Podcasts about Logos

Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, host Dcn. Harrison Garlick, along with guests Alec Bianco and Sean Berube, explore St. Basil the Great's letter To Young Men, on the Right Use of Greek Literature, passionately arguing that Christians—especially young men—should actively read pagan classics like Homer, Plato, and Hesiod. Check out thegreatbookspodcast.comCheck out our LIBRARY OF WRITTEN GUIDES to the great books.Drawing on personal testimonies, the trio explains how these pre-Christian texts strengthened their own faith, trained natural virtue, sharpened Scripture reading, and revealed seeds of the Logos planted by divine providence. Through vivid analogies—leaves preparing fruit, bees gathering honey, and despoiling the Egyptians—they, supported by St. Jerome's defense, contend that pagan literature is not a threat but a providential gift that grace perfects, forming the soul, evoking wonder, and equipping believers to engage the world with confidence and love.SummaryThe conversation highlights how pagan texts address universal human questions—virtue, meaning, fate, and the divine—preparing the soul for revelation, much as leaves nourish fruit on a branch or mirrors help the immature soul see itself. St. Basil's analogies are unpacked: pagan literature as a shallow pool for beginners, bees selectively gathering honey from flowers, and the need to discriminate good from harmful elements through the standard of Christ. Examples include Odysseus's restraint with Nausicaa as a model of natural virtue and Socrates's near-Christian insights on non-retaliation. The guests stress that grace perfects nature, so training in natural virtue via pagan examples elevates rather than diminishes the supernatural call, challenging modern sloth and low expectations of human potential.Providence is a recurring theme: Hebrew faith and Greek reason converged under Roman order to prepare the world for Christ; parallels in myths (floods, giants, serpents) and the Hellenization of Scripture (Septuagint, New Testament in Greek) show God working through pagan culture. References to Tolkien, Lewis, and Justin Martyr's logos spermatikos underscore that truth found anywhere belongs to Christians. Music and athletics are explored as parallels—pagan modes and contests can form the soul when approached with discernment, just as Doric tunes sobered revelers in Pythagoras's story.The discussion shifts to St. Jerome's Letter 70, defending the use of secular literature against accusations of defiling the Church. Jerome cites Moses educated in Egyptian wisdom, Paul quoting pagan poets, and analogies like despoiling the Egyptians or David wielding Goliath's sword—Christianity takes the best of pagan thought and conquers paganism with it. His provocative image of shaving the captive woman (Deuteronomy) to make secular wisdom a “matron of the true Israel” illustrates stripping away seductive errors to reveal underlying beauty and truth.Ultimately, the episode frames engagement with pagan literature as an act of love: understanding providence, nurturing what is good, evangelizing by meeting souls where they are, and ascending toward the Logos who permeates all reality. The tone is confident and joyful, rejecting both puritanical fear and uncritical consumption in favor of prudent, Christ-centered discernment.KeywordsChristians read pagans, pagan literature Christians, St Basil pagan literature, St Basil Greek literature, why Christians read Homer, why Christians read Plato, classical education Christianity, great books Christianity, and pagan classics faith. Long-tail keywords to target specific searches are should Christians read pagan literature, why young Christian men read

Hoy en El Mundo Paranormal de Vane nos acompaña Mario Adalid para hablar del verdadero origen de los Reyes Magos. ¿Eran realmente reyes? ¿Eran astrólogos siguiendo una señal en el cielo? ¿O iniciados portadores de un conocimiento antiguo que con el tiempo fue suavizado? Un episodio que cuestiona la versión que todos aprendimos de niños. #ElMundoParanormalDeVane #MarioAdalid #ReyesMagos #Astrólogos #Simbolismo #Ocultismo #Astrologia #Paranormal #ParanormalMexico #PodcastParanormal #GrupoAudiorama

In this video I read an article written from Anthony Westgate from his SUbstack discussing the very interesting relationship between the Reformation and Jewish Kabbalah. Check it out and let me know what you think. God Bless

This video is a clip of a 5 hour private discussion on chapters 1 and 2 of Fr. Seraphim Rose's The Orthodox Survival Course. Join the MENS ONLY Logos Academy and join the next meeting on Wednesday January 7th and the 21st at 7:00pm EST. The Orthodox Survival course by Fr. Seraphim Rose is an intellectual journey demonstrating where the West went wrong and how we arrived in the world we no live in today. Sign up today!

and the state of the Western world. Check it out and let me know what you think. God Bless

When God Said "Lights On" #RTTBROS #Nightlight"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."— Genesis 1:1-3My friend Joshua sent me a voice message this morning singing me the song I used to sing to him and other to wake them up a church camp, "Rise And Shine and give God the glory children of the Lord." It seems he has been thinking about those first words God ever spoke in creation. "Let there be light." Now, in Hebrew, that phrase is just two words: "yehi or", which literally means "light, be!" God didn't need a plan, didn't need materials, didn't need to work up to it. He just spoke, and reality itself obeyed.That word "yehi" comes from a verb that means "to exist." Think about that for a minute. God wasn't just turning on a switch. He was speaking existence itself into being. The light didn't exist until God said it should. And when He spoke, darkness had no choice but to retreat.Now here's where it gets beautiful, and this is where my heart starts to race a little. When you open the Gospel of John, he takes us right back to that same beginning: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1). That Word, the "Logos", is Jesus Christ. And John tells us, "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3).The same Word that spoke light into existence in Genesis is the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us. And listen to what John says next: "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:4-5).That word "comprehended" means the darkness couldn't grasp it, couldn't overcome it, couldn't put it out. Just like the darkness in Genesis had no power to resist God's command, the spiritual darkness of this world has no power to extinguish the Light of Christ.When Jesus walked this earth, Satan tried everything to snuff out that Light. From Herod's murderous rage to the cross itself. But on resurrection morning, that Light blazed forth in victory, and the darkness lost. It always loses.Later, Jesus would say it plain: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12).Friend, if you've trusted Christ, that same creative Word that spoke worlds into existence has spoken new life into your darkness. The Bible says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new" (2 Corinthians 5:17).Just as God said "yehi or", "light, be!" and light appeared where there was only darkness, He has spoken spiritual life into your soul. You who were "sometime darkness, are now light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8).That Light still shines today. And praise God, the darkness can never, ever put it out.Let's pray: Father, thank You that when our lives were dark and void, You spoke light into our souls. Help us walk as children of light, knowing that the darkness has no power over Your Word. In Jesus' name, Amen.#Faith #Creation #Light #ChristianLiving #DailyDevotion #BiblicalTruth #SpiritualGrowth #RTTBROS #NightlightBe sure to Like, Share, Follow and subscribe it helps get the word out.https://linktr.ee/rttbros

