DEALING WITH DEPRESSION THROUGH GOD'S GRACE

Eric Metaxas: Dealing with Depression Through God’s Grace

 By Eric Metaxas | November 30, 2017 | 11:48 AM EST

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If you’re dealing with depression, you might as well know there are no quick fixes, but there is always God’s grace.

Those who suffer from depression sometimes feel as if they’re all alone. Take it from me—I felt that way because I have struggled with depression for years.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, about one in fifteen adults experiences depression each year. And one in six will be touched by the cold hand of depression at some point in life. Women are more susceptible to depression than men, with one in three expected to have a major depressive episode in her lifetime.

The APA calls depression “a common and serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. … Depression causes feelings of sadness and/or a loss of interest in activities once enjoyed. It can lead to a variety of emotional and physical problems and can decrease a person’s ability to function at work and at home.”

Even Christians get depressed, of course; as I mentioned, I’ve dealt with it. It’s part of living in a broken and fallen world. For a woman named Lily Burana, bouts of depression, anxiety, and insomnia began when she was a toddler, and being raised in a church did not make them go away.

“My depression, still unnamed, deepened as I grew older,” she writes in a piece for Christianity Today. “I became less interested in church, and by adolescence, depression, sarcasm, and cynicism had become my holy trinity, which might sound impressively edgy if it weren’t so miserable.”

Eventually, Lily dropped out of school, and out of church, winding up in New York City’s East Village, where she hung out with an assortment of what she calls “freaks, losers, ragers, and least-of-these-ers.” Lily says she began a journey that landed her somewhere between “spiritual but not religious” and “New Age dilettante,” as she tried paganism, yoga, and agnosticism. But nothing satisfied her bright mind or tamed her gnawing depression.

“But a few years ago,” Lily writes, “when a dangerously deep and rocky depressive spell had me in its grips, I teetered on the brink of suicide. Even with the cosmetic appointments of a full and happy life—husband, family, health, career—I felt desperate, alone, scarred, stained, and worthless.”

That’s when God broke through—not by miraculously erasing depression as if it were a stray pencil line, but by gently speaking to her heart. Biblical teaching and fellowship reminded Lily that not only did God love her—He accepted her. Dialing back the self-condemnation, she began a process of being “restored by grace.” She’s on a journey of healing now, saying, “[I]t feels like comfort, acceptance, and resilience. A place to retreat, to just sit, breathe, and be.”

Lily still battles depression, and uses medication to help control the dark moods. “But I can’t lay full credit for my wellbeing at the feet of Big Pharma,” Lily says, “for nothing has helped me recover more than receiving God’s grace.”

Lily says that depression threw her into God’s arms, so let me ask you—has it thrown you into His arms? Let’s stop with all the facades. Depression is an unwelcome fact of life for many of us. But being depressed doesn’t mean your faith in the Lord is defective. It can be an invitation to present your pain as an offering to the One who understands that pain better than anyone.

As Marshall Segal of desiringGod.org writes, “While many are lost to their depression—helplessly wandering in their own darkness—Christians have somewhere to turn, truths to rehearse until our hearts catch up with the faith in our minds. Not only did Christ save and deliver the brokenhearted, but he experiences all the pains and temptations we face and more.”

So if you’re depressed, please, please remember you are not alone. It’s okay to show others your hurt. And hear me: There is no shame in seeking professional help. I certainly have. And know that God sees and promises to meet you in your hurt with His love and grace.

Eric Metaxas is the host of the “Eric Metaxas Show,” a co-host of “BreakPoint” radio and a New York Times #1 best-selling author. His most recent book is "Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World."

Editor's Note: This piece was originally published by BreakPoint.

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/eric-metaxas/dealing-depression-through-gods-grace

'THE PRESS IS DESTROYING ISTSELF'

Levin: Trump Isn’t Destroying the 1st Amendment – ‘The Press Is Destroying Itself’

 By Michael Morris | November 30, 2017 | 1:10 PM EST

Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin (Screenshot)

Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin ripped the United States press Wednesday, suggesting on his show that President Trump is not destroying the 1st Amendment but that “[t]he press is destroying itself.”

“We’ve heard now since Donald Trump decided to run for president and up to modern day that he is destroying the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press,” stated Mark Levin. “The press is destroying itself.”

Levin’s comments came as yet another journalist, Matt Lauer, has been accused of “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” leading to the NBC “Today” show co-anchor’s firing.

Below is transcript of Levin’s remarks from his show Wednesday:

“That Access Hollywood tape which came out, that video – and what Billy Bush had said and what Trump had said and so forth – it almost looks quaint compared to what we’re learning with respect to these journalists. Not just bravado, not just opinions and so forth, not just nasty stuff, we’re talking about acting out nasty stuff – acting it out.

