Just reflecting on a busy summer and the changes that come with age, maturity, and the realization that you’ve already passed the midpoint. The last four years, since getting married, have been a blur. Watching a child grow up was compressed for me, given that my son was already ten when he arrived at JFK with his mom. Now he’s just entering high school—I’ve already watched him play in his first football scrimmage at that level.
My remaining grandfather, my mom’s dad, is still with us as I write, but he’s declined and isn’t the same man he once was. However, it was my mother’s heart attack just a month or so ago that served as a stark reminder of my own age. She’s doing well, for now, yet time has most certainly slipped by; the days turned into decades. Siblings grew up and left. Those old friendships came and went. And now, my focus and priorities have shifted to another generation—to the toddler daughter who runs with a smile on her face, turning a simple walk outside into a wonderful adventure.
All good things come to an end. The Slifer House was torn down despite my best efforts to rally against this historical vandalism. It is fairly clear that once Grandpa passes, even the family I thought was always so close will go separate ways. It’s just dawned on me how much of what was always there for me is now in the past tense: the farm, the fun times with cousins running around as a band of boys. Those days are over, and now we have our own lives.
I fought hard, following the terminal prognosis of Uriah and as the eldest of the grandsons, to keep us connected. But life is busy. I have changed, they have changed, and there are growing incompatibilities. I cannot trust those who cling to ideologies—despite all evidence—that could potentially put my own family at risk through the policies they support. Why keep clinging to relics of the past when they do nothing for my family’s future? I still go to reunions, for now.
We Can Never Go Home Again
It seems everything follows the same life cycle. With good fortune, you prosper until you’re surrounded by the fruit of success—and then it all fades away. I got myself back on track very late after years of struggle, and it is simply a fact that I’ve entered the latter half of my life. A second act or a decline into oblivion is all a matter of perspective. But I know all the things I cherished eventually slipped away and you can never go back; the future is built on the death of the past.
Even with my parents’ house still standing and my parents still living in it, even with siblings to reminisce with about our childhood, the moment was gone before I even had time to contemplate what it meant. I’m now much closer to the grave than to my early memories, and I have probably reached my full potential in many areas. I’ve had to leave so much behind to get here, and I can’t prepare my children for the time when the home I provide for them exists only as a memory.
As summer comes and goes too quickly for a fourteen-year-old boy—their days of swimming and fishing—the security of the past is forever falling forward into the present mix of change and uncertainty. Like the Garden of Eden, we’re expelled from the realm of our innocence, a place of nurture, our ideals, and an imagined future of endless possibilities, into a world that demands we perform or die. Time moved slowly then, as if it would never end—but now we see the end.
Have you noticed those holding a moderate view are often attacked more viciously than those actually pushing a cruel extreme? If you fight back against those who are trying to manufacture consent for their abuse you will be accused of hate.
Transferring Blame
Sophie Cunningham, a WNBA player, is now being harassed by the national sports media for her ‘controversial’ opinion that men don’t belong in women’s sports.
Of course it wasn’t just any man that she is talking about, it’s those crossed-dressing men, who appropriate the feminine traits (albeit very imperfectly) and think “identifies as a woman” is to be taken as a license to invade female spaces. This is obviously in defiance of the established social order that grants females exclusive space as protection from male attention—we also have created special categories of sports given the distinct advantage males have physically over women.
This is what Cunningham said after being asked her of transgender participation in female sports:
I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating trans. And I’m like, ‘I never once said that.’ I think that I am here to extend love. But I also think with that love is truth, being honest. And I want to protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.
That is a measured reasonable response—correcting a malicious mischaracterization of her opposition to biological men taking a place reserved for women. Since the girl’s locker room was invented perverted young men have been looking for an opportunity to invade it. There’s a reason why we have a term “peeping Tom” in the first place. But autogynephilia takes this a step further, this is a male becomes sexually aroused by the thought or image of himself being a female, and was diagnosed as transvestic disorder until the powers that be decided we should normalize this behavior.
The truly odd part, however, has been how the corporate media and a ton of bot farm social media content is blame-shifting their obsession with this story onto Cunningham as a sort of accusation. They act as if she is trying to stir the pot for giving an honest answer to a question ESPN asked her. This is a propaganda technique: Make the victim responsible for the negative attention rather than the aggressor. Typically we would see one person against a corporate machine as being weaker. But the people holding the megaphone flipped the script and act as if Cunningham is truly dictating the terms of the conversation.
Burger King Ambush
On August 5, 2026, a young woman named Arianna Hamilton was working her shift at a Burger King in Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. A known Zionist activist, a middle-aged Israeli dual citizen, somehow (details disputed) ended up in a verbal confrontation with Hamilton. How it all started is a he said, she said. She says Feinstein was aggressive. While he claims that she had made him feel unsafe. But we only have what he recorded, where he goads her to repeat phrase said during the course of an unrecorded conversation with disputed details.
Here is the viral exchange:
Rami Feinstein: “I’m here at Burger King and an employee in Burger King just said ‘Free Palestine’ to me.”
Rami Feinstein: (Turning the camera toward her) “Ariana, what did you say to me? What did you say to me, Arianna?”
Arianna Hamilton: “Sorry, I said ‘Free Palestine’.”
Rami Feinstein: “Okay. Okay, say it again.”
Arianna Hamilton: “Free Palestine!”
Rami Feinstein: “I got you, Ariana.”
Clearly Feinstein is looking to push the issue. If he really felt unsafe he would leave. Instead he is harassing a fast food employee, likely a teenager, and demanded a refund. And all because she had dared to respond to his own announcement of his Israeli citizenship with the phrase, “Free Palestine.”
To understand encounter a little better let’s consider an exchange with another political symbol. Say a white man walks into Burger King wearing a Confederate flag T-shirt and seeing it a young African-American woman says, “Black Lives Matter.” Then, in his grating and irritating voice the white supremacist ‘rebel’ demands the employee repeats this phrase for his camera and then goes on to claim he is a victim. Wouldn’t that be absurd?
This is what ‘unsafe’ looks like.
It is even more absurd for an Israeli to ever play the victim card with a black teenager, clearly at a disadvantage to him, for saying “free Palestine” in response to the symbol of a country that is commiting an act of genocide as we speak. He, as a white man, can very easily blend in to general American society by not wearing a symbol of a foreign government associated with oppression and hate. But instead he displays it proudly while claiming that he feels unsafe.
The ‘Hate’ Hypocrisy…
Burger King, bowing to pressure, terminated the young woman exercising her freedom of speech. They claim that it is “incitement to hatred” and say it violated a zero-tolerance policy towards discrimination and antisemitism—I see a lawsuit against a corporation. In what sane world is “free [anything]” hateful? It is not and will never be. Yet those currently in control of the narrative need you to believe “freedom is slavery” and standing for those truly being oppressed is hatred.
Zionism is the very same moral inversion of those saying Julie (Julien “Jimmy”) Tétart, an amateur French male basketball player for the ESC Tergnier and other clubs before undergoing his “transition,” is now somehow a victim of hate because of their clear physical advantage in a woman’s league. Hormones and surgery do not change Julie’s 6′-3″ frame from what it was as Jimmy and it’s shameful that the Monaco Basket Association would even put them on their roster. That’s controversial—not Cunningham politely defending her own opinion most people agree with:
I said what I said. I think it’s kind of common sense, and I think I’ll always believe in that.
The controversy with Burger King and free speech is a little different. Employees for a fast food restaurant are generally expected to not engage in political conversations and yet it’s still insane to frame it as threatening of a grown man. Feinstein was never in real danger. Children in Gaza, Lebanon or West Bank are in real danger. But the corporation is okay with their franchises in Israel giving free food directly to the IDF as this military is terrorizing the region. We cannot get any more ridiculous this. I mean, what’s next, is it going to be considered hate and a fireable offense to wear a Christian cross?
The love of money…
Meanwhile, people can wrap themselves in a banner, wear a symbol of an ongoing genocide then play victim when called out. We’re told it is controversial and asking for trouble when a WNBA player says what we are all thinking when we see a male frame in drag dominating women. Is this just rage bait? A page out of Rules for Radicals? Or maybe it is all of the above and a part of a control regime?
Who Runs the World?
The real point of the culture war is to keep us overwhelmed and distracted. As we are divided on how to define a woman or being told it is anti-semitic to oppose Israel killing the Semitic/Palestinian people, they quietly move pieces to strengthen their control of the world. This ‘they’ being the hands that move pieces on the global chessboard, the billionaire elites, the intelligence agencies, and all of the Epstein-class. These are the people who make money coming and going—stirring the conflict and the profiting from the war.
A name that came up in the Epstein emails, the well-connected pedophile speaking to a guy named Peter Thiel (who happens to be the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Palantir Technologies and a sponsor of JD Vance), with Epstein telling Thiel: “As you probably know, I represent the Rothschilds.” The Rothschild’s a powerful banking family which drew the U.S. into WW1, on behalf of the British, in exchange for Palestine. The Balfour Declaration states it explicitly:
His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
This is not conspiracy theory. This is simply a fact. 116,516 American boys died, and as many maimed, fighting in a trench war that did not have any bearing whatsoever on the nation they were from or their future. It’s an early price of Zionism before we even knew what to call it. It started with the sacrifice of American blood and continues unabated a century later in the Holy Lands.
Also Interesting, contrary to the effort under way to erase Palestinian identity, as part of a genocide, it is very clear this location was called Palestine. And the terms of Balfour’s declaration, “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine,” have now been broken long ago. Now the occupants of this land claim “free Palestine” is hateful of Jews?
The West needs to wake up, the same who were dividing up Gaza long before October 7th became a pretext for ethnic cleansing, have designs to flood the U.S. and Europe with the refugees they create. They want Christians and Muslims killing each other and never united so their own small group of elites has total control (operating behind the chaos) of our government, our property, and our children. These Epstein-class elites already employ immense power over our culture—own both sides of the political divide which is a false choice. They want us to be simply be too confused or preoccupied to ever tell them “no” together.
The Rothchild dynasty, JP Morgan, banksters, responsible for incredible human suffering as a way to secure their wealth.
