American Demon of Retaliation

Posted on December 15, 2017 by ehurst

A demon of retaliation stalks America.

Granted, it’s been around the US for a long time, but recently it’s become far more active. We are seeing the spirit of retaliation like never before, a whole new scale of things in both breadth and depth. It’s new in the sense of how shocking and egregious it is, coming from sources you simply could not imagine previously.

Granted, we’ve come to expect this from government agencies. The concept of accountability has been turned on its head; it’s an Orwellian reversal. The only accountability is one-way — we to them. If you haven’t experienced it directly, brace yourself. Even the training of those in direct contact with the public has embraced this retaliatory spirit. They are ordered to be abrasive with us.

But have you seen how this has arisen also in business? We are awash in petty lawsuits from various thin-skinned professionals and companies. The very notion of “customer service” is considered passe, a quaint notion from ancient times. Can you believe a consumer relations department assessing monetary penalties on customers who dare to complain?

And yet, sometimes you can’t blame them. Customers themselves have become petty and vindictive. Your average Joe Consumer will demand an entire company be shut down and the employees jailed for the most minor disappointments. No, I mean that people have literally demanded just that. The ancient Lex Talionis is quite tame and friendly by comparison.

This goes far beyond mere bad manners. It’s more than a threat to civilization; this is a broad evil seeking to devour human existence. This is precisely the kind of misery and spite that Satan has always sought to implant in human society. It represents the kind of “violence” we see in the Bible when the prophet Jonah prophesied against Nineveh.

This thing is devouring America. The mouth of Hell is wide open, swallowing the whole nation. Do you see how this guarantees people will transgress every part of Biblical Law and allow Satan to absorb every blessing God offers? This is the snarling beast at the very core of Western Civilization.

Obviously this is what’s behind the New Testament teaching of patiently enduring trials and tribulations. If you feel drawn to the shalom and the calling of Christ, you have to know that this demands we pull away from retaliation. This has nothing to do with a vigorous defense of your feudal domain granted from God. One of the hallmarks of Ancient Near Eastern dominion was the grand placidity in the face of roaring spite. It came from a willingness to absorb inconsequential losses by making it obvious they didn’t hurt.

We don’t promote the snarling arrogance of contempt, but an honest rebuke that asks, “Are you trying to hurt my feelings?” When your feelings aren’t attached to the things a fallen world scrambles to hold, you aren’t going to rage at small losses. In the mind of Christ, it’s not a matter of correcting and coercing fools, but calling their attention to how foolish their concerns are. Learn the distinction between guarding something entrusted to you by God and scrabbling over something our Lord can easily replace.

Live shalom; be ready to shrug off the petty bitterness of people who are consumed by demonic powers they can’t comprehend. It’s going to get far worse before the Lord is finished pouring His wrath on America.

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Bigger Than All of Us

Posted on December 14, 2017 by ehurst

This is a work in progress. I’m trying to gather together some threads that have pulled out of the fabric; at the same time, I’m trying to untangle some others. A good rug under your feet can turn shifting sands into a sturdy floor. We need a place to stand so we can deliver the message of Christ.

Persecution and tribulation are the natural state for followers of Christ. That our symbol of victory is His Cross should be all the explanation needed for such a doctrine. The fallen nature is hostile to God’s revelation. If we aren’t persecuted, it’s because either we have compromised, or simply that we haven’t yet been noticed. Given that we are starting freshly something radically different from the mainstream, the latter is more likely.

We have to get noticed. This is not the case of provoking trouble and generating persecution, but we know that trouble is the manifestation of God’s favor. In the case of Our Lord, He got noticed by the miracles that accompanied His teaching. I’m not trying to make anyone feel ashamed and guilty for a lack of miracles; there could be good reasons why we aren’t chattering here on this blog about all the mighty wonders and signs. Mostly it’s that we haven’t yet begun to ask. We’ve been busy just trying to figure out what the message meant for us individually.

A primary factor in the absence of miracles is the two millennia since believers lost sight of the heart-led way. It was easy to lose because it wasn’t quite so openly explicit in the message, but assumed as the background. I’m not saying the first century Christians made a mistake on that point, only that they didn’t use our terminology. So we have two thousand years of Christians reading the New Testament and not seeing it. Assuredly souls have stumbled across it all that time since then, but they continued talking about it in different terms. It was too easy to invest their words with a totally different meaning, so the message was lost repeatedly.

