“… your kind will pray for a man with a sword.”

“Someday, when all your civilization and science are likewise swept away, your kind will pray for a man with a sword.”

— Robert E. Howard

There is much of truth in this.

Pray that there will still be good men with swords to be found!

 

Orwell’s 1984 and Today | Imprimis

We can see today the totalitarian impulse among powerful forces in our politics and culture. We can see it in the rise and imposition of doublethink, and we can see it in the increasing attempt to rewrite our history.

Source: Orwell’s 1984 and Today | Imprimis

From the introduction to this essay:

“On September 17, Constitution Day, I chaired a panel organized by the White House. It was an extraordinary thing. The panel’s purpose was to identify what has gone wrong in the teaching of American history and to lay forth a plan for recovering the truth. It took place in the National Archives—we were sitting in front of the originals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution—a very beautiful place. When we were done, President Trump came and gave a speech about the beauty of the American Founding and the importance of teaching American history to the preservation of freedom.

“This remarkable event reminded me of an essay by a teacher of mine, Harry Jaffa, called “On the Necessity of a Scholarship of the Politics of Freedom.” Its point was that a certain kind of scholarship is needed to support the principles of a nation such as ours. America is the most deliberate nation in history—it was built for reasons that are stated in the legal documents that form its founding. The reasons are given in abstract and universal terms, and without good scholarship they can be turned astray. I was reminded of that essay because this event was the greatest exhibition in my experience of the combination of the scholarship and the politics of freedom.

“The panel was part of an initiative of President Trump, mostly ignored by the media, to counter the New York Times’ 1619 Project. The 1619 Project promotes the teaching that slavery, not freedom, is the defining fact of American history. President Trump’s 1776 Commission aims to restore truth and honesty to the teaching of American history. It is an initiative we must work tirelessly to carry on, regardless of whether we have a president in the White House who is on our side in the fight.

“We must carry on the fight because our country is at stake. Indeed, in a larger sense, civilization itself is at stake, because the forces arrayed against the scholarship and the politics of freedom today have more radical aims than just destroying America.”

The whole essay is excellent. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest!

Church and Culture: the true Covid Crisis of 2020 | Anglican Way Magazine

Source: Church & Culture: the true Covid Crisis of 2020 | Anglican Way Magazine

While this essay could perhaps be formatted a bit better and concluded a bit more decisively, the points that it raises are nonetheless ones that Christians, and Anglican Christians in particular, need to “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest“: our temporal future depends upon it – and so, it may well be, does the eternal well-being of many souls.

The role of Christianity in shaping the culture, laws and ultimate identity of both the United States and United Kingdom specifically, and more widely of western civilization, has been central to the emergent intellectual and cultural crisis that may well prove for history the most enduring legacy of the COVID virus…

The seeming zeal… with which bishops closed churches and the State shut down public worship and access to the sacraments has exposed a fundamental crisis about what the fullness of life and its support requires. Is human life really just about mere physical well-being and comfort in the end?

The cooperation of the churches in their own marginalisation is striking and threatens deep change for their influence, unless firmly turned around and challenged. While on a more mundane level, hard questions will soon have to be faced too about the long term consequences of promoting “live streaming” of worship with the express intent that congregations can therefore stay at home!

Indeed.

“We remember, in September, when the Winged Hussars arrived!”

Relief of the Siege of Vienna, 12 September 1683

“Then the Winged Hussars arrived,
Coming down the mountainside!
Then the winged hussars arrived!
Coming down they turned the tide!
We remember, in September,
When the Winged Hussars arrived!”

On this date, 337 years ago, troops of the Holy League, led by King Jan III Sobieski of Poland, break the Ottoman Turkish siege of Vienna, saving both the Imperial City of the Holy Roman Empire, and almost certainly, Christian Europe itself from Islamic and Turkish domination. At the climactic moment of the battle, the largest cavalry charge in history – 18,000 horsmen, led by King Jan himself, at the head of his 3,000 elite Winged Hussars – delivers the final, crushing blow, charging down the Kahlenberg and sweeping the enemy from before the Gates of Vienna. In the words of the epic contemporary paean to this battle by the Swedish heavy-metal band Sabaton, with which I opened this post,

“We remember, in September, when the Winged Hussars arrived!”

