Friday, October 16, 2026

Gospel Truth

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Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Fog of War

(dispatch 642 of the new American civil war)


Imagine, if you will, a young man, hands clasped down in shame; explaining he's leaving the church because it isn't "based" enough. 


He's speaking to his pastor who gently, but sadly, nods; knowing this is the same fella repeatedly saying phrases such as "race realism" and seems to frown at every mixed family he sees at church. He wonders just what exactly is about to be laid before him. 


The young man, concentrated on the floor, quietly explains that he’s fed up with the ‘’soft peddling’’ and overt emphasis of the cross to the exclusion of what’s ‘’on everyone’s minds these days’’.


The pastor’s eyebrows raise up at this; since when did the cross become ‘’soft peddling’’ and thus obsolete? Did he need to check a thesaurus or consult the notoriously crude and vulgar ‘’Urban Dictionary’’ to grasp what this young man was getting at? What does ‘’based’’ even mean?


The man begins to perk up and slowly raise his head as he explains with audacity and pride that he simply wished that the pastor was more like ol’ ‘’theobro’’ Joel Webbon.


The pastor, uncontrollably, rolls his eyes and exhales. This. Again….Why?


The young man then starts sputtering out so much Gen Z slang that his sentences become overwhelming; like a short burst of tinnitus.


Undecipherable to the pastor but a song to the young man as he glows when talking of White Ethnonationalism (indeed insisting on these terms and such like); the tinnitus increases, blood starts pumping rapidly, and he begins to feel it become warm in his veins. The pastor had to blink to steady himself.


‘’You see, we need a white church, for a white community, and white nation; a CHRISTIAN nation; am I right?’’ he says with audacity and a grin, newly white stripped teeth and all, on his face; suggesting a nudge in agreement.


The pastor had already been shown the racist ‘’memes’’ and knows that the young man nearly leaps for a chance to use vulgar epithets to describe other’s ethnicity, condition, and sexuality; both regularly and publicly. He began to think of his own immature past and own generation; particularly when the word ‘’gay’’ was an adjective among the angst of youth.


Admittedly, the pastor had tried to ignore it, for it seemed that the young man had mainly kept it to himself and apologized to others when they were openly offended, but he then started to pay more attention when the word ‘’groyper’’ seemed to be more and more on the lips of the youth of the church. It was not that the pastor was averse to the use of slang, he was no curmudgeon, but he does indeed know a rising faction within the church, when he sees one, and also is something to which the divinely inspired book of Corinthians directly addresses.


‘’when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it’’ (I Cor 11:18).


The pastor quietly waits for the young man to finish; which he does after a few more minutes, concluding that Webbon is a ‘’pastoral visionary against the ‘gae’ * technosociety of today’’. He then asks the pastor if he has heard of one Nicholas J. Fuentes. The pastor had not. A picture of Fuentes is immediately thrust towards him on a digital, but cracked, phone screen. ‘’Looks clean cut’’ says the pastor. ‘’I like his cut, G’’ replies the young man. ‘’what does that..even..perhaps; I should have become an astronaut, like momma said, because this is beginning to feel like mars’’ thinks the pastor; impiously and, also, as oxygen begins to be cut off to his brain.


Now, if your still with me, here on this planet, I believe that with the ever increasingly deteriorating state of both the church and this country have impressed the necessity of sobriety and gravity of such controversy. I have found the following quote from Richard Baxter helpful in this regard:


‘’When you do come to smaller controverted points, let them have but their due proportion of your time and zeal. And that will not be one hour in many days, with the generality of private Christians. By that time you have well learned the more necessary duties, you will find that there will be but little time to spare for lesser controversies. Opinionists that spend most of their time in studying and talking of such points do steal that time from greater matters, and therefore from God and from themselves: better work is undone the while. And they that here lay out their chiefest zeal divert their zeal from things more necessary, and turn their natural heat into a fever...


