The Manifested Sons of God, The New Apostolic Reformation and Dark Political Visions

 

by Viola Larson

When words such as suffering, cross bearing, humility, repentance and forgiveness are spoken the Christian generally feels drawn into a familiar circle. It is a hard circle, but full of the warmth, compassion and love of Jesus. It is rarely full of glory or worldly victory or great prosperity, it may be full of sorrow and even despair. But Jesus, He remains within the circle.

This article is about a festering “Christian” movement preparing to bypass the cross and insisting on glory, worldly victory and great prosperity. I am returning to issues I have written about in the past, over thirty years ago. Then it was family and church members entering my office with tapes and booklets asking me to review them and explain what their family or friend was involved in. Now it is a movement turning political and dangerous, marrying the Christian name to ideas of vengeful violence.

Years ago writing about two heretical religious movements I saw they were so connected that I could see them merging into one large movement. One group was Christian Identity, a movement of anti-Semites who believed that most white people were descended from ancient Israel, and that the actual Jews were the literal children of Satan.

The other group, often referred to as the Manifested Sons of God, believe they will overcome and destroy evil and even death before the return of Jesus; these two groups were so mixed that I eventually wrote a paper on the Manifested Sons of God which contained quotes from both groups. And then I focused on the racist group and wrote Christian Identity: A “Christian” Religion for White Racist.

Recently I read three books on the New Apostolic Reformation, a movement that contains adherents to the Manifested Sons of God teaching. All of the books are written by Holly Pivec and R. Douglas Geivett.  The books are: Counterfeit Kingdom: The Dangers of New Revelation, New Prophets, and New Age Practices in the Church; A New Apostolic Reformation?: A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement; and God’s Super Apostles: Encountering the Worldwide Prophets and Apostles Movement. The books reminded me of my past papers on the Restoration Movement and The Manifested Sons of God.

The movements I wrote about were the very early beginnings of the movements Pivec and Geivett have written about. Their information is excellent. They not only write about the heretical ideas but analyze them from a strong biblical point of view.

Recently I wrote about Clay Clark, Michael Flynn and Scott McKay who are part of the far right and hold many conspiracy views.[1] They all, along with others such as Julie Green who is considered a prophet and Eric Trump the son of past president Donald Trump, are a part of Clay Clark’s The Reawaken America Tour, and many have connections to the New Apostolic Reformation. While pastors and writers such as Lance Wallnau and Eric Metaxas may not have attended the tour they have interacted with and interviewed many participants including Clay Clark. The movement’s connections are growing within the far right political groups.                                

Among many of them one hears that God isn’t ready for the tribulation so Christians must fight against the so-called globalists, Marxists and Democrats in order to delay it. From Eric Metaxas [2]one hears that if Christians don’t fall in line, obeying the political ideology pushed by the far right, a greater evil than the Holocaust will happen. Pastor Michael Petro a Manifested Sons of God teacher suggests to Bo Polny, his video guest, that the early church taught that God would “pull a remnant out of the church then God will cloth them in the glory that Adam lost and they will pull the greatest revival that’s ever been seen.” Polny agrees with him.[3]

In their speeches and sermons atonement is rarely mentioned but when it is, it is sadly connected to political salvation. God is going to help Christians overcome and rule the nations by destroying their enemies. In a slide show Bo Polny, one of the supposed prophets, is predicting what he calls the Haman effect, a televised hanging of the movement’s enemies.[4] Some are predicting a catastrophe with banks and financial institutions in many countries failing and most wealth, meaning all gold, silver and real-estate, falling into the hands of the Christians who belong to this movement. And some antisemitism is connected to this particular prediction since several refer to the banks as controlled by the “Khazarian Mafia” which is simply a name taken from a Baltic tribe that converted to Judaism and is mythicized by several members of The Reawaken America Tour into evil conspirators.

There are two ways open to followers of Jesus in this moment. One is biblical consisting of both quietness in lifestyle (1Thess 4:11) and courage in confession. The other comes from the father of lies and lifts up sensuality, pride, a security that is tied to human strife and manipulation. Some theologians refer to the two as the difference between a theology of glory and a theology of the cross.[5] The first seeks constant victory, material blessings and supernatural events; the other clings to Jesus, accepting a cross that mirrors His.

The first doesn’t begin erroneous, it begins with the truthful understanding that God is the creator who is powerful. (Rom. 1:19-20) But the kindness and compassion of God understood in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus is not known by simply finding God in creation. God’s revelation in scripture is Jesus Christ and God’s gift through Him of forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. While many in the NAR movement and those on the extreme right speak of God, even Jesus and salvation, they focus, as I have noted, on God’s power, vengeance and His material blessings. They see supernatural signs as proof of their own righteousness and correctness predicting a great revival when people see how the world’s wealth has fallen into their hands.

The second way Christians are called in this moment, and that by the Holy Spirit, is the way of the cross. We are called to live a life that is often full of suffering. We are called to live our life in quietness, confident only in the knowledge of our relationship to our Lord and our hope in the resurrection.

