Part 1: On Prophets and Prophecy
At the end of “A Decree to Rebuild,” I noted that prophecy is subject to validation by the church as a whole and that I take part in this obligation.
All prophecy in the church (as opposed to individual revelation, one’s calling) must be validated by the other members of the church, including its teachers. That’s what I do here: I validate what the prophets speak on behalf of the non-prophets who may read what they write. Ideally, the prophets in the ‘sphere would “be submitting themselves” to this instruction, altering what they prophesy in response to correction, but this is obviously not the case. Those subset of prophets who chafe at this should be treated with extreme caution.
There is some confusion on what prophesy is. Put simply, prophecy is the direct revelation of truth by the spirit. While it may involve future events, it typically does not.
Paul discusses prophecy alongside the related gift of speaking in tongues (emphasis added):
The purpose of prophecy is to build up, encourage, and comfort. Outside of being an apostle, it is the most important spiritual gift.
Paul continues (emphasis added):
What? Was it from you that the word of God went out? Or did it come to you alone? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, he must fully realize that the things I write to you—that they are a commandment of the Lord. If anyone does not acknowledge this, he is not acknowledged. So then, my brothers and sisters, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid anyone to speak in tongues. But let all things be done decently and in an orderly way.
This requirement for validation is so important that Paul told the church that if there was no one to interpret the tongues or to examine the prophecies, then the speaker must remain silent. This is very important: prophets were forbidden from prophesying alone. Prophets are not teachers. Moreover, anyone who seeks to be a prophet must be subject to the commandments of the Lord contained in scripture (in this specific case, the writings of Paul as commanded by God himself).
John writes similarly (emphasis added):
If one must validate and test the spirits of the prophets, then one must know what scripture contains in order to reject anything revealed that does not conform to the Word of God in those scriptures. Failure to do so will inevitably result in false prophecies by false prophets.
Being a prophet requires the prophet to be subject to validation by the church. Any prophet who chafes at corrections must be viewed with extreme skepticism. Indeed, it is out of these prophets—those who do not subject their prophecies to validation—from whence comes “antichrist.” Yes, it is just that serious. This is why I applied this test to Radix Fidem, which failed the test.
Part 2: Pompous Pontification
Over at Sigma Frame, Jack objects to this in “Pompous Pontification.”
First, Jack cites Radix Fidem as a source of “authentic mystical / spiritual authority.” This illustrates the point I’ve made, as Radix Fidem failed the test of the spirits. Commenter Oscar also claims that Radix Fidem failed the test of the prophets:
So at the outset of his article, he has already proven that my warning was correct, and that Radix Fidem can be neither authentic mystical Christianity nor spiritual authority. Moreover, not only does Jack fail to validate the prophecies of Radix Fidem, but he actively associates with the movement:
Let’s pause and emphasize this point: Jack is regularly influenced by a movement that has failed the tests of the spirit and the prophets. Rather than correct this error, he has instead chosen to mock and slander me for things I didn’t say or claim (see below). This is why Paul warned us to validate what the prophets teach, because it is incredibly easy to be led astray while fully confident that one is doing the right thing.
Second, I did not appoint myself…
…nor have I ever made this claim. It is the role of the prophets to submit themselves to the church, of which I am a member. It is not the role or authority of the church to force the prophets to submit. Just as with marriage, Jack fundamentally does not understand the function and direction of both authority and submission in the church. Framing the validation of prophets’ prophecies in terms of a judge in a hierarchical authority misses the point completely. See part 5, below.
Third, Paul gave all Christians in the church the task to validate the prophets. I have never claimed that this was reserved for me alone. The validation itself is not unique to me. If there is anything “exceptional” about me personally, it is merely that I am actually performing the validation. Anyone else could—and should—do the same thing, but this is, by-and-large, obviously not occurring. I only stand out because there is a general void of authority in the Christian Manosphere, not because of anything special about me. Indeed, I wrote…
…because I’m not even the one who is primarily (or secondarily) responsible! There are others who are much closer who should—but are failing to—be performing these tasks. The fact that I am involved at all just shows how broken the situation is. Many people upstream should have long ago pointed out the errors, but such is the nature of cult-thinking.
Those who think I should not be involved are correct, but only because someone closer to the situation should have done it first. Blaming me for having to do it at all this misses the point completely. Even if I go away, the problem still exists. As soon as someone else addresses the issue, I’ll be happy to step away.
Fourth, consider what Jack wrote about prophets:
This is a deflection.
What make a prophecy false is the content of that prophecy: it does not conform to the Word of God. Being humble is important, but scripture does not identify humility as a criterion for validating prophecy. Having authority is important as well, but the Word of God is identified as the ultimate authority, not a human. Moreover, false prophets, indeed Satan himself as the ruler of this world, have legitimate authority, but this authority is not validation.
Most importantly is that prophecy does not speak for itself. It is not pompous, that is, self-important. Nor is this the definition of authority. Indeed, when Paul writes of the prophecies of the prophets, he tells them that the prophecies (“spirits of the prophets”) must be subject to the prophets, that is, the prophets must constrain their prophesying to conform to propriety and order and to scripture. The prophets are not even allowed to speak except in certain circumstances! This includes prophets speaking by two or three (not one!) to establish the witness of what is said and then subjecting those prophecies to a thorough examination.
Fifth, Jack writes:
…
These men are welcome to judge my writings in the Spirit, and I will seriously consider their feedback to the point of revising my statements.
Jack has established barriers to which members of the body of Christ he will listen to and which he will not. Yet, the Bible establishes that the prophets are subject to examination by the whole church, not merely a select group of other prophets. Failing that, it is the obligation of the prophet to censor themselves (i.e. remain silent). See part 5, below.
Sixth, if any prophet wants me to engage in oversight over their prophecies before they publish them, we can coordinate over email. In the past, I have asked some of those who have complained about my own work if they’d be willing to act as an editor to provide oversight, but this has always been declined. In fact, few people are willing to provide constructive feedback even after I publish, let alone before. Few engage with me here on the substance of my posts. I’m used to mocking, derision, and misrepresentation instead, as in Jack’s post, rather than offers to act in a role of authority.
Seventh, Jack writes:
This requires a discussion of its own in parts 3 and 4 below.
Part 3: Catacomb Resident’s Article
In the past I’ve written on a number of occasions about Radix Fidem’s attack on using one’s whole being in pursuit of God. Radix Fidem makes the same category error that the Greek philosophers and the Gnostics made: dividing up one’s being (often in order to weight parts of it relatively). I summarized these errors in my recent article “The Nature of Faith.”
A few days ago, Catacomb Resident wrote “Been with Jesus.” Here is some of what he wrote:
This is nonsense. When Paul told the Bereans that they were noble for applying their mind to validating what Paul taught against scripture, he not only wasn’t objecting to the use of the mind, but was actively encouraging its use. The same is true for the test of the spirits. Consider John’s proposition:
If you do not attest to the proposition that Jesus—who resides in heaven—has come in the flesh, then you are both anti-truth and anti-faith.
Scripture is a threat to the Radix Fidem doctrine, which tells you that it is a fleshly doctrine that comes from man. Applying the Living Word of God to validate their teachings would necessitate rejecting those that go against it. This is why they are so eager to have you stop doing this and why it is a focus of their approach. As I demonstrated in “Traditions of Men,” what I teach regarding the heart and mind of man as contained in scripture (both Old Testament and New Testament) is more Ancient and more Near Eastern than anything that Radix Fidem teaches.
Radix Fidem would not require much modification to be in-line with scripture, which is why I bother writing about it.
Catacomb Resident continues:
Can you see the irony? Only someone steeped in an atheistic western metaphysic would say something like this. Let me explain.
John Lennox likes to talk about how atheist scientists deny the concept of the mind. They don’t speak of the mind, they speak of the brain. To them, the “mind” and “consciousness” are fictitious, artificial language concepts to describe the deterministic biological processes that go on inside a human brain. The mind is an artifact of the flesh. For them, morality is a derivation of natural processes in the biological context in which they occur.
That is precisely the frame that Catacomb Resident is putting the mind by calling it the brain. But scripture says that the heart includes the mind, for the heart is one’s entire being. The mind is not a function of the purely physical/biological. Once the atheistic metaphysical assumption is rejected, Catacomb Resident’s (and Ed Hurt’s) objection is simply invalidated.
Your mind can, in fact, perceive divine truth. It is the basis for validating truth against the Word of God.
I don’t think Catacomb Resident truly appreciates how much his metaphysical assumptions are influenced by non-Christian philosophy. Scripture does not teach any of these. CR is deriving his metaphysical assumptions outside of scripture and outside of the Ancient Near East. This is why they don’t want you to use your mind, because using your mind would necessitate that you reject Radix Fidem.
