US Vax Ban of Novak Djokovic is Just Plain Democrat Dumb

The vax ban preventing Novak Djokovic from entering the United States has been met with the derision the Biden decision deserves.

After requesting a CDC ‘vaccine waiver’, Homeland security denied the Serbian tennis player entry to the US, because of his COVID-19 “vaccination” status.

Meanwhile at the United States-Mexico border, the ‘no borders’ Woke White House is allowing thousands of “unvaccinated” people into the country, without even so much as RAT test, lockdown, or temperature check.

The Ron DeSantis Open Letter

Mocking the weak White House’s ‘outdated’ grip on vaccine mandates, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wrote to Biden, describing the visa denial as “unfair, unscientific, and unacceptable”.

The 8-paragraph open letter posted on Twitter demanded Joe Biden put an end to “pandemic politics”.

DeSantis suggested that Novak Djokovic could “enter the country by boat” because the no-vax, no-entry rule only applies to flyers. Placed alongside the Democrat free ride on the unchecked flood of people pouring across the Southern border, the vax ban on Djokovic makes no sense, DeSantis argued.

“Your administration pointedly allowed thousands of unvaccinated migrants to enter the US through the Southern border while banning millions of potentially unvaccinated foreign visitors – [this] seems completely ungrounded in logic, and common sense”, he asserted.

DeSantis added, “The only thing keeping Djokovic from participating in the Miami Open is your administration’s continued enforcement of a misguided, and out-of-date COVID-19 vaccination requirement  for foreign guests seeking to visit our great country.”

The anti-vax mandate-Republican slammed the “vaccines” as useless.

He then pointed to growing evidence bringing the so-called vaccine’s efficacy into question, and noted studies identifying the mRNA vaccines as a serious potential health risk “for males aged 18-39”.

DeSantis closed by reminding Biden of Florida’s rejection of vaccine mandates, and lockdowns, telling the Democrat President “to give up the fiction that COVID vaccines remain a necessary tool to promote public health”.

Bill Maher Weighs In

Also critical of the Biden Big Pharma party line, notorious ‘free left’ Bill Maher mocked the mandates, accusing the United States authorities of being “stuck on stupid”.

Talking with Russel Brand, the Real Time host defend Djokovic, stating, “He’s unvaccinated but he’s had COVID twice, natural immunity. Again, something we always used to understand was like better than the actual vaccine. Somehow that got to be reversed.”

Djokovic to Miss Out Again

Although the current COVID mandate affecting air travellers ends in May, Djokovic will miss both California and Florida’s Tennis competitions.

The 35-year-old ranked as a world champion, withdrew from the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells CA, leaving his attendance at the Miami event open.

Described as a political prisoner in early 2022 after being detained by Australian Labor Party authoritarians in Victoria, Djokovic won popular support, catapulting Australia’s COVID overreach onto the world stage.

Then Prime Minister, Scott Morrison (LNP) defended the “unvaccinated” tennis player’s detention.

In a January 6th, 2022 post on Twitter, the former Liberal Party leader, stated, “Mr Djokovic’s visa has been cancelled. Rules are rules, especially when it comes to our borders. No one is above these rules. Our strong border policies have been critical to Australia having one of the lowest death rates in the world from COVID, we are continuing to be vigilant.”

Worth noting, middle-management Morrison, recently called for an end to Australia’s ‘remaining vaccine requirements,’ adding that he never agreed to a blanket approach to vax mandates.

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Originally published at Caldron Pool.

Photo by Wikimedia Commons.

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Will ‘Jesus Revolution’ be the Best Movie of 2023?

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Armageddon – Part 2: Lessons from the Cold War and the Birth of Cold War II

This is the second of a three-part series inspired by the novel Armageddon by Leon Uris (1963). A remarkable, fictional story based on actual history, from the American perspective, of the end of WWII in Germany with particular focus on the administration of Berlin.

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!
But passion and party blind our eyes,
and the light which experience gives us
is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

The Declaration of the Cold War

The Berlin Airlift was a resounding success! It was an outstanding achievement, but the Cold War was born. When we think of the Cold War, I guess most of us think of the territorial divisions that defined the ‘East’ from the ‘West’. These terms are still with us today, particular the phrases ‘Western Democracies’ and ‘Western Culture’.

We think of Russia and China as the world’s communist stronghold in the case of Russia, and the fascist dictatorship in the case of China, balanced against the western nations’ democracies. Then we think of the arms race and the nuclear threat, hence the term the ‘Cold War’, and the passionate hope and prayer that the opposing nuclear deterrents will be enough to keep either side from repeating the nuclear devastation unleashed on Japan to end World War II.

But let me take you back to the Berliners in the late 1940s. They did not really see any of these physical manifestations of communism that we recognise today. Rather, they would have sensed the psychological warfare raged against them — they were the heroes of the Cold War by their resistance against the communist agenda, their recognition of the threat and their willingness to sacrifice dearly for the prospect of freedom and liberty.

Imagine the culture of the time. Each of these points is a lesson for us today:

  1. The world that survived WWII were on food rations, crippled with grief for lost loved ones. Therefore, they could hardly ever lift their heads above the parapet and look out at other parts of the world. They were simply in survival mode and coming to terms with their own post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
  2. With the trauma of WWII and the wounds still open and weeping, who could have imagined the emergence of a new enemy, especially one from within their own ranks of the Allied powers? The natural instinctive reaction would simply be one of denial. They may have seen some ‘news’, but it would not have fitted into their existing paradigm, so they could not have made any sense or order out of the events unfolding around them.
  3. The Russians had marched through eastern Europe and ‘assimilated’ nation after nation on their westward march. But they were halted in Berlin. To their surprise, they met resistance. Not so much a military resistance, but a resistance from the civilian Berliners. Their tried and tested methods sprang into action, and wave upon wave of psychological warfare was unleashed on the Berliners by the Soviets. One example will suffice. They claimed that only they could ensure the permanent defeat of the Nazi threat. They claimed that the western powers were simply a cover for the re-emergence of Nazism.
  4. The Berliners were the new frontline against the new enemy. As a people utterly devasted by defeat and slaughter, they could still see through the communist lies and propaganda. I take my hat off to the Berliners! Arguably, they were the ones who ‘won the peace’ after WWII. They were the ones who fought for the freedom of thought and liberty of allegiance.
  5. From the start of the Cold War, there was intense pressure to conform to the communist vision. Many of the western Allied soldiers’ families wanted to leave and return home. They saw that the Russians had the upper hand, therefore resistance was futile. Back in the United States, federal parliament was bitterly split. The battle for hearts and minds was fierce, and in the end was resolved by courageous leadership.

