Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 30

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

WEEKLY BRIEF 

SACRED CATEGORIES:  GOD, FLAG AND MOTHERHOOD

JUDGE MOORE WINS; PRESIDENT TRUMP DEFENDS; HUGH HEFNER DIES.

"To make America great again, we must come back to God." That was the basic message of Judge Ray Moore who won the Alabama Republican primary this week against  a sitting US senator who had been endorsed by the senate leadership and President Trump. Judge Moore will have the warm support of President Trump in the upcoming election.  He had the endorsement during the primary of Trump insiders  Steve Bannon of Breitbart News and HUD Secretary Ben Carson. Moore will be the straightest talking Christian the US Congress has seen since William Jennings Bryan was in the House. After the victory Steve Bannon told the crowd they had beat the big money of the elitists and showed the People were sovereign.  Moore's message was actually quite different. He reiterated that God is the Sovereign and the centrality of God's rule in the American order. Moore here is more radical and fundamental than Mr. Bannon. The judge understands a theological order is needed to sustain economic nationalism. The nation must be "under God." Our brotherhood has a Father who disciplines our liberty in law. President Trump has created a large space for Christians in public life to actually make a full-throated argument for Christian culture. Most conservative Christians are still speaking in the stuttering stammering tongue of modern Republican pro-life neocons. Judge Moore unites a Christian sensibility and personal courage that will integrate the races while distinguishing between the sexes. God's name will be praised. 

Taking a knee in football means "I will not engage." Quarterbacks do it at the end of a game already decided to run out the clock without further contact. Standing for the national anthem is a universal sign of respect and solidarity which unites players and fans as well as opposing teams. It is a sign of our national solidarity that is deeper than our loyalty to the home team. The anthem reminds us why these games of males in combat for the honor of cities and states resonate so deeply in the national masculine psyche. It evokes memories of men who through the ages  fought on fields of battle where winning was everything. The games honor attributes which win wars-physical strength, agility, speed, strategic thinking, decision making under pressure, teamwork, and perseverance against the odds. The games punish losing for losing has consequences. If the ancients lost, the city walls would fall, the men were killed, and the women were taken. Winning really is important. Before there were football players, there were knights and militiamen. Battlefield courage gave the flag its blue coloring while sacrificed blood painted the red. When she is raised, we pay honor and attention.  No taking a knee and no holding hands.   

Millionaire players in racial posturing, their teammates in a misguided attempt at solidarity and the NFL commissioner for his own reasons have dishonored the sacred symbol of our civic community of masculine protectors. This is a fight worth waging. We have a president who understands this better than any living political leader of our generation. Let us be sure he does not fight alone. 

Hugh Hefner (1926-2017) was the champion of "indoor man" and editor of Playboy magazine. He proudly contributed to Planned Parenthood and NARAL. He uncovered what is sacred. The playboy and the feminist were always bed fellows. They despised each other; it is true. They despised the virgin and the mother even more. The freakish offspring from their hate-filled coitus was medically subsidized abortion under the banner of woman's liberation. Hugh Hefner died this week.        

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

CHRISTIANITY AND EUROPE: The highest religious authority in Russia speaks at a conference in England about Europe and Christianity. Metropolitan Hillarion sees clearly.

THE UNIVERSE CAME FROM A HIGHER DIMENSIONAL REALITY: The Universe as Hologram.

THE POPE AND HIS CRITICS: A correction for heresy. Or Alarmists hyperventilating (Cardinal Ouellet).

RABBI SACKS - SO VERY LEARNED SO OFTEN SO POETIC BUT SO DEEPLY WRONG ON THE ESSENTIALS - HE IS A JEWISH BISHOP BARRON: From a July 13, 2017 talk by British Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

"The humans of Genesis 1, made in God’s image, were told to 'fill the world and subdue it.' That is what he called 'majestic man,' what we would call secular humanity, the dominating nature.

"In Genesis 2 the humans are created from the dust of the earth into which God breaths life. They’re placed in the Garden of Eden not to subdue it and conquer it, but to guard it and protect it, and that Rabbi Soloveitchik called 'covenantal man.'

"So he said these are always present in us, the secular urge to dominate and control nature and the religious urge to be in awe of nature."

Can anyone who believes we are building the Kingdom of God buy this false modernist dichotomy? The garden is a set aside saved space where we enter liturgical communion with God. From there, we are sent forth into the earth which is still the battlefield where we are replacing the prince of darkness with the rule of Christ the King.

II. ISLAM AN THE MIDDLE EAST

EX PRESIDENT KARZAI: Interview about Afghanistan.

TO SAFEGUARD THE NATION: The Kurds need a state like the Jews in Israel and the Shiites in Iran have learned.

ALLY PAKISTAN: It wasn't just in South Asia that men turned a blind eye to the actions of Pakistanis - the abuse scandal in England.

III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE WAR AGAINST RELIGION: The Communist Revolution.

THE WAR AGAINST THE FLAG OF BROTHERHOOD: One man stood.

THE WAR AGAINST FREE SPEECH AND COHERENT THOUGHT: Excellent profile of the remarkable Canadian professor Jordan Peterson. One quote:

"'Because thoughts aren’t like that,’ he says. ‘People mostly think by talking. Not only do they think by talking, but they correct their thoughts by talking. If you deprive people of the right to think, then you doom them to suffering. You doom their stupidity of its right to die. You should allow your thoughts to be cast away into the fire — instead of you.’"

CHICAGO AS MURDER CAPITAL - WHEN PETER TURNS JUDAS; CAIN KILLS ABEL: Why did this Catholic working city with big shoulders become the murder capital of America? Could it have anything to do with the homosexualization of its priesthood under Cardinal Joseph Bernadine and the continuation of that sick culture under Cardinal Blase Cupich? "When the shepherds taste the kiss of Judas, the sheep will feel the knife of Cain."

THE NFL AND AMERICA: The new "feminist friendly NFL" doesn't feel the same about the flag of brotherhood.

IV. R&G ROUND UP

RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL PLATES THAT UNDERLIE GERMANY: A fascinating clearly written analysis - he says West Germany really is a different nation from the Prussian "asian" East. This is not the whole story but it is the way to tell the beginning of the whole story. And the whole story of how the Christian nation of Germany should relate among the European nations will be the narrative to replace Angela Merkel.

The pyrrhic victory of Angela Merkel (33% of vote) The lesbian leader of the alternative for Germany is one face of the opposition to the discredited secular globalists. Alice Weidel represents that weird combination of paganism and libertarianism whose only virtue is that they do not accept the globalist narrative or the tired old careerist who is the sad face of Germany. What is needed in Germany is a strong Christian male leader who leads his country and Europe (possibly through Merkel's Christian Democratic Union) back into the fraternity of Christian civilization. May he be a man of God and a man of the German nation.

