Genders and Formality

Posted on January 7, 2025 by ehurst

So where do we start with a covenant law code for Kiln of the Soul parish?

Rather than wade through a bunch of particulars, let me pull some things together into more fundamental principles. Given our prevailing American culture, one of the first things I think we should assert is that wants us to avoid any hint of ambiguity about gender identity. This has always been a really big deal in divine revelation.

Somewhere in the balance between rejecting the fallen world and still communicating something they’ll understand, we should avoid anything that raises doubt about the sexual identity of our members. Rather assertively, women should be feminine and men should be masculine.

Instead of detailed rules, we should propose preferences. We prefer women to have long hair and wear distinctive clothing that makes it obvious this is a female. Women should in no way attempt to emulate men for any reason. Their actions and general behavior should be feminine. They don’t compete with guys doing manly things.

I’m not so worried about actual occupations, but roles in the social fabric. Yes, it would be nice if the Lord prospered our community to the point we could have stay-at-home mothers and a traditional division of labor, but I seriously doubt that’s even possible, given the coming tribulation. To be honest, I’m retired and do a lot of housekeeping, while my wife works outside the home, too young to retire yet. But no one doubts who wears the pants in the family.

Another preference is beards for men. The question of a man’s hair isn’t quite the issue some old timers might imagine. When Paul ranted about it, the issue was clearly not the hair itself, but what long hair on a man said about him in that society. The major issue was gay prostitution. Just how long is “long”? Personal style is one thing, but no one should doubt a man is a man.

On a related note, there should be no questions what the Bible says about human sexuality, and we’ve covered this repeatedly here. Again, it’s not about rules but a stated preference for one man, one woman, together for life, trying to make babies. That’s the ideal, but reality tends to intrude with a lot of messy details. Our point here should be that you recognize what you lose in covenant covering when you deviate from that standard. I’m sure whoever is the elder at hand can figure out whether any particular arrangement is a threat to leaves too many door open for Satan. Every elder should have some grasp of the limits of what they can cover in their domain.

Which brings us back to the whole point: The existence of a covenant demands a community. Most of the nitty-gritty rules depend on the community context. The bigger the community, the greater the formality required. That goes for gatherings and says something about how the community must operate in order to stay on track in general. And do I need to say it? Men must be in charge, but don’t waste a woman’s talents.

At some point it becomes necessary to split off some of the community when it gets too big for one elder to manage. Didn’t Abraham and Lot part company? Didn’t Jethro warn Moses to identify elders for groups down to about 50 each? Things got too big for just one guy to handle, and subdivision was necessary. Further, whoever becomes elder of the new group needs to come from the group. Elders are organic to the family they lead. Priests can be outsiders appointed to serve, but elders must be family. And you can still have senior elders guiding others as part of a much larger community.

But again, those aren’t rules. Those are preferences. Sometimes the situation calls for a very strong and charismatic leader over a much larger community. You’ll know when it happens. I learned long ago to put confidence in the Elect to manifest themselves by making good decisions in the Spirit. I’m one of those who is quick to delegate, because I love watching people blossom.

I’m always looking for people to take charge, encouraging them to stir up the gifts God has given them.

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Meeting on the Mountain of God

Posted on January 6, 2025 by ehurst

Don’t get lost in the particulars; reach for a grasp of the fundamental moral elements.

The Covenant of Christ is the one and only covenant God honors. In case it’s not obvious, the Code of Noah is simply the law portion of that covenant. Every covenant in history had a package of definitions that met the context with examples of what it looks like to keep peace with God. The real issue is your personal submission to the Lord. If you don’t have that personal connection, all the obedience you can muster will miss the point.

What is the Covenant Law of Christ? It cuts through all the crap and says that our lives on this earth are wrapped up in manifesting His commitment to His Elect. If we love as He loved, then we all consign our fleshly existence to the Cross. Instead of striving for what the flesh desires, we strive for what the Holy Spirit desires.

