Unlike many of my peers I have made no commitment to a political party.  The day when political parties have no standing in the people’s house of deliberation will be a day when citizens can sleep without concern that they will wake up to hear that the head of government, federal or provincial, is a tool, witting or unwitting of  religion.  To some extent politicians have been tools of their communities, and that can be anything from a xenophobic cult to a deceitful tech corporation.  One does not need to be too creative to realize that a party no longer aspiring to live out its vision, and  sees both grand and old as its high calling has dropped out of the fray, and deserves no attention.  Having seen how low an adult grouping has sunk can  we say we have seen them all?

Living without a mind settles everything

Watching Governor Cuomo of New York and Premier Ford of Ontario come out daily since the spring of 2020 with transparency and diligence I used to believe that politicians were committed to science even as I saw the opposite in countries presumed to be progressive.  There can only be one such but they come in families.  It turns out that the Premier of Ontario is more of a defender of  business than he is of humans. It should be obvious that the conservative bent towards less government and more influence and resources is a wild world based on a fantasy. Mindless in some ways.

It is hard to change spots

Premier Ford wss able to convince Ontarians that he was following science and doung the right thing for the province.   It was such a contrast with him wanting to hold Ontario open for business, as if the province’s ID card read “shop” or “bordello”, we thought hed

The man who affirms every day that he will follow the science is busy undermining the efforts of conservation agencies in the Greater Toronto Area, right under our noses.  Did Mr. Ford and his conservatives think that people would not notice? Everyone who lives in Toronto has seen urban development making wildlife scarce and making irreplaceable land types disappear.

Change is hard

“Can the Ethiopian change his skin Or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good Who are accustomed to doing evil.

Jeremiah 13:23

As usual, these political developments have parallels in the religious world.  It is not difficult to find religious leaders straddling the fence, too underdeveloped to discard the childish and elementary practices of spirituality, so greedy as to be evaluated as God’s exclusive  people, they lump the relevant with the irrelevant. They have not embraced the truth about Christ being the chosen spokesman for God.  They are willingly blind to the fact that the prophets (including Moses) are subject to what Christ ssys and does. It is utterly shameful for Christians to find redemption in any political party or ideology. Once we have seen one we have seen the whole family.

The UK is ripping itself from the bosom of NATO and the EU but its debate systems remain intact. The US on the other hand is ripping itself apart with a wholesale attack on every institution of governance, with constant threats to life and liberty, and with the astonishing assistance of outside powers to keep toxic and shameful slogans in the forefront. The turmoil in these two states is a major contributor to the deepening gloom of powerlessness by all the stakeholders. If we wanted convincing evidence that the world was coming to a place where we would hear God’s voice saying “See, there I told you there was nothing to all these superpowers!” we can find it in the UK and US upheavals.

United Bickering

The most important marker in the crises is the failure of unity. Despite calling themselves “United” and having legislation to ensure the harmonious functioning of state agencies both nations are plagued by division. Observers may feel that there is due diligence to prevent the decline of democracy, but there is also the sense that democracy neither pays the bills nor improves the lives of citizens. Perhaps the prosperity of China, with its fear of a liberated population, and the Islamic states with their imposition of religious observance have caught the attention of western people. The fly in the UK’s ointment is Ireland and the so-called backstop solution for England’s exit from the EU. Ireland just happens also to be England’s most recent experience of violent upheaval. The fly in the ointment of the United States are the two amendments to the Constitution that people are most loathe to control even for the good of everyone.

Not quite “Timber!” Yet

We may be tempted to keep our eyes on the economic and financial upheavals along with the dramatic and climactic to changes to the natural environment but it is something else that we need to pay attention to. The trail left by these two powers across the globe can be summarized in the UK’s creation of the state of Israel and it’s having abandoned the Palestinian people, leaving the process up to the United Nations where the United States has a veto to protect Israel.  These nations are by no means finished but it only takes a night to darkness to push the globe into its final birth pangs.

Finally! Exodus

Everything not secured by Messianic truth is now being swept away by the floods and winds of Earth’s birth pangs.  The great legal mountains, the mighty arsenals of the nations, the assemblies of merchants, and the religious alliances are all being shown to be helpless and still proud even after their treasures are thrown into the streets and after their demands for homage are shown to be blasphemous and aimed at oppressing the humble and the meek.

He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit, than he who captures a city.

Proverbs 16:32

If these two are the examples of unity who needs parliament or president? Learning to control the tongue and firearms is the recommended solution

Knowing that Riches of Glorious Grace from our Heavenly Father continue let us be diligent to receive and share!

In addition to faith and love

… and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.

1 Timothy 1:14

Land is essential for human endurance but if one can avoid the attachment to the planet the thinking might cross over into a revolution for the landless. If you think that real estate is the ultimate achievement or the common landmark of citizenship you are drinking the cool-ade of the industrial revolution. Our First Nations understand what it means to have not in their own land, and were it not for their brave and wise elders they would be like the rest of us, the subject of literature and landless.

