The Mayflower's 400th Anniversary
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
Four hundred years ago, my ancestor Edward Doty boarded the Mayflower. He wasn't a Pilgrim but had sold himself as an indentured servant - a "white slave" - to Stephen Hopkins, one of the Pilgrims. We don't like to think of white people enslaving other white people, but the book They Were White and They Were Slaves: The Untold History of the Enslavement of Whites in Early America describes how the terms "indentured servant" and "slave" - and their fates - were often synonymous. Many of these poor English, the Irish, the Eastern Europeans were worked to death on farms, in coal mines, steel mills, and building railroads. The stories in this book are simply horrendous.
On the way across the ocean, however, the Pilgrims decided they shouldn't allow slavery in the New World, so they freed all their slaves. Thus Edward Doty became one of the Pilgrims and signed the Mayflower Compact, the first government document in America. But he remained something of a ruffian: he fought the first duel in the New World and was put in stocks twice for brawling. But Edward finally settled down and married. His descendants include Roger Sherman, the only person who signed all four U.S. founding documents (the Articles of Association, Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, and U.S. Constitution) - a descendant of a "white slave"!
Edward Doty's descendants also include Jonathan Edwards, leader of the First Great Awakening and one of the first presidents of Princeton Seminary; Civil War Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and Ulysses S. Grant (on the $50 bill) - two descendants of a "white slave" who led the fight against African slavery in the U.S. - poet and Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (a eugenicist); Presidents Franklin Pierce, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Through them, I am also related to Presidents James Madison (on the $5,000 bill), Grover Cleveland (on the $1,000 bill), Abraham Lincoln (on the $5 bill), Martin Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Theodore Roosevelt, and Gerald Ford.
My great-grandfather, Nicholas Richards, was a circuit-riding Methodist preacher in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin who was active in the "underground railroad" before and during the U.S. Civil War, helping slaves escape to Canada. Nicholas married Ann Stephens whose mother Sarah was from the Doty line. Sarah's mother Lucy had married the Quaker Daniel Anthony, so their daughter Susan B. Anthony is Robert's great-great-aunt, who as a young woman was active in the emancipation of slaves, later in life led the struggle for women's right to vote, and is the first woman whose portrait is on U.S. money. Sarah and Susan's cousin was James Duane Doty, a governor of the Wisconsin Territory and the founder of the capital city, Madison, where my wife and I raised our family.
These facts are not unusual: 30+ million Americans - about one-tenth of the U.S. population - are Mayflower descendants and thus are related to several U.S. Presidents, whether they know it or not. What is noteworthy, however, is the fact that the anti-slavery movement has been central to American history since its very beginning. In contrast, The New York Times has recently published an infamous series of articles, "The 1619 Project," that attempts to rewrite our history by claiming that slavery has been the basic, essential foundation of American history since its inception in 1619 when the Jamestown Colony was founded including some slaves and that the Mayflower Pilgrims were just a minor detail in our history. I grew up having learned just the opposite: the Jamestown Colony was abandoned and disappeared, so the Pilgrims in New England were the first European settlers who managed to survive - from which we have our Thanksgiving holiday that was originally celebrated together with Native American Indians.
Presently, the same sort of leftist historical revisionists are attempting to spin the narrative about the horrible killing of George Floyd into an insurrection against the "fundamentally flawed" so-called inherently racist U.S. government and society. Please read "Who's Behind the Riots? The New York Times and the Pulitzer Prize Committee" that details how our history has been rewritten and the rewriters are rewarded by the subservient Pulitzer Prize Committee. These lies are now being taught in our public schools and universities. It's been said that "facts are stubborn things" but George Orwell in his book 1984 knew otherwise:
"Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past… The mutability of the past is the central tenet of Ingsoc [English Socialism]. Past events, it is argued, have no objective existence, but survive only in written records and in human memories. The past is whatever the records and the memories agree upon. And since the Party is in full control of all records, and in equally full control of the minds of its members, it follows that the past is whatever the Party chooses to make it."
