Civic Society

The egg, wall, king’s horses and men

eejoseph

If you have not noticed, all the powers on the planet are  mired in their own excreta.  Every claim of sovereignty is upended by rabbit holes, misinformation and rewritten history.  Trusted clergy, notaries public, judges, and representatives of the people at all levels are showing how easily they can be bought and sold.  Adoption, abortion, and anthropology are not subjects that require science, much less rocket science.  Neither is migration. They are not matters of extraordinary faith, but of a simple or childlike faith and rudimentary decency. Abortion and border policies come from the same uncaring pit of malice and ruthlessness.

Birth alone is the measure of identity

Are those conservative theologians going to circumcise their children before they leave their mothers’ wombs?  Why are there people registering their chickens before they are hatched?  Is that pre-registering what the stock market is all about? American exceptionalism has fallen off the wall, and we are watching frantic and futile attempts to mend the cracked egg.  The disappointing silence of the watchmen who are supposed to be on Zion’s walls cannot be described without superlatives because sonship, adoption, circumcision, naming, and only those groveling in juvenile visions, types and illusions will not see how empty and diabolic the plot of evangelicals to get their hands of the levers of government.  Even with a cloak of academic and miraculous accolades abortion, national security, and common sense are mere fig leaves.

Conscientious to condemn and courageous to compromise

Stupid is not a label we throw around lightly, but when we look at how the United States Supreme Court has been constituted we recognize that men of good conscience are rare indeed, and it is men of good conscience who vote for officials who the electorate expects to conduct themselves as men of good conscience. All nobility is compromised when money floats in the air. When so many of the persons on the front lines of justice and goodness turn out to be tainted in character, to be people who have made not merely made poor judgments in a case or two, but turn out to be rooted in malice and committed to injustice, men who flip flop between loyalty to law and support of insurrection, we are sure the egg is not being repaired in our lifetime, if ever. Forget conscience. The watchmen lack even the basic courage to defend all the people behind the walls.

Begotten, conceived and born

We know that abortion is a well-dressed pig, because a person is neither baptized nor circumcised until they leave the womb.  We also know that the communities into which people are born do  not recognize new members until a rite of passage (such as bar mitzvah) takes place.  It is no secret that it was not until a male of the tribe of Levi (those entrusted with the service that bound the tribes together) in ancient Israel reached thirty years that he was considered eligible (Numbers 4:1-3).  We also know that conception is not birth yet more and more Christians are using the term “born again” to describe the current experience of divine salvation and adoption, even when it is obvious that we have been begotten by grace through faith, are indeed sons of God now, and only the most deluded would want to deny that the Holy Spirit is given as a deposit of glory.   If you think that the religious intelligentsia are going to confess that they have soiled their undergarments with idolatrous and covetous doctrines of anthropology and salvation, pinch yourself.

Sons of God in the age to come

Sonship does have a defining crown when this age is over.  So in all our passionate defence of the unborn we stumble over the facts of human life, soil our garments with delusions of the divine process of adoption. We make ourselves like the fruit squeezed by human hands to appear ripe before its time. There are no grown up kids. Maturity cannot be faked or legislated. Israel’s first and second kings were thirty years old when they began their reigns (1 Samuel 13:1, 2 Samuel 5:4). Is that why God kept Jesus under wraps until he was thirty years. The Born again slogans and rhetoric are not helpful. Are those thirty years pictures of why we believers spend a lifetime as begotten of God to be born in the age when He gives us new bodies? You think about that!

No blip

eejoseph

“About that time there occurred no small disturbance concerning the Way.” (Acts 19:23, NASB)

Previously in Acts

  • Bogus exorcists (Acts 19:16)
  • Decision to see Rome
  • Two ministers dispatched to Macedonia, Timothy and Erastus
  • The name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified (Acts 19:17)
  • The word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing (Acts 19:20)
  • Stayed in Asia for a while. (Acts 19:22)

Disturbance breaks out

It was obvious that someone wanted to stir up the business world and use the courts to cripple the disciples’ effect on the whole of Asia. In the 21st century we have seen a lot of religious posturing by governments to the point where many are beginning to think that there may be crediblity to various examples of religion-dominated societies. Take three or four Asian examples, a couple more from the Midde East, a dozen from Europe and the Americas and the case closes. There is nothing more than a muffled whimper from religious governement. God will never consent to humans (especially exclusively males) being the arbiters of what people should think. The difference between God and humanity is too stark for thoughtful people to tolerate even the smell of thieves, robbers, blasphemers and religious artifacts and rituals.

