Category: Culture

Hollywood

Why the name “Hollywood?”

In ancient England, the Druids valued a variant of the Holly tree above all trees since that tree retained life throughout the year. They marked that value by crafting their wands made out of the Holly tree.

Keep in mind that the wand has been used since antiquity as a tool to direct the will of the user. Whether in the form of the wand or in other forms such as the staff or scepter of state.

You can see this symbology readily if you only look for it. Whether the fairy godmother in Disney with her magic wand or whether Gandalf the Grey with his staff or the whole Harry Potter world. In many University graduations the wand, it present by way of the Academic Mace carried at the front of the procession during graduation ceremonies.  Some hold that the ancient medical caduceus with two serpents on a staff is playing with the theme of the wand of power and authority. When the next Royal is installed in England you will see that at some point during the ceremony they will be entrusted with a royal scepter. This is another spin-off of the wand motif. Even the Crozier as wielded by a Roman Catholic Bishop may have come into the Church via a syncretism with wand history.

So, the wand motif plays heavily in the naming of the film industry with the name “Hollywood.” Historically speaking many of those who began the nascent film industry were already familiar with the Jewish Kabbalah and they then took the name of the tree known for its talismanic qualities combined it with what the wand is made of and used it as the name of the industry that would bewitch the West.

Keep in mind the next time you watch a Hollywood film that the wand for which it was named has been used as a metaphysical meditation tool to represent the extension and direction of the user’s will (to channel energy) toward the desired result of the outcome of a situation.

Hollywood via the film is practicing magic and you are the one upon whom the magic is being practiced. The magic is ubiquitous but because it is the water we swim in we don’t see it. Think about it though. Hollywood has used its magic to teach us how to think, how to respond, how to emote and how to dress. Hollywood has used its magic to teach us what is beautiful, what is successful, and what is desirable.

As a passive viewer being bewitched by the magic, you are watching the story unfold on the silver screen. You become convinced that the actions, emotions, language, decisions, and fashion of the actors and actresses are reflections of your actions when in point of fact these actions, emotions, language usage, and fashion now owned by the viewer are part of the working of the magic upon the viewer. The film, by way of magic, causes you to act, think, emote, speak, and dress just as you viewed on the screen.

This is not to say that all films are evil. It is to say that if one is epistemologically self-conscious one will be aware that there is the intent of magic connected with what is produced in Hollywood.

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee … Christianity Means Nationalism

Sixthly, in looking at the Christian view of nationality, it was seen: that the Triune God ordained all the various (mineral, plant, and animal) kingdoms of His universe and that He alone rules the nations of men; that man’s obedience to the “dominion charter” would ultimately have led to the development of the various nations to the glory of God, even irrespective of the fall; that nationality is a historically grounded and plastically qualified societal relationship proceeding sphere sovereignty and directly from God; that sin has marred national development and international relationships; that the supranational tower of Babel (cI. the aim of communist eschatology!) was destroyed by God because contrary to His purposes as set out in the “dominion charter”; that the existence of the various nationalities and languages was thus caused by God and is pleasing to Him; that national isolation and supranational miscegenation are both equally wrong, for God would have all nations worship Him and love one another as nations; that Christ enjoined both love of one’s own nation and of other nations but particularly the Christianization of all the nations (in His Great Commission); that the events of the first New Testament day of Pentecost, while promoting good international relationships, also reinforced and sanctified nationality as such and in no way sought to transcend it; and that New Testament Christians maintained their nationality and taught that others should do the same,142 while yet working for improved national and international relationships as part of and as a result of their obedience to Christ’s mandate to evangelize all the nations, until all nations have become Christianized and, even after the final judgment, maintain their nationality and live in perfect harmony with the other nations in the new Jerusalem forever with all nations under the Triune God!