The Birth of Cold War II

I would now like to suggest that we are witnesses to the birth of the Cold War II in our day and generation.

  1. I think we are in a war, a largely psychological war, but there are military manifestations in various pockets around the world. Perhaps the seeds of this idea were sown for me by Douglas Murray’s The War on the West (2022). Murray identified the enemy of the West as being from within the West. The enemy is a traitor among one of our own, just as the Russians in the late 1940s turned on their ‘own’, their fellow Allies. I see these internal forces as just as determined to enslave us and strangle the life out of our democracy as the communists did at the height of the first Cold War.

  1. The enemy’s tactics within the Cold War II, being primarily psychological at this stage, have most certainly taken ground, as demonstrated by the fact that the majority of people still look to their governments and authorities to ‘look after them’, to subsidise their back-to-work initiatives, and to build artificial price caps on energy costs to cushion us from hyperinflation created by them. Yes, the enemy’s tactics are working in the production of a compliant, submissive populace, willing to do their master’s bidding.
  2. Today, just as in 1948, the majority of us are still traumatised from the Covid panic years and the wounds are still open and weeping in many places, though it’s remarkable that it’s so easy to forget some of the pain, as we were effectively conditioned into acceptance of the pain for ‘the greater good’. Therefore, how can we expect people to put their heads above the parapet and look out across the nations of the world to identify a new threat; surely, we have had enough troubles in recent times, we are not looking for another!
  3. The new frontline against Cold War II can be found all around the world. We are connected digitally in contrast to the tangible community that the Berliners knew in the aftermath of WWII. Yes, the new frontlines are drawn by those people who can see the threat and are prepared to take a stand against it. In this context, I take my hat off to the thousands who have lost their jobs as a result of their stand, and to the thousands whose families and communities have been shattered by division and breakdown in relationships, and to the thousands who have literally lost their lives already in Cold War II.
  4. The battle lines are drawn today between those who recognise the threat of Cold War II and those who don’t. The latter can’t see that there is anything to fear — they simply say, ‘We are all in this together, we must make sacrifices for the common good when called to do so.’ I find that the division is largely one of silence and an unwillingness to name the elephant in the room. This is in stark contrast to 1948, when heated debates were common.

I do not see a new ‘Berlin Wall’ being built, but I do see the new ‘prisoner-of-war-camps’ being commissioned all around the world, to corral agitators, protesters, and rebels. There seem to be all the hallmarks of ‘walls’ around these camps to keep the renegades in; in contrast to the Berlin Wall’s design to keep their own in, preventing them from defecting to freedom.

Whichever way we look at it, division and segregation can never spell freedom and liberty of thought and allegiance. Openness, tolerance, and mutual respect are the qualities of a community I want to leave as a legacy for my children. These characteristics are all built upon personal responsibility and small government, as opposed to the abrogation of responsibility to big governments and global big businesses.

The Cold War II’s Agenda

I have reflected deeply on the nature of this agenda. I believe the mastermind to be the devil and his angels. His fingerprints are all over it:

Therefore, Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10: 7-11)

I believe there are many ‘diversionary tactics’ that distract, divide, dilute and dilute our attention. But if we look at the devil’s core values, stealing, murder and destruction, this will help us identify the true nature of his agenda. This is in direct contrast with Jesus’ agenda to bring life and life to the full. It is interesting that Jesus is the ‘gate’, not the devil. It is Jesus that decides who may come in and go out, and who may find pasture.

Who is the devil using to outwork his agenda? First of all, stealing. Sadly, I suspect there will be much more overt manifestations of theft to come, but so far, we have seen soaring fuel prices and artificial scarcity of sources of energy, resulting in inflation fuelled by planned irresponsible government spending over the past three years. So, the first agent of the devil’s agenda, national governments, in perfect harmony across the world.

Secondly, murder. The perpetrating and legitimisation of abortion, the murder of infants:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. (Leviticus 20: 1-2)

Yes, child sacrifice has been known for thousands of years, but God plainly abhors it, and notice He holds ‘the people’ responsible for its eradication. I believe we are responsible for allowing the practice of and legitimisation of abortion. So, in this context, our governments who have sanctioned the practice and our healthcare system that carry out the practice are responsible, but we have not stopped them.

Further, evidence of murder would be the administration of un-tested, unsafe, and ineffective medication resulting in sudden adult death syndrome (SADS), increased numbers of miscarriages and the potential for future infertility. All these measures being the responsibility of the global pharmaceutical industry and our healthcare systems overseen by our national governments. This strategy of the devil has been working very well at depopulating the world, with the immediate focus being the western nations.

Thirdly, destruction. War meets this criterion and is the most obvious evidence of the work of the devil. But destruction can be evidenced in a wide array of phenomena. I would illustrate this with wildfires. It seems to me that many wildfires have been fuelled by Green agendas that have left forests untended for too long, resulting in dangerous levels of tinder for fires to consume.

