LED 7 – The Talk of the Year; University Challenge; Swedish Fascists; The Month of Diana; The Racist Transgender Model; The Nashville Statement; Censoring Marco Rubio

 

Light Engaging Darkness

• The Best Talk you will hear all Year – 

  Sunday was a really special day for me in lots of ways (Here is why) and the icing on the cake was this extraordinary talk from the philosopher Roger Scruton.

 

It is stunning. Even more so that it came on the BBC. If you do nothing else this week, grab yourself a coffee and sit down and listen to best ten minutes you will hear on any broadcast media this year!   If you combine this with Douglas Murray’s ‘The Strange Death of Europe’ you will have a great grasp of where we are at in modern society – and indeed, something of the solution. It is so satisfying to hear things you have been saying for years, being said on the BBC – and in a much better way!   Listen and pass on.

• University Challenge –

Continuing last week’s news on students returning to Uni, Private Eye had a really interesting report on the financial crisis facing Britain’s Universities.

“The University superannuation pension scheme is in deep trouble reporting a £17.5 billion deficit. Despite the underperformance, the highest paid director received more than £1.2 million in 2016 – 17. No fewer than 113 people earned more than £100,000 each. Overseeing this is remuneration committee chairman Rene Poissson, a former JPMorgan banker. Also on the committee is Prof Dawn Glynis Breakwell– who is also Britain’s highest-paid Vice Chancellor, earning £450,000 a year from the University of Bath. Meanwhile it is the lower paid academics and the students who will have to bear the brunt of all of this, as well as the taxpayer. “

What is astonishing about this is the fact that a University Vice-Chancellor gets paid £450,000, exactly three times what the British Prime Minister gets paid. Our Universities have become corporate entities, designed to feather the nests of those who lead him and extend and protect the privileges of the privileged. I wonder if this is why all the leading University principals are fanatically in favour of the EU!

• Fascists in Sweden

What’s going on in Sweden? The Sweden Democrats – the alt-right party of Sweden are projected to become the second biggest group in parliament at next year’s elections – with 20% of the vote. They are not Nazis but a real Nazi movement – the Nordic resistance movement has now been formed in Sweden. One observer writes ” we are still the country of IKEA, Abba and Volvos, like the rest of Europe we are torn over cultural issues of identity politics. The far right has been advancing for decades, and from its perspective, leftist and Conservative parties have morphed into a single blob.” Sweden accepted twice as many refugees per capita than Germany in 2015 – and they are unable to cope.

• The Month of Diana

Remember the hysteria surrounding the death of Diana twenty years ago? Once again Private Eye has captured it beautifully!

“Exclusive to all tabloids – month of August to be renamed. Yes it’s official! Due to immense public pressure, Britain has decided to rename its eight-month, as a tribute to the greatest woman who ever appeared in a newspaper. From next year, July will officially be followed by the month of Diana. Starting on Diana the first and continuing all the way through to Diana the 31st of Diana, with 30 days of Diana in between, the nation will be reminded that this is the month the newspapers finally lose the plot and run thousands of pieces about her, until the anniversary of her death is over.”

 

• All White People are Violently Racist

If you want to see how irrational and mad modern ‘liberalism’ is then listen to this interview from Munroe Bergdof.   She had claimed that all white people were racist.

If you listen to the language you will hear repetition of dumbed down sociological theories – far too many of which are taught in our Universities. You will not hear rational thought or truth. “We are not taught about slavery in schools”

‘Racism doesn’t affect white people’.     ‘All white people belong to privilege’ says a wealthy privileged person. The irony is that she doesn’t have the nous to work out that her statement itself is racist. Her feelings predominate. The irony is that she talks about ‘people of colour’ whilst she herself is  a transgender model who decided that he was now a she. I wonder what logic she would use to argue against me if I said that I identified as black and therefore she had to accept me as a ‘person of colour’?
Even more ironically she had been appointed as the ‘face of diversity and tolerance’ by L’Oreal who then had to sack her for her racist comments!

