Category Archives: Christianity

The Unholy Essence of Qu**r

Jordan Peterson speaks with Logan Lancing.

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with author, speaker, and founder of ItsNotinSchools.com, Logan Lancing. They discuss the deceptive terminology of the postmodern Left and how the linguistic game hides a severe lack of substance, the true heart of Marxism as a theology, the indoctrination of our children at the institutional level, and the sacrifices it will take to truly right the ship.

Logan Lancing is an author, speaker, and the founder of ItsNotinSchools dot com. He is best known for his public lectures on critical race theory, culturally relevant pedagogy, and queer theory. Lancing’s website explains what these “woke” theories are, identifies where they come from, and exposes how they show up in children’s classrooms nationwide.

This episode was recorded on July 30th, 2024

Snippets:

The Left have the social and emotional levers. We have kittle defence against these, and they are rusty and dusty.

Resentful, hedonistic and power-mad against everyone else.

Prelude to ‘Lohengrin’

One of my favourite music pieces

This (mostly) serene yet powerful and profound piece of music was composed by Richard Wagner sometime between 1845 and 1848.

Here it is, with an orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle (9 minutes).

Here‘s the Wikipedia entry on the whole opera.

Here‘s the synopsis on the same page.

Summary of the synopsis:

The people of the Brabant are divided by quarrels and political infighting; also, a devious hostile power left over from the region’s pagan past is seeking to subvert the prevailing monotheistic government and to return Brabant to pagan rule. A mysterious knight, sent by God and possessing superhuman charisma and fighting ability, arrives to unite and strengthen the people, and to defend the innocent noblewoman Elsa from a false accusation of murder, but he imposes a condition: the people must follow him without knowing his identity. Elsa in particular must never ask his name, or his heritage, or his origin. The conspirators attempt to undermine her faith in her rescuer, to create doubt among the people, and to force him to leave.

Lessons from Watership Down: What Rabbits Can Teach the Church

Article by Christian Leithart.

From the conclusion:

The way to keep our senses sharp, says Hauerwas, is to constantly remind ourselves of danger through telling true stories. For the church, these true stories are about suffering, death, and resurrection. This is the good news with which we transform culture and bring life to the cities of men. A Christian—or a rabbit—can never be complacent. As the agents of God in the world, we too are called to take up the cross.

LENT – give it up ‘for Lent’ and forever

Article by

The Rev Dr Alan Clifford

LENT – (along with the religion which inspired it) should be given up ‘for Lent’ and forever!

An Oxford organisation known as the ‘Oxford Minority People Gathering’ have complained to BBC Oxford that while Divali, the Chinese New Year, and Ramadan are reported, Lent is not.

I fully understand OMPA’s complaint. This is but a further example of the creeping deletion of Christianity from our culture.

However, a more urgent question is what kind of Christianity do we wish to preserve and promote?

Getting upset about BBC Oxford’s omission of Lent raises a more profound question: why Lent at all? As I argue, there is a strong case for abolishing it.

It is astonishing in this secular age that superstitious observances like Lent still survive.

There’s no denying that in our obesity-ridden society, diet-reduction would be good for the health of all of us. But to turn it into a religious ritual is no part of authentic biblical Christianity.

Lent is of pagan origin, adapted as a 6th-century Papal innovation. It is quite alien to the teaching of the New Testament. While Roman Catholics, Anglicans and others persist in its observance, the Apostle Paul rejects the validity of special holy days and superstitious abstinence (see Galations 4:10-11; Colossians 2:16-23).

Christian teaching does have a lot to say to us on the subject of over-indulgence. However, our Saviour’s teaching on ‘self-denial’ (see Mark 8:34-8) covers every kind of self-gratification, and not just for forty days but every day! Also, arguments against Lent do not call into question properly-understood and correctly-motivated periods of fasting and prayer.

