Author Archives: michaeljsutton@freedommatterstoday.com

Two Year Anniversary

It is two years since Freedom Matters Today began. Freedom Matters Today would not have been possible without the loving support of my family. I want to give thanks to God for enabling me to hold the line and keep on target, which has been to talk about true freedom, which comes from God, revealed in the identity, the actions, and the words of Jesus Christ. I have not hesitated to declare the full counsel of God.  I have run a podcast and written a blog, and then wrote and published eight books, four about various aspects of Christian freedom, then 3 novels, and one academic text. 2021 was the year for conceptualization, 2022 was the year I started the podcast and the blog and 2022-2023 has been a busy time for editing, and publishing through Hidden Road Publishing, the imprint of Freedom Matters Today.

True Freedom is from God

There are hundreds of ways that Jesus the Christ or Messiah brings us freedom, and I have listed a few as part of my brief for Freedom Matters Today. They are not exhaustive. I have as part of our goal, to investigate freedom from fascism and tyranny, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from fear and despair, freedom from sin and death, freedom from past and prejudice, and freedom from war and conflict.

The point is simply that we don’t need political freedom, or democratic freedom, or Christian schools, or a Christian culture, or Christian politics, or churches, to faithfully follow Jesus Christ. True freedom is something that God gives and cannot be shaped, moulded, taken away or removed, by anyone, because the only one who can confer freedom is God, the only one who can grant freedom is God and the only one who can sustain freedom is God.

You can be entirely free in an oppressive society and live in complete freedom, in the only freedom that matters. This is not the message that we hear from many Christian today. Instead, when they are not condemning each other, or taking each other to court, or making money, their emphasis is on what God can give us, on what God can enable us to do, what God can provide for us, as we live out what we want to do. This is not Christianity.

The Christian faith is a done faith not a doing faith

The Christian faith is a done faith, not a doing faith, the doing is because of what was done. What was done was enough, sufficient, and complete. As I have said in my podcast and books, Christian fascists will say ‘what would Jesus do,’ but a Christian would say ‘what did Jesus do.’

Jesus died in our place, he stood for us when we could not stand, he fought for us when we were too weak, he finished what we could not even start, he accomplished what we could not even begin, he took our place, he took our sins upon himself and died for us, so we might live and enjoy a relationship with God, one shaped by freedom. When Christians give up on the good news, they become fascists, in other words, the answer is the government, not God. We don’t need the government to advance the kingdom of God.

Christians love to criticize the government or so-called ‘woke’ culture, whatever that means, but they then turn around and want the state to become Christian, they want a Christian society, a Christian nation, and a Christian government. They want to capture the state in one breath and then condemn others for seeking to do the same thing. The goal is power, money, and eventually the sword.

The fascists like to blame the government, but do they not realize that to manage an increasingly complex world, and to manage the economy, and respond to the power of global corporations, that states respond in kind, and that it is not as simple as ‘big government’ or ‘small government’ unless we address ‘big business,’ but that won’t happen any time soon.

What happens when Christians give up on God?

When Christians decide that their faith is external, that being a Christian is about upholding moral standards, and being a ‘good person,’ is the day that faith dies, for it leaves grace and ends up in the law, which is not our friend, it will condemn us in the end. Most faith communities die for the same reason, they justify to themselves that they need to be legally structured, they need a creed, a catechism, a set of rules for worship, rules for leadership, and before they know it, they are well, and truly, dead. So many have gone this way over the years, and no doubt, I can say with absolute confidence that yours will too, if you are a member in anything God has not made, nor has he ordained.

 I saw a church building with the sign ‘We are a Bible-Believing Church,’ and laughed to myself. How can the building believe in God, or in the Bible? There is no church in the Bible, there never has been. The word ‘church’ means a place, a building, and Christians are not a place, nor are they buildings, they are flesh and blood people. Christians gather and whenever they meet, they gather and if they meet locally, in a group, the temptation is the same: they will just adopt the same old rules, use the same old methods, and die the same old death.

If the good news is good, why are Christians silent?

 Sooner or later, Jesus is pushed to the background, people are no longer free, and it becomes all about who is in and who is out, and lists start getting written about who the enemies are, and who is going to Hell. We don’t need a list. The Bible is clear: all who reject Christ. The Bible is clear on salvation, all who believe, or trust in Jesus Christ. This, most Christians can agree upon, but they do not dwell on Christ, he is a footnote to their Culture War, he is an obstacle in their crusade, he is an irritation in their eyes which see what they want to see. Sooner or later, faith is replaced by religion, and the crusades begin, the pogroms, the inquisitions, the wars, the banners are unfurled, and Jesus Christ is left far, far, behind.

