In this sequel, moral absolutes have succumbed to corporate interests and brutal pragmatism. The film poses uncomfortable questions for a culture whose prosperity is maintained artificially and unsustainably through abortion, exploitation and war, and whose divorce of sex from procreation is slowly but surely drifting into a demographic winter.

(Warning: The following analysis contains spoilers for both Blade Runner films.)

Released in 1982, the original Blade Runner confronted audiences with a stark depiction of a future that was disturbingly plausible and depressingly tangible. The fact that its pacing was unhurried, focussing on ideas more than characters, and was told through a disorienting hybrid of genres, made it a difficult pill to swallow at first viewing.

However, seeds were planted in the imaginations of a fertile few. More than three decades later, it is difficult to think of a movie that has shaped the world we live in and how we view that world to the same degree as Ridley Scott’s box office bomb. His vision is self-consciously postmodern, exposing the transcendence offered by technology as a scam. In this moody, dystopian prophecy, where nothing is original and everything is derived, progress and degeneration can be difficult to tell apart. Even worse, the difference between them becomes merely a matter of opinion, since moral absolutes have succumbed entirely to corporate interests and brutal pragmatism. The code of the street is now the code of humanity: survival at all costs.

Continue reading at ethos.

“The truth wrapped in a riddle or a joke is irresistible. What looks like skylarking is sometimes the fowler’s snare.”

Tweeting Since the Dawn of Time

INTRODUCTION to “Birds of the Air”

Richard Baxter famously exhorted Christians to screw the truth into the minds of their hearers and to thus work Christ into their affections. Baxter’s exhortation is itself a perfect example of the means of such an exhortation. Who can hear these words and not be struck with the image of someone twisting a screwdriver in close proximity to somebody else’s brain?

His use of the word “screw” communicates not only that effectively imparting truth is a process but also that it is painful. The truth will not change us until we actually feel it. Moreover, Baxter’s image suggests that the darkened minds of human beings are as dense, stubborn and unresponsive as blocks of unseasoned wood. Delivering truth most often meets with some resistance.

A further and no less important observation is that a screw is a tiny instrument. Like a claw or a tooth, a screw is simply the spearhead of a larger tool. This makes it not less effective but more so. It concentrates, focuses, magnifies all of the blunt brute strength behind it into a single point. Most great men in history became great because they were compelled by a single truth, one expressed in so few words that it caught like a splinter in the flesh of the mind. Being both small and sharp it could not be ignored and thus allowed them no peace.

Yet there is one more facet of a screw that sets it apart from a simple nail. It has a thread which holds it in place, making it almost as much work to take out as it was to put in. The most effective delivery of truth is not necessarily the simplest. A screw must also be tough.

Bob Jones Sr. tells us that “Simplicity is truth’s most becoming garb.” However, this statement requires some qualification. A better choice of terminology might have been “the facts” rather than the word “truth.” Jones’ intended meaning is that deceivers (disguised as salespeople, teachers, politicians, scientists and theologians) employ complexity to obscure or mask the facts. That is darkness masquerading as an angel of light. But like God, enlightenment also comes wrapped in thick clouds. As Albert Einstein quipped, “God may be subtle but He’s not malicious.”

Paul condemned those who were “ever-learning,” filling their minds with facts but never arriving at a knowledge of the truth. Are facts not true? What is the difference between a fact and a truth? Truth is composed of facts which exist in relation to each other, and thus is not simple. Facts are steps. Truth is a journey.

Oswald Chambers firmly believed in the concept of “seed thoughts” — brief, pithy sayings designed to arrest attention and stimulate thinking. He writes:

Our Lord was never impatient. He simply planted seed thoughts in the disciples’ minds and surrounded them with the atmosphere of His own life. We get impatient and take men by the scruff of the neck and say: “You must believe this and that.” You cannot make a man see moral truth by persuading his intellect. “When He, the Spirit of truth is come, He shall guide you into all truth.”¹Oswald Chambers, Run Today’s Race: A Word from Oswald Chambers for Every Day of the Year, December 9.

In every sphere there are degrees of knowledge. Knowing something because you read about it and knowing it by experience are different levels of the same thing. This is why we struggle to learn from the mistakes of others.

Facts are dead elements. Truth is a living organism. Facts are things which we can collect and store, but the truth is something which possesses us. It cannot be caged and will not be pinned down. The modern scientistic mindset confuses the accumulation of facts with an understanding of the truth. Knowledge is not wisdom, which is why many well-intended government schemes go so horribly wrong.

Truth is transformative, something which causes us to grow and brings us to spiritual maturity. That is why animals can survive on food alone but human beings also require a steady diet of truth. Paul takes it even further, noting that spiritual maturity is a progression from milk to something that requires chewing. Spiritual nourishment is work because work makes us strong.

To change us, a truth must engage us, so it is often imparted in an enigma. The truth wrapped in a riddle or a joke is irresistible. What looks like skylarking is sometimes the fowler’s snare. When God speaks to us in veiled language, symbols, parables and even architecture, we are forced to contemplate, or ruminate, upon what He has said. In some cases, the meaning of certain Scriptures is still being debated, even after many centuries. But what we must realize is that this was always the plan.

“Jesus was at the pointy end of a long line of troublemakers who trafficked in barbs, riddles and shocking object lessons. Instead of doling out rose water they went straight for the gasoline.”

The very first law given by God to humanity was itself a puzzle designed to provoke meditation and bring forth the fruit of wisdom. Jesus’ own ministry, the testimony of the Man who declared Himself to be the light of the world, was anything but a “simple” delivery of the truth.

