Category Archives: Culture war

The Plight of Esther

Fasting before a difficult, "confrontational" decision is important

In the Book of Esther (more about it here), we find that a mighty official called Haman wants all the Jews in the Persian empire exterminated. The only way to save them is to make the king aware of this. The only person who could do this is the queen, Esther, whose Jewish origins she has so far kept secret.

When her uncle Mordecai, who lives in Susa, where the king and queen reside, begs Esther to go to the king, she says:

“All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.” (Esther 4:11)

Mordecai then says these remarkable words:

“Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” (4:13,14)

Esther then agrees to go ahead with her dangerous mission, but makes this important condition:

“Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.” (4:16)

Today, when the churches consider how to move forward in a culture increasingly hostile to them, they should consider Esther’s plight. And consider fasting before they make a move. (Of course, the churches in the West are nowhere near the plight of the Jews in the book of Esther – yet. However, there are also varying levels of fasting to choose from.)

“The Western World Is Now a Tyranny”

Writes Paul Craig Roberts (emphasis in the original):

America’s reputation as “the land of the free” is rooted in the Anglo-Saxon legal and political tradition, not in diversity and multiculturalism.  Law as a shield of the people instead of a weapon in the hands of rulers is a British achievement that Britain’s American colonies inherited.  It was the accomplishment of a specific ethnicity known as Anglo-Saxon. Bringing rulers to the same accountability to law as the lowest peasant was a centuries-long process beginning with Alfred the Great in the 9th century and culminating in the Glorious Revolution of 1680.

In this legal tradition law is based in the customs and mores of the people, not on edicts issued from rulers,  government bureaucrats, regulatory agencies, and activist judges.  Obviously, this conveys an ethnic basis to law.  A Tower of Babel–the fate of all diminishing white countries today–has no common customs and mores and no basis for law other than rulers’ edicts enforced by power.

Throughout the Western World today the people have lost the protection of  law as a shield and suffer under rulers who wield law as a weapon. In the United States today demonstrators and rally attendees are turned into “insurrectionists” and sentenced to prison.  Even US President Donald Trump is being subjected to four fake felony prosecutions in order to prevent him from being elected president.

[. . .]

In my book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions published 23 years ago, I pointed out that “law and order conservatives” enabled government to set aside protective aspects of law in order to easier and more certainly convict the Mafia, drug users, child abusers–whoever the target was at the specific time.  I said that the law that is set aside in the interest of easier conviction is also set aside for the rest of us who are not Mafia, drug and child abusers, and that this conversion of law into a weapon would destroy nine centuries of Anglo-Saxon accomplishment in shielding people from arbitrary prosecution by rulers.

This has now happened.  The British who created civil liberty and the Americans who inherited it have lost the protection of law.  

“Law and order conservatives” determined to incarcerate criminals,  “patriotic conservatives” anxious to protect “national security” from “the Muslim threat,” and  woke ideologues determined to demonize and even criminalize white people as racists, while overrunning the ethnic basis of their countries with  immigrant-invaders, together brought about the destruction of law as a shield of the people.

[. . .]

You can see the lawlessness everywhere in the US and its Western puppet states.  A British journalist was arrested for exposing the despicable Trudeau applauding a member of the Nazi SS.

American parents are arrested, even beaten, for protesting at school board meetings that their kids are being brainwashed that they are racists and their daughters are being sexually assaulted in rest rooms by males claiming to be transgendered females despite still having the male sexual apparatus and lusts. 

[. . .]

William Blackstone wrote that weaponized law is tyranny and that when executive power weaponizes law, it is incumbent upon Parliament to impeach and punish the conduct of the government’s “evil and pernicious counselors.”  The US Congress has taken no such steps, which means the legislature has abdicated its responsibility and assented  to the establishment of tyranny.

The Empire of Lies has deep-sixed William Blackstone’s “rights of Englishmen” embodied in the US Constitution as the Bill of Rights.

[. . .]

In the framework of Identity Politics imposed on us by liberals and the Democrat Party, the inculcation of hate is the most important element.  Hate is inconsistent with objective law.  There can be no hope for a rule of law until Identity Politics is purged and unity among the people restored.

From Liberal Democracy to Global Totalitarianism

Article by Thaddeus Kosinski, PhD.

