We are called to see things on multiple levels of understanding. That's what we are designed to do.

On the one hand, I don't want to be tiresome talking about Zionism and what a big lie it is. On the other hand, a critical element in my calling is the mission of chronicling the things I see happening. We are coming to a pivotal moment, but nothing like what most believers are taught to expect. I fully expect to see the modern state of Israel destroyed during my days, in one sense or another. I fully expect to see Zionism shattered in the churches.

I seriously doubt Dispensationalism will go away. What I expect is to see a significant portion of believers forsaking this heresy. So another element in my mission calling is preparing a "place" for them to come and find healing. There is a certain amount of working out some of the details in a better doctrine, which includes countering false doctrine. I write constantly because I'm driven hard to make sure there is ample material waiting when they come.

More than my writing, I want to see souls living even more and better than what I write. We should be a living love letter from God to His people. I have no doubt a great many professing believers are just currently lost and confused future members of our family.

So I'll end up sharing a lot my painfully learned lessons, showing the scars where I was burned by lies. I'm sure each of you have your own scars. I'm hoping to create an atmosphere where you can share your own stories and lessons learned. It's going to take all of us together with our different experiences to have a wide enough base for rescuing an even wider variety of folks who will finally exodus the harlot churches.

In the process, I'm going to have to wear out the issue of Zionism and all the ways it is a trap, so we can understand all the different ways folks are trapped. Its twin sister, Dispensationalism, cannot be ignored. It's not just a bad idea; it's a whole hermeneutic approach to religion itself. It's a huge plate of spaghetti with poisoned sauce. It's the ultimate expression of all that's wrong with Western epistemology.

There's a rather famous blogger who goes by the handle of Bionic Mosquito. His stuff shows up on lots of sites tilted toward political libertarianism. As you might expect, this means he is a stout defender of Western Civilization and all that goes with that. More, he clearly knows exactly how the West came to be and applauds the compromise the Church made to attract the invading Germanic hordes.

In one article, he reviews a book: The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation.

Quote:Why is this topic of interest to me?  As you know, I point to the period of the European Middle Ages and the decentralized law and society of the time as perhaps the closest and longest lasting example of something approaching a libertarian society that I have found.  Fundamental characteristics of the society include its Christianity.

I just got back from the ortho to get another shot in my tendonitic (?) shoulder, which was acting up the last week or so. He said he'd like to do surgery if the calcium doesn't dissolve. Something very minor but it would take a little recovery time.

My shoulder works fine normally...I was even able to do some one-armed pull ups he other day with no problem. But at rest it can be painful, and it can really screw up my sleep, which causes more stress, etc. A big chain reaction. Just asking for quick prayer that I can deal with whatever comes of this, without much hassle (or cursing!).

I have followed Ed's blog for the past 5 or so years and read it daily.  I always felt like "Western Christianity" didn't quite represent what God intended for us humans living on this planet HE created.  I stumbled across (or was led by the Holy Spirit to) Ed's blog and have been blessed by his openness and sharing from his "heart".  Through study, prayer and attempting to lean into my heart more than my intellect has been very freeing and leading to the place of shalom.  I have by no means "arrived" but am enjoying the journey.  My formal training as a mechanical engineer can get in the way sometimes as I was trained to operate from the classical Western concept of the "scientific method" and "cause and effect".  My prayer is that I can be used of the Lord to spread the concepts embodied in Radix Fidem to those placed in my sphere of influence or those persons that are open to seeing the scriptures in an "old" way.

I most likely will not be a prolific poster but am looking forward to watching how the Spirit will move this forward.

Blessings to all...  Dave

Thank you for your prayers for my mother in law she is slowly improving and I have faith that the Lord still has work for her and blessings to share. Heartfelt thanks from my family especially my children pray the Lord ease their burden. They don't say it but it is hard for them, they've already lost both their grandfathers.
 I went to the doctor today, for sometime I've had brief episodes that are hard to describe, it's like a pressure wave that sloshes in my head that would make me wobbly enough to have to sit down. Over the weekend it was happening over and over every time I moved. It also affected my balance quite seriously. I tried doing the "sobriety test" one foot in front of the other and couldn't do it, neither could I balance on one foot and forget about tilting my head back and touching my nose. By Monday morning I felt much improved and was inclined to forget about it but, on pain of severe nagging I relented. The doc did some tests and has ordered an MRI to see if they can find something. So pray as you feel led.

This is a sequel to my previous post about a great adventure.

