A Book Review … Rodney Stark’s ‘Bearing False Witness; Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.’

I completed Rodney Stark’s ‘Bearing False Witness; Debunking Centuries of Anti-Catholic History.’

I can’t recommend this highly enough. Stark takes a battleax to modern embraced narratives and hacks them to shreds by  examining revisionist historical evidence and by citing the best and brightest scholars in each respective field.

This book necessitates that Protestants understand that our Church in history is the Roman Catholic church before it excommunicated itself upon excommunicating and casting out the Reformers. As Protestants we are in error when we don’t understand that the Church in History is our Church and it’s history thus should be defended. We should be careful defenders when we can be of the Church’s actions in history that goes behind the Reformation.

Stark does just that in this volume by demonstrating that the modern narratives surrounding the “guilt” of the Christian faith for this or that unconscionable activity as capture in some false narrative is pure bunkum.

Stark gives us evidence that the being based is Church history by exposing the falsity of modern narratives against Christianity in chapters dealing with,

1.) The Church being anti-Semitic.

Stark does admit that the Church did discriminate but he (rightly) insists that any social order in order to maintain its hegemony must discriminate. Stark teaches the idea that the Church was hunting down Bagels in order to kill them is just ridiculous.

2.) The Christian faith persecuted the tolerant Pagans after Constantine legalized Christianity.

Stark gives the historical account demonstrating that such a narrative is pure fairy tale. The Christian Crown was quite tolerant of pagans as long as pagans did not seek to overthrow Christianity. This chapter gives us a glimpse on the life and failure of Julian the Apostate.

3.) The idea that any thing called “the Dark Ages” ever existed. Stark explodes the myth that the time of the burgeoning Christian social order following the fall of Rome was backward and dull. Stark demonstrates that this was a time of great learning and advancement. Stark demonstrates that it was the Christ hater later writers that dubbed this time “The Dark Ages,” and then the later time periods of “The Enlightenment,” and “The Age of Reason.”

4.) Stark demonstrates that Christianity opposed slavery thus denying modernists to cast in the teeth the idea that Christian were always slavers. I do think that we need to distinguish here the sin of man stealing for slavery which requires the death penalty, and the fact that Scripture supports the idea of slavery as Biblically conducted. However, Stark’s chapter here demonstrates that the Christian faith never countenanced man stealing.

5.) Stark demonstrates that the Church has not historically supported naked Authoritarianism. He cites the experts who note that if and when the Church supported Authoritarians (such as Franco) it was because those who opposed the Authoritarians they were supporting had been trying to snuff out the Church. Here Stark cites the Church’s support of Franco against the Communist “Republicans.” Stark in this chapter also goes out of his way to explode the myth that Pope Pius XII was in any way ‘sreltiH Pope. In this chapter Stark recites the record of the oppression of the Church by the State during Revolutionary France, Spain, and Russia during their Revolutions.

6.) Stark takes on the idea that Capitalism didn’t exist before the Reformers. Stark seems to think modern Capitalism is a good idea. He can have that idea. Stark notes how interest and capitalism goes way back behind the Protestants to the 11th century. Stark insists that the early Monastic movement was quite capitalistic. Stark notes that usury was not uncommon prior to the Reformation even citing Aquinas in support of usury. (Stark does say Aquinas spoke out of both sides of his mouth on the issue. I was quite glad for this chapter because I’ve met many Roman Catholic who has insisted that usury started with the Reformation. Stark puts the lie to that idea.

7.) Stark demonstrates that the Crusades were a defensive maneuver on the part of the Church in order to defend itself from the offensive marauding and land stealing of the Muslims. Stark spends some time explaining the connection between Christian piety of the time and going on Crusade. Stark spends some time talking about the quality of the character of many of the Crusaders. He also spends time demonstrating that the Christians were not more bloodthirsty than the Muslims whom they were defending Christendom from. In brief, the Muslims were animals and the Crusaders in order to defend human life from these animals had to be brutal themselves in many instances. Stark clears the Crusaders and crusading from the false witness of the Christ haters who maintain the modern narrative.

8.) Stark demonstrates that modern science could not have existed without Christendom producing Christian scientists. Stark demonstrates that the whole idea that Christianity was and is against science is a creation of those who hate Christianity.

Stark cites medieval scientist scholar after medieval scientist scholar to demonstrate that these men were faithful and pious Christian men.

He cites;

“The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order and the harmony imposed on it by God and which He revealed to us in the language of mathematics.”

Johannes Kepler

In his last will & testament, the great chemist, Robert Boyle (1627-1691) wrote to the members of the Royal Society of London, wishing them continued success in their ‘laudable attempts to discover the true Nature of the works of God.”

