Posts Tagged ‘Charles Bausman of Russia Insider’
Mark Dankof’s Open Letter to the Russian People: Growing Older but Wiser in the Mythologies of the American Empire
On what would have been my Father’s 102nd birthday and the day after the beginning of Lent 2022 in the Western Church via Ash Wednesday last evening, I compose an Open Letter to the people of Russia upon request. I once wrote an Open Letter to the youth of Iran in December of 2015. That too, was asked for.
My late Father and the environment in which I grew up as his younger son plays an important part in my life story, both in terms of who I once was as well as who I still am. You can read his story courtesy of his obituary posted in 2009. It is entitled, “Colonel Karl E. Dankof, Shah’s Imperial Iranian Air Force Logistician, Dead at 89.” He is now interred at Arlington National Cemetery in Section 54. In Fremont County, Iowa in his hometown of Hamburg, Iowa, there is a painted “Freedom Rock” which bears his portrait, among others from that County in Iowa’s Southwestern Corner where Iowa suddenly becomes Nebraska or Missouri if you drive either west or south from this place in mere minutes. Recent events have not favored this now declining community. CNN film footage will explain why in a piece entitled, “After the Flood.”
I experienced something rather odd when viewing the magnitude of the disaster. Hamburg, Iowa became for me a sad prototype of the apocalyptic future I believe awaits the American Empire. The eschatological overtones of Jesus Christ in His Olivet Discourse resonate for me in Matthew 24: 39 where the Lord proclaims that ” . . . the flood came and swept them all away.” This has been the case of Empires throughout world history. In the case of the American Empire, it absolutely deserves a most horrible and sudden death, both because of what it has done to other nations courtesy of “Democracy” as well as what it has inflicted upon its own domestic inhabitants in terms of their Constitutional freedoms, the exercise of the Bill of Rights, and the Empire’s Technocratic Surveillance State constructed and deployed in the name of “Security.” If possible, we could all ask Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, or Bradley Manning how safe they feel these days, and how free they are courtesy of the Home of the Brave, the last 4 words of the American National Anthem. One of my late colleagues 20 years my senior who passed away last October cynically but accurately supported the adoption of a slight alteration of those last 4 words some 15 years ago. In the America concocted by the elite denizens and enforcers of The New World Order, he vastly preferred the “Home of the Slaves.”
Come to think of it, I’m not too popular myself since 2006 in San Antonio, home to the American military establishment and the Global Internet Surveillance operation of the National Security Agency (NSA). Interviews like “U. S. Liberal Democracy Turning Into Totalitarian Regime Reminiscent of the Soviet Union” given to the Tehran Times awhile back, years of appearances on TV on Press TV/Iran courtesy of the PBS or Fox-29 studio hookups once grudgingly allowed in the Alamo City, domestic American broadcasts on the Republic Broadcasting Network (RBN) here in Texas, and many past articles and published Op-Ed pieces for the American Free Press (AFP) in Washington and Don Wassall’s The Freedom Times (online as the American Freedom News), have made me a target of a long-term campaign of economic and professional marginalization, demonization, and quiet ostracism I could not have imagined in the America of my youth. That America is long gone. The death of that America began in earnest when a fusillade of bullets ended the life of President John F. Kennedy in Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22nd, 1963. I was 8 years old and in the 3rd grade of elementary school.
Believe it or not, when I voted recently in the 2020 Republican (GOP) Primary in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas, there was a most curious Proposition 4 on the ballot, asking me if I agreed with legislation that would ban the teaching of the Marxist Critical Race Theory (CRT) in Texas public schools (I would, just as I denounce using public schools anywhere in this country to inculcate the young in LGBTQ practices and ideology or the legitimacy of abortion-on-demand.) But the second part of Proposition 4 also asked me in the same sentence to approve the doctrine of “American Exceptionalism” as the view of history to be presented exclusively in these same schools and State-approved textbooks. This idiotic idea carried the day with Republican voters in the entire State of Texas. Can they really believe such nonsense, both in terms of what has happened in this country in my lifetime, and the crimes committed by the American Establishment of both political parties abroad just in the last 30 years alone? Where in the world is such a view of the American Empire as the “exception” to the proven Bell Curve of history for all Empires in the course of linear time? Christ and the understanding of the redemptive history of Scripture would clearly find such a view both imbecilic and blasphemous. And yet the “Christian” Right in the State of Texas actually believes in such colonic detritus, along with the “Exceptionalism” of the Zionist State of Israel in marriage with The Beast, inscribed annually as obligatory mantra in a GOP Party Platform in the Lone Star State that in this arena of simian thought and warped ahistorical theocratic expression, is best used to line a cat litter box if one is Vitaly Milonov in Russia (smile), or Mark Dankof in Texas attempting to house train a new German Shepherd rescue dog.
In my Open Letter to Iranian youth over 6 years ago, the Tasnim News Agency of that country sought my humble opinion of the letter of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution to his young people. I did indeed honor that request. It is available in English and Persian. The English language version is entitled, “Mark Dankof: Leader’s Letter Urges Youth to Ponder West Duplicity.” I cited an article by Alexander Zinoviev of Russia entitled, “The End of Communism in Russia Meant the End of Democracy in the West.”
Truthfully, were it not for my good friend, Charles Bausman, the editor of Russia Insider, I would have never heard of Zinoviev, or his cosmic significance alongside Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. That underscores the pathetic performance of the American educational system all the way from elementary school and high school through the undergraduate collegiate educational process and beyond. It is also a damning indictment of the American news media.
This struck me during my penning of the letter to Tehran in December of 2015 as a macrocosmic prototype of a painful truth: Everything I have ever learned about the real and demythologized history of my own country was largely learned on my own through circumstances I cannot fully discuss and through painstaking reading and research over decades. That began as a youngster in questioning the official version and verdict of what happened to President Kennedy in Dallas. What I learned in American schools over many years in watching and reading mainstream American media growing up proved to be a demonic synthesis of myths, half truths, and outright and deliberately crafted and targeted falsehoods. In many instances, the topics were not even covered at all.
The list of episodes in history concealed or falsely spun by American schools and mainstream media is encyclopedic and seemingly endless: the American Civil War, the American imperialism of the late 19th century, the truth about who really sunk the USS Maine in Havana, Harbor, the establishment of the Federal Reserve Board and the direct Federal income tax on American citizens in 1913, the sinking of the Lusitania, the Versailles Treaty after World War I, the Weimar Republic in Germany before the rise of Hitler, the McCollum Memorandum provided to FDR in October 1940 as a primer on how to provoke a conflict with Japan and goad the latter into attacking the American fleet at Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Dresden in February of 1945, what was really behind the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the circumstances and truth of the death of General George Patton in December of 1945, the truth of all of the circumstances surrounding the establishment of the modern State of Israel, the real truth surrounding the mysterious death of American Defense Secretary James Forrestal in May of 1949, the Lavon Affair, Operation Ajax in 1953 in Iran, the assassination of Diem in South Vietnam in 1963, the subsequent assassination of President Kennedy 3 weeks later on November 22nd, 1963, the Israeli theft of American nuclear materials from the NUMEC plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania after the Kennedy Assassination, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which brought the United States into the Vietnam War, Israel’s attack upon the USS Liberty in June of 1967 in “Operation Cyanide,” the RFK and MLK assassinations in 1968, the PROMIS affair, the Pollard spy case in 1987, what transpired between the United States and Gorbachev after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the first American invasion of Iraq in “Operation Desert Storm,” the deaths of Vince Foster and Ron Brown in 1993 and 1996 during the first Clinton Presidential Administration, NATO’s bombing of Belgrade in 1999, the 9-11 attacks, the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in October of 2001 and March of 2003 respectively, the subsequent criminal actions of the United States in Libya and Syria, the assassinations of Iranian scientists over years and then that of General Soleimani in January of 2020, the later emergence of the Mossad sex trafficking ring of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, exposing the earlier Mossad connection to British media magnate Robert Maxwell and his subsequent murder.
