The Un-Christian Fear of Death

The cowardly reaction to The Virus by so many, our desperate efforts to cling to life on the earth, reveal just how ready for Antichrist’s Kingdom of the World we are right now.  The following quotes sent to us bear this out quite well:

1. Fear of Death

Orthodox theologian John Romanides describes in The Ancestral Sin (162-3) how the fear of death leads to evil practices and habits: “Through the power of death and the devil, sin that reigns in men gives rise to fear and anxiety and to the general instinct of self-preservation or survival. Thus, Satan manipulates man’s fear and his desire for self-satisfaction, raising up sin in him. . . . Because of death, man must first attend to the necessities of life in order to stay alive. In this struggle, self-interests are unavoidable. Thus, man is unable to live in accordance with his original destiny of unselfish love. This state of subjection under the reign of death is the root of man’s weakness in which he becomes entangled in sin at the urging of the demons and by his own consent. Resting in the hands of the devil, the power of the fear of death is the root from which self-aggrandizement, egotism, hatred, envy, and other similar passions spring up. In addition to the fact that man ‘subjects himself to anything in order to avoid dying' {...}

This helps us think through the counter-thought-experiment: What would our lives look like if we thoroughly and fully believed that death had been conquered, if we were completely freed from fear of death, if we live in undoubting hope of resurrection? A lot like the life of Jesus. (Peter Leithart)

2. Chiliasm

...One should be aware and keep in mind that chiliasm was condemned by the Second Ecumenical Council in the year 381; and therefore to believe in it now in the twentieth century, even in part, is quite unforgivable. Besides which, this contemporary “neo-chiliasm” is far worse than the ancient chiliastic heresy in that at its basis indubitably lies a disbelief in the life of the age to come and the passionate desire to attain blessedness here on earth, using all the improvements and achievements of the material progress of our times.

This false teaching wreaks terrible harm, lulling to sleep the spiritual vigilance of the faithful and suggesting to them that the end of the world is far away (if in fact there will be an end), and therefore there is no particular need to watch and pray, to which Christ the Saviour constantly called His followers (cf Mt. 26:41), since everything in this world is gradually getting better and better, spiritual progress keeping step with materialism... Thus, everything is fine! It is not necessary to labor over oneself, and no spiritual struggle is required; the fasts may be abolished. Everything will get better all by itself, until the Kingdom of God is finally established on earth with universal earthly satisfaction and blessedness.

Brethren! Is it not clear where the ultimate source of this alluring false teaching is to be found? Who suggests all these thoughts to contemporary Christians with the purpose of overthrowing all of Christianity? As an infectious plague, as fire, must we fear this “neo-chiliasm” which is so profoundly contrary to the teaching of the Word of God, the teaching of the holy Fathers, and all of the centuries-old teachings of our Holy Church, by which many, many thousands of the righteous have been saved...

Abp. Averky Taushev (bolding added)

(Thanks to C for these quotes.-W.G.)

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

The Right Way to Restart an Economy . . .

By strengthening good agriculture, which is the foundation of all man’s physical life on earth.  (To borrow some words of Andrew Lytle’s, the small farm secures the ethnos.)  We have been going in the wrong direction for decades:

 . . . one of the primary arguments for genetically engineered (GE) crops and foods was that it was going to solve world hunger. Reality, however, has demonstrated the massive flaws in this argument.

GE agriculture actually does the complete opposite, by destroying our soils and making food more toxic and less nutritious. Regenerative farming, on the other hand, has demonstrated its superiority with regard to yield and nutrition, all without the use of toxic chemicals. As noted by Cummins:

“The way we have traditionally grown food for the last 10,000 years and the way we've raised animals the last 20,000 or 30,000 years is really organic and pasture-based.

This wild experiment that industry unleashed on us since the second world war, using toxic chemicals, synthetic fertilizers, genetically engineered seeds and animal factory farms has proven to be a disaster, not just for the farmers, the animals and the land, but our public health has also suffered considerably.

Part of our long-term call to take charge of your health, take charge of your diet [is to] take charge of our environment and really our whole economic system [and] transform this degenerative food, farming and land use system into one that is organic and regenerative.”

