The Anglican Communion Gives Up Christianity For Lent

Posted: February 22, 2023 by datechguy in catholic, culture
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Actually that’s a rather unfair headline. The Anglican communion has not given up Christianity for Lent, they’ve given it up for good.

Church of England priests will be permitted to bless the civil marriages of same-sex couples in a profound shift in the church’s stance on homosexuality after a historic vote by its governing body.

The vote wasn’t as close as one might have hoped:

After an impassioned debate lasting more than eight hours, the C of E’s national assembly, the General Synod, voted by 250 votes to 181 to back a proposal by bishops intended to end years of painful divisions and disagreement over sexuality.

In one respect it isn’t a surprise, when you have a denomination that was founded on the principle “I get to bang who I want and the hell with what the church says” odds are that right is going to expand in time from just the king to everyone else.

And what is the grand prize they receive for choosing the world over Christ? SCHISM!

A group of Anglican church leaders from around the world have ousted the Archbishop of Canterbury as their head following the decision to allow the blessing of same-sex couples in England.

The Global South Fellowship of Anglican Churches (GSFA) has said in a statement that it no longer considers Justin Welby to be ‘leader of the global communion’, and it has ‘disqualified’ the Church of England from being its ‘mother church’.

Earlier this month, the General Synod – the Church of England’s legislative assembly – passed a motion to allow the blessing of same-sex couples in civil partnerships.

The GSFA said it speaks for 75% of Anglicans around the world, officially representing 25 member provinces – mainly in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

That number is interesting, 75% of the Anglicans around the world aren’t with this move. You know the ones in Africa, India and Latin America.

I’ll wager the liberal Karens in England who have pushed this have very specific opinions on the clergy of color who are currently critiquing them but are keeping silent due to fears of being outed as racists think they know better than their non-white breathern.

Alas there doesn’t seem to be any signs of a modern St. John fisher or St. Thomas Moore in the west even though the only penalty might be cancellation rather than execution.

Over at Hotair they see where this is going:

Run amok is usually what happens when progressives take control of anything, so I think the remaining Church of England types in England should just bank on it. It’s not looking good for the home team. While I’m sure they’re all patting themselves on the back for their inclusivity and modern approach, when those C of E congregations start shrinking? No doubt they’ll be the most surprised.

This is of course the invariable result when you reject those who support biblical teaching for those who are fruitless and don’t multiply.

Then again when you have a denomination that is a copy of a copy they tend to fade which is the disadvantage of all Protestantism whose primary principle is that the every denomination must keep splitting until everyone has a church that suits either their desires.

Say what you will about the Catholic Church even as Denomination after denomination has embraced contraception, abortion and gay marriage they have stayed steady and not embraced the rebels within.

And of course there is always the choice for some of those Anglicans to decide to re-cross the Tiber per the guidelines set down by Pope Benedict XVI. How anxious Francis would be to welcome such congregations given his own proclivities is of course another story.

So let me say this to the new even more non-biblical Anglicans. I’m sure the press, video, print and online will embrace this decision as “brave” and pols and pundits will all be celebrating you for these moves and the Bishops involved in these decisions will be feted by their worldly pals for the rest of their lives but while you still have a heartbeat let me remind you of this warning from a fellow named Ezekiel:

You, son of man, I have appointed watchman for the house of Israel; when you hear me say anything, you shall warn them for me. If I tell the wicked man that he shall surely die, and you do not speak out to dissuade the wicked man from his way, he (the wicked man) shall die for his guilt, but I will hold you responsible for his death. But if you warn the wicked man, trying to turn him from his way, and he refuses to turn from his way, he shall die for his guilt, but you shall save yourself.

Ezekiel 33:7-9

You, our modernist friends are welcome to ignore the advice of Ezekiel that I’ve in duty repeated to you or choose to embrace it. You have the rest of your lives to do so…

…after that you’re on your own and I wish you the very best of luck.

Postscript. I know today was going to be the Trump advice piece that I wrote two days ago but this coming out the day before Ash Wednesday was ready made for the occasion. I’ll get the trump thing up tomorrow.

We Interrupt Our Trump Series to note others are starting to feel a Draft coming our way

Posted: February 21, 2023 by datechguy in war
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For quite a while I’ve been the voice crying out in the wilderness suggesting the days of the draft were getting closer

Now others are not only seeing it but calling for it as well:

The Department of Defense in 2022 found that only 23% of people in prime military age (ages 17 to 24) qualify for service. Why so low? Obesity, drugs, mental/physical health, or a combination of these. Obesity is the largest single factor. 