In the case of Donald Trump’s authorization of the murder of General Soleimani, I publicly called it what it was in January of 2020: an extra-judicial war crime committed by the Commander in Chief and the 45th President of the United States. You can imagine what Military Town USA, San Antonio, Texas, the American National Security State, the Republican Establishment, and the Israeli Lobby thought of those public statements distributed internationally by Iran’s Tasnim News Agency. The interview is still available but for how long is anyone’s guess. Look for “General Soleimani’s Assassination was an Extra-Judicial War Crime.”
This brings us full circle to the aforementioned deception of “American Exceptionalism” and the tragic implementation of its assumptions by the American Empire throughout history with blood-soaked victims both domestic and foreign. Remember when I mentioned the American Civil War at the top of my list of items? I was never exposed to any of the revelations about Lincoln or the implications of the conflict between North and South until reading “The Real Lincoln” by Thomas DiLorenzo and attending one of his lectures in the greater Washington, D. C. area before 9-11. It is my hope that you will be able to access my review of his book in the Russian language.
The implications for understanding the mentality of the American Empire and the ignorance, blindness, and moral decadence of its subjects in 2022 has many links to the Lincoln Mythology, the American Civil War, and the beginning of the death of the Old American Republic in the aftermath of that conflict. The resulting evolutionary development of the present Leviathan Beast that has brought untold suffering into the world in its progressive implementation of the New World Order goes back to the 16th President of the United States. Thoughtful leaders and citizens of contemporary post-Communist Russia with its current crisis in the Ukraine would have deeper insights as to the demonic character of what is now attempting to destroy them and why, in being acquainted with Professor DiLorenzo’s magnum opus. It changed the course of my own life to the present time.
Understood properly then, anyone who actually has the virus of “American Exceptionalism” in his or her bloodstream with its cancerous and demonic toxicity, operates with certain dangerous and derivative principles which are both all-encompassing and ultimately fatal. These include: 1) the total embrace of the mythologies about the United States, especially its supposedly unique greatness in history and the operation of that greatness in history in uninterrupted perpetuity until the Second Advent of Christ; 2) a metastasizing absolutism which denies any facts or reasonable interpretation of facts about events and individuals past or present which contradict the ideology’s doctrinal presuppositions and predictable conclusions; 3) an adherence to the belief that the histories of other nations are inherently inferior and irrelevant, a belief dependent on knowing little or nothing about the actual histories of these nations, or their contributions to humanity through centuries; 4) and the astonishing belief that “American Exceptionalism” provides the American Empire with the divine commission of God to act domestically or internationally in ways that are inherently legitimate and lawful because of an allegedly “Biblical” mandate.
The most potent and poisonous concoction imaginable occurs when this lunacy is combined with belief in “Israeli Exceptionalism” as part of The Beast’s total composition and manifestation in history. The best example of the Snake Oil Salesman for this nitroglycerin is John Hagee of Cornerstone Church, located not coincidentally, right here in San Antonio, Texas. He preaches a “Gospel” of Zionism and Jewish racial supremacy comingled with American “Christianity” and “American Exceptionalism.” Mr. Hagee has never met a Zio-American war he didn’t love. His Snake Oil is sold on syndicated American Cable TV religious programming and radio around the United States and the world. Demonic it is, but sell it does. The Wall Street Journal estimated some years ago that this “Christian Televangelist” was sitting on a $150 Million Dollar Empire of his own in Hagee’s promotion of the American Empire and World Zionism as a prelude to the appearance of Antichrist in history. Contrast that with what happened to my late friend and colleague, Pastor Dale Crowley, and what continues to happen to me. To my knowledge, Pastor Crowley and I were the only American clergyman of consequence in broadcasting and print commentary to oppose this Satanic agenda at great personal cost. Dale was working on this many years before I ever entered the contest. In order to understand what I have conveyed to a largely unresponsive American audience, it is my hope that a Russian language translation of “Pastor Dale Crowley and Faithfulness Unto Death” will be made available to you.
When Pastor Crowley comes to my mind, I am reminded of the instructions that our Lord Jesus Christ imparted to the Church of Smyrna via the Apostle John in exile on the island of Patmos during the reign of the evil Roman Emperor Domitian (A. D. 81-96). John’s “crime”? He refused to acknowledge Domitian’s proclamation of himself as the virtual incarnation of God on the earth, and the Emperor’s war against the proclamation of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the Roman Empire and those God had commissioned to preach and teach it.
Christ’s instructions via John to the Church of Smyrna are directed to the Confessing Church of Jesus Christ throughout all of linear and redemptive history. We read in Revelation 2: 8-11:
To the Church in Smyrna
8 “To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know about the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.
11 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who is victorious will not be hurt at all by the second death.
If as a Russian, you have the Holy Spirit’s understanding of Christ’s message through John inscribed in these verses, I rejoice. Because the war against the Russian nation, its leaders, and its people, can only be understood in a Biblical context, as I once explained to a handful of Christian parents and children in Texas in a private lecture I later published. I hope you will be able to access it in your own language. It is entitled, “Christian Martyrdom and The American Empire: Mark Dankof On The New World Order.”
Everything I stated to these Christians in Texas in a private home seminar is now unfolding. I hope they remember my words that dark night quite some time ago. Americans in the main couldn’t care less about my message then or now. Neither have they heeded what I have told the Tehran Times and Sputnik International recently about this present crisis, just before it became an overtly military one. Neither have they heeded Thomas Ertl, James Jatras, Pat Buchanan, David Stockman, Paul Craig Roberts, Mike Whitney, Father Joseph Gleason, and a mere handful of responsible American analysts far more prominent than I in this life, who tried to tell them the truth. Isaiah 59: 8 describes those who follow Emperor Domitian of the Ancient Roman Empire, or Emperor Biden of the American Empire. The Lake of Fire in John’s Apocalypse is their final destination.
The American Empire’s toxic brew of “American Exceptionalism” is the most poisonous of any in all of history. The implications of its existence have eschatological overtones in fulfilling the prophetic words of the New Testament about the exponential increase in demonic activity prior to the blessed return of our Lord Jesus Christ. “American Exceptionalism” in truth has the blended components of Multi-National Corporatism, Cultural Marxism, and Globalism. The methods of its attempted exportation on a global basis are the deployment of sexual perversion and subversion of national sovereignties, the Information War, draconian economic sanctions for blackmail via starvation, assassinations and coup d’etats, and if necessary, military attack. Its Satanic agenda is deliberately cloaked in Messianic clothing and appearance. The Apostle Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 11: 14-15 that “For Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.” Those who ultimately stand behind this Empire are obvious, even as their naming and identification remains a total secret never to be mentioned in the American media.
The terrible news I share today is what you already know: Russia and President Putin have been targeted because they stand in resistance against this evil Beast in history. The Russian Orthodox cultural renaissance and recovery in your land in the post-Communist era especially outrages The Beast. He will stop at nothing in his attempt to destroy you, or the handful of us in the United States who have consigned ourselves to absolute marginalization, demonization, and probable future incarceration and martyrdom for having merely spoken and written the truth publicly while we could still do so. That window of opportunity is closing.
The wonderful news I share while I can as a Lutheran clergyman in virtual exile in my own country through all of this is that I am convinced that my Russian Orthodox and Traditional Roman Catholic friends are absolutely correct, that in His mysterious and providential wisdom, God has chosen Russia in these final times of the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy and the progressive unveiling of its eschatological signs to oppose and defeat The Beast in ways yet to be seen. Polycarp of Smyrna may be your temporal future and mine as well. But rest assured that we will finally be victorious, and the Lord will return in righteous judgment of The Beast and his minions, rewarding His faithful people as He has throughout time in their full inclusion in the Kingdom of God eternal and well beyond present time and space.