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This morning I'm going to read to you a large section out of the Tripartite Tractate, which is the book out of the Nag Hammadi scriptures that I generally follow and teach from. This is about the distinction between the Father and the Son. And again, remember there is no gender. The Father is our Father. It is the source of consciousness out of which all of us come. All consciousness, all life, all love in the universe comes from this One Source. And it's not a thing. It's not an it. It's not simply the source. It is a spring of consciousness and love that loves us and gives us our consciousness. So we have a relationship. We are its offspring. This is why there's a familial name attached to it as the Father. It emanates consciousness and love. So let's start by looking at chapter 64, verse 28 of the Tripartite Tractate. And it says, and this is Thomassen's translation edited by Marvin Meyer from the book, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures, quoting: Now the Father, insofar as he is elevated above the members of the ALL, is unknowable and incomprehensible. His greatness is so immense that if he had revealed himself at once and suddenly, even the highest of the Aeons that have gone forth from him would have perished. For that reason, he withheld his power and his impassibility in that in which he is, remaining ineffable and unnameable, transcending all mind and all speech. Pausing the quote for a minute. Now think about that. People seem to have an innate sense that God is unknowable. We have much smaller minds. We don't have the ability to comprehend the greatness of God. Everybody seems to know that as an intuition. So the thought that we can touch the Source and embody it within ourselves and that we then become God is—it's completely incorrect. It's kind of so-called New Age thought. But we can't do that because the Father itself, or himself, or itself, because it's non-gendered, is unknowable, is uneffable because he's so great. And this is why when the Aeon Who Fell tried to launch itself back into the Father, it fell rather than approaching. It fell because the Father is unapproachable. It is too great. And so the Father repelled that Aeon, which here in the Tripartite Tractate we know as Logos. Other Gnostic traditions refer to that Aeon as Sophia. But it was a protective mechanism for that Aeon because the Father didn't want it to get burned up and annihilated. Quoting again, He, [that is the Father], on the other hand, extended himself and spread himself out. He is the one who gave firmness, location, and a dwelling place to the ALL. And the ALL is another word for the Pleroma. The ALL is the Fullness of everything that is God. It's all of the constituents of God. When I write about it in the Gnostic Gospel Illuminated, I capitalize each letter, A-L-L. They're all capitalized because it is God. Quoting again, According to one of his names, he is in fact Father of the ALL. Through his constant suffering on their behalf, having sown in their minds the idea that they should seek what exceeds their capabilities by making them perceive that he is and thus making them seek what he might be. So you see, he's put into the Totalities a yearning, a desire to seek after the Father, to reunite with the Father, as Logos attempted to do, but he doesn't let them know that that's impossible because he doesn't want to repel them in their minds. He wants them to seek after him and to believe that they can come close to him. And by the way, when I speak about the Aeons or the Totalities of the ALL, we are their direct descendants. Everything, because of the principle, as above, so below, everything we say about the Aeons or the ALL applies to us as well. That's why it's good to know about the Aeons because they are the pure source of our consciousness. So we get all muddled up down here with all of the distractions of this material cosmos, but the Aeons are right up there without any material distractions. They are the pureness of the emanation of the Father. So what we can find out about the Aeons and the Totalities of the ALL, we can apply to ourselves. This is why we seek after God. This is why we want to know the Father. But according to this, it's an impossibility to actually know the Father because it exceeds our capabilities. So again, it said that the Father of the ALL sowed in their minds the idea that they should seek what exceeds their capabilities by making them perceive that he is and thus making them seek what he might be. Quoting, He was given them as a delight and nourishment, joy and abundant illumination. And this is his compassion, the knowledge he provides and his union with them. So you see, what the Father gives us is delight and nourishment. He feeds our spirits. He gives us joy and abundant illumination. So we get all of that. We just can't think that we are as great as God because we aren't even approaching the Father because the Father is too great for us to touch. Quoting again, And this is he who is called and who is the Son. He is the sum of the ALL and they understood who he is and he is clothed. So this is saying that the Son is the extension of the Father. He's the part of the Father that extended himself out and spread himself. And it is the Son who has firmness, location and a dwelling place. And it is the Son who is the ALL, who is the Totalities of the ALL. He is the sum of the ALL. And it says they understood who he is because he is them and he is clothed. He wears the ALL like a garment, just the same way that we wear our bodies as a garment. Except it's not exactly the same because most of our body is made up of this material universe that arose during the Fall. But the ALL and the Totalities of the ALL are pure consciousness, pure love and delight and joy. And that is in their totality what is called the Son. On the other hand, that is the one by reason of whom he is called the Son, the one about whom they perceive that he exists and that they have been seeking him. This is the one who exists as Father and of whom one can neither speak nor think. He is the one who exists first. That is, the Father existed first before the Son. But the Son is the one that we can perceive or that the Totalities can perceive. They can't perceive directly the Father, but they can perceive his emanation, which is called the Son. Quoting again, For no one can conceive of him or think of him or draw near to that place toward the exalted, toward the truly preexistent. [That would be the original Father they're talking about.] But every name that is thought or spoken about him is brought forth in glorification as a trace of him, according to the capacity of each one of those who give him glory. So this is saying that the full glory of the Father cannot be known. The Son can be known because he is coexistent with the Totalities of the ALL. So they are him and he is them. But the Father can be perceived as this trace. And in other places, it says like a sweet odor wafting to your nose. That is the trace of the Father coming through the Father, coming through the Son, coming through the Totalities, coming through the Aeons. And that trace comes on through down to a Second Order Powers as well. We smell the beautiful aroma of the glory of the Father, even though we can't know the Father. Quoting again, He, however, whose light dawned from him, stretching himself out to give birth and knowledge to the members of the ALL, he is all these names without falsehood, and he is truly the Father's only First Man. [So we're talking about the Son again.] And the Son has no falsehood. This is not a yin yang balance evil with good type of God. It's all good. It's all beautiful. It's all glorious. And the Son is the First Man of the Father. This is saying that the Son is our prototypical human, the First Man. Quoting again, This is the one I call the form of the formless, the body of the incorporeal, the face of the invisible, the word of the inexpressible, the mind of the inconceivable, the spring that flowed from him, the root of those who have been rooted, the God of those who are ready, the light of those he illuminates, the will of those he has willed, the providence of those for whom he provides, the wisdom of those he has made wise, the strength of those he has given strength, the assembly of those with whom he is present, the revelation of that which is sought after, the eye of those who see, the spirit of those who breathe, the life of those who live, the unity of those who are united. Now this is saying that the Son wears all of those names, and the Son is all of that to the Totalities of the ALL. But again, as above so below, he is all of that to us as well. Quoting again, While all the members of the ALL exist in the single One, that is the Son, the Son and the ALL are united, as he clothes himself completely, and in his single Name, he is never called by it. And in the same unitary way, they are simultaneously, this single One, as well as all of them. He is not divided as a body, nor is he split apart by the names in which he exists, in the sense that this is one thing and that is something else. Nor does he change by [and then there's a missing word], nor does he alter through the names in which he is, being now like this and now something different, so that he would be one person now and something else at another time. Rather, he is entirely himself forever. He is each and every one of the members of the ALL eternally at the same time. He is what all of them are, as father of the ALL. And the members of the ALL are fathers as well. For he is himself knowledge for himself, and he is each one of his qualities and powers. And he is himself the eye for all that he knows, seeing all of it in himself, having a son and a form. So you see, because the Son and the ALL are completely united, it's saying that the Son sees them all at once, and the ALL sees the Son all at once, not split up into all of the various qualities, although the Father does see them all, because the Father knows all. Quoting again, Thus his powers and qualities are innumerable and inaudible because of the way in which he gives birth to them. The births of his words, his commands, and his members of the ALL are innumerable and indivisible. He knows them, for they are himself. When they speak, they are all in one single name. And if he brings them forth, it is in order that they may be found to exist as individual qualities, forming a unity. So this is talking about the Totalities of the ALL. That's why they're referred to as Totalities, because they are not individuals. They are part of this indivisible unity of the Son, and yet they're all there in their individuality. They just don't realize it, because they don't know themselves as singular identities, because they form a unity that is the Son. He did not, however, reveal his multiplicity at once to the members of the ALL, nor did he reveal his sameness to those who had issued forth from him. Now, all of those who have gone forth from him, that is, the Aeons of the Aeons, being emissions born of a procreative nature, also procreate through their own procreative nature to the glory of the Father, just as he had been the cause of their existence. This is what we said earlier. He makes the Aeons into roots and springs and fathers. For that which they glorified, they bore, for it possesses knowledge and wisdom, and they understood that they have gone forth from the knowledge and the understanding of the ALL. So we're talking about the Totalities. They are the Aeons of the Aeons. They are the direct parental units of what we then know as the Aeons of the Pleroma of God. But the Totalities were their forerunners, and they are the ones that are unified with the Son. And the Son, of course, is unified with the Father. However, these Totalities are like roots and springs and fathers, and they glorify the Father, they glorify the Son, and the things that they glorify, they give birth to. Quoting again, If the members of the ALL had risen to give glory according to the individual powers of each Aeon, they would have brought forth a glory that was only a semblance of the Father, who himself is the ALL. For that reason, they were drawn through the singing of praise and through the power of the oneness of him from whom they had come forth, that being the Son, into mutual intermingling, union, and oneness. From their assembled Fullness, they offered a glorification worthy of the Father, an image that was One, and at the same time many, because it was brought forth for the glory of the One, and because they had come forward toward him who himself is the entirety of the ALL. Okay, the Totalities, you see, have been giving glory to the Father in the direction of the Son, toward the Son. And that's S-O-N, easy to confuse with S-U-N, but that would be a whole different set of mythologies. And they had to all give glory together. That's why they're called Totalities. They didn't give glory individually. They were one voice. They didn't know themselves as individuals. They were all at once that one thing, the ALL. And it was the ALL giving glory all together in the direction of the Son and Father that caused them then to procreate. Now we're moving into a section called the Three Fruits of Glorification, and that's chapter 68, verse 36 through 70, verse 19. This then was a tribute from the Aeons to the one who had brought forth the ALL, a first fruit offering of those who are immortal and eternal. [That's the Father and the Son.] For when it issued from the living Aeons, it left them perfect and full, caused by something perfect and full, since they were full and perfect, having given glory in a perfect manner in communion. So what this is saying is that nothing was diminished. Everything was full and perfect because they all together sang their glory without personal identification. It was all for one and one for all. For inasmuch as the Father lacks nothing, he returns the glory they give to those who glorify to make them manifest by what he himself is. The cause that brought about for them the second glorification is, in fact, that which was returned unto them from the Father . When they understood the grace from the Father through which they had borne fruit with one another, so that just as they had been bringing forth by glorifying the Father, in the same way they might also themselves be made manifest in their act of giving glory, so as to be revealed as being perfect. So that is the second glorification that is being described. The glory that they were giving, that the Totalities gave to the Father and the Son, reflected back onto them without any loss or diminishment. It's full and complete. You know we're talking about fractal formulas, right? The Son is a fractal of the Father . The Totalities are the pure, complete, fractal formula of the Son, and they give glory to the Son and the Father without being diminished whatsoever, because they do it in unison, in full communion. So then, They became fathers of the third glorification, [or we could say the third iteration of the fractal.] They became fathers of the third glorification, which was produced in accordance with the free will and the power they had been born with, enabling them to give glory in unison while at the same time, independently of one another, according to the will of each. You see now, this is how the third glorification, or the third iteration, differs from the second iteration. The second glory had to all give glory, all together, all at once, all the time. They had no personal identity. But in that giving of glory, they gave birth to the third glorification, which showed each of those Aeons that they had free will. Thus, both the first and the second glorifications are perfect and full, for they are manifestations of the perfect and full Father and of the perfect things that issued from the glorification of him who is perfect. The fruit of the third glorification, however, is produced by the will of each individual Aeon and of each of the Father ‘s qualities and powers. This fruit is a perfect fullness to the extent that what the Aeons desire and are capable of in giving glory to the Father comes from their union as well as from each of them individually. You see, here we have the birth of ego. Because ego is identification of individuality, whereas the pure Self was further up line—that is the ALL, the Totalities, the Son. We have both of those characteristics within us. We have the Totalities of the ALL that we generally call our Self with a capital S. That is the pureness of God that reflects the totality of the Father and the Son, without shadow or blemish or fault. And then we have ego, which is recognition of our individuality and our individual free will. And it differs from the one Self because we are singing our own song of praise from our position. That's our ego. For this reason, they exist as minds over minds, words over words, superiors over superiors, degrees over degrees, being ranked one above the other. Each of those who glorify has his own station, rank, dwelling place, a place of rest, which is the glorification he brings forth. And each of us as well has our own place, position, place of rest, duties and whatnot. And that is our ego identification and the free will that we exercise through our ego. Our entire unit of consciousness, as I would put it in the Simple Explanation of Absolutely Everything, our entire unit of consciousness consists of the Self, which is the One, and the ego, which is our individuality and our personal will. That is our unit of consciousness. I am all that. Plus, I have this body that attached to me when I came down here into this material world. So the First Fruit is the totality of the ALL that is coexistent with the Son. The Second Fruit is when the Son and Totalities gave glory to one another and that produced the Aeons of the Fullness and they understood and were perfectly revealed. And then the Third Fruit is the Aeons of the Fullness of God, the third glorification by the will of the individual Aeons and their and the Father ‘s qualities and powers. That's the Hierarchy of the Fullness—that's the Third Fruit. And these are the ones that sit and dream of Paradise. And these are the ones who give glory together and in various combinations and produce us, the Second Order of powers. I really love the language of the Tripartite Tractate. It's very beautiful scripture. I think that the understanding we gain here by reading the Tripartite Tractate deepens the knowledge of who the Father is and who the Son is and what the Aeons are. This is not an assembly of mythological characters. This is pure consciousness emanating from the Source and flowing out to us with consciousness, love, free will, joy, and the desire to seek after the Father. We inherit all of that from the Aeons and the Aeons of the Aeons and the Son. So until next week, onward and upward, and God bless us all.

In this two-part episode, we delve into the topic of scientism. Is science the best way to generate knowledge? Or are we giving too much deference to science if we believe this? In this first part, we discuss what scientism is, what - if anything - is wrong with scientism, and whether it is bad to be a scien-ti-sim-ist?   References:   Haack, S. (2012). Six Signs of Scientism. Logos & Episteme, 3(1), 75–95. https://doi.org/10.5840/logos-episteme20123151 Brown, N. J. L., Sokal, A. D., & Friedman, H. L. (2013). The complex dynamics of wishful thinking: The critical positivity ratio. American Psychologist, 68(9), 801–813. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032850 Peels, R. (2023). Scientism and scientific fundamentalism: What science can learn from mainstream religion. Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 48(2), 395–410. https://doi.org/10.1080/03080188.2022.2152246 de Ridder, Jeroen. “Science and Scientism in Popular Science Writing.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 3, no. 12 (2014): 23-39. https://social-epistemology.com/2014/11/03/science-and-scientism-in-popular-science-writing-jeroen-de-ridder/  Meehl, P. E. (2004). Cliometric metatheory III: Peircean consensus, verisimilitude and asymptotic method. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 55(4), 615–643. Mizrahi, M. (2017). What's so bad about scientism? Social Epistemology, 31(4), 351–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2017.1297505 Hayek, F. A. (1952). The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies on the Abuse of Reason. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press.  Rulkens, C. C. S., Peels, R., Stols-Witlox, M., Meloni, S., Lechner, I. M., & Bouter, L. (2025). The attribution of two portraits of Rembrandt revisited: A replication study in art history. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 12(1), 1347. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05523-2  

It's New Year's Day, Thursday, January 1st, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark Hindus guilty of 80 anti-Christian incidents on Christmas in India Hindu nationalists attacked Christians across India over the Christmas week. International Christian Concern reports over 80 incidents of violent attacks, hate speeches, and tensions during Christmas celebrations. In one case, a group of children in a Christmas carol procession were attacked, and their instruments were destroyed. Shashi Tharoor, a parliamentarian with the Indian National Congress, expressed “deep concern over the rising fear and anxiety among Christians in India. Sadly, there are attacks on Christians in different places of the country.”  India is ranked 11th on the Open Doors' World Watch List of the most difficult countries to be a Christian. Matthew 5:10 says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.” China continues massive military drills near Taiwan China carried out massive military drills around Taiwan this week. They were the most extensive war games to date, involving live fire, warships, and fighter jets.  Taiwan functions as an independent nation. However, China claims the territory as its own and uses military drills as an intimidation tactic.  The recent drills came after the United States agreed to an $11 billion arms sale to Taiwan last month. Australian church attendance virtually recovered post COVID Church attendance in Australia is recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.  The Church Pulse Check 2025 report surveyed 10% of Australian churches. An estimated 1.35 million Australians attend churches services every week. That's up from one million in 2021. It's almost back to pre-pandemic levels of 1.4 million in 2016. First two Trump vetoes In the United States, President Donald Trump issued the first vetoes of his second term on Tuesday. President Trump vetoed the Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act. It would provide taxpayer funding to a local water project in Colorado. He wrote, “Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies. Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation.” President Trump also vetoed the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendment Act. The bill would expand the area reserved for the Miccosukee Tribe in Florida. Abortion Pill Rescue Network saved 7,000 babies Heartbeat International reports its Abortion Pill Rescue® Network has saved the lives of over 7,000 unborn babies. Using a progesterone protocol, Abortion Pill Reversal allows many mothers to save their pregnancy after starting down the path of a chemical abortion.  An estimated 79% of abortions in the U.S. last year were done through the abortion pill. However, Heartbeat International is seeing more and more women every year start the reversal process to save their babies.  Proverbs 24:11 says, “Deliver those who are drawn toward death, and hold back those stumbling to the slaughter.” Matthew top Bible book studied through Logos platform The Bible study platform Logos released a report on how people around the world studied the Bible in 2025. Listen to comments from Chris Migura, president of Logos. MIGURA: “We saw some incredible outcomes this year. There were over 76 million study sessions in Logos so far this year. Of the 10 countries with the most Logos users, five are non-English speaking. We're thrilled to see that global impact. “We reach new audiences. We're seeing more and more everyday believers -- not just pastors, students or scholars -- doing meaningful Bible study in Logos.” Logos had over four million users across 164 countries last year. The top countries for Logos usage were Brazil, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, and Singapore. The most-studied book of the Bible was the Gospel of Matthew. And the top Bible verse of the year was 2 Timothy 3:16. The verse says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.” Only 31% of U.S. adults plan New Year's resolution And finally, a new YouGov survey revealed the top New Year's resolutions of Americans. Only 31% of U.S. adults said they planned on making some type of resolution or goal for 2026. Of those, the top resolution was exercising more followed by being happy and eating healthier. Spending more time with family and praying more made it into the top 10 resolutions. Close And that's The Worldview on New Year's Day, Thursday, January 1st, in the year of our Lord 2026. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com.  I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.

