day no. 16,944: ordo amoris and earthly authority

Colossians 3:5

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Rightly ordered affections, or ordo amoris, presupposes that no earthly authority is absolute. The prevalence of sin insists one know which loyalty answers to which. If your father asks you to sin against your God by forbidding something Christ commands or commanding something God forbids, you must honor your Father in Heaven by disobeying your earthly father. If the State commands you to disobey Christ or forbids you to obey Christ, you must defy tyranny and obey God as Peter pointed out in Acts 5:29 when he said, “We must obey God rather than men.”

All earthly authority is derivative.

As Jesus told Pilate, “You would have no authority over me unless it were given to you.” (John 19:11) Pilate had real authority over the fate of Jesus because he had been appointed the governor of Judea. But that authority could be taken away. This fact was something the Pharisees were eager to point out to Pilate as a way of convincing him to crucify Jesus. Pilate’s power was dependent upon the Emperor and losing favor with him would lose him his position, and more likely his life. So, Pilate had power because the Emperor had given it to him and the Emperor had power because God, who establishes governments, had given it to him.

So, taken altogether, we understand that even during His trial, Jesus was providing Pilate with the power and authority to crucify Him. Anyone watching saw one powerless man at the mercy of a powerful ruler. But anyone with eyes to see would have seen one Man in control of His fate and another at the mercy of other people’s opinions. One was doing what He wanted while the other was doing what others wanted. One man was fearfully trying to keep what little power he had. The other was confidently displaying the power of God at work in Him through patient submission to the will of His Father, and that because He had His affections rightly ordered. He loved God with all His heart, soul, mind, and strength and sought the Kingdom and its righteousness first and foremost.  As such, He has received everything else along with it.

day no. 16,943: selling our silver bullets to the werewolves

“The use of fashions in thought is to distract men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is in the least danger, and fix its approval on the virtue that is nearest the vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running around with fire extinguishers whenever there’s a flood; and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gone under.” — C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

The lowerarchy wants us worried about our least concerns and indifferent, or even excited (if possible), about our biggest problems; but enough about the Gospel Coalition.

Can the family become an idol? Of course. Anything can be an idol. 

Is that the biggest threat to Christendom in general and most Christians, in particular, at this moment? Far from it.

Is society as a whole in danger of becoming too family-centric? Or too interested in having children as a result of the influence of Christians? Read the room. The answer is a resounding, "No!"

Can politics be consuming? Obviously. 

Are Christians too politically active with respect to their faith? Not nearly.

2 Corinthians 2:11

Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices.

Satan wants us whacking at ants with baseball bats while selling our silver bullets to werewolves.

But God has given us eyes to see and ears to hear that we should not be so easily swayed.

1 Chronicles 12:32

And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

May God grant us more men of Issachar to understand how we got here and what to do about it beginning of course by keeping our silver bullets and using them to decrease the current werewolf population.

day no. 16,942: liar, lunatic, Lord

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” — C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Jesus is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. 

In other words, He is either not who He said He was or He is exactly who He said He was.

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me."

day no. 16,941: feminism is a Christian heresy

“Feminism and egalitarianism can be considered Christian heresies.” — Rich Lusk, Celebrating a Patriarchal Eucharist

God designed distinctions and called them, "good."

Day and night, water and land, man and woman. 

All distinct and all distinctly good.

Egalitarianism is the erasure of distinction. It is not equality. It is insanity. It is one thing to argue that men and women are equally valuable, but quite another to declare that men and women are equal. XX does not equal XY. They are not the same. Egalitarianism is predicated on the principle that differences are bad. Its religious position is that distinction is transgression. Egalitarianism declares that a woman can be as strong as a man and that a man can be just as pregnant as a woman.

Feminism is egalitarianism applied to sex and gender roles. 

Atheism is egalitarianism applied to religion.

Materialism is egalitarianism applied to science

Socialism is egalitarianism applied to economics.

Communism is egalitarianism applied to philosophy

Environmentalism is egalitarianism applied to nature.

Egalitarianism is derivative. It is a perversion. It is not substantive. It requires a host. It cannot sustain itself, it can only suck the life out of something else. It is a Christian heresy. It is a parasite fed by the fumes of Christendom. It needs the world God made the way He made it in order to distort it for its own purposes. Rather than submitting to God's purposes for it, it kicks against the goads, and like Saul, it will be knocked off its high horse.

"The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time with one pent-up protest.” — G.K. Chesterton

Feminism presupposes the feminine that it despises.

