Bunyan on Baptism

The Life of John Bunyan by Edmund Venables (1819-1895), location 1277-84

With these he will not quarrel about "things that are circumstantal" such as water baptism, which he regards as something quite indiffrent, men being "neither the better for having it, nor the worse for having it not."

The Church is bigger than...

Learn to say this phrase: the Church is bigger than ---

What is the Church bigger than? Whoever is speaking with the sense that the Church is what they are.

To the Pope: the Church is bigger than you.

To the Reformed pastor/theologian: the Church is bigger than you.

To the independent, fundamentalist: the Church is bigger than you.

To the liberal/leftist Christian types: the Church is bigger than you.

To any who affect to appropriate the Kingdom of God on earth to themselves and their program...the Church is bigger than you.

Oh, but (they say), one must define what Church is! Thus, my seminary degree and this branch/denomination with its history that goes back (some, not many) to before we were born defines what church is!

No... The word of God and the Holy Spirit in the quickened, regenerated heart and soul of each Christian defines what Church is.

The word and the Spirit; not man and ritual and building.

The Kingdom of God exists in the new heart of every regenerated believer.

The Church is bigger than you.

James White is not showing Muslims any love; he's using them to get praise from the world

Here's James White defending being targeted by Muslims as a dupe; and then being caught acting like a dupe:

@JeffTheGK You know what, Jeff? Here's my suggestion. Do not support me in my work. Remain isolated from the Islamic community---don't seek to understand their life or their language or their beliefs. Stay safely in the womb of American evangelicalism. I have no intention of joining you, for numerous reasons. First, you all have failed, miserably, to provide any kind of meaningful and compelling biblical argumentation, as has been demonstrated ad nauseam. Secondly, every single person working in Islamic countries around the world with whom I have spoken has simply rolled their eyes at the criticisms you have leveled. They can tell you (critics in general) have no idea what it means to live and work out in the real world of Christian minority status. They have, to a person, encouraged me to press on, despite the howls of the American critics. I have now traveled enough in this world to gain sufficient perspective to see how safe, and introverted, and self-centered, American evangelicalism can be. I have grander goals and desires. I believe the gospel is the power of God and it does not need to be protected from exposure to other views. It needs to be explained and proclaimed to those who have either never heard it, or have only heard a misrepresentation of it. And I will seek to continue to proclaim it with love and compassion in my heart. I will show that love by accurately representing even those who seek to contradict my words. I will show respect by being truthful about even those who mistreat me. I will not call Muslims names, show them disrespect and disdain, as your entire cadre of critics do daily to Dr. Qadhi and anyone else you all decide to dehumanize and vilify. And I will trust that the sovereign King of Grace will make His gospel to come alive in the hearts of His elect people, and that He will graciously bring hosts of precious man and women to the feet of Jesus out of the Islamic faith, not by force, not by my arguments, but by the glorious revelation of the Lord of Glory, Jesus, accomplished by the almighty Holy Spirit, bringing the gospel to life in their hearts. And if I have to endure the constant misrepresentations and epithets of those who gnash their teeth at my efforts, then that will be the price. So be it.

Notice how he casts his critics into hell (they "gnash their teeth")...

James White is a Bowe Bergdahl of Christianity.

Each year White announces more verses and sections of the Bible he refuses to "preach"; declaring them to be unbiblical, based on his scholarship. Mostly this is driven by Muslim critics of the Bible. Then he sucks up to Muslims ("Teach me...") while signalling to them his politically-correct disdain for American Christians.

All while having no clue the way you evangelize to Muslims is to proclaim the law - yes, the law - and the Gospel directly and boldly to their face. You don't give such entrenched Devil worshipers only the Gospel. Of course it helps to fear God alone to be able to do that. White's seeking of the praises of the world is not doing Muslims any good.

James White may still be a Christian, but he is worthless in Christ's army.

Engineering

"Engineering is, in its most general sense, turning an idea into a reality – creating and using tools to accomplish a task or fulfil a purpose."

