“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Jesus said:
“Love your enemies,
Do good to them who hate you.”
But do notice, in pragmatic terms, Jesus made himself scarce around the religious elites who were out to get him and his small band. He too encouraged the selling of a cloak (coat) to purchase a sword (gun) for the disciples to use as self defense in times of crisis.
However, the truth is there as Paul notes in his letter to those in Rome:
“But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heapburningcoalsonhishead.”
Jesus too set the stage for a unique way with dealing with those out to do one harm:
Do to others whatever you would like them to do to you.
While this all sounds like life on a personal level, this also extends to relationships between communities, cultures and countries as well. I am guessing I would get booed like Ron Paul did during a GOP debate in South Carolina years ago, but I stand by it. So would Francis Marion! But I digress.
The reality is that those that choose to do good in this world will find opposition. Even back in the 1st century Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:
“For we wanted to come to you — I, Paul, more than once — and yet Satan thwarted us.”
The Roman Empire had good roads too .. so this was not an infrastructure issue, but a real one with a real adversary. There is evil in this world that makes life difficult.
So on to the core of my message here and the article and book that led me down this strange path. “The (Real) Revolution in Military Affairs” by Andrei Martyanov does a convincing job at painting an accurate picture for the state of the American Empire, which by definition is the enemy of most of the people of the world and IF we were honest, considering our erosion of privacy and freedoms, it is also an enemy of its own citizens, not unlike the USSR of its day.
This book gives an insight into the evolution of weapons and the way they influenced international relations in the 20th and 21st centuries. It also defines Revolution in Military Affairs as manifested via policy, politics, and technology. It reviews some models which are useful in assessing the current geopolitical situation. This book also tries to give a forecast of the future development of warfare and the ways in which it is going to change the whole system of international relations, hopefully towards a new geopolitical equilibrium.
Some helpful early quotes from this book will help you see the value of knowing your enemy, knowing the truth, so that y’all can be prepared.
modern war between nation-states became so complex, in reflection of the tools of such wars, that it is an axiom, not even a theorem, that people who cannot grasp fundamental mathematical, physical, tactical and operational principles on which modern weapon systems operate are simply not qualified in the minimal degree to offer their opinions on the issues of warfare, intelligence operations and military technology without appropriate backgrounds. Failing that, what can one think but that they are merely in the business of content provision (filling space/entertainment) or of propagating the official line—of propaganda, in short—mostly with regard to warmongering? In today’s information-oversaturated world of massive egos nurtured by the dopamine of public visibility and of American politics turned into showbiz, these are the types who dominate the discussion on the most important, vital issue of war and peace in our time.
This is so true, the information overload renders most people helpless in sifting through the lies to find the foundational truth. So much of media is indeed government blow-horns used to confuse and disorient the sheep on any given day making them in fact impotent.
I can only hope that the knowledge readers will gain through this book will help to increase public awareness of the deadly consequences of even a conventional war between global superpowers and will help to dispel the war propaganda being pushed on the public by ignorant and incompetent pundits who have no business offering even an iota of their opinions on what is today a Revolution in Military Affairs of historic magnitude.
Again, the ignorance of the elite usually leads to the slaughter of the innocent. Herein lies the dilemma, how does one find the time to sift through all the Geo-politics while real life is raging right along side in real time in their own communities and their own relationships?
Those holding a modern Ph.D. in philosophy or political science, unless they have a serious education and experience in other fields, will be hard-pressed to derive any sensible conclusions on automation, for example, barring some self-evident and easily accessible truths such as that increased automation removes workers from the manufacturing floor, thus increasing unemployment. This same Ph.D. will have very little knowledge of what goes into the fundamental technological principles relating to the automation of modern industry or, for that matter, how G-code interpreters work for Computer Numerical Control machining centers and what is required to run them—a knowledge domain belonging to college-educated engineers.
This is why we have the blind leading the blind. Those at the top are ill-informed by their own ignorance in attempting to make good decisions. This happen not just in government committees, think-tanks or even at the state and local level, but this also occurs in most major corporations these days as technology has outpaced the knowledge that middle and upper management were taught as little as one decade ago.
The article by Moon of Alabama is a good one to understand the pragmatic situation we find ourselves in with the latest Russian technology advances (such as underwater drones pictured below) as well as the coordinated drone (two pictures down) strike on the Saudi oil production facility.
Artistic rendering of a drone submersible
Martyanov explains why the models the ‘experts’ use fail. He shows how the advantage of one weapon system against another one can be calculated. People who have had a military education know these formulas. Those who only studied political science have likely never heard of them.
I will allow MOA to be the expert on that aspect of this book.
Houthi drones on display
My own interest lies in the philosophic underpinnings of Martyanov’s book itself. More posts on this book will be in the works shortly.
