137 Pentecost 10: Bent Light
"My soul faints for Your salvation, but I hope in Your word." ~ Psalm 119
Bent Light
The problem with the devil is that he is twisted. “Let there be light!” And there was. But light was not content. It wanted more. It wanted to be the source.
There is a long history of twisted light. The mirror is not a new tool. Light reflecting off a pool is as old as still water, and there is nothing inherently malicious in welding sand so as to make a looking glass. That said, a mirror is by definition “twisted light,” and the narcissism of you looking at you isn’t exactly a recipe for enhancing the love of others.
After the mirror came the scope. Twisting light anew, we learned to look up, and then down, at things we’d never seen before. The heavens were opened to us and they are beautiful. The deeps revealed to us the particles of life and their principles defy imagination. Yet at the same time, this new view did not enhance man’s awe at the mighty hand of God, but ushered in an era of declaring He does not exist, that space and time exist without Him, and that we are the ones who hold the future in our hands.
After the scope came the camera, the image maker, by which we remember our loved ones, catalog history, and see parts of the world we would never otherwise experience. But its power is the power to lie, to distort reality, to convince me reality is something other than what it is right now. A photograph is not real. Despite what I imagine, thanks to photographs, I have never seen a cheetah. I do not know what Bangladesh looks like. I do not know Donald Trump.
The industrial light and the magic of twisting that the screen at last gifted us has taken all these powers and amplified them. There is simply no distortion of the senses like the suspension of the present; nothing like the talking picture and its ubiquitous internet yammering. We now live most of our days staring into the face of twisted light.
The tools of film and fiber optic cable are no more naturally evil than still water. The problem is that man is. Man has an innate ability (let’s call it “concupiscence”) to use the best things of God in the worst possible way.
I don’t think I believe that tools which twist light are substantially of the devil. But I do think our use of them unavoidably symbolizes him, and that the times that we live in are uniquely diabolical as a result. If all that you want out of life is distraction, then all that you want is actually out of this life.
If you plan to keep on living in this here Babylon as a Christian, if you don’t want anyone to steal your crown, if you’re tired of being lied to and are fed up with being manipulated, remember that the eye is the lamp of your body. Fill it with good light. Remember what the sun and the moon and the stars are for. Believe that you may not be able to condense reality, but that your God has solved all problems already at the cross. Decide that distraction isn’t nearly so worth your time as being present, seeing truth and acting on what is real.
What would life be like if I wasn’t always being formed by twisted light? That’s what I, at least, am heaven-bent on finding out.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
The Mad Christian
(
)Hebron Update
This week was "Welcome Week" at the Hebron Collegium, but that doesn't mean it's too late to spread the news. Please keep the students and the Fisk family in your prayers as they embark on this journey of faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. You can learn more about the Collegium at their website. You can also study and pray along with them by following along with the Hebron Lectionary.
Clickbait Paradise
People, place and prayer by
Some time ago, Elon Musk retweeted a doodle to his massive Twitter following. The drawing was sketched by biologist Colin Wright and illustrated his feeling that culture has shifted leftward, leaving him in a place he no longer recognizes. The sentiment must have resonated with a lot of people and it went "viral", as they say.
While there have been evil schemes afoot since mankind rebelled in the Garden, this leftward-lurch has not been of the violent overthrow variety. In modern times, Antonio Gramsci popularized the notion that there were other ways to take power than just brute force. His ideas have been used to formulate the idea of a cultural hegemony – using education and media to "manufacture consent". The call for a "long march through the institutions" was raised and progressive ideals that dominated the academy and newsrooms now shape the arts, law and science.
In a thought-provoking essay, Paul Kingsnorth has observed something curious about the last few decades. The rapid dissemination of progressive politics into every sphere of our lives is not just a testament to the determination of Marxist ideologues, desperate to see their utopia realized. Contrary to what you may hear in the Twitterverse, ideas of intersectionality, identity politics, and anti-racism are not products of a grassroots movement being embraced by the working classes and marginalized groups. Enthusiasm for electric vehicles and plant-based meat is not bubbling up from Middle America.
