In my last article,1 I didn’t urge readers to not get vaccinated because I didn’t have the time to gather all the relevant articles demonstrating that the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. My goal, moreover, was to get Christians to think about the propaganda that they are up against, and to love God with all of their mind by making a wise, God-glorifying decision. Given that the vaccines are being promoted by means of propaganda, however, that is enough for us to refuse them. Manipulation, coercion, threats, emotionalism, and the redefinition of love render any decision made upon such appeals sinful. If we want to love our neighbor, then, we must not act in defiance of the first table of the Law of God by abdicating our responsibility to rationally assess the present situation.

In this article, I am not going to delve into the data that demonstrates how the mRNA vaccines are not safe and effective. Instead, I want to give a single reason, and an important one, for my refusal to get the vaccine. My goal is to make an argument that can be used in everyday (i.e. not overly technical/scientific) discussions with other believers, or with unbelievers, that clearly states why a Christian should not get “the jab.”

You Shall Not Bear False Witness

As of the moment, the mRNA vaccines are being aggressively promoted by the media, government officials, and media personalities. While there are therapeutics that have been shown to be safe and effective in the treatment of COVID-19, these promoters of the mRNA vaccines do not promote them. They not only fail to promote them, they actively discourage the use of these therapeutic treatments. They argue fallaciously in order to manipulate their audiences into getting the mRNA vaccine, rather than getting cheap and safe and effective drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

For instance, rather than reporting on the successful treatment of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine, the media reported on a man who had taken chloroquine tablets intended for fish and, subsequently died from it.2 The media’s intention was to make Trump responsible for health misinformation and, consequently, the man’s death. It was also intended to mock anyone who dare to seek treatment that was not approved of by the FDA. One news outlet made the false claim that hydroxychloroquine was not approved of by the FDA for the treatment of COVID-19, despite the fact that it had been given Emergency Use Authorization very early on and would only have that authorization revoked several days afterward.3

Another media outlet called those who were promoting hydroxychloroquine conspiracy theorists,4 falsely claimed that the drug was “condemned by the US Food and Drug Association,”5 deceptively reported that “hydroxychloroquine is well documented for increasing serious heart problems, and in some cases, resulting in death,”6 and mocked President Trump and anyone else who would dare to think differently than the so-called experts. This was more than a simple attempt to dissuade people from using the drug; it was propaganda meant to belittle, ostracize, and vilify seekers of the drug. Many other outlets did the same,7 and are now reusing the same tactics with respect to another drug that is being used successfully as a COVID-19 therapeutic, namely ivermectin.

In a recent article by Oliver Darcy, the CNN reporter, as well as the FDA, misrepresent ivermectin as “an anti-parasitic drug used for livestock,”8 while simultaneously affirming that “there are human uses for ivermectin.”9 Another CNN writer, Chris Cillizza, does the same in his article “What the ivermectin debacle reveals about the hypocrisy of the anti-vaxxer crowd,”10 identifying those promoting the drug as conspiracy theorists. He goes on to identify the drug as “a drug used to de-worm large animals, in stock,”11 and as “medicine meant for horses and cows,”12 only to then state that “there are formulations of ivermectin approved for human use in the United States, but it's intended for intestinal parasites and conditions such as head lice and rosacea,” thereby revealing his equivocal use of the word “ivermectin.”13 The goal? To identify the drug as harmful, unapproved by the FDA, and dangerous.

In a dark twist of irony, however, the same media outlet has an article written by a physician explaining why you should not “wait for full FDA approval to get your Covid shot.”14 This highlights the fact that whether or not one should take hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin or get “the jab” is being determined not by the sheer preponderance of data but the sheer exercise of authority. If FDA approval should not keep one from getting an experimental gene therapy, then why should it keep one from taking hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin, two drugs that have – over their long lifespan – a death rate that is much lower than the 13,000 plus deaths15 attributable to the new mRNA vaccines that have only been in use for about a year or so? This doesn’t add up.

Moreover, given the revelation only a few months ago that Anthony Fauci knew hydroxychloroquine was a safe and effective therapeutic treatment for COVID-19,16 why did he and the media lie about his knowledge of the drug’s efficacy?17 Given that there have been major studies showing the efficacy of ivermectin as a safe and effective therapeutic treatment18 for COVID-19, why are the media, talking heads, politicians, and the FDA arguing deceptively, manipulatively, and fallaciously in a frantic attempt to keep people from getting access to the drug?

We can guess, with reasonable accuracy, the reason behind these attacks on demonstrably successful treatments for COVID-19. It’s simple – If there exist safe and effective alternatives to the vaccines currently being promoted by the government and the media – alternatives whose benefits outweigh their risks, and are more beneficial and less risky than the mRNA vaccines – then the vaccines will lose their EUA status. According to the FDA’s own official document, the organization

...may issue an EUA after FDA has determined that the following statutory requirements are met […]

• The chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) agent referred to in the March 27, 2020 EUA declaration by the Secretary of HHS (SARS-CoV-2) can cause a serious or life threatening disease or condition.

• Based on the totality of scientific evidence available, including data from adequate and well controlled trials, if available, it is reasonable to believe that the product may be effective to prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.

• The known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.

• There is no adequate, approved, and available alternative to the product for diagnosing,

preventing, or treating the disease or condition.19

And while bullet point 1 has obviously been met, points 2-3 have repeatedly been shown to have not been met. Given the amount of deaths and adverse side effects caused by the mRNA vaccines, it is not reasonable to believe that they can “prevent, diagnose, or treat such serious or life-threatening disease or condition that can be caused by SARS-CoV-2.”20 This is because the vaccines have not been determined to be safe and effective on the basis of “the totality of scientific evidence available” but by studies that have systematically excluded unfavorable data. Nor has it been determined on the basis of “data [obtained] from adequate and well controlled trials” but has been determined on the basis of incomplete and poorly controlled trials.21 Consequently, EUA has not been granted to the vaccines because “the known and potential benefits of the product, when used to diagnose, prevent, or treat the identified serious or life-threatening disease or condition, outweigh the known and potential risks of the product.” Yet by excluding unfavorable data, drawing conclusions from incomplete and poorly controlled mRNA vaccine trials, and lying about drugs like hydroxychroloquine and ivermectin, the FDA has provided itself a plausible basis for claiming that bullet point 4 has been met.

The truth is that the vaccines have not met the requisite conditions justifying the FDA granting them EUA. There are, and have been, many “adequate, … and available alternative[s] to the [mRNA vaccines] for diagnosing, preventing, or treating [COVID-19]” – e.g. hydroxycloroquine,22 ivermectin, budesonide,23 quercetin alongside high doses of vitamins C and D3,24 and Regeneron25 – to name a few. If these alternatives are ignored, sidelined, lied about, etc, however, and are identified as unsafe and ineffective, then the vaccines retain their EUA.

Conclusion: Why I Am Obligated to NOT Get the Vaccine

Given that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of numerous treatments for COVID-19, and that the government and media have lied about the safety and efficiency of the mRNA vaccines, and that the government and media have utilized fallacious and unsound reasoning in an attempt to retain EUA for an experimental treatment that has been shown to be not only very dangerous but ineffective, I am obligated to obey God and not participate in their false witness bearing. I cannot get the vaccine because doing so would imply that I am in agreement with their lies, lies that have not only been used to destroy the lives of many people who could have otherwise been saved by cheap, safe, effective, and easily accessible treatments, but have also destroyed the personal reputations of many doctors who promoted those treatments because they were concerned with saving lives, and not with lining their pockets with blood money.

So in a word – I am obligated to refuse the jab because I am obligated under divine law to not bear false testimony, and the very reason why the vaccines have EUA and, what is more, have been touted as the best means of fighting against COVID-19 is because the media and government have borne false testimony on numerous levels. These lies have resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, the defamation of many doctors and front line workers, the destruction of innumerable businesses, the psychological ruination of many children, the dissolution of families due to suicide or substance relapse or domestic violence, and the psychological abuse of many elderly people who were denied, and are still being denied, access to their loved ones.

Because love does one’s neighbor no harm, I am obligated to not get the vaccine.

1 See Hiram R. Diaz III, “How to Love God and Your Neighbor – Think Before You Get “The Jab,” ThornCrown Ministries, Sept 2, 2021, https://thorncrownministries.com/blog/how-to-love-god-and-your-neighbor-think-before-you-get-the-jab.

2 See Erika Edwards and Vaughn Hillyard, “Man dies after taking chloroquine in an attempt to prevent coronavirus,” NBC News, March 23, 2020, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/man-dies-after-ingesting-chloroquine-attempt-prevent-coronavirus-n1167166.

3 ibid. [N.B. While the NBC News article mentions that hydroxychloroquine was being looked at as a potentially useful therapeutic, that is only partially correct. It was granted Emergency Use Authorization on March 28, 2020. The EUA was revoked on June 15, 2020. See “Authorizations and Revocation of Emergency Use of Drugs During the COVID-19 Pandemic; Availability,” Federal Register: The Daily Journal of the United States Government, Sept 11, 2020, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2020/09/11/2020-20041/authorizations-and-revocation-of-emergency-use-of-drugs-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-availability.]

4 Jenae Madden, “Hydroxychloroquine: the conspiracy theorists’ answer to coronavirus, explained,” Happy, April 4, 2020, https://happymag.tv/hydroxychloroquine-the-conspiracy-theorists-answer-to-coronavirus-explained/.

5 ibid.

6 ibid.

7 See Daniel Funke, “Conspiracy Theory Proven False: Hydroxychloroquine Is [Still] Not a COVID-19 Cure,” Physicians News, July 31, 2020, https://physiciansnews.com/2020/07/31/conspiracy-theory-proven-false-hydroxychloroquine-is-still-not-a-covid-19-cure/; Ann McLaughlin, “Investigating the most convincing COVID-19 conspiracy theories,” June 23, 2020, King’s College London, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/investigating-the-most-convincing-covid-19-conspiracy-theories;

8 “Right-wing media pushed a deworming drug to treat Covid-19 that the FDA says is unsafe for humans,” CNN, Aug 23, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/23/media/right-wing-media-ivermectin/index.html.

9 ibid.

10 CNN, Aug 25, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/25/politics/ivermectin-covid-19-fox-news/index.html.

11 ibid.

12 ibid.

13 Ivermectin for animals differs in concentration levels from ivermectin for humans. Logically, this makes the two uses of the word distinct. The genus here is ivermectin, and the species are (a.)animal and (b.)human. By identifying the use of (a.) as proof that (b.) should not be used, the author is committing the fallacy of equivocation.

14 Jonthan Sackner-Bernstein, CNN, July 28, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/opinions/dont-wait-for-fda-approval-to-get-vaccine-sackner-bernstein/index.html.

15 See Tucker Carlson, “How Many Americans Have Died After Taking COVID Vaccinations?,” FOX News, Brighteon, https://www.brighteon.com/2a2fd903-220a-4b4f-86bf-0f78aaa8fd2a.

16 See Jim Hoft, “SMOKING GUN: FAUCI LIED, MILLIONS DIED — Fauci Was Informed of Hydroxychloroquine Success in Early 2020 But Lied to Public Instead Despite the Science #FauciEmails,” Gateway Pundit, Jun 3, 2021, https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/06/smoking-gun-fauci-lied-millions-died-fauci-informed-hydroxychloroquine-worked-lied-public-instead-despite-science-fauciemails/.

17 See Daniel Funke, “Don’t fall for conspiracy about Dr. Anthony Fauci, hydroxychloroquine,” Politifact, May 6, 2020, https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/06/blog-posting/dont-fall-conspiracy-about-dr-anthony-fauci-hydrox/.

18 For example, see Morimasa Yagisawa, Patrick J. Foster, Hideaki Hanaki, and Satoshi Ōmura, “Global trends in clinical studies of ivermectin in COVID-19,” in The Japanese Journal of Antibiotics 74 – 1 (Mar.\ 2021), 45-95. [N.B. The PDF, for now, is accessible online here – http://jja-contents.wdc-jp.com/pdf/JJA74/74-1-open/74-1_44-95.pdf].

19 Emergency Use Authorization for Vaccines to Prevent COVID-19, 3. FDA website, May 25, 2021, https://www.fda.gov/media/142749/download.

20 ibid.

21 See Ronald B. Brown, “Outcome Reporting Bias in COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Clinical Trials,” in Medicina

57, 199 (2021), https://doi.org/10.3390/medicina57030199; Richard Harris, “Long-Term Studies Of COVID-19 Vaccines Hurt By Placebo Recipients Getting Immunized,” NPR, Feb 19, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/02/19/969143015/long-term-studies-of-covid-19-vaccines-hurt-by-placebo-recipients-getting-immuni; Lance D. Johnson, “Moderna and Pfizer vaccine trials RIGGED by vaccinating the control group… blatant science FRAUD exposed,” Natural News, Aug 10, 2021, https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-08-10-moderna-and-pfizer-vaccine-trials-rigged-vaccinating-control-group.html; Tyler Durden, “Ex-Pfizer Exec Demands EU Halt COVID-19 Vaccine Studies Over 'Indefinite Infertility' And Other Health Concerns,” ZeroHedge, Dec 6, 2020, https://www.zerohedge.com/medical/ex-pfizer-exec-demands-eu-halt-covid-19-vaccine-studies-over-indefinite-infertility-and.

22 See C. Prodromos and T. Rumschlag, “Hydroxychloroquine is effective, and consistently so when provided early, for COVID-19: a systematic review,” in New Microbes and New Infections 38, Nov (2020), https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2052297520301281?via%3Dihub.

23 See “Common asthma treatment reduces need for hospitalisation in COVID-19 patients, study suggests,” University of Oxford – News and Events, Feb 9, 2021, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2021-02-09-common-asthma-treatment-reduces-need-hospitalisation-covid-19-patients-study; Sanjay Ramakrishnan, et al., “Inhaled budesonide in the treatment of early COVID-19 (STOIC): a phase 2, open-label, randomised controlled trial,” in The Lancet – Respiratory Medicine Vol. 9, Issue 7, (April 9, 2021), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00160-0/fulltext.

24 See Giuseppe Derosa, et al., “A role for quercetin in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19),” in Phytotherapy Research, Wiley Online Library, October 9, 2020, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ptr.6887; Ruben Manuel Luciano Colunga Biancatelli, et al., “Quercetin and Vitamin C: An Experimental, Synergistic Therapy for the Prevention and Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Related Disease (COVID-19),” in Frontiers in Immunology 19, June (2020), https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2020.01451/full; Joseph Mercola, “Evidence Regarding Vitamin D and Risk of COVID-19 and Its Severity,” in Nutrients 12, October (2020), https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/11/3361.

25 See Kezia Parkins, “Regeneron’s antibody cocktail helps prevent and treat Covid-19 in Phase III studies,” Clinical Trials Arena, April 13, 2020, https://www.clinicaltrialsarena.com/news/regenerons-antibody-cocktail-regen-cov-helps-prevent-and-treat-covid-19-in-phase-3-studies/; Alistair Smout, “Regeneron’s antibody therapy cuts deaths among some hospitalised COVID-19 patients -study,” Reuters, June 16, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/regeneron-covid-19-therapy-cuts-deaths-among-hospitalised-patients-who-lack-2021-06-16/; Lenny Bernstein and Laurie McGinley, “Monoclonal antibodies are free and effective against covid-19, but few people are getting them,” Washington Post, August 20, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/covid-monoclonal-abbott/2021/08/19/a39a0b5e-0029-11ec-a664-4f6de3e17ff0_story.html.

Seeing as many Christians are aware of the ethically suspect, if not entirely corrupt, process of vaccine development, and are aware of the serious side-effects of the gene-therapies that are now being rebranded as vaccines, there is a growing tide of individuals who feel the need to tell us that we are “not loving our neighbors” if we don’t get vaccinated. Visit social media and you can see them saying “I thought you were a Christian. Aren’t you supposed to love your neighbor?” Listen to the talking heads on television and online media outlets and you can hear them confidently asserting that “Jesus would have gotten the jab,” and so all Christians should get the jab in order to “love your neighbor like Jesus did.”

But what we are not seeing so much of is a biblical answer to the question posed by the singer Haddaway in 1993 –

What is love?

Instead, those who are “encouraging” us to get vaccinated assume that we share their definition of love and, therefore, should feel guilty for not acting in accordance with their definition of love. And, sadly, for many that is actually the case. Upon hearing that Christians who will not get vaccinated don’t love their neighbors, many professing Christians will feel guilty and get vaccinated against their convictions. This kind of manipulation is occurring on a daily basis and warrants a better response that is biblical and to the point. I hope to present that in this short article.

Defining Love

The American Heritage Dictionary online defines love as follows –

A strong feeling of affection and concern toward another person, as that arising from kinship or close friendship.

[…]

A strong feeling of affection and concern for another person accompanied by sexual attraction.

Similarly, Webster defines love in the following manner –

…strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties

…attraction based on sexual desire : affection and tenderness felt by lovers

…affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests

What we see in these definitions, which I think are representative of how most people think about love, is that love is an affection – i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing – that arises from kinship or some other kind of intimate relationship we have with others. This understanding of love is problematic for a host of reasons. Let’s look at why it is problematic, and then look at what the Scriptures have to say.

In the first place, defining love as an affection (i.e. a favorable and tender disposition toward some person or thing) means that actions taken toward another person that are not favorable or tender are not loving. Yet our own proclamations of love for people show us that this is not the case. Leaving aside the question of who gets to define what is or is not “favorable” to the object of one’s love, we simply point out that those whom we love are often those with whom we tend to lack tenderness in certain situations. For instance, the father who loves his daughter will reprimand her harshly for using drugs, hanging out with the wrong crowd, disrespecting her mother, etc. He will also “tell her like it is,” knowing that it will drive a wedge between the two of them. Is his love suspended for his daughter when he keeps her from destroying her life with drugs, for instance, because he speaks harshly to her? We recognize that the father’s love is what fuels his response. His response is an instance of love, and it lacks the aforementioned tenderness and favorableness, from his daughter’s perspective that is, that is supposedly definitive of love.

The examples here can be multiplied –

• A sister who does not approve of her brother’s decision to divorce his wife and, therefore, refuses to give him emotional and financial support in his endeavors to split up his marriage.

• A church that disciplines a member who continues in flagrant and unrepentant sin.

• A parent who cuts off financial support for his children so that they can learn how to fend for themselves in the world.

• God taking the life of David’s child born of adultery.

• Christ calling Peter Satan.

The harshness in these examples is not evidence of the absence of love but, in fact, the proof of its central presence in the relationships described. What this means is that affection, as described above, is not essential to love. One can love another person by doing what is, according to that person, unfavorable and harsh. Our popular understanding of love, then, is wrong given our own understanding of our behaviors toward those whom we claim to love.

Secondly, because love is not an affection it cannot “arise from” some relationship we have with another person. Our relationship with another person may lead to us having positive/warm feelings for that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. Our relationship with another person may lead to us acting tenderly toward that person, but that isn’t the same thing as love. We can interact tenderly with strangers we’ve never before met. We can also interact tenderly with people whom we hate. We can act favorably toward another person as a means of retribution, allowing that person to entertain delusions and engage in all kinds of self-destructive behavior, simply because we want him to suffer. Tenderness and favorableness cannot, therefore, be definitive of love.

So why do most people think love is a favorable and tender disposition toward another person? Simply put – they confuse the feelings they have while expressing love for another person with love itself. Unlike God, we experience emotional changes, as we are temporal and mutable creatures. We relate to others in time, moreover, experiencing emotional changes as time progresses in those relationships, and those relationships either grow to maturity or disintegrate. Is the building up of some shared life goal something that evokes positive emotions? Do those positive emotions grow as two people grow closer and see one another as reliable, trustworthy, considerate, and so on? Conversely, is the breaking of a covenant between two persons something that evokes negative emotions? Do those negative emotions grow as two people grow father apart and see one another as unreliable, untrustworthy, inconsiderate, and so on?

As creatures with passions – i.e. emotional states correlative to our proximity to perceived goods or evils – every relationship we have with others is marked by emotional changes. But as we saw above, we can be favorable and tender toward those we hate (as an expression of our hatred), just as we can be unfavorable and harsh toward those we love (as an expression of our love). Love, therefore, is not an affection, although it is accompanied by affection in many cases.

Another problem we must recognize is that of the love of God. Given that God does not have “passions” (as defined above), because he is perfect and unchanging, how are we to understand love?

Scripture Defines Love

In Romans 13:8-10, the apostle Paul writes –

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

Within this pericope, we are given the definition of love, as well as examples of love in action. Love, he says, is the fulfilling of the law. The Law in question here is the law of God, i.e. the Ten Commandments, which include the first table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with God) as well as the second table (i.e. those commandments immediately pertaining to our relationship with other people). Actions which are loving are those which do no harm to our neighbor, including refraining from adultery, murder, stealing, and coveting.