Excerpt:

However one explains this totalitarianism (and if you deny that we are now living under globalist totalitarianism, you are beyond the reach of argument), it cannot be denied that it emerged from the cultural and political soil of what we call Liberal democracies. There are only two explanations for this. One is that a revolution happened, one in complete opposition to those secular, enlightened, Liberal principles and practices that are truly ordered by and to the dignity and respect for the human person. Marxists or fascists or psychos have infiltrated the Liberal sanctuary and profaned it. The other explanation is that the totalitarianism we are now undergoing is logically entailed by the very principles and practices of Liberal democracy, which are not actually ordered by and to the dignity and respect for the human person, but only claim to be. I think the latter explanation is the more plausible one.

Free Speech Issues

1. ‘How Not to Launch a Global Anti-Censorship Movement’, writes CJ Hopkins here.

Quote: “The people that no one has ever heard of are not stupid. They know the difference between a serious anti-censorship campaign and a vanity project. There’s still time for Mike to turn this thing around, let go of the reins, stop sucking up to the mainstream establishment, and reach out to the masses. Honestly, I hope he will. I wish him and the London gang success. There are millions of people out there who would get on board with a grassroots campaign opposing the Censorship Industrial Complex, but, to get them on board, you have to let go of the wheel and let them steer the ship.”

2. ‘UK quietly passes “Online Safety Bill” into law’, writes Kit Knightly here.

Quote: “This is clearly a response to Covid, or rather the failure of Covid. Essentially, the pandemic narrative broke because the current mechanisms of censorship didn’t work well enough. In response, the government has just legalised and out-sourced their silencing of dissent.“

“

Interesting quote from Charles Darwin

In his "Journal of a Voyage Round the World", he praised Christian culture and the work of missionaries.

In his book “The Mission of God” (Wilberforce Publications, London 2016), the author Joseph Boot quotes Darwin. On page 381 of that book, he introduces the quote thus:

On his world voyage on the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin, despite his growing agnosticism and deistic religious confusion, found himself unable to overlook the profound impact of Christian missionaries in Tahiti and the Pacific Islands. In the first work he ever wrote, before the implications of his theory gripped and ruled him, Darwin’s Christianized background caused him to rain praise on the evangelical missionary.

There follows this quote, which, according to the endnote, is from

Charles Darwin: Journal of a voyage round the world (London: T. Nelson and Sons, Paternoster Row, 1890), 496-947.

This is it:

It appears to me that the morality and religion of the inhabitants are highly creditable. There are many who attack … both the missionaries, their system, and the effects produced by it. Such reasoners never compare the present state with that of the Island only twenty years ago, nor even with that of Europe at this day; but they compare it with the high standard of gospel perfection … [T]hey forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices, and the power of an idolatrous priesthood – a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world – infanticide, a consequence of that system – bloody wars, where the conquerors spared neither women nor children – that all these have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced, by the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far … [T]hose who are most severe should consider how much of the morality of the women in Europe is owing to the system early impressed by mothers on their daughters, and how much in each individual case to the precepts of religion. But it is useless to argue against such reasoners; – I believe that, disappointed in not finding the field of licentiousness quite so open as formally, they will not give credit to a morality which they do not wish to practice, or to a religion which they undervalue, if not despise. 

Interview with Rvd. Dr. Joseph Boot

Author or The Mission of God

Boot was recently interviewed by Revelation TV.

Here are my notes:

How do we address the culture we’re living in?

JB: In the Western World, the objections to Christianity have been changing. 27 or so years ago, the focus was still on questions such as “does God exist”, “what about evil and suffering”, “is Jesus the only way to God”. Objections have changed, in university, media etc, people are not literate in theological points to ask these questions any more. The challenges are now civilizational. Christianity is deemed imperialistic, colonial, oppressive, anti-choice, misogynistic, transphobic etc. These are the kind of questions the pagan world asked Christians in Augustine’s time. He in turn wrote as an answer to these questions the tome “The City of God”.

We need a cultural apologetic to the challenges of our time.

The challenge to Christianity now is that Christianity itself is deemed evil.

