the demonic narrative does not claim that all lives matter

So the religious soul finds in the heart of Jesus a secure refuge against the
wiles and attacks of Satan, and a delightful retreat.
But we must not rest merely at the entrance to the hole in the rock,
we must penetrate its depths. At the mouth of the deep hollow,
at the mouth of the wound in his side we shall, indeed, find the precious blood which has redeemed us.
This blood pleads for us and demands mercy for us. But the religious soul must not stay at the entrance.
When she has heard, and understood, the voice of the divine blood,
she must hasten to the very source from which it springs,
into the very innermost sanctuary of the heart of Jesus.
There she will find light, peace, and ineffable consolations.
St Anthony of Padua

(Satan from the movie The Passion of the Christ)

Do you remember the scene in the movie The Passion of the Christ when
Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane praying—-agonizing over what is to happen….
just before he is betrayed?
Do you remember seeing that rather androgynous and soulless figure shadowing Jesus
throughout most of the movie…that figure being Satan?

In the garden, as Jesus is in engaged in anguished prayer with his Father, the snake slithers
ever closer toward Jesus…coming within striking range of his foot…
that is until Jesus, suddenly resolute and committed to the role he is about to play,
slams his foot down upon the head of the snake—crushing it.
Just as he knows he will do the same when he descends into Hell in order to free all of
mankind from eternal damnation.

(Image from the movie The Passion when Jesus slams his foot down upon the serpent in the Garden of Gethsemane)

Powerful stuff.
As so it should be.
That’s because it is powerful.
God is powerful–all-powerful.

I think it’s safe in saying that we all know that my time for the last three years or so
has not been much my own.
Between illnesses, deaths, births, retirements and now what with pandemics and the demise
of society as we all know it…I’m just lucky to come up for air.

You may recall that I use to often post segments from Anglican Unscripted—
an Anglican weekly televised ministry.

The segments featured my favorite rogue Anglican Bishop Gavin Ashenden…former
Bishop to the Queen and former bishop in the Chruch of England.

The good Bishop left the Church of England over the ever-growing and blatant liberalism
of the Chruch as she and her leadership are quickly turning from the word of God.

He landed for a time in the greater Anglican Church here in the US, which is the church body
that split away from the American Episcopal Chruch over the same growing liberal issues
and divide.

You may have missed it but Dr. Ashenden officially left the Anglican fold altogether
late last year, as he has been fully accepted into the Catechism of the Catholic fold.

A move I greatly applaud.

So Anglican Unscripted now has a sister ministry, Catholic Unscripted..featuring
none other than Gavin Ashenden.

Over the weekend, I finally had the opportunity of watching the latest episode of Catholic Unscripted–
an episode that dealt with much of what is currently taking place here in the US and now spreading
like wildfire throughout the UK…
That of riots, violence, cries of racism, moves to defund the police, Black lives matter, Antifa,
radicalism, the destruction of statues on both sides of the pond, and at the heart of it all…
is this destructive movements of identity politics and cultural marxism.

In this particular segment, Dr. Ashenden is joined by Dr. Jules Gomes—
another brilliant and now former rouge priest.
In the episode, the two men explore the notion of a demonic movent taking place throughout
much of our Western Society.
As Christians, we should understand this.
Remember, our ancient foe prowls like a lion,
waiting in the shadows in order to devour us. (1 Peter 5:8)

Each man notes that most of those in our society, the majority being those who are
under the age of 40, have no real solid sense of identity.
Yet whereas Christians find their identity as the children of God…
and thus we as Christians are charged by God with living responsibly with and for our neighbors.

Unfortunately, it appears that that is not how most of those 40 and younger see their role.

There is a powerful and frightening movement now taking place globally,
one that is bent on the destruction of the nuclear family, the sexual identity of a man and a woman,
law, order, civility, and the annihilation of our Judaeo Christian foundation.

Dr. Gomes explains that as Christians, our identity and value are to be found in the power of Love–
and not in the love of power.
It is in this love of power that organizations such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter now find
their sole source of strength.

The segment is about 35 minutes long.
And if you care anything about what is now taking place all around you, whether you are
a believer or not–a Catholic, Protestant, or Jew…
I encourage you to take the time to watch, listen, as well as learn, what these two gentlemen
are sharing regarding this evergrowing crisis and what many are deeming a coming
civil war of sorts.