And we are called to make our confession to others including both the far left and the far right.  

Lance Wallnau, one of the New Apostolic Reformation leaders, teaches there is a difference between the Jesus who came to suffer for our sins and the end times Jesus; not in his person but in his attitudes and function. Wallnau sees the first as the compassionate Christ and the end times Jesus as the vengeful warrior. But Jesus does not change, As Hebrews states He is “the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8).” He is always the compassionate Lord and He is always the ruling King.

The problem with Wallnau’s teaching about Jesus coming back as a wrathful warrior is not this image, but rather his teaching that Christians must now become more like the end times Jesus in their ministry seeking power in the various cultural vocations including government and education. But rather Jesus called His followers, before His return, to abide in Him, to make disciples, to pray for rulers and individuals, to pray for deliverance from human evil and immorality, to care for those in need. We are not called to seek power, position or wealth in his name.

Yes, Christians have vocations in this world, doctors, teachers, senators, home keepers to name a few, but those vocations are not meant to be political attempts to defeat enemies.  

This festering movement consisting of heretical pastors, so called prophets and apostles, political extremists and the people they are seducing may in the end scatter, find darker visions and fade into nothingness. Or they may become connected to an elected leader and believe they are fulfilling their own prophecies. They may even attempt to fulfill their darker violent visions. Prayers for them and their followers. Prayers for the Church.

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence (1 Peter 4:15).

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[1] Naming His Grace: Clay Clark, Michael Flynn and Scott McKay: the Wolf cometh

[2] Naming His Grace: Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas: An attack on "Faith Alone": a book review by Viola Larson

[3] 'Sudden' Worldwide DEATHS in 24-Hours! Bo Polny, Michael Petro - YouTube

[4] GOD WINS, 45 RETURNS, HAMAN EFFECT, to be "SEEN ON TV"! Julie Green, Bo Polny - YouTube

[5] Gene Edward Veith Jr.. The Spirituality of the Cross, (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2011); New Dictionary of Theology, Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, Editors, J.I. Packer, Consulting Editor, The Theology of the Cross, R.J. Bauckham. (Downers Grove: intervarsity Press: 1988).

 

Letter to the American Church by Eric Metaxas: An attack on "Faith Alone": a book review by Viola Larson

 

Sometime around 2011, 2012, my husband and I were boarding a plane on our way to a Presbyterian renewal meeting. It was an event meant to discuss forming a new Presbyterian denomination.  We discovered that many other Presbyterians were also boarding and many of them were carrying a book by Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Some of us sensed renewal and courage in the book. I even used some thoughts out of the book to blog about the politics of 2016, Donald Trump, allowing himself to be an idol: playing with the Führer Principle not realizing that Metaxas evolving politically and religiously would, over the years, severely disagree with my posting.

Recently someone sent me a link to Metaxas speaking as a guest on James Robison’s show The Stream.[1] He was being interviewed by Robison about his new book Letter to the American Church. Metaxas has been interviewed by many evangelical pastors and has spoken at many evangelical churches about his book. Many will hear only his warning about their silence on abortion, transgenderism and same sex marriage, issues that are troubling evangelical and orthodox Christians. They may not hear his underlying attempts at justifying ultra conservative politics over the proclamation of the gospel. Many will not understand or realize that Metaxas is, probably unintentionally, attacking their faith and their vocation.

Metaxas is using Bonhoeffer, the church in Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to warn the American Church that if they are silent they will be the cause of an event worse than the Holocaust. In his interview with Robison he insists that the warnings are not his but God’s. Metaxas states:

“Of course it’s not me talking when you title a book Letter to the American Church I’m not arrogant enough to think that this is a letter from Eric Metaxas to the amer… this is in the tradition of letters to the Philippians. … You know you want to write exactly what you think the Lord is saying”

 Metaxas goes on to say, “what I believe the Lord is trying to say in this book is exactly what he said through Bonhoeffer to the German Church which they did not listen to.” He goes on to portray Bonhoeffer as the prophet that the church in Germany did not listen to and he blames most of the church in Germany for causing the Holocaust.

I see four problems with Letter to the American Church. First, although Metaxas does not, in his book, claim it is God’s word to the American church, still he has done so in public. But only Scripture is God’s word to the Church.  

Second, Metaxas lays out a simplistic history of the church in Nazi Germany and uses it to hold the American Church accountable for a future social disaster that is greater than the Holocaust. Third, Metaxas’ goes beyond concerns of orthodox Christians and includes what he refers to as globalism, which has nothing to do with biblical principles and is generally part of the debate about nationalism and isolationism.  It is a very political term. Fourth, and I believe this is the most troubling problem, Metaxas plays with biblical doctrine attempting to water down such teaching as salvation by faith alone and evangelizing/preaching the gospel, in order to emphasize the church’s need to be political.