But that isn’t everything. Paul adds this small clause “and any other commandment,” thereby implying that it is not merely our adherence to the second table of the law that constitutes love for our neighbor, but our adherence to the first table as well. To love one’s neighbor is to walk in accordance with God’s Law as it pertains to our relationship with him and with our fellow human. Love is the fulfillment of the law. Consequently, any act of love toward one’s neighbor that results in our disobedience to the first table of the law is not an act of love at all. Likewise, any act of love toward God that results in our disobedience to the second table of the law is not an act of love at all.

Consider Christ’s words in Mark 7:9-13 –

And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban”’ (that is, given to God)— then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Note here what Jesus is criticizing – it is the Pharisees’ attempt to pit obedience to God (in giving sacrificially to him) against obedience to God (in honoring one’s father and mother). What motivated these hypocrites was not love for God but sin, specifically greed, and that is evidenced by the result their supposed love for God produced – the Word of God was nullified, rendered incoherent, self-contradictory. By pitting obedience to the first table against obedience to the second table, the Pharisees had not done what is commanded by either table of the law.

Our Current Context

Given that love is not an emotion/affect but the fulfillment of God’s Law, are appeals to our duty to love our neighbor and “just get the shot” sound? In short, no. When we are told by others “if you really loved your neighbors you would get the jab!” we are being guilt tripped. This kind of manipulation is particularly nasty, seeing as it explicitly states that you don’t love your neighbor and, therefore, necessarily implies that you also don’t love God. It is important to know how this twofold accusation is false, therefore, in order to not be deceived into supposedly loving God or our neighbor at the expense of either and, consequently, failing to love either.

Let’s look at the argument being made:

If you love your neighbor, you will get the vaccine.
You will not get the vaccine.
Therefore, you do not love your neighbor.

In order for this argument to be sound, at least three things need to be true. Firstly, it must be the case that the vaccine will not harm me. Secondly, it must be the case that the vaccine will do my neighbor no harm. Thirdly, it must be the case that my decision to get vaccinated is not due to me having been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced.

These three situations must be true in order for this syllogism to be sound. For in the first case, if I knowingly get vaccinated with a drug that will render me unable to fulfill the vocations which God has given me, then I am willingly abdicating my divinely ordained responsibilities (e.g. being a husband, father, worker, teacher, etc). Willingly getting vaccinated, in this instance, would not be an act of love toward God or my neighbor because it would render me incapable of worshiping God as he has commanded by making my body incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor. In a word, if getting vaccinated renders me incapable of doing what is necessary to ensure no harm comes to my neighbor, then it is not an act of love toward God or my neighbor.

In the second case, if getting vaccinated does harm to my neighbor then it is an act that is loving toward neither God nor my neighbor. Physical harm is not the only harm that one can do to his neighbor, so even if we assume that the vaccine will not physically harm me or anyone else, there is still the danger of harming my neighbor socially. If getting vaccinated entails being publicly praised and retaining my God-given rights, and not getting vaccinated entails being publicly shamed and having my God-given rights suppressed, then getting vaccinated entails socially, and eventually physically, harming my neighbor who will not get vaccinated. For if my neighbor’s God-given rights are suppressed, then he is hindered from loving God by performing the vocations God has given him in order to love God and love his neighbor.

In the third case, if I get vaccinated because I have been manipulated, deceived, guilt-tripped, or coerced, then I have not acted in accordance with the truth. I have placed obedience to men on a par with, or above, obedience to God and, thereby, have engaged in idolatry. The duty to love God with all of my mind requires me to rationally assess my circumstances, and determine what actions I can or cannot take in order to achieve a goal that will directly or indirectly assist me in not doing my neighbor any harm. If I don’t do this, but instead succumb to the pressure to get vaccinated, I am not acting in accordance with the truth, and consequently not loving God or my neighbor.

Conclusion

Even if the vaccine is safe and effective, loving my neighbor requires me to love God, and loving God requires me to act not in submission to governmental mandates, media manipulators, or frantic family members, but in submission to the Lord God of Truth. If I am being told to succumb to bribes, manipulative emotional outbursts, coercive mandates, and so on, then I am being told to commit idolatry by not subjecting myself to the truth. I don’t have to demonstrate that the vaccines are not safe and effective, in other words, in order to justify not getting vaccinated. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not obey another authority placing himself above God by forcing me to forgo the reasoning process requisite to making a good and God-honoring decision. If I love God and my neighbor, then I will not get vaccinated if that entails the ostracization of my neighbor because he is convinced that the vaccine is not safe and effective.

Those who are arguing that it is unloving – i.e. sinful – to not “get the jab” are engaging in behavior that is unloving toward their neighbors and God. This is not because they are promoting vaccination per se, but because they are twisting Scripture, disregarding truth, placing the desires of men above the revealed will of God, and placing love for God and love for one’s neighbor in contradiction to one another in their attempt to get their neighbors vaccinated. This is evil and must be rejected and refuted. Christians are to obey God rather than men, and God commands us to rationally assess our life situations in order to make decisions that are good for our neighbor’s well-being, and which bring God glory.

When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.

-          2 Kings 11:1

“To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumelious to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, and of all equity and justice.”

To modern ears could a more offensive sentence be found in all of literature?  Not having read all of literature, this author does not pretend to be able to answer that question definitively.  Yet with that said, it is hard to imagine an idea more repugnant to 21st century readers than this quote from John Knox’s essay “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women” (hereafter, TMR).

We have, all of us living in the West in the early 21st century, been steeped in feminist theory from our youth up to the point where, for most of us, Knox’s words are little more than noise from a bygone era with no relevance for us today, except perhaps as a cautionary tale to warn us about how bad the bad old days really were.

Liberal Democrats, were they to read Knox, would quickly be triggered, alternating between outrage, ridicule and calls to have his ideas removed from social media.  Conservative Republicans, on the other hand, would attempt explain away what Knox wrote by saying that he was a product of his age, that what he was really writing against was 16th century liberal women and that if he were alive today he would gladly support a female presidential candidate so long as she was pro-life, pro-Second Amendment and promised to fight against the Green New Deal. 

Contemporary Protestants, even supposed Bible believing ones, would be embarrassed by Knox’s words.  Most likely, they would hope that no one would notice what he wrote.  Were someone to bring up TMR with them, they would find some way to explain it away and quickly change the subject.  Some Protestants can’t seem to gush enough about the prospects of a woman president.  In 2012, Republican Michelle Bachmann was considered something of a favorite among Evangelicals. According to one article, Evangelical pastors could not gush enough about her candidacy, with one Presbyterian minister saying of her that, “She was speaking the language of the heart of the people in this room.” 

Commenting on Bachmann’s presidential run in the Washington Post, D. Michael Lindsay observed that many outsiders were surprised to see Bachmann, who posited herself as a Christian conservative, both running as a presidential candidate and receiving widespread support from Evangelicals.  Lindsay went on to write, “The reality is that evangelicals today have crafted a notion of what feminist scholar Marie Griffith calls ‘practical Christian womanhood,’ whereby adherents hold seemingly contradictory notions regarding authority and gender ideals.”

But contrary to Marie Griffith, there is nothing “seemingly contradictory” about Evangelicals, on the one hand, supporting what Lindsay called “traditional gender roles at home” and, on the other hand, supporting a woman for president.  This is an actual contradiction, one of many compromises that Protestants have made with the world.  Is it possible that the weakness and ineffectiveness of the Protestant church in the 21st century is somehow related to its refusal to think, speak and act logically in accord with the teaching of the Scriptures? 

The idea that Knox was serious about what he wrote and may actually have been right, that is simply unacceptable to modern men and they will not hear it.  And this includes a great number of 21st century conservative Christians. 

But Knox was right.

There, I said it.  And I’ll say it again.

Knox was right.

It has long been this author’s view that feminism is not only one of the most ungodly ideas ever advanced in philosophy, but also one of the most destructive in practice.  Ideas Have Consequences is the title of a well-known work of philosophy by American Richard Weaver.  He understood that it was ideas that were primary, actions followed from them.  This was also the position of Gordon Clark and John Robbins.  As Robbins noted in one of his lectures on philosophy, our practice – the actions we take in life - is always based upon some prior theory.

Feminism is based upon the idea that man and women are in all respects equal and, therefore, the feminists logically conclude that there is nothing at all inappropriate about  promoting “a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation or city.”  Further, not only is doing so not inappropriate, but it is a positive good, for it liberates women from the oppression of the patriarchy.

Another implication of this idea, that men and women are in all respect equal, is that anyone who opposes promoting a woman to a position of political authority is not merely wrong, but a very bad person with questionable motives.

In a 1980 presidential debate with then president Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan famously asked the viewers, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”  Many think this was one of the decisive moments of the 1980 presidential election that saw Reagan unseat Carter. 

With all the turmoil we’ve seen in 2020, with our civilization apparently collapsing about us on a daily basis, perhaps it’s worth asking a similar question today.  Is society better off today that it was before feminism?  Does our government function better now that feminist philosophy and practice dominates both parties and all branches of government?  How about our schools and universities?  How are they doing?  Are they better off now that Women’s Studies has become standard fare on campuses everywhere? Or let’s look at families.  Are they better off now that women have won the right to sit in a cubicle eight or more hours a day working for some corporation that couldn’t care less about them rather than being keepers at home, working for their husband and children who love them?  What about churches?  Do feminist churches preach the Gospel more faithfully in the 21st century then they did in the non-feminist 18th century?

The answer to all these questions is not merely no, but a hard no.  But it’s worse than that.  Not only are the institutions of civil government, the church and the family not better off now than before feminism, they all are markedly worse off.  Within fifteen years of women winning the right to vote, America and other Western nations found themselves with a bloated, unbiblical and socially destructive welfare state.  Schools and universities today are little more than Marxist indoctrination centers that teach students not only to hate and despise their parents and their entire civilization, but also leave their students saddled with unpayable debt for the privilege of learning anti-Christian nonsense.  The practical effects of our ungodly educational system – a system in which feminism plays a major philosophical role – was on full display last summer in the Black Lives Matter/Antifa riots.  Many of the “peaceful protestors” didn’t even know whether they were male of female.  And families, they’re a mess too.  Marriage rates for Westerners are plummeting as are birth rates.  This should come as no surprise.  Feminist philosophy makes it impossible for men and women to relate to one another in the way God intended.  If the home becomes a battlefield where a husband and wife have to fight for dominance every day over everything, isn’t it just easier and more sensible to avoid marriage and children altogether?

Sometimes one will hear conservatives and Christians defend feminism by saying that it was a needed corrective back in the day but it just went too far.  We can’t reject feminism in toto as the reactionary Knox did.  No, we must be reasonable and hold fast what is good in feminism while avoiding the extremes.  This sounds reasonable, but it is foolishness.

Feminism was always an ungodly idea.  From the very beginning it was rebellion against God and his Word.  As proof of this, take the 1848 Declaration of Sentiments that came out of the famous Seneca Falls Conference held that year.  That conference, considered by historians as marking the start of First Wave Feminism, issued the Declaration which contained sixteen resolutions.  Time does not permit a discussion of all of them, but let’s take two as representative.

• He [man] allows her in church, as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

• He [man] has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

Both these propositions are easily refuted from the Scriptures.  “Let the women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak…Let a woman learn in silence with all submission, And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence…A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife….”  These are not suggestions, neither are they culturally conditioned, neither is the language obscure.  It takes willful ignorance to construe these statements in any other way than to say that they forbid women from holding church office and serving as ministers. 

The same principle applies to civil government, which is the focus of Knox’s TMR. In TMR, Knox argues from the lessor to the greater when he writes,

The Apostle takes power from all women to speak in the assembly [church].  Ergo, he permits no woman to rule above man.  The former part is evident, whereupon does the conclusion of necessity follow.  For he that takes from woman the least part of authority, dominion, or rule will not permit unto her that which is greatest.  But greater it is to reign above realms and nations, to publish and make laws, and to command men of all estates, and finally to appoint judges and ministers, than to speak in the congregation….

If anyone objects to Knox’s logic here, let him ask himself who created church and civil government?  According to Scripture, the civil magistrate is as much a minister of God as is the preacher, for both derive their authority from him.  See Romans 13, for example, where Paul calls the civil magistrate God’s minister. If civil and church government are both created by God, then we can infer the principles that apply to one also apply to the other.  Going back to the quote above from the Washington Post, for Protestants to, one the one hand, hold to what the author called “traditional gender roles at home” [they are not traditional, they are God ordained] and, on the other hand, to promote a woman for president so long as she’s a conservative woman, is not “seemingly contradictory” but rather actually contradictory. 

The second resolution represents a direct attack of Scripture, for it says that men have usurped “the prerogative of Jehovah himself in claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.”  This is wildly off the mark.  For it is not man who assigned a particular sphere to woman, but Jehovah himself: “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord.  For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church”…“[let the] older women…admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands”…”as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord.”      

None of this is difficult theology.  The language of the Scriptures is clear and unambiguous.  Indeed, it would be hard to see how it could be clearer.  The problem is not the clarity of the Bible.  The problem is that sinful men have willfully rejected God’s counsel.  The feminist wind sown in the 19th century has become a whirlwind in the 21st, one that threatens to blow away what remains of Western Civilization. 

It was noted above that it takes willful ignorance to not see what the Scriptures plainly teach about men, women and their roles in the government of the family, the church and the state.  Certainly, those who claim to be teachers of Israel bear the greater sin, for they fail to teach their congregations what the Word of God so clearly states.  And if the preachers fail to preach the truth, it should come as no surprise that ordinary Christians fail to understand and believe it.  They perish for lack of knowledge.  And not Christians only, but their civilization as well.

Closing Thoughts

America has been building its Monstrous Regiment now for over 150 years. If we use the 1848 Seneca Falls Conference as a starting point, it's been at work on this project for a full 172 years. In truth, the ideas expressed at the Seneca Falls Conference originated much earlier.

It remains to be seen whether we will get our first woman president in the person of Kamala Harris. Technically, she's Joe Biden's running mate and is slated to take office as Vice-President should Biden win. Practically, many people think she will be more in charge than Biden will be, even if he remains in office for a time.

It likely was not a slip of the tongue when last week when Harris made reference to the "Harris Administration" and the next day Biden talked about "the Harris/Biden administration." Some thought this was a gaffe. A more likely explanation was that it was an attempt to signal to the feminist base that a vote for Biden would result in the first woman president.

But even if Donald Trump retakes the White House in 2020, the issue of a female president will not go away. It will merely be delayed. Trump himself has promoted the idea of a woman president and seems to be preparing his daughter Ivanka for this role.

In the opinion of this author, barring a new Reformation or the near-term return of Christ, America will succeed in completing it Monstrous Regiment in an upcoming election cycle, perhaps as early as 2024. The guiding feminist philosophy of the schools and churches of America requires it as does the political spirit of the age.

As Christians, this is an opportunity for us to speak out. Let us take it.

When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the seed royal.

-          2 Kings 11:1

“I wouldn’t vote for her.”  That was Ayn Rand’s curt response to a question from a woman in the audience of the Phil Donohue show.  She had asked Rand, “Do you believe that there is going to be a day when there is going to be a female in the White House as President and how do you feel about that?”

From the questioner’s reaction and from that of the audience, Rand’s answer was not expected, neither was it appreciated.  You can see the 1979 clip for yourself here, https://youtu.be/cL8g7zy6qxw.

Worth noting is how shocking and controversial Rand’s statement was as far back as 41 years ago.  Now this was the Phil Donohue Show, and Donohue himself was a feminist, and his audience, most likely, tended to skew liberal.  But that said, it is not clear that the audience reaction from a conservative Republican audience would have been much different.  Certainly in 2020, any Republican expressing anything remotely approaching Rand’s statement would quickly find himself making an apology tour. 

Donald Trump has expressed his support for a female president on more than one occasion.  In late August, Business Insider ran the headline “Donald Trump plugs Ivanka as the first female president claiming Kamala Harris is ‘not competent’ enough for the top job.” Note, Trump’s objection to Kamala Harris was not that she was a woman, but that she was not the right woman.  Further, he promoted his daughter as the right person to be the first female president.

There have been rumors for some time that Trump has wanted to see his daughter in the Oval Office, and the prominent role she had at last month’s Republican Convention and the statement reported in Business Insider certainly support those rumors.  It would not shock this author to see Ivanka declare herself as a presidential candidate in 2024 with the full blessing of her father.  Of course, she will have other female rivals to the throne, quite possibly including former UN Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley. 

In fact, it would not surprise this author at all if the 2024 election doesn’t bring us the choice between a Republican woman and a Democratic woman presidential candidate.  It’ll be pick your poison. Of course, the conservatives and liberals will tear one another apart with each side passionately denouncing the choice of the other party, while both parties miss the fundamental error they are committing.  That is to say, both sides will be equally ignorant that, in the words of John Knox, “To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city, is repugnant to nature, contumelious to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance, and finally it is the subversion of good order, and of all equity and justice….”   

Yes, way back in 1558 John Knox dropped the mic, so to speak, on the matter of government by women in his devastating treatise “The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women.”  In it, Knox did not argue, as so many feminized men are prone to argue today, that this or that woman was unfit to hold public office because of her position on this or that issue.  No, Knox’s argument was more fundamental and more Biblical than that.  Knox argued that the Bible prohibited women from severing in civil government altogether. 

Knox was right.

After reading it, I want to stand, applaud and praise the Lord for the insight and courage that he gave the Scotsman.

So impressive is “The Monstrous Regiment” that had Knox done nothing else in his life except to write that treatise, it would be enough to qualify him for Christian hero status.  Without a doubt, “The Monstrous Regiment” is one of the greatest political treatises ever written by a Christian and a serves as a model for how Christian scholars ought to use the Scriptures when dealing with political questions. 

Let’s take a closer look at Knox’s work to see if we can identify what makes it so devastating. 

For our walk through, I’ll be using the Trinity Foundation’s edition of “The Monstrous Regiment” titled “The Place of Women.”

Worth noting is that “The Place of Women” was first published by the Trinity Foundation in August 1984, most likely as a response to Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale’s choice of Geraldine Ferraro as his vice-presidential running mate in that year’s election.

Since that time, other women have followed in her footsteps, most notably Sarah Palin, who served as John McCain’s running mate in 2008, Hillary Clinton who headed the Democratic ticket in 2016, and now Kamala Harris who’s Democrat Joe Biden’s pick for vice-president.   

The Scripturalism of John Knox

Wonder it is that among so many pregnant wits as the Isle of Great Brittany has produced, so many godly and zealous preachers as England did sometime nourish, and so many learned men of grave judgment as this day by Jezebel are exiled, none is found so stout of courage, so faithful to God, nor loving to their native country, that they dare not admonish the inhabitants of that Isle how abominable before God is the Empire or Rule of a wicked woman, yea of a traitoress and bastard....

What an opener!

Here, Knox shows two traits that are lacking in most Christians today: discernment and courage.  In his Trinity Review “Why Heretics Win Battles,” John Robbins noted that, “Their [Christians] lack of discernment stems from a lack of knowledge of Scripture, and their lack of courage comes from a lack of belief in the promises of Scripture.”

The Prophet Hosea declared, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” And just as it was true in Hosea’s day, so it is also in ours.  The level of ignorance of Scripture, even among today’s Bible-believing Protestants, is shocking.  As a result, many have found themselves blown this way and that by the winds of popular culture, including feminism.

One sees this principle at work in many areas.  We are trained to see the Bible as applying only to learning how to be saved and only between the hours of 11am and 12pm on Sunday mornings, and let secular thinking guide us the rest of the time.

Now it is certainly not my intention to say that the Bible is not about learning about how to be saved from one’s sins or that it is wrong to study the Bible between 11am and 12pm on Sunday’s. Not at all. The point is that the Bible, while furnishing us with the information we need to be saved, is not, as the fundamentalists would have use believe, limited to that.  The Bible is an entire system of thought that covers and authoritatively governs, not just soteriology, but every field of knowledge.  The Bible, in short, has a systematic monopoly on truth.  Not some truth.  All truth.  God’s truth is all truth.

This includes the truth about politics.  This may seem strange to some, that the Bible has anything, let alone anything decisive, to say about politics.  “Separation of church and state,” some Americans may cry.  Well, yes, separation of church and state is a Christian idea.  But it’s one thing to say that the New Covenant prohibits theocracy (it does) and quite another to say that God’s Word is not authoritative in settling political matters. 

