Morality

WhY dOn’T tHeY jUsT…?!?

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It is 2064 and refugees from Spanish-speaking countries nearly match the native-born American population in border states.  The United States, after fighting war after war and finally collapsing economically, is a shadow of the globe-spanning power it once was.  A militant ethno-nationalist contingent within this group of new arrivals, armed with their own understanding of history, believes that the American West rightfully belongs to them.  And using a campaign of terror and intimidation, after a few skirmishes, have driven even many native Texans out of their most notable cities. 

La Raza (or ‘the race’) is not satisfied to only have parts of the historically Spanish parts of the continental US.  However, the new UN based in Dubai, while agreeing that the Spanish had a better claim, determined that a two-state solution was best and drew the map for a partition plan.  Of course, neither side is truly satisfied with this and both are merely buying time.  A coalition of sympathetic American states formed to help the Texas Rangers, which is now a paramilitary organization of mostly fundamentalist Christians, but the partisans of the Partido Nacional de La Raza Unida strike first.  Many Texans flee as cartels and Chinese-backed militants start a campaign to push them out.

Decades pass and the Spanish state increases its zone of control.  The Texans continue to fight asymmetrically but have lost control of their resources and are also politically destabilized by their better-funded rivals.  MTGA, or Make Texas Great Again, an extremist group that states a goal of removing all non-Americans from Texas, is secretly aided by La Raza who seeks to undermine the more representative and moderate Texas Rangers.  Why?  Well, with their end goal of taking all of what was Spanish territory, they really did not want a successful state of Texas, they wanted exploitable chaos and opportunities to seize more land using self-defense as an excuse.

After a small success, where the MTGA ‘terrorists’ managed to break through the formidable La Raza borders (ironic, given that generations of Americans were told that borders are racist), the enraged Spanish demand that Texan civilians evacuate and begin to bomb the Texas panhandle camps where the remaining resistance fighters base their operations.  Across the Spanish world their own language media, sympathetic to the Spanish cause, ask many questions.  Why do the Texans not overthrow the terrorists?  Why don’t they simply move to other US states and give the land back to the rightful owners from the South?  Why do the border states oppose the relocation of Texans so much when they’re all Americans?

Of course, the scenario above, for the time being, remains fictional, but it is also an analogy to introduce this post which deals with similar questions as to why Gazans do not overthrow Hamas or leave for other Arab lands.  I realize some, even if they don’t admit it, see the people of Gaza as being subhuman, a race marked for destruction or “Amelek” (as Israeli right-wingers call them), and won’t even attempt to understand their perspective.  The propagandists have done their job well, once again, and convinced the masses that the side they are told to oppose is a bunch of savages who can’t be reasoned with and whose blood—including their own children—is on their own hands.

WhY DoN’t ThEy JuSt OvEr-ThRoW hAmAs?!?

Many do not draw a distinction between Hamas and Palestinians.  This is what those who want a blank check to do whatever they want to Gaza want.  If you can make all in this small territory collectively guilty, then you don’t need to deal with the moral dilemma of whether it is okay to kill innocents as a response to innocents being killed.  If all Palestinians are terrorists then you can just treat them like a termite infestation.  It isn’t genocide, it is just pest control!  No, they won’t come out and say that.  However, be honest here, when you drop bombs on a populated city that is exactly what is happening, it is collective punishment and a war crime.

Anyhow, what they don’t tell you is that only a fraction of Palestinians voted for Hamas.  In fact, in no single district of Gaza did Hamas win the majority of votes.  For all of you who want a third-party ballot choice, there’s your warning.  And once you give power to a group like Hamas don’t expect to ever get it back without a fight.  

Propaganda Parrot: “Bu-but, what about all those Gazans out cheering when Hamas attacked Israel?!?”

Me: “What about it???”

Thousands of Americans took to the streets to chant “Not my President!” when Trump won.   And thousands of Americans participated in the Jan 6th ‘insurrection’ as well.  In neither case did the protestors in the crowd, even if millions of them, represent the plurality of Americans.  Furthermore, being in the crowd doesn’t make you a supporter of whatever others have attributed to your cause.  If you are pro-MAGA, contrary to what the Democrat-controlled media says, you aren’t sympathetic to a coup for being upset about the election and subsequent prosecutions.  No, you’re rejecting their framing of the event and beholden to an entirely different narrative.

The same is true of Gazans.  Maybe they don’t support the means of Hamas.  But they certainly understand the grievance and see Israel as an oppressor of their people.  Many Americans would be happy to see Moscow or Tehran leveled.  Does that make them one and the same as those giving the order or carrying it out?

But more significant than that, half of the population of Gaza is children.  They didn’t get a vote nor do they have the ability to go toe to toe with a group currently giving the IDF a run for their money.  Why don’t the Gazans overthrow Hamas?  Maybe for the same reason that those of us who disagree with the waste of our tax dollars and endless wars don’t overthrow the US government:  We want to live our lives.  We don’t want to be killed or end up locked up.  People do not rise up even against a regime that abuses them simply because they don’t want to die.  I mean, come on, do you really expect civilian Palestinian mothers and fathers to take down Israel’s enemy for them?  Do you expect children to overthrow armed men?

Are you really that dull?

Okay then…

WhY dOn’T tHeY jUsT LeAve GaZa?!?

Wow, you’re smart!  Why don’t a million people just follow the IDF command to leave everything behind so that their homes and communities can be leveled without concern for civilian casualties?  I mean, we would all do that at the snap of a finger, right?

This is the biggest bullshit line of all of them.  

State War Crime Apologist: “We gave them an opportunity to leave…”

As if this makes them not responsible for the bloodbath that follows.  I mean, by that reasoning, if they had an opportunity to leave, then the atrocities that followed during the Pogroms are on those who didn’t immediately flee, right?

This is just not a realistic expectation and most especially given the very recent history of the Palestinian people.  First, many who live in the Gaza Strip are already refugees living in camps.  Why?  Well, they were forcibly expelled by Zionists in events like the Nakba of 1948 and many others, these massacres to push them out may have been forgotten by us, but what if that was your grandparents who still remember the olive groves they tended and the good life that they had prior?  Now you have a place, even if it isn’t the greatest, you have friends and neighbors around you, are you going to just march into the desert again so that more of your ancestral land can be annexed?

This is stupider than expecting Texans to up and leave for Canada if they don’t like the current border situation.

If Palestinians leave who will ensure that they are allowed to return?

The UN?!?

Of all people, white Americans who decry foreigners entering their country, and threatening their culture, should understand this.  If we can’t even tolerate sharing our land and so fear losing our national identity, imagine if we had been backed in a corner for decades and are now being told we must evacuate to a new place so that our rivals can do their mop up of the American resistance.  

No, Palestinians don’t leave for the same reason we wouldn’t leave and the same reason why Israelis don’t simply move to friendlier Western nations.  I mean, it would be much easier for Israelis, many of whom are wealthier and have dual citizenship, to make the move to safer places.  Why not just move completely out of range of Hamas rockets and incursions?

You don’t have to be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause to see this as an injustice, you just need to be human.

As ignorant is this idea that Arab nations should simply absorb the people displaced by Israel as if that would solve the problem.  I mean, it isn’t like hard-core Zionists don’t also think that Lebanon belongs to them.  Unlike many Americans, Arab leaders aren’t dumb.  They know that in politics when you give an inch they’ll take a mile.  Their own rule is fragile enough.  They understand that a stream of refugees will potentially undermine their stability and, again, we should understand this by looking at what is happening in Europe or the US where refugees are welcomed.  And, sure, the US certainly could’ve moved all from the British Isles across the Atlantic to avoid confrontation with Hitler, but why would we?

Why should Gazans leave?  Why should Arab leaders facilitate the whims of Israel?

Blame-shifting Is Evil

Abusers always make the victim guilty.  The little girl he assaulted should’ve been wearing that dress.  This is how they wash their own hands, so they aren’t the bad guys in the narrative they create for themselves.  In their mind, they’re not a bad person, they were just presented with an irresistible temptation, and it was a failure somewhere else that caused them to fall.  Sexual predators do say things like “why did her parents leave her with me” or “he didn’t put up enough resistance” as a justification.  It is evil when they do it and it is evil when others do it in murkier circumstances.