Rodney Stark
Bearing False Witness – p. 162

Stark reveals how only Christianity, with its concept of a personal and logical God alone could examine the cosmos. It was the presuppositions of the Christian faith that made modern science possible. In this vein, Stark notes regarding about false faiths and science;

“For Islam, the orthodox conception of Allah is hostile to the scientific quest. There is no suggestion in the Qur’an that Allah set his creation in motion and then let it run. Rather, it is assumed that he often intrudes the world and changes things as it pleases him. Thus, through the centuries, many of the most influential Muslim scholars have held that all efforts to formulate natural laws are blasphemy in that they would seem to deny Allah’s freedom to act. Thus did their images of God and the universe deflect scientific efforts in China, Ancient Greece, and Islam (as they held to pagan notions of God.”)

Rodney Stark
Bearing False Witness — p. 162-163

Stark also has a chapter demonstrating the absolute falsity of recently discovered “Gospels.” Stark does so in order to put the lie to the idea that these “new” Gospels have anything to add to the Christian faith.

Finally, Stark puts the lie to the now givens of the fantastical horrors behind the Inquisition. All that really needs to be said here is that when one compares the Inquisition (and burning of witches) to the real horrors of Secular governments like those of the French Revolution, Russian Revolution, and Mao’s Revolution suddenly one begins to understand that in comparison the Inquisition was a day at the park.

Stark has done the Church a great favor by exposing these ridiculous narratives that continue to plague the Christian Church today. Genuine Biblical Christianity has nothing to apologize to secularists, atheists and Christ haters.

Interacting with Rev. Isker’s “Boniface Option”

“The modern family w/ its labor capacity auctioned off to the highest bidder, has more in common w/ ancient slavery than it does the household. You can be married. You can even have children. But you are owned by a master. Sure, your master treats you well, and your wife’s master treats her well. You receive lavish amenities. You have a nice McMansion in a safe cul-de-sac away from crime. You might even get to own a BMW or a brand new F-150. You get to enjoy plentiful food and drink. You get to wear stylish clothing. Your respective masters give you free time every so often to take your children (who are raised by strangers while you serve your masters) to places like Disney World. You might be able to choose to leave one master for another. But you will always have a master.

We don’t think of this existence as slavish because we equate slavery with utter destitution and barbaric, torturous abuse. But in the ancient world, that was not universally the case. Some slaves were indeed worked to death in the mines. Others lived decent, full lives tending to fields and herds. And others lived comfortable lives in the households of nobles. But one thing was certain — slaves did not have their own households. We think that modern life is not the life of the slave because of comparative luxury, but the structure of modern life is almost same. In fact ancient slaves w/ wives and children had something much closer to a true household than modern men today, especially the intentionally childfree.”

Rev. Andrew Isker
Boniface Option — p. 94-95

This is quite excellent and it doesn’t even include the thought that slavery is a guaranteed reality given the debt that most moderns have embraced. Scripture teaches that the debtor is the slave to the creditor and with the incredible credit card debt that Americans are weighed down with it is just as simple fact that we are a slave people.

However, we love it so. We love being slaves and the we here applies just as much to “Christians” as to non Christians.

The impact of all this slavery is we are a people who are afraid to speak the truth. Slaves dare not step up to the microphone and say anything against those who hold the keys to his chains. For this reason the one place where we might well expect the truth to be spoken instead has gone silent. The clergy in America belong to the slave class and so they go out of their way to kiss their master’s tush. As such the truth that Slavemerica needs to hear goes unspoken.

In point of fact with the rise of the heretical R2K the clergy are now trained to be able to wear their chains comfortably while at the same time extolling the ability to spend their whole careers in pulpits quite without telling God’s people that they can and should be free of their chains as well.

It is all quite disgusting and discouraging.

“You must stop thinking of yourself as a mere individual but rather as a member of a hierarchy with duties and responsibilities to his people. The world that existed before Trashworld, the world Christendom existed within, had a word for men like this; Nobles.”

Rev. Andrew Isker
Boniface Option — p. 104

All this friction that exists between Christian Boomers and Christian Zers ought not to be. If Christianity is premised upon the truth of “harmony of interests” than each generation should be seeking the best of the other. The Boomers as the older and wiser should be seeking to come along side and help the successive generations all they can. The younger generations, when they find wisdom among the Boomers should treat them with respect and honor. (This would mean losing the “OK Boomer sobriquet).
We need to understand we are the body of Christ with every part seeking to help every other part.