If there be any who doubt that the Bible speaks authoritatively on matters of politics, consider the question of the origin of civil government.  Where does it come from?  Very clearly, it comes from God himself, the first example being found in Genesis 3 where God placed two Cherubim “at the east of the garden of Eden” and a “flaming sword.”  The purpose of this was “to keep the way of the tree of life.”  Put another way, God did this to prevent sinful Adam and Eve from stealing his property. 

In the New Testament we see that the civil magistrate is called “God’s minister” and is charged with punishing those who practice evil and with rewarding the good.

Government is not a secular invention of man, but a divine institution created by God as punishment for, and as a partial cure of, sin.    

And because civil government is a creation of God, if governors are to understand how to rightly govern, they must appeal, not to secular philosophy, but to the Word of God. 

Unfortunately, the pregnant wits of the Isle of Great Brittany lacked the discernment to understand what God had said in his Word about proper civil government.  Had they possessed Knox’s insight, perhaps they would have taken a stand with him.

But lack of discernment was not the only issue with the clergy of Knox’s day.  Another was lack of courage. 

Knox complained that among the men of Great Brittany, “none is found so stout of courage, so faithful to God, nor loving to their native country,” to speak out against the Monstrous Regiment. 

Lack of courage is also a problem in our own day.  In the Preface to his book Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins noted that, “The world of American scholarship seems to have partitioned itself, at least with regard to the study of the Roman Church-State, so that the study of the Roman Church-Sate has been reserved for Roman Catholics” (page 10).  Robbins posits that one reason for this may be fear of being labeled “anti-Catholic.”  He goes on to write that this fear, “undermines all scholarship.” 

Indeed, it does.

Fear is debilitating.  It causes Christians to self-censor, so that they dare not speak publicly, perhaps so that they dare not even admit to themselves privately, concerns that they may have with this or that issue out of fear of the consequences that may follow.

Now admittedly in our feminist ruled age, talking about God’s prohibition on women rulers is a scary topic.  As a friend said to me in an email about last week’s post, some “Christians” would consider it to be “fighting words.”  No doubt he’s right.  Therefore, when dealing with sensitive topics, it’s not wrong for Christians to use prudence.  As Jesus himself enjoined his hearers, “Give not that which is holy unto dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine.”  You don’t have to go up to your feminist colleague at work on Monday and begin defending “The Monstrous Regiment.” If you do, you may find out what Jesus meant by his warning, “lest they turn again and rend you.” 

But if we Christians never discuss the tenants of their faith, and the political statements of Scripture are just as binding as the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone, is that not a failure on our part to do our job of being “salt and light” to a dying world. 

Just stop and look around you.  What do you see?  You see an entire civilization going mad, quite literally perishing for the lack of knowledge.  As Christians, we are called to speak truth at all times, but now the need for truth is desperate.  We live in a time when men think then can become women, and women think they can become men…or some other previously unknown category such as “nonbinary.” Rioters, looters and felons are the good guys who peacefully demonstrate, but the cops are evil and must be defunded.  Racking up massive, unpayable debts is now the American way, while financial prudence is considered foolishness.  One commentator I follow calls these Satanic inversions.  He’s right.  This is what Isaiah meant when he condemned those who called good evil and evil good. 

Speaking God’s truth, that, “To promote a woman to bear rule, superiority, dominion, or empire above any realm, nation, or city is repugnant to nature, contumelious to God, a thing most contrary to his revealed will and approved ordinance,” is to risk accusations of hate speech and court cancellation.  But to say this is simply to present God’s truth to the world, without which it will perish.  Though the world would call it hate speech, standing on the Word of God and declaring it to the nations is an act of mercy, for how will they hear without a preacher?        

As Christians, we can take courage from the many verses in Scripture that promise God will reward the faithful.  In Psalm 28 David wrote, “The LORD is my strength and my shield,” and one can find many other such verses in the Psalms and elsewhere in Scripture. 

Toward the end of his epistle to the Ephesians, Paul wrote that believers wrestled not against flesh and blood but against spiritual wickedness in high places.  In light of this, what were the Ephesians to do?  Run and hide?  No! Paul told them to put on the whole armor of God, their one offensive weapon being “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” 

As Christians, we need to learn to apply the Word of God to all areas of life as did John Knox in matter of politics.  Knox was able to take the stand he did, not on his own, but because he both understood the Scriptures and believed the promises of God to those who are faithful.  May we be his imitators.

(To be continued…)

[Continued from Pt. 3]

While it cannot be said that Paul the apostle was a non-expert in theology, it is plain to see that the church at Corinth was saturated with theological non-experts. Yet Paul does not shy away from teaching the Corinthians, and every subsequent Christian who would read his epistles, to logically scrutinize the heretical claim made by some professing Christians that “the dead are not raised.” He does this via demonstration by first reminding the Corinthians that anyone who professes faith in Christ necessarily believes that at least one dead man has been raised to life by God, viz. Jesus Christ. He writes –

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed.1

The Corinthians professed faith in the Gospel Paul and the others preached. The content of that Gospel explicitly states that the Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried, rose from the dead on the third day, and appeared to over five hundred witnesses. To believe the Gospel is to believe that one has already been raised from the dead, namely Christ. Paul, therefore, asks the Corinthians –

…if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?2

The apostle places the proclamation of Christ as raised from the dead alongside the proclamation that “there is no resurrection of the dead,” drawing our attention to the fact that the resurrection of Christ disproves the universal negative proposition “There is no resurrection of the dead.” As he goes on to explain –

…if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.3

If there is an exception to the universal proposition, then the universal proposition is not true. Christ has been raised from the dead; therefore, the heretics’ proclamation is demonstrably false.

This would be enough for Paul to make his point, but he continues to draw out the logical consequences of the heretics’ belief that “there is no resurrection of the dead.” He writes –

And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.

We can translate Paul’s argument from its conversational form into the following –

If “there is no resurrection of the dead,”
then Christ was not raised from the dead.
If Christ was not raised from the dead,
then the Gospel is false.
If the Gospel is false,
then those who believe it are still in their sins.
If believers in the Gospel are still in their sins,
then their faith is in vain.
If faith in the Gospel is in vain,
then preaching the Gospel is in vain.

But Christ has been raised from the dead.
Therefore, none of the above consequences follow.

Note how significant a single proposition is in relation to the entirety of the Christian system. The heretics’ proclamation leads to the destruction of the Christian faith. Inversely, the Christian’s single instance of a resurrection in the Gospel proclamation decimates the heretics’ false proclamation.

Concluding Remarks

As we conclude this series, let us take note of some important truths. Firstly, individual propositions are not insignificant parts of the Christian faith which we can take or leave as we see fit. Every proposition has logical consequences for which we are held accountable. Secondly, therefore, we see from Scripture that if we assent to a proposition, we implicitly assent to what that proposition necessarily implies. Sadly, today there are many who identify this action as “uncharitable,” without realizing what that belief itself implies. In a word, the end result of such thinking is utter blasphemy, as is demonstrable from the following argument –

Anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting uncharitably.
To act uncharitably is to act sinfully.
Therefore, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
Now, anyone who attributes their opponent’s implied beliefs to them is acting sinfully.
And God attributes his opponent’s implied beliefs to them.
Therefore, God is acting sinfully.

It is true that God alone is omniscient and, therefore, is infallible in any of his declarations that x implies y. However, it is equally true that the blind man of John 9 was not omniscient and yet followed the same pattern of logical scrutiny and subsequent moral criticism practiced by God the Son.

Our contemporary socio-political climate is one in which logic has fallen upon hard times, but that does not mean it is inefficient, or that it is inappropriate for every Christian’s use – whether in apologetic battle or personal meditation of the Word of God and its authoritative statements about the whole of life. We are not experts in every area of life, but we do not need to be in order to address the issues of our day. If we have a basic grasp of the elementary principles of logic, then we are capable of answering others when they ask us “What do you think?”

1 1st Cor 15:1-11.

2 1st Cor 15:12.

3 1st Cor 15:13.

On 11/28/2019, the Thanksgiving sermon was preached by Pastor Joe Rosales.

The pastor opened the message with the debate regarding the very first Thanksgiving. Traditionally we celebrate the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving, but there was an earlier Thanksgiving held in El Paso, TX by Catholics led by Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate, in which “a mass was said by the Franciscan missionaries traveling with the expedition” (https://texasalmanac.com/topics/history/timeline/first-thanksgiving). But as Protestants we unapologetically celebrate Thanksgiving with the Puritans, whether they were first or not!

George Washington gave the first national Thanksgiving Proclamation on 3 October 1789:

Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness.” (https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0091)

Abraham Lincoln established it as a national holiday during the Civil War:

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union. (http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/thanks.htm)

The Thanksgiving holiday, however, comes only once a year. It’s occasional. But Christians should always be thankful. The Heidelberg Catechism and Hercules Collins’ Orthodox Catechism distill the Christian life in three words: Guilt, Grace, Gratitude. Christians are called to be a eucharistic—a thanksgiving—people, as James White notes, to “pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks (εὐχαριστεῖτε); for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians‬ ‭5:17-18‬ ‭NKJV‬‬). We need to take back the true meaning of eucharist from the Antichrist Church of Rome.

The pastor also noted that cheerful brethren generally make everything better and more enjoyable, for “all the days of the afflicted are evil, but he who is of a merry heart has a continual feast” (‭‭Proverbs‬ ‭15:15‬ ‭NKJV‬‬).

Ultimately, God is good. Period. (Etymologically, good in the “Sense of ‘kind, benevolent’ is from late Old English in reference to persons or God.”) And we must be thankful for that, because we were not good, “but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans‬ ‭5:8‬ ‭NKJV). ‬‬Gordon Clark puts it plainly:

God is neither responsible nor sinful, even though he is the only ultimate cause of everything. He is not sinful because in the first place whatever God does is just and right. It is just and right simply in virtue of the fact that he does it. Justice or righteousness is not a standard external to God to which God is obligated to submit. Righteousness is what God does. Since God caused Judas to betray Christ, this causal act is righteous and not sinful. By definition God cannot sin. At this point it must me particularly pointed out that God’s causing a man to sin is not sin. There is no law, superior to God, which forbids him to decree sinful acts. Sin presupposes a law, for sin is lawlessness. Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God. But God is “Ex-lex.” (Religion, Reason, and Revelation, in The Works of Gordon Haddon Clark: Christian Philosophy, Vol. 4, pp. 268-69, http://www.trinitylectures.org/christian-philosophy-the-works-of-gordon-haddon-clark-volume-paperback-p-145.html).

The pastor closed with a prayer from William Jay, “For a Day of Thanksgiving—Evening.”

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Edward Snowden. Permanent Record. Read by Holter Graham. New York: Macmillan Audio, 2019. Audible edition. https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=1250622689&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006

In his autobiography, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden lays out stimulating discussions on education; identity and privacy; the Internet; whistleblowing; government power, contracting, surveillance, and abuse; cloud storage; and encryption.

Alter ego

Snowden makes an interesting case for using alternate identities and anonymity online, which can make people more willing to learn, admit when they’re wrong, and change their view; whereas using real identities tends to defensiveness and obstinacy in order to preserve reputation. He blames government and business for the Internet’s shift towards the latter. Anonymity, however, is a double-edged sword that just as easily emboldens people to be vicious and wicked (needless to say, much online behavior reflects this) and to shirk responsibility/accountability.

Growing Up…Online

Snowden’s upbringing sheds light on a number of issues. In some ways the young Snowden reminds me of my younger self, an obsessive, all-or-nothing kind of guy, diving headlong into whatever captured my attention, rarely coming up for air. Growing up, especially through puberty, Snowden spent most of his time playing video games and going online, learning as much as he could on messaging boards, without hardly any moderation or supervision. He advocates this kind of activity as a way of self-discovery, of growing up and finding identity; and sees hacking as a way of becoming equal with adults, since technical skill and acumen matter more than age. Somewhat similar to Snowden, however, several mass shooters spent lots of time in the Internet’s sewers, messaging boards like 8chan:

https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/8chan/

The truth is that the Internet, video games, and media in general are often too much for young impressionable minds to handle, especially without close parental supervision. They’re highly addictive, even for adults, and much of the content is inappropriate for youth. They foster impatience, heighten irritability, fuel tempers, destroy self-control, the list goes on and on:

https://www.frictionlessfamilies.com/technology-in-the-family

https://www.drkardaras.com/research.html

Parents need to wake up and stop overexposing their kids to technology and media.

Snowden’s life is also a sad but all too common object lesson of the devastating impact of divorce on children. It affected Snowden deeply when his parents were no longer together. He rightly describes it as both becoming a parent—maturing too quickly by being overexposed to adult problems—and as losing a parent, at the same time. Divorce is a vicious cycle that harms the children the most, including, but not limited to, the separated parents outdoing each other by buying the nicer gifts for their kids, and using the kids to spy on the other parent’s love life; kids having to choose which parent to stay with, and having to “be the parent” with their own parents when they become unstable; and, one of the worst consequences, kids constantly blaming themselves for the divorce. Even though his parents eventually “reconciled” by agreeing to flourish separately, the damage is done and requires supernatural intervention to truly overcome.

Cyber Religion

It’s interesting how Snowden uses overtly religious language to describe the early Internet, what he calls the most successful anarchy he’s ever experienced, which is consistent with his general distrust of authority, and thinking people are better off raising themselves in an online world that’s free of government corruption and corporate greed. He claims that the nascent Internet was more forgiving of online transgressions, and gave people the freedom to start over. The Internet was his idol, and the online communities he frequented his church, an attempt to find community and a sense of belonging. It reminds me of the documentary Ringers: Lord of the Fans, which shows real people forming cults that practically worship Tolkien’s fictional characters. One woman claimed The Lord of the Rings saved her life. Ian McKellen, the actor who played Gandalf, made the stupefying assertion that The Lord of the Rings is true and the Bible is false. John Calvin rightly said the human heart is a perpetual idol factory. It’s sad to see even conscientious individuals, who want justice to triumph corruption, idolize the most ridiculous things, exchanging “the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans‬ ‭1:25‬); rather than worship Christ Jesus, the real God-Man, “the way, the truth, and the life” (‭‭John‬ ‭14:6‬)‬‬, the only One who can truly forgive all our sins and give us, not just a fresh start, but a perfect record of righteousness based on Christ’s perfect life and finished work on the Cross. No works required, just faith: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life” (John‬ ‭5:24‬).

“Homo contractus”

Snowden levels sharp criticisms against the Intelligence Community’s (IC) government contracting, a way of “hacking” the federal head count limits placed on each agency. The black budget he leaked implies that the IC employs just as many contractors as government employees. Due partly to rapid advances in technology, the government turned to the private sector to hire contractors, sidestepping the established vetting and hiring process. Employees often start working for the government to get clearance levels and then jump ship to the highest bidding contractor the first chance they get. IC directors and Congresspeople land cushy jobs with the contracting companies they hired for the government, a blatant conflict of interest. What passes off as “innovation” is more like governmentally assisted corruption. This in part made it possible for Snowden to gain access to all the NSA’s secret documents as a contracted sysadmin fairly quickly.

The Cloud of centralized servers

I appreciated Snowden’s criticism of “cloud” storage, which is regressive technology that stores our data in untold racks of servers consolidated in large data centers, euphemistically pitched as “the cloud.” Consenting to these cloud services means that companies do whatever they want with our data: read it, scan it, sell it, delete it. We don’t really know where our data is and what cloud companies are doing with it. And who knows what parts of the cyber world our data has traveled.

Overall, this is an important book that deals with many pertinent issues affecting us today, though I would’ve liked for Snowden to add VPNs to the discussion, but he didn’t mention them; or to treat some of the controversial fallout resulting from his leaks, such as Operation Socialist:

https://darknetdiaries.com/episode/48/

He gives an excellent discussion of the need for encryption to permeate our online activity and for users to take advantage of anonymous browsers like Tor and messaging apps like Signal, which will reform the Internet back to the “purer” form that Snowden reminisces about:

http://reformedlibertarian.com/articles/politics/simple-online-privacy-measures-everyone-should-be-taking-but-arent/

Disclaimer: The book has some salty language, which was a little unexpected because it starts relatively clean.

Mass shootings.  What are Christians to make of them?  But before we answer this question, perhaps we should sharpen the question a bit, asking instead, What are American Christians to make of them?

The obvious motive for my writing on this subject is the report from El Paso, TX, where another mass shooting has left many dead and injured, not to mention many other traumatized by the sinful violence of the event. 

If that weren't enough, I woke up this morning to hear of another mass shooting, this time in nearby Dayton, OH which reportedly has left 9 dead. 

Oddly enough, both these shootings in far apart places - Dayton and El Paso are over 1,500 miles apart - both have a personal connection to me.  El Paso is the home of several friends of mine from ThornCrown Ministries, while I personally know a man who currently serves as an officer on the Dayton police force.  My friends are all safe, but clearly there are many people in both places who have suffered great loss. 

The response from the news media and other Second Amendment foes is predictable:  Guns are the problem and must be more strictly regulated.  The ultimate goal of these people seems to be the complete disarmament of the American people. 

As Christians, what are we to say to this?  Certainly, in the wake of such tragedies it is tempting to go along with the anti-gun rhetoric.  But we must ask, What does the Bible say about the right of private citizens to bear arms?  Does Scripture prohibit private citizens from owning weapons, or does it support their doing so?

Another question related to this is what does the Bible say about criminal justice?  Does the Bible call for crime punishment or crime prevention?  How we answer these questions will serve to guide us as we evaluate the statements we see in the news concerning the El Paso and Dayton shootings.      

The short answer to the first question is, yes, the Bible allows for private citizens to own weapons.  To the second question, we answer that the Bible calls, not for crime prevention, but for crime punishment.  

The Bible and Self-Defense

Very clearly, the Bible supports the right of self-defense.  This right, as are all rights, are imputed to us by the law of God.  The law of God says, "Thou shalt not murder."  It is from this commandment that we derive the right of self-defense.  That is to say, we have a right to prevent out own murder, or for that matter, the murder of others. 

Exodus 22:2-3 speaks directly to this issues.  "If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed.  If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed.  He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft."

Commenting on this passage, John Gills notes that,

...and be smitten that he die be knocked down with a club, by the master of the house, or any of his servants, or be run through with a sword, or be struck with any other weapon, to hinder him from entrance and carrying off any of the goods of the house, and the blow be mortal: there shall no blood be shed for him: as for a man that is murdered; for to kill a man when breaking into a house, and, by all appearance, with an intention to commit murder, if resisted, in defence of a man's self, his life and property, was not to be reckoned murder, and so not punishable with death: or, "no blood" shall be "unto him" (a); shall be imputed to him, the man that kills the thief shall not be chargeable with his blood, or suffer for shedding it; because his own life was risked, and it being at such a time, could call none to his assistance, nor easily discern the person, nor could know well where and whom he struck.

In short, the law of Moses allowed men to defend their homes, up to and including the use of deadly force. 

Another passage that supports the self-defense is Luke 22:36.  Here, Jesus tells the disciples to take with them a knapsack, a money bag and a sword.  Some commentators, going back to at least John Calvin have argued that Jesus is speaking metaphorically here about a sword.  In the opinion of this author, this is incorrect.  If Jesus was speaking metaphorically about the sword, this implies that he was speaking metaphorically about taking basic provisions including money.  But is it reasonable to think that the disciples were to fulfill the Great Commission and bring the Gospel to all nations without basic provisions?  This hardly makes sense.  And if Jesus command to take with them basic provisions was literal, why are we to consider his command to take a sword as anything but literal? 

There are some who argue that Jesus saying "turn the other cheek" to the one who strikes you abrogates any notion of self-defense.  John Gill's comments here are helpful.

He writes,

Not but that a man may lawfully defend himself, and endeavour to secure himself from injuries; and may appear to the civil magistrate for redress of grievances; but he is not to make use of private revenge.

In other words, Gill holds that a man has the right to defend himself for the purpose of brining the offender to justice, but not for the purpose of seeking private revenge. 

Other commentators hold that the "slap on the right cheek" of which Jesus speaks in Matthew 5:39 is a back-handed slap - for a right hander strike someone on the right cheek, he must use a back handed striking motion - meant as insult, not as a threat to one's life. 

