…and told everyone what a genius this dude was.
Gaslighting on many levels.
Kanye West Breaks Down, Makes Dubious Claim About Harriet Tubman at South Carolina Rally
Category Archives: Reviews
A Sociologist Examines the “White Fragility” That Prevents White Americans from Confronting Racism | The New Yorker
If you are white, and you also think you are open-minded and non racist, this is must reading for you.
Oh by the way…it works the same way with gender orientation, too.
“…The value in “White Fragility” lies in its methodical, irrefutable exposure of racism in thought and action, and its call for humility and vigilance. Combatting one’s inner voices of racial prejudice, sneaky and, at times, irresistibly persuasive, is a life’s work. For all the paranoid American theories of being “red-pilled,” of awakening into a many-tentacled liberal/feminist/Jewish conspiracy, the most corrosive force, the ectoplasm infusing itself invisibly through media and culture and politics, is white supremacy.
“That’s from a white progressive perspective, of course. The conspiracy of racism is hardly invisible to people of color, many of whom, I suspect, could have written this book in their sleep.”
ttaf supporter: You Are Condemned In What You Approve
Watch it.
“I don’t think it is okay”.
Nor do I think your idolatry is either. GAWD! You will soon be confronted with the essence of your idol.
That you decided to make ttaf an idol is so sick…I mean, you could have at LEAST chosen something with a sheen of good instead of the smell of shit that emanates from its mouth every time it raves.
ttaf is a monster, an anti-human by choice and practice…a wreck devolved over years and years of debasement and intentional practice of hatred and worshipping Mammon, sucking on Mammon’s hoary teat and feasting on Mammon’s shit.
So what does that make you, YOU who taught me of God’s Word, of Truth and Justice and Mercy?
YOU are feasting on ttaf’s shit, which is the offscourings of Mammon’s shit.
Sometimes I literally weep in sorrow AND anger when I see that 80 some years of a long intentional walk of obedience has become the weak capitulation of a whore.
Students in ‘MAGA’ hats mock Native American after rally
Somehow, I learned that this is wrong and evil, this is bullying and hateful. You can rejoice that you managed to raise a child that learned this lesson…
and you can also rest assured that your child grieves literally every single day that you support ttaf and are blind to the heinous effect this evil monster has had on the spiritual climate of our nation…and you do it in the name of God, twisting things around, skewing them…because your skin color and economic status provide you with the position to do it.
It is one of the truly great wounds in my life that you are deceived by this thing and all of its shills, and that you have allowed your most holy faith to be dragged into the shit in the name of ttaf…you have placed your politic in the highest place and moved your faith aside.
The Apostle James would tell you to weep and howl.
In the meantime, if your children were here…doing this…would you be proud? I know for a fact that one you loved would not be proud… and that way back then neither would you.
The sad thing is, now I think you would be proud.
And what of it when these young misguided terrors gathers together in a group and begins to go to town on me, others like me?
Evil never ever stops on its own. It must be resisted!!! And this thing will not be exorcised until those like you begin to resist…before it is too late and your join your forebears the Nazi sympathizers of the 30s-40s.
FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — A diocese in Kentucky apologized Saturday after videos emerged showing students from a Catholic boys’ high school mocking Native Americans outside the Lincoln Memorial after a rally in Washington. The Indigenous Peoples March in Washington on Friday coincided with the March for Life, which drew thousands of anti-abortion protesters, including a group from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills.
Source: Students in ‘MAGA’ hats mock Native American after rally
What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion? On the New York Times’s Latest Bombshell – Lawfare
“…A lot of the criticism seems to be driven by the notion that the FBI’s investigation was, and is, an effort to undermine or discredit President Trump. That assumption is wrong.
“The FBI’s investigation must be viewed in the context of the bureau’s decades-long effort to detect, disrupt and defeat the intelligence activities of the governments of the Soviet Union and later the Russian Federation that are contrary to the fundamental and long-term interests of the United States.
“The FBI’s counterintelligence investigation regarding the 2016 campaign fundamentally was not about Donald Trump but was about Russia. Full stop. It was always about Russia. It was about what Russia was, and is, doing and planning.
“Of course, if that investigation revealed that anyone—Russian or American—committed crimes in connection with Russian intelligence activities or unlawfully interfered with the investigation, the FBI has an obligation under the law to investigate such crimes and to seek to bring those responsible to justice.
“The FBI’s enduring counterintelligence mission is the reason the Russia investigation will, and should, continue—no matter who is fired, pardoned or impeached (emphasis added)…”
Source: What if the Obstruction Was the Collusion? On the New York Times’s Latest Bombshell – Lawfare
The Power of Fear
john pavlovitz -Selling the Souls of American Evangelicals
As do you, ttaf supporter…though ye be old, ye waste the time of your life when you are MOST free to live by the true core of your faith, suffering no loss…yet ye value your gruel as if it is the very Lamb’s Wedding Feast.
Woe to you.
“…They can’t see from the inside, what is so apparent from a distance.
“Moment by moment, choice by choice, they begin to drift from their calling, and no one close to them ever tells them while they’re still humble and amenable enough to listen. The power they accrue begins to gradually silence dissent or to remove it from view altogether.
“These men end up spending their entire lives breathing solely in the intoxicating air of sycophant’s praises; never protected from their own hubris, never cautioned against their recklessness, never alerted to the ways they’ve lost the plot or begun leasing off large sections of their credibility for temporary rewards.
“Surrounded on all sides by genuflecting yes-men and women lacking the intestinal fortitude to push back against the toxic sludge pouring from their lips, they begin to feel more and more comfortable and even emboldened in it.
“As they do, the teachings and the words of Jesus become less and less useful, because those things begin to testify loudly against them, they start to clearly voice their opposition—and so they begin to silence them too.
“They learn instead, to bask in the applause of the salivating multitude, who gladly amen their every bitter word, no matter how reckless or incendiary—when they should be teaching them how to love more expansively.
“As the hateful choir cheers their ramblings, they grow more and more delusional, more and more comfortable bowing before the golden idols of their ego and ambition. With each day they slide further down the slope…”
Opinion | Why Trump Reigns as King Cyrus – The New York Times
ttaf supporter: it is not true that God will be displeased with you if you oppose ttaf on the basis of Jesus’s words. You live in the New Covenant, and not the old. The old is completely fulfilled…and thus the idea that some Cyrus “king” is what God wants is utter bullshit.
What God wants is what God has always wanted…and what is that? If you have to ask, what kind of Christian do you really think you are?
Ask James…he will tell you.
“I have attended dozens of Christian nationalist conferences and events over the past two years. And while I have heard plenty of comments casting doubt on the more questionable aspects of Mr. Trump’s character, the gist of the proceedings almost always comes down to the belief that he is a miracle sent straight from heaven to bring the nation back to the Lord.
I have also learned that resistance to Mr. Trump is tantamount to resistance to God.This isn’t the religious right we thought we knew. The Christian nationalist movement today is authoritarian, paranoid and patriarchal at its core. They aren’t fighting a culture war. They’re making a direct attack on democracy itself.
They want it all. And in Mr. Trump, they have found a man who does not merely serve their cause, but also satisfies their craving for a certain kind of political leadership.”
In Return For Temporal Power, Evangelicals Took The Deal Jesus Rejected – The Intellectualist
This is you, ttaf supporter…you failed the test. Repent now to avoid an experience like the rich man who longed for a drop of water from the tip of the beggar man’s finger.
“The devil took [Jesus] to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me” (KJV Matthew 4:8-9).Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ” (KJV Matthew 4:10).
Jesus said no. He chose not to trade service to God for a chance to rule over all the kingdoms of the earth.
But today’s evangelicals have given in to temptation. They have taken the deal, trading in any sense of morality or godliness for the chance to rule — for a chance to fashion the country in the image of what they have come to believe is right, but is by no means in the likeness of the One they claim to serve.
Source: In Return For Temporal Power, Evangelicals Took The Deal Jesus Rejected – The Intellectualist
Trump rants while ‘all alone’ in White House on Christmas Eve – CNNPolitics
Supporter of ttaf: this is what you committed idolatry for. You will find me waiting at the gates of redemption for you…if you are even able to see it, for did not the Lord say that even the elect would be deceived?
The most offensive thing about this deception though is how easy it is to see thru this absolute fucker. He is not even tricky…and that is what brings so much grief: the realization that this shit was inside you all along, concealed…and just waiting for a pretext to out itself.
It’s Christmas in America: The President is home alone in the White House, ranting at his foes inside and outside; an administration lurching deeper into crisis; stock markets are in free fall and the government is paralyzed by a partial shutdown.
Source: Trump rants while ‘all alone’ in White House on Christmas Eve – CNNPolitics
This Is You, ttaf Supporter
Early evidence of a ‘Trump effect’ on bullying in schools – The Hechinger Report
ttaf supporter, get your “but Lord, LORD!” speeches ready…you’re gunna need them.
