248 Reformation: Don’t Hold Back
“There is a river whose streams shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High.” ~ Psalm 46
Don’t Hold Back
As the line between the sacred and secular blurs, the stakes have never been higher. The state is infiltrating our homes, churches, and lives, often unnoticed. Now is not the time for silence—it’s time to speak boldly and take a stand.
Anyone who is awake must expose what’s creeping in, sound the alarms where others stay silent, and find practical solutions. The very foundation of our faith and communities is at risk. Institutions are broken, homes are fractured, and the truth is wavering in churches, but we’re called and equipped to act.
It’s time to admit that those unaware or indifferent to the threat are part of it. Communism is not a mere cultural shifts—it’s an intrusion into our God’s prerogatives.
Bold warnings make for bold prayers. What should God tear down? What should He rebuild?
Are you even asking?
Discernment is crucial.
With conviction, MadPXM is going to be here exposing the thread of danger, confessing our meta into the white noise, and curating that late, great, state of disinformation called the “news.”
You are not alone. No need to worry. He won’t let us go.
Till angel cry and trumpet sound,
R.J.M.F
Thunderdome 2024
Singer Beyoncé appeared at a Harris-Walz event to endorse the Democrat’s abortion policy. When asked about religious exemptions around aboriton in an interview with NBC, the Vice President said she opposes any concessions on such a “fundamental freedom”. It is unclear whether a president has the power to do such things, but at least she is clear about where she stands. (PJ Media, Washington Times)
Students who heckled VP Kamala Harris by calling out “Jesus is Lord”, were escorted out of the rally. VP Harris pleased the crowd by her off-the-cuff comment, “Oh, you’re at the wrong rally.” (Not the Bee)
A federal judge has ruled that Virginia must reinstate 1500 non-citizens to voters rolls. US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles maintained that the action was too close to the election and violates federal law. (WRIC)
According to the Federalist, the Biden administration is blocking efforts to keep non-citizens off voter rolls in a number of states, while blue counties in North Carolina have refused to set up early voting stations. (The Federalist, The Federalist)
Politics
A new Gallup poll has found that the majority of Americans favor voter ID and also early voting. (Gallup)
Elon Musk is giving away one million dollars in a daily sweepstake until the election for voters in swing states who will sign a petition supporting first and second amendments. Critics have warned that Musk’s stunt may count as election interference. (WNG)
Never go full Hitler: Likening your opponents to Nazis leaves little rhetorical space if things get worse. And it can always get worse! President Harry Truman likened his fellow contender to fascists way back in 1948 and it’s been off to the races since. When you throw out terms like Hitler, fascist or Nazi scattergun style, they eventually become meaningless. (CNN, Politico, American Conservative, Auron McIntyre via YouTube)
Straight Outta J-School
The Washington Post has announced that it is “returning to its roots” in not endorsing a political candidate this cycle. Staff at Los Angeles Times had a little meltdown after its owner requested that the editorial board write a factual editorial outlining positive and negatives of each candidate. Editorial chief Mariel Garza resigned to protest that the paper would not give an endorsement to the Harris-Walz campaign. Garza said we are “in dangerous times” and that she could not be silent. (Not the Bee, The Blaze, Columbia Journal Review )
A new report says local newspapers continue to close. (WNG)
It could just be Monday.. 
Either way, Jesus' return is closer now than it
was yesterday, so it's not all bad news!Births, Deaths and Marriages
The lead author of a years-long study on the use of puberty blockers in gender dysphoric children has refused to publish her results. Pediatrician Johanna Olson-Kennedy’s federally-funded study concluded that puberty blocking drugs did not improve the mental health of confused children, but did not want the results to be “weaponized”. JK Rowling summed it up well when she tweeted, “We must not publish a study that says we're harming children because people who say we're harming children will use the study as evidence that we're harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.” (The Federalist, National Review, JK Rowling via X)
Parents of students at an Illinois school have been outraged as administrators gave two days notice that the school’s librarian, a man, would be identifying as a woman from now on. “The instruction to call a man ‘Miss’ doesn’t make sense to his child, the father said, because his child knows Sabovik is a man. He said some children are asking if at some point they are going to switch sexes too.” (The Federalist)
Crime and Punishment
The jury selection process for the trial of former Marine, Daniel Penny began last week. Penny pleaded not guilty to second-degree manslaughter and negligent homicide after putting Jordan Neely, a homeless man, in a headlock. Neely, who had been reportedly menacing passengers on the New York subway, died later in hospital. Penny faces up to 15 years in prison. (USA Today, New York Post)
A Dutch court has ruled that Bill Gates can be ordered to face trial in a civil lawsuit brought by seven individuals who say they were injured by false covid vaccine safety claims. The lawsuit also names the former Dutch prime minister and pandemic advisory officials. Gates had objected on the ground that he is an American citizen, but Dutch law states that Dutch courts have “jurisdiction over other defendants involved in the same proceedings, provided that there is such a connection between the claims against the various defendants.” (Truthmeter)