This is no different from the strategy of modern missile offensives. The attacker hits the air defenses from all angles with cheap drones and missiles forcing a response. If they do not shoot down the low cost munitions they will do real damage. However, interceptors are expensive and limited in supply, when a defender’s finite capacity is tied down then they start to slip in their big punches. This is what the culture war is about, it is about keeping us fighting each other or distracted on the refugee chaos rather than focus on the strategy and who is behind it. You can’t defend against what you do not see.
Migrants flooding in is no coincidence.
We live in a matrix. One where good Jews are driven into conflict with good Muslims and Christians by those who have a totally different god and want to keep us deceived and blinded by prejudice. There are many who are Jewish and speaking out against those who have hijacked their identity and use it as a human shield against legitimate criticism. Zionism is a man who insists on invading female space, the aggressor who plays victim, and denies the reality of their own hate-fueled against Palestinians.
Good Jews and Muslims can get along.
Zionism is NOT Judaism
You have lifted up the shrine of your king, the pedestal of your idols, the star of your god—which you made for yourselves.
(Amos 5:26)
Zionists are to Judaism what Nazism is to Christianity. Zionists use Jewish identity as a cloak, they proclaim their “Judeo-Christian values,” yet they do not have Jesus as their king nor do they act justly despite a claim of righteousness. The book of Acts, repeating Amos, has a word “Molek” in place of “king” and “star of Remphan” as part of Stephen’s speech to the corrupt Sanhedrin. He uses the mention of this star to accuse them of idolatry. There is not any mention of a star of David in Scripture. It’s Kabbalahistic. It’s anti-Christ. While more non-Jews say they are Zionists, Christian Zionist is oxymoron and is impossible for the same reason you can’t be a racially inclusive Nazi.
Six is associated with human effort (6th day of creation) and the anti-Christ.
Israel claims to be a democracy while also preventing millions from voting, says that it represents the West when making laws that allow the execution of Palestinians but not Jews, and then calls it “anti-semitic” to call this apartheid or oppose their genocide. It is a state that brutalizes Palestinian Jews—Zionists assassinated Jacob Israël de Haan for opposing their violent ethno-nationalism and trying to secure agreement for peaceful Jewish residence in Palestine in 1924. He was accused of being a traitor and killed by a Zionist terror squad. This was mirrored in 1995 with the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. His only offense? He was having success negotiating peace with the Palestinians.
I would venture to say that most Jews, like most Muslims, aren’t bloodthirsty criminals and would rather simply get along with all people. It is the extremist fringe that believe they’re better than all others, want absolute control and can’t coexist with those different from them. Zionists are the equivalent to ISIS in a business suit. They know how to charm a Western audience while secretly harboring a Bronze Age barbaric mentality and celebrating the murder of children. They spend millions to dress up their genocide as protection of the West all the while Netanyahu carries a around a “Jews vs Romans” grudge and quips about needing to “win the next one.”
The blessings of Abraham are distributed to the world through Christ Jesus—a true Jew—and not through the mob who murdered him for speaking out against their corrupted version of Biblical religion. The first Jewish followers of Jesus truly embodied spirit and faith of Abraham rather than being “hostile towards everyone” (1 Thessalonians 2:14) as was the case of those who rejected the Gospel. That is what Zionism boils down to: A rejection of the Christ who said ‘my kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36) and taking up the offer of the devil in the wilderness:
The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”
When Jesus declared “I am the way and the truth and the life,” proclaiming himself to be the only way to God, he’s talking about what he embodies and the real costs of rejecting him. Christianity was a schism in Judaism, one embracing broader humanity with love and the other in a conflict with all in pursuit of dominance. Jesus rejected the sword—warning those who live by it die by it—while the Zionist reframes their violence as being a righteous defense of their inheritance. It only starts in the country called Israel, look who dominates banking, entertainment and politics: There’s no doubt that the rejection of Christ Jesus has a reward.
This isn’t compatible with Christ or Western civilization. It’s a twisting of Scripture to justify theft of inheritance.
Judaism, in general, is not the issue. We’re all born somewhere and the Old Testament law, like Islam, isn’t a bad starting point. It’s incomplete, from the perspective of the true believers in Jesus, but the books point us in the right direction. But when the rejection of the way of Christ becomes willful, truth is the first casualty and death will follow. Yes, cunning, deception and exploitation are a quick route to worldly wealth, the system of usery is the driver of inequality and anathema to an idea of giving with no expectation of return in the teaching of Jesus. Those who do violence to others may gain the world—but they lose their own soul in the process.
The intense hatred of Christianity, that is the heart of Zionism, stems from an inheritance being taken away and given to another. The “kingdom of God,” meaning the true spiritual inheritance of Abraham, was taken away as a result of wilful disobedience. That’s what the Parable of the Tenants (Matthew 21:33-46) makes abundantly clear. Outside of the way, the path of and letting go of pride or a spirit of entitlement, there is no other way to salvation. You can reject and kill Jesus, go on to gain the world by cunning or violence, even convince many with false prophets or fake miracles—but you can only ever enter the kingdom through Christ.
The real reason why Sophie Cunningham and Arianna Hamilton are treated as a bigger threat than extremists, for moderate and reasonable views, is because they will expose the absurdity of the narratives being pushed if left unmolested. The media and Rami Feinstein understand that the truth is not on their side and thus their only defense is to extinguish the voices that call them out for what they are. Those who seek to erase the children of Gaza and Palestinian identity are of the very same spirit as those who cancel a person for telling the truth about the biological men who invade female spaces. The truth is not in them and the lies they embrace are corrupting the world.
The truth sets us free: The Gospel is for the Jew as much as the Gentile.
So with that I say: Free Palestine from the rule of the Zionists who immediately broke the terms of the Balfour Declaration. Protect women from the men who appropriate womanhood—invade and occupy spots designated for women. We should call out those who hide behind co-opted identity and perpetual claims of victimhood as an excuse for their own abuse.
And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
Matthew 23:30-32 NIV
History is more cyclical than progressive. I had subscribed to a view that we had finally advanced beyond the atrocities of the past—and at very least we would certainly never allow another Holocaust, right?
But now, as Zionists have started to enact their final solution on West Bank (which had absolutely nothing to do with October 7th if that ever mattered) the American ‘Christian’ response has been either being muted to a point of deafening silence or enthusiastic in support of the land theft and murder. So we testify against ourselves, we reveal the true values of our civilization and its not an ideal of “liberty and justice for all.”
Smacked for not standing during the national anthem of a country that is supposed to be all about personal liberty and freedom of expression.
The irony being those who would be most offended by someone for not reciting the pledge of allegiance (partial quote above) are also most supportive of denying basic human rights to others. It is precisely what Jesus rebuked in the Pharisees: Those very people who believe they’re the guardians of the ideal are destroying it because—as full of themselves and dense as they are—the ideal never penetrated or reached a level of true comprehension.
Harassment backed, literally, by the IDF.
What is happening in the West Bank as we are speaking?
A pogrom, the bands of heavily armed Zionists committing acts of arson at night and are killing Palestinians (and including U.S. citizens) during the day, and the IDF is there to support it. Their goal being, of course, to either drive the disarmed indigenous people off of their own land through harassment or just to slaughter them if they refuse to run into the wilderness with nothing. We called the pogroms of the past evil—we are silent now as history repeats.
We support this evil by our silence. We, the people of the U.S. in particular, have played a supporting role.
The pattern is the same every time and yet we fail to see it. If those being invaded and assaulted don’t do anything they’ll soon be overrun. But if they do resist and fight back this act will be taken totally out of context and portrayed as aggression when it’s truly only self-defense. Imagine that, protecting your own land, your own family, and being labeled as a “terrorist” for it. When Jewish people fought against Nazis in the Warsaw uprising this was used as an excuse for the ethnic cleansing and genocide—likewise the propagandists claim that any resistance by the Palestinians to displacement is hatred of Jews and it’s absurd.
On the morning of July 24, 2026, a group of Israeli settlers, heavily armed, supported by the IDF (the “hikers” as the Hasbarists have called them) and their encroachment led to a confrontation. The Zionist aggressors had opened fire, a farmer, Farouk Ramadan, took a settler’s rifle in the melee and he returned fire. Immediately after shooting the farmer fighting for his land was killed, along with a few of his cousins, on their own Palestinian land. This act of self-defense is, of course, being used as an excuse to double down on the aggression against the West Bank. We are seeing Netanyahu’s “final solution” enacted before our eyes and half of us are okay with it and the other is enabled by silence.
Doing nothing when goodness and morality demands we speak or act makes us a party to the atrocities. There is no excuse. Yes, it is true, we are subjected to the most powerful propaganda campaigns of all time when a farmer can be described as a “mass shooter” and “terrorist” for fighting back against an armed invasion and in defense of his own family and land deeded to his ancestors centuries ago—if you have no clarity on property rights for the indigenous people in West Bank (which isn’t Gaza) then don’t you dare protest people who cross the U.S. border for a better life.
In what universe is it okay for a band of armed men, supported by an occupying army, to cross into the land owned by other people?
If you’re okay with Zionist settlers carrying our pogroms against the people who lived on their land for centuries then you have no business claiming that any immigrants are illegal here. Texas was Mexico at one time, the Spanish got here first, so by the rules of Zionism your claim doesn’t matter. Are we okay with that? Either way want liberty and justice for ALL, as a reciter of the pledge of allegiance or you’re a hypocrite and liar. We are truly no different from those whom were rebuked by Jesus for being complicit in the crimes of their ancestors.
This is what Jesus said directly to the faces of those who claimed to be the children of Abraham and yet did not live according to his faith:
You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44 NIV
Murderers and thieves. People who hide behind lies. Those who accused Jesus of being demon possessed for his calling out their secret schemes. They believed they were entitled to the promises of Abraham, but Jesus said they would be cut off from the tree, thrown in the fire, and others then grafted in their place. Jesus gave them no excuse based on bloodline. What excuse will we be given as those who heard the Gospel of repentance and the command to follow him, yet absolutely refuse to love people of all nations as he did?
It does seem that the Republican mid-term strategy is to dig up the old fan favorite “red scare” playbook (last seen with the Democrat Russian collusion claims against Trump) and make it a referendum on a phantom threat of Communism. This rhetoric is from the top, with Trump now railing against Communism multiple times in the past month and prevalent amongst those social media voices who remain part of the MAGA coalition.
