education verses wisdom

Before He is power… God is Mercy, Love and Vulnerability
and He wants to make us into
that same image.
The Rev. Gavin Ashenden

(a section of the magnificent Library at Dublin’s Trinity College / Julie Cook / 2015)

As a former educator, whenever there is talk about our ailing school system–
-of which has been an instrumental part of the bedrock of Western Civilization since
the beginning of such time, my ears most assuredly are always piqued.

I have read, watched and lamented these many months now over the fracas and
sideshows that seem to be happening across our major universities and colleges—
even since before last year’s election was really heating up.

Tales of snowflakes, cupcakes, safe zones, coloring sessions, happy talk and
fairylands has left me both frustrated as well as sad.

The images coming from so many upscale universities and colleges of violent protests
have amounted to nothing more than overgrown temper tantrums…
as students, and even the supposed role models of educators, converge upon all things
they currently find themselves whining against….
All the while administrators are afraid…afraid of law suits, of life, limb and job security as they stand cowering, daring to say nary a word.

Be it speakers who have actually been invited to discuss various viewpoints,
writings or books that just so happen to run counter to the current self absorption
many students are currently wallowing in—-
Or the odd professor who tries to offer some actual sort of sanity by suggesting
that the students should maintain an open mind…..

These students will immediately either rudely walk out
on said guest in some sort of protest when the lecturer dares to
say something these students find “offensive”—or even worse, they will go into a
fit of violent rage….
as most everything said today seems offensive to them.

Were not our hallowed halls of higher education intended for a better purpose?

Intended not to only stir the consciousness of young minds but to challenge said
youthful minds to dig deeper and go further…all in a quest of learning while seeking knowledge and dare we say it, eventually a bit of wisdom….

Did we not ourselves, as students, seek to further our education in order to
learn new thoughts and ideas while venturing further into the
unknown of possibilities?

So I have found it perhaps no coincidence that two of my favorite clerics
from across the pond, just this very week, were discussing issues about both
learning and wisdom in this most modern topsy turvy world of ours.

The Scottish Pastor David Robertson was musing about knowledge and wisdom from the standpoint of the Book of Ecclesiastes and King Solomon while The Rev Gavin Ashenden
discussed the growing concern that anyone who upholds traditional Christian views, particularly on a college campuses, is perceived as anathema and a cause for
censorship—or even worse.

Pastor Robertson reminds us that “in our Western cultures we have largely
forgotten what education is supposed to be about—[that being] the search for wisdom.”

He goes on—We live in a culture where there is lots of information –
but little understanding: what the Bible calls wisdom.

This lack of wisdom is what results in a great deal of argument, irrationality, confirmation bias, fake news, virtue signalling and ignorant prejudice.

He continues….
It is that human beings observe and what we observe in real life is not
always pleasant. There is a heavy burden God has laid on men.
We may live as secularists but the problems we face have been ordained by God.
Mankind thinks and plans. We have been wired that way.
We want to understand.
The problem of life is for us all not just a hobby for philosophers.
The quest of meaning is a quest for God and it is something that God has placed
in our hearts.

Today we may know a lot more.
But are we happier?

Have we progressed?
Are we wiser?
Lets be brutally honest – most of us cannot face the truth.
‘With much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.’
Is it not the case that the more we really understand, the more we ache?
Is that not why people escape into the fantasy world of films, dramas,
drink and drugs, celebrity gossip and computer games?
David Robertson

Wisdom and Meaning for the 21st Century – Ecclesiastes

Bishop Ashenden in the latest interview on Anglican Unscripted explains that
“our colleges are broken”

He notes one example as to just how broken with the story about the former Bishop of Rochester, who just so happens to be a greatly esteemed theologian and gifted orator,
had been invited to speak at Cambridge. Yet it seems that someone did a little digging
into the background of this intended guest and discovered that he was a priest
who actually held traditional views regarding marriage…
imagine that…
a priest with traditional views….
Who upon which discovery was quickly uninvited.

As it seems that anyone who has a counter thought, particularly one that is a
more Orthodox thought or standpoint, is no longer welcome on the campuses of
higher learning.

The good Bishop notes that Orthodox Christians are being grossly marginalized…
particularly by our more liberal society and on our campuses of higher learning.