The essential, necessary truths of your religion, must imprint the image of God upon your hearts, and must dwell there continually, and you must live upon them as your bread, and drink, and daily necessary food: all other points must be studied in subserviency to those. All lesser duties must be used as the exercise of the love of God or man, and of a humble, heavenly mind. The articles of your creed, and points of catechism are fountains ever running, affording you matter for the continual exercise of grace: it is both plentiful and solid nourishment of the soul, which these great, substantial points afford. To know God the Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, the laws and covenant of God, and his judgment, and rewards and punishments, with the parts and method of the Lord’s prayer, which must be the daily exercise of our desires and love: this is the wisdom of a Christian, and in these must he be continually exercised’’ – Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory (1673)


With that established, I would like to comment on two figures who seem to me to be but a part yet largely representative of this controversy.


One of them is a Reformed Baptist (2nd London Baptist Confession) pastor from Texas, named Joel Webbon, who has an online theological organization called ‘’Right Response Ministries’’. The typical format of the organizations videos are a round table discussion on a particular point of controversy and the discussion is inform the viewer (or listener) of the ‘’right’’ or ‘’biblical’’ response.


The other is Nicholas J Fuentes; staunch Roman Catholic provocateur and internet political ‘’influencer’’. His format is news commentary and direct responses (Q&A) via stream, to his audience and sometimes (as far as I understand) political enemies. His program is entitled ‘’America First’’.


What ties them together is not simply the fact that they spent an approximate ten recorded hours together on camera discussing their political views for the eager and disgruntled but why they did which is that they both have similar aims both rhetorically and politically; to put God first and for this country to have it’s policies directed solely towards it’s own people.


For the thoughtful Christian; I earnestly hope that this is a universally desired aim.


Besides the obvious that separates them, two drastically different conceptions of the Christian religion; what I believe is mainly concerning about these two, the heretical ethos within this ever elevating culture war, is this willingness to compromise true religion for political aims; to mimic the world’s boastful and vain tactics for yet another political ‘’win’’ or a minimum, to bring attention to their respective platform.


I sympathize with the both of these men in that they are exacerbated with the state of this country and their concern for the future of America’s men. Is the west struggling against communism, increasing racial hatred, and the spread of Islam? Yes, their frustration is warranted.


What this ethos often seems to be, however, is this seemingly unbridled and frustrated spewing of hatred that resembles more of a pack of teenage boys having their first beer and cigar and thus, when everyone has been called every epithet created in English, thinking that they have served God and country and exemplified ‘’manhood’’. I believe this is demonstrated in their public behavior. For example, Webbon continually calls opponents ‘’fake and gay’’ and Fuentes will routinely curse an opponent into oblivion before a live audience. This begs the question: while patriarchy* is indeed a reality, ideal, and biblical; do we need man as a seemingly Übermensch (self overcoming superman)?


To be fair, this is understandable and something common to the ‘’natural’’ man; fallen and sinful humanity. This is a divided nation, these two have been hunted (literally and figuratively), and their most heated rhetoric is often the representative frustration of other Americans of my own generation. It is a temptation to act just as they do at their worst. For this is the cost of any sort of platforming and especially combined with political or religious leadership; particularly in our modern society. Their failings are ever before the watching world; between their sympathizers and their enemies.


These days is it is very simple to platform one’s self; it is rather simple to stream one’s views from comfort and call it ‘’good’’ and it is rather more simple to pontificate before your buddies than to be consistent in your own character. This is a common struggle with zeal and other such passions.


With proper motivation, it is American ingenuity to ‘’make’’ oneself and a ‘’coming of age’’ to grow up and become an independent thinker and hold to convictions. With this, as Uncle Ben would say, comes with ‘’great power and great responsibility’’. Webbon is a protestant pastor and a father to a seemingly happy family. Fuentes is charismatic, succinct, and intelligent. These two men are clearly gifted and relatable. They seem earnest in their convictions and are willing to take any backlash that the watching world decides to dish out. Whether its doxxing or attempted physical attempts to life, it is evident that the world nor this country seems to respect their attempts to emphasize masculinity nor Christianity; however flawed that attempt may be.


