Peter Leithart on V-Mandate Resistance

 "To submit to a vaccine mandate is implicitly to endorse a political order that is willing to make participation in everyday life contingent on an unwanted medical procedure." -Peter Leithart

In the rest of the commentary, he notes that his individual resistance is a measure to thwart biopolitical technocracy. He explains:

"I oppose vaccine mandates because I want to do my small part to gum up the works. I don’t mean the works of the Biden administration, but the much larger global trend toward biopolitical technocracy. As Roberto Esposito put it in Biopolitics, political authority was traditionally the authority to kill. Under the reign of biopolitics, rulers care for and manage life. Once upon a time, the ruler bore a sword; now, a syringe."

So in other words, "biopolitical technocracy" is a kind of ideology and government type that should be opposed. 

It should be opposed as fervently as one opposes fascism, or socialism, or American exceptionalism (especially the kind that wants to impose the American order on the rest of the world by bombs and bullets), or neoconservatism (and this only wants to impose the American order on the rest of the world by bombs and bullets).

Remember folks, Jesus is King so the State is not.

Read the rest here: Why I Didn't Get the COVID Vaccine | Peter Leithart

Jesus to Kingdom Citizens: Worrying flows from Serving Mammon

Jesus made it very clear that those who worry about their life and food and clothing end up serving money.

Disciples of the King are not supposed to not worry about these things.

Those who worry are the Gentiles — those outside of the promises of God.

“No one can serve two masters …You cannot serve God and mammon." 

He immediately follows this with “therefore,” as in “therefore do not worry about your life,” thus connecting the "do not worry" statement to the preceding statement about serving either God or money. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And love of money can cause you to support all kinds of evil power structures.

Here is the full text of Matthew 6:24-33 (NKJV):

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

“Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?

“So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;

“and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

“Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’

“For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.

Here is the full text of 1 Timothy 6:10 (NKJV):

"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows."

P.S. Matthew 6:33 is my favorite scripture. I read it or recite it every night right before I close my eyes to rest. 

Joel McDurmon on Max Lucado's Wimpy Entrance in Politics

The final façade of decency has now fallen, and Evangelical titans are startled. Leaders like Max Lucado have now taken...
Posted by Joel McDurmon on Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Nina Simone didn't get it -- or at least her interpreters don't

Nina Simone didn't get it -- or at least the people interpreting her. Let's go with the latter. I feel better not insulting a legend who was hip to so many issues.

"An artist's duty, as far as I am concerned, is to reflect the times."

The problem is people read in "being conscious" here. But not everybody is "woke" or wants to be, and our music and media reflects that, even from people who call themselves "artists."

Plus, "woke" is a relative term.

One can be "woke" to all kinds of things and dead to the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for example, and his now-Kingship, his love, his mercy, his forgiveness, and the life-changing Holy Spirit which helps us walk in that love.

J. Gresham Machen: The True Christian Church is 'Radically Ethical'

In the third place, a true Christian church will be radically ethical...it will be ethical in the sense that it will cherish the hope of true goodness in the other world, and that even here and now it will exhibit the beginnings of a new life which is the gift of God.

That new life will express itself in love. Love will overflow, without questions, without calculation, to all men whether they be Christians or not; but it will be far too intense a passion ever to be satisfied with mere philanthropy. It will offer men simple benefits; it will never pass coldly by on the other side when a man is in bodily need. But it will never be content to satisfy men's bodily needs; it will never seek to make men content with creature comforts or with the coldness of a vague natural religion. Rather will it seek to bring all men everywhere, without exception, high and low, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, compatriot and alien, into the full warmth and joy of the household of faith.

J. Gresham Machen, "The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age," found in Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church 

Video: Fiorina Claims She's Not Part of the "Professional Political Class"

Editor's Note: I am no longer a libertarian anarchist. 

When I was, I used the Center For Stateless Society's material for my intellectual edification all of the time. This C4SS video on Carly Fiorina is very eye-opening, but it is not an endorsement of libertarian anarchism -- left or right.

The critique in the video can be maintained by any libertarian minarchist -- Christian or secular.

For one, the video shows that Hewlett-Packard was long-time beneficiary of government privileges.

HP is a part of the military-industrial complex.

Intellectual property "rights" gave HP its marketplace advantage.

If Fiorina can't point this out, how can she truly be called a "free-marketeer"?

When it comes to approving or disapproving legislation dealing with intellectual property rights, which create artificial scarcity, how will she vote? Will she veto? Will she uphold intellectual property "rights"?

Picture Courtesy of the Getty Images

So even if she wasn't a lifelong politician, she still has benefited from the legislation of lifelong politicians.