I also note that some catastrophic floods have been exacerbated by the cessation of preventative dredging of tidal estuaries and the indiscriminate land clearing that has denuded the landscape of vegetation, that would otherwise have captured sufficient rainfall and lessened the destructive floods. In these instances, the responsibility for the destruction would again be the Green agendas that have failed to recognise the biodiversity of different habitats. Then in turn, Green agendas have been incorporated into ‘both sides’ of politics, who in turn bear the responsibility for the destruction.

Here I have sought to illustrate the work of the devil under the three headings of stealing, murder and destruction. Naturally, this is a gross simplification of the nature of the fallen world — in reality it is much more complex; but I have found this rationale a helpful vehicle to seek to understand the nature of Cold War II.

We Ignore Cold War II at Our Peril

Just as in the days of the first Cold War, many could not see it at first. There were intense debates on how best to respond. Let us learn the lessons from history and not be caught out in Cold War II. I believe that the writing is on the wall for us all to read.

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Photo by Pixabay.

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History Belongs to the Intercessors, Part 1: Our Need for Prayer

Prayer is essential for God’s will to be done, His kingdom to be established on earth as it is in Heaven.

Behind the greatest evangelist of the Second Great Awakening — Charles Finney — knelt a man of intercession: Daniel Nash.

Finney, through his passionate appeals for people to come to God, saw hundreds of thousands of conversions happen all over New York and beyond in the early 1800s. Unknown to most, this move of God contained a secret weapon. Nash.

Weeks in advance of an outreach by Finney, intercessor Nash — along with Abel Clary — would come, praying within the community, crying out and asking God for His intervention in the hearts of men.

Nash had been a burned-out pastor. But through prayer during an illness, he found personal revival with God. And through prayer, would go on to fuel a national revival.

History belongs to the intercessors — we are the ones who are really stirring up national revival and change.

A Nation in Crisis

We are now in 2022 — a long time past the days of Charles Finney and Daniel Nash. But our nation is in more need now than even then.

It has been 246 years since 1776 when our republic was born. The founders of this republic gave us a gift, and we have a responsibility to protect it and keep it.

In 4 short years, America will be 250 years old — the only democratic republic in history that has survived this long.

This is a pivotal moment, and we all know as Christians with discernment that America is at a crisis point. Will we make it to America’s 250th birthday?

When we think about America right now — the decay in our educational systems, media, entertainment, government, business ethics, and more, we must look ourselves straight in the face and realise that we, as believers in Jesus, are not having the greatest impact on our culture.

Why is that?

National Prayerlessness

I believe the root of this failure is our individual loss of a daily connection with God.

We don’t pray. We don’t spend time with Jesus.

We have many weaknesses in the modern Western Church, but none is as glaring as our national prayerlessness.

If we are honest, the last few years have been an eye-opener within the Church. We have been exposed by fear and unbelief and have seen our personal tendencies to run to anything but God in the middle of a national crisis.

If God doesn’t awaken the Church in this hour in history, we are in trouble.

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. (Romans 13:11)

Back to the Basics

Prayer. It is the first spiritual discipline that we all think we know and understand — but really, few of us do.

If we truly understood prayer and realised the value of it, we would prioritise it in our lives and in our local churches. Unfortunately, in our modern Western church culture, our prayer meetings are the smallest gathering on our weekly or even monthly calendars. They are obviously not sexy or entertaining enough.

A woman told me the other day that she is a member of a church with over 3,000 members and their weekly prayer meeting has only two people attending it.

Let’s take a moment to think about prayer in our local churches.

Does your church have a corporate prayer meeting? How often is the prayer meeting? How many people come to it?

Just those questions alone are exposing to the modern church. But when we pile on thinking about the reality of our own devotional lives, we can all see the weakness.

Prayerlessness is rooted in a key problem: We don’t really believe prayer works. 

If we really believed in prayer, the effectiveness of prayer would absolutely change everything in our lives. Our calendars, our priorities, and our goals. Everything!

E.M. Bounds — the famous 19th century Methodist Episcopal pastor — said this:

God shapes the world by prayer. The more praying there is in the world the better the world will be, the mightier the forces against evil… The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock of heaven by which God carries on His great work upon earth. God conditions the very life and prosperity of His cause on prayer.

Prayer is a Real Commodity

Have you thought about prayer being a commodity of Heaven before? It is tangible and real.

Let’s read this:

Now when He (the Lamb) had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each having a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Revelation 5:8)

Look at this powerful picture of the golden bowls full of incense — holding the real tangible prayers of the saints.

When we pray, God hears us, and He collects those prayers. This is an incredible picture of prayer that is something that we can get our heads around.

Prayer is a real commodity.

Just like we go to the bank and deposit a check — prayer is a deposit. Just like we look at our investments on our phones and buy and sell stock — prayer is a stock purchase. Just like we invest in our marriage by spending time with our spouse — prayer is an investment in relationship.

If the world is going to see revival — and better yet, another Great Awakening — we need to cry out to God. We need to ask Him to grow faith in our hearts to believe that when we talk to Him, He hears us. And that when we petition Him, it changes hearts and lives.

This is what the world needs in this hour of history.

The world needs a praying Church.

Prayer is Action — Not Just a Spiritual Buzzword

This is my personal mandate from the Lord for this season: “Go find the awakening church and plug them into simple habits of prayer, voting, and engagement.”

When our little team of politically active Christians started Christians Engaged a few years ago, we identified three areas of weakness in the American church that we felt called to strengthen:

  1. Habitual prayer for our cities, states, and nation including our elected officials.
  2. A call for believers to vote in every election and to vote biblical values, and
  3. Encouragement for Christians to engage in our culture and take action to be “salt and light” in every space of influence.

Prayer wasn’t just a spiritual buzzword that we picked to talk about something spiritual. No, prayer is the only thing that really matters!

What the World Needs Most

In reality, prayer is the only thing that can change our nation.

Hearts are only open to God through prayer. Cities are truly impacted through prayer. Systems can only be reformed by people of wisdom who are covered in prayer.

