My dear Wormwood, You still think in terms of churches and arguments. That is why you fail. The churches can be left standing. What must be spoiled is the literature that taught the young to love the Enemy before they could define Him. Narnia is one of the more irritating of those books. Children meet Aslan first as adventure and only later discover they have been handling Christ. That is dangerous. Direct attack only makes the stories more precious. So we do not ban them. We adapt them. Give the Voice to a so-called celebrated actress. Leave the mane. Leave the pronouns. Then the thing that was a male Christ-supposition becomes a prestige performance. The story remains famous; the meaning becomes negotiable. In a generation the story will still be beloved, but the beloved thing will no longer be Lewis’s Lion. It will be the version that flatters the age. That is how the Enemies literature is destroyed without the vulgarity of a bonfire. Keep the title. Change the sound. When the children hear Aslan, let them hear the present century speaking through Him. Once that habit is formed, the Enemies stories survive as brands. Their doctrine does not. Do not call it persecution. Call it interpretation. The patients prefer that word, and it does our work admirably. Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE

Here's how this will go down. * Trump is currently resistant to AI regulatory capture, so one of the AI companies will point their frontier model at the Pentagon, manufacturing an incident. * Experts advise Trump to shut down the internet for two weeks to secure critical national security systems. * After two weeks, certain "essential businesses" like Amazon and streaming platforms (consumption) will reopen. Information exchange websites will remain closed to prevent the spread of AI. * A government board of experts will be put in charge of approving access to the internet for businesses going forward. This psyop targets the free exchange of information. AI alarmists compare AI to social media all the time, but that's a terrible comparison. Social Media is inherently consumptive. AI is inherently productive. If people realize what they can do with it, the elites' hold on power is threatened. This is all an attempt to keep us powerless. I have no insider knowledge, but ask yourself if this is any less plausible than what they did in 2020.

💔😭 The youngest FDNY member to be killed on 9-11 was Firefighter Michael Cammarata. At just 22 years of age, he had been on the job just 9 weeks. When his company, Ladder 11 in Manhattan, was called to the scene of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, he left a message on his father's voice mail saying he was heading to the scene of the disaster. Mike, his family said, had always wanted to be a firefighter. He was also a star hockey player for New Jersey semi-pro team. Ten years before 9/11, Michael played in the Little League Baseball World Series for South Shore Little League of Staten Island, N.Y. Today, only one number is officially retired from use in the Little League Baseball World Series. It is Michael Cammarata’s No. 11, and it is still proudly displayed on the right field wall of Lamade Stadium, where he patrolled proudly as a member of his team at the age of 12. The Huguenot resident is survived by his brother Joseph Jr, parents, Joseph and Linda and his sister Kimberly Cammarata. Mike was last seen conducting fire operations at the Marriott Hotel at the foot of the WTC. Mike's remains were never recovered. On June 7, 2003 a vial of blood donated by Mike during his time at the fire academy was buried with full department honors. This is Michael Cammarata's list that his brother found inside his night table a day after he died. 1. "Take care of Jenna," referring to his girlfriend of 7 yrs. 2."Don't mourn me. This is the career I chose. 3."Make my spirit live on." 4."Remember I love you all will be waiting for you upstairs." Mike's entire company of Ladder Co. 11 perished on 9/11. May he continue to rest in peace with his brothers... And yes Mike, Sirens and Salutes, Inc will always ensure yours, and all the Heroes taken from us that day, spirits will live on.

