March 2021 – Sisyphus

For a Flickering Moment

It was Sunday and He rode an unbroken colt in procession through the gates of Jerusalem, heir to the Davidic line and the doer of signs and wonders prophesied to mark the Anointed One, the Messiah, of the Lord who would free the children of Israel. Sweet hosannas were sung by the crowds and palm branches were gathered and waved in celebration as Jesus passed. In this brief moment it appeared that Heaven and Earth were reconciled and the enemies of Israel would be routed, heralding a golden age like none before it. David had also ridden a donkey, signifying to his people that he came to work, not on a horse that would signify a conqueror.

Of course, the optics were deceptive. I won’t share any spoilers, but that mundane golden age thing did not shape up to the expectations of Judah. For today, Jesus is the triumphant Messiah come to free His people and they celebrate. For a flickering moment.

Blessings to you all this beautiful Palm Sunday.

Project Veritas, the New York Times, and an American Justice

I received this today from James O’Keefe, reporting on Project Veritas’ lawsuit against the New York Times, and am inclined to share.

Late last year, The Times accused us of deception and a “coordinated disinformation campaign.” So, we sued.
The Times begged the Court to dismiss the case. However, Justice Charles D. Wood DENIED The New York Times’ Motion to Dismiss this lawsuit, stating “here there is a substantial basis in law and fact that” The Times’ reporters “acted with actual malice, that is, with knowledge that the statements in the Articles were false or made with reckless disregard of whether they were false or not.”
Now, we get to depose The New York Times, and it will be glorious:
The Times thought they could get away with labelling our Minnesota ballot harvesting video “deceptive” – the same video where ballot harvester Liban Mohamed was recorded bragging about hundreds of ballots in his car and how money is everything in a campaign:
When we sued, The Times argued their “deceptive” label was just an “unverifiable expression of opinion” and asked the Court to dismiss the case.
Justice Wood had to teach Journalism 101 to these corrupt Mainstream Media hacks:
It is that simple.
“If a writer interjects an opinion in a news article… it stands to reason that the writer should have an obligation to alert the reader … that it is opinion.”
Justice Wood called the failure to do so a “disinformation” and “deceptive”:
There it is.
“The dictionary definitions of ‘disinformation’ and ‘deceptive’ provided by [The New York Times’] counsel … certainly apply to [Times’ reporters’ Maggie] Astor’s and [Tiffany] Hsu’s failure to note that they injected their opinions in news articles[.]”.
The Times went further, however, arguing that in effect they are entitled to lie about Project Veritas because – WAIT FOR IT – the Mainstream Media and Big Tech don’t like us exposing them.
Justice Wood apparently did not appreciate The Times’ reliance on other media articles, a simple Google search, and a Wikipedia entry (yes… Wikipedia):
Did you catch that? The New York Times, even with its submission of a 45-page motion, three sworn statements, 66 exhibits, and three additional briefs/letters to court, was not able “to prove that the reporting by Veritas in the Video is deceptive.”

Justice Wood has done something that I thought I might never see again in this benighted land. He has held power to the standard of truth. The NYT citing Wikipedia in a court case is just the cherry on top of this fine sundae.

Andrew would be very proud.

Jesus and the Adulteress

It is an essential story of Jesus’ ministry. From John 8:

“3Then the scribes and Pharisees brought to Him a woman caught in adultery. And when they had set her in the midst,
4they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman was caught in adultery, in the very act.
5“Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned.d But what do You say?”
6This they said, testing Him, that they might have something of which to accuse Him. But Jesus stooped down and wrote on the ground with His finger, as though He did not hear.
7So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”
8And again He stooped down and wrote on the ground.
9Then those who heard it, being convicted by their conscience, went out one by one, beginning with the oldest even to the last. And Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.
10When Jesus had raised Himself up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are those accusers of yours? Has no one condemned you?”
11She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.”
12Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”
– NKJV

But that is not the quote of the day. There are always new translations that tug this way and that on points of doctrine or suggest novel insights into the most scrutinized texts in the history of the world. President Thomas Jefferson was famous in part for his groundbreaking, albeit private, edits of the Bible. Striking every passage witnessing to Jesus’ divinity, Jefferson reduced his own personal Jesus to a simple moralist. His mundane vision presaging a thousand sermons on the “Miracle of Sharing,” reducing the fish and loaves miracles to a mundane example of the power of sharing. Jefferson was privately a Deist while publicly posing as a worshipping Anglican. But he does not provide the quote of the day, either, just a useful example of the passion of sinful men to eviscerate the divine to claim absolute authority in their own right. Jefferson exercised vile authority over hundreds of slaves. And he shared this thought on the institution of slavery:

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.

