More Rumors of War, Etc. (Updated 2/1)

Amidst the growing chorus of voices predicting civil war in Europe, here's a voice predicting that WWIII ma very well be fought -- and very possibly lost -- on European soil:

Sweden’s Army Chief Warns Of WORLD WAR 3 Inside Europe ‘Within a Few Years’

Speaking of his comments with Sweden’s best selling tabloid Aftonbladet, the General said the deteriorating security picture in Europe was the main factor behind his warning, indicating the Islamic State conducting military campaigns in Europe and spreading instability from the Ukraine could lead to conflict.

In possibly related news, law professor, author and blogger Glenn Reynolds ruminates darkly about what might happen here in these United States:

If voters think that they can’t vote their way out of a problem, then they may look to other solutions.

Glenn Reynolds: Forecast of distrust with a chance of revolution

Three more articles:

Migrants and Anarchists Turn Calais Into Lawless Border Town on Brink of Civil War

Migrant crisis pushing Germany towards ‘anarchy and civil war’

Maoris, Moors and Migrants: A history lesson for civilized humans facing an Ork invasion

Moral:  Be prayed up; be prepared.

Tea Leaves?

From the Facebook page of St. Matthew's Anglican Catholic Church in Newport Beach, CA:

Welcome Bp. Grote

The Rt. Rev'd Royal Grote, Presiding Bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church, will be visiting St. Matthew's today, January 24th. He will preach at the 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. services.

We have been developing a cordial ecumenical relationship with the REC. Bishop Grote attended the ACC Provincial Synod in Athens, Georgia last October. Bishop Scarlett and Fr. Blake are planning to attend Bishop Grote's diocesan synod in Texas in February. We are grateful for this growing relationship, and we welcome Bishop Grote to St. Matthew's Church.

For more information about the REC, click here: http://www.recus.org/.

I met in late July 2015 with +Stephen Scarlett, who is the Ordinary of the ACC's Diocese of the Holy Trinity and rector of St. Matthew's.  He had recently attended the International Catholic Congress of Anglicans and spoke very highly of REC Bishop Ray Sutton, whom he met there, and of the REC in general.  I am pleasantly surprised to see representatives of each church attending each other's synods, and I can't help wondering what all this may augur.  I'm thinking it can only be good.

Templars Arise: Armed Christian Resistance in the Philippines

And they have ISIS in the crosshairs.

It appears that resolute Christian Filipinos (probably overwhelmingly Roman Catholic) are ready to do what a seemingly feckless government is not able to do.  This in spite of restrictive gun laws in the Philippines.  If you find yourself wondering how these militias are able to be so heavily armed given these laws, here's how.  Verrrrry interesting.

Also interesting are the comments from UK citizens at the Daily Mail article, which are not only largely in support of the Christian Filipino militia, but are wistfully commenting on the need for citizen militias in the UK, and by logical extension all of Western Europe.   And no wonder, given the fecklessness with which European liberal states are dealing with the Jihadist threat.   In fact, "feckless" is too weak a word to describe the European policy.  "Suicidal" is the better term.

What's more, a burgeoning rightist movement in Europe knows that, in fact, its "leadership" is committing demographic, cultural and political suicide, and that if Europe is to be saved, extraordinary measures will accordingly almost surely be needed to counter the Trojan Horse Jihad that the PTB have so blithely admitted into European lands.   And as in the Philippines, restrictive European gun laws will not prevent freedom fighters from being armed if and when they so choose.   Historian William Marina made a point of this in a 1983 essay he wrote for the periodical Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy ("Weapons, Technology and Legitimacy: The Second Amendment in Global Perspective, in Firearms and Violence." - 417, 446.   The article is available online here.)  The globe is literally awash in small arms, both legal and illegal, writes Marina, and "(a)s the international arms trade increases. . . more people will obtain access to guns as governments lose control over the great number of arms being traded."  (Emphasis mine.)