So perhaps this comment directed at the pontiff, for allegedly his “commieposting,” originates in a desperate effort to reframe the national conversation?
But read this again:
Hundreds of millions of people throughout the world are immersed in extreme poverty. Yet, disproportionate wealth remains in the hands of a few. It is an unjust scenario, in the face of which we cannot fail to question ourselves and commit to change things. There is no lack of resources at the root of disparities, but the need to address solvable problems related to a more equitable distribution of wealth, to be achieved with moral sense and honesty.
Pope Leo XIV says nothing about banning private ownership. He’s not saying we must establish a new government agency to force a new equal distribution of wealth. Instead he’s paraphrasing,—to the Christian faithful—exactly what St Paul is speaking to in the passage below:
Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. The goal is equality, as it is written: “The one who gathered much did not have too much, and the one who gathered little did not have too little.”
(2 Corinthians 8:13-15)
Communism, a term originating from the Latin ‘communis’ or common, universal), is a political ideology which was popularized by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels who had published their pamphlet The Communist Manifesto in 1848. Communism aims for class warfare and state ownership of the means of production. It sought to create classless society where the workers can no longer exploited by wealthy elites who have traditionally controlled wages and write the laws in their own favor using influence they can buy from corrupt politicians.
I’m quite confident that St. Paul is not being an advocate for Communism in his letter to the Corinthians. Instead, what he is calling for is a voluntary participation in Christian community—where wealthy members who recognize that success is not their own but a gift from God are concerned with equality and, therefore, resolved to be open-handed. A believer is compelled fully by their Christian conscience, not force, to give freely to those who are in need rather than hoard while others go without. So maybe this is a type of Communism?
However, it is not what we commonly think of as Communism and the distinction being that one is looking for the government as a replacement for conscience and God. The Marxist compels with a threat of violence whereas a Christian should out of a moral obligation to show their love to those loved by God. It is part of our alignment with the Divine will that we want to act out for the good of others. And speaking of acts, the book of Acts describes this being a norm for the early Church:
All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.
(Acts 4:32-35 NIV)
More commieposting?
The above sounds suspiciously like: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”
This wasn’t required. It certainly was not a demand of the proletariat to the bourgeoisie—yet this authentic early Christianity did seek to erase class division and abolish all favoritism. It was absolutely an expectation that the poor in the household of faith were provided for as part of an egalitarian ethic, the Church was a family and all members mattered. Charity was extended beyond as a way to testify to the transformative power of the Gospel, as means to actively expand the community of believers, and to manifest God’s indiscriminate love in a very stratified Roman society. So it was revolutionary, but with God’s grace rather than government as center of it all.
The left has their issues. But the right is not righteous either.
What’s ironic is how so many Evangeli-cons claim the U.S. should be a Christian nation and then call what is clearly communicated in the New Testament “Communist” when this ethic is articulated by the Vatican. No, I do not see Jesus as being a Communist. He didn’t say we should take by force. However, he also wasn’t teaching American individualism or our form of Social Darwinism either. Perhaps if more who claim Christ were living in compassion (rather than judgment or fear) the state would not be our competition anymore?
Loving your neighbors in need is not being a Commie—it’s just being a Christian.
So, aren’t you afraid of the Amish moving in and imposing Ordnung law?
These peaceful-looking folks buy up large tracts of land, send their children to their own private schools, and even speak a strange tongue among themselves. It won’t be very long until they ban automobiles, require all women to wear bonnets, mandate beards for men, and pressure everyone to buy their discounted quilts. It’s clearly part of their long game.
If that mix of real Amish religious practice and wild extrapolation sounds completely ridiculous, good. That said, this is what propagandists do all of the time.
Anabaptist radicals—the forebearers of Amish—once aggressively seized control of the German city of Münster in 1534–1535. They established a violent theocracy, practiced polygamy, executed religious opponents, and even drove thousands of Lutherans and Catholics out into a freezing snowstorm. It is a historic episode that ended in horrific bloodshed. After defeat, the survivors gathered at the Bocholt Conference in 1536 and chose not a full rejection of violence, but only a tactical pause—force was futile “for the time being.”
Imagine someone using that bloody 16th-century event today to argue that modern Amish families, purchasing farmland in central Pennsylvania or across Ohio are secretly just biding their time, growing their numbers, and simply waiting for the perfect moment to strike and impose strict religious regulations. We’d call it fear-mongering and absurd—and rightly so.
None of us would seriously worry about Amish Ordnung (community rules) being imposed on ordinary Americans. There’s no will, capability, or realistic pathway to do so.
In the United States, religious communities have long maintained their own schools, arbitration systems, and customs. Orthodox Jewish Beth Din courts and various Christian panels are operated legally, protected by the First Amendment and always subordinate to national and state law. The Amish aren’t coming for your car or your clean shaven appearance.
Kiryas Joel, an Orthodox Jewish settlement in upstate NY, has their own religious rules similar to Amish.Orthodox Jews, in Brooklyn NY, have special patrols.
Whether the fear is genuine or manufactured, the U.S. Constitution is more than sufficient to block any religious code from overriding secular law. I’m far more concerned about domestic elites—lobbyists, intelligence agencies, and the entrenched interests with real power to buy politicians and shape narratives—than about hypothetical theocracies in the American heartland. On Sharia itself, certain elements (such as the ban on usury) could even offer lessons for breaking cycles of debt slavery. At minimum, we should respect those who reject having our own exploitative financial and cultural systems imposed on them.
The Christian standard remains: treat others as you wish to be treated. Lead by the attractive power of example and love, not through bombs or domination.
There are two billion Muslims in the world, if a large percentage of them were actually out to get us we would not stop them. But, like us, they’re all unique individuals and the extremists don’t represent them any more than the Salem Witch Trials do us. The Islamic religion has a diversity of interpretations no different from Christianity and it seems most Muslims just want to live life like other people do. The Sharia law panic on the right is no different from the left’s Handmaid’s Tale fantasy about Biblical fundamentalists.
Europe’s Demographic Reality
Europe faces a genuine transformation. Muslims currently make up roughly 7-8% of Europe’s population. However, while alarmist projections of a Muslim-majority continent in decades—all assume unchanging high fertility that the data contradicts. It is true Muslim immigrant fertility (around 2.6 children per woman) exceeds native rates (around 1.6), but this drops sharply by the second generation. Assimilation?
Europe’s core problem is not invasion but its own fertility collapse well below replacement. Aging societies need workers to sustain economies and welfare systems. Immigration is filling a vacuum created by native demographic decline.
NATO destroys Libya and this is the result.
What drives the migration waves? Decades of destabilization—wars, regime changes, sanctions, and proxy conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. NATO’s intervention in Libya (Hillary Clinton’s “We came, we saw, he died” cackling) turned a viable country into a source of slave markets and refugees. The pattern is consistent: create chaos abroad, then face the human consequences at home. Neo-cons often cheer destruction overseas while panicking about the resulting flows.
Conflict and poverty keep fertility higher simply as a survival strategy.
Stability is the best contraceptive.
Ending endless interventions—the trillion-dollar wars, support for destabilization covert action, and regime-change cycles—would reduce the pressure to migrate. Sovereign nations should govern themselves. Saddam would’ve happily sold us oil. Iran’s original sin in Western eyes included rejecting a CIA-backed coup against its elected secular leader. Nations we’ve harmed have often shown more pragmatic forgiveness than expected when we finally stop killing their people and taking their resources.
If anyone had done to us what we did to Vietnam, world the ‘Christian’ U.S. ever forgive it?
This approach won’t magically reverse Europe’s native birth-rate collapse or cultural self-doubt, which predates recent immigration. But it would ease the crisis, allow more selective policies, and let more people thrive at home: Syrians in Syria, Palestinians to be free again on their ancestral land, and Europeans preserving their heritage without perpetual emergency.
Global diversity’s viability ultimately requires reciprocity—ending systems of domination and apartheid everywhere, allowing resource-rich countries to benefit their own populations, and fostering mutual respect over war propaganda. Second- and third-generation immigrants adopt the low-fertility patterns of developed societies. Prosperity and stability are self-correcting.
Fearing the Amish by dredging up Münster is absurd. Painting every Muslim as part of some monolithic conquest is equally so—and also is conveniently profitable for certain interests.
The real threats are internal cultural decay and the foreign policies that export chaos, and then import its victims. The saner path is to seek peace abroad and then spiritual renewal at home: lead by competence, example, and vitality of faith rather than fear and bombs.
Learning the Münster Lesson
Amish have learned, maybe through the error of their less peaceful Anabaptist forebearers, that it is better to farm than fight. They have a greater strength than their numbers through rejection of violence than they do through arms. We are not set free by our militarism or aggressive posture—we are bound to the military-industrial complex and state of propaganda. A moment of real and true honest introspection may spare us a world of future pain. Maybe we’re not those blameless heroes we imagine ourselves to be?
Why do we put fabric all over our bodies—why not be naked?
For protection.
We wear clothes for a layer of protection against the elements.
Clothing helps us keep our body heat in the cold air. It is a barrier against harmful solar radiation. This invention allows us fragile creatures to navigate harsh environments that would kill us otherwise.
We also wear clothes as a matter of public health. This covering is beneficial from a sanitation perspective and for keeping all of our disease spreading bodily fluids off of shared surfaces.
There is a significant social component or function as well. Having the ‘right’ clothes matters if you want to fit in. It could be a religious group you wish to belong to or just the popular kids at school—but you will be judged by the outfits you wear.
My son, for example, found out the pair of sneakers (bought with his money) weren’t cool because they weren’t some recognized name brand. Agree or not, I know there’s no point in fighting this pressure to conform. If a kid does not want to be ridiculed they will wear the currently acceptable style.
Even those counter-cultural types are just responding to this pressure by going in an opposite—yet as completely predictable—direction. From Hipsters who all looked the same trying to be different to the Goth kids with their own uniform that is stricter than the typical and mainline dress regime—all are obeying a rule.
Even in trying to look different we end up looking the same.
Dress is a part of group identity—a way to belong to a group. Amish will know other Amish in the same way gang members or police officers recognize each other. It is by wearing the correct colors, or following the correct patterns, that an individual gains the necessary recognition to gain the benefit and protection of a community. Sure, we may not always like it, we might see this as being superficial, but clothing sends signals that can either make us more vulnerable or more safe.
