Telltale Signs

Gender Dysphoria a Form of Social Propaganda?

We are all (hopefully) aware of aberrant social hysteria that leads to behaviour divorced from reality.  The Salem Witch Trials are one seventeenth century example.  In New Zealand, the Christchurch Creche Case is another.  A community--including authorities such as the police, local government, academics--came to believe that the Christchurch Creche had been overtaken by a coven of pederasts.  In a later light-of-day it defies belief.

We are now, it seems, living through another form of social hysteria--trans-genderism, particularly Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD).  Robert Tracinski, writing in The Federalist, weighs up the evidence thus far.

Is Transgender The New Anorexia?

A blockbuster study suggests that in some cases transgender is a 'social contagion,' a maladaptive coping technique spread by peer groups and the Internet.

Robert Tracinski
The Federalist


Brown University Professor Lisa Littman recently published a blockbuster study on the “transgender” phenomenon, presenting evidence that parts of it might be a “social contagion”—a maladaptive coping technique for troubled teens, spread by peer groups and the Internet. Brown issued a press release about the study, then promptly retracted it and replaced it with a weasely non-statement that just drew more attention to Littman’s research. This was in response to a furious outcry from transgender activists, and I can see why they find this study such a threat.

The study itself is not actually about “gender dysphoria” as it has previously been defined in the scientific literature. Rather, it is about the newer phenomenon of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD). Prior to about ten years ago, cases of gender dysphoria typically involved a long history of a child rejecting identification with his or her biological sex, going back before puberty.

By contrast, “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” involves a post-pubescent child, usually a girl, with no history of dysphoria suddenly claiming within a period of weeks or months not to identify with her biological sex. Not only is rapid-onset gender dysphoria sudden, but it tends to occur in clusters.

The Paris Climate Agreement is Dead and Gone

No-One Cares

Trump Vindicated as Paris Climate Agreement Unravels

James Delingpole
Breitbart News

The Paris Climate Agreement is a dead non-binding treaty walking. All the signatories know this, none of them will admit it. So instead, we have to endure the ritual spectacle of UN delegates racking up yet more air miles and dumping their carbon footprint on a new location in order to wail hysterically that much, much more needs to be done to save the planet from the greatest threat evah.
This week the UN’s clown caravan has moved to Bangkok, Thailand – the preliminary to an even bigger meeting, COP24, in December in Katowice, Poland.

As the South China Morning Post reports, the auguries aren’t good:

Time is running out to save the Paris Agreement, United Nations climate experts warned Tuesday at a key Bangkokmeeting, as rich nations were accused of shirking their responsibility for environmental damage.

That’s because – just as they were in Paris 2015 – the negotiations are caught between a rock and a hard place.

A Pebble That May Result In A Landslide

A "Game Changing" Piece of Work

In the great struggle between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of the Satan we Christians often long for the definitive blow, the decisive action which puts paid to the Satan forever.  Amongst our travails we forget that the decisive blows have already been delivered.  

Christ died for our sins--the sins of all His elect--and He rose again, ascending into the heavens to be seated at God's right hand.  From there, He judges, rules, commands, and controls all things.  He applies His "decisive actions" to the world.  It is our great honour to be His servants--for a time in the flesh, on the earth--and then, subsequently in His presence awaiting the call to return, with Him, to the physical world.

Thus, in the great struggle between light and darkness throughout our lives upon the earth we do not look for "decisive blows", as it were.  They have already been struck.  We are involved in "mopping up" operations.  But within that framework, some actions or advances are more significant than others.  They have a greater effect.

In recent days we have observed one such "mopping up" event that might well turn out to be significant beyond expectation.

Disappointed and Let Down

When the Left Turn On Their Own It's Never Pretty

Duncan Garner
Stuff

OPINION: This wasn't how the charm offensive was meant to end. No way.

The script had been written for the prime minister: Smile, wave to the trainspotters who need a selfie to prove they were there, then remind everyone in business of the real economic stats that show things are largely tracking OK despite the slump in confidence from the guys driving the latest fancy cars.

So far so good.

The PM's detail would then serve up the smoked salmon between the whining and endless wish lists from business while the PM was reminding herself NOT to mention the evil little tax working group if asked.

That group is likely to target money or success, whichever come first. Please don't tell business of their intentions as it may actually affect confidence levels again. Oh, too late, it's slumped again.

