There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
To follow the example of Jesus’ obedience and humility, as we share the gospel truth.
Scripture
“‘And I, when I am lifted up from the Earth, will draw all men unto myself.’ He said this to show the type of death He was going to die.”
– John 12:32–33
Reflection
Jesus’ death was the greatest public spectacle of humiliation, anguish and love. Lifted up from the earth before all of mankind, He humbled Himself to the point of death – even death on a gruesome Roman cross (Phil 2:8).
Jesus willingly endured the shame of every lash, thorn and nail. All for the joy set before Him (Heb 12:2) – the joy ofallmen being drawn unto Himself (John 12:32). The joy that He would make a way for all to come to the Father through Himself (John 14:6).
Wow.
As I reflect on my experience sharing the gospel of truth, I am continually and deeply challenged by the example of our LORD Jesus. As the Holy Spirit leads me, I cannot think of one excuse not to tell others about the reason for the hope within me. Jesus nullified my every excuse on the cross. What hardship could my sharing of the truth produce that Jesus did not endure? Insult? Betrayal? Humiliation? Pain? Even, death?
Yet I can find myself inwardly justifying my lack of obedience to the Holy Spirit. Yes, I want them to know Jesus. But sometimes, I’m not keen to be the vessel to tell them the good news.
I know I am not alone in this wrestle. As we also see in the disciples, the Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak (Matt 26:41). Yet God is so patient with us and abundant in mercy!
I am so grateful we have a high priest who compassionately sympathises with our weaknesses. Jesus was tempted and tested in every way that we are – the very One who sweated blood at Gethsemane (Heb 4:15–16).
So often, we can view this wrestle in evangelism as weakness or failure. But it is a beautiful thing. Our struggle to go is a sign of love. It’s a sign that we so highly value the joy set before us. But we also know the price we must pay.
Jesus counted the cost as He sweated blood (Luke 22:44) – but chose to obey the Father. Let us take comfort that the One who had His own struggle – and prevailed – is with us to help us in ours! He is with us to help us obey the call of God to ‘go’ and become the express outworking of His love. All glory to God!
The joy set before Jesus was the glorification of the Father and perfect communion with us. As we share (however small) in His sufferings (1 Peter 4:13), we too receive the great honour of sharing in that same joy. And not just us, but all who will humbly respond to the transforming message we have been commissioned to share. Praise the LORD!
Let us not forget the example of Jesus and the joy set before Him – and us.
Video
Prayer
LORD Jesus, thank You for Your perfect love to a broken world. Deepen our desire to follow Your example of obedience to the Father!
Teach us to be obedient in the wrestle – clay that is soft and pliable in Your hands. May our sharing of Your truth show the world that we are a people who love You and them above everything – even more than our lives. And as we obey the Holy Spirit, may the joy set before us deepen and increase to overflowing!
Have Your way in us, LORD.
We love You, amen.
Author Bio
Joelle Cullen is a 23-year-old doctor of medicine student, completing her final years of study at the Hervey Bay Hospital, QLD. An active member of the Canberra Declaration, Joelle is passionate about seeing the next generation of young people arise and run, by the power of the Holy Spirit, into the fullness of what Jesus won at the cross.
Prayer Points and Purpose for GO Month 2024
To worship Jesus and give extravagant praise to God.1 Chron 16:23–31.
To pray for revival, repentance and deliverance for Australia and for millions to find Christ.Acts 2:1–41.
To pray for five people by name to find Christ and share the gospel with those five in May.Matt 28:18–20.
We invite you to support this prayer campaign to multiply prayer in Australia for revival and see millions come to Christ. Every donation to the Canberra Declaration helps us promote prayer and make a stand for family, faith, freedom, life, and the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ His Son.
By Carolyn A. Greene (the author of Castles in the Sand—the powerful novel that challenges the Spiritual Formation movement)
Editor’s Note: Today, it is not uncommon for Christian leaders and teachers to recommend the writings of Teresa of Avila. For instance, the late theologian Dallas Willard encouraged his followers to read Teresa’s Interior Castle saying Teresa is “an example to follow.”1 Christian publishers like Bethany House, Thomas Nelson, and Multnomah Press have published books by Teresa of Avila. Rick Warren, author of the highly popular Purpose Driven Life, says her writings are among “great, classic devotional works.”2 Pete Scazzero, author of the popular book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality, lists Teresa of Avila’s book, Interior Castle as one of his “top ten books.”3 Gary Thomas, author of Sacred Pathways and Sacred Marriage, favorably references Teresa of Avila numerous times in his book, Thirsting for God. And not surprisingly, contemplative authors such as Richard Foster and Henry Nouwen see her as a fellow mystic.
In 2009, Lighthouse Trails published Castles in the Sand, a story involving a young troubled girl who begins attending a Christian college where she is introduced in her Spiritual Formation class to the writings of an ancient mystic, Teresa of Avila. The following article is taken from Castles in the Sand narrating Teresa’s life. While Castles in the Sand is a work of fiction, Teresa of Avila is a real, historical figure (1515-1582). The depiction of her life in this article (also a LT booklet) is based on historical records (see bibliography at end of article). Quotes and paraphrases of her writings are taken from her actual written works. The lives of other characters portrayed are created from composites of true stories.
While some readers may find some of Teresa’s mystical experiences (that at times included involuntary levitating) troubling to read, it is important to understand that the “spiritual ecstasies” Teresa of Avila encountered were the result of her practicing a meditative prayer, much like one that is being practiced by countless Christians today through the Spiritual Formation (i.e., contemplative prayer) movement. We pray this article will illustrate how mystical prayer methods are dangerous and introduce the practitioner to occultism and its tormenting “fruit,” something you will not be warned about by those who recommend you study the ancient mystics. And now, the story of Teresa of Avila. ________________________
Teresa of Avila – An Ancient Mystic Who Helped Shape Today’s Spiritual Formation Movement
And still they told me my visions were the work of evil spirits! For six years, I was on trial . . . six years! So many prayers and masses said, I grew weary of them all! Yet still the trances and favors have become more violent and frequent . . . oh, I am in distress, such great distress. I am weary, and so tired . . . so very, very tired.—Teresa of Avila
Teresa of Avila was a Carmelite nun who was born in Spain in 1515. As a young girl with an active imagination and great love for books, she was profoundly affected by her mother’s death, which left her emotionally empty. In despair, she threw herself before an image of the Virgin Mary and begged her to be her new mother. This extreme devotion to the Mother Mary soon gave way to an interest in fashion as her beauty blossomed. With it, the passion for reading, writing, and romance was rekindled. Teresa’s concerned father sent her away to boarding school at an Augustinian convent. However, when Teresa fell dreadfully ill with malaria, the nuns sent for her father who came to take her home. Recuperating from the serious illness and suffering from headaches, Teresa read a book given to her from her uncle called The Third Spiritual Alphabet by Francisco de Osuna, from which she learned the practice of the prayer of recollection.* Though previously not interested in reading about such things, her illness had transformed her into a more serious kind of girl. She soon learned to practice “the prayer of quiet,”** a state where the soul is completely absorbed.
Weary of the worldly things that had once given her pleasure, she made secret plans to escape to the Carmelite Monastery without consent from her father and pursue a serious life of prayer, as her uncle had been urging her to do. Teresa later wrote about receiving “favors” that the Lord granted her as she continued to practice her “mental prayer” and the prayer of quiet, two stages of mystical prayer.
“It used to happen, when I represented Christ within me in order to place myself in His presence, or even while reading, that a feeling of the presence of God would come upon me unexpectedly so that I could in no way doubt He was within me or I totally immersed in Him. This did not occur after the manner of a vision. I believe they call the experience ‘mystical theology.’ The soul is suspended in such a way that it seems to be completely outside itself. The will loves; the memory, it seems to me, is almost lost. For, as I say, the intellect does not work, but it is as though amazed by all it understands because God desires that it understands, with regard to the things His majesty represents to it, that it understands nothing.”
The practice of the prayer of quiet continued to bring Teresa into what she called the state of union, the place where intellect and will cease to function over which she soon had no control. As the years passed, Teresa’s headaches and visions began to take their toll. She was counseled by the Jesuit Fathers to give up her “interior” prayer, but that didn’t help.
One day, she cried out, “Oh these visions! What tortures I have endured . . . how can I bear it?” she wailed. “I even gave up mental prayer. I . . . I gave it up. I did! First I waited to be free of sin, but they found no fault in me. Not a fault! Yet I was visited again, more visions . . . more revelations . . . to this most miserable sinner as I.”
Behind her, she could hear the group of nuns that stopped a short distance away, pausing for a moment before turning and walking in the other direction.
“Indeed, I have dreaded the time of prayer,” she whispered now, lest the others murmur about her even more. “Even Father Francis became afraid of my graces . . . in great distress they insisted I had been deceived by Satan. So I . . . I punished myself, oh I did, I did, in order to resist the effects! To no avail! Father Alvarez said . . . he said it was friendships I must give up, but that changed nothing. Then he told me I must recite a hymn, and I did. That was when the angel came . . . the angel . . . oh, how it pierced me! They told me . . . they said my visions were illusions of Satan and told me to point my finger in scorn at another. I tried to obey them, to no avail, so ridiculous they all are, so now I hold this crucifix in my hand at all times . . .”
She wiped her face with her wet sleeve and held up the wooden crucifix.
“And still they told me my visions were the work of evil spirits! For six years, I was on trial . . . six years! So many prayers and masses said, I grew weary of them all! Yet still the trances and favors have become more violent and frequent . . . oh, I am in distress, such great distress. I am weary, and so tired . . . so very, very tired . . .”
Her voice was weaker now as she shifted her weight from one aching knee to another on the cold, stone floor. “Yet I fear there is more sorrow ahead . . . I fear delusions . . . already they are calling for me . . . more inquiries to tell me I am deluded. How can they be sure they aren’t deluded and deceived as well? Every one of my examiners tells me something different! Oh! My soul is plunged into darkness! How I long to be alone . . . oh, when will this life ever become more than a never-ending dark night for my soul! I hear them coming even now demanding answers to unanswerable questions. How can I bear it? I want only to be alone. I just want to be . . . oh, please let me be . . .”