The blood of Gazans, who are killed by the IDF, is completely on the hands of the Israeli leadership who are ordering the invasion.  It is no different from Hamas being to blame for those who were shot by their militants.  Gazans are not collectively guilty of what Hamas does and, likewise, innocent Israelis have no blame to bear for what their government does.  If an enemy uses “human shields” that doesn’t give a military permission to gun down or bomb the civilians between them and their enemies.  If a military invasion is not possible under those conditions, then find another solution.

Israel doesn’t need to invade Gaza to neutralize Hamas.  Even Israelis see the incursion as a failure of their government.  And doing more to defuse the legitimate grievance of the Palestinians, who are having their land systemically taken by religious extremists who cite texts thousands of years old, would go a long way to helping them move on.  Turning enemies into unthinking inhuman monsters is exactly what has enabled genocidal purges in the past and is what is most concerning about the rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Zionists.  It is not Christian.  It is not excusable.

The propagandist’s job isn’t to placate critical thinkers. No, it is to feed the confirmation bias of those who have already picked a side or keep those on the sidelines indifferent. One way this is done is by answering legitimate concerns with plausible, yet spurious, excuses for why normal human compassion need not apply to this situation. It is basic blame-shifting, where you make the victims of abuse guilty for what others are doing to them. And, as gullible and eager as they are, it really doesn’t take much to keep a ‘Christian’ Zionist spouting talking points.

We need to think long and hard about the precedents set by Gaza given our own diminishing influence.  Islamic no-go zones in Europe have expanded to include large swaths of urban centers.  Refugees from destabilized regions of Africa and the Middle East have flowed in, unabated, while native populations have dwindled.  Will we go quietly when it is our turn to be displaced?  Will we like it when our own ethics are turned against us?  Hopefully whoever will rule after us has more compassion and mercy than we do.  Pray that they do not dismiss our cries for justice or brand us as terrorists to be destroyed for opposing their unjust edicts.

It is disheartening that so many in the West have an understanding of the problem less sophisticated than a French aristocrat musing, in response to the starving people saying they don’t have enough bread, “Let them eat cake!” It’s out of touch. It is cruel and indifferent. It will come back to bite us when the world starts to hold us responsible for the abuses of those who claim to act on our behalf and have slaughtered millions. Who will stand to defend us?

I Don’t Care What You Call It

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I feel the need to preface this once again with a trigger warning for those who won’t read through and will miss my point. No, I’m not saying what Hamas did was justified. Nor am I saying that Israel should not respond. But I am trying to confront a bias, motivated by a misuse of Scripture, that is leading our side to look the other way at what amounts to dumping white phosphorous on innocent children and then pretending this is a just response to the death of Israelis. I am addressing what clouds the moral judgment here and not saying that one side or the other should just take the abuse.

I’m addressing the false dichotomy exposed in this letter from Albert Einstein (Jewish) in his opposition to the terrorism that was taking place. He wrote this right after a massacre carried out by Zionist extremists and warning of what would eventually become the horrendous reality of the Nakba and why Palestinians today are reluctant to leave their homes today. They know the history even if you’re ignorant. Read what Einstein wrote and then study what happened next…

To be clear, Einstein was not against a Jewish homeland. He was simply against the violent means being employed that have led to the current hatred. Had more followed his advice then we wouldn’t be facing yet another bloody war today. When will we learn?

Framing Issues

Had the British managed to put down the bloodthirsty terrorists who fought to “water the tree of liberty” by violently taking over their American colonies, does that mean they never existed? No, they (along with their weird pagan offshoot religion that required regular human sacrifice to keep their tree nourished) did exist and they existed as a distinct entity the moment that they declared themselves to be independent. And to say otherwise would be dumb.

One of the stupidest arguments ever made is “tHeRe Is nO PaLeStINe” as if the millions of people pushed into Gaza and West Bank simply do not exist. By that sort of semantic and legal argument, there was never a state of Israel prior to May 14, 1948. Sure, there were a people called the children of Israel and a kingdom of David, but never a STATE by that name, and certainly not one that was a Western-style democracy, prior to a bunch of Europeans moving to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine (which is what it was called) and most certainly a nation with the world’s strongest standing army is not the same one as found in the Scriptures. No, that doesn’t mean they should be run into the sea or not recognized as a legitimate nation (although many do not) and yet we must deal with the reality that the land was occupied before European settlers arrived to claim it. Historical claims may make a nice romantic script, for those with no skin in the game, but telling people that their grievance of being displaced doesn’t exist because you don’t like the name is asinine. It is reasoning that may get you likes in your echo chamber but suggests you are silly and should not be taken seriously by those with a modicum of intelligence. It’s not like the Palestinians are going to stop their fight against those who took their deeded land because you claim they don’t exist.  

Furthermore, legal recognition does not change what something is. By now we all should know this. The governments of the world can call black white or white black and it doesn’t change the nature of color. Calling a man a woman or your affinity for your pet a marriage doesn’t make it true. We have the absolute right to question legal precedent or to hold to whatever existed in our minds prior to their changes. Maybe your modern definitions are simply ignorant of the original meaning and the other side is right. You might eventually be blotted off from the face of the Earth and forgotten. But it doesn’t mean you or the perspectives you held don’t exist. A person’s perspective still exists even if opposed by the powerful who have better propaganda and denying it exists is plain dumb.

Palestinians exist even if they are erased from the land or never officially recognized by many in the United States. That’s not a statement that will suit many from my fundamentalist religious background. But they’re simply not dealing with reality, it is denial, and ridiculous. Einstein called it Palestine. It was Palestine. The modern-day Israeli state came after.

Who were the Samaritans?

They were people deemed illegitimate by the pure-blooded religious elites.  They made a counterclaim to what the other descendants of Abraham Jesus mingled with saw as their own exclusive property.  The Samaritans had their own priests (apparently descendants of Aaron directly) and, contrary to the belief of their Jewish rivals, also continuously occupied the land like their Semitic cousins.

This is what makes how Jesus recognized these people so significant.  We learn, in his conversation with a Samaritan woman, that true worship wasn’t about location, including Jerusalem, but about Spirit and truth.  If this wasn’t clear enough, the parable of the good Samaritan was a slap in the face of those whom Jesus addressed.  A Samaritan more righteous than their own best?  Jesus was intentionally antagonizing. He intended to offend and insult them.

The point, however, remains that salvation is not a birthright.  It is not about your claim to be or ethnic inheritance.  The Christian truth is about what we do, and how we love, and never a matter of our worship ritual or genetics.  The measure of Christian pedigree is faith, pure and simple, like that of Abraham—which is what makes a person a son or daughter of Abraham.

Jesus didn’t mince words when addressing those who believed they would be saved by their ethnicity or Abrahamic bloodline:

Abraham is our father,” they answered. “If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.” “We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.” Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. 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 8:39‭-‬44 NIV)

There are not multiple paths, according to Jesus, but only one way, truth, and life for all to come to the Father.  Galatians makes it clear that Abraham’s seed is fulfilled fully in Christ and all who believe in Him:

The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. Scripture does not say “and to seeds,” meaning many people, but “and to your seed,” meaning one person, who is Christ. […] So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

(Galatians 3:16‭, ‬26‭-‬28 NIV)

Romans affirms what St Paul said above in Galatians:

So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. […] What then? What the people of Israel sought so earnestly they did not obtain. The elect among them did, but the others were hardened…

(Romans 11:5‭, ‬7 NIV)

The “remnant” is those who believed in Jesus.  While the “hardened” are those who rejected Him and, in their unbelief and ignorance, crucified the one who was called their King.  And, for those who contort and turn the Gospels inside out trying to revert to a Covenant that passed away, Hebrews 8:13, I despise your bastardization of truth.  Those who would replace His Kingdom “not of this world” with a modern secular state are not legitimate scholars or Christians.

I reject your ignorant religion.

I reject your indifferent religion.

I reject your false religion.

