z1e Final Thought

FINAL THOUGHT: LAST COMMENTS ON THE UPCOMING 2026 MIDTERM ELECTION

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor, and Bill Collier, Publisher

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

“This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” – 1 Timothy 2:1-6

Ed. NOTE; Read our full Election 2026 report starting on pg. 2 and continuing on pg. xx.

From Paul Gordon Collier:

Unless the polls are dramatically skewed and/or the DOJ is able to neutralize the DNC “bump” that gives them an advantage in any close race with slow returning mail-in ballots, it is likely that the Democrats will take the House and probably come to a tie in the Senate, giving the GOP the majority by a Vice President’s vote.

I am reminded of the quote in 1st Timothy we cited above. For me, I interpret this verse with two main meanings, one which gives me peace in the midst of great trial and the other that informs my decision on voting.

In the first instance, I read this passage to show us that through “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings…” for the hope of our leaders’ salvation “… we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

In other words, praying for the salvation of our leaders will keep us rightly calibrated to continue to advance the Kingdom of God, come what may, for all leaders are allowed to rule by God’s permission. No one rules that isn’t chosen by God to do so, even if he rules dishonestly.

In the second instance, I read this passage to show us that through “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings…” our leaders will recognize the sovereignty of God over the lives of his children and not interfere with their peaceful kingdom work.

In other words, we pray for our leaders to respect the authority of God in our lives and not create rules that prevent us from living out our civilization-creating faith peacefully in the land we are called to be good stewards of, even if we are only sojourners on the earth before the New Heaven and the New Earth are formed.

This last reading compels me to want to influence the state to not create laws that impede our work or support it with violence. In this election cycle, most of these races have little to do with Americanism, which is a civic vehicle of power that DOES allow the Christian civilization to flourish within it without compelling anyone to join it.

In my state of Pennsylvania, the candidates are mostly talking affordability and data centers, not the existential threat to American Rule of Law the progressives represent, nor the fecklessness of the GOP in defending it.

One party is an ineffective defender of Christian peace, and the other means to criminalize much Christian thought, including rejecting homosexuality, rejecting the non-binary, rejecting abortion, and soon, rejecting euthanasia.

For me, I have little reason to vote outside of voting for the feckless defender of Christian peace, because at least they aren’t accelerating the criminalization of the faith like the progressives are. I won’t reveal my choice, whether I chose to vote or not.

Instead, I will suggest there is good reason to vote for the inept slowdown, and good reason not to. Outside of voting directly for the progressives, or any leftist third party alternative, there is no wrong choice to make in this election for the Christian.

Whatever you decide, I hope you do with it a spirit I myself hope to find soon, with a hope for the restoration and salvation of even the “worst” of the progressive candidates currently threatening our faith with arrests, and a faith that the rest of the Lord will steward us safely to His final willed plan, triumph in the New Heaven and New Earth.

From Bill Collier:

Politics is too big, and people are too small, in the USA, but in so many other places, from Germany and Nigeria to America and the UK, people feel that if their political tribe wins all will be saved and if it loses all will be lost.

When more than 10% of your life is caught up in politics, it is too much and it is a sign that politics has taken over real life. Most of what we have and achieve and most of what we need should not depend on who wins elections.

Part of my work involves politics, and I can tell you two things: first, that the political class is mostly just looking for a payday, and second, that the results of the actual elections they work on rarely amounts to anything more than more grift from different people if the incumbents lose.

As you get caught up in hysterics over politics and cut off friends over it, the political class just keeps finding new ways to hype themselves and create bogeyman fears of their opponents so they can sit on comfortable luxury, vaingloriously imagining that edicts can change human nature itself.

Ultimately, though, they just want the seat because from it flows wealth and power to stroke their precious egos and fill their bank accounts. Even the losers of elections gain prestige, and with it they gain economic windfalls.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe in being politically engaged. There are times when truly sinister forces are afoot who must be stopped, but, more often than not, the shrieking at the other party is hyperventilating nonsense based on exaggerations and lies. This election cycle, however, is difficult to exaggerate the threat the Democratic Party poses to our republic.

As long as I steward myself, including my vote and my voice, as well as, in my case, my professional work, in a manner I genuinely believe is based on my understanding of what honors my God, my country, the rights of all, and my own integrity, then I can rest in Jesus to cover the many things I can never control beyond that which is in my own hands.

I believe we should all vote in our countries. It is not validating the system, as some say, in my opinion, it is stewarding whatever IS IN YOUR HANDS and even if a system you do not want to validate gives you the power to vote, then by God, I believe, you should try to use it not because it will change anything but because we should always steward everything in our hands.

Some exceptions may apply. I’ll leave it to you to decide if this election qualifies as such an exception.

Vote your conscience, vote your interests, vote for the best options. Some say that it is a vote for the lesser of two evils, but sometimes it is more a tactical decision to slow the retreat and hope for a better option tomorrow. I often feel that way in the U.S. Elections today.

The “choice” of the American citizen is often merely opting for a slower retreat from the ideal of a free and pluralistic society of equals under common law.

But politics is too big and we are too small and we should, I propose, try to find better ways to grow our power outside of politics, while engaging in the political arena as good stewards of our citizenship.

FINAL THOUGHT – October 23, 2026

By Bill Collier, Editor

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

“To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

“To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.” – Douglas Adams, from The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” – Abraham Lincoln

I have very low expectations for voting. I doubt the integrity of our elections, but when I vote I make my own statement. Often, it is just a rebuke of the other side. It is rarely an endorsement of the ones I am voting for.

People will vote Democrat or Republican in a couple of weeks for their own reasons; many are very parochial. That is the nature of voting: it costs nothing but a little time, so you don’t really have any expectations.

My focus is Bill of Rights freedom, as I understand it, because you can only focus on things as you understand them. I assess that the Democrats are more problematic for the Bill of Rights than the GOP, but I don’t have any delusions that the GOP are champions of the Bill of Rights, especially as I understand them and apply them to how I treat others.

I want to rebuke Democrats now because they are, as a party, doing things I believe violate the spirit of what Bill of Rights freedom SHOULD mean.

This does not mean that I like the other side or don’t see problematic behavior there as well. It just means that my calculus is based on my priority and my understanding of Bill of Rights Freedom. I have supported Democrats in the past. For instance, I would vote for Senator Fetterman unless an excellent Republican ran against him, because I think he holds a line for freedom that I can live with.

Voting is not a waste of time because it rarely takes much time, so if your vote disappoints you, you haven’t spent anything on it anyway. So why not just vote?

Some say, “voting legitimizes the system!” In my estimation, it does not. I can hold that a system is corrupt, but if that system gives me the lightest whiff of power to influence a small part of that system, I will take the opportunity. I will be content that I used all in my hand to advocate for a Bill of Rights America. I will not, however, be content with such little power.

This midterm election, I will be voting straight Republican just to tell the Democrats that their approach to Bill of Rights Freedom is not something I can live with.

If you still feel that voting isn’t for you, then so be it. I won’t judge your motives or intent if you extend the same courtesy to me. Not voting is not more or less morally good than voting. What matters is being true to your own true north in how you use or don’t use that power.

As for my predictions, Republicans will probably lose.

The wrinkle in this dynamic are the recent reports of self-confessed fake polls.

If Trump’s party loses the House and Senate, it will be a fascinating time to behold because, while his party is marking time from election to election, the other side is playing for keeps. I fully expect hard, unprecedented action by the Democrats should they win.

Trump has not been able to install a spine into his own team. Their lackluster performances and overly cautious approaches will probably turn many away. I fear a lot will conclude that it’s not worth voting for a party that sees little urgency in the midterm elections

I’ll be voting straight Republican, but I think if Trump faces bloodthirsty democrats in charge of the U.S. House and Senate, it will get VERY ugly between them. Their goal will be to tie him down, prevent him from doing anything, and finally run against this “failure” in 2028 with the hope of sweeping it all, to fully consolidate power and usher in the progressive state.

Most voters don’t think for two seconds about the ideological, spiritual, or philosophical foundations of the other party.  They also don’t take warnings about them too seriously, even if the warnings are legitimate.

This isn’t because they are unintelligent; they are not. It’s because they keep hearing these fears over and over and over, and nothing, to them, changes. It’s the classic “boy who calls wolf too many times” syndrome, and I fear it will help the Democrats greatly.

Popular online influencers chasing clicks, likes, and superchats constantly hype and sensationalize, to the benefit of their online careers, but to the detriment of truthful aggregate understanding.

I don’t know how many times I’ve seen “The Democrats are destroyed,” or words to that effect, in shocking fonts on YouTube thumbnails with hyped emotional faces, all just to build personal empires at the detriment of the republic they allegedly hope to defend.