Conservatives have long valued modesty over inviting attention. This is something developed from tradition. But not tradition without any practical purpose or merit. My wife, from a place where the government is a bit weaker, told me never to display any signs of wealth as this would make me into a target. And I could certainly protest the recommendation as an infringement on my freedom—that I am American, with rights, and can therefore will do whatever I please! However, that belief won’t save me from a mugger in a back alley, will it?
Modesty is about protection. It is about keeping hungry eyes off of those assets we don’t plan on giving away. No, that does not mean our immodesty justifies assault, theft or rape. It also does not mean our modesty is a foolproof protection. Rather, it is sort of like N95 masks and Covid, this is only one part of a larger strategy that is designed to minimize a particular risk rather than fully eliminate it.
It is sometimes a matter of public decency and respect for others. If there’s a sign on the door of a business: “no shirt, no shoes, no service” Why make a scene?
We should understand—as conservative people—that this public space comes with a set of public expectations and should probably comply without causing drama.
There was a time—and not very long ago—for the reasons outlined above, a woman wouldn’t leave the house without a proper dress, blouse and bonnet. Both men and women covered up, to be prepared for an environment that was harsh and only the insane did otherwise. Clothing was part of being civilized and a value of modesty tied very intimately to Christian religion and the Biblical standard.
Wolves in Sheep’s Skin
Some clothing is dishonest.
A disguise.
In order to gain acceptance and trust (going back to group identity and belonging) some will wear a costume of something they do not represent to gain trust And the “wolves in sheep’s skin” have infiltrated every conservative institution in this nation and turned them into a propaganda tool of godless empire.
Take Matt Schlapp, for example, the present chairman of American Conservative Union—also the first ever paid chair of Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) where he received a modest $600,000 in annual compensation—and an additional $175,000 for his wife on top of that. All while he has faced multiple allegations of groping men when he’s out drinking. One of the accusers—who had publicly apologized for the “misunderstanding”—was also quietly paid off (by a insurance company that represents ACU) to the tune of $480,000! More recently he got a little too touchy-feely with men at a Virginia bar. This is your conservative leadership.
Beinart: “We know that if the U.S. and Israel had not attacked a country that poses no serious threat to them—Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons, America has thousands—that those girls would be alive…”
Schlapp: “They’d be alive in a burqa … this is … a barbaric society…”
Morgan: “hang on.”
[The conversation continues…]
Schlapp: “It’s hypocritical to say that these attacks harmed women and children when those women and children, the young girls that you reference, would be … live a life in a barbaric, unequal society behind a burqa, with no ability to make career choices…”
Uygur: “So just kill them?”
Schlapp: “No, that’s not what I’m saying either…”
Uygur: “That is what you said…”
While Schlapp apologists will claim that their accused man-groping ‘conservative’ was not actually saying what he seemed to be saying—it is abundantly clear that this was trying very hard to minimize a horrific slaughter.
Where do you even start?
Schlapp is directing his appeal to people who hate feminism and yet desperately want to get one over on their evil ‘liberal’ women by their disingenuously siding against ‘the patriarchy’ to justify murder? Either that or he’s a closeted leftist who hates women and religion so much that ridding the world of a school full of youngsters indoctrinated to believe that his unconsenting grabs of male parts is a sin feels right to him?
I won’t pretend to know what goes on in the twisted moral rot of this man’s mind, but as one who is friends with traditional women (Christian and Muslims) who do wear a veil his take is appalling. It would be equivalent to a feminist saying—“Well, at least those Amish girls killed at Nickel Mines will be spared a life of oppression speaking PA Dutch, getting married and working around the house!” What total horse shit. Women are as happy in traditional cultures are they are in any other—maybe even happier—the “happiness paradox” refers to the increase in female financial independence which has corresponded directly with decrease in happiness.
Sure, Schlapp does not come right out and say they’re better off dead. But what is he saying? What is he implying?
There this insane level of arrogance, which is reflected in Schlapp’s statement, of these people just assume that people who do not look exactly like them—share their cultural values, religious traditions or political perspectives—are better off dead. It is just plain bigoted nonsense.
The top picture is of Iranian women in a hijab. The bottom is Afghan women in burkas.
Furthermore, showing his ignorance, Iranian women don’t wear the burqa. They wear a hijab. It’s a detail that likely doesn’t matter to his MAGA target audience. And yet this is a huge difference. The burqa covers an entire face, it is more common with Sunnis (Saudi Arabia), and not required by Iranian law. The hijab, by contrast, doesn’t cover a face, it is a hair covering that is very similar to what Christian women wore for centuries before the society liberalized. Sure, maybe it shouldn’t be mandated, but it’s as Biblical as the Ten Commandments:
Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head. But every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head—it is the same as having her head shaved. For if a woman does not cover her head, she might as well have her hair cut off; but if it is a disgrace for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, then she should cover her head.
(1 Corinthians 11:4-6 NIV)
Incidentally, it is this passage above which makes it so strange that so many ‘Christian’ (Zionist) Presidents and public officials will wear a hat while praying and kissing a wall—deliberately dishonoring Christ. But more to the point, is this a “barbaric” practice? Is religious headgear, a Nun’s habit, some kind of terrible evil which totally excuses blowing up an elementary school?
Or is there something else going on here?
One of these is an Orthodox Christian the other is Mike Huckabee.
This is as much moral inversion as anything from the ‘woke’ left. We kill to save?
Furthermore, for all this talk about career choice, Iran graduates a significantly higher percentage of females in STEM fields than Israel or the US. So, in response to that part of Schlapp’s absurd statement: What are the career choices Iranian women are currently unable to make? Is he talking about OnlyFans?
Which woman is liberated? The one using her brains or the one displaying her body?
If we’re such great defenders of feminity, so much so that we can dictate to sovereign states what standards of decency they can or cannot have, why haven’t there been any Epstein client arrests?
Phony Fat Cracker Barrel Conservatives
The Schlapp types, neo-con Zionists, aren’t conservative at all. Sure, they always wrap themselves in Christian identity, but they’re not peacemakers, they feed prejudices and promote endless war that has cost trillions of dollars as well as millions of lives around the world. They will fein concern for Iranian rights in one breath then promote bombing the country into oblivion in the next.
They exploit jingoistic sentiment in the beer gut football crowd who (in their lack of Christian character) confuse toughness and masculinity with excessive violence. Every problem is solved with a gun or a bomb for them. This phony ‘conservativism’ of these war-mongering empire building neo-cons is antithetical to Christianity—it is anti-Christ and one part of their Epstein-class campaign to dismantle American values.
The Republican elites are as totally opposed to traditional American values as the Democrats—they just need our conservative votes.
The Cracker Barrel conservatives—people who get riled up over a change in corporate kitsch—enable these cultural vandals. The religious right talks incessantly about every tempest in a teapot controversy and then go mute when the Trump administration has worked overtime to protect billionaire pedophiles. These are the type that Jesus had called out for their straining on gnats and swallowing camels. They have no principles other than vote for the ‘red’ team on election day because we can’t let ‘blue’ team ‘liberals’ win—they imagine themselves as defenders of Western civilization yet will put their weight behind an oppressive regime if it is dressed right according to their own partisan fashion.
What’s important? The 4th and 5th Amendments or saving old-timey corporate kitsch?
They side against our own dissidents, make fun of Renee Good who was killed by ICE agents shouting conflicting orders, say Alex Pretti deserved getting shot in the back for being a guy who intervened when a woman was being assaulted, and then suddenly do a complete reversal to express moral outrage when Saleh Mohammadi, 19, was executed after a trial for murder of two police officers. The same people who can justify the deaths of 175 innocent children as “part of war,” are siding with an accused and convicted cop killer? What a mindless propaganda-blinded and flip-flopping lot—we’re living in a scene from 1984.
The same people who justify the killing of Good and Pretti defend an Iranian wrestler convicted of the murder of two police officers.
Trump wrapping himself in a flag (literally) is all it took. All he needs to do is hold up a Bible, hand out a few signed copies of the Bible for the MAGA faithful, and suddenly he’s the next thing to Jesus in the Evangeli-con pantheon. His aggression becomes integrity, his lewdness honesty, and arrogance a virtue. And he is aware, see how Trump described the cult’s devotion during the run up to his first term: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
Trump is a manifestation of cultural rot, we celebrate immodesty and excess. The book of Philippians describes some who profess faith as the “enemies of the cross of Christ” (3:18) and proceeds to warn, “Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame” and “their mind is set on earthly things.” And this is our American consumerism. We see ourselves as the heroes, as representing freedom and democracy, when we’re really Egypt and Sodom (oppressor and corruption) cloaked in a pretense of righteousness.
We could use a bit of modesty. A moment of introspection and self-awareness.
Reclaiming American Christian Values
The U.S. has never been the “shining city on the hill” envisioned in John Winthrop’s 1630 sermon and highlighted by Ronald Reagan.
The aspiration.
Moral excellence is certainly a great goal even if we fall short. However, it is an aim which requires repentance. There are many things for this American nation should want to turn from. The ethnic cleansing of native populations, the institution of slavery, many wars of aggression and expansion—there is no purity here.
The U.S. has, if anything been exceptionally violent—from massacres in North America to the brutal occupation of the Philippines to the millions killed across the world as a result of aggressive policies—this country has never ceased in wars for control over resources. This conquest, sold to the public as some kind of moral mission or “Manifest Destiny,” was to conceal greed and a desire for things not ours to have.
There is no special American exception to the Christian requirement that all repent of their sins. That’s a starting point to the U.S. being great. To be truly great the goal is not to turn back the past mistakes, but turning away from them.
We should consider both bad and good examples from the past as a basis for improvement in the present.
This takes humility, not hubris.
The sin at the root of all moral pretense and posturing is pride—the very first sin, the one that changed Lucifer from God’s second in command into the father of lies. Pride tells us our culture, our politics, and our ways are just superior. Pride is what lets us dress up in sheep’s clothing of “conservative values” while living like wolves. Pride is what lets Matt Schlapp (or any of the other neo-con grifters) lecture on liberation while his own hands grope men in the dark and his mouth justifies the slaughter of schoolgirls. Pride is what lets the Cracker Barrel crowd wave a Bible one minute—rant against abortion, feminism, wokeism—only to cheer endless war and merciless bombings in the next, ignoring the plank in their own eye.