I went to a secular state school, and I am completely committed to a genuine separation of religion and state. God save us from fascists. The fascists who tell you that public schools are evil, that the only hope is a Christian school where your child will be safe, where they will be taught the truth, where they will be given true Christian values are wrong. It is your responsibility, if you have children to raise them.

This is the century when everything changes

Church schools have replaced churches as the avenue for social formation. Church schools are today’s version of the monastery, places where Christians ran to take refuge from society. This reflects the abandonment of the good news of Jesus Christ, and it is one of the signs of rapid, terminal decline. The more church schools you build, the more certain I am that the end is nigh. The nineteenth century was a time of spiritual growth across the West. The twentieth century was a time of spiritual decline. The die is now cast. The current century is the century of church schools, and the use of religion to prop up what’s left of the West. In the East, Christianity was persecuted. In the West, Christianity was captured. In the East, the end of faith was the execution, in the West, it was tax exemption with strings attached.

Oh, how the churches supported the Great War, then the Second World War, which was in fact just the Great War Part II, then the churches supported whatever they were told to support and along the way did their best to molest as many children as they could. And your kids are allegedly safe within a religious culture that supports a paedophile culture today by taking to court the victims, harassing the families of the victims and will make sure that the sexual sanctity of your child will not damage their profit margins.

It is curious to me how the state has moved in to support churches post-Covid in the minimization of financial damage stemming from child abuse claims. Curious. It is also curious that many churches who loved the vaccine policies are now lining up to support the government on a number of other issues. Without government support, your church will go bankrupt tomorrow. So much for the sustaining power of God, so much for this alleged independence in which so many place their trust and a great deal of their money. I write about this in Freedom from Fascism.

We need to be responsible Christians

That is why I wrote, Following Jesus when the church has lost its way. It is my firm conviction that we need to take responsibility for our own faith, and not offload it to someone else. Most Christians today define their faith entirely in terms of church membership, and say very little about God, or they just use all the old cliches and phrases. Most Christians believe that it is the church that is the most important thing God wants us to do.

It is not. It is following Jesus. Going to church is not following Jesus, it is entering a building. As the crazy Christian fascist Billy Sunday used to say – yes, he did get it right a few times – entering a church does not make you a Christian any more than entering a garage makes you a car.

Freedom from Fascism

Covid Hysteria is now over, and I did battle with it, as did many, but I part company from most of the anti-Covid Hysteria warriors because they are so unbelievably naïve. As I wrote in my first book, Freedom from Fascism, propaganda is essential for the functioning of a democracy. Covid Hysteria was not the first time the state lied to us, and it wasn’t an aberration, it wasn’t an exception, and no, we didn’t get our democracy back, and yes, it will happen again, and yes, it already has.

Governments lie to us all the time, sometimes to protect us, sometimes because they are out to deceive and sometimes because they don’t know. Most of those upset by Covid Hysteria are now settling back into the myth of democracy, the illusion that we are free people, that our political freedom is all that matters. We can go back to church, pay our tithes, vote in our elections and all is in the past.

It is and has always been a lie. Beyond the normal deceit of government, Covid Hysteria is the continuation of a saga that began with the election of Trump in 2016, or even further back to 9/11 and it is the unveiling of Western fascism, or the flowering of fascism out of the sterile buds of democracy. The new Covid is the propaganda and indoctrination over our support in the West for Ukrainian fascism and the ‘New Vietnam,’ the worst land war we have seen since Bosnia, which most people today have forgotten. That conflict was also shrouded in deceit and propaganda.

Is God on America’s Side?/ Is Russia Our Enemy?

None of the Covid Warriors are talking about Ukraine, there might be a few here and there, but the loyalty tests continue: we must hate Russia and stand with Ukraine. That is why I wrote Is God on America’s Side and Is Russia Our Enemy? Sadly, most Christians in the West today have imbibed the worst of American spiritual garbage and the notion that God is on America’s side. My book is based on the scriptures and shows very clearly the politics of God. I talk about free speech, and citizenship for those who seek to follow Jesus. It is the contest between faith and flag that is the last battle for a dead Christian culture. God calls us back to Christ, while the church calls us to vote. God calls us to follow Jesus, while the church calls us to transform our culture. God calls us to turn back to him, while the church tells us what a sin is and what is not.

