One of the difficulties with my training, which is dual: in psychiatry and public health, is that I tend to look at people who suffer from the secular trends of the current year while seeing the data that confirms such. I have less time for theory than Vox Day does. I spend more time in the trenches.

What I do know is that we are more busy than ever, and it is not with minor things. The minor stuff is sent back to the referer with interest. There is a moral panic about our suicide rate, with this folding into the progressive narrative. But many believe the narrative is the problem. Here Vox gets the class structure correct.

Now, there is without question a social crisis across the West. A severe social crisis of historic proportions, arguably more serious than the one of the previous century. But in every case, the big bourgeoisie is allied with government bureaucracies and the ur-communists in revolutionary hope while both the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat are increasingly inclined towards counter-revolutionary despair. Moreover, the class metric is largely irrelevant, because the dividing lines are far more clearly identified on identity grounds than on class grounds.

In other words, from the Trotskyite perspective, we’re in new territory here, and more sophisticated philosophical tools are required for useful analysis and prediction. But it is already clear that neither simple identity metrics nor conventional ideological metrics will alone suffice.

Can confirm. I have sat in rooms where virtue is signalled… then we go and deal with the next person. Perhaps we signal virtue to shore up ourselves, to tell ourselves we are doing good, and we are part of a system that is not completely broken, though many say it is.

But note that it is the rich who have their souls most at peril: and from the rich come the revolutionaries.

Mark 10:17-31

¹⁷As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” ¹⁸Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. ¹⁹You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” ²⁰He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” ²¹Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” ²²When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.

²³Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” ²⁴And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! ²⁵It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” ²⁶They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” ²⁷Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”

²⁸Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” ²⁹Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, ³⁰who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age — houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields, with persecutions — and in the age to come eternal life. ³¹But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”

The problem is that the rich feel guilty. They should be taught that to whom much is given, much is required, true: but this has curdled. The following is from the daily fishwrap. A pastor basically said you might as well shoot those who homosexually marry, becuase in that sin, as in all sin, is death.

He runs a small, independent church. It is being accused, as expected, by the liberal churches of the leafy suburbs, of hate speech.

Reverend Helen Jacobi – vicar of Auckland’s St-Matthew-in-the-City – said the video was “inciting violence, verging on hate speech and verging on criminal behaviour”.

“Jesus in particular said that he came to not live by those old laws but to bring a new law which is a law of love. So it’s hard to see how that could be biblical.”

St Matthew’s is known for advocating for gay rights, but Jacobi said the wider Anglican church did not have a stellar record on the issue.

“The national church hasn’t allowed gay marriage yet. We’re not perfect either but we’re wishing we could get there.

“We’re working away at it but the church moves slowly – but certainly nobody in the Anglican church would ever use that kind of language.”

When contacted by the Herald tonight, Robertson said he did not deny his words were hate speech.

“Of course it is. Does it sound like hate speech to you?” he said. “If the world thinks that’s hate speech then that’s fine.”

Robertson said if other churches disagreed with his stance “that’s because they don’t believe the Bible”. Photo / Supplied
But he said he was just repeating the Bible – specifically Leviticus 20:13 which calls for gay men to be put to death.

Robertson said he was not calling for church members to shoot anyone, and took no responsibility if someone did so after viewing the video.

“It’s got nothing to do with me – they could read that verse in the Bible.

“I’m not inciting vigilantes … I believe it’s the Government’s job.”

Robertson said if other churches disagreed with his stance “that’s because they don’t believe the Bible”.

Robertson has previously admitted emailing a gay author to tell him he was praying for the man to commit suicide.

The Baptist Union at the time condemned the email and said it was not associated with WestCity Bible Baptist.

WestCity bills itself as a family-oriented Bible-believing Baptist church, but says on its website it is independent of any denomination. Robertson said the church has around 40 members.

The pushback is here. If you preach against sins we accept, and Robertson is mild compared with the preachers of previous generations — then it will be called hate speech. But he has courage, for he is not dependent on the state. he has a small congregation, he is antifragile. Many of us are not, and the authorities are starting to hound us.

We have some examples of what to do.

Hungary has offered asylum to Christian convert Aideen Strandsson because the Swedish government plans to deport her to Iran where she could face prison or even the death penalty for apostasy.
In 2014, Iranian actress Aideen Strandsson came to Sweden on a work visa and applied for asylum after she had converted from Islam to Christianity. The Swedish Migration Board recently denied Strandsson asylum and began the process of deporting her but now the Hungarian government has offered to take her in instead, Nyheter Idag reports.

Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjén released a statement on Hungary’s official government website saying: “Right from the beginning, we have differentiated between economic migrants and genuine asylum-seekers.”

“Taking in persecuted Christians is our moral and constitutional duty all at once,” he added.

Let the rich virtue spiral. Let them move towards the narrative. It is our task to say that this leaves them not rich, glorious and righteous but broken, naked and in despair. Money, beyond a certain amount, does not increase your happiness. You can be blackmailed by your possessions, your status, and your concern about good words from those in authority.

It is better to say that we are all sinners, all broken, but we can see the impending crash. We are ringing the warning bells. We are being silenced: banned from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, having our DNS access taken down, to “prevent hate”

Do not expect fairness at this time.

And be cautious about those who run to join us. Christ tested the young man. So should we, within the church, for I fear we are about to face oppression