WIRETAPPING MANAFORT: The plot thickens.

Map on Monday: THE NATIONS AND THEIR EXPORTS

The color-coded map above divides the nations of the world by chief exports. While we will summarize below, a full article on this map can be read by following this link: See Which Commodities Make the World Go Round. See also our map on Sixteen Rare Earth Metals and Minerals.

The colors of the map are summarized as:

• Oil and Petroleum Exports (Blue): This color dominates the map. While we are all familiar with the Mideast oil exports, nations in central and west Africa along with some of the South American oil-exporters, may surprise us. The author of the original article wonders how much trading power OPEC would have if it included all blue-colored nations. 

• Minerals and Metals (Red and Orange): These nations offer the world rare or precious minerals and metals (Red) or large quantities of non-precious minerals and metals (Orange). Examples of the former include gold, platinum, and diamonds while the latter would include copper, uranium, phosphate, and iron ore.

• Foodstuffs (Light Blue): Major food exporters are found in the Horn of Africa (coffee, tea, livestock and grain), South and Latin America (soy beans, sugar, beef, coffee, and bananas), coastal nations that produce fish exports. 

• Machinery/Transportation and Electronics (Grey and Green): Canada, Brazil, Japan, and much of Europe comprise the industrialized nations who manufacture a large portion of the world's machines and automobiles. The green-colored nations, like China and the U.S., produce the advanced electronics of our tech-driven twenty-first century.

• Textiles/Apparel and Wood (Yellow and Purple): Whether it's producing cotton (Togo, Benin, and Mali), or using that cotton to make clothing and shoes, the yellow-colored nations help clothe the world. Meanwhile, the rich forests of southeast Asia produce much of the world's wood products.

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 23

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

WEEKLY BRIEF

TRUMP AT THE UN: WAS THAT WOODROW WILSON OR NIKITA KRUSHCHEV?

There were two speeches interwoven when President Trump addressed the UN General Assembly on September 19, 2017. There was the man "standing here in my own home town as a representative of the American people addressing the people of the world." He was calling for "a great reawakening of the nations for a revival of their spirits, their pride, their patriotism, and their people." He praised "the institution founded in the aftermath of two world wars...on a vision that diverse nations could cooperate to protect sovereignty, preserve security and promote prosperity."  He reminded the nations that  Americans since the end of WWI have stood against empire and for the self-determination of peoples and nations. This included rebuilding the defeated enemy nations of Japan and Germany after WWII. President Trump's eloquent message from New York is going to resonate deeply through the next decades. The message of nations under God will be carried by actors we cannot even imagine a week after his speech. Woodrow Wilson's ringing endorsement of self determination at Versailles was embraced by national liberation movements through the century. From Egypt to Vietnam, political men heard Wilson's very American non British call to the nations (Wilson may not have impressed the Boston Brahmins of the US Senate but his affect on anti colonial nationalism was undeniable. See The Wilsonian Moment.) Trump's speech will have a similar galvanizing resonance with a new generation of strong male nationalist leaders. The nations especially of South America are ready to  move beyond the capitalist vs socialist paradigm to renew the patriotic love of country at the heart of economic nationalism. Men with "sacred souls" under an almighty God love their countries and will seek to  escape the twisted knots and dead ends of the Cold War. President Trump evoked these deep spiritual loves in a speech that would be inconceivable to the Clinton/Bush/McCain/ party elites. It was as if the vision of Woodrow Wilson and the Atlantic Charter of FDR were being explained by Theodore Roosevelt. There is a true eloquence and international political vision here that should be carefully read and absorbed by patriots of nations, small and large alike.

Then Nikita Khrushchev showed up banging his shoe and promising a burial. "We will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea."  The "small group of rogue regimes" which the many righteous must oppose was another way to say  "an axis of evil". Russia in the Ukraine and China in the South China Sea were warned to stay inside their own borders. It wasn't clear if the security and cultural regional concerns of our two WWII allies would be managed by the U.S. from across the sea or the U.N. from within the bureaucracy.  Socialism faithfully applied in Venezuela and still applied in Cuba was properly mocked and then unimaginatively isolated. Economic sanctions remain the cruel weapon of choice for free market democracies. Except for drones, it is hard to imagine a more effete and elitist form of conflict.

 Iran was numbered among the rogues and the Saudi invasion of Yemen was blamed on Iran's outside meddling. President Trump has now become the clearest  proponent of the Saudi-Israeli vision of the Mideast.  He also seems to be embracing the American foreign policy establishment's notion that regional powers like Iran, Russia and China are not to be granted hegemony in their own regions. We should thank him for his clarity and learn from his invigorating nationalist internationalism. We should seriously contest his strategic assessment of our allies and foes amidst the religious and national wars that mark our age.           

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

"DOGMA LIVES LOUDLY WITHIN YOU": "Nature will always defeat ideology." A good round up of sexual clarity and insanity by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput

MARY IS PERFECT; PETER MAKES MISTAKES: Two dimensions of the Church.

THE VIETNAMESE BISHOP FROM AUSTRALIA IS MUCH MORE OPEN TO HOMOSEXUAL UNIONS THAN OTHERS: Does his history of being homosexually assaulted make him an expert with insight or a victim with a twisted memory?

THE DEATH OF A CARDINAL: An unsettling review of the life and times of Britain's leading cleric - Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor.

CARDINAL SARAH ON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION,THE VENDEE AND COUNTRY CHRISTIANS AGAINST SECULAR ELITES: A perceptive historical review by the French-speaking African.

INTRODUCING JERRY SALYER: The author who highlights the Cardinal Sarah insights is a Catholic philosopher from Kentucky, Jerry Salyer. A crisp writer who is bringing a wider historical and patriotic perspective to the world of Catholic orthodoxy. Salyer on Bannon and Christopher Lasch. Salyer, Chesterton, and Pope John Paul II on love of country. Salyer on the White Rose pamphlets against Hitler. From one of those White Rose pamphlets:

Behind the concrete, the visible events, behind all objective, logical considerations, we find the irrational element: The struggle against the demon, against the servants of the Antichrist. Everywhere and at all times demons have been lurking in the dark, waiting for the moment when man is weak; when of his own volition he leaves his place in the order of Creation as founded for him by God in freedom; when he yields to the force of evil, separates himself from the powers of a higher order; and after voluntarily taking the first step, he is driven on to the next and the next at a furiously accelerating rate. Everywhere and at all times of greatest trial men have appeared, prophets and saints who cherished their freedom, who preached the One God and who His help brought the people to a reversal of their downward course. Man is free, to be sure, but without the true God he is defenseless against the principle of evil.