It is amazing how quickly the anti-Russian sentiment sank in. Less than a week most of the population was enlisted and people say: Russia is our enemy, and many Christians do. They behave as if this is the first war in history. It is why I wrote Is Russia Our Enemy, to challenge the conventional wisdom in society over the nature of enmity. I call it the old regime and I investigate the geography, the monarch, the fruit and the end of the old regime and I can assure you that most Christians today would not list diabolos as their enemy, for they say he was defeated at the cross and now our enemies are all people. It is not surprising that Is Russia Our Enemy is the book that has sold the least in English.

It is my belief that fascism is the natural consequence of a democratic politics encased in a capitalist or market-based society. The rise of the free market is a myth, it was in fact the split in economy between large corporations and other businesses and the rapid capture of the state by these corporate interests. Underneath this, there has always been a close, symbiotic relationship between capital and the state, in some ways inseparable.

The Covid warriors lament the WHO – of course they do – anything to do with the UN is a popular enemy of America and the Right – but they ignore the regulatory capture across all other business sectors. It is the nature of capitalism – all government departments reflect a variety of economic interests, including the people they represent. It is not nefarious or evil, it just is, it is the way bureaucracy is formed. In any event, I can number on one hand the number of Covid warriors who know anything about the American war machine beyond the prophetic nonsense of the rise of Israel and Russia and Gog and Magog and all that foolishness.

Follow Jesus

There are many who say, ‘Ah, we go to church and follow Jesus too.’ I say in return ‘well done, good for you.’ Then they will tell you that all you need to do is ‘read your Bible, and pray,’ and that’s the full duty of a Christian. Once again, it is a set of duties, a set of rules, a set of laws. These are all doing things, they are all decided by someone else, and they are all implying that the Christian faith is entirely the performance of a set of duties. They will not be the only rules though, there are many more to follow, some esoteric, some mundane, but every Christian has them and churchgoers have more than most.

This emphasis on externals, on doing, on performance means that the Christian faith is just like all others except that we believe in Jesus and not in one of the others, since they all perform precisely the same acts: they pray, they gather, they love others, they help the community, in fact they do exactly what Christians at church do, and they also believe that they are right, that they are true, and that they are faithful to God. Many of them, indeed most of them are fine people, their insights into faith and life can be inspirational, their devotion to their prayers admirable, their commitment to their community commendable. We are blessed in our communities by such people who seek after truth, who crave goodness in life and society, and who will stand up for truth.

The difference for me is my conviction that the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is everything. For me, it is Jesus who changes everything, and for me it is the good news that the arrival of Jesus signaled a restoration to freedom that ended with his terrible death on the cross and his rising to new life that makes all the difference for me. That is why I keep talking about the identity, the actions, the words, and the life of Jesus. For me, it is the person of Jesus Christ who changes everything and who is the answer to the world’s problems.

Just look at the world around us and you will see that humanity, that people, that men and women have not only ruined the world, but they have ruined each other, and they have given God their middle finger especially in what is left of the old Anglo-Saxon sub-culture in the West, my people, my tribe, most of whom are decent, hardworking people, but people for whom Christianity is part of their heritage, not their life, where many view the church as the custodians of an inhospitable, angry, bitter, racist, backward-looking, sectarian culture. In some ways, Paul and I, and anyone who has been called to follow Jesus has the same experience. After encountering Jesus Christ, your worldview is different, your expectations are different, your lifestyle is different, and for the first time in life the struggle truly begins, which never ends until we die.

Know your enemy

The great sadness of Covid Hysteria is that few turned to Christ, few turned back to God, few rethought their lives. Many suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, and this will ruin their lives for decades. Many have already moved on with a disturbing callousness and indifference, eager to make money and climb the ladder. Others are sitting back down to the old routine, enjoying the old normal of democracy, church, and the Culture War, oblivious to their capture, their surrender, and their eternal compromise.

The evil never stopped, the wickedness just changed its form, the monsters still lurk in the dark, and it is not, I am sorry, it is not the World Economic Forum, it is not Joe Biden, or Anthony Albanese, or woke culture, but it is diabolos, his schemes and methods, his allies and friends, and there isn’t an ally of diabolos more powerful than the church and its Western culture who longer believe in him. Poor Klaus Schwab, or Geroge Soros, if the church was even a little bit alive, no Western Christian would even know their names.

