…About Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
I’m back in Japan for a few months. My wife and I are up in the Japan Alps, where fall has already arrived. The Christian population in Japan may squeeze in at under 1% of the general population, but there are small churches all over the country. Orthodox parishes are few and far between, however, and the closest one is half a day away from us. I have to admit that I have been attending the worship services of our Christian brethren (cousins?) while we’re away from home. My wife is Catholic, so she and I have gravitated to parishes in that community while we are here. Like Starbucks or McDonald’s, there is always a Catholic parish not too far away. There are three parishes in towns down the mountain and a monastery to boot. I just pray to myself while at mass, and I never receive communion.
This past Sunday, just days after the shocking murder of Charlie Kirk back home in the States, my wife and I went to an evangelical Protestant church. I expected to hear the local preacher mention the tragic event and render some words of wisdom. After all, Charlie was a prominent evangelical Christian and his assassination had gotten a mention on NHK, the national public television network. That’s a big deal.
The whole world is watching and responding to Charlie’s death. Japan has a non-religious society, but people in more Christian nations around the world are saying that they’ve been to church for the first time in their lives, or that they’ve returned to church for the first time in years in the last few days.
Regardless of that, there was not one word from the pulpit about the event at the service we attended . No one mentioned it at tea following the service, either. I got the sense that the pastor and the small congregation live in a pious bubble. I was disappointed.
Sunday rolled around a day later in the U.S., so I checked the livestream recording of the Divine Liturgy from my own Orthodox parish. Nope. Nothing about Charlie, his murder, or the tremendous effect that it has had inside and outside Christian churches. I was disappointed again, but hope that perhaps next week the clergy will say something about it. I have noticed that Orthodox churches tend to navel-gazing as well, so I won’t expect any mention, yet I’ll be happy to be surprised.
One exception has been Fr. Josiah Trenham, whose gracious tribute to Charlie is on YouTube, and which I have shared abroad via email. Fr. Josiah will be a guest with Tucker Carlson soon, so let’s stay tuned. Here’s the tribute:
Charlie Kirk was larger than life and his willingness to proclaim the good news to young people on college campuses and debate the moral issues of our time was effective. I suspect the Holy Spirit is moving mightily now and a great harvest of souls is beginning now that Charlie’s earthly life has been cut short.
Tell me: Did your preacher speak about Charlie last Sunday? If so, please say something in the comments below.
Handwritings on the Wall 
I first heard about Charlie’s death in church, when after Wednesday Vespers our priest mentioned it briefly, as well as other recent occasions of violence in the news. I had heard his name but didn’t really know anything about him. The priest spoke very sorrowfully, somewhat stunned, and urged us to pray, and to repent of the passions in our own hearts. (Normally there are no remarks from clergy at the end of weekday Vespers.) I went home and read the news…
On Sunday we had a guest homilist, who was very hard to follow, but he read his prepared sermon on the Feast of the Elevation of the Cross, and I don’t think he said anything about current events.
I listened to Fr. Josiah on Tucker’s show today — he spoke at length, as a loving pastor and a true prophet.
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Thank you for commenting, Gretchen. I’m glad to hear that your priest mentioned Charlie’s murder. An Anglican priest and good friend of mine has sent me Abbot Tryphon’s remarks about Charlie. I’ll post the video on this blog.
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I saw that, too!
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The fact that Kirk was a devout evangelical, does nott mean much. His main theme was hate against others that he dissaproved of, even if those others did not harm anyone. What does that have to do with Christianity? It is frustratting to see many equate him to Ghandi. He was no peacemaker. Hosea 8:7 “For they have sowed the wind and they will reap the whirlwind>
Also, the fact that he was so pro gun, that “even if some lives were lost in mass shootings, it was worth it”. I wonder if he knew that one of those lives would have been his own, if he would have still thought so.. “He lived by the sword and he died by the sword” Matthew 26:52.
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“Hate” is a pretty strong word to use. Would you like to offer an example of Charlie Kirk’s hatred?
I haven’t seen or heard of anyone comparing Kirk to Ghandi. Perhaps you would like to quote someone who did.
The person who lived by the sword was Kirk’s killer, not Kirk himself. The killer may die by the sword. as well, since the prosecutors are calling for the death penalty.
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I am a strong believer in the 1st amendment. Kirk has said some hateful things, which he had every right to do. Even though I never listened to him, I’ve been hearing some of his comments after his death. One that stands out is that he said that”Biden deserves to get the death penalty”.
Again, he has the right to say it. We can’t go around censoring people’s speaches. And he should nott have been killed for what he said. Other Western countries are divided as much as we are. But assassinations and mass shopotings are very rare, to non-existant. Because America is flooded with guns, now people are afraid to exercise their 1st amendment right, because of the fear for their lives.
The solution is only one. To curb the sale of guns and ammo. Yesterday, three policemen were shot dead and two injured in PA. This should not be happening. IN the UK, onew policeman has been shot to death in the past 25 years.