“Now, we’ve talked about this a long time: when a country loses its virtue, the country is lost. I don’t believe our country has lost its virtue. I believe our government has. I believe politicians as a class have, journalists as a class have, cultural entities – like Hollywood – as a class has. I believe they have. I really do.

“We’ve heard now since Donald Trump decided to run for president and up to modern day that he is destroying the 1st Amendment and freedom of the press. The press is destroying itself.

“The American people, when they talk about the press, despise the press. When the American people think about the press, they ridicule the press. They don’t believe the press.

“And when you have people like Matt Lauer and Charlie Rose – and there’s more, I can’t think of them all, and there will be more – conducting themselves as they do, you can’t trust them to report a straight story. You can’t trust them to report a straight story.

“No wonder poor Juanita Broaddrick, when she came forward, or poor Paula Jones or Kathleen Willy and a host of others, no wonder they weren’t believed.

“More to the point, even if they were believed, the media – many aspects, many parts of the media – were conducting themselves the same way. They were not about to go after Bill Clinton.”

 https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-morris/levin-trump-isnt-destroying-1st-amendment-press-destroying-itself

BATTLES OVER BUDGET AND TAXES 'ARE GOING TO BECOME WORSE, MORE DIFFICULT AND EVEN VIOLENT'

Levin Warns: Battles Over Budget and Taxes ‘Are Going to Become Worse, More Difficult and Even Violent’

 By Michael Morris | November 29, 2017 | 11:06 AM EST

Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin (Screenshot)

On his nationally syndicated radio talk show Tuesday, host Mark Levin warned that the battles over the budget and taxes we see in Washington “are going to become worse, more difficult and even violent at times.”

“But this fight over the budget, these fights over tax cuts – which in the end will screw many of us by the way – but these battles are going to become worse, more difficult and even violent at times,” warned Mark Levin.

Mark Levin’s comments came as Congress continues to debate tax reform, with Senate Majority Leader McConnell saying GOP concerns about the tax bill is like “sitting there with a Rubik’s Cube” and with Senator Schumer and House Minority Leader Pelosi skipping out on a White House meeting following a tweet by President Trump, wherein he suggested that “Chuck” and “Nancy” “want to substantially RAISE Taxes” and that he does not “see a deal!”

Below is a transcript of Levin’s remarks on his show Tuesday:

“I’ve been watching the debate over the tax cuts like you have and trying to figure out what they are, where to get the money from and how to grow the economy, and it gets more and more difficult, more and more complicated – they get more and more into the weeds.

“Then we watch today as Schumer and Pelosi did their drama queen act, in which they decided they weren’t going to sit down with the president to decide how to come up with even a temporary spending plan to ‘prevent the government from shutting down.’

“As you and I know, it never shuts down.

“But in the future, it’s going to get worse and worse because problems are piling up that future politicians, future congresses and future presidents are going to be incapable of resolving.

They’re going to be incapable of resolving because the laws of economics, as I’ve said a thousand times, will catch up with the laws of politics, and the laws of economics will win out.

“And just as demographic changes in this country over the last 10 to 15 years have made it impossible to address illegal immigration, to secure the border, and even high levels of legal immigration. It’s made the politics almost impossible based on the mindset in Washington D.C., as more and more states turn purple and then blue.

So too when it comes to this massive debt that gets bigger and bigger and bigger – bigger and bigger and bigger.

“And all we hear from Republicans and many of their pom-pom boys and girls is class warfare propaganda, and this is what it’s going to come down to.

…

“But this fight over the budget, these fights over tax cuts – which in the end will screw many of us by the way – but these battles are going to become worse, more difficult and even violent at times.”

 https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-morris/levin-warns-battles-over-budget-and-taxes-are-going-become-worse-more-difficult

My comments: Levin is telling us what we should all know already: There is No Easy way out of a Finacial  Catastrophe. Even to balance the Budget is probalbly beyond the realm of possiblity. So, America, will at some point, go off the Fiscal Cliff. America decided to abandon God and His Word, and will Pay the Price for this Disobedience. In all likelyhood, this Catastrophe will Usher in the Antichrist. He will be the man with the answers--his "mark."

'NO TIME FOR SANCTIONS TO HAVE IMPACT' NORTH KOREA

Former UN Ambassador Bolton on North Korean Sanctions: ‘No Time for This to Have Impact’

By Melanie Arter | November 29, 2017 | 7:05 PM EST

Former UN Ambassador John Bolton (Screenshot of C-SPAN video)

(CNSNews.com) - Former UN Ambassador John Bolton told Fox News Wednesday that it’s too late for additional sanctions on North Korea to be effective and North Korea will use diplomatic talks to cross the nuclear finish line.

“Forget it. There is no time for this to have impact. Look, if the State Department is still focused on sanctions, then I will guarantee you. 

