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TIME TO COOL DOWN

 

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Yes, we're into autumn now – the temperature is cooling down. With all the political violence recently – murders and attempted murders – it's also Time to Cool Down politically: take several deep breaths, relax, and let those boiling brain cells cool. What kickstarted this topic in my thinking was a U.S. DOJ report that began: "Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism. Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists...."

This didn't sound quite right, and this U.S. DOJ report had been taken down in January 2025, but other sources recovered a copy (click the above photo). Where did this seemingly official-sounding government report get its statistics from and what were the specific events it referred to? These statistics didn't seem to match up with the descriptions of many violent incidents that I have been reading over the years. As I studied the report, I found lots of footnotes to further articles by the report's authors, but no descriptions of specific categories of violence.

For example, under previous administrations, freedom of speech when protesting peacefully against abortion has been criminalized under the FACE (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) Act, so that people who are simply on public sidewalks holding posters stating "Abortion takes a human life," "Abortion is not healthcare," (both obviously and objectively true) and praying silently on the street or sidewalk, or not even saying a word, just recording these peaceful protests on a smartphone, have been arrested and sentenced to prison time.

Parents speaking up at school board meetings about their children being taught gay and transgender ideology have been arrested as "domestic terrorists" and given heavy prison sentences. Sometimes each person arrested at pro-life demonstrations and given a different-length sentence was counted as a unique act of terrorism or domestic violent extremism. This could easily skew the count of "far-right attacks" mentioned in the beginning of my article. Why?

For many on the Left, especially in universities, "speech is violence" when they disagree with opposing views. When some Christian or conservative students were bold enough to speak or display literature in public opposing Antifa or LGBTQ+ issues, their free speech was accused of commiting acts of violence and they were attacked by a literally violent staff member... with a machete! Even "misgendering people can be considered an 'act of violence.'”

Legally, "hate speech" is defined as "credible threats of physical harm to people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability or medical condition." Rude, profane, cursing or other mean-spirited speech by either Left or Right is technically and legally not "hate speech." But the expression "hate speech" is often misused to describe free speech that others strongly disagree with. For example...

The 2024 book Hate Speech and Political Violence: Far-Right Rhetoric from the Tea Party to the Insurrection repeatedly uses the words "weaponized communication" when referring to "angry and often violent rhetoric" of politically conservative people (implying that words are violence), even though their words did not contain "credible threats of physical harm to people" – merely loud, angry, or crude speech, or perhaps just ordinary speech that the Left disagrees with. Notice how "angry and often violent rhetoric" and the book's title itself blurs the distinction between the legal definition of "hate speech" and simply speech the Left disagrees with.

Another example: the article "Hate speech is political violence" by Kaia Monaco, Managing Editor of UNews at Saint Louis University, also blurs the line between the legal definition of "hate speech" and merely disagreed-with free speech. She says that some people will excuse their hateful speech as "my personal opinion." Then she writes – "An opinion should not argue that some people are more deserving of rights – including the right to live – than others. A different viewpoint should not assert that one group of people has more cognitive ability than another. A conflicting belief should not dehumanize those who disagree. These are not opinions, viewpoints or different beliefs, this is hate speech." So she says calling a person stupid is "hate speech."

We all need to be very careful about using such expressions as "hate speech," calling ICE "the Gestapo," or the President's supporters "Nazis" and him "Hitler" ...and for him to reply: "I hate them!" – especially in view of recent politically-motivated killings of businesspeople, politicians, and public speakers on both sides of the aisle. Using such terms only turns up the heat, enflaming more mentally unstable young men to take violent actions. Accusing other persons of "hate speech" if they disagree with us or are simply rude and crude can inflame the conversation further – it's Time to Cool Down!

And late night comedians need to be warned by their networks and their own script writers that making knowingly false statements over the airwaves is a violation of FCC rules for holding a broadcast license. "Freedom of speech" does not mean you are free to lie deliberately over the air.