We will rise or fall together.

“You must teach your children to love the things you love and to hate the things you hate. You must overcome your aversion to hate. If you cannot bring yourself to hate a malignant world built upon child sacrifice and crowned with genital mutilation, you are not going to make it, nor will your children. Hatred of such things is something you MUST pass down to your children, and your must raise them among others who understand the same.”

Rev. Andrew Isker
Boniface Option — pg. 113

Look, the problem now for generations has been that our loves and hates have not been passionate enough as combined with the reality that we have not taught our children why we love and hate as we do. Instead we have emphasized the necessity to “be nice” and the consequence to this has been the reality that 2-3 generations of God’s covenant seed have walked away from Biblical Christianity. We have not taught our children how to think. We have not taught them what we believe and why we believe it and what we don’t believe and why we don’t believe it and the result is that we have lost too many of our children because they have decided that their loves and their hates will be other than ours. This is our fault because we didn’t detail out for them a particular world and life view. We gave them the gruel of “love Jesus,” without telling them precisely who Jesus is that they were supposed to love. Many generations didn’t train their children this way because they themselves refused to do the hard work of becoming epistemologically self-conscious. And that in turn is the fault of the Church. The clergy failed to sound the tocsin. The clergy failed to raise the cry of the character and nature of God, of the beauty of our undoubted catholic Christian faith, of the idea of honoring the fearful and majestic Kingship of our Liege Lord Christ.

We have lost our children because we didn’t instruct them to share our passions. We have contributed to Trashworld because we didn’t train up warriors and shield-maidens for the Kingdom of God.

And now God’s house is left largely bare. The warrior spirit has melted away. The willingness of our Christian men to fight the good fight has evaporated and the willingness of our women folk to tell their men to “come home with your shield or upon your shield” is absent.

Where are the warriors? Where are they who will teach their children to be warriors for the Kingdom? Where are men and women who will love God enough to manfully hate the enemies of God. Where are the men and women who will give up all to train up a generation who themselves have only one desire and that is the desire to slay the dragon?

Oh God raise up such a generation once again please and do it that thy name may once again be honored.

Book List Touching Key Historical Events and Personages — Part I

There are some historical events wherein one is disallowed to have a contrary view to the received narrative of the WOKE/SJW’s. To have a contrary opinion on any one of these subjects or personages below is to move one to the outside of the Cognoscenti community. I submit that as Biblical Christians our takes on these historical events should be in contradiction to the received narrative as often as possible. In other words, to provide a couple examples, if 99.9% of the population believes that Abraham Lincoln was the greatest President ever, or if 99.9% of the population believes that the Crusades were a wicked endeavor that persecuted poor Muslims, then the Christian needs to re-asses his view if they are numbered among the 99.9%.

These events listed below are not intended to be exhaustive but I think they hit some of the major historical events that Biblical Christians should have a contrary understanding of vis-a-vis the accepted narrative.

Part I

1.) French Revolution — See Nesta Webster / Hillaire Belloc
2.) War of Northern Aggression – See Greg Lorend Durand / Ludwell H. Johnson
3.) Abraham Lincoln — See Edgar Lee Masters / Lyon Gardiner Tyler
4.) Oliver Cromwell — See Jean Henri Merle d’Aubigné / Buchan
5.) Reconstruction Era — See Dunning School / C. Bowers
6.) Colonialism – See Dr. Bruce Gilley
7.) Crusades — See Thomas Madden / R. Ibrahim
8.) WW I — See Docherty & MacGregor / Hof /Cafferky
9.) Woodrow Wilson — See Jim Powell /
10.) WW II — See Hoover / Irving / D. West / Tansil
11.) FDR — See Shlaes / G. Crocker / B. Folsom
12.) Holocaust (TM) — Ernst Zundel / 1/3 of a Holocaust (Video)
13.) Joe McCarthy — See M. Stanton Evans

Dr. Stephen Wolfe’s “Breadcrumb Methodology?”

Dr. Stephen Wolfe discusses the blood ties between Moab and Israel as and example.

Then he says this:

“Nations today are NOT built around bloodlines stretching back to arch-patriarchs. But blood relations remain relevant to nations, when referring to one’s ancestral connection to a people and place back to time immemorial. The originating source for one’s affection of people and place is his natural relations–those of his kin. But the ties of blood do not directly establish the boundaries of one’s ethnicity. Rather, one has ethnic ties of affection because one’s kin conducted life with other kin in the same place. Christian philosopher Johann Herder was correct in saying that the volk is a ‘family writ large’. This is an apt description not because everyone is a cousin by blood, but because one’s kin lived here with the extended families of others for generations, leaving behind a trace of themselves and their cooperation and their great works and sacrifices. Blood relations matter for your ethnicity, because your kin have belonged to this people on this land–to this nation in this place–and so they bind you to that people and place creating a common volkgeist.”