I’ll bet the ranch right now North Korea will have deliverable nuclear weapons,” Bolton told “Outnumbered Overtime’s ”Harris Faulkner.

“So the president was right when he tweeted or said, remember that, when he said about Secretary Tillerson, remember? He was chiding him. He was saying, oh, yeah, yeah, your diplomacy blah, blah, blah. Was he right?” Faulkner asked.

“Yes, I wouldn’t have done it in public, but that’s right. 

The one diplomatic play that’s left here is with China. Presumably, the president delivered that message, which should be something like, Look Xi Jinping, we can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way,” Bolton said.

“China has a unique capability to bring that regime in North Korea down, to reunite the two Koreas, to put in a new regime, to get rid of the nuclear weapons, 

but there isn’t any time to talk to North Korea about it, because they will use additional time to cross the nuclear finish line,” he said.
“And so that’s why I say, do you want a North Korea that has that capability, that can be a one-stop shopping place for thermo-nuclear weapons, ballistic technology for Iran and for ISIS, for any would-be nuclear state around the world, or would we take the obviously undesirable but potentially necessary step of using military force?” Bolton said.

Bolton said the 25 years the United States has spent trying to talk North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons program has failed.
“We have blinked at this reality for 25 years. We’ve spent 25 years trying to talk or pressure the North Koreans into giving up. It has failed, and it will fail now this close to achieving what they’ve been after all those years,” he said.

Bolton also wondered when the United States plans to seriously consider the military option when dealing with North Korea.
“You have to ask when we’re going to start seriously considering a military option, because we’re going to come to a binary choice here,” he said.
“Absent some dramatic action by China, which I don’t see at the moment, we either have to decide that we’re going to use military force to destroy this nuclear weapons program, 

or we better be prepared to live with North Korea with a capability to drop nuclear weapons on any American city that the leadership chooses. 

That’s going to be the choice in very short order,” Bolton added.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-arter/former-un-ambassador-bolton-north-korean-sanctions-no-time-have-impact

My comments: The LEFT would allow N. Korea to become Nuclear. They would Howl if a preemtive strike on N. Korea were done. The LEFT has no concept of Evil, as they are Evil themselves. They would prefer to loose a U.S. City than to make a preemtive Strike. They would succumb to the Blackmail of N. Korea, as easily as they are succumbing to the Wickedness of Islam.

THE RELATIONSHIP CHARADE: WALKING ON EGGSHELLS IS NOT RECONCILIATION

The relationship charade: walking on eggshells is not reconciliation

By Linda Goudsmit
November 29, 2017

Many articles have been written about the growing trend of adult children choosing estrangement in American families. The recent Thanksgiving holiday has highlighted this alarming movement toward the dissolution of family bonds of love and loyalty. 

What is the source of this dreadful shift? What happened to honor thy father and mother?
Sheri McGregor, M.A. has written an important book titled Done With The Crying that explores the disturbing increase in families with adult children who disown their parents. 

There are, of course, appropriate conditions for estrangement but the current trend appears baffling to the 9,000 confused and grieving parents surveyed who cannot fathom why the children they have loved for a lifetime are choosing to reject them. 

Done With The Crying attempts to help devastated parents accept their loss and move on with their lives. McGregor is asking "What now?" I am asking "Why now?"

Generation gaps between parents and their adult children have traditionally been resolved with courtesy, respect, and a sense of humor. Adult children honored their parents even when they disagreed with them and chose a different path for their own lives. A fundamental level of gratitude for the parent's efforts and dedication allowed the differences to be minimized and the family bonds maximized. 

What has changed??
The bewildered parents McGregor describes cannot accept the estrangement because they simply do not understand it. She describes the staggering lack of respect, restraint, gratitude, and overarching sense of entitlement in adult children's demand for parental conformity including restricting their parents' freedom of speech. 

In the upside-down world of self-seeking millennials the parent/child role has been reversed. Parents are expected to conform to their adult child's new norms. 

If the parent refuses the adult child withdraws himself to a "safe space" seeking protection from the "toxic" ideas of his parents. 

Toxicity, like hate speech, has been redefined as anything the adult child opposes.
Respondents in McGregor's book expose the injurious participation of the mental health community which continues to counsel disrespected parents to persevere and strive for reconciliation no matter how cruel and abusive their adult children's behavior becomes. 

It is shocking that any mental health professional would advocate unconditional love in adult relationships. 

Separating an individual from his/her behavior is pathological in adulthood.

Any adult with self-respect recognizes the destructiveness of accepting the unacceptable. So why has the mental health community abdicated its responsibility toward growth and maturity and instead embraced the regressive trend toward dependency that demands unconditional love?

The humanities students of the 60s became the social science "experts" who enthusiastically embraced left-wing politics and political correctness. 

