be for their souls, not their geopolitical interests. He would say, “These people need Jesus.” That is the right Christian posture toward the Jewish people: not political alliance, but evangelistic urgency.
So when you read about “Israel” or “the Jews” in your Bible, do not picture a country on a map. Picture a lost people group, some of whom live in the nation of Israel, and some who are scattered around the world, who need to receive their Messiah.
Third, God does have a future plan for the salvation of the Jewish people through faith in Jesus Christ. Romans 11 does teach that before Christ returns, God will bring about a mass conversion of ethnic Jews. This is a genuine promise and worth taking seriously. But it does not mean that unbelieving Jews currently enjoy a favored status before God apart from faith.
Think of it this way. You might have unbelievers in your life that you care deeply about right now. Further, you don’t realize it, but suppose they are elect and God will one day bring about their faith and conversion to Christ. Even though that unbelieving friend will one day become a Christian, he or she has no covenant standing before God. He is simply an unbeliever who is elect and will become a Christian someday. That’s what Romans 11 is saying. God will bring a large number of Jews to faith in Jesus Christ at some point in the future because he cares for their souls. But that’s not the same thing as assuming those unbelievers have covenant standing before God. And when that day comes, they will not be saved because they are Jews, they will be saved because they have repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ.”
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So what has a feminist propaganda and TikTok culture produced?
A bunch of young women who despise young men.
https://youtu.be/8Wp4i0O8efQ?si=SALkIKsRfLn4gwng
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“It’s good to know who hates you, and it’s good to be hated by the right people.”
— Johnny Cash
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Feminism is not just the enemy of Christian civilization, it is the enemy of civilization in general. Feminism puts the woman against her nature, against men, against children, against the church, against the Scriptures, and against God’s creational design.
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“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries, improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement, the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.”
— Winston Churchill on Islam in 1899
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The point in saying “Muslims love Jesus right now” is to virtue signal about the war with Iran: we are fighting against the people who love Jesus on behalf of those who hate Jesus.
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Doug Wilson on household voting:
“My wife votes, my daughters vote, my daughter-in-law votes, and my granddaughters who are old enough vote. If I were a Democrat and lived in Fulton or Maricopa County, my great-grandmother would still be voting. The “no” would be because they don’t vote in our church elections. According to our polity, our congregation votes when we are electing deacons and elders and in calling a pastor. In these elections, we all vote by household, and those votes are cast by the head of the household. We’ve been doing it that way for decades now, and with not one complaint about it….
Household voting is not a mechanism for taking away anyone’s say. It is a different mechanism for routing that say, one that includes and takes into account the most important relationships a woman has. So, our women as individuals don’t have a voice in the voting process. But neither do the men as individuals. When the household is discussing what they are going to do, of course they have a say, not in the voting process, but around the dinner table. So I’m simply emphasizing that in our system, the entire household votes.
Now, as it happens, I would estimate that in our church elections, the number of votes cast by women would be between 5% and 7%. These would be women who are widows or divorced or unmarried women in a household of one. The scriptures clearly describe Lydia, for example, as the head of her household (Acts 16:15). If she were a member of our church, she would cast the vote for her household.
So what we are doing is not a matter of XX and XY chromosomes at all. It is not a question of recognizing only males and refusing to recognize females. It is the result of a deep desire to recognize households. We want our households to be recognized as governmentally significant. In the civic realm, the 19th Amendment, by giving the franchise to women as individuals, transformed male voters into mere individuals and wound up disenfranchising the household. So the issue for me is not who got the franchise but rather who lost it….
Membership is reckoned individual by individual. Members need individual pastoral care. People come to the word and sacrament the same way people go to heaven — as individuals. But voting is an act of governance, not a sacrament….
We do believe in the value of individuals. Certainly, we go to heaven or hell by ones after all. But we also believe that the basic building block of every healthy society is the household. I will no doubt have occasion to quote Dabney again in this interview, but his comment here is pertinent: “The integers out of which the state is constituted are not individuals, but families represented in their parental heads.”…
In a society governed by the individualist and libertarian assumptions, everything becomes necessarily atomistic. Not only so, but over time it will become more and more atomistic. Each person is a BB and we throw all the BB’s into a sack, something that has all the structural integrity of a beanbag chair. The only thing holding it all together would be the sack, which is the state. And then we compound all our societal woes by greasing all the BB’s with a couple of quarts of 10-40 oil. You know, with things like easy divorce, ubiquitous porn, and cannabis shops everywhere, nothing holds together anymore and personal covenanted loyalty is all vanished and gone. The center no longer holds. The best lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity. And so here we are. Look around.
In contrast to this, we believe that every healthy culture and every healthy subculture like a church is something that has to be molecular and that the essential building block of every complex molecule is going to be the family. This is why we vote in the way we do and why I have written about 20 books on marriage and family. These are Burke’s little platoons and we honor them…
I believe that political strife has a much more profound impact on women than it does on men. This helps explain the lunatic behavior that now passes for normal in the public square. Where did all these disturbed harpies come from?
Dabney again: “Political excitements will corrupt women tenfold more than men. And this not because women are naturally inferior to men, but because they are naturally adapted to a wholly different sphere.”