Stand-alone holiness has no meaning; there must be a context. The whole point of Scripture is how you deal with God and the world He created. This week’s Bible lesson in 1 Peter recalls a critical paradox: On the one hand, your commitment to Christ should be obvious and it should generate conflict with the fallen world around you. If you walk like Christ, you will make enemies among those who do not walk by His Spirit. On the other hand, His Elect will be drawn to you. Maybe not all of them, but some of them.

It’s easy to provoke hostility in this world. Our community has warned often that human nature is intractably warlike. That’s a critical element in the Fall and our mortal existence, and God has no intention of removing it from this world. The only way to end hostility is to end the flesh. War comes in the same package as breathing the air. To live as humans demands that we be prepared for conflict and learn how the Lord wants us to handle it. Much of Scripture is devoted to discussing how to do war. And a big part of that discussion is that we do not simply ignore anything we don’t like, but take the time to confer with God how to work around the idiocy of fallen humanity.

While there are any number of ways you can provoke human fallen hostility, it should always be a direct result of how you love your fellow Elect. While we may find it amusing to see fallen souls provoked by various human foibles, that sense of humor cannot justify any particular actions. Notice and laugh; there is plenty of amusement coming from the people who don’t know the Lord. However, we are not permitted to go among them and prank them for our own amusement. All of our actions must stem from a redemptive purpose.

Our Kiln of the Soul community feels the hand of God leading us to devote some time and resources to facing the coming tribulation by redoubling our efforts to express the Law of Christ in our context here and now. It’s not that our answers are definitive for anyone else anywhere else, but that they will be definitive for us. It’s time to go back up on our own Mount Sinai to receive from God a refreshing of His Covenant for the journey ahead. There are a lot of people in slavery who will need guidance for their exodus, and we need to cover the bases that others don’t.

Again, the Covenant has no meaning without community. The whole point of a covenant is building a community in feudal submission to God. Being Elect is the ultimate identity, the tribal affiliation to end all others. No other identifying factors matter. But God made it clear He expects us to gather in small communities like extended family households so that we all have our own little tribes that look different in one way or another from the next. The only unifying principle is our commitment to Him, and He is the one who demands that we proliferate into thousands of tiny nations. While that might be beneficial for the rest of the world to follow that model, it is utterly essential for His Elect.

That’s because we are not led by principles and objectives, but by people. Each of the thousands of elders and priests that God appoints among His Elect will have their own unique approach and there must be variations. Not variation for its own sake, but variations that are unavoidable due to convictions. There’s an awful lot of ink spilled in the Bible talking about how to handle those differences, and it’s a sure bet that American mainstream churches aren’t the answer for everyone. We gladly allow them to continue along their paths, but we are called to something different. They cannot possibly serve the needs of everyone God calls to His Kingdom.

For at least the next few posts, this blog will invest time looking at how we might formulate a sort of law code that manifests the Covenant in our time and place.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Peter 4

Posted on January 4, 2025 by ehurst

Peter ends the previous chapter with Christ in Heaven at the right hand of God. But before He ascended, He lived in the flesh, tolerating the weakness. He knew from the start that the suffering would end on the Cross. Peter encourages his readers to commit themselves to the same sense of purpose, knowing that their lives would probably end in some nasty fashion. It requires dismissing the fleshly existence, taking up a full otherworldly sense of purpose and calling. This allows you to nail your fleshly nature to the Cross and live for the glory of Christ (AKA, “the will of God”).

Prior to their coming to faith in the Messiah, these Hebrew believers as Jews served the flesh. In moral terms, there was no useful distinction between Jew and Gentile, since it was just a different flavor of serving the fleshly lusts. Now, having turned away from such a worldly life, the world around them is instinctively offended by the inherent message of holiness that condemns their sin. That judgment against them will eventually be manifest when they stand before God.

Most English translations are clumsy with verse 6. The point is that by this time in history, some of the earliest followers of Christ had died. Having received the gospel message while they were still alive, they agreed with the wrath of God against fallen flesh and judged their own flesh as worthy of death. Because they were in a position to reject the fleshly nature, they chose to walk in the Holy Spirit, by Whom their own spirits were given eternal life.

