Persist (do not go your own way).

If you tell the truth there will be pushback. If you are snarky and troll, you have to do that very carefully — choosing targets that are of the right, for the left will destroy you.

I guess Henry Blodgett doesn’t have to tell us whether Dickinson will be eligible for unemployment or not. He’s busy bending over to please a bunch of implacable harpies. Apparently this whole thing was sparked by someone named Nitasha Tiku who noticed that Dickinson has little love for feminism and became all OFFENDED. Commence Twitter firestorm, and emails fired off to Blodgett calling for him to axe Dickinson, and a day later he is no longer working for Business Insider and his reputation is in the dumpster.

You ever get the feeling that the adults are not running the show anymore? That we are now living some large landlocked Lord of the Flies experiment with the angry, hysterical kids getting all the pork? I mean, honestly, who cares what a segment of people on Twitter think? Do none of these company heads have the basic fortitude to simply reply, “Thank you for your concern,” and hit delete? And what is with all of the asinine snark? Is douche one of those words that you can just add any noun to in order to enhance its basic quality. Douchecanoe? Are we in 7th grade? Don’t people get that the brogrammer tweet was supposed to be self parody? And why is it kosher to mock his name?

Again, are we in middle school? I feel like we’re in middle school, and the teachers are long, LONG dead.

In my experience, those on the left are fairly precious and want things to be as they think. Those on the right know their history — or have worked for a company — and know things are generally not as we think they are: and for them humour is a way of coping, not a way to oppress others.

But evil people (Both Left and Right) oppress. Yesterday we discussed an experiment about if Ba’al was real. He was not, and his prophets were killed. So Jezebel decides it’s time Elijah was dead. Today we see how Elijah responded to this threat.

1 Kings 18:41-19:8

18:41Elijah said to Ahab, “Go up, eat and drink; for there is a sound of rushing rain.” 42So Ahab went up to eat and to drink. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; there he bowed himself down upon the earth and put his face between his knees. 43He said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” He went up and looked, and said, “There is nothing.” Then he said, “Go again seven times.” 44At the seventh time he said, “Look, a little cloud no bigger than a person’s hand is rising out of the sea.” Then he said, “Go say to Ahab, ‘Harness your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’” 45In a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind; there was a heavy rain. Ahab rode off and went to Jezreel. But the hand of the LORD was on Elijah; he girded up his loins and ran in front of Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel./p>

19:1Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me, and more also, if I do not make your life like the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3Then he was afraid; he got up and fled for his life, and came to Beer-sheba, which belongs to Judah; he left his servant there.

4But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a solitary broom tree. He asked that he might die: “It is enough; now, O LORD, take away my life, for I am no better than my ancestors.” 5Then he lay down under the broom tree and fell asleep. Suddenly an angel touched him and said to him, “Get up and eat.” 6He looked, and there at his head was a cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank, and lay down again. 7The angel of the LORD came a second time, touched him, and said, “Get up and eat, otherwise the journey will be too much for you.” 8He got up, and ate and drank; then he went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb the mount of God.

Elijah wanted out. He had done his duty. He wanted to be left alone, to go his own way. He fled to the wilderness, and there was in despair. God then intervenes, and makes him eat, for he is being driven into the wilderness.

Now, if you read along you realize that Elijah is about to anoint the next dynastic head if Israel, and the reign of Ahab and Jezebel is going to end. But at the time, Elijah just wants to get out this society, and out of this life.

Now, in today’s time, being with a woman is a risky thing. Being in our society is dangerous. Godly parents are right to fear for their sons, because raising young men with integrity and without a criminal record is becoming a bigger challenge by the day.

Any society that encourages slutwalks but then bans T-shirts as offensive (if the infidel one does not annoy you too much, I could have gone much nastier. Google “Obama Confederate” at your own risk, it’s NSFW) is nuts. Images can affect us. We choose to dress appropriately as a mercy for others — to prevent desire, wrath, and on those of us who are older, nausea.

If you are male, going your own way has benefits. You can go traveling, and acquire all the gear you can afford. You don’t need to worry about the next generation — for they are not your blood. And your life will be more peaceful. More constructively, you can be like Elijah and place yourself at risk because there is not family you can be threatened with.

But a society where the men who seek righteousness do that — or even a proportion of them — is a society that is doomed. We are called to persist, not go our own way.

Philippians 3:17-4:7

3:17 Brothers and sisters, join in imitating me, and observe those who live according to the example you have in us. 18 For many live as enemies of the cross of Christ; I have often told you of them, and now I tell you even with tears. 19 Their end is destruction; their god is the belly; and their glory is in their shame; their minds are set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.

4:1 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved.

2 I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3 Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my co-workers, whose names are in the book of life.

4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. 5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. 6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

We are to stand firm. Our society is going to either correct or fall over — and in this time we have to remain a witness against the dissolute and their destruction.

An imperfect witness, yes. But to quote JB — who critiqued the Christian parents for using modesty as a reason to ban selfies — (Dear Judgy, I have edited this down a a bit)

She absolutely believes that she should be able to provoke any reaction she likes, face no consequences for that, and ultimately blame others for how they react.
Message received, Houston.

The bodies of young girls are not dangerous. But you know what is? Teaching young women they should be ashamed of their bodies.

Here is where the story gets interesting. First of all, deploying your sexuality with some measure of accountability and some regard for those around you is not “shaming”, Tuesday. It’s basic civility. Manners. Dignity.

And secondly, the bodies of young girls most certainly ARE dangerous, although that is because your older sisters have created a culture and influenced the law to back that culture up, in which girls CAN visit real harm on boys. The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can be used to criminalize consensual sexual activity if the man is X years of age.

The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can be used to enforce fatherhood on boys. The bodies of young girls are dangerous because they can ingest any amount of intoxicants, participate in any activity and then still hold their male partners legally liable, no matter how enthusiastically consent was given at the time.

There is nothing inherently wrong with anyone’s sexuality, but the sexuality of women, and only women, has been harnessed to some very real consequences.

Kimberley is right to ban sexy selfies from her sons’ social media. It’s the first step towards making them understand just how vulnerable they are. If Kimberley does nothing but ban the selfies, and never takes the conversation any further, she hasn’t achieved much in terms of keeping her sons safe.

It’s the opening salvo in a conversation that I suspect is about to get very intense in our culture. The sooner, the better, if you ask me.

In the West, we can either rediscover basic decency and honesty and tradition — in which the elite, as the Romans did in the days of the republic, respected mos marioam — the traditions and values of the people, their people, and saw themselves first as Romans and second as rulers. Not just the Romans. The English used to act this way, and still do. So do the Scots, and the Germans.

Or be like the Soviets and the EU. An elite looking down on the peasantry, stuck in their traditions, and preaching freedom and destruction, in the hope that there will be a new age.

Forgetting that new ages and ideal communities do not last in the broader society — from the Moravians to the Covenaters to Jacobites, they move beyond equality and liberty to a random oscillation between fascist control and licentiousness. And the society rises and throws the bastards out. Our the society is destroyed — for it cannot then pay for itself.

If the church does not persist in saying these ugly and impolite facts, who will? The institutions fell a generation ago. We remain the conscience of our society — indeed that is one of our roles. So we cannot just go our own way. And the history of the church is full of societies murdering the believers within, to then fall over and crumble, being one with Tyre, Sidon, the Caliphate, Third Reich and the Soviet.