Definitely Starlink -- I saw a stream of 10 or 12 the other evening myself, above the skies of Minneapolis. Further north I've seen as many as 40 in a row. Strangely beautiful, in a way, and not scary.
Rod, please tie together the inability of a child to give meaningful consent with the evil realm's legalism (but you said yes), and consider the impact of the rape scandal in Britain, P. Diddy, Epstein, 300,000+ missing children at the border, etc. It is horrifying to contemplate the magnitude of the spiritual corruption and devastation. Pray, pray, pray.
He's had his share of rape scandals... but mostly he's just plain psychotic. He's looking for millions of votes to still be counted from an election he won, because he is convinced it was a landslide, not a mere 51 percent.
If at some future time you have a question to offer, which reflects that a conscious mind capable of thought generated it, please do get back to us. I'd like to hear it.
Spencer Klavan, author of “Light of the Mind, Light of the World,” issues a powerful call to action for Christians in America: stop refuting, start asserting. Meaning, Christians no longer need to refute The Left’s materialist idea that humans are merely atomic matter. Instead, we must assert that we believe in something greater: a God-given spirit that enriches our lives. The question is, how do we unlock the fruits of that spirit? Spencer and I hope to shed some light on this question.
Because no one else has said it, I must be the brute who comes along and kicks over the kiddies' picnic table.
I don't doubt that given Spencer Klavan's gifts, he has much to contribute, but there is no way in which an unashamedly homosexual man can be a clarion leader in the fight to rally Christians to be less inclined to connive with the world in its follies.
Intolerant ( accent on the second syllable, said petulantly ), I know. So mean! Yes.
Also, I thought you (and your readers) might enjoy this essay I just wrote that touches on re-enchantment, about the murder of Brian Thompson viewed as a human sacrifice performed by a self-initiated shaman reinhabiting the dark prehistoric religious impulses that lurk in the back of the human psyche.
Starmer? Dostoevsky? You're kidding. This is a man who (in?)famously said he doesn't have a favourite novel or poem, and isn't interested in ideas. He is a perfect (or as near perfect as any human being can be) product of unreflective Utilitiarianism, as deaf to art as he is blind to religion.
Didn't Starmer also say he doesn't dream, as in, have dreams when he goes to sleep? I found that particularly odd; I thought everybody dreamt, at least every once in a while.
Ha, well, I hadn't read that Guardian article. My news about the UK is filtered through various podcasters and YouTubers. I imagine the writer at "The Guardian" was just as puzzled by Starmer's statement as I was.
Maybe. Although my impression (I could be wrong: I haven't trawled every corner of the internet looking for responses) is that the interview raised fewer eyebrows than I'd have expected. For me, the prospect of a government run by a man with (by his own admission) no artistic tastes, no philosophical framework, no irrational fears - which might explain why he seems to have no understanding of the fears of others - and no conversation with his own unconscious, is profoundly worrying.
Yes, you're right - at least according to an article in The Guardian shortly before the general election. Also that he had no childhood fears or phobias. When I look back at the catalogue I suffered from, that seems pretty much unimaginable to me.
I've heard stories about people who don't have "a mind's eye," who are unable to visualize a 3D image in their mind. That's strange to me, for I can't really grasp *not* being able to visualize something when I close my eyes.
My mother told my my aunt used to have dreams that ended "To be continued" and did pick up the next night. At least that's what my aunt said to her sisters.
There was a man in New Jersey who claimed he never slept. He was under observation for long enough that researchers concluded if he's stayed awake this long he might well never sleep at all.
My new essay in The European Conservative is about how all the civilization-destroying effects of progressive ideology we are enduring now were all foreseen by the 19th century Russian novelists, especially Dostoevsky."
Ever consider they see the civilization-destroying effects of progressive ideology as A Good Thing?
Of course they do. Human beings don't go around saying, "Evil be Thou my Good". But the state of affairs that they want, and are increasingly getting, will end up destroying them, and us in the bargain, if we don't do something about it. Did you see this Jess Phillips person immediately go to, "I feel threatened" when she refused to budge on revisiting the issue? And Dreher is right. The Tories are fully complicit. I've been an Anglophile since I was six and it hurts me to say this, but England's done.
It was a real eye opener for me, H/T James Lindsay. That the goal is not to reform civilization, but destroy it.
Jess Phillips SHOULD feel threatened. If we (the sane people) win, she loses power, If she wins, she'll be stood up against the wall. They always kill their own.
George Orwell, who, it is never to be forgotten, died a man of the Left, once quoted with approval Marx's dictum that after the revolution human history can begin. That's what these lunatics believe.
Orwell is almost impossible to pin down politically--I think of his politics at the Politics of Decency. His Collected Essays, which are his best work, reveal how deeply Orwell detested the average leftist. He was adamantly anti-globalist, anti-communist and anti-vegetarian; he was also pro-patriot but anti-nationalist and anti-imperialist. He loved the traditions of his own country and understood why people in other countries would feel the same; he hated the aristocracy largely because he thought they did a terrible job of running the country. If he'd lived another ten years he probably would have become a Red Tory or a Tory Anarchist.
I have a recommendation for you both. It is a fantastic book called The Same Man, George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War. The author is David Lebedoff and is a superb writer. His thesis is that for all their differences, Waugh and Orwell were kindred spirits and shared a deep loathing of modernity. Aside from being an anarchist, Orwell had a deep-rooted sense of common decency that would be anathema to an ideologue.
Funny about Orwell but he had some brilliant insights yet was a die-hard leftist until his death. I wonder if royalty and income taxes might have altered his views if he lived long enough.
Didn't Orwell have to leave Barcelona incognito when the Comintern, under direct orders from Comrade Stalin, came looking for him? If so, I wonder if his leftism wasn't tempered in the end by the experience.
Maclin Horton, an occasional commentator here, once wrote a review of the 1992 film 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'. In it he noted the same tendency to exclude Christianity.
Oh, Coppola (of all his generation of directors the least talented) would make sure of that. In the publicity for the film when it was released he was explicit about it, the dreadful phony.
My wife was out of town a few years ago and I watched Godfathers I and II back to back. Ponderous, obvious, all about the art direction. Brando is strictly hambone. And who puts red wine in tomato sauce? Coppola manages to do a little discreet propaganda for el Lider in II. Just dreadful. It felt like doing homework.
Long time since I saw Godfather III, but I don't recall it being expressly anti-Catholic. Mixed bag - Michael Corleone repents of his criminal life after being inspired by a good cardinal, but there's a money laundering bishop in the mix as well. Good and bad side by side is about right.
Spielberg has never had anything to say and the notion he’s a great director has always irritated me. Scorsese was much better . Although I think little of his later movies. I think Terence Malik and Hal Ashby were interesting .
I mostly stopped reading ghost and supernatural fiction in the early 2000's, but prior to that I used to write on it regularly for a couple small press periodicals. I remember this phenomenon and recall that one of the books I reviewed, Tim Powers' 'The Stress of Her Regard,' was one of the few modern vampire novels that brought Christianity into play. Of course Powers is a practicing Catholic, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Very good book, btw!
I've generally stayed away from this stuff all my life. Even as a pre-teen I was very skeptical about spiritualistic subjects, Biblical accounts excepted.
Hey Rob, most horror fiction is pretty bad but some amazing stuff published in the last 20 years. Andrew Michael Hurley has three beautifully written, unsettling folk horror novels--The Loney, Devil's Day, and Starve Acre--and you can't go wrong with the short fiction of Nathan Ballingrud ("North American Lake Monsters" is one of the great horror short fiction collections).
Are you familiar with Ray Russell's horror short story collection "Haunted Castles"? Overlook the dopey title, each story is solid. My favorite "Comet Wine" might be the best, compact presentation of the devil's empty promises I've read.
Had a look at these, but I must say that I never really was into "horror" per se, but more ghost stories and supernatural fiction. The last contemporary genre writer that I really paid attention to was Thomas Ligotti, but I did write a little on Russell Kirk's ghost stories when they were reprinted 20 or so years ago. Actually got to meet Mrs. Kirk and talk to her about his fiction as a result, which was fun.
I'm sorry but I don't have it in electronic form, just the paper. I could find that piece and type it in but I'm otherwise occupied today, and by the time I got it done this discussion would have faded away.
One thing I do remember (or think I do) from that piece is a remark along these lines: it's not so much that vampirism is a form of sex, but that sex in our time is a form of vampirism. I really hated the film and I wonder now if maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. I haven't seen it since. I do like the actual Bram Stoker's actual _Dracula_.
There's definitely some stuff worth preserving in the magazine, but although it was produced on a computer, with Pagemaker, and although we kept the files, they fell victim to format rot less than ten years after the magazine was published (early to mid '90s). Sometime ca 2003 or so I was going to convert them with an eye toward putting them online, but no longer had Pagemaker and no means to convert or extract the text. I tried scanning and OCRing the magazines, but that didn't work very well. I typed in a few articles but really didn't have the free time to do much of it and abandoned the effort.
"...it's not so much that vampirism is a form of sex, but that sex in our time is a form of vampirism." Yes, that was the article's punchline.
Things I recall from your essay:
* You tried to verify the film makers' claims that sex was loaded in Stoker's writings, so you went back and re-read Dracula and found nothing of the sort.
* You wrote that the film actually blames the Church for Dracula becoming a vampire!
I'm wondering about that re-reading of the book now. Wondering if I was too adamant about the sexual interpretation of the book. Coppola certainly wildly exaggerated it, but perhaps the interpretation has at least a little justification. I don't know...it was thirty years ago and I was pretty annoyed. :-)
I didn't remember your last item at all. Interesting and all too typical of American culture from 1970 on.
