15 November 2024

The Christian Right's Fantasy Realm of Reagan-Land

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/reagan-moviea-great-reminder-of-what-a-president-should-be.html

The myths and legends were emerging even before his death in 2004. Now twenty years later they've blossomed into full-blown fantasy. This latest film (praised by Richard Land) is undoubtedly an exercise in both hagiography and revisionism.

12 November 2024

Heresy in Oklahoma

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/09/oklahoma-amends-request-for-bibles-that-initially-appeared-to-match-only-version-backed-by-trump-00182997

The original request made by Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters was for Bibles that included the Pledge of Allegiance, Constitution, and Declaration of Independence. The scandal in the media played up the fact that this seemed to be an order for Trump Bibles.

11 November 2024

Smoke and Mirrors: Al Jazeera and Euroscepticism in the Balkans

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2024/8/31/the-danger-of-pro-eu-euroscepticism-in-the-western-balkans

Parties and politicians formerly aligned with Eurosceptic elements have accumulated a great deal of power and now stand near the pinnacle of the EU hierarchy. They're not there yet and they remain divided but were these Right-wing nationalist groups to come together - Brussels could be theirs.

10 November 2024

Censorship and AI: Colson and Anderson

Even though this story is but a theological and ethical commentary on a well established story that ran in mainstream newspapers and is further supported by testimony under oath, Google's Anti-Intelligence (AI) software has chosen to flag it - undoubtedly due to the fact that it perceives some kind of controversy or conspiratorial angle, suggesting I might be misleading the public or promoting some kind of dangerous idea. Or perhaps Google is simply concerned about the reputation of Chuck Colson - but I doubt it. Welcome to the future people - the age of of AI is upon us and already it's wreaking havoc in the world of banking, insurance, and many other spheres. We can only hope its failures and inadequacies will become self-evident and the project (mostly driven by greed) will be abandoned. Here's the story that was censored:

06 November 2024

The Church and Election Subversion

 https://www.cpr.org/2024/10/03/tina-peters-former-mesa-county-clerk-prison/

I don't believe in the American system. I've made this very clear but it continues to baffle me how these Evangelicals (and others within the orbit of the Christian Right wave their flags and step over each other to display their patriotism) have (in the Trump era) turned to actions that fundamentally undermine the system they profess to love and believe in. Everything they do testifies to the fact that if it means they lose - they don't believe in it either.

05 November 2024

Sacralist Jurisprudence and Evangelical Syncretism

https://reformedforum.org/podcasts/ctc877/

I've been listening to Christ the Center since about 2009. An interesting podcast most of the time, this episode was an exception. After realizing the guest was a law professor at Liberty University, I almost turned it off. I struggle to take anyone associated with Liberty seriously, but I decided to give it a listen.

03 November 2024

Washington and the Banderites

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/09/13/czgh-s13.html

It had been a few years since I picked up Russ Bellant's Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, the 3rd edition published in 1991. The scandals he reports surrounding World War II-era fascists and the Nixon, Reagan, and GHW Bush administrations have been all but forgotten. And yet it was the Ukrainian angle that drove me to revisit the work - and it revealed some interesting bits of information.

01 November 2024

The Wilson-Moscow Mood

https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=1ckd_Jx_obk

https://clearlyreformed.org/on-culture-war-doug-wilson-and-the-moscow-mood/

It's been a year since Doug Wilson released his 2023 No Quarter November/Thanksgiving video. I saw it at the time and followed some of the responses to it. I thought DeYoung's comments were fairly astute but missing one important element regarding the 'mood' - Donald Trump.