Peter offers a Hebrew expression in Greek about “the end is near” in the sense that, once you have declared your allegiance to God and sided with Him in judging fallen flesh, you are never more than a step away from Eternity. Being aware of this should make you joyful, for sure, but not in the sense of mindless revelry. Rather, you’ll never lose the sense of doom on the flesh, and you’ll be constantly praying for guidance and power.

With such a mindset, you realize you can’t afford to waste a single moment focusing on your fleshly self. Instead, you’ll make the most of the remaining days in loving each other as Christ loved. This is the best way to put our human weaknesses in context and forgive. Indeed, be rather indulgent with each other, as fellow believers are our only real treasure on earth. Each one is a jewel of God’s provision, granted for the blessings of His Covenant people. Everything we do should serve the divine calling of Christ’s Law. This is how we glorify the Lord we serve.

Don’t be surprised when your fleshly self is abused to see if you really are committed to Christ. Your flesh is not the real you; rejoice that the Enemy can tell you belong to Christ and feels it worth his time to provoke persecution through his human lackeys. What a privilege it is to be treated as our Savior!

During times of tribulation, the Lord comes to sift first His own people. This is what we pray when we call on Him to judge sin: “Lord, start with me!” But then He turns to deal with those who rejected Him; what will it be like for them? If we come through these times of trial stripped bare of our human failings, what will it be like for those who have nothing else but human failings? This knowledge should drive you into the arms of the Lord whenever life gets difficult.

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Same Old Lies from the Same Old Liars

Posted on January 3, 2025 by ehurst

Just so you’ll have the facts: The COVID lies rode largely on the stalking horse of supposed clinical testing. It was the PCR, which was designed to detect DNA, not viruses. The inventor said as much, quite loudly. It’s the wrong tool for the job. The reason TPTB keep pushing the abuse of the PCR test is so they can continue lying. They knew it was a lie the first time they pushed it under COVID, and they know it’s still a lie now that they are pushing H5N1 Bird Flu. The false PCR test results are what they use to detect the presence of Bird Flu.

Oh, and just for good measure: That noise about unknown drones hovering over critical facilities, etc.? The federal agencies that kept saying, “There’s nothing to worry about” are agencies that know darned well what it’s all about. The reason they don’t talk about it is because they know what they are doing is either illegal or morally wrong. They are hiding something that would and should get them in trouble.

Your government hates you.

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The Birth of Globalism

Posted on December 30, 2024 by ehurst

I was asked to outline how globalism seized control of American politics.

I suppose it depends on who you ask. My answer has more to do with trends and influences because I adhere to the doctrine of the Unseen Realm as a frame of reference. I’m always looking for the fingerprints of Satan and his allies on the Divine Council. That’s our best clue to what defines good and evil in this world, and informs how we live under the Covenant of Christ.

Let me explain something first: Human agents are limited. To the degree Satan and his allies use groups and nations, the tactics are limited by the long tail of how such servants are steered to certain objectives. Further, the objectives themselves are limited to what flesh can grasp. If we were dealing with a return of the Nephilim, it would be a totally different story. Those creatures are not human, simply in human form. Strictly speaking, they are a hybrid of elohim and human, but the net result is that they transcend human limitations because they are not restricted to fleshly awareness and motivations. They have an eternal awareness, but it’s wicked. The rise of globalism was a matter of human agents, not Nephilim.

The issue with globalism as manifested in America is the result of fleshly agents, specifically Jews. Their agenda was published long ago. They intend to dominate the human race, believing themselves the only real “people” in the world, while Gentiles are just animals in human form. But in human form, the Gentiles have become more numerous and stronger than the Jews. Thus, Jews must manipulate Gentiles into destroying their own independence from Jewish rule. It’s a diabolical urge harnessing opportunities as they arise. Satan granted Jews a particular range of insight into human nature that most humans lack, and they have been using it since the time of Christ to insinuate themselves into Gentile governments as a direct result of God closing the Covenant of Moses and instituting the Covenant of Christ. The Jewish nation chose Satan as their national deity. Jews use their diabolical wisdom to their advantage, but not in the sense of long-term detailed planning. The globalist ideology is the long tail of opportunism in seeking to openly rule someday, but to herd Gentiles by manipulation in the meantime.