Gradually the pitiful sounds of her whimpering subsided as the dreadful footsteps that echoed from the far end of the corridor grew closer and then stopped. She straightened the folds of her habit, held her head high, and with a faraway look in her eyes, turned to face her visitors.
“Sister Teresa,” a man’s voice said. “Come now, we must ask you more questions.”
Teresa referred to these favors, or trance states of mystical ecstasy, as “true union.” Some of her contemporaries who observed these experiences were concerned about Teresa.
“Where is she anyway?” said Sister Catherine, who had just come in with a basket full of freshly picked tomatoes.
“Maybe she is in a trance,” joked Sister Maria. Just last week they had all watched as Teresa had gone into another trance in the kitchen while holding a hot pan of oil. Now accustomed to her trances, their greater concern was the possibility of Teresa spilling the little, precious oil they had left.
“The priests have advised her that the visions are of the devil, and to make the sign of the cross whenever she has one,” said Catherine, the youngest nun among them. “She won’t be coming into the kitchen for a few weeks. She is fasting and doing penance.”
“So that’s why she wears a cilice!” chimed in Maria.
“A cilice. What’s that?” asked Catherine.
“It’s an undergarment made of coarse animal hair. It scratches terribly and makes you very itchy. Pray to Our Lady that you will never be ordered to do mortification and be told to wear one,” said Carmelita. “I think slicing onions in this kitchen is torture enough.”
The sisters giggled.
“I think it’s a terrible thing,” said Rosa, a serious-minded nun and the oldest among them all. “Poor Teresa. We must not talk about our dear sister in this manner. If one decides to practice penance, it is only to share the sufferings of the Lord as His bride to be one flesh with Him.”
Rosa had personally witnessed Teresa’s private confusion over the priests’ accusations that her visions were from Satan. Those accusations were the reason Teresa had taken to inflicting tortures and mortifications upon herself. Teresa was just one of many nuns who drew blood in self-flagellation. (The monks did it too, so they were told.) Perhaps she thought that wearing a prickly shirt over her wounds would make her ecstasies disappear. The purpose of such self-inflicted trials was to attain self-detachment, something of which Teresa often talked. Surely, she reaped the benefits of such disciplines, having much more tranquility and self-mastery than the rest of them. “Mortify the flesh and share in Christ’s sufferings” was the directive. Teresa’s favorite motto was “Lord, either let me suffer or let me die.”
Teresa eventually began to write about her spiritual experiences, which included hearing voices and experiencing visions during ecstatic states of rapture in which she felt herself being lifted from the ground by a powerful force outside of her control.
QUESTIONED FOR HERESY The cell was cold. There was no table or chair. Only a rough, straw mattress in the corner provided any reprieve for the room’s sole occupant. A barefoot nun in a clean but worn habit of coarse serge knelt near the window. The last glimmer of evening light softened the lines on her aging face. Her sparse ink supply allowed no rewriting, but there was no need to reread the lines she had already written. Having commanded her to record her experiences, her confessors would weigh her story on the Inquisition’s scale of heresy.
Some said the voices she heard in her head were of the devil. But Teresa was desperate to explain that these revelations she received were from the Lord! It was the Lord who granted her these great favors and visions which she called ecstasy. They humble the soul, thought Teresa, strengthening and helping it to despise this life.
During these experiences, she seemed to receive a clearer understanding of the Lord’s rewards. Yet, she struggled with the fear these visitations also brought. She could no longer resist them or keep them a secret. Not only were the revelations themselves frightening, but visionaries like herself were often burned at the stake. Since her writings would remain in the hands of her Inquisitors for some time, she must choose her words carefully, yet tell the truth.
Dipping her quill in the inkstand, she continued to write about her life, pausing only to rub her arthritic shoulder now and then. This was to be her final writing. She was working on chapter twenty, trying to explain the difference between union and rapture and their effects.
“It seemed to me, when I tried to make some resistance, it was as if a great force beneath my feet lifted me up. I know of nothing with which to compare it; but it was much more violent than the other spiritual visitations, and I was therefore as one ground to pieces; for it is a great struggle, and, in short, of little use, whenever our Lord so wills it. There is no power against His power.”
As Teresa wrote, the light grew dim. She lit her candle, then continued to write on the parchment set on the window ledge:
“Further, I confess it threw me into great fear, very great indeed at first; for when I saw my body thus lifted up from the earth, how could I help it? Though the spirit draws the body upward after itself and that with great sweetness, if unresisted, the senses are not lost; at least, I was so much myself as to be able to see I was being lifted up. The majesty of Him who can effect this so manifests itself, that the hairs of my head stand upright.”
Deep in thought, she gazed at the candle’s flame. How could she possibly describe rapture and detachment with pen and paper? Mere words were not enough to explain the spiritual marriage she had experienced. How could she even speak of the intense pain that accompanied the sweetness of her visions and revelations, the great shocks she would feel when her Lord threw her into a trance, or the indescribable desire, which pierced her soul until it rose above itself. The days that followed such ecstasy never failed to make her feel as if all her bones had been pulled out of joint.
“I have to say that when the rapture was over, my body seemed frequently to be buoyant, as if all weight had departed from it; so much so that now and then I scarcely knew that my feet touched the ground. Yet during the rapture itself, the body is very often as if it were dead, perfectly powerless. It continues in the position it was in when the rapture came upon it—if sitting, sitting; if the hands were open, or if they were shut, they will remain open or shut.”
But she wasn’t the only one. There were others, even in this place, to whom her Lord was granting the same special graces as the ones He had granted her. Others too had experienced raptures so deep that they would appear as though dead or in a trance, sometimes for days.
As she continued to recall her own experiences, she wrote about the priest who told her God had sent her so much sickness because she did no penance, and he had ordered her to practice acts of mortification. During one such time of obedience, her spirit was carried out of her body in such a state of ecstasy that she heard words instructing her not to have conversations with men, but with angels.
She described the angel she had seen in bodily form . . .
“He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful—his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point, there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great, it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain, that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. The pain is not bodily, but spiritual; though the body has its share in it, even a large one.”
(photo: Berninis sculpture of The Ecstasy of St Teresa. Public domain).
The famous marble statue called “Ecstasy of Saint Teresa” by Gianlorenzo Bernini depicts the sensual scene of the mystical experience described by Teresa of her encounter with an angel. She is reclined on a cloud with her head thrown back awaiting the thrust of the angel’s golden spear.
In the quietness of her room, Teresa had often found herself falling into a deep trance, later pondering the exquisite state of bliss she experienced during these mysterious episodes. However, lately, she found herself losing control. For example, she could no longer prevent them, even when she was in the company of others. They all knew. Some were even sworn to secrecy. But did they know how she had recently grown to fear these times? Increasingly, she struggled to resist these frightening instances when her body was raised from the ground as she prayed. Yet it was no use. She was helpless to stop it.
Teresa slowly straightened and rubbed her stiff joints. She turned to gaze at the crucifix hanging on the wall of her cell as it reflected the candlelight. Her pen rolled across the ledge of the window where she had laid it and dropped onto the stone floor as she grabbed her rosary and began counting the beads, repeating the evening prayer. Immediately, a familiar burning sensation began to grow deep within her, welling upward in surges. It was happening again . . . She grabbed hold of the ledge and began frantically to pray that no one would come through the door and restrain her again.
She recalled other times these involuntary levitations occurred. One of the eye witnesses of the favors and levitations of Teresa of Avila was said to be Sister Anne of the Incarnation.
One young nun was well acquainted with Teresa’s trances, which she referred to as the “transport of the soul.” She had witnessed some of the most disturbing occurrences in Sister Teresa’s life but had been vowed to secrecy. She hadn’t been the only one in the choir loft that unforgettable day, waiting for the bell to ring, when they saw Teresa’s body rise inexplicably about half a meter off the ground. She’d actually been off the ground! Sister Teresa’s body had hung in mid-air, as Sister Anne had later recounted with fresh incredulity! This incident had quite terrified some of them. Since Sister Teresa’s body had been trembling as well, Sister Anne had cautiously held her hands under the raised feet of Sister Teresa for the duration of the ecstasy. It had lasted nearly half an hour before she’d sunk to the floor and then stood among them, lucid once again. Teresa had turned to her calmly and quietly and asked how long she had been there, watching. It was then that Sister Anne had been sworn to secrecy, but that kind of secret wasn’t the kind that could be kept quiet for very long.
There had been other incidents as well. Teresa’s friend, a bishop, once saw her grab the bars of an altar grill during communion to prevent herself from rising into the air, as she cried out to be delivered from her ecstasy. Numerous times, and on different occasions, many others had also seen her raised from the ground. Sister Teresa had always called these experiences “Favors of His Majesty.”
As instructed by her advisors, Teresa wrote everything she knew about entering what she called the interior castle or inner rooms of the soul. She believed the key to achieving union with Christ in the center room was by way of prayer.
“As you wished, I have written everything I know.” Teresa nervously set her papers on the table before her confessors. The religious directors had ordered her to write about her method of mental prayer—her interior castle—as a book of instruction for her nuns. She had been careful to refer to herself in the third person throughout the book, as she was always under the watchful stare of her superiors. It had been a difficult task.
“But it has only been two months! You have completed it already?” the priest said, staring in amazement at the pile of papers stacked neatly before him.
“I have not only described how the soul is a castle, but also how a journey into the soul is a series of seven interior rooms, or inner courts, within the castle that one must pass through by way of prayer. Each chamber is a different stage of the journey. Read it and you shall see.”
The priest browsed through the first pages while Teresa rubbed the back of her neck. Her joints ached, her head hurt, and she was exhausted after finally completing the most important portion of her written work, so far. It had been an extremely troubling time in her life. During the last two months, her superiors had required this writing, yet she had also been expected to fulfill her regular duties, despite severe weakness. Added to that was the torment of living in fear of the next revelation or rapture that would come upon her without warning.
“So tell me, these first three rooms, or mansions, as you call them,” asked the priest, with undisguised fascination, “what stage of the journey do they symbolize?”
“The first three mansions are for those who are just beginning to learn the practice of mental prayer.”
“And the next ones?”
Weak from exhaustion, Teresa did not wish to explain. It had been difficult enough writing about these things with the turbulent noise that throbbed in her head: the roaring sound of rushing rivers and oddly, the whistling of birds pulsated continually in her mind. It was most disturbing when she was conscious of her faculties and her soul was not suspended in ecstasy. Whenever an ecstatic experience occurred, she believed it was from the top of her head that her spirit was released and moved out at great speed.
