One of my favorite Christmas hymns is, “I Heard The Bells on Christmas Day.” Based on the poem, “Christmas Bells,” by poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the hymn confronts the pains of living in mortality and facing evil directly as well as the means by which we triumph over evil. The story behind the hymn only enhances its message and helps us to understand the powerful of Hope and Faith in our every day lives.
Tag: Prince of Peace
The Hope, Dreams, and Realities of Christmas
Christmas Day is a day replete with meanings. The birth of the child Jesus was also the birth of Christ the Savior and the Nativity cannot be separated from the Crucifixion or the Resurrection in its meaning and purpose. And because it is so connected to the Atonement it is also connected to all the hopes, dreams, and fears that lurk in the minds of men and which they act out in their lives for good and ill. The Nativity is therefore rich and deep in meaning for all people a sit holds the promise of all the light, joy, healing, and eternal exaltation that Christs promises to all the world, not only those who follow Him. It is the promise of life immortal to all and life eternal for all. And that is always worth celebrating.
The Religious Nature of the Political Left
Having just finished thoroughly discussing the ways that governments use secularized versions of religious symbolism and ritual to manipulate the public and generate a sense of loyalty and obedience to it from among the masses, I thought it worthwhile to explore how the different partisan denominations of the politics -the “Left” and the “Right”- function as secular religions as well. The value in this is in explaining why people adhere to their different political beliefs and parties even when all logic, science, and morality demonstrate the inherent flaws, errors, and failings of those political beliefs to either reflect reality or to reform reality and create the outcomes their adherents promise if people would but live them. In this article I address this in terms of the Left, exploring how and why Leftist beliefs act as religious dogmas in the lives of Leftists.
The Death Cult of the State
In Part 1 of the series I delved into the idolatrous nature of modern political systems and delved into the ways they’re based on violence, oppression, and human sacrifice before ultimately concluding that the State/the government was one large idolatrous cult. Here in Part 2, I will dig into this idea of the State/the government as cult by using the 15 characteristics of cults as developed by Dr. Janja Lalich, a leading expert on the study of cults. By going through all 15 characteristics and demonstrating that the political systems of modern nations align very closely to Dr. Lalich’s outline and that they are therefore cults. Finally, I will explore how these idolatrous cults are in fact death cults by looking at how they use violence, warmongering, and veneration of the dead to gain legitimacy and subservience from the masses in order to secure and continue the power and position of the presiding political order.