The true Christ isn’t an ethno-nationalist or waiting on yet another stone temple to be built.  And I don’t really care what your Scofield reference or some random guy on YouTube says.  Christian Zionism is a contradiction of terms.  I’m perfectly fine with European Jews finding a homeland and defending it.  But it should never be confused with the fulfillment of anything more than that.  We should instead be looking for the new Jerusalem.  So stone me like Stephen for repeating what he said: “The Most High does not live in houses made by human hands.”

Count me with the Samaritans.

A blessing or a curse?

Since the 1950s, no other nation has shown more perfect loyalty or full allegiance to the state of Israel than the United States.  The Biden administration is no exception and doubling down on what Trump started.  For this have accumulated a mountain of debt, a decay of our institutions, and sharp moral decline as more and more Americans fall away from faith.  Sure, we are materially wealthy, for now, but churches are empty and those that remain are temples to consumerism rather than self-sacrificial love.  If support for this country is a blessing then I guess we’ll need to redefine that word like we have been with everything else lately.  Or maybe consider we’ve gotten things wrong?

The direction of the US doesn’t look good right now and maybe that is because we’re like the Jeruselum condemned by Ezekiel:

“‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen. Samaria did not commit half the sins you did. You have done more detestable things than they, and have made your sisters seem righteous by all these things you have done. Bear your disgrace, for you have furnished some justification for your sisters. Because your sins were more vile than theirs, they appear more righteous than you. So then, be ashamed and bear your disgrace, for you have made your sisters appear righteous.

(Ezekiel 16:49-52 NIV)

Maybe it is time to stop focusing on the sins of Samaria and consider our own. Sure, maybe IsRaEl hAs ThE rIgHt To DeFeND iTsElF, but then so do the other Semitic people in that region. Consider that we are Haman, from the book of Esther, unwittingly building our own gallows as we justify our unjust vengeance against undeserving people. We’re not a righteous judge. The children of Gaza did not attack Israel. It is not anti-Semitic to stand with Einstein or recognize the unjust suffering of the Semitic people in Gaza. It is not our allegiance to the state of Israel that will bring us blessings, only allegiance to the king of the true Israel can do that and we must all repent of our delusions otherwise.

Seeing Behind The Veil

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In storytelling, there is a plot device called a MacGuffin.  This is an object, character, or event used to push the narrative forward and yet isn’t all that important in and of itself.  In other words, a thing that creates motivation and yet never even needs to be revealed to the audience.  We are supposed to believe this is something significant or valuable and that’s all we need to be told.

The contents of the briefcase are left a mystery despite being pivotal in motivating the characters.

While reading through the Old Testament and pondering how temple worship worked, it is hard not to see the Ark of the Covenant as a sort of MacGuffin.  Sure, their God was not a thing.  And yet this sacred object, we’re told, contained something of God’s presence and would even strike dead those who innocently mishandled it.  Of course, most people may never have seen it, it was kept behind a veil in the temple where few had access, but all would be told of the sacredness.

“Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in the thick darkness. I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever.”

(1 Kings 8:12‭-‬13 KJV)

In fact, it was made sacred as much by this treatment as much as what actually dwelled within it.  The mythology surrounding it, as in the cultural or religious significance that was given to it, was extremely powerful.  Starting a special priestly class, Tabernacle and ritual practice, later the impressive structure of the Temple, there was a huge investment in this sacred object.  And yet, for all the attention it got, the Ark itself was usually kept hidden in darkness, guarded, within the Holy of Holies and behind a veil.

Holy Of Holies 

There are other things hidden behind a veil with significant motivational power.  One of them being the marriage MacGuffin.  For me this was a pursuit of something sacred, the church does consider the marriage bed to be sacred, and there is a whole mythology that is constructed around marriage.

This is what made it so jarring when, during my pursuit of the impossibly, a psychiatrist would classify it as “sexual attraction.”  They had just heard me describe a pure and faith-driven quest only to reframe it in such crass terms.  How dare they!  I was after love, not sex!  It really did offend me at the time.  With their clinical roughness, they had penetrated the veil of my marriage delusion.  It was an act of sacrilege.  

My childhood innocence is beyond recovery at this point.  For whatever reason, those of us born into a fundamentalist purity culture believe that we must be in denial of our own sexual urges that lead to marriage.  This is strange given how blunt St. Paul is on the topic, in 1 Corinthians 7:9, advising those who “burn with passion” to get married and basically get a room.  Why the veil of secrecy, these many euphemistic expressions to cover and mystify the bumping of uglies?

Speaking of erotic euphemism:

“Awake, O north wind; And come, thou south; Blow upon my garden, That the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, And eat his pleasant fruits.”

(Song of Solomon 4:16 KJV)

Why blush, be embarrassed or ashamed by this?

Could it be that without dressing this whole affair up with great ceremony, white bridal veils, teary-eyed parents, and such, we would have to face the reality of being creatures as hormone-driven as two ducks on a pond?  I mean, why aren’t we as honest as Solomon was in his poetry: “Roses are red, violets are blue, you have large breasts, that’s why I love you!”  Without white lies or half-truths, would our version of romance even survive?

So what is underneath the veil?

All of those things that I’ve discovered in the intervening years, that’s what…

Bride or prostitute.
Is the only difference the price each requires?

To the extent I was in deep denial of my own sexuality, I was doubly in denial of the sexual nature of my female counterparts within the conservative Anabaptist culture.  The young lady who first propositioned, then made it all awkward and worried about somehow being ‘defiled’ if she got coffee with me has long since dropped the veil.  She has joined the others whom I had held in such high regard, revealed now as not being nearly as prudish or pure as I had once imagined.  That’s not a criticism or judgment either.  It is just the reality of the situation.

So, when the impossibly told me “I cannot not love that you the way that you wanted to be loved” what she was really saying the same thing as those Tinder girls with “must be 6′ or over to ride” in their profiles.  She wanted a guy who got her juices flowing, certainly someone a bit more rugged and traditionally masculine than me.  And, I mean, why not?  Why hide it?  Marriage is not only (or even primarily) about the high ideal that is advertised.  It is also about our scratching the itch.  Which is to say getting down and dirty with someone who meets the correct physical qualifications.

Also, perhaps it is that the fantasy is more satisfying than the act itself?  We read how Amnon, King David’s eldest son, had such an infatuation with his half-sister Tamar.  It tells us after having his way with her he despised her.  Or consider the disgust of Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin when, in marriage, he discovered that women aren’t like porcelain dolls.  You’ll have to forgive him, they put skirts over piano legs back then to keep the eyes of men safe from the unveiled feminine form.  Maybe there are some things that are better chased than caught?  If we find what we went looking for we might be shocked at what we found.

Sacred Fertility & Symbolism 

The final stop on this exploration of sacred and taboo has to do with something that I can’t unsee now that I’ve seen it.  I’m bound to lose half of my final two readers for going here. 

Nevertheless, I’m not here to please the pearl-clutching crowd. 

For me, this is not about toppling sacred cows or making people uncomfortable, it is about being honest enough to see reality for what it is and correcting our own perspectives of the cultural baggage we’ve inherited.

First, what drives much of the Old Testament Biblical narrative?  We know Abraham’s story, how he wanted an heir, and yet how Sarai, his wife, was unable to produce.  In this Genesis account we see various cases where wombs are opened or closed.  And the punishment of Michal, for rebuking her dancing husband, was that she had no child until the day of her death.  Being fruitful and multiplying was a high priority, as well as having sons to carry on the family line.

As an aside, we live in a very sterile world in comparison to our ancestors, we’ve become sheltered and sensitive to the point many do not eat meat or want their children exposed to death.  This wasn’t an option at the time when Scripture was written.  There is a kind of earthiness to their world and perspective, something more primal or real, a brutality of life difficult to stomach.  It is with this reality in mind, that we also have different sexual taboos and could be more prudish than they were about such things.

Second, I was sitting in church and taking a look at the colorful streams of light pouring through a stained glass image of Jesus pulling Adam and Eve from the grave.  My moment of appreciation for this beauty was interrupted by my noticing part of the symbolism.  Jesus is shown to be emerging from an oval shape, at the bottom of which are the covers of their opened tombs.  Requiring very little, if any, imagination, it bears striking resemblance to one Christian symbol even an iconoclastic Protestant would likely recognize, and that being a vertically arranged “Jesus fish” or Ichthys.