The Bible and Defense Against Tyranny

Another circumstance in which the Bible approves the use of deadly force is in the lawful defense against tyranny.  This doctrine has come to be called the Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate, which was famously articulated by John Calvin in Book IV, Chapter 20, Paragraph 31 of his Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Wrote Calvin,

But whatever may be thought of the acts of the men themselves, the Lord by their means equally executed his own work, when he broke the bloody sceptres of insolent kings, and overthrew their intolerable dominations. Let princes hear and be afraid; but let us at the same time guard most carefully against spurning or violating the venerable and majestic authority of rulers, an authority which God has sanctioned by the surest edicts, although those invested with it should be most unworthy of it, and, as far as in them lies, pollute it by their iniquity. Although the Lord takes vengeance on unbridled domination, let us not therefore suppose that that vengeance is committed to us, to whom no command has been given but to obey and suffer.

I speak only of private men. For when popular magistrates have been appointed to curb the tyranny of kings (as the Ephori, who were opposed to kings among the Spartans, or Tribunes of the people to consuls among the Romans, or Demarchs to the senate among the Athenians; and perhaps there is something similar to this in the power exercised in each kingdom by the three orders, when they hold their primary diets). So far am I from forbidding these officially to check the undue license of kings, that if they connive at kings when they tyrannise and insult over the humbler of the people, I affirm that their dissimulation is not free from nefarious perfidy, because they fradulently betray the liberty of the people, while knowing that, by the ordinance of God, they are its appointed guardians.

Any challenge to the king, or the central government for that matter, must be made by the lesser magistrates, that is to say, those men to whom formal governing authority has been given.  Rebellion is not the right of private citizens. 

In history, we see examples of  this such as the Elector of Saxony protecting Luther from the Emperor Charles.  The American Revolution was such an event.  It was not a private revolution, but was one that occurred as a last resort and declared by the elected officials of the colonies.   

Missing from Calvin's argument is a specific appeal to Scripture.  But it seems to this author that such examples can be found.  In the 1 Samuel, we read how the Philistines ruled the Israelites, yet the Israelites rebelled against them and threw off the foreign yoke.  If rebellion against unjust rule was always sinful, as some argue, then Israel's rebellion against the Philistines was likewise sinful.  Yet Scripture never states explicitly or implies that there was anything sinful about the actions of Saul, Jonathan or David in driving the Philistines out of Israelite territory.  They were lawful government magistrates defending the nation against the unjust oppression of a foreign power. 

If the lesser magistrate is to interpose himself between the greater magistrate and the people, this implies the possible need for physical force, which implies the need for weapons.  This is why tyrants always go for the gun grab at the first opportunity:  They do not want the people to be able to resist their evil actions.  In Scripture, there is at least one good example of this.

Government Gun Grabbing In the Bible

Worth noting in all this is that, during their occupation of Israel, the Philistines had made a policy of disarming the Israelites.  In 1 Samuel 13:19-20, we read, "Now there was no blacksmith to be fund throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, 'Lest the Hebrews make swords or spears.' But all the Israelites would go down to the Philistines to sharpen each man's plowshare, his mattock, his ax, and his sickle...."

Here we see that that the Philistines attempted to render the Israelites defenseless by taking away, not just their swords, but their means of producing them.  It was illegal for an Israelite to work as a blacksmith under Philistine occupation. 

This "gun ban" was so effective that, as 1 Samuel 13:22 notes, "So it came about, on the day of battle, that there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan.  But they were found with Saul and Jonathan his son."

As it happened, God, through the heroic leadership of Jonathan, still delivered a great victory to Israel that day.  Yet we can see in the example of the Philistines the same sort of thing that tyrannical governments have done to people throughout history, attempt to eliminate the ability of subject people to defend themselves by removing their access to weapons of war.   

In light of this example, Christians in 21st century America should be very skeptical of any government official, or wanna be government official, who seeks to use mass shootings as a reason to restrict, and to eventually eliminate, the private ownership of guns.

Crime Prevention or Crime Punishment?

One of the reasons some politicians give for attempting to limit the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is crime prevention.  This assumes that it is the government's job to prevent crime.  But nowhere in the Bible is the government called to do this. 

Writing to the Romans, the apostle Paul says that the civil magistrates job is to punish those who practice evil.  That is to say, the job of the government is to punish criminals, not prevent crime.

Crime prevention is really another way of saying "let's punish everyone in the hope of stopping future crime."  This is unjust on the face of it.  If a man has done no wrong, why should he have his rights restricted in hopes of preventing someone else from doing something wrong?  The Scriptures clearly teach that father are not to be put to death for their children, not are children to be put to death for their parents.  Rather, each will die for his own sin (Deuteronomy 24:16). Applying this principle more broadly prohibits governments from employing punitive regulations on society, in order to prevent the wrong doing of the few. 

The Biblical theory of criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention. 

Closing Thoughts

When faced with obvious horrors such as what occurred in El Paso and Dayton, the knee-jerk reaction from the press and from many politicians is to cry "there ought to be a law!,"  when, in fact, there already are many laws on the books, none of which prevented the crime from taking place.  Will placing new, more restrictive gun laws on the books stop future crimes?  Apart from what was noted above, that the Christian theory of criminal justice is one of crime punishment, not crime prevention, from a practical standpoint, the answer is, not likely.

Private citizens have a God-given right to keep and bear arms, both for their own defense and for the defense of their nation's liberties.  Tyrannical governments throughout history have opposed this ideas for obvious reasons.

For those who seek to use tragedies such as El Paso and Dayton to call for more restrictive gun legislation, ask yourself, what happens when government officials have a monopoly on the possession of guns?  Are not government officials also sinful men, and have not government officials used their monopoly on power to oppress and even murder their own people? 

In his book Death by Government, R. J. Rummel estimated that, in the 20th century alone, governments accounted for approximately 169,198,000 murders.  Those who seek to strip private citizens of their right to keep and bear arms and turn over all gun ownership to the government need to explain why we should trust governments with a monopoly on deadly force.  In the opinion of this author, they will find this an impossible task.   

For Christians, mass shootings of the sort we've too often witnessed are a stark reminder of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the desperate need of our unbelieving fellow citizens to hear the Gospel of Justification by Belief Alone.  Jesus called us to be salt and light.  Let us be about our business.

§ III. Valid Genetic Reasoning According to Scripture

Having elaborated on why the genetic fallacy, why it is a fallacy, and why CRT is entirely dependent on it, we now turn to answer the implied claim of CRT proponents that our genetic reasoning is fallacious. Given that Scripture contains no errors, logical or otherwise, we will be appealing to the it to defend genetic reasoning in general, and our own genetic reasoning in particular. For if our method of reasoning is not condoned explicitly or implicitly Scripture, then we must abandon it. It will be demonstrated that our reasoning is not only neither explicitly nor implicitly condemned by Scripture but required by Christians in our analysis of ideas that are purportedly derived from, supportive of, or in harmony with the teaching of Scripture.

Prior to Foucault, Freud, and Nietzsche, the enemies of Christ utilized the genetic fallacy in order to steer people away from the Lord Jesus. For example, in John 7:45-52 we see the fallacy employed by the Jewish leaders. There we read the following –

The officers then came to the chief priests and Pharisees, who said to them, “Why did you not bring him?” The officers answered, “No one ever spoke like this man!” The Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived? Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him? But this crowd that does not know the law is accursed.” Nicodemus, who had gone to him before, and who was one of them, said to them, “Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he does?” They replied, “Are you from Galilee too? Search and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”

Whereas the Law of God does not judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning about what he does, the Jewish leaders rejected the claims of and about Christ for two reasons. Firstly, they asserted that the laity did not “know the law” (i.e. they were not rabinically trained) and, therefore, were not competent to assess whether or not Jesus was the Messiah. Ironically, through their fallacious argumentation the Jewish leaders also imply that their criticisms of Christ are correct because they originated with the so-called “learned” men of Israel. As a further point of dramatic irony, the reader by this point in John’s Gospel knows that Nicodemus, one of the elite teachers of Israel trained to “know the law” was woefully ignorant about Christ’s person and work, the doctrine of regeneration in the Old Testament, and the typology of the Old Testament.1 Secondly, the Jewish leaders asserted that Jesus could not be the Christ because “no prophet arises from Galilee.” What is being communicated is not merley that no prophet arises from Galilee geographically, another point which is demonstrably false,2 but what is also implied is that the Lord’s teaching about himself is not to be trusted because it originated with a man whose place of origin, i.e. Galilee, was low on the social totem pole.3

The Jewish leaders of Christ’s day did not differ much in this regard to Nietzsche, for whom the truth of Christianity was refuted by a genealogical analysis – or so he believed – of the origin of its central moral and metaphysical doctrines. What they fail to demonstrate is that the social standing of the people, and of the Lord Jesus as well, provides an unreliable foundation for the claims made about and by him. Simply being a layperson without formal rabbinical training does not render the theological claims one makes false. Likewise, simply being a person who was born into a family of a lower social stature does not render the theological claims one makes false. However, like their modern successors – Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault, and the gamut of CRT theorists, scholars, apologists, and activists – the Jewish leaders irrationally argued that the truth claims they were being presented with were false due to their origin among certain classes of people in society.

Genetic reasoning of the kind engaged in by the Jewish leaders is fallacious, but there is a kind of genetic reasoning exemplified in the thinking of Christ that is not. John 8:39-47 demonstrates how Christ utilized genetic reasoning in his refutation of the false sons of Abraham. There we read –

They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father — even God.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The Lord’s argumentation can be expressed as follows –

1. All offspring bear their father’s image. 

2. You are offspring.

3. Therefore, you bear your father’s image.

4. All of Abraham’s offspring do the works of Abraham. 

5. You do not do the works of Abraham. 

6. Therefore, you are not Abraham’s offspring. 

7. All of God’s spiritual offspring, love Me [i.e. Christ]. 

8. You do not love me. 

9. Therefore, you are not God’s spiritual offspring. 

10. All of God’s spiritual offspring hear God’s Word. 

11. You do not hear God’s Word. 

12. Therefore, you are not God’s spiritual offspring. 

13. All who are not the spiritual offspring of God are the spiritual offspring of the devil. 

14. You are not the spiritual offspring of God. 

15. Therefore, you are the spiritual offspring of the devil.

The Jewish leaders’ origin, theologically and morally speaking, was important because it undermined all of their claims. Given that their father was the “father of lies” in whom there is no truth, it follows that they, being his image bearers, were also liars in whom there is no truth. Their origin was important, moreover, because it demonstrated a clear link between the devil and the Jewish leaders. They were doing exactly what their father was doing – lying, opposing the truth, opposing God, and seeking to kill the Holy One of Israel.

Thus, our Lord shows us that appealing to one’s origin in the arena of truth is only proper when the origin and one’s ideas share an essential element. The Jews sought to identify their words about Jesus as true, and his words as false, on the basis of their biological connection to Abraham. However, it is one’s spiritual connection to Abraham – as a person of faith in the Gospel, and as one who works righteousness in accordance with one’s faith in the Gospel – that serves as the basis for claiming Abraham as one’s father. More importantly, God’s universal paternity as Creator, as well as his national paternity as the covenant God of the Jews does not entail his spiritual paternity of those who claim he is their father. Rather, it is only those who are like God morally (i.e. righteous after the image of the Son of God) who can claim that he is their father.

Jesus demonstrates that what is actually the case is that the unbelief and anti-Christ thinking and behavior of these Jews is traceable to the devil. Christ’s reasoning is not fallacious, although it is genetic. Jesus argues that sons bear the image of their father, but the Jews bear neither Abraham nor God’s moral/spiritual image.4 Consequently, they are not of God (i.e. not God’s children). Now those who are not of God do not hear/understand/comprehend/believe the words of God, so the claims made against Christ are by rendered false by this direct connection between the essence of the devil as a murderous liar and the spiritual/moral nature his descendants inherited from him.

If origins are appealed to properly, the one making the appeal must show the direct and unbroken transmission of what makes his opponent’s truth claims false. This is precisely what the Jewish leaders could not, and therefore did not, do, but what Christ could, and therefore did, do. And it is what Christians are called to do when considering the claim that Christianity, or one of its essential doctrines, is false. For as Paul the apostle explains in 1st Corinthians 2:14 –

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The “natural person,” as Calvin correctly notes, is “any man that is endowed with nothing more than the faculties of nature,” who are “left in a purely natural condition.”5 Fallen man’s problem with understanding and believing the claims of the Christian faith is his unregenerate condition. Apart from possessing a new nature that desires, seeks after, and submits to the truth, the judgment of fallen men leveled against Christianity – namely that it is false – is inevitable. As John Gill explains in his Exposition of the Old and New Testament –

There must be a natural visive discerning faculty, suited to the object; as there must be a natural visive faculty to see and discern natural things, so there must be a spiritual one, to see, discern, judge, and approve of spiritual things; and which only a spiritual, and not a natural man has.6

Roy E. Ciampa and Brian S. Rosner, in their commentary on this passage, further explain that the unregenerate person is “volitionally prejudiced against [the Christian faith], and rejects it in unbelief.”7Consequently, the unregenerate man’s statements made against the faith, in whole or in part, must be judged to be the fruit of an unregenerate and prejudiced mind. Additionally, the denunciation of essential doctrines (e.g. the deity of Christ, the Trinity, penal substitutionary atonement, etc) and the doctrines necessarily implied by the essentials made by self-identified Christians must be judged in the same manner.

For instance, consider the following fictional scenario –

Person A: You know, it’s scary to think about how young your denomination is, being only about 500 years old. The Roman Catholic Church has been around since the days of Jesus’ earthly ministry. 

Person B: So you’re a Roman Catholic? 

Person A: Whether I am or am not a Roman Catholic is irrelevant. Facts are facts. 

Person B: It is not irrelevant. Roman Catholics believe that the teaching of the church is infallible, right? 

Person A: Yes.

Person B: Okay. And they teach that the church was founded upon Peter in Matthew 16, right?

Person A: Yes. But wh –

Person B: And they further teach that Christ promised that the church built upon Peter would not be prevailed against by the powers of hell, correct?

Person A: Yes. But why is any of that relevant?

Person B: It’s relevant because if the Roman church identifies its own teaching as infallible, and that teaching includes the ideas that (a.)the church as it is now is the same church founded by Jesus in Matt 16, and (b.)the gates of hell would not, in any way, prevail against that same church, then it follows that you could not be a Catholic and one who accepts evidence to the contrary. Your essential Roman Catholic beliefs determine what you can or cannot say about the church throughout history. You literally cannot say that the post-New Testament early church was vastly different from the contemporary Roman Catholic church.

A’s belief in the Roman Catholic church’s historical primacy and consistency is not derived from his use of evidence, but is determined by his adherence to Roman Catholic doctrine. If A is a Roman Catholic, he necessarily must assert that the early church’s doctrines are identical to his own. The identity of A, therefore, is not completely irrelevant in our assessment of his truth claims (in the above case, ecclesiastical truth claims).

Seeing as the Roman Catholic believes in a false gospel, he is an unregenerate man. As an unregenerate man, his judgments regarding peripheral doctrines are informed by his his desire to uphold, at all costs, his false gospel as true. Thus, while it may be the case that his judgments regarding peripheral doctrines are supported by arguments utilizing various forms of evidence, such argumentation is not what led him to his conclusions.

§ IV. Conclusion

While genetic reasoning may be utilized fallaciously, it is not the case that all genetic reasoning is fallacious. As we have noted above, genetic reasoning is fallacious when it used to poison the well and, thereby, write off a particular belief with which one does not agree. This is how genetic reasoning was employed by the Jewish leaders during the earthly ministry of Christ, and it is still being used by his enemies today. CRT is built on the genetic fallacy, as it judges ideas and truth claims as true or untrue, good or bad, right or wrong in light of their promulgators’ ethnic, gender, and socio-economic identity.

Non-fallacious genetic reasoning does not only discover and lay bare the origins of a particular truth claim, it demonstrates that there is unbroken link between the truth claim and its origin. When Christ identifies the Jewish leaders as children of the devil he demonstrates that they share essential properties with the devil (e.g. being liars and murderers). What the devil was from the beginning – namely, a liar and a murderer in whom there is no truth – is what his image bearing children are as well. Why did they object to Jesus’ truth claims? Because they were the works that come naturally to children of wrath.

The same holds true in our time. The underlying reason why men reject the faith is because of their identity in Adam. As postlapsarian Adam hid from God,8 so too do his descendants hide from God when he confronts them in their sin.9 As Cain pretended to be ignorant about the righteousness required of him by God, and of his failure to uphold God’s righteousness,10 so too do Cain’s descendants pretend to be ignorant about the truth, and their failure to believe in and uphold God’s truth.11 Simply put: Bad trees bear bad fruit. And it is because bad trees bear bad fruit that we must examine not merely an idea, but also demonstrate the unbroken link between that idea and its source of origin. This is precisely what we have sought to do when warning others about the anti-Christian philosophical foundations of Critical Race Theory.

1 cf. John 3:1-21.

2 The five Galilean prophets in question are Jonah, Nahum, Hosea, Elijah, and Elisha.

3 Some scholars argue that the overall perceptions of Galileans by the Jewish leaders was negative, as they were perceived to be unlearned and illiterate simpletons from the country.

4 Regarding the imago dei broadly considered, it is the case that all men bear the image of God as regards the communicable attributes of personality, intellect, and volition, but because of our death in Adam only believers share in the restored image of God/the image of the Son of God (cf. Col 3:1-10 & Eph 4:17-24).

5 “Calvin’s Commentaries,” Bible Hub, https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/1_corinthians/2.htm, Accessed July 13, 2019.

6 http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/gill/co1002.htm, Accessed July 13, 2019.

7 The First Letter to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, Cambridge: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010), 135.

8 cf. Gen 3:8-10.

9 cf. Jer 49:7-10; Isa 2:10-11; Matt 25:25; Rev 6:15-17.

10 cf. Gen 4:9.

11 cf. Prov 24:11-12; Mal 1:2, 1:6-7, 2:13-14, 2:17, 3:13-14; Matt 21:23-27.

According to a recent article in the Washington Post, if you don't believe Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the very picture of physical health, you're a nutjob, a wingnut, and an internet conspiracy theorist. 

The piece by Eli Rosenberg and Abby Ohlheiser cites WaPo veteran Robert Barnes as being amazed that anyone, ANYONE!, would doubt that RBG is anything other than hale and hearty. 

"A falsehood has been spreading in dark corners of the Internet that Ginsburg is dead," write Rosenberg and Ohlheiser.  The article then goes on to take shots are fringe "right wing Internet culture," the sort of fringe culture that dares to raises doubts about official narratives put forth in the MSM. 

The article even attempts to pin on the egregious fake news reports from a few weeks back - fake news reported on CNN and in WaPo itself about how MAGA hat wearing students from Covington Catholic High School were supposedly responsible for harassing a Native American Vietnam Veteran at the Indigenous People's March in Washington D.C. - on independent journalists on Twitter. 

Yes, we're to believe that the mighty WaPo was taken in by "Two anonymous Twitter accounts," that it was just following these anonymous accounts' lead when it wrote about the "racist" actions of the high school students, and that it is in no way responsible for pushing a false narrative by publishing stories with headlines such as this: " 'Opposed to the dignity of the human person': Kentucky Catholic dioceses condemns teens who taunted vet at March for Life."  If that's true, then WaPo's an even more pathetic joke of a newspaper than I thought. 

But perhaps there's a method to WaPo's lame attempt to lay the blame on Twitter for their editorial mistake, they, along with a number of other news organizations and individuals, have been served a legal hold notice by the lawyer representing the students in anticipation of a possible lawsuit.

But what's really odd about this piece from WaPo is its complete lack of evidence that RBG is, in fact, alive.  There are no recent photos of her out in public.  There are no videos.  There are no quotes of any recent public statement from the judge.

The only "proof" offered to readers is Robert Barnes' report that he saw RBG at a public performance, where, conveniently, we are told that "Photos were not allowed."  

Once you strip out the article's rant on independent internet journalists, what you have is a very obvious appeal to authority.  The fallacious argument runs thus, You have to believe that RBG is alive and well, because veteran WaPo reporter and editor Robert Barnes said so.

For my part, I don't pretend to know the status of RBG's physical health.  It may be that she's hale and hearty.  Perhaps she's alive but is seriously impaired, physically, mentally or both.  It may be that she's shuffled off this mortal coil.

The disappearance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg from the public eye is no small matter. Americans have a right to know whether government officials, elected or appointed, are capable of carrying out the duties of their office.  Raising questions about Ginsburg's physical fitness for office is not conspiracy theory, it's a matter of national security. 

If she's healthy enough to serve as a judge, this is easy enough to prove.  Let her make a public appearance and remove all doubt.  If her health prevents her from sitting on the bench to hear arguments, the American people need to know this.  Further, if this is the case, judge Ginsburg has an obligation to resign her post and allow the Senate to confirm a new judge in her place.

If judge Ginsburg is dead, then those who are hiding this fact are committing one of the greatest frauds in American political history and need themselves to be held accountable. 

