Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 26

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Jesus saith unto him, 1 am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. —John 14:6

Devotional:
"I am the way." Though Christ does not give a direct reply to the question put to him, yet he passes by nothing that is useful to be known. It was proper that Thomas' curiosity should be checked; and, therefore, Christ does not explain what would be his condition when he should have departed out of this world to go to the Father, but dwells on a subject far more necessary.

Thomas would gladly have heard what Christ intended to do in heaven, as we never become weary of those intricate speculations; but it is of greater importance to us to employ our study and labor on another inquiry, how we may become partakers of the blessed resurrection.

The statement amounts to this, that whoever obtains Christ is in want of nothing; and therefore that whoever is not satisfied with Christ alone strives after something beyond absolute perfection.

Throwing Down the Gauntlet

Luddite Zealots

Here comes yet another confrontation between the law-abiding and Greenpeace.  West of Taranaki a Greenpeace flotilla is attempting to stop a deep-sea drilling rig commencing exploratory drilling for oil.  As things stand, Greenpeace is currently (and proudly) breaking the law.  This from the NZ Herald:

The scene is set for a skirmish off the North Island's west coast this morning as protest vessels hold fast to Anadarko oil drilling ship the Noble Bob Douglas. Anadarko had intended to begin drilling 185km off the coast of Raglan on Thursday or Friday but has been shadowed by a flotilla of six protest vessels. One, the Vega, remains within the 500m exclusion zone. Among those on board the 11.5m ketch are Greenpeace NZ chief executive Bunny McDiarmid and former Green Party co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons.

This confrontation is a bit more interesting this time around, however.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 25

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. —Matthew 11:28

Devotional:
So we see that our Lord Jesus Christ only calls those who are "heavy laden and travail." Therefore, he excludes all those who slumber in their iniquities, who flatter themselves, or hurl themselves without any fear of God into reckless living. Those who have burst out into evil cannot approach our Lord Jesus; that is certain. For what will bring us to him save the voice by which he invites us?

It is certain that the door is shut to as many as blind themselves with their pride and presumption, who make themselves believe they are righteous in themselves; they cannot hope that our Lord Jesus Christ will bring them any comfort.

Don't Steal--The Government Does Not Like Competition

It's Redistribution, But Not As We Had Thought of It

Quantitative easing has been a massive thievery of ordinary citizens and a redistribution of wealth to the monied classed operating in the financial sector.  A Mckinsey report documents how this has played out in the UK (and in the US, and Europe in general).

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 23

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever. —Isaiah 40:8

Devotional:
"But the word of our God shall stand forever." This passage comprehends the whole Gospel in a few words; for it consists of an acknowledgment of our misery, poverty, and emptiness, that, being sincerely humbled, we may fly to God, by whom alone we shall be perfectly restored. Let not men therefore faint or be discouraged by the knowledge of their nakedness and emptiness; for the eternal word is exhibited to them by which they may be abundantly supported and upheld.

We are likewise taught that we ought not to seek consolation from any other source than from eternity, which ought not to be sought anywhere else than in God; since nothing that is firm or durable will be found on the earth.

The Magic of Free Trade

Mutual Understanding Not Enough

What causes wars?  An almost universal consensus (in the West) is that wars are the result of misunderstandings.  When wars break out it is widely believed that they could have been avoided if only the protagonists had a better understanding of each other.  Why do Muslim imams and religious leaders label the West with the sobriquet Great Satan?  It's because they do not understand us.  If they did, they would like us better and would not say such things.  A suppressed snide corollary usually goes with this cliche: Islamic misunderstanding is due to ignorance.  If they knew more, if they were better educated, they would like us Westerners better. 

As Jonah Goldberg put it

Follow the Money

Epic Fail

UN climate talks fall apart as 132 countries storm out

Posted By Michael Bastasch 

On 12:25 PM 11/20/2013 

The Daily Caller

Poor countries pulled out of the United Nations climate talks during a fight over transferring wealth from richer countries to fight global warming.

The G77 and China bloc led 132 poor countries in a walk out during talks about “loss and damage” compensation for the consequences of global warming that countries cannot adapt to, like Typhoon Haiyan. The countries that left claim to have the support of other coalitions of poor nations, including the Least Developed Countries, the Alliance of Small Island States and the Africa Group.

