Recovering the orthodox doctrine of original sin (1)

The doctrine of original sin is a hotly disputed topic which typically is seen as originating in St. Augustine. Of course, that narrative is simplistic and false. I plan to make this a three part series where I work backwards from its understandings in Protestantism to the Medieval Catholicism, finally to the ancestral sin doctrine of the Eastern fathers. But I think it is important to start with the doctrine as presented by St. Augustine of Hippo. The obvious problem with St. Augustine of Hippo is that he wasn't always orthodox in his presentation on the nature of grace, free will, and original sin. St. Augustine had come from a Manichaean past and much of his work deals with the refutation of the Pelagian heresy. It is important to not take Augustinian lines of reasoning to the most literal conclusions. Neither has the Catholic nor Orthodox Churches done such with St. Augustine's teachings. You cannot take St. Augustine, chop him up, throw him in a blender, and then come out with the Christian doctrine on everything. That is bad theology! As a matter of fact, even St. Augustine revised most of his teachings on various subjects as taken on in Retractiones.

Now, that said, St. Augustine's influence in the West is commanding and how he factored in to debates concerning original sin and free will would even further dominate. The City of God gives a detailed account of world history from the creation of the world through to St. Augustine's own present day. Since this was one of his later works, it is important to start with his doctrines there. These are his most developed positions on the subjects that concern us most. In The City of  God, we observe what is the Western traditional view, "so great a sin was committed [by the first two], that by it the human nature was altered for the worse, and was transmitted also to their posterity, liable to sin and subject to death." (Bk.XIVch1) And there you have it, we now are guilty of the first couple's sin...or...are we? Because shortly after saying this, St. Augustine then goes on to reveal "if anyone says that the flesh is the cause of all vices and ill conduct, inasmuch as the soul lives wickedly because it is moved by the flesh, it is certain he has not carefully studied the nature of man....the corruption of the body, which weighs down the soul, is not the cause but the punishment of the first sin" (ch3). Here, St. Agustine maintains that the flesh is corrupted by the first sin but it is not the cause of the first sin and hence, is not evil. It is a bondage to the corrupted flesh that man is subjected to but the flesh is not evil, it is in need of restoration.

That the will of man and the flesh of man are corrupted and held captive by sinful thoughts and temptations is very plain to see. What is seen though in Protestantism is a straying from that line of thought toward something that rejects that man is still the image of God. From Luther, we notice the fixation on St. Augustine's first statement about the nature of the effects of sin is clung to dearly. This is much to the detriment of the human will in total.

The apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, discourses on these same things, not “in a corner,” but in public and before the whole world, and that with a freely open mouth, nay in the harshest terms, saying, “whom He will He hardeneth.” (Rom. ix. 18.) And again, “God, willing to shew forth His wrath,” &c. (Rom ix. 22.) What is more severe, that is to the flesh, than that word of Christ “Many are called but few chosen?” (Matt. xxii. 14.) And again, “I know whom I have chosen?” (John xiii. 18.) According to your judgment then, all these things are such, that nothing can be more uselessly spoken; because that by these things, impious men may fall into desperation, hatred, and blasphemy. (Bondage of the Will, Sect. XXIII)

BUT I will easily prove to you the contrary of all this: — that such holy men as you boast of, whenever they approach God, either to pray or to do, approach Him, utterly forgetful of their own “Free-will” and despairing of themselves, crying unto Him for pure grace only, feeling at the same time that they deserve everything that is the contrary. In this state was Augustine often; and in the same state was Bernard, when, at the point of death, he said, “I have lost my time, because I have lived wrong.” (Sect. XXX)

It would indeed be more properly termed “Vertiblewill,” or “Mutable-will.” For in this way Augustine, and after him the Sophists, diminished the glory and force of the term, free; adding thereby this detriment, that they assign vertibility to “Free-will.” And it becomes us thus to speak, lest, by inflated and lofty terms of empty sound, we should deceive the hearts of men. (Sect. XLI)

For when it is granted and established, that “Free-will,” having once lost its liberty, is compulsively bound to the service of sin, and cannot will any thing good: I, from these words, can understand nothing else than that “Free-will” is a mere empty term, whose reality is lost. (Sect. L)

And finally, from the constant diatribe against free will, we arrive at Luther's understanding that "if that which is most excellent in man be not ungodly, nor utterly depraved, nor damnable, but that which is flesh only, that is the grosser and viler affections, what sort of a Redeemer shall we make Christ?" (Sect. CXXI) Thence, the origination of total depravity from a corruption of St. Augustine. Note that in St. Augustine's work, he does not say the flesh is so depraved that it has become evil but rather it is corrupted to the extent that it becomes difficult to move of its volition. There is the major distinction. Even John Calvin noted the stark distinction between his own understanding and St. Augustine's understanding.

Augustine hesitates not to call the will a slave. 15 In another passages he is offended with those who deny free will; but his chief reason for this is explained when he says, “Only lest any one should presume so to deny freedom of will, from a desire to excuse sin.” It is certain, he elsewhere admits, that without the Spirit the will of man is not free, inasmuch as it is subject to lusts which chain and master it. And again, that nature began to want liberty the moment the will was vanquished by the revolt into which it fell. Again, that man, by making a bad use of free will, lost both himself and his will. Again, that free will having been made a captive, can do nothing in the way of righteousness. Again, that no will is free which has not been made so by divine grace. Again, that the righteousness of God is not fulfilled when the law orders, and man acts, as it were, by his own strength, but when the Spirit assists, and the will (not the free will of man, but the will freed by God) obeys. (Institutes, Bk2ch2.8)

I maintain, that as well in the words of the Psalmist which I have quoted, as in other passages of Scripture, two things are clearly taught—viz. that the Lord both corrects, or rather destroys, our depraved will, and also substitutes a good will from himself. In as much as it is prevented by grace, I have no objection to your calling it a handmaid; but in as much as when formed again, it is the work of the Lord, it is erroneous to say, that it accompanies preventing grace as a voluntary attendant. Therefore, Chrysostom is inaccurate in saying, that grace cannot 257 do any thing without will, nor will any thing without grace (Serm. de Invent. Sanct. Crucis); as if grace did not, in terms of the passage lately quoted from Paul, produce the very will itself. The intention of Augustine, in calling the human will the handmaid of grace, was not to assign it a kind of second place to grace in the performance of good works. His object merely was to refute the pestilential dogma of Pelagius, who made human merit the first cause of salvation. (Bk2ch3.7)

Thus, in Calvin, we see St. Augustine fully perverted into something of a pre-Calvinist apologist who was constrained by the language of his time. It was good of John Calvin to show up. But more sparks of total depravity arise throughout his theology. And as total depravity became to be well-adapted in Protestant thought, even the proponents of free will had to find a way to defend it.

1. I proceed to draw a few inferences from what has been said. And, First, from hence we may learn one grand fundamental difference between Christianity, considered as a system of doctrines, and the most refined Heathenism. Many of the ancient Heathens have largely described the vices of particular men. They have spoken much against their covetousness, or cruelty; their luxury, or prodigality. Some have dared to say that “no man is born without vices of one kind or another.” But still as none of them were apprized of the fall of man, so none of them knew of his total corruption. They knew not that all men were empty of all good, and filled with all manner of evil. They were wholly ignorant of the entire depravation of the whole human nature, of every man born into the world, in every faculty of his soul, not so much by those particular vices which reign in particular persons, as by the general flood of Atheism and idolatry, of pride, self-will, and love of the world. This, therefore, is the first grand distinguishing point between Heathenism and Christianity. The one acknowledges that many men are infected with many vices, and even born with a proneness to them; but supposes withal, that in some the natural good much over-balances the evil: The other declares that all men are conceived in sin,” and “shapen in wickedness;” — that hence there is in every man a “carnal mind, which is enmity against God, which is not, cannot be, subject to” his “law;” and which so infects the whole soul, that “there dwelleth in” him, “in his flesh,” in his natural state, “no good thing;” but “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart is evil,” only evil, and that “continually.” (John Wesley, Sermon 44)

The concept of total depravity would end becoming so prevalent in Protestant thought that Albert Barnes, a Protestant theologian and Biblical interpreter, sought to seek the roots of the problem with the concept of original sin. Of course, he was wrong in saying that there was no original sin. But he may have been right in everything else he said about the topic.

