day no. 17,281: cannibals, barbarians, and politicians (but i repeat myself)

"If all cultures are equal, then cannibalism is just a matter of culinary taste." — Léo Strauss

Multiculturalism means that eating people is on the table. Diversity is our strength means putting some people on the menu.

“If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism.” — Thomas Sowell

If you do not fight for what is right, what is wrong will win. Evil has no brakes. It will not stop with sin between its ears, it will seek to perpetrate evil with its hands. If no one stops it, it will not be able to stop itself.

"It is common enough to blame Rome for not making peace. But it was a true popular instinct that there could be no peace with that sort of people. It is common enough to blame the Roman for his Delenda est Carthago; Carthage must be destroyed...  but Carthage fell because she was faithful to her own philosophy and had followed out to its logical conclusion her own vision of the universe. Moloch had eaten his children." — G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Evil eats itself. It is the illusion of eternity. It is a snake chewing its own tail. It is suicide. And if no one stops it, it will will devour everything.

“The Barbarian hopes — and that is the mark of him, that he can have his cake and eat it too. He will consume what civilization has slowly produced after generations of selection and effort, but he will not be at pains to replace such goods, nor indeed has he a comprehension of the virtue that has brought them into being. Discipline seems to him irrational, on which account he is ever marvelling that civilization, should have offended him with priests and soldiers.... In a word, the Barbarian is discoverable everywhere in this, that he cannot make: that he can befog and destroy but that he cannot sustain; and of every Barbarian in the decline or peril of every civilization exactly that has been true." — Hilaire Belloc

Whether it is a prodigal apostate spending all of his inheritance or it is a foreign locust devouring all your harvest, evil consumes. Wickedness is never full. Its god is its belly and it will gorge itself to death.

"That nursery tale from nowhere about St. George and the Dragon really expresses best the relation between the West and the East. There were many other differences, calculated to arrest even the superficial eye, between a saint and a dragon. But the essential difference was simply this: that the Dragon did want to eat St. George; whereas St. George would have felt a strong distaste for eating the Dragon. In most of the stories he killed the Dragon. In many of the stories he not only spared, but baptised it. But in neither case did the Christian have any appetite for cold dragon. The Dragon, however, really has an appetite for cold Christian—and especially for cold Christianity. This blind intention to absorb, to change the shape of everything and digest it in the darkness of a dragon's stomach; this is what is really meant by the Pantheism and Cosmic Unity of the East. The Cosmos as such is cannibal; as old Time ate his children. The Eastern saints were saints because they wanted to be swallowed up. The Western saint, like St. George, was sainted by the Western Church precisely because he refused to be swallowed. The same process of thought that has prevented nationalities disappearing in Christendom has prevented the complete appearance of Pantheism. All Christian men instinctively resist the idea of being absorbed into an Empire; an Austrian, a Spanish, a British, or a Turkish Empire. But there is one empire, much larger and much more tyrannical, which free men will resist with even stronger passion. The free man violently resists being absorbed into the empire which is called the Universe. He demands Home Rule for his nationality, but still more Home Rule for his home. Most of all he demands Home Rule for himself." — G.K. Chesterton, A Miscellany of Men

Christendom is not willing to be consumed and so it refuses to fight ire with ire. It does not demean itself to the tactics of its enemies. It will not feast on sin. It fasts from evil. If it does not, it merely becomes what it tolerates and is either destroyed by abdication or conformed to cannibalism.

The war cry of the world is, "your body for mine."

The war cry of Christendom is, "My body for yours."

Christ gives life.

Chaos consumes.

Christ converts and saves.

Chaos devours and dies.

day no. 17,280: apostasy as compost for foreign gods

"The Super Bowl halftime was not a multicultural celebration of America’s Latin Quarter, but was rather intended to be an Anglo Humiliation Ritual. The raunchy part was aimed at our residual and fading Christian consensus, and the no hablo part was aimed at our residual and fading American identity. The whole thing was really inflammatory, in other words, and was intended to be." ― Douglas Wilson, Standing Up to Evil Rabbit

While I am not myself a big sportsball guy, I am a big religion and culture guy and like it or not, the Super Bowl is an annual religious observance our culture celebrates. If it were not already on a Sunday, I'm sure it would be a holiday.