Both men agree that there is rather  a sad and frightening trend that we are turning out generations of individuals who have not actually gone to college to seek knowledge or
even wisdom but rather those who have been coddled and merely given a piece of paper

The good Scottish Pastor Robertson notes that “we live in a culture where there is lots of
information – but little understanding…
adding that perhaps it would behoove us to
“stop following the marketing and ‘knowledge’ ways of this world.
Instead let’s return to the ancient paths of wisdom and seek the Lord whilst
he may be found.
We can chase the wind – or we can build on the Rock!

Perhaps a suitable motto for every school and University and church would be these
words from Hosea 14:9.

Who is wise?
Let them realize these things.
Who is discerning?
Let them understand.
The ways of the LORD are right;
the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them.
Hosea 14:9.

lord of the flies

“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.”
Denis Diderot

“Maybe there is a beast… maybe it’s only us.”
William Golding, Lord of the Flies

(I used this image back in June, but it fit so well today)

I suppose the reading of certain books during our time spent in high school
lit classes is all a part of the adolescent right of passage.

Most folks my age read such books as Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye,
A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Crucible,
1984 (yes published in 1949 and I read it long before 1984),
The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men…the list goes on and on.

Some books I enjoyed.
Some books I loathed.
Some books left me unsettled.

Lord of the Flies was just one such book.

No happy ending there.

It was a tale that left me terribly unsettled.

Any sort of story showcasing those who are oh so civilized one minute while
quickly falling into barbarism the next,
when all the trappings of modern life suddenly disappear,
leaves me less than happily settled—

Perhaps because it is a blatant reminder of how thin is the veil that separates
modern man from his animalistic alter ego …
and yet that was indeed the author’s intent…
A stalk reminder…..

I was in high school just past those heady days of Woodstock and Flower power.
The early 70’s were to be a time of reemerging.
We were coming up for air from an unpopular war, grave national unrest,
sit-ins, love-ins as a president was preparing to leave office in disgrace…
people wanted to reset and move forward.
Our naiveté was long gone.

Sounds as if I could be talking about today….

We read the works of writers who addressed such feelings..some being current, some
simply ahead of their time.

And it appears as if I am not alone in my recollection of my required reading
of such a tale…

The newly consecrated bishop of the Christian Episcopal Church of Canada and the US,
The Rt. Reverend Dr Gavin Ashenden, also recalls reading Lord of the Flies.

I found his post Wednesday to be most timely as he touched on an issue I’ve been
referencing in just these past many days…

That being the Nazis and their obsessive need to plunder, loot, and burn millions of books… in an all out attempt to control the thought processes of those they
wished to manipulate and rule while at the same time obliterating an entire
swarth of humanity.

“I can understand why the Nazis burned books.

One book can subvert a whole culture.

Perhaps one of the most subversive books I’ve known was “Lord of the Flies”
by William Golding.
I must have read it when I was 14 or 15.

It tells the story of a group of schoolboys whose plane crashes onto a remote island.
They survive the crash, but descend into violence and chaos and finally murder.
They lose all the trappings of civilisation, inside and out, in a very short time.

This was and is a shocking book.
It called the bluff of moral progress and ethical evolution.
Our civility is just skin deep Golding was saying.
From the moment I finished the book,
I knew that Golding was right and that progressive politics was based on a
misjudgment of human nature.
Our ethical progress was just skin deep, and could be lost in an instant.

I keep on being haunted by images of Nazi book burning and the smashing up of
Jewish shop fronts from Germany in the 1930’s.
Something like a collective madness came on the people of Germany.
It really seemed to erupt almost out of nowhere.
How could such a civilised people, the children of Goethe and Beethoven,
so swiftly become the breeding ground of Nazism, with its book burnings, thuggery
and ultimately the horrifying and very Golding-like final solution?”

The good Bishop goes on to explore the similarites he sees between the current acts of violence taking place on both sides of our collective pond in regards to the
progressive liberal groups and their lack of tolerance, or perhaps allowance would be a better word, with the more conservative and Christian groups over the current battle
lines.

Bishop Ashenden notes in particular a rather nasty incident taking place in Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park when several protesting groups converged.

It seems that a 60 year old feminist sort of protester was punched in the face by a transgendered male dressed as a female type individual,
who after punching said 60 year old woman in the face and knocking her to the ground,
then ran ran off.

