Tag: Bionic Mosquito

The US Empire Targets Christians in their Cross-hairs – How Did it Come to This?

The journey of thirteen British colonies pushing out the British Empire towards becoming the American Empire is an interesting one. No one wants to be a target .. especially when the shooter is a global empire whether Roman, British or American.

The shift from federated republic to a centralized state with dreams of empire started early on even as the American Revolution drew to a close. Powerful people with their own version of empire on their mind would eventually get there way with the US Constitution coup d’etat in 1787 to Lincoln’s War on Southern Independence as well as the total war on Southerners and Indians to the blame placed on Spain for the USS Maine in Havana, Cuba harbor through Woodrow Wilson and beyond. As they say, the rest is history.

What really helped is summarized in a couple of recent articles, one by Bionic Mosquito called Evangelicalism and another by Brad Hoff called Syrians Were Quietly Warned Before the War.

As with all trends that impact nations and people groups, this all gets real messy real fast and stays that way. This is seen in the Bible as well as throughout most of history that evil forces seem to get the upper hand time and again as there is no real long term peace from this world’s experiences.

Specific to the US’s trajectory toward becoming a brutal empire was the bent for power and control, first of the land to the west of the thirteen colonies and eventually around the world especially after WWII.

Tracking the heart of American thought starting in the early 1800s it is apparent that a movement of Christian religious thought left the foundation that Jesus Himself emphasized during His lifetime. Bionic Mosquito rightly pinpoints several influencers that distorted what it meant to be a Jesus-Follower towards becoming a self-centered global terrorist, carrying a Bible.

[Regarding] the evangelical timeline and splintering… What I view as, perhaps, the most corrupting: John Nelson Darby and Cyrus Scofield. A focus on end-times theology, a focus on a state for Israel (resulting in a worship of the modern state with that name). Scofield, a scoundrel in his personal life, would somehow have his reference Bible printed by the prestigious Oxford Press! Many denominations would read from his Bible.

There would be a further splintering in the form of “Bible-believing Christians” vs. liberal modernists – they would push for all having to conform (leftists never change). There would also be a mushy middle in every denomination, eventually leading to a growth in the liberal side – after all, if you don’t feel strongly about something, you won’t really fight for it.

Distractions like this attract the masses and are passed on throughout the generations and what you end up with is a political Christianity, one that Jesus would say “you still don’t get it do you?”.

In the US this culminated about the time of Woodrow Wilson:

There was revivalism: western New York, Tennessee, the Cumberland Valley. Charles Grandison Finney – emotionalism for the sake of emotionalism. People have the free will to choose salvation (see Luther and Calvin spinning in their graves). You don’t have to wait for God to do His work; you decide – just come forward (a prototype for Billy Graham, it seems).

L. Moody – the YMCA, hymnals, the Moody Press. Billy Sunday – went from professional baseball player to evangelist. He attracted the largest crowds of any in the late eighteenth-century – and he played a significant role in the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment (no booze).

Biblicism was weakened – just get a confession of faith; the door was opened to liberalism and the leftist version of the social justice movement. The Enlightenment contributed here: reason, divorced from God, could not accept many of the claims of the Bible. Let’s just try to hold onto the moral stuff, without the grounding in the Bible or in worship.

I am reminded of Murray Rothbard’s work, World War I as Fulfillment: Power and the Intellectuals:

Also animating both groups of progressives was a postmillennial pietist Protestantism that had conquered “Yankee” areas of northern Protestantism by the 1830s and had impelled the pietists to use local, state, and finally federal governments to stamp out “sin,” to make America and eventually the world holy, and thereby to bring about the Kingdom of God on earth.

The high-bar (or low-bar, more accurately) of this merger can be summed up in two words: Woodrow Wilson.

Wilson with his dream, post WWI, of the League of Nations was a primer for the US entrance as the baton receiver when the British Empire lost its possessions during WWII. The US decided to do “empire” differently and more covertly. The US would target various countries for regime change to “manage” the world, and Christians themselves would be targeted just like during the Roman Empire.

This is where the article by Brad Hoff takes over showing how Christians are blindsided when they become the target. I wonder how many US Christian still think that this policy can’t come “home” to domestic soil .. even Robert E. Lee saw this in 1866:

Below is the Syrian doctor Shaza’s story, excerpted from the book…

As Shaza mused on the catastrophic shift from an idyllic life to one of upheaval, she recounted being given a forewarning of the Syrian Christian tragedy. As a physician Shaza ministered to those displaced due to the Iraq War: “I worked with the Iraqi refugees from 2003 to 2010 in a charity center. It’s a program done by the Church, but they are accepting all the people – Christians and Muslims.” Little did Shaza foresee that less than a decade into the future it would be Syrian Christians themselves caught in dire straits.

