A case against banning Mark Twain’s, ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’
As part of our home-school English curriculum this year, I decided to tackle Twain’s, ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn‘. I’ve read a few of the, for and against arguments on the internet, by writers who either have an higher opinion of themselves (than they do of Twain), or they raise Twain to a higher level, just because he’s Twain. My conclusion is this: forget all the, “I’m offended therefore ban ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’, because Mark Twain uses offensive language.” Then ditch the flip side which says, “I’m offended, because you’re offended, that Mark Twain didn’t consider your feelings, before…
Profiteering from Falsehood: Proof that Leftist Australian media needs a narrative of racism and oppression to stay relevant.
I’m not sure what the online content editor was thinking, but the “KKKennerley” clickbait headline, from Fairfax media (Australia’s biggest Leftist behemoth, outside the bloated solely tax-payer funded, state owned ABC) is ludicrous. This only serves division, and shows that the Leftist cult of modern liberalism in Australia needs a narrative of oppression, racism and bigotry, just to appear relevant. In other words, it serves their system to keep people divided, angry, confused and fear driven; convinced that their “racist white” neighbours are out to get them. What a disgusting headline from Fairfax. If deranged Leftist activists falsely accuse a…
Three Reasons why you should be concerned about Silicon Valley’s Connection to Communist China’s Golden Shield Firewall
If you’re not really into Information Technology and are not aware of what the Golden Shield project is, you’re forgiven. The majority of Chinese people either don’t care or aren’t aware of its existence either. The Golden Shield Project is Communist China’s massive firewall. It’s designed to keep a lid on dissent and ward off foreign influence on Chairman Mao’s, carefully constructed Communist culture, which was largely forced on the Chinese people during the Marxist/Maoist Cultural Revolution.[note]For a full explanation of this, see Jacques Ellul’s, 1965 publication, ‘Propaganda’.[/note] Some basic history: ‘The Golden Shield project has been in development since…
Be a Good Hater: Righteous Anger and the Rule of Christian Love
The provocative quote of the week goes to, Charles Spurgeon: “Be a good hater.” The statement, “be a good hater” is a challenge to resist evil (James 4L7). To resist the morality of the tyrant or the ‘crowd which has no hands’ (Kierkegaard, The Crowd is Untruth)[note]Kierkegaard S. 1847 The Crowd is Untruth sourced from CCEL.org[/note] In context, it means: to abhor evil: to regard it with extreme repugnance. [In Latin, “abhor” is Odium: with hostility; “repugnance”: resist, be an adversary of evil.] Our present age has an almost absolute fear of hate, yet most would agree that “let love be genuine.…
Epiphany 2019: His great joy will be our strength.
Since 2014 I’ve been committed to considering what different things God might have to say at the close of Christmas. Traditionally this is Epiphany, the 6th January, marking the end of the twelve days of Christmas. Magi from the East (Persia), following the star (likely to be the well-timed rare alignment of three planets in our Sol system; a Nova or Super Nova) find confirmation of Micah 5:2: “but you, O Bethlehem who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin…
Convicts arriving in Botany Bay in 1788 is not “Invasion Day,” the Imperial Japanese bombing of Darwin in 1942 is.
Most of Australian history is a neglected subject. That history didn’t end in Botany Bay, 1788, and it’s high points, although they are among them, isn’t just Gallipoli 1915, or in the numerous corrections to sporadic injustices carried out by a Social Darwinist induced indifference towards Indigenous Australians. The significance of the Bombing of Darwin on the 19th February 1942, by over 260 Imperial Japanese aircraft is unjustifiably neglected by politics, politicians, political parties, their pawns in the news media, and in their pawns in the Australian academic industrial complex. The high level of attacks from Imperial Japanese forces on…
Simone Weil’s Beef With Bureaucracy: The Bureaucratic Caste, Parasitism and Crony Capitalists
Born out of conversations with a friend from the United States, I was given the opportunity to read a compilation of fragments and essays written by Simone Weil called: ‘Oppression and Liberty’. The compilation flows in chronological order and presents some of Weil’s thoughts on anthropology, economics, politics, ideology and war. Simone was a French intellectual. Like Jacques Ellul, whom she presumably never met, Weil worked in the French resistance and was well schooled in Marxism. Among many others in the elite French communist circles of mid 20th Century, she was a contemporary of rebel and excommunicated member, Albert Camus.…
Why are the globalists silent when it comes to totalitarian Islamic aggression in Sudan?
In a 2006 article written for the Stanford Journal of International Relations, called “Responding To Genocide In Sudan,”[note]Doane, S.M 2006 Responding to Genocide in Sudan: Barriers to Peace, International Indifference, and The Need for Tough Diplomacy, Stanford Journal of International Relations sourced 19th April 2017 from web.stanford.edu[/note] Stephan M. Doane lays out reasoning for a much needed, tougher international stand on the issues plaguing Sudan. The article is dated, but raises, on an academic level, awareness about the plight of many South Sudanese people, who are stuck in a cycle of constant violence. Many of whom are Christians. Doane’s piece is well…
If the people aren’t interested in Governments, Governments will govern outside the interests of the people.
Positive advances in communications technology drive the functionality of information. Its delivery is like a viaduct. Information is carried along at a fast pace. Which means that we find ourselves living in an era of information deluge. Words, thoughts and opinions rain down on us from everywhere. In this downpour, writers can be too easily tempted to reach for the fastest way to keep people reading their work. However, putting something together that’s worth a reader’s time, takes time. In this environment, writing can be hard. Gimmicks and stunts; shock and awe, are all potential roads writers can go down.Simply…
We serve whatever our hearts are tethered to
What people think matters; how people see us matters. We anchor ourselves to the opinions and values of others. Men and women latch their value to the people we see as giving us value. Our worth is then neatly packaged into the confined space of that other person’s thoughts and whims. This is all okay up to a point. Humans were built for community, we need good government and organisation; men and women, living in fellowship, not in isolation, are human together.[note]With the creation of woman God expected man to confirm and maintain his true humanity by the exclusion of…
Reagan’s reminder: “The martyrs of history were not fools.”