Ashenden makes a rather stalk comparison between a now and then sort of moment:
“Mindless thugs beating their opponents in public were not the preserve only of the Brown Shirts in Berlin, of state apparatchiks in Moscow, but it’s odd to find gender activists demonstrating in favour of love, peace, tolerance and inclusion, beating up elderly feminists at Speakers’ Corner in Hyde Park.”

Ashenden goes on…
“A great deal is made by the left that the threat of violence comes from the
‘far Right.’ In fact the press and media don’t bother with the ‘Right’ any more.
Anything less than socialist is called ‘Far-Right, – or Nazi.
There is no near-right, or middle right, or further right; just Far-Right.’

You may read the full post here:

‘Far-Left’ and ‘Far-Right’ need to be replaced by ‘Far-UP’.

The irony of our current thuggery groups behaving so terribly badly while they shout
for rights, proclaim justice, preach love, and of all things, demand tolerance….
all the while commencing to malign and beat to a pulp those who oppose their current
trend of senseless thoughts……

They might do well to reread a book or two from their day’s in lit class.

Barbarism is but a step away from the the civilized…..

“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.
He was a murderer from the beginning,
and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.
Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature,
for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44

diluted

“The holy hour for Germans will be at hand when the symbol of their reawakening–
the flag with the swastika—
has become the only true confession of faith in the Reich.”
Alfred Rosenberg

(a sanderling drips water from his bill / Rosemary Beach, Fl / Julie Cook / 2017)

Always with the passing of time, words and thoughts that once had been pointed, hard, difficult and even monstrous…take on a softening, a smoothing and even entirely
different meanings then their original intent.

That is not necessarily a good thing but rather a result of time….
because time has a way of diluting truth and clouding the mind.

We see a lot of this sort of thing happening today in our own current time.
We hear words that once meant one thing now meaning something else entirely as
new generations decode a past into something else totally other than what was an
original intent.

We hear a lot of folks today throwing around words such as fascism, Nazi, swastika, tolerant, intolerant, socialist, ideology…to name but a few now oddly shapened words.
And chances are most of the folks throwing around these odd words aren’t old enough to
remember the time in which such words first came into being.

So with the passage of time these previous words, now oddly shapened, have become diluted…their meanings today are entirely different to a new generation who has added them to their current caustic vocabulary.

Our current history lessons, having grossly failed the original context of each word,
as well as the generations of the up and coming who are grasping blindly
and wildly at said words, risk being rewritten forever if those of us who know better and who know the Truth fail to tell it.

Ignorance has mingled with ego and bravado creating a toxic ill informed cocktail.
As sadly these current times do not seem to notice their mirrored image to that
of an equally caustic, angry and bravado laced time…

In his book The Book Thieves, Anders Rydell does an excellent job of laying out the historical facts more succinctly than any current US High School history book that
covers the rise of the NSDAP, or what is commonly
referred to as the Nazi party, in Germany pre WWII.

His numerical facts, while overwhelming and staggering, are painfully precise.
His timeline of events is pinpoint accurate.
Such precision, as is found in his tale, is both a wonder and a stalk reminder of the darkest days of the twentieth century yet is purely a tale recounting the
plundering of books.

With the very word plundered / plundering being far from today’s current vocabulary.

For in our current minds, it is hard to phantom the complete wiping out of
libraries or collections of books when we have grown accustomed to cheap paperback
romance novels being picked up at the corner drug store to the more recent vanguard of electronic books….

To our modern minds, books are basically an endless commodity…
for they are as far as the internet may reach.
Meaning that to this current generation, the notion of an entire book collection
being wiped from the planet, rendering various texts more or less extinct, is incomprehensible.

Because surely you can find it on the internet right?

Yet there was a time when books were investments, sacred, and treasured.
Numbers of various writings limited.
There was no endless supply.

It is difficult for our modern minds to comprehend authorities entering into our homes while carrying away our books.
Important papers, valuables…yes…but our books? No.

What if the books by your bedside table were suddenly gone, considered
contraband against the State?
Your family Bible being considered dangerous or even insubordinate against the State.
Impossible you say…but there was a time when that was more fact than fiction.
As it would behoove us to remember it is continuing to this very day…

“Until 1939 the Nazis had devoted themselves to fighting their internal enemies,
such as German Jews, socialists, Communists, liberal, Freemasons and Catholics.
This ideological war was now to fan out across Europe in the wake of the Wehrmacht’s
victorious armies.”
(p.104)

So we see that Nazi Germany was two things.

