Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 66th Edition. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer up your pants.*

Strange bedfellows.

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.

New Senate Whip John Barrasso with President Elect Donald Trump and President John F. Kennedy with his nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Politics is, we also know, the art of compromise, but to what extent is a politician to blame for compromising with the truth?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been chosen by Donald Trump to be the new head of Health and Human Services.

He is, frankly, a nutter on health topics, who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near such a post.

John Barrasso is, by training, an orthopedic surgeon.

I've long suspected, well I'm pretty much certain, that Dr. Barrasso doesn't actually believe even half of what he's saying..He's doing it to 1) keep his Senatorial seat; and 2) advance himself in the Senate, even though at his age he could easily retire and be done with it.

Without getting too deep into it, I also believe that once you start compromising on fundamental things, you keep doing it, including with the truth.  You don't start off deep into it, but you end up there.

Dr. Barrasso was known, at one time, as "Wyoming's Doctor" and had spots on local television with health minutes, and hosted the Labor Day Marathon.  He continued to do this after he became Senator, a spot he was appointed to by the legislature to fill a vacancy before he was elected.

I've met him, as a physician, but can't claim to know him.  I've been with him on commercial aircraft numerous times.  I've always left him alone, as I figure that while traveling, people don't like to be bothered.  I don't.  Not everyone was like that, however, and I'd see people who recognized him treat him sort of like fans treated Elvis Presley.

Dr. Barrasso is originally from Pennsylvania.  With a solid Italian American parentage, and an early Catholic education, I'd guess, but don't know, that he was a Catholic up until some point.  He list himself as a Presbyterian now, and has been divorced, and later remarried.  He's in his early 70s.  Early on, his positions were clearly moderate Republican, but starting at least as early as 2016 they began to rapidly head towards Trumpism.  He had a right wing challenger in the GOP primary last go around, and while I think the chances of him every losing were small, he went hardcore to the right.

Now he's the whip.  Trump is going to expect him to whip up support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, holds some of the nuttiest ideas on healthcare, and particularly vaccines, imaginable.  He shouldn't be anywhere near the Department of Health and Human Services.

Will Barrasso choke those down and support them.

Again, people don't get to supporting anything overnight.  Some do rapidly, some over decades.

RFK, Jr. has no business in this office.

Kennedys

Before moving on, hasn't the country had enough of the Kennedys?  

I certainly have.

The over tattooed and expropriation.

Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is taking a lot of flak.  Some of it is for things he's said or believes

Some of it for his tattoos, which are interpreted to mean things which they might not.

One of those tattoos is of a Jerusalem Cross.

The Jerusalem cross consists of a large cross potent surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses representing the spread of the gospel to the four corners of the earth.  It was used as the emblem and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1099.

Hegeth is a member of a church which is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.  Therefore, he's appropriating a Catholic symbol, while he's not a Catholic.  Indeed, he's not even close, as he's on his third spouse, something no adherent Catholic would have done.

He also has a tattoo on a bicep that states Deus vult, "God wills", a phrase that dates back to the First Crusade, but which has been appropriated by many groups over the years.   And it doesn't stop there.

“Israel, Christianity and my faith are things I care deeply about,” he's stated.

Perhaps he should learn more about the faith espoused by the symbols that he's had inked on himself.  Indeed, quite frankly, the men who cried Deus vult in the 11th Century and those who fought to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have regarded him as a heretic. 

Anyhow,  one thing that I've worried about since the rise of Christian Nationalist is that Catholics are the ones who are going to take a beating in the end, even though its really a Protestant movement.  I can already see it starting to happen.  Former Senator Adam Kinzinger, who comments heavily on Blue Sky and Twitter, had a post noting that "the Crusades weren't Christian".  Oh yes they were, the thing they weren't is the edited version that English Protestants came up with to attempt to tar and feather the Church.  Others have been running around claiming that the Jerusalem Cross, which Catholics use a lot, is a Nazi symbol, which it isn't, or a camouflaged swastika, which it isn't.

