Free Republic

Bullies in government schools are a feature, not a bug. Like prison rapists, they serve Caesar’s purposes of suppressing unscheduled thought.

It’s a joke that popped up in the mid-1930’s, phrased as a “Chinese curse.” Full length version:

May you live in interesting times,
And come to the attention of important people.

~~~ The Gospel of Life vs. The “gospel” of death ~~~

As Jewish psychologist Rollo May pointed out, death is our age’s pornography, that which decent people refuse to talk about.
Therefore a ‘gospel’ morbidly obsessed with one’s own death comes across as creepy, manipulative, coarse, vulgar, and something not to be taken seriously. It’s a MUSLIM kind of piety. Goodies on hold, reserved for me after I die, if I meet the criteria.

Speaking of censorship, let me mention the two things you’ll never find in the traditional tracts at the back of the church:

* The Kingdom of God, and
* The King.

The “Jesus” of the tracts is a salvation appliance. Insert coin A, utter incantation B, pull handle C, and VOILA! Out pops ONE (1) item of Personal Eternal Fire Insurance! (This may have something to do with dispensationalism, and its ‘gospel’ that goes nowhere and does nothing in this age.)

MY Gospel, and the Bible’s, celebrates LIFE breaking into a dying world, a river of LIFE flowing from the throne of God that heals all that it touches, a Lord of LIFE Who rose from the dead and LIVES with us today, making us more ALIVE that we’d ever dreamed. ALIVE with joy, hope, purpose, and mission. We have so many opportunities in THIS life to experience, work with, and rejoice in our God. More than can be crammed into just this life, but more than enough to fill every second of every day with transcendent meaning.

Eph. 2:10 energizes my “day job” as a teacher. Every student has a sense of purpose, of mission, of vocation, of having been “designed” to DO something. Christian, Hindu, Muslim. Gay or straight. It’s hard-wired into us. And matters more to us than life itself. At Gallipoli, and Dien Bien Phu, soldiers were motivated to incredible heroism by a blunt command to “go and die,” knowing that their deaths would bring victory a little bit closer.

We have a message that will grab the attention of those around us — God is at work. In Jesus Christ, He has broken into this fallen world, and launched the process of setting it aright. Life is NOT a closed system, a Skinnger Box, a zero-sum game, winding down to nothing.

YOU, too, can have a piece of that action. YOU, too, can be in on what God is up to. As He is creative, and Creator, the ultimate Maker, so too will serving Him inspire you to make, to do, and to create. And the world will be better because you heard, and heeded, the call to get with His program.

Do you see the difference here? One “gospel” worries about death, and seeks to use Jesus to escape it. The Bible’s gospel focuses on LIFE, and the duty we have to let our God use US for His glory, and the blessings of our children and neighbors.

Fools who shout “SHEPHERD!” too many times in vain make common cause with wolves who harm the sheep.

And I’m old enough to remember when Boeing’s primary focus was on making safe and innovative AIRPLANES, rather than quarterly bonuses.

If this is true, colonizing Mars just got easier.

Fortunately, it’s not a REAL space mission, where blunders have consequences, but a make-believe sandbox “mission” in an earth-bound simulated environment.

Finished my first reading of El Apocalypsis, the Spanish translation, last night. That’s my dessert for my first completed reading of the NT in this new (to me) language.

I’ve probably read this “index” to the rest of the Bible 20 times in Greek. The original language has a pounding rhythm to it that loses something in translation.

I had a lot of fun blogging my way through the Turkish translation, since that nation is on my heart, and the 7 churches were all in that part of the globe.

Bottom line: Get the time frame right, and the whole New Testament pops into vivid focus and makes sense. Get the time frame wrong, and you might well spiral into immediate irrelevance, and a much lower quality of life.

The state-of-the-art best eschatology, postmillennialism, usually includes some form of preterism. Most of the prophecies in the Olivet Discourse, and John’s more detailed retelling of that discourse in prophetic (visual, right-brain) imagery, refers to the Jewish War, which lasted 7 years, started on schedule 40 years after Jesus pronounced God’s pending judgment upon “this generation,” and kicked the feet out from under the Kingdom of God’s two chief enemies — Rome, and apostate Israel.

Get the time frame right, and you can even explain Apocalypse to Turkish Muslims in a way that makes sense.

https://al-ve-oku.blogspot.com/2008/12/revelations-should-reveal.html

The faithful Christian’s repsonse to prognosticators, fortune-tellers, and doomsayers:

O LORD, grant that the day may come SOON when all those who are committed to the failure of the Gospel and the global triumph of evil are treated with the same contempt they show for the current reign of Your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Bottom line: in 1806, Prussia’s elite and most professional army in Europe encountered Napoleon’s conscripts — and came out second-best. Chagrined, the leaders of Prussia decided to re-invent the Prussian.

94% of the children, sometimes weeping and at bayonet point, were herded into government schools. There, they learned what they needed to know in order to become docile cannon fodder and factory hands:

* Nothing is worth thinking about for more than 50 minutes.
* Nothing is worth thinking about unless you are told to do so by an agent of the State
* Your body, time, attention, and soul are not your own, but are the property of the State. (1)

4.5% of the kids, the “talented and gifted” students, were selected and trained to serve as higher-functioning servitors of the State — doctors, lawyers, professors, pastors. See Herman Hesse’s brutal novel “Beneath the Wheel” for a look into that world.

And 1.5% of the kids were trained to be leaders. Their education consisted of intense reading, writing, and personal mentoring. By a bizarre coincidence, these kids were almost always the children of the existing leaders.

It’s much more fun to be on the human side.