"The word ‘engineer’ derives not, as you might imagine, from being-someone-who-deals-with-engines but rather from its Latin root ingeniarius, Old French engignier, and Middle English engyneour to mean someone who is ingenious in solving practical problems."

"The six horizontal divisions or categories of engineering activity are civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, computing, and, more recently, medical engineering."

"Man’s ability to make tools is remarkable. But it is his ingenious ability to make sense of the world and use his tools to make even more sense and even more ingenious tools, that makes him exceptional. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, ‘we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us’. Tools are part of what it is to be human. In the words of Henry Petroski, ‘To engineer is human’."

"Yet for many, there is a disturbing cloud. Once tools were simple common sense – almost all were understandable to the intelligent layperson. Since the Industrial Revolution, the interior workings of many tools have become mysterious, complex, and opaque to all but specialists. The culture of opposition between the arts, religion, science, and technology has widened and is often antagonistic. Matthew Crawford has accused engineers of hiding the works, ‘rendering many of the devices we depend on every day unintelligible to direct inspection’. On the other hand, Brian Arthur has described a process he calls ‘structural deepening’ in which engineers inevitably add complexity as they strive to enhance performance. There is an increasing realization that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are intertwined in a way that needs disentangling. This is urgent because engineering is so intimately part of who we are that effective democratic regulation requires us to understand something of what engineering offers, what it might offer in the future, and, perhaps most importantly, what it cannot ever deliver."

"Some of the various types of engineer: Acoustic, aeronautical, aerospace, agricultural, asphalt, automotive, biomechanical, biomedical, bridge, building, cast metal, chartered, chemical, civil, computer (software, hardware), concrete, construction, cost, control, corrosion, craft, dam, design, diesel, dynamics, electrical, electronic, engineering worker, environmental, explosives, finance, fire, gas, harbour, healthcare, heating, highway, incorporated, industrial, information, instrumentation, knowledge, lighting, marine, material, measurement and control, mechanical, medical, mineral, mining, motor, municipal, naval architects, non-destructive testing, nuclear, operations, photonics, plumbing, power, production, professional, project management, quality, railway, refrigeration, registered, reliability, river, robotic, royal (military), safety, sanitary, sensor, signal processing, space, structural, sustainability, systems, technician, transportation, turbine, welding, water."

"Confusion about the words ‘engineering’ and ‘technology’ often derives from different uses by different people from different backgrounds in different contexts. We therefore have to be very careful to make clear what we mean. In this book, I will use engineering and technology as synonyms but distinct from science and mathematics in their central purpose. So in summary, the purpose of science is to know by producing ‘objects’ of theory or ‘knowledge’. The purpose of mathematics is clear, unambiguous, and precise reasoning. The purpose of engineering and technology is to produce ‘objects’ that are useful physical tools with other qualities such as being safe, affordable, and sustainable. All are activities arising from human will that sustains our sense of purpose. Science is an activity of ‘knowing’, whereas engineering and technology are activities of ‘doing’ – but both rely on mathematics as a language and a tool. The methods they adopt to achieve their purposes are so very similar that, unless you understand their motive and purpose, it is often unclear whether a given person is behaving as a scientist or as an engineer/technologist."

"The story of engineering naturally divides into five ages – gravity, heat, electromagnetism, information, and systems. The first three are the natural phenomena that scientists study and that engineers and technologists use to make their tools. From the ancient skills used to build pyramids from natural materials to the modern engineering of skyscrapers, we have systematically developed our scientific understanding of gravity and used it to build bigger, higher, and longer. Our primitive control of fire has developed into mechanical and chemical power from heat through steam, internal combustion, and jet engines and manufactured materials. Electromagnetism is a relative latecomer in the long history of human development which has given us electricity, motors, computers, and telecommunications. Out of this came the age of information, which has turned now into the age of complex systems. In the last chapter, we will see how ‘systems thinking’ is helping us to integrate disparate specialisms by seeing tools as physical ‘manipulators’ of energy embedded in ‘soft’ people systems. From the science of Aristotle to Newton to Einstein, from the craft of Vitruvius to Leonardo to William Morris, and from the engineering of Archimedes to Faraday, to Berners-Lee and the World Wide Web, the story of engineering is racing ahead at an ever-increasing pace. It is a story that has had, and is still having, a profound influence on the quality of human life."