I learned something about Google Translate just today - if you take a picture of a printed page, then go to Google Translate and use "image" as what is to be translated - but then ask for an English to English translation, it will give you a transcript of words from an image.
As a confessional Lutheran, I'd like to ask what you mean by describing the Baton Rouge psychologist as a "respectable Lutheran"? And I will add that not just "pious Protestants" are rationalistic. Every Roman Catholic and Orthodox friend I have is rationalistic.
For a Lutheran take on demon possession and exorcism, read Afraid: Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America by Robert H. Bennett, where he draws on Scripture, writings of Luther, and Lutheran hymns to exorcise demons. Many of our hymns deal with the reality of evil: "Oh, little flock, fear not the Foe who madly seeks your overthrow; Dread not his rage and power. What though your courage sometimes faints, his seeming triumph o'er God's saints lasts but a little hour." Luther's great hymn of the Reformation has this verse: "Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not; we fear no ill; they shall not overpower us. This world's prince may still scowl fierce as he will. He can harm us none. He's judged; the deed is done. One little word can fell him." The reality of Satan and his minions is very real to confessional Lutherans.
Much as I appreciate Dreher's writing, this is a blind spot. He has the enthusiasm of the newly converted. He is not wrong in his premise, he is wrong in believing he is the only one. "There are still 7,000 who have not bowed the knee."
Well, I'm not "newly converted," and I don't share the "spiritual xenophobia" of some of the Orthodox. Remember, I wrote about how repulsive I found that Athonite elder's condemnation of prayer with Catholics and Protestants. And in this very essay, I noted the lack of courage of an Orthodox priest to help a (non-Orthodox) family who needed it. And I noted how the US Orthodox churches almost totally neglect exorcism, even though it's part of our tradition.
I cannot honestly say that I believe Protestantism is just as valid as Orthodoxy, and I don't think it's fair of you to expect me to. I believe Catholicism is only as valid as it matches up with Orthodox truth, and I am not the least bit offended by Catholics or Protestants who regard Orthodoxy in the same light. We can't all be correct. What I do reject, though, are Christians (Orthodox and otherwise) who deny the validity of the faith of individual Christians, of whatever confession, because those individuals are living in error. I don't expect you, as a Lutheran, to give your stamp of approval to Orthodox teachings. How could you, being a Lutheran? That doesn't offend me. What would offend me would be if you said that my faith in Christ is counterfeit because of my theological error. Me, I would rather be in the foxhole with a truly believing Lutheran than with an Orthodox who was formally part of my confession, but whose faith was weak.
By "respectable Lutheran," I mean that she was a standard middle-class Protestant lady. It was not a criticism; it was a description meant to convey what she herself told me: that exorcism and all that was NOT part of her consciousness. If I had told the whole story, I would have explained how, not knowing what else to do, she simply prayed, and prayed, and abided with this suffering woman. Eventually, the demon left her. But in the long process, the psychologist suffered attacks, e.g., once a car nearly hit her as she was walking. When she next saw the patient, the demons, speaking in a voice not the woman's own, recalled the incident, and said, "We almost got you the other day when you were walking, but you are being protected." That Lutheran lay woman performed faithfully and heroically.
I agree that many Catholics and Orthodox, including clergy, are just as "modern" in this sense as Protestants -- in contradiction to their own tradition. But I just don't think it is tenable to say that Protestantism (Pentecostalism greatly excepted!) is as focused on this stuff as the older traditions are. Luther was -- he says he fought the devil! But over time, the whole world of spiritual warfare really did fade away from Mainline Protestantism. My Baptist friends are well educated and faithful, but they are hostile to this stuff, because it was never part of their lives within that confession. My goal in "Living In Wonder" is not to tell people "flee Lutheranism" (or whatever), but to encourage readers of all confessions to awaken to awareness of these realities, and what God has given us to fight the Enemy in this way. It is very easy as a middle class "respectable" Catholic or Orthodox to deny all this, in effect. The Orthodox priest I talked about in today's entry would mention the demons in his preaching from time to time, but when the moment presented itself to actually confront spiritual realities (not a demon, most likely, but a ghost), he balked. It was fine when it was all theoretical, but not when it became real. That attitude simply won't do, not for the age we live in now, and into which we are moving rapidly.
That all makes perfect sense. Viewing this from a multi-denominational Protestant perspective, there is a finite possibility that the Roman Catholic church is absolutely correct in every particular -- or the Orthodox church, or the Presbyterian Church, or the Methodist Church... or any other. We can't all be right, but we could all be part right and part wrong, which for fallible human beings and their human institutions seems most likely. As to demons... I find the line of thinking that evil is the absence of God, rather than that it is an affirmative force in its own right, to be the most edifying explanation. There is a great emptiness to someone like Hitler, however destructively he expressed it.
I like to cite *The Neverending Story* as a theological text: the ultimate evil is the Nothing, and Satan is sort of like Gmork, the created chief lieutenant of the Nothing.
I'm sorry, but what? Maybe this comes from all the German Lutheran influence in my life, but my understanding - and the understanding I've seen living in Germany - is that traditionally, confessional Lutherans are as mainline as they get. In German, the terms "Protestant", "Lutheran", and "Evangelical" are practically interchangeable.
Katja, I am not an expert on the possible tiny denominations of Protestant churches in the United States, but essentially, there are two Lutheran Churches in the United States: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.
The LCMS does NOT consider itself mainline, at least that I know of, though twenty years ago, based on my own disappointing experience in an LCMS church, I thought it might be starting to drift; in recent years, I have seen references here and there that many Lutherans in the LCMS are concerned that the denomination is drifting, but the LCMS still affirms the inerrancy of the Bible. That is the definition of non - mainline.
The ELCA, on the other hand, differs little from The Episcopal Church USA, that is, both are apostate, both are disgraceful. I say they're apostate because they honor Jesus Christ in the breach. They have a form of righteousness while denying the power thereof. They certainly do not believe in the authority of the Bible, let alone, in its inerrancy.
The "essentially" in my first paragraph is a reference to two small Lutheran denominations, The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and The American Association of Lutheran Churches, which I have heard referred to as The American Lutheran Church. As far as I know, both are solid, both are orthodox.
I'm charmed by what unless something has changed is still WELS teaching, that the Pope is the Antichrist.
Please, if anyone knows better than I about some of this, speak up!!
I appreciate your response. I question no one's profession of faith, barring egregious defects in life or doctrine. Nor do I expect all Christians to be unanimous in their doctrine or practice, much as that was Christ's desire for His church. I hold the positions I do because I believe them to be true, as I know you do. I realize that when you write about doctrinal or practical matter, you write from your perspective and experience, as would be expected. My comment was not to dispute the substance of either your post or your latest book, which I am still wrestling with, but to suggest that your representation of Protestants may be representative of those whose path you have crossed but it often sounds more like a straw man and can distract from a valid and important point, more so for some than for others.
I am in full agreement that Christians of many flavors should be focused on unity (not uniformity) wherever possible, especially in these last days.
Yes, Orthodox converts, in my experience, are insufferable on this issue--the Eastern Churches refuse to acknowledge the validity of any other denomination or religion, which tends to rub off on the converts. That insistence borders on a kind of spiritual xenophobia that really put me off when I went to a few Russian Orthodox Masses when I was younger (though I loved the services otherwise).
It's funny, or not, that Rod omits to mention that the Catholic Church appoints a trained exorcist in most dioceses. The characters in Nosferatu could have taken the young lady to a Catholic Church for an exorcism--there are plenty of them in Germany!
PS, I really dug your reading of the film, Rod. I saw it on the weekend and found the last half hour a little lurid, probably because the film couldn't resolve its tensions for the reasons you cite here.
"There were plenty of them [exorcists] in Germany"
In the 1990s Pope John Paul II requested each diocese worldwide appoint an exorcist. That's still more aspirational than actualized even today, especially in Germany.
Back to the film which is set in 1838 in the fictional town Wisborg which stands in for the real East German seaport of Wismar. This area was under Swedish Lutheran control from 1648 to 1803. It was a very Protestant area and more to the point by that time deeply saturated with humanism and Enlightenment. Then there's Fichte, Feuerbach, Kant, and Hegel, all of whom had left or were leaving their mark on German society.
I don't think there were plenty of Catholics in that area, let alone exorcists. German Catholics were found in the Rheinland and Bavaria / Baden-Wuerttemburg.
The bigger question the film offers is not 'Why didn't they call the exorcist?', but 'Why is Count Orlok travelling by giant sailing ship from Romania to Germany?'.
I recall on one of Rod's previous sites, when Rod raised the question whether the Reformation was coming to an end, an Orthodox reader advised that the Reformation will never end until the Pope returns to Holy Orthodoxy, because the Pope was the first Protestant, putting himself above the collegial leadership of the patriarchs and archbishops.
Maybe, but in context of that discussion, I found it amusing, bordering on insightful. When I was small, Greek Orthodox was a tiny minority church, a handful of people in town belonged to it. I used to joke that Greek Orthodox are lucky, because they can buy all their Christmas presents during the post-Christmas sales. (They give gifts on Twelfth Night, by which time the rest of us have forgotten Christmas and are getting on with the New Year.)
Having heard from Rod, and JonF, and various friends who comment here from time to time, I find Orthodoxy worth appreciating, considering, and learning from, even if I don't embrace it wholesale as a body of doctrine. I find it reasonable, based on the incomplete history that has come down to us, that the Orthodox faiths reflect early Christian practice, not back to the first century, but not long after, and certainly the claims of the Bishop of Rome emerge later on. Rod doesn't espouse everything his father believed and said, but he still loves him. We can offer that kind of respect. Knowing that the earliest humans were very similar to today's Khoi and San populations in southern Africa doesn't induce me to drop the culture I've acquired, but, they are a reflection of the life our our earliest ancestors.