Reflecting on the “progress” of man towards ordering things in this world, it is of no surprise to me the thought of “bigger is better”. Even reflecting on the rise of the Hebrew people from nomads to being slaves in Egypt, and from there to the “Promised Land” west of the Jordan River and then being ruled by judges and eventually a king, you can see this is a very human trait.
The transition toward wanting a king is not something that the Hebrew’s God wanted for them, but it was allowed, with a warning. You see, earthly kings have kingdoms, which inherently need resources, taxes and young men to supply military might for both defense and offense operations. The list goes on and on as to the drain on society, communities and families to support a kingdom let alone an empire.
I think too of the struggle in the late 1700s when American colonists, while appreciating what the British Empire had done to facilitate their ability to immigrate to such a place as America, and supplied protection from those native to this land, they had however, grown resentful at the way their “parents” were treating them, almost like there was an expectation of independence not unlike what happens to humans when the are in their mid to late teens! In this case, many if not most did not want a king after kicking out the British, but some painted the road ahead with fear so as to make many desire the safety that a king, a central state, can supply.
In both of these situations, you have a taxing authority promising protection. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe points out:
A tax-funded protection agency is a contradiction in terms and will lead to ever more taxes and less protection.
One only has to look around today to see the end result of the belief that the state could be counted on to provide safety while taxing its citizens for that safety. Not only do we see the US Empire drone bombing “terrorists” (their claim is that every death is indeed a terrorist death), but also promoting regime change in countries around the globe that have nothing to do with keeping Americans safe. From the lies that launched the invasion of Iraq to the lies that led to epic cultural destruction in Libya, attempted destruction in Syria and desired destruction in Venezuela and Iran, the empire seems determined to start a war with someone. Trade wars and sanctions with Russia and China also indicate that the US Empire is itching for a fight.
But why?
Unknown to most Americans is the fact that a series of macro-economic shifts have happened over the course of this nation’s life that seem to be at the core of the angst this country’s leaders and elites feel at this time.
Remember the phrase “follow the money”? Well, it is pretty prophetic that not only did the Bible both in the Old and New Testament state that the love of money is the root of all evil, but that an inherent distrust of our provision and safety in our Creator fuels this. If there is any entity that is the furthest from God is that of the state. The state is actually the antithesis of a loving father, it is force at its core and “war is the health of the state” – ( Randolph Bourne) is its motto.
Today’s Lew Rockwell site provides a writer by the name of L. Reichard White who is willing to identify the “whys” of this latest round of desired wars. I hope to follow up with a series of posts that go back through history and link America’s coups and wars to show how each one was premised on a lie and historically have been altered to show that these were moral victories for the state when in fact:
The sheer number of people killed by states in the twentieth century—up to 100 million, with more killed in peacetime “social reconstruction” than in wars—makes one suspect that state-provided security is extremely expensive in all respects and that meaningful alternatives have been overlooked.
So on to today’s revelation about the ways of the state and the root issue we are facing here in the 21st century, the constant wars and then some thoughts towards future alternatives.
After walking through some of the most recent “crazy” the the US Empire’s foreign policy seems to have taken since 9/11 and even before, the author states:
With all these U.S. Government interventions, at least 198 of them remember — and sanctions — it’s tempting to conclude there is no rational reason and “we” screw with other folks purely on whim, whimsey, and maybe as a hobby.
But sometimes, maybe there’s a method to this madness. And if so, it often does involve oil, just not quite the way most left-coasters think.
Oil, seems to be a common denominator. But if so, why didn’t the US occupy Libya and keep the oil? Why didn’t the US occupy Iraq and keep the oil? It just doesn’t add up. The author continues:
… because of a 1974 agreement cobbled together by the Nixon administration between the U.S. and Saudis, nearly all oil trade in the world ended up requiring U.S. dollars…
Understand that pre-1974, the US primarily used a central bank to fund its wars across the globe, and unlike your history book says, WWI (joined by the US only a few years after establishing a central bank) and WWII were not actually started by Germany, it has been only covered up that way by “Fake History” (a cousin to “Fake News”)
With a national debt of over $22T these days and over $200T of unfunded liabilities, the US government wants to stabilize and control the future, but the railroad tracks are leading to a gorge that has no bridge yet.
Not coincidentally, this [1974 action] was just three years after Nixon, attempting to finish replacing the gold standard with the U.S. paper-dollar standard, closed the gold window and thus threatened to throw the world economy into chaos. This explains a lot more than most folks realize.
Remember the “petro dollar?” Well, thanks to the Saudi/U.S. established oil-for-dollars tradition, the Brits, Germans, Japanese — in fact just about everyone — had to keep dollars on hand to pay for their oil imports.
