Tag: faith

SubscribeStar Saturday: Systemic Wokeism

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If the assassination of Charlie Kirk highlighted anything, it was the systemic nature of woke Cultural Marxist ideology in our institutions.  Most everyone knew of that sinister influence already—even and especially the Cultural Marxists—but Kirk’s assassination cast the lethal extent of this brainwashing into sharp relief.

There are demonic forces at work in the United States and the West that seek to promote confusion about sex, biology, faith, and Truth.  The reigning mantra of the institutions is to “speak your truth,” “your truth” being whatever subjective set of assumptions and experiences cobble together into a narrowly solipsistic worldview.

It’s the mantra of unmarried women with overpaid jobs that are essentially daycare for grownups.  That’s fitting:  if you’re trying to build a worldview that just encourages people to consume until they die, it makes sense to frame it in the language of advertising and target it towards the demographic that spends the most money.

And in an increasingly feminized world, it’s the sales pitch of a lifetime:  do and be whatever you want, as long as you’re not a mean old conservative.  Worship whatever you want, especially yourself—just don’t worship Jesus Christ, because He Has Rules that might limit “your truth.”  Consume as much as you want—just don’t get your hopes up about buying a house.  Make your family look like whatever you want—just so long as you have god-like powers over slaying unborn children and snipping off your toddler’s wangdoodle when he starts playing with Barbies at his cousin’s house.

There is big money in transgenderism; just ask the Pritzkers, the bizarre family of overweight, moon-faced dwarves investing heavily in gender-altering surgeries.  All of it, it seems, is in service to a devilishly Gnostic belief that technology will allow humans to transcend life and death—that we will truly be our own gods.

The price for these elite fantasies of apotheosis is the price that is always paid to make the waking nightmares of empty people come true:  death and degradation for everyone else.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Legion

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“And he answered, saying, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many.'” – Matthew 5:9b

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” – Ephesians 6:12

Charles James “Charlie” Kirk was assassinated on Wednesday, 10 September 2025, while holding an open, civil debate.  Coupled with the (racially motivated) murder of Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte light rail, my heart has been heavy.

I saw the Zarutska surveillance footage on Telegram before I even knew the story.  When I first saw it, I thought she’d been punched violently in the throat—until I noticed her bleeding out.  I watched it a second time and realized with horror that I had just seen a woman die.  The look of utter fear and confusion on her face still haunts me, and will for some time.

I’ve been on that light rail.  The murder occurred very close to where Dr. Fiancée purchased her wedding dress.  It is a good, generally safe part of the city.  But evil goes where it wants, and it took the train that night.

So far I’ve avoided the close-up footage of Kirk’s assassination, but I’ve seen long-range footage.  From the commentary I’ve heard, as well as Dr. Fiancée’s medical expertise, it is likely that he died instantly, or at least very quickly.  He may not have felt it before he went into the loving arms of Jesus.

Yours portly was never a big Charlie Kirk listener, but I certainly knew of his impact.  He was a bog standard conservative Christian, very much like most people I know and love.  He might have been a bit milquetoast on some policy positions, but he was an incredibly effective speaker, debater, and organizer.  His organization, Turning Point USA, did real yeoman’s work to reach out to people that historically have not found a ready place in the modern Republican Party:  young people, blacks, Hispanics, homosexuals, etc.  Kirk’s efforts likely won Pennsylvania and other key States for President Trump in 2024.

Kirk was also openly and unapologetically a Christian.  He spoke boldly about his faith in Christ, and urged Americans not to be afraid, but to find strength and peace in a saving knowledge of Christ.  He never, it seems, brandished his faith as a way to gain cheap political points, but espoused it sincerely, forcefully, and effectively.

His effectiveness is, likely, one part of why he was murdered.  I believe that his faith had an even larger role to play.

Satan is powerful.  He will lose in the end, yes—and that is why he tries to drag so many souls to Hell with him.  Satan can only be in one place at a time, but his demons are many—and manifest.

His favorite tool right now seems to be the inherently atheistic, nihilistic, life-hating, angry doctrine of Cultural Marxism.  Masquerading in a cloak of compassion and understanding, this woke ideology demonizes anyone that is not in complete lockstep with its ever-changing orthodoxies.  Just like Satan, this ideology twists good concepts like compassion, sympathy, and health and applies them to the most wicked of goals:  abortion, assisted suicide, catch-and-release policies, racial division, and on and on.

The modern Left is demonic.  It promises that every person can be their own god, but all it produces is misery, emptiness, corruption, and death.

