Non-Conformity: We Are Individuals Made in God’s Image AND Family is the Rock for Individual Development

For far too long Christians have traded principles for safety. Even in the time of Israel’s ruling Judges as a theocracy, the masses clamored for a king. Trust in a God that “seems” distant when fickle people don’t get the life they had hoped for goes low and trust in monarchy, democracy and even totalitarianism goes high on the dreams these systems offer to the masses.

History shows vividly how all these earthly efforts fail, not only not panning out on the dreams of utopia, but in the end resulting in the murdering (outside of war) of 200M innocent citizens of some of these wicked totalitarian governments in the 20th century alone.

What follows is a rather long and hard to read clip from an article that announces the emerging new wave of grassroots Christianity that can impact this world in the months and years to come as it becomes obvious that governments are a cancer on the people dressed up to be their safety net.

Due to the new hostile sociopolitical realities, the third millennium is a time as well of new beginnings; it is a time of the clan and the small-faith community of families; and it a time when a new Christendom will be built (to the extent that it is built) solely on Christ an those clans and families. If any new Christian sociopolitical entities, even new countries, are to arise, they must arise anew and outside and beyond the demarcations of the past; outside and transcendent of the current sociopolitical powers-that-be; they must arise outside and in contradistinction to the world, the flesh, and the devil. This dawn of the third millennium requires the advent of a new Christian culture comprised of individual pastoral, that is grassroots, shoots that have made their way up among the ruins of an anti-Christic, dystopic world.

It is now, in this the third Christian age, that the lay faithful are called to grow up and out of the childhood of ages past. These faithful, these so-called “commoners” and “citizens,” are called to rise up fully mature, no longer holding onto props of the world, no longer dependent or subservient to powers and principalities, but only holding onto, dependent upon, and subservient to the Holy Cross. The third millennium is truly the age of the laity.  It is the age of the laity because it is the age of the family and the imago Dei individual (the image of God as free rational-volitional beings) that comprises that family.  And it is the age of the family and imago Dei individual because that family is being destroyed and the individual enslaved as never before; for in God’s economy “where sin abounds grace abounds more” (RM 5:20), the truth and good arising in direct contradiction to the prevalent falsehood and evil.

This is where the real value of Jesus-followers in the world demonstrate their value to those around them, by loving others selflessly but wisely. Wise as serpents, harmless as a dove. Being made in the image of God involves flipping tables in public places as well as protecting others from harm with swords bought with the proceeds of selling one’s cloak.

A new Christendom entails not the divine rights of elite kings and royal families, but rather the divine rights of the common man and the nuclear family. And these divine rights of the common lay faithful are absolute, for they derive from the faithful’s absolute right to do their duty to God, that is, their duty to abide by both natural and divine law, and indeed divine inspiration. But make no mistake, those that so abide by natural and divine law are outlaws to the Satanic State; a State that as such must be militantly engaged for “the whole salvation of the Church of Christ,” and most specifically and urgently for the salvation of the domestic church that is the family.

The toxicity of the anti-Christic third millennium requires that Christian piety and devotion no longer be squandered on a supposed but baseless duty to king, flag, or country. No longer should a romanticizing of a country’s past Christian heritage evoke allegiance to that country’s anti-Christic present. And no longer can a Christian justify a particular nationalism against a larger internationalism, for internationalism is but nationalism writ large. Rather, in the third-millennium, Christian piety, patriotism, loyalty, and devotion must be given to that which a person can truly know and so can truly love; and it is the Faith made tangible in the family, and the community of families, that one can truly know and love. It is neither countries, nor royal lineages, nor constitutions that God has immutably ordained, but rather it is the Holy Faith in grace and the sacrosanct family in both nature and grace that is God-ordained.

Christian’s must not give their hearts to a State. Again, they are called to be patriots only in so far as they are called to be pious. A Christian’s allegiance should be both familial and universal, not national and political. For familial allegiance is grass-rooted, as charity begins in the home; and universal allegiance justly transcends nations, as all men are created in God’s holy image (and indeed all men have families as well). But when a people’s allegiance is national and political the flower of their own nation’s familial foundation is inexorably conscripted and exterminated, while the families of opposing politics or nations are likewise afflicted.

Politics and nationalism are a scourge on society no matter how addicting the message is from these forces. In the end, it is never about the individual, it is about the collective.

Lastly, this is what a new disorganized, non-centered but grassroots effort to live life in and around the emerging police-military state that grows stronger by the day:

From home-grown produce, home-schooling, and cottage industries to Christian corporations, neighborhood militias, and patriarchal governing, the family and the extended community of families can in this technologically enhanced third millennium achieve a degree of self-sufficiency, independence, and perfection that was never before possible. But again, this will only be actualized if responsibility is assumed by fathers as the God-ordained leaders of natural and Christian society; it will only come to fruition if mothers are enthroned as the God-ordained center and heart of natural and Christian existence; and it will only thrive if individual Christians uncompromisingly exert their absolute right to dutifully heed their God-ordained conscience informed by natural and revealed truths.

People of character, given just in time courage directly from God, can and will give hope to those marginalized by the centralized and global evil forces that are in motion around this planet. God’s direct comms, His still small voice, will be heard by His children in these days.

Peace out

-SF1

War’s Value to the Politician, Lifelong Warmonger vs. a Father

Politicians think in terms of election cycles, getting elected the next time is their highest priority. Beyond this, it is either the money the can make along the way from lobbyists, or the power they hold while in office, or the lucrative post-political job they can get to pave their way to retirement.