“…Cohen says it’s hard to fully understand why school bullying would increase only in communities where a majority of adults had voted for Trump and not Clinton. “It’s not that Trump alone is affecting how people think and feel and act,” said Cohen. “It’s Trump in partnership with the local community. If we have a large segment of the parent community who are connected to racist, anti-immigrant sentiment, then Trump is giving permission to these people to give voice to that sentiment.”…”
Source: Early evidence of a ‘Trump effect’ on bullying in schools – The Hechinger Report
9 political cartoons by Dr. Seuss that are still relevant today.
Well hello there Supporter of ttaf!
Here is the good doctor who you assiduously made sure I read. In fact, you taught me to read from his books!
This is a great skill to have, and it takes a much more active brain than watching Fux News all day ERRR FOX NEWS…
It stuns me that in this time of information access unparalleled in history, you have stuck your head even deeper into the sands of superstition and suspicion.
I finally understand what you mean when you say “Make America Great Again!”
You liked it better when racism was explicit and unconcealed! You liked it when you could call people of color whatever name you decided…like “negro” or even worse…when you could “Jew prices down”, when you could mock Asian people’s beautifully shaped eyes…all the while telling me Jesus loved the little children of the world…
You want to go back to the days when people of color were “allowed” to live so long as they kept their head low and slunk around out of sight knowing their place, and you liked being able to shake your head sadly when some “boy” forgot his place and got hisself lynched.
Well, I am glad you gave me the tools to free me from your heinous ignorance and xenophobic fears…and I weep for you, whining and crying all about how you are getting cheated of your golden years when you can just be an old crank and vote for whoever you want.
You do have that power…the problem is you are voting for an out and out racist who is committed to harming people who are Other (whether racially, religiously, or identity)…
you are voting for a misogynist who wants to erase and kill your very own child…because the funny thing about evangelicals is they keep producing children who are variant: sexually, gender, ability variant…
because you want an indulgence…
I am revolted by your callousness.
The legendary children’s author had some thoughts about “America First.”
Source: 9 political cartoons by Dr. Seuss that are still relevant today.
You (ttaf supporter) and Me: The Difference
…is that you think these are all okay, and that they are in service to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And I find them anathema, and abhorrent, a function of Empire and the spewed seed of Mammon across the face of humanity.
I am mourning deeply…because I do not see anyone bold enough or anything willing enough to stand in the way of this thing in human skin called ttaf.
You add to my sorrow with your enthusiastic endorsement of it in the name of Jesus.
This article summarizes very well where we are now…and more eerily, where we will be very soon.
“THESE ARE THE BAD TIMES. I typed that sentence—These are the bad times—and then went to bed and when I woke up it was worse. When I woke up Donald Trump and Axios were rolling out an unconstitutional plan to attack birthright citizenship, while also promoting the new Axios HBO show.
“Saturday morning, it was a would-be Nazi massacring Jews at prayer because the propaganda about the migrant caravan had convinced him the race war had begun.
“Yesterday, in between, it was the armed forces being sent to the border. It’s all a stunt, now; they’re not shooting the migrants, now. We are talking about whether or not they’ll be shooting the migrants—of course they won’t!—because the administration has already pushed past the part where they declared that the legal, peaceful effort to seek asylum was an illegal act of war.
“And that part came long after the part where the administration kidnapped children from their parents, locked them up in camps, lost the paperwork that would keep track of whose children were locked up where, and drugged the children who got upset about being lost in a prison camp system.
“This country is failing, in action and in imagination, over and over again already.
“Our public conversation misses the fundamental point. The warnings and the rebuttals to the warnings have revolved around the drastic, epochal historical questions: Is this what it was like with the Nazis? Are we becoming the Third Reich? Is that where we’re headed?
“What that line of debate overlooks is that going only halfway Nazi would be more than bad enough. Going a quarter of the way Nazi would be. What’s dangerous about authoritarian demagoguery, or ethno-nationalism with fascist overtones, or whatever you might call this brutish and corrupt government, isn’t merely teleological—that eventually, it could arrive at the most terrible endpoint, where the president grows a tiny mustache and they change the flag and the people who go into the camps are not just bureaucratic nonpersons but actually dead.
“The danger is also that right now, already, what’s happening is degrading and violent and evil. And it is getting worse.
“Maybe it’s a function of American exceptionalism and belief in progress that we struggle to imagine anything but the extremes: a land of liberty and self-determination (regrettably a little off track at the moment), or a totalitarian death machine.
“Look around at the other possibilities. Try Turkey. Turkey still has elections. It also locks up hundreds of thousands of people in prison for their political positions or their social status. It went through an attempted coup and cracked down with martial law.
“Living under Turkish conditions—an authoritarian democracy, but certainly not the Nazi regime—would be an awful fate for Americans. We got a meaningful glimpse of the possibilities when the Turkish president’s security detail jumped off and beat up peaceful protesters on American soil last year. The Trump administration dropped the charges against most of them later on.
“Or try the Philippines, where a loudmouthed Facebook personality is in charge, and in the name of law and order, his police are systematically murdering the people he says are drug dealers or drug users. Or Brazil, where the newly elected president, who also made his name by being a right-wing buffoon on television, is promising his own campaign of police brutality.
“Then look at the territory where a police organization urges officers to “meet violence with violence and get the job done” and tells elected officials “We know whose side you’re on and it’s not ours.” That’s the newsletter of the Massachusetts Police Organization, where an executive board member rants about the troops at the border not being enough:
Meanwhile, a “caravan” of illegals is traveling up through Mexico to demand all the rights of US citizens when they get here. This is a “no‐win” for our troops. Can you see the reports on CNN? Our soldiers mixing it up with women and children who have been manipulated into thinking they can just show up here. Back on December 7th, 1941, a caravan of Japanese planes tried this in Hawaii. We shot at them.
“The executive board member of the Massachusetts Police Organization is not saying the troops should shoot the asylum-seekers at the border. He’s just comparing the migrants to an attacking hostile empire that it was, at the time, proper and necessary to shoot at. He’s saying the idea of shooting the migrants would be an attractive one, if it were possible. He just wants his audience, the law-enforcement officers of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, to think about it.
“The mail bomber, too, thought about what had to be done about the migrants. So did the killer at the synagogue, furious that a Jewish aid organization would want to help refugees. Television and the internet said the refugees were an invading horde. They’ve been saying this sort of thing for a long time now, that their America—certain people’s America, white America—is under attack. The list of people who got the message and decided to do something about it keeps growing…”
He Literally Had “Sympathy For The Devil” As His Intro Song!
“Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah”
ttaf supporter…your hero had this song as his introduction song before the Missoula Montana rally that just happened!
He is flaunting it in your face…and you still continue to suck and lap it up.
Here is the evidence of it.
Lyrics:
Sympathy for the Devil
The Rolling Stones
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul to waste
I’m a man of wealth and taste
I’ve been around for a long, long year
Stole many a man’s soul to waste
And I was ’round when Jesus Christ
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Had his moment of doubt and pain
Made damn sure that Pilate
Washed his hands and sealed his fate
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
Hope you guess my name
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game
I stuck around St. Petersburg
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
When I saw it was a time for a change
Killed the czar and his ministers
Anastasia screamed in vain
I rode a tank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Held a general’s rank
When the blitzkrieg raged
And the bodies stank
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
Hope you guess my name, oh yeah
Ah, what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah
I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades
For the gods they made
I shouted out
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me
Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me
Let me please introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
I’m a man of wealth and taste
And I laid traps for troubadours
Who get killed before they reached Bombay
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, oh yeah, get down, baby
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game, mm yeah
Hope you guessed my name, oh yeah
But what’s confusing you
Is just the nature of my game, mm yeah
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
‘Cause I’m in need of some restraint
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste, mm yeah
Pleased to meet you
Hope you guessed my name, mm yeah
Hope you guessed my name, mm yeah
But what’s puzzling you
Is the nature of my game, mm mean it, get down
Is the nature of my game, mm mean it, get down
Oh yeah, get on down
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Oh yeah
Tell me baby, what’s my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what’s my name
Tell me honey, can ya guess my name
Tell me baby, what’s my name
I tell you one time, you’re to blame
Oh, right
What’s my name
Tell me, baby, what’s my name
Tell me, baby, what’s my name
Tell me, sweetie, what’s my name
Corrupt Rather Than Stupid
ttaf supporter, you wanted to know if I think you are stupid?
I know you to be intelligent, so the only remaining explanation is that you are corrupt. You have traded your soul for creature comforts, even while denying those things to truly needy humans.
I think you are corrupt.
I despise you.
I hope you find metanoia and turn around.