I've tried to be careful about establishing the title "elder" with my ministry. At the same time, I've performed a lot of pastoral ministry. There's a reason for that: Technically I'm an apostle. Let's not go crazy and make that a title with a capital "A" -- it's just the proper New Testament word for the role I play. An apostle is both elder and priest because he's a missionary. However, in a virtual setting, there's not much point in trying to do much priestly stuff. That requires a personal presence; it's meant to be experienced first hand.

As part of my expectation for adventure, I remain convinced that sooner or later I'll be coming to visit some of you physically. That's when you'll get a chance to sample some apostolic ministry. But this business of traveling stands out there somewhere in the mists of the future; I have no idea how it's going to be possible. All I know is that it must happen. The reason I make that a prayer request is because I want to avoid investing too much in something that won't happen. I'll follow my heart, but my brain is struggling on this issue. There's just too little to go on right now.

I believe it's a request the Father will entertain, but with all the usual caveats: "Be careful what you ask for." I'm willing to take that risk. I'm seeking a vision of service that will put me in the right place, at the right time, so that we can meet together face to face. There will have to be a lot more involved than just that, but it will have to be there.

Time for another rant. Here's the reference point that provokes me: Leaked Documents Expose NYPD's Long-Running Lack Of Officer Discipline

After serving as a Military Policeman, I took a great interest in the whole idea of law enforcement. Having law enforcement is a basic requirement of Biblical Law. The way we do it in the West is what offends Biblical Law. First, there's the false pretense that folks from all manner of nations and tribes can be thrust together into a single society. In a situation like that, somebody is going to get walked on, and it's usually the folks who try to mind their own business. The oppressive nannies of the world always rule become nobody else wants to.

Second, there's the false idea that in such a diverse society, you can somehow create a fair and impartial police force drawn from the same people being policed. That works if a given society belongs to a single culture because it feels like your own family is policing things. But it doesn't work in a diverse society that pretends there is only one culture, as is the way of things in the US. Everyone then starts to imagine that their own culture is, or ought to be, "the one."

The only way to have an impartial police force over a diverse society is by using soldiers hired from a foreign country. A civilian police force has never worked in diverse societies; there has always been a serious problem of oppression with it. It leads to leveraging the police force for more than the cause of simple public order. Criminal investigation must be a separate function, using an entirely separate agency. The current peacekeeping-investigatory hybrid agency cannot be impartial. One of the most dangerous things about fake impartiality is that the police are subject to every imaginable pressure to go easy on one person and not on another. If bribery is the only weakness, then it's easier to minimize the impact. When the pressures arise from mixed loyalties, it's impossible to manage. The addition of police unions only makes that situation worse, being blatantly partial.

Again, the only way to have any faint hope of fairness is if the police are your kin. Whatever might be bad about a patriarchal tribal society, everything else is far worse.

Anyway, the article linked above tries to answer all the wrong questions. The article does imply a certain collection of solutions, but those have never worked and they never will. The NYPD is an abomination to God in part because NY City is an abomination to God, as is the US and the whole of Western Civilization.

When I first graduated college, I had a burning sense of calling about the traditional American evangelical gospel ministry. I went at it, but was mostly frustrated. I know why now, but didn't understand then why I wasn't accepted into the secret brotherhood. So I went after a different dream and enlisted in the military. That didn't turn out too well, but there were bright spots in it. It was a grand test of my faith. I eventually understood that I had been granted a fine adventure. A few years after that, I was ordained by some folks who believed in me just that much, but not quite enough to actually put me to work.

Then I learned some new stuff about faith. I had been casting about for something invisible to me missing from the picture. Still not quite taken seriously as a gospel minister, I went back into the military and did a whale of a lot better than before... until it was discovered I had a birth defect that made it awfully difficult to stay in uniform (knees issue). The military was willing, but I knew it was pointless. What mattered most was the amazing new adventure it was, particularly in terms of religion. It was my volunteer work in chapel that made all the difference, another grand test of my faith. It was a spiritual high point hard to describe. But I felt compelled to leave the military.

Then I tested the waters as a school teacher, and failed in professional terms. I was too much a maverick at that point, but I did learn a lot of new tools. This was when my personal religion changed more radically. For the next twenty years I hunkered down and studied the roots of Christian faith, reviewing and deepening all I had learned back in Baptist college.

Fast forward to where things are right now. I've reached a stability point in my personal faith; I'm ready to test it again. This time military service is highly improbable. It was a wonderful context in which to test my faith, a context I fully understood, and where my influence was frankly powerful in spiritual terms. I have no idea what environment God has in mind, but I have this overwhelming sense of adventure in faith burning like a bonfire inside of me.

