Posts published in “Bold Christian Writing”

Divining the Dream Machine: Part 2

By Guest Post on December 18, 2023

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Science-Fiction, Hollywood, and the Technology of Antichrist

by Thomas Millary

“The Art of Dreaming”

After decades of obsession with movies and pop-culture, Jasun Horsley realized that Hollywood is hell. His book “16 Maps of Hell: The Unraveling of Hollywood Superculture” documents numerous case studies of disturbing figures and events within the history of the entertainment industry, as well as the damage he personally accrued through buying into the Hollywood myth (including failed attempts to become a filmmaker himself, a failure that he is now thankful for). Underneath all these personal and historical examples of Hollywood darkness and deviance, he finds an underlying pathology, an explanation of how and why the film industry has played such a significant role in mass-dehumanization. Hollywood represents “an advanced alienation agenda.”¹ “Simply put, both as individuals and as a collective, we have been lured—and lured ourselves—into a counterfeit reality, a dream world. Hollywood, as a place and a state of mind, is both a primary causal agency of this condition (over the past century), and a crucial (because visible) symptom of it. It is the equivalent of a metastasized tumor on the world psyche.”²

What Is Capitalism?

What Is Capitalism?

By Guest Post on December 11, 2023

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The Binding New World Ligament

by John Heers, First Things Foundation

Most people in the world accept the idea that capitalism is an economic system. For most people capitalism is a thing you use, a system in which you participate so as to gain benefits associated with money. Most people think of capitalism as a slip ‘n slide, something with which you engage in order to enjoy society while also cooling off. For Americans, capitalism is something we use. It’s not something we’ve become. But I think this is wrong. Capitalism, history tells us, is a narrative about human existence, and most of us in the West aren’t telling the story, we are, in fact, living it. We are the products of capitalism.

The first clue that this may be true is the word itself. Capitalism.

Look at the ending. The “ism” suffix tells us a great deal. “Ism” words connote belief.

Israel’s Second Chance

Israel’s Second Chance

By Andrew Isker on December 7, 2023

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by Pastor Andrew Isker

Introduction

In each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), as Jesus preached against the wicked and perverse generation in Israel, He made a statement that has puzzled many Christians even to this day. “Blasphemy against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but he who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit, that will not be forgiven.” Many people hear this and are terrified, “what if I committed the unforgivable sin? What if I have blasphemed against the Holy Spirit? How do I know my sins can be forgiven or not?”

If blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is an unbeliever speaking against the work of the Holy Spirit on earth, no one who doesn’t believe in Jesus could ever be forgiven. So, surely that is not it. But then what does this mean? What is this sin?

Mythologizing Modernity

Mythologizing Modernity

By Guest Post on December 5, 2023

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The cosmic tale goes ever on

by The Saxon Cross

History is dead.

Or, so I was told.

For a long time, I believed it.

Not because I wanted to, but I could see the world around me. It was plain as day that I did not live in the world of my heroes.

Myth and legend had ended, history had marched to its lackluster end, and we were all fated to live out our days in a lethargic, decaying, neo-liberal hellscape.

Consume product. Work for corporation. Vote. Die.

The banal reality of the modern west seems almost designed to crush the very souls of its populace.

We grew up in a world where nothing ever happens and there is nothing left to discover.

Re-Considering Doug Wilson’s “Covenant with Hagar” Part 2

Re-Considering Doug Wilson’s “Covenant with Hagar” Part 2

By Guest Post on December 4, 2023

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by Gabe Harder

Defining the Covenant

To this point, it should be clear that the “covenant with Hagar” is key to Wilson’s brand of soft supersessionism. What’s equally clear, however, is that this particular covenantal arrangement evades precise definition, and what elements have been made plain at times appear entirely incompatible with a historic Reformed covenant theology.

A historical reading of the “covenant with Hagar” is, of course, impossible. Although God makes prophetic promises to both Abraham and Hagar concerning Ishmael’s future, “nothing is clearer [in Genesis 16-21] than the singularity of the covenant God made with Abraham and the passing down of that covenant through Isaac and not through Ishmael. There is, thus, no Hagar covenant.”¹ Paul simply does not teach that “unbelieving Jews are in covenant with Hagar.” The phrase used by both Wilson and Sumpter, “the covenant with Hagar,” appears nowhere in the passage. Paul is clear that his appeal to Genesis is allegorical; the covenant, therefore, is not with Hagar, rather Hagar is the covenant (Gal. 4:24).

Re-Considering Doug Wilson’s “Covenant with Hagar” Part 1

Re-Considering Doug Wilson’s “Covenant with Hagar” Part 1

By Guest Post on December 1, 2023

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by Gabe Harder

Introduction

Doug Wilson’s “American Milk and Honey” is now available. There’s a great deal in the book worth commenting on, and I anticipate engaging with that material more broadly in the near future. In the lead-up to its release, however, Moscow has not been silent concerning Israel, the Jews, and antisemitism. Not only has Wilson himself blogged extensively on these issues, but just the other week Toby Sumpter threw his hat in the ring with a blog post¹ largely affirming many of Wilson’s convictions. Then Canon Press published a video of Pastor Wilson and company discussing right-wing Twitter’s response to all this with Andrew Isker.² While a number of Wilson’s arguments deserve further analysis, I’d like to dedicate this article to examining one of the more curious features of his account; the so-called “covenant with Hagar.”