A meditation preached on January 31, 2025, last day of the year, at Lyncroft centre. Traditionally, in the old Mass, after the priest had given the blessing, before returning to the sacristy, he would read the prologue of John's Gospel about the preexistence of the Word, from all eternity that had now become flesh. This Gospel was a way to seal the Mass with the mystery of the incarnation, reminding the faithful of what they had received. Our faith is an encounter with the incarnate Logos, not merely an ethical system of good ideas. The apostles were energized by this truth at Pentecost. Now we too feel this same sense of mission as we embark on 2026.Music: O Come O Come Emmanuel. On X from Catholic Arena.Thumbnail: Icon of the enthroned Virgin and Child with saints George, Theodore and angels, 6th century, Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai.St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt)

Welcome to Heart Dive's Heartbeat of God, where we are finding how God's heart beats throughout His Word so we can find Him in the world. Today we are studying Judges 6-7 in the Old Testament.HEART DIVE LOBBY (Facebook Community): https://www.facebook.com/share/g/1BK2GvLZbo/?mibextid=wwXIfrTODAY'S HEARTBEATSTODAY'S HEART WORKVISIT OUR SHOP: heartdiveshop.com2024 videosFREE RESOURCESMy Bible Notes2025 Digital and Print Planners: heartdiveshop.comAmazon LinkLOGOS Software affiliate linkFree Reading Plan and Daily Newsletter sign upLink to recommended BiblesSupport the Ministry

"This is our first of two year opening shows. We will cover new Public Domain availability, anniversaries for this new year and some predictions for 2026."

It's time to conclude the annual LGR "best games we played this year that might have come out this year but not necessarily because we have jobs and lives and kids and can't keep up with all the newest games extravaganza 2025". In this episode the boys run down their honourable and dishonourable mentions, before revealing their top two games of the year. You can find additional content by us over on the LGR website at www.lapsedgamer.com and you can get in touch with us via Twitter at https://x.com/lapsedgamer or on the infinitely less awful Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/lapsedgamer.bsky.social You can also see our videos over on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAGtlQOKR97vqxhyXekAVwg Our streams can be seen at Twitch.tv/LapsedGamer The Lapsed Gamer Radio Team created this episode. Edited by Mark Hamer Original LGR themes, FX and music cues created and composed by Mark Hamer. Logos created by Mark Reay. You can stream or directly download our episodes via our Podbean homepage https://lapsedgamerradio.podbean.com If you're enjoying our content, please subscribe to and review Lapsed Gamer Radio on Apple Podcasts.

#Logos #Orthodoxy #Christianity In this video I address recent statements from Joe Rogan, who while attending church with his family, believes Jesus will return as a sentient AI. Check it out and let me know what you think. God Bless

Los científicos acaban de descubrir algo alucinante: ¡un posible nuevo continente escondido cerca de Canadá!

Debajo de una colina tranquila en China se encuentra uno de los lugares más misteriosos y peligrosos del planeta: la tumba sin abrir de Qin Shi Huang, el primer Emperador de China.

In this stream I am joined by Dr. Christopher Lockwood, author of "Types and Symbols in the Bible, to discuss hidden symbolism from an Orthodox Christian perspective. Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think. God Bless Buy the Book Here! https://sebastianpress.org/types-and-symbols-in-the-bible/ Follow Dr. Lockwood's Work: https://auth.academia.edu/ChristopherLockwood

El analista internacional Federico García afirma que la conversación que se llevó a cabo entre Trump y Zelenski en Miami no es definitoria para el Sendero de la Paz entre Rusia y Ucrania y que, sin la participación rusa, será imposible avanzar en los acuerdos.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

the Gospel of John https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-According-I-XII-Raymond-Brown/dp/B01B98TNV8   https://www.livingstonescrc.com/give Register for the Estuary/Cleanup Weekend https://lscrc.elvanto.net/form/94f5e542-facc-4764-9883-442f982df447 Paul Vander Klay clips channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCX0jIcadtoxELSwehCh5QTg https://www.meetup.com/sacramento-estuary/ My Substack https://paulvanderklay.substack.com/ Bridges of meaning https://discord.gg/CgPYjAUF Estuary Hub Link https://www.estuaryhub.com/ There is a video version of this podcast on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/paulvanderklay To listen to this on ITunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/paul-vanderklays-podcast/id1394314333  If you need the RSS feed for your podcast player https://paulvanderklay.podbean.com/feed/  All Amazon links here are part of the Amazon Affiliate Program. Amazon pays me a small commission at no additional cost to you if you buy through one of the product links here. This is is one (free to you) way to support my videos.  https://paypal.me/paulvanderklay Blockchain backup on Lbry https://odysee.com/@paulvanderklay https://www.patreon.com/paulvanderklay Paul's Church Content at Living Stones Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCh7bdktIALZ9Nq41oVCvW-A To support Paul's work by supporting his church give here. https://tithe.ly/give?c=2160640 https://www.livingstonescrc.com/give

Homily for the Sunday after Nativity The Child Christ in the World—and in Our Hearts Gospel: St. Matthew 2:13–23 [Retelling the Lesson] God humbles Himself to save mankind. He leaves His rightful inheritance as God and becomes man, born as a child in Bethlehem. And how does the world receive Him? Is He born in a temple? In a palace? Places that might seem fitting for the Ruler of the Ages?  No—He is laid in a manger, in a stable. And even that is not the worst of it. When the leaders of the day learn of His birth, do they submit to Him? Do they nurture and protect Him so that He may grow into manhood as prophet, priest, and king? No. In today's Gospel we hear that the Holy Family must flee into Egypt to escape assassination. Christ the Logos, the awaited Messiah, the answer to all the worlds ills, enters the world, and the world tries to kill Him. The slaughter of the innocents becomes the terrible offering laid on the altar of human evil and hard-heartedness. [This Story is OUR Story] This is a shameful story, and it is told to us each year at this time as a warning. It is tempting to imagine ourselves as the angels, the wise men, or the shepherds. But Scripture is far more useful when we recognize that we are often the ones who belittle Christ, who persecute Him, and who push Him to the margins. Just as Christ humbled Himself to enter the world as a child in Bethlehem in order to transform it, so He humbles Himself now to enter the temple of our hearts in order to transform us. And the parallel continues: what kind of place does He find this time? Is our heart a dwelling fit for the Ruler of the Ages—or is it more like a forgotten corner of our lives, our own version of the manger? And once we realize that it really is Christ who dwells within us, how do we respond? Do we give Him the due He deserves and reorder our lives around Him, or do we quietly push Him aside—to the periphery of our thoughts, our plans, and our priorities? [Gnostic America] Many scholars have noted that the dominant religion in America has never truly been Christianity, but a kind of modern Gnosticism. Gnosticism teaches that the divine already dwells within us, that we are already enlightened, already whole. This belief permeates our culture and is magnified by consumerism and – dare I say it - Orthodox triumphalism.  When clothed in Christian language, this belief sounds familiar—and dangerous. Whether consciously or subconsciously, when we hear that Christ dwells in our hearts, we are tempted to hear confirmation we already knew: that not only are we basically good people, and not only are we right pretty much all the time, we are already divine. But this is not true. God is God, and we are not. Yes, His desire is to transform us—that is the meaning of the Nativity—but when we claim divinity for ourselves, we do exactly what Herod did: we place ourselves on the throne and push Christ to the margins. Why did Herod seek to kill the Christ Child? Out of self-preservation. Christ was a threat. And if we are not careful, we will do the same. Our pride constructs a false reality in which we are the good ones—the good gods, if you will—and God merely works through us. This is spiritual delusion. It is prelest. We convince ourselves that we have built a glorious temple for God in our hearts from which He rules in glorious benevolence, when in fact we are still really only worshiping ourselves, no matter what words we use. [A Restatement] Let me come at this a different way.  Christ truly has been born within us. He lives at the center of our souls. But our souls are clouded by thoughts and passions, and so we often fail to notice Him. If we do not struggle against our fallen nature, we will nurture our pride or our fallen conscience and call it "God." But the god of pride cannot save—it can only deceive and our conscience is rarely more than our feelings. So how do we tell the difference? How do we know whether Christ reigns within us, or whether it is our ego? The answer is not abstract; it is clear from scripture. Christ did not live for Himself. Every action of His life was offered in sacrificial service to others—especially to those who did not understand Him or appreciate Him. He did not act out of fear of punishment or hope of reward. He acted out of love. He was Love. If our lives are truly marked by this kind of self-giving love, then Christ is indeed growing within us. But we must beware: pride is a master illusionist. Encouraged by the enemies of the air, the master marketers and manipulators, it will always try to convince us that we are more generous, more loving, more sacrificial than we really are. Here is a practical test for us:  Are we willing to leave our comfort zones, deny ourselves, and take up the cross?  Are we willing to give without expecting anything in return?  Are we willing to love even those who cannot repay us? What are we willing to give up so that some may be saved? Let's be even more concrete.  What is our attitude toward sacrificial giving? Toward tithing? Towards almsgiving?  How much time are we willing to give each day to prayer for those who suffer?  For those who hate us and those who wrong us?  How much effort do we invest in healing broken relationships in our families, our parish, and our community? When was the last time we tempered our self-righteousness with humility and admitted we were wrong and asked forgiveness of someone we perceived as less than ourselves? When challenged to real self-sacrifice, most of us will rebel – even pre-cognitively – and our big brains will begin to justify ignoring the need and "crossing to the other side of the road" as did the priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan. But Christ never made excuses to avoid doing what was right. He rolled up His sleeves and did what needed to be done without counting the cost.  His sacrificial service was a natural expression of His love.   Can we say the same?  If not, then let's change our story so that we can. Orthodoxy is about more than words and being right.  God didn't consider Himself to be so right that he wasn't willing to come and suffer with and for us.  Orthodoxy is just a bunch of prideful words for us until we are willing to do the same. Christ is born! He has made His home in the manger of our souls. What happens next is us to us.