A Pentagon official confirmed last week that a swarm of drones had flown over several US military bases last December and that it is still working out what to do about it. For now the solution seems to bee simple netting placed over hangars, however that is not optimal in an emergency situation. The drones reportedly flew at 100 miles per hour and were hard to track. (News, Not the Bee)
The US Navy has confirmed the deaths of two female fighter jet crew members after their plane crashed on Mount Rainier in Washington state. The crash is being investigated. (WNG)
The Singaporean owner of the ship which collided with a Baltimore bridge months ago has agreed to settle a Department of Justice lawsuit against them. The state of Maryland has a separate lawsuit seeking $2 billion in damages against the company. (AP)
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The Digital Age
Leaked documents from a well-funded UK-based “anti-disinformation” group reveal that one of its aims was to “kill Musk’s Twitter”. A report by independent journalists claims the shadowy Center for Countering Digital Hate advises British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour Party and has offered its services to the Kamala Harris campaign. CCDH is working to undermine advertising revenue and sees the free-for-all nature of X as a threat to liberal government policies. (ZeroHedge, The Critic)
The parents of a Massachusetts high schooler are suing their son’s school for failing him for using a AI for an assignment. The lawsuit maintains the student cited the use of AI in his work in accordance with the school’s policy, but the school also lets teachers decide on rules for their own classrooms. (GovTech)
The Internet Archive's "Wayback Machine" was recently hit by a massive data breach. A group citing pro-Palestine rage (that seems to have mistakenly thought the site was government-run) claimed responsibility for several distributed denial-of-service attacks but the source of the data breach is unknown. This is not the first time the Archive has been subject to hacking or political action, but as one “information activist” pointed out, the Archive has very few defenders. Controversies over the Archive scanning copyrighted books and making them available as digital loans drew attention, but with AI scraping sites left and right, it may be toothpaste out of the tube. With much of the world’s elite determined to scrub information they don’t like, the Archive has many fans among journalists. (Bleeping Computer, Wired, Columbia Journalism Review)
Norway’s government is raising the minimum age for access to social media to 15 years old. Prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre said it was up to lawmakers to come up with safeguards to stop children getting around new age restrictions. Støre said he wants to protect young minds from the “power of the algorithms” which can make users “single-minded and pacified”. (The Guardian)
A Florida family is suing the makers of the Character.AI accusing the app’s makers of offering “hyper-sexualized” content which they “knowingly marketed..to minors”. Their 14 year-old son had become emotionally involved with a bot character before he took his own life. (CBS)
Money, Markets and Jobs
The bloc known as BRICS met last week in Russia, with representatives from 36 nations meeting to discuss trade and foreign policy. The original group of five – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – has expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia have asked to become members also. Host Vladimir Putin reiterated his wish to move away from the sway of the US dollar and also to establish a “grain exchange”. Russia is keen to show that Western efforts to isolate it have failed but many experts say the BRICS members are too ideologically diverse (including over Russia’s war against Ukraine) to work together in any sustained fashion. Yet some say the alliance should be taken more seriously: “Western countries, especially in Europe, are already paying a high price for the West-Rest decoupling. They could choose, instead, to engage with the rest of the world on an equal footing, in the knowledge that a smaller share of global GDP doesn’t necessarily mean a lower standard of living — a lesson the Americans could learn from many European countries.” (Reuters, International Intrigue, UnHerd)
The IRS has released its adjusted tax brackets for 2025. (Investopedia)
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has recognised a new category of aircraft: “electric vehicle capable of taking off and landing vertically – a flying taxi.” (CyberNews)
“Fingerprinting” honey may help reduce the amount of “rampant honey fraud.” (Ambrook Research)
Religion and the Church
Read LCMS president Matthew Harrison’s letter encouraging clarity for troubled times as the election approaches. While some political issues can be left to good faith debate, “some things need to be said. On issues of religious freedom (non-interference with the church’s schools and institutions), abortion, medical ethics and transgenderism, there are clear biblical positions. In the U.S. today, it is also clear that the political right is closer to the church on these issues than the political left.” (Reporter)
A new report from Aid to the Church in Need documents that persecution against Christians in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia has increased in the last few years. (WNG)
