We can pray for Pope Francis as a rebellious and sinful man -- pray that he repents before his last breath.

We can also pray that Rome is reformed in a more conservative and biblically faithful direction even if she doesn't fully repent.

This is part of praying for our enemies.

People bemoaning the lower deportation numbers under Trump vs Biden have a very legitimate point.

However, most deportations occur via apprehensions at the border. Since border crossings are down to near zero, of course deportations will be lower.

This highlights the main issue: deporting migrants already here will take more strategic steps.

1) Use volunteers to aid deportations
2) Stop remittances by either taxation or banking regulations
3) Cut off all Federal funding to state and local gov'ts which give benefits to illegals

If you sell all your belongings and use the cash to buy drugs, the GDP goes up. This is what Capitalism does to entire nations.
✠

A blessed Quadragesima Sunday to all (first Sunday in Lent). Our Savior's death and resurrection approaches.

GDP is one of the fakest and gayest metrics ever invented. It all centers on the idea that the creation of value can be measured by what is spent on it. This subjective theory of value is highly flawed, as is the classic and stale C + I + G + M - X formula.

https://youtu.be/ZSUbtfXY24c?si=MqS2wGWrHVpAzX8K

YOU CAN JUST DO THINGS

Of course I believe in women's rights. They have the right to remain silent.

We, too, acknowledge that the use of Baptism is necessary--that no one may omit it from either neglect or contempt. In this way we by no means make it free [that is, optional]. And not only do we strictly bind the faithful to the observance of it, but we also maintain that it is the ordinary instrument of God in washing and renewing us; in short, in communicating to us salvation. The only exception we make is, that the hand of God must not be tied down to the instrument. He may of himself accomplish salvation. For when an opportunity for Baptism is wanting, the promise of God alone is amply sufficient.

-- John Calvin, Antidote to the Council of Trent, 7.5

Feliz cumpleaños a ICE!!! 22 years of serving the American people today!

> Be me
> Be the most loved English Bible for centuries
> Legacy forgotten today
> Contain epicly based notes
> Be preferred version of Puritans
> Be the mandated Bible of Scotland
> Be translated under the influence of Knox, Calvin, and Coverdale
> Be the first English Bible to be read in the New World
> Get banned by papist simps
> Be the Geneva Bible
> Pic unrelated

The Socinian objection that vicarious atonement is unmerciful because it involves the full and strict satisfaction of justice has no force from a trinitarian point of view. It is valid only from a Unitarian position. If the Son of God who suffers in the sinner's stead is not God but a creature, then of course God makes no self-sacrifice in saving man through vicarious atonement. In this case, it is not God the offended party who makes the atonement. The trinitarian holds that the Son of God is true and very God and that when he voluntarily becomes the sinner's substitute for atoning purposes, it is very God himself who satisfies God's justice. The penalty is not inflicted upon a mere creature whom God made from nothing and who is one of countless millions; but it is inflicted upon the incarnate Creator himself.

The following extract from Channing (Unitarian Christianity) illustrates this misconception: "Unitarianism will not listen for a moment to the common errors by which this bright attribute of mercy is obscured. It will not hear of a vindictive wrath in God which must be quenched by blood or of a justice which binds his mercy with an iron chain, until its demands are satisfied to the full. It will not hear that God needs any foreign influence to awaken his mercy." The finger must be placed upon this word foreign.

The trinitarian does not concede that the influence of Jesus Christ upon God's justice is an influence "foreign" to God. The propitiating and reconciling influence of Jesus Christ, according to the trinitarian, emanates from the depths of the Godhead; this suffering is the suffering of one of the divine persons incarnate.

God is not propitiated (1 John 2:2; 4:10) by another being, when he is propitiated by the only begotten Son. The term foreign in the above extract is properly applicable only upon the Unitarian theory, that the Son of God is not God, but a being like man or angel alien to the divine essence.

This fallacy is still more apparent in the following illustration from the same writer: "Suppose that a creditor, through compassion to certain debtors, should persuade a benevolent and opulent man to pay in their stead? Would not the debtors see a greater mercy and feel a weightier obligation, if they were to receive a free gratuitous release?" (Unitarian Christianity).

Here, the creditor and the debtors' substitute are entirely different parties. The creditor himself makes not the slightest self-sacrifice in the transaction, because he and the substitute are not one being, but two. Consequently, the sacrifice involved in the payment of the debt is confined wholly to the substitute. The creditor has no share in it. But if the creditor and the substitute were one and the same being, then the pecuniary loss incurred by the vicarious payment of the debt would be a common loss.

Upon the Unitarian theory, God the Father and Jesus Christ are two beings as different from each other as two individual men. If this be the fact, then indeed vicarious atonement implies no mercy in God the Father. The mercy would lie wholly in Jesus Christ, because the self-sacrifice would be wholly in him. But if the trinitarian theory is the truth, and God the Father and Jesus Christ are two persons of one substance, being, and glory, then, the self-sacrifice that is made by Jesus Christ is not confined to him alone, but is a real self-sacrifice both on the part of God the Father and also of the entire Trinity. This is taught in Scripture: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16); "he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all" (Rom. 8:32); "God commends his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (5:8).