It is but justice to state, that the commentator maintains that a resemblance between Adam and Christ lies not at all in the mode in which sin and righteousness, life and death have been respectively introduced by them; but is found in the simple fact that "the effect of their doings did not terminate on themselves, but extended to numberless other persons." pp. 117, 118, 128. (Barnes' Notes on the Bible)

Barnes' theological input on this concept of original sin certainly would shine light on the false doctrine of total depravity even if it was only a start. For some reason, his commentary seems to be buried in Protestant theology. Even as self-avowed Arminian theologians would seek to dispute it despite what John Wesley himself has stated about the subject of total depravity. But as we progress backwards, it becomes evident that Barnes begins to come far closer to the doctrine of ancestral sin as taught in the East. (end part I, to be continued...)

Let's get rid of those pews!

While corona virus has brought us some challenges, well rather the politicians enforcing these lockdowns have given us some challenges, there's also a lot of benefits that can be made in our commitment and re-commitment to tradition. One of those benefits is that at my own parish, we've vacated the main parish floor of chairs! Woo-hoo! There's some decent reasons to get rid of chairs and pews for good too. In the effort to stay six feet apart so that we don't end up six feet under, we could actually make this a permanent solution to a lot more problems too. Particularly in the spiritual life. While the spiritual life does not insist on remaining six feet apart so that we don't end up six feet under, it does tell us that a righteous man will fall down six times but make it back up seven times.

For starters, pews were rather unheard of in the ancient Church. They were unheard of in the Church at all until some goofy German came along in the 16th century and decided everyone else was reading their Bibles wrong but some how God had blessed him with the ability to interpret it most accurately! Like the Prophet Muhammad before him, he had finally gotten it all right! It was settled. "Time to build a new church. And also, why can't I sit on something comfortable, Helga? Here, let me move in some couches into this new church I built. Ah, much better. God doesn't want us to go through sufferings in this Earth, why must he make us suffer through up to an hour of a church service by forcing us to sit on this hard surface? The lack of furniture is indeed a blasphemy!" said the miserable, goofy German.

Then there was some weird English king who's like, "Wow! This goofy German just broke with the Church and he doesn't even have a military and he's alive! I like have a military to defend myself against the Papal Guards. Why don't I just take over full church governance in my own kingdom? Also, he's put couches in his church? I can one-up with some wooden benches with some nice, soft, cushiony pillows!" And so the weird English king walked away too.

A group of Calvinists gather at their
local Presbyterian Church to
worship goddess Ikea. Obvious puppets.

Then there was some French dude with a long beard who said, "No way! I can sit on something soft during church services?!? Adios, Papa Urbano!" And so the crusade of the Brotherhood of Couch Sitters began to leave the One, Holy, Chairless, and Apostolic Church one-by-one. And some counter-reformers said, "You know, maybe we should have added chairs. And some guitars. And some pop music. Definitely pop music! That will lead people back into the Church."

And so they did all this. And not a single soul was brought back to the One, Holy, Chairless, and Apostolic Church as a result. Nevertheless, they kept insisting that if we only added some lovely couches, people would most definitely come back to the Church. But the more the couches added, the less people became enthused to come back to the Church. The goddess Ikea of Sweden was clearly a better chair-maker than the Apostolic Church. She had been in business for several long years and the Church only for about 500 years had she been in business. It was clearly a losing battle.

My godfather attempts to entertain inquiring
Protestants as they fall asleep in the chairs.

The Protestants wasted no opportunities to let their new-found love for the goddess Ikea of Sweden go to waste. They gathered in mass numbers and listened to their pastors give the longest sermons known to man-kind. You thought 15 minutes was long? Wait until you hear their sermons! Some went on for 45 hours, others went on for days. One went on for a long week. They put some built-in cup-holders to good use during that sermon! The purpose of the sermon wasn't really to teach theology to the people. It was more-so to break in the new furniture. You could tell by the heads leisurely falling asleep during those intensely long sermons.

But then came the reign of the Emperor Covid XIX and he put an end to the worship of the goddess Ikea. The Emperor Covid XIX used his summoning powers to spread throughout all the world and forced everyone to remain six feet apart lest they go six feet under. Covid XIX wrapped chains around all the furniture that the goddess Ikea had set in every Church. Pews went into disuse as churches around the world re-opened and interest in the goddess Ikea dropped to record lows. But some churches knew better. They had already gotten rid of the pews. Now it was time to do away with the chairs. And stop using the sermon as an excuse to break in the furniture.

Pews are obviously a criminal offense to God.

So a return to the ancient customs of the church was already in progress and now it was time to realize the end goal of that return. Do away with the pews, provide space for more people to stand, and now we can have a return to the ancient customs! The idols of the goddess of Ikea are locked and barred. Nothing more than mere wood. Now to take an axe to them and turn them into rood screens!

How I got where I am...

I am dealing with some writer's block right now but as the blog does cover some of my own spiritual journey, I figured I'd post this which I initially also posted on FishEaters' forum.

This kind of beauty was craved from a young age.

When I was younger, I always thought a Catholic Mass would be very lovely with the candle-light and the old-style architecture. But I grew up non-denominational. It was a mixture of Pietist and Evangelical doctrine. I struggled a lot with faith growing up. They never gave a direct answer as to how to save and I would read Scriptures that suggested one thing and then they would insist because of my intellectual profession (which wasn't strong to begin with), I would be saved. Even still, in my senior year in high school I developed strong anti-Catholic and fundamentalist sentiment. That's because I discovered a lot of commentaries to the book of Revelation which weren't very nice toward the Church.

In university, I took a religions of the world class my first semester. That class led me to question my views on the Trinity. I explored modalism, Arianism, and Socinianism.

The Parking lot is the only thing of 
significance at the mega-church!

My dad had been heavily involved at my non-denominational church but that one was going through some massive changes. He and my mom also had some sort of house church thing set up which eventually fell apart as well as some of our friends who began developing more fundamentalist beliefs stopped going. I ended up in an Evangelical Covenant Church but never believed a single one of its doctrines! Soon, I began exploring the occult with the influence of a lot of death metal and black metal I'd been listening to.

But somehow, I felt a pull to try and understand the theology of the ancient church. One of the pastors at the Evangelical Covenant Church introduced me to an interest in theology. Although he and I ultimately parted ways, I think he did unintentionally set me in the right direction. Even as I converted, we'd still meet a little bit at McDonald's but he moved to another state the last I heard. I began exploring different doctrines in the Protestant world and theological opinions. I wanted to understand more and began reading about church history and ended up on a forum where I had heard about Eastern Rite Catholicism. I'd never heard about that before. I assumed it was just the Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox.