I think it is more probable than not that the GOP gets a shellacking. Some will say it’s Trump’s fault, and sure, he is the President after all.

I think, however, it’s mostly on Thune and the whole top-tier leadership of the Party, a leadership that cannot and will not play as hard as the other side. When they do play hard, it’s often for things most people don’t care about and at least half absolutely hate. When they go after their own, they play hard as well.

While Trump has been tone-deaf on the Epstein Files, AI Data Centers, and even the Iran War, none of that would be an existential harm were it not for the fecklessness (seemingly intentional, probably intentional) of the GOP leadership, who failed to pass his agenda and convert his executive orders into law.

Trump’s chaotic style, ego, impetuosity, and ribald venom don’t help. His constant shifting around on Iran and Ukraine, frankly, sends mixed signals and peels off supporters.

The Democrats, however, are even worse. They are also chaos lords, shrill, often using lies and exaggerations even more than Trump does. The difference is they are on-brand and affirmed by the progressive state press.

To progressives, like Islamists, lying to advance your kingdom is not only acceptable; it’s morally necessary. To conservatives, lying to advance your kingdom invalidates your kingdom.

Trump is both off-brand to his own party and vilified daily by the same press that is aggressively and illegally protecting the Democrats.

People who thrive on chaos, drama, and hyperbolic reactions lean sharply left. But the people who would lean center-right, center-left (not hard left or partisan Democrat), and centrist specifically don’t want that behavior in their politics.

As for me, as a Christian, I find the left to be violently anti-Christian right now. While the candidates themselves attack Christianity almost daily, the progressive state press conceals their rants, leaving most Americans oblivious to the anti-Christian party they are voting for.

They are not voting for their anti-Christian agenda, but because they believe they will see their gas prices go down with a new party majority in the legislature. The unaffordability narrative is what they are voting for, not Talarico declaring God is non-binary.

I find the Democrats who run California to be in severe violation of basic Bill of Rights freedoms. I am concerned that the people in this land and their leaders have turned from God and are reaping those fruits

I get frustrated that I have to deal with those consequences myself when I have always opposed the things that caused them, progressive policies and conservative fecklessness.

Our “choice” is not an ideal American one. One side, the GOP, is slowing the decline away from freedom, but at this moment, with some exceptions, the Democrats are speed-running the dismantling of the Bill of Rights.

No matter why they might win, the Democrats will celebrate their win and think people voted FOR their pro-Political Islamism, “transing” kids, and other more extreme policies. Yet their party is running on unaffordability, not cutting off the breasts of little girls (their true policies).

All the voters seem to want is cheaper gas, not progressive sharia. The GOP elitists will think if only Trump was as feckless as they are, they could have won. It will only embolden their efforts to sabotage Trump, even at the cost of the republic, since the republic was never their concern.

They work to preserve power within the progressive state, nothing more. They are willing vassals of progressive power, not Americans at all.

I believe that even if the Democrats win, this isn’t the end of our story. Eventually, things will turn around because strong Americans will come along, but not from the Democrats, and probably not the Republicans. The people may just get sick of them both and find a new party to get behind.

As an amateur historian, it’s an interesting time to be alive, but I’d rather just be reading about it.

By Bill Collier, Publisher

“I see it all the time, that when Trump’s on the ballot, they win. When he’s out of the ballot, the people don’t go to vote, and I’m asking the people … to get out and vote. Pretend I’m on the ballot.” – Donald Trump on the Midterm Elections, August 27, 2026

In the U.S., mid-terms almost always go hard against the incumbent President’s party. To overcome that you have to do extraordinary things, and you genuinely have to appeal to a decent majority of voters.

In a country with a fairly even split by party affiliation, where party is sadly becoming part of people’s identity, that means mid-terms are hardly winnable for the party in power unless it does something spectacular.

What’s amazing is how neither party gets this.

They win everything with a strong Presidential election year victory then they essentially give lip service to their supporters and “phone it in.”

I wouldn’t accuse Trump of phoning it in, although I would argue he hasn’t mastered appealing to a solid majority of Americans. While the progressive state press has contributed greatly to his negative image, I believe he has plenty of blame to put directly on himself.

If anyone can overcome the progressive state press bullhorn, it’s the President of the United States. Presidents can bypass the bias against them, they have a bully pulpit, as they say.

The Thune-led GOP Senate has remained paralyzed by their own party leader, who continues to prevent critical Trump policies from passing, especially the SAVE America Act, which would gut progressive election power, even in the midterms had it been passed.

The GOP majority in the House is a slim majority, one that can be overcome with a few dissenting GOP House members. Yet even with that slim majority, Johnson was able to get the SAVE Act passed in the House. Nothing of existential substance has passed the Senate under Thune.

The progressives have been protected by Republican leadership to spite the man they hate more than they love America, Trump.

They also collude with Democrats against Trump because, in fact, the GOP’s shot-callers hate Trump and want to return to the Bush era.

The Democrats will sweep and claim a new mandate, as the Republicans did, and forget that they won, as did the Republicans, not because people positively supported them but because the other party screwed up again.

And the cycle continues, each one plumbing deeper depths of inanity, incompetence, and disregard for the People who elected them.

The Democrats will focus on whatever gives them power and seals their majority forever. This is their dream, to rule the Federal Government like they do the California, with no effective opposition and a perpetual super-majority in the legislature.

The GOP leadership doesn’t recognize the Democrats as the existential threat that they are to the republic, or they are in on it, or they would rather live in a Democrat-controlled state than an American-controlled one.

No matter the reason, the GOP leadership handed the Democrats majority control of the Federal legislature, and they did so with premeditation and malice of forethought.

The Bush GOP never tried to defeat the Democratic Party agenda in toto as the Democratic Party attempts to do to the GOP. The Bush GOP was for globalist corpostate systems which needed this dynamic of competition between the two parties as leverage over them both, in my estimation.

As should be obvious to you, I would never suggest the reason the GOP hasn’t attempted to existentially affect the DNC is because they are the better people; I would suggest to you that the reason they haven’t attempted to existentially affect the DNC is because they have far more in common with them than they do with George Washington.

The GOP leadership and the DNC are trying to consolidate power for a permanent globalist corpostate system that controls both parties, letting voters think they have a choice.

That scheme has been upended by the Frankenstein beast the DNC raised because it needed violent street fighters, the radical progressives and Islamists united through the DSA (Democratic Socialists of America).

Democrats are colluding with foreign powers (including the CCP and Islamists), to consolidate power at the Federal level in the similar manner they did in California. China, global Jihadism, and other wacko totalitarian groups, however, might be looking to replace their original “clients” with people more ideologically aligned and beholden to them than the current progressive leadership is.

All of these people, foreign and domestic, in this progressive state coalition are anathema to Judeo-Christian civilizations. The resistance (the GOP under current leadership), however, are effectively just as much of a threat to our civilization as the progressives are.

Outside of victories through executive orders, almost all that the republicans have delivered to America were viral congressional hearing videos showing republicans “owning” progressives. The “owned” progressives still either have the power they had before the hearing or are just one Presidential executive order from getting it back.

I will be voting GOP because the Democrats want to make the whole of America like California, which is a nightmare to me. They are abominable people whose anti-American work is writ large in the oppressed lives of its victims. This is a state that kidnaps children from their parents for not being allowed to have their breasts or penises cut off.

My vote doesn’t mean I think the GOP will govern better it they win. They will not. But having two competing parties at least prevents the USA from becoming a socialist Jihadist dream for international forces in Iran and China, while most Americans becomes impoverished slaves.

That is what the Democratic Party represents to me, and it is what it represents to anyone who holds to American Rule of Law, that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, none of which can be usurped in the name of “social justice.”

I think the GOP will lose badly because they didn’t find a way to appeal to a solid majority and, despite Trump trying to drive his agenda forward, they phoned it in, as they always do. Even people who loath the Democrats will just stay home.

Low information voters with no awareness about the existential crisis our American republic’s Rule of Law is facing will vote against the party in power if their gas prices are too high. Republicans have done little to frame this election as the existential crisis to the republic that it represents. Not even JD Vance is calling the Democratic Party an illegal insurrectionist operation openly advocating for policies that are constitution killers, even though that is exactly what they are.

What Americans either don’t want to believe or just can’t see is that the Democrats who win in 2026 will not be ones with a little pinkie toe in America. These “Democrats” are openly anti-American and anxious to reboot the whole system for good. I hope and pray that if I am right about a big Democratic victory, I am wrong about who the leadership of that party will be.

If the Democrats win, we continue the road towards upheaval, as they have promised to use their power to persecute their opponents and engage in lawfare against them. Wherever they can, they will use state power to create the precedent that rejecting progressive beliefs, like “the white man invented evil,” is “treason” in and of itself. Reading Romans 1 out loud will be considered an act of terrorism against the state.