Byzantine chant: Lament for Constantinople: Ο Θεός ήλθοσαν έθνη/ “O Lord the heathen are come” | YouTube

Source: Byzantine chant: Lament for Constantinople – Ο Θεός ήλθοσαν έθνη / “O Lord the heathen are come” | YouTube (performed by Alexander Lingas/ Liturgica)

“Fall of Constantinople, (29 May 1453). After ten centuries of wars, defeats, and victories, the Byzantine Empire came to an end when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks in May 1453. The city’s fall sent shock waves throughout Christendom. It is widely quoted as the event that marked the end of the European Middle Ages. Ο Θεός ήλθοσαν έθνη translated as ‘O God, the nations have invaded your inheritance’. Manuel Chrysaphes, the composer of this marvellous historical piece, which has been discovered at the beginning of the first world war, did not find more eloquent words than those of Psalm 78 [Psalm 79] in order to mourn in it the church of Aghia Sophia [Hagia Sophia].”

 

Revisiting Charlemagne as Europe Disintegrates | The American Conservative

“A healthy dose of skepticism should underlie any empirical endeavor, but there can be no doubt from Nelson’s deft exploration of the extant record that Charlemagne proved himself ‘great’ in every sense.”

Source: Revisiting Charlemagne as Europe Disintegrates | The American Conservative

A little historical perspective, on one of the primary founders of pre-modern Europe. A great man indeed – not perfect, not wholly admirable, but those qualities are not essential for greatness – as even the author of the book being reviewed was forced to admit, despite her Left-leaning biases:

“Sometimes Nelson’s feminist bias comes through gratuitously.

“Is it really worth commenting that Charlemagne’s marital relations were chronicled only by male observers? Would a woman’s marital relations chronicled only by women be equally problematic?

“Similarly, was disapprobation of the Byzantine Empress Eirene’s murder of her own son the result of ‘patriarchy and good old-fashioned misogyny’? Would filicide be more acceptable in some kind of gender-neutral utopia?

“These foibles notwithstanding, it is noteworthy that Nelson voluntarily chose to cap an already distinguished career with a biography of the kind of man Charlemagne truly was: a great one.”

But speaking of Left-leaning biases, the virtue-signalling (I was tempted to a more pithy term) is great in some of the comments. Good Lord have mercy, these people are commenting on an article in The American CONSERVATIVE…??? The alleged “conservatism” of some of these folks is in noticeably short supply. Indeed, some of them are either trolls or idiots, maybe both!

Still, the article (book review) itself is worth a read – and so, I have no doubt, is the book, but my “to-read” list is too long as it is – even if some of the commenters are nattering nabobs of nutcase-ism. And Charlemagne is, as every generation up to the ’60s has known him, without doubt, to be: a great man.

 

And on a related note… Be a rebel. Save society.

Yes. This.

Settle down, raise a family. This is going to take a while.

“The real way to leverage your time and make a lasting difference is exponential and generational: get married, have children, practice your faith, raise liberty-minded children, be active in the community, serve your family, homeschool your children, give them a real education, and teach them to be self-sufficient, well-read, healthy, and wise.“

The quote above is an excerpt (I’d say, the key excerpt) from a friend and fellow Christian clergyman’s Facebook post this morning. Here’s the whole thing:

“What’s the best way for young people to fight for human liberty in the west? A podcast? A blog? Go on a speaking tour? Run for office?

“Maybe.

“But the real way to leverage your time and make a lasting difference is exponential and generational: get married, have children, practice your faith, raise liberty-minded children, be active in the community, serve your family, homeschool your children, give them a real education, and teach them to be self-sufficient, well-read, healthy, and wise.

“And raise each of your children to do the same thing and create strong families of their own.

