Category: Free Content

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Fleming / Free Content

11 Oct, 2021

Resisting Evil, V: The Fundamental Things of Life

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Instead of plunging headlong into the tedious history of self-defense legislation, let us rather begin (as Plato or John Locke might) by imagining a state of society in which there is no legitimate authority or, at least, no legal power to protect the innocent or punish the guilty.  We do not have to dig into the ethnographic accounts of such violent peoples as the Ifugao of the Philippines or the Yanamano of South America.  The Celtic, Slavic, and Germanic peoples of Europe provide a rich record of violent periods in which self-help and vengeance were a normal means of protection...

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Fleming / Free Content

28 Sep, 2021

Resisting Evil IV

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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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Fleming / Free Content

22 Sep, 2021

Resisting Evil III

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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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Fleming / Free Content

20 Sep, 2021

Summer Seminar 2022

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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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Fleming / Free Content

20 Sep, 2021

Jerks 0.b

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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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Fleming / Free Content

20 Sep, 2021

Resisting Evil, Part II

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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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Free Content

18 Sep, 2021

The Man in the High Study, Conclusion

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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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Free Content

15 Sep, 2021

Jerks, 0.A

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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,...