Artwork: "Voting"  Artist: Pawel Kuczynski

"One issue voting" is only a problem for those who are voting the other way.

Even if Donald Trump is an autocratic maniac with the power and potential to seize the reigns and crown himself King of Texas FOREVERS#GAMEOVER!!!, if you are a thinking Christian, then you don’t have much choice: you must vote for him anyway.

Because, if it comes to it, better a tyrant who outlaws abortion than a mob that insists on them.

What do you want me to do? Lie to you?

If you are not a thinking Christian, then yes, that is what you want. 

Ciao. 

For those who have a pen and paper handy to think with:
It’s simple: God will bless no people/tribe/nation so long "safe, legal and [if only it were] rare" infanticide whets our pharmaceuticals with the blood of sacrificed innocents.

It’s simple: Donald Trump, for being a jerk and a mean man, is also quite possibly the only authentically pro-not-killing-babies-cuz-that’s-demonic President we have ever had, both verbally and (far more important) legislatively. 

The most recent display (of many) is his nomination of Catholic Christian mother of seven Amy Coney Barrett to the SCOTUS to replace the deceased RBG. 

Barrett’s pope-y Romanism already has been trotted out to scare you, but mostly by hypocritical liars who are papists themselves. Just today, I was told Joe Biden carries a rosary. 

Does he use it? 

I can tell you that it does not matter: his prayers will continue to fall on God’s deaf ears so long as he continues to dance to Margaret Sanger’s drum of blood and tears. 

Of course, if you are voting for him, this statement makes you angry with me. How could I? 

It’s simple: For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

Read it again. Stop assuming you know what it says already, and read it slowly. 

Perhaps what really upsets you is not the idea that God does not listen to the prayers of evil people as they are busy hating him and seeking radically evil things. 

Perhaps what really upsets you is that you’ve invested so much of yourself in not voting for Trump that my commentary on Biden’s faithfulness is taken as a commentary on your own? 

Perhaps you can’t imagine God turning a deaf ear to Joe Biden’s prayers because that would mean he’d also have to turn a deaf ear on yours?

I would hope that thought would give you some serious pause.
I suggest that to go on comfortably ignoring the implications of abortion is to jeopardize not only your faith, but the place of Christianity on these shores.

I suggest that everything about American life that you hate and are afraid of is caused by abortion. 

I suggest that as long as we bleed our infants, then we should also expect Philistines to manage the rest of our affairs. 

I am not saying you are not a Christian if you disagree with me. I will never be the judge of that.

But I am saying you risk making a damned fool of yourself if you hate that pompous, orange Yankee so much that you are willing to abandon, “you shall not murder,” just because the authentic champion of human rights is a distasteful salesman and you think too highly of yourself to vote for him. 

Vote for death if you must. The fact is: the devil I know is pro-life.

Until next time,

Be strong, and let your heart know courage.
Rev. Fisk

🥽  Financial traders may use VR headsets to continue working from their home offices

🐌Kids in Gaza designed a park in Minecraft before it was built in real life

✈️ Christopher Nolan says it was cheaper to crash a real 747 for Tenet  than to use CGI

🤖 60ft Japanese Gundam robot is ready for action

⏲️ Ben Shapiro has had enough of California

🏈 NFL: might be a case of "get woke go broke"

A tiny couch, made from milk powder using a ”cold” method of 3-D printing, has been touted as having a number of uses including changing up hospital food and contributing to low-allergy diets. Also from the world of 3-D printing: a printer attached to endoscope could patch ulcers inside the patient’s stomach.

While we’re talking about foodstuff and stomachs, an article from Food52 provides a different view of the much vilified “wet markets” of Asia. Although some are of the sort that come to mind when you hear the name, many are closer to a "farmer’s market" that provide an important community hub and network for small traders. The writer focuses on Thailand’s markets and argues that regulating too tightly means that large, commercial entities will push out the small producers, limiting variety and quality.

Speaking of quality, the increasing demand for rare whiskies since coronavirus hit has led to a number of overpriced fakes. A team from Glasgow has developed a whiskey laser to detect the counterfeit, without even opening the bottle.

Katya Sedgwick, writing last week for The Spectator, had some interesting points to make about funeral rites and the late Justice Bader-Ginsburg. Although, she denies the existence of an afterlife herself, Sedgwick argues that the politicizing of RBG’s death is undeserved. She writes that although Ginsburg should be buried according to her Jewish tradition, the Justice's revolutionary admirers have turned her death into a pagan affair. 

The writer notes that in "Judeo-Christian traditions, the bereaved are encouraged to find solace in the thought that God is in control,” but that pagan philosophies "promise paradise in this world.” Sedgwick reasons that "to rest in power is an impossible proposition because those who crave power can never truly be at peace.” The article goes on to conclude that it is indicative of an unhealthy society to be "so preoccupied with politics that it is unable to let go of the dead. Think, for instance, of Vladimir Lenin’s shriveling body, forever restless and on display at the Red Square Mausoleum.”

Mad Christians by glorious contrast are not standing at the grave of a fallen savior, but rather our hope is in the resurrected Man. We rest in the power of his finished work, awaiting the day when we will enter the rest of the Prince of Peace.

Large protests have been held in Thailand, where royal overreach has worn a bit thin. One protester said they don’t want to abolish the monarchy but rather put it in “its right place.” Protests also continue in Belarus, aiming to keep pressure on President Lukashenko, who is accused of corruption and generally doing stuff that dictators do. 

On a side note, President Trump recently asked Nigeria’s president why he is standing by while so many Christians are killed. 

After many years of parents protesting that YouTube is dangerous for their children, the company is attempting to use A.I. to label and restrict mature content.  