So the Christian doctrine of nationality is diametrically opposed to that of Marxism. Nations are a necessary product of man’s creation, not his alienation; Christ’s atonement principally heals the nations;143 and eschatologically the nations will preserve their nationality unto all eternity, and not lose it in a colorless communist utopia.

“God that made the world and all things therein, . . hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they feel after Him, and find Him, though He be not far from every one of us . . but now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17.24-30).

“The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved. . – He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth. . . Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen [- the nations], I will be exalted in the earth” (Ps. 46:6-10).

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee
Communist Eschatology — pg. 773 – 774

Dr. Fancis Nigel Lee’s Apologetic For Biblical Nationalism

Of course, there is to be contact between the nations, but not supranational miscegenation or slow genocide. National seclusion is wrong, but even a supranational ecumenical movement can be guilty of seclusion! For as Dooyeweerd remarks:

“The history of the building of the tower of Babel, viewed in the light of the cultural commandment of Genesis 1, shows that seclusion and isolation in cultural development is contrary to the Divine ordinance. Cultural expansion, the spread of humanity over the surface of the earth in the differentiation of the cultural groups, and the cultural contact between these groups, have been set as a task to mankind.”114

And again: “In the removal of the rigid walls of isolation, historical development moves in the line of cultural integration. The latter has its counterpart in the process of an increasing differentiation. This process of cultural integration and differentiation should be sharply distinguished from the leveling tendencies which in our days threaten to penetrate the so-called under-developed cultures with secularized factors of Western civilization.”115

In spite of a slight amount of marginal intermixing and still less of intermarriage with other stocks, God preserved the Israelitic nation and its culture (and land and language) up to the advent of Christ.116 Neither did Christ destroy nationality but sought to preserve it and to cleanse it from sin and to perfect it. And this involved at least two things: His mandate to improve international relations, but also to sanctify national life to His glory. Christ insisted on His followers improving international relations. And this they were to do by loving their neighbors as themselves,117 yes, by loving even their hostile Samaritan neighbors.11”

Also, they were to pray for their enemies,119 even for their Roman conquerors,120 and, after Christ’s death and ascension, to go into all the world and teach all the nations, as commanded in Christ’s Great Commission.121 Yet they were also to sanctify national life and to promote specifically the national welfare. Jesus Himself clearly taught the necessity of the Israelitic believers’ ministering first to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel,”122 and that it was not meet to take the Israelitic “children’s bread and cast it” to other nations.123 Nor should Samaritans be encouraged to inundate the temple of the Jews in Jerusalem, but rather worship God in their own temple in their own land, for “God is Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit,”124 that is, in one and the same spirit and not necessarily in one and the same international or supranational geographical locality. And, having assured His followers that nations would still be in existence on the future Day of Judgment,125 and that many would then come from the east and west into the kingdom of heaven,12~ He told His followers to go into all the world, and disciple all the nations121 (as nations!), beginning amongst their own nation in
Jerusalem, but going forth thence even into the hostile territory of “Samaria, and into the uttermost parts of the earth.”127

Shortly after that, the risen Christ poured out His Spirit on the day of Pentecost, causing the disciples to speak of the wonderful works of God in every then known language for the benefit of those Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Mesopotamians, Cappadocians, Pontians, Asians, Phrygians, Pamphylians, Egyptians, Libyans, Cyrenians, Romans, Cretans, Arabians, etc., who were then in Jerusalem for the feast. Far from suggesting the future creation of a one-world nation with a one-world language, this important event certainly suggests the sanctification of the then existing nationalities to the service of God, inasmuch as “devout men, out of every nation under heaven” there heard the Gospel “every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born.”128