But let me also add that I do recognize that there are women who have retained a biblical femininity despite being politically active in conservative causes. My hat’s off to them and I do not deny their existence. However, I will also add that all such women have to make a point of guarding themselves in a particular way that the men don’t have to.”
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Doug Wilson on the implications of the Roe vs Wade abortion decision:
“Conservative Christians are very grateful for the Dobbs decision, the one that overturned Roe. But we can still go back to Roe to illustrate what I’m talking about. In that infamous decision, the court determined that the decision to kill a child in the womb was a decision to be made by a woman and her doctor. Roe not only authorized the slaughter of millions of babies, which was its very own horror, but it was also the abortion of the American family. Collateral damage that was scarcely even noticed. When it came to the murder of his own legitimate child, the father of that child had no legal standing whatever to prevent it. He may have bound himself to his wife covenantally, financially, legally, all the ways in a church with a multitude of witnesses there, but as far as the court was concerned, he was now a nullity. And what a travesty that was. A legitimate father had no recourse or standing to save the life of his legitimate son or daughter. The court banished fatherhood in that moment and turned all the men of our country into sperm donors.”
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“It is possible that for the maintenance of our liberty, we may again be called upon for the same sacrifices, for the same struggles of principle with power, for the same heart-felt devotion to a noble cause, for some lofty and intrepid doings on the side of Christian principle, which were first put forth so long ago by our forefathers.”
— Thomas Chalmers
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“America must remain American.”
— President Calvin Coolidge, upon signing the 1924 Immigration Act
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Scalia on Anglo-Saxon culture and America’s roots:
https://twitter.com/PresbyInn/status/2049195112584884434/video/1?s=46
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God’s plan for the vast majority of the human race is to marry and have children.
Getting married and having children is a duty under the Creation Mandate.
Children are not a luxury good. They are the future. It’s not enough to have children; they must be trained for dominion and fruitfulness themselves.
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In old age, you will either depend on your own children or the children of others (through the mechanism of the state, most often).
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“Married women almost never get abortions. CDC data from 2020 show that 86.3 percent of abortions are obtained by unmarried women. The abortion ratio is 46 per 1,000 live births for married women and 412 per 1,000 for unmarried women. Unmarried women abort at nine times the rate of married women. Any honest conversation about “what reduces abortion” has to account for that ratio first.”
— Josh Wood
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The problem with the medieval/Roman Catholic doctrine of baptism is that it limits baptismal efficacy to the moment of administration. Baptism washes away original sin and all personal sins committed up to the time of baptism, but what about post-baptismal sin? This is why the false sacrament of penance was invented — to deal with post-baptismal sin.
The Reformers did away with penance, and argued that baptismal efficacy extended through the whole of life. The promise of forgiveness made at baptism is perpetual. The efficacy of baptism is not limited to the time of its administration.
John Calvin wrote, ““We must realize that at whatever time we are baptized, we are once for all washed and purged for our whole life. Therefore, as often as we fall away, we ought to recall the memory of our baptism and fortify our mind with it, that we may always be sure and confident of the forgiveness of sins.”
The Reformers dropped the practice of penance, and instead pointed people back to their baptisms for ongoing assurance of cleansing. For example, the Belgic Confession (34) states, “Neither does this Baptism only avail us at the time when the water is poured upon us and received by us, but also through the whole course of our life.” Likewise, the Scots Confession (21) says, “For baptism once received continues for all of life, and is a perpetual sealing of our adoption.” The French Confession (35) teaches the same: “[Baptism] reaches over our whole lives and to our death, so that we have a lasting witness that Jesus Christ will always be our justification and sanctification.” WCF 28.6a should be read in light of this Protestant confessional heritage when it says “the efficacy of baptism is not tied to the time of it administration.” The point is not that nothing happens in the moment of baptism; the point is that what ordinarily happens in the moment of baptism is of abiding validity.
Calvin (like Luther) believed that weekly confession of sin followed by absolution in the Divine Service was a way of renewing the promise made in baptism. “The entire power [of the keys] rests in the fact that, through those whom the Lord had ordained, the grace of the Gospel is publicly and privately sealed in the hearts of believers.” “[The forgiveness of sins] is dispensed to us through the ministers and pastors of the church, either by the preaching of the Gospel [including the declaration of absolution] or by the administration of the sacraments; and herein chiefly stands the power of the keys, which the Lord has gifted to the society of believers. Accordingly, let each one of us count it his own duty to seek forgiveness of sins only where the Lord has placed it.” Where should forgiveness of sins be sought? The forgiveness that Christ accomplished for us on the cross is distributed in the means of grace. Seek it in the waters of baptism. Seek it on the lips of a faithful pastor, declaring absolution and proclaiming the gospel.
The Reformers’ critique of the Roman Catholic doctrine of baptism is that it is too weak, not too strong. Because baptism, in Rome’s view, is too weak to cover sins committed after baptism, baptism has to be supplemented with penance. The Reformers’ rejected this whole system. They had a much higher view of baptismal efficacy. Baptism continues to be effective after the moment of its administration. The promise made in baptism covers sins committed after baptism. In place of penance, the Reformers called on believers to recall the promise of forgiveness made to them in the waters of baptism, and they provided a weekly reminder of that promise in liturgical absolution, when the pastor declares to his sin-confessing people, “Take heart! Your sins are forgiven!”
