So today we talk about inclusion, do we? Well, not necessarily: the church can and should discipline those who belong to it. Even when it hurts: there are good reasons why I don’t live with the Pro Photographer, and until one can wed one can not remain in obedience and share sheets and coffee cups [1].
We are supposed to judge on the content of the person’s life. Yes, I said we should judge. James is Judging in this passage, for the church is looking at appearance, honouring the elite, and ignoring the righteous.
In this time of crony capitalism, where the rich remain within the law by acquiring the votes of the parliamentarians, one mas to confront the rich, for what they do may be deemed legal, while being completely immoral.
And the politicians, who cheerfully draft immoral and oppressive laws.
So also do not judge by the appearance of political correctness, or colour of skin, or tribe. Judge by obedience to the faith, and how the lived life brings people to the gospel.
My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory. For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers, has not God chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Are not the rich the ones who oppress you, and the ones who drag you into court? Are they not the ones who blaspheme the honorable name by which you were called?
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing well. But if you show partiality, you are committing sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” If you do not commit adultery but do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so act as those who are to be judged under the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
But, you say, we are inclusive. We do not judge as you say: we are not punitive. All are welcome.
Perhaps. It may be that the memes of this day and age are there, and those who question will not be accepted unless they say it in polite terms: for we forget that Christ was not that polite.{2}
If we cannot preach truth and deal with the hard questions we will stop being effective. If we cannot accept the true seeker — and discern him or her from the troll — we are not proclaiming the gospel to all. For it is easy to preach to those we like instead of proclaiming the word of God to the prisoners and mad. Oh, and James was fully aware there were Zealots in the congregation, who saw murdering the Romans as a sacred duty. And he called them on it.
Sarah Hoyt gives an example — from SF Fandom, yes, but the dynamics are the same — of what this is like.
To the science fiction establishment — I’ll help run SP IV because I’d already told Kate Paulk I would help her (she has a full-time job and other stuff we don’t need to/I’m not permitted to discuss here.) — if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t even be involving myself in this anymore. And if you think that’s because you won, you’re wrong.
If I hadn’t fallen in love with Simak and Heinlein, with Bradbury and Asimov at an early age, if I didn’t have fans who love my worlds, and if I didn’t have one of those obligations you can never pay back to Baen, I’d be dusting my sandals and walking away from science fiction and fantasy as one day I walked away from Portugal, as much as I had at one time loved it. It can be done. And that show pretending to be representative of my profession and my field gave me a really bit incentive to do it.
I want you to reflect on this. I love science fiction (and fantasy, but that will always be second.) I always have. I kept reading it through the arid years when I had to scrounge the entire bookstore to find ONE book worth reading. I’ve bought books — some of them by people involved in that sorry spectacle on Saturday — when I didn’t have money for food.
If you drive me out, yeah, your power and the power of your little clique will be safe. Indeed. BUT IF YOU DRIVE ME OUT YOU’RE DRIVING OUT YOUR BUYING PUBLIC.
We are seeing this in mainline churches. The elite runs the committees, and God help you if you preach the gospel, and ignore the requirement to turn every sermon in to a progressive political rant. Or preach the gospel without morals and the law, which means that there is no guilt, no shame, and no ability to repent., because you don’t want to cause microaggressions.
This indifference on the part of bystanders is one reason why the SJWs have methodically proceeded from one victory to the next despite their relatively small numbers. They take out one Narrative skeptic and silence 100 others who henceforth fear to express doubt, let alone denial, of the most shameless falsehoods. The reason that Roosh, Mike, Milo and me, to name four, enrage them so greatly is that they have been unable to discredit us despite their best efforts, and as a result, ever so slowly, dozens, scores, hundreds, now THOUSANDS of people are beginning to understand what has been taking place and why our society is where it is.
And they are not happy.
I’m not saying you should care about the SJW war on truth and Western civilization because then you will be a good person. I’m not saying you should stand up the SJWs because it is a moral imperative. I’m saying you should care and you should stand up to the SJWs in your own naked self-interest and in the interest of salvaging and maintaining as much of Western civilization as possible.
Do you think either the Bolsheviks or the Russian people they conquered had any idea that the Impossibility of Socialist Calculation was going to leave them condemned to poverty and economic stagnation? If not, then it should be possible for you to understand that neither the SJWs nor the average individual who sees no harm in them realizes that the Impossibility of Social Justice Convergence renders the SJWs a serious threat to the survival of Western civilization.
All of this stuff, from the universities to the churches to science fiction to games are the same evil, dyscivic, and dyscivilizational campaign. No aspect of it, however seemingly trivial, should be ignored.
Reminds me about calling sand in your brother’s eye when there is a beam in yours.
Inclusion does not relate to acceptance. We all have to reform.Given our inclinations, we will turn to the ways of this world: we will mirror the living hell of the dating scene, and live in fluid promiscuity (driven by neotony and hypergamy) as if the modern ways of destroying your soul are mandatory.
We are not supposed to be of this world. We are supposed to think of those around us more than ourselves. We are supposed to burn idols, particularly those endorsed — such as Lust — by the Supreme Court of the USA. But when we talk about bridling this desire, or reinstitionalizing fasting, or any other body discipline, we are called haters.
But those who judge by appearance, and haters call us, forget one thing. Names are fluid. The term of abuse becomes a badge of pride. As gay now means pathetic, Social Justice now means fascism, and Warrior means unfit, obese, and ineffective.
For the language will eventually reflect reality. Or die.
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1. Yes, R, I know you hate coffee.
2. Yes, they are all screenshot from the tweet stream. Lest Twitter gets fearful and take them down.