Engineering: A Very Short Introduction, by David Blockley

Not quite white pill, but in that direction

I was going to delete the two black pill posts below, but I'll just 50% disavow them. Better to be positive. Not naive, but a positive spiritual warrior.

Have to be careful (another black pill post)

One has to be careful not to get to where you are really just hating humanity in general. I caught myself in the act. Looking at a busy street scene in a major city and having contempt in general for what I saw. Why? Everything rolled into one. The lack of ideal humanity. (Which one only really sees when one race, young people, in a group, are dressed in similar clothing, uniform, white robes, whatever. There's a sense of everything in place and everything taken care of. There's a sense of group natural charm and skills and intelligence and common-sense and tradition, and ritual overtaking individual stupidity and bad behavior). So you see the messy, disparate, multi-race melange in the city street scene and it gives the impression of Satanic chaos, preditorial anarchy, empty, undirected, filthy, stupid, depressing.

So do I hate humanity? In a sense, yes. I have to excuse myself from the picture though. I might not be considered normal enough to be in ideal humanity. It's really, though, Satanic humanity that I hate. Humanity as Satan wants humanity to be. Which he is succeeding to make humanity be.

Satan has really messed up humanity. Also, has to be said, as the white nations are going under...this world is really going to be hell.

Black pill, pt. 44563

What lunacy we're surrounded by continually. Increasing in exponential degree. Banal, obnoxious mostly. Village idiots with megaphones and decadent freak exibitionists, banal, boring, but evil nevertheless with their Orwellian political coercion on every front all the time. What a demonic show. Thanks, Satan. And thanks to your wonderful children. Some of the evil is very bloody too, though. Spectacular evil. Crucifying children evil. Throwing acid into faces evil. And the element in it all of permanent change for the worse really gives a feeling of joy.

And it all happened in such a short time. My lifetime. Wonderful luck. Living in America at least I did miss the 20th century totalitarianism. I suppose everybody in all eras between the two advents sees an increasing demonic show. In my case though I got to witness a nation uniquely successful get turned into a filthy public restroom with corruption and no more mature adults thrown into the equation.

People just go about their lives, but this all is a ten on a scale of ten demonic show going on now.

And all the young and middle-aged white folk are committing suicide. Which is celebrated. Because they're slave holders. Or something. That's OK, though, because Somalians with 70 I.Q.s can be our airline mechanics, and guys named Ach'med can run the government. Civilization does not know color or religion, right? Oh, wait a minute.

When western Europe and the English speaking nations go the demonic show is total. That means the demonic show is total.

The only question now is how long does God allow the demonic show to carry on, now that it has attained global dominion...

Portrait of globalists

The Child Catcher

James White misses the mark again

On his Dividing Line podcast James White is still defending himself against criticism that he is a dupe of Islamists.

So he just, rather comically because he did it very dramatically, made his ONE BIG POINT to his critics, and it's as off-the-mark as one can be regarding Christianity vis-a-vis atheism and Islam.

Here is the podcast. His big statement starts at the 45:10 mark (and I'm referring to the audio only link).

His big statement is this: you can't say Christianity and Islam have nothing in common because adherents of both are theists and theists share a common opposition to atheists.

OK. What is wrong with this statement? The problem with the statement is nowhere does the Bible pose atheism as the opposite or antithesis of faith. The Bible very clearly poses idol worship as the antithesis of faith. Atheists are idol worshipers of one kind or another (in our day if not the planet then the centralized, collectivist state and some form of utopian ideology will be their main idol). Muslims also are idol worshipers (a 7th century tribal moon god in the form of a black rock which ultimately is a front for Satan himself). Muslims worship a very big false idol, they worship Satan himself. And Satan has poured his attention into Islam and cultivated Islam to make it his biggest front in this world. Islam and Cultural Marxism, which today are going hand-in-hand in Satan's ultimate putsch to assert dominion over the entire planet.