Poor countries have demanded that the developed world give them $100 billion annually by 2020 to prepare for the impacts of global warming, such as heat waves and droughts. Brazil even put forward a proposal last week that would have made rich countries pay for historical greenhouse gas emissions.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 22

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC website

Bible Text:
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. —Psalm 91:5, 6

Devotional:
Wherever you turn, all the objects around you are not only unworthy of your confidence, but almost openly menace you, and seem to threaten immediate death. Embark in a ship; there is but a single step between you and death. Mount a horse; the slipping of one foot endangers your life. Walk through the streets of a city; you are liable to as many dangers as there are tiles on the roofs.

If there be a sharp weapon in your hand, or that of your friend, the mischief is manifest. All the ferocious animals you see are armed for your destruction. If you try to shut yourself in a garden surrounded with a good fence and exhibiting nothing but what is delightful, even there sometimes lurks a serpent. Your house, perpetually liable to fire, menaces you by day with poverty and by night with falling on your head....

Extenuation by Race

Wretched Argument for Racial Inferiority

If we were Maori, with just the slightest smidgeon of self-respect, honour and decency, we would right now be hanging our head in shame and boiling with righteous anger, both at the same time.  On what provocation, we hear you ask? On this:

Christchurch defence lawyer James Rapley said Maori should receive shorter prison sentences because they come from an environment of social deprivation and inequality.  "Fifty-one per cent of the prison population is Maori," he told the Court of Appeal. "Everyone says everyone should be treated alike and equally, but not everyone is equal."[NZ Herald]

Rapley was arguing before the Court of Appeal to get the sentence of one Fabian Mika reduced by ten percent on the grounds that he was Maori.  Not, notice, on the grounds of Mika's remorse over his crime, his early guilty plea, his efforts at restitution of his victims, or extenuating circumstances, but because of his race.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Obamamandias

Posted on Sunday, November 17, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

With apologies to P.B. Shelley . . .

I met a traveler from bankrupt land
Who said: ‘One vast and hapless head of stone
Lies in the desert. Near it, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered website lies, still down.
That haughty look, and sneer of cold command,
And photo-op poses, a myriad!
Still cannot get it, overwhelmed by “things”
Like “If you like it, you can keep it. Period.”
And on the teleprompt these words appear—
“My name is Obamamandias, king of kings:
Look on my work, ye uninsured, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
A once great health care system stretches far away.’

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 19

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC website.

Bible Text:
Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. —Matt. 7:21

Devotional:
It is easy to perceive what we are to learn from the law; namely, that God, as he is our Creator, justly sustains towards us the character of a Father and a Lord; and that on this account we owe to him glory and reverence, love and fear. Moreover, that we are not at liberty to follow everything to which the violence of our passions may incite us; but that we ought to be attentive to his will, and to practise nothing but what is pleasing to him.

Not so Fast

Tweaks to China's One-Child Monstrosity

The Chinese government announced some changes to their one-child policy and to labour camps.  Everyone in the West was excited--well, sort of.  Things might be looking up.  Firstly, the changes to the one-child policy.

Far from sweeping away all family planning rules, the party is now providing a new, limited exemption: It said families in which at least one parent was an only child would be allowed to have a second child. Previously, both parents had to be an only child to qualify for this exemption. Rural couples also are allowed two children if their first-born child is a girl, an exemption allowed in 1984 as part of the last substantive changes to the policy. [NZ Herald]

The Herald article is right on the nose.  This represents just a minor tweak to an horrendous policy.  Wendy Wright reports how the Chinese government itself quickly rushed to qualify and downplay the change.

Fissures in the Ranks

Human Depravity

Last time we checked Kim Jong Un was a human being.  We presume he still is.  He is one of us.  As one of us he is demonstrating the relentless evil that lies in every human heart.  Relentless evil that can become regnant. 

Whilst most human beings will recoil in horror at the recent accounts of public executions in North Korea, we also have to acknowledge that Kim Jong Un is one of us.  He is not an animal.  He is not a demon.  He is blood of our blood and flesh of our flesh.  Either we must own him and his depravities, or we must implore the  King of kings to judge him speedily, in this life and the next. 

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November  20

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. —I Timothy 6:10

Devotional:
We shall find a restraint laid upon us, to keep us from being inflamed with an inordinate desire of growing rich, and from ambitiously aspiring after honors. For with what face can any man confide in the assistance of God, towards obtaining things which he desires in opposition to the Divine word?

Far be it from God to follow with the aid of his blessing what he curses with his mouth.

Battle Lines

The Clash of  Dinosaurs and Innovators

The PPTA--the secondary school teacher union--is revealing itself to be out of touch with its own members, let alone parents and their children.  Our readers will recall that the PPTA has placed a ban upon any co-operation or contact between the new charter schools and any of its members, or even with any government school (which suggests that the union sees itself as actually in de facto control of the government schools, a view presumably based upon reality).  As in the parable of the Good Samaritan, if union members and government schools see a charter school they are to cross to the other side of the street, avert their eyes, and hurry on their way.  So runs the PPTA ban--and they must be obeyed.