Any way, one day, I ended up in a Byzantine Catholic Cathedral in Phoenix, AZ. It was the Sunday before Halloween in 2013 and I heard the archpriest give an homily about the Gadarene Demoniac. Keep in mind, I arrived there after a heavy exploration in the occult. I didn't have a license then and my mom was my chauffer so she searched out a closer parish. I ended up in that Byzantine Catholic parish the next Saturday and I said to the priest that I had been called to the faith. I'd been going regularly, and attending Eastern Christian Formation classes but in January of 2014, a huge wave of depression took over me. I struggled to attend church on Sundays, barely made it to the Vesper Divine Liturgies the parish had, and eventually ended up missing church all together. Faith became hard.

The priest wasn't a very effective preacher either. I recall the archpriest's homily on a regular basis though. The priest at the other parish had come from a fundamentalist background, he was very anti-Protestant, and not as Gospel-centered. Of course, becoming Catholic means accepting the tenets of the Catholic faith but I still felt the rigorous anti-Protestantism was beginning to get in the way of learning the Catholic faith. I got into an argument with the priest one day. I remember calling the archpriest and telling him about my argument, the archpriest telling me if I have any problems to call him and let him know, and to keep attending the Eastern Christian Formation classes. That understanding wasn't necessary. So I went back and ended up developing a relationship with the deacon there.

The mortuary where I was baptized.

One day, he presented me with an icon of the Archangel Michael and said that he had spoken to Father and that if I was absolutely certain about entering into the faith, I could be received into it in just a few weeks, that a chrismation could be arranged and be done in private. (He did not know I was not baptized at that point though he did the next Sunday.) I wasn't certain then at that point. I felt a pull toward the West again. I had also begun to become influenced by a lot of High Church Protestant theology as well which I hadn't realized could be quite catholic in its teachings. I ended up in a Continuing Anglican Mission in the Anglican Church in America. I had been attending for a month and the rector asked me one day why I didn't take communion. I told him I wasn't baptized. He told me he'd fix that. The next month, I was baptized in the Anglican Church in America--October 26, 2014.

I still met with the Ruthenian Catholic deacon regularly at his university office. I would attend his parish on occasion too. Even though I had this Western pull, I also felt pulled toward the East. I began to feel that even the Anglo-Catholic faith I was in was becoming deficient. But I continued with it until my family moved across the country. I explored several different parishes. Two Anglo-Catholic parishes--a Diocese of the Holy Cross parish, and a parish in the Anglican Catholic Church. The Diocese of the Holy Cross parish is still the most Traditionalist Catholic-looking parish I've ever been to. I went to a Western Rite Orthodox parish too. I visited a Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish and a Melkite Greek Catholic parish.

I told the Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest I wanted to convert in his parish. I had been going there for about a year and a half. I attended the Melkite Catholic parish whenever they had holy days and for Vespers. I developed strong relationships with the people there. The Ukrainian Catholic parish had no full-time priest, they only met on Sundays and for certain holy days such as Christmas, Holy Thursday, and Great Friday. But I attended the Melkite parish to witness many other holy days.

When the priest at the Melkite parish passed in November, I met the man who would be appointed the interim pastor by the bishop. There was something about this man. I felt as if he'd be instrumental in my salvation but I didn't see it then and I tried to bury it and insist it couldn't be.

Even with the paperwork submitted fully and my Ukrainian Catholic catechist testifying I was ready for chrismation, the priest insisted I still go through more classes. I was becoming frustrated, tempted extraordinarily by Satan to despair and despondency. I was cutting myself in the narthex of the Melkite parish one day. A lady saw me and my godmother's (another lady who had just recently been declaring me to be her godson) husband came out to my aid. That eventually led to a discussion with the deacon about my exasperation, I felt the Church had rejected me, and the deacon asked if I had considered being chrismated at the Melkite parish. I decided to surrender at that point. The deacon and I talked with the priest afterward and he said, "How about I chrismate you right now?" That lady who had been calling me her godson and her husband had left to pick up their oldest from work. I asked the priest if he could have those two serve as witness. So he held off for that moment.

Received into the Church right in front of these doors!

I told my catechist and the Ukrainian Catholic priest I would be completing my religious instruction at the Melkite parish. The next week I was chrismated. The deacon and my godparents and my priest all knew I would be at the Ukrainian Catholic parish the next day so I didn't receive Eucharist immediately. The Ukrainian Catholic priest became angry and hardened of heart when I showed him my certificate of chrismation. He demanded to know why I was there and why I wasn't with the Melkites. His demands intimidated me. I wanted him to bless the icon that my godparents had given me the previous night. It was only when I kept pestering him and mentioning their names (they attended another parish of his previously), that he finally resigned to doing that.

I didn't receive the Eucharist that day. Afterward, I asked the priest if I could receive Eucharist in his parish and he told me "technically yes, but I want to question you further" and he claimed that my coming in through the Melkites was "tricky" and that I should be with them. I was despairing and nearly despondent all week but God had put the right people in my life. The next Sunday, I attended the Melkite parish. I asked my godmother if I could go up and receive it with her and she said to me that she couldn't carry me (she has a five-year old and a three-year old). I said, I don't want to be carried. I followed her in line, it was crowded, I kept my hand on her shoulder to let her know I was behind her. Just before it was her turn, she took my forearm and sent in front of her and I communed then.

So now I am a Melkite Catholic and maybe when tensions between the Ukrainian priest and I heal, I'll go back there. As it turns out, I sent a complaint to his bishop's office about the situation from that Sunday and heard back on Wednesday from the Dean of the Ukrainian Catholic Protopresbyterate of Washington informing me that the Ukrainian priest is aware I belong to the Melkite Catholic Church and am eligible to receive Holy Mysteries at his parish. So perhaps I will go again some day in the near future but for now, I'll be attending my home parish on Sundays with more regularity.

Sts. Peter and Paul

The feast day of Sts. Peter and Paul in many ways is a feast day of reconciliation but also a reflection on the mission work of these two most significant apostles. Both of whom died and were martyred in Rome. St. Paul had a conflict with St. Peter over the requirement of Gentiles' to refrain from certain foods. St. Paul rebuked St. Peter on this topic. The rebuke of St. Peter was falsely used as evidence by the archheretic Marcion to "prove" that St. Paul was the only legitimate apostle. But it was the confession that St. Peter made on which the faith stands.

That is why in identifying a witch, one of the first ways to tell is by ordering the witch to confess Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and that he is Risen from the dead. The witch will of course squirm when confronted with that question. He will twist and turn. Some will try and qualify it but St. Peter's confession is what our faith stands on. St. Paul's mission work is what expanded the faith that St. Peter laid down for us. The two were the most harmonious apostles.

2020 historical summary

2020 was going to be the greatest year ever. But then, two days in and already, someone very important dropped a bomb on another dude from another country of significance and that dude that someone very important dropped the bomb on was also very important. So someone very important dropped a bomb on someone very important. Someone very, very important dropped a bomb on someone very, very important. Someone very, very, VERY important dropped a bomb on someone very, very, VERY important!

Then came the locusts. Oh yes, there were thousands of them! And no, I'm not talking about the helicopters. Even though many of us were seriously frightened we were descending into WWIII, the locusts were not military helicopters at all. I mean actual, big, freaking locusts. And when I say freaking, I mean freaking. These were not a joke to mess around with, young grasshopper. These were locusts! BIG GIGANTIC MEGA LOCUSTS!!! Like some reached about a foot long in length. Some, you could have as breakfast, lunch, and dinner, if you were St. John the Baptist that is. These locusts were huge. And they took the Middle East by swarm.