Light and life shining down…

However, concurrent to this, and a cause of some momentary shame, was the thought “That’s a vulva!”  I mean, how inappropriate to think that any part of the female anatomy, let alone those private nether regions, be put on prominent display or be associated with Christ!  

But is it really?

A mother, Mary, is necessary for the birth of Jesus.  Without her, and her womb that is miraculously made made more spacious than the heavens, there is no salvation for mankind.  It didn’t matter if God could have used any other way, all we know is that he used this young woman and all of the faithful since have followed the lead of Elizabeth, who full of the Holy Spirit loudly proclaimed:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

(Luke 1:42‭-‬43 NIV)

As far as the symbolism, I would find that indeed my observation had basis in reality as the Ichthys is a version of Vesica Piscis (literally “fishes bladder” in Latin) or, in sacred geometry, the oval that two intersecting circles create an oval and said to be the place where spiritual and physical worlds interface. According to Syriac Press, in ancient Mesopotamia, it was used as a symbol of the combination of masculine and feminine energies that create a Divine Child.  Any pagan coincidence, like those with baptism, only serves to reinforce the power of the symbolism.

In a time when many settle for ‘fur babies’ over producing human offspring and the unique female contribution to the world is dismissed by feminists seeking male roles— when real women are mocked by men who pretend to menstruate—we need to start doubling down on our celebration of this reproductive role of women.  Phrases like “saved through childbearing” did not come into the Bible by accident.  The world was saved by the one who came out of Mary’s fertile womb and we ought not to downplay or be embarrassed by this.

Empty Vessel—Dying Corpse

Solomon’s Temple was destroyed in 586 BC, by the Babylonians, and the fate of the Ark within it is unknown.  This loss of sacred relics did not stop the Jewish faithful from rebuilding the temple, in 515 BC, but does make one wonder how much the contents mattered.  So long as the people were kept in awe that’s all that really seemed to be the point whether the edifice truly contained anything of real value or not.  With nothing behind the veil, the people still did the ritual and sacrifice. 

Why?

It seems sort of analogous to the US Dollar, a currency once backed by actual gold and now only by faith people continue to hold in the economic system it represents.  The harsh reality is that it has become merely a means to exploit. It is a way for a few elites to rob the value of the savings of other people by printing more money for themselves.  Those money changers Jesus chased out of the Temple were the amateurs. The real professionals never get caught.  The carefully maintained veil of secrecy around the Federal Reserve ensures that this particular scam continues for a long long time.

But, I digress.  

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “a corpse crawling with worms has an increased vitality,” and that “a dead man may look like a sleeping man a moment after he is dead,” trying to describe the subtle yet significant difference between truly sacred tradition and a cheap gimmick version of this religion that was intended to replace it.  Perhaps this is what has me disillusioned?  With so many things, once the veil is lifted (which few ever dare to do) so much of the enticing mystery and popular mythology which propelled us forward falls apart.  And in this way some of the life I had felt early on feels more like decomposition.

Perhaps this is what is left when you’re the dog who has finally caught the car?  Nothing left to do but pee on the tire and continue on your way again.  The anticipation leading up to the day of revelation may be more exciting than the moment the veil is lifted and when all is seen.  Ruskin may have spent the rest of his life waxing eloquently about his female love interest.  Or maybe—just maybe—that MacGuffin which led us to the point we’re at today was merely a plot device to move the story forward and the only truly sacred part of the encounter is the fruit produced?

Sexual pleasure is fleeting.  We’re lured there by our imaginations, by our desire for what is beyond the veil of marriage, but it can all be a bit anti-climactic and even repulsive once you consider it after it is finally unwrapped from the flowery speech and those flawless air-brushed mental pictures.  But fatherhood, by contrast, seeing the great potential of my son, tending to his needs, pruning as needed, is something extremely fulfilling.  It is what has emerged from the womb that brings us renewed life and hope.  Pity the barren, the dying corpse who has lifted the veil and only saw the emptiness of their pursuits.

Aliens Are Here! Maybe…

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Did you hear?  A ‘whistleblower’ testified before Congress about aliens and finding non-human remains at crash sites.  I can’t really know if this was reliable or someone simply getting their fifteen minutes of fame, but it does seem unlikely to me that beings capable of flying the enormous distances of space would be such poor navigators.  I’ll be a skeptic until I can see for myself and make my own determination.

However, in pondering the topic, a friend of mine posted an interesting meme and it is an angle worth exploring.  If aliens do exist, according to the insinuation of this image posted, then they are demonic entities and not to be treated as friends.  To some this may seem like a missed opportunity, why would we avoid a chance to expand our own horizons?  Typical human behavior, right, to meet with violence the things that we don’t understand or defy expectations.

Maybe. Maybe not.

And yet, this seems another case of being directionally correct even if wrong on the details.  I mean, there’s a chance that aliens are some kind of creature from another planet and come in peace. However, what if they don’t?  What if they, like many traveling to new lands, have colonial ambitions and will destroy or subjugate us if allowed? 

It is correct, instinctively, to have zero trust for these new arrivals.  Maybe, technically, they are not demons, but they are others and may as well be demons, right?

Tinfoil Hat Time

This is why I’m generally on the fence so far as the MAGA and Q-Anon types.  Sure, they vastly oversimplify and often get the details wrong enough to be easily ‘debunked’ by fact-checkers.  However, half the problem is usually about the use of semantics and not the substance.  Maybe the world isn’t run by a ring of reptilian pedophiles, nevertheless there are many who lack morality, have their secret plots, hidden motivations, and cover-ups.  It might not be organized, but this is pervasive enough that it is adequately put in terms of a grand conspiracy.

Women, don your head coverings!

So far as aliens, and as a devoted speciesist who prefers native life to that which is most certainly extra-terrestrial, does the exact approach we take to ‘othering’ them really matter?   They are an other, a true existential threat, and therefore to be regarded as demonic beings.  Curiosity could be our undoing and especially when it comes to those things powerful and beyond our own understanding.  

So what does the Scripture tell us about this topic?

First, be respectful:

In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.

(Jude 1:8‭-‬10 NIV)

Quibbling over what exactly they are is okay, but there is no room for casualness when it comes to aliens or demons.  Those coming from other worlds obviously have technology or means better than our own.  They can run circles around us.  So we would be wise to be cautious and exercise due respect—that is to say rely on God’s power rather than our own strength in these encounters.

Second, we should learn from record history and not make the same mistakes:

The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

(Genesis 6:4 NIV)

The non-canonical book of Enoch goes into greater detail about this event when beings from another realm came to Earth, shared their advanced knowledge (including that of weapons) and interbred with women.  These enhanced hybrid offspring were extremely powerful, they also had insatiable appetites and their enormous consumption eventually led to a destructive rampage.  We are told this is why God finally wiped the slate clean with the great flood, where Noah and his family were spared.  This is why St Paul writes, in a letter to the Corinthians:

A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. […] It is for this reason that a woman ought to have authority over her own head, because of the angels.

(1 Corinthians 11:7‭, ‬10 NIV)

Women, wear your tinfoil hats.  Err, I mean, veils, because there are Watchers, sons of God not named Jesus, and thus it is for this reason you should definitely declare what is the ordained order.  Mennonites and Amish are just unwittingly ahead of the game!

Aliens or Angels?

My wife speaks English.  However, given that she comes from the Philippines, sometimes her word usage can be different from that of an American.  Hanging out with friends and family, for example “bonding” and a “polo” can basically be any shirt with buttons.  So truly, if use of language can be this confusing even for us contemporaries, what happens when we expand this “telephone game” over centuries?

It is quite possible that we are reading about what we call aliens in these ancient texts.  I mean, the descriptions do seem to match so they not?  Those who came to Earth with advanced knowledge and abilities, messed with human genetics through impregnation of women (see: Aliens) and wreaked havoc on the planet before God intervened.  There is no way to know if the difference is only semantics or of substance.

