2020, 2021, and This Blog

As a new year is upon us, it is a time to look back and forward.

Looking back, it seems every year I make a remarkably prescient prediction if I may say so myself.  This year’s came back in September when I wrote, “I think it likely we will have a contested election fueled by massive fraud.”  And I went on to warn of the problem of mail-in ballots.

I did get something slightly wrong when I noted one “scenario is that [Trump] loses his lead in a crucial state due to questionable mail-in ballots, and you get President Harris, er, Biden.”  In hindsight, I should have written “states.”  And I confess the fraud was more massive and widespread than even I anticipated.

You may have noticed something more mundane about this blog – I have been posting less frequently in recent months.  There may have been some lack of energy and creativity involved, but I have a good reason as well.  And that gets me into looking forward.

The publication of my writing increased notably in 2020, and I expect the new venues for my writing will continue in 2021.  Also, I finally decided on my next book.  Yes, good progress for which I am thankful.

The problem is, to do these justice, really to get these done, I have to change my time management, and that will likely include posting less often here.  Already, I have caught myself procrastinating on my book, and this blog has been one of the excuses for that.  In fact, I put off working on my book to write this post!

So do know that if post less frequently, it will probably be for good reason.  But I will continue to opine on twitter and Parler, which can be more fun anyway.

For now, may you have a more tolerable 2021 and a happy remainder of the Christmas season.

Two Timely Christmas Sermons from Pusey House

I noted on a past Feast of Holy Innocents that Christmas has its dark side.  We often try to push that aside in strenuous efforts to be merry, but on this Holy Innocents Day of 2020, one would have to engage in significant denial to ignore it.

So I am glad to have come across Christmas sermons this year that tackle the current difficulties and the present darkness head on.  Two of those come from the Principal of Pusey House, George Westhaver during their Christmas Eve Midnight Mass.

Although I could only watch the opening of his sermon live due to my preparations for a Christmas Eve service, I was able to watch it the remainder of the evening and was edified.  I hoped it would be posted for all to see and read and have not been disappointed.  The transcript is here.

Dr. Westhaver expounded on John 1:5 – “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

I said two sermons from Pusey House because Westhaver refers to a sermon from Dr. Pusey.  That sermon, too, well addresses the relevance of Christmas to great difficulties and may be found here.

Although I hope the difficulties of my readers have not been too great, I also hope these sermons encourage you in the midst of a trying time as they have me.

Do have a blessed Holy Innocents Day and a happy Christmas season. 

King’s Nine Lesson and Carols Will Be Pre-recorded.

2020 continues to take its toll.  Now that toll includes the Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, at least a live version.  From King’s:

…For safety reasons it had previously been decided that no congregation could be present this year. In the face of Covid-19, King’s also decided to make a recording of the service a few weeks before Christmas as an additional precaution. In the light of current conditions, it is this recording of 2020’s A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols that will be broadcast at the usual time on 24 December.

Given all the lockdowns now around London, the decision is understandable, perhaps inevitable.  And King’s College is to be praised for their foresight in pre-recording a service just in case.

Still Christmas Eve this year will not quite be the same.

For those wondering, the broadcast schedule should remain the same:

The scheduling information for A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will remain the same, with the service broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC World Service on 24 December at 3pm (10:00 EST or 07:00 PST). The service is also broadcast at 1pm on Radio 3 on Christmas Day, and at various times on the BBC World Service. In the United States the service is distributed by American Public Media and is broadcast by around 450 radio stations, including Minnesota Public Radio and WQXR in New York.

Additional information, including the Order of Service may be found here.

One has to have sympathy for Director of Music Daniel Hyde.  Now into his second year, he has yet to have a live Nine Lessons and Carols without difficulty.  Last year was at the end of his first Michaelmas Term and in the shadow of Stephen Cleobury.  It takes time for a new director and choir to work seamlessly together.  Last year’s service seemed to show that at times although it was excellent overall.  Then in a dark Lent Term came the COVID.  And now the live service is cancelled.  Like much of the UK, the man cannot seem to get a break.

About That Jupiter-Saturn Conjunction

The last two nights have provided a spectacular sight.  Jupiter and Saturn were close in the clear western sky near a bright crescent moon.  Yet, as most of you know, weather permitting, it is going to get even better.  On this coming Monday evening December 21^st, Jupiter and Saturn will be so close together in our line of sight, they may appear to be one very bright star.  You have to go back to 1226 and 1623 for a Jupiter-Saturn conjunction this close.

It so happens that December 21^st is St. Thomas Day.  I was thinking of calling the conjunction after him.  But he would defer to Christ.  So the Christmas Star of 2020 may be more appropriate.

Imagine if we were in medieval times.  A remarkable conjunction on St. Thomas Day, right before Christmas.  And December 21^st is also the Winter Solstice this year.  People would consider this a portent of something, maybe something wonderful . . . or awful.  If it were near the year 1000 or 1215 or 1349 (at the height of the Black Death), people might think it would mean the End.

But such medieval thinking was superstitious, of course.  Surely, God is not using the skies to get our attention at the end of this awful 2020, right?

Right?

ACNA Receives a Godly Example from … Baptists!?

Yes, I am having a bit of fun with the headline.  But in all seriousness, as the Anglican Church in North America and its Working Group on Race, Racism, and Racial Reconciliation struggles with Critical Race Theory and its cousins and progeny, we have just been given good guidance from the seminary presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, another denomination wrestling with CRT.

The six SBC seminary presidents have issued a statement that concludes as follows:

In light of current conversations in the Southern Baptist Convention, we stand together on historic Southern Baptist condemnations of racism in any form and we also declare that affirmation of Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and any version of Critical Theory is incompatible with the Baptist Faith & Message.