It was a military force as well as an ideological force.
There were generals and soldiers who fought with guns, plans and tanks
and there were those who fought with thoughts and ideas…

“The Nazis waged their war on two levels: first, by conventional means, with their
armies pitched against other in military conflict, and second, by war against the ideological opposition.
The latter was not a conflict that took place on the battlefield;
it was rather a silent war of disappearances, terror, torture, murder and
deportation, whose frontline soldiers were the Gestapo, the SD, and other parts of
the regime’s terror machine.
It was a war in which the intention was not to vanquish but to liquidate.”
(P 104)

“To form the generation that would lead the Third Reich into the future, the
traditional school system was not enough.
In order to create a fundamentally new human being, a new kind of school would be required.”
(p. 88)

“Under the Nazis, the classroom became a microcosm of the totalitarian state.”
(p. 88)

As I read Rydell’s meticulous tale I understood that the Nazi war machine was more than
Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler, Heinrich Himmler or Herman Goering and their insatiable appetites for apparently world domination, but rather there was a even a more sinister
individual involved.

One may even speculate that Alfred Rosenberg was just as instrumental in the
rise of the Nazi’s mania machine as much as Adolph Hiter.
Rosenberg was the father of the ideology and philosophy behind the National Socialist movement, whereas Hitler was the outward visionary.
It was Rosenberg who laid the structural foundation.
Yet with each man being equally as deranged in their desires for a new Germany.

However we of the modern world scratch our heads as we wonder as to how a Nation that
was considered to be the most culturally developed and brilliant of nations could
succumb to the grandiose vision of madmen.

“When the Nazis came to power, the German school and university system
was considered the best in the world.
No other school system had produced more Nobel Prize winners.
By 1933 Germany had won thirty three Nobel Prizes, while the United States had won
only eight”
(p.86)

I am reminded of the words of The Reverend Gavin Ashenden when he was recently
asked about the rising issue of transgenderism now seen taking place
in primary schools across Great Britain.
He noted that many people ask what is the big deal.
So what if a girl of 8 decides she shall be a boy…?
What is the big deal if a 6 year old boy decides he wants to be a girl?

Rev Ashenden quickly warns us that the big deal is when the human imagination
begins to be distorted.
When we create a world based on our narcissism and idolatry of self
we challenge what God has given us…challenging the Godly as being utterly wrong.
We are telling the God of all creation that what He created was a mistake and wrong.

So as we are left balancing the chasm of time,
keeping one foot in the past with one foot in the future,
wondering what the past has to do with the now, Rydell reminds us that
those who wish to dominate do so by convincing others what it is they are to
both think and believe to be truth….

But we must always remember from whence comes our Truth….

“The danger of taking a one-sided perspective on the Nazi’s relationship to
knowledge is that it risks obscuring something even more dangerous:
The desire of totalitarian ideology to rule not only over people but also their
thoughts.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory,
are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory,
which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 3:18

giving way at the seams

“It is normal to give away a little of one’s life in order
not to lose it all.”
Albert Camus

(a persimmon caught in the middle of the woods in a rather messy web / Julie Cook / 2017)

Just when I thought life had become nutty enough,
what with our latest troubles over petty things like a war of words between a sitting president of the United States and our nation’s professional athletes,
I am resoundingly reassured that we are not alone.

For I am comforted in knowing that there are other nations out there battling
their own levels of crazy.

They say misery loves company…
I say bring an extra bag of chips as we get the party started….

Yesterday’s post had not been what I had intended to write.
Yet I felt deeply compelled to share the role model example, as well as the bravery,
of Steeler’s player Alejandro Villanueva.

I say bravery because Villanueva made a conscious decision to honor the flag and anthem while his coach, Mike Tomlin with input from his players, had decided
that his team would forgo the National Anthem in hopes of just missing the whole crazy divisive issue.

Yet I would imagine Villanueva, a former Army Captain, West Point Grad and
Afghanistan war veteran, and his coach had had a discussion prior to
the game and the anthem.
With that whole discussion most likely revolving around how Villanueva felt a bound duty
to both honor and salute a flag and a Nation that he has served in active duty and now serves as a role model the playing field.

Villanueva is a man who completely understands commands and orders…so I imagine there
was discussion over Villanueva’s need and desire to break ranks as it were with
his beloved Coach and team.