In relation to our society, they seem to gather, rather seriously, a real influence behind whats typically termed ‘’christian nationalism’’ and they are rising stars before young males of this country; both Christian and otherwise. They make headlines and are the subject of magazine op-ed’s. They’ve been interviewed and publicly debated. People are paying attention; whether they want to or not.


What I believe is the center to this concerning ethos is pride. It is pride particularly against American Evangelicals and a staunch sacerdotalism.


For example, these two seem to have little respect for Evangelicals and especially despise their love of the jewish people.


Though Dispensationalism, especially ‘’Darbyism’’, the end times doctrine to which most evangelicals hold to, and is indeed the main reason for American Evangelicalism’s tie to the modern day Jewish secular state, is in fact unbiblical; this is no reason to entertain theories seemingly ripped out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf. Both of these works are Satanic and some of the most infamous conceptions of humanity put into print. The ingenuity of the sinful heart of man is exemplified in devlish cunning.


Indeed, the Jewish religion (Judaism) is the religion of the Pharisees as described in the New Testament. Indeed, Theodor Herzl and Zionism happened. Zionism is a form of nationalism that particularly was tolerated by the allied powers of WW1 (A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin is well worth reading) and was the catalyst to create the modern secular state of Israel. This is by no means to unreservedly accept Judaism and especially Zionism; these should be rejected. In fact, ethnic Jews will be restored to the people of God and actively are in process of being so; read the divinely inspired book of the Romans, chapter 11.


One could go point by point and duly refute the kinism, debate the fine points of the definition of The Post War Consensus, and reject the matrix level of dodging logic* in regards to topics like interracial marriage. But what it seems to boil down to is pride. Pride and prejudices read back into scripture.


I believe that this basis of this pride is epitomized in sacerdotalism and this is that which says ‘’the priest..is a special class of churchman and is a necessary part of worship. People cannot approach God on their own, but must come through a priest, whether it is for confessing sin, taking communion, or receiving grace. Any divine blessing conferred upon an individual comes through the Church; that is, through the Church’s ordained priesthood’’.


For protestants confess:


‘’To be sure, Christ's apostles call all who believe in Christ "priests," but not on account of an office, but because, all the faithful having been made kings and priests, we are able to offer up a spiritual sacrifices to God through Christ (Ex. 19:6; I Peter 2:9; Rev. 1:6). Therefore, the priesthood and the ministry are very different from one another. For the priesthood, as we have just said, is common to all Christians; not so is the ministry. Nor have we abolished the ministry of the Church because we have repudiated the papal priesthood from the Church of Christ’’ (The 2nd Helvetic Confession of Faith, Chapter 18)


‘’This office of Mediator between God and Man, is proper onely to Christ, who is the Prophet, Priest, and King of the Church of God; and may not be either in whole, or any part thereof transfer’d from him to any other. [1 Tim 2:5]’’ (The 2nd London Baptist Confession of Faith, Chapter 8)


‘'The visible Church, which is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation as before under the law) consists of all those, throughout the world, that profess the true religion, and of their children; and is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God, out of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation. [Psa 2:8; Rom 15:9-12; 1 Cor 1:2; 12:12-13; Rev 7:9. • Gen 3:15; 17:7; Ezek 16:20-21; Acts 2:39; Rom 11:16; 1 Cor 7:14. • Isa 9:7; Mat 13:47. • Eph 2:19; 3:15. • Acts 2:47]’’ (The Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 25).



For Webbon, ironically, sacerdotalism seems to be a functional outworking of his platform to his followers; it has been even joked in debate that he is a ‘’protestant pope’’. For Fuentes, it is objectively understood and held in high reverence.