For the complete argument: https://theopolisinstitute.com/calvin-on-baptism-penance-and-absolution/
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Thomas Jefferson, being the most liberal of the founding fathers, proposed a bill that would castrate sodomites rather than execute them. He did preserve the death penalty for murder.
Here’s part of the of his suggested law:
“Whenever sentence of death º shall have been pronounced against any person for treason or murder, execution11 shall be done on the next day but one after such sentence, unless it be Sunday, and then on the Monday following.
Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by ‡castration, if a woman, by cutting thro’ the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half inch diameter at the least.”
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-02-02-0132-0004-0064
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“The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good — anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence the new name ‘leaders’ for those who were once ‘rulers’. We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils, or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, ‘Mind your own business.’ Our whole lives are their business.”
― C.S. Lewis, Some Everyday Thoughts
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“There is a deep human need for beauty, and if you ignore that need in architecture, your buildings will not last, since people will never feel at home in them.”
— Roger Scruton, The Modern Cult of Ugliness
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The Most Holy Place in the temple was a symbolic Mount of Olives. Likewise, during Jesus’ final days, the Mount of Olives becomes a symbolic Most Holy Place.
The cherubim figurines on the ark of the covenant were made of olive (1 Kings 6:23). The doors were made of olive (1 Kings 6:31-33). The Most Holy Place was an olive grove.
Where is Jesus throughout Holy Week? He’s on the Mount of Olives. He gives the Olivet Discourse, a prophecy about the destruction of the temple, there. He goes to Gethsemane, which means “olive press,” to pray on Thursday night. It’s fitting for him to be in the olive press because he is the olive about to be crushed for us, so the oil of the Spirit will flow out.
Gethsemane was at the base of the Mount of Olives. He was crucified on the Mount of Olives, likely on an olive tree, he is buried there in the olive garden, and obviously rises from the dead there. Jesus’ prayers in Gethsemane take on a whole new meaning when you realize he is praying, “not my will but your will be done,” very near to the spot where he will be crucified.
Jesus turns the Mount of Olives into an alternative temple/sanctuary/Most Holy Place. The temple has been left desolate after Jesus walked out of it earlier in the week; now the real action will take place at Olivet.
Note that when he goes to pray at Gethsemane, he goes alone (Matthew 26:36, 39, 44), just as the High Priest went alone into the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement. He sweats great drops of blood as he agonizes in prayer over doing his Father’s will. Under the law, priests wore linen while on the job so they would not sweat (Exodus 28:42-43; Ezekiel 44:18) because, going back to Genesis 3:19, sweat was a sign of the curse. But now Jesus’ sweat, mixed with blood, falls in drops to the ground, because he is going to bear the curse for us himself (Luke 22:44).
The olive tree symbolizes God’s people in Jeremiah 11:16 and Romans 11:17-24. Covenant children are called olive plants in Psalm 128. The olive is the holiest plant in the old covenant symbolic economy. It’s fitting that Jesus, our olive tree, spends the final days of his earthly ministry surrounded by olives.
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The moon landing denial conspiracies are allowed to go mainstream because they fit with the progressive narrative. The conspiracies that say we didn’t really land on the moon are an attack on the white American males who made it happen. They are insult to the risks those men took, the competencies they developed, the courage they displayed, the excellence they attained. And of course, all of that is exactly what progressives want. Anything to discredit the white American male (especially if he’s Christian, as many men in the higher eschelons of the space program were).
Moon landing denials are an attack on patriotism – a way of saying, “no, America was really never that great and never really accomplished anything impressive.” It’s about eviscerating a major source of national pride. Again, this is what progressives want.
Thanks to DEI, as Doyle points out, it would be impossible to assemble the kind of team that made the moon landing happen. There was nothing egalitarian about the space race. And the excellence that made it happen was a function of a meritocracy that is no longer allowed to exist.
Further, the moon landing was aspirational. It was the antithesis of the kind of effeminate “safetyism” regime under which we live today.
Thanks to Trump, DEI is being dismantled and American greatness is making a comeback – not fully, but at least to some degree. And so not surprisingly, there is a will and desire to return to the moon.
Frankly, the moon landing conspiracy theories would simply require too many people, including many good and honest people, to play along and keep a lie. It would require other nations, which would benefit from exposing an American lie, and would probably have the knowledge to do so, to play along and keep quiet. The Soviets would not have gone along with it at the height of the Cold War; they would have loved to humiliate America by exposing any fakery. The kind of conspiracy required to fake the moon landing just violates too much of what we know about human nature.
I say all of this as someone who thinks many conspiracy theories have merit and as someone with a low view of trust in our government.
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Doug Wilson on the end of all-male spaces:
“It is simply not the case that women can ever be introduced into an all-male space. As soon as they arrive, it is a completely different kind of space simply because they are there. A woman is never experiencing what the guys were experiencing before she got there. There’s such a thing as an all-male space. There are co-ed spaces as well, and God bless them. There are all-female spaces, but there’s no such thing as an all-male space with women in it. This applies to clubs, to boards, to Annapolis and West Point, to submarine crews, and to political campaigns and the public square. None of these things are the same thing only with women present. Now, they are altered fundamentally….