Biology cannot explain the mind or consciousness. It already exists beyond the fleshly nature. In claiming that the mind is fleshly in origin, Catacomb Resident has bought the lie that Western science has told.
And, it is worth noting, the heart (“spirit”) is just as tied to the flesh as the brain (“mind”). To say otherwise is a purely metaphysical assumption.
Part 4: Ed Hurst’s Article
Ed Hurst at Radix Fidem recently wrote “Be the Gospel.” We can see the statements by Catacomb Resident echoed there as well.
Consider this: scripture is the Living Word of God and one must use their mind to validate teachings against that Living Word. It’s not about being a book, its about being the words breathed out by God and merely subjected to printed form. See, long before I knew anything about Radix Fidem, I wrote “Is the New Testament Relevant?” where I said this:
Christianity lives in the people: not a book, not an organization, not a building, nor doctrines, nor a history. This is the genius of God revealing himself; to do so in relationships multiplied in the lives of his followers. It is the Christian life lived out for all to see.
That is why Christianity would survive even if the sacred cow doctrines of various denominations fell because the NT were lost. God’s message to humanity and the love of his followers does not rely on a book. It relies on the living example of its followers.
This more-or-less precisely matches what Ed Hurst says:
It’s not the book, but the gospel message should be simple, and that message is His children. That’s because the Word — His Son — is incarnated in His people. We are the message. The Bible is the background material we use to refine our understanding of the message, but Jesus the Person is the message.
…
If you absorb the message in the Bible, then you are the gospel.
So how can I make the same exact claim while also arguing that the mind is required to validate teachings against the Word of God? Because Radix Fidem teaches one key thing in error, which it repeats over and over again. It has established a false dilemma, a conflict between the heart and mind that does not exist in reality.
The Radix Fidem movement has elevated a preferred metaphysical assumption to the level of the Word of God. This is their key error. So even though we more-or-less agree on everything else and routinely come to the same conclusions, we do not believe the same thing because only one of our views violates the tests established by scripture itself.
This error is not a minor one. It must be repented, lest it turn into the spirit of antichrist.
Part 5: John Providence’s Comment
Jack isn’t the only one who fundamentally misunderstands the function and direction of both authority and submission in the church:
It’s a pretty major tell that Providence can’t even conceive of a single reason why Hurst would submit to anyone, even as he understands why someone else would submit to him. This is, incidentally, how cults form.
First, Providence makes the assumption of a strict unidirectional hierarchy: “A” is under “B” is under “C” is under “D.” Since scripture places prophets as the highest office in the church (after Apostles), then under this framing of authority, Hurst isn’t accountable to anyone else below him in the church. In fact, according to this view, teachers should be completely under the authority of the prophets.
But the New Testament never taught that the church should be under the authority of the prophets. Paul taught mutual submission instead and John taught that the prophets should be examined by the church, not the other way around. Despite being the highest office, this is why the church has never been run by prophets at any point in its history. Being the highest office is not a grant of authority.
Providence’s conception of authority and submission is a fundamental error, especially when applied to prophecy.
Second, Providence appears to be using the method of validating prophecy by feelings derived from personal anecdotes. It should go without saying not only that this is an error of reasoning, but that scripture does not teach this. Basing one’s conception of truth on one’s lived experiences is how America has embraced illicit sexuality and identity politics. What these all have in common is a rejection of reason in favor of another mode of verification.
Jesus warned that those who were not his followers could do great deeds, including successfully casting out demons. Even Satan’s prophets can reveal of the future what has already been revealed to—or even chosen by—Satan. External validation of a prophet is necessary but insufficient. The Word of God is the ultimate authority by which one can differentiate between the miracles of Satan and the miracles of God.
Providence is doing just what the Roman Catholics who interact with me have done. Those Roman Catholics point to the Eucharistic miracles and want me to convert. But while I freely acknowledge that the eucharistic miracles (like the Apparitions of Mary) are real, I recognize that their origin is demonic.
Validation by personal anecdote may be sufficient to show that the message comes from a divine being—even an angel of light—but not that the being or message comes from the One God. To know that, I must check scripture.
…
[T]here is not the same kind of fellowship, covering, and other things that go along with a covenant community in the Lord. It could be argued that Ed’s virtual fellowship is not a true church eitherConsider the implications.
Providence does not know if Hurst can even be said to be part of the church—the body of believers in Christ—let alone submitting himself to that church. This is a rather plain acknowledgment that there is a massive void in authority (and submission). So big is this void that if even one member of Christ’s body comes along trying to assert the authority of the Word of God, it is viewed with skepticism, or worse as an attack.
Every member of the church is ultimately accountable to each other member. As members of one body of Christ, when one part suffers, the whole suffers. It doesn’t matter if we are members of different earthly tribes. No Christian can truly “stay in your lane” towards the Brothers and Sisters because each Christian’s “lane” is every other Christian.
It’s not merely that a prophet should not chafe at correction. Rather, a prophet should be actively eager for the church to validate their prophecies, even if it means seeking them out, as the standards for prophets are very high:
The onus is on the prophets themselves!
Teachers—being almost as important as prophets—are also held to a higher standard:
Indeed, my strict attention to rationality, propositional truth, and obedience to scripture is informed, in large part, because teachers are held to stricter standards. I’m obligated to do so because of that stricter standard. It is why even though I am falsely attacked as “pompous” I must take those accusations seriously as if they were true (thus, the writing of this post).
But as serious as being a teacher is, only prophecy comes with the threat of the death penalty attached. It must truly be handled with utmost gravity, which is why errors must be addressed by any member of the church that identifies them. If Oscar’s claim regarding Hurst is true, then Lord Have Mercy.
Part 6: Matters of Reason
What is a true prophet? One who imparts truth and points one towards God. What is a false prophet? One who hides truth and points one away from God.
How do we know that Radix Fidem involves real prophecy, because it imparts truth and points one towards God. Except, it doesn’t. Jack is clearly and unambiguously begging-the-question.
The false prophecies are hiding the truth and pointing you, the reader, away from God. This is why we apply so-called “propositional logic”—reading the the Word of God and doing what it says regarding testing the prophecies—so we can easily see attempts to dupe us.
Moreover, Jack’s claim that feelings (“sentient“) override proposition (objective truth) is revealing. This emphasis on feelings—subjective personal perception—is likely why Bruce Charlton (one of the mystics in Jack’s list) said that Sigma Frame is positivistic (which he defines as reductionism, scientism, materialism), anti-Christian, effeminate, and un-masculine.
Indeed, as a matter of epistemology, the individual subjective perception approach to truth is indistinguishable from leftism. That is why a statement like this…
…is nonsensical outside a Positivist framework. When Radix Fidem attacks the mind as being purely a matter of the flesh, it is a positivistic claim: reducing the non-physical into a purely physical, and ultimately dead, reality:
It is literally death because Positivism is a denial (and indeed ridicule) of the idea of reality as alive, conscious and purposive – thus Positivism is also the assumption that everything is dead; in the sense that there is asserted to be no real or significant difference between what is generally regarded as alive and what is ‘known’ to be dead.
For instance; Cosmology, Physics, Mathematics are abstract and they concern dead (that is un-alive/ non-conscious) phenomena. However, under Positivism; Biology, Psychology, Consciousness all ultimately reduce to Physics: therefore Biology, Psychology and Consciousness are concerned with dead phenomena.
You may object…
…but that is merely a statement of belief, not a demonstration of reality. The rejection of the mind as a purely biological entity is ultimately a reduction of the physical to a purely physics (as opposed to metaphysics) explanation. The belief that the mind is fleshly is itself a positivist claim. Radix Fidem does not realize that it has made this assumption, thinking itself to have abandoned Western modes of thinking even as its views imply their embrace.
Where Charlton departs from Sigma Frame and Radix Fidem is the belief that all of creation—reality as a whole—is alive, conscious, and purposive. Or put another way, aspects of the divine can be found in anything that God has created. The strict fine-line distinction between the physical and spiritual—as defined as the non-physical—is itself a false abstraction of reality. This is why I make such a big deal of the fact that scripture does not separate the heart and mind into separate abstract entities.
Part 7: Matters of Conscience
If this were just a matter of discernment and acting according to one’s personal calling, then Radix Fidem would teach that some people find divine truth using primarily mystical and spiritual—non-physical—means while others find divine truth primarily through their mind. The early church wrestled with many such non-essential differences (e.g. circumcision; women wearing coverings) and ultimately left most of the decisions up to personal conscience.