Our desire to speak the truth plainly is part of the reason why modern preaching mostly fails to engage its hearers. God’s process is “word-and-response” so His true prophets are always provocative. Jesus was at the pointy end of a long line of troublemakers who trafficked in barbs, riddles and shocking object lessons. Instead of doling out rose water they went straight for the gasoline.

Those who indulge in murder and adultery are often the first to insist upon table manners, which is why God sends a Jeremiah to smash the pottery or an Isaiah to preach naked in the street. King Solomon might tell us that there is a time to be polite and a time to give some obstinate official a poke in the eye. Douglas Wilson writes:

In a sinful world, giving offense is one of the central tasks of preaching. When the offending word is brought to bear against those who have shown themselves to be unteachable, they are written off by that offending word. When this happens, or there is a threat of it happening, the natural temptation is to blame the word instead of taking responsibility for the sin that brought the rebuking and satiric word. Employing a scriptural satiric bite is therefore not “rejoicing in iniquity” but rather testifying against hardness of heart.²Douglas Wilson, A Serrated Edge: A Brief Defense of Biblical Satire and Trinitarian Skylarking, 102.

Like King Solomon and the other authors of the book of Proverbs, Jesus also understood the power in pastoral ministry of a well-timed and well-considered sound-bite. Toby Sumpter writes:

I would defend the art of pastoral tweet bombing by pointing to the perfect pastor: Jesus Christ. He’s the Head Pastor of the Church, the Chief Shepherd, and we take our cues from Him. Jesus invented Twitter. Jesus was the first pastor to employ Twitter in His pastoral ministry.

He may not have had a smart phone or even a dumb phone, but Jesus was the master of throwing out short truths that were calculated to poke, prod, and offend.

Here are a few samples from Matthew’s Twitter Feed:

“Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead.” (Mt. 8:22)

“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Mt. 9:12-13)

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” (Mt. 10:34)

“I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.” (Mt. 10:35)

“Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.” (Mt. 16:6)

“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give it to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow Me.” (Mt. 19:21)

The point is that Jesus frequently said things in short, pointy ways that not only could be misunderstood, but which frequently were and were meant to be. Jesus didn’t apologize and promise to only write essays, books, and give long sermons that explained everything more carefully. Jesus kept right on saying things that were startling, confusing, and could be easily misunderstood. In fact, Jesus ultimately was condemned for statements that were twisted and taken out of context.³Toby Sumpter, “In Defense of Pastoral Tweet Bombing,” tobyjsumpter.com, April 25, 2012.

Although the aphorisms of Solomon and Jesus share the characteristic of brevity with most of what flies on Twitter, the difference — and power — lies in their ability to pack gravity into a grain of sand. A tweet with more impact than airborne poop takes time to consider and thus time to compose. Peter Leithart writes:

I joined Twitter to keep track of my kids, and so I could bash their short attention spans. Then Pastor Douglas Wilson observed that tweets are like proverbs. You try to capture, in a haiku flash, some of the goodness and beauty of things. Doug was right: Now they’re faster and there’s more of them, and more that are useless, but folks have been tweeting since the dawn of time.⁴Peter Leithart, “Bashing Twitter’s Bashers,” firstthings.com, January 21, 2014.

The Proverbs were no doubt designed to be read aloud either at court or in the congregation, and a moment of silence, a mental breather, like the “musical rest” of the original Sabbath, would be necessary after each to allow time for meditation. I make this speculation because there is a danger in reading Proverbs as though it were a book of prose. Doing so — to turn upside-down Luther’s analogy concerning sinful thoughts — allows birds to fly overhead which were specially created to nest in our hair.

One tweet per page would facilitate such rests in what follows here, but since that would be impractical, I will trust you to give each its intended Sabbath. Hopefully they are stimulating or provocative enough to give you pause all on their own.

A review of Birds of the Air: Theological Twitter

by Jared Leonard

“Birds of the air dropping bombs on your brain” or “Shot through the heart and you’re to blame”

This isn’t just a collection of tweets; it is more like a quiver of spiritual and cultural crossbow bolts aimed at the heart of secularism and theological syncretism. Mike has a well-oiled crossbow and impeccable aim as each barb pierces and punctures everything from progressive cultural liberalism to ivory tower elitism. Shoot some of these through your social media outlets and enjoy the writhing discomfort of those who enjoy darkness more than light.

“What does it look like when antiestablishmentarianism becomes the establishment?”

In July 2016, in a speech in Cleveland supporting the Republican party nominee Donald Trump, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson highlighted the connection between Hillary Clinton and her mentor, Saul Alinsky.

Famous for his strategies for community organising, Alinsky dedicated his book, “Rules for Radicals,” to “Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom.” Carson said:

One of the things that I have learned about Hillary Clinton is that one of her heroes, her mentors, was Saul Alinsky. And her senior thesis was about Saul Alinsky. This was someone that she greatly admired and that affected all of her philosophies subsequently. Now, interestingly enough, let me tell you about Saul Alinsky. He wrote a book called “Rules for Radicals.” On the dedication page it acknowledges Lucifer, “the original radical who gained his own kingdom.”

Now think about that. This is a nation where our founding document the Declaration of Independence talks about certain inalienable rights that come from our Creator. This is a nation where our Pledge of Allegience says that we are “One Nation under God.” This is a nation where every coin in our pocket and every bill in our wallet says “In God we Trust.”

