The West Did Not Invent The African Slave Trade

You will often, particularly online, hear people say something like this; the African slave trade was a ‘racist, white, patriarchal colonialist institution’, it was the white man’s hatred of the black man that fuelled the slave trade. Now, putting aside the fact that the word ‘slave’ developed from ‘Slav’, the white eastern Europeans who were taken as slaves so often their names became synonymous with the institution of slavery in Europe, this idea that the African slave trade was a ‘white, patriarchal, colonial institution’ is both ahistorical and ridiculous.

Did Colonialists engage in it? Yes. Did racists engage in it? Yes. Did white Europeans start the African slave trade? No. Long before white Europeans engaged in the African slave trade, Muslims, and prior to that Arab slave traders were heavily involved in running Slaves to and from Africa. How far does this go back. Well at least a few thousand years actually. Genesis 37:25-28 says this:

“25 Then they sat down to eat. And looking up they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, with their camels bearing gum, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry it down to Egypt. 26 Then Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is it if we kill our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother, our own flesh.” And his brothers listened to him. 28 Then Midianite traders passed by. And they drew Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. They took Joseph to Egypt.”

Who are the Midianites/Ishmaelites in this passage? The ancestors of the Arabs, from whence Islam developed in the 7^th century AD. What are they doing? They are engaging in the African (Egyptian at this time) slave trade. And Joseph’s wicked brothers participate in it with them, selling their own brother as a slave. The African slave trade, in all its various forms existed long before England even existed as a nation, let alone set their sights on the evil trade. How long were these proto-Arabs involved in this trade before this passage? We cannot know, but here we have a clear indication that it has a long history in their culture. 

As the image above shows, the African slave trade dates back far into ancient times. This picture represents Nubians, a north African people and an ancient and at times powerful kingdom, being transported as slaves by Egyptian slave traders. Indeed, sadly this African slave trade still exists today, long after Colonial rule has been removed from the continent. With open slave markets in Libya and other parts of Africa. And we can safely predict, that sadly, it will probably go on for some time yet. 

For most of early European history, various European people's made slaves of each other. Greeks made slaves of other Greeks and non-Greeks, Romans of Thracians, Germans of Slavs, Romans of Celts and Gauls, etc, etc. But regarding our specific topic here, yes, Europeans, got involved in the evils of the African slave trade, and yes it corrupted us for a time. But we also put an end to it in the West. To blame the West for the institution of the African slave trade is ahistorical, and blaming it on the idea of "white patriarchy" is just plain ridiculous. History always makes a mockery of bad arguments. If you don’t know where to start, begin with the most well-read history ever written, the Bible.

Doomsday Preppers Ain’t Always Crazy

Preppers ain’t always crazy. Sure, they can be crazy in an awesome way. I remember one of my favourite examples was on a show called Doomsday Bunkers or something like that, I can’t even remember the actual name of the show. One of the guys built this awesome bunker underground that had several rooms. It was bigger than a decent size caravan. But the most awesome bit was the entrance. He had pop up sentry guns set up outside, and if you got past those you then had to go down a booby trapped flight of stairs. In the flight of stairs, the guy who had designed the bunker, built in actual flame throwers into the rails on each side, that could be activated behind a solid blast door at the end of the hallway. It would roast to death anyone in the stairway. Brutal, awesome and crazy all at the same time.

The reason prepper shows are fun is because many of the characters on them are a little crazy, but the truth is they aren’t completely crazy. Even the guy who had a box of weapons, ammunition, food, and other rations buried all around his house, so that he is never more than 1 minute from a weapons defence cache…ok that guy is a more than a little crazy. But even though some of these guys are probably not playing with a full deck, many of them are, and many of them know that just because our civilisation is reasonably stable now, that does not mean it will always be, and the way things are looking, society could turn for the worse sooner, rather than later.

The reason so many people make fun of these doomsday preppers is because they are often presented as preparing for Armageddon. Much of the secular world mocks the idea of preparing for Armageddon, because they don’t believe it is going to happen. So often they will just look at preppers as weirdos because of this fact. Even many Christians feel a similar way, because some believe they will be zapped out before things get really bad, other’s just think it is unwise to focus on Armageddon and prepping for it. But I want to give a completely different take on why preppers ain’t always crazy.

Because, while we have no idea, whatsoever, when the world will end, that is up to God, and he alone knows the day and the hour, we do know this: before he returns many civilizations will rise and fall. We know that because we read that in history. Being prepared for such a cataclysm to happen in our time is wise. A black-piller sees the trends in the West today and says, “There is nothing we can do about this.” A man of the West, who wants to leave a legacy for the next generation, and then ten generations after that, says, “Come what may, we will be prepared, and if that fails, at least we went down fighting.”

Many people think our civilization will last forever, and that the world is on a constant progression to better and better technology, and more and more civilization spreading across this world. But the truth is that many other civilizations thought the exact same thing, and they were wrong. Sometimes civilizations progress takes a big leap backwards.

    

The Romans thought their civilization would last forever, that they were the pinnacle of human achievement, and that the sun would never set on their empire. Listen to this from Edward Gibbon (1845, Chapter 1, Kindle Edition);

“It was an ancient tradition, that when the Capitol was founded by one of the Roman kings, the god Terminus (who presided over boundaries, and was represented, according to the fashion of that age, by a large stone) alone, among all the inferior deities, refused to yield his place to Jupiter himself. A favorable inference was drawn from his obstinacy, which was interpreted by the augurs as a sure presage that the boundaries of the Roman power would never recede. During many ages, the prediction, as it is usual, contributed to its own accomplishment.”

