🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

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Without comment, I present Erica Kirk’s address to America. She begins speaking around 16:00.

Read the video’s comments for encouragement.

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By all appearances, it is a parent’s worst nightmare. The New York Times ran a very carefully worded story this morning headlined, “The Police Found Messages After Kirk’s Killing. What They Mean Is Unclear.” If the Times concludes a shooter’s political affiliation is unclear, what does that suggest?

Charlie Kirk’s assassin surrendered to Utah police at 11pm on Thursday, September 11th.

Earlier that day, Utah father Matt Robinson saw what looked like his son’s picture appear everywhere in the media. He also knew his son had recently raged about hating Charlie Kirk. His blood froze in its veins.

Matt immediately drove two hours to his son’s apartment in a nearby city, and confronted lanky gamer Tyler, 22. “Tyler, is this you? This looks like you,” Matt frantically asked.

Despite initial resistance, Tyler finally confessed.

Matt pleaded with his son to surrender. At first, Tyler insisted he preferred to kill himself rather than be captured. Matt recruited help from a youth pastor from the Washington, Utah family’s local LDS church, who convinced the young man to give himself up, and ultimately accompanied Tyler and his father to a police station in St. George.

In other words, the FBI was not required to hunt Tyler down. His family did the right thing.

🔥 Based on released police reports, the four messages Tyler scratched into his shell casings —messages the Times concluded were politically hard to pin down— are all leftist slogans and antifascist video game references, as follows:

• Fired casing: “Notices Bulges OwO what's this?” (a transgender/furry culture meme about expressing surprise at erotic arousal while costumed)

• Unfired: “Hey fascist! Catch! ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️" (an antifascist slogan and reference to a game controller code that unleashes the “Eagle 500kg bomb” in the video game Helldivers 2; the code itself appears to be a reference to the antifa logo, consistent with antifascist themes from the game)

• Unfired: “Bella ciao, Bella ciao, Bella ciao ciao ciao" (a song of the Italian antifascist resistance)

• Unfired: “If you read this, ur gay, lmao” (a joke about making someone think about an undesired topic, often used in LGBTQ+ online communities)

Tyler was the only member of his family not registered as a Republican. He was registered as “unaffiliated,” consistent with antifa’s disdain for the Democrat party. But we do not yet know for sure.

Reports suggest that the FBI now has Tyler’s online messaging, so, to the extent that there remains any “question” about his political radicalization, it seems likely to be cleared up soon.

We are nearing the end of the hot takes phase, but the fog of misinformation still surrounds us. But one thing appears clear: Tyler Robinson was raised in a conservative home— but was radicalized by the far left in college and/or on Internet gaming forums to hate everything his family stood for.

We’ll know much more soon. And soon, we’ll have a lot more to say about who is radicalizing our children and teaching them how to be assassins.

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As I suggested yesterday, the bigger story continued to be the left’s unhinged, violent celebration of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Late last night, the Washington Post ran a story headlined, “Workers are getting fired, placed on leave over Charlie Kirk posts.” Well yes, “workers”— but mostly they work as teachers. Like hyphenated Assistant Dean of Students at Middle Tennessee University, Laura Sosh-Lightsy:

And that did it. Effective yesterday, Ms. Sosh-Lightsy will no longer be counseling students about how to feel about political violence at Middle Tennessee, or about anything else, really:

All across the country, a vast network of radical domestic terrorists were busily outing themselves, throwing caution to the wind and documenting their reprehensible beliefs on the Internet. Karen North, a journalism professor of digital social media at the University of Southern California, told WaPo, “it’s not surprising that some people blurted out their reactions online impulsively, right when the action happens, almost like a fear of missing out.”

Ms. North inadvertently put her manicured finger on the problem: Impulse control.

Office Depot/Max fired a clerk who refused to make copies of a poster advertising a Charlie Kirk vigil “because it’s propaganda.” No impulse control. Office Depot’s impulse was to fire the clerk:

Government employees’ impulses were likewise uncontrolled. Like (former) FEMA Data Analyst Gavin Sylvia, who could not control his OwO impulse to ratify Kirk’s killing and encourage even more:

Gavin is now on leave. (BFFR is internet slang for “Be for F-ing Real.”) Coincidentally, Gavin’s father is a 3-star Major General working at the Pentagon (Biden awarded his third star). Just saying.

Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau suggested that foreign visitors in the U.S. who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination could have their visas voided:

It does not appear to be an empty threat. Landua responded personally to many of the initial submissions, and when it became a flood, said he was directing consular authorities to monitor the thread:

ABC reported that the State Department is using AI to help locate violations. (I guess that means they asked Grok.)

🔥 Yesterday, the Hill ran a story headlined, “Pentagon ‘tracking’ employees who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination.” War Secretary Hegseth tweeted yesterday, “We are tracking all these very closely — and will address, immediately. Completely unacceptable.” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell ominously said, “The Department of War has zero tolerance for it.”

Navy Secretary John Phelan warned sailors and marines to control their violent impulses:

The Coast Guard’s official account gave the same warning to Coasties.

Yesterday, Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller cited teachers and government workers celebrating the assassination, and then declared “there is a radical domestic terror movement in this country:”

CLIP: Stephen Miller says “we will not live in fear, but you will live in exile” (1:47).

There is a reckoning beginning.

🔥 Over the previous four years, the Biden Administration was generous —you might say “liberal”— in naming or suggesting a steady succession of conservative groups were “domestic terrorists”— a threat that Biden’s DOJ identified as the gravest peril facing our nation since, well, ever.

You remember: It was one damned thing after another. A leaked January 2023 FBI Richmond Field Office memo —sent to over 1,000 FBI personnel— suggested that “radical-traditionalist Catholic ideology” could attract religious violent extremists (RMVEs), which presented the FBI with "mitigation opportunities" for infiltration or monitoring in Catholic churches. People who criticized mask and vaccine mandates were labeled as potential anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists. In October, 2021, Attorney General Merrick “Grandma” Garland opined in an official letter that moms who complained to school boards were potentially radical domestic terrorists. Like these dangerous-looking scofflaws:

And don’t even get me started about how the DOJ treated people who tweeted about January 6th.

Is it finally time to name antifa —along with its allies and funders— as domestic terrorists, too? Or is it past time. You tell me.

🔥 But not according to Democrats and their progressive allies. While top Democrats remained silent, rank-and-file progressives whined about invasions of their First Amendment speech. In other words, they implicitly argued that, even if their words were hateful, they should still enjoy constitutional protection.

That is legally false.

First of all, the Supreme Court has long and repeatedly held that speech intended to incite violence is not protected by the First Amendment. There are boundaries, of course; to be considered “inciteful,” the speech must meet certain conditions and not simply reflect some general sentiment. “Let’s fight back!”, for example, is not inciteful speech.

But that’s not what we’re looking at here, is it?

Second, and maybe more important, employees generally do not enjoy any First Amendment protection, even for their private words posted to social media. Private employers aren’t constrained by the First Amendment. Only the government is.

In early 2021, I consulted with many employees who’d been fired for posting things on social media questioning the legitimacy of the 2020 election. In one case, a woman who’d worked at a commercial real estate broker’s office for 22 years was fired after posting a meme on her private Facebook page amusingly captioned, “Joe and the Hoe.”

I had to sadly inform her that, since she was an “at will” employee, there was nothing that could legally be done about it.

Government employees do have some arguments about speech, since their employer is subject to the First Amendment, and since they enjoy statutory protections for political speech. But as we learned during the pandemic, many courts held that, when it comes to employment issues, government employers should enjoy the same flexibility that private employers do. In its tightest form, the courts’ argument holds that government employees do not, for example, enjoy the right to wear t-shirts with obscene slogans to work, if doing that would get them promptly fired in a private setting.

🔥 Not only that, but Democrats have no problem firing government employees for speech that they don’t like. In 2022, Reuters ran a long, rambling story about Professor David Clements, who was fired by New Mexico University for his videos alleging cheating in the 2020 election and for questioning the vaccines:

And then there’s Colorado election clerk Tina Peters, who was fired and imprisoned for “unauthorized access” crimes, after she provided journalists with evidence of voting irregularities in Dominion voting machines.

