Letter From America (About Facts)

Facts Not Always What They Seem

The factual basis of science is not necessarily as hard coded as we have been led to believe.  The following review on Samuel Arbesman's The Half-Life of Facts appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

The Scientific Blind Spot

Knowledge is less a canon than a consensus.

  DAVID A. SHAYWITZ

In 1870, German chemist Erich von Wolf analyzed the iron content of green vegetables and accidentally misplaced a decimal point when transcribing data from his notebook. As a result, spinach was reported to contain a tremendous amount of iron—35 milligrams per serving, not 3.5 milligrams (the true measured value). While the error was eventually corrected in 1937, the legend of spinach's nutritional power had already taken hold, one reason that studio executives chose it as the source of Popeye's vaunted strength.

The point, according to Samuel Arbesman, an applied mathematician and the author of the delightfully nerdy "The Half-Life of Facts," is that knowledge—the collection of "accepted facts"—is far less fixed than we assume.

A Small Blow for a Free Society

Political Correctness Takes a Hit

A new Race Relations Commissioner has been appointed in New Zealand.  The position has gone to Dame Susan Devoy, one of our great sportswomen.  Some Maori have been up in arms.

The problem is that Dame Susan has had the temerity to express her frustration over Waitangi Day.  She also has particular views about women wearing burquas.

What is amusing and telling in the splenetic eruption are the arguments and reasons for objecting to Dame Susan's appointment.  Firstly, the Maori brigade, as reported in the NZ Herald.

Maori groups in particular questioned enlisting someone who had been outspoken in her disdain for New Zealand's national holiday. . . . In Parliament, Maori Party MP Te Ururoa Flavell queried the choice, noting that Dame Susan had "already courted controversy with her views".
Mana Party president Annette Sykes went further, demanding that Dame Susan stand down because she was not fit for the role.  "It's so disturbing that someone with a clearly expressed ... viewpoint can be appointed to a job that's about providing independent leadership and advice on race relations, including public education on the Treaty of Waitangi," Ms Sykes said in a statement.

Then there is the Islamic response:

Unbelieving Distaste, Christian Joy

The Parting of the Ways

Christmas can have a certain sentimental pull for those who are perishing.  After all, only the most depraved cannot be moved at the sight and joy of a newborn baby.  Motherhood, fatherhood, birth, poverty, rejection--all of these pull at the sentiments of most men.  The world has an emotional attachment to Christmas.

Easter not so much.  Here is the divine commentary upon how non-Christians view Easter versus Christians:

Letter From America (About Killing Europe)

The Euro Is Killing Europe

From Cyprus to Portugal, the common currency has been a disaster.

BY DANIEL ALTMAN | MARCH 25, 2013

FPForeign Policy 

Are the best days of the European Union already behind it? Just a few months ago, having won the Nobel Prize for Peace, it could boast of decades without a major war, the westward turn of the former Soviet satellites, and flourishing internal trade. But now its one big mistake -- the euro -- threatens to tear the union apart.

In 1999, the traditionally hard currencies of Europe's north merged with the softer currencies of the south to form a new money that was somehow supposed to be stronger than any of the ones it replaced. Under the stewardship of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, the euro was meant to -- and did -- become a reserve currency to rival the dollar. Though the supposedly prudent northern countries didn't always keep their budget deficits under control, they still managed to survive the worst of the global economic downturn. By contrast, the profligacy of the south, together with its flawed banking systems, has created a hotbed of crises that stretch 2,300 miles from Lisbon to Nicosia.

Wonders of the Modern World

Magnificent Men and Their Flying Machines

A couple of months ago a dear friend handed me QF32 by Richard De Crespigny (Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, 2012).  It is the account of the ill-fated A380 Qantas flight out of Singapore in November 2010. 

Most of us have more than a passing interest in commercial aircraft, since we all use them from time to time.  For the period of time we are up in the skies most of us are conscious somewhere in our minds that our lives are entirely dependant upon a machine that ought not to be sustained in the air, apart from natural laws and engineering design.  There is so much that could go wrong.  There is, thus, a sense in which our lives are suspended until we return again in safety to terra firma.  Consequently, most of us have a deep respect for those professionals flying and working in aircraft. 

Four minutes out of Singapore on the 4th November, 2010 QF32 hit big trouble.