She knew she wasn’t coming home. And she chose to be a witness anyway. ​On the morning of September 11, 2001, 35-year-old Madeline "Amy" Sweeney was working aboard American Airlines Flight 11. Minutes after takeoff, terror took the cabin. The cockpit went dark. Crew members were slashed. A passenger was stabbed. The pilots were gone. ​In a situation where human instinct screams to panic, Madeline picked up an Airfone. ​She dialed ground control. When supervisor Michael Woodward answered, he didn’t hear hysteria. He heard a calm, quiet, razor-sharp voice relaying reality through the dark. ​Methodically. Relentlessly. ​She gave the seat numbers of the hijackers. She described their faces. She detailed the injuries in the cabin. She gave investigators the precise identities of the men steering them toward catastrophe—including Mohamed Atta. ​She could not overpower the hijackers. She could not force the cockpit door open. She could not steer the Boeing 767 back toward the sky. ​So she did the only impossible thing left: she made sure they wouldn’t get away with doing it in secret. ​As the plane banked sharply and descended over the Manhattan skyline, she stayed on the line. Reporting what she saw. Giving the world the truth, second by second, until 8:46 a.m. ​Madeline left behind a husband and two babies—four-year-old Jack and seven-year-old Anna. She spent the final minutes of her life trapped in an airborne nightmare, staring down certain death, and weaponizing her courage so history would have an answer. ​True bravery isn't the absence of terror. It is looking into the abyss, refusing to break, and doing your duty until the very last breath. ​Remember her name. Madeline Amy Sweeney.

Preparing for Monday.

Reading Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles leaves us longing for a better King who will faithfully lead and love God's people. Jesus is that King. Saul was unfaithful Jesus is faithful. David stole a man's bride; Jesus died for His bride. Solomon ignored God’s wisdom; Jesus is the Wisdom of God. Rehoboam increased the people's burdens; Jesus gives rest to the burdened. Jeroboam led people into false worship; Jesus brings us into true worship. Ahab stole a man's inheritance; Jesus shares His inheritance with His people. Uzziah was exalted and became proud; Jesus was exalted yet humbled Himself. Manasseh was guilty of shedding innocent blood; Jesus shed His innocent blood for the guilty. Josiah brought reform but couldn't stop judgment; Jesus bore judgment to bring true reformation. Zedekiah lost David's throne; Jesus sits on David's throne forever. Jesus is the better king; bow before Him today.

Action is the cure for most of your problems: – Acknowledge what happened: mourn it, celebrate what was, then move on – Get your "gear back on" immediately, don't wait for the feeling to pass – Take action fast, the longer adversity sits unchallenged in your head, the stronger it gets – The action doesn't have to be massive, just forward movement – Do a quick analysis: why did it go wrong, what gate do I need to jump through next time – Then go execute that next step @jockowillink on @hubermanlab

As a potential victim, I can honestly say, if you’re walking around in Central Indiana and you get picked off by a real life lion, it really was your time to go 🤷‍♂️🫠

Perhaps read this each morning…

Seeing some buzz about the eternal generation of the Son (EGS), for those of you who might not know what all that means here’s an attempt to let you in on the topic. The EGS is a doctrine affirming that the Son possesses his divine nature through being eternally begotten of the Father, thereby holding the same divine essence/nature/being as the Father. This all has stood as foundational to the doctrine of the Trinity and has been affirmed across the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds and by virtually every significant theologian (that I can think of) over the last 1800 years. The doctrine has several critical dimensions. The Father’s generation of the Son comprises a necessary act of God, not a contingent decision; a distinction crucial because if the Son’s existence depended on the Father’s optional choice, the Son would not possess true deity or equality with the Father. This generation occurs eternally, not as a completed event in the distant past but as a timeless act of perpetual present (simultaneously ongoing and ever finished). Importantly, the Father generates the Son’s personal subsistence rather than the divine essence itself, while simultaneously communicating the entire divine essence to him. When the Father eternally begets the Son and communicates the divine nature to him, the divine nature remains undivided, accounting for a second divine person without creating a second God. The doctrine employs “begetting” language deliberately. The idea is this: just as Adam fathered Seth by communicating human nature to him, so the Father has eternally begotten the Son, eternally communicating divine nature to him (though this creaturely analogy must not be used to measure the divine relation itself). While the doctrine transcends our human comprehension, limited as my thinking is by time and my finite reality, it remains a teaching (as systematic theologian Scott Swain words it) “given to us in the gospel” and grasped through faith.

I have lived in Indiana for 35+ years. I have never seen this kind of flooding. This is Potters Bridge, and it's been around 155 years. The last time it saw this level of water was 1913.