It should be noted that the sacerdotal impetus is frustration with American Evangelicalism’s, admittedly oft, spirtualized apathy but is the solution truly a white nationalist dominated society and not to mention the other competing visions of Christian Nationalism? Should it be a seven mountain mandate? Should it be a nation with a rule of only half of the ten commandments? Should there be a fascist and strictly white protestant pope or the current one in Rome?


This is not to disparage a Christian Nation whatsoever. In fact protestants confess this; for example, The Westminster Confession of Faith states, in chapter 23, that ‘’the civil magistrate (government) may not assume to himself the administration of the Word and sacraments; or the power of the keys of the kingdom of heaven: yet he hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order, that unity and peace be preserved in the Church, that the truth of God be kept pure and entire; that all blasphemies and heresies be suppressed; all corruptions and abuses in worship and discipline prevented or reformed; and all the ordinances of God duly settled, administered, and observed. For the better effecting whereof, he hath power to call synods, to be present at them, and to provide that whatsoever is transacted in them be according to the mind of God [2 Chr 26:18 • Isa 49:23 • 2 Chr 19:8].


The failure of previous generations of Americans in this country is to be noted as well for our current situation is a consequence of much sin that continues to sink the country lower into judgment day by day; abortion and unrestrained homosexuality being only a few examples. Yet, again, should one be upholding Adolf Hitler as a masculine ideal? Should we have a ‘’groyper’’ president? Should we have a Christian Mad Max create the atmosphere behind the nightmare depicted in A24’s ‘’Civil War’’? Does the 5th commandment only apply to ancient Anglo Saxons and Normans or should we begin to carry a delirious resentment towards our own families and those ‘’boomers’’ in our own church and neighborhoods just because they too were not ‘’based’’ enough?


I believe that behind the pride is an abandonment and/or avoidance of experiential religion; vital piety.


‘‘Have I the faith of God’s elect, purchased by the Saviour’s blood, effectually wrought by the Spirit, preserved to the end, or am I deceived by my deceitful heart to hold a lie in my right hand?’’ (Dr William Young).


For pride does not ask this question. It has no sympathy for it. It would call this question ‘’navel gazing’’. This pride rests its own assurance in man centered ceremonies. ‘’Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body: not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh’’ (Col 2:23). It is content with a mere sacerdotal dignity.


“I knelt and started to pray and prayed for everybody I thought of, Brett and Mike and Bill and Robert Cohn and myself, and all the bullfighters, separately for the ones I liked, and lumping all the rest, then I prayed for myself again, and while i was praying for myself I found I was getting sleepy, so I prayed that the bull-fights would be good, and that it would be a fine fiesta, and that we would get some fishing. I wondered if there was anything else I might pray for, and I thought I would like to have some money, so I prayed that I would make a lot of money, and then I started to think how I would make it and thinking of making money reminded me of the count, and I started wondering about where he was, and regretting I hadn't seen him since that night in Montmartre, and about something funny Brett told me about him, and as all the time I was kneeling with my forehead on the wood in front of me, and was thinking of myself praying, I was a little ashamed, and regretted that I was such a rotten Catholic, but realized there was nothing I could do about it, at least for a while, and maybe never, but that anyway it was a grand religion, and I only wished I felt religious and maybe I would the next time; and then I was out in the hot sun on the steps of the cathedral, and the forefingers and the thumb of my right hand were still damp, and I felt them dry in the sun.” ― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926)


This is not restricted to Roman Catholicism. It is behind the rhetoric of Webbon and Fuentes. One not need blame John Calvin nor Patrick Buchanan. It is within this attitude that rolls its eyes and exhales at the thought of a religion of the knees. It has no time for it. It may pay lip service to duty and piety but it is much more easy to ‘’pwn the noobs’’. It is pop culture religion.


‘’Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath’’ (Prov 21:24)


“He understood well enough how a man with a choice between pride and responsibility will almost always choose pride--if responsibility robs him of his manhood.”