Sputnik International talks to Mark Dankof on Ukraine
The Complete Text:
Sputnik International:
Addressing current US-Russia tensions around Ukraine, Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin said: “Conflict is not inevitable. There is still time and space for diplomacy”. Why does the US continue to publicly take a harsh tone against Russia, when we’re in a situation where any provocation might lead to a large-scale conflict?
Mark Dankof:
As I told the Tehran Times recently, the position of the United States government on Russia and Ukraine is “certifiably insane.” Pat Buchanan and David Stockman have boiled it down to the essence of the problem: 1) The United States lied to Mr. Gorbachev in the wake of the coming down of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Soviet Union when it promised not to recruit ex-Soviet Republics for NATO membership, or to move American and NATO military assets and exercises closer to Russian borders. 2) The current crisis over Ukraine is the direct result of an illegal American and EU coup d’etat in Kiev in February of 2014 which overthrew the legally elected government there. 3) The United States has absolutely no true national security interest in meddling in what is none of our business in Russia’s back yard. One will note that Lloyd Austin and all of these other “patriots” scream at the notion of any Russian military presence in Cuba or Venezuela, but reserve the right in the interest of “democracy” to hold a dagger at Russia’s throat–and Iran’s and China’s–in their respective backyards. It is utterly preposterous–and recklessly dangerous.
The bottom line with Austin and all of these other people is their relationship with defense contractors and Neo-Conservative think tanks and NGOs. Follow the trail of the money. The Intercept is but one source easily available on Google search to review these trails.
Sputnik International:
While stating America’s unwillingness to send troops to Ukraine to fight for Kiev, Biden announced that he’ll be moving US personnel to Eastern Europe and NATO countries in the near term. How do these two ideas mesh?
Mark Dankof:
Biden and his warmongers in both political parties have apparently thought better of crossing a Red Line for Russia where Russia will not back down (Ukraine). They will continue their irresponsible deployments in Eastern Europe. It is important to see how all of this duplicity escalated in the Clinton Administration with both NATO additions and in the criminal bombing of Serbia. Charles Bausman’s Russia Insider chronicles this in an article first posted in 2015 and entitled, “Remembering NATO’s Brutal Bombing Campaign in Serbia.”
There is yet another angle on what Washington and Kiev have going on in the Donbass: The deployment of mercenaries from the United States and the West with Ukrainian special forces types in the Donbass, to engage in paramilitary operations and acts of terror, including the probable set up of False Flags as was the case in attempting to overthrow the Assad regime in Syria. I have been following this through Donbass Insider and several sources on the ground there who send me what is not available for obvious reasons in an American mainstream media.
Here’s a classic example of how all of this works: Michael Vickers, ex-American Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, recently wrote a gung-ho editorial for the Washington Post on committing American troops to Ukraine. The Post failed to mention that Vickers is on the Board of Directors of the British BAE Systems, the largest weapons company in Europe, and whose stock value rose 10% in this crisis. It is the Lloyd Austins, Michael Vickers, and Joe “Burisma” Bidens of the world who are risking the lives of literally millions of people in this demonic lunacy.
Sputnik International:
Russia has stressed on multiple occasions that it is not considering any military option, while insisting on a dialogue, especially on the security guarantee talks. Why are we witnessing increased pressure from the West? How is it helping (or hurting) the dialogue between the countries?
Mark Dankof:
There is no dialogue between the United States and NATO and Russia, any more than there is dialogue between the United States and Iran. This is all about maintaining the supremacy of the Western central banking system, the American petrodollar, the profits of armaments manufacturers, and the State of Israel and its global lobby. There is no dialogue, only a pack of lies backed by military deployments and threats, economic sanctions and blackmail, black operational subversions in these countries, all couched in diplomatic language and the Orwellian use of terms like “democracy,” “human rights,” and “negotiations.”
Sputnik International: What is Washington’s casus belli here for promoting warmongering rhetoric over diplomacy? What do they want to get from such an escalation?
Mark Dankof:
My previous answer basically suffices in answering this one.
In this regard, Biden, Austin, and Vickers are joined by a classic GOP salesman and “patriot” for globalism, Neo-Conservatism, and Zionism: Congressman Michael R. Turner of Ohio’s 10th Congressional District which includes Dayton’s Wright Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB). Turner has been making the rounds in attempting to sell his wares everywhere he can, including both Fox News and CNN. In recently being added as the ranking Republican member of the House Intelligence Committee, along with his concurrent membership on the House Armed Services Committee, Turner was credited by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) with successfully fighting the Democrats’ Russia collusion hoax.
All well and good, but then people like Turner and McCarthy proceed to follow the even more dangerous path on NATO expansion, Ukraine interventionism, and the Israeli line on JCPOA.
Check out the Turner profile on Wikipedia: His Committee Assignments will tell you what money buys.
Three things are guaranteed: 1) Turner isn’t going to be on CNN debating Pat Buchanan or David Stockman on Russia, NATO, and Ukraine. 2) Turner isn’t going to tell his “patriotic” Christian voters in the 10th Congressional District of Ohio about the CIA-NED subversion of the post-Communist Russian Orthodox cultural revival and renaissance in that country via covert support for LGBTQ demonstrations there or the activities of the Pussy Riot types in that country. And 3) when blowing the Shofar Horn for the Israeli Lobby, he won’t be talking about the bombing of the King David Hotel, the Lavan Affair, the Ben Gurion-Meyer Lansky link to Dealey Plaza. the NUMEC thefts, the Israeli bombing of the USS Liberty, the Pollard and Ben-Ami spy cases, the PROMIS Affair, the truth of 9-11, or the Clean Break roadmap to American janissary wars in the Middle East courtesy of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Sputnik International: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the West to remain calm over the tensions with Russia, in spite of the Western rhetoric about “invasion” plans. Even Ukraine itself is asking for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy. Why is the country the West claims to care about not being heard?
Mark Dankof:
Perhaps Zelensky realizes that he’s in over his head in this. The European members of NATO need to reflect on their respective situations as well. Their own innocent populations will be the first be to hit en masse. For what? Joe Biden? Lloyd Austin? Michael Vickers? Mike Turner?
I have a suggestion for Sputnik International and other international news agencies: the promotion of a globally televised debate. Team One is comprised of Pat Buchanan, David Stockman, and Ron Paul. Team Two is Lloyd Austin, Mike Turner, and Victoria Nuland.
Who would accept that invitation? Team One members will. Team Two is likely AWOL but let us give them a chance under collegiate debate rules–including examination of evidence and cross-examination. Let’s have some Reality TV. Our lives may depend on it.
Bausman, Gleason, Dankof, and Polycarp: Counting the Cost in Opposing the New World Order
Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.
Revelation 2:10 KJV
And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
Ephesians 5:11, KJV
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things.
I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.
A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened.
I beheld then because of the voice of the great words which the horn spake: I beheld even till the beast was slain, and his body destroyed, and given to the burning flame.
Daniel 7: 7-11 on the 4th Beast
And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
The Apocalypse of John, Chapter 13, Verses 15-18
In a recent and yet unpublished interview with the Fars News Agency of Iran, I was asked for my opinion of the present state of “American Democracy.”
My response was succinct and clear: “‘Democracy’ in the United States has 5th stage terminal cancer. Both major political parties are financed and controlled by the Military-Industrial Complex, the Central Banks, the National Security State, the Israeli Lobby, and the Multi-National Corporations. All of these entities control Mainstream Media (MSM) in America. True political representation of the average American has evaporated since the Kennedy Assassination in 1963. Add to that the Voting Machine and Mail-In Ballot Fraud in 2020, and the total evisceration of the First Amendment and freedom of speech by the social media giants, and one begins to understand how hopeless the situation really is.”