Since Democrats cheered the cancellation of election deniers, anti-maskers, and anti-vaxxers, not to mention people who compared covid to the flu, it will be hard for them now to object to the firing of folks who don’t just express unpopular political opinions, but actually cheer for and incite political violence.

And we really need to talk about how many people being fired this week are teachers and university academics. See my comment above, wondering who is radicalizing our children.

🔥 Related: this morning Elon Musk posted a darkly amusing update to Colin Wright’s famous “political spectrum evolution” doodle:

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Though totally eclipsed by Charlie Kirk’s assassination, this week’s news delivered two stories showing the first tender roots of an emerging Epstein Reckoning. It is coming. Two days ago, Bloomberg ran an exclusive story below the headline, “Jeffrey Epstein Email Trove Reveals Ghislaine Maxwell’s Secrets.”

Bloomberg isn’t saying where they got them. But the paper reported it had reviewed “a cache of more than 18,000” emails from a particular Yahoo email account “which haven’t been previously reported.” As you might guess, the emails also apparently included scads of salacious attachments.

One of the most intriguing questions —yet unanswered— is who gave Epstein’s private Yahoo account to Bloomberg? Bloomberg didn’t say. And … what was in the other emails that Bloomberg reported were “obviously deleted?”

The article was packed with scandalous and tantalizing new details. For example, Bloomberg cited a “gift spreadsheet” that includes names and lavish spending on big-ticket things from a $35,000 watch for a “former Bill Clinton aide” and a Lexis for his attorney Alan Dershowitz, down to various items of “lingerie” for teenage girls and a series of “Massage for Dummies” books:

Let’s see the spreadsheet! Anyway, Bloomberg added:

Let see those emails, too!

🔥 Bloomberg says it didn’t find any actual smoking guns. “The emails do not provide complete answers for some of the most persistent questions surrounding his case,” the paper reported, “including how Epstein amassed his fortune, and no evidence that prominent public figures were sexually abusing minors.” I would argue there is some evidence of that, but set that aside for now.

But the emails do “offer new insight into how he leveraged his unaccountable wealth and his powerful social network, from Wall Street to Washington to Westminster, to beat back grave criminal allegations.”

In other words, the emails name politicians who helped Epstein avoid criminal prosecution (although Bloomberg didn’t, not this time).

Apart from the intriguing buffet of new hints and fascinating details, what must be the article’s biggest news was buried two-thirds of the way through the lengthy story. In over 18,000 emails, Bloomberg only found three references to President Trump.

“Except for three minor instances,” Bloomberg said, “the emails do not mention President Donald Trump.” In a 2006 email, Maxwell asked Epstein to review a list (for an unknown purpose) of 51 “politicians, business executives, and Wall Street powerbrokers.” Epstein responded with two words: “remove Trump.” In a 2007 email —a month before Epstein brokered his non-prosecution agreement— Maxwell told Epstein, “you have to assume they went to donald trump, then gossman, the docs in wpb, paschow etc.”

It’s just three emails, but based on those, one can fairly assume Epstein considered Trump to be a dangerous enemy.

The article did name some names, but there were no major new revelations, just more details. For example, in one email, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson (D) (deceased), asked Maxwell to use Epstein’s private jet for an upcoming peace mission to Sudan. (He wound up using a different billionaire’s plane.)

The salacious, exclusive story is morbidly fascinating— and that’s perhaps the most interesting point. Prior to this year’s controversy over Trump’s “coverup,” it is hard to imagine that Bloomberg would have invested the resources to review 18,000 Epstein emails and attachments and write an exclusive article for their progressive readers about them.

That was just the week’s first big Epstein story.

🔥 Also two days ago (not coincidentally, as it turns out), the UK Guardian ran a story headlined, “Keir Starmer sacks Peter Mandelson over Jeffrey Epstein ties.” (What we really need to figure out is how a notorious pedophile like Jeffrey Epstein managed to infiltrate layers of governments all over the world, but I digress.)

The short version is that one of the most influential, well-entrenched British deep state overlords’ career is finished. He refused to resign, so Prime Minister Kier Starmer was forced to sack him, which in British English means “fired with extreme prejudice.”

Lord Mandelson was most recently appointed as the UK’s top diplomat to the U.S., and was preparing to meet with President Trump next week in London. But before that, he has advised any number of British Prime Ministers. He has dined with the King and consulted with the Queen, probably many times. He’s known as a “political fixer,” and has held dozens of top appointments in the UK government. Including once —ironically, as it turns out— serving as the country’s top prosecutor (like our Attorney General).

I say it was “ironic” because emails and a newly released photo (above) from Epstein’s “birthday book” show Mandelson was, wait for it, close friends with Jeffrey Epstein. One begins to wonder just how many “close friends” the international man of mystery collected, in between all those massages. Thousands, it seems. Anyway, not only did Mandselson call Epstein “my best pal,” he expressed feelings of “grief” over Epstein’s 2007 conviction, strategically advised him how to get out of it, and kept being best pals anyways.

According to the Guardian, Lord Mandelson’s 2003, handwritten, 10-page birthday note opus gushed:

“Once upon a time, an intelligent, sharp-witted man they call ‘mysterious’ parachuted into my life … you would spend many hours just waiting for him to turn up … And often, no sooner were you used to having him around, you would suddenly be alone again … Leaving you with some ‘interesting’ friends to entertain instead … Or just some dogs to keep you company (he wasn’t always so keen on them) … But then he would parachute back in … Very occasionally, taking you by surprise in some far off places … Or in one of his glorious homes he likes to share with his friends (yum yum) … But wherever he is in the world, he remains my best pal!”

Get this: The emails that sank Mandelson for good were not part of any government archives. Instead, they came apparently from Epstein’s personal Yahoo account, which was just acquired and vetted by Bloomberg “using established digital investigative journalistic practices.” BBC, yesterday:

In another email, on the day before Epstein reported to jail in 2008, Mandelson advised the mysterious billionaire: “You have to be incredibly resilient, fight for early release and be philosophical about it as much as you can. The whole thing has been years of torture and now you have to show the world how big a person you are, and how strong.” Mandelson lovingly finished, “Your friends stay with you and love you.”

I bet they loved him. Mandelson practically begged to go to Pedo Island:

Epstein responded by offering to pay for Mandelson’s tickets. In another email, not any quid pro quo, perish the thought, Epstein asked Lord Mandelson to seek a pardon for him as to the state charges from Florida’s Governor Charlie Crist, who was visiting the UK at the time. (Crist says he recalls no contact from Mandelson.)

Epstein’s emails to the British fixer mentioned other prominent US politicians, like President Bush and John Bolton.

In an interview with the UK Sun, Mandelson admitted the birthday note and the emails were legit. He warned that there are more coming. “We know they’re going to come out, they’re going to be embarrassing,” he cautioned.

Bloomberg’s original exclusive didn’t mention Mandelson, though a later Bloomberg article after his firing did, in delicious detail. But the paper’s exclusive review, plus the House Committee’s disclosure of the birthday book, just took down one of Britain’s most powerful and protected players.

Think about that. Lord Mandelson’s Epstein connections were no secret. Some earlier emails emerged during the 2023-2024 JP Morgan case. But because —and only because— of the “controversy” over President Trump, Epstein is in the global spotlight.

🔥 This is an even bigger story than it might look. The timing is terrible. Britain is currently in Trump’s geopolitical doghouse. Not only did Christopher Steele, the UK’s former MI-6 (like our CIA) spy, pen the fabulous “pee-pee” fiction that drove the RussiaGate hoax and Trump’s impeachment, but the UK sent teams of hundreds of current and former Labour Party officials to the US during the 2024 election season to help elect Kamala Harris.

In other words, foreign interference. No bueno.

So Prime Minister Starmer appointed Lord Mandelson —the well-connected fixer— to repair the relationship between Trump and the UK. Instead, with Mandelson’s career now having sunk into the icy waters of the North Atlantic because of Epstein, Kier Starmer’s entire Prime Ministership is in jeopardy of being pulled into the vortex. GB News poll, today:

In other words, the new Epstein disclosures could topple the British government, even though the story had been largely ignored until two months ago. What are we to make of all this?