 . . .

During one of Cummins’ workshops on organic compost, two local farmers approached him saying they’d developed a remarkably simple technique using the agave plant and mesquite trees to produce incredibly inexpensive yet nutritious animal fodder.

These two plants, which are naturally found clustered together in arid and semi-arid areas, do not require any irrigation, and the photosynthesis of the agave is among the highest in the entire world. It grows rapidly, producing massive amounts of biomass, and sequesters and stores enormous amounts of carbon, both above ground and below ground, while producing inexpensive, nutritious animal feed or forage and restoring the earth.

As noted by Cummins, the fact that agave plants and mesquite (or other nitrogen-fixing trees) grow together naturally is nature’s way to repair eroded landscapes. The roots of the mesquite tree can reach down to 125 feet, fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere into the soil, and absorbing minerals from deep in the ground.

Agave, meanwhile, adds huge amounts of biomass to the land every year, drawing down excess CO2 from the atmosphere. It pulls nitrogen and other minerals from the ground in order to support its rapid growth, but when grown next to a nitrogen-fixing tree, you've got a biodiverse system that will continue to grow and thrive on a continuous basis.

 . . .

The fermented agave animal feed produced in this system costs only 5 cents per kilo (2.2 pounds) to make. The key is fermentation. Raw agave leaves are unpalatable and hard to digest for animals because of their levels of saponins and lectins, but once fermented, they become digestible and attractive to the animals.

 . . .

--Dr Joseph Mercola, https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2020/03/29/regenerative-organic-farming.aspx

By such steps we will at length free ourselves from dependence on the transnational corporate oligarchy of Monsanto, Walmart, megabanks, and the rest of them.

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Here is some advice on how to grow some food of your own:

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/03/18/homestead/here-are-some-things-you-can-grow-quickly-in-your-quarantine/

https://globalhealing.com/natural-health/gardening-tips/

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

Mormon Exceptionalism

Utah is likely planning on leaving the Union.  The evidence for this, most recently, comes in the form of the signing of SB102 by Utah’s Gov Gary Herbert.  This act reduces the severity of the penalties for polygamy to that of an infraction, something akin to a traffic ticket:

https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/03/30/here-are-high-profile/

Thus, after generations of battling with Washington City over one of their core, defining doctrines and practices, the Mormons are reclaiming their autonomy from the Feds.  Now a new era likely begins in the States, one in which ‘Mormon exceptionalism’ rises to displace ‘American exceptionalism’.  Whatever yardstick one uses - be it work ethic, outward morality and good societal order, dedication to family and religion, material prosperity, scientific innovation, etc. - the Mormons have outdone and will continue to outdo their New England Yankee forebears.  And this will happen because Mormons have established what the Puritans in New England failed to:  a theology that brings all their worldly passions and ambitions into a harmonious system.  Puritanism tried and failed, falling first into Social Gospel nonsense and then into outright agnosticism and atheism.  But Joseph Smith et al. have succeeded where they failed.  And now the theocracy in Utah is confident enough that it will resume building the ‘true Kingdom of God’ in North America and beyond one polygamous marriage at a time. 

Just as their Yankee forebears, Mormons have always viewed themselves as a people ‘set apart’, ‘chosen’, having a ‘special mission to fulfil’.  The heretical ‘City on a Hill’ has been transferred from Salem to Salt Lake City.  Thus is Puritanism fulfilled in Mormonism.

In this one may see good and evil, hope and forlornness.  On the good side, it may speed the breakup of an unnatural and dangerous union that has meant so much bloodshed and suffering for so much of the world.  On the bad side, the open Mormon blessing of polygamy will endanger their own souls and lead many away from the true understanding of marriage and sexuality and into the snares of the devil and the demons.  Was the March earthquake in Utah a warning from God not to go down this path?

https://www.kuer.org/post/seismologist-explains-science-behind-utahs-57-magnitude-earthquake#stream/0

What should we hope for with regard to a separate Mormon country?  We pray that God will show us, through the prayers of the Saints of North America.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!