The Orthodox are no more off-base on this than are traditional Catholics, at least regarding other "denominations." If you believe that your Church is THE Church it stands to reason that you'll find all the other churches lacking in some manner or another.
My mother knew a Catholic priest from Spain who after coming to the U.S. became friends with a Lutheran pastor. He told her how one day he was visiting and a woman was brought in "and she was possessed!" My mother asked "What did you do?" The priest said "I got out of there!"
The real-life story that became the basis for the novel and film "The Exorcist" involved a Lutheran boy. His parents brought him at last to a Catholic priest on advice of their Lutheran pastor, who told them the Catholics know how to deal with this kind of thing.
I wasn't just responding to this post but to Living in Wonder and many of his other posts generally. There's often some anti-Protestant comment that I have to ignore in order to appreciate the value of his writing.
Why does it surprise you if an Orthodox writer finds some aspects of Protestantism problematic? As no doubt you are aware, entire books have been written on the subject from all sides.
It doesn't surprise me. In my original post, I was simply asking what he meant by "acceptable Lutheran" and making the point that confessional Lutherans "live in wonder" and accept demons and the spiritual world as real.
And Natalie, I imagine it sets your teeth on edge as it does mine to see The Protestant Reformation listed as the first break with Christendom, which lead to the blank world we are surrounded by now.
I've thought Rod's "Living in Wonder" project wrongheaded from the beginning. I'm sure you've noticed how little weight if any he gives to The Word of God. In fact, reliance on the Bible is usually presented as rationalism, which, of course, it is anything but. And rationalism being one of the enemies, maybe we should put our Bibles away and go outside and moon up at the night sky.
It's an upscale version of the Pentecostal vogue of fifty years ago.
A thought- are we supposed to think being rationalistic is bad. I think you can be quite rationalistic without being a materialistic atheist or a radical empiricist. I think you’re a much better off being rationalistic than being credulous.
Yeah to some degree. You could juxtapose rationalistic against rational in a way similar to scientistic to scientific but I don’t think the line is as firm here. I think most people mean , I value human reason and logic and no I don’t go on blind faith and ancestral superstition and I tend to believe in cause and effect and that 2plus 2 equals 4 and science is not a end all and be all but it’s not a cage either.
It mainly has to do with whether one "believes in reason" in such a way that it becomes an ideology in and of itself; in such a way that it precludes other forms of knowledge that reason is actually not competent to dismiss.
Well put. Rationalism at its worst is not rational. It’s a deformation of reason. In fiction , it’s the person who can’t believe there is a haunting because - that can’t be- even though his own senses tell him, it is.
There is a meaningful difference between being "rational" and "rationalistic." The rational man accepts that there is a such thing as reason, and that it is a good tool for understanding the world. The rationalistic man believes that formal reason explains everything in the world, and leaves no room for mystery. We should be reasonable; we should not be rationalistic, which is a form of superstition that is acceptable to the post-Enlightenment world. The rationalists in Nosferatu are like credulous country bumpkins who can't accept science because it offends their sense of religion.
Rationalism is not a superstition. In the sense you’re using the word- which I think is probably correct - it’s more a deformation of reason.It forgets the point made by Pascal-
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. A superstition is a belief in effects that have no plausible cause. A mindless deference to traditions that no one can make any sense of. Rationalism at least tends to help people understand the world as they live in it. Precisely because it does, it’s bred a certain hubris. If you can’t explain something in materialistic terms it must not exist. So it should be criticized and its limits recognized.But something tells me that embracing a pre modern conception of the world might not be so great.
I'd think that the term "respectable Lutheran" here is connected to the reference to Kierkegaard, who lived in a society full of them. A respectable Lutheran in that context was a person who imagined that being a Christian was the same thing as being a good middle-class Danish citizen.
Yes, EXACTLY! That's why I praised Kierkegaard, a convinced Protestant who railed against the bourgeois conformism of the Danish state church as an obstacle to real conversion. Kierkegaard was instrumental in my own conversion, by the way.
A Catholic or Orthodox Kierkegaard would rail against those who believed that one had done all necessary to be a good Catholic or Orthodox, simply by going to church and being a formal part of the community. Nothing wrong with going to church and being a credit to your community, but if you use that as a barrier to the radical encounter with Christ -- as the Lutheran Kierkegaard said many respectable middle-class Danish Lutherans of his day did -- then you are in trouble.
Søren was also absolutely central to my own conversion; without him, I wouldn't even have understood the possibility of becoming a Christian. It was pretty much him and Dostoevsky who did it for me—well, along with a stiff shot of William Blake.
I don't take Rod's comment to be knocking Protestants in general or Lutherans specifically. Sethu (above) is right. He's commenting on a particular type of Protestant who is essentially wrapping naturalistic materialism on a God shaped box. The key is "respectable". Respectable society is fine with you going to church (of any denomination), but if you actually take that good and evil, God and Satan, Christ rose the dead stuff seriously and think it applies to your life, and especially if you thin such things might actually happen today... you're a total weirdo.
Either there is a spiritual reality, or there isn't. And the West has spent the last 800 years gradually convincing itself that there isn't. This habit is most advanced in modern Protestant denominations (notably excluding the charismatics). Are there deeply devout Protestants who take the spiritual realm seriously? Of course. Many. I am one of them. But Rod has pointed out many times that, as denominations, most post-Reformation churches fight spiritual warfare with both hands (voluntarily) tied behind their backs.
This is something I keep trying to point out. The choice is not between Catholic/Orthodox vs all Protestants. One should not overlook the LCMS when seeking a liturgical church that is Sacramental and respectful of the mysteries of God. Should the need arise, the LCMS does perform exorcism and we recognize that we do not define what God can do. We believe that the very real presence of Christ is in the
Lord's supper- His body and blood. We do not believe that baptism is our " coming out" as a Christian, but is rather when Christ cleanses our sins through the holy waters of baptism. The Lutheran church was a place of great rescue and regeneration for me as a Christian who felt very isolated and floundering and searching. I never understood the meaning of the "Communion of Saints" or the "Church Triumphant" until I came to the LCMS and will be forever thankful. We respect church history and believe that tradition, when in its proper perpective, helps us to participate more fully in true worship in body and spirit.
I will also add that the LCMS is the largest of the conservative Lutheran church bodies in the US, but there are others. I am a member of the American Association of Lutheran Churches, which is in fellowship with the LCMS. Dr. Jordan Cooper, who does a lot of theological discussion online with his website/podcast "Just and Sinner," is a member of the AALC. He's worth looking into if you're interested.
Rod, I am glad you were able to take a break but happy to have your Substack back for my daily reading. I'm sorry to bother you with a mundane detail, but could you remind us what to do when your daily posts stop showing up in the Substack feed? You have told people before, but as I never had the problem I did not save those posts. Now I am only able to find your posts if I go into the subscription setting of my Substack app and click on you.
I don't know exactly, but I know that people have gone to the Substack Help feature, and found out. It involves toggling some setting in your dashboard. Maybe someone who is reading this, and has done this before, can help.
Rod, thank you for writing the EC article looking at ideological blindness. Until a day or so ago, I didn't know about the UK government recently refusing to investigate. You've been important and unique in tracking patterns of institutional denial for many years now. The contrast between Mount Athos being cut off from the world and the urgent need to keep documenting these failures really stands out. Institutional "rationalism" without moral foundation can enable terrible evil while claiming to serve social good. Thank you for speaking out.
Your description of the polite, mannered, impotent Protestants in the face of Orlock, actual evil, kind of reminded me of an episode of the X-Files "Signs and Wonders", season 7, episode nine. In the story, Mulder and Scully investigate what appear to be ritualistic murders in a small town. In the town, there are two churches who claim to be of Christ. There is the polite, worldly-adjacent coffee on Sunday "Love is love," congregation. Then, out on the edge of town, are rowdy, Bible is literal, snake handling, speaking in tongues rubes. At first, aspects of the murders seem to finger the latter, and given their strangeness (to modern eyes,) one is inclined to blame them. But things are not as they seem, and a conversation the agents have with the head pastor of the fundamentalists make plain. The facade of the polite ones in town is just a mask, hiding evil from the darkest pit.
Reminds me of Borat, which I haven't seen in years. The only people who could "roll" with the the clueless Kazakh were the Bible-thumping fundamentalists out in their revivalist tent on the outskirts of town. Everyone else either ridiculed, feared, or threatened Borat, from the genteel country club set to the Memphis ghetto thugs.
I liked Nosferatu but I disliked the ending. I won't give spoilers, but it was completely unnecessary considering the other events in the movie.
Ironically, I usually chuckle in horror movies at how insistent people are that supernatural things aren't happening. "There's a logical explanation for the levitating werewolf swinging an axe!" But Willem Dafoe's Van Helsing character was one of the few occult experts I would have dismissed as crazy. "It is just as I feared. She is cursed!" I would have had the same skeptical reaction as Friedrich lol. As a moviegoer I know Dracula is real: Dafoe was so unhinged I was STILL doubting him.
I laughed when they reached Orlok's castle and the floor is flooded with hundreds of rats. Dafoe's character turns to Thomas, and completely serious, says "Ok Thomas you go first". It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it broke the spooky tension.
While watching the 1922 version in a sold-out screening, everybody burst out laughing at the inter-title card after Orlok views a locket picture of real estate agent's fiance. It read: "She has a very pretty neck".
I agree. I found the film rather boring as it progressed. There was a spookiness when Thomas was in Transylvania, but then it waned quickly back in Germany.
Tangentially related to the film; many years ago I read an article (I want to say from "The New Republic," though it could have been from "The Atlantic") that for God to indisputably prove His presence, she would have to see a giant transdimensional hand reach out of a portal and write "I am God and I exist" in huge letters in the sky. There was another smarmy comment about how it should also be in multiple languages, in order to be inclusive, but I really do get the feeling that it would be take something like that to convince a Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.
