Imagine borrowing $200,000 to become an LCMS pastor lol

 Whatever happened to Romans 13:8? And have you ever listened to some of those numbskulls who come out of the seminaries? They take "This is my body" quite literally, but not this:

Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. 

Becoming a pastor was a lot easier in Jesus' day.

All you had to do was sell everything, give it to the poor, and follow.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

-- Luke 14:33

The most expensive non-Catholic seminary educations in the country in 2022 were, drumroll please, in the church of my ancestors, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

  

 

God bites off head of Satanist, 76

 

Ozzy Osbourne, pioneering heavy metal singer and Black Sabbath frontman, dies at 76

 

... Their 1970 self-titled debut album hit the top 10 in the U.K. and No. 23 on the U.S. charts. A year later, their second album, “Paranoid,” topped the charts in the U.K. and reached No. 12 across the pond.

Still, the critics were not kind at first. Black Sabbath was dismissed by some as “Satanic claptrap” and worse.

... Despite all his success, Osbourne — in the eyes of many in the public — continued to be the madman who outraged animal rights groups in 1982 by biting the head off a live bat during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa.

“I thought it was a rubber bat,” Osbourne said at the time. “I picked it up, put it in my mouth, crunched down, bit into it, being the clown that I am.”

That same year, Osbourne infuriated the state of Texas by urinating on the Alamo, a stunt that got him arrested. ...

The tyrant is the real slave, possessed of desires which he is utterly unable to satisfy, and of more wants than any one

But he does know how to stay in the news.

Posted at 10:29 PM Friday night.

Promoted by the irredeemable Rod Dreher Saturday morning.

Trending #1 at CNBC Saturday night.

If Trump had any real power, US Treasury Bills wouldn't be yielding more as he posted this than they have in nine weeks.

 

 

The drone sightings over New Jersey are but the latest demonstration of the fallibility of eyewitness testimony

 I see men as trees, walking.

-- Mark 8:24

Melania Trump is the October Surprise, throws Hail Mary for abortion 33 days before the election

 Either she really, really, really does not want to go back to DC, hoping conservatives will abandon Trump over this and cause him to lose.

Or her husband thinks this will help him with pro-abortion women, who are 64% of all women, many of whom believe, incorrectly, that Trump would sign a national abortion ban.

Donald Trump officially supports the status quo ante to which the overturning of Roe v Wade has returned the nation, in which the individual states decide whether and to what extent abortion should be allowed.

His position is incompatible with Melania's uncompromising views, suggesting her timing of her announcement is designed to sabotage his campaign.

 

I'm so old I remember when the pope excommunicated Martin Luther for doing this very thing Pope Francis recommends American Catholics do in this election

 

“Not voting is ugly,” the 87-year-old pontiff said. “It is not good. You must vote.”

“You must choose the lesser evil,” he said. “Who is the lesser evil? That lady, or that gentleman? I don’t know."

"Everyone, in conscience, (has to) think and do this.”       

-- Pope Francis, quoted here

 

Since your most serene majesty and your highnesses require of me a simple, clear, and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God's word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.

-- Martin Luther, quoted here 

 

Anti-Christian Pope Francis removes Joseph E. Strickland as bishop of the diocese of Tyler, TX

 The pope has indirectly accused Strickland of being a reactionary who has replaced the faith with political ideology.

 

 

 

 

 

From the story here:

Last year, when the Vatican defrocked ultra-conservative U.S. anti-abortion priest Frank Pavone for “blasphemous” social media posts and disobedience to bishops, Strickland was one of the few American bishops to defend him publicly.

“The blasphemy is that this holy priest is canceled while an evil president promotes the denial of truth and the murder of the unborn at every turn, Vatican officials promote immorality and denial of the deposit of faith and priests promote gender confusion devastating lives...evil,” Strickland wrote on the platform then known as Twitter.

Pope Chicken Little

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Pope Francis warns planet ‘is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point’ :

The world in which we live is collapsing and may be nearing the breaking point.

Methodist exodus makes the news at CNBC

 1 in 5 United Methodist congregations in the U.S. have left over LGBTQ conflicts :

Some 6,182 congregations have received approval to disaffiliate since 2019, according to an unofficial tally by United Methodist News Service, which has been tracking votes by annual conferences. That figure is 4,172 for this year alone, it reported. ... While most UMC congregations are remaining, many of the departing congregations are large, and denominational officials are bracing for significant budget cuts in 2024.

 

Vladimir Putin says the West is Satanic for rejecting moral norms

Putin says U.S. created nuclear PRECEDENT by bombing Japan and vows to 'smash' the 'satanic' West

Exhibit A, which you would never have seen in the popular press even 20 years ago:

 

What shall it profit India's Warren Buffett if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own life?

 Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, ‘India’s Warren Buffet’, dies at 62

 

Don't be stupid with your money, protect yourself

And Rebbe Yitzchak said, A person should always divide his money into three: one third in land, one third in commerce, and one third at hand. 

-- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Metzia 42a (quoted here)

Americans stupidly now derive 42% of their wealth from stocks:

Through the end of 2021, the share of household wealth that comes from directly or indirectly held stocks hit a record 41.9%, more than double where it was 30 years ago, according to data from the Federal Reserve. 

