https://www.cbsnews.com/news/china-us-espionage-cia-spying/
In August, Beijing arrested another one of its citizens
accusing them of spying for the CIA. The US media seems to get perturbed by these
reports and intuitively seems to take a defensive posture – as if the
accusation is prima facie absurd.
https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/what-the-brics-expansion-means-to-shipping
This short article merely touches on what is in fact a huge
topic – one that is only starting to be understood and thought out. As BRICS
expands and plays a larger role in creating an alternate economy the
ramifications for this in the realm of global trade and shipping will be significant
– which is why a publication like The Maritime Executive wants to bring it up.
https://www.breakpoint.org/50-years-ago-chuck-colson-was-granted-eternal-life/
The memory of Charles 'Chuck' Colson (1931-2012) is already
starting to fade away. He was of another generation and one that seems
increasingly distant. From time to time BreakPoint will replay one of his old
commentaries and they did so recently as 2023 marks the fiftieth anniversary of
his conversion – except I continue to argue the man was a fraud.
https://declassifieduk.org/bps-financing-of-colombias-murderous-military/
The documents referenced here merely confirm what was already
known – both governments and corporations were involved in the financing and
arming of Right-wing paramilitary groups in Colombia.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/pastor-indicted-alongside-trump-returns-to-pulpit/ar-AA1fX3di
https://www2.cbn.com/news/politics/freedom-caucus-leader-rep-mark-meadows-god-gets-credit
I find it rather interesting that LPR's Issues Etc. has not
bothered to cover this story – at least not yet.
One would think that a Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS)
talk radio show would sit up and take interest when one of their own faces
indictment alongside Donald Trump for attempting to manipulate and overturn the
results of the 2020 presidential election. There are other Evangelicals
involved such as Jenna Ellis who now has a show on American Family Radio (AFR)
and the Dominionist Mark Meadows who as Trump's Chief of Staff played an
important role in the plot.
Where's the coverage?
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-former-general-compares-palestinian-treatment-nazi-germany
One would think this story would get a little more press than
it has received.
Was this some left-wing firebrand that dared to compare
Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi regime or its West Bank
policies to apartheid South Africa?
https://julieroys.com/calvinist-activist-warns-white-nationalism-invading-reformed-churches/
I was encouraged to discover there are some who are concerned
over what is happening within the Church – and in this case the Reformed
sphere. And it's not just White Nationalism but a growing militancy that should
be sending up red flags. Gun culture is incompatible with New Testament
Christianity but what's been developing in recent years is far beyond the pale.
https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america
I've written repeatedly about Russell Moore over the years
and while he's considered in some quarters to be a quasi-'woke' liberal today,
at one time he was as right-wing as anyone. I can't say that I've ever been a
fan though I do appreciate his stand against Trump – though perhaps for
different reasons than his. I will say he appeared the Christian when
contrasted with the likes of Franklin Graham, the master and inheritor of a
corrupt legacy and 'ministry' machine.
Investment is always viewed through the lens of economic
legitimacy – both as a means and an end. But it also needs to be understood that
a flood of money invariably generates corruption.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/04/john-bolton-trump-nato-2024
Some in the name of anti-globalisation would be more than
happy to see the US withdraw from NATO. Others make a similar isolationist argument
by appealing to Washington's 1796 farewell warning concerning 'foreign
entanglements'. For whatever the reason there is a growing voice within
Right-wing circles that is exhibiting no small degree of scepticism regarding
NATO. For some it's simply a nationalist impulse and an unwillingness to
contemplate spending American treasure and lives to defend some European
country that most Americans know nothing about. Regardless, this sentiment
represents a sharp break within the American conservatism that emerged after
World War II.
I think it safe to say that I'm not a fan of John Piper but
on occasion I can appreciate something he says. In this case, it's not really
about anything remarkable coming from Piper's pen. Rather, what piques my
interest is that such a statement has generated controversy.
I have not been watching all of the news coverage but I would hope that someone would point out the irony present in this situation. Giuliani has been swept up in the Georgia indictment on the basis of RICO – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been arrested again and has now been sentenced to prison. Ousted from office in April 2022, he has repeatedly insisted the US played a role in what many view as a bureaucratic coup.
When this subject was last addressed at the beginning of June, the spring offensive was just getting under way. Two months later it has fizzled and even Western media seems incapable of spinning the story.
Coups in Africa are by some estimates far from unusual. There have been many in recent years and while often mentioned, the news coverage in the West is minimal. Africa does not generate a great deal of interest to Western audiences and for many it's impossibly complicated and they are unable to follow the stories or contextualize them.
