Monday Morning Music Ministry

11-17-25

Lately, here, I have found myself referring to martyrs – those who have died for their faith or beliefs. This has not been an intentional obsession, nor aspect of morbidity; nor yet a celebration of courage, sacrifice, and integrity.

I think my themes have been prompted, rather, by calendar-dates like Reformation Day and All Saints Day, and events like the threats Martin Luther endured, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And, avoiding deathly aspects, martyrdom does not require ravenous lions, the rack, the pyre, the firing squad, or what Alice E Duffy called history’s “antidotes or heterodoxy.” Martyrdom ain’t what it used to be; that is to say, today there are milder forms of punishment, and subtler means of imposing conformity, throughout the world.

But there are myriad punishments, and uncountable methods of crushing individual will, that contribute to 21-century martyrdom.

For individuals are being crushed; personal prerogatives are seduced; and big lies run the culture. Examples range from Woke “education” (i.e., secular propaganda) to, at the other extreme, mass execution of Christians in Nigeria. Socrates drank hemlock to poison himself rather than teach lies. “E pur si muove” was supposedly muttered by Galileo when the Catholic Church demanded he renounce his belief that the earth rotated around the sun – “Yet still it moves!” His life was spared.

Galileo nonetheless was grievously inconvenienced, so we are reminded that martyrdom does not require death. Would you deny the truth when you know that such a denial would change nothing? You might live to pursue other truths, and perhaps live to see your views vindicated.

Obviously every case is different. Justice is measured on a scale, not stamped by a template.

If the culture’s incessant standards and versions of truth are persuasive, it makes history’s martyrs seem more distant to us: many of them stood alone, threatened with torture and death, or as innocent victims of terror (as the Nigerian Christian girls when they know fior certain that their murderers lurk in the forest).

Which category is braver is not my question. I am wondering how many of us realize that we are martyrs, most of us, every day of our “normal” lives. You lose friends because of your political views. Worse, you change your opinions due to peer pressure. You refrain from condemning sins because you are afraid of “offending” someone. If your cancelled counseling could have saved their lives, you make martyrs of them, as well as of your own integrity. You believe that abortion is murder and drugs are destructive, but you keep quiet. You conform to the “world” in order to advance in school, your job, clubs, or councils; surely that is sacrificing your self-esteem at the very least.

In these examples you do not escape being burned at the stake, but – a curse of contemporary life – your standards are chipped away bit by bit by bit. Society wants us to believe that minor compromises are better than one huge offense… but that is like being just a little bit pregnant. Life doesn’t work that way, and neither do our consciences no matter how we deaden them, or let society lull them to sleep.

I invite you to remember that our “little” conflicts of conscience are not separate but descended from martyrs’ battles in earlier times. Without martyrs who stood their ground or put to death when challenged over their beliefs, we are the inheritors of freedom. And responsibility. And inspiration. We gloss over minor inconveniences when we compromise, but they sacrificed all for principles. We stand on their bloody shoulders.

The Declaration of Independence pledged “our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor” (interesting, that order) when to be silent was an easy alternative when authority was challenged.

Hebrews Chapter 11 talks of a “great cloud of witnesses” who watch us and record our choices. Feel-good appearances before this contemporary version of civilization will gain us nothing… except the loss of our souls.

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• Stand up, Stand Up For Jesus

10-27-25

Some Christians will be celebrating All Saints’ Day this week, more specifically observing several feast days of the Catholic Church – also All Hallows’ Eve (Hallowe’en) on October 31 and All Souls’ Day on November 2 – bookends to All Saints’ Day, which itself was formed as a catch-all holiday. Sort of like Presidents’ Day. It remembers saints of the Catholic Church, real and imagined, whose significance fell short of their individual celebrations.

By coincidence, another Christian commemoration is on October 31 each year, observed by Protestants and celebrated by many others around the world: Reformation Day. It revolves around the figure of Martin Luther (1483-1546), and is not an arbitrary date nor his birthday. It was the date in 1517 when Luther, a Catholic priest who was appalled by corruption throughout the Church, and non-Biblical heresies in its teachings, nailed 95 “theses” – basically, complaints – to the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.