Expect less governance and more drama, more hatred and division, more violence, and more economic and lawfare warfare against your rights and your wealth, until they lose, if elections continue in any modicum of fairness, and the cycle repeats.

No person of means, with wealth, time, and influence is trying to break the cycle, run out the Bushites and defeat the Jihadist socialist agenda of the anti-American Democrats once and for all.

Would to God that blue collar Democrats rose up and rooted out all the foreign influence out of their party!

Would to God the Fettermans of the Democratic Party replaced the jihadist socialist vermin taking over.

It is for these reasons I will vote in this midterm election, and it is for these reasons that my only choice is to vote straight republican, come what may. At the very least I will be entering into history my opposition to the rise of the progressive state. I hope you join me in this effort.

By Bill Collier, Publisher

“You have seen people within Bibi’s cabinet, who have come out and attacked the deal, and in some ways very personally attacked the president of the United States. Number one, Donald J. Trump is the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time. And he happens to be the head of state of the world’s superpower.

“If I was in the cabinet of the Israeli government, I might not be attacking the only powerful ally that I have anywhere left in the entire world. The other thing that I would say is that over the last three months, two thirds of the defensive weapons that have protected your homeland, have been built by American hands and paid for by American tax dollars. The problem for Israel is not Donald J. Trump. And anybody in Israel who thinks their biggest problem is the president of the United States needs to wake up and smell the reality of the situation that country is in.” – JD Vance responding to Israel’s rejection of the first major Iran Peace Deal

“And I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them. And the people will oppress one another, every one his fellow and every one his neighbor; the youth will be insolent to the elder, and the despised to the honorable.” – Isaiah 3:4-5

JD Vance Supports Political Islamists and Enables Their War Against Christianity, UNINTENTIONALLY

There are three groups that agree about two things: they hate Israel (and the Jews overall), and they also hate the historical Christian faith.

These three groups are Nazis/neo-Nazis, Leftists, and most followers of political Islam. They all agree on those two points, that Jews and Historic Christianity are enemies of humanity. All three are also totalitarian and anti-Christian, but within the Nazi and Leftist groups you will find self-professing “Christians” who are yet more aligned with Islamists than with historic Christianity.

First, the neo-Nazis have a version of Christianity that limits Christ’s saving work to the white race (despite the fact that Christ himself was not white).

Next comes the leftist progressive “Christians” who deny all the core theological and moral orthodoxies of the historical Christian faith. The common enemy is Israel and the historic church. This is the strategy of hell. The third group, political Islam, doesn’t have a Christian front, though they claim to protect Palestinian Christians when it suits their narrative ends.

PUB.NOTE: I support Palestinian Christians and have criticized the Israelis. But especially the Palestinian authority, for violating their rights.

In my opinion, JD Vance, friends with neo-Nazi Tucker Carlson, who I now call Qatarlson because of his open support of Qatar, is flirting with the neo-Nazis (although in his defense he is not a neo-Nazi and he is not an authoritarian in any way).

He is, however, aligning with Neo-Nazis, and could yet end up joining them.

There is no circumstance in which I would vote for a JD Vance, as even the worse leftist would produce the same curses upon our land through their wicked policies as surely as Vance would. Under both, militant political Islam gains power everywhere, and no one, so far (not even MAGA) has recognized the threat.

Vance is an ally of militant Islamists, especially Qatar and Pakistan, even if unintentionally. I do not believe this alignment is coming from a place of hatred for the Israelis and Protestants, but it has the net effect of supporting spirits of hatred for both.

I believe JD Vance thinks we Christians should not influence the government too much, and therefore he feels comfortable aligning with powerful Islamists, perhaps naively believing their disadvantaged power voice will be the same as their advantaged power voice.

I believe he thinks he is truly friends with powerful Muslims who just want peace and happiness born from an adherence to American Rule of Law. Call it stupid, but it is not malicious.

In my opinion, JD Vance is an ally of radical Islamic forces, although he is probably unaware of that fact. For me, this disqualifies him and makes him a bad counselor to the President.

If JD Vance wins in 2028, Israel will not control our foreign policy, as he so unjustly claimed, SINCE THEY NEVER HAVE. They have influenced our foreign policy, and perhaps you could argue they have too much influence, but to make the bald-faced lie that Israel is controlling our foreign policy reveals either a lack of character or integrity in Vance.

It also reveals a lack of care for the consequences of spreading an unfounded truth claim he knows is used every day by violent antisemites to justify systemic violence against the Jews and the state of Israel.

THAT’S a blood libel conspiracy theory tailored to promote genocide against Jews, and certain Christians who support them. If JD Vance wins, Qatar will influence our foreign policy far more than Israel ever has because its paid agents have the most influence in the White House today.

If JD Vance wins, Israel will have an enemy of the Jews who puts his Catholic eschatology (which does not allow for the state of Israel to exist) over logic, reason, and even Christian love.

If I ever was MAGA, JD Vance would be the reason I would disavow the whole thing. I don’t need to do that because there is no MAGA movement (in my opinion), only a cult of personality around Trump, because these people trust him and his leadership. They do not worship him; they only trust him (not that a fringe of MAGA don’t fit into the worship category, though they represent a small minority).

Outside of a vague reference to American Rule of Law and a commitment to put American interests above all other interests, there are no clear statements of principle, or outlining of concrete goals that go beyond Trump’s Presidency.

Without Trump, there is no movement because there is no “manifesto” of principles and goals that guides them, only faith that Trump is a great deal maker and a brilliant strategist, and that he truly loves America.

Their reasons are not unfounded, even if I believe the faith is stronger than the justification for it. You cannot deny that Trump is a force of nature one rarely sees. This fact alone makes it easy for me to understand why people support him so strongly. Trump does love this country, but he’s hardly right about everything.

I think that, without guiding articulated principles and goals which every movement member (from the bottom to the top) is accountable to, the movement dies when the heroic leader fades.

Vance would like to pick up that mantle. He will have to first neutralize the pro Zionists who believe three things Vance does not; that Israel is a key U.S. Ally, that Jews should own and govern their ancient homeland, and that powers like Qatar, Turkey, and Saidi Arabia are no less enemies to our land, and to Christianity, than are Russia, China and Iran.

I am an unapologetic Zionist. I am convinced we are fighting a civilizational war against Islamic civilization in its Caesarism phase (decadence, authoritarianism, and imperialism), while many Muslims, like the UAE, are natural allies against all this.

JD Vance is not a friend to the UAE or the Kurds, who are not political Islamic totalitarians, but he is an ally to Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia who all work to eradicate the presence of Jews, Christians, and purely religious Muslims from the Middle East as precursor to world domination.

This isn’t about the Jews or Israel; they are just in the way. This is about political Islam as an existential threat to every civilization, especially to Christian ones. I support Israel, the UAE, the Kurds, the Assyrians, and Christian Palestinians because their enemy, political Islam, is coming for me next (and in America today is ALREADY coming for us).

Framing this as Israel controlling our foreign policy while your own highest profile supporters are getting rich from political Islam is reprehensible and cannot be excused. JD Vance is no less a friend to Radical Political Islam than Qatar, because Qatar leads him.

IS THIS VINCE’S AIM? Probably not.

He has bought the narrative against Zionism and Israel. He doesn’t see that his allies would take away his freedom in a second when they no longer need him, and they have the power to do so (peace when they have disadvantaged power, war and persecution when they have advantaged power).

His Catholic eschatology makes the existence of Israel a rebuke of the Catholic end-times teachings. His rightful rejection of globalism leads him to reject inordinate foreign influence over American policy.

Israel is hated by globalists because its existence validates ethnic nation-states, and by anti-globalists because of Israel’s perceived influence over American decision-making. Israel, to the anti-globalists, justifies globalism especially because, objectively, prominent Jews overwhelmingly support globalism.

JD Vance has swallowed the “Jews behind every American policy” lie, and thus is predisposed to reject Israel not only because of his Catholic eschatology, but also because of his perception that Israel’s influence on America reinforces globalism.

Also, to be clear, none of these people understand this as a civilizational war, with political Islam as one of the main protagonists. They genuinely believe that if Israel is reduced and Zionism is refuted, this will make for a peaceful coexistence with the “Islamic world.” They do not see this as a civilizational crisis, so they would reject this analysis.

They erroneously believe they can more easily live with Islamists as neighbors than Zionists.

25 years after 9/11, we have still not identified the nature of the war, a civilizational struggle for survival. They have not identified THE main enemy in that war, political Islam. Its alliance with progressives in America, by extension, puts progressives in this same camp, the camp of “Existential threat to the American republic and Christians as a whole.”