Of the German church Metaxas does write in chapter five of the difference between the Confessing Church pastors and the German Christians but he only refers by name to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Niemoller and Karl Barth. Metaxas writes of the drafting of the Barmen Declaration, declaring “It essentially said that the German state must not and could not co-opt the Church, that the sanctity and separation of the Church from the state must be clear.”[2] Yet the Barmen Declaration said so much more, it begins with the essential truth of the Church, it begins with the Gospel, the word of God.

…1. I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (John14:6) “Truly, truly I say unto you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber … I am the door; if anyone enters by me, he will be saved.” (John 10:1,9.)

Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and obey in life and in death.

We reject the false doctrine, as through the Church could and would have to acknowledge as a source of its proclamation, apart from and besides this one Word of God, still other events and powers, figures and truths as God’s revelation.”[3]

Often, in Letter to the American Church, Metaxas is both outwardly and subtly pleading with the Church to fight its battles in the political arena more so than proclaiming: the gospel. He believes the Church must change its tactics because of the changing times. But Barmen places the Gospel as the priority of the Church. Karl Barth, who Metaxas acknowledges and who is the main author of Barmen (Bonhoeffer was in London pastoring when the synod of Barmen was held) writes in his small booklet, Theological Existence Today:

Of course something has to be done; very much so; but most decidedly nothing other than this, viz. that the Church congregations be gathered together again, but aright and anew in fear and great joy, to the Word by means of the Word. All the crying over the Church will not deliver the Church. Where the Church is the Church she is already delivered. Let persecution be never so severe, it will not affect her! ‘Still’ it is said, ‘still, shall the City of God abide, lusty beside her tiny stream’ (Psalm xlvi. 5; Luther’s translation).[4]

Metaxas too often merges the two differing church groups, the German Christians and the Confessing Church, using them as straw men in order to make his point that the silence of the church in Germany was the cause of the Holocaust and that the Church in America might also become a cause of disaster. There was a group of churchmen, the German Christians, who sought to gain power, political power, by aligning with a tyrant, a madman who constantly sought power and lied about his intentions to protect the Christian faith. His religion was in a positive Christianity with no place for the Jesus of the cross. 

The German Christians did not cause the Holocaust but they did contribute to it by their political maneuvering and their unfaithfulness to the Lord of the Church, Jesus Christ. They too had no place for a suffering Savior.

There was a true Church, the Confessing Church, yes weak, and sometimes silent when they needed to speak out but nonetheless faithful to Christ holding to the teachings of the Word. Dean G. Stroud, editor of the book, Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow writes of the pastors preaching the gospel in such a way that Hitler and Nazism was confronted. He writes:

Compared to Christ how small Hitler appeared. Against the horrible distortion of words by Goebbels and his propaganda machine the Christian in the pulpit offered the truth of the gospel and the integrity of the “word made flesh.” In so doing certain themes stand out in these sermons of opposition: the authority of Jesus Christ; the sovereignty of God; both the Old and New Testaments as Holy Scripture; the purity of the church; the certainty of God’s judgement on Germany for immorality and for failure to love the neighbor, especially the Jewish brother and sister; the relevance of the gospel after the European Enlightenment and in spite of Nazi pseudoscience and paganism; and the gospel’ insistence that Christians must risk even their lives for the truth of Christianity. [5]

This leads to my biggest concern with Letter to the American Church. Metaxas plays with some basic biblical doctrines in an attempt to justify politics and advocacy over the preaching of the Gospel. Writing of Luther’s attempts at justification through his own works and his delight in the free gift of grace he found in Scripture, Metaxas states:

But in his understandably giddy joy, Luther may sometimes have gone a bit farther than necessary, or at least opened the door for others to do so. For example, when he translated Romans 3:28 from the original New Testament Greek into German, Luther added the single word “alone” to the following sentence: ‘For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from the law.’ Luther’s version was, ‘Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith alone without the deeds of the law.’ Luther felt the need to add that word to underscore what for him was essentially the central idea in the universe, and he may be forgiven for this. [6]

Metaxas in his attack goes on to write:

We might say that Luther had in his zeal made an idol of his idea of faith, so that the genuine faith to which God calls us was crowded out.[7]

Bringing this idea to the question of the Church in Germany during the Nazi years and the American Church today, Metaxas writes:

The phrase ‘faith alone’ had made the Christian faith so simple—and ultimately so thin and one-dimensional—that over time it was easily and blithely assented to by nearly everyone in the German nation, so that Bonhoeffer wrote about it in the Cost of Discipleship.[8]

However countering Metaxas’ opinions about Luther’s translation is information on the web site Reformation Room. Luther was not attempting to develop new doctrine but was concerned with translation. He was “simply striving to bring the precision of the Greek into the German.” And while it is mainly Roman Catholics who dispute his translation still many of them except it. For instance Timothy George, Associate Professor of historical theology and church history at the Southern Baptist theological Seminary in Louisville, author of Theology of the Reformers, places a note under his commentary on Luther’s use of faith alone:

 Luther did not of course invent this phrase. The German Bible published at Nurnberg in 1483 translated Galatians 2:16 as ‘gerechtfertigt … nur durch den Glauben.’ [justified by faith alone] Further the term sola fide was well established in the Catholic tradition having been used by Origen, Hilary, Chrysostom, Augustine, Bernard, Aquinas, and others but without Luther’s particular nuances.[9]

Going further Metaxas mentions that Bonhoeffer in his Cost of Discipleship wrote about Luther’s translation and its bad influence on the German population. But the truth is Bonhoeffer never accused Luther’s translation, nor joy in grace alone, of being the reason the German Christians became so lukewarm. He in fact uses Luther to refute their lazy discipleship.  Bonhoeffer writes:

When he spoke of grace, Luther always implied as a corollary that it cost him his own life, the life which was now for the first time subjected to the absolute obedience of Christ. Only so could he speak of grace. Luther had said that grace alone can save, his followers took up his doctrine and repeated it word for word. But left out the invariable corollary.  There was no need for Luther to always mention that corollary explicitly for he always spoke as one who had been led by grace to the strictest following of Christ.[10]

Metaxas believes he is calling the Church to a righteous cause. Yes, Christians and others must speak against the killing of the unborn, for the sacredness of marriage between man and \ woman and speak against the mutilation of the body in order to claim a new gender identity. But the calling of the Church is much deeper. It is not a call to politics but a call to the cross, to the suffering Savior—a call to the gospel. Faith is a gift that God gives through Jesus Christ. As Paul writes in Ephesians:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Eph. 2:8,9 NASB)

Even the good works we are called to are prepared by God so we fulfill His purposes as a gift.

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.(Eph. 10 NASB)

Rather than applauding Metaxas’ attack on “grace alone” the Church should be frightened at the possibility of a new, perhaps old, darkness entering the Church.

 

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[1] Let's Learn From the Silence of the German Church Before the Holocaust - YouTube

[2] Eric Metaxas, Letter to the American Church, (Salem Books: Washington D.C. 2022) 43.

[3] Arthur C. Cochrane, The Church’s Confession Under Hitler, appendix VII, ( Westminster: Philadelphia 1961) 239

[4] Karl Barth, Theological Existence To-Day: A plea for theological freedom, ( Hodder and Stoughton: London 1933) 77,78.

[5] Dean C Stroud, editor, Preaching in Hitler’s Shadow: Sermons of Resistance in the Third Reich, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids 2013) 48.

[6] Metaxas, Letter, 57,58.

[7] Ibid, Letter, 58.

[8] Ibid, 67.

[9] CF.Kling, pp 249-250, Timothy George, Theology of the Reformers, (Broadman Press:

Nashville 1988) 70-71.

[10] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship, (A Touchstone Book, Simon & Toronto: New York 1995) 40-50.

The Awful Lie-The Ukrainians are not Nazis, but Putin and Russian leadership should assume the title

 

Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch, in his article, “Is It Okay To Use the ‘G-Word’?” linked to a horrific article written by a Russian propagandist and published in a Russian state-owned “news agency RIA Novosti (Russian: РИА Новости).” The article, “What should Russia do with Ukraine?” is posted in English at Medium.Com and introduced by Maria Kravchenko. Some of Kravchenko’s explanations are:

The author, a Russian political technologist, also has the audacity to talk about the Soviet occupation of Ukraine. He is trying to support Putin’s narrative about Ukraine as an artificial country. Instead, the world should remember that the Soviet Union terrorized Ukraine for almost a century with forced collectivization, Great Purge, Terror-Famine (Holodomor), forced deportation, etc.
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In this article, the author is describing ways how Russians want to wipe out Ukraine in the same way the Soviet regime did it.”

All of the article is a lie and is a design for murdering, imprisoning and destroying Ukraine and its people. Kravchenko pleads:

It’s important to spread this article. The Russian war should be stopped now. It was supposed to be stopped 8 years ago when it only began. 71% of Russians feel proud about this war. 75.5% of Russians approve of the idea of a military invasion of the next country and believe that it should be Poland. According to respondents, this is a logical continuation of the so-called “military special operation of the Russian Federation”.
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The world should be aware of Russian methods, crimes, and plans. Putin will not stop until he is stopped.

Also Timothy Snyder, a historian and professor at Yale and author of many books on authoritarian nations including, Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin has referred to the article on Twitter writing, “An article in the official state Russian news agency RIA Novosti advocates the elimination of the Ukrainian people as such. The text is so despicable that I’m not going to link to it. Will write about it later.”

Hopefully he will write about it soon.

The article claiming most of Ukraine is Nazified attempts to purify Putin’s actions but in reality reveals an ideology that shows that the leadership of Russia is truly copying Nazi Germany. Some of the statements remind the reader of Hitler’s final solution of the Jewish people only now it is about the Ukrainian people.

For instance, “Apparently, the name “Ukraine” cannot be kept as a title of any fully denazified state entity on the territory liberated from the Nazi regime.”