The congregation doesn't need your coffee joke. They buried someone this week. They're sitting in pews with divorce papers in their glovebox. Kids who won't speak to them. Test results they haven't opened. They drove past three churches to hear you say something that costs you something. So open the Book. Forget the illustration you found on Google. Skip the movie clip. Kill the countdown timer on your outline. Preach like a man possessed. Preach like you'll answer for every wasted syllable. Preach like their blood is on your hands. Because it is. The pulpit isn't a stage.

Having been to Auschwitz, this is pure horror. Absolute horror. Never forget. Teach others to dissuade such madness. Fight to prevent it.

Train to Auschwitz in 1942. The color footage shows a stark contrast between the innocence of those aboard and the terrible fate awaiting them. Dressed in their best clothes, they headed towards their final destination, the gas chambers. Never again.💔

Accurate

If your theological convictions are not actively making you more gracious, humble, and repentant than your beliefs are not being shaped by Jesus they’re motivated by a desire to be argumentatively “right.”

Accurate. It is telling the Lord that what He has provided is not sufficient, that you could do it better, and that he does not know what He is doing. As someone who grew up in poverty, I have been guilty of this, but by God's grace, improving.

Give this 16-year-old lifeguard the highest civilian honor. This is truly the best of America! Well done!

If you are a Christian your confidence today rests on foundations that cannot be shaken. If God is for you, and He has not spared His own Son but delivered Him up for all of you, then He will graciously give you all things with Him. (Rom 8:28–39) And please don’t hear this as a platitudinal X post: it flows from the reality of your election. God chose you in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, predestining you for adoption as His children according to His pleasure and will. The Puritan theologians are helpful here, and understood something vital about this assurance: election and covenant work together, offering troubled believers a double source of assurance; you can plead the covenant with God, asking Him to fulfill His promises, while simultaneously finding comfort in the sufficiency of His prevenient grace and the immutability of His will in election. Your election is not fragile or conditional on your performance, as I’ve said before, your salvation is received not achieved. God’s immutable decree of election proceeds from His perfect counsel, the basis for maintaining His people in sanctification and imparting to them an inward principle of holiness. Yet this absolute promise does not leave you passive. God’s love, made known to you, draws you out of yourself toward Him in orderly, faithful obedience. The conditional promises of the covenant are inseparable from your daily renewal of it through prayer, meditation, and worship. Your obedience becomes the very means by which you experience and confirm what God has already secured. Anchor yourself in the permanence of God’s word. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His words will not pass away. (Matt 24:35) All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. (2 Tim 3:16–17) In this word, your election is declared, your redemption is promised, and your perseverance is guaranteed — not by your strength, but by His.

Most people in the comments missing the point here: Luther didn’t remove books from the Bible and Trent didn’t add them. Before Trent and its addition of the anathema clause it was always an open conversation. The 66 is what everyone agreed upon, the question was about the apocrypha (a term not invented by but clarified on by Athanasius in his 39th Festal Letter in AD 367 to describe the other books of the OT outside of the 39). If the 73 canon was, as many in the comments to my OP want to reductionistically claim, a settled issue going back centuries then you wouldn’t have the Jeromes, Athasiuses, Cyrils, Gregory the Greats, Ximenes, and Cajetans of the world all openly discussing and disagreeing with various Deuterocanonicals and their inclusion vs. exclusions as inspired canon. These aren’t randoms, they’re Saints, Bishops, Popes, Cardinals, and Doctors of the Church. I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear how close the vote on their inclusion in an official list attached to an anathema was at Trent. At the Council of Trent, considerable debate took place on whether a distinction should be made between two classes of books (canonical and apocryphal) or whether three classes should be identified (Acknowledged Books; the Disputed Books of the New Testament, later generally received; and the Apocrypha of the Old Testament). Finally on 8 April 1546, by a vote of 24 to 15, with 16 abstensions, the Council issued a decree (De Canonicis Scripturis) in which, for the first time in the history of the Church, the question of the contents of the Bible was made an absolute article of faith and confirmed by an anathema.