We are involved in a great civil reevaluation of our American experiment and a rewriting of our history, our beliefs about who we are as a nation. The leftist mass media, politicians, and educators think they are in full control of all historical records and our collective memories. They want to erase their own historical connection to the KKK, eugenics, fascism, and racism. It was the view of 19th- and 20th-century Darwinian science that stifled the cries of Ota Benge - "I am a man! I am a man!" - yes, that same "African pygmy Ota Benga (1883-1916) [who] was bought in a slave auction and displayed in 1906 alongside an orangutan in the Monkey House at the Bronx Zoo. The organizers intended this as a lesson for the public illustrating the scientific truths of Darwinian theory. African-American clergy at the time spoke out against the insult to their dignity, only to be dismissed by the New York Times, which explained that 'the pygmies … are very low in the human scale.'" (See "Human Zoos - How 'Science' Fueled the Racial Fire".)
The Left is indoctrinating our youth that your race, gender, or sexual orientation defines you. But "systemic racism" and "gender discrimination" aren't the real issues plaguing America - it is our opposing value systems, the fact that "modernity" - the secular humanist worldview is fighting to replace the Judeo-Christian worldview. Fr. Stephen Freeman's recent blog article "The Violence of Modernity" speaks to what went wrong with the early American experiment:
"Human beings make things happen, as does most of creation. Modernity, however, is another matter. Its better world has no limits, its project is never-ending. What are the proper limits of violence? Are there boundaries that must not be crossed? Modernity has as its goal the creation of a better world with no particular reference to God – it is a secular concept. As such, that which constitutes 'better' is, or can be, a shifting definition. In Soviet Russia it was one thing, in Nazi Germany another, in Consumer-Capitalist societies yet another still. Indeed, that which is 'better' is often the subject of the political sphere. But there is no inherent content to the 'better,' nor any inherent limits on the measures taken to achieve it. The pursuit of the better ('progress') becomes its own morality.
"The approach of classical Christianity does not oppose change (there is always change), nor does it deny that one thing might be better than another. But the “good” which gives every action its meaning is God Himself, as made known in Christ. In classical terms, this is expressed as 'keeping the commandments.' Those commandments are summarized in the love of God and the love of neighbor. There are other elements within the commandments of Christ that minimize and restrict the use of violence.
"There is, for example, no commandment to make the world a better place, nor even to make progress towards a better world. The 'better world' concept is, historically, a heretical borrowing from Christianity, a secularization of the notion of the Kingdom of God, translated into terms of progressive technology and laws (violence). But, in truth, the management of history's outcomes is idolatrous. Only God controls the outcome of history."
Our real task in life is not to "make the world a better place" but to "seek first the Kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33), to "strive to enter the Kingdom through the narrow gate" (Matthew 7:12), because "the Kingdom of Heaven is taken by great effort [violence], and those who exert effort [the violent] claim it for themselves eagerly" (Matthew 11:13-14). This is where we ought to focus our full energy: seeking first the Kingdom of God, building up the Body of Christ - the Church. Only then will all the other things fall into their rightful place.
What happened when the Old Testament Jews were taken into captivity? "Also they have shut up the doors of the porch, and put out the lamps, and have not burned incense nor offered burnt offerings in the holy place to the God of Israel. Therefore the Lord's wrath was on Judah and Jerusalem, and He has delivered them to be tossed back and forth, to be an astonishment, and a hissing, as you see with your eyes. For, behold, our fathers have fallen by the sword, and our sons and our daughters and our wives are in captivity for this" (2 Chronicles 29:7-9) The houses of worship were shut down, they abandoned their worship of the true God, and their wives and children were taken away and indoctrinated as pagans. This is precisely what we have let happen by giving in to secular humanism: our churches have been shut down and our families have become psychologically captivated by the dictates of secular humanism.