Letter From the UK (To British Expats in Europe)

Ukip urges Brits to withdraw their money from Spanish banks

Nigel Farage has urged British expatriates in Spain to pull their money out of the country’s banks. 

By Robert Watts, Deputy Political Editor

4:57PM GMT 23 Mar 201
The Telegraph

The UK Independence Party leader said that the European Union had “crossed a line” by trying to extract funds from savers under the terms of the abandoned Cypriot bail-out.Mr Farage said: “Even I didn’t think that they would stoop to actually stealing money from people’s bank accounts.

“There is going to be a big flight of money and that flight of money won’t just be from Cyprus, it will be from the other eurozone countries, too. There are 750,000 British people who own properties, or who live, many of them in retirement, down in Spain.  Now that we see the EU are prepared to resort to anything to keep alive their failing euro project, our advice to expats living down in the Mediterranean must be, 'Get your money out of there while you’ve still got a chance’.”

Lenten Meditations

Words of Significance

As we approach Easter, we would refer readers to a series of meditations we published five or so years ago.  They amount to a consideration of the Seven Words uttered by our Lord from the Cross.  These seven words are, of course, timeless and eternal. 

You can find them as follows:

The first word: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
The second word: "This day you will be with me in Paradise"
The third word: "Woman, behold your son"
The fourth word: "My God, my God why has thou forsaken me"
The fifth word: "I thirst"
The sixth word: "It is finished"
The seventh word: "Into Thy hands I commit my spirit"

Each of these words uttered by our Lord are public utterances--meant for His people not only to be heard, but meditated upon and puzzled over.  All seven are intrinsic to His work of atonement and the Passion. 

They may provide helpful material for meditation in the coming days of this season. 

Milestones

 Emerging From Dark Dreams

In the fight for lives on the unborn we can all identify milestones.  Below is one such.  May the language of North Dakota statute SCR4009 make its way into the statute books of every nation in the world.

North Dakota Lawmakers: Life Begins at Conception

by Dr. Susan Berry
23 Mar 2013
 Breitbart TV

On Friday the North Dakota state House passed the first personhood amendment in the United States, marking the first time in U.S. history that a legislative body has approved a personhood amendment in both the House and the Senate. The historic vote, 57-35, allows the amendment to be referred to North Dakota citizens for a vote.

According to SCR 4009, “the inalienable right to life of every human being at any stage of development must be recognized and protected.” Heraldonline.com reports that the amendment was written to ensure that both mother and baby are treated as medical patients, that medical care is not inhibited, and that fertility treatments are not banned.

Cutting Costs

Governance in the National Parks

The largest landowner in New Zealand by far is the government.  Nearly thirty percent of land area in the country is administered by the Department of Conservation ("DOC").  To be fair, a large proportion of this land is rugged, beautiful mountain ranges which are virtually inhabitable.  National parks are open to the public, provided they keep the rules, most of which are eminently sensible and life protecting. 

Lying behind DOC are the environmental advocacy groups, the most powerful and influential of which is the NZ Forest and Bird Society.  For a number of years DOC operational policies in the national parks has effectively been written and sometimes executed by NZ Forest and Bird.  The influence of perverse environmentalist extremism has too often apparent.  One example is the use of 1080 poison to control, if not eradicate, possums--an introduced species lacking natural predators.

Villainous Hero

How the Mighty Have Fallen

When Hugo Chavez died, the chattering classes and the Commentariat went into official mourning.  A saint had departed from the earth.  A true hero of the people, the poor, the underprivileged had shuffled off this mortal coil.  A political giant had left us.  But his legacy remained--an inspiration to all.

Pieces written by professional mourners appeared throughout the Western press and electronic media.  Chavez proudly announced himself to be a socialist and that socialism was the only way forward.  All of this was a bit too much from the more substantial outlets.  This from his obit in The Guardian:

A Brouhaha of Brahmins

Thomas Nagel and Self-Contradictory Materialism

Below is a precis of an article about the materialist establishment's conniptions over perceived heretic Thomas Nagel.  It is very well written and well worth perusing. 

The Heretic

Who is Thomas Nagel and why are so many of his fellow academics condemning him?