Rather, this revolution is cascading relentlessly over all in its path with the help of Big Money. As Kingsnorth asks, "What kind of 'revolution' would be sponsored by Nike, promoted by BP, propagandized for by Hollywood and Netflix and policed by Facebook and YouTube?" Far from being in competition with each other, Kingsnorth argues that the progressive Left and the capitalist Right actually have the same goal.
"Both are totalizing utopian projects. Both are suspicious of the past, impatient with borders and boundaries,...hostile to religion...and the limits on the human individual imposed by nature or culture. Both are in pursuit of a global utopia where, in the dreams of both Lenin and Lennon, the world will live as one."
Most readers will have noted the "flattening" effect of globalization, the "monoculture" of the Davos set who wish to see everyone owning nothing and being happy. He says the two sides of Left and Right act in a pincer move where "one attacks the culture, deconstructing everything from history to “heteronormativity” to national identities; the other moves in to monetize the resulting fragments."
The categories of "left and "right" can be a little fuzzy, but Kingsnorth is correct – it suits elites of all persuasions to have a regulated technocracy, where distinction and free thought are denounced and human units float in a rootless unreality, grounded nowhere and attached to no one. You will be happy.
Perhaps the technocrats have won this battle. Philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote about the way bureaucracy leads to violence. When people feel that they are being pushed through a system, or when they wake up to the idea that a governing technocracy would have them dependent on The Machine, they are angry and dismayed. Ask a Dutch farmer.
Arendt writes: “In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can present grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless, we have a tyranny without a tyrant.”
That seems an apt description of our time. There is no one at the wheel. Even the occupant of the White House may not be in charge! So who you gonna call? The police? The FBI? There may be no visible tyrant, no führer whom one could terminate and thus fix everything, but Mad Christians know there is an enemy. So while the puppet-masters sit in anonymity, thinking they are pulling the strings of the system, we know they are being played. They will be accountable but the wicked ancient serpent, the father of lies is the one who deceives the nations and he is furiously destroying everything—he knows his time is short.
So, we may find that all things are arrayed against us, the invisible principalities and powers, but as St. Paul reminds us all things must work together for our good. Kingsnorth recognizes there is something that will stand against the faceless enemy, "a tradition that crosses all the modern divides, because it is older than all of them", He characterizes it as "people place prayer" – living "under the sky, surrounded by people who know where the sun rises in the morning, where they come from and who they are".
Mad Christians will know what he means - faith, family, church and community. Not only do we know where we came from, but we know where we are going. More than that, we know Whose we are. He is risen and will soon roll up the sky like a scroll. The schemes of the enemy will fail and Christ's kingdom will be realized. We take heart, knowing that what God builds is forever and no evil arrayed against it will prevail.
Borrowing trouble
You may have heard that a bunch of armed FBI agents raided former President Donald Trump's Florida home a few days ago. The takes have been white hot and numerous. The reporting ranges from "Nothing to see here" to "This is America's descent into a banana republic".
It would seem a mole within Mr Trump's circle directed federal agents to specific rooms and a safe at Mar-a-Lago, claiming that classified government documents were being kept unlawfully. Although Mr. Trump was reportedly careless when it came to adhering to the Presidential Records Act, many people have questions for the FBI.
The Presidential Records Act was instituted in the years following the Watergate scandal to keep Presidents from destroying or squirreling away important documents. But while it is a serious offense to remove documents from the National Archive, commentators have agreed that the evidence of criminal activity would need to be overwhelming to justify such a raid.
We have previously pointed out the useless tactic of pointing out hypocrisy, especially when your enemy doesn't care what you think. With the Democrats wanting to find a reason to arrest Donald Trump since he came to office in 2016, it is easy to believe that this is a weaponized use of the Department of Justice against political opposition.