They launched a seismic paradigm shift that steered American society away from adult responsibility toward valuing feelings and happiness above all else. 

Instead of striving for achievement and merit-based awards parents were told that their children's self-esteem would suffer in competition. 

Effort became the criteria for awards, children were told they were all butterflies, and everyone received trophies for "trying." 

Here is the problem. 

Political correctness that values feelings over facts is extremely destructive because the effort to avoid hurt feelings sacrifices objective reality. 

Effort and achievement are not equivalent. Theoretically education at home and at school prepares children for adulthood because in the adult world of facts it is necessary to achieve – effort is not enough.

Consider the consequences in everyday life when trying is considered equivalent to achieving. 

Workers try to complete tasks but don't. 

Students try to understand concepts but don't. 

Mothers try to get meals on the table but don't. 

In the real world trying is not the same as accomplishing. 

The outcome of the politically correct paradigm shift has been catastrophic. 

It has produced a generation of infantilized chronological adults lacking adult work skills, coping skills, with zero frustration tolerance, who are too fragile to listen to anyone who disagrees with them. 

The outcome of their incompetence is anger and self-loathing. 

Even the exceptional millennials who have managed to compartmentalize their brain power, achieving quite remarkable things in academia, business, medicine, et al, remain fixated and angry in their infantilism and dependency modes.

Only in the subjective reality of their politically correct social groups can these underachieving millennials feel good about themselves. 

It explains why the Left hypocritically tolerates anyone who looks different but cannot tolerate anyone who thinks differently including their parents. 

The Left, like any orthodoxy, is extremely intolerant and relies on absolute conformity to its tenets of political correctness, moral relativity, and historical revisionism in order to survive and to recruit new members to its ideological identity politics. 

Those who disagree are maligned, shunned, and rejected – including parents.
Competence is the mother of self-esteem. 

Accomplishment creates genuine self-esteem and the marvelous sense of satisfaction that proficiency provides. 

Telling children that they are all butterflies (subjective reality) is dishonest because all children are not the same and they know it. 

Encouraging a child to accomplish a task is far more supportive of self-esteem than empty compliments because encouragement supports growth, maturity, and the acquisition of skills. 

The crippling policies that support the paradigm shift toward feelings has yielded a crop of immature, fragile, angry snowflakes. 

Anger is an extremely powerful emotion that can be exploited for destruction – and that is the underlying goal of the Left.

The cultural revolution fomented by the radical Left demands regression, incites rebellion, and fuels the infantile anger that drives the war on America. 

Thought precedes behavior. 

Virtual children who have been indoctrinated toward entitlements, unconditional love, and eternal childhood rage when their dependency needs are unmet. 

Their anger is then exploited as they are groomed to become the useful idiot soldiers necessary to topple the existing government with promises of cradle-to-grave care from a romanticized socialist government. 

The estranged child's loyalty shifts away from of his nuclear family to his new family of choice – he converts – and embraces the new religion of liberalism where his rejection of traditional authority is applauded in an atmosphere of adolescent rebellion.

These disinformed snowflakes are too childish and too angry to examine the reality of life in actual socialist countries. 

They do not interview citizens of Venezuela or Cuba – instead they just parrot the socialist propaganda. 

When parents expose the glaring inconsistencies between reality and Leftist ideology these fragile snowflakes choose estrangement rather than risk a personal meltdown. 

Millennial adult children are far more loyal to the liberal ideology that reinforces them than to their parents who challenge them.

The bewilderment and shock of estrangement for parents is rivaled only by the stunning realization that the Left purposefully foments family estrangement to shatter the bonds of family loyalty and parental authority. 

Grieving parents cannot accept estrangement until they realize that their adult children are choosing ideology over genealogy.

The courtesy, respect, and gratitude that characterized past generations are absent in the millennial generation.
Instead of "honoring thy father and thy mother" the millennial sense of butterfly entitlement has frozen them in an infantile world (subjective reality) where only "self" and self-gratification exist. 

There is no reconciliation with angry adult children who continue to reject their parents' objective reality. 

There is no respectful agreeing to disagree with adult children who demand parents surrender to their "version" of the truth.
The psychology of estrangement is a collision between the objective reality of the parents and the subjective reality of their children. 

Walking on eggshells with adult children is not reconciliation – it is a relationship charade. 

Parents have an obligation to stay in objective reality even when their children choose to leave. 

Parents of adult children who have disowned them are well-advised to walk on – walk beyond the pain of the eggshells and continue walking inside the adult world of objective reality. 

Your children know where to find you if they decide to walk with you. The choice is theirs.
© Linda Goudsmit

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/goudsmit/171129

'HEROISM AND GENIUS'; 'WHAT DID JESUS DO?'

'Heroism and Genius'; 'What DID Jesus Do?'