Marina's assessment harmonizes well with that of author and military analyst John Robb, who argues that the West is entering into a period marked by the rise of "hollow" states and, consequently, the rise of "tribes" and "resilient communities" that organize locally along ideological, cultural and/or religious lines for the purpose of self-preservation.   As the liberal states of Europe become increasingly hollow and incompetent, "tribes" will rise up to either take their place or form bulwarks of internal opposition that the states will not be able to eliminate.

The comments at the Daily Mail article will of course make many a European liberal-left head explode, but that's really too bad.  As one commentator who goes by the name of "Shrewsbury" says of the European liberal-left:

At this point in the dialectic, no dialogue is possible with them. They live in their own universe of lies and depravity. . . .

(Any) European urge to destroy can be slaked by allowing the European to be European, while the Muslim’s urge to destroy can never be slaked, because, to achieve any peace, he must become something other than Muslim. . . .

We may even find that the liberals’ expressions of hate toward the right become actually less intemperate . . .  as they begin to sense the stirrings of the monster which they have done so much to awake, and, having cried wolf a thousand times, now find themselves confronted by a dragon; and begin to realize that all their silly ranting about how awful the Right is will be of no use if they are to be confronted by a Right which really is awful.

This didn’t have to happen, the left didn’t have work so long and so frenziedly to try to destroy us, and everything we are, and everything we have, but they did, so it will happen. It is sickening and it is tragic.

I'm not convinced that the rising European right will become "really awful", especially if it can be moderated by forces such as the Le Pen family's National Front, PEGIDA in Germany and the various groups in England that stand for English nationalism.   The left will continue to demonize such groups as fascist, but as Shrewsbury implies the left has lost all credibility, and their governments all political legitimacy.   The fact remains that while some quarters of the European right are fascist or neo-fascist, there are a great many "new rightists" in Europe who simply want to "be European" and aren't necessarily interested in giving power to strongmen.   But if Europe's liberal states do not move now, and effectively, to undo the damage they've done, well, they can expect their citizens both to be increasingly radicalized in a rightist direction and to start arming themselves.

As the comments at the Daily Mail cause the heads of European liberal-lefties to explode, so the kind of thing I write here tends to draw negative reactions from certain quarters in the Church.  First, you have the Christian pacifists.  They can be summarily dismissed, however, for reasons I have set forth here in other articles mainly having to do with the fact that Christianity has never been a pacifist religion. 

Then there are what I call the "pietist/quietists", very spiritual and gentle folk among whom many Anglicans are numbered, but not pacifists per se, whose brows knit at reading arguments like those I post here about the legitimacy of armed resistance, etc.  I would enjoin those folks simply to wake up, take note of orthodox Christian theology and Church history, stop wringing their hands like dispensationalists about the supposed inevitability of persecution, and join me in that call to arms.  Christian civilization has been taking up arms against Islamic imperialism for almost a millennium and a half, and that war is far from over.  Christians are taking up arms against the Jihad in the Middle East, Africa and the Phillipines.  They have been forced to do so because of their proximity to Muslim lands.  Not all Muslims are Jihadists, but wherever the Ummah is, there is the Jihad.  Thanks to the idiotic policies of the liberal states of Western Europe and the Anglosphere, the Ummah is now entrenched there and, predictably, the Jihadis have begun to spill blood.  A day may soon come when Christians in the West will have to rely on themselves instead of the state in the matter of self-preservation, and take up arms just as the their brethren in the Middle East, Africa and the Philippines have done.  The time for preparation is now.

Deus vult.

C.S. Lewis to Apostate Anglican Clergy

"It is your duty to fix the lines (of doctrine) clearly in your minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession. This is your duty not specially as Christians or as priests but as honest men. There is a danger here of the clergy developing a special professional conscience which obscures the very plain moral issue. Men who have passed beyond these boundary lines in either direction are apt to protest that they have come by their unorthodox opinions honestly. In defense of those opinions they are prepared to suffer obloquy and to forfeit professional advancement. They thus come to feel like martyrs. But this simply misses the point which so gravely scandalizes the layman. We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held: what we complain of is your continuing in your ministry after you have come to hold them. We always knew that a man who makes his living as a paid agent of the Conservative Party may honestly change his views and honestly become a Communist. What we deny is that he can honestly continue to be a Conservative agent and to receive money from one party while he supports the policy of the other." -- Christian Apologetics, C. S. Lewis, Easter 1945

A Call to Battle - A Short Film on ‘Society’s Crisis in Masculinity

Martin Thornton’s Map for Anglican Ressourcement

Courtesy of Matthew Dallman at The Catholic Anglican.