“The last four,” she began slowly, trying to shut out the roar of a waterfall in her head, “are for those who have begun to experience the indwelling after having entered the spiritual realm. It is the fourth dwelling that is the turning point, and the one most souls enter. This is where one moves from mere meditation to contemplation. It is an interior awareness when God suspends the soul in prayer with rapture or ecstasy or transport.”
“I see,” said the priest, stroking his chin. “Here I see you have written about water and worms.”
Must they keep prodding? She had done as they had asked, and there were chores to be done.
“Yes, like the spring that wells up filling every crevice, so is God’s presence to one who reaches spiritual union. But one must be dead to the outward senses and alive to His Majesty, like a silkworm that dies to produce a little white butterfly. So is Divine union in the center of the castle.”
How could she explain that although she had only mentioned seven inner mansions, there were many more rooms contained in each one, and courtyards with fountains, gardens, and labyrinths in which one could be consumed?
Teresa grew increasingly uncomfortable and longed to leave. Unaware of her misery, the priest abruptly rose to his feet.
“This will take some time to read,” he said hastily, and escorted Teresa to the door.
“I pray it is satisfactory,” she said humbly, trying not to reveal the tremendous pain in her head. “It is my strong desire to aid you in serving His Majesty. If the theologians examine my writings and find any error, it is only because of my ignorance. Perhaps I shall be in purgatory for writing this book, but I pray He shall free me from this and pardon my sins.”
The priest nodded. “We will examine the work and speak to you soon.”
The door closed behind Teresa. Her rough wool habit scraped her bare ankles with each step as she walked quickly down the dim hallway. Pausing before a statue of St. Joseph, she knelt and prayed, “I submit to the teachings of the Holy Catholic Roman Church, may the sovereign Master be praised.”
Tired and aching, she made the sign of the cross and hurried back to the convent. Perhaps she could distract herself from the inner turmoil by spinning more wool.
Teresa referred to the final stage of her “spiritual betrothal” prayer process as “rapture.” In this deepest trance state, she experienced “delectable pain” that penetrated the bowels of the soul.
In her latter years, Teresa seemed to be increasingly fearful of these favors, or painful bouts of spiritual ecstasy and levitation which she could no longer control.
“Whenever I have tried to resist the onset of a rapture, it has felt like a powerful force was lifting me from the soles of my feet. I don’t know what to compare this force to. It is far more cataclysmic than anything I’ve experienced in the previous stages of prayer. The struggle is so ferocious that it utterly wears me out. But in the end, fighting is futile. If this is the Beloved’s desire, there is no power equal to his . . .
“Still, I confess that this particular favor terrified me. If you don’t resist, the same force that carries your soul away in rapture will elevate your body with equal gentleness. Yet when you see yourself lifted off the ground and remain conscious enough to witness the event, the majesty of the One who can cause such a thing is enough to make your hair stand on end.”
Teresa often used erotic metaphors to describe these violent mystical experiences that overpowered her. She also wrote that it felt like she was being torn apart, and the aftermath of the detachment was so severe that at times she lost consciousness, being racked with torment and her bones disjointed.
CONCLUSION The Bible teaches us that the believer who is born of the Spirit is still in control of his senses or as Paul puts it, “the spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Corinthians 14: 32-33; emphasis added).A Christian is not taken over by the Holy Spirit like a demonically possessed person. While God often works in ways we can’t understand, we will not experience weird things like levitation and psychic detachment that knocks us out and leaves us feeling physically sore. Anyone who practices the contemplative prayer techniques of mystics like Teresa of Avila is stepping into dangerous spiritual territory.After founding the Discalced Carmelites (barefoot nuns), Teresa of Avila fell ill and died at the age of sixty-seven. Even though her writings were controversial and she was interrogated during the Inquisition for heresy, she was later declared a Doctor of the Roman Catholic Church for her teaching on prayer and today, she is often looked to as a viable resource on prayer.
_________________________
* Teresa describes this prayer of recollection as to “withdraw from those things by which your external senses are distracted.” It is a method of contemplative prayer wherein one puts a deep mental focus on one thought thereby entering an altered state. See her book St. Teresa’s Own Words: Or, Instructions on the Prayer of Recollection. Teresa says practicing this method will more quickly lead “to the prayer of quiet” that she is so well know for.
** In Teresa’s book Interior Castle, she says the “prayer of quiet” is the entering into the “fourth mansion” (i.e., fourth stage) of meditative prayer calling it the “supernatural element of the mystical life.”
To order copies of Teresa of Avila – An Ancient Mystic Who Helped Shape Today’s Spiritual Formation Movement in booklet format, click here.
Photo Credits Cover on booklet: Painting by Baron François Gérard (French, 1770-1837), 1827, “Saint Theresa.” The photo used is a reproduction of a work that is in the public domain; taken from Wikipedia. Page 4: Paul Hill, “St. Theresa of the Child Jesus,” used with permission from istockphoto.com. Page 16: Painting by Peter Paul Reubens in 1615. The photo used is a reproduction of a work that is in the public domain; taken from Wikipedia. Back cover: From fotosearch.com; used with permission.
Bibliography Note: The books listed in this bibliography should not be considered a recommendation. The author of Castles in the Sand and this booklet has used these books for research as well as for citing.
Teresa of Avila; The Interior Castle. Hodder & Stroughton Christian Classics Edited by Halcyon Backhouse, 1988
Teresa of Avila; Selections from the Interior Castle. Harper Collins Spiritual Classics, 2004
Teresa of Avila; St. Teresa’s Own Words, Or, Instructions on the Prayer of Recollection. Waxkeep Publishing, Kindle Version (not dated)
Malone, Mary T; Women and Christianity. Orbis Books Volume III, 2003
Teresa of Avila; Life of St. Teresa of Jesus of the Order of Our Lady of Carmel. Translated from the Spanish by David Lewis; Third Edition Enlarged With Additional Notes and an Introduction by Rev. Fr. Benedict Zimmerman, O.C.D.; http://www.ccel.org/ccel/teresa/life.html.
Foster, Richard; Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home. HarperCollins, 1992, First Edition.
St. Teresa of Avila; The Complete Works of St. Teresa of Avila: Volume 1 and 2; translated and edited by E. Allison Peers; London: Burns& Oates; 2002 edition.
To order copies of Teresa of Avila – An Ancient Mystic Who Helped Shape Today’s Spiritual Formation Movement in booklet format, click here.
In (Psalm 19:1) we read: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” For the Christian nature in all its beauty and complexity clearly cries out for a Creator. Sadly, for the atheist the heavens declare the glory of blind luck. God’s existence is manifest when we look at His creation. From a brilliant star-filled night sky, to the beauty of a single red rose creation is the divine testimony of an all-powerful God on display.
What lens we choose to look at the universe is critical to how we will look at life. If we know that there is a God who created everything it will fill us with awe and wonder to want to get to know this God better. And natural revelation – nature – will hopefully lead us to the Bible – special revelation – where we can find out just who the true God of the universe is – Jesus Christ. I believe when we read: “…the skies proclaim the work of his hands,” that the contemplation of the heavens speaks volumes for the existence of a Creator. For the atheist when he looks at the same heavens he sadly looks at it with the lens of blind chance. As a result, if the beauty of the heavens above are the result of the blind cosmic collision of atoms then all life below must also be here by these same random collision of atoms.
Thus, while the Scriptures tell us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made, the atheist declares we are randomly and luckily made. When I look at the heavens I realize that just as God created them to declare His glory, I too, was created to manifest His glory. When the atheist looks at the same heavens his only conclusion is that he randomly came from nothing only to shortly die and go back to nothing.
I love looking at nature for it puts me in touch with my Creator and allows me to know that I am not here by chance but was created for a special purpose – to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I am so grateful that I am part of God’s divine plan. For the atheist, with no God to believe in, he must indeed lead a lonely life knowing that he is here purely by chance and with a fast approaching grave as the only thing he can look forward to.
For the Christian life is a great adventure that will never end! For the atheist life is a crap shoot that in the scheme of eternity will end almost as quick as it began. For the Christian the lens of nature is a wonderful arrow that points to the Bible and Jesus. For the atheist the lens of nature points nowhere! As Christians we are so blessed that God took the blinders off of our eyes so we could see clearly that we are created in the image of God and, therefore, are of infinite worth. And what should our response be to our atheist friends? We need to pray that the Holy Spirit would convict them of their sin of rebellion against God. For they are without excuse as we read in (Romans 1:20): “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”
In his open-air address to the Athenian philosophers on the Areopagus, the Apostle Paul explained:
“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and…gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.'” (Acts 17:24-28)1
As philosopher and theologian William Lane Craig explains, these verses plausibly argue that those who would respond to the gospel, hear it:
“God in His providence has so arranged the world that those who would respond to the gospel if they heard it, do hear it. The sovereign God has so ordered human history that as the gospel spreads out from first-century Palestine, He places people in its path who would believe it if they heard it. Once the gospel reaches a people, God providentially places there persons who He knew would respond to it if they heard it. In His love and mercy, God ensures that no one who would believe the gospel if he heard is born at a time and place in history where he fails to hear it. Those who don’t respond to God’s general revelation in nature and conscience and never hear the gospel wouldn’t respond to it if they did hear it. Hence, no one is lost because of historical or geographical accident. Anyone who wants or even would want to be saved will be saved.”2
Courage and Godspeed, Chad
Footnotes: 1. Acts 17:24-28 as quoted by William Lane Craig, On Guard, p. 281. 2. Ibid. p. 280-281.
Last week I wrote a series on discernment in 6 essays. They are below. I called it “Wolf Week” because false teachers are called wolves in scripture. My own version of Shark Week, lol.
A short follow-up series I am publishing beginning today contains 4 more essays in short form focusing on 4 influential ‘Bible’ teachers. I have written discernment essays on these four previously in years past, but those essays were longer. In articles like that, I include sources, explain the teacher’s errors thoroughly, and provide examples. All this make the essays longer. Nowadays however, people like to read less lengthy material. So I cut to the chase and made shorter essays showing why these folks are false.
Today I look at 4 reasons not to follow Lori Alexander, half of the duo behind godlywomanhood/ The Transformed Wife.