To combat this trend, in 2022 the U.S. Army created two “prep-courses” that recruits can attend prior to Basic Training. One 90-day prep-course helps recruits meet body fat standards. The other course helps recruits achieve higher scores on the Armed Forces Qualifications Test. The U.S. Navy recently announced that it has raised its age limit to 41 years, the oldest of any service (thus far).  

This is sounding alarm bells. The recruiting pool is getting shallower.

There has been much discussion recently in how to fix this problem within the framework of the all-volunteer military. Perhaps it is time to put into action an old saying, “If you want a new idea, look in an old book.” 

Bring back the peace time draft. 

It’s interesting to note that Professor Szalma did not mention the really key thing that is hurting recruiting, the war on military members both from the forced jab and the forced wokeness to the point where you get this from military families:

Listening to friends, other vets, and fellow Marines, that has to be happening more often than not. When I pose that question, “Would you tell a kid today to go in/enlist?” the first exclamation out of their mouths rhymes with “duck” and is followed by an emphatic “NO!”

It is so toxic.

this of course wouldn’t be a problem if the military has a large pool of potential volunteers but as I wrote way back in 2006 commenting at Instapundit two years before I started blogging myself:

Since the 60′s two unifying forces, for good or ill, were removed from the country: the removal of Judeo/Christian values as the semi-official moral code of the public schools) and the death of the draft/aka Vietnam. (actually ending in the 70′s). These two changes had one thing in common, it took two generations for them to have the following effect:

It is now unlikely that a student going to school today, had a teacher or parent who 1. Served in the military or 2. Was taught that moral code in school. To a whole generation now being born these are things that belong to outsiders. This makes the military and religious people outsiders and strange to one group and vice versa. Since the military draws predominantly from those two groups it will become more isolated from the rest of the public as time goes by.

This is not healthy for our country. What is worse is that one group has slowly vilified the military assuming them to be all dupes or thugs. A lot of this was political rhetoric but it has grown as a matter of faith.

And remember that was written 17 years ago.

Bottom line if you have a small pool of volunteers that you counted on and after decades of vilifying them said pool finally tells their kids to avoid service what do you get?

A Draft to make sure those officers who towed the woke line their superiors have pushed since the days of Obama have someone to command.

On the question of the need for a draft Glenn Reynolds answers: “Well, No, but if he keep wrecking military recruitment through lousy management we may get one.” I disagree.

Unless by some miracle we get a GOP president willing to clean house both in the DOD and among woke officers from Major on up a draft is coming. Folks are now talking about it openly and I suspect we’ll see it happen before this decade is over.

I can’t wait to see the reaction of Portland Oregon & Seattle. It will soften the blow.

Closing thought #1 Since the congress never got around to making women eligible for the draft watch a bunch of blue state boys suddenly start defining themselves as women when it comes. Alas they’ll be surprised at how fast even Justice Brown figures out what a woman is and isn’t once the deep state decides they need the manpower.

Closing thought #2 If you thing Social Security is a budget buster wait a few decades after the return of the draft and 10-20% of the population rather than two is eligible for veterans benefits.

Tidbits and outrages

Posted: February 21, 2023 by chrisharper in Uncategorized
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By Christopher Harper

It is inconceivable that anyone should disagree that John Fetterman should resign from the U.S. Senate.

He’s suffered a stroke, has trouble reading and hearing, and just checked into the hospital for clinical depression.

In this woke world, Fetterman is somehow brave for admitting he’s depressed and shouldn’t be held to task for his physical and mental woes.

If Fetterman and his wife—the real power in the family—would see their way through this situation, the guy would be better off staying near home and getting healthy rather than hanging on to his seat.

I’ll admit I am not a fan of Fetterman. We, Republicans, selected the wrong candidate to run against him—a guy with extreme liberal ideas and no practical experience to draw on.

Fetterman’s resignation wouldn’t hurt the Democrats, and the Democrat governor would pick a Democrat to take over the seat until a special election. Since we Republicans can’t seem to get our act together in Pennsylvania, another Democrat would likely be ushered into the Senate, where the other Democrat is struggling with pancreatic cancer.

In another bit of idiocy, citizen journalist James O’Keefe has been pushed out as the leader of Project Veritas.

Ten years ago, I interviewed O’Keefe for my column in The Washington Times and was suitably impressed. See https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jul/31/harper-guerrilla-journalism/

Many journalists “want me silenced and shut down,” O’Keefe said back then. “They don’t want to let people into their cartel.”

