Tag Archives: protests

The Throne of Your Heart

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It’s been several weeks since the “No Kings” protests. However, I just saw an online advertisement this morning for “No Kings 2.0” scheduled for the Fourth of July. I did some checking around, and it seems this is only a rumor.

My daughter, Madeline, told me the group gathered in Fenton a few weeks ago for their first attempt. There were people there with signs and slogans. In Lansing, they gathered on the Capitol’s steps. I didn’t pay it much attention at the time, which is probably another reason why I’m only now offering commentary. I have plenty to keep me busy these days. And besides, the whole thing felt like just another performance of the usual twisted pageantry. I remember seeing an image of a sign from the Lansing event that displayed the slogan “86-47,” which is the not-so-subtle numerical code calling for the 47th president’s removal by any means necessary, including death. In other cities across America, people wearing all black and face coverings gathered in public places and spray-painted the “No Kings Here” mantra on historic monuments, essentially defacing memorials actually put into place as emblems against tyranny. That’s ironic, isn’t it? Still, the groups marched and chanted like voodoo shamans performing their dark rites and ceremonies.

If you’re not familiar with the relatively fizzled No Kings movement, as I already hinted, the essence is pretty predictable. Like most everything that bubbles up from the progressive left, it was just another resistance to President Trump. With this particular effort, they framed him as a self-coronated dictator. The organizers aimed to present the movement as a spontaneous, grassroots uprising, as though everyday Americans were uniting against what they claimed was an unprecedented crackdown on illegal immigration.

But in truth, it was and remains more of the same: a theater of outrage designed to imply that Americans are universally appalled by the dismantling of the so-called “woke” infrastructure—that we’re incensed President Trump refuses to pander during “Pride Month,” which LGBTQ, Inc. has claimed not merely as a season, but as a sovereign domain over the entirety of June itself.

In the end, it’s a familiar pattern. These are the same voices that rage not so much at what Trump does as that he remains entirely unmoved by their contempt. He doesn’t flinch. He simply continues forward undeterred and, perhaps most offensively to them, unbothered.

For the record, and as the saying goes, I voted for this.

Beyond these things, what I find most interesting is that while the protests wanted to appear organic, the entire operation was orchestrated and paid for by ideologically captured groups, nearly all of which are connected to George Soros.

Now, some will read that sentence I just typed out and say, “Uh-oh, Thoma is becoming a conspiracy theorist.” But I’m not. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned Soros’ name in anything I’ve ever written. What’s the difference here? Well, the receipts are in. The documented funders of the “No Kings” protests included groups such as Indivisible, the ACLU, MoveOn.org, 50501, and various teacher unions and organized labor federations, all of which had received their funding for the effort from Soros’ Open Society Foundations. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s basic bookkeeping.

Setting the ledgers aside for a moment, while mindful of the effort’s truest geist, the irony of the No Kings protests—beyond the faux-revolutionary aesthetic and its TikTok theology—is that they presume to cast down the idea of kingship while fully prostrating before their own tyrants. They say they will not bow, and yet, they’re already on their knees in so many ways.

They slather praise on transgender activism as it tyrannically jackboots through female locker rooms and right into women’s sports. They still wear masks in their cars while declaring the unvaccinated to be “anti-science.” Their costumes are rainbow t-shirts that say, “Love is love,” while they do all they can to cancel anyone who would claim marriage is for one man and one woman. They converge on businesses, first emerging from vehicles with a “Coexist” bumper sticker ironically surrounded by other stickers with crass anti-conservative slogans. Then they march into the business offices wearing their government DEI badges, insisting that racism can only be quelled by applying more racism.

The authority they wield doesn’t come from thrones or castles but from 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) corporations. Their language isn’t regal, but it is rehearsed. Catchphrases have become decrees, and school boards have become their courts. And their reigns are no less absolute than the supposed tyrants they say they want to depose. Except, unlike the kings of old, they demand far more than taxes and loyalty. They want your mind. They require your memory and morals. They absolutely demand your children. And just try taking a public stand against their mandates. Try dissenting, even politely. You’ll discover how quickly the No Kings crowd finds its enforcement arm. In fact, I realized this firsthand in a place where I thought I’d be relatively safe from it.