In other words, it was official Roman mythology, that their vast Empire would stand the test of all future generations and never fade away. They believed they were destined by the gods to rule over a vast empire that roughly equated to the territory they controlled by the reign of the first emperor, Augustus. It was their god given destiny. Rome would not extend beyond it’s god given borders, but neither would it recede. And for many generations, and many travails, this prophecy appeared to be solid.

Again we read (Gibbon 1985, Chapter 1, Kindle Edition)

“The only accession which the Roman empire received, during the first century of the Christian Era, was the province of Britain. In this single instance, the successors of Cæsar and Augustus were persuaded to follow the example of the former, rather than the precept of the latter. The proximity of its situation to the coast of Gaul seemed to invite their arms; the pleasing though doubtful intelligence of a pearl fishery, attracted their avarice; and as Britain was viewed in the light of a distinct and insulated world, the conquest scarcely formed any exception to the general system of continental measures.”

The Isles of Britannia were too close and too tempting for Claudius, so Briton was added to the Roman Empire in the mid 1^st century, and by the later part of the 1^st century the Britons had been thoroughly conquered and subdued. The Scottish Highlands remained wild, but what we would call England and Wales was made Roman.

The Roman empire was a vast and powerful beast, that subdued nations before it. Anyone who lived in the Roman provinces in the 2^nd Century AD was certain their civilization was secure, and anyone who lived on the other side of those boundaries, was reminded again and again, by the Roman Legions just how secure it was. The Prophet Daniel described Rome thus,

“After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns” (Daniel 7:7).

How is such a beast ever subdued? How can such a mighty civilisation such as Rome not last forever? The answer is simple: no human civilisation, no matter how fierce, is invincible to decay. Hence Gibbon (1985, Chapter 1, Kindle Edition) writes this: 

      

“In the second century of the Christian Era, the empire of Rome comprehended the fairest part of the earth, and the most civilized portion of mankind. The frontiers of that extensive monarchy were guarded by ancient renown and disciplined valor. The gentle but powerful influence of laws and manners had gradually cemented the union of the provinces. Their peaceful inhabitants enjoyed and abused the advantages of wealth and luxury. The image of a free constitution was preserved with decent reverence: the Roman senate appeared to possess the sovereign authority, and devolved on the emperors all the executive powers of government. During a happy period of more than fourscore years, the public administration was conducted by the virtue and abilities of Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and the two Antonines. It is the design of this, and of the two succeeding chapters, to describe the prosperous condition of their empire; and after wards, from the death of Marcus Antoninus, to deduce the most important circumstances of its decline and fall; a revolution which will ever be remembered, and is still felt by the nations of the earth.”

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. If great Rome, and Rome truly was a great, fell, how foolish are we to think that our civilization is invincible? Civilization is like a garden, and gardens need to be tended to flourish, if they are not tended they revert to their wild state. Indeed, not only is it a possibility that our civilisation will face a period of decline, it’s a certainty to happen to one degree or another. But the degree to which is happens will be largely dependent on how ready the men who are a part of it are prepared for the hard times ahead.

You see, in many ways Australia is like Britannia at the later stages of the Roman Empire. Picture yourself in Roman Briton in the 3^rd or 4^th centuries AD. You live in Roman cities, enjoy Roman baths, enjoy Roman luxuries, speak in the Roman language. How is this made possible? Britannia is on the outskirts of the Roman Empire, far away from the centre of Roman power and influence. It is made possible, because Roman Legions patrol the wall, guard the cities of Britannia, and keep the peace. And they don’t just do that in Briton, they guard Rome along the Rhine, in the Balkans, in Syria and Palestine and many more places. Roman legions maintain the frontiers, so that Roman’s within them can live like Romans. But when the legions can no longer do their job, because of internal decline and decadence, and overwhelming numbers of invading barbarians, then everything starts to fall apart.

If you can’t see the similarities between Australia’s situation now, and Britannia’s in the 4^th and early 5^th centuries, then let me spell it out for you. While we are our own nation, Australia is accurately viewed as an outpost of the Anglo-American Empire. Started as a British penal colony, part of the English Empire, British red shirts made our nation possible from the start. Because we were founded in the height of European power, and the peak of British Colonialism, we have been able to live in relative peace. The barbarians never much troubled these lands. In our most vulnerable moment, during World War 2 many of our men fought bravely to defend this nation. But let’s be honest, it was the British and American Navies who took the brunt of the Japanese onslaught that allowed Australia to fend off the Japanese attacks. This does not diminish the efforts of our brave national heroes, but it should remind us Australians of our place in the world. The Anglo-American empire defended its province, and while first British, and now American, navies patrol the oceans, we can continue to live like Aussies; aka Anglo-Saxons of the southern land. But as India, China, Indonesia, and other non-Western nations rise, the Empires legions will be pushed to the brink, over-extended, and eventually they will be recalled. The question for us is: are we ready?

I refuse to black-pill. Black pilling to me is just another form of cucking. It’s handing the future to other men; don’t do it, don’t ever do it.