In the article Why bishops are wrong to allow government to dictate opening [and closing of] churches, how to receive Communion, we read -
"The oft-hailed 'principle of secularity,' whereby it is now taken for granted that civil states should be 'religiously neutral,' is scoffed at by [those who understand] that it is impossible, after the Incarnation, for peoples that have been touched by the Gospel to adopt neutrality toward the Gospel. Either their rulers will hate it, and their supposed neutrality will become a subtly effective instrument for marginalizing and privatizing religion, leading to its irrelevance and eventual extinction, or they will support it by legislation that consistently favors the interests of family and church, without which no just society can exist or endure.
"According to John Locke's influential 'Letter Concerning Toleration,' the State alone has true public jurisdiction and power, while religious bodies within the State exist and function at its sufferance and according to its regulations. The coronavirus pandemic has certainly exposed the secretly totalistic or quasi-ecclesial usurpations of our Lockean civil authorities: we see governments dictating when or how or even whether Communion can be distributed, when and under what conditions and for how many people church buildings can be opened, etc. We also see the bishops of the Church, in perfect conformity to the doctrine of Locke, submitting almost without a whimper to the total domination of the State. 'He who is not with Me is against Me,' says our Lord (Mt. 12:30)."
Toleration is the myth of modernity. It leads to a vacuous relativism that says you can believe anything in general... but nothing in particular! Having a particular set of beliefs that we cling to is considered "intolerant," so the social pressure is applied to force us to relativize our faith by agreeing that it's OK for people to believe whatever they want. "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remains no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which will devour the adversaries. A man who disregards Moses' law dies without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will he be judged worthy of, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant with which he was sanctified an unholy thing, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Hebrews 10:26-29).
What is the solution to this dilemma? "All discipline seems for the present to be not joyous but grievous; yet afterward it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been exercised thereby. Therefore, lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees, and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all men, and holiness without which no man will see the Lord, looking carefully lest there be any man who falls short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby the many be defiled; lest there be any sexually immoral person, or profane person, as Esau, who sold his birthright for one meal" (Hebrews 11:11-16). What are the key ideas here? "discipline," "exercise," "strengthen your feeble limbs," "holiness" (without it, we won't see the Lord!), "don't fall away from the grace of God," "don't practice sexual immorality," "don't be a glutton like Esau." Do the do's, and don't do the don't's! Put off your lazy bones, put on your sweats, get working out for the Kingdom!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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NOW, THE NEWS:
FOSTER PARENTS ADOPT 9 CHILDREN: 'WHO WAS GOING TO ADOPT THEM? WE WOULD.'
from: Live Action
(16 May) There is currently a shortage of people willing to become foster parents, and children are placed into the system without enough people to care for them. These children often come from traumatic backgrounds; their parents have died, been declared unfit, have abandoned them, or are incarcerated. Because so few homes are available, some of these children must be housed in juvenile detention centers, shelters, and group homes. But Sean and Jill Martin wanted to be one of the few couples willing to give these kids a home.
The Martins spoke to Live Action News about their journey to becoming foster parents, which resulted in them adopting 9 children from foster care. With their two biological children, that gave them an incredible total of 11 kids. "We grew up in a time when not everyone who was adopted always knew they were adopted,” Sean Martin explained. “At some point when they got older, often in their early teen years, their parents would tell them they were adopted. This was true for a couple of Jill’s friends. When this happened, it stuck with her and from that point on she wanted to adopt."
Initially, though, Sean didn’t want any part in adoption. He had seen the traumatic outcomes those adoption scenarios caused, but Jill refused to give up. "When we knew we would get married, Jill asked me to pray about adoption and talk to a couple of friends that we knew at that time who were adopted and maybe had a different experience," he said. "Over time, the Lord began to change me on the issue. By the time we got married, adoption was a part of the plan. As we learned more about adoption and all of the different types of adoption, we focused on kids who had special needs who were in the foster system. Who was going to adopt them? We knew we would."