Again, though, atheism and Islam very much are on one side of a divide against Christianity in that they both involve idol worship.

Thus White's dramatic big point is rather comically wrong. Islam and Christianity do not stand shoulder-to-shoulder against atheism. Islam and Christianity indeed have nothing in common, as White's critics are attempting to explain to him. Unless you want to say being a complete counterfeit of something is equal to having something in common with it, but I think White would only assert that in the most dire last move he might have. Will he concede being wrong? No. He'll pretend he was aware of such distinctions and so forth. All knowledge and wisdom begins with him, after all (see next paragraph)...

A note on White to his recent critics (and I usually send posts like this to individual people involved): narcissism is a feature of our fallen nature. We all have features of narcissism in us. Yet there is something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's humorously called 16 forever. White has it. Arguing with a person who has NPD is like arguing with a know-it-all 16 year old. He will never concede being wrong on anything. He 'learns on the run', meaning, if he is caught being ignorant about something (as White often is) he simply does a cursory googling of it then comes back the next day and pretends he "just got to the matter" because he was "doing a 100 mile bike ride" or "in the Ukraine dodging RPGs in a civil war" or what not, then he states what he got wrong as if he's known about it and been speaking on it since he was "handing out leaflets to Mormons back in the day" and so on and so on. You can't teach a person with NPD, you can't argue with them, you can only be drawn into their vain, small, shallow world.

Bullinger's classic book Decades

[From an email]

Finally the classic work from the 1500s titled Decades, by Bullinger is available here in a good ebook format free:

https://www.monergism.com/decades-ebook

There is an anecdote that when the clergy in England were put upon to reform they were made to read the Bible daily, and read one of these 50 sermons a week (five decades in the book) and write notes on it all.

Protestant - Calvinist (and I know Bullinger lived alongside Calvin, i.e. didn't come after him) - works from the 1500s have a more raw (and in my mind strong and interesting) feel about them. Just skimming Decades now I was reading Pythagoras and Seneca that Bullinger was quoting on the subject of God. Bullinger and Zwingli both saw classical writers differently than theologians that came after. They knew them and were obviously influenced by them. They weren't shallow regarding such influences. They knew they weren't Scripture, but they knew their worth. - C.

Resentment, gratitude, and the law

Jesus teaches us how to navigate through the dark medium of the law of God as distorted and twisted by fallen angels and fallen man. When Jesus says if you get hit on one cheek, turn the other cheek as well he is teaching us how to navigate through the dark medium of the law. When Jesus says give your coat as well when your shirt is demanded of you He is teaching us how to navigate the dark medium of the law. When Jesus says love your enemy He is teaching us how to navigate the dark medium of the law.

A way to sum up the teaching of Jesus along these lines is to put it in, in effect, a royal law: have gratitude in place of resentment for everything all the time.

Resentment chains us to the law as its used by fallen man and fallen angels to enslave us. It's like willingly putting the chain around our own neck every time we indulge resentment. Resentment is pleasurable to our fallen nature, which is why it is an emotion that is indulged.

Gratitude frees us from the dark power of the law as it is dealt by fallen man and fallen angels.

Resentment is the will of our fallen nature. Gratitude is the will of God manifesting in us.

Law as the context for the formula 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'

The context for understanding the great biblical formula 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom' is this: the distorted, twisted law of God used as a weapon by fallen angels and fallen man to accuse, shame, and coerce everybody into conforming to the demands of the world, the flesh, and the Devil.

Meaning, when you fear God alone you then don't fear man and the world and their demands they make on you, explicitly and implicitly.

This is why fearing God alone is such a shocking (and dangerous) act. Your family, your community, the fallen angels above will register their outrage, disapproval and ultimately their contempt for you when you do this.

The law of God is all the law there is. Positive law (man made law) is derivative of God's law commanded in the Bible. The act of making law(s) is derived from the existence of God's law itself. Man can make good and useful laws; he can also make laws that serve his fallen nature to Satanic degrees; but it's all derived from the existence of God's original law revealed in the Old and New Testaments.

