Category: Politics

Long ago in my reading I came across a description of a Billy Sunday Revival meeting. Billy was having some of his revivals during the draft era of WW I. In my reading the author was describing how Billy would get the young men “saved” and then the counselors were told to take the young men from the altar where they got “saved” to back behind the podium-stage where these young men could then sign up for military service in the US military in order to fight in W.W. I. Billy’s revivals, in these cases where not really about Jesus but were about using Jesus to fill up the ranks of the US military. Jesus was a gimmick. Jesus, in those Billy Sunday revivals were like the adds you used to see on TV where they were selling product X for 39.99 whereupon the announcer would say … “But if you buy now, you’ll also get products “Y” and “Z” for the same low price. Billy might have said … “Not only do you get Jesus but you get to fight for your country also.”

Well, something similar to that happened on the 21 September at the Charlie Kirk llamapalooza/extravaganza. Jesus was used as the bait in order to hook people into supporting the Republican party. Whereas Billy gave you military service with your Jesus, the Republican party this past Sunday night gave the viewers the Republican party with the views Jesus. “Not only do you get Jesus, but if you buy now you also get being a supporter of the Republican party at the same low low price.”

This was all pure marketing, and manipulation.

Now, I don’t doubt that there are people who were genuinely redeemed last Sunday night. I have no doubt that God will use the death of Charlie Kirk and the Kirk llamapalooza in order to draw people to Himself. I fully acknowledge that Christ was proclaimed by some of the speakers Sunday night. For all this we can be thankful. However,  none of that changes that what happened last Sunday was a con put on by first rate Republican grifters, using Jesus as their rallying point. These chap couldn’t give a horse’s ass about the resurrected, ascended and reigning Lord Jesus Christ except as a means of bringing people into the Republican party. If these politicians thought hooking the name of Charlie Kirk with Satanism would balloon the size of the Republican base they would have a lollapalooza standing with Satan on the side of Charlie Kirk.

Nick Fuentes caught some of what I am getting at above in his analysis of the Kirk llamapalooza

“If you want Christ to be at the center of your politics, he can’t be a fucking gimmick. He’s not a slogan. When we say ‘it’s all about Jesus,’ we are not doing it with our right hand in the air like ‘alight everybody, let’s go and vote Republican.’ No, this is literally life and death. Life and death, for you and and me, for the GOP, for America. It’s something we take more seriously than anything. And so when they’re getting up there and saying ‘Alright, stand up and say you believe in Jesus and scan the QR code and then collect your voter registration,’ it comes across flippant. It comes across as borderline sacrilegious and maybe while well intentioned -maybe it comes from a good place but I don’t like where it is going and where it is going is weaponizing an earnest seeking of people. You have a lot of young people and a lot of even older people — decent people in America – who saw evil take the life of a good man and they were moved to action because we don’t want to see evil takeover our society, and they’re being funneled into this voter registration now. People are coming to this event seeking God weeping and affected and they’re getting fundraising non-profit bullshit which if you’re in the political world you know what that is. You’re getting a girl coming up with an I-pad saying; ‘get I can your email? Ok, we’re going to send you an email. Scan the QR code. We are going to get you set up. Here’s your bag.’ And it’s like ‘can we give them something real?’ To me that came across as cynical, calculated, opportunistic, and exploitative and that’s what politics is but don’t do that in the name of Jesus Christ and don’t do that with the death — don’t do that with the funeral.”

And while we are on this subject, I see a good deal of this kind of grift going on in the “Christian” social media world as well. People, in my opinion, are striking stances on various issues, insisting that somehow these stances are all about Jesus when in point of fact Jesus is incidental to the (sometimes even correct) stances they are taking. There is a huge amount of grift out there in the “ministry” world right now and as always the counsel is to the consumer, “Let the buyer beware.”

“In the present ubiquity of ignorance, one cannot but suspect that many who call themselves Christians do not understand what the word means, and that some who would vigorously repudiate Christianity are more Christian than many who maintain it. p. 14. Towards the end of 1938 we experienced a wave of revivalism which should teach us that folly is not the prerogative of any one political party or any one religious communion, and that hysteria is not the privilege of the uneducated. … The religious fervor has been a fervor for democracy. It may engender nothing better than a disguised and peculiarly sanctimonious nationalism, accelerating our progress towards the paganism which we say we abhor. To justify Christianity because it provides a foundation of morality, instead of showing the necessity of Christian morality from the truth of Christianity, is a very dangerous inversion.” pp. 18-19.