And the oil sellers also ended up with a lot of dollars. And so did the countries they bought stuff from. And the dollar tradition spread to trade in other commodities as well. That meant that a large aggregate of U.S. dollars stayed overseas and didn’t return to the U.S.
Econ 301 is needed to understand what this means. Mr White does a good job:
Experts estimate that “majority of cash … outside the United States” is as much as 80% of the U.S. dollars in circulation. All that money overseas has a lot to do with the fact that everyone has to pay for oil, etc., with dollars.
As Case Sprenkle of the University of Illinois puts it, “Insofar as the money remains abroad and is not used to purchase goods or services from the country that printed it, it serves as an interest-free loan from poor countries to the rich.”
That’s mostly how Uncle Sam is able to run-up such huge budget deficits without causing inflation.
At this point, it will become clear to any student of history, that the actions of the US Empire since the 1953 assassination of the democratically elected president of Iran after he threatened to nationalize his nation’s oil to the most recent effort by Venezuela, sanctions, intervention, regime change and if necessary, outright war itself are the only tools the US Empire has at this point of time to get out of the hole it dug itself.
… what happens if people overseas stop using the dollar — and discover the only place they can spend it now is back here in the good ole’ U.S. of A.?
What would happen if the Saudi Arabians said they didn’t want to be paid [for oil] in dollars anymore, but wanted instead, to be paid, say in yen. There would be inflation that would make the 15 to 20 percent inflation in the early 80’s look good.—Sen. Pete Domenici, R-NEW MEXICO, C-SPAN II, 18 May 1995 ~12:33:55 PM
Unfortunately, selling oil for something other than U.S. dollars isn’t the only thing threatening the paper-standard. It’s also become the norm for governments and central banks to stockpile U.S. Treasuries to support their own currencies.
So, if a country reduces its stock-pile of U.S. Treasuries, either by selling them off or no longer rolling them over when they reach maturity — and replaces them with something else, as in the past, gold perhaps — this also threatens the U.S. dollar paper-standard.
The problem is, the paper-standard is mostly psychological. It’s literally a con — that is, confidence — game and when the confidence evaporates, game over.
And it’s very difficult to enforce confidence, no matter how many aircraft carriers, etc. you deploy. Or to predict when the confidence will implode.
Confidence is already waning on the USD Petro Dollar’s use, we know that North Korea does not participate, neither does Cuba, but lately, Venezuela, Iran, Russia and even Saudi Arabia favor de-dollarization in the oil markets, and this is huge:
I agree with Mr. White when he says:
Could that threat [Saudi Arabia’s look at USD de-dollarization] be why Mr. Trump vetoed Congress’ first attempt in 70 years to control unconstitutional U.S. war involvement by ending support for the Saudi-led murder of the men, women and children in Yemen?
What a tangled web an empire weaves. In desperation, the empire struggles to stay relevant and keep the bubble economic facade intact. Gold-based currency was a more honest way to run a nation, but quick money seems to be the way empires go.
.. killing more men, women and children is a classic result of the the paper-standard. As Ferdinand Lips explains so well, compared to the gold standard, the paper-standard makes financing wars easy and so they happen more often, are longer, stronger, and kill more innocent men, women and children.
As some folks like to put it, “The U.S. dollar used to be supported by gold, now it’s supported by aircraft carriers, B-52s and killer drones.”
I think we can safely add that it’s also supported by election meddling, coup, regime change, assassination, sanctions, invasion, and fake undeclared war. Perhaps, then, a more accurate title for this piece would be “Interventionand the Paper Standard.”
Okay then, enough depressing talk, and for those who have stayed along for this journey, what, if any, antidote is there for such a huge situation?
there’s a subtle but insidious problem with the way Trump and the U.S. Deep State are chronically implementing “All options are on the table” Games Theory. Originally a U.S. invention, Games Theory is based on poker.
The problem with poker — and BTW mercantilism as well — is that, unlike voluntary exchange in unhampered markets, it’s a zero-sum game. If you’re in a game with someone who thinks they’re playing poker, someone wins and someone loses — and they intend to make sure you’re the loser.
Unhampered markets on the other hand — and other forms of normal co-operation — are, in the long run, nearly always win-win propositions. As long as they stay unhampered — and normal.
Markets, UNHAMPERED is the key. How can markets be “unhampered”? (Remember the Hebrews when their leadership was judges, wise men who provided justice in a society or community, or the American colonists that homesteaded on acres of trees and developed ways so that they could bring value to their communities out of sight of any British flag or British noble?)
The state is a cancer for so many things in our world. I believe the only saving grace might be for the average human (not just in America, but globally) to understand the state for what is actually is. The average human needs to know “the gun in the room”.