Here are the words of an unknown person that put my thoughts in a fairly accurate form.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++An anguished question from a Trump supporter: “Why do liberals think Trump supporters are stupid?”
The serious answer: Here’s what we really think about Trump supporters – the rich, the poor, the malignant and the innocently well-meaning, the ones who think and the ones who don’t…
That when you saw a man who had owned a fraudulent University, intent on scamming poor people, you thought “Fine.”
That when you saw a man who had made it his business practice to stiff his creditors, you said, “Okay.”
That when you heard him proudly brag about his own history of sexual abuse, you said, “No problem.”
That when he made up stories about seeing muslim-Americans in the thousands cheering the destruction of the World Trade Center, you said, “Not an issue.”
That when you saw him brag that he could shoot a man on Fifth Avenue and you wouldn’t care, you chirped, “He sure knows me.”
That when you heard him illustrate his own character by telling that cute story about the elderly guest bleeding on the floor at his country club, the story about how he turned his back and how it was all an imposition on him, you said, “That’s cool!”
That when you saw him mock the disabled, you thought it was the funniest thing you ever saw.
That when you heard him brag that he doesn’t read books, you said, “Well, who has time?”
That when the Central Park Five were compensated as innocent men convicted of a crime they didn’t commit, and he angrily said that they should still be in prison, you said, “That makes sense.”
That when you heard him tell his supporters to beat up protesters and that he would hire attorneys, you thought, “Yes!”
That when you heard him tell one rally to confiscate a man’s coat before throwing him out into the freezing cold, you said, “What a great guy!”
That you have watched the parade of neo-Nazis and white supremacists with whom he curries favor, while refusing to condemn outright Nazis, and you have said, “Thumbs up!”
That you hear him unable to talk to foreign dignitaries without insulting their countries and demanding that they praise his electoral win, you said, “That’s the way I want my President to be.”
That you have watched him remove expertise from all layers of government in favor of people who make money off of eliminating protections in the industries they’re supposed to be regulating and you have said, “What a genius!”
That you have heard him continue to profit from his businesses, in part by leveraging his position as President, to the point of overcharging the Secret Service for space in the properties he owns, and you have said, “That’s smart!”
That you have heard him say that it was difficult to help Puerto Rico because it was the middle of water and you have said, “That makes sense.”
That you have seen him start fights with every country from Canada to New Zealand while praising Russia and quote, “falling in love” with the dictator of North Korea, and you have said, “That’s statesmanship!”
That Trump separated children from their families and put them in cages, managed to lose track of 1500 kids. has opened a tent city incarceration camp in the desert in Texas – he explains that they’re just “animals” – and you say, “well, ok then.”
That you have witnessed all the thousand and one other manifestations of corruption and low moral character and outright animalistic rudeness and contempt for you, the working American voter, and you still show up grinning and wearing your MAGA hats and threatening to beat up anybody who says otherwise.
What you don’t get, Trump supporters in 2018, is that succumbing to frustration and thinking of you as stupid may be wrong and unhelpful, but it’s also…hear me…charitable.
Because if you’re NOT stupid, we must turn to other explanations, and most of them are *less* flattering.
What I REALLY THINK?
It is quite simple.
You are bowing down to Baal…you worship yourself.
Swedish student’s dramatic plane protest stops man’s deportation ‘to hell’ | World news | The Guardian
She will always have this in her life stream.
Always.
Right now? Oh Supporter of ttaf, you will always have in your life stream the fact that you voted for a monster and empowered the suffering and destruction of your fellow human beings strictly on the basis of their skin color, or their religious orientation, or their sexual orientation, or their gender identification…
…or to feed the mouths of the war monsters who are making money off the prisons that these sufferers are being interned in.
And you imagine Judgement Day. You imagine yourself hearing “Well DONE good and faithful servant” and you remind yourself of the times you prophesied in Their Name and cast out demons in Their Name and done many wonders in Their Name…
and yet you overlook that you have partaken in and identified with lawlessness and the workers of such horror!!
You sigh, and feel grief when you read this because you think I am deceived and demonically oppressed…but I tell you that you are the deceived one, oh elect of God who think yourself unassailable…you cannot even see it.
Let me ask you this: do you agree that Jesus said that if you have given a cup of cold water or a shirt or a crust of bread to the very least of the human family that you have given it to Him? I am not asking you to interpret it right now…just answer the Q: do you agree that He said it? (Hint: check Matthew 25 first).
And that brings us down to it…where is the least…who is the least…what is it to give them a cup of cold water…
I digress.
What is going to remain in your life stream? An act of courage in the face of Empire?
Or a pathetic vote in the name of an idol called ttaf?
Elin Ersson refused to take her seat on flight at Gothenburg airport until man being sent to Afghanistan was removed
Reclaiming Jesus
Please go to the link to read this whole thing if you fancy yourself a Christian and yet think that the absolute fucker is God’s Anointed.
He isn’t…and you’re worshipping a false god if you think he is.
Yes. I am Charissa Grace White, and I approve this Message.
Do justice. Love mercy. Walk Humbly.
We are living through perilous and polarizing times as a nation, with a dangerous crisis of moral and political leadership at the highest levels of our government and in our churches. We believe the soul of the nation and the integrity of faith are now at stake.
It is time to be followers of Jesus before anything else—nationality, political party, race, ethnicity, gender, geography—our identity in Christ precedes every other identity. We pray that our nation will see Jesus’ words in us. “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).
When politics undermines our theology, we must examine that politics. The church’s role is to change the world through the life and love of Jesus Christ. The government’s role is to serve the common good by protecting justice and peace, rewarding good behavior while restraining bad behavior (Romans 13). When that role is undermined by political leadership, faith leaders must stand up and speak out. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state, but rather the conscience of the state.”
It is often the duty of Christian leaders, especially elders, to speak the truth in love to our churches and to name and warn against temptations, racial and cultural captivities, false doctrines, and political idolatries—and even our complicity in them. We do so here with humility, prayer, and a deep dependency on the grace and Holy Spirit of God.
This letter comes from a retreat on Ash Wednesday, 2018. In this season of Lent, we feel deep lamentations for the state of our nation, and our own hearts are filled with confession for the sins we feel called to address. The true meaning of the word repentance is to turn around. It is time to lament, confess, repent, and turn. In times of crisis, the church has historically learned to return to Jesus Christ.
Jesus is Lord. That is our foundational confession. It was central for the early church and needs to again become central to us. If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar was not—nor any other political ruler since. If Jesus is Lord, no other authority is absolute. Jesus Christ, and the kingdom of God he announced, is the Christian’s first loyalty, above all others. We pray, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). Our faith is personal but never private, meant not only for heaven but for this earth.
The question we face is this: Who is Jesus Christ for us today? What does our loyalty to Christ, as disciples, require at this moment in our history? We believe it is time to renew our theology of public discipleship and witness. Applying what “Jesus is Lord” means today is the message we commend as elders to our churches.
What we believe leads us to what we must reject. Our “Yes” is the foundation for our “No.” What we confess as our faith leads to what we confront. Therefore, we offer the following six affirmations of what we believe, and the resulting rejections of practices and policies by political leaders which dangerously corrode the soul of the nation and deeply threaten the public integrity of our faith. We pray that we, as followers of Jesus, will find the depth of faith to match the danger of our political crisis.
I. WE BELIEVE each human being is made in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:26). That image and likeness confers a divinely decreed dignity, worth, and God-given equality to all of us as children of the one God who is the Creator of all things. Racial bigotry is a brutal denial of the image of God (the imago dei) in some of the children of God. Our participation in the global community of Christ absolutely prevents any toleration of racial bigotry. Racial justice and healing are biblical and theological issues for us, and are central to the mission of the body of Christ in the world. We give thanks for the prophetic role of the historic black churches in America when they have called for a more faithful gospel.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the resurgence of white nationalism and racism in our nation on many fronts, including the highest levels of political leadership. We, as followers of Jesus, must clearly reject the use of racial bigotry for political gain that we have seen. In the face of such bigotry, silence is complicity. In particular, we reject white supremacy and commit ourselves to help dismantle the systems and structures that perpetuate white preference and advantage. Further, any doctrines or political strategies that use racist resentments, fears, or language must be named as public sin—one that goes back to the foundation of our nation and lingers on. Racial bigotry must be antithetical for those belonging to the body of Christ, because it denies the truth of the gospel we profess.