I should have added that the New World Order’s demonic brew of Multinational Corporate Capitalism, the Federal Reserve Board, Zionism, and Cultural Marxism is aimed primarily both at any responsible form of Christianity or Islam historically and is the very embodiment of the ideology of the coming Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2; Revelation 13). Sadly for me as an American, the American Empire is at the center of this Satanic manifestation and is its chief enabler, along with the eschatologically deceptive modern State of Israel, which has absolutely nothing to do with its Old Testament counterpart or the New Testament’s Israel of God, which is the Confessing Church of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The escalation in the persecution of Christians witnessing for their faith and the truth about what has been happening in the United States was evident on this past November 29th with the publication of an article by Charles Bausman, editor of Russia Insider, entitled, “Why This Site Is the Very Opposite of Hateful – A Christian Letter to My Hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.” Anyone who knows Bausman personally, as I do, can testify to the excellence of his web page, his profoundly devoted Russian Orthodox faith, his compassion for people, his innate sense of fairness, his hospitality to a fault, and the Christ-motivated character of what he does within the confines of the respectable and responsible wing of alternative media. The notion that he would become a target of the forces in his own hometown that have targeted me for 20 years is an especially ominous sign of what is just around the corner.
Then there is his colleague, Father Joseph Gleason of Russian Faith. Even a cursory look at a You Tube video on Father Gleason’s moving of his family and himself to Russia reveals the same type of profile extant in the analysis of Charles Bausman. If one surfs the Internet, it becomes obvious that Father Gleason has been targeted by the same forces as Bausman and myself over time. Buy into their worldview or not, who in their right mind can believe that these men represent malevolent forces targeting their American homeland and communities as agents of evil subversion commissioned by Vladimir Putin himself? The fact that they have been so tagged by the American media and political elite only underscores the reality of the Satanic hijacking of the latter. I now believe that hijacking to be irrevocable and irreversible with the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Which brings me back to yours truly and an article I penned for both Charles Bausman, Father Gleason, and Texas homeschoolers quite some time ago now. It is entitled, “Christian Martyrdom and The American Empire.” From the time of the commissioning of the assassination of General Qassem Soleimani by Donald Trump in early January of 2020 to the present, the themes of that essay are only accentuated by the relentless developments of the past 14 months. Biden’s wholesale alliance with the LGBTQ and abortion industries, the latest illegal attack on Syria by the United States for Israel, the Gates-Soros COVID-19 Plandemic and its advancement of the American police and surveillance state through the targeted coercion of the globalist medical establishment, the ongoing threat of a regime change war with Iran, and the clear desire to intensify the encirclement and subversion of Putin’s Russia, are but a few of the clear evidences of the evil of the Godlessness engulfing America which will only increase in intensity before the Second Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. Make no mistake about it. God will judge the United States as comprehensively as Daniel’s 4th Beast.
And as I mentioned in that presentation seemingly authored 1000 years ago in linear time, the intensification of the persecution and demonization of Christians and Christianity in the United States and the West will worsen beyond that seen since the Ancient Roman Empire of Nero and Domitian. I said then that:
Let me add one sobering thought for your long term consideration tonight. My final premise is this: It may not simply be enough to refuse to kill innocents on behalf of the American Empire and its Emperors. The Lord may require that we be willing to die a death of Martyrdom Witness by the hand of this Empire at a time of His choosing. Stephen, Peter, and Paul come to mind instantly as New Testament examples. Revelation 2: 8-11 and The Cry of the Martyrs found in the 5th Seal of John’s Apocalypse in Revelation 6: 9-11 are verses which accompany these Saints of God in constant reverberations within the heart, the mind, the soul of those in closest union with Christ.
And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
I believe these cited verses, among others, provide us with a New Testament doctrine of witness and faithfulness unto death. It is not an accident in redemptive history that the first example this post-apostolic faithfulness unto death proves to be St. Polycarp of Smyrna.
Polycarp (A. D. 69-155) is one of the 3 chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. His name translates into Greek as “much fruit” (Πολύκαρπος). The two chief works which enable us to have some access to his life and death in Christ are The Martyrdom of Polycarp (Μαρτύριον του Αγίου Πολυκάρπου) and his Letter to the Philippians (Επιστολή προς Φιλιππησίους). You are assigned each of these for reading and contemplation, as your parents work these into your homework schedules. Of the many things that are exciting about homeschooling, the experience of an entire family learning together is chief among them. So shall it be here also.
Irenaeus indicates that he heard Polycarp in his youth. Tertullian informs us that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, our author of the Gospel of John, 1st-2nd-3rd John, and the Revelation on Patmos. Jerome later conveys to us the fact that John had ordained Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna. Keep in mind that the Church of Smyrna in Revelation 2 was the economically poor but spiritually rich church, the church in Asia Minor warned specifically about the Synagogue of Satan, and the church instructed to be faithful unto death against the backdrop of an evil Roman Empire. It is the prototype of the remnant Israel of God at the end of history, as the people of Christ watch spiritual darkness and apocalyptic political developments engulf the planet while clinging to the Word of God, the Holy Sacrament, and the testimony of Prophets, Apostles, and Saints.
Lutheran scholar turned Orthodox, Jaroslav Pelikan notes this backdrop of the execution of Polycarp in Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, page 223:
When, in the first postbiblical account of a Christian martyrdom, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Roman proconsul, Statius Quadratus, the political and spiritual descendant of Pontius Pilate and the representative of Emperor Antoninus Pius, orders the aged Polycarp, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar!” Polycarp instead confesses “with boldness, ‘I am a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.’” And so he went to his death. The twentieth century, which saw the rise of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes that were inimical to Christianity, also therefore produced several such confessions that were political acts in this special sense. [see Barmen Declaration of 1934]
And so we come to the end of the hour with the question of the day being this: While virtually everyone here will accept at face value the evil character of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, the Ancient Roman Empire, or the Hitler and Stalin regimes, is the American Empire somehow a beacon of light and hope to the world as our educational system, pastors, and churches often insist that it is, or is the verdict of the Activist Post more devastatingly accurate over 7 years ago in its essay, “10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History?” Put another way, will our young people be doing the will of the Lord in serving in The Empire’s War on Terror, or is the way of Polycarp, the way of Peter and Paul, and the exilic path of John, Solzhenitsyn, Sununu and Assange, His will for the lives of those who gathered here tonight if the situation so requires?
For the Christian living in the United States, that question will not go away. I hope each person here tonight will avail himself or herself of the links to articles and broadcasts over time necessary to examine the question at hand, and to search the Scriptures prayerfully and diligently. I am thankful that a remnant of people in this city have sought to examine the evidence for themselves and to allow the Lord to lead them in the truth over time as He wills. And in these dark days and nights, with the eschatological time clock of God ticking to the end of this present cosmos and the beginning of eternity, let us think tonight not only of our own families and friends, but those around the world already mentioned as among those most presently persecuted and endangered. The Lord’s admonition of Revelation 2:11 echoes once again in our hearts, our minds, and our souls: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And so we close tonight with that prayer. May we have ears to hear. May we hear what the Spirit says to the churches. May we overcome. May we be spared the second death in the Lake of Fire. For the end fast approaches. Amen.
And so I now conclude on this Day of Polycarp of Smyrna, Pastor and Martyr on February 23, 2021, that the Christian believer in the United States and the West must be more deeply in prayer, meditation, and study of the Word of God than ever before. The increasing danger to the Confessing Church of Christ posed by the New World Order has its counterpart in the blessings of God for those who remain faithful unto death (Revelation 2: 10-11). Time’s speed increases as the cosmos hurtles toward the last events in history before the return of Christ. Watch. Wait. Be ready.
There is a sobering corollary. Those who worship the American Empire as the personification of Christ shall die the Second Death (Revelation 20: 14). And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both body and soul in hell (Matthew 10: 28).
He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches (Revelation 2:29).
Mark Dankof: An Overview of I John for the Catacomb Church and Homeschooling Study in The Latter Days
This study is dedicated to Christian believers in these latter days who face constant trials, tribulations, tragedies, illness, and spiritual depression and discouragement. Come, Lord Jesus, Come.