1. Lori Disbelieves in Original Sin
In a post now scrubbed but saved in the Internet Archive (see link ‘Source’), Lori wrote in 2016: “Your children are born in the flesh. It’s not sinful yet since they haven’t sinned, just as Adam’s flesh wasn’t sinful before he sinned“. (Source).
In another example, in 2022 or 2023 The Transformed Wife replied to a woman asking Lori directly about original sin. Her reply was completely unbiblical. (Source: Lindsey Davis-Knotts)-
Disbelieving in Original Sin is heresy. If you want to know more about the denial of Original Sin and its originator, Pelagius, and why it’s a heresy, listen to this sermon “A Survey of Heresies- Pelagianism” by Phil Johnson.
2. Lori teaches that women should not teach doctrine to other women
Sadly her errant interpretation means that she considers everything outside of Titus 2:3-5 ‘doctrine’ and thus she limits her knowledge and her teaching to others to those 2 verses. As a result, her view of the whole counsel of God is warped.
3. Lori is a King James Onlyist
Lori said in a blog post she agrees with Michael Pearl who teaches KJV-Only. Pearl had said in that video, “I believe that the King James Bible is the Word of God and not the other books” (Michael Pearl). Pearl has also said,
“The others are not really translations, they’re not preservations of the Word of God. They’re modern renderings which involve somewhat the imagination of the authors, and they’re all done for the sake of selling something.” (MPearl).
She wrote that she likes it, besides the fact that Michael Pearl taught that it’s the best and only version that is acceptable, but because homosexual is a recently made up word but the KJV uses sodomite and that is a way better word, Lori says.
4. Lori submits to Michael and Debi Pearl’s unbiblical teachings blindly and wholeheartedly.
The Pearls are famously known (or infamously) their book Created to Be His Helpmeet. Lori uses the Pearls’ “wisdom” as her foundational basis for many things in life, including child rearing. Yet we read this from well-regarded pastor, writer, and reviewer Tim Challies:
Throughout the book, Pearl shows that she is a poor and unwise mentor. In place of the wisdom and the fruit of the Spirit that ought to mark a mentor, she displays a harsh and critical spirit, she offers foolish counsel, she teaches poor theology, she misuses Scripture, and she utterly misses the centrality of the gospel.
Michael Pearl’s book How to Train up a Child, a review titled by Challies “How (Not to) Train up a Child” had so much to say he made his review into two parts. (Part 1, Part 2). About Michael Pearl’s book, Challies said,
But the fact remains that the weight of the book is driven by an unbiblical view of human nature which in turn leads to the wrong emphases. In place of the gracious, loving mercy of gospel is the harsh justice of law.
If you read enough of Lori’s output you will see she actually sees the Pearls as an idol as high or higher than Jesus, IMO.
Lori Alexander’s dependence on the KJV only, the Pearls, and to a lesser degree Bill Gothard’s teachings, along with a limited view of scripture, has drawn her into a sphere where she dispenses seemingly surface good advice but comes from a very cultish place. And we mean CULT. See research by Daniel Schricker, Ph.D, here.
Conclusion
Avoid Lori Alexander. She is a heretic (see # 1), possesses a harsh and critical spirit, is a hypocrite, was abusive to her children when they were young, and dispenses medically unwise and biblically wrong advice. She overreaches, makes absolute statements, and is absent grace and charitableness.
In this podcast, J. Warner reviews the philosophical, evidential case for life beyond the grave and then examines what the Bible has to say about Heaven and Hell. Are there any good reasons to believe in an afterlife (even without the evidence from Scripture)? What are the limits of natural revelation and logical reasoning, and what does the special revelation of the Bible tell us we should expect when we die?
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Ahithophel seems to have been the grandfather of Bathsheba. 2 Samuel 23:34, compared with 2 Samuel 11:3.
2 Samuel 17:27 — When David felt like everyone abandoned him, it was so good to be refreshed by true friends. A friend in need is a friend indeed!
John 19:39 — Nicodemus is only mentioned in the Gospel of John. He met with Jesus at night in John 3, and he urged caution among the chief priests and Pharisees in John 7. Now he brings about 70 pounds of myrrh and aloe. From If714.org:
This teaching Nicodemus learned coming in the secrecy of the night would greatly transform his life. In John 19 we see a very different Nicodemus, who was once afraid to come to Jesus in the day. Here he brought a mixture of aloes and myrrh to Jesus’s grave. Nicodemus was no longer afraid of what others thought of him or his reputation as a Pharisee. Jesus’ grave was under heavy guard following His death. The Pharisees wanted to make sure the disciples did not try to steal Jesus’s body and claim that He resurrected. It would have been well known that Nicodemus went to His grave. That day Nicodemus was bold in his faith of Christ. He denied his own rights to a reputation and submitted everything to Christ.
Psalm 119:136 — Many a parent has wept over their children’s sins after it was too late to redirect them. In today’s reading, the psalmist is weeping not just over other’s sins but also crying to the LORD because of his own sins (Psalm 119:145).
Psalm 119:147-148 — Where do you start and end your day?
Proverbs 16:12-13 — Do these verses only apply to royalty like King Charles? We are told that we are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9). We shall reign as kings and priests one day (Revelation 5:10). Let us act like the “princes in training” that we are, for our Father is the King of Kings!
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I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. (Hosea 2:14)
The goodness of God sees us allured by sin, and it resolves to try upon us the more powerful allurements of love. Do we not remember when the Lover of our souls first cast a spell upon us and charmed us away from the fascinations of the world! He will do this again and again whenever He sees us likely to be ensnared by evil.
He promises to draw us apart, for there He can best deal with us, and this separated place is not to be a paradise, but a wilderness, since in such a place there will be nothing to take of our attention from our God. In the deserts of affliction the presence of the Lord becomes everything to us, and we prize His company beyond any value which we set upon it when we sat under our own vine and fig tree in the society of our fellows. Solitude and affliction bring more to themselves and to their heavenly Father than any other means.
When thus allured and secluded the Lord has choice things to say to us for our comfort. He “speaks to our heart,” as the original has it. Oh, that at this we may have this promise explained in our experience! Allured by love, separated by trial, and comforted by the Spirit of truth, may we know the Lord and sing for joy!
The incorporation into religious faith and practice of elements from other religions, resulting in a loss of integrity and assimilation to the surrounding culture.[1]
syncretism. The attempt to assimilate differing or opposite doctrines and practices, especially between philosophical and religious systems, resulting in a new system altogether in which the fundamental structure and tenets of each have been changed. Syncretism of the gospel occurs when its essential character is confused with elements from the culture. In syncretism the gospel is lost as the church simply confirms what is already present in the culture.[2]
Syncretism, as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary, is “the reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief.” This is most evident in the areas of philosophy and religion, and usually results in a new teaching or belief system. Obviously, this cannot be reconciled to biblical Christianity.
Religious syncretism often takes place when foreign beliefs are introduced to an indigenous belief system and the teachings are blended. The new, heterogeneous religion then takes a shape of its own. This has been seen most clearly in Roman Catholic missionary history. Take, for example, the Roman Catholic Church’s proselytizing of animistic South America. Threatened with the fear of death, natives were baptized into the church by the tens of thousands without any preaching of the Gospel whatsoever. Former temples were razed, with Catholic shrines and chapels built on the same spot. Natives were allowed to substitute praying to saints instead of gods of water, earth and air, and replaced their former idols with new images of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet, the animistic religion the natives had formerly practiced was never fully replaced—it was adapted into Catholic teachings, and this new belief system was allowed to flourish.
More recently, religious syncretism can be seen in such religious systems as the New Age, Hinduism, Unitarianism, and Christian Science. These religions are a blending of multiple different belief systems, and are continually evolving as the philosophies of mankind rise and fall in popularity.
Therein lies the problem, for syncretism relies on the whim of man, not the standard of Scripture. The Bible makes it very clear what true religion is. Think on just a few things stated in Scripture: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37); “Jesus replied, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me’ ” (John 14:6); “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:30–31); and “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).
Religious syncretism is simply not compatible with true Christianity. In fact, any modification to biblical law and principle for the sake of a “better” religion is heresy (Revelation 22:18–19).[1]
Over the last few months, I have been doing some interviews on books that document (in one way or another) a lack of moral behavior among evangelicals. If you read articles in Christianity Today, Ministry Watch, or World magazine, you see other examples.
As the authors document what is happening in the evangelical world, I always like to bring us back to why. The “why” question is probably more important than the “what” question. Why aren’t Christians acting like Christians? Of course, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Christians are supposed to be different than the world, but there is abundant evidence that they are very much like the world around them.
Each year, George Barna posts The American Worldview Inventory. His most recent report shows that very few Americans (including evangelicals) have a biblical worldview. About four percent have a biblical worldview with four percent more with a variety of different worldviews. The dominant worldview (encompassing 92 percent) is the worldview of syncretism.
The classic definition of syncretism is that it is an amalgamation of different religions, cultures, or schools of thought. In the Christian context, it is an acceptance and even affirmation of a diverse set of beliefs that aren’t biblical. That is best illustrated by the fact that a majority (58%) of American adults don’t believe in absolute truth and instead believe that moral truth is up to the individual to decide.
You would hope pastors might be able to correct some of this theological confusion. But George Barna found that less than a majority (41%) of senior pastors have a biblical worldview. And the problem is worse with youth pastors. Only 12 percent of them have a biblical worldview.
We shouldn’t be surprised at what is happening in the evangelical world when we understand the why behind it.
Severe storms and heavy rainfall across Texas and Oklahoma Severe weather is anticipated across Texas and southern Oklahoma on Tuesday, May 28, 2024, with strong storms expected to bring damaging winds, large hail, and the risk of flash flooding. The National Weather Service has issued an Enhanced Risk (Level 3 of 5) for central Texas, warning residents to stay alert and prepared for severe conditions.
Vatican Apologizes for Catholic Missionaries in China, Calls on Communist “Bishops” to Rule the Chinese Church Pope Francis apologized to the Indigenous Canadians, he apologized to the Mayans, now he’s apologizing to the Chinese Communists. In another big overture to China on May 21, Pope Francis and his Vatican assured the Chinese government that the Catholic Church poses no threat to Beijing’s Communist sovereignty and apologized for Catholic missionaries of the past for their zealous work to convert the Chinese to the Catholic Faith, even referring to their pastoral work as “errors.”