So are we willing to elect someone as president who has as their role model somebody who acknowledges Lucifer? Think about that. The secular progressive agenda is antithetical to the principles of the founding of this nation.

And if we continue to allow them to take God out of our lives, God will remove himself from us, we will not be blessed, and our nation will go down the tubes and we will be responsible for that. We don’t want that to happen.

Despite the continued mantra of Hope and Change, the Democratic agenda was nothing more than Alinsky’s “Eight Levels of Control” reheated, garnished with positive spin, and served up to a population now willing to trade true freedom to support an addiction to free sex and free money. Behind Obama’s (very selective) crocodile tears over tragic mass shootings were the cold eyes of Leviathan.

1. Healthcare – Control healthcare and you control the people.
2. Poverty – Increase the poverty level as high as possible; poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.
3. Debt – Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes and this will produce more poverty.
4. Gun control – Remove people’s ability to defend themselves from the government. That way you are able to create a police state.
5. Welfare – Take control of every aspect of people’s lives (food, housing and income).
6. Education – Take control of what people read and listen to; take control of what children learn in school.
7. Religion – Remove the belief in God from the government and schools.
8. Class warfare – Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from (tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.

Throughout her college career, Clinton followed the community organiser closely, and even dedicated her senior thesis to his strategies for political subversion. Despite her public statements, it is clear from leaked emails and reports from staff that, like Lenin, she regarded her supporters as “useful idiots.”

However, the problem for those who gain power by subversion is that their strategy consists only of deconstruction, of negativity. Despite their empty promises, they are not really for anything but power. Once that power is gained, their incompetence is gradually exposed. The promised Utopia fails to materialise because dissatisfaction and entitlement are out of step with the way the world actually works. Robbery might lead to short term gains but always results in long term losses. This is exactly what the Man discovered in the Garden of Eden. The inability – or perhaps deliberate unwillingness – of even educated people, including the media, to consider the obvious connection between Obama/Clinton and Alinsky reveals just how keen human beings are to facilitate their own destruction for the sake of temporary trinkets and pleasures. Without Christ, even the wise of the world are no different at heart from our first father. So much for the “progress” in Progressivism. The apple never falls far from the Adamic family tree.

For Communism, Socialism, and Progressivism, the abstraction from reality of unworkable policies always becomes apparent in their bitter fruits. Hillary Clinton could not credibly promise any Hope because she offered no discernible Change. The silver lining in the dusty cloud of Obama’s second term was the opportunity it gave him to “reduct” his own agenda “ad absurdum.” Hope and Change turned out to be bribery and bullying, long running scandals, lack of transparency, a Supreme Court ruling that overturned democratic votes on marriage, unaffordable healthcare, gender neutral toilets and continued disasters in foreign policy. History has a habit of revealing what things – and people – really are, and the impotence of “Rabble-Rouser-as-President” has become plain. Woodstock’s laziness, promiscuity and lack of experience are fine until one actually has to produce something, whether it be GDP or the next generation of children, the modern equivalents of the “land” and “womb” curses in Genesis 3 and promises in Genesis 15.

What does it look like when antiestablishmentarianism becomes the establishment? One can only incite hatred between rich and poor in the name of generosity, between black and white in the name of unity, and work to excuse and empower bloodthirsty Islam under a banner of international peace, so many times, before the stench becomes undeniable even by a sycophantic mass media. The inspiring speeches of Obama and Clinton can no longer cover the red-handed evidence of their hypocrisy. Their pretty speeches tinkle emptily from mouths that are gaping, ravenous graves. What they sold as fairness and generosity was in fact the removal of personal, familial and national sovereignty – complete nakedness before enemies of every stripe and at every level. It is one thing to share America’s wealth and power with the world. It is quite another to cut America open, bleed it dry with parasites, expose it to predators and leave the remains for waiting scavengers. The death of America, as with the demise of all great civilisations, would be an inside job.

What follows here is an excerpt from Can Saul Alinsky Be Saved? by Richard Bledsoe, and a recent comment by the author which inspired this post, relating to the recent U.S. election result:

One of the great difficulties that theorists and practitioners are up against—from Blake, Shelley, and Byron to Alinsky—is what happens if their protagonists win? From Robespierre through Lenin to our current time, this becomes an insoluble dilemma. They now become the new Establishment. They have no doctrine of authority that does not see authority as oppressive and inherently evil. The only solution to this dilemma is to promote “eternal revolution,” endless chaos and endless opposition. That culture will masochistically undermine and destroy itself in orgies of self-hatred and self-contempt. Eventually, one reaches an inevitable point where chaos can only be completely destructive and nothing is left to rule. One reaches for the final possibility, which is simply to become an oppressive tyrant. Modern history is littered with terrible examples.

How remarkable that this entire election was an election that was in rebellion against The Establishment! Oh, how times have changed. Once upon a time, The Establishment meant Richard Nixon, Republicans, small businessmen, the mores and ethics of sexual prudes and the straight laced who condemned homosexuality, pre-marital sex, pornography, and promiscuity. It meant, above all, The Protestant Ethos and Churches. Things have completely turned upside-down since the 60s. We are the anti-60s now.

But alas, what happens when Leftists win, and they then become the Establishment? What follows is all that can follow. They have placed themselves in the same impossible position as Lucifer himself, who Alinsky very insightfully dedicated his Rules For Radicals to. What is that impossible position?