Except they are not--at least not by their own members, many of whom, we suspect, are more than  embarrassed by the antediluvian stance of their own union.  One of the soon-to-open charter schools is setting up a middle school, South Auckland Middle School.  According to its manager, in a piece posted on Kiwiblog, they have advertised eight new teaching positions, and had 105 applicants--many of them PPTA members.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 19

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel, saith the Lord, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. —Zechariah 12:1

Devotional:
Since then what Zechariah says could hardly be believed, he prescribes to the Jews the best remedy—that they raise up their eyes and then turn them to the earth. The expanse of the heavens constrains us to admire God; for however stupid we may be, we cannot look on the sun and the moon and stars and on the whole bright expanse above without some strong emotions of fear and of reverence.

Since then God exceeds all that men can comprehend in the very creation of the world, what should hinder us from believing even that which seems to us in no way probable?

The Mafia Under Some Pontifical Heat

Crackling Light Sabres

We always follow developments in the Roman Catholic church with interest.  One of the issues which has disturbed us for many years is the alleged corruption of the Vatican bank and the influence of the Mafia on the Vatican.  It seems that Francis, the present pope, is endeavouring to work a reformation in these matters. 

We fervently hope that he will be successful.  The following account has appeared in The Guardian:

Pope Francis's crusade against corruption has made him a target for Italy's all-powerful mafia clans, a leading anti-mob prosecutor has warned.  Nicola Gratteri, who has battled Calabria's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis's attempt to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who do business with corrupt prelates "nervous and agitated".  He told the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano: "Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican.  If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."

There are two issues here.

Letter From America (About the US Monarch)

Thus Spake Obama

The incompetence of our neo-monarchy

By Mark Steyn

National Review Online

November 15, 2013 3:30 PM 

 

 It is a condition of my admission to this great land that I am not allowed to foment the overthrow of the United States government. Oh, I signed it airily enough, but you’d be surprised, as the years go by, how often the urge to foment starts to rise in one’s gullet. Fortunately, at least as far as constitutional government goes, the president of the United States is doing a grand job of overthrowing it all by himself.

On Thursday, he passed a new law at a press conference. George III never did that. But, having ordered America’s insurance companies to comply with Obamacare, the president announced that he is now ordering them not to comply with Obamacare. The legislative branch (as it’s still quaintly known) passed a law purporting to grandfather your existing health plan. The regulatory bureaucracy then interpreted the law so as to un-grandfather your health plan. So His Most Excellent Majesty has commanded that your health plan be de-un-grandfathered. That seems likely to work. The insurance industry had three years to prepare for the introduction of Obamacare. Now the King has given them six weeks to de-introduce Obamacare.

“I wonder if he has the legal authority to do this,” mused former Vermont governor Howard Dean. But he’s obviously some kind of right-wing wacko.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 18

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Republished from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. —Ezekiel 9:4

Devotional:
This is a remarkable passage, because from it we learn, first, that God effectually threatens the impious, so that he may have attendants always at hand to obey him; then, that even unbelievers make war under the direction of God, and are governed by his rod, and do nothing except at his will.

But, thirdly, we are taught that God never rashly executes his vengeance without sparing his elect. For this reason in the slaughter of Jerusalem he has an angel, who opposes a shield, as it were, to the Chaldeans, lest their cruelty should injure them beyond God's pleasure.

Teacher Unions Vs Charter Schools

Unmasked

We are finding the conniptions of the Teacher Unions over charter schools "exceedingly diverting", as Jane Austen would say. 

The Post-Primary Teachers Association (aka, the secondary school teacher union) has announced a member ban on all members having anything to do with charter schools.  But, like all educational unions, it seeks to control not just its own members, but government schools themselves--telling principals and administrators what they can and cannot do, with the implicit strike-threat if they are foolish enough to disobey.

Letter From Australia (About Pain in the US)

No Cure as Obamacare Gets Worse 

James Morrow
The Daily Telegraph
November 15, 2013 12:00AM

IN politics, leaders live and die by their promises. Julia Gillard effectively wrote her government into the history books when she went back on her assurance that "there will be no carbon tax under a government I lead". 

In the US, President Barack Obama is in similar strife over an oft-repeated promise that under his plan to overhaul health care - the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare for short - Americans who liked their GPs and their health care plans would be able to keep seeing their GPs and using those same plans.  Or as he put it in various forms to the American public more than two dozen times: "If you like your plan, you can keep your plan."