The United States remains a Protestant nation, including in the way it reacts to symbols and in its misunderstanding of history.

All this serves, I'd note, to bury a deeper item that should be of actual concern, which is the American Evangelical view towards Israel.  This is not universal, by any means, but there's a branch of American Evangelicalism which sees itself as having a direct role in bringing about the Second Coming through its interaction with Israel.  According to somebody who knew him and commented on it recently (therefore at least making it somewhat suspect) former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who has been nominated by Trump to be Ambassador to Israel, and who is a Baptist minister, has those views.

Really, people with the apparent views of Huckabee and Kinzinger really have no business in the offices they've been nominated to serve in.

Hairless wonders.

This is sort of an odd aside, but the huge increase in male tattoos, including chest tattoos, has caused me to wonder, has there been a reduction in male chest hair in recent years?

Chest hair is a secondary male characteristic which is caused by a variety of genetic factors.  One of those is a high testosterone level, and for that reason, hairy chests have gone, at any one time, from being regarded as "brutish" to sexy.  Because of the conditions of the Second World War, Americans were acclimated for a time to seeing men shirtless, which was unusual, and for a good several decades after the war, hairy chested men, or just flat out hairy men in general, were in vogue.  Indeed I can recall seeing some 1960s vintage war movie with Fabian in it which was ridiculously hairy.

This is clearly really out now, but it still raises the question, what's going on.  Personally, I couldn't have a giant chest tattoo like Hegseth for the same reason that Tom Selleck couldn't.  I doubt that I really could have a tattoo anywhere safe for the the generally non visible part of my arms either.

It's interesting to note that there has been a substantial reduction in detected testosterone levels in the US since the 1980s.**

Maybe RFK, Jr. can look into that.

Creeps

It's a real irony that the man so many Christian Evangelicals saw as the Christian candidate has such a horrible personal tract record at least in the sexual ethics category, but perhaps that fact should cause us to be less than surprised that he nominated Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States.

There seem to be no doubt that Gaetz dabbled down in this category to a 17 year old.  Yes, he wasn't prosecuted, but he may have had a credible defense based on scienter.  According to at least one report, once he learned she was 17, he abstained from her favors until she was 18.

The thing here, however, is that this conduct is completely immoral.  Not only is it sex outside of marriage, which Christianity, but Gaetz is a creep who is fishing in the bottom of the well.  Frankly, this deserves further investigation as most 17 year olds or 18 year olds would have had no interest in Gaetz, so something should be done to figure out why they did and what's behind that.

This guy has no significant legal experience and shouldn't be anywhere near the AG's office.

Scenes from the American dumpster fire.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

At this point, however, if Matt Gaetz invited Mike Johnson over to the Playboy Grotto, if it still existed, I'd expect him to go.

Something about this photo just shows how trashy American culture has become.

Trashy.

I think there is sort of a faction in the Republican Party that has a strange kind of... sort of homoerotic fascination for Putin.

Boris Johnson recently stated this.

The fascination for Putin (who has a hairless chest, I'd note) is pretty weird.

Trad Rant

The recent election seems to have bubbled some stuff up from the bottom of the cultural dutch oven, and not just stuff like the weird things noted in the two above entries. Some of this is interesting to ponder, including pondering whether its a serious trend or something else.

One of them is the emergence of secular (and religious) trad women, holding a romantic, it seems, view of the not so distant path.

Here's an example.  Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

This topic has come up here before, and the same way, more or less. The video clip above was cut down as a TikTok clip and reposted on Twitter, where it went viral.  Just the part where the young female Republican Trumpite starts the rant linked above.  We posted on this topic before, where a young woman, who was not aspiring to be a Hallmark farm wife, was having an absolute meltdown about having to work.

It's easy to dismiss this stuff, but there's something to it, which as noted, I've dove into before.  What's bizarre, maybe, is there somewhat to be some sort of minor movement.  Witness, in photos lifted from Twitter, although if I did it right, you can jump right to their Twitter feed.