Christian conservatism worthy of the name begins with the opposite of pride: humility. It begins with the recognition that we are not owed respect—we must show it first. Just as modesty in clothing is not about shame but about protecting what is sacred, a respect of what is God’s, so too is respect in every other sphere. You do not demand entrance to another man’s house, another nation’s culture, or another woman’s dignity by force. Traditional modest dress of the past was never “oppression.” It was armor. It was just a public declaration: “I belong to something higher than my appetites. I will respect and you will respect me.”
The same principle applies to foreign policy, to political leadership, to every claim of “American exceptionalism.” An authentic conservatism does not bomb a school to “free” the girls inside it. It does not wrap imperial greed in the language of feminism or democracy. It does not make demands with threats of violence. Rather it says, with the Apostle Paul, “Let your gentleness be evident to all” (Phil 4:5) and “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone” (Rom 12:18).
Principled Christian conservatism is not a costume. It is not red hats, Cracker Barrel nostalgia, or trillion-dollar defense contracts dressed up as patriotism. It is living a life of repentance. It is about mutual respect. It is the refusal to celebrate pride in any form—whether of immodesty, the aggressive “grab ’em by the pussy” arrogance of entitled men or just indifference about how our actions impact others. It is discipline of protecting what should be protected and also refusing to sacrifice our values for expediency.
If we want to belong to the Body of Christ then we must wear the right uniform code: humility, not hubris; respect, not ridicule; modesty, not exceptionalism. We must stop pretending America is already righteous or beyond reproach and start acting humbly like the sinners we are. Only then will we ever regain the respect we have lost. Only then will our clothing—literal and spiritual—actually protect instead of provoke.
More imperial “forever war” for the benefit of the Epstein-class.
Let the attire of our attitude preach truth: we are fragile, we are fallen, and the only safety worth having comes from walking in fear of the Lord, not by military might. That is the conservatism worth conserving—the repentance that can make us an example in the world and is the actual foundational basis of Christian civilization.
Schlapp says that Iran is a “barbaric culture” for dress standards different from our own and that bombing them is about defense of civilization. But a principled conservative is about consistent rules, true impartiality and no favoritism. It doesn’t decide if cop killers (or killer cops) are heroes or an attack on us all according to political needs. A civilized person seeks coherence and harmony, not unpredictability, brutality and dominance. It prefers local control and respects sovereign space of others. It gains a position through competency, not by trickery and deception, nor by threats and coercion.
Christian civilization rejects use of violence and notions of blood guilt. All must clothe themselves in the righteousness of Jesus—a clothing that we put on through Baptism, not our birth or bloodline:
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Galatians 3:26-29 KJV)
We replace lying with truth, maliciousness with kindness, fury with forgiveness, theft with generosity and are told “to put on the new self” and with this to be “created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:22–32, Col 3:5–14) John Chrysostom (c. AD 347—407) described this putting on of Christ as “never to be forsaken of Him, and His always being seen in us through our holiness, through our gentleness”
Civilization may need to be qualified. We want Christian civilization, not an Old Testament violence reenactment.
We must reject the perversion of those who promote moral inversion where killing is an act of liberation and a society where more women graduate with STEM degrees called “barbaric” by the Epstein-class.
Schlapp’s depraved reasoning is a symptom of arrogance, not righteousness. If Jesus is our Lord, then we should be clothed in humility and a gentle example rather than a force of fury or violence.
The militarism of neo-cons is not the armor of God—it is a false protection—we need the attitude of repentance.
************************
Postscript: The point of this essay isn’t to defend the Islamic Republic of Iran. I have no doubts about it being a very brutal and intolerant regime. I also don’t write this as a strong advocate of modesty standards. But only to promote introspection about what we excuse and condemn. In one breath we are outraged by an execution in Iran, in the next we ignore the bombing of children in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran. The same people who decry liberalism in the West celebrate the leftists in the East. This isn’t only about other people. This is also about me. After warning about Trump in 2014, I voted for the narcissist three times. He promised he would drain the swamp, to end the forever wars, and release the Epstein files. It was when he tried to gaslight about continued interest in Epstein that I realized I had been had. What I will say in my defense is that it wouldn’t be much improvement to vote for team blue. Kamala Harris couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently than Joe Biden. She shushed those trying to bring attention to the Gaza genocide and the Democrat party establishment has been as warlike as the Republicans despite their constituents. I must concede that we will not vote ourselves out of this. Society must change. True devotion to the base Christian principles—where Jesus is way more than a bobblehead on the dashboard of empire. If we want to change the world we need to lead by example rather than by force. The people of the world easily see through our facade, our oblivious talk of freedom and democracy, they see Egypt and Sodom.
Recently, in remarks defending his aggression, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—quoted historian Will Durant to declare “history proves that, unfortunately and unhappily, Jesus Christ has no advantage over Genghis Khan” because if you are strong enough, ruthless enough, powerful enough, evil will overcome good and aggression will overcome moderation—laid bare a stark moral inversion.
In this view, the teachings of Jesus represent a path of weakness, losing, while the conqueror’s ruthlessness ensures survival. The modern state of Israel, in its actions and rhetoric, often seems to embody this reversal of means: where the New Testament calls for love, the response is enmity; where it urges mercy, the strategy is application of overwhelming force; where Jesus promises a blessing to the meek, Israeli’s power is pursued through dominance.
If the Gospel says to love your neighbor, policies build barriers and displace. If Jesus commands turning the other cheek, retaliation escalates. If it blesses peacemakers, the calculus becomes one of preemptive attacks over moderation. And the Sermon on the Mount teaching and example of Jesus is treated not as a blueprint for life but as a cautionary tale for losers—nice ideals unfit for a world where barbarians crash the gates unless you become the stronger barbarian first.
Many professing Christians appear to accept this pragmatic dismissal of their Lord’s teachings in the “real world,” but I believe those teachings—if sincerely and universally applied by the faithful—would bring profound benefit even to ordinary people caught in wars, the soldiers and civilians alike.
But how would this look in practice?
I decided to arrange the teaching of the Gospel into a series of logical gates on a pathway of escalation-reversal which will lead to a new systemic reality:
A. Repentance: The Changing of Our Own Individual Perspective
1) The Golden Rule (Empathy): We must see things from our ‘enemies’ perspective. Why are they actually doing what they’re doing? This is a step that requires looking past propaganda and prejudice to find the grievance, then stop to think how we would respond if we were facing similar circumstances and then adjust accordingly. If we don’t want our own city bombed—then the logic of bombing theirs will immediately collapse.
2) Loving Your Enemies (Humanization): If we start to see a neighbor in our opponent rather than some negative label (terrorist, liberal, rats, etc) we’ll be less inclined to be in favor of just incinerating them and their families. This makes us more immune to the wartime propaganda that caricatures and demonizes opponents as being something less than us. Love is to see them as being human rather than aliens. The ‘enemy’ is someone’s brother, uncle, husband, father or friend—can you at least love those harmed by violence against them?
B. Restraint: Being Deliberate Rather Than Reactionary
3) Turn the Other Cheek (Non-retaliation): This is the one that goes most against us and probably where I would get the most resistance from Evangeli-cons. At the very least it is prudent to count the cost of the response in kind (Luke 14:28-33) and ask if we can afford to go down the path of tit-for-tat violence. A tactical pause can be beneficial if only to avoid a trap. Many believe that the path to dominance is by meeting every provocation with an aggressive response. But this may be exactly what the other side anticipated; they expect you to flail wildly, overextend, and give them the opportunity to expose your true character to others. There is special power in non-response—employment of a Machiavellian strategy of not letting others set your tempo—to stay in control and dominate on another level.
4) Putting Away the Sword (Disarmament): Saber-rattling is a go-to intimidation tactic, the idea of putting on displays of military prowess to deter an opponent. However it does not usually work as a long-term plan. If you wave a gun in someone’s face you’ll be more likely to start an arms race. People don’t like to be humiliated. Drawing a weapon will create a feedback loop that may truly only increase the threat. The U.S. war machine dropped nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the thinking this would back down the Soviets—it only led Stalin to prioritize the building of their own nuclear deterrence.
C. Try a Little Diplomatic Engagement
5. Overcome Evil with Good (Reframe the Conversation): Dropping bombs is fun. It can be very satisfying to see those who we have been led to believe’deserve it’ squirm under pressure. But this is a path of mutual destruction. It makes a whole lot more sense to turn the competitor into a partner with a peace offering: “Hey, so we are sorry we overthrew your democratic government to help BP steal your oil—here is the money we owed you from that defense contract which fell through!” It is difficult to harbor ill will towards someone who is actively doing nice things for you. War is expensive.
6. The Peacemaker (Mediator): It is much easier to stay on the sidelines or to take a side. Everyone says they want peace, to avoid wars, and yet few are willing to build the bridge. As the saying goes “if there’s a will there’s a way” and making peace is a matter of will. It may take a little extra effort and risk, yet peace pays dividends. War is a very costly affair both in terms of men and material—finding a way to unravel a conflict before it blows up is a win-win for all but those war profiteers
D. Mission Accomplished: Building a New Reality
7. Ministry of Reconciliation (Restoration): The ultimate goal of all the above is not only to get to a “ceasefire” or ending of the current war, but to a “Shalom” which is to say a bonding into a whole of the various factions. We want to end all war by marrying the two-halves of the conflict to make something better. The Japanese and Americans are far better off exchanging money for minivans than trading munitions. So maybe if we spent as much money pursuing these favorable outcomes, as we did to support the bloated Department of War (or Defense) we would finally reach those better ends we claim to seek despite our never fully investing?
The Tremendous Benefit of Learning From Past Mistakes.
When I was younger and dumber I believed a lot of the propaganda put in front of me. Iraq was a threat. Despite having nothing to do with 9/11—an attack by citizens of our own allies—Saddam Hussain was spun into the real threat. Despite a promise back then of “tremendous benefits” from the same man mocking Jesus today—the results were 4,492 U.S. military deaths, with over 32,000 wounded, and an overall cost of approximately three trillion dollars.
For sake of reference, gas in 2002 cost $1.36 per gallon—we now pay $3.91 and will only see that continue to rise as the onslaught continues. Is this truly the “winning, winning, winning” that we’ve heard Netanyahu advertise?