The only thing is, it turned out not to be true.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 16

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Mischief shall come upon mischief, and rumour shall be upon rumour; then shall they seek a vision of the prophet; but the law shall perish from the priest, and counsel from the ancients. —Ezekiel 7:26

Devotional:
In this way he advises the Jews that they should catch at security in vain, as if, at the passing away of one evil, they were already free.

For the wicked, as soon as God withdraws his hand, think themselves escaped from all trouble, and so despise God more carelessly; for they fancy that God has done with them just like a debtor who has paid a small sum to his creditor, and thus has sustained a relaxation and is careless; so the reprobate harden themselves when God grants them some respite; for they think that they have an agreement with him that he should not trouble them any more.

But the Prophet denounces that there would be such a heap of evils that one calamity should have many companions, because God would not cease to add evils to evils. —Commentaries

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John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin's Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

The Annals of Soft-Despotism

A Fillip to Ivory Poaching and Trafficking

The drive to be as god always lurks the heart of every human being.  That, after all, was the original temptation in the Garden of Eden when our first parents fell into sin.  The serpent hissed that if Adam and Eve were to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil they would not die at all, but would become like God, knowing good and evil for themselves.  (Genesis 3: 4)  Adam and Eve bought the lie.  We, in our turn, were born into the lie, believing it and yearning to live it.

One of the downstream effects is to believe that power and wisdom are conterminous.  This is why the idolatry of statism has such a powerful hold over our hearts and minds.  We are born believing that, as gods, we should have power and dominion and that when we secure power, we will be wise and effective.  We will make things happen--for good, of course, albeit good-as-it-seems-to-us, according to our lights, since we now think that we know good and evil for ourselves, on our own recognisance. 

Usually, what happens, is that we succeed only in magnifying evil and doing more harm.  Take something as prosaic as the protection of elephants and rhinos against extinction.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Food Libertarian

Posted on Tuesday, November 12, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

From time to time the authorities haul in some renegade cheese maker, and those who love bureaucratized food safety all breath a sigh of relief. This kind of tyranny is heavy-handed enough to get noticed by those who yearn for food freedom — as I do — but not so noticed generally that we can get the food fascists to stop it. Yet.

There are two basic points that need to be made about this. The first is that the government does have a role in food safety — but it is not the role of preventative regulation. Rather, in a realm of food libertarianism, the government would set the definitions and standards. This is what a fluid ounce is, and that is what counts as cleaning a chicken.

These standards would not be enforced by food inspectors before the fact, but would rather be used whenever an action had been brought by a dissatisfied or food-poisoned customer.

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 15

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: —John 16:26

Devotional:
"In that day you shall ask in my name." Besides, when Christ is said to intercede with the Father for us, let us not indulge in carnal imaginations about him, as if he were on his knees before the Father, offering humble supplication in our name. But the value of his sacrifice, by which he once pacified God towards us, is always powerful and efficacious; the blood by which he atoned for our sins, the obedience which he rendered, is a continual intercession for us.

This is a remarkable passage, by which we are taught that we have the heart of the heavenly Father, as soon as we have placed before him the name of his Son. —Commentaries

---

John Calvin was the premier theologian of the Reformation, but also a pious and godly Christian pastor who endeavored throughout his life to point men and women to Christ. We are grateful to Reformation Heritage Books for permission to use John Calvin's Thine Is My Heart as our daily devotional for 2013 on the OPC Web site. You can currently obtain a printed copy of that book from Reformation Heritage Books.

Test-Tube Superstition

Karakia, Anyone?

Intellectual deceit and rampant hypocrisy crowd the modern Western stage.  Unbelief is not just a nasty termagant, it is also replete with intellectual dishonesty.  Take, for example, the militant insistence that New Zealand be a secular nation.  Religion, we are told, is replete with myths, lies, and deceits.  The only truth is secular truth--which apparently means truth which can be observed and experimentally proven in a test-tube.

But at the same time, and out of the same mouths (albeit from the other side) there is an enthusiastic celebration of spirituality.  In our country this has become institutionalised in the employing of Maori to incant and pray at all public events and gatherings.  In fact, it is pretty well acknowledged now that no event would be a happening at all, were it not accompanied by Maori prayers, or incantations (karakia), or traditional animist chants to invoke the Maori pantheon of gods.  No formal school opening, no commissioning of a public project, no opening of a New Zealand embassy anywhere around the world would be the real deal without an effusive display and contribution from Maori spiritualism.