I don't want to go to far in criticizing this, really, as it has a real appeal, as does a lot of sort of agrarian conservatism and Chesteronian distributism I see creeping into the culture, sort of sideways.  These people are sincere, and there's a real appeal to it.  Shoot, I'd live an agrarian life if people around me would allow it, or so I tell myself.

Others tell themselves that too, and also mock themselves, as for example, here:

Carpathian shepherdess.

Well, enough of all of that.

Footnotes:

*“A Little Song, a Little Dance, a Little Seltzer Down Your Pants”

**That may actually be due to the overall increase in the median age, as testosterone levels decline, normally, in males as they age.

Related Threads:

Women at work. "Whoever fought, for women to get jobs. . . . why?. . . . why did you do that?" Looking at women (and men) in the workplace, and modern work itself, with a long lens.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 65th Edition. Toilet Paper Day, Swedish immigration and emigration, Wyoming trending on Twitter.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, Daily Living, Disaster, emigration, Immigration, law, Sweden, The Wyoming Fires of 2024, Twitter, Wyoming, Zeitgeist

Friday, November 19, 1909 Sabin sentenced and Belgian abuse.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 19: 1909  George Sabin sentenced for Second Degree Murder for his part in the Spring Creek Raid.  He escaped on December 25,1913, while on a work gang in  Basin, and was never recaptured.

The sentencing is remarkable and significance as it effectively meant an end to private warfare over sheep in Wyoming, and it also meant that conventional justice had come to the Big Horn Basin, where previously juries would not convict in these circumstances.  This reflected in part the horror of the  Spring Creek assault, but also the fact that the Basin was now closer to the rest of the state, having been connected some time prior by rail.

Members of the leadership of the Church of England, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, and fifty members of parliament assembled at Albert Hall to protest Belgium abuses in the Congo.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 13, 1909. Cherry Mine Disaster.

Labels: 1900s, 1909, Coal, Disaster, football, Illinois, Mining

October 31. An Observation.

Today is Halloween.

It's also Reformation Day.

Everyone sort of knows what Halloween is, although in its extremely secularized form.  It's become so popular in that style that its now the second most popular holiday in the US, and you don't even get the da off from work or school.

Originally, and in Catholic and Orthodox Churches, it was All Hallowed Evening, the day before All Saints Day, which in the Catholic Church is a Holy Day of Obligation.   There are some debates about it, but the secular traditions that are observed stem from Celtic cultures of Great Britain in a much modified form.  The door to door trick or treating stems from a religious tradition in which the poor went door to door for food and were given it in exchange for a promise to pray for the donor's dead.

Reformation Day is a day not much observed in North America commemorating Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the Cathedral door at Worms, which he actually didn't do.  The legend was that he did it on this day.  No matter, he did get the rebellion of the reformation going, and with it the concept that people can make up their own minds on anything, no matter how ill informed they are.  Luther was fairly well informed on some things, but that was the unintentional result of his act of rebellion.  

At the time of his 95 Theses, he hadn't intended a rebellion at all, but he worked his way sort of around to it.  It'd be interesting to know what he thought he'd done by the time of his death, but one thing he knew is that he'd caused others with more radical ideas than his to also break away and create their own Christian sects.

Many of those new denominations have considerably changed over the years.  Some of the Lutherans, who followed Luther, often with no choice due to their localities, have become almost more Catholic than the Catholics, while others have gone in another direction.  The Reformation, at any rate, is winding down,and its really collapsing.

With its collapse has come the mess of contemporary culture, much of which we seeing being fought out in the United States right now, which is a Protestant country.  The massive secularization is a minor example of that, but is evident in all of our religion derived holidays, including this one, but also including Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The last acts of rebellion were those against nature, which we also see playing out doay.  They began in the late 1940s and came into full bloom in the 1960s, and are still enormously playing out today.  Part of that has been the acceptance of rebelling against truth, which we see in the current election in more than one way, and in both political parties, although certainly Donald Trump has manifested it in a heretofore unseen level.

So its Reformation Day and Halloween in 2024.  Lots of tricks on the culture are being played, and not too many treats being received.