Oh yeah, then there was the great plague. And the plague infected myriads and myriads of people and it spread at churches, at movie theaters, at synagogues, at schools, libraries, seminaries, and hospitals. But it did not spread at grocery stores, big box retail stores, marijuana stores, liquor stores, stores where you can buy lottery tickets from, the governors' mansions, or anything else that a politician labeled an "essential business". And while COVID-19 was so horrible a disease that it forced the entire lockdown and severance of all human social interactions while God continued to say "It is not good for the man to be alone", the one good thing about this horrible and pitiful plague is that people stopped dying of all other sicknesses and ailments. Only COVID-19 was what they had died from.

But people loved being indoors. So much so that they didn't even bother to protest and voluntarily paid fines when they were arrested for protesting the lockdowns. It was great happenings all throughout the country with these lockdowns. It was gleefully obvious to these politicians in charge that the people loved the lockdowns. People don't want to see their friends and family. Who would want to do that?!? Not any decent introvert! Hold on, I'm getting word that this is actually not true. People actually did attempt to protest but then were labeled "Trump-supporters", "white nationalists", "selfish", "disobedient", and a thousand other different slurs when they did. Also, it was pointed out that the virus spreads in these protests...but there are some protests in which the virus doesn't spread in.

There were actually some very important essential protesters going on shortly after a man kneeled on another man's neck. The video of this event happening resulted in a unanimous condemnation of what the man did but for some reason, this one group of people claiming to be super-anti-racist that any disagreement with it meant that you were a racist yourself said that you were inherently guilty of that man's crime simply by sharing his skin color. Which seems racist at first, but hold on, the man who kneeled on the other man's neck was white and the man who was killed was black so that makes it okay to say that people are inherently guilty of another man's crime on the basis of their race. These protests really escalated quite fast. Target was burned and looted though some say the reason was in the name...or maybe the bullseye logo that it should have reconsidered. At any rate, the company made itself a target.

As stores were burned and razed throughout the countries, the rage never dissipated, it grew larger. Eventually, they ran out of super-markets and small businesses to raze. So at this point, the people got together and formed the Brotherhood of The Statue Knocker-Downers. This glorious Brotherhood of the Statue Knocker-Downers would knock down all the racist statues in existence. Racist meaning that the people were white. So they went after the abolitionist Empress of Brazil, they went after Queen Victoria, they went after a Norwegian immigrant who fought for the Union during the Civil War, they knocked down a statue of a Catholic saint and went after another statue of a Catholic saint. To say these people were possessed is a bit of an understatement. They certainly were commanded by the Devil for only he would tear down an icon after having been so soundly defeated at the Second Council of Nicaea. The virus did not spread in these protests.

Oh yeah, we got a new nation after this. It was a peaceful nation with no police, no border wall, and no border patrol officers. Just cheap barricades to lock people and public officials from delivering aid and a pansied-group of selfish, dimwitted college students called "white liberals" who openly mocked themselves for their racism. They hated using guns so they used them themselves. It was a peaceful nation that called for the head removal of people who didn't affirm their liberal orthodoxy which they insisted was entirely non-dogmatic dogma that people were expected to affirm. In addition, it also inherited the highest murder rate for any nation. But it was a peaceful nation. There was tranquility and peace in that nation. We were sad when it disbanded.

Oh, and don't forget the Presidential election...

Here the summary of events cuts off. It was said the man made himself laugh so much writing this that he died of laughter. R.I.P. Anonymous Coward

2020 vision from the future

It's been almost 40 years after that dreadful and momentous year of 2020 for the counter-revolution. I fear I won't see the new age dawning in but here I write as the counter-revolution begins to fight back against the totalitarian menace that has become of the American Republic as The Woke call it. Yes, there is no more Democrat and Republican Parties fighting each other as used to. It's all about The Woke. If you don't think like them, they throw you in a jail cell. But there was a myriad of faithful who saw past the bullying lies of The Woke. They managed to form an underground movement which has somehow been kept alive and as our children repopulate, we are even on the verge of becoming the majority! The Woke was never bright to begin with. They always insisted on having more abortions and birth control and damn near have driven them out of existence. But now, as we come out from the underground and begin to take over the classrooms again, our lives are increasingly in danger. They have murdered two colleagues of mine from alone and imprisoned my own wife. They have taken my 12 children hostage and have hanged the youngest. But nevertheless, the tides are turning in our favor. The Woke is losing power. They are seeing us come out of hiding for a change to challenge them. And we are taking their young and teaching them the traditions we have always held near and dear.

It started in the year 2020. The Woke had been forming astonishingly right underneath our noses. Most didn't see it and the few who did dare not call it out. But those of who did and saw it coming realized The Woke takeover was inevitable. They originally targeted the Democratic Party of old as their joy-ride to power. But they were never satisfied with the direction. They wanted more out of the party that they never got. We were still run by the neo-con Republican Party but they were swiftly losing all power throughout the entire American Republic. It is no longer the United States. Federalism is a thing long since gone. The Woke have increased the power of the Republic to a centralized state. They came after Confederates, then the Founders, then the Monarchs, then the Saints. The few who avoided their massacre realized they could no longer trust Republicans so we bailed and developed an underground movement to preserve what we knew and pass it down to our young. We gathered in other people's garages for our liturgies, we bought all the books that we possibly could for The Woke soon did a mass book burning, we opened up independent publishing outlets that reprinted the works of ancient. Our movement countered The Woke at every twist and turn.

The year 2020 was welcomed by many as a sign of hope and a sign of cheer. But the Democratic Party was being taken in an increasingly left-wing turn toward the Wokist philosophy of such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. Many insisted that their ideas would never take power. But I was one of the few who knew much better. I knew the taint that the GOP had. The GOP was the only opposition party to this Woke madness. But the GOP was spineless. Republican statesmen had no desire to slam The Woke for what it was. It was a tiny minority of radicalized, zombified, college-educated brats who had bad relationships with their fathers and walked around like little Hell-demons. But The Woke was getting stronger. Mystifyingly stronger. How could they grasp hold of a once-known centrist like Michael Bloomberg and then Joe Biden and turn them into radical left-wing vampires? No one saw that. Four years prior, a Bernie Sanders Presidency would have been laughable. America wasn't ready for socialism. But now, socialism was at its strongest height in America and we had missed the warning signs. The federalized national bank, the statist healthcare system, social security, affirmative action. The socialist indoctrination of America was already long since in the making. The Woke pushed it to the maximum.

We were only two days into 2020 when the President of the United States (yes, there was once a President, we now only have a legislative branch of government that also enforces and judges laws, made up of over 10,000 politicians elected every six years) ordered the air raid on a very important Iranian official. The world was already panicking about World War III. Nothing could be worse. Then there were locusts sprouting up throughout the Middle East. Some were even ranging a foot in length. The President was already going through a legal battle of his own when an outbreak was crashing toward us from China. First, he downplayed it as a hoax. And many thought it was a hoax too. But then it snuck up into Italy around the beginning of Lent. Many people even suspect the Pope himself may have incidentally and by mistake infected the rest of Italy with it. The Pope had been sick with what seemed to be a flu but never was formally diagnosed with that virus. There was mass hysteria and nationwide panic throughout. People were in such a panicked state that they became willing to do whatever their political leaders told them to do and believe whatever their political leaders told them to believe. The pandemic was a golden opportunity for The Woke to infect us with its virus. It was only a matter of time.