Why? I'll come to that shortly but prepare yourselves to blame Labour. What a debacle of their own making.

Daily Meditation

Making History Count

Ligonier Ministries

For a little fun, as well as an important look into the pages of your history, take a few minutes for a simple exercise. Take a pencil and paper and jot down the five most meaningful compliments you’ve ever received. They may have been verbal or nonverbal, direct or indirect. On your paper note:

1. The nature of the compliment.

2. When it was given.

3. Who gave you the compliment and what role that person represented to you.

After completing this exercise, try another: Write down the five most important events in your life. Then write briefly why these “historic” moments are so important to you.

These two exercises represent a simple means by which you can come to grips with who you are. To finish the exercise, ask yourself this question: If Rembrandt could paint only one portrait of you, what would he have you doing in the portrait? What is your fruitful moment? Maybe tomorrow will bring a moment that will redirect your personal history.

Our history is not the result of blind fate or the impersonal forces of chance. My personal history and yours are bound up with the Author and Lord of history, who makes my personal history count forever.

Coram Deo

Do the two exercises suggested in today’s reading, then answer the question: “If Rembrandt could paint only one portrait of you, what would he have you doing in the portrait?”

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 89:1
Psalm 77:11
Psalm 143:5

Very Deep Indeed

. . . Something Rotten in the State of "Denmark"

New Zealand had a striking example last week of why Oppositions are a necessity for sound government.  A Government minister has been caught out twice misleading the House (a major transgression).  The Opposition sought and obtained permission from the Speaker for a snap debate.  

Here is the speech of one of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, as framed by the blog, Point of Order.

The   current Parliamentary  session  has  yielded few events, or  speeches, which linger  in the memory  for  more than  a few  minutes. The  Opposition, despite its  strength  in numbers at  least,  has landed   few hits  on  the   government.

That  is  until  this  week   when  it  called for, and  was granted,  a  snap  debate  on  the demotion  of Clare  Curran  from   Cabinet and her resignation  from two portfolios.

Perhaps surprisingly, one of the  most effective speeches  from the Opposition  benches  came from  veteran MP  Nick Smith.  Some  of the newcomers within  the Opposition  could  take  it  as  a  model of   its kind,  marshalling  the facts  before the  house  and  then   building  to  a  powerful  climax.

Here’s  how   Smith  made his  case:

“We have a Minister of Open Government—actually, the very first Minister of Open Government that’s ever existed in this Parliament—and the promise of the Minister of Open Government was to be the most open and transparent Government that this country has ever had, and then what we find out from that Minister is that not once but twice that Minister behaved in a secretive, in a sneaky, and in a dirty way.

Wipe Them Out . . . All of Them

Belgium’s Euthanasia Moral Abyss

By Wesley J. Smith
National Review Online

Belgium legalized lethal-jab euthanasia in 2002. Since that time, medicalized homicide has grown increasingly radical.

Now, MercatorNet has published a story based on a translation of the “Belgium Federal Commission on the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia” — the nation’s official report on patient-killing by doctors. It makes for very chilling reading.

Here are some lowlights:

• Deaths by legal euthanasia have increased nearly tenfold (982%) from 235 in 2003 — the first full year of legalisation — to 2,309 in 2017 (my emphasis).
  
• Organ donation [conjoined with euthanasia] has been reported in 8 patients for the years 2016 – 2017. Patients had either a nervous system disorder or a mental and behavioral disorder. 
  
• In 2017 there were 375 cases of reported euthanasia of people whose deaths were not expected in the near future.
  
• In 2017 some 87 (3.76%) cases involved no physical suffering at all. [!!!] This included 14 cancer cases and 15 other cases of physical illness. There were also 18 cases of “polypathology” as well as 40 cases of mental ill health. The psychic suffering, apart from psychiatric conditions, included “addiction, loss of autonomy, loneliness, despair, loss of dignity, despair at the thought of losing ability to maintain social contacts, etc.”.
  
• Three children have so far been killed under the Belgian law in 2016 and 2017. These were a 17-year-old child who was suffering from muscular dystrophy; a nine-year-old child, who had a brain tumour, and an 11 year old child, who was suffering from cystic fibrosis.
  
• Between 2014 and 2017 two patients who were in an irreversible coma after a suicide attempt were euthanized based on an advance directive 5 months and 35 months respectively before the suicide attempt.
  