Children who aren’t placed into foster homes to be reunified with their parents, or who aren’t adopted by their foster parents, often don’t fare well, and for understandable reasons — they’re often left to try to survive in horrible situations. Seven in 10 foster children in West Virginia, for example, live in group homes, detention centers, and residential treatment facilities. According to the federal Children’s Bureau, 14 percent of the national foster child population resides in these kinds of institutions — and unsurprisingly, it has destructive results. According to one study, for example, more than half of foster children who aged out of the system in the Midwest ended up arrested, jailed, or convicted. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: If only we knew then what we know now, my wife and I would have very likely adopted some orphans or foster children. Now, after we've seen them in Russian orphanages and we know that the above statistics are accurate, both in Russia and in the U.S., we as Christians need to make young couples aware of this situation and encourage them to adopt.
KAZAKHSTAN: WARNED FOR VIOLATING CORONAVIRUS REGULATIONS, BUT FINED FOR LEADING WORSHIP
by Felix Corley: Forum 18 News Service
(28 May) After a raid on Baptists meeting for worship in Pavlodar despite coronavirus restrictions, Pastor Isak Neiman was warned for violating anti-coronavirus measures. But after the warning, which he accepted, he was fined nearly two months' average wages on a second charge of leading an unregistered religious community meeting for worship without state permission. Officials in Aktobe also fined a shopping centre administrator for allowing Muslims to pray in a unit there.
Police in the north-eastern Kazakh city of Pavlodar who raided a 29 March Baptist church meeting for worship brought two charges against Pastor Isak Neiman. The first charge was for violating anti-coronavirus health measures, for which the Pastor received a warning. But for the second charge of leading an unregistered religious community meeting for worship without state permission Pastor Neiman was fined nearly two months' average wages.
A fellow Council of Churches Baptist in Pavlodar Region, Aleksei Asetov, has been banned from leaving Kazakhstan since July 2018 after failing to pay a fine similar to Pastor Neiman's imposed to punish leading an unregistered religious community. Asetov has now been banned from leaving Kazakhstan since his first unpaid fine in 2012.
The bailiff responsible for recovering the unpaid fine from Asetov insisted to Forum 18 that she is simply carrying out the decision of the court and cannot lift his ban on leaving the country without a legal basis. Numerous Council of Churches Baptists who refused to pay fines to punish them for exercising freedom of religion or belief have been banned from leaving the country. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Just a warning was given for violating Coronavirus rules, but the really serious issue was leading worship! Perhaps that is getting to the root of the present panic situation: could it be that the spiritual forces behind it are using it to turn people away from worshiping?
IN UKRAINE, INFLUENTIAL POLITICIANS PLAN REPRESSIONS AGAINST THE OCU AND WISH FOR ROC RETALIATION
from: Religious Information Service of Ukraine
(2 Jun.) A network of influential politicians has formed in Ukraine, working to restore the monopoly of the Russian Church and planning repressions against the Orthodox Church of Ukraine. This is stated in the story by Stoprevansh on Channel 5. The first signal of the Moscow Patriarchate's revenge in Ukraine was the competition for a high state position – the Chairman of the Department of Religious Affairs under the Cabinet of Ministers.
"Representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate have set an imperative to the country's leadership that they agree this position is held by anyone except Andriy Yurash. This is revenge for Tomos," Tatiana Derkach, an expert on religious issues, believes. Overall, the First Deputy Chairman of the President's Office, Serhiy Trofimov, now coordinates all necessary personnel appointments with the authorities of the Moscow Church, experts say.
"A thought creeps in that Trofymov simply receives via the MP the resumes of those people who are further appointed to the office's positions," said religious expert Andriy Kovalyov. Political expert Oleksandr Paliy adds: "If the Moscow Patriarchate in Ukraine has an impact on the government-level appointments – this means that we at the state of destination is [are] affected by the aggressor country... Because this is always a consultation directly with the Russian special services." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: "Stoprevansh" is an English-Ukrainian "mashup" of "stop" and "revenge" that doesn't quite make sense in English. But the Ukrainian and Russian word "revansh" has a wider meaning than just "revenge" although it's translated that way in this article. The wider meaning includes "revisionism" - in other words, the Moscow Patriarchate is trying to revise history or turn things back to the way they were before 2014. The key question is whether the current government of Ukraine is willing and able to prevent it.