Blog Mirror: My breakfast at Denny’s in Minot

 My breakfast at Denny’s in Minot

Wednesday, September 27, 1944. The Battle of Metz commences.

S/Sgt. Claude W. Small, of Summit Street, Boothwyn, Pennsylvania reads a letter from home.  27 September, 1944.

The Red Army and Yugoslav partisans crossed into Albania.

The Battle of Metz began.

Only four B-24s out of thirty-five from the 445th BG survive the round trip from their base in the UK to their target at Kassel.

The Finnish army took Pudasjärvi in northern Finland from the Germans.

Sweden closed its ports to German shipping.

The Japanese troop transport and hospital ship Ural Maru was sunk in the South China Sea by the USS Flasher.  2,000 perished in the sinking.

The HMS Rockingham hit a mine in the North Sea and ultimately sank.

Australian sailors, September 27, 1944.

Controversial evangelist Aimee Elizabeth Semple McPherson died at age 53 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills.

McPherson inspired a major plot, in a very fictionalized form, in the revived Perry Mason series.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 26, 1944. Coastal artillery exchange.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Artillery, Eindhoven, German Army, Greece, Greek Partisans, Netherlands, Operation Market Garden, Pas-de-Calais France, Red Army, Royal Air Force, Tallinn, World War Two

Monday, September 26, 1774. Johnny Appleseed.

Johnathan Chapman, known to history as Johnny Appleseed, was born in Massachusetts.  

During his life he introduced seed planted trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Ontario, as well as the northern counties of West Virginia, becoming a legend in his own time.

He was additionally a missionary for The New Church, a Swedenborgianism denomination.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 25, 1774. Clementina Rind.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, Colonial North America, Death, Personalities, The Press, The roles of men and women, Women

The Christian, and more particularly the Catholic, vote. 2024

I recently noted, after the second assassination attempt on Donald Trump, a group of folks I know posting prayers for Donald Trump.  

I've noted this before.

In this instance, I post the example below.

Now, let me start off by noting, that  praying for anyone, particularly those in some kind of danger, distress, or bad situation, is a Christian thing to do, and should be done.   That's not the point here.

What is, is the adoption by some Christians, and more particularly by some Catholics, of the concept of Trump as a Christian warrior, is badly misbegotten.  The "Cause his enemies to stumble and fall into confusion and panic" line is particularly worrisome.  Indeed, if he were granted "clarity", it seems to me that he'd have to spend darned near all of his remaining days on Earth in reparative acts of repentance.

There's not an observant Christian in this race.

Indeed, while praying for Trump should be done, and for Kamala Harris as well, the real question in this race, if you are an observant Christian, is not necessarily which of these two candidates should you vote for, but rather should you vote for somebody else.

I'd suggest that at least if you live in a state which is going to go for Trump, or going to go for Harris, you must in fact vote for a third party.  

Lets start with the situation I find myself in.  What if you are an observant Christian, or more particularly a Catholic, and live in a state Donald Trump is going to win.  As an observant Christian, you should not vote for Donald Trump.

First of all, there's no real reason to believe that Trump himself, in spite of some, particularly Evangelicals, claiming him as a Christian, is a Christian.  He's a nominal Presbyterian, we know, but if he actually believes any Presbyterian doctrine, he must be an extreme Calvinist that believes in predestination as he apparently feels he can do whatever he wants and it doesn't really matter.

Personally, he's a serious polygamist who has not only repeatedly married, divorced, and remarried, but he's had at least two well known affairs while married.¹   His conduct towards women in general is abhorrent.

He's also a constant liar, with serious lies being a grave sin.  He tried to steal the 2020 election, which is obviously a grave sin.

Among the horrific lies he's spread are ones about immigrants.  And he's threatening to deport millions of people who are, granted, illegal aliens, but who now live in the country, with some having done so for a very long time.

What some will say, is that Christians have to vote for him, as he stands opposed to the moral decay that's brought about such things as transgenderism, and he stands against the sea of blood that the Democrats would unleash in regard to abortion.  Both of those are valid point, although on abortion he's modified his position to one that resembles that of a lot of Democrats.