If we had taken out the path of endless war back then, I guarantee you that it would have had enormous positive reverberations in the region… but instead we did the opposite, and look what happened.
We believed removing Saddam would topple tyrants and spark democracy like dominoes—yet it unleashed chaos, empowered Iran, birthed ISIS, cost trillions, and left generations scarred. I’ve seen the soldiers who returned maimed. The ‘positive reverberations’ turned into shockwaves of suffering that echoed for decades.
So today, let’s finally learn the lesson from our history: aggression doesn’t guarantee victory; it often only guarantees the next war. The real tremendous benefit comes not from more bombs and regime changes, but from our repentance, restraint, and reconciliation—from applying the very teachings we too often set aside.
If we invert the escalation instead of the Gospel, perhaps the region—and the world—will finally see some true positive reverberations: peace that lasts, neighbors who humanize each other, and a Shalom worth guaranteeing.
The costs of war are enormous. There are no winners in war. Even if your side comes out ‘victorious’ it is a drain of a nation’s blood and treasure. That’s the real picture, the real result, and we will be the ones bearing the increased burden. The U.S. debt has gone from being 3.55 trillion dollars in 2002 to $39.05 trillion and not slowing down. A big chunk of that is the bill for endless war. So maybe for Netanyahu there’s “enormous positive reverberations” because it didn’t cost him a dime, but the reality is that we have lost reputation—the little that remains of Christian witness and confidence that we once had to manage world affairs. The Petrodollar and, with it, exorbitant privilege—which gave us the economic advantages that made us a global superpower. And maybe this loss of prestige is by design? Israel has benefitted at our great expense.
Many Americans want death to Iranian people. The phrase used by protestors of US imperialism was specifically aimed at the regime that endlessly harassed their people, at policies and not people. They blamed the regime of billionaires and politicians who rule over us.
The biggest lie of this century is that abandoning the way of Jesus is our most realistic option. The truth is that we’re sacrificing our future with the false idea that our security depends on us killing all who oppose the same tyranny we experience every taxseason when we pay for all the bombs that rain on Gaza. Our actions are going to have immeasurable consequences.
Dismiss this if you like. Side with the antithesis of Christ and say that it is totally unrealistic. But why pray, hypocritically, “Thy will on Earth as it is in heaven” while then simultaneously plotting to wipe out those we’re expressly told to love? I’m not saying this is easy, and yet this is simply part and parcel of a religion that teaches you will be forgiven as you forgive and judged as you judge. I’m convinced if we work our way down this list—taking care of first things first—we could have what seems impossible.
Every so often, I finally figure something out and can make a real observation. Recently, I saw a social media post from Trump—likely one of his bold declarations about Venezuela—and what he was doing became crystal clear.
He doesn’t have an actual inked or signed deal with the Venezuelan side yet. But that doesn’t matter. Trump is targeting people at a primal level rather than appealing to the intellect—because that’s where our decisions are truly made. We’re emotional creatures, not purely rational ones.
This is a sales pitch ^^^
Trump is manifesting. He declares it, brings it into the realm of reality, then does everything in his power to bully everyone into accepting it. And it does make me wonder: Is this truly how the world works? It’s easier when you’re already a billionaire and the President, of course, but he names it and claims it. Or, using his colloquial description, it’s the “grab ’em by the p*ssy” style of persuasion: “She wants it. I’m rich and can get anything she wants. She’ll come around to seeing things my way.” It’s hyper-confidence—the insane confidence of a man who truly believes he can get away with anything. He’s the salesman who has fully bought into his own pitch and, through brutal persuasion, forces the sale: “I’ll make you an offer you can’t refuse!”
I’m not like that.
I always try to respect boundaries, persuade with logic and arguments. Trump just declares it, and if you don’t go along with his plan, you’re [insert insult here].
Let me explain with a personal example: Years ago, I wrote a 14-page letter to a woman I was interested in, laying out a long theological and philosophical argument to make my case. Of course, I never sent it. Yeah, I might be half autistic, but I’m not completely dumb. I know men don’t win a woman’s heart through her head. If I’d handed her that lengthy dissertation, she wouldn’t have cheered—she’d probably have cried, gotten confused, or walked away. Certainly not agreed to a date. In romance, we’re primal, not intellectual. The same applies to our political alignments.
If I actually knew how to do that primal type of persuasion in real time, I’d probably get my way more often. It’s the easier to ask forgiveness than to get permission mindset—and it wouldn’t exist if it didn’t actually work.
Entitled, narcissistic, and manipulative can also be described as media-savvy, self-assured, and effective—depending on how you frame it. Trump grinds my gears because he doesn’t follow the rules that exist in my worldview. He reframes the entire discussion with his violations of rules—like kidnapping a head of state—and yet it’s all part of a larger plan.
The real goal appears to be renewing the flow of oil from Venezuela to the US. Trump doesn’t care who is in charge or what economic system they have (though he knows you do). He’s focused on moving the conversation to where he needs it: a secure source of energy and minerals next door, not on the other side of the world.
Legal? Only if you stretch the law to its breaking point. Effective? Well, who wants to be next?
We all agree Maduro—like most politicians—probably belongs in jail, and maybe we should do this more often (at home rather than abroad). Making this bold military move is psychological: it’s intimidating and forces cooperation. If the new government makes a deal, the US lifts sanctions, oil flows again—and suddenly Venezuela’s universal healthcare isn’t an issue anymore. The real holdup was the pile of nonsense, grudges, and gridlock on both sides. Trump broke the rules of the conflict, and now he can negotiate a new deal for the benefit of everyone who cooperates.
Ultimately, like most people, I govern myself by external rules: Do this, don’t do that! We treat them as absolute, written in stone. I’ll die on this hill of my principles! But this can become a hindrance—a functional fixedness or quagmire of competing ideals that mostly boil down to semantics and different words for the same things. I know Trump is wrong because I’m right! He gets what he wants by breaking my rules of engagement, so he must be evil!
However, Friedrich Nietzsche called this “slave morality” and saw it as an obstacle to humanity’s full potential. His ideas of self-overcoming, being our own lawgiver, embracing the wholeness of life (without assigning moral weight to every experience), and rejecting herd mentality or conformity to the status quo all go against being compliant for sake of compliance.
Trump gets far more done with his impolite bluster than most do in a lifetime of “honest” effort. He appeals to our carnal, visceral side—and while all politicians do this to some degree, he does it nakedly, without the usual polish.
We confuse the rational (religious, scientific, or otherwise) with the reality of our base desires—for control, status, recognition. Trump disrupts, shakes the basket, and builds a new path through the chaos that suits his agenda.
Facing the ‘wrong’ way in an elevator makes people uncomfortable. But it’s not illegal. And people will actually conform to the group if they turn the opposite direction.
The world is governed by unwritten rules and unspoken agreements. Some of us want to nail it all down, demanding predictability and compliance with standards we were told would make the world better. We’re often jammed up in conflicts over false dichotomies and invented moral frameworks. I know this from my religious upbringing: the constant looking over our shoulders, meeting expectations rather than pursuing what we enjoy, and the resentment simmering underneath.
One of my Mennonite friends had the speed and size to be a D1 athlete, but he never pursued it because his conservative parents wouldn’t approve. He “kept the peace”—like many of us—at the expense of his potential.
He has expressed regrets.
From a Christian perspective, the self-actualizing person is unrepentant and rejects God. Trump’s habit of making up his own facts—like claiming an ICE agent was run over when video clearly shows otherwise—is strikingly similar to the “my own truth” of the woke left. The risk is complete detachment from our useful tradition (what has worked) and science (what will work), eventually steering civilization into the weeds.
But the proof is in the pudding. If Trump leaves office without causing WW3, with the economy largely intact, can we really feel bad that some rules were broken?
Then again, maybe we could achieve the same things through conventional means. What if we threw a few billionaires in jail instead of a foreign head of state, or sided with the world court on Netanyahu rather than Maduro? Either way—optimal or suboptimal—we’ll remember Trump’s name. Like the popular feminist quote, “Well-behaved women seldom make history,” a timid man is likewise not widely respected or impactful. Is it possible we all need liberation from the clutter of our minds and reasons?
Still, I think there’s a better synthesis between Trump and the pointy-headed intellectuals too high in their ivory towers to be of practical value.
Trump wins because he identified the struggles of real people, rather than deny them. Maybe some academics with a racial theory can write a thesis about ‘privilege’ and yet have they ever solved any problems in the real world?
I like my own conscientiousness—orientation toward respect for established standards and individual rights over political expediency.
And yet, by the time I carefully deliberate all the angles of legality and practicality and examine potential failure points the opportunity is often gone. A guy who reacts to opportunity, seizes the moment, dictates the outcome in advance (while staying flexible enough to read the room and adapt), reaches the goal—even if he has done the ‘wrong’ way by conventional wisdom.
If morality is all a social construct, all part of a complex negotiation, then maybe following pure instincts and base intuition is better than obeying a list of rules?
Who says the other side must sign a paper—or even agree in advance—to have a deal?
If it’s a win-win at the end, despite the pain of the process, fewer casualties, is it good?
What do you think? Does primal persuasion win out, or do we need more rules to keep things civilized? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
I’ve heard stories of Mennonite old timers who would walk into a dealership, ask them to give their best price and then refuse to engage in any haggling beyond that. To them this concrete style of communication is commanded by Jesus and something I can respect. Their word was their bond. They did not play all the games. Business that is honest and done with a handshake.
What a pleasant and simple world it would be if everyone operated this way. No need for lawyers to read the fine print if everyone were an honest broker like this. But we do not live in that world. And there are those who love to exploit the trust of those born into Anabaptist religious cloisters. Every few years there’s another fraudster who sweeps through Amish and Mennonite country, selling the next big ‘investment’ and wiping out the hard earned savings of the unsuspecting—which is not to even mention those small scale “natural healing” swindles or grift seminars.
This is why healthy skepticism is necessary and discernment of character is a skill that must be learned. Born into one of these communities, I’m still far too trusting—most especially if someone starts to speak my language. “Oh, he stands up for the working class! They’re the defenders of freedom and democracy!” We fall for those who exploit us, who manufacture consent by various means, who claim to be like us and yet lack our Christian conscience. We are most susceptible to those who mimic our values as part of their deception.