What we’re facing now is radical de-Christianisation, it’s a revolutionary movement. It began in Europe with the French Revolution, which was the political expression of the philosophy of the enlightenment. Reason leading to the autonomy of man. Existence precedes essence. We’re not image-bearers of God, we are merely a choice, standing on the edge of the abyss. Everything’s about me. Then there was the neo-Marxist movement, the Frankfurt School which gave us Critical Theory, everything is socially constructed. The male Christian is the oppressor. The oppressed must become the oppressor.

The opposite movement to that has been the retreat of the church.

The Ezra Institute is trying to put some backbone back into the church. What does it truly mean to be a Christian? Great Commission. We’ve retreated from externalising the faith. Culture is religion externalised. We’ve left the various institutions of cultural life to the forces of secularism, humanism and paganism. We’ve sent our children to Caesar to be educated and are shocked that they return as Romans.

We’ve reduced Christianity to personal salvation and neglected that we pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven”. We’ve surrendered Jesus’ Lordship over all life.

The temptation for the church has always been to be synthesised with the culture around it. This happened when the pagan elites became Christianised. They wanted to synthesise their culture. Roman Catholicism was a synthesised culture. Then the Reformation came along. And with that the rediscovery that Jesus is the king of kings. Meaning that in economics, law, education, political life, in the arts etc. we must bring to bear the claims of the Lord Jesus.

What we’re saying in the West now is that we like the fruits of Christendom: Freedom, the rule of law, economic prosperity, peace and stability, etc. But we don’t want the root, which is Christ. We thought we could retain those things without the Gospel of Jesus Christ and submission to his word. We’ve been living off the energy of Christendom for a long time. We now find the Christian capital so eroded we’re in a crisis spiritually.

What principle markers should we be looking for in the path to recovery?

We need to recognise that Jesus is not just our saviour, but also our Lord. Christ is not just redeemer, he is also creator. He is Lord over all areas of life, not just in the church and a little bit in the family.

Our situation is like in a double-decker bus. Where in the upper deck we do the spiritual disciplines. In the lower deck we have the “secular area” which can be governed by the neutral forces of reason. Problem: That’s where the driver is. And it’s driving off a cliff. Paul says be transformed by the Holy Spirit and present your bodies as a living sacrifice.

That means take off that upper deck altogether. Just have one deck. It’s called the Kingdom of God. No area of life is outside the Kingdom rule and reign of the Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ve lost the Christian life view. Human existence is in every area a response to the Word of God. You can’t have Christian action if you don’t have Christian thinking. Young, enthusiastic Christians who want to do something end up doing things with are “Karl Marx baptised” or some other world-life view sprinkled with some Christian name. We’ve got to recover a Christian world and life view so we can act and live Christianly.

We’re currently not the salt and light of the culture.

There’s the elements of Prophet, Priest and King. It’s the King element that’s missing. My father was told “we shouldn’t be interested in property”. He said: “Well the devil is.”

Every square inch of the universe is contested between Christ and the Enemy. People want to stay on the mountain, have the sort of monastic life. No, you have to come down from the mountain and deal with the boy possessed by an evil spirit.

“Antiracism” Sounds Benign

Writes Tom Woods:

I’d like to introduce you to somebody you should know.

The name will not be familiar. But it should be.

I’ve had Wanjiru Njoya on the Tom Woods Show, and I’ve been following her ever since. She does not care what people think of her, and speaks blunt truths because somebody has to.

Let’s get her credentials and background out of the way: Njoya is originally from Kenya, where she attended the University of Nairobi. She is currently a senior lecturer at the University of Exeter Law School, UK, and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy.

She previously taught law at St. John’s College, Oxford, the London School of Economics, and Queen’s University, Canada. She has published widely in employment law and labor regulation.

She’s been an outspoken opponent of egalitarianism, censorship, “hate speech” nonsense, “antiracism,” and DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in the workplace.

Of course, as an academic, she’s been published plenty in professional journals. But here I’ve stitched together material she’s posted over the past day or so on Twitter:

Did you know there are actual Departments of Hate Studies? Do you think you will win any argument about the meaning of “hate” against people who spent years learning CRT and now have a PhD in Hate Studies? While you were busy living your life, they were busy studying Hate.

They’re known as Hate Experts, and they’re now saying people should be jailed for “hate speech.” You may think you stand a chance debating with them the definition of “hate” because you’ll win them over with reason and logic, but you’d be wrong. Hate Studies isn’t about reason.

