As a member of the MV Doulos (OM Ships) Training Department years ago and in training others for evangelism, I would use an illustration of how counterfeit money detectors acquired training to detect false bills. Of course, today, we have the technology for such tasks, but back then, the agent would live in a room with piles of real cash for an extended time where 'knowledge became intimate' because the agent knew the 'real thing.' An illustration that stresses the importance of knowing your bible, sound doctrine, and how to be out in the bye-ways of life and share your faith with others.
In the rotten West, we have many ‘such voices’ talking about faith in God again after a very secular public square where ‘such voices’ were persona non gratia. First, I need not say anything more about ‘such voices’ as Orange Man Bad as his enemies claim. His stunt below during the riots after George Floyd is just that. However, I do not consider the man ‘a racist’ in definition, who knows what he really thinks? Perhaps this points to something sinister?
Clearly, much of what he says concerning the immigration flood is despicable. Thus, from his collective rhetoric, it is clear Trump communicates ‘cultural and national supremacy,’ a bankrupt stance and absolutely not the future, such hegemony from the corrupt West cannot and must NOT resurrect! Unless it serves the other?
Making a nation great in state involves the template of 1 Chron 7:14 that transfers from the individual to the collective: “If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
(Update from the assassination attempt on 7/13, 2024) If there is any doubt and this is all not all a ‘Q’ show or inside operation, or ‘back to the future’ as the preponderance of the evidence may suggest. Yes, he was allowed a ‘fist pump’ during an active shooting? A real security detail would have wisked him away, then again ‘who knows?’ From ‘anons to prophets,’ the Trump Show is just flat out creepy! Perhaps, Trump is no longer a practical atheist. For by ‘the twist of head,’ he continues on the world stage and the division and solidification of opinion continues. The Lord have mercy on us all and may we live in Peace!
Second, Stalinist Atheist Slavoj Zizek continues as an enigma, yet he recently followed through with a new book: “Christian Atheism: How to Be a Real Materialist.” I surmuse this work continues his most significant posit, i.e. ‘a critique of today's liberal atheists who don't understand religion.’ And as an ancillary, the logically progression into the dead end of the ‘Woke Left” which ironically Zizek misses as well.
I will let him speak for himself, which is always entertaining or with provocations that cannot be taken seriously. Yet I will say such the ‘Woke Left’ would not have survived Stalin and perhaps Zizek would also have been sent to a gulag for reprogramming. Oh! and let me state a positive word for the former seminarian from the Georgian Republic of the former USSR, at least Stalin gave the Jews a homeland (the JAO) in the far east which is quite nice!
Finally, including the previous, my real 'beef' is with Jordan Peterson, yet not with his recent RC convert wife, thus I ask … "How can someone who has not 'officially' professed faith claim to speak on behalf of it?" So, we have this recent interchange with Alex O'Connor that makes the point, plus in its aftermath he claims Peterson is an atheist, ‘takes one to know one!’
Moral conclusions and hidden pressuppostions aside, the Psychologist Peterson’s game of stepping back into the ‘Western Canon and the Bible reminds me of Robert Pirsig’s classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence”, a book I read while in Bible College, and for a paper that was supposed to help me use Philosophy in my Christian Faith. That was more than 30 years ago and I am happy to say, outside of logic everything else is straw or self satisfying posits, nevertheless, my process of jettisoning philosophical systems in light of the ‘Old Faith’ was quite simple, i.e. metaphysics or existentialism. The Latin Church father Tertullian said it best, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Perhaps this was Peterson’s public confession? I don’t know. Yet I pray for all these “wise guys.”