Shaza related how a number of Iraq refugees tried to warn her:

They talk about horrible stories. They’re kidnapping, killing, raping. When they trust me after a couple of years, they keep saying, “Have a plan B. They are going to do this with Syrian Christians.” I keep saying, “No, it will not happen.” They keep saying, “No, it’s going to happen, so think about what is your next step if it’s happened.” And we didn’t think about that. We never thought that this will happen in Syria. Most of the Syrians – they keep saying that it’s protected because it’s a strong region. I have been to Iraq and to Jordan, to Egypt, in the past as a tourist – I saw poor people. We never see them in Syria. We have no homeless people in Syria. It’s a prosperous country. It was a good country, but after, I think, 2006 or ’07 till 2010, we began to notice something. Maybe politics, maybe economic, I don’t know what’s the problem, but something happened, you know. Makes the people more poor so more suffer. They have these thoughts of revolution. I think that made them easily accepted this. 

I think the last part of this snippet is key. The empire targets people groups and impoverishes them so they become revolutionaries so the state can use that excuse to crush the rebellion. The state/empire always claims it is bringing “democracy”, however in fact it brings terror and poverty to destabilize the region to ensure regime changed nations remain 3rd world status. This is the American Empire’s MO (modus operandi )

At the end of the day, Christians became the target in the Middle East when the American Empire was playing “find the terrorists” especially since the 1990s.  I am pretty certain the American Empire is as secular as it can get as any “Christian Principles” were thrown out decades if not centuries ago. You can count on the American Empire to have its eyes on Christians domestically in the years and decades to come. Are you ready for this?

Peace out.

-SF1

You Are An Individual Created in God’s Image FIRST, Not Primarily a Communal Pawn in Society

When one thinks life could not get more difficult, government speaks again.

I do believe that non-believers and believers BOTH can be led down a road that makes them both believe that they have to power in their life to do anything but submit to the whims of either the government or the mob (even when those are both the same people).

Jon Rappaport says:

“Some people want to say that power is a neutral object that can be used for good or evil. That isn’t true. Your deepest power is alive. It’s personal. It’s stunningly energetic and dynamic. It connects with your deepest understanding of what is true and good and right. But it never sacrifices itself on the altar of what others insist is good and true and right. It never deserts you for an abstract ideology someone else has devised. That ideology was formulated, in fact, to separate you from your power.”

Government and other collective organizations do NOT want individuals to even think they have the ability to be creative in their disobedience towards proactively chosing freedom and liberty. They want a society full of people who are fearful and hesitant to do anything but comply.

Even if you are not a believer in Jesus and who He claimed to be I do think it is helpful to note how his life was shaped by the Roman Empire and what that means for us today. He did not always overtly and publicly disobeyed the empire He found Himself in back in His lifetime, but at times went into the wilderness, traveled to another part of the occupied land and at other times just disappeared until He chose to speak truth to power.

Unfortunately, many of His followers find themselves in a religion that relies on their government connection for their franchise’s validation as a “church” on record with the state/empire. This Pharisee-centric setup might work well when the government is less evil, but is ill-suited for most of the governments in the world today. From my own blog back in July 2018 I had said/quoted:

Bionic Mosquito goes on to expand [Gerald] Casey’s thoughts regarding both Old and New Testament telling of various “faith-state” moments. 1 Samuel 8 is a good “go-to” to see God’s view of earthly kings (verses the wise judge model He attempted with the theocracy Israel) followed by Hosea 8 in which shows God allowing governments while not endorsing them.  On the New Testament moments, this proves to be a “target-rich” environment to see how Jesus as well as His followers dealt with the “State” while living their “faith”:

Regarding the life of Jesus, Casey offers…

“…we can see immediately that his very life was bookended by acts of political significance, from King Herod’s murderous intentions at his birth to the final drama of his politically inspired execution.”

This is the lens through which all Scriptural discussion of kings and earthly authority should be viewed. Casey offers that the New Testament is a target-rich environment when one wants to find passages regarding kings and government; he limits himself to five. I will touch on only a couple of these.

As much as I want to proceed with these, I believe they would be well served to address in a future post. Romans 13, taken in isolation, has formed the bedrock belief most Jesus followers have today about their relationship with the State. This view is enhanced by the Christian Religion which in the US has identified themselves (with a few brave exceptions, please see Chuck Baldwin’s rebellion to this alliance) with financially beneficial 501C3 status as state recognized corporations. Bionic Mosquito also offers this in conclusion:

Keep in mind: virtually every one of Jesus’s disciples died in martyrdom, died in disobedience to the political authorities. Do you really believe they are all damned to hell due to their “disobedience”?

Disobedience toward government is not something I suggest lightly. Every INDIVIDUAL has the power to wisely discern when that time might come for THEM. While government is great at making communal decrees and being “surprised” by the unintended consequences, especially Christ-followers are encouraged to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves while selling a cloak and buying a sword should the situation of self-defense present itself for them and their family and their property.

