Historian Phil Jenkins discovers that Christianity is the grandmother of Bolshevism

Here and imbedded links (he hasn't really yet thought through it):

"Engels had something like a love for the early Christians, and he imagines talking to them as fellow-sufferers who came from exactly the [same] kind of setting."

Attacked in the comments at one point, he responds:

". . . the early Christian movement was very diverse in its theologies. By the way, one common explanation for the ebionites was that they were the remnants of the original Jewish followers of Jesus, including the bulk of the Jerusalem church, who never accepted Paul's innovations."

Keep it up Phil! You are on the right track! Too bad you didn't train in philology . . . it wouldn't have taken you this long to figure out that Pauline Christianity is a double-edged sword leaving us with two forms of materialism which now war for our imaginations, even though you'll probably become bored and get side-tracked away from this also.

Jewish Christians renounced the material, as did Jesus, believing the kingdom of God was coming down to earth from God, right quick like, as they say in the holler. Paul's Gospel by contrast baptized entrepreneurialism and made free-enterprise and Judaism safe for the world. Hence the tithers of today, and the spread of the congregation on the synagogue model.

Historians would be better engaged figuring out what went wrong there with Paul. Albert Schweitzer figured out what went wrong with Jesus.

East v West: Godless Chinese Communist Jack Ma Ridicules The Poor

Here:

You are poor because you do not have the desire to become successful.
You are poor because you lack foresight.
You are poor because you cannot overcome your cowardice.
You are poor because you lack the courage and determination.
With ambition you can overcome all inferiority and maximise your potential!
With ambition you can persevere, continuously learn new things and strive for perfection.
With ambition you can defy all odds, and create miracles when others daren’t.
No matter how poor your family is, do not doubt your own abilities and lose sight of your ambition.
When your family deems you worthless, no one will pity you.
When your parents do not have money to pay the medical bills, no one will pity you.
When you are beaten by your competitors, no one will pity you.
When your loved ones abandon you, no one will pity you.
When you have not accomplished anything by the time you are 35, no one will pity you.
Go big, or go home. Otherwise, you’re wasting your youth.

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"For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." -- 2 Cor. 8:9

"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." -- Luke 14:33

George Will, atheist, weighs in on Russell Kirk

Interviewed here:

I'm an amiable, low-voltage atheist.

RCR: Does that present a problem for you as a conservative?

GW: No. The Republican Party's base is largely religious. It would be impossible for me to run for high office as a Republican. Since I have no desire to run for office, it's a minor inconvenience! I think William F. Buckley put it well when he said that a conservative need not be religious, but he cannot despise religion. Russell Kirk never quite fathomed this, which is one of the reasons why I'm not a big fan of The Conservative Mind. For him, conservatism without religion is meaningless.