Space horror, fantasy or reality?

It seems very unlikely, given the distances involved, that aliens beings can travel from galaxies far away.  It is much more likely that these beings would emerge from a parallel (spiritual) dimension, and perhaps through a portal, and are able to take physical form to interact with us.  And, either way, similar to artificial intelligence not sharing our human priorities, I’m doubtful these aliens or angels would really have our best interests in mind if they did come. 

Ultimately, for all intents and purposes, they are demons.  In other words, those of Orthodox Christian tradition do already know what they really are.  And, therefore, we must both exercise great caution and strengthen our faith.  If they have returned then widespread destruction may be soon to follow.  It is not a reason to be afraid, there is no need to panic, these gods are not greater than the good God who has defended those righteous from the beginning and will never let evil win in the end.

An Affirmative Reaction

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The Supreme Court has finally ruled against the practice of blatant racial discrimination in university admissions.  This, after Harvard and other schools, in pursuit of filling quotas, would find means to select against qualified Asians to meet an ideal for diversity based on skin color.

The Affirmation Fairy… 

African Americans, at least as a collective whole, have suffered disproportionately and this is a historical injustice that is not easily solved.  Much of our success later in life has to do with the homes and communities that we were born into.  The values we receive via our culture make a huge difference so far as outcomes.

I remember a viral video, a few years back, that lines up a bunch of young people on a grassy field.  The announcer asked various questions, such as “Take two steps forward if both of your parents are still married,” and those who could answer yes advanced.  The results of this survey were framed as ‘white privilege’ and yet none of the statements had anything to do with race.

Social inequality is certainly not a black-and-white issue, many children of European and Asian ancestry lacked a father in the home, worried about fitting in, did not feel safe at night in their neighborhood, worried about having enough to eat, and lacked access to private education or tutors.  I once begged my mother to take me out of public school after a rough patch.  I changed my hairstyle as a response to classmates who made note of my ‘Mennonite’ side part.  I decided to quit college rather than go deep into debt.  

Am I underprivileged?

Exactly how much am I disadvantaged as a learning-disabled child of two high school dropouts, with a father who had to be away all week to support our family?

There problem with all “affirmative action” is that it is a vast oversimplification of a very complex and multi-layered problem that may be more about culture than color.  We simply cannot account for every factor or rate every single subcategory of ethnicity and culture for statistical disadvantage.  For example, do we know the college graduation rates of Americans of German ancestry or Irish and Italian?  Are a proportional amount of these ethnic groups represented?

Furthermore, our own disadvantages can be advantages, in that they can provide u much-needed motivation.  Sure, having money may mean a trip to Harvard and a certain level of success.  However, the same is true of those who are tall and athletic.  Jeff Bezos, at 5′-7″ tall, may have benefitted from having some ‘short man syndrome’ or that extreme desire some have to compensate for the discrimination they faced for physical characteristics that were beyond their control.

Affirmative action is wrong in that there is no way to rank hardships.  It is wrong because it isn’t addressing the root causes of social inequalities, even as defined by the privilege police, in that we’re not talking about things like fatherless homes or inner-city violence and cultural forces that discourage the behaviors that aid in academic achievement.  You can’t wait until a person is eighteen, then wave a wand of university education and credentials as a solution to these underlying issues.

Asterisk Graduates…

The true underlying message of affirmative action was that minorities, specifically those of African descent, couldn’t be successful without the help of the government.  As liberal arts universities continue to seek to fulfill a narrow color-obsessed definition of diversity, using quotas rather than qualifications, they unintentionally degrade all of their minority graduates—even those equal in merit to the non-minority graduates.

The idea of a “diversity hire” or a person not equally qualified to others who applied and yet are given preference only because of their special category of race or gender, is a direct consequence of discriminatory affirmative action programs.  People know how to read between the lines (albeit often unfairly) and will diminish accomplishments that weren’t actually earned or can be perceived as being unearned.  It is why we do not see the work of those ‘born into wealth’ as being equal to that of those who are self-made.

A classic example of the patronizing white saviorism that is lurking behind divisive equity campaigns.

Just as a university degree would lose value if everyone were simply given a diploma for breathing, admitting some primarily on the basis of skin color devalues the effort even in the eyes of those who benefit.  It only serves to feed an idea of black inferiority, that they need a ‘white savior‘ to swoop in and rescue them from their plight, and is grossly unfair to all who were truly qualified on the basis of merit—but will still deal with the asterisk due to systemic compensatory color preferences or racially discriminatory quotas.

The hate crimes against Asians, like the murder of Yao Pan Ma, rarely receive coverage as other racially involved crimes.
The hate crimes against Asians, like the murder of Yao Pan Ma, rarely receive coverage as other racially involved crimes.

You cannot defeat unfair discrimination with a new kind of unfair discrimination.  It is not right that overqualified Asian students were being overlooked because of their race or on some kind of subjective basis that the worth of their own “lived experience” is less than a person of African origin.  Many Asians have overcome extreme hardship, faced intense pressure at home and hate crimes (often underreported for going against the typical racial narrative), yet won’t ever express this due to cultural reserve—why should they be punished for the success of their peers?

Two-tiered or lower standards for some will never achieve the goal of equal outcomes.

Favouritism Forbidden…

We’re living in a time of moral inversion, a time when those who lived a life of crime and abuse are treated as victims simply on the basis of their outward appearance.  It is as wrong as the favoritism of preferring the wealthy over the poor for the potential benefits:

Do not pervert justice; do not show partiality to the poor or favoritism to the great, but judge your neighbor fairly.

Leviticus 19:15 NIV

The problem was favoritism, preferring one party based on who they are (what they can provide for us) rather than the actual merit of the case.  Fairness of judgment, not equality of outcome, is the goal.

Christians were told not to judge by a person’s outward appearance:

My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in filthy old clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

James 2:2-4 NIV

Many, trying to make a show of their own righteousness, take a Scripture like that above and turn it into a call for social justice or a special preference for the poor or otherwise disenfranchised.  However, this kind of reverse favoritism totally misses the point.  Trading one kind of perverse judgment for another is not a virtue.  No, it is a virtue signal and something people do for the social benefit of merely appearing to be an advocate for those recognized as being disadvantaged.  Even if sincere, this is a misguided approach that goes against the instruction not to show favoritism.

Affirmative action, in the end, is just a new form of white supremacy that is expressed as patronization.  It frames differences in outcomes solely in terms of identity groups while neglecting to correct the factors causing the inequal results or truly helping people to cross over these unhelpful, artificial, and arbitrary divisions.  Jesus taught more of a gracious meritocracy, where our behavior did matter and we would ultimately be judged on how we treat other people irrespective of their deserving or appearance.  In this regard, our equality comes only in repentance and our obedience to the law of Christ—not by force of courts or legislation.

We do not save the world by trying to force others into compliance or control outcomes. Rather we change ourselves and become an example of impartiality and love to all people. Honest and fair equal opportunity is having the same requirements for all and not preferences tailored to some at the expense of others. You cannot rob Peter to pay Paul. We shouldn’t love bomb some, even to make them feel better about themselves, by removing opportunities for those who truly have earned their place.

Who Are Our Kin?

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The book of Ruth is a nice little oasis in the midst of dry and tedious reading.  Up to this point the Bible isn’t all that relatable.  It has some highlights, interesting characters, but is stories of ethnic cleansing, description of weird sacrificial rites, polygamous patriarchs and stonings for picking up sticks, violence and laws, it is cumbersome.  

And then you get this:

But Ruth replied, “Don’t urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if even death separates you and me.” When Naomi realized that Ruth was determined to go with her, she stopped urging her. So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

Ruth 1:16‭-‬19 NIV

What a contrast to the storytelling prior, all of the resistance to racial mixing as well, here a Moabite woman would rather remain with her Israelite mother-in-law than stay with her own people.  It’s personal.  And the romance that follows, while very foreign and featuring many practices which are weird to our own ears, shows a more compassionate side of the legal system instituted by Moses.  Boaz acted both out of love and duty as guardian-redeemer.  Starting with his genuine concern for her safety:

So Boaz said to Ruth, “My daughter, listen to me. Don’t go and glean in another field and don’t go away from here. Stay here with the women who work for me. Watch the field where the men are harvesting, and follow along after the women. I have told the men not to lay a hand on you. And whenever you are thirsty, go and get a drink from the water jars the men have filled.”