Being a good or moral person can lead to being extra vulnerable. Some just lack the imagination for evil, which is wonderful innocence, but this is not optimal. Wisdom requires that we are able to read through a sales pitch and understand how propaganda works. A skilled liar plays on what you want to hear, they exploit the prejudices and preconceived ideas of any audience. We need to be a step ahead of their schemes—which requires a little pattern recognition or small consideration of what may be hidden behind their words.
Letting Your Yea Be Yes, Nay Be Nay
Growing up, going to a public school, there was always that “I swear on my grandma’s grave” kid. Cued by your incredulous face, he would attempt to fortify his most questionable claims with this invocation of something else trustworthy. And the whole reason for this is that their own word wasn’t good enough. And this swearing act itself would arouse my suspicions. If I can’t trust you in a small inconsequential claim—how could I ever trust your oath?
Obviously this was theatrics in Secondary school, but a manner of speech that Jesus targeted for rebuke:
Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.
(Matthew 5:33-37 NIV)
This is repeated in James 5:12 a bit more succinctly:
Above all, my brothers and sisters, do not swear—not by heaven or by earth or by anything else. All you need to say is a simple “Yes” or “No.” Otherwise you will be condemned.
Credibility is something built over time and lost in an instant. Swearing an oath won’t fix a loss of trust. But it does basically admit that your own word is not sufficient and this suggests a deeper problem. An oath is useful in a courtroom, where it is used as a dividing line between speech that is free and misleading words you can be prosecuted for—yet what Jesus says is part of a broader push in the direction of plain and honest speech. As St Paul instructs:
Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body.
(Ephesians 4:25 NIV)
Practice truthfulness.
Humanity is one team, one body, so deception is a sin against all members.
The Bible is also full of examples of the opposite of this:
Those who flatter their neighbors are spreading nets for their feet.
(Proverbs 29:5 NIV)
Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. May the Lord silence all flattering lips and every boastful tongue.
(Psalm 12:2-3 NIV)
Not a word from their mouth can be trusted; their heart is filled with malice. Their throat is an open grave; with their tongues they tell lies [or flatter].
(Psalm 5:9 NIV)
My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.
(Psalms 55:20-21 NIV)
In all of these cases you have those who appear to be our friends and use flowery and agreeable speech to ensnare. We naturally suspect those who aren’t like us, who say the stuff we don’t like, but we trust those who speak our native tongue and seem to share our cultural values. That’s our blind side and vulnerability. A guy shows up in a nice suit, well-groomed, and we’ll just take him as credible. We’re susceptible to those who dress up their deception in the familiar—or who feed our prejudices.
Those Who Dress To Deceive
The Bible mentions flattery, a Trojan horse and the way some use to lower our guard, but the Gospel warns about this:
Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.
(Matthew 7:15 NIV)
Looks can be deceiving.
For there are many rebellious people, full of meaningless talk and deception, especially those of the circumcision group. They must be silenced, because they are disrupting whole households by teaching things they ought not to teach—and that for the sake of dishonest gain. One of Crete’s own prophets has said it: “Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.” This saying is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, so that they will be sound in the faith and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted. They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good.
(Titus 1:10-16 NIV)
If it were easy to cut through the crap then there would be very little chance of anyone ever being deceived. But the worst enemies of Christ weren’t those who had openly hunted and tried to kill his followers. You knew to avoid them. It’s those who entered the church to subvert and undermine.
St Paul calls out those of the “circumcised group” and who have actions that deny the relationship they claim to have with God. Today we deal with something insidious, now embedded into several generations through propaganda and established prejudice. We can’t see it because it hides within us, carries a familiar last name or claims to have devotion to the same values.
Many now believe it is okay to kill babies for an ethno-state. They go to church on Sunday never realizing that they have departed from Christ:
Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
(Matthew 7:21-23 NIV)
Those who have yoked together with those who Jesus said are “of their father the devil” (John 8:44) are as doomed to hell as an unbeliever. The Covenant with Abraham was tied to sharing his faith and righteousness. Likewise, you are not of Christ unless you obey his will no matter how “born again” you feel or how flowery you pray in front of the crowd. Enabling evil is just evil. Jesus called out the fakes who hid behind their mask of devotion and his earliest followers did the same. Stephen “cut them to the heart” challenging the Jewish leaders with a flurry of accusations—they killed him for telling the truth:
You have taken up the tabernacle of Molek and the star of your god Rephan, the idols you made to worship. Therefore I will send you into exile’ beyond Babylon. (Acts 7:43 NIV)
Harmless as Doves, Yet…
The simple and honest are especially vulnerable to the cunning and crafty. And it’s not always a matter of intelligence. It is about trust. It is about being a part of the same civilizational project.
Some places you can leave front doors unlocked and not worry about being robbed. Everyone is bought into the same moral code or same social contract, and thus respects the property and the rights of others who are partners in the overall work. And the doors of our civilization are wide open—not turning people away is a wonderful Christian value and good.
However, this value also means many let their guard down around imposters who pretend to be like us and yet work to subvert, supplant, enslave or destroy what we’ve built. They are a “snake in the grass” slithering, waiting for the moment of weakness to strike. They’re the wolves who will accuse the sheepdog of being a bigger threat to the sheep while they plot to devour the flock.
Yes, an impulse towards being charitable is great, but also we need to be wary of those who do not share the same civilizational bond or social contract—this is what Jesus said:
I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.
(Matthew 10:16 NIV)
There was this horrible story about a young man opening the door to two men who were dressed like UPS delivery drivers and ended up paying with his life. The fake employees pushed into the residence, with two others who had hidden around the corner, and they murdered the young man and two women in the home—all of this happening in front of two children under the age of five.
We trust based on appearance. If the men in the story above had been dressed like a couple hoodlums nobody would open that door. There’s little chance of a very foreign looking religion or culture slipping into our communities unnoticed. But when we see something familiar or someone speaking in a way to convince us they’re on our side we do not take precautions. We let them in without considering that they could have values completely different despite their surface level disguise.
Whether the Trojan horse gift or that bright beautiful serpent in the garden—it is the job of the discerning person to sound the alarm and protect their own community or home from evil schemes. You need to be able to think like the schemers do to anticipate the deception. The first thing the wolves do is attack and try to silence the voices of those who identify them as being a threat. They will always come after the watch dog first before devouring the sheep.
Fool Me Once Shame On You
Zionism had slipped into my former Mennonite church through Evangelicalism. The church was founded near the same time a state called Israel was founded with a brutal and cruel expulsion of indigenous people. But we celebrated plucky little Israel, as if they came about by a miracle rather than being a result of a campaign of terrorism or military means. For whatever reason Palestinians didn’t matter, as just another group of backwards Arabs, and I’m guessing this is *still* the majority opinion as far as fundamentalist part of the sect I was born in. It’s just part of a disconnect between the love they profess on Sunday and the politics they accept the rest of the week.
Even if the state of Israel is a part of God’s plan does not mean we should be the cheerleaders for genocide or the justifiers of abuse of others. The “I didn’t vote for Trump to be a pastor” crowd seems to be too happy with the totally merciless treatment of the native population—including their innocent children. Apparently God’s chosen are just to be exempted from Christian ethics and can just kill as they please.
It defies every message on grace and mercy ever shared from a church pulpits. We let a wolf into the church and it has devoured our humanity in the name of a worldly kingdom.
Unfortunately Zionist ideology, their sensational end times fantasy, has caused many to abandon the cause of Christ. The old serpent has slipped through the church doors decades ago and is now preaching from many pulpits. He infiltrates the ranks, pretends to share our values as he subtly undermines them, and soon what is up is down is up—with the ‘faithful’ defending a Sodomizing pedo protecting baby killing cult of elites and calling good old fashioned conservative American values.
Hasbura will tell you Goliath was a victim and David a villain.
The worst part is when even to question the official narrative, put out by those who lied once will lie again, is twisted into being an ‘evil’ worse than any other. They don’t seem to get that good institutions can be hijacked or that Jesus most certainly did insult those who held positions of authority and he did it by calling them out to their faces. This idea that we must shrink away from challenging the mask of righteousness worn to fool the masses is just flat out wrong. We must call out what the New Testament writers call the synagogue of Satan:
I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
(Revelation 2:9 NIV)
In the end, we either are what we say we are or we’re not. That’s what yay be yay is truly about. James warns against being double-minded, about showing favoritism, and the New Testament is full of statements which emphasize no difference between Jew and Gentile in Christ. Israel isn’t a blessing nor is it protected by the hand of God. No, they are simply willing to do the treacherous and nasty things that are completely antithetical to the teachings of Jesus Christ. We need to be wiser understanding that some will lie to gain our money or support.
Relating to a coworker about how hard it is for me to transmit certain values absent a cultural context, with how deeply ingrained they are as part of my religious upbringing, in pondering this reality it becomes easy to understand why so many people—myself included, at times—assume their own moral framework is universal, something everyone else must naturally share.
This moment of realization tied to a broader observation about value systems and how wildly different various religious traditions really are despite sharing some of the same foundational texts—they are fundamentally and irrevocably different. And yet because the texts overlap, some people mistakenly treat those systems as essentially similar—or even interchangeable—overlooking the profound divergences in interpretation, emphasis, or lived practice that centuries of distinct cultural evolution in these systems of thought have produced.
I plan to make three stops: one in the frame of contemporary Western thought, the next from the time of Jesus, and lastly with the patriarch Abraham. And with each of these stops explore how shared origin can mask strikingly divergent ethical worlds, and why recognizing those differences matters more than ever in our interconnected age.
Innocent Until Proven Guilty and the Blackstone Ratio
Wrongful convictions happen. We often assume, since someone was charged, that they must be guilty of something. I mean, why else would they be wearing that orange jumpsuit? But this impulse goes contrary to reality where cops plant evidence, people lie, and prejudice plays a role in judgment.
This was the case with Brian Banks—who had been accused of rape by a classmate who later, after his years in prison, confessed to fabricating the whole account. What a horrible predicament: your whole future blown up, a jury that only sees your guilt.