As we begin our 3 hour session this evening in I John, let me emphasize at the outset that this presentation of an overview of the book is to be understood in the context of the larger Johannine corpus of the New Testament. These Epistles (I John, II John, and III John) are fascinating letters with a wealth of information and insight in them. We will eventually tackle the Gospel of John and his Apocalypse on Patmos, the work which finalizes the New Testament corpus even as it provides additional data on what that corpus reveals to us on the issues of eschatology and those things that must transpire in history before the Second Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I am most appreciative of the opportunity to gather in this private home in South Texas. It is not an accident that there is no advertisement of our studies to the general public or the use of social media to disclose our location, our syllabus, or the names and numbers of our homeschoolers and homeschooling parents who gather here. When I am invited here, it is understood that I am attempting to help parents and students tackle the tools and methods of study available for growth in the Word of God, to discuss matters never discussed in public schools, and to focus on prayer together as a family of remnant believers in Jesus Christ, the Holy Trinity, and the trustworthy character of the written revelation of God in the 39 books of the Old Testament and the 27 books in its New Testament counterpart.
Class Assignment: Gnosticism on pages 42-60.
For those of you who have been a part of my last several seminars and discussions here, it is understood that the covering of basic material necessary for study and comprehension is an essential part of anything I teach, but so is challenging give-and-take, and rigorous questioning during the 3 hours that have now begun. Past examples of the work we have accomplished together have included my Overview of Jonah as Prototypical Primer for Catacomb and Homeschool Study; Christian Martyrdom and The American Empire; and The Church of Smyrna Speaks to the Confessing Church of Christ in This Darkening Hour of Tribulation, Remnant, and Martyrdom. Whatever else may be said, we are willing together to tackle the real issues of these latter days against the backdrop of an American cultural, political, and educational revolution which has evolved in the last 50 years into an increasingly hostile monolith against any version of Biblical Christianity or its expression in the public marketplace of ideas in a darkening era of Cultural Marxism, Wars for Empire, the Surveillance State, and the proliferation of once-evangelical churches going down the road of the Personality Cult, the Church Growth Movement (CGM), the Entertainment/”Contemporary Worship” Scene, and an overall approach which has embraced mass popularity, existentialism and the sensory at the expense of time-tested, propositionally revealed truths in the Word of God. Is it any wonder that our Lord Jesus emphasizes that the end of history before His return shall be a time of unprecedented deception (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21)?
Christian believers in Iran at Christmas Time in an uncertain world.
One other item before we move into the survey of I John: Use electronic technology of this present era to your advantage in Biblical study and your search for God’s truth. Because of the plethora of trash that exists on the Internet, evangelical Christians often make the mistake of denying themselves and their families access to wonderful theological and Biblical presentations online, and to musical and historical treasures not previously accessible to most of us in a pre-Internet age. With prayerful discernment, this era enables all of us to grow in knowledge and resources over time. I chose a few examples for your future use, and your future journey. See Douglas Campbell and Douglas Moo: Is the Lutheran Approach to Pauline Justification ‘Justified’? ; D. A. Carson’s multi-episode series on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three; Dr. Gleason Archer on The Documentary Hypothesis and Higher Criticism; The Best of Bach; a marvelous journey for the Western Christian in Russian Orthodox Chant; or even what I wrote last month for Russia Insider on LGBTQ and the Culture of Death. The point is this: Learning and Discovery never end. Keep learning, keep discovering, keep growing in the deepest things of God and the available works of some of His best laborers, wherever they till. Allow God’s Word to inform your thinking and your present and future pathway, not the mobs and masses increasingly on the loose in American institutions, seeking to destroy faith, freedom, morals, and the ability to think critically for oneself without dictation or coercion. That is the ultimate reason why all of you are here. This is why I have come to help you to the extent that the limitations of my gifts allow me to do so. It is my ministry to you, even as each and everyone of you ministers to me in these encounters.
St John writes I John in Ephesus, the Apocalypse on the Isle of Patmos.
And please do not make the mistake of failing to be informed on secular political issues and developments both nationally and globally, even as you search for the best sources with which to receive information and analysis as to the larger implications of these matters. There is no Biblical prophet or apostle who failed to write about these matters in the context of the principles to be learned about God’s sovereign control of all of linear redemptive history throughout the entirety of the Biblical corpus, both in terms of the larger landscape of what was happening in the time contemporaneous with the author and the critical increase in discernment on the part of modern remnant believers in Christ now living in these latter days. The Holy Spirit superintended the process of inspiring and illumining the minds and hearts of these men in regard to each word, each chapter, each book of the Scriptures. Thus it is the Spirit of God Himself who has insured the inclusion of these materials on the historical and political times of long ago with application to the wisdom of God’s remnant people in days many centuries later (2 Peter 1:21). When I look at my own life and the passage of years accompanied by past work as a journalist, a broadcaster, a traveler and wanderer, and a Lutheran pastor, one example of these many strange intersections and the superintendence of God occurred in 2012 traveling to and from South Africa. I wrote about that in “A Reminder of God’s Existence From Long Ago.”
Pastor Dankof to Homeschoolers: The Lifelong Study of Scripture and Solid History is Your Pathway as God Directs.
I will give you one example of something to read on the history of America seen through the lenses of discernment and not those of an Empire-driven mythology about that history, designed to befuddle those who are unwitting pawns of that Empire and its agenda of world government and what we have discussed here in past sessions as the so-called New World Order. It is written by my evangelical friend and past colleague in national political wars in the Constitution Party, Pastor Chuck Baldwin. It is entitled, “These Are The Dates That Destroyed America, 1865-2016.” Follow and research the events he mentions in this terrific article in Russia Insider over months and years, and you are guaranteed to learn things the American political elite and its educational system and news media do not want you to know about. That includes the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas when I was a boy. My late friend Michael Collins Piper wrote a book on that subject. You can now read the entire manuscript online thanks to the people at The Unz Review.
Mark Dankof to Homeschooling Parents and Students: I can return to my collegiate youth in Iran, or return to the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Persia anytime I desire.
I will add two additional resources for your future use in the study of the Old Testament as it pertains to the ancient Achaemenid Kings of the Persian Empire, before we commence with I John tonight as the beginning of some work in the Johannine literature of the New Testament. Put these in your seminar notes that pertain to what I have been doing with all of you up to this point. One is the website of Dr. Kaveh Farrokh of the University of British Columbia, a past guest on my radio show a decade ago. His new article on Pasargadae and Cyrus the Great just issued may be accessed here. His pivotal book, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War, is a future must for all of you to use in any homeschooling seminar or Catacomb Church study. The other volume is entitled, Persia and the Bible by Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, past President of the Evangelical Theological Society. As you will later discover on your own, one cannot see how the Old Testament and the New Testament’s constant use of the Old document the entirety of redemptive history without understanding how Persia, the Achaemenid Empire, and Cyrus the Great fit into the entirety of the picture on Prototype, Predictive Prophecy, Eschatology, and God’s superintendence of the Biblical narrative and all of history, as but one significant example among many.
Mark Dankof’s Radio Studio doubles as Pastor Mark Dankof’s Research Library, where denizens like Kaveh Farrokh and Edwin Yamauchi reside.
Speaking of history, let our own history record in perpetuity the number of words I have already employed as a mere preliminary to beginning the launch of our journey into the Johannine literature of the New Testament by first examining I John (That total is 1,628 words.)
One more preliminary suggestion. Go back to our study of Jonah to be refreshed on some ideas on tools to be used now for I John and the entirety of the Johannine corpus. Remember that I said then:
“Where tools are concerned, the multi-volume Zondervan Charts are critically valuable. I have been collecting them for years.