The mechanism, or use and effect of law is the same whether it is God's pure law or it is man's or the Devil's impure law. It demands, it accuses, it coerces. It defines sin by its existence, and it enflames sin by its existence and its impure use.

The main point is law itself, whether God's pure law or that law twisted and distorted by fallen man and fallen angels, is a curse on humanity. It is a curse of the fall. It is a curse in its pure form because after the fall we no longer are able to follow God's law, thus it only condemns now. It is also a curse in all impure forms of it because it is used to enslave and coerce and accuse.

This universal medium of law is what we exist in. It's like existing in a black cloud. We can't escape it.

Then God tells us: the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. What does fear of the Lord mean, practically? It means when you fear God alone you no longer fear the law as it is perversely wielded by the world and the Devil to coerce, accuse, and shame, which frees you to pursue true wisdom. It ultimately means faith in Jesus Christ and his work on the cross. Because that is the only thing that frees us from that everpresent black cloud of the law described above. With faith in Jesus Christ and redemption from the curse of the law which we have in the blood of Christ who came to fulfill the law and pay the penalty of death sentenced on us by Adam's fall we are no longer in bondage to the law and to fallen man and fallen angels wielding that law in twisted, distorted ways as a means to suffering and death.

Then, what does the beginning of wisdom mean? It means the beginning of sanctification to the end of glorification.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In the context of the law and the gospel.

What is new in all the above is seeing law as permiating all phenomena of existence, blanketing and smothering all interactions between God and man, angels and man, and man and man. All society from the enviable ideal of American liberty to the horror of totalitarian enslavement. The ideal of the American system of government which seeks to contain and put checks and balances on man's fallen nature and misuse of law to the totalitarian states which allow the free flow of evil through their leadership to their suffering prisoners.

This is a higher vision take on law, but necessary to see what law and gospel really is; to see how it effects all humanity of whatever belief (or non-belief) in whatever part of the world; to see its universal relevance to all humanity; to see its power over all; to see its everpresent effect in all of life; to truly see our situation (which understanding is all enhanced by honestly seeing it as well in human nature and in history).

When you walk into a room or outside you walk in a medium of the law; and when you fear God alone and not man or the world you are now a dangerous figure on the landscape of the world, no longer in bondage to that law. You are a king. A true king.

Message to Protestants who fetishize the Romanist doctrine of infant baptism

During the darkness of the tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church Satan called people to be baptized all day and all night; but he kept people away from the living, quickening word of God upon penalty of torture and death. Satan knows what regenerates, and it's not ritual water baptism. It is the word and the Spirit that regenerates God's elect. This is why God's elect don't exalt cleric and ritual above the word and the Spirit, and never will.

An apologist's shallow game

Argued into the faith is not the same as regeneration by the word and the Spirit.

Sah'eel heard the call, but it remained external. It never was internal. It was surface and intellectual. An apologist's shallow game.

"I left Islam because I studied Muhammad's life. I accepted the Gospel because I studied Jesus' life."

On your terms. The Devil and God each made their pitch, and you intellectually decided to throw in with God.

All Christians come from the darkness to the light. It's not unusual to be in bondage to Satan's Kingdom when we hear the call. That call, though, is made effectual by the Holy Spirit, not our mental faculties or our ability to weigh good and evil.

It's not surprising Sah'eel did not like Calvinism.

Sah'eel is not in hell. It doesn't work that way. You have to be judged to hell at the Great White Throne Judgment. Sah'eel can still be regenerated by the word and the Spirit, because God acts from eternity, and the Holy Spirit can regenerate at any point in the timeline of a human being. That is getting into higher aspects of time which the Bible pulls back from doing because it explodes the narrative. Sah'eel's problem is he is empty in his core. He needs to develop in an essential way. He can do this. Suffering is a great gift towards this happening. (Note: in this paragraph I am not speaking of universalism or second-chance-ism. I'm speaking of recurrence, which is not reincarnation. Same life, dead in sin, over and over, until regeneration, or the harvest.)