~~~
(1) The most BRUTAL principal I ever met had this “gift.” He could pause at the door of a classroom, and instantly note which students were not “on task.” Which students had their textbook open to the wrong page, for example. Let alone who’d escaped the classroom and roamed the universe thanks to a different book they had partially concealed by the desk top.

O LORD, grant that the day may come SOON when all those who are committed to the failure of the Gospel and the global triumph of evil are treated with the same contempt they show for your reigning Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Much smaller nuclear device -- still took out a city. And caused less long-term damage than three generations of Democrat party rule.

Faccem musicum!

Do they indeed confess that Jesus is Lord? Only by indulging in the Mormon practice of "Mental reservation." In their minds, they've redefined "Lord" to mean Personal Guru, rather than legitimate ruler of the nations.

The dispensational Jesus, in THIS dispensation, does not assert His authority over the vast universe AROUND us, but only over the half-vast "universe" inside us. Meanwhile, Satan is the REAL "god of this age."

Thanks, Grumpa, for confessing boldly that which dispensationalists deny -- that Jesus IS Lord.

I appreciate your willingness to lay out the facts, in order, in an orderly package. I tend to use metaphors, parables, and sound bites. Jesus also used vivid short stories to bypass the verbal traps that people (with a little help from Satan, of course!) talk themselves into.

Let me offer two aphorisms, an in-your-face challenge, and a short story for your reading pleasure!

------------

Aphorisms: No matter how much you overclock, turbocharge, or feague it, A navel view will never do when a worldview is overdue.

Winners and lovers shape the future. Wankers and losers try to predict it

------------

Challenge: Unlike my dear dispensational friend, I can confess, with the church of all ages, that Jesus is LORD! without crossing my fingers behind my back and muttering under my breath

• Well, not really.
• Not here.
• Not yet.

------------

Story:Imagine how saints will "celebrate" dispensationalism 500 years from now.