II. WE BELIEVE we are one body. In Christ, there is to be no oppression based on race, gender, identity, or class (Galatians 3:28). The body of Christ, where those great human divisions are to be overcome, is meant to be an example for the rest of society. When we fail to overcome these oppressive obstacles, and even perpetuate them, we have failed in our vocation to the world—to proclaim and live the reconciling gospel of Christ.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT misogyny, the mistreatment, violent abuse, sexual harassment, and assault of women that has been further revealed in our culture and politics, including our churches, and the oppression of any other child of God. We lament when such practices seem publicly ignored, and thus privately condoned, by those in high positions of leadership. We stand for the respect, protection, and affirmation of women in our families, communities, workplaces, politics, and churches. We support the courageous truth-telling voices of women, who have helped the nation recognize these abuses. We confess sexism as a sin, requiring our repentance and resistance.
III. WE BELIEVE how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the naked, the stranger, the sick, and the prisoner is how we treat Christ himself. (Matthew 25: 31-46) “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” God calls us to protect and seek justice for those who are poor and vulnerable, and our treatment of people who are “oppressed,” “strangers,” “outsiders,” or otherwise considered “marginal” is a test of our relationship to God, who made us all equal in divine dignity and love. Our proclamation of the lordship of Jesus Christ is at stake in our solidarity with the most vulnerable. If our gospel is not “good news to the poor,” it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ (Luke 4:18).
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the language and policies of political leaders who would debase and abandon the most vulnerable children of God. We strongly deplore the growing attacks on immigrants and refugees, who are being made into cultural and political targets, and we need to remind our churches that God makes the treatment of the “strangers” among us a test of faith (Leviticus 19:33-34). We won’t accept the neglect of the well-being of low-income families and children, and we will resist repeated attempts to deny health care to those who most need it. We confess our growing national sin of putting the rich over the poor. We reject the immoral logic of cutting services and programs for the poor while cutting taxes for the rich. Budgets are moral documents. We commit ourselves to opposing and reversing those policies and finding solutions that reflect the wisdom of people from different political parties and philosophies to seek the common good. Protecting the poor is a central commitment of Christian discipleship, to which 2,000 verses in the Bible attest.
IV. WE BELIEVE that truth is morally central to our personal and public lives. Truth-telling is central to the prophetic biblical tradition, whose vocation includes speaking the Word of God into their societies and speaking the truth to power. A commitment to speaking truth, the ninth commandment of the Decalogue, “You shall not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16), is foundational to shared trust in society. Falsehood can enslave us, but Jesus promises, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32). The search and respect for truth is crucial to anyone who follows Christ.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT the practice and pattern of lying that is invading our political and civil life. Politicians, like the rest of us, are human, fallible, sinful, and mortal. But when public lying becomes so persistent that it deliberately tries to change facts for ideological, political, or personal gain, the public accountability to truth is undermined. The regular purveying of falsehoods and consistent lying by the nation’s highest leaders can change the moral expectations within a culture, the accountability for a civil society, and even the behavior of families and children. The normalization of lying presents a profound moral danger to the fabric of society. In the face of lies that bring darkness, Jesus is our truth and our light.
V. WE BELIEVE that Christ’s way of leadership is servanthood, not domination. Jesus said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles (the world) lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant” (Matthew 20:25-26). We believe our elected officials are called to public service, not public tyranny, so we must protect the limits, checks, and balances of democracy and encourage humility and civility on the part of elected officials. We support democracy, not because we believe in human perfection, but because we do not. The authority of government is instituted by God to order an unredeemed society for the sake of justice and peace, but ultimate authority belongs only to God.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT any moves toward autocratic political leadership and authoritarian rule. We believe authoritarian political leadership is a theological danger that threatens democracy and the common good—and we will resist it. Disrespect for the rule of law, not recognizing the equal importance of our three branches of government, and replacing civility with dehumanizing hostility toward opponents are of great concern to us. Neglecting the ethic of public service and accountability, in favor of personal recognition and gain often characterized by offensive arrogance, are not just political issues for us. They raise deeper concerns about political idolatry, accompanied by false and unconstitutional notions of authority.
VI. WE BELIEVE Jesus when he tells us to go into all nations making disciples (Matthew 28:18). Our churches and our nations are part of an international community whose interests always surpass national boundaries. The most well-known verse in the New Testament starts with “For God so loved the world” (John 3:16). We, in turn, should love and serve the world and all its inhabitants, rather than seek first narrow, nationalistic prerogatives.
THEREFORE, WE REJECT “America first” as a theological heresy for followers of Christ. While we share a patriotic love for our country, we reject xenophobic or ethnic nationalism that places one nation over others as a political goal. We reject domination rather than stewardship of the earth’s resources, toward genuine global development that brings human flourishing for all of God’s children. Serving our own communities is essential, but the global connections between us are undeniable. Global poverty, environmental damage, violent conflict, weapons of mass destruction, and deadly diseases in some places ultimately affect all places, and we need wise political leadership to deal with each of these.
WE ARE DEEPLY CONCERNED for the soul of our nation, but also for our churches and the integrity of our faith. The present crisis calls us to go deeper—deeper into our relationship to God; deeper into our relationships with each other, especially across racial, ethnic, and national lines; deeper into our relationships with the most vulnerable, who are at greatest risk.
The church is always subject to temptations to power, to cultural conformity, and to racial, class, and gender divides, as Galatians 3:28 teaches us. But our answer is to be “in Christ,” and to “not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable, and perfect.” (Romans 12:1-2)
The best response to our political, material, cultural, racial, or national idolatries is the First Commandment: “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3). Jesus summarizes the Greatest Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, your soul, and your mind. This is the first commandment. And the second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these commandments hang all the law and the prophets” (Matthew 22:38). As to loving our neighbors, we would add “no exceptions.”
We commend this letter to pastors, local churches, and young people who are watching and waiting to see what the churches will say and do at such a time as this.
Our urgent need, in a time of moral and political crisis, is to recover the power of confessing our faith. Lament, repent, and then repair. If Jesus is Lord, there is always space for grace. We believe it is time to speak and to act in faith and conscience, not because of politics, but because we are disciples of Jesus Christ—to whom be all authority, honor, and glory. It is time for a fresh confession of faith. Jesus is Lord. He is the light in our darkness. “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).
Source: Reclaiming Jesus
Repost of A Call To Repent
From 2016…my thoughts on the popular evangelical christian “shotgun passages” they use to blanket condemn anyone who is not cisgender and heterosexual. I am reposting this because I sense that there are many readers from the past, several of whom have issued blanket condemnation of me and others like me…and who I have not seen or exchanged a single word with for many years…and yet they somehow know the state of my eternal destiny and current connection with God…
It makes me so sad…but not for me, actually! For THEM! So cocksure, so sage and sad, caressing their chins ever so mournfully and yet so piously, rubbing their beards…and wallowing in their own human pride and selfish piousness. People who claim titles like apostle and prophet, pastor and teacher…
people who Lord it over one another and practice a spirituality that is actually “homo-sect-uality”, and in fact the epitome of that abuse of power that Paul describes in the 1 Cor 6 passage, wherein an older powerful man exploits a younger and vulnerable boy…
I have seen (and experienced) that very exploitation myself.
It is my true hope that scales would fall off their eyes, as they did my own…where I discovered that the REAL transition of my life was transition from a self-righteous pit of death and striving towards a humble and broken compassionate vessel of the Love and Generosity of God.
There is also a link to a blog post by John Pavlovitz, and his listening experience to true christians who have been condemned by others…
“…Now, let’s see: I spot behaviors in this passage, behaviors that all focus on choices of the will…choices to commit various sexual sins (still not talking about orientations), choices to break commitments made to God and to other human beings (adultery and idolatry, which is a VERY tricky and subtle fault), choices to be envious that result in theft and coveting other people’s possessions, choices to become drunk and pursue a lifestyle of choice to indulge escaping from mature and fruitful living, choices to speak with anger and intense hatred in bitter speech to other human beings (yunno, like the comment section of articles), choices to THREATEN PEOPLE INTO DOING WHAT YOU WANT THEM TO…like the shunning that YOU REGULARLY DO to those whose ORIENTATIONS are imagined by you to be behavioral choices…
and yet somehow, ALL of the above choices you extend Grace and Mercy to, and almost all of those choices you have almost certainly been blood-guilty of yourself!! But you sit cheek and jowl in the pew with your fellow “unrighteous” and allow for yourselves and your cohorts in unrighteousness to participate in the Righteousness of Jesus and thus not only be forgiven, but in your mind EXCUSED from scrutiny…and you are content with the understanding that each person must scrutinize themselves with God (oh wait: Paul said that he did not judge even himself, for God is Judge)…”
Source: Love Wins (at John Pavlovitz’s blog) | Charissa’s Grace Notes
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Kanye West in the Age of Donald Trump – The Atlantic
I think this article is must reading to understand the actions of a very important figure in our time.
Kanye West wants freedom—white freedom.
Source: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Kanye West in the Age of Donald Trump – The Atlantic
The Image Facebook Does Not Want You To See
For the last month or so Facebook has been removing this image from posts that I have made there…apparently they think it is pornographic and we all know that we should not see pornography…
Yes…they are more offended by the sight of pubic hair than the actual historical acts being perpetrated then…and the deadly similarities certain things going on now have to what occurred then.