Five hundred years ago, such was the Internet of its day. What Luther hoped would be a spirited debate locally and perhaps up the chain of clergymen… became a spark that ignited a flame, ultimately splitting Christendom, encouraging free thought, and inspiring democratic revolutions across the West.

Deeper than Luther’s critiques of the Church’s scheme of selling peoples’ access to Heaven (that is, promising such things), denying the right of believers to read the Bible, and Popes maintaining mistresses, was a profound set of theological revelations. Chief was Luther’s reliance on Scripture, not priests; that Salvation comes from faith alone through the Grace of God, not earned by one’s accumulation of worldly works and good deeds.

Luther did not intend anything but Reform (hence, “Reformation”) yet his views begat Revolution. Princes defied the Holy Roman Empire. Denominations were established on serious theological points, as well as on whims. Earnest debates fueled literacy and, eventually, Enlightenment thought in ways still felt today.

Many scholars think that the Catholic Church, in spite of itself, eventually would have designated Luther a saint (not that he would have coveted such a title: he recognized that the Bible declares all born-again believers to be saints)… if it had not excommunicated him. No matter: the man stands as one of the great men of history. Luther is a monumental figure, not only in ecclesiastical matters, but in the unique maturation of Western Civilization.

As I have documented, he represented the concept of the Individual as a legitimate force in society. He opposed the “System” that sought to stifle him, as many of his fellow theological rebels were made martyrs by the Church through torture and death by flames. He eventually had to rein in many of his followers because of excesses. He accomplished the feat (contrary to the Vatican’s orders) of translating the Bible from dead Latin.

It seems impossible to overstate the significance of this man to the sweep of history’s many aspects – religion, scholarship, political independence. Yet he embodied contradictions. Kicked out of the priesthood, he married. His language and recorded thoughts were both earthy and, today, politically incorrect. He rejected “modernism” and regarded Reason as the enemy of Faith. His theology and philosophy were as scholarly as one could imagine, yet volumes of his “table talk” reveal a man of broad humor.

“Tomorrow I have to lecture on the drunkenness of Noah [Gen. 9:20-27], so I should drink enough this evening to be able to talk about that wickedness as one who knows by experience.”

“A natural donkey, which carries sacks to the mill and eats thistles, can judge you – indeed, all creatures can! For a donkey knows it is a donkey and not a cow. A stone knows it is a stone; water is water, and so on through all the creatures. But you mad asses do not know you are asses.”

“Holy Scripture does not deal much with great sinners like tax collectors and poor little whores because such people can also be recognized and judged by heathens. Rather, it deals with spiritual little worms and scorpions who pretend to have an appearance of holiness and great piety.”

Martin Luther also revolutionized worship modes, and was a great proponent of music in church – he said that music was a gift of God, and that the devil should not be allowed to monopolize it. His greatest contribution in this field was the “battle hymn” of the Christian church, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. The Lutheran Johann Sebastian Bach set it to powerful harmonization, and its words still bring tears to this Christian’s eyes every time I hear it:

A migh­ty for­tress is our God, A bul­wark nev­er fail­ing; Our help­er He, amid the flood Of mor­tal ills pre­vail­ing.

Did we in our own strength con­fide, Our striv­ing would be los­ing; Were not the right Man on our side, The Man of God’s own choos­ing:

Dost ask who that may be? Christ Je­sus, it is He; Lord Sa­ba­oth His name, From age to age the same, And He must win the bat­tle.

Let goods and kin­dred go, This mor­tal life also; The bo­dy they may kill: God’s truth abid­eth still, His king­dom is for­ev­er!

History is populated by many military leaders and rulers. Epochs, lands, and peoples inherited their names; statues and faces on coins survive them. Today, celebrities – every one of them flawed – are called heroes.