They fail to see the 9/11 hijackers as merely the military arm of countries like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and especially Qatar. To them, these are extremists, not normal fruits of a colonizing imperialistic religion of violence, a religion of conversion through murder.

A former Al Qaeda head runs Syria now, and both Vance and Trump support him while he murders Christians and plots more assaults against the West. This may be the reason God punishes this administration, frankly, until they repent of being allies with hell’s agents in Doha, although I consider foolish leaders to be themselves a judgement against a land.

This is not about JD Vance’s Catholicism, but only about how he CHOOSES to live out his Catholic faith, which is to make eschatology more essential than salvation itself (at least in my opinion), for how else would he support policies and  beliefs that are clearly designed to give legitimacy to real genocide, the genocide of the Jews, which cannot take place until they remove the Jews’ one state-powered safe haven, Israel the state.

For this reason, I will not support JD Vance either in the 2028 primary or the General Election should he choose to run for President.

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor

“Now concerning brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another, for that indeed is what you are doing to all the brothers throughout Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to do this more and more, and to aspire to live quietly, and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you, so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:9-12

Before I update you on our Hope Estates Project, I thought I’d recap the project for those who might not have followed it (especially for some of our newer readers).

As our regular readers well know, we preach the message of self-sustainable flourishing. We believe self-sustainable flourishing is not possible without a community of self-stewarded people. To that end, we sought a property that can be used both to house an extended family (5-10 people) and serve the public. Having both public and private space was essential.

We believe that extended family that serves together stays together, so we seek to create space that enables an extended family to serve the public while also serving themselves.

We knew we wanted to serve a rural community, and we wanted that community to be in Pennsylvania, preferably in the Endless Mountain region (North-central PA). Beyond that, we had no idea what we would eventually choose. We knew it would be the building that would choose us, regardless of what town it was in.

It would turn out that Canton had what we felt was the best opportunity. When we made our bid, another buyer offered the seller more money than we were offering. We were given the chance to increase our bid, but I chose not to, believing that the price I offered was the most we could afford (knowing this was a project, not a completed, ready-to-use building).

At the time, we estimated the cost to transform a church to a castle (private and public space blending) would be about $100,000, so we knew we couldn’t afford to pay a high price, even if the church was worth the higher price (and it was, and still is).

Fortunately for us, the deal with the other buyer fell through, which enabled us to buy the property at the low price we did (which would prove to be crucial in light of the deep freeze disaster we had yet to face).

The price to convert the church to a castle might be twice as much now as we thought it would be, but it is still within our capacity (at least as long as our economic situation continues as it has, especially these past few months).

Our plans were first interrupted by two major illnesses, one involving my wife and one involving me (fortunately not at the same time). While I still have health issues, they are nowhere near as debilitating as they were last year. My wife has fully recovered from her illness.

Then an unexpected deep freeze hit Canton just two weeks from us having our heating system prepared for the winter (water lines bled, etc.). At first it seemed like minor damage had happened, but then it became apparent it wasn’t minor at all.

During this time, our mother has had health complications that made it apparent we need to soon assure she does not live alone anymore. She has a property she was hoping to convert to community space long before we began our Hope Exit project. We all decided to combine her property with our efforts (out of necessity). This means we will be serving an urban community in Harrisburg and a rural community in Canton.

This takes us up to the present. Here is the update for this past month:

Our Hope Estates project achieved a major milestone; we have completed the renovations in our Harrisburg estate that creates an apartment for brother Bill. This week, he will be using the apartment to travel to D.C. in search of clients to help fund our project.

When we were carrying a couch from the first floor to the third floor, through tight spaces and in high heat, I had an incident with my adrenal pots that rendered me unable to complete the task. The next day, my brother Bill returned with our friend Anthony to complete the task. Our Mother, Kymm, finished up the work on the apartment afterwards.

As our readers know, our castle in Canton suffered a major setback during an unexpected early sub-zero deep freeze (which I referred to earlier). We now know the consequence of that disaster, which is the complete destruction of our natural-gas-powered steam heating system.

We have received one estimate to install heating/cooling splitters, but that system would require numerous holes to be drilled into our 1-foot-thick stone walls. We do not favor the cosmetics of that choice. Not only would it require holes to be drilled into our walls, but it would also require 6 or more external heating/cooling units to be placed outside the castle.

For now, we are opting to use industrial-strength heaters to get us through the winter without any further damage. This temporary solution will cost us less than $2k, though we are prepared for high heating bills. By next winter, we hope to have decided on and installed the new system(s).

We have not yet decided on a final heating/cooling system, but we are prepared to pay up to $100K to install a heating/cooling system. We’re just not sure which system we will choose.

The first week of October we have something special planned for the Castle, a walk-through church service by our friend Joe, who is a traditional Anglican priest. We will have an update on how that went in our October monthly review.

We have decided our next major investment is going to be for our roof, which is a slate roof. We hope to preserve the roof, not replace it; this is not because of cost, but cosmetic preference. We hope to preserve the original external look of the castle as much as possible.

We believe the roof needs some repairs, a good cleaning, and new gutter systems. We also hope to fix our weathervane spire, which is slightly bent.

After the roof, our next step is to install at least one shower and a laundry hook-up. This will enable myself and my wife to begin living in the Castle one full week a month (to start).

One of the biggest challenges we have in the Canton project is finding quality people available to do the work. For instance, we want to have the old heating system removed but the person we were hoping to do it hasn’t been able to get to it yet.

We knew going in this would be an issue, and it certainly has been.

We had an issue with our property taxes on the Canton property. Apparently, one government agency did not have it on record that we were the new owners, so they sent our bill to the previous owner. Fortunately, the issue was discovered before the bill was due, so we were still able to pay it on time.

We were hoping to be living in the Castle, at least part-time, by this fall, but that seems unlikely right now (barring some unforeseen major windfall). We are hoping to get roof repair work done before the winter, but even that might prove to be difficult. Winter comes earlier in Canton than it does where I currently live, Bethlehem, which is about 3 hours southeast of Canton.

We still have hope we will find someone able to do the work before the winter.

My wife has attained her Notary Public license. She is pursuing a more advanced license that will enable her to close mortgages and similar transactions. She hopes to have an office in Bethlehem and Canton. Eventually, we hope to add Harrisburg to her locations. She chose to develop this skill both to bring in some extra cash and also to provide a free service for people in need.

We have been fortunate this past month economically, enabling us to pay down more debt and plan for our next major investment (the roof repair).

We ask our praying readers to pray for us, both for resources that could accelerate our castle transformation and for endurance in facing the hard physical work needed to bring this project to fruition.

As of right now, we estimate it will be two years minimum before the church becomes a castle, and five years before the Harrisburg property is converted to a castle. We hope and pray for miracles to accelerate that timeline, but are prepared to diligently work within that timeline, if this is the Lord’s will.

Our subscribers have helped fund our Hope Estates Project, as we have used these funds primarily for that purpose. Our salaries mostly rely on our marketing clients (which we hope to expand to help fund this project).

Next month, we hope to give you an update on our church service walkthrough along with anything important that happens in October. God willing, we will have more good news to share as well.

III. FINAL THOUGHT: 9/11 – 25 YEARS WITHOUT LEARNING A THING

By Bill Collier, Publisher

“The attacks of September 11th were intended to break our spirit. Instead, we have emerged stronger and more unified. We feel renewed devotion to the principles of political, economic and religious freedom, the rule of law and respect for human life. We are more determined than ever to live our lives in freedom.” – Rudy Giuliani, New York City Mayor when the World Trade Towers were attacked.

“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

On September 11, 2001, forces from a dying civilization trying to conquer the world attacked the United States of America and, despite everything, including a war on terror that has become a war on the rights of individual Americans, it is obvious our society has learned absolutely nothing.

Let’s pull the bandages off the wound so we can call it what it is: a dangerous gangrenous monstrosity that is eating away at the Body Politic. In short, terrorism had worked because the rabid, violent and authoritarian ideology of political Islam is invading the USA and the prevalence of Islamic radicalism in US institutions has grown exponentially since then.

The attacks were financed and supported by organizations that were themselves provided for by major Muslim powers, like Pakistan, and Turkey, among others, to undermine the USA and make the West easy pickings for a version of Islamic Civilization straight out of a horror movie.

On September 10, 2001, political Islam had few allies, and Muslim migrants were small in number and influence. Now, the Democratic Party is a Pro Political Islamic Supremacist organization and a man whose ideology is similar to Bin Laden (albeit covered slightly and denied) is the Mayor Of New York. This is thanks mostly to “voters” who migrated to the USA after this event.

Terrorism works.

The goal of political Islam was to subvert the USA and the West to seize power. They have power. Dearborn, Michigan is an Islamist hellhole. Most universities are run for and by Islamic supremacists and by them or their leftist allies.