Now I could quibble with this.  At least two of the presidents have enabled CRT at their seminaries.  The cynical could think that this is a ploy to deflect rising opposition to CRT while continuing business as usual.  Also, it is important to oppose not only the affirmation of Critical Theory and related ideologies but also to oppose their toxic influence.  Few in relatively orthodox churches say, “I affirm Critical Theory.”  Many in relatively orthodox churches are influenced by Critical Theory and spread the influence.

But, having quibbled, this statement is a pleasant surprise.  It calls out Critical Theory by name and “any version” of CT and declares that affirming these is out.

That is important because, as we already see, when a Leftist ideology gets too much opposition, its proponents play dumb and then change the labeling and declare concern about it to be witch hunting or something.  In other words, they in effect say, “CRT?  What’s CRT?  There’s no CRT to see here!”  Then they push the same ideology under different wrapping.  Pro-abortion becomes “pro-choice”; global warming becomes “climate change”, etc.  Already we see Critical Theory in many guises.  Attacking just one arm of this slithery octopus will not do.  Whenever we oppose Critical Theory, we must oppose related and derivative ideologies as well.  The seminary presidents’ statement does just that.

ACNA’s Working Group on Race, Racism, and Racial Reconciliation as well as the College of Bishops would do well to issue a statement this clear and strong.  Further, it is necessary that the Working Group and College of Bishops issue a statement at least this clear and strong.

Election Fraud is All the More Reason to VOTE

An objective of those with a totalitarian mindset is to discourage opposition to the point where they give up.  Totalitarians are certainly willing to cancel their opposition in various ways, but they would rather opposition just give up.

We are seeing this in play in the Georgia Senate run-off elections.  It is becoming more and more obvious that a major factor, if not the factor, behind President Trump’s loss of Georgia and of Senator Perdue being forced into a run-off (In the other Senate race, the Republican vote was split.) was election fraud in the Atlanta area.  And the Republican Governor and Secretary of State are doing little about it.  Instead they enabled the fraud by their agreements with that fat fraud Stacey Abrams and with Dominion Voting Systems.

So the thinking of some goes, if Georgia elections are now fraudulent and Republicans are even assisting the fraud, what is the point of voting?  If enough think like that, the Democrats’ task in the January run-offs is made easier.  (And, yes, some who are pushing this thinking are actually Democrats engaging in political chicanery and pretending to be Republicans.)

My response applies not just to the Georgia run-offs, but to future elections as a whole.  Election fraud makes it all the more important to vote, not less.

Let’s take the worse possible scenario, which we probably just experienced.  Let’s say election fraud nullifies and overturns the legitimate vote.  If more right-thinking Americans vote, that makes the task of the fraudsters more difficult.  We just saw that in November.  Donald Trump received more votes than any other incumbent President in history, millions more than Obama in 2012.  His election night leads in swing states were formidable.  So the fraud necessary to overcome that was more than the usual vote buying, dead people and illegals voting and so on.  The fraud had to be massive and therefore rather more obvious to “win”, and it was.  Frankly, I suspect the election night pauses in the counting in swing states was in order to prepare the needed fraud.  (And as I prepare this, video out of Georgia confirms my thinking.  Observers were told counting was suspended so go home.  Then when the observers were gone, poll workers pulled out cases of ballots and resumed counting without observers – blatantly illegal and strong evidence of fraud.)

So now if Biden succeeds in capturing the White House, his leadership will have little credibility from the start.  Already, that many more people now see Democrats as the power-hungry crooks that they are. Democrats will find it difficult to live that down with consequences in future elections. Again, this is the worst possible scenario when real Americans vote.

If Trump supporters had just stayed home, Democrats would be more able to create an illusion of legitimacy.  The task of these quasi-totalitarian criminals would be easier.  

However, especially as the extent of Democrat fraud is more and more exposed in the coming months and years and as the Biden-Harris regime is predictably incompetent and tyrannical, it is very possible that Democrats will be so repudiated in the next two elections, overwhelming their attempts at fraud, that Republicans will finally be able to pass laws protecting our elections, laws such as Voter ID.  Who knows?  If Donald Trump is elected in 2024, we may even see a few of the Democrat criminals go to prison where they belong.  

Maybe that last bit is wishful thinking (although note that I do not expect Trump to succeed in his challenges of this election).  But I am hopeful that the reaction to this debacle will be much stronger election laws and the enforcement of them by 2026, not to mention the political punishment of the Democrats who so disrespected and nullified our votes in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

But that will not happen unless Americans vote.  So VOTE!

Besides that are moral issues of culpability.  If America falls to the totalitarians because you and people like you did not vote and vote wisely, that’s your fault.  If America falls to the totalitarians because they stole elections and tore up the Constitution against how you voted, that’s their fault.

I would rather it be their fault, not your fault, nor mine.  Part of the message of Advent is the Lord will judge, don’tcha know.

Have a Blessed Advent

By Thy first coming deign to justify,

And by Thy second deign to set us free… *

Even so, come Lord Jesus. **

May the past and future coming of the Lord Jesus Christ bring you hope and joy this Advent season . . . even this year . . . especially this year.

----

*from the medieval Sarum Rite Sequence for the First Sunday in Advent, translated from the Latin by A. H. Pearson

**Revelation 22:20

Democrat Election Fraud Harms Black Americans Too.

Largely overlooked in the controversy surrounding massive Democrat vote fraud in this election* is the harm it has done to Black Americans.

Most prominent is the apparent defeat of John James, a Black Republican, in the Michigan election for Senate.  The current and apparently re-elected Senator is a little known Democrat hack, Gary Peters.  Peters even had to the gall to mock James' insistence on a clean vote count.  So instead of being represented by a distinguished Black Republican, Michigan Black people and all Americans are stuck with a contemptible hack … again.

