Publisher's Corner

Memorial Day

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Wed, 23 May 2012 18:43:00 +0000

On the last Monday of each May, our nation observes a holiday that many now call Memorial Day. Originally given the name “Decoration Day" for the tradition of beautifying the graves of our fallen soldiers, this day commemorates the lives and sacrifices of those who fought and gave the greatest sacrifice they could so that we could live today in freedom. The Bible reminds us that Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. This love of country—this sense of honor and duty—should be reverenced and admired for the calling that these men and women have so admirably given of themselves to fulfill.

Our military servicemen and women are daily placed in harm’s way both at home and abroad, carrying the torch of freedom for America, These freedoms, endowed by out Creator, are kept alive by the bravery and courage of our military forces. What an opportunity we have to celebrate this heritage of freedom!

God allowed our founding fathers to institute a government in which each citizen is given opportunity to celebrate the freedom to speak out, peaceably assemble, and publicly share his faith with others. Only by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ could a nation be founded with this broad range of freedom. May we never take for granted the privileges afforded to us by the men and women who have given their lives to preserve it for us.

On this Memorial Day, please remember our military. Pray for their safety. Whenever you see them In uniform, tell them “Thank you.” Let each one know that you appreciate the sacrifice that he or she makes for our nation.

As we consider those who have given their all, for the cause of freedom, let us pause and remember that our Savior laid down His life to free us all from the bondage of sin. Currently, over 7 billion people reside on this earth, and God sent His Son to take away the sin of each one who accepts Him and also gives us abundant life and freedom in Him.

From the May 1, 2012 edition of Legal Alerts published by the Christian Law Association.
© 2012
Used by Permission

Why Obama's Birth Certificate Matters, Especially Now

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Mon, 21 May 2012 20:09:00 +0000

by Selwyn Duke

There was a time when someone could perhaps justify sitting on the fence on the matter of Barack Obama's birth certificate. There were those on the left who could chalk doubts about its authenticity up to conspiratorial internet paranoia. As for the right, there was every reason to worry about being the victims of an Alinsky-style setup designed to marginalize opponents. In other words, let the other side double down on an incredible claim and then, at the most opportune time (October surprise?), provide irrefutable evidence to the contrary, and make them look like deluded wackos. So, for a long time, there might have been reason to watch, wait, and let the wheels of investigation render their judgment.

That judgment is in, and the time for waiting is over.

With the results of Maricopa County, AZ sheriff Joe Arpaio's "Cold Case Posse," an incredible claim has become an incredible situation: a team of professional investigators, commissioned by a major law-enforcement agency, has determined that the alleged birth certificate produced by the president of the United States is a probable forgery.

Process that for a moment. The regime of the world's most powerful nation -- a republic that prides itself on adherence to the rule of law -- is likely peddling a forged document. What say you, citizen?

Note that I didn't claim that the president isn't natural-born. Rather, I claim nothing but am only stating a fact: there is now no denying that the birth-certificate matter warrants further investigation, and it is time for other law-enforcement agencies and the media to show due diligence. And I will spell out the possibilities here:

The Arizona investigators are correct.
They are mistaken.
They are lying.

For the record, I don't believe the last for a moment, but I do want to cover all the bases. And home plate is this: the answer may be number one or two, and it's incumbent upon us to find out through further investigation. And, for those who dislike Sheriff Arpaio, what if the answer is three? Well, if a major law-enforcement agency is producing fraudulent evidence for the purposes of damaging a sitting president, wouldn't that warrant investigation, too? The undeniable, irrefutable fact here is that there is smoke. And we need to find out who started the fire.

In response to these facts, the left will sometimes mount an argument for why Obama is, in fact, natural-born. But this issue is at the moment secondary. And about it I will merely state that there are only two possibilities. First, if the allegedly forged birth certificate relates to the president's natural-born status, then it's clear that the Obama administration is concerned about that status. And what if it doesn't relate to whether the president is natural-born?

Then it relates to something else.

You don't present a forged a document for no reason. Again, the undeniable, irrefutable fact here is that there is smoke. And we need to find out what is feeding the fire.

Remember, too, that document forgery is a crime. If you were found benefiting yourself through it, you'd be prosecuted. Should the president be held to a lower standard?

In point of fact, on the part of the media and citizenry, he must be held to a higher one. We're not talking here about some kid who forged an ID so he could drink at 18 in a bar. This is the most powerful man in the world, who, it appears, is passing off a forgery for some mysterious -- or not so mysterious -- reason. This mystery needs to be solved.

Also, consider the consequences of allowing this alleged high crime to go unanswered. If Obama is willing to fob off a forgery on the American people, what else is he capable of? If he gets away with it, what else will he do? Remember that in every case in history in which a leader amassed more power for himself by gradually undermining his nation's democratic system, he had millions of enablers. These were the crowds Cicero spoke of that cheered "ambitious scoundrel" Julius Caesar as he paved his way to dictator. These are the "good men" Edmund Burke referred to who do nothing in the face of evil. Sometimes, of course, they're simply scared. Other times they may not want to seem like a nutty Chicken Little saying the sky is falling. Or they may not want to accept that the sky actually is falling, so they rationalize and dress the naked emperor with their eyes. After all, when a problem is daunting or scary, the self-delusion that allows one to ignore it can be appealing.

Most people also don't want conflict; they may fear a constitutional crisis. But know that if Obama is peddling a forged document, it may simply be another example of how we already are in a constitutional crisis. The only question now is whether we're going to fight the fire or continue to fiddle while the Constitution burns.

Selwyn Duke is a regular blogger for the American Thinker. This article is republished from the online article published March 14, 2012.

©2012
Used by Permission

Free our Kids from Governmental Immorality

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Mon, 21 May 2012 19:59:00 +0000

by Star Parker

We have created a world where it's illegal to teach youth traditional values in school but not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism and relativism.

President Barack Obama now commands center stage following his formal announcement that, yes, he supports same sex marriage.

But for perspective on how we got to this point, we should shift our sights to three days before the president's announcement. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan appeared on MSNBC where he responded "yes, I do" when asked if he supports same sex marriage.

Duncan at best raised a few eyebrows by stating his support for same sex marriage.

If he had said that homosexuality is immoral there would have been demands for his ouster.

How have we gone from a nation where our first president, George Washington, admonished that religion and morality are "indispensable" to "political prosperity" to one, today, in which our president says "same-sex couples should be able to get married?"

On the marriage issue, the national transformation has been breathtaking. A new Gallup poll shows the nation evenly divided -- 50 percent saying same-sex marriage should be valid and 48 percent saying it should not be. When Gallup asked the same question in 1996, 68 percent opposed legalization of same sex marriage against 27 percent in favor.

In just 16 years the gap between those opposed and in support of same sex marriage has gone from a 41 point difference to practically zero.

Our public schools are controlled locally. But the influence of the federal government is substantial. The Department of Education, per its website, "administers a budget of $68.1 billion in discretionary appropriations" serving "nearly 16,000 school districts and approximately 49 million students."

It's not trivial that Duncan, the man who oversees this massive enterprise molding the minds of our nation's youth, publicly rejects the traditional definition of marriage in favor of one saying it just takes two (so far) warm bodies of any gender combination.

The president brandishes one of his favorite words in explaining his support for same sex marriage. "Fairness."

Actually, this is about unfairness.

We have bought into a grand illusion that we can make our public spaces value neutral. But this is impossible.

The struggle in our public spaces is about competing worldviews. Not neutrality.

As one court ruling after another has purged religious expression from our public spaces, we have unfairly suppressed traditional values in favor of promoting alternative secular views.

As we have sanitized our public schools from prayer, from displays of the Ten Commandments, from any teaching that can be associated with Biblical sources, we've put government monopoly power behind moral relativism.

California, for instance, has a new law mandating teaching gay history in public schools. A similar mandate to teach Christian history would be challenged constitutionally.

2011-2012 Resolutions of the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, include support of same sex marriage and sex education programs that appreciate "diversity of ...sexual orientation and gender identification."

Randi Weingarten, president of the nation's second largest teacher's union, American Federation of Teachers, lives in an open lesbian relationship.

It should come as no surprise when Obama says he sees much of the growth in support for same sex marriage as "generational," with strong support coming from our youth.

Attitudes reflect education. We have created a world in which it is illegal to teach youth in our public schools traditional religious values but it is not illegal to teach them competing values of nihilism, materialism and relativism. And these competing values are actively promoted.

As elsewhere, the main victims are poor, minority kids, often from broken families, held hostage in these public schools and prohibited from being taught the very values that could save their lives.

Is there a way out? I only see one: Universal school choice. Liberate parents and kids from government and union controlled schools. In a free America, parents who don't share Arne Duncan's values shouldn't have them forced on them.

Originally published May 14, 2012, by Star Parker, at CURE, under the title “Free our kids from Arne Duncan.’”

©2012. Used by Permission.

Pray for our Great Nation

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:19:00 +0000

by David Barton

Several times over the last year, our nation has been called to prayer. This Thursday, May 3rd, millions will join together once again in tens of thousands of groups across the nation for the National Day of Prayer, humbly imploring God's blessings over this great nation. We will stand in the long tradition as we follow the recommendation of Benjamin Franklin, who appealed to the 1787 Constitutional Convention to pray for this nation, when he said:

I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings, that "except the Lord build the House they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the Builders of Babel.

It is truly time to ask that God would govern in the affairs of men, that He would build the foundations of this nation, and that He would bless this great nation once again. Celebrate the sixty-first annual observance of this call by participating in a prayer group near you.

To find these locations, you can visit the National Day of Prayer official site; if you're unable to attend a gathering, please take time to personally lift up our nation, our government, our leaders, our military, our families, our businesses, our places of worship and ask for God to continue blessing our nation as we turn our face to Him.

WallBuilders' founder and president, David Barton, resides in Aledo, Texas (just west of Fort Worth), with his wife, Cheryl, and their three children. David spent eight years as an educator and school administrator before founding WallBuilders. He has received numerous awards including several Who's Who honors, two Angel Awards for excellence in media, and the George Washington Honor Medal. He has spoken to numerous state legislatures, consulted with both state and federal legislators on various bills, and has written amicus briefs in cases at the U. S. Supreme Court.

Click here for more information about David Barton

The original article published by WallBuilders for the National Day of Prayer 2012 campaign
Used by permission

© 2012

Obama Makes Foul Call for Economic Fairness

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:04:00 +0000

by Star Parker

Obama knows how to tap into the worst instincts of people to garner political support -- inspiring blame and envy, sadly, pays political dividends.

You have got to give credit where credit is due.

President Barack Obama has laid out the core message of his re-election campaign. It is a message whose claims are blatantly false and whose point is irrelevant to what is of greatest concern to Americans today.

Despite this, there is no evidence so far that his strategy and messaging is not working and won't be successful.

In his speech Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, the president defined what he called "the defining issue of our time."

This defining issue, per the president, appears to be that America is not fair.

We suffer today, Obama says, from "a shrinking number of people who are doing really, really well, but a growing number who are struggling to get by."

Apparently, the reason this is happening is that ours is not a nation in which "everybody gets a fair shot and everybody does a fair share, and everybody plays by the same set of rules."

Now excuse me for pointing out the irony of hearing from our nation's first black president a suggestion that America may no longer be a nation where dreams can be realized or where someone can come out of nowhere and make it.

But Obama probably would explain his unlikely success in this unfair nation as the result of his being an exceptional and extraordinary individual. Which is why, I would assume in his thinking, we ordinary folk should turn our lives over to him to determine who should have what.

Ironically, I would say that if America is unfair today, it is because politicians and government have the power to do exactly what it is that Obama wants to do: Seize control of the wealth of some and redistribute it to whomever they choose.

The Bible that I read every day calls this theft.

The president seeks to gain political support for this redistribution of wealth by tapping into the widespread dissatisfaction with our most disappointing economy.

But is our economy underperforming because some have more than others, because some succeed more than others?

At a time when Americans are looking for answers to restart our sputtering economy, our president chooses to use his time complaining about the wealthiest not paying sufficient taxes.

But according to the National Taxpayers Union, in 2009 the top 5 percent of income earners paid almost 59 percent of the funds raised by the federal personal income tax and the bottom 50 percent paid about 2.25 percent.

Yet, in the president's remarks in Florida, he defined fairness as everybody playing by "the same set of rules." Not only are the tax rules not fair by the president's own definition, in the name of alleged fairness he wants to make them even more unfair.

Of course, the president's real problem is that his policies have failed so he has to change the subject. He told us that the almost $900 billion in stimulus spending passed in 2009 would revive our economy and reduce unemployment to 6 percent. Three years later, unemployment stands at 8.2 percent.

There is no evidence that our president has a clue about why we are not on the path to recovery. But, unfortunately, he does have a clue about how to tap into the worst instincts of people to garner political support. Inspiring blame and envy, sadly, pays political dividends.

The fairness the president obsesses about has nothing to do with fairness, nor does it have anything to do with fixing our economy.

If he really wants guidance on a fair and moral tax system, he might turn to his Bible instead of his campaign spin machine.

He can learn there that the 10 percent tithe on income applies to everyone.

Originally published April 16, 2012, by Star Parker, at CURE, “Obama Makes Foul Call for Economic ‘Fairness.’”

©2012. Used by Permission.

Ode to the Welfare State

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 16:23:00 +0000

Tony Nassif Leadership Luncheon & Briefing: Los Angeles May 24th, 9:00 A.M.. to 3:00 P.M.

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:25:00 +0000

Tony Nassif, President of The Preventing Abuse Foundation Cordially Invites You to
The Los Angeles Leadership Luncheon & Briefing
“Human Trafficking, Drug Cartels, Protection of Women & Children”

Confirmed Speakers:
Michael Reagan
Son of President Reagan and FOX News Commentator Child and Family Advocate

Detective-Sergeant, Oscar Mejia
Expert on Drug Cartels, & human trafficking in the United States. N. Los Angeles, President, National Latino Police Officers Association FBI, DEA, Drug Task Force,

Tiffany Leeper
Founder and President Girls Against Porn

Tony Nassif
President, Preventng Abuse Preventing Abuse Conferences

Internet Safety, Peter Moorman of Movie Guide –Entertainment Industry

Subjects:

Human trafficking (national security threat)
Pornography fuels demand for exploitation. Extremists use porn to fund their activities.
Child abduction, molestation, (nearly 1,000,000 children reported missing annually) 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys molested before adulthood.
Cartels & Traffickers infiltrated hundreds of U.S. cities . Answers and solutions

DATE: May 24, 2012
TIME: 9:00 A.M. to 3:00 P.M. (Registration starting @ 8:00 A.M.)
LOCATION: Galpin Motors, North Hills (Los Angeles), California

Luncheon and Parking are Complimentary
Space is Very limited!!
Registration Required Call 818-679-3571 or
Email your name, address, & telephone to: president@preventingabuse.org

I personally look forward to seeing you at the Luncheon/Briefing
-Tony Nassif

Obama's Vision Puts America Last

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:59:00 +0000

by Star Parker

According to the president, everything will be okay if we allow him and his government to continue to build and consolidate power over our lives.

The theme that President Barack Obama gave to his State of the Union address was "An America Built to Last."

But his vision would be better described as "An America Built to Be Last."

As the president asked us to be patient and keep drinking the same Kool-Aid he's been serving up for three years, The New York Times reported that the Federal Reserve's latest assessment of our economy is that "... a full recovery is years away."

Even his most loyal constituency—Black Americans—is losing patience. In Gallup's latest tracking poll, the black approval rate for Obama was 79 percent. This is 17 points below the 96 percent of blacks who voted for him in 2008, and the first time that black approval has dropped under 80 percent.

The debate will go on for many years about what caused the horrible economic collapse from which we are still trying to recover.

The president continues to sell the idea, which serves his agenda to continue to expand government, that the cause was insufficiently regulated business.

There is much convincing research, in which Obama shows little interest, that government caused it by mandating the expansion of low-quality mortgages and enabling this expansion because taxpayers ultimately guaranteed these loans.

But economists are still debating what caused the Great Depression of the 1930s.

What Americans must come to terms with now is what we choose to believe this country is about, why in the past it seemed to work so well and why today things are falling apart.

According to the president, everything will be okay if we allow him and his government to continue to build and consolidate power over our lives.

He gave more reasons to grow government but barely gave lip service to what is tearing our nation apart today and dragging it down.

The major factors driving us into insolvency—the spending on entitlement programs Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and covering the interest on our nation's debt, which is now surpassing the size of our entire economy—got attention in two sentences in an hour-plus-long speech.

The unraveling of our social fabric doesn't seem to bother our president a whit.

You would think our nation's leader would be concerned that, today, four of every 10 of our babies are born to unwed mothers.

He called on "every state to require that all students stay in high school until they graduate or turn 18."

Rather than addressing the issues of broken families and why poor kids don't care about learning, Obama thinks he'll solve this problem by turning our failing public schools into prisons.

It's nice to know that the president believes what "Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

But unlike our president, Lincoln was the Great Emancipator. Lincoln's agenda was freedom.

According to a new poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 54 percent of respondents feel that the Supreme Court should find unconstitutional the Obamacare mandate forcing every American to buy government-defined health insurance. Only 17 percent agree with this flagrant violation of individual freedom.

Now the Department of Health and Human Services has ruled that religious institutions must, like all other employers under the new health law, provide free birth control and sterilization services as part of health coverage.

Catholic universities and charitable organizations are now left with the choice of violating their religious convictions, not offering health insurance and pay millions of dollars in fines, or just shut down.

Catholic charities serve over 10 million of America's poor.

Diminished freedom and moral relativism is no way out of the morass we're in.

An America built on government, as Obama sees it, severed from our roots as a free people under God, is surely an America built to be last.

Originally published Monday, October 3, 2011, by Star Parker, at CURE, “More of same from Congressional Black Caucus”

©2011. Used by Permission.

How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:48:00 +0000

by Peter Hammond

"Then Jesus said: ... 'And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.'" John 8:31-32

The first casualty in war is truth

As my history teacher in Rhodesia reminded us: "Beware the victor's version!"
As early as 1930, John Dewey observed that" We are exposed to the greatest flood of mass suggestion that any people has yet experienced."
Propaganda is to Democracies what violence is to Dictatorships.
Propaganda, the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests, is pervasive. We are also exposed to commercial propaganda: Marketing and Advertising.
Propaganda aims to do other people's thinking for them.
Propaganda today has moved into prop-agenda, not only controlling what we think, but how we think, and what we think about.
Propaganda uses highly selective images, devious and prejudicial language. Dubious linkages, confusing issues and distorting reality with disinformation is a daily reality.
George Orwell wrote: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
Karl Marx declared: "The first battlefield is the rewriting of history."

Vladimir Lenin - Propaganda and Agitation

In his book, What is to be Done, published in 1902, Vladimir Lenin defined propaganda as the use of historical and scientific arguments to indoctrinate the educated and intelligent masses. Agitation was described by Lenin as the use of slogans, stories, and selective half-truths to exploit the grievances of the un-educated and ignorant masses.

Deceit is Justified

Every unit of the Communist Party was to have an Agit-Prop section. Deceit in propaganda is justified because the end justifies the means. As Vladimir Lenin regularly said: "Treaties are like pie crusts, made to be broken. To tell the truth is a petty bourgeois habit, but to lie and to lie convincingly is a sign of superior intelligence."

The End Justifies the Means

The aim of propaganda is to rally people behind a cause. If this requires exaggerating, misrepresenting, or even lying about the issues, in order to gain that support, the end justifies the means.

Tactics of Propaganda

Common tactics used in propaganda are:

Ignoring the historic context
Using selective stories
Utilising a narrow source of experts, those who tow the party line
Demonising the enemy and
Using a narrow focus (the zoom lens, rather than the wide-angle lens of context)

Truth Surrounded by Lies

Sir Winston Churchill, the British prime minister during World War II declared: "In war time, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."

Propaganda in America

Mark Twain, in 1916, described the rise of propaganda in America: "Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."

Nazi Propaganda

Many people know that Joseph Goebbels used propaganda to advance the aims of the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. What few people realise is that Nazi propaganda was based and modelled upon Allied propaganda against Germany in WWI. Joseph Goebbels was an ardent student of American public relations pioneer Edward Bernays.

Psychology and Social Science

Bernays based his methodology on the social science researches of French psychologist Gustav Le Bon in his 1895 book: The Psychology of the Crowd; and on Sigmund Freud's 1922 book The Analysis of the Ego and Group Psychology, as well as the research of Russian experimental psychologist Ivan Pavlov, as published in his 1926 book: Conditioned Reflexes.

The Committee on Public Information

Edward L. Bernays (1891-1995) was a nephew of Sigmund Freud. Bernays was a theatrical publicist who was employed by George Creel as a propagandist for the Committee on Public Information (CPI). President Woodrow Wilson of the United States, by executive order, created the Committee on Public Information in association with the Military Intelligence Bureau. The CPI was America's propaganda office. The CPI defined propaganda as: "The systematic, widespread dissemination, or promotion, of particular ideas, doctrines, or practices, meant to further a particular cause or agenda and weaken that of another. It is a systematic effort to manipulate attitudes, beliefs and actions by the use of symbols."

Hidden Manipulators

German philosopher George Hegel, in his 1821 book The Philosophy of Right, explained how in democracies the public is manipulated and persuaded by hidden persuaders and hidden manipulators. French author Anatole France wrote: "Democracy is run by an unseen engineer."

Controlling Public Opinion

Bernays based much of his methodology upon the works of Walter Lippmann, who wrote about controlling and managing public opinion. His ideas were later published in Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925).

Enlightening Elites

Walter Lippmann was a member of US Army Military Intelligence during World War I. Lippmann believed that most people are irrational and act chaotically. Because people are unable to independently make rational choices, they need to be guided by a specialised class of enlightened elites. Lippmann described people as "Simple minded and sheep-like," incapable of formulating or organising their desires, interests and wishes. Therefore enlightened elites can lead and educate the masses. As Lippmann put it: "Making of one general will out of a multitude of general wishes." Bernays stated: "The public must be regimented."

Mobilising Hate and War

In 1927, Harold D. Lasswell, a professor in Political Science at the University of Chicago, analysed the propaganda techniques employed by the Allies in WWI: "A new and subtler instrument must weld thousands and even millions of human beings into one amalgamated mass of hate and war and hope... propaganda. It is the new dynamic of society... the fact remains that propaganda is one of the most powerful instrumentalities in the modern world. Propaganda is a reflex to the immensity, the rationality and the woefulness of the modern world." Lasswell explained that to "Mobilise the hatred of the people against their enemy, represent the opposing nation as a menacing, murderous aggressor... represent the opposing nation as satanic; it violates all the moral standards..."

Objectives of Propaganda

Lasswell identified four major objectives of Propaganda:

To mobilise hatred against the enemy who must be de-humanised, portrayed as barbaric, brutal, cruel and uncivilised
To preserve the friendship of Allies
To preserve the friendship, and if possible, to procure the cooperation of neutrals, and
To demoralise the enemy

Warning Against War

Before being elected as a candidate for peace in the Presidential Elections of 1916, Woodrow Wilson warned: "Lead this people into war, and they'll forget there was ever such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of national life, infecting the congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street." In January of 1916, Wilson stated: "This is a government of the people and this people is not going to choose war."

Reversal of Policy

After being elected, under the slogan of he has kept us out of the war, Woodrow Wilson established the Committee on Public Information which forged the nation (which was overwhelmingly opposed to intervention) into a situation where, if anyone believed that America's entry into Europe's war was a mistake, then they were branded a traitor!

Changing Perspectives

More than 8 million German-Americans lived in the USA and many were sympathetic to the cause of their homeland. One third of Americans were immigrants. Most Americans were not connected to the European conflict by blood or capital, and were not interested in waging war overseas. The Committee on Public Information (CPI) developed into the most formidable propaganda apparatus in history. A muckraking journalist, George Creel, was appointed to lead the CPI. With a phenomenal budget, the CPI recruited from the best of business, media, academia, and the art world. The CPI blended advertising techniques with a sophisticated understanding of human psychology.

Democratic Propaganda

It was the first time that a modern government disseminated propaganda on such a large scale. Although propaganda came to be linked with totalitarian regimes such as the Soviet Union and Red China, it is a fact of history that it first emerged in a democratic state. Although, as a journalist, George Creel had been an outspoken critic of censorship, the CPI immediately took steps to limit conflicting information. With the Espionage Act and Sedition Act Voluntary Guidelines were enforced on the news media and ensured that the mass media in the United States was flooded with pro-war material and perspectives. On any given week, more than 20,000 newspaper columns were filled with material gleaned from CPI press releases.

Mobilising the Masses

The CPI created a Division of Syndicated Features and recruited the help of leading novelists, short story writers, and essayists to present the pro-war position in popular digestible format, reaching 12 million readers a month. The Division of Pictorial Publicity had at its disposal the most talented advertising illustrators and cartoonists of the time. Powerful posters painted in patriotic colours presented compelling images throughout the country. The poster propaganda motivated millions to enlist in the army and navy or buy Liberty bonds. The Division of Films ensured that the war was promoted in the cinema. The Hollywood film industry wholeheartedly supported the war effort with movie titles like The Kaiser - The Beast of Berlin, Wolves of Kultur, To Hell with the Kaiser, and Perishing's Crusaders!

Propaganda Changes Attitudes

The cause of the Allies was creatively publicised in every available communication channel, including pulpits. Lasswell pointed out that propaganda wins wars, with words, pictures, songs, parades and many similar devices... by the manipulation of collective attitudes.

Emotional Appeal

CPI propaganda showed the way for future propaganda agencies by appealing to the heart, not the mind. Emotional agitation and skilful manipulation made use of manufactured atrocity stories and simplistic slogans such as: "Make the world safe for Democracy!" Will Irwin, a member of the CPI, wrote after the war: "We never told the whole truth - not by any manner of means." G. S. Viereck quoted a Military Intelligence officer who declared: "You can't tell them the truth." Victories were routinely manufactured by American military authorities, while defeats were suppressed. Dishonesty was encouraged.

Sentimentality

The analysts attributed the failure of German propaganda in America to the fact that: "It emphasised logic over passion." As Count von Bernstorff observed: "The outstanding characteristic of the average American is rather a great, though superficial, sentimentality." The factual German Press releases failed to grasp this.

Altering Perceptions

As Lasswell observed: "So great are the psychological resistances to war in modern nations that every war must appear to be a war of defence against a menacing, murderous aggressor. There must be no ambiguity about who the public is to hate."

Made Up Atrocity Stories

Bernays openly admitted that he and his colleagues used made-up stories to provoke the hate and fear necessary to raise war-bonds and recruits for the war. Some of their stories, such as a bathtub full of eyeballs and children being killed by the enemy were actually recycled stories from previous conflicts.

Propaganda Kills

So effective was the anti-German propaganda of the CPI in the USA that Dachshunds had to be renamed, 14 states banned the teaching, or speaking, of German in their public schools. Mobs assaulted American immigrants from Germany. At least one man, Robert Prager, a German coal miner, was lynched by an angry mob in Illinois.

Appealing to Idealists

The CPI recognised that while emotional appeals and simplistic stereotypes of the enemy could influence many, the intellectuals and pacifists needed different motivation. To them American military intervention in Europe was described as "a campaign to end warfare forever and establish a league of nations." To industrialists the war was modified as a conflict to destroy the competition of German industry. The propagandist does not need to ask if it is true, but merely, does it work?

The Value of Propaganda in Peacetime

In the final months of 1918, a war-weary American public ousted the Democrats who had led them into WWI. The Republican majority in Congress brought the CPI under increasing scrutiny. The director of CPI's foreign division later reported: "The history of propaganda in the war would scarcely be worthy of consideration here, but for one fact - it did not stop with the Armistice. No indeed! The methods invented and tried out in war were too valuable for the uses of governments, factions and special interests."

Regimenting the Public Mind

Edward Bernays took the techniques he had learnt in the CPI to Madison Avenue and became an outspoken proponent of propaganda as a tool for democratic governments. It was of course the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. (Propaganda, by Edward Bernays, 1928)

Subverting Society

Most Americans came to realise that they had been lied to and manipulated by deceit disguised as news. Many sought to pin complete responsibility for America's involvement in the ruinous World War on hate mongering militarists in the CPI. However, as one noted: "Ultimately, their guilt is less important than the questions their activities raised about the role of propaganda in a democratic society." The whole theory of democratic society was rooted in the belief that free citizens could form their own opinions about the issues of the day to decide their collective destiny. Freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, freedom of association, freedom of thought and freedom of religion are fundamental necessities for any democratic process.

Is Propaganda Compatible with Freedom?

However, during the First World War, America's political leaders decided that their citizens were not making the correct decisions, quickly enough. So they flooded the channels of communication with dishonest messages that were designed to stir up emotions and provoke hatred of their long time trading partner, Germany. The war came to an end. But the propaganda did not. Today many who espouse the ideals of democracy behave like dictators and propagandists. The question is whether propaganda is compatible with freedom. Propaganda clearly undermines a population's ability to think clearly and critically about world events. Simplistic, emotional appeals undermine logic and reason.

Discerning Between Information and Disinformation

Students of propaganda soon noted that while the CPI was the largest propaganda operation to that date, it was not actually the first such deception operation. Shortly after the end of the American Civil War (or War Between the States) journalist Colburn Adams wrote: "The future historian of the late war will have a very difficult task to perform... sifting the truth from falsehood as it appears in official records."

Newspaper Wars

Two prominent newspapermen took the credit for leading America into the Spanish-American war of 1898. William Randolf Hearst (1863 -1951), and Joseph Pulitzer, editorially clamoured for US military intervention against Spain. Through disinformation and media manipulation, these newspaper tycoons induced the United States to wage an unnecessary war against Spain. Sensational, inflammatory, and propagandistic articles and editorials in Pulitzer's World and Hearst's Journal succeeded in inciting war hysteria and public enthusiasm for war with Spain.

Organising a War

Randolf Hearst famously sent artist Frederick Remington, and other Journal correspondents to report on the Civil War in Cuba. When Remington reported: "Everything is quiet. There is no trouble here. There will be no war. I wish to return." Hearst sent the following famous telegram in reply: "Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."

Inciting Conflict

Pulitzer and Hearst published inaccurate coverage, rumour, subterfuge, hearsay, and outright fictitious reports to drum up a feverous public demand for war. On 15 February 1898, the US Battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbour. The cause of this explosion was never determined, but the immediate US media reaction was to blame Spain. Pulitzer and Hearst clamoured for war with titles such as: "Maine explosion caused by bomb or torpedo?" Later Hearst's Journal ran the headline: "How do you like the Journals' war?"

The Father of Spin

After WWI, Edward Bernays pioneered Public Relations (PR) and became known as The Father of Spin. As the PR consulter for the American Tobacco Company, he campaigned to convince American women that they should smoke Lucky Strike cigarettes (the torches of freedom) to emancipate themselves!

Public Relations

Today American businesses spend trillions of dollars on marketing. PR firms employ over 150,000 workers.