He confronts the powerful, asks them questions, and often gets shocking answers. He has also done far more serious journalism than many Washington reporters.

Some of his employees claimed that O’Keefe was disrespectful toward them, including one who said he was called a “pussy.”

Having worked in the media for a long time, I consider that sobriquet about as mild as they come.

I hope O’Keefe starts up another band of media mercenaries to confront the comfortable.

Finally, a Temple University policeman was murdered over the weekend as he tried to stop a carjacking on campus.

I got into trouble with the Temple cops and some colleagues when I wrote a few years back that teachers and students should be allowed to carry weapons on campus.

I’d been surrounded by a group of young teenagers from a nearby high school, spat upon, and threatened. Having studied martial arts for many years, I was able to scare the group off.

But I pondered what would have happened to some of my less prepared colleagues and proffered that weapons should no longer be banned at a public school in the middle of public streets.

One colleague slammed her office door in my face. Later, I got a call from the Temple cops that I would be fired if I was found carrying even a legal weapon on campus.

I hope next week is a better one!

DeSantis Trump and the Fauci Card

Posted: February 20, 2023 by datechguy in election 2024
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Clarissa Saunders: Diz, Don Quixote with bill will get to his feet in a minute and speak two important words: “Willet Creek”. When that happens, the sliver knight will fall off his tightrope and puss will jump outta his boots.

Mr. Smith Goes to Washington 1939

In a campaign with a lot of memorable moments one moment during the 2016 campaign stood out to me.

It happened on May 16th 2016 on Morning Joe, the Panel was discussing Trump and Women and the attacks the Clinton campaign was making on him and they turned to Donny Deutch who said something that ended the conversation quickly:

Here’s the tennis game, Donald Trump kissed a woman in a bathing suit. Trump hits back: Tell me about the president’s relationship with a guy named Jeffrey Epstein. That’s your tennis match.

I was watching when he said those critical words and wrote about the reaction:

two things become immediately clear.

Everybody at the Table knows who Jeffery Epstein is, and what the story is

Nobody at the table wanted to talk about it

And elaborated further:

Mind you Trump hasn’t even bothered to say a word about Epstein yet and the table does its best to spin this in a different direction, but the very fact that Trump is who is forced MSNBC to deal with the story even if most of dealing with it was talking about Trump’s willingness to go there.

Take a look at the set of dejected faces on that video, remember those faces are being broadcast on MSNBC to liberal viewers who would never do a web search of the words “Jeffery Epstein + Bill Clinton”

This was written in May of 2016 when Jeffrey was still free as a bird and the thought of not killing himself wasn’t even in his mind.

Bottom line the mere mention of Epstein was something the left/media was desperate to avoid during that campaign.

And that brings us to election 2024 and Trump vs DeSantis.

For move than half a decade the MSM/Left has tried to link Donald Trump to something remotely Epsteinish and despite their best efforts they have failed miserably. Nor do I expect Ron DeSantis to join in such an effort if he decides to run, but while there is nothing Epstein like in his past to use against Donald Trump there is a name, known to all Americans that Ron DeSantis can deploy at any time if he wants to give Donald Trump fits in a GOP primary:

That name is Anthony Fauci

During the COVID crisis Donald Trump repeatedly deferred to Anthony Fauci rather than firing him. He allowed Fauci to advance policies that hurt the American public both physically and psycologically. We as a nation are still recovering and counting the costs of the reign of terror that Anthony Fauci let loose upon us with little restraint from the President. It was the single most critical mistate of his four years in office.

Now in fairness this was to be expected, at least early on. Donald Trump grew up in an era where Doctor’s were respected, where the Hippocratic Oath still emphasized “Do no Harm” and the science of virus and medicine was not something that was within Trump wide range of expertise. It is possible, even probable that Donald Trump could not picture a medical Doctor deceiving the public during a time of crisis to advance an agenda.

There are a ton of people, particularly in the medical field who lost their jobs because of the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed. There are people who have lost loved ones due to the policies that Anthony Fauci pushed.

It would take very little effort for Ron DeSantis to link Trump and Fauci and the Donald knows that. It’s no coincidence that he no longer pushes the COVID Vaccine at rallies as he discovered quickly.

To say this would be disaster for Trump in the primaries is the understatement of the year, this is why the attempt to play hardball with DeSantis is at best foolish and at worst reckless.

So what should Trump DO about a potential DeSantis run? Well I have a thought on that but that’s for another time.

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