Then there's Kamala Harris.

Harris is a Baptist, but hardly reflects the traditional religious positions of the Anabaptist Protestant faith.  She isn't a serial polygamist, to be sure, but her spouse had a prior marriage, which is problematic in Christian theology.  Setting that aside, as it's become so common amongst Christians, and as it is ignored by most of Protestantism, its her views on other things that make her a no go for Christians.

She's in favor of the current Democratic platform that fully endorses the horror of Roe v. Wade, which she'd see enshrined as law.  The current GOP platform is silent on abortion, as an act of cowardice, but the Democrats are all in on it.

The Democrats are also all in on transgenderism, something for which there's no evidence as being grounded in nature, and may well be grounded in mental illness.   And while confusing the boundaries between natural marriage and genders has not been a big issue in this campaign, it's clear where the Democrats are on that as well.

For those reason, an observant Christian cannot vote for her.

But you don't need to.

At least you don't need to, as noted, if you live in a state that's going hard for Trump, or hard for Harris.

The only political party that really squares with Christianity is the American Solidarity Party.  If you've heard the Four Things homily I noted the other day, it's the only party you could be a member of and not be squirming in your seats.

It's the only really moral choice in this election, and if you live in a state that's going hard for Harris or Trump, I'd argue its the choice you have to make. In those states you don't have a "lesser of two evils" choice, but rather a protest against evil requirement.  Voting for Trump or Harris in a state that's going  hard for one or the other endorses their platform, and serves to only do that.

It also serves to reinforce the insane two party system that is not serving the country, at all and needs to end.  It's time to end it.  Voting for a third party starts that process.

Footnotes:

1. Recently I've seen it noted that Melania Trump is the first "Catholic first lady since Jackie Kennedy".

Yeah, well not a very observant Catholic.  In the eyes of the Church she's in an invalid marriage for more than one reason.  Barron Trump was, we'd note, baptized in an Episcopal Church, even though Catholics have a duty to raise their children as Catholics.

I don't know her current moral state, of course.  She's not seen much with Donald.  Given Trump's behavior, they may well be living as "brother and sister".  But the point is that she can't exactly be held up as an example of public female Catholicism.

Related threads:

The Four Things.

Wednesday, September 7, 1774. The first prayer of the Continental Congress.

The First Prayer of the Continental Congress was delivered.

O Lord our Heavenly Father, high and mighty King of kings, and Lord of lords, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers on earth and reignest with power supreme and uncontrolled over all the Kingdoms, Empires and Governments; look down in mercy, we beseech Thee, on these our American States, who have fled to Thee from the rod of the oppressor and thrown themselves on Thy gracious protection, desiring to be henceforth dependent only on Thee. To Thee have they appealed for the righteousness of their cause; to Thee do they now look up for that countenance and support, which Thou alone canst give. Take them, therefore, Heavenly Father, under Thy nurturing care; give them wisdom in Council and valor in the field; defeat the malicious designs of our cruel adversaries; convince them of the unrighteousness of their Cause and if they persist in their sanguinary purposes, of own unerring justice, sounding in their hearts, constrain them to drop the weapons of war from their unnerved hands in the day of battle!

Be Thou present, O God of wisdom, and direct the councils of this honorable assembly; enable them to settle things on the best and surest foundation. That the scene of blood may be speedily closed; that order, harmony and peace may be effectually restored, and truth and justice, religion and piety, prevail and flourish amongst the people. Preserve the health of their bodies and vigor of their minds; shower down on them and the millions they here represent, such temporal blessings as Thou seest expedient for them in this world and crown them with everlasting glory in the world to come. All this we ask in the name and through the merits of Jesus Christ, Thy Son and our Savior.

Amen.

Reverend Jacob Duché

Rector of Christ Church of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

September 7, 1774, 9 o’clock a.m.

The effect of this opening prayer was profound. 

The Reverend Jacob Duché was an Anglican Rector of Christ Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He was the chaplain to the First Continental Congress.