I’m indebted to Helen Andrews for the pithiest expression of what has happened to us as a result of women coming into these spaces in large numbers. She calls it the “HR-ification of everything.” Men and women tend to view conflict differently. Men think of conflict as one of the means for making progress, as one of the necessary tools that will get us to a solution. Women tend to view conflict as the problem that must be solved. All conflict must therefore be suppressed. And from this, we get all the woke nonsense with busy bodies trying to stomp out all the micro-triggers. I think it is useless to deny that this paradigm is now the dominant one in our public discourse. And I think the 19th Amendment was one of the original culprits.”
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Doug Wilson on the alt-right/far right, which he divides into two categories:
“The first category would simply be the opportunists. They are outraged farmers and are willing to say or do whatever it takes to get the clicks. Rage clicks are clicks after all. They’ve isolated and identified the big-time taboos that were enshrined by the post-war liberal Democrats and have set about to be as transgressive as they can be with regard to those taboos. They think there’s a ready market for being transgressive in this way about women, about Jews, about blacks, you name it. They are surfers trying to identify the big ones so they can ride it….
They are misreading all the important aspects about the moment we are in. They believe that there’s currently a market for their naughtiness. And they are right about that part. But it is a reactionary market, not a reformational one. That means it is momentary and transient. But the historian Christopher Dawson once said that the Christian church lives in the light of eternity and can afford to be patient. And the hallmark of reactionary or revolutionary movements is their impatience.
Allow me to quote Winston Churchill on the point. Before the war, he and Hitler were both in Munich for a short time, and Churchill’s son, Randolph, attempted to arrange a meeting between them through a German intermediary by the name of Hanfstaengl. The meeting never materialized because Hitler didn’t show up for it. But in their conversation, Churchill told Hanfstaengl, “Tell your boss from me that anti-Semitism may be a good starter, but it is a bad sticker.” These guys have picked up on a whole array of good starters and bad stickers. Surliness, hatred, bad attitudes, and demagoguery do not in eschatology make….
There really is a great deal of misery and unhappiness among young white masculine heterosexual males. They have come of age in a generation that has treated their whiteness as a cancer, their masculinity as toxic, their sexual interest in women as objectifying and every breath they exhale as a pollutant. This rising generation of young men is far more conservative than their female counterparts, both politically and theologically. Even among Christian women, they have trouble finding a woman who isn’t at least somewhat feminist. This cohort is not in it for clicks and they genuinely don’t know what to do or who to believe. It is more existential for them. They will give anyone a hearing, including some of the demagogues, and the only group they have trouble listening to would be the establishment voices that have been lying to them their entire lives. This is unfortunate because the establishment didn’t get absolutely everything wrong. It is a baby in a bathwater thing….
The last thing they need is to have something else collapse under them again. The very worst thing to land on them would be a good starter and a bad sticker….
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R. L. Dabney, slightly paraphrased, on the problem with modern conservatism:
“The novelty of yesteryear gradually becomes one of the accepted principles of contemporary conservatism. The conservatives are only conservative in the sense that they resist the next lunatic innovation. They not having any real first principles will lose that fight also and the next innovation will be imposed upon their cowardice and timidity. This will be followed by some third revolution to be denounced in its turn before being eventually adopted.
American conservatism is merely the shadow that follows radicalism to perdition. It tags along behind, never actually retarding the progress of the progressives. It is a pretend salt and has utterly lost its savor. How will it ever be salted again? This impotence is not hard to explain. It is worthless because it is a pragmatic conservatism interested only in expediency and never sturdy principle. It intends to risk nothing serious for the sake of the truth and has no idea of being guilty of the folly of martyrdom.”
Doug Wilson explains:
“This is how the Overton window has moved so far left. Actually, most modern conservatives are fully content with merely slowing the progressives down. After the travesty of women in combat was established, it took Fox News about 10 minutes to begin lauding our brave men and women in uniform. Now, I have no problem with incrementalism, but it really ought not to be an incrementalism that redefines victory as “losing slowly.” There’s another sort of incrementalism, one that slowly undoes the actual gains of the progressive left. But it is not possible to achieve this if you have no actual idea of what those long-term reversals might look like. I do know what they look like, and if asked about it, I will answer honestly.”
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In Acts 7, Stephen preaches a sermon to the Jews telling them they have always been a stiff-necked people who kill the messengers God sends them. Their crucifixion of Jesus fits into an established pattern. Then, as if to illustrate his sermon, they kill Stephen.
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Hebrews 11:10, 16 and 12:22, as well as Romans 4:13, are simple refutations of Christian Zionism and Dispensationalism. Abraham knew the promise God made to him was not ultimately about the land of Canaan. God promised Abraham the whole world. God promised him a heavenly country, the world to come.
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Does the NT ever show us that Jesus fulfills the so-called proto-evangelism of Genesis 3:15? Yes, but not explicitly. If you only use a literal heremeutic or grammatical-historical hermeneutical, you cannot prove Genesis 3:15 is ultimately about Jesus. But when we read the Bible redemptive-historically and typologically, we can see how Jesus is the promised seed of the woman who crushes the serpent’s head.
A sermon that answers this question:
https://www.trinity-pres.net/audio/sermon09-12-13prayersPraiseAndPastoral.mp3
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Did many church fathers expect a future conversion of the Jews based on Romans 11?