“And finally, if one desires to learn enough Greek and Hebrew through a reputable online course, the best tools for subsequent word studies and research include the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Harris, Archer, Waltke), the updated version of the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis (Moises Silva, ed.), and the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (10 vols, Kittel/Friedrich). The classic Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, the accompanying Index to the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon, the infamous Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich or “BAG”) and An Index to the Revised Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Greek Lexicon (John R. Alsop, Zondervan) round out some of the basics for those who want to dabble in these scholarly arenas. We do not have to be world-famous scholars to use these. Over time, I can easily show you how. By the way, the Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich (“BAG”) edition is a first edition. Later, there was a second edition in 1979 that involved my late Lutheran colleague William Danker, hence the later acronym BAGD. And to make matters even more ridiculous for you, when a 3rd edition of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature was subsequently issued in 2000, the acronym for the 4 scholars was rearranged for reasons beyond me. This 3rd edition is referred to by insiders as BDAG (Bauer-Danker-Arndt-Gingrich). Go figure. As for me, I still have the 2nd edition known as BAGD.”
Pastor Dankof at the Podium for 3 Hours. Put on Your Helmets, Class, and Let’s Go!
First John Survey
A Roadmap of Structures and Concepts for Studying a Biblical Book: Test Case today is First John.
Place of the Book in the Canon and in the Redemptive History Timeline: For your Prototypical Analysis, think of the Epistles of John as subsequent to the Gospel of John and prior to The Apocalypse/The Revelation of John on the island of Patmos during the reign of Emperor Domitian (A. D. 81-96 A. D.)
Two Guarantees of Pastor Dankof to Homeschoolers: “When we get to the Gospel of John, a guaranteed word study is Logos. For I John, we will try Advocate and Propitiation with our Tools.”
Title: “First of John” (Πρώτα από τον Ιωάννη)
Author: The author is the Apostle John, although I John does not tell us who its author is. The earliest identification we have of John comes from the Church Fathers. See Irenaeus (circa 140-203 A. D.), Clement of Alexandria (circa 155-215 A. D.), Tertullian (circa 150-222 A. D.), and Origen (circa 185-253 A. D.) who unanimously designated the author as the Apostle John. There is no evidence of anyone else being brought forward as an alternative by the Church Fathers. The book was used by Polycarp (who knew John in his youth) and Papias in the second century. All of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers accepted this Epistle as Johannine.
The identification of the Apostle John as the author by the Church Fathers is undoubtedly the result of the strongest evidence contained within the text of 1 John itself: This evidence is overwhelming based upon the style of 1 John in comparison to the Gospel of John and the use of antithetical contrasts in expressions (light v darkness; life and death; truth and lies; love and hate.)
Compare phrases and expressions in the two books: Example of First John 1:1 and the Gospel of John 1:1,14. Assignment for next session: Find two more, among many.
Eyewitness Testimony (First John 1: 1-4; 4:14). See “we” (Apostles), “you” (readers), and “they” (false teachers) phraseology.
John’s Background: Acts 8:14; Galatians 2:9. Christian tradition indicates uniformly that he left Jerusalem (probably not long before its destruction in A. D. 70) and ministered in and around Ephesus.
Date and Historical Background: You will find that the precise dating of the book is impossible to determine, which compels us to bring in the scholarly detectives (the orthodox, evangelical scholars) to narrow the field to a reasonable time frame based on the Biblical and historical data available. Here is what can safely be said: We are looking at a time frame nearing the end of the first century. Factors to be included in any analysis of this shall include the evidence from early Christian writers (Irenaeus and Clement of Alexandria), an early form of Gnosticism which provides the backdrop of the letter’s denunciations, and the indications of John’s advancing age. One evangelical source concludes that since I John builds on the themes and concepts found in the 4th Gospel, it would be reasonable to conclude with the other arguments already advanced that a date between A. D. 85-95 is an excellent deduction. No persecution is mentioned, suggesting a date prior to A. D. 95 when persecution broke out during the end of Emperor Domitian’s reign (A. D. 81-96). I cannot overemphasize the importance of a basic understanding of Gnosticism. In addition to the one Internet Link already provided, the class will have two background reading assignments on this topic: One is to read what Dr. Harold O. J. Brown tells us in Heresies about Gnosticism in pages 42-60. There is a correlation between Gnosticism and Docetism, we are told. Hint: Look up Gnosticism in The New Unger’s Bible Dictionary. You will be told to “See Incarnation (pp. 613-613).” Why?
Christ in I John: The Lord is indeed found throughout the book. My favorite section, if pressed, would be the section marked off as 1:5-2:22. This section does highlight the present ministry of Christ, especially in the emphasis on His blood continually cleansing the believer from all sin, and the articulation of the idea that He is our righteous Advocate before the Father. Pay special attention to the specific refutations of the Gnostic heresy here (see 2:22 and later 4:2-3). Jesus comes by “water and blood” (5:6); He is the same indivisible person from the beginning to the end of his life, in an idea later framed by systematic theologians as the Hypostatic Union of the Human and Divine Natures in One Indivisible Person. The Nicene Creed discusses the mystery of the “Word who Became Flesh” (John 1:1,14 with comparison to 1 John 1:1) by discussing the correct verdict of the Council of Nicaea that the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, is “of the same substance as God the Father.”
Structure of the Book: Let’s keep this as simple as possible:
I. Introduction (1:1-4)
II. Fellowship’s Conditions (1:5-2:14)
III. Cautions to the Believer (2:15-27) [Love of the World/Spirit of the Antichrist]
IV. The Believer’s Walk with God in Fellowship (2:28-5:21) [Characteristics and Positive Consequences of Fellowship]
Key Verses: When I was a boy in Lutheran parochial school in Hawaii, and later a young Lutheran confirmand in Dayton, Ohio, memorization of the Word of God was an absolute emphasis. I remember so many verses from I John that it seems almost absurd to discuss key verses, except in the context of my own personal preferences and those quoted most often by my teachers and scholars who guided me in my past educational endeavors.
But I will give you a few: I John 1:5-10; I John 2: 1-2; I John 2: 17; I John 2: 18-19; I John 2:22-23; I John 2:26; I John 3:1b; I John 3:16; I John 3:23; I John 4:1-3; I John 5:5-7; 1 John 5: 11-12; I John 5: 13-15; I John 5:16; I John 5:18-20.
Key Chapter: There is so much key material throughout this Epistle that I find isolating the key chapter to be a bit of a dicey proposition. Nonetheless, I will post here the majority evangelical consensus that the key chapter is Chapter 1, with the key idea/word being that of fellowship. In my notes from a D. A. Carson lecture at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in the early 1980s, he made reference to the ” . . . two central passages in the New Testament for continued fellowship with God are John 15 and First John 1. The former relates the positive side of fellowship, namely abiding in Christ. The latter gives us the opposite side of the equation, that when Christians do not abide in Christ, they must seek forgiveness before fellowship can be restored.” Yes, I have all of my notes and handouts from my entire time in three different seminaries. I recopied my notes after each lecture, which enables me to read my handwriting decades later. . . .
Good Commentaries: I am going to suggest a good possibility. I use the word possibility because I haven’t used it personally, but the evangelical credentials of the author and the endorsements suggest one would be safe in selecting this one as part of a larger personal Bibliography. I will reiterate what has been said in this seminar each time I have been invited to teach: For beginners in this minefield, select those who actually believe the Word of God is infallible and divinely inspired; then subdivide that further when it comes to schools graduated from, theological tradition identified with the author, and special expertise in a specific Biblical book or research emphasis. Once we reach the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse, I will have other suggestions for you. Hint: A man I once knew is a name you need to remember. It will come up time and time again: Leon Morris. Another name for your future interest: Donald W. Burdick. His The Letters of John the Apostle is something to remember and to consult. Finally, don’t make the mistake of failing to consult the Lutheran tradition when it is out of the orthodox, evangelical wing of that strand. One of the great ironic shortcomings of Protestant Evangelical publishing houses and schools is the tendency to forget that the Sola Christus, Sola Scriptura, Sola Fide rallying cry of the Reformation stems originally from the Lutheran Reformation, not the later development of what would become known as the Reformed version. On the issues of forensic declaration and imputation as these concepts relate to the salvation of the believer, they are of one mind, whatever the other significant differences.
The Lutheran “Solas” and the Monergistic Action of God in Salvation. Avoid Synergism. What is Synergism, Class????