Well, it wasn't the hand of God, but the hand of evil cast its long shadow over the city of Wisborg, in what one video blogger called "pure German Expressionism." I concur, and despite it being a little too eroticized for my tastes, "Nosferatu" has probably some of the best cinematography of any film this year. It's certainly more imaginative than any slasher flick.
I say, "Magic Sky Man?—yes, exactly. Is there a problem here? He lives over yonder, in the empyrean at the edge of the sky. If you wave, He can see you. . . "
"Nosferatu" has probably some of the best cinematography of any film this year.
I found this to be both the strength and weakness of the film. He went all in on mood and atmosphere - what would German Expressionism look like in 2024 - at the cost of everything else.
Peterson frustrates. I've seen interviews where he'll say something more Christian than what I've heard in many pulpits, but then back away when cornered on his faith-adjacent beliefs. His current speaking tour is "We who struggle with God". I'll assume he's sincere in his 'struggle' but he does seem to be trying to have it both ways at times.
Then again, the fact that he's not completely 'in the tank' for Christianity might be a large part of his appeal to unchurched seekers. There are those whose conversion started by watching one of his videos. I am curious where JBP eventually lands.
We Who Wrestle with God. :) Calling up the image of Jacob. It's really crazy how much JBP references back to the Old Testament when doing interviews these days!
Rod wrote: "Because nobody there understands that the nature of the evil they’re dealing with, evil runs rampant for a time."
This is the value of worthwhile horror - it testifies to God by His absence. (I summarily exclude slasher, jump scare, gross out and torture porn from the worthwhile horror category.)
I'll avoid spoilers in the following. Egger's films all assume a reality beyond the material, even if only for our entertainment. He went all-in on atmosphere and mood, which is appropriate for a homage to an early silent German Expressionist film. Heavy shading stands in for black and white. Some dream-like sequences are entirely fitting here. It's the most atmospheric and mood-heavy of his four films, but Egger's limits here are the limits of his faithfulness (aside from a few twists) to the 1922 source material when construing his latter-day homage - which is why I reluctantly list it the fourth best of his four movies.
Salvation from, or, at least, appeasement of, evil through sacrifice is at the core of almost all religion. About the oldest story there is. Makes an appearance here as well.
Orlok demands that Ellen give herself freely to him in full conscious confirmation of the teen-age spiritual relationship she had unwittingly made years earlier. He won't take her in the way he takes other characters with whom he had no prior connection. The other victims are 'rapes' whereas he wants, needs her voluntary submission.
We see a sort of spiritual warfare (albeit occultic, as Rod noted) but not holiness.
Does Eggers present an unhealthy fascination with evil? I don't think so. The evil of Egger's Orlok is at every moment presented as repulsive and destructive. Compare to the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film where Gary Oltman gets to strut through London in glamorous pre-Victorian threads as the Desirable Male.
I've seen the 1922 Nosferatu played at the original 18 frames/second with a live organ in a 1920s Chicago movie palace and thus chose the same place for the 2024 update where I saw it with five other guys. Predictably, we all resorted to form over post-movie beers.
The atheists interpreted it in Freudian/Jungian terms - all about sex and desire conjuring the vampire into being. The other Catholic and I immediately noted the parallels to Catholic exorcism stories. The other two just thought it an entertaining homage to a classic film.
Exactly. There is a tendency among some Christians to want to dismiss the horror genre as unhealthy to consume as entertainment or storytelling. And that is a too simplistic and broad brushing approach. There is some, even much of it, as you point out that is indeed trash, and at best, very best, the spiritual equivalent of junk food. At worst, it can do harm. But other examples not only tap into the sense of wonder that also comes from science fiction and fantasy, but encourages serious examinations on the nature of evil, human heroism and even on the nature of God/good.
I love both of those, but my tastes are particular. In horror, I need a good script, atmosphere, genuine menace, but no nihilism. And absolutely no splatter porn. Fantasy, I love detailed world building, rich atmosphere, or swashbuckling heroism and hijinks. Both, if I can have it.
The two world wars not only killed off millions of Europe's best and bravest men, the two world wars sapped the confidence out of the Europeans and allowed Europe to be run by effete intellectuals. Robert Schuman, the architect of the European Union, was typical of the new European that rose to power out of the ashes of the Second World War. The empty pant suit, Ursula von der Leyen, is the logical outcome of Schuman's project. These people are bloodless and supine, dedicated to providing their people with "free" health care, six weeks vacation and woke indoctrination. If the Muslims brutalize some of their cities and make whores out of their working-class girls, it is a small price to pay for being citizens of the world of woke.
Please consider moderating your language when you speak of the groomers' victims. Have you seen and heard some of them on X? Many of them (those who survived) are women of great dignity and courage.
Government exists for material not spiritual reasons (the latter is the job of the Church). Even in antiquity governments, when not misdirected by potentates' arrogance and egos, busied themselves with the material well being of their peoples as best they could. Hence I very much disagree with your criticism governments that seek a decent life for their citizens. The problem so described, here and in Ed West's blog, is with certain regimes failing to attend to that duty more fully, by also protecting people from malefactors within.
People are corrupt. Power is corrupt. Governments, without something to restrain them seek more and more power. That that is so clear in history is impossible to ignore. The restraints, of course, come from character, especially Christian character, law and citizens with the ballot box, soap box and cartridge box.
But the idea that government is inherently noble and well-meaning, so to are those who seek power within its structure, is fantasy.
I was not advancing the notion that government is inherently noble. Only pointing out that government's legitimate role is to further the material interests of its people, while the Church is charged with attending to spiritual needs. Obviously (I hope) both church and state can go off the rails in their respective spheres and we have plenty of historical examples. I mentioned above the tendency of rulers to confuse their own egos with the public good.
Most governments are ugly. My point is that Europe was a confident continent in 1913. Barbara Tuchman paints a vivid portrait in "The Proud Tower." The first world war destroyed the Proud Tower.
Not unlike the monsters that govern California, to wit, Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom. Deliberately allowing reservoirs to run dry, and speechless when confronted. Five people dead (so far) and many homeless (not just wealthy folks either).
According to what I read, LA is governed by 9 lesbians whose primary self-stated goal is to promote DEI.
Evil that should be confronted, and God help the Californians, perhaps they might finally vote these unfeeling monsters out of office.
It appears Billy Crystal's home is burned to a crisp. I wonder who he voted for. Gavin Newsom. Karen Bass. Adam Schiff. Kamala Harris. Joe Biden. Crystal got what he must have wanted.
Many stars have lost their homes. Sad for them as well as those that are less well heeled (including friends of ours) Adam Corolla had some choice words for this, as did James Woods. It would be great if some would come to Jesus as a result.
Definitely Starlink -- I saw a stream of 10 or 12 the other evening myself, above the skies of Minneapolis. Further north I've seen as many as 40 in a row. Strangely beautiful, in a way, and not scary.
Yep, saw it myself last summer and that's what it looked like -- recognized it right away.
Yup, Starlink.
Rod, please tie together the inability of a child to give meaningful consent with the evil realm's legalism (but you said yes), and consider the impact of the rape scandal in Britain, P. Diddy, Epstein, 300,000+ missing children at the border, etc. It is horrifying to contemplate the magnitude of the spiritual corruption and devastation. Pray, pray, pray.
But But Donald Trump says mean things! THAT is what must be fought! :-)
He's had his share of rape scandals... but mostly he's just plain psychotic. He's looking for millions of votes to still be counted from an election he won, because he is convinced it was a landslide, not a mere 51 percent.
Trump is all ballyhoo. He’s not disconnected from reality. He’s a deliberate purveyor of spectacle, the star of which is himself.
While I’m sure he’s got plenty of 1963-era experiences grabbing women, I tend to doubt he’s in the same genre as Diddy or Epstein.
Also possible. In which case, he DOES know what he is doing.
Are you gonna say "egads"? This seems like a good time for a classic egads.
Not part of my vocabulary. I've run into it in old novels now and then, but I can't say I understand the word well enough to use it intelligently.
I'm curious. Are you normally this ignorant or are you making a special effort?
If at some future time you have a question to offer, which reflects that a conscious mind capable of thought generated it, please do get back to us. I'd like to hear it.
Pray Pray Pray YES. It Is Working!
Some Good News
The Key To Unlocking The Fruits of the Spirit | Spencer Klavan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BJH0zsenvU
Jan. 8 2025 #DailyWire #AndrewKlavan #Christianity
Spencer Klavan, author of “Light of the Mind, Light of the World,” issues a powerful call to action for Christians in America: stop refuting, start asserting. Meaning, Christians no longer need to refute The Left’s materialist idea that humans are merely atomic matter. Instead, we must assert that we believe in something greater: a God-given spirit that enriches our lives. The question is, how do we unlock the fruits of that spirit? Spencer and I hope to shed some light on this question.
Asserting what one believes is always more effective than reacting to what someone else had to say.
Because no one else has said it, I must be the brute who comes along and kicks over the kiddies' picnic table.
I don't doubt that given Spencer Klavan's gifts, he has much to contribute, but there is no way in which an unashamedly homosexual man can be a clarion leader in the fight to rally Christians to be less inclined to connive with the world in its follies.
Intolerant ( accent on the second syllable, said petulantly ), I know. So mean! Yes.
Thumbs down.
Muhammed Ali to George Foreman during their "Rumble in the Jungle" legendary heavyweight championship title fight, October, 1974:
"Is that all you got, George?"
So looking forward to seeing Nosferatu!