Ruth 2:8‭-‬9 NIV

This paternalistic care a sharp contrast to an episode in the book of Judges when a Levite and his host offered their innocent women to please the perverse desires of the men in the local community:

While they were enjoying themselves, some of the wicked men of the city surrounded the house. Pounding on the door, they shouted to the old man who owned the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so we can have sex with him.” The owner of the house went outside and said to them, “No, my friends, don’t be so vile. Since this man is my guest, don’t do this outrageous thing. Look, here is my virgin daughter, and his concubine. I will bring them out to you now, and you can use them and do to them whatever you wish. But as for this man, don’t do such an outrageous thing.” But the men would not listen to him. So the man took his concubine and sent her outside to them, and they raped her and abused her throughout the night, and at dawn they let her go. At daybreak the woman went back to the house where her master was staying, fell down at the door and lay there until daylight. When her master got up in the morning and opened the door of the house and stepped out to continue on his way, there lay his concubine, fallen in the doorway of the house, with her hands on the threshold. He said to her, “Get up; let’s go.” But there was no answer. Then the man put her on his donkey and set out for home.

Judges 19:22‭-‬28 NIV

While the brutal rape and murder of this poor concubine was later avenged, it is quite clear that the two men were more concerned with saving their own skin than protecting those whom were entrusted to them.  Not saying it would be easy to know what to do in those circumstances.  It isn’t like there was 911 to call or semiautomatic weapons to hold back the lascivious mob.  Still, Boaz stood ready to protect Ruth, a foreign woman, from the other men who would very likely have taken advantage.  How easily we can take our own law and order for granted.

Where the men made the woman vulnerable for exploitation in the book of Judges and in other parts of the Bible, like Abraham claiming his wife was his sister or Jacob putting his family in the front, in Ruth it is the women putting themselves in a vulnerable place to capture the attention of the good man:

One day Ruth’s mother-in-law Naomi said to her, “My daughter, I must find a home for you, where you will be well provided for. Now Boaz, with whose women you have worked, is a relative of ours. Tonight he will be winnowing barley on the threshing floor. Wash, put on perfume, and get dressed in your best clothes. Then go down to the threshing floor, but don’t let him know you are there until he has finished eating and drinking. When he lies down, note the place where he is lying. Then go and uncover his feet and lie down. He will tell you what to do.”

Ruth 3:1‭-‬4 NIV

I’m not sure if the description of Ruth acting out on her mother-in-law’s bold plan to lay at the feet of Boaz is euphemistic language.  Seems risky to be that intimate with a man who was drinking and “in good spirits” as the text tells us.  But, that said, whatever transpired that night, we know that he took responsibility for Ruth and also the welfare of Naomi.  And, in this regard, the guardian-redeemer system worked as designed.  But mostly because of Boaz having genuine care in his heart.  Ruth, for her part, was his equal in that she was loyal to her mother-in-law to the point of leaving her own homeland.

This is a story exceptional in a good way and likely part of the Biblical canon so far as has to do with the lineage of King David.  It also brings us to Bethlehem, where Jesus (of the line of David via his mother) was born.  That both Ruth and Boaz stand out as characters for their abiding love is significant.  In a time when woman were treated as if property or merely objects for male pleasure, we have honorable and caring men.  Boaz took Ruth under his wing in the same way his grandson longed to love his people:

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.

Matthew 23:37 NIV

In this account there is a clear precedent for a family relationship that goes beyond only our biological relatives.  The law of the kinsman or guardian-redeemer, through Naomi, was also applied to Ruth.  And, likewise, through adoption we become sons and daughters of Abraham by our faith (Galatians 3:6-14) and true children unlike those blood relatives of the Patriarch who rejected their Salvation.  Our real kin are those who fulfill the role they have and love in the manner of Boaz or Ruth.

Shedding Identity

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There was a time when I could simply say “I’m Mennonite.”  That is what I was.  It was my religion, culture and ethnicity wrapped up into one tidy package.  It was as real to me as my gender and first name.  But now, having left the denomination of my youth behind, it is really difficult to buy-in to a new identity or at least not to the extent of feeling a significant attachment to the distinguishing title.

We live in a great identity crisis.  We might celebrate more identities than ever, and yet somehow along the way, we have lost the very meaning of the words that we use to define these identity categories.  

What is an identity?

An identity is a word used to distinguish one from another.  Or a statement of what we are in comparison to the whole group.  Are you Catholic or Protestant?  Black or white?  A Republican, Democrat or Independent?  And whether it is identity or not has much to do with the emotional weight that we place on these categories and terms.  In other words, blue-eyed is certainly a category that some of us belong to, but is not currently an true identity marker.

There are also various kinds of identity, there are those inborn or assumed—Charlotte, due to her inherited genetics, is Kankanaey, and would be no matter what she believed about herself or if she prefers that another term be used.  Then there are those types of identities that are less about our immutable being and more about what we are doing.  By contrast, trucker or truck driver is an identity, and even comes with a license to prove it, but it is not something that is actually written in a CDL holder’s DNA.

Trump ‘identifies’ as a trucker…

Identity is never something we can select for ourselves.  I can claim to be a Dill Pickle and even legally require the moniker be used in reference to me. But this is never going to change what other people will perceive me to be.  Identity is something that others construct, with us, and not only a thing that we independently choose for ourselves.  Put another way, a rose by any other name is still a rose and even if we paint it blue.  And blue does not become yellow because we switch the color identity labels either.

Our “I am” identity…

I’m sexually attracted to the female form and this has dictated my priorities and activities throughout the years.  But, as important as it is to me, I don’t tout my ‘straight’ preference as being my identity.  I am many things, but my sexuality is not something to hang my sense of who I am on.  There are no hetero pride parades for this reason and no need to fly a special banner in front of my house to announce my preferences either.  Sexuality is not who we really are.

So, when someone says “I am gay,” my mind always must go to the question, “you are a sexuality?”  The reality is that this identity is about far more than what they do in bed.  It is about the community or lifestyle and an identity built around being their status as an exception.  Being “gay” is just as much about the social aspect as the orientation.  It is not just something you only do in private.  No, it requires a public display and solidarity with others like you.  If it were simply about sex there would be no parades or neverending need to be legitimized by others.  Identity is bigger than the individual.

And trans is simply the next level.  Those calling themselves “trans” may (in direct contradiction with their biological gender assignment) self-identify as a man or a woman.  But those who are truly male or female simply are and there is no need for hormones, reconstruction of genitals or to exaggerate gender stereotypes with weird provocative displays.  On the other hand, no matter how much  surgery is performed on the body of a ‘trans’ person they will always be trans.  The more trans people try to force others to recognize them (despite our own eyes) the more they will stand out as being different.  Which is truly the point.

Identity is about our distinguishing ourselves from the larger group.  It is also about what is the most important thing to us.  If a person were ask who I am I would probably start with my given name.  That is where I am oriented in society, as a product of my parents, and also gives others a shorthand to address my person.  Then I might mention my role as a husband and father as those things are currently the most meaningful parts of my life.  Of course, also in the mix is my religious affiliation and occupation.  Sexuality, while very important, wouldn’t even make the top of the list.

Furthermore, there is no need for anyone to defy their own eyes or be forced to recognize anything about me against their will.  Identity is not only about what I declare.  A large part of real identity is what others recognize with no coercion.  If I had to demand that my son call me daddy or that my wife appreciate my bad cooking the same as she did the work of a master chef, would their bending to my will really make me any more legitimately those things?  No, it would certainly not!  It would make me a bully and look very insecure.

The Identity Gambit…

Special identity is a way to gain advantage over others. In the past it was about having the right privileging title or family pedigree. Now it has become a no holds barred fight between various victim categories. But in both cases it was about unearned respect, about people who did not do anything noteworthy enough in their lives to be recognized and thus invent illegitimate reasons why others must genuflect to them. These frauds are enabled by those who have twisted morality and a corrupted political system.