I'm currently making my way, slowly, through Thornton's English Spirituality : An Outline of Ascetical Theology according to the English Pastoral Tradition.  His Christian Proficiency looms large in a personal spiritual turnaround several years ago, but I am even now more of a fan of Thornton having read what I have thus far in English Spirituality.  I plan to post some of his thoughts from that book on the role of St. Augustine in the English ascetical tradition, which have affored me a new way of looking at St. Augustine as an Anglican. 

At Bishop Stephen Scarlett's suggestion, I plan to read Thornton's Pastoral Theology next.  For those of not familiar with Thornton, check out Dallman's two sites, The Catholic Anglican and Akenside Press.

Dear Traditional Worshipers

Another great piece from the blog Ponder Anew.

The Primates of the Anglican Communion Kick the Can Down the Road Again

As I said in the previous post, ho-hum.

Surprisingly, the primates did vote to suspend The Episcopal Church for three years for its pansexualism.  The speculation now is whether or not this will dissuade other left-wing Anglican provinces from following suit.  I for one expect total defiance from these provinces, meaning that at some point the primates will catch up to that can.

Of course, women's ordination wasn't even close to being on the primates' radar, and for the true classical Anglican this practice is just as much a violation of Catholic faith and practice as is the embrace of pansexualism.

The Anglican Communion Primates Meeting Has Begun

"Therefore, get you hence, poor miserable wretches, to your death." - King Henry, Henry V.

Welby's vaunted meeting is now underway.  Ho-hum.  From Peter Leithart:

David Goodhew at Durham says that “What is dying in England is not Christianity but nominal Anglicanism.” And, well, good riddance to that.  The Church in Britain's Future

And not only in England, but thoughout the "Communion", which some are predicting will officially divide after this meeting.  Let liberal Protestantism posing as Anglicanism die its inevitable death, and let authentic Anglicanism continue its mission of preserving the deposit of faith and preaching the Gospel to a needy world.

Three More Articles on the of Demise of Europe

This, from an interesting Jewish perspective: Does Europe Have A Future?.

One from The American Conservative and of particular intererst to Anglicans: Unmaking England.

Lastly, from Ross Douthat at the über-liberal New York Times, which by permitting this piece to appear in that rag should make every mutli-culturalist think that the NYT believes the writing may indeed be on the wall.  Germany On The Brink:

If you believe that an aging, secularized, heretofore-mostly-homogeneous society is likely to peacefully absorb a migration of that size and scale of cultural difference, then you have a bright future as a spokesman for the current German government.

You’re also a fool. Such a transformation promises increasing polarization among natives and new arrivals alike. It threatens not just a spike in terrorism but a rebirth of 1930s-style political violence. The still-imaginary France Michel Houellebecq conjured up in his novel “Submission,” in which nativists and Islamists brawl in the streets, would have a very good chance of being realized in the German future.

This need not happen. But prudence requires doing everything possible to prevent it. That means closing Germany’s borders to new arrivals for the time being. It means beginning an orderly deportation process for able-bodied young men. It means giving up the fond illusion that Germany’s past sins can be absolved with a reckless humanitarianism in the present.

It means that Angela Merkel must go — so that her country, and the continent it bestrides, can avoid paying too high a price for her high-minded folly.

"For the time being!?"

Well, the NYTwits do have a reputation to defend.  But note as well that they speak darkly about the very real possibility of political violence, which I have written anout here.  Brace yourselves.  It's coming.

The Increasingly Liberal Protestant Face of Evangelicalism

I became a Christian through an "Evangelical" kind of conversion experience.  Subsequently, I received degrees in biblical studies and theology from two Evangelical institutions.  These days, however, I no longer consider myself an Evangelical, but rather a Catholic (of the Anglican variety), and this for two reasons.  