Apparently Unbelieving secularism has fallen prey to the rationalist-irrationalist dichotomy.  In the end, the rationalist becomes the superstitious irrationalist. 

This is not just a New Zealand failing.

John Milton, Standing, Waiting, and Serving

The Greatest Sonnet in the English Language

 

Justin Taylor

 

Leland Ryken writes that John Milton’s “When I Consider How My Light Is Spent” is to him “the greatest sonnet in the English language.” During the middle phase of Milton’s life (1640-1660) he focused on supporting the Puritan cause and largely set aside his poetic vocation. By 1654, at the age of 55, he had gone completely blind, and probably composed this sonnet around this time.

When I Consider How My Light Is Spent

by John Milton

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days in this dark world and wide,
And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest He returning chide;
“Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?”

I fondly ask. But Patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or His own gifts. Who best
Bear His mild yoke, they serve Him best. His state

Is kingly: thousands at His bidding speed,

And post o’er land and ocean without rest;
They also serve who only stand and wait.”

[Grand encouragement for those whose afflictions appear to render them useless to God, in God's Kingdom. Ed]

Calvin's Daily Devotional

Daily Devotional

November 14

Thine Is My Heart: Devotional Readings from the Writings of John Calvin

by John Calvin (compiled by John H. Kromminga)
Reproduced from the OPC Website

Bible Text:
Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, —Psalm 40:7

Devotional:
"Then said I, Lo! I come." Here David indicates his readiness to yield obedience, as well as the cordial affection of his heart and persevering resolution. His language implies that he cordially preferred the service of God to every other desire and care, and had not only yielded a willing subjection, but also embraced the rule of a pious and holy life, with a fixed and steady purpose of adhering to it. This he confirms when he says that the Law of God was deeply fixed in the midst of his bowels.

It follows from this, first, that however beautiful and splendid the works of men appear, yet unless they spring from the living root of the heart, they are nothing better than a mere pretence; and, secondly, that it is to no purpose that the feet, and hands, and eyes, are framed for keeping the Law unless obedience begin at the heart.

What Webs We Weave

No H8? -- Bombshell Book: Matthew Shepard Tortured, Murdered by Gay Lover

 

by Austin Ruse 14 Sep 2013, 10:07 AM PDT TheBlaze

[Philosophies and faiths can in general be known by their fruits.  Our Lord has instructed us to know people by their fruits--for good or ill.  The promotion of homosexuality is an ideological faith, part of an aggressive religion, which promotes the institutionalisation of human sexual lusts.  On the political front, one of the oft seen fruits of the movement to promote and normalise homosexuality is a love of lying and deceit to promote the cause.  This takes a variety of forms.  One is to allege that celebrities or public figures are secretly closet homosexuals.  Another is to engage in vicious personal vilification of ideological opponents.  The pivotal reason why truth telling is of little importance to the homosexual rights movement is due to it having no normative ethical standards by which it judges itself.  There are no moral absolutes in homosexuality, only situation ethics ("love" overrides all else) and utilitarianism (the end justifies the means). Of course these amoral ethical positions are not peculiar to the homosexual rights movement, but in our opinion they do typify it.

In 1998 a young homosexual male in Laramie, Wyoming was brutally murdered.  The general homosexual political narrative was to identify it first as a homophobic hate crime and second to use this horrible event as a cause c'elebre for the promotion of homosexual demand rights.  It is now being alleged that the homosexual propaganda network deliberately and knowingly distorting the truth, for the sake of the cause.  It would appear that the murder was actually a homosexual-on-homosexual hate crime and also a meth addict on addict crime.  That one homosexual would kill another is not the point.  That the homosexual lobby would lie and deceive the public about it is.  By these fruits we can assess the homosexual rights movement.  Ed.]

Almost everything you think you know about the Matthew Shepard narrative is false.

Matthew Shepard was the winsome young homosexual in Laramie, Wyoming who in October 1998 was tortured, killed, and left hanging grotesquely from a fence. He was discovered almost a day later and later died in the hospital from his horrific wounds.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Not Really Luther

Posted on Thursday, November 7, 2013  

By Douglas Wilson 

Blog and Mablog

We confess to referring to the quotation attributed to Luther, which urges Christians to defend the truth of God at the point at which it is facing attack.  But, according to Douglas Wilson, it would seem that Luther did not make that observation at all.  Someone else did.  It turns out the original statement is even more compelling.  [Ed]

There is a famous Luther quote that he actually didn’t say, and which my son-in-law Ben Merkle recently tracked down. Here is the quote, and it is a hummer.