T.S. Eliot
‘The Idea of a Christian Society’

I continue to comment on the Kirk extravaganza by way of random observations. I find this kind of extravaganza to be fascinating, in part because of my life long interests. My degree work in under-grad was politics, history, and religion-philosophy. My degree work in graduate school (Seminary) was theology and cross-cultural ministry. My reading since graduating from both has continued to be largely in these fields while also including sociology and economics. In the Kirk Extravaganza this all comes together as stirred in one pot. The attraction for me to this thing is like a honey bee’s attraction to a flower. I find it fascinating.

Yesterday’s observations earned for me the comment from another conservative clergy Baptist that the reasons for my observations and my unwillingness to jump on the MAGA Kirk extravaganza train is because I am a purist. To that accusation, I can only proclaim that “I am guilty as charged,” right along with the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Gottschalk of Orbais, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Cromwell, Paisley, Knox, Goodman, Dabney, Machen, etc. There could be worse company to keep. Honestly though, it seems to me the only place left if one is not a purist is to admit that one is a compromiser.

It ought to be clear from yesterday’s post that I am very leery of what is happening. As I said yesterday, I am with St. Paul that we ought to rejoice that whether in pretense or truth Christ is proclaimed. You will see in today’s post that I point out where the Gospel was proclaimed.

Some have (I think rightly) pointed out that the Kirk extravaganza has more than a few parallels with the way the murder of Horst Wessel was used by the National Socialists in the 1930s. The 22 year old Wessel was murdered by the Communists and he became, by the arts of Joseph Goebbels, a martyr for the Nazis around which to rally the German people. That story is limned out a wee bit here;

https://goldengate.substack.com/p/remembering-horst-wessel

I don’t think there can be any doubt whatsoever that Charlie Kirk’s murder is being used in a way that can only be described as propaganda. This is also seen in the way that Kirk’s memory is being fought over. “Kirk was about to become Roman Catholic say the Roman Catholics.” “Kirk was on a trajectory wherein he was going to fully understand the Bagel problem say the Groypers .” “Charlie would want us to….” “Do it for Charlie…” “We are all Charlie Kirk now.” These are all examples of how Kirk is being apotheosized before our very eyes.

Like all symbols Kirk is transcending reasonable analysis that may properly critique real faults with the man and is being lifted up to an untouchable status . Think Abraham Lincoln, or Martin Luther King, or George Washington. Kirk is reaching pantheon status. I don’t do pantheon because the best of men are men at best.

So, the assassination of Kirk has become our Horst Wessel moment. True or not I have no problem with one possible result of our current Horst Wessel moment and that is the destruction of the Marxist left. Even if the memory of the martyred Kirk is being used to manipulate people into supporting the destruction of the Marxist left I am good with that. What I’m not good with is how easily this whole thing could “jump the shark.” I am not convinced that the MAGA movement is particularly Christian and this Horst Wessel moment could be easily used by the Peter Theils, Bill Gates, Larry Ellisons, Mark Zuckerbergs, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the NWO, AI tech villains whose money is behind much of the MAGA movement. Those people scare me almost as much as the Marxist left.

So, I remain cynical. Very cynical regarding this cultural moment. But, I am a cynical chap so that should surprise no one.

Well, on to my random observations;

1.) J. D. Vance went out of his way to proclaim “Christ is King.” A good amount of cheering resulted. You’ll know that MAGA and Republicans are serious about “Christ is King,” when we start seeing sodomites removed from the Government where “Christ is King.”

Who would have ever thought that 30+ million Americans would consume 5 hours of a  memorial/political Extravaganza that was all about wrapping up the Republican party in the Christian flag with a Charlie Kirk bow on top?

Here are some of my off the cuff observations;

1.) There is no doubt that there was in that whole imbroglio Christian/Gospel truth spoken and for that we are thankful and rejoice. In Philippians 1 St. Paul could write from prison;

¹⁵ Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: ¹⁶  The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; ¹⁷ but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. ¹⁸ What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.

So where Christianity/Gospel was proclaimed I join St. Paul in rejoicing.

2.) However, I also join St. Paul in understanding that, as it was in his time so it is in our time that people preach Christ from selfish ambition and not sincerely. Look, Politicians at this level are Lizard People. They do nothing that will not advance their agenda. They will say anything, do anything, feign anything to convince the citizenry that they belong to a noble race and only want to do what the citizenry wants them to do. Politicians, as Lizard People have zero compassion, zero genuineness, zero transparency, and zero sympathy. As Lizard People they are not like your average moral American citizen. They just are not.

