It’s a Spiritual War!

“And [Jesus] said to the man who had the withered hand, “Come forward.” Then he said to them, “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” (Mark 3:3-6)

Hi Fighter,

It reads like a poorly scripted cartoon. Jesus is in a synagogue – a place of worship – surrounded by pastors, community leaders, and the local worshipping community. He asks a question. Nobody answers. He heals a crippled man. Nobody celebrates. Instead, they make plans to kill Him!

How evil are these people? At first reading, it seems ridiculous that any group of mature people would behave like this. Moreover, they are not a squad of Imperial Stormtroopers. They are religious people – pastors, priests, and community leaders. Surely, the Gospel writer is exaggerating their hostility towards Jesus? Well … I would have thought so too, but then I saw it happen during the COVID lockdowns!

You’ll have to forgive me if you think the comparison inappropriate but, as I read this passage, my mind went immediately to Doctor Peter McCullough. If you don’t know Dr McCullough, he’s another ‘alternate healer’ like Jesus – a health professional who didn’t fit in with the mainstream. Unlike Jesus, Dr McCullough is actually highly credentialed but, like our Lord, he chose not to tow the party line but to work on the fringes. Like Jesus too, his results have been fantastic!

If you know who I’m talking about, you know that Dr McCullough is a controversial character. If you look him up on Google, you’ll find that the first page of results points almost entirely to articles that discredit him. There are numerous links to ‘fact checkers’ who refer to Dr McCullough’s history of ‘spreading misinformation’. If there had been fact checkers in first century Palestine, I have no doubt that they would have said exactly the same thing about Jesus.

The problem for Jesus was that he did not fit in the mainstream. In this scene from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus is surrounded by credentialed representatives of the civil and religious authorities. Jesus has no credentials, and he was not a member of any of their parties or organisations. Jesus was not a Pharisee or a Sadducee or a Herodian or … anything. He was just Jesus, and yet he was making all the official representatives of God and the State look stupid. No wonder they wanted to kill him!

I don’t know whether anybody has tried to kill Peter McCullough yet. Nowadays we tend to imprison our dissidents (like Julian Assange and David McBride) or we content ourselves with publicly discrediting them – ‘cancelling’ them. I’ve been cancelled. It’s no fun. Even so, it’s better than being imprisoned or crucified.

It’s all about authority. I think of that terrible statement of Jacinda Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, saying, “We will continue to be your single source of truth,” and that, “Unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.” Few of our overlords have been bold enough to put it so bluntly but it well sums up the philosophy of Empire. We are the truth. We control the narrative. We will tell you what you are allowed to do and say and, ultimately, what you are allowed to think.

I met Dr McCullough very briefly in February of last year. He seemed a little worn and frail. He reminded me of my father in his later years, though I found out later that he is six months my junior! He said to me, “it’s a spiritual war, Father. It’s a spiritual war”. Evidently, the war was taking its toll on him. Even so, he fights on, and he inspires me to fight on. One of my favourite hymns comes to mind:

Lo! the hosts of evil round us,
scorn thy Christ, assail his ways!
From the fears that long have bound us,
free our hearts to love and praise.
Grant us wisdom, grant us courage,
for the living of these days,

Our Sunday Eucharist

We had a wonderful Eucharist last Sunday. I was in the bush, enjoying a wonderful weekend with Andrew Logan and Gigi Foster. We boxed, we ate, we talked long into the night, and we met online with the team on Sunday.

Once again, I had no trouble finding one-minute Shorts to extract from our Bible Banter. I’ll paste two of them directly below and two more at the end of this missive. Please do me the favour of sharing these shorts via your social media platforms so that we can continue to grow our online community.

This coming Sunday is the first Sunday of June, so we’re scheduled to have David Baldwin, Tom Toby and Dr Stephen Sizer with us. I’m pretty sure Tom is overseas though and I can’t reach him. Rob Gilland has graciously offered to fill in for Tom.