Mar 25, 2013, Vol. 18, No. 27 • By ANDREW FERGUSON

The Weekly Standard

Last fall, a few days before Halloween and about a month after the publication of Mind and Cosmos, the controversial new book by the philosopher Thomas Nagel, several of the world’s leading philosophers gathered with a group of cutting-edge scientists in the conference room of a charming inn in the Berkshires. They faced one another around a big table set with pitchers of iced water and trays of hard candies wrapped in cellophane and talked and talked, as public intellectuals do. PowerPoint was often brought into play. 

The title of the “interdisciplinary workshop” was “Moving Naturalism Forward.” For those of us who like to kill time sitting around pondering the nature of reality—personhood, God, moral judgment, free will, what have you—this was the Concert for Bangladesh.

Riddled with Corruption

 China Inc.

China is a corrupt country.  The ordinary Chinese citizen knows it.  Over the past five years the internet has been used as a vehicle to expose the corruption of Chinese government officials and functionaries.  The word is out.  The response of the Chinese government has been to attempt more stringent censorship of its own citizens.  A government that will not allow its citizens to speak freely is a government riddled with fear.  It fears the truth. 

To be fair, the Chinese government has attempted to crack down on the corrupt activities of government functionaries and officials.  But one suspects that the crackdown is more driven out of political opportunism: it presents an easy way to get rid of a political opponent, rather than a consistent fundamental drive for universal ethical standards.  China is a country where virtually everyone can be considered a lawbreaker at the whim of the state.

Gosnell's House of Horrors

 Gosnell Should be Given a Medal, Right?

The trial of Dr Kermit Gosnell is now making headlines around the world.  Consider, for example, the article below, which today appeared in the NZ Herald in New Zealand.  The piece makes for difficult reading.  The first response is to extend compassion towards the medical assistants who are now facing up to what they did.  They know they have murdered children.  For at least some of them their grief will be inconsolable and their guilt will be unable to be expiated.  May God have mercy upon them and draw them to the Lord Jesus Christ. 

But this trial and all its horrors is important for other reasons.  There are plenty of effete liberals who propound all kinds of abstract ratiocinations to justify the evil of abortion (the child is not a human being until it has been born; the child has no legal rights; the pregnant female's rights to control their own body trump any other human rights, and so forth.)  To them we would simply ask them once again to get on their soap boxes and justify why they believe what was taking place in the Philadelphia's House of Horrors was perfectly acceptable, moral, and right.  For in principle they all do.  Most, however, are afraid to face up to the position they hold.  That is why we call them effete liberals.

Of Train Wrecks and Car Crashes, Part III

Sins of Identity

At one point in her Augustinianesque "Confessions" about her conversion Rosaria Butterfield has this to say:

Slowly but steadily, my feelings did start to change--feelings about myself as a woman and feelings about what sexuality really is and what it really isn't.  I--like most everyone who identified as gay or lesbian--felt really comfortable, very at home in my body, in my lesbianism.  One doesn't repent for a sin of identity in one session.  Sins of identity have multiple dimensions, and throughout this journey, I have come to my pastor and his wife, friends in the Lord, and always to the Lord himself with different facets of sin--how pride, for example, informed my decision-making, or how my unwillingness to forgive others had landlocked my heart in bitterness.  I have walking this journey with help.  There is no other way to do it.  I still walk this journey with help.  [Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor's Journey into Christian Faith (Pittsburg: Crown and Covenant Publications, 2012), p.23.]

One of the implicit challenges in Butterfield's book is for the church is to learn to walk with saints converting out of what she calls "sins of identity".  These are conditions where a sinner has told himself that he is a certain kind of person and has built a lifestyle accordingly.  The sins have become institutionalised within and without.  Sexual sins, when translated into full throated expressions of self-identity, are always like this. Involvement in false religions, when it has touched and conformed the heart and soul of a sinner, is also like this.  

We marvel at the power and grace of God to deliver people from such sins of identity.  There is no power upon earth that can do this.  Only God can so reconstruct such a human being thus wound up in sin and error.  But, and here is the challenge, as Butterfield says, such a person can only walk this journey with help. Are we, as God's people, willing to do this?  We have to be.  It is our calling.  We dare not be, lest we provoke our great King to anger. 