• A total of 201 people with psychiatric disorders were killed by euthanasia in Belgium between 2014 and 2017 including for mood disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder (73 cases); organic mental disorders, including dementia and Alzheimer’s (60 cases); personality and behavioural disorders (23 cases); neurotic disorders, and disorders related to stressors including posttraumatic stress disorder (16 cases); schizophrenia and psychotic disorders (11 cases); organic mental disorders, including autism (10 cases) and complex cases involving a combination of several categories (8 cases).

I note that there is no mention of joint-geriatric-euthanasia cases — elderly couples killed together for fear of future grief or not wanting to be widowed, etc. — of which I know of at least three cases.

The carnage so bloodlessly described in the Belgian report demonstrates vividly the consequences to a society when it generally accepts killing as a proper answer to human suffering — or even, it now seems, the fear of future suffering.

Those with eyes to see, let them see.

Daily Meditation

The Goal of Christ’s Love

“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory.” (John 17:24)

John Piper

Believers in Jesus are precious to God (we're his bride!). And he loves us so much that he will not allow our preciousness to become our god.  God does indeed make much of us (adoption!), but he does so in a way that draws us out of ourselves to enjoy his greatness.

Test yourself. If Jesus came to spend the day with you, sat down beside you on the couch, and said, “I really love you,” what would you focus on the rest of the day that you spend together?

It seems to me that too many songs and sermons leave us with the wrong answer. They leave the impression that the heights of our joy would be in the recurrent feeling of being loved. “He loves me!” “He loves me!” This is joy indeed. But not the heights and not the focus.

What are we saying with the words “I am loved”? What do we mean? What is this “being loved”?

Would not the greatest, most Christ-exalting joy be found in watching Jesus all day and bursting with, “You’re amazing!” “You are amazing!”

• He answers the hardest question, and his wisdom is amazing.
• He touches a filthy, oozing sore, and his compassion is amazing.
• He raises a dead lady at the medical examiner’s office, and his power is amazing.
• He predicts the afternoon’s events, and his foreknowledge is amazing.
• He sleeps during an earthquake, and his fearlessness is amazing.
• He says, “Before Abraham was, I AM,” and his words are amazing.
• We walk around with him utterly amazed at what we are seeing.

Is not his love for us, his eagerness to do for us all he must do (including die for us) so that we can marvel at him and not be incinerated by him? Redemption, propitiation, forgiveness, justification, reconciliation — all these have to happen. They are the act of love.

But the goal of love that makes those acts loving is that we be with him and see his jaw-dropping glory and be astounded. In those moments we forget ourselves and see and feel him.

So I am urging pastors and teachers: Push people through the acts of Christ’s love to the goal of his love. If redemption and propitiation and forgiveness and justification and reconciliation are not taking us to the enjoyment of Jesus himself, they are not love.

Press on this. It’s what Jesus prayed for.

The Quiet Reformation

Falling Apart, Regrouping, Reforming

A recent guest-post at  Kiwiblog revealed and discussed the schism taking place within the Anglican Communion in New Zealand.  This is something which we have expected to occur.  We have mentioned previously the chasm that has been opening up around the world in the Anglican communion--publicly evident in Africa, Australia, and the United States.  Signs of it are appearing in Scotland.  It will inevitably occur throughout the United Kingdom.  The straw-breaking-camel's-back issue is homosexuality.  To change the image, it is a Bridge Too Far.

The Kiwiblog guest post by John Stringer reveals that the same dynamic is now actively unfolding in New Zealand.

Shibboleths That Kill the Vulnerable

The "War" On Climate Change Is A Curse Upon the Poor

By Bjorn Lomborg


When a “solution” to a problem causes more damage than the problem, policymaking has gone awry. That’s where we often find ourselves with global warming today.

Activist organizations like Worldwatch argue that higher temperatures will make more people hungry, so drastic carbon cuts are needed. But a comprehensive new study published in Nature Climate Change led by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found that strong global climate action would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself.

The scientists used eight global-agricultural models to analyze various scenarios between now and 2050. These models suggest, on average, that climate change could put an extra 24 million people at risk of hunger. But a global carbon tax would increase food prices and push 78 million more people into risk of hunger. The areas expected to be most vulnerable are sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Trying to help 24 million people by imperiling 78 million people’s lives is a very poor policy.