This would, arguably, be the correct path for Radix Fidem to take. But in practice this is impossible because Radix Fidem’s teaching relies on the explicit vilification of the mind (as a matter of the flesh). It is not left as a matter of conscience. This is why Catacomb Resident said:
Radix Fidem does not allow for God to communicate his truth to his followers in different ways. It stands as judge in a place where scripture itself refuses to stand, based on a tradition that isn’t attested in scripture, and by portraying scripture as voiceless (and slandering those who disagree by labeling it as “bibliolatry”).
Radix Fidem could merely conclude that the heart and mind have both physical and non-physical attributes, or that the physical and non-physical are both means to divine truth as both are part of God’s creation and both are affected by disobedience to God. It could even prefer one method over another without deriding those who take a different path. For example, it could acknowledge—or at least allow for the possibility—that God communicated divine truth through the physical evidence of his handiwork found in DNA.
Any of these would allow it to emphasize matters of personal conscience and discernment. But it chooses not to, instead emphasizing its own abstracted reality as the only correct one possible.
Perhaps you will recall my article “Christian Discernment.” In it I noted that many men have a vested interest in ensuring that all Christians agree with their particular interpretations, and so do not allow other possibilities. They have difficulty accepting that they might have drawn the wrong conclusions, or that two people with differing (even exclusive) views could both be ‘correct.’
For discernment—and the associated personal calling—to be valid, we must allow people to disagree with us and to accept that they might even be right to do what they do, even and especially if we disagree. The last thing we should be doing is calling people names (“pompous”) or potentially slandering people (“pontification” and “bibliolatry”) for engaging in matters of conscience.
> atheist scientists deny the concept of the mind
The scientific method is intentionally limited to material word to make it work and concepts like “mind” and “spirit” are beyond the scope of the method.
> To them, the “mind” and “consciousness” are fictitious, artificial language concepts to describe the deterministic biological processes that go on inside a human brain.
The “human brain” is a scientific consensus which will get busted during this century. In animal research genetic defects, which there thought to impair the brain are now located in the lower body digestive system, where these probably can be fixed as well.
The deprecation of the “brain” theory will lead to a scientific model much more in line with earlier thinking. It will also completely obsolete the medical term “brain-dead”.
> The mind is an artifact of the flesh. For them, morality is a derivation of natural processes in the biological context in which they occur.
Dualism is a Greek concept, which is not to be found in the Hebrew bible. The mind being an artifact of material creation does not contradict scripture. It might contradict Greek philosophy, which has been a huge influence of the authors of the New Testament.
The scientific method is intentionally limited to material word to make it work and concepts like “mind” and “spirit” are beyond the scope of the method.
That’s a very naïve thing to say. Materialism—the dominate philosophy of the West—isn’t merely agnostic on the point, it is dogmatic.
Dualism is a Greek concept, which is not to be found in the Hebrew bible.
Of course. That’s why when Radix Fidem divides up one’s being into parts in the name of Ancient Near East tradition, it is deceiving itself by embracing the very same Greek philosophy that it claims to reject. And, as I point out in the OP, its embrace of the heart/mind distinction implies a Western mode of thinking, its protestations notwithstanding.
It is saying one thing and doing the opposite.
The mind being an artifact of material creation does not contradict scripture.
What scripture does is to lump all the attributes together without making a strong distinction. In fact, when the Bible mentions body and soul, both are physical, natural, material concepts in the Greek language.
The New Testament even calls the resurrected body flesh. So the idea that flesh is in-and-of-itself inherently fallen because it is flesh is absurd when Jesus himself sits at the right hand of God in the flesh right now.
The New Testament doesn’t bother to explain the distinction between the mankind’s fallen “natural” or “soul” (psychikon) flesh and the resurrected “spiritual” (pneumatikon) flesh, as the resurrected spiritual flesh clearly has a real physical presence that can physically interact with the fallen flesh.
We can’t even claim dogmatically that spiritual flesh is non-physical. The early church certainly neglected to make this claim, with men like Clement of Rome, Justin the Martyr, Irenaeus, Athenagoras, Methodius, and Gregory of Nyssa explicitly denying it!
So at the outset of his article, he has already proven that my warning was correct, and that Radix Fidem can be neither authentic mystical Christianity nor spiritual authority. Moreover, not only does Jack fail to validate the prophecies of Radix Fidem, but he actively associates with the movement:
These men are welcome to judge my writings in the Spirit, and I will seriously consider their feedback to the point of revising my statements. Further, I associate with the Radix Fidem community. I am in regular contact with Ed Hurst, and recognize him to be a very influential person in my spiritual life.
Let’s pause and emphasize this point: Jack is regularly influenced by a movement that has failed the tests of the spirit and the prophets. Rather than correct this error, he has instead chosen to mock and slander me for things I didn’t say or claim (see below). This is why Paul warned us to validate what the prophets teach, because it is incredibly easy to be led astray while fully confident that one is doing the right thing.
Yeah ”jack” is just you’re average tradcon I.E.”let’s return to normalcy e.g. 1950s-80s- style social & sexual mores with just the right amount of fornication, divorce, baby murder, homosexuality acceptance-mostly lesbians of course & feminism, in general, that won’t make society collapse yet-as WE have plenty of time to reverse course and steer the ship right just in time bros”-”the old books= rules”(that ROISSY=Heartiste & ST. Rollo
spoke of)pushing=encouraging those eras’ rules on MEN today, while claiming to be ”red pill” & ”down with reality boyz” like Mark Driscol, Dalrock, and Doug Wilson before ”jack”,bgr=matt Perkins” & ”sparkly” ever discovered they could push their own supposedly holy scripture-approved sexual lusts(porn, sadomasochism
under the s*x and ”discipline” mode of ”conduct”, -hand & anal sodomy-like all the kids and ”adultz” today luv) under the ”red pill” banner to look ”cool” to younger MENZ.
”they” can pretend to be a Ward Cleaver hard-working at the office husband all they want .BUT the younger MENZ know it’s all a LARP like tradwives on YouTube &tiktok videos are and here below are some of the proofs of it from 2021 from ”Red Pill” pope ”jack”:
Rules and Trust
Posted on 2021-04-28 by Jack
…are somewhat opposed.
Readership: All
Author’s Note: This post was co-written by Jack and NovaSeeker.
Length: 3,750 words
Reading Time: 12.5 minutes
Introduction
The discussion under Parental Divorce Ruins Daughters’ Future Marital Commitment and Confidence (2021 February 24) captured much of the conversation about the importance of rules, and how the rules can no longer be followed with a positive outcome, but only a lot of suffering – which kind of sums up Eric’s main contention.
Of particular note, this conversation between Deti, NovaSeeker, et al., offered several viewpoints about how the rules are now ambiguous and impossible to follow.
This discussion also contained a couple ideas that I think are important issues that tie into The Christian Conundrum (2021 March 1) and The Christian Marriage Dilemma (2021 February 26). These are…
Internal Traits — Flexibility, adaptability, determination, charisma, and other personality traits, etc. Scott’s approach to marriage is an example of this.
External Environment — About rules and expectations. My approach to marriage is an example of this.
People tend to internalize the external environment, making it part of their identity. This can then lead to an identity crisis when the external environment doesn’t match up to their internalized concepts, which are often shaped by personal ideals. For Christians, this would be doctrinal stances and moral rules.
All in all, I see the conundrum issue coming down to a conflict between ideals and realities, and this is a topic that continues to come up in the sphere over the years. Some people just can’t deal with too much of a difference between the two.
The Covert Contract of following the Rules
For Christians, there is a tendency to think that they can get what they want out of God, life, etc. by following rules of conduct and morality in an effort to fit the ideal, thinking that this is what it means to be a “good Christian”, obedient to God, etc. But all our own efforts to pursue sanctification, holiness, and the blessings in life are never enough. This approach never fully connects with God or reality, and it fails to hit home with people. This is kind of like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, or the older brother’s approach in the story of the Prodigal son, or Javert in Les Miserables, as I discussed in More on the Framework of Options (2021 March 22). The point of this post was that Clinging to the “Rules” can cause a lot of confusion and legalism, and it misses the larger point of connecting with God and loving others.
Guys in the Christian Manosphere are guilty of this too. We have a desire for good wives, but women are just not up to par. (Women are saying the same about the men.) So then women are dismissed (vetted out) because they don’t fit the Christian mold. It’s a very mechanical, rules-based approach. Not much has been said about how to connect with reality and make an impact (other than through overt sexual relations).
This is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.