Adolf Hitler on Propaganda

In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler analysed Allied propaganda techniques used during the First World War: "The art of propaganda led in understanding the emotional ideas of the masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention, and then to the heart, of the masses. ...the purpose of propaganda is ...to convince ...the masses ...its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions... The war propaganda of the English and the Americans was psychologically sound. By representing the Germans to their own people as Barbarians and Huns, they prepared the individual for the terrors of war... all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan... to be a leader means to be able to move the masses... the intelligence of the masses is small. Their forgetfulness is great. They must be told the same thing a thousand times."

Tactics of Propaganda

The tactics of propaganda have been analysed by numerous studies. Professor Johann Galtung listed some of the tactics used in propaganda, including:

Decontextualizing violence: Focusing on the irrational without looking at the reasons...
Dualism: Reducing the number of parties in a conflict to two, (when often more are involved.)
Manichaeism: Portraying one side as good and demonising the other as evil.
Armageddon: Presenting violence as inevitable, omitting alternatives.
Confusion: Focusing only on the conflict arena, but not on the forces and factors that influence the violence.
Never explaining why there are acts of revenge and spirals of violence.
Failure to explore the causes of escalation and the impact of media coverage itself.
Failure to explore the goals of outside interventionists, especially big powers and bankers.
Failure to explore peace proposals and offer images of peaceful outcomes.
Confusing cease fires and negotiations with actual peace and
Omitting reconciliation as a viable option.

Distorting Perspectives

Propaganda does not need to be true, as long as it is plausible. Sometimes it can tell the truth, but withhold the point of view from the other side to create a distorted perspective.

Preparing a Nation for War

British journalist, Phillip Knightley, identified the four stages in preparing a nation for war:

The Crisis: Negotiations are failing! We're on the brink of war! War is inevitable!
The Demonization of the enemy leader.
The Demonization of the enemy as individuals.
Atrocities: Even making up stories to whip up and strengthen emotional reactions.

Betrayal of Trust

Knightley observed: "The media demands that we trust it, but too often, that trust has been betrayed."

Propaganda Strategies

Miren Gutierrez of Inter Press Service summarised propaganda strategies as follows:

Incompleteness

Inaccuracy

Driving the agenda

Milking the story

Exploiting that we want to believe the best about ourselves

Perception management

Reinforcing existing attitudes and

Simple repetitious and emotional phrases.

Words are Weapons

Words are weapons in warfare. Propaganda involves word games. Name calling of the target nation by labelling people, groups, and institutions in a negative manner.

Glittering Generalities

Glittering generality with regard to allies, labelling their people, groups, and institutions in a positive manner.

Euphemisms

Euphemisms are used to pacify the audience with bland meanings and connotations, such as pacification, technical incursion, etc. Civilian casualties are referred to as: collateral damage. Murder is replaced with liquidation. Terror bombing of cities is called saturation bombing or strategic bombing campaign. Starvation of civilian populations is called an economic blockade or sanctions. Looting of farms and murder of farmers is called dekulakisation or land reform. Racial discrimination is called Black Economic Empowerment and Affirmative Action. Sexual perversion is called Alternative Lifestyles.

False Connections

False connections are used to transfer symbols and imagery of positive institutions to strengthen the acceptance of the cause. Making use of testimonies from individuals not qualified to make the claims made (for example having sportsmen advise on how one should vote in a Referendum!).

Ordinary Appeals

Special appeals include: the everybody's doing it, join the bandwagon argument, through words designed to heighten or exploit fear and an appeal to ordinary citizens by leaders doing ordinary things that the viewer can identify with.

Thought Control

In 1921, American journalist Walter Lippmann said that the art of democracy requires the manufacture of consent. George Orwell described it as thought control. As democracies cannot control people by force, it controls them by influencing what they think, how they think, and what they think about. Propaganda is to democracies what violence is to dictatorships.

Gullibility of the Public

Propaganda tends to work because people wish to believe the best about themselves and their country. It is often very hard to believe that our own leaders could possibly lie to us! From how the media portray them, they seem such likeable people!

Crowd Psychology

During the Nuremberg Trials, General Hermann Goring was reported to have said: "It is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it be a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism, and exposing their country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Perception Management

John Rendon, the Founder of the Rendon Group, a PR Agency, told cadets at the US Air Force Academy: "I am a politician... who uses communication to meet public policy... objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception manager. Did you ever stop to wonder how the people of Kuwait City, after being held hostage for seven long and painful months, were able to get hand-held American flags? Well, you now know the answer. That was one of my jobs."

Manipulating Public Opinion

Another propaganda tactic is character assassination. Smear tactics are used to discredit, or destroy the reputation of someone perceived as an obstacle to the policy makers. The calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is achieved by appealing to the emotions to create reality which demands the action desired by the policy makers.

Holocaust in Rwanda

In Holocaust in Rwanda, I documented the ease with which the orchestrators of the genocide in Rwanda confused international journalists and abused the national media to mobilise the unprecedented concentration of carnage. The massacres were meticulously organised in advance. The MRND government of Rwanda manipulated the international media by portraying the killings as spontaneous, tribal anarchy, uncontrolled tribal killing, tribalism, the result of the war.

Disinformation

A smokescreen of disinformation allowed the killers to proceed with their diabolical plans and kill over 800,000 people in a mere six weeks. They isolated their victims by imposing a news blackout, cutting telephone links, establishing a dense network of roadblocks, and imposing a nationwide curfew. By cutting communications and restricting travel, they isolated their victims and sought to stifle the flow of news. They also timed the genocide to be launched on 6 April 1994, when most African correspondents were in South Africa for the Mandela elections. With most foreign news distracted by events in South Africa, the mass murderers in Rwanda were able to play the humanitarian card, pleading for emergency aid, all while they were engaged in genocide.

Mobilising Mass Murder

While deceiving the international news media, the MRND mobilised their national news media to denigrate all the targeted Tutsi tribe as "foreigners, Hamitic invaders, cockroaches, racial supremists who needed to be returned to Ethiopia" by having their bodies thrown into the Nyabarongo River. Wild rumours were recklessly spread by Radio RTLM accusing the Tutsis of sinister plots. Popular poets and songwriters composed songs to provoke the majority Hutu tribe to hate their Tutsi neighbours. By totally dominating the mass media, the Hutu extremists were able to mould minds and fill them with hatred and a lust for blood. Hundreds-of-thousands of Hutu people were motivated to murder their neighbours. Hutu teachers murdered Tutsi students. Hutu doctors and nurses murdered Tutsi patients. Hutu priests and bishops murdered Tutsi congregants. The Holocaust in Rwanda was yet another proof that propaganda kills.

Dehumanise the Enemy

Many of the massacres of prisoners and atrocities committed against civilians in WWI and WWII, including the systematic saturation bombing of cities, would not have been possible without the demonization of the targeted enemy and their civilian population by propaganda. The farm invasions in Zimbabwe were preceded by state propaganda vilifying whites in general and farmers in particular. The Mau Mau murders in Kenya and the Simba massacres in the Congo were also motivated and mobilised by propaganda which dehumanised the targeted white farmers and missionaries. The incessant, anti-white propaganda in South Africa has led to over 3,000 brutal murders of white farmers in some of the most torturous ways possible. Songs such as 'Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer!' sung by prominent ANC leaders are like pouring petrol on a fire. The fact is that propaganda changes perceptions and people. Propaganda kills.

The Truth Sets Free

That is why it is absolutely essential that we know the truth of history to recognise the lies of propaganda. We need to study the truth in the Bible so that we can be freed from the deceptions of the world.

"You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32

Dr. Peter Hammond
The Reformation Society
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Fax: 021-685-5884
Email: mission@frontline.org.za
Website: www.ReformationSA.org

The audio CD of this lecture as presented to the Reformation Society is available from:
Christian Liberty Books
PO Box 358 Howard Place 7450
Cape Town South Africa.
Tel/Fax: 021-689-7478
Email: admin@christianlibertybooks.co.za
Website: www.christianlibertybooks.co.za

© 2012
Used by Permission

Agenda 21 and the Step by Step Process to Enforce it in America

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 23:15:00 +0000

by Tom DeWeese

Throughout the spring and summer of this year, I have been traveling the nation, speaking to audiences and elected officials about Agenda 21 and how it has become official policy in nearly every city and rural section of the nation. My audiences have been enthusiastic and eager to learn more. At every stop, someone has asked me for a copy of my address, usually saying it is the best explanation of Agenda 21 they have ever heard. So, for this addition of the DeWeese Report I have decided to reprint it in its entirely. Please make copies and share with your friends, family, and elected officials. We are truly starting to make incredible progress in this fight to stop Agenda 21. Every person education on the subject becomes a more effective activist to stop it! TAD

The official word is out about me. According to several newspaper reports from around the country, I am only here to spread wild conspiracy rumors to scare you into fearing your benevolent government.

Recently, the Corvallis, Oregon Gazette-Times carried an article entitled "The Great Riparian Conspiracy." The reporter took great delight in making those of us who oppose Agenda 21 sound like the typical redneck who "just hates that there UN."

And said the article, "Like any good conspiracy theory, there is a kernel of truth at the fore of this one. For instance, there really is something called Agenda 21." And there really is an International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).

Well, hurray for this reporter, he at least read the title pages. But he obviously failed to read even the introduction to the Agenda 21 reports. It's the same old story in news reports across the nation. The reporter just assumes there is no truth to it and does no more checking of the facts.

Of course, that is the kind of condescending smirk those of us who have spent years studying this issue have come to expect. Through 18 years experience devoted to this issue, I think I can say with some confidence that this reporter hasn't spent ten minutes actually reading a single Sustainable Development document and compared it to "local" development plans. I have. And here is what I know.

Where did Agenda 21 come from?

There is a new language taking over government. The typical city council meeting discusses "comprehensive development," "density," "historic preservation," and "partnerships" between the city and private business.

Civic leaders organize community meetings run by "facilitators," as they outline a "vision" for the town, enforced by "consensus." Free trade, social justice, consensus, carbon footprints, partnerships, preservation, stakeholders, land use, environmental protection, development, diversity, visioning, open space, heritage, comprehensive planning, critical thinking, and community service are all part of our new language.

What are they really talking about? What mental pictures come to mind when those words are used? Where was such language first developed?

The term "Sustainable Development" was born on the pages of a United Nations document called "Our Common Future," the official report of the 1987 UN World Commission on Environment and Development.

As a result of this report, for the first time, the use of environmental protection and human development were tied to the age-old Socialist goals of international redistribution of wealth. And that is the key to understanding the true purpose of Sustainable Development and all of its policies—control of all facets of the economy.

Here is how the UN described Agenda 21 in one of its own publications in 1993 in an article entitled "Agenda 21: The Earth Summit Strategy to Save our Planet:" "Agenda 21proposes an array of actions which are intended to be implemented by EVERY person on Earth…it calls for specific changes in the activities of ALL people… Effective execution of Agenda 21 will REQUIRE a profound reorientation of ALL humans, unlike anything the world has ever experienced."

So the same reporter, who would undoubtedly argue that the US must be involved in the UN, completely ignores its call for a policy that will profoundly change our society. And when you and I point it out and protest against it—we are just a bunch of nuts. Pardon me, for taking offense at that—but who is the stupid one here?

I have never said that there are UN troops or UN representatives enforcing Agenda 21 in this country. It is being done in a much more subtle, less direct way. But the result is the same.

What gives Agenda 21 the "ruling authority" to become American law?

Here is the exact course that brought Agenda 21 to America and into our local community.

The infrastructure pushing the Sustainable Development agenda is a vast, international matrix. At the top of the heap is the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP). But the UNEP doesn't operate on its own. Influencing it are thousands of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). These are private groups which seek to implement a special political agenda. Through the UN infrastructure, particularly through the UNEP, they have great power.

And I should point out that true NGOs are groups officially sanctioned and certified by the UN to participate in these international efforts. Prior to the 1992 UN Earth Summit in Rio, these sanctioned NGO groups spent considerable time writing and creating the document that would be introduced to the world as Agenda 21.

At the Earth Summit, nearly every head of state signed agreement to follow Agenda 21, including President George H. W. Bush

Agenda 21 is not a treaty that has to be ratified by the Senate. Rather it is what is known as a soft law policy—a guideline that the nation agrees to implement through its own legislative process. That is why it is so difficult to follow and document as UN-created policy. President Bush, in signing the document, committed the US to implement the policies of Agenda 21. That sent the policy to our Federal bureaucracy, which started to set it in motion.

Agenda 21 then gained huge momentum when, in 1993, President Bill Clinton, issued an Executive Order to create the President's Council on Sustainable Development and made it official US policy.

Take a look at who served on that Council and you will see many of the same NGOs that helped write Agenda 21 for the UN. They include Jonathon Lash of the World Resources Institute, one of the three most powerful organizations influencing the UNEP. And the President's Council also contained John Sawhill of the Nature Conservancy and Jay Hair of the National Wildlife Federation and Michele Perrault, international Vice President of the Sierra Club. All players in the creation of Agenda 21, openly serving on the President's council with the specific mission of implementing Agenda 21 into American policy.

And here is the vitally important connection between Agenda 21 and the US enforcement of it that all of these reporters and government officials and NGOs deny exist. Listen carefully. Included at the UNEP table to develop the policy, along with all of the NGO groups who helped write it are these players—an incredible mix of agencies of the federal government. These include the Department of State; Department of Interior; Department of Agriculture; Environmental Protection Agency; the National Park Service; The U.S. Forest Service; and the Fish and Wildlife Service. These agencies send representatives to all UNEP meetings. Why do they do that—if Agenda 21 is just a myth that has no affect on our government?

You might remember a great deal of discussion during the Clinton Administration about the idea of a "Reinvention of Government." Vice President Al Gore was put in charge of the reinvention. The reinvention, of course, was Sustainable Development.

The purpose of the President's Council was to translate the guidelines of Agenda 21 into public policy to be administered by the federal government.

And this step-by-step process translated into the "ruling authority" through which a UN plan (Agenda 21) has become unquestioned US policy throughout the nation. It was invented by NGOs through the UN. It was brought to the US through the President's Council. And, through federal and state legislation, it is being implemented on the local level through the involvement of NGOs who helped write it.

Sustainable Development is not a local idea or a local policy.

What are Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development?

So what is Sustainable Development? Sustainable Development is about a planned central economy and redistribution of the wealth—on a local, state, national and international level.

The process by which it is implemented creates a matrix of locked away land—or severe land use controls; control of energy and energy production; control of transportation; control of industry; control of food production; control of development; control of water availability; and control of population size and growth.

Most of their policies and regulations are issued under the excuse of protecting the environment.

This is the process through which America is being transformed. It is what your elected officials are really doing as they use terms like comprehensive development plans, energy audits, open space, and historic preservation. That is Agenda 21 and Sustainable Development.

Agenda 21 is not just policy—it is a complete system to change the way we think, the way we react, the way we make decisions—and those who promote it have very specific answers as to how they want each of you to do those things.

That's why they call it an AGENDA. Let me show you what I mean.

The Three Es

The Sustainable Development logo used in most literature on the subject contains three connecting circles labeled Social Equity; Economic Prosperity; and Ecological Integrity (known commonly as the 3 Es).

Social Equity

I will tell you straight out, if you fail to grasp the Social Equity aspect of Sustainable Development—then you simply have no grasp of this issue. Period.

Social Equity is based on a demand for "social justice." Social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people "to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment"—redistribution of the wealth. By the way, Karl Marx was the first to coin the phrase "social justice."

Today, the phrase is used throughout Sustainablist literature and is the root of new policy initiatives. The Sustainablist system is based on the principle that individuals must give up selfish wants for the needs of the common good, or the "community.

This is the same policy behind the push to eliminate our nation's borders to allow the "migration" of those from other nations into the United States to share our individually created wealth and our taxpayers-paid government social programs. Borders, they say, stop the natural migration of the human race. "National sovereignty" they say, "is a social injustice."

According to the Sustainablists, it is a social injustice for some to have prosperity if others do not. Profits are made at the expense of the people. And so Sustainable policy is developed from that starting position.

As a result, Social Equity through Sustainable Development is a means to a forced utopia with promises of healthcare for all. Jobs for all. Housing for all. Equality for all.

So, the reason the government refuses to secure our borders is that it is committed to imposing sustainable development.

The reason congress refused to listen to your pleas against centralized health care is because it is committed to sustainable development. Simply do a Google search for "Sustainable Medicine" and you will find more than 5,850,000 references, containing most of the provisions of Obamacare.

Incredibly, a new social justice policy making its way through state governments is called "Gross National Happiness" (GNH). Under the Health plank of Agenda 21, it is an attempt to qualify in psychological terms general wellbeing.

If allowed to move forward, Gross National Happiness will slowly replace Gross National Product (GNP) as the standard to measure the health of the nation. Rather than using economics, it will measure social trends that affect quality of life.

This is combined with the "Happy Planet Index" (HPI), developed by the New Economy Foundation, with support from the Friends of the Earth.

At its core, the Happy Planet Index argues that long and happy lives must be the economy's ultimate goal and not merely insatiable economic goals.

And you wonder why the economy is collapsing as the rantings from a bad LSD trip become serious policy actually considered by real government agencies. What I have just revealed to you comes from official documents from the state of Maryland.

Economic Prosperity

The international system of Agenda 21 encompasses the free trade movement that created the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and Public/Private Partnerships, all pulled together into a government-driven economy called "corporatism." It is not Capitalism or free markets, though it may have some of the trappings. The marketplace is still there. But, ultimately, corporatism does not trust the marketplace to do what the elites want done.

The partnerships allow for special tax breaks; access to land for some developers but not others; non-compete clauses in government projects that guarantee profits, access to grants and lucrative special government projects, and much more. Under PPPs, there is a guarantee of protection and profits.

Corporations that play ball get the power of government and Government gets to hide behind the independence of private business. Thus, the partnership between corporations and government is done at the expense of ordinary people—the exact opposite effect of free markets controlled by consumers. This is the new way business is being run in America under Sustainable Development. The business plan of the day—lobby for regulations. They argue that it's good for the economy, creating jobs by destroying things from the past. They say it's good for the economy to enforce regulations to make people buy things they didn't need before.

It's certainly not free enterprise or open markets. The true description is government-sanctioned monopolies; right out of the Mussolini fascist playbook.

Ecological Integrity

Well, this is the excuse for the whole agenda—environmental protection.

To understand the power of the transformation of society under sustainable development, consider this quote from the UN's Biodiversity treaty which was also introduced at the 1992 Earth Summit:

"Nature has an integral set of different values (cultural, spiritual and material) where humans are one strand in nature's web and all living creatures are considered equal. Therefore the natural way is the right way and human activities should be molded along nature's rhythms."

This quote lays down the ground rules for the entire Sustainable Development agenda. It says humans are nothing special—just one strand in the nature of things or, put another way, humans are simply biological resources.

Sustainablist policy is to oversee any issue in which man interacts with nature —which, of course, is literally everything. This is necessary, Sustainablists say, because humans only defile nature.

In other words, Sustainablists view man as nothing more than a swarm of locusts, which swoops down on nature and sucks it clean until there is nothing left. Nothing good comes from man, according to Sustainablist doctrine.

And private property ownership and control is a main target of Sustainable Development. Consider this quote from the report of the 1976 UN's Habitat I conference which said: "Land …cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth, therefore, contributes to social injustice."

The fact is Agenda 21 is a blueprint to completely change our society to a top-down planned central economy in a strange mixture of socialism, fascism, and corporatism.

To convince Americans to accept it required something that that would get us to sacrifice our natural rights voluntarily. The answer was environmental Armageddon. You must sacrifice freedom to protect the planet. It's urgent we're told.

Do you doubt that? Then consider this quote by Alexander King, co-founder of the Club of Rome: "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming. Water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…All of these dangers are caused by human intervention…the real enemy then, is humanity."

So the urgency is on. Global warming and Climate Change are feeding the hysteria. There's no time to consider things like individual concerns, wants and needs. Selfish, cries the Sustainablist! We must save the environment! Go Green! Get out of your cars. Stop using energy. Sacrifice. Cut your carbon footprint or perish.

And so Federal and state governments, working hand in hand with a horde of Non-governmental organizations—private groups with personal political agendas, force passage of rules and regulations- passed down to local communities.

But, say your local officials, none of that UN, socialist stuff is true—just conspiracy theories by right wing radicals. "We're just creating the tools necessary in a local effort to manage growth and development for our community," they say.

Have you heard any of these? Then consider this quote from J. Gary Lawrence, a planner for the city of Seattle, and an advisor to the President's Council for Sustainable Development: "Participating in a U.N. advocated planning process would very likely bring out many…who would actively work to defeat any elected official…undertaking Local Agenda 21. So we will call our process something else, such as "comprehensive planning," "growth management," or "smart growth." Local indeed.

Sustainable Development is the process by which America is being reorganized around a central principle of state collectivism using the environment as bait. This is a political movement led by those who seek to control the world economy, dictate development, and redistribute the world's wealth. They use the philosophical base of Karl Marx, the tactics of Adolph Hitler, and the rhetoric of the Sierra Club.

Everything connected with Sustainable Development translates to higher costs, shortages, and sacrifice.

The best way to understand what Sustainable Development actually is can be found by discovering what is NOT sustainable.

Maurice Strong, Secretary General of the UN's Rio Earth Summit in 1992 said, "…Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class—involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work air-conditioning, and suburban housing are not sustainable."

Four routes to Agenda 21

So how is this wrenching transformation being put into place? There are four very specific routes being used. In the rural areas, it's called the Wildlands Project. In the cities, it's called smart growth. In business it's called Public/Private Partnerships. And in government it's called stakeholder councils and non-elected boards and regional government—or reinvented government. Let's take them one at a time.

Wildlands Project

The Wildlands Project was the brainchild of Earth First's Dave Foreman and it literally calls for the "re-wilding" of 50% of all the land in every state—back to the way it was before Christopher Columbus set foot on this land.

In 1983, when Foreman first dreamed up the scheme for the Wildlands Project, he said: "It is not enough to preserve the roadless, undeveloped country remaining. We must re-create wilderness in large regions: move out the cars and civilized people, dismantle the roads and dams, reclaim the plowed lands and clearcuts,—reintroduce extripated species." Destruction of human civilization was his goal.

In reality, The Wildlands Project is a diabolical plan to herd people off the rural lands and into human settlements. Crazy you say! Yes. Impossible? Not so fast. From the demented mind of Foreman, the plan became the blueprint for the UN's Biodiversity Treaty. So now, the scheme is international in scope—with the power of law.

Thomas Lovejoy, a science advisor to the federal Department of Interior said, "We will map the whole nation…determine development for the whole country, and regulate it."

And your local elected officials are helping to implement this insanity. Yet, they are quick to deny that such ideas have their origins on the international level. They accuse me of wearing a tin foil hat and hearing voices.

Well, here is a voice I hear. Again, Maurice Strong said at the UN's Earth Summit, "Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrial nations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?" And that is the true agenda we face!

But how do you remove people from the land? One step at a time. There are many tools in place to stop human activity and grow the wilderness.

Deny grazing and water rights on public lands. It becomes more difficult and more expensive to run the farm or ranch—eventually he goes out of business.
Lock away natural resources by creating more national parks. It shuts down the mines—and they go out of business.
Call every mosquito-infested swamp and occasional mud puddle a wetlands and ban any development around it.
Invent a Spotted Owl shortage and pretend it can't live in a forest where timber is cut. Shut off the forest. Then, when no trees are cut, there's nothing to feed the mills and then there are no jobs, and—they go out of business.

The state of Maryland is considering a plan to ban septic tanks as a means to protect the Chesapeake Bay, even though there is no evidence that septic tanks do any damage what so ever. The only result of the ban will be to make it impossible to live in a rural area—unless you want to spend several million dollars on a private water treatment plant. Cleverly, they don't ban building on private property or impose a land grab. They just make it impossible to live there.

The Wildlands Project comes in many names and many programs. Wilderness areas, Comprehensive land use plans, Bike ways, Green ways, Heritage areas, land management, rails to trails, open space, wolf and bear reintroduction, Conservation Easements, and many more.

Each of these programs is designed to make it just a little harder to live on the land—a little more expensive—a little more hopeless. In reality, the process is simply herding people off rural land and into human habitat areas—or cities.

Smart Growth

The second path to Sustainable Development is called Smart Growth. They put a line around the city and tell you no growth can take place outside that line. Urban sprawl, they say disdainfully.

They refuse to build more roads as a ploy to get you out of your car into public transportation, restricting mobility. New highways, they say are feeders to more development. They even stop the widening of existing roads—for the same reason. So roads become overcrowded in gridlock. And they blame development. Their new ploy is to force cars to share the road with bikes—the "complete street," they call it.

In many smart growth cities, new apartment buildings now have no garages or parking lots—we don't want any stinking cars!

Smart Growth creates an unnatural restriction on space inside the controlled city limits—so there is a shortage of houses, and prices go up. That means populations will have to be controlled, because now there is a shortage of land.

That's why kind, compassionate environmentalist Dr. Jacques Cousteau declared "In order to stabilize world populations, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day." Sustainablists call for an 85% reduction in human population. How is that done? Do we use the proven success of China's population control methods of forced abortions and sterilizations? The Chinese, I can tell you, are big supporters of Sustainable Development and I'm sure they can share some ideas with us.

Of course, Comprehensive Development Plans are the tools of choice in nearly every city in the nation to produce the proper smart growth community. Through these plans, energy and water use is tightly controlled.

Smart Growth advocates force individuals to live in denser communities that take up smaller tracts of land per housing unit. Planning advocates and government bureaucrats are forcing such planned communities across the state and nation, and those plans put severe controls on private property. In fact, there can be no private property in a smart growth community.

Reinvented Government and Stakeholder Councils

The Third way to Sustainable Development— inside the human habitat areas, (our cities and towns) government is steadily being controlled by an elite ruling class called stakeholder Councils. These are mostly NGOs, who, like thieves in the night, just show up to stake their claim to enforce their own private agendas.

The function of legitimate elected government within the Sustainablist system is fast becoming little more than the rubber stamp to create and enforce the dictates of the councils.

Once the councils are established, it becomes nearly impossible to discuss issues with your elected representatives. Instead, they will automatically refer you to the proper council or administration or department, run by unresponsive appointed hacks armed with their own political agenda. Consequently, they control almost all business decisions. They can dictate the kind of building materials you may use in your home—or whether you can build on your property at all. They decide if roads are built. How much water can be used. How downtowns will look through historic preservation. . How neighborhoods will be built.

These non-elected councils fit almost perfectly the definition of a State Soviet: a system of councils that report to an apex council and then implement a predetermined outcome. Soviets are the operating mechanism of a government-controlled economy—the exact opposite of a Constitutional Republic.

Public/Private Partnerships

The fourth path to Sustainable Development, as I mentioned, is Public/Private Partnerships. That means they can charge what they want and they can use the power of government to put competition out of business. You hear the propaganda of the PPPs nightly on your television as their commercials tell you to go green.

And they use Congress to build more wealth and power. GE used their partnership with government to ban their own product—the incandescent light bulb and replace it with the new "green" bulbs. By next year, you won't be allowed to buy incandescent bulbs. Why? Because GE can make three times as much from the new ones as they are more expensive.

Such is the reality of green industry. In fact, there would be no green industry if not for the billions of dollars in grant money shelled out to the partnerships to develop alternative energy schemes.

In reality, wind energy may well be the least sustainable and least eco-friendly of all electricity options. In fact, it probably requires more energy to manufacture, haul and install these monstrous windmills and their transmission systems than they will generate in their lifetimes. Yet the nation, in the name of Sustainable Development is investing everything in our future to enforce them over real energy providers.

Alternative energy amounts to less than one percent of our energy needs. And for every green job created, two in legitimate industry are lost because of green rules and regulations.

America has now discovered that it has a near infinite amount of shale oil in literally every state. Rather than celebrate our good fortune to reduce gas prices and eliminate dependency on foreign oil cartels, the Sustainablists are rushing in a near panic to block the drilling of shale oil.

To the Sustainablist elite, who loath competition and free markets, such a change in the status quo is terrifying because their control is highly profitable for those industries as they take the tax money through the Public/Private Partnerships.

And now there is a new kind of corporation being developed through Public Private Partnerships —it's called "benefit" corporations. As Michael Shaw of Freedom Advocates describes it, imagine a legislated brotherhood of business where favored businesses get to go to the front of the line for permits, licenses, and opportunities merely because they agree to advance the principles of Sustainable Development and Agenda 21.

Five states already have Benefit Corporation legislation: Hawaii, Virginia, Maryland, Vermont, and New Jersey. And six more are in the process of making it part of their states corporate legal system, including California, Colorado, Michigan, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. This policy will destroy free enterprise and guarantee that we can't stop Agenda 21.

ICLEI

Many Americans ask how dangerous international policies can suddenly turn up in local government, all seemingly uniform to those in communities across the nation and around the globe. The answer—Meet ICLEI, a non-profit, private foundation, dedicated to helping your mayor implement all of his promises.

Originally known as the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), today the group simply calls itself "ICLEI—Local Governments for Sustainability." In 1992, ICLEI was one of the groups instrumental in creating Agenda 21.

ICLEI's mission is to implement Agenda 21 worldwide and it's having tremendous success. ICLEI is now operating in more than 600 cities in all 50 states. The group is shooting for 1,000 member cities in the next three years. Each of these cities pays dues to ICLEI to receive its programs. When local governments contract with ICLEI, they agree to implement the Agenda 21 policy of Sustainable Development.

Here's just some of the programs ICLEI provides cities and towns, in order to spread their own particular political agenda in the name of "community services" and environmental protection:

Software products and associated training, Access to a network of experts, newsletters, conferences and training workshops, Toolkits, online resources, case studies, fact sheets, policy and practice manuals.

These tools are used to fully indoctrinate employees at city hall to assure only Sustainable policies are considered. And, then there's Notification of relevant grant opportunities—this is the important one—money—with severe strings attached.

But keep in mind, your community does not have to be an ICLEI member to be affected by Agenda 21 ICLEI policies. Around the nation, ICLEI partners with other, established organizations, like the American Planning Association and the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). And then there is the Renaissance Planning Group.

These groups, and hundreds more like them, work hand in hand with groups like U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Governors Association, the National League of Cities, the National Association of County Administrators and more that your elected representatives belong to.

We are now finding that while ICLEI is a convenient target because of its obvious ties to the UN, the American Planning Association may be the more dangerous player in the game. That's because the APA is in literally every city, trusted as a legitimate, non-controversial, established organization. Nothing here to tie it to some international UN conspiracy, we are told.

Well, again, not so fast. The APA just issued its new planning guide—sent to every community in the nation. A quick look through it finds references to social justice, smart growth, promotion of "affordable housing," protection of farm land, stopping urban sprawl, combating climate change, dealing with homelessness, energy preservation, provisions for child care and more—all out of the social justice plank of Agenda 21.

And then there is a section on "property fairness," wherein the report discusses efforts by property owners to stop government land grabs without compensation. How radical of them to actually want to be paid for land the government takes! The APA refers to these property owners as "radical property rights organizations."