Blessedly, Dr. Ashenden does not leave us feeling isolated or defeated as he reminds us all
that we have been made in the image of God.
“That we are deeply loved and He considers us utterly precious.
He comes looking for us and it is there that we find our
true identity.”

See what kind of love the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
1 John 3:1

Catholic Unscripted 11. “All lives matter. From Floyd to Rowling. Reflecting on Marxism & racism.”

freedom of speech or cultural marxism part II…hummm

“The shape of sadness is universal:
Christ represents it in his affliction and shouldering of the world’s sin and pain…
Each of your pains, however seemingly inconsequential to others, is part of a
fractal pattern with Christ’s pain; you suffer in him, he suffers in you and with you.
In prayer, your pains are raised from your shoulders.
They rise to God and say: The world needs to be closer to you.”
Sally Read
from Annunciation

(blossoming St John’s Wort / Julie Cook / 2019)

Time has certainly been getting away from me as of late…
for a million and one crazy reasons…

All good reasons mind you, of which I will share at a later date…
But blessedly I actually found a few spare moments, day before yesterday,
in order to read that day’s latest from one of our two favorites…
those two across the pond clerics.
The latest post–
“In Defence of Freedom of Speech”

Freedom of speech seems to be so much the talk these days does it not…

However, I fear that the current notion of freedom of speech is a far cry from, dare we say,
from what was meant in our Constitution or by our founding fathers.
(ode to those white men of old…)

Yet sadly, or perhaps blessedly, we know that misery loves company…
And so it should come as no surprise to those of us here in the US that we are not the
only ones who are contending with the idea of freedom of speech…

As freedom of speech is pretty much at the cornerstone foundation for all democracies.

And therefore are we surprised that the United Kingdom is also wrestling with
the new cultural definition of ‘freedom of speech?’

So much so that it has warranted a direct response from our favorite
rouge Anglican Bishop.

Our dear bishop begins his post by recounting that two individuals who he has often
greatly enjoyed listening to over the years, whether he agreed with their views or not,
have recently been banned from speaking on college campuses in the UK.

One being the renowned feminist Germaine Greer.

Banned not because she is a feminist mind you, but banned because she has differing views
regarding transsexuality then what our culture’s current universities and colleges now hold
as gospel.

And because Ms. Greer does not condone this particular lifestyle, she is now persona non grata
on the progressive liberal campuses of higher learning.
It seems that many of the ardent founders of ‘feminism’ argue that such lifestyle choices
are actually detrimental to the feminist movement, yet try telling the new culture police
that such thinking is actually truthful.

So, I suppose we shouldn’t be shocked that the 21st-century culture police are speaking from
both sides of their mouths…
They chant ‘freedom of speech’ as long as your speech or mine matches their speech.
If not…menaing if our speech is indeed different from their own,
then our “freedom” is revoked.

Because you see, to them, these culture gods of the 21st centruy, there is but one freedom of speech
and that is their speech and their speech alone.

The good bishop asks “so what is happening in our society that free speech
is being closed down.
We need to know who the enemy of free speech is.”

Well, what they are trying to do is to create a society that is a far cry from what our nation,
or any democracy for that matter was founded upon.

Bishop Ashenden notes “I hate the fact that Charlie Hebdo published ghastly cartoons of
the Virgin Mary on their cover. But no Christian threatened to murder them to silence them.

Because Christians are dedicated to an idea of ‘God’ that is rooted in the quest for truth.

If you believe that ultimate reality grows out of Truth
(it grows out of Love as well, of course) you can never afford to stifle speech.

Instead you have to weigh and sift it and let it tell you what its true character is.
It’s a great regret that there have been times when Christians, having gained power,
lost their confidence in the truth and shut others up.
But it usually happened when the Church got muddled up with the state.”

And so the good bishop asks again,
“so who are the enemies today of free speech, and what are they trying to do?”

And we only have to look back to Karl Marx to begin to understand our answers…

“It is no longer about the haves and the have-nots;
it’s about the oppressors and the oppressed.
It’s about making them ‘equal’.
It’s all about the redistribution of power.
So to do that you have to take power away from those who have it.
Generally this is mainly white men.

Whenever you hear someone railing against white men, you know the cultural
Marxist has broken cover.

But the oppressor can change in the blink of an eye –
because power relations are all relative.”