It’s definitely a case where there are ideals, on the one hand, and a reality, on the other, that don’t match, and that one way guys are trying to deal with that is by trying to screen/vet/improve/narrow things so that they can get them to line up as much as possible so as to manage outcomes.
I don’t think that’s a great approach because a lot of guys can’t attract nor even notice IOIs, and so they won’t be able to do it, plain and simple.
I see this as being the challenge underlying the conundrum. I think the answer will be very difficult for us to put into words, and rather unpalatable to a lot of people. I think Dalrock saw this coming, and this may be the reason he bowed out of blogging at his zenith. I think some “Churchian” leaders are conscious of this conundrum, but they conform to the culture too much and fail to tackle the issue properly.
A more fundamental problem with this whole mindset can be identified like this: Even if a guy can manage to do all of the things that the Christian Manosphere has been proposing (e.g. maintaining frame, exercising charisma, having an attitude of detachment, working out, looksmaxxing, following your mission in life, going to places where marriageable Christian women hang out, reading IOIs, vetting, etc.), he ends up still is trying to square things that are not going to be squared in most situations. In reality, most situations are going to require more flexibility and less rigidity — less “models” and more prioritizing of what is actually most important, keeping one’s eye on that ball, accepting that a “go for everything” approach will only work in cases of truly lucky people and that for everyone else it’s going to be a matter of making some prioritized compromises in order to get the broader benefits of a stable, lasting marriage and children, which are also loaded with spiritual benefits.
In other words, I think a common approach here is to cut off one’s nose spiritually to spite one’s face. In other words, to take the issue raised by commenter Eric, one may take a hardline approach about fornication, but that can lead to no marriage, and the foreclosure of a life that God maybe intended for you in order to bless you in certain ways, and in order to do certain things he had in mind for you to do under “Plan A”.
An alternative to the hardline approach is to realize that some fornication prior to marriage may be a necessary concession to a messy society in order to gain the benefits of a marriage that will bless you — it may be that you have to prioritize less having absolutely pure hands prior to marriage and prioritize achieving a stable marriage to actually fulfill your mission in life.
If it just happens to be God’s will for a certain person to be married and have a family, and years pass without this happening, his conscience will tell him that he’s not been obedient to God’s particular calling for his life.
Of course, that’s a hard course for Christians to endorse openly. The conventional route is to discourage that course and do anything but be realistic about it, and, if you want to be a real hard@ss about it, tell people they need to suck it up, after all they could be getting fed to the lions! But it does seem like the churches, de facto, have kind of taken this approach by turning a blind eye to the fornication that is taking place. Perhaps if there were more open discussion of it, people could openly discuss across generations how it would be best for people to minimize the number of pre-marital relationships for various practical reasons (bonding being the main one), while not emphasizing so much being absolutely pure before marriage. But trying to put this into a formula that “serious” Christians will accept on paper …. gosh that’s almost impossible to think about, isn’t it?”
So when ”jack” says ”pompous”, i Zlolzzzlollzzzzzz even more than usual while reading or hearing obvious larping tradcons trying to be ”cool”(mark discol did this ”best” with his super macho ”good to be the boss”- pushing ”lesser” MENZ around- pastor routine that pleased women & old boomer & ”greatest” fogeys(who longed for the 1950s style society of marriage seen in tv shows they didn’t even watch as they hungered for such wholesome tv shows about murder, gore(while still telling the young of the evils of the Video game Mortal Kombat-i will add), rape & other ”traditional” homosexual desires such as modern family, game of thrones & the walking dead)semi- nationally {or nationally by 2012 with driscols and his wife’s”real marriage” book-which he went on the view talk show to promote as well as ”wives ”wearing faux d@ngz like in the same ”real marriage” book-instead of the prostitutes that too many ”husbands”(its mostly ”good” husbands who frequent protitutes not unmarried MEN) would get to do it for them so they could ”experience” homosexuality w/o ”feeling” gay }for almost a decade+ from around ’06 until he fell in 2014 for ”yelling at a woman behind the scenes” as ”MEN” luved him yelling at MEN NOT the women they lusted after} with the young that doesn’t listen to their gibberish nonsense to begin with.
Jack says:
Or put another way:
“Women are not up to par. I want a wife from the 1920s.”
“But it’s not the 1920s, it’s the 2020s.”
“I don’t care. Women should act like they did in the 1920s.”
“Then you won’t be able to find a wife.”
“Where did all the good women go?”
When Jesus banned divorce, the disciples complained about this hard saying, indicating that this would make marriage too risky. Did Jesus respond by instituting reforms, rules, and regulations to fix the character of the people who wanted divorces, to give them better marriage prospects? No, he confirmed the disciples’ observation that they shouldn’t get married at all if they can’t handle his instructions.
Jack says:
Guys in the Christian Manosphere are guilty of this too. We have a desire for good wives, but women are just not up to par. (Women are saying the same about the men.) So then women are dismissed (vetted out) because they don’t fit the Christian mold. It’s a very mechanical, rules-based approach. Not much has been said about how to connect with reality and make an impact (other than through overt sexual relations).
This is where the rubber hits the road, so to speak.
Or put another way:
“Women are not up to par. I want a wife from the 1920s.”
“But it’s not the 1920s, it’s the 2020s.”
“I don’t care. Women should act like they did in the 1920s.”
“Then you won’t be able to find a wife.”
“Where did all the good women go?”
When Jesus banned divorce, the disciples complained about this hard saying, indicating that this would make marriage too risky. Did Jesus respond by instituting reforms, rules, and regulations to fix the character of the people who wanted divorces, to give them better marriage prospects? No, he confirmed the disciples’ observation that they shouldn’t get married at all if they can’t handle his instructions.
YES!-BUT, Behold a ”red pill” tradcon prophet along with ”warroom.org”at Spawnys says WE could easily take back America to pre-19th amendment 1910s America if only ALL Christians would vote!
Sharkly says:
7 August, 2024 at 10:38 pm
Christians, Wake Up! Your Vote Could Change Everything
https://warroom.org/christians-wake-up-your-vote-could-change-everything/
“Among Evangelical Christians alone, there are about 17 million who are not voting. This is 27% of the electorate. If we got all of them to vote, there’s virtually no national election we could not swing,”
Any more questions on what is a tradcon or ”red pill” tradcon?
ANYONE?
ANYONE?
Sharkly says:
“If we got all of them to vote, there’s virtually no national election we could not swing”
What did they call these type of gullible people? Useful idiots?
The reason protesting against voting rarely works—as Sharkly noted—is because delusional people still believe that voting matters and so don’t take any other step to enact change. Voting is like a dangling a carrot in front of a donkey, but where the payoff is a complete illusion. Maybe some day Sharkly will realize that he’s never getting that carrot because the people holding the stick are not going to allow it.
Remember when Republicans held the Presidency, the Senate, and the House at the same time and squandered it? Even when Sharkly wins, he’ll still lose!
> “Women are not up to par. I want a wife from the 1920s.”
> “But it’s not the 1920s, it’s the 2020s.”
> “I don’t care. Women should act like they did in the 1920s.”
> “Then you won’t be able to find a wife.”
> “Where did all the good women go?”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920s_Berlin has its own English-language Wikipedia article for a reason. I bet these Bible Belters would not want a single one of these “1920s women”.
Personally I like to view that through the lens of the SSH theory. From my own perspective intersexual behavior of women is strongly linked to the perceived rank of the man. So when a man finds that any woman doesn’t behave to his taste, it is probably because of himself being way too low on the ladder. For 40 % of men this is a matching issue and for 60 % of men this is a vocational issue (as there is no match for 60 % of men).
Many baby boomer men managed to marry above their league during American marriage craze, got friendzoned and then divorced. This is not the fault of the divorce law, it’s a fault of 1950s baby boomer culture.
So the primary problem of the Gammas for Christ movement is that all “women who fit the Christian mold” are way out of their league. The men these women go for aren’t even church going (as most churches nowadays are lead by Karens), because reproduction outperforms religion.
I wrote about Susannah Spurgeon in “Masculinity and the Manosphere, Part 2.”
Years ago someone on Twitter described marriage and divorce within the frame of free market economics. In an efficient market, there are no deals or bargains to be head. If a man marries beyond what the market allows, then the market will arbitrage this difference in value until no difference remains. Thus, divorce.
You’ve described the same thing.
This is illustrated in the simple observation:
Women in the church: “Where are all the good men?”
Men in the church: “Where are all the good women?”
> Years ago someone on Twitter described marriage and divorce within the frame of free market economics. In an efficient market, there are no deals or bargains to be head. If a man marries beyond what the market allows, then the market will arbitrage this difference in value until no difference remains. Thus, divorce.
