Targeting Christians in Minnesota

  This weekend the unrest in Minnesota breached the sanctity of the church walls. I found an interesting tidbit in the reporting by Brandon Porter at Religion Unplugged,

"ST. PAUL, Minn. — An anti-ICE protest disrupted the morning worship service at Cities Church Sunday morning.  

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon livestreamed a portion of the event from inside the church building on YouTube.

Protestors could be heard chanting, 'Hands up, don’t shoot' and 'ICE out' throughout the video. According to Lemon, the protestors interrupted the opening prayer of the Sunday worship service."

Was the plan for the stunt leaked to sympathetic media types like Don Lemon and perhaps others so that it could be videoed and broadcast?

Lemon denies having known about it before hand but still should have done something to stop it once he figured it out such as notifying the police.

Did he even try?

Imagine what would happen if people decided to conduct a protest inside a mosque during prayer because there was an imam there who offended them.

Just imagine.

Do you think Don Lemon would be present livestreaming that?

What if the congregation of that church marched down the street and into an abortion center and led a protest?

They would be put in jail for invading the church of the holy zeitgeist.

Behold the Lamb of God

 

This Sunday's reading from John 1:29-42 immediately made me think of the above movement from Handel's Messiah with its simple, repeated message that should be told again and again, and again to a world in desperate need of peace.

The next day he saw Jesus coming towards him and declared, ‘Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is he of whom I said, “After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me.” I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel.’ And John testified, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, “He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.” And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God.’

The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, ‘Look, here is the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, ‘What are you looking for?’ They said to him, ‘Rabbi’ (which translated means Teacher), ‘where are you staying?’ He said to them, ‘Come and see.’ They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon. One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which is translated Anointed). He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).

Former Everythings

 This past Sunday our little church had the Bishop visit who conducted a couple of confirmations and receptions into the ACNA. In talking to other church members and finding myself explaining Confirmation to some I began to see our congregation in a new light as a group of former Baptists, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, atheists, etc., most of whom are learning the Anglican traditions from our rector, our Bible study, our Prayer Book, hymns, and sometimes from myself. 

We do get a few visitors from off the street. These are mostly those who came during the week to the food pantry or the clothes closet and received a warm welcome and invitation to worship with us on Sunday. 

This is my family now, a bunch of former everythings. I love them all and am thankful to God for putting me here.

A Christian Witness

 This Sunday's reading from Acts 10:34-43 contains Peter's witness to the facts for which he himself would die.

Then Peter began to speak to them: ‘I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.’

What more do we need to know? 

Episcopalians supporting narco-terrorism

Soon after the U.S. special forces arrested accused narco-terrorist Nicolas Maduro, the Episcopal Public Policy Network sent out an e-mail asking people to call their congressional delegation in protest.

Episcopal Church Statement on U.S. Intervention in Venezuela

January 3, 2026

Office of Government Relations

The people of The Episcopal Church offer prayers for our beloved siblings in Christ in the Episcopal Diocese of Venezuela, and for people across the region following this morning’s U.S. military operation that removed President Nicolás Maduro.  

Episcopalians in Venezuela carry out vital ministries in increasingly challenging conditions, and we fear for their well-being and their church community if these military interventions, and any form of U.S. occupation, lead to more instability and violence. Episcopal Church Center staff have spoken with and offered support to the Rt. Rev. Cristobal León Lozano, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ecuador Litoral and bishop provisional of Venezuela; the Rt. Rev. Lloyd Allen, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Honduras and president of Province IX; and to standing committee leadership.  

The Episcopal Church’s General Convention has long-standing policy that “condemn[s] in any nation the first use of armed force in the form of a preventive or pre-emptive strike that is aimed at disrupting a non-imminent, uncertain military threat.” Even as we recognize that intervention in sovereign states can sometimes be necessary to prevent atrocities, we discourage “the abuse of this norm to rationalize military actions in sovereign states for political ends.”   