Ireland’s Quest for Identity

Ireland’s Quest for Identity

By Guest Post on November 30, 2023

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Alienism, Violence, and Power.

by The Prudentialist

Sinn Féin Leader Mary Lou McDonald said that the stabbing that occurred in Dublin is “just a shocking, unexpected, random incident” as protests and fires were started in reaction to an Algerian Migrant knife attack outside of Gaelscoil Colaiste Mhuire, a school for young children, leaving a teacher in her 30s and a young girl in critical condition still in the hospital. As the news broke out, riots took place, the media cycle was up in arms about “Hate” while anyone with a functioning mind was asking why was there an Algerian stabbing children in Ireland?

Pentecost Was The Greater Crossing of the Jordan

Pentecost Was The Greater Crossing of the Jordan

By Andrew Isker on November 29, 2023

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The Christian Story Takes Israel’s History and Fulfills It

by Pastor Andrew Isker

Introduction

The Day of Pentecost is one of the greatest events in the entire Bible. There is a reason that the church throughout the world has celebrated it yearly for the better part of two thousand years. It is the event that establishes the authority of the church of Jesus Christ, laid on the foundation of the apostles and Christ the chief cornerstone. It is from this event that the army of God goes forth into the new and greater promised land—the entire world—to conquer.

It is not random that the narrative structure of the Book of Acts parallels the conquest of Joshua.—what you must understand is the New Testament deliberately takes the history of Israel and shows that something even greater has come in Jesus Christ.

Divining the Dream Machine: Part 1

Divining the Dream Machine: Part 1

By Guest Post on November 27, 2023

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Science-Fiction, Hollywood, and the Technology of Antichrist

by Thomas Millary

Sci-Fi and False Signs

In his seminal work, Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim Rose condemned “the spirit of science fiction.”¹ His critique of that literary genre is found within the chapter “Signs from Heaven: An Orthodox Christian Understanding of UFOs.”² Fr. Seraphim incisively argued that the so-called ‘UFO phenomenon’ would be a major component of the emerging religion of the future, the religion of Antichrist. By examining the descriptions of supposed ‘alien encounters’ and the beliefs of UFO enthusiasts, he demonstrated that an Orthodox perspective can only consider this phenomenon to be demonic. Before launching into this critique, he contextualized it by looking at the sector of pop-culture which had done the most work to prime society to accept outlandish spiritual beliefs about extraterrestrials. He turned to the popularity of science-fiction to answer the question “What were men prepared to see in the sky?”³

It’s Never Over

It’s Never Over

By Andrew Isker on November 23, 2023

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by Pastor Andrew Isker

A Handful of Christians with the Entire World Against Them Changed History

The holiday of Thanksgiving is one of the last remaining aspects of traditional America that has survived the cultural revolution. For most Americans it is simply a part of normal life: a day off, a day to eat turkey, stuffing, and cranberries, a day to watch football and spend time with family. But the holiday itself has its origins in the Puritan founding of America, and this alone is reason for the ongoing cultural revolution to seek its destruction.

The Conquest of the Apostles

The Conquest of the Apostles

By Andrew Isker on November 21, 2023

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The Book of Acts as the New Testament Book of Joshua

by Pastor Andrew Isker

Introduction

The Book of Acts or the Acts of the Apostles is the second book of Luke’s Gospel. Some people sort of treat it like an appendix to the gospel; “the really important stuff happened in the gospels, this is story of what happened afterward.” When I was younger, that attitude made me wonder, “why didn’t everything just end right at the Resurrection and Ascension? Why did history keep going? Why was there another 30 plus years pictured here in the Bible? Why has there been nearly another 2000 years?” History does not stop with Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. A new world with a new history begins.

This book is a book of conquest. The army of God marching out to conquer the world. And we will soon see just how much it intentionally parallels the Book of Joshua, where God’s people entered the Land of Promise and put it to sword and fire. Here, the army of God, sets out to take the new Land of Promise—the entire world.

Peter Thiel is Right About Atoms

Peter Thiel is Right About Atoms

By Guest Post on November 20, 2023

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by David Gornoski

To save the West, we must rethink what an atom is. That’s my vision. So you can understand my disaffection when yet another catty, confused dallier attempted to capture venture capitalist Peter Thiel’s worldview for the dying establishment media, this time in The Atlantic story: “Peter Thiel is Taking a Break from Democracy.” The article by Barton Gellman attempts to explain Thiel’s recent renunciation of political donations as a result of being burned out by the lack of return politicians provide his vision to move America towards growth, particularly in, as Thiel calls it, the world of atoms. The article misses the bigger point Thiel makes about the dangers of stagnation in favor of catering to the Atlantic audience’s mirror-induced paranoias about Trump, fascism, and strange libertarian wealth lurking in the shadows to impose its will on the world. Make no mistake, most of the political world misunderstands Thiel’s critique of the West’s lack of innovation. This disinterest in the topic of atoms reveals how shallow politics is at solving any serious problems.