Wake up…truly. Wake up. Especially if you are a christian, and believe that part of the Gospel includes taking in the outcast, the alien and stranger, and extending God’s love and mercy to the Other.
These people were on their way to die…
Btw, certain readers: you will not find me on FB because I have blocked you…I just do not trust that you will not harass me and make life miserable for me. I have already gotten the message from the so-called network that I am now a hell-bound demon-oppressed deceived person who has mental illness…nothing could be FURTHER from the truth, but there is no speaking to a mind already made up by so many who have literally never known me or even met me.
Other readers, you should be able to see me, and if you can send me a Friend Request that includes some sort of reassurance that you are not a person who is seeking access in order to spy and harm, well, I will consider accepting that request.
I offer because I post a lot of things on that platform now days…it is a bit easier, and leaves Grace Notes to a more artistic place focused on Poetry and Spiritual Writings primarily…
…and here is the original text that went with this image, as I discovered it first on another Facebook post:
“Posted by: Liz Johnson August 13 at 8:01pm
“In light of recent events I would like to share with you one of the most haunting photographs I have ever seen. I first stumbled upon it in a library book as a child of about ten. Until now, I have not shared it with anyone because it seemed too gruesome. Today, I think we should all look at it.
“It is from the early 1940s in the early days of Hitler’s final solution. In those days the Nazis were still working out the most efficient way of exterminating an entire race. They hadn’t yet settled on Zyklon B so they sent squads of soldiers to round up Jewish people, shoot them, and then bury them in mass graves. Witnesses say that the dirt over the graves shifted for several days because one bullet was not always enough for a quick death.
“As a child, I found myself wondering how horrible it would be to face death in that way. How much emotion and fear I might feel. But now, as an adult who works with children I can’t help but think “how awful it must have been for those mothers.” I can see them in my mind, naked, humiliated, and calmly waiting to be horrifically killed. Did they sing softly to their babies? Did they tell them it would be ok? I can barely stand the knowledge that it happened, but they endured it.
“Let us NEVER forget that these terrible things that happened.
“If you can look at that and take up a Nazi flag, then there are no “on all sides”. There is no “everybody did some bad things” you are holding up an ideology that caused those women to die naked with their babies and be buried still alive in a shallow mass grave.
“You cannot refuse to take sides here. There is no middle ground. When nine million people are murdered under an ideology its time to be done with that ideology.”
Appropriate for Holy Saturday
The Fascist Right Is Bloodied and Soiled
On “Good Friday” of Election 2016 you chanted GIVE US BARABBAS!
You settled for ttaf…and here is the rule of your “king”‘s result:
“Here are some statistics:
“There have already been 17 school shootings in the United States in 2018, an average of 1.5 shootings per week. There has been an average of one school shooting every week since 2013.
“Police have killed almost 1,000 people in the United States in each of the past three years: 987 in 2017; 963 in 2016; and 995 in 2015. One in three people killed by a stranger in the United States is killed by a cop; black people are three times more likely than white people to be killed by a cop.
“Jihadists have killed 95 people in the United States since September 11, 2001.
“Cities that hosted Trump campaign rallies reportedly saw an average of 2.3 more assaults reported on the day of the event than usual.
“Right-wing extremists have killed at least 274 people since 2008, accounting for almost three-quarters of all murders committed by domestic extremists in that time.
In 2017, fascists and other white supremacists in the United States killed at least 22 people. Their names are Heather Heyer; Taliesin Namkai Meche and Ricky Best; Richard Collins III; Timothy Caughman; Srinivas Kuchibhotla; Buckley Kuhn-Fricker and Scott Fricker; Casey Marquez and Francisco Fernandez; Charles Davis; Martin Gonzales; John Byler; corrections officers Christopher Monica and Curtis Billue; Deputy Sheriff Mason Moore; Randy Gene Baker; Jorge Slaughter; Cord Colgrove; and Jeremy Himmelman and Andrew Oneschuk, themselves neo-Nazis, and Frank Ancona, a member of the Ku Klux Klan…”
I Mean Every Word of This, Too
“Dear Friend,
I don’t think I can do this anymore.
I’m afraid we’re at an impasse.
I’m not sure it’s fixable.
Initially I held out hope that we could find some compromise here; that we could make an uneasy peace, that despite our differences of opinion we could forge some tenuous truce moving forward.
That was a long time ago.
Back then we didn’t know what we know about the person you voted for—and I didn’t know what I’ve learned about you as a result.
Back when you voted the way you voted, we didn’t know the extent of:
his sexual indiscretions,
his allegiance to the Russians,
his dangerous nepotism,
his revolving door Cabinet,
his contempt for the rule of law,
his disregard for the environment,
his oppression of refugees and dreamers,
his neglect of sick and disabled people,
his indebtedness to the NRA,
his defense of racists,
his attacks on journalists,
his reckless financial waste,
his golf excursions and Twitter rants,
his public war on the FBI,
his impulsive hirings and firings.
Before we knew all these things, I could give you the benefit of the doubt. I could imagine that you’d never have consented to such cruelty, such incompetence, such bigotry, such malevolence.
Before we knew these things, I could believe that you couldn’t possibly harbor such hatred in your heart for so many people sharing this country with you.
Before we knew these things I could have made every excuse that it wasn’t racism or misogyny or nationalism or supremacy or weaponized religion that motivated you to vote the way you voted.
But we do know these things now about this man, and yet your support hasn’t wavered in the slightest—and this has been heartbreaking to witness:
Listening to you regurgitate FoxNews talking points, seeing your timeline fill with fake news, sitting through bitter holiday meal diatribes, hearing offhand, off-color comments that sound just like the man you voted for—and through it all, wondering where the rational, compassionate, loving person I thought I knew has gone.
I don’t recognize you anymore.
I see you dig in your heels and double down and amen his toxic filth, and I feel myself grieving the loss of who I once believed you were.
I feel the gap between us widening.
I feel the fracture deepening.
At first I did my best not to ascribe motive to you.
I assumed that you came to your vote as carefully and rationally as I did mine.
I tried to show you the legislative damage he was doing in hopes that it would move you.
I reminded you that we are a nation of immigrants and outsiders and refugees.
I asked you to consider the duress people were under now as a result of your vote.
I appealed to your compassion for the marginalized, poor, and hurting people—left more vulnerable because of him.
I showed you the words of Jesus about loving your neighbor and caring for the least and welcoming the stranger.
I hoped that any one of these things might reach you and that you’d show me your humanity, and I’d again see the person I thought you were when we were close.
I realize now that none of these things are effective; that no amount of data, no evidence in his words or legislation, no firsthand stories of the people being destroyed right now are enough to move you.
I realize that you have no desire to entertain any reality that threatens the story you wish to be true—and in many ways this makes you unreachable right now. It makes you less and less someone I feel good about being around.
And the longer this goes on, the less and less possible reconciliation between us seems; not because I don’t wish for it, and not because I won’t grieve it—but because I can’t compromise the lives of millions of other people just to keep the peace between the two of us. That isn’t a fair exchange.
Equality and diversity and compassion are hills worth dying on for me, and if our relationship is the collateral damage of fully fighting for these things, I’m going to have to live with that.
I’m still hopeful one day things between us can be better, but I’m almost positive they’ll never be the same; because of what we know about him and what I’ve learned about you since this began.
And so this division, this impasse, this separation, as painful as it is—is far less painful than denying my deepest convictions or ignoring the suffering around me.
I need to be able to sleep at night and to look in the mirror.
Because of that, these differences we have may be irreconcilable.”
Watch the S.N.L. Trump Sketch That Broke the Premise of S.N.L. | Vanity Fair
Jessica Chastain, Kate McKinnon, and the rest abandoned their characters.
Source: Watch the S.N.L. Trump Sketch That Broke the Premise of S.N.L. | Vanity Fair
A Two Thousand Year Old Warning
When Christians Defend Predators (By John Pavlovitz)
“Yet as ugly as followers of Jesus creating distance from him is, it’s a far more vile act, when in depravity they claim proximity; when they stand proudly in the world and commit the greatest of atrocities upon humanity—and contend that Jesus consents to it all.
It’s hard to imagine a greater illustration of Christians losing the plot than when they defend predators. There are few bastardizations of the life and the message of Jesus, as complete and grievous as taking the side of rapists and pedophiles and genitalia grabbers—but this is where we are now.
“With the Evangelicals embracing Donald Trump and with those now rallying to the defense of Roy Moore, this is what we’re watching in America: the least of these being thrown to the wolves by the supposed shepherds…”
https://johnpavlovitz.com/2017/11/18/christians-defend-predators/
Things Trump-Supporting Christians Can Pray About In Church This Sunday
Another great challenge to Christians who are still convinced that ttaf is a servant of God.