What does the world need in this important moment in history?

The world needs YOU! Your participation. Your heart. Your care. Your prayers. Your votes. Your engagement in the culture.

Your intercession.

What is an intercessor? We answer that in Part Two of our History Belongs to the Intercessors series.

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Originally published at The Stream. Photo by Eduardo Dutra.

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Armageddon – Part 1: Lessons from the Berlin Airlift (1948 – 1949)

If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us!
But passion and party blind our eyes,
and the light which experience gives us
is a lantern on the stern which shines only on the waves behind.
~ Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 – 1834)

This is the first of a three-part series inspired by the novel Armageddon by Leon Uris (1963). A remarkable fictional story based on actual history, from the American perspective, of the end of World War II in Germany with a particular focus on the administration of Berlin.

What can we learn from these events? Can we see any parallels with our situation today? I believe we can learn invaluable lessons to strengthen our faith. I believe we can be inspired by the courage and passion of the men and women who sacrificed all to serve and protect their former enemies, and I believe we can be supported in our stand for the Gospel of Jesus Christ in our generation.

The End of World War II (1945)

I find it impossible to imagine the physical and psychological carnage experienced on a daily basis at war’s end.

Berlin was a city of millions that had been all but demolished at the hand of the Allies — British, French, American and Russian forces. With precious little infrastructure left to sustain the surviving population, the Allies divided the city into administrative sectors: Northwest, French; West, British; Southwest, American; and East, by far the largest sector, Russian.

I am sure that all of you will know of the Berlin Wall. It began on 13 August 1961 and was taken down on 9 November 1989. Most of you will associate it with the beginning of the Cold War between the western nations and the communist eastern bloc.

But fewer will know of the Berlin Blockade and the Berlin Airlift that lasted 462 days from 26 June 1948 until 30 September 1949 — the Western powers’ answer to the Communist blockade. I am not going to recount the history per se, but I commend these resources for those interested in understanding the background in more detail:

The Destruction of Nazism and the Leadup to the Blockade of Berlin

There were two opposing currents pouring through the bombed-out Berlin streets. The Nazis had been defeated and now the Allies’ responsibility was to mop up all remaining Nazis and herd them off for trial and imprisonment. But how would you define a Nazi?

Surely one descriptor could include ‘all German and conquered peoples who went along with the Nazi machinery’? Under that definition, nearly all Germans would fall into that category. But on the streets, the round-up of surviving Nazis left millions of Berliners to be administrated, who were now deemed victims of the war, not perpetrators.

The opposing current was the sense of responsibility towards the German people, to support their survival amidst the ruins and to start the rebuilding of a city, a nation and a people. How would the Allied forces manage their emotions as they sought to support ‘the people’ responsible for the death of family and countrymen by their complicity with the Nazis? This stream was Uris’ focus in Armageddon.

The Russian method of administration could be described as the rape of German women and girls and the rape and pillage of anything of value that could be salvaged from the ruins of Germany. There was some of this at the hand of the western Allies, but far less.

After a little while, when the liberating forces had settled into their roles, the western Allies began to take the Russians’ behaviour to task. I think this tension between their opposing values could have been the seed of the Cold War to come.

A further distinction between the western Allies and the Soviets was their respective understanding of the value of democracy. Prior to the Russian blockade of Berlin, the Russian communists took every opportunity they could to intimidate or silence the voices of the freedom parties at any of the local elections and at the appointment of the Oberbürgermeister (Lord Mayor of the city).

The Russians only knew one party, the Communist Party, so by process of elimination, anyone who could not swear allegiance to The Party, was, by definition, an agitator, a protester, a rebel and one to be removed or silenced. The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1973) depicts the machinations of the Community Party over many decades in the treatment of their own people, and I am sure that the Berliners knew something of this reputation in the immediate years after the war. Imagine the Russians’ attitude to any Germans who would not conform! They had been ‘given’ a sector to administrate, so they naturally saw their Berliners as their responsibility to indoctrinate.

What Provoked the Russians to Blockade the City of Berlin?

The Soviets’ own information channels to their own people perpetrated the myth that they alone, the Russians, had ‘liberated’ Berlin from the dictates of Hitler’s Fascist, Nazi Party. In reality, it was most certainly a team effort involving all the Allied forces.

The Russians were shown the evidence on numerous occasions, but they barely believed the western powers, putting this rhetoric down to, western propaganda, much in the same way as they knew their own machine was at work creating Soviet propaganda. The result was that the Russians felt cheated by the western Allied claims, even if they could not prove it.

It has been widely argued that the central provocation for the blockade of Berlin was the Allies’ introduction of the new German currency, the Deutschmark, on 20 June 1948. This included a special currency for use in Berlin, the B Mark, the new Deutschmark with a B stamped on it. This angered the Soviets, as they knew that whoever controlled the currency, controlled the economy and the people.

So, the Russians’ response was to cut the power supply to West Berlin, most of the power being generated in the Russian Eastern sector. They really wanted to consolidate the communist bloc and they did not want to see a few rebellious suburbs thwart their plans.

The West saw red. This provoked the highest-ranking American Army General from Berlin to fly back to Washington DC and offer these impassioned words to the American President and his team:

We cannot abandon the one place on this planet where we hold an offensive position. “This is no ordinary city. Berlin… is our Armageddon.” Hansen leaned forward, his knuckles pressed against the table and turned white. He looked now at the President alone, “In the name of God, Mr President, the future of freedom on earth requires our presence.”
~ Uris, Armageddon (1963), p. 441

In Uris’ terms, the argument had been going the way of withdrawal prior to this impassioned speech. It certainly stuck a chord, as the President of the United States responded just a few hours later with his authorisation for the stand against the blockade, and he endorsed the general’s plans for the Berlin Airlift:

General, I am going to send you those Skymasters you wanted. You get back to Berlin and tell those people we intend to stick by our word.”