Grok answers:
Several early church fathers (patristic writers) interpreted Romans 11—particularly verses 25–26 (“a partial hardening has come upon Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved”)—as pointing to a future mass conversion or restoration of the Jewish people (ethnic Israel).
This belief often coexisted with “punitive supersessionism” (the idea that the church had, for the present, taken over many of Israel’s roles and promises due to Jewish rejection of Christ). However, it did not preclude hope for Israel’s future turning to Christ, frequently linked to the second coming of Christ, the ministry of Elijah, or end-times events.
Key Examples
- Justin Martyr (c. 100–165): In his First Apology, he describes Jews mourning and recognizing the pierced Messiah at His glorious return, drawing on Zechariah, implying future repentance and turning.
- John Chrysostom (c. 347–407): In his Commentary on Romans, he states that after the fullness of the Gentiles, “all Israel shall be saved” at Christ’s second coming. He also links Elijah’s return to persuading Jews to believe and avoid perishing. In his Commentary on Matthew, he notes the covenant promise of sin removal for Jews has not yet fully happened but will.
- Augustine (354–430): He frequently affirmed this as a common belief: “in the last days before the judgment the Jews shall believe in the true Christ” through Elijah, who will explain the law spiritually. He connects it directly to Romans 11:25–26, noting that after Gentile fullness, “all Israel should be saved.” He saw this applying to future generations of Jews.
- Other Fathers:
• Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393–c. 457) linked it to Elijah restoring all things and Jews believing.
• Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444) spoke of Christ reconciling with Israel at the end, after gathering Gentiles.
• Ambrose, Prosper of Aquitaine, Ambrosiaster, and Jerome expressed similar hopes for Jewish conversion or restoration tied to Romans 11.
These views appear in Michael J. Vlach’s analysis (“Rejection Then Hope: The Church’s Doctrine of Israel in the Patristic Era”), which surveys how many patristic writers saw Romans 11 as evidence of future hope for ethnic Israel amid current judgment.
Context and Variations
Patristic thought was not monolithic. Some emphasized spiritual fulfillment in the church or a “true Israel” of believers (Jew and Gentile). Interpretations of “all Israel” varied (e.g., the elect remnant, the full number of believing Jews over time, or a future national turning). Yet a recurring theme—especially in the earlier and mid-patristic periods—was expectation of a significant future ingathering of Jews provoked by Gentile fullness, often at or near the end of the age.
This patristic witness contrasts with later developments (e.g., stronger amillennial or replacement emphases) but shows that belief in a future Jewish conversion based on Romans 11 has deep roots in early Christian tradition, not just modern dispensationalism.
[Note: Vlach is known as a dispensational propagandist. But this does confirm my own research for the most part – many of the church fathers, most notably Augustine, did believe in a future conversion of the Jewish people.]
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Tel Aviv is almost as wicked as San Francisco.
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“God grant that there may come a reaction, and that the great principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty may be rediscovered before it is too late!”
— J. Gresham Machen
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“If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates.”
— Thomas Sowell
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Peasants’ revolts never accomplish anything, other than peasants getting slaughtered. The same is generally true of populism in the longrun. Populists movements can temporarily gain power, but not staying power. To have staying power requires principles that can hold political coalitions together.
MAGA has been a populist movement. Will it have staying power? It really depends on what happens from here. There are very viable heirs to Trump, such as Vance, Rubio, and even DeSantis. But will the base hold together? Trump built a pretty unique coalition that included a lot of people who usually weren’t political, or at least not politically committed to a party. What will keep them voting red is making solid progress on core domestic issues, such as deportations/remigration and the economy/affordability, over the next couple years. MAGA will only be a speedbump on the progressive’s highway to hell unless it can refocus on what matters to most to our nation’s wellbeing right now.
The war with Iran may or may not prove to be a good and necessary thing, but it seems pretty unpopular, testing the loyalty of many of even the most ardent Trump supporters. How long will it drag on? What will “victory” look like when it’s over? What chance do Republicans have in the mid-terms to keep slim majorities? There’s a lot of the line in the next 6 months, and even more so in the next two and a half years.
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What’s the best strategy for the right/conservatives, going forward?
At this point, patriots (plan-trusters who put a positive spin on everything Trump does) and dissidents (those on the right who are highly critical of some aspects of the Trump administration) have to hang together in a coalition in order to defeat the left. The “cash value” of this is that the rightwing should not split over Israel. The focus needs to be domestic issues and defeating the left/progressivism. It’s more important to win elections and consolidate power at this moment than to sort out the details of foreign policy. That can come later.
The degenerate right can be left alone. They will not hold power. The neo-con right is part of the uniparty and should be opposed.
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Wokeness/feminization = feelings supplant truth
“How will this make people feel?” trumps “Is this true?”
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Joshua’s conquest of Canaan included destroying children, which raises ethical questions. The conquest presupposes (a) original sin, meaning children are guilty and depraved because all of humanity fell in our first father Adam, and (b) covenant theology, meaning children belong to the gods of their fathers, whether the true God or idols. Further, God was patient with the Canaanites, delaying the conquest until their iniquity had reached its full measure. God wanted the land completely purged of demon worshippers so it could become his holy sanctuary and so Israel would not be drawn to worship the gods of the Canaanites. Sadly, as Israel’s later history showed, their failure to complete the conquest came back to haunt them, as they fell into idolatry again and again.