1)  Over the years I have managed to read myself into a Catholic mindset.  That eventally led to my being Eastern Orthodox for a time, and while I now am no longer Orthodox I retained much of its Catholic worldview.  So, you could say I was "pulled" into the Catholic faith through my reading, through which I discovered a much deeper theology than I found in Evangelical theology.  A number of writers - Evangelicals among them -  have opined in no uncertain terms that Evangelical theology has a shallowness problem;

2) Then there is the increasingly liberal Protestant face of evangelicalism, evidenced by this kind of stuff, emergentism (which unfortunately apparently has some "Anglican" expressions), a Jacobin-like rejection of traditonal Christian culture, ad nauseam.  So, you could say I was also "pushed" into a Catholic mindset by what appears to be in Evangelicalism the history of Protestantism repeating itself.

I know many Anglicans of a very anti-Anglo-Catholic variety who define themselves as staunch "Protestants."  Some of these are also stauch "Evangelicals."  But I believe those two words have failed and will continue to fail Anglicanism.  The only word left to describe what we really are is "Catholic", and by that I don't mean to suggest that Anglicans need to be Anglo-Catholics per se.  But we do need to defend the Faith once delivered, which faith even we Anglicans call "Catholic", and both mainline Protestantism and now Evangelicalism have developed track records which demonstrate that they are not worthy candidates in that defense.

Well, Gentlemen, Where *Were* We That Night?

We read and hear here in the USA about the disgusting incidents in front of the Cologne Central Station and elsewhere. I can't help wondering: Were there only Arab men and German women outside the station that night?Were there no male travelers? Were they all at home drinking tea with their mothers? Or did they, in a postmodern act of separation between the sexes, sneak out through the rear exit? Honestly now: WHY DID GERMAN MEN NOT rush TO THE RESCUE OF THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYWOMEN? Or why do we not read or hear about that. Is our society so screwed up that men have lost their God-given instinct to protect their women? In other words: Are there no gentlemen left in Germany, just plebs -- or do today's reporters no longer know the difference between the two? - Uwe Siemon-Netto

As Could Be Predicted: The Rise of Vigilantism in Europe

FIGHTBACK: German Vigilante Groups Pledge To Protect Women In Migrant Sex Assault Cities

German vigilante group vows to protect women from migrant attackers as 34 suspects are arrested - including three for gang-raping two teenagers

Finland: ''Soldiers of Odin'' patrol Kemi streets

Lools like paleoconservative commentator Chilton Williamson, Jr. was on to something in his December 18 article, Crescent Moon Over Europe:

The European Union is operated by bureaucratic eunuchs incapable of thinking politically, of responsible decision, and of decisive action. Repelling the invasion of Europe requires the self-mobilization of the resistant parts of its national publics, probably beginning with the "far-right," "right-wing," "xenophobic," and "irresponsible parties" the European establishment loathes and reviles-and fears.

Some of these groups have unfortunate ties to neopaganism and neofascism.  Should Europe's Christians therefore not be involved in vigilantism in order to avoid the association?  I for one answer no, the presence of neopagan vigilantes should not deter Christians from organizing and patroling their communities.  The European New Right may lean strongly in a neopagan direction, but there is a Christian faction as well, as evidenced by the "far-right" rising star Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, who is a devout Roman Catholic.  

I would recommend to my readers the blog and books of author and military analyst John Robb, who argues that the West is entering into a period marked by the rise of "hollow" states and, consequently, the rise of "tribes" and "resilient communities" that organize locally along ideological, cultural and/or religious lines for the purpose of self-preservation.  In short, Robb is saying the same thing that Williamson says in the aforementioned article:  liberal states have become "bureaucratic eunuchs incapable of thinking politically, of responsible decision, and of decisive action", and that the time is coming, and now is, when the people will have to organize and practice politics by other means.  This is what we're beginning to see in Europe, and as I mentioned here, it may eventually lead to a 4th-Generation Warfare-like struggle between the new tribalists on the one side and the liberal states and the European Ummah on the other.  I suspect this struggle will come to North America someday as well.