By Matt C. Abbott
November 29, 2017

Below is a portion of the introduction to Father William J. Slattery's new bookHeroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped Build – and Can Help Rebuild – Western Civilization, which has been endorsed by Cardinals Robert Sarah, Raymond Burke, and Walter Brandmüller, as well as Catholic authors Thomas Woods, Ph.D., and Michael D. O'Brien.

Thanks to Father Slattery for permitting me to publish this excerpt in my column. Click here to purchase Heroism and Genius from the publisher, Ignatius Press; click here to purchase the book from Amazon.

---

Excerpt from the Introduction to 'Heroism and Genius'
Heroism and Genius has three parts.

Part 1 has a triple objective. Firstly, it sketches an overview of recent conclusions among historians regarding the Church's role in the forging of Western civilization. Secondly, it explains what exactly this book means when it asserts that Catholic priests were its constructors. Thirdly, it lays out the milestones in the saga from circa A.D. 200 through circa A.D. 1300.

Part 2, comprising chapters 2 through 5, describes the gradual shaping from A.D. 300 to A.D. 1000 of the embryo of medieval Christendom: the sociopolitical-cultural unity that was at the heart of Western civilization.

Chapter 2 is an introduction to the Dark Ages, sketching the role of the Church against the background of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and the massive immigration-invasion of the barbarians.

Chapter 3 presents the four priests who can arguably be described as "Fathers of Western Culture" (Christopher Dawson) – Ambrose, Augustine, Leo the Great, and Gregory the Great – in whose footsteps numerous bishops followed, shouldering society in the midst of the semianarchy that reigned especially from the fifth to the seventh centuries.

Chapter 4 introduces firstly the role of Saint Benedict and the Benedictine monks who, through the genius of their monastic Rule, played a key role in forming the Western mindset; secondly, it shows the under-the-radar importance of the interior revolution triggered by Columbanus and the Irish monks through their spreading of the Irish method of confession; and thirdly, it singles out one Benedictine, Boniface, who became the chief planter of the seeds of Western civilization in Germany.

Chapter 5 deals with the role of Alcuin and his associates as architects of the sociopolitical and cultural framework of Charlemagne's empire, a tentative and faltering ninth-century precursor – "the baby figure of the giant mass of things to come" (Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida) – of medieval Christendom from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, Western civilization with its distinctively Catholic ethos.

Part 3, comprised of chapters 6 through 10, aims to show the decisive role of priests in the building of some of the landmark social, artistic, and economic institutions that mark Western civilization as both original and originating in the Catholic matrix.

Chapter 6 sketches the role of the "ancient rite," the traditional form of the Mass that functioned as the chief channel of Catholicism for the creation of the culture of Christendom.

Chapter 7 outlines how medieval chivalry, conceived amid cloisters, not only tamed the savagery of the barbarian warrior class but also configured the ideal of Western manhood.
Chapter 8 shows how the priesthood led the way in bringing about a new and sublime idealism of womanhood, unprecedented in world history, prompting a culture of romanticism that still lingers in the air of the West.

Chapter 9 presents natural offspring of Catholicism – Gothic architecture and Gregorian chant – and the hearts and minds of the men behind them, especially the "Father of Gothic," Abbot Suger.

Chapter 10, "Founders of Free Enterprise Economics," sketches the Catholic worldview from which key features of the free-market system emerged, points to its first monastic incubators, and portrays some of the Renaissance priests whose genius unfolded its principles.

The conclusion, "Standing on the Capitoline," briefly speculates on the meaning of these achievements for those who stand amid the ruins of Western civilization, living under a now-dominant post-Western secularized world order, but determined to play their role in building another Christian civilization worthy of humanity.

The thrust is always fourfold: firstly, to outline how certain foundational paradigms, ideals, and institutions of sociocultural life in Western civilization were derived from Catholicism; secondly, to paint miniature sketches of the priests who were largely responsible for making this happen – sketches, not portraits, because I am very conscious that these do not offer the richness of detail and color of a more finished painting (still, I hope that they will enable the reader to be fascinated enough to want to continue getting to know these individuals); thirdly, Heroism and Geniusendeavors to highlight what made these priests "tick": their world vision, aspirations, motivations, and lifestyle.

This last dimension is missing from many history books that give coverage instead to sociopolitical events that explain how, but not fully why, Western civilization was born. But "what is essential is invisible to the eye" (Antoine de Saint-Exupery). How can you possibly understand events without piercing to some degree the souls of the men involved?

The fourth driving motive seeks to point out, on the basis of yesteryear's achievements and with an eye on the immediate future, the role of Catholics, and particularly of priests, in civilization building.

The hour has already struck, and we have awoken to the fact that we now live in a post-Western secularized civilization that is not only anti-Christian in its culture but indeed antihuman due to its agenda to redefine the individual person in defiance of nature.