To argue that, you have to argue that whoever and whatever is a servant of God, because God uses all things…which is ridiculous.
ttaf is no more God’s servant than Hitler was…and yet we know that God will triumph, even over the deception that those who take Their Name in vain are currently mired.
“And yes, pray about this President.
“Ask God specifically how his life and body of work align with the Jesus you’ve known all your life; the one you find hope and joy in, the one you read about in the Gospels, the one whose voice you recognize as peacemaker, forgiver, lover, healer, helper.
“Ask God if his vile words about women, his cruelty toward those suffering, his vicious social media tirades, his neglect of hurricane victims, his siphoning of funding from public school students and healthcare from cancer patients—if any of it feels at all like the Jesus who talked of loving the least, of caring for the poor, of loving their neighbors as they love God, of the last being first, of the righteous turning their cheeks, of the meek inheriting the earth, of the good Samaritan showing mercy.
“Ask Jesus if this President is someone worth a follower of Christ emulating, celebrating, empowering, amen-ing—if he is someone living in that image.
“Ask Jesus about saying that the way we treat the lowest and the vulnerable is the way we treat him—and how this President is treating him.
“Ask Jesus what the world is learning about his heart for the world, his character, his compassion, his gentleness by the man you elevated to our highest human platform.
“Ask Jesus about the kind of world he was trying to usher in when his feet were on the planet—and how this President is doing anything to make it a reality in these days.
“And if you can walk out of that worship gathering into another Sunday afternoon, completely unchanged and without sensing the slightest conflict between Jesus Christ of Nazareth and Donald Trump of DC, and without a trace of discomfort at the disconnect between your inner convictions and his tangible actions—pray for yourself, because you have clearly lost the plot of the one who brought the world a Good News that is now completely inaudible in these days because of this man and because of a Church that refuses to stand against him.”
Source: Things Trump-Supporting Christians Can Pray About In Church This Sunday
Evangelical conservatives are proving their harshest critics right – The Washington Post
I am linking to this article because I think it is absolutely crucial for every person of faith to understand that they are right now in the Valley of Decision, and must choose between Empire or The Kingdom of God…and the two could not be more different.
“Patriotism”, “Respecting the flag”, “supporting the military”…all of these things are now become code for “Support Empire America” in every way without question…even if it is in direct contradiction to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ.
The famous verse to “Choose this day whom you will serve” is become a period of time, and how one chooses now will dictate whether or not one participates in Idolatry or True Religion (which is summarized nicely for us by the half-brother of Jesus in his epistle James).
Please consider the words and implications of this article very carefully.
*****
Robert P. Jones, author of “The End of White Christian America,” observes, “One of the most astounding shifts in modern politics has been the utter transformation of white evangelical Protestants from being confident self-described ‘values voters,’ who measured candidates for office against a high bar of moral character, to anxious and unwavering Trump supporters who have largely dropped these standards for a candidate they believe will deliver policies that benefit them.”
He explains that “white evangelicals have exchanged an ethic of principle that might hold a political leader accountable to consistent standards for a consequentialist ends-justify-the-means posture that simply stops interrogating character, the quality of leadership, or the morality of actions when it’s beneficial.”
Source: Evangelical conservatives are proving their harshest critics right – The Washington Post
These Protests Aren’t About a Flag, an Anthem, or the Military—and You Know it
Please read this…and grapple with yourself.
“…In saying that these athletes are protesting the flag or the Military or the Anthem—you are choosing to listen to your bias and not their actual words. You’re simply ignoring their repeated statements, in order to perpetuate the narrative you need to oppose them without feeling any responsibility to wrestle with the difficult issues they raise.
“By creating a black and white “Traitorous NFL Player vs. America” storyline, you’re able to completely ignore the stated and repeated impetus behind Kaepernick’s initial protest (and every one that’s followed): the plea for people of color to be treated with equity by law enforcement, the criminal justice system, and our government. When the President labels these men “sons of bitches” who should be terminated—he’s only proving why their protests are valid and necessary to begin with…”
Source: These Protests Aren’t About a Flag, an Anthem, or the Military—and You Know it
From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity | The New Yorker
If you are reading this…and you are white…this is the hour of your visitation. Wake up and get on the proper side of history. If you don’t, your hidden racism is showing
“…Kaepernick began his silent, kneeling protest at the beginning of last season, not as an assault against the United States military or the flag but as a dissent against a system that has, with a great degree of consistency, failed to hold accountable police who kill unarmed citizens.
“Since he did this, forty-one unarmed individuals have been fatally shot by police in the United States, twelve of them African-American, according to a database maintained by the Washington Post.
“The city of St. Louis recently witnessed three days of protests after the acquittal of Jason Stockley, the former officer who, while still working for the city’s police force, fatally shot Anthony Smith, an eighteen-year-old African-American motorist who had led officers on a chase.
“Stockley emerged from his vehicle, having declared that he would “kill the motherfucker,” then proceeded to fire five rounds into the car. Later, a firearm was found on the seat of Smith’s car, but the weapon bore only Stockley’s DNA.
“The issue is not imaginary…”
Source: From Louis Armstrong to the N.F.L.: Ungrateful as the New Uppity | The New Yorker
How I Became Fake News – POLITICO Magazine
This is all about how you, supporter of ttaf, now prefer the National Enquirer and absolutely crazed versions of reality than the actual truth.
You are the Enquirerer Generation…and you make me want to vomit.
This is the literal actual picture of what that racist domestic terrorist did…caught in the act. And yet you would rather believe all the craziness of stories made up, fabricated…and the preferred media of ttaf himself, the National Enquirer.
If you have a shred of decency, you will read this article, about a person who was there…filmed it and posted that film…and then started getting death threats from the racist assholes.
I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. Then the conspiracy theories began
Reverend Traci Blackmon, Eyewitness, Says Donald Trump Is Lying About Charlottesville | All In | MSNBC
You need to watch this. Period. I do not care who you are. This woman is a lover of God, a Reverend, and was at the heart of the events that unfolded. She personally witnessed them, she personally EXPERIENCED them.
If you cannot, will not watch this, then it means you are intentionally choosing the skewed and false version of this presented by ttaf…you are not facing the fact that ttaf is an out and out racist.
Which, of course is a domino tumbler for ya, ttaf supporter…because now all of the so-called Christian voices who say that ttaf is God’s anointed are now saying that God sanctions and anoints an openly racist pussy-grabbing sex abuser.
Can you not see how far you have fallen to swallow that shit from HELL???
I comment because I care. Your wake up call will cause you to grieve more deeply than you can imagine.
Remember: handsome is as handsome does. I was taught that as a very small child…it is grievous to need to teach the teacher.
How one former president handled the Klan speaks volumes.
ttaf has just flat out taken off all his clothes and abandoned every pretense that he is anything other than a flat out racist. He did this in a press conference…and he did it with relish and boasting.
He lied about what happened over the weekend, in lies that are so easily fucking debunked that it beggars the imagination that he could be so bald-faced.
He reminds me of a serial killer who just finally gives up pretending and just wallows in the blood and gore.
He sought to equivocate, which is a bit like comparing the sides of the Allies and the side of the Nazis and saying they are equally morally reprehensible.
He is completely ignorant of the difference between Stonewall Jackson and and George Washington.
ttaf supporters…you put a mirror in the White House, and your faces are the ones he reflects…a liar, a racist, and a bloodthirsty bully.
God have mercy on your pathetic souls.
Below, I post a comparison of leaders…George Bush Sr is a man of principle, and this is what that looks like.
“I just felt I had to speak out.”
Source: How one former president handled the Klan speaks volumes.
Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America | The New Yorker
This is what happened…and commentary about it. A GREAT think piece!!
“Over the weekend, Charlottesville became the site of an extended white-supremacist revival meeting. On Friday night, like a nightmarish graduation procession, a few hundred white supremacists marched with torches down the long green lawn that leads to the Rotunda, the University of Virginia’s signature building.
“They chanted Nazi slogans in the open, undisguised, unafraid of being photographed, proud to be seen. They circled a statue of Thomas Jefferson and attacked a group of student counter-protesters who held a banner reading “UVA Students Act Against White Supremacy” at the statue’s base.
“On Saturday morning, flanked by militia men carrying automatic weapons, the white supremacists assembled in McIntire Park, with swastikas and Confederate flags fully visible; David Duke was there, along with other representatives of the Ku Klux Klan.
“The counter-protest had grown. Religious leaders had gathered at dawn to pray, and progressive and anti-fascist groups tracked the demonstration to Emancipation Park, which was once named Lee Park, after the Confederate general. There, the violence implied in a “white pride” protest erupted, and the rally was dispersed.