Antichrist presupposes the Christ that it contradicts.

day no. 16,940: a woman serving the sacraments is a sign that Satan's lies are still believed

“Every time a church allows a woman to preside over the Eucharist, the Fall of Genesis 3 is being re-enacted; a woman serving the sacramental meal (especially to men) means Satan’s lies are still being believed.” — Rich Lusk, Celebrating a Patriarchal Eucharist

There are few things more Satanic than a woman presiding over the Lord's Table. It echoes of the first sin and parodies the Fall the of man.

Genesis 3:6

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Where women are serving communion, men are failing. The men have failed to take responsibility for the sacraments. They have failed to occupy their position as the servants of the meal and they have failed in permitting a woman to preside over the meal (1 Tim. 2:12). In every way, shape, and form, a female priest or pastor is an apostasy.

1 Corinthians 10:20-21

I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils. Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.

It is blasphemous to call the cup of devils "the cup of Christ." It is one thing to eat from the bread bowl of Beelzebub instead of the body of God, but it is quite another to eat the devil's dainties while calling them divine. The golden calf was called YHWH, but that didn't make it any better. It only made it worse. Calling it "god" did not make the bovine divine, it just made the worshipers idolaters.

Matthew 12:22-31

Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.

It is blaspheming the Holy Spirit to call evil "good" and good "evil." It is demonic to assume control of the dictionary. There is only one Dictator and He has told us what is what.

Isaiah 5:20-21

Woe to those who call evil good

and good evil,

who put darkness for light

and light for darkness,

who put bitter for sweet

and sweet for bitter!

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,

and shrewd in their own sight!

It is a curse to refuse to confess what Christ has said. The horror of being without homologeo is that you pronounce judgment upon yourself while proclaiming peace with God. If you are wise in your own eyes, you are foolish in God's. The church is the bride of Christ, and her submission to her Husband is to call Him "Lord" and obey as He says, which in this case requires men to preside over the Lord's Table. As it turns out, insisting on a male-only pastorate is actually the submission of the bride of Christ. It is not a flex of the patriarchy, it is the humility of the parson's wife.

day no. 16,939: feminism is the surrender of the feminine

“The Feminist (which means, I think, one who dislikes the chief feminine characteristics) has heard my loose monologue, bursting all the time with one pent-up protest.” — G.K. Chesterton

Feminism is the confession that masculinity is all that has mattered all along. It agrees with the chauvinist in saying that women's work is beneath us all.

In short, feminism is the surrender of the feminine. 

"In this corner called England, at this end of the century, there has happened a strange and startling thing. Openly and to all appearance, this ancestral conflict has silently and abruptly ended; one of the two sexes has suddenly surrendered to the other... the woman has in public surrendered to the man. She has seriously and officially owned that the man has been right all along; that the public house is really more important than the private house." — G.K. Chesterton, What's Wrong With The World

For the feminist, the only metrics that matter are the masculine ones. The only yardstick that counts is the one by which manhood is measured. If you try to give a feminist credit for her beauty, she will scold you for not giving her credit for her strength. If you try to compliment her grace, she will deride you for overlooking her grit. If you praise her gentleness, she will upbraid you for debasing her assertiveness.

As such, he private house has been neglected. Men respect the private house, but do not possess the ability or desire to take dominion there. Women despise the private house and abandon it for the sake of being third rate men. The private house is now either attended to by effeminate men filling the gap where their women used to be or by hired hands who babysit, cook, and clean for cash, most of them, you guessed it, women. But since they are getting paid to do it, it counts as an occupation, not a degradation. Additionally, these maids and nannies have now abandoned their own posts, by either neglecting their own children or by not having any, in order to attend to another's abandoned post.

Feminism robs from Mary to pay Martha (and calls both blessed).

day no. 16,938: living to not fight another day is death

"The one perfectly divine thing, the one glimpse of God's paradise given on earth, is to fight a losing battle - and not lose it." — G.K. Chesterton

Faith fights the good fight because it is good. It does fight to win, but it doesn't refuse to fight if victory seems impossible. Because it fights upon principle, it makes its last stand on the Rock rather than compromise to live to not fight another day.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.” — G.K. Chesterton

Faith does not desire to die, but it is willing to die in order to live by faith. The rule of courage is that loss is possible, but unfaithfulness is not permissible. That is to say, come what may in Christ, but go not on without Him.

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality." — C.S. Lewis

The testing is the point at which it costs something. Faith is willing to fight what looks like a losing battle in order to further the cause of that which should have won. In its sacrifice, life is honored. 

There are few things more Christ-like than laying your life down in order to pick it up again.

Christianity is the story of dying in order to destroy the power of death and going faithfully into that good night in order to usher in the never ending day.