So pretending that the Lord, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, was a mundane moralist of no particular authority comforted him in a way that tickled his intellectual vanity while calming his anxiety that he might be held accountable for his many, many sins. While there was forgiveness in the mercy of the Lord, as he would have heard every Sunday from his paid seat at Bruton Parish Church while studying law under the Whig George Wythe in Williamsburg, Jefferson clung to his cult of self with the enthusiasm of a dyed in the wool Modernist and Rationalist.

If Jefferson found anxiety in the authority of the divine, imagine a man whose crimes dwarf Jefferson, a holder not of hundreds of slaves but millions. Xi has undertaken to reform the revealed word of the Lord, which he finds to be irredeemably flawed. Xi and the CCP are excitedly working to produce a new, improved scripture that better reflects their views. From them, a fragment leaked to the Union of Catholic Asian News, as related by Crisis Magazine, sheds new darkness on the story of Jesus and the adulteress, changing the ending as follows:

When the crowd disappeared, Jesus stoned the sinner to death saying, “I too am a sinner. But if the law could only be executed by men without blemish, the law would be dead.”

Jesus then stones her to death.

Satan could not have put it more blasphemously himself. That is the quote of the day.

And having exposed you to such demonic tripe, I leave you with these words from Saint Paul as a consolation:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
-Galatians 1:6-9 (ESV)

Lord have mercy.

This post originally appeared on the Main Feed at Ricochet.

Why Do We Need a Pastor?

I spent most of my life as a homeless Christian, confirmed in His life, sacrifice on the cross, and resurrection, but without a trusted church body to inform and strengthen that faith. In the course of time my need to find a proper church home coincided with the ability to access and compare the representations of the major options and, in a time of disabling pain and illness, I found my way into an orthodox church body that teaches Jesus and Him crucified for our, even my, salvation. Praise His holy name.

A question came up in Bible Study under the topic of communion. “Why do we need a pastor?” This raised a cavalcade of possible responses. Why do we need a pastor for communion? Because that was the context of the Words of Institution and that was the institution that comes down to us from the early Church. In the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, we hold to the true presence of Jesus Christ in the bread and the wine through the words of consecration, those words spoken by an ordained minister of God acting as a proxy for Christ, and we don’t move on to unscriptural philosophical natterings. It is recognized to be a mystery, and it is a regular and central part of orthodox Christian worship, from Eastern Orthodox to Roman Catholicism to those parts of orthodox Protestantism that hold to the real presence rather than mere symbolism. (Hearing pastors in church bodies that hold to a symbolic interpretation laugh and remind us over barbecue that He said, “this is My body,” and “this is My blood,” when the question arose made for an orthodox wedge in the Protestant formation.) And if one who says they are without sin is a liar, how is any of us to navigate the modern religious bazaar to find the narrow gate without the right teaching, the orthodoxy, presented authoritatively by a right teaching pastor?

I am thankful every day for my right teaching pastor. Sin is sin, God is God, Satan is Satan, and Jesus is, every Sunday, crucified and risen for our salvation.

Now unpack all of that for a modern American seeker that has wandered in off the street in two or three sentences. Maybe stuffed full of prosperity gospel, or that name it and claim drivel that someone told them was Christianity. You, Dr. Augustine? Maybe you, Dr. Luther? Dr. Aquinas? Dr. Chrysostom? You know where to find me when you are ready.

His peace be with you.

Andrew

We lost Andrew nine years ago today. He left a widow, four children, and a huge vacuum that hundreds have stepped up to try and fill. At the time, PayPal refused to allow the trust created to help raise his children. They created a special rule in an attempt to deprive four children of comfort and support after the loss of their father. There are no words.

You shall not mistreat any widow or fatherless child. If you do mistreat them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry, and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
– Exodus 22:22-24

But checks work. The most recent address I found for the trust is

Breitbart Children’s Trust
149 S. Barrington Ave, #735
Los Angeles, CA 90049

Contribute. Because you love Andrew or because PayPal is such a force for evil in the world. If you wear the rollerblades to do it, let us know. Rest in peace, Andrew.