"Culture is religion externalized.” ― Henry Van Til

Worship is foundational and inescapable. Everyone worships and every society worships. And whatever is worshiped will come out that society's fingertips. Religion produces culture and culture produces laws, norms, and rituals that reinforce the religion of the people.

“We believe that culture is religion externalized, always, whatever the religion and politics is downstream from culture, and culture is downstream from worship.” ― Jared Longshore

All this to say, what happens at the Super Bowl does not stay at the Super Bowl. And whatever happens at the Super Bowl does not originate with it either. It came from somewhere. So, when a society's annual festival is co-opted by an alternate culture by the dominant culture's own invitation and volition, it bodes bad things for the dominant culture. You cannot invite a virus into your body without it affecting its health. It is one thing to account for viruses and to have an immune system to deal with them. It is quite another to invite the viruses and to suppress your immune system into oblivion. A country with open borders is soon to be someone else's country just as a body without an immune system is soon to be someone else's patient. If you invite invaders over, you will soon be an outsider in your own backyard; and if you suck up to sickness, you will soon be outside your own body.

Apostates are compost for foreign gods. If you don't want your home, someone else will. If you don't worship your God in your land, someone else will worship theirs there.

day no. 17,279: sticking to the word

2 Samuel 23:9-10
And after him was Eleazar the son of Dodo the Ahohite, one of the three mighty men with David, when they defied the Philistines that were there gathered together to battle, and the men of Israel were gone away: He arose, and smote the Philistines until his hand was weary, and his hand clave unto the sword: and the Lord wrought a great victory that day; and the people returned after him only to spoil.

As Eleazar fought without fail, his hand grow so accustomed to his sword that when the fighting was over, it refused to let go. 

The same should be said of us and our sword, the word of God.

Hebrews 4:12

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

If our hands are not stuck to our swords, they will be stuck to something else. If we do not carry the Word of God with us in our hearts and in our heads wherever we go, we are carrying something else with us. Something else is instructing our hearts and influencing our thoughts.

Men, let us stick to the Word and may our hands cleave to it as we wage peace.

day no. 17,278: elbows and asses

“All motion is relative. Perhaps it is you who have moved away-by standing still.” ― Robert E. Lee, Inherit the Wind: The Powerful Courtroom Drama in which Two Men Wage the Legal War of the Century

That which is not growing is dying. Living things change. They may look the same, but not without a lot of effort. Living things can look them same only by being renewed. In this way, they fight off the effects of entropy. If they stop fighting, they start showing their wear and tear.

"A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it."  — G.K. Chesterton

A dead thing floating down stream may have the appearance of swimming, but only a living thing can swim upstream. Anyone can go with the flow or get caught up in the current, but only a living thing has the dynamism to resist the rule of rust and decay.

"All conservatism is based upon the idea that if you leave things alone you leave them as they are. But you do not. If you leave a thing alone you leave it to a torrent of change. If you leave a white post alone it will soon be a black post. If you particularly want it to be white you must be always painting it again; that is, you must be always having a revolution. Briefly, if you want the old white post you must have a new white post. But this which is true even of inanimate things is in a quite special and terrible sense true of all human things. An almost unnatural vigilance is really required of the citizen because of the horrible rapidity with which human institutions grow old. It is the custom in passing romance and journalism to talk of men suffering under old tyrannies. But, as a fact, men have almost always suffered under new tyrannies; under tyrannies that had been public liberties hardly twenty years before." — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (The Eternal Revolution)

If you want to get back to the good ol' days, you're going to have to do it anew. The good ol' days grow dull unless they are renewed. The flames of tradition grow cold if no one adds new wood to the fire. It must be stoked in order to stay ablaze. 