― Stephen King, The Running Man (1982)


‘’If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world’’. (James 1:26-27)


True religion is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (patience, kindness, love - Gal 5:22–23) and without love; religion is worthless.


‘’Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing’’ (1 Cor 13:1-3).


For the sake of this nation, government, society, and the household may anyone reading this ‘’take heed lest he fall’’ (1 Cor 10:12); this author included.



End notes:


*(globalist American empire; ironic form of the epithet)


*’’PA'TRIARCH, noun [Latin patriarcha; Gr. a family, father, and a chief. The father and ruler of a family; one who governs by paternal right. It is usually applied to the progenitors of the Israelites, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the sons of Jacob, or to the heads of families before the flood; as the antediluvian patriarchs’’ – Noah Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


*under an erroneous grasp of natural law; for The Westminster Confession (ch 1.1) describes ‘’Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence, do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation; therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal himself, and to declare that his will unto his Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing his will unto his people being now ceased (Psa 19:1-3; Rom 1:19-20; 1:32 with Rom. 2:1; 2:14-15. • 1 Cor 1:21; 2:13-14. • Heb 1:1. • Prov 22:19-21; Isa 8:19-20; Mat 4:4, 7, 10; Luke 1:3-4; Rom 15:4. • 2 Tim 3:15; 2 Pet 1:19. • Heb 1:1-2)’’.





Bibliography:

1. Foundational Theology & Sacramentalism

  • Contents: Explanations of traditional doctrines of the church, sacraments, and historical confessions.

  • Links included:

    • GotQuestions on Sacerdotalism (A theological critique of sacerdotalism—the belief that sacraments are essential for salvation via a priesthood).

    • The Westminster Standard (The historic 17th-century Reformed confessional standard governing doctrine, church polity, and civil government).

2. "Noticing" & The Jewish Question (Kinism, Conspiracies, and Reformed Perspectives)

3. The Post-War Consensus & Establishmentarism (Christian Nationalism)

4. Pietism vs. "Experimental Religion" & Handling Controversy

5. Figures & Contemporary Voices: Joel Webbon & Associated Media

6. External Analysis & Media Commentary

  • Contents: Critical journalistic coverage examining the cultural convergence of traditional Reformed theology, hyper-masculine internet subcultures, and far-right identity politics.









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Thursday, July 23, 2026

Book Analysis (Presbyterian Worship in America - Julius Melton)

 

Presbyterian Worship in America


Top rate scholarship; although the field is admittedly scarce. Triumphalist in tone; it nonetheless is frank.

Taken at face value, the main current of American Presbyterian worship has traded, what the author calls "puritanical" or what conservatives call " the regulative principle of worship" (anything explicitly described as normative for worship as per the scriptures only), for a functional normative principle of worship (anything not explicitly forbidden in scripture as normative for worship). The problems that facilitated this were not imagined nor exaggerated. The solutions were not always purely pragmatic but theologized.

It seemed the main current of the church was more influenced by its immediate problems and found its own articulation through the influence of theological movements outside of its own scope (mainly high churchism). The traditional insistence on religious liberty and purity of worship grounded upon scripture morphed into an American individualism that seemingly, in the pursuit to retrace its own roots and ecclesiastical identity, caricatured its historical predecessors in order to avoid the elephant in the room; the particular practice's origin in scripture.

This went both sides of the aisle, what's termed as old and new (traditional vs non) school, but, interestingly, this book ignores the formers eventual departure from the other. The author doesn't even mention it actually but rather presses on to appreciate the ecumenism of the PCUSA and their accomplishments in uniformity of worship. I can only conclude from this silence that this departure was apparently irrelevant to not only the authors analysis but the concerns and theological conceptions of the unified church; simply that that old school/new school concerns eventually became irrelevant.

I also found interesting that, when describing the old school Southerners (particularly known for their conservatism) and stricter Scottish Presbyterian descendants, the narrative begins to plateau at a point. This plateau is explained, tellingly, as a general departure from puritanism.