Michael Polanyi’s very great work, Personal Knowledge, outlines it all. Knowledge can never, never, never begin with doubt and rebellion as the first movement. All knowledge must begin by first believing something, and acting on that. All later doubt is built on a deeper belief. Lucifer wanted to make doubt and rebellion the first and foremost and even only foundation. After one has rebelled against all that is, there is nothing left, and one can only fall into the abyss. Alinsky is dead right. All Leftism is built on the rock solid foundation of ultimate doubt and rebellion. So what happens after you have won, and then become the Establishment yourself?

All that can happen is fake, fraud, and optical illusion. You become everything you originally claimed to hate and imputed and projected onto your enemy. You become a hypocrite.

The Progressive clatch has become the mirror image of the Ku Klux Klan. If you are a Klansman, you are righteous, and your enemy is the Jew and the Uppity Nigger. The righteousness of the Klansman is beyond doubt. There is no doubt, not about that. That is believed. One only believes in ones’ own outlook and righteousness. It is so beyond doubt that if anyone does doubt a Klansman, it is only because he is a traitor, a hater of all previous glories, a destroyer of civilization.

Now, the righteousness of the Progressive is so complete, so beyond all question, that to not agree with a Progressive can only be for the lowest of motives. To disagree, to vote otherwise, can only be because you are a racist, a homophobe, a misogynist. Riots are in order. Lynchings are in order. The enemy must be cleansed.

The hypocrisy is complete and total. One can only mimic the devil himself, who can be nothing but a hypocrite.

The rabble-rousing of king-of-the-trolls Donald Trump was poetic justice for the creeping death of the globalist “Nothing” of the Left. Just as Jacob outcrafted every serpent in his path, Trump turned the tactics of Alinskyites back upon themselves, and the “consensus” of the principalities and powers was exposed for what it really is – a lie. Trump is a man who has seen it all and done it all, and thus cannot be bought and cannot be shamed, like the world-weary but inevitably wiser author of Ecclesiastes. The major difference is that Shepherd-elect Trump and those with whom he is surrounding himself actually believe in Something. This is something beyond rabble-rousing which for Trump was a means to an end, and even beyond power, which for Trump means the power to serve. This something is a different solution to discontent, not a spiral of never ending revolution but an agenda of strategic construction. Unlike Obama and Clinton, the Washington DC swamp and the now-discredited mass media, the members of Trump’s dream team, despite their flaws, have a history of ingenuity, innovation and productivity.

However, as Voltaire famously said, “It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” Turning around a big ship not only takes time, the ship has to really want to turn around. The next four years will certainly be interesting for the United States and for all of Western Culture. Christians know that the iron rod of Jesus, facilitating His agenda of not only salvation, but also of wisdom, among the nations, is the only true source of Hope and Change.

Richard Bledsoe’s Can Saul Alinsky Be Saved?: Jesus Christ in the Obama and Post-Obama Era is available here.

Canadian artist and author Michael O’Brien discusses the “soft totalitarianism” of secularism’s “friendly dragon.”

Walker Percy once wrote about the Western writer’s tendency to what he called “Solzhenitsyn-envy.” Percy’s witticim is tongue in cheek, and insightful, but it begs a deeper look: Why is the envy there in the first place? Why would one envy a suffering, persecuted man?

…In the case of the writer who is rooted in the moral cosmos, this kind of envy is a symptom not so much of his personal moral failure as it is his moral dilemma. The creative person sincerely seeking truth can no longer find his bearings with the aid of his social environment. His native culture is no longer his own. He is, in a sense, a kind of exile, but without the fugitive consolations of the exile’s heroism. He is not a sign of contradiction against an oppressive regime; rather he is too often a disoriented wanderer, a stranger in a strange land, and, worse, it is his native land. Thus, he senses that the heroic figure far away in the mysterious East, in facing the dragon of overt totalitarianism, had a cleaner task, a defined task. More threatening to life and general well-being, to be sure, but not nearly so confusing or demoralizing. It might kill his body but it could not so easily kill his soul.

Read the complete article here.

An excerpt from a new book, Metropolitan Manifesto, by Rich Bledsoe.

The ancient and pagan world was conquered by martyrs. Can modernity be re-Christianized by anything else?

Death and Resurrection

The death and resurrection of Christ is now the central and final fact of the world, and it was the decisive blow to evil. I am going to argue that it is also the central reality of leadership. The theory of leadership presented in this book is a theory of martyrdom. One must experience a type of death before one can be raised to new life and authority to deal with evil and problems that are otherwise intractable.

There is nothing new in this. The Church Calendar, which is used by all liturgical communions (Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Episcopalians), remembers a saint for every day of the year, and it remembers them not on their birthday (other than Jesus on Christmas and a handful of other figures), but on the day of their martyrdom or of their death (the day of their exodus to Heaven). The ancient and pagan world was conquered by martyrs. Can modernity be re-Christianized by anything else?

Islam is the perverse mirror image of Christendom,¹Leithart, P. (2007). “Mirror of Christendom: Why Islam Exists and What To Do About It.” Views and Reviews: Open Book Occasional Papers 24:15. and it is today attacking the West by the power of false martyrdom. Is it not necessary to re-understand the power of martyrdom in Jesus Christ? Even if full martyrdom is not called for, a real encounter with death still is called for.²John Collins states that every “Level Five” leader that he and his team encountered, were marked by peculiar humility combined with extraordinary power of will, and many had either experienced a religious conversion or had come close to death and come back from that experience. Collins, J. C. (2001). Good to great: why some companies make the leap–and others don’t. New York, NY, Harper Business. pp. 17-40. David only became a great king, for example, because of his years in the wilderness fleeing Saul, and this constituted a kind of death. Paul overcame the Roman Empire from whipping posts and prisons. In today’s world, authority still comes by means of wildernesses and what seem like whipping posts and imprisonments. We are called to have “eyes to see,” so what may be typically viewed as hazards to be avoided, or hardships to be resented, may instead be seen as paths to transformation.