Also, I thought you (and your readers) might enjoy this essay I just wrote that touches on re-enchantment, about the murder of Brian Thompson viewed as a human sacrifice performed by a self-initiated shaman reinhabiting the dark prehistoric religious impulses that lurk in the back of the human psyche.
https://open.substack.com/pub/theplenum/p/the-initiation-of-guiseppi-murderoni
I see him more as a dragon-slayer. All that was missing was a damsel in distress.
Starmer? Dostoevsky? You're kidding. This is a man who (in?)famously said he doesn't have a favourite novel or poem, and isn't interested in ideas. He is a perfect (or as near perfect as any human being can be) product of unreflective Utilitiarianism, as deaf to art as he is blind to religion.
Didn't Starmer also say he doesn't dream, as in, have dreams when he goes to sleep? I found that particularly odd; I thought everybody dreamt, at least every once in a while.
Starmer looks like the manager you see when you tell the snotty sales clerk you'd like to talk to her manager.
This guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7SNEdjftno
not enough flair!
If true , very strange!
It's worth noting that I get my info about Starmer from The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters, who do have their biases. So take that as one will.
Not, though, I assume, biases shared by The Guardian?
Ha, well, I hadn't read that Guardian article. My news about the UK is filtered through various podcasters and YouTubers. I imagine the writer at "The Guardian" was just as puzzled by Starmer's statement as I was.
Maybe. Although my impression (I could be wrong: I haven't trawled every corner of the internet looking for responses) is that the interview raised fewer eyebrows than I'd have expected. For me, the prospect of a government run by a man with (by his own admission) no artistic tastes, no philosophical framework, no irrational fears - which might explain why he seems to have no understanding of the fears of others - and no conversation with his own unconscious, is profoundly worrying.
Yes, you're right - at least according to an article in The Guardian shortly before the general election. Also that he had no childhood fears or phobias. When I look back at the catalogue I suffered from, that seems pretty much unimaginable to me.
I've heard stories about people who don't have "a mind's eye," who are unable to visualize a 3D image in their mind. That's strange to me, for I can't really grasp *not* being able to visualize something when I close my eyes.
My mother told my my aunt used to have dreams that ended "To be continued" and did pick up the next night. At least that's what my aunt said to her sisters.
My understanding is that everyone dreams, but there are some people who seldom if ever remember their dreams. He could be one of the latter.
Do vampires dream?...Oops, was I bad?
In fiction, some can but what you might call the classic answer is , no because they’re dead.
If I eat something very sweet before bed, I have wild dreams. Gotta try blood pudding before bed.
LOL! How English of you!
Has a vampire ever suffered from bruxism?
Presumably he means he doesn't remember his dreams; I think it's biologically impossible to not dream.
There was a man in New Jersey who claimed he never slept. He was under observation for long enough that researchers concluded if he's stayed awake this long he might well never sleep at all.
Did he . . . remain in his right mind?
As far as I could tell from the news coverage, he functioned perfectly normally. I haven't heard that anyone figured out the physiology involved.
"Why Keir Starmer Should Read Dostoevsky
My new essay in The European Conservative is about how all the civilization-destroying effects of progressive ideology we are enduring now were all foreseen by the 19th century Russian novelists, especially Dostoevsky."
Ever consider they see the civilization-destroying effects of progressive ideology as A Good Thing?
Of course they do. Human beings don't go around saying, "Evil be Thou my Good". But the state of affairs that they want, and are increasingly getting, will end up destroying them, and us in the bargain, if we don't do something about it. Did you see this Jess Phillips person immediately go to, "I feel threatened" when she refused to budge on revisiting the issue? And Dreher is right. The Tories are fully complicit. I've been an Anglophile since I was six and it hurts me to say this, but England's done.
It was a real eye opener for me, H/T James Lindsay. That the goal is not to reform civilization, but destroy it.
Jess Phillips SHOULD feel threatened. If we (the sane people) win, she loses power, If she wins, she'll be stood up against the wall. They always kill their own.
George Orwell, who, it is never to be forgotten, died a man of the Left, once quoted with approval Marx's dictum that after the revolution human history can begin. That's what these lunatics believe.
George Orwell was an anarchist.
Sure. Anything you say.
Orwell is almost impossible to pin down politically--I think of his politics at the Politics of Decency. His Collected Essays, which are his best work, reveal how deeply Orwell detested the average leftist. He was adamantly anti-globalist, anti-communist and anti-vegetarian; he was also pro-patriot but anti-nationalist and anti-imperialist. He loved the traditions of his own country and understood why people in other countries would feel the same; he hated the aristocracy largely because he thought they did a terrible job of running the country. If he'd lived another ten years he probably would have become a Red Tory or a Tory Anarchist.
I have a recommendation for you both. It is a fantastic book called The Same Man, George Orwell and Evelyn Waugh in Love and War. The author is David Lebedoff and is a superb writer. His thesis is that for all their differences, Waugh and Orwell were kindred spirits and shared a deep loathing of modernity. Aside from being an anarchist, Orwell had a deep-rooted sense of common decency that would be anathema to an ideologue.
https://www.amazon.com/Same-Man-George-Orwell-Evelyn/dp/1400066344
Sounds interesting. I have a few books already on my table, but I'll look into it.
I reviewed that book when it came out! It's quite good. I actually wish it was longer.
Funny about Orwell but he had some brilliant insights yet was a die-hard leftist until his death. I wonder if royalty and income taxes might have altered his views if he lived long enough.
Didn't Orwell have to leave Barcelona incognito when the Comintern, under direct orders from Comrade Stalin, came looking for him? If so, I wonder if his leftism wasn't tempered in the end by the experience.
Maclin Horton, an occasional commentator here, once wrote a review of the 1992 film 'Bram Stoker's Dracula'. In it he noted the same tendency to exclude Christianity.
I just checked his site https://www.lightondarkwater.com but didn't find the old review. Mac, can you find and share it?
Oh, Coppola (of all his generation of directors the least talented) would make sure of that. In the publicity for the film when it was released he was explicit about it, the dreadful phony.
Yes. Eggers remakes the 1922 Nosferatu with some borrowings from Stoker. Coppola claimed to be faithful to Stoker but is nothing of the sort.
That's what I recall.
Didn't he manage to shoehorn anti-Catholicism into Godfather III, a film I could never drag myself to watch? I'm under that impression.
I recently rewatched Apocalypse Now. What a pile of crap. Spielberg at least has chops, if nothing to say. Scorsese is another story.
Sorry, I've never made it through Godfather III.
My wife was out of town a few years ago and I watched Godfathers I and II back to back. Ponderous, obvious, all about the art direction. Brando is strictly hambone. And who puts red wine in tomato sauce? Coppola manages to do a little discreet propaganda for el Lider in II. Just dreadful. It felt like doing homework.
Long time since I saw Godfather III, but I don't recall it being expressly anti-Catholic. Mixed bag - Michael Corleone repents of his criminal life after being inspired by a good cardinal, but there's a money laundering bishop in the mix as well. Good and bad side by side is about right.
Spielberg has never had anything to say and the notion he’s a great director has always irritated me. Scorsese was much better . Although I think little of his later movies. I think Terence Malik and Hal Ashby were interesting .
I mostly stopped reading ghost and supernatural fiction in the early 2000's, but prior to that I used to write on it regularly for a couple small press periodicals. I remember this phenomenon and recall that one of the books I reviewed, Tim Powers' 'The Stress of Her Regard,' was one of the few modern vampire novels that brought Christianity into play. Of course Powers is a practicing Catholic, so I'm sure that had something to do with it. Very good book, btw!
I've generally stayed away from this stuff all my life. Even as a pre-teen I was very skeptical about spiritualistic subjects, Biblical accounts excepted.
Hey Rob, most horror fiction is pretty bad but some amazing stuff published in the last 20 years. Andrew Michael Hurley has three beautifully written, unsettling folk horror novels--The Loney, Devil's Day, and Starve Acre--and you can't go wrong with the short fiction of Nathan Ballingrud ("North American Lake Monsters" is one of the great horror short fiction collections).
Are you familiar with Ray Russell's horror short story collection "Haunted Castles"? Overlook the dopey title, each story is solid. My favorite "Comet Wine" might be the best, compact presentation of the devil's empty promises I've read.
I've read a few of Russell's stories in anthologies (I collect old horror anthologies) and enjoyed them. I'll look for that collection
Had a look at these, but I must say that I never really was into "horror" per se, but more ghost stories and supernatural fiction. The last contemporary genre writer that I really paid attention to was Thomas Ligotti, but I did write a little on Russell Kirk's ghost stories when they were reprinted 20 or so years ago. Actually got to meet Mrs. Kirk and talk to her about his fiction as a result, which was fun.
I'm sorry but I don't have it in electronic form, just the paper. I could find that piece and type it in but I'm otherwise occupied today, and by the time I got it done this discussion would have faded away.
One thing I do remember (or think I do) from that piece is a remark along these lines: it's not so much that vampirism is a form of sex, but that sex in our time is a form of vampirism. I really hated the film and I wonder now if maybe it wasn't as bad as I thought. I haven't seen it since. I do like the actual Bram Stoker's actual _Dracula_.
There's definitely some stuff worth preserving in the magazine, but although it was produced on a computer, with Pagemaker, and although we kept the files, they fell victim to format rot less than ten years after the magazine was published (early to mid '90s). Sometime ca 2003 or so I was going to convert them with an eye toward putting them online, but no longer had Pagemaker and no means to convert or extract the text. I tried scanning and OCRing the magazines, but that didn't work very well. I typed in a few articles but really didn't have the free time to do much of it and abandoned the effort.
"...it's not so much that vampirism is a form of sex, but that sex in our time is a form of vampirism." Yes, that was the article's punchline.
Things I recall from your essay:
* You tried to verify the film makers' claims that sex was loaded in Stoker's writings, so you went back and re-read Dracula and found nothing of the sort.