These are the people who are making policy. These are the people your local officials trust to be mainstream. These are the true enemies of freedom in America. That's how these policies quickly spread across the nation as enforced regulations. And here are some of the results of these efforts?

Dictates from the top

Across the nation, state legislatures are passing laws requiring cities and towns to establish comprehensive development plans that include high-density urban development areas, controls on energy and water use, controls on transportation, making it more difficult to drive cars, perhaps forcing acceptance of light rail and high-speed trains. These laws are now being used as a weapon to force Sustainable Development at a rapid pace across the nation.

Whole areas of communities are now being redesigned to "encourage" industry and office buildings as a means to build economic development. Of course that means eminent domain trumps property rights and private homes. And the cold hard fact is that after the land has been taken for such development, many cities find that no industry uses the project. The land just lies empty, unused, worthless, the result of government over reach rather than common sense free market decisions. That too is Sustainable Development.

Comprehensive Development Plans in city after city across the nation are enforcing schemes to "cut their carbon footprint" by controlling energy use.

Here's some of what each of you can now expect from these plans that your city fathers say will make things better:

One of the most popular tools now to control energy use is the energy audit and building review. They establish quotas for electrical use and for heating and cooling pumps; water use; weatherization of existing buildings; replacing incandescent light bulbs; and on and on. That means that government bureaucrats will come into your home or office building and determine the amount of potential energy use you should have.

You will be given a list of "recommendations" necessary to bring your home into compliance. These may include the need for a new roof; new energy efficient appliances; new windows, etc.

In Oakland California, the city council did just these things, and the result was an average cost to every single homeowner of at least $35,000. And if you don't comply, you will be fined, and possibly unable to sell your home until you do.

Across the nation, power companies, in partnership with government planners, are forcing the use of Smart Meters. These meters contain RFID chips. The technology enables the power company to keep track of how much power you are using and control, regulate and ration your use of that electricity. They will set the temperature in your home.

If they decide that you are using too much hot water for your showers or washing machines, or too much air conditioning, your electricity will automatically be turned down or even off. Moreover, a future goal is to have all appliances replaced with those containing that same RFID chip, which the smart meter will "speak to" for more regulations and controls.

Those who protest that such meters are a violation of their private property rights and freedom of choice are told that their only choice is to accept the meters or have no electricity to their home.

Under the title of Sustainable Farming, the planners are excited about a new sustainable style of tractor to pull the plows—it's called a team of Oxen. Don't laugh—they're serous. There is a college in Vermont that teaches sustainable farming and they have a herd of Oxen. Students are paying for an education to learn Davy Crockett's farming techniques.
In San Diego, California, there have been no new docks built in its harbor because the docks hide the sun from the plankton underneath.
In Lincoln, Nebraska, there is now a pending rule to force property owners to cut back trees in their yard so they don't block the solar panels on the neighbor's roof.
There are now policies being advocated to place taxes on use of toilet paper; on the number of miles you drive; and on the use of plastic bags.
The EPA is now providing funding to NGO groups to run training programs for people to photograph and report neighbors who may be "committing crimes against the environment."

This summer, Obama signed Executive order 13575 to create the White House Rural Council. The council is a list of the most aggressive agencies and departments of the US Government. It will bring an army of regulators into rural areas to completely control every decision of land use, farming, and development. It will even affect curriculum in schools.

Farmers who have been feeding America for over 200 years will not be able to make a single decision without permission and massive paperwork from bureaucrats from over 25 agencies. The result will only be food shortages and higher prices.

Welcome to the utopia of Sustainable Development.

Socialism, Fascism, Corporatism by any other name is really…

This is Big Brother at its worst. And its planned control enforced by your local leaders and representatives—in partnership with ICLEI—an organization who's Vice Chairman (Harvey Revin) said, "Individual rights will have to take a backseat to the collective."

Would any of your elected officials admit to enforcing communism on your community? Of course not. Then why are they so eager to be in partnership with an organization which does?

The United States is not a global village run by elders who hand down the rules from on high. We are a nation of individuals whose rights are supposed to be protected and guaranteed by the representatives we elect. We demand accountability from them.

However, global forces, which do not accept the unique American form of government, sneak behind the curtain, avoiding controversy and honest debate.

The only possible result can be the tyranny of a powerless electorate stripped of their rights, property, and self-determination.

Global Warming has been the excuse for the hysteria, but true science is now showing that to be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated. So there is no need for these dire policies to cut back our carbon footprint by forcing us to lock away land and resources and live in high-density cracker boxes.

International NGOs tell you it's all "local"

We all want a clean environment. However, what we are objecting to here is not environmental protection, but the process that is being used in its name.

There is nothing local, or innocent or normal about it. This is an international agenda created by ideological zealots working hand in hand thorough massive international gatherings sponsored through the United Nations.

There, documents are carefully prepared for the signatures of leaders of every nation. Once signed, the bureaucracies of the nation use documents like Agenda 21 as a blueprint for legislation and regulations.

To write that legislation, the bureaucrats work hand in hand with the same zealots who wrote the UN documents it's based on. And then these UN sanctioned NGOs, such as the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy team up with local groups like the American Planning Association to apply pressure and make sure local city councils and county supervisors toe the line.

And as they dutifully put the agenda in place, these representatives tell you every step of the way that it is all a local plan.

The resulting non-elected boards, councils and region governments, appointed by an "ecologarchy," answerable to no one, is the perfect definition of a soviet. A centrally controlled economy.

I assure you, we cannot restore our unique American Republic if our communities are little soviets. Nor can we protect the environment if our economy is destroyed and free men are unable to make choices other than survival in a Sustainablist tyranny.

The Sustainablists are using our carbon footprint as a measure of our guilt. One fact is sure—if you have no carbon footprint you are dead.

Steps to stopping Agenda 21

Elected officials can no longer play ignorant about the origins of their policies. America is dying while they are denying! It is their elected duty to represent the people and protect them from these piranhas that are devouring our way of life.

To save it you must now take action. And understand that the main battle is being fought, not in congress, but on the local level.

If America is to survive, you and I must stop Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 now, at every level of government. We must stand up and protest at every city council and commissioner meeting, at every planning board, and consensus meeting.

Fight the creation of non-elected councils, commissions, or boards, because they can and will be used as a weapon against your ability to deal and reason with local government.

Above all, refuse federal or state money or new sustainable programs and get rid of the old ones.

And if ICLEI and the American Planning Association are now running things in your town—throw them out! Stop payment of dues, disband anything they have built and start looking for some high grade tar and feathers.

And if your elected representatives continue to ignore you while playing footsy with those leading this tyranny, then you must force them out of office. Your survival depends on it.

Nameless, faceless bureaucrats wielding power in the backrooms, untouchable and unseen, is not freedom.

The Sustainablists now haunt the upper levels of the federal government, our state houses, and our city council chambers.

Stirrings among the citizenry

In these very dangerous times, it is easy to despair over our nation's future.

They have achieved many of their goals, but they have not yet won. Their whole agenda is built on a house of cards that stands only when you are ignorant and compliant.

And their arrogance and impatience to force the policy into place is resulting in a stir of the American people.

We are beginning to move the rock of freedom uphill. We are on the threshold of great change because the word is quickly spreading about Agenda 21.

After 18 years of issuing warnings about Agenda 21, finally opposition is being heard. In the past ten months, ten communities have taken action and revoked contracts with ICLEI. Starting with Carroll County, Maryland; then Amador County, California; then Montgomery County, Pennsylvania; then Edmond, Oklahoma, then Las Cruces, NM, then Spartanburg, SC, then Albemarle County, Virginia, then Plantation, Florida, then James City County, Virginia, the place where American basically started—and most recently, Lexington, Virginia—all have rejected its contract with ICLEI.

I have just returned from an extensive ten-day tour of Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Montana, where I spoke to enthusiastic audiences, was interviewed by the news media (resulting in favorable news reports) and met with several elected officials, with exciting results.

In the Washington state legislature, Rep. Matt Shay reports the creation of an anti-Agenda 21 caucus—and one is being planned for the Washington Senate as well. In Oregon, I addressed a meeting of state legislators are the capital building in Salem. The address was live-streamed over the internet and several legislators heard that message and expressed interest in learning more and taking action against Agenda 21.

Of great significance, in Bonner County, Idaho, County Commissioner Cornel Rasor is working to establish a "Property Rights Council" as an official arm of the county government. The Council will oversee legislation that comes before the county commission to determine if it violates private property. In addition, it will train county staff to understand property rights and assure they are protected in all county business. This is a revolutionary idea that must be shared and implemented across the nation.

While I was traveling in Montana, word came that presidential candidate Newt Gingrich talked about Agenda 21 on the Sean Hannity radio show. I had supplied the Gingrich campaign with that information after they contacted me. Apparently, Mr. Gingrich and all presidential candidates are being pummeled with questions about Agenda 21. We need to increase that pressure at every campaign stop for candidates at every level!

Finally, in a surprise move, two bills (Assembly Bill 303 and Senate Bill 225) have been introduced into the Wisconsin legislature to allow local community government to repeal comprehensive development plans that were forced under state smart growth legislation. The bills also eliminate the grant program that was set up to finance the smart growth planning. These bills need support and more co-sponsors. Moreover, this legislation needs to be used as model legislation for every single state legislature in the nation.

Every day I talk to activists across the nation hoping to be the next community to kick these zealots out. In a panic, ICLEI is now rushing to cleanse its web site of any mention of Agenda 21. Our opponents are trying their best to ridicule us and paint our movement as extremists. It's not working—we are getting stronger every day. For the first time since I started down the road to expose Agenda 21, I believe we will succeed in crushing it.

When Lambs become Lions

You know, recently I watched the film Robin Hood, starring Russell Crowe. And I was struck by the similarities between England of the Thirteenth Century and today's America.

It was a time of serfs who had no rights, no property, and only poverty in their future. It was a time when the king owned everything, from land to livestock. And it was a time when tax collectors could literally confiscate everything you had in the name of the king, leaving you with virtually nothing.

The people attempted to rise up, demanding that the king give them legal rights from which they could be guaranteed the ability to benefit from the fruits of their own labor.

The people of 13th Century England knew what they had to do, if ever they were going to be free. The slogan under which they organized was, "Rise and Rise again, until lambs become lions."

Today, as we face an ever-growing tyranny by a congress and a president, as well as elected officials at every level who ignore you, lie to you, deny their actions that you can plainly see. Americans, for the first time in our history, face the same evil those Englishmen faced so long ago.

And so today, I appeal to you to take that same resolve. Today, begin that effort to rise up, and continue to fight again and again, at city council and Board of Supervisor meetings. Take their ridicule and return for another fight.

Stand up to the self-proclaimed Stakeholders and outsider NGOs—the carpetbaggers of our day. Reach out to your neighbors and help them see the threat to their freedom that is Agenda 21.

Never give in. Rise and rise again until lambs become lions.

Tom DeWeese—founder and president of the American Policy Center and publisher of the DeWeese Report—is one of the country’s leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and independence.

Used by Permission

Obama Lied–Isn’t that the Real Story?

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:54:00 +0000

By Laurie Roth

For over two years now Obama, most politicians and the majority of the media have demonized and marginalized the questioning and concerns about Obama and his ‘mystery’ birth certificate. You know, the one along with all his College and Passport records he has paid nearly $2,000,000 to hide. I have interviewed a host of people the last two years who have sued Obama and had strong reason to believe he was not born in the US. These people include Phil Berg (ObamaCrimes.com) and Alan Keys, former Ambassador to the UN. By now, you and I have tracked the building case that Obama was born in Kenya. At ObamaCrimes.com, we see signed affidavits from Obama’s step grandmother, two pastors verifying this was so and statements on a US radio show from the former ambassador to Kenya, also verifying Obama was born there. It also came to our attention the various statements from members of Kenyan parliament also stating he was a ‘son of the soil’ and born in Kenya.

Even with all the endless pointing toward Kenya as a birthplace we still have no conclusive proof of a long form birth certificate being produced anywhere. Instead, we saw early on Hawaii and Obama release a Certification of Live Birth. There were also announcements in two newspapers commenting on Obama’s birth. This document was the one Obama’s campaign released during his presidential race. Why not the real birth certificate? According to Hawaiian rules, the ‘Certification of live birth’ is given to those not born in the state.

Even with all the evidence, pointing away from Hawaii it has been strangely quiet and sometimes hostile toward anyone looking at the sea of growing facts against Obama being born in Hawaii. I recall hearing more than a few put downs and insults from the big Talk show hosts on Fox and other shows.

Remember the story that Doug Hagmann, and Judi McLeod, editor of CanadaFreePress.com broke with a published article and on my show? Doug reported that he was contacted by a top and recognizable host who reported anonymously that he/she had been threatened to avoid the Obama eligibility subject, even to address it in a balanced, pro and con manner. It was strictly off limits….or else their job, career, and perhaps sponsors would be hurt in some way. As Judi and Doug continued to dig, they found many threats to folks working at networks and shows to avoid this subject or else. It doesn’t take rocket science to notice how quiet it has been in the media coverage in the face of growing concern in the polls; evidence mounting against Obama’s being born in Hawaii and simply a HUGE COVER UP.

The only sound that flows out from any of the Talk show big boys is mocking of what they call the birthers. In my view, it appears that most talk show hosts are living in fear and have sold out to protect their money pile and career. Screw over the truth and constitution because you might be called a few names in the process of uncovering it.

While in CPAC recently I was able to interview Dr. Jerry Corsi who is just releasing his latest book, ‘Where’s the Birth Certificate.’ Corsi has gone to Kenya and dug through every contact and record available in Hawaii to create a well-documented fact trail regarding Obama and his birthplace. Jerry told me that the real story, which he has completely verified and will be covered in his book, is that Obama lied.

Though we don’t have a long form birth certificate yet proving the exact location of Obama’s birth, we 100% know from all records available, the Hawaiian Governor Neil Abercrombie’s statements, (I have seen and have the birth certificate…I don’t have it) hospital records and other supporting documentation that Obama was not born in Hawaii. The real story is that Obama lied. He was not born there, so where was he born and why would he lie? Regardless of where he was born, common sense says he is covering up a large whopper of some kind, or he wouldn’t have lied in the first place, nor spent nearly 2 million dollars hiding it and other revealing records.

This week Bob Unruh of wnd.com had a revealing article over viewing the polls taken over the last few years of people who question Obama’s eligibility. There are all kinds of polls you can dive into but the bottom line is that the suspicions are growing. Right now only 3 out of 10 in the GOP believe Obama was born in the US. Even liberal Chris Matthews who has chronically bashed the birthers said on his show that he was perplexed by the growing tide of questioning regarding Obama’s eligibility.

In May 2010, a WND/Wenzel Poll stated that 55% wanted Obama to release all his records and qualifications and if it is proven he is not qualified, he should be removed as President and all the bills he signed made null and void.

How is this just a racist and birther issue? There are at least 12 states pursuing legislation to push bills to require proof of citizenship for the 2012 election. Obviously, the concern has been growing among the states, no doubt in part due to the judicial branch ignoring many lawsuits on this subject so far.

Perhaps someday before I die, our TV and print media will also wake up and smell the putrid coffee dramatically pointing to the birthplace lies by this President and constitutional crises this has created. It is my strong belief from the growing evidence that President Obama was born abroad and is not constitutionally eligible to be President, be Commander in Chief, nor sign any bills into law. Wake up America.

Laurie Roth, “The ‘Annie Oakley’ of the Airwaves,” hosts the Dr. Laurie Roth Show, a nationally syndicated radio program. The original article appeared on Dr. Roth’s website, February 17, 2011.

A Memorable Visit to Skywalker Ranch

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 04:07:00 +0000

By Gail Grace Nordskog

Editor’s Note: With the release of the 3-D version of STAR WARS: EPISODE I: THE PHANTOM MENACE, Movieguide® sent our intrepid reporters on a press junket visit to the famous Skywalker Ranch of George Lucas, the creator of STAR WARS and INDIANA JONES.

LIGHTSABERS in hand, children from all over the country boarded three shuttle buses for an adventure to the land of a galaxy far, far away. . . from the Ritz Carlton Hotel in San Francisco to the Skywalker Ranch in Marin County, about a 45-minute drive north of the city.

There was a buzz of excitement in the air!

As the representative of movieguide.org, I was thrilled to be part of the domestic TV press invited to attend a promotional tour to preview the first, soon-to-be-released “3D” Star Wars movie: Episode I: The Phantom Menace.

Attendees had been encouraged to bring “young reporters,” preferably between the ages of 6 and 18, for the special “behind the scenes” tour, and my 15-year-old daughter, Christyana, was specifically asked to attend. Our unique, shared opportunity was truly a special one: To see and hear, firsthand, from the incredibly talented people who make the movies produced by Lucasfilm, Ltd. – those ground-breaking, special-effect sensations for which they are world renowned.

The agenda was to tour the facilities, and then, on Sunday, to attend a private screening of the movie.

Fellow Travelers. . .

Due to the crowded bus, I was unable to find a seat next to my daughter, so instead I sat next to a gentleman from Chicago who has a Star Wars website that attracts many faithful followers. Even though he had the pleasure of having been at the Ranch the day before, he, like everyone else on the bus, could not contain his excitement.

Behind me, and next to Christy, sat a young dad and his 7-year-old, curly-topped, soon-to-be-reporter daughter. Like a child’s first visit to Disneyland, this guy could not stop talking and smiling! They were affiliated with a network in Denver. A few rows up, sat Valerie and her 13-year-old son Xavier from Kansas City. They were with a FOX affiliate station. Valerie was a beautiful, gracious lady who normally does not attend these events, but her husband had to be in Los Angeles for another screening. Xavier had done these types of things with his dad in the past and seemed like a “seasoned pro,” comfortable with his assignment.

Also joining us on the bus was Melissa from New York City. She had arrived the day before with her 10-year-old son, who had awakened her this morning at 3:00 a.m.! In spite of her lack of sleep, I found her to be a delightfully charismatic mom. She hosts a program called “Moms and the City” which can be found on www.nbcnewyork.com/shows/moms-city.

The Journey Begins. . .

It was a beautiful, sunny morning, around 8:30 a.m., as the bus turned off the highway in the direction of Skywalker Ranch. We soon started the climb up “Lucas Valley Road” – which I later found out was a coincidence, and not named for the famed director, but rather for a local 19th century rancher who inherited the property as part of an earlier Spanish land-grant.

Finally, we arrived at the guarded gate. Soon we were allowed to enter this beautiful, tranquil, 5-acre vineyard setting. As we piled out of the bus to enter the “Tech Building” that looked more like a vintage winery in Tuscany, Italy, we were greeted by the friendly staff and our guides for the day, and then escorted to the dining area. (To learn more about Skywalker Ranch, you can visit www.insideskywalkerranch.com.) Inside, there was a continental breakfast spread before us – lots of donuts and pastries! They must love super-energized children! After breakfast we were put into smaller groups to start our individual tours. Christy and I were in “Group 3” with about 20 other reporters, including parents and children. Our guide was a USC film school graduate named Connie. She was born and raised in the Midwest and had the charm and poise of a “Miss America.” It was obvious how much she loved being a part of the Lucasfilm company.

Stepping into the Light and Magic

Our Star Wars Episode 1 interactive demonstrations began with our group going to “Sound Editing”/“Character Voicing” and meeting with Sound Editor Matthew Wood. According to Matthew’s bio, he was invited to join Lucasfilm as a part of the “Sound-Droid” development team in 1990, and he joined “Skywalker Sound” in 1991 as a specialist in incorporating emerging technology into the traditional editorial model. Matthew was 17-years-old when he started working there, and he recalled fondly for us how one of his first jobs was throwing trash cans out of the back of a pick-up truck to record the sounds. They were working on “Terminator 2.”

Next, Connie took us to meet “CG” (“Computer Graphic”) Supervisor Joel Aron of the weekly-animated adventures of Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Joel joined Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in 1991 as a technical assistant on “Hook” and other high profile films, including “Jurassic Park.” Joel showed us how important lighting is to enhancing the persona of the deep and complex character, Darth Maul, who is fueled by hatred. We also learned that all of the characters are hand-modeled.

Our next stop was to meet John Goodson, Digital Artist with ILM. According to John’s bio, he has always been fascinated by miniatures and special effects, hoping one day to work in film. It is obvious that his job with Lucasfilm is a dream come true. He joined ILM in 1988 and has served as Chief Model Maker, Model Project Supervisor, Art Director/Designer, and Concept Modeler.

John showed us one of his models for the “Pod Race” in Episode 1, explaining that Star Wars is a “fabricated universe,” and therefore all the “Pods” are unique in their design. It was interesting to learn that the crowd of people seen from a distance at the “Pod Race” was made by using over 100,000 Q-tip-like sticks tied together and painted different colors!

John was a Viewpaint Artist (a term developed for Jurassic Park” by ILM, that lets an artist paint color and texture directly onto the surface of a computer model) for the new release, “Red Tails.” This is an excellent movie based on the true story about the famous Tuskegee Airmen during WW II – who were fighting in two wars, one overseas, and the other, racial prejudice here in their own country. The movie has all the action that an avid Star Wars special effects fan could want, while learning about these great men of bravery and integrity. (Please see the review on www.movieguide.org.)

Christy Engages in Battles

Last but not least, we met ObiShawn, the Lightsaber Stunt Coordinator. This was fun!!! Each one of the young people, with Lightsaber in hand, took on the master stuntman very seriously, trying to “win.” I saw Christy throw in some ballet moves that would later prove to be a challenge for this master of the Lightsaber!

After their duel, ObiShawn told Christy that he never knew what to expect when he challenges the children, since some have taken karate classes and turned into Ninjas, while others just want to poke him in the face with their Lightsabers. It must be all those donuts! He also told Christy how much he loves doing stunts involving wires that allow him to feel he is. . . flying.

Now that the groundwork had been laid, the youthful reporters began to meet one-on-one with each of the four specialists, asking them about their life and career at Skywalker Ranch and with George Lucas. Each was given the opportunity to do an “opening” for their TV network/website, with a shot of the rolling hillside and the beautiful buildings in the background.

The cameras were rolling. . .

It was finally time for my intelligent, articulate, and all-around awesome daughter to present herself to the world. Could it be time for Greta Van Susteren to move over?

Christy was well-prepared for the “interviewing” component, but was unprepared to give an “opening,” and to my surprise, I saw that she suddenly was frozen with fear! Oh, why didn’t she want another donut for breakfast?” I thought, and then whispered a quick prayer asking God to help her compose herself.

At just that moment, an adorable 9-year-old reporter from www.TimeforKids.com got up and showed all the others what needed to be done! With the poise and skill of a seasoned newscaster, Elise Jonas-Delson captured the attention of all those standing by. A round of applause followed.

Then, I got a great idea. I realized that if Elise could do the “opening” with Christy and me, maybe Christy would relax and feel more confident. With Christy’s and Elise’s approval, and with Elise’s Dad’s permission, we set out to make that happen. . . and it worked! Christy stood on one side of me, with Elise on the other, standing on a crate. I introduced the three of us representing MOVIEGUIDE(r), then Elise explained where we were and why we were there: “Skywalker Ranch, Marin County, to see Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, in 3D.” Teamwork had done it! Christy was now smiling, and comfortable to move forward as her characteristic bubbly, friendly, outgoing personality returned. She began her engaging interviews.

Interviewing the Pros

Christy asked each expert what I thought were really great questions:

How old were you when you decided you wanted to work in film/sound/special effects/computer graphics?
What is your favorite scene in the movie, and who is your favorite Star Wars character?
What is your most favorite movie you’ve ever worked on?
How long have you been working at ILM?

Let the Shopping Begin!

We all then returned for a very much appreciated lunch at the Skywalker Ranch Entertainment Area. All of the food was fresh from the self-sustaining organic farm.

Next came a “tour” of the Skywalker Ranch Gift Shop. . . uh, oh. . . the gift shop . . . this is where I lost it! I totally forgot that we had been given gift bags with all kinds of Star Wars toys, along with Christy’s own, personal Lightsaber! I proceeded on, buying t-shirts, ball caps, and several books for the boys in my life. . . hoping to inspire them to get an education in film, special effects, graphic design, model making, journalism, sound, lighting, and to follow their dreams and imaginations so that they, too, can play like these guys do when they grow up. Hopefully, like George Lucas, they can even make millions of dollars having fun and making other people happy. Looking back, I still think it’s a good plan.

With two large shopping bags in tow, Christy and I walked back to the main building where the shuttle buses were waiting to take us back to San Francisco and the Ritz Carlton Hotel. All of the people on our bus were talking about the great and memorable day we had at Skywalker Ranch.

The Screening

Sunday morning, the “Press Shuttle” arrived at 8:30 a.m. sharp to take us to “The Presidio” in San Francisco for a full-course buffet breakfast, with pancakes. All of the food was organic, coming fresh from the Skywalker Ranch. We were greeted by “R2-D2” and other Star Wars characters for photo opportunities. While Christy declined, I at least got her to take a picture of me with the cute little “Droid!”

“The Presidio” is located just before crossing the Golden Gate Bridge, and is a former active military installation of the U.S. Army. This is where Lucasfilms corporate offices are now located. Breathtaking views of the intriguing city which is San Francisco can be seen from most windows.

We took a tour of “The Presidio,” which is as interesting as any museum I have visited. Also, at the Lucasfilm property, Mr. Lucas has quite a collection of old movie posters, as well as paintings and models from the many movies made at ILM – all of which were both fascinating and beautiful (in their eerie way).

We were then led into the “Premier Theater” for our private screening of Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace in “3D.”

Even though, in 2002, director and writer George Lucas first began “exploring” the idea of presenting all of the Star Wars movies as “3D” theatrical releases, the company did not start the active conversion work until 2010. Now, it all is beginning, with Episode I.

An interesting side note is that the first Star Wars movie, released in 1977, was actually Episode IV: A New Hope. This initial Star Wars movie went on to receive ten Academy Award nominations, and has been proclaimed as one of the most successful and influential films of our time.

Our “3D” Experience

As we entered the theater, each of us was handed our special “3D” glasses. Christy and I found seats in the middle of the theater, not too close to the screen but not too far back, either. As it turned out, we ended up sitting in front of Elise and her dad and I was next to the man from Chicago. A 13-year-old boy, sitting next to Christy, uttered the only sour note . . . complaining to his dad that his “3D” glasses were “for kids” and he felt he should have gotten the adult size! For all of us “kids” of all ages, I could only smile.

The lights went out, and right before us George Lucas appeared on screen, sharing with us what he believes will be the beginning of a “Third Generation” of Star Wars fans. Many who were sitting around us (and myself included) were among the “1st and 2nd ” generations, and I could sense them all nodding in agreement. Now, it was time for Christy and me to put on our glasses, sit back, and. . . watch the movie! “May the Force be with you!”

Postscript

With Lightsaber back in Christy’s hands, after the TSA agents had thoroughly inspected it, we smiled as we walked to our gate at SFO to catch our flight to Santa Barbara. “How Wude!” I said to Christy with a chuckle, quoting “Jar Jar Binks,” the annoying, but lovable character who, to my dismay, attaches himself for the duration of the movie to Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan.

For the short one-hour-twenty-minute flight home I began to ponder what message I wanted to share with you, the reader, and especially to my dear friend, Lili Baehr, who had sent me and Christy to represent www.movieguide.org at this TV/press junket to Skywalker Ranch. How glad and grateful both Christy and I are for this trip!

As a Christian, I believe that the Bible shows us that God gives gifts and talents to all of us. I love to encourage people to find their God-given talents and use them for His Glory and to bless others. Certainly, George Lucas has used his gifts to bless others through his amazing theatrical journeys of imagination and creativity, and to open up a “galaxy” of possibilities for movie viewers throughout the world. He has also built a business that has created an ideal working environment for others to use their gifts and talents as well.

All-in-all, Christy and I had a wonderful experience at the Ranch. Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace in “3D” is worth seeing. . . and, when you put on your “3D” glasses, put on your imagination, as well. That is a gift from God, too.
________________

GAIL GRACE NORDSKOG is the Host of Hearts of Purpose TV and had the pleasure of working with Dr. Ted Baehr on his Movieguide® TV program for many years. She is Co-Publisher, along with her husband, Gerald C. Nordskog, of Nordskog Publishing, Inc., Ventura, CA and editor of “The Gail Grace Nordskog Collection” producing inspirational and reflective prayer journals as companion pieces for selected books. The Nordskogs live in Ventura, California where Gail is a full time wife and mother, spending the majority of her time raising their four school age children (adopted from China). Contact: gail@nordskogpublishing.com. Website (in development): www.heartsofpurpose.org.

CHRISTYANA JOY NORDSKOG is a passionate figure skater. She started ice skating at age five, and competes at the Intermediate level. She is presently training with Russian World Figure Skating Championships Gold Medalist and Olympic Pairs Figure Skater Andrei Bushkov and his wife Galina, in Lake Arrowhead, California. Besides skating, she loves to dance, play the piano, read, hang out with friends, and go to good movies that Dr. Baehr recommends. She is presently studying the Russian language.

St. Patrick’s Christonomic and Trinitarian Daily Morning Prayer

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 20:53:00 +0000

"Today I arise, through the baptism of Christ—His cross; and His grave; resurrection; ascension; and final descent, for the judgment of doom.

"Today I arise, while God's angels serve—I heed all His heralds, through reading His Word. He makes His saints pure, in labours and love.

"Today I arise, before the sun's flame; before the winds rush; before lightning strikes. For God's sea is deep; and His land like a rock!

"Today I arise, through God's strength to guide me. God's might shall uphold me; God's wisdom shall lead me; God's eye looks before me; God's ear shall hear for me; God's Word shall speak through me; God's hand shall protect me—God's way is before me.

"God's hosts shall defend me against snares of devils; against tests of vices; against lusts of nature; 'gainst all who would harm me; from far or from near—with few, or with many.

"Christ now protects me 'gainst poison; 'gainst burning; 'gainst drowning; 'gainst wounding; and even 'gainst falling—that I may receive an abundant reward.

"For Christ now is with me, before, and behind me; Christ is within, and beneath, and above me. Christ's on my right; and Christ's on my left. Christ's where I sit; and Christ's where I sleep.

"Christ's where I rise, each day I get up. Christ's in the hearts of all who recall me. Christ's in the mouth of all who address me. Christ's in the eye of all who behold me. Christ's in the ear of all who do hear me.

"Today I arise in the strong Name of God, to the Triune Jehovah I come! I pray every day, to Elohim strong—to my God Who is Three but yet One.

"From Him all of nature has had her creation by Father; by Spirit; by Word—O praise to Jehovah the God of salvation! For I'm saved by Jesus, the Lord!"

Versified hymn version here.