“As the counter-protesters moved on foot towards the adjacent Downtown Mall, a man who had come to town to show his support for white supremacy drove his car down a wide pedestrian alley, killing one woman and injuring nineteen people; he then backed out of the alley and drove away.
“This wasn’t the first white-supremacist rally held in Charlottesville in 2017, and it likely won’t be the last. On Saturday, the self-promoting white supremacist Richard Spencer, a proponent of oxymorons (“peaceful ethnic cleansing”) who is also a University of Virginia graduate, filmed himself saying, “Your head’s gonna spin, how many times we’re going to be back here . . . We’re going to make Charlottesville the center of the universe.”
“The white supremacists have successfully pushed a narrative that they chose Charlottesville because it represents progressive values. Ostensibly, this is all a protest over the impending removal of a large statue of Robert E. Lee. Jason Kessler, the organizer of Saturday’s rally (and another U.V.A. graduate), calls Charlottesville a “very far left community that has absorbed these cultural Marxist principles advocated in college towns across the country, about blaming white people for everything.”
“In fact, Charlottesville, while it is home to many progressive people, skillfully models the exact sort of coercive propriety and self-exculpation from the legacy of American racism that has allowed white supremacy to publicly re-emerge….”
Source: Charlottesville and the Effort to Downplay Racism in America | The New Yorker
Eyewitness Accounts Really Combat “Fake News” Claims
Here is a link that goes to a Face Book Post of an eyewitness account of the weekend’s racist events
The FAQs: What Christians Should Know About the Alt-Right
Supporters of ttaf: you do not get to have your own private reality where anything you don’t like or agree with you simply label fake news and say it doesn’t exist.
SHIT IS HAPPENING IN THIS WORLD THAT EXISTS!!! In Charlottesville VA this weekend a 20 year old Neo-Nazi drove his car into a crowd at high speed and injured several while killing one…and those people were COUNTER-PROTESTERS and not of his own ilk.
It was an act of terrorism…committed by a white male (surprise surprise), a person born on the soil of this nation…a person who is not Muslim…
This person would fall under the umbrella term of the alt-right, which this article is about…and you need to read it if you want to maintain even a semblance of relationship with the truth.
The willingness to live in your own fantasy world is onerous at best…but it is heartbreaking and sickening at worst, in that you are openly christian and your stance about this, about getting EVERY LAST SMIDGE OF INFORMATION ABOUT NEW FROM FOX NEWS…is that you are besmirching and blackening the Name of the Saviour you claim!!!
It is in the name of Jesus that you have hated Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, accusing them of being forces to undermine America…while turning a blind eye to how ttaf supports and condones the Alt-Right, and THEY KNOW IT!! They are right now posting on their message boards that ttaf’s statement about Charlottesville was a smoke screen cover that actually affirms THEM!!
You are quite literally deceived because you choose to be.
Let me ask you a question: you do believe that it is possible to tailor the news to present a completely fabricated picture of “what’s going on”. That is a given…otherwise you would not say all things but Fox News are fake news.
So if this is possible to do, is it also possible for Fox to do it? Surely you see that logic demands your admission this is so…Fox WOULD be capable of this deception.
The next question is this: why do you believe that Fox News does not shape the news according to their own views? What evidence do you have that Fox is trustworthy? Or if your belief is not founded in any evidence, then it must be due to your being entangled in confirmation bias, which means that anything which confirms your view of the world you assume is true…BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE IT!! Not because it IS true.
A third question: Given that I once identified as conservative, was far better than you at tracking multiple news sites and triangulating to an understanding…Given that I have undergone a deep examination of self, of the world and my views…and given that I now hold different views, derived from intelligent examination and reassessment, would you believe me to be unaware of what Fox claims…and why Fox claims it!!??
Or would I be more qualified to assess these things? To recognize error and misstatement and lying?
It is heartbreaking that the most deceived people on the planet firmly believe that anyone who disagrees with them is possessed by a demon of deception.
Well…here is a fabulous article to assist you to climb out of the pit of deception if you have the courage to read it.
At the core of the alt-right movement is idolatry—the idol of ‘whiteness.’ In building their identity on shared genetic traits the alt-right divides humanity and leads people away from the only source of true identity: Jesus Christ.
Source: The FAQs: What Christians Should Know About the Alt-Right
Yes, WHITE MALES!
A Lament, The Day After…The Day Before
Our culture is infected nigh unto death, and death is walking the planet in the guise of human skin…in pustules of hate that infect the brains of privileged THINGS that are fallen OH SO FALLEN from grace, from their birthright…
drunk on privilege and wasted on hate and mainlining the toxic excitement of hunting and killing, these sorry pitiful lost WRECKS have willingly gone werewolf and become nothing but sentient beasts.
Quite simply, you must. YOU MUST. Effect some change in your life right now this very day…and NO!! GET AWAY FROM ME, asking ME what it is you can/should do…why are you asking this small child, when there is a Slain One who showed us the way in the days of His flesh, and He lives even now and speaks to this world thru Holy Spirit, my Mama, who sheds light into darkness…
and into the darkness of your unknowing She IS SHINING and will speak if you listen…
…and then act. DO. DO WHAT SHE SAYS.
Maybe you should walk to work everyday carrying a sign that says something on it.
Maybe you should go next door, a block away, and reach out to the person that rises in your heart to reach.
MAYBE WE SHOULD CANCEL EVERY FUCKING CHURCH SERVICE TODAY AND WALK THE STREETS IN SACK CLOTH AND ASHES FOR OUR UTTER FAILURE TO LIVE OUT THE GOSPEL!!
We need some kind of antibiotic to kill the strain of bacteria loose in our body politic…well, I think that antibiotic is the Gospel of Jesus Christ (not the gospel of evil so-called preachers and fearful status-quo priests)…and I think that every single one of us who can still see that this is evil and deadly are the white blood cells.
I see a culture that has engaged in self mutilation, has engaged in drugging itself…and I see a people in power who wring their hands and say there is nothing we can do that is a sickening echo of the mantra that was shoved down my throat when I was executed and cut loose from a place that supposedly thought I was something valuable and yet when it came right down to it the man-made thought up written down rules were held more sacred and inviolate than my bleeding torn and tattered heart.
How has there not been a dropping of all things and a rising up?
We need a nation-wide deliverance.
And even within my own circle of acquaintances, I KNOW there are those who blame the BLM protesters rather than the racist, drunk on demonic doctrines of death, hate infused SENTIENT BEASTS who have willingly discarded their Divine Spark…
and this makes me so sick I wanna puke.
To be very vulnerable, I don’t know if I am safe around people today…well, to be more honest, I don’t know if they are safe around me…Because
I WANT to inflict THE WOUND THAT WILL NOT HEAL UNTIL WE SEE OUR SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF ALL RACES AND RELIGIONS HEALED…
I WANT to step on your toe so hard you will limp forever, blessing the name of the Wounded Healer Himself…
I WANT to vent your side, so that you would never again gather possessions to it to feed rapacious greed and instead would gather the least of these to staunch the flow of sorrow and slake their thirst for mercy…
When the prayers of the people go up this morning, and the presiding human says to offer the prayers not yet prayed, how do I not just SCREAM AND SCREAM WITHOUT CEASING…so loud, so offensive, so volatile that NO RELIGIOUS SPIRIT COULD STAND IN THE SUMMONING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT OF GOD TO HAVE MERCY ON OUR SORRY GREEDY SLUMBERING ASSES?????
How can I not pray for an hour, in vehemence and tears?
And to be quite honest? I TRULY and DEEPLY suspect that the vast majority would call for me to be disciplined and reprimanded, more upset with my disrupting of the expected order of a worship service than the absolute defiling of our culture with the disruption of justice and the flow of mercy.
Yes. The Cows of Vashon would mill and moo and low and trample…and chase me out the door straightaway…Or WOULD they?
What are the odds that during the night the watchmen have been gathering sack-cloth and fashioning slip on garments, and burning the watch-fires to collect ashes
(why Charissa, you dumb bitch, it is not Ash Wednesday, wtf with the ashes, idjit???)…
What if the leaders are ready, handing EACH person a garment made and saying that unless you don that cloth and take a mark of ash, for THIS SUNDAY, you do not come into the house…for it is a time of repentance and rending garments. It is a time for face falling and weeping aloud and BEGGING for the streams of justice to wash thru the House.
Well. What an…EXTREME..girl you are, Charissa.
Umm…okay. SO I WILL SETTLE FOR THE TRUE HEART ATTITUDE OF SACK CLOTH AND ASHES THIS MORNING!!!
Can you even summon the fucking COURAGE for THAT??? Can you BURN your fucking programs and orders of the day and expected liturgy and smear your own HEART with ashes and let your face be rent with tears on this day??
What the FUCK is there to preach on if not this?