Ordained in London, he'd go on to support the Revolution by agreeing to support a resolution to cross the name King George III, the head of the Church of England, from the prayers to be read in the prayers of the church, something while bold, also demonstrated the hypocrisy of the Anglican religious position.  He was arrested by British General William Howe in 1777, but recanted and became a Loyalist, writing Washington at one point urging him to lay down arms.  Pennsylvanian hypocritically convicted him of high treason whereupon he feld to England.  He returned to North America, following a stroke, in 1792.  He passed away, a muddled record behind him, in 1798.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 6, 1774. The Worcester Revolt.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Blog Mirror, Colonial North America, Massachusetts

Sunday, August 28, 1774. Mother Seton.

 

St. Elizabeth Ann Bayley Seton SC was born in the Colony of New York, in the city by that name.  Her prominent parents were protestants, as the overwhelming majority of those in the thirteen lower colonies were, with her mother being an Anglican daughter of an Anglican priest.  She married William Magee Seton, a wealthy 25 year old businessman, at when she was 19.  Both she and William were devout members of Trinity Episcopal Church.  Upon the death of her father in law, the family took in their six young in laws which added to their five children.

The undeclared war with Republican France that was fought on the seas between 1798 and 1800 rendered the merchant family bankruptcy, showing as an aside why the later War of 1812 was unpopular in New England, which depended upon trade with England.  In 1803 William was sent to Italy to convalesce due to tuberculosis but died in the British city of Leghorn where he was quarantine.  She was introduced to Catholicism while in Europe by Flippo and Antonia Filicchi, her husband's business partners, and converted in New York on March 14, 1805.  She began to become involved in education and then became a nun, founding a congregation dedicated to the care of children and the poor.

She died in 1821 at age 46.   Two of her daughters predeceased her.  A third, Catherine Seton, entered the Sisters of Mercy and is being considered as a candidate for a cause of Sainthood.

She was canonized in 1975.

Last edition:

Saturday, August 27, 1774. Resolution of the First North Carolina Provincial Congress.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, North Carolina

An Appeal To Heaven. The 2024 Wyoming Primary

The primary election is this Tuesday. 

On that day, people who didn't go down to the courthouse early to vote, like me, and those who didn't vote absentee, and are voting, will cast their votes.

I've been following politics since at least 1972, when Richard Nixon won his second term in office.  I can remember doing so as a kid.  I was nine.  Teno Roncalio, a Catholic lawyer from Sweetwater County, a veteran of Operation Overlord, and a Democrat, was our Congressman.  Gale McGee, a University of Wyoming professor, and a Democrat was one of our Senators.  The other was Cliff Hansen, a rancher from Teton County when Teton County still had real ranches, and a Republican, was our other Senator.  Stan Hathaway, a Republican Episcopalian at the time, who later became Secretary of the Interior and a Catholic, was our Governor.

Yep, that's right.  We had more Democrats in Congress than Republicans.  Being called a "Democrat" wasn't a slur.

In the 1980s, a very conservative and extremely religious Wyoming politician who was LDS attempted to have a bill passed targeting pornography sales.  He was widely lampooned.  HE had not, however campaigned on his faith, even though it obviously had informed his legislative effort.

I can't recall, until Foster Friess run for Governor in 2018, any Wyoming politician making their faith central to their campaign.  If you knew much about candidates, you often knew what their faith was, but there was never anyone who boldly claimed "I'm a Christian" as a reason to vote for them.  People probably would have been offended if they had, and of course Wyoming was and is the least religious state in the Union.

Something that did happen in that time frame was the arrival of the new Evangelical churches.  I pass one every day on my way to work, and two gigantic ones have been built.  I know very little about the one that I pass, which proclaims itself to be an "Evangelical Free Church", thereby proclaiming a denomination without realizing that its done so, and even less about the two gigantic ones, other than that one has a huge following, including members who are openly living in sin or violating Christ's injunction about divorce and remarriage.