Word Studies: Advocate (Παράκλητον) I John 2:1: Volume 3 of New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, Moises Silva (Revision Editor), pages 627-633. BAGD, page 618.
Propitiation (ἱλασμός) I John 2:2: Volume 2 of New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology and Exegesis, Moises Silva (Revision Editor), pages 531-541. Also BAGD on page 375. Detail on page 375: Luther’s Gnadenstuhl and his exegesis of Hebrew 9:5.
Was ist ein Gnadenstuhl? See Luther on Hebrews 9:5.
Key Ideas for Discussion and Reflection: Dr. Harold O. J. Brown tells us that the entire history of the Church is the constant battle between Heresy and Orthodoxy. One example is Gnosticism and Docetism. Does heresy creep into evangelical churches today? What kinds? How does it happen? Are there patterns in Scripture and history which can be adduced? What false ideas do you see by Biblical definition as mainstream or majority views in American society and culture today?
Christian Martyrdom and The American Empire: Mark Dankof On The New World Order
(Lutheran Pastor Mark Dankof was invited to a private session of Texas homeschoolers and their parents in a secluded home in San Antonio, to speak on a critically important subject deliberately avoided in American schools, including the Christian academies, and especially in IRS tax exempt 501(c)3 churches drenched in the doctrines of American and Israeli Exceptionalism. Readers of Russia Insider and Russian Faith may find the greatly edited version interesting in revealing serious truths about the present situation in the United States for the Christian believer.)
Have Show, Will Travel: Press TV Iran, David Duke on Rense, National Bugle Radio on RBN, Andrew Carrington Hitchcock on EuroFolkRadio, CII International’s Global Dynamics, American Free Press Radio.
It is a Saturday night here in the Alamo City, also known both in this country and outside it as Military Town USA. It is noteworthy and more than understandable that I have been invited to speak on this topic in a private home, devoid of any advance or subsequent publicity, and without the sponsorship of any educational or church organization in this 7th largest city in the continental United States. There is ample reason for this. We unfortunately live in a climate of fear where tonight’s topic is concerned, a climate which produces only occasional furtive glances and whispers in rooms with darkened shades among those who sense as Christian believers that something is deeply wrong in our land, so wrong that our educational and religious leaders have not only maintained sustained silence on a healthy discussion of a topic that shall not go away, but in many cases have served as sycophantic cheerleaders for that which I believe to be evil. For some, it is the desire to be popular in the community. For others it is the danger of being libeled and slandered that is paramount. For yet others, it is the fear of losing a tax exempt status courtesy of the IRS and the Federal Surveillance State which is well represented in this city. Many pastors and teachers sadly confuse Empire Deification and Emperor Worship with Biblical faith and American “patriotism,” which suggests that the core lessons and warnings of the Prophets Jeremiah, Amos, and Daniel, along with John’s writings on Patmos during the reign of Domitian (81-96 A. D. ), continue to be missed, along with the basic teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ about what really constitutes the Kingdom of God and who the Israel of God is really comprised of.
Exile on Patmos: An Aegean Sunset.
I pray we shall not miss what I truly believe to be the teachings of the Holy Spirit of God conveyed by these Biblical writers, or what I believe is being conveyed about both Martyrdom and Empire. So we quite rightly gather on a Saturday night on our own time to examine that which is not being examined elsewhere around San Antonio this evening, as the days and nights continue to unfold before the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
My opening premise tonight is this: The American Empire and its linkage to the Zionist State of Israel is intrinsically evil. These entities are at the center of the drive to the New World Order, which in turn encompasses the ideology of world government; central banking; a controlled news media; the Culturally Marxist ideologies of radical feminism, abortion-on-demand, the LGBTQ agenda, societal acceptance of pornography, and an inherent opposition to authentic Christianity. These entities seek to enslave the entire globe with this Satanic ideology, utilizing internal subversion, wartime economic sanctions, a global surveillance police state, and overt threats of military force against nation-states who do not acquiesce to the Beast. Iran and a post-Communist Russia being revitalized by Russian Orthodox Christian spirituality and culture are but the latest targets. The symbols of the Christian Cross and the American Flag and Constitution shall be those chosen to sell lies to the American public and the American churches as to what this coming battle is about. Make no mistake about it. The New World Order is about neither. It is the avowed enemy of both, no matter how many United States Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Navy recruitment ads appear during NFL games suggesting otherwise.
The Ancient of Days (Daniel 7: 9, 13, and 22) on the Mark Dankof Library and Radio Studio Wall.
I have not come to this conclusion lightly or without personal study or sacrifice. I will simply invite you to peruse a recent article of mine, “A ‘Communist’s Thoughts on the 4th of July,” both because of a young man I discuss in that essay who is a microcosm of the deception of millions of Americans who believe they are following Christ in this arena when in fact I believe the opposite is true, and also because that essay contains many links to presentations and articles I have been preparing since 9-11, often times at considerable risk over these years. Read these articles; listen to many TV and radio broadcasts since The War on Terror began 17 years ago. My work will lead you to that of many others of equal or greater importance than I. Begin this journey in earnest and you will encounter a world deliberately being withheld from you by your schools, your churches, most of your textbooks, as well as the news media most of you encounter when at all. I simply ask all of you to follow the dictum of Francis Bacon: “Read, not to believe and take for granted, nor to contradict and confute, but to weigh and consider.” Bacon’s prescription, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, is a portion of the Full Armor of God available to the believer in an unprecedented age of evil, deception, and mass communications technology designed to disguise Satan as an Angel of Light ( 2 Corinthians 11: 14) on both a national and global basis.
After all, how many of us have really examined the historical “truths” in our textbooks and presented on television about the Federal Reserve Board, the World Wars, Pearl Harbor, the Kennedy Assassinations and that of Martin Luther King? Have you ever heard of Deir Yassin? The Lavon Affair? The USS Liberty Attack? The Pollard Spy Case? The real story on 9-11? Or these Gulf Wars which began in earnest with Desert Storm under George Herbert Walker Bush in January of 1991? What is really the truth about why our government has taken such a bellicose stance on Iran and Russia in recent years? Why has our government supported ISIS and Al-Qaeda affiliates in destroying Syria? Why are we supporting the genocidal war of Saudi Arabia in Yemen? Who is really behind the Pussy Riot desecrations of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in Moscow and why?
My second premise is this: The American Empire today is a 21st Century repristination of the empires God has judged throughout history. If you believe your homework assignment as a homeschooler with parents curious to find out more about about a demonized Christian pastor and commentator named Mark Dankof ended with my own recommended articles, you’re wrong (smile). I assign you to take a closer look at the conditions mentioned by the Prophet Amos during the reign of Jeroboam II, and his prophesies about the coming judgment of the Northern Kingdom of Israel at the hands of the Assyrians who would sack Samaria in 722 B. C. I also assign you to read the relevant Old Testament texts about God’s impending judgment upon the Southern Kingdom of Judah (605 B. C. to 586 B. C.) and the reasons for it. Lastly, take a look at the words of our Lord in the Olivet Discourse (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21) as they pertain to the pronouncement of judgment upon Judah coming in the form of the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus and the Romans in A. D. 70, or the character of the evil Ancient Roman Empire which serves as the backdrop of the martyrdoms of Peter and Paul, and the exile of St. John to Patmos described in Revelation for his refusal to venerate Emperor Domitian as the virtual Incarnation of God on earth.