We urge Congress to call for an investigation and accountability for this most recent unauthorized operation, as well as the related military actions carried out in recent months. We urge all regional parties to support a peaceful transition that respects the rule of law and the will of the Venezuelan people. Join us in praying for our siblings in the Diocese of Venezuela and the Venezuelan people.

Notice that they claim that the operation was not authorized.

I don't think that claim will hold up in court. 

I am not surprised that the Episcopal organization would seem to want the United States government  to sit on its hands and allow tons of illegal drugs to be shipped into our country. 

I am shocked at the lack of understanding on how these drugs are killing people.

What would you expect from a group of people who have walked away from God's Word in so many other ways?

The flight to Egypt and modern times

This Sunday many churches will hear Matthew 2:13-15,19-23 in which Joseph flees to Egypt with Mary and the child Jesus.

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’

We often hear revisionists refer to the holy family as illegal immigrants in an attempt to justify an open border policy.

I saw a response from Robert A. J. Gagnon to such a comment which deserves your attention, 

 ...as is typical of your exegesis and hermeneutical appropriation of Scripture, you are missing the point regarding your application of the story of the flight of Joseph and Mary to Egypt. 

(1) The issue is not whether Joseph and Mary were in flight when they went to Egypt. Obviously they were. The issue is rather whether they were violating Egyptian law through their emigration (btw, temporary) to Egypt. The answer is: They were not. While Egypt was outside the jurisdiction of Herod the Great, it was still part of the same Roman Empire to which Israel also belonged. 

(2) They were also not entering a welfare state that guaranteed them welfare benefits for food, housing, medical care, and a basic income. They were not a burden to Egyptian taxpayers. 

Moreover, (3) Egypt was not viewed generally as a destination to which untold millions around the Roman Empire and beyond wanted desperately to emigrate for economic reasons. 

In addition, (4) while the vast majority of illegal immigrants now in the US came here for economic opportunity, Joseph and Mary fled to Egypt because their child was being specifically targeted for execution. 

Finally, (5) the stay of Joseph was only temporary, limited in duration to the reign of Herod the Great who was already advanced in age. There was no plan to stay in Egypt permanently.

 

Don't judge? Denounce!

This Christmas I was uninvited to a family gathering because of my support for my church's position on human sexuality and morality. I was told that I was to follow the Biblical admonishment to not judge. 

Of course I was being judged, but I didn't bother to point that out.

Everyone makes judgements. When is it appropriate to say something?

The following quotes from Crisis came to me in a timely post, 

We live in an age that regards the identification of sin as the worst of all sins. As Regis Nicoll points out, “Today instead of 10 commandments, there is just one: thou shalt not judge.” Even within Christian circles, it is common to hear the phrases “Don’t judge” or “I’m not judging.” So afraid are we to commit this transgression called judgment that we hesitate to call out even the most blatant of wrongs...

....The truly tragic thing about this moratorium on judgment is its ironic consequence of creating a vastly more judgmental world. The “nonjudgment” worldview holds that behavior is mostly OK, so long as it doesn’t have negative consequences for other people....

When we allow fear to eclipse our responsibilities to admonish grave wrongs and encourage virtue over vice, we abandon duties central to Christianity. Instructing the ignorant and admonishing the sinner are spiritual works of mercy that we seem to have abandoned due to the misguided notion that it harms rather than helps our neighbor.

...If our culture succeeds in sanitizing our discourse of moral values, of appeals to the good, all that will be left to govern our future is power. We cannot leave our future to the hands of whichever perspective manages to amass the most power—void of any criterion on which to judge the value of that viewpoint. So, let us own our prophetic call as Christians and, with it, our right to denounce certain practices and promote others according to the criteria of love and goodness established by the Word of God. 

For the sake of individual souls as well as the future generations we will never know, we must refuse to be silent. We must raise our voices, however “unsafe” our echoes may resound in delicate ears. When they accuse us of judgment, let them. 

Let them!