This is the reason why during the 19th century spousal age gaps of up to 15 years were nothing unusual. However American baby boomer culture put a stigma on it thinking teen “husbands” were a great idea – mostly for reasons of the economy. This couldn’t last beyond the 1973 oil crisis. And it didn’t.
Zlolzzzlollzzzz
I don’t think that’s a great approach because a lot of guys can’t attract nor even notice IOIs, and so they won’t be able to do it, plain and simple(like my own generic self).
I see this as being the challenge underlying the conundrum. I think the answer will be very difficult for us to put into words, and rather unpalatable to a lot of people. I think Dalrock saw this coming, and this may be the reason he bowed out of blogging at his zenith. I think some “Churchian” leaders are conscious of this conundrum, but they conform to the culture too much and fail to tackle the issue properly.
”Jack” the supposed 140 i.q.ed ”genius” always makes those of us in the know laugh.
DALS ”Zenith” was barely getting a hundred comments per post, failing with Warhorn media & wanting to quit?” True” ”redpill” ”genius” there as I or anyone can tell.
No wonder he/she/it has to hitch his/her/its ”red pill” wagon to the modern-day radix fidem cult.
NEXT?” JACK”,” SPARKLY”&”BGR=LARRY SOLOMON=MATT PERKINS” will start the modern-day ”red pill” version of the adamites or adamians so they can more fully enjoy their porn & sodomy loving ”lifestyle”!
Zlolzzzlollzzzz
At the end of “A Decree to Rebuild,” I noted that prophecy is subject to validation by the church as a whole and that I take part in this obligation.
YEAH IOW the 140 i.q ”red pill” ”genius” ”jack” didn’t read the whole post like he claimed about you on one of his/her/its(”they” wanted a war and I give what him/her/its want as I’m a ”nice’ guy”) posts a while back here.
That’s probably part of the reason why Saint Deti has left him/her/it too!
”jack” didn’t read the whole post like he claimed about you
Reading comprehension, how does it work?
It’s almost like…
“All prophecy in the church must be validated by the other members of the church“
…is perfectly easy to understand. But, you know, what I probably meant was:
“[Pompous pontificating] blogger Derek L. Ramsey stated in so many words that he has assumed the executive role of a judge with veto power over the prophets of the Christian Manosphere.”
Sure, it must be that, right?
Also, regarding “so many words”, it turns out that the postscript was 223 words, a massive four paragraphs!
Totally lost on all of this.
If…IF indeed a king like David (or any other modern self appointed ‘leader’ today….be it in the sphere or from todays pulpit) was approached by a man with the true Gift of Prophecy “The Lord saith!”
Out would come the metaphysical justifications as to why “said prophecy” was “wrong” or incorrect. A muddled word-salad discussion from said ‘leader’ and justifications as to why his stance is correct, and the “prophecy” is wrong
“I studied Greek in the lower middle voice from this translation / read the history of that region and that time, and Gods word actually means this….”
Hence why this gift is indeed rare. Prophecy today. Now pretty much can be summed up with “I said you are wrong” and then into the drivel of female nature, Greek terms, and even putting perhaps the said prophet down because he isnt as hot as, as smart as, as good looking……..
Yet, we are told that in the sphere there are “plenty” of prophets.
I’ve never met one. In the sphere or out.
They are very, very rare and a “prophet” or a man who has this gift really wouldnt have to brag about it.
Consider for a moment that Paul wrote that he wished that all members of the church would prophesy. We are not talking about a gift that must be rare, we’re talking about a skill that can be cultivated. Any man or woman who can directly reveal the truth of God through the Spirit has the potential to prophesy in the church, to train that skill into something that builds up the church. In the sphere there is a lot of untapped potential in men and women who are attuned to the spiritual.
Prophesy is the spiritual form of teaching, if you will.
A teacher’s task is to revealed truth from the written Word of God or the oral traditions of the church. But a prophet is speaking revealed truth directly from the spirit. This is necessarily more challenging to discern, which is why it is both more important and much more necessary to validate it against scripture (though being a teacher is also a “higher standard” approach).
The modern church isn’t spiritual and it has minimal, if any, use for prophesy. This is the major reason that you have trouble even identifying what prophesy in the church would even look like. It is a completely foreign concept. By contrast, Radix Fidem is a virtual church in which prophesy plays a role. But it does so in a way that doesn’t match scripture. So it’s just as problematic as the modern church.
Consider that mega church with the band on stage. There isn’t any room for 2 or 3 prophets to give their prophecy one-by-one while the rest quietly listen, and then for the rest of the church to thoroughly examine what has been said. The structure of our services necessarily precludes prophesy.
You are confusing teachers and prophets. You’ve described teachers here, and your example is why James said that few should seek to teach, while Paul said that he wishes that everyone was a prophet. It should come as a big red flag that most men want to be teachers and few want to be prophets.
If the church, or even the manosphere, handled prophets in the way that Paul instructed, it would become obvious very quickly who had the gift of prophecy and what level of training each prophet had. The bad prophets would quickly be silenced and the good ones would be slowly trained.
Can you imagine the prophets of the sphere subjecting themselves to this, placing themselves under the authority and oversight of the others? What prophet in the sphere would take kindly to the church telling them to remain silent?
I dont believe I am (confusing prophets and teachers)
Prophets so to speak, in order to have ANY credibility today….and for a long time…..have to be educated in “the word” and know every nuance of history, the languages and of course “live a blame free life” or they will not be taken seriously.
Today, King David would have had that prophet killed, jailed or hauled to the “priests” (the ‘educated’ people who would debunk, denounce, smear, use confusing big words, and also call in said prophets “qualifications”) forgtting that God can use ANYONE to speak truth to the Word.
Prophets are only allowed now if they justify “Red Pill Lore” or its a “popular” church pastor that supposedly stands up against the political opponent of the era
If someone is indeed a prophet, or has that gift it pretty much will not be listened to today unless it “matches” and “compliments” the teachers.
Is this correct? No. But that is the reality we are in, and hence why so few have this gift and why the actual ones are ignored…………”how many IOI’s do you get?” and “how much can you bench?” so many worldly qualifications “added” by the teachers now in order to be deemed a prophet, or have that gift…….
Rules made by men for gifts another man may have , better men than me obviously.
The sphere will grind to halt because of this and most gifts any man has are squelched by these men, these “teachers of the word”
Fair enough. The roles are, indeed, similar in many ways. They do not exist independent of each other.
One thing Jack got correct is that the role of the prophet is to build up the church by calling others to repentance. This is true whether it is the office of prophet, as in the Old Testament, or the gift of prophecy, as in the New Testament. And, unsurprisingly, the role of the teacher is also to call others to repentance. The prophet and teacher can build up the church in other ways, such as through comfort and encouragement, but “making disciples” is the first and foremost job of the church.
I still think there is some confusion in the sphere, and the church, and this faith (red pilled or not) that prophecy *must* be “predicting the future, and it had better be 100% accurate with times, dates, locations, and the receipts or you be deemed false! It had also better match our doctrine, our point of view 100% or its false / not of God”
“The Lord Saith!”
Mind you, most prophecy in the Bible was used to call out the BELIEVER, not the world, not “muh feminism” (excuse for everything now….if you’re so red pilled and bold, put a stop to it).
I like your above statement of it to use this gift for those who have it to uplift and call to repentance.
I have gone over and over this “gift” from my own research. I dont have this gift. Now, perhaps the Lord HAS indeed used me and granted this gift for a statement or observation…but having it bestowed upon me as a “gift”?
no. I dont believe that. According to the church, to all those men out there:
My gift is to be a Gamma and take orders and be lectured to / ordered around and put their noses up at
They can find some other chump to do that to
Prophecy is now in the modern day Christian faith is a “peeing standing up contest” and that includes all these red-pill-biblical-churches” that are everywhere (rolls eyes, just move to Bullfrog, ND.)
Also, with too many in the Christian faith (red pill or not). Only a few people seem….just seem to have “all” the gifts while the “gammas” they purport to “love and want to help” seem to have none, or a useless one…and the gift the “lower men” have is ALWAYS told to them by the supposed leaders.
Its high school. all over again….and again why men dont want to be apart of this faith. Look at the behavior. The arrogance. The snobbery. The elitism.
They cant even see it, and still would deny its there.
Its high school. all over again….and again why men dont want to be apart of this faith. Look at the behavior. The arrogance. The snobbery. The elitism.
They cant even see it, and still would deny its there.