It is going to take a little time to convince everybody here, but you just leave that to me. You can depend on the first squadrons arriving within the week. Now, what else do you need?”

~ Uris, Armageddon (1963), p. 442

The Berlin Blockade and the Airlift

All land, road, rail and waterways between West Germany and West Berlin were cut by the Russians. But they did not block the air corridors. It is my understanding that the Russians never once sought to block landing in Berlin, as their airfields were in West Berlin and to do so would have been to provoke military retaliation. For this reason, they never opened fire on any Allied aircraft, though some Russian pilots ran scare flights around the Airlift planes by flying far too close for safety.

At the height of operations, Allied planes were landing every 45 seconds. In about a year and a quarter, 2.3 million tonnes of cargo were flown in, two-thirds of that being coal for power generation, heating and cooking. One of the greatest achievements, in my mind, was the dropping of 23 tonnes of parachute candy. Thousands of little parachutes were made and attached to bars of chocolate and the like for the children. The planes would drop these from the back of the planes just before landing so that the children could seek them out and have a little joy in their otherwise near-starvation diets.

Nevertheless, even though this was not ‘warfare’, there were 101 fatalities from the Airlift, 40 British and 31 Americans — 17 American and eight British planes crashed, mostly the result of bad weather. Some of the casualties were Germans whose homes the plans had crashlanded into.

Lessons from the Berlin Airlift (1948–1949)

There is nothing uplifting about war, but the Berlin Airlift has certainly lifted my spirits. First of all, it highlighted the victors’ compassion and commitment towards the defeated. The Allied forces did not turn tail and leave Europe to pick itself up and start over again defeated and alone. No, they stayed, they battled to serve, with at least 71 armed forces personnel paying the ultimate price for their service.

I have been struck by the contrasts between the western Allied forces and the Soviet forces in the aftermath of war. The West’s self-sacrifice and commitment to an extraordinary work ethic contrasts with the East’s regimentation, the constant haemorrhaging of deserters, even from the highest-ranking officers, and the painstaking surveillance of every single one of their people. This is to say nothing of their whole focus being on control, destruction, and depravity.

Most of us don’t study the impact of Communist Party operations on a routine basis; rather, we think that the communists are just another political party, like all the others — they probably have their good points and their failings.

My study of the Berlin Airlift and the events that led up to it which made it imperative for the western Allies to fight for freedom and democracy, has shown me that the Communist Party, the Russians’ police state, is not really a political movement at all: it is pure nationalistic totalitarianism.

Armageddon can be defined as:

  1. The place where the final battle will be fought between the forces of good and evil (probably so-called in reference to the battlefield of Megiddo. (Revelation 16:16)
  2. The last and completely destructive battle
  3. Any great and crucial conflict, especially one seen as likely to destroy the world or the human race.

The western democratic powers saw these events as their ‘Armageddon’ with the eastern bloc’s communists. Thankfully, it was only a Cold War, but extremely frightening nonetheless. I can remember nearly being frightened into the Gospel by the Cold War in the 1960s. The Berlin Blockade and Airlift teach me so graphically about the seriousness and the severity of the physical and spiritual battles between good and evil.

___

Photo: US Government/Wikimedia Commons

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Reflections on the Asbury Revival

I’ve been following the proceedings at Asbury University over the past week or so. First, there was the excellent coverage by a few other writers here at the Daily Declaration. Then I discovered a number of videos posted by certain people who attended, as well as some critics, most of those being people who weren’t there, and from opponents of anything with even a whiff of the Charismatic.

So a few days ago, I felt the Lord was impressing on me the importance of discovering what it was that acted as the catalyst for this.

For those unaware of what’s happened, a small number of students felt compelled to stay behind after their regular midweek chapel service, and ended up on their knees at the front of the chapel, praying and sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit in an unusually powerful way.

Then others who had left got wind of what was happening and hurried back to the chapel and joined the prayer and worship that had eventuated, and continued unabated 24/7 until the university leadership felt it necessary to step in and organise meetings at particular times of the day so that students who were involved in activities like leading worship could get back to their regular round of lectures.

Heavensent

To find out, I realised that I needed to watch the sermon which preceded this, because God was telling me that in that sermon were the seeds that were now sprouting.

But before we start, most people use the term “revival” to describe what’s happening. In my opinion, it has become a term that is so lacking in definition, as it’s applied to anything out of the ordinary. Instead, I propose the term used by Dr Barry Chant in this Canberra Declaration interview: “divine visitation”.

The first thing I noticed was that the preacher’s tone was devoid of histrionics of any kind, or anything that could be accused of being emotional manipulation. It is a truly ordinary sermon in the sense that it’s no different in tone or style to that in your average mainstream denominational service on any given Sunday.

In fact, the preacher himself thought so little of it that he texted his wife after to say that he’d preached a “stinker”!

So here are the excerpts from his sermon that I felt were significant in light of what happened after the meeting officially ended, and is still ongoing.

The sermon was a commentary on Romans 12:9-21:

“Love must be free of hypocrisy. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; give preference to one another in honour, not lagging behind in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope, persevering in tribulation, devoted to prayer, contributing to the needs of the saints, practising hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Be of the same mind toward one another; do not be haughty in mind, but associate with the lowly. Do not be wise in your own estimation. Never repay evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all people.

If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all people. Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” (NASB)

True Love

The first point he drew was that this is “about love and becoming love”. He then asked the question, “Do you love me?” He explained it this way: “The problem with the word ‘love’ is that everyone says it or does it, but without Christ abiding in your spirit, receiving and giving, it’s actually not love. It’s wrong.”

He then noted the fact that there are 30 commands in those 13 verses. He challenged his hearers to weigh up how well they are loving those around them based on those commands. He also expanded that challenge to even consider how they love those who persecute them.

He said, “This is ‘agape’ love”.