So then, how do we prepare? Well there is simple stuff everyone can do.

First, build localized community in your life. Networks of people who you can get along with, who have different skill sets and abilities, that you can pool together to make a community as self-sustaining as possible. Churches are a great place to build community, the Apostle Paul knew what he was talking about when he said we should gather in like-minded communities. While most westerners are building their networks over great distances, which inherently makes them more fragile, we should be putting most of our efforts into localized communities. That doesn’t mean we can’t have larger, even international networks, they are necessary and good, but as civilisation begins to recede, they will become more and more fragile, and the local becomes more vital. 

  

You also need to store important civilisational knowledge and skills. Whether it is in books, personal skills, or skills in your family, the more you can build up in this regard the better off you will be. Many families in my church are learning to prepare their own food, and grow their own produce. One family just learnt recently how to butcher a cow without cutting the stomach open and getting piss and half-digested food all over the meat. Others are skilled hunters, and I have learned a lot going hunting with them. Many have building skills and many more talents. No one can do everything, surround yourself with skilled people and learn from them.

Very importantly we should be teaching ourselves how to live with less, rather than more. A decadent lifestyle inherently makes us soft and vulnerable, and less prepared for hard times. We live in a culture of plenty, but there has never been any place in history where prosperity has continued unabridged forever. Maybe it will continue in our lifetime, but trends say otherwise. Living with less includes shedding ourselves of as much debt as possible, as times get harder, it becomes harder to earn an income. Use good times to prepare for hard times, use times of plenty to prepare for times of lack. Everyone used to know this, but we have forgotten this important life principle.

At the end of the day, we should be ready to fight for our culture, family, extended family and nation.

Men of the West hard times may be upon us soon, are you preparing yourself? Or are you ignoring global trends and pretending that the good times will continue to roll on. Maybe they will, but better to have done some preparation, and not need it, than to have done none and be caught unawares. 

We can’t control the future, but we can make sure we do our best to show up for whatever it throws at us.

Middle Class Christianity vs Christianity

A lot of what is called Christian morality today is not necessarily Christian, but more accurately described as Middle Class Christianity. It is the Christianity influenced by the Victorian era politeness and the rather quiet in door working spaces of many Christians, who tend heavily towards the middle class.

Here are examples of the difference:

Middle Class Christianity: Don't be harsh and use mean words to those who come to you, especially if they are in need.

Christianity: Jesus said to the Syrophoenician woman: You don't give the children’s food to the dogs (Matt 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30).

Middle Class Christianity: It is wrong to even insult those who reject the message of Jesus.

Christianity: Jesus said to the disciples to shake the dust of their feet when leaving an unbelieving town or even home (Matt 10:14). A visible and very offensive gesture in his day. Use your imagination to think of similar offensive gestures 

Middle Class Christianity: Quiet kindness and addressing your audience in calm smooth tones is the way to address people. Don’t use ad-hominins, stereotypes, or harsh language.  

Christianity: Jesus in the gospel of Matthew: Woe to you Pharisees, you brood of vipers, you snakes, you white-washed tombs, you rotten corpses twice dead, you sons of hell (Matt 23).

Middle Class Christianity: Always use reason, dialectic and let your passion be bridled.

Christianity: Paul to the Judaizers: why don't you go and cut of your manhood’s (Gal. 5:12) you dogs (Phil. 3:2). Now that is powerful rhetoric. Indeed Paul was very good with rhetoric. Though yes, like all rational thinkers, he preferred dialectic, he still used rhetoric when it was useful. 

Middle Class Christianity: Never, ever use bad words. Bad words are sin, bad words are never to pass your lips.

Christianity: Use bad words for bad things. For example: Paul refers to anything we would trust in for salvation other than Jesus as ‘skubala’ (Phil. 3:8). The Greek word 'skubala' is translated often as 'refuse' or 'rubbish' in English, but the KJV translated it 'dung', which is closer to its actual meaning. The word was actually the 1st century version of the word crap/B.S.. I am not making that up, everyone who has studied Greek knows this. Then there is Jesus using the word "Raca", a harsh and brutal insult (Matt. 5:22-23). Key point: they did not use these words to curse people. But the words themselves are just words, with a proper use in context.

Middle Class Christianity: Don't insult people.

Christianity: "The devil rides you", my favourite Martin Luther quote. Jesus, John the Baptist, Paul and John the apostle all insulted people. John the Baptist seemed to have a favourite: “You brood of vipers” (Matt. 3:7).

Middle Class Christianity: Is over-weighted with quiet middle class people who work in quiet controlled environments, where politeness and other such manners are part of the culture of the home and work environment.

Christianity: Is vibrant and open to many different people from various cultures, and is not just confined to the quiet submissive types who frequent office buildings, and knitting circles. Christianity is a religion that is for all people. Not just people who tend towards quiet and calm and polite conversation.

Now this post is not arguing that we should always use these harsher tones and harsher words, just that they are not always sin, if used properly, as Paul, Jesus and other Biblical people used them. This is not a summary of all of Christianity, there is much more to Christianity. But don't confuse actual Christianity, with Victorian niceties, and white, middle class culture.

Dangerous Children

Social media and the news media have been awash over the last couple of weeks with Greta Thunberg, the young, self-proclaimed mentally ill, Swedish teenager who has been given a platform to stare down, berate, challenge, and otherwise scold the leaders of the world.