Others have traced the Jewish spite for Northern Europeans in general, and white Anglo-Saxon society in particular. We simply note in passing that they have chosen to target Americans first and foremost for destruction.

Jews didn’t necessarily plan for the English to colonize the American continent, but took advantage of it when it happened. The colonization developed along its own path up through the American Revolution. The primary Jewish activity through that time was simply to reserve their place in the new government. They had an influence in some details, but did not appear to have steered things overall until events leading up to the Civil War. I don’t believe war would have broken out without the leverage of Jewish banking interests playing both sides. I don’t think they controlled the outcome, but seized more systemic control from within the regime that arose from the chaos.

The postwar period saw the birth of Progressive ideals in human government. For the next 50 years or so, all the leading institutions of the United States were pulled together and synchronized into one agenda. It was necessary to work through proxies, so the ideology we saw develop in the Progressive Movement is mythology based on Jewish wisdom regarding human nature. They are using Gentile American government officials by shaping a driving ideology not entirely based on truth. It’s a false dream of glorious unity of all the world under their imaginary elitist wisdom and insight. They are being played for fools, lackeys who don’t fully realize they are disposable.

It’s not that Jews knew in advance how the details would play out, only that they have put themselves in a position to seize control when something breaks the right way. By increments, they have come closer and closer to openly seizing control, but haven’t quite gotten there. I don’t believe it’s going to happen all at once in our awareness, but it will probably come rather quickly in some unexpected way. In other words, I think it will not come as the dystopian nightmare that fictional accounts have suggested, but that it will come, and most people simply won’t notice.

Consider this: It appears for now that all the work the globalists have done building their system will see it hijacked by Zionists. If things keep going in the same direction, the government of Israel will become de facto the government of the US. The real problem is not the globalist agenda, but the system they built in pursuit of that agenda. Do you notice how no one is seriously proposing dismantling that system? The details may vary on how to make it work better, but no one is talking about devolving centralized government authority since Lincoln’s presidency. Do you suppose the Jewish elite will be happy with Israel ruling the US?

There have been windows of opportunity to break away from this path. Do you recall the Bundy Ranch revolt? If enough people had gotten involved at that time, it could have wounded the system fatally. Unfortunately, it was very actively hijacked internally. They should have expected that, but the real organizers were blind to what they were up against. So far as I can see, that was the last chance in human terms. In terms of repentance and gaining God’s help, I believe that window closed about ten years ago. There was a move of the Spirit back around 2012-2014 that almost broke out, but then was smothered in its cradle by church leaders.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Peter 3

Posted on December 28, 2024 by ehurst

What happens when God’s Elect walk in their privileges?

Peter says that when women don’t follow the worldly ways of feminism, but walk according to biblical submission to their covering, they have a real impact on everyone. The world could see these Christian women living by eternal truth and would be forced to admire their faithfulness. Then he goes on to add that believers should not flaunt any material wealth but their spiritual wealth. Adorn yourself with moral truth.

By symbolism, this makes women heirs of Sarah’s blessings that she obtained with her husband and lord, Abraham, as representatives of Heaven. By the same token, men should not be suckered by the masculine arrogance of Judaism, which later seeped into the Gnostic heresy. In Gnosticism, you must be male to go to to Heaven. Men, pamper your wife; she is your greatest treasure on this earth. Abusing her is abusing yourself and hinders your prayers. It defiles you so you cannot stand before the Lord. The Law of Christ is to love His people as He loves them.

This sort of orientation on life extends to the rest of your faith family. Demonstrate what the sacrificial love of Christ looks like in how you deal with them. Peter quotes from Psalm 34 about how this allows us to lay claim to the blessings of the Covenant. If this makes God smile, who can object to such sacrificial love? If it causes outsiders to persecute you, then you have moved into the highest privilege of all, carrying the Cross of Christ. People are going to ask you about this; be ready to answer in some way they are likely to understand. We can afford to be humble and generous in our response to the people of this world. Let your kindness show that those who slander you as troublesome are lying. Let God use you as He pleases to testify of His reputation.