I can’t promise you that our explicit approach is better, but I am utterly certain that the Lord is blessing it right now. We still run the risk of the words being filled with false meaning, but we have a fighting chance against that.

Still, I believe Our Lord is asking us to seek ways to share this message with a lot fewer miracles than Jesus used. Miracles were germane to His message then; I believe they are less important right now. It’s not the same atmosphere. Science, technology and the manipulation of human perception is at an all time high. Genuine miracles we have, but they aren’t the primary means of getting attention. We have to rely on something else. We have to demonstrate shalom some other way. The greatest miracle of all is internal peace with God.

While I am confident Our Father will grant other measures, I feel certain that our current best opportunity is to emphasize Biblical Law and the resultant harmony with Creator and Creation. A sense of peace and joy that cannot be broken by any power on this earth is pretty hard to ignore. At the same time, we should expect a vast reservoir of confusion about our message because the mainstream is convinced they already have as much peace as anyone can get from God. In this we are like the early disciples dealing with synagogues, where materialism and orthodoxy were the barriers to truth.

Our message will seem to work a whole lot better once the people around us have been driven out of their comfort zones. That comes with God’s wrath in the form of multiple crises here in the US. What is hard to see from our current position is that this will be a fairly slow process. There will be sudden changes, of course, but the general sense of panic won’t simply burst onto the scene. It will develop slowly. What we have seen already is a good example of that. To a great many observers, it seems that we are muddling along as we always have. But the Lord has been quite clear to those who are paying attention: The end game for the US is now in play.

This is what I mean when I assert that this is no apocalypse — it’s going to be slow and teeth-gritting painful for the most part. In biblical parabolic language, this will be like a birth that took way too long from the mother’s perspective. In the end, it will kill her from sheer exhaustion. Something new is coming and it will have to make its own way.

You and I as practitioners of Radix Fidem will have to buckle in for a long rough ride. As soon as you read those words, your heart should witness of their truth. Your sense of conviction alone will carry you through.

Do you share my faith? Will you pray with me that we can gain attention? You know that it will bring persecution with it. Will you pray with me that we gain sponsorship to pay the bills? This is going to require a grant of resources from Heaven. We’ll do the best we can on a shoestring budget, and we challenge you to watch us in the process. See what mighty miracles God will do with just a handful of dirt! But I believe at some point this will be big enough to require a regular budget to “house” this virtual parish.

But first we need souls. We need people who have a sense of calling and a drive to push this forward. If it never gets beyond me and a handful of supporters, it deserves to die, and you should expect God will end it. But if this is really His plan, it has to keep touching a wider audience, an audience that includes future shepherds. If this is a work of God, not merely my hobby, it means there are people who will make this thing their own. Even if I live past 100, this has to be bigger than me or it’s not worth the trouble. There’s plenty of room for you to put your own stamp on this thing; I won’t stop you.

Don’t just help me; do this for your own sake. All we are doing is getting involved in a project that existed long before us. This is the carpet laid out before the throne of God. He has provided a solid place to stand in the midst of chaos, and it’s big enough for everyone who is tired of wading in the sand of lies.

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Wiggle Those Fingers

Posted on December 13, 2017 by ehurst

Good things come to those that wait,
Not to those who hesitate…
(a line from “More Power To Ya” by Petra)

How do you build on ancient ruins? You build with living stones.

On the one hand, much of what once stood has been permanently lost. On the other hand, what little we can see of it is shockingly better than what has been built since then. But we can’t just preserve what once was; God Himself has commanded us to live here. His Temple is made up of living stones, people in whom His Spirit is active.

It’s one thing to study the ancient past of biblical religion; it’s another thing to realize it still makes demands on us today. This is the record of what God has done, and it speaks in terms of claiming the fundamental nature of human existence itself. This is not a hobby; this is Life. Of all the things mankind could bother to investigate, this is the one thing we simply must do or risk losing the very reason for living. This thing doesn’t rest on human endeavor. It’s answering the divine call.

A part of what God has revealed warns us that we cannot possibly make it universal, but we also cannot play hermits. The record of God’s action with the human race indicates boundaries between the individual and various levels of cooperation. The record also has much to say about how to cooperate; the whole thing rests on the fundamental nature of God’s character woven into Creation. Reality itself has strong biases about these things.