For the Reformed Sanhedrin who object against Lent, St. Bullinger in the 2nd Helvetic Confession wrote:

The fast of Lent is attested by antiquity but not at all in the writings of the apostles. Therefore it ought not, and cannot, be imposed on the faithful. It is certain that formerly there were various forms and customs of fasting... Socrates, the historian, says: "Because no ancient text is found concerning this matter, I think the apostles left this to every man's own judgment, that every one might do what is good without
fear or constraint" (Hist. eccles. V.22, 40).

The Reformed position is merely against binding the conscience to rituals not explicitly commanded in Scripture, not that such practices are not good, appropriate, godly, and beneficial.

St. Augustine of Hippo's teachings on just war and legitimate defense:

1. On Just War

"A just war is one that avenges a wrong when a nation or state must be punished for having neglected to repair the damage inflicted on another."
— The City of God (De Civitate Dei), Book XIX, Chapter 7

"Those who must be reformed with just and lawful punishments must be corrected with the love of fairness and the necessity of peace, not with the cruelty of vengeance."
— Letter 138, to Marcellinus

"Peace must be sought through war so that, by defeating those who disturb it, the good may live in peace."
— Letter 189, to Boniface

"It is not the act of waging war that should be condemned, but the desire to harm, the cruelty of revenge, the inhumanity of rebellion, the ferocity in combat, and the greed for domination."
— Against Faustus, the Manichean (Contra Faustum Manichaeum), Book XXII, Chapter 74

"Those who have been forced into war are not guilty of war, but those who have imposed the necessity to fight."
— Questions on the Heptateuch (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum), Book VI, Question 10

"It is preferable to kill war with words rather than kill man with the sword. But if peace cannot be achieved without war, the struggle is just if it protects the innocent."
— Commentary on Psalm 124 (Enarrationes in Psalmos)


2. On Legitimate Defense

"If necessity compels it, the wise man will endure violence with patience; but if he has the opportunity to defend himself without guilt, why should he not do so?"
— The City of God (De Civitate Dei), Book I, Chapter 21

"God allows His people to wield the sword when justice requires it, though always preferring patience."
— Questions on the Heptateuch (Quaestiones in Heptateuchum), Book VI, Question 10

"We must not repay evil with evil, but if someone attacks you unjustly, it is just to prevent him from causing harm—not out of vengeance, but out of love for justice."
— Sermon 302

"When a soldier kills his enemy in a just war, it is not he who kills, but the authority that has sent him."
— The City of God (De Civitate Dei), Book I, Chapter 27

"The one who defends his life without hatred, with the sole intention of preventing greater harm, does not sin, for the Lord does not forbid defense, but rather anger."
— Letter 229, to Darius

St. Patricks day

"I knew not the true God . . . The Lord opened the understanding of my unbelief . . . I was not worthy . . . Love of God and fear of Him increased more and more . . . By the help of God so it came to pass . . . Because of His indwelling Spirit who hath worked in me until this day . . . Let who will laugh and insult . . . Though I be rude in all things . . . I baptize so many thousands of men . . . the Lord ordained clergy everywhere by means of my mediocrity . . . The Lord is mighty to grant to me afterward to be myself spent for your souls."

- The Confession of St. Patrick

Dryads, Ents, and Sylvans in Scripture?

Classical mythology has long spoken of living, sentient tree spirits: Dryads, Hamadryads, and Sylvans. C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkein pick up on this theme in Narnia and LOTR. Is there any Scriptural basis for these notions? I would argue yes.

The rebellion of Absalom in 2 Sam. 18:7-9 gives a few indications of this:

And the men of Israel were defeated there by the servants of David, and the loss there was great on that day, twenty thousand men. The battle spread over the face of all the country, and the forest devoured more people that day than the sword. And Absalom happened to meet the servants of David. Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak, and his head caught fast in the oak, and he was suspended between heaven and earth, while the mule that was under him went on.

From here, Joab kills Absalom in defiance of David's orders (I would argue rightly). David mourns Absalom's death until Joab talks sense into him (ch. 19). This would indicate the trees were on the right side, though perhaps not unanimously.

I forgive thy treason,
I redeem thy fall,
For iron, cold iron,
Must be master of men all.

-- Rudyard Kipling

https://youtu.be/nFD9dqZUpE8?si=Y2EfF2z3pUAbfHs2

All things are as they should be

The success of Trump's second term now depends exclusively and entirely on how he will deal activist judges.

His first term was stymied by bureaucrats. His second is set to be stymied by judges.

The right needs to recon with the fact that Marbury vs. Madison was decided wrongly against Mr. Madison.