I would like to address the New York law expanding abortion as it relates to the church.  As with many issues or sins these days, it is no surprise that men sin.  The real sad tragedy is that when men sin, and sin greatly, the leadership of the church is nowhere to be found condemning it.  Instead they uphold and further this evil in very real ways by there cowardice, by failing to excommunicate people.  Why are we so afraid of excommunication?  Because at heart we know it is very powerful.

The excommunication of Philip IV of France by Pope Boniface VIII, 1303. French School. 19th Century

Timothy M. Dolan is the Archbishop of New York.  He is the religious leader over the Catholic church in New York City which claims as one of it’s members Governor Cuomo.  This is a position which gives him the ability to excommunicate Cuomo for his obvious subversion of his duty as a political leader.  While the sins of our nation, it’s leaders and citizens continue to grow, excommunications continue to decrease.  And lest you Evangelicals take pride in your sect and think this is just another opportunity to attack the Catholics, beware.  I have known very few Christian Evangelicals or any other flavor of Christians who act much differently than Archbishop Dolan.  Dolan is a representative of American Christianity, not an outlier.

Dolan is known for being conservative.  He opposes abortion, at least in word, and he says many of the right things.  He opposes Cuomo and has condemned this new legislation in New York.  These are good things.  Though after seeing him on a few different shows discussing the issue I wonder if his statements are not prepared or at least advised by a lawyer.  But he is not willing to ‘condemn’.  He doesn’t want to ‘judge’ in the parlance of our times.  Speaking on Fox and Friends he said:

A mom who has an abortion, we’d say, “Mom, we love you. We might not, uh, particularly condone what you just did. But we love you, and, uh, we’re not about to judge you.” It used to be people that said we should excommunicate the mothers that did that. We don’t do that anymore. You’re welcome back in the church. If you have a sense of shame and regret about what you’ve done — and I presume you might — uh, come and ask for God’s mercy and it’s yours for the asking. So the blame doesn’t need to go on the mom here.

It used to be that an abortion would cause the excommunication not only of the one who did it, [but] people who encourage it, and the one who had it. The church in the last 50 years — beginning with, uh, Pope John Paul II and especially intensified under Pope Francis — has said, “I don’t know if that’s gospel values, here, because mercy trumps everything.” And even though we would be uncompromising, uh, in our teaching about the horror of abortion, we would also be uncompromising in our teaching about God’s mercy.

He also said he wouldn’t excommunicate Cuomo because “the governor is obviously proud of his dissension with the Catholic doctrine, so what is the point of refusing him communion?”.  But that is the point.  That’s what sin is, proudly dissenting from God’s rules.  And that’s what the Church is, the institution that calls you on it.  This is the message of the church, turn from your wicked ways and confess Christ, love him by obeying him.  If you don’t turn you are not a Christian and if your organization isn’t a place for people who turn and  encourage others to turn, it’s not a Church.

This is nothing new.  The same problem was already present in the first century church, before Peter even knew he was the pope.  The Apostle Paul addresses this evil in First Corinthians 5:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.  And you are arrogant! Ought you not rather to mourn? Let him who has done this be removed from among you.

For though absent in body, I am present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a thing.  When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus,  you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.  But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?  God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.”

He says it twice, they were arrogant, they were boasting.  Because they thought they were being merciful and accepting of this man.  “Look mom no judging.”  And for this boasting, one of the bedrocks members of the church, the Apostle Paul condemned them. That isn’t loving.  You don’t get to define ‘love’ or ‘mercy’ however you want.  The loving thing is to cast this man outside the blessing of the church so that Satan can devour his body.  All in the hope that this will lead him back to repentance.  The point of excommunication is to facilitate repentance and reconciliation.  That is true mercy.  The Catholic church has reinstated countless people who were excommunicated, many after they were dead?  What’s the point of that?  Obviously they thought it was important to their integrity to draw a line of distinction.  And the historic church was correct.  Women who have abortions should be excommunicated, they are murderers.  Often they are misled, and so those who mislead them should be excommunicated also.  And all in the hope that these return to the Church.  This is a serious task which is why Jesus tells us that the Spirit is with us in this work.  Matthew 28.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t see the point, or if you don’t think excommunication will work, you do it anyway because that’s what Scripture says.  And if you don’t then you just invalidated your whole church community. That’s how God draws the lines.

Excommunication of King Robert II of France. French School. 19th Century

Dolan uses many of the popular mantras of our day to excuse his behavior.  He treats his church as just one of many viable options in our wonderful world of pluralism.  All these churches operate in a different realm from the civil authority and each other.  “This isn’t a church matter it’s  a civil rights matter.  As if the church is over here just a fun club with some magical wine and bread, and the civil realm is over there just being all civilly.  Evangelicals in their splinter cells often say similar things.  “Well they will just go to another church, so what’s the point of excommunicating them?”  But that’s not how it works.  Qualification to be excommunicated is bearing the name of a brother as Paul said.  If you claim to be a Christian, a follower of Christ, congratulations you qualify to be excommunicated. Obviously Cuomo calls himself a Catholic for some reason.  There are no doubt old ladies voting for him on that basis.  But even if he doesn’t care, you should put him down in the right category, you should care.  And as Paul lays out, there are three categories;  Christians, Excommunicated Christians and the World.   The World is not our concern.  But there is something particularly evil in a person claiming Christ while living contrary to him.  Someone must step in and clarify, this is the Church’s job.

There is also the issue of membership, as if we have our club of Christians and they have theirs.  If you want to be part of ours, you have to take a membership class, and people who don’t take the class are not part of our group.  So, phew, we don’t have to do hard things like confront them on their unrepentant sin.  But Paul doesn’t have this distinction.  Joining the covenant by baptism and claiming you are a brother get’s you in.  Get’s you into the ecclesia, the community of God’s faithful.  This transcends the four walls of your church and the geography of your parish.  Paul doesn’t care about your rules or your churches doctrine.  He cares about the name of Christ and the people who claim that name.

Dolan also tries to weasel out of taking a difficult stance by claiming that this is a civil rights issue, not a church matter.  But he seems to misunderstand that outside the Church there are no civil rights.  Responsible Christians forming a political unit may discuss certain things, as our founding fathers did.  Every state had it’s own way of being a church and a polis.  There were political debates separate from the Church because they were all Christians living in Christendom in a variety of ways.  But when you leave the walls of Christendom, there are no rules.  It’s anarchy, which is why Paul refers to it as being given over to Satan.  The demonic world is real, it is geographical, and it is horrible.  People who want to enjoy the cozy aspects of Christianity while staying in their sin, are trying to have it both ways.  And the Church in America today, is pretending that this is an option.  There are no civil debates outside the walls, there is only murder and tribal war.  An eye for an eye for an eye, as Jesus said.  It’s a jungle out there.  Why do we want to bring the jungle in?  When you are inviting Satan in and cheering and sacrificing your babies and inventing new genders, you don’t get to have civil rights.  You are lucky if you have anything.  Handing over these issues to the world or the civil political leaders is crazy.  As Paul says in the next chapter when discussing lawsuits, you have been given the Truth of God, yet you can’t decide simple legal cases?