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Amen to the Seventeenth Power 

Money, Love, Desire - Wealth and the Christian
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 18 March 2013

We have gotten to the point where raw power has become the foundational principle of governance -- the ruling class does whatever they can get away with, which is quite a bit. A picture of a monster stack of all the Obamacare regulations was recently circulating on the Internet, and I think it was Jonah Goldberg who made the observation that such rule is indistinguishable from lawlessness. I have trouble expressing my level of agreement here, but I think it would be something like amen to the seventeenth power.

Then the Cyprus debacle happened. The European Union demanded that bank accounts in Cyprus take "a haircut" in exchange for the next bailout, though they are now signaling "flexibility" on the issue because their stealing appeared to be stealing to too many people. We shall see what happens. I suspect that flexibility simply means slippery. Now bank accounts used to be private property, pure and simple, but not any more -- whatever happens.

Leviathan Stirs

Tithing in the West

There is no such thing as private property  in the West any longer.  Not really.  There is only property given to you by society for a time, which may be expropriated at will now, or some time in the future.  In the secular Marxian west the State is the fundamental owner, the real owner of everything.  All private property, so called, is only owned in a form of leasehold, via the condescension of the State. 

Of course it has to be this way.  The reason the state's power to expropriate, seize, and control the property of its citizens is that it has replaced God Himself.  In the biblical world-view, only God is the ultimate owner of all property.  He is the creator and sustainer of everything.  The cattle on a thousand hills belong to Him.  Men only possess property as a leaseholder in God's estate.  But--and here is the point--what God has granted to a man, his family, a business corporation, or to a charitable trust let no man (or government) expropriate or steal.  The wrath of the eternal, ultimate Owner will be kindled.  In the Christian worldview, then, private property rights are sacred and real.  What God has granted, let not another man or human institution expropriate.

Letter From the UK (About Pope Francis)

Pope Francis, the radical from Flores who will 'reshape' Catholic church

Former colleagues and parishioners say disciplined and divine Jesuit will reform power structure, strictly control finances, and check Vatican pomp

The Guardian

Jonathan Watts and Uki Goni in Buenos Aires
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 16 March 2013

The ascension of Pope Francis is likely to usher in the most radical change in the Catholic church in more than 50 years, claim those who know the Argentinian Jesuit from the barrio of Buenos Aires where he was born and cut his political teeth.  Zero tolerance of sexual abuse, stricter control of church finances, a shift away from Eurocentrism, more emphasis on poverty, and a ruthless purge of high-ranking opponents in the Vatican can be expected in the years ahead, according to priests and laymen who have spent decades watching the career of the first Latin American pope.

Of Train Wrecks and Car Crashes, Part II

 Faith and Haste Are Usually Like Oil and Water

Conversion for the Apostle Paul appears to have been like a fatal car crash.  The old was smashed.  But out of the wreckage, something new, something wonderful was born.  The Scriptures do not give many details, but it seems that some time after Paul's dramatic Damascus road experience, when the shards of his former identity lay scattered on the ground, he retired to obscurity and privacy.  It would appear that he needed time to be reconstructed, rebuilt by the Spirit to equip him for the ministry ahead.

Paul tells us that after his initial conversion, he went away into Arabia (a desolate and relatively uninhabited place); then he returned to Damascus and then after three years he "came out", going up to Jerusalem to visit with the apostles.  Then, subsequently, he went to Syria and Cilicia  (Galatians 1: 11-24)  All up, it appears that there was a period of about fifteen years between his initial conversion and before his public call to the work of apostleship. 

The breaking of an old identity--particularly one very strongly etched and inscribed--takes time.

Letter From America (About the Roman Catholic Church)

Why Protestants Should Be Interested in Rome 

Justin Taylor

Carl Trueman offers some reflections on George Weigel’s new book, Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church.

He writes, “Some may wonder what the point of reflecting on Rome is for a Protestant.” He offers three points by way of response:

First, Protestants benefit from a conservative papacy: on public square issues such as abortion, marriage and religious freedom, the RCC has a higher profile and more power—financial, legal, institutional—than any Protestant group. We all benefit from the cultural and legal power of the RCC in these areas.