Although "Christendom is not the description of an ideal state but of an accepted ideal" (George MacLeod) it was an ideal and still is an ideal, one from which we can learn in order to emulate the grandeur and avoid the errors.

And now is the time to rouse our intellects, consecrate our energies, and channel our passions in the thrust toward the creation of a Christian culture that will protect all that is true, good, and beautiful for the sake of every man and woman.

---

Below is the foreword (written by Catholic radio personality Al Kresta) to Thomas J. Nash's new book What Did Jesus Do?, which has been endorsed by Father Mitch Pacwa, S.J., Ph.D., Colin Donovan, S.T.L., and Father John Paul Mary Zeller, M.F.V.A., of EWTN.

Thanks to Mr. Nash for permitting me to publish this excerpt in my column. Click here to purchase What Did Jesus Do? from EWTN; click here to purchase the book from Amazon.
Foreword to 'What Did Jesus Do?'
What Western Christians call "denominationalism" didn't exist before the so-called Reformation of 1517. By 1600, however, the various reform movements had deteriorated into a cacophony of competing confessions (denominations), sustained and enforced by the power of states which rivaled one another and often longed to usurp the prerogatives of the papacy.
Tom Nash knows that this creedal competition was not Jesus' will for his Church. He works hard to avoid demonizing polemics and labors to settle the argument by appealing to our Protestant brothers and sisters on our common ground of Scripture. He is confident that Jesus can settle the argument.

To that end, he asks what kind of Church did Jesus intend to build? What materials were used to construct it? How does he currently govern it? This rich encounter with the Church of the Scriptures results in "Aha" after "Aha" moment. Nash demonstrates that Jesus didn't perform a bait and switch, promising a kingdom and then delivering a cheapened, fraudulent facsimile called "the church." The Church wasn't an afterthought, a mere pragmatic association of Jesus people. Rather, Jesus, from the beginning, willed the Church to be the center of human history and the Eucharistic Sacrifice to be the center of ecclesial identity and worship.

Nash's arguments are carefully constructed, well-organized and delivered in fresh, lively prose that trusts the Church's founder to mean what he says. Catholics will be reinforced in their faith and stretched in their spiritual imaginations. They may have never considered such a grand vision of the Church. But non-Catholics will also be grateful for this engagement of Scripture that clears up misconceptions and can only lead to more honest and fruitful relations between Catholics and the "separated brethren."

Buy it, read it, share it during this five-hundredth year since the unity of Western Christendom was ruptured and sizeable communities of Christians hardened into denominations. You never know what you might contribute to reunion.

– Al Kresta, president and CEO of Ave Maria Radio and host of the internationally syndicated talk-radio program 'Kresta in the Afternoon'

© Matt C. Abbott

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/171129

THE MANTRA OF THE LEFT: "I FEEL, THEREFORE IAM"

The mantra of the left: "I feel, therefore I am"

By Bryan Fischer
November 29, 2017

Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer, on Facebook at "Focal Point"

Host of "Focal Point" on American Family Radio, 1-3pm CT, M-F www.afr.net

You do not have to think to be a leftist, you only need to feel. In fact, once a leftist begins to think instead of just emote, he's put himself at risk of realizing just how foolish and empty most of his "ideas" are.

Not only do people on the left rely almost exclusively on instinctual emotions to determine their position on a given issue, the certitude they possess about that position is directly proportional to the intensity of the emotion they feel about it. 

It is impossible, in their view of things, to feel as strongly as they do about "equality" or "diversity" or "multiculturalism" or whatever and be wrong.
If they, for instance, "feel" like Roy Moore is a child molester, it will not matter to them whether any of the accusations against him have any evidence to support them (they don't). And the more intensely they dislike Moore, the more certain they are that he is a cretin. Their mind is made up, please don't confuse them with things like actual facts or the lack thereof.

This certitude makes it impossible to reason with them, for the simple reason that their view has nothing at all to do with reason. 

So, facts will not shake them, logic will not shake them, history will not shake them, scientific fact (about gender or life in the womb, for example) will not shake them, and rationality will not shake them. 

They have a conviction about things that is unshakeable and impervious to reason. They "feel," therefore they are "right."
At least one member of the community of higher education gets it. He is Adam J. MacLeod, an associate professor of law at Jones School of Law at Faulkner University in Montgomery, Alabama.

He wrote a recent column, Undoing the Dis-Education of Millennials (worth reading in its entirety) which includes a speech he gave to his incoming classes of millennials.

He has discovered that after two decades of mind-numbing indoctrination, 

"most of them cannot think" and are "enslaved to their appetites and feelings."
They are quick to dismiss Plato and Hammurabi simply because their ideas are "old," not because they are "wrong." It reminds me of C.S. Lewis' observation that the last barrier he had to clear in order to become a Christian was to overcome the ludicrous concept that newer ideas are better than old ideas simply because they are new, not because they are better. MacLeod calls this what it is, "chronological snobbery."