Anarchy, the absence of rulers (not natural rules), is probably the only healthy path forward. One of the best things I have see so far this year is this 52 minute interview on Jeff Berwick’s Anarchast page that supplies a double dose of reality into the reality of 2019, the consideration of both anarchy and Jesus as a possible path forward. I am not talking chaos and religion here, so it might be good to view this YouTube so you can understand both of these options without accepting them:
Anarchast About:
Anarchast is your home for Anarchy Podcasts on the internet
To us, Anarchy means freedom. The desire to live without a violent, coercive State. Anarchy is peace, love and prosperity. Free markets. And, power to the people.
Anarchist. Libertarian. Freedom fighter against mankinds two biggest enemies, the State and the Central Banks.
Jeff is the Chief Editor of The Dollar Vigilante, a newsletter focused on investments and expatriation information to survive the coming collapse of the US dollar based financial system.
So remember, money is not the root of all evil, the love of money is. If your faith is in money and/or government, you are going to have a bad day.
I hope to post more on what the future might hold as far as alternatives to the state, especially the “in your face” state that we are seeing in the USA that used to be restricted to the USSR, Communist China and East Germany for a few decades.
The occasion of the state (government) taking the life of innocent people is nothing new. History shows that government really cares very little about life and liberty. Government has its own agenda of self preservation and rewarding those who fall in line to protect it from the common person, insurrections and revolutions.
So the occurrence of an extremely innocent man with brown skin in the Middle East under occupation of an empire being put to death by the state seems to have little impact on the majority of people’s trust of the state itself. It seems whenever the people want things “fair”, the state is considered a neutral party that can facilitate that. How wrong they really are.
Consider this situation in the Middle East where the state/empire is brought a man who the religious leaders say is an insurrectionist, a revolutionary. Well the empire (in this specific case, the Roman Empire about 2000 years ago) definitely wants to minimize those people who stir up the masses and cause concern for the occupation army to be able to maintain control of this region of the empire. To defuse the public’s passion, a common move by the state is to allow the people to vote, and in this case, with their voice.
The people are offered to free one of two insurrectionists as a goodwill gesture of the occupation power in the season of Passover, the regions annual religious festival. The Roman governor, Pilate, had already indicated that Jesus’ “crime” was not worthy of death, however, the most vocal drown out the calls for justice and indicate that Barrabas (whose first name was Jesus, and his common name Barrabas means son (bar) of the father (abba)) be released and that Jesus be crucified.
What is clear is that the state did not and does not prioritize justice be served. One can never count on the state, especially an empire, to be moral or a proper arbitrator of true justice. What is worse is that in this situation, religion partnered with the state to accomplish this atrocity. What is clear is that the state and religion usually operate in very similar ways, as I said earlier:
Government has its own agenda of self preservation and rewarding those who fall in line to protect it from the common person, insurrections and revolutions.
Religion has similar DNA to the state and even empires. Do not look for justice in religion either!
So who can you trust?
I used to think that religion had the answer. The search led me through a rather complex path of mental gymnastics that focused more on a set of principles and a matrix of theological beliefs that actually distracted me from a relationship with the One who, as I found out, was especially fond of me (and you). Understanding how much one is loved releases one to explore why without a sense of urgency, without having to get everything lined up in one’s brain first, without having to know the complete truth.
One of the barriers I think that religion has had over the centuries towards unpacking who God and Jesus are is the dual mission and agenda that many organizations have in place. There are usually, at a minimum, a local building and staff that competes for the mission to make Jesus known to people. At the end of the day the local group or club, usually called a church, is very much into their own preservation, and the fact that money has been spent to establish and maintain this club has its members be protective of it and the ROI (return on investment) of the money (tithes and offerings) spent/invested to date. Many times, beyond the local is the regional or denominational aspect of the franchise network that requires more money and offers further distractions to the mission of making Jesus known.
Another aspect that usually accompanies this hierarchical organization is the propensity of titles. No matter how small there is usually always a pastor or elder or deacon or priest. The smallest clubs seem to need a holy place (house of God) and a holy man/guru.
When I was 6 or 7 and I read the New Testament books for the first time (while being bored to tears in a church service that focused on all the sins one may have committed in the past week), I was shocked to read that Jesus never established a club that had a holy place or had a holy man/guru. Those that followed him might have called him Rabbi or teacher, but at the end of the day he was essentially their friend, and in the night before Jesus’ death He confirmed that very thing (The Bible, John 15:15):
Nolonger do Icallyouslaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.