The demographic war against Europeans in favor of radical Islamic killers is on pace to end the West eventually, even as leftism is killing the birthrate while the Islamic Jihadist families grow, financed by US federal dollars and fraud. If you are unhappy with society, you might see this and think that perhaps if you engaged in “lateral warfare” your cause might be taken more seriously and your beliefs more respected.

The Muslims are coming to take over and the American Democratic party is their chief ally in their aims, being anti-Christian, anti-free market, and anti-Bill of Rights. The unholy alliance of leftist authoritarianism built on moral depravity and political Islamic supremacism is one that will eventually require one of the two partners to triumph over the other, both side likely assuming the other is but a tool to be used.

The lesson from 9/11 is that we are in a civilizational crisis and what follows next in this land must either be a new assertion of our own civilizational principles or the triumph of our enemies in our land. The current political agenda of the Democratic Party is more aligned with Bin Laden, who also hated free enterprise and individual rights, than, say, John F Kennedy.

In short, we never understand this as a civilizational crisis, or a war for the survival of our country and civilization. We treated this as an inappropriate response to injustice committed by our government and only to be mitigated by appeasing the “good Muslims” who turn out always to be quiet allies to the “radicals”, whose ideas are mostly favored by most of Islamic civilization.

There is a meme saying basically that a moderate Muslim is someone who claims that giving in to their demands, e.g. Sharia accommodation, is necessary so the “radicals” don’t kill more innocent people. It is terrorism by indirect means: they benefit from the threats of the radicals to force changes to US policy that ultimately favor the Islamic supremacists.

Is there a Muslim who rejects these things? One struggles to find them outside of the UAE, Kurdistan, or, to some extent, Jordan. Everywhere else, especially the U.S., the dominant worldview is Islamic supremacism and imperialism. The average Muslim either supports the terrorists or refuses to denounce political Islam, while voting for Democrats who have become the Al Qaeda Party in America.

This is not a holy war.

This is not about Islam.

There are Muslims who do not want to dominate anyone and who do not support Jihadist friendly people like New York’s Mayor, a man who has zero loyalty to any of America’s founding principles, a man who will attack America over its past failures without acknowledging that HIS MOVEMENT is what attacked the USA on 9-11-01.

But while American Muslims are among the least likely to justify Sharia, terrorism, or violence, they vote en bloc for all that, and they spend their time lecturing us on how we should not blame “all Muslims” for 9/11. They do this while they also decry White People at every chance as the original cause of evil in this world (behind, of course, the Jews).

One can hardly claim to be a different kind of Muslim while steadily supporting people and causes that advance the very agenda that motivated the 9-/11 attackers.

What has happened since 2001 is that political Islam is untouchable in the West; they don’t want to be called a phobe. Therefore, political Islam is gaining power everywhere at the expense of the survival of our Union of Constitutional Republics.

If you sense this and are told it’s not true, just trust your gut because Islam is winning the war for the soul of our culture and nobody at any level, including the Republicans and Trump, truly understands that on 9/11 Islamic Civilization itself conducted a major attack against Christianity and the West. Their attacks and their threats have worked, they are more powerful than ever before.

Islam is everywhere. Muslims are everywhere and most are invoking narratives, e.g. “stolen land” and “Islamophobia”, to curtail our very right to exist. The Islamic Civilization is also dying, but it is, like other dying civilizations, trying to find life in action. The idea is simple: as long as they are conquering more lands and making them fall under Islamic laws, their civilization will grow and thrive.

It won’t. But that is beside the point!

The triumph of Islam everywhere is the death of freedom everywhere. Islam as an ideology is incompatible with freedom. Rights coming from God? No. The only people with rights are the Mullahs. As for religious freedom, most Muslims support people and organizations that do not believe that Jews or Christians should have any influence over policy and no rights to exist.

Their Quran commands them to murder us all.

Democrats? They do not believe in the Bill of Rights, and they are allies of Jihadism. Period.

Every major institution is worried more over offending the sensitivities of Muslims than the rights of anyone else, except for people whose gender identity and sexuality supports the collapse of our birthrate, our families, and civil society. As for the rights of Christians? Their speech offends and they deny that Mohammed was anything but a false prophet and a pedophile, and for that offense they must suffer.

9/11 was a major attack on civil society in America, and it worked. Violence has proven more effective, especially when the courts, the press, the entertainment world, academia, and every HR department and corporate boardroom favors the aggressors and blames the victims.

9/11 was, to them, a result of things we did to the Muslims, and while it was wrong, “if only we were better to the Muslims we would not be attacked.”

All we must do is stop being a Christian people with laws based on Christian beliefs and values. Then we will have peace. And our daughters will be placed in harams, since American women no longer want to mate with American men.

9/11 worked for the Islamic world. It should have caused us to have a serious question about Islamic supremacism and political Islam and the inherent threat these things represent. Instead, “W” seemed more concerned that Muslims were the true victims of 9/11. He changed his policies to accommodate terrorists.

The endless war on a form of lateral warfare without naming the enemy, which is Islamic civilization overall, made life harder for Americans. The Patriot Act, an Orwellian name, is itself as much an evil as political Islam or Nazism. It is an assault on our rights and has led to the deaths and unjust imprisonment of thousands of innocent Americans.

We never learned. 

The unity of the days after the event was short-lived because it soon became an apology for America itself. Obama in 2009’s Cairo Speech sounded every bit as much like Al Qaeda in his blood libel attacks on our country, and he was rewarded with a second term.

We elected a man whose own lived experiences were in a Muslim school run by people whose thoughts are very aligned with Bin Laden. He grew up learning to hate America, and he took that spirit with him to D.C.

The real difference between most moderate Muslims and terrorists is their strategic approaches. The strategic aims, namely the imposition of Islam in the USA and the termination of our “democracy”, are identical in every substantial measure. Most American Muslims reject force or violence, but they vote for the Party that is delivering results the Islamic supremacists applaud.

We are in a civilizational crisis. We are at war against Islamic Civilization because it has as its nature the essential goal of subjugating the world to Islam. The same applies to the left, supported by China and Russia, despite the way the Left today pretends to hate Russia. Qatar and Turkey have the President’s ear more than the Bill of Rights ever did, it appears, because he gives so much to them while denying that political Islam is a cancer that must be removed from our land.

We never learned. 

Will Islam triumph?

Not necessarily. The underlying problems of a dying civilization don’t go away when you conquer another civilization, they just expand to that civilization as well. Moreover, the fact every major civilization today is in a crisis of meaning also points to an uncertain outcome: the financial and civil collapse being aggravated by all these activities may explode before the conquerors themselves collapse from within.

The left, whose ideology is a late-stage ideology one expects to find in a dying civilization, also have their own agenda. One wonders if both want to clear away the opposition among Christians or conservatives, or the Jews, before going after each other, but eventually they will have to fight each other.

The trick is to use their ally to defeat a common foe then to triumph over that ally. Both sides think they can win when that time comes, or they would not be allies. They do not want to let the other side win because their aims are actually divergent. Leftists don’t want Sharia. But if the people who want Sharia will help the left defeat America, and give them votes, then so be it, for now.

This is a critique of political Islam and the 9/11 response, which failed to see this as a civilizational war being waged by real powers, e.g. Turkey and Saudi Arabia, to destroy the West and conquer it from within. There are other dangers and threats, some from the right and left, some religious, many secular.

Indeed, the Republicans until now have utterly failed to comprehend this as a civilizational war. Trump sees this as transactional and deal making; this is his entire persona. Trump’s Iran war has often been guided by the same Islamic powers whose core ideology is Al Qaeda with good PR. Turkey is a radical Islamic supremacist power that wants to destroy our country and see Islam rule here by force. Make no mistake.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Pakistan all agree. Their goal is the end of Christianity and the Jews because they stand against their Civilizational agenda. To deny this is to ignore their ideology and theology and to pretend their many acts, especially 9/11, were not representative of the entire Islamic Civilization. 9/11 was an expression of political Islam.

Let that sink in.

9/11 was an expression of political Islam and most Muslim countries, including our “allies”, again, excepting a few like Jordan or the UAE, support it. Most Democrats support political Islam. Their candidates and elected officials who are Muslims all support it by their deeds and their known behavior and statements.

This is not a call to wage war on Islamists or progressives.

The point is that 9/11 showed that violence works. It caused what we now see, the march of Islam in America aimed at the jugular of our civilization with murderous intent. But violence and terrorism producing temporary victories for Muslim powers over us is not a long-term plan for success, because it sows seeds of violence and dissolution for political ends that will eventually be answered by the people who’s right, wellness, and prosperity are being taken away.