II. NATIONS R&G ROUND UP

JAPAN'S ABE ON NORTH KOREA: Intolerable.

ON RUSSIA: EAST OR WEST? EUROPE OR ASIA? A good synthesis by a St. Paul man, Matthew Franklin Cooper.

IS THERE A POLICY TOWARD THE AMERICAN NATIONS IN THE SOUTH? Not yet.

IN PRAISE OF BORDERS: Nice 'First Things' essay.

SPAIN AND CATALONIA: Comparisons before Catalonia;s October 1 vote for secession from Spain (NB That vote will not accomplish the deed).

SAUDIS, IRANIANS, AND TERROR: Who did blow up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996 killing 19 US servicemen? The Saudis eventually settled on a Shiite Iran led attack though there are many who saw this as a Salafist Sunni al Qaeda operation. It makes a difference. US troops moved to central Saudi Arabia where they could be better protected and eventually Oman. A central concern of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda has been the desecration of the Saudi kingdom by the presence of Crusader foreign troops. The Shiites had a very different perspective on the Royal Saudis and the Holy Cities. The identification  of the worldwide salafist Sunni movement of jihadist terror with the establishment of a Shiite nation in Iran continues to be one of the great religious/political  confusions of our times.

III. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

VIOLENCE AND FREEDOM: FROM WHENCE THE THREAT? Pat Buchanan.

RACE AND SEX INTERSECT ON CAMPUS SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIALS: Who could have guessed it?

Map on Monday: THE WORLD'S FIVE MILITARY EMPIRES

The Swiss Institute for Peace and Energy Research (SIPER) recently created a series of maps depicting the foreign military installations of five nations with large defense budgets. The five nations are:

1. The United States: Spending $611 billion in defense with 587 military bases in 42 other nations in addition to the 4.154 bases in the US and 114 bases in US overseas territories. See also our US Combatant Commands map post and see how the US views the world militarily. 
2. France: The French have military bases in 11 foreign nations, most of which are located in former west African French colonies. France, however, also has a presence in French Guyana (South America), Germany, and, oddly, in the United Arab Emirates. See also our Francophone map post.
3. The United Kingdom: Like the French, British military bases may be found in eleven foreign nations. Unlike the more concentrated French presence in west Africa, however, British bases are found in a more scattered form across the globe. See also our British Empire map post.  
4. Russia: Military bases belonging to Russia are present in 9 other nations, most of which are located along Russia's periphery. These include: Armenia (2 bases), Belarus (4 bases), Kazakhstan (4 basess), Kyrgyzstan (1 base) , and Tajikistan (7 bases). There is also a Russian presence in breakaway regions of Transnistria (Moldova), South Ossetia and Abkhazia (Georgia). Only Syria and Vietnam are host to Russian bases further afield. See also our Russian Geopolitics map post.
5. China: China's only military base outside of China is found in Djibouti at the mouth of the Bab-el-Mandeb, a geostrategic location at the southern end of the Red Sea. See also our Geostrategic choke points map. 

Given the minimal fixed military presence of both Russia and China, the neoconservative and growing liberal concerns regarding these nations seem over-estimated. Vietnam aside, the maps reveal Russia's primary concern with its immediate borders and with the protection of Christians in the Mideast. China also focuses on its periphery, seeing the particularly growing American presence in southern and eastern Asia as an encircling threat.   

To view all five maps, along with a bonus map depicting an overlap of Russian and American bases, please read this excellent map post from Strange Maps.

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 16

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

THE WEEKLY BRIEF

STEVE BANNON AND THE BISHOPS; JIM MARTIN AND HIS JESUITS  

The complete interview of presidential advisor Steve Bannon with Charlie Rose of CBS is very worthwhile. The TV version highlighted an unpleasant side of Mr. Rose who has a well deserved  reputation as a prepared interviewer who lets his guests talk. This longer version shows Rose as a better interviewer because he allows much more uninterrupted time for Mr. Bannon to display his vigorous intelligence. On the TV version, Mr. Bannon said the American bishops had been "terrible on DACA" with their reflexive opposition to Trump's rescinding President Obama's executive order preventing children of illegal immigrants from deportation. President Trump has signaled clearly he wants immigration reform to be done by law not executive order. Only this approach will lead to a reform that can lead to citizenship for some, deportation for others, and an end to de facto open borders. Sanctuary cities and states display a depressing willingness to accept as permanent an immigrant class of humans as a labor force and recipient of public services but not fellow citizens. Bannon correctly called the American bishops self serving for favoring unrestricted Catholic immigrants as a remedy to membership problems inside the Church caused by their own sins.

The Jesuit, James Martin, continues his campaign for mainstreaming homosexuality within the Catholic Church and he is willing to play dirty with those who oppose him.  Even the vigorous opposition of Austin Ruse at Crisis magazine though has not fully named the problem represented by the likes of Jim Martin in the American Catholic Church. Normalizing homosexuality is not aimed at comforting an effeminate teen who is part of "All our Children". Martin's media blitz is meant to obfuscate the role of the  homosexual subculture within the Catholic priesthood and episcopacy that allowed the sexual abuse of teen age males from Guam to Chicago in the last century.  This includes whole provinces of Jesuits dominated by the lavender psychology. Martin's homosexual campaign is not about protecting that confused vulnerable fifteen year old. It is the strident campaign of well fed and highly placed 50 to 60 year olds who seek to protect the perch of chicken hawks who are secretly  panicking with fear at the wrath of real reform. 

The all male clergy of the Catholic Church should be a light to the nations as a public fraternity of men under God. They should be a masculine witness for the interracial brotherhood (the agreement among adult males that will socialize the young males) needed to calm our cities. They should stand as the bishops at the Second Vatican Council said for fraternity among nations as the Christian alternative to the Darwinism of perpetual war drums. Male relationships and personality structures are crucial to building public tranquility in our cities and nations.  The "pansy" is not a public man of authority and community. He is a male but he is not doing his duty as a man. That is why "pansy" is an insult that serious public men may hurl at a self indulgent deceiver. James Martin and many of his fellow Jesuits hold a personal conception of brotherly love which is incest. This is not the missionary brotherly love that Christ inaugurated with his apostles under Peter. It is not the courageous brotherly love that the martyr saints of this day (Sept 16) Cornelius and Cyprian spoke of as they were killed for the new public Kingdom of the Christian movement. Hopefully Catholic priests and laymen will learn to speak as clearly and profoundly about the corruption of the James Martin/Judas priests as Mr. Bannon speaks about the nature of the corrupt elite he is challenging.  

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? As the 500th anniversary of the Reformation draws near, a Pew Research Center survey asked Protestants what divides them from Catholics. While evangelicals score higher, a majority of Protestants can't tell the difference. (Bonus: Can you tell the difference? Take the quiz by following the link).