If she doesn't understand that then there is at least one area of the economy which we can't expert her to advocate freedom.

Of course, I keep all of this in context with all of her competitors and what she proposes.

But based on her foreign policy views alone, as she voiced them on the September 16, 2015 CNN debate, I couldn't support her.

She is a war hawk. Pure and simple.

Don't believe me? 

Read her words from the debate here....

...and then read an analysis of them.

David Stockman,  Director of Office and Budget Management under Ronald Reagan, cites Fiorina's own words from the debate and then breaks down her talking points, and then gives the real history of foreign policy that Fiorina, in all likelihood, is clueless about. 

Douglas Wilson on the Five Smooth Stones of Theocratic Libertarianism

Reformed writer Douglas Wilson proposes five things that must be done in order to reform the government and, by extension, American society. 

He stresses that liberty is a Christian value. Therefore, he wants liberty for secularists not because secularism is a good thing in itself; it isn't, even if some things within secularism are biblical and reflect the heart of the creator. I have always thought that if secularism is true, then it should be able to withstand free debate (no coercion). Truth wins out, right?

Read Wilson's The Five Smooth Stones of Theocratic Libertarianism

Note that the first stone is not the same as the fourth. Formally professing that Jesus Christ is Lord (the first stone) is not the same as fourth (allowing preachers to be free to preach the gospel).  But a formal declaring is necessary, he argues, and I agree.

Also, professing mere areas of agreement is not the same as establishing a national church. He wants none of the latter.

Here are some notable quotables:

If you protest that this would kill the great secular experiment that is America, I would reply that the great secular experiment that is America appears to have already gone out behind the barn and shot itself.

….we must have countless preachers of the gospel, faithfully declaring the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. The role of the government here is to stay out of the way, allowing such preachers free access to the people, and thereby encouraging them to have at it. 

There is a straight line blessing that runs from free grace to free men, and from free men to free markets.

Using their own money, voluntarily donated, the secularists and atheists may build their own schools, write poems and novels, produce plays and movies, build cathedrals, compose concertos, and so on.

Good bye, old blog description

Starting today, the blog description is no longer "Educating Christians about The Currency Crisis - and Other Worldview Issues."

Instead, it is  "Politics + Poetry + Philosophy."

The Ultimate Problem in the World and Why I Was Part of the Problem

The Ultimate Problem in the World

Sure. I'll drop a political status now and then. But I withdrew from making them because I knew that the ultimate problem in our society is neither a politician nor a system of thought (say, Socialism).

The problem is sin; and public enemy #1 is Satan himself (1 Peter 5:8), who keeps us in his grip (his kingdom) by sin itself.

We live in a society that loves sin and brags about it (Romans 1:32).

All those things that bring us down--antinomianism (lawlessness), to sum up the countless other "isms" that arise from that like liberalism, conservatism, relativism, libertarianism, socialism, secularism, etc. -- spring from the human heart. It's going to take a lot of people recognizing the seriousness of sin, and a lot of regeneration of human hearts by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, for nations to collectively prosper again (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Editor's Note: I make a correction in a later post to note that a return to God's law in economics is necessary. See here.

Why I'm Part of the Problem

I take blame because I served sin and was not in a position to follow Jesus Christ. Jesus says that anyone who commits sin becomes a slave to it (John 8:34). But that's not the case for me anymore.  No, sir. And it's so liberating turning your life over to Jesus Christ, having faith in resurrection, and being justified by his blood (Romans 5:9).

And the thing is, even if you are doing great in all other areas of your life, and obeying God in all other areas of your life, but denying him and rebelling against him in one, like I did; when you are allowing a "little yeast" to "leaven the whole batch of dough" (1 Cor 5:6); you are violating the whole law (James 2:10), giving up potential conquest of kingdom territory, and allowing territory to remain in the Enemy's hands. 

So when I didn't obey God years ago, in that one area of life, it slowly grew into all areas of my life.  I gave off the veneer of being righteous; when really I was pretending. Because my hypocrisy moved through the whole batch of dough slowly, I came off as a very righteous person for a while.

And so what goes for the layman (myself) also goes for politicians. 

When we deny God's law in one area, say, sexual ethics, we end up denying him in another, say, monetary policy.

I remember during the Michael Brown-Harry Knox debate a few years back when Knox (a gay Christian), once blurted out something to the effect of "why don't you spend your time criticizing all those people who are ruining the economy?"

Ahh, but if Knox doesn't stand on the Word of God in his sexual ethics, why should the financial manglers stand on the Word of God in their finances?

"Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter:

Fear God and keep His commandments,
For this is man’s all.
For God will bring every work into judgment,
Including every secret thing,
Whether good or evil."

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14