14 Comments

Excellent piece! It’s almost unfair to compare “charismatic” Evangelicalism to the odious, awful ways of John Brennan. I’ve attended a few wild and somewhat crazed charismatic evangelical services and the members were nothing but kind. I never felt pressured to be healed from Satan’s intrusion. In fact at the church I attended it was optional.

Of course, I understand how others might feel pressured. Being raised in a traditional Congregational Protestant church, the wild doings (speaking in tongues, and shouting) was a bit unsettling to me. At the time I was suffering from bad migraines so my attitude about the group healing was what do I have to lose? I didn’t go for the backwards fall, rather the hands-on praying by those sitting in my pew. The funny thing is the migraines went away. That was twenty years ago. To this day they have not returned.🙏

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founding

“America: Where anything is possible” has a new, darker meaning now.

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I made the decision a year ago to be vocal and not participate in this insanity. I practice medicine and it hasn't been easy, but I find that it only takes one comment from one brave person to get people to open up. The kid could have been that person. Which one will you be?

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The insane horror show inflicted by John Brennan (or at least he led the pack under his bailiwick) on the poor minority citizens if Syria is all you need to know about his "intelligence" and discernment. Under the guise of creating a band of "freedom fighters" to overthrow Assad, he created with $1 billion of our tax dollars a mercenary group of ISIS/AlQaeda fighters who are now being used by Erdogan of Turkey to go fight his little wars in various spots around the world. These are people who don't take POWs but think torture is normal. Now we get the regime change treatment here. What will be the result?

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This brilliant. Your writing is so good it’s otherworldly in its precision and emotional impact. Everyone needs to read this. I’m sharing widely.

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It’s tough to handle rebuking and the bestowal of approval can be a great manipulator. If you need approval from others, you, like the boy in the story will collapse if don’t get it. I see a lot of this wishy-washy non-person maneuvering these days and it saddens me. It seems we’ve collectively forgotten we are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. Oh no, I’ve implied two genders. Is that a knock on my door?

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In Mississippi, when I was a child, my parents took me to a summertime revival of the Nazarenes, or Holy Rollers as Mama called them. I expected to see them rolling on the ground and hear them speaking in tongues, but they were rather subdued that night, shouting Amen and singing with gusto. Still, I had the feeling there was some sort of Follow the Leader energy going on, like in our Baptist church: sing loud when the music director flaps his arms like birdwings, sing soft when his fingers lightly poke the air. This Woke bandwagon now is Follow the Leader, but it's sinister in its vigilantism and efforts at deprogramming. And I wonder who is the Leader? It isn't Brennan, but it's someone who gives instructions to him. The world has grown smaller in our time, and the pressure to follow the leader is disturbingly loud. We will have to learn how to fake our exorcism, like ladies who sometimes have to fake orgasm. (Sorry for the raw language, but I've got a touch of dyslexia and have been reading The Unbinding, so when I read the subtitle to Walt's essay, I read How to Fake an Ex-orgasm and wondered what that was.)

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I keep wondering if we’ve already let the exorcist in. 😒

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Another thoughtful essay. I couldn’t help think of the “poll watchers” during our recent election as I read about “Citizen Detectives”. This seems to be a non partisan concept.

I’m glad a subscribed to Unbound. It’s been good for me to read more and this short pieces are just the antidote for too much TV!

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I think that St. John Brennan of Langley’s crusade is far more insidious then the Spanish Inquisition. The inquisition occurred in a world in which escape was still possible. Change your name, don’t make a big deal about your aversion to Pork or your preference for Saturday over Sunday, and hop a ship for the colonies in New Spain. Then, generation after generation, pass down the truth about your identity to your defendants until it’s safe to emerge: https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/02/19/275862633/crypto-jews-in-the-southwest-find-faith-in-a-shrouded-legacy

I don’t think that’s possible in Woke Technocracy.

The inquisition also contained the seeds of its own destruction. Killing in the name of the Prince of Peace who commands you to “turn the other cheek” wasn’t going to fool anyone forever. With this new crusade though, I’m not sure if the same moral quandary will plague the crusaders.

Since we’re on the subject of reconciliation, who absolved St. John of his sins anyway?

https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/cia-director-john-brennan-lied-senate

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This is illuminating. Genuinely.

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I'm going to have to read this again before 12a. I understand the analogy, but I want to soak it in before resting my head on my pillow. This requires, coffee, cigarettes, on my porch, on a Saturday morning, when my mind is less cluttered.

Subscribed and will do my yearly this Saturday!!

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