But whatever the case may be, WaPo's readers, and Americans generally, deserve better than condescending reports about the health of a Supreme Court justice that tell them in so many words, just shut up and believe us already.

The Vatican called on Monday for sweeping reforms of the world economy and the creation of a ethical, global authority to regulate financial markets...The Vatican called for the establishment of a "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" to guide economic policies and decisions. Such an authority should start with the United Nations as its reference point but later become independent and be endowed with the power to see to it that developed countries were not allowed to wield "excessive power over weaker countries. "Vatican urges economic reforms, condemns collective greed" - Reuters, 10/24/2011

One of the great frustrations this author has with the way news is covered is the abject failure of the press - and by the press, I mean both the mainstream legacy news organizations as well as the alternate, independent journalists who do their work on blogs, YouTube channels and podcasts - to relate the various political activities of the Roman Church-State to its overarching goal of establishing a new version of the Holy Roman Empire, this time one worldwide in scope.

Now when one begins talking about the push for world government, it's not uncommon to be charged with "fear mongering" and "pushing conspiracy theories." But Rome's lust for world government, while certainly a conspiracy, is perhaps the least secret, most openly admitted conspiracy in history. Many people suppose that, if the Vatican really did want world government, you'd have to go looking for proof in some musty, dusty ancient codex buried deep in a monastic library in some exotic location.

The truth is that proving Rome's desire for world government is, as they say, like shooting fish in a barrel.

Take, for example, the passage quoted at the top of this post. It's from a 2011 Reuters article about a new document issued by the Pontifical Council For Justice And Peace, the full title of which is Towards Reforming The International Financial And Monetary Systems In The Context Of Global Public Authority (emphasis mine).

Far from hiding its desire for one world government, the Vatican comes right out and says it. In fact, it's actually shocking to this author just how open Rome is about its goal.

Writing in the American Conservative, columnist Rod Dreher, a man who apparently is, or at least was, unaware of Rome's power lust, expressed his own shock at the Vatican's comments. He noted,

Lord have mercy. What was once only in the febrile prophetic imagination of Jack Chick and Hal Lindsey is now a press release from the Vatican. A friend (who is not Evangelical) writes:

This is going to FREAK the evangelicals out. But it makes me wonder what the heck is going on in the minds of these Vaticanites! Don't they have a clue how the world will preceive (sic) this? One world authority?? Really?

Count me with the Evangelicals. It freaks me out too, and will freak out many Orthodox Christians (Dreher was raised Methodist, converted to Roman Catholicism in 1993, and in 2006 converted to Eastern Orthodoxy) I bet it has the same effect on not a few Catholics as well. Maybe Malachi Martin wasn't such a conspiracy freak after all...

Dreher got it exactly right. His comments are remarkable, if for no other reason than they are the clearest example this author has seen of a big name columnist actually understanding the plain language of the Vatican and the implied worldwide tyranny of its words. But while Dreher nailed it at first, it appears that someone got to him. For in an apparent addendum to his original article he to some degree walked back his original comments. He wrote,

OK, let me take a second stab at this thing.

First, I don't think there's anything intentionally malicious about this document. It does not have magisterial authority, so it doesn't set out the Church's authoritative teaching on faith and morals. No Catholic is required to believe any of this.

News flash for Rod Dreher, the Pontifical Council's document says nothing new about Rome's lust for world government. It simply represents a reiteration of many, similar calls, both direct and by implication, made by the popes of Rome. As such, Dreher's shock at the Vatican's statement really is a commentary about his ignorance of Rome's long standing powerlust. The Vatican wasn't saying anything new in 2011 that hadn't been said many times before, or since for that matter. It's just how Antichrist rolls.

As proof of this, consider what John Robbins wrote in the chapter titled "World Government" in his 1999 book on the political and economic thought of Rome, titled Ecclesiastical Megalomania, "What the Roman Church-State accomplished on a small scale during the Middle Ages is what it desires to achieve on a global scale in the coming millennium" (187).

To back up his claim, Robbins quotes Gaudium et Spes, one of the major documents to come out of the Second Vatican Council.

It is our clear duty, therefore, to strain every muscle in working for the time when all war can be completely outlawed by international consent. This goal undoubtedly requires the establishment of a universal public authority acknowledged as such by all and endowed with the power to safeguard on the behalf of all, security, regard for justice, and respect for rights (emphasis mine).

Now ask yourself, is there any significant difference between the 2011 statement from the Pontifical Council calling for a "supranational authority" with worldwide scope and "universal jurisdiction" and what was said the Gaudium et Spes in 1965? There's none apparent to this author.

This demolishes Dreher's argument that Catholics are not required to believe the statements from the Pontifical Council calling for world government. Unless, of course, Dreher wants to argue that Catholics are not required to believe Gaudium et Spes when it too calls for a "universal public authority." I doubt he's willing to do this.

By now you may be asking yourself what any of this has to do with the migrant caravan. It may appear that I've gone off on a bit of a tangent and forgotten the purpose of this post.

Far from it. I brought up the world government stuff to set up my main point. You see, Rome takes a multipronged approach to bringing about world government. Just as it attempted to use the public's anger about the 2008 financial crisis to further its goal of establishing a "supranational authority with universal jurisdiction," in like fashion it uses immigration, migration, and refugee resettlement as the means to the same end.

Although Rome's call for world government in Strangers No Longer (SNL) is muted by comparison to what one finds in Gaudium et Spes and the 2011 document from the Pontifical Council, nevertheless the idea is clearly implied. Let's take a look at it.

SNL is a Globalist Document

Several times in SNL, the USCCB and the Mexican bishops attack the idea of the nation state.

Paragraph 30 of SNL directly quotes the explicitly globalist Exsul Familia Nazarethana
(EFN), the 1952 Apostolic Constitution of Pope Pius XII which has been called the Church's Magna Carta for Migrants. For my earlier comments on this remarkably evil document, please see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The bishops write,

While recognizing the right of the sovereign state to control its borders, Exsul Familia also establishes that this right is not absolute, stating that the needs of immigrants must be measured against the needs of the receiving countries:

Since land everywhere offers the possibility of supporting a large number of people, the sovereignty of the State, although it must be respected, cannot be exaggerated to the point that access to this land is, for inadequate or unjustified reasons, denied to needy and decent people from other nations, provided of course, that the public wealth, considered very carefully, does not forbid this...

Pope John XXIII placed limits on immigration, however, when there are "just reasons for it." Nevertheless, he stressed the obligation of sovereign states to promote the universal good where possible, including an obligation to accommodate migration flows. For more powerful nations, a stronger obligation exists (emphasis mine).

Basically, the bishops and the Roman Church-State are saying that, the United States and other independent nations have the right to control their borders, until we say they can't. Then they have to listen to the voice of the Holy Mother Kirk and acknowledge their obligation to provide sustenance - i.e. rob their citizens - for as many migrants as we say they have to.

To put this another way, the nation state is no longer the highest civil authority. Rather, the Church is. Or to put this still another way, the Woman Who Rides the Beast is calling for world government with itself in the driver's seat and able to order mere national governments around, the expressed will of the electorates of those nations notwithstanding.

In the 2013 book On "Strangers No Longer", a collection of essays celebrating the 10th anniversary of SNL, Mark Ensalaco whined about the fact that politicians actually were listening to the voice of their constituents rather than to the bishops. He complained, "The bishops appealed for a civil debate about this urgent matter to no avail. It was as if their words fell mainly on flinty ground or among thorns where they withered in the white heat of politics or were strangled by politicians' worldly concerns about their electoral prospects (251).

What offends Ensalaco so much that he denigrates it as "politicians' worldly concerns about their electoral prospects" (187) would better be called elected officials simply doing the job they were put in office to do. But then, it's not surprising that a representative of the tyrannical Roman Church-State would be offended at the idea of elected representatives who actually represent the wishes of their constituents. Quite obviously, he prefers the Roman system where when the Pope says "jump," the only proper response is to ask, "How high, your Holiness?"

It is difficult to communicate to the reader the full extent of Rome's visceral hatred for independent nation states that refuse to confirm to its will, but perhaps the following quote may give him some sense. Writing in his papal bull Zelo Domus Dei in reaction to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, a treaty that permanently curtailed Rome's ability to meddle in the internal affairs of the allied nations and established the modern world order, Pope Innocent X raged, calling the provisions of the treaty, "null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time" (Larry Jay Diamond; Marc F. Plattner, Philip J. Costopoulo (2005). World religions and democracy, 103).

Now why didn't Innocent X tell us how he really felt about Westphalia?

Innocent X's epic rant on the Treaty of Westphalia must be understood in light of how the popes of Rome view themselves and their Church. According to Rome's teaching, the papacy has a triple power, being "the father of kings, governor of the world and Vicar of Christ." To such an exalted being, one simply does not say "no." And when he says you have an obligation to take in migrants and pay their freight, well, it's not yours to question why.

Diamond, Plattner and Costopoulo continue,

The Church tended its enmity well into the nineteenth century, when it condemned international law as a "Protestant science" [for once, the Church is actually right about somthing; the creation of  a humane system of international law that respects the territory and the property of the citizens of nation states is one of the great political achievements of the Reformation] and censured the works of the Dutch philosopher Hugo Grotius, often considered the intellectual godfather of international law.

Westphalia drew the Church's scorn because it inflicted a mortal wound on the Respublica Christiania, the vision of society that the Church carried forward from medieval Christendom (103).

When the bishops demand in SNL that the United States - the US is the special object of scorn in SNL - accede to their arrogant demands to accept as many migrants as the bishops think right, they are not doing something novel, rather, they are simply bringing to bear Rome's megalomanical, medieval mindset on the modern problem of Mexican migrants coming to the United States.

Rome continues its assault on the Westphalian World Order it began in SNL paragraph 30 (cited above), repeatedly stating there are limits to the authority of national governments to control their borders. And this while Rome never mentions any such limit on its own power.

The church recognizes the right of sovereign nations to control their territories but rejects such control when it is exerted merely for the purpose of acquiring additional wealth [Question: How does the Church determine when this is the case?]. More powerful economic nations, which have the ability to protect and feed their residents, have a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows [First, nations don't feed their residents, the citizens feed themselves by the product of their own labor; Second how is Rome's declaration that wealthy nations have "a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows" different from the Marxist doctrine of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?] (36).

The Church recognizes the right of a sovereign state to control its borders in furtherance of the common good [What about the state's obligation to, as Paul put it, "punish evildoers and praise the good?" While this is the Biblical purpose of government, Rome's collectivist notion of "the common good" is put forth as the civil magistrate's reason for being.]. It also recognizes the right of human persons to migrate so that they can realize their God-given rights. These teachings complement each other. While the sovereign state may impose reasonable limits on immigration, the common good is not served when the basic human rights of the individual are violated [Obviously, Rome does not consider the right to property as a "basic human right," since it advocates national governments taking property from their own citizens and bestowing it upon its favored migrants] (39).

By now, I hope the reader has a sense of just how contemptuous Rome is of the concept of independent - specifically independent of Rome's control - national governments. Rome pays lip service to the authority of national governments, but, in the end, their authority extends only so far as the bishops, cardinals and popes of Rome say it does.

Closing Thoughts

While nowhere in Scripture are church officers given control over national governments, the Bible does speak about a false church that assumes such prerogatives. That false church in Revelation 17 is called Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth. In contrast to the true church of Jesus Christ, the Bride of Christ, this false church delights in fornication and is drunk with the blood of the saints.

In the opinion of the reformers and of this author, Mystery, Babylon the Great is none other than the Church of Rome. As Rome reigned over the kings of the earth in the first century, so she wishes to do so in the 21st.

In the view of this author, SNL lays  the intellectual groundwork for Rome's attempt to break the United States both financially and, by flooding the historically Protestant US with migrants loyal to Rome, culturally as well.  This is the same playbook Rome is using to break the historic nations of Europe, the only difference being the European migrants are largely Muslim.

Once Rome has destablized the US and the nations of Europe by making them financially insolvent and politically ungovernable, it will take little effort to absorb them into a new, globe spanning Holy Roman Empire. In the opinion of this author, this is precisely Rome's end game for the migrant crisis.

(To be continued...)

In last week's post, we began our look at Strangers No Longer (SNL), a 2003 document issued jointly by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Bishops of Mexico. 

As the title to last week's and this week's post indicate, SNL is a subversive document.  It is subversive in at least three ways.  First, in that it is a Marian document, it is subversive of the faith once delivered to the saints.  Several times in SNL, the bishops proudly reveal that the satanic Marian cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a key reason for their call for mass migration from Mexico, and by implication, from other places into the US. 

Second, in that SNL is a clarion call for international socialism, it is subversive of capitalism, the economic system of the Bible.  As the Bible clearly teaches throughout the pages of the Old and New Testaments, the ownership of capital goods, that is to say, the means of production, are to remain in private hands.  Further, the Bible teaches that title to property, apart from punishment for a crime, is absolute.  "Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things," said the vineyard owner in Jesus' parable.  Rome, on the other hand,  takes a far different view.

Finally, in that it is a globalist document, SNL is subversive of good government.  SNL is part of the Babylonian Harlot's multipronged, centuries long attempt to reinstate the Holy Roman Empire, this time on a worldwide scale rather than the regional scale she achieved during the middle ages. 

Last week, we looked at the Marian aspect of SNL.  In today's installment, I shall discuss the document's socialist subversions.       

Socialist Buzzword Number One:  The Common Good

When reading through documents related to the Catholic Social Teaching, one quickly comes to realize that Rome's prelates have a strong preference for writing and speaking in buzzwords, "Common good" and "solidarity" being two of their favorites.

Writing in Ecclesiastical Megalomania, John Robbins described the common good as, "the fiction by which the public authorities justify whatever they please to do" (42).  Elsewhere in the same book, Robbins commented, "The 'common good' is the great fiction used by the Roman Church-State to justify government control of society and economy" (187).

Robbins continues,

The Catechism of the Catholic Church points out that "Human interdependence is increasing and gradually spreading throughout the world." The unity of the human family, embracing people who enjoy equal natural dignity, implies a universal common good.  This good calls for an organization of the community of nations able to "provide for the different needs of man...food, hygiene, education...."

All of this is driven by the theological premise that "The members of mankind share  the same basic rights and duties, as well as the same supernatural destiny" (Paul VI, Octogesima Adveniens, 1971).

"Because all men are joined together by reason of their common origin, their redemption by Christ, and their supernatural destiny, and are called to form one Christian family, We appealed in the Encyclical Mater et Magistra to economically developed nations to come to the aid of those which were in the process of development" (John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, 1963) (Ecclesiastical Megalomania,188).

The basic argument of Rome is that, since the human race is one great big happy spiritual family - never mind that business about God's putting enmity between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman - property likewise ought to be shared among all. 

The USCCB lays out in very clear terms the importance of the concept of the common good as it relates to matters of immigration, migration and refugee resettlement.  "In Catholic social teaching," they write, "individuals do not have the right to use private property without regard for the common good" (Catholic Social Teaching on Immigration and the Movement of Peoples).

Since the common good is such an important concept in Catholic social teaching, it should come as no surprise that it manages to rear its head in SNL. "We observe the struggles of landowners and enforcement personnel who seek to preserve the common good without violating the dignity of the migrant" (SNL, 4) write the bishops in error.

The struggle of property owners and civil magistrates in matters of migration is not concerning how to preserve the common good - nowhere in Scripture is the government called upon to do such a thing - rather, it is about protecting the property rights of private owners.  The job of the civil government is to enforce the Second Table of the Ten Commandments, none of which expressly state or imply anything about the common good.

In another place, the bishops write,

The Church recognizes the right of a sovereign state to control its borders in furtherance of the common good.  It also recognizes the right of human persons to migrate so that they can realize their God-given rights.  These teachings complement each other.  While the sovereign state may impose reasonable limits on immigration, the common good is not served when the basic human rights of the individual are violated (SNL, 39).

Here again we see the bishops' error in that they cite the common good, rather than the defense of the property and the lives of a nation's citizens, as the basis for a nation to control its borders.  

One interesting implication of the bishops' words here is that private property is not a "basic human right" in the way the migration is. The right to migrate is absolute, whereas the right to own and use property is contingent. 

This idea that private property is contingent is another major aspect of Catholic social teaching which will be treated below.

Socialist Buzzword Number Two:  Solidarity

Solidarity appears 16 times in SNL, leading one to think that the definition of the term would be relatively straightforward.  But such is not the case. 

In SNL's third paragraph, we are told that the bishops of the US and Mexico have solidarity.  "In the spirit of ecclesial solidarity begun in that synod and promoted in Ecclesia in America, and aware of the migration reality our two nations live, we the bishops of Mexico and the United States seek to awaken our peoples to the mysterious presence of the crucified and risen Lord in the Person of the migrant...(SNL, 3).

"The appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego revealed the compassionate presence of God reaching out to Mary to be in solidarity with and to give hope to a suffering people" (107), write the bishops near the end of SNL. 

After considering various uses of the term in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, John Robbins concluded that solidarity is, "a vague assertion of ethical and economic collectivism" (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 151). 

Apart from its use by the Roman prelates, solidarity is a favorite term of secular socialists.  For example, socialist Bernie Sanders is recently reported to have, "urged New Hampshire workers to embrace the labor movement's principle of solidarity."   

New socialist darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has called for, "Solidarity with Puerto Rico" as part of her Congressional campaign.

Solidarity is, in short, part of the argot of collectivists.  Especially, it seems, those who belong to what is commonly considered the political left. 

In SNL, the bishops make it very clear that they stand in solidarity, not with the citizens of the receiving nations who will foot the bill for Rome's migrant program, but with the migrants who will impose the tax burden on those citizens.

We speak to the migrants who are forced to leave their lands to provide for their families or to escape persecution.  We stand in solidarity with you...Faith in the presence of Christ in the migrant leads to a conversion of the mind and heart, which leads to a renewed spirit of communion and to the building of structures of solidarity to accompany the migrant...We stand in solidarity with you, our migrant brothers and sisters, and we will  continue to advocate on your behalf for just and fair migration policies.

One of the interesting aspects about the bishops' virtue signaling is that they never mention the costs of all this solidarity.  Reading SNL, one could easily come away with the impression that allowing open migration into the US from Mexico and other points south not only will not be a burden to the American taxpayer, but a positive economic boon. 

In one of the more honest statements on immigration from a Roman Catholic prelate seen by this author, Giulivo Tessarolo, editor of the commentary on Exsul Familia, the Church-State's most comprehensive statement on migration, wrote, "I took cognizance of a significant social fact of our time; that, due to enormous financial implications, the phenomenon of emigration will find some relief only in the English-speaking countries. 

Tessarolo admits openly what the US and Mexican bishops will not: that their program will cost a fortune, which fortune will be borne by the already hard pressed American citizen. 

In short, the bishops get the primp and preen in the international spotlight as if they were great humanitarian benefactors, all the while sticking American taxpayers with the bill.  You didn't expect the Holy Mother Church to actually spend its own money bailing out the migrants, did you? 

As the saying goes, that's nice work if you can get it.

The Universal Destination of Goods

Foundational to all of Rome's calls for socialism - including immigrant, migrant and refugee socialism discussed in SNL  -  is the Thomistic notion of original communism, a concept Roman Catholic thinkers refer to as the universal destination of goods.  "The Church recognizes that all the goods of the earth belong to all people" (SNL, 35), is one very clear statement of this principle.

It probably comes as a shock to many Americans, even American Catholics, that Rome has a very different view of private property than exists in the popular mind of the formerly Protestant West. But Rome has made it very clear that property rights extend only so far.  Ultimately, according to Rome, the only moral title to property is "neither possession, nor creation, nor production, nor gift, nor inheritance, nor divine commandment," (Ecclesiastical Megalomania, 31), but need.

The philosophic basis for the universal destination of goods is the Church's erroneous teaching that, when God created the earth, he gave it to man collectively.  Since private property is the result of later, man-made positive law, and not part of the original divine law, need is the only ultimate, moral title to property.   

According to Rome, if you need something, you have the right to take it.  Yet where in Scripture is there any evidence for this?  There is none. 

Further, there is at least one passage that explicitly teaches the opposite.  "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; but if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house" (Proverbs 6:30, 31).      

The thief needed, or at least thought he needed, to steal to satisfy his hunger.  But as this passage makes clear, what he truly needed to do was to obey the eighth commandment.  This is plain from the fact that Proverbs, although recognizing the mitigating factor behind the thief's actions, in no way calls for the thief to be let off the hook. 