But we take all this for granted in our decadence.  Our forefathers did such a good job of pushing the demonic world back and embracing the light of Christ, that we think this is normal.  And we follow the folly of the Corinthians.  “Look how merciful we are, we accept everyone”.  “Jesus accepted everyone don’cha know?”  I don’t know and Jesus didn’t accept everyone.  He accepted those willing to repent and sell everything, to leave their tax booths, to forsake father and mother, he accepted the little children.  These he welcomed into his kingdom.  But for those claiming to be part of the church, the ecclesia, the Jews and religious leaders, he spoke the harshest condemnation of any people ever.  You brood of vipers, stop pretending you are God’s chosen people.  Blind leading the blind, stop misleading the innocent man on the street and lying about God before the watching world.  This is our calling as the church.  We are given the task, the responsibility, the duty to call a spade a spade, to call a Christian a Christian.  If we can’t do this, we prove we have no authority that we are not sons of Abraham or Moses.  We are just a joke.  We are Pharisees.

Sadly we like the church impotent.  It lets us off the hook for our sin.  So what if a few murderers get away with it.  And today they all get away with it, for while we murder babies we have no death penalty.  Look at us go.  Coming to the Lord’s table was a sign of our membership in the community of Christ.  He welcomes us with the bread and wine to join his table, join his kingdom.  Church discipline was a visible picture of the breaking of this fellowship, not even to eat with such a one.  They are cut off from the life of the community.  Sadly most churches don’t even have communion, this welcoming feast, every time they gather.  We excommunicate ourselves all but once a month in many cases.  But we are afraid to excommunicate anyone for gross sin?  What are we doing?

Further Study:

https://youtu.be/AVi0FYPtRQg

https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2019/01/28/remember-what-i-said-last-week-about-institutions-letting-us-down/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWsrPpdqSgs

According to the Biblical definition, America is not a Godly nation. We are not being blessed by God.  We are not fruitful, our birh rates are falling, we despise children as a nusance to our lust.  He has turned us over to ourselves, abandoned us.  And so we see the results of that, Romans One.  Even the women have exchanged natural fruitfulness for evil.  It’s as if men are not only too lazy to sow the fields, but the fields don’t even want to grow anything anymore.  And most of us are ok with that.

There are very few debates in our current culture, even church culture, on strictly theological issues.  I believe that all beliefs are at heart a matter of your relationship with your God, for better or worse.  But as issues within orthodox Chrisianity or as a matter of defending orthodox Christianity against new or old heresies remade, very little of the churche’s work in our day falls under these headings.  What I see instead is politics taking over everything.  We don’t debate how we should work out the communion service, we argue about whether women should rule us.  We don’t have councils to decide how to express the Trinity, we decide how many genders and sexual perversions we will allow in leadership.  We don’t work through how to bring up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord we argue over how much money the government gives our particular marxist public school.  We don’t debate on the extent of the effects of sin, we debate how bad white people really are.  We who hold to anything resembling orthodox Christianity have been pushed back to the wings, silenced.  And the volume has been turned up in every area of politics.

As I said this too is a religion.  It seems that our free open political system is just the means that those who hate God are currently using to attack Christians.  At first the arguments for Islam, Humanism, Darwinism, Marxism, or whatever rebellion you want to choose, were heard becuase Christendom was arranged to love free speech.  Christians set up a society where the best ideas can win, where everyone is able to express themselves.  And so this is the tool that evil weilds against us.  But it is coming to the polace where this isn’t good enough.  They don’t merely want a voice in the public square they want to make the square into a pentagram.  This is how it works.  Cultures can only be ruled by one god.  If you reject the God of heaven and replace him with something, that something is still a god.  It answers the same questions in our minds, it fills the same needs all humans have.  The big questions; What is wrong with the world?  How do we fix it?  Of course they don’t admit this.  They want to pit Religion agains Science or Religion against Politics, or Religion against Multiculturalism.  But this is just a clever lie to disguise their allegience to rebellion.

As we watch New York and our whole nation really, embrace the murder of infants, born or unborn.  It is so sad, but really just the old boring pagan death worship which has been the way of this world apart from the light of God.  Cain killed Abel and went on to practice his paganism.  Paganism was wiped out, Noah had the light, but his heirs revived the darkness.  Israel was a light in a pagan world.  Christ shattered the darkness and Christians spread the light all over the world.  Rejecting Jesus the Christ is not some bold new frontier, it is just reverting back to the old paganism.  It is to pretend that Jesus is not reigning, that he did not remake the world by his death and resurrection.  It is pretending that Satan is Lord, that he rules this earth.  So worse than watching this pagan horde advance is watching Christians cower and retreat.  We don’t hold councils of war to spread the Gospel light to every corner of this dark world.  We hold councils to decide how much like the world we can be and still feel like we are going to heaven.  We don’t remake every aspect of ourselves and our culture to align more with the wisdom of Scripture, we cower and use the World’s arguements against ourselves.  “Oh we can’t talk about that, that’s politics, Jesus wasn’t political you know”.  “Jesus wanted us to love everyone, so we can’t argue with that radical group, that wouldn’t be nice”.  “Well I’m not a scientist, so I guess the Bible was incorrect about the origin of the Earth”.

There are no viable options for remaking this world outside of Jesus.  Everything we have at this point is due to his blessing brought through the Church as it spread across Europe, America and this Earth.  There isn’t a political system that is going to make things right.  There isn’t a scientific breakthrough that is going to make things right.  There isn’t a smart person in a university that is going to make things right.  Pretending that Islam or Feminists or Humanists or Marxists or LGBTQWERTY have viable answers to anything is a joke.  Changing your sex?  Really?  The Koran the Book of Mormon?  Really?  Marx cared about the little people?  Really?  And anus us preferable to a fruitful beautiful woman?  Really?  Women are the same as men?  Really?  It’s ok you can laugh.  God does.  He is laughing at us right now.  You really think we can rebel against God?  God, you know the one who holds you together with a word?  And don’t think the rapture is going to bail you out either. Paul is very clear, God cut off Israel and grafted in the Gentiles, but if you don’t honor him he can just as soon cut you off too.  We need to stop cowering to the world.  We have the wisdom of the Scriptures, the foundation for Law and Order, Peace and Prosperity, Fruitfulness and Blessing.  This is the light the whole world needs.  Why do we hide it?  Why don’t we even know it ourselves?  We are fools and cowards.  May God have mercy on us.  But also get off your butt, turn off the Netflix and make things right in your house, your town, your country.

We aren’t even faced with the dark task of the early church.  They faced a dark world, and didn’t realize the full extent of how Christ had changed things.  We have seen it done.  We have seen the church go out into the world and remake it.   We should know it’s power.  We don’t have to invent a lot of things from scratch, we just have to go back to how it was, to how it has been done.   And yet we cower, afraid to admit that everything which everyone enjoys about this world was the result of Christians working out their faith in every area of life.  The rule of Law, ending Racism, ending slavery,  ending tribalism, political solution without bloodshed, talking isntead of fighting, unity and diversity, science instead of blind worship of idols, medicine instead of witchcraft, learning from the mistakes of the past instead of endless cycles of evil.  This is all from the Church.  This is the world made by Christ.  He defated the final enemy death.  And when we act otherwise we are part of the problem.  These things will not continue to exist for long without the Church.  We are running out of borrowed capital instead of pushing on to new frontiers and spreading the light to the last dark corners of this earth.   For example, we don’t worship our Consitution, we should even hope and build something better.  The past is not the ultimate, but it should be a tradition of Gospel light that we hold on to and go beyond.  We can do all things, move mountains, lions and lambs laying down together.  The desert will bloom.  It has happened it can happen more gloriously still.  Get to it.