But the truly noble people among us mortals are those who have been heroes of conscience, of integrity, of moral courage. They defended eternal truths or consecrated them for the next generations of humankind. Their beliefs and spirits prevailed against intellectual and physical onslaughts; but their bodies and lives frequently paid the ultimate price.

Occasionally a generation will have crises met by such inspirational figures. In our day – it is not too early to state that this will not become an empty cliche – Charlie Kirk bids fair to join such ranks. Jan Hus was burned at the stake; Socrates drank poison; Charlie was assassinated. Martin Luther was kidnapped by supporters to escape martyrdom. Ironically he escaped being killed by a segment of the Church he ultimately helped to salvage.

Remember Luther this week. The bo­dy they may kill; God’s truth abid­eth still. When on trial for his life, he refused to deny things he believed and wrote. “Here I stand,” he said. “I can do no other.”

Where do we stand today?

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Click: A Mighty Fortress Is Our God – Martin Luther

9-21-25

A friend recently shared words of Erich Fromm, the social psychologist and psychoanalyst, from many of whose ideas I dissent, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Seriously, this comment addressing the contemporary crisis of humankind is on the mark:

Alienation as we find it in modern society is almost total… Man has created a world of man-made things as never existed before. He has constructed a complicated social machine to administer the technical machine he built. The more powerful and gigantic the forces… he unleashes, the more powerless he feels himself as a human being. He is owned by his creations, and has lost ownership of himself.

We must add, of course, the most consequential factor – that is, missing factor – regarding alienation. It was supplied by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, whose life and (literal) trials were a more intense crucible than any experienced by the theoretician Fromm: Mankind has forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.

Henry Adams, the descendent of two US presidents, despaired of an American culture that was dissolving into pockets of personal alienation, with disunity as a harbinger of worse. In the early 20th century he visited two Medieval French cathedrals, Mont St-Michel and Chartres, and wrote detailed letters about them to nieces. He intended to address architecture, but found himself admiring the societies that built them during the so-called Dark Ages. Despite the putative retreat from accomplishments of the Roman Era, communities were structured and unified, where all classes communed and shared purposes, where beliefs were common, accepted, and cherished. These factors Adams admired.

The unifying force was the Church. Every town and city was built around the church; every civic event (not only religious) occurred in the church; every worker toiled at his or her job, and then worked for hours to build churches – often over generations. At this time all conversations, correspondence, and arts were centered on Biblical teachings. Every symbol in carvings, every image in stained-glass windows, every narrative in tapestries, every color in cloths and vestments, had spiritual significance that even the peasants understood.

It was unity. Individuals engaged in activities and crafts and professions… but worked as one. Foundational beliefs, common purposes, and communal loyalties were the essence of one’s existence on this side of Heaven.

Adams recognized that in his day, the essential matters of life – individual and collective – unity was disappearing in Western civilization. Despite advances in literacy, medicine, and prosperity, the “Dark Ages” were not totally dark, and that era’s demise was to be mourned. He attended a world’s fair in 1900 and beheld an exhibition called the Dynamo, a massive, clanking machine that did nothing except represent the coming “Machine Age.” Adams understood the thematic purpose; but he lamented its prophecy – that the coming world would be centered on, and virtually worship, machines. Machines (read: computers, AI, etc) would replace God.

The critiques of Plato, the early church fathers, St Augustine and Luther; Adams and Solzhenitsyn; secular observers like Kafka and Fromm; resonated in the person and legacy of Charlie Kirk. An unlikely heir? He is at home with most of the great prophets and great martyrs of Western history. Sadly but proudly.

This morning I had a call from my daughter Emily in Northern Ireland, where she has lived for 20 years. She expressed concern about the Charlie Kirk situation… and I expressed surprise that she knew of Charlie beyond my appearance on his show. She replied that he was quite well known in Ireland. Her family listened to him online at least once a week, and has done so for two years. My granddaughter is now 14. I asked what attracted her to Kirk; the main reason was his strong anti-abortion stand; next was “his intelligence in debates and how he was strong in sharing his ideas.” TurningPoint USA is a youth movement, but not only for youth.