Refreshed footage from vintage Formula 1 races reveals a different time. Apart from the classic spindly cars careening around the streets of Monaco and elsewhere, seeing crowds of people right up on the track with no barriers might make you cover your eyes. But it is interesting how “safe” we’ve made life today. If you’ve followed along with A Brief History of Power you might note that strange paradox of our low-risk lives: The more safe we are, the less risk we accept. 

A postcard dated from 1920 was recently delivered to an address in Michigan. The current resident at the house is using local social media groups to try and track down the intended recipient. Whimsical explanations for the 100 year delay in delivery could be considered, but more prosaically, the Post Office said this does happen from time to time. The spokesperson said that people find old mail at flea markets and antique stores and put them back in circulation. Oh well, it’s nice to imagine what might have been...

Although this may seem like something out of a historical text, Mongolia’s most eligible bachelor is an eagle hunter named Jenisbek Tserik. All the ladies love this 26-year-old champion hunter, who spends many days in the mountains, hunting with his eagles. He’s also “a master horseman, [and] a serial winner of tug-of-war competitions pitting two combatants wrestling a goat carcass.” Tserik’s people are descendants of Ghengis Khan and take their hunting seriously with husbands sometimes accused of spending more time with their birds of prey than their wives. Probably in an actual man cave...

You’ve probably heard someone complain about the seeming lack of “common sense” today - and it's not just the Boomers saying so! There are lies, half-truths and agendas transmitting through the white noise every day, burrowing their way into the distracted mindset of many. Mad Christians will be aware of the need for careful discernment when dealing with any information, when sources that were once assumed to be objective - media, politics and even science - are used to reinforce predetermined narratives.

This week saw Progressives sharing a Babylon Bee meme, which featured NBA players wearing lace collars in honor of late Justice Bader-Ginsburg. It seems the satire was lost on some, but when the message suits your worldview, there are blind spots. This is a light-hearted example which doesn’t do much damage, but it does highlight the situation we’re in. 

Dubbing something "fake news" is the favorite way for politicians to dismiss anything they don’t want to deal with. Yet a recent study concluded that “the origins of public misinformedness and polarization are more likely to lie in the content of ordinary news or the avoidance of news altogether as they are in overt fakery.” Go figure.

Rev. Fisk often notes that the Wisdom Books of Scripture contain all you need for wise living - in parenting, in friendships, marriage and our communities. Proverbs 14 says:

The simple believes everything, but the prudent gives thought to his steps. 

One who is wise is cautious and turns away from evil, but a fool is reckless and careless.

So we need to be on our guard. Fake news or not, we need the tenacity to keep asking questions of the data, of the source, of the assertion. 

Rev. Fisk tweeted this week about Kyle Rittenhouse, the 17-year-old boy, accused of shooting two people in the Kenosha riots. Is he a white supremacist who killed people in cold blood? Challenging the prevailing narrative with evidence and reserving judgement until more facts come in, is something that very few are doing. 

In the case of police shootings, a second look at the tragic death of Breonna Taylor may reveal there is more to the story than the narrative repeated by the loudest voices. Perhaps, police are not all racists who wish to hurt people of color. 

In the case of climate change, is Trump really a "climate arsonist" who is putting Americans in danger with his environmental policies? Some discernment is needed (The Cornwall Alliance and Environmental Progress counter some of those claims).

Is homeschooling a threat to democracy? (hot tip: Harvard professor Elizabeth Bartholet thinks so. Also here). Is Jeff Bezos’ Googlazon (ask Rev Fisk) preschool a good idea?

We don’t need to give our attention to every little thing, but the thick fog of this war requires that we know what we believe and why we believe it. 

Only Illuminati Need Apply
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I found this website a few years ago when looking for prayers. Ex corde is great but I wanted to read prayers from other saints to instruct me, because words often fail. The compiler of this site is a WELS pastor and he has gathered some wonderful prayers from various sources. They are sortable by theme, author, etc. on his website and he has compiled them into various softcover volumes on amazon [Free with Kindle Unlimited!]. There is one volume with historical Lutheran prayers, but my favorite is Prayers from the Ancient Celtic Church which has some treasures: St Patrick’s Breastplate along with several other “Loricas,” a prayer from the 6th century from which “Be thou my vision” was drawn, and others. They are glorious poetry and their unique repetitive style is mesmerizing, almost spell-like. Beautiful to read aloud.

A favorite, attributed to St Patrick, 5th century:

Our God, God of all people,
God of heaven and earth, sea and rivers,
God of sun and moon, of all stars,
God of highest mountain, of deepest valleys,
God over heaven and in heaven and under heaven.
He has his dwelling
in heaven and earth and sea
and all that is in them.
He inspires all,
he gives life to all,
he surpasses all,
he upholds all.
He ignites the light of the sun.
He surrounds the stars and tells them to shine.
He makes fountains in dry lands,
and dry islands in the sea,
and stars to serve the greater lights.
He has a Son,
coeternal with him and like him.
The Son is not younger than the Father,
neither is the Father older than the Son.
And the Holy Spirit breathes in them.
Not separate are the Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

Something for your listeners to consider adding to their prayer life. God bless!

Heidi

🇧🇪 Doctors in Belgium have signed an open letter outlining why they believe their country’s response to COVID "has become totally disproportionate and causes more damage than it does any good.”
🇬🇧 A German doctor was arrested in London after speaking at a protest, questioning the severity of the pandemic and the government's response
🙏 If the narrative fits: Waco pastor claims his prayers are responsible for Justice Ginsburg’s death

Let us pray:  Almighty God, You exalted Your Son to the place of all honor and authority. Enlighten our minds by Your Holy Spirit that, confessing Jesus as Lord, we may be led into all truth; through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.