The sun will swallow the earth

Reported here:

According to experts from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA), the universe is only churning out half as much energy as it did 2 billion years ago, and is gradually approaching a state of entropy. The study confirmed something researchers have suspected for decades: the stars that populate countless galaxies are slowly burning themselves out. ...

The study, which was jointly led by Simon Driver and Andrew Hopkins, was an international effort that harnessed technology both on land and in space to study 200,000 galaxies and the energy they generated. Basically, it found that stars have lost roughly half their firepower over the last 2 billion years. ...

There is one type of cosmic body largely responsible for emitting galactic energy, and it's slowly losing steam, experts said. "Those emissions are dominated by stars," said Adam Burrows, professor in the astrophysical sciences department at Princeton University. The galaxy gas that creates these stars "is being depleted, and is not being adequately replenished." ...

[O]ne scientist contends it could be 100 billion years out before the universe fizzles. For perspective, the universe is just 14 billion years old, according to NASA. ...

Meanwhile, there might be more immediate challenges for the universe—and again, those too are much further on the horizon. "In 5 billion years, the sun will expand and swallow the Earth," said Driver. "In 10 billion years, our galaxy will merge with Andromeda." ...

Astronomers estimate there are more than 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, said David Kaiser, a physics professor at MIT whose work focuses on Early-universe cosmology.

But reported here previously:

[T]he heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. ... the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat . . ..

-- 2 Peter 3:10,12

Americans Gave Just 2.3% Of Personal Income To Charity In 2012

Net compensation to Americans in 2012 came to $6.529 trillion according to Social Security, here.

The Giving USA Foundation estimates total charitable giving to all recipients in 2012 at $316 billion, here.

That works out to a rate of giving at 4.8% of what is basically W-2 income, in other words, 4.8% of wages. Not included in that income however would be all sorts of other income, including capital gains income, so the percentage given is considerably lower than 4.8%.

The federal government's Bureau of Economic Analysis in its latest report here puts personal income of the country at $13.743 trillion in 2012. So $316 billion represents just 2.3% of that.

Lest you think that all $316 billion went to church, think again. Just $102 billion went to religious organizations in 2012, or a measly 0.7% of the country's personal income.

75% of the country claims Protestant and Catholic faith. You know, faith in the guy who said "So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own" (Luke 14:33).

Uh huh.

Charitable Giving In US Still 8% Off 2007 High, And A Measly 2% Of GDP

So says Allison Linn for CNBC.com, here:

U.S. giving to charities totaled $316.23 billion in 2012, according to a report prepared by the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University and released this week by Giving USA. After adjusting for inflation, that's a 1.5 percent increase from 2011—but an 8 percent decline from 2007, the year the nation went into recession. The figures are in 2012 dollars.

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$316.23 billion is 1.976% of the country's $16.0045 trillion of GDP through 1/1/13, and just 0.45% of the country's $70.34912 trillion of household net worth through same.

75% of the country's adults claim to follow the Christ who said "No one can be my disciple who does not say goodbye to everything that he has." 

Rare Sighting Of The Rare Pillar Of Fire

CNBC.com

"And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians."

-- Exodus 14:24

THE RELENTLESS MARCH OF HOMOSEXUALITY

In 1993, when President Clinton sought to allow homosexuals to serve openly in the U. S. military, there was an enormous upheaval in the country, a veritable firestorm of outrage which became an integral part of the reaction leading to the Republican takeover of the Congress in the elections of 1994.

Fast forward to today, the day after the U. S. House voted to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell compromise of those years, and you'd hardly even know the measure is on its way to the Senate for a vote. There was nothing on the websites of Bill Bennett, Laura Ingraham or Rush Limbaugh to indicate any reaction to the vote, which represents nothing short of a repudiation of the agreement reached with conservatives on the issue at the time. CNBC.com had the story from about 01:04 AM EDT on its website until the mid-morning, when it disappeared altogether. The House passed the bill in the dead of night, just before the Memorial Day weekend. It seems as if no one, except for the far left, wants to talk about the historic vote.

In less than twenty years, the social conservatives have completely lost the war for traditional morality in America, whether it comes to the Hyde Amendment prohibiting the expenditure of federal funds for abortion or the acceptance of homosexual behavior. The reason for this is clear: a relentless effort by the left to insinuate homosexuality in every venue possible, from prime time television to public school sex education. Inured to the topic and themselves less religiously oriented over the period, the public can hardly muster the will to discuss the matter anymore, save for values interest groups like the Traditional Values Coalition. The Roman Catholic Church, whose seminaries are as pink as the day is long, is utterly incapable of standing against a tide which its own doctrine recognizes as the creation of God. You'd hardly believe it that not that long ago homosexuals discovered on U. S. Navy vessels at sea often didn't set foot on land again.

The Book of Kings informs us that good King Asa did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord and drove out of the land of Israel all the male cult prostitutes. The only group left in the world with a similar moral mission, it seems, is radical Islam. And they say politics makes strange bedfellows.