The Wittenberg Door

1 March, 20221 March, 2022

A New Memorial Day

Today, March 1^st, is supposed to be a day of new freedoms in Ontario. These freedoms are being “given” by a government and bureaucracy that has no authority to give, let alone remove them, in the first place.

I propose that March first become a day of memory, a day to remember the loss of so much that will not soon be reclaimed. It should also be a day to remind those who did this to us:

The loss of faith to fear.
The loss of family
The loss of choice due to the loss of bodily autonomy
The loss of life to a treatable disease
The loss of life due to medical interventions that were inappropriate, unnecessary, and politically driven
The loss of life due to needlessly cancelled surgeries
The loss of free expression and thought
The loss of freedom to travel
The loss of freedom to gather with others
The loss of grandparents
The loss of God-given freedoms and liberties
The loss of trust and respect of science
The lost of what remained of trust in journalism
The loss of integrity in law and political process
The loss of community
The loss of employment
The loss of homes
The loss of education and career opportunities
The loss of confidence in critical thinking
The loss of respect of law enforcement
The loss of the church’s obedience to Christ and witness in the community
The loss of the elderly of the children
The loss of children of their elders
The loss of truth
The loss of well-being: mental, physical, spiritual, and social
The loss of hope
The loss of kindness

It should also be a time to remember the gains:

The gain of wealth by a few at the expense of millions
The gain of power and control over the story of the past two years by a tiny minority
The gain of State authority over every detail of life
The gain of the power of lies
The gain of drug abuse
The gain of suicide
The gain of abuse

I intend to mark the names of politicians and bureaucrats who have inflicted this upon the citizens of Ontario without consequence to themselves. I will send this email each March to each one of them every year.

27 February, 202227 February, 2022

Vertical War

I’m thinking that that wars and battles fought today in the Ukraine, and the wars and battles of ideas fought elsewhere, are not battles of “left” vs. “right,” or “conservative” vs. ‘liberal.” These designations are not working so well right now. Let’s call these “horizontal conflicts.” There have been many, and still are, but this is an inadequate way to describe what we are seeing unfold in the world.

What might work is to think of these upheaves as “vertical conflicts,” where there is a self-appointed elite opposed to the non-elite. There is a popular rebellion afoot, and this may appear most clearly where there is an elitist group attempting to assert its authority and cement what power it has. It is especially evident in Western nations where the non-elite cannot be simply gathered up and shot; it is likely fomenting in heavy-handed dictatorships and will explode violently.

In Canada, we have three major political parties federally which, aside from some financial policies, differ very little. Each party believes that whichever party rules, it has absolute control over the rights and liberties of its citizens. In their view, rights and liberties are privileges they dispense or deprive.

The non-elite are not a unified voice on many matters, but are unified against the goals and aspirations of the elite. They are united in their fear and rejection of their lives being micro-managed.

The elite will always underestimate the intelligence, commitment, courage, and stubborn tenacity of the non-elite.

The elite controls all legacy media and accredited educational institutions, and has been seen in Canada, banking. Thus the propaganda and outright lies flow 24/7 through these channels.

Many millions of the non-elite accept this arrangement, and simply think as they are told. But there is a great and growing number who are questioning. As the numbers grow, so do the questions. The number in the elite class is not growing, but ever shrinking, as accredited experts in many fields are risking career and reputation to dispute propaganda.

I have no way forward to believe that our lying government officials and media are now miraculously telling the truth about Russia, the Ukraine, or much else. All non-elites, be they in Canada, the United States, the Ukraine—any nation—are universally despised and hated by the elite. We are useful only as taxpayers and voters. When we can no longer work we can be pensioned off into poverty or worse. When we vote it is for a system that is so legally but immorally rigged, that votes count for little. Any election is an election of our favourite god or goddess.

The poor Ukrainian civilians are useful as canon fodder for a proxy war. They will fight to defend their very lives, as any normal person would do. They did not bring themselves to this, but those in power within and without their nation.

In this era, each individual must understand their government as their potential, if not real, enemy.

So we must not look right or left for the “good guys,” but understand that the bloodshed imposed today is a satanic wickedness that will gladly enjoin Putin, Biden, Trudeau, or Zelenskyy to its ends. It doesn’t matter the ideology: Communism, Fascism, Nazism, Capitalism, Democracy—all can be used against the populace.