Principles and rights do not rule. Discourse and debate leading to election results do not matter. Force, intimidation, and authoritarianism become the only viable answer, a true god of forces pinned to personalities wins during the decline of a major civilization.

This leads to instability and war from within. When right is not feared but only might, when fear of terrorism leads to giving political Islam power over America’s chief financial city, then the lessons drawn are that violence is a solution.

Those who rise in violence to defend against this are themselves sowing more seeds of dissolution.

The universe is governed by laws. We will debate them and try to understand them, like a scientist would, but these laws exist and cannot be overcome. Political Islam will never conquer the world, and resorting to a rule by force yourself only makes rule by force itself a bigger threat to our civilization than political Islam itself. The laws of cause and effect that govern the rise and fall of civilizations matter and cannot be beaten.

The West will eventually fall. So will Islamic civilization. So will every major world civilization around today. New paradigms will emerge, and one or more new civilizations will rise. The rule by force paradigm, narrative over substance, and corruption over justice, eventually overtake every civilization until it falls.

It falls outside the scope of this Final Thought, but the dynamic here is that America could carry the seeds of a new civilization within our founding documents.

So far, the promise within those founding documents is an unfulfilled dream, a dream most Americans may not even be aware of. For now, America is ruled by people and institutions that are wholly subordinated to Western Civilization in its latter stage paradigm, i.e. rule by force, and very few voices focused on the idea of a new civilization are even heard.

This is true of President Trump, as well as it is for Chuck Schumer.

Thus, 9/11 is a massive, pitched battle between one dying civilization seeking renewal through conquest and the other seeking acceptance after coming to loath itself. Both paths, the Islamists and the globalists, rely on rule by force, and both think they can use the other as a club to remove their common enemies, which we may see as the people who have the seeds of a new civilization within them, before going after each other.

Those who embrace a Judeo-Christian worldview, the Bill of Rights as our sacred God-given rights, the Declaration of Independence as our founding authority, and a free market economy, represent the people from whom a new class of rebels will arise, rebels who are the progenitors of the new without realizing it.

The notion that faith and actual justice should guide a culture with little need for political force of any kind, is the type of seed from which new civilizational paradigms emerge.

The people who look at the Federalist Papers, at the tenets of historical Christianity and Judaism, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution as foundations for our civilization are in fact the seed-bearers of a new civilizational paradigm that is still ahead of its time.

Eventually, a new civilization, or new civilizations, will emerge, and freedom will continue in some form until the end of the world. It may be hounded from its old strongholds, but it will survive, and we know that with historical certainty.

The outstanding question is whether we as individuals will see that in part or in whole and what things we may have to endure if the current trends, started on 9/11, continue.

If political Islam gains as much ground as they did these past 25 years over the next 25 years, then it will be illegal to either say that marriage is only recognized by God between one man and one woman or that Jesus Christ is God and Muhammad is a false prophet, or perhaps both.

But the light of freedom will remain, the seeds of a new civilization will not die, and somewhere in this earth that new liberty-built civilization will arise.

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor

“Earthly civilizations come and go, but the Kingdom of God is eternal. The Word of the Lord is a civilization blueprint that transcends time, space, place, and ethnicity. For the children of God, we walk in the civilizations of both the fallen (the state) and the righteous (the Kingdom of God). One civilization is here, in full, the other is coming, though in shadow it’s already here.

“We are stewards and sojourners of the temporal civilizations, but Kings and Queens in the civilization to come, the civilization that is already among us in our hearts, the Kingdom of God.” – Paul Gordon Collier

As our civilizations collapse around us, those without roots outside of those civilizations will experience a collapse within themselves as well. Those with roots outside of those collapsing civilizations will be best equipped to be stewards of what might replace them.

As Christians, we are called to be good stewards of whatever state we find ourselves in. We have as our examples Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Esther, Mordecai, Daniel, and Joseph (and others as well).

All of these men and women of faith found themselves subject to a state that, in some way, wanted their people killed. These states were enemies of God’s children. Yet not a one of these people called on others to raise up arms to vanquish the state that wanted to destroy them and their people.

Jeremiah explicitly is given a prophecy commanding the Israelites to submit to the invaders and live well under their rule. The Israelites refuse to enter God’s rest. Instead, they drag Jeremiah to Egypt, blaming their “unrighteousness” towards the Queen of Heaven for their woes rather than their unrighteousness towards God.

They will die in Egypt, and the 10 tribes of Israel will be scattered. To this day, they have not been identified, which has led to more than 2500 years of exile from consequence of men entering their own understanding rather than God’s rest.

Ezekiel prophesized God’s Word, but never incited others to rise up and throw off the yolk they were under. He preached the words God gave him, even when God called him not to mourn for his own wife when she died, because he was to physically prophecy the indifference God held for his unrighteous bride.

Ezekiel entered God’s rest, and his words today continue to lift the body of Christ towards heaven.

Mordecai not only served his nation faithfully, without violating God’s laws, but he saved the King from an assassination plot. He saved the instrument of his peoples’ destruction from destruction.

The book of Esther never mentions God, but all who know His Word can see God moving through all Mordecai did. We can see how God confounds earthly authority, leading it to fulfill His will, no matter how obstinate that authority might be.

Mordecai entered God’s rest and God raised him up to become the second most powerful man in that same state.

Daniel’s righteousness and God-given wisdom elevated him to the second highest position in the land, yet when conspirators tricked the King into condemning him, by appealing to the King’s vanity, Daniel did not rebel or call others to do so. Instead, he put his trust in the Lord, not knowing beforehand if God would save him from the lions.

Daniel became the second most powerful man in the state before he was thrown into the Lion’s Den. Afterwards, his position was so cemented that he retained it even after that state, Babylon, fell to another state, the Persians. These same Persians would give Israel the resources needed to rebuild their temple.

Daniel entered God’s rest and became the wisdom of two states, though he never imposed his faith on either pagan state through that position, always staying within the boundaries of the state he served (so long as those boundaries did not defy God’s law).

Esther is assured by Mordecai that even if she chooses to remain a coward and not confront the King about the planned genocide of her people, another way will be provided. Mordecai knew scripture, it would seem, for he knew God would not allow his testimony, the miracle of Israel, to be blotted out by Satan’s men.

Esther entered the Rest of the Lord, risking death, knowing full well God’s will would prevail with or without her. She risked execution by the King by entering his court without his permission.

Joseph entered Egypt as a slave, then became a prisoner, going from a low position to the lowest position in the state. He stood in the prisoner’s pit symbolically the way the unrighteous after death will stand in the pit. He made no effort to escape as a slave or a prisoner. In both instances, he served his master. Potipher’s household was blessed by Joseph’s works, as was Pharoah’s prison.

Rather than rebel, Jospeh worked to bless the state he served, even while being first a slave, then a prisoner. His righteous wisdom prepared the way for his elevation from pit man to the right hand of the Pharoah. He went from slavery and imprisonment in the state to becoming the second most powerful man in the state.

It is clear to me that God ordains the state. It is not intended to be unrighteous, but where unrighteous hearts rule, no state can be righteous.

The state throughout history has been either an instrument of God’s mercy or an instrument of God’s righteousness. The magistrate is the plumbline of the people of the state.

Where righteousness prevails, so too will righteous governance. Where unrighteousness prevails, so too will unrighteous governance. The state cannot save you, for only God saves, but the state can be an instrument of wrath or mercy, depending on the consensual righteousness of the people.

No matter the model of the state, the righteousness of that state will emerge from the heart of the people, not the heart of any system (though systems can support or undermine righteous and unrighteous acts).

The power of the state is existentially rooted in its capacity to kill and harm human beings, and also its capacity to destroy resources.

There is no exception. This includes America.

The institutions of the state must facilitate all products, services, and disciplines necessary for optimal human harming and resource destroying capacity.

The state must always be an instrument of death and destruction to extend and preserve its sovereign power.

This will never change. This is the nature of the state. Without this power, the state disintegrates, often to give birth to semi-states before the next state claims sovereign power over the land.

The state is a vehicle of power for those who wish to assure success. The closer you get to the zenith of power, the more certain this principle becomes. The further you get from the zenith of power, the more the exceptions you will find.

The fear of losing fairly is the birth of the state. The fear of suffering and death is the power of the state. Your fear of suffering and death makes you a slave to the one who fears fairly losing to you.

The fear of losing fairly is the motivation for power that becomes the leadership in the state. The fear of suffering and death is the power that sustains the power of those who fear losing; these are the leaders of the state.

The fear of suffering and death is the fruit of the soul that does not put its faith in God’s rest.

Today, we Americans live in a land that is openly hostile not only to God’s laws, but to Him directly. We celebrate a woman’s “right” to choose. We chastise a whole race for the sins of their fathers, calling for the persecution of that “guilty” race.