Yes, the viral outbreak of COVID-19 was certainly awful. But no one bothered to actually examine the facts. Well, the few of us in the underground did. We declared it a scamdemic. The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control, both of which are now disbanded and replaced with The Society to Combat the Virus of Racism, would tell us one thing one day, and another thing the next. They successfully implemented the term "social distancing" into our vocabulary that year and people took the warnings to heart by astounding degree! They decided that Jacques Rousseau, that totalitarian descendant of the menace John Calvin, was correct in his assessment that man only artificially creates social relationships. That man is not a social animal became the norm. This resulted in severed relationships between people throughout the country and the world. The Woke who had once taught severing families as they crossed into our borders illegally was now more than fine if it meant severing ties families for people who had committed no wrongs. The lockdowns wore on as long as the governors pleased and the CDC and WHO would tell us one thing to believe about the virus one day, and a totally different thing the next. What was scary is that despite their flip-flops, people obeyed their stories. Dr. Fauci, who many of us started slurring as Dr. Fauxci, told us it was okay to have a sexual hook-up with someone we just met on Tinder but the handshake had to die. It was sex positivism in opposition to normalcy. Queer began to be "normal" never mind that's the complete opposite of the meaning of the word "queer". People surrendered social control voluntarily. Not a shock as democracy had programmed this into our brain. This would have been unacceptable in any other society.

They told us not to gather in large masses. They told us not to see our friends or loved ones. People lost faith because our church leaders told us that we could only watch the services through the computers. Depression and mental illnesses began rocking our country. 2020 was now the year that people only died of COVID-19. Well, that's what The Woke has insisted. And they continue to insist that the only thing people die from nowadays is COVID-19 too. Unless you were weeded up from the underground. Then they tell you what the actual death cause was. They really expect us to believe this lunacy that the only deadly thing on planet Earth now is COVID-19 and them? They're on hallucinogens and our underground resistance has known this since they started taking over. They hadn't even realized we had existed until just six years ago when the first man brave enough to enter back into worldly society sounded the first battle-cry. That 10,000 seat Parliament has begun to be taken over by force by our counter-revolution and The Woke hasn't even figured it out. But things are starting to get violent again. We've neared Civil War. The first election since the battle cry was sounded resulted in a whopping 3,563 seat gain for our party. We hadn't had any power at all. Very few knew we had even existed. And yet, there we were in Parliament. The tides were sifting.

Perhaps the stamping out came in the late Spring when a man was killed in police custody. Nobody knew the motivation of the officer. Everyone knew the police department in Minneapolis was corrupt. The knee-pin lock was permitted in the Minneapolis police department for years. That's what killed the man. But everyone insisted that because of the skin colors of the men involved, racism must have been the motivation. I hadn't lived through the 1960s, that's for certain but when people compared this to the 1960s, I knew better than to fall for that. The 1960s combated racist policies. These people were starting to compare any one who stood in their way or disagreed in the slightest with their "Wokist" mentality that they were racists. A Christian group that gathered in defense of the icon of St. Louis IX was labeled as a group of white nationalists and Trump-supporters and people took that as face value. It was clearly a battle over morality and the Republicans had lost before it even started. They had never been able to levy the charge of murder at their pro-abortion opponents in Congress. Nor were they able to call the policies of their colleagues on the other side sexual perverts for their love of LGBTQ and every letter after insanity. They promoted birth control, and only cared about the drug war. No one explained what policies that existed though were racist but because that was generally accepted as immoral, no one dared challenge. Except us. And we remained thriving.

There were riots every where, statues came down, and when you called them a riot or asserted that BLM truly stood for "Burn, Loot, Murder" (which indeed, the terrorist group formally known as Black Lives Matter did change their name to!), you were pummeled and bullied by the mob. It ran rampant because no one stood up to it. But we also knew it would take a while to challenge formally. We knew we needed to strengthen our own group and so we did. We provided dissent, challenged the COVID-19 lockdown policies, rose up and defended. We knew the Presidential candidates were bad. On one side a demented neo-con taking advice from other neo-cons, and on the other side nothing more than a puppet for a Party that wouldn't even let him become President! The election was...

Here, the letter cuts off with a drop of blood covering the last thought. The counter-revolutionaries were able to preserve what was left of the letter and reproduce what was written here until that point here. The underground was able to preserve almost the entirety of the cultural tradition that The Woke had sought to destroy. The Woke were astounded by this. Eventually, the warring factions became so intense and The Woke had sought to seek dominance within itself so long, that The Woke eventually lost the Great War of 2063 in a span of less than two weeks. The former counter-revolutionaries have been in power ever since. Churches gather in mass, faith has never been stronger, we have reclaimed the universities as sources for intellectual progress. The American Republic has long since vanished. The American Monarchy flourishes.

St. Anselm's atonement

I talked about St. Hildegard's atonement concept on another recent post. This post, I will focus more on St. Anselm's atonement theology. St. Anselm's atonement theology is famously considered "satisfaction" theory but the terminological use of satisfaction is highly problematic. Joseph Ratzinger introduces us to the atonement theology of St. Anselm. St. Anselm argues "[b]y man's sin, which was aimed against God, the order of justice was violated beyond measure and God infinitely offended." (Introduction to Christianity, 231-232) If one offends a beggar, they commit a less offense but if one offends an infinite deity, that demands an infinite reparation. Thus, man, being finite, cannot ever hope to repay that debt to God. Thus, God comes into to offer up himself as reparation. This act of sacrifice frees us from the guilt we once bore. The view captures the Gospel's intentions but runs the risk of creating a more sinister view of God (232-233).

St. Anselm further goes into detail that punishment is required for sin to be forgiven. "[I]f no satisfaction is given, the way to regulate sin correctly is none other than to punish it" (Cur Deus Homo, Bk1, ch12). "If...it is not punished, it is forgiven without its having been regulated. ... But it is not fitting for God to have anything in his kingdom to slip by unregulated" (ibid). St. Anselm uses further argumentation to prove the need for punishment in the act of reconciliation. This certainly does seem rather odd and how it fits in with the Gospel of Christ remains to be seen at this point. While Christ was being crucified, he did not seek punishment for those spitting on him but prayed, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." Likewise, in the Parable of the Unforgiving Debtor, the servant was forgiven by the king without there being punishment. It was when the unforgiving servant then refused to forgive someone who owed him much less and had that man thrown in jail that the punishment was meted out to the unforgiving servant. We'll get back to the term punishment a little later.

The purpose for St. Anselm's reasoning is that if sin is not paid, "it remains subject to no law" and "is in a position of greater freedom, if it is forgiven by mercy alone, than righteousness...it makes sinfulness resemble God" (ibid). Still needed in all of this seeming lack of Gospel-oriented view of St. Anselm's is what constitutes as punishment. St. Anselm finally describes what punishment consists of. "Since, therefore, man was created in such a way as to be capable of possessing blessed happiness, if he were not to sin, when he is deprived of blessedness and of all that is good, on account of sin, he is paying back what he has violently seized from his own property" (ch14). Now we are getting to a better understanding of what kind of punishment we are reflecting on in the context of St. Anselm. He finally reaches the analogy of the pearly covered in mud. If a pearl is knocked out of someone's hand by a malignant other, should that man not clean the pearl before he places it in the chest with his most prized possessions (ch19)? Already, we now see the sharp distinction between Anselmian atonement theology and the Lutheran theology of the snow-covered dung.

Such the nature of the recompensation for sin in Anselmian theology, "in this mortal life, your love and your yearning--here prayer is of relevance--to reach the state of being for which you were created; your grief because you are not yet there and your fear that you may not arrive at it: these feelings should be so strong that you ought not to feel any happiness except in things which assist you to reach your journey's end and give you hope of arriving there. For you do not deserve to have something which you do not love and yearn for in a way proportional to its importance, and about which you are grieved, because you do not yet have it and are still in such jeopardy as to whether you will have it or not." (ch20) And now Anslemian theology moves even closer to the Gospel than previously. St. Anselm's explanation on why God became man is really much more a story of how God's incarnation finally culminates in the restoration of man. It starts off with something seemingly caked in legalistic terminology but as one progresses toward the end, they find that it becomes more Gospel centered. It starts off with man being the mud-covered pearl. If man is the snow-covered dung as in the Lutheran doctrine, then the punishment that needs to occur bears a much different legal significance. Whereas if man is mud-covered pearl, then the punishment that is meted is far different. The act of loving God is needed to obtain but if we must give this in proportion, then we are constantly sinning. We are not fully capable of giving an infinite being its full due. We were tossed in the mud!