Nor did the Christians later lose their nationality. Even amongst the early Israelitic Christians, the Greek-speaking Israelites maintained their group consciousness vis-a-vis the Hebrew-speaking Israelites.129 Paul became a Roman to the Romans solely so that he might save some,130 but in spite of this he still remained an Israelite,131 spoke always to the Jews
first and then to the Greeks,132 and loved his people so much that he was prepared to sacrifice himself in their stead, as it were.l33 At the same time. he emphasized that in Christ there is neither Greek nor Jew nor barbarian nor Scythian,134 and that as the nations of the world were progressively more and more won for Christ,135 and as Christians of each nation prayed for their kings and those in authority so that Christian men may lead a quiet and peaceable life and so that all men may be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth,136” national and international relations would improve, in spite of all temporary setbacks, as the Gospel runs its course through the world of nations.137

The Cretians may be liars, evil beasts, slow bellies; the Corinthians may be factious and passionate; the Galatians may be foolish; the Thessalonians lazy; and the Israelites blinded;138 but the day is coming when Christ shall be all in all.139

For “in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. And He shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”140 And in the new Jerusalem on the new earth, “the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it: and the kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it. . . – And they shall bring~thc glory and honor of the nations into it.”141

Dr. Fancis Nigel Lee
Communist Eschatology — pg. 770-772

Vult-Right

What the Vult Right is

Over time it has become painfully obvious that what is called “the Alt-Right” should be in reality called “the Alt. Left.” As such some wags have come with another alternative to the “Alt-Right” called the “Vult-Right.” The Vult-Right has the aspiration of being a genuinely conservative option to the left as expressed in movements such as Cultural Marxists, New World Order types, Progressives, Neo-conservatives, Leftist “Christianities,” multiculturalists, postmodernists, the Alt-Right, Utopians, and other assorted expressions of the Jacobin left, whether National or International in its expression.

The Vult-Right is uniquely and substantively the expression of worldview Christianity. Below is the vision of the tiny minority of those who would label themselves Vult-Right.

1.) The Vult-Right is of the right as the right is defined by Scripture. The Vult-Right assumes if one is of the left they are operating in contradiction to Biblical Christianity. The means that the Vult-Right understand themselves as distinctly Christian and as advocating for a distinctly Christian social order wherein the God of the Christian Bible is glorified.

2.) The Vult-Right serves as an option to the Alt-Right and Libertarian movements for Christians who care not to be in bed with the leftist National Socialist who comprise much of the Alt-Right and who understand that movement Libertarianism is merely the flip side of the coin of movement socialism.

3.) The Vult-Right believes that Western Civilization has been the apex of human civilization and that the heights of Western Civilization has been due to the shaping influence of Biblical Christianity, particularly the Christianity as expressed by the Reformed faith.  As such, Western Civilization has been known as “Christendom.”

4.) The Vult-Right believes that any syncretistic admixture with Biblical Christianity and Christendom means the adulterating of that unique and summit Civilization.  This means trying to reach back to golden ages such as the Rennasiance or pagan Rome or Greece are retrograde movements. This means that trying to add counsel from other religions such as Talmudic Judaism or Koranic Islam is a retrograde movement for Christendom and civilization.

5.) The Vult-Right believes in decentralization and diffused governments that stretch across Family, Church, and State.  This means any notion of “Christian Socialism” is anathema to adherents of the Vult-Right.

6.) The Vult-Right believing in decentralization and the diffuse governments also believe that regionalism in social order and Confederacy in politics are preferred expressions in a Christian world and life view. This vision is often referred to as Agrarianism, Jurisdictionalism, and Sphere Sovereignty.

7.) The Vult-Right, as it practices attackagetics in its apologetics, and as it exists in a milieu where Christianity and Christians are being asked to surrender at every turn, refuses to be on the defensive and so is seen by its enemies as unreasonable, arrogant, and triumphalistic. To the contrary, it sees itself as the only reasoned course to take, as holding out life to a dying culture, as working to end the spiral of defeat Christendom and civilization have been in since the Endarkenment.