We condemn heteronormativity, the way God intended us to be, and elevate homonormativity, the path that leads to the extermination of the human race.

Whole schools of thought in America regularly preach the message that God is a white supremacist demon that deserves to be driven from the public square.

Within the state’s mechanisms of power, we as Christians should call for righteous governance. Within the state’s mechanisms of power, we as Christians should call for traitors to be punished to the fullest extent of the law, which includes executions.

Within the state’s mechanism of power, we as Christians should call on the state to end unrighteous laws and follow only righteous ones. Esther and Mordecai used the full powers of the state to bring execution to those who would execute the Jews, for instance. But they did not seek to use those powers to overthrow the state itself.

Yet, when it is clear the power within the state to reform it to righteousness does not exist, we are yet called to continue to be good citizens of that state up to the point of defying God’s laws. Jeremiah did not try to use state power to reform the state, short of witnessing God’s word to the leaders, for he knew that power was gone, by God’s will, as a righteous punishment on the land.

Today, I believe we Christians in America still have state power we can both appeal to and bear to recalibrate our state towards the righteousness of God. But the season might soon come when we Christians might realize any state power to restore righteousness is already gone (as it was for Jeremiah).

Outside of hearing from the Lord directly, we can look at Judah in the time of Jeremiah for a plumbline of what a state under the unbreakable wrath of God looks like. While Ninevah was once given the opportunity to repent by Jonah, it was not given that opportunity under Nahum.

I will leave it for you, the reader, to assess whether we appear to be Judah under Zedekiah or under Rehoboam. Under Zedekiah, the die was cast. The option was only to submit to the righteous judgment on the land, the Babylonians, or be even more scattered than the Israelites already were. They chose the latter. Under Rehoboam, there was yet hope for Judah, who fell to the latter unrighteous reign of Solomon and the continued beginning unrighteous reign of Rehoboam.

Either way, whether we have hope as a nation through repentance or not, unless we have received a divine word from God, we should operate as if repentance can lead us back to righteousness, but not with a hope to save the state; we do so rather in the commitment, through love, to walk daily in service to the Lord, through His spirit, His Will, not our own.

America may survive or die. Tyrants may rise or fall, but the Word of the Lord endures forever, and contains the truth of the home we are traveling towards, the new heaven and the new earth, where all authority on heaven and earth will lovingly bend its knee in service to the one true sovereign, the Spirit of Lord, the God of Jacob, the arm that saves.

In these times, I encourage my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ to not give up working towards correcting the state’s unrighteousness through the state’s lawful means of doing so, but also not to put your hope in the outcome of America. For hope in America is not hope in the Rest of the Lord.

We who are in Christ are peacemakers expecting suffering and death, while welcoming the opportunity to testify to God’s glory to others by cheerfully embracing such faits. But we are not called to pursue suffering, only to know it is a necessary part of living Christ amongst his enemies, your enemies, the very people God calls us to love and serve, in righteousness, in a righteous love that rejoices in truth, not in enabling sin to please man and be accepted by him.

Civilizations come and go, but not so the Kingdom of God. No righteous person will end their days in suffering, for their days end eternally in the new heaven and new earth, and no unrighteous person will avoid true suffering by sacrificing righteousness to avoid pain and death.

As our civilizations continue to collapse, I hope you find comfort in the eternal civilization that cannot be broken or changed, the Kingdom of God, and through entering the rest of His Kingdom, you will be a better agent for righteous change in your unrighteous state.

Those who enter the rest of the Lord suffer no spiritual pain. Those who enter into their own understanding, their own way, have no rest today, nor will they have rest tomorrow. Esther entered God’s rest rather than her own clear understanding that to enter the Kings’ throne room is death. She did so with no prophetic promise, only faith, not in the outcome, but in the practice of acting righteously, even in the face of threat of suffering or death from the state.

Let us pray the Lord delivers to us a civic authority bold enough to vanquish the traitors in our land and restore righteousness but let us not put our heavenly hope in such things. We are stewards, not owners of the state God has put us in. Fear God, not men, and it will always go right with you, even amid great suffering and death.

By Paul Gordon Collier, Editor

“For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.

“Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” – Hebrews 4:8-13

Here is an update on our Hope Estates Project:

Last year, right before we were set to get our maintenance to protect our natural-gas powered steam heating system from freezing risks, we were hit with a deep freeze that lasted for days. To us, this was an act of God (in the figurative sense). While we could have avoided the disaster had we scheduled our maintenance earlier, there was little reason to believe we would experience the deep freeze that hit Canton in 2025.

Since that disaster, we have faced the reality that our project expense just doubled, minimally.

Now, we are having the whole steam heating system removed. We have had an estimate for a splitter solution, one that offers heating and cooling, but, in the end, we chose not to go with an option that requires many holes to be drilled into our stone walls. This might have been the cheapest solution, but cosmetically, it’s the worst.

For this winter, we are going to use a few industrial-strength heaters to keep our large spaces above freezing. We will be installing a new shower in one of our bathrooms and getting our roof repaired to the extent that it needs it. We have a slate roof that needs a good cleaning and some minor repair work.

My wife and I hope to be living there two weeks out of every month starting in the beginning of November. Once we can stay there, we can do more of the work that requires more elbow grease than cash. Next year, we will decide our final heating and cooling solutions.

Our Harrisburg project has seen a lot of improvement, with my brother Bill’s apartment mostly done save for some furniture that has yet to be removed. His apartment is on the third floor and the hallways and stairways are narrow, making this final move a challenge.

Once his apartment is ready, he can stay there more to help prepare the apartment my wife and I will be using. He can also begin to make more trips to D.C., where business opportunities abound.

The project has been challenging to all of us, especially because of health issues that first affected my wife, and now are affecting me (unrelated to hers). Even as I write this, I am battling an adrenal pots flair up.

Part of my health issues, though, are tied to this project, but really, are tied to my struggle to enter into God’s rest. Every morning when I wake up, since it became apparent how much we lost in the deep freeze disaster, I feel a lead weight on my chest, and the same basic thought, “how will we ever overcome this loss? How will our shared visions ever come into fruition?”

What began as a quest to build a Hope Exit Castle has turned into a quest to build Hope Exit Castles and “embassies” in four locations. Our second Hope Exit Castle Project in Harrisburg fell on us by necessity; we must provide for our mother, and help her fulfill a dream she’s always wanted, to see her property become a resource for her community.

Her dream aligns with our vision, so she has joined up with us. So far, we have myself, my brother Bill, my wife Jena, and our mother, Kymm, coming together for this project. All four of us share the vision, and all four of us hope to experience the joy and trials of serving our communities, one which we come from, and one which we are emigrating to.

Outside of us four, we have other people supporting us at various levels, some of which may join us more directly down the road. All told, there are roughly 12 of us invested in whole or in part in seeing this vision come into being.

I have such hope for all of us in our group to see the potential of our projects fulfilled, which will mean everyone will have platforms to fulfill their own unique callings to serve in the advancement of the Kingdom of God.

One of our members, Joe, hopes to use the sanctuary to run traditional Anglican services, which has been a dream of his for decades. My mother has dreams of creating gardens that supply food to the needy in both Harrisburg and Canton.

I have my own dreams, as does my wife, my brother, and the rest of us.

None of us have received direct knowledge from God about how our project will end up. God seems to have chosen to commit us to the work without the confidence we are “destined” to succeed. My wife and I, at present, have the most to lose if this project fails, and, to some degree, we feel the most responsible to make the project succeed (not that we should, only that we do).

The Apostle Paul had a similar worry. Like me, Paul was taking God’s responsibility, God’s will and purpose, and making it his.

In 2nd Corinthians 11, the Apostle Paul is excoriating the Corinthians for allowing false doctrines into the church and being seduced by “super apostles” who claim to have done greater works and performed greater miracles than Paul.

When listing the trials he has endured in the name of Christ, he ends it by confessing to a sin, the sin of anxiety, fear over things you cannot control. He says,

“And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.” – 2 Corinthians 11:28

This confession of sin is a counter to his claims of endurance. He makes this clear by following the previous verse with this one: “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?”

Paul is a sinner, like us, a repentant one not walking in the habit, or practice of sin, but not wholly free from the heart of stone. As such, like us, he is weak, incapable of enduring the hardships he’s endured, and he is not courageous enough to face authority in the name of Christ, like he did.

The message is that the fruit of a servant of Christ is not in boasting of our good deeds, our miracles, but in demonstrated humility that comes through resting in the Lord, and not in your own works, “for whoever has entered into God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from His.” (from Hebrews 11:10)

What we have endured, the four of us, in different ways, for the past two years, has been a severe trial. Yet our trials pale in comparison to Paul’s, and certainly to Christ’s. They probably pale in comparison with what some of you have endured these last two years as well.