And, “Unlike, for example, Georgia or the Baltic States, history has proved it impossible for Ukraine to exist as a nation-state, and any attempts to “build” such a nation-state naturally lead to Nazism. Ukrainism is an artificial anti-Russian construct that has no civilizational substance of its own, a subordinate element of an extraneous and alien civilization.”

 

Also: “Denazification as a goal of the special military operation within the limits of the operation itself means a military victory over the Kyiv regime, the liberation of the territories from the armed supporters of nazification, the elimination of hard-line Nazis, the imprisonment of war criminals, and the creating of systemic conditions for further denazification in peacetime.”

 

And: “— The seizure of educational materials and the prohibition of educational programs at all levels that contain Nazi ideological guidelines;

— Mass investigations aimed to establish personal responsibility for war crimes, crimes against humanity, the spread of Nazi ideology, and support for the Nazi regime;

— Lustration, making the names of accomplices of the Nazi regime public, involving them in forced labor to restore the destroyed infrastructure as punishment for Nazi activities (from among those who have not become subject to the death penalty or imprisonment);”

Remember every time the term Nazification or Nazi is used in this article it is a lie, an evil misuse of language in order to destroy a people. It is meant to allow Putin and the Russian Government to slander, kill, maim and destroy in the name of some kind of supposedly righteous angel who is in reality a demon from hell. An anti-Christ in words and actions.

All of those on the far right, the Christians on the far right, who are glorifying Putin or anyone who agrees with him are reminiscent of the German Christians during Hitler’s time who were willing to send Jews, socialists, the disabled and yes, even Confessing pastors to concentration camps and death chambers.

We cannot promote conspiracies and still be prepared to speak of the one who is Truth.

 

Grief keeps following me—it seems that the past keeps unraveling—but God surely knows—His ways are not in darkness.

I have written before about a time, when working in apologetics and new religions ministry I watched various apologetics groups around me fall into troubling ways of doing ministry. One group, in Berkeley, started using conspiracy theories even anti-Semitic theories. Jesus chased the money lenders out of the temple and they went out and became the international bankers they wrote. Another apologetic group tried to solve heresy problems by attempting to cast demons out of Christians a heresy itself. The Holy Spirit does not dwell where demons dwell and one is not a Christian without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Now I am grieving over another ministry group as I watch them go down the broken road of conspiracies and radical ideas. This is a ministry I have loved and respected. I had taught workshops alongside them and used the materials they sent about worldviews,  but now …. The head of their ministry, Rich Poll, wrote in an e-mail sent August 12, “My wife Pam and I began the ministry of Apologia in 1995. Since then, our work has had a growing focus of tracking the worldview/ideology/human rights connection. It began with worldview alone, but lately the rest has become ever more urgent.” But what is the rest?

There are three items in the e-mail and two are very troubling. Poll quoted an e-mail his wife had sent out, “I've been researching election fraud since last Nov and what I've discovered is that, according to physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, and cyber security experts, the voting machines used in the USA are totally unsecured and easily hacked. Several of these experts have proven the machines are controlled by algorithms and hackers.” She goes on to write about an event which will supposedly prove the truth of election fraud. She writes:

There's a big event happening this week called a Cyber Symposium which will be streaming all day and night this Tues Wed and Thursday on www.frankspeech.com. A group of white hat hackers recorded the Packet Captures for the entire Nov 2020 election which means they can prove what exactly happened in the voting machines — if they were hacked and if votes were changed. [If you click on any of the links in the e-mail you will reach “Frank” a new platform promoted by Mike Lindell. You have to join to hear anything. I have not joined.]

This is about Mike Lindell’s insistence that the 2020 election was stolen by China. If you are interested in the truth about Packet Captures and Lindell’s films there is an excellent article on The Dispatch site, Fact Checking ‘Absolutely 9-0,’ the Latest Documentary From Mike Lindell. However you also need to subscribe to The Dispatch to read the information. There is a great deal of detail in the article but I will try to cover a few points here.

The article simply details the impossibility of Lindell being able to see what he claims to see. Khava Himmelman, author of the article writes:

 Kevin Skoglund, president and chief technologist of Citizens for Better Elections, a nonpartisan nonprofit described as being “dedicated to promoting election security and efficiency in Pennsylvania,” explained in an interview with The Dispatch Fact Check that PCAP, or packet capture, is a standard networking way that you can view traffic over the internet. “Traffic over the internet is sent as packets of information,” he said. “They aren’t encrypted, necessarily, but they are encoded, because they don’t need to be human-readable while they’re in transit.”

Further into the article Himmelman quotes “Douglas Jones, an associate professor of computer science” writing:

Jones also noted why it would be so difficult to access this information. Jones mentioned that Lindell is claiming that his PCAPs show exactly how many votes were stolen through these internet transactions, but his evidence doesn’t hold up. “The only way to capture packets addressed to and from all those different election offices around the country would be to have the resources of the NSA [the National Security Agency],” he said. “That is, if his data is real and not entirely fictional, the only source would be someone inside the NSA providing it. This would be a felony violation of U.S. law—actually a compound felony.”