The Christian church is a "tribe" of sorts, and within it are many sub-tribes.  This realization is what underscores much of Rod Dreher's argument for the practice of the "Benedict Option".   I would take it a step further and argue that the Church needs not only a New Benedict, but a "New Knighthood" of the sort championed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux but tailored for modern times.   We need armed Christian men protecting our churches and our communities.   Yes, this is a form of "vigilantism", but that word need not be a perjorative one, especially when hollow states are no longer able to carry out their intended functions, one of which is to defend the innocent.  "Vigilance" is a good thing, and the saying, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty" is one that resonates with many Americans.  But it may also be the price of security.

Healey Willan, Composer of Anglican Liturgical Music

                                 
No altar dancing or fire juggling here.  Just the Spirit.

Missa brevis No. 2 in F Minor

Work. Fight. Pray.

Medieval Society: The Three Orders

Our exposition of the three estates has been decidedly brief, however, it must again be stressed that medieval European society cannot really be understood without reference to this carefully graded hierarchy based on function and status.  Indeed, prestige and status oftentimes became more important than wealth or land.  Just the same, this tripartite division of society predominated European history right down to the 18th and 19th centuries when the French and Industrial Revolutions changed all social relationships for good. (Emphasis mine)

Or for evil.

Is Chivalry Really Dead?

If this photo doesn't effectively summon and resurrect the dormant chivalric spirit in every Western male, then to hell with those Western males who are unmoved. Literally, to hell with them.

Contemporary "Worship" Takes Another Hit

As it should.

My Journey Away from Contemporary Worship Music.

Why Thomas Aquinas Distrusted Islam

It's not rocket science.

St. John of Damascus concurred.  As would have every single Christian, Anglicans included, before the present PC, feel-good, braindead, "nice" century. 

I was ordained with a godly and insightful young man who has gone on to be ordained as a priest.  Like all well-meaning Anglicans who want to "Welcome Refugees", he recently opined that the risk of letting so many more Muslims into the West is "worth it."  He and I had some interesting exchanges in the wake of that comment, and I truly do believe he is rethinking his opinion. 

All we have to do is look at Christian history, and then consider more reflectively what we are now seeing in order to come to another conclusion:  it is most certainly not "worth it."

Crescent Moon Over Europe

By Chilton Williamson, Jr.

The European Union is operated by bureaucratic eunuchs incapable of thinking politically, of responsible decision, and of decisive action. Repelling the invasion of Europe requires the self-mobilization of the resistant parts of its national publics, probably beginning with the "far-right," "right-wing," "xenophobic," and "irresponsible parties" the European establishment loathes and reviles-and fears.

Pretty much what I was saying here.

Anglicans need to get off the "Refugees Welcome" bandwagon and start thinking about what role they should play in saving instead of destroying the West.

Rumors of War - Again

I'm seeing an increasing number of articles predicting a civil war in Europe, principally over the "refugee" crisis there.  Here's what I posted in November. In recent days these articles appeared:

Europe ''on the verge of civil war'' – Swiss army chief's urgent warning

German doorman who witnessed the Cologne mayhem calls it a 'civil war situation'

2015, the year a ‘civil war’ came to Europe

Eventually this war will break out in earnest.  When it does, it will pit a resurgent right wing against both feckless, increasingly hollow European liberal states and, most likely, Muslims. 

Already we're seeing rightist vigilantism:

Finland: ''Soldiers of Odin'' patrol Kemi streets

We'll see more of this as European liberal states do nothing to ameliorate the crisis and even punish those who would rise up to defend their culture.  It will likely turn into a 4th Generation Warfare-like struggle, which the liberal states will not win.

Sadly, it has come to this.  Europe is at the breaking point, and there is a sufficient number of currently disenfranchised traditionalists who will not let Europe be destroyed by the liberals.  It's that simple, and it is cause for us to be deeply in prayer about it.  We must pray, first and foremost, that liberal Europe comes to its senses, because if it doesn't, Katy bar the door.