On a very large scale in the modern world, leadership by martyrdom can be seen in the extraordinary downfall of Communism at the end of the 20th Century. In the triumvirate of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, and John Paul II, Reagan and John Paul both had narrow escapes from death when both nearly died at the hands of assassins. Both of them believed they were spared by God for the mission of toppling Communism. Reagan, who had always had a belief in predestination, had a great deepening in his faith that God’s hand was in all things and especially in this.³Kengor, P. (2004). God and Ronald Reagan: A Spiritual Life. New York, Regan Books pp. 197-216. It is doubtful that either man would have had the authority or wisdom to do what they did had they not come back from the dead.⁴It has become the minority report that Thatcher, Reagan, and John Paul were the real force behind the collapse of Communism, and it is now commonly said that the entire event was somehow “inevitable” and would have happened no matter what. But it is very odd that during that era, Reagan alone was predicting the collapse of Communism, and the people now declaring the “inevitability” of its collapse, laughed at his bumpkin notions, and declared that Communism “was here to stay” and that it had now been amply proven that the Soviet style command economy had produced “remarkable results” fully the equal of the West.
D’Souza, D. (1997). Ronald Reagan: how an ordinary man became an extraordinary leader. New York, Free Press. Chapter 1, “The Wise Men and the Dummy.”
Anthony Sutton demonstrated that Communism, because of its economically self destructive nature, was repeatedly on the verge of collapse through the early to middle twentieth century. It was however, repeatedly propped up by the West, and not allowed to collapse. Sutton, A. C. (1968). Western technology and Soviet economic development. Stanford, Calif., Hoover Institution on War Revolution and Peace Stanford University.
Thatcher, Reagan, and John Paul pushed the tottering giant to the cliff’s edge and did nothing to stop it when it began tumbling. It was also the case that the combined rhetoric of these leaders disestablished any vestige of moral respectability left behind the Iron Curtain. Mikel Gorbochev certainly did his part. He appeared to want the demise of his own empire.
He seems to have begun to believe in something else. Reagan on several occasions told his advisors that he suspected Gorbechev to be “a secret believer.” He was right. Gorbechev made his faith public in 2008 when he made a pilgrimage to the tomb of Saint Francis of Assisi.

The Advisor to the King Goes First

The advisor is likewise called to experience death and resurrection. If he or she does not, they will lack the requisite authority to help the leader they are dealing with.

The two great biblical models for advisors to the king are Joseph and Daniel. Both experienced death and resurrection in their lives.

Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers and taken to a foreign land. That was a death. He was then imprisoned because of his virtue while faithfully serving his foreign master. He was eventually raised from the dead by being called out of prison as an interpreter of nightmares and then appointed the Prime Minister of the entire nation. He finally revealed himself to his brothers in Genesis 45 (“‘I am Joseph; does my father still live?’ But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence….‘I am Joseph your brother whom you sold into Egypt.’” Genesis 45:3-4) This is one of the first typological foreshadowings of the Resurrection of Christ in the Bible.

Daniel likewise was a refugee. He also faced death when he was put into the lion’s den. His three associates and friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, were likewise thrown into the fiery furnace. In both cases, there was an emergence in a resurrection.

The advisor must pass through great trial, grief, sorrow and difficulty or he will be unequipped to give the requisite help. Much of his calling is to enable the leader to pass through crisis, and sometimes crisis of great magnitude. What but the power of the Cross of Christ could possibly give someone the necessary strength and power to successfully pass through such deep waters?⁵This calls to mind this amusing passage from G.K. Chesterton’s great novel, The Man Who Was Thursday. Garbiel Syme volunteers to become a philosophical policeman in the battle against world-wide anarchism, and he meets Sunday in a completely dark room, and the following conversation ensues when he is recruited for his new position:
Somewhat dazed and considerably excited, Syme allowed himself to be led to a side-door in the long row of buildings of Scotland Yard. Almost before he knew what he was doing, he had been passed through the hands of about four intermediate officials, and was suddenly shown into a room, the abrupt blackness of which startled him like a blaze of light. It was not the ordinary darkness, in which forms can be faintly traced; it was like going suddenly stone-blind.
“Are you the new recruit?” asked a heavy voice.
And in some strange way, though there was not the shadow of a shape in the gloom, Syme knew two things: first, that it came from a man of massive stature; and second, that the man had his back to him.
“Are you the new recruit?” said the invisible chief, who seemed to have heard all about it. “All right. You are engaged.”
Syme, quite swept off his feet, made a feeble fight against this irrevocable phrase.
“I really have no experience,” he began.
“No one has any experience,” said the other, “of the Battle of Armageddon.”
“But I am really unfit——”
“You are willing, that is enough,” said the unknown.
“Well, really,” said Syme, “I don’t know any profession of which mere willingness is the final test.” “I do,” said the other —“martyrs. I am condemning you to death. Good day.”