The Britannic Christian Padraig Converts Ireland, Going into All the World

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 03:09:00 +0000

by Rev. Professor-Emeritus Dr. Francis Nigel Lee

According to Britain's oldest Historian, the North-Brythonic Celtic Christian Gildas,¹ the Gospel arrived in Britain before 37 A.D. According to Eusebius, Maelgwyn, Isidore, Freculph, Nenni, Baronius, Cressy, Hearne, Rev. Dr. James Ussher, Rev. Dr. John Owen and Rev. Dr. H. Williams—there is some evidence that Joseph of Arimathea preached (and was also buried) in Somerset's Glastonbury.²

Also according to the American Rev. Dr. A. Cleveland Coxe in the Ante-Nicene Fathers,³ there is strong reason to conclude that the great Anti-Roman British General Caradog became a Christian—perhaps even while still in the West of Britain before his exile therefrom in 52 A.D. Too, from A.D. 75 onward, his relative the apparently-Christian Prince Merig is said to have ruled over the Britons from near my own birthplace Kendal in Cumbria's Westmorland.⁴

Merig's Christian descendants Coell and Llew alias Lucius, as well as the latter's descendants Helen(a) and Constantine,⁵ are all reputed to have ruled over Cumbria as the World's first Christian State—within the Romano-British province of Britannia. Indeed, it was precisely from Christian Cumbria that Prince Ninian went forth to evangelize Scotland's Picts—and Padraig or Patrick went forth to evangelize the Scotic and Pictish inhabitants of Ireland.

In fact, according to the 195 A.D. Tertullian of Carthage in Africa,⁶ even before his own day some of the northernmost "haunts of the Britons" had already been "subjugated to Christ." And by A.D. 220, Sabellius of Rome in Italy was conceding⁷ that "the first nation which called itself 'Christian' after the name of 'Christ'—was Britain." Indeed, as the Early Church's greatest Scholar Origen of Caesarea in Palestine pointed out,⁸ perhaps the reason why "the divine goodness of our Lord and Saviour is equally diffused among the Britons"—is because their "druids" had demonstrated a "resemblance between their traditions and those of the Jews."

Remarkable background of the Brythonic Cumbrian Christian Padraig

The writer of the medieval Irish Chronicle—there collating many very much earlier records—first deals with the history of Ireland before and soon after Christ's incarnation. Then he goes on to declare:⁹ "I pass to another time—and 'He Who Is' [namely Jehovah] will bless it! January 6th [A.D. 357]. In this year, Patrick was born."

Later, continues the Irish Chronicle, "Patrick was carried a captive into Hibernia.... Patrick [went] to Germanus" alias Garmon. "Niall of the Nine Hostages reigned twenty-seven years.... From the beginning of the World, according to the Hebrews, 4481 years.... From the incarnation of the Lord, 432 years"—viz. till the beginning of the adult Patrick's mission of Christianizing the Irish nation.

Rev. J.A.M. Hanna, in his book A History of the Celtic Church,¹⁰ shows that Padraig was a child of the covenant. His real name was the Brythonic Succat. He was baptized, apparently in infancy, by the British Culdee Minister Rev. Caranog. According to the celebrated celtologist Rev. Dr. John A. Duke,¹¹ Padraig is calculated to have been born about the year 389 A.D.

The home into which he was born—as Padraig himself tells us—was Christian. There he was nurtured just a few years before his fellow-Briton, his somewhat older fellow-Cumbrian Ninian, started out with his missionary work in Scotland. Padraig's father Calpurn was a Deacon. His mother was Conch(essa), the sister of St. Martin of the Gallo-Celtic Church.

Also Rev. Professor Dr. G.T. Stokes, the famous twentieth-century Church Historian of Early Ireland, explains¹² that the father of Padraig was a Deacon. His grandfather was a Presbyter. His father, married, was both a Clergyman and a Town Councillor. This and many other factors—such as his strict adherence to Holy Scripture and its glorious doctrines of absolute predestination and Christ-centred postmillenialism—help establish that Padraig and his ancestors were all Proto-Protestants alias Primitive Presbyterians.
Padraig himself tells us that his father Calpurn was a Deacon; and his grandfather Pottitt was a Presbyter. Padraig says Calpurn was also a Decurion—alias a minor local magistrate or headman over ten families. Cf. the 'rulers of tens' in Exodus 18:21. An eleventh-century chronicler gives Padraig a great-grandfather Odiss, who too was a Deacon. Padraig's mother, who was indeed the wife of a Deacon (First Timothy 3:8-12), may or may not herself also have been a Deaconess (First Timothy 5:9f).

Was Padraig from Caledonia's Clyde or Britannia's Strathclyde?

It needs to be remembered that, apart from isolated colonies in the Hebrides and also in Argyle, there were no (Iro-)Scots to speak of in Scotland—until their migrations there from Ireland, well after the birth of Padraig. Before that time, Scotland consisted of: Picts in her Northeast; Brythons in her West and Southeast; and Niduari Pictish colonies (from Ireland) in her extreme Southwest. Such were the groups evangelized by Padraig's older contemporary Prince Ninian the Cumbrian, after his moving to Whithorn in Scotland's Galloway.

We must first try to determine exactly where Padraig was born and raised. One might expect, and we so believe, that he was born in Christian Cumbria—just as Ninian had been. Padraig's own disciple Fiech states he was born at Nemthur. However, there is no indication at all as to where among the Brythons that place might have been.

A Scottish Academic, Rev. Professor Dr. John Foster, rightly cites¹³ the seventh-century testimony of Padraig's Irish Biographer the Churchman Rev. Muirchu. The latter insists that Padraig originated "not far from our Sea"—viz. the Irish Sea.

Consequently, concludes Foster, "three estuaries seem to be most likely—the Clyde, the Severn, and the Solway." Of those three, it is the latter—the Solway (between what is today Southwest Scotland and Northwest England)—that is the closest to Ireland.

Now Padraig himself wrote an Epistle to Coroticus (alias King Ceretic of Brythonic Strathclyde). Even the Scot Foster concedes that throughout the mediaeval period, it was assumed that in Padraig's Epistle his words "my fellow-citizens" and "my own [people]" and "my own country" meant that Padraig himself belonged to that kingdom. Eighth- and tenth-century Gaelic-language notes claim that "his origin was from the Strathclyde Britons."

But Strathclyde was then not Gaelic or Pictish, but wholly Brythonic or Early-North-Welsh. It then included not only the central part of what is now Southwestern Scotland, but also the entirety of the present Cumbria (and even a considerable area to the south of that). It is true that the above-mentioned eighth- and tenth-century Gaelic notes on the life of Padraig do claim, in Gaelic, 'Ail-Cluade' (alias 'The Rocky Clyde' or 'The Rock of the Clyde') as Padraig's birth-place. But even if those late notes are accurate in this—exactly where is that rocky or mountainous Ail-Cluade? Today, some regard that Ail-Cluade as being the rock near or upon which Dumbarton (alias Dunn Breatann) was built. Yet even then, as now, that means not 'Fortress of the Gaels' but 'Fortress of the Britons.'

Two miles upstream from there, still in Dumbarton County, lies a place called 'Old Kilpatrick.' On the other hand, there is also a 'Port Patrick'—far to the south, in Wigtown.

Interestingly, there is also a place called 'Kirkpatrick'—in County Dumfries, adjacent to Cumbria, and just five miles north of the Solway. The latter is the westernmost point of the present Scotland's border with Cumbria. Even today, Cumbria extends also to the north of Hadrian's Roman Wall—as far as the Cheviot Hills to the north, and as far as the Pennine Chain to the east.

Now the very words 'Ail-Cluade' in those eighth- and tenth-century Gaelic notes, could easily apply to the more rocky territory of Southern Strathclyde—alias that area of Cumbria south of Hadrian's Wall. Indeed, it is linguistically certain that it is this area of Cumbrian Strathclyde where Padraig grew up—namely in the extreme northwest of what was then still Roman Britannia. Too, any really penetrating study of Padraig's own works Profession of Faith (alias his Confession) and his Letter to Coroticus—will point to the same conclusion.

The significance of Cumbria's Brampton to Padraig's birthplace

As even the Scot Foster also concedes, Padraig's words are often taken as being of wider reference—namely that he was a Brython. Consequently, the other likely site of Padraig's birth—which he himself tells us was 'Bannauem Taberniae' (or Banna Venta Berniae)—is, even according to Foster, "on the Solway."¹⁴

There, continues Foster the Scot, the place-name Banna is thought to have belonged to the western end of Hadrian's Wall. On the Solway, and not on the Clyde.

An ancient church, St. Martin's—named after Padraig's mother's brother—stands in farmland one mile east of Brampton near the River Eden. Too, it was in Brampton that Ninian -4 - himself had founded a congregation¹⁵—seventeen miles from Bowness at the western end of Hadrian's Wall; thirteen miles east of the Solway; twelve miles south of Scotland; and ten miles east of Carlisle, in Cumbria.

Brampton is on a river which empties itself into the Solway five miles west of Carlisle. It is forty-five miles north of Kendal. That latter is the administrative centre of the first-century's Prince Caradog's kinsman the Christian King Arvirag's son Prince Merig's Cumbria—in which his second-century Christian descendants King Coill and King Llew and his third-century Christian descendants King Coel and Princess Helen and even the Christian Constantine the Great are all rooted.

The Canadian-American Rev. Professor Dr. J.T. McNeill, author of the famous work The History and Character of Calvinism, in his book The Celtic Churches discusses¹⁶ certain Latin terms used by Padraig himself to describe his own birthplace—vicus, villula, and decurio. These concepts are said to be inapplicable to Dumbarton in Scotland (to the north of the then-Roman province of Britannia).

A location in Cumbria, within the region called Rheged in the Welsh documents, has therefore been proposed—east-southeast of Carlisle and near the Irthing River within what was then still Britannia (just before the Romans pulled out of Britain completely). McNeill suggests some sparsely inhabited part of Cumbria (in Greater Strathclyde) just south of the Solway.

McNeill concludes that Padraig's royal kinsman the Free Briton Corotig was apparently one of the princes called Ceretig in Cymric genealogies—probably Ceretig Wledig of Strathclyde. Consequently, a Brythonic Cumbrian cradle (between northeast 'Wales' and southwest 'Scotland') is again suggested—also by his very own writings—as the birth-place of Padraig himself.

Padraig's writings not in Erse or Gaelic or Brythonic but in Dog-Latin

Furthermore, Padraig did not pen his writings in Scottish Gaelic, nor in the cognate Irish Erse (which he never really mastered). Nor did he record them in his own native tongue Brythonic, the popular language of Ancient Britain. But he rather wrote in a coarse Latin, as the official language of his own province within Britannia (south of the Solway)—and indeed also of the Roman Empire of which his Britannia had till just then been part.

Padraig wrote his mundane Latin quite intelligibly, though in a mediochre way. This shows he was not very fluently acquainted with that language of the Romans. It also shows that his was a kind of 'Dog-Latin'—and certainly not his mother tongue. This is seen too in his clumsy-looking latinized names for the obviously-Brythonic members of his family and other persons. Thus, he latinizes his own name Padraig to Patricius etc.

Hence Padraig himself remarked:¹⁷ "I had a father Calpornius, a Deacon (Diaconus)." He was the "son of Potitus the son of Odissa, a Presbyter (Presbyterus). He [Calpornius] had a farm nearby where I was taken captive...and...led into captivity in Ireland."

Thus, Padraig grew up in Britannia—and probably within Greater Strathclyde. The site was certainly close to Ireland—once again suggesting Cumbria. For the latter is just as close to Ireland as is Dumbarton. Also F.F. Bruce insists¹⁸ that Padraig was a native of the Roman province of Britannia (and therefore not from Caledonia).

Above, Padraig used the word Presbyterus (meaning 'Elder') rather than Sacerdos (meaning 'Priest') for the word here transliterated as "Presbyter." This shows that Padraig was a Proto-Protestant Presbyterian rather than a sacerdotalized sacramentalist. His father Calpornius (the latinization of the Brythonic Calpurn) and grandfather Potitus (the Brython Pottitt) were both non-celibate clerics. His mother's name he says was Concessa (the latinization of the Brythonic Conch or Conches).

This too shows Padraig was certainly no Roman Catholic. Though celibacy was a regular feature of certain later Celtic clerics, it was never obligatory. Married clergy dominated the Ancient Celtic Church—whether as early as the Christian Cumbrian Prince's son Ninian before A.D. 397, or whether even as late as 1040 A.D.

Right down till the days of Padraig and beyond, the law of mandatory clerical celibacy was unknown in Britain and Ireland. In fact, the married clergy there successfully resisted the denunciations of later Romish popes and their councils on this as on other matters even during the next six hundred years. Also, even as late as the Council of Winchester in A.D. 1076, it was decreed that "married Pries-ts [or Presbyters] living in castles or villages should not be compelled to abandon their wives."¹⁹

Padraig himself states²⁰ his parents lived not among the Romans but "among the Britannians"—'in Britanniis'—alias among the native Brythonic inhabitants of Rome's Province of Britannia. Indeed, the Romans had already withdrawn from Cumbria from 330f A.D. before he was born – and from the whole of Britannia in 398 during his lifetime.

In his Letter to Coroticus (also known as his Epistle)—Padraig adds²¹ that his father was a "Decurio." That means a headman in charge of ten other persons, and hence a local Elder in the Church over ten other families (cf. Exodus 18:21f); or alternatively a Cavalry Commander; or even a Village Councillor. Yet in all three cases, Padraig's father would still have functioned within the Roman province of Britannia.²²

Padraig the Celt's home language was Britonnic, the immediate predecessor of Cumbrian. He wrote in rather poor Latin. He wrote in the latter also, if not chiefly, in order that he might gain the widest possible readership. He gave latinized forms of his birthplace ('Bannauem Taberniae' or 'Banna Venta Berniae'). He also gave a latinized name ('Calpurnius') to his father the Deacon ('Diaconum') Calporn, and to his grandfather the Presbyter Pottitt ('Potiti...Presbyteri'). Indeed, Padraig further stated that his father was also a Decurio alias an 'Elder-over-ten-families' or a 'Ruler-of-ten.'

These are all very strong indications that his birthplace Bannauem Taberniae (or Banna Venta Berniae) was not in Non-Roman Iro-Gaelic Northwestern or Western Scotland, nor in Niduaric-Pictish Southwestern Scotland, nor in Non-Roman Brythonic Caledonia, nor in Non-Roman Pictavia in Northeastern or Eastern Scotland—but somewhere in what at the time of his birth was still the Roman-occupied province of Britannia. For almost certainly, it is only in the solidly-evangelized and Proto-Presbyterian Britannia alias South Britain (and indeed probably only in the extreme northwest of South Britain in Cumbria) that a person such as Padraig—a self-confessed child of the covenant for no less than at least four generations—could have been born.²³

Padraig hardly fits at all into the almost-pagan Pre-Ninian Scotland alias Pictland in North Britain. Nevertheless, both the Strathclydian saga and the Greater-Cumbrian tradition surrounding Padraig strongly militate against an original environment in either Wales or Cornwall—and still less in European Brittany.

Once more, Padraig's struggle to learn Irish—itself so close to Scots-Gaelic—militates against Dumbarton (near the western coast of what is now central Scotland) being his home town. For Dumbarton is contiguous with and just east of Argyle ('The Land of the Gaels'), which from far more ancient times had been colonized by Gaels from Ireland.

Consequently, Padraig could hardly have been raised in the Scottish part of Strathclyde outside of Britannia—to the north of Cumbrian Strathclyde within Britannia. A home town nearer to Cumbria's Carlisle (a later anglicization not of the Gaelic Caithar Luail but rather of the Britonnic Caer Leill), seems far more likely.

Padraig from neither Scotland nor Southwest Britain but Cumbria

It is well-known that the Strathclyde Britons then included both those in Roman-occupied Cumbria immediately south of the Solway—as well as those Brythons immediately north of that firth.²⁴ For Hadrian's Wall ran from the Solway (from west to east), and bisected Strathclyde (to the north and to the south of it).

Even today, Hadrian's Wall runs through Cumbria and Northumberland—south of the Solway and south of the Cheviots. It does not really run further to the north—on the border between modern England and modern Scotland. Still less does it run within modern Scotland itself.

Furthermore, the Irishman Muirchu—who around A.D. 675f wrote a biography of Padraig—there claimed²⁵ that Padraig was "a Briton by nation." Muirchu's book about Padraig further claims that the latter was "born in Britannia"—his Latin actually reading: "in Britannia." The Irishman Muirchu then further adds: "not far from our sea"—i.e., not far from the Irish Sea (with its Iro-Scotic Isle of Man mid-way between Ulster and Cumbria).

The Irish Hymn of Fiacc was composed about A.D. 800. Apart from Padraig's Confession and his Letter to Coroticus (written by Padraig himself)—and also apart from Muirchu's Life of Patrick—this Celtic Hymn of Fiacc is the earliest document relating to Padraig which has come down to us. The opening words of the Hymn of Fiacc are: "Patrick was born in Nemthur (Genair Patraicc inNaemthur)." A scholiast of the eleventh century has appended to these words the following Irish gloss: cathir sein feil imBretnaib tuaiscirt ("a city in North Britain").

The great Elizabethan Chronicler and Historian Holinshed wrote:²⁶ "This Patrick was born in the marches between England and Scotland, in a sea-side town called Eiburne." This clearly points to the Solway, just south of the northernmost border between Cumbria and Dumfries.

This again places Patricius together with his father and grandfather with their standardly-latinized names—not in Scotland but clearly in the Roman province of Britannia. It further places them all in north-central Cumbria—and nearby to Carlisle "in the marches between England and Scotland in a sea-side town called Eiburne."

This 'Eiburne' is indeed within ten miles of Brampton in Cumbria, and within five miles of Kirkpatrick in the extreme south of Scotland. Indeed, even Kirkpatrick itself may at that time well have been regarded—by the Romano-Britons themselves—as falling within the province of Britannia near its rather fluctuating border with what only later became known as Scotland.

So it seems almost certain that Padraig was raised in Greater Cumbria, alias Southern Strathclyde. As the BBC's Historian Michael Wood declares in his 1987 book In Search of the Dark Ages,²⁷ Padraig's father owned a small villa in the west (perhaps in the region of Carlisle).

We conclude, then, that also Padraig the circa A.D. 385-461f British Missionary to Ireland—was born in the strongly-evangelized territory of Brythonic Cumbria, and probably just south of the border with Scotland. In this, then, he was just like Ninian the circa A.D. 360-432 Brythonic Missionary to Caledonia shortly before him. For both were raised apparently in Christian Cumbria.

That was the region earlier colonized by the great Prince Caradog's contemporary kinsmen the Christian King Arvirag's son Prince Merig of Cumbria—and his descendants Prince Coill and King Llew. It is also the region where Llew's descendants King Coel and Princess Helena and even Constantine the Great apparently had their roots. Indeed, it is the region which also produced, after Padraig, the A.D. 516-70 oldest Brythonic Church Historian Gildas—and Kentigern or Mungo, the A.D. 518-603 Brythonic Missionary to the Picts.

Charles Thomas on Padraig as a native of Greater Cumbria

In his well-researched book Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, Charles Thomas says ²⁸ that Padraig himself called his father "Calpurnius" and tells us that the latter was or had been both "Diaconus" and "Decurio"—a Christian Deacon, and the holder of an obligatory Civil Office. Calpurnius would thus have owned land, and had servants. Padraig further says his grandfather "Potitus" had been a "Presbuteros" alias a Presbyter—and that Padraig himself was successively a Deacon and a "Bishop" alias an Overseer.

Padraig wrote in Dog-Latin. He knew his Bible, and had a limited range of patristic texts. He would have spoken Early-British—the vernacular [Britonnic-Cumbrian] of his home region.
We are told by Padraig (in his Confession) he was taken captive [by pirates from Ireland] when he was at his father's "villula" or small country-estate. This was in Rome's Britannia.

It lay south of Hadrian's Wall. It was nearer to the west rather than to the east coast of Britain; and was approximately opposite that part of Ireland with which Padraig was involved initially and even principally—viz. Armagh in Ulster.

The villula which Calpornius owned, was near (prope) a place called Vicus Bannaventaburniae. This vicus or village was somewhere Calpornius "used to live." It was also not unthinkably far from a larger town which would have handled the civil administrative structure of the region.

Regarding the latter, in the northwest at this period the only possibility would be Carlisle (Luguvallium). It is very appropriately near the western coast (and the indicated regions of Ireland). Irish slave-raids inland would accord with what we can infer.

The particular reading of the vicus or village as "Bannaventaburniae" is established from a comparison of surviving manuscripts. A division into the known forms banna, venta and berniae/burniae at once suggests itself.

Banna is a Britonnic word—and in place-names indicates a notable 'horn' or 'spur' or promontory of rock. Venta seems to be the Latin 'forthgushings' (of mountain-streams).

One can make the informed guess that it would include also a local meeting-place or centre or market-place, not far from the mountain-streams. The third element, bern-iae, will be discussed below.

Hassall has now proposed that Banna is Birdoswald—where a stone inscribed by the Venatores Banniess(es) alias 'the Banniensan Hunters' provides some confirmation. That is 15 miles east-northeast of Carlisle. The Vicus Banna (Venta Berniae) would then allude to a civilian settlement—such as that which appears to have existed in the area [to the south]east of the fort on Hadrian's Wall.

The element 'bern-iae' [in Padraig's own 'Banna Venta Berniae'] has been discussed by [the renowned celtologist Prof. Dr.] Kenneth Jackson. It enters into the names Bern-accia and Bern-icia, and would be from a Britonnic stem of the form berna—meaning, like the Old-Celtic bern, a 'gap' or a 'mountain pass.' As for the "bern-" itself—the Greenhead pass, between the upper North Tyne at Haltwhistle and the upper gorge of the river Irthing naturally suggests itself.

Calpornius' villula was near the vicus. It would have been a Romano-Britonnic estate of Highland Zone character, perhaps on the south side of the Irthing between Birdoswald and Lanercost. What Padraig tells us about his later life, suggests that he then returned to this first home of his. That district forms the most probable background for his early ecclesiastical training and advancement. Thus Charles Thomas.

Padraig's grasp of the Ancient-Britonnic Bible

The British Christian Padraig was born, baptized in infancy, and raised as a faithful child of the covenant. As such, he early learned the 'Great Book' of the Ancient-Britonnic Church.

Rev. Professor Dr. John Foster explains²⁹ that Padraig's Confession fills twenty-one pages; and his Letter, six. Each page averages twenty-eight lines. Now in those twenty-seven pages, are 189 Bible quotations—seven to a page, one on every fourth line.

It was in fact quite usual at that time for clerics to memorize the Psalter. Yet Padraig quotes far more widely than that. He quotes from many of the books of the Old Testament, and from fully 23 of the 27 books of the New. For he cites from the Epistles, 79 times; from the Gospels, 29 times; from Acts, 21 times; from the Psalms, 21 times; from the Prophets, 17 times—and also from 22 other passages of Holy Scripture.

The conclusion is inescapable. Padraig must have known great stretches of the Bible by heart. He is so much a man of one book, that he also even writes in biblical language. The same is true of his later fellow-Strathclydean Gildas the Wise, the Britonnic writer of the oldest extant 'Church History' on Ancient Britain.

As the Canadian-American Calvinist Rev. Professor Dr. J.T. McNeill observes in his book The Celtic Churches,³⁰ Padraig lived with and from the Bible. He had also read some of the Church Fathers—notably the Gaulic Brythons Irenaeus, and Victorian; and also the great Africans Cyprian and Augustine. Yet it is upon the Bible that he relied—to a very remarkable degree.

Padraig's capture by the Irish and his servitude in Ireland

The Irish Historian Haverty chronicles³¹ that, when sixteen, Padraig was carried captive into Ireland in a plundering expedition by Niall of the Nine Hostages. There, as a slave in Antrim, he was in the habit of praying to God a hundred times in a day—and as many times at night.

The records state further that the boy Padraig was carried off from the west coast of Britain by Irish raiders when but sixteen years old in A.D. 405. He did, however, later redeem himself after six years of servitude, in 411 A.D. During his captivity, he evangelized many a youngster—in unfluent Irish. Indeed, according to the old Gaelic manuscript Betha Patriac or 'The Life of Padraig'—he himself was there given in "fosterage" and further educated, as a typical country boy, in Ireland.³²

After Padraig's later departure from Ireland, he studied at Lerins and at Auxerre under the renowned Celto-Brythonic Christians Garmon and Lupus. Padraig—writes his seventh-century Biographer Muirchu—relished his association with the "most holy Bishop Germanus at Auxerre, with whom he stayed no little time."³³ Thereafter he returned to his native Britain—before then returning to Ireland, as a Missionary.

For, as the Canadian-American Professor Dr. J.T. McNeill points out in his fine book The Celtic Churches,³⁴ the Bible-believing Padraig was extremely conscious of the situation in the 'far west'—and viewed Ireland as his mission field. It was for him, as for some classical writers, the outermost west of the habitable World. For Padraig tells us that he had been "predestined to preach the Gospel even to the ends of the Earth."³⁵ Acts 1:8!

Padraig the Briton was a Proto-Protestant

The Calvinist McNeill concludes of Padraig that his Scripture-based eschatology—matched the geographical uniqueness of his mission. From Matthew 28:19-20 and parallel passages drawn from both Testaments, he saw his work as helping to culminate the expansion of the faith begun by the Apostles. Padraig thanked God Who heard his prayers for him to undertake "such a holy and wonderful work, imitating those who [were sent to] preach the Gospel for a testimony to all nations"—before history could end.

Significantly, both of Padraig's parents were British Christians. Indeed, both his father and his grandfather were Culdee Clergymen—thus proving that primordial pastors in the Early British Church were non-celibate.

A fortiori, Rev. Dr. Duke rightly deduces³⁶ that Padraig held no commission from Rome and that Padraig constituted himself as the "Apostle of Ireland." Indeed, Padraig had not—like a Romish Missionary—first been consecrated by Rome, and then sent to Ireland (as indeed later falsely alleged about him).

For Padraig himself admitted:³⁷ "I say (fateor) that I am a Bishop (Episcopus) appointed by God (a Deo) in Ireland (Hiberione)." The Latin Episcopus is derived from the Greek episkopein (meaning 'to oversee'). By "Bishop" or 'Overseer' the Proto-Presbyterian Culdee Padraig simply means: Presiding Elder. Cf. Acts 20:17's equating of "Presbuterous"—with "Episkopous" in 20:28. See too Titus 1:5's "Presbuterous"—which in 1:7 is equated with "Episkopon" (the singular of Episkopous).

Now "in" Padraig's Ireland (Hiberione), there were then no Romanists and still less any Romish Prelates who could have been able there to have made him a Bishop. Nor did he have any contact with Romanist Prelates in Gaul who could have commissioned him. Indeed, Britain herself was still totally devoid of Romanists. So too would she remain—for at least a couple of centuries more.

So it is clear that Padraig here means it was only God Himself directly, without any human agency, Who appointed him as a 'Bishop' in Ireland—and after he had arrived there again (when now an adult), as a Missionary. Yet probably, this occurred only after being commissioned thereunto by a British Presbytery in his native Cumbria—before his departure to Ireland, and after being trained by Garmon the Celto-Brythonic Overseer. Compare Acts 13:1-5f.

Rev. Professor Dr. Hugh Blair rightly states³⁸ that Padraig's writings indicate no connection whatsoever with Rome. At sixteen, he was taken captive in Britain by marauders from Scotic Ireland—where he was enslaved. After six years, he was released from captivity—and went home to Britain.

Linguistic and other considerations suggest he received his theological training either in Britain among his fellow British Culdees—or in the kindred Gaulo-Brythonic Culdee Church of Ancient France. Blair goes on to argue that Padraig's non-celibate father Calpurn was a Deacon, who in turn was the son of Pottitt a Presbyter.

Padraig returned to Ireland about A.D. 432. For the next thirty years, he had a considerable influence on the Irish Chieftains. He had special links with Tara, Croagh Padraic, and Armagh. There is no doubt that, under the Triune God, it was he who made Ireland into a Christian country—and that his teaching was Scriptural and Evangelical. The Church which he founded there, was independent of Rome. Thus Rev. Professor Dr. Blair.

Holinshed and Hanna on the life of the Missionary Padraig in Ireland

The famous Elizabethan Historian Raphael Holinshed explains³⁹ that the young Padraig after a six years' term of forced and unjust slavery in Ireland, redeemed himself with a piece of gold which he found in a clod of earth. He later sought out his uncle Martin in France, by whose means he was placed with Garmon—the Bishop of Auxerre. He continued with him as his scholar or disciple, for a period of several years—all of which time he bestowed on similar study of the Holy Scriptures.

Then, in the year of our Lord 430, Padraig again landed in Ireland—but this time sufficiently speaking her tongue! King Laoghaire (or Leary), son of Niall the great monarch, although he did not himself receive the Gospel—yet permitted all who so wished, to embrace it. From thence, Padraig took his way to Conill, Lord of Connaught. Connill honourably received him, and was converted—together with all his people. Thereafter, Connill sent Padraig to his brother Logan the King of Leinster—whom Padraig likewise converted.

Also in Munster, Padraig found great friendship and favour—by means of the Earl of Daris. He honoured Padraig highly, and gave him a dwelling-place in the east angle of Armagh called Sorta.

Rev. Hanna indicates that after returning to Ireland when forty, Padraig preached to King Laoghaire, son of Niall and ancestor to the Ulster O'Neills. Alleged to have explained the Trinity from God-created shamrocks alias three-leaf clovers, Padraig won many of the nobles of the Ard-Ri alias the Irish 'High King' and many of his druids to Celtic Culdee Christianity.

Ireland was still a confederacy of independent states. Padraig indeed won much of the family of the Irish High-King, and most of Ireland's under-kings and the chieftains of her independent states and regions, for Christ—and so too many of the druids. Indeed, he also christianized and codified Irish Law—and ordained especially from the converted druids at least one Minister of the Word and Sacraments for each of the hundreds of congregations he established.

After many years, soldiers of the Brythonic King Corotig cruelly kidnapped some of the Christian Irish whom Padraig had converted—and attempted to sell them to the then-still-pagan Gaelic Scots and Ancient Picts in what is now Scotland. Padraig protested, in his Epistle to Coroticus.
In his famous Hymn of the Deer's Cry, Padraig's Christonomic Trinitarian Theology and Proto-Puritan Piety is clearly set out. This is also seen in the 'Patrician Poem' of his nephew the Presbyter Sechnall (alias Secundinus).

This is seen further, in the ancient Irish morning prayer known as the Lorica, taught by Padraig to his followers. Finally, Padraig's autobiography or Confession—apparently written just before his death at a very old age—discloses the divinely-donated discipline of this godly Trinitarian.

Padraig's great theodicy- his Letter to King Coroticus

Even after his work zenithed in Ireland, there were disappointments for Padraig. Soldiers of the Brythonic King Corotig would cruelly kidnap some of the Irish Christians whom Padraig had converted. The plan of those kidnappers was to sell those kidnapped—to certain then-still-pagan or by-then-apostate Brythons and pagan Scots in Northern Strathclyde within what is now Western Scotland, and also to certain pagan and/or by-then-apostate Ancient Picts in what is now Northeastern and Southwestern Scotland.
Many years earlier, Padraig had himself been kidnapped from Southern Strathclyde alias Cumbria in Britain—by Iro-Scots from Ireland. They had then sold him into slavery to the then-pagan Irish. So now, after many years as a successful Missionary in Ireland, in his Epistle to Coroticus Padraig vehemently protests against these fresh kidnappings—as follows:⁴⁰

"I, Patricius, an unlearned sinner—resident in Ireland—declare that I am a Presiding Elder [Episcopus alias a Bishop]. Most assuredly, I believe that what I am, I have received from God. And so I live...[as] a stranger and an exile, for the love of God.