While President Trump has insisted he declassified all of the documents in his possession before leaving the White House, the exact list of what was found has not been released. So while a lot of speculation about nuclear codes and national security secrets are thrown around, we need to wait to see if the FBI has risked their reputation for a specter. As with much media reporting in this noisy age, what is not reported is often as important as what is reported.
An old video from Senator Ron Paul has begun circulating following the news out of Florida. He suggested way back in 1988 that the FBI was a tool that could be used for much mischief. Also ICYMI, The Federalist featured an interesting podcast a few weeks ago – we may have to rethink everything we know about the Watergate scandal.
87000 mules
There was a wave of reporting in conservative media last week about last week's Democrat spending bill. The Inflation Reduction Act (which we mentioned last week) will add an additional 87000 agents to the Internal Revenue Service. We're sure tax collectors are no more popular today than they were in Jesus' time, but do they really need to carry weapons and be prepared to "use deadly force"? The White House says the new recruits will be deployed to make sure billionaires pay their fair share of tax. Not The Bee collected a bunch of evidence that suggests it is probably not the super wealthy that are in the IRS' crosshairs.
But the Biden administration is clearly playing to win. Republican lawmakers came under criticism for voting against a bill which was ostensibly to provide health care for veterans exposed to toxic substances and burn pits. However, on closer inspection, the bill gives Democrats a "blank check" to spend on pet projects featured in the President's failed infrastructure bills. Although the bill has been signed into law by the President, pray that sensible Representatives will rein in the spending and ensure the money reaches the soldiers who need it.
They of Arc
From the sublime to the ridiculous.. Keeping up with the sexual revolution has been getting harder these last few years. Stop to catch your breath and you'll be out of the race.
A woke theater company in London is trumpeting its new play about Joan of Arc. Yes, the young lady who is famous for leading soldiers into battle against the English apparently uses the pronouns they/them in this production. And we're as clueless as you are as to how that works - aren't pronouns for when you're not present with the one speaking? Maybe the main character is off stage most of the time... So many questions!
An elite school for girls in Nashville has announced that it will accept enrollments for any student who identifies as a girl. However, if a biological female student decides she's a boy, she'll be shown the door. So it is as crazy a policy as you'd imagine.
But the push-back against this madness is continuing. The Tavistock clinic in London, which was closed down after its transgender practices were deemed unsafe for children, is now facing a class action from over 1,000 families. The lawsuit accuses the Tavistock of "recklessly prescribing puberty blockers... and unquestioningly affirming the gender identities" of children. Also in the UK, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab is planning to prohibit housing biological males in women's prisons.
The Fauci Effect
It may come as a surprise to some of our readers that there is still debate about the origins of COVID. Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, chairman of the Lancet's COVID-19 Commission (which investigated the origins of the novel coronavirus), says the lab leak theory is "quite plausible". In a recent TV interview, Dr. Sachs says he thinks it is the most likely origin but can't fathom why the government is not doing more to discover it. He suspects that the reluctance could be because the key players know they will be accountable for many deaths. But, as he points out, it could be that more dangerous research is under way and that is the reason for the cover up. Well, there are some pretty big egos on the line.
In other pandemic news, Denmark has stopped offering COVID vaccinations to children under 18.
Monday be like..
Keeping it riddikulus
If you watched last week's Stop the White Noise, you would have caught Rev. and Mrs. Fisk discussing the helpful advice gleaned from self-help guru Tony Robbins. Robbins lays out a method of dealing with a crippling emotional life called "scrambling". The mental exercise involves turning trauma and mental habits into cartoons.
In a similar vein, we came across a post chronicling advice from the Stoics to help fight anxiety. Cartoons and Stoics are probably not two things you think of as alike, but hear us out! Like Robbins, the Stoics found it helpful to "name your monster" and make it smaller. But a lot of things suggested in the post will be familiar to longtime Mad Monday readers: take time to be quiet, be content with less, put worldly concerns in their eternal perspective.
