Author: Thomas Fleming

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Resisting Evil IV

When a Christian engages in lawful homicide, either as executioner or soldier, it is the ruler and not he who is morally responsible for the killing.  The soldier or judge is merely the instrument of a ruler whose power comes from God, as Christ informs Pilate during the interrogation.

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Jerks 0.C: Diversity

Diversity breeds moral confusion, which is aggravated by the high population density that encourages a comfortable sense of anonymity.  Anyone who has lived 50 or 60 years in North America can understand what has happened

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Resisting Evil III

The admonition to resist not evil is not aimed at army commanders, kings, and emperors, much less at settlers in a violent wilderness or urban homesteaders, but at members of a face-to-face community of the sort that Jesus had experienced in Galilee and in which Christians are going to live as members of a parish and diocese. 

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Summer Seminar 2022

The theme of next year’s Summer Seminar will be Augustan England, which we are defining as the period between The “Glorious” Revolution of 1688 and the death of King George I.  These were the years of William III and Good Queen Anne, the Duke of Marlborough’s victories and also the age that saw the emergence of two distinct political parties and ideologies.

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Jerks 0.b

In America today, however, the Jerk is not just a common type of offender.  He is so prevalent that without exaggerating too much we could say that he defines the American character of the 21st century. 

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Resisting Evil, Part II

Christians have interpreted Christ’s injunction to turn the other cheek in different ways.  Over the centuries Catholic authorities have generally and consistently upheld the righteousness of self-defense, just war, and capital punishment, while the Orthodox have been more prone to view all war, just and necessary as they may be, as nonetheless sinful and requiring absolution.  When a Byzantine emperor asked his Patriarch to proclaim as martyrs all the soldiers who died fighting Islam, he was refused.  Neither Church, it goes without saying, instructed its followers not to resist the aggression of evil men….   The injunction to turn the...

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The Man in the High Study, Conclusion

After taking the necessary step of holding journalists accountable for their lies and disinformation, the next step would be to join forces with other nations—the UK, the EU and Latin American countries, Canada, Russia, India—in holding China accountable for the results of  what was either an error followed by a cover-up or a germ warfare attack on the rest of the world.  (Th

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Jerks, 0.A

From the Introduction: Russian-born Vitaly Borker is one of those immigrants who have enriched and diversified the culture of his adopted homeland.  After failing to complete his studies in law and law enforcement, thought he had found a new way of making money on the internet.  On his website DecorMyEyes.com, Borker marketed cheap knock-off sunglasses as the real thing and added insult to injury by providing the worst possible customer service.  As he anticipated, the tidal wave of negative comments boosted his site to Google’s front page.  When he thanked disgruntled users on Get Satisfaction for making him a success,...

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The Man in the High Study, Part One (of two)

I had a flash of realization: None of this is real, none of this has actually happened.  COVID lockdowns, Antifa and BLM riots, the Kardashians and the Met Gala, “woke’ academics and cities on fire, the Biden presidency are all part of a poorly written script for a cheap dystopian TV series, a knock-off of Philip K. Dick.