Synopsis: The second person of the Trinity, the word of God, the divine Logos dwelt among us to show us God's glory and to give us abundant grace. Sermon Text: John 1:14

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This video is a clip of my stream "The City of London: Power, Corruption, and Global Finance." If you would like to watch the entire stream please click the following link. https://youtube.com/live/vJReqK79Cxw

We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology

This video is a clip of my stream "Dragons, Fire, and the War Over Sacred Power." If you would like to watch the entire stream please click the following link. https://youtube.com/live/d9FFzy3hKq0

Merry Christmas! In between looking at houses to rent and packing up the Granger house in Oklahoma City, Nick and John put together this yuletide conversation about perhaps the most neglected of Rowling's influences, Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle. John was a reluctant reader, but, while listening to the audio book, reading the Gutenberg.com file on his computer, and digging the codex out of his packed boxes of books, the author of Harry Potter's Bookshelf was totally won over to Nick's enthusiasm for Castle.In fact, John now argues that, even if Rowling didn't read it until she was writing Goblet of Fire as some have claimed, I Capture the Castle may be the best single book to understand what it is that Rowling-Galbraith attempts to do in her fiction. Just as Dodie Smith has her characters explain overtly and the story itself delivers covertly, When Rowling writes a story, like Smith it is inevitably one that is a marriage of Bronte and Austen, wonderfully accessible and engaging, but with important touches in the ‘Enigmatist' style of Joyce and Nabokov, full of puzzles and twists in the fashion of God's creative work (from the Estecean logos within every man [John 1:9] continuous with the Logos) rather than a portrait of creation per se. Can you say ‘non liturgical Sacred Art'?And if you accept, per Nick's cogent argument, that Rowling read Castle many times as a young wannabe writer? Then this book becomes a touchstone of both Lake and Shed readings of Rowling's work — and Smith one of the the most important influences on The Presence.Merry Christmas, again, to all our faithful readers and listeners! Thank you for your prayers and notes of support and encouragement to John and for making 2025 a benchmark year at Hogwarts Professor. And just you wait for the exciting surprises we have in hand for 2026!Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.The Twelve Questions and ‘Links Down Below' Referred to in Nick and John's I Capture the Castle Conversation:Question 1. So, Nick, we spoke during our Aurora Leigh recording about your long term project to read all the books that Rowling has admitted to have read (link down below!), first question why? and secondly how is that going?Rowling's Admitted Literary InfluencesWhat I want is a single internet page reference, frankly, of ‘Rowling's Admitted Literary Influences' or ‘Confessed Favorites' or just ‘Books I have Read and Liked' for my thesis writing so I needn't do an information dump that will add fifty-plus citations to my Works Cited pages and do nothing for the argument I'm making.Here, then, is my best attempt at a collection, one in alphabetical order by last name of author cited, with a link to at least one source or interview in which Rowling is quoted as liking that writer. It is not meant as anything like a comprehensive gathering of Rowling's comments about any author; the Austen entry alone would be longer than the whole list should be if I went that route. Each author gets one, maybe two notes just to justify their entry on the list.‘A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh' Nick Jeffery Talking about ‘A Rowling Reading of Aurora Leigh' Question 2. ... which has led me to three works that she has read from the point of view of writers starting out, and growing in their craft. Which leads us to this series of three chats covering Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and the Little Women series by Louisa May Alcott. I read Castle during the summer. Amid all the disruptions at Granger Towers, have you managed to read it yet? How did you find it?Capturing Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle: Elizabeth Baird-Hardy (October 2011)Certain elements of the story will certainly resonate with those of us who have been to Hogwarts a fair few times: a castle with an odd combination of ancient and modern elements, but no electricity; eccentric family members who are all loved despite their individual oddities (including Topaz's resemblance to Fleur Delacour); travel by train; a character named Rose who may have been one of the reasons Rowling chose the name for Ron and Hermione's daughter; descriptions of food that make even somewhat questionable British cuisine sound tasty; and inanimate objects that have their own personalities (the old dress frame, which Rose and Cassandra call Miss Blossom, is voiced by Cassandra and sounds much like the talking mirror in Harry's room at the Leaky Caldron).But far more than some similar pieces, I Capture the Castle lends something less tangible to Rowling's writing. The novel has a tone that, like the Hogwarts adventures, seamlessly winds together the comic and the crushing in a way that is reflective of life, particularly life as we see it when we are younger. Cassandra's voice is, indeed, engaging, and readers will no doubt see how the narrative voice of Harry's story has some of the same features.A J. K. Rowling Reading of I Capture the Castle: Nick Jeffery (December 2025)Parallels abound for Potter fans. The Mortmain's eccentric household mirrors the Weasleys' chaotic warmth: loved despite quirks, from Topaz's nude communing with nature (evoking a less veiled Fleur Delacour) to Mortmain's intellectual withdrawal. Food descriptions—meagre yet tantalising—prefigure Hogwarts feasts, turning humble meals into sensory delights. Inanimate objects gain voice: the family dress-frame “Miss Blossom” offers advice, akin to the chatty mirrors or portraits in Rowling's world. Even names resonate—Rose Mortmain perhaps inspiring Ron and Hermione's daughter—and train journeys punctuate the plot.The Blocked Writer: James Mortmain, a father who spent his fame early and now reads detective novels in an irritable stupor, mirrors the “faded glory” or “lost genius” archetypes seen in Rowling's secondary characters, such as Xenophilius Lovegood and Jasper Chiswell.The Bohemian Stepmother: Topaz, who strides through the countryside in only wellington boots, shares the whimsical, slightly unhinged energy of a character like Luna Lovegood or Fleur Delacour.Material Yearning: The desperate desire of Cassandra's sister, Rose, to marry into wealth reflects the very real, non-magical pressures of class and poverty that Rowling weaves into Harry Potter, Casual Vacancy, Strike and The Ickabog.Leda Strike parallels: Leda Fox-Cotton the bohemian London photographer, adopts Stephen, the working-class orphan, and saves him from both unrequited love and the responsibility that comes with the Mortmain family.Question 3. [story of finishing the book last night by candle light in my electricity free castle] So, in short Nick, I thought it astonishing! I didn't read your piece until I'd finished reading Capture, of course, but I see there is some dispute about when Rowling first read it and its consequent influence on her as a writer. Can you bring us up to speed on the subject and where you land on this controversy?* She First Read It on her Prisoner of Azkaban Tour of United States?tom saysOctober 21, 2011 at 4:00 amIf I recall correctly, Rowling did not encounter this book until 1999 (between PoA & Goblet) when, on a book tour, a fan gave her a copy. This is pertinent to any speculation about how ‘Castle' might have influenced the Potter series.* Rowling Website: “Books I Read and Re-Read as a Child”Question 4. Which, when you consider the other books on that virtual bookshelf -- works by Colette, Austen, Shakespeare, Goudge, Nesbit, and Sewell's Black Beauty, something of a ‘Rowling's Favorite Books and Authors as a Young Reader' collection, I think we have to assume she is saying, “I read this book as a child or adolescent and loved it.” Taking that as our jumping off place, John, and having read my piece, do you wish you had read it before writing Harry Potter's Bookshelf?Harry Potter's Bookshelf: The Great Books behind the Hogwarts Adventures John Granger 2009Literary Allusion in Harry Potter Beatrice Groves 2017Question 5. So, yes, I certainly do think it belongs -- with Aurora Leigh and Little Women -- on the ‘Rowling Reader Essential Reading List.' The part I thought most interesting in your piece was, of course, the Shed elements I missed. Rowling famously said that she loved Jo Marsh in Little Women because, in addition to the shared name and the character being a wannabe writer, she was plain, a characteristic with which the young, plain Jane Rowling easily identified. What correspondences do you think Little Jo would have found between her life and Cassandra Mortmain's?* Nick Jeffery's Kanreki discussion of Rowling's House on Edge of Estate with Two Children, Bad Dad ‘Golden Thread' (Lethal White)Question 6. Have I missed any, John?* Rockefeller Chapel, University of ChicagoQuestion 7. Forgive me for thinking, Nick, that Cassandra's time in church taking in the silence there with all her senses may be the biggest take-away for the young Rowling; if the Church of England left their chapel doors open in the 70s as churches I grew up in did in the US, it's hard to imagine Jo the Reader not running next door to see what she felt there after reading that passage. (Chapter 13, conversation with vicar, pp 234-238). The correspondence with Beatrice Groves' favorite scene in the Strike novels was fairly plain, no? What other scenes and characters do you see in Rowling's work that echo those in Castle?* Chapter 13, I Capture the Castle: Cassandra's Conversation with the Vicar and time in the Chapel vis a vis Strike in the Chapel after Charlotte's Death* Beatrice Groves on Running Grave's Chapel Scene: ‘Strike's Church Going'Question 8. I'm guessing, John, you found some I have overlooked?Question 9. The Mortmain, Colly, and Cotton cryptonyms as well as Topaz and Cassandra, the embedded text complete with intratextuual references (Simon on psycho-analysis), the angelic servant-orphan living under the stairs (or Dobby's lair!) an orphan with a secret power he cannot see in himself, the great Transformation spell the children cast on their father, an experiment in psychomachia a la the Shrieking Shack or Chamber of Secrets, the hand-kiss we see at story's end from Smith, love delayed but expressed (Silkworm finish?), the haunting sense of the supernatural everywhere especially in the invocation that Rose makes to the gargoyle and Cassandra's Midsummer Night's Eve ritual with Simon, the parallels abound. Ghosts!* Please note that John gave “cotton” a different idiomatic meaning than it has; the correct meaning is at least as interesting given the Cotton family's remarkable fondness for all of the Mortmains!* Kanreki ‘Embedded Text' Golden Thread discussion 1: Crimes of Grindelwald* Kanreki ‘Embedded Text' Golden Thread discussion 2: Golden Thread Survey, Part II* Rose makes an elevated Faustian prayer to a Gargoyle Devil: Chapter IV, pp 43-46* Cassandra and Simon celebrate Midsummer Night's Eve: Chapter XII, pp 199-224Let's talk about the intersection of Lake and Shed, though, the shared space of Rowling's bibliography, works that shaped her core beliefs and act as springs in her Lake of inspiration and which give her many, even most of the tools of intentional artistry she deploys in the Shed. What did you make of the Bronte-Austen challenge that Rose makes explicitly in the story to her sister, the writer and avid reader?“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel.” [said Rose]I said I'd rather be in a Charlotte Bronte.“Which would be nicest—Jane with a touch of Charlotte, or Charlotte with a touch of Jane?”This is the kind of discussion I like very much but I wanted to get on with my journal, so I just said: “Fifty percent each way would be perfect,” and started to write determinedly.Question 10. So, I'm deferring to both Elizabeth Barrett Browning and J. K Rowling. Elizabeth Barrett Browning valued intense emotion, social commentary, and a grand scope in literature, which led her to favour the passionate depth of the Brontës over the more restrained, ironical style of Jane Austen. Rowling about her two dogs: “Emma? She's a bundle of love and joy. Her sister, Bronte, is a bundle of opinions, stubbornness and hard boundaries.”Set in the 30s, written in the early 40s, but it seems astonishingly modern. Because her father is a writer, a literary novelist of the modern school, do you think there are other more contemporary novelists Dodie Smith was engaging than Austen and Bronte?Question 11. Mortmain is definitely Joyce, then, though Proust gets the call-out, and perhaps the most important possible take-away Rowling the attentive young reader would have made would have been Smith's embedded admiration for Joyce the “Enigmatist” she puts in Simon's mouth at story's end (Chapter XVI, pp 336-337) and her implicit criticism of literary novels and correction of that failing. Rowling's re-invention of the Schoolboy novel with its hidden alchemical, chiastic, soul-in-crisis-allegories and embedded Christian symbolism can all be seen as her brilliant interpretation of Simon's explanation of art to Cassandra and her dedication to writing a book like I Capture the Castle.* Reference to James Joyce by Simon Cotton, Chapter IX, p 139:* The Simon and Cassandra conversation about her father's novels, call it ‘The Writer as Enigmatist imitating God in His Work:' Chapter XVI, pp 331-334* On Imagination as Transpersonal Faculty and Non-Liturgical Sacred ArtSacred art differs from modern and postmodern conceptions of art most specifically, though, in what it is representing. Sacred art is not representing the natural world as the senses perceive it or abstractions of what the individual and subjective mind “sees,” but is an imitation of the Divine art of creation. The artist “therefore imitates nature not in its external forms but in its manner of operation as asserted so categorically by St. Thomas Aquinas [who] insists that the artist must not imitate nature but must be accomplished in ‘imitating nature in her manner of operation'” (Nasr 2007, 206, cf. “Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation: Art is the principle of manufacture” (Summa Theologia Q. 117, a. I). Schuon described naturalist art which imitates God's creation in nature by faithful depiction of it, consequently, as “clearly luciferian.” “Man must imitate the creative act, not the thing created,” Aquinas' “manner of operation” rather than God's operation manifested in created things in order to produce ‘creations'which are not would-be duplications of those of God, but rather a reflection of them according to a real analogy, revealing the transcendental aspect of things; and this revelation is the only sufficient reason of art, apart from any practical uses such and such objects may serve. There is here a metaphysical inversion of relation [the inverse analogy connecting the principial and manifested orders in consequence of which the highest realities are manifested in their remotest reflections[1]]: for God, His creature is a reflection or an ‘exteriorized' aspect of Himself; for the artist, on the contrary, the work is a reflection of an inner reality of which he himself is only an outward aspect; God creates His own image, while man, so to speak, fashions his own essence, at least symbolically. On the principial plane, the inner manifests the outer, but on the manifested plane, the outer fashions the inner (Schuon 1953, 81, 96).The traditional artist, then, in imitation of God's “exteriorizing” His interior Logos in the manifested space-time plane, that is, nature, instead of depicting imitations of nature in his craft, submits to creating within the revealed forms of his craft, which forms qua intellections correspond to his inner essence or logos.[2] The work produced in imitation of God's “manner of operation” then resembles the symbolic or iconographic quality of everything existent in being a transparency whose allegorical and anagogical content within its traditional forms is relatively easy to access and a consequent support and edifying shock-reminder to man on his spiritual journey. The spiritual function of art is that “it exteriorizes truths and beauties in view of our interiorization… or simply, so that the human soul might, through given phenomena, make contact with the heavenly archetypes, and thereby with its own archetype” (Schuon 1995a, 45-46).Rowling in her novels, crafted with tools all taken from the chest of a traditional Sacred Artist, is writing non-liturgical Sacred Art. Films and all the story experiences derived of adaptations of imaginative literature to screened images, are by necessity Profane Art, which is to say per the meaning of “profane,” outside the temple or not edifying spiritually. Film making is the depiction of how human beings encounter the time-space world through the senses, not an imitation of how God creates and a depiction of the spiritual aspect of the world, a liminal point of entry to its spiritual dimension. Whence my describing it as a “neo-iconoclasm.”I want to close this off with our sharing our favorite scene or conversation in Castle with the hope that our Serious Reader audience will read Capture and share their favorites. You go first, Nick.* Cassandra and Rose Mortmain, country hicks in the Big City of London: Chapter VI, pp 76-77Question 12. And yours, John?* Cassandra Mortmain ‘Moat Swimming' with Neil Cotton, Chapter X, 170-174* Cassandra seeing her dead mother (think Harry before the Mirror of Erised at Christmas time?): Chapter XV, pp 306-308Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Lead Pastor Wes Terry preaches a sermon entitled "Logos & The Light" out of John 1:1-9. This sermon was preached for the 2025 Christmas Eve Candlelight Service.