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Joe Biden may not deserve the death penalty, but he is certainly responsible for a tremendous amount of pain and suffering for which he has taken no responsibility. Biden was probably the second worst president in our history – and we have had some awful presidents who should have never taken office.
I find the proliferation of guns and the gun violence in this country to be a scary reality. However an outsized proportion of gun violence is caused by young, black men who grew up fatherless in cities governed by Democrats, many of them black. What do propose be done about that ugly fact?
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I agree that most of the gun viiolence and also most of the victims are black youths. However, you are using Trump’s talking points about “democrat cities”. Cities can not enact their own laws. They have to follow state and federal laws. Citiies can not cut the flow of illegal guns, when gun proliferation is so prevalent.
Let’s look at NYC. A democrat city. It is one of the safest big cities in the nation. Why is that? Because guns were hard to obtain, up to two years ago, when SCOTUS changed the laws, to the utter delight of gun sellers and funeral homes.
Looking at the city is not too wise. You have to look at the state, where laws are being made. And the top 12 States by gun violence are all republiican.
The fact that black families are not the ideal family is due to many factors. Economic is the major one. Again, the problem poiints to guns. If guns weren’t so easily available, blacks wouldn’t be so violent but also victimized by those guns.
Another point: You picked out before transgender and now blacks, and democratic cities, as the predominant perpetrators. Did you know that 80% of mass shooters are white people?
As for Joe Biden. I want to ask you what he did that he caused so much pain and suffering. (your words). And how do you come up with the decision that he is the 2nd worse president. Did you compile statistics from every president and came up with that conclusion? Or is it off the top of your head? I would like an answer to that, as I answered yyour question of how Kirk spread hate.
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I spent well over an hour writing a long reply to all of the points in your most recent comment, but I mistakenly swept right and lost the whole thing. Search as I might, I could not recover it. Since I’m still recovering from a stroke and am typing with one hand on an unfamiliar laptop computer, allow me to respond only to your earnest question as to how I’ve concluded that Joe Biden was the second worst president in American history.
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Biden open the flood gates and allowed millions of migrants to settle in our country, putting unsustainable pressure on government finances and endangering the populace with violent criminals among them.
Biden rushed the withdrawal from Afghanistan, putting our remaining troops in danger and abandoning expensive materiel on the battlefield. Thus he foolishly telegraphed to Vladimir Putin that it was open season on Ukraine.
Biden played the little fascist by supporting the enforcement of vaccination mandates and other Covid restrictions, putting small retailers out of business and shutting schoolchildren out of the classroom. Meanwhile, he and the Democrats in Congress passed huge spending bills, flooding the economy with free money which ballooned the national debt and led to record-breaking inflation, rendering Americans poorer.
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Biden enriched himself by allowing his reprobate son to trade on his name while he was vice president, and deposit his filthy lucre in suspect shell companies.
Biden promoted the sick psychopathy of transsexualism/transgenderism, which confused our adolescents and threatened interscholastic sports. Meanwhile, he railed against those who supported MAGA and persecuted pro-life Christians. He was a divisive president.
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I could go on, but I’ll stop there. James Buchanan, predecessor to Abraham Lincoln, refused to lift a finger to avert the headlong rush into Civil War. He is the only president who had a worse record than Joe Biden. History will not be kind to Biden.
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I dislike Biden’s son and I think he is a repulsive human being. And I do believe that he did profit from his father’s position. However, let’s not forget how Kushner profited from Trump’s first term, and how Trump’s companies and his other children, have raked in millions, plus, the trash that Trump sells to his followers, all made in China and how much he profits from his position.
When you say that Biden “promoted” transexualism, you must mean that he encouraged people and especially teenagers to get the surgery. That is wronng. He never promoted it. I’m not saying this because I “like” Biden. I’m saying it because its the truth. If you have a quote somewhere, that Biden made, promotinng transexualism, please, send it over and I’ll look into it. .Another lie that was spread was that children were being transexcualized without their parents’ approval. Trump said that they “go to school in the morning as boys and come back as girls”.
There have been some doctors, that have said that before puberty sets in, its much easier to transexualize a person, before they have taken on the gender characteristics. And, medically, that is true. Some parents have struggled with that choice. I am glad I haven’t had the awful luck of having to struggle with that. But we can’t tell what’s best for other families. It is up to them to decide. And some young people that were transexualized as children, with their parents’ permission, have regretted it. Of course, Biden didn’t promote that. idea. And I certainly don’t agree with the idea of trans men in women’s sports. But again, a president doesn’t have the power to force any sports teams tto accept trans men. It was just a movement from the left, that was stupid and hopefully, it will pass.
As for Biden “railing” against MAGA, it is true that a few speaches, he spoke against MAGA. But that’s politics. You’re not going to expect a democrat or republican, to urge people to vote for the opposition.
As for dividing Americans, let’s not compare Biden to Trump. Trump, from day one has railed against perceived enemies witthout taking a break. A president is supposed to be for all Americans. Not for one side only. And Biden did speak many times about uniting.
I will not argue with you on what history will say about Biden. That is in the future. However, from my own life ttime, I would say Nixon was worse, because of his snickiness. And Bush Junior was just as bad, because he led us into a war with lies, sacrificed over 5,000 American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis.