The bigger picture is election fraud renders legitimate votes meaningless, including the votes of Blacks.  If more than the usual amount of Black people vote Republican, as happened in this election, or if many Blacks decided to express their displeasure with their choices by not voting, so what?  Just bring in enough boxes of fraudulent “votes” and Democrats win!  Election fraud thus further enables Democrats taking Blacks for granted and discourages Republicans from earning their votes.  What’s the incentive for politicians if elections are so easily stolen in the dead of night? 

The old Jim Crow literacy tests were subtle in disenfranchising Blacks compared to this election. Consent of the governed being dumped on with such blatant election fraud disenfranchises all Americans, including Black people.

But I do not hear much concern about this from the woke church crowd.  Instead Jemar Tisby says you should just shut up about illegal votes:

In this political moment we must avoid this phrase: “count every legal vote.” While the words seem harmless and intuitive...inserting the word “legal” implies the widespread presence of illegal votes, which simply is not true.

And this:

Don’t fall for it. Don’t let the current president and his supporters undermine our elections, especially one with historic turnout and margins of victory. Biden is the president-elect and it’s not even close. If you already know this, then make it plain to somebody who doesn’t.

How dare you question the legitimacy of this election and of the fake President-Elect!

Ironic that the woke church crowd so enables the disenfranchising of Black Americans.

----

*Again, don’t give me the “No Evidence” gaslighting.  I will give it the respect it deserves – zero.

No Evidence?!?

There are many things infuriating about this massive fraud being perpetrated on the American people.  (And I intend to address how to respond.  But, please, nobody do anything stupid.  And remember Christ still rules.)  One of those things is the ignorant or hackish saying there is no evidence of massive fraud in this election.

Oh really?  Project Veritas alone has presented a lot of evidence of late mail-in “votes” being given Election Day postmarks after Election Day.  At least three whistleblowers from the USPS have testified to that.  The latest is from Pennsylvania, of course.  (And Biden has just fraudulently gone ahead in Pennsylvania.)  Yesterday, two days after Election Day, the Pennsylvania whistleblower revealed:

“All these ballots that were coming in--today, tomorrow, yesterday—are all supposed to be postmarked the third,” said the postal service employee, who works out of the USPS General Mail Facility here.

The Project Veritas Insider said the supervisors are collecting the ballots and making sure they are postmarked.

“They're getting these ballots in and they're getting, they're taking them from us,” he said. 

“We have to separate out the ballots and give them directly to the supervisors,” he said. “They're postmarking and they're at the office and taking them directly to the ballot box.”

This is just one whistleblower.  There are at least two other USPS whistleblowers in other states.  That begs the question of how much postal fraud do we not know about.

Especially in Pennsylvania, where Democrat hack judges are allowing mail-in ballots to count even if they come in late and even if signatures do not match, this Pennsylvania whistleblower alone just revealed the commission of fraud.  Backdated postmarks alone are fraudulent.  The only question is how massive the fraud is.

So don’t give me the crap that there is no evidence of serious fraud in this election.  Just don’t.

To the Victor Belongs the . . . Poison

I am not going to go over the details of the Democrat attempt to steal this election.  It would make for a long and laborious post, and I have been posting a lot of details on my twitter account.  I will say that I told you so about Pennsylvania.  

And I am not going to argue about it here.  Maybe another day and place I will.  But if you disagree that Democrats are trying to steal this election, I will be charitable and recommend you acknowledge at least the perception of an attempt to steal the election and read on.

I will say, as I have warned, that the move to mail-in voting invited this mess even if I am wrong (and I’m not) that there is a Democrat attempt to steal this election.  From personal experience I know mail-in ballots can be impossible to verify.  The shift to mass use of mail-in ballots alone practically guaranteed fraud even if Democrats did not choose to pile more fraud on top of that.

But leaving that aside, this situation has so poisoned the chalice of the presidency that this Trump supporter does not know what would be worse, Trump or Biden “winning.”  Whoever wins will be perceived as illegitimate by at least a third of the country. And that third will be angry.  Hatred of Trump runs deep no matter what he does, and many would (wrongly) think he stole the election. And Democrats have already well earned the hatred of Americans towards them with their refusal to respect the 2016 election, their serial election fraud, their extremism, their disdain for the Constitution, and you don’t want to get me started on all that.

Combine these divisions now becoming worse for the next president with the difficulties he will face with COVID, the economy, and who knows what else, and “winning” the presidency has the seeds of destruction for whichever party wins it.  I predict right now that if Biden “wins,” the 2022 mid-term election will be a bloodbath with Republicans taking the House and more.  Then Republicans will take back the White House in 2024.  And if Trump wins, the next two elections could be just as bad for Republicans, particularly since Trump fatigue is likely.  Hey, I love the guy, but I can see people getting really tired of him.

When I step back from the present, I wonder if God is allowing this mess in order to give the country enough of a taste of Democrat rule so that we come to our senses and cast out the Democrats and force them to reform or else.  Maybe that is wishful thinking, and we certainly neither deserve God’s providence and mercy. But God does act “in strange ways” as the old saying goes.

In any case, the chalice of presidential victory has now been so thoroughly poisoned that I am not that sure I want Trump to succeed in pulling this out (even though I very much support his efforts to thwart the fraud).  That even though I think a Biden/Harris presidency will be awful for the country. 

Pray.

Election Day

Good morning?

Just to let you know my plans for Election Day, I doubt I will post much here, but I do expect to tweet a lot so . . . be sure to follow my twitter account.

I will say I’ve noticed an interesting tell already.  Frank Luntz was on CNBC this morning talking about polling.  And he seemed to be going to a funeral for the polling industry.  I think in his gut he thinks Trump will make the polls look foolish again and win.