🔥 Lord Mandelson is not any bit player. He’s the head of Britain’s deep state, connected to royalty and legions of foreign dignitaries. Whether by blackmail or by animal lust, Epstein controlled him. Now, just over the last two days, previously unseen emails and a brand new birthday book— generously seasoned with Trump derangement— permanently ended the long-time political fixer.

Who gave Bloomberg those emails?

Is Lord Mandelson’s sudden and unexpected defenestration actually the first tender ripples of a great tsunami of reckoning, whose waves are only now beginning to swell, and beginning on the other side of the Atlantic?

Be hopeful. Be very hopeful.

Have a wonderful weekend! And get back here on Monday morning for more, since there’s a mountain of pent-up news and commentary we need to get to. See you then!

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This might be one of the most important and timely things you’ve ever read. If you take the time to read it, and then you disagree, I’ll reimburse you for your time. I’m not joking.

I’m an attorney. Don’t hate me for it! I’ll suddenly be your best friend on the day you need me, don’t worry. I only mention it because I am a litigating attorney and everything I cite in this article will be something I can prove in court. No conspiracy theories. Most of the data comes from the CDC, the NIH, the FDA, other state agencies, or major American newspapers. I don’t truck in conspiracy theory because, by definition, they’re unprovable.

God gave me a message to give you:

When the Church wakes up, this will all be over.

But if the Church DOESN’T wake up, this will BE all over.

The fact that I don’t have to tell you what “this” is speaks volumes. Let’s get started.

What You Don’t Know About Covid-19

1. We are now near the lowest point of mortality since the pandemic began.

2. The CDC’s weekly U.S. mortality dashboard reports that deaths are at the lowest weekly point since March 2020:

You didn’t know that, did you? With the “Delta variant” raging and all that. You probably thought that mortality was through the roof. It’s not.

(Update 9/1/2021: Mortality is ticking up again, for reasons that will become clear below, and probably because the southern summer Covid wave is transitioning to the northern states’ fall wave. But the point remains the same, which is (1) you’ve been told for two months that things are dire, and they weren’t, and (2) even now we are still seeing only a fraction of the mortality from the winter 2021 and spring 2020 levels.)

3. Pediatric mortality from Covid in Florida is below flu levels. For all of 2020, there were 22 pediatric deaths from influenza in Florida. For all of 2020 and 2021 combined, there have only been 15 pediatric deaths from Covid-19:

Those other risks like drowning and suffocation are much more significant for kids than Covid-19. In fact, Covid-19 has been the least likely cause of death for kids in the United States:

4. We are probably well over the summer peak already, at least in southern states like Florida. Northern states probably still have their seasonal fall wave coming. The Harvard/Yale “R-naught” dashboard reports that Florida’s score is in the mid-70’s. R-naught, or “R0,” is the measure of how infectious the virus is. If the R0 is 1, then one infected person in turn infects one other person, and the virus is stable. If the R0 is 2, then one infected person in turn infects two other persons, and the virus is spreading. Here’s the latest dashboard for my county in Florida, in the midst of “Delta variant” hysteria:

You can see where it peaked at around 1.7 in July, but is now down to 0.74. Note the language in the description: “If it’s below 1.0, COVID-19 cases will decrease in the near future.”

Here’s where things start to get difficult. In early August — this month — the CDC announced ominously that Covid-19’s R0 was “the same as chickenpox.” Chickenpox has an R0 of 10.0 — one of the highest recorded viral R0’s of any virus, ever recorded. Comparing Covid to Chickenpox was such a bizarre and blatant distortion of reality that even NPR had to call out the CDC:

So keep this question in mind: If we can’t count on the CDC for accurate information, then who can we count on?

5. We now know that the vaccine immunity is NOT long-lasting.

It’s short-lasting. Even Pfizer and Moderna say so. Dr. Fauci just announced that boosters might be needed every five months:

Every five months. Wow. That’s not very long. And we haven’t known about this short-lasting vaccine problem for very long, either. Just since early this month, in fact:

Three weeks ago the U.S. government was calling for booster shots every eight months. Last week they shortened it to every six months. Now it’s at five months. We’ve lost three months of protection in two weeks. But even worse, in countries that are far ahead of us in vaccination rate, vaccinated people are getting serious Covid-19 in large numbers:

Oddly, Covid-19 infections in Israel (80% vaccinated) are spiking, while Covid-19 infections in the neighboring Palestinian territory (11% vaccinated) are flat:

It’s happening in Britain, too:

Finally, in late August, 2021, CDC Director Walensky admitted that the U.S. will likely see the same types of increasing post-vaccination hospitalizations here, too:

“The data that we’ve been looking at is our international colleagues, who are ahead of us both in the Delta surge as well as, um, have vaccinated large — a few weeks ahead of us in terms of large portions of their population that have been vaccinated. Data that we’ve seen from our international colleagues, specifically and especially Israel, have demonstrated, um, a worsening of infections among vaccinated people over time. And so, um, we are — remain concerned about that. As we see in the context of Delta variant, some breakthroughs that are occurring, um, and decreased vaccine effectiveness that is occurring in the context of infection. Um, we are watching the experience of other countries carefully, and are concerned that we too will see what Israel is seeing, which is worsening infections over time.”

6. But we have also learned that natural immunity IS long-lasting.

Many scientists predicted this, but the CDC initially rejected the idea. In February, 2021, Dr. Fauci said that vaccine-induced immunity was “longer, broader, and more durable than natural immunity.” But now we know that vaccine immunity wanes quickly, and has to be refreshed as often as every five months. But on the other hand, natural immunity is looking very

 long-lasting:

What does this mean? Maybe we should be focusing on a strategy to protect vulnerable people by sheltering them, while letting the healthy population get through Covid-19 as quickly as possible, treating them for serious cases. Maybe boosting everyone with a brand-new vaccine for the rest of their lives is not the best strategy. Just saying.

7. Vaccines were sold to us on the theory we’d use them to get to “herd immunity.” But that ship has now sailed and fallen off the edge of the Earth.

In late 2020, Fauci, the CDC, and large news agencies were all telling us that the vaccines would help us reach herd immunity, where the virus has nowhere to go because so many people have been immunized:

Whoops. Since we now know that vaccinated people can still get and transmit the infection, there is no way we can ever reach herd immunity through the vaccine:

Back in March of this year, CDC Director Rochelle Walenskey said:

The data suggests that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.

But this month, on August 6, she told Wolf Blitzer:

Our vaccines are working exceptionally well, they continue to work well for delta with regard to severe illness and death, they prevent it, but what they can’t do anymore is prevent transmission.

They can’t prevent transmission of the virus. Can’t. No herd immunity.

At this point, you might be wondering, what IS the plan now? What ARE we trying to accomplish with the vaccines? Jabbing people every few months forever? I am concerned that there IS NO PLAN now. No plan except to continue doing what isn’t working. And you know what they call that.

8. And, the Covid vaccines are leaky. Leaky vaccines make viruses mutate faster and become more deadly.

A “leaky” vaccine is one that provides some health benefits but doesn’t immunize the patient. So the virus can keep living inside the vaccinated person, and mutating. It mutates to try to “escape” the vaccine’s limited protection. Take a look at what one recent study says about leaky vaccines.

We have known for some time that leaky vaccines push viruses to mutate faster:

9. Forget about mutations and variants. Because the vaccines are leaky, and because animals can catch Covid-19, we can NEVER get rid of it. Never.

In early August a new study of white-tailed deer, which live in 49 states in the U.S., showed that almost half (40%) of them had Covid-19 antibodies. Almost HALF:

We now know of up to 20 species of animals that can catch the virus, including household cats and dogs. The technical terminology for this phenomenon is that the Covid-19 virus has an “animal reservoir.”

Even if we could vaccinate every single man, woman, and child in the world all on the same day, we still couldn’t get rid of Covid. The animals would re-infect us. And you can’t vaccinate the animals, because they don’t respond to shaming or threats of loss of employment.

What does all this mean?

It means this:

• Vaccinated folks are probably driving most mutations, not unvaccinated.

• Natural immunity is far longer, broader, and more durable than vaccine-induced immunity.

