http://www.rhizomes.net/issue27/arner.html

https://theimaginativeconserva....tive.org/2019/06/imp

https://www.foxnews.com/us/wis....consin-teacher-berat

Texas Governor issues EO ending any government mask mandates.
NO KIDS MASKED IN TEXAS!!!

Gov Abbot: "Issuing an Executive Order to prohibit mask mandates by government entities.

We can continue to mitigate #covid19 while defending Texans' liberty to choose whether or not they mask up."

https://kfdm.com/news/local/go....vernor-bans-governme

I wonder, if we are serious about attracting men to church, if the solution is less to infantilize them by waving steaks and guns in front of their noses and more to challenge them by teaching the rich ideas and contentious debates from the Christian tradition. Clearly there’s no shortage of important questions to be debated. Is human nature as corrupt as Calvin claimed? Is the will as free as Wesley taught? Is God as transcendent as Aquinas believed? Are the Law and the Gospel as separate as Luther wanted them to be? Is Christ as fully present in the Eucharist as Iranaeus argued?

As Molly Worthen writes in Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in Modern American Evangelicalism, evangelicals “are the children of estranged parents — Pietism and Enlightenment — but behave like orphans.” The tradition is an awkward marriage of experiential knowledge and personal piety, resulting in the sort of emotionalism Wesley advocated, frequently to the denigration of almost everything else. Only in the evangelical sphere do we place such a high premium on things like “letting Jesus into your heart,” “seeking God’s will,” and the like.

https://christandpopculture.co....m/men-leaving-church

https://worldviewbulletin.subs....tack.com/p/the-freed

https://www.history.com/.amp/n....ews/joseph-stalin-re

JEREMIAH 17:9 YOUR HEARTS ARE TREACHEROUS AND YOU DO NOT KNOW THEM.

Yeah, worse still, the Hebrew language of Genesis 6:5 and 8:21 basically means that all humans are mentally bent toward evil. the Apostle Paul clearly shows that our natural desire is to do bad, not good.

A small illustration could be white water rafting AGAINST the biggest currents. Yes, your human imperfection, sinful nature, carnal desires, and your hopes of doing good are like your rowing against the current of your human imperfection. The irony that makes it even worse, Adam and Eve were like rowing with the current. For adam and even to do bad was actually to row against the current because their natural desire was to do good. Their heart (mind, inner person) was perfect, not treacherous. They were mentally bent toward good and yet they still caved when they entertained or cultivated a bad idea from Satan. So, the odds for us would seem to be all against us.
It would be but we still have a measure of the conscience that Adam and Eve possessed, which can be trained by the word of God, to the point where decisions are actually easy and we can now row with the current of good. It isn't magical, it isn't easy, and it isn't instantaneous. Think of it this way, the new personality that Paul spoke of, the mind of Christ, the biblically trained conscience is like spiritual cognitive behavioral therapy.

Science has indeed taken us a long way in our understanding of how the mind works, but it is only a grain of sand on the beach of sand in comparison to what we do not know. We have enough of these basics to understand some fundamental processes. When we open our eyes to the light of a new morning, it is altered into an electrical charge by the time it arrives at the gray matter of our brain’s cerebral cortex. As the sound of the morning birds reaches our gray matter, it comes as electrical impulses. The rest of our senses (smell, taste, and touch) arrive as electrical currents in the brain’s cortex as well. The white matter of our brain lies within the cortex of gray matter, used as a tool to send electrical messages to other cells in other parts of the gray matter. Thus, when any one of our five senses detects danger, at the speed of light, a message is sent to the motor section, to prepare us for the needed action of either fight or flight.

Here lies the key to altering our way of thinking. Every single thought, whether it is conscious or subconscious makes an electrical path through the white matter of our brain, with a record of the thought and event. This holds true for our actions as well. If it is a repeated way of thinking or acting, it has no need to form a new path; it only digs a deeper, ingrained, established path.

This would explain how a factory worker who has been on the job for some time, gives little thought as he performs his repetitive functions each day; it becomes unthinking, automatic, mechanical. These repeated actions become habitual. There is yet another facet to be considered; the habits, repeated thoughts, and actions become simple and effortless to repeat. Any new thoughts and actions are harder to perform, as there need to be new pathways opened up.
The human baby starts with a blank slate, with a minimal amount of stable paths built in to survive those first few crucial years. As the boy grows into childhood, there is a flood of pathways established, more than all of the internet connections worldwide.

Our five senses are continuously adding to the maze. Ps. 139:14: “I will give thanks to you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . . .” (NAS So, it could never be overstated as to the importance of the foundational thinking and behavior that should be established in our children from infancy forward.

However, while it can become easier, it will never in this wicked age be natural to do good 100%. So, we have to be aware, always awake to the dangers, and constantly growing our spiritually, not just our head knowledge of what manuscript is dated to what time. Innocent appearing situations are everywhere.

CARNAL OR SPIRITUAL? “And Peter went out and wept bitterly.” — Luke 22:62
https://christianpublishinghou....se.co/2019/10/30/car

https://reason.com/2021/05/17/....some-officials-want-