Moral knowledge does not, in fact, inevitably progress from one generation to the next. 

German Nazism was a much newer idea than American democracy, but it was not a better idea.
So Professor MacLeod laid down some ground rules, in a speech he gave to introduce their unit on reason.

First, he said, I must "teach you how to rid yourself of unreason." 

Before you can think, he told them, you "must first learn how to stop unthinking."
"Reasoning," he went on, "requires you to understand truth claims, even truth claims that you think are false or bad or just icky. 

Most of you have been taught to label things with various 'isms' which prevent you from understanding claims you find uncomfortable or difficult."

Instead of becoming thinking citizens, MacLeod told them, 

"You have learned to associate truth with your subjective feelings, which are neither true nor false but only yours, and which are constantly changeful."

To uproot the senseless weeds that have been planted in their brains, so that good seed can be planted, he established three rules.
"First, except when describing an ideology, you are not to use a word that ends in "ism"... 'Classism,' 'sexism,' 'materialism,' 'cisgenderism,' and (yes) even racism are generally not used as meaningful or productive terms...most of the time, they do not promote understanding." 

In fact, MacLeod argues, "[I]sms prevent you from learning. You have been taught to slap an 'ism' on things that you do not understand, or that make you feel uncomfortable, or that make you uncomfortable because you do not understand them. 

But slapping a label on the box without first opening the box and examining its contents is a form of cheating."
Second, he says, while the ideas of diversity and equality have value if properly understood, "the way most of you have been taught to understand them makes you irrational, unreasoning...Equal simply means the same. To say that 2+2 equals 4 is to say that 2+2 is numerically the same as four. 

And diversity simply means difference. So when you say that we should have diversity and equality you are saying we should have difference and sameness. 

That is incoherent, by itself. Two things cannot be different and the same at the same time in the same way."

And diversity by itself is no value at all. For instance, there have been diverse kinds of involuntary servitude – i.e., slavery – down through the ages. That doesn't by itself make any of them good.

"Third," he goes on, "you should not bother to tell us how you feel about a topic. 

Tell us what you think about it. If you can't think yet, that's O.K.. Tell us what Aristotle thinks, or Hammurabi thinks...

As Aristotle teaches us...men and women who are enslaved to the passions, who never rise above their animal natures by practicing the virtues, do not have worthwhile opinions. 

Only the person who exercises practical reason and attains practical wisdom knows how first to live his life, then to order his household, and finally, when he is sufficiently wise and mature, to venture opinions on how to bring order to the political community."

Another utterly false paradigm on the left is that disagreement is hatred. 

If you disagree with the homosexual agenda, for instance, whether you have valid moral, scientific, logical, historical, or health related reasons for your opposition is utterly immaterial to the left. 

If you disagree with them, you are a homophobic hater, period. But disagreement is not hatred, the truth is not hate speech, and discernment is not bigotry. MacLeod wants to break through that iron bubble.

One of my goals for you this semester is that each of you will encounter at least one idea that you find disagreeable and that you will achieve genuine disagreement with that idea. I need to explain what I mean by that because many of you have never been taught how to disagree.

Disagreement is not expressing one's disapproval of something or expressing that something makes you feel bad or icky. To really disagree with someone's idea or opinion, you must first understand that idea or opinion. When Socrates tells you that a good life is better than a life in exile you can neither agree nor disagree with that claim without first understanding what he means by "good life" and why he thinks running away from Athens would be unjust. Similarly, if someone expresses a view about abortion, and you do not first take the time to understand what the view is and why the person thinks the view is true, then you cannot disagree with the view, much less reason with that person. You might take offense. You might feel bad that someone holds that view. But you are not reasoning unless you are engaging the merits of the argument, just as Socrates engaged with Crito's argument that he should flee from Athens.

His final ground rule for the semester is the best of them all. "If you ever begin a statement with the words 'I feel,' before continuing you must cluck like a chicken or make some other suitable animal sound."

In what is a glimmer of hope for higher education, his students received his speech quite well, and better yet, so far this semester only two of them have had to cluck like chickens. 

May his tribe increase, and may his column be required reading in every institution of higher education from now until the end of time.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/fischer/171129

AMERICAN MINUTE

THE EMPIRE MARK TWAIN THOUGHT 'RICHLY DESERVED' DESTRUCTION

Bill Federer recounts famous author's observations while traveling abroad

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known as Mark Twain, was born Nov. 30, 1835. His first popular story was “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” written in 1865 while he was in San Francisco.