St. Anselm asks the question to his correspondent as to what was it that man stole away from God when he allowed himself to be conquered by the Devil. "Did he not steal from God whatever he planned to do with regard to the human species?" (ch23) Man, by sinning, refused to allow himself to be transformed to the glory that God had intended his creation to be made into. Thus, man robbed God by sinning of man. And now we circle back to punishment. "If...God remits what he was about to take away from a person against his will, because of that person's incapacity to make payment--in that case he is making his punishment lax and making a person happy on account of his sin" (ch24). Thus, man is found in a state of either "wishing to repay or not wishing to do so. But in the event that he has a desire to do what he is incapable of doing, he will be a person in want: in the event that he does not have this desire, he will be a wrongdoer." (ibid) Man must seek happiness first but if he is in want or if he is a wrongdoer, he is not happy. Thus, punishment is the taking away of man's happiness. Hence, to leave a man in sin and forgive him without the repayment, the unrepentant man is left in a state of sin which turns sin into happiness. But sin is not happiness.

Thus, if even the unbelievers admit that there is some degree of happiness to be sought, then there must be a way to pay it back. This means that Christ must be the one to repay what man owes in that he will never owe (ch25). For it is already established that God is infinite and man is finite. Whatever man does will always fall short of the infinite. Whatever man does, whatever acts of man's desire toward God, whatever love man gives, will never be proportionate to bring union on his own power with the infinite God. So the first book St. Anselm spends giving and providing a rational basis for the incarnation. The second book, he seeks to prove from theology what he has already stated from the rational reasoning for the incarnation of God. St. Anselm never claims his theory of the atonement as infallible. He states at the culmination, "[i]f we have said anything that ought to be corrected, I do not refuse correction. But if it is corroborated by the Testimony of Truth, as we think we have means of logic discovered, we ought to attribute this not to ourselves but to God, who is blessed throughout all ages. Amen." (Bk2, ch22)

Reading past the legalistic tendencies and jargon of St. Anselm, we actually are revealed quite a beautiful understanding of the atonement and incarnation of Christ. It is difficult to get caught up in the legalistic jargon he uses but when understood what punishment he refers to, we do not end up with a God who is sinister at all. Instead, we arrive at a theology that "takes account of crucial biblical and human insights; anyone who studies it with a little patience will have no difficulty seeing this" (Ratzinger, 233). Even still, the logic and legalistic arguments can "make the image of God appear in a sinister light" (233). This is quite obvious for those who peruse the first few chapters of Cur Deus Homo? and then set it aside refusing to read even further. The medieval theology is actually quite resistant to the Protestant nature of the atonement. Where St. Anselm really begins to clear up his theology is with the analogy of the pearl thrown into the mud. It is this which shows the sharp distinction between the Catholic nature of the atonement and the Protestant nature of the atonement. Developing in the Reformers was the concept of total depravity. That theology is hotly rejected in Catholic anthropological theology. Man is not seen as dung-covered snow in which God is covering up. Man is seen as mud-covered pearly that God is cleaning off, showing it to be what it really is underneath. Beauty.

The Christian case for the Confederacy

In light of all the recent events, there is actually some concern over the fate of Confederate monuments and statues that were largely erected in defiance of the Reconstruction efforts of the post-Civil War era. The Confederacy is generally acknowledged to be "the bad guy separatists" who sought to bring in a war and secede from the Union in order to keep their slaves. The reality is actually quite a lot more complicated and there are key factors that are often overlooked. The Union wasn't all perfect. They were headed by a totalitarian, statist monster by the name of Abraham Lincoln. The Union didn't get involve in the Civil War because they were trying to end slavery. They initiated the war because they wanted to keep the Confederacy under their thumb. That this is why the Union attacked the Confederacy is plain to see. That the war didn't concern too much in regards to slavery though, is false. In making a Christian case for the Confederacy, one must obviously overcome this hurdle.

Well, the Union was actually not quite perfect in and of itself as it turns out. If one is arguing on the lines that slavery is immoral because it is racist, then one must come into contact with the Union's own problems with racism. The North, in reality, had about the same amount of problems with race relations as the South did and Alexander Tocqueville had observed that the Northern states were even more racist than the South (DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, 46). Indeed, "when Congress ended slavery in the District of Colombia in 1862, it simultaneously appropriated $600,000 as an initial authorization to send the freed slaves back to Africa" (18). Lincoln even indicated in a speech in 1860 that he intended the deportation of Africans (18). We're talking about deportation based on ethnicity too. The South may have wanted to keep and hang onto their slaves but the North didn't even want to live with Africans.

Aside from the fact that both the Union and the Confederacy displayed their fair shares of racism, the war didn't even address the question of the emancipation of slaves until midway through the war. If the Union were the good guys on the basis that "they fought to end slavery" (not factual), then shouldn't the South's own efforts to formulate their own Emancipation program for slaves be taken into account? It was early as late 1863 that the Confederacy itself started considering the question of emancipation. It started with a man named Patrick Cleburne and soon Judah Benjamin became enthused by the topic of manumission and eventually even Jefferson Davis himself (Levine, Confederate Emancipation: Southern Plans to Free and Arm Slaves During the Civil War). Of course, their emancipation plans focused only on freeing their own slaves.

When Lincoln drafted his Emancipation Proclamation, it had a severe problem in that it declared free slaves only in Confederate territories! It didn't free slaves in parts of Louisiana, Virginia, or Tennessee, but instead freed only Confederate slaves to which numerous British writers even frowned upon such an idea as grotesquely immoral (DiLorenzo, 36, 42). It would incite violent slave uprisings against women and children on the plantations who had to run the plantations because the men were gone off and fighting in a war already. This proves that the Union had no sensibilities in regards to the carrying out of wars either. General Sherman being an infamous example of Lincoln's pestilency and disregard for the rules of war. DiLorenzo details some of the crimes committed by Sherman as burning civilian plantations, raping slaves, and even pillaging Southern assets to take for himself. Sherman was essentially not much better than a Vandal. "Federal armies did plunder and burn Southern cities as in the cases of Atlanta and Colombia, South Carolina, and the laying waste of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia in 1864" (153). Some might say, "well, they were getting rid of slavery". But that shows the complete incompetence of the actual racism of the Union and the actual nature of emancipation in both the Northern States and the Southern States.

Clearly, slavery's a vile and detestable institution but the Confederacy, when they brought up the question of emancipation, they focused on their own states. When the Union brought up the question of emancipation, they freed other people's slaves. This is tantamount to the politician of today patting themselves on the back because they voted to raise taxes knowing full well they won't have to pay a dime, but at least the new money is going toward a charitable organization (read: political organization that supports their positions). The Emancipation Proclamation that Abraham Lincoln drafted was the most cynical statement made in modern U.S. history. If it did anything, it created slave uprisings against vulnerable women and children. That is grotesquely immoral and for a Christian to support that in the name of "ending slavery" is abominable.