"He is witness that this is so.... I am impelled by a zeal for God.... The truth of Christ has wrung it from me, out of love for my neighbours and sons for whom I gave up my country [Britain], and parents, and my life, to the point of death.... For my God, I live—in order to teach....

"I have written and composed these words—to be given, delivered, and sent to the soldiers of Coroticus..., allies of the [infidel] Scots and the apostate Picts. Dripping with blood, they wallow in the blood of innocent Christians—whom [by and from the Holy Spirit] I have regenerated into the number for God, and confirmed in Christ.... I ask them to let us have some of the booty, and the baptized they have made captives....

"Those whom the devil has mightily ensnared [the soldiers of Corotig themselves]...will be slaves in Hell in an eternal punishment. For he who keeps on committing sin, is a slave; and will be called 'a son of the devil.'

"Therefore, let every God-fearing man know that they are enemies of me and of Christ my God, for Whom I am an Ambassador. Patricide! Fratricide! Ravening wolves that eat the people of the Lord as they eat bread! As I said, 'The wicked, O Lord, have destroyed Your Law'—which but recently He had [theonomically!] excellently and kindly planted in Ireland, and which had established itself by the grace of God....

"I share in the work of those whom He called and predestinated to preach the Gospel amidst grave persecutions 'unto the end of the Earth.' Even if the enemy [Satan] shows his jealously through the tyranny of Coroticus—a man who has no respect for God nor for His Presbyters whom He chose and to whom He gave the highest...and sublime power so that whom they should bind upon Earth would be bound also in Heaven....

"You who are holy and humble of heart, it is not permissible to court the favour of such people nor to take food or drink with them nor even to accept their alms—until they make reparation to God...through repentance with shedding of tears, and set free the baptized servants of God and handmaids of Christ for whom He died and was crucified.

"The All-Highest disapproves the gifts of the wicked.... It is written: 'The riches which he has gathered unjustly, shall be vomited up from his belly'....

"The angel of death drags him away.... By the fury of dragons he shall be tormented. The viper's tongue shall kill him. 'Unquenchable fire keeps on devouring him.' And so—'Woe to those who keep on filling themselves with what is not their own!' Or: 'What does it profit a man, that he gain the whole World—and suffer the loss of his own soul?'

Padraig's Letter to King Coroticus (continued)

"It would be tedious to discuss and set forth all in detail, to gather from the whole Law, testimonies against such greed. Avarice is a deadly sin. 'You shall not covet your neighbour's goods!' [Exodus 20:17]. 'You shall not murder!' [Exodus 20:13].

"A murderer cannot be with Christ. 'Whosoever hates his brother, is accounted a murderer' [First John 3:15]. Or: 'He that does not love his brother, abides in death' [First John 3:14]. How much more guilty is he who has stained his hands with the blood of the sons of God, whom He has of late purchased in 'the utmost part of the Earth' [Psalm 2:8 & Acts 1:8] through the call of our littleness!

"Did I come to Ireland without God?.... I am bound by the Spirit.... I was freeborn according to the flesh. I am the son of a Decurion [alias a Ruler-over-ten-households]! But I sold my noble rank—I am neither ashamed nor sorry—for the good of others. Thus I am a servant in Christ to a foreign nation, for the unspeakable glory of everlasting life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

"And if my own people do not know me—'a Prophet has no honour in his own country!' Perhaps we are not of the same fold—and do not have one and the same God as Father. As it is written: 'He who is not with Me, is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me, scatters'.... 'One keeps on destroying; another keeps on building up.' I do not seek the things that are mine.

"It is not my grace, but God Who had given this solicitude into my heart—to be one of His hunters or fishers whom God once foretold would come.... What shall I do, Lord? ... Your sheep around me are being torn to pieces and driven away...by these robbers, by the orders of the hostile-minded Coroticus.
"Far from the love of God is a man who hands over Christians to the Picts and Scots! Ravening wolves have devoured the flock of the Lord, which in Ireland was indeed growing splendidly with the greatest care.... I cannot count the number of the sons and daughters of their kings who were...of Christ....

"You [Coroticus] prefer to kill and sell them [the Irish Christians] to a foreign nation [Scotland's then-still-pagan Picts] that has no knowledge of God. You betray the members of Christ, as it were into a brothel! What hope have you in God, or anyone who thinks as you do, or converses with you in words of flattery? God will judge! For Scripture says: 'Not only they that do evil are worthy of condemnation, but they too who consent to them'....

"Scripture says: 'Weep with them that weep!' And again: 'If one member be grieved, let all members grieve with it!' Hence the Church mourns and laments her sons and daughters whom the sword has not yet slain, but who were removed and carried off to faraway lands where sin abounds....

"Perhaps they do not believe that we have received one and the same baptism.... It is written: 'Have you not one God? Have you, every one of you, forsaken his neighbour?'

Padraig's Letter to King Coroticus (concluded)

"Therefore I grieve for you [the first-enslaved and some of the then-deceased Irish Christians]. I grieve, my dearly beloved. But again..., thanks be to God that you have left the World and have gone to Paradise as baptized faithful!

"I see you. You have journeyed to where 'night shall be no more; nor mourning; nor death.' But 'you shall leap like calves loosened from their bonds. And you shall tread down the wicked, and they shall be ashes under your feet!' [cf. Malachi 4:3].

"You will reign with the Apostles and Prophets and Martyrs. You will take possession of eternal kingdoms. As He Himself testifies, saying: 'They shall come from the East and from the West, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.' 'Outside are dogs [or sodomites] and sorcerers and whoremongers and murderers and idolaters and whosoever loves lies' [Revelation 22:15].

"Perjurers and 'liars shall have their portion in the pool of everlasting fire' [Revelation 21:8]. Not without reason does the Apostle say: 'Whereas the just man shall scarcely be saved—where shall the sinner and ungodly transgressor of the Law find himself?'

"Where then will Coroticus with his criminals, rebel against Christ? Where will they see themselves, they who distribute baptized women as prizes? In a miserable temporal kingdom, which will pass away in a moment!

"'As a cloud or smoke that is dispersed by the wind, so shall the wicked perish at the presence of the Lord!' 'But the just shall feast with great constancy'-- with Christ! 'They shall judge nations'—and rule over wicked kings for ever and ever. Amen.

"'I testify before God and His angels' that it will be so.... It is not my words that I have set forth...but those of God and the Apostles and Prophets who have never lied. 'He who believes, shall be saved; but he who does not believe, shall be condemned.' God has spoken!

"I ask earnestly that whoever is a willing servant of God, be a carrier of this letter—so that on no account it be suppressed or hidden by anyone, but rather be read before all the people and in the presence of Coroticus himself. May God encourage them at some time to recover their senses for God—repenting, however late, of their heinous deeds!

"They are murderers of the brethren of the Lord. May they set free the baptized women whom they took captive—in order that they may...live to God, and be made whole—here, and in eternity! Peace be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit! Amen."

The testimony anent Padraig of his own nephew Sechnall

The above is Padraig's own testimony—his own Christonomic Theodicy. The same kind of testimony is seen also in the poem of his own nephew, the Presbyter Sechnall (Secundinus). The latter wrote⁴¹ that Padraig was "steadfast in his faith" and that "the gates of hell will not prevail against him."

Sechnall also wrote of his uncle Padraig that "he gives the good—an apostolic example and model.... He encourages, by good conduct.... Humble is he of mind and body, because of his fear of God.... In his holy body, he bears the marks of Christ....

"He preserves his body chaste, for love of the Lord. This body He has made a temple for the Holy Spirit.... He keeps it such, by purity in all his actions. He offers it as a living sacrifice, acceptable to the Lord....

"He frees captives from a twofold servitude. The great numbers, he liberates from bondage to men. These countless ones, he frees from the yoke of the devil.

"He sings hymns and the Revelation and the Psalms of God—and explains them for the edification of God's people. He tells them he believes in the Trinity of the Holy Name—and teaches them that there is only one Substance, in Three Persons."

Padraig's Christonomic and Trinitarian Daily Morning Prayer

Padraig's dynamic Christonomic and Trinitarian Faith is seen also in his Morning Prayer, known as the Lorica (or Hymn of the Deer's Cry).⁴² This, Padraig got also his disciples to sing—outside the sabbath times of official worship to the Triune God. It commenced with the by-now-familiar Ancient-Irish words Atomriug indiu niurt tren. Thus Padraig taught them: "Today I arise through God's great strength and draw close to my Lord Triune. By grace through faith, I know He's One—Jehovah—ere time began. Yet there's Three Who create—even Elohim: the Father and Son and Spirit.

"Today I arise, through the baptism of Christ—His cross; and His grave; resurrection; ascension; and final descent, for the judgment of doom.

"Today I arise, while God's angels serve—I heed all His heralds, through reading His Word. He makes His saints pure, in labours and love.

"Today I arise, before the sun's flame; before the winds rush; before lightning strikes. For God's sea is deep; and His land like a rock!

"Today I arise, through God's strength to guide me. God's might shall uphold me; God's wisdom shall lead me; God's eye looks before me; God's ear shall hear for me; God's Word shall speak through me; God's hand shall protect me—God's way is before me.

"God's hosts shall defend me against snares of devils; against tests of vices; against lusts of nature; 'gainst all who would harm me; from far or from near—with few, or with many.

"Christ now protects me 'gainst poison; 'gainst burning; 'gainst drowning; 'gainst wounding; and even 'gainst falling—that I may receive an abundant reward.

"For Christ now is with me, before, and behind me; Christ is within, and beneath, and above me. Christ's on my right; and Christ's on my left. Christ's where I sit; and Christ's where I sleep.

"Christ's where I rise, each day I get up. Christ's in the hearts of all who recall me. Christ's in the mouth of all who address me. Christ's in the eye of all who behold me. Christ's in the ear of all who do hear me.

"Today I arise in the strong Name of God, to the Triune Jehovah I come! I pray every day, to Elohim strong—to my God Who is Three but yet One.

"From Him all of nature has had her creation by Father; by Spirit; by Word—O praise to Jehovah the God of salvation! For I'm saved by Jesus, the Lord!"

Rev. Professor Dr. Lee's rendition of Padraig's Daily Morning Prayer

Both the 1927 Presbyterian Scottish Psalter and Church Hymnary⁴³ and the 1987 Australian Presbyterian songbook Rejoice!⁴⁴ have hymnodized the above. Beyond those attempts, here is Dr. F.N. Lee's own effort to get Padraig's Lorica to rhyme in English, set to St. Petersburg or Melita (or any other 88.88.88 melody)—and titled "Padraig's Daily Morning Prayer."

"Today I rise, and now commune with my Creator God Triune. He's One, by grace through faith I know—Jehovah God, from long ago! He's also Elohim. Thus Three from, and until, eternity!

"Today I rise, and with my eyes I see how John did Christ baptize—His cross and grave I clearly see. I know He went there, all for me. Because He rose up from His tomb, my sin no longer means my doom!

"Today I rise, while angels serve I'll pray with every ounce of nerve. I'll heed God's heralds; read His Word; then I will very gladly gird His Spirit's sword for works of love. His saints must be: pure as a dove. "Today I'll rise before the sun its daily rising has begun—before the rushings of the wind, or thunderbolts have loudly dinned. For God's deep sea is in His hand, and rock-firm is His promised land.

"Today I rise. God's strength me guides; His might all day with me abides. His wisdom leads; His eye shall guard; His ear shall hear; His Word bombard my foes. His gentle hands protect and keep me on His road correct.

"God's angels guard me 'gainst all snares; against all vicious trials and scares; against all of my carnal lusts; against all nature's stormy gusts; against all harm, both far and near. Against all foes, I have no fear.

"Christ shelters from each harmful wound no matter what my foes impugned. 'Gainst burns and drownings, 'gainst all falls. Against all poisons, and all brawls Christ guards me with His mighty sword. So I'll yet get His good reward.

"My Christ is with me, and before, behind, beneath, above—and more. Christ's on my left, Christ's on my right—there when I sit, and when I fight. Whatever I may take to hand, Christ's there—when I'm asleep, or stand.

"Christ's where I rise, when every day I read His Word and to Him pray. When I'm discussed, He's in the heart—He's in the mouth, right from the start. He's in the eye of all who see and hear the actions done by me.

"Today I rise, in God's strong Name, the great Jehovah to proclaim. The Lord is always One and Three—my God, for all eternity! Yes, Elohim is always One and Three—my Lord, for all eternity!"

Padraig's own autobiographical Confession or Profession of Faith (I)

At the very end of his long life, Padraig wrote down his autobiographical Confession (or Profession of Faith). There, he records:⁴⁵

"I am Patricius, a sinner—most unlearned; the least of all the faithful.... My father was Deacon Calpornius, son of Presbyter Potitus of the village Banna Ventaburniae. He had a country-seat nearby, and there I was taken captive.

"I was then about sixteen years of age.... I was taken into captivity to Ireland with many thousands of people—and deservedly so, because we had turned away from God and did not keep His Commandments and did not obey our Presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. So the Lord brought over us the wrath of His anger, and scattered us among many nations—even unto 'the utmost part of the Earth' where my littleness is placed among strangers.

"There, the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief—so that I might at least remember my sins, and be converted with all my heart to the Lord my God. He had regard to my abjection, and had mercy on my youth and ignorance.

"He watched over me before I knew Him, and before I was able to distinguish between good and evil. He guarded and comforted me as a father does his son.

"Hence I cannot be silent—nor, indeed, is it expedient—about the great benefits and the great grace which the Lord designed to bestow upon me in the land of my captivity. For this we can give to God in return, after having been chastened by Him—to exalt and praise His wonders before every nation that is anywhere under Heaven!

"Because there is no other God, nor ever was, nor will be—than God the Father unbegotten; without beginning; from Whom all beginnings exist. He is, as we have been taught, the Lord of the Universe....
"His Son Jesus Christ [the Spirit-anointed]...we declare to have been always with the Father—spiritually and ineffably begotten by the Father before the beginning of the World, before all beginnings.... By Him all things visible and invisible have been made.

"He was made man and, having defeated death, was received into Heaven by the Father.... He [the Father] has given Him all power over all names in Heaven, on Earth, and under the Earth—and every tongue shall confess to Him that Jesus Christ is Lord and God.

"We believe in Him Whose advent...we expect. Judge of the living and of the dead, Who will render to every man according to his deeds....

"He has poured forth upon us abundantly the Holy Spirit, the Gift and Pledge of immortality—Who makes those who believe and obey, sons of God and joint-heirs with Christ.... Him do we confess and adore—one God in the Triunity of the Holy Name.

"For He Himself had said through the Prophet: 'Call upon Me in the day of your trouble, and I will deliver you; and you shall glorify Me!' And again, He says: 'It is honourable to reveal and confess the works of God'....

"I know well the testimony of my Lord Who in the Psalm declares: 'You will destroy them that speak a lie.' And again, He says: 'The mouth that lies, kills the soul.'

"And the same Lord says in the Gospel: 'Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it on the day of judgment!' And so I should dread exceedingly, with fear and trembling, this sentence on that day when no one will be able to escape or hide—but we all, without exception, shall have to give an account even of our smallest sins before the judgment seat of the Lord Christ."

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (II)

"I long had in mind to write.... I have not studied like the others who thoroughly imbibed Law and Sacred Scripture, and never had to change from the language of their childhood days, but were able to make it still more perfect. In our case, what I had to say, had to be translated into a tongue [Irish] foreign to me....
"This betrays how little instruction and training I have had in the art of words. For, as Scripture says, 'by the tongue will be disclosed—the wise man; and understanding; and knowledge; and the teaching of truth'....

"Now, in my old age, I strive for something that I did not acquire in youth. It was my sins that prevented me from fixing in my mind what before I had barely read through....

"Almost as a boy not able to speak, I was taken captive.... Today, I blush and fear exceedingly to reveal my lack of education.... [Yet] I would not be silent—because of my desire to give thanks!... After all, it is written: 'The stammering tongues shall quickly learn to speak peace'....

"We earnestly strive to do this—we who are, as Scripture says, 'a letter of Christ for salvation unto the utmost part of the Earth' (although not yet an eloquent one)..., 'written in your hearts not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God'.... Again, the Spirit witnesses that 'even rusticity was created by the All-Highest'....

"Before I was humiliated, I was like a stone lying in the deep mire.... He Who is mighty came, and in His mercy lifted me up and raised me aloft....

"Therefore, then, be astonished—you great and little who fear God, and you men of letters!... He encouraged me—me, the outcast of this World, before others to be the man...who with fear and reverence and without blame should faithfully serve the [Irish] people to whom the love of Christ conveyed and gave me, for the duration of my life....

"In the light therefore of our faith in the Trinity, I must make this choice.... I must make known the gift of God and everlasting consolation. Without fear and frankly, I must spread everywhere the Name of God—so that after my decease I may leave a bequest to my brethren and sons whom I have baptized in the Lord, so many thousands of people."

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (III)

"I was not worthy...that the Lord should grant this to His servant. That..., after my captivity, after the passage of so many years, He should give me so great a grace in behalf of that nation....

"After I came to Ireland [as a slave], every day I had to tend sheep and many times a day I prayed. The
love of God and His fear came to me more and more, and my faith was strengthened....

"My spirit was moved, so that in a single day I would say as many as a hundred prayers—and almost as many in the night, and this even when I was staying in the woods I used to get up for prayer before daylight—through snow, through frost, through rain.... I felt no harm, and there was no sloth in me—as I now see, because the Spirit within me was then fervent....

"One night, I heard in my sleep a voice saying to me: 'It is well that you fast! Soon you will go [back] to your own country [Britain].... Your ship is ready'....

"It was not near, but at a distance of perhaps two hundred miles [in Wicklow].... I had never been there.
"Nor did I know a living soul there.... Then I took to flight, and I left the man with whom I had stayed for six years [cf. Exodus 21:2]. And I went in the strength of God....

"As I went, I began to pray. And before I had ended my prayer, I heard someone shouting behind me: 'Come, hurry, we shall take you on in good faith! Make friends with us!'...

"And so, on that day I...hoped they would come to the faith of Jesus Christ, because they were pagans. And thus I had my way with them....

"After three days, we reached land.... We travelled through deserted country.... The next day, the captain said to me: 'Tell me, Christian—you say that your God is great and all-powerful? Why then do you not pray for us? As you can see, we are suffering from hunger!'....

"I said to them full of confidence: 'Be truly converted with all your heart to the Lord my God! Because nothing is impossible for Him; so that this day He may send you food'....

"Suddenly a herd of pigs appeared on the roads before our eyes.... They killed many of them.... They also found wild honey, and offered some of it to me....

"Thanks be to God! ... I was upheld by Christ my Lord.... His Spirit was even then crying out on my behalf....

"It will be so, on the day of my tribulation. As is written in the Gospel: 'On that day,' the Lord declares, 'it is not you that speak—but the Spirit of My Father Who speaks in you!'"

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (IV)

"Once again, after many years, I fell into captivity [in Gaul?].... On the sixtieth night thereafter, the Lord delivered me.... Then again, after a few years, I was in Britain with my people—who received me as their son and sincerely besought me that now at last, having suffered so many hardships, I should not leave them and go elsewhere.

"But there I saw in the night the vision of a man...coming as it were from Ireland.... I heard their voice.... They [the Irish] did cry out as with one mouth: 'We ask you, boy—come and walk among us once again!'....

"I woke up, and remembered the Apostle saying: 'The Spirit helps the infirmities of our prayer. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.

"But the Spirit Himself asks for us, [and in us,] with unspeakable groanings which cannot be expressed in words.' And again: 'The Lord our Advocate asks for us!'"
Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (V)

"When I had been fifteen years old, I did not trust in the living God. Nor did I do so from my childhood....

"I lived in death and unbelief. Until I was severely chastised and really humiliated by hunger and nakedness—and that, daily....

"I did not go to Ireland of my own accord—not until I had nearly perished! But this was rather for my good. For thus was I purged by the Lord, and He made me fit. So that I might be now what was once far from me—so that I should care and labour for the salvation of others....

"Therefore I give thanks to Him Who has strengthened me in everything.... He did not frustrate the journey upon which I had decided, and the work which I had learned from Christ my Lord.... I rather felt, after this, no little strength—and my trust was proved right, before God and men....

"I must not, however, hide God's gift which He bestowed upon me in the land of my captivity. Because then, I earnestly sought Him. And there I found Him, and He saved me from all evil—because...of His Spirit Who keeps on dwelling in me....

"I give unwearied thanks to God Who kept me faithful in the day of my temptation [or test], so that today I can confidently offer Him my soul as a living sacrifice. To Christ my Lord, Who saved me out of all my troubles.

"Thus I can say: 'Who am I, O Lord, and to what have You called me—You who assisted me with such divine power that today I constantly exalt and magnify Your Name...not only in good days but also in tribulations?' So indeed I must accept with equanimity whatever befalls me, be it good or evil, and always give thanks to God Who taught me to trust in Him always, without hesitation."

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (VI)

"He must have heard my prayer. So I, however ignorant I was, in recent days dared to undertake such a holy and wonderful work—thus imitating somehow those who, as the Lord once foretold, would preach His Gospel for a testimony to all nations [cf. Matthew 28:19f], prior to the end of the World....

"It would be tedious to give a detailed account of all my labours, or even a part of them. Let me tell you briefly how the merciful God often freed me from slavery, and from twelve dangers in which my life was at stake—not to mention numerous plots, which I cannot express in words....

"I do not want to bore my readers. But God is my witness, Who knows all things even before they come to pass.... He used to forewarn even me, poor wretch that I am, of many things, by a divine message.

"How did I come by this wisdom which was not in me? I knew neither the number of my days nor what God was!

"Whence was given to me afterwards the gift so great, so salutary—to know God and to love Him? Although at the price of leaving my country and my parents!.... "I came to the people of Ireland to preach the Gospel and to suffer.... I am prepared to give even my life...most gladly for His Name. And it is there that I wish to spend it, until I die....

"I am very much God's debtor—Who gave me such great grace that many people were born again in God, and afterwards confirmed through me.... Ministers were ordained...everywhere, for a people just coming to the Faith.

"The Lord took them 'from the utmost parts of the Earth'—as He once had promised through His Prophets: 'To You the Gentiles shall come from the ends of the Earth'.... And again: 'I have set You as a light among the Gentiles, so that You may be for salvation unto the utmost part of the Earth!'

"And there I wish to wait for the promise of Him Who surely never deceives. As He promises in the Gospel: 'They shall come from the East and the West, and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob'—as we believe the faithful will come, from all the World. "For that reason therefore we ought to fish well and diligently.... The Lord exhorts in advance, and teaches, saying: 'You must come after Me, and I will make you to be fishers of men!' And again He says through the Prophets: 'Behold, I send many fishers and hunters'....

"The Lord in the Gospel states, exhorts, and teaches, saying: 'Even while going, you must teach all nations—baptizing them in the Name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit—instructing them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you all days—even to the consummation of the World!' [Matthew 28:18f].

"And again He says: 'You must therefore go into the whole World, and preach the Gospel to every creature! He who believes and is baptized, shall be saved; but he who does not believe, shall be condemned.' And again: 'This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in the whole World for a testimony to all nations, and then shall the end come!'

"And so too the Lord announces through the Prophet, and says: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days,' says the Lord, 'I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions: and your old men shall dream dreams. And upon my servants indeed, and upon my handmaids, I will pour out of My Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.'

"And in Hosea, He says: 'I will call "My people" that which was not My people.... And her that had not obtained mercy, [I will call] "one that has obtained mercy!" And instead of where it was said: "You are not My people"—they shall be called "the sons of the living God!"'"

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (VII)

"Hence, how did it come to pass in Ireland, that those who never had a knowledge of God...have now been made a people of the Lord and are called 'sons of God'? ... [How did it come to pass] that sons and daughters of the kings of the Irish—are seen to be...born again there, so as to be of our kind? I do not know....

"I could have wished to leave them and go [back] to Britain. And how I would have loved to go to my country and my parents—and also to Gaul in order to visit the brethren and to see the face of the saints of my Lord! For God knows I much desired it.

"But I am bound by the Spirit Who would give evidence against me, were I to do this—telling me I would be guilty. And I am afraid of losing the labour which I have begun—nay, not I, but Christ the Lord Who bade me come here and stay with them for the rest of my life....

"This, I presume, I ought to do! But I do not trust myself, as long as I am in this body of death.... From the time I came to know Him in my youth, the love of God and the fear of Him have grown in me—and up to now, thanks to the grace of God, I have kept the faith.... He knows everything, even before the times of the World!

"Hence I ought unceasingly to give thanks to God Who often pardoned my foolishness...and on more than one occasion spared His great wrath upon me who was chosen to be His helper—and who was slow to do as was shown me, and as the Spirit suggested. But the Lord had mercy on me, thousands and thousands of times....

"Would that you too would strive for greater things, and do better! This will be my glory. For a wise son is the glory of his father."

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (VIII)

"You know, and so does God, how I have lived among you from my youth in the true faith and in sincerity of heart.... I have been faithful..., for fear that through me the Name of the Lord be blasphemed. For it is written: 'Woe to the man through whom the Name of the Lord is blasphemed!'

"For although I be rough in all things, nevertheless I have tried somehow to keep myself safe.... When I baptized so many thousands of people—did I perhaps expect from any of them as much as a tiny coin? Tell me, and I will give it back!...

"On the contrary, I spent money for you—so that they might receive me. And I went to you and everywhere for your sake in many dangers, even to the farthest districts.... May God powerfully grant me afterwards, that I myself may be spent—for your souls!

"Indeed, I call God to witness upon my soul—that I do not lie.... Sufficient is the honour that is not yet seen but is anticipated in the heart. 'Faithful is He Who promised!' For 'He never lies!'

"But I see myself exalted even in the present World, beyond measure, by the Lord. And I was not worthy, nor such that He should grant me this....

"Poverty and misfortune behooves me better than riches and pleasures. For Christ the Lord too was poor, for our sakes. And I, unhappy wretch that I am, have no wealth—even if I wished for it. "Daily I expect murder, fraud, or captivity—or whatever it may be. But I fear none of these things, because of the promises of Heaven.

"I have cast myself into the hands of God Almighty, Who rules everywhere. As the Prophet says: 'Cast your thoughts upon God, and He shall sustain you!'....

"So now, I commend my soul to my faithful God, for Whom I am an Ambassador.... God accepts no person, but chose me for this Office—to be, although among His least, one of His Ministers.

"Hence let me give back to Him, because of all He has done for me! But what can I say or what can I promise to my Lord—as I can do nothing that He has not given me?

"May He search the heart and reins!... I pray to God to give me perseverance, and to deign that I be a faithful witness to Him—to the end of my life, for my God!

"And if ever I have done any good for my God Whom I love, I beg Him to grant that I may shed my blood with those exiles and captives for His Name. Even though I should be denied a grave; or my body be woefully torn to pieces limb from limb by hounds or wild beasts; or the fowls of the air devour it.

"I am firmly convinced that if this should happen to me, I would have gained my soul—together with my body. Because on that day, without doubt we shall rise in the brightness of the sun.

"That is, [we shall rise] in the glory of Christ Jesus our Redeemer, as sons of the living God and joint-heirs with Christ—to be made conformable to His image. For of Him, and by Him, and in Him—we shall reign!

"For this sun which we see, rises daily for us—because God commands this.... We believe in, and worship, the true Sun—Christ—Who will never perish. Nor will he who does His will. But he will abide for ever, even as Christ abides for ever Who reigns with God the Almighty Father and the Holy Spirit—before time; and now; and unto all eternity. Amen!"

Padraig's Confession or Profession of Faith (IX)

"Behold, again and again would I set forth the words of my Confession. I testify in truth and in joy of heart, before God and His holy angels, that I never had any reason except the Gospel and its promises [as to] why I should ever return to the [Irish] people—from whom once before I barely escaped.

"I pray those who truly fear God, whosoever begins to look at or receive this writing which Padraig, an unlearned sinner, composed in Ireland—that no one should ever say it was my ignorance if I did or showed forth anything however small according to God's good pleasure. But let this be your conclusion and let it so be thought that—as is the perfect truth—it was the gift of God! This is my Confession, before I die."

Padraig's christianization and codification of Irish Common Law

According to the Colloquy of the Ancients, the Christian Missionary Padraig of Britain once asked an Irish Leader about their Pre-Christian customs. Asked Padraig: "Who or what was it that maintained you in your life?" Caoilte replied, on behalf of the Pre-Christian Irish: "Truth was in our hearts; strength in our arms; and fulfilment in our tongues."

After his principial christianization of the Irish Chieftains, Padraig was invited by King Laoghaire to take part in the codification of the Senchus Mor [or 'Moral Code'] of Ancient Ireland. Padraig's participation was requested—precisely in order to represent the interests of the new Christian communities in Ireland, anent that code. Apparently, the Chief-Druid Dubhthach dictated it—and Padraig refined and recorded it.
Now Padraig himself noted also the native literacy of that Chief-Druid Dubhthach O'Lugair—before the latter's christianization. Indeed, Padraig even supervised the burning of some 180 volumes of unacceptable writings.⁴⁶

Yet the fact that Padraig updated the Senchus Mor alias the Irish Common Law, clearly suggests that it too had been inscripturated long before his own time. After all, if 180 volumes of writings were rejected—it stands to reason that there must have been also many other volumes of Pre-Patrician Irish writings which were not only not rejected but which were indeed eagerly acclaimed by Padraig. It is from those latter Pre-Patrician Irish writings, then, that Padraig now updated written Irish Common Law.
It is very important to grasp that it was Padraig himself who then approved the overwhelming bulk of druidic Irish Law and then ordered it further to be preserved – and indeed once again in writing—because in harmony with the Law of God in Nature Revelation as well as in Holy Scripture. All books not then destroyed, themselves formed the continuing basis of a christianized Ireland's incipient literature and laws (in the Senchus Mor and other writings).

It remains a great tragedy that the later pagan Vikings, during their many attacks against the Celts, destroyed so many of those writings of Ancient Ireland. That occurred during the course of the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.

According to Barrister Lawrence Ginnell,⁴⁷ in Ireland's famous old document The Annals of the Four Masters, it is said:47 "[In] the age of Christ 438, the tenth year of Laeghaire [the Irish King in the time of Padraig], the Senchus Mor [or Common Law] and Feinachus of Ireland were purified and written."
That (re-)inscripturation of these works must have extended over several years. Those from A.D. 438 to 441, appear the most probable.

"St. Patrick," declare the Annals, "requested the men of Erinn to come to one place to hold a conference with him. When they came to the conference, the Gospel of Christ was preached to them all....