THE HOMOSEXUAL LOBBY IN THE CHURCH - SOME NAMES THAT KEEP RESURFACING EVEN FROM THE DEAD: A tribute to Italian Cardinal Martini from Canadian priest, Fr Rosica. Two characters to watch; one is dead. From the LA Times obituary of Cardinal Martini in 2012: "For years, Martini had been Europe's most prominent liberal cardinal, frequently voicing openness on such divisive church issues as priestly celibacy, homosexuality and the use of condoms to fight AIDS."

SECULAR JEWS AND PRACTICING CATHOLICS - IT'S GETTING UGLY: Can you be a practicing Catholic and a Judge? Some Democrats are seeing the contradiction. Dianne Feinstein was clear in the link above. Bernie Sanders went after an evangelical. Al Franken jumped the same lady Catholic judge that Feinstein attacked. In a wonderful compliment, Senator Feinstein told the Catholic woman, "The dogma lives loudly within you."  If only Christian men who believe in the brotherhood of all men and the local brotherhoods of our own nations could live so well.

SERVING MASS CAN LEAD TO PRIESTLY VOCATIONS: Fr. Scott Wallisch, Vocations Director of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, calls on archdiocesan priests and server trainers to encourage their male high school servers to join the Knights of St. Tarcisius. Founded by AoA's A. Joseph Lynch, the Knights of St. Tarcisius forms young men as servers as they pass through "four stages of knighthood... experience true Catholic fraternity... [while] discerning the priesthood."

AQUINAS ON BEAUTY: "St. Thomas Aquinas does a good job of defining beauty: for things to be beautiful, they must have the three qualities of integrity, proportion, and clarity. "Integrity means that all the parts of an object present are where they belong, while proportion means that all of the parts are in right relationship to each other. Clarity means that something has a certain brightness, effulgence, or splendor so that the object’s integrity and proportion can capture our attention."

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

9/11 FAMILIES CONTINUE THE CASE THAT ELEMENTS OF SAUDI RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENT WERE SIGNIFICANT ACTORS IN ATTACK: The Wahabbi role seems undeniable.

ISIS HEADS TO THE PHILIPPINES: As the war turns against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, its commanders now call on recruits to shift forces to the Philippines. With Duterte in power, ISIS is bound to have quite the fight on its hands.

ON IRAN: Tiara Parsi, a thinker who was very influential during the Obama administration gives a more historical and nuanced view of Iran than we might hear from Republicans John McCain and Lindsey Graham or Democrat Robert Menendez. This is a long but worthwhile interview introducing his work.

A VERY BAD IDEA - PROPOSED POLICY TO INCREASE US WAR EFFORTS AGAINST SHIITES OF YEMEN AND BAHRAIN: This is being done to give more military flexibility in responding to Iranian aggression. There are no two places in the world where the Saudi religious persecution of Shiites is more falsely presented as a war against Iran. Many US military leaders (especially Marines) have a deep hostility toward Iran whom they blame for the 1983 killing of 241 marines in Beirut. Good men are being played. Joining the Saudis in their Wahhabi hatred against Shiites will not avenge our brothers.

IS TERRORISM THE ENEMY?
A review of terrorism and how it ends by the New Yorker's Robin Wright. A very interesting historical article but not very related to the Salafist war declared on 9/11. An ongoing problem among DC experts has been labeling this as a war against a tactic - "the war on terrorism".

ISRAEL BOMBS SYRIA: Preemptive messages.

THE TWO EIDS: The end of Ramadan and the end of the Hajj (Pilgrimage). The yearly pilgrimage (the Hajj) and the yearly fasting month of  Ramadan both end with days of feast (Eid). The Hajj is an annual  5 day period when Muslims from all over the word return to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Hajj means "to journey" and the fulfillment of this duty is one of the five pillars of Islam.  It is a time to stone the devil, and remember the willingness of Ishmael to be sacrificed to do the will of God (Islam means submission to God). The days of the Hajj end with the Eid al Adha (Feast of sacrifice).  All Muslims, even those who do not do the pilgrimage that year, celebrate the Eid.

The end of the monthly fast of Ramadan is celebrated with the Eid al Fitr (Feast of breaking the fast). The month is marked by fasting all day from food and drink (including water). Self mortification is meant  to elevate the desire for God over the wants of the flesh.  The rigorous fast is also to engender empathy with the poor and hungry whose lack of food and drink is involuntary. Fasting and almsgiving are central to the month as are the daily prayers which cultivate a public consciousness of God.

THE NEXT FRONT IN THE MIDEAST COULD BE LEBANON WITH THE MOST UNAPOLOGETIC CHRISTIANS IN THE REGION: From Rod Dreher interview of Andrew Doran policy advisor of Defense of Christians:

RD: We have seen images recently of Christians returning to their badly damaged sanctuaries in Syria and Iraq. Has the worst passed for Middle Eastern Christians?

AD: The number of Christians in Iraq and Syria has gone from over three million combined fifteen years ago to less than a million today. This happened for many reasons.  One is the radicalization of Muslims through well-funded ideologies. The most pernicious of these ideologies is Wahhabism, which Saudi Arabia has spent untold billions to export globally for decades. Everywhere I go in the Middle East, Muslims and Christians alike ask, “Why isn’t America doing something to stop the Wahhabis? Don’t you know they’re your enemy and ours?” The petrol wealth and influence of the Gulf states has thus set the Muslim world back generations, if not centuries. Most of the violence against both Middle East Christians and Americans has come from this source, though I hasten to add that Iran and its proxies are also a serious threat. 

From a strictly political point of view, what do Americans not understand about the situation Christians in the Middle East face — not just in war zones, but elsewhere?

Americans probably don’t understand the extent to which their public servants in DC really don’t care. The foreign policy establishment, like the public culture in America, has a general contempt (often masquerading as indifference) for Christians. This is ironic because the Christians are the progressives of their societies in the Middle East.

Americans would probably be shocked at how unapologetically Christian and free Lebanon is. Lebanon is the closest thing to a Western country in the Arab world, and not only because of the lifestyle and prevalence of French and English. There are monasteries in the mountains, catacombs, statues of Jesus and Mary, Christian universities, Christian politicians, and above all a confidence in Christian culture that we’re losing in the West. This has rubbed off on non-Christians in Lebanon, giving the place a very moderate feel. (There are places one usually doesn’t go, of course, but think of all the places we never go in America because they’re unsafe—and far more dangerous than anything in Lebanon.) Put simply, the Christians of Lebanon don’t have the dhimmi mentality of a hostage, contingent people that sadly characterizes so many Christians in the Middle East. When you see Lebanon, you understand why it’s worth saving. Christians in places like Egypt and elsewhere will often point out that Lebanon gives them a model for equality and hope.