When Rome demands that governments of receiving nations take property from citizens and turn it over to migrants, however dire their straights, Rome is an accessory to theft, the migrants who receive the loot are in possession of stolen property, and the government officials who do the Rome's wicked bidding are themselves guilty of theft.  The injured parties are the citizens who are forced at gunpoint to turnover their property to others who have no right to it.         

Closing Thoughts

When the Israelites' journey in the wilderness was coming to a close, Numbers chapter 20 records for us that they came to the border of Edom.  Before entering Edomite territory, Moses sent emissaries to the king of Edom, saying, "Thus says your brother Israel...Please let us pass through your country.  We will not pass through fields or vineyards, nor will we drink water from wells; we will go along the King's Highway; we will not turn aside to the right hand or to the left until we have passed through you territory" (verses 14 and 17).

Note well Moses did not think he had the right to barge into Edomite territory.  This was true, even though the Edomites were a close kindred people descended from Esau (Thus says your brother Israel).

Rather, Moses went out of his way to emphasize that Israel would respect the property of the Edomites - "We will not pass through fields or vineyards;" that is to say, we won't steal your food; "nor will we drink water from wells;" that is to say, we won't steal your water.

If ever there was a group of migrants who would have had the right to pillage food and water, it would have been God's chosen people on their way to the promised land. Yet from the text of Scripture we get not so much as a hint that it ever entered Moses' mind to plunder the Edomites' property.  On the contrary, he went to great lengths to emphasize that Israel would not steal Edom's food and water or make themselves a nuisance.

This raises the question, If Israel did not have the right to plunder the Edomites, what right do Honduran, Guatemalan and Mexican migrants have to plunder the American taxpayer?  And rest assured, plunder they will, all with the blessing of the Antichrist papacy and prelates of the Woman Who Rides the Beast.

The answer to that question is, None whatsoever.

Rome's arguments that migrants have a rightful claim on the property of the citizens of the United States of America is an evil fiction, built on a foundation of the vain imagination of Thomas Aquinas and his scholastic disciples. 

It is high time for American Christians to say so. 

(To be continued...)

Well, what I wanted to talk about for a few minutes is the various efforts that are going on in public and behind the scenes by the Fed and other government officials to guard against a free-fall in the markets...

- Former Clinton advisor George Stephanopolous on Good Morning America 

Last week's post served as an introduction to the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, better known to the public as the Plunge Protection Team.

It seemed good this week to spend a little more time on the same subject, as the existence and the activities of this organization are perhaps the most important, least understood and most underreported factors driving financial markets today.

Financial markets such as the New York Stock Exchange are presented to the public as the very essence of free market capitalism.  But in the opinion of this writer, the reality is something quite different. 

Far from being a place where buyers and sellers meet to determine fair value for financial assets, today's financial markets are a rigged game designed to mislead the public about the true nature of the financial condition of the West.

Some may wonder why a Christian blogger would delve into the subject of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT).  It seems on the surface as if it's a bit conspiratorial, a topic more appropriate for some tin foil hat blogger than for someone intent and spreading the light of truth.  But to see the discussion of the PPT in this light is, at least in my view, a serious mistake.

That the PPT is a real entity with real power is a very easy matter to prove.  The case that it has been and is being used by the powers that be to prop up favored markets and suppress those out of favor, though circumstantial in nature, is quite strong.

Exposing such chicanery is among the most important tasks a Christian financial writer can undertake.  As University of Austin finance professor John Griffin recently noted, the Bible's command to "Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them," can be applied to outing the lies and fraudulent activities of powerful financial and governmental interests in the same way it can be applied to other evil deeds. 

With that in mind, let's take a closer look at the PPT.    

The Establishment of the Plunge Protection Team

Perhaps the most sensible place to begin our discussion of the PPT is with Executive Order 12631 of March 18, 1988.  You may find it here in the Federal Register.  But since it's only a few hundred words long, I'll reproduce it in full below.

Executive Order 12631--Working Group on Financial Markets

Source: The provisions of Executive Order 12631 of Mar. 18, 1988, appear at 53 FR 9421, 3 CFR, 1988 Comp., p. 559, unless otherwise noted.

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and laws of the United States of America, and in order to establish a Working Group on Financial Markets, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Establishment. (a) There is hereby established a Working Group on Financial Markets (Working Group). The Working Group shall be composed of:

(1) the Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee;

(2) the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, or his designee;

(3) the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, or his designee; and

(4) the Chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, or her designee.

(b) The Secretary of the Treasury, or his designee, shall be the Chairman of the Working Group.

Sec. 2. Purposes and Functions. (a) Recognizing the goals of enhancing the integrity, efficiency, orderliness, and competitiveness of our Nation's financial markets and maintaining investor confidence, the Working Group shall identify and consider:

(1) the major issues raised by the numerous studies on the events in the financial markets surrounding October 19, 1987, and any of those recommendations that have the potential to achieve the goals noted above; and

(2) the actions, including governmental actions under existing laws and regulations (such as policy coordination and contingency planning), that are appropriate to carry out these recommendations.

(b) The Working Group shall consult, as appropriate, with representatives of the various exchanges, clearinghouses, self-regulatory bodies, and with major market participants to determine private sector solutions wherever possible.

(c) The Working Group shall report to the President initially within 60 days (and periodically thereafter) on its progress and, if appropriate, its views on any recommended legislative changes.

Sec. 3. Administration. (a) The heads of Executive departments, agencies, and independent instrumentalities shall, to the extent permitted by law, provide the Working Group such information as it may require for the purpose of carrying out this Order.
(b) Members of the Working Group shall serve without additional compensation for their work on the Working Group.
(c) To the extent permitted by law and subject to the availability of funds therefore, the Department of the Treasury shall provide the Working Group with such administrative and support services as may be necessary for the performance of its functions.

So what can we glean from this short but not so sweet E.O.? 

For one, it's a high-powered group.  As Section one tells us, it is comprised of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, the Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Chairman of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission. 

In fact, one would have a hard time coming up with a higher powered group of financial overseers than the officers referred to above. 

But it's not just the group's power that's impressive.  It's also highly secretive.

Consider the US Treasury Department, home to a powerful and secretive group known as the Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF).  The ESF was, as it were, born in monetary sin and shapen in financial iniquity, the seed capital of which was extracted out of the hides of the American public by the iniquitous Gold Reserve Act of 1934.  As Investopedia notes,

The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 is an act that took away the title of all gold and gold certificates that were held by the Federal Reserve Bank.  The Gold Reserve Act of 1934 made the trade and possession of gold a criminal offense for the citizens of the United States.  Sole title of this gold was given to the U.S. Treasury.  It was not until 1975 that Americans could again own or trade gold.

Article 1 Section 10 of the US Constitution reads, "No state shall...make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts," but the after less than 150 years, the federal government decided it was proper to criminalize the possession of real money.  In this writer's opinion, that's about all you need to know to properly assess the authoritarian character of the members of Congress who drafted the legislation and of Franklin D. Roosevelt who signed it in to law.  

Worth noting is that Gold Reserve Act completed the transfer of wealth from the American people to the federal government that had begun the previous year with Executive Order 6102, which required Americans to turn in, "all gold coin, gold bullion, and gold certificates now owned by  them to a Federal Reserve Bank."  Roosevelt's Executive Order required that this be done by May 1, 1933, with criminal penalties of a, "$10,000 fine or 10 years imprisonment, or both."

"The main rationale behind the order," Wikipedia notes, "was actually to remove the constraint on the Federal Reserve which prevented it from increasing the money supply during the depression."  In other words, the Fed couldn't rob people effectively enough when they had gold in their possession.  First they had to take the gold, then the powers that be could go about the nefarious business of plundering the people.

Once the government had the gold, it didn't take long for them to finish their act of robbery.  Another feature of the Gold Reserve Act (GRA) was that it revalued gold.  Prior to the passing of the GRA, gold was valued at $20.67 per ounce.  The GRA set the price of gold at $35 per ounce, meaning that upon its passing, Americans immediately suffered a loss of about 69% on the gold forcibly taken from them by the FDR's 1933 Executive Order. 

Question: So if the American people lost 69% on their gold, did that wealth just disappear?  Answer: Of course not! The stolen wealth was merely transferred to the Treasury where it was used as seed capital for the ESF.

As Wikipedia rightly notes, "The resulting profit that the government realized funded the Exchange Stabilization Fund established by the Gold Reserve Act of 1934."

The ESF has now been in business for 84 years, making it one of the longest running and egregious criminal enterprises in Washington D.C.  And given the many outrageous crimes committed daily in the Swamp, that's saying quite a lot.

The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, while more in the public eye than the ESF, still manages to operate to a large extent in secrecy.  Several attempts have been made to audit the Fed over the years, but to date, the Fed has successfully resisted all attempts to open its books to public scrutiny. 

Then Fed Chairman Janet Yellen's letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is instructive on this point.  In her letter dated November 16, 2015, Yellen objected to auditing the Fed, saying that subjecting the Fed to an audit would, "politicize monetary policy decision...undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve," and was, "based on the false premise - that the Federal Reserve is not subject to an audit." 

While the Fed may be audited in some sense as Yellen argues, it's not the type of thoroughgoing audit Ron Paul and Rand Paul have argued for over the years. 

Yellen, as Fed Chairmen before her, and doubtless as those who will come after her such as current Fed Chairman Jay Powell, was jealous to guard the Fed's "independence."  Translated into plain English, she wants to continue the ability of the Fed to serve the interests of the financial elite, principally the big banks that own the Fed, at the expense of the American people.   

Evidence of the PPT's Handiwork

For our purposes, I will not go in to a great deal of technical detail in an attempt to prove the case that the PPT manipulates markets.  Rather, I shall rely on quotes from those who would know.  Considering that these quotes come from highly placed and well-qualified individuals, their comments deserve serious consideration.

The term Plunge Protection Team can be traced to a 1997 article in the Washington Post of the same name.  According to the piece, "The government has a real role to play to make a 1987-style sudden market break less likely."  So just how does the PPT do this? Well, the article doesn't say specifically.  It talks about ensuring communication between government agencies remains open.  But does mere communication help stabilize markets in the midst of a crisis? Imagine the following conversation:

            Treasury Secretary:  Hey, the S&P's off 5% already and it's only 11am!!  What do you think?

            Fed Chairman:  Yep, darn if it's not.

Talk, as they say, is cheap.  And very obviously stabilizing markets requires more than just talk.  Implied, though not explicitly stated, is that the Fed and probably the ESF will intervene in the financial markets to produce the sort of "almost miraculous" recovery that occurred the day after 1987's Black Monday.  After all, no one can see what the Fed or the ESF are doing with their vast financial resources.  "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain," is not just a famous line from the Wizard of Oz, it's the M.O. of these two groups.  And they both have better curtains than did the wizard. 

In short, of course the Fed and the ESF are rigging the markets.  The Washington Post all but said so back in 1997.  "But," as the cheesy infomercials like to put it, "wait, there's more!"

Consider the statement at the top of this post by George Stephanopoulos on Good Morning America.  I've seen the date of his appearance as alternatively September 17, 2000 and September 17, 2001.  If it was the later, this was the first day that the NYSE reopened after 9/11.  In either case, this Clinton insider very clearly hints at governmental intervention in the financial markets to "guard against a free-fall."

The quote from Stephanopoulos continues, "the Fed in 1989 created what is called the Plunge Protection Team, which is the Federal Reserve, big major banks, representatives of the New York Stock Exchange and other exchanges and they have been meeting informally so far, and they have a kind of an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem."

In 2015, Dr. Pippa Malmgren who actually served on the PPT and whose father was a high level presidential advisor and scholar made this telling remark," [T]here's no price discovery anymore by the market...governments impose prices on the market."

The New York Post's John Crudele has written critically of the PPT for years.  Typical of his work is this story from 2014, " 'Plunge protection' behind market's sudden recovery."

In 2007, Crudele expressed his frustration with the lack of transparency by the US Treasury on the workings of the PPT, writing,

After a year and a half of stalling, the US Treasury finally complied with The Post's requests for information about The President's Working Group on Financial Markets - delivering 177 pages of crap. 

In essence, the Treasury's Freedom of Information  officials said that the Working Group - affectionately nicknamed the Plunge Protection Team - doesn't keep records of its meetings. 

How interesting and convenient!

PhD. economist Paul Craig Roberts, former Undersecretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan and former Wall Street Journal Associate Editor, is another highly placed individual whose written extensively on the activities of the PPT.  In his article "Do Financial Markets Still Exist?" he wrote, "For many decades the Federal Reserve has rigged the bond market...and for about a century, central banks have set [rigged] interest rates...It appears that...the Fed is rigging the stock market by purchasing S&P equity index futures in order to arrest stock market declines driven by fundamentals."

In December 2008, widely watched market commentator Nouriel Roubini was quoted as saying, "The Fed (or Treasury) could even go as far as directly intervening in the stock market via direct purchase of equities as a way to boost falling equity prices."

Nouriel Roubini was formerly an advisor to New York Fed governor Tim Geithner, a major figure in the 2008 financial crisis.

Market analyst Charles Biderman commented in 2009 that while the market cap of US stocks soared by more than $6 trillion, "We cannot identify the source of the new money that pushed stock prices up so far so fast."

In the same article, Biderman quotes former Fed governor Robert Heller's 1989 Wall Street Journal opinion piece where Heller wrote,

Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thereby stabilizing the market as a whole.

Do you think a former Fed governor just might know a thing or two about what it takes to rig the stock market? 

In a 2017 appearance on CNBC's Smart Money, "Legendary vulture investor Asher Edelman, the 1980's model for Gordon Gekko," argued that, in his view, the PPT was the only thing propping up the market.  He also expressed his concern about being in the market, saying that "I don't know when the plug is going to be pulled."

Finally, I come to my main man Dr. Ron Paul.  Paul has commented many times over the years on the activities of the PPT. In a May 4, 2018 appearance on CNBC's Futures Now, the good doctor had this to say,

I think the plunge protection team is alive and well.  I think they're involved and they do provide some protections.  The world is engaged in that type of maneuvering.  But eventually though, the market rules.

More examples could be provided, but I hope the above citations, all taken from prominent and respected people, will help the reader to see the PPT less as a myth or conspiracy theory and more as a reality, one which influences the public perception of the stock market and, hence, the entire US economy, and one that accomplishes this end by very dishonest, deceptive and immoral means.

Closing Thoughts

Investopedia, a mainstream, and in many ways helpful, provider of investment information, dismisses any notion of the PPT's manipulating markets as conspiracy theory.  As its article on the PPT puts it, "The name PPT was coined by the Washington Post in 1997.  Although the team had a viable purpose when initially created, conspiracy theorists suspected that the team was created to shore up, or even manipulate, the markets."

Now where would anybody get such an absurd idea?  As the quotes above demonstrate, it's not whackadoo weirdo conspiracy theorists who are the ones talking about the PPT's market manipulations, it's of the most mainstream, most connected, most market savvy voices out there who believe this.  

If the PPT is, in fact, manipulating financial markets, and it is the conviction of this author that this is what is happening, the PPT and its constituent organizations such as the US Treasury Department and the Fed are guilty of violating any number of Biblical and Constitutional principles of government.

The origins of the Fed and of the ESF should immediately alert anyone jealous of his liberty that these groups are up to no good.  The Fed's origin can be traced to a secretive meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia in November 1910.  The ESF was created by open fraud on the part of Congress and the Roosevelt administration with the cooperation of the previously mentioned Federal Reserve.

The Bible demands open meetings, but the Fed and the ESF love the darkness and will not come to the light,  lest their evil deeds be exposed. 

Such agencies, based as they are on lies and theft, never can bring forth good fruit.  As Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, "A bad tree bears bad fruit."  And if the Fed and the ESF work evil on their own, what shall we expect when they combine forces in the PPT? 

Is it much of a stretch to suppose that such agencies, having worked financial evil on their own, would produce even more evil when they combine forces as part of the PPT? 

Should Americans expect transparency and honesty from such bad actors?  Or would it be more reasonable to expect that they, like the rulers of the Gentiles in Jesus' day, would "lord it over" the people.

In the opinion of this writer, the answer very obviously is the latter.  And one of the ways these organizations "lord it over" the American people is to continually give them a false picture of the real economy by rigging markets to support the official narrative that everything in the economy is awesome, that the stock and bond markets are safe and stable and the best places for your money, and that you should never consider being so foolish as to put your money elsewhere such as gold and silver.    

This official rosy scenario was encapsulated in Janet Yellen's comment in June 2017 when she said that another 2008 like financial crisis is not likely "in our lifetime."

To this I would reply, that really depends on whose lifetime you're talking about.

(To be continued...)

"There's no price discovery anymore in the market...governments impose prices on the market."

- Dr. Pippa Malmgren, former member of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets

When I began writing this series on the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC), the 10th anniversary of which we marked last month, it seemed best to provide the reader with some context.

After all, we're marking the 10th anniversary of the event, which for many people seems like ancient history already.  So there's that.  But more importantly, to really understand the GFC and the Great American Bailout of 2008, a little history certainly helps provides some perspective. 

The crash of 2008 did not happen in a vacuum.  Rather, it was the inevitable result of prior decisions, some of which could be traced back to the 1987 Black Monday crash that wiped out over 22 percent of the value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average in a single day. 

Other contributing factors could be traced further back to the  1920's and 1930's, the years immediately preceding and following the stock market crash of 1929.  Just as the 1920's roared in large part due to excessive money printing by the Federal Reserve,  the party ended in 1929 when the Fed, attempting to reduce the money supply that had created a financial bubble, instead crashed the stock market. 

The 1930's saw unprecedented governmental regulation of the financial markets and of the economy in general, the effect of which was to prolong the  economic misery far longer than was necessary.  During that decade, economist John Maynard Keynes supplied the needed intellectual justification for all this governmental regulatory interference in his 1936 book titled The General Theory.

In Keynes twisted world, it was savers who were causing all the problems in the industrialized economies of the West.  What was needed was more debt.  And if people wouldn't go into debt on their own volition, then their governments needed to step up and do the spending for them. 

Finally, one could trace the 2008 crisis back to the progressive era of the early 20th century, specifically, the creation of the Federal Reserve in the United States. 

For the purpose of this series, it is not my intention to cover the creation of the Fed, the Great Depression or Keynesian economics in great detail.  For our purposes, it is sufficient to note them here.  Lord willing, I hope to address these topics in future series. 

In last week's installment, we left off discussing the October 1987 stock market crash, an event that has come to  be known as Black Monday.

As part of our discussion, we noted that on the Tuesday following the big Monday crash, things were looking pretty shaky for major US markets.  But just when things looked their worst, an event occurred which some observers described as almost miraculous, a huge and unexpected rally in the futures market that jump started a rally in the major market indices.   

Some attributed the rally, "to a mysterious burst of bullish sentiment."  Such an explanation seems strained to this author.  Why, in the midst of the worst market crash in history would there be a "bust of bullish sentiment."  One of the basic rules of stock trading is to avoid attempting "to catch a falling knife."'  If the market's tanking, let it tank and buy once it appears a bottom has formed.

More realistic is  the view of some traders who chalked up the rally to manipulation of the futures market by a few major firms. 

Although the article from which I drew this history, a Pulitzer Prize winning piece from the Wall Street Journal, did not specifically mention governmental or central bank intervention, it is the opinion of this author that ultimately it was the federal government in conjunction with the Fed that "saved" the day.    

One of the reasons for my opinion is Executive Order 12631 which was signed by then President Ronald Reagan in March 1988, just a few short months after the big crash of October 1987.  It established what is officially known as the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, a group better known by its more informal name, the Plunge Protection Team. 

It is to this Executive Order that we now turn our attention.

Yes, Virginia, There Is a Plunge Protection Team

For many people who follow financial markets, the existence and activities of the Plunge Protection Team (PPT) are considered something of a conspiracy theory. 

If someone were to go on a major financial channel and state that the government is manipulating the financial markets by means of the PPT, he would be greeted with howls of laughter in much the same way as if he'd announced he'd just returned from being beamed up to an alien mother ship where he'd visited with Elvis. 

In other words, to speak of the PPT is to court being labeled a tin foil hat wearing whackadoo.  If you don't believe me, check out this 2008 clip from CNBC. 

Taken in the midst of the GFC, most of the six (six!) CNBC commentators can barely contain their disdain for their one loan guest who dares suggest the PPT was involved in a couple of big ramp ups in the S&P during October 2008. 

   <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/X06kz9dzXho" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

There are several noteworthy comments made by the CNBC crew.  I've listed the times of each comment for your convenience.

0:56 - One of the commentators makes a weak attempt to refute the guest by suggesting he had his days mixed up.  Scott Nations, the man making the claims that the PPT had interfered in the S&P on 10/10 and 10/28 2008, had said that 10/10 was on a Friday.  The CNBC host can be heard saying, "that was Thursday, right?" She comes back again at the 1:16 mark and asks the question again. 