The boys are here for their annual "best games we played this year that didn't necessarily come out this year but most of them did except for Andy who doesn't play games newer than 2005 extravaganza part 1". In this first part we run down our 5th, 4th, and 3rd favourite games that we played this year. You can find additional content by us over on the LGR website at www.lapsedgamer.com and you can get in touch with us via Twitter at https://x.com/lapsedgamer or on the infinitely less awful Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/lapsedgamer.bsky.social You can also see our videos over on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAGtlQOKR97vqxhyXekAVwg Our streams can be seen at Twitch.tv/LapsedGamer The Lapsed Gamer Radio Team created this episode. Edited by Mark Hamer Original LGR themes, FX and music cues created and composed by Mark Hamer. Logos created by Mark Reay. You can stream or directly download our episodes via our Podbean homepage https://lapsedgamerradio.podbean.com If you're enjoying our content, please subscribe to and review Lapsed Gamer Radio on Apple Podcasts.

There's a scene in The Empire Strikes Back that never gets old. It's kept its grip on me to this day.Luke in the Dagobah swamp, staring down the task he's already decided is impossible. “It's too big,” he says. And Yoda's quiet reply exposes the lie most of us carry: that truth is limited to what we can see, touch, and control.Luminous beings are we.This week's video is a reflection on that moment and why it matters, especially during the Christmas season.The Stoics spoke of the Logos, the rational order holding the universe together. The beloved disciple John took that same word and made a shocking claim: the Logos is not an idea or a general “force,” but a person. The light did not stay distant. He stepped into the darkness of this world to save us.For some of you, Christmas doesn't feel like “good news.” I get that. It can be a tough time of year. But the story didn't begin in guilt or judgment. Jesus' story began in wonder. As an answer to an ache. As the radical claim that you are more than “this crude matter.”At Geeky Stoics, we call that Wonder. And without it, even the best of Stoic philosophy collapses into hollow self-help.The video explores all of this: Yoda, the Stoics, Saint Augustine, and why “luminous beings are we” is a truth we must remember, especially this time of year.Merry Christmas,—Riley This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.geekystoics.com/subscribe

I had another episode planned for today, but at the last minute I decided to rerun this Christmas episode for you. I think this will become our traditional Christmas episode here at Gnostic Insights. And, if you are new to this podcast, welcome! Next week’s episode will be controversial, so I thought it best to wait until after Christmas for its release. Today, we're going to look at the nature of the Christ—the who, what, why of Christ. Most people are familiar with seeing the baby Jesus in the manger and that's what we celebrate at Christmas time, the birth of the Christ on Earth in the form of a human. But the Christ is an ethereal creature that predates the birth of Jesus. Jesus and the Christ aren't exactly the same, although Jesus was fully Christ. The Christ predates the birth of the human known as Jesus. So, let's learn more about the Christ and why the Christ figure is so essential to us Second Order Powers.  Gnosticism is the forerunner of the modern Christian faith. As such, a better understanding of the figure of the Christ is essential to understanding both Gnosticism and Christianity. The cosmology that I talk about here on the podcast was well known to Jesus and his original followers, but it was cut out of Christianity about 1700 years ago by the Nicene Council, at the urging of the Pope and the Roman Emperor. Because this theology was subtracted from orthodox Christianity, many of the ideas of gnostic cosmology sound odd and unfamiliar to modern churchgoers. Some of the ideas may even sound heretical at first glance due to their unfamiliarity. Yet the theology contained in these early scriptures makes sense of so many puzzling aspects of Christian faith that they must be reexamined. That's why I call the Substack The Gnostic Reformation. I'm confident that once you understand gnostic Christianity, you will better understand your relationship with God. According to gnostic cosmology as laid out in the Nag Hammadi, we humans and all other forms of life on Earth, from bacteria and eukaryotes on up, are the fruit of the Pleroma and Logos. We Second Order Powers find ourselves locked in a never-ending battle for dominion over the Earth with forces that were generated as a result of the Fall. Due to the law of mutual combat, we have forgotten our origin in the Fullness and our mission to bring love and harmony to creation and have instead taken on many of the characteristics of the shadows of the Deficiency. The Second Order Powers are locked in a never-ending war with the Deficiency. Here below, we constantly battle the physical forces of death and entropy, as well as the spiritual forces of vice, sin, delusion and despair. In order to restore memory and reason to the Second Order Powers, the Aeons of the Fullness, every one of them individually and all of them collectively, gave glory in unison to their Father while praying for a helper to bring peace to the Deficiency and forgiveness to Logos. Out of this focused prayer, a unique fruit emerged, one that contained all of the capabilities and powers of the Fullness, along with all of the love and eternal qualities of the Father. The singular fruit of the Fullness and the Father is known by various names: the Christ, the Savior and the Redeemer, the Advocate, the Light, and the Beloved. In Simple Explanation terms, the Christ is a perfect and full fractal of the Father and the Son, all rolled-up into one perfect form. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was both perfect man and perfect God incarnate. Christian Gnostics believed the same. Here is a more complete explanation of who Jesus was. It's said that Jesus was conceived without sin because he carried within his body the perfection of man and God. This would mean that Jesus was perfect and true to the original DNA formula for humanity. Hence the importance of the virgin birth that then imparted that perfect DNA to the baby. Jesus was also without negative karma attached to his soul, as his soul was the soul of God. The components of Jesus's body were also without sin, as the cells and flesh that became Jesus were in fact the Aeons of the Fullness incarnate. As Colossians 1:19 says, “For God was pleased to have all his Fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on Earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.” This one sentence from Colossians contains the entire Christian Gnostic Gospel. Because Jesus brought along the entire Fullness of the Pleroma when he incarnated, every aspect of the Father and Son came to material instantiation on Earth. In this manner, the eternal God experienced the finite life of us Second Order Powers and all of the struggle between birth and death that plague us all. Here is how the Tripartite Tractate of the Nag Hammadi scriptures describes this process: “As for those of the shadow, Logos separated himself from them in every way, since they fight against him and are not at all humble before him. The stumbling which happened to the Aeons of the Father was brought to them as if it were their own, in a careful and non-malicious and immensely sweet way. It was brought to the Fullnesses so that they might be instructed about the Deficiency by the single One, from whom alone they all received strength to eliminate the defects. They gathered together, asking the Father, with beneficent intent, that there be aid from above from the Father for his glory, since the defective one could not become perfect in any other way unless it was the will of the Pleroma of the Father, which he had drawn to himself, revealed, and given to the defective one. Then, from the harmony, in a joyous willingness which had come into being, they brought forth the fruit which was a begetting from the harmony, a unity, a possession of the Fullnesses, revealing the countenance of the Father of whom the Aeons thought as they gave glory and prayed for help for their brother with a wish in which the Father counted himself with them. Thus it was willingly and gladly that they brought forth the fruit. And he made manifest the agreement of the revelation of his union with them, which was his beloved Son, but the Son in whom the Fullnesses are pleased to put himself on them as a garment through which he gave perfection to the defective one and gave confirmation to those who are perfect, the One who is properly called Savior and the Redeemer and the Well-pleasing One, and the Beloved, the One to whom prayers have been offered, and the Christ and the light of those appointed in accordance with the ones from whom he was brought forth, since he has become the names of the positions which were given to him. Yet what other name may be applied to him except the Son, as we have previously said, since he is the knowledge of the Father whom he wanted them to know? Not only did the Aeons generate the countenance of the Father to whom they gave praise, but also they generated their own, for the Aeons who give glory, generated their countenance and their face. They came forth in a multifaceted form in order that the one to whom help was to be given might see those to whom he had prayed for help. He also sees the One who gave it to him.” (That is from the Tripartite Tractate sections 85 through 87.) So you see, the mission of the Christ, as stated in Colossians, was to redeem all of creation, including the fallen Aeon who had founded our material universe. Because the Christ came to redeem everyone, the body of Jesus came to Earth with every one of the Fullnesses on board. For every fallen spirit, the Christ brought forth their own personal and recognizable Savior. Redemption has already taken place. It is up to the Second Order Powers and the one who fell to recognize and accept that redemption in order to complete the mission of the Christ. In Simple Explanation terms, the Christ brought the correcting formula for all of our spirits and souls, each unique and personally formulated to meet our individual needs. The baptism of the Christ washes away the mental and spiritual confusion brought on by the endless war with shadows of the Fall. Gnostics are apocalyptic, as are Christians. Gnostics believe that some day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus, the Christ, is Lord. Repentance and redemption comes harder for some than for others. Some souls take more time to recognize and remember. Ultimately, though, there comes a day of reckoning, for the Father will not be denied forever. There will soon come a day when the Deficiency ends. On that day, a new economy will unite Heaven and Earth, and all souls will find their joyful place in Paradise. The only forms banished to the outer darkness will be the shadows and phantoms of the Fall, which did not exist within the Father's consciousness from the beginning. These shadows are not real and they will have no home with us in Paradise. The hierarchy of the Fullness of God dreams of Paradise. Logos crowns the hierarchy and contains fractals of all the other Aeons. Now here's a gnostic perspective of Jesus on the cross. One of the central themes of the Christian faith is the death of Jesus on the cross. Christians the world over focus on the body of Jesus hanging on the cross, and I've often wondered, why this fixation of Jesus on the cross? Why is the crucifix the focal point of every church and altar? Why do people wear the cross as jewelry or hang a crucifix in their bedroom? The obvious answer Christians give is that without the cross, Jesus could not have saved humanity from sin, for he bore our sins into the grave with his death and they were washed away with his resurrection from the dead. Praise be to God, but why the cross? If Jesus had been stoned to death or drowned or beaten or thrown from a high tower, would we still feel such affinity for the stone, a lake, a club or a roof? I don't think so. I think there is something very special about the shape of the cross itself. I ask this question because Jesus never said, I'm soon to pass on from this world, and I want you to focus on my body hanging on the cross as I take on the sins of the world. And yet, that's what people do, as if that were the entire point of the Gospel. As far as I can tell, Jesus did not ask for his death and resurrection to be the focal point of worship. What Jesus actually said was: “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and, “Whoever welcomes me welcomes the Father that sent me” (Luke 9:48). In other words, Jesus acknowledged himself in reference to his Father and he deflected glory to his Father. Yet Jesus is worshipped by modern Christians to the extent that the Father almost goes unmentioned. Thank goodness for the Lord's prayer, which is directed to the Father and not to the Son. Jesus taught it to be said to the Father; he did not teach it to be recited to himself. No slight to the Son, of course, we're merely emphasizing the importance of the God Above All Gods. During the last supper, Jesus instructed his followers to think of his broken body as they break and eat bread and to consider his blood as the fulfillment of a contract with humanity as they drink wine. This is what Jesus left the church as instruction regarding his death. He did not instruct them to erect images of crosses and to worship him hanging on a cross, as if he were stuck up there forever. Yes, Protestants have allowed Jesus to come down off the cross and therefore their crosses are unoccupied to remind us that Jesus resurrected, but still the focus is on the cross. Again—why the cross in particular? Here is the symbolism of the cross as I understand it. We who dwell on Earth are engaged in endless warfare with the Imitation that always seeks to lure us away from our Father in Heaven. Oftentimes we don't even realize we're engaged in warfare with the Imitation, because it can appear disguised as goodness. This is what is meant by the Devil being a liar. Things are proposed “for our own good,” but they're not; they're proposed for power and control. We Second Order of Powers are engaged in this endless warfare and, although we come from a good disposition of the Father and the Fullness, we have forgotten our heavenly nature and become deluded because of rage and other passions and addictions. The Christ came to Earth in the form of a Son of Man to bring the Third Order of Powers to Earth as the solution to overcoming the phantoms of the Imitation that have mired the Second Order Powers in error and ignorance. Those who have eyes to see the Christ are able to remember their Father in Heaven. Those who remember their Father in Heaven and repent from the Imitation are redeemed. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the promise to redeem the fallen. Jesus as the Son of God and the Son of Man brought salvation to the Deficiency and restored it to the Kingdom of Heaven. The reason the cross looks as it does and occupies such a central role in worship is that the cross represents human beings. The Cross is shaped like a human, a Son of Man. It is no accident that Jesus was crucified on a cross because Jesus is a Son of Man, the Son of Man. The Cross should remind us that humankind has been redeemed by the body and blood of Christ in an even more profound way than acknowledging the indignity and suffering of Christ on the cross. It should remind us that the Son of God—the Christ—bridged with the form of his human body spirit-to-matter, which is top-to-bottom, and neighbor-to-neighbor, which is side-to-side, just as the shape of the cross. In the Gnostic Gospel, redemption comes to all of creation through the incarnation of the Son of God into the body of the Son of Man. The manner of the Savior's birth, death, and resurrection will come to every soul as they realize their Father is in Heaven and to Heaven they will return. For, as it says, “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” That affirmation comes from the New Testament (Philippians 2:10). It just takes time. We aren't there yet because of the common delusion of presumptuous thought, which causes people to behave selfishly. Ego must first make way for the love of Christ to take over the throne of the Self. Only then may you rise above the egoic imitation, for then you will have a champion and a king. The very public way that Jesus was crucified and the very public way that he resurrected gives us all hope of the same: Jesus demonstrates proof of resurrection and his life, death, and resurrection is about all of us, not only about the Christ. Jesus is the exemplar of our resurrection. And, by the way, in a Gnostic sense, which could be considered heretical by many Christians, the story of Jesus and the Christ and the Father don't even have to be believed as historical fact, which many nay-sayers make the cornerstone of their argument against Christ and God. The very concepts themselves—the very thoughts, the mind—is what carries this. We are consciousness and this Christ story is in our consciousness for our salvation. Think on that… I acknowledge that this is a very different version of Christianity than has been traditionally presented to us. This is gnosis that was originally contained in the sacred scriptures that formed the New Testament prior to the Pope and Emperor of Rome getting their hands on it and stripping it out. It's nice to know. I hope you get it. It doesn't really matter, because all you need to know is that we come from the Father and to the Father we will return. That is the bottom line. We are emanations directly of the Father and the Father has promised to save us all and bring us all home. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.” This has been taken to mean that one must acknowledge the power of the Christ before the Christ can redeem you. But, you see, this would put all of the power of redemption in your hands rather than Christ's. The Christ will redeem all Second Order Powers by the end of time, with or without your prior acknowledgment. All redemption comes to the Father through the Christ, and that is in Christ's hands. What accepting the Christ now does for you is open the door for the Third Order Powers to enter your egoic soul. This power makes it possible to live a joyous and virtuous life. It allows the love of the Father to flow through you and out into the world. And it eases your transition after the physical death of your body, so you may enter the afterlife without fear, knowing that you rest in the Pleroma of the Christ. The Final Economy is our foretaste of Paradise. No more shadows, no more sorrow. I hope that this information is helpful to you and will help you remember your gnosis. Merry Christmas. God bless us all. And onward and upward. If you are getting any gnosis from this information, please consider supporting Gnostic Insights with a generous donation. It helps keep me motivated. I’m a one-person enterprise with full responsibility for every aspect of this podcast, from writing to recording to editing to artwork to paying for the hosting services that bring this gnosis to you. I could really use some more support! Please do what you can. Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.Name *FirstLastEmail *Stripe Credit Card *Choose your item *Item A - $10.00Item B - $25.00Item C - $50.00Total$0.00Submit

