Martin Luther and Jack Chick

 Watching Rick Steve’s documentary on Martin Luther. One of the things he highlights is how Luther spread his ideas through his tracts or pamphlets. Not everything has to be a long book. Especially on the Reformed side of things, everybody wants to write a long tome. But I’ve benefited much from shorter books and pamphlets through the years. I think of anything from Our Daily Bread monthly devotionals on the Dispie and Bible church side of things, to the booklets from the Chapel Library, reprinting Puritan works. The beauty of Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening is how much Spurgeon was able to say in one page.

But Steves also mentions that Lucas Cranach illustrated Luther’s pamphlets with his often hilarious pictures of figures like the pope and other church leaders. So basically, Luther was publishing theologically dense comic books. The entertainment aspect was a part of their popularity and success. That, with them being in a language people could read, a sense of freedom from the burden of the Church and having to save one’s self, and just the appeal that we all find in the notion of rebellion against oppressive authority, helped fuel the Reformation.

All that said, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on the late Jack Chick.

No Neutrality

 If you do not have a Christian government, you will have a pagan government. If you do not have a Christian family, you will have a pagan family. If you do not have a Christian business, you will have a pagan business. If you do not have a Christian, you have a pagan.

There is no neutrality. Either you acknowledge Jesus as king and serve Him, or you are in rebellion against Him, and are inviting His judgment upon you.

“Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.”

Bible Translations

 Thinking on Bible translations…the debates scholars, armchair or otherwise, get into over Bible translations are important. But you often get conservative evangelical types arguing over literal equivalence vs. dynamic equivalence, sometimes unhelpfully. Once you’ve spent some time translating Greek, you come to realize that sometimes word for word translating doesn’t work, and you have to translate some passages according to meaning, or they won’t be readable. Everybody would do better reading the whole Bible in an overview way with something like the NIV or NLT. And beyond that, some folks just aren’t going to be Bible scholars. Get a readable translation, and just start reading. If you’ve got the mind of a scholar, you can shape up your direction in time, as you’re ready for it.

Falling Down

 Watching “Falling Down”, with Michael Douglas and Robert Duvall, for the first time today. What was set in California in 1993 wasn’t as true then in North Carolina - the rudeness, the traffic, the loss of Christian ethics and morality, the coldness of modern life. But it is becoming moreso today, particularly in the growing cities. Community dies, family dies, business and work dominate, neighborhoods are merely places to sleep at night. Friendship and family get in the way of profit margins. Love cannot exist where people are simply complicated machines rather than the image of God.

But the wicked are like the troubled sea,
When it cannot rest,
Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

“There is no peace,”
Says my God, “for the wicked.”

Holding Man and His Laws Accountable to God

 All laws and rules in society - family, church, civil government, corporations - by necessity must be derived from and be in accordance with the Law of God. Otherwise, they have no validity and should not exist. And they must serve the purpose laid out by Scripture - for the love of God and man.

You can always tell the unspiritual man by the fact that he fails to understand the purposes of the law. The consequence is always legalism and a lack of love.

Every Wind of Doctrine, Podcast Style

In his latest episode, Tucker Carlson has apparently discovered Dispensationalism, and he’s alarmed that some Jewish people want to rebuild the temple. Ground breaking stuff.

Look, I grew up Dispie, so I’ve been hearing that my whole life, over half a century. Just do it and get it over with, for Pete’s sake. Bring on the Rapture. Fry that red heifer up. Buck Williams has a plane to catch.

Somebody send Tucker some Reformed Postmillennial literature before he gets any crazier.

Israel and Palestine

 I’ve watched the debate among Americans over Israel and Palestine for years, concerning which side wears the white hats, and which side wears the black. Everybody is so sure they know, and everybody is certain the other side is the one committing atrocities, and that despite most individuals never having set foot on the continent or having the inside information they think they do. It never seems to occur to anybody that maybe each party, in fact every party involved, is guilty of some terrible things. “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

It was interesting to listen to the mainstream news reporting on Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack when it happened. At first, the media reported that Hamas had attacked an outdoor rave in Israel. But, realizing that everybody knew what a rave meant - Jewish people attacked while high and sleeping with people they weren’t married to - “rave” got changed to “music festival”. At that time I happened across a video of the event prior to the attack. A rather prominent statue of the Buddha at the event was hard to ignore. But, Hamas is evil. On that we all agree.