There is further reasons though why a Christian should support the Confederacy. For starters, Pope Pius IX, in his diplomatic dealings, wrote to Jefferson Davis addressing him as the President of the Confederate States (Ducayne, "The Catholic Confederacy", Church Militant, 2015 June 24). While Pope Pius IX retained full neutrality and opted not to get involved in governing politics concerning the American Civil War, the fact that one of the most powerful monarchs at the time had addressed Jefferson Davis as President of the Confederacy is grounds for believing that the Pope did, at the very least, acknowledge the independence of the Confederate states. But he was not the first and only monarch to do so. Britain had been supplying the Confederate states with military aid since 1861. Britain was another Christian monarchy at the time. In fact, there seems to be a telling significance that Christian monarchies would be the first to support the independence of the Confederates if not actually cheerleading their defeat of the Union. It seems to suggest that for them, the Union was symbolic of a progressivist society that would lead to the destruction of men further down in the future.

The Confederate battle flag had a cross on it. The Confederate battle flag floats a symbol absent from the Freemasonic iconography of the U.S. (Hertz, Star-Spangled Heresy, 134). The Confederate flag is talked about as a "symbol of hate" as if the words of Tocqueville and his description of the Northern states as more racist meant nothing. It's talked of a "symbol of hate" as if the freedom of slaves was what the North desired, or if it did, that they actually intended to take these slaves in themselves. The stars and stripes of the American flag is actually a typical republican-style flag. Stripes, bars, and stars, are all over the flags of today's republics. But monarchies fly a religious symbol as the bismillahs of the Arab nations or the crosses of the United Kingdom's countries, or the Papal coat of arms of the Vatican. The Confederate flag isn't despised because it is a symbol of hate. The Confederate flag is despised because it is a symbol of Christianity. In all its imperfections, the Confederate flag maintained a strongly Christian stance and example.

The last reason not to support the Union is that Karl Marx was a strong supporter and associate of Lincoln. This is detailed by both Hertz and DiLorenzo. Marx was a strong advocate for the war and saw the Civil War as something that would bring about the final revolution he so desired. "We rejoice that the rebel aristocracy of the South has been crushed, that ... beneath the glorious shadow of our victorious flag men of every clime, lineage and color are recognized as free. ... the workingmen of America will demand in future a more equal share in the wealth their industry creates ... and a more equal participation in the privileges and blessings of those free institutions, defended by their manhood on many a bloody field of battle." (Marx in Hertz, 148-149). The Union, with its gross lavishness of pridefulness, efforts to remain increasingly racist, its hatred toward Africans to the extent it didn't even want to live with them, its Freemasonry, its increasing hostility toward Christianity, its steeped footing in republicanism, its disregard for the rules of just war, and its indebtedness to Marxism, was inherently Satanic. The Confederacy had a severe blemish in slavery. A blemish that many were already considering the need to rid themselves of. The Confederacy, despite its imperfections, and with its Christian flag, was inherently far more Christian and thus something a Christian should support the cause of. Not the slavery, but everything else the Confederacy stood for was quite humane in comparison to the Union. In the end, the Union didn't even abolish slavery. It just changed the terms and ended race-based slavery. The Confederate flag a symbol of hate? Give me a break.

The Israelite monarchy and Christian monarchism

1 Samuel 8:4-5 all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, “You are old and your sons do not follow in your ways; appoint for us, then, a king to govern us, like other nations.”

"There, that settles it!" The Protestant cheers as he raises his arms into the air and begins to shake up the bottle of champagne. Christian monarchism is refuted! I can maintain the error of my pro-democratic ways! Back to my Methodist Church and their doctrine of representative democracy! You lose, heathen pious orthodox Christian and your king!

Hang on. There's a lot missing that the Protestant fails to unpack. The whole point of the text to begin with is that Israel demanded a king. It was the people that wanted the king. Before their rejection of Samuel, the point of Israel's statehood was to always be governed by God. There was nothing against having a king! In fact, going back in time, we read...

When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “I will set a king over me, like all the nations that are around me,” you may indeed set over you a king whom the Lord your God will choose. One of your own community you may set as king over you; you are not permitted to put a foreigner over you, who is not of your own community. Even so, he must not acquire many horses for himself, or return the people to Egypt in order to acquire more horses, since the Lord has said to you, “You must never return that way again.” And he must not acquire many wives for himself, or else his heart will turn away; also silver and gold he must not acquire in great quantity for himself. When he has taken the throne of his kingdom, he shall have a copy of this law written for him in the presence of the levitical priests. It shall remain with him and he shall read in it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, diligently observing all the words of this law and these statutes, neither exalting himself above other members of the community nor turning aside from the commandment, either to the right or to the left, so that he and his descendants may reign long over his kingdom in Israel. (Deut. 17:14-20)

Wait? This was actually already intimated. God already had established a monarchial law. It seems that he intended for Israel to take on a king but much different than the other nations. Indeed, a Christian monarchy is supposed to be governed much differently. The problem is that Israel was going through what John Keble referred to as a "National Apostasy". From his sermon with the same name, he reflects on the consequences of Saul's immorality and his leading of Israel astray.

To this purpose it may be worth noticing, that the ill-fated chief, whom God gave to the Jews, as the prophet tells us, in His anger (Hosea xiii. II), and whose disobedience and misery were referred by himself to his 'fearing the people, and obeying their voice' (I Sam. xv. 24), whose conduct, therefore, may be fairly taken as a sample of what public opinion was at that time supposed to require, his first step in apostasy was, perhaps, an intrusion on the sacrificial office (I Sam. xiii. 8-14), certainly an impatient breach of his engagement with Samuel, as the last and greatest of his crimes was persecuting David, whom he well knew to bear God's special commission. God forbid, that any Christian land should ever, by her prevailing temper and policy, revive the memory and likeness of Saul, or incur a sentence of reprobation like his. But if such a thing should be, the crimes of that nation will probably begin in infringement on Apostolical Rights ; she will end in persecuting the true Church ; and in the several stages of her melancholy career, she will continually be led on from bad to worse by vain endeavours at accommodation and compromise with evil. Sometimes toleration may be the word, as with Saul when he spared the Amalekites ; sometimes state security, as when he sought the life of David; sometimes sympathy with popular feeling, as appears to have been the case, when violating solemn treaties, he attempted to exterminate the remnant of the Gibeonites, in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah (2 Sam. xxi. 2). Such are the sad but obvious results of separating religious resignation altogether from men's notions of civil duty. (Keble, "National Apostasy")

Keble, writing in 1833, compares the situation of the early Israelite monarchy with his present state of affairs in the Church of England. Of course, if you are Catholic, you'd state the Church of England was already in apostasy when it split from Rome. I'm a former High Anglican so I do hold some sympathies toward the early English Reformed Church. Keble is witnessing an undergoing change of churchmen abandoning the faith and becoming more and more involved with the state nature of the relationship. They are wandering away from an Apostolic Faith in civil governance and doing away with the Church. "[A] nation, having for centuries acknowledged, as an essential part of its theory of government, that, as a Christian nation, she is also a part of Christ's Church, and bound, in all her legislation and policy, by the fundamental rules of that Church the case is, I say, conceivable, of a government and people, so constituted, deliberately throwing off the restraint, which in many respects such a principle would impose on them, nay, disavowing the principle itself" (Keble). Keble is observing a radical separation of Church and state in England. Of course, England was a monarchy. He never advocates for the overthrow of a monarchy! "Submission and order are still duties. They were so in the days of pagan persecution ; and the more of loyal and affectionate feeling we endeavour to mingle with our obedience, the better." Keble is not keen to overthrowing or going into revolution.