Beyond this, Jesus unpacked the real relationship matrix that would support them after He would leave them, a Dad (Abba Father or Papa) who Jesus had made known to them, having the same heart as Jesus PLUS Jesus Himself as a brother and then a Helper called the Holy Spirit who would be with them day-in and day-out. Wayne Jacobson in his book ‘Beyond Sundays‘ shares the simple reality quotes in his blog post:
Any title you wear be it pastor, best-selling author, or Done [a label that indicates one is “done” with organized religion but NOT done with God] will do more to separate you from others than it will help you recognize the incredible family that Jesus is building.
Claiming a label works against his prayer that his Father would make us one. The community of the new creation levels our humanity—from hierarchy and from our narcissistic notions of being in a better group than others. We are all sons and daughters of a gracious Father and that’s all the identity we need. (Matt. 23:5-12)
But once again, we risk being divided into “innies” and “outies” and falling into the false dichotomy our flesh so craves. Whether you go to “a church” or whether you don’t is a distinction without a difference .. the church is bigger than most of us would dare to believe and that his church takes expression wherever people engage each other with his love and purpose.
For those who claim that attendance at a local congregation is mandatory to be part of his church I hope they reconsider that false idea. Being part of his family is about following him not belonging to an institution.
Exactly. As I mentioned in one of my first posts last June, the hope that Jesus and His Father together worked to accomplish between Jesus’ humble birth, his life in a normal family and three short years with fishermen and tax collectors that ended with a state execution and Jesus’ life after death was to provide hope:
.. common people were given hope not just for what happens after life ends, but how one could live their life day to day in peace and with true rest knowing they were loved exponentially by an awesome father, well beyond how the best dads on earth can possibly love their kids.
This hope can be reignited when everyday people reach out across religious, socio-economic and racial barriers .. as well as across “in-church” and “outside-of-church” barriers as noted below in Wayne Jacobson’s blog post:
Anyone who finds more identity in their institutional affiliation or lack of it, their doctrine or lack of it, their ritual or lack of it, proves by doing so that they have yet to find their identity and validation in Jesus and their relationship with him. Can you imagine what we would demonstrate to the world if we were lovers of Jesus and each other, first and only? Isn’t that what he asked of us in John 13:34-35? By that, he said, the whole world would come to know we are his followers.
I contend that between those that really have a real relationship with the Father (Papa), Brother and Helper, and those who could be on a search for that relationship could help common people across the globe have hope and peace in the midst of the storms in this world, thanks to the thirst for war the current empire has here in 2019.
When one reads of Jesus’ and His followers talk about the new kingdom, it has to be done in a context that parallel’s Jesus own time of sharing of His Father’s love. Kingdom in Jesus’ paradigm does not focus on “church”, “royalty”, “slave”, “servant” at all but that of family … with Father, Brother, Sister and Helper .. and whenever these are together, THAT is the church, anywhere.
How can one explore this new kingdom? Wayne Jacobson has another post that has some clues:
When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. (John 16:8)
Some things in life are better explored than explained such as an alpine trail lined with wildflowers, the Basilica Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, the shoreline of Galilee, or even chocolate ice cream. Explanations just can’t do them justice.
Agreed? I think Wayne is one to something. All the sermons, podcasts, articles in the world is no substitute for just “getting out there” ..
The same is true of a relationship to God. It can be explained to death, literally. We quote Scriptures, memorize cute aphorisms, and read books trying to understand it. We have sought to understand him with our heads and missed the joy of discovering how God makes himself known, and how his purpose in the world is revealed each day. Many who can talk about God in eloquent terms have no idea how to live in him with grace and affection through the difficult challenges of living in a broken world. They have never explored it.
It is like perpetual ground school for a pilot. Until they fly, until they have that experience, everything is theory only and the uptake of His relationship is relegated to basically book reading and hear-say.
Perhaps the most significant proof of this, other than what I’ve observed with people, is drawn from the way Jesus lived. He walked this out very differently than we try to. For instance, he wasn’t preoccupied with a Sunday meeting or building an institution he called church. He was more interested in letting the reality of the kingdom flow through him in the encounters he had each day. It’s why he could spend an afternoon with a woman at a well, or on the hillsides above Galilee with a large crowd.
Jesus moved with spontaneity, guided by His Father’s heart in every situation. There were times He retreated to secluded places .. other times with large crowds and parties .. other times at the bar or in family homes and then times with just His close friends. He lived life each day and never said “I will teach you about this Sunday at church”.
We act as if Jesus went to church every week to sing songs and listen to a lecture. He did no such thing, and, no, that’s not what going to the synagogue was like. He didn’t tell his disciples that’s what he wanted them to do every week. As far as we know, he never organized a single meeting, except for serving the Passover in the upper room, and even that didn’t take him long.
He seemed to wake up every day and navigate the circumstances and choices of his life with an eye to his Father’s unfolding purpose in the world…
No wonder the religious elite of the day suspected Him of perverting “religion”, and when people followed Him, they themselves were very worried and partnered with the state to plot an end game.