Yet it’s painfully obvious those who claim His name have done a crappy job of it. Some things they’ve gotten right, but nowhere near as much as they could. I’ve been sharing a vision of what I believe we could do better, and somehow God has seen fit to use my blather to catch the interest of a few others. You’ll have to ask Him why He chose to use me this way; I’m just trying to obey and serve faithfully. All I know for sure is the driving passion to share. I’ve tried to make it as open as possible without losing sight of my own calling. I want you to have a taste of this sweet shalom.

Here’s what we have up to now: We call our religion Radix Fidem. No one has come up with a better name, so it sticks. And from day one I’ve tried to get people more involved, but it’s been slow going. In seeking to follow the biblical model, I am your senior elder by calling, and your acting pastor because no one else wants that job. We have one junior elder, Jay DiNitto. We’ve had a mama elder, and may have another soon enough, but so far no one else has expressed any interest in helping to lead.

But we are on the threshold of opening up a forum soon. Hopefully that will seem more comfortable for some of you to speak up and get more involved. I realize a blog is more restrictive; it has to be. On a forum, you can express yourself more openly.

One of the critical elements in my vision is that we learn to act like an ancient Hebrew family. Our Western culture has left us a huge pile of broken debris that doesn’t belong the foundation of Scripture. The meaning of “family” has been highly perverted in the West. I know I struggle with it, and I’ve spent decades researching this Hebrew stuff. I think a forum would be a good setting for helping us get closer to the Bible on that. We can’t be slavish about the ancient past, but we sure can’t keep doing what our Western heritage teaches us.

But if you keep sitting there staring at the screen and reading what I write, and the comments of others about it, but never have your say, you can’t receive the full benefit. Do I have to spell it out? God will not give you the full measure of His blessings unless you start posting something that expresses your own experience with faith. We are trying to make that as easy as we know how, but we can’t grab your fingers and make you type.

Jay and I will be working on a forum setup. You can email him (jay@jaydinitto.com) or me (ehurst@soulkiln.blog), or post a comment here, if you have anything to say about it. Get involved; break the chains of the past and explore the future of God’s provision for yourself. Your silence holds back the blessings of Heaven.

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Draper South: A Real Adventure

Posted on December 12, 2017 by ehurst

Yes, it was an adventure. I had to carry my bike across rocks or other obstacles at least four times. This was after riding 15 miles to get there, followed by another 16 miles to get back home. On the satellite view, the big “X” marks where I started; the numbers correspond with the following images.

The first rocky point required only a little bit of lifting to get past the initial tight spot. It wasn’t gorgeous, but pretty enough. Sadly, this was the only shot there that turned out. I was able to ride about a third of time as I wandered along the shore. Again, the satellite image shows a higher water level than I found today, so more of the shore was exposed.

As you can see from the approach here, I had to carry my bike past the initial part of the second rocky point. I was rewarded with a continuous rocky surface all the way around that point and some distance beyond. It was just gorgeous. My bike should indicate the scale of things. With a light breeze out of the north, the water was just noisy enough to produce a lovely sound. I stayed quite a while clambering around on this part. Eventually I stopped to sit and eat my lunch. The place made a dandy prayer chapel, too. There was a hollowed out spot that was out of the wind. Consider that it was just about 42-43°F (6C), so it was chilly. It’s hard to describe how peaceful it felt to just sit there in splendid isolation. This fifth image is looking back up the shore to the rocky point.

The next image is a small protrusion of rocks out into the water, but with good shade cover. Once again, I had to carry my bike over the rocks. But this was just a short distance to the outflow chute of the water coming up from Lake Atoka. I tried to capture the whole chute, but the sun was directly over the opening no matter where I stood, so all my efforts came out with bad glare. It just dumps unceremoniously into the lake here. It was a bit of a jog getting up around the head of this thing, and pretty rough, as well.

This last image is one of the easiest spots to get to just below a picnic table and parking ring. However, it was quite a slug up that sandy slope with the bike. With just another foot of water, this whole thing disappears. By this time I was whipped, so the ride home was slow with that headwind.

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Bits and Pieces 29

Posted on December 12, 2017 by ehurst

Simply as a matter of accountability, I report that the laptop with one added accessory (a dongle with extra ports) has been ordered. Everything should be here by 27 December. I’ll take pictures of the unboxing for your amusement, and let you know how well it’s working. Its official name will be “harvest.”