• Vaccination will not stop infections or create herd immunity.

• Covid cannot be eradicated because of Animal Reservoirs.

• Covid is here to stay.

And the Israel experience suggests that, as we increase vaccinations, serious hospitalizations are going to spike here, too. We have a “complicated” future coming soon. What are you going to do about it?

There is a demonic spirit of fear suffocating the Earth. You know I’m right.

The Spirit of Fear is destroying relationships and tearing the Church apart. Unvaccinated grandparents are being told by their children that they can’t see their grandkids and not to come around. Bizarrely, vaccinated members of your church are fearful and distrusting of their unvaccinated brothers and sisters.

But Christians, in particular, are not supposed to fear. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Where is all this fear coming from? Here’s a recent cover from Newsweek:

The “Doomsday Variant.” Doomsday! It asks, “How worried should we be?” How worried. Not “Should we be worried?” Worry is presumed. But when you read the article, it admits there is no doomsday variant. It just says that experts “can’t rule it out.” It’s mere speculation. It might have been helpful to mention that on the cover, don’t you think?

Anyway, I disagree. There IS a doomsday variant. The doomsday variant is fear.

This Spirit of Fear has caused a tsunami of worldwide terror and destruction:

In a huge new study, just published, of FIVE MILLION Covid-19 patients, guess what is now tied for first place as the most likely predictor of mortality once someone goes in the hospital? Fear.

Number one used to be obesity. No surprise there. But fear has crept up the charts, and is now tied for number one, with obesity. Fear and anxiety-related disorders:

So, your risk of dying if you are hospitalized with Covid is +30% if you’re obese and +28% if you have any “anxiety and fear-related disorders.” Those disorders weren’t even on the list a year ago. I predict they will take first place soon, if they haven’t already. In other words, I expect fear and anxiety disorders will soon be the NUMBER ONE predictor of mortality if a person is hospitalized with Covid-19, if not already.

The Spirit of Fear is literally killing people.

The scientific literature is BLOWING UP with fear and anxiety-related issues.

Worst of all? The children may be the largest single group of victims of the Spirit of Fear:

Clinically-elevated symptoms of pediatric depression. Clinical levels. In 25% of kids. Think about that for a minute. Kids are wondering what they have to live for. And nobody’s giving them spiritual counseling or — most importantly—hope. What proportion does that have to reach before we start paying attention to that problem? 50%? 75%?

Only fifteen children have died from Covid in Florida in a year and a half. But a quarter of all of them are suffering from clinical levels of fear and depression. Think about that. That is a spiritual problem.

The hospitals are filling up with people who are experiencing life-threatening levels of anxiety. Here’s one example I received recently from a doctor in the largest hospital chain in Massachusetts:

Unprecedented demand for procedural and acute mental and behavioral health services. Unprecedented. In other words, it’s never happened before.

Here’s the thing. A Spirit of Fear is a SPIRITUAL PROBLEM. It’s not a medical problem. It’s not a biological problem. It’s not a political problem. And it’s not a scientific problem. It’s a spiritual problem.

If only we had some kind of worldwide organization that was devoted to addressing spiritual problems. We sure could use something like that, for a time like this. Let me know if you think of one.

Christian Theology Teaches That Fear Is a Sin

Jesus told us not to fear anything. Ever.

So park that idea for a moment. The Spirit of Fear isn’t just tearing families and congregations apart. There is a major disconnect between the pulpit and the pew:

I’ve already shown you that the vaccines are becoming more questionable by the minute. But a lot of pastors and priests are still pushing the shots from the pulpit. This is increasing fear, not addressing it. A lot of your members don’t want the shot, don’t trust the ungodly people pushing it, and can’t get even their most basic questions answered by anyone in authority. They are coming to the Church for spiritual comfort and leadership — and they aren’t getting it.

You want a recipe for making the Church irrelevant? This is it, on steroids. Pastors, I love you, you are my brothers, but if I hear one more sermon about five takeaways from the Book of Joshua while a Spirit of Fear is crushing the Church, I think I might lose my mind.

The pastor is talking about how wandering in the desert compares to my marriage relationship, and I’m looking around the church and seeing people who are terrified they are going to lose their jobs because they won’t take the vaccine. Parents who are frantic because they promised their kids there would be no more masks this year and now must break those solemn promises. People with chronic health problems who are terrified the hospitals will stop treating them just because they won’t get the jab. Others who are scared because they did get the jab but are now hearing they have to take boosters all the time or they can still catch Covid and die. Which they were promised would not happen.

And, meanwhile, just what are pastors telling all those people seeking spiritual counseling and comfort in your church about all those spiritual and practical fears? Nothing, that’s what. Why not? I’m not sure, but I think it’s because they’re scared too. Scared to take a position. Scared to speak out. The Spirit of Fear is crushing them.

The Church is ASLEEP! WAKE UP!!

Last summer I widely offered to represent any church in my county, for free, to get the churches reopened. Nobody called.

Take a look at the web pages of mainstream Christian magazines. There’s nothing helpful about dealing with Covid-19 and the Spirit of Fear. Not one thing.

Wow. The top article is about medical marijuana. During a pandemic of fear that is literally killing us and tearing the Church apart. And that one article about Covid saying churches shouldn’t write exemption notes isn’t too helpful to alleviate terrified members’ worries about losing their jobs, is it? I’m guessing reading something like that makes folks more terrified.

Great job, Christianity Today.

Here’s the one article in the front page of the Christian Post.

There’s not even anything about Covid close to the top. You have to scroll down the screen to find it:

The “Post-Covid-19 Workplace?” Post-covid? Really? Is the Christian Post in a different dimension in the multi-verse? Could they possibly get any more disconnected and irrelevant? That’s an honest question. We’re not post-anything. Not even close. We’re just getting started.

The world is on fire! Wake up, Christian Post! Vaccine mandates are erupting worldwide and people don’t like it. They are terrified:

Meanwhile, WHERE IS THE CHURCH?? Oh, churches are being so, so careful to toe the government’s line, so they don’t get shut down:

What’s the government’s advice to the Church?

Why is the Church scared of these ungodly men?

Why? That’s not what our Savior said we should be:

DO NOT FEAR THOSE WHO CAN KILL THE BODY. FEAR HIM WHO CAN DESTROY BOTH SOUL AND BODY IN HELL. Come on, Pastors! Wake up! Stop fearing and cow-towing to these petty dictators!

You might be thinking, but what SHOULD I be doing? I’m glad you asked.

What Should Pastors With Guts Be Doing?

We need our pastors and priests to get some guts. There might not be a lot of time left. It feels like we’re in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter, and we just realized that we were playing football.

Have you seen all these great Youtube videos of moms, down at the school board, tearing those officials a new one?

Now, that is some entertaining YouTube right there, am I right? Good stuff.

But here’s my first question: Where are the MEN?

Yeah. They’re nowhere to be seen. Why? Because they’re afraid. If they stand up and stand out, they’ll get canceled, fired, shamed.

Okay. Here’s my next question: Where are these moms’ brothers and sisters from the church? Why aren’t their brothers and sisters down there at the School Board supporting these moms? Huh. I guess we don’t support each other anymore. My bad.

My last, and most important, question: WHERE ARE THE PASTORS??

Pastors, why aren’t YOU down there at the school board supporting your moms? I thought the kids were the future of the Church and all that? Or is that just a marketing slogan? You want the kids to come to the Church, but you won’t go down to the school board and fight for them. Does that seem fair to you?

How about Critical Race Theory, pastor? They are teaching kids that the Church is racist. Do you have any problem with that? Do you think it is good? Just? Virtuous? Do you think things are going to work out well for the Church if that goes on for very long? Are you waiting for the women to fix it for you?

Pastor, I love you, but you have lost your way. Your flock is wandering in the forest.

Okay. That was some tough love. What does finding your way look like?

First, Churches MUST Start Dealing with Covid

We have to start fighting the Spirit of Fear. The Spirit of Fear has to be vanquished from the Church before it can be defeated in the World. You must start at home. You have to immediately start talking about these issues and pointing out the ungodliness and the fearful spirits and encouraging people and bringing your people together.