He didn’t offer them outlines of God’s characteristics or teach them a process for letting God’s power work through them. He didn’t offer them a curriculum, he let them watch it in his own life and explore that new reality in their own. He was offering them a different way to live—in a Father’s love, in power greater than their own efforts, in the growing simplicity of learning to trust his love.
He knew you couldn’t learn those things in a classroom or from a book. Real life has to be explored, and he encouraged them to do so—to ask questions, to struggle with their own fleshly ambitions ..
Real life. That is what Jesus did with others, a life shared. A key insight into the tight bond that developed between them is summed up in an encounter with Jesus after the cross (The Bible, Like 24:13+, The Message):
That same day two of them were walking to the village Emmaus, about seven miles out of Jerusalem. They were deep in conversation, going over all these things that had happened. In the middle of their talk and questions, Jesus came up and walked along with them. But they were not able to recognize who he was. .. They came to the edge of the village where they were headed. He acted as if he were going on but they pressed him: “Stay and have supper with us. It’s nearly evening; the day is done.” So he went in with them. And here is what happened: He sat down at the table with them. Taking the bread, he blessed and broke and gave it to them. At that moment, open-eyed, wide-eyed, they recognized him. And then he disappeared.
Back and forth they talked. “Didn’t we feel on fire as he conversed with us on the road, as he opened up the Scriptures for us?”
These friends of Jesus felt in their hearts the same fire that they had experienced over the previous three years when they had given up fishing and followed Love.
In summary, what are the paths forward? I still say a clue is to go back to uncover the Jesus style:
It is evident to me now that he [Jesus] wanted them to explore the kingdom, not analyze it. He knew they could only understand it by experiencing it, not by reducing it to a set of facts or propositions. The people I know who live most freely in the kingdom are those who are discovering it, not in seminars and classes, but in the circumstances of their own lives—a woman betrayed by her husband, a man who’s lost his job because of lies told about him, a mother whose son was convicted of murder, or a child tempted to betray his conscience for the approval of his friends. I am often asked if I have a discipleship curriculum I can recommend to others, or at least a resource to help them know the Lord better.
The curriculum for your journey is not in the Bible or some workbook based on the Bible. I know this gets me labeled as a heretic by some, but the curriculum for God’s work in you is in the Spirit himself. That’s why Jesus said that he would send the Comforter and he would guide us into all truth. He didn’t say he’d send us a book to follow, because you cannot follow a book. He didn’t entrust it to religious leaders. His Spirit alone can show us how to engage God in the reality you live every day.
Following a book is not following Jesus. Wayne explains:
Don’t get me wrong here. I’m a Bible guy. All the wisdom we need is in God’s revelation of himself, but it is the Spirit that helps us make sense of his words as they fit into our experience.
I know people well-learned in the Scriptures, who can argue theology with precision, but who have no life flowing in them. And, I know people who live by their feelings, thinking their every whim is the Spirit’s direction. They both flounder because in the end, we are still interpreting our own journey, instead of learning to listen and to rely on his indwelling Spirit.
This mirrors my own experience. So much of my more religious life took each Sunday’s sermon in application on their own tangents and never or rarely brought me closer to the One who loves me.
Jesus’ own style was a “one day at a time” adventure, seeking out those around us as the Father places them on our hearts. I contend it was intended to be that simple.
Living loved means understanding how much we are loved by Him, listening to His subtle whispers and at His prompting, love others as well, sharing our experiences as we “fly” through life’s journey.
-SF1
PS For an honest insight into the nature of Jesus is Gayle Irwin’s teaching, who admits that Christian’s over the centuries has distorted things about God and Jesus. This is entertaining and maybe corny but I love how this guy passionately unpacks these truths:
Anyone who has studied the Bible knows that the prophets (not “forth-telling” as in future telling, but “truth-telling”) were routinely seen as strange old men who reside on the edge of crazy and are in fact marginalized or worse, killed. From Noah, Moses and Samuel in the Old Testament to John the Baptist, Jesus, John and Paul in the New Testament, there was usually some tragic period in their life and also some truth-telling that usually had the masses turn away from following them.
Here is a modern day prophet whose message of peace was not well received but he did live until age 94. His name at birth in Germany was Helmut Osterman, born into a prosperous Jewish family in 1922 hear Hanover. His family saw the rise to power of the Nazis and in 1933 moved to Palestine. This 11-year old changed his name to the Hebrew, Uri Avnery.
