Calling for a Return to the Doctrinal Ideals and Kingdom Ethics of the First Reformation
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/11/the-history-of-national-flags-in-churches
The debate over flags in the Church is riddled with problems
and clouded by false assumptions. There is a problem with the sanctuary model
to begin with, the idea that a building is somehow a 'holy' place, a
'sanctuary' or that the front of the structure is some kind of focal point – a
leftover of the unbiblical altar-theology of Romanism.
From the Olympics to computing, from news to politics, the Russians are everywhere in the news or more accurately the Anti-Russian propaganda campaign is everywhere. This is by far the worst we've seen in forty years, since the tense period accompanying Reagan's ascent to the US presidency. Almost immediately he began a rapid military buildup and a series of aggressive military Psyops directed against Russia. The US pushed the Russian security perimeter by air, land, and sea. At that time the Soviets were in dire fear of an American First Strike and became very edgy and the tension led to events like the shootdown of KAL 007.
This is a problematic article to be sure but nevertheless it
should be read. The School Board Strategy is proving effecting and it's
expanding – and it's likely that it's already affecting your church or soon
will be. The author is sounding the alarm and we should be alarmed – but for
reasons different than those of the Religion Dispatches reporter.
These are serious challenges we all face on a personal level and one wonders if many parents caught up in the movement missed the trees for the forest. They saw the big sweeping picture in terms of goals and aspirations for their children but missed the nuts and bolts, the essential parts that require so much time and attention.
I am a strong proponent of homeschooling and believe that for
Christians it's the best option available when it comes to educating our children.
While we deliberately never joined the Homeschool Legal Defense Association
(HSLDA), we nevertheless made occasional use of their website, following some
of the legislation and developments in our state and around the country. And so
it was in that vein that we began to hear about Patrick Henry College and later
the HSLDA-connected Generation Joshua project.
https://agradio.org/paul-and-his-roman-constitutional-rights
This reading of Paul is common in Evangelical circles but a more careful reading of the passage reveals that it has been misunderstood.
As stated before, there are plenty of reasons to doubt the government and the Covid episode is no exception. Over many years the government and media have destroyed their own credibility and so in some respects they have brought this on themselves. And yet as also stated, conspiracies (to be judged as viable) have to make some kind of sense and they have to operate within the framework of reality. Many of the conspiracies floated by today's Right are divorced from reality and in other cases indicate a pervasive unfamiliarity with basic concepts, how institutions work, history and the like.
https://theaquilareport.com/archbishop-viganos-startling-warning-to-the-american-people/
The fact that the Calvinist-affiliated Aquila Report
published this piece by Roman Catholic Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano is both
interesting and informative in and of itself. That a publication such as
'American Thinker' found Vigano's comments profound is not too surprising.
If Russia invades Ukraine, then Putin will fall for the trap NATO has set for him. As anyone who partakes of any news is sure to know, the Western propaganda campaign is running white hot, to the point that even questioning the official narrative can take down a high ranking admiral – as was seen recently in Germany. The US and NATO are doing all they can to provoke Moscow. This run-up to war is a campaign in itself and there are several angles to consider.
Trump Jr. has openly rejected the teachings of Christ and
when one considers the present Evangelical confusion with regard to the Trump movement's
relationship to Christianity – I'm glad for it. I hope it will wake some people
up and cause them to re-think the roads they've traveled.
On this Martin Luther King Jr. day we are once more reminded of the massive revisionism taking place within Right-wing circles. I've written about this repeatedly and focused deliberately on these points back in 2012 and 2014. This revisionism is something I noticed years ago and was left somewhat stunned to hear figures like Glenn Beck and Charles Colson attempt to appropriate the King legacy and argue that somehow his ideas were resonant and representative of their own. It was a re-writing of the history and yet few seemed to notice.
The Central Asian states which were run by former Soviet apparatchiks (turned into authoritarian capitalists) relied upon energy revenue and the extraction of natural resources – and in the post-Soviet setting Western corporations flooded into the region to develop these sectors. Wall Street scored major victories and wealthy oligarchies developed in the Central Asian states. Needless to say corruption is endemic. This new post-Cold War political order and economic development in part explains the ongoing tensions with Russia, Iran, and Afghanistan. The logistics of getting resources out of landlocked Central Asia proved daunting and were never resolved. The ruling oligarchies were plugged into the energy economy and these countries rely on this money to function and pay the bills as it were.