The problem isn’t the American people so much as it is Washington. There’s a clear chasm between the values of the American people and their elites. It’s important not only to make a moral argument, of course. IDC and its partner organizations make a case that it’s in American interests to protect and preserve Christian and other minority communities. Americans often think that humanitarian aid is the answer, and that is needed, but we also need policies that will protect Christians. If we can get that part right, no humanitarian aid will be needed.

III. THE KOREAN PENINSULA

ON THE KOREAN PENINSULA DON'T FORGET... South Korea is an actor. Their new leftist government has already been forced to display military exercises and renewed friendship with Japan in response to North Korean missile launches. At heart though the new president Moon Jae-in wants a radical new approach to reunifying his country. Best books on North Korea.

CHINA SAYS FIRST STRIKE BY US AGAINST KOREA MEANS: China will defend militarily.

HOW CLOSE TO BOMBING NORTH KOREA WAS/IS THE US? Two thinkers we should not listen to: RALPH PETERS, JOHN BOLTON.  However, it is hard for us to see how this is going to be resolved without some kind of military action by President Trump.

THE RISK OF NUCLEAR WAR WITH NORTH KOREA: A long, very informed article by Evan Osnos of the New Yorker.

IV. R&G NATIONS ROUND UP

RELIGION AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS IS NOT THE SAME AS RELIGIOUS LIBERTY: The office led by Shaun Casey (author of a book on The Making of a Catholic President) has been folded into another department. This is not progress.

NATIONALISM FROM KURDISTAN TO HUNGARY TO CATALONIA: Tribalism by Pat Buchanan.

BUDDHISTS CLEANSE MUSLIMS IN BURMA (MYNAMAR): White globalists lose a heroine. In Russia the Muslims protest the Burma expulsion. Russia allows a vigorous non jihadist Islamic culture. Burmese Buddhists close their "western door to Islamic expansion." Where are the protectors of Islam?

CITY STATES AND NATIONS: An author gets carried away in seeing an internet future of city states as the nations recede. The city states will not replace the nation state but they will become more autonomous regions of self governance. Consider the direct control municipalities of China.

V. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

CONSUMERS AND CENTURIONS: Is America becoming two subcultures?

NASHVILLE STATEMENT IS ABOUT ECOLOGY: Three Popes have taken the same view.

SOCIOBIOLOGY AND SEX ROLES: "The more an animal population tends toward acting together in a eusocial way, the more important are sexual differences in work roles to harmonize the common purposes of the group." The lowest form of physical life- the Bacteria- are asexual. The most developed and integrated social lives mark the eusocial organisms.  The social lives of bees and ants are built on hierarchy, sexual differentiation and parthenogenesis.

CONFUCIUS -- Mao's Red Guards reviled him as "The Number One Hooligan Old Kong"

Confucius (the Chinese call him Kongzi) lived 500 years before Christ. His teachings still influence almost a quarter of the earth's population.

In his philosophy he stressed order: "Look at nothing in defiance of ritual, listen to nothing in defiance of ritual, speak of nothing in defiance of ritual, never stir hand or foot in defiance of ritual."

                         

"Of all virtues, filial piety is the first."

          (ancient Chinese saying)

What did Confucius call the most important relationship in a society? That between father and son.

"... no single Confucian teaching has been drummed more persistently into East Asian minds over the past 2,000 years than the sage's vision of the ideal family... Confucius forged a very strict pattern of hierarchical relations within families... The well-regulated Confucian family is built on the concept of filial piety, or xiao. Confucius believed if you were a child who revered your parents, you would also be a loyal citizen, an honorable gentleman, and a devoted spouse."

Assorted sayings of Confucius: 

• "Good government consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son."

• "When his father is alive, you observe a man's intentions. It is when the father is dead that you observe the man's actions. If for three years he makes no change from the ways of his father, he may be called filial." 

• "Fathers cover up for their sons and sons cover up for their fathers. Uprightness is to be found in this." 

• "Only be dutiful towards your parents and friendly towards your brothers, and you will be contributing to government." 

Chairman Mao despised Confucius. He "launched the most concerted assault on Confucius in Chinese history... A society once dominated by the great sage became ignorant of the man, his ideas, and his moral mission. Ceremonies venerating Confucius that had been a routine feature of Chinese life for almost two millennia were banned... 

"The Red Guards, mostly students, swept across China rooting out the 'four olds' -- old customs, old habits, old culture, and old thinking."

Now, with Mao's influence on the wane, China has come back to its senses. Its recent leaders are stressing tradition and the need to learn from Kongzi.

The temple in Qufu, home town of Confucius
(midway between Beijing and Shanghai)

"If a man takes no thought about what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand." – Confucius

UPDATE: Speaking of the centrality of the Father/Son relationship, ponder once again the words of our Lord in the Gospel of St. John (chapter 14):

Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves."

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 9

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch 

WEEKLY BRIEF
AMERICAN IDENTITY AND IMMIGRATION REFORM

The President sent DACA to Congress where it belongs. Immigration status must be determined by laws not presidential dictates. He is clearly signaling he would protect certain classes of illegal immigrants (especially the "dreamers") if he gets a wall and a serious enforcement policy stopping illegal immigration. He has learned that a compromise on immigration will never happen with a Republican-only legislative strategy. Trump did not campaign as a loyal party Republican or a think tank conservative. Those were the groups he overthrew and conquered. Many of them have not forgiven him. President Trump campaigned as a "get it done American" with a Christian heart for his forgotten countrymen. (That patriotic heart as part of the Protestant tradition has been missed by neocons, Catholic intellectuals, the elite media, and Antifa).

Different parts of President Trump's agenda will be carried out by different coalitions. Tax reform could be a Republican-only venture. Immigration reform and infrastructure spending will have to involve a coalition which includes at least 20-25 Democrats. Immigration reform means a real physical and institutional barrier to illegal immigration. Call that part "The Wall". It means setting some specific time (say Jan 20, 2017) when it was obvious to all foreigners that our open policy for immigrants was over. All illegals here before that date with work records and no criminal acts will be given a path to citizenship (green cards). All who have come here illegally since then are shown the door because "a country that cannot determine who is allowed inside is not a country". Even nice people who came illegally after that date must be sent back. Only such enforcement will show others that there really is a new American policy on immigration and citizenship. Is this an amnesty?  Definitely and everyone should know this is not a "right" of the illegals but an act of authority by a national political community. We have granted amnesty because by not enforcing our laws for decades before Mr Trump, we were telling the pre Trump immigrants--"Come over here; we want your labor and do not care about you becoming citizens."  This perpetual illegal status was great for certain employers. It fostered a globalist's paradise in which urban areas are disparate marketplace societies of autonomous consumers and laborers. It was horrible for creating the integrating polity of   democratic cities. The city as republic was swamped by the city as market. The open border policy provided a huge pool of good hearted illegals in which criminal sharks could swim and strike. And so they have. It was an advantage for illegals as wage earners and soul killing for them as public men and citizens.