Another day in court

For you have brought these men here who are neither robbers of temples nor blasphemers of our goddess. (Acts 19:37, NASB)

As it happened

  • BIG BUSINESS … a man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who made silver shrines of Artemis, was bringing no little business to the craftsmen;
  • FORMING A LOBBY. these he gathered together with the workmen of similar trades, and said, “Men, you know that our prosperity depends upon this business.
  • MAKING THE LINK BETWEEN GOD AND BUSINESS. “You see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this Paul has persuaded and turned away a considerable number of people, saying that gods made with hands are no gods at all.
  • LOSS OF MARKET RANKINGS. “Not only is there danger that this trade of ours fall into disrepute, but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis be regarded as worthless and that she whom all of Asia and the world worship will even be dethroned from her magnificence.”
  • ANGRY MOB SLOGANISM. When they heard this and were filled with rage, they began crying out, saying, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
  • CITY-WIDE MOB CHAOS. The city was filled with the confusion, and they rushed with one accord into the theater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul’s traveling companions from Macedonia.
  • PAUL PROTECTED. And when Paul wanted to go into the assembly, the disciples would not let him. Also some of the Asiarchs who were friends of his sent to him and repeatedly urged him not to venture into the theater.
  • OFFICIAL DISTURBANCE AND VACUUM. So then, some were shouting one thing and some another, for the assembly was in confusion and the majority did not know for what reason they had come together.
  • ANTI-JEWISH SENTIMENT. Some of the crowd concluded it was Alexander, since the Jews had put him forward; and having motioned with his hand, Alexander was intending to make a defense to the assembly.
  • LOUD DEMONSTRATION. But when they recognized that he was a Jew, a single outcry arose from them all as they shouted for about two hours, “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”
  • DEFENDING EPHESIAN TRADITION. After quieting the crowd, the town clerk said, “Men of Ephesus, what man is there after all who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of the image which fell down from heaven?
  • APPEALING FOR CALM. “So, since these are undeniable facts, you ought to keep calm and to do nothing rash.” (Acts 19:24-36, NASB)

Lawful process vs kangaroo court

But if you want anything beyond this, it shall be settled in the lawful assembly. For indeed we are in danger of being accused of a riot in connection with today’s events, since there is no real cause for it, and in this connection we will be unable to account for this disorderly gathering.

Acts 19:39-40, NASB

Civic society has not learned how to appreciate the difference between God’s domain and human government. We can see this in the attempts to solve problems with religous laws and practice. The histories of Judaism and Islsm have taught us nothing. Along with a full embrace of the message from the Bible people remain slow to save themselves from their crooked and adulterous generations. It is no wonder that people find church, even the African thievery, Joel Osteen delusionary, and John Hagee shallow pool type sideshow, wholly unappealing and no blip.

Conservative diatribe

eejoseph,

Three days before the election the leader of the Conservative Party turns American stoolie. Canadians do not vote on the basis of fear, anger, and pride. A day after trotting out yesterday’s leader – former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney- the two parties leading in the opinion polls seem desperate. The ethical hero of the conservative is a blight on the quest for a Canada that puts people first, not the interests of businesses.

Fear, Anger, and Pride? Really?

Our neighborhoods are not stores. Life is much more than buying and selling. The fearful, angry and proud Canadians had better stop looking south for political inspiration.

Who elected the police?

eejoseph

Five Toronto city councillors are reported to want an end to police enforcement of an order evicting the homeless residents from encampments around the city. It is clear that the encampments operate on the fringe of society where the residents are vulnerable to disease, exploitation by anarchists and professional protesters. No one doubts that evictions usually follow legal residencies gone bad. Encampments have no legal genesis. It should be sufficient for encamping homeless to be asked to leave and accept common housing arrangements. It is not. Someone may seeking to be a hero for the homeless.

