Included are videos with Ukraine- and Russia-experts John J. Mearsheimer, who is a Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Jim Rickards, who is, according to the author of the article, “one of the most astute experts on geopolitics today. He is a lawyer, best-selling author and investor. He is an advisor on capital markets to the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Secretary of Defense.”
Category Archives: History
Why are church membership numbers dwindling?
Clerics and laity don't seem to understand the main reason
Islam, Christ, and Liberty
Jordan Peterson discusses with Mustafa Akyol
Jordan Peterson has again created a signature super video. This time of his discussion with liberal-minded Muslim intellectual Mustafa Akyol.
That a deep and serious debate between “the West” and Islam is urgent and necessary goes almost without saying. So Peterson (hereafter JP) and Akyol (hereafter MA) are doing us a great favour by forging ahead.
Here are some highlights that stood out for me:
Continue readingA Prayer for COP26
Dear heavenly Father,
Today is the day people around the world commemorate the end of World War One. I do not know for sure why this evil entered the world, I don’t think anyone does, but I believe what Alexandr Solzhenitsyn said in relation to the disastrous Russian Revolution applies to this war as well: “All this happened because we have forgotten God”. If this is true, I pray that people around the world heed those words for our present times and troubles, and that we, in everything we do, consider another word from the author of that sentence, namely that the dividing line between good and evil goes right through each of our hearts.
With that in mind, dear heavenly Father, I pray, with regard to climate change and our response to it, that we will learn again to trust first in you instead of in princes of the world and their paid advisers. That we learn to pursue treasures in heaven, not in this world. That we learn to care for your creation by respecting your laws, including the law not to steal from each other, and to not bear false witness against our neighbour. That we all humbly concede that we don’t know all the facts and all the answers. That we help each other by teaching each other the little we do know – and discerning what we don’t, and by listening patiently to one another.
Help us to be weary of the claim that all that is required to know is now known. Help us to discern between action that protects creation and that which, even if well intended, does not or, worse, does the opposite. Help us, and remind us every time we feel the need to act, to count the costs of our actions before we act, lest we build on sand instead of the rock of your word.
Lord, you know I am very sceptical about the currently widely favoured approach to tackling climate change, which is the one promoted and discussed at COP26 in Glasgow, by the many paid advisers of governments, by many big corporations hoping for government money in return for conforming to the ruling narrative, and by almost every established media outlet around the world. However, I pray today for your blessing on each and every participant, and on each and every observer. May those who are truly fearful be assuaged and find peace in you and your assurances – especially the children and young people, who are increasingly frightened out of their wits. May those who are distant from you be drawn nearer, so that they see your plans full of peace and joy for them and all of us. May those who are driven by power and greed be humbled and converted to your way. May those who deceive be humbled by the truth. May those who honestly seek the truth be steadfast in the face of much deception and pressure to conform.
Thank you, dear heavenly Father, for your promise that those who meekly emulate your love will inherit the Earth.
May you, dear Lord and Creator, be glorified, and may your peace reign forever.
Amen.
Repealing the century of collectivism, mass destruction and genocide
Our hope resides in a resurrected God
“We shall repeal the 20th century.” These were words spoken by American economist Murray N. Rothbard (1926 – 1995) near the end of an article he wrote in 1992. Another American economist, Gary North (b. 1942), who is a historian and theologian as well, used these words near the end of a lecture he gave in 2010.
Rothbard made clear why he wants to repeal it, when he asked, ironically:
“Who would want to repeal the 20th century, the century of horror, the century of collectivism, the century of mass destruction and genocide, who would want to repeal that! Well, we propose to do just that.”
With “we” he meant what he hoped would be a resurrected movement which in America is called the Old Right, a movement that was libertarian in its core, supported decentralised structures, laissez-faire economics and minimal interference of the government into private lives. This movement was effectively killed off around the year 1900 and replaced by interventionist, imperialist, big-government and big-business supporting politics.
Similar things had happened, or were happening, in Europe. Nationalism was the name of the game, and that sentiment lead to centralised governments continually increasing their interventions into the economy to suit their lust for power. Imperialism was the natural outgrowth of this development. This in turn lead to the original catastrophe of our time, World War One.