* You wrote that the film actually blames the Church for Dracula becoming a vampire!
I'm wondering about that re-reading of the book now. Wondering if I was too adamant about the sexual interpretation of the book. Coppola certainly wildly exaggerated it, but perhaps the interpretation has at least a little justification. I don't know...it was thirty years ago and I was pretty annoyed. :-)
I didn't remember your last item at all. Interesting and all too typical of American culture from 1970 on.
I learned something about Google Translate just today - if you take a picture of a printed page, then go to Google Translate and use "image" as what is to be translated - but then ask for an English to English translation, it will give you a transcript of words from an image.
As a confessional Lutheran, I'd like to ask what you mean by describing the Baton Rouge psychologist as a "respectable Lutheran"? And I will add that not just "pious Protestants" are rationalistic. Every Roman Catholic and Orthodox friend I have is rationalistic.
For a Lutheran take on demon possession and exorcism, read Afraid: Demon Possession and Spiritual Warfare in America by Robert H. Bennett, where he draws on Scripture, writings of Luther, and Lutheran hymns to exorcise demons. Many of our hymns deal with the reality of evil: "Oh, little flock, fear not the Foe who madly seeks your overthrow; Dread not his rage and power. What though your courage sometimes faints, his seeming triumph o'er God's saints lasts but a little hour." Luther's great hymn of the Reformation has this verse: "Though devils all the world should fill, all eager to devour us, we tremble not; we fear no ill; they shall not overpower us. This world's prince may still scowl fierce as he will. He can harm us none. He's judged; the deed is done. One little word can fell him." The reality of Satan and his minions is very real to confessional Lutherans.
Much as I appreciate Dreher's writing, this is a blind spot. He has the enthusiasm of the newly converted. He is not wrong in his premise, he is wrong in believing he is the only one. "There are still 7,000 who have not bowed the knee."
Those are exactly my thoughts and turns me off a bit to his writings.
Well, I'm not "newly converted," and I don't share the "spiritual xenophobia" of some of the Orthodox. Remember, I wrote about how repulsive I found that Athonite elder's condemnation of prayer with Catholics and Protestants. And in this very essay, I noted the lack of courage of an Orthodox priest to help a (non-Orthodox) family who needed it. And I noted how the US Orthodox churches almost totally neglect exorcism, even though it's part of our tradition.
I cannot honestly say that I believe Protestantism is just as valid as Orthodoxy, and I don't think it's fair of you to expect me to. I believe Catholicism is only as valid as it matches up with Orthodox truth, and I am not the least bit offended by Catholics or Protestants who regard Orthodoxy in the same light. We can't all be correct. What I do reject, though, are Christians (Orthodox and otherwise) who deny the validity of the faith of individual Christians, of whatever confession, because those individuals are living in error. I don't expect you, as a Lutheran, to give your stamp of approval to Orthodox teachings. How could you, being a Lutheran? That doesn't offend me. What would offend me would be if you said that my faith in Christ is counterfeit because of my theological error. Me, I would rather be in the foxhole with a truly believing Lutheran than with an Orthodox who was formally part of my confession, but whose faith was weak.
By "respectable Lutheran," I mean that she was a standard middle-class Protestant lady. It was not a criticism; it was a description meant to convey what she herself told me: that exorcism and all that was NOT part of her consciousness. If I had told the whole story, I would have explained how, not knowing what else to do, she simply prayed, and prayed, and abided with this suffering woman. Eventually, the demon left her. But in the long process, the psychologist suffered attacks, e.g., once a car nearly hit her as she was walking. When she next saw the patient, the demons, speaking in a voice not the woman's own, recalled the incident, and said, "We almost got you the other day when you were walking, but you are being protected." That Lutheran lay woman performed faithfully and heroically.
I agree that many Catholics and Orthodox, including clergy, are just as "modern" in this sense as Protestants -- in contradiction to their own tradition. But I just don't think it is tenable to say that Protestantism (Pentecostalism greatly excepted!) is as focused on this stuff as the older traditions are. Luther was -- he says he fought the devil! But over time, the whole world of spiritual warfare really did fade away from Mainline Protestantism. My Baptist friends are well educated and faithful, but they are hostile to this stuff, because it was never part of their lives within that confession. My goal in "Living In Wonder" is not to tell people "flee Lutheranism" (or whatever), but to encourage readers of all confessions to awaken to awareness of these realities, and what God has given us to fight the Enemy in this way. It is very easy as a middle class "respectable" Catholic or Orthodox to deny all this, in effect. The Orthodox priest I talked about in today's entry would mention the demons in his preaching from time to time, but when the moment presented itself to actually confront spiritual realities (not a demon, most likely, but a ghost), he balked. It was fine when it was all theoretical, but not when it became real. That attitude simply won't do, not for the age we live in now, and into which we are moving rapidly.
That all makes perfect sense. Viewing this from a multi-denominational Protestant perspective, there is a finite possibility that the Roman Catholic church is absolutely correct in every particular -- or the Orthodox church, or the Presbyterian Church, or the Methodist Church... or any other. We can't all be right, but we could all be part right and part wrong, which for fallible human beings and their human institutions seems most likely. As to demons... I find the line of thinking that evil is the absence of God, rather than that it is an affirmative force in its own right, to be the most edifying explanation. There is a great emptiness to someone like Hitler, however destructively he expressed it.
I like to cite *The Neverending Story* as a theological text: the ultimate evil is the Nothing, and Satan is sort of like Gmork, the created chief lieutenant of the Nothing.
Confessional Lutherans are not mainline Protestants.
I'm sorry, but what? Maybe this comes from all the German Lutheran influence in my life, but my understanding - and the understanding I've seen living in Germany - is that traditionally, confessional Lutherans are as mainline as they get. In German, the terms "Protestant", "Lutheran", and "Evangelical" are practically interchangeable.
Katja, I am not an expert on the possible tiny denominations of Protestant churches in the United States, but essentially, there are two Lutheran Churches in the United States: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and The Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod.
The LCMS does NOT consider itself mainline, at least that I know of, though twenty years ago, based on my own disappointing experience in an LCMS church, I thought it might be starting to drift; in recent years, I have seen references here and there that many Lutherans in the LCMS are concerned that the denomination is drifting, but the LCMS still affirms the inerrancy of the Bible. That is the definition of non - mainline.
The ELCA, on the other hand, differs little from The Episcopal Church USA, that is, both are apostate, both are disgraceful. I say they're apostate because they honor Jesus Christ in the breach. They have a form of righteousness while denying the power thereof. They certainly do not believe in the authority of the Bible, let alone, in its inerrancy.
The "essentially" in my first paragraph is a reference to two small Lutheran denominations, The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and The American Association of Lutheran Churches, which I have heard referred to as The American Lutheran Church. As far as I know, both are solid, both are orthodox.
I'm charmed by what unless something has changed is still WELS teaching, that the Pope is the Antichrist.
Please, if anyone knows better than I about some of this, speak up!!
I appreciate your response. I question no one's profession of faith, barring egregious defects in life or doctrine. Nor do I expect all Christians to be unanimous in their doctrine or practice, much as that was Christ's desire for His church. I hold the positions I do because I believe them to be true, as I know you do. I realize that when you write about doctrinal or practical matter, you write from your perspective and experience, as would be expected. My comment was not to dispute the substance of either your post or your latest book, which I am still wrestling with, but to suggest that your representation of Protestants may be representative of those whose path you have crossed but it often sounds more like a straw man and can distract from a valid and important point, more so for some than for others.
I am in full agreement that Christians of many flavors should be focused on unity (not uniformity) wherever possible, especially in these last days.
Blessings
Yes, Orthodox converts, in my experience, are insufferable on this issue--the Eastern Churches refuse to acknowledge the validity of any other denomination or religion, which tends to rub off on the converts. That insistence borders on a kind of spiritual xenophobia that really put me off when I went to a few Russian Orthodox Masses when I was younger (though I loved the services otherwise).
It's funny, or not, that Rod omits to mention that the Catholic Church appoints a trained exorcist in most dioceses. The characters in Nosferatu could have taken the young lady to a Catholic Church for an exorcism--there are plenty of them in Germany!
In southern Germany. Northern Germany, where the film is set, was thoroughly Protestant.
PS, I really dug your reading of the film, Rod. I saw it on the weekend and found the last half hour a little lurid, probably because the film couldn't resolve its tensions for the reasons you cite here.
"There were plenty of them [exorcists] in Germany"
In the 1990s Pope John Paul II requested each diocese worldwide appoint an exorcist. That's still more aspirational than actualized even today, especially in Germany.
Back to the film which is set in 1838 in the fictional town Wisborg which stands in for the real East German seaport of Wismar. This area was under Swedish Lutheran control from 1648 to 1803. It was a very Protestant area and more to the point by that time deeply saturated with humanism and Enlightenment. Then there's Fichte, Feuerbach, Kant, and Hegel, all of whom had left or were leaving their mark on German society.
I don't think there were plenty of Catholics in that area, let alone exorcists. German Catholics were found in the Rheinland and Bavaria / Baden-Wuerttemburg.
The bigger question the film offers is not 'Why didn't they call the exorcist?', but 'Why is Count Orlok travelling by giant sailing ship from Romania to Germany?'.
I recall on one of Rod's previous sites, when Rod raised the question whether the Reformation was coming to an end, an Orthodox reader advised that the Reformation will never end until the Pope returns to Holy Orthodoxy, because the Pope was the first Protestant, putting himself above the collegial leadership of the patriarchs and archbishops.
Which is the kind of absolute Orthodox nonsense I was referring to earlier...