Freedom from Past and Prejudice

It was only a few days ago when I realised that it is time to move on. It is time for a new focus. It is time for a new journey. I have written a lot about ecclesiology, which is the nature of how we gather, or ‘of the ekklesia,’ as well as politics, especially as it relates to the Culture War, and Christian nationalism or fascism, or the confusion between faith and flag. It seemed to me that there needed to be more discussion about how politics and gathering relate to the Christian ideas of freedom that come from the Bible, though not from the church. You will find that most things the church talks about are completely different from how the Bible talks about things and vice versa. Freedom from Fascism and Fear were both central to these discussions and they were the heart of the four books I published through Hidden Road Publishing.

The new focus will be freedom from past and prejudice for it seems to me that our hatred of each other, and our hatred of the past, our own, and others, is at the heart of so many of our problems today. Covid Hysteria, the Yes Vote (in Australia), American domestic politics, migration, racism, and citizenship, are only a few examples, but they all involve hatred of ourselves and others. In medieval Japan, during a violent war, one general gave his enemy salt during a time of financial difficulty as he said it was unrelated to the reason for war and he didn’t want needless suffering.

These days, Christians will ignore each other on the street or walk on the other side of the road because they attend a different church. In the West, those on the Left who follow Jesus despise those on the Right and those on the Right hate those on the Left. I have heard it said many times that only people who are ‘on the Right’ can follow Jesus. If that is what you believe, then I am sorry, very truly sorry, for there is not much I can do for you. You are lost and you don’t know the slightest thing about God, and you wouldn’t want to know anyway. In many ways, my three novels have confronted past and prejudice head on, especially ‘The Curse of Crooked River,’ set in 1870s Australia.

New Podcast Series beginning October

Moving forward, I will begin a new weekly podcast, looking both at the world today and trying to look at things from a Christian perspective. I will also be turning my books into e-books and hardback, and this will take some time. As a result, I will be writing and extending some reflections on ‘With Christ in the Wilderness,’ which is my upcoming Freedom Matters Today book. For those of you who have read my novels, and my academic book, there will be sequels so stay tuned.

What I have discovered is that we now live in the Dumb Culture, the culture where reading is out the window, where short videos and binge watching have replaced intelligent conversation, with Instagram videos and reels and a deadening of everything so we are unable to speak in words of more than one syllable.

This is not the evolution of society, but the weaponization of society, the goal being to turn us into mindless fools so we will do as we are told when we are told to do it. We all know this. Everyone talks about it and then turns on the TV or tablet, or YouTube, and we waste hours and days and months of our life going around like a rerun of an old sitcom.

I am not sure how to deal with this cultural degradation it may well be too late, but I will not compromise the message of the good news. 6 second Instagram reels are increasingly seen as part of the answer, but not all technology is benign and not all technology is good for us. Take drones for example, they are good for Google Earth but not as weapons of war.

True freedom comes from God

For me, the answer is freedom, and true freedom comes from God. As we will see in the coming series, the message is done and it is not a work in progress, it concerns the identity, the actions, and the words of Jesus and this outdates and outlives all that we know and love, including America, which many Christians seem to think is eternal, like God. If you want to see the future of America, go to a museum and you will find it as an exhibit. If many of us suspect and we are living at the edge of the rapid decline of America and the West, and a coming war with China, then it doesn’t matter either way, because we will be too busy burying the dead. God brings freedom to us, and this is freedom from past and prejudice.

Remember, freedom matters today because you matter to God.

Michael J. Sutton

CEO, Freedom Matters Today

Welcome!

Welcome to the September Newsletter of Freedom Matters Today. The heart of the Christian message is freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1).

We have freedom from:
• Guilt and shame
• Sin and death
• Fear and despair
• Past and prejudice
• Fascism and tyranny
• War and conflict.

Communities of Light

My goal at Freedom Matters Today is to challenge the narratives over faith, life, flag, and futures by applying the identity, words, and actions of Jesus to our busy, post-modern lives, struggles and problems. What does it mean to follow Jesus today in our busy, post-modern life? This is the question for us today and this is the focus for Freedom Matters Today.

It is easy to wallow in the mud, it is easy to focus on the problems and it is easy to tear down. People do it all the time. We need to focus less on the problems we face in life and move more to the solutions, more to the light and less looking into darkness.

We need to look away from the problems that face us to the solutions that God presents us, away from the swamp, the mud, and the filth to the light, the path, and the way forward. It is time to look at freedom afresh, it is time to walk out of in faith, it is time to offer a brand-new narrative to our mad world shaped by the identity, the words, and the actions of Jesus.

Where have we come from?