A lot has been said about this girl, about her handlers, about how she is being used to try and guilt so called “climate-deniers” into refusing to challenge her. Though from everything I have seen, she has had the exact opposite effect than what was intended. Most of what I have seen online has this girl memefied to the hilt like no one else in modern political discourse, other than perhaps President Trump himself. She has been mocked profusely, and in my opinion rightly so. Her proposals are dangerous, and doubly so considering most of her attacks on world leaders are correct: they are largely cowards who can be bullied into foolish action. If they were to implement her proposals it would lead to the destruction of every developed nation’s economy, mass poverty, starvation, and more.

Not only are most people not falling for her clear and utterly obvious stage acting performance, she has seemed to create more of an uproar against those who would seek to use a young girl for a cause like this, rather than win anybody over to the climate cult’s religion. Which is good, it shows more people are waking up to the strategies used by the globalists to push their agenda. 

  

But there is a more sinister undertone to this whole event that I think many people are missing, and to illustrate that event I want to talk about the Crusades you may not have heard of: the Children’s Crusades.

The Crusades are a favourite club that skeptics have long liked to use against Christians when seeking to denigrate our faith. Blaming Christians for the crusades can be likened to a punk kid punching the big kid at school over and over again, and then complaining to the teacher when the big kid hits him back. Every unbiased witness can see it was self-defence, the big kid was provoked, indeed he used a lot of restraint in not hitting the other kid back straight away. This is precisely the situation with the medieval crusades from 1095 A.D. to 1270 A.D..

They were, overall, a response to several centuries of Islamic incursions into the Western lands. “The immediate causes of the Crusades were the ill treatment of pilgrims visiting Jerusalem and the appeal of the Greek emperor, who was hard pressed by the Turks” (Schaff 1988, 221). Islam struck Christendom first, and continued to, long before a concerted effort was enacted by the West to strike back. “The aim of the crusades was the conquest of the Holy Land and the defeat of Islam” but it was inspired by countless Europeans who were incensed at the abuse which was perpetrated on Christians during their pilgrimages to the Promised Land (Schaff 1988, 220). Islam had struck Christendom, repeatedly, and viscously, and the Crusades were an inevitable and necessary response.

But that doesn’t mean all of the Crusades were all morally good, all effective, or even all sensible. Hitting the trifecta of being neither morally good, effective or sensible were the Children’s Crusades. But a little context is needed to help us understand how a Children’s Crusade could even happen.

The historical event of the Crusades is a fascinating one. A truly “Holy War” phenomenon like this had not been seen before, and has not truly been seen since (unless you include the Jihad war we are in right now, that the Western nations pretend isn’t exactly that). They created in the Western mind somewhat of a unique situation, where a strong and zealous “holy war” climate overcame much of Europe and forged in the Christian identity of many a desire for a righteous confrontation in the lands of the Middle East.

Though always holding a special, and unique place in Christianity, the mystical reframing of Jerusalem became a growing trend in European Christianity. Even though figures like Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and Jerome himself, advised people that Christ was with them wherever they may be, the desire to travel to the Holy Land grew amongst Christians,  

“The Holy Land became to the imagination a land of wonders, filled with the divine presence of Christ. To have visited it, to have seen Jerusalem, to have bathed in the Jordan, was for a man to have about him a halo of sanctity. The accounts of returning pilgrims were listened to in convent and on the street with open mouthed curiosity. To surmount the dangers of such a journey in a pious frame of mind was a means of expiation for sin” (Schaff 1988, 222).  

It became a spiritual height to aspire to, to be a person who journeyed to Jerusalem, simply because our Lord walked that very city (Schaff 1988, 222). It’s hard for the modern western mind to understand this desire for pilgrimage, but the medieval mind saw it as mark of true righteousness.

A religious fervour overtook many Western Christians in these two crusading centuries from 1095-1270. Yes, there were solid reasons to respond to the violence of Islam, yes there were practical reasons for wanting to defend Christian pilgrims from barbaric attacks. But it became more than that. It became a religious quest that many Europeans aspired to, to be a crusader, was to be something special, something set apart, something other worldly.

This religious fervour spread throughout all the classes of Europe’s people, and all the age groups; including the children. “The crusading epidemic broke out among the children of France and Germany in 1212. Begotten in enthusiasm, which was fanned by priestly zeal, the movement ended in pitiful disaster” (Schaff 1988, 266).  

Any movement which encourages children to become sacrificial lambs and lay down their lives for its cause has gone to far. These highly religious climates can have side effects that causes everyone to recoil in horror, but too often this comes after the fact. During the height of the religious fervour adults egged the children on, used them as examples of innocent virtue, and even used them to shame other adults who are not as zealous for the cause,

“The French expedition was led by Stephen, a shepherd lad of twelve, living at the Cloyes near Chartes. He had a vision, so the rumour went, in which Christ appeared to him as a pilgrim and made an appeal for the rescue of the holy places. Journeying to St. Denis, the boy retailed the account of what he had seen. Other children gathered around him. The enthusiasm spread from Brittany to the Pyrenese. In vain did the king of attempt to check the movement. The army increased to thirty thousand, girls as well as boys, adults as well as children…They reached Marseilles, but the waves did not part and let them go through dryshod as they expected” (Schaff 1988, 266-7).