Recently I sent the following email to a certain conservative writer, referring to Ephesians 4:29; Colossians 3:8 and 4:6 – "As a fellow Orthodox Christian..., I urge you to 'not let any filthy communication come out of your mouth.' Instead, 'Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.' As a professional wordsmith, you can certainly find better, more constructive and gracious words than using curse words and profanity. Remember, you've identified yourself as an Orthodox Christian. Is profanity and cursing the way you want people to think of our faith?"

We, especially as Christians, in these troubled times, should avoid not only legally-defined "hate speech" but also any speech that is unkind, demeaning, profane, or full of cursing!

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You can read the rest of our newsletter at https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2025-09-27.htm, and share it! Also, create your own website for less than $4 per month!

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WHAT IS "SECULAR3"?

 

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[NOTE: I wrote most of this article the week before the reporting of the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska by a deranged career criminal with a grudge against white people, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk – a 31-year-old father of two little children who devoted his life to peaceful, civil debate about the ills of modern American society. These awful events underscore the urgency of this article.]

Sacred | Secular. Is this an either/or question, or a both-and question? Our modern mindset leads us to think of it as either/or, either sacred or secular. But is that the way we should approach this hugely important issue? Perhaps both-and is better. The article "Three Meanings of ‘Secular'’' explains what "secular" has come to mean in the present day. This threefold concept is based on the book A Secular Age by Charles Taylor, a British scholar, published by Harvard University's Belknap Press. This probably sounds rather stuffy and intellectual, so I've done a little research on it in order to attempt here to boil it down into just several paragraphs. Let's begin –

Secular3 refers to a concept formulated by philosopher Charles Taylor, describing a society where religious belief is no longer assumed or mandatory, but is one among many possible worldviews – this is sometimes called "Taylorian secularity" or "secularity 3". Charles Taylor identifies three meanings of secularity:

Secular1: Religion's reduced role in public institutions.

Secular2: Decline in personal religious belief or practice.

Secular3: A cultural condition where belief in religion is no longer automatic and must be consciously chosen – everyone is aware of religious and non-religious alternatives and must actively select their own worldview, making belief itself "fragile" in comparison to earlier eras.

(If this whets your curiosity, for a 4-page review of Taylor's 776-page A Secular Age, click HERE.)

Importance of Secular3:
Secular3 does not mean a society is non-religious; religious belief may still be widespread, but belief is always held alongside an array of viable, competing options: doubt and lack of certainty.

This condition changes how people experience faith – beliefs are adopted more as personal choices within a diverse marketplace of possibilities, rather than inherited communal certainties.

Secular3 underlies much of contemporary Western society, affecting how individuals relate to morality, meaning, and tradition.

     Summary Table: Secularity Types

Secular Type	Core Focus	Social Condition
Secular1	Public institutions and laws	Separation of church and state
Secular2	Individual belief and practice	Decline in personal religious adherence
Secular3	Separation of church and state	All beliefs are optional and chosen among competing alternatives

Secular3 is widely referenced in philosophy, sociology, and discussions of modern Western culture to explain how individuals and societies negotiate religion and meaning in pluralistic contexts. What are some examples of historical events of the ancient, medieval, secular1. secular2, and secular3 eras?

The Ancient Era:
1445 BC: Moses received the Ten Commandments
508 BC: Institution of Athenian democracy
323 BC: Death of Alexander the Great, leading to the Hellenistic Era, one worldwide Greco-Roman empire
These events happened in an era of widely-accepted awareness of God or gods, and demons, the spiritual and material are intertwined.

The Medieval Era:
1066: Norman Conquest of England
1215: Magna Carta signed, limiting royal authority in England
1320: Completion of Dante’s Divine Comedy – a protest against abritrary aristocratic authority
These events indicate the widespread acceptance of the Christian idea of God's omnipresence – an "enchanted" universe accepted as true and self-evident reality.

Secular1:
Later Medieval Europe: The distinction between clergy (sacred) and laypeople (secular) – monks and priests worked in the church (spiritual), while rulers, merchants, and farmers performed secular (earthly) roles
11th–12th centuries: Investiture Controversy – Church and monarchy disputed who had authority to appoint church officials, symbolizing the shifting boundary between sacred (heavenly) and secular (earthly) power.
1517: Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany, starting the Protestant Reformation, leading to the birth of atheism – the notion that one's own subjective conscience and rationality are more authoritative than the shared knowledge and experience of the Church.
1637: Rene Descartes, wrote "Cogito, ergo sum" – "I think, therefore I am," introducing the idea that the external world depends on one's inner subjective rationality. In this era we see the beginning of separation between heaven and earth, sacred and secular, reality and perception.

