It's an election year, which seemed like the perfect time to discuss the relationship between God, government, and money. Join us in #Nashville on July 24-25 for #TGFB24. Tickets available at tgfb.com/store.

The dollar noose that enabled the US to lease and mold the world for 100 years will continue to tighten around its neck. Our geriatric overlords have just crushed their sixth glasses of Jonestown Kool-Aid, and the room’s starting to spin. Americans were shocked to see BRICS tossed through the window of their glass house, and Bastiat (to Krugman’s chagrin) will be proven true, and every Keynesian a liar.

Wanting #Bitcoin to be more altcoin friendly for the sake of bringing warm bodies to Bitcoin is the monetary equivalent of mega churches playing Bieber/Kings of Leon songs to draw in rando unbelieving Zoomers/Millennials. It’s a category error based in all the wrong motives that creates unsustainable and ultimately harmful expectations for all parties involved, to say nothing of how utterly cringe it is.

TV shows like The Wire and Man Men are popular in part because of their unshrinking portrayal of reality of life in a broken world. There is a place for this. However, such “prestige TV shows” often neglect to portray the real beauty and goodness (read: grace) that also abounds in the world. That’s real as well, and there are shows that exaggerate evil or so comprehensively deny kindness, love, etc that the audience is actually shaken out of buying into the story. This is, in part, because the acceptable ideological constraints required to work in Hollywood are way-of-life narrow, and almost completely secular. In ‘Egalitarianism As A Revolt Against Nature,’ Murray Rothbard wrote, “At the heart of the egalitarian left is the pathological belief that there is no structure of reality...that all the world is a tabula rasa that can be changed at any moment in any desired direction by the mere exercise of human will." Film and tv allows directors to operate in a real sense as gods, creating entire worlds that grant them full executive oversight over even the most granular details of a story. They hire a cast to work as one, saying, “Let thy kingdom come, let thy will be done.” This enables them to paint (at least semi-) credible and consistent stories that leave out God as a participant and either diminish (if not completely deny) or exaggerate consequences of choices made by characters. As Lewis once wrote, “You cannot go on seeing through things for ever. The whole point of seeing through something is to see something through it... If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To see through’ all things is the same as not to see.” There are redemptive and “more real” portrayals of life on film, and I’m grateful to have met several people working to create holistically faithful work.

Jesus knew a fair weather fan when he saw one, and wanted no part of them. “Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man.” - John 2:23-25 #Biblestr

'Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf." - Proverbs 11:28 "As for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy." - 1 Timothy 6:17 #Bitcoin

“People are God’s money. That sounds strange, but remember the components of the coin: The image of the son of a god who was king and priest. Is there anywhere in Scripture where God describes people in these terms? Yes. In the very beginning. In Genesis 1, God's first words about humanity are, “Let us make mankind in our image and likeness.” Who else makes humans in their own image and likeness? Parents with their children. After creating them, God tells his children to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth.” God wanted His money to be a universal, one world currency. The second thing that God says to humanity is that they should “subdue” and “exercise dominion” over all of the other created creatures. Peter Leithart points out that the Hebrew words translated subdue and exercise dominion are used throughout the old Testament to describe the work of kings. In Genesis 2:15, God tells Adam and Eve to “guard” and “keep” the Garden. Leithart again points out that the Hebrew words translated “guard” and “keep” are used throughout the Law and the Prophets to describe the work of the priests. From the beginning, God created mankind to bear his image as His sons, to steward his kingly authority, and to serve as priestly mediators to ensure that the earthly kingdom bears heavenly resemblance. But Adam and Eve failed. They heeded the voice of another father and sought to bring his will to pass, serving as his vice-regents and priests. And their children did likewise, down through Jesus’ day.”

Misrendering Jesus

Why the 'render To Caesar' passages are not a theological justification for the State to tax up to 100% of your wealth.

No one’s life is what you think it is. You don’t see the whole picture. “Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.’” - 1 Peter 5:5 #Biblestr