Oral traditions are not the primary source of divine revelation. Many cultures have tried to fold their oral doctrines into a book or collection of books and then label the result as God’s revelation. The range of practices across these cultures or regional blocks makes human viability based oin these traditions highly improbable due to the tendency to assassinate or otherwise silence both dissenters and conscientious objectors. We can pretend, for example, that the content of Exodus, Numbers, and Leviticus are the summary of divine communication and community practice from the beginning. However, if we remember that up to the flood, humans had one language, were necessarily spreading out on the planet (and therefore) were forging different technologies, we have to conclude that there was no people of God who were the exclusive possessors of any documentation of God’s blueprint for the human race.

Treasures of God’s self-disclusure

This is where Abraham’s call and experience can inform us about how the oral traditions enter the collective interests of a community. It is noteworthy that no other people have a priesthood chosen from one family, a documented agreement with God, a land for perpetual possession, the right to dispossess native populations, a place to maintain and celebrate the relationship with God, and a prediction that the whole arrangement will be overruled by a superior witness. You are a fool and probably racist for not recognizing that only one group of humans could be the depository of the treasures of the disclosure of the divine mind. God calls the Hebrew people “My people” through the long history of prostitution and rebellion. God discloses something about his and our responsibility when he tolerates cycle after cycle of rejection and shallow obedience.

Literature that tops the charts

Once the foundation was set in the tables of stone at Sinai neither Hebrew nor heathen (a simple term for “nation”, specifically nations other than Israel) can make progress or make convincing arguments apart from the documents. To ensure that the primary function of the Bible did not float by unnoticed or its development along new lines did not go in one ear and out the next God had at least a couple of strategies.

• He bypassed the priesthood
• He authorized the proclamation in a diferent language

“Remember the law of my servant Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel.

Mal. 4:4

The acknowledgment of both of these interventions have been the cause of much of the confusion, hostility, and exploitation of religious ideas. It is not merely a Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan phenomenon for people to cling to ancestral foundations. All across the globe people reject common standards. Women and children, government officials and ordinary citizens pay lipservice to diversity without fully embracing the unity of the human family. Knowing that even Solomon, with his brilliant gift of civic judgment and governance, crashed the ship with his curiosity and rejection of Mosaic tradition. Why would he not? I find it uncomfortably insightful that the wisest man ignored the first contextual pillar of Israelite instruction: the relationship with a single God. It was over five hundred years that had passsed since Moses warned about what having a king would mean for Israel. Over Samuel’s objections the people insisted in having a king like their neighbours. In spite of Yahweh’s superior view of the matter of monarchy and kingdom, the kings became the most rebellious and disturbing examples of leadership, and Yahweh used David’s family to prepare his last will and testament.

Change not possible if we are yes-men and yes-women

Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.

Acts. 17:11

Literature scares a lot of people. They prefer to watch a video. They listen to books because they have only so much time. The people who get their education in discipleship from audio-video and books can be expected not to know what the Lord wants them to know. Everything that meets their present need or provides a miracle that changes things is labelled right and good. We can expect no change if we have noit acceoted the unchangeable. Long before there was an Abraham there is the Word of God, Lamb for a global sin sacrifice, and a Spirit to make people God’s dswelling place. All the dysfunction in the religious world is due to neglect of special literature. Muslims take Jewish concepts and turn them into extreme tyranny and other untenable practices. Hindus have sacred texts which do have a lot of sayings that look like the building blocks of a just and sustainable society. There is coming a day when the so-called national religions will engage the worshippers of God with a new template for spiritual life. I pray that we will know the difference between ancient and honourable and new, effective and eternal.

I wonder how often the people who are railing against bad actors look at themselves in the mirror.  Over the last 30 years I have also been on the brink of being judge and jury over the agencies that have…. I have developed a healthy respect for agencies that do not share my devotion.  Canadian television and radio – all channels and stations – were responsible for smoothing my entry into Canadian life as a twenty year old.   That is why you will not detect an accent in my English.

There are few living revolutionary figures in 2020.

The thinking that labels some media as mainstream is obviously an attempt to elevate trash to treasure status.  That kind of thinking ranks with “Lets build a god of gold and carouse”. 

1 Corinthians 10:7, Paul’s take on contemporary idolatry

Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and stood up to play.”

Exodus 32:6, Moses’ take on contemporary idolatry

So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play.

The American revolution is over.   It is time to either trash its lofty sentiments or get to a new level of devotion.  It is time to either get on with killing one another or get out of the kitchen of free speech and the right to bear arms.  There have  been few globally-consequential heroes since the 4th century.  King James, George Washington,  and Neldon Mandela are shadows of greatness.

If the American mainstream media were to be shut down for a month or two, I believe truth would return to that society.  If the Christian backroom congregations were shut down for a a year all the prostitution of Babylon would proliferate and church as Yeshua intended it would be scarcer than ever.

The historical smoke without a fire

Most people cannot pass this test. The holy and the unholy are not genuine interests in 2020 any more than they were in post-exikic Judah.

Haggai 2:12-14

12. If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?’” And the priests answered, “No.” 13. Then Haggai said, “If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?” And the priests answered, “It will become unclean.” 14. Then Haggai said, “ ‘So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.

The words of a history teacher or a preacher ought to be more than repeating the lines from a dead political party and a criminally tainted megalomaniac.

Go ahead! Blame the Greek New Testament for the poor translations in the New American Standard version