I left the biblical references off yesterday’s lectionary — though they are all labelled as such on Gab. It got some traffic and comments. In this time, those who teach the truth or explore the truth will bear a cost. Particularly in the academy.

This is worse in the United States than the Antipodes. In smaller countries, you have friends you disagree with, or you do not have friends. You cannot live in an ideological bubble. The problems of a large imperium (and the USA is an empire) is that such bubbles exist.

The Derb gives is Richard Spenser as an example.

That’s a low bar, though. While an antifa thug would probably think Wood’s piece insufficiently hostile, Wood makes it clear he is writing about an Enemy of the State.

That’s Richard’s status now. The antifa bullies are out to make his life as difficult as possible, and there is no significant institution in our society with the guts to stand up to them. At age 39, Richard is utterly unemployable. Given the unavoidable incidence of lunatics in a population of one-third of a billion, he is also at risk of serious harm.

And his Emmanuel Goldstein status is entirely ideological. Richard has broken no laws or windows; nor has he incited others to do those things. He wishes for white gentiles to have a homeland of their own, that’s all. You can agree with that or disagree, but it doesn’t pick your pocket or break your leg. So far as I’m aware, he doesn’t wish harm to anyone.

Richard organizes meetings where bookish people like himself discuss the writings of Julius Evola and Carl Schmitt. What’s wrong with that?

An antifa would say: “Open discussion of those ideas might bring about a rebirth of fascism.” I suppose it might. Open discussion of Marx’s and Lenin’s ideas might bring about a rebirth of militant communism, leading to the kinds of horrors that were engulfing Cambodia forty years ago. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow; and mighty oaks can be a mighty nuisance. That is not, however, a case against tolerating acorns.

If one puts God first, then the structure of one’s life will change. There will be more order and more righteous and more justice, for that is how we were designed and we will live consonant to that.

But in this, we have to watch that we do not hate and trample and destroy. The prophets damned the leaders who will not honour God, but they had words to say to us pew warmers, the sheep of the flock of God.

Ezekiel 34:17-31

¹⁷As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats: ¹⁸Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, but you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture? When you drink of clear water, must you foul the rest with your feet? ¹⁹And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have fouled with your feet?

²⁰Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. ²¹Because you pushed with flank and shoulder, and butted at all the weak animals with your horns until you scattered them far and wide, ²²I will save my flock, and they shall no longer be ravaged; and I will judge between sheep and sheep.

²³I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. ²⁴And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.

²⁵I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild animals from the land, so that they may live in the wild and sleep in the woods securely. ²⁶I will make them and the region around my hill a blessing; and I will send down the showers in their season; they shall be showers of blessing. ²⁷The trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase. They shall be secure on their soil; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and save them from the hands of those who enslaved them. ²⁸They shall no more be plunder for the nations, nor shall the animals of the land devour them; they shall live in safety, and no one shall make them afraid. ²⁹I will provide for them splendid vegetation, so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the insults of the nations. ³⁰They shall know that I, the LORD their God, am with them, and that they, the house of Israel, are my people, says the Lord GOD. ³¹You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, says the Lord GOD.

Luke 10:38-42

³⁸Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. ³⁹She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” ⁴¹But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴²there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

I like Martha. She is a worrier. She is very, very human, very feminine, and like half the women I know running around making everything pretty and tidy and lovely. She reminds me of my mother worrying about the Christmas Dinner — who now, in old age, instead sorts out which resturant she and the family are going to attend.

The Calvinist in me has similar tendencies. I tend to over analyse theology, and worry about details.

And there is nothing wrong with either. Christ loved Martha. His reproof was becamse she was requiring Mary to stop contemplating, considering the things of God, because she was flustered and disturbed.

Martha was not to let her feelings rule. Neither should we. And those who feel unsafe, who demand an accomodation of their weaknesses, take a great risk. They may be accounted as the goats who muddy the water and shove others away from the good feed — in this case good doctrine, because they deem it offends them in some obscure, intersectional manner.

Do not listen to such. Do not act as such. Accept the reproof in Scripture. In this, Martha is a good example, for she listened to the word incarnate, and changed.