When the bullet ripped through Kirk’s neck, I am sure that Hell was rejoicing.  But Christ, not Satan, Is King, and He Uses even horrible acts of evil for His Glory.

Turn away from this wicked ideology and embrace Jesus.  Please—please!

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Conviction

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Yours portly sometimes gets a bit strident when sharing his views, particularly when it comes to immigration.  I do believe that immigration—both legal and illegal—is one of the major problems facing the United States and Europe today.  I also believe that not all cultures are created equal, and that Western Civilization is, broadly speaking, the best and highest form of cultural and civilizational expression ever achieved.

A great deal of that greatness—indeed, so much so that, like a fish in water, we don’t even realize how subsumed in it we are—comes from Christianity.  So much of the morality we take for granted in the West comes from Jesus Christ’s Teachings:  charity, patience, love, and—perhaps most importantly—forgiveness.  Christ Died on the Cross to pay for our sins—not His.  He Is the Spotless Lamb, Sacrificed to take on the burden of our sin once and for all.  He Was Resurrected and will Return.

That idea of forgiveness—merely ask and believe, and Christ Will Cleanse you of your sins and Welcome you into His everlasting Kingdom—is hugely powerful, and often cuts against human nature.  “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31) is probably the hardest teaching in Christianity, especially when “your neighbor” includes loving your enemies (Matthew 5:44).  And, boy, do enemies abound in these blasphemous times.

I struggle mightily with the injunction to love my enemies.  Indeed, I’ve been feeling a great deal of conviction about it lately.  The enemies of Goodness and Righteousness and Truth are many, and they are cruel.  But as Nietzsche put it (proving, too, that Truth can emanate even from those who are lost), “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”  Gulp!

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TBT^4: Go to Church

The Portly Politico1 Comment

At present, it feels like the United States is experiencing a major Christian religious revival just below the surface.  It seems like being a professing Christian has become—dare I say it?—cool.  The desire for genuine connection with Christ and a body of likeminded believers ripples throughout the nation, potentially bucking the long, depressing trend of declining faith.

While Boomers seemed to embrace the excuse to stay home from The Age of The Virus—they left churches and never returned—at least some young people are realizing the benefits of church attendance.  It feels like something is changing, that the Holy Spirit Is Moving in mighty ways.

Let’s hope that feeling is correct!  Regardless, in good times and bad (especially bad), we should be going to church, engaging in the our Christian walk with fellow believers.  The Easter season is the perfect time to get back into the habit.

With that, here is 25 April 2024’s “TBT^2: Go to Church“:

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TBT^256: Nehemiah and National Renewal

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Ah, yes, another timeless TPP classic—my highly politicized commentary on Nehemiah.  It’s a powerful story of God’s people working together and placing their faith and trust in Him, overcoming formidable odds in the process.  It’s a great “But God” story—rebuilding this wall would have been impossible but for God.

From an historical standpoint, the story is also an important reminder that the life cycle of nations is often cyclical.  Perhaps no people understood that better than the Hebrews, who were often the cause of their own misery, thanks to their tendency to forget about God as soon as things got comfortable.  That sin is not unique to the Hebrews, ancient or modern; it is an affliction all peoples in all times have struggled to resist.

We’re in a moment of national renewal in the United States.  Let us remember, when the times are good again, that it was Divine Providence—God—that allowed us this reprieve, this second chance.

With that, here is 14 March 2024’s “TBT^16: Nehemiah and National Renewal“:

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Rooting Out Heresy: The Cathars

The Portly Politico20 Comments

Years ago I picked up a book with the titillating title The History of Witchcraft and Demonology by Montague Summers, an alleged Catholic priest who professed a belief in the reality of witches, vampires, and werewolves, among other supernatural critters that go bump in the night.  On the point of witches, at least, they are all too real.

I’ve never quite managed to finish the book—it’s a slog, given the scholarly writing style of the early twentieth century—but the first few chapters take a deep dive into Gnosticism and related religious movements, like Manichaeism.  As I recall, Summers traces much of European witchcraft to various Gnostic heresies.

For the unfamiliar, Gnosticism essentially argues that everything in this world is wicked, and that God is, in fact, evil.  The argument is that all physical matter is the creation of an evil god, the demiurge, and that the serpent in the Garden of Eden was, in fact, good, as he sought to bring enlightenment and understanding to humanity.  Only the spiritual is good, and the rejection of material existence is, therefore, good.  Obtaining to that spiritual good is the result of gaining knowledge, which is why the serpent’s act in Genesis is not a moment of man’s fall, but of his awakening.  Gnostic faiths are also inherently dualistic, which can be particularly enticing to Christians, who often fall into a dualistic worldview of the earthly against the spiritual.