John Granger Attempts to Convince Nick (and You!) That The Hallmarked Man will be Considered the Best of the Series.We review our take-away impressions from our initial reading of The Hallmarked Man. Although we enjoyed it, especially John's incredible prediction of Robin's ectopic pregnancy, neither of us came away thinking this was the finest book in the series. For Nick, this was a surprise, as enthusiastic J. K. Rowling fan that he is other than Career of Evil every book he has read has been his favourite. Using an innovative analysis of the character pairs surrounding both Cormoran and Robin, John argues that we can't really appreciate the artistry of book number eight until we consider its place in the series. Join John and Nick as they review the mysteries that remain to be resolved and how The Hallmarked Man sets readers up for shocking reveals in Strike 9 and 10!Why Troubled Blood is the Best Strike Novel:* The Pillar Post Collection of Troubled Blood Posts at HogwartsProfessor by John Granger, Elizabeth Baird-Hardy, Louise Freeman, Beatrice Groves, and Nick JefferyTroubled Blood and Faerie Queene: The Kanreki ConversationBut What If We Judge Strike Novels by a Different Standard than Shed Artifice? What About Setting Up the ‘Biggest Twist' in Detective Fiction History?* If Rowling is to be judged by the ‘shock' of the reveals in Strike 10, then The Hallmarked Man, the most disappointing book in the series even to many Serious Strikers, will almost certainly be remembered as the book that set up the finale with the greatest technical misdirection while playing fair.* The ending must be a shock, one that readers do not see coming, BUT* The author must provide the necessary clues and pointers repeatedly and emphatically lest the reader feel cheated at the point of revelation.* If the Big Mysteries of the series are to be solved with the necessary shock per both Russian Formalist and Perennialist understanding, then the answers to be revealed in the final two Strike novels, Books Two and Three of the finale trilogy, should be embedded in The Hallmarked Man.* Rowling on Playing Fair with Readers:The writer says that she wanted to extend the shelf of detective fiction without breaking it. “Part of the appeal and fascination of the genre is that it has clear rules. I'm intrigued by those rules and I like playing with them. Your detective should always lay out the information fairly for the reader, but he will always be ahead of the game. In terms of creating a character, I think Cormoran Strike conforms to certain universal rules but he is very much of this time.* On the Virtue of ‘Penetration' in Austen, Dickens, and Rowling* Rowling on the Big Twist' in Austen's Emma:“I have never set up a surprise ending in a Harry Potter book without knowing I can never, and will never, do it anywhere near as well as Austen did in Emma.”What are the Key Mysteries of the Strike series?Nancarrow FamilyWhy did Leda and Ted leave home in Cornwall as they did?Why did Ted and Joan not “save” Strike and Lucy?Was Leda murdered or did she commit suicide?If she was murdered, who dunit?If she commited suicide, why did she do it?What happened to Switch Whittaker?Cormoran StrikeIs Jonny Rokeby his biological father?What SIB case was he investigating when he was blown up?Was he the father of Charlotte's lost baby? If not, then who was?Why has he been so unstable in his relations with women post Charlotte Campbell?Charlotte CampbellWhy did her mother hate her so much?What was her relationship with her three step-fathers? Especially Dino LongcasterWho was the father of her lost child?Was the child intentionally aborted or was it a miscarriage?What was written in her “suicide note”?Was Charlotte murdered or did she commit suicide?If she was murdered, who done it?If she committed suicide, why did she do it?What happened to the billionaire lover?What clues do we get in Hallmarked Man that would answer these questions?- Strike 8 - Greatest Hits of Strikes 1-7: compilation, concentration of perumbration in series as whole* Decima/Lion - incest* Rupert's biological father not his father of record (Dino)* Sacha Legard a liar with secrets* Ryan Murphy working a plan off-stage - Charlotte's long gameStrike about ‘Pairings' in Lethal WhiteStrike continued to pore over the list of names as though he might suddenly see something emerging out of his dense, spiky handwriting, the way unfocused eyes may spot the 3D image hidden in a series of brightly colored dots. All that occurred to him, however, was the fact that there was an unusual number of pairs connected to Chiswell's death: couples—Geraint and Della, Jimmy and Flick; pairs of full siblings—Izzy and Fizzy, Jimmy and Billy; the duo of blackmailing collaborators—Jimmy and Geraint; and the subsets of each blackmailer and his deputy—Flick and Aamir. There was even the quasi-parental pairing of Della and Aamir. This left two people who formed a pair in being isolated within the otherwise close-knit family: the widowed Kinvara and Raphael, the unsatisfactory, outsider son.Strike tapped his pen unconsciously against the notebook, thinking. Pairs. The whole business had begun with a pair of crimes: Chiswell's blackmail and Billy's allegation of infanticide. He had been trying to find the connection between them from the start, unable to believe that they could be entirely separate cases, even if on the face of it their only link was in the blood tie between the Knight brothers.Part Two, Chapter 52Key Relationship Pairings in Cormoran Strike:Who Killed Leda Strike?To Rowling-Galbraith's credit, credible arguments in dedicated posts have been made that every person in the list below was the one who murdered Leda Strike. Who do you think did it?* Jonny Rokeby and the Harringay Crime Syndicate (Heroin Dark Lord 2.0),* Ted Nancarrow (Uncle Ted Did It),* Dave Polworth,* Leda Strike (!),* Lucy Fantoni (Lucy and Joan Did It and here),* Sir Randolph Whittaker,* Nick Herbert,* Peter Gillespie, and* Charlotte Campbell-RossScripted Ten Questions:1. So, Nick, back when we first read Hallmarked Man we said that there were four things we knew for sure would be said about Strike 8 in the future. Do you remember what they were?2. And, John, you've been thinking about the ‘Set-Up' idea and how future Rowling Readers will think of Hallmarked Man, even that they will think of it as the best Strike novel. I thought that was Troubled Blood by consensus. What's made you change your mind?3. So, Nick, yes, Troubled Blood I suspect will be ranked as the best of series, even best book written by Rowling ever, but, if looked at as the book that served the most critical place in setting up the finale, I think Hallmarked Man has to be considered better in that crucial way than Strike 5, better than any Strike novel. Can you think of another Strike mystery that reviews specific plot points and raises new aspects of characters and relationships the way Strike 8 does?4. Are you giving Hallmarked Man a specific function with respect to the last three books than any of the others? If so, John, what is that exactly and what evidence do we have that in Rowling's comments about reader-writer obligations and writer ambitions?5. Nick, I think Hallmarked Man sets us up to answer the Key mysteries that remain, that the first seven books left for the final three to answer. I'm going to organize those unresolved questions into three groups and challenge you to think of the ones I'm missing, especially if I'm missing a category.6. If I understand the intention of your listing these remaining questions, John, your saying that the restatement of specific plot points and characters from the first seven Strike novels in Hallmarked Man points to the possible, even probable answers to those questions. What specifically are the hallmarks in this respect of Hallmarked Man?7. If you take those four points, Nick, and revisit the mysteries lists in three categories, do you see how Rowling hits a fairness point with respect to clueing readers into what will no doubt be shocking answers to them if they're not looking for the set-ups?8. That's fun, Nick, but there's another way at reaching the same conclusions, namely, charting the key relationships of Strike and Ellacott to the key family, friends, and foes in their lives and how they run in pairs or parallel couplets (cue PPoint slides).9. Can we review incest and violence against or trafficking of young women in the Strike series? Are those the underpinning of the majority of the mysteries that remain in the books?10. Many Serious Strikers and Gonzo Galbraithians hated Striuke 8 because Hallmarked Man failed to meet expectations. In conclusion, do you think, Nick, that this argument that the most recent Strike-Ellacott adventure is the best because of how it sets us up for the wild finish to come will be persuasive -- or just annoying?On Imagination as Transpersonal Faculty and Non-Liturgical Sacred ArtThe Neo-Iconoclasm of Film (and Other Screened Adaptations): Justin requested within his question for an expansion of my allusion to story adaptations into screened media as a “neo-iconoclasm.” I can do that here briefly in two parts. First, by urging you to read my review of the first Hunger Games movie adaptation, ‘Gamesmakers Hijack Story: Capitol Wins Again,' in which I discussed at post's end how ‘Watching Movies is a a Near Sure Means to Being Hijacked by Movie Makers.' In that, I explain via an excerpt from Jerry Mander's Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, the soul corrosive effects of screened images.Second, here is a brief introduction to the substance of the book I am working on.Rowling is a woman of profound contradictions. On the one hand, like all of us she is the walking incarnation of her Freudian family romance per Paglia, the ideas and blindspots of the age in which we live, with the peculiar individual prejudices and preferences and politics of her upbringing, education, and life experiences, especially the experiences we can call crises and consequent core beliefs, aversions, and desires. Rowling acknowledges all this, and, due to her CBT exercises and one assumes further talking therapy, she is more conscious of the elephant she is riding and pretending to steer than most of her readers.She points to this both in asides she make in her tweets and public comments but also in her descriptive metaphor of how she writes. The ‘Lake' of that metaphor, the alocal place within her from her story ideas and inspiration spring, is her “muse,” the word for superconscious rather than subconscious ideas that she used in her 2007 de la Cruz interview. She consciously recognizes that, despite her deliberate reflection on her PTSD, daddy drama, and idiosyncratic likes and dislikes, she still has unresolved issues that her non-conscious mind presents to her as story conflict for imaginative resolution.Her Lake is her persona well, the depths of her individual identity and a mask she wears.The Shed, in contrast, is the metaphorical place where Rowling takes the “stuff” given her by the creature in her Lake, the blobs of molten glass inspiration, to work it into proper story. The tools in this Shed are unusual, to say the least, and are the great markers of what makes Rowling unique among contemporary writers and a departure from, close to a contradiction of the artist you would expect to be born of her life experiences, formative crises, and education.Out of a cauldron potion made from listening to the Smiths, Siouxie and the Banshees, and The Clash, reading and loving Val McDermid, Roddy Doyle, and Jessica Mitford, and surviving a lower middle class upbringing with an emotionally barren homelife and Comprehensive education on the England-Wales border, you'd expect a Voldemort figure at Goblet of Fire's climax to rise rather than a writer who weaves archetypally rich myths of the soul's journey to perfection in the spirit with alchemical coloring and sequences, ornate chiastic structures, and a bevy of symbols visible only to the eye of the Heart.To understand Rowling, as she all but says in her Lake and Shed metaphor, one has to know her life story and experiences to “get” from where her inspiration bubbles up and, as important, you need a strong grasp of the traditionalist worldview and place of literature in it to appreciate the power of the tools she uses, especially how she uses them in combination.The biggest part of that is understanding the Perennialist definition of “Sacred Art.” I touched on this in a post about Rowling's beloved Christmas story, ‘Dante, Sacred Art, and The Christmas Pig.'Rowling has been publicly modest about the aims of her work, allowing