Real Christians reject shallowness and practical deism and Marxist-inspired carping

Real Christians (in my case, Calvinists as it concerns the five solas, doctrines of grace, and the biblical structure of redemption that is Federal Theology) reject shallowness and practical deism; and...the Satanic spirit of the practice of default Critical Theory (incessant carping) incessantly applied to American Christians.

These are the three things you get when you tune into a Michael Horton type and his yes man chorus at his podcast.

1. Shallowness
2. Practical Deism
3. Critical Theory (as practice, directed incessantly at American Christians who instinctively reject their shallowness and practical deism).

The projection on these podcasts also is common. They call American Christians narcissists when the underlying anger that motivates their criticism is the rejection they experience from American Christians. "Listen to me!" they say, "Why aren't they listening to me?" Well, we must be narcissists, or something.

They catapult strawmen at us in their 'serious' criticism of what's wrong with us. We're gnostics (I've still yet to hear a seminary graduate who gives the least clue he knows what gnosticism was or how it manifests today in any way). If we disagree with the practical deists we wear crystals around our necks; we have the voice of God emanating from our burning bosoms; we flail around in states of 'enthusiasm.'

All this cultural Marxist critical theory style criticism in place of any actual proclaiming of the word of God or talking about doctrines of the Bible. That's not where their enthusiasm lies.

Yes, liberal Christians are shallow too. They're all shallow. They have all the traits of an establishment. They are establishment Christianity.

Oh, I forgot, they want us in their churches. Where their grape juice and crackers convey grace, if, that is, properly administered through the hands of duly ordained ministers who are 'in-place-of-Jesus' mediators. Ordained by, I guess, seminary degrees. Seminaries that are, pretty much all of them, marinated in cultural Marxism. Did I mention these practical deists give mouth service to 'some' supernaturalism in the Bible, but not to all, and overall, kind of don't really cotton to such nonsense to begin with? Hard to be a real Christian if you get embarrassed by supernatural parts of God's revelation, but that's practical deism for you.

They also imply that it's only meaningful to engage the word of God via hearing it spoken by a pastor in a church. The closeness to Rome of these practical deists also should not surprise.

Needless to say they are worthless in Christ's army. Oh, and I forgot to mention, they mock any mention of spiritual warfare. The spiritual battlefield, for them, doesn't exist. When you're going with the current of the world and the Devil and your fallen desires and demands the only war you recognize is the hatred and contempt you feel for real Christians...

Esoteric posts on the Law and on Race

ESOTERIC POSTS ON THE LAW:

One of the deepest and greatest secrets of the world

Overview of the Situation

Resentment, gratitude, and the law

Another rundown on law and gospel, DNA level understanding of reality

[Extra: Law as the context for the formula 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom']

[Extra: Law and Gospel: A Practical Understanding of the Christian Faith (14 Bullet Points)]

[Extra: The formula for the demonic]

[Extra: Fallen beings love to wag the finger]

[Extra: Law]

[Extra: Something about Law and Gospel theology has missed]

[Extra: The General Law]

[Extra: The U.S. Constitution as Gospel]

[Extra: I had a run-in on the street with the Law of God]



ESOTERIC POSTS ON RACE:

What is the significance of the white race?

White Girl

Do people with Satan-defiled bloodlines look worse than white people?

Insight into why some people experience the Christian faith as sudden relief and comfort

After watching this video testimony from a young woman about her Christian faith I had an email exchange on it, and a real, unique insight came out of it.

In the video testimony the young woman spent a lot of time talking about how she, as a younger girl, experienced a type of anxiety (her word) that she couldn't figure out the source of and the medical community couldn't figure out the source of. Finally her mother simply gave her a Bible passage to read (from Isaiah), and it instantly gave her relief.

This is a phenomenon we hear over and over from Christians, i.e. how they get a real feeling of, I don't know, a pressure being taken off of them based on an encounter with Jesus or the word of God or the Holy Spirit and so on. I think I know what they're referring to now. Before I didn't get it and chalked it up to a sort of shallow churchy behavior or people saying what they think they are supposed to say because they think it's what they're supposed to feel when they become a Christian.