The answer is no, it was not a Thursday.  10/10/2008 was on a Friday, just as the guest said it was.  He wasn't confused at all. 

1:30 - Bank of America Chief Economist Mickey Levy makes an appearance.  He shakes his head and grins when asked if the government's out there manipulating the market.  His response to this question is, "Absolutely not," and calls a discussion of this "silly."

3:30 - Guest Scott Nations asks the skeptical CNBC crew for their explanation of two shocking and unexplained moves up in the S&P index on 10/10 and 10/28.  None of the smirking hosts rises to the challenge.

3:51 - CNBC host Joe Kernan raises the question of the 3:51 mark whether legislation would be needed for the government in intervene in the markets.  Skeptical host Steve Liesman admits, "No, I suppose they [the government] could do that." Indeed they could.

4:22 - Perhaps most disappointing are the comments by Rick Santelli.  Santelli is one of the few individuals on CNBC who seems to be relatively sound in his views on economics and politics, but he falls into mocking the claims of the guest as though his claims about the PPT were the stuff of tabloid headlines. 

4:56 - Veteran UBS Director of Floor Operations Art Cashin seems to almost dismiss the very existence of the PPT.   After Joe Kernan likens belief in the PPT as the stuff of conspiracy theory,  Cashin replies that talk of the PPT is "black helicopter crap."

For those who may not know him, Art Cashin is one of the best known and most respected names on Wall Street, having become a Member of the NYSE in 1964 at the age of 23.  What he says carries weight, which is the likely reason CNBC brought him into the discussion to pile on their badly outnumbered guest. 

It is the opinion of this author that guest Scott Nations was thrown to the lions, as it were, not because he was wrong in what he said, but precisely because he was right. 

As has become more and more apparent in recent years, the job of the mainstream media is not, as many people suppose, to inform the public.  Rather, the MSM serves as the propaganda arm of powerful governmental and private interests - call it the Deep State or the establishment if you will - who want the public as ill-informed and dumbed down as possible, all the better to continue robbing us blind.

If you watched just the above segment on CNBC, you'd come away with the impression that anyone who so much believes in the existence of the PPT is a raving lunatic.  And to suggest that the PPT manipulates markets?  Well, that's simply off the charts madness. 

But the truth is far different.  Not only is the PPT a real government entity, as can easily be shown, but there's ample evidence to suggest that it is used to manipulate financial markets, just like Scott Nations stated in his CNBC interview.

Of course, the existence and the activities of such a group raise troubling moral questions.  By what Constitutional, not to mention, Biblical right does the government interfere in the workings of the free market?  Do not the activities of such a group artificially create winners and losers?  Does not the work of the PPT create market distortions which must be corrected, and will not these corrections be painful?

In short order, the answers are: Government has no right, either Constitutionally or Biblically to intervene in the markets; Yes, the PPT's activities artificially create winners and losers, and the proper term for these activities is theft; Yes, the PPT distorts the market in ways that will require a painful correction at some point.   

(To be continued...)   

I was talking to my stockbroker today and I said, "Waiter!"

- Jay Leno, October 1987

Jay Leno's opening joke on the Tonight Show got a huge laugh from the audience, and with good reason.

That may sound a bit odd, but you need to consider the context. You see, his wisecrack came within days of the Monday, October 19, 1987 stock market crash, an event that has come be known as Black Monday.

On that fateful day, the Dow had dropped over 22%, a record one day percentage plunge exceeding even the big one-day percentage plunges that marked the 1929 stock market crash, and people were in the mood for some good comic relief.

To give a sense of what people were thinking at the time, TheStreet ran an article last year marking the 30th anniversary of Black Monday. In his piece, author Michael Brown noted, "Many thought the crash was the start of the next Great Depression and the headlines of the day reflect it."

As it turned out, no Great Depression ensued. In fact, things got back to normal pretty quickly. Today, Black Monday is considered something of a one-off oddity. An interesting piece of investing trivia to be sure, but not something terribly relevant for today.

What does Black Monday have to do with the 2008 financial crisis?

You may be wondering at this point why I'm dragging Black Monday into a discussion of the 2008 financial crisis. What's October 1987 have to do with our current situation?

In the opinion of this author, the answer is quite a lot. Allow me to explain.

A month after Black Monday, James Stewart and Daniel Hertzberg penned a Pulitzer-prize winning article for the Wall Street Journal titled "Terrible Tuesday: How the Stock Market Almost Disintegrated A Day After the Crash."

The focus of their piece was not on Monday plunge, but on the events of the next day, Tuesday, October 20. They opened their article by writing, "A month ago today, the New York Stock Exchange died. But within an hour or two, it was raised from the dead."

So just how was the stock market resurrected on Tuesday when all seemed lost? The article's subheadline provides the answer. It reads, "Credit Dried Up for Brokers And Especially Specialists Until Fed Came to Rescue."

Stewart and Herzberg give more details in their article, writing, "Only the intervention of the Federal Reserve, the concerted announcement of corporate stock-buy-back programs, and the mysterious movement - and possible manipulation - of a little-used stock index futures contract saved the markets from total meltdown."

So there you have it. The V-shaped recovery - a "V-shaped" recovery is a term used by financial types when talking about a sharp plunge in value followed by a rapid recovery, so called because the price chart of a stock or stock index goes nearly straight down and then straight back up producing a v-shape on the chart - that occurred after Black Monday was orchestrated by the Federal Reserve System (henceforth, The Fed), which is the name of the Central Bank of the United States.

And just who was it who was running the Fed at the time? It was none other than rookie Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a man then little known but someone who would go on to become perhaps the most famous Fed Chairman of them all.

It is not my intention here is go into great detail about Mr. Greenspan, his previous life as an Ayn Rand devotee and supporter of the gold standard, the philosophical about face he pulled to become counterfeiter in chief during his 18 years as Fed Chairman, and his subsequent attempt to rehabilitate his image following his retirement.

While these are things worth commenting on, for our purposes I would prefer instead to draw your attention to another noteworthy aspect of his career: that of an activist central banker. Many consider Greenspan to be the first of the modern, activist central bankers, the man who set the "gold standard" for central bank interventions in the economy to which today's central bankers look for guidance.

If Stewart and Herzberg are to be believed, it was the Fed under Greenspan's guidance that bailed out the stock market in 1987. In their article, they bring up three principal items that prevented a stock market meltdown following Black Monday, intervention by the fed, a concerted announcement of corporate stock buy-buybacks, and market manipulation.

In the opinion of this author, Stewart and Herzberg may have been more accurate if they had simply mentioned intervention by the Fed which consisted of orchestrated announcements of stock buy-backs and manipulation the stock market behind the scenes through asset purchases.

Since 1987, market intervention by central bankers in concert with governments has grown to the point that one insider has stated flatly, "there's no price discovery anymore by the market...governments impose prices on the market."

Now one may be tempted to reject the idea of central bank and government intervention in financial markets as just a lot of undocumented conspiracy theory with no basis in anything resembling fact.

To this I would respond that not only do central bankers and governments have both the motive and the methods for interfering in financial markets, but the evidence that they do is overwhelming.

[caption id="attachment_4664" align="aligncenter" width="413"] A chart taken from Stewart and Herzber's November 20, 1987 Wall Street Journal article showing the "miraculous" jump in the Major Market Index future contract (circled).  Many believe this was the catalyst for the rapid recover of the stock market from Black Monday's sharp selloff.[/caption]

Take, for example, the 1987 Wall Street Journal article cited above which clearly states the Fed's role in propping up the market.

Later in the same article we find the following,

Tuesday, [October 20, 1987] 12:38 p.m. With the closing of the Big Board [the New York Stock Exchange] seemingly imminent and the market in disarray, with virtually all option and futures trading halted, something happened that some later described as a miracle: In the space of about five or six minutes, the Major Market Index futures contract, the only viable surrogate for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the only major index still trading, staged the most powerful rally in its history. The MMI rose on the Chicago Board of Trade from a discount of nearly 60 points to a premium of about 12 points. Because each point represents about five in the Industrial average, the rally was the equivalent of a lightening-like 360-point rise in the Dow. Some believe that this extraordinary move set the stage for the salvation of the world's markets.

How it happened is a matter of conjecture on Wall Street. Some attribute it to a mysterious burst of bullish sentiment that suddenly swept the markets. Some knowledgeable traders have a different interpretation: They think that the MMI futures contract was deliberately manipulated by a few major firms as part of a desperate attempt to boost the Dow and save the markets (emphasis mine).

...statistics supplied by the Board of Trade lend circumstantial support to the thesis that the index was driven upward by a small number of sophisticated buyers...

...the market got another important psychological boost: the announcement of stock buybacks by major corporations...

..."It looks like there's almost a get-together on the part of corporate America to prop up the market," Stanley Abel, a consultant specializing in buybacks, observed that day.

...On Wednesday, Americans woke to newspaper headlines proclaiming the largest rise in the Dow's history

Note how the sudden rise in the MMI index is explained by some as a "Mysterious burst of bullish sentiment." As with theology, so with finance, when someone starts talking about "mysteries," one would do well to be skeptical.

No profit seeking trader in his right mind would plow money into a futures market while the entire financial system was locking up. In trader's lingo, doing this is like catching a falling knife. It's best just to let the knife fall and pick it up once it's hit the floor.

In the opinion of this author, the traders had it right. The Major Market Index contract was manipulated up, almost certainly with the Fed and/or the Exchange Stabilization Fund supplying the capital for the purchases.

Going back to the question I posed earlier, What does Black Monday have to do with the 2008 financial crisis?

I would answer the question this way. There's an old saying, you can't tell just one lie. Tell a lie, and you'll find you have to cover it up with another lie, then another, then another.

And as with lies, so it is with market interventions. You can't do just one. One intervention inevitable begets another intervention. And not only that, but as with lies, the market interventions must get bigger the longer they go on.

Interfere in the financial markets and you'll soon find you have a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on. But at the same time, you can't let go either. It's not an enviable place to be.

This is the import of the Terrible Tuesday interventions for our current situation. It is the contention of this author that the massive interference of the Fed and possibly other government entities in the 1987 stock market crash set the precedent for, and indeed required, the increasingly large interventions that follow in the years leading up to 2008, and indeed which continue to the present moment.

The Bible tells us "Thou shalt not bear false witness" and "Thou shalt not steal." These are commands of God, part of the summary of the moral law contained in the Ten Commandments. And these commands apply to all men everywhere at all times, central bankers and government officials receive no special exception.

It is the contention of this author that by interfering in markets to make them appear better than what they are, central bankers and government officials are lying to the public. Further, their clandestine use of public funds to effect these market manipulations are nothing other than theft.

But there's an even more fundamental problem here than just lying and stealing by central bankers and the politicians who love them.

The more fundamental issue is the immorality of central banking itself.

It is not this author's contention that things would be better if only we had better, more honest central bankers. It is this author's contention that central banking - all of it, both in theory and in practice- has no warrant in Scripture, no warrant in the Constitution and represents perhaps the most serious threat to the remaining liberties of the American people and the citizens of other Western nations of any institution in the modern world.

Not only does central banking create artificial distortions in the economy, distortions which enrich the well-connected few at the expense of the many, but it enables the growth of government, both of the welfare state and of the warfare state, to a degree that would be impossible in a system of honest money.

Lord willing, next week we shall trace the activities of the Fed, specifically its increasing interference in the financial markets in the years between 1987 and 2008, showing how the activities of Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke and others set the stage for the 2008 financial crisis, the after effects of which continue to envelope the United States and the West, and for that matter, the entire world to this present day.

"I just lost $30,000," replied the shaken caller after a long pause.

It was the fall of 2008, and I had just started work for a large financial services firm as a 401(k) telephone representative.  Little did I know when I took the job a few months earlier that the US, and much of the Western, world, was on the cusp of what many would come to view as the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930's. 

The Dow and S&P both were selling off hard, day after day, week after week.  People were scared. 

Many of the panicked calls that I took were people who wanted to know what the balance of their 401(k) account.  In some ways, this struck me as a bit odd.  After all, it was 2008 and the internet had established itself as a staple of American life over a decade earlier.  "Why don't these people just go online?," I wondered to myself.

In retrospect, perhaps one reason people called was that, rather than just watch as the computer screen displayed years of hard won retirement savings evaporate as the morning dew, they just wanted to talk to someone.  That's certainly understandable.

Ten years on, much of the American public thinks of the 2008 crisis, if they think about it at all, as a ancient history.  Just last week, the Dow hit a new record high and seems to be headed higher still. 

President Trump tweeted out back in June, "In many ways this is the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America and the best time EVER to look for a job!"

American consumers seem to agree.  According to the August results from The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, consumer confidence is closing in on a new record high. The record of 144.7 set in May 2000 is just a chip shot away from the August 2018 reading of 133.4.  Considering that the Consumer Confidence Index dates back to 1967 and that this is a widely watch data series, a new record high in this index would represent a significant achievement. 

If we look at the employment picture, everything appears to be headed in the right direction as well.  The Washington Post reported in May, one suspects a bit grudgingly, that The U.S. now has a record 6.6 million job openings.  

According to the article by Heather Long, "The United States now has a job opening for every unemployed person in the country, a sign of just how far the nation has turned around from the recession that cost so many Americans their jobs nearly a decade ago."

Signs of economic success are so abundant that, as CNBC reports, "[Former] President Barak Obama has entered credit-taking mode on the economy."  

Politicians aren't the only ones talking victory laps either.  Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner - the principal architects of the 2008 bailout of the financial system - gathered earlier this month at a forum in Washington D.C. to justify their actions of ten years ago.

According to CNBC's report, "We stepped in before the banks had collapsed and we did some things to fix the financial system which are very hard to explain because they are objectionable things," Paulson said.  "In the United States of America there's a fundamental sense of fairness that the American people have. ...You don't want to reward the arsonist."

"However," the article continues, "they [Bernanke, Paulson, and Geithner] said doing nothing would have caused the economy to capsize.  They acknowledged that some of the terms were distasteful, but they were necessary given the options at hand."

In essence, the big three argued that they had to do evil that good might come, a line of thinking condemned in the Scriptures but one that is all too commonly used by vested political and financial interests in midst of financial crises to convince a wary the public to go along with their latest scheme to enrich themselves at the people's expense.

Indeed the moderator of this forum was Andrew Ross Sorkin, who, as the CNBC article notes, wrote the 2010 book Too Big To Fail, The inside story of how Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial system - and themselves.  described as a chronicle of the 2008 crisis from the inside.  I have not read this book, but the subtitle does, I think, let the cat out of the bag on the true motives of the bailout.

Unlike the unctuous self-justifications of JP Morgan's CEO Jamie Dimon, who recently argued that JP Morgan's actions during the financial crisis were done "to support our country and the financial system," Sorkin's subtitle at least admits the too big to fail meme was all about bankers and politicians saving themselves, not the country.

This is not to fault politicians and bankers for having a sense of self-preservation.  The Scriptures tell us that no man ever yet hated his own flesh, and this certainly includes those who run the political and financial systems. 

No.  The fault of bankers and politicians is not in their having a sense of self-preservation, it's that they lie and steal to get what they want.

In capitalism, in a free market economy, in a nation governed by the rule of law, there is no such thing as too big to fail.  In capitalism, banks have a God given right to make money...and a God given right to lose it. 

But in our decadent, late stage of empire society, dominated as it is by crony capitalists and their supporting cast of politicians, the Wall Street masters of the universe believe themselves entitled to never ending profits, while losses, well, those are for the little people to bear.

It is the opinion of this author that the intertwined political and financial systems of this country, rather than reflecting anything remotely like a Christian ethic, have become the embodiment of what Jesus talked about when he took his disciples to school for their arguing about who was the greatest. 

According to Jesus, "The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship [lord it over] them, and those who exercise authority over them are called 'benefactors. ' "

It would be impossible to find a better description of the words of Bernanke, Paulson, Geithner and Dimon than these.  First, they conspired to rip off the American taxpayer by forcing machinations such as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) through Congress as well as the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing (QE) program, about which the American people had no say at all, since it was decided upon by the Federal Reserve, an unelected body, paid for by private banking interests, that does not answer to the public. 

TARP and QE were tools of a corrupt and inept financial and political elite, which they used to keep themselves ensconced in power at the expense of ordinary Americans.  To put it another way, they lorded their power over the American people. 

And, as if that weren't bad enough, they then have the gall to turn around and act as if their actions were for the good of the country rather than for themselves.  That is to say, they claim that, in the end, they're really our "benefactors."

And if you think the QE and TARP from 2008 is the end of the bailout road, think again.  Wall Street Insiders reports that during the forum mentioned above, Tim Geithner, "called the effort to combat financial instability a 'forever war.' "  So we have more bailouts to look forward to.  Strangely, this rhetoric is similar to what the advocates of the Global War on Terror say about their efforts, which today have proven largely ineffective. 

Question, if your war on terror, financial instability or whatever has no end in sight, doesn't that suggest you don't know what you're doing?  Can anyone imagine George S. Patton saying such a thing?  Just asking.

Enough of this nonsense!

It is the contention of this author that, contrary to all the self-congratulatory talk about how well the economy is doing, there are abundant signs that all is not well in the US economy.  In fact, one could even argue that we're in the midst of a slow-motion crash, but one that is concealed from public view by money printing, market manipulation and propaganda, what one market observer has called Management of Perspective Economics (MOPE).

Further, it is this author's contention that, not only have the machinations of the political and financial elite not helped to bring stability to the financial system, they actually are the cause the current instability and all but guarantee a future crisis far bigger than the one in 2008. 

Lord willing, it is my intention over the next few weeks to bring the light of Scripture to the 2008 financial crisis.  It is my hope to take a look at what was done then, where we are now, and where we're headed as a result of the decisions that have been made.     

So the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, "[There is] still one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may inquire of the LORD; but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil" (1 Kings 22:8).

The First Amendment deals with the issues of free speech and the freedom of religion.  It's not an accident that these two concepts are linked.  For Christianity, and it was Christianity that the framers of the Constitution had in mind, is a religion of the Word.  "How can they hear without a preacher?" was Paul's rhetorical question to the Romans.  The obvious answer is that unless men are free to preach the Gospel, sinners never will hear of salvation by belief alone in Christ Jesus. 

Christianity's emphasis that salvation comes only by understanding, and agreeing with, the propositions of Scripture, requires that men be able to speak that truth freely.  Hence it is every Christian's concern that the liberty to speak and to discuss the Word of God not be inhibited by legal restrictions. 

And because Christians are commanded to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated, one of the implications of Christianity is that all should enjoy to right to freely discuss their ideas without fear of legal sanction.  In a Christian society, there are no such things as thought crimes.  We leave that mistaken notion to the Marxists, the fascists, and other authoritarians.

Christianity is not, as the ACLU would like you to believe, hostile to free speech.  Rather, it is it's only source and guarantor. 

Because free speech is both an implication of Christianity and necessary to its propagation, the maintenance of free and open discussion is of great importance to Christians.  Likewise, when free speech is threatened, it is incumbent upon Christians to come to its defense. If, when the free speech comes under attack, Christians remain silent, we do so, not only to our shame, but to our own harm as well.

It is with these thoughts in mind that I undertook to write about the deplatforming of Alex Jones and other prominent conservative and libertarian thinkers last week, and it is why I'm writing about it again this week.  Whatever one may think of Alex Jones, Mark Dice, Diamond and Silk, Daniel McAdams and Peter Van Buren - whether you love them, hate them, or never watch them, it matters not - the fact that these individuals and others have been the targets of an apparently coordinated attack by Big Tech is a matter of great concern. 

If Christians stand by and say nothing while Apple, Spotify, Facebook, and Twitter deplatform Alex Jones simply because they don't like what he says, they should not be surprised when these same organizations target them for deplatforming at some point in the future when it becomes politically expedient to do so.

Now, some may argue that these are private companies, and private companies have the right to regulate what is said on their own platforms.  I agree.  But that said, I am also of the opinion that there is more to this situation than private businesses simply running their social media platforms in the way they see fit. 

A strong circumstantial case can be made that the deplatforming of conservative and libertarian voices - a deplatforming that has been going on for some time and one which has recently picked up steam - is really a joint venture of between privately owned social media enterprises and the Deep State, the permanent, unelected government that largely runs the country the way it wants to, regardless of what politicians happen to be in power.

Lord willing, I shall make that case in a future installment.  But for today, I'd like to dig a bit deeper into the Scriptures to show just how strong the Biblical support for free speech is.