Appearance of Jesus to Mary Magdalene after resurrection, Alexander Ivanov, 1835

Jesus the Christ →  “Noli me tangere” trans. “Touch me not.” → Medieval Chivalry → Unprecedented Freedom for Women → Beautiful Paintings of Women

Muhammed the Hack → 11 wives the youngest of which was 9.  Or 9 wives and the youngest was 11. (So many lies and cover ups.) → Women Enslaved and Abused to this day.→ Female Genital Mutilation to this day. → Backward Middle East

Joseph Smith the Hack→ 49 wives the youngest of which was 14 (that we know of) → Mormon War → Rampant Polygamy Cults in America → Complacent Nice People with Funny Underwear (Even Tribal Cults in America can’t resist the truth of Christianity)

Catholic Leader → Pretends to be Celibate → Renaissance Popes all had Whores and Bastard Children → Central and South America Embroiled in Poverty → Church became a haven for ‘Homosexuals’ in the closet → Abuse of Children to this day. → World Marxism.

The Tête à Tête. William Hogarth. 1743.

I guess, like everything, this could just be seen as jaded complaining.  But really it’s observations from years of trying to find someone to marry. I mean I have been on the receiving end of enough speeches by jaded women, it would only be fair.  But alas this is not the case.  Each of these observations describes at least three or four people I have personally spoken to.  Recent forays into online dating are akin to having your face melted by opening the Ark of the Covenant.  Even since the last time I tried it a mere 3 or 4 years ago, things have gotten far worse in every way.  Though truth and good advice are appropriate for every human, this is directed to Christian women, or at least those who still claim to be.  And as it gets worse, soon they will not claim that title, which is good in some ways.  But the trend is bad.  We must distinguish ourselves from it.   

• Just because you found out your first boyfriend wasn’t perfect, doesn’t mean you are.  It may be that there are no men worth marrying, or it may be that you have impossible standards, which doesn’t make you all that attractive.  This is the most frustrating and common thing I have seen.  This is the best things in woman abused or corrupted.  I find it scary almost when a woman brazenly glosses over these pains and moves on easily without hesitation.  Silly girls.  But what to do about the jaded girl?  Step one would be don’t allow it to happen in the first place.  Cherish and protect virginity and the gentle spirit of a girl at all costs.  Give her the love she needs between father and daughter so that she doesn’t go looking for it elsewhere.  Unfortunately even this is corrupted in our culture, which loves finding camaraderie with others in sharing the horror stories of fathers who dared to not be nice.  Who dared to say the wrong thing, from time to time.  Who dared to not give me everything I wanted.  Who dared to feel defeat at the hands of their wives or communities.  Or whatever the list.  And every action of every male from the first compiles adding to the growing list.  But overall the main problem is often the high horse from which you dispense these judgements.  Are you perfect?  Did you never cause harm to any male?  You never got your brother in trouble?  You never lied, or used your feminine wiles to get your way?  You never enticed a man with your body?  I know it’s the spirit of the age that no one is allowed to suggest that women can sin.  But Scripture is clear, the woman sinned first, the woman was deceived, women sin.  But even the sin of bitterness can be forgiven.  I understand that your first boyfriend or your father or someone did something bad to you.  But why do you let that define you and prevent you from a happy marriage and family with a Godly man?  It is not good for man to be alone, and by depriving some man of his wife, in favor of your bitterness, you do a worse thing.  I’m sure even the best man will remind you of the problems you encounter.  All men have a lot in common, because they are not women.  But Christ calls us to lay down our rights, as he did.  We must take up our cross if we want to be exalted.  Sacrificing yourself is what it’s all about, regardless of the outcome.  God will look favorably upon you.

• Girl hides, boy pursues, girl draws in more, boy pursues more.  Boy is accused of being creepy. Boy doesn’t do this he is not bold enough, a wimp, or not a leader.  Chesterton said that he found “not that Christianity was so bad that it included any vices but that any stick was good enough to beat Christianity with”.  Not that males are perfect but the absurd accusations on both sides of any issue, do resemble a circular firing squad.  “. . .What again could this astonishing thing be like which people were so anxious to contradict, that in doing so they did not mind contradicting themselves?”  It is almost humorous to hear women lament that men are both not forward enough and that they are not respectful enough.  Introducing yourself in the Victorian manner through friends or flowers is creepy, “accost me on the street face to face” they wail.  Stop them on the street and they find it also creepy, “I don’t know you.” they shriek.  “Don’t tell me what to do”.  “Why aren’t you leading.”  And it is fitting that there is a parallel between the male and the Church.  This is the authority structure, created by God, which we all rail against.  From the first day Satan thought he could do things better and mocked God, to yesterday when you mocked your pastor, president, husband or boss.  And that last one creates a whole other category of frustration I  encountered often in the dating world.  Of course you watch the Office constantly because the only relationship you have is with your boss, and the national past time is complaining about work.  AAHHHHH!  I’ve had enough.  Good men should be able to endure abuse no matter how nonsensical from all sides by their women.  But when it prevents them getting their feet in the door, if there is no commitment, it is a hindrance.  Like all of this, things our forefathers had figured out and which we insist on reinventing, despited the fact that it isn’t working.  Having fathers and mothers assist their daughters in picking husbands was not a bad thing.  I find I am far more attractive to women who have been married.  They know what men are, and what they are supposed to be.  Their whims and dreams and Hollywood ideals are reigned in by reality.  This little thing you complain about now, might be the most useful thing in a healthy marriage. 

•  “I’m a dog-mom because I don’t have kids”, sounds a lot like “I’m just watching porn until I get married”. One is culturally—required almost, the other is just another proof that males are evil. But both satiate a desire in part which makes it more difficult to complete it in whole.  Why make myself available to those pawing men, when I can stay home with the friendly dog?  And not that this is the only such distraction.  She may also pour herself into her job with the same vigor and reward which a marriage might offer, except for the kids.  Unless she works with kids which is statistically very probable.  I understand that monthly reminder and that biological clock are good motivators.  But filling the voids the wrong way is ultimately unsatisfying.  Singles groups contribute to this a lot I believe.  They look good on Church FB but 10 years later, no fruit, no kids.  Pressure others and yourself to get married.  Marriage is good, children are a blessing.  Dog-moms and cat-ladies are sad.

• “As a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion.” –Proverbs 22:11  But I find that most of these creatures, fair to look upon, have not only soiled their persons with lack of discretion, but with actual gold in their actual snouts.  Cultural symbols may be appropriated as the ‘gays’ have stolen the rainbow.  But this is clearly not the case with such counter-cultural ornaments.  Have tattoos become a sign of the Christian?  Has a people ever increasingly pierced and inked become more Christian? Has a Christian herd going along with the world more and more become more Christian in any way?  I think an honest answer to all of these questions is “No!”. These accoutrements are a sign, as they have always been, of waywardness.  And that counter culture was not a just attack on a rightly defunct culture which deserved to be rebelled against. It was a rebellion against God, his son the Christ and all those who live out his work on this earth as the Body of Christ, the Temple of the Holy Spirit, the Christians.   Rings in the noses of animals were for the purpose of leading them more easily, and so these women are led by cultural trends they don’t understand, away from what is good, true and beautiful.  Piercings were once a sign of slavery or ownership and so they are today a sign of slavishly following whatever is in vogue, or Vogue, primarily driven by those who find the male anus more beautiful than a well crafted and fruitful woman.  All in all, criticism is getting old, I am tired of saying it.  But it seems that no one else will state the obvious and that arresting the spread of the social contagion is a necessary first step in continuing where we went so far astray, as the Congregation of God’s people. Please, stop mutilating your face and cover up your cleavage and your butt.   It is further humorous to constantly encounter pleas on behalf of the women that men put their shirts on.  Apparently what’s the hallmark of the goose is repulsive in the gander.  Or it’s just another cheap shot and lame excuse as to why you are at home on the internet and not married.