One of the most interesting examples of this is the story of Francis Marion (somewhat mirrored by the movie “The Patriot” (2000) and the fictitious Benjamin Martin) who finds himself in a land that is under siege by an empire bent on enslaving the colony he found himself in during 1780. As a military veteran, he had initial allegiance to the crown but as he saw the actions of this force in his land he decided for himself that enough was enough.

The story of Francis Marion actually inspired the creation of this blog over three years ago as I saw in his life the balance between love of country and the willingness to inspire others toward righting this wrong that was thrust on him and his neighbors even though he was in the minority. One must know that during the American Revolution, one third of the people were in strict obedience to the crown, one third were indifferent and one third were inclined toward more liberty and freedom than the crown was going to allow. Even then, only 3% or less actually took up arms at this time to force the issue when it was apparent that the empire was not going to meet their demands for freedom and liberty even half way. The empire in 1780 was all in on the total control of the American colonies, a totalitarian state was their view of the future.

Again, revisiting my blog post from June 2018:

It is my hope here on this ‘SeekingLiberty’ blog, to begin to unpack the truths I found in this book that deal with a time and place where an empire was pushing hard to retain control and levy taxes to support their operations. It is in this environment where a freedom fighter is born, one with principles that balance the violence one must bring at times with compassion for those caught up in the conflict.

As promised … here is the 1st of several snippets that will give you a flavor of the caliber of this book.

1) I can’t believe how much the SC part of the revolutionary conflict was a war among themselves … Whigs (patriots) could change into a Tory (loyalist) overnight IF they were done wrong … and I thought the Israelites were fickle .. even some of the early patriots faded away in 1780 when the British humiliated the American forces in Charleston that May.

2) The character in the movie The Patriot is a combination of Francis Marion (Swamp Fox) in eastern SC, Thomas Sumter in central SC and Andrew Pickens in the northwest mountainous part of SC dealing with the indians (Cherokees sided with British, other tribes with patriots)

3) August 16, 1780 was SC’s darkest hour as former hero of Saratoga in the north (Gen Gates) fled like a pansy after he went head-to-head with the British in open field .. turns out the 5’2″ 110 pound Francis (physique of a 13 yo) [NOTE: never called the Swamp Fox in his lifetime ] got lucky 2x .. the 1st time when he injured his ankle getting out of that officer’s house in Charleston and therefore avoided capture in May 1780, he also was sent on a mission by Gates on August 15, 1780 to assist the patriots in the Williamsburg, SC area .. Scotch-Irish Presbyterians are fiercely independent and dislike external authority.

4) Francis was a French Huguenot .. but his grandfather came across with that background but by 1780 Francis was an Anglican. He was the youngest in his family .. tried being a sailor but the ship to the West Indies capsized and he was adrift for days and returned to SC. Eventually his oldest brother Gabriel sold him land adjacent to his own and Francis did the rice/indigo thing (pre-cotton) and did pretty good. He never married until he was in his mid-50s after the war.

5) August 18, 1780, Thomas Sumter’s partisan band of 800 were surprised by Banastre Tarleton’s force of 160 on horses and he like Gates escaped to North Carolina ..

It was in this pit that Francis Sumter became SC’s freedom fighter … on his own. He tried to communicate with Gen Gates (Continental Army Southern Command) but he rarely got a reply much less any support. Over the next two years SC would be the hotspot .. and at the end of the day, 20% of the Revolutionary War deaths would be in SC

Does that set the scene or what? 🙂

dad

—
“This message has been intercepted by the NSA: the only branch of government that listens”

That e-mail to my sons Captain1776 and Malibu would later be transformed into a Google Blogger blog and eventually into this freedom-centric seeking-liberty blog whose mission is to always entertain thoughts (data) before accepting them while helping others to think critically towards securing freedom for themselves, their family and friends. Understanding history correctly allows people to think and act for themselves as individuals as needed for the times we are in today, and for the generations to follow.

Remember, when the empire tells you that you are just a number, and that you are small, and that you can’t make a difference and that you don’t matter in the grand scheme of things, KNOW that that is all a lie.

The individual does have power, and being made in God’s image makes that a reality. Don’t forget that!

Peace out.

-SF1

Roots: What Are We as Individuals and Community At Our Core? Honorable?

As I read the headlines that 99% of Americans do not see, those from independent and grassroots media, across the Internet, I find a search for several things from all angles across the globe. I find words like honor, freedom, faith and reason all being bantered about as we humans attempt to make sense of this broken world.

On the one hand, we have people looking back in our broken (and sometimes covered up) history. For example, Karen Stokes writes of the type of person typical of areas of the southern USA in 1863 under the stress of war that threatened their families and their livelihood:

.. their letters also offer an inspiring story of “devotion to home, family solidarity, faith, virtue, fidelity, sacrifice, bravery, and a strength of character that makes it possible to survive terrible loss and trauma.