Freedom Matters Today began in September 2021 to be a light shining on the freedom we have in Jesus Christ. The lockdowns, the mandates and the passports provided the backdrop to the urgency of our message to be free from fascism and tyranny and free from despair and fear. These challenges remain and will continue well into the future.

In 2022 and 2023, I broadcast a podcast that sought to bring encouragement and hope to people living in darkness in places that they expected light to shine. This podcast continues to be a great way to communicate truth, provoke discussion and debate, and promote the aims and goals of Freedom Matters Today. This podcast will continue with an aim to focus on faith and life, and what it means to follow Jesus in a mad world. We will try to make sense of politics, the economy, society and culture in a meaningful and practical way.

Publications

This year, eight books have been published by Hidden Road Publishing available through Amazon.

What are our future plans?

Next month, I will tell you about some of our future plans and how you can be involved as we stand for freedom, live freely, and follow Jesus.

Michael J. Sutton

Freedom matters today because you matter to God.

What is Freedom Matters Today?

Welcome to the August Newsletter of Freedom Matters Today.

The heart of the Christian message is freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1).

This is freedom from:
• Guilt and shame
• Sin and death
• Fear and despair
• Past and prejudice
• Fascism and tyranny
• War and conflict.

A New Approach, A Unique Voice, Shining Light in Darkness

Last month, in our July Newsletter, I wrote:

‘My goal is to challenge the narratives over faith, life, flag, and futures by applying the identity, words, and actions of Jesus to our busy, post-modern lives, struggles and problems. I have no confidence or support for the institutional church, rituals, regulations, and laws that have denied, undermined, or confused the central message of the good news about Jesus.

‘Every generation, Christians take a good look at the current mess, and decide to step out in faith, listen to God, walk in the Spirit, and withdraw their support for the dominant orthodoxy of institutional religion. It is what the Protestants did, and the Pentecostals, the Methodists and those who listened to Whitfield.

‘Today, instead of following Jesus, Christians rush to defend the bricks and mortar buildings, the old sectarianism, the outdated cultural creeds, the defunct denominations, and the Culture War. They talk about ‘Christianity,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘the faith,’ and ‘Jesus,’ but they are but footnotes to their main concerns which are moralism, isolationism, money, and power. These priorities are killing faith across the West and will lead to the eventual demise and decay of Christian witness. Christians will defend the church but not Christ, nor are they interested in the identity, words, and actions of Jesus anymore, as Jesus’ challenge is too deep, too personal, and too real. It is better to keep God boxed up on Sunday, it is better to retreat to the monastery rather than live in the world, and it is better to hide in rituals than embrace a relationship.

‘What does it mean to follow Jesus today in our busy, post-modern life? This is the question for us today and this is the focus for Freedom Matters Today. In coming months, we are pivoting away from the problems that face us to the solutions that God presents us, away from the swamp, the mud, and the filth to the light, the path, and the way forward. It is time to look at freedom afresh, it is time to walk out of in faith, it is time to offer a brand-new narrative to our mad world shaped by the identity, the words, and the actions of Jesus.’

For Brownstone, I wrote:

‘Paul said that whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. This is such good, timely advice for our times. It is time to read great poetry, delve into good stories, reflect on theatre, ponder great words, speak about good things. We need communities of light. Gather with other like-minded people, talk, share and encourage, and let the light shine. Let us see again the freedom we have in God and the freedom we have in life. Let’s grab our candles, open the curtains, get the torches, and shine that light.

‘We are free people, so let us live freely. Let us create communities of light, where all are welcome, where debate is normal, questions are accepted, people are brought together, and darkness is cast out. Evil will always be evil, but we need not fight darkness with night. We walk in the day, in the sunlight and we bask in the warmth of a bold, new life, free from their madness. Let us take their narrative and the script they have written for us and put it up to the heat and to the light and watch it crumble and turn to dust for all evil dies, all darkness falls, and a new day is dawning.’
A new day is dawning, so let us celebrate the light of God in our lives, let us live freely, let us grab the candles and shine light into the darkness by building a community of light in a dark world.’

Communities of Light because You are the Light of the World

Jesus told his disciples that they were the light of the world (Matthew 5: 14). All who follow Jesus are children of light, not of the dark. To be light, we need to shine, and to shine we focus on the identity, the words, and actions of Jesus. At the heart of the good news is that because of Jesus we are free people, truly free, and we stand because one stood in our place where we could not, and he brought true freedom. We need to go back to the words of Jesus, and the New Testament to rediscover what freedom, light and truth are.