Here it is right here as catacomb resident/Tomb refugee admits he cares NOT for his fellow MAN &woMAN-if only other ”redpill” ”genius” ”leaders” would be as honest though.
Tomb Refugee says:
2024-08-08 at 4:33 am
The question posed more than once is whether the SSH is bad for the manosphere. To be honest, I don’t care about the manosphere at large. They can have the SSH. What I care about are believers who need more than just a secular hierarchy; they need to be led to a deeper faith that emphasizes the spiritual, not the fleshly.
There wouldn’t even be a ”MANosphere” without ROISSY(who was an agnostic) yet these” redpill” tradcons just come in and claim everything is ”Christian” mainly cuz DAL(who in early 2014 called Roissy a ”sinner” to look good to his fellow ”red pill” tradcons who tried to steal his game, glory & success even though w/o Roissy=Heartiste there would have NEVER had been a ”red pill” tradcon DALrock or ”redpillers” in general!) said so!
Sort of like Stone Cold Steve Austin in the late 90’s WWF.
If one must validate and test the spirits of the prophets, then one must know what scripture contains in order to reject anything revealed that does not conform to the Word of God in those scriptures. Failure to do so will inevitably result in false prophecies by false prophets.
Being a prophet requires the prophet to be subject to validation by the church. Any prophet who chafes at corrections must be viewed with extreme skepticism. Indeed, it is out of these prophets—those who do not subject their prophecies to validation—from whence comes “antichrist.” Yes, it is just that serious. This is why I applied this test to Radix Fidem, which failed the test.
Part 2: Pompous Pontification
Over at Sigma Frame, Jack objects to this in “Pompous Pontification.”
First, Jack cites Radix Fidem as a source of “authentic mystical / spiritual authority.” This illustrates the point I’ve made, as Radix Fidem failed the test of the spirits. Commenter Oscar also claims that Radix Fidem failed the test of the prophets:
So at the outset of his article, he has already proven that my warning was correct, and that Radix Fidem can be neither authentic mystical Christianity nor spiritual authority. Moreover, not only does Jack fail to validate the prophecies of Radix Fidem, but he actively associates with the movement:
These men are welcome to judge my writings in the Spirit, and I will seriously consider their feedback to the point of revising my statements. Further, I associate with the Radix Fidem community. I am in regular contact with Ed Hurst, and recognize him to be a very influential person in my spiritual life.
Let’s pause and emphasize this point: Jack is regularly influenced by a movement that has failed the tests of the spirit and the prophets. Rather than correct this error, he has instead chosen to mock and slander me for things I didn’t say or claim (see below). This is why Paul warned us to validate what the prophets teach, because it is incredibly easy to be led astray while fully confident that one is doing the right thing.
Oscar update on Ed Hurst!:
Oscar says:
2024-08-08 at 10:40 am
Prophecy is commonly thought to be about predicting the future, but it is more about pointing people towards God.
True, and yet….
Deuteronomy 18:21 And if you say in your heart, ‘How shall we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’—22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not happen or come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.
By his own admission, Ed Hurst is a false prophet. That’s not my opinion. That’s what the Bible says. Don’t like it? Take it up with the Holy Spirit. Everyone who disagrees with the Holy Spirit is free to recognize Ed Hurst to be a very influential person in his spiritual life, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
When one considers the forces of evil and Satanic influence, one must admit that when you find evil in the world, it is almost always mixed with good. Very rarely do you find purely evil acts. If you want to know if someone is good or evil, you can’t simply examine the surface level good they do.
Some of the people who do the most evil deeds are genuinely good, nice, likable people. They may even give lots of money to charity.
Or consider someone like Bart Erhman, whose academic scholarship is actually top-notch and revelatory, but whose theology comes from the pit of Hell. At least his apostasy is in the open for all to see. There isn’t any deception.
With regards to prophets, the Bible is clear how they are to be handled and by what standards they are to be held. The other good things about the prophets are nice—like those positive attributes Jack described, including humility—but ultimately don’t matter when it comes to prophecy.
In the early 1980s, psychic Johanna Michaelsen became a Christian. She had been visited by spirits for many years, but only after she became a Christian did she discover how to test the spirits. So one day she challenged the spirit of ‘Jesus’ before her, commanding in the name of Jesus that he attest that “Christ is God uniquely incarnate in human flesh.” Without answering, her visiting spirits immediately departed in a violent flash. They had failed the test. See: Timothy F. Kauffman, “Quite Contrary.” (1997) p.68-69
See this speech by Johanna Michaelsen.
“Johanna Michaelsen (1949–) is a fundie writer and self-proclaimed “authority on the occult” who promoted the Satanic Panic in the 1980s-90s.” — Citation: RationalWiki
I have no reasons to believe her testimony. I’m convinced after she finally read the NT, she made something up exploiting the confirmation bias of her new audience.
LOL! Your citation comes from a known leftist propaganda site! If we’re talking about heuristic judgments, the fact that she’s listed on RationalWiki is a major stamp of approval.
You wouldn’t know this, but I once interacted with one of the authors of RationalWiki when I caught him fabricating a RationalWiki article on Ed Dutton and then citing his own work (without disclosure!) as some sort of academic authoritative work. The site is a cesspit of propaganda and falsehood. It is utterly foolishness to cite it authoritatively and doing so demonstrates very poor discernment.
If she is a liar and false teacher, then her fruit will show it. It’s that simple. So I challenge you to watch the video and let us know what her errors are. Expose her.
As I’ve said to you before (here and here), if you can’t substantiate your unsubstantiated claims, then you have no credibility here. If you can’t, there is a spot for you at Sigma Frame where they participate in that sort of thing.
> Your citation comes from a known leftist propaganda site!
This is sadly the only third party description the Internet has on this person. Everything else on her is first party propaganda. While she is seemingly not important enough to have her own Wikipedia article, she gets mentioned in “Laurel Rose Willson:”
> She attracted the attention and sympathy of evangelical author Johanna Michaelsen, one of the most influential promoters of the Satanic moral panic of the period. While living with Michaelsen, Willson falsely claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.[8]
[8] “This Really Happened … Sort Of” (Psychology Today)
All “psychics” I ever encountered make a living with professional lying and they don’t stop that when they turn to exploit gullible Evangelicals. I judge the fruit, which has been the Satanic panic and I don’t consider this good fruit, because it gave a huge push towards secularization. If saying that is leftist propaganda, then so be it.
This is sadly the only third party description the Internet has on this person. Everything else on her is first party propaganda.
What? Are you Wikipedia that you won’t consider primary sources? Unless you are a bot, God gave you a brain to be used, so use it.
In the church we judge people according to their own fruit. If you want to know if a person is of Christ or of Satan we look at what they say and do. You can find her own teachings here, here, and here. Is she teaching error or not? You don’t need a third-party to do that for you, you are the third-party.
“All “psychics” I ever encountered make a living with professional lying and they don’t stop that when they turn to exploit gullible Evangelicals.”
Ah, yes, the anecdotal fallacy.
Are you suggesting that supernatural experiences are all fake? Do you deny that the Eucharistic miracles are real? What about the visitations by apparitions of ‘Jesus’ and ‘Mary’ to Roman Catholics?
Just to understand what your standard of evidence—and your level of knowledge and expertise—looks like, show me a single true, verified, confirmed instance of the supernatural in the last few decades. Pick the best one you can think of.
One of the ways to find a fraud and a professional lying grifter is to follow the money. Did you know that Michaelsen doesn’t make money off her books? They’ve been out of print for at least a decade. Unlike so many other frauds, she doesn’t make a dime off her presumably false writings. Moreover, based on the small volume of YouTube videos, she isn’t going around giving speaking tours. In modern parlance, she has no reach, impressions, or engagement. She doesn’t even, as you note, have a Wikipedia article, and what is there is so poorly sourced that it doesn’t even meet Wikipedia’s low standards of evidence!
I found this horrible video which goes over why Johanna Michaelsen is a fraud. It’s really bad. I mean, really, really bad. If that’s the best evidence that exists, then I’m inclined to believe that the criticism is pure slander.
Stop citing horrible sources and using it to slander another person. Do your own analysis. If you can’t even function at such a basic level, then you have no legitimate business making comments on the internet.
“I judge the fruit, which has been the Satanic panic and I don’t consider this good fruit, because it gave a huge push towards secularization.”
If that’s what you consider to be doing your own analysis, then I’m embarrassed for you.
If that’s what you consider to be “judging the fruit” then you have a big personal problem.