Around the world there have been spontaneous and massive protests and vigils in the wake of Charlie’s murder. London, three million in the streets (all, as elsewhere, peaceful – to be compared with left-wing violence). Parades in Ireland, Berlin, Hamburg, Rome, Warsaw, Korea, Australia. Charlie’s mode of mentioning Jesus and promoting Christianity (focusing on faith more than himself), spread his larger message across the globe. His spiritual and related social themes coincide with the political upheavals throughout America and Europe: my family told me about a protest in the Northern Irish town of Newry where Unionists and Nationalists – that is, Protestants and Catholics who have been killing each other (the “Troubles”) for generations – were locked arm in arm in… unity.

Charlie’s message plugged into the West’s emotional dissolution. Frustrated societies have found hope in his spiritual, social, and political critiques. A worker in that Irish protest said to an interviewer that “even the church has let us down.”

Undeniably, this is true for many people. In fact virtually every institution in Western societies has let people down – Big Media, traditional political parties, the Entertainment Industry, the Education complex. Liberals in the church and other monopolies can push back or say that we are paranoiac. But perception is reality.

People believe they have been let down because they know they have been let down. Proven in the recent US election – and the political storms brewing in every European country – is the realization that traditions, culture, and community mean more to people than, even, poll-taker’s headline “issues.”

Returning to my first point, people are finally sick of alienation – being forced into modes that resist traditional, folkish identity and interaction. They are sick of dealing with what Fromm called powerlessness. Charlie Kirk’s major message was not political nor even social, but spiritual. Turning to Jesus, returning to Jesus, is the comfort food that is attracting hungry youth. His ministry, raised to the nth degree by his martyr’s death, is the spark that likely will ignite a fundamental change in America, the West, and around the world.

It is why he was killed. He was a Christian patriot… he argued for change… but most significantly, he was effective.

Think of all history’s examples of malignant opponents who “killed the messenger.” Every time it has been futile; that is, the advance of reform and renewal has withstood the desperate and usually evil attempts to stop it. The System, all over the world, has pressed down individuals and tried to mold an obedient mass distracted by bread and circuses, supposed to hate whom they are told to hate.

Mankind has forgotten God. Perhaps, by martyr’s blood, they are remembering.

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Click: Abide With Me

9-15-25

Uncountable posts, messages, memes, press releases, and announcements are being offered about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I can contribute little more than, perhaps, a different point of view.

“We have lost Charlie,” say people who knew him, or felt like they did because he was so accessible. An everyday guy, just a bit more spiritual and patriotic, and braver than most of us. At a spontaneous street parade in London (yes, England, where there are chapters of Turning Point UK), crowds chanted his name. My great friend Janet Casserly was there, revisiting her homeland, and when a marcher cried, “We have lost Charlie!” Janet responded – “Charlie Kirk is not lost. We know where he is right now!”

That is what’s different about Christians. Franklin Graham said he did not feel sorry for Charlie: he is with his Savior now. We can feel sorry for Erika and the two little children; we feel sorry for each other that we have lost an advocate and leader; we feel sorry for the nation he was effectively transforming.

But Charlie would scold us. History is replete with martyrs, and we should dedicate ourselves, rather, to the different view that he did not die in vain. That is, we must pick up his torch and flag and charge forward. We have the feeling that he can have a successor, but not really be replaced. Martyrs of conscience through history suffered various fates: Socrates, Tyndale, Luther, Galileo; it was Charlie Kirk’s sad but noble turn.

Among those uncountable responses to his assassination are grief-filled expressions from surprising sources. Aaron Judge, Mahomes, Paul and Ringo, Dylan, many more; some pledging donations to Charlie’s kids for their education. That’s different, even discounting the percentage that spiteful web-liberals insist are fake reports. There have been moments of silence in baseball stadiums and at football games. That’s different. Massive rallies and parade vigils for Charlie across the US and in London, Berlin, Hamburg, Warsaw and other world capitals. That’s different.Even elected officials would not receive such tributes.