The January 2022 street protests in Kazakhstan which have received considerable Western news coverage seem at last to be calming down. On the one hand it appeared to be a grass roots uprising in protest of surging inflation, fuel prices and (at least in part) frustration with social restrictions on activism and free speech.
But they're not the only group that has a problem with the diaconate. In Baptist circles there's also a great deal of confusion on this point. For them, the office of 'pastor' is akin to Paul's bishop in 1 Timothy 3.
I recently had an exchange with a priest from the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). As our church situation has collapsed due to the degeneration of worship into therapy, politics, and entertainment and the fact that Trumpites are running rampant in many local congregations including our own, we've been looking for an alternative.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/leonard-pitts-jr-the-social-covenant-has-shattered/ar-AARkgok
I occasionally glance at syndicated editorials. Pitts is
sometimes interesting and thoughtful and other times less so. This one struck
me because it's something I've been talking about for years. Pitts barely
scratches the surface but it was still refreshing to read. At least someone is
thinking about these issues.
What a sad moment. Ocasio-Cortez the much vilified Democratic
representative from New York and member of the hated 'Squad' has spoken truth –
and a truth that puts Evangelicals to shame.
https://www.crikey.com.au/topic/god-in-the-lodge/
The Crikey series is worthy of
consideration and yet typical of such journalism it offers a secular assessment
that deals with issues that at times the authors and editors clearly don't
understand. Given that the name of the publication is tantamount to blasphemy,
one must expect a degree of hostility to the Christian faith. But it shouldn't
scare us or cause to dismiss the reporting out of hand.
This was a good and insightful interview with much to
consider. Kovalik's 'The Plot to Scapegoat Russia' caught my eye a few years
ago. Kovalik is one of the few voices on the Left that's critical of the
Democratic Party and its increasingly hysterical Anti-Russia campaign. This
conversation is wide-ranging and touches on several important issues, ones critical
to understand if we're to navigate the present situation and filter the many
voices that seek to dominate our thinking.
The recent World Magazine rift seems to be also rooted in a Trumpian schism. Marvin Olasky, a right-wing figure who was loosely associated with the George W Bush presidency is enough of a principled intellectual and in possession of enough historical sense to realize he could not endorse Trump for president in 2016.
One of the flagship conferences of New Calvinism, Together for the Gospel (T4G) will end in 2022. The official reasons have convinced no one. Everyone more or less knows the group's founders have become irreconcilably divided. This is but part of a larger fragmentation taking place, one that seems to be hitting the New Calvinist sphere hard.
https://www.breakpoint.org/helping-haiti-with-our-heads-and-hearts/
Haiti has been in the news more than once in 2021. Unrest, assassination,
an earthquake, and now the kidnapping of US-based missionaries, Haiti is all
but associated with chaos, turmoil, grinding poverty, and corruption. The
cultural commentators want to weigh in and John Stonestreet of BreakPoint and
The Colson Center recently offered his own Evangelical assessment, his own take
on the Haitian situation.
Kyle Rittenhouse is the product of a generation brought up in the midst of social turmoil, economic decline, and endless war. It's evident that to Rittenhouse life is cheap and he speaks casually (in almost video game terms) of shooting people. They're not human beings, they're objects. He's the classic 'angry young man' and while he's a murderer, he does deserve a degree of sympathy.
For the Bohemian Brethren, the contacts with the Magisterial Reformation produced mostly negative results. Swept up into the political struggle, the theology and ethics of the Reformation produced worldliness and compromise in their lives. The net sum was that their movement was forced to pay a vicious price in the aftermath of the Schmalkaldic War. Though attempting to keep their distance at times, they were now part of the larger Protestant movement and (willingly or not) they were caught up in the catastrophe and bloodletting known as The Thirty Years War.
A good resource regarding the formative years of the Moravian Church is The History of the Unity of Brethren (A Protestant Hussite Church in Bohemia and Moravia) by Rudolf Rican. First published in the 1950's, the available English translation (by C. Daniel Crews) came out in the 1990's. It's published by The Moravian Church in America.