This past Friday, during the convention of the English District of the LCMS, a lay delegate approached me during the morning break. His two-fold goal? To announce his pride in the Democrat Party and to accost me for my public opinions on abortion and LGBTQ issues. Think about that for a second. I was sitting alone at a triennial gathering for supposedly biblically minded clergy and laymen. This individual—a representative of a sister congregation sent to embody and, if possible, move the District according to its theological positions—sought me out of his own volition to assault biblical positions. Scary. Although the gathering onlookers (who did and said nothing, by the way) enjoyed quite the intermission at my expense.

Before I stray too far, I guess what I’m saying is that the No Kings folks are not really trying to rid the world of tyrants. Tyrannical ideologies already enslave them, and as such, they more or less prove they’re okay with kings, especially the ones who sanctify their sins. The ones willing to call their rebellion by name must be overthrown. In that sense, they don’t want freedom, at least, not like they’re saying. They’re after dominion. And I suppose in the most ironic twist of all, they cry “No kings!” while building a congregation of progressives, one formed by the gospel of “self” and served by priests in rainbow vestments intent on leading all of us in the new liturgy of control.

That’s not just cultural irony. It’s a theological tragedy. And that’s really the crux of it. As Christians, we know this isn’t just about politics or public policy. In the end, it’s not even about power. It’s about divine things.

God’s Word insists that every human heart has a throne, and every throne demands a king. If Christ is not seated there, someone else—or something else—will be. This isn’t conjecture. It’s reality. Saint Paul wrote, “You are slaves of the one whom you obey—either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness” (Romans 6:16). In other words, you will serve a master. Your heart will be devoted. You will bend the knee. This is because the heart is not some morally neutral chamber of vague intentions. It is, as the Bible says, the seat of human desire and its fruit. That’s why Solomon wrote, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). What fills the heart rules the life.

Interestingly, this principle doesn’t apply only to individuals. It seems to apply to entire societies. Indeed, every group has its creed. Every society bows before something. “They [entire generations of people] exchanged the truth about God for a lie,” Paul writes, “and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). But Paul doesn’t stop there. He later warns in 1 Corinthians 10:20–21 that our devotion never exists in a neutral zone. It is aimed either toward the divine or toward the demonic. There is no third option. There is no spiritual vacuum.

And so, to come back around to the No Kings crowd. They spray-paint their slogans in defiance, but they’re not really free. Sure, they declare autonomy, but it’s an illusion, if only because autonomy requires clarity of thought and freedom of conscience—neither of which survives long under the tyranny of hatred. Their obsession with Donald Trump—regardless of what he does—isn’t principled resistance. It’s programmed allegiance. And in that sense, they are not without a king. Their hatred has become their monarch and lord. It governs their emotions, their actions, and even their sense of righteousness. But hatred is a brutal master. It blesses confusion, punishes dissent, and demands unquestioning loyalty. So, no, their chants aren’t declarations of liberty. They’re the sound of spiritual captivity—liturgies offered to the ever-hungrier lords of the age.

As for me, I will not bow to these new kings making jumbled decrees from their cathedrals draped in “self.” Instead, I’ll bow to the One who wore a crown of thorns. I’ll do this while steering into our nation’s Fourth of July celebration with incredible thankfulness for the Founding Fathers and their extraordinary courage. Indeed, I am blessed to be an American. That said, I intend to love this nation, not as an idol, but as a gift worth serving and supporting, most especially as one forged in the understanding that true liberty means responsibility before God, not license to rebel against Him. I intend to be a citizen who remembers that even a constitutional republic can fall if its people forget that true freedom requires virtue, and virtue only endures when rooted in Christ.

So, to the No Kings folks, if you do decide to attempt a 2.0 effort, go ahead and do it if you must. March and chant and graffiti your slogans across the faces of the dead, doing so well-funded and furious as ever. But do not pretend you have no king. You do. The only question is who—or what—occupies your throne (Matthew 16:15).

