“Our once great western Christian civilization is dying. If this matters to followers of Jesus Christ, then we must set aside our denominational differences and work together to strengthen the things that remain and reclaim what has been lost. Evangelicals and Catholics must stand together to re-establish that former Christian culture and moral consensus. We have the numbers and the organization but the question is this: Do we have the will to win this present spiritual battle for Jesus Christ against secularism? Will we prayerfully and cooperatively work toward a new Christian spiritual revival ― or will we choose to hunker down in our churches and denominationalisms and watch everything sink into the spiritual and moral abyss of a New Dark Age?” - Mark Davis Pickup

Thursday, November 26, 2020

COVID CAN NOT KILL OUR MEMORIES

This is a Christmas like no other. COVID is keeping us apart from loved-ones. Let us keep in mind those families that lost someone in 2020. There will be an the empty chair at their tables is Christmas. 

COVID may kill the body but not the soul. Sweet memories live on. So many people are grieving. Memories are all they have. 

If you know of someone who has lost a loved-one, please reach out to them by Skype, FaceTime, or other means, and include them in your Christmas Season. (Click the image below.)



Tuesday, November 17, 2020

COVID19: DESPERATE TIMES CALL FOR DESPERATE MEASURES!


 COVID19 infections are growing more severe each day. What were hundreds of new infections have become thousands, what were thousands of people infected are becoming tens of thousands. Voluntary measures to curb the virus from spreading are not being heeded. Draconian mandatory measures have become necessary. Government leaders have been trying to avoid this, and I get it, but too many people are ignoring necessary public health practices put in place. Some people are construing important public health measures as violations of their rights. Bizarre I know, but it’s  happening. Restrictions on the right of assembly and mobility are prompting some people to fear we are becoming a police state—conjuring up images of the gestapo or the stasi. Those prone to imagining conspiracies think it’s all a globalist plot. Wingnuts!

 

We’ve moved in to a second wave of COVID19 and the daily infection rate is worse than the first wave.  Desperate times call for desperate measures! It's time to institute severe fines for those people who refuse or neglect required health measures that are intended to stop the spread of COVID. If mandatory lockdown is required, declare it and enforce it. Mandatory compliance of public health care policy to combat coronavirus are only temporary. They will be lifted when an effective vaccine is available. (Then we’ll have a problem with the anti-vaxxers!) But if tough enforcement of public health measures is required I call on government to do it. Let the opponents, conspiracy theorists and anti vaxxers howl. Protection of the population takes priority.

 

This is not the first time in history the world has faced a pandemic. For example, the bubonic plague of 1663-1665. The city of London faced many of the same things we have experienced since March 2020: normal bustling city streets were empty. Businesses shut their doors, people defied municipal directive of quarantine.  


By June of 1665, the mayor and council issued orders under the title: ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE, 1665.[1]

 

They were not playing around. The orders were compulsory. People who did not obey them were jailed or faced heavy fines, or both! The ordinance gave sweeping powers to justices of the peace, bailiffs, examiners, searchers and others to enforce the order. In its preamble the order stated, “It is now, upon special consideration, thought very expedient for preventing and avoiding infection of sickness (if it shall so please Almighty God) that these officers following be appointed and these orders hereafter duly observed.” Examiners and other appointed authorities for local areas were appointed by aldermen.  Those who refused were jailed. Examiners and “searchers” were required to find and identify infected houses which were then padlocked and guards placed at the doors twenty-four hours a day. People who refused to serve as guards faced severe punishments. And to make matters worse for the folks appointed to positions where they might inadvertently come into contact with the plague could not enter or keep public places of business or take any other employment. Violators were imprisoned. Anyone who entered an infected house, such as a nurse, had to isolate themselves for twenty-eight days. Occupants of an infected house had to sequester themselves for a month after the last infection, under threat of imprisonment. The City of London had to take tough measures, but desperate times sometimes call for desperate measures.

 

Canada finds itself in a desperate time with rapidly rising COVID infections, hospitalizations and deaths. Enough people are defying or neglecting voluntary public health measures that mandatory public health requirements need to be instituted. Violators must face severe  consequences—be it heavy fines or jail. Further, I think provincial premiers must use emergency measures within their power to enforce consistent public health measures across the country so there’s no confusion. Too many vulnerable people are a risk and too many have died. Lockdown fatigue be hanged! We need to get infection rates under control. Things may get much worse before they get better. That is the bad news. The good news is that a vaccine is within sight; we are being told that one will be available in early 2021, if not earlier.

 

Let the tiny cadrĂ©s of anti-vaxxers and conspiracy wingnuts howl foul. The human rights they believe are being taken from them will be returned as soon as this pandemic is over.  The good of the majority must be protected.


MDP

[1] Daniel Defoe, A Journal of the Plague, (Bolton, Ontario: Amazon Books), p. 31.

Sunday, November 1, 2020

ON NOVEMBER 3RD, YOU MUST STAND FOR AMERICA!


 “Tonight, we pledge ourselves to each other and to the cause of human freedom—a cause that has given light to this land and hope to the world.”—Ronald Reagan  1986, on the occasion of relighting the Statue of Liberty. 

 _____________


Dear American friends of this blog: When you go to the polls on November 3rd, remember what made America great. It was your nation’s birth-right of optimism, patriotic values for family and community, one nation under God, that made America great. And those same values can make America great again. Historically, your nation believed in the American Dream where every citizen could rise to their aspirations with determination and hard work.  


Remember when communities were built not destroyed? Dare to believe that America build can again and be a beacon of freedom and liberty, just as Ronald Reagan believed. He saw the United States as a special place, “a shining city of a hill”—set by God between two oceans heralding a sacred call of human freedom and liberty for all the world to see and follow. It can be that way again.

 

America is at a pivotal crossroad.  Will it descend into a socialist/communist state under Biden and Harris? Don’t let that happen! Give Donald Trump a second term to usher America into new sunlit uplands of opportunity and potential. He’s setting the stage for America’s innate optimism and prosperity to blossom and flourish anew. Remember when that was a part of America’s culture and tradition of encouraging people to rise to their fullest potential? It can be again!  Just like Ronald Reagan before him, Donald Trump wants to rekindle a simple ideal: Free America from the shackles of big government. Restore American values and virtues of patriotism, family and community.

 

Donald Trump’s vision for America stands in stark contrast to how the leftists’ are replacing order and stability with disorder. They are spreading physical violence and bloodshed, destruction of property and communities. We have seen their vision for months playing out in street of cities across America. It is tolerated and even supported by the Democrats. But you must not! For the sake of all that is decent and good about America, return Donald J. Trump to the presidency to complete his task of truly making America Great Again.


I began this blog post with words of Ronald Regan 34 years ago, at the relighting if the Statue of Liberty. I believe that God has called President Trump to rekindle liberty itself across the nation. On November 3rd, vote Donald Trump and let him complete his task.

 

May God bless America and President Trump. —Mark Davis Pickup