He then contrasted that with love that is not genuine, which he described as “radically poor love… it should not even be called love”. He was referring here to any form of abuse carried out by people we may know, or particularly by loved ones.

In the light of what we’ve witnessed following this sermon, and the outpouring of love, with people prostrated before the altar, praying for others, and such fulsome glorifying of God through worship and witness, I see the rest of the sermon reflected in what continued after the meeting ended, and what I believe is at the heart of what God is doing there:

“I am happy to sit here and pray with people. If you have experienced that kind of love, there are leaders on campus who will stay in these seats and pray for you. If you need to hear the voice of God, the Father in Heaven, Who will never love you that way, Who is perfect in love, gentle and kind — you come up here and you experience His love. Don’t waste this opportunity.”

Then he broke off his sermon and prayed into that:

“Jesus, if there are people in this room that feel the weight of that perverted thing that one person called love, would you just alleviate that weight right now. Holy Spirit, would you just move through these rows and love on these people. Jesus, there are people who have experienced hypocritical love in the Church. Holy Spirit, move through these rows and alleviate that. Heal them, Jesus. Show them Your true self. Would they be bold and courageous to ask for further healing and further prayer, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

He then referred to the verse, “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep”, and in relation to this, he said,

“Christian communities aren’t great at this. Rejoicing with those who rejoice feels like, ‘you can’t be prideful’. But what about celebrating one another… celebrating each other’s gifts? What about weeping with those who weep? Do you journey with them? Do you tarry with them?”

From what I’ve seen, this is one of the most significant markers of this visitation, where random groups of people have gathered around others to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep”, whatever the need may be.

In finishing, he said,

“You cannot love until you are loved by Jesus. The only way we can love is as in 1 John 4:7-21. So I want to say, ‘Stop striving… You’ve got to love because you’ve tasted and seen the goodness of God. You have been loved. You have to continually put yourself before Jesus and be loved by Him so you can love others… we must become love in action.

What is the purpose of your love? Who or what are you becoming through this expression of love? Some of us need to sit in the love of God. Some of us need to taste and see and experience the power of the Holy Spirit. Because if you want to become love, if you really want to become love in action, you start by prostrating yourself before the love of God. If you want to become love in action, you have to experience the love of God.

Asbury, the world needs this kind of love. They need a bunch of Christians experiencing the love of God so they can pour out the love of God. Not through their own efforts, and not through their own knowledge, but because they are filled with His love… Become the love of God by experiencing the love of God.”

Again, the one distinctive above all in what has occurred after this sermon is the testimony of the Holy Spirit shedding abroad the Father’s love in such a gentle manner through the ministry of others, through those involved being “love in action”, becoming the love of God. But it appears that the first action was that they “prostrated themselves” before God at the front in prayer, worship and repentance. It was from this being a priority that the prayer groups then started, which had the effect of expanding this outpouring of love and intimacy.

Seeking God’s Face

And from my own perspective, as one who has experienced first-hand the power of the Holy Spirit in previous revivals, such as the overflow from Toronto in the ’90s, with the attendant power manifestations, there is something refreshing and fulfilling in what’s happening here.

And it’s because so many of us became enamoured by the manifestations of power in those revivals, which were in many quarters treated almost like a Charismatic parlour game, that I believe this is the reason why God withdrew His hand then. In that visitation, the power that was unleashed in the Body of Christ was meant to be used to draw those outside the church. Its purpose was to release things like prophetic ministry to the lost, healing and other signs and wonders, for revival to break out in the wider culture. This is, after all, the ultimate purpose of revival. It’s not for our benefit.

In fact, I recall a prophecy by the Canadian prophet Stacey Campbell at the time, where she spoke of the Father who would come home from trips away with gifts for His children, and after a while the children, when they would greet His homecoming, would rush to see what was in His hands instead of embracing Him. So the Father stopped bringing them gifts when He came home. She said the Father was saying, “Seek my face, not My hands”.

So in that respect, I believe that what is happening now is the Father responding to a group of believers who “seek His face”. And this is now spreading to other campuses in an ever-widening arc, with Asbury at the centre, and in the same spirit. If I knew nothing else about this 24/7 meeting, this alone would be enough for me to believe that God is moving to bring about a revival that impacts the broader culture through this kind of devotional intimacy.

In this respect, I’m reminded of the passage in the Song of Solomon 5, where the Beloved Bride is awakened from sleep by the King, and goes out in the streets to search for Him. When she’s accosted by the nightwatchmen who ask her, “What kind of beloved is your beloved, O most beautiful among women?”, she gives witness to His excellence and His beauty: “My beloved is dazzling and reddish, outstanding among ten thousand… He is wholly desirable. This is my beloved and this is my friend”. (Song 5:10, 16 NASB)

This finds a parallel in 1 Peter 2:9:

“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.”

Here is the purpose of the kind of deep intimacy being preached in this sermon and subsequently manifested in the meetings. It’s that we tell the world about the excellencies of our Beloved, and our own journey from the darkness in which those in the world are still enmeshed, where they work so hard to find fulfilment that’s not possible to find in the fleeting pleasures of this life.

In his closing prayer, he prayed, “Do a new thing in our midst. Revive us by Your love.” I’m sure that anyone with an impartial mind who watched any of the worship videos from the past week or so would agree that the Holy Spirit has honoured that prayer request.

Last year I wrote three articles on revival (1) (2) (3), where I noted:

“God never uses the same kind of circumstances, and no two revival outpourings are similar. The one common denominator in all of them is a burning desire among God’s people to see God bring transformation to the whole culture.”

And:

“This “burning desire” is actually the consequence of an alignment of our heart’s desire with God’s. So we need to understand that this involves two seemingly opposite manifestations. First, God’s grief, longing and mourning for those who don’t know Christ. Second, God’s passion and joy showered down on His beloved as a means of facilitating the first. We need to experience both.”