There was nothing unjust or unfair about Joshua’s conquest of the land. Obviously the kind of herem warfare (“holy war”) Joshua was called to wage is distinct from normal warfare (cf. Deuteronomy 20), and it was rare for God to command such warfare in the old covenant. But there was nothing in it inconsistent with the picture of God we get in the rest of Scripture, including Jesus’ teachings. God is a God of perfect justice.
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“Long before Americans had a nation or a constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our
independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts: moral courage, and it came from a small but mighty kingdom from across the
sea. For nearly two centuries before the revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain’s distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride, and that’s what it is: glory, destiny, and pride.
The American patriots who pledged their lives to independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true.
In recent years, we’ve often heard it said that America is merely an idea, but the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic.
Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that no man should be denied either justice or right. American patriots today can sing, “My country ’tis of thee / Sweet land of liberty,” only because our colonial ancestors first sang “God save the King…
In the centuries since we won our independence, Americans have had no closer friends than the British. We share that same root, we speak the same language, we hold the same values, and together, our warriors have defended the same extraordinary civilization under twin banners of red, white, and blue.”
— Donald Trump
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The coolest cars ever made were undoubtedly 2nd gen GM F-bodies — Camaro and TransAm, especially with T-tops. Not best cars, but definitely the coolest. The ’57 Chevy BelAir is next in line (see Eric Clapton’s “I’ve Got Rock’nRoll Heart”).
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Some guys don’t know the difference between the church and a Hitler fan club.
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I am anti-anti-whiteness.
But I am not pro-white.
I am pro-Jesus, pro-church, pro-righteousness.
This isn’t hard.
Resorting to racial identity politics is not the answer.
Tucker Carlson, whatever his flaws, knows that identity politics is not the answer.
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X (Twitter) was made for man, not man for X.
Use the app is wise ways. But don’t let it run your life or steal away valuable time.
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“Let us praise even the slightest improvement. That inspires the other person to keep on improving.”
— Dale Carnegie
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“Virtually every stupid idea in vogue today was thought of by somebody in the past – and has led to disaster, again and again.
That is why it is dangerous to neglect the study of history, so that we have to keep on learning what is wrong with clever ideas the hard way.”
— Thomas Sowell
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Many have pointed the problem with “women’s ministries” in the church in recent years. But I think in a healthy church, most of these things are not an issue.
Can a pastor teach a women’s Bible study? A pastor is teaching the women as part of the congregation every Lord’s Day and that does not undermine the husband’s headship in the home, so a women’s Bible study should not either. We could just as easily reverse the question: Does a husband teaching his wife the Bible undermine the pastor’s authority? Obviously not! Again, in a healthy church with healthy families, this is not an issue. The Apostle Paul spoke directly to wives in passages like Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3, so the pastor can as well. I’d much rather women go to a Bible study led by the pastor than have them listen to 99% of the podcasts that are put out for Christian women.
Likewise, the pastor is the pastor of the teenagers in the church. He preaches to them too, every Lord’s Day, without subverting the father’s authority, so he should be able to do so in other settings as well. The Apostle Paul spoke directly to the children of the church in Ephesians 6, so pastors should be able to do so as well. If anything, the pastor teaching the teens should reinforce what they are already getting from home (and vice versa). To me, this question is a bit like asking, “Does the Christian school teacher undermine the father’s authority?” Obviously, the answer in any decent Chriatian school is going to be “no.” We all exist under multiple authorities and it’s good to hear the same truths from different voices in different contexts.
I do think women’s Bible studies (understandably) get a bad reputation. A lot of what passes for “women’s ministry” has been a disaster for the church. I’m sure the CREC is not automatically immiune to those problems. But I do not think that makes “women’s ministry” an illegitmate category altogether. I suppose a stay-at-home wife and mother might have more time to go to Bible studies or read books than her hard working husband. But I don’t think the answer is keeping the women uneducated so the men can stay out in front; rather, it’s to find ways to elevate the theological education of the men. And that can be done in variety of ways. I do not think a secure Christian man will be troubled by his wife studying the Bible or theology even if means she reads a book he hasn’t read or hears a talk he hasn’t heard, provided there is overall theological alignment. There is nothing in the Bible that suggests a man’s authority in the home is undermined if his wife has some insight he doesn’t have, or some piece of knowledge he lacks. He is the head but that does not mean he is the only one in the marriage with a head or that he’s supposed to do ALL the thinking in the marriage. I’d hope most Christian men recognize that having a wife who has knowledge and wisdom to share with her husband is a benefit, not a subversion, provided everything else in the home is in good order. If a man is afraid of being upstaged by his wife’s theological knowledge, in general, the answer is not holding her back but spurring him on.
If a wife goes to a Bible study or reads a book on her own, the husband should ask her about it, what she learned, etc. Even if he hasn’t heard the lesson or read the book she’s studying, he can still lead her. And note that leadership does not preclude learning from those you lead.