US Special Forces Operator Kills Undocumented Chechen Outside Home In Possible Spy Incident Two Chechens with no personal identification – and who were in no US national databases, otherwise illegal aliens that likely invaded the nation through the southern border, were ‘taking photos’ – or possibly surveilling – outside the home of an elite US Army special forces colonel near Fort Liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, in North Carolina.
Negotiations For The Global Pandemic Treaty Have Broken Down, But Fear Of What Is Coming Next May Revive Them The World Health Organization was hoping that there would be a vote on the global pandemic treaty at the World Health Assembly at the end of this month, but now that is not going to happen. Negotiations that were supposed to result in a final draft of the treaty have completely broken down, and that is great news because the treaty would have transferred a tremendous amount of authority to the World Health Organization.
WHO’s Pandemic Treaty is dead and the amended IHR has been all but neutralised Nothing in WHO’s Pandemic Treaty can rise from the ashes of the negotiations to be voted on this week. The treaty is done. And of the amended International Health Regulations articles that were agreed upon and will be put forward for countries to vote on this week, the only one of any real concern relates to the surveillance of citizens to combat misinformation and disinformation.
“This balance between the National and State governments ought to be dwelt on with peculiar attention, as it is of the utmost importance. It forms a double security to the people. If one encroaches on their rights they will find a powerful protection in the other. Indeed, they will both be prevented from overpassing their constitutional limits by a certain rivalship, which will ever subsist between them.” —Alexander Hamilton (1788)
Fellow Patriots, on this day in 2004, the National World War II Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC. It honors the more than 400,000 Patriots who gave their lives in service to Liberty in that terrible war. Inscribed is a quote from President Harry Truman: “Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude. America will never forget their sacrifices.” Indeed. —Mark Alexander
After some fireworks outside the courthouse, the Democrats’ hush-money case against Donald Trump will go to the jury on Thursday.
Douglas Andrews
There was a surreal scene yesterday outside the Lower Manhattan courthouse, where Donald Trump’s fate will soon rest in the hands of a jury.
The scene involved a short, elderly, mask-wearing man walking up the middle of the street while surrounded by a group of bodyguards and sycophants. Judging from the clownish mask alone, the old man clearly didn’t mean to be taken seriously. I mean, how could anyone wear a mask outdoors on an 80-degree spring day more than four years after COVID and expect to be taken seriously? But then the old guy removed the mask, and he revealed himself as the Trump-deranged actor from “Meet the Fockers” fame.
Setting aside both the judicial travesty of the nearby Case in Search of a Crime and the jury tampering of a presidential administration staging a presser right outside the Trump courthouse, what happened there on the street yesterday was much-needed comic relief. As journalist Greg Price reports: “Their ‘special guests’ were lunatic actor Robert De Niro … one unhinged capitol police officer who lied about everything that happened to him on J6, and another one best known for hitting on 20 year old girls at DC bars. They spent the whole thing getting drowned out by Trump supporters yelling ‘FJB’ and they had to answer questions such as ‘is Trump a threat to all these wars Biden has gotten us in.’” See for yourself, and note the moment, at 6:45, when a nearby car alarm begins blaring into De Niro’s ear as he’s telling us that Trump “will never leave” if he’s elected president.
Said one movie critic as De Niro was walking away with his entourage, “You’re a little punk! You’re a softy! You’re a nobody! Your movies suck! You’re trash!” To which the classy De Niro replied, “F*** you!”
Inside the courtroom, things were far more serious. After all, the Left’s lawfare project has kept Trump almost entirely off the campaign trail for the past six weeks. The prosecution’s closing argument dragged on for four interminable hours, prompting more than one legal analyst to observe, I’ve heard a good closing argument, and I’ve heard a long closing argument, but I’ve never heard a good long closing argument.
There’s no crime here, and in this country, the Sixth Amendment to our Constitution guarantees that every defendant has the right to know precisely what offense he’s being charged with. That’s why this case is such a stinker. It’s why Alvin Bragg’s predecessor as Manhattan district attorney, Cy Cance, refused to bring the case. And it’s why Joe Biden’s own Department of Justice initially refused to bring the case. Were New York City an honest town, the jury would come back with an acquittal in 30 minutes.
During the prosecution’s closing argument, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley expressed disbelief at Democrat donor Judge Juan Merchan’s repeated overruling of legitimate objections by Trump’s defense team. Essentially, Merchan was allowing the state to lie to the jury about the facts of the case. As Turley told Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night:
It’s not that I haven’t seen anything like this; I haven’t even read about anything like this. What I saw in that courtroom was really other-worldly. … [Merchan] allowed the prosecutor to repeatedly state that federal election violations by Trump are a fact and that there’s not any dispute to that. And Merchan just sat there. He was as useful as a Ficus plant in that courtroom. I kept on waiting, looking at him for some sign that he was even listening to some of these arguments.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen as much reversible error in a case as I’ve seen here,” said another legal expert, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus and OJ Simpson attorney Alan Dershowitz, who believes there are 10-15 matters on which a guilty verdict in this case could be reversed. “But they don’t care,” Dershowitz continued, “because they want the conviction down and dirty, before the election, and then if it’s reversed on appeal after the election, nobody cares. As a Democrat, I’m appalled — appalled — at the way the law has been manipulated and distorted in order to get Trump.”
Perhaps the line of the day was delivered by Trump’s attorney: “Michael Cohen is the GLOAT, the greatest liar of all time,” said Todd Blanche. “You cannot send someone to prison based upon the words of Michael Cohen.”
How will the jury rule? Turley has a hunch: “I would currently put a hung jury as the most likely outcome of the three outcomes,” he said.
On the other hand, the groupthink mentality of an overwhelmingly anti-Trump jury can’t be discounted.
Douglas Andrews, Thomas Gallatin, & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Judge rules against Trump gag order request: Try as they might, the Lawfare Party can’t seem to make Donald Trump shut up. The former president has regularly defied contempt-of-court threats in a Manhattan courthouse to rail against both the corrupt proceedings and the conflicted Demo-donor judge, and yesterday, we learned that special persecutor Jack Smith’s request to gag Trump during his classified documents case has been shot down in flames by Judge Aileen Cannon, who said the request was denied “without prejudice,” which allows Smith to try, try again some other time. Cannon, who, much to Smith’s chagrin, was appointed by Trump in 2020 to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also denied the prosecution’s attempt to confer with Trump’s counsel before filing the gag request, calling the request “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” Said Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung: “Hacks and Thugs are obsessed with trying to deprive President Trump and all American voters of their First Amendment rights. Repeated attempts to silence President Trump during the presidential campaign are blatant attempts to interfere in the election.”
Prepare for more pre-election censorship: Given his well-publicized penchant for Russian hookers and blow, and his equally well-publicized history as a deadbeat dad, it’s hard to believe that anything could further tarnish First Son Hunter Biden’s reputation. Lunden Roberts, though, may have something to say about that. Roberts, the former Arkansas stripper and the baby momma of Hunter’s five-year-old daughter Navy Joan, will soon release a tell-all memoir that its marketing-savvy publisher says will include “revelations that could well impact the outcome of the 2024 election.” As National Review reports: “The upcoming book, titled Out of the Shadows: My Life Inside the Wild World of Hunter Biden, will reveal key details about Roberts’s fraught relationship with President Joe Biden’s 54-year-old son. The memoir will notably be released on August 20, the week of the Democratic National Convention.” Deadbeat Grandpa Joe Biden can’t be happy about this news, given his repeated efforts to deny the existence of his seventh grandchild. Thus, we wouldn’t put it past him and First Lady Jill Biden to use every means at their disposal to keep this memoir from seeing the light of day between now and the November election.
Schumer says Dems want to make illegals voters: Conservatives have long contended that the motivation behind Joe Biden’s de facto open border has everything to do with growing a voter base, even as Democrats feign concern over the border crisis. Now, with millions more illegal aliens residing in the U.S., Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer finally said the quiet part out loud. Schumer told reporters, “Our ultimate goal is to … get a path to citizenship for all 11 million or however many undocumented [immigrants] there are here.” While Schumer never directly says he wants to give illegal aliens voting rights, his comment on giving them citizenship, of course, also means the right to vote. Schumer attempted to justify this outrageous goal by pointing to America’s lowering birth rate, which is rich given the fact that Democrats are directly contributing to this problem through their fanatical promotion of abortion without limits. Democrats want to kill preborn American babies and then make up for their loss by bringing in illegal aliens and surreptitiously conferring upon them citizenship in a bid for their votes.
“Luxury” fast food: Purchasing a burger, fries, and a soda at a drive-thru used to be considered a low-cost and efficient way to get a filling and tasty, if medium-quality, meal. However, in Joe Biden’s America, what was once considered cheap fast food is now, for the vast majority of Americans, a “luxury.” A recent survey conducted by LendingTree found that 78% of consumers now view far more expensive fast food as a “luxury” purchase. While Americans’ love of fast food has not changed, purchasing it has — 62% said they buy fast food less frequently. Furthermore, 46% said that the cost of fast food meals is now the same as prices at their local sit-down restaurants, while another 22% claimed that a fast food meal now costs even more. Prices on “McDonald’s cheeseburgers and Chick-fil-A nuggets have risen as much as 200% in less than five years,” notes the Maclver Institute’s Dan O’Donnell. “When prices at these restaurants spike from $35-$40 for a family meal to $65-$70 in just a few years, those families either have to sacrifice a night out or extend themselves just a little further to afford it.”
Pier-less construction: Joe Biden’s $320 million floating pier serves as a visual demonstration of his feckless leadership during Israel’s war against Hamas. Thanks to a recent storm in the region along the Mediterranean coast, part of the pier was damaged, disconnected, floated away, and eventually came to rest on the beach near the Israeli town of Ashdod. A U.S. Navy tugboat seeking to regain the pier piece also got beached. Biden’s pier has proven to be little other than an embarrassing and costly boondoggle. Beyond the foolhardy idea of constructing an offshore floating pier to avoid having U.S. military personnel enter Gaza has been the fact that almost all the hundreds of millions of tons of humanitarian aid has been stolen by Hamas as soon as it was delivered. So, rather than actually helping innocent Palestinians, Biden’s floating boondoggle has primarily provided a lifeline for Hamas.