"And when they saw Laeghaire and his druids overcome by the great knowledge of Patrick, they bowed down in obedience to the will of God.... It was then that Dubhthach [the Chief-Druid] was ordered to exhibit every law which prevailed amongst the men of Erinn—through the Law of Nature and the Law of Seers, and in the judgments of the island of Erinn, and in the poetry.

"Now the judgments of true nature, which the Holy Spirit had spoken through the mouths of the Brehons [or Irish Judges] and just poets of the men of Erinn from the first occupation of the island down to the reception of the [Christian] Faith, were all exhibited by Dubhthach to Patrick. What did not clash with the Word of God in Written Law [alias the Old Testament] and in the New Testament, and with the consciences of believers—was confirmed in the laws of the Brehons by the Ecclesiastics and the Chiefs of Erinn. For the Law of Nature was quite right—except [it needed to be supplemented by] the Faith and its obligations, and by the harmony of the Church and the people. And this is the Senchus Mor."⁴⁸

As regards the compilation of the Senchus Mor under Padraig's supervision, adds Barrister Ginnell,⁴⁹ the Christian spirit—breathed through the whole Law—was important. But the actual changes were few—and, substantially, the laws remained the same as they had existed for centuries before.

This is a most significant statement as to the vast amounts of divine supervision operative in producing Ancient Irish Law especially in its Pre-Christian phases! This also evidences much common revelation present therein. Indeed, it further points to the harmonious relationship between Ancient Irish Common Law on the one hand—and, on the other, the special revelation which the Irish now received via the Celto-Brythonic Missionary Padraig of Britain.

Padraig's alleged argumentations from three-leaved shamrocks, seem to have helped win the nobles of the Irish High-King and his country for Christianity. For the God Who created the triune shamrock of Ireland—and who also sustained the triune insights of Pre-Christian Brythonic and Irish Druidism—must obviously Himself be Triune. Indeed, infinitely so.

Padraig compared British Christians with the Ancient Israelites

The waywardness of some of the Ancient British Christians was well compared with that of some also in Ancient Israel—in the mind of Padraig. For in his Confessions,⁵⁰ he wrote:

"I was taken into captivity to Ireland, with many thousands of [British] people—and deservedly so, because we [Britons had] turned away from God and did not keep His Commandments and did not obey our Presbyters who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought over us the wrath of His anger, and scattered us among many nations—even unto the uttermost part of the Earth."

By the latter expression, the Briton Padraig seems to have meant Ireland. Compare Acts 1:8 & 13:47. For it was precisely in Ireland that he and his fellow youth from Britain had been scattered—after having been captured and enslaved by the then-still-pagan Irish.

Ireland, to both Padraig and the Ancient Israelites, was the westernmost edge of their then-known World. To them, it was indeed the outermost or "the uttermost part of the Earth." Psalm 2:8.

Padraig lamented that—through that early abduction to and enslavement in Ireland—he had been unable to complete the thorough training to which British Christian children of the covenant were then subject. Thus he stated: "I have not studied like the others, who thoroughly imbibed Law and Sacred Scripture—and [who] never had to change from the language of their childhood days, but were able to make it still more perfect. In our case, what I had to say [in Ireland]—had to be translated into a tongue foreign to me."

Nevertheless, as T.W. Rolleston remarks,⁵¹ the attitude of the early Celtic Christians in Ireland seemed to preclude the idea that at the time of the conversion of Ireland its pagan religion was associated with cruel and barbarous practices. Indeed, Bertrand points out that soon after Ireland's christianization, non-celibate druidic colleges were transformed en masse into monasteries of a similar character—for the new Irish Christians.⁵²

Dr. A.G. Richey (LL.D. & Q.C.)—Sometime Deputy Regius Professor of Law in the University of Dublin—has insisted⁵³ in his Short History of the Irish People that the increasingly celibate Romish form of church government was "utterly unfit" for clannish Ireland. There, it was inevitable that Christian monasteries would necessarily need to contain whole families.⁵⁴

Also Hall's Early Christian Ireland points out⁵⁵ that these Celtic 'monasteries' were later effective defences against marauding Vikings. There, all the families in them would fight to defend themselves.
They were all 'abbeys'—in which not only men but also women dwelled and worked together with their children. They included the whole Christian population of the area—and kept them all devoted to learning and to agriculture.

The British Christian Padraig was a 'Primitive Presbyterian'

In his A.D. 1902 work A History of the Irish Presbyterians, Rev. W.T. Latimer declared⁵⁶ of Padraig that although unmarried himself, he did not impose any yoke of celibacy on the Irish Church. He ordained Fiach Finn, a man of one wife, as a Bishop alias an Overseer. Cf. First Timothy 3:1-2f.

For many centuries afterwards, the law and practice of the Celtic Church in this respect remained the same. An ancient canon relates to the apparel of a Minister and his wife when in public. And even so late as the end of the eleventh century, the renowned Ecclesiastical Leader Malachy O'Morgair himself was born the son of an Irish Clergyman.

The Old-Irish Church was pure in doctrine and Presbyterian in government. Hence, it permitted unmarried but marriageable monks and nuns to dwell chastely in Culdee Monastic Societies together with married monks and nuns and their children. Matthew 27:55-61; Luke 8:2-4; Acts 1:13-15; 6:1-7; 21:8-9; First Corinthians 9:1-6; First Timothy 2:8-15; 3:1-5; 4:1-6; 5:1-14; Titus 2:2-6.

This was also a continuation of the customs which had prevailed among the Pre-Christian Druidists. The Culdee Monks of Padraig were engaged chiefly in the work of education.

They generally used the neighbouring churches for their classroom. And their unmarried and well as their married scholars and their children, erected wooden huts around them in which they resided.

So successful were these Irish Culdee-Christian Theological Seminaries, that before long they became celebrated throughout Europe. Scholars and their families flocked to them from distant countries.
Ireland was called the 'Isle of Saints.' And many of her sons came to occupy distinguished positions also in foreign seats of learning.

Padraig ordained 365 Bishops or Overseers in Ireland. These Bishops were Teachers of the people—not Rulers of the Clergy.

There were then less than three hundred thousand inhabitants in the country. Therefore, at least one Bishop for every two hundred families.

This clearly means one married or marriageable Bishop for each congregation of two hundred households, each assisted by a number of Presbyters or Elders-over-ten (one for every ten households). Exodus 18:12-25 cf. First Timothy 5:17-22. Indeed, these Bishops were just Parish Ministers whose duty it was to preach the Gospel within their local charge.

Consequently, in the Early Irish Church, the 365 Bishops were "all founders of churches"—alias one Bishop or Preaching Elder per congregation, and every congregation with its own Preaching Overseer (who co-governed it together with a group of Ruling Elders). Hence, the Eldership parity of Presbyterianism—and not the sacerdotal hierarchy of later Episcopalianism!

Moreover, the Early Irish Church exhibited—and in some cases still exhibits – bishoprics of qualified male Christians. Such were usually also heads of households. For there was no celibate sacerdotal priesthood only of some men alone. Instead, there was a universal priesthood of all believers—regardless of age or gender.

Up to two hundred families lived together in each of those local social groupings. Even during the later times of the Viking raids, themselves stretching over several centuries, the above-mentioned family-communities of Irish Christians continued right down till the twelfth century.

Men and women in groups of families worked together. They did so, often behind high monastic walls—erected not to segregate a man from his wife, but to defend those groups of holy families against the secular scourges from Scandinavia.

Padraig came, a Missionary sent by God, to Ireland in 432—and established there a Christian apostolic and independent Celtic Church which for almost seven centuries had no allegiance nor subservience to Romanism. Indeed, it was not till A.D. 590f that even the Bishop of Rome was ever called 'Sole Pope.'
In 1152, a papal legate came to Ireland. This was John Paparo, the first visitor from the Pope's Rome ever to do so. He managed, in March of that year, to form a Synod for the purpose of gaining control over the Church in Ireland. He succeeded partially—but only partially.

So, twenty years later (in A.D. 1172), Pope Adrian IV—the only English Pope which Rome has ever had—wrote from Rome to King Henry II of England. Adrian said he would be very pleased if Henry would invade Ireland, and bring the rebellious people there under Rome's control. Henry obeyed, and conquered.

One must here add the following postscripts to the work of the Briton Padraig in Ireland. They are taken from the noted Irish Roman Catholic Historian R.C. O'Driscoll, in his books Views of Ireland⁵⁷ and History of Ireland.⁵⁸

O'Driscoll presents a true picture of the early Irish Church. He states⁵⁹ that the Christian Church of Ireland, as founded by Padraig, existed for many centuries free and unshackled. For about seven hundred years, this Church maintained its independence. It had no connection with England, and differed on points of importance from Romanism.

The first work of England's King Henry II was to reduce the Church of Ireland into obedience to the Romish Pontiff in 1172. The ancient order of the Culdees had existed in Ireland even prior to Padraig.
All their institutions proved the Culdees were derived from a different origin than Romanism. The Church-discipline of the Culdees seems to have afforded the model for the modern Presbyterian Establishment of Scotland. Thus the Romanist O'Driscoll.

Rev. Dr. Duke⁶⁰ gives the following gripping description of Pre-Columban Christianity in Ireland (460-560 A.D.). He says at a time when everywhere else on the Continent the waves of barbarian invasion were sweeping over everything and submerging in destruction all culture and civilization—the Church in Ireland, removed from these distresses in its island-home, was enabled to devote itself peacefully to the cause of learning. Its great marital monasteries or Christian centres of common learning—those of Aran, Bangor, Clonard, Clonfert, Clonmacnoise, and Moville—became Universities of European fame to which students flocked in thousands from all countries. Greek and Hebrew were also studied.

The beautifully-transcribed and richly-illuminated copies of the Psalter and of the Gospels which have come down to us from these Irish monasteries, speak of the artistic ability of those old Irish monks and of the love and reverence which they had for the Holy Scriptures. There was nothing anywhere at the time—and certainly not in Rome itself—to surpass or to equal the standard of culture which was to be found in the great monastic schools of Ireland—from which the Irish Scots migrated into Scotland especially from the fifth century A.D. onward.

In Ireland, the nation consisted of groups of tribes connected by kinship and loosely held together under a graduated system of tribal government. The Church which grew up under such a system, was organized exactly like a lay society. When a chief became a Christian and bestowed his dun (or castle) and his lands upon the Church, he at the same time transferred all his rights as a chief. Yet these still remained with his sept or clan.

In this new sept or clan (within the Irish Church), there was consequently a twofold succession. The religious sept or family consisted in the first instance not only of the ecclesiastical persons but of all of the celi or vassals, tenants and slaves connected with the land bestowed upon the Church. The head was the comarba (compare the coarba)—the co-heir or inheritor both of the spiritual and temporal rights and privileges of the founder. He in his temporal capacity exacted rent and tribute like other chiefs. The ecclesiastical colonies went forth from a parent family. The comarba of the chief family of a great spiritual clan was called the Ard-Comarba or 'High Co-Heir.'

From the beginning, the Church of Padraig among the Scots in Ireland was monastic, as is proved by a passage in his Confession. There, speaking of the success of his mission, he says: "The sons of Scots and daughters of chiefs appear now as monks and nuns of Christ." It must be remembered, however, that such could marry—and usually did. Indeed, Padraig himself was the son of a Presbyter Calporn and his wife Conch—and also the grandson and great-grandson of clergy.

Hence the early Irish monasticism was unlike that known at a later period. An Irish monastery of the earliest type was simply an ordinary sept or family, whose chief had become a Christian. He, making a gift of his land, either retired (leaving it in the hands of a comarba)—or remained as the religious head himself. The family went on with their usual avocations.

This was also the period of the great Missionaries to the Continent—Columbanus, Gall, Killian and many others. Besides St. Brendan with his reputed voyage to America, Columba's disciple Cormac visited the Orkneys and discovered the Faroe Islands and Iceland long before the Norsemen set foot on them. Other Irishmen followed in their tracks, and when the Norsemen first discovered Iceland they found there books and other traces of the Irish of the Early Church. Indeed, also the real work of the conversion of the Germans was the work of Irishmen.

The missionary zeal of Padraig's Irish Culdee Christians

So these Irish Culdees were great Missionaries. Dr. Duke observes⁶¹ that either singly or in little companies generally of three or seven or twelve, some of them went to Gaul and Germany and Switzerland and Italy—carrying the light of their learning and the influence of their purer faith into lands which were lapsing again into barbarism.

The remaining Picts in the northwest of Ireland were christianized and gaelicized. The great Irish Culdee Columba himself was trained by a Christian Pict. Then these Irish Culdees went off—and finished off the christianization of the Picts in Scotland.

The Irishman Brendan went off to Iceland and, it would seem, even to America. On his return from his great voyage, Brendan is said to have visited Gildas in Wales.

From the plains of Lombardy in the South to Iceland in the far North, and from Austria in the East to America in the West, one comes across traces of these wandering Missionaries from Ireland. In the decadent age of the Romish Church, Ireland 'the Isle of the Saints' kept the light of the Gospel burning brightly. It became the great missionary centre for the diffusion of Christianity.

As Alice Stopford Green declares in her book Irish Nationality, ⁶² mediaeval Irishmen never adopted anything of Romish methods of government in Church or State. The Romish centralized authority was opposed to the whole habit of Celtic thought and genius. Round the Celts' little monastic church, gathered a group of huts. Monastic 'families' branched off from the first house that got converted.

Professor John Richard Green rightly remarks in his Short History of the English People⁶³—before the landing of the Anglo-Saxon English in Britain in A.D. 435f, the vigour of Christianity in Italy and Gaul and Spain was exhausted in a bare struggle for life. Ireland, which remained unscourged by invaders, drew an energy from its conversion. Christianity had been received there with a burst of popular enthusiasm; and letters and arts sprang up in its train. The science and knowledge of the Bible which fled from the Continent, took refuge in famous schools which made Durrow and Armagh the great Universities of the West.

The new Christian life soon beat too strongly to brook confinement within the bounds of Ireland itself. Padraig as the first real Missionary to visit Ireland, had not been dead half a century—when Irish Christianity flung itself with a fiery zeal into battle with the mass of Heathenism which was rolling in upon the Christian World. Irish Missionaries laboured among the Picts of the Highlands and among the Frisians of the northern seas.

An Irish Missionary, Columban, founded monasteries in Burgundy and the Apennines and then south into Italy itself. The canton of St. Gall in Switzerland still commemorates in its name another Irish Missionary, before whom the spirits of flood and fell fled wailing over the waters of the Lake of Constance. For a time, it seemed as if the whole course of the history of the World was to be changed—as if the older Celtic race that Roman and German had swept before them, had turned to the moral conquest of their conquerors; as if Celtic and not Latin Christianity was to mould the destinies of the Churches of the West. Thus Professor Green.

Even today, the Neo-Culdee Presbyterians still constitute the largest religious group in Ulster. Together with other Protestants, they yet make up the overwhelming majority of the population there. Indeed, estimates suggest one-sixth of the entire population of the American colonies at the outbreak of the War for Independence in 1776, was of Ulster stock.

We see, then, that the Old-Irish Church was essentially Presbyterian and not Prelatical in its form of government. Moreover, it did not acknowledge the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome (even after he was proclaimed sole 'Pope' for the first time around 600 A.D.). For, other than Christ the Sole Head in Heaven, there was and is no supreme head of Christ's Church here on Earth with the function of exercising metropolitan jurisdiction.
Not only was there no diocesan episcopacy. In Padraig's writings there is also no allusion to Mary-worship; or to purgatory; or to transubstantiation. Those writings contain no prayers to saints; and they appeal to the Scriptures as the only standard of faith and of morals. In one sentence: Padraig was a Presbyterian.

The Cumbrian Briton Padraig's impact on all of Europe and the West

In conclusion, we summarize the impact of Padraig not just upon Ireland but also upon the whole World. Appropriately, we can do so under five main points. First, the Brythonic Padraig was the descendant of a long line of Proto-Protestant Culdees in what is now Cumbria. Such were 'Primitive Presbyterian' Christians.

Second, Padraig regarded Britain as a bastion of Biblical Christianity. Indeed, he sought to export that Faith also into Ireland—as "the uttermost part of the Earth" (Acts 1:8).
Third, the Briton Padraig greatly expanded and consolidated the Pre-Romish Christian work already undertaken to a very small extent also in Ireland. To that end, he converted also many knowledgeable druids—and then ordained them as Ministers of the Word and Sacraments in the new congregations he formed in Ireland.

Fourth, Padraig's theology was consistently Trinitarian. It was steeped in the Holy Scriptures; strongly predestinarian; thoroughly theonomic; clearly postmillenial; and consistently Christocentric.
Fifth, Padraig had high regard also for much of the traditional Irish Common Law. Much of it he regarded as good and worth preserving—God having supervised it since its inception.
Sixth, in the light of Holy Scripture, Padraig helped purify and codify it. For use in the Ireland he helped christianize.

Seventh, Padraig's views soon spread across Europe eastward into Austria; southward into Italy; northward into Iceland; and ultimately westward into America. Yes, even into Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and all the World.
None of this precious Theology of the Cumbrian Padraig would ever be lost. It would later be summarized by Ireland's Archbishop and Puritan Professor Rev. Dr. James Ussher—the late Bishop of Carlisle in Britain's Cumbria!—in his 1615 Irish Articles. Indeed, the latter would then be expanded and preserved—in the 1647 Presbyterian Westminster Confession of Faith.

ENDNOTES

Gildas: Ruin of Britain 8.
See chs. 10-12 of our book Roots and Fruits of the Common Law, Vol. 1.
See Ante-Nic. Fath. III pp. 105 & 108; cf. Tacitus's Annals 12:31-37.
Thus The Old English Chronicle and The Scottish Chronicles—so Holinshed's Description of Britain I:197f; his History of England I:503; and his History of Scotland V:72f.
See chs. 13-14 of our book Roots and Fruits of the Common Law, Vol. 1.
Tertullian: Against the Jews ch. 7 (cf. his Apology ch. 37).
Enno, VII:5.
Origen's Against Celsus I:18, and his Homily VI in Luke.
Chronicon Scotorum, Longmans, London, 1866 ed., pp. 17,21,33.
Op. cit., Edwards, Ann Arbor, 1963, p. 20f.
J.A. Duke's The Columban Church, University Press, Oxford, 1932, pp. 145f.
In his Ireland and the Celtic Church, S.P.C.K., London, 1907, pp. 39f.
In his They Converted Our Ancestors—A Study of the Early Church in Britain, S.C.M., London, 1965, pp. 42f & 39f.
Ib., pp. 43 & 33 n. 2 (cf. n. 28 below).
Enc. Amer. 1951 ed. & Enc. Brit. 15th ed., art. Ninian.
Op. cit., pp. 54 & 57 & 61 (cf. n. 29 below).
Padraig's Confession, I & XXIII.
See his book The Spreading Flame: The Paternoster Church History, Paternoster, Exeter, 1978, I pp. 372f & 395 n. 4.
See D. Wilkins: Councils of Great Britain, from the 446 A.D. Synod of Verulam until the 1717 A.D. Synod of London, London, 1737, I p. 367.
Padraig's Confession, I & XXIII.
Padraig's Letter to Coroticus alias his Epistle 10.
See Sir W. Smith's A Smaller Latin-English Dictionary, Murray, London, 1947: decurio.
See n. 28 below, and also Duke's op. cit. p. 149.
See the maps opposite pp. 16 & 48, in J.S. Brewer's The Students' Hume: A History of England, Murray, London, 1883.
Muirchu's Life of St. Patrick, in W. Stokes's Tripartite Life [of Padraig], 1887, pp. 146f.
Op. cit., VI:83f.
Op. cit., Facts on File, New York, 1987, p. 42. -35 –
C. Thomas: Christianity in Roman Britain to AD 500, London, Batsford, 1985 pp. 307-313.
Op. cit., pp. 39f.
Op. cit., pp. 63f.
Op. cit., pp. 61f.
Concannon: op. cit., p. 55.
J. Foster: op. cit. pp. 36f.
Op. cit., pp. 54,57,61.
Padraig: Confession, 58.
Op. cit., p. 44 n. 7-9, p. 135 n. 1-2, & p. 136 n. 1-2.
Padraig: First Epistle to Coroticus.
See art. Padraig of Ireland, in ed. Douglas's op. cit., p. 752.
Holinshed: op. cit., VI pp. 83f. See too n. 10.
Text of Padraig's Letter to Coroticus, can be found in P. Gallico's Patrick.
Text of Sechnall's biographical notes on Padraig, can be found in Gallico's op. cit.
Text of Padraig's Lorica can be found in Gallico's op. cit.
Scottish Psaltery and Church Hymnary, Revised Edition, Oxford University Press, London, 1929, pp. 603-10, No. 506.
Rejoice! A Collection of Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, Presbyterian Church of Australia, G.P.O. Box 100, Sydney, 1987, No. 93.
Text of Padraig's Confession can be found in Gallico's op. cit.
Jocelyn of Furness's Life of Patrick; O'Flaherty's Ogygia III:30; MacGoeghegan & Mitchel's op. cit., p. 41.
Op. cit., p. 28.
Thus the Annals of the Four Masters; as cited in Ginnell's op. cit., p. 31.
Op. cit., p. 32.
Cited in G. Taylor's The Hidden Centuries, Covenant, London, 1969f, pp. 34f; see too J.W. Taylor's The Coming of the Saints, Covenant, London, 1969 rep., pp. 163 & 238.
Op. cit., p. 145.
See Bertrand's Religion of the Gauls.
A.G. Richey: A Short History of the Irish People, Hodges & Figgis, Dublin, 1887, p. 71.
Ib., pp. 80 & 100.
Op. cit., pp. 3f, 141 & 151f.
W.T. Latimer: A History of the Irish Presbyterians, Cleeland & Mullan, Belfast, 1902, pp. 4 & 6.
R.C. O'Driscoll: Views of Ireland, II, p. 84.
R.C. O'Driscoll: History of Ireland, pp. 26f.
I.H. Elder: Celt, Druid and Culdee, Covenant, London, 1938, pp. 129-31.
Op. cit., p. 52.
Ib., pp. 53f.
Op. cit., pp. 32f. 63) Op. cit., p. 23.

Dr. Lee (d. 2011), author of NPI book God's Ten Commandments, was Professor-Emeritus in Systematic Theology and Church History at the Queensland Presbyterian Theological College in Brisbane, Australia. His widow is a fulltime Christian Homemaker. Their elder daughter Johanna teaches English, German and History at Parkridge High School; and their younger daughter Annamarie was Secretary/Librarian at the Queensland Presbyterian Theological College, and teaches at Earnshaw College in Brisbane.

Used by permission © 2012

The Forefathers Monument: Morality

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 02:26:00 +0000

by Marshall Foster

There is good news in America. Our hope as a nation shining above all others is that our forefathers brought to our shores a national treasure. They unloaded this treasure at Plymouth Harbor in November of 1620. It was not in chests that could be lost at sea like a pirate’s booty. The treasure was indelibly planted into the hearts and minds of every suffering man, woman, and child who came. It enabled them to create out of a wilderness the most free and prosperous nation in human history.

The value of this national treasure and the cost of losing it was described by Daniel Webster in 1820. Speaking of the Pilgrims, he said, “Our fathers were brought here by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence though all their institutions, civil, political, or literary [the media of their time].”

He also said, “If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.” Could this be the reason that Americans are facing the possible loss of our freedoms and prosperity?

Our ancestors left us a plan, a roadmap back to freedom and prosperity, knowing that we might lose our way. They built a magnificent monument, now hidden away in a small village in Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was lovingly planned and built over the course of 70 years, from 1820-1890. Yet today the Forefathers Monument stands neglected and almost forgotten.

The Forefathers Monument, the largest granite monument in America, stands 86 feet high and weighs 180 tons. The center of the monument is a classically draped female entitled Faith. Her right hand is raised pointing to heaven and her left hand holds a Bible. Facing out from Faith are four smaller statues (about 20 tons each). The first of these is Morality. Morality is represented by a seated female statue holding the Ten Commandments in one hand and the scroll of Revelation in the other. These represent the standard of Morality which comes from both the Old and New Testaments. Images carved on both sides of the statue are that of a Prophet and an Evangelist. These indicate that the power of morality comes from the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This internal Morality, character, or virtue that is essential for liberty includes: self-government, patience, faith, diligence, courage, long-suffering, godliness, kindness, and Christian love. The noble and simple story of the Pilgrims at Plymouth portrays the true meaning of Morality and virtue.

U.S. Senator George Hoar addressed the State House in Boston in 1897. He had become convinced that Pilgrim Governor William Bradford’s history Of Plymouth Plantation was “the most precious on earth” with the exception of the four gospels. In the presence of a large gathering of government representatives and rulers, he said that the Bradford diary was the only authentic history of what we have a right to consider the most important political transaction that has ever taken place on the face of the earth.

“There is nothing like it in human annals since the story of Bethlehem. These Englishmen and Englishwomen going out from their homes in beautiful Lincoln and York, wife separating from husband and mother from child in that hurried embarkation for Holland, pursued to the beach by English horsemen; the thirteen years of exile; the life at Amsterdam ‘in alley foul and lane obscure’; the dwelling at Leyden; the embarkation at Delfthaven; the farewell of Robinson; the terrible voyage across the Atlantic; the compact in the harbor; the landing on the rock; the dreadful first winter; the death roll of more than half the number; the days of suffering and of famine...the building of the State on those sure foundations which no wave or tempest has ever shaken; the breaking of the new light; the dawning of the new day; the beginning of the new life; the enjoyment of peace with liberty,—of all these things this is the original record by the hand of our beloved father and founder.”

Governor Wolcott then said that the Pilgrims in Plymouth suffered greatly for a great cause, “but their noble purpose was not doomed to defeat, but was carried to perfect victory. They established what they planned. Their feeble plantation became the birthplace of religious liberty, the cradle of a free commonwealth. To them a mighty nation owns its debt...they have made the civilized world their debtor.” He then spoke of the “conscience, courage, and faith, set in the web by that little band. May God in His mercy grant that the moral impulse which founded this nation may never cease to control its destiny.”

Today, as Christians we must help answer the above prayer. We have nearly spent this immeasurable inheritance. It is time for us as Christians to work and sacrifice for our children and grandchildren as our forefathers did for us.

There is great hope for the future if we return much of our focus to the bottom-up strategy of victory which our forefathers left us. Our founders were united in the belief that morality and virtue were absolutely essential for freedom.

Our second President John Adams once stated, “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice [greed], ambition, revenge...would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is made only for amoral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other.”

His cousin, Samuel Adams was the leader of the patriot cause. He said, “A general dissolution of the principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security.”

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

“He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.”

The bottom-up, internal to external strategy of liberty is found in the Forefathers Monument. The strategy of liberty beginning with faith, morality, and self-government is our great hope!

From the Journal of the World History Institute, March 2012 Issue

Marshall Foster, President of the World History Institute, is an accomplished and engaging public speaker who tirelessly tells the story of the Providential Hand of God in history toward the establishing of His Kingdom.

Used by permission

Abraham Lincoln—Proclamation 97—Appointing a Day of National Humiliation, Fasting, and Prayer, March 30, 1863

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 20:12:00 +0000

Whereas the Senate of the United States, devoutly recognizing the supreme authority and just government of Almighty God in all the affairs of men and of nations, has by a resolution requested the President to designate and set apart a day for national prayer and humiliation; and

Whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord;

And, insomuch as we know that by His divine law nations, like individuals, are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.

It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

Now, therefore, in compliance with the request, and fully concurring in the views of the Senate, I do by this my proclamation designate and set apart Thursday, the 30th day of April, 1863, as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. And I do hereby request all the people to abstain on that day from their ordinary secular pursuits, and to unite at their several places of public worship and their respective homes in keeping the day holy to the Lord and devoted to the humble discharge of the religious duties proper to that solemn occasion.

All this being done in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the divine teachings that the united cry of the nation will be heard on high and answered with blessings no less than the pardon of our national sins and the restoration of our now divided and suffering country to its former happy condition of unity and peace. In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 30th day of March, A. D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State .

Source: The American Presidency Project, UCSB

ABORTION

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:06:00 +0000

by Annette Adams

America, this place most blessed

Is finally falling, like the rest.

We’ve brought it on by our own hand,

This blight that’s come across our land.

We’re left in shock, we point the blame,

And miss the means through which it came.

We’ve heard “safe sex” proclaimed so long;

But contraception won’t right wrong.

So where does all this crime begin?

With good ole “number seven” sin.

As we examine God’s ten laws,

Adultery is the basic cause.

Results are found in woman’s womb,

To bring forth life or cause its doom.

But there’s no choice, for God has said:

“I make you live or make you dead”.

We wonder, when does life begin?

And blind ourselves to what’s within.

If this weren’t live, why does it grow?

Why get it out? I want to know.

But, men, if you “pick up that stone”

Remember this, and this alone:

From that decision you are free,

For pregnant you will never be.

So, I hope males who demonstrate

Will ask: “Did I participate?

Could I have ever caused this grief

And just walked out, with great relief?”

We follow blindly all we see

In movies, magazines, TV,

Till lives are left with dirty dregs,

And no way to unscramble eggs.

We’re daily dosed with dressed-up-lies,

That just confuse or tantalize:

“Sure, wear that bathing suit so sheer,

But don’t go near the water, dear.”

The world is teasing, tempting all;

To satisfy our lusts, we fall.

With standards gone, we’ve no defense,

So they exploit our decadence.

And,“ What’s that innocent act, I cry,

That will not hurt the other guy?”

With misused freedom, we can’t win,

We end up, sadly, slaves to sin.

Just as King David wrecked his life

By sleeping with Uriah’s wife,

He next planned death to cover fright,

But learned “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

‘Same sequence is in play today:

We cover sin this heinous way,

And seem to be so slow to know

“We always reap just what we sow.”

This fearful freedom plagues us still:

To keep His laws or our own will.

But we each find, ironically,

“I don’t break them, but they break me.”

Our God demands we change our course

And halt this murder at its source.

If “statute seven” we would heed,

Abortions we would seldom need.

Truth Detector

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:00:00 +0000

by Grace Howard

Lila Rose

Even some allies question Lila Rose's tactics, but her undercover work has revealed the ugly nature of Planned Parenthood

Lila Rose walked into the Santa Monica Planned Parenthood, heart hammering. She was wearing flip-flops and an old T-shirt. A camcorder was buried inside her purse.

Stepping out of the elevator, she saw six women sitting in the reception area, waiting for their appointments—waiting to extinguish a life. Lila stared at their faces, weight pressing on her heart—these women carried two lives. Soon, that second life would be gone.

The green wall behind them featured an elegant mural with the word Esperanza (meaning hope) flourished across it. Rose thought, "This must be the most hopeless place in Santa Monica."

When her turn came, Rose told the Planned Parenthood staffer she was 15 years old and impregnated by her 23-year-old boyfriend.