We’ve heard similar stories before: In a few short decades, climate policy has often created more damage than the benefits it attempts to deliver.

Ten years ago, a biofuels craze swept rich countries with the full-throated support of green activists who hailed any shift away from fossil fuels. Food crops were replaced to produce ethanol, and the resulting spike in food prices forced at least 30 million people into poverty and 30 million more into hunger, according to UK charity ActionAid.

If we want to eradicate hunger, there are more effective ways.

Daily Meditation

Producing Fruit

Ligonier Ministries

One cannot be a Christian and have no fruit. Indeed, all Christians yield some measure of all the fruit of the Spirit. It is not that one receives the fruit of love and another the fruit of joy. All the fruit is to be manifest in all Christians.

The degree of the manifestation of the fruit of the Spirit may vary from Christian to Christian, and even episodically in the individual Christian’s life. The Holy Spirit produces the fruit. The fruit of the Spirit is part of the Spirit’s work of sanctification. Sanctification is not a monergistic work; it is synergistic: It involves and requires the cooperation of the believer. We are working out our salvation while at the same time God is working within us.

All of our labor in sanctification would yield no fruit if God were not working in us. Ultimately, it is His fruit in that He is the source of it and power for it. But the full measure of the fruit of the Spirit requires that we work. We are to work not casually or occasionally. Our labor is to be done in fear and trembling.

Coram Deo

God is at work within you. Are you cooperating?

Passages for Further Study

Hebrews 10:10
Hebrews 10:14
1 Corinthians 6:11

The Transience and Permanence of Christian Work

The Coming of the Kingdom

German theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg has this to say on the coming of God's Kingdom upon the earth.

Nevertheless . . . I shall not make the mistake of previous periods and think of the establishment of the Kingdom of God as something which could be brought about by human effort.  We must remain constantly aware that any "Christian" order we can create here and now is bound to be provisional.  This impermanence is a feature of all "good works", private as well as public.

That is what Christian humility is, a constant awareness of the distance between our own works and the glory of God.  An awareness of this distance, however, does not, when rightly understood, weaken our readiness to act.  On the contrary, the very realization of the distance between the promised future of the divine Kingdom of peace and the present state of the world can stimulate us to change the present.

The hope of God's promised Kingdom of peace can inspire our imagination and will to eradicate the most obvious faults of our world.  [Wolfhart Pannenberg, Faith and Reality (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1977), p. 109.]

An oft-repeated maxim is that "the (merely) good is always enemy of the best".

The Black Magic of Computer Simulations

"Official" Science Soils Its Underwear


The following appeared as a Guest Post on Kiwiblog

A Guest Post by Bryan Leland:

The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition have discovered that the Royal Society of New Zealand cannot support its contention that man-made global warming is real and dangerous.

Various exchanges between NZCSC and RSNZ revealed that the Society: has forgotten its roots; makes statements that it cannot support with evidence; is quite happy for its officers and members of the Society to make public statements that are against its own Code of Ethics; agrees that climate science is contentious but will not support open debate on it; wants to change its Code of Ethics to put cultural beliefs on equal footing with scientific evidence.

It all started with a statement by the Chief Executive (CE) and two reports that made it clear that RSNZ supported the belief that that man-made global warming was real and dangerous and urgent action was essential. The NZCSC asked RSNZ to provide convincing evidence based on observational data that supported this belief. The Royal Society were unable to do so and passed the query on to Prof James Renwick who has close links with the IPCC. He too was unable to provide the requested evidence. It seems that the evidence does not exist.

Daily Meditation

Walking in Wisdom

Ligonier Ministries

In the New Testament, the word disciple literally means “a learner.” The Christian is called to be enrolled in the school of Christ. Careful study of the Bible is necessary for true discipleship.

Jesus said to His own students: “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31–32). Our Lord calls for a continued application of the mind to His Word. A disciple does not dabble in learning. He makes the pursuit of an understanding of God’s Word a chief business of his life.

The wisdom literature of the Old Testament distinguishes between knowledge and wisdom, just as the New Testament distinguishes between knowledge and love. Knowledge without love merely puffs up with pride. Yet the love that edifies is not a love without contentment. Likewise, the Old Testament makes it clear that one can have knowledge without wisdom.