You have to start leading.

I know, I know. But Jeff, you ask, how do I know what to say? There’s so much misinformation out there. How do I know what is right and what is wrong?

Pastor, I don’t know what to tell you. If only there were some kind of omniscient source of wisdom somewhere that we could tap into. That would be helpful, right? Let’s look around, and see if we can come up with something.

The Church must immediately become relevant.

The only thing people are thinking about right now is Covid. All the problems I’ve already named plus unimaginable fears about what’s coming next. And that’s all you should be talking about, too. All the time. Every day. Until this thing is over. They need to be told not to fear. And they need to be told how not to fear.

But Jeff, you say, I only have them for a few hours on Sunday. Then the world gets them the rest of the time. So I feel like it’s hopeless, there’s nothing I can do.

Pastor, PLEASE. That’s the Spirit of Fear talking. You still aren’t getting the idea, are you? If you’ll go down to the School Board and deliver a fiery sermon, someone will record it, and you’ll be on YouTube and get a MILLION VIEWS. You have to get out of the Church. Go to where the people are. You’ve never had a better opportunity, not ever.

GET OUT OF THE SAFE COMFY CHURCH! GET INTO THE WORLD! DO IT NOW! You have to start publicly pushing back against government overreach, ungodly men, evil, and attacks on people’s freedoms. Why? If you can’t think of a godly reason, how about self-preservation? Once the other freedoms are lost, what do you think will happen to religious freedom? They’ve already shown they are willing to shut your Church and leave the bars, marijuana dispensaries, and strip clubs open. Fight it now before it gets any stronger.

Pastor, what exactly are you waiting for? An invitation? A sign? THIS is your sign. THIS is the message you’ve been waiting for. Now stop waiting, and start acting. God has given you pastors the greatest shield and talent that he’s ever given any ordinary class of human beings.

People — critics— say about me, all the time, “don’t listen to that guy. He’s just a lawyer.” So let me talk to you as a lawyer.

You are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution better than any other citizen. There are more 9–0 Supreme Court decisions in favor of religious liberty than any other issue. They will come for you last. You can say just about anything with impunity. They can’t officially touch you. They might send thugs to threaten and intimidate you, but if many of you are activated, they won’t bother. And if you organize your church, you can resist the thugs anyway. That strategy only works to silence the one or two vocal pastors who pop up here and there. If there is a large group, there’s no point to it.

So, pastor, what are you doing with this awesome First Amendment talent that God has bestowed on you for a time such as this? I’ll tell you what you’ve done with it. You’ve sealed it in a mason jar, hidden the mason jar in a bushel basket, and buried the bushel basket under the olive groves.

Now, good and faithful servant, what will you tell your Creator on that glorious day when He asks for an accounting of how you used the talents that He gave you? I sure hope you’ll have dug them up and put them to work by then.

Pastor, we are in a war. It’s here. It’s in our cities, our neighborhoods, and our churches. You are a wartime pastor. Start acting like one. What were good and faithful pastors doing in World War I? In World War II? There were lots of people dying during those wars. Did we give up? Hunker down. No. We attacked the enemy head-on, no matter the cost.

The enemy is the Spirit of Fear.

You should be organizing your churches. Get EVERYONE down to the school board meeting, the county commission meeting, the city council meeting. Get your folks to start working together! Lead them!

Start getting ready for what everyone can see is coming. The time for churches to provide widespread medical care is nearly here. Unvaccinated people won’t be able to be treated at the hospitals. They won’t even be let in the front door. It is already happening. The Church will have to take care of them. Are you ready for that?

Your members are going to be fired from their jobs. They may have trouble finding any gainful employment. They’ll need help. A kind of help you haven’t ever dealt with before. And there will be a lot of them.

You are going to be feeding people who will be cut off from food, for one reason or another. Community is going to become a life-and-death issue. Don’t wait for it to get here. Start getting ready now.

You must start calling out evil and ungodliness wherever it appears. And it’s all over the place. It’s a target-rich environment. You saw what happened in Afghanistan. What’s happening over here is Afghanistan on steriods. The same ungodly people who orchestrated the Afghanistan debacle are in charge of the pandemic.

And please stop calling deaths from Covid in your Church a “tragedy.” That is heretical. Christians don’t believe death is a tragedy. Death has been defeated. We celebrate when our brothers and sisters go to their reward, when their time of suffering in this vale of tears is over. It is NOT a tragedy. That is the Spirit of Fear talking.

I leave you with this, two scriptures from the Book of Revelation.

The cowardly are first in the list to be thrown in the the lake of fire. Don’t get me wrong — I’m not calling you a coward. I’m showing you that even in the end times He wants us to fight, to be our best and bravest selves. Better to die in this world than experience the fate reserved for cowards. God doesn’t want us to be cowardly, even if these are the end times.

And, speaking of the end times, there is another heresy to address. Some Christians think that the World is coming to an end, so we can just sit back and wait to be delivered from it, and watch the show. But not so fast:

WAKE UP!!! Strengthen what remains! Some will fall away, but some, a few, have not soiled their garments! God’s not finished with the Church yet! Wake up, as you have been commanded! Do it RIGHT NOW.

I have a live version of this presentation that I give to groups of pastors. If you’ve read down this far, then you know that this is a critical message. Get me a group of pastors of any size and I will present the message to them on Zoom. For a big group I will do it live. I’ll move whatever I have to move in my schedule to do it.

Epilogue

For my whole life, I’ve been troubled by the image of the Lord spitting out the lukewarm church. How could I be not lukewarm? What does that even mean? What do I have to do? Do I have to go become a missionary in Africa? Do I have to hold a sign on the street in New Orleans?

I don’t worry about being lukewarm anymore. I am ready to talk to Him now, about all my adventures on His mission. It’s done. I have a feeling of peace and comfort that surpasses all understanding.

And it’s because last year I got into the crosshairs, just as He was directing me, in spite of all my fears and anxieties. I’ve never been a public figure, not ever. But I put it all on the altar. And He has blessed me beyond imagination and given me this platform.

Pastor, this is your time. This is your chance. It’s the best opportunity in our entire lives to be not lukewarm. You are a wartime pastor and I hope that you, like me, will rise and answer the call.

Introduction

Last Tuesday, LA County agreed to pay John McArthur’s church $400,000 in a settlement agreement after unconstitutionally ordering his church closed and fining him $8,000. Some folks, including the LA times, weren’t too happy about it. Look how the Times framed its headline about the settlement:

Grace Community Church refused to comply with LA County’s church-closure restrictions. Sunday after Sunday, people packed Grace Community Church and belted out hymns, openly violating Los Angeles County’s pandemic prohibitions against indoor services and singing. The “mega-church” was fined, and the county repeatedly threatened to arrest McArthur. Now, after a year of legal wrangling that included two favorable Supreme Court decisions, [2], Grace Community Church will collect almost $900,000 in its settlement with the County and the State of California.

According to the National Congregational Study Survey, there are an estimated 380,000 churches in the United States. But I could count the number of churches that sued their counties and defied coronavirus restrictions on my hands and toes. With some toes left over. What happened? Why weren’t there 380,000 lawsuits?

You know the reason. We identified it back in Part II. A demonic spirit of fear is suffocating the Earth. And that spirit is lodging in the Church right now, like an AirBnB renter who won’t leave after trashing the place with a wild house party.

In my last post, I called on priests and pastors to wake up and realize they are wartime pastors, and activate. Now I’m calling on every Christian, regardless of denomination. You are a wartime Christian. We’re in a war. Not a war against a virus. A war being waged against the Church itself. And we just found out that the war started months and months ago while we were sleeping. Wake up!

The Church is Under Assault. It’s Time to Fight Back.

ZOË: It’s a fair bet the Alliance knows about Mr. Universe. They’re going to see this coming.

MAL: No. They’re not going to see this coming.

— Iconic space captain Malcom Reynolds, Serenity (2005).

“When the Church wakes up, this will all be over.”

— Jeff Childers, August 2021.