But in reality, Rose is a passionate pro-life advocate, a Christian, and a former homeschooled debater whose passion for the pro-life movement began when she was 9 years old. One day, she found a little book in her living room, John Willke's Handbook on Abortion. Its cover bore the image of a somber woman with haunting eyes. Rose opened the book and saw a creased page in the middle displaying images of aborted babies. She saw their tiny hands and feet.

Horrified, Rose pushed the book away. But something pulled at her to open it again, and she began to read. She read that 4,000 babies were aborted every day. It was unreal to her 9-year-old mind that anyone could deliberately kill a baby. A frightening world opened up to her: Young, innocent lives were not safe.

Rose was the third-oldest child, sandwiched between five boys, in a family where life was always treasured. As a high-school student, she participated in debate and researched human-rights issues. She traveled to Mexico at age 14 on a house-building mission trip. During the next two years, she also traveled to Morocco and organized a benefit for Nigerian famine victims.

But her heart was constantly drawn back to those tiny hands and feet—to the defenseless unborn. In every country she visited, the thought tugged: "Children down the street from my house will never have a chance to live." At age 15, Rose began to focus her work on fighting abortion. She founded the organization Live Action in her living room.

Live Action focuses on reaching young adults and helping them overcome the "stifling din" of pro-abortion marketing. Rose and her comrades began giving Power Point presentations in schools and churches—but the work was lonely. Rose remembers a time when no one showed up for a Live Action meeting. Discouraged, she turned to her mom and asked, "What am I doing wrong? Do they not care?"

"Leadership is lonely," her mother replied. "You have to forge the path, and people will follow." Rose struggled with the desire to please others, to fit in, to have friends. But the more time she dedicated to fighting abortion, the more these worries dwindled. She became consumed in the work before her.

By the time Rose enrolled in UCLA, her new organization was gaining traction throughout California. During the first quarter of her freshman year, she began undercover work. She wanted to find out what the UCLA Student Health Center was telling young women about abortion, so she walked into the center with a voice recorder in her blouse.

Rose sat down with the head nurse, told her that she was pregnant, and wanted to keep the baby. The nurse told Rose matter-of-factly that UCLA would not help pregnant women, but two abortionists were on call. If Rose continued her pregnancy, the nurse reasoned, she would have to make embarrassing bathroom trips during class.

The nurse also told Rose that the health center could get her a state paid-for abortion so that her parents would never have to know. Appalled by the nurse's coercive demeanor, Rose thought to herself, "This is the farthest thing from real choice." She produced a video and audio exposé using the material.

Rose organized her first investigation of Planned Parenthood only a short while later. It was more intense and frightening for the 19-year-old freshman. When Rose claimed to be 15, the staffer suggested that Rose change her birth date on the paperwork so that her boyfriend would not get in trouble.

Rose visited a second Planned Parenthood that day. The manager of the clinic told Rose that she had gotten pregnant at a young age as well. "If I could do it again," the manager said, her voice firm and reassuring, "I would not continue the pregnancy." She said her son is now 16 years old.

Rose put the undercover videos on YouTube, and Planned Parenthood threatened to sue her for $5,000 for each offense and bring to bear other civil and legal penalties. She remembers sitting in her college dorm room, reading the threat from Planned Parenthood, and thinking in complete shock, "I don't even have $200 in my bank account."

But Planned Parenthood's threats only garnered more attention for Rose's investigation. Thousands around the United States watched the videos. Bill O'Reilly interviewed Rose, and soon Fox and CBS ran stories on the investigation. Planned Parenthood never sued Rose but tried to prevent her from conducting any other investigations by posting her picture in many of their clinics.

While many Christians applauded Rose's work, others expressed concern about the deception inherent in her investigative work. In the Witherspoon Institute's journal Public Discourse, Christopher Tollefson argued that Live Action's work could compromise the pro-life movement by using falsehood: "The way in which Live Action has made its mark is itself extremely troubling, for it is predicated on a form of falsity."

Princeton professor Robert George wrote that Live Action's well-intentioned work should not use deception: "What we fight for is just and true, and truth—in its unparalleled splendor and luminosity—is the most powerful weapon in our arsenal." Boston College professor Peter Kreeft, though, argued that if Live Action is wrong, so is spying, "including spying out the Nazis' atomic bomb projects and saving the world from a nuclear holocaust."

Rose contends that undercover work is chronicled throughout the Bible. She points to Rahab and the Israelite spies, and to the Hebrew midwives who protected innocents by lying to Pharaoh, as examples of those who lied for a worthy cause. When considering these examples, as well as the urgency of the cause, Rose has no moral qualms with undercover work.

One summer Rose purchased police-quality equipment and ran a multi-level investigation throughout Indiana, Tennessee, and Wisconsin. In order to disguise herself, Rose spent three hours at a salon, steeping her dark brunette hair in bleach.

She walked into the Planned Parenthood in flip-flops, glasses, and Hannah Montana clothing, trying to disguise herself as a 13-year-old. While she was sitting in the waiting room, two women walked in. They were sisters; one woman was pregnant, and the other had brought her two children. While the two sisters talked, the little girl and her brother played with toys on the floor.

Rose turned to the pregnant woman and asked, "What are you here for?"

"An abortion," she replied.

Rose asked, "Why don't we just leave, and go talk to those people outside?" (Sidewalk counselors stood outside the clinic.)

"Stop talking to me," the woman said, staring at the ground.

At that moment, the little girl dropped her toys and walked over to her aunt. She jumped up on her aunt's lap and cuddled close to her abdomen. Two cousins were separated by inches of flesh.

Rose stared at the little girl and remembered Mary and Elizabeth's meeting while pregnant with Jesus and John the Baptist. Both women faced unexpected pregnancies, but both embraced their babies with joy and thanksgiving.

The contrast between Mary and Elizabeth and the two women in that abortion clinic inspired Rose to name her investigation the "Mona Lisa Project." ("Mona" is another name for Mary, and "Lisa" for Elizabeth.) Her videos documented Planned Parenthood staffers violating mandatory reporting laws for statutory rape. They were the beginning of Live Action's national investigation program.

Rose throughout her college years juggled investigative work, class schedules, traveling, and interviews but still graduated. Live Action has now conducted seven investigations on Planned Parenthood. Its last investigation, released this spring, featured an actor posing as a pimp. When the actor asked for birth control and abortion services for his underage sex workers, Planned Parenthood staffers helped him instead of reporting him.

But as Rose and her team prepared to release the tapes, Planned Parenthood notified the FBI of some of the pimp's visits. Rose spent the next five weeks living in a Washington, D.C., hotel, working frantically to release the tapes. She slept 12 hours in that first week. Forcing her eyelids open, drinking coffee, and thriving on prayer, Rose prepared each video and participated in interviews with Fox, CNN, and CBS. The investigation received press criticism but also led the New Jersey attorney general to open an investigation into Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood leaders have not threatened to sue Rose since that first investigation—they recognize that this only draws more attention to Live Action's work. But when Live Action's videos pushed Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, the organization prompted thousands of its supporters to petition Congress and say that the videos were "misleading" and "dirty tricks."

An exuberant young woman who talks a mile a minute, Rose loves good books and a steady diet of cold cereal. Although people have threatened her life and told her she is immoral, she does not regret anything she has done while working with Live Action: "There's so much bloodshed. Undercover work is necessary to demonstrate what's really happening to women, and our unborn brothers and sisters."

Live Action has taken some bites out of Planned Parenthood: the defunding of Planned Parenthood in several states, a congressional investigation, clinic probation in Alabama, and legislative proposals to close sexual abuse reporting loopholes, not to mention the firing and resignation of some Planned Parenthood staffers caught on tape. Some Christians still wonder whether those ends justify Live Action's means, but Rose is now working for Live Action full-time and planning to "expose new abuses" by Planned Parenthood.

—Grace Howard is a student at Patrick Henry College

The original article appeared in the January 28, 2012 edition of World Magazine, and appears on the World Magazine website.

© 2012
Used by Permission

A Tribute to DR. FRANCIS NIGEL LEE

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000

Dr. Francis Nigel Lee entered eternity on Friday, 23 December 2011. On 5 December, he celebrated his 77th birthday and two days later, 48 years of marriage with his wife, Nellie.

Academic Achievements
Dr. Francis Nigel Lee stands out in so many ways. Professor, Doctor, Advocate, Rev. Francis Nigel Lee lived on four continents, mastered seven languages and visited 88 countries. He was a most serious scholar, accomplished linguist and dedicated Theologian. Francis Nigel Lee was quite possibly the most academically accomplished and degreed person in the world. Certainly I know of no one else who had more doctorates and more degrees than Francis Nigel Lee. He had far more letters after his name than in them. His letters included: Ph.D., Th.D., D.Phil., D.Min., D.Ed., L.L.D., Dr.Sac.Th., D.Jur., D.Litt., D.C.L., D.Hum. and more.

Law and Gospel
Nigel Lee was an Advocate, or Barrister, of the Supreme Court of South Africa, before becoming a minister of the Gospel in the Dutch Reformed Church and later of the Presbyterian Church in America and of the Presbyterian Church of Australia. He earned degrees and doctorates in languages, dogmatics, systematics, Missiology, Philosophy, Sociology, Ethics, Practical Theology and Pedagogics. His degrees were earned from the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, University of Potchefstroom, University of the Orange Free State, Whitefield Theological Seminary, and Reformed Theological Seminary. Dr. Nigel Lee was an Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Fellowship Scholar (1964 – 1966).

From Catholicism to Christ
Nigel Lee was born 5 December 1934, in Kendal, Cumbria, in Great Britain and raised in Cape Town as a Roman Catholic. He was converted to Christ in 1955, while working underground in a gold mine.

Confronting the Killer of His Father
I had the privilege of knowing Dr. Francis Nigel Lee, travelling with him on occasion and ministering in churches and conferences. One event which stands out was how he confronted the murderer of his father. It was July 1994, when his 85 year-old father was robbed, assaulted and left for dead in his home. Nigel Lee’s mother lost her sanity as a result of this and was permanently hospitalised. At this time Nigel Lee was a professor at Queensland Theological Seminary in Australia. When he arrived in Swellendam, the police informed him that they had apprehended the assailant responsible for his father’s death. Francis Nigel Lee requested to meet the suspect and confronted him: I am the only child of the old man who was left for dead behind the front door of his house in Barrydale on 10 July – whom you are accused of having assaulted. For many years my father was not a Christian. But there came a time in his life when he turned from his sins and submitted to Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour. That is why he is now in Heaven, and waiting for me to join him.

I assure you, that if you make your peace with God – whether you die right now of a heart attack, or are put to death for murder, or die naturally later on – you too will go to Heaven. I also assure you that my father, whom you are accused of having murdered, will be the first to welcome you there. However, if you do not repent and if you die in your sins, I assure you that you will spend eternity in hellfire and damnation – forever!

Whether you repent and become a Christian, or whether you harden yourself and die in your sins, know for sure that if found guilty by the court – I would want you to receive the maximum penalty. I fully support the death penalty for murder. I will plead no leniency whatsoever for you, even if you become a Christian. But I am offering you everlasting life in Heaven after you die, if you repent and come to Jesus Christ in Faith.

Three men died on a little hill called Calvary. Two were guilty robbers, but the one in the middle, the Lord Jesus Christ, was innocent. Robbers, as you know, include those who go around beating up old men and leaving them for dead after stealing from them. Both of these robbers jeered at the innocent Jesus, crucified between them.

But then, one of the robbers repented, turned to the other, and said: we are being condemned justly. For we are receiving the punishment due for our deeds. But this Man has done nothing wrong! Then the penitent robber said to Jesus: Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom! So Jesus said to him: truly, I tell you, today you shall be with Me in paradise!

Do you not see yourself as one of those two robbers next to Jesus on Calvary? Will you die in your sins and go to hell like the unrepentant robber? Or will you, like the other robber, repent of your sins, receive Jesus as your Lord, and be assured by Him that you will go to Heaven when you die?

If you wish, I will leave this jail right now, but if you prefer, I would be privileged to show you right now how you too can become a Christian. Which is it to be?

The criminal could not look Nigel Lee in the eye, but he said: Sir; would you please show me how to become a Christian.

Conversion
The four policemen who were witnessing this scene were in a state of amazement, as Dr. Nigel Lee requested: Officer, could you kindly get us a Bible. An officer went galloping out the room and returned almost immediately with a Bible with which Dr. Nigel Lee explained the way of Salvation to what he described as a wicked hell-deserving sinner.

He put his arm around the shoulder of the one responsible for his father’s death and prayed for him. Then the accused cried out: Lord, I am a miserable sinner! Please don’t let satan destroy me! I'm sorry for all my sins. Forgive me for the sake of Jesus who died for people like me.

The atmosphere in the jail was electric. Nigel Lee continued to maintain correspondence with the man after he was sentenced to prison for the death of his father. He became convinced that the man’s conversion was genuine.

Dr. Nigel Lee related this whole encounter to me as we were climbing Lions Head. Later he wrote an article on this for Africa Christian Action to publish.

Bible Translations
On that same hike I asked Professor Nigel Lee, what was the best Bible translation that he would recommend. There followed a most fascinating lecture as we were scaling rocks and negotiating sheer drops. To summarise, Dr. Nigel Lee said that without a doubt the very best translation of the Bible is Dr. Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible into German, which he reads every day.

I knew that Professor Lee was a linguist and that he was as comfortable reading in German, as in Dutch, Afrikaans, English, Greek or Hebrew. So I then asked which English translation would he most highly recommend. After surveying the merits of the various English translations, he recommended the Geneva Bible.

That is unfortunately not so widely available today, I said. What translation that is most readily available would you recommend? After more explanations and analysis, Nigel Lee recommended the New King James Version (NKJV) as the most faithful translation since the Geneva Bible of 1560.

The Controversy over Christmas
I also asked him what his opinion was of the controversy over the date of Christmas. Until we reached the summit, he gave a most fascinating historical lecture, which spanned the centuries and concluded that our Lord was most certainly born on 25th December, and the church councils convened closest to the event were accurate. Whereas those who were questioning the date, actually had no solid reasons to do so.

Ministry
Dr. Nigel Lee served as professor of Philosophy at Shelton College in New Jersey, and for over 20 years as professor of Theology and Church History at Queensland Presbyterian Theological College, Brisbane, Australia.

Eschatology
Professor Francis Nigel Lee was an enthusiastic Calvinist and steadfast advocate of the Post-millennial Eschatology of Victory. He was not optimistic concerning the immediate future, since he recognised the fragile state of the church, its dangerous tolerance of compromise, and its unwillingness to embrace God's Law. He said: We may be headed into a dark age that could last for centuries. But in the end Christ will be victorious, and His people will inherit the earth.

Publications
Dr. Nigel Lee has left a legacy of published articles on the internet which you can find at Dr-fnlee.org. Nigel Lee was well aware of the overwhelming dangers of communism and Islam. Numerous of his publications dealt with the threats of communism, socialism and Islam which the church must face up to and overcome. Some of the hundreds of books and dissertations published by Dr. Nigel Lee include: The Covenantal Sabbath, Effective Evangelism, Origin and Destiny of Man, Communist Eschatology, Calvin on the Sciences, Mohammed in the Bible, The Sabbath Before Sinai, and his last book, which is due to be published by Nordskog this year, Certain Victory: The Biblical View of the Future.

Lecturing Style
A gifted orator, Dr. Nigel Lee had a dogmatic teaching style where he did not entertain discussion and interaction with his students in the classroom. When asked why he did not give time for questions, he replied that students were there to learn. He was there to teach. There was no need for discussion. Students need to pay attention and take careful notes. In the exams they need to repeat what they had been taught!

Preaching Style
I never saw Nigel Lee read the Scriptures in a pulpit, or at a Conference lectern, without wearing a tie and jacket. However, somewhere into the sermons, or lectures, he would tend to undo his top shirt button, loosen his tie and frequently remove his jacket.

Family
Dr. Nigel Lee and his wife Nellie had two daughters, Johanna and Anna-Marie. Johanna wrote that her father passed away peacefully after a prolonged struggle with Motor Neurone Disease. In October he was already wheelchair bound and when a panel of specialists confirmed his diagnosis, he calmly replied: Whether I die in two years, or two months, it is in God's hands. My hope is in the next life.

A Giant of the Faith
We praise God for the memory of a steadfast friend of our Mission, a dynamic champion of the Reformed Faith, and we are grateful for the legacy that he has left in his published scholarship, which so clearly lays out sound Biblical teaching on all areas of life.

“Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.” Daniel 12:3

Dr. Peter Hammond
Frontline Fellowship
P.O. Box 74 Newlands 7725
Cape Town South Africa
Tel: 021-689-4480
Email: admin@frontline.org.za
Website: www.frontline.org.za

Stem Cell Basics

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:41:00 +0000

by Robert Cielnicky, President of Scholl Institute of Bioethics

The following was compiled from the National Institute of Health website and elsewhere with annotations added by the author.

A human being comes into existence at the moment the sperm fuses with the ovum. From then until the eighth week it is termed an embryo. That single-cell embryo, also called a zygote, has been deemed the most complex cell under the face of the sun for it contains all the information and programming necessary to produce who you physically are today.

The zygote begins to divide and differentiate (specialize) into cells, which in 3 to 5 days separate into two regions of the embryo, now called a blastocyst. The exterior cells or “shell” of the blastocyst will create the placenta. The cells within the blastocyst will eventually create a complete human being having heart, lungs, brain, and all other bodily tissues, fluids and organs.

The zygote and its replicated cells are termed totipotent stem cells, being able to give rise to every cell type necessary to produce a new human being, including its in-utero support system (placenta). The blastocyst internal cells are termed pluripotent stem cells giving rise to every cell of the human body, but not the placenta. By the 6th day, the blastocyst internal pluripotent stem cells are differentiating into specialized cells that will form the various systems of the human body. These are termed multipotent stem cells since although now on specific development paths, they can still further differentiate to form various components of a major body system. Multipotent stem cells are also found among tissues and organs of children and adults and are commonly termed “adult” or “somatic” (body) stem cells. In this capacity, they serve as an internal repair system, differentiating and dividing without limit to regenerate specialized cells that have been damaged or expired.

Stem cells are distinguished from other cell types by three major differences. 1) They are able to proliferate themselves through many successive cell divisions, sometimes after long periods of inactivity. 2) They are unspecialized cells. 3) They have the unique ability to differentiate themselves into specialized cells with special functions.

Adult stem cells have been used in regenerative medicine for decades and now account for almost 100 different types of therapeutic treatments. These range from long established bone-marrow transplant for recovery from the effects of leukemia to the most recent clinical trials in which cardiac stem cells showed positive results in repairing severely damaged hearts.

In 1998, a method was discovered to derive stem cells from human embryos and grow the cells in the laboratory. Despite billions of dollars in state and federal funding for embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) spanning more than a decade, it has not produced any regenerative treatment. Much more damaging, the extraction of embryonic stem cells from the embryo destroys it and thus kills a human being, making embryonic stem cell research an immoral pursuit. Conversely, harvesting adult stem cells does not kill the donor and is not immoral.

In 2006, researchers made a major breakthrough by identifying conditions that would allow some specialized adult cells to be “reprogrammed” genetically to assume an embryonic stem cell-like state. This new type of stem cell is called an induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) and without having come from an embryo, it eliminates the immorality of embryonic stem cell research.

The existing alternatives to embryonic stem cell research and its dismal record should suffice to end its taxpayer funding.

Another Embryonic Stem Cell Initiative for California?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

Shortly after its passage in 2004 by voters clinging to hope and hype, the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Act (Proposition 71) was challenged in court for violation of established public oversight procedures. Prop 71 was advanced by its proponents as an amendment to California’s State Constitution, thus bypassing the legislative process of deliberation, debate, and representative voting. It also made itself immune to several time-proven procedures that assure accountability for public fund expenditures by creating its own regulations and amending existing government codes. The court challenge was rebuffed and the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), created by Prop 71, was off and running at $1 million a day for the next 10 years.

The public investment of $3 billion ($6 billion taxpayer cost) solely for human embryonic stem cell research was astounding. It was twice all the money spent by the University of California in all its research facilities over the previous 25 years. Equally astounding was that Prop 71 proponents spent a comparatively modest $30 million to stir public passion and lasso a $3 billion cash cow. That’s a return of a dollar per penny on a venture rejected by private investors.

At the time of Prop 71, ESCR had produced tumors, bodily rejection, and a potential for lawsuits, but no cures. Meanwhile, adult and cord blood stem cells were approaching 100 therapeutic cures. In the free market, ESCR was going nowhere while adult stem cell research was thriving. A public stampeded by emotional marketing was needed for ESCR funding, and that is what Prop 71 provided.

Fast forward to 2011. What has Prop 71 produced for $1.2 billion thus far? The CIRM has funded awards of $270 million for 12 new buildings, $72 million for ESCR training programs, $816 million for research on all types of stem cells, and generous CIRM salaries (at $490,000 annually its president is the highest salaried non-academician in California), but not one therapeutic cure.

Characteristically, cures remain ‘just over the horizon’. In 2004, Prop 71 proponent and ESCR scientist Hans Keirstead predicted that in 2006 there would be a clinical study involving humans with spinal cord injuries. Geron, a major biomedical corporation and ESCR advocate, launched the first such clinical trial in 2010. Geron announced in October 2011 that the primary test objective of safety had been met with its first patient. There was no report on the effectiveness of the treatment. In November, Geron stunned the ESCR community when it announced it had cancelled the clinical trials and terminated its entire embryonic stem cell program. No reason was given. Geron had posted company losses for the past 3 quarters. It will return money from a $25 million loan made by the CIRM last May.

Before considering any extension of CIRM funding, California voters would do well to examine and compare the CIRM with a host of ethical and successful adult stem cell programs underway across America.

For more information visit CIRM; Adult Stem Cell Research Network; and California Stem Cell Report.

From the January 2012 issue of the Bioethics Review. The Scholl Institute of Bioethics is a nonprofit, Judeo-Christian organization that addresses bioethical issues including euthanasia, physician-assisted-suicide, the withholding or withdrawing of food and water from non-dying patients, brain death, organ transplantation, genetic engineering, and the rights of disabled or mentally ill persons.

Scholl Institute of Bioethics stands against using human embryonic stem cells for experimentation since these cells emanate from the killing of a human being. This immoral research should be prohibited and never paid for by our taxes. Moral and better alternatives are available.

Contact the Scholl Institute of Bioethics
18030 Brookhurst PMB 372, Fountain Valley, CA 92708
Email: schollethics@altrionet.co
Telephone 626-574-7123

Also see Crusade for Life website.

© 2012
Used by Permission

Bioethics Review: Stop Funding Embryonic Stem Cell Research

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:40:00 +0000

The California Institute of Regenerative Medicine and the Abuse of Power
by Rabbi Louis J. Feldman, Ph.D.

Forcing people to perform acts contrary to their religious convictions is one of the most egregious forms of abuse of power. History is replete with reports of religious martyrs who died horrible deaths rather than violate the tenets of their faiths.

Coercing people to pay for acts or institutions that are contrary to their religious convictions is a very serious manifestation of abuse of power. The Embryo Cloning and Stem Cell Research Bond Act (Proposition 71), which California voters passed in 2004 is a stellar example of abuse of power.

First of all, if there was any real promise from embryonic stem cell research, the private sector would have pounced on it like a sumo wrestler at a smorgasbord. Lacking this promise, a time-tested remedy was applied: “If you have a ‘lemon’ that nobody wants to buy, get the tax-payers to finance it.”

This is exactly what happened: a sum of $2.6 million was spent on a campaign to qualify Proposition 71 for the ballot. The public was duped by tales of the potential for the disabled to leap from their wheelchairs. Proposition 71 would be financed by the issuance of general obligation bonds averaging $295 million per year over a period of ten years. This adds up to a staggering $3 billion before interest and $6 billion over the 30-year period of repayment.

None of the promises has been kept. Obscenely high salaries and a facility in the “high rent district” have nearly devoured the allotted monies. If those who financed the campaign for Proposition 71 really cared about their cause, they would have raised funds for a privately financed institute of regenerative medicine that would have been leaner, more efficient, and more productive. Most important of all, it would have avoided trampling upon people who find embryonic stem cell research to be morally repugnant and forcing them to pay for this venture.

Unfortunately, the same porkers will be returning to the trough for more taxpayer dollars. Let us hope that the voters of our debt-crushed state will have the sense and integrity to say “no”!

Forcing people to perform acts contrary to their religious convictions is one of the most egregious forms of abuse of power.

Court Ruling on Ultrasound Law Worth Celebrating

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 02:15:00 +0000

by Star Parker

The movement labeling itself pro-choice is not about promoting choice at all -- it is about promoting abortion.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals gave good reason for celebration for the hundreds of thousands who will arrive in Washington for the 39th annual March for Life on Monday.

The court last week upheld the constitutionality of a new law in Texas requiring that abortion providers do ultrasound exams and that a woman listen to the physician's description of her unborn child and to the heartbeat before deciding whether to abort.

The law, signed by Gov. Rick Perry in May, was blocked by a federal district court in August. It argued that the law impinged on the free-speech rights of abortion providers.

Now, Texas may become not just the nation's largest creator of jobs, but the nation's best protector of human life.

Ultrasound images of unborn children are turning the abortion game around, which is why abortion providers and organizations such as Planned Parenthood that promote the barbarous abortion regime are so on edge about the decision.

Seeing ultrasound images has a major impact. Estimates vary widely on the percentage of women who intended to abort but changed their minds after seeing an ultrasound image. My own anecdotal surveys, from crisis pregnancy centers around the country that I work with, indicate that anywhere from 62 percent to 95 percent reconsider.

Focus on the Family reports that 84 percent do. The nonprofit Christian organization also operates a generous program called Operation Ultrasound, through which it provides ultrasound equipment and training to crisis pregnancy centers that apply.

According to Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is challenging the Texas law, "If this decision stands, it opens the floodgates for other states to insert themselves in an inappropriate way between doctors and women seeking medical care."

What can you possibly conclude from a movement that labels itself "pro-choice" and that opposes ensuring that women who make a decision as serious and grave as abortion have as much vital information as possible before making that choice?

Good information is the oxygen that enables good decision-making. The answer to the question is that the movement labeling itself "pro-choice" is not about promoting choice at all. It is about promoting abortion.

It is why the so-called "pro-choice" movement opposes efforts to better provide women -- disproportionately young, poor, minority women -- with information that raises their awareness and understanding of what they are doing.

We might recall the impact that television images had after Hurricane Katrina, when the reality of poverty in America suddenly was out there for all to see. No one could look away from this ugly and unpleasant truth.

Including our politicians. Our nation's capital has one of the nation's highest poverty rates (19.9 percent, compared with 15.1 percent of Americans overall in 2010, according to census figures). Any member of Congress can see it by just walking a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol. But suddenly, when the images were on national television, the politicians were out there pontificating.

An ultrasound image of an unborn child is the same type of media event. Suddenly, the mother-to-be sees what she didn't know or perhaps knew and wanted to avoid confronting: that she is the bearer of human life and that she is close to murdering the very life that she chose to help create.

According to Americans United for Life, a public-interest law and policy nonprofit, 460 pieces of related legislation were considered in state legislatures around the nation last year.

The forces promoting ignorance are losing and light is shining through.

It is reason for optimism that increasingly more Americans grasp that for a free country to function, we need informed and responsible citizens.

We need appreciation that our choices matter -- and that the most important choice, as we learn in Deuteronomy, is to choose life.

Originally published Monday, January 23, 2012, by Star Parker, at CURE, “Court ruling on ultrasound law worth celebrating”

©2012
Used by Permission.

Christian Iceland Long Before Columbus

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:14:00 +0000

by Francis Nigel Lee

Though its existence was known to the Ancient Greeks, Iceland was actually visited for the first time by Culdee Christian Irish Celts—around A.D. 500. Shortly thereafter, the great Culdee Brendan and his party inspected it around A.D. 560—before they proceeded further on their way to America. Yet Iceland remained uninhabited until the end of the eighth century.

Iceland: World's first empty country colonized only by Christians

Around 790 A.D., a colony of Proto-Protestant Irish Christians is known to have been established in Iceland—before Pagan Vikings from Scandinavia subsequently invaded it almost a century later. Consequently, Iceland is the only country on Earth which was never inhabited by Pre-Christians. Indeed, only Europeans but no Amerindians or Eskimos have ever lived there.

Both Celtic Icelanders and Scandinavian Icelanders alike later established it to be a Christian country. That occurred around A.D. 1000.

Early awareness of Iceland's existence before her colonization

According to the New Encyclopaedia Britannica, it is possible that Mediterranean seafarers of the Ancient World knew about the existence of Iceland. However, the earliest settlements on the island seem to be Irish. (See Dasent's “Introduction” to the famous Icelandic epic Burnt Njal.)

Isabel Elder remarks in her book Celt, Druid and Culdee that the Culdees—alias the Proto-Protestant Celts—acquired great missionary zeal. Great numbers of them went forth as Missionaries, and christianized the whole of Europe—from Iceland to the Danube. One such Culdee was the Irish Christian Brendan. He visited Iceland in the sixth century.

In Katharine Scherman's informative book Daughter of Fire: A Portrait of Iceland, it is rightly stated that the first to settle in Iceland were Irish. After the fall of the Roman Empire and the occupation of most of Europe by barbarians, culture was dissipated. It was kept alive chiefly in isolated and often beleaguered monastries—especially those of the Proto-Protestant Celtic Culdees.

Some Christian scholars, fleeing the rule of the heathen, found their way to Ireland. Insulated by sea, Ireland escaped most of the holocaust.

From 500 to 800, Ireland was the most truly civilized country. Yet Irish Monks had a tendency to roam.

For they knew the Earth was round. See De Mensura Orbis [Concerning the Measurement of the Globe], written by the Irish monk Diccuil in the year A.D. 825. There, he also referred to settlements of Christian Irishmen and Irishwomen in Iceland.

For, long before the coming of the Vikings, the boats or curraghs of Irish monks had touched on various remote islands in the North Atlantic. They knew of Iceland as Tila—a corrupted spelling of Thyle or Thule—from their classical reading. Therein they had found accounts in the journeys of the Greek explorer Pytheas of Marseilles.

In about B.C. 300, Pytheas had discovered "the farthest island of the Ocean, lying between north and west, six days voyage beyond Britain—getting its name [Thule] from the sun, because at the summer solstice there is no night." Thus the Irish Celt Diccuil's Latin-language book: Liber de Mensura Orbis.

According to Scherman, Pytheas's Thule was Iceland. The Irish monks so believed it. By the time of the voyage of Saint Brendan in the early sixth century, Tila was already known—though not settled.

Brendan, in his curragh—a "very light little vessel"—set sail with seventeen monks on a voyage of forty days. He was not looking for Tila but for a land (viz. America?) across the sea where saints could live in perpetual joy.

Instead, however—at least during that particular voyage—Brendan arrived in Iceland. Soon he and his Culdee fellow mariners were gazing upon the fiery furnace of the famous volcano, Mount Hekla.

"Soldiers of Christ," said Saint Brendan, "be strong in faith unfeigned—and in the armour of the Spirit! For we are now on the confines of hell!"