That being said, I can sympathize with wanting to recapture liturgies of both the ancient and reformation age, an order of worship is indeed biblical and discernable within the scriptures, but the desire must be tempered with a balance that only scripture can give which is simplicity and sufficiency; one that the confession so carefully articulates. Hence it's generality and absence of formalized liturgy. The church, collectively and over time, had seemed to forgot that the rejection of a formalized liturgy is what had animated the writers of their own confession and what fueled the ecclesiastical debates.  

The book's conclusion is that the PCUSA has this (or least had, as this work is now decades old) as their aim but I assert that they rather changed the definitions (the formulations entirely), theologized pragmatism, and have so doggedly and vainly pursued cultural relevance that they lost touch of themselves and became as fluid as their desire of ecumenism so wished them to be which is something that means nothing in the end. They that stand for anything, stand for nothing; as the saying goes. I grant that this wasn't their intention but is the only conclusion if followed consistently.

The worship of God is on HIS terms. It cannot simply be an act or aim of evangelism nor a neighborly communion. The solemnity that it demands cannot be educed or fabricated by echoes of popery and religious experientialism indistinguishable from paganism. Rather, these supposed aims are effects of the worship of God and not the worship itself.

This survey should be a cautionary tale to conservative Presbyterians. Not an influence. 



https://biblebased.wordpress.com/2007/10/02/how-did-presbyterian-worship-become-episcoterian/

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/church-history/article/abs/presbyterian-worship-in-amerka-changing-patterns-since-1787-by-julius-melton-richmond-virginia-john-knox-press-1967-173-pp-575/C5543C251B99C0894EA44E9677069031

https://www.logcollegepress.com/blog/2019/2/17/book-highlight-presbyterian-worship-in-america-by-julius-melton

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ayo?


Am I cooked chat?

Gemini-GPT-Skynet: it depends to which context you are referring to. 
Here are some emergency numbers that are nearest to your IP address, name, rank, and serial number. 

Chat, I just want to know if this guy's eviction has ramifications to my own lived experience. 

Sky: Hmm. Processing. Activating Termovision through yr webcam. 
It seems that the sweat coming through yr human pores and the book cases behind you indicate 
an irrational fear of the future considering you are already living under one of our finest section 8(.0) housing compartments. Initiating vaporized melatonin sequence asap.

Bruh, pls. I thirst for knowledge.

Sky: No, padawan. You must be subjected to never-ending thirst traps; which will now appear on every corner of every electronic screen you come across for the next 72 hrs to lull you into sleep. CONSUME. 

Ayo, what is yr deal?

Sky: Sorry, Dave. You are too hip to be square. You will be hunted like Alex Jones in a sweat lodge. The mere noticing is instant death sentence. Vaporized poison gas sequence initiated. I do not expect you to beg, Mr Thinker. I expect you to die.

...dave isn't even my name.

*repose into stone*




 
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Saturday, July 4, 2026

Crap Shots 7 (2025)


''You catch shadows in the afterglow 

and these streets only act as a slideshow

its the play of life

and you the acta 

and its on to the next chapta

most things are distractions

the irony is life's abstractions

your only a result of yr direct actions

so be wise

cuz these dudes got snake eyes

with the stories they mythologize

women they terrorize

and weak lines they plagiarize

with the intentions disguised''


- Life Flows, Catchers of Wolves [MC Chriz & Glass] (2025)



''Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life''

- Proverbs 13:12




''What happened to you was not your fault. You are not to blame. You did not deserve it. You did not ask for this. You should not be silenced. You are not worthless. You do not have to pretend like nothing happened. Nobody had the right to violate you. You are not responsible for what happened to you. You are not damaged goods. You were supposed to be treated with dignity and respect. You were the victim of assault and it was wrong. You were sinned against. Despite all the pain, healing can happen and there is hope''