 For those on the right who object to amnesty, we should see it as national reparation for deciding as a nation to live outside the law. A good deal of the moral argument for the amnesty is in reparation for the one wall which our decayed culture did build against the newcomer--the "feminist as Aztec" policy of child sacrifice known as the abortion regime. As a nation we still owe God for that affront. Let us return to God. Let us live again as a Christian culture. Let us repent and renew. That is the Biblical path for nations under God. The public male form of Christian love of neighbor is the territorial nation. Let us reassert that national bond and invite a defined number of our immigrant brothers into our renewed pact. If there is no limit to that invitation it will be meaningless.

It is necessary to define and significantly restrict entry through our borders so we can absorb those who have worked here as our fellow citizens. Americans do not want to deport the man who shingled our roof 4 years ago and has kids in our grade schools.  Americans do want to gain control of what we had earlier surrendered-our own borders. We can do both. Set a defined date for amnesty leading to citizenship. Use every level of law enforcement to arrest criminals and send home all illegals who have come since that defined date. Build whatever physical barrier is necessary to maintain our integrity as a communal body. In biology that is called a cell membrane and it is necessary for the life of an organism. In political speak it is called The Wall. Neither party alone can effect such a compromise solution to our national problem. Neither pure liberals nor principled conservatives will do what is necessary. This is why the country needed a different kind of President.  Our American President may be able to forge a cross party American coalition that can compromise and govern. If he does, then The Americans will be needed soon after to untie the party knots which are paralyzing our foreign policy as well.

 (One churchman who writes about immigration in terms of the spiritual character of citizenship and national identity is Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles. Our review of his unique understanding of the spiritual dimensions of immigration and national identity.)

      

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

MARY AND THE AMERICAS: The unique and compelling vision of Bishop Gomez. Mary as our model by RR Reno. Marian femininity vs. modern feminism. Patriarchal Fraternity can only be understood when balanced by the Virgin Mother. See the video series on Mary and the full argument.
Our book review of Bishop Gomez on immigration. He does understand both man as citizen and the importance of nation as a spiritual relationship which must be defined to be meaningful.

THE POPE AND HIS TOP MAN AT CDF: Interesting insights from a German Protestant.

A VATICAN CONFERENCE RETHINKING JUST WAR THEORY: What is missing in Catholic thought is a much fuller understanding of the nation, political authority, and the civic fraternity that animates public life. Blessed are the Peacemakers for they shall be called the Sons of God is not a beatitude about hippies singing "no more war". It is a command for adult men to enter into the public communal relations of parish, diocese and Church as well as nation, city, and state to create the tranquility which comes from civic order.  The maturation of men involves our submission to the larger identities and duties of religion and politics, of church and nation. Legal civic authority by its nature administers the sword of justice. Declarations of nonviolence in a violent world are an intellectual distraction and moral retreat from the practical work of constructing and fortifying political community. As Pope Francis says, "Reality is more important than ideas." One of the great tragedies of the Western effeminacy in the Church is the inability to understand the masculine institutions of nation and State. The masculine obligations of kingship, ruling and exercising authority against criminals and predators seems to have been extracted from the very personality structures of modern Christian males. This leaves African bishops especially naked in their confrontations with radical Islam and the attempts of their people to forge an authoritative state capable of transcending tribal animosities. It renders Catholic public men in South America unarmed and mute before their atheist opponents willing to use force.  Politics is about forging masculine communal territorial bonds, not intellectuals making globalist pronouncements about nonviolence in the name of religion. (Noah, his sons and the natural law of political communities). The Conference at the Vatican: Catholics becoming Mennonites doesn't help.

THREE POPES ON WORK AND WORKERS: "Work is a form of civic love."

POPE JOHN XXIII, THE EUCHARIST, AND ITALY: A young priest at a Eucharistic Conference in 1920's as Communists and Fascists battle for the soul of Italy.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ON YEMEN: by Bruce Reidel.              AOA on Yemen.

IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND INDIA: All wary of Salafist elements in Pakistan.
 A talk to U.S. Army College setting context - indispensable display of "realism" in foreign policy toward Afghanistan.
 AOA on Pakistan Map on Monday and Review of four books

ON SAUDI ARABIA: The Hajj - an expression of Saudi power.            AOA on Saudi Arabia.

JEWS AND MUSLIMS: Can Isaac and Ishmael reconcile?

DUNKIRK IN REVERSE: Christians return to Nineveh in Iraq. A great drama much more important than taking refugees in is letting people go back home.

III. AROUND THE WORLD R&G ROUND UP

CULTURAL REVOLUTIONS: COMPARING VIOLENCE IN CHINA AND AMERICA: By Helen Raleigh. The American cultural revolution did not begin with the violence of ANTIFA, but the intolerance on US campuses is certainly mindful of China's cultural revolution. Eventually the adults took back China. In the US we have not yet repudiated the atheism and sexual anarchy at the heart of the baby boomers' revolution against nature and authority. Cultural restoration in America will involve a return to the sacred and fostering a sense of filial piety toward legitimate authority. The social order will reflect the sacral order - hierarchical communion. Lessons from the Chinese Cultural Revolution - Trump vs. Clinton.

NORTH KOREANS INSIDE JAPAN: A sizable minority not hiding their loyalty to both Japan and North Korea.

CHINA AND NORTH KOREA: Views of Chinese scholars. Pat Buchanan on Japan and South Korea going nuclear.

MUST SEE WORLD MAPS: Frank Jacobs at Strange Maps has posted some important world maps that do a tremendous job of helping to give visualization and geographic context to matters both military and economic. We recommend reading the following map posts: National Top Exports, Top Militaries by Bases, and Mapping World's Top Weapons Exporters.

The Nashville Statement: Culture and Taboos

                                                     

Early in the year of 1968 a preacher died in Greenville, South Carolina. His name was Bob Jones Sr.

He was one of those who argued that to oppose segregation was to oppose the Lord of Heaven and earth.

This article outlines some of the ups and downs of his relationship with Billy Graham -- who, beginning in 1953 at Chattanooga, made sure all his rallies were integrated.


[Another native son of Greenville is Jesse Jackson. As are two men who would have a big impact on the city of Minneapolis: basketball star Kevin Garnett and Calvinist Baptist pastor John Piper].






Liberals have been quite successful in equating old-time segregationists with today's defenders of traditional Christian teaching on marriage and gender. How does a culture stigmatize certain behaviors?