Honesty and Political Integrity

Sustainable Democracies

Politics and integrity are two words not often found in the same sentence.  In fact, "political integrity" is usually considered an oxymoron.  The current New Zealand prime minister, John Key has his own particular version of political integrity which he has practised more or less consistently since he was first became prime minister in 2008.  His version is that resepective policies on the big, controversial issues should be put before the electorate by all parties.  When a party achieves a majority vote and can coalesce with minor parties to achieve a governing majority, it has an electoral mandate to carry out the policies which were deemed controversial, and over which the election was fought.  It is a case of what the electorate decided by majority vote, so we will do. 

The opposite has also been practised in New Zealand.

Not a Pretty Sight

Totalitarianism, Bellicosity, and the West

Totalitarian political systems are on a constant war footing--against their own citizens.  Once totalitarian control has been asserted it must be institutionalised through secret police, informer networks, kangaroo courts, imprisonment and executions.  Totalitarian systems provide the only example of a nation erecting a wall to keep its citizens in. 

During the last century and into this present one Marxian thought produced the "dictatorship of the proletariat" which, naturally, manifested itself as totalitarian dictatorship by an elite.  Lenin, Stalin, the Ceaucsescus, Honecker all executed totalitarian control over their own citizens. 

Once the citizenry has been pacified and the regime's idiotic economic mismanagement produces famine and destitution, the totalitarian state looks for scapegoats.

Envy at Work

Hating  Business

The Left's pathological hatred of business is nothing more than a hangover from antediluvian cloth cap socialism.  It continues to seethe palpably in the rank and file of the unions, the Labour Party and the Green Party. 

This contempt for business springs from primitive socialist principles such as its dystopian egalitarian ideal (from each according to his ability, to each according to his need); the idea that all profit represents exploitation of labour; and the notion that businesses run for profit represent institutionalised theft, whereby if a business makes more than break even financial results it is charging too much; it is "ripping off" its customers.  Finally, the Left believes that business owners are lazy: they allegedly make money off other people's hard work whilst they themselves do little or nothing.  

This cluster of bizarre, incoherent cluster of  beliefs make up the Left's antipathy to business and business owners.  Beneath it all lies a more sinister, destructive social evil--envy. 

Rodney Hide takes the on the Left's pathology up front.

We The Sheeple

More Than Some Overdue Library Books 

Culture and Politics - Politics
Written by Douglas Wilson
Thursday, 07 March 2013


Kudos to Rand Paul for the filibuster on domestic drone strikes. The thing we have to understand about slippery slopes is that, if you have a ripe one, it is slippery all the way down.

The first thing to note is that Rand Paul was not engaging in a mere political stunt -- he was utterly sincere about it, and the issue is no trifle. There are too many legitimate concerns about our developing despotism to be cool with no recognized constitutional limits on armed predator drones overhead. And, as I have said in other contexts when explaining why the 2nd Amendment covers shoulder-mounted missiles, we need something to shoot these things down with.

Now the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, and so on, through the whole skeleton.

Oxymoronic

Foxes Running Hen Houses

If this were not so serious, it would be hilarious.  Years back the standard example of an oxymoron was "government worker".  Now it deserves to be replaced with "government educator".  We have published a couple of articles on the falling maths competency of New Zealand children being taught in monopolist government schools.  The NZ Herald has carried a follow-up piece pointing out that the current bizarre approach to teaching mathematics in our government schools has come about because of a former "national taskforce to improve maths and science teaching".

Now, it goes without saying that the "national taskforce" consisted of the foxes that were already running the henhouse.  The foxes got to confabulate, and hey presto they came up with something even worse.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

Sex and Smithereens 

Culture and Politics - Sex and Culture
Written by Douglas Wilson
Monday, 04 March 2013

The men who drafted the Westminster Confession believed, as do I, that a lifetime of celibacy for a man not specially gifted by God for that calling is an impossibility. They said:

"No man may vow to do any thing forbidden in the Word of God, or what would hinder any duty therein commanded, or which is not in his own power, and for the performance whereof he has no promise of ability from God. In which respects, popish monastical vows of perpetual single life, professed poverty, and regular obedience, are so far from being degrees of higher perfection, that they are superstitious and sinful snares, in which no Christian may entangle himself" (WCF 22.7).

In short, a man may not lawfully vow to do something forbidden by the law of God.