Please find the good bishop’s full post, his most insightful observation about a dear commodity
that we now find in jeopardy, here:

In defence of Freedom of Speech.                                           Gavin Ashenden 

new left, not so new-raison d’etre

“But society cannot be indiscriminate where the pacification of existence,
where freedom and happiness themselves are at stake: here, certain things cannot be said,
certain ideas cannot be expressed, certain policies cannot be proposed,
certain behaviour cannot be permitted without making tolerance an instrument
for the continuation of servitude.”
Herbert Marcuse

As we revisit our friend Melvin Tinker and his book
“That Hideous Strength: How The West Was Lost
The Cancer of Cultural Marxism in the Church, the World and The Gospel of Change”,
we pick up where we last left off…reviewing some of the writings of the likes of individuals
such as Herbert Marcuse.

Who was Herbert Marcuse you ask?

He was a German-born American philosopher, sociologist, and Political Theorist.

Marcuse was a key figure in the Frankfurt Shcool of Critical thinking.

According to Tinker–
“In 1923 a week-long symposium was organized by Felix Weil in Frankfurt,
Germany in which they laid out a vision for a Marxist think-tank and
research centre.
The original name for the centre was the Institue for Marxism (Institut fur Marxismus),
but a more innocent sounding title was subsequently given,
The Institute for Social Research (Institut fur Sozialforschung).
Since that time the ISR has usually been known simply as the Frankfurt School.”

Besides his time spent in the Frankfurt School, Marcuse also spent time working for the
US government in the Office of Strategic Services which was a precursor to the CIA.

But what is actually more relevant and crucial to us today regarding Marcuse,
as we witness a sinister surge in this new cultural Marxism grabbing hold of
our Western Civilization, is that Marcuse is known as the ‘father of the New Left’.

The New Left…??

Perhaps The New Left is an oxymoron—not new at all.

Have we not been inundated with all things of the New Left ever since the midterms?
Does the new darling of that New Left Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ring a bell?
So perhaps we’re actually discerning that this “new” left isn’t so new after all…

Tinker responds to Marcuse’s opening quote —
“Notice all those ‘cannots’?
Who do you think they are applied to?
Mainly people like Christians.
This is a new totalitarian-tolerance while all the time masquerading as a new freedom.
As such the new tolerance must extinguish the old tolerance and those people and
institutions which traditionally expouse it such as the church.
Furthermore, for neo-Marxism to have a raison d’etre
there must be repressed groups which need liberating,
People are required to see themselves as victims of the liberal society of which they are a part.

PC or not PC? That is the question
It is cultural Marxism which lies behind the all-pervading political correctness of our age.
Those of both the political right and left acknowledge this.
Pat Buchanan of the right wrote, ‘Political Correctness is cultural Marxism, a regime to punish dissent
and to stigmatize social heresy as the Inquisition, punished religious heresy. Its trademark is intolerance.’

Similarly from the more liberal publication Newsweek:
PC is, strictly speaking, a totalitarian philosophy …
Politically, PC is Marxist in origin…There are…
some who recognize the tyranny of PC but see it only as a transitional phase,
which will no longer be necessary once the virtues of tolerance are internalized.
Does that sound familiar? Its the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In 1930 Max Horkheimer became the director of the ISR which is when neo-Marxism was
launched in earnest.
Horkheimer was convinced that the major obstacle to the spread of Marxism was traditional
Western culture with its Judeo-Christian heritage.
Here there developed a revisionist neo-Marxist interpretation of Western culture under the rubric,
Critical Theory, the goal of which according to William S. Lind ‘was not truth but praxis,
or revolutionary action: bringing the current society and culture down through unremitting,
destructive criticism.’
Truth, according to this view, was locked into its own particular point in history and so was
historically relative (of course that would apply to Critical Theory itself
a fact which was conveniently overlooked).

“unremitting destructive criticism…” along with ‘facts that are conveniently overlooked‘.
With the New Left’s biggest obstacle being Western Culture and its Judeo-Christian heritage…??

If you think that none of this is relevant or affects you, your life, your routines, your beliefs…
you best think again.

No, this New Left is really not so new at all—
yet it continues on relentlessly, with a growing fevered pitch,
to desperately turn your world upside down.
To de-establish the established.
To neuter the bedrock of Western Civilization…that being
her Judeo-Christian foundation.

And there is no one who is more giddy about this revved-up assault
then that of our old ancient foe.

Split
Divide
Eliminate
Conquer

You and I will soon have two choices, that is if those two choices aren’t already standing before us…
Stand firm in our faith…
or…
appease and apologize…
and in turn, lose our souls.