“Every woman is beautiful.”  And the other side of the above, is not caring at all how you look.  There is a lot of weirdness on this front.  It’s as if our bodies don’t matter they are just wrappers for our souls or brains or the real us.  But if your body doesn’t matter you should probably just shoot yourself and liberate your soul to be all that it can be.  There is also some idea that it’s not good to be liked for your body because you can’t control how you look or genetics or what have you.  But that applies to everything.  You think you earned your job or position? You think you did something to make God accept you?  What do you have that was not given to you?  As God might say, in fact I think he did.  There is a relationship here.  We are body, mind and soul.  We are both, given bodies we didn’t make and we are responsible for care-taking those bodies.  Our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.  As women desiring children and marriage, you should cultivate a body which is conducive to that life.  Men are generally attracted to characteristics that are actually related to having healthy children.  Being vastly overweight is becoming more common.  And while glorifying stick models as the norm is not healthy, justifying whatever you feel like being is not good either.  When was the last time you heard a sermon on gluttony?  But it’s a thing generally paired with drunkenness in the Bible.  Another social ill which seems to be cute up until that point where you kill someone with your car.  Alcohol and food are good things.  Jesus feasted with real joy.  His first miracle was turning water into wine.  But to make every day a feast is to make no day special.  Don’t make yourself attractive so you can show it off on Instagram but also don’t let your stomach rule.  Prepare your lamp for the wedding night, make yourself beautiful for your husband.

Either women really will sleep with anyone, or they think they need to say that they will, to get someone to be interested in them.  The most egregious version of this is the self-righteous girl who attacks men thinking they will score on the first night only to proclaim that the proper time frame is not 1-4 dates but 4-6 dates.  Only a whore gives it up on the 4th date.  A lady waits until the 5th. And so we have the arbitrary caprice of the tyrant.  Having thrown out God’s rules, you just make up your own and enforce them by the strength of your own will.  Or by the gifts of beauty you have been given by your creator.  It seems that such declarations are only made by women who have men falling at their feat.  When the drought of men is more deeply felt, due to lack of exercise or lack of genetic conferment, the standard must undoubtedly be lowered a few dates.  Ladies save yourself until marriage.  There is something almost magical going on here.  The genetic code we are all written with is a spoken language.  And when we have sex that language combines as a song in harmony.  The written language is combined.  Do you not know that having sex with a one night stand is to join the Holy Spirit to him?  This matters.

I would like to defend the so-called, the self-styled, the soi-disant, “gender pay-gap.”  I realize this is an impossible task, and not just because the gap does not exist.  I would defend it even if it did exist, for, like Santa Clause, I believe it did exist at one time.  In order to criticize the pay-gap, we must criticize millions of people who led better lives than we lead.  We foolish moderns criticizes them because, “slavery”.  Like most of our idiotic thinking, we insert one sarcastic, arrogant word, for millions of well thought out arguments.  But the fact is they, our Christian ancestors, created a culture in which marriage was sacred, divorce was hard, virginity was prized and men where encouraged to fight for their families in war and in work.  The pay-gap encouraged all of these things.  Women more dependent on men are more likely to say with a man in marriage, than to float around on their own.  When marriage is seen as the only good way for men and women to live together virginity is more prized, you put on your best self when the alternative is poor spinsterhood.  When men have a women, their woman, standing by them, amazing things happen.  They create whole new civilizations and wipe out tremendous evils.  It took a long time to erect this edifice and we are all the beneficiaries of their work.  But the feminists had a different agenda, so they attacked this edifice.  And after a few generations of feminists making the pay-gap argument, where are we?  Are we better off?  I don’t think so.  The pay gap did not favor men unfairly it favored families over the individual.  This was attacked, in order to foster all the “-isms”, the individual must be supreme, institutions like the family must be broken down. 

Who wouldn’t rather complain about their boss than sacrifice to raise impressive kids?

Today the family is in shambles.  Laws are written to undermine the family in favor of the individual and radical egalitarianism.  The worst part is Christians going along with all this.  Do you really think that undermining the family in favor of some sort of radical equality is what Scripture is about?  Do you really think that “he made them male and female” means “we are all the same in every way” .  Well the sad result is this video. Men are playing video games and committing suicide.  Is this ok because women are now ‘equal’ and ‘advancing’?  Is it ok that families no longer stick together? It seems like most people don’t care, most Christians don’t care, and even most Churches don’t care.  Caring will get funny looks from everyone who matters in this world.  Caring will get you kicked out of the clique.  So it’s easier to sit back and go with the flow, even though we are about to go over the fourth waterfall to yet  worse fate.

The sad reality is that no one is home raising the children.  The women are all of pretending their careers are their children, and we all suffer from the tyranny they build.  G. K. Chesterton expounds on this idea in his wonderful book What’s Wrong With the World:

“But though the essential of the woman’s task is universality, this does not, of course, prevent her from having one or two severe though largely wholesome prejudices.  She has, on the whole, been more conscious than man that she is only one half of humanity; but she has expressed it (if one may say so of a lady) by getting her teeth into the two or three things which she thinks she stands for. I would observe here in parenthesis that much of the recent official trouble about women has arisen from the fact that they transfer to things of doubt and reason that sacred stubbornness only proper to the primary things which a woman was set to guard. One’s own children, one’s own altar, ought to be a matter of principle– or if you like, a matter of prejudice.  On the other hand, who wrote Junius’s Letters ought not to be a principle or a prejudice, it ought to be a matter of free and almost indifferent inquiry. But take an energetic modern girl secretary to a league to show that George III wrote Junius, and in three months she will believe it, too, out of mere loyalty to her employers. Modern women defend their office with all the fierceness of domesticity. They fight for desk and typewriter as for hearth and home, and develop a sort of wolfish wifehood on behalf of the invisible head of the firm. That is why they do office work so well; and that is why they ought not to do it.”

Can we honestly say that the world needs more professional women enforcing arbitrary rules and regulations as if we were all their children?  Do we have an excess of stellar young people?  Women must put their effort in one or the other.   The problem of the Millennial is almost universally attested, no one disagrees that the stereotypes are true.  Young people have no respect for anything, often including themselves, and certainly for their elders and their progeny.  Children have become an Instagram accessory, and the proof is in the pudding.  You can’t talk to these people, rely on these people or teach these people anything.  They are a heard cowering at the smallest obstacle.  And this is the fruit of the feminist movement.  These people would lose World War II if it were fought today, even if we could take our technology back and fight the Axis powers of 1940.  That is if we would even fight.  I doubt we would have the guts.  As is proven by our inability even to endure current drone wars.