Stephen Wolfe

Christian Nationalism — p. 139

When I first read the above I found it to be a word salad that is full of both implied and direct contradiction. I still find it perplexing unless…

I am rethinking Wolfe’s book in the context of all the Hub-bub it is creating. It is the darndest thing to see Wolfe getting hit by all sides. I have read reviews that claim that Wolfe is being a clever Nazi and comparing Wolfe’s book with Mein Kampf. (The good ole “ad-Hitlerum” logical fallacy.) Then there are people like me who don’t see Uncle Adolph (inside joke) but instead see Wolfe trying to avoid the inescapable “ethno” in the idea of Nationalism. I genuinely feel sorry for the guy getting hit by both sides like this. I hope the man makes some good money off the book  in order to offset all the grief he has been getting — even to the point of people destroying his friends livelihood in trying to pull Wolfe down by being associated with these alleged Nazi racists.

Because of all this fire from both sides I have been re-thinking what this book of Wolfe is. What is it trying to accomplish. What accounts for the methodology behind the book?

For the sake of argument just pretend you’re writing a book for an audience that is receptive to Nationalism but is on the fence regarding the ethnic side of it. Pretend that you as the author understand that the ethno in ethno-Nationalism is never going to fly in this politically correct, multi-cultural context. How would you go about writing a book that advances the ball on ethno-Nationalism while avoid the issue of the ethno? You know if in the book you state the obvious about Nationalism it will never even get published.

As such you decide to go all clever and describe all the accouterments of Nationalism in your book hinting strongly at the ethnic part and yet keeping it at arm’s length in terms of explicitly saying it. You get close to speaking about the ethno in ethno-Nationalism and then you beat a hasty retreat in order to avoid outraging the normies and the cultural-Marxist gatekeepers in the Western Church.

Instead you decide to drop all kinds of breadcrumbs to lead your reader, who may be hesitant to come to your conclusion if you said it overtly, to the conclusion that can’t help but be reached concerning ethno-Nationalism because the breadcrumbs you have dropped along the way in your book? Perhaps Wolfe is seeking to get people wet before he advocates swimming?

Now, this methodology is not for me, and I think it is better to throw a bucket of cold water on those who can’t swim. I think it is better to fastened your bold colors on the mast so that people know who you are from a league away. However, though it is not my style, and though I don’t think it is particularly effective, I can see other people believing this methodology might work.

Was Wolfe being this kind of clever in his book? Did he realize that most people embracing his broad outline of what Christian Nationalism is would then invariably embrace the ethno part of ethno-nationalism without him even having to be overly clear about his conviction on the matter?

I’m beginning to think this is a possibility. I think that Wolfe may have been going for conversion via the indirect route as opposed to going for conversion by my “in your face” route.

As an addendum please pray for Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Achord. Dr. Achord, a close friend of Wolfe’s was doxxed and fired from his job with the hopes that Wolfe could be found guilty by association with Achord.

Now, Achord has done nothing to be ashamed of in terms of what he has written if we were living in a sane world. But we are no longer living in a sane world. The Stalinists in the Church are in charge, and the Stalinists are insisting that if you do not embrace their vision of Christianized Cultural Marxism then it is “off with your head.” 

Achord is not the first victim of this bull fecal behavior and he won’t be the last.

A Brief Explanation for why Ministers Should Read Books on Deep State Activity — From 2017

Just completed Daniel Estulin’s “The Tavistock Institute; The Social Engineering of the Masses.” I read this back to back to his “The True Story of the Bilderberg Group.”

Why are these kinds of books important to read for the minister?
1.) It forces him out of pietism and forces him to see that retreat into pietism has meant the advance of Christ’s enemies in the public realm.

2.) It delivers us from R2K thinking inasmuch as we see that when Christians withdraw from the public realm false Gods claim ownership over that realm.

3.) It causes us to see that the corporeal enemies of the people we serve are intent on destroying them and their families via set policies pursued by nations, corporations, and agencies.

4.) It gives us insight into how spiritual forces in high places communicate themselves into this flesh and blood world in which we live.

5.) It casts us back on Christ who alone is able to defeat His enemies. But defeat them he has and so will. It thus gives us a roadmap on how we might be involved to that end.

6.) If we are called to resist we have to know who and what to resist. Books like this give us insight into that end.