In 1866, as a reporter for the Sacramento Union, Mark Twain traveled to the Sandwich Islands (present-day Hawaii). In 1867, a newspaper funded Mark Twain’s voyage to the Mediterranean, which he recorded in his book, “Innocents Abroad,” 1869. While on this trip, Mark Twain saw the picture of his friend’s sister, Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York, and he fell in love. Immediately upon his return, he met and married Olivia.

In “Innocents Abroad,” 1869, which established his reputation as a writer, Mark Twain described Syria under the Ottoman Turkish Empire: 

“Then we called at the tomb of Mahomet’s children and at … the mausoleum of the five thousand Christians who were massacred in Damascus in 1861 by the Turks. 

They say those narrow streets ran blood for several days, and that men, women and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian quarter; they say, further, that the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the ‘infidel dogs.’ The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and in a short time twenty-five thousand more Christians were massacred and their possessions laid waste. …”

Mark Twain added: 

“How they hate a Christian in Damascus! – and pretty much all over Turkeydom as well. And how they will pay for it when Russia turns her guns upon them again! It is soothing to the heart to abuse England and France for interposing to save the Ottoman Empire from the destruction it has so richly deserved for a thousand years. …”

Mark Twain continued: 

“It hurts my vanity to see these pagans refuse to eat of food that has been cooked for us; or to eat from a dish we have eaten from; or to drink from a goatskin which we have polluted with our Christian lips, except by filtering the water through a rag which they put over the mouth of it or through a sponge! … These degraded Turks and Arabs. … When Russia is ready to war with them again, I hope England and France will not find it good breeding or good judgment to interfere. …”

Mark Twain wrote in “Innocents Abroad,” chapter XLII: 

“If ever an oppressed race existed, it is this one we see fettered around us under the inhuman tyranny of the Ottoman Empire. I wish Europe would let Russia annihilate Turkey a little – not much, but enough to make it difficult to find the place again without a divining-rod or a diving-bell.”

Mark Twain wrote in “Innocents Abroad,” chapter LVI: 

“Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies … about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch. … Palestine is desolate and unlovely. …”

In “Innocents Abroad,” chapter LIII, Mark Twain described the condition of Jerusalem under Ottoman Muslim rule: 

“Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound. … Jerusalem is mournful, and dreary, and lifeless. I would not desire to live here. … The Moslems watch the Golden Gate with a jealous eye, and an anxious one, for they have an honored tradition that when it falls, Islamism will fall and with it the Ottoman Empire. It did not grieve me any to notice that the old gate was getting a little shaky.”

Mark Twain wrote in “Innocents Abroad,” chapter LVI: 

“Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur … the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone, and the Ottoman crescent is lifted above the spot where, on that most memorable day in the annals of the world, they reared the Holy Cross.”

Discover more of Bill Federer’s eye-opening books and videos in the WND Superstore!

In chapter XLVII of “Innocents Abroad,” 1869, Mark Twain described the land of Israel: 

“We dismounted on those shores which the feet of the Saviour had made holy ground. … We left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town. But, all desolate and unpeopled as it was, it was illustrious ground. 

From it sprang that tree of Christianity whose broad arms overshadow so many distant lands today. Christ visited his old home at Nazareth, and saw His brothers Joses, Judas, James, and Simon. … Who wonders what passed in their minds when they saw this brother (who was only a brother to them, however He might be to others a mysterious stranger; who was a God, and had stood face to face with God above the clouds) doing miracles, with crowds of astonished people for witnesses? … 

One of the most astonishing things that has yet fallen under our observation is the exceedingly small portion of the earth from which sprang the new flourishing plant of Christianity. The longest journey our Saviour ever performed was from here to Jerusalem – about one hundred to one hundred and twenty miles. … Leaving out two or three short journeys, He spent His life, preaching His Gospel, and performing His miracles, within a compass no larger than an ordinary county of the United States. …”

Of the Bible, Mark Twain wrote in “Innocents Abroad,” 1869: 

“It is hard to make a choice of the most beautiful passage in a book which is so gemmed with beautiful passages as the Bible; but it is certain that not many things within its lids may take rank above the exquisite story of Joseph. Who taught those ancient writers their simplicity of language, their felicity of expression, their pathos, and above all, their faculty of sinking themselves entirely out of sight of the reader and making the narrative stand out alone and seem to tell itself? Shakespeare is always present when one reads his book; Macaulay is present when we follow the march of his stately sentences; but the Old Testament writers are hidden from view.”

Mark Twain wrote in “Innocents Abroad,” 1869: 

“In the starlight, Galilee has no boundaries but the broad compass of the heavens, and is a theatre meet for great events; meet for the birth of a religion able to save the world.”

Brought to you by AmericanMinute.com.

Discover more of Bill Federer’s eye-opening books and videos in the WND Superstore!

http://www.wnd.com/2017/11/the-empire-mark-twain-thought-richly-deserved-destruction/?cat_orig=education