Maybe, but in context of that discussion, I found it amusing, bordering on insightful. When I was small, Greek Orthodox was a tiny minority church, a handful of people in town belonged to it. I used to joke that Greek Orthodox are lucky, because they can buy all their Christmas presents during the post-Christmas sales. (They give gifts on Twelfth Night, by which time the rest of us have forgotten Christmas and are getting on with the New Year.)
Having heard from Rod, and JonF, and various friends who comment here from time to time, I find Orthodoxy worth appreciating, considering, and learning from, even if I don't embrace it wholesale as a body of doctrine. I find it reasonable, based on the incomplete history that has come down to us, that the Orthodox faiths reflect early Christian practice, not back to the first century, but not long after, and certainly the claims of the Bishop of Rome emerge later on. Rod doesn't espouse everything his father believed and said, but he still loves him. We can offer that kind of respect. Knowing that the earliest humans were very similar to today's Khoi and San populations in southern Africa doesn't induce me to drop the culture I've acquired, but, they are a reflection of the life our our earliest ancestors.
The Orthodox are no more off-base on this than are traditional Catholics, at least regarding other "denominations." If you believe that your Church is THE Church it stands to reason that you'll find all the other churches lacking in some manner or another.
Didn’t Luther throw an inkpot at a demon!
You can read a little about that here: https://redeemer-lutheran.net/2009/03/01/throwing-ink-at-the-devil/
Luther did indeed. The Devil was very real for him--and often in his presence.
My mother knew a Catholic priest from Spain who after coming to the U.S. became friends with a Lutheran pastor. He told her how one day he was visiting and a woman was brought in "and she was possessed!" My mother asked "What did you do?" The priest said "I got out of there!"
The real-life story that became the basis for the novel and film "The Exorcist" involved a Lutheran boy. His parents brought him at last to a Catholic priest on advice of their Lutheran pastor, who told them the Catholics know how to deal with this kind of thing.
I think you are mistakenly applying his commentary on the characters in the film to all Lutherans.
I wasn't just responding to this post but to Living in Wonder and many of his other posts generally. There's often some anti-Protestant comment that I have to ignore in order to appreciate the value of his writing.
Why does it surprise you if an Orthodox writer finds some aspects of Protestantism problematic? As no doubt you are aware, entire books have been written on the subject from all sides.
It doesn't surprise me. In my original post, I was simply asking what he meant by "acceptable Lutheran" and making the point that confessional Lutherans "live in wonder" and accept demons and the spiritual world as real.
I took it to mean "acceptable to the secular world".
I did as well.
And Natalie, I imagine it sets your teeth on edge as it does mine to see The Protestant Reformation listed as the first break with Christendom, which lead to the blank world we are surrounded by now.
I've thought Rod's "Living in Wonder" project wrongheaded from the beginning. I'm sure you've noticed how little weight if any he gives to The Word of God. In fact, reliance on the Bible is usually presented as rationalism, which, of course, it is anything but. And rationalism being one of the enemies, maybe we should put our Bibles away and go outside and moon up at the night sky.
It's an upscale version of the Pentecostal vogue of fifty years ago.
A thought- are we supposed to think being rationalistic is bad. I think you can be quite rationalistic without being a materialistic atheist or a radical empiricist. I think you’re a much better off being rationalistic than being credulous.
Yes!
Well, "rationalistic" with the suffix there is typically a pejorative: rationalism is to reason what scientism is to science.
Yeah to some degree. You could juxtapose rationalistic against rational in a way similar to scientistic to scientific but I don’t think the line is as firm here. I think most people mean , I value human reason and logic and no I don’t go on blind faith and ancestral superstition and I tend to believe in cause and effect and that 2plus 2 equals 4 and science is not a end all and be all but it’s not a cage either.
It mainly has to do with whether one "believes in reason" in such a way that it becomes an ideology in and of itself; in such a way that it precludes other forms of knowledge that reason is actually not competent to dismiss.
Well put. Rationalism at its worst is not rational. It’s a deformation of reason. In fiction , it’s the person who can’t believe there is a haunting because - that can’t be- even though his own senses tell him, it is.
I like that, Sethu. That really rings true.
There is a meaningful difference between being "rational" and "rationalistic." The rational man accepts that there is a such thing as reason, and that it is a good tool for understanding the world. The rationalistic man believes that formal reason explains everything in the world, and leaves no room for mystery. We should be reasonable; we should not be rationalistic, which is a form of superstition that is acceptable to the post-Enlightenment world. The rationalists in Nosferatu are like credulous country bumpkins who can't accept science because it offends their sense of religion.
Rationalism is not a superstition. In the sense you’re using the word- which I think is probably correct - it’s more a deformation of reason.It forgets the point made by Pascal-
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not. A superstition is a belief in effects that have no plausible cause. A mindless deference to traditions that no one can make any sense of. Rationalism at least tends to help people understand the world as they live in it. Precisely because it does, it’s bred a certain hubris. If you can’t explain something in materialistic terms it must not exist. So it should be criticized and its limits recognized.But something tells me that embracing a pre modern conception of the world might not be so great.
I'd think that the term "respectable Lutheran" here is connected to the reference to Kierkegaard, who lived in a society full of them. A respectable Lutheran in that context was a person who imagined that being a Christian was the same thing as being a good middle-class Danish citizen.
Yes, EXACTLY! That's why I praised Kierkegaard, a convinced Protestant who railed against the bourgeois conformism of the Danish state church as an obstacle to real conversion. Kierkegaard was instrumental in my own conversion, by the way.
A Catholic or Orthodox Kierkegaard would rail against those who believed that one had done all necessary to be a good Catholic or Orthodox, simply by going to church and being a formal part of the community. Nothing wrong with going to church and being a credit to your community, but if you use that as a barrier to the radical encounter with Christ -- as the Lutheran Kierkegaard said many respectable middle-class Danish Lutherans of his day did -- then you are in trouble.
Søren was also absolutely central to my own conversion; without him, I wouldn't even have understood the possibility of becoming a Christian. It was pretty much him and Dostoevsky who did it for me—well, along with a stiff shot of William Blake.
I don't take Rod's comment to be knocking Protestants in general or Lutherans specifically. Sethu (above) is right. He's commenting on a particular type of Protestant who is essentially wrapping naturalistic materialism on a God shaped box. The key is "respectable". Respectable society is fine with you going to church (of any denomination), but if you actually take that good and evil, God and Satan, Christ rose the dead stuff seriously and think it applies to your life, and especially if you thin such things might actually happen today... you're a total weirdo.
Either there is a spiritual reality, or there isn't. And the West has spent the last 800 years gradually convincing itself that there isn't. This habit is most advanced in modern Protestant denominations (notably excluding the charismatics). Are there deeply devout Protestants who take the spiritual realm seriously? Of course. Many. I am one of them. But Rod has pointed out many times that, as denominations, most post-Reformation churches fight spiritual warfare with both hands (voluntarily) tied behind their backs.
Otherwise known as "apostate."
This is something I keep trying to point out. The choice is not between Catholic/Orthodox vs all Protestants. One should not overlook the LCMS when seeking a liturgical church that is Sacramental and respectful of the mysteries of God. Should the need arise, the LCMS does perform exorcism and we recognize that we do not define what God can do. We believe that the very real presence of Christ is in the
Lord's supper- His body and blood. We do not believe that baptism is our " coming out" as a Christian, but is rather when Christ cleanses our sins through the holy waters of baptism. The Lutheran church was a place of great rescue and regeneration for me as a Christian who felt very isolated and floundering and searching. I never understood the meaning of the "Communion of Saints" or the "Church Triumphant" until I came to the LCMS and will be forever thankful. We respect church history and believe that tradition, when in its proper perpective, helps us to participate more fully in true worship in body and spirit.
For those not in the know, I will add LCMS stands for Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
I will also add that the LCMS is the largest of the conservative Lutheran church bodies in the US, but there are others. I am a member of the American Association of Lutheran Churches, which is in fellowship with the LCMS. Dr. Jordan Cooper, who does a lot of theological discussion online with his website/podcast "Just and Sinner," is a member of the AALC. He's worth looking into if you're interested.
There are a fair number of Lutheran bodies in the United States; see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Lutheran_denominations_in_North_America
https://unite-production.s3.amazonaws.com/tenants/gracefaithlove/attachments/137651/Lutheran_Comparison.pdf
Rod, I am glad you were able to take a break but happy to have your Substack back for my daily reading. I'm sorry to bother you with a mundane detail, but could you remind us what to do when your daily posts stop showing up in the Substack feed? You have told people before, but as I never had the problem I did not save those posts. Now I am only able to find your posts if I go into the subscription setting of my Substack app and click on you.
I don't know exactly, but I know that people have gone to the Substack Help feature, and found out. It involves toggling some setting in your dashboard. Maybe someone who is reading this, and has done this before, can help.
Rod, thank you for writing the EC article looking at ideological blindness. Until a day or so ago, I didn't know about the UK government recently refusing to investigate. You've been important and unique in tracking patterns of institutional denial for many years now. The contrast between Mount Athos being cut off from the world and the urgent need to keep documenting these failures really stands out. Institutional "rationalism" without moral foundation can enable terrible evil while claiming to serve social good. Thank you for speaking out.
Your description of the polite, mannered, impotent Protestants in the face of Orlock, actual evil, kind of reminded me of an episode of the X-Files "Signs and Wonders", season 7, episode nine. In the story, Mulder and Scully investigate what appear to be ritualistic murders in a small town. In the town, there are two churches who claim to be of Christ. There is the polite, worldly-adjacent coffee on Sunday "Love is love," congregation. Then, out on the edge of town, are rowdy, Bible is literal, snake handling, speaking in tongues rubes. At first, aspects of the murders seem to finger the latter, and given their strangeness (to modern eyes,) one is inclined to blame them. But things are not as they seem, and a conversation the agents have with the head pastor of the fundamentalists make plain. The facade of the polite ones in town is just a mask, hiding evil from the darkest pit.
