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Issue 026

Mad Mondays Issue 017
Pagan Moontide of Juno 29, Anno Domini 2020

All the This'es

"For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him." Psalm 103

Artwork:  "Underneath the Rusty Factory"  Artist: TomTC

Nothing changed.

Everything changed.

At once.

"The pharmaceutical industry has mice that will tell us that the drugs they are advancing into the market are safe.

Bret Weinstein was a professor of biology at Evergreen State University in Olympia, WA, until recent years when he and other science faculty members were outed as racists. The ensuing chaos on the campus was a harbinger of recent uprisings in American cities.

Bret's appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience this last week, in order to tie together multiple schools of information and threads of thought in a common and scientifically defensible explanation of the chaos we are all watching unfold is one of the most timely messages I've heard, outside the Bible, in my lifetime.

That's a big claim. So. Yeah. Click the link and go listen to the 2.5-hour romp. Keep a pen and paper handy. Doodle. Take notes. Engage your thought process. I'm risking your goodwill with me as a reliable source. I'm not doing that on accident. 

"What are we to do about this?" Joe asked promptly. Joe likes to take action. Saying that we should change things and do this or do that is one of his favorite rants and the reason people listen to him. 

Remember, near the very end of a long discussion in which the points have been consistent, orderly and well made, Bret has just explained that everything in your medicine cabinet might actually kill you (or your epigenome, or your kids') because, even though the FDA has approved them on the basis of laboratory studies on mice over generations, the private labs who grow and sell the mice to every other lab in the world have been volkswagoning the genetics of the mice themselves so that they are bred to "beat the tests". 

Maybe. 

"What are we to do about this?" Joe asked promptly.

"How many 'this'es' are there?" Bret said.

That's the money ticket right there. 

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter isn't really food either. 

Veganism is famous because of the tireless efforts and funds devoted to it by the Seventh Day Adventists, who, coincidentally also invented corn flakes in order to help your sons stop masturbating (that, they also teach, is caused by the consumption of red meat.)

General Mills is a major underwriter of the American Heart Association. 

Drinking fluoride messes with your thyroid.

I reversed my chronic high blood sugar by eating fat.

Black Lives Matter says they are a Marxist front, but that didn't stop your grandma, your brother, and half of South Korea from giving them millions in the name of a man Nancy Pelosi calls "George Kirby."

Joe Biden, the racist, if not more, is actually the best option for everyone who hates Trump.

Trump. I mean. What is there that has not already been said? 

That's just a cavalier, kinda personal running list. 

"How many 'this'es' are there?"

.......

The tomb was empty then. 

The tomb is empty now. 

He is not there, just as he said. 

John 2:23-25 "Now when Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man."

#COVIDfallingstatuesBURNINGCITIESHindsight2020

How many "this'es?" All of them. Because where you find us, you find liars and their lies. We Christians, of all people, with our doctrine of original sin, need not be surprised by such things.

Nor need we be disturbed and dissuaded by them. 

He is risen.  

--

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

The Official Everbook Podcast:

Stop the White Noise is a weekly conversation between Rev. Fisk and Pastor Wolfmueller. Use Everbook to put to shame and silence the babbling cackle of white noise in your life and do more good.

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Quick Hits for the Eyebuds

Clickbait Paradise

COVID, phone hacking and Zoom horror picture show

In COVID news, the coronavirus is threatening the production of British Stilton cheese. Say it isn’t so! Forget toilet paper: some outlets are reporting that coins are in short supply.

Tough crowd: In Barcelona, a string quartet has played to an audience of plants and elsewhere sports teams are playing for stadiums of cardboard cutouts. In other lockdown relief, a town in Lithuania filled its square with sand and deck-chairs to give people a chance to go to the beach while borders are closed.

This is a bit scary: A journalist in Morocco has had his phone hacked through interception of the cellular signal. He only had to visit a website, any one, for the hackers to gain access to his data.