With their arrival, and the campaign of Freiss, who wasn't from here and was never of here, and the evolution in national politics, we now see Evangelical proclamations thickly made, but with the adherence to the message of Christ thinly understood.  One Natrona County legislature, newly imported from Illinois, Jeanette Ward, proclaimed her Christianity while asserting in the legislature that we are in fact not our brother's keeper.  Numerous politicians in the hinterland have claimed that the Constitution is divinely inspired, a minority Protestant and minority LDS view that seemingly has wide acceptance in the populist right.  A candidate in this district proclaimed his Christianity, and his wife, in his support did the same in a mailer, while making statements that are outright lies.

Now someone approached him and said, “Teacher, what good must I do to gain eternal life?”He answered him, “Why do you ask me about the good? There is only One who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.” He asked him, “Which ones?” And Jesus replied, “ ‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

The young man said to him, “All of these I have observed. What do I still lack?”

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to [the] poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.  Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”

Matthew Chapter 19.

We are all familiar, of course, with the uncomfortable comment from Christ that its harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.   This statement is so disquieting that one entire branch of Christianity, the heath and wealth gospel group, has dispensed entirely with focusing on it.  They aren't alone, however.  I heard plenty of homilies in the 70s and 80s, probably the 90s, from Priets who discussed "spiritual poverty".

I don't hear that much anymore from Apostolic Christians, whose clerics have become increasingly more orthodox.

And I think the warming is real.  Vast wealth corrupts.  You only have to look at the impact of the vastly wealthy to realize that, whether it be Elon Musk or Donald Trump and their personal morals.

People who look at Trump and see him as a devout Christians are fools.

But then, a lot of American Christians are Christian Light.

How does this relate here?

Well, in a culture loudly proclaiming itself to be Christian, that of the American political right, we see an awful lot of people whose adherence to the basic tenants of the Gospel are absent. That's why one right wing commentator could seriously maintain the Hawk Tuah Girl was exhibiting a conservative value (pleasuring her man, she stated), rather than seeing her for what she is, a sad example of a person whose become debased.  Whole sectors, however, of the far right have become debased in various degrees, which is not to say that the left is a beacon of moral purity.

Seeing either party as a Christian one is foolish.

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the Christian’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself."  

From a letter to Diognetus (Nn. 5-6; Funk, 397-401)  

I'm fearful of what this election holds in more ways than one.  One thing I'm afraid of is that the co-opting of Christianity by the Trumpists will harm it.  The only really Christian party in the race is the American Solidarity Party, but it doesn't stand a chance.  Some elements of Christian Nationalism are actually deeply Christian, with an understanding of Apostolic Christianity, whereas some parts are American Protestant, which have an erroneous view of the end of the Apostolic Age.  They are not compatible.  The deeper National Conservatives, for that matter, are an insurgent group within the far right seeking to slip in, take over, and effect a sort of social revolution. They saw J. D. Trump as their Trojan Horse, but thought they were through the gates of Troy too early.

Real Christian movements do rise up periodically. But that's what they do, rise up.  They aren't imposed down.  Some of that has already occured, with the far left reacting strongly to it.  But that doesn't seem to be appreciated here.

I don't see a lot of really deep Christianity out there in the political field.  If I did, frankly, quite a few of those things that the Democratic left have proclaimed as weird would be practiced, which may be why J. D. Vance, for all the negative attention he's attracted, is the only really honest figure in the Trump camp.  He does believe the traditional things he says, I'm quite sure, currently regarded as "weird" or not.  But then, like the members of the New Apostolic Reformation, which he's not party of, he's seemingly willing to make common cause with lies in order to try to advance what he regards as a greater good, something that's always tactically iffy and morally reprehensible.

Satan, we're told, is the father of lies.  Lying, we're told, is a sin.  In Catholic theology at least, it can be a mortal sin, which has not deterred at least one Catholica elected official here from campaigning on a whopper during the last election.  Lying always has a bad end.