It was super clear to some folks last summer. For example, this prescient headline from August 2020 was, if anything, an understatement:

Yep, I’d say it has been difficult. For sure. But most of us were sleeping, and while we were asleep, the Church was stolen out from under us. It wasn’t the building’s fault. The Church isn’t a building. We the people are the Church. So, here’s a question for you: why didn’t the Christians in those 380,000 churches file suits against their local governments to get their churches reopened? Leave the priests and pastors out of it. Church members had legal standing to bring the lawsuits. But they didn’t. What exactly were you waiting for, Christian? An invitation? A giant neon sign in the sky? Somebody else to do it?

And, guess what happened next? Predictably, the Church’s enemies became emboldened by our passivity, and now they’re coming right at core religious liberties:

Well, okay then. If nothing else, learn this: Use it or lose it, Church.

So, why didn’t we all take a stand last year, back when the dragon was a lot smaller? Don’t make excuses. I will shoot every one of them down like a slow pheasant on the first day of hunting season. No money for a lawyer? Please. Churches are in the fundraising business. And see Acts 2, describing how the first Christians pooled all their money and property together for mutual aid and protection. No lawyers? Most churches have lawyer members, or at least, know other churches with lawyer members. Not all lawyers are pagans. So don’t even try it with me.

The reason your church didn’t keep on meeting and file a lawsuit last year wasn’t the pastor’s fault. The pastor’s job is to lead the congregation in worship. It was ultimately the church members’ fault. Nobody organized to show their pastor or their priest that he was safe to take a stand, that we had their back. We were sleeping, waiting for somebody else to do it. So it was our fault.

Why didn’t we organize and fight for our rights? Or at least, encourage our priests and pastors to do it, if necessary?

It’s because the Spirit of Fear was possessing us.

The “Love Thy Neighbor Through Covid Works” Heresy

Make no mistake: the Spirit of Fear’s mission is to destroy the worldwide Church. How? Fear and faith are mutually incompatible. Fear and love are mutually incompatible. The Spirit of Fear aims to first displace and then utterly destroy faith and love:

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

— 1 John 4:18 (ESV).

Perfect love casts out fear. When there is fear, there is not love. One of the greatest lies of the pandemic is that we must be fearful or pretend to be fearful in order to love our neighbors. That is rank heresy. Far too often, we’ve heard it from the pulpit and accepted it. This heresy, by the way, is everywhere:

Every single headline I posted above is a dangerous heresy. Instead of preaching love and hope and joy, the fearful church is busy manufacturing a Covid-19 works-based theology. Instead of grappling with the Spirit of Fear, the government, the media and even the church has been teaching we should practice all the fearful habits of nonbelievers: wear a mask, socially distance, close the church, and take the vaccine, or we are sinning. Allegedly sinning by breaking Jesus’ second commandment, because under this logic, we shouldn’t challenge people’s fear but we should confirm it.

Paul said that works of law are death:

For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. Galatians 2:19 (ESV)

I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Galatians 2:21 (ESV)

For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. Romans 3:20 (ESV)

If we want to love our neighbors we have to be courageous and lead them out of fear, not further into it. People are literally being psychologically crippled by fear:

Getting vaccinated isn’t going to end anybody’s fear. Especially now that it is starting to look like the vaccines don’t prevent infection, serious illness, or even death. These people are stuck in a permanent state of fear and anxiety. They are completely possessed by the Spirit of Fear at this point. And as I explained in Part I, the Covid vaccines won’t end the pandemic. They can’t. They are leaky, the virus is mutating around them, and the virus is hiding out in animal reservoirs. The heretical advice to “get vaccinated” to love our fearful neighbors only exacerbates their fears, by setting up an unholy contrast between “church leaders” and Christians convicted that they shouldn’t do these fearful things.

Vaccinations will not end their fears. It will make their fears worse.

Let me ask you a question. One out of four children is now experiencing clinical levels of fear and anxiety. Fear is literally killing people, as “fear and anxiety-based disorders” have now caught up to obesity as the top risk factors for Covid-19 mortality. Where is the Church’s approach to dealing with those problems? Nowhere. Most pulpits are preaching that whatever the CDC says is the Gospel instead of the actual Gospel. And the CDC is run by ungodly politicians. The CDC controls the Church’s message now. What the CDC wants, the Church preaches, and what the CDC ignores, the Church is ignoring.

Don’t believe me? Why are pastors preaching masks and vaccines when natural immunity is the only way out of this pandemic?

A Nobel-prize-winning scientist just said it — vaccine mandates are unethical. Why are we having to hear this from scientists? About ethics? It’s because the specialists in biblical ethics are completely silent about the unethical and discriminatory nature of vaccine mandates. The CDC hasn’t okayed talking about that.

These Covid “works of law” will never ever end. Just as the Mosaic law eventually metastasized into volumes of rules, subrules, and exceptions that no one could possibly follow, the Covid laws are metastasizing too. Now it’s not enough to get “fully vaccinated” to alleviate our neighbors’ fears. Now to love our neighbors we must get boosted, put our childrens’ masks back on, download our vaccine passports, and never, ever challenge anything the CDC says, no matter how many times its chimeric and unethical orders flip and flop like loose roof tiles during a hurricane.

That is the opposite of what Christianity teaches.

Faith Over Fear

Fear and Faith are mutually incompatible.

“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”

— John 16:33 (NIV)

Christian, read that again. Do you believe it? Do your actions confirm that you believe your Savior? Because if not, you probably have a faith issue. Faith and fear can’t exist together. Fear is a lack of faith that God is in control, that God decides when we live and when we die, and that it was God who chose everyone who’s died from Covid. Covid is not in control. God is in control. It is self-exalting human pride that preaches that Covid deaths are tragedies. It’s a heresy that rejects God’s divine omniscience and omnipotence. Back in 1994, John Piper wrote:

Whenever your heart starts to be anxious about the future, preach to your heart and say, "Heart, who do you think you are to be afraid of the future and nullify the promise of God? No, heart, I will not exalt myself with anxiety. I will humble myself in peace and joy as I trust this precious and great promise of God―He cares for me.”

The Covid narrative is an evolving mess. You can’t follow it. You can’t reason with it. You can’t explain it. There’s a new variant — a Doomsday variant! — on the horizon at all times, with new fears and new problems and new temptations to worry. But that’s just life.

There is nothing happening in the world today with Covid that other Christians haven’t already grappled with a thousand times before over millenia.

The Bible tells an alarming story in the Book of Numbers. God sent poisonous serpents to sting and infect the grumbling Israelites. As they all lay dying, God told Moses to raise up a bronze serpent on a pole, and all who looked at the bronze serpent would be saved. Theologists say the bronze serpent was a form of Christ. Look to Christ, therefore, and be saved.

But Jewish tradition teaches that some stubbornly refused to look at the serpent and perished. In light of current events, I can imagine some Israelites shouting, don’t look at the bronze serpent! Love your neighbor who doesn’t want to look at the serpent and don’t make them fearful!

It’s About Truth

The Spirit of Fear’s war on the Church is founded in a war on truth itself. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, for what — or who — is Truth?

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

— John 14:6 (ESV).

Jesus taught that Christians belong to the truth, and Pontius Pilate wondered what truth even is:

“For this reason I was born and have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.” 

“What is truth?” Pilate asked.

— John 18:37-38 (ESV)

The CDC has lied,1 and lied 2 and lied.3 The agency’s guidelines are endlessly mutating into one variant after another. The CDC does not offer truth. Dr. Fauci has lied and obfuscated on masks, treatments for Covid, and its origins from Wuhan. We now know it is more likely than not a genetically engineered virus. Fauci and the CDC are lying by omission by failing to look into or even talk about viral origins.

Christians should not place their faith in agencies like the CDC or fallible humans like Tony Fauci. Christians should value truth, and the reason God gave us, above worldly sources. Truth is freedom.

“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

— John 8:32 (NSV)

What Christians Need to Do Now

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

— Matthew 11:28 (ESV)

Wake up!

I’m not going to sugar-coat this. We have a lot of hard work, suffering, and travails before us. We are in a World War against a powerful Spirit of Fear and it is coming right for us. When Churchill address the Parliament at the outset of World War II, he could easily have been describing what is in front of us now, in 2021:

We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering.

You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror—Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.