There are many Bible verses that speak of Christian freedom. I listed them last month. They are verses of such deep, profound truth, and I believe they go to the heart of the good news about God.

Where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5: 1)

If the Son shall set you free, then you will be free indeed (John 8: 36).

We may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3: 12)

Live as free people (1 Peter 2: 16).

He has sent me to proclaim freedom. (Luke 4: 18).

Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10: 8).

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8: 32).

Through him everyone who believes is set free from sin (Acts 13: 39).

All are justified freely by his grace. (Romans 3: 24).

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. (Romans 6: 22).

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins through his blood (Revelations 1: 5).

How did Churches fail in Covid-19 (Part 2)

Last month, we began a two-month reflection, memorial, dare I say, on Covid-19, a debriefing of the nightmare we experienced. I have written about this in more at Brownstone. This month, I conclude this reflection.

Churches fail because they always do

The failure of churches in Covid-19 was only superficial. It reflects a deeper problem. Churches cannot sustain faith, only God can. Churches cannot create faith. Only God can. Churches cannot defend faith, only God can.

In the beginning, everyone was the same. They all received the same Spirit, they all had the same Lord, there was equality, there was the body of Christ, everyone had a role, they were all one in Christ. Then came the churches, the human authorities, the power, the creation of hierarchy, a class of priests, the hagiography, the cessation of the Spirit, the closure of the Bibles, the creation of the Mass, which was an anti-Semitic ceremony or rite, to extinguish Jewish participation in Christian communities.

In every generation, Christians rose, and their enemy was not the world but the church, or rather, the church quickly became the world. Millions were born again, were given new lives and these lives repudiated the spiritual deadness in the church, the corruption, and the abuse of power, and the church murdered its way through history.

The church kept people poor for a thousand years, kept people ignorant, and for five hundred years there was a great war, not against God, but a war for freedom. God is on the side of freedom, for true freedom bears his stamp of authorship, and all other freedoms are echoes of the freedom that comes from God.

It is a war against the church. There are echoes of this war, such as the heresy of the Church of England and their non-Christian notion that the King is the representative of God on earth. God did not ordain hereditary monarchs, they wrought their power through blood, conquest and death, and then claimed to be Christian after climbing over the corpses.

America created a non-religious, non-sectarian republic, as did many nations, and they were inspired by the fear that the church and its power would return. It amazes me how few Christians quickly defend a history that is so soaked in blood and death, and has absolutely nothing to do with the Lord Jesus Christ.

In every generation in the West, there were new Christian movements, and the church was there to kill them because they refused to accept church authority. For centuries sectarian violence raged through Europe to be replaced by sectarian prejudice that only ran out of steam well into the 1960s.

When the killing stopped, the moralizing began.

As the West changed, so did the church. When the churches lost power, basically at the end of the nineteenth century, in some parts early twentieth century, the church pivoted from murder to morality. It shifted from force to ideology.

In the nineteenth century, Christians condemned novel reading as a sin alongside cardplaying and the theatre. They condemned rock music in the 1950s and alcohol in the 1930s. Today, gays and transgendered people and others are condemned.

These attitudes reflect the moralism of the church, the fears of alternative sources of authority. This is basically what it is about. The church craves to be the only source of authority in your life, and it explains why, since society became more complex since the 1950s, that churches responded by trying to become more involved in your life with youth groups, Bible Studies, and other activities to draw you in and compel you to go their building. This wasn’t their love of the Bible, but their love of control.

Suffer the little children.

No longer able to use power to kill people, or force, the church gave up on adults because they had a mind of their own and could not be bought or lied to, or deceived. We criticize the people of the past, but they were not as stupid as we often think they were.

The church went further, by changing the gospel and promoting the new view, the new ideology God has a special love for kids, that God loves kids more than he loves the rest of us, and all of our focus needs to be on the children. Partly it was strategic but also sociological because it was the materialism of the American post-war boom that created the teenager. Leisure as a social norm was born in the 1950s along with the postponement of adulthood through long educational practices. The West had changed profoundly. The middle class was born. There was no need to put kids in the factory or up chimneys or down the mines. For the first time in centuries, children were children well into what was traditionally adulthood.

The churches stepped and created a new theology to follow the ideology of the state and the expectations of society. In the past, kids became adults faster, they were taught skills sooner, but with this new ideology, they were (and are) expected to be children as long as possible.

God loves all people of all ages equally.

God is not a pedophile, but many in the church are because many in society are and there is no difference in the personal morality of those who enter a church building on Sunday and those who do not. The church, through its adoption of kid-focused faith created the myth that God was somehow especially keen on the kids. God does not love children more than he loves adults.