Lying will have some sort of existential bad end for those now doing it.  Lying to yourself does as well.  You can't really be "a devout Christian" with multiple marriages, or when shacked up, or when favoring your career over others or over nature, or while prioritizing wealth, 

And if you are seeking to transform society, you have to give society a reason to transform.  Simply declaring that you are on the side of God doesn't really do that.

Sunday, August 2, 1874. A new Icelandic Constitution.

Danish King Christian IX handed a new constitution to the Icelandic parliament granting it more independence, but not independence.  He also asked for every church on the island, all Lutheran, to hold a service in honor of the event.  As it was Sunday, they all would have held services in any event.

The date is widely observed in Icelandic communities in North America, but not on Iceland.

A further advance towards independence would come in 1918, when the Danish Kingdom of Iceland was established, and the island declared independence in 1944.

Last edition:

Thursday, July 23, 1874. Custer on Inyan Kara.

Labels: 1870s, 1874, Army, Black Hills, Blog Mirror, cavalry, Frontier Wyoming, George A. Custer, The Frontier West

Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.

Episcopal Bishops Robert L. DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel Corrigan, Suffragan Bishop of Colorado; and Edward R. Welles II, the retired Bishop of West Missouri., ordained elevent female Episcopal deacons as priests, sparking a crisis in the Episcopal Church.  The acts were declared valid but irregular by the Episcopal Church.

The act was pioneering as the direction became that of the Episcopal Church and much, but not all, of the Anglican Communion thereafter.  It also had the result of causing it to be increasingly impossible for the overall Anglican Communion to reunite with the Catholic Church, which does not recognize the ordainment of women and of course which generally holds that Anglican holy orders are invalid, although there are exceptions we won't deal with here for individual priests and circumstances.  The validity of Anglican holy orders has been a major topic in the Anglican Communion.

It's worth noting that Christian churches in general were becoming increasingly liberal in the wake of the 1960s, although that wasn't universally true.  It was relatively noticeable in the Episcopal Church which had always been one of the most influential in the United States and one of the largest of the "mainline" Protestant churches. The Episcopal Church had been particularly associated with wealth and establishment in the US and remained so for much of the 20th Century, but starting at some point after this it began a dramatic decline and no longer holds the status it once did.   The Anglican Communion itself has globally been in a condition of strife as conservative elements, with a heavy African representation, have been opposed by developments such as this within it.

The mysterious Alpha Group within the KGB Special Forces was created by Yuri Andropov.

From Uncle Mike's:

July 29, 1974: The Death of "Mama" Cass Elliot

Last edition:

Saturday, July 27, 1974. Articles of Impeachment.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, 93d Congress, Angola, law, Mozambique, Portugal, Portuguese Empire, Rhodesia, Rhodesian Bush War, Richard Nixon, Watergate

Saturday, July 19, 1924. Birth of Stan Hathaway.

Argentinian police and ranchers killed 400 indigenous people of the Toba and Mocoví native groups following heighted tensions between the native groups and ranchers which had lead to livestock killing.

Democratic Senator Burton K. Wheeler was chosen as the VP candidate for the Progressive Party.

Stan Hathaway, Governor of Wyoming from 1967 to 1975,and briefly Secretary of the Interior, was born in Osceola, Nebraska.

Hathaway, whom I saw argue in front of the Wyoming Supreme Court many years ago, was the fifth of six children born to Lily (Koehler) and Robert C. Knapp.  He was raised and adopted by a cousin and her husband, Velma and Frank Hathaway, following his mother's death, on their farm near Huntley Wyoming.  He served on a B-17 in World War Two as a radioman, and was shot down over occupied France where he avoided capture with the crew through the assistance of the French Resistance.  He term of Governor was marked by the passage of environmental laws and the enactment of the first mineral severance tax in Wyoming and the creation of the Trust Fund from the same.

He was a great Governor who would no doubt be constantly attacked as being a RINO by populist who think they're Republicans today.  

Hathaway was an Episcopalian for most of his life, but late in life, converted to Catholicism.

Last edition:

Friday, July 18, 1924. The Murder of Robert Imbrie.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Baháʼí, Iran, Persia