• The Nashville Statement

The Nashville Statement is an affirmation of biblical teaching by a number of well-known Christian leaders mainly in the US. For anyone who knows their bible there is nothing particularly controversial about it.  You can read and even sign it here – https://cbmw.org/nashville-statement/

And of course there has been the predictable hysterical response – the signatories are homophobic/transphobic bigots who by the very act of signing this are ‘killers’ responsible for the death of hundreds of people!   A response wonderfully answered by Babylon Bee – http://babylonbee.com/news/bee-explains-nashville-statement/

Whilst I expect the New York Times to run articles which call the Nashville Statement ‘spiritual malpractice’ (note the American language designed to set it up for suing and banning people); it is a little disappointing to see Premier Christianity dealing with this as though it were a dispute about baptism – i.e. just a minor theological quibble. There are not two equal and opposite sides to this. The dispute is between those who accept what Christ says in his word, and those who want to change that to what the culture says.   Oh – that’s a bit harsh some might object. Let’s do the Premier thing and be all loving to one another and accept each other’s point of view. Except the article Premier published in much harder than what I have just said. According to the author, Will Moore, if we deny ‘LGBT love’ then we are denying people God’s love and God himself.

Mr Moore is a theological student at Cardiff University but after saying such an extreme statement he then goes on to say that he is a devoted Christian who believes in ‘the same God as those who signed the Nashville Statement’. No – he doesn’t. He believes in a very different God. He believes in a God who contradicts himself, didn’t inspire the Bible (or did and got it wrong!) and who says that our feelings are the defining characteristic of who He is. I believe in a God who is consistent, who has revealed himself in His word (and did not get it wrong) and who defines himself by himself and not by my feelings. They are chalk and cheese. https://www.premierchristianity.com/Blog/Why-the-Church-needs-to-reject-the-Nashville-Statement-and-embrace-LGBT-Christians

If there is one article you should read on this then the wonderful Rosaria Butterfield has provided it – https://cbmw.org/the-nashville-statement/rosaria-butterfield-why-i-signed-the-nashville-statement/

“I signed the Nashville Statement because I stand with Biblical orthodoxy, which is inseparable from God’s creation mandate and definition of gendered personhood found in Genesis 1:27:  “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female, he created them”.  The soul is God’s fingerprint on humanity, but the gendered body—essentially and ontologically male or female—will also, for the believer in Jesus Christ, be glorified and resurrected in the New Jerusalem.

I signed the Nashville Statement because my conscience compels me so, because the promises of liberty on the world’s terms are false and deceptive, and because many who currently claim to have Christ’s forgiveness and salvation must be called to account for leading good people astray with false promises and filthy lies.

I signed the Nashville Statement because the wolves are prowling, and the lions are roaring, and because they are bold and proud of their heresy, and because you must be warned.

By God through the merit and power of Jesus Christ, here I stand.”

 

• Not So Free in the Land of the Free

We finish with this bizarre and disturbing tale from the Land of the Free. Senator Marco Rubio has been told to stop quoting bible verses on his personal Twitter feed by the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) because it breaks the US constitution.   Yep. You read it right. His personal Twitter feed. Apparently the Founding Fathers, when they wrote the constitution, meant to remove all reference to religion from all areas of public life! The fact that people can believe this nonsense only goes to show how historically ignorant and morally illiterate some of the more militant atheistic secular groups are.   Such ignorance and illiteracy may be somewhat amusing, until you realise that these people are actually serious and that they and their heirs really do think they run the country.

Lets see what happens this week – meanwhile please ensure you have listened to Scruton’s BBC talk as your antidote to the madness!

And in case you missed last weeks LED here is the link…

LED 6 – Back to Uni – Demolishing Statues – Natural Disasters – Robert E Lee – The Duke of Sutherland – Houston – Poland – Trudeau and Abortion – Australia and SSM – Macron – Tower Hamlets Adoption Madness…