Here is a review of her book:
The book shifts tones dramatically to become a cautionary tale about Satanism and the occult. This makes sense in the historical context of the era during which the book was released, coinciding with the height of the Satanic Panic movement in the United States. Like many Americans in the early 1980s, the author believes that a growing worldwide interest in the occult is a signal that the apocalypse is nigh. Johanna also espouses a very broad view of what she considers the occult, arguing that yoga, Eastern spirituality, astrology, a huge number of classic books, films, and music albums are all the work of the Devil, paving the way for the coming of the Antichrist. Finally, Johanna establishes a set of parameters for readers so that if they witness or feel something that seems to defy the laws of science—something the religious would classify as a “miracle”—they can know whether it’s the work of God or Satan.
The worst I can say about this is that she sees instances of the occult as somewhat more common than they really are because she is looking for them due to her own experiences. That’s the anecdotal fallacy.
What do you think I should do about someone who commits that particular fallacy? Ban them? Never discuss them again? Ridicule them publicly?
This is from Christianity Today:
Stratford eventually became a Christian and met Johanna Michaelsen, who wrote about her own past involvement in the occult in The Beautiful Side of Evil, published by Harvest House.
It turns out that discredited Lauren Stratford met with Michaelsen. Wow, they met each other! That’s really damning, woudln’t you say? Oh, and they shared the same publisher? Throw her in prison!
Remember that Wikipedia article you cited, where it says…
While living with Michaelsen, Willson falsely claimed to have given birth to three children as a result of rape; two were allegedly killed in snuff films, and the third was supposedly sacrificed in her presence at a Satanic ritual.[8]
I checked that source, because that’s what I do. And wouldn’t you know, it’s the same source that you cited. Do you know what’s missing from that article? Any reference at all to Johanna Michaelsen. As I found when I wrote “The Icons of Feminism,” citations on Wikipedia are often (usually?) outright fraudulent. But you copied the source and didn’t even read it.
Your citations are garbage, and your attempt to slander another person doesn’t even hold up to the most basic standards of evidence. You should be ashamed of yourself.
“Some allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifice, pornography, and prostitution.”
This is from the Wikipedia article on the Satanic Panic.
Do you know what’s happened since the 1982, when Johanna published her book? The elites in Hollywood, mass media, and in various governments worldwide made strong attempts to expand human sacrifice (abortion and euthanasia) and sexual abominations (including AI child pornography, prostitution, protecting pedophiles, and defending grooming gangs). Human trafficking is a worldwide problem.
Based on Wikipedia, the worst thing you can say about the Satanic Panic is that it underestimated the scope of the problem by, in part, misattributing its source.
Answer me this: if my children from China, with their physical disabilities, had not been adopted, what would have happened to them when they reached their age of majority?
Isn’t it curious how none of Jeffrey Epstein’s clients have ever even been charged, let alone convicted?
But, you go on about how there isn’t an “open conspiracy” of secular globalists. Maybe, while you are at it, you can explain the coordinated globalist covid-19 response. Will you gaslight me and tell me that I imagined that too?
———————————————–
If saying that is leftist propaganda, then so be it.
If you are repeating lies, “then so be it?!” I wish you were joking.
Four times now I have reprimanded you for making unsubstantiated claims. Once you blatantly plagiarized a source, stealing others words as their own. You’ve even failed to check the sources you cite to see if they actually say what you claim. You’ve engaged in fallacious reasoning. Multiple times you’ve made sweeping historical claims that turn out to be false on inspection. You’ve made a habit of slandering people rather than addressing their ideas.
I suggest that you stop commenting on the internet for a while and and take some time off to engage in deep introspective contemplation. Your primary purpose right now appears to be a warning for others on who not to emulate.
Update from a supposedly non-weird nor creepy ”redpilled” BUT very humble & modest
tradcon prophet:
Sharkly says:
8 August, 2024 at 2:05 pm
Remember when Sharkly preemptively called this exact propaganda out? Saying that the Democrat/media’s “weird” propaganda agenda basically meant “creepy” too? Designed to convince women that ”redpilled” tradconnic republicans are considered icky?
calling a male “weird” or “creepy” is a carefully targeted way of decreasing their sexual attraction for female voters so WE can’t reverse course, bring Da Lawd back to America, and return to Da good ole days of women’s sports and lowww… divorce rates too ladz.
Sharkly says:
8 August, 2024 at 2:18 pm
I don’t claim to be a prophet. Sometimes it just seems like I have supernatural abilities because I’m tradconnic red-pilled and can figured out the dark side’s evil schemes before they finish them so that I can saveth everyone & bring heaventh on earthth dudes!
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I dont know about Ed. My only interaction with him was telling me in once comment section (paraphrasing)
“a sign of mature man is knowing what plans God has for him” inferring that I was “immature”
Basically it comes of as: “stay in your lane / status / dominion until ‘God’ tells you otherwise, and if he does tell you, get approval from men like me first, and then we will ask your credentials, question your faith, and how much / how long you have been a christian, and if your church / doctrines match or line up with what we have deemed truth”
I mean, really? I once asked a woman out in my church. Prayed on it for weeks. Listened to all these *bold* men in the sphere about “approaching women” and yes, I believe I got a comforting of the Holy Ghost to indeed ask her. Well, she said no. Fine. So did God lie? So did God expect me to wait longer? Was I supposed to go to the tribunal of “prophets” and get their input first?
This can *freeze* many a man (and it does) because anything they do in this faith isnt “right” or “done properly” and then their Game / frame and other worldly trapping they throw into the mix.
Men are leaving the church and the faith. Their answers are “well, they are blue pilled / didnt want to put in the work / didnt stay in their lane, using god as a candy vending machine……”
and then throwing genetics and tests and foolproof personality traits determined at birth, that cannot NEVER be changed.
This new, newer embodiment of “masculine christianity” is hopeless for most men. Just sit in church and listen. Dont do anything. Stay in that lane. Be stuck. There is nothing you can do….and do stuff only with OUR approval. Just believe. When you die, you will be in heaven praising Jesus for eternity and we will be all equal then….
Hence why prophecy is confusing, dead in this faith and evidently for the elect / elite / good looking / high IQ men….and again, they seem to have all the gifts that Paul speaks of.
If this is indeed true, the world should be turned upside down like in the time of Acts.
When this faith can actually demonstrate the passion, love, HOPE and rebirth in Christ in THIS world, I would consider fellowship with men and women like this. Even Jesus when instructing his disciples on “how” to pray the line “thy will be on done on earth as it is in heaven” seems to be forgotten. Also, how come the disciples didnt know how to pray properly already???? These men are worthless by the ‘standard’ the sphere has today for us mere men! (sarcasm on that last statement)
I still read the Bible and I try to ignore who says what about what translation and what word really means what in what language and if its ealy Greek or 1st century Hebrew or whatever. If we cannot agree on anything, then the whole Bible means nothing…and the sphere seems to want it that way from my observations.
Great, Ed is a prophet or has that gift. He still has to submit to the cross and has sin and needs to repent and forgive like the rest of us supposedly have to do. A prophet or the gift of prophecy doesnt equal “Sainthood” or “infallible”
Recall the list of mystics that Jack shared: Francis Berger, Bruce Charlton, Ed Hurst, and Catacomb Resident. Jack wrote:
“These men are welcome to judge my writings in the Spirit, and I will seriously consider their feedback to the point of revising my statements.”
Back in 2016, in one of my earliests posts here, I read and discussed the book “Meeting the Masters: A Spiritual Apprenticeship” by William Wildblood.
Who is William Wildblood?
First, he is a friend of both Berger and Charlton. They often positively interact with each other on their respective blogs. We’ll discuss this more in a bit.
Second, he is a mystic who wrote about his interactions with spiritual beings who he calls “the masters.” Wildblood claimed that these beings, the “masters,” were working in conjunction with Christ. Naturally there is no way to prove or disprove such things, as these kinds of mystical experiences are inherently subjective and personal.
So at the time, rather than assert that he was visited by demons, I wrote the following analysis instead:
William Wildblood suggests that ultimately one has to rely on “intuition” to separate fact from fiction and that rational thought, which has its place, is ultimately in the lesser physical plane of existence. This minimization of rational thought is incredibly dangerous. We must use reason to separate fact from fiction.
Does this sound familiar? It should. This view is precisely what Radix Fidem (Ed Hurst and Catacomb Resident) believe, and my response to that is the same. Radix Fidem is keen to call the mind (and the application of reason) as fallen and corrupted. It prefers purely spiritual revelation from “the holy spirit.” This is very similar to Wildblood’s “intuition” and Bruce Charlton’s “direct knowing.”
Jack is associating himself with mystics because he is one himself:
It helps to recognize that truth (re: a prophecy being true) is not propositional (which is positivistic) but sentient (which is mystical).