Which part of enforcement do elected reps not understand?

Think about the spread

eejoseph

CBCNEWS Network shines a light on unsung heroes like factory workers and taxicab drivers. The medical opinion is that reducing the exposure of people to covid19 who do not want to contract or spread is not a postal code operation. There is a high price to pay if we do not act more responsively to the severest threats, such as those person who are the only means of keeping the community functional. The potential for a phenomenally high number of contacts a taxidiver has in a single day makes his workplace a war zone. That is my opinon, but the covid19 war zone is a reality for the driver. The people who move us around for a living deserve to have their plight addressed. They and their families deserve to be a priority for vaccination. #thankugod4taxicabdrivers

The Ford government needs to match its talking points – the best economic engine, the greatest medical scientists, absolute commitment to following the science of coronavirus – to a daily improvement to the safety of all Ontarians. Governments all across Canada think they are operating behind a curtain of “the right words in public”. Factories and a host of congregant entities, including private parties have just come under police scrutiny. Children are showing up with their families in the hospital.

A large part of government reluctance to govern comes from the perception that Canadians will not stand for the curtailment of their right to assemble and the right to be free from being accosted by police services. Law is not so important as personal freedom. The primacy of personal freedom ends in an ever-increasing spread of covid19 (and its variants), death counts, and mishandling of vaccine supplies. The devastating outbreaks in nursing homes shows that talk is cheap, and slow pace of getting vaccine into arms of people who matter most exposes a plan we can only guess is connected to greed, apathy, and discrimination. Remember “kids need to be in school” and “we need to open up the bars and keep essential services running”? It came from every politician in Canada ansd the United States. Who can forget? Home must be a deadly place. Washing hands and observing social distance are simply too much to ask when saving lives is within our reach. Where we are now proves that every resident needs to think about the spread and be involved in reducing it.

Caring Canada Cringes

eejoseph,

Premiers, police chiefs, and God knows who else thinks they are leaders are quick to say that Canada does not have racist structures. Not the prime minister: he of black face funignorance. One is either blind or corrupt not to recognize that in Canada’s history atrocities related to racism have shaped the country. The videos and stories of brutality and inhumanity will surface and the evidence will challenge the caring citizens of this country to cringe and do what civilized people do: renounce and withdraw from corrupt associations.

Not in my backyard

They swear that they have black or native friends or that their religion is against racial discrimination, but we have been surprised to find that institutions are riddled by ignorant and cowardly noisemakers. The RCMP and our local service agencies are getting a long overdue makeover.

  • Your church, mosque, temple, and synagogue
  • Your employer
  • Your car dealer
  • Your grocery checkout staff
  • Your health care practitioner

These are all condemnable. We can ignore the garments and medals these parties wear. Do not tell me “all doctors and lawyers are great guys and great public servants”. We are aware that the welcoming public signs and reminders of civility in these places may be pure sham. The time has long gone for a redemptive change.

Caribbean justice

It is still a matter of pride that Haitians rose from the bondage of the European slave trade to become the first independent state of dispersed Africans. The other path taken by our island nations has perpetuated the very tools of injustice that the colonial powers used. Aren’t they just another cog in the colonial gear box?

Holding our noses

The suicidal crew are so accustomed to presidential comedy that nothing in the excreta range registers any more. The ideal scenario for 45, the GOP and the DOJ would be for the population to stop listening while the things American governance stands for get pushed into oblivion. It is a phenomenon worth seeing: serpent tongues flicking to and fro, so much prey, strike ’em all. The land of the free looks more like one giant prison.

A great secular entity becomes a prison

And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.

Revelation of John 18:2

Everywhere we look there are signs of decay. If we look we will see it. Every time we look southward we cringe because many think that Canada needs what the United States has. If our education and nurture is full of double speak and elitism we will neither care about the history we share nor cringe at the resurgence of corruption and deceit.