A Particular Account

A friend of mine gave a personal account that conveys the heart of this conviction. In an early pastorate, he came to a place of complete deadlock with his church. In all too typical fashion, he became the lightening rod for all of the problems in the church. He was blamed for everything and was repeatedly attacked and lied about. In one horrific congregational meeting, he was personally attacked and vilified and accused of numerous things that were clearly untrue. He described going home, putting his head in his wife’s lap, and weeping like a baby. This went on for hours. He finally felt as though he had come to the complete end of himself. Astonishingly, he believed that it was God’s will for him to stay and not to resign.

The next day, he went to his elders and said that he was determined to stay and that he would not leave. They were stunned. My friend was a dead man. He had been murdered the night before. And yet, here he was, alive and refusing to leave his post. What does one say to a dead man come back to life? They were speechless. That was the turning point. From that time on, he had the authority and wisdom to deal with that church’s failings and needs. The church changed and prospered.⁶The accuracy of this account, and permission to use it, was confirmed to the writer in an e-mail from Rev. Williams on February 28, 2009.

Only a leader who comes back from the dead has the power to do this. And likewise, if one is called to be a counselor to leaders who will themselves have to experience this, then the counselor must likewise go through the same fires in some way before that can be a reality.

Metropolitan Manifesto: Half the world’s population now lives in cities, and that is where the Church must learn to serve. Rev. Richard Bledsoe has spent his life as a pastor to city leaders in Colorado. Over the years, he has become the unofficial bishop of his city, a recognized adviser to the king. In Metropolitan Manifesto: On Being a Counselor to the King in a Pluralistic Empire, Bledsoe lays out the theology behind his work, explains how to minister to leaders, and shares the lessons of his long experience. The Metropolitan Manifesto is an essential, inspiring testament to the transformative power of the gospel in today’s world.

Christ is absent. Though he is not dead, he did go away, leaving his ministers to care for his bride and “raise up seed” for him. As levirs, they have the right to profit from the inheritance of the heir–the entire church–until the seed/son comes of age.

The church in Corinth was a pastoral nightmare. Factionalism, sexual immorality, incipient syncretism, using the church as a stage for self-promotion, and denial of the final resurrection were just some of the problems.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church, he confronts each of these problems directly and in an orderly fashion. The letter begins with what is soon seen to be the foundation for dealing with all of the relational problems in the church: the cross of Christ. In the cross we see the wisdom of God displayed. This is the wisdom that creates and orders the world as a master craftsman (cf. Proverbs 8). Paul and his co-labors are also Spirit-filled craftsmen who are building this new world according to the wisdom of the cross. If the Corinthians are to be faithful images of God in this new creation, they must build the life of their church according to the wisdom of the cross.

Continue reading at Theopolis Institute.

How will the world judge God
when given the opportunity?

For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:5)

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?” (John 10:34)

The aim of the testing of Adam was to qualify him to be a co-regent with God. Rich Bledsoe argues that the question of God’s existence is not ontological but ethical at heart. History is Man’s attempt to either eradicate God’s rule, or to make God co-regent with Man.

The account given of the creation and subsequent fall of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis shows the beginning of ethical selfism. Adam and Eve eat the forbidden fruit, and God refers to them as those who have come to know good and evil. What this means is that they now have fallen away from knowing the will of God, and of being able to obey it, and they have now, like God, become the authors of morality. They themselves will be the determiners of what is good and of what is evil. Their own selves become the source, and this is now thrust upon them. From that time forward, the creation of morality will be an onerous, and impossible, human burden.

The modern world is now far more self-consciously “selfist” than the world was five minutes after the fall, and more so than it was in Jesus’ own day. The seed if implication has been developing over time. And just as selfism leads to darkness in regard to the very possibility of self-knowledge or of any knowledge of the world, it also leads to darkness in regard to actions that are good, and actions that are bad. The assumption behind human ethics now is that the world and humanity are self-complete without reference to God, and this always leads to self-looping vicious circles in regard to human actions, because humanity is not self-complete, but pretends that it is. We are saddled with this as a curse, but generally speaking, the human race understands it as its own highest glory.

…the Bible indicates that inquiries into the existence of God are never neutral theoretical musings. They rather always have a particular ethical edge about them. They are interrogations, and have the character of accusation about them. The deepest intention of questioning the existence of God is not ontological; rather, it is ethical. There is something prior to the question of existence, and the existence question is clouded. If I am god, and my determinations are final, then it is simply impossible for the God of the Bible to be God, or for Jesus to be God. The ethical accusation is that God is unjust, and has no right to be God since this is now my office. If he exists, then his sheer existence is blasphemy. If he exists, then he is my enemy. It is necessary either to mute his existence and remake him as less than the almighty God of the Bible, one who is smaller, who is satisfied to, at best, co-exist with me, or it is the case that he simply does not exist. If he does exist as the almighty God of the Bible, then this brings confusion and dissonance. If I cannot dismiss him, then I must accuse him. Dismissal is actually accusation, and in all likelihood there is a veering back and forth between the two. The mindset of fallenness is double-mindedness. In all cases, it is necessary to take things into one’s own hands, and become one’s own god determining good and evil for oneself.

Interestingly, God seems to take a step back and allow us to do just that. He says that he will give us a great privilege. He will allow us to create a law, and then he will judge us by that law. Whatever judgments we bring to those around us will become the same standard of judgment that he will test us by. We have accused God of being an unjust judge. So God allows the privilege, and lets us determine our own standard. Hence, Aristotle will be judged by his own golden mean, Kant by his own categorical imperative, Sartre, who wanted to legislate for the entire world in his every decision, will be judged in the same way. In other words, it is a very dangerous thing to have the very power of determining both good and evil; it is fraught with terrible ironies. Jesus warned us about this in one of the most misused and misunderstood of all biblical texts. “Judge not, that ye might not be judged” (Matt. 7:1). The modern world quotes this often as a biblical justification for complete ethical tolerance, but it means exactly what it ways. You will be judged as you judge, and we have now all had this burden inescapably thrust upon us.