MOM HASN'T SEEN SON WITH AUTISM SINCE MARCH BECAUSE OF COVID-19 LOCKDOWN
from: Disability Scoop
(2 Jun.) Susan Osborn hasn't seen her youngest son, Noah, since March 9. Noah is 17, has autism and other disabilities, is nonverbal and lives in an intermediate care facility in New Bern, across the river from Susan, his father, Arnold Osborn, and the rest of their family. When the coronavirus pandemic hit, long-term care facilities were among the first businesses to close doors to visitors to prevent the spread of the virus.
At first, Susan Osborn said, she understood the need for preventative measures, but now — more than two months later — she misses Noah more and more each day. The state still hasn't released a plan for reopening care facilities, and she worries about how long she'll be without her boy. They've already missed his birthday, his father's birthday and Mother's Day; Father's Day will pass before the scheduled end of the state's Phase Two reopening on June 26.
During a normal week, Noah would ride a bus to school every day, then his family would pick him up on Saturday and Sunday mornings to spend all day with them. Sometimes he would see his family on Mondays, at aquatic therapy, and Thursdays, when school is out.
On Saturdays, he would go to horse-assisted therapy, where he rode an old, slow horse named Rocket. Afterwards, they'd take him to get his favorite food, French fries, and then to Hobby Lobby, his favorite store, where he likes to hit the wind chimes and have folks compliment him on his "orchestra." Osborn described Noah as "full of joy." She said he loves laughing with, and at, people he sees in stores. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: What thoughts arise in our minds when we read or hear about the neglectful treatment of disabled and elderly people? Do we think - "Well, I guess that's just the way it is and there's nothing we can do about it" so we put them out of our minds? Or do we begin to really think: "What can we do about it? How could we design care homes so that the disabled and elderly can receive the care they need, while family can still be nearby?" The buildings we design greatly affect the way we live in them!
CHUVASH METROPOLITAN VARNAVA DIES OF CORONAVIRUS
from: Interfax-Religion
(1 Jun.) Metropolitan Varnava of Cheboksary and Chuvashia has died of complications caused by coronavirus. The metropolitan died on Monday, the working group under Patriarch Kirill said.
Metropolitan Varnava is the third top clergyman of the Russian Orthodox Church to die after contracting Covid-19. According to earlier reports, Bishop Benjamin of Zheleznogorsk and Lgov (Kursk Region) died of coronavirus on April 26, and former Metropolitan Jonah of Astrakhan died on May 4.
Metropolitan Varnava was 89. He was born in the Ryazan Region to a family of a priest. He served in the St. Sergius Trinity Lavra for some 20 years and was its locum in the early 1970s. He became a bishop in late 1979 and headed up the Chuvash department.
In the 30 years that Metropolitan Varnava ran the diocese, he was directly involved in the restoration of seven monasteries, more than 210 parishes were opened, the Cheboksary Spiritual School was restored, and a missionary center that actively fought against sects was created. The metropolitan was also actively involved in the restoration of the historical part of Cheboksary and the opening of the Road to the Church, which connects the city center to the historical part of the city.
From April 19, 2018 until his death, Metropolitan Varnava was the oldest ruling bishop and metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: The victims of this Coronavirus are primarily people with weakend immune systems or who have pre-existing health problems, both which tend to occur more as people grow older. These Russian Orthodox metropolitans and bishops were older and succumbed to the virus. But this doesn't mean that every older person must automatically be quarantined: we need to consider each person on an individual, case-by-case basis.