The book begins with the martyr Jan Hus (1372-1415) and other
dissident movements in Bohemia such as the Waldensians. Petr Chelčický (c.1380-1460) also receives significant
treatment as he came to exert a great deal of influence on the early Brethren movement
– itself a derivative of the larger Hussite wave.
Nancy Pelosi is the Right's greatest and most powerful enemy within Congress and at this point she's the one figure that could really lead the charge, the one person that has the power to pursue the January 6th coup attempt and to take down the collaborators in congress – wounding the party in the process.
And yet she's not. Why isn't she? Why isn't the Establishment
media aggressively reporting on this? Why aren't they coming after her and
challenging her tepid response and her lacklustre investigation?
The US sought unipolarity in 1989 and thirty years later it finds itself in grave danger, the dream lost, and US hegemony under threat. The American Establishment is desperate to re-engage the world and rekindle the kind of American dominance that the nation had in the decades after World War II. The vast wealth and power the US accumulated post-1945, is now under existential threat from foreign rivals.
Some independent commentators have picked up on the fact that the mainstream media, the so-called 'Leftist' media has all but ignored the recent 'bombshell' Rolling Stone article that exposes the fact that several members of congress were actively involved in the failed January 6 insurrection.
Why? Why would the media ignore this? It's like the goose
that laid the golden egg, a chance to take down several Republicans – and yet
they're ignoring it. The January 6 investigation should be like Watergate with
around the clock coverage and televised hearings. But instead it barely gets
noticed and while the congressional investigation continues – tepid is a word
that comes to mind. Given the magnitude of what happened and the nature of
emerging revelations since, one would think this would be a major story.
If the younger generation has soured on capitalism it's because they've come of age at a time when the entry level situation is fairly dire and in some cases hopeless. You can skip college and remain on the lower end of the working class – an exception being those who find a skill in demand and escape neo-vassalage by means of becoming self-employed.
Or, you can take on massive debt which more or less enslaves
you to a job (an employer) as you are compelled to keep making your payments.
And by the time you're done you've undoubtedly taken on many more. It's a trap
and some young people have realised it. For many of that generation, adult life
properly speaking, an age of autonomy and social establishment is nigh on
impossible before one is in their thirties. The system is immoral and exploitative
and those who are living in the bottom tiers realise it and thus they're willing
to entertain other options, all the more when they begin to understand the
American system and its priorities, as opposed to the model of the social
democracies in Europe – which have elements that many Right-wing Americans
erroneously associate with Marxism.
https://familyliferadio.blubrry.net/2021/10/21/faith-under-fire-ep-74-marxism-in-america-part-1/
George Barna is best known for his fusion of ecclesiology
with market analysis. He and those associated with him have pursued models of
church growth rooted in surveying and in shaping practice on the basis of the
results. His name is usually associated with the Seeker Sensitive Movement
because its leaders (men like Bill Hybels and Rick Warren) have integrated the
market strategy popularised by figures like Barna into their models for Church
growth.
The broken ecclesiology that dominates the Evangelical scene
is bearing a rotten harvest. Cultural attitudes and tensions, false
expectations, and alternatives born of the technological age have created
conditions in which men are leaving Church leadership for other 'ministries'.
In some cases we must say good riddance but few seem willing or able to address
the real reasons for this trend and identify the nature of the problem. It
starts with an unbiblical ecclesiology – especially in the Evangelical and New
Calvinist spheres.
As our congregation has succumbed to Trumpism we are currently looking at other options and let's say the scene is not encouraging. Sunday after Sunday, I find myself driving the better part of an hour or more to sit in on meetings that disappoint and sometimes are an occasion for righteous anger. It's one of those moments that living in a rural area becomes a burden. There are relatively few churches and the distances can sometimes be great.
Revelation 18.23 refers to the sorceries of fallen Babylon. It could be a reference to Babylon in general or more specifically to the merchants of Babylon. Ultimately it doesn't matter as the mercantile-mammon driven activity of its 'great men' are part and parcel representative of the Babylonian system as a whole along with its larger list of deceptions and evil.