Himmelman continues:

Jones also pointed out a number of flaws with Lindell’s supposed PCAP evidence. “He claims to not only know who sent and who received the packets, but also what those packets meant,” said Jones. “That means that his source has decrypted the traffic. Modern cryptography is really strong. The NSA and the FBI have a very hard time breaking codes used routinely for such things as encrypted email and web service.”

Additionally, as Jones points out, Lindell says that in certain cases, PCAPs show evidence of specific numbers of votes stolen. “That requires understanding the mechanism of vote theft,” he said. “It's very hard for me to imagine a message, in a single packet, saying ‘steal 10 votes from Trump.’

There is reference to another film, The Deep Rig produced by Patrick Byrne, also insisting the election was fraudulent.

The other item in the e-mail that troubled me was connected to the pandemic we are all experiencing. Once again Pam Poll is quoted:

I believe this authoritarian control is the ultimate goal of the perpetrators of the Covid virus. Vaccine passports are now required to function in Israel. Even though the vaccines have failed to protect people from the latest mutation (driven by the vaccines), they are still forcing people to get injected regardless of millions of adverse reactions worldwide including death. Hard to understand such evil would take place an (sic) a country that was founded by Nazi survivors. Pray we can resist Vaccine Passports here.

Clearly there are several problems here including the assumption that there were perpetrators who sought authoritarian control, we don’t yet know how COVID-19 occurred, we may never know. The other problems—the idea that the vaccines have failed to protect from the latest mutations—that the latest mutation was driven by the vaccines—that there are “millions” of adverse reactions caused by the vaccines—that vaccine passports are evil.  There can of course be differences of opinion on the vaccine passports but when the opinion is based on conspiracies that is another matter. And this leads to my overall concerns.

The biblical picture of God and His rule is kindness, compassion, justice and truth. And those attributes go together. In fact, Jesus Christ, very God of very God, is Truth, is Life, is the Way. When I was still in the PCUSA our presbytery leader, upset at some words I had written on my blog, asked me to read I Corinthians 13 as part of our worship service and read it twice. I was fairly certain that he asked me to do the reading because he felt I needed to know more about love but before the day came he called and suggested I should probably only read it once. I told him no I would read it twice. Here is the reason why. The chapter explaining what love is and does states in verse six “Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth.”

We were concerned at the time with voting to retain the biblical view of marriage which is biblically between one man and one woman. We failed and many of us are no longer PCUSA. But now, for me, and hopefully for other Christians the issue is the Lordship of Jesus. We cannot promote conspiracies and still be prepared to speak of the one who is Truth. We cannot major in our own particular ideology over the truth of the triune God of the Bible. Our urgency, if we are faithful, whether apologist or simply follower of Jesus, must be to clear away the rubbish of false doctrine which includes conspiracies. It is to make the path clear so that others can freely rejoice in Truth as they submit to the Lordship of Christ.

 

Clay Clark, Michael Flynn and Scott McKay: the Wolf cometh

 

The Wolf cometh….

I have written in the past about Paul Schneider the first Protestant pastor to die at the hands of the Nazis. One of his many objections to the Nazis was their war against true Christianity, which included their paganism. In an earlier article I wrote, “Paul Schneider: A Chestnut Tree and the Confessing Church,” I began with:

Pastor Paul Schneider at the funeral of a child “denounced the web of pagan mythology that for political reasons was being superimposed upon the Christian concept of the hereafter.” He, like other members of the Confessing Churches had denounced the attempt by various groups and people in Germany to de-Christianize the churches.

I wrote that article with the progressive mainline churches in mind as the “German Christians” were both liberal and nationalist, fighting for the superiority of the Germanic race while attempting to reinterpret the Scriptures.  Now, thirteen years later, I am writing this with a far-right movement in mind. There are people who profess Christianity and yet cling to many of QAnon’s conspiracies without understanding the horrible faithlessness to Christ their commitment to QAnon entails. They are seemingly unaware of the true ideology many QAnon leaders hold.

I listened to a video of two of these leaders, Scott McKay and Michael Jaco, who were discussing their religious views while suggesting that the churches of today would be destroyed as their new utopia world is revealed. One of them begins the conversation by stating, “We determine what we want; our conscious thoughts create what we want.”

In the continuing conversation Scott McKay says:

Getting to the religious order Mike … here’s the thing what most people don’t understand is that a satanic order has had a massive influence on the Bible itself stripping out many books out of the Bible taking many things that are actually indicative of this realm of human consciousness, the Christ’s consciousness, God’s consciousness that you and I understand. A lot of people don’t. There was a time when I didn’t either … The satanic order has made our existence as spiritual beings, have muddied it so much that when this all comes down and the people are going to learn the truth of a lot of things they’ve thought about from the religious aspects of their lives this entire institution of religion which Christ was never a proponent of, neither is our Creator.