Stop. I look like a police officer!

People can lie about their identity for many reasons.  Impersonation of a police officer, for example, gives a person false authority and ability to manipulate the unsuspecting.  Or stolen valor, in the case of those who, for attention, dress like and pretend to be a military veteran.  Sure, the act is usually off, since these posers don’t have the requisite qualifications, but it fools enough people that they get the payoff of the true identity—or at least until caught.  Then again, prancing around and pathologically pretending to be a girl is now extremely lucrative for some men.

Pretending to be a doctor or airline pilot is something children do innocently and yet it would be silly to legally recognize this as not to make them feel bad.  True identity is not an act or a costume we put on. 

Shedding identity…

Identity is powerful.  For example, a person calling themselves a “gangsta” or “thug” is declaring a whole package of behaviors and dress styles.  It is a choice as well as a habit, they could change and yet their momentum is in a particular direction.  They have been conditioned, for years and years, by culture and peers, to assume this posture towards the world.  

There is some truth to the statement, “you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy.”  We have many things instilled in us, accents to tastes, but this is not written into our DNA and doesn’t mean it is an “I am what I am” excuse.  We will send children to speech therapy if they have an impediment rather than let them be their true selves.  We can and should modify things that an identity is built from.  This notion of a genuine self that can’t be changed is ridiculous.

Right now there is a Ukrainian vs. Russian war.  The narrative we’re being sold is that there is a vast difference between the two sides—that this is a fight between freedom and democracy or authoritarian rule.  We are told the Russians are barbaric and cruel, the Ukrainian’s heroic and capable.  But both are from the same Kievan Rus origins, speak a dialect of the same language, and truly have much more in common with each other than they do with us.  Furthermore, the regime in Kiev is hopelessly corrupt, and had been shelling those trying to escape this rule for years prior to the Russian invasion—it isn’t a distinction worth dying over.

Ukraine vs. Russia is more like the US Civil War than WW2.

The reality is we are not bound to identity, especially not to those that are more about what we are currently doing rather than our actual being.  We choose our divisions as much as we are born with them.  Sure, we can’t help what side of a border we are born on nor if our personality traits are judged as being masculine or feminine.  But we can decide what is most important to us.  And, more importantly, we can pick identities that are greater than sexuality or gender.  We must reject this idea that we can’t change or improve while also accepting what we are and were born to be.

Many people get off from being contrarian and offending others, they especially enjoy being able to force others to go along with their language games.  But, in the end, their ‘preferred pronoun’ is a distinction without a difference.  We will remain what we are no matter how we dress it up or how much we compel others to go along with the delusion and falsehoods we peddle.  It is only in our spiritual transformation, in finding a bigger purpose, that we can be free from needing the approval and attention of others.

More and more I have no identity to cling to outside of being who I am.  I am what I am and don’t need to hide behind a special label or find my place in the world.  While many in my religious past hold conference in search of their identity and as many converts in the tradition in which I currently participate tout the Orthodox adjective in the manner some do they/them pronouns, I have little interest in joining them in this inane competition.  St Paul, in Galatians 2:38, would have us shed our divisive identities for a joint identity in Christ.

The Token Converts

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Years ago I had a nemesis. My counterpart positioned himself as a white knight type of character and was basically there to harass anyone too fond of the religious tribe I was born into. He knew the group, he had been a convert and was now an ex-member, who classified us as “an ethnic church” dismissing what we said about our conversion experience.

Now that I’ve left the group there is no reason to continue to guard the ideas left behind and that includes the notion that my own participation had been completely a choice. There are doctrinal reasons for this denial of the obvious. I mean, if you believe that conversion is a personal choice, a rational and unbiased conclusion, then it really gets under your skin when someone says that you’re more or less a product of a religious culture.

We were, in our own eyes, a sort of remnant church. And then also had to deal with the awkward reality that many, like us, were so inbred that they had distinct genetic disorders. And, unlike our radical forbearers, we had no cultural relevance besides being the quaint old fashioned people who dressed like it was the 1800s and called this non-conformity to the world. So, obviously, the fact that everyone who shared our views happened to be genetically related was the source of cognitive dissonance.

It is for this reason that converts, the more exotic the better, were clung to and even given special treatment. We would say it was out of Christian love and yet some of this had to do with our own insecurities. They were our validation. They were the proof that we were more than just an ethnic cloister, more than a bunch of cousins of a particular European heritage claiming that our own brand of religion represented something universal and relevant to the times.

Those who come into this group, visibly from the outside, are often treated both with mistrust and also with a special adoration as well. They can never be fully accepted, they’re always both more and less than equal, coddled or spared normal rebuke from some to keep them from leaving, and yet also can sense that they’re just the tokens being used to prove a point rather than being treated as people. Sure, they may form real friendships with some, but they themselves are often misfits from whence they came and still remain stuck in no man’s land.

Now that I’m in a church that both spans continents and is mostly converts locally, I don’t have as strong an urge to collect tokens or evidence that I’m not just a product of my ethnocultural roots. I mean, sure, I still want to be right. But the pressure to bring the Gospel to all people is off my shoulders. The Church didn’t take long to spread into Asia or Africa, early Christians didn’t dress like Europeans from a generation ago either, there may be some times to chase down Ethiopian eunuchs in their chariots, and yet there’s also a time to acknowledge that the fullness of the faith has never left Africa.

Evangelicals, of all stripes, have this desperation for relevance. They think that they will win more converts by being more cosmopolitan, and by painting a picture of superficial diversity and inclusion, but Jesus said that his message would make the world hate us and even divide families. If we have the truth, if we know the truth, we are no longer bound to ethnic quotas and, instead, simply love people, especially of the household of faith, as we are commanded. Jesus preached to his own tribe first, his converts were mostly other Jews, like him, and that was perfectly fine.

“All We’re Saying Is Give Peace A Chance”

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Elon Musk did what he does best and that is he disrupted the status quo.  This time he took on the conventional argument that the war over Donbas must be fought to the very last Ukrainian.  

His Tweets:

If you thought Trump was a mean Tweeter, you should see some of the nastiness in response to these polls.

Of course, social media midwits everywhere, full of sanctimony and rage, took to their usual easy explanation of any perspective that challenges their own: Musk is an idiot or Putin’s puppet and certainly doesn’t have the credentials to comment on geopolitics!  

And yet Musk’s own call for resolution very closely mirrors that of Henry Kissinger from months ago who called for the government of Ukraine to come to the negotiating table and be willing to cede territory for sake of peace.  

This is from an editorial written back in 2014:

The West must understand that, to Russia, Ukraine can never be just a foreign country. Russian history began in what was called Kievan-Rus. The Russian religion spread from there. Ukraine has been part of Russia for centuries, and their histories were intertwined before then. Some of the most important battles for Russian freedom, starting with the Battle of Poltava in 1709, were fought on Ukrainian soil.

(“Henry Kissinger: To settle the Ukraine crisis, start at the end,”Washington Post)

Kissinger, a diplomat of diplomats, former Secretary of State, and a renowned foreign policy expert, is no slouch when it comes to geopolitics, and that his sage advice was so quickly dismissed says more about the true lack of understanding and blind fanaticism of the hardliners.

It seems that some are plain vengeance driven and would rather punish Russia than find a way to peace that would end the destruction and save countless lives.  

They are either a) products of Western propaganda who knew next to nothing of the complex regional history and brutal shelling by Ukrainian partisans for eight years prior to the Russian intervention or b) Ukrainian nationalists who looked the other way when ethnic Russians were murdered in Odessa and then sought to impose their will on Donbas.

Musk and Kissinger, along with Emanuel Macron who warned not to humiliate Russia (as was done to Germany after WW1 and led to WW2), are only saying what an informed and responsible person should say when seeing an escalation that very well could lead to nuclear war.

The Boomer warmongers, the hawks like neocon Lindsey Graham or imperial-lib Joe Biden, are still very much stuck in the Cold War and would not think twice about sacrificing your sons or daughters for their latest power trip.  