Anyway, follow my twitter and have a good day . . . even if you are voting for Biden.

Silicon Valley COVID Political Fakery II

Upon reflection, those Silicon Valley-funded Future Forward fake doctor COVID ads, starring at least one charlatan posing as an epidemiologist, are even worse than I opined.

Think about it.  Who has benefited the most from the COVID shutdowns?  Silicon Valley.  Think Zoom, Amazon, Google, various cloud stocks etc.  Who of the two POTUS candidates is most eager to shut us back down?  Joe Biden.

Thus the Future Forward Silicon Valley funders are seeking to impoverish most of us so they can stuff their pockets even more.

And I do not trust myself to say more.

A Labour Purge of Anti-Semites?!?

First, you may wish to sit down before reading this….

Good.  For two aspects of this post may floor you.  First, I am compelled to now praise the Labour Party.

Yes, I know.  Shocking.  But don’t stand up yet… Second, the Labour Party may be purging its anti-semites.

Already, the Labour Party has suspended (Still sitting?) past Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.  And other Corbynistas are in danger as well, including (Please God!) Dianne Abbott.

I have to praise the courage of Labour leader Keir Starmer.  At the same time, I wonder if Labour will now split into a semi-sane, non-Communist Party and a silly Left Islamonazi Party.

Now if only the U. S. Democrat Party would purge its anti-semites.

Islamic Decapitation Attack in Nice, France Linked to All Saints Day

Something that is not getting much attention about the Islamic decapitation attack in Notre Dame Church in Nice, France.  It may have been timed to coincide with All Saints Day:

…Several local priests are saying that they were warned about the possibility of an attack days ago.

The timing, they say, is intended to coincide with the Catholic All Saint's Day holiday on Nov. 1. Some in terror circles are making a connection between the Day of the Dead and killing non-believers.

Also, according to eyewitness reports, the attack unfolded inside the church, during morning services, in full view of the priest and clergy. At least two of the three victims were killed inside the church.

Priests said they received threats in the days before the attack.

"We had been warned for two or three days that there might be some additional attacks with the approach of All Saints' Day, since some made a link with the Christian feast of the dead and the fact of increasing the number of dead."

So this year, I will be celebrating All Saints Day with that much more gusto.

And, yes, I may be armed.

St. Jude: “Contend for the Faith”

I must confess I did not pay much attention to the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude (which is today) until I resided at Pusey House during Michaelmas Term 2018.  It then struck me how the day is a fitting harbinger of All Saints Day, a favorite holy day of mine.

Last night, I was struck all the more what a fitting harbinger this day is for the Feast of All Saints when I read the Epistle of St. Jude.  Early in it he writes:

…it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.  (v. 3)

Note that the epistle is addressed “to those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.”  So he is writing to all church people, both clergy and laity, not just church leaders.

Hence it is the responsibility of all of God’s people, of all the saints, to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”  

And judging from the rest of the epistle, Jude did not want the people to be all that nice about it.  “For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” (v. 4) And Jude was just getting warmed up about false teachers.

Recent history illustrates that Jude was right that it is the responsibility of all God’s people to contend for the faith and put down false teachers.  I’ve long stated that a big reason most of the mainline denominations have gone to Hell is because people in the pews did not put their feet down and say, “NO!”

Yes, clergy have a heightened responsibility to hold each other accountable.  But should the laity rely on clergy to police clergy? NO.

A weakness of modern Anglicanism is that the laity can be shy about calling out false teaching.  Don’t be.  Follow the good exhortation and good example of St. Jude and “contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.”

Silicon Valley COVID Political Fakery

If you watch any cable TV, you’ve seen, over and over, ads from Future Forward PAC blaming Trump for COVID. Funded by Silicon Valley, these ads feature supposed doctors who are oh-so concerned about Trump’s handling of the COVID pandemic.  

Yesterday, while seeing one of these ads for the upteenth time on the Weather Channel, I lost it to the point where my neighbor messaged me to see if I was okay.  I just knew these doctors either were fakes or had zero ethics, and I had had enough. 

Well look what I found out overnight about one of the “doctors,” one Eric Feigl-Ding.  He has a history of deceiving about his credentials.  He may play a medical doctor on TV in order to bash Trump, but he is no such thing.

At the beginning of 2020, Feigl-Ding was an unpaid, visiting scientist in Harvard’s nutrition department. His academic research centered entirely around nutrition, diet, and exercise. If Eric Feigl-Ding was interested in pandemics and the study of viruses, his research and academic credentials did not reflect that.

But note that doe not stop the Future Forward ad from touting him as an “epidemiologist.”  Yet he has already been exposed and warned to stop the deceptive self-promotion:

In mid March, Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at Harvard, described him as a “charlatan exploiting a tenuous connection for self-promotion.” 

The Association of Health Care Journalists also took notice, reporting that he has “precisely zero experience in infectious diseases.” 

An unnamed source at Harvard told The Chronicle on Higher Education in April that Feigl-Ding has “been asked many times to stop promoting himself as having specialized knowledge.”

Yet, again, the Silicon Valley billionaries, not content with suppressing and censoring real information, participate in and push Feigl-Ding’s fakery:

Feigl-Ding has continued to muddy the waters surrounding his credentials, taking it to new heights in a new political advertisement. He recently appeared in a pro-Biden Super PAC (funded by Silicon Valley billionaires) ad about the coronavirus pandemic. It features “Dr” Feigl-Ding in a lab coat with tie ensemble that is associated with the attire worn by a medical doctor, not a PhD academic with a background in nutrition research.

If he is a PhD. Something that is real about Feigl-Ding is his connections to George Soros.  Is there anything evil that Soros is not involved in?