We will be be streaming from midday at TheSundayEucharist.com, and on Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, LinkedInand Streamyard. Please join us.😊

Let me work your corner

If you’d like to see my work continue, please click here to make a one-off donation, If you can afford a monthly contribution, sign up at Patreon.comand choose either:

Middleweight – $10/month (community mentoring)

• Enrol in the Fighting Fit training program
• Access member-only training videos
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Super-Middleweight $50/month (remote mentoring)

• All of the above +
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Heavyweight – $100/month (in-person mentoring)

• All of the above +
• Training with Father Dave’s Old School Boxing Academy

Superheavyweight – $200/month (intensive in-person mentoring)

• All of the above +
• One weekend per month at Binacrombi Bush Camp.

Every dollar helps keep the wheels turning – the websites, the newsletters, the broadcasts, the boxing club and the bush camp. Even so, this is not a one-way process. I want to support you in return, so please fill out the Physical and Spiritual Fitness Assessment form and get it back to me, and then sign up at Patreon.com.

What’s On? 

• Saturday, June 1^st – Boxing @Legends Gym in Kensington from 3.00 pm.
• Sunday, June 2^nd – Our Eucharist from midday via thesundayeucharist.com (or through Facebook , YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn or Streamyard).
• Tuesday, June 4^th – Boxing at The Mundine Gym in Redfern from 6.30 pm.
• Thursday, June 6^th – Boxing at The Mundine Gym in Redfern from 6.30 pm.
• Friday to Sunday, June 7 to 9 – @Binacrombi. Please join me.

We had a rollicking good time with the Binacrombi Bush Bash last Saturday night. You can watch that here if you’re keen. Putting in some rounds with my friends, Andrew and Gigi, was certainly one of the highlights of my week.

Elsewhere in our world, there is much to pray about. The carnage continues in both Gaza and Ukraine, and in both arenas, there are key players trying to fan the flames of conflict into a global conflagration.

Did you see the image of the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, writing, “Finish Them” on some of the shells that the IDF were about to fire into Rafah (in complete defiance of the International Court of Justice)? Those shells were about to shred other human beings to pieces – quite likely civilians, including women and children. I thought we were supposed to be the good guys?

I look for the light shining in the darkness, and I see a glimmer of that light in the statement from Donald Trump this week, that he’d give ‘very serious consideration’ to freeing Julian Assange if re-elected. I don’t interpret this as any moral awakening from Trump, who could have easily freed Julian when he exited the Presidential office years ago. I see it as an indication of the mood of his electorate. It seems it is becoming politically inexpedient to keep torturing Julian. I’ll take that as a win.

Another glimmer of light I saw this week was the letter from Iran’s supreme leader, Seyed Ali Khamenei, to US students protesting on behalf of Palestine – expressing his solidarity with them and telling them that they are on the “right side of history”.

Of course, it makes good political sense for Iran to encourage student protests in countries they are in tension with, and I don’t know how the American students took to having the Ayatollah tell them, “You have formed a branch of the resistance front.” Even so, it reminded me that compassion for the vulnerable is indeed something that traverses national and political boundaries.

It wasn’t that long ago that women in hijabs would question me at every rally for Palestine I attended, asking, “Aren’t you a Christian?”, and I would have to explain, “Palestine is not a Muslim issue. It is a human issue”. I don’t find myself needing to explain that anymore. That is something to be thankful for.

Finally, I felt a shaft of light hit me yesterday when I received an email from the Community Affairs References Committee into Excess Deaths in Australia. It seems they received my submission about the effects of lockdowns. Indeed, they have published it on the Parliamentary website as no.22 of 30 submissions.

My humble submission is in very esteemed company, alongside those from leading doctors and government and non-government organisations, including one from our dear brother, Dr Madry. We can only pray that this process helps bring the truth to light, leading to the collapse of false narratives and to greater freedom for us all.

May the Lord bless and strengthen you for the work to which you have been called.