RESEARCH USING CELLS OF ILLICIT ORIGIN AND VACCINES FROM FETAL TISSUE
from: Public Discourse
(27 May) What happens if a possible future vaccine for COVID-19 is developed unethically, by using contemporary tissue from aborted children? Could pro-life citizens morally use such a vaccine? Recently in Public Discourse I argued that it is unethical to use fetal tissue from aborted children to develop vaccines against COVID-19. The ultimate reason is predicated upon the wrongness of abortion, which unjustly deprives an unborn human person of his or her life. Successful use of the remains of such a person for the important social end of a vaccine in the midst of a pandemic would color the abortion industry, and individual abortions, with an undeserved glow of altruism. And willingness to develop such vaccines from the remains of aborted children would create unjust incentives to kill members of one class of human persons, the unborn.
This judgment raises questions about two related issues. The first issue concerns research using cell lines derived many years ago from post-abortion fetal tissue, such as HEK-293 cells. HEK cells, and similar cell lines such as MRC-5 and WR-38, were generated from the tissue of aborted individuals in the 1960s and 1970s. These cell lines, widely used in research labs today, contain no actual cells from the aborted child's tissue, and are often used with little awareness of their origins. They will be referred to here as cell lines of illicit origin; by my earlier PD argument, they ought not to have been brought into existence. Nevertheless, it must be asked whether upright scientific researchers may use them now, many years after the wrongful act was performed.
The second issue concerns the choices that might need to be made by pro-life citizens, including pro-life parents, were a vaccine to be developed from recently procured fetal tissue. The abortion, procurement, and research using the procured tissue are all impermissible by my argument, and pro-lifers should demand that alternative, ethically upright forms of research be pursued. But again, the question whether vaccines resulting from such research may be used, or whether they must be refused, is a separate issue, and must be additionally addressed.
Some pro-lifers have proposed that the answer to both questions simply extends the judgment I made about the procurement and use of post-abortion fetal tissue as part of the current quest for a vaccine. They assert that use of cell lines of illicit origin is wrong for scientific research; and they assert that it would be wrong for pro-lifers to make use of a vaccine derived from unethically procured fetal tissue. But I argue in this essay that the reasons for refusing to use cell lines such as HEK-293 are weak, and that there can be good reasons for pro-life persons to make use of a COVID-19 vaccine even if it results from unethical tissue procurement practices [several decades ago].
Cell Lines of Illicit Origin The most common objection to the use of cell lines of illicit origin relies on the moral category of cooperation. Cooperation takes place when an agent does something that will in some way be of aid to some other party who is already committed to, or performing, evil acts. Such cooperation can be formal, when the cooperator shares some or all of the intention of the evildoer, or material, when the cooperator’s intention does not at all overlap with the evildoer's intention.
Formal cooperation is always wrong, but material cooperation can be permissible when the reasons for acting are proportionate to the reasons against so acting. This requires consideration of the goods and ills that will result from the cooperating act. For example, one of the possible effects of material cooperation is on the character of the cooperator, who can become habituated to the action in question, finding it easier and easier. A material cooperator might eventually come to endorse the wrongdoing and thereby become a formal cooperator. Another possible effect involves how the cooperator is subsequently understood by the wrongdoer, or by other third parties. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Cell lines are not the same thing as the actual cells taken from aborted babies. As the article explains, "cell lines of illicit origin" may be dozens or hundreds of generations down from the cells taken from aborted babies. Abortion is a sin and the appalling number - over sixty million abortions in the U.S. alone - constitutes genocide, a crime against humanity. But the particular crimes that created these cell lines were committed many generations ago. Remember the sins of Judah and Tamar: his lusting after her and her enticing him to commit adultery. Recall the sins of King David with Bathsheba: adultery and murder. Yet, these people are the ancestors, several generations back, of Jesus Christ. Is Jesus Christ guilty of their sins? Of course not.
NOW, OUR VIEWS:
Escaping Debt Slavery
(Maybe you've read this before and you're wondering, "Why am I seeing this again?" But millions of other Christians haven't seen it! So please help us by clicking on the title above, then use the "share" buttons to share it with your social media friends. Thanks!!)