Peter offers a sort of catechism statement about how Christ did not hesitate to face suffering and death despite His innocence, so that He could pay the penalty for our sinful natures. Meanwhile, His Spirit was still alive and went down into the Abyss to announce to the rebellious spirits how He was rolling back their agenda by empowering His people to walk in holiness. They had their chance to repent during the long years it took for Noah to build the Ark. While they had succeeded in spoiling the majority of the human race, that was not going to happen with the Elect.

The Flood that destroyed humanity also served to rescue Noah from the pervasive evil of his world. That was the symbolism of baptism — what killed the flesh would empower the Spirit. The ritual of baptism was a pledge of loyalty to Christ as Lord. His resurrection paves the way for His followers to join Him later in Eternity, and there was nothing the rebel alliance among the elohim, nor their lackeys the Nephilim, could do about it.

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Sequences in the Bible

Posted on December 26, 2024 by ehurst

There is something I need to explain. It’s something that even Heiser gets wrong, in my opinion. When I was studying ANE literature, one of the sources made something clear that I think way too many Bible scholars don’t grasp. Admittedly this is rather obscure, something that generally shows up only discussions of the philosophical orientation and differences in the epistemology of the ANE versus the West: Narrative sequence does not always mean temporal sequence.

This is especially true when you start digging into esoteric and symbolic texts in the Bible. The Hebrew author, and prophets in particular, would expect the reader to already know the historical sequence, and would tie things together by their moral meaning, not their sequence, nor even their proximity, on the timeline. Visions and dreams are like this, as well. God’s direct communications by default should be presumed without a temporal sequence, unless that’s explicit in the message. The sequence is what the individual experienced, but the meaning may not depend on that sequence. The Hebrew language and Hebrew minds were not too deeply concerned with nailing down a sequence like a movie playing in your head. They didn’t think visually like that, and they certainly didn’t regard time the same way we do. There is a substantial epistemological difference between our assumptions about time and theirs.

The Book of Revelation is frankly seldom in any particular chronological order. The sequence is primarily logical, as it were. There are events portrayed in Eternity, wherein time has no meaning. They are presented in a sequence of some kind because that’s how human languages work, but it’s not how Eternity works. It’s one of the biggest problems for western believers approaching moral questions and prophecy in general — not recognizing the Hebrew outlook on such things.

Thus, in my commentary on John’s Revelation, I warned that the focus of the whole prophecy is, “This not about future events. It is about who the characters are. This is how they operate until the Day of Judgment.” Thus, the sequence of events as portrayed are not literal in description; they are symbolic, as is the sequence.

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NT Doctrine — 1 Peter 2

Posted on December 21, 2024 by ehurst

It’s easy to miss what Peter is saying here if you keep reading your western evangelical biases back into the words. He calls for his Hebrew Christian readers to stop acting the way Pharisees taught them to act. It was a wicked way of life, expressed in deception, double standards, envious spite, slandering others as if peace with God was a ruthless competition. That’s what the Devil’s domain looks like, not the one Christ is building. Let those old ways die. His readers have been born into a new life, and like infants, they should crave spiritual nourishment. Thus, he portrays “salvation” not as a status but a privileged way of life that we grow into. We are drawn down this path by the sweetness of how the Lord uses us.

Peter draws up a parable of being included in Christ’s Kingdom. If we think of Him as the prophets indicated, a heavy cornerstone rejected by the Jews who were building an earthly kingdom, then we should hasten to invest our lives into this new spiritual kingdom. Following Christ, they were no longer “Jews” as commonly defined, because Jews rejected their Messiah, clinging to the perverted Talmudic definition that defamed the name of Israel. They call themselves Chosen, but apparently have been chosen for damnation, because the Elect belong to Christ.