I have been asked from time to time about recommendations for Christian movies, what review sites to trust and the like. The answer is very simple – none of them are to be trusted and I can't recommend any that I know of.
https://evangelicalfocus.com/world/22997/pastor-sentenced-by-the-venezuelan-authorities
I wouldn't for a moment wish to defend the Maduro-led
government of Venezuela. I would not want to justify, support, or defend
anything that government says or does – especially when it comes to its
relations with the Church.
That said, there are some questions that need to be asked.
Emanuela Orlandi disappeared from near the Vatican in 1983 and while the popes and curia wish the story would go away, it lingers on. It is captivating to say the least and every so often it pops up again in the news. Netflix recently released a documentary which more or less summarizes the story to this point and attempts to advance it a step or two. And much to the chagrin of the Vatican, this documentary has effectively put a spotlight on the story and has introduced it (and the scandals connected to it) to a new generation.
Two decades into the twenty-first century Mongolia is
something of an outlier, an outpost nation that straddles North and East Asia
and by some accounts represents the eastern edge of Central Asia. Within this
vast zone, Mongolia (it could be said) represents the last hope of Western
influencers.
https://eurasianet.org/rift-widens-between-armenian-church-government
This is a somewhat hopeless debate to wade into. There are
glaring assumptions being made that must be questioned. Armenia is viewed by
its Orthodox Church and the religious sections of its populace as a sacral
state. As such, Nagorno-Karabakh is in reality Artsakh – part of the ancient
conglomeration of Armenian kingdoms. As a people they have lost so much and
have been brought so low, that for some a line has been drawn. No further. They
will not brook any further humiliation at the hands of Turks and will not
tolerate any political party that even entertains capitulation. For some this
isn't just politics or nationalism – it's theological.
https://www.asianews.it/news-en/Supreme-Court-bans-interfaith-marriages-58840.html
Legally the issue cited in the article concerns the
jurisprudence of an Islamic nation – and to what degree Sharia or even a
limited or hybrid-Sharia can accommodate a Muslim-interfaith marriage. This
issue on its face is not a Christian concern apart from questions of civil
freedom and restrictions that result from a sacralist-Islamist framework.
The US Establishment doesn't want to jeopardize this key tool
by allowing it to become a political football. Also this vote and rejection of
Paul's amendment must be viewed in light of the Trump presidency and the damage
he did to NATO by suggesting Article 5 might be subject to question. Paul's
amendment more or less is a pathway to the same argument and uncommitted
position and as such not only weakens the treaty but effectively violates the
terms Washington already agreed to.
I post this with a few comments just to call attention to the
kind of Two Kingdom Theology which needs to be rejected and opposed. It caught
my eye because the author (Tom Hervey) was critical of Larry Ball, a Theonomist
writer I have countered on many an occasion. Happy to see someone answering him,
I was nevertheless mostly disappointed in Hervey's response.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/1183140547/road-to-surrender-revisits-the-final-weeks-of-world-war-ii
Once again a mainstream reporter appeals to narratives that
are hardly Left-wing or 'woke' but instead belong on FOX or Newsmax. The divide
appealed to by so many on the Right is blurry at best and artificial at worst.
And keep in mind this is Evan Thomas who spent decades working at supposedly
Left-wing magazines like Time and Newsweek. Apparently it's Left-wing these
days to produce an apologia for Truman's use of atomic bombs, for that in the
end is the real purpose of his work. He defends their use, tries to argue that
their use was moral, and that those who made the choice to use them are in fact
heroes.
https://evangelicalfocus.com/features/22760/the-harassment-of-italian-evangelical-churches
Some of the events reported here are limited to the city of Rome
as the article acknowledges. I remember back in the 1990's when I spent a fair
bit of time there that Protestant churches couldn't ring bells and so forth –
orders from the Vatican, or so it was said. The Pope does indeed possess a degree
of unofficial leverage within the larger city.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/06/19/emergence-of-a-new-non-alignment/
A New World Order is emerging but it's not the one predicted
by George HW Bush in the early 1990's. In fact this is the order he was trying
to prevent, the nightmare scenario US power-brokers have been trying to stave
off since that time. Ironically, they brought it on themselves but that's a long
story - one that cannot be explored here.
Fesko begs many questions in this piece. From his adoption of
the culture's language of 'service' to the tacitly endorsed feminism in
speaking of a military career, he simply assumes in good Kuyperian fashion that
the military is a viable option for the Christian.