“Living the swinging single libertarian life and/or having a biologically unfruitful relationship simply neutralizes and nullifies any long-term influence you might have had, and surrenders the field to others who are doing the hard, generational work of raising their own children to promulgate their values. The cultures that reproduce will push all the others out. And if that culture is oppressive and tyrannical, you don’t want them in the majority.

“This is akin to Aesop’s Fable of the tortoise and the hare – only in this version, the rabbit is sterile while the turtle is prolific.

“The west is dying because most young people don’t have the long view in mind, and also because young women do not understand the old adage about ‘the hand that rocks the cradle [rules the world]’ and are thus clueless about what it means to be truly empowered and strong.”

As our Eastern Orthodox brethren would say,

Wisdom! Attend.

Now, if I could just find someone to raise a family with…! *wry smile*

 

Bishop Schneider condemns Pachamama statue as ‘new golden calf’ in open letter | News | LifeSite

Bishop Athanasius Schneider has today issued an open letter forcefully condemning the use of the Pachamama statue at the Amazon Synod in the Vatican.

Source: Bishop Schneider condemns Pachamama statue as ‘new golden calf’ in open letter | News | LifeSite

For those who might not be aware, the “Pachamamas” are a set of statues or figurines – goddess / fertility figures, for the Amazonian people, and idols to orthodox Christians – brought back to Rome from the already highly-controversial Amazonian Synod attended by the current Bishop of Rome, Pope Francis, and were “used in an Oct. 4 Vatican Gardens ceremony, processed into St. Peter’s Basilica and kept at a side altar Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina on the via della Conciliazione.”

To say that this has evoked concern from many Roman Catholics (and others) is to risk severe understatement! Such concern that, a few days ago, a couple of intrepid traditional Catholics went so far as to spirit these images away from their location in the Church of Santa Maria, and throw them into the Tiber River (they have reportedly since been recovered, alas). Here is a video of the action itself:

Bishop Schneider says Vatican is betraying ‘Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind’ | News | LifeSite

However noble such aims as “human fraternity” and “world peace” may be, they cannot be promoted at the cost of relativizing the truth of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and of His Church and of undermining the first Commandment of the Decalogue.

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Bishop Schneider says Vatican is betraying ‘Jesus Christ as the only Savior of mankind’ | News | LifeSite

While I am not of the Roman Catholic observance, it cannot be denied or ignored that those who are members of that communion comprise half of all Christians in the world, and just a bit under a fifth (16%) of the global population. Therefore what the Roman Catholic Church – and its Supreme Pontiff – says or does has tremendous significance, both among Christians and indeed on a global scale.

Unfortunately, the current Bishop of Rome, speaking with the prestige and moral authority that comes with the See of Peter, has been saying and doing some very concerning things of late: things that have been causing great disquiet to Christians both within and outside Roman Catholicism.

God bless Bishop Athanasius Schneider – Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, and one of the leading voices for Catholic orthodoxy in the Roman Church today – and all those who are attempting to obtain clarity on these matters! He comments,

“The problem is of the utmost seriousness, because under the rhetorically beautiful and intellectually seductive phrase ‘Human Fraternity,’ men in the Church today are in fact promoting the neglect of the first Commandment of the Decalogue and the betrayal of the core of the Gospel.

“However noble such aims as ‘human fraternity’ and ‘world peace’ may be, they cannot be promoted at the cost of relativizing the truth of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ and of His Church and of undermining the first Commandment of the Decalogue.

“The Abu Dhabi document on ‘Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together’ and the ‘Higher Committee’ tasked with implementing it are somewhat like a beautifully decorated cake that contains a harmful substance. Sooner or later, almost without noticing it, it will weaken the body’s immune system…

“A peace that is an inner-worldly and purely human reality will fail. For… ‘the peace of Christ is not nourished on the things of earth, but on those of heaven. Nor could it well be otherwise, since it is Jesus Christ Who has revealed to the world the existence of spiritual values and has obtained for them their due appreciation…’

“God created men for heaven. God created all men to know Jesus Christ, to have supernatural life in Him and to achieve eternal life. To lead all men to Jesus Christ and to eternal life is, therefore, the most important mission of the Church.”

– Bishop Schneider

Amen.