Hebrew Christians are foreigners to that old life; it’s just another expression of fallen mortal humanity. To be alien in this world is to be alien to Judaism, too. Don’t live like they do. Walk in purity and holiness; even if they slander us as sinners, they won’t be able to argue with our glorious conduct. When the Lord returns for us, they will have no choice but to glorify Him for how we have lived in their sight.

Don’t go out of your way to resist human governments. Don’t be bitter about political fortunes either way. God ordained the concept of human government to keep some semblance of order. We have no vested interest in political outcomes. Yes, Christ is a higher authority, but we don’t use that as an excuse to stir up political and social disturbances. By acting in ways that glorify the reputation of Christ, we denounce those who waste so much time and effort on a doomed search for human perfection. Any order is better than chaos, so promote the efforts of those who maintain order, however they do it.

Peter lays out a holy cynicism: Don’t expect too much from people who don’t follow Christ. As bad as slavery is, if you are a slave, exploit the opportunity to demonstrate the power of a reborn spirit over fleshly self-interest. Yes, we put up with an awful lot of injustice and sorrow, often for no good reason at all. We can conquer only our own perversity in how we respond to such testing. That’s how our Savior handled Jewish and Roman injustice against Him. He refused to play by their rules, knowing that this world is a farce in the first place.

At one time, we were part of that stupidity. But we have left it all behind to follow Christ into a spiritual kingdom. We take His wounds for ourselves, as well as His healing; we embrace His death and His resurrection for ourselves. He suffered all things so that we could live like eternal people, and He walks beside us during the worst so that He can carry us through it.

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It Belongs on the Cross

Posted on December 20, 2024 by ehurst

A prophecy emerged from someone close to me: This past Wednesday was the start of many sorrows.

The source doesn’t matter; either it’s a Word from God or it isn’t. The issue cannot be settled by objective reason and facts. It requires you be able to read the moral fabric of the universe with your heart, at a minimum. For those who refuse to approach the questions from God’s point of view, there will always be a plausible deniability in every miracle and revelation from Heaven.

Further, the substance of every blessing from Heaven is personal; it’s a matter of your personal submission to God as your Master. Blessings might register to a fool as “nice” but the meaning of God’s favor will never touch such people. It’s not meant for them. They are simply collateral recipients.

We have been seeing troubles for quite some time. This prophetic warning simply confirms the timing of something significantly worse. For most Americans it manifests first in the budget impasse in Congress. No matter how this matter proceeds, someone will suffer sooner or later. The prophecy was meant to indicate the timing of commencement, and implies we need to be watchful of certain things.

The problem is what the government has done to bring us to this point. It hinders us from seizing our divine heritage, and instead forces us to depend on its own largess. Human government under the leadership of the Devil insists that we supplicate only the government. Our government has never been morally right in any decision since the first white settlers landed on these shores. The Enlightenment was a lie from Satan, and that philosophy is the foundation for the US culture and government. In biblical terms, the main flaw with the US is that it has never been under a valid expression of the Covenant, and never will be.

The globalists have promised a lot of things that were lies before they were uttered. It’s all a delusion. But Trump has equally false claims in his mouth, because he is wholly devoted to Zionism. It won’t matter if it’s globalism or Zionism; both are a direct return to the sin at the Tower of Babel — unifying humanity against the revelation of God.

Given that the US can never claim any blessings from the Covenant, the one and only thing left was the blessing of decentralization. There was a brief window of time when Americans could have seized the initiative and halted the centralization. That window closed some time ago. The day of limited national repentance has passed. I still have my old campaign sign calling for America to repent, but it’s just memorabilia, a relic of better days.

The only possible avenue of repentance is purely individual. There is no hope for the country. Destruction is inevitable.

Yet, it’s not proper to suggest that we can now sit on our duffs and ignore the wickedness in our government officials. Our warfare is infowar. If nothing else, we should loudly denounce them for their evil. But the denunciation is not aimed at provoking people to act against a government at war with its own people. Rather, it’s aimed at making clear divine revelation of sin so everyone can see the truth of how they have rejected God’s way. There is certainly nothing any human agency can do to change the course our country is taking. What matters here is how our lives serving Christ point out the sin of human government that obeys the Devil.