Do Not Skim. Read.

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I do not own a single eBook. At least, I don’t think I do. I like books I can hold in my hands. I realize this makes me somewhat of a weirdo in the 21st-century world. Still, it is what it is. I’d rather turn a page than scroll. I’d rather dogear some of those pages, gripping a pencil and underlining beloved portions, than add virtual bookmarks or whatever people do in eBooks to preserve and revisit certain words.

I sometimes wonder if the world will one day be absent of physical books. I hope not. I don’t say this because I’m concerned about what people will use to balance a wobbly table or what they’ll reach for to swat an annoying fly. I’ve written before that I think a world without physical books will foster less reading—actual substantive reading and content digestion. I also say this because I think there’s something to the proverbial phrase “out of sight, out of mind.” In other words, just because a digital device offers unrestricted access to literature’s vast kingdom doesn’t mean its user is naturally inclined toward using it that way. I think this premise is relatively provable. No matter one’s age, in a room filled with books, it’s harder to resist the urge to snatch a volume and peruse it. In a room void of books, the device in one’s hand offers countless other preference-stroking arenas—video games, social media, audio and video streaming; you name it.

I know that many education experts prattle on about the lack of real differences in literacy rates among children exposed to either on-screen or in-print reading. This exceptionally convenient research deduction was reached and endlessly proffered during COVID. While I’m no expert, I’d argue that literacy research focused more so on the ability to read than reading comprehension. Mark Twain once said something about how a man who can read but doesn’t will have no advantage over a man who can’t read. I’d add that a man who can read but cannot understand what he’s reading is advantageless, too. The whole purpose of reading is comprehension.

I suppose I’m sharing this in part because I wonder how so many in our world can accept, or perhaps worse, stand idly by as some genuinely idiotic things sprout and blossom into full bloom. We just hosted an event here at Our Savior last Wednesday in which Irene Miller, a holocaust survivor, described the events of her life. Much of what she said seemed familiar, especially the parts about fascism finding room to grow as only particular bits of information were allowed to the population while all others were suppressed. I suppose I’ll come back to that point in a moment. In the meantime, let me stay with my initial heading. Some studies show how in-print reading outpaces on-screen in two essential ways: attention span formation and content processing. This makes complete sense to me.

A person’s attention span is the framework for comprehension. Content processing is the comprehension process. When I think about typical on-screen reading, it seems to involve a lot of skimming and scrolling, selective reading, and keyword spotting. I can’t prove it, but I’m guessing this ever-increasing type of information intake is playing no insignificant part in our devolving world. Shorter attention spans are barriers to in-depth reading, ultimately teeing readers up to take from a text what they want or have time for it to say rather than what it actually says. It’s selective. It’s also incredibly self-centered. It isn’t discovering. It’s looking for what it already thinks it wants. It’s the kind of reading that’s incapable of grasping an issue’s truths and untruths. It’s the kind of learning that produces what we’re seeing on our college campuses right now—students and faculty who, when asked about Hamas’ actions on October 7, 2023, defend the terrorist group using some of the most irrational talking points and little more. These protestors appear incapable of a depth that understands no matter what a person’s reason for fighting, massacring unarmed concert-goers, and putting Israeli babies into ovens and cooking them is wrong. The protesters, many likely raised in hardworking families and known by friends and neighbors from their home communities, are now found wearing keffiyehs and blocking roadways, all the while having no idea what a keffiyeh represents. Pink-haired, with their bodies pierced in about every conceivable location, they lock arms and shout, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” but are entirely unaware of what the Islamic extremist chant means relative to Israel’s (let alone any non-Muslim’s) existence or that the Quran instructs that any form of bodily piercings other than the ears is satanic and worthy of severe punishment. In other words, for Hamas and the Palestinians, freedom does not mean what you think it means.