In 2018, he ran unsuccessfully for a congressional seat in Pennsylvania. Universal healthcare and medicare for all, or socialized medicine, was the centerpiece platform of his congressional run. According to Science Magazine, Feigl-Ding was supported in his run by political networks associated with far-left democrat mega donor George Soros, and FEC records reflect that. Feigl-Ding’s ties with Soros go back many years. In 2008, he received a Soros scholarship for his medical school studies (he would later drop out)….

Feigl-Ding remains closely connected to the Soros network. He currently serves as Treasurer of the The Paul and Daisy Soros Fellows Association (PDSFA).

All this begs the question of what other fakery and lies Soros and Silicon Valley money is pushing in this election.  At least now you know about the COVID lies from Future Forward.

Why We Must Punish The Democrats

Yes, the title to this post is in the 19^th Century school of candor in titling.  But this is a time for clarity, is it not?

But, no – and this may surprise – the main reasons why the Democrats must be punished in this election are not policy issues.  Parties have had significant policy differences almost as long as there have been political parties, but this country has muddled along and even thrived.

But now the problem with the Democrat Party goes to the core of how we do political combat itself.  For today’s Democrat Party refuses to accept the verdict of the Constitution and of the electorate unless they win.  They respect the rules of the American political game, if you will, only if they serve to give them victory.

With the marginal exception of 2004, have they respected a presidential election they’ve lost since 1988?  No.  And their response (and the response of a few RINO allies) to the 2016 election was the worst of all, engaging in a long coup which began with spying on Trump, aided by felonious FISA warrants, continued with threatening members of the Electoral College then a long investigation based on invented lies and culminating in a bogus impeachment.

In politics and government, you get more of what you reward.  We must not reward their perpetual coup; we must not reward this refusal to respect elections they don’t win, but must instead punish it.

I keep thinking back to the ugly Steelers-Bengals 2016 NFL playoff game as an illustration.  That rivalry had long been intense, and so was the game.  But when an especially injurious and illegal dirty hit not only was not penalized, but was even rewarded, the game got out of control and became the perhaps the ugliest NFL game of that decade.  God help us if we dare reward the Democrats’ dirty play, namely their refusal to respect the last presidential election.

What needs to happen when there is dirty play and a refusal to respect the rules of the game is the perpetrator(s) gets ejected from the game and for games to come if the violation is egregious.  But we do not have referees in politics that can do that.  Nor do we trust government to do that for the most part.  Yes, the Germans outlawed the Nazi Party after World War II, and that was understandable and called for given the destructive evil the Nazis had wrought.  But for the most part, we lack the mechanisms and the trust to do that in the U. S.  And politicians do not have a good track record of policing politicians for some reason.

So it is We the People who must politically eject parties who refuse to respect the Constitution and elections under the Constitution.  It is up to us.

And, yes, I think instead rewarding the Democrats with votes would be at the very least problematic for any who claim to be Christian or any who claim to be American.  That should be obvious, and I hardly trust myself to say more. 

And, yes, there is much else on the Left that calls for punishment, not reward: the riots of BLM and Antifa, the censorship and election meddling of social media, the virtual promises of the Democrats to turn us into a Leftist One-Party State should they gain both the White House and the Senate, and more.

But the habitual refusal of a major political party to respect clean elections unless they win is so corrosive to any state that it must be punished if a country is to survive intact.  The Democrats must be punished.  

And that is up to us.  They refused to respect our votes in 2016.  This year we must make them respect our votes.

The Election Could Come Down to Pennsylvania. God Help Us.

I have warned of the possibility of a contested election fueled by mail-in ballot fraud that is already occurring.  Upon further observation, my educated guess is that if a contested election comes down to one state, it will most likely be Pennsylvania.  And what is happening in Pennsylvania should move us all to pray that it does not come down to that one state.

Although not as notorious as Chicago or Dade County, Florida, Pennsylvania, especially Philadelphia, is a hotbed of election fraud.  I was among those who documented the likelihood of Philadelphia election fraud in the 2012 election with Romney getting ZERO votes in a suspicious number of precincts.  There was also election observers kicked out of polling places.  And already this year observers have been kicked out of election ballot centers (although I am having trouble finding stories on that.  More news suppression?)

Now DemocRAT hack state judges are further opening the door to massive fraud, allowing mail-in ballots to be counted long after Election Day, never mind if they have a postmark on or before Election Day and never mind if signatures do not match.  This is pretty much an open invitation to manufacture fraudulent votes.  And SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts is enabling this fraud.  (God, please may Amy Coney Barrett be confirmed today!)  The counting of Pennsylvania “votes” will continue for days after Election Day supervised by a Democrat Governor and his appointed Secretary of State, of course.

So if Pennsylvania is within the margin of fraud, which could be a big margin this year, we may not know for days or weeks who “won” Pennsylvania, and the final result could be fraudulent.  Personally, if it’s close enough, I expect it to be fraudulent.

God help us if that decides this election . . . and it might. 

A Time for Clarity Not Muddy Waters

I think we can already call who will lose this election – the church, especially The Evangelical Church of What’s Happening Now.

With notable exceptions, even supposedly orthodox church leaders have utterly failed their people and the country this election.  The Trump is a Messiah guys have failed us.  The Woke Church crowd has failed us, to say the very least.  

But it is not only these churchly extremes that have failed us.  There is an element that has muddied the waters with nuances and moral equivalencies when clarity is called for.  Sadly, this video from the ACNA Diocese of Christ Our Hope is an example of this failure.

There may be elections when such videos would be helpful.  This is not one of them.  What we are facing is too awful, too destructive, and too difficult to reverse should the electorate (augmented by election fraud) make the wrong choice.  What is at issue is not policy differences that good people can disagree on, but the destruction of our American society itself.