The character to stand up to tyranny when ones own family and way of life could be swept away like that of Job in the Old Testament of the Bible is something that was not seen in these united States since the War for Independence 80 years earlier when the same kind of people stood up to the British Empire.

A man or woman of honor were people, who in times of crisis, rose to the occasion and became unwilling leaders in their efforts to repel the forces of change that represented a foe who’s agenda was to implement their own life view on others, with force. Honor was a sought after attribute especially in the South in the decades after the War for Independence, and by the 1930s had all been but overshadowed by something new:

Earlier in the 1930s, the celebrated English writer and critic G. K. Chesterton gave his thoughts on what the “Old South” had to offer the world in his essay “On America,” in which he asserted that, although the twentieth century was the “Age of America,” there was “a virtue lacking in the age, for want of which it will certainly suffer and possibly fail.”

That missing virtue, according to Chesterton, was honor.

The Age of America emerged from the post-“Civil War” north’s view that its own victory over the South was a moral one. All one has to do is to count the atrocities and scandals in the decades that followed until the Northern GOP was forced to finally let the South go in the late 1870s, removing them from military districts and allowing them to go it alone to recover economically. It would not be until the 1970s that most of these states did recover, without much if any federal assistance. That is not honorable.

Lately, there has been yet another underground effort to capture the essence of what the history of the South could help us in the 21st century understand about the core of human nature in a world that seems out of control and bent on destroying us:

in his book Why America Failed (2012), cultural historian Morris Berman expressed similar sentiments, characterizing the antebellum South as a culture focused on “honor and community,” and further stating, “In its flawed and tragic way, the Old South stood for values that we finally cannot live without if we are to remain human.”

It does seem that hope and encouragement are sorely needed at this time in this world. Personally I take solace in reading what the 1st century Jesus-followers did as they faced persecution and yet stood with honor, grace and defended their families against all odds, with the strange by-product of having Jesus’ words ripple throughout the Roman Empire in such a way as to turn the then known world upside-down!

So in 1939, as the threat of another world war was evident, a book was offered in an attempt to give some hope from a more secular view:

What does the South have to offer that is valuable to humanity, to civilization? In 1939, the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Douglas Southall Freeman proposed an answer to this question in his book ‘The South to Posterity’ ..

.. He maintained that these works of historical literature would always stand as solid evidence that the South had “fought its fight gallantly, and, so far as war ever permits, with fairness and decency; that it endured its hardships with fortitude; that it wrought its hard recovery through uncomplaining toil, and that it gave to the nation the inspiration of personalities, humble and exalted, who met a supreme test and did not falter.”

The core of his book centers around the real war-time correspondence letters of Alexander Cheves Haskell, one of seven brothers who fought in the War Against Southern Independence:

In ‘The South to Posterity’, one man whose story Douglas Southall Freeman offered as testimony to the “court of time” was a young Confederate cavalry officer from South Carolina, Alexander Cheves Haskell. Freeman had recently read a biography of Haskell which drew heavily on his memoir and correspondence, and he singled out a letter Haskell penned in 1863 as among the finest examples of “the war-time correspondence of high souls” and “one of the most beautiful born of war.” Freeman included only a portion of this letter in his book, but all of Haskell’s wartime letters have finally been collected and published as part of his family’s correspondence in my new book An Everlasting Circle: Letters of the Haskell Family of Abbeville, South Carolina, 1861-1865.

An Everlasting Circle includes many outstanding letters written by a remarkable and prominent family that sent seven sons to war. Dr. James E. Kibler has contributed an excellent afterword to the book that comments on the literary value of the letters and the kind of civilization that could produce a family like the Haskells. It was a civilization shaped by classical learning and orthodox Christianity.

Beyond this article, others like Bionic Mosquito, has taken sights off the distractions of today’s world and centered on the core of what each generation needs to grapple with, the tension between reason and faith:

As God is the author of reason and faith, philosophy and theology, why would any Christian agree to live with such distinctions? It seems reasonable to suggest that one reason Christianity has lost its way (and has lost many in the West) is precisely because Christian leaders have accepted and even emphasized this difference. “Oh, you just have to believe by faith; don’t ask questions.” This is too often heard.

It is interesting that non-Christian intellectuals are making this connection once again. I am thinking of Jordan Peterson and John Vervaeke. It is also interesting that this has led to an increase in interest in Christianity – although I think neither of these two have ever intended to increase church attendance.

It is the case: God moves in mysterious ways….

Yes, that last quote is a teaser. You will have to go look around Bionic’s site to see the path he has traveled in his quest for truth. I may have to post about some of his works this year. He has done a great service for those around the globe who are starting to see all the government and media lies and are desperately searching for truth.

Stay tuned!

-SF1