The Celtic colonization of Iceland after the visit of Brendan

Scherman explains that the voyages of Saint Brendan gave heart to monks of the following centuries, when fleeing from this or that discomfort [especially caused by raiding Vikings] in Ireland. By the year 793, there was already an establishment of Celtic Culdees on the southern coast of Iceland.

An account by an Irish monk written around A.D. 820 stated of Tila: "It is now several years since Culdees...had lived on Iceland." Its closest neigbour was Greenland, 180 miles to the west—which was also discovered by monks from Ireland.

For eighty years, the monks were undisturbed in Iceland. By 874, there were probably more than a thousand of them scattered along the southern shore. It is probable that they did not know of the coming of the first Viking. He, one Naddodd, was the first Scandinavian to set foot on Iceland—and indeed around 860.

In his book Conquest by Man, Paul Herrmann states that the Irish sailed to Iceland circa A.D. 795. In addition to ancient Irish sources, the Scandinavians themselves attest that there were Irishmen living on Iceland before them.

The circa A.D. 1120 Landnamabok account runs in part as follows: "At that time [circa 875], Iceland was covered with trees between the shore and the mountains. There lived here then, Irishmen—called by the Norsemen papar [alias presbyters]. These men later went away, because they did not wish to live with heathen. They left behind bells, crosiers and stone crosses—from which it could be seen that the people were from Ireland."

The Scandinavian colonization of Celtic-Christian Culdee Iceland

Soon a positive flood of Norsemen was pouring into Iceland. By about A.D. 1000, there were some twenty to thirty thousand people living on that lonely island.

One of the first men to explore Iceland, Gardar, was a Swede. It is recorded further that Ingolf's brother had several colonists on board. Thus the Landnamabok.

In Olive Murray Chapman's book Across Iceland, we are rightly told how that country is certainly unique among European lands. For—never having been inhabited by a primitive and savage race—it contains no prehistoric remains.

The first colonists from Scandinavia were wise and high-born chieftains, who brought from their mother country an already advanced civilization. But before their arrival in the ninth century, there were some even earlier settlers who called the country Thule—and who were apparently Culdee Christian Irishmen.

For when the first Norwegian settlers took possession of the island, they found books, bells and croziers left behind by the monks who fled at the Vikings' approach. These people were called papar—a Norse name meaning presbyter—by the Norsemen. There are a few places in the Southeast of Iceland, such as Papafjoerdur, Papey and Papaos, whose names bear witness to settlement by these early Christians from the British Isles.

Unknown is the general extent to which Proto-Protestant Culdee-Christian Celts of Iceland influenced the Germanic Scandinavians—when the latter next arrived there. However, it is certain that the marriage of Celtic Culdee values and Germanic representative government, ultimately proved very fruitful in Iceland.

Thus, the Encyclopaedia Britannica revealingly states that the re-discovery of Iceland, by the Scandinavians, around A.D. 850—for it had long been inhabited by a small colony of Irish Culdees—led in sixty years to the establishment of some four thousand homesteads. In this immigration, three distinct streams can be traced.

(1) About 870-890, four great noblemen from Norway settled with their dependents in the southwest. (2) In 890-900, there came from the 'Western Islands' Queen Aud, widow of Olaf the White, King of Dublin—preceded and followed by a number of her kinsmen relatives, many like herself, being Christians. (3) In 900-930, a few more incomers direct from Norway completed the settlement. Among these immigrants, there was no small proportion of Irishmen.

The Constitution of Ulfliot (around 930) appointed a central moot for the whole of Iceland—the Al-thing. The reforms of Thor Gellir (964) settled a fixed number of moots and chieftaincies, dividing the island into four quarters. To each a head court—the Quarter Court—was assigned. Then the innovations of Skapti the lawspeaker, who died in 1030 A.D., set up a fifth court—as the ultimate tribunal in criminal matters.

Encyclopedia Americana on the earliest colonies in Iceland

The Encyclopedia Americana adds that Iceland is without doubt one of the countries mentioned as Thule by Greek and Roman authors in Pre-Christian times. There are references by the geographer Dicuil, to an Irish settlement in Iceland some time before 800 A.D.

In the ninth century, Scandinavian Vikings began to explore Iceland, and the first permanent settlement by Norwegians was made about 870 A.D. The settlers soon formed assemblies (each called a thing) for the adjudication of their controversies. In 1000, they established a central Parliament (called the Al-thing) for all Iceland.

This is the oldest surviving Parliament in the World. Besides being a Legislative Assembly, the Althing was also the Supreme Court. This oldest republic in the World, lasted for over three centuries—a period which is recorded as Iceland's golden age.

The sons of the chiefs could sail to foreign countries and live splendidly abroad. They roamed the high seas, explored Greenland, and discovered America. Leif Ericsson, a born and bred Icelander, built a house in Wineland (or Vinland).

Probably this was in the vicinity of Boston. The first European's child born in America, in 1004, returned to Iceland where he founded a great family.

Katharine Scherman on the earliest colonists in Iceland

According to Katharine Scherman, it was entirely evident to Iceland's older inhabitants that the Norsemen were moving in. How a thousand or so holy men, established for eighty years or more, managed to disappear after 874 is a deeply shrouded secret—though, as now about to be pointed out, the intermarriage of those Culdees with converted Scandinavians may very well have been one of the chief causes.

The earlier extant accounts are noncommittal. The A.D. 1127 Islendingabok (alias the Iceland Book) is the most explicit of those records.

It states: "The Christian men whom the Norsemen call Papar, were here. But afterward...they left behind Irish books...From this, it could be seen that they were Irish."

The place became Kirkjubaerklaustur (alias Church Farm Cloister). The Settlement had brought in books and crosses. These were those who had come to Iceland from Ireland.

The Celtic Culdee Christians in Ireland chose their most respected convert, who in turn went to see a renowned leader named Thorgeir. Though the Scandinavian Thorgeir was a Heathen, he was known to be reasonable and wise.

Thorgeir convened a meeting of the Althing alias the National Parliament. There, he said: "Let us all have Christianity! For it will prove to be true, that if we divide our men—we also destroy the peace...All men in this land shall be Christians, and believe in the one God —Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"

"They shall renounce all worship of idols! They shall not expose their children at birth, nor eat horsemeat. The penalty for carrying on these practices openly, shall be outlawry." Pre-Rushdoonyian Icelandic theonomy!

Thorgeir then went on to decree the national observance of the Lord's Day—a long-established Celtic Culdee practice. Everyone, at the Althing, then finally agreed to be baptized around 1000 A.D.

The first Icelandic journeys to Greenland and North America

The Icelanders had always been, and thereafter continued to be, great sailors. Scherman gives very interesting details of this. That includes information about Icelandic journeys not only to Ireland and Scandinavia—but also to Greenland and America.

North America—just like Greenland—was found by mistake. Bjarni Herjolfsson, sailing from Iceland to find his father who was farming in Greenland, ran into fog and northerly winds which pushed him south. Consequently, he missed Cape Farewell on the southernmost tip of Greenland.

After many days, he sighted a wooded land of low hills. He was later criticised for his lack of curiosity about the new shoreline of forests.

The first to organize an expedition to remedy this ignorance, was Leif—one of Erik the Red's three sons. Erik the Red himself—Eirik raudha—flourished around 990-1000 A.D. He is thus described in the later Eirikssaga.

In 1001, Erik and his expedition sailed to the west, and found the last land Bjarni had sighted. He named it Helluland (alias Land of Rock Slabs). This was probably Baffin Land. He then continued toward the southwest.

The next land he sighted was "flat and wooded, with white sandy beaches." Indeed, "the land sloped gently down to the sea." Thus the Graenlendingasaga.

Leif named that place Markland (alias Forest Land). That wooded territory was probably Labrador.

As the wind from the northeast continued, they sailed before it for another two days. Then they again reached land—this time an island to the north of a mainland.

The Graenlendingasaga records: "They went ashore...There was dew on the grass...It seemed the sweetest thing they had ever tasted."

Next they went back and sailed into the sound. They entered a river which flowed out of a lake. There were also salmon in the river and the lake. "There they found the land so fair that they decided to stay the winter.” Observes the Graenlendingasaga: "There was never any frost all winter, and the grass hardly withered at all."

One day, Leif's foster-father managed to tell them—in Icelandic—that he had found grapevines and grapes. They also found wild wheat there. The trees, especially the maples, were excellent for building. When spring came, Leif went back to Greenland with a cargo of timber and the towboat full of grapes. He called the country he had left: Vinland.

Wounded Thorvald Erikson requested a Christian burial in America

After giving the above glowing report about Vinland when again back in Greenland, Leif did not have to work at all hard to entice footloose compatriots to Vinland (the Land of Wine). His brothers and a half-sister Freydis followed his initial expedition with several of their own.

While exploring to the south, along the coast, a party led by Leif's brother Thorvald was set on by a horde of Skraelings [or pagan Redskins] in skin boats. Thorvald was wounded by an arrow.

He asked his men to take him to the lovely headland where Leif Eriksen's brother Thorvald had wanted to build his house. "Bury me there," he urged, "and put crosses at my head and feet and let the place be called Krossaness for ever afterwards!"

The settlements of Leif and succeeding explorers are thought to have been on and near Cape Bauld, Newfoundland. There the sites of two large Norse dwellings, and several smaller buildings, have been excavated.

The Eriksaga on Thorfinn Karsefni's colony in America's Vinland

Scherman also stated that next to Leif Eriksen, Thorfinn Karlsefni was the most courageously adventurous of the early explorers and the one who first envisaged the possibility of establishing a colony in Vinland. Karlsefni was the husband of Gudrid, the granddaughter of Vifil—a Celt from the British Isles. In 1010, Thorfinn and Gudrid and their expedition set sail for the West, intending to make a permanent settlement in the new land.

They sailed directly across the 65th parallel to Helluland; turned south to Markland; and then spent several days passing long sand beaches (probably in Labrador). They stopped for the first winter at a fjord—north of Vinland. "There were mountains there, and the country was beautiful to look at...There was tall grass everywhere." Thus the Eirikssaga.

In spring, they moved south—to Vinland. "They found wild wheat...and grapevines...and streams teeming with fish...When the tide went out, there were halibut...In the woods, there was a great number of animals of all kinds." Thus again the Eirikssaga.

They decided to settle there. The winter was kind. There was no snow at all. Their livestock grew fat on the fine grass.

In the first autumn after they left Greenland, Karlsefni's and Gudrid's son Snorri had been born. He lived in the new land until he was three. Then all the settlers sailed back toward Greenland. They reached Markland, where they surprised a family group of five Skraelings—viz. Amerindians or Eskimos.

The Icelandic Greenlanders gave particular attention to the children of those Skraelings. They took their little boys on board; taught them to speak Norse; and baptized them.

The children became friendly enough to talk about their own people. They described a country "across from their own land, where the people went about white...This is thought to have been Hvitramannaland" alias White Man's Land. Thus the Eirikssaga.

Katharine Scherman on the Celtic Hvitramannaland in America

Scherman explains that Hvitramannaland was a legendary Irish preserve...Some mediaeval sources connect it definitely with the Western Atlantic. In the A.D. 1120 Landnamabok, there is reference to Hvitramannaland as being "six days' sail west of Ireland."

The Hauksbok is a codex of sagas and other learned writings compiled in Iceland in the fourteenth century. It refers also to another land in the Western Atlantic, calling it: "Greater Ireland."

The Irish themselves, in their literature, have allusions to "a land...to the west, across the Sea, which knows...simple human joys...without care." Indeed, a place (viz. Florida?) -found by Saint Brendan in his forty-day journey across the Atlantic—was "warm, fruitful, bathed in...autumn sunshine...[and] laden with fruit."

Scherman concludes that Karlsefni and Gudrid went back to Iceland with their little American son Snorri, to the farm in the north which Karlsefni had never given up. There he recounted all these events, which were written down by scribes.

After Karlsefni's death, his widow became a deaconness or nun. Three of their descendants became illustrious presiding preachers. "Many other great people in Iceland are descended from Karlsefni and Gudrid...May God be with us! Amen!" Thus the Eirikssaga.

The North American adventure did not end absolutely with Karlsefni's flight. Sea travel was as easy from Greenland to Markland as from Iceland to Greenland or to Europe. Journeys for timber to North America's forests continued at least until very deep into the fourteenth century.

A map of the coast of North America, drawn in 1590, still used the old Norse names. But along with the forfeiture of their political freedom and the deterioration of their literary genius, the Icelanders evidently lost their taste for seagoing enterprises.

Early history in C.M. Boland's book Iceland and Greenland

So, as C.M. Boland stated in the book Iceland and Greenland, some of the first White visitors to America were Vikings. They came, originally, from Iceland.

In the tenth century, an Icelander named Eric the Red discovered and colonized Greenland. A scant twenty years later, his son, Leif Ericsson led an expedition to the West. Eventually he is said to have come to the coast of New England, which he called Vinland. His visit apparently started an attempt at colonization that lasted for many years.

A tribute to Leif's exploits is his statue, a gift of the American people, which now stands in Iceland's capital Reykjavik. The original settlers of Iceland, apart from some Celtic clergy, were Scandinavian.

Christianity, in its great sweep across Europe, touched the island of Iceland during the ninth century (when it was settled by Celtic Culdees). Later, the Celto-Scandinavian Icelanders, in their own typically representative way, voted themselves into the new religion at a meeting of the Parliament in the year 1000.

Icelander Palmi Hanneson's modern book Islenzhar Myndir

We close with an extended passage from Rector Dr. Palmi Hannesson's Islenzkar Myndir (alias Pictures of Iceland). Translated from the modern Icelandic, the passage states that the Icelanders are a Scandinavian people, with an admixture of Celtic blood. The latter is noticeable. Its influence may be felt in their character and mental qualities.

Icelandic is the oldest literary language in Scandinavia, and writing in it began more than eight centuries ago. From the very beginning, the Icelanders have been thought eager for study and learning.

There have been many prominent scholars among them, particularly in the fields of history and philology. General education is of a high standard, and there is much more interest in literature here than in other countries.

In ancient Greek writings, mention is made of a land called Thule—lying to the north of Scotland. It is probably Iceland which was so designated. In the middle of the ninth century, Norse Vikings discovered the country. Then, it had no inhabitants except the Irish.

The majority of the settlers came directly from Norway—though others came from the British Isles, among them a number of Celts. In the year 930, the people established a constitution—an aristocratic oligarchy on a representative system.

In the year 986, Eirikur the Red discovered Greenland. It was subsequently peopled from Iceland. In the year 1000, Leifur the Lucky—son of Eirikur—discovered America. He named it Vinland. He was born in Iceland, and was a Christian.

Rector Hannesson concludes that shortly after 1100, the Icelanders began to write their laws and the history of their country on parchment. Their ancient literature is the most precious heritage of the Icelandic people, second only to the land itself.

It is the most splendid art which the Nordic soul has created, and has contributed to the civilization of the European. For Iceland's manuscripts, concludes Hanneson, are invaluable.

© 2012
Used by Permission

Why Must Hollywood Be So Liberal?

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 23:35:00 +0000

by Jerry Newcombe

A major motion picture is in the works based on the life of the former Prime Minister of England, Maggie Thatcher, “the iron lady,” a woman of great courage and resolve.

The movie star, Meryl Streep, plays Thatcher. Some reports say Streep could perhaps garner her 17th Ocscar-award nomination for her performance as Thatcher.

Of course, Margaret Thatcher was a very strong conservative; therefore, she committed the unpardonable sin, according to liberal opinion.

Maggie Thatcher inherited an economy that was in shambles because of decades of socialistic policies. She said famously, “The problem with socialism is that sooner or later you run out of other peoples’ money.”

She was successful in helping get England back on track financially.

Of course, she gained a lot of powerful enemies in the process.

And now comes this movie, some thirty years later.

Christopher Hope and Anita Singh write in the Telegraph from the UK (11/15/11): “The Iron Lady: Meryl Streep is 'cashing in' on Thatcher, say friends of former PM. It is the most eagerly awaited film performance of the year, but is also already proving to be the most controversial.”

They add, “Friends and family have dismissed the drama as a ‘left-wing fantasy,’ although it portrays Lady Thatcher as a strong leader during the Falklands conflict, the miners’ strike and other crises.”

Apparently, some of the movie shows her as she is today, after a few mini-strokes, etc. Good heavens. When people get old, they often experience some forms of dementia. Why would they waste the movie-goers’ time with that?

What if some aging Hollywood star, still alive, but whose mind and health is long-gone, were to be featured as he or she is today? Of course, they would come off as out-of-touch and decrepit.

Tim Bell (now Lord Bell) used to work for Thatcher, and he has no inclination to see the movie: "I can’t see the point of this film. Its only value is to make some money for Meryl Streep and whoever wrote it….The depiction of Lady Thatcher as a stooped old lady in a headscarf contrasts with her appearance during her most recent public outing.”

So my question is: Why does Hollywood have to be so liberal?

In 2004, with his independent film, The Passion of the Christ, Mel Gibson proved that there are millions of potential theatre-goers who are starved for well-done movies that won’t insult their faith. He did this, against the grain of the Hollywood establishment and proved them wrong.

He managed to bring millions of people into the theatres, some of whom probably hadn’t seen a movie in a theatre in decades.

I have come to appreciate a man who is my favorite movie critic, Ted Baehr, publisher of Movieguide. He looks for the good and praises that, while criticizing the bad.

Ted told me, “Hollywood studios release only 40% of the movies every year. Now, they get most of the box office, but they only release less than half of the movies. The other half of the movies are released by independents.”

He said that well-done films with positive moral values tend to do really well, even if they are independent.

Said Ted, “Once in a while an independent like Fireproof will succeed, but most of the independents, like Sean Penn’s Milk and all of Sean Penn’s movies, bomb at the box office. So, although Sean Penn has this driving passion to get across a very Chavez-laden communist worldview, he fails at the box office.”

Fireproof was made in 2008 by the Kendrick brothers, Alex and Steve. It was basically a production by a church in Georgia. And it’s a well-made film starring Kirk Cameron, and it did well—even though its budget was limited.

The Brothers Kendrick also came out with a movie a few months ago, entitled Courageous, which at last check (of boxofficemojo.com, which monitors box office receipts) has earned $31.5 million. That’s not bad for an independent film released by a church.

In fact, the weekend after its release, Ray Subers of boxofficemojo.com wrote an article subtitled, “’Courageous’ Tops Weak Newcomers” (October 1, 2011).

Subers stated: “With a strong estimated $3.1 million, Courageous looks like the big box office surprise this weekend. That debut is up on Fireproof's $2.3 million start on the same weekend in 2008, and it should translate to a $9 million opening weekend.” Courageous managed “to attract a solid Christian audience.”

Ted Baehr told me, “films that undermine the biblical position generally don’t do well. Movies with positive Christian content last year averaged about $80 million or more. Movies with anti-Christian content averaged about $1.7 million. Year after year after year.”

So why does Hollywood continue to make so many liberal movies, like the upcoming one on the former Prime Minister of England—which I'm sure will be very well done, very well-acted, and totally liberal in outlook?

I think the answer is because so many of them are not aligned spiritually or politically with the vast majority of the population, including some in Britain.

Such as Margaret Thatcher who said in the late 1980s: "The truths of the Judeo-Christian tradition are infinitely precious, not only, as I believe, because they are true, but also because they provide the moral impulse which alone can lead to that peace, in the true meaning of the world for which we all long....But there is little hope for democracy if the hearts of men and women in democratic societies cannot be touched by a call to something greater than themselves."

Jerry Newcombe is the senior producer and host of Truth That Transforms with D. James Kennedy (formerly The Coral Ridge Hour). He has also written or co-written 21 books, including the Nordskog Publishing title The Book that Made America: How the Bible Formed Our Nation. Jerry co-wrote (with Dr. Peter Lillback) the bestselling, George Washington's Sacred Fire. He hosts the website jerrynewcombe.com.

Originally published November 16, 2011 at jerrynewcombe.com

© 2012

Used by Permission

The Christian Discovery and Settlement of Greenland (A.D. 982f)

noreply@blogger.com (Nordskog Publishing) — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:56:00 +0000

by Francis Nigel Lee

Contrary to popular belief, there were no Eskimos (Inuit) or any other Non-White peoples at all in Greenland, at the time Europeans first settled there in A.D. 982f. Also contrary to popular belief—Greenland has been Christian from the time of its first human settlement onward.

Greenland is, after Iceland, the second country on Earth which was first inhabited by Christians. For also Greenland had no pagan past to replace.

Such heathen practices as did take root there, came in with the later arrival of then-unchristianized Eskimos—subsequently to that of the earlier Norsemen (or rather the Celto-Norse Christians from Iceland). Thus, Christianity was Greenland's first religion; and Europeans were its first human residents.

Geography and History in C.M. Boland's book on Greenland

According to C.M. Boland's book Iceland and Greenland,1 the most northerly tip of Greenland lies only four hundred miles from the North Pole. From that furthermost tip, it is 1660 miles to its southernmost point. The latter is Cape Farewell, which thrusts itself into the Atlantic Ocean.

To the southeast, Iceland is about two hundred miles away. To the west, also two hundred miles away, is the Cumberland Peninsula of Canada's huge territory called Baffin Island.

The coastal areas of southwestern Greenland are fertile and tillable—a green fringe around the edge of a vast glacier. The summers can be surprisingly hot.

Iceland was first colonized by Christian Celts from about A.D. 575 onward. The whole country accepted Christianity as its national religion from A.D. 970f. Only thereafter did some of those christianized Icelanders colonize the then-uninhabited Greenland.

According to Boland, the three most important dates in Greenland's history are: A.D. 981, 985, and 1000f. In 981, Eric the Red arrived from Iceland. In 985, fourteen shiploads of colonists from Iceland settled on the coast of Greenland. Then, around 1000f, there were visits to America and colonizations there by Icelanders either living in Greenland or otherwise passing over from Iceland via Greenland to the New World.

Boland further states2 that although Greenland can be sighted from certain mountaintops in Iceland—a distance of about two hundred miles—it was apparently first seen, from a ship, by a Norseman named Gunnbjorn. That was some time in the tenth century.

It was only in 981 A.D. that Eric the Red arrived in Greenland. He spent three years exploring the grass-green fringes of that huge island.

He found the place uninhabited. There were no Eskimos. On returning to Iceland, Eric gave glowing descriptions of the green pastures in his new land—to any who would listen. Thus, he called it Greenland. Consequently, twenty-five shiploads of colonists went back with him. Only fourteen of these ships arrived, in 985. The rest perished or disappeared.

Despite early setbacks, Eric's colony thrived for several hundred years. At its height, the colony may have had as many as nine thousand people.

It built sixteen churches, a monastery, and a nunnery. These were all institutions of the clan-based and family-grouped Culdee Church from Iceland—and not of the Romish Church from Italy, with its celibate clergy.

Greenland in Paul Herrmann's book Conquest by Man

In his important book Conquest by Man, Paul Herrmann explains3 that at the birth of Eric the Red (the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson from Norway), no one foresaw that he would one day go to his rest in Greenland. Thorvald Asvalddson's arrival in Iceland from Scandinavia is related at length in the A.D. 1120f Landnamabok.

Thorvald and his son Eric settled at Hornstrand, in Icelandic Drangerland. There, the father died. Eric the Red took over the farm; got married; and thereby became related to one of the most respected families in Iceland.

However, Eric then got involved in quarrels. So the Al-Thing (alias the Icelandic National Parliament) at Thorness, early in 982, punished him and his people with three years' banishment from Iceland.

The Landnamabok concludes its account with the words: "Eric fitted out a ship...He said he wished to seek for the land which Gunnbjoern, the son of Ulf Krake, espied when he was drifting on the sea west of Iceland"—namely earlier in that same tenth century.

The Gunnbjoern skerries (or rocky reefs) were the not very palpable incentive to the discovery of Greenland. Eric the Red landed not on the east of Greenland (which is barred by pack-ice and bleakly inhospitable), but in the southwest, beyond Cape Farewell. That is, climatically, the most favourable area of the country.

Eric the Red did not stay long in Iceland after his return from his three-year exile in Greenland. He soon again set sail for Greenland—the very next summer, in A.D. 985. This time, he would settle there permanently.

This enterprise too is faithfully recorded in the Landnamabok. It is also described in detail in the Heimskringla (or Lives of the Norse Kings). That latter work is about the rulers of Iceland at the turn of the twelfth to the thirteenth century.

Herrmann further explains4 that when the link with Europe broke, the Norsemen were marooned on Greenland. To begin with, they had recourse to timber from America, and especially from Markland. The name means Forest Land. The Greenland Vikings discovered it round about A.D. 1000.

Ships plied regularly between Greenland, Iceland and Markland in North America—right down until the mid-fourteenth century. This is shown by an entry for the year 1347 in the Icelandic Annals of Gisle Oddson the Bishop of Skalholt (in Iceland).

Wrote the Bishop: "There came a ship from Greenland, even smaller than the little ones faring for Iceland. It sailed into the outer Straumfjord...It bore seventeen men who had sailed to Markland."

From the south of Iceland to Cape Farewell in southwestern Greenland, according to the old chronicles the first to sail directly was Leif Eriksen (the son of Eric the Red). Indeed, Christianity was introduced into Greenland around A.D. 1000 by Eric's son Leif.

Even today, one may see the ruins of the church at Havalsey (alias Qaqortog) near Julianehaab in Greenland. It was obviously an imposing two-storey building—erected in 1100. It even had glass windows.

Herrmann also notes5 that, from 1349 to 1368, the very pious King Magnus Erikson of Norway regarded the propagation of Christianity as his life's work. Thanks to him, Greenland Vikings survived the difficult times in the middle of the fourteenth century.

The priest Ivar Bardsen had come to Greenland in 1341. Knutsson, a member of the Royal Bodyguard, put to sea in 1355.

Magnus Erikson's edict ordering this expedition is still extant. It states: "Magnus, by the grace of God, King of Norway...sends to all men who see or hear this letter, good health and happiness in God...We ask that you accept this our command...for the sake of our soul and our predecessors who have introduced Christianity in Greenland and maintained it to this day...

"We will not let it perish in our days! Let it be known that whoever breaks this, our command, shall feel our displeasure and pay us in full for the offence!"

The dwindling away of Iceland's flourishing colony in Greenland

However,6 the worsening of climatic conditions in the North Atlantic zone during the Middle Ages, was apparently accompanied by a change in the vegetation. Cattle-breeding was the basis of the Greenlandic Celto-Norsemen's economic existence. But now, once it became impossible to keep animals, the Celto-Norse Greenlanders were faced with the alternative of either adopting the Skraeling (or Eskimo) way of life and living like them on fish and blubber—or emigrating.

The Vestribyggd Vikings appear to have chosen the latter solution. In the Icelandic Annals of Gisle Oddson the Bishop of Skalholt, one finds the following very significant entry for the year 1342: "The inhabitants of Greenland...turned to the peoples of America."

For Greenland had neither wood nor metal. It could not support the Norsemen, and they had to leave. Where were they to go?

Their route led from Greenland straight across the Arctic Ocean to America with its inexhaustible supplies of both timber and metal. The way was clear to the Greenland Vikings—as soon as they found Markland; the vast forest area of Nova Scotia; New Brunswick; and Maine.

Indeed, it looks as though—with Vinland as their starting-point—they penetrated still further to the west. For it would seem they reached even as far as the metalliferous regions around the Great Lakes.7

So Greenland's well-established colony of Christian Norsemen had strangely evaporated by the 1400s. Whether through return to Scandinavia; or through emigration to America; or through unendurably-cold mediaeval climatic changes in the Arctic; or through sudden expulsion by unexpected Eskimo invaders—in the fifteen century, the settlement mysteriously vanished.

Thereafter, Greenland's former colony of European Christians left only stone ruins to document its previous existence. Pagan Eskimos then moved there, in their place.

Modern Greenland, explains Boland,8 dates its history from the year 1705. For it was then that the Missionary Hans Egede arrived there from Norway—to look for the Norse Colony, and to ascertain whether it still held to its Christian principles.

He discovered to his dismay that the colony he sought, had vanished. Undaunted, he settled at Godthaab—and took upon himself the task of christianizing the Eskimos he found there.

Archeological evidence of Greenland's Ancient Christian Church

As Herrmann points out,9 great farms had stood here once; a two-storeyed granary had been erected; a dignified church built. But the Missionary Hans Egede found nothing.

Yet it was all within reach of his hand! For right nearby, were: the ruins of the old monasteries; the huge walls of the See of the Bishop of Greenland at Gardar, near the modern Julianehaab; the vast cemeteries in whose icy graves the dead were waiting patiently for one of their own people to come; the blossoming gardens of the Vikings still bright with many European plants foreign to the soil of Greenland.

But Hans Egede passed it all by. It was not his destiny to be an Excavator or an Archaeologist. However, he instead indeed became Christ's apostle to the Eskimos.

Just two hundred years after Hans Egede's voyage to Greenland, in the hot summer of 1921, another expedition from Norway landed there—with the specific aim of searching for its ancient Norsemen. What Hans Egede missed, this expedition found—the remains of their own Norwegian kinfolk.

They had been dead for four centuries. Their farms were destroyed; their churches in ruins; their fields and gardens smothered by weeds and horsehair oats. But down below, in the graves, in the depths of the eternally frozen soil—time had stood still.

There lay the Vikings, as they had once been put to rest. The Norwegian archaeologists found Bishop Jon Smyril—nick-named the Sparrowhawk—together with his episcopal ring and crosier. The latter had been beautifully carved from a walrus tusk by the Pastor's wife Margret.

In the grave of the good woman Gudveig, there lay nothing but a rune rod. On this rod can be read the words: "This woman, who was called Gudveig, was lowered into the Greenland sea."

There were also children's graves. The little ones lay peacefully with folded hands, a cross between their still fingers. Thus Paul Herrmann.

Archeological evidence that Greenland's Ancient Church was Culdee (Proto-Protestant)

It is significant that the Pre-Reformation Greenland Ministers were married men, with children. This reflects the Irish Culdee influences upon the Greenlanders' ancestors in Iceland. The question remains, however, as to how long those Greenlanders who had emigrated to America until the fourteenth century—maintained their Christianity in the New World.

Crosses have been discovered among the Amerindians of the northeastern coast of that Continent, together with a superior kind of worship among them. Many Norse and some Celtic words have also been found in their Amerindian languages. 10

These things indicate that those early emigrants from Greenland to America, indeed gave a Christian witness to the native inhabitants they there encountered. For the Culdee Christian Celts and the Celto-Icelanders—via Greenland—were determined to press on with their comprehensive Great Commission—even to the very ends of the Earth.

1) Boland, Doubleday, Garden City N.Y., 1964, 35 & 64.
2) Boland, 43f.
3) Herrmann, Harper, New York, 1954, pp. 246f.
4) Herrmann, 253f.
5) Herrmann., 259f.
6) Herrmann, 262f.
7) Herrmann, 240f.
8) Boland, 44f.
9) Boland, 241f.
10) Historians' History of the World, The Times, London, 1908, XXII p. 41.

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