Check it out.
Reminds me of Borat, which I haven't seen in years. The only people who could "roll" with the the clueless Kazakh were the Bible-thumping fundamentalists out in their revivalist tent on the outskirts of town. Everyone else either ridiculed, feared, or threatened Borat, from the genteel country club set to the Memphis ghetto thugs.
Thanks as always for the thoughtful reflection. Here is another take on the film with an Orthodox Christian perspective. https://ecosemiotics.com/2024/12/28/nosferatu-an-orthodox-christian-film-review/
I liked Nosferatu but I disliked the ending. I won't give spoilers, but it was completely unnecessary considering the other events in the movie.
Ironically, I usually chuckle in horror movies at how insistent people are that supernatural things aren't happening. "There's a logical explanation for the levitating werewolf swinging an axe!" But Willem Dafoe's Van Helsing character was one of the few occult experts I would have dismissed as crazy. "It is just as I feared. She is cursed!" I would have had the same skeptical reaction as Friedrich lol. As a moviegoer I know Dracula is real: Dafoe was so unhinged I was STILL doubting him.
"It is just as I feared. She is cursed!"
"Release the Kraken!"
I watched Nosferatu in a very full theatre. They were laughs at few points during the 'horror' film.
I laughed when they reached Orlok's castle and the floor is flooded with hundreds of rats. Dafoe's character turns to Thomas, and completely serious, says "Ok Thomas you go first". It wasn't supposed to be funny, but it broke the spooky tension.
While watching the 1922 version in a sold-out screening, everybody burst out laughing at the inter-title card after Orlok views a locket picture of real estate agent's fiance. It read: "She has a very pretty neck".
I agree. I found the film rather boring as it progressed. There was a spookiness when Thomas was in Transylvania, but then it waned quickly back in Germany.
Tangentially related to the film; many years ago I read an article (I want to say from "The New Republic," though it could have been from "The Atlantic") that for God to indisputably prove His presence, she would have to see a giant transdimensional hand reach out of a portal and write "I am God and I exist" in huge letters in the sky. There was another smarmy comment about how it should also be in multiple languages, in order to be inclusive, but I really do get the feeling that it would be take something like that to convince a Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris.
Well, it wasn't the hand of God, but the hand of evil cast its long shadow over the city of Wisborg, in what one video blogger called "pure German Expressionism." I concur, and despite it being a little too eroticized for my tastes, "Nosferatu" has probably some of the best cinematography of any film this year. It's certainly more imaginative than any slasher flick.
Isn't it tiresome the way atheists all use the "magic sky man" language when they sneer at believers? They really ought to come up with something new.
"It is an evil generation that looks for a sign."
I say, "Magic Sky Man?—yes, exactly. Is there a problem here? He lives over yonder, in the empyrean at the edge of the sky. If you wave, He can see you. . . "
The "sky daddy" business is the atheists' attempt at humor.
And that's precisely the sort of thing God *wouldn't* do, if the temptations of Christ in the wilderness are any indication.
"Nosferatu" has probably some of the best cinematography of any film this year.
I found this to be both the strength and weakness of the film. He went all in on mood and atmosphere - what would German Expressionism look like in 2024 - at the cost of everything else.
In one interview, Dawkins said he wouldn’t convert even if something like that happened.
So what would it take then? I'd think the end times were beginning if I saw God's hand in the sky.
I think he agreed that there was no possible evidence that would persuade him.
Rod, I want to say that, if this essay of yours doesn't convince Jordan Peterson to drop Jung for Christ then nothing short of a miracle will.
Peterson frustrates. I've seen interviews where he'll say something more Christian than what I've heard in many pulpits, but then back away when cornered on his faith-adjacent beliefs. His current speaking tour is "We who struggle with God". I'll assume he's sincere in his 'struggle' but he does seem to be trying to have it both ways at times.
Then again, the fact that he's not completely 'in the tank' for Christianity might be a large part of his appeal to unchurched seekers. There are those whose conversion started by watching one of his videos. I am curious where JBP eventually lands.
We Who Wrestle with God. :) Calling up the image of Jacob. It's really crazy how much JBP references back to the Old Testament when doing interviews these days!
Rod wrote: "Because nobody there understands that the nature of the evil they’re dealing with, evil runs rampant for a time."
This is the value of worthwhile horror - it testifies to God by His absence. (I summarily exclude slasher, jump scare, gross out and torture porn from the worthwhile horror category.)
I'll avoid spoilers in the following. Egger's films all assume a reality beyond the material, even if only for our entertainment. He went all-in on atmosphere and mood, which is appropriate for a homage to an early silent German Expressionist film. Heavy shading stands in for black and white. Some dream-like sequences are entirely fitting here. It's the most atmospheric and mood-heavy of his four films, but Egger's limits here are the limits of his faithfulness (aside from a few twists) to the 1922 source material when construing his latter-day homage - which is why I reluctantly list it the fourth best of his four movies.
Salvation from, or, at least, appeasement of, evil through sacrifice is at the core of almost all religion. About the oldest story there is. Makes an appearance here as well.
Orlok demands that Ellen give herself freely to him in full conscious confirmation of the teen-age spiritual relationship she had unwittingly made years earlier. He won't take her in the way he takes other characters with whom he had no prior connection. The other victims are 'rapes' whereas he wants, needs her voluntary submission.
We see a sort of spiritual warfare (albeit occultic, as Rod noted) but not holiness.
Does Eggers present an unhealthy fascination with evil? I don't think so. The evil of Egger's Orlok is at every moment presented as repulsive and destructive. Compare to the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film where Gary Oltman gets to strut through London in glamorous pre-Victorian threads as the Desirable Male.
I've seen the 1922 Nosferatu played at the original 18 frames/second with a live organ in a 1920s Chicago movie palace and thus chose the same place for the 2024 update where I saw it with five other guys. Predictably, we all resorted to form over post-movie beers.
The atheists interpreted it in Freudian/Jungian terms - all about sex and desire conjuring the vampire into being. The other Catholic and I immediately noted the parallels to Catholic exorcism stories. The other two just thought it an entertaining homage to a classic film.
Exactly. There is a tendency among some Christians to want to dismiss the horror genre as unhealthy to consume as entertainment or storytelling. And that is a too simplistic and broad brushing approach. There is some, even much of it, as you point out that is indeed trash, and at best, very best, the spiritual equivalent of junk food. At worst, it can do harm. But other examples not only tap into the sense of wonder that also comes from science fiction and fantasy, but encourages serious examinations on the nature of evil, human heroism and even on the nature of God/good.
One just has to be discerning.
I don't know about unhealthy but I have zero interest in watching horror films or reading horror books. Same with fantasy fiction.
I love both of those, but my tastes are particular. In horror, I need a good script, atmosphere, genuine menace, but no nihilism. And absolutely no splatter porn. Fantasy, I love detailed world building, rich atmosphere, or swashbuckling heroism and hijinks. Both, if I can have it.
The two world wars not only killed off millions of Europe's best and bravest men, the two world wars sapped the confidence out of the Europeans and allowed Europe to be run by effete intellectuals. Robert Schuman, the architect of the European Union, was typical of the new European that rose to power out of the ashes of the Second World War. The empty pant suit, Ursula von der Leyen, is the logical outcome of Schuman's project. These people are bloodless and supine, dedicated to providing their people with "free" health care, six weeks vacation and woke indoctrination. If the Muslims brutalize some of their cities and make whores out of their working-class girls, it is a small price to pay for being citizens of the world of woke.
"...empty pant suit." Big chief like' em plenty.
Please consider moderating your language when you speak of the groomers' victims. Have you seen and heard some of them on X? Many of them (those who survived) are women of great dignity and courage.
‘Toom Tabard’
Government exists for material not spiritual reasons (the latter is the job of the Church). Even in antiquity governments, when not misdirected by potentates' arrogance and egos, busied themselves with the material well being of their peoples as best they could. Hence I very much disagree with your criticism governments that seek a decent life for their citizens. The problem so described, here and in Ed West's blog, is with certain regimes failing to attend to that duty more fully, by also protecting people from malefactors within.
People are corrupt. Power is corrupt. Governments, without something to restrain them seek more and more power. That that is so clear in history is impossible to ignore. The restraints, of course, come from character, especially Christian character, law and citizens with the ballot box, soap box and cartridge box.
But the idea that government is inherently noble and well-meaning, so to are those who seek power within its structure, is fantasy.
I was not advancing the notion that government is inherently noble. Only pointing out that government's legitimate role is to further the material interests of its people, while the Church is charged with attending to spiritual needs. Obviously (I hope) both church and state can go off the rails in their respective spheres and we have plenty of historical examples. I mentioned above the tendency of rulers to confuse their own egos with the public good.
Most governments are ugly. My point is that Europe was a confident continent in 1913. Barbara Tuchman paints a vivid portrait in "The Proud Tower." The first world war destroyed the Proud Tower.
Not unlike the monsters that govern California, to wit, Karen Bass and Gavin Newsom. Deliberately allowing reservoirs to run dry, and speechless when confronted. Five people dead (so far) and many homeless (not just wealthy folks either).
According to what I read, LA is governed by 9 lesbians whose primary self-stated goal is to promote DEI.
Evil that should be confronted, and God help the Californians, perhaps they might finally vote these unfeeling monsters out of office.
It appears Billy Crystal's home is burned to a crisp. I wonder who he voted for. Gavin Newsom. Karen Bass. Adam Schiff. Kamala Harris. Joe Biden. Crystal got what he must have wanted.
Many stars have lost their homes. Sad for them as well as those that are less well heeled (including friends of ours) Adam Corolla had some choice words for this, as did James Woods. It would be great if some would come to Jesus as a result.