First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and
following their own evil desires.
They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised?
Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.”
But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was
formed out of water and by water.
By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.
By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire,
being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years,
and a thousand years are like a day.
The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness.
He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.
But the day of the Lord will come like a thief.
The heavens will disappear with a roar;
the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.
Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be?
You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.
That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.
But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth,
the home of righteousness.
So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this,
make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.
Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation,
just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him.
He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters.
His letters contain some things that are hard to understand,
which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this,
be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from
your secure position.
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
To him be glory both now and forever!
Amen.
2 Peter 3:3-18:1

selling out to the cultural hurricane

“As the family goes,
so goes the nation and
so goes the whole world in which we live.”
Pope John Paul II

(the Canterbury Cross plaque inside Christ Church Cathedral / Dublin, Ireland /
Julie Cook / 2015)

The above image is of a plaque that adorns a wall in the sanctuary of Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland. It is a plaque that also hangs within the sanctuary
of the Episcopal Cathedral I grew up attending in Atlanta.

The original image of the Canterbury Cross, which is believed to be from the
VIIIth century, was found beneath a street in Canterbury, England.
Today replicas are placed on fragment stone from Canterbury and are hung in
various Cathedrals throughout the world as a reminder of the binding link to the the
Mother Church of the Anglican Communion.

And thus a common thought might readily be that if goes the Church of England,
then so goes the worldwide Anglican Communion…
in turn taking the Episcopal Church right along with it.
This as we are currently caught in the maelstrom of a cultural hurricane
that is at present plummeting the collective Christian body.

And I must say that I sadly agree with that notion.

There was once upon a time when “the Church”— that universal Christian body,
was the guiding force behind so much in our lives.
We turned to the Church just as a child would turn to a parent or other guiding
figure of authority.
We did so with respect and appreciation and we did so with a sense of security…

Yet that time is now long past.

In recent years the faithful have been rocked by various scandals and corruption
emanating from deep within the Church herself.
And yet this should come as no new sort of shock or surprise considering the
Church’s long history, as those are issues, adding heresies and schisms, which have plagued her since her very inception.

But the one fact that we do know and continue knowing, a fact we find great comfort
in, is that despite the sinful shortcomings of man, God’s word to her Church remains unchanged.

The trouble however is currently found in the fact that the governing body of the
church is not holding true to that very Word.

One of my favorite Anglican Vicars, The Reverend Gavin Ashenden,
is one of those lone remaining clerical voices of authority which is remaining
firmly planted in the Word of God. I’ve made mention of Rev. Ashenden before
as I have found a ray of hope within his fast rooted footing.

“This is a warning that the Archbishop is under notice that unless he leads the
Church in a way that remains consistent with the values and authority of the bible
as opposed to progressive secularism, he will risk some kind of revolt in the form
of an independence movement.
We are saying if you don’t draw a halt at this point the same thing will happen here
and there will be a significant number who will secede and reconstitute an
Anglican church to keep faith with authentic Anglican Christianity”
The Rev Gavin Ashenden

Rev Ashenden readily admits that there was indeed a time in which he was
“spiritually mistaken while reading the bible wrong” and that he at one point
did support the LGBT communities.
But through discernment of God’s word, he sees the sinful nature found in
the living of a life counter to the Word of God….in which homosexuality
runs counter to the very Word.

He points out that what we are currently witnessing is part and parcel of living in
a society rife with post modernism and cultural marxism as our societal ethics are
no longer grounded in our faith— but rather that faith, along with our ethics,
have become fluid—or what we see to be in a state of constant fluctuation and
movement.

Rev. Ashenden also notes that the “Ten Commandments have always been the glue to our
society and they are now being rapidly unglued” as we currently watch “a meltdown of personal identity”— with an ever-growing notion of victimhood which is now only begetting more victimhood….all as our culture is caught up in a form of gross idolatry and narcism. And all the while our culture works to over turn Christian ethics.

Rev. Ashenden concludes that “if more Christians, across our confused
culture of ours, were willing to stand up at critical moments”
then we might stave some of the rapid bleeding we are currently witnessing.

The following youtube interview with Rev. Ashenden is produced by
Anglican unscripted, whose mission is “to provide news and commentary
important to the 77 million Anglican Christians worldwide;
to educate and train church laypersons in video and Internet technology;
and to build up the Body of Christ through the creation, distribution,
and promotion of multimedia content.

Please see the following link to Rev Ashenden’s latest blog posting…
regarding Australia and her soon to be vote on same sex marriage.

Beware the Oppressive ‘Rainbow Wooden Horse’.