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The Not in Vain podcast is my personal podcast. If you like my other work, then you should undoubtedly subscribe; if you do not like my other work, then I do not know why you are reading this.

Not in Vain Not in Vain

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The Not in Vain podcast is my personal podcast. If you like my other work, then you should undoubtedly subscribe; if you do not like my other work, then I do not know why you are reading this.

    Beggars at the Feast [18 February 2023]

    Beggars at the Feast [18 February 2023]

    Transcript
    This transcript:Was machine generated.Has not been checked for errors.May not be entirely accurate.


    On 15 February 1546, an aging and ailing pastor climbed into the pulpit for what would be the last time.

    The topic of that last sermon is surely worthy of consideration, but not here and not now.

    Rather, let us follow this pastor to a nearby town, where he helped settle a dispute before retiring to his room with chest pains.

    He prayed the traditional prayer of the dying, Psalm 31, verse 5, Into your hand I commit my spirit, you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God.

    And then he went to sleep.

    Some hours later, around one in the morning, now the 18th, he awoke with more chest pain and was warmed with towels.

    The pastor thanked God for revealing to him the son in whom the pastor fervently believed.

    Two of the pastor's companions then asked him rather loudly, Reverend Father, are you ready to die, trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ, and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?

    The pastor replied, Yes.

    This was his last spoken word, and he died of a stroke some hours later.

    However, he left behind a note, his true last words, I trust you will indulge me if I update the German half from medieval to modern.

    Wir sind betle, hoch ist veum.

    We are beggars.

    This is true.

    That pastor, of course, was Martin Luther.

    And so let me turn to the question, which you will already know if you read the show notes, why Lutheranism?

    Or more specifically, why am I Lutheran?

    Why should anyone be a Lutheran?

    I have recounted elsewhere and more than once how I came back to Lutheranism.

    I will decline to do so again here because I intend to focus on the actual question at hand.

    I wish to be clear at the outset that I do believe that there are actual Christians in other traditions.

    Lutherans have never held otherwise.

    However, I do believe that other Christians have denied themselves the fullness of the faith.

    We Lutherans are beggars.

    All Christians are.

    However, we are beggars who have found a rich man who has thrown open his home to all and has prepared a great feast.

    Many scraps from this feast have been cast out here and there, and they can certainly nourish.

    But such scraps are not the fullness of the feast.

    At times we have been content to remain at the feast while so many others who have themselves been invited to the feast remain outside, content to survive on the aforementioned scraps.

    And so, when I invite you to come to the feast, I stand to gain nothing, save the joy, of course, of seeing another brother come into the master's hall.

    You have been invited to the feast, and you are my brother according to the flesh.

    The assumption is always one of partisan spirit, that the goal is to win or simply to score points or similar.

    This may be true for some, but it is not true for Lutherans.

    You are not a point in some ongoing contest with Rome or the Reformed or anyone else.

    You are a fellow beggar, and I have an invitation to the feast with your name on it.

    Now the Lord is super abundant in his grace, in his mercy with his gifts.

    It is not one place alone where we see or find available the forgiveness of sins.

    It is not simply in the word.

    Now that is what many will contend, and that is to say they are content with the scraps.

    I do not mean to describe the word of God as scraps, but the exegesis to which certain Christians hold turns the scriptures into scraps.

    They make it seem as if God is miserly with his grace when he is in fact super abundant, because you have not just the scriptures, yes, of course, the forgiveness of sins, faith, these good things are available in the scriptures, but they are also available in the sacraments.

    What does Christ say?

    What does scripture say of the cup?

    Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.

    Forgiveness of sins is available in the Lord's Supper as scripture clearly teaches.

    God is super abundant.

    There are multiple means o

    Hope [22 October 2022]

    Hope [22 October 2022]

    Transcript
    This transcript:Was machine generated.Has not been checked for errors.May not be entirely accurate.


    Although hope is the topic of this particular podcast episode, I want to go through a few preliminary matters first, before getting into the topic itself.

    So first, a discussion of the current state of affairs.

    There are those who would contend that the strength of the West is spent, that our energy is sapped, that our time is past.

    I do not subscribe to such a view.

    I do not hold to those conclusions.

    Admittedly, the West today is a civilization in decline, but I do not believe our decline is terminal.

    It is a temporary decline, a speed bump in our story, in our civilizational mythos.

    We will rise again, as we have always done, and we will reach heights never before seen.

    I have absolute faith in our people and I have absolute faith in our God.

    Our God cannot lie, and He has promised to enlarge our people, and to never abandon us.

    More on that in just a little bit.

    And so I want to discuss the issue of so-called black pills.

    It has become, on the right, and generally in society, popular to seek out, read, collect, share, and publicize negative stories and negative information, these so-called black pills.

    This is a very serious problem.

    This behavior is unbecoming for sons of the West.

    Stop doing it.

    We all know what we face.

    We all know what we have temporarily at least lost.

    We do not need to remind our brothers and sisters of this information every single day.

    Demoralizing our own only helps the enemy.

    Now, there is a proper place for negative stories and negative information, but it is not a hobby.

    It is not something that should be a major part of one's day.

    Do not devote your time and effort to this.

    Do other things that are productive.