Doc Pence: Confusing the admirable goal of a color-blind society with the suicidal project of eradicating gender differences is the great cultural Houdini act of our generation.
     It could only happen by losing our national reference to the sacred, and inverting our previous honor and shame code. Long before something is ruled against the law, it has to be made unacceptable in Proper Company. Using God's name and using the 'f-word' were socially stigmatized in my living memory. This is a crucial lesson for all interested in forming culture. Drinking while driving, using physical force in disciplining children, smoking, driving a small child without a car-seat are all behaviors which are becoming stigmatized in America today. Abortion is maternal health. We let that go -- while becoming emotionally unglued if we see a moving auto with a kid in his mom's arms instead of a car-seat.
     One of the deepest drives in humans is to be socially accepted. This status seeking is part of being a social being. That is why the emotion of being shamed is so dreaded, and the emotion associated with public honor is so pursued. Whenever opponents of homosexual marriage say "we are against gay marriage, but we deeply respect homosexuals and gays," they've lost the shame/honor battle!
     What is the biggest yearly public demonstration in Minneapolis? It is called The Gay Pride parade. What is forbidden is any use of speech that derides those who celebrate degeneration: fruits, fags, and fairies are out. Those are forbidden stigmatizing words, unlike hurling fascist on college campuses at anyone you disagree with.
     Less than 20 years ago ('Lawrence v. Texas') the Supreme Court denied states the police power of criminalizing sodomy. Two years ago ('Obergefell v. Hodges') the Supreme Court denied states the ability to conform their state laws to the heterosexual nature of marriage. Those revolutions in our law code could only occur because in books, movies, television shows, and the common language of the educational system and urban culture what had been shamed and scoffed at was smiled upon, then admired, and finally mandated.
                         

The word was brought to the West by Captain Cook (1728-1779)

I can imagine a situation in another decade or so: Catholic believers treated as hateful extremists by many Americans -- with frequent disruptions of Sunday masses by screaming protesters inside the sanctuaries. Will it be possible for progressives to marginalize Catholics?

Doc Pence: You are describing many situations which have already happened in Latin America and Canada, as well as the antics of a group called Pussy Riot in Russia. I would rather have it out in the open, like when 'rainbow homosexuals' in the U.S. tried to disrupt the Pentecost Eucharist in so many dioceses a decade ago. There are significant groups of Christians in America who have enough of a fighting tradition that if the screamers come to us, we will protect our holy sanctuaries.
     Treating homosexuality as a fundamental spiritual and psychological disorder must be tabooed if the Pride Days are to continue. This is a battle of taboos. Traditional Christians from Moscow to Nashville are resisting the new taboo. We are reasserting the ancient sacred goods. The all-male Catholic clergy is deeply divided, no matter how clear the Catechism is. The homosexual wing of the clergy is much more aggressive in using shame against their critics. They have the secular media as a willing bullhorn. Before Catholic masses are disrupted, we need Catholic priests and bishops to identify and face the clerical homosexual problem. When the disruptions happen it will be necessary to physically stop the outside agitators while identifying by name the inside Quislings. Both groups were involved in the de-sacralization attempts of the Pentecost Rainbow Sash movement. Both were targeted by the Ushers of the Eucharist who showed a defense in 2006. (Correcting the editor -- it was in St Paul, not Milwaukee.)

The speed with which our culture seemed to revert in destigmatizing homosexuality and abortion is really quite stunning. Are there any peculiar reasons for the rapidity of the inversion?

Three avenues I would explore: 1) The emotional hijacking of the moral capital of the interracial civil rights movement. 2) The use of human resource departments in large corporations and educational institutions to punish non-conformity with job loss. 3) The revolutionary role Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic clergy played in the de-sacralization of sexuality.
     Clergymen were a lot more prominent in the cultural sexual revolution than construction workers. I heard it once said, "The rabbis quit believing in God. The Protestants never believed in the all-male apostolic roots of the clergy or the special feminine truth of the Blessed Virgin Mother. And the Catholics -- they had an all-male priesthood, but it was overrun in the '50s and '60s by homosexuals and cowards fleeing conscription in the military during the Korean and Vietnam wars." Forty years before Bruce Jenner was given a sports courage award for wearing a dress, American females broke millennia of tradition and were officially garbed as Jewish rabbis (1972), Anglican priests (1974) and Presbyterian pastors (1956). Their liturgical cross-dressing in the sacred spaces of public worship became the new normal in America's synagogues and churches. The cultural revolution in America that desacralized the marriage act and denigrated protective sex roles was hatched by Marxists and adolescents but it was spread and enforced by synagogues and churches.


Pastor Piper was one of the leaders behind the recent Nashville Statement. Two people who were quick to denounce it were the mayor of Nashville, and Italian priest Antonio Spadaro who edits the influential Jesuit journal 'La Civiltà Cattolica.' What was your impression when you read it?

I thought the document was the best of its kind. It was a symphony to theological ecology.  So clear, so unapologetic about the sacred bonds of spiritual and physical life. The everlasting trinitarian God who is creator; man and woman made in His communal image and likeness.  That is how the late great Catholic writer and street-preacher Frank Sheed (d. 1982) used to introduce theology -- the realization of God as the basis of sanity.
     The sexual leftists of the Democratic party represented by the Nashville mayor, and the sexual predators of Catholic male religious orders represented by Jesuit Father Spadaro were out in full force because this statement is not stuttering or apologizing. This is the kind of public utterance that cannot be allowed if the new stigma is to be enforced. I would not term the pastors who signed the Nashville Statement as courageous, because courage is what you need when you stand up to Nazis and Communists. We are fighting lighter-weights such as Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi. When the stigma is broken, we will be amazed how soft that impregnable PC Tyranny turned out to be.

Religion & Geopolitics Review: Saturday, September 2

by Dr. David Pence and A. Joseph Lynch

WEEKLY BRIEF

Natural disasters bring out the natural law. The State of Texas and America are primary communities "of loyalty and love." Our nation and our States are organized political communities. We remind anarchists and libertarians that organized agencies of the public(that would be government) reduce death tolls in tragedies. Our nation is built on a Christian people who are mandated to love our neighbor. This is a handy source of social capital in times of travail.  In the face of natural powers greater than our own works, we turn to the greatest of all powers and bond in our natural adult protective roles under Him to protect life.
President Trump is not talking much about North Korea. That is because he is going to act. What action will he take? We don't know. That is one of his cardinal principles in conducting hostilities. But after the hostile act, he will establish some limit (as he did in Syria) which will offer a path of negotiation.