…There is a further step to this quandary. Even beyond being judged by our own standards, God has said that he will even permit us to judge him. As a race, we have declared him “out of court.” We have determined that he is unjust. As we judge God, we too shall be judged, for we have declared that we are gods. “On that day when, according to my Gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus” (Rom 2:16). Jesus, who is the very word of God, was handed over to men to be judged. How will the world judge God when given the opportunity? Our judgment of him was self-damning. Here the reality of the divine law connects with the reality/unreality of man’s self-created law. On what basis of self-made law was Jesus crucified? Jesus was condemned because he claimed to be God, and because he claimed to be the true source of the judgment of good and evil. This was called blasphemy, and for this he was put to death. If this same standard is brought against his accusers, what is the result? It can only be death, for each judge tacitly made exactly the same claim. If you claim that God deserves to die because he claims to be God, then you too deserve to die because you make the same claim.

The result is that every god will damn himself and every mouth will be stopped, and all secrets will be judged by Christ Jesus.

Excerpts from Richard Bledsoe, Can Saul Alinsky Be Saved? Jesus Christ in the Obama and post-Obama Era, 26-31.

Secularism and Inquisition

“If I were in charge, they would know that waterboarding is how we baptise terrorists” – Sarah Palin, April 2014

Despite its Messianic pretensions, the secular state has no authority over the spiritual realm, and militant Islam exposes this incompetence to us again and again. The “War on Terror” banner illustrates perfectly the failure of statists to comprehend, or perhaps to admit publicly, the true nature of our enemy.

This post has been slain and resurrected for inclusion in my 2015 book of essays, Inquietude.

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BITTERSWEET

“Gracious words are like a honeycomb,
sweetness to the soul and health to the body.”
(Proverbs 16:24)

If, in the language of biblical symbols, gold is solid light and oil is liquid light, then honey is liquid gold.

As the golden Ark contained the Ten Words, and the oil of the Lampstand lightened the path of the king, so honey is the Word of God in edible form. In the wilderness, manna tasted like honey wafers. In Canaan, the law of the Lord was even more desirable than its precious honey (Psalm 19:10; 119:103).

Bees are used to represent the hosts of the Land, a swarm possessed of a single mind, the Canaanites whose labors would be possessed by Israel. The gift of honey was part of Israel’s bittersweet inheritance. Thus bees and honey together perfectly picture the plunder and plagues meted out to Israel under the Law of Moses as blessings and curses, possession or oppression.

You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey. (Leviticus 20:24)

The name of Deborah, “a mother in Israel” who led a successful counterattack against the forces of Jabin king of Canaan and his military commander Sisera, means “bee.”1 For Israel, milk and honey are symbols of the promise of the motherland, the favor of the Father as edible gold for His faithful Son. But not all of Israel’s fathers were good.

Then Jonathan said, “My father has troubled the land. See how my eyes have become bright because I tasted a little of this honey.” (1 Samuel 14:29)

It is interesting that honey is found in the mouth of the blessed bride (Song of Solomon 4:11) and on the lips of the cursed harlot (Proverbs 5:3), images of a Covenant kingdom found faithful or unfaithful.

The ministry of bees also illustrates the eternal conversation between the Father and the Son by the Spirit. The Father commands and the Son brings His plans to fruition (John 1:3). The words of the Lord structure all reality, but it is obedience to them which brings life and glory. Just like the Creation of the world, the production of honey is a twofold process of forming and filling. Honeycomb is a many-roomed house. It is filled with glory through the “there-and-back-again” duties of faithful workers who “pollenate” the nations.

Theology should be a similar process. Sadly, so much of it is merely a haphazard collection of separate facts, ideas and opinions, without any consciousness of the wonderful “hive” pattern that is obviously inherent in everything if we have eyes to see.2

The fractal “matrix” of the Bible is a framework for understanding the world, and the Covenantal shape of all Scripture is the honeycomb within which all truth is contained. Every theological or natural observation is part of a process of transformation, which finds its origin in the to-and-fro of the Trinity. To be truly “filled,” theology must first be “formed” by the patterns in the words and works of God.

Douglas Wilson speaks of the “copiousness” of the writer. This is the practice of collecting and recording ideas for later use, much as a bee collects pollen.

Keep a commonplace book. Write down any notable phrases that occur to you, or that you have come across. If it is one that you have found in another writer, and it is striking, then quote it, as the fellow said, or modify it to make it yours.3

When you collect phrases, points, metaphors, and whatnot in this way, you are, as Cicero used to put it, loaded for bear. By linking “loaded for bear” up with Cicero, incidentally, I am providing another example of the previous point. But this last point is an important part of what the ancient rhetoricians called copiousness.

One time G.K. Chesterton, the rolypologist, was patted on the stomach by his adversary, George Bernard Shaw, a beanpole of an infidel, and was asked what they were going to name the baby. Chesterton replied immediately that if it was a boy, John, if a girl, then Mary. But if it turned out to only be gas, they were going to name it George Bernard Shaw. Now we hear that story and marvel at his amazing quickness. And it may well have been such, a prodigy of the moment. But I also wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that Chesterton had that particular pistol loaded beforehand, and concealed on his person. When copiousness is active, you not only know how to respond in the moment, but you can also see the moment coming, and prepare for it beforehand.