Why are U.S. middle-class incomes falling? Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Simple! Because the poor get tricked into giving their money to the rich! How? Through long-term and usurious interest rates. Actually, one reason why the middle class is shrinking is because twice as many people - the smarter ones - are moving up into the upper-class than the foolish ones who are moving down into poverty: see "Yes, the US middle class is shrinking, but it's because Americans are moving up." How can you become one of these smarter people?
In Proverbs 22:7 we read - "The rich rule over the poor. The borrower is a slave to the lender." And verse 22 states - "Do not exploit the poor, because he is poor; and do not crush the needy in court." By taking out long-term or high-interest loans, you are in effect selling yourself into slavery to the lenders: they own you. They rule over you. To them, the Golden Rule is "He who has the gold makes the rules."
The rich know how to exploit the desires of the poor to have things they can't actually afford at present: sell to them on high-interest credit! In fact, it's gotten to the point these days that they will even "pay you" to borrow money from them: they will offer a 2% or 3% or even 5% discount off the purchase price if you put it on a credit card or take out a loan. Why? Because every dollar of a loan creates "fiat money" and the lenders more than make up that discount by getting some of the newly-created money and from the high interest rates they charge.
The rich understand what most poor people don't: the magic of compound interest. When signing a 30-year mortgage at a so-called "5% compound interest rate," most people don't realize that in the first six years, 74% of their payments is interest. That means in the first six years of that 30-year loan, you've maybe paid for the front door and porch: the bankers and investors get most of your money up front.
But on a 6-year loan at 5% compounded, only 16% of your payments is interest! People may say, "Toward the end of a 30-year mortgage, you're paying with cheaper dollars so it costs you less." True, but it also means at the beginning of your mortgage, you're paying the bankers and investors with dollars worth more! At Agape Restoration Society, we educate the poor about how to build up equity quickly without paying a huge amount of interest.
Another way that bankers and their investors get your money is by student loans and credit card debt. It seems so easy to take out a student loan... and another... and another... until you're thirty- or fifty- or eighty-thousand dollars in debt for your B.A. degree. Or you "need" new furniture for your new apartment or new house, so you "put it on the credit card"... at 18% or 22% interest. Then you get behind on your payments and are assessed costly penalties. All these types of credit allow the banking system to create "fiat money" out of thin air, making the rich richer and you poorer, adding to inflation and driving down your real income.
"Dr. Bob"
Robert D. Hosken, M.Min., D.Min.
Seventy-six years ago today, Allied forces stormed the beaches of Normandy, France. It was D-Day. The USSR was one of our allies, soaking up one hundred times more casualties in the war than the U.S. We need to remember that time of cooperation in an era of extreme necessity, rather than continuing to play the current blame-game.
"You cannot be too gentle, too kind.
Shun even to appear harsh in your treatment of each other.
Joy, radiant joy, streams from the face of him who gives and kindles joy in the heart of him who receives.
All condemnation is from the devil. Never condemn each other…
Instead of condemning others, strive to reach inner peace.
Keep silent, refrain from judgment.
This will raise you above the deadly arrows of slander, insult, and outrage
and will shield your glowing hearts against all evil.
St. Seraphim of Sarov
The above quote from "Words for a Wounded Heart" by Fr. Stephen Freeman, continues - "I first met St. Seraphim of Sarov through Valentine Zander’s small biography of him. It was given to me by an Anglican monk back in 1976 when I was making a retreat at a monastery. It was a window into a world that sank deep into my heart. The echoes of that encounter continued for years, playing an abiding role in my life, culminating in my reception into the Orthodox Church in 1998. St. Seraphim’s words (and others similar to them) are touchstones of deep Orthodoxy for me. They are the voice of authentic Orthodoxy, in which I hear the voice of Jesus, our true Shepherd, resounding." Read the whole article: it's good medicine for these difficult days. Better yet, subscribe to his blog: it will bring healing to your soul!
Please remember to pray for Christians in Secularized Countries, and for~~
Your fellow-servants,
Bob & Cheryl
p.s. He who thinks he can fully comprehend God either has a very small god or a very large head.