All of these men share this rejection of the mind in common. All these men acknowledge the reality of the non-physical spiritual supernatural as a means of communication or information, and do so by deemphasizing the application of the mind. None of this is a mistake. It is part of the deception.
When I watched the testimony of Johanna Michaelsen here, the way she described her spirit guides was precisely the same as Wildblood described his. It was eerily similar. Michaelsen’s guides were demonic. When her “Jesus” spirit-guide was tested, he failed validation. By contrast, Wildblood never applied the biblical test.
Last year I wrote an article on Roman Catholic John C. Wright here where I recounted how he was visited by the spirits of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Virgin Mary. When ‘Jesus’ quoted scripture, Wright understood that to be confirmation of the legitimacy of the spirit. Wright never applied the biblical test to his demonic visitors. And for those who don’t know, Roman Catholicism embraces the visitations of Mary, having authenticated many instances. Very few of the apparitians of Mary have ever been tested. Roman Catholics cannot accept that they follow demons, and so don’t even check. The only one I am aware of that was actually tested failed the test.
When I wrote on the Eucharist, Bardely’s the Magnificent accepted that the Eucharistic Miracles were real, but took issue when I pointed out that they were demonic in origin. He no longer comments here.
Last year, Gunner Q wrote an article here furiously excoriating Wildblood’s experience as being demonic. This created a set of meta-discussion by Wildblood, Berger, and Charlton, who all (naturally) disagreed with Gunner Q.
One of the themes of this blog is acknowledgment that the spiritual is real and that God communicates with us through the Spirit directly and through those who posess the gift of prophecy. But I also acknowledge that God created the mind and instructed us to use it (as I said here). What most of these mystics have in common is an abandonment of reason, in one form or another. So on one hand you have mystics who emphasize a purely mystical approach. Then, on the other hand, you have the modern church which abandons all forms of mystic revelation. Neither of these are correct, and it is a large part of why both are inherently diseased, just for different reasons.
You find prophecy confusing because the mystics are following demons and the church has rejected legitimate mysticism completely. You’ve never seen what prophecy in the church is supposed to look like, because it is so incredibly rare. All you’ve ever seen are bits and pieces of it. When you observe…
…you are describing a state where prophecy exists—because people have the gift of prophecy—but God’s truth only gets out in fits-and-spurts because the church, more-or-less, does not cultivate the gift of prophecy.
Ed Hurst is a prophet. He has that gift. But like Johanna Michaelsen, William Wildblood, John C. Wright, and others, he is receiving revelation, but it isn’t from God. He is deceived, and that’s plain to see by applying the test of scripture to what he has said. It’s why he is involved in a cult and why his followers (like the one I cited) blindly follow him in ignorance of scriptural precepts. Ungrounded mysticism breeds cultic thinking.
Ed Hurst is a prophet. He has that gift. But he isn’t using it correctly, because he is applying his mind to reject the mind: he is not subjecting his prophetic utterances to a thorough examination by the church. Oscar has taken issue with him because his prophecies have failed to come true. Hurst is, demonstrably, not using his gift in the service of Christ. He is deceived.
It is interesting that when Jesus was asked what the sign of his coming and the end of the age would be…
And as he was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and end of the age?” And Jesus answered and said to them, “Watch out, so that no one leads you astray, because many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Messiah,’ and will mislead many.
And many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.
because false Messiahs and false prophets will arise and will perform great signs and wonders in order to lead astray, if possible, even the chosen.
Pay attention! I have told you beforehand.
…the he said and repeated that deception would come from false Christs and false prophets. Are you suprised, then, by how many of these mystics have experienced “Christ” directly, failed to test those spirits, and consequently taught what was contradicted by scripture? Now you know why I spend so much time warning people about these men. For Jesus and the Apostles, being deceived by false prophets was, arguably, the biggest threat to Christianity.
Interestingly, Malcom Reynolds thinks that all of this is “Satanic Panic.”
The great deception started happening as soon as Jesus ascended to heaven, but it centered in the late 4th-century. Modern Christians think it hasn’t started yet, or else is just beginning. The church has been deceived for centuries. Jesus warned the church, and the collective response was…
“We are safe followers of Christ. We are covered. Whoever is deceived, it won’t be us.”
This is why Jack, Catacomb Resident, and Ed Hurst keep talking about “covering.” They presume, by being part of a fuedal collective, that they are protected from the very deception they have succumbed to. Why? Because they’ve invented a “protection” that isn’t contained in scripture.
Scripture calls all the acts of occult practice abominations:
There is not to be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, who practices divination, who tells fortunes, or interprets omens, or practices sorcery, or one who casts spells, or one who inquires of spirits or of a familiar spirit, or a necromancer.
Scripture condemns these. A few days ago, Catacomb Resident promoted divination here and here. He wants you to believe that the Bible didn’t condemn them. Why do you think Ed Hurst recently mocked those who believe that the Bible is the Word of God, writing that the Person of Christ (as mystically revealed through the spirit) is the message, not scripture. Doesn’t that sound almost correct? If you are unfamiliar with the words of Christ, you might buy into that lie which the words of Jesus himself explicitly contradict.
Many hide divination under “the gift of prophecy” into a demonic counterfeit. It is no wonder you have trouble identifying it. The deception is massive.
The methods for achieving mystical/spiritual revelation from “The Unseen Realm?” That’s what Deuteronomy means by the practice of sorcery.
As for child sacrifice, abortion has been the leading non-natural cause of death in humans for decades.
Lastmod,
You may find it interesting that Paul considered the gospel to be simple and contrasted the deceptive words of false christs, false prophets, and false gospels with this simplicity.
Food for thought.
—————————————————————————————
Also interesting, John C. Wright defends Roman Catholicism’s extreme complexity by claiming that all heretics simplify the gospel:
“One is so be surprised that so many modern opinions are so ancient, and be unimpressed with reopening a case that was long ago decided. [..] Heresies are always simplifying a subtle or complex idea, and therefore robbing it of life and energy.”
Convenient how anything that’s not as complex and laden with rules and regulations as Roman Catholicism is a heresy. Don’t you know that if your Christ’s doctrine it isn’t subtle or complex, then it has no life and energy?
Peace,
DR
“The great deception started happening as soon as Jesus ascended to heaven, but it centered in the late 4th-century. Modern Christians think it hasn’t started yet, or else is just beginning. The church has been deceived for centuries.”
That’s an excellent summary. I wonder what flaw of reason has you still submitting yourself to those whom you know have stayed in a fog of deceit for centuries. By whose power are those deceived ones reigning over you? Is it not by your own choice to submit yourself to, and follow, their apostate religious order, thereby bestowing it with your own approval by your association?
* Note: My rhetorical comment here does not constitute any endorsement of anybody, or this site, nor indicate any desire to converse here.
This is ironic. This is probably the most insightful comment you’ve ever made on this site.
Now this is not surprising ”jack” telling us the solution to ‘s*x probs’ in ‘marriage’ is ‘wives’needing to repent cuz some gamma grifter named last said so?
Jack says:
2024-08-09 at 10:47 am
The epidemic of dead bedrooms is a direct consequence of these same women riding the carousel for a decade before ‘settling’ into what is called ‘marriage’.
In fact, anytime there are marriage problems, those who are wise know this is the cause. These problems cannot be solved unless the wife repents.
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Info says:
2024-08-09 at 10:14 pm
True also. Only so much we can do. Likewise his advice has helped every man he has counseled it looks like.
Of course the legal and Judicial Fronts is needed too. Power from above and power on a personal level.
Joe2 says:
2024-08-11 at 10:03 pm
And what are the “Six (not so) Easy Steps” he mentions? I couldn’t find them on “X” It seems Reforged Marriage and the ten men he’s looking for might be an opportunity to sell some type of program.
IOW?Radix fidem cultist ”Jack” doesn’t believe in game nor its offspring the ”redpill”s power to improve MENZ so he hates DAL? as he fully believed in their power just as he did in
Roissys game & GBFMS wisdom, NO WONDER ”Sparkly” said this at ”jacks” recently also:”* Note: My non-helpful SJW hypocritical rhetorical comment here does not constitute any endorsement of anybody other than standard NPC ”red pill” hypocrite tradcon SJW foolz, or this newly radix fidem cult site, nor indicate any desire to converse here w/o heavily sodomizing myself first while taking ”full” ”personal responsibility ”with at least one of my well-known to non-common sense but real tarded ”red pill” tradcon NPC bot ”leaders” ”jack” &” bgr=larry solomon=matt perkins” sodomite /gomorrahite hands dudes.”
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