The rule of law is failing. Legal concepts are increasingly defined by people with PhDs in Hate Studies. Lawyers argue in court that white people mourning the death of their loved ones is “selective outrage,” as they should be mourning the historical grievances of black people.

Example [from South Africa]: “Kill the Boer is just a song. Why should Boers care about the killing of Boers? That’s selective outrage. What about my historical grievances and my land stolen in 1652? Ban the old flag; it makes me feel very unsafe when I see it displayed anywhere.” That is insane.

Example 2: people saying whiteness is psychosis, and you’re meant to treat that as a perfectly sane argument.

A civil servant sued the government for race discrimination, [on account of] DEI training that included “The Psychosis of Whiteness,” a paper which suggests white people are “psychotic, cannot be reasoned with and must be destroyed.”

The tribunal says: that’s fine, it’s just a paper, it’s not discrimination.

What can you do to help? You can’t go everywhere and fight every battle. But you can stand where you are and say no to antiracism and DEI. If more people said no they wouldn’t be as powerful as they are. Part of their power comes from the fact that most people go along with it.

If you’re still saying “well, antiracism has some good aspects and DEI could work very well if it’s done properly” then you are part of the problem.

Next time you’re sitting in your mandatory DEI training learning all about “white privilege” think about those white families in South Africa mourning the loss of their children, only to be told that’s “selective outrage” and in any case white children are just “future problems.”

Imagine not even being able to mourn the loss of your own children, your own family, because that’s “selective outrage.” Instead of expressing sympathy for your loss they tell you “land or death.” This level of horror is not even “hate speech.” It’s simply unimaginable evil.

This insanity runs very deep, and there’s nothing anybody can do to uproot it. Anybody who sees white children as “future problems” really can’t be won over with fine arguments. The best thing to do is to stop encouraging them. Yet DEI ideology does the opposite. It fuels them.

[TW note: The “future problems” remark is a reference to comments from members of the Black First Land First (BLF) party, one of whom reacted to the news of at least three white children having died after a bridge collapsed at their school by saying, “Don’t have heart to feel pain for white kids. Minus three future problems.” Another said, “I celebrate the death of our enemies, their children, their cats and dogs. That is our position.”]

Not only are they killing white farmers, but they get offended when their families express grief and sorrow. They say that’s “selective outrage.” “Why are you sad your parents were killed? That’s selective outrage because you don’t seem sad about all the black victims of crime.”

South African courts are not sure whether there’s any link between chanting “Kill the Boer” and the killing of Boers, as they say it’s just a song. But the same courts are very sure that if any black person sees the old South African flag they’ll melt, so they banned the flag.

That’s a sampling.

Jordan Peterson on Canada and the West in general

In this 25 minute video interview with a journalist from the Telegraph, he says, among other things, that the predictors of “left-wing authoritarianism” are: 1. low verbal intelligence, 2. being a woman, 3. having feminine traits, 4. having taken part in a “political correctness” course.

The traits of such people are the “dark tetrad”: 1. narcissism, 2. Machiavellianism, 3. psychopathy and 4. sadism,

There is always a small number of psychopaths, about 3 percent, in every society. If they rise to 5 percent, people realise there is a problem (“we have to beat back the snakes”) and they beat them back. If they fall to 1 percent, people lose their guard and become “too nice”, which the psychopaths exploit, so they grow back again to 3 or more percent.

We’re in a post-Christian era. He also talks about Covid, climate change and “group rights” (which are an oxymoron because there is no such thing as group responsibilities).

The new Stasi is the old Stasi, refined

A past warning from GDR civil rights campaigner

In 1991[!], shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, a former GDR leading civil rights campaigner named Bärbel Bohley uttered this warning:

“All these investigations, the thorough research into the Stasi structures, the methods with which they worked and still work, all this will fall into the wrong hands. One will examine these structures in detail – in order to then take them over. They will be adapted a little to suit a free Western society.

They won’t necessarily arrest the troublemakers either. There are more subtle ways to disarm someone. But the secret bans, the watching, the suspicion, the fear, the isolation and exclusion, the branding and muzzling of those who don’t conform – that will come back, believe me. Institutions will be created that will work much more effectively, much more finely than the Stasi. The constant lying will also come back, the disinformation, the fog in which everything loses its contour.”

Quote (in German) found here.