Warmongers are a different breed. War offers an expediency towards things they value most, an elite status that protects them from the everyday, they dream of empire and destruction of everything in the way of that empire.

“This is the way the kind of king you’re talking about operates. He’ll take your sons and make soldiers of them—chariotry, cavalry, infantry, regimented in battalions and squadrons. He’ll put some to forced labor on his farms, plowing and harvesting, and others to making either weapons of war or chariots in which he can ride in luxury. He’ll put your daughters to work as beauticians and waitresses and cooks. He’ll conscript your best fields, vineyards, and orchards and hand them over to his special friends. He’ll tax your harvests and vintage to support his extensive bureaucracy. Your prize workers and best animals he’ll take for his own use. He’ll lay a tax on your flocks and you’ll end up no better than slaves. The day will come when you will cry in desperation because of this king you so much want for yourselves…” 1 Samuel 8 – God’s Warning via Samuel

Fathers think and act very differently as their heart is with the next generations. Fathers think on legacy, think of love and selflessness, and would rather deal with war themselves than let their kids deal with it. Fathers would be willing to look like a fool to take the focus off the object of their affection, their son or daughter. Fathers would wage war, as a very last resort, to give their ancestors and their community more freedom and liberty. With freedom their offspring are most likely to thrive in bringing innovative value to others in their community. Sharing the fruits of what they love to do to others who can trade or barter back the fruits of their own talents and gifts. This exchange is called an economy, an environment of cooperation and friendship!

Jeff Deist from the Mises Institute has a short article out today about war, where he states:

Why do seemingly endless military conflicts persist, despite lacking any constituency for their prosecution beyond the DC beltway? And why does US military strategy appear incoherent and counterproductive, when viewed through the lens of peace? Why can’t we do anything about this, no matter whom we elect and no matter how much war fatigue resides in the American public?

The answer is not found in a facile denunciation of the military industrial complex or war profiteers, though both are very serious problems. The answer lies in understanding how the DC War Party operates. Its goals are not ours. It is not democratic; the government is not “us.” It is not political; its architects are permanent fixtures who do not come and go with presidential administrations. It is not accountable; budgeting is nonexistent and gross failures only beget greater funding. It is above all not “economic” — it operates in an artificial “market,” one created and perpetuated by wars and interventions ordinary people don’t want. War socialism, or what former Congressman Barney Frank brilliantly termed “military Keynesianism,” has taken on a life of its own.

War taken to the edges of our world are accomplished by an elite who operate in a cocoon of their own making, insulated from their decisions, while in true sociopathic style, have zero empathy for those caught up in their unleashed hell on earth.

Ludwig von Mises experienced this first hand:

Ludwig von Mises saw peace as the key to any liberal economic program, and argued strenuously against the fallacy of war prosperity. Even early in his career, before his horrific experiences as an officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I, he recognized the critical distinction between economy and war: the former characterized by exchange and cooperation, the latter marked by the worst form of state intervention:

“Only one thing can conquer war — that liberal attitude which can see nothing in war but destruction and annihilation, and which can never wish to bring about a war, because it regards war as injurious even to the victors.”

The victors DO pay a cost even when they do in fact win the war. In the movie ‘The Patriot’ (2000) the fictional main actor Benjamin Martin says at the close of the movie about reflecting on what we have won and what we have lost. There is a cost to war:

.. the loss is not only economic, it is also cultural and moral. War, the ultimate rejection of reason as a means of navigating human society, reduces our capacity for compassion and makes us complacent about atrocities. Worst of all, it emboldens and strengthens the domestic state — encouraging us to accept absurdities like TSA theater and SWAT teams with leftover military vehicles operating in peaceful small towns.

The small town life of the 1950s, the 1910s or the regional societies of the 1840s and 1780s are no more. Culturally and morally the society we have today in the United States is bankrupt. With the government’s effective pacification of the church via 501C3 exemptions, even the Christian religion has next to zero influence in changing or reforming society. Only an underground non-official movement of Jesus followers could positively impact this empire like it did to the Roman Empire in the First Century.

Until then, the atrocities abroad come home to roost.

 While US troops remain mired throughout the Middle East, a subsurface political war heats up in the US. This cold civil war creates the kind of hyper-politicized society progressives once only dreamed of. Social media outlets encourage even the most ill-informed and ill-intentioned voices to spread hatred against those with differing views. Goodwill doesn’t translate, so fake bravado hidden behind anonymity or distance are the order of the day. Epithets like “racist,” fascist,” “Nazi” and worse become cheap currency in the new vocabulary of meaningless words. Dissenting voices lose jobs, reputations, and access to popular platforms. Mobs form to attack political opponents in restaurants and shops, shout down campus events, and threaten online disclosure of their perceived enemies’ personal information.

The estimate length of time the US Military expects to be in Afghanistan is the same as it has been for Germany and Japan .. OVER 50 YEARS!

Jeff Deist ends his article with a dire prediction:

The hawkishness of neoconservatives and the “democratic socialism” of progressives both lead in the same direction, toward economic destruction and war. If you think American society is polarized and prone to lashing out abroad now, what happens with a shrinking economy and 40% unemployment?

The end of the rope experience like present day Venezuela may very well come to the American Empire. Prepare yourself and your family appropriately with self defense training and skills, adjust economically, be strategic psychologically,  and most importantly, get right spiritually toward being a loving father or mother of your kids, your extended family and friends as well as others in society in the future. Be ready to be a light in the darkness.

SF1