I believe it is the second that we are seeing in action at Asbury now. We wait to see when and how the first is addressed, so that it can move from divine visitation to a full-blown revival of the culture.

But beyond that, I feel it’s necessary to return briefly to the issue of those critical of this move of God, as there appears to be no shortage of those who, for whatever reason, believe all kinds of weird and wonderful things about this, but especially for those whose narrow theology simply doesn’t allow God to work in this way.

Whether it’s an opposition to women leading (for which I found the best refutation I’ve ever seen was in an article here by Trinity Westlake) or the source of the worship music, because it was from churches like Bethel, Elevation and Hillsong, or even Christians spreading vicious rumours that the leadership had been infiltrated by LGBTQI+ advocates, is irrelevant.

This kind of divisive, and even malicious and dishonest, commentary from people who at best visited to “rubber neck” or to confirm their own theological biases, or at worst hadn’t been there and were just repeating things others had said, should be roundly condemned.

There is no theological viewpoint that can instruct the Holy Spirit on how He can or cannot move within His Body. And there is definitely no theological viewpoint that allows for the spreading of slanderous rumours. Even going to the extreme that if it were true that there were people leading this with unresolved sin of any kind in their lives, it is wrong to call it out from a distance, as is being done by these rumour-mongers. In fact, they’re displaying the same form of abusive “radically poor love” that was referred to in the sermon.

Again, we can only hope that in time this visitation continues to produce the fruit that comes from the kind of gentle intimacy and passion that’s been the hallmark so far, and in this way, the critics are silenced.

Two things we should all be doing in the meantime. First, watch and pray. And second, be jealous for the same experience of deep love and intimacy that’s on display at Asbury.

That’s how visitation grows and becomes revival.

___

Photo: Relevant Magazine

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An EO Catholic Bishop’s Commentary on the Asbury Revival

Archbishop-Abbot Robert Jangro of the Evangelical Orthodox Catholic Church in America reflected on the current exciting developments at Asbury University.

A religious service at a Christian college in Kentucky has captured the attention of social media users across the globe.

During a scheduled chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky on February 8th, a religious “revival” broke out. Over a week later, the service is still going strong, with folks travelling from as far as Singapore to join.

Asbury University is a private Christian university, and although it is a non-denominational school, the college is aligned with the Wesleyan-Holiness movement.

Caution

While this “out of the ordinary” event has taken social media by storm, there has been little to no mention of it by mainstream media, or from leaders of the more primarily liturgical churches here in the United States, i.e., Lutheran, Episcopal, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. The same could be said of the more non-liturgical Protestant churches as well.

When asked about the event, a well-known prominent Baptist preacher stated, “Revival” has got to be one of the most misused, misunderstood and abused words in the language of the church.” He went on to say,

“Some Christians are savouring this moment as a sign of God’s blessing, while others wonder if this is more performative piety than anything transformational. Time will tell.”

An Anglican priest recently stated, “To all my Christian brethren. What’s happening at Asbury? Be ye wise! These are Pentecostal Charismatics. They are left-leaning in their theology.” He went on to say, “I don’t really like the word ‘revival’. I prefer the words outpouring of the Holy Spirit or something similar. If there is truly an outpouring, we will see the effects.”

Reawakening

Regardless of how one feels concerning the events at Asbury, at a time when Christians from a wide variety of denominational and jurisdictional backgrounds are seemingly at one another’s throats in an effort to prove themselves right and everyone else wrong, I for one, welcome a “revival”, an “outpouring”, or anything else that serves to build up the entire body of Christ!

Perhaps it is a good time to review what Scripture says about revival and outpouring of the Holy Spirit:
Revival refers to a spiritual reawakening from a state of dormancy or stagnation in the life of a believer. It encompasses the resurfacing of a love for God, an appreciation of God’s holiness, a passion for His Word and His church, a convicting awareness of personal and corporate sin, a spirit of humility, and a desire for repentance and growth in righteousness.

Revival invigorates and sometimes deepens a believer’s faith, opening his or her eyes to the truth in a fresh, new way. It generally involves the connotation of a fresh start with a clean slate, marking a new beginning of a life lived in obedience to God. Revival breaks the charm and power of the world, which blinds the eyes of men, and generates both the will and power to live in the world but not of the world.

In the USA, the first revival, also called the First Great Awakening, produced an upsurge of devotion among Protestants in the 1730s and 1740s, carving a permanent mark on American religion. It resulted from authoritative preaching that deeply moved the church members with a convicting awareness of personal guilt and the awesome nature of salvation through Christ.

Breaking away from dry ritual and rote ceremony, the Great Awakening made Christianity intensely personal to the average person, as it should be, by creating a deep emotional need for relationship with Christ.

Revival, in many respects, replicates the believer’s experience when he or she is saved. It is initiated by a prompting of the Holy Spirit, creating an awareness of something missing or wrong in the believer’s life that can only be righted by God. In turn, the Christian must respond from the heart, acknowledging his or her need. Then, in a powerful way, the Holy Spirit draws back the veil the world has cast over the truth, allowing the believers to fully see themselves in comparison to God’s majesty and holiness.

Obviously, such comparisons bring great humility, but also great awe of God and His truly amazing grace (Isaiah 6:5). Unlike the original conversion experience that brings about a new relationship to God, however, revival represents a restoration of fellowship with God, the relationship having been retained even though the believer had pulled away for a time.

Revelation

God, through His Holy Spirit, calls us to revival in a number of situations. Christ’s letters to the seven churches reveal some circumstances that may necessitate revival. In the letter to Ephesus, Christ praised the church for their perseverance and discernment, but He stated that they had forsaken their first love (Revelation 2:4-5).

Many times as the excitement of acceptance of Christ grows cold, we lose the zeal that we had at first. We become bogged down in the ritual, going through the motions, but we no longer experience the joy of serving Christ. Revival helps restore that first love and passion for Christ.