Now the mess we find ourselves in is deeper by the minute.  It will take generations to rebuild.  But we must start the work immediately.  We must begin to see the roles of men and women as our Christian ancestors did.  They worked their fingers to the bone attempting to make a better world for their children, by following the Biblical commands as best they could.  Their success has become our greatest liability, because we have chosen to coast on their efforts.  Or worse destroy them because we are ignorant of the past and only care about making friends with this evil world.

Paying heads of household more money, encourages men to step up and take positions in the work force and it encourages women to stay home. It is a good idea.  It has been tried and tested, it works.  Our current experiment with radical egalitarianism has failed.  Why keep going down this road?  Do you really want to see a next generation so lame that even millennials make fun of it?  Or more likely, an entire country taken over without a fight by China?

Oh you will object that making women subject to men will encourage women to be abused.  But women are already abused, far more so than the vibrant Christian culture of the past.  Every women is passed around in the dating world like a common prostitute, accumulating baggage at every stop until she finally dumps it all on the last guy and her 1.2 designer millennials.  Women hit 40 and realize they missed out on the most important things by not having kids.  Twenty to thirty percent of these women are on anti-depressants, many trying to run away from the horrors of their abortions.  Abortions performed to facilitate this career-over-family insanity.

I have made many cultural arguments, because this is more of a cultural issue.  Most of humanity has had no problem figuring this out.  The realities of premodern life revealed the reality that women are the weaker sex far more blatantly than our mechanized world is willing to admit.  Even in the 50’s before power steering women were far more limited in where they could go and what they could do.  They simply couldn’t operate a car in many normal circumstances, to say nothing of the many problems that could arise.  There were breakdowns, wrecks, nefarious characters, inclement weather and wild animals.  And these are just the travails of travel, one aspect of life.

Paul speaks of women as the “weaker vessel” to Peter(I Peter 3:7), and does not have to explain himself.  Everyone knew what he means.  Let’s talk about the amazing fact that he tells men not to take advantage of their situation and neglect their wives.  He even says God will not listen to their prayers if they don’t consider their wives properly.  This is the Christian ideal and it has been lived out more and more faithfully, culminating in the early days of this country.  But the feminists deride this type of honor as they separate women from their children, with scalpals and the lure of the office.

I just can’t imagine Jesus showing up in 1968 and telling the Church that the main problem is that there aren’t more women in the work force.  You can tell because when he created them male and female he made women to love babies, to nurture babies, and to want to stay home with their babies.  It’s built in.  And every example to the contrary is gut wrenching evil.  Despite generations of lies being fed to us these facts are still born out even in our culture.  When given the choice, women go into fields dealing with people and children, like nursing, teaching and the social ‘sciences’.  Men go into the fields dealing with things, engineering, construction and the hard sciences.  Jesus isn’t going to encourage anyone to send their children to a mass education plant run by the government, so that their mothers can go to work.  Which is why he gave us these natural impulses and his Word.  Which is very clear, don’t fraternize with the evil world, stay separate, raise your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord(Eph. 6:4), teach them as you walk, sit, stand, work, eat, and every other time to follow the commands of God(Deut. 11:19).  If you don’t—Millennials.

Paying women less does not mean that women are worth less as humans, because working and making money are not the most important things in life.  If only we didn’t worship our work, and money, if instead we valued vibrant family and Church life, this wouldn’t be an issue.  But we have followed the followers of Marx too far, in making the worker-employee relationship the highest that there is.  Instead of realizing that there is evil in the world because of sin, and that the solution is the Gospel of Jesus the Christ. We try to fix the world by  fixing the problems of the workingman.  And so we have a whole country of Neo Christian Marxists complaining about their jobs on social media, instead of pushing back the Darkness and spreading the Light to the entire word.  Rats crawling over each other to get the next career, instead of servants pouring themselves out to tell the whole world the Good News:  Jesus conquered Sin and Death, to make peace with all men.  Your career isn’t going to make you happy, and you wife’s career isn’t going to make you, her or the next generation happy.  It does make Planned Parenthood happy, however.  Your career isn’t the purpose of your life, your life is to serve God.  And sex isn’t the purpose of marriage, it’s to be fruitful and produce Godly offspring.  And we need to start building a culture which does this, right away.  There are more than enough professional psychologists fighting for  their desks, as they peddle more products to our children which rot their brains and their teeth.  We have plenty of female statisticians enslaving us with more rules and regulations in the name of safety.  How about becoming a mom and saving the world?

A wise woman builds her home,
but a foolish woman tears it down with her own hands.
–Proverbs 14:1

So this was concering this nut job Arthur J. Jones, who was running for congress in Illinois’s 3rd District.  He became the Republican candidate unopposed, because normal people wouldn’t bother running.  It’s a Big City district, in the most corrupt state in the Union, run by Democrats, Republicans don’t stand a chance.  Of course he lost getting only 28.8% of the vote.  But I think the unclear, muddle of accusations about ‘Nazi’ and ‘Nationalist’ are important points.

It’s so hard to source these things. This seems to be a collaborative effort by at least three people. So we’ll just chalk it up to the internet.

I am wondering how the thinking goes here.  Though it is probably impossible to get anyone to think about this, I am going to try.  I know it is much easier to just label things you don’t like and run away or attack them.  And if you get enough people with minds similarly closed, you can live a quiet, successful life in your bubble.  But I’m going for it anyway. If you are already upset, just call me a racist and move on.

First of all, I was unable to find any links to this guy’s website.  It seems people would rather characterize, most likely mischaracterize, him than to mock his ideas for what they actually are, insane.  He says he’s not a Nazi why call him a Nazi? It obviously sounds bad.  I’m not sure why it sounds worse to the average American than ‘Communist’, given that they killed far more innocent people. The Russians killed two times more people and the Chinese three times more people than Hitler.  He says he’s not a member of the National Socialist Party.  Who even knew that was a thing?  On the other hand the Communist party in the US is alive and kicking and it’s not so little sister Socialism is thriving.  Socialist Bernie sanders is a hero.  Obama had a number of Communist and Communist sympathizers in his administration.  So it’s not about deaths resulting from poisonous ideologies.  It’s just name calling.

To me the most ridiculous part of what this guy says is his denying the Holocaust.  I’m not sure what the point is when he is clearly blaming the Jews for everything, the same ideas that would logically lead to a Holocaust.  Is the basis of the Jew’s power today the narrative of the Holocaust?  Then why did they enjoy similar power, even in Germany before it?  It’s really a dumb idea.  But since this is so bad why do the liberals sidle up to Holocaust deniers?  Ahmadinejad, a blatant denier, was invited to speak at  Columbia University the Liberal Mecca.  We pretend he is a legitimate member of the UN and allow him and his holocaust agnostic predecessor Rouhani to ramble on for hours there.  Then Obama gives Iran pallets of cash and nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad’s position is basically, “there was no holocaust but we want it to happen again”.  Can you get more anti-Semitic?  And that is basically the position of Islam.  It’s fundamentally in the religion laid down by Muhammed.  Muslim nations fought side-by-side with the actual Nazis and they do all they can to kill Jews to this day.  Their fundamental beef with the United States is our support of Israel.  And which political party is it which attacks U.S. support of Israel whenever they can?  Which political party has no problem appointing Muslims to political office in the U.S.?  They not only don’t complain, they cheer as if the diversity gods have showered blessings upon them.  But I do wonder what is there in Islam of any value that is not already in Christianity?  There is nothing good, but there is a lot of evil baggage.  Why all the fawning over anti-semites?  Clearly this is also not the issue with Jones.