I. POPE FRANCIS AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

JESUIT SUPERIOR ON THE SYMBOLIC DEVIL AND OPENING CLERICAL ROLES TO WOMEN: This is more evidence that Pope Francis is not a typical modern Jesuit, though sadly Fr. Sosa is. Pope Francis has a clear and abiding sensibility of the reality of Satan. Satan is a spiritual personal reality. He is a being-a fallen angel and he has powerful legions with him. The conversations of Pope Francis are peppered with references to the demonic. Fr Sosa on the other hand is utterly a modern in treating evil as real but the devil as a symbol. Pope Francis considers any talk of women priests to be clericalism and degrading of the true role of women as virgins, mothers, and the Queen. His openness to a discussion of the early role of "woman as deaconess" is not to find a pathway to female ordination but a fuller history of women's roles in the church which now are evidenced by the vibrancy of women religious orders. The modern Jesuits like Fr Sosa and Fr Jim Martin are intellectual creatures of the desacralized culture they mimic.  They have lost grasp of the reality of the invisible - of God and Satan. This has lead to their confusion about the physical - the sacral distinctions of male and female.

JPII AND REAGAN, NOW FRANCIS AND PUTIN: The Vatican is not reading US media on the evil empire of Russia. Quite the contrary.

TURNING THE ALTAR, BENDING THE KNEE: Bishop Robert Morlino of the Diocese of Madison has begun celebrating the Mass ad orientem and has asked his priests to consider doing so as well. Beginning this month he asked all parishes to start giving Communion on the tongue while kneeling. This return to liturgical piety will do his diocese greater good than the more common tendency of US bishops to issue statements on Congressional legislation rather than teach, sanctify, and govern their diocese. Read the full text of the announcement, made during his Chrism Mass homily to all diocesan priests. Here is a quote:

"There are liturgies that are less than reverent, especially in the way that Communion is received. It’s hard to believe that some people actually believe that that’s the Body of Christ the way they handle it. You’d think it was an M&M... Now just to get concrete here at the end, beginning next school year, (that means beginning in the Fall of 2017) I’m going to ask that we move together towards greater reverence when receiving Holy Communion. I’m going to ask that people be encouraged to receive Communion on the tongue and kneeling. There is no question that Communion on the tongue is more reverent. And it doesn’t lend itself to a casual kind of behavior. I’m going to ask, beginning in the Fall, that our students are taught to receive Communion on the tongue."

ONE GOD, TWO SEXES - THE NASHVILLE STATEMENT. EVANGELICALS AND POPE FRANCIS TOGETHER: A beautiful, no-nonsense, scripturally-inspired celebration of God's creation. This statement of evangelicals should be endorsed by Catholics as a very Pope Francis-way of speaking. Pope Francis has treated the war against gender as a colonial project of imposing ideology on poor countries by the developed "West." He treats this aberration as fundamentally an ecological crime. It is a failure by technologically advanced moderns to treat what has been given in nature with the proper respect.
It looks like the alliance of evangelicals and Catholics which has been condemned by certain Church bureaucrats and clerics (but not Pope Francis) is alive and well in the fight to protect the gifts of Nature against the forces of gender ideology.

II. ISLAM AND THE MIDDLE EAST

ONE OF THE BEST MUSLIM COMMENTATORS ON POLITICAL ISLAM IS SHADI HAMID: Reflections on Political Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood. Mr. Hamid is a sophisticated thinker on Islam. Like most of the east coast chattering class, he is mostly wrong about Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. But he has a nuanced well studied understanding of Islam and he can teach us all some crucial distinctions.  Within the Sunni world, the monarchies of UAE and Saudi Arabia condemn the Muslim Brotherhood not for their interpretation of Islam but for their opposition to monarchs in an age of Islamic republicanism. The Brotherhood knows it can usually win elections. The monarchs know they no longer govern with the consent of their people. Military coups are often favored by the monarchs as a suppression of this popular impulse(see Egypt). Hamid teaches us to appreciate this crucial distinction. There is a significant war between "populist Islam" and the oil oligarchies. We should be careful not to label every form of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist.

TURKEY AND IRAN TWO NON-ARAB MUSLIM NATIONS: Often at odds but together in their opposition to an independent Kurdistan. The Kurds are the Serbs of the Mideast.

NO SILENCE FOR THE SAUDIS: After the terror attacks in London last June, a moment of silence was observed at a World Cup qualifying match in Australia between the Saudi Arabian and Australian soccer teams - except the Saudis decided not to observe the silence. Despite the official position of the Saudi government and the apology from the Saudi Arabian soccer federation, this is another reminder of how the general Salafist-Saudi population feels about Salafist terror.

III. PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS AND AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

NORTH KOREA MISSILE OVER JAPAN: It is hard to see how this is not going to evoke a justified military response. The US wants the battle against North Korea to pit Americans as the defenders of the stability of Asian nations. A missile over Japan is the best casus belli possible. Our sensibility is that a limited and forewarned (to South Korea, China and Japan) military strike or a promise to shoot down any more missiles will be the American response. This will be very different than the last three administrations. North Korea did fire a missile over Japan in 2008 but some say that was a failed attempt for another purpose. Wikipedia turns out as a better source for the facts of the story than most news accounts. Who, what, when, where, why.

SECULARISM, RELIGIOUS NATIONALISM AND: American civic religion.

IF YOU WANT TO BE OFFENDED... George Will in a video answers the question about statue banning that Trump asked, "Where will it end?" Will helps us answer by showing logically where it should start. Oklahoma, the Washington Post, the Minnesota state seal and the city of Corpus Christi are obvious offenders he exposes.

INVESTIGATING RUSSIA - LET'S TRACE THE TRUMP DOSSIER THAT JOHN MCCAIN GAVE TO INTELLIGENCE SERVICES: It's peculiar which stories live and which stories die. It is also peculiar which stories still have real tales to tell us. Let's think. Who was using Russian  intelligence information to influence the election?

SO MUCH WATER: If you ignore the global warming inserts, this is a good explanation of major atmospheric and ocean contributors to the Texas water event.

RUSSIAN NATIONALIST AND CHRISTIAN: Excellent introduction to Ivan Ilyin.

IV. CULTURE OF LIFE, CULTURE OF PROTECTION

THE DEATH OF EUROPE: A lesson for America. Book alert by Chuck Chalberg.

IN OLD AGE THE BABY-BOOMERS CAN MAKE REPARATIONS, NOT RETIREMENT: De Senectute.

PROTECTIVE ALL-MALE GROUPS ARE PART OF NATURE, HISTORY AND CHRISTIAN CULTURE -- WHY DO WE STUTTER SO IN DEFENDING THEM? Special forces - lies, alibis, and women graduates.

WHY WE SHOULDN'T GET RID OF FOOTBALL: An old priest tells a timeless truth.