Last night I saw a whole gaggle of Lizard people saying things that they would never say if it were not politically convenient for them to be saying such things. I would bet the farm that most of them had no idea what they were saying after they were done saying what they said. They had excellent speech writers who put the words in their mouths they needed to say. I mean … please … does anyone really buy the idea of Marco Rubio or Tulsi Gabbard as Christian Evangelist?

3.) I am old enough to remember all the faux religiosity (Christianity) following 9-11. Last night was a case of;

Second verse
Same as the first
A little bit louder 
And a little bit worse

How many times does Lucy have to promise that “this time I am really really really going to hold that football so you can kick it through the goal post, Charlie Brown,” before we realize that Lucy is never going to hold that damn football so Charlie Brown can kick it?

4.) There are many Evangelicals and even Reformed who are insisting, “God is sending us Revival.” Maybe …. but I’d wait on publishing that until we begin to see;

a.) More and more Christians taking their children out of public schools
b.) Less and less aid being given to Israel – an enemy of Christ
c.) Fewer and Fewer Democrats and RINO’s being elected
d.) A significant drop in the violent crime rate
e.) The visible church doing a boatload of repenting and people leaving all kinds of churches because their former churches won’t repent
f.) Abortion being outlawed in all 50 states
g.) People embracing the time honored tradition of Christian Nationalism and the Ordo Amoris (as combined called Kinism).
h.) People raising the issue of returning to a time of blue laws on Sundays
i.) A Nation wide advocacy for the end of the Federal Reserve
j.) A Nation wide advocacy for the end of the Great Society programs
k.) A Nation wide advocacy for the reversal of the civil rights legislation
l.) A return to labeling LGBTQ etc. people as suffering from insanity
m.) An end to both legal and illegal immigration from 3rd world countries
n.) The forced expatriation of all illegal immigrants in these united States
o.) A return to a value backed currency

When these things begin to happen then you can talk to me about how Americans are going through revival/reformation. Until then it is just so much charismania emotionalism.

5.) You want me to believe that RFK Jr. after his life long whoremongering is now a virtuous man? You must be kidding … right?

6.) Honestly, at the end of the day all last night was, was one part Billy Graham crusade, one part Tim Keller-ism, one part Bill Hybel’s Church Growth program, one part Pentecostal “can’t you just feel the Spirit moving” Sunday morning church, and one part Jesus was a populist Republican.

7.) I am all for the left being destroyed. Having said that, I think Edward Bernays (one of the most famous Propagandists of the 20th century) would have been proud of the propaganda feast that was put on last night. For example, you don’t really think the Bagel Stephen Miller is a Christian convert do you?

8.) Just imagine how shattered and destroyed R2K fanboys are this morning. They had to endure 5 hours of Politicians getting out of their lanes and talking about Jesus Christ. Even if those politicians were not being sincere (and I don’t think they were) that event last night finds the R2K crowd suffering major migraines this morning. On the other hand, once last night is finally exposed for being the con it was, R2K is going to be able to point at that extravaganza and say, “I told you so.” Now, as usual R2K will be in error when they eventually say that because of the fact that they do not have the ability to realize that all because a nation’s leader’s wrap up a false Jesus in the American flag doesn’t mean we shouldn’t wrap up the true Jesus in the American flag.

9.) A clerg acquaintance of mine called my observations about last night as evidence of me being “a purist.” It wasn’t intended as a compliment.

Well, I think the only alternative to being a purist is being a impurist, or being a compromiser. So, I’ll go with being a purist along with the likes of the Apostle Paul, Athanasius, Chrysostom, Augustine, Gottschalk of Orbais, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Cromwell, Paisley, Knox, Goodman, Dabney, Machen, etc. There could be worse company to keep.

10.) The Influencer Jon Harris said of last night;

“Jesus doesn’t seem to be letting this country go.”

My response was to say that;

"So this is how liberty dies; with thunderous applause."

12.) In Orwell’s novel, “1984,” the screens, or telescreens, (such as was seen last night at the Stadium and such as what people at home were viewing on) are a constant presence in the lives of Oceania’s citizens, blurring the line between public spectacle and private observation. People are not simply watching the screens; the screens are watching them. Honestly, I view last night as a case of public hypnotism. It was an event intended to provide a vast Republican narrative. If I were a Democrat this morning I’d be very fearful. Of course, I loathe Democrats and couldn’t care less if they’re fearful and if they are eventually totally diminished.

13.) I have to be honest… as I was sitting viewing this extravaganza I was thinking;