Since we can have knowledge without love and/or knowledge without wisdom, we tend to downplay the importance of knowledge. The wisdom literature of the Old Testament never views the difference between knowledge and wisdom as a difference between the bad and the good. Rather, the distinction is one between the good and the better. It is good to attain knowledge; it is better to achieve wisdom.

Coram Deo

Is after the pursuit of an understanding of God’s Word the chief aim of your life?

Passages for Further Study

Proverbs 1:20–22

What Myanmar Can Learn From the Idi Amin Strategy

Recovering Myanmar

It is obvious that the Muslim Rohingya people have faced the worst of the persecution by the Tatmadaw, the Mynamar Army in that country.  The generals of Tatmadaw are not reported to be particularly committed to Bhuddism, beyond the level of folk superstition.  Nevertheless they hate the predominantly Islamic Rohingya.

But, the army has teamed up with a group of radical, extremist ultranationalist Bhuddist monks represented by an organisation called Ma Ba Tha.  Tadmadaw and Ma Ba Tha work together, feeding off each other, acting as allies in an ethnic cleansing exercise.  The Rohingya are being pushed out of Myanmar.

But it's not just the Rohingya.  Falling upon Christians fits in with Ma Ba Tha ideology as well, and Tatmadaw is more than ready to step up to the plate to provide back up and assistance.

The United Nations has condemned the treatment of Christian ethnic minorities in Myanmar as “crimes against humanity” in a damning newly-released report.  Press attention has focused on the elements of the report which call for genocide prosecutions against leaders of the Myanmar Army for actions against Rohingya Muslims. But the report also highlights “similar patterns of conduct by security forces” in [predominantly Christian] Kachin and [Bhuddist] Shan states in Myanmar.

The independent fact-finding mission reported “Violations against ethnic and religious minorities in northern Myanmar are often committed with persecutory intent, in a context of severe discrimination on ethnic or religious grounds. This manifests, for example, in the destruction or ransacking of churches and religious objects during military operations (and sometimes subsequent erecting of Buddhist pagodas).” [The Barnabas Fund]

An article in National Review Online ["To Save the Rohingyas, Go after Burma’s Generals"] quoted from a recent UN report on what is happening in Myanmar.

More Calls For the Pope to Resign

Call for Investigation of Pope Francis

The Lavender Mafia May Come Under Siege

Katherine Rodriguez
Breitbart News

A growing number of American Catholics are calling for an investigation into the allegations that Pope Francis ignored Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s record of sexually abusing priests, seminarians, and laypeople, including minors. Some Catholics are even calling for the pope to resign.

The calls from Catholic bishops, organizations, and media outlets for Pope Francis to be investigated and/or resign have come after the former Vatican ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, released an 11-page affidavit Saturday alleging that Pope Francis turned a blind eye to McCarrick’s behavior.

Viganò’s affidavit specifically claimed that Pope Francis lifted Pope Benedict’s “canonical sanctions” on the disgraced cardinal imposed between 2009-2010 that forbade him from interacting with the public in an official capacity, and Viganò alleged Francis did this despite knowing of the serious allegations against McCarrick.

Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), released a statement Sunday calling for an impartial investigation into the allegations against Pope Francis.  “The recent letter of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò brings particular focus and urgency to this examination,” Cardinal DiNardo wrote in a statement posted Sunday on the USCCB website.

Daily Meditation

The Lion and the Lamb

“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my Spirit upon him, and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench, until he brings justice to victory; and in his name the Gentiles will hope.” (Matthew 12:18–21, quoting Isaiah 42)

John Piper

The Father’s very soul exults with joy over the servant-like meekness and compassion of his Son.

When a reed is bent and about to break, the Servant will tenderly hold it upright until it heals. When a wick is smoldering and has scarcely any heat left, the Servant will not pinch it off, but cup his hand and blow gently until it burns again.

Thus the Father cries, “Behold, my Servant in whom my soul delights!” The worth and beauty of the Son come not just from his majesty, nor just from his meekness, but from the way these mingle in perfect proportion.

When the angel cries out in Revelation 5:2, “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” the answer comes back, “Weep not; look, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals” (5:5).

God loves the strength of the Lion of Judah. This is why he is worthy in God’s eyes to open the scrolls of history and unfold the last days.

But the picture is not complete. How did the Lion conquer? The next verse describes his appearance: “And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders, I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” Jesus is worthy of the Father’s delight not only as the Lion of Judah, but also as the slain Lamb.