So what about white supremacy?  I wonder even about the self contradictory nature of this claim.  A supremacist seems to be a person who says that people with white skin are better, unless they are a Jew.  So we have qualified it to more than being white.  And he seems fine with “Black Christian Patriots, Latino Christian Patriots”. So, it’s not really about skin color.  Everyone knows that, that is ridiculous.  It seems to me that this too is all about name calling.  It’s far easier to call someone a white supremacist than a pro Western Civilizationer.  This notion of basing any belief on skin color is really hard to prove.  As far as I have ever seen, even the craziest supremacist is usually talking about cultural issues and not color.  And the whole notion of seeing things in terms of race is very new.  The term, ‘racist’ only dates back to 1936.  It’s just an ignorant way to make character distinctions.  Before that time groups of people were thought of in terms of tongues or tribes or nations. And of course there was always plenty of hate to go around. I suppose it’s not much of a distinction but hating someone because they are a Hatfield or a Capulet makes more sense than hating them because they are black.   The one religion to cut across these distinctions was Christianity, in stark contrast again to Muhammed and his tribal supremacy religion.  The idea of determining worth based on simple genetic traits comes from Darwin.  The same Darwin praised in front of every school child to this day.  In fact Darwin denying is about the only thing worse than Holocaust denying to today’s Liberal.  And Darwin was what motivated Hitler.  If humans just evolved and it was all about survival of the fittest, then that’s the meaning of life, and we should help nature in this selection process.  In some sense the Germans are the fittest, their GDP is higher than any other European country.  In some sense whites in America are supreme, based on economic or criminal standards. But who cares?  This is only a problem for people who think economic worth or statistical metrics are all that matter on this earth, the materialists.  Again Christians are the only ones with a different answer, a metaphysical answer.  Humans have value because we were created in the image of God.  Today Liberal programs like affirmative action and quotas, are clearly racially motivated.  Rectifying problems based on skin color is just as wrong as blaming people for skin color.  Isn’t subsidizing people because they are black, just another way of saying white people are better?  So again, color is not the issue with this guy.

And finally this guy dared to be against Homosexuality.  Which is actually about the most common view in all of mankind.  Even most of today’s politicians were against it, until a few days ago.  I also can’t help but be reminded of Ahmadinejad being questioned about homosexuality at Columbia.  He said there were no homosexuals in Iran and then asked a student who brought it up, if they knew of any.  Presumably, so he could execute them.  Yet somehow, Liberals find Muslims warm and cuddly.  The fact that Homosexuality was a fundamental part of the actual Nazi party is generally overlooked.  But it’s true.  And the fact that homosexuals were sent to death camps doesn’t make me a liar it just means the house of evil is not divided as you might think.  Does it make any sense that the Jewish George Soros funds Hammas?  Not on the surface but if you look closer, the Hungarian Jew actually participated with the Nazis in confiscation of Jewish property.  His concern for nationality is clearly subservient to his concern for money.  This guy basically funds the Democrat Party.  So it’s no stretch to suggest that homosexuals were rounding up other homosexuals, that type of dominance is exactly what homosexuals do.

So I am wondering what it is that Liberals object to here?  Perhaps some combination of traits thy find acceptable in Soros, Obama’s White House, your average Muslim, Russian Communist, Chinese Communists, Cuba, or Darwinian Atheists,  become evil when mixed together in a certain ratio?  No doubt their real charge against him is that he is not a multiculturalist.  Which is really just the pagan anti-Thological response to the Holocaust.  A response I find quite lame.  They no doubt also object to him being upset at the decline of Christianity and his dislike of the two party system.  They also might object to his criticizing politicians for being lying, cheating, war mongers, who are decadent.  Things which characterize most Democrats.  But I think as always, the line is drawn at Orthodox Christianity.  They hate Jesus and anything associated with him.

Things which are an abomination to God and how many times the concept is repeated in scripture.

Strongs #8441. תּוֹעֵבָה towʿebah, to-ay-baw´; or תֹּעֵבָה tonebah, to-ay-baw´; feminine active participle of 8581; properly, something disgusting (morally), i.e. (as noun) an abhorrence; especially idolatry or (concretely) an idol:—abominable (custom, thing), abomination.

Homosexuality:
Lev. 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination. Repeated 2 Times

Sexual sins: Anyone can be guilty, does not just apply to God’ chosen people:
Lev. 18:26 But you shall keep my statutes and my rules and do none of these abominations, either the native or the stranger who sojourns among you 27 (for the people of the land, who were before you, did all of these abominations, so that the land became unclean), X21

Not offering your best:
Deut. 17:1   “You shall not sacrifice to the LORD your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever, for that is an abomination to the LORD your God.

Cross Dressing/Not Acting your Sex:
Deut. 22:5   “A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.

Giving money to God that was earned in an evil manner:
Deut. 23:18 You shall not bring the fee of a prostitute or the wages of a dog into the house of the LORD your God in payment for any vow, for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God. X2

Sending your wife to re-marry, get another’s money, and come back to you:
Deut. 24:4 then her former husband, who sent her away, may not take her again to be his wife, after she has been defiled, for that is an abomination before the LORD.

Dishonest business practices:
Deut. 25:13  “You shall not have in your bag two kinds of weights, a large and a small. 14 You shall not have in your house two kinds of measures, a large and a small. 15 A full and fair weight you shall have, a full and fair measure you shall have, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you. 16 For all who do such things, all who act dishonestly, are an abomination to the LORD your God. X4

Being skilled at evil:
Prov. 3:32
for the devious person is an abomination to the LORD,
but the upright are in his confidence.

Top seven:
Prov. 6:16
There are six things that the LORD hates,
seven that are an abomination to him: X2
17  haughty eyes, a lying tongue, X3
and hands that shed innocent blood,
18  a heart that devises wicked plans, X4
feet that make haste to run to evil,
19  a false witness who breathes out lies,
and one who sows discord among brothers.

Sacrifice by the ungodly:
Prov. 15:8
The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD:
but the prayer of the upright is his delight.(Genesis 4) X3

Those in authority abusing their power:
Prov. 16:12
It is an abomination to kings to commit wickedness:
for the throne is established by righteousness. X2

Praying to God without obeying him:
Prov. 28:9
He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law,
even his prayer shall be abomination.

______________________________________________

Israel Accused of Abmination 53 Times

Jer. 2:7 And I brought you into a plentiful country, to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof; but when ye entered, ye defiled my land, and made mine heritage an abomination.

______________________________________________

Jesus:
Luke 16:14   The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. ¹⁵ And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

Revelation, equated with sexual immorality:
Rev. 17:4
The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and jewels and pearls, holding in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality. ⁵ And on her forehead was written a name of mystery: Babylon the great, mother of prostitutes and of earth’s abominations.”

