Category: Quasi-political
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Implementing God’s Kingdom on Earth
The Kingdom of God is the precinct in which its citizens interact with each other and outsiders per God’s will. So, as Christians, how does God want us to act both to model and to implement His Kingdom “on earth as it is in Heaven”? Implementing the Kingdom of God “on earth, as it is in Heaven” is more than an enterprise of personal transformation. It is also an enterprise of transforming the society in which we live to reflect its values. Here we intend to analyze how Christians caring for others and desiring to transmit God’s blessing to as many people as possible, through lives that embody Biblical ethics and justice, can transform not just the lives they touch, but civilization itself. First, we will review the principles of the Kingdom as revealed to us in the Bible. Then we will ask how they could be applied both personally and societally, to transform society into something much closer to what Jesus had in mind.
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The Problem With Murder
Introduction We all have an instinctive revulsion of the wanton destruction of one of us by the hand of another. But why? If the victim is not one of our family or close relations, how is it that we feel the evil of his loss? How are we – the victim and I – connected? Where does our sense of the fact that his taking is evil come from? This piece is an exploration of a recent “revelation” I’ve been considering that points to a much more profound loss than the loss of just this one person.
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Creating a New Nation
The stark differences between ideological factions in the United States are, to me, intractable. As factions, they will never again lock arms, sing Kumbaya, and collectively do what’s in the best interest of the nation as a whole, irrespective of what they, individually, may need to give up to achieve that end. Why is this?
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A Call to a Radical Christian Revolution
The premise of this note is that in order to rescue this civilization, Christ Himself is going to have to “appear” in the world to demonstrate to its inhabitants that He is the way, the truth, and the life. And, since we Christians are the members of His body on earth, that job falls to us.
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Is There a Covid “Agenda”?
In a simpler, less jaundiced time, the average American actually believed what “experts” said. That’s because their comments were based on their expertise, not their political views. Alas, those days are a faded memory.
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Death by Selfie: Egotism as the Root of Our Troubles
In an article at The Daily Wire, Joseph Curl reports that a 23-year-old Chinese crane operator, Xiao Qiumei, who had 100,000 followers on social media, fell 160 feet to her death while filming herself on a giant crane. She was the second woman to die in China in July by way of a fall while recording herself on camera.
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The Inversion of Virtue
The West, I argue, has turned a corner from which it will be impossible, short of a miracle, to un-turn. We’ve become addicts of narcissism, ignorant judgements, and feigned righteousness. We’re continuously fed their messages of “just a little more” so that our impending overdose is all but assured. But, perhaps most depressing is the fact that we don’t even realize it.
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America is Not Greek
Our democratic institutions evolved out of those invented by the Greeks. The Greeks were intoxicated by the idea of rational speech – logos. Their principle was that logos was at the heart of the Greek-invention and revered culture of political discourse. And “discourse” only occurred when those involved shared in the same virtues and all sought after the same common good, setting aside their personal interests. To the Greeks, their edification came from striving together to achieve a common good for their citizens. To them, politics was the process of seeking the highest possible good for the people. Nothing could be less true of today’s America.
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Life Elevated
Much of today’s popular psychological messaging is designed to make us happy and content with ourselves by puffing up our self-esteem. Much of this messaging is commercial, designed to create in us a frame of mind favorable toward purchasing whatever is being sold. This psychology doesn’t have your best interests at heart; it doesn’t want what’s best and most edifying for you. It just wants your money, your time and attention, and your “clicks”.
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Rejecting God
My purpose here is to raise awareness of the deep-seated origins of the civil unrest being played out today in the West. It’s just not as pat or as superficial as people in today’s media would have us believe. There’s much more going on here than simple protest.
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Freedom from Disquiet
It’s interesting to me that today in the West, a substantial portion of the population apparently believes that they have an innate right to not be exposed to anything that upsets them – be it KAG hats, critical commentary (social media posts?) on their ideas, objective description of our real history, moral values… whatever. This is a prescription for disaster.
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Dispelling Christianity as “Hate”
Christians today face sometimes virulent hatred from secularists. Why? We even have people who profess to be Christian demeaning their supposed brethren. What’s prompting all of this revulsion and disdain, if not outright hatred, and how should we respond (if at all)?
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The Narcotic of Moral Superiority
Just sitting here, listening to a bit of the media frenzy following Trump’s statements on the Charlottesville tragedy, and wondering if the genie is now truly out of the bottle. He said the apparently unsayable – that both sides of the confrontation shared blame. You can’t say that in the media’s America. After all, we’re talking about Nazis here – vile, evil, haters of people different than them. The story being pushed is that this confirms that Trump and everyone associated with him have exposed themselves as just such vile, evil, white supremacists.
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Christianity in the Age of ‘Whatever?’
Lots of people write blogs. Very few people actually read them. So why this one? Recently I’ve been absolutely stunned by the power of the delusion our society is suffering regarding truth, good and evil. In this perverse worldview, people who elect to strap on explosives and detonate them, or fire automatic weapons at unsuspecting […]
A Pilgrim's Search 