The Minister Of Education Climbs Down

Painted Up To Look Like Victory

When we were growing up, one of our favorite rejoinders to the odd lecture from parents was, "Don't care!".  Whereupon, our mother's wry retort was,

Don't Care was made to care.
Don't Care was hung.
Don't Care was put in a pot
And boiled 'till he was done.

The Minister of Education, Chris "Hapless" Hipkins has been "made to care" over the matter of  Charter Schools.  Captive to the all-powerful teacher unions, Hipkins was determined to stamp out the dozen or so charter schools operating in New Zealand.  They, said Hipkins, represented a reckless endangerment to our young people.  Under Labour policy they were to have been done and gone.

Minister Hipkins, however, was faced with unexpected opposition--from the public at large.  In the past nine months or so, there has been nary a negative story about these charter schools.  The repeated account was that they have been remarkably successful at teaching students who were falling through the cracks and failing at the government schools.  It seems that the old Kiwi sense of fair play and non-ideological pragmatism came into play.  The media bought into the narrative and generally painted New Zealand's charter schools in a very positive light.

So, Hipkins has reached a compromise.  The dozen or so  charter schools were "changed" into integrated schools or special character schools which means they could basically carry on doing what they proved to be so good at--educating in their distinctive ways kids who were falling through the cracks.

This implies that when the Labour coalition government is eventually voted out, National can get back to creating charter schools with a vengeance.

Time To Clean House

The Lavender Mafia

The Reformation began, we are told, when a single soul wrote Ninety-Five Theses and strode through Wittenberg's streets to nail them to the door of the Castle Church.  The issue up for debate was the evil trade in "indulgences" which (amongst other evils) seduced the poor into thinking they could "buy" divine indulgences for the sins of loved ones who had died.  

Martin Luther had lit a fuse.  The explosion changed the history of the West, possibly forever. 

We may be witnessing something like that momentous event in the Roman Catholic Church right now.  Don't know.  Too soon to tell.  Lutheresque voices from within the fold are being raised.  Here is an example of just such a voice writing in The Federalist.

Paul Rahe is a scholar--a historian and philosopher of political ideology\ies.  We have read some of his writings with great interest and pleasure over the years.  He has decided that he must needs nail some theses to the Castle Church addressing the current crisis of gross immorality within the Roman Catholic fold.

The complete article can be read at The Federalist.  We reproduce Rahe's end observations and conclusions.

Daily Meditation

Starting at the Beginning

Ligonier Ministries

The word philosophy derives from a combination of two Greek words: phileo (“to love”) and sophia(“wisdom”). Literally, philosophy means “love of wisdom.” The ancient Greeks, who are usually credited with developing the science of philosophy, were also concerned with abstract metaphysics and epistemology. However, the question of ethics was of paramount importance to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates sought to reduce virtue or ethics to “right knowledge.” Plato sought the ultimate standard of the good.

The Jewish thinkers of the Old Testament did little in the area of metaphysical speculation. The Scriptures begin with the affirmation of God, known not via intellectual speculation but by His own revelatory self-disclosure.

The overarching concern of Jewish philosophy was indeed a love of wisdom. The wisdom in view, however, was not speculative but practical. Hebrew wisdom was concerned with life, with living a life pleasing to God. The Jewish thinker asked: “What does obedience involve? How is God glorified in my behavior?” Because of this focus, the Old Testament declared that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 9:10).

Coram Deo

Reflect on these questions: What does obedience involve? How is God glorified in your behavior?

Passages for Further Study

Psalm 51:6
Psalm 90:12
Proverbs 8:12

Trump's Bully Tweets

Putting a Stop To an Iniquity

According to the Daily Mail, the South African government has reversed its policy of compulsory acquisition of white owned farmland.  This has come as a complete surprise--out of the blue.  It is good news for South African farmers who were about to embark on a mass migration to other countries.  It is also good news for South Africa.  It may avoid falling into the economically collapsed dustbowl, Zimbabwe which has already expropriated farmland with reckless abandon.

What caused the u-turn?