This has the sharp edge of poignant relevance painted all over it: Now let’s set the record straight. There’s no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there’s only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender. Admittedly, there’s a risk in any course we follow other than this, but every lesson of history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement, and this is the specter our well-meaning liberal friends refuse to face—that their policy of accommodation is appeasement, and it gives no choice between peace and war, only…
What if Mary gave birth to Jesus in, politically correct, abortion-obsessed, the-future-is-female, 2018?
Here’s how a committee meeting between Herod and his advisers might sound, if such a meeting were to take place in a Western context today. “This baby! This Jesus, his mother and father, is a threat to us! Committee members, you are asked to agree with Herod’s call for the genocide of all new born male Hebrew children. For by this child’s very existence, all the power structures that surround him stand unprotected. This so-called, “Prince of peace”, is a threat to safe spaces, our glorious goal of perpetual revolution and the power of its leaders.” “This child’s birth is…
The sheep and the goats: The distinction between a Pilgrim’s Progress and a Progressive Pilgrim.
With over 2000+ years of thought, action and in some cases really good ideas, that simply just crashed and burned, Christian history is rich and vibrant. If we ignore this history and the theological enquiry attached to it, we turn our backs on faith, heritage and hard lessons learnt along the way. The old saying still reigns: “I believe in order to understand.”[note]St. Augustine, & Anselm of Canterbury[/note] Unfortunately, we live in a ‘Just get me to the chorus’ era: “Give me the theological truth – but if it doesn’t fit in a MEME that I can like, share or…
Is homeschooling over parenting?
One of the more vicious stigmas attached to homeschooling, particularly by The Greens, is that homeschooling is the equivalent of child abuse. While this misconception and prejudice, isn’t shared by mainstream Australia, the view is reflected in the assumption that homeschooling is the equivalent of over parenting. Over parenting, however, is not the same as homeschooling. Over parenting involves doing everything for the child. Over parenting is the parent smothering the child in too much kindness. An old term for this is ‘’babying or pampering’’. This is a term more properly applied to the parents who refuse to let their…
A good reputation is not proof of good character: substance trumps appearances.
God is love. It’s his character revealed – Love is His language – peace, long-suffering, patience, joy, kindness, it does not envy or boast it is not arrogant or rude, it is not irritable or resentful it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Among the three top things rated in life: faith, hope and love – love remains the greatest. (1 Corinthians 13) Sex is not God. Money is not God. Love is not God. Things we own? Not God. Social status? Not God – the…
Former Iranian Muslim, now Christian pastor, arrested in the US for talking about Jesus.
In August, Iranian refugee and former Muslim, Ramin Parsa was arrested for trespassing – *coughs* for breaking blasphemy laws – while privately sharing his testimony about becoming a Christian, in a Mall of America, shopping centre in Minnesota. Tyler O’Neil from PJ media reported that while Ramin, now a Christian Pastor living in Los Angeles, was sharing his testimony: Another woman who was not part of the conversation went and complained to the security. The guard came and said, ‘You can’t solicit here.’ He then told them “we were not soliciting”. He just said, ‘Bye,’ and walked away.” After Parsa,…
Preaching in the shadow of feminism.
Controversial blogger, Adam Piggot in an article on Christian men and feminism raised some talking points about the current state of the Church. Adam discussed how Christians have backed down in the face of feminism. His major point was that ‘the modern Christian fears’ taking a stand against feminism. Adam’s argued that men, women and children have now become its puppets. Men in the Church have a particular responsibility for this. They’ve allowed the feminist conquest of the Church by feminist ideologues, who seem hell bent on either running churches and dominating their agenda, or destroying them outright. Though I…
Political Correctness and ‘hate speech’ laws are the secular equivalent of Sharia Law.
Political correctness in its excessive form is the secular equivalent of Shari’a law. It might not have the full judicial weight of Western law behind it yet, but that doesn’t mean people aren’t trying to manipulate the system so as to implement it. I used to think that the only thing wrong with political correctness was the excesses that went along with it. Take the good, reject the bad. However, the more I learn from those who practice and enforce the ideals of political correctness, the more I arrive at the conclusion that political correctness is the secular version of…
The writing is on the wall.
Arrested four times, Paul Schneider became one of the first theologians of the Confessing Church to be murdered by the Nazis, and the first protestant pastor to die in a Nazi concentration camp. In a nut shell, Schneider was labelled a firebrand. Like a lot of the Confessing Church Pastors and theologians, his theological resistance was “politically incorrect”. His defiance was a veritable revolt against ‘compromise with Nazi ideology, and the indifference of the people.'[note]Stroud, D. (ed.) 2013 Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance, Wm. B Eerdmans Publishing p.75[/note] As a result the ‘terror state would forbid him to…
Not everyone in Hollywood is a flake: Frank Capra’s factivism.
After being summoned by General George C Marshall on February the 11th, 1942, Hollywood directer, Frank Capra, famous for ‘It’s a wonderful life’, and ‘You can’t take it with you’, walked into the Pentagon. Before Capra had received the invitation, he had been in the process of reviewing an offer of a partnership which, in his own words ‘would have made him part owner of “United Artists”. Easily placing him in the multi-millionaire class’[note]Capra, F. 1971 The Name Above the Title Da Capo Press p.314[/note] and potentially exempting him from War time service. After wrestling with the decision Capra concluded: Why trade fame,…