As we now read that Villanueva had not intended to be as noticeable as a “standout”
Sunday as he was…fearing he may have inadvertently thrown his teammates under
life’s proverbial bus.

(Miami Herald)

Men and women have died defending our Flag…as her ensuing anthem is a reflection
not of inequality or bias but rather of blood shed for democratic triumph…
A notion now a couple of centuries old…

Soldiers understand that probably better than most of us.
I doubt any of The Steelers feel as if they were thrown under any bus by a man who
chose to put his own life on the line for his fellow Americans.

I was tremendously touched by the comments offered on my post Monday regarding that
brave act by that brave man.

It seems I am not alone in feeling that US Capt. Villanueva
made the greatest one-man showing on Sunday despite that not being his desire
nor mission–yet selfless patriotism has a way of always coming to the surface.

So just when I thought our lives couldn’t become any more surreal than they
already are, I watched Monday morning the latest edition of Anglican Unscripted
featuring the Anglican cleric, The Reverend Gavin Ashenden.

And then, if that weren’t enough, I followed that up with the solid reading from the
latest offerings by the Scottish Pastor David Robertson on his Wee Flea Blog.

Firstly I will share a brief bit of what Reverend Ashenden has had to share regarding
some recent happenings on his side of the pond.

It seems that the Church of England has either totally lost its mind or has
totally gone the way of the ‘All Ensuing Cultural War Express’….

Recently a fashion show featuring the symbols, dress and attitude of all things Satanic
was permited to take place in of all places an Anglican Church located in London.

Just when I was pretty well convinced the we had totally lost our minds on this side
of the pond, it seems as if our cousins abroad have totally lost theirs.

When on earth does a catwalk featuring those decorated and dressed in Satan inspired garb,
complete with a Christian altar as a backdrop, make any sort of sense at all?

You might need to read that again….

When on earth does a catwalk featuring those decorated and dressed in Satan inspired garb,
complete with a Christian altar as a backdrop, make any sort of sense at all?

It doesn’t!

(St Andrew’s Anglican Church allowing a Satanic inspired fashion show to take place in the sanctuary)

Rev. Ashenden pointedly reminds his listeners that if there be
any Christian among us who has the Holy Spirit residing in his or her soul…
of which would be a good many of the faithful, he or she would assuredly have felt a tremendous amount of consternation over having seen such a spectacle….

I know I did when I watched a few snippets of the “show.”

Rev. Ashenden proceeds to explain that there is a battle on this earth that
is a a battle of both Good and Evil and it is very much alive and very much real.
And if any of us foolishly think otherwise, then we are in store for a very frightful awakening.

Imagine Satan’s glee—his very own fashion show, featuring some of his best inspired
fashion, taking place in a House of God…

Oh the irony found in that one notion alone…

The good Vicar goes on to note that the Church of England has now obviously
succumb to its struggles with the secular culture as it is now very much
“coming apart at the seams”

Anglican Unscripted – Satanic & Masonic fashion in the C of E.

Next our dear friend the Scottish Pastor David Robertson shares his own observations
from the same side of the pond…

He takes a look at a variety of ills plaguing both the EU and the UK even venturing to
the land down under.

(am I the only one who sees a problem with this image from an Australian college campus?? Last I checked, no one was recommending burning homosexuals but apparently it’s ok
to burn a church)

Australia is now locked in a death roll regarding same sex marriages.

The good pastor notes “Well, they did warn us it would happen.
They said they did not want a referendum on same sex marriage because of
the hatred it would allow to be displayed.
They were right.
The Australian referendum debate has turned really nasty – not as some feared
with people taking the opportunity to express their homophobic hatred,
but rather because of those who are all into ‘love and tolerance’
being full of hatred and intolerance towards any who would dare to
disagree with them.

Pastor Robertson lastly offered a small step back in time.
He offered a “story of the week”

(Nixon and Kissinger in the Oval Office)

Story of the week –
I loved this story about Nixon.
Kissinger’s account from Woodward and Bernstein The Final Days.

“The president was drinking.
He said he was resigning.
It would be better for everyone.
They talk quietly – history, resignation decision,
foreign affairs.
Then Nixon said he wasn’t sure he would be able to resign.
Could he be the first president to quit office?
Kissinger responded by listing the president’s contributions,
especially in diplomacy.

‘Will history treat me more kindly than my contemporaries?’