Considering that we are by now one fifth into the next century, it is clear that we have been unable to repeal the 20th century. For, as an idea, or phenomenon, the 20th century, in all its awfulness, is still firmly with us. So, how can we go about “repealing” it?
Continue readingIf our enemy wants to destroy our neighbour
To which one of those two do we then show more love?
I occasionally follow the blog of the “Bionic Mosquito” (BM).
Here’s an interesting question I found there recently:
The following comment was made in response to a post on Christian pacifism, Anabaptists, etc.
>>Charles Martel and John III Sobieski would be hearing “blah, blah, blah,” and even the most pacifist Christians, deep down inside, would have said at the two respective times, “thank God for Charles” … “thank God for John.”
We are called to love our neighbor and love our enemy. But what if our enemy wants to destroy our neighbor? To which one do we then show love? Look into your child’s eyes while answering the question.<<
This does not mean viewing every new stranger in our midst as an enemy. BM’s important question however reminds us that we do not live in paradise. And that, even if we did, there’d probably be a serpent around somewhere. So, we need to be on our guard for the enemy.
The natural order of medieval society
Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe, an Austrian school economist and libertarian/anarcho-capitalist philosopher, gave a talk in 2018 with the title “The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative“. In it, he said the following:
“While many libertarians fancy an anarchic social order as a largely horizontal order without hierarchies and different ranks of authority – as “anti-authoritarian” – the medieval example of a State-less society teaches otherwise. Peace was not maintained by the absence of hierarchies and ranks of authority, but by the absence of anything but social authority and ranks of social authority. Indeed, in contrast to the present order, which essentially recognizes only one authority, that of the State, the Middle Ages were characterized by a great multitude of competing, cooperating, overlapping and hierarchically ordered ranks of social authority. There was the authority of the heads of family households and of various kinship groups. There were patrons, lords, overlords and feudal kings with their estates, and their vassals, and the vassals of vassals. There were countless different and separate communities and towns, and a huge variety of religious, artistic, professional and social orders, councils, assemblies, guilds, associations and clubs, each with their own rules, hierarchies and rank orders. In addition, and of utmost importance, there were the authorities of the local priest, the more distant bishop, and of the Pope in Rome.”
It is exactly this multitude of hierarchies and authorities which could, in the long term, be the guarantor of freedom and prosperity. Historian, economist and theologian Dr. Gary North has identified four authorities in human societies that are biblically ordained: The individual, the family, the church and the state (or, in medieval times, proto-state). They are constantly competing against each other, attempting to become the monopoly authority, thereby however preventing a monopoly of any one of them. Sometimes however, one of them becomes overbearing. Then society crumbles and falls apart. And the competition begins anew.
North writes about these competing authorities extensively in his book “God’s Covenants“. This is from the introduction:
“This book discusses three covenantal units that have operated in history from the beginning: individual, church, and family. It then discusses a fourth covenantal institution, civil, which began after the Fall of man.”
From the conclusion of “The Relation Between Religion and Culture”
Great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest
This is part 10, the last part, of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)
Dawson: “The great civilizations of the world do not produce the great religions as a kind of cultural by-product; in a very real sense the great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest. A society which has lost its religion becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture.” (271, my emphasis) (Progress and Religion, 1937)
Continue readingOn the return to Christian unity and the predicament Christianity is in now
It has been replaced by "State-inspired public opinion and by the mass organisation of society on a purely secular basis"
This is part 8 of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)
Dawson: “Either Europe must abandon the Christian tradition and with it the faith in progress and humanity, or it must return consciously to the religious foundation on which these ideas were based.” (p. 225)
Dawson: “true foundation of European unity is to be found not in political or economic agreements, but in the restoration of the spiritual tradition on which that unity was originally based.” (p. 227, my emphasis)
Totalitarianism and the totalitarian state [are] a force that impedes the restauration of the Christian tradition in Western Culture. (p. 227)
Continue readingOn natural science
Does it inevitably lead to secularization?
This is part 7 of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)
Since the time of the Renaissance, natural science . . . was based on a mechanistic view of nature that destroyed the old spiritual unity of medieval Europe, and it failed to establish a real basis for unity in European culture. (p. 215)
Dawson: “Thus as I have suggested, the progress of Western civilisation by science and power seems to lead to a state of total secularization in which both religion and freedom simultaneously disappear.” (p. 218)
Continue reading