One enterprising duo has topped the US box office with Unsubscribe, a horror movie made using Zoom and a shoestring budget. There wasn’t a lot of competition as cinemas are closed, but all the same, it’s a good example of going off script.

Speaking of enterprising, a lady has designed face masks with faces printed on them. It’s sort of like a real life SnapChat filter, but kind of weirder. While we’re on SnapChat, the app is using augmented reality to identify dog breeds and types of plants. Handy!

And if you needed more reasons to stay away from TikTok, read this.

Support the Team

The Left has won the culture war. Now it’s roaming the battlefield, picking off survivors

Mollie Hemingway tweeted a comment to this effect in 2013. While Western civilization has enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace and freedom, to the “progressive” mindset, it is not enough. An article this week by Peter Hughes at Quillette observed how tolerance and intolerance increase at the same time. The thinking goes that as the “larger” issues of intolerance are resolved, then smaller and smaller transgressions are put in the spotlight. The writer asks a question which may be on the minds of many Mad Christians:

"How can we encourage kind and decent people to become ever-more tolerant when they are vilified no matter what they say or do because the concept of intolerance keeps expanding to swallow their good intentions? Our desire for greater equality and inability to acknowledge progress are spinning us into a purity spiral—as new layers of intolerance are uncovered, coercive corrective measures increase in ferocity. Left unchallenged, this takes us to ever-more dangerous places.By relentlessly expanding the concept of intolerance, prevalence-induced concept change ensures none of us can ever be good enough—if we pass one test of tolerance, we are sure to fail the next." 

Anyone who hesitates to enlist wholeheartedly with social justice warriors risks facing a kind of Kafka Trap, where even your denial of a charge brought against you will prove your guilt. For Christians, this is even more so, as we claim not only specific moral standards which are unpopular, but we appeal to objective Truth to explain humanity’s condition. Absolute truth is not in fashion. 

Hughes points out that there is great danger in not considering “ambiguity and nuance and...the complexity of human experience” because it is frustrating to anyone who is trying to be a good neighbor. Careful thinking about weighty ideas is what is needed when dealing with the massive effects of sin in our society. As a number of commentators have pointed out, tearing everything down does not guarantee that there is Utopia on the other side.

All we, like sheep, have gone astray

The Word teaches that all have sinned and that because of this, our world is under a curse. Yet today, many assume that everything would be just fine with more education, more money, or fixing "The System." Interestingly, Hughes suggests that compassion for the Other, perhaps even a realistic assessment of ourselves, is the way to halt the outrage and ramp up tolerance. 

Rev. Fisk has pointed out in the past that most human endeavor is an effort at self-justification, the desire to prove we can "be good on our own" without any help, "thank you very much." People embracing this “purity spiral” - the ever-expanding demand for tolerance - can glean a sense of righteousness, as they compare their hearts to a self-made checklist. Mad Christians have the antidote for this, we know where True Righteousness is found. May God give us boldness to speak it.

Have fun storming the castle!

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Trailmix

🌙 NASA wants help designing a new space toilet for a moon base

☢️ US military investigating thermo nuclear propulsion

🦠 Far-UVC light kills airborne coronavirus

🛑 A Tesla car mistakes Burger King sign for a stop sign and the burger giant used it for a commercial

🔬 The world’s smallest motor is just 16 atoms. 

🦾 Inside the lab where robots devise their own experiments

🇦🇺 Flying car racing is coming to outback Australia

A Good Word: Rec's from Rev Fisk
Book Recommendation
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking

Introversion is not something to fear, nor something to be ashamed of.  It just means input is processed differently.  For all of those who are introverts, who are raising introverts, or who befriend introverts, this book is for you.

Sweetness You May Have Missed
Podcast 0162

Stop the White Noise III

Recent Release

Until the Second Man


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Creative Meanderings in the Fictional Mind of Jonathan Fisk

I don't know what book it’s for, but it popped out this week on move day….

Let us pray: Almighty God, by the working of Your Holy Spirit, grant that we may gladly hear Your Word proclaimed among us and follow its directing; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

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