More faithful interpreters of the Bible are represented by the great Genevan reformer John Calvin (1509-64) and the great English Puritan Richard Baxter (1615-91):

Christ did not abstain from food and drink to give an example of temperance, but to gain Him more authority in being set apart from the common lot of men, that He might progress as a messenger from heaven, not as a man of the earth.

It is really quite foolish to institute the so-called forty-day fast in imitation of Christ. For there is no more reason today why we should follow the example of Christ, than ever there was for the holy Prophets and the other Fathers under the Law to imitate the Fast of Moses. In fact we know that no-one ever had such a thought.

They pretend to be imitators of Christ, when they fast every day of the forty, but really they so stuff their bellies at breakfast that they can easily go through dinner-time without food. What resemblance have they to the Son of God?

Neither Christ nor Moses held a solemn fast every year, but both held one only, in all their lives.

For [Lent observers] to persuade themselves that it is a work of merit, a part of religious devotion and the worship of God – this is the ultimate superstition.

Commentary on Matthew’s Gospel, John Calvin

The imitation of Christ in His forty days’ fasting is not to be attempted or pretended to; because his miraculous works were not done for our imitation.

The pretending of a fast when men do but change their diet, flesh for fish, fruit, sweetmeats, etc, is but hypocritical and ridiculous.

As for the commanding such an abstinence, as in Lent, not in imitation, but bare commemoration of Christ’s forty days’ fast, I would not command it if it were in my power…

A Christian Directory (1673), Richard Baxter

So give up Lent and take up the true Christian life! Link up with a faithful and consistent Bible-believing church, and embrace for life-long discipleship our Saviour’s life-transforming saving grace.

Dr Alan C. Clifford
Norwich Reformed Church

What led to the Decline of the West

In this article, I find the following paragraphs:

The 1970s and 1980s were the point at which the long arc of traditional liberalism gave place to an avowedly illiberal, mechanical ‘control system’ (managerial technocracy) that today fraudulently poses as liberal democracy.

Emmanuel Todd, the French anthropological historian, examines the longer dynamics to events unfolding in the present: The prime agent of change leading to the Decline of the West (La Défaite de l’Occident), he argues, was the implosion of ‘Anglo’ Protestantism in the U.S. (and England), with its entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success, and, above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’.

Whereas traditional liberalism had its mores, the decline of traditional values triggered the slide towards managerial technocracy, and to nihilism. Religion lingers on in the West, though in a ‘zombie’ state, Todd avers. Such societies, he argues, flounder – absent some guiding metaphysical sphere that provides people with non-material sustenance.

It’s a bit strange: The author (Alastair Crooke) points to Todd’s hypothesis of “‘Anglo’ Protestantism” being the “prime agent of the Decline of the West”, but in the following paragraph mentions “the decline of traditional values”. It’s not clear from the article whether the latter statement is Crooke’s or Todd’s.

In any case, I would contend that Protestantism (not ‘Anglo’, but ‘Calvinistic’, e.g. Puritanism) indeed “entailed habits of work, individualism and industry – a creed whose qualities were held then to reflect God’s grace through material success”, this actually being good things. It led to the Industrial Revolution and so to the blessing of drastically reduced infant mortality and better quality of life for nearly everyone.

The other part of that sentence, namely “above all, to confirm membership of the divine ‘Elect’” indeed points to something more problematic. It’s true and will have led, due to human fallibility, to “elitist” attitudes. However, in a healthy Christian environment such attitudes would have been tempered by the commandment to “love thy neighbour as yourself”.

The loss of the faith in God led to the loss of the power of this commandment within society and therefore to “the decline of traditional values”.

So, it’s not “Protestantism” – of any flavour – that led to the “Decline of the West”, but the loss of faith.

What was retained was the belief in the ability to be somehow part of an “elect” group who are somehow “better” than most other people and therefor have a right to lord it over them – uninhibited by divine commandments.

That attitude led to fiat money, the welfare state, state schooling, both World Wars and the subsequent “Decline of the West”.