Diwali, a religious holiday celebrated by Buddhists, Hindus, Jains and Sikhs has been adopted as a state holiday by Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro. (CBS)
Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Peruvian priest who came up with the social gospel known as “liberation theology” has died at 96 years old in Lima. His ideas have been adopted by Marxist groups since the 1960s. (BBC, The Briefing podcast)
Arts, History and Sport
Gremlins were not invented for the hit 1984 movie, but were popularized by “superstitious” Royal Air Force pilots to explain random malfunctions with machinery. Of course, popular articles can’t countenance the presence of actual demons messing with us, but instead taps the way humans anthropomorphize “tech marvels to cope with the widening gulf between human autonomy and machine automata has only continued since the days of superstitious pilots.” (JSTOR)
A delightful and inspiring mini-documentary of two boys (11 and 9) who drove their pony cart from Boston to Expo ‘67 in Montreal. (New York Times)
A nihilist grapples with escapism after the world has collapse: maybe preppers use candy to lift the gloom? (Cake Zine)
America’s largest home, Biltmore Estate, will open for the festive season. The house was closed in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. (Nice News)
Last week in history:
1950 China entered the Korean War on behalf of the North against the United Nations and the USA. (Britannica)
Health, Medicine and Food
Medicaid in California, Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico will “cover traditional health practices such as music therapy, sweat lodges, and dancing to help with physical and mental health” for those identifying as native Americans in a two-year pilot program. (NPR)
An environmental charity says the new formula for RoundUp might be more toxic than the old glyphosate recipe. (Civil Eats)
The US Food and Drug Administration says sliced onions may have been the source for an E.coli outbreak connected to McDonalds’ in 13 states. (USA Today)
Humming is good for you! It may not align you with the universe as the Eastern mystics believe, but it can stimulate a “key part of the parasympathetic nervous system that's responsible for the body's rest-and-digest response.” (Boing Boing)
From the Mad☧Tank
If you like reading news that matters with a Mad quirk, then please show your support! Get early access to Mad☧Tank articles by signing up through Substack. Or support Frisby’s efforts with any amount here.
Great stuff from our archive:
Part of the 2023 series “Where we stand” by Pastor Fisk:
If you would like to submit your writing to be published in our Tank, please reply to this email. We would love to hear from you.
Hearts and Minds
Maria Popova reflects on what she has learned writing literacy blog Marginalia for 18 years. Embrace forgiveness, joy and wonder. Shun cynicism. “Nothing is more tedious than self-concern”, “presence is far more intricate and rewarding an art than productivity”, and “expect anything worthwhile to take a long time.” (Marginalia)
God’s Green Earth
UC Berkeley researchers invented a powder they say pulls all carbon from the air. We tried to find what the powder was made from and where it goes but it was a bit over our heads. Hopefully in their climate zealotry, they’ll leave some CO2 in the atmosphere for the plants. (Good Good Good, Berkley)
A new geological survey has revealed that there are millions of tons of lithium in an underground brine reservoir in Arkansas, enough to fuel the US push into electric vehicles. (Fox Weather)
Glasgow is trialling electric wallpaper in hard-to-heat houses. (EuroNews)
Science
A team at University of Tokyo have discovered a new chemical bond. The covalent bond, where atoms share just one electron was predicted to exist in the 1930s by Linus Pauling. (New Scientist)
An explanation of how you see colors when you close your eyes. (Ted)
Theoretical hurdles to building a telescope which could capture images of exoplanets as clearly as it does the moon: it would probably need to be built in space. (Palladium)
A new study from New York University found that people can process certain sentences in the blink of an eye. (The Guardian)
Why 60 degrees feels different in fall than in spring. (Popular Science)
War and Rumors of War
🇰🇵 The evidence that North Korean soldiers are poised to help Russia fight in Ukraine is growing. South Korea intelligence says Pyongyang sent troops to train in Russia and that they are dressed in Russian military uniforms. Belarus’ leader Lukashenko has reportedly denied that Russia would involve anyone else’s military in its war effort for fear of provoking NATO. Putin did not deny or confirm the presence of NK troops in Russia’s ranks. U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby says that North Korean troops would be a sign of Russian weakness. But it’s hard to say who’s winning that war. By amount of territory gained, it would seem Russia, but if casualty reports are to be believed, it would seem to be taking a costly toll. (WNG, Council on Foreign Relations, Institute for Study of War)
🇺🇦 Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin has resigned after a corrupt scheme to issue false disability certificates was found among prosecutors. The prosecutors had used the fake documents to avoid conscription and retain benefits. The resignation comes as prosecutors are reportedly opening thousands of cases against Ukrainian troops who are deserting the fight against Russia. (Le Monde, ZeroHedge)
🇫🇷 France has granted visas to six Russian soldiers who deserted rather than fight against Ukraine. (France 24)
🇮🇶Two US soldiers have been injured during raids on Islamic State properties in central Iraq. (WNG)