I am calling him the familiar “Charlie” because he was an accessible guy, but also because I had a slight association with him, being a guest on his podcast in 2023, one hour, one-on-one. He was affable and remarkably informed about history and every subject we touched, just as he appeared to be in all the web’s video clips.

Regarding those video clips, and this being 2025, many people knew about Charlie primarily through memes and clips – which, this being 2025, generally means “pro” and “anti” spins tailored to the posters’ points of view. Sigh, our contemporary world is different. It was astonishing to see how many edited clips of his back-and-forths on campuses suggested that he was a monster (rather futilely, but haters did their best). Of course I was a follower so people can assume I am biased too – but watching every full session, you can see that Charlie Kirk was patient, respectful, always backing his assertions, and challenging the assumptions of hostile questioners. That grace is different these days.

Another thing that was different was his overarching theme. To be Christian first – for a faith not generic, but devoted to Jesus was his aspiration as he spoke to students. He quoted Founders who believed that a Republic was suited only for a moral people. He quoted the Bible, to support his statements and to persuade his opponents (he did not attend college nor seminary, but was more learned and evangelical than half the professors and clergymen I have encountered). God, family, country – Charlie dusted off that ancient priority and made it live again. Different.

There he sat, minding his own business – or, actually, God’s. For these basic themes, this freelance commentator with no party, no TV platform, no corporate affiliation; only his own educational outreach, helping students to organize clubs. For this, he was hated, reviled, attacked, misrepresented, ridiculed, and censored more than any figure of our generation… including Doanld Trump.

But they killed Charlie. They failed to kill Trump. That is different.

Why? His ideas were common-currency only a few years ago. He was forthright for Christ? Sure: in the face of growing apostasy, Charlie shared the Gospel with more clarity, and possibly more often, than many preachers we have in our churches. The World cannot stand that. But why else?

Charlie Kirk was effective. That was his sin. Turning Point USA has more than a thousand chapters in schools. Charlie is credited with tipping the votes of several states to Trump’s side of the ledger. It is estimated that 44 per cent of Gen Zers changed their party registrations during two recent years, led by Charlie’s efforts.

That was the real difference, explaining his assassination. He was effective. They could not have that. Even “allies”: Enough of fake conservatism, RINO identifications, accommodations with those who hate us, hate the country, hate Christianity. Charlie rekindled a flame that almost had been extinguished. The Left’s hope was that by killing Charlie they would silence us. They need to continue what Michael Savage calls the one-way civil war.

But there are different things happening. The massive, widespread, vehement vigils and protests. Different. The reports of people vowing to leave the Left, to shun its yapping voices. Different. The mood of the country, especially among young people… different. Maybe you have experienced, right up till now, friends who say (in my case, virtually and patronizingly) “Well, Rick, I disagree with you but I still respect what you do about history and cartoons and such” but then defend liars and assassins and subversives… Now I say, “Shut up.” What’s different?

What’s different is that this has become a war. Powerful forces, having attacked our culture and our souls, are now gunning for our heritage and our future; our families and our God-given rights.

“Guns kill,” and you and your buddies say Charlie deserved to be killed because he defended the Second Amendment. Well, guns also are designed to defend, protect, ward off attackers… perhaps against those with crowbars at your back door; perhaps against those with knives on a train; perhaps against someone raping your wife. Perhaps — as argued by those who wrote the Second Amendment — against a government that could confiscate guns and physically take over your life and property.

Get ready. We have targets on our backs. I have suffered – many of us have – for our views. Harassment; jobs lost; and by the way, “you can’t lose a friend you never had.” Do what you can in silence. Example: Charlie’s wife Erika runs her own business in NYC called Proclaim Streetwear. For every sweatshirt they sell, one gets donated to a homeless person living on the street. OOOh, Mrs Fascist, really? Or do your work boldly.

Proclaim Christ, protect your family, stand up for your country while it still exists. To quote Martyn Lloyd-Jones, whom Charlie had quoted: “The way to overcome sin is not to preach morality. It is to preach the Gospel.”

Things are different. Now make a difference.

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Click: For Charlie…