“The centres of the movement in Germany were Nicholas, a child of ten, and a second leader whose name has been lost. Cologne was the rallying point. Children of noble families enlisted. Along with the boys and girls went men and women, good and bad” (Schaff 1988, 267). (Emphasis mine).

Those in the German retinue reached Genoa in August 1212, their “numbers had been reduced by hardship, death, and moral shipwreck from twenty to seven thousand.” A report from the time says that Innocent the 3^rd refused to let them free of their oath to defeat the Saracens (Schaff 1988, 268). They made their way to Brindisi, where some of the children sailed, and were never heard from again (Schaff 1988, 267).

“The fate of the French children was, if possible, still more pitiable. At Marseilles they fell prey to two slave dealers, who for “the sake of God and without price” offered to convey them across the Mediterranean. Their names are preserved, - Hugo Ferrus and William Porcus. Seven vessels set sail. Two were shipwrecked on the little island of San Pietro off the northwestern coast of Sardinia. The rest reached the African shore, where the children were sold into slavery” (Schaff 1988, 268).

These children were literally fed into the hands of these despicable, opportunistic adults. Their fate? Well, the same horrible fate of all of the other small children sold in Islamic slavery in the Medieval age. Pope Innocent the third summarized their pilgrimage thus, “They put us to shame. While they rush to the recovery of the Holy Land, we sleep” (In Schaff 1988, 268).

Yes Pope, they put you to shame, but not by their relentless zealotry, but because of the inability of the adults of Europe to protect these children from their small minds, and lack of wisdom. Children are not to be leaders of mass movements, they are the next generation which we adults must dedicate our whole lives to guarding, until they are adults themselves.

Scaff (1988,266) rightly describes the Children’s Crusade as “the slaughter of innocents on a large scale.” Because that is precisely what they were. But bad adults, for their own purposes, both accompanied and egged on these child Crusaders because of the heightened air of the moment. It’s one thing to send a well trained and equipped, and battle ready force of soldiers to Palestine to liberate Christian pilgrims, it’s another thing entirely to allow children to be caught up in the atmosphere to march themselves.

But Pope Innocent’s words could almost be read on the cover of a modern newspaper or online news site. A modern Pope Innocent the Third analogue might say, “They put us to shame. While they skip school and rush to the steps of parliament to protest climate change, we adults sleep.” Or as one actual headline in the Guardian reads: “My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back” (Monbiot, 2019). We live in ever increasing radical times.

There is a hint of the Child Crusade leaders Nicholas and Stephen in Greta Thunberg. Children like her are dangerous, precisely because there are so many adults around her who will delight to use her to inspire other children to dangerous action. And like the climate of the Crusading era, we live in a similarly zealous religious climate where people will seek any and all means to achieve their radical ends.

The climate cult appears to be the fastest growing religion of our age. They have their core doctrine, anthropogenic climate change, which cannot be challenged by any evidence to the contrary. They have false prophets, Al Gore and most of the media. They now have child saints, Greta Thunberg. They even have a means of propitiating sin: carbon offsets, which coincidentally make the false climate prophets rich, just as indulgences once made corrupt Popes rich. They have their crusade: to lower the western nations emissions, drastically by 2030. And they even have their end time prophecies: global destruction in 12 years…or whatever the new number is. It changes more regularly than an American charismatic predicting the return of Christ.  

But worst of all, they have their fingers tips in schools where countless young children, disenfranchised by the modern godless society we live in, and with increasing amounts of depressive and other mental disorders, are at the mercy of their teachings, and their radical agenda. And it just so happens that these children have been trained by the modern school system and media, to look to their peers for inspiration, rather than to wise, and stable adults (which are becoming a rare breed). They have been trained to be inspired by the Greta Thunbergs of this world. This makes her dangerous, and the people behind her even more so. Our children are just a means to their wicked ends.  

This all looks like a recipe for disaster, a modern version of the disaster of the Children’s Crusade. Unless we do what adults are supposed to do, and challenge the whole global cult narrative, and make sure our children, and the parents we can influence are protecting their children from the growing calls to climate radicalism.

We should no longer laugh at the Climate Cult, it is coming for our children, and this makes it dangerous, and a force to be opposed. The Greta’s of this world are dangerous, precisely because many of our world leaders are foolish enough to be led by children.

Isaiah 3:12 “12 My people—infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”

Men of the West rise, you are needed.  

References

Schaff, Phillip, 1988, A History of the Christian Church.

George Monbiot, 2019, My generation trashed the planet. So I salute the children striking back https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/15/planet-children-protest-climate-change-speech