At TPC, we have what I would call a Titus 2-type Bible study where older ladies teach the younger ladies, mainly on the “curriculum” Paul gives in Titus 2:4-5. But they will occasionally do something more “theological.” We have never had a pastor teach the women’s Bible study that I can recall, but I’ve seen it done in other churches and it was a blessing. But the main “women’s ministry” we have is not Bible studies; it’s women ministering to other women and to the body as a whole through works of service, making meals, watching children for one another, etc. I’d consider the women’s Bible study a very, very small part of what counts as “women’s ministry” in our congregation.
The bottom line is that we should want a high degree of synergy between church and family. A faithful and wise pastor teaching a women’s Bible study is not going to subvert the husband’s authority, but reinforce it, just as a father leading family worship in his home should reinforce the pastoral authority of the church. Church and family are not supposed to be competitors but complements. If we’re all operating out of the same script, there should not be a problem.
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“And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.”
— Herman Melville, Moby Dick
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“The United States, as you know, before 1914, had completely free immigration. Anybody could get on a boat and come to these shores, and if he landed on Ellis Island, he was an immigrant. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? You will find hardly a soul who will say it was a bad thing. Almost everybody will say it was a good thing. But then suppose I say to the same people, ‘But now what about today? Do you think we should have free immigration?’ ‘Oh no,’ they’ll say, ‘we couldn’t possibly have free immigration today.’
Why is it that free immigration was a good thing before 1914 and free immigration is a bad thing today? Well, there’s a sense in which that answer is right. There’s a sense in which free immigration in the same sense as we had it before in 1914 is not possible today. Why not? Because it is one thing to have free immigration to jobs. It is another thing to have free immigration to welfare. And you cannot have both.”
— Milton Friedman
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“The right response to the intolerant new orthodoxy is defiance, ridicule, and counterattack. Political adversaries who use terms like Nazi, fascist, anti-Semite, nativist, homophobe, bigot, xenophobe, and extremist have started a fight and should be accommodated. Courage is contagious, and defiance can lead to a recovery of will.”
— Pat Buchanan
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I don’t think there is a clear resolution, biblical or philosophical, to the traducianism vs creationism debate on the origin of the soul
Historically, Calvinists have been creationists (based on texts like Ecclesiastes 12:7), but this cannot be a test of orthodoxy, and I see good arguments that lean towards traducianism
Man is unity of body and soul, though they are distinct (and obviously separated at death until the resurrection)
Obviously a person’s soul does not predate his conception – the body and soul of a person come into existence at the same time
Scripture suggests God’s special work of creation ceased in Genesis 2
Adam’s son bore his likeness according to Genesis 5:3 – his offspring bore God’s image, but also inherited fallenness from his father Adam
We see children inheriting from their parents not only physical features but also personality traits, sin patterns, etc., which would seem to fit better with traducianism
I think the best answer is probably a synthesis of some sort – soul and body both come from
God through the sexual union of the parents, so while God is the source as Creator, he uses created means
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Gisbertus Voetius on war crimes:
“Is it lawful to use assassins and murderers against kings or princes with whom there is a state of war? It is denied. Is it lawful to destroy cities by fire and give all the inhabitants over to slaughter? It is denied with distinction. Is it lawful to permit soldiers to kill infants, the elderly, girls, and old women (who do not bear arms)? It is denied. Is it lawful to commit or allow the rape and violation of married or unmarried women? It is denied. Is it lawful to expose the property of the poor, orphans, ecclesiastical property, and the possessions of soldiers or others to plunder and theft? It is denied with distinction.”
Most of these rules for warfare below would be addressed in passages like Deuteronomy 20, which puts a pretty tight restraint on how godly men conduct war.
The one exception, I think, is a kind of assassination, like we see with Ehud in Judges 3.
“Crushing the head” of the opposing army would seem to be a way to save many lives and hold those most responsible for war (the rulers of nations) accountable.
Ehud was a judge, not a private person, and that is significant, to his assassination of Eglon, of course. But the principle could hold wider application.
I think rulers would be significantly less likely to get their nations into war if they knew they’d be treated as prime military targets. This would be even more true if rulers were going to be expected to fight one another on behalf of their people (cf 1 Samuel 17).
“Herem warfare,” or “holy war,” like what we see with Israel’s conquest of Canaan is unique, and must be distinguished from other forms of warfare. Deuteronomy 20 gives rules for normal warfare, not having to do specifically with Canaanites in the land of promise.
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“The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.”
— Will Rogers
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Those who want to scapegoat the Jews for every social problem often point to Jewish involvement in the porn industry as proof and cite quotations from Jews no one has ever heard of who promoted porn to underscore the case that Jews are uniquely evil. But the pornographers everyone has heard of, Hugh Hefner and Larry Flynt, were not Jewish. The reality is that porn and lust are universal human sins, not specific to a certain ethnicity. A man with a porn addiction today certainly can’t blame the Jews for his sin.
It’s the same with Hollywood: the “blame it on the Jews” crowd focuses on the prominence of Jews in pushing smut into the movie industry, getting obscenity laws repealed, etc. But the Jews have not cornered the market on promoting evil on the big screen. The movie maker who did the most to corrupt my generation when we were young was probably John Hughes, and he was not Jewish. It should be noted one reason Jews fled to the movie industry early was because widespread anti-Semitism kept them out of other types of work.
Paul singles out the Gentiles for their sensuality, impurity, and sexual perversion in passages like Ephesians 4:17 and Romans 1:18ff.