Here's what I now think is going on: in the spiritual realm, which we all are in (as well as being in this physical realm) they are experiencing being pulled back from (or out of) the darkness of Satan's Kingdom as it's experienced in the spiritual realm.

In the case of the girl what she was going through that she articulated as 'anxiety' was the usual sexual feelings manifesting in her young, maturing body, together with the usual pull of her peer group and the temptations and pull of the culture she lives in (a very decadent culture as we see currently) vis-a-vis her upbringing in a family that taught her the Bible and the Christian faith and going to church every Sunday (as she said). In other words, she was being pulled towards the darkness in the spiritual realm, and her own maturing sexuality was making the temptation and lure all the more strong, yet she knew it was the wrong direction, but since it was happening in the spiritual realm mostly for her (she lived in the country, in a seemingly safer environment from where such dark influences can overwhelm a young person) it manifested as a strong 'anxiety' within her. So now we can *see* how a passage of the word of God could indeed hit her suddenly (like an epiphany) and in a new way to in effect give her a solution to the struggle she was in the middle of; and *give her needed strength* and even a sense of shelter (from the storm), and an assurance that it's *OK* to stand in the light with her Creator over against the darkness of Satan's realm. So when a Christian like this says they felt a sudden sense of comfort and relief and so on we can see how that can be.

In this last paragraph I'll state just *why* Christians stating such things and describing such experiences would be mysterious to someone like myself. Take a person who has been involved in alcohol or drugs or crime all their life in one way or another. That is not *my* experience. Yet for a person who does have that experience you could see how they might have an experience/encounter with Jesus, the Bible, etc., and the sense of a weight being taken off them, that is similar to the girl described above. Just seeing that there is a solution, a way out, an *other side* to begin with. In my case, not totally inexperienced regarding drugs, alcohol, or even crime, but only in the 'sampling' degree of it (and I have original sin and actively sin like everybody else) I explained my situation/crisis to myself like this: I can't go forward, I can't go backward, I can't go left, I can't go right, I don't want to go down, I can only go upward. And upward to me meant engaging higher influences. So I did engage higher influences (imaginative literature, history, philosophy, art, music, science, sacred writings/religion) until I got to the summit level of those influences, and then finally moved on up to the beyond-summit level where the Old and New Testaments reside. Yet in all that effort to engage those influences and climb the mountain of them any sudden epiphany once I moved on to the beyond summit influence that is the Bible became diluted due to my being acclimated to the altitude I had laboriously climbed to. But if you've spent your life actively engaged in - and engulfed by - the low influences of the darkness of Satan's spiritual realm any *touch* with the living, quickening truth of Jesus and the word of God will most likely (as you are on the road to being a believer to begin with) ignite a real, sudden feeling of relief and comfort; and give you an epiphany that the other side - the light - exists; and that the all-powerful Creator of the universe is on your side.

Demonized types

Different categories of demonized people.

In Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general as-well-as the news media we seem to have demonized village idiots.

In politics you see many who one might label as demonized Babbitts. (Always have to consider some may not know such a reference, so go here if that applies.)

In academia demonized village idiots would apply as well to a good percentage of them, but also demonized narcissists who want to spill the blood of anybody applies.

In the realm of establishment Christianity (the leaders and teachers of establishment Christianity) you find demonized sheep dogs.

I don't usually like to use the sheep metaphor for Christians because the Devil tends to take that metaphor solely and run with it, but imagine, as a Bible-believing Christian, you are a sheep amidst other sheep and the sheep dogs that surround you are all demonized, and you know it. You eat some grass, look up, gaze upon the demonized sheep dogs, and think to yourself: "Damn. This is a f***ed up situation." That is how God's elect see the establishment churches today.

A simple rule of the faith

I just listened to a testimony of a young Christian woman. Here it is. It is simple. Plain. She obviously is not familiar with the tapestry of doctrine that one would find in a Reformed systematic theology, yet she seems to be somewhat familiar with her Bible. At least to some extent. She does also reference a book I'd never heard of so I googled it and it appears to be a Joyce Meyer book. I don't think she mentioned the author, so maybe there are two books with the title Battlefield of the Mind, I don't know. Just anticipating the usual attack and mocking if somebody goes to the link and sees that book referenced then accuses me of being all about some Christian TV personality, which I'm not. So be it.