At least, that’s one quick version of Gnosticism.  The details vary, but the broad strokes are the same.  Regardless, we can easily see that Gnosticism and its offspring are inherently anti-Christian in nature.  They reject God’s Holiness, and elevate Satan to the role of a “good” god.  Like all forms of heresy—and sin!—Satan inverts and perverts the Truth.

And what is witchcraft, then, but an attempt to manipulate the spiritual world to do the bidding of humans in this world?  The Bible makes it very clear that witchcraft is not good.  We all know Exodus 22:18, a verse that has graced the opening title cards of many a bad horror film:  “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”  1 Samuel 28:3-25 tells the story of King Saul consulting the Witch at Endor, seeking to speak with the ghost of the prophet Samuel.  For this violation of God’s Law—and its implicit lack of trust in God’s Providence—Saul lost his throne for himself and his heirs.

I’m not advocating we go around staking overweight YouTube lesbians who claim to be witches (although I love Brian Neimeier‘s non-violent and cheeky “Witch Test“), but we need to be mindful of how easy it is to fall into heresy.  Christianity is a difficult faith at times, even though in some ways, it is the easiest:  Christ Offers us the free Gift of His Grace; Salvation is available to us, if only we will receive it.  But there are certainly difficult passages, and reconciling the God of the Old Testament with the Christ of the New Testament has presented a perennial struggle for some Christians.

Of course, even that dichotomy is false—and potential form of heresy!  The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New—and the God of today and forever!  God Does Not Change.

Nevertheless, some groups have failed to make the reconciliation; coupled with the Gnostic influences from Persia (via Manichaeism), the Middle Ages saw the rise of a fascinating, complex heresy, one that was rooted out—brutally but, I would argue, necessarily—by the Catholic Church:  the Cathars.

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TBT^2: Go to Church

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Church can be a beautiful thing.  Indeed, it should be—it’s the Body of Christ!  But many Christians are quitting church for various reasons.  The Age of The Virus gave everyone a taste of how the heathens live; unfortunately, too many Christians enjoyed it and dropped out of church almost entirely.

Perhaps the worst thing churches—and schools, and governments, and hospitals, and businesses, etc., etc., etc.—did during The Age of The Virus was to shutter their doors.  Churches should have been the last places to close down; during a pandemic, people needed access to their churches more than ever before, but the churches followed the world.  They’re suffering as a result now.

Granted, church attendance was on the decline In the Before Times, in The Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus brought its authoritarian terrors.  The Plandemic was just the excuse to stop attending—“for safety!”—and it seems that many folks were not eager to return.  That’s a shame.  A church community provides so much, and while we can and should study Scripture on our own, we are part of a body.  An ear that hears but has no brain to process it or arms to react to the hearing is pretty useless.

So—go to church!

With that, here is 27 April 2023’s “TBT: Go to Church“:

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TBT^16: Nehemiah and National Renewal

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Ah, yes—Nehemiah.  One of my favorite books of the Bible.  What’s not to like?  A group of scrappy underdogs work together against the machinations of their enemies to build a wall.  They do it by trusting God.

When I first wrote this post way back in 2019, my most religious readers were quick to point out that, while I focused on Nehemiah building the wall, I skimped out on discussing God’s Role.  It was a fair, if slightly self-righteous, criticism.  Without God, there would have been no rebuilding of the wall.

That’s an important point:  without God, any “national renewal” would be fleeting, if it were possible at all.  Thank you to my slightly self-righteous readers for reminding me of that fact.

With that, here is 30 March 2023’s “TBT^4: Nehemiah and National Renewal“:

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Chapel Lesson: Exploring God’s Creation

The Portly Politico2 Comments

My school’s chaplain—a truly amazing man of God—is struggling in the hospital as I write these words.  Please lift Father Jason Hamshaw up in your prayers, dear readers.  I do not know the nature of his affliction, but the last I heard, he was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), which never bodes well.  He is a relatively young man, and a loving husband and father.  One of his sons is a student here at my school.  Pray, and pray hard.

Because he is in the hospital, I was asked to deliver the chapel lesson/devotional/homily the morning of Thursday, 26 October 2023.  Here is the devotional I wrote, with a huge debt of gratitude to The Daily Encouraging Word, which I substantially adapted and modified for this lesson:

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