This is a postscript to the Christian Kids in State Colleges piece even though these comments are largely restricted to primary and high school settings.
http://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2023/06/inbox-christian-kids-in-state-colleges-i.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65428204
By all accounts, there is a spectrum to modern feminism. Some
feminists hate men and turn toward androgyny or ironically to an emulation of
masculinity. Other forms of feminism celebrate femininity but it is recast and
breaks with older forms and understandings of what that meant – often in forms
of libertine expression – a certain conception of womanhood turned up a few
notches as it were. Sometimes as a concept it begins to breakdown and blur and even
poses as being anti-feminist – and yet ultimately is part of the same cultural subversion
that has dismantled the older understandings of womanhood that once prevailed
in society and certainly within the Church.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/06/far-right-politics-hitler-d-day
The son of former CIA director Richard Helms is alarmed at
the present political climate in the United States and as a result has pulled
out a historical curiosity to make his point. He is in possession of a letter
written by his father in 1945. The future CIA director was part of the OSS and
wrote his infant son a letter on the recently defeated Hitler's stationary
warning him about the evils in the world and his witnessing of them.
At the end of May there was a telling episode that reveals something of Trump's character. He railed against Kayleigh McEnany his former press secretary and one of his staunchest allies when she proved unwilling to distort poll numbers in Trump's favour. The result was that it gave his rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis a needed boost as he is far behind in the polls.
https://thecradle.co/article-view/26056/syria-intends-to-join-brics-sco
Now that Assad has his foot back into the door of the
international community, he's looking to join institutions that will promote
stability, growth, and security. This is hardly surprising though it will
continue to outrage his critics in the West – the individuals, entities, and
governments that attempted to overthrow him and fomented a civil war in his
country that resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and millions of
refugees.
This article has been in the queue for a few weeks and I
might have tossed it aside other than it struck me today (24 June) of how absurd
it is in many respects even as NATO continues to push the narrative about the
threat of Russia. Russia has been exposed today as a nation in a state of
instability and peril. Not only did Putin's forces fail to take Kyiv in 2022,
he has now faced a very threatening mutiny and this is even in light Ukraine's
failed spring 2023 offensive. Putin looks weak in the eyes of the world.
When Western and even Christian media cover the situation in
Colombia they invariably focus on the terror and violence perpetrated by the
Leftist guerilla groups – such as the FARC. This is true enough but they
consistently misrepresent the story. There are cycles of violence and terror
and the reason many among the rural poor gravitate toward the Left is due to
the violence of Right-wing paramilitary groups which are often unofficial arms
of the state and in other cases are effectively private armies funded and
backed by Western corporations. And it must be remembered that groups like the
CIA are always in the background pulling strings and attempting to manage the
situation.
It's fascinating and perhaps even a little sad to reflect on
how the entire Covid episode could have played out in such different terms –
especially for the Christian Church in the United States.
This reporting relies on Forum 18 which as I contended last
year is problematic, as the organisation is a little too cozy with the European
Establishment. That said, (as with the Mariupol pastor story from October 2022),
this is not to say the story isn't true. It's more of a warning to be sceptical
of the source and to realize that despite their claims – they're not neutral or
apolitical observers.
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/05/29/clashes-northern-kosovo/
There are statements from multiple entities such as the EU
and NATO condemning these events and yet everyone knows the key player here is
the United States. Washington created Kosovo and its government is completely
beholden to the United States.
In recent years a number of mainstream outlets have produced watchdog shows that attempt to navigate the larger media world and its increasingly conflicting and contradictory presentation of facts and narratives. These shows are meant to help one discern the truth and of course it is assumed that whatever the said outlet is, (such as the BBC) – it is in fact a guardian of it.
It's clear that Kyiv is basically unable to mount the much vaunted spring offensive – at least not anything of significance within the spectrum of conventional artillery-infantry oriented combat expected by its Western sponsors. Spring is more or less over at this point and for months the NATO Establishment has debated its next set of moves. It was determined some time ago that a general escalation was in order. The question was not if but when and how. There will an offensive but it is likely to change the very character and scope of the war.
https://mate.substack.com/p/elon-musk-is-right-bellingcat-is
Even blind squirrels get acorns on occasion. Musk is
certainly repugnant in every respect but as Aaron Mate points out – this time
he was right.
This interview was absurd and offensive and belies the claims
by the Right that NPR is 'Left-wing' or somehow anti-American. The interview is
a whitewash of Truman's record. The notion that somehow he was an
anti-corruption fighter – while failing to mention his well-established record
of corruption back in Missouri (and later during at least his first term in the
US Senate) reveals the farcical nature of the interview and NPR's role in
reporting history.
The European Union has always been a secularized attempt at
rekindling the Holy Roman Empire – and as time has made clear, the 'of the
German Nation' is probably more apropos than many would care to admit.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-elections-opposition-candidate-kilicdaroglu-refugees-expel
To the surprise of many, Erdogan not only did better than
expected in the first round of the election, he now stands all but poised to
win another term. This is despite the crushing economic troubles the country
faces and the scandal surrounding the response to the February 2023 earthquake
and subsequent questions surrounding corruption, building codes, and the like.