Your commonplace book is just a staging area. You are collecting things in order use them, to get them into your mind and heart, and thence into your writing.4

The writer’s life is a scavenger’s life. This should go also for pastors, teachers, fathers and mothers, and in fact any Christian: all our ministry is didactic and apologetic, discipleship and witness. We collect that we might not only pollenate but also build the kingdom. This means that copiousness alone is not enough. Only kingdom-shaped hearts can hold honey.

This process is exactly what is going on in the wisdom literature and the prophets, and I am constantly amazed at our failure to recognize it. Theirs was a biblical copiousness. Their guns were loaded, their pumps were primed, well before these remarkable minds fired and mouths gushed. All the writers had been Timothys waiting for a Paul to join the dots of the Law with the stylus of the Spirit. Every past event was ammunition for Israel’s future. This explains why the book of Revelation is an explosive spray of machine gun fire from a carefully collected and meticulously arranged cache of Old Testament texts.

Biblical copiousness is one thing we love about C. H. Spurgeon. The Bible was his muse. The biblical texts are high walls but they are not lonely, cold, disjointed bricks. Spurgeon preached from the fiery turrets of inspired literature with apparent ease while modern boffins do dog paddle below him in a moat of footnotes and call it scholarship. To these illiterati, the “apostolic hermeneutic” is a marvel and a mystery, an impenetrable keep, when it is simply the result of their biblical copiousness. The cinematic Covenantal ironies of the prophets are lost on the blind guides of today. Jesus and His prophets are far cleverer—and funnier—than even Chesterton. But so many of us do not get their inspired, bittersweet jokes.

Jesus, the Word, created a world where everything “speaks.” Every physical object is also mirror and metaphor and lyric and rant; every Covenant-historical event is a self-referencing innovation. Our Lord is the Master of Allusion, and we, as we read the Bible, are to be His commonplace books.

If God can quicken and glorify stone by writing on it with His own finger, then how much more will human hearts be glorified, quickened, made alive, and regenerated when the finger of God, the Holy Spirit Himself, writes on them? What is it to be born again? It is to become the Holy Spirit’s commonplace book.5

The defining feature of the New Israel is legal witness, and as you may be aware, the Greek word for witness is the source of our word “martyr.” Honey from the hive is life and death to those who hear it, for it ministers a blessing to the head and a curse to the body. It brightens the eyes but is a sting to the flesh. This was the case with Jonathan, and also with Ezekiel and John.

And he said to me, “Son of man, eat whatever you find here. Eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel.” So I opened my mouth, and he gave me this scroll to eat. And he said to me, “Son of man, feed your belly with this scroll that I give you and fill your stomach with it.” Then I ate it, and it was in my mouth as sweet as honey. (Ezekiel 3:1-3)

And I took the little scroll from the hand of the angel and ate it. It was sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it my stomach was made bitter. (Revelation 10:10)

Ezekiel and the Revelation are sister books, following the same structure and serving the same purpose: the destruction of Israel, a witness to the nations, and the resurrection of Israel, renewed and made heir to a greater glory. Their message was both bitter and sweet, law and grace, plagues and plunder, death and life. John the Baptist ate locusts and wild honey because his prophecies to a lawless king would bring the consuming armies of Rome and a heavenly country for the “beheaded” saints.

When Christ shared bread and wine with His disciples at Passover, He began their commission as witnesses of things they had heard and seen. The Lord’s supper is a bittersweet scroll, honey with a sting, manna for a mustering host. Christ brightens our eyes that we might bear His two-edged sword. We taste and see that He is good, and go out to take possession of His inheritance, the nations.

I hope these short essays not only brighten your eyes but kindle the fire in your belly.

Michael Bull
Katoomba, September 2014

______________________________________________
1 See also the discussion concerning Samson’s honey in “Out Of The Eater,” God’s Kitchen: Theology You Can Eat & Drink, 289.
2 See the charts at the end of this book.
3 Douglas Wilson, Seven Basic & Brief Pointers for Writers, www.dougwils.com
4 Douglas Wilson, Uncommon Commonplaces, www.dougwils.com
5 Douglas Wilson, Against the Church, 132.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: BITTERSWEET

CREATION
1 THIS TIME IT’S PERSONAL
2 WAR OF THE WORLDVIEWS
3 JENGA BIBLE
4 RETURN OF THE RAVEN
5 THE ETERNAL PEOPLE

COVENANT
6 IMAGES OF GOD
7 SIMPLY IRRESISTIBLE
8 INTERNAL LAW
9 CASH AND COVENANT
10 I WILL KILL HER CHILDREN WITH DEATH

BIBLICAL THEOLOGY
11 BETTER ANGELS
12 DOGS AND PIGS
13 A TONGUE OF GOLD
14 SCALES OF JUSTICE
15 SNAKES AND CHAINS

SECULARISM
16 ARMED WITH DEATH
17 NO COMMON GROUND
18 GOD GAVE THEM UP
19 LAMECH’S PATSY
20 THE EXORCISM OF CHRIST

HERMENEUTICS
21 THE PERILS OF DEEP STRUCTURE
22 TECHNICIANS AND INTUITIONS
23 CURING THE MINDBLIND
24 MERCURY RISING
25 TOMBOYS AND TOTEMS

COVENANT-LITERARY TEMPLATES