Going back to the Israelite monarchy, the point of the text is not to rebuke the Israelites for having wanted a king. The point is to rebuke the Israelites for having rejected God as king. "They have not rejected you [Samuel] but they have rejected me from being king over them" (1 Sam. 8:7). The challenge, far from being a rebuke of monarchism, is actually a rebuke of populism and democracy. Of the kind that the Methodist Church likes to embrace where it votes and decides what it thinks the Holy Spirit is saying and chooses doctrine that way. Or the nature of our current spineless leadership in the Catholic Church with all these Protestant-style synods taking votes on the nature of doctrine. That is the kind of National Apostasy that John Keble warned of. Truth is not a democracy. Truth is a person that we are in relationship with. Truth is not on the side of liberal regressivism. Truth is Jesus Christ. Truth is on the side of the Church. It is always a monarch's job to preserve the Truth and be found in relationship with the Truth, otherwise, he cannot govern properly.

Feast day of St. John the Baptist

This is the testimony given by John when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” He confessed and did not deny it, but confessed, “I am not the Messiah.” And they asked him, “What then? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the prophet?” He answered, “No.” Then they said to him, “Who are you? Let us have an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?” He said, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord,’” as the prophet Isaiah said. Now they had been sent from the Pharisees. They asked him, “Why then are you baptizing if you are neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the prophet?” John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not know, the one who is coming after me; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandal.” This took place in Bethany across the Jordan where John was baptizing. The Lamb of God The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, “Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.” And John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.” John 1:19-35

Today is the feast day of St. John the Baptist. St. John the Baptist was one of the holiest saints in the

Scriptures. He lived his life free from the stain of sin as he was preserved by the Holy Spirit's grace as he was developing in the womb. It was when Our Lady visited her cousin Elizabeth that the child St. John the Baptist did leap with joy in the womb and was fully sanctified.

Our Lord received holy baptism from St. John the Baptism. Not because he needed the waters of repentance but because Our Lord sought to purify St. John's act of baptism. At this point, St. John the Baptist knew his duty was done. He was meant to be the voice calling out in the wilderness. He was meant to be Elijah paving the way for the Lord. But now the Lord's way was paved and it was time for St. John the Baptist to decrease in his stature. (John 3:30)

St. John the Baptist would be taken prisoner by Herod after having exposed the wicked king's act of marrying his brother's wife while his brother was still alive. Herod had St. John the Baptist decapitated and so there must be nothing round is to be eaten. No heads either.

St. Hildegard's victorious atonement

Atonement was something that really attracted me away from Protestantism. My non-denominational setting taught that God was angry at our sin and sent Jesus to die for our sake, thus appeasing the wrath of God. Jesus's death took the penalty for our sins, and that penalty was separation from God. Of course, this is an odd theory to hold considering that if he took this penalty, he'd actually have to pay the price. But Jesus is God so he cannot actually be separated from God. I couldn't stand such a weird and twisted view of God being angry at us for our sins either. So this led me to consider a far more attractive view of the atonement which I was informed of by an Eastern Orthodox Christian who had commented on a YouTube video I had made back when I was highly anti-Trinitarian. It was an odd to have someone who actually wanted and desired an intellectual discussion with me at the time. It was odd to have someone who wanted to understand why I rejected orthodox teachings and wanted to show me what the orthodox teachings I was rejecting actually said. No one had wanted to do that before.

Indeed, reading through the early church fathers, one finds a wide variety of views on the atonement that significantly differ from the view I had been taught to believe growing up. Of course, Jesus paid a price for our sins but what that payment entailed and what that price was is significantly different than the payment of punishment to a God that was angry with us for the sin of Adam and Eve. That is quite an immature view of Christian doctrine and I soon found out that it wasn't just an inkling that I was bereft of sound doctrinal teaching growing up, it was the reality that I was totally bereft of sound doctrinal teaching growing up. "[W]hen a modern Western Christian turns to the Christian writers of the second and third centuries for their understanding of salvation in Christ, it is neither their attention to the teachings and example of Christ...nor their preoccupation with the passion and death of Christ..., but their emphasis on the saving significance of Christ that he will find the most unusual" (Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, 149). This focus on the saving significance began to heavily emphasize Christ's victory over sin and death and was largely lost in the Middle Ages through the Protestant Reformation but one such person keeps the emphasis very much in tact.

That person is St. Hildegard of Bingen. St. Hildegard was a Christian mystic in Germany who experienced severe seizures which allowed to see a multitudinous series of visions. These visions led her to writing a theological text abbreviated as the Scivias which is short for "Know the Ways". It is really a dogmatic theology in the genre of visionary literature. I've read many Christian mystics but I've never seen a mystical visionary experience being turned into such a dogmatic theology as this. St. Hildegard holds a highly advanced and quite commanding view of atonement theory in the work. And it breaks apart from much of Medieval thinking which started to favor the satisfaction approach of St. Anselm and the medicinal approach of the Thomistic school. I'll say more on that later. But St. Hildegard's atonement theory starts with where sin leads us.

Sin leads us under the imprisonment of the Devil. This is strongly emphasized and reiterated in St. Hildegard's work. "Man, wallowing in sins and labor under the heaviness of the flesh, from the power of the Devil" (Scivias, Bk.1 V2.14) was powerless to rescue himself. "Oh, what are these tabernacles that they should suffer so much danger from the deception of the Devil? But when, by God's gift, I remember that God  created me, then in the midst of oppressions I give this answer to the Devil's tempting: 'I will not yield to the fragile clay, but furiously war!'" (Bk.1 V4.6) "[H]umans through the Devil began to be crazy for magic arts" (Bk.1 V3.22)."The elect, whose inner understanding is clear, cast away all their wickedness of evil, being enlightened by these Virtues in the enlightenment of My will, and fight vigorously against the snares of the Devil" (Bk.1 V6.4). "[T]he Devil seduces different people by different images; so that they think that what he shows them, each according to his understanding, is true" (Bk.2 V.7.21).

For St. Hildegard, the source from which all evil flows from is the Devil. Every lust, every heresy, every immorality, are the Devil's temptations and the Devil's deceits. The entire life of Man is a spiritual battle against the Devil. Man is helpless to do anything against the forces of the Devil but the Virtues of Christ provide protection against the Devil's snares. The spiritual life of Man is war against the Devil and the dupes of the Devil and Man must run toward God to overcome the Devil. "[O]nly He Who, coming without sin, with a pure and sinless body, delivered [Man] by His Passion. Therefore, though human beings are born in sin, I nevertheless gather them into My heavenly kingdom when they faithfully seek it." (Bk.1 V2.14) Ultimately, the Devil will perish and the Truth will be known, "when the hissing and gaping of the Devil...is forsaken in time of desperation, the blessed will be praised in minds that sing, and they will make a flowing path of words to the pure fountain of the mighty Ruler." (Bk.3 V11.11-12)

There is a strong element of cosmic conflict in St. Hildegard's understanding of the atonement. "the King, mindful of the blood that was shed for the redemption of the human race, and for the love of the citzens of Heaven, will save him from his guilt and from the power of the Devil and accord him the salvation of the blessed so that he will not go into perdition" (Bk.2 V.5.11). For St. Hildegard, Man submitted himself to the power of the Devil in sin but God had broken the power of sin and guilt and allowed Man to be freed from sin through seeking Him and the Virtues of Christ. While St. Hildegard never specifically mentions the word "atonement", it is very striking that she nevertheless carries quite a highly advanced and heavily centralized view of the atonement in her theology. It centralizes on the conflict between the Devil and God and the Devil focuses his attention to lead Man away from God. But God continues to seek out Man and saves Man when Man follows Him in heart. The Devil continues to seek to torment Man with sin and guilt but God frees Man from sin and guilt and rescues Man from a life dedicated to the passions to one dedicated to the Passion. Quite different from the atonement theology I was taught growing up.