Last night I had some time to fill and, on a whim, decided to check out sci-fi movies on YouTube. Some of you know I generally dislike movies. That’s because most of what comes out of the movie industry is not just Westernized, but it’s usually the worst of Western immorality. For once, I found something I actually liked: The Host. It was panned by the critics, which is a good start. It’s basically an alien invasion from critters that borg humans as hosts and take over the world. It’s all so nice and Utopian, except that some humans resist and make it tough. Also, a small number manage to escape this bonding process. The story follows one resistant host gal who manages to convince her occupier to change sides and see that being human isn’t such a bad thing. There’s little that even approaches risqué in the movie, but the thing that got my attention was the high value on persons, trust and kindness. There’s a strong feudal shepherd figure in the movie. It’s rare that something out of Hollywood even approaches the values we teach.

Despite some barriers, I’m going to try riding out to Draper today and catch the last bit of unexplored shoreline. If it works out, there’ll be pictures later today.

This isn’t just a little sparkle in the sky for me. It’s more like a tectonic shift with all the shaking and fire that none of us could escape. I’m naming my laptop “harvest” to represent its purpose, and the utter certainty that grips me: God is going to bring a harvest of souls to our heart-led way of religion. Given what I know of human nature and history, it can come only when the population is driven from their comfort zone. That means some tribulation. It occurs to me this is a good time to finalize big purchases like that laptop, because what I see coming will make using funds like that quite difficult. God will advise you; your heart will know His plans for you. Still, it’s my prophetic calling to warn you to be ready. He’s bringing His wrath to America; there’s no way to know when things will start to shake and crumble. There’s no way to predict what He will leave standing, only that His wrath will be measured, tempered by mercy. Whatever it is, it will be enough to see a harvest of souls for us. Be ready.

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Networking Elder

Posted on December 11, 2017 by ehurst

This business of eldercraft could use a little more declaration.

As always, the biggest problem is the mountain of sludge that is our Western culture. And it’s worst of all here in the US. I’ve lived in other parts of the Western world. In the give-n-take mixture of what is useful and what is harmful, I find the American brand of Western culture is by far the biggest threat to genuine holiness. The only significant virtue in America is a particular type of room for maneuvering that is missing in other parts of the West; it’s a primary weakness that we can exploit.

This will appear to be chasing a rabbit, but it’s germane: The big brouhaha over Net Neutrality and the FCC is a symptom of this. It’s going to cause us very real trouble as we move forward, so it’s worth understanding a few basics. The fundamental nature of global networking requires that every device connected is treated as a peer. The server-client relationship is purely contextual. Thus, the infrastructure for transmitting all this traffic between theoretical equals demands a certain neutrality, once we account for the demands of protocol. The system itself suffers when the middleman plays favorites. The theory behind the term “Network Neutrality” is an utter necessity.

The problem is that America is the worst place to handle such a thing. That is, we are caught primarily between the power of two pernicious forces: government and industry. The existence of both reflect the hideous nature of American culture. In this case, “industry” refers to vast corporate empires that control the infrastructure that makes up the current Internet. When it comes to the Internet, government and industry are codependents in destroying everything they touch.

Don’t get lost in theoretical doctrine here. It’s a question of how things developed and how they turned out, specifically with the Internet itself. Back when the Internet was controlled by DARPA, it was egalitarian, though tightly access limited. Thus, there were no bad actors because none were admitted to the club. As more and more entities piled into the mix, bad actors showed up and gained a foothold. At first, the system was responsive with good universal protocols. At some point, the enforcement became too complex.

It got out of hand slowly as more and more corporate entities got involved. Today, government controls directly very little of the infrastructure, and industry owns it all. For awhile, the reserve sense of public accountability held industry in check, alongside the sheer number of competitors. As time wore on, competitors were bought up as the corporations formed a de facto oligopoly. The current problem is that those who sell the consumer access are the same people who own the backbone of the Net. They have a choke-hold on the consumer access at all levels.

They are not consumer-friendly. They have become big enough and powerful enough to begin shaping and manipulating consumer demand itself. They have colluded together to create an environment in which consumers seldom question anything because they are too distracted by the flood of degrading provision. It’s not total, but it is overwhelming. More to the point, it is overwhelmingly hostile to what we seek to share. We aren’t big enough yet to get their attention, but their plans and manipulations are inherently threatening to our mission.

Instead of messing about with artificial regulations on Net Neutrality as law, the only useful thing the federal government could have done was forbid the backbone folks from getting into the consumer access market. It’s too late to fix that problem; declaring the Internet as a common carrier or utility service would not work now.