“Certainly, definitely,” Kissinger said. “When this was all over,
the president would be remembered for the peace he had achieved.”
The president broke down and sobbed…How had a simple burglary,
a breaking and entering, done all this?

“Kissinger kept trying to turn the conversation back to all the good things.
Nixon wouldn’t hear of it. He was hysterical.
‘Henry, ‘he said, ‘you are not a very orthodox Jew,
and I am not an orthodox Quaker, but we need to pray.’

Nixon got down on his knees.
Kissinger felt he had no alternative but to kneel down too..
The president prayed out loud, asking for help, rest, peace and love.
How could a president and a country be torn apart by such small things?
Kissinger thought he had finished but the president did not rise.
He was weeping…
‘What have I done?
What has happened?
‘Kissinger touched the president, and then…
tried to bring rest and peace to the man who was curled on the carpet
like a child.
Kissinger again tried to reassure him…
Finally the president struggled to his feet.
He sat back in his chair.
The storm had passed.
He had another drink”

I for one did find forgiveness for President Nixon as I have opted to remember
the good works that Nixon actually did accomplish while in office….and there were many
such works.

LED 10 – Far Right in Germany – The EU – World Running out of Sand – Transgender Study banned – Australian SSM Intolerance – Catalonia and Kurdistan – Reality is a Social Constuct – Britons on the Toilet – A Tale of Nixon and Kissinger

And so I will leave us today with these current events now swirling in our heads as
we continue stepping ever so gingerly through the minefield of this world we
call our own…

May God have mercy upon our souls….

“Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
Rend your heart
and not your garments.
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is gracious and compassionate,
slow to anger and abounding in love,
and he relents from sending calamity.
Who knows? He may turn and relent
and leave behind a blessing—
grain offerings and drink offerings
for the Lord your God.
Joel 2:12-14

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’.

immune?

“A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as
a child who is protected from every germ.
The infection, when it comes- and it will come–may overwhelm the system,
be it the immune system or the belief system.”
Jane Smiley

(more ripe muscadines / Julie Cook / 2017)

“As Maine goes, so goes the Nation”

A popular and most likely long forgotten expression, which dates back to the turning
of the 19th to 20th centuries…
As it seems Maine had a knack at her picking leaders…
elections that became the accurate prognosticators to presidential elections.

Maine was known as a bellwether state, or that of being a bit of a trendsetter.
It seems that “Maine’s September election of a governor predicted the party
outcome of the November presidential election in 19 out of the 26 presidential
election years from 1832 to 1932, or 73 percent of the time. (wikipedia)

Eventually Maine’s prediction proclivities gave way to other states becoming
the standing trendsetter.
From Vermont to Ohio to Florida…to who knows the next trendsetting state…
as our likes and dislikes rustle in the breeze like fallen and dried up leaves.

For we as a people have always been a rather predictable lot…
with both our likes and dislikes, of which have always been rooted in a strong
belief system.

Yet what was traditionally tied to a value system, that being a reflection of what we considered important and which in turn reflected our our voting habits,
has been in recent times seemingly turned upside down.

Because as society and culture, that belief and value system has been undergoing a metamorphosis of sorts.
No longer are we as predictable as we once were because we have grown both jaded and fickle.

We use to know what was of importance…
and we were never ashamed to admit such.

We treasured our faith, our families, our nation.
Everything else simply fell into place underneath.

We were tenacious about it.
We sacrificed for it.
And we defended and protected it…
unto the death.

We were civic minded and duty minded…both of which were tied into our values
of faith, family and country.
People around the globe actually admired this shared value system of ours.

We knew the good guys….
and they always seemed to be us.

And then one day, what particular day no one really knows for sure, all of that
changed…because we changed.

What was once held as sacred and important became something else.
What exactly that is… we’re simply not certain.
But different it is.

Yesterday I noticed that two of my favorite across the pond clerics had each
posted the same political cartoon along with a fiery disdain.
That being the Rev. Gavin Ashenden and The Rev David Roberston.

Both residents of the UK, one in England the other in Scotland…
both members of different denominations…One Anglican and the other
Reformed Presbyterian.
Yet both men have neither cowered or shied away from taking a sound
stand literally in the name of God for that God and His very Word.