Yet even in the middle of this disaster, we have received unexpected blessings that will enable us to initially invest more in this project than we previously thought. We’ve also received other blessings along the way that have softened the blow of this unexpected setback.

Above all else, though I have struggled with anxiety, my daily meditating on scripture has given me a foundation of truth and a certainty in the end of my earthly story, which ends in the presence of God eternally.

That Hope Exit is the only one God has assured for me, so far. The other Hope Exits we are working on will be testimonies either to our weakness overcoming great adversity through the Holy Spirit or a painless learning experience for others. Those who follow after us might then succeed in bringing a vision such as this to fruition, in part through our failures.

Our vision, plainly stated, is to create a living example of a missional extended family living in mixed space, private and public, to serve the community they are in. There are many ways to accomplish this vision, and for those reading now who have a similar vision, we hope you are working to bring yours to fruition as well.

I have learned through the years there is one thing you can control in life, the commitment to keep trying. Whether my end comes before or during the return of Christ, I hope to be found working towards building the Kingdom of God on that last day, come what may.

Surrendering outcome is not surrendering excellence in pursuit of outcome, it is entering into God’s rest, which is the whole story of creation.

In Daniel 4, I believe the vision given to Nebuchadnezzar is also for us. His second dream, along with Daniel’s interpretation, reveals, I believe, the whole story of creation. In that vision, he said “The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

To “know good and evil” for yourself is to rule yourself, and the whole of creation is working out the cost of ruling themselves, of refusing to enter God’s rest and allowing HIS will AND desire to overcome your own desires, even your own will.

It is in this spirit we continue our work, certain that it will end in our glory, through God’s glory, for all eternity. Beyond that, we will strive to be good stewards of our vision without making the vision an idol. This means entering into God’s rest so we can rest in our work.

For those of you who pray, I ask you to pray for us, especially me, that we may be good stewards working diligently to complete our vision while also entering God’s rest while we do it, come what may.

Let us rest while we work excellently to advance the Kingdom, through spiritual battles we currently face, and the ones still waiting for us to fight.

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FINAL THOUGHT, April 28, 2025

Originally published April 28, 2025 for our End-of-Month Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor.  Subscribe to get semi-monthly issues.

By Bill Collier, Publisher

“Free speech is my right to say what you don’t want to hear.” –George Orwell

“The right to free speech is more important than the content of the speech.” –Voltaire

“Freedom of speech doesn’t protect speech you like; it protects speech you don’t like.” –Larry Flynt

“If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all.” –Noam Chomsky

The pursuit of “alternative pronouns” may have begun, in part, as a pushback against intolerance, the intolerance of non-conformity to orthodox expectations regarding sex and gender, but it has since become another spearpoint aimed at the Bill of Rights.

Still, if we live out our Americanism, the idea that individuals can define their own happiness and pursuit of that happiness for themselves, should we YET THEN be tolerant and respectful of those who choose to express themselves through “alternative pronouns?”

The whole pronouns thing may seem wacko, and I can’t argue it can get strange; the positive in the movement is the idea of being your authentic self.

I might argue that changing your pronouns to fit your perception of your gender or for other reasons isn’t the path to authenticity, but I appreciate that it has become visible because I think it does, in part, affirm that people should be free to be their authentic selves and not be FORCED to follow “expected” social norms.

If using alt pronouns is what you need to do to be authentic to your true self as you see yourself, especially if this takes you to a place of seeing that this only scratches the surface, then so be it. I do not judge the heart; I do, however, have a right to my own morals and to define truth, justice, and authenticity according to my beliefs, values, and convictions.

Instead of being easily offended about pronouns, whether you use alt pronouns or choose not to participate, I believe it would be more consistent with our Americanism to have a more live and let live attitude.

You have no right to demand people recognize your gender as being a social construct; you also have no right to tell people they cannot express themselves in this manner.

Being true to your authentic self goes both ways.

Do you believe alt pronoun usage reflects your authentic self, or is part of that? So be it. Associate with people, or prefer people, who agree and will acknowledge that, but don’t become hostile to people who cannot agree on their own grounds (they do not owe anyone an explanation) and who feel strongly that gender is what you are born with, period.

While alt pronouns may be losing some popularity, mostly because some loud people are insufferable about demanding the world change to suit their preferences, I’m concerned the idea behind it, being your authentic self, may also suffer.

For some, using alt gender pronouns is a pathway to finding who they truly are. I think it’s a dead end to stay there, and I also think you can pursue and explore this idea of authenticity without resorting to alt pronouns usage.

I may not agree with the alt pronoun usage, but where the subject is finding your authentic self, we are, to that degree, the same. We just go about it differently.

I do not view using people’s alt pronouns, if they ask with respect (demanding me anything will get resistance!), as an agreement that sex or gender can be a social construct, but if I care for someone and this is their journey, even though I think this is objectively not an effective path to true authenticity, I will respect THEIR worldview and probably use whatever they want me to use.

It is hard to use they/them, however, because it is a total disruption of language, but sometimes I think those using such pronouns are symbolizing a resistance against the soft tyranny of FORCING societal norms, something I cannot not only understand but also agree with.

In other words, I agree with upsetting social norms that go against individual authenticity and that don’t benefit everyone the same, I just think alt pronouns are more surface and shallower and don’t get to the right conclusion in the end. They also disrupt far more than “social norms,” they disrupt efficient human value exchange, existentially, when forced on society as a whole.

It may be that someone using those alt pronouns is on a journey. They know (or think they know) that they do not fit the orthodox categories or roles society assigns them without their foreknowledge or consent.

This writer is also not naïve enough to see that some, especially the late joiners, are playing language games intended to disarm their opposition. They’re not pursuing authentic understanding; they’re using the divisive language of trans and non-binary to isolate, attack, and destroy their competition.

We have limited means to break the mold in terms of our work, how we make a living, and manage other factors in life where we are forced into roles and submission to rules that actually defy our own inner convictions.

I feel this pressure a lot. I also see how limiting and controlling most institutions in our society are today, and I understand why someone would perhaps even subconsciously resort to alt pronouns to try and take back some of their sovereignty.

I know that God has had a lot of grace on me for things I later realized were not His will or plan for my life, so I choose to show grace both because the wrong person may one day see the light and because the wrong person may be me (a general axiom it would be wise to follow).

Ultimately, I think, for many who use alt pronouns it is rebellion and reaction against the stultifying tendencies of societal norms that go beyond civility into outright control of your person, in violation of your individual sovereignty and authenticity.

Rebellion against top-down control like that can often be haphazard, inconsistent, reactionary, and weird, but one must look beyond the pathways people choose to understand a more common goal: the inherent rights of sovereign beings, us, being true to who we are in an authentic way, while being limited only by reasonable rules of civility and mutual tolerance and respect, outside of our preferred associations that follow the same way of life that we do.

Civility doesn’t mean people OWE YOU usage of your alt pronouns; some will simply use the standard norms of addressing you by your visible gender. You are out of the norm here, and if people break the norm for you, it is a privilege and not a right.

What people DO owe you is decency and respect as a human being. For example, they can be civil and kind despite not agreeing to use your pronouns because, for them, using alt pronouns isn’t perceptively being true to their authentic self.

Too often, however, people who believe in things that are harmless to society are treated as if they are a menace, perhaps because of the loud insufferables in their ranks but also due to the inherent tendency in humans towards bigotry.

If someone who is born a guy thinks they are a girl, and if they then choose to live as a girl in their own life and with their own people, they are no DIRECT threat to you. While you don’t owe them usage of alt pronouns, you owe them respect and decency, if not merely for the sake of preserving and advocating for Americanism (the right to self-stewardship, even when you’re “wrong”) as a civic standard.

For instance, you may just avoid pronouns with them as much as possible, and you may explain that you cannot in good conscience use alt pronouns, but you respect their humanity and treat them well regardless.

For me, when a loved one asked me to use they/them pronouns, despite my philosophical and religious beliefs about the permanence of gender from birth, I chose to use the alt pronouns to show them that no matter what “alternatives” from the “orthodox” they choose, even when I oppose it, my love for them will not end.

My usage of their terms is not an affirmation of those terms, but an affirmation of my love for them. To confirm a lie is not loving.

In closing, I suspect the reason the whole alt pronouns thing emerged was a rebellion against artificial societal norms that go beyond a peaceful and tolerant society to become a society that controls and limits the human spirit.

That probably happened because the non-binary “cause” was then picked up by authoritarian, anti-American social engineers who exploited the plea of the needy to trick people into surrendering “rights” for “protection.”

Not so surprisingly, though no less ironically, that “tolerance” has led to “intolerance” of countervailing views.