Because we’ve already seen how the universities wrestling with these protests aren’t all that interested in doing much about them, one way to stop the nonsense—or at least inhibit it—would be for the parents and grandparents doling out tuition dollars to these adolescents to turn off the financial spigot and bring them home. They’re obviously not quite ready to engage with the world yet. They’re certainly not prepared for higher education. What they need is a spanking, a lengthy grounding from video games and cellphone usage, a remedial reading course followed by a civics class or two, and an early bedtime. If that doesn’t work, a philosophy internship in Iran probably would. Be sure to send along their rainbow-colored hijab and “Allah loves equality” t-shirts. You might also want to pack a parachute. It’s standard practice to throw folks with differing opinions off of rooftops.

That said, who can argue that we don’t have the same problematic reading problems in Christianity in general, and it’s producing some seriously misinformed people? Folks skim an internet article with a few scripture verses here and there and are suddenly biblical experts capable of divinely authorized world-altering diatribes. Who needs the seminaries? We have Wikipedia and Google. And while this shallow form of study may result in some Christians stepping up and pushing back against culture, the pushback is often far weaker than the emboldened warriors may have imagined. This is because the pushback is half-baked, being more so agenda-driven than accurate, ultimately leaving immense loopholes in the logic. I’ll give you an elementary example I’ve shared with others in the past.

I’m pro-gun. I have two, a Glock 19 and a Sig Sauer P226. To argue my right to own and carry them, I would never lean on the Cain and Abel account from Genesis 4. Why not? Because, even as so many conservatives like to share memes saying things like, “Guns are not the problem” right after noting that when “Cain killed Abel with a rock, God didn’t get rid of all the rocks,” the fact is that Genesis 4:8 simply reads: “Now Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let’s go out to the field.’ While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.” There’s no mention of how Cain killed Abel. Uninspired apocryphal writings mention things like jawbones and plowheads. But the Bible doesn’t say Cain used anything to kill Abel. Verse twelve talks about Abel’s blood crying out from the ground, giving the sense there might have been quite a bit spilled. My guess is that it was Abel’s own knife used to sacrifice animals. Still, it’s a guess—purely speculative. For all anyone knows, Cain choked Abel to death, and when he fell to the ground, he hit his head and bled out. Either way, it’s the content found in the deeper strata that can make an argument sturdy or wobbly. All a non-skimming opponent needs is to go to and read Genesis 4. See, no rock, thus no direct relevance to handheld weapons.

With this in mind, the type of reading habits I’ve described are the exact same ones employed by doofuses trying to smother pure Christian doctrine who, when they discover texts like Matthew 7:1, say something like, “See, Jesus said, ‘Do not judge,’” completely missing the text’s insistence that Christians must judge, but only as they understand their own sinfulness and the ever-present need for forgiveness. In other words, a person who believes he’s perfect has lost all credibility for judging anything rightly. I suppose, worst of all, these reading habits eventually produce pro-choice Christians. They produce pro-LGBTQ believers. They result in Christian churches and schools brimming with pro-DEI and pro-CRT advocates. They inspire folks who claim faithfulness to Christ while simultaneously embracing so many ridiculously heretical Christian authors, speakers, so-called prophets, and countless internet-assembled sayings that sound good but simply aren’t.

So, how do we combat this?

That’s a good question. How about this, for starters?

First of all, read. And I mean, really read. Don’t skim. On-screen or in-print, dig deeply. Take in the information, even if you don’t like what it’s saying. My guess is that by doing so, more loopholes in your knowledge investigation will be closed than left open.

Second, while you should choose your sources carefully, you shouldn’t limit your intake to the side of the argument you prefer most. Read both. Truth has a way of outing lies, especially when the two are set side by side. In my experience, when suddenly confronted by truth, liars deflect. They redirect. They gaslight, making you think what is true might not be true. They tweak a narrative’s corners, ultimately creating alternate renditions. When queried, they cannot answer the actual questions you are asking, especially when the questions do not fit the newly constructed narrative. However, here’s the thing. If truth weren’t in the room, they might be all-convincing to the onlooker or reader. But with truth standing right beside them, their wriggling and writhing becomes apparent, and for an honest investigator, the foolishness is almost always outed.

In the final measurement, even in the barest sense, truth stands tall, and as it does, it proves itself capable of maintaining the field.