These human thinkers have great insight into the human condition, but they can't top the truth given to us in the Word. Jesus told us to cast our burdens onto him, and to pray over everything that makes us anxious. As he pointed out, can anyone add an hour to his life by worrying about it? So take those anxious thoughts captive and as Rev. Fisk suggests, fill your mind with the light of God's word.
Mostly dead
Science and philosophy were having a little debate recently about life and death. Scientists at Yale University reanimated organs from a dead pig, challenging the notion that cell death is irreversible. We've been arguing for some time now when life begins, but man's quest for scientific knowledge is now challenging what it means to be dead.
Perhaps even more creepy is RenewalBio, an Israeli start-up aiming to copy you into an embryo designed for harvesting organs when you're old. We've written previously (hereand here) about the wild frontiers that scientists are forging as they seek to prolong life here on earth. There is a time to be born and a time to die as the Teacher writes in Ecclesiastes, but it is Jesus who breaks the silver cord. Godless men will seek to defy death, but the death of the saints is as Rev Fisk, a particular gift to them as they remember the coming resurrection.
Headlines from far away
Tens of thousands of Brits have vowed not to pay their energy bills as prices continue to rise (The Guardian).
The Church of England is attempting to stay unified by allowing a plurality of views on same-sex marriage (The Week).
After days of fighting, Israel and Palestine have agreed to a ceasefire (AP News).
Argentina has just racked up 7.4% inflation in one month (AP News).
Prison fight between rival Mexican cartels has spilled into the streets of Tijuana (Times of San Diego).
Russia's Saki airbase in Crimea has been attacked but no one is sure who is responsible (PJMedia).
Kenya is in the midst of a tight presidential election. While Kenyan elections are usually tense times for the country, Facebook has been put on notice for not shutting down pro-genocide advertising on its platform (BBC, Gizmodo).
France is getting help from five neighboring nations to battle wildfires (France 24).
John Michael Jones Gets a Life is produced for Mad ⳩ Mondays by E. Darwin Hartshorn. Episodes can also be found on Tuesday, along with previous episodes, on Bunny Trail Junction at bunny-trail.com.
Quick Hits for the Eyebuds
🐟 Fancy fish: A mid-century modern aquarium with a tiny BMW in the garage
🏗️ Eight of the biggest terrestrial vehicles
🏎️ Every Ferrari since 2005 has been recalled
🏁 Say it ain't so! Philosophical musings about the end of stick shift
🎭 This guy greets his little brother every day with different costume
🧱 Fascinating profile of an English steeplejack
✉️ How the US postal service deciphers poor handwriting
🎨 Mesmerizing rock painting
🦍 This gorilla's got moves like Jagger
⚾ Maybe leave your phone at home?
🔊 This company levitates objects using sound waves
🚪 Swing wide you ancient doors!
🥇 One of a kind: gamer drops a ton of money to level up, but is now suing the game company because they can't find anyone to play him. You know what they say: it's lonely at the top..
A Good Word: Links from the Show Notes
This week the Mad Christian community celebrates 50 weeks of Stopping the White Noise with Mrs. Fisk. Thank God for the blessing that she is! Here's the rec wrap up for this week.
The Structure of Lutheranism by Werner Elert
The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman
Love You Forever, a children's book by Robert Munsch
Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins
Boundaries by Cloud and Townsend
Complex PTSD by Pete Walker
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by Gottman and Silver
And finally, we apologize for the broken link last week. Here's a true link to The Lutheran Pastor by Gerberding.
Sweetness You May Have Missed
How to Read the Bible: Colossians 1
Let us pray: Merciful Lord, cleanse and defend Your Church by the sacrifice of Christ. United with Him in Holy Baptism, give us grace to receive with thanksgiving the fruits of His redeeming work and daily follow in His way; through the same Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.