McKay adds, “We who have this consciousness of light rising …now that we know there’s going to be a hayside taken to the religious order to get them out of the way to learn the truth.”

Scott McKay is one of the fellows I have written about who is anti-Semitic since he imagines, what he calls the khazarian elite bankers, the khazarian Jews, as those who are controlling world events. As I pointed out in another article, McKay is attempting to portray the Jews of Europe, those who lost 6 million members to the Holocaust, those who were at the forefront of establishing the State of Israel, as fake Jews and evil conspirators.   

Now McKay’s thoughts and speech have and are being allowed at huge gatherings promoting conspiracies about the 2020 election and COVID. General Michael Flynn and Clay Clark, who endorses extreme conspiracies, are involved in what they are calling “The Reawaken America Tour.” McKay, who several months ago interviewed Clay Clark on his own Patriot Street Fighter YouTube video, is among the many speakers including Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Lin Wood, Mike Lindell, Clay Clark and several pastors. McKay’s speech is extremely troubling:

 Holding up the Tomahawk he sells and carries he states, “so for those we have to work on, because of my native heritage this tomahawk represents what we are going to offer these scumbags and these criminals, these politicians, these corrupt people. This is a peace pipe, this truly is a functional peace pipe and I’m going to get to the point, no we never smoked anything out of it yet—this is what we offer them if they put down their corrupt ways, leave power, leave office, and move on and give us our country back this is what they get. However if they chose to continue the corrupt ways the only thing left for them is the blade of war of we the people and that’s coming.” [The tomahawk comes apart and one end is a peace pipe.]

McKay begins talking about his internet programs and combines it with what he calls “spiritual ascension and human consciousness” and aims it at those he calls scumbags. Then he turns to the preachers. He harangues them:

You know what the problem is? We need the preachers and the pastors in the country to come on this battlefield, with my attitude, all over the country. I assure you if these guys came into the public forum of conversation with my attitude this thing would end fast believe me! Believe me, you have the pastors coming out in the country like it is the revolutionary war putting the Bible down, grabbing the musket heading out into the hills, packing gunpowder in that thing and start going into the fight, taking human life. If they would come at it from that perspective this thing collapses quickly, most of you know I attack the religious order every chance I get. Why? Because if they worked, if what they were doing was efficient, if that message was working this world wouldn’t have ascended into the satanic world it is.  

During McKay’s speech he refers to the small children who are supposedly being abused and their blood used as a restorative potion. This is the new blood libel not unlike the one told about the Jews in the medieval years, but now it is the Democrats, Hollywood, etc.    

 Paul Schneider, the first Protestant Martyr under the Nazis was beaten and then poisoned to death because he would not comply with Nazi ideals. Last night I watched the movie, A Hidden Life, about the Austrian Catholic farmer, Franz Jägerstättar, who was imprisoned, beaten and then beheaded simply because he would not take the vow to serve Hitler. Neither of these men were considered great in their communities. One a pastor the other a farmer, both husbands and fathers of several children, they understood both obedience to the ultimate authority, His word and their own conscience. They would not accept the lies and distortions of the Christian faith. They would not accept the slanders prevalent at the time, the slanders that cut away the humanity of innocent people. Their faith was centered absolutely in the cross, not guns or swords, no not even tomahawks. Their glory was the cross.

The one conference video I watched was filled with people cheering McKay on in his speech. Many of the speakers listed for that and other conferences are considered Christians, most undoubtedly charismatic and many part of what is called positive Christianity or “name it and claim it” Christianity. They have forgotten the cross, their calling.

The efficient work, the efficient message of the pastor, the preacher, the elder, is Jesus Christ crucified. Lord lead us back to the cross—make the cross central to our lives—it is our true calling.

Khazarian Mafia- the final conspiracy theory that opens the door to hell

 

If the darkness of conspiracy telling had ended with the 2020 election truth might have better entered the broken corners of America.  But there are thousands of listeners on YouTube, and the more radical places on the internet, being led on a bizarre journey which is troubling, frightening and evil. Led by numerous so called warriors, prophets, political celebrities and the odd military retiree, with stories about the illuminati, tunnels six miles under the United States where children are tortured and their blood drained, aliens from other worlds and supposed top military personnel busy arresting Democrats and others—and then above all there are the Jewish people, the scapegoats of history. Yes, too many are descending into that deep abyss—Anti-Semitism. And they are taking thousands with them by twisting the truth.