Christ’s greatest victory was death on the Cross. You cannot separate His resurrection from His demise; there is no resurrection without death. That’s why He came to live among us — He was born to die a grisly death at the hands of His enemies, His own nation. Our government is going to do the same to us who bear His identity in the world today. The reason we have a prophetic warning is so that you know to get ready for it. Keep an eye on the situation, because our victory over this life is at hand.

Get out the hammer and nails; you flesh belongs on the Cross.

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CompSec and Surveillance

Posted on December 19, 2024 by ehurst

Let’s talk about practicalities: What should you do about online surveillance?

Notice that I didn’t say, “What could you do…” The starting point is to discern what your convictions require of you. Should you fight it? How hard? Only you can answer that. It’s a matter of calling and mission from God.

Indeed, fighting it requires special knowledge, skills and resources most of us do not have, nor will we ever have. There are plenty of good guides out there, and a lot of silly nonsense, not to mention an awful lot of vendors trying to sell surveillance security, both for you and against you.

The real question is whether or not it matters. I know what matters for me, and I can explain it in terms of my mission and calling. My mission is to promote the gospel message as best I understand it, and to provide pastoral care for any who wants it. Frankly, this requires that I reach out to the world around me. Hiding from notice is obviously unproductive in that mission.

Instead, I approach the issue from the angle of whether or not that message gets out there, particularly to the audience God intends. For me, “computer security” (CompSec) means protecting the message from censorship or compromise. I’m far more worried about the message being garbled or blocked than whether anyone knows where it comes from.

I’ve experience both problems in the past. The issue of garbled is primarily two things: Someone changing the content in transmission or after it’s posted somewhere, and someone taking advantage of comment facilities to attack the message in an attempt to confuse the meaning. I’ve fought far more with the latter, especially on this blog. You have no idea how many comments I’ve deleted over the years.

But the broad attack indicated by the word “censorship” has consumed far more of my attention. I’ve used firewalls and the like, not because I worry about snooping, but because I must watch for electronic interference. I use a VPN not to hide my tracks from surveillance, but to prevent someone blocking me from reading certain sources or to hinder posting the message in some places. Both of those have happened.

The ISP through which I connect at home has been compromised, but there is no other ISP that I could switch to that wouldn’t be equally open to such a thing. The whole idea of a VPN is that the packet snooping on the ISP network can’t read the contents of what is transmitted by VPN security. They can’t target specific items in the traffic, and it costs a lot more to simply cut me off totally. It’s not about the snooping itself but what adverse actions arise from that snooping. It’s focused on getting the message through, in and out.

The same can be said about my choice to run Linux on my computers. My research and my experience both indicate that running Windows would introduce unacceptable vulnerabilities in getting the message in and out. The whole Windows ecosystem is wide open to derailment of the message in favor of crass materialism. Frankly, I would prefer something like FreeBSD, but that doesn’t work very well on laptops, and the developers aren’t too interested in resolving that. My focus on laptops has to do with a host of offline issues; they are the best way to address my mission needs. Linux is an acceptable answer on most laptops and I am adept at figuring out how to make it happen. I recommend it for anyone with the time and resources to invest in it.

But I’m not a fanboy promoting Linux for its own sake, nor any other alternative operating system. The alleged moral issues behind all of that means nothing to me. I’m not interested in the question of Open Source, except how it serves my mission. There are advantages for the message; there’s nothing more to it.

Farther along this path, I keep at least one paid-for encrypted email account based outside the US. I keep track of places around the area that offer free wifi, and test them periodically. I keep cellphone connectivity as another alternative, and very carefully select the apps I run on it. I keep a printer that Linux can control and that doesn’t slip invisible ID codes into the printed product (commercial dot-matrix). I maintain alternative means of powering most of the hardware I use, because power does sometimes go out here where I live.

You get the picture. This online ministry is just about all I have right now. Everything else either supports that ministry or it’s just a hobby.

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