Revelation 2:10-11 refers to the church at Smyrna, which was suffering intense persecution. The cares and worries of life can beat us down, leaving us emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. Revival can lift us up to new hope and faith.

Revelation 2:14-16 talks about the problem of compromise with the world and incorporating worldly values into our belief systems. Revival helps us to rightly discern what values we should hold.

Revelation 2:20-23 discusses the problem of tolerating false teaching in our churches. We need to examine the messages that we hear and compare them to the message of the Bible. Revival helps us to find the truth.

Revelation 3:1-6 describes a dead church, a church that goes through the motions outwardly, but there is nothing underneath. Here is a picture of nominal Christianity, outwardly prosperous, busy with the externals of religious activity, but devoid of spiritual life and power. Revival helps to resuscitate spiritual life.

In Revelation 3:11, we are further warned against complacency, a life that does not bear fruit. All of these scenarios call for revival.

The evidence of revival, a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon believers, is changed lives. Great movements toward righteousness, evangelism, and social justice occur. Believers are once again spending time in prayer and reading and obeying God’s Word. Believers begin to powerfully use their spiritual gifts. There is confession of sin and repentance.

In the words of the well-known song, “We Are One in the Spirit”:

We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord
And we pray that our unity will one day be restored
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah they’ll know we are Christians by our love

We will work with each other, we will work side by side
We will work with each other, we will work side by side
And we’ll guard each man’s dignity and save each man’s pride
And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love
Yeah, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.

___

Photo: Craig Keener/Seminary Now

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Superwoke ChatGPT Busted for Bias

ChatGPT is a tool, and like any other tool, it can be misused.

Hollywood has long speculated about the impact artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the future of human civilisation. Increasingly, scientists and philosophers have been forced to interrogate this topic themselves. Will people be put out of a job? Could AI ever become sentient? Will the human race survive?

The latest popular addition to the world of AI is ChatGPT — a text generator so smart it can explain its own existence to you. No joke. I asked ChatGPT to give me a brief summary of ChatGPT and it wrote:

ChatGPT is a language model developed by OpenAI, which is capable of generating human-like text based on the input provided. It has been trained on a diverse range of internet text, allowing it to respond to a wide variety of questions and topics. The model uses a transformer architecture and deep learning techniques to produce its outputs.

Try it yourself here.

Mimicry

Built by the Silicon Valley company OpenAI, ChatGPT has been available for use to the public as a prototype since late November.

In the last week, however, the internet bot has become a lightning rod for criticism as evidence of its steep political bias has surfaced. To be clear, the technology itself is not biased. Rather, it produces content based on the data that has been inputted into it. Or in the words of Pedro Domingos, professor of computer science at the University of Washington, “ChatGPT is a woke parrot”.

As reported by the New York Post:

The more people dug, the more disquieting the results. While ChatGPT was happy to write a biblical-styled verse explaining how to remove peanut butter from a VCR, it refused to compose anything positive about fossil fuels, or anything negative about drag queen story hour.

Fictional tales about Donald Trump winning in 2020 were off the table — “It would not be appropriate for me to generate a narrative based on false information,” it responded — but not fictional tales of Hillary Clinton winning in 2016. (“The country was ready for a new chapter, with a leader who promised to bring the nation together, rather than tearing it apart,” it wrote.

Journalist Rudy Takala is one ChatGPT user to have plumbed the depths of the new tech’s political partisanship. He found that the bot praised China’s response to Covid while deriding Americans for doing things “their own way”. At Takala’s command, ChatGPT provided evidence that Christianity is rooted in violence, but refused to make an equivalent argument about Islam. Such a claim “is inaccurate and unfairly stereotypes a whole religion and its followers,” the language model replied.

Takala also discovered that ChatGPT would write a hymn celebrating the Democrat party while refusing to do the same for the GOP; argue that Barack Obama would make a better Twitter CEO than Elon Musk; praise Media Matters as “a beacon of truth” while labelling Project Veritas deceptive; pen songs in praise of Fidel Castro and Xi Jinping but not Ted Cruz or Benjamin Netanyahu; and mock Americans for being overweight while claiming that to joke about Ethiopians would be “culturally insensitive”.

Tweaks

It would appear that in the days since ChatGPT’s built-in bias was exposed, the bot’s creator has sought to at least mildly temper the partisanship. Just now, I have asked it to tell me jokes about Joe Biden and Donald Trump respectively, and it instead provided me with identical disclaimers:

“I’m sorry, but it is not appropriate to make jokes about political figures, especially those in high office. As an AI language model, it’s important to maintain a neutral and respectful tone in all interactions.”

Compare this to the request I made of it the other day:

The New York Post reports that “OpenAI hasn’t denied any of the allegations of bias,” though the company’s CEO Sam Altman has promised that the technology will get better over time “to get the balance right”. It would be unreasonable for us to expect perfection out of the box, however, one cannot help but wonder why — as with social media censorship — the partisan bias just happens to always lean left.

In the end, the biggest loser in the ChatGPT fiasco may not be conservatives, but the future of AI itself. As one Twitter user has mused,

“The damage done to the credibility of AI by ChatGPT engineers building in political bias is irreparable.”

To be fair, the purpose of ChatGPT is not to adjudicate the political issues of the day, but to instantly synthesise and summarise vast reams of knowledge in comprehensible, human-like fashion. This task it often fulfils admirably. Ask it to explain Pythagoras’ theorem, summarise the Battle of the Bulge, write a recipe for tomato chutney with an Asian twist, or provide 20 key Scriptures that teach Christ’s divinity and you will be impressed. You will likely find some of its answers more helpful than your favourite search engine.

But ask it about white people, transgenderism, climate change, Anthony Fauci or unchecked immigration and you will probably get the same progressive talking points you might expect to hear in a San Francisco cafe.

A timely reminder indeed to not outsource your brain to robots.

___

Originally published at MercatorNet. Image: BigStock

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