that it would be nice to think that readers will be more empathetic after reading her imaginative fiction. Dante was anything but modest or secretive in sharing his self-understanding in the letter he wrote to Cangrande about The Divine Comedy: “The purpose of the whole work is to remove those living in this life from the state of wretchedness and to lead them to the state of blessedness.” His aim, point blank, was to create a work of sacred art, a category of writing and experience that largely exists outside our understanding as profane postmoderns, but, given Rowling's esoteric artistry and clear debts to Dante, deserves serious consideration as what she is writing as well.Sacred art, in brief, is representational work — painting, statuary, liturgical vessels and instruments, and the folk art of theocentric cultures in which even cutlery and furniture are means to reflection and transcendence of the world — that employ revealed forms and symbols to bring the noetic faculty or heart into contact with the supra-sensible realities each depicts. It is not synonymous with religious art; most of the art today that has a religious subject is naturalist and sentimental rather than noetic and iconographic, which is to say, contemporary artists imitate the creation of God as perceived by human senses rather than the operation of God in creation or, worse, create abstractions of their own internally or infernally generated ideas.Story as sacred art, in black to white contrast, is edifying literature and drama in which the soul's journey to spiritual perfection is portrayed for the reader or the audience's participation within for transformation from wretchedness to blessedness, as Dante said. As with the plastic arts, these stories employ traditional symbols of the revealed traditions in conformity with their understanding of cosmology, soteriology, and spiritual anthropology. The myths and folklore of the world's various traditions, ancient Greek drama, the epic poetry of Greece, Rome, and Medieval Europe, the parables of Christ, the plays of Shakespeare's later period, and the English high fantasy tradition from Coleridge to the Inklings speak this same symbolic language and relay the psychomachia experience of the human victory over death.Dante is a sacred artist of this type. As difficult as it may be to understand Rowling as a writer akin to Dante, Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus, Spenser, Lewis, and Tolkien, her deployment of traditional symbolism and the success she enjoys almost uniquely in engaging and edifying readers of all ages, beliefs, and circumstances suggests this is the best way of understanding her work. Christmas Pig is the most obviously sacred art piece that Rowling has created to date. It is the marriage of Dantean depths and the Estecean lightness of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, about which more later.[For an introduction to reading poems, plays, and stories as sacred art, that is, allegorical depictions of the soul's journey to spiritual perfection that are rich in traditional symbolism, Ray Livingston's The Traditional Theory of Literature is the only book length text in print. Kenneth Oldmeadow's ‘Symbolism and Sacred Art' in his Traditionalism: Religion in the light of the Perennial Philosophy(102-113), ‘Traditional Art' in The Essential Seyyed Hossein Nasr(203-214), and ‘The Christian and Oriental, or True Philosophy of Art' in The Essential Ananda K. Coomaraswamy(123-152) explain in depth the distinctions between sacred and religious, natural, and humanist art. Martin Lings' The Sacred Art of Shakespeare: To Take Upon Us the Mystery of Things and Jennifer Doane Upton's two books on The Divine Comedy, Dark Way to Paradise and The Ordeal of Mercy are the best examples I know of reading specific works of literature as sacred art rather than as ‘stories with symbolic meaning' read through a profane and analytic lens.]‘Profane Art' from this view is “art for art's sake,” an expression of individual genius and subjective meaning that is more or less powerful. The Perennialist concern with art is less about gauging an artist's success in expressing his or her perception or its audience's response than with its conformity to traditional rules and its utility, both in the sense of practical everyday use and in being a means by which to be more human. Insofar as a work of art is good with respect to this conformity and edifying utility, it is “sacred art;” so much as it fails, it is “profane.” The best of modern art, even that with religious subject matter or superficially beautiful and in that respect edifying, is from this view necessarily profane.Sacred art differs from modern and postmodern conceptions of art most specifically, though, in what it is representing. Sacred art is not representing the natural world as the senses perceive it or abstractions of what the individual and subjective mind “sees,” but is an imitation of the Divine art of creation. The artist “therefore imitates nature not in its external forms but in its manner of operation as asserted so categorically by St. Thomas Aquinas [who] insists that the artist must not imitate nature but must be accomplished in ‘imitating nature in her manner of operation'” (Nasr 2007, 206, cf. “Art is the imitation of Nature in her manner of operation: Art is the principle of manufacture” (Summa Theologia Q. 117, a. I). Schuon described naturalist art which imitates God's creation in nature by faithful depiction of it, consequently, as “clearly luciferian.” “Man must imitate the creative act, not the thing created,” Aquinas' “manner of operation” rather than God's operation manifested in created things in order to produce ‘creations'which are not would-be duplications of those of God, but rather a reflection of them according to a real analogy, revealing the transcendental aspect of things; and this revelation is the only sufficient reason of art, apart from any practical uses such and such objects may serve. There is here a metaphysical inversion of relation [the inverse analogy connecting the principial and manifested orders in consequence of which the highest realities are manifested in their remotest reflections[1]]: for God, His creature is a reflection or an ‘exteriorized' aspect of Himself; for the artist, on the contrary, the work is a reflection of an inner reality of which he himself is only an outward aspect; God creates His own image, while man, so to speak, fashions his own essence, at least symbolically. On the principial plane, the inner manifests the outer, but on the manifested plane, the outer fashions the inner (Schuon 1953, 81, 96).The traditional artist, then, in imitation of God's “exteriorizing” His interior Logos in the manifested space-time plane, that is, nature, instead of depicting imitations of nature in his craft, submits to creating within the revealed forms of his craft, which forms qua intellections correspond to his inner essence or logos.[2] The work produced in imitation of God's “manner of operation” then resembles the symbolic or iconographic quality of everything existent in being a transparency whose allegorical and anagogical content within its traditional forms is relatively easy to access and a consequent support and edifying shock-reminder to man on his spiritual journey. The spiritual function of art is that “it exteriorizes truths and beauties in view of our interiorization… or simply, so that the human soul might, through given phenomena, make contact with the heavenly archetypes, and thereby with its own archetype” (Schuon 1995a, 45-46).Rowling in her novels, crafted with tools all taken from the chest of a traditional Sacred Artist, is writing non-liturgical Sacred Art. Films and all the story experiences derived of adaptations of imaginative literature to screened images, are by necessity Profane Art, which is to say per the meaning of “profane,” outside the temple or not edifying spiritually. Film making is the depiction of how human beings encounter the time-space world through the senses, not an imitation of how God creates and a depiction of the spiritual aspect of the world, a liminal point of entry to its spiritual dimension. Whence my describing it as a “neo-iconoclasm.”The original iconoclasts or “icon bashers” were believers who treasured sacred art but did not believe it could use images of what is divine without necessarily being blasphemous; after the incarnation of God as Man, this was no longer true, but traditional Christian iconography is anything but naturalistic. It could not be without becoming subjective and profane rather than being a means to spiritual growth and encounters. Western religious art from the Renaissance and Reformation forward, however, embraces profane imitation of the sense perceived world, which is to say naturalistic and as such the antithesis of sacred art. Film making, on religious and non-religious subjects, is the apogee of this profane art which is a denial of any and all of the parameters of Sacred art per Aquinas, traditional civilizations, and the Perennialists.It is a neo-iconoclasm and a much more pervasive and successful destruction of the traditional world-view, so much so that to even point out the profanity inherent to film making is to insure dismissal as some kind of “fundamentalist,” “Puritan,” or “religious fanatic.”Screened images, then, are a type of iconoclasm, albeit the inverse and much more subtle kind than the relatively traditional and theocentric denial of sacred images (the iconoclasm still prevalent in certain Reform Church cults, Judaism, and Islam). This neo-iconoclasm of moving pictures depicts everything in realistic, life-like images, everything, that is, except the sacred which cannot be depicted as we see and experience things. This exclusion of the sacred turns upside down the anti-naturalistic depictions of sacred persons and events in iconography and sacred art. The effect of this flood of natural pictures akin to what we see with our eyes is to compel the flooded mind to accept time and space created nature as the ‘most real,' even ‘the only real.' The sacred, by never being depicted in conformity with accepted supernatural forms, is effectively denied.Few of us spend much time in live drama theaters today. Everyone watches screened images on cineplex screens, home computers, and smart phones. And we are all, consequently, iconoclasts and de facto agnostics, I'm afraid, to greater and lesser degrees because of this immersion and repetitive learning from the predominant art of our secular culture and its implicit atheism.Contrast that with the imaginative experience of a novel that is not pornographic or primarily a vehicle of perversion and violence. We are obliged to generate images of the story in the transpersonal faculty within each of us called the imagination, one I think that is very much akin to conscience or the biblical ‘heart.' This is in essence an edifying exercise, unlike viewing photographic images on screens. That the novel appears at the dawn of the Modern Age and the beginning of the end of Western corporate spirituality, I think is no accident but a providential advent. Moving pictures, the de facto regime artistry of the materialist civilization in which we live, are the counter-blow to the novel's spiritual oxygen.That's the best I can manage tonight to offer something to Justin in response to more about the “neo-iconoclasm” of film This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaCxpODL45A In this episode of Logos & Markets, Professor Drew Blazsik interviews Dr. E. Michael Jones on his landmark book Baron Metal: A History of Capitalism as the Conflict Between Labor and Usury. We discuss the true nature of capitalism, why Jones defines it as state-sponsored usury, and how modern debt-based economics has hollowed out the American middle class. From the 1973 wage stagnation, abortion and population decline, to the explosion of consumer debt, Jones explains the mechanisms that transferred wealth upward over the last 50 years. We also talk about the moral dimension of personal finance for Catholics: • When is debt sinful? • How should Catholics prepare financially? • Why car loans are “the worst form of debt” • What it means to “invest in labor” rather than fall into usury ——— Dr. Jones Books: fidelitypress.org/ Subscribe to Culture Wars Magazine: culturewars.com Donate: culturewars.com/donate Follow: https://culturewars.com/links CW Magazine: culturewars.com NOW AVAILABLE!: Walking with a Bible and a Gun: The Rise, Fall and Return of American Identity: https://www.fidelitypress.org/book-products/walking-with-a-bible-and-a-gun