The Golden Age of Women in the Home

Supporting and encouraging mothers in the home is vital for the survival of our civilization.
From the introduction to Grimm's Fairy Tales:
"So why did the Grimm's call their book "Children's and House-Tales"? The answer is part of their liberal [read democratic] belief system. A lot of related tendencies - love of country, individual rights, and representative government - were tied up with the liberal cause. The people who championed theses ideas, and who benefited most from them, were middle class men like the Grimms - who had a good education, but didn't belong to the circles of aristocratic power, and who made their living in business or through their knowledge. Another belief that was common among the middle class had to do with the place of women and men in the world: it was a man's job to go out and earn a living, whereas a woman's place was in the home and with the family, having children and bringing them up as virtuous citizens. This is why, when the Grimm's father died, their mother did not find a job, as she might have today, but instead took care of their younger siblings at home. For her to work in the fields or do laundry or become a servant would have been seen as shameful, only something a lower-class woman would do. These scruples may seem silly to us today, but it was one way people like the Grimms showed that they were different from, and better than, those beneath them on the social scale and those of the upper classes. (Aristocratic women certainly didn't have to work, but they could still participate in public life and be influential through their wealth and connections.) To the Grimms, men were the producers of culture, whole women were the reproducers. Thus, "Children's and House-tales" to the Grimms, the tales mothers told their children were the storehouse of "real" German heritage, culture, and beliefs."
To summarize men went to work to provide for their families and build the societal structures to help the culture flourish, and the mothers passed this culture on to their children through education in the home and this ensured that the next generation were saturated in the traditions which ensured their culture would flourish.
If you are wondering why our culture has been so thoroughly inverted, twisted, broken down and decayed (to put it mildly), look not further than this one fact: the vanguard of our culture, ennobled women equipped and supported to educate the vast majority of our future leaders in the home, have been almost completely done away with, and now most men and most women both slave for the man in the workforce, and the raising of children is given over to complete strangers, who rarely share the values we hold dear. And often have values which are completely the opposite of what we hold dear.
Make no mistake, the idea of women being able to stay at home, and encouraged to do so, was not a state of oppression, but a short window of a golden age which we are fast losing. For most of history everyone worked for the man, and the middle class did not exist. We are fast seeing that golden age fade away, and the forcing of men and women to both work is part of the reason it is.
Note above: the idea of women being able to stay at home was once seen as a liberal (freedom encouraging) innovation of a highly successful society. Wicked people turned it into an insult, and an idea that many today believe, but are afraid to say publicly. Let's not let our society return completely to the age of everyone, man and woman, serving the rich, but instead create homes where passing our culture to our children is again a priority.

References:

The Brothers Grimm 2011, Grimms Complete Fairy Tales, Canterbury Classics, San Diego

The Pharisees Weren’t Church Leaders

So often you will hear like for like comparisons made between church leaders and Pharisees. People will say stuff like: Jesus reserved his harshest criticisms for the religious leaders. A famous passage where Jesus does this is Matthew 23 where Jesus gives us such pearlers as: “2 The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses' seat, 3 so do and observe whatever they tell you, but not the works they do. For they preach, but do not practice. 4 They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger” (vv.2-4). Or how about this: “15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves” (v.15). Or this one here, “You blind fools” (v.17). “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness” (v.27). And my favourite verse in this whole passage - “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?” (v.33).

So, they were lazy, hypocritical, whitewashed tombs, snakes, vipers, and children of hell. I could give you a rundown of modern versions of all these insults, but I want to keep my job as a pastor, so I’ll let your imagination run wild. But suffice it to say Jesus hammers these mongrels with enough invective that we can pretty accurately declare that he didn’t like these guys at all.  

Now, the common, and very powerful application that is often made is as mentioned above: Jesus reserved his harshest criticisms for the religious leaders, and therefore so should we. And there is certainly more than a grain of truth in this, as the Pharisees were religious, they were often leaders, and as Jesus said, they sat in Moses’ seat. This application is then further extended to filter down to every level of the church leadership, and then on to all Christians who have what is considered unreasonably high standards of behaviour, or are considered too judgemental, or who add to the commands of scripture, or who nullify passages of scripture because of certain traditions, etc. Every Christian is aware of the way this teaching on Jesus' anger towards Pharisees is used to challenge church culture.

I have made many similar applications myself in many sermons over the years. And I will put my hand up and admit to being a Pharisee more than once, and I take very seriously the need to examine myself, reserve judgement, and seek not to put burdens on people with my teaching, so as to not be a Pharisee in practice. But I know I don’t do it perfectly, I admit that, many of us Christians fail in this regard more than we should.

Now there are those who see Jesus attacking these religious leaders and they add this to their application of this passage: you should never use such strong or harsh language with non-believers, because Jesus only reserved it for Christian leaders. But here is the quandary: the Pharisees weren’t church leaders. So, to compare them to church leaders is not quite exact or completely accurate.

The Pharisees would better be described as thought leaders, culture leaders, culture pushers, or even culture watch dogs. Some of them would have been synagogue leaders, and members of the Sanhedrin, or part of the Levitical priesthood, etc. But there is a really big difference between Jewish culture in the 1^st century AD and our culture in the modern West that people often miss: the Jews in first century Israel, and indeed prior to that century, lived in a culture that did not separate the Church and the state, as we do in our modern culture. Therefore, in their culture there wasn’t a distinction between the religious leaders, and secular leaders, there was just the leaders. Our modern culture has, to a large degree, split the leadership of the church, and the wider society apart. Where, apart from the occasional exception, religious leaders and, say, government leaders, or culture leaders are not the same thing.

So, it would be much more accurate to say that Jesus was attacking the leaders of the Jewish people. When he says that they sat in Moses’ seat this means that they sat in the role of judgement of the people on what was right and what was not right. Moses was a prophet, he was a Levite, but he was also a judge who had to determine what we would consider both civil and religious matters of law. So being in Moses’ seat would include our modern equivalent of religious leaders, and it would also include, judges, politicians at every level, media commentators, opinion journalists, and many other people in our modern culture.