A jurist, Sir William Blackstone, understanding the imperfection of the justice system and that the ultimate goal of justice is to protect the innocent, proposed:
It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer
This, the Blackstone ratio, is foundational to how things are at least supposed to work in the United States. Founding father Ben Franklin actually took the concept further by stating, “it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer.” John Adams, while he defended the British soldiers charged with murder for their role in the Boston Massacre, argued the following:
We find, in the rules laid down by the greatest English Judges, who have been the brightest of mankind; We are to look upon it as more beneficial, that many guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should suffer. The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself is no security. And if such a sentiment as this should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security whatsoever.
This commitment to the innocent reflects a strong emphasis on individual rights. It also seems rooted in the story most defining of Western religion, and that is the story of Jesus—falsely accused and put to death for the sake of political expediency. This has become the defining narrative and a reason to reflect on our judgment rather than react. It is why many principled conservatives are always uncomfortable with those trials in the court of public opinion where the state parades a prosecuted person and people assume this is proof of an airtight case.
You look guilty just for being in a courtroom defending from an accusation.
Tyler Robinson currently stands accused of murdering Charlie Kirk. Some have decided his guilt to the extent of forgiving him prior to his even standing trial or being given the chance to defend himself—as if there’s just no way that anyone other than him could be involved. That’s not justice; that’s denying him a presumption of innocence and might be enabling others to escape accountability for their involvement. It is better that he go free than chance a wrongful conviction—that is just Christian.
Caiaphas’s Expediency Math: Killing One to Save All
At the completely opposite end of the spectrum from the Christian West is the example of the high priest who claimed the murder of an innocent man was necessary to save Israel from destruction:
Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”
(John 11:49-50 NIV)
This may very well be the origin point of trolley problem moral reasoning, where a hypothetical situation is proposed in which an intervention will cost fewer lives. If we just switch the track, this fictional trolley only kills one rather than multiple people. And it seems very reasonable. Isn’t it better when more people survive?
Caiaphas reasoned it was better to kill one Jesus to save Israel. But it didn’t work out that way. The entire nation—along with their temple and sacrificial system—was forever destroyed in 70 AD. The high priest’s moral reasoning was compromised and wrong. It did not save Israel to kill one man and may well have been part of what eventually led to the destruction of Jerusalem. Those who did not accept the way of Jesus continued, after his ministry ended, to kill his followers and resist their civil authorities. Had they taken one moment to reflect and reconsider their plan to kill their way to peace, they may have survived intact rather than be spread to the corners of the empire.
The problem with killing one—without a just cause, to secure the future—is that it usually doesn’t end there. Kill one and you’ll kill ten; if you kill ten, you’ll kill 100, until soon it is millions upon millions. We see this in the campaign against Gaza. Tens of thousands of children are slaughtered and this is being justified as a war against terror. The reality is that it may very well create the backlash that will make the Zionist project untenable as people see this notion of blood guilt and collective punishment as repulsive. This is not compatible with the Christian values of the West and will lead to our destruction if the escalation of war is not rejected.
The world is better when we don’t play God and use the expediency math. If you’re okay killing one innocent person, you’re now an enemy of all humanity. And if you are willing to kill one, then the second and third come much easier. Innocent life should always be protected—whether it is the life of Jesus, be it the “enemies'” children, or the unborn. Pro-life means no excuses for the IDF that don’t equally apply to Hamas. If it is okay for the Zionist regime to kill scores of civilians as “collateral damage” for every militant killed—where even the Israelis admit the victims of their onslaught are 83% civilians—why mourn when it is just a handful in Bondi?
Schlanger, brandishing a rifle, was 100% affiliated with those killing civilians in Gaza. By the IDF standard, he is equally guilty because of his proximity and sympathies.
The best protection of innocent people, like your own, is to oppose all killing of innocent people no matter the color of their skin or the clothes they wear. If the IDF can kill a journalist claiming they are “Hamas with a camera” or “Hamas-affiliated,” then why is it wrong for Eli Schlanger, who has materially aided a genocide, to be targeted along with his associates? We need to reject this math of expediency no matter who is using it, or we can’t be upset when what goes around finally comes around.
Abraham’s Plea for Mercy: Sparing the Many for the Few Righteous
Now we can go way back, to the book of Genesis, where the world’s most powerful monotheistic religions find their foundation, and this man of faith named Abraham. We join him prior to the destruction of Sodom and have this interesting exchange:
Then the Lord said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do? Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him. For I have chosen him, so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just, so that the Lord will bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” Then the Lord said, “The outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is so great and their sin so grievous that I will go down and see if what they have done is as bad as the outcry that has reached me. If not, I will know.” The men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the Lord. Then Abraham approached him and said: “Will you sweep away the righteous with the wicked?
(Genesis 18:17-23 NIV)
Abraham’s opening question, in the passage above, tells you a whole lot about his moral reasoning. But before that you basically have the old covenant explained in brief: The blessing that was being bestowed on Abraham had to do with “doing what is right and just” or not simply being a blood relative of him, which is something that Jesus and the Apostles explained over and over to those who saw their genetic tie to the patriarch as a sort of entitlement and did not act justly or mercifully as he did.
Continuing in the text, take time to contrast the expediency math of Caiaphas with the following:
What if there are fifty righteous people in the city? Will you really sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the fifty righteous people in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing—to kill the righteous with the wicked, treating the righteous and the wicked alike. Far be it from you! Will not the Judge of all the earth do right?” The Lord said, “If I find fifty righteous people in the city of Sodom, I will spare the whole place for their sake.” Then Abraham spoke up again: “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing but dust and ashes, what if the number of the righteous is five less than fifty? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five people?” “If I find forty-five there,” he said, “I will not destroy it.” Once again he spoke to him, “What if only forty are found there?” He said, “For the sake of forty, I will not do it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” When the Lord had finished speaking with Abraham, he left, and Abraham returned home.
(Genesis 18:24-33 NIV)
Abraham, after expressing his concern for the innocent, offers an opening bid at fifty righteous. Will God spare the entire wicked city for just fifty? And the first thing that is obvious is his humility, pleading with “I am nothing but dust and ashes” and showing his attitude before God. Second is that his orientation is toward the sparing of innocent life even if it means the evil people of the city of Sodom escape deserved judgment. This is in line with Blackstone’s ratio and in total opposition to Caiaphas, who argued to sacrifice rather than to protect the righteous one. Eventually Abraham concedes, and it makes more sense just to evacuate those righteous—nevertheless the righteous are not destroyed with the wicked.
So why is this account in Genesis?
Why is God engaged in a negotiation with a mere man?
The answer is that this anecdote is here for a reason, and that is to be instructive. The author of Genesis isn’t just telling us that Abraham was righteous—they’re giving us instruction on how to be righteous. To have the same disposition as Abraham, that’s the way to be a child of Abraham, and the path of righteousness that leads to the blessings through God’s promise. Chosen means you believe and obey the Lord. You can’t claim to be children of God, or of Abraham, if you truly share nothing in common with them in terms of your behavior or spirit. Genesis is telling us what that looks like in practice.
Christian Orientation Towards Mercy and Humanity is Truly Abrahamic.
In traversing these three moments—from courtrooms shaped by Christian reflection on an innocent’s crucifixion, to the high priest’s fateful expediency that failed to save his nation, and back to Abraham’s humble plea for mercy amid judgment—we uncover a profound reality: The orientation of the Christian perspective, underpinning American rights, is directly the opposite of the ideological lineage of Caiaphas.
The commitment, in faith, to protecting that one innocent life in a crowd of evil is to be a son or daughter of Abraham. Those who do the opposite, who are willing to sacrifice the innocent for sake of expediency, carry none of the character of Abraham and cannot be the heirs of anything promised to him. They must first repent of their sin—then they can be blessed, with all nations, through the one singular seed of Abraham (Gal 3:16) which is Christ Jesus.
Going back to the start and those ethics ingrained in us through a religiously derived culture and our assumptions, those who have rejected Christ and are completely willing to kill innocent people to accomplish ends are also going to manifest the other evil traits of Proverbs 6:16-19:
There are six things the Lord hates, seven that are detestable to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked schemes, feet that are quick to rush into evil, a false witness who pours out lies and a person who stirs up conflict in the community.
Those of us raised in an Anabaptist church got a strong dose of the Gospel according to Matthew and were taught that speech should be simple and truthful. Let your yea be yes, and nay be nay is about truly honest conversation and credibility without relying on oaths. We were told to have a peaceable spirit and merciful approach with all people—to be humble.
This is an orientation that many of Christian faith may believe is universal. Except it is not. Ethno-supremacist pride is okay with those of certain ideologies, deception for sake of gaining an upper hand is looked at like a virtue, they look at their ability to trick you as proof they are superior, and sow the seeds of division covertly not to be caught—like this example:
In a covert operation during 2007–2008, Israeli Mossad agents impersonated CIA officers—using forged U.S. passports, American currency, and CIA credentials—to recruit members of the Pakistan-based Sunni militant group Jundallah for attacks inside Iran, including bombings and assassinations targeting Iranian officials and civilians, as part of a broader effort to destabilize Tehran’s regime amid nuclear tensions. The deception, conducted openly in places like London, aimed to frame the United States as the sponsor, exploiting Jundallah’s sectarian and separatist motives while providing plausible deniability for Israel; U.S. officials uncovered the ruse through internal investigations debunking earlier media reports of CIA involvement, leading to outrage in the Bush White House (with President Bush reportedly “going ballistic”), strained intelligence cooperation under Obama, and the eventual U.S. terrorist designation of Jundallah in 2010, though no public repercussions were imposed on Israel.
Imagine having a friend who deliberately set you up for a fight against another person by telling them that you said something about them. My son had a bully do this to him on the bus and this is exactly what so-called ‘greatest ally’ tried to do to the US. For the Zionist regime, and Mossad, conducting the terror operation via a Pakistani proxy simply was not enough. They wanted Iran to think the attacks originated with the US in order to provoke a reaction. And this is how the world becomes a cesspool, all because the Iranians won’t stand idle while Palestinians are deprived of land and human rights.
Deviousness is not exclusive to the children of Caiaphas. But there’s no stops for those willing to kill innocent people for the sake of expediency. And a partnership with them is only going to undermine the foundation of our civilization. The US and ‘Christian’ West have already lost their moral reputation for this unholy alliance. We need to repent and return to holding evil men accountable and protecting the innocent or all will be lost—we can’t exempt some from a standard of normal decency without also damaging all of Christendom.
Irregular Ideation 