We are on the threshold of a general decline in service, simply because the oligarchs can get away with it. There is no effective market pressure on them, and for the time being, they control enough of the government process to get what they want. Their past behavior is all the proof we need that this is going to get ugly. The other half of the industry that provides content and services other than access will either have to barge into the access market or pay a lot to maintain their own access. Meanwhile, the consumer access market will quite likely become more expensive and far less useful.

This is what an elder can see, a sketchy historical outline based on some limited acquaintance with the technology and social sciences. I haven’t touched on the part played by local governments, who vary widely in their accountability to the people. Meanwhile, there remains the vision of God’s divine plan and the assurance that He means business. I have no end of confidence and faith that our heart-led approach to religion is God’s own way for us, and that He will not allow all of these problems to hinder His revelation. However, you have to understand that what hinders the message will be resolved through called and inspired servants of God exploiting His miraculous works.

My calling and inspired vision tells me we need a networking elder, someone who is well acquainted with how this stuff actually works, and where it is headed. Need I remind you that Radix Fidem was born on the Internet? This is our turf; God has called us here and intends to use us here in virtual space. While we may well get by with a hired gun, I am convinced that God wants us to pray together for a genuine network elder, someone who shares our vision as part of the family of faith.

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Unconcealed City on a Hill

Posted on December 10, 2017 by ehurst

Matthew 5:13-16 — What we have is too good to keep to ourselves. Worse, failure to share it would violate everything we value.

A couple of years ago when I tried to set up a more substantial website for Radix Fidem, it turned out to be too soon. Worse, it was way more than I could handle in the first place. I knew how to put a machine on the Net, but that wasn’t the issue.

We need someone with a vision and expertise to develop a full blown site, something that will serve as a more worthy point of contact than my little blog, or anything else I could come up with. I know this can be done far better than what I can do myself. Again, this is not a one-man show. If it were, it’s past time to quit and find something else to do.

If the heart-led way of Christian faith is worth anything at all, it needs to come to the world’s attention. I think all of us can sense that. What hampers us is the burden of centuries of doing things in other ways that simply do not translate well into virtual space. We need to stay away from any approach that won’t survive a transition to the Networked Civilization. At the same time, I am not the expert to decide how to do it. I know just enough to recognize that it’s possible, but not see how.

There’s nothing wrong with failing; there’s nothing wrong with trying things that won’t work if you have no idea how to go forward. I’ve done what I know to do; it’s time for someone else whose hands can go beyond my reach. Maybe one or more of you should be in charge of this, but it requires a sense of calling and a vision. Or perhaps it is someone we’ve not yet encountered.

Pray that the Lord grant us a networking apostle. Pray for the resources to put it together and make it happen. The core issue is building something that can’t be ignored, while not being pushy and compromising with morally false techniques.

Meanwhile, let’s all keep doing our part to spread this gospel.

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Sermon on the Mount 10

Posted on December 9, 2017 by ehurst

Ritual Prayers 6:5-8

This continues thoughts from the previous lesson. Worship is not for putting on a show. If making an offering to garner public approval was wrong, so was extravagant ritual prayer.

According to Edersheim (a converted Jewish rabbi) there is nothing in the Law of Moses that requires public prayer. Aside from certain highly unique situations in the Old Testament, we have no precedent for regular public prayer rituals. Yet, by this time the Talmudic traditions had prescribed public prayer at the morning and afternoon offerings, and again around sunset. In Jesus’ day, this had become an elaborate and scripted undertaking. Outside of Jerusalem where the Temple stood, ambitious Jewish men would arrange to be caught out in public during those three ritual moments of the day and engage in their pious display.

In essence, prayer fulfills the ancient courtly protocol of declaring dependence on one’s lord. In an Eastern feudal society, vassals and subjects were required on a regular basis to seek their master’s face and request things that only he had the authority to grant. The burden was on the lesser to appear before the greater. It wasn’t a bother; it was a public demonstration of his greatness. It enhanced his glory. It was typically a part of the daily reports that many vassals made to their lord.

It’s not that Jesus forbids leading a group in shared petition and praise, but that the original intent had been completely lost. If public prayer was always associated in the minds of His audience with what they had been taught by rabbis, then it’s time to wipe all that away and start from scratch. This silly nonsense of memorizing an officially approved checklist of things to cover with flowery language was hardly reporting to God as feudal Lord.