Hamas’s human shields: Yesterday, we reported on an errant Israel Defense Forces airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah that Hamas propagandists “local health officials” say killed “at least 45 people” in a tent camp near a pair of high-value Hamas terrorists. Since then, the IDF has released the results of its initial investigation, and its finding, as The Daily Wire reports, is that the munitions were “too small and were used too far away from where the people died to have been responsible for their deaths.” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the small-warhead strike landed some 200 yards away from the tent camp. “Our munition alone could not have ignited a fire of this size,” he said, adding that Hamas’s operations in the area constitute a war crime due to their proximity to civilians. “We are also assessing footage documented by Gazans on the night of the strike, posted on social media, which appear to show secondary explosions, indicating that there may have been weapons in the area,” said Hagari. “Our signal intelligence [raises] the possibility that weapons stored in a nearby compound caught fire.”
NPS bows to the Rainbow Mafia: Following backlash from the Rainbow Mafia, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland reversed her previous directive banning National Park Service rangers from participating in Pride events while wearing their uniforms. Haaland’s initial order stated that “requests from employees asking to participate in uniform in a variety of events and activities, including events not organized by the NPS” were denied because it violated official policy. LGBT activist Pattie Gonia, who is a drag queen, took to social media to blast Haaland’s directive. “National Park Service, this is not what allyship looks like,” he huffed, adding, “Queer park employees, keep sharing your stories with us, your identities will remain protected.” In her reversal and capitulation, Haaland groveled, stating, “I want to ensure that every employee has the opportunity to thrive in a safe, inclusive, and respectful environment.” She further noted that the department was committed to taking “affirmative steps to provide equal opportunity in all areas of employment.” She clarified that her policy reversal “would allow employees to participate in uniform representing their respective bureau.”
Our “homophobic” pope: In an unguarded moment during a recent private meeting about the Catholic Church’s ban on homosexual priests, Pope Francis apparently uttered a “homophobic” slur. The pontiff’s unfortunate utterance apparently noted in Italian that there was already enough “frociaggine” in the air, which translates roughly into “f*****ry.” Apparently, the pontiff is human, after all. “The pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others,” said Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni yesterday. This particular pope isn’t alone, however. As National Review reports: “In 2005, Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, ruled that those who ‘practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called gay culture’ cannot be admitted into seminary or the holy orders. The ban was reaffirmed by Francis in 2016.”
Headlines
Dems in full-blown “freakout” over Biden (Politico)
Biden and Harris make a rare joint campaign appearance to shore up black voters’ support (NBC News)
Hunter Biden offered Chinese exec a meeting with his VP father during Sandy Hook memorial trip (Daily Wire)
NYC hotel rates reach record highs as city fills rooms with illegal immigrants (PM)
Wikipedia “editors” caught making multiple changes to Pine Tree Flag page (Daily Wire)
Harvard says it will refrain from statements on foreign, domestic policy (Daily Wire)
Abbott declares victory after ousting anti-voucher GOP incumbents in heated primaries (National Review)
School choice programs have been wildly successful under DeSantis. Now public schools might close. (Politico)
As civil war consumes Black Lives Matter, $8.7 million goes missing (Washington Free Beacon)
The insufferable and bitter former first lady, senator, and secretary of state lays out the Democrats’ election strategy.
Nate Jackson
And I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids.
You can almost hear Hillary Clinton as the Scooby-Doo villain blaming the good guys for her failure.
Substitute “women” for “kids” and she’s got it made. Hillary has yet another book to sell, so she’s gotta be out there playing up her victimhood. She already wrote a book called What Happened that blamed the FBI, the Russians, Bernie Sanders, and women voters for her 2016 defeat. Some things never change.
In an interview about her forthcoming book, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America, Clinton discussed — what else? — losing the 2016 election, for which she first repeated her blame of former FBI Director James Comey for reopening the investigation into her emails before moving on to a more strategic blame-shift.
“Once he did that to me … the voters who left me were women,” she complained. “They left me because they just couldn’t take a risk on me because, as a woman, I’m supposed to be perfect. They were willing to take a risk on [Donald] Trump — who had a long list of, let’s call them flaws, to illustrate his imperfection — because he was a man, and they could envision a man as president and commander-in-chief.”
Those women, she insisted, are ultimately to blame for her loss. Give her half credit for knowing what a woman is, but at some point, she really should stop, er, griping about her defeat.
The real point of her book is how the Supreme Court’s (correct) decision in Dobbs overturning Roe was a total disaster for democracy, and a Trump victory in 2024 could be the nail in its coffin. Maybe her book will explain how the seven white male justices who ruled in 1973 to take away the right of voters to decide the abortion issue preserved democracy. Or how voters choosing a president for a four-year term means “we may never have another actual election.”
“We didn’t take it seriously, and we didn’t understand the threat,” Clinton said of the supposed danger Trump posed to abortion “rights” and even “democracy” itself. “Most Democrats, most Americans, did not realize we are in an existential struggle for the future of this country.” She added, “We could have done more to fight.”
The clear implication was that if those foolish women voters had given Clinton her birthright of the presidency, Dobbs never would have happened.
Hillary’s goal is the same as that of the Democrat Party: stoke outrage and fear among single women about the future of access to abortion. You see, promiscuous women killing children in utero is far preferable to the shocking assertion of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker that perhaps women actually want marriage, family, and life at home.
Horrors.
Clinton also continued her lifelong habit of projection. “One thing I give the Right credit for is they never give up,” she said. “They are relentless. You know, they take a loss, they get back up, they regroup, they raise more money.” She continued, “It’s tremendously impressive the way that they operate. And we have nothing like it on our side.”
“Relentless” is the defining trait of leftist “progressives.” First, it was simply access to birth control. Then, it was free love, divorce, homosexuality, and same-sex marriage. Now, they don’t even know what a woman is, and they’re strategically grooming children into the cult.
Even as “progressives” methodically take over and destroy every institution in our nation, they warn about the dire consequences if conservatives were to actually conserve stuff. “This election is existential,” Hillary warned. “I mean, if we don’t make the right decision in this election in our country, we may never have another actual election. I will put that out there because I believe it. And if we no longer have another actual election, we will be governed by a small minority of right-wing forces that are well organized and well funded and are getting exactly what they want in terms of turning the clock back on women.”
She added, “Authoritarians, whether they be political or religious based, always go after women. It’s just written in the history. And that’s what will happen in this country.”
Just remember that Democrats insist anything a woman can do, a man pretending to be a woman can do better.
Except abortion. Sacrificing children to Molech is the sacrament of their sick religion, and they have made clear since June 2022 that they believe the Court’s Dobbs decision and every single abortion measure in every state is their ticket to electoral dominance. Even Hillary Clinton blaming women is part of the strategy to guilt them into voting Democrat.
Axios erroneously claimed that Justice Clarence Thomas “attacked” Brown v. Board of Education when he warned against judicial activism.
Thomas Gallatin
Leftists don’t like the current makeup of the Supreme Court because it has proven to be a constitutional bulwark against their anti-American globalist socialist new world order.
Consequently, whenever the Court delivers a ruling that doesn’t align with the leftist agenda, they resort to a barrage of baseless and malicious accusations. Their aim? To tarnish the Court’s reputation by portraying it as irreparably tainted by conservative bias.
Last week, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP that the Palmetto State’s Republican-dominated legislature did not engage in racial gerrymandering in redrawing a congressional map. Then came the predicted Leftmedia attacks against the Court’s conservative justices.
Justice Samuel Alito was smeared as a January 6 sympathizer and an “insurrectionist” due to flying at his home both an upside-down American flag and the historic Revolutionary War-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag. The claims that these flag-flying incidents were connected to the J6 Capitol riot were so thoroughly strained and tenuous that even The Washington Post was unwilling to give them any print space. Of course, that didn’t stop The New York Times from running the story and, in doing so, beclowning itself like a grocery store tabloid.
But Alito wasn’t the only target of the Leftmedia. They also took aim at the one black man they hate more than any other: Justice Clarence Thomas. This time, it was at the hands of the usually more sensible Leftmedia outlet Axios.
Axios’s headline reads, “Clarence Thomas attacks Brown v. Board ruling amid 70th anniversary.” The article is written by Axios “Justice and Race reporter” Russell Contreras, and it serves as little other than a hit piece that expresses an embarrassing degree of ignorance of the law and a misunderstanding of Thomas’s actual opinion.
Did Justice Thomas actually attack the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, the famous ruling that desegregated public schools? The simple answer is “No.”
Thomas, in his concurring opinion with the majority, which concluded that the NAACP’s charge of race-based gerrymandering lacked any compelling evidence, pointed out that the Brown ruling, and specifically the second lesser-known ruling known as Brown II, has been used to set a dangerous justification for broadening the Court’s powers beyond constitutional limits.
He concluded his short opinion note by writing, “Federal courts have the power to grant only the equitable relief ‘traditionally accorded by courts of equity,’ not the flexible power to invent whatever new remedies may seem useful at the time.”
Thomas was in no way stating or even suggesting that the Brown decision was wrong. Rather, and ironically, given the Left’s handwringing over the Supreme Court’s conservative composition, Thomas is expressing concern about judicial activism and the politicization of the Court, which needs to be bound by the Constitution and kept in its lane. Expanding the power of the Court beyond the Founders’ framework and justifying such actions to “right wrongs” is out of order and sets a dangerous precedent for judicial abuse.
A more honest and thoughtful observation of Thomas’s opinion would have concluded that he was warning against judicial activism and advocating limits on the Supreme Court’s ability to force cultural change. However, that would not have garnered the type of anti-Thomas outrage the Left wants. Nor would it have helped the Left achieve its goal of a High Court packed with activist justices.
Honoring the priceless contribution — and ultimate sacrifice — of members of our Armed Forces can teach us something about how to operate our government.
Jack DeVine
I’m writing this column on Memorial Day. By the time it goes to press midweek, I will be off thinking of other things — as will most readers. Real life keeps making its demands.
But the parallel reality is that the meaning of Memorial Day is timeless; parades and ceremonies reinforce that meaning, but we must never let them take the place of 24/7 recognition of the sacrifices made by generations of Americans on our behalf. Winston Churchill said it best when describing the nation-saving role of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in repelling the relentless airborne Nazi onslaught: “Never has so much been owed by so many to so few.”