Eric Margolis, in his Lew Rockwell article today, outlines Uri’s trajectory and allegience as well as his shift in his vision for the future of Israel:
In 1948, the young Avnery joined the underground Jewish guerilla force Irgun, fighting British and Palestinians and, later, Arab regular soldiers. Irgun committed numerous notorious terrorist acts and massacres that played a key role in driving the Palestinian population from their ancestral homes. He was seriously wounded and nearly died. Two years later, he and three friends started a political magazine, “One World.” Avnery was increasingly political and sided with Israeli expansionists.
As with a lot of prophets, there is a period where one’s belief structure is based in the traditional view and they are usually very passionate about it. (i.e. Saul, the best of the Jewish Pharisees, with a resume that is top-notch)
But then one day, or in a series of days, there is a stirring in the heart that something is not right, and that there is a better, although even non-traditional preferred way toward a future that aligns better with nature and its God:
… he gradually came to see that peace and cooperation was the only solution for Israel. After Israel’s smashing victories over the Arabs in the 1956 and 1967 wars, he formed a leftist pro-peace party and won a seat in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. He helped found the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Council and the renowned Gush Shalom peace movement.
Avnery was one of the first Israelis to call for fair treatment of the Palestinians, over a million who had become refugees in 1948 and 1967. He urged Israel to sign a lasting peace accord with the Palestinians and return to them control of the West Bank, the old city of Jerusalem, Golan and Gaza – all occupied by the Israeli Army and growing waves of Jewish settlers.
It is a tough road to hoe when one is a pioneer in new thoughts that would help propagate the Golden Rule (do unto others as you would have them do unto you).
Uri became the target of decades of hatred by right-wing Israelis. He was stabbed. He said things that were not said in public. He kept reminding Israelis that their Jewish ethics demanded fair and decent treatment of Palestinians, whom Israeli leaders preferred to call ‘cockroaches’ and ‘wild animals.’
Yes, but in spite of the attacks (and the truth that when one is on target, one will take on a lot of flak!), Uri continued to share what would be best for all people groups in the region for a peaceful future (something that had been maintained in various areas of the Middle East over the past few centuries, like Syria, Lebanon and even in Iran)
There would never be peace in the region, warned prophet Avnery, until Israel returned at least some land taken from Palestinians, and created a viable Palestinian state with full democratic rights and freedoms … Never one to mince words, Uri called Israel’s right, which just enacted a law making Israel an exclusively Jewish state (thus excluding its 21% Muslim and Christian population) ‘semi-fascist Jews.’
Uri’s dreams seem like they will never come true. He was passionate about a path forward but has found resistance in BOTH Israel and in Washington DC / American Empire:
Avnery became fast friends with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The two leaders could have created a viable Jewish-Arab state or federation. Sadly, Arafat was probably murdered and Avnery politically sidelined. In fact, Israel’s entire pro-peace left has dwindled to a fringe movement, isolated by its right-wing governments and Washington. Days after Uri died, Israel’s Likud coalition announced the expropriation of more Arab land on the West Bank to build 1,000 new homes for Jewish settlers.
As it is with prophets, years later people will find wisdom in the story of their life that may inspire them in another time and place in this world. Until then, it is important to share stories of people like this to give the next generations hope as well as to help them identify prophets in their midst, and take note.
Obviously, calling oneself right or left means nothing. Beyond this, talking as well might give someone an insight into a person being “right” or “left”. Actions speak the loudest however, and in tough times it is one’s actions that create a legacy between “right” and “left”.
From Bionic Mosquito’s article comes some interesting thoughts on past and present efforts involving society and individuals, the relationships therein and the role of “right” or left”. Bionic starts off with this quote that I love:
As long as you’re living right, then you don’t have to worry about what people see.
– Clay Aiken
So true. I learned at an early age, I think age 5, that to lie I had to remember not only the lie itself, but who I told it to, and when .. and so I settled on just telling the truth and letting the chips fall where they may. I sleep good at night.
Bionic has been spending some time with Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn’s work called: ” Leftism: From de Sade and Marx to Hitler and Marcuse ” that is online courtesy of the Mises Institute. He quotes Erik in saying:
.. In all European languages (including the Slavic idioms and Hungarian) right is connected with “right” (ius), rightly, rightful, in German gerecht (just), the Russian pravo (law),pravda (truth) ..
This is just the way the European’s organized things .. maybe based on:
On The Day of Judgment, the righteous are to be on the right, and the punished on the left; Christ, of course, sits on the right.
The Bible. In any case, once we have a definition that can be agreed upon, we can compare it with experience. So let us start looking at that it all means.
So, what is “right” for man? Man – each one a unique individual – needs room; room to grow, room to be left alone, room to think, room to thrive. Much of political reality over the course of a few centuries has been to crush this:
“…all the great dynamic isms of the last 200 years have been mass movements attacking – even when they had the word “freedom” on their lips – the liberty, the independence of the person.”