Yes, that may sound alarmist.  But it is a time for clarity, for reality checks, not for excuses and high-sounding fig leaves for evil.  So some reality checks:

1. His “bi-partisan commission” cop-out aside, Biden refuses to disavow calls to pack the Supreme Court, i.e. to increase the number of Supreme Court justices and appoint Constitution-tearing Leftists to the new open spots not unlike Hugo Chavez.  The Constitution would then be a dead letter.

2. Democrats have been open about other plans to turn us into an unconstitutional Leftist One-Party State should they gain the White House and the Senate.  Combine statehood for Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, open borders, and amnesty and eventual citizenship for illegals, and the electorate would be so changed that Democrats would control the White House and the Senate for decades to come.  Again, you can kiss America and the Constitution good-bye if that happens.

Really these two reality checks alone make voting for Biden and the Democrats either grossly disloyal to this country or grossly ignorant, hardly acceptable in a Christian citizen.  I mean, really, if a “Christian” hates America that much, they should do the right thing and leave.  (Or if they are that ignorant, they either should not vote or should get informed before voting.)  One doesn’t have to love America to be a Christian.  But a Christian should not vote to destroy the society and the Rule of Law that gives him the freedom to be a Christian in relative peace.

But that’s not all.

3. It is now quite obvious that Biden and his family have sold influence to China, Russia, the Ukraine and God knows who else.  Biden literally sold us out to China.  It is criminal and beyond.  If you haven’t seen the details, then may I suggest reading the New York Post or watching Tucker Carlson rather than the New York Times, CNN, and the rest of the Democrat Fake News media.

I could give many more reality checks, but most would pertain to policy.  I will give one obvious one.

4. Biden and Kamala Harris (spit) are baby killers.  They want open season on the unborn for all nine months of pregnancy, no doubt paid for by taxpayers.  Yes, I am well aware that such despicable “Christian” prevaricators such as the AND Campaign are trying to justify Christians voting for baby killers.  They and the baby killers will have a lot to answer for in the Judgement.  

But even if it wasn’t for reality check 4, for Christians who wish to be good American citizens, a vote for Biden or for most Democrats for that matter is not a viable choice.  Democrats are pretty open now about what they have secretly wanted to do for some time - trash the Constitution, turn the Supreme Court into their rubber stamp, import an un-American electorate, and turn America into a Leftist One-Party State.  Under these circumstances, voting for Democrats is profoundly disloyal and destructive.  

(No, you don’t have to vote for Trump although I have.  If you find both major choices unacceptable, a vote for a Third Party sends that message honorably and well.)

Again, if you hate America so much as to vote to destroy America, then instead do the right thing and leave or at least remove yourself from politics.  But cut it out with using the name of Christ to support such evil or to deceive the sheep like the AND Campaign or to muddy the waters like the ACNA Diocese of Christ Our Hope.  You are harming both church and country.

St. James and Works: a Sacrament of Faith?

I still remember as a teenager first coming across St. James’ rather cranky assertion that faith without works is dead and wrestled with that.  Did not St. Paul write that faith is what saves and that “not a result from works”?  (My understanding is a bit more exact and adamant now that God saves “by grace through faith.” Eph. 2:8, 9)

It took me a while to digest St. James.  Calvin’s dictum that faith alone saves but faith that saves is not alone was helpful.

But it was not until this week that I came across another enlightening take of St. James from Dr. Benjamin Bernier of Providence Reformed Episcopal Church, Corpus Christi:

James tells us that Faith without works is dead. Faith and works, theory and practice, the sacred and the profane, are not separate spheres as it is commonly presumed. They relate to each other as the body to the spirit, in such an intrinsic way that we may characterize their relationship as sacramental.

As we know from our catechism and The Offices of Instruction, a sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward invisible grace.

So, I would like to propose to you that the relationship between faith and works is sacramental in nature.

Works are the outward and visible expression of an inner, invisible body of belief, which defines both the inner character of our souls and the profile of our whole lives.

Accordingly, faith and works are inseparable. They are like the fruit to the tree, different aspects of the same thing, the truth, and the love of God in faith and practice.

It had not occurred to me before that good works are a sacrament of faith.  But it makes sense.  And we know from St. Paul that faith is the gift of God. (Eph. 2:8)  Perhaps works out of true faith, like the traditional sacraments, are also gifts of God and manifestations of invisible Truth.  At least that is food for thought on this Eve of the Feast of St. James, the brother of our Lord and the likely author of that difficult Epistle.

And on this Feast of St. James, may God bless you both with faith and with good works flowing out of your faith, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

By the way, the rest of Fr. Benjamin’s sermon may be found here and on YouTube.

Shameless: Biden Blames Trump for Michigan Plot

Yesterday I mentioned the plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan as an illustration of what Psalm 37 teaches us not to do.  Little did I know the accused are a bunch of strange anarchists, at least one of whom hates Trump.  

I have to admit even I was thinking we finally had a violent plot of significance from Trump-supporting “right-wingers.”  I was wrong.  The remarkable record of non-violence from Trump supporters in the face of grievous provocations continues. 

But that did not stop Joe Biden from using this episode to smear and blame Trump.  He keeps pushing that “both sides” myth, so what do you expect from such a shameless liar?  Thank God Robby Starbuck has captured video of one of the ringleaders denouncing Trump in no uncertain terms.  (Sorry I had to link that tweet instead of embedding it, but embedding is not working for some reason.) 

This has gotten to be par for the course from Joe BigLie.