And for me, this Memorial Day weekend raised a few other thoughts about our current dilemmas in the U.S. A Sunday morning CBS interview of two U.S. congressmen, Mike Waltz (R-FL) and Pat Ryan (D-NY) — both U.S. Army veterans — highlighted their collaboration on veterans’ issues. What grabbed my attention was their evident commitment to set aside — at least for those issues — the partisan counterproductive head-knocking that infects nearly all congressional activity.
That, in turn, prompts a wild question: Why is the behavior and performance of our U.S. Congress so totally different from that of the U.S. Army units they served with — or, for that matter, a submarine crew like the one I served on 55 years ago? Is there something we can learn from our veterans that might make our Congress more effective?
With that crazy question in the air, an intriguing array of similarities — and stark differences — comes to mind. Among them:
Both Congress and all units of the Armed Forces are agents of public service in roles of vital importance to the nation.
In the military, leadership is key to unit performance — the chain of command is unambiguous, and accountability for the outcome, good or bad, rests directly on the leaders’ shoulders. In civilian government service, not so much. Moreover, military leaders expose themselves to the same risks as those under their command. Pinned down under enemy fire, no one — including the leader — wants to “take that hill.” But they do, often with the leader out front. That makes all the difference.
On a ship’s crew, everyone works, no one gets a free ride, and individuals are respected for how well they do their jobs, not for what they say.
A deployed Army unit or a submarine at sea does its work out of the public eye. By comparison, Congress is under a microscope, subject to endless kibbitzing, second-guessing, and rock-throwing. Worse, all members win their jobs via election, and the critics’ interpretations of their work have a direct bearing on their reelection prospects. That does not inspire courageous, politically incorrect behavior.
In short, in a military unit, our mission was always crystal clear: our commanding officer was in charge, and our single constituency was the nation. Not so in Congress, where 24/7 media attention and partisan political pressures rule the day.
But maybe we can learn how to bridge those differences and deploy a more focused, less political U.S. Congress. There are some bright spots, including the increasing presence of former, accomplished military leaders engaged in elected government service. It turns out that two of Representative Ryan’s West Point classmates — Republicans John James and Wesley Hunt — are also members of the 117th Congress. I’ve no doubt that all three still live by General Douglas MacArthur’s famous three-word capsule of West Point’s underlying ethic: Duty, Honor, Country.
Another encouraging sign is the rejuvenated legislative performance of Congress under the leadership of new House Speaker (or “Accidental Speaker,” as he’s called by some in the media) Mike Johnson. Building on his success in breaking through the long-stalled legislation on U.S. support for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan, Johnson has continued to hit stride, mothering an impressive string of significant legislative actions.
Strong leadership is not always well received. Johnson became the latest target for the fringe group of GOP congressional malcontents who tried once again to ditch a GOP-selected speaker. It’s unclear what positive result they hoped to achieve, but happily, their initiative went down in flames, garnering little support among Republicans or Democrats.
For the first time since the 2022 midterm elections, we’re seeing evidence that a nearly evenly divided House (just like the U.S. electorate) can get the job done, and we’re not hearing catcalls of criticism about the floundering, rudderless GOP-led House.
OK, it’s unrealistic to imagine Congress acting like a crack team of Army Rangers or a well-trained Navy ship’s force. But what’s not to like about a Congress that works like a team, with strong leadership, crystal-clear mission clarity, and a commitment to serving its single ultimate constituency — the American electorate?
This past Memorial Day weekend, we heard countless chronicles of selfless dedication to duty by members of our Armed Forces. Should we not expect a measure of that true patriotism from our elected officials?
Joe Biden has been dead wrong on foreign policy for his entire political career, and it’s causing conflict all over the globe.
Emmy Griffin
Iran is the biggest troublemaker in the Middle East. It is ruled by a theocratic autocracy that follows the strict dictates of Shia Islam. The oppressive regime murders women for wearing their hijabs incorrectly and commits other horrors. Iran is the head of the octopus whose terror tentacles gleefully destabilize neighboring countries.
Iran has gained more power and influence under the presidencies of Barack Obama and now Joe Biden. The so-called “Iran nuclear deal,” known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was the brainchild of Obama. Made in 2015, it was a spectacular failure then, and the Trump administration wisely pulled out of the deal. However, Biden’s pet project has been to resurrect that deal and help Iran.
Recently, Iran has been stockpiling weapons-grade uranium in violation of international law. According to The Daily Wire, “The country has increased its stockpile of 60% enriched uranium from 121.5 kilograms to 142.1 kilograms in just the last few months.” This information was gathered from a report submitted by the watchdog group International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
How has Iran been able to do that? Perhaps that $6 billion in seized Iranian assets that Biden so foolishly unfroze is partially responsible.
Why would Iran want to increase its uranium at such a clip? One can only assume that it intends to finish what it started and make nuclear weapons — and the mullahs are certainly crazy enough to use it. Iran has enough nuclear material right now to produce at least four weapons and enough to eventually make 13. As our Mark Alexander noted back in 2015, “Islamists may soon have fissile material from Iran to wage surrogate Jihad against the U.S.”
Those prophetic words may be coming to fruition, though perhaps Israel is the intended first target. The Israel Defense Forces are working toward eliminating Hamas, which is an Iranian-backed terrorist group. Israel’s task has been clear since Hamas’s murderous attack on October 7. However, the U.S., through Biden’s weak leadership, has been a mess of mixed messages and is currently an unreliable ally to Israel.
Biden’s latest example of weakness occurred on the heels of the IAEA report regarding Iran’s illegal amassing of uranium. In yet another blunder, Biden is urging America’s European allies to back off from censuring Iran for breaking international law.
According to The Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. is arguing against an effort by Britain and France to censure Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s member-state board in early June… The U.S. has pressed a number of other countries to abstain in a censure vote, saying that is what Washington will do. … European diplomats have warned that failure to take action would undermine the authority of the IAEA, which polices nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. They say it also weakens the credibility of Western pressure on Iran. And they are frustrated over what they see as U.S. efforts to undermine their approach.”
This is the exact wrong approach to take if Biden is doing this to avoid increased tensions before the November election. Untelegraphed deterrence would be a better way to get Iran back in line — or, better yet, destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities.
However, Biden is incapable of doing that. He has already been the cause of conflagration after conflagration during his presidency (See Afghanistan and Ukraine.) Iran doesn’t respect him or the West. Iran only respects strength, and that is something that this president utterly lacks.
As the Journal’s editorial board put it: “Iran’s regime is richer than it was when Mr. Biden took office and stopped enforcing sanctions; more aggressive than it was as Mr. Biden has failed to respond to its terrorism; and much closer to having a nuclear weapon. It’s hard to imagine a more complete policy failure.”
Biden’s weakness is making the world a significantly less safe place because two countries are watching and acting with far greater capability: Russia and China.
Biden’s Senior Moment of the Week (Vol. 95) — Joe Biden hosted the president of Kenya at the White House and delivered a rambling speech about former president Barack Obama’s ties to the African nation.
The Eye of Microsoft — A great evil is loose upon the land! Microsoft introduces a new feature called “Recall,” which will take a screen capture of everything you do every few seconds.
“The effects of climate change are already upon us in terms of our transportation. … Turbulence is up by about 15%.” —Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg (“In a surprising move … Buttigieg didn’t blame an alleged increase in extreme turbulence impacting air travel on racism.” —Matt Margolis)
Delusions of Grandeur
“What was interesting to me with Hillary [Clinton] is that she pointed to the sexism that was so obvious because she was the most qualified [presidential] candidate that I think we’ve ever had. We’re talking senator, we’re talking secretary of state, we’re talking lawyer, valedictorian of her class. I mean, just a brilliant woman.” —”The View” co-host Sunny Hostin
Village Idiot
“Under Trump, this kind of government will perish from the earth. … If Trump returns to the White House, you can kiss these freedoms goodbye that we all take for granted. And elections? Forget about it. That’s over. That’s done. If he gets in, I can tell you right now, he will never leave. He will never leave. You know that. He will never leave.” —actor Robert De Niro
“Trump wants to destroy not only the city [New York] but the country, and eventually he could destroy the world.” —Robert De Niro
Non Compos Mentis
“The economy of the United States would end in three days. We have three days of what we need in the United States. So if we just shut down the entire southern border, it would be to the detriment of our own country.” —Congressman Eric Sorensen (D-IL)
Belly Laugh of the Day
“We have done an extraordinary job to deal with an unprecedented level of migration.” —DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas
The BIG Lies
“I was appointed … to the Naval Academy.” —Joe Biden
“Our commander-in-chief has always stood up for our troops, our military families, and our veterans.” —Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin
“We are running on a historic record of accomplishments.” —Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler
“Joe Biden is, at the moment, losing his reelection campaign. And he is doing so while presiding over the strongest economy the United States has ever experienced.” —Annie Lowrey, The Atlantic
For the Record
“Almost all the negative claims that Democrats made in opposing the Trump tax cuts in 2017 were proven to be fallacious. Rather than admit that they were wrong, they’ve doubled down in their commitment to policies that would raise taxes on virtually every American corporation, small business, family and investor.” —Stephen Moore
Upright
“Having a family will provide more meaning and purpose than a job ever could. Your promotion can’t hold your hand. You can hug your money, but it won’t hug you back. Children provide parents with a living legacy and hopefully grandkids. Consider the irony. The left despises capitalism, the greatest wealth creation engine in human history, and urges women to find meaning in life by climbing the corporate ladder.” —Victor Joecks
CRC Staff | May 28, 2024 |
From the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University
Glendale, AZ —What Millennials began, Gen Z is accelerating, especially when it comes to the generational transformation of the nation’s moral landscape. This, according to new data from theCultural Research Centerat Arizona Christian University’s American Worldview Inventory 2024.
Dr. George Barna, Director of Research at CRC, says biblical worldview incidence in the United States has declined for five consecutive generations, and during that time the number of adults holding a biblical worldview has plummeted from 12% to today’s 4% level. And this shift among younger generations is ushering in a “new morality” now embraced by the majority of all American adults.
According to Barna, who has documented worldview levels in America for 40 years, the downward trajectory is likely to continue. As he explains, “Our studiesof teenagers and preteens indicate that the national incidence will drop another two points within the next 15 years unless some dramatic and unusually effective spiritual renewal event occurs.”