One of the more popular personalities among these “warrior patriots” is Scott McKay[1]. In one video, joined by Mike Jaco & David Nino Rodriguez, McKay speaking of the cabal, a group QAnon adherents believes is controlling the world, states:

This Cabal is in a death spiral regardless of what people think because as you know I often for over a year now have been hammering away on this khazarian mafia. No one…in the past wants to come right out and name exactly what they are, the khazarian elite bankers, the khazarian Jews who aren’t even Jewish at all they’re Judaic by adoption of a religion but these people have never lost power [for] 1400 years and then what happens they lose power when Donald Trump is elected[2]

In another video McKay calls the Khazars, Satanist murders who “infiltrated every country,” continued “satanic ritual abuse murder,” infiltrated European banks and killed all of the royal families. inferring that the Windsor family of Britain are Khazars. In other words what McKay is implying is that the Jews who eventually found their homes in Europe, Britain, and eventually the United States, are not really Jews.[3] And remember these are the Jews who died in the Holocaust. They are mostly the Ashkenazim.

Scott McKay is not the only one touting the view that the Khazars have been ruling and manipulating the world through banks, politicians and governments. Many of his guests both on his show and on their own agree. But who are the Khazars and how are they connected to the Jewish people?

Harry Ostrer in his book Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, writes of the Khazars, “The Chozars (or Khazars) were a people of Central Asian Turkic origin who ruled a Jewish state between the Caucasus Mountains and the Volga River.” He goes on to explain:

In the middle of the eighth century, the Khazar king and aristocracy embraced Judaism. Ordinary Khazars retained their traditional beliefs and were eventually converted to Islam or Christianity. Around 965 c.e. the Russians overcame the Khazars destroying their capital and other cities.[4]

David B. Goldstein a professor of molecular genetics at Duke University, who with another genetics professor traced the genetic background of the Jewish name Cohen, which means priest, close to the time of Solomon’s temple, is interested in the Khazars and the possibility that they have contributed to the DNA of the Ashkenazim Jews.[5] That there once existed a kingdom that converted to Judaism is a point of pride to the Jewish people but so far this has not been proven genetically.  And although Goldstein sees at the moment no genetic link he and others see the possibility of linguistic links.

Kevin Alan Brook in his 2006 edition of The Jews of Khazaria, writing about the new revelations he has found since his first edition, states in his introduction:

… it has become clear that the Khazar ancestral component in Ashkenazic Jewry is not as large as we might have once imagined. Nevertheless the basic theory that I proposed in the first edition—that East European Jews descend from a mixture of Khazars, Slavs, Middle Eastern Jews, German Jews and Czech Jews—remains in accord with the known evidence, and we still see the East Slavic-speaking Jews who inhabited Kievan Rus’ and Lithuanian Grand Duchy as the missing link between the Turkic-speaking Khazars of the early medieval era and the Yiddish-speaking Jews of later times. We will also encounter confirmation that Ashkenazic Jews are closely related to Sephardic Jews, Italian Jews, Mountain Jews, and several other Jewish populations.[6]

What can be seem from all of these scholars is that the accounts of the Khazars and the Jews given by McKay and other anti-Semites is not historical. While there are links between the Khazars and the Jewish people there is no proof that the Jews of Europe became the manipulative “Khazarian Mafia” as McKay calls them. But his followers need to know that when he calls a group of people the Khazarian Mafia he is actually referring to a group of the Jewish people. And because he places them in Europe and then in Israel he is referring to those Jews who lost whole families in the Holocaust. To follow McKay is to follow a copy of an image from the Nazi era.

And to enlarge the image, make it stronger, most QAnon leaders sell things like hats and t-shirts and McKay does also but he also sells hatchets. Yes, real hatchets—ones with what he says is a peace pipe on the end—so offer peace but if not then the hatchet.[7]

How to put it plainly—the Jews are the Jews, all of them—they are God’s chosen people. Contrary to what some QAnon leaders say the “Kazarian Mafia” has not put false words in the Holy Bible. All of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, speaks of God’s redemption coming through the Jews. Jesus told the Samarian woman:

“You worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. (John 4:22)

 To continue days on end listening to these false prophets is to follow darkness into spiritual death. These wolves are attempting to point others toward their version of a utopia after supposedly top military officials will arrest all evil doers and jail or execute them.  Gone is any vision of a redeemed world—and a redeemed people. Instead laid out before their followers is hell.

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[1] While in the midst of this I saw his face appear in an NBC news story about how social media is dividing Americans. While I am sure they know he is QAnon I do not think they know everything he is teaching his listeners.

[2] Patriot Streetfighter 5/3/21 ROUNDTABLE with Michael Jaco & David Nino Rodriguez, Patriot Streetfighter 5/3/21 ROUNDTABLE with Michael Jaco & David Nino Rodriguez - YouTube

[3] PATRIOT STREETFIGHTERS 5/4/21 EXCLUSIVE TRUMP NEWS BREAKING - YouTube

 

[4] Harry Ostrer, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, (New York: Oxford University Press 2012) 24-27.

[5] David B. Goldstein, Jacob’s Legacy: A Genetic View of Jewish History, (New Haven & London, Yale University Press 2008) Chapter 1 & 71-74.

[6] Kevin Alan Brook, The Jews of Khazaria, second edition, ((Lanham, UK: Rowman & Littlefield 2006) Intro. Xii.

[7] Patriot Streetfighter Tomahawk - Q Army Shop (qgear.us)