🇮🇱 Israel has conducted a nighttime strike on key sites in Iran, reportedly reducing its drone and airforce capabilities significantly. (BBC)
🇷🇺 Another Russian oil executive has died after falling from his tenth floor residence. (BBC)
🇲🇩 The tiny country of Moldova has voted to pitch for European Union membership, by a tiny margin. (ABC)
Stories from Far Away
Mexico’s military has killed 19 members of a cartel and detained its influential leader, Edwin Antonio, also known as El Max. Soldiers were fired upon when they came to arrest Antonio. (WNG)
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced a “sharp cut” in Canada’s immigration targets, in a bid to “pause population growth”. The change in tack by Trudeau is supposed to allow provinces to “catch up on bolstering their healthcare programmes and housing stock”. Migrant advocacy organizations slammed the move, insisting that migrants are not to blame for rising unemployment or lack of housing. (Yahoo)
Violent protests broke out in Mozambique after electoral victory for the ruling party, Frelimo, was announced. Frelimo has held power for almost fifty years and the results of this election are disputed. (BBC)
Dinosaur fossils have been found in Hong Kong for the first time ever. (CNN)
A new study of Tibetan women has concluded that genetic traits passed down through generations help them live at very high altitudes without putting extra stress on their hearts. (The Daily)
After a week without power, Cuba has returned to rationed hours of electricity amid fears of a complete grid collapse. (The Guardian, The Hill)
🇯🇵 Kasso: Japan’s skateboarding version of Ninja Warrior
👟 There are Crocs for dogs..
🏛️ The Capitol buildings in every US state
🐔 New Zealand’s crazy flightless chicken parrot, the kākāpō
👀 Amateur mathematician calculates the biggest prime number and it has 41 million digits
⌨️ The most famous typos
🚂 A little guessing game: which way is the train facing?
🏍️ Before crazy AI action footage, there was Stunt City
🇳🇿 A New Zealand airport has put limits on the amount of time hugging at the drop off zone (you can hug longer in the carpark!)
🌧️ Math proves that running in a downpour keeps you drier than if you walk. (Seems a lot less fun, though!)
Food for thought..
We received some great responses to Pastor Fisk’s question about why you read MadMondays. Mostly, what our readers want is ways to wake up people around them to the idea that our state, as it currently sits, is not on the side of the church or the family or (it could be argued) life. Yes, the government has long had secular priorities, but now, policies are hindering the ability of Christians to freely live out their faith in America. The Mad Christian took up the topic on Starfall this week and here is a transcript of part of his response:
“As soon as I know I don't have a chance of a fair hearing I'll won't worry about it.. ‘I'll buy your pizza’ or whatever and move on. I'm not going to debate you about the fact that you think communism is a great idea. It’s great that you are already at that position - it means that I don’t have to trust you as a human being. You subscribe to a religion that teaches you to lie - you don't know that, but it does. You lie to yourself before you lie to anybody else. I have to seek your good, I have to love you as my neighbor, I have to do all things to benefit you the same way I always would, but I can't trust you. It's sort of like having a useful idiot living next door only he’s not useful to you, he's useful to your enemies.”
“First off, I think that you have to arm yourself with the truth. You have to have enough knowledge of what's really going on so that when someone asks you a question, you can defend it with something factual and some appeal to that source that you both agree on. This is kind of an issue since there's no agreed upon sources – it's why the Bible is pretty powerful right now.”
“You want to be able to give them enough common sense that they want to listen to you more which doesn't mean telling them about everything, it means speaking common sense so clear, so straightforward - four to six words per sentence. That common sense is more important than any of the conspiracy factoids you can pull together. People are going to follow common sense proverbs and the Bible gives that in Jesus name.”
Starfall this week featured some passionate conversation about fathers, leadership and the need to wake up to the reality that politics will not stay in the chambers of government, but is impacting our ability to live faithfully. Watch on YouTube or Rumble, or listen here. Show links:
Broken by Rev. Jonathan Fisk
Psalm 18: Jesus Christ isn’t kidding about saving you from all harm
Psalm 46 Jesus Christ isn’t kidding about comforting you in every season of life
If you missed it, Meridith put out a call for anyone who would like to make a quilt for men who stay at the Hebron Collegium. If that is something you would be interested in helping out with, please reply to this email or send a message through madpxm.com/contact.
Our disclaimer: These are some resources the Fisks have found edifying, but when dealing with any human-authored texts, apply discernment liberally!
This Week Preached:
In case you missed it, last week’s sermon was posted later than usual. But here ‘tis!:
Podcast Release:
Let us pray. Almighty and gracious Lord, pour out Your Holy Spirit on Your faithful people. Keep us steadfast in Your grace and truth, protect and deliver us in times of temptation, defend us against all enemies, and grant to Your Church Your saving peace; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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