Secular2:
1776: The American Revolution: revolt against the divine right of kings; instead, the rights of the individual
1787-89: The U.S. Constitution and tThe Bill of Rights – "We the People," establishing freedom of speech and freedom of religious confession, formalizing the idea that people can believe whatever they choose.
1789–1799: The French Revolution: revolt against Catholicism, abolishing church privileges, nationalizing church property, and establishing secular (non-religious, even anti-religious) laws and institutions in France, a significant step toward modern secularism and atheism.
19th century: The Industrial Revolution: science and technology replace human and animal power with machines.

Secular3:
1917: The Bolshevik Revolution: the revolt against Orthodoxy, establishing a man-made, godless alternate utopia.
The modern condition is where belief in religion is just one option among many, creating widespread uncertainty in any one worldview. But there can only be one dominant religion/worldview in any society, otherwise it begins to fall apart.
Extreme skepticism; question and criticize every formerly-accepted truth – critical race theory, critical gender theory, even the reality of the physical universe. Nihilism, anarchy, chaos. But there is still a widely-accepted belief that science and technology can solve all our problems.
Whatever a person believes to be reality may be enforcable by law: if a male believes he is a female, you must call him "she/her." Watch the "Modernity is a Heresy" video, a lead-up to the podcaster's forthcoming book Against the Machine.
Modernity considers belief in one God and revealed truth to be arrogance or chutzpa, and isolates socially those "fanatics" who believe in such things as an objective reality. This underscores the need for establishing solid Christian communities in order to "hold fast to our confession" –

"For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes; for the Jew first, and also for the Greek. For in it is revealed God's righteousness from faith to faith. As it is written, 'But the righteous shall live by faith.' For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known of God is revealed in them, for God revealed it to them. For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse. Because, knowing God, they didn't glorify him as God, neither gave thanks, but became vain in their reasoning, and their senseless heart was darkened" (Romans 1:16-21).

The result: read the articles Annunciation School and the Cost of Denying Reality and The Enemy We Don't Believe In and A 'Je Suis Charlie' Apocalypse.

How does all this relate to our liberty and duty to confess Christ openly before mankind? We must declare that real, objective reality and truth exist, they are not merely sujective "private realities" or "you have your truth and I have mine." The foundation for this is the Incarnation: God, the absolute reality beyond finite human rationality and knowledge, has revealed Himself in human flesh. He is now visible, tangible, and personally knowable; even after His ascension into heaven, He is really, spiritually present now in His Body, the Church. Reliable records of this are found in Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. But then the question of the reliable interpretation of Scripture – its meaning – arises:

2 Peter 1:20-21 states – "No Scripture is of private interpretation," and then it explains why: for, or because, holy men of God spoke (and wrote) as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. The connecting word "for" shows a relationship between the writing and the interpretation of Scripture: just as it takes holy men to write Scripture, so also it takes holy men (plural) to interpret Scripture. Those individuals, lone wolves, who implicitly claim authority in themselves to be the absolute judge over Scripture interpretation, are sadly mistaken. Neither pope nor patriarch nor any other individual is absolute or infallible. Those infinite attributes can only belong to God. That is why it takes an Ecumenical Council of godly men to agree on what is true and binding for the whole Church. One patriarch or pope or bishop alone or just a few of them can make mistakes, none are inerrant or infallible, nor is one person's opinion of Scripture's meaning or that of a few. "It is written, 'you are gods,' but you will die like men" (Psalm 82:6-7). Only God is God.

And in the end, God will have the final say:
"For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way. Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth, and bring to nothing by the brightness of his coming; even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn't receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. Because of this, God sends them a strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be judged who didn't believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:7-12).

You can read the rest of our newsletter at https://agape-restoration-society.org/ARC-News/a-n_2025-09-13.htm, and share it! Also, create your own website for less than $2 per month!