There is no compromise nor bending to cultural norms for either of them.
God’s word is just that, God’s Word.
It matters not that said Word is no longer considered popular
or favored by the masses.
It matters not that our culture is such that it wishes to rewrite God’s Word.
It matters not that society has decided that God did not mean what He actually
said nor that He and His Word have each failed to keep up the the times.

And each one of these men of God have taken a great deal of flack for their faith
as well as for their defense of that Faith.
Each man has been maligned, not surprisingly, by the British press.

So when each cleric took to posting a defense for a
poor fellow who is currently being depicted in the latest snide
UK political cartoon…a conservative politician being castigated for his
Christian Faith, I took notice.

Not necessarily a supporter of all of this particular Tory’s views,
each of these shepherds have however gone out of their way to be very vocal,
crying foul regarding this recent new low media attack against a man who is committed
to not only to his political principles but ardently committed to his Christian faith.

Each minister notes that the media is not only attacking a politician, which is certainly nothing new, but now the attack is against this man’s faith, his
Christian Faith—ridiculing it and anyone else who just so happens to proclaim
to be a Christian.

(The Times)

Please read their postings on each of the following links:

The Man Who Could Make Me Vote Tory

A letter submitted to the Times for publication. 

So if you think that that large body of water which separates our two lands is enough to keep us immune from that same sort of attack against a Faith that you just happen to hold dear…you best think again…

If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own.
As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.
That is why the world hates you.
John 15:19

splitting hairs, missing the knots

For while we say time marches forward,
all things in time move backward toward the middle and eventually to
the beginnings of history.
We are too vain; we think we are the summit of history.
Morris Bishop

(antique fishing balls encased in rope netting, Julie Cook / 2017)

I think we’d all agree that there’s a great deal happening in this world of ours.
Just as there’s a great deal happening in this country of ours.
And I’m pretty certain we’d each agree that we are all now standing at some sort
of a crossroads, a fork in the road, a diverging path.

Eney, meeny, miny, moe…
which is the path we now should go…?

Choices. Decisions. Options.
Yet are those choices, decisions and options really ours to make?

We’ve been inundated by protests, demands, demonstrations, violence,
disagreements, special interest groups, fake news, real news, marches,
angst, politics, policies, black lives matters, antifas, alt rights,
progressives, liberals, conservatives, democrats, republicans,terrorists,
radicals, extremists, anarchists, LBGTs, atheists, Christians, Jews, Muslims and
anything else in between…

I recently read an article by The Rev. Gavin Ashenden.
Rev. Ashenden is that rather rebellious Anglican prelate I’ve referenced
previously in a past post or two.
My kind of priest actually.

Another clerical voice in the ever shrinking pool of the global faithful
who is opting to do something quite novel…that being sticking to his guns,
his vows, his belief in the face of those who cry foul. His beliefs that God’s
word is just that, God’s word…not man’s, not some theologian’s, not some
special interest group’s, but God’s and God’s alone.

Rev. Ashenden’s article,
“The Trans Dilemma–Human Dysphoria & the Life of Brian”
is a response to the very public growing battle and preoccupation with changing,
what now appears to be on a whim, one’s sexual orientation.

No longer do our legislatures want those seeking, or the parents who are seeking,
the option of changing ones sex to have to wait for some sort of legal process.
Rather it should be something that one should be able to do by the checking
of a box or the proclamation of a particular day.

Rev. Ashenden notes that it seems that “we have shifted as a society to
a place where we treasure and respect feelings more than most other factors.
It’s part of a growing self-preoccupation.

He continues,
“If I feel something, it must be true or real.”
It’s the under-side of an “I want” consumerist society where a whole range of
very sophisticated agencies play on our feelings of how we would like to look or
like to feel, or like to be seen.”

The Trans Dilemma – Human Dysphoria & the Life of Brian.

This issue is just one more in a litany of growing issues that are bombarding us
on a daily basis.

It is a never ending sea of society telling us all to accept,
get on board or be damned.
Forget choice, decision or option because it is all one-sided really.

Yet are these issues really just a lost population’s attempt at grasping
straws…just as a drowning man grasps at anything afloat to save him?
Or is there something much deeper and much more grave taking place?

Are we as a society merely preoccupied with the business of splitting hairs
when in actuality we’re really missing the giant tangled knots glaring us
in the face….

When tempted, no one should say, “God is tempting me.”
For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone;
but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire
and enticed.
Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin;
and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

Don’t be deceived…
(James 1:13-16)