Individual-based, not the collective. So how free were those before and after the Revolutionary War? Well, truth be known, any freedoms gained were quickly evaporated by a centrist agenda early before the Constitution was created (even though the Articles of Confederation were SUPPOSED to be modified by the convention in Philadelphia). The “fear” that the British Empire might again have eyes on this young republic made people opt for the collective again and freedoms were picked off one by one.
Bionic quotes Erik once more:
“The right has to be identified with personal freedom, with the absence of utopian visions whose realization – even if it were possible – would need tremendous collective efforts; it stands for free, organically grown forms of life.”
I do believe that the influence of Jesus and His followers had an impact on furthering the natural rights of individuals regardless of their class or skin color (i.e. Galatians 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”)
While the leftist dreams of restoring some mythical golden age, the rightest looks to the past to find what is eternally true, and build on this:
“The true rightist is not a man who wants to go back to this or that institution for the sake of a return; he wants first to find out what is eternally true, eternally valid, and then either to restore or reinstall it, regardless of whether it seems obsolete, whether it is ancient, contemporary, or even without precedent, brand new, “ultramodern.”..”
The right recognizes the uniqueness in each individual; the left dreams of uniformity. Politically…
“… [t]he leftists believe in strong centralization. The rightists are “federalists” (in the European sense), “states’ righters” since they believe in local rights and privileges, they stand for the principle of subsidiarity.”
The left cannot stand for competing authority or allegiance:
“Leftism does not like religion for a variety of causes. Its ideologies, its omnipotent, all-permeating state wants undivided allegiance. With religion at least one other allegiance (to God), if not also allegiance to a Church, is interposed.”
OK, so let us unpack this .. know that Republicans are not “right” (since they crushed the peaceful attempt at an exit of sever southern states in 1861) and the German National Socialist (Nazi) regime was not “right” either ..
What does true conservatism support?
“All conservative movements in Europe are federalistic and opposed to centralization. Thus we encounter in Catalonia, for instance, a desire for autonomy and the cultivation of the Catalan language among the supporters of the extreme right as well as the left”
With this understanding, the way one approaches history can be greatly enhanced, especially understanding the hate that developed of the Jews during the 1920s and 1930s as shared by Thomas Dilorenzo in his Lew Rockwell article today:
The economic policies of the Nazis, wrote Hayek, are “full of ideas resembling those of the early socialists.” The dominant feature of Nazism was a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic — “individual profit seeking, large-scale enterprise, banks, joint stock companies, department stores, international fiance and loan capital, the system of ‘interest slavery,’ in general.” Nazi policy, wrote Hayek, was nothing less than “a violent anti-capitalistic attack.” “It is not even denied, wrote the Nobel Prize-winning economist, that “many of the young men who today [1943] play a prominent part [in the Nazi Party] have previously been communists or socialists.”
The “common trend” of German journalists and others who supported the Nazis “was their anti-liberal and anti-capitalist” beliefs. The even adopted as their “accepted dogma” the phrase “the end of capitalism.”
The Jews were singled out for special hatred by the Nazis, who viewed them as symbols of capitalism. “The party . . . combats the Jewish-materialist spirit within and without us,” they wrote in their “25-Point Platform of the Nazi Party.” And as Nazi apologist Paul Lensch wrote in his book, Three Years of World Revolution (p. 176), the ideas of “freedom and civic right, of constitutionalism and parliamentarianism . . . derived from that individualistic conception of the world,” must be gotten “rid of to assist in the growth of a new conception of State and Society. In this sphere also Socialism must present a conscious and determined opposition to individualism”
So let us be clear, the left’s socialism is much closer to the Nazi state than efforts of decentralization like what happened to the USSR and what is happening in Spain with Catalonia.
So in summary, those that call themselves “conservatives” or “right” these days are usually not. Listen to their words BUT inspect their actions. As Tom Woods pointed out in his article on Woodrow Wilson back in 2003:
There is the prudence and perspective of the conservative. No conservative, whose hallmark is a disposition toward stability, would risk his own country’s well being, both financial and moral, in a ceaseless crusade of visionary schemes. A real sense of history, as well as an appreciation of what is possible in this fallen world, should sober us up from the utopian fantasies of liberalism. Great American statesmen of the past understood this: we can be an example to the world, but beyond that we dare not go. No mother should ever have to be told that her sons died trying to straighten out the political situation in Nigeria. As Lord Byron said, “Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow.”
It is NOT America that must go abroad to bomb nations into democracy, America would have done better to be a model group of republics much like what is seen around Russia these days as they already have seen the bad side of collectivism in the USSR.
History helps one from repeating the mistakes of others .. just do your own research!