Such an ostentatious display was little more than reputation building. Public approval is not the God of Israel, but hypocrites treated it so. If there is to be any reward in public, let it come from the hand of God. Let Him decide when, how and why you might be presented with an award that marks you as favored by God. Even if we pretend that the rabbis were seeking the glory of Israel, it still misses the point. It’s a matter of His glory, not ours individually or together. All greatness is found only as a reflection of His glory.

So lets get this right: When you pray, seek a private place so you aren’t tempted to play head games with God. In the inner room where you can privately disrobe, so expose your true self to God’s searching gaze as you call on His name. If you then find His favor, people are going to know sooner or later.

Furthermore, remind yourself that God is a real Person, not some mere idea conjured in your head by reason and rabbinical teaching. Don’t insult Him by chanting like the heathen who have no personal communion with their deities. They can never be sure they are heard, so they have to engage in repetition and extravagant rituals to make sure they get the attention of someone or something that may be reluctant to respond. No one can compel Jehovah; He doesn’t respond to annoying pressure. Either you are already serving His interests or you need to find repentance.

Our Creator made us and needs no helpful clues as to what we need. He is fully aware of our predicament after the Fall. Return to Him often so you don’t lose track of who He is and what He is like. Prayer is for your own benefit; it’s a chance for you to renew the Covenant and seek His redemptive glory in this world.

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Laptop Is Funded

Posted on December 9, 2017 by ehurst

Thank you for praying with me on the laptop. I now have enough to cover it. Any further donations will go for accessories, upgrades and to pay for the blog and other accounts. God is good.

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Ecumenism

Posted on December 9, 2017 by ehurst

FYI: The laptop fund stands at $231. The odd figure is because PayPal sometimes takes a bite out of donations. Still, that’s the easiest way to handle money changing hands.

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ecumenism: a belief and practice of unity with other religions

For us, it hardly matters whether the discussion refers to formal union; by common definition there is nothing formal about our religion. We have to get past that part first.

Radix Fidem as a covenant presumes a family structure. As with any other kind of extended family household, there are no membership lists. There is no formal in-or-out boundary line. If you associate and invest time and energy in fellowship, you will be loved and remembered. If you have other things to do, you’ll be a stranger. If you never get involved in the first place, no one will know your name. Your “membership” is a living thing and it requires nurture to stay alive.

So while your name may show up in a list of contacts somewhere in someone’s computerized records, there is no census or membership roll.

I do claim to be the current figurehead of Radix Fidem as a religion distinct from others; I am the elder, the head of household. But you have to subscribe to the covenant and get my attention in some fashion or I won’t know you are there. Simply subscribing to the blog doesn’t really get my attention. Among those who are on my list of contacts are lots of folks who have never said they accept the covenant, so they aren’t considered family. Only folks who want to embrace the blessings and burdens of membership are included. It’s not like you have to qualify for it, passing through milestones and a ritual of entrance.

In that sense, I suppose ecumenism is built into Radix Fidem. Nobody says you have to belong to us exclusively; you can belong to anything else that brings you peace. You can attend a regular organized church somewhere. I don’t attend one because, so far, nobody wants me around without demanding unacceptable changes. That doesn’t prevent some group somewhere adopting me someday. Meanwhile, you don’t have to discuss with me your connections to other religions. All I need to see is your loyalty to the family.

The issue is more like an alliance with folks who are no threat to us. They aren’t family, but there’s no reason to be hostile. Obviously we aren’t going to change our teachings or activities to suit them, but I can’t imagine being hostile since I teach that there is no objective truth in the first place. In other words, the issue is functional cooperation, not shared belief. Theirs is valid for them, as far as we are concerned. We aren’t promoting ideas in that sense.

That doesn’t prevent us from seeing problems with their ideas and beliefs, but that’s the reason we don’t join their religions in the first place. If Radix Fidem doesn’t reflect your own sense of what’s right in God’s eyes, you shouldn’t be involved with us. We agree to this covenant because we can’t find a better way to commune with the God who calls us.

But we leave room in our thinking for God calling other folks in other ways to other beliefs. In that sense, there’s no reason to balk at ecumenical cooperation for what it’s worth. But we aren’t signing onto anyone’s political agenda, either, so ecumenism as a disguise for a politics is a dead end. But simple friendship and peaceful cooperation in other ways are just dandy with me.

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