In exploring four dozen worldview measures, Barna pointed out that traditional morality (morality rooted in unchanging biblical principals) is one of the major casualties of Millennials and Gen Zs replacing Boomers (ages 60-78) and Elders (79 and older) as the largest generations in the adult population.
Data from the American Worldview Inventory 2024 shows the younger generations leading a dramatic shift in the nation’s morals, including:
A majority of adults accept lying, abortion, consensual intercourse between unmarried adults, gay marriage, and the rejection of absolute moral truth as morally acceptable.
Less than half of all adults embrace the Bible as their primary guide to morality.
A minority believes that every moral choice either honors or dishonors God.
A large minority of adults accept the notion that as long as you do no harm, you may do whatever you wish.
While Millennials have disrupted and reshaped moral beliefs and behavioral norms established by Boomers and Busters (also known as Gen X, ages 41 to 59), Gen Z (born between 2003 and 2021) is maintaining or accelerating these trends—and is further reshaping and solidifying these as the new moral norms. Among the issues:
Accepting abortion.While six out of 10 Boomers and Busters consider having an abortion to be acceptable behavior, nearly seven out of 10 Millennials (67%) and Gen Zs (69%) endorse abortion.
Accepting consensual sex between unmarried adults.Echoing the pattern related to abortion, the AWVI 2024 shows that six out of 10 Boomers and Busters consider sexual intercourse between consenting, unmarried adults to be morally acceptable, but a higher proportion of younger adults (69% of Millennials and 73% of Gen Zs) endorse such sexual encounters.
Refusing to repay a loan that is due.Overall, about one-quarter of adults from generations encompassing people 55 and older say they accept the refusal to repay a loan to a wealthy relative who does not push for repayment to be morally acceptable. Nearly twice as many younger adults accept such a refusal to repay what is due to be morally defensible (42% of Millennials, 50% of Gen Zs).
Perhaps inspired by the boldness of their parents or older siblings, Gen Z has also forged new levels of acceptance of other moral beliefs and behaviors, going where not even Millennials had dared to tread:
Accepting lying. Six out of 10 Gen Zs say that lying to protect your personal best interests is morally acceptable. That far surpasses the one-half of older adults.
Accepting behaviors that produce no apparent or significant harm. Three out of every 10 Americans (29%) from the generation that made “if it feels good, do it” a catch phrase (i.e., Boomers) maintain that it is morally acceptable to do anything you desire as long as it does no harm. That in itself is alarming. But the numbers swell with each succeeding generation. Among Gen X, 40% embrace that mindset. A solid majority of Millennials (55%) accept the mantra, which grows even larger—to two out of every three Americans—who are part of Gen Z (66%).
Rejecting the Bible as one’s primary moral guide. A mere one out of five Gen Z representatives (21%) identify the Bible as their primary source of moral guidance. That is notably lower than the proportion of adults from older generations (29% of Millennials, 34% of Baby Busters, and 37% of Baby Boomers).
Like the Millennials before them, Gen Z reflects similar levels of support for gay marriage, the rejection of absolute moral truth, and the dismissal of the notion that every moral choice either honors or dishonors God.
Knowing that most spiritual and moral beliefs and behaviors do not change during the adult years unless a significant, life-transforming personal crisis intervenes, it is unlikely, Barna says, that the worldview elements that characterize Gen Z today will change substantially in the years to come.
However, there are noteworthy exceptions to the worldview continuum.
For example, Gen Z is less likely than people from earlier generations (including Millennials) to believe that people are basically good. This may be a result, Barna says, of the cultural turbulence they experienced during their formative years.
“Young adults tend to form their worldview primarily through feelings and personal experiences, rather than logic and facts,” he explained. “Gen Z grew up with a daily bombardment of conflicting messages about right and wrong. Most of them lived in homes traumatized by divorce. Crime has escalated precipitously in recent years. War and terrorism have been constant, looming threats. Bullying, pedophilia, and child trafficking have been part of their life’s narrative.”
“Under such conditions, and without any kind of deeper spiritual wisdom provided to put these matters in context,” Barna noted, “it is not surprising that so many young adults feel their way through uncertain times and conclude that human beings are not inherently good.”
Barna also underscored the irony of that shift in thinking.
“Millennials and Gen X have largely dismissed Christianity as irrelevant. Yet, they’re coming to the same conclusion as the Bible: that people are not basically good. We’re sinners. Sin distorts our minds and hearts, producing bad choice after bad choice. Repentance and reliance upon Jesus Christ are the solutions—an antidote that people also dismiss as ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘foolish.’ But biblical truths are the only reliable truths, and they serve us best.”
The latest report from the American Worldview Inventory 2024 also looks at moral trends by different segments of the U.S. population, including by church affiliation, theological perspective, and by political views.
Today’s NEWSMAX headline brief includes…
[2:02] -Donald Trump Jr. says “This is the stuff of Stalinist Russia” as 12 New Yorkers deliberate the fate of his father. [Rob Schmitt Tonight]
[6:42] – Robert DeNiro’s partisan rant falls flat outside NYC court room. Newsmax’s Carl Higbie: “Hey Robert DeNiro, You’re not an actual mobster.” [Carl Higbie Frontline]
[12:40] – Former Trump advisor and Newsmax host Sebastian Gorka: “They can’t get over Trump running as a Republican.” [Newsline]
[15:06] – Comedian Rob Schneider believes Hollywood is scared of the left. [Eric Bolling The Balance]
[17:49] -Newsmax’s Greg Kelly reports on newly exposed Hunter Biden emails implicating Joe. [Greg Kelly Reports]
GAZA — Hamas leadership proudly announced Wednesday that their Pride Month festivities would soon start with a wild party where anything goes. The location? The roof of a very tall hotel where they can do the best kicking-off.
“We are honored to start Pride month with a kick-off of many, many homosexuals,” said elusive Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “We will have the biggest kick-off from this roof as is humanly possible. We invite all Queers for Palestine to come join in being kicked off.”
According to IDF intelligence, the extremely tall hotel will be decked out with Pride flags, rainbow-colored streamers, and a magnificent LED light show in an effort to attract as many homosexuals as possible. An invitation has been extended to Sir Elton John to MC the event, though sources indicate it is unlikely he will accept.
“Like moths to a flame,” Sinwar said with pride as he put the finishing touches on a banner that reads, “Gay Stuff On Roof!”
The local gay community is reportedly cautiously optimistic ahead of the festivities. “I really don’t want to be kicked off a roof again,” said local gay man Hamzah “Hammy” Hamas, “But I’m kind of interested in how they decorated this year.”
Hamas leadership has advised all the normal people to stretch their legs ahead of the party so no one strains their quadriceps.
At publishing time, the UN nominated Hamas leadership for a Nobel Peace Prize for their ongoing efforts to incorporate the LGBTQIA+ community in their activities.
We asked Trump to narrate 7 more famous historic battles, and the result was tremendous and magnificent. Everyone says so.
(Katie Pavlich – Townhall) Closing arguments in the trial of former President Donald Trump in New York City, where he is charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, have concluded and Judge Juan Merchan has given the jury their instructions. The instructions were given verbally and jurors won’t receive printed copies, although they can ask questions.
According to legal experts, Merchan’s standards for a conviction are abnormal and do not require jurors to reach a unanimous decision on the charges. Further, jurors don’t have to determine what crime was committed.
“Judge Merchan has ruled that the jury does not have to agree on what that crime is. The jury could split into three groups of four on which of the three crimes were being concealed and Merchan will still treat it as a unanimous verdict,” George Washington University Law Professor Jonathan Turley, who has been inside the courtroom, writes. “The jury has been given little substantive information on these crimes, and Merchan has denied a legal expert who could have shown that there was no federal election violation. This case should have been dismissed for lack of evidence or a cognizable crime.” View article →
The prosecution has finally rested in the criminal case against former President Trump, having presented nine bullet-proof pieces of evidence that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump is guilty. Here they are:
Trump said he’s innocent: Exactly the sort of thing a guilty person would say.
Before the trial, the prosecution’s star witnesses both said Trump was innocent: It doesn’t get any more cut and dry.
The judge decided Trump was guilty before the trial even began: It was that obvious.
No one in America has ever been charged with a felony for this crime before: Trump is so guilty they had to make up new laws. Case closed.
Trump was in Home Alone 2 alongside notorious criminals “The Wet Bandits”: What more evidence could you need?
Trump spent evenings after trial delivering pizza to firemen: Exactly what a hardened felon would do. Lock him up.
Trump’s signature on the checks in question is kind of hard to read: The plain mark of criminal conspiracy.
Trump’s political opponent held a campaign rally outside the courthouse: Why would he do that if Trump wasn’t in the wrong?
He’s not a Democrat: Clearly guilty. That’s just how law works.
If that’s not an airtight list of evidence that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trump is guilty, then you belong in a cell right next to him!
We asked Trump to narrate 7 more famous historic battles, and the result was tremendous and magnificent. Everyone says so.
It’s almost that time of year again, when corporations suddenly bathe themselves in rainbow colors overnight and vast mobs of drag queens roam the streets. With such troubling sights on the way, it can be challenging for Christians to know how to get ready.
The Babylon Bee has come up with the following list of ways Christians can prepare themselves for Pride Month:
Gouge out your eyes with a fork: Some may think this a little extreme, but if you’ve ever seen clips of a Pride parade, this seems like a no-brainer.
Retreat to your underground bunker until July 1: Wait, you don’t have an underground bunker?
Cancel your Planet Fitness membership: Take a month off from working out and seeing 6’7″ bearded women named Jeff in the sauna.
Put up signs for a new Subaru dealership with arrows pointing out of town: The gays will follow the signs out of town like an irresistible pied piper.
Get your Lasik reversed: No confirmation if this is even possible, but at least ask an eye doctor to try.
Hold a Chuck Norris movie marathon: The ripple effect of the raw, heterosexual masculinity reverberating from your TV will singlehandedly reverse all Pride Month effects.
Move to Florida: We heard Pride Month is totally illegal there.
By following even a few of the tips listed above, you can take the proper precautions to protect yourself from the annual Pride Month onslaught.
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We asked Trump to narrate 7 more famous historic battles, and the result was tremendous and magnificent. Everyone says so.
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