Psalm 37 – A Psalm for Our Time

Yesterday, because it was the Evening of the 7^th day of the month and I use the traditional Book of Common Prayer as the Lord intends, of course, I read and recited Psalm 37.  And it’s a good thing, too.

For Psalm 37 is a timely reminder to me and to anyone sorely provoked during this election season to “fret not thyself because of the ungodly” for God will take care of them and of his people in his good timing.  God will execute justice, and he’s a lot better at it than we are.  So we should “leave off from wrath, and let go displeasure; fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.”  Yes, if we allow ourselves to get so worked up that we foolishly take matters into our own hands, we can easily fall into evil and be the wrongdoers ourselves.

Note that this is not a call to passivity.  As in just about all things, there should be a balance.  Namely we should “put thou thy trust in the Lord and be doing good.”  But if we fret and do not trust in God’s timing and faithfulness to bring about justice, we can too easily fall into doing foolishness and evil.

Today we get a reminder of that from Michigan where an alleged plot to kidnap Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the state government has been foiled with alleged perpetrators arrested. 

Now should the tyranny of Whitmer be opposed through legal means (which have had some success lately)?  Yes.

Should we not presume the guilt of those accused as the Feds have been known to make politically motivated prosecutions before elections? Yes.

Should we question why the four year long coup against President Donald Trump has not been prosecuted? Yes.

But, at the very least, have the accused acted foolishly and gone about opposing Whitmer’s tyranny in a completely wrong way?  Yes, and if the accusations are true, they were plotting awful crimes and should be prosecuted accordingly.

Assuming there is any truth to the accusations, what the accused have done is a sad illustration of what can happen if we ignore the Lord’s guidance to “fret not thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.”

Frankly, I fear what I would be capable of if it were not for my faith in Christ and in his coming justice.  Those of us who care deeply about justice and hate tyranny especially need to remember that God, not our foolishness, will make all things right in the end.  Yes, we should care about the society God has placed us in and be active good citizens but, again, we should avoid getting so worked up that we allow ourselves to “be moved to do evil.”

So if you did not read Psalm 37 yesterday, do so today.  Maybe you, too, need a reminder during this trying time.

On the Edge of a One-Party State

How about that debate? :D

Sorry. I know last night’s debate was not pleasant viewing.  I don’t know who said shut up more, Biden at Trump or me at my television.  And, like many, my IQ may have decreased last night.  So forgive me if this post is not my most eloquent. 

Having said all that, there was one moment last night that disturbed me more than the whole rest of the debate, and that was Biden refusing to say whether he would end the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court:

Chris Wallace, in one of the few tough questions he posed to Biden, said this:

So my question to you is, you have refused in the past to talk about it, are you willing to tell the American tonight whether or not you will support either ending the filibuster or packing the court?

Biden refused to answer, something the Trump quickly challenged.  Here's the colloquy:

BIDEN: Whatever position I take on that, that'll become the issue. The issue is the American people should speak. You should go out and vote. You're voting now. Vote and let your Senators know strongly how you feel.

TRUMP: Are you going to pack the court?

BIDEN: Vote now.

TRUMP: Are you going to pack the court?

BIDEN: Make sure you, in fact, let people know, your Senators.

TRUMP: He doesn't want to answer the question.

BIDEN: I'm not going to answer the question.

TRUMP: Why wouldn't you answer that question? You want to put a lot of new Supreme Court Justices. Radical left.

BIDEN: Will you shut up, man?

TRUMP: Listen, who is on your list, Joe? Who's on your list?

WALLACE: Gentlemen, I think we've ended this —

BIDEN: This is so un-Presidential.

TRUMP: He's going to pack the court. He is not going to give a list.

And this is not the first time Biden has refused to answer.  I hope he does not get away with his non-answer.  Given what passes for jurisprudence from Democrat hacks-in-black, if Democrats do pack the Supreme Court, you can pretty much kiss the Constitution and the rule of law good-bye and America with it.  We would be on the road to Venezuela.

Think I’m exaggerating?  Early in the Hugo Chavez regime, the Supreme Court of Venezuela had the temerity to say no to some of his designs.  His response?  He packed the Supreme Court.  He, like the current leadership of the Democrat Party, expected judges to do his bidding regardless of trivialities like a constitution or the rule of law.   So he packed the Court and got just that.  

Should Biden get elected and Democrats win the Senate, we are in serious danger of that happening right here in the United States.  Democrats have already long demonstrated they think the purpose of judges is to do their policy bidding regardless of the Constitution and the rule of law.  Should they gain enough power to pack the Supreme Court, that is what they, and we, will get.  And we will no longer be a Constitutional republic but a Leftist One-Party State.  Why?  Because elections do not matter with Leftist Dictators in Black Robes.  If we are not wise enough to vote for untrammeled Marxism, a Democrat-packed Supreme Court will shove it down our throats . . . for “justice”, of course. 

And, also of course, should Biden be elected, he will reopen the floodgates of illegal immigration (or just make it legal) and give away amnesty and citizenship like candy on Halloween.  Democrats are not pleased with the current electorate, so they will change it by importing a more pliable, less American one.  Even if they do not pack the Court, so changing the demographics of the electorate will make us a Leftist One-Party State just like they did with California.

Democrats make even create two new states from Washington, D. C. and Puerto Rico to pack the Senate with four more Democrat Senators.  I have my doubts whether they will be able to do that in the near future.  But that is on the DemocRAT agenda as well.  And, again, you can pretty much kiss America good-bye if they succeed.

So there is much more on the ballot this year than public policy.  What is on the ballot is whether you will have much say on public policy in future elections.  For if Biden wins, we are in grave danger of being on the road to a Leftist One-Party State.  And if Democrats take the Senate as well, we are practically there.