They don’t tell you about how they personally profited from provoking a coup in 2014, like their predecessors did in pre-revolution Iran and all across South America.  

The United States has meddled in all parts of the world, both in form of covert CIA destabilization efforts to the too numerous to list overt brutal military invasions and occupations.  The political establishment and military leaders of the West have never thought twice about bombing those who do not submit back to the Stone Age:

The racial dehumanization of the Vietnamese found its classic expression in the words of General Curtis LeMay, head of the Strategic Air Command, who said that America’s aim must be to “bomb the Vietnamese back to the stone age.” And Washington tried to do just that: From 1965 to 1969, the U.S. military dropped 70 tons of bombs for every square mile of North and South Vietnam — or 500 pounds for each man, woman, and child.

(“Bomb them back to the stone age: Racism, genocide and denial at the heart of the American Way of War,” Milwaukee Independent)

Of course, this was done in the name of “democracy” and “freedom,” which justifies all violence, right?

Anything said about Putin is a projection. The war in Ukraine is not completely unprovoked, as our own propaganda says. No, it is the direct result of the US and NATO interfering in Ukrainian’s domestic politics. Back in 2014, the late Senator John “bomb bomb Iran” McCain, along with our current Under Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, planned who would replace Ukraine’s President *before* he was overthrown in a coup.

The US only like democracy so much as the votes are counted our way and freedom so long as it benefits our current political establishment or their sponsoring banks and big corporations—that’s just the truth.

Like the jeering of our American hypocrisy by Serbian soccer fans—who saw their own country partitioned after NATO took the other side of the conflict, that of the separatists—holding a banner listing the dozens of places the US has attacked, invaded and occupied since the 1950s: “All we’re saying is give peace a chance.“

The world sees it, why don’t we?

The Shocking Truth About Diversity and Strength

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Composite materials are stronger than their component parts.  When two or more materials of unique strengths are blended together the result can be a composite that has the ideal characteristics of all the parts.  This is what makes concrete and rebar a formidable pair.  The combination gives both the compressive strength of concrete and also the tensile strength of the steel.  It is inarguable that diversity is not strength or at least when it comes to material science.

However, as all topics go, it does not end there.  Boeing, like all builders of commercial airliners, has two primary goals (besides safety) in their designs: Lightweight and reducing costs.  One of their innovations is the use of carbon fiber in their aircraft.  The problem with carbon fiber is that it reacts with or is corrosive of aluminum.  For this reason, they must use a separating layer of expensive titanium as the solution to this bad material pairing.  It works in this case, but diversity is also a source of conflict and potential systemic failure.

Diversity: Good and Bad

First, the good.  We’re all unique.  I go to work with a group of people with slightly different abilities and backgrounds from my own.  It is what allows us to specialize and thus be stronger as a team than if we tried to do it all by ourselves.  I would rather Patty do the bookwork, the members of our sales team talk to our customers and stick to my role of designing trusses.  This is where diversity is a great strength.

Furthermore, men and women are different, both physically and otherwise, which can make them an ideal pair.  Only a male and female can produce offspring together.  We can argue over the particulars or against sexist generalities, but there is something special about any diversity of characteristics that can lead to the creation of new life.  It is ideal in other ways as well.  One of this special partnership can provide and protect from outside threats, the other can nurture their children and organize their shared space.  It can be the best of human arrangements.

Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad, and what can be the best of things can also be the worst.  The gender wars, that endless battle for control between abusive men and their feminist counterparts, is how the most wonderful kind of diversity can go very badly and be anything but strength.  Diversity is, therefore, also a source of deep division and strife.  What can make a strong composite can also lead to corrosive interactions and unwanted drama.  Sparks flying.

Homogeneity is our strength?

While the West, the ‘woke’ Anglosphere in particular, is obsessed with “diversity and inclusion” as the highest order of priority, not all in the world do.  

Japan, for example, is very happy to remain Japanese and feels no need to host foreign refugees on their own ancestral lands.  This homogeneity of their culture and ethnicity does seem to help to reduce the friction in their society.  Crime is extremely low.  During the disaster at Fukushima older engineers were willing to sacrifice themselves for sake of their younger kinfolk.  And there’s just a sort of harmony that exists with everyone pulling in basically the same direction.

This has never really been the case in the United States   There were wars between the natives and new arrivals.  With every new immigrant wave arriving there was mistrust and contempt between these groups.  It is what led to sentiments like this:

Only a damn fool can expect the people of one tradition to feel at ease when their country is flooded with hordes of foreigners who — whether equal, superior, or inferior biologically — are so antipodal in physical, emotional, and intellectual makeup that harmonious coalescence is virtually impossible. Such an immigration is death to all endurable existence and pollution and decay to all art and culture. To permit or encourage it is suicide.

H.P. Lovecraft

It is notable that Lovecraft, the famed atheist writer of existential horror, had his strong opinions about various races, including Italians and Jews.  His racism, xenophobia, disgust over the intermixing of people or fear of contamination, has the markings of an obsessive-compulsive disorder.  And yet he was not entirely wrong about the “melting pot” being chaotic and creating a place that’s lacking social cohesion.

It is no big surprise that after a decades long assault on policing and national symbols that, with the ‘woke’ takeover, military and law enforcement recruitment is falling off a cliff.  Nobody, in their right mind, would ever sacrifice themselves for a country or cause that doesn’t represent them and their own values.  Participation requires buying into the common vision and is not possible when there’s competition for that spot.  Nobody wants to die for those who lack appreciation or are completely divorced from what matters to them.

Unequally Yoked: Understanding Biblical Warnings

There is a sort of distain, even amongst professing Christians, towards the Old Testament law.  The various cleansing rituals, dietary prohibitions and other restrictions can seem to be quiet arbitrary our modern ears.  Why does it matter if we mix several materials in our clothing, plant diverse seeds or crossbreed different animals?   

First, I believe this was more about teaching a concept of Holiness or being set apart for good.  

Second, it is a completely practical point about our greater potential when being of the same mind or spirit:

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?

(Amos 3:3 KJV)

Third, this principal didn’t end in the Old Testament:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

(2 Corinthians 6:14‭-‬16 KJV)

The whole point of Old Testament law was to reinforce the things that St Paul explains above, we cannot expect good results when we are paired with those who are pulling in a completely different direction.  It’s simply reality, we need to have a boundary between ourselves and those who have nothing in common and want to destroy us.

Is Diversity Our Strength?

It depends.

I don’t think complete segregation of sexes or making all people androgynous is a good solution to gender difference.  Nor should we erase subcultures in the name of unity either.  We want diversity, we want people of different strengths.  But there needs to be some kind of common identity or bonding agent, otherwise we end up with a bunch of competing identities and a fight for the supreme position.  It takes a powerful adhesive to make composites work and this can mean a national identity that overrides all others.

Christ: The Ultimate Bonding Agent 

All composite materials rely on some kind of bonding agent to work.  And early Christians, likewise, were also trying to bridge some vast cultural differences.  In fact, much of the struggle, in the early church, came down to the difference between the Jewish born and Gentile coverts.  Should those newly converted, from non-Jewish background, be required to follow same requirements of faith or be exempted?

 There was plenty of compromise, a new vision (Acts 10:28) and joint identity formed in Christ:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.

(Ephesians 2:11‭-‬18 NIV)

It is Christ who eliminates old social barriers:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

(Galatians 3:26‭-‬29 NIV)

So, diversity, if bonded in Christian love, can be an amazing strength.  But, when lacking any kind of joint identity it is a horror show, it is corrosive.  It leads to a bloody and violent competition for supremacy between rival groups.  Without Christ it becomes man versus woman, black versus white, class versus class, and there is no strength in this kind of arrangement.  The ‘strength’ of diversity is only possible when all, despite differences, are seeking after the exact same overall goal.

It is okay to have our own separate identities, even to celebrate our own cultural or ethnic heritage. But, when are being black or white, male or female, rich or poor, puts us at enmity with each other, when it is corrosive and causes is to react with hostility to those of a different perspective, then it must be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and repented of rather than to be a source of pride. This is the higher order priority: “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” (Romans 14:19 NIV) And, “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:14 NIV)