Indeed, if I were to explain it this way: the Pharisees were the equivalent of the thought police in their day, who rallied up antagonism against those who broke social taboos, expected synagogue leaders to tow their very strict, but to some degree subjective, interpretation of a morality code, who got people fired and persecuted for not living according to their values, and made everyone around them walk on egg shells regarding what they said and did…who would this remind you off?

Well, it sounds so much more like the modern progressive left than the actual Church in 2019.

Don’t get me wrong the Church has engaged in such behaviour at different points in the past, and likely will again in the future. But the Church is no longer the dominant cultural force in modern Australia. People don’t get harassed at work for not wearing crosses, or Jesus fish, and not celebrating Christmas. They get harassed at work for not wearing rainbow flags, or celebrating pride month, or sharing Bible teachings that contradict our sexular culture.

The new cultural leaders have a very different ideology to the Pharisees of the 1^st century, but they are the exact same type of person: they are the people who want to enforce their morality on others, who make others feel judged and pressured into complying, and who, even though they are a minority, punch above their weight precisely because they are so radical.

So, when you realize that Jesus wasn’t talking to church leaders, he was talking to culture leaders in a religious society, and that equivalent people in culture can be found both inside the church, and outside the church, then you realize that Jesus didn’t reserve his harshest words just for corrupt religious leaders. He reserved his harshest words for leaders who harm people. He reserved his harshest words for leaders who police people according to ridiculous standards of morality, they themselves don’t even try to uphold. He reserved his harshest words for those who like whitewashed tombs virtual signal on the outside, but on the inside have evil intentions, and love the attention virtual signalling affords them.

If you took a Pharisee and transported him to today’s world, he might not recognize much of the world we live in today. But he would work out pretty quickly who to cosy up to so that he could gain the social recognition in society he craved, and it would be just as likely he found those people outside the church as in it.  

If this is the case, and it surely is the case, then maybe we in the church should not get so pedantic and precious when every now and then someone responds to the Pharisees of the modern sexual culture in the same way Jesus spoke to the Pharisees of his day. Every culture has its harmful culture police, who place insane burdens on people’s backs. And in every culture they should be challenged by those who believe in the beautiful, the good, and the true, whether they go to church or not. And if sometimes they are harsh, like Jesus was harsh to the Pharisees in sharing his message, then that's ok. There are many things we should imitate Jesus in, and one of those things we should imitate is Jesus' anger towards leaders, whether thought leaders, culture leaders, or other people powerful people, who harm people with their ridiculous virtue signalling and moral policing. The next time you see someone challenging the cultural progressives the way Jesus challenged the Pharisees, harshly, rather than simply telling them to be more polite, stop for a moment and ask yourself: might their anger be warranted? There are times when it is the only just response. We should be slow to anger, but not so slow that we allow people to be harmed.         

The Good News You Are Rarely, If Ever, Told

There is an aspect of the gospel that you don’t hear about very often anymore, which we will get to in a moment…

If you speak to any Christian they will tell you that the gospel is good news, indeed Gospel means good news. Many Christians will be able to tell you what the good news contains – they will be able to tell you that it is the message that God has saved sinners. Paul tells us this very clearly in 1 Corinthians 15 for example. Romans 10 also expresses a similar thought, as do many other passages. The good news that people recognize is that Jesus died on the cross, paid the penalty for our sins, and rose again achieving victory over evil, and sin, and paved the way for all who believe in him to also be resurrected. If the Christian you speak to is not able to express this message, they will at least recognize it, and will be able to express it with just a little prompting.

But even though this is what is of first importance in the gospel, there are important aspects of the good news that you probably never hear about, even in some of the really good churches that still preach the gospel. This could be for many different reasons. Maybe the pastor is not trained deeply in gospel theology. Maybe they are influenced so much by a particular way of sharing the gospel that they have gone down a very narrow track. Maybe they have just forgotten that there is more to the gospel that gives it reason to be called good news. Or maybe it is some other reason. But whatever the reason, so many Christians were willing to hammer Israel Folau, because they saw his gospel presentation as lacking when he shared his now infamous tweet.

Now I have said to many different people, I support Israel Folau’s right to free speech, and while I wouldn’t share the gospel exactly as he did, because I find it a bit tacky, nothing he said was wrong, nothing he said was unbiblical, and nothing he said was even half as harsh as how many preachers in the Bible itself even talk. I’ve heard him called a jerk by some. But if he was a jerk, then what was John the Baptist when he was way harsher? But still many Christians criticised him, many Christians saw him as way too harsh, and many Christians were embarrassed by how he shared it. Why though?

Well probably for several reasons. Some Christians are just embarrassed that the Bible is so blunt about sin. They find this hard to deal with, because our culture has trained us to always focus on the positives. These kinds of Christians only want to express the “lovey” parts of scripture and not the other parts. They also don’t want their non-believing friends to know just how many things the Bible calls evil, that the world thinks are ok. They will say something like: I save that message for one on one conversations, which is just another way of saying, they rarely mention it. Another reason is that most people are peacekeepers in personality, they can’t stand confrontation and will do everything they humanly can to avoid it. I find this incredibly frustrating myself, but it is just a fact we must live with; most people recoil at the first sign of confrontation, and are willing to criticize those like Izzy who are not afraid of it at all.