If our dire and needful moment is NOT front and center and a call to repentance not issued then we do indeed serve a false god made from human hands and not the GOD of gods, the One who came and suffered and bled and invited the outcasts first.
Let us go outside the city, bearing His reproach…for there He awaits for us among the outcast. And in returning to the city after, let us draw near to the gates, and to the entrance of the doors, and to the high hill beside the Way where our paths meet…and hear the voice of WISDOM…the voice of Holy Spirit…the voice of MAMA who is SHOUTING SHOUTING SHOUTING to all fools and indolent ones DRAW NEAR!!
Statements by ecclesial bodies are just that, especially when the orthopraxy of said bodies still is exclusionary in so many ways and practical applications.
I don’t know what to do with myself right now. My chest is red and scratched as I claw and claw seeking to tear this pain from my heart.
I am well and truly troubled and do not know the way forward today.
Shitting On The Heroes Of WW2
My Fellow White Americans…
“For the back of the house: no, all Trump voters are not white supremacists. YES, all Trump voters were comfortable electing a white supremacist to the highest office in the nation. This tweet is weak because the President doesn’t want to upset the members of his base because the members of his base are either okay with this or they are the very tiki-torch-lit assholes pictured above. These are guys wearing MAGA hats. These ARE the faces of your base. This IS the same rhetoric that Trump has always espoused. It’s Racism Classic™, now with Extra Tiki.”
Source: My fellow white Americans. | I Am Begging My Mother Not To Read This Blog
Julius Goat on Twitter: “Imagine if these people ever faced actual oppression. https://t.co/dhPCbtfEjO”
Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect
There IS no “other hand”. There IS no “other side” that must be heard.
There is hatred and devotion to satanic ideologies that have slaughtered millions and millions…and there is resisting this.
If you are not against this, and openly against this…then you are for it.
Period.
Any attempt to ameliorate this, to talk it away, to justify it…any attempt to “Fox News” it is in itself evil and enabling.
++++++++++++
From the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect:
MR. PRESIDENT, LEARN THESE WORDS FROM ELIE WIESEL OF BLESSED MEMORY: “We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
They Are Your Family Now, Not Me
ttaf supporters…the ones in the background are your family now.
Not me…not anymore…not until you denounce them, and their new avatar of bigotry ttaf.
ttaf is saying to us that there is moral equivalence between the Nazi demonstrators and the counter protesters…
there is not.
If you think there is, then I have no truck with you. Ever.
I denounce ttaf. I denounce all of his supporters. I denounce the hatred and bigotry on display. I denounce those who claim the name of Jesus who refuse to have their eyes opened by this orgy of hate and racism.
God save us…we are truly entering into hell.
White Supremacist Mob Carrying Torches Attacks Anti-Racist Protesters in Charlottesville – UNICORN RIOT
ttaf supporters…
if you write this off as “fake news” you sign the line that satan offers you…your own piece of mind and security and prosperity in exchange for your soul.
Charlottesville, VA – A group of hundreds of neo-Nazis, KKK members, and other white supremacists in town for Saturday’s ‘Unite The Right’ rally assembled at ‘Nameless Field’ on University of Virginia (UVA) campus Friday night. The group was marshaled by a security team who instructed them to march in a column bearing lit tiki torches. […]
Statement About The Slaughter In Charlottesville
Congratulations supporter of ttaf…
you now know that you would have supported Hitler
Tweets About Charlottesville Capture The Chaos Of The Protest & How Terrified People Are
This is what you think of as “again”? ttaf supporter?? I am asking you…is this your “again”?
You bought this monster’s rhetoric and snake oil because he said “Make America Great Again”…and immediately this erupts when your avatar of hatred takes office.
There are literally thousands of incidents similar to this that have happened since ttaf was elected. They are easily documented, and if I were to just press them here it would be boring in its droning continual outpouring.
The marchers were shouting “Heil Trump”…
This is your again. This is what you wanted a return to. Except that the genie is out of the bottle…people are NEVER going back onto Massa’s plantation…ever.
Their courage and passion carries them forward…
And now there are white supremacists driving vehicles into crowds of people exercising their Constitutional Rights…
The racist answer to this…YOUR answer to this…”Well they should not have been out there protesting.”
And how fascinating that you do not say that the absolute fuckers who are channeling Nazi hatred and rage and want to resurrect the 3rd Reich should not have been out there!!”
Why won’t you rise up and join all decent people and denounce racists and bigots?
Because you know you are wrong…and you will not admit it…and it breaks my heart that you do this in the name of God and the name of America.
I wanna vomit that you have become this…no…that you have not actually been what you pretended to be for so long, and when the opportunity came thru ttaf to dive into the pool of shit you did a triple backflip of joy.
Violence and chaos broke out on the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday during a white supremacist “Unite the Right” rally. Tensions were already bound to be high after a Friday night demonstration at the University of Virginia, wherein …
Source: Tweets About Charlottesville Capture The Chaos Of The Protest & How Terrified People Are
Why “Facts” Don’t Convince People (and what you can do about it)
Hello all…this post goes out in the hope that you will take time to watch…then reflect…and then do some work in these times.
If, like me, you fear for the survival of democracy and think we are on the border of becoming ruled by autocrats who simply harm those they do not like, then clearly you will consider the time spent well spent…
and if you are a supporter of ttaf, then you will consider me and those like me as deceived and dangerously so…you will sit wringing your hands and exchanging “so sad”s and “so be it”s with like minded people…so would you not also then have GREAT motivation to invest time in this so you could better communicate with those whose minds you wish to change?
PS: I have watched it…that is why I am posting it. So be aware of that when you talk to me and employ the shortcut thinking on display here.
Microphone cut after Mormon girl reveals she’s gay at church
Hey…this heinous and evil action is not unique to this one church, alas. It is standard operating procedure in evangelical cultures.
But notice something particular…read the article and notice: she was not doing any sin. She was not sexually sinning, she was not defaming anyone else…she was simply being authentic and vulnerable.
That list in 1 Corinthians 6 which is used to rape, pillory, and execute LGTBQIA humans “In the Name of Jesus” is a list that refers to actions taken which flow from an unredeemed heart…here they all are:
sexually immoral
idolaters
adulterers
thieves
greedy
drunkards
slanderers
swindlers
…and of course the infamous supposed ban on same sex relationships which was actually speaking to the unequal and evil power dynamic practiced in those days by men of power over young and exploitable boys…very similar to how today’s Rape Culture looks.
Sexual immorality is a perversion of sex
Idolatry is a perversion of worship
Adultery is a perversion of relationship
Theft is a perversion of property rights
Greed is a perversion of desire
Drunkenness is a perversion of pleasure
Slander is a perversion of truth telling
Swindling is a perversion of relationship
…and the practice that was mistranslated by the KVJ translators is simply a perversion of sex no different than sexual immorality…
Not one of the root things is in itself an evil!!
This list is by no means exhaustive…but what is exhausting is the evil idolatrous, slanderous, swindling undertaken by millions of so-called Christians EVERY SINGLE DAY who carry it out in Jesus Name…and ignore all the other things in the list.
You’re merely a sinner in need of God…unless you are a homasexshul.
Truthfully? It is your own guilt and shame which you scapegoat onto LGTBQIA people as a sop to your own guilty conscience.
This girl is far closer to the kingdom of God than the rest of them put together…because she is authentic!!
I suggest you try some…you may end up having a few less “Lord Lord when did we see You’s” to answer for…
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A video of a young Mormon girl revealing to her congregation that she is lesbian and still loved by God — before her microphone is turned off by local…
Source: Microphone cut after Mormon girl reveals she’s gay at church
After More Than 20 Years as Conservative Leader, Paul Williams Comes Out as Transwoman
This story is very parallel to my own.
I encourage reading it, especially for the understanding
of a Gospel of Incarnation rather than a Gospel of Law.
“Transgender teens with unsupportive parents have a suicide rate 13 times higher than their peers. They are the most at risk group in the nation. Most of those unsupportive parents are Evangelicals.
“I have been in personal contact with thousands of LGBTQ individuals and their families from seven countries on four continents. Almost without exception these souls are Christians who have been ostracized from their churches and/or families. They always ask the same painful question, ‘What do I do now?’ I feel the weight of the responsibility.
“In my previous work, I hoped to save people from spiritual suffering. In my current work, I hope to save people from dying.”
Paula went on to state: “I do not care about their (evangelicals’) brand of orthodoxy.””I have no interest in debating it. It is of little interest to me.
However, I do care about their orthopraxy, how they practice the Christian faith. I find it lacking. I find any religion lacking that leads with judgment instead of leading with acceptance and love.”
Source: After More Than 20 Years as Conservative Leader, Paul Williams Comes Out as Transwoman
Charissa's Grace Notes 
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