(h/t to Guy Fawkes Day)

~~~ Sinister boo-talk: a fable ~~~

Every nation needs its festivals. Especially small nations, three miles in diameter, slowly revolving against the heavens.

On April 1, the Feast of All Fools, Northway Laager opened the doors between the ark segments for the Parade of the Useless Idiots. Johaan and Ayse waited with their ten children for the noise of the approaching festivities. In the distance, the ancient Janissary marching tune Ceddin Dedan stirred the blood. The parade drew closer. A brief pause while the musicians caught their breath, then the Unitarian hymn of military aggression echoed down the long halls. Another pause, then there they were, at the antispinward airlock. A marching band. A float, pulled by six young people wearing dunce caps. A team of acrobats. Another float. Harmonica ensemble. Float. Male chorus. Float.

One by one, a rogue's gallery of scoundrels rolled past, receiving ritual jeers, and gifts for the community feast after the parade. No bread or wine -- these demolishers of civilization had no part in the Table.

The first float bore an effigy of Haggard Haggee, in his tradition-cemented pose: bent over, pants around his knees, oversized buttocks gleaming a fluorescent red, rotating back and forth as he mooned the crowds on either side. An idiot grin on his face counterpointed his inarticulate grumbles, wails, and dirges. "Daddy, why is that strange man showing off his bare behind?" young Emir asked. "Hush. I'll tell you after the parade," Johaan answered.

The next float showcased Tugboat Hal. Florid complexion, bristling mustache, four wedding rings on his left hand, this effigy received old books from a rack on his left, stamped new titles on them, then deposited them into a vendor's cart on his right, while a blizzard of holographed greenbacks swirled around him.

The Haymaker came through next. Timothy hay, of course. He sat awkwardly on a half-chair at a spinning wheel, converting straw into jingling gold coin, smiling, of course, even as his wheel emitted screams, moans, and desperate cries.

The final float bore the emblem of a turtle on a fencepost, and depicted a puppet seated on a black-clad puppeteer's knee. The puppet wore a Confederate uniform with Union field cap. He jingled a bag of loot with one hand and a well-designed book with the other. Out of his mouth came an unending stream of inane blasphemy. "Rejoice, for the Lord hath decided to take a dive! To throw in the towel! The fight is fixed! The game is rigged! God has ordained the global triumph of evil! Let us hale Satan, the real god of this world!"

At this point, the crowd went wild, and howled the gravest insult this community possessed at the retreating parade: "Sinister boo-talk! Sinister boo-talk! Sinister boo-talk!" The parade passed through the spinward airlock, and the families went home to prepare for the evening feast. And to explain to their children who the effigies represented, and why their vile deeds were still held in loathing memory centuries later.

Excellent post-mortem on a dead, decaying, and putrefying cancer upon God's people.

As Gary North pointed out, people know which side their bread is buttered on. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo that maintains their income. Why rock the boat that's keeping your family afloat?

For example, Dallas Theological Seminary, the flagship of the flagging dispensational subculture, declared its own irrelevance to real-world issues in 1973. The de-facto deity of the USA -- what five black-robed miscreants think or feel on a given day -- enforced unrestricted human sacrifice on all fifty states.

And DTS was silent.

Even though Roe v. Wade happened in their own back yard, under their noses -- THEY HAD NOTHING TO SAY.

Guys who preach optimism and Christian responsibility find themselves without a pulpit.(1) Denied access to the Wheaton Mafia, the mainstream evangelical press. Which DTS does train competent hacks to write for.

If you truly intend to study, teach, and preach the Kingdom of God, much of your education will be self-education. Reading everything you can get your hands on from the new kids on the block. Trying the new paradigms out.(2)

The linked document was my lifeline during my own decade-long session of rewiring my mind along Kingdom-honoring lines. It lived in the pocket of my suitcoat and got re-read many times. Gary North basically argued that you can't get training in the new paradigm (Jesus is Lord over the vast universe AROUND us, as well as the half-vast "universe" inside us) from folks who've bet the farm on the old way of thinking.

~~~

(1) The closest Christian Reconstructionist church I'm aware of is about 100 miles from where I sit. The founding pastor planted this new church in the middle of the Bible Belt, rather than trying to work with an existing church. He explained, "It's easier to give birth than it is to raise the dead."

(2) My favorite denomination, Every Nation International, likes to plant churches on college campuses. One of their highly-trained and highly-motivated campus missionaries tried to take the Gospel of the Kingdom to a notable Baptist university -- but gave up after banging her head against the wall there for months. The kids just could not grasp the idea of a relevant public Christian faith -- and kept wanting to scoot off and have some more "personal devotions" whenever a challenging real-world question arose.

Click HERE for that essay on self-education.

Good article. Sane and pragmatic. Definitely calibrated to bring out the crazies!

She was (and is) a blessed HUMAN. Not a goddess. The “vibes” I detect around the cult of the BVM are nearly identical to those sensed around Mormonism — superficially shiny, but with a disquieting weirdness in the background.

I was on board with that article, until I read the part about calling upon one demonic entity to provide deliverance from another.

[
I ask the Blessed Virgin Mary to receive now the entire and full right of disposing of these goods according to God’s holy will. May she cast out any and all evil spirits, sanctify our goods, protect them from any future evil action, and use them for the glory of God.
]

During the 40 years since home schooling rose above the event horizon in the USA, it's moved the default reaction of those outside the phenomenon from "You've got to be crazy!" to a wistful "I envy you. Your kids look so happy. I wish I could afford to do that."

As R. Buckminster Fuller wrote, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

Novelist Vox Day had several quotable remarks in his free book SJWs Always Lie :

p. 232 How can you identify a moderate? He is the man who only shoots at his own side and never at the enemy.

p. 241 Strategy 1: Build alternative institutions

The long, slow, and insidious process of invading an institution, then gradually taking it over before steering it to serve one's own ends is not the sort of thing that comes naturally to the normal, honest individual. The amount of deception involved, combined with the considerable patience required, means that simply recreating the SJWs' long Gramscian march through the institutions of the West is not a viable solution. A better strategy, and one that is far more in line with our strengths, is building alternative institutions that will compete with the SJW-infested ones.

https://www.docdroid.net/2CAjIrK/sjws-always-lie-vox-day-2015.pdf