God shows no partiality, nor does he prefer one age to another. He is God and his Spirit moves where he wants. He doesn’t listen to us, but to Christ. Churches saw this floating mass of kids as a financial opportunity because fewer and fewer adults went to church, so the response was to go after the kids. Get them into church, get them into Sunday School. Turn them into good little Christians. Teach them morality.

The Western churches put children up on a pedestal, elevated them as society did, and began to worship them as society does. Most churches in the West today worship the young and they present God as a being unnaturally interested in kids. He isn’t.

The Bible rarely sees the young come to faith, rarely. Samuel is an exception. He was also a prophet and probably a young man at the time. David was not a toddler when he came to faith. Kids do not wrestle lions or kill giants. He was a young man, not a kid.

Churches have modern music and rock music and kids’ programs, and so on, and now they are getting into the schools. Most people come to faith in the ordinary situations of life and most of them are people in positions of responsibility – fathers, mothers, leaders, workers, and so on. Faith is not about age, it is about trust, and that simple trust in God that is similar to the trust kids have in parents.

No children come to faith in the New Testament. Where are these converts? They simply don’t exist from the pages of the Bible, so why is the church obsessed with kids?

Sadly, by bringing them into the spotlight, the churches also were serving them up on a silver platter for child molesters who then rushed into the church to have their fill. Now many churches are spending all their time defending child molesters and hoping to reduce the compensation payouts to the victims. What a tragedy. They did nothing to protect the children and now they are doing their best to punish the victims.

The Church is to blame for the Culture War

Churches not only went after kids but also education. They saw the answer in education because there are very few genuine converts these days. They need money to keep their institutions alive. Most churches want to get involved in education. It is a pity they don’t spend the same time and money obeying God and preaching the gospel.

Once again, the church gets it wrong. God does not work especially through schools. You cannot educate faith. His Spirit is like the wind, it comes and goes, and it is the same with God. The gospel is free. It has no price tag. Churches that place a premium on the gospel for kids are sinning against God by placing a monetary requirement to hear the gospel.

It astounds me that many Christians cannot see it at all, they cannot see how their expensive religious schools are the opposite of Christian values. You cannot serve both God and money, says Jesus, and the churches love their money, and they love putting a price tag onto education where they claim that the kids know the gospel, which is free.

You try to force God onto people you will end up with morality and dead faith. That is the best the church can do now. These days, the church is having apoplexy over what they call ‘woke’ culture. The church is however responsible for starting the modern Culture War by starting their morals crusade against a world that does not acknowledge Jesus Christ.

It all started in the 1980s in America with the so-called Moral Majority movement and its leaders who spread the message that politics needed to be the vehicle for forcing America to become a Christian nation. These guys had little understanding of the gospel and even less understanding of the difference between their faith and their flag.

There is no reason why the 1980s were any more evil or less evil than other generations, but gays, women and foreigners were the targets. It is no wonder there was a counter-revolution that has led to the so-called woke movement. Transgenderism and homosexual movements are a reaction to the growth of moralistic, unbelievers in the church, people who are so full of hate, so deprived of love that they resisted the grace and God and gravitated to the commandments of God.

We saw this in the bizarre persecution of homosexuals in the AIDS epidemic. The forced treatments and abuse of homosexuals in the past were evil, plain, and simple, and it is a mercy that these nightmares have ended.

If Christians followed Jesus and not the church, if Christians preached God instead of morality, there the counter-revolution would have been different. The assumptions of these Christian Nationalists were wrong – America was not a Christian nation under attack from within. The church created the Culture War and they, by ignoring the power of God to change lives, decided to offend people who their whole lives lived on the margins of society. Instead of love, they got hate and the worst vision of the church imaginable, an echo of the medieval days when churches murdered people for having a different point of view.

Moralism and Isolationism, the legacy of the church

Moralism and isolationism are the key doctrines of the church today. In the past, all churches offered was a Sunday service, where no one spoke to each other. Sunday Schools began in the nineteenth century, not to tell kids about God, but to reinforce class values. Pew rentals were common, which is how churches made their income by renting pews to rich families. Pre-war many churches would not have welcomed you at all unless you were part of the right class.

Sectarianism was the norm. The Masonic Lodge ran the Church of England and the Presbyterian Churches, and still does in places, though its power has long waned for various reasons, including the emancipation of the middle classes.