8.) The Vult-Right rejects all Internationalism. Following the model of Scripture, it is Nationalist. This means that the Vult-Right rejects the concept of propositional nationhood. As such the Vult-Right embraces distinct borders,  distinct culture, distinct ethnicity and distinct language, and shared History as the definition of nation. This means the uniform and universal rejection by the Vult-Right of all plans for New World Order whether or not such plans are hatched by “Christians” or by pagans.

9.) The Vult-Right embraces a teleology wherein the nations of this world become the nations of the Lord Christ. As such the Vult-Right is postmillennial in its eschatology and is Missiological in its intent to see all the nations bow to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. All nationalisms will one day be Christian nationalisms.

10.) The Vult-Right embraces the nomology of God’s Law as the standard which all Nations are to use to provide a just justice in both their legal order and so in their social order. Without and apart from God’s law all Nationalisms will be vile, ugly, and inhuman.

11.) The Vult-Right rejects all ambitions of modern egalitarianism.  The Vult-Right accepts two equalities. The Vult-Right accepts that all men from every tribe, tongue, race, and nation are created as imprinted with the Imago Dei and so are equally Image bearers of the God of the Bible. The Vult-Right accepts that all men are to be equally adjudicated before God’s law in terms of justice per their stations and places wherein God has placed them.

12.) The Vult-Right embrace Biblical hierarchy and patriarchy. Children are to obey their parents in the Lord. Workers are to please their employers in the Lord. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Laymen are to honor their Elders in the Lord. Citizens are to obey their Magistrates in the Lord. Biblical hierarchy and patriarchy are the norms for all National social orders.

13.) The Vult-Right is familial-centric. The Vult-Right believes that Christian covenantalism means that the family and not the individual is the primary building block in a Christian social order.

14.) The Vult-Right believes that Theology leads to cultures (family, church, and civil-social) which in turns leads to identity which in turn leads to the social order which in turn leads to the various civil social Institutions.

15.) The Vult-Right is anti-Scientism. The Vult-Right understands that Science is only as good as the theology upon which it is built upon as a foundation. As such the Vult-Right understands that all science is always in the service of some theology. The Vult-Right embraces science as science is the consequence of Christian theology as opposed to being the consequence of some other false theology. Science is never neutral and is always the servant of some god or god concept. Theology remains the queen of the Sciences.

16.) The Vult-Right rejects all Thomistic two paths (reason and faith) to truth. The Vult-Right understands that reason can never get underway apart from faith commitments.

17.) The Vult-Right being Regionalist and Nationalist is opposed to Empire building wherein differing peoples and nations are controlled and subjugated by a “Master Race.” Consistent with this the Vult-Right is opposed to Empires seeking to amalgamate and adulterate differing people into a new “Master Race.”

18.) The Vult-Right being Nationalist is opposed to multicultural social order understanding the proximity + diversity = conflict. The Vult-Right understands that modern expressions of multiculturalism are in pursuit of a monoculturalism that amalgamates and adulterated all various peoples into one new people with one new universal culture.

19.) The Vult-Right in its opposition to multiculturalism understands that part of multiculturalism is multifaithism and multiracialism and is opposed to each since each, as in the hands of the Cultural Marxists, is in pursuit of one universal non-Christian faith and one universal non-Christian people. The Biblical Christian faith is the ultimate target of each.

20.) The Vult-Right, believing in borders, nations, and culture rejects a Libertarian International free trade that requires the International free movement of peoples across borders that International free trade brings in its wake.

21.) The Vult-Right as existing among a Christian White people favors the continuation of said Christian White people and their faith, gene-pool, cultures, customs, traditions habits, and laws as those are reflections and incarnations of God’s Law-Word. The Vult-Right expects other peoples of other Nations will have the same desire and that desire should be honored as other people’s serve under the authority of the Kingship of Jesus Christ.

22.) The Vult-Right is opposed to standing Armies and preemptive strikes. When War must be waged the Vult-Right holds that it is waged either in defense of hearth and home or in the protection of other Christian peoples under assault from pagan peoples seeking to overthrow their Christian faith and nation.