What this young woman said that caught my attention though was an articulation of a real, though simple, rule she had come to regarding her faith. She sees her faith as a relationship with Jesus, yet not as that phrase is often used (a hazy, Hallmark card kind of sentiment) but as a real rule of faith that is practical level and doable. She says she makes her relationship with Jesus part of everything she does and thinks. She tries to grow in this relationship with Jesus, but the main theme seemed to be she really attempts to keep Jesus in her thoughts and by her side as she goes through life. She realizes He loves her and wants to protect her and comfort her. So this is a real, practical rule for a Christian to come to. For this young woman her faith is practical and real and focused on Jesus in a real way. She also gave hints that reading the Bible is part of how she sees all this.

It all struck me because it seemed to me (shocked me to remembrance) that much of my own thinking of the faith involves this realization that I have to be closer to God. Constantly. That He can't communicate with me or help me or guide me unless I am in a state of remembrance of Him. And this includes engaging the word of the Kingdom, the Holy Bible. So this thought of actually imagining Jesus with me, having Him in my thoughts, accompanying my thoughts, is a practical thing to do. A real rule of the day, as one might put it. I may be more interested in doctrine and in getting a parts in relation to the whole understanding of the Bible than this young woman is currently, yet I could see in her approach something plain and real and practical I knew I was missing in my own approach.

Another black pill post

[This was an email.]

These two pdfs are from David Naugle's academic homepage. He wrote Worldview: the History of a Concept.

Pt. 1

Pt. 2

By "The Liturgical Consummation of Worldviews" he means proceeding to the practical application of the Christian faith. Such things as Work teachings teach [for those uninitiated, Fourth Way, Ouspensky, etc.].

It's also what experimental Christianity means. (See also here.) He's not using that standard term for some reason.

He divides the faith into intellectual (Bible and doctrine), emotional (emotions, love, affections), and will (spiritual exercises, etc.).

He's starts out discussing how the Christian faith is not being lived out by Christians, and then discusses how it should be.

Transfer the pdfs to your favorite eReader and consider both together to be a small book. About 45 pages altogether. - C.

ps- A thought on this... He uses Tom Wolfe's novel as an example about a young country girl who is a Christian who goes to a university and is immediately taken down by prevalent non-Christian worldviews which also launch her into sexual degradations and so on. The Devil has all the advantages. Pretty easy to take young people down. Other than truly educated (homeschooled) who also know how the enemy operates. So my thought is this: there's no way average people can do successful battle with the Devil. It seems to me people have to be in patterns of life, family life for instance, community life, that surrounds them and protects them from Satanic assault; all the while the people are still mechanical in how they are going about their lives. Once those traditions and rituals and life structures are systematically destroyed you are just going to have chaos. You will have what we have today. Because the devil has all the advantages. (And people who eventually catch on rarely do it early in life, when so much damage can be done.) I only see war in the future. People aren't going to allow themselves to be under the foot of these low I.Q. Satanic hybrid slave level crap. (I just saw a picture of an 18 year old who sucker punched a 12 year old at an amusement park in front of the 12 year old's parents then beat up the parents (a gang of similar youth at that point). The picture showed a person with a DNA mixture you couldn't guess the content of. Black (negroid) hair, hispanic color, asian eyes, all around dumb, evil look. Is that taking over the world? Really?) My second Emerson quote in the last couple of days: "Nature is cruel to hybrids." Not seeing it yet. Let's recognize reality: things have gone so bad so quick it is probably supernatural. And the feel of it all is PURE HELL IS UPON US. Because there's no escape from these human demons. They've taken over every institution, they are breeding like rats, and they have crossed all borders. They also have mass communication technology radicalizing them daily. This is hell upon us. It gives a real sense of no relief in sight. Unless God hits them with plague or something...