If you don’t know what sectarianism is, your church has lied to you about your religious history. Across the West, state churches ran nations and persecuted everyone else, except in America and a few other places. The nineteenth century saw at its twilight the end of the old prohibitions against non-conformists and Catholics, those who did not conform to the Church of England or the national church.

The 1870s was a formative time. Within decades the special privileges of the state churches were extended to the rest, including tax exemption. Charity status is not in the Bible, and churches need to pay tax: Romans 13: 6 and 7. It is obscene to hear churches condemn people for one or another but remain silent on their sin of not paying tax. Next time your minister tells you to pay tax, ask him why he doesn’t.

Tax exemptions are just one part of this social isolationism. Many Christians today are so involved in the church that that is their only social expression or the primary arena for their social expression. They have retreated to the church like monks to a monastery. The churches don’t want you thinking for yourself, and they don’t want you to avail yourself of the power of God and the privileges of God given to every child of God. They are the ones in charge, they are the spiritual filter, they are the ones who claim to know best. They also need someone to pay for this grandiose enterprise, and churches, for some reason, are the only charities that are, overall, financially inept.

Churches actively discourage personal faith by compelling people to invest their time, emotion, and souls in the institution, thus losing their identity and embracing a kind of monastic identity. In the past, monks retreated to places of refuge in fear of their lives, for example from the Vikings. These days, churches gather their faithful together and lie to them about a struggle against the world they are deeply complicit in, such as their tax exemption scam. To gather as many as possible to expand their monetary base, the church has corrupted the gospel message and toned it down to be entirely about morality, which works well even in the broader society.

The church is out to get Christians

Throughout Christian history, many people have been touched by God and they decide to follow Jesus, and the church is there to stop them, discourage them, persecute them, and kill them. There are so many movements of God throughout history, and they all have two things in common – they challenged the power and money of organized religion, and the church destroyed them.

People listened to the Spirit, or they were inspired by creation or science, or they read the Bible in their own language, or they came to see Jesus anew, and they all decided to follow God in their own way during a time when religious freedom was illegal.

Christianity is a personal faith that is expressed in concert with others. Christians want to know about the identity, the actions, and the words of Jesus. Jesus is their focus. You can tell the fascists, they always talk about morality and the law, and sin, but not their sin of course, the sin of others.

Christians follow the same Saviour, but they walk differently, wear different clothes, and haver a different attitude. Christians are flesh and blood, but the Church is an institution. It is about conformity, rules, regulations, traditions, the Mass, the Missal, the Book of Common Prayer, the sermon, the Bible Study, the morning tea, the tent meeting, speaking in tongues. They are all initiation rites, and all acts of conformity. This is not Christianity, but just another form of spiritual slavery. Jesus didn’t come to die so we can remain slaves to just another institution of human power and authority.

Christendom is not Christianity

Most nations in Christendom destroyed faith and what was left was the sterility of tradition wrapped in a flag. While it also has Christian Nationalism, America was different, at least in the beginning. In America, for whatever reason, faith and democracy met together and flourished. There was no state church to kill or persecute those who did not conform because there were no ecclesiastical authorities in the state to enforce it.

Elsewhere, state churches have been murdering their way through history and given the opportunity they would do it again. Indeed, there was something special about the freedom that American Christianity afforded, especially between the War of Independence and the Civil War. This period was remarkable in allowing many to read the Bible and pursue a degree of equality and Christian democracy that we have not seen in other places.

We have God, we have the Bible, we have the Spirit, we do not need to be taught, for God teaches us, his Spirit leads us, and we grow in our grace and knowledge of God through faith and seeking to understand the Bible.

Ours are the promises and the purposes of God and the Spirit is not controlled by the priests or the church, and he is not present in the Magic Show of the Mass. Churches refuse to let God be God. Why would he turn up to your local church if he is already present in all who faith? Why would the Spirit come down from heaven at the order of the priest, when He moves to highlight not the priest or his pretended power, but the Lord Jesus Christ? The Holy Spirit is not the errand boy of the priest and the blasphemy of the Mass, He is the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, and God himself.

The problem is that Christians don’t read their own Bible, and they give up that authority of self-discernment to the priest, the pastor, and the minister, and so continue to walk in darkness. The church dares to intrude into God’s domain, they presume to speak for God, they mimic the Spirit, and they steal the goodness of God for money and power.

Cloud of Witnesses

Of course, churches betrayed us in Covid-19, they always do. It was a wake-up call to many. If you are stupid enough and lazy enough to go back to the church that closed for three years, that took government money and kept asking you for it, and who showed that they really didn’t care about you, then its