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Sir, I could go down your list of arguments and counter them with evidence and my own opinions, but I’ve tired of this. Let’s just politely agree that neither of us is going to convince the other that he is wrong. Good wishes to you.
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First, I want to wish you a quick recovery from the stroke.
Then, I want tto address the surge in illegal migration. Illegal migration hjas been a feature of this country since its founding. Europeans migratted here illegaly, dislocated and exterminated its occupants and considered the land their own. Those settlers then disciminated against German immigrantts and then, against the Irish. Catholics were considered worse than any hatred there is against Moslems today. Then, it was the turn of thge Jews and Southern Europeans. I am Greek myself. As a matter of fact, legal immigration of Southern Europeans and Jews, along with Chinese and Japanese,.was prohibited from 1924 to 1964. In that period, thousands of Greeks “jumped ship” and stayed here illegaly. Italians were thought of as being born criminals and killers. You get the picture. Every new wave of migration was considered bad for the “real Americans”. And yet, the country prospered on the labor of those immgrants.
TToday’s immigrants, from Central America were dislocated by American companies, such as United Fruit” which spread poison on the natives’ agricultural land and killed the crops, then bought the land for pennies and planted bannanas. It hired the natives to work in those fields and paid them in company script. Since their agricultural land was “sold”, they were indebted to the United Fruiit company and were virtual slaves.
In Guatemala, when the people voted in a democratic election to impose rules on the United Fruit, thed company went to the American presidentand complained that the “communists” were taking over. America sent inn the marines, overturned the government and trained a strongman as “presidentt”, armed his followers and they were responsible for 200,000 killings. The same thing happened in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Columbia.
In Haiti, America sent a detachment of marines, who proceeded to go to the central bank, confiscate all the gold reserves, bnring them to America and had Haiti “borrow” from its own money and pay interest on the borrowing.
Immigration never hurts the receiving country. Only the original country. Immigrants here do all the work that Americans won’t. Now that they have stopped comming the economy is suffering and will get worse. Who’s going to pick our tomatoes, who’s going to slaughter the chickens that we eat or the beef that we make hamburgers? Are you willing to work 10 hours a day for $9.75 an hour cutting chickens’ throats for a living? Chickens don’t package themselves for the supermarket. Someone has to do it.
as for some being criminals, statistics prove that illegals are a lot less likely to be criminals than Americans.
As for the pressure on government finances, migrantts are net contributors to the economy. Americas’s economy didn’t colapse while they were coming. It was thriving.
TThe withdrawal from Afghanistan was riushed because trump had a set a date that the ttroops were leaving, which the Biden administtration had to adhere to. And the debacle is the responsibilityy of the army brass. The president gives an order, the generals have the responsibility in fulfilling it. YYou didnt expect Biden to go there and direct traffic.
Covid was a communicable disease. We had the flue in the 60’s that killed millions, plus the flue of 1918 that also killed millions. Before that, Polio, smallpox, malaria, whopping cough, TB and myriad other diseases were killing millions of children and adults. Unfortrunately, none of the diseases come with instructions on how to fight them. Its trial and error. Trump had initiated the business and school closings and I didnt blame him. How else can you fight a communicable diisease other than interfering with its spreading?
Trump also took credit for the vaccine, which came out a week after he lost the election of 2020. And Trump also gave money and forgivable lloans to businesses and individuals. Which Biden mimicked. Its possible that Biden didn’t want Trump to be able to say that he was the only one who gave free money. I refused the money myself. I sent tthe check right back. I hope you did the same thing.
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One more comment on your last paragraph. Kirk did live be “the sword”. He said that mass shootings are a necessary part of having our “God given right to own guns”. What God gave him that right? Its not Christ, that’s for sure. Of course, his killer also lived by “the sword”. beacuse America is held by the throat by weapons manufacturers and nothing is being done to change that. He wil certainly die by the sword. The problem is that innocent people, who dont “live by the sword” are kiiled daily
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Ours is an inexcusably violent country. When my wife and I decided to move to an English-speaking country three decades ago, I tried to avoid the United States at first because an innocent Japanese boy had been killed during Mardi Gras.
Have you noticed that the latest high-profile shootings have been perpetrated by those enthralled by the transgender/transsexual cult?
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Lawrence. Where are you from?. Yes. America is exceptionally violent, the most violent of all economically advanced nations. And the reason is the number of guns. There are more guns than people. I have noticed that there have been transgender mass shootings. However, there are a few things we must consider. There are transgender people in Europe, maybe more than in America. They are not any more violent than others. I think that the pressure they have been feeling recently, especially since Trump was elected, has much to do with it. It affects them mentally. And we know that Kirk was anti-transgender.
I admit that I wouldn’t be friends with anyone transgender. It just feels uncomfortable. But I wouldn’t make them feel as if they’re enemies. God knows why they made such a decision to alter themselves. Those of us that don’t have such an inclination, or have a family member that struggles with such thoughts, should not judge them.
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