Examples from the kings of Israel and Judah

"You are the man!" These were the crushing words of Nathan the prophet when he confronted King David with his sins of adultery and murder. 

David is described in the pages of Scripture as a man after God's own heart.  But as students of the Bible know well, David almost inexplicably fell into deep sin, committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband, Uriah the Hittite, murdered to cover up his sin. 

But when the Lord sent David's friend Nathan to confront him, what was David's reaction?  Did David say, "How dare you speak to me this way!  Don't you know who I am?  Why, I'm the Lord's anointed!  Off with your head!"?

No, he did not.  What was his reaction to Nathan's words?  Scripture tells us, "So David said to Nathan, 'I have sinned against the LORD' " (2 Samuel 12:13). 

David did not punish  the prophet for confronting him with his sin.  That is to say, David believed in free speech.  In fact, it almost seems as if David were relieved that Nathan said what he did, for David repented of his egregious sins and was forgiven by God. 

Another incident from David's career is illustrative as well.  When David was on the run from Absalom,  a certain Shimei came out to curse him while he and his men were travelling.  As Shimei cursed, one of David's men spoke up and said, "Why should this dead dog curse my lord the king?  Please, let me go over and take off his head!"  To which David responded, "So let him curse." 

David could easily have put an end to the cursing but did not.  As the Scripture reports, "And as David and his men went along the read, Shimei went along the hillside opposite him and cursed as he went, threw stones at him and kicked up dust" (2 Samuel 16:13). 

Shimei, it would seem, put on quite a show.  Yet David let it go on.  Not that he couldn't have ended it any time he wanted.  But David perceived that the Lord had ordered Shimei to do what he did and accepted the rebuke. Once again, David supported free speech.

David, of course, was not the only Hebrew king to be confronted by one of the prophets.  But not all of them reacted the same way David did.  Some repented, others became enraged that anyone would dare question their authority.

In fact, the reaction of a king to prophetic criticism, that is to say, the degree to which a king supported free speech, could almost be seen as a litmus test for what kind of man he was, whether he was a good and godly king, or a scoundrel. 

Consider the quote at the top of this post.  The quoted words are those of King Ahab of Israel, who, as the Scriptures tell us, "did evil in the sight of the LORD, more than all who were before him" (1 Kings 16:25).

And as we would expect from a man who despised the Word of God, unsurprisingly, Ahab also had a problem with free speech.  Unlike David, Ahab did not, in general, react well when confronted with speech that contradicted him.

For example, Ahab openly expressed his hatred for the prophet Micaiah.  And why did Ahab hate Micaiah?  Ahab tells us plainly it was Micaiah's prophesying against him. 

Micaiah was already in jail when Ahab expressed his hatred for the prophet to Jehoshaphat.  We don't know exactly the reason Micaiah was locked up, but, given Ahab's words, it likely was due to something the prophet had said to Ahab on an earlier occasion. 

When Ahab finally did drag Micaiah out of prison, so he could weigh in on Ahab's plans to attack Syria, the prophet foretold Ahab's defeat and death.

And what was Ahab's reaction to the bad news?  "Put this fellow in prison, and feed him with bread of affliction and water of affliction" (1 Kings 22:27).

Ahab, unlike David, did not believe in free speech.  In Ahab's eyes, Micaiah had committed a crime by not telling the king what he wanted to hear and was deserving of punishment. 

As a follow up, when King Jehoshaphat, a godly man and Ahab's ally, returned to Jerusalem after the military debacle against Syria, he too was confronted by a prophet named Jehu.  Jehu said to the king, "Should you help the wicked and love those who hate the LORD?  Therefore the wrath of the LORD is upon you.  Nevertheless good things are found in you, in that you have removed the wooden images from the land, and have prepared your heart to seek God" (2 Chronicles 19:2,3). 

Scripture does not record Jehoshaphat's reaction to these words of rebuke, but given the overall positive view that Scripture takes of his reign, the most reasonable conclusion is that he accepted the words of the prophet and repented. 

King Ahab's wife, the remarkably wicked Queen Jezebel, didn't believe in free speech either.  For it was she who killed the prophets of the Lord.  Those who survived her purge did so as a result of the faithful actions of Obadiah (1 Kings 18:13). 

Or consider the case of King Jeroboam of Israel.  He's the one who instituted idolatry as the state religion of the Northern Kingdom.  When the king had set up a golden calf and was prepared to burn incense on an altar he had built, Scripture tells us that a man of God confronted the king and prophesied against him. 

Jeroboam reacted by calling for his arrest.  Clearly, Jeroboam did not believe in free speech.  It should come as no surprise, either, that his reign is viewed in the pages of Scripture as decidedly negative.  The Bible tells us, "After these event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but gain he made priests from every class of people for the high places; whoever wished, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places.  And this thin was the sin of the house of Jeroboam, so as to exterminate and destroy it from the face of the earth" (1 Kings 33, 34).

Worth noting here is that Jeroboam not only disdained free speech, but he also violated the principle of the separation of powers as established in the Law of Moses.  According to the Law, priests only were to sacrifice to God, but Jeroboam did not hesitate to combine the role of priest with his role as king. 

If we were to couch this in constitutional terms, we would say that Jeroboam did not respect the separation of church and state as required in the Antiestablishment clause of the First Amendment.

In effect, evil King Jeroboam trashed both major provisions of the First Amendment, if I may use such an anachronism.  In the first place he prohibited free speech in that he called for the arrest of the prophet sent by God to rebuke him, and in the second in that he involved the civil government in religion in a way that was unlawful.

One last example of the attack on free speech in the Old Testament is worth exploring, the case of Jeremiah.  Jeremiah exercised his prophetic ministry in the final years of the Southern Kingdom.  It was a troubled time for Judah and Jerusalem, as the specter of coming the Babylonian captivity casts its shadow across the pages of the book that bears the prophets name.  Jeremiah's message was as simple as it was unpopular with the power brokers in Judah:  Surrender to the Babylonians and it will go well with you; Resist, and you will die.

Scripture records at least two serious attempts to deplatform and kill Jeremiah during his ministry.  After preaching a particularly unpopular sermon in the court yard of the temple, Scripture tells us, "So the priests and the prophets and all the people heard Jeremiah speaking these words in the house of the LORD.  Now it happened, when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking all that the LORD had commanded him to speak, to all the people, that the priests and the prophet and the people seized him, saying,  'You will surely die!  Why have you prophesied in the name of the LORD, saying, 'This house shall be like Shiloh, and this city shall be desolate, without an inhabitant'?' And all the people were gathered against Jeremiah in the house of the LORD."  The princes of Judah also piled on Jeremiah, saying, "This man deserves to die!  For he has prophesied against this city, as you have heard with your ears" (Jeremiah 26:7-9, 11).  Jeremiah was able just barely to avoid his deplatforming and death, when he convinced the people and the princes and the elders that he spoke for the LORD. 

Some of the elders even cited an earlier example in Judah's history when a prophet named Micah of Moresheth prophesied the destruction of Zion in the days of Hezekiah.  These elders asked, "Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah ever put him to death?"  The answer was, of course not.  Hezekiah was a righteous king and his tolerance for unpopular speech is evidence of his faith. "Did he [Hezekiah] not fear the LORD and seek the LORD's favor?," asked the elders. 

Some time later, after Jeremiah had been imprisoned, the prophet was faced with a second serious attempt on his life.  The princes of Judah complained to the king that Jeremiah's message of "defect to the Babylonians and you shall live!" was weakening he resolve of the men defending Jerusalem and demanded, "Please, let this man be put to death."  King Zekediah agreed to turn Jeremiah over to the princes, who lowered him into a well, and leaving him there to die. Jeremiah survived this second deplatforming attempt when an Ethiopian court eunuch organized a rescue party to pull him out. 

It's been said that the principle of free speech does not exist to enable us to talk about the weather.  Free speech is about protecting unpopular speech.  Today we looked at a few examples from the Old Testament and found that the godly kings did not punish the prophets who brought bad, that is to say, unpopular news, but rather supported their right to speak the truth.  These kings supported free speech and didn't believe in shooting the messenger.  Wicked kings, on the other hand, would go to extreme measures to silence their critics.  In this respect they acted very much like liberal critics in the mainstream media, in government and the heads of Big Tech companies.  These individuals prefer to silence alternate viewpoints by deplatforming their critics rather than fairly debate the issues with them.

This attitude, so prevalent among academics, government officials and Big Tech executive represents a toxic mixture of intellectual cowardice, institutional hubris and power.  It needs to stop. 

Next week, Lord willing, we shall take a look at the implied support of free speech found in the New Testament. 

(To be continued...)

"We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to,"  said then President Obama in Pittsburgh in October 2016. 

The President continued, "There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in anything that's actually happening in the world."

In the opinion of this author, those are some of the most chilling words any president has ever spoken.  In all but name, Obama called for the government to establish a 1984 style ministry of truth.  Perhaps more chilling, not many people took notice or seemed to care.  

Perhaps the lack of attention could be chalked up to the timing of Obama's remarks, made, as they were, less than a month before the most contentious presidential election in recent memory.

In light of the events of the last two years, and especially those of last week, a week that saw the coordinated takedown of Alex Jones by the biggest social media platforms, it's this author's contention that Obama's statement ought to be seen as a declaration of war by the deep state on internet free speech. 

Now someone may say, "I don't like Alex Jones, he's just so over the top."  Others, perhaps who aren't into social media or who don't follow politics or economics or just aren't into alternate news sources, may yawn and think this has nothing to do with them.

Christians, particularly American Christians, concerned as they ought to be with maintaining freedom of religion may be tempted to pass over Jones' very public, Big Tech deplatforming as having no direct bearing on their ability to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ or to openly worship. 

But it is the contention of this author that ignoring what happened to Jones would be a serious mistake for anyone, Christian or not, who cherishes liberty, limited government, and the ability to think and to speak freely and without fear of punishment, either from the civil authorities or key private institutions.

So just what was done to Alex Jones last week that prompted this essay?  For that matter, who is Alex Jones and why should Christians care about what happened to him?

According to a piece on ThinkProgress, "Alex Jones was dealt a series of blows on Monday when Apple and Spotify decided to remove nearly all of Infowar's podcasts, and Facebook banned several of his pages." These bans followed the lead of YouTube, which just a few days earlier pulled all of Jones' Infowars channels except The Real News with David Knight.

As seems to be the standard operation procedure with such bans, the reasons given by the tech companies were rather vague.  The article continues with a comment from an Apple spokesman who is quoted saying, "Podcasts that violate these [hate speech] guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming." 

In a post explaining its actions against Jones, Facebook said, "Earlier today, we removed four Pages belonging to Alex Jones for repeatedly posting content over the past several days that breaks those Community Standards."  As with Apple, we see a vague reference to "Community Standards" and "hate speech" but no specific examples of what was said that prompted Facebook's act of removing the Infowars pages or explanation of why these statements were so egregious that they required the banning in the first place.    

But lest one suppose that Infowars is uniquely the target of big tech tyrants, there have been many other casualties, not just last week, but over the past two years since Obama's call for "truthiness tests."

For example, in an email to supporters of the Ron Paul Institute, Executive Director Daniel McAdams related his recent experience of being banned from Twitter for having the audacity to tweet support for a friend whose Twitter account had been permanently banned.

For those unfamiliar with McAdams, alone with being Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute, he's a former Congressional staffer for Ron Paul and Ron Paul's co-host on the daily Ron Paul Liberty Report.  From my observation, Mr. McAdams, far from being over the top or deliberately provocative, conducts himself as a gentleman and a scholar, none of which prevented him from feeling the wrath the masters of the Twitter universe.

McAdams' Twitter account has since been restored, but the restoration came with an odd, Orwellian twist to it.  McAdams wrote,

Twitter also did something to Scott [McAdam's is referencing Scott Horton, Horton, a libertarian writer, also was banned for voicing his support for fellow libertarian Peter Van Buren,  the same thing that got McAdams in hot water] and me that was positively Stalinist: when we tried to log in to our [Twitter] account while suspended, we were greeted with our "offending" Tweets, the message was clear:  you must admit how wrong you were and remove it yourself.  I told a colleague about this strange demand and his response was chilling...and accurate:

That's giving the game away for them, Stalin face, deniability for them by making you self incriminate...communitarian policing to the extreme, psychological reframing, behaviorist modification...just like they would do to a child in school.

Neither Scott nor I bit.

The suppression of accounts, which seems to happen only to conservatives and libertarians, rarely if ever to socialists, is not limited to outright deletion.  It's not uncommon for social media platforms to engage in the practice of shadow banning. 

So just what is shadow banning?  Let's quote one of the leading experts on the practice, Twitter itself.  "The best definition we found is this:  deliberately making someone's content undiscoverable to everyone except the person who posted it, unbeknownst to the original poster."  

According to Vice News, Twitter had engaged in the practice of shadow banning, not on various fringe personalities, but on some of the biggest names in the Republican party.  On July 26, Vice reported that "Twitter appears to have fixed search problems that lowered visibility of GOP lawmakers."

So who were these lawmakers?  "Those affected included RNC [Republican National Committee] Chair Ronna McDaniel, Republican Reps. Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, along with Andrew Surabian, Donald Trump Jr.'s spokesman and former Special Assistant to the President."

These are not by any means obscure individuals, but some of the most powerful and best known Republicans.  Twitter claims that the problem with the accounts was "a side effect attempts to clean up discourse on its platform." 

The Vice article goes on to describe the shadow ban technique used on the Republicans as "[A] shift that diminishes their reach on the platform - and it's the same one being deployed against prominent racists to limit their visibility.  The profiles continue to appear when conducting a full search, but not in the more convenient and visible drop-down bar."

What is more, the supposed "side effect" of Twitter's efforts was limited to Republicans only, as there were no reports of this happening to Democrats.  As Vice notes, "Democrats are not being 'shadow banned' in the same way, according to a VICE News review.  McDaniel's counterpart, Democratic Party chair Tom Perez, and liberal members of Congress - including Reps. Maxine Waters [in what came close to a call for physical violence against Trump administration officials, Maxine Waters recently called on her supports to "push back" on Trump staffers if they saw them in public], Joe Kennedy III, Keith Ellison, and Mark Pocan - all continue to appear in drop-down search results.  Not a single member of the 78-person Progressive Caucus faces the same situation in Twitter's search." 

To make matters worse, Twitter responded to criticism of its practice of shadow banning by issuing a denial that sounded a whole lot more like an admission of guilt.  Said Twitter, "We do not shadow ban.  You are always able to see the tweets from accounts you follow (although you may have to do more work to find them, like go directly to their profile).  And we certainly don't shadow ban based on political viewpoints or ideology."

But what is shadow banning if not making people "do more work to find" tweets by those out of favor with the powers that be?

And Twitter's denial that they shadow ban based on political viewpoints seems threadbare in the face of Vice News' findings reported above.

And, oh yeah, Vice News, far from being a conservative bastion,  is a liberal publication. With that in mind, their reporting that prominent Democrats were not subjected to the same treatment as their Republican counterparts can be seen as an admission against interest.

But as notable as the above deplatformings are, they are not the only examples of the tech left bringing down its heavy hammer on those who dare voice opinions at odds with the received government / mainstream media narrative. 

Trump supporters Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, better known as Diamond and Silk, testified before Congress about how they were censored on Facebook and demonetized on YouTube.

So what did they mean by censored and demonetized?  In the case of Facebook, the sisters claim that, beginning in September 2017, their 1.4 million followers stopped being notified about new posts.  This is similar to Twitter's shadow bans in that, while Facebook allowed Diamond and Silk to post content, they made it harder for people to access their content. 

As for the charge of demonetization, that's something YouTube does to videos its algorithms are programmed to recognize as "not advertiser friendly," that is to say, videos by conservatives and libertarians that challenge the liberal mainstream media news narrative, are actually interesting, and attract a large audience of unfashionable people sporting unfashionable opinions, who have the audacity to ask unfashionable questions of their supposed betters.  That is to say, videos liked by the dreaded deplorables. 

To demonetize a video means YouTube makes it ineligible for advertisers to sponsor it.  Since YouTube content providers receive advertising revenue from the ads that run on their videos, YouTube is depriving popular YouTubers of advertising revenue when their videos are flagged as not being advertiser friendly.

During their Congressional testimony, USA Today reports that Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee questioned Diamond and Silk on what role Congress could have in telling private entities how to manage their platforms.

Good grief! Since when did the Democrats ever see any successful private entity they didn't want to tax and regulate into the ground?  And now, when YouTube is doing their dirty work of censoring their opponents for them, suddenly we're to believe they've had an epiphany, having discovered wonders of laissez faire economics and limited government?  What hypocrisy! Spare me!

For some of the best, not to mention most entertaining, Congressional testimony you'll ever see, check out this video from Mark Dice which shows Diamond and Silk unloading on Congressman Hank Johnson (D, GA).   

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DgehKvd25lc" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

And speaking of Mark Dice, he's another YouTuber and one of the biggest voices among alternate media conservatives.  He has 1.3 million followers on YouTube, yet routinely has his videos demonetized, considered as they are by YouTube, not advertiser friendly.

So how have conservatives responded to all this cyber harassment?  In many cases, not well at all. 

Echoing the Congressional Democrats, one inadequate conservative response has been to take the position that, since Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et. al. are private companies, their decision to ban Jones, Diamond and Silk, Mark Dice and others is simply an example of private businesses exercising their property rights.  Therefore, no one has the right to complain.  The message?  Just stop complaining, shut up and go start your own version of Facebook already!

In an op-ed piece in the New York Times last week, establishment conservative and never-Trumper David French said as much when he took issue, not with the tech left's banning of Alex Jones, but they way in which they did it.  The "loathsome" Jones and his "loathsome" content should be banned, says French, but Twitter, Facebook and YouTube got it all wrong by booting him for hate speech.  They should have deep sixed him on the basis of libel and slander laws.  

One major problem with French's position is that, as Lord willing I hope to develop next week, one can make a strong circumstantial case that the selective banning of conservative voices is not merely a matter of private companies legally exercising control over their own product, but very likely is the result of their collaboration with the deep state.  In other words, the Big Tech's jihad against conservatives is really a case of the merger of [deep] state and corporate powers, which is the very definition of fascism.

A second problem with French's position is that, not only does he come off in his New York Times op-ed as a rather snooty movement conservative, it never seems to occur to him that someday he may find himself shadow banned or deplatformed in the same way Alex Jones was, a man for whom French has nothing but contempt.  Perhaps Mr. French needs to go back and reread Martin Niemöller's famous poem, First they came...      

Another weak argument used by some conservatives is to say that big tech's censoring of Republicans is a First Amendment issue.  But the First Amendment applies to Congress - Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.  Since Congress has not passed a law abridging free speech on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, arguing on First Amendment grounds seems like an unpromising line of attack.

Finally, there are calls by some to threaten the big techies with antitrust lawsuits.  Admittedly this is tempting, but this would be a mistake.  Not only are antitrust laws a product of the regulatory state which Christians should eschew, but they actually can work in favor of the businesses being regulated. 

As James Corbett argued in a recent video, the tech left's banning of conservatives is part of a larger chess game Corbett refers to as Problem, Reaction, Solution.  Corbett believes that antitrust regulation of big tech will not weaken, but actually strengthen the grip of the current crop of Silicon Valley billionaires on the social media market just as it strengthened John Rockefeller's grip on the oil market 100 years ago. 

Corbett makes a compelling case that the tech left has deliberately provoked conservatives in the hopes that they will react by calling for the one thing the tech industry craves:  government regulation.  And why do they crave regulation?  It helps them stamp out up and coming competition.

One of the most misunderstood aspects of government regulation is that big business actually likes it.  Established big businesses have the resources to cope with regulations in a way that start ups do not.  Government regulations actually act as an entry barrier for entrepreneurs by imposing costs on them at a time when they are most vulnerable and perhaps lacking the legal sophistication and the money to comply with a complex set of laws.

In other words, Facebook and the others are scared of becoming the next My Space or America On Line, as well they should be, and see governmental regulation of the industry as a way to keep this from happening.   And not only that, but they want to trick you into doing the job for them, first by creating a problem, thus provoking you to react, and then helping Congress write the laws that will regulate and protect, not you, but them. 

Now you may be asking yourself, so what does any of this have to do with Christianity.  The answer is, quite a lot.  Christianity is a religion first, not of the deed, but of the Word.  And that Word must be heard to be believed.  If Christians cannot freely write and speak the truth of God's Word, then they are in for serious problems indeed. 

It is not accident that it is Protestant West that pioneered free speech and where it to this day has the most support.  But free speech is under aggressive assault today, and not just from the tech left.  Lord willing, we shall explore this and other related issues in future installments of this series. 

(To be continued...)