I wanna be ready for the next adventure; I'm seeking a clear sense of vision about it. That's my prayer request.

If you pay much attention to the debate about whether Google is guilty of censorship, here is an interesting challenge to the notion that Google is a private company:

Tell Me More About How Google Isn’t Part Of The Government And Can Therefore Censor Whoever It Wants?

"This is absurd on its surface, because Google is not separate from the government in any meaningful way. It has been financially intertwined with US intelligence agencies since its very inception when it received research grants from the CIA and NSA for mass surveillance, pours massive amounts of money into federal lobbying and DC think tanks, has a cozy relationship with the NSA and multiple defense contracts....

"There needs to be some sort of measure in place which protects the public from such manipulations. Either remove corporate power from government power or acknowledge that they are fully meshed and expand constitutional protections to the users of any media giant which has enmeshed itself in government power. Pretending corporate power and government power are separate when they are not while exploiting that inseparable symbiosis to silence political dissent is not acceptable."

At what point do we start to recognize interdependence -- the government depends on Google and vice versa -- as agency?

Ayn Rand was a godless Russian Jew who escaped the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution and went on to write some of the most-read books in the world. Not a few of them were long-winded; my personal favorite was the succinct novella Anthem. She openly worshiped Aristotle as the alpha and omega of philosophical inquiry, to the point of forming her own life philosophy--"objectivism"--as a direct derivative of his philosophy. There were a great many things she got wrong, but aside from the obvious Western epistemological baggage that comes with her interpretation of individualism that we slice off here at Radix Fidem, she did propose one thing right: a man owes nothing to another regardless of any claims. In other words, one cannot make moral claims on another without their agreement. Moral claims on strangers are, paradoxically, immoral.

As humans we are under a near-compulsory moral obligation: we owe allegiance to blood (family), because that is the inescapable feudal order of human existence. Outside of family, one had no moral obligations to an outside party except through a covenant agreement*. Covenant agreements were no legal contract--they were, in fact, much more serious, because it took precedence over the default "blood" contract one had with his family. The weight of this presumption rests on the family structure seen in feudal, tribal Israel and the general social structure of her surrounding tribes. This presumption is one that Rand, being thoroughly steeped in the Western tradition, would reject. Despite this, reality persists. Family was not only a fact of life, it was someone's entire world; you lived and died by family, which consequently held all the practical and social currency to support someone from life to death. Family is not regarded nearly the same way in America, for example, so "family" in this modern sense comes with some variability on this moral presumption. Yet, this holds true for humanity as a whole. Paul mentioned explicitly that those who do not care for family are no better than the pagans.

Additionally, as Christians, we are obligated to others within our voluntary church structure, as siblings adopted by one father: God. This aspect was particular to the monotheism of ancient Israel, and much more emphasis was placed on adoption in Old Testament feudal Israel than today. An adopted family member was held in higher regard than blood children. In this sense, covenant kin--other Christians within your assembly--should hold a high place in your priority than actual family members.

Outside of kin of blood and covenant, no one else has any legitimate moral claim on you. We may have to make some exceptions in modern society to keep peace, but wider "social responsibility" holds no sway with God in the long run. It's wholly anathema since it presumes Enlightenment philosophy, tracing all the way back to Aristotle and Plato**, a philosophy that we reject. Like the Hebrews of the Old Testament, God designed intended than spiritual covenants are held in higher regard than blood ties. This is reiterated constantly through all adoption analogies we read in the New Testament, with God the Father as the head, and the church as His adopted children.

With the proliferation of the Internet, talk is much cheaper, and so are social media postings, but the sway they hold can be insurmountable on people's real-world lives. Twitter mobs attacking individuals for saying the wrong thing (or thinking the wrong thing, by implication) are condemned under the idea that random, hapless people somehow owe them an apology. Those fanatical mobs won't last, even though they may enjoy temporary social power through digital ostracism.

Again: social responsibilities--in all its characterizations and forms like civic, democratic, liberal or conservative--rests on a idolatrous power structure that God has already condemned. As such, we at Radix Fidem also condemn it. We do not owe anyone a damn thing.

* There were some cultural exceptions to this. For instance, if a stranger-even an enemy--asked for hospitality, the tribal patriarch was obligated to provide it.

** Rand's objectivism, though it may disagree with other philosophies that branched off the ancient Greeks (particularly with political and ethical philosophies), is still another version of the Enlightenment worldview.