23.) The Vult-Right is opposed to the current Immavasion and Refugee and Asylum abuse understanding that this continues to be an attempt by the pagan left US Federal Government to overthrow the indigenous citizenship in favor of a more controllable people.

24.) The Vult-Right believes that the Universal Church is comprised as a Nation of Nations. Christians of every tribe, tongue, race, and nation are Spiritual brothers and sisters in Christ who retain their creational markers of ethnicity, gender, family, and clan as given by God. These creational markers glorify God and are not to be eliminated.  The New Jerusalem is inhabited not by individuals except as those individuals are present in their nations.

25.) The Vult-Right rejects both the Materialism of Marxist thought and the hatred of the corporeal as expressed in Gnostic thought. The Vult-Right embraces both nature and nurture while understanding that Grace restores nature and that regeneration reorients nurture.

A good deal of the above would be abhorrent not only to the Jacobin left but also to what is called the Alt-Right. The Vult-Right is the only expression currently that belongs to the Right.

The Magnificent Seven & It’s Politically Correct Cultural Appropriation

Bloggers Warning — This article commits the sin of noticing. If you are offended by the sin of noticing you will not want to read this post.

Increasingly we are told that “cultural appropriation” is, at the very least, in bad taste and at the very worst exploitative. White people wearing cornrows, white people twerking, white people wearing black face are all considered in bad form. Team names like the “Cleveland Indians” or the “Washington Redskins” outrage some people and brings the accusation of cultural appropriation. Recently, “Victoria’s Secret” sent model Karlie Kloss down a runway in a fringed suede bikini, turquoise jewelry, and a feathered headdress—essentially a “sexy Indian” costume—many called out the underwear company for insensitivity to Native Americans.

Now, while I personally would not be disappointed if nobody did cornrows, twerked, or went around in blackface (this not being in keeping with my fashion tastes) it is considered a sin on the part of white people to culturally appropriate in this fashion. Just up the road from me in Lansing, Michigan students recently protested because of the cultural appropriations of the Native-Indian dress on the Michigan State campus.

However, moving in the opposite direction does not seem to be a problem. Increasingly minorities are culturally appropriating Western Culture and I read only a few people pointing out the inconsistencies. In 2014 we had a remake of “Little Orphan Annie” that found the role of Daddy Warbucks and Annie being played by Minorities. The 2017 release of a new King Arthur film finds the presence of Minorities sprinkled throughout the Ancient Arthurian Kingdom, including the mentor of the future King Arthur and the noble leader of the resistance to wicked King Uther. A third example of this cultural appropriation moving in the opposite direction was the remake of the Magnificent Seven.

In this remake, the hero role is played by Denzel Washington who is given the name “Sam Chisolm.” Of course, the name “Chisum” was a minor American Western white cowboy hero of the 19th century. “Chisum” was also the name of a 1970’s film with the title role of “Chisum” being played by John Wayne. Denzel Washington would be culturally appropriating both an American Western legend and a film legend known for his Westerns if it were possible for cultural appropriation to move in a direction contrary to whites culturally borrowing from minorities. Denzel Washington is the new John Wayne.

So, in the new “Magnificent Seven” we have white sheeple townsfolk looking to a black law officer for redress of grievances against a White evil Robber Baron. How often do you think that this would have occurred in the 19th century Western America?  Keep in mind here that in the original “Magnificent Seven” it was a community of Mexican sheeple who were appealing to the Magnificent Seven for help against bad guy Mexican Bandoleros. We have gone from the incarnation of evil being a Mexican Bandolero to a white Robber Barron and we have gone from a community of Mexican peasants being sheeples to the American farmer and merchant Christian white people playing the sheeple.  We need to throw in here that the cowardly white sheeple are led by one brave soul out for justice but settling for revenge. This brave white soul is a woman homesteader whose husband was killed by the bad guys as the film opens. This character (Emma Cullen) played by amply endowed Haley Bennet who’s breasts and cleavage is credited with a co-star billing.