Brace for a Contested Election

I hesitate to add to the unpleasantness that is 2020.  But I think it likely we will have a contested election fueled by massive fraud.  Before you dismiss my alarm, I am a former election judge with more than an average knowledge of how elections work.

Part of my experience was verifying absentee ballots.  The number of ballots we had to go through is nothing compared to the wave of mail-in ballots on the way this year.  But it was not an easy process; much of the time, we were just guessing which ballots were for real and which were fraudulent.  We gave the benefit of the doubt to questionable ballots, so who knows how many fraudulent ones snuck through.  Thankfully, the numbers were small enough no outcome was affected if memory serves me right.  But this year with mail-in ballots becoming a norm?

With the mail-in ballots regimes in many states this year, it will be too easy and too tempting to commit massive election fraud.  Anyone who tells you that mail-in voting does not enable fraud is naïve or lying.  Adding to its likelihood are Democrat judges extending the reception of mail-in ballots for days and even weeks after Election Day.  Democrat hacks-in-black have long extended elections to enable vote manufacturing.  Some are already doing that on steroids.  So expect convenient Democrat ballots to be “found” well after Election Day accompanied by mindless chants of “Count every vote.”

Speaking of election fraud already in progress, Ilhan Omar and friends have just been caught committing massive vote buying.  And Biden’s Texas Political Director is implicated in a ballot-harvesting scheme.  Yes, we are still over a month away from Election Day, but election fraud is already being discovered.  How much will go on undiscovered?

With this likely to be a close election, the potential for it being contested for weeks at least is great.  First, with many ballots being mail-in, we probably will not know the results on election night.  Trump will probably be ahead, well ahead due to his voters more likely to shun mail-in ballots to vote in person.  But then as mail-in ballots are counted for who knows how long afterward, that lead will grow smaller and smaller.  

One scenario is Trump being successful enough in throwing out questionable ballots to retain narrowly his lead in keys states and win.  Another scenario is that he loses his lead in a crucial state due to questionable mail-in ballots, and you get President Harris, er, Biden.  This could too easily happen in Detroit where incompetence, if not corruption, has already made a hash of this year’s primaries.  Will a likely Trump Michigan lead be able to survive Detroit and its corruption?

Of course, a contested election will severely strain our already torn civility.  How would the Antifa and BLM crowd respond to a Trump victory, much less a close and contested one?  And should there be a widespread perception that Biden stole the election, will red-blooded American Trump supporters continue to be peaceful?  Their votes in 2016 never were respected.  Democrats and RINOs have engaged in a non-stop coup against Trump ever since.  If they then steal or seem to steal the 2020 election and put Harris, er, Biden in the White House, will the Trump people take that peacefully? Frankly, if it weren’t for my faith and trust in God’s sovereignty and justice, I couldn’t trust myself to act peacefully in such a situation.  And even if they do continue to act peacefully, how corrosive to our civil society will it be to have a President that a third or more of the electorate considers illegitimate?

You get the picture.  In just over a month, 2020 may get worse in this country, much worse.

Pray . . . and vote wisely and in-person, documenting your vote as much as possible.

The “Beauty of Holiness” or “Popish Baits”?

When I picked up Graham Parry’s Glory, Laud and Honour: The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation, I expected a heavy academic read, which would have been fine as it covers a subject matter of interest to me.  

Was I wrong!  The book begins with Puritan Peter Smart’s furious indictment of John Cosin and Durham Cathedral in 1630:

…your popish baits and allurements of glorious pictures, and Babalonish vesturs, and excessive numbers of wax-candles burning at one tyme…

Ah yes, the candles.  Always the candles.  Smart was unhappy with much else as well, particularly Cosin’s “upstarting, downesquattings, east-turning, crossings and kissings” and more.

I found myself laughing uproariously.  I was reminded of the Low Churchman’s Guide to the Solemn High Mass except that Smart was quite serious.  Thus I soon discovered that Glory, Laud and Honour is not only scholarly and helpful to further study, but is actually a fun read.

And, yes, much of the fun does come from the adversarial relationship between the Puritans and the Laudians along with others who thought the worship of the Lord called for “the beauty of holiness”.  This holy combat was reflected in church architecture and furnishings and often the destruction of the same.  Parry pays not a little attention to Dowsing’s visitations of Cambridge for one thing.  And he notes that much of what we know about church furnishings under the influence of John Cosin, William Laud and cohorts comes from the Puritans’ disapproving documentation of them.

The Puritans (with an exception or two I will note another time) were rather nasty.  Beheading statues was not enough for them.  They eventually beheaded Laud, Lord of Canterbury and Charles, King and Martyr.  But (And now I will show my talent for alienating just about everybody.) the Archbishop and King in part lost their heads by not following Hooker more closely on the subject of ceremonies and images in worship.  

As Parry points out at length, Hooker approved of traditional ceremonial worship “in the bewtie of holiness,” not unlike the later Laudians, but he considered such to be adiaphora, i. e. among matters on which the faithful can and should be able to agree to disagree.  He thought parishes should be allowed discretion on details of ceremonies and ornaments as long as they stick to the Book of Common Prayer.  Further he thought disputes over such matters risk “a kinde of taking of Gods name in vaine to debase religion with such frivolous disputes, a sinne to bestowe time and labor about them.”

But neither the Laudians nor the Puritans were very interested in allowing discretion in matters of worship.  Instead they bestowed a lot of time and labor and venom upon them indeed, greatly contributing to the ugliness between them.  Many on both sides eventually paid with their lives, both on the executioner’s block and in civil war.

Well, I got rather dark there, didn’t I.  But that does not keep me from having a good laugh or two or three at their liturgical combat.  Yes, I am rather warped that way.

There is much more that is both fun and helpful about Glory, Laud and Honour, to which I may return at a later time.