Think about it: If my analysis is correct as the Spirit of God has guided me over many years, why drape the American Empire in the Christian Cross and the American Flag? More importantly, why should Christian parents, pastors, and churches urge the participation of our kids in killing, wounding, and displacing millions of innocent people overseas who threaten neither our faith nor our real homeland security, but whose sole transgression is failing to acquiesce in a New World Order which identically threatens Christianity itself, both in the United States, in Putin’s Russia, and on a global basis generally? I believe this is a repudiation of the words of the Lord Jesus Christ about the nature of the Kingdom of God, and a repudiation of the Just War Theory of St. Augustine which has guided Western Christian thought for centuries on the issue of when and why a believer in Jesus Christ may take up armaments. Perhaps even more significantly, an Empire which has become largely Antichrist in its society and in its political leadership and apostate churches, cannot possibly invoke God’s name or His blessed protection in unjustifiable and aggressive conflict and expect righteous victory to come its way. God Bless America in the current situation in this country presumably carries absolutely no weight with the Holy Trinity, a situation which as already mentioned mirrors the worst conditions of the aforementioned empires in Biblical history recommended for study and examination.
I am no pacifist. I believe in St. Augustine’s Just War Theory. I come from a lifelong Air Force family. I am no stranger to weaponry. I would fight for the legitimate defense of the United States against domestic criminals and foreign aggressors as I would for the innocent in our own community in San Antonio whose lives are being threatened and who are defenseless. As a personal example 3 years ago, I almost had to shoot a criminal malefactor to death who was in the process of beating a woman to death in the parking lot of my apartment complex in San Antonio, even as a 3 month old infant lay injured underneath the couple’s car. I truly thank God everyday that circumstances that prevented that justifiable development from having to happen did take place. You may read about it briefly here. The point is this: What the American Empire and the Zionist State of Israel it supports in the Middle East have been doing for years has no such similar Biblical, moral, and legal justification. Take a close look at the grim reality of this truism in Palestine, Gaza, the Occupied Territories, and East Jerusalem, along with Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Southern Lebanon, or Ukraine. The coming war with Iran and Putin’s Russia will bring this evil New World Order agenda to an apocalyptic crescendo. Christians should refuse to take up arms on behalf of this, and protect the rights of their children and church members to tell Caesar he shall not have that which belongs to Christ and Christ alone. Period. This is not Augustine’s Just War Theory operating in what we are examining here. It is mass murder, past, present, and undoubtedly future, largely for an entity that claims a divine right to Palestine and surrounding territories, even though it rejects the Gospel of Christ in favor of a doctrine of racial supremacy, world government, a kingdom of this world not the next, and a kingdom whose instruments are not love and brotherhood but armaments of mass destruction and mass surveillance in the interest of theft by terror and death. It bears no resemblance to the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, but to Barabbas and the Jewish mob clamoring for his release at the expense of He who knew no sin. This Satanic counterfeit of the Israel of God shall even set the stage for the appearance of Antichrist, and his usurpation of the temple of God to show himself as God (2 Thessalonians 2). St. Paul warns us in this very chapter of Satanic power, signs, and wonders, and God’s sending of a strong delusion upon those who have already rejected His Son for His Son’s very antithesis. This delusion will lead to the destruction of those who believe the lie.
St. Polycarp of Smyrna, an icon on the wall of Mark Dankof’s Library and Radio Studio.
Let me add one sobering thought for your long term consideration tonight. My final premise is this: It may not simply be enough to refuse to kill innocents on behalf of the American Empire and its Emperors. The Lord may require that we be willing to die a death of Martyrdom Witness by the hand of this Empire at a time of His choosing. Stephen, Peter, and Paul come to mind instantly as New Testament examples. Revelation 2: 8-11 and The Cry of the Martyrs found in the 5th Seal of John’s Apocalypse in Revelation 6: 9-11 are verses which accompany these Saints of God in constant reverberations within the heart, the mind, and the soul of those in closest union with Christ.
St. Polycarp of Smyrna, rejecting Emperor Worship and the Synagogue of Satan (Revelation 2:9) for Jesus Christ and Jesus Christ Only, Forever and Ever.
And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.
I believe these cited verses, among others, provide us with a New Testament doctrine of witness and faithfulness unto death. It is not an accident in redemptive history that the first example this post-apostolic faithfulness unto death proves to be St. Polycarp of Smyrna.
Polycarp (A. D. 69-155) is one of the 3 chief Apostolic Fathers, along with Clement of Rome and Ignatius of Antioch. His name translates into Greek as “much fruit” (Πολύκαρπος). The two chief works which enable us to have some access to his life and death in Christ are The Martyrdom of Polycarp (Μαρτύριον του Αγίου Πολυκάρπου) and his Letter to the Philippians (Επιστολή προς Φιλιππησίους). You are assigned each of these for reading and contemplation, as your parents work these into your homework schedules. Of the many things that are exciting about homeschooling, the experience of an entire family learning together is chief among them. So shall it be here also.
The Lord Jesus Christ to the Church of Smyrna and The Israel of God Through the Ages: “Be Thou Faithful Unto Death, and I Will Give Thee the Crown of Life.”
Irenaeus indicates that he heard Polycarp in his youth. Tertullian informs us that Polycarp had been a disciple of John the Apostle, our author of the Gospel of John, 1st-2nd-3rd John, and the Revelation on Patmos. Jerome later conveys to us the fact that John had ordained Polycarp the Bishop of Smyrna. Keep in mind that the Church of Smyrna in Revelation 2 was the economically poor but spiritually rich church, the church in Asia Minor warned specifically about the Synagogue of Satan, and the church instructed to be faithful unto death against the backdrop of an evil Roman Empire. It is the prototype of the remnant Israel of God at the end of history, as the people of Christ watch spiritual darkness and apocalyptic political developments engulf the planet while clinging to the Word of God, the Holy Sacrament, and the testimony of Prophets, Apostles, and Saints.
Lutheran scholar turned Orthodox, Jaroslav Pelikan notes this backdrop of the execution of Polycarp in Credo: Historical and Theological Guide to Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, page 223:
When, in the first postbiblical account of a Christian martyrdom, The Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Roman proconsul, Statius Quadratus, the political and spiritual descendant of Pontius Pilate and the representative of Emperor Antoninus Pius, orders the aged Polycarp, “Swear by the fortune of Caesar!” Polycarp instead confesses “with boldness, ‘I am a Christian. And if you wish to learn what the doctrines of Christianity are, appoint me a day, and you shall hear them.'” And so he went to his death. The twentieth century, which saw the rise of both Nazi and Communist totalitarian regimes that were inimical to Christianity, also therefore produced several such confessions that were political acts in this special sense. [see Barmen Declaration of 1934]
And so we come to the end of the hour with the question of the day being this: While virtually everyone here will accept at face value the evil character of Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon, the Ancient Roman Empire, or the Hitler and Stalin regimes, is the American Empire somehow a beacon of light and hope to the world as our educational system, pastors, and churches often insist that it is, or is the verdict of the Activist Post more devastatingly accurate over 7 years ago in its essay, “10 Reasons America Will Be Judged as the Most Brutal Empire in History?” Put another way, will our young people be doing the will of the Lord in serving in The Empire’s War on Terror, or is the way of Polycarp, the way of Peter and Paul, and the exilic path of John, Solzhenitsyn, Sununu and Assange, His will for the lives of those who gathered here tonight if the situation so requires?
American Christians: Shall They Support the New World Order’s War on Putin’s Russian Orthodox Christian Renaissance?
For the Christian living in the United States, that question will not go away. I hope each person here tonight will avail himself or herself of the links to articles and broadcasts over time necessary to examine the question at hand, and to search the Scriptures prayerfully and diligently. I am thankful that a remnant of people in this city have sought to examine the evidence for themselves and to allow the Lord to lead them in the truth over time as He wills. And in these dark days and nights, with the eschatological time clock of God ticking to the end of this present cosmos and the beginning of eternity, let us think tonight not only of our own families and friends, but those around the world already mentioned as among those most presently persecuted and endangered. The Lord’s admonition of Revelation 2:11 echoes once again in our hearts, our minds, and our souls: “He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death. . . .
And so we close tonight with that prayer. May we have ears to hear. May we hear what the Spirit says to the churches. May we overcome. May we be spared the second death in the Lake of Fire. For the end fast approaches. Amen.
The Mystery of the Word Who Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us, The Light Who Permeates The Darkness.
Mark Dankof's Catacomb 