Just a brief word on our white Robber Barron villain. I do believe that the modern Corporatist is a major villain in our culture but the Left’s narrative tends to cast anybody who makes money as being an evil capitalist. That holds true for this film.

In this latest version of the Magnificent Seven, we have four minority members. We have already mentioned Denzel Washington’s lead role as Sam Chilsom. Likewise, we have an outcast American Indian (Red Harvest), a knife-wielding Oriental (Billy Rocks), and an outlaw Mexican (Vasquez).  Of the three white Magnificent Seven, we have the coward Southerner, (Goodnight Robicheaux) the slightly nutty and Scripture-spouting Mountain man (Jack Horn) and cheating gambler (Joshua Faraday).

Of the four Magnificent Seven who are killed as heroes in the end in the battle against the bad guys (who are all white except one Indian) only one is a minority (the Oriental knife wielder). The rest are all the White guys. The coward is cast as the lone Southerner. In the end, the White Southerner redeems himself but he still plays the coward.

In the end, all the bad guys are white people except for one Indian played by Jonathan Joss as Denali, an exiled Comanche warrior. However, we are relieved by the film-makers decision to have the good guy Indian (Red-Harvest) be the one who kills the bad guy Indian after the bad guy Indian kills the God-talk spouting Mountain Man. Can you imagine the outrage if a white Magnificent Seven good guy had killed the bad guy Indian? And what a coincidence that the particularly Christian good guy Mountain man who the film reveals was no friend of Indians in his life is killed by the heathen Indian.

The film repeatedly slights the white man beyond what I have already noted. When the good guy Indian (Martin Sensmeier) shows on the scene all the white Magnificent Seven are pensive and apprehensive but the minority leader of the Magnificent Seven reaches out and makes friends and asks the Indian to join their hero-posse. The character played by Chris Pratt (Joshua Faraday) mocks the Mexican for being Mexican. The film reveals that the character played by Lee Byung-hun (Billy Rocks) has been mistreated by white men. Ethan Hawke’s character (Goodnight Robicheaux) informs the viewer that a bar “didn’t want to serve Billy’s kind.” Billy, the diminutive Oriental cowboy, is taunted to fight by a white cowpoke with “come on you scum sucking runt of a man.” Billy himself tells us that his friendship with the Southerner Goodnight Robicheaux is one where “Goodnight helps me navigate the white man’s privileges.”

As the film progresses this multicultural crew is able to set aside their natural cultural, ethnic, and racial animosities and congeal together to be a force who is stronger than a thousand white hired gun bad guys.

There is also a subtle subtheme in this film regarding Christianity. When the film opens the sheeple townsfolks are meeting in a Church to discuss the problem of the Robber Barron Bogue who wants to cheat them of their land. Robber Barron Bogue shows up and in this opening scene, the Church is burned with a shell of it remaining.  That shell of a church provides an inclusio for the end of the film where the lone female kills the bad guy (Bogue) under the cross as he is being forced to pray for forgiveness by the Sam Chisolm character. So, as the film opens the Church is the place where the cowardice of the white townspeople is revealed and in the closing, the Church is the place where a white man not interested in asking for forgiveness is being forced to beg for forgiveness for his sins by a minority and finally being killed by a white woman as he is, in an underhanded sneaky fashion, trying to kill the minority who is choking him to death for his past sins against Chisolm’s people. In the opening, the Church fails to provide resistance from white people. In the end, the Church failed to provide any solution for the redemption of the white man’s sins.

All of this worldview malfeasance crammed into a delightful Western. It really is a classic Western on the surface complete with gun fights, quick draw exhibition, the gambler theme, the lone cowboy heroes, and the plucky Western homesteader wife. However, scratching below the surface this is yet another piece of both cultural appropriation and an attack on the heroes and history of the Christian white man.