Abominations will not enter Heaven:
Rev. 21:27
But nothing unclean will ever enter i[Heaven]t, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

So let’s say it’s the Wild West and anyone can have whatever weapons they want. It’s like Iran, only perhaps less so because Iran was subsidized by Obama, and the Wild West is more free than Iran. Anyway, that’s what we are supposing here, total free market.But, people are still constrained by monetary limitations. The average middle class family won’t be able to own Nuclear Weapons. But Jeff Bezos could own Nuclear Weapons. Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Sergey Brin could own Nuclear Weapons. And that makes you think; is your ability to monetize a few software tricks really the best way to determine who should have the most weapons? The most power? “That might be dangerous.” “They might hurt people.” But how is this any different from giving them the keys to all information?

Moderns and postmoderns are very good at getting all the minutia of the details correct, but they are not as good at getting the story right.  The Who, What, When and Where are exquisitely laid out and footnoted to perfection but the Why leaves something to be desired.  The element of story is inevitable.  But by chasing those details as they do, the modern often create a story that is the wrong story.  A book review is the story of the story.  It is a suggestion of how a book might interact with you or the general you.  What is Metaxas doing?  What is he trying to do to you?

I am irrevocably in love with C. S. Lewis.  I know his flaws and I know his loves and I want to be his friend and to get into arguments with him.  His final work An Experiment in Criticism, is forever with me.  He teaches us to resist the modern literary temptation to find only ourselves in any given text.  This is not only a fad in our day, it is the established doctrine, of Modern Literary Criticism.  When the Creator God is removed from the equation, all sense of a moral landmark is removed.  Meaning becomes whatever you want it to be.  The Moderns said truth was what made society work best.  The Postmodern says truth is whatever makes you work best.  But Lewis thought this silly.  It really is the definition of narcissism.  And like Narcissus gazing into the mirror and falling in love with himself.  We do the same thing when we gaze into a piece of art, particularly in Lewis’ work, when we gaze into a book.  It is the most natural thing in the world to use a book to reinforce ideas that we like.  To titillate certain grammatical fetishes.  To attack the people we want to attack.  But the highest goal should be to make ourselves better, to get outside of ourselves and to see our situation from another perspective that we might change.

The same thing is true of people.  We can fail to appreciate some of the amazing gifts in another person which could teach us valuable lessons, by simply using another person or imposing ourselves onto them.  And this applies to the writing of biography.  And I believe this is what Metaxas does too much.  I was a little surprised.  I have heard Metaxas speak well of C. S. Lewis.  There is nothing Lewis loved more than the Medieval world.  It was a time before rigid modernism took over.  It was the age of rich stories and metaphors before the machine. Merlin spoke poetry to get what he wanted from the created order, our engineers use science.  But it was not simply that these were the hallmarks of this time but that all times were like this and this was the last one before Modernism put them away.  Luther changed a lot of that, by accident.  And Metaxas takes much of that for granted.  He occasionally mentions it.  That we must put on our thinking caps and try to imagine a time where . . ., to think of a time without. . .  But I don’t think he does a very good job.  Rather than bring us into the Medieval world of Luther he champions the things we like and tries to pull them out of Luther.  No mention is made of the trade offs and the things which might have been lost by the changes.  And just as often as not he mocks Luther’s time, and all it’s predecessors.  Because I don’t think he cares for it at all, much less loves it. He wants to fly the chopper into those dark dirty times and pull out Luther and then fly out with his prize.

In telling the story of this book, I think of the Author and his previous work on Bonhoeffer.  And it really makes sense.  American Christians define themselves today based on disliking the Catholic Church and disliking the Nazis.  So these are the perfect heroes.  Luther who broke the hold of the Catholic Church and Bonhoeffer who resisted Hitler.  I mused to myself that his next biography should be on William Wilberforce.  Because the trifecta would be to champion the man who attacked slavery.  And just searching Amazon I laughed out loud at finding he already had.  It is always nice to have one’s theory confirmed.  But this is the point, this is the problem.  Reinforcing what you already believe is narcissism, and Metaxas does it too much.

Obviously a successful way to sell books today is to tickle the publics fancy.  And the more complex the scaffold upon which you display this fancy the better.  We are sophisticated moderns, we must have our reasons and our facts and our data—if one is to tantalize us.  It is a sort of scientific fairy story.  It is a device used to smuggle in ideas, but unfortunately the only ideas that get smuggled in our the ones you already have.   We go to fairy land and find that we are fine, we have no flaws.  Hello darkness my old friend,  keep me from the light it makes my eyes hurt.   So Luther who loved the Catholic church so much that he was forced to try and reform her, is made to be the founder of the American pluralistic republic.  Oh sure there are a few steps in there, but basically that’s what he did.  And never mind that part about him not passing our ridiculous modern metal detector of racism.  That’s the one part where Metaxas works his best magic to try and understand his times.  And mostly he just sweep it under the rug, because, yay ‘merica!  And in this Metaxas even gets one glaring fact wrong.  As if to gloss over other developments in political though Metaxas all but give Luther credit for the founding of the United States as a country without religion.  He even states that this nation was founded on the idea that no state or the country as a whole could establish a religion.  Which is precisely not the case.  “When the Constitution was adopted, 9 of the 13 colonies had established religions at the state level. The longest surviving of these was the Congregational Church in Connecticut, which was supported by that state down into the 1830’s.”  https://dougwils.com/books/kicking-one-of-the-sacred-geese.html

But Luther was not a racist.  He simply said what scripture says, in a language we are too cowardly to understand.  If Luther spoke in our churches today, we would revive the dead doctrine of church discipline and run him out of town.  He would be on CNN as worse than Trump.  The fact is the Jews were a stiff necked people the Bible says so explicitly.  And it displays that fact throughout every book.  But the point was that this be an example to us.  We are just as bad, if not for Grace we would be worse than the Jews.  That’s the point.  Hitler used the words of Martin Luther, not because Luther was a closet anti-semite, but because Hitler was a liar.  It was the same motivation for any scripture he quoted.    If you think the fact that the Jews killed Jesus and reject him to this day is a reason to kill them, you are insane.  But to heed Luther’s warning at their false doctrine, is not bad advice even for today.

And of course when the topic of the Muhammedans comes up Metaxas has to fawn over them and be aghast at the notion that Luther would dare criticize them. This like most in any academic fields these days, in stark opposition to all of our forefathers.  Perhaps his next biography could be on the Armenian, genocide by the Turks.  No probably not, and even if it were not suppressed like a recent movie on the subject, it wouldn’t sell very well.  And you wouldn’t want to offend the Muhammedans, they might blow you up.  And rather than thinking that perhaps a people who blow you up for telling the truth may not actually be all that virtuous today, to say nothing of their past barbarities, it’s a lot easier to just tow the party line and shame Luther for daring the speak out against them.

It is these and many more cultural markers of our day, which lead me to believe that this is less a story about Luther and more a story about us.  I could probably never write a book this long nor do all the research necessary to write it.  It is an achievement.  But I really think we might be better off reading biographies of the time by Catholic Hilarie Belloc.  It is good for us to hear the other side of the story.  His How the Reformation Happened, is very good.  He does not strictly toot the Catholic horn,  he calls things for what they are.  And in reading such a book, which is not only shorter, but more deep as to the small why of this event and the bigger Why of all events, you will grow.