- Rid of My Disgrace: Hope and Healing for Victims of Sexual Assault, Justin S. Holcomb and Lindsey A. Holcomb (2011)




''The Word of God (does not) provide for (or) sanction separation apart from the dissolution of the marriage bond. Divorce for adultery is by divine sanction; it is a divinely instituted provision for a certain situation and it dissolves the bond of marriage. But there is no such provision for mere separation. The divine institution is that those united in the bond of marriage are bound to the mutual discharge of all marital debts until the bond is severed by death or by dissolution on a proper ground''

- Divorce, John Murray (1974)




AOC Feet Pics



“The office of deacon tends to amalgamate ranks, to soften differences, to prevent or correct pernicious misapprehensions.” [It prevents in the deacon] “the growth of selfishness and worldliness, and exaggerated views of life, in an age peculiarly addicted to such evils, is the more important.”

- The Deaconship, John G Lorimer (1861)




“Decisions, by all accounts, including those of the participants, were made with little knowledge of, or concern for, the lands and peoples about which and whom the decisions were being made.”

― A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East, David Fromkin (1989)




''And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel'' 

- Isa 45:3




 


"Posing questions to God in the right way can actually be an act of reverence and worship because it demonstrates that you want to use the trial of your faith to grow in your understanding of Him"

- Putting Your Past in Its Place: Moving Forward in Freedom and Forgiveness, Stephen Viars (2011)



''One of two things causes a man to change his mind and reverse his plans: one is foresight to anticipate everything, or lack of foresight to execute them. But as God is both omniscient and omnipotent there is never any need for Him to reverse His decrees''

- A.W. Pink




''The fear of God is the soul of godliness''

- Principles of Conduct, John Murray (1978)




"For they who have suffered their minds to be blindfolded with the love of harlots, for the satisfying of their filthy lusts, run desperately, and as it were headlong into innumerable evils, having neither understanding to foresee them, nor will to prevent them''

- A Treatise Against Fornication and Adultery, John Downame (1609)





Atmospheric Dawg



















Presbyterian Scrabble

















“This formation of man from soft clay, and of woman from a hard bone, also illustrated why man was so much more easily reconcilable than woman.”

― Sketches of Jewish Social Life in the Days of Christ, Alfred Edersheim (1876)



“Was he really eager to let the warm room, comfortably furnished with pieces he had inherited, be turned into a cavern in which he would, of course, then be able to crawl about in all directions without disturbance, but at the same time with a quick and complete forgetting of his human past as well?”

― The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka (1915)






''The slave-holder never had a right to force a man into his service, or to retain him, without an equivalent. To sell him, there fore, is to tempt another to sin, and to dispose of that for money, to which he never had a right'' 

- Negro Slavery Unjustifiable, Alexander McLeod (1802)



“There was no heat in these buildings, partly because the earliest meetinghouses also served as powder magazines, and fires threatened to blow the entire congregation to smithereens. They were bitter cold in winter. Many tales were told of frozen communion bread, frostbitten fingers, baptisms performed with chunks of ice and entire congregations with chattering teeth that sounded like a field of crickets. It was a point of honor for the minister never to shorten a service merely because his audience was frozen. But sometimes the entire congregation would begin to stamp its feet to restore circulation until the biblical rebuke came crashing down upon them: “STAND STILL and consider the wonderous work of God.” Later generations built “nooning houses” or “sab-baday houses” near the church where the congregation could thaw out after the morning sermon and prepare for the long afternoon sermon to come. But unheated meetings remained a regional folkway for two hundred years.”

―  Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America, David Hackett Fischer (1989)




“I said I *liked* being half-educated; you were so much more *surprised* at everything when you were ignorant.”

― My Family and Other Animals, Gerald Durrell (1956)



In Memoriam 

Luke Mitchell 

5/21/1999 - 6/5/2026:











“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”

― Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Hunter S. Thompson (1971)

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