    We are engaged in a war, and war is not fought only on battlefields.

    The narrative is a battlefield.

    Now, of course, at present we do not control the narrative.

    However, we can have personal control over such things as the narrative in our own minds, as the narrative that we share with others.

    So control your mind and your tongue.

    Again, do not demoralize your brothers and sisters.

    We are going to win, and you must believe this.

    No one is going to believe you if you say we are going to win, and then you spend your time sharing negative information and negative stories.

    So stop doing it.

    Now, it may seem like I am going to violate my own rule right now, but I'm not.

    As I said, there is a time and a place, and this is a time and a place to address the particular issue of despair.

    Now, for Zoomers and younger, particularly young men, there is this ambient, pervasive despair in our society.

    Now, giving in to that may be easy.

    In fact, it is fairly easy.

    But that is what our enemy wants.

    Do not give the enemy what he wants.

    Now, I recognize it's easy to say that, and it's another thing to live in this society under present conditions and do it.

    Life is struggle, and those who struggle are those who succeed.

    So I am asking you to keep fighting.

    What we are going through now is temporary.

    Matters will improve, move forward.

    If we keep moving forward, if we keep struggling, if we keep fighting, we will ultimately succeed.

    And now to get into the topic proper, I want to discuss hope.

    Why do I have hope?

    Well, two reasons.

    First, a belief in our people.

    Second, a belief in our God.

    I am going to go over the first at length, and then the second in, well, also at length, but we'll do the first.

    First point, belief in our people.

    Look at our history.

    Is there a more impressive history of any people, any civilization?

    The answer is no, of course not.

    What we, as the sons and daughters of Japheth, have accomplished eclipses everything else.

    Even look at our present.

    Yes, even in our decadent, decayed state, we surpass all would-be competitors.

    And now I want to address neo-pagans specifically.

    There are those who will say that, a

    Abortion [15 October 2022]

    Abortion [15 October 2022]

    Transcript
    This transcript:Was machine generated.Has not been checked for errors.May not be entirely accurate.


    So, abortion.

    I actually wrote an article on this topic back in 2019.

    To be clear, I still hold to the conclusions of that article.

    The title of that article, Killing Abortionists is Moral, the subtitle, A Threat of Deadly Force Against an Innocent Engenders a Moral Duty to Defend.

    You can, of course, find that on my website, coryjmahler.com, I know, very difficult to discern.

    But let us step back for a moment here and discuss some fundamental matters.

    What is abortion?

    Sort of a fundamental issue.

    If you are going to discuss something, you should be able to define it.

    Now, when it comes to abortion, the term is actually overbroad, because there are two different, not quite different concepts, but two different subtypes under that umbrella term, and they are very different.

    It is important to understand that difference.

    We'll get to why it's important to understand that difference in a minute here.

    But first, the two types.

    The two types are spontaneous and elective.

    Now, a spontaneous abortion is a miscarriage.

    That is the more common term used for what is technically a spontaneous abortion.

    And, of course, an elective abortion is what we usually mean when we use the shorthand abortion term.

    The reason that it matters, the reason we should be careful in using these terms, is that 1.

    Terms matter.

    We should use words to mean what they mean, not abuse them, not misuse them, and not mislead people by abusing and misusing terms.

    And 2.

    The left, they in fact do abuse these terms.

    And the reason they do it, of course, is for political ends.

    Now, of course, there are also moral ends, in their case, immoral ends, evil ends.

    But they abuse these terms by saying that, well, what we, our side, the right, those who are in fact lowercase r, right, what we are doing, they will accuse us of attempting to criminalize spontaneous abortion, which they will call miscarriage, of course, because that is the more common term.

    And they are conflating these two senses of abortion, spontaneous abortion on the one hand and elective abortion on the other.

    We, of course, are not attempting to criminalize spontaneous abortion.

    You cannot criminalize something like that.

    Well, yes, I mean, actually you could, but that would be a very stupid thing to do.

    It would be like criminalizing sneezing, or something even less voluntary, because you can at least decide, I am not going to sneeze.

    You can force yourself not to sneeze.

    You can't really stop yourself from having a miscarriage.

    And so, no, we're not attempting to criminalize that, because a miscarriage lacks the elements necessary to be a crime.

    And that is the next point, because what is abortion?

    Ultimately, the answer to the question is that it is murder.

    Well, having defined abortion, what is murder?

    Because if we call it murder, we have to know what murder means.

    Now, for murder, there are, again, two different senses of the term that it is necessary to know.

    The first would be murder under the positive law.

    And to be clear, the positive law would be laws enacted by men.

    So, under our criminal codes and the like, that would be positive law.

    And murder under those, I'm going to give a general definition, this is the one that you should use.

    Murder is the unlawful killing of one human being by another with malice aforethought.

    Now, there are several requirements in this definition.

    Of course, it is an unlawful killing, which is to say, of course, that there are lawful killings.

    And most saliently is the mens rea requirement, malice aforethought.

    Now, what mens rea means simply is guilty mind, because when it comes to a crime, there are typically two components.

    The actus reus, which is to say the guilty act, and the mens rea, which is to say the guilty mind, or more commonly called intent.

    Now, some will think innately that perhaps murder

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