“Any organization not explicitly and constitutionally right-wing will sooner or later become left-wing.” — Robert Conquest

If you are not fighting for what you believe, you are conceding to what someone else is fighting for. Nothing is right wing by accident. The antithesis placed into creation by God continues. For all of its many faults, the one thing the seed of the serpent never fails to do is fight. It never fails to remember that it is in a war. It never flags in zeal for its purposes. If only the same could be said for those claiming the name of Christ. If only the devil knew anytime he took it to a Christian, he would be getting the zeal of the Lord in response. Then we would begin to see him flee.

James 4:7

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

When we put our faith in Christ, the enemy is all elbows and asses.

day no. 17,277: daddy sang bass, mama sang tenor

"When a man is being both masculine and on pitch, and his wife is being both feminine and on pitch, there are few things in this world that can compare to it for glory. But when a man is singing masculine, but flat, and the woman is singing feminine, but sharp, there are few things on earth that can compare to it for sheer auditory insult. It is enough to make you stop and stare." ― Douglas Wilson, Hayden and Danis

Soft men and hard women are a sign of God's curse on a community. Men who are flat instead of bold and muted instead of dynamic cannot lead. Women who are shrill instead of sweet and loud instead of lilting cannot complement anyone. 

"The Spirit will never try to create a false peace, where the man and the woman take the lazy way out and sing something really boring in unison. That happens when a blustering man demands that his wife sing his part along with him, or more frequently, as in these our times, when the woman insists that he sing the Longhouse Blues along with her." ― Douglas Wilson, Hayden and Danis

Egalitarian sex swapping cannot produce happy homes and androgynous notes cannot produce dynamic music. It can drone along, but it cannot crescendo. Feminism wants everyone to sing bass while misogyny wants women to sing while men sit and listen. 

1 Corinthians 11:16

If any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God.

Harmony in the home is only in singing the part God made you to sing, everything else is discord.

Good marriages, like good music, is Christ or chaos. If Daddy sings bass and mama sings tenor the home will be full of music, if not, it will be full of noise.

day no. 17,276: eyes in our heads

“Finally Modernism, which denies and abolishes every difference, cannot rest until it has made woman man and man woman, and, putting every distinction on a common level, kills life by placing it under the ban of uniformity.” ― Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (1898)

Equality of outcome is the same as hostility toward excellence. Kuyper saw this coming. He saw hat egalitarianism would lead to men pretending to be women and women pretending to men. He saw that excellence would be penalized and debauchery would be subsidized.

"Give me a candle and a Bible and shut me up in a dark dungeon, and I will tell you everything that the whole world is doing." ― J.C. Ryle

The prophets of God always see these kind of things coming. Anyone with new eyes in their head can read the room, even when it is pitch black. The Bible is a lamp to our feet and gives us guidance as to where we should step next, but also shows us where the road is headed.

Modernity is merely egalitarianism. The spirit of the age is the elimination of distinctions. It is at war with the world God made. It hates that night and day are divided and that men and women are different. It despises distinctions.

day no. 17,275: manly character

“Obedience to lawful authority is the foundation of manly character.” ― Robert E. Lee

A man is not an island and any man who strives to be seen as a lone wolf is not a good man. He may be good at getting his way, but he does not possess the character of a man as much as he has the disposition of a boy. He throws his tantrums with muscles and lawsuits. He does to people what a three year old would if they had the resources (and with just as much sense).

Matthew 8:8-10

The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.

The centurion was a good and godly man because he both commanded respect from others and respected the commands of his superiors. Men hopped to when he talked because he hopped to when his boss talked. The kind of man who gladly obeys his master is the kind of man who can humbly lead others. 

A man cannot be an authority until he is under authority. He can be a boy and try to take short cuts, but he will not have authority. He may be feared and obeyed, but he cannot be respected by conducting his business that way.

Manly character is not just a matter of being in charge, it is a matter of being under authority.