Eastern Bloc Charter Schools

Unfavourable Portents

Will Partnership (charter) Schools ever get off the ground in New Zealand?  The bones and entrails are not favourable. 

The government education system in New Zealand retains a strong monopoly on all things educational in Years One to Thirteen schooling.  Independent education providers struggle because their parent constituency has to pay twice for their children to attend an independent school, free from government interference and control.

Parents pay for everyone else's education via their taxes for the state education monolith; then they must pay directly for their own children to attend schools where the government system does not ram its dictums and controls into the school via countless rules, regulations, pettifogging supervision, and mandatory reports.  Meanwhile the government education system continues to graduate far too many students who can neither read nor write after thirteen years in the loving embrace of government schooling.  The upshot--more rules, regulations, and pettifogging supervision.  Result: no change.

The potential introduction of charter schools offered a glimmer of hope.  But the further things have gone, the less likely this will be the case.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From America

If It Were a Pancake 

Atheism and Apologetics - Apologetics in the Void
Written by Douglas Wilson
Wednesday, 06 March 2013

Steve McSwain, "Author, Speaker, Thought Leader, Spiritual Teacher," has written a piece over at HuffPo that requires some sort of response. From the rigor of argument displayed in his piece, one guess could be that he is most likely a mentor of spiritual formation at a place somewhere in LA with a name something like Kimberly's Nail Salon, with his office just off the room full of tanning beds.

According to McSwain, Christian need to cool it with the following six dogmas that are just embarrassing the heck out of us urbane Christians. "Christians must stop saying the following things." Okay, get your legal pads and pens out! Take good notes -- it is up to us to stop humiliating the sophisticati. This is no small task, for they humiliate easy.

"1. The Bible is the inerrant, infallible Word of God."

Beneficiary Enlightenment

Good Things Coming Out of Bad

In New Zealand we have a perpetuating state beneficiary problem.  The "welfare state" commenced in the early 1930's and has now grown to a gargantuan monster.  We have people that are preceded by three generations of lifetime welfare beneficiary dependence having never worked in paid employment all their lives.  This latest generation are continuing to walk in the footsteps of their fathers and mothers, living off the benefit. 

The government has introduced a "back-to-work" policy that requires welfare beneficiaries actively to look for work, make applications for jobs, proceed to interviews and so forth.  If they do not, they will face cuts in their benefits.  The reflexive response from the Left, which believes there is never any shortage of other people's money, decries this as "beneficiary bashing". 

We are sure that the new programme will have all the normal lacunae and weaknesses.

Letter From America (About Hugo Chavez)

 Life Under Hugo Chavez

Mytheos Holt

March 6, 2013

The Blaze

. . . Chavez’s Agenda

Throughout his career as president of Venezuela, Chavez could be described as single-mindedly pursuing one particular ideal: The ideal of social (particularly economic) equality. Everyone from Chavez’s critics to his supporters has written something to this effect. Bloomberg Businessweek, for instance, wrote this in its obituary:

 Chávez’s most enduring and positive legacy is his shattering of Venezuela’s peaceful coexistence with poverty, inequality, and social exclusion. He was not the first political leader who placed the poor at the center of the national conversation. Nor was he the first to use a spike in oil revenue to help the poor. But none of his predecessors did it so aggressively and with such a passionate sense of urgency as Chávez did. And no one was more successful in planting this priority into the nation’s psyche and even exporting it to neighboring countries and beyond. Moreover, his ability to make the poor feel that one of them was in charge has no precedent.

CNN was even more blatant in its news story on Chavez’s death, describing Chavez’s legacy as leaving the Venezuelan economy “more equal [and] less stable”.

Leading Indicators

Winnowing Forks and the Wind

God's people are always being winnowed and refined.  It's not something many Western Christians give a great deal of attention to, although we expect that this will not continue to be so.  When our Lord was about to commence His public ministry the prophet, John the Baptist was sent by God as a forerunner, to prepare His way.  John said of Jesus' coming ministry,

He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. (Luke 3: 16,17)

This winnowing--separating the wheat from the chaff--occurs through the proclamation and ministry of the Word of God.  God's ministers address His people with enjoinders such as, "Choose you this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." (Joshua 24:15)  But it also occurs through oppression and public rejection and mockery of the Christ and His people.