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“The Holy fathers never, at any time or place, mentioned this transubstantiation (a monstrous word and a monstrous idea, until the pseudo philosophy of Aristotle began to make its inroads into the church in these last three hundred years.”
— Martin Luther
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Parents must teach their kids a work ethic, especially the connection between effort and reward. In other words, bring the book of Proverbs to life in the way you raise your children.
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Feminism only exists because men allow it, tolerate it, or support it. Women have no rights in society except for those men choose to grant them. Feminism only arose after men created a safe, comfortable society for women to live in, and men continue to do the difficult, dirty, and dangerous jobs that make keep society safe and comfortable for women.
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“It may safely be said that one ground for the hope of Christianity that it may make good its claim to be the one true faith lies in the fact that it is the most avowedly materialist of all the great religions. It affords an expectation that it may be able to control the material, precisely because it does not ignore it or deny it, but roundly asserts alike the reality of matter and its subordination. Its own most central saying is: ‘The Word was made flesh,’ where the last term was, no doubt chosen because of its specially materialistic associations. By the very nature of its central doctrine Christianity is committed to a belief in the ultimate significance of the historical process, and in the reality of matter and its place in the divine scheme…It is in the sacramental view of the universe, both its material and spiritual elements, that there is given hope of making human both politics and economics and of making effectual both faith and love”
— William Temple, Nature, Man and God, p. 478, 486
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In 1974, there were over 120,000 hitchhikers per weekend in California alone. The end of hitchhiking is a sign of depleted social capital. Think about about it: you used to be able to walk down the road with nothing but a backpack and your thumb in the air, get picked up by a total stranger, and cross the entire country. Just two Americans riding along on the open road getting to know another as they went.
The end of hitchhiking means we’ll never get another book like Kerouac’s On the Road or songs like “Gonna Hitch a Ride” by Boston.
https://youtu.be/nNaEn7qqSic?si=37hkyAf44QyWZN3w
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Thankfulness is the opposite of being entitled. It arises from being astonished at God’s good gifts. Gratitude makes those gifts shine twice as much.
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Social capital means having a human safety net, made up out of extended family, friends, neighbors, church members, etc.
But in a healthy society, social capital means social trust. It means you can an implicit trust even in strangers.
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The Trump-as-Jesus meme is precisely why we need a distinctively Christian politics. The whole point of Christian politics is to claim the state is not God and Christ is king over the state.
While the meme was blasphemous, I appreciate that Trump deleted it.
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Tucker Carlson has moved in a disturbing direction on many fronts.
He had already expressed sympathies with socialism, but he really doubled down on that in a recent podcast.
More troubling, Tucker has become an all-out simp for Islam. He is now telling us that Muslims believe in Jesus. This is not the error of an immature Christian; this is a huge step towards total deconstruction of the faith.
The reality is that Islam denies that Jesus is the Son of God, denies his deity, denies the incarnation, denies his death, denies his resurrection. The Jesus revered in Islam is nothing like the Jesus of the Bible. It is a Jesus of Mohammad’s own devising.
Besides that, the way Muslims treat Christ’s followers show the actually despise Christ. Muslims have persecuted Christians from the beginning. Nations that get overtaken by Islam find their Christian population plummeting. Christians who are allowed to live in Middle Eastern Muslim countries do so as non-citizens, with no freedom to evangelize and very little freedom to worship.
This is not to say Tucker is wrong about everything at this point. I am not as hardline about the war with the Iran, but I have questioned it from the beginning. I am obviously online with many of his criticisms of “Christian Zionism.” Tucker seems to have his own version of Trump Derangement Syndrome. He seems to have become just a smarter Candace Owens.
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While I’m very concerned about all foreign influence on our government and our institutions, calling Trump a “slave” to Israel (as Tucker has done) goes too far.
If Trump is a “slave” to Israel, it’s because he’s being blackmailed in some way. That might explain the oddities of the Epstein files – Trump was going to release them, then said there were no files and it was all a hoax, then he got mad at Massie for forcing their release even though they didn’t implicate him. Why was he so upset? Who was upset on behalf of?
And, yes, it does look like Israel dragged us into this war with Iran, based especially on Rubio’s comments. The war certainly seems to serve Israel’s interests (and aspirations) more than ours. But a case can be made that the war serves broader American geo-political interests in relation to China and Russia. So while the Trump administration has not done a good job articulating the “America first” case for the war, and while I am skeptical of it myself, perhaps Trump buys the case and that’s why we are there. Or maybe it really does come down to Iran having nuclear capability, even though that capability poses no direct threat to America.
The really frustrating thing to me is that American politicians and institutions have basically sold themselves out to the highest bidder. But Israel is not the only one bidding for our services. Middle Eastern Muslims are too. So is China. So is Big Pharma. Etc. We have a huge problem with selling out American interests to other interests, but the problem is much, much bigger than Israel.
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“The eucharistic celebration does not leave the world unchanged. The future has occupied the present for a moment at least, and that moment is henceforth an ineradicable part of the experience of those who lived it…the kingdom of God has come closer with each Eucharistic celebration.”
— Geoffrey Wainwright
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Just say “No!” to faggots raising children.
These gay men purchased a very expensive sex toy.
These children are abused.
Overturn Obergefell. End same-sex unions. Re-criminalize sodomy.
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