Does Israel somewhat have America by the nape of the neck? Maybe, but nobody has proven it to me yet. I do know, though, that relationships of all types are usually more complicated and intertwined than that. Simple minds settle on simple explanations. And yet Scripture says, “in understanding, be men.”

You are Here

WWII recovery =>

Mission creep =>

American imperialism =>

A world that hates America =>

Globalist imperialism under George Bush Sr. =>

Blowback in the form of 9/11 =>

More imperialism under George W. Bush =>

An America with an increasingly guilty conscience elects a racially diverse globalist Marxist named Barack Obama =>

Obama opens the borders, increases the socialism of the State, and stokes internal strife, creating chaos =>

America elects a strongman who is unable to stop the chaos =>

The oligarchy steals an election and puts a puppet king, Joe Biden, in the presidency =>

The oligarchy spits on its predecessor opponents led by the Bushes by letting their imperialism fail dramatically =>

Competing unbelieving, anti-Christian, and incompetent parties fight for the rule of a crumbling empire, while it continues to be assaulted from both inside and out (you are here)

The above was originally written in September of 2024. The one modification I would make would be to acknowledge the degree that the current administration is blatantly Christian. God has been merciful to us in this. We have much to be grateful for.

Yet we are living at the end of an empire, which like Rome is crumbling slowly. The system is broken when you have its enemies as legislators. And Trump is one of the strongmen at the end of the empire, held up by the people as its savior.

Which, incidentally, Loki is at the end of Loki season two. I know the real intellectuals will appreciate a Marvel reference. See my reference to season one and Machiavelli a few months back.

Real freedom, reserved rights, requires individual responsibility. And we have gradually cast that off, abandoning freedom in Christ for the slavery of sin.

Defending the Administration’s Actions

 To connect the dots with the past couple of weeks…you have a somewhat loose international system involving Iran, Venezuela, Russia, and China, for years carrying out illegal activity against targets within the borders of western nations. And one such set of activities involves those nations working with Mexican cartels to traffic drugs and people across our borders with Mexico and Canada. Their goal is the destruction of the U.S. as a sovereign state, and the destruction of our people, which they have been doing successfully. Is this in part blowback for our illicit international meddling? Yes. Oil in the Middle East, western secular globalist ambitions, etc. The ongoing Ukraine situation is due to NATO beating on Putin’s front door to force western economic and cultural control on Russia. Putin is evil, but we are hardly any better. His reactions have some grounding in reality. The same thing was true with Assad in Syria. He protected Christians, while the UK is currently imprisoning people who criticize Islam on social media. The US for years has knowingly allowed transgender people to come here as refugees from Muslim countries where their lives were supposedly in danger because of their perversion. And our relevant government organizations have openly said so on their social media accounts. We have invited the evil here with fanfare, and given it our tax dollars. But while the west’s evil is true, allowing the destruction of our own society isn’t a reasonable response. Our self-defense is the right response. And what Trump has been doing, while it may seem to be offensive, is actually defensive. The war was already going on. And that would be my response to those who may think I am abandoning my generally antiwar, libertarian principles. I am still opposed to the traditional Neocon regime change practice. Hopefully President Trump will stand by his word, and let Iran pick their new leaders. And hopefully they will choose wisely.

In Purgatory with Madame Web

 I’m forcing myself to watch “Madame Web” once through, over however many sessions it takes. Doing this during Lent is probably appropriate, now that I think about it. I’m about halfway through. I should be fully sanctified and in a state of sinless perfection by the time I’m done.

I’ll give them this. They show you exactly what it would look like if four of the most shallow women you’ve ever met were to find themselves on the run from a guy in a spider costume. So, points for accuracy.