Listening to Taylor Marshall interview Eduard Habsburg I was
struck by many things. In many respects the interview was a waste of time as it
had nothing to do with the Christianity of Scripture but was instead an attempt
to create an amalgam – to join modern Catholic Integralism (with Throne and
Altar Ideology) with modern Liberalism and its democratic regime of rights, the
individual and capitalist economics. It doesn't work and the contradictions
were on display during this interview – for those paying attention.
Aside from the fact that Rick Warren has a less than robust
view of Scripture and is rapidly drifting into theological liberalism, and
aside from the fact that he's a corrupt political operative who befriends
millionaires and dictators, the truth is he's built his entire clerical career
based on a repudiation of Spurgeon's model of preaching and pastoral work.
Led by the United States, NATO is attempting to expand into
the Asian theatre in preparation for war with China. NATO is opening an office
in Japan, and the US in addition to strengthening ties with Australia, the
Philippines and other nations, is preparing to negotiate for new bases in Papua
New Guinea.
It is commonly voiced within the circles of American
Confessional Presbyterianism that Old Princeton ended when they carried BB Warfield
out of Miller Chapel.
Meloni publically states that she's against Italian
participation in the Beijing-sponsored Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Her administration
has attempted to patch-up differences with EU/NATO members France and with the
Washington Establishment – which has not been always thrilled with the
trajectory of the Italian Right, especially the Salvini-led Lega Party, which
is part of Meloni's coalition.
I sincerely don't mean this in any kind of sense of bitterness but something struck me today – it's instructive one might say. I caught the headline that Bill Oesterle, the founder of Angie's List died of ALS at the age of 57. It's a national story.
This is certainly a story that will not make it into
mainstream US media – as the US Establishment doesn't even want such questions
raised about the AUKUS alliance. And if the story emerges in other venues you can be certain that
operatives and 'commentators' will spin the story and make transform these
protestors into 'China stooges' or something along those lines. They might even
find a way to blame Putin for it.
Western Mainstream Media continues to largely ignore the situation with Julian Assange. He has now spent more than a decade effectively (and actually) imprisoned without ever facing any kind of trial or due process – the bogus charges being used as a pretense to seize him being found without merit and dropped. But by then he was caught in a series of legal traps and in order to avoid the snares laid for him by the CIA – he became a fugitive and asylum seeker.
Are these serious people – or merely actors and clowns? The
Squad is trying to start riots?
Recently I've heard rumblings from within the Christian community that US foreign policy should support (or foster) the break-up (or division) of Nigeria in order to protect the persecuted Christians that live there. They want a new state carved out for the Christian community to protect them from the various Islamic threats.
https://www.vcyamerica.org/crosstalk/2023/04/13/growing-violence-in-society/
I'm not going to waste a great deal of time interacting with what
is effectively John Birch Radio – or at least its Fundamentalist-Evangelical
arm. It is spiritually bankrupt and while there are bits of gospel truth to be
found on CrossTalk, the deception and error far outweigh it and expose the show
as a dangerous font of heresy and disinformation.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/4/9/how-death-and-despair-haunt-pakistans-christian-minority
When it comes to the Subcontinent, most in the West are
likely to think of the troubles that Christians face under Narendra Modi's BJP
government in India. And indeed, Christians continue to face threats and
harassment by his administration and its paramilitary proxies such as the RSS.
Once again I wish to thank all those who have prayed for my son's recovery from a broken back. Nine months after the accident, months in a brace, and weeks of physical therapy, he was finally able to return to his job. And after a few months of office work and other temporary tasks, he just recently started driving again.
He's still dealing with some pain and awkwardness which is to
be expected. As a flatbed truck driver there's a lot of climbing up and down,
strapping, cranking, and slinging heavy chains. This is causing him some
difficulty. There are days where one makes multiple short runs which involve
more of this 'on the trailer' sort of work – securing and dismantling each load.
He's not as keen on that at present (as those are days of considerable pain)
and he does better with longer drives and less fuss. It's still going to take
some time and it may be in the end that he decides to pursue something else. Time
will tell.
Therefore, please keep praying if it comes to mind. But be assured that prayers have been answered. God be praised and thanks to all of you again. My son can not only walk but it would seem he's slowly returning to a normal life.
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/04/11/saudis-arent-afraid-of-us-anymore/
These are noteworthy developments to say the least. Riyadh still
maintains close ties with Washington and yet it's clear as the linked author
indicates – the Saudis are no longer afraid of America or of earning its
displeasure.
I recently had an interesting experience with Google. An article from 2016 was flagged by the Blogger platform as violating their community terms of use. It wasn't removed, but it was censored in that you have to agree that you were an adult to read it – and sign in via a Google log-in.
https://billmuehlenberg.com/2023/01/17/douglas-macarthur-christianity-and-japan/
All I can
say is 'wow'.
The way that
Bill Muehlenberg manages to distort both history and Scripture is nothing short
of remarkable.