The ruling African National Congress (ANC) said the bill passed by parliament in 2016 enabling the state to make compulsory purchases of land to redress racial disparities in land ownership needed further consideration.  It comes after Trump criticised the country's land reform plans in a tweet that touched on the overwhelmingly white ownership of farmland in South Africa - one of the most sensitive issues in the country's post-apartheid history.  [Emphasis, ours]

Trump's tweets are the electronic version of what used to be called the "Bully Pulpit".  Fox News had highlighted the immoral and unethical land theft, which can only be seen as a modern version of Jezebel's murderous expropriation of Naboth's vineyard.  Trump reacted:

The Internal Revolt at Facebook

Facebook’s Conservatives Find Their Courage

David French
National Review Online

An internal revolt provides hope for real change.

In my many years of traveling the country, speaking at universities, litigating against universities, and interacting with conservatives who live and work in the most seemingly uniform progressive enclaves, I’ve come to understand three key truths:

First, there are more conservatives in virtually every major progressive institution than people realize.

Second, they tend to be scattered across the company or university and therefore perhaps feel more alone and isolated than their true numbers would suggest.

Third, they’re afraid of reprisals if they attempt to organize in any manner similar to their progressive colleagues.

The resulting sense of isolation and lack of collective action renders them increasingly vulnerable, reinforces the sense that one has to keep his head down to survive, and builds in the Left a false sense of unanimity that only reinforces their view that all sensible people share their views. Progressive activists interpret silence as agreement, and the lack of dissent only spurs more activism.

It takes real moral courage to break the isolation, declare your beliefs, and seek to organize like-minded conservatives (and sympathetic liberals). It also happens to be the single most effective way of breaking groupthink and initiating internal reform. As I’ve written before, it’s the internal mob that matters — especially when dealing with immense progressive institutions that hold commanding market positions. Harvard and Google care far more about their employees’ positions than they do about the political beliefs of customers who largely either have nowhere else to go or desperately seek the credential that only that institution can provide.

And that’s why the internal conservative revolt at Facebook may — just may — represent one of the most consequential news developments of the year.

Reverting to Widespread Public Criminality

The Great Jail Con 

About to Explode In Our Face Any Day Now


Peter Hitchens
Mail On Sunday

There will be blood, and smoke rising in columns over the centre of a major city, and helicopters, too, perhaps even soldiers.   A terrible tragedy is coming to at least one of our major prisons, and only a complete reversal in our crazy liberal social experiment can prevent it.

As I have been arguing fruitlessly against that liberal experiment for more than 20 years, I see little chance that it will be avoided. 



A shocking report has revealed staff have lost control of prisoners in one of Britain's biggest prisons in Birmingham. Pictured: Prisoners gleefully pose with guard's helmets during a prison riot in 2016

Common sense has been banished from our country, but nobody connects this with its results.

The liberals themselves drivel that prisons are full because we send too many people to them. I will come to that in a moment.  Others claim that the squalor, drugs and violence of the verminous Birmingham Prison, revealed last week, are the result of privatisation.

Well, I oppose private prisons because I do not think the punishment of wrongdoers is a business. It is the moral duty of the state.  But it is not the issue here. It is easy to find state-run prisons that are just as bad as Birmingham. 

The truth is astonishingly simple.

Daily Meditation

He Does All That He Pleases

Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3)

John Piper

This verse teaches that whenever God acts, he acts in a way that pleases him.

God is never constrained to do a thing that he despises. He is never backed into a corner where his only recourse is to do something he hates to do.  He does whatever he pleases. And therefore, in some sense, he has pleasure in all that he does.

This should lead us to bow before God and praise his sovereign freedom — that in some sense at least he always acts in freedom, according to his own “good pleasure,” following the dictates of his own delights.

God never becomes the victim of circumstance. He is never forced into a situation where he must do something in which he cannot rejoice. He is not mocked. He is not trapped or cornered or coerced.

Even at the one point in history where he did what in one sense was the hardest thing for God to do, “not spare his own Son” (Romans 8:32), God was free and doing what pleased him. Paul says that the self-sacrifice of Jesus in death was “a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2). The greatest sin and the greatest death and the hardest act of God was pleasing to the Father.

And on his way to Calvary, Jesus himself had legions at his disposal. “No one takes my life from me; I lay it down of my own accord” — of his own good pleasure, for the joy that is set before him. At the one point in the history of the universe where Jesus looked trapped, he was totally in charge doing precisely what he pleased — dying to justify the ungodly like you and me.

So let us stand in awe and wonder. And let us tremble that not only our praises of God’s sovereignty but also our salvation through the death of Christ for us, hang on this: “Our God is in heaven; he does whatever he pleases.”

