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Be strong and of a good courage: for unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land, which I sware unto their fathers to give them.
Only be thou strong and very courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to all the law, which Moses my servant commanded thee: turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper withersoever thou goest...
...Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest...
...Whosoever he be that doth rebel against thy commandment, and will not hearken unto thy words in all that thou commandest him, he shall be put to death: only be strong and of a good courage. Joshua 1:6-7,9, 18
Freedom is everybody's business--your business, my business, the church's business; and a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom does not deserve his freedom. Dr. Carl McIntire, President of the International Council of Christian Churches, 1948-2002
In "Evangelical," the emphasis is always on the word "jelly." Pastor Perry F. Rockwood, The Peoples Gospel Hour
Courage--what's that?--21st century Evangellyfish
February 14, 2022 will go down as the darkest day (so far) in Canadian history. For the last couple of weeks, a cross-country convoy of truckers has been in Ottawa demanding an end to Covid-19 vaccine mandates. The convoy has attracted international attention and support and has inspired similar protests in other countries. After two years of unwarranted Covid restrictions, Canadians have reached their Howard Beale moment (see video below) and have decided they're not going to take this anymore. I suspect that Canadians have been willing to protest for a long time, but were waiting for someone to lead it; finally, the truckers came along to do so.
The federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau--a Klaus Schwab/George Soros/Chinese Communist Party puppet--has just invoked the Emergencies Act, formerly known as the War Measures Act. This is an unprecedented assault on civil liberties, outlawing peaceful protest and freezing financial accounts of anyone supporting the protesters. It's widely suspected that Justin Trudeau's actual father was Fidel Castro--photos of the two at similar ages betray a striking resemblance--and the Manchurian Pothead and his "government," which is run as a criminal operation, have now made it official and declared war on the Canadian people, imposing a Communist dictatorship in full view of the world.
I've never regarded truckers as heroic before, but like most Canadians, I'm now thanking God for their courage and resolve, and I pray it continues. In striking contrast to the truckers, the evangelical pastors in Canada, with rare exceptions such as Artur Pawlowski, Henry Hildebrandt, James Coates, Tim Stephens, and Jacob Reaume, have been conspicuous by their silence and cowardice. They won't fight for their own rights, the rights of their congregations, or their neighbours whom they claim to love so much. The last couple of years could have been the churches' finest hour, but in the war on Canadians' freedom, the churches and Christian organizations have chosen to be draft-dodgers.
Back in the mid-1990s, an older saint in Toronto named Tom Linton, director of International Christian Relief, told this blogger, "We don't have courage in the pulpits." It was a problem in the 1990s, but it was the Covid-19 "plandemic" that revealed the extent of the wimpiness of evangelical "leaders."
Typical of evangelical cowardice but surprising in its frankness is the following message, submitted for your disapproval, from Rev. Ian Fitzpatrick, president of the Church of the Nazarene Canada, January 23, 2022:
The message is a mixture of truth and error, with Rev. Fitzpatrick taking Galatians 5:13-15 out of context, and erecting straw men in rationalizing his spinelessness. The context of Galatians 5 and the entire epistle to the Galatians is that of freedom from the law in regard to salvation. Paul was astonished (Gal. 1:6) that those who had come to Christ out of Judaism were deserting freedom in Christ to return to the bondage of the law. Galatians 5 isn't talking about the relations between the individual and the state or church and state. Rev. Fitzpatrick doesn't directly refer to the current demands for freedom re: Covid, but you don't have to wear a deerstalker to deduce it. It's a straw man, because no one who is demanding freedom is demanding license to trample on other people, but just the right to live ordinary lives as we were doing until a couple of years ago. He says that no amount of freedom will lengthen one's lifespan, but that's not necessarily true; even if it is, it's still better to live those days in freedom than in captivity. Rev. Fitzpatrick bemoans division in the church over Covid, but that is, in no small part, the result of the shepherds refusing to fight for and lead the sheep. You'll notice that he's speaking from what appears to be his office, and not from a pulpit in an actual church; that speaks volumes right there.
The Church of the Nazarene, like the other evanjellycal denominations in Canada, didn't wait for the facts before issuing a public statement last year on a certain racial issue from 100 years ago that they had nothing to do with in the first place. However, concerning the mass violations of our civil liberties and the protests against them here and now, there's not a peep from them. As someone of mainly Irish ancestry, I'm embarrassed that the jellyfish "leading" the Church of the Nazarene Canada has an Irish-sounding name. The Church of the Nazarene Canada, however, is not alone in its shame in bowing to Caesar and refusing to oppose domestic dictatorship, but that's a subject for other posts.
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