— Winston Churchill, May 1940

Victory! The Spirit of Fear will be defeated everywhere there are strong churches. The problem is that our churches are not strong; not even close to being as strong as they need to be. Every single one of us should be working to strengthen the churches. Our churches need to be a lot stronger.

We must stop waiting for buildings, priests, and pastors to do it for us. We are the Church. We, the people.

Wake up! Activate! Stop waiting for an invitation. Act. Start getting organized Speak out boldly, with passion.

Start with the Internal battle - your own spiritual life.

You won’t be able to take on the Spirit of Fear until you clean up your own house first. Shed sinful habits. Double your Bible study (or start). Start listening regularly to pastors with guts. Start getting together regularly with aligned believers. The Spirit of Fear has to be driven out of your own heart before you can be an effective warrior for others.

Next, scrub the Spirit of Fear out of your Church

Your church must be strengthened, and organized for battle. The first step will be to build consensus in your church that the Spirit of Fear problem exists. The next step is to come alongside your pastor so he knows he will be supported.

The Spirit of Fear has to be driven out of the Church in the same spirit that Jesus drove the money lenders from the temple. Quit parroting the ungodly, untruthful CDC. Stop with the fear-mongering masks, the vaccine pushing, the social distancing, the limits on singing. If you are concerned about the spread of the virus in the building, study HVAC engineering controls. I recently interviewed the owner of an 80,000 square-foot gym. They put $120,000 into their HVAC system to mitigate Covid. They’ve never had an outbreak. Your church can do it, too. You don’t need masks.

Using engineering controls is relying on truth, reason, and science. Masks don’t stop Covid infections. There are no peer-reviewed, randomized, controlled trials showing any significant efficacy for masks in controlling the pandemic. Masks are just a way that public health officials are using fear to encourage government-approved Covid habits. We don’t need any more fear. We need a lot less of it, actually. But engineering controls have a decades-long track record of working. Use them. Lean into the Spirit of Truth, not the Spirit of Fear.

Then Attack the Spirit of Fear in the World

Once you’ve secured the foundation of your own faith, your groups of aligned believers, your organization, and you’ve driven the Spirit of Fear from the Church, then it will be time to drive it from the World. Start local.

Go Public.

Like I told the pastors in my previous post, Christians (and other faith traditions) have powerful First Amendment rights. Those are talents. We should be using them while we still have them. Jesus taught that those who use their talents will be given more in abundance. It’s time to use every bit of those talents, and then we’ll get even more of them. Stop thinking only about social media. Start thinking about the public square, and calling out evil wherever it is. Get out of the church, from behind the computer, and into the world.

Attend local government meetings in large numbers.

Christians should be organizing to encourage their pastors to stand up to government overreach. If we don’t fight for all our rights, we’ll lose them, one by one, and sooner or later they’ll get around to deleting our fundamental religious liberties. It’s already started. We should be organizing to attend school board meetings, city councils, and county commissions — in large numbers — and pushing back against every single encroachment on liberty. And preaching to our public officials. We need to encourage our pastors to attend every single meeting. Working together with other local churches, and being organized, we could have pastoral support at every local public meeting.

I would love to see Bible verses being read in those school board meetings. I’d love to see catholics and pentecostals using their three minutes to exorcise demons from city council meetings. Wouldn’t that be awesome? Let’s get that on Youtube!

But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

— 1 Peter 3:15

Gentleness and respect does not exclude firmness, passion and conviction. Remember how Jesus spoke about the religious leaders.

Church members who’ve retired and have the time should be assigned to review every public notice and agenda issued by any local government agency and prepare summary briefs for everyone to review. That way you’ll know what to support and what to oppose.

Form A letter-writing committee.

Members with writing skills should be writing grace-filled letters, non-stop. Letters to the editor of every newspaper in America. Letters to individual school board members, county commissioners, state representatives, and city councilmen. Letters to business leaders, chambers of commerce, and every online influencer. Talk, Christian! Go public! Speak up! Do it now, before you’ve lost the right through under-use.

Social media is also important. Posts on local social media should emphasize love, hope, truth, and Scripture. The Word of God is our greatest weapon and tool:

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

— Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)

Remember that there is no such thing as a small church.

In fact, smaller congregations might even be more nimble and be able to get organized faster than large organizations, especially if your pastor isn’t ready yet. Size won’t matter. God will lift up your church as you put those talents to work. Believe me. Look at how Coffee & Covid has been lifted up.

Start organizing resources to help parents work together to form “pods” to get kids out of public schools.

“Pods” are the latest homeschool innovation, where small groups of 3-5 parents get together to hire a teacher for their collective kids, across whatever number of grade levels. But busy parents and single parents have no realistic way to get this organized on their own. Do it for them. Kind of like roommate matching on steroids. Create a place to recruit good teachers out of the public schools (some might already be in your church) and help parents find each other and figure out how the finances, payroll, and books and class materials work.

I bet there are a lot of online services already out there for managing pods. Do the research for them and help desperate parents get connected with what they and the children need. And not just parents in your church. Help any parents. That’s how we reach the World.

Start preparing NOW for Vaccine Apartheid.

It’s good that many in the Church have been vaccinated. Vaccine apartheid is coming. We’ll need the vaccinated members to get things for unvaccinated people. We need to be ready before it gets here.

The Church needs to start standing up medical clinics and hospitals to treat unvaccinated people who can’t get treated in secular hospitals. Treatments are already being denied to the unvaccinated, loopy doctors are calling for even more of this, and ungodly newspapers are calling for unvaccinated people to receive a lower standard of care.

But the church created hospitals. It has been providing medical care to people who can’t find it anywhere else for millenia. We’ve only just recently forgotten how. We need to re-learn this, fast.

Our Christian doctors should be giving Covid-19 positive folks ivermectin if they want it, since they can’t get it at many hospitals. I know that for a fact since I get calls from frantic relatives all the time. We should be caring for Covid patients when the hospitals are overrun and overburdened and the standard of institutional care has devolved into very poor conditions where relatives can’t even get into see their loved ones and make sure they are being treated properly.

Offer to volunteer at local hospitals.

When local newspapers report that doctors and nurses at local hospitals are “overwhelmed,” the church should immediately respond. Call the hospital! Call the doctors! Call the nurses! How can we help? Can we change linens and bedpans? Bring meals? Check on patients? Can we pick up doctors’ dry-cleaning, run their errands? Can we drop off and pickup nurses’ kids at school, or provide daycare or babysitting? Where is the church while these hospitals are being so overwhelmed and crying out for help?

Remember — we, the people are the church. If the buildings and pastors aren’t doing it, we should be.

Men! Activate the Men

Men, I’m not going to shame you. I already touched on that in my previous post. But it is shameful that our wives and moms are being arrested at school board meetings without us there to stand up for them. The Bible teaches that we are supposed to lead and protect, not hide in the background while our wives fight. Fear made that. Stop it, right now.

Christian men need to stand up, start leading, and stop making the women do all the work. Stop being afraid of being cancelled, fired, shunned, or whatever else is holding you back. That is the Spirit of Fear talking. Cancel culture was the precursor to eroding your faith. Do you trust that if you are canceled, He will take care of you and your family? Don’t fear cancellation. That’s the enemy’s tool. Start taking your stand. There is safety in numbers. Be wise. Be strategic. Be strong.

If we can get organized and can help people who get fired during the transition to new jobs, people will be a lot less fretful about speaking out. The church has been helping people this way for a long time. Just not lately, so much. Or our members would already know that was available.

Start Organizing Inter-Denominational Cooperation. Christian denominations should be meeting together. Baptists, pentecostals, and conservative catholics should be regularly meeting and discussing how to work together for everyone’s interest. You don’t have to wait for a pastor to do it. You can do it. Once you’ve put your own group together, assign people to be “ambassadors” to approach folks who’re members in other local churches of different denominations. Hold a monthly inter-denominational meeting.

It may get worse before things get better. There may be more severe lockdowns. There may be food shortages. There may be civil unrest. The Church needs to be prepared to respond to these things. Christians need to re-learn how to work together, like the early Christians did, as described in Acts.

Prayer Teams

We need massive amounts of intercessory prayer. Most churches already have prayer teams, but it might be a good time to reinforce them.