Also, many Christians have been trained for a few decades now to bend over backwards to not offend unbelievers in their presentation of the gospel. From friendship evangelism, to presentations of the gospel that obscure even a hint of judgement and wrath of God, many Christians have been trained to see something as blunt as Izzy’s post as unnecessarily harsh and confronting, and therefore unnecessary. This stylistic disagreement is then backed up by certain proof texts, which are used to condemn any Christian who doesn’t come across as so kind and polite in their message presentation that they appear like a gentle-hearted camp counselor putting a band aid on a crying toddler. Never mind that this standard would exclude no less than John the Baptist, Elijah, and Jesus himself, it is still a standard many people hold to because of years of conditioning. But there is another reason why, which I want to focus on in this blog.

A lot of Christian’s don’t understand the various ways in which the good news and the gospel are actually shared in the Bible itself. Some of which would terrify the average peacekeeping Christian. I was reminded of this again when reading Nahum chapter one recently. Have a look at this presentation of the gospel:

Nahum begins:

“1 An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.2 The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. 4 He rebukes the sea and makes it dry; he dries up all the rivers; Bashan and Carmel wither; the bloom of Lebanon withers. 5 The mountains quake before him; the hills melt; the earth heaves before him, the world and all who dwell in it.” 

I once read this out in a Bible study for middle school aged youth, and I asked them if they had ever heard God described this way. Many said no. They had almost all grown up in church, yet they had never heard this before.

Nahum continues:

“6 Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire, and the rocks are broken into pieces by him. 7 The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him. 8 But with an overflowing flood he will make a complete end of the adversaries, and will pursue his enemies into darkness. 9 What do you plot against the Lord? He will make a complete end; trouble will not rise up a second time. 10 For they are like entangled thorns, like drunkards as they drink; they are consumed like stubble fully dried. 11 From you came one who plotted evil against the Lord, a worthless counselor.”

God is condemning Nineveh, through Nahum the prophet, because they were a wicked nation who did much evil in the world; including how they treated God’s people, Israel. Indeed, God’s people had been utterly devastated and oppressed by this nation, but the good news is that they will not be so for much longer:

“12 Thus says the Lord, “Though they are at full strength and many, they will be cut down and pass away. Though I have afflicted you, I will afflict you no more. 13 And now I will break his yoke from off you and will burst your bonds apart.” 14 The Lord has given commandment about you: “No more shall your name be perpetuated; from the house of your gods I will cut off the carved image and the metal image. I will make your grave, for you are vile” (Nahum 1:12-14).

God is angry at Nineveh for how they have conquered and oppressed nations, including Israel, and it’s remaining tribe, Judah. Therefore, God is going to step in and do away with them. They will face his judgement and Israel will no longer be afflicted and oppressed by the bonds of Nineveh. So why did I call this a gospel message? Well because Nahum says this: “15 Behold, upon the mountains, the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace! Keep your feasts, O Judah; fulfill your vows, for never again shall the worthless pass through you; he is utterly cut off” (Nahum 1:15).

You see a big part of the good news of the Bible’s message, is that God will judge the enemies of his people. God will bring the wicked to judgement. This is both a promise and an aspect of the good news. Why is this good news? Because as Christians we are commanded to not initiate violence against our enemies, we are commanded to love them, give them a glass of water in a time of need, we are commanded to act as Christ would have. But this does not mean that those who mock Christ, mock us, and persecute, exclude, bully, or simply try to sideline us will get away with it. God will make things right. God will judge the wicked and his wrath can be terrifying. 

You won’t hear this message preached as much as it used to be, for the reasons I outlined above. But it is an integral, biblical, and foundational aspect of the good news of the Bible. And it is not just an Old Testament emphasis, indeed whole books of the New Testament, including Jude and Revelation carry a similar message. God is not someone to be messed with, he will not be mocked, people reap what they sow. When the God says vengeance is his, he will repay, he means it. A lot of evil is done to his people in this world, Christians are persecuted in most countries in the world in horrible ways. God is watching, he will one day act decisively to vindicate his people.  

Thankfully, God gives people chances to escape this wrath. That’s why his son died on the cross, so people could have an opportunity to be saved from judgement. But judgement awaits all who do not repent. Hell is a real place where real people will really go. You see because Israel Folau believed this he was willing to risk his career (which turned out to be a very real risk) and reputation to warn people, and he used blunt, up front and thoroughly biblical language to do so. So many Christians have just been sheltered from this aspect of the gospel for so long, that they forgot how cutting the message of the gospel can actually be. For some it is a message of salvation, to some it is foolishness, but to others it is a stumbling block because they find it inherently offensive, and some aspects of it are designed to offend.

Maybe if more Christians heard the fullness of the gospel taught more regularly, they wouldn’t be so surprised when somebody pulls out the aspect of the gospel that they don’t hear often: God will judge the wicked, if they do not repent. This is good news, God cannot be a good God if he does not deal with wickedness. He either dealt with it in Christ for all who believe, or he will deal with it on judgement day for all who don’t. What future awaits you? I hope it is not judgement, but I’d be lying to you if I said that there isn’t a judgement awaiting all who have not trusted in Jesus. If I were to lie about this, then I would be placing myself under God’s judgement, and I would be unloving according to God's standard, and I don’t want to do either.

Please consider this while there is time.