In Canada, the oppressors have successfully united many who were not previously allies. More than that, there are signs of a Christian awakening in Canada that has been needed for decades. The people of God have always been given this choice:

“”Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the LORD GOD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.”” (Isaiah 12:2, ESV)

Or,

“And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the LORD; who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; and its breaking is like that of a potter’s vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”” (Isaiah 30:8–14, ESV)

Notice the use of the word “trust” in both passages. We will trust in one or the other: we will trust in God who is in Christ reconciling the world to himself (2 Corinthians 5:19) or we will trust our oppressors and their perversions (Isaiah 30:12).

I pray that the events in Ukraine will spark a true revival in that nation, in Russia, and everywhere the Gospel is preached.

21 February, 202221 February, 2022

On Irony

Have you noticed a certain irony in the vaccine mandates? The issue of “bodily autonomy” or “bodily integrity” has come to the forefront. Can the State or an employer demand your submission to a medical procedure, even a vaccine? (In making my case for bodily autonomy, I do not mean the autonomy of the person before God. I mean, the freedom to refuse a medical invasion into their bodies. The requirement to receive a medical treatment for employment, housing, education—to participate in society—autonomy not in the face of God, but of other humans).

The irony is this: since 1973 in the United States and 1969 in Canada, millions of children were denied their bodily autonomy by the medical community, Planned Parenthood, and NGOs. But all involved knew that the killing the “product of conception” is killing a real child. The preborn child is no less a human than a born child or an adult.

Killing an innocent is the ultimate violation of bodily autonomy—there is no consent, certainly no safety—the child has absolutely no opportunity to say, “My body, my choice.” Where is the choice of the preborn? What child would choose to be tortured or burned to death? Does the child voluntarily surrender her organs to labs?

When abortion was legalized in the US, the buzzwords were, “It’s just a blob of flesh,” or “it’s not a human,” “an abortion is just like having a tonsillectomy or an appendectomy.” Where was the scientific community when these false claims were circulating? Certainly, any biologist knew in 1969 and 1973 that these were human babies, not mere blob of flesh. The scientific community let millions of children down and let them die. Many scientists and doctors participated in this lie.

So “my body, my choice” has nearly vanished as a rallying cry for abortion rights. This is good because 1) the phrase was never true. It is obviously a case of the “preborn child’s body, someone else’s choice.” An abortion kills a human. 2) But the phrase is also gone because it is so inconvenient for those who demand state rights over each person’s body. How can, “My body, my choice” help the vaccination cause? It cannot. What has been a battle-cry for the pro-abortion crowd is now unutterable.

So there’s one irony—a decades long demand for bodily autonomy of the mother is now set aside in favour of a demand to submit all to vaccines, even by coercion and force. I don’t have statistics on this, but I would venture to guess that the vast majority of those who demand unrestricted abortions will also demand total restrictions on human liberties, including the liberty to decline a medical procedure. “My body, my choice” has finally found a home in science, logic, and morality.

But there is even a greater irony here: the demand for the abortions of millions, in the name of bodily autonomy, has brought us to the point where we are fighting for what is lost . . . bodily autonomy!

Yes, we have denied the protection of the body in the womb for so many decades, and God has brought us to this point—where we are finally willing to fight for the protection of the body. This doesn’t apply to non-Christians who are all two happy to surrender their bodies (and yours, and your children’s) to vaccine mandates.

The church, overall, has been complacent in the face of the abortion holocaust. We might make some donations, protest a bit, but we have made little progress. There are, of course, some shining stars. Compare the protesters in Ottawa—they are raging over this issue, and most of them do not even understand that our nation is under the judgement of God. They know deeply that there is a serious problem but are unlikely to identify its source as the idolatrous aspirations of the atheist State. They have lost the rights to their own bodies and can only explain this as Christians.

Because we have permitted abortions, we have surrendered the rights to our bodies. The State can invade the womb, and so it can invade your body too.

Everyone is affected by this war of the State against its people, but it is the church that needs to confess and repent of her sin of complacency. We know why this is happening. When a million people or more didn’t show up to protest abortion, and refuse to leave until it was declared unlawful, we knew how little the church cared. Now it seems that the loss of bodily autonomy for all the born reflects the loss to the unborn.

So what is it, church? Will we be revived and reformed?