Conclusion

I wish I could tell you this was all going to be over soon. I wish I could tell you that we’ve seen the worst of it. But that wouldn’t be truth. We need the truth, and it will set us free.

This is going to take a lot of work. But consider this: it is the most important thing all of us have ever done. In our entire lives. This struggle will define our generation. It will be something that historians write about for decades — if not centuries — to come.

Many of us who think we are insignificant now will be given historic roles. U.S. Grant resigned from the army six years before the Civil War amid allegations of drunkenness and threats of military discipline. He was selling firewood in the street when the War started. He went on against all odds to become the greatest general and arguably the greatest president in U.S. history. Many other completely unknown folks whose civilian lives were totally unremarkable went on to become historic heroes.

Let subsequent generations speak of us that way. Let them say that when the Church and the Nation called, we stepped up and answered the call. Let us pray to be courageous and not lukewarm. Let it be us, and let it start now.

I think everybody’s missing the point.

Here’s what I see going on. Most big employers are providing online forms for employees to “request” a religious exemption. The forms don’t give any instructions or say what should be in the request. Watch out. These forms are a kind of a trap; what the employers are really doing is gathering evidence.

If I were an unethical federal lawyer planning how all this would be rolled out, I would say that the first step would be to get people to commit to their religious exemption story in writing before anyone catches on. The second step would be to bring them into HR, one by one, without counsel, and interrogate employees about what they said in the form. You’d want HR to have a religious expert and a doctor in the room to help with the interrogation.

The HR meeting is not to try to approve the exemption request. It’s to protect the employer by developing evidence that your religious belief isn’t really sincere. It will go like this. The employee will say something like, “I’m pro-life and there are fetal stem cells in the vaccines.” Then the doctor will say, “well, did you know there aren’t any stem cells in the vaccines? That’s misinformation,” and he would pull up some website. Then — all while being recorded — they’d ask the employee, “so, you don’t REALLY have an objection, do you?” I guess not, the employee will say, and bingo, just like that, the employer is covered, with evidence, if there’s a lawsuit later.

So, let me tell you what the REAL standards are. And first, let me say that I do NOT encourage anyone to assert a fake religious exemption request. It must be legit. But, the first principle you need to know is that a qualifying sincerely-held religious belief can be recently acquired. There’s no particular amount of time you must have held that belief. It could have popped into your head ten seconds ago. For example, in EEOC v. Ilona of Hungary, Inc., 108 F.3d 1569, 1575 (7th Cir. 1997), the court found that a Jewish employee had proved her request for leave on Yom Kippur was based on a sincerely held religious belief, even though she had never in her prior eight-year tenure sought leave from work for a religious observance, had even conceded that she generally was not a very religious person, but the evidence showed that the recent birth of her son and the death of her father had strengthened her religious beliefs.

So, get your head right, your butt to church, and start reading your Bible. Which you should be doing anyways.

Next, you don’t have to be devout or even openly religious. The law is clear that a sincere religious believer doesn’t forfeit his religious rights merely because he is not scrupulous in his observance or had never openly demonstrated those beliefs in the past.

The Supreme Court has found that a qualifying religious belief is one that is “sincerely” held. This is critical: it doesn’t have to be tied to any particular scripture, fact, or reasoning. In Anderson v. U.S.F. Logistics (IMC), Inc., 274 F.3d 470, 475 (7th Cir. 2001), the court held that an employer could not stop an employee from using the phrase “Have a Blessed Day” as a greeting in her work emails, even if the use of the phrase was not expressly required by her religion (Christian Methodist Episcopal) and was totally unique to her.

In Heller v. EBB Auto Co., 8 F.3d 1433, 1438 (9th Cir. 1993), even the liberal Ninth Circuit said this:

“To restrict the act to those practices which are mandated or prohibited by a tenet of the religion, would involve the court in determining not only what are the tenets of a particular religion, . . . but would frequently require the courts to decide whether a particular practice is or is not required by the tenets of the religion. . . . [S]uch a judicial determination [would] be irreconcilable with the warning issued by the Supreme Court in Fowler v. Rhode Island, 345 U.S 67 (1953) ‘[I]t is no business of courts to say . . . what is a religious practice or activity.’”

That doesn’t mean you can come up with any old crazy idea like the Flying Spaghetti Monster told you so. The belief must have at least SOME religious foundation in order for it to qualify as a sincerely held religious belief that is required to be accommodated. Apart from that, the sincerely held belief will be very broadly interpreted and shouldn’t be investigated for TRUTH. In United States v Ballard, 322 U.S. 78 (1944), for example, the U.S. Supreme Court held that whether a religious belief is true or false should NOT be taken into consideration.

Another important source of law in this area is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). You might scan it so you know what your rights are under that act.

🚨Remember: the religious exemption request “form” you are being asked to fill out is designed to gather evidence AGAINST YOU. Here’s what I suggest you consider including in such a request:

Even though you aren’t required to have been actively religious, if you have been, tell them. How often do you go to church, read your bible, pray? How much have you tithed or donated over the years? When were you baptized? Are you a member of a church? Do you attend a bible study class? Did you previously request a religious exemption for your kids relating to school vaccines?

Tell them your general beliefs about having been created perfectly and living your faith by trusting in God and not man.

— You don’t have to cite ANY scripture. Especially any scripture about vaccines. If you ARE going to cite scripture, you might consider focusing on verses having to do with making moral choices and about avoiding evil people.

— You DON’T need a note from a pastor. It might be helpful if you can get it, but it is not necessary. I was astounded yesterday when someone told me that, when they asked, their pastor said, “there are religious exemptions?” Pope Francis apparently said that Catholics can take vaccines if they believe it is moral. All that tells me is that priests and pastors have their own religious convictions about vaccines. But they aren’t the final authority. God is.

— Do NOT try to be an armchair theologian. It is enough if you prayed about it and determined that God doesn’t want you to take the safe and effective vaccines. You don’t have to prove your encyclopedic biblical knowledge.

— While — as you guys know — I am a Christian, in no way are religious rights and liberties limited to Christianity.

Next, here are some thoughts for how to handle the inevitable HR meeting to discuss your religious exemption request:

— Be confident and upbeat. Fear is the enemy. Pray before or even during the meeting.

— Emphasize the sincere and unwavering nature of your religious belief.

— Don’t let them talk you out of your sincerely-held belief with facts. Truth or falsity of the belief isn’t the issue when it comes to spirituality. For His own reasons, God won’t let himself be “proven” to exist. Beliefs aren’t things that even CAN be proven true or false. People believe all kinds of crazy things against evidence. For example, some people even believe that Fauci is a sentient, moral being. See?

— Don’t engage in theological debates with anyone. Agree to disagree. THEIR beliefs are irrelevant. It’s YOUR beliefs that matter.

— If your belief is newly-acquired, admit it. Just stress how sincerely held it is. Maybe offer the reason that you recently acquired the belief: was it watching so many people live in fear? Something on the news? A death or illness in your family or circle of friends or co-workers?

— Always remember that the interview is being held to gather evidence to defend your employer against a subsequent lawsuit for religious discrimination. It’s not about the form, or “approving” your request. They aren’t trying to help you. So pick your words carefully, thoughtfully, and don’t talk too much.

— Tell the truth.

🚨 Remember facts aren’t final. If you previously said your belief was about fetal cells, and it still is, stick to your guns. Don’t let some doctor or website tell you something different than your religious belief.

— Finally, if you’re an evangelical like me, this meeting would be a great opportunity to witness. Those people need to be saved more than anybody. And you’ll have their rapt attention and their focus on spiritual issues. I’m convicted that He wants us to try to use this chance to save a few more souls. So go for it like we’re in Revelation 6 or something.

The religious exemption is the most powerful weapon in your arsenal. Religious liberty is fundamental in this country. If your employer fires you, or discriminates against you in ANY BURDENSOME WAY because of your religious belief that you aren’t supposed to accept the safe and effective vaccines, then you can sue them for substantial damages and recover your attorney’s fees. Don’t let them steal those rights from you through clever wordplay or tricks.

For additional information about Religious Exemptions visit the Florida Family Policy Council.

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