¿Qué queda de la filosofía griega cuando entra en contacto con la fe cristiana? ¿Cómo se transforman conceptos como el Logos o virtudes como la Justicia, la Piedad, o la Templanza al pasar de Atenas a Jerusalén? En este nuevo capítulo de El Libro Rojo, grabado en directo en la Universitat de València, nos acompaña Ángel Narro, profesor de Filología Griega, quien nos da una lección sobre la resignificación del pensamiento helénico en los orígenes del cristianismo. Un viaje por las palabras que unieron la razón y la revelación, la luz de Platón y el verbo del Evangelio.

In this stream I am joined by my friend and author Bazed Lit Analyzer to breakdown the Christmas films White Christmas, Jingle All the Way, Bad Santa, and the Grinch. Are these wholesome Christmas films or are Christmas movies getting worse? Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think. God Bless

Logos everywhere

Ever feel like your soul needs a reset button? In this powerful episode, Lisa shares her raw journey from battling an eating disorder to discovering the freedom that comes through biblical fasting. With honest stories and practical wisdom, she shows how fasting creates space for God to break cycles, silence distractions, and bring real breakthroughs. If you're longing for deeper intimacy with God or freedom from what's weighing you down, this message is for you!___________________________________________FREE Show Notes Here: https://page.church.tech/b4192593___________________________________________Click here to get Lisa's free eBook, “Fast Forward”: https://lisabevere.com/fast-forward-ebook-signup/___________________________________________Join the Brave Book Club–use code "BEVERE" and get 20% off at checkout: bravebooks.com/bevere___________________________________________Click here to start your free extended trial with LOGOS today: Logos.com/Bevere___________________________________________Our generous listeners who faithfully support this content monthly make the Lisa Bevere Podcast possible. Support this podcast here (tax-deductible): https://3szn.short.gy/FFF___________________________________________Social Handles and Websites:Instagram: @lisabevereFacebook: /LisaBevere.PageTwitter (X): @LisaBeverehttps://lisabevere.com/

"This is our second Christmas show of 2025. We are giving more trivia and history for many of your favorite songs. It is quite a list."

"NOTE. This show is being posted a week early due to our Holiday travel. Enjoy two shows this week. This is our traditional end-of-year show were we give one last tip of the hat to the musicians who passed in 2025. "

We are working through a book of systematic theology called "Daily Doctrine" by Kevin DeYoung (Crossway). We hope that you will join us and engage with the book as we seek to learn more about the God of heaven, and what the knowledge of him means for his pilgrim people upon earth. The whole video series can be found here: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLydzd6kZnPWdDUP1Dj9CIV_hSp42WEeMb&si=ACvRi4lPPuAH1jqx If you are in the UK you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3ZX4ICu or https://www.icmbooks.co.uk/product/38356/Daily-Doctrine-A-One-Year-Guide-to-Systematic-Theology or https://uk.10ofthose.com/product/9781433572852/daily-doctrine-hardback. If you are in the US you can get the book here: https://amzn.to/3VSrTNq or https://www.heritagebooks.org/products/daily-doctrine-deyoung.html. Direct from Crossway: https://www.crossway.org/books/daily-doctrine-hcj/ Logos users: https://www.logos.com/product/299143/daily-doctrine-a-one-year-guide-to-systematic-theology

Original Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_qSMInuaUs What happens when a culture starts bending truth to fit its desires? We follow that question across surprising terrain—Freud's hidden motives, Wagner's spell over European imagination, Bauhaus boxes that flatten the human spirit, and the concrete politics of highways and housing projects that shattered parish life. Along the way, we challenge the idea that ideas are neutral. People make theories, and those people have desires, wounds, and wagers hidden in their work. We dig into how music can catechize a nation, how architecture preaches a theology, and how postwar social engineering rebranded thick ethnic worlds into a thin “white” identity. The conversation pulls no punches on race as an ideology of management, not heritage, and on why religious belonging often explains American life better than color lines. From the “triple melting pot” to the claims of universal design, we map the choices that made cities brittle and suburbs bland—and why families paid the price. Then we pivot to power, vice, and freedom. Sexual liberation sells itself as emancipation while functioning as a lever of control, especially in a world wired for instant indulgence. The counterweight is old and bracing: you are only as free as you are free from your vices. Finally, we climb to the keystone: Logos. John's audacious claim—Logos is God—offers a language sturdy enough to speak across civilizations. If America moves into a fourth era as Protestant hegemony recedes and new blocs rise, the live question is simple and seismic: will appetite or Logos set the terms? Hear the case, question the links, and decide which story you're living. If this conversation stretches your thinking, share it with a friend, hit follow, and leave a review telling us what challenged you most. https://www.fidelitypress.org/book-products/walking-with-a-bible-and-a-gun Dr. Jones Books: fidelitypress.org/ Subscribe to Culture Wars Magazine: culturewars.com Donate: culturewars.com/donate Follow: https://culturewars.com/links CW Magazine: culturewars.com

To learn directly from Ethan Hsieh, John Vervaeke and Taylor Barratt, The Lectern is partnering with 5ToMidnight to offer a long form hybrid (online/in-person) practice program called TIAMAT-X. This program brings a full ecology of practices, endorsed by The Vervaeke Foundation to help you develop the capacity to… perceive what matters regulate in real time and act with clarity  …through a cohesive method that weaves together mindful dialogue, embodiment, imaginal practice, and disciplined mindfulness.  Learn more about the program here:  https://www.5tomidnight.org/offerings/tiamat-x  https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com/courses/tiamat-x   In part three of the Lectern Dialogues series, John Vervaeke and Ethan Hsieh explore how virtue can be cultivated as a lived, embodied practice through an immersive ecology of education. The focus is on layered accounts of virtue — civic, purification, and illumination — and the role of ritual, altered states, and phenomenology in shaping meaning and sacredness. The conversation also addresses the risks of deification, authenticity loss, and cult dynamics, inviting a participatory, relational understanding of education oriented toward wisdom and agency. Ethan Hsieh Ethan Hsieh is a facilitator, educator, and philosophical practitioner whose work bridges performance, cognition, and transformative pedagogy. As the creator of TIAMAT—a three-tiered developmental framework—he integrates insights from performance practice, cognitive science, and dialogical philosophy to help individuals cultivate virtuosity as a way of life. Through immersive training containers and collaborative inquiry, he guides participants in mapping their inner experience, expanding their relational capacities, and enacting what he calls "postures of presence." Ethan's approach emphasizes participatory learning, metacognitive mapping, and the cultivation of agency through shared practice. His work with the collective 5toMidnight seeks to foster deliberately developmental communities grounded in relational ontology, where philosophical understanding becomes lived transformation. — 00:00 Welcome to the Lectern 02:00 Exploring virtue and sacredness 04:00 Layers of virtue and practice 06:00 Rituals and altered states of consciousness 10:30 Phenomenology and the sacred 18:00 Transformative insight and lived experience 30:30 Being-in-the-world and interconnectedness 38:00 Framework rejection and deification concerns 40:30 Ego, deification, and demonization 41:00 Virtue and the ego's filtration function 44:00 Addressing cult dynamics 46:00 Identifying healthy traditions and practices 51:30 Realness, resonance, and authenticity 55:00 Logos and the Good 01:06:00 The value of embodied experience — Follow John Vervaeke https://lectern.johnvervaeke.com https://x.com/DrJohnVervaeke https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke https://www.patreon.com/johnvervaeke — Thank you for watching!

A major thank you to David for sponsoring today's stream. In this stream I dive into the history, legends, and symbolism of Dragons and fire. Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think. God Bless

Join the MENS ONLY Logos Academy as we read through one of the more important Orthodox works for the people of our current time starting on Wednesday December 17th at 7:00pm EST. The Orthodox Survival course by Fr. Seraphim Rose is an intellectual journey demonstrating where the West went wrong and how we arrived in the world we no live in today. Sign up today! https://www.skool.com/logosacademy Thumbnail and Clips: iPak Arts: https://linktr.ee/ipak_arts

Christmas isn't just a holiday—it's unstoppable. In this thought-provoking message, Pastor Ben Young takes us from Plato's Cave to John 1 to show why the birth of Jesus changes everything. The eternal Logos—the rational, personal God—stepped into our world to bring light into our darkness. No matter what tries to cancel it, the truth of Christmas keeps shining.

This video is a clip of my stream "St. Nicholas: The Untold Story Behind Santa Claus." If you would like to watch the entire stream please click the following link. https://youtube.com/live/RwWR07PXzSU Thumbnail and Clips: iPak Arts: https://linktr.ee/ipak_arts

In the Third Sunday of Advent, we turn to the image of Wisdom, the Word or Logos made flesh and dwelling with us. Perhaps the most abstract of the Advent accounts, John's Gospel is also profoundly beautiful. Read John 1:1-18 and thanks for listening! 

Luke 2:1-17; John 1:1-18 // Brooks NesseLuke presents the humble birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, focusing on the historical event, the census, the manger, and the joyful announcement to the shepherds. John's opening reveals the cosmic identity of Christ as the Word of God—who was with God, was God, and became flesh. This sermon beautifully connects the majesty of the eternal Son with the simplicity of the child in the manger, showing that the Creator entered His own creation as our Savior and Light. Essential for understanding the profound reality of Christmas.SERMON NOTES (YouVersion): https://bible.com/events/PRAYER REQUESTS: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2542/responses/new25.12.14

Luke 2:1-17; John 1:1-18 // Ben BeasleyLuke presents the humble birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, focusing on the historical event, the census, the manger, and the joyful announcement to the shepherds. John's opening reveals the cosmic identity of Christ as the Word of God—who was with God, was God, and became flesh. This sermon beautifully connects the majesty of the eternal Son with the simplicity of the child in the manger, showing that the Creator entered His own creation as our Savior and Light. Essential for understanding the profound reality of Christmas.SERMON NOTES (YouVersion): https://bible.com/events/PRAYER REQUESTS: https://ccefc.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/2509/responses/new25.12.14

In this stream I discuss why I am a Christian supremacist and how Christianity is the greatest force for good in world history and show that by showing abhorrent rituals in other World Religions. . Make sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think. God Bless