Foolish Man (Antichrist Superstar, Three.)

Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.

And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall of it. ~Matthew 7:19-27

I just saw this.

You know, I guess I get it, "Conservatives" and Evangelicals and Republicans all have an entitlement mentality and think they should have power forever.

I get it. I mean, hell I used to be one of these people. And trust me, in my experience up to a certain point of my life...Democrats often did live down to the kind of expectations a lot of us had. Yes, I'm talking about the Clinton years.

But here's the thing...today's Republican Party makes those morally-relativistic 1990's Democrats look like saints by comparison. And both Joe Biden (Catholic) and Kamala Harris (Baptist) are in fact, far more in line with what I would expect of Christian (and, for that matter, conservative) behavior than Lauren Boebert is.

I get that neither Biden nor Harris is politically Conservative, I'm fine with that. They should not be expected to be...because at this point a majority of America isn't politically Conservative and at least in my experience, Biden and Harris represent the majority of people in this country in terms of personal and political behavior...whether you think that's right or wrong is beside the point.

It ain't about you. It's about all of us.

As was the whole Trump thing. Yes, an absolute majority of us dropped the ball on that one.

Lauren Blowbert on the other hand, specifically represents a large and rather loud minority in America.

And it's impossible to miss the racist undertone to Boebert's statement, at the end.

There's a reason for that, I think.

These are people who could give a damn about their own behavior, but who want everybody else to have to live up to ideals they never bother to follow themselves...or at least to have to pretend to do so.

Or, deep down, they want to be forced to obey in some imagined strict-Christian society, to in effect have whether they go to heaven or hell determined by the government. Not that such is even possible in America as it is or currently would even survive being.

Seriously, we should all be glad that Man doesn't decide this stuff!

And frankly, if you don't practice conservative and Christian behavior in your personal life, the fuck is even the point of being a Conservative Christian, politically, unless you know it's all a lie?

And I mean know, in your soul, that it's all crap and when you die you're just worm food. But, that you just want to force your will on other people in this life through sheer fanaticism and/or raging mental illness...the two of which, sadly, often go together.

In the Evangelistic terms that I was taught, for people like Lauren Boebert, the Self is on the throne, not Christ.

And I've tried for years to warn these people...in Christianity, the entire concept of Salvation is absolutely about you...not other people. It's not just about what you believe...but about what you do with that faith. You're supposed to be charitable, to build relationships, in so doing evangelize, to share. To, as Saint Francis put it; "Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary, use words." 

And I've known plenty of people over the years who do exactly this, who move the needle by grace and personal conduct. They practice what they preach.

Whether it's my buddy who rode to work with me for years, who gradually got me to not take the Lord's name in vain so much, or the Pastor of our informal group at work who taught me whole different ways of looking at the Word, and at the concepts of heaven and hell and the End Times. Or the old line cook I talked to for years at work who basically single-handedly defused my previous hostility to Pentecostalism and 'Spiritual Gifts' (And my ex-wife was Pentecostal, there were reasons I was that way) these people know who they are and whether they know it or not they do great things in the world every day. 

And part of it is, they respect others, and are worthy of respect themselves.

You don't have to be a Christian to be one of those people, nor even to speak prophetically, but many of the people who had the greatest effect on my life were Christians.

Lauren Boebert, not so much. Her idea of Christianity is a leering tribal Tiki at the edge of the camp, its message not "Come to me all who are heavy-laden and I will give you rest" but some combination of "Go away! Go away! Mine! Mine! Mine!" and "Trespassers will be shot."

Like anything any of these people have is really so great?

Of course, they believe it's so great only because they have it.

They want to do the exact opposite of what Jesus said in Matthew 5.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. 

Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. ~Matthew 5: 14-16

They want to build a city not on a hill, but in a pit. They desire not to show their light to the world, but to put it under a bushel...because they want it to be just for them. 

They don't like other people.

And they think everybody else should just grant them all power in Heaven and on Earth because that's what fits their narcissistic self-image.

And they think anybody unwilling to do that should just die, and that even God should simply be their personal enforcer. They literally think the Creator of the Infinite Universe should be nothing more than a stick they can use to beat other people with.

That's a lot of things, but it sure ain't "Christian." To act that way is no more inherently Christian than KGB agent Vladimir Putin building a church rich with the symbolism of Atheistic Communism and the Red Army, with a floor made of melted down World War II German relics so that even the simple act of walking on it is symbolically "Striking a blow against the Enemy."

You can't have both the Cross of Christ and the Hammer And Sickle.

You can't be a Republican above literally all things and follow the Lord's Word.

One of these things is not like the other one. Something must lose. No man can serve two masters.

I've know plenty of Christians who were also Republicans...and I've known a decent number of Russians who weren't like that too. But the good ones allow their actions to be dictated by conscience, empathy, ethics, morality and yes, the Word...not by nationalism or by The Party.

Just typing those words sounds like something straight out of George Orwell.

It's not an accident that so many Black Americans, despite being fiercely Christian and often very conservative personally, vote Democratic. It's not an accident that Ukrainian Christians and indeed, Believers of all faiths...nor in some cases, like the Azov Regiment which started out as a far-right militia, very conservative indeed...have turned out to be some of the most fanatical fighters against the New Red Army.

There's a reason for that.

These are people who know one of these things is not like the other one, who were simply never given the option of being blinded to the Truth by ideas of ethnic or racial superiority.

Ya know, sometimes, Christians...when the World becomes your out-group, sometimes the problem is you.

These people want to pray for the death of another? Whatever happened to "Thou Shalt Not Kill?"

God ain't your hitman, Blowbert.

And that really is it, these people think they can dictate to or manipulate God. 

But if that is true, He is not God and we need not worry.

Seriously, what the hell kind of foolish person...especially one who claims to have knowledge of the Lord's Word...sets up that sort of a dichotomy, even if it's just in their own minds? 

I've often heard that the difference between Atheists and Evangelicals is that Atheists simply believe in one less god than Evangelicals do.

Given how much absolutely anti-spiritual crap I've heard from Evangelical "Christians" in the past eight years or so I'm inclined to believe there's something to that.

If you want a better world, or a more "Christian" society, you have to be a better person and somebody others see as worthy of emulation and respect. 

And, Lauren, this ain't it.

Like I was taught in another life so long ago when the Air Force taught me how to be an enlisted leader; respect is earned. It's earned by every action, every day, all the time. It's earned by sustained, superior performance. And it's very easy to lose.

Integrity above all.

Service before self.

Excellence in all that we do.

This isn't hard.

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Two

It was right here, in the waters around us, where the American experiment began. As the earliest settlers arrived on the shores of Boston and Salem and Plymouth, they dreamed of building a City upon a Hill. And the world watched, waiting to see if this improbable idea called America would succeed. More than half of you represent the very first member of your family to ever attend college. In the most diverse university in all of New England, I look out at a sea of faces that are African-American and Hispanic-American and Asian-American and Arab-American. I see students that have come here from over 100 different countries, believing like those first settlers that they too could find a home in this City on a Hill—that they too could find success in this unlikeliest of places. ~Barack Obama

...

If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. ~Ronald Reagan