Lacking Self-Awareness A Sign of Dementia, They Say

Lords of Conscience, Oozing Arrogance and Suppurating Hate

Picture this scene.  An elderly gentleman with a bouffant hair-style ascends a small platform in Hyde Park.  He begins to declaim the destructive influence of media in the lives of ordinary citizens.  He fears greatly the influence of the "Great Eye" installed in every home in the nation.  In the depths of night, a malevolent glow from the Great Eye begins to gain incandescent strength, he warns.  Hundreds of rapid micro-messages are beamed into the unsuspecting minds of all in the house.  The Great Eye is evil incarnate, he shouts.  Suddenly two burly policeman rush at the man, mount his soapbox, throw him to the ground, cuff him, and frogmarch him to a nearby police car. 

Next day, the regime explains its draconian actions.  "He was guilty of 'hate speech', 'fake news' and 'misinformation'.  Therefore, he had to be silenced.  He was manifestly a great danger to society, etc. etc.

Now, we would expect that, were normality reigning, ninety-five percent of the general population would be aghast.  Ok, so the guy with the bouffant hair-style might be a bit whacky with his conspiracy theories, but it's a free country, and free speech is a fundamental right.  Let someone stand up to counter his claims and demonstrate that the evil Great Eye is a myth. 

Flip over the Atlantic to the United States.

Jeremy Corbyn Is Worse Than His Press

The UK Labour Leader is an Antisemite


Peter Walker
The Guardian


The former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks has called Jeremy Corbyn an antisemite, saying the Labour leader’s comment about Zionists at a 2013 conference was the most offensive statement by a senior UK politician since Enoch Powell’s “rivers of blood” speech.

Labour dismissed the comparison with Powell as “absurd and offensive”.

In an interview with the New Statesman, Sacks, who was the UK’s chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, said Corbyn had “given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map”.

He said: “Now, within living memory of the Holocaust, and while Jews are being murdered elsewhere in Europe for being Jews, we have an antisemite as the leader of the Labour party and Her Majesty’s opposition. That is why Jews feel so threatened by Mr Corbyn and those who support him.”

Sacks condemned Corbyn’s 2013 comments, which resurfaced last week, in which he said that a group of Zionists had “no sense of irony” despite “having lived in this country for a very long time”.

Conservative, Not Liberatian

When Liberty Gets Leprosy: The Libertarian Lure

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

Since we are in between elections, and because public feelings are not running high at just this moment, I thought it would be safe to take a moment to discuss the libertarian temptation. And so let us begin by defining terms.

I am a conservative, not a libertarian, but there is quite a bit of overlap. If we are talking about the manufacture and sale of widgets, or of any other lawful product, I am for all intents and purposes a libertarian. When we are talking about basic economics and black ink/red ink problems, libertarians and conservatives are as one. I have elsewhere described myself as a theocratic libertarian. So far so good.

Libertarians, at least the ones not smoking pot, are good at math. You can’t spend what you don’t have, and you shouldn’t spend what you shouldn’t have. If we had a libertarian president, instead of the one we have right now, my reactions to the evening news would be much the same, toggling between jeepers! and yay! There would be much in that scenario to make me happy. Since the great political threat in our time is the overweening state, there are many instances where conservatives can make common cause with libertarians. We can be cobelligerents on a number of issues. All good so far. So where might the problems be?

I have three basic problems with libertarianism as such, and the first two lead to an informed discussion of the third.

Braying Donkeys

Some Reporters and Academics Are In Wonderland

Here is how inane some in the media have become when it comes to crime and punishment.

A lack of evidence jailing people longer puts them or anyone off committing crime makes it difficult to use deterrence as a reason to hand out long prison sentences, a High Court judge has said.  Justice Matthew Palmer told lawyers ahead of sentencing he wanted them to come to court with evidence longer sentences actually had the deterrent effect the law told him to consider.

Days later, defence lawyers came with research showing it didn't work.  The Crown turned up with nothing.  The sentencing notes of Justice Palmer reflect concern around the lack of evidence in an area which the Sentencing Act 2002 says should be considered when judges consider how long to send people to jail.  [NZ Herald]

This is how the story was played up ("framed")  by David Fisher, Herald reporter.  However, in the small print, the matter was quite different.