The story of Luther is not totally buried in this biography by Metaxas.  He was a meticulous German lover of scripture, in all it’s fine details.  He took things very literally and seriously.  He wanted the church to repent and be all that she could be.  He had flaws and things he advocated for got out of hand, caused problems and failed in a lot of ways in Germany.  But the ‘why’ and  the story Metaxas tells are all wrong.  It feeds our worst problems and fails to help us appreciate Luther  and his life in his time for what it was.  It just puffs us up in our time.  And what at time it is where a people demands such works.  If you want more details about Luther read the book but skip the Epilogue.  And first get some appreciation of the Medieval world by reading C. S. Lewis’ The Discarded Image.

I suppose nothing should surprise me anymore but things continually do.  I guess my default is a position of theoretical hope for humanity which is continually attacked by reality.  It was suggested that feminism wasn’t about not needing men, instead ‘feminist’ simply means someone who thinks that men and women were both created equal. So I put down some thoughts putting it in it’s proper place with all the other sinister ‘isms’ of history.

The idea that men and women are equally humans created by God, is not feminism.  That is Christianity.  It goes back to the beginning, which is why women were always attracted to the Church.  It’s why  Romance, Courtly Love and Chivalric Codes happened.  C. S. Lewis traces this in his Allegory of Love.  There is no reason for a Christian to identify as a feminist.  The word to separate ourselves from the pagan abuse of women or the Muhammedan abuses of women, is ‘Christian’(strangely most feminists love Islam, because their real goal is bashing Christ).  Adding ‘feminism’ to the mix just associates you with all of this evil:

What a mess.

Christianity has always had an idea of hierarchy.  There are three realms of government with their respective leaders.  Family government, Church government and Civil Government.  Fathers are head of the home, Elders following the Apostles are the head of the Church and Civil Governments have various arrangements.  None of the people under any of these leaders were considered less than human, until that became the false mantra under feminism.  Our problem is that we don’t understand roles or authority.  We think authority means tyrannical power, we don’t realize it also means responsibility. Oh sure there were fads in history.  But most of the things you don’t like about how women were treated in history, were from the Enlightenment or from Darwin.  Jesus clearly subjects himself to the authority of his Heavenly Father.  Yet orthodoxy has always taught that Jesus is not less in substance than the father.  Hierarchy is clearly a good thing.  Feminism hates this good.

First Wave Feminism attacked the Family Government.  Originally in our Republic families voted, as the primary unit of society.  The head of the family was the Father, he cast the vote.  This didn’t work for feminists, they wanted to vote without fathers or husbands.  They didn’t need men, they wanted the fundamental unit to be the self (Most feminist literature and even church mantras are now, are obsessed with talking about ’self-love’).  The original ideas behind the voting of male landowners(heads of families) was because laws were about property.  The governments only role was to enforce property rights(government wasn’t involved in every area of your life as it is today).  If you stole something, the government held you accountable to pay it back, however many fold.  If you took someones life, their personal property, you were hanged.  Since votes for government positions were considered wielding the sword by the many, out of respect for women, they were not to participate.  Being a hangman is no business for a lady.  In addition a woman on a jury, sentencing a man to death, was not thought to be a burden that should be put on a woman.  That is respect for women.  First wave feminists, affected by wackos from the Enlightenment, which couldn’t be more deceptively named, hated the God given order and sought to undermine the family and overturn Western Christendom.  They thought they knew better.  I mean evil lunatics like Rousseau.  The language about equality in our constitution is about equality before the law.  Every person is entitled to their day in court and a fair trial regardless of wealth, position, sex whatever.  If someone wrongs you, you have a way to get justice.  That wasn’t good enough for Rousseau, he adapted radical egalitarianism.  Claiming we needed to make everyone equal in every way.  Marx picked up this idea.  And so the modern insanity began.  Most of the bad Presidents we have had were elected by women, including Bill Clinton, the biggest abuser of women of all time, “for the woman was deceived”  And the recent pushes to abolish the electoral college are just the same movement, turning it into mob rule, which is tyranny.  Which is why the government is now ruling, what is left of, countless ‘families’, by judges order, CPS, welfare programs and countless other disasters.  Women don’t like their husbands telling them what to do, so they leave and some judge they never heard of, tells them what to do.

Second wave feminists of the 60’s definitely blamed men for everything.  First the men had been forced from the home by the explosion of industry and the women thought it wasn’t fair.  They wanted to ditch the kids and go into the workplace themselves.  As if it was some sort of exclusionary utopia which men had been keeping from them.  Again this was an attack on the family and this time also the civil and the church governments.  Women can do all these things too, we are all equal, not just before the law but in everything, or else.  And also everyone can have sex with everyone and do all the drugs in the world.  It’s really a man loving expenditure all around.  Christianity held women in high honor, queen of the home with no blood on her hands in the civil arena.  Now women were laying in a field of mud raped and drugged, I think they call it Woodstock.  And since women now have a role in ruling society, and since women are women, they went about making society more feminine.  Women weren’t made to be hangmen so they got rid of the hangmen.  They didn’t like certain language so they banned it in public discourse, we know it as political correctness.  And they turned all their worries into laws about safety, giving us the nanny state tyranny.  All in all they didn’t need men to work, they could get careers themselves.  They didn’t need men to protect them they got the government to do it.  They didn’t need men to protect them from deception they got college professors to lead them into all deception.  And as the damage piles up, our children become more and more retarded, we just deny the problems. And they didn’t have to be limited in their promiscuity, because we have the pill.  And since they were all so happy in this brave new world, they celebrated by all being on anti-depressants, soma.  Again to tyranny.

Now we are into the third wave, which is something like: we don’t like the second wave and we want the same number of women as men in every position in the world and everything.  Like most revolutions the children devour the parents.  So free love is out, accusing and suing men for everything, is in.  A man asked a woman out who didn’t like him, “Abuse!” A man honked a car horn at a woman, “Rape!”.   Being a man is ‘toxic masculinity’ Masculinity is treated like a disease, boys are drugged until they are as passive as girls. They put on pink hats and march demanding that their neighbors, through the government, pay for their condoms and their abortions.  And women can never be wrong no matter what they do.  Even in the church, pointing out that a woman could possibly maybe be a slut is the worst sin ever.  I’m not talking about accusing a particular woman, just suggesting that a slut is a thing, will make you instant enemies of a majority.  Today the ideal Christian is a woman, everyone thinks so.  So in a sense, everyone you know is a feminist.  And in so far as it is true, they hate God’s created order, they hate their elders, they hate themselves and they hate men.  Just the same old slavery to sin.

I have no doubt that the majority of women and men, have no idea about all these cultural battles that have been fought. No one knows history and the history we have all been taught is from these evil wackos.   But the fact is that trying to associate with this mess is either trying to make peace with evil, ignorance or just the fantasy world that most postmoderns live in.  Where you just create whatever reality you want, because no one knows what it’s like to be you.  Everyone is their own god. “How dare you judge me!” I do what is right in my own eyes.

It’s not a strange idea at all, this was the first article I came upon in a two seconds search, it’s by Nancy Pearcy, a leading Christian thinker:

“ A Salon article advises, “The three most destructive words a father or mother can tell their young son? ‘Be a man.’”

In the Washington Post, Suzanna Walters, director of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Northeastern University, wrote an article titled, “Why Can’t We Hate Men?”

The professor wrote, “We have every right to hate you. You have done us wrong. #BecausePatriarchy.”

The same message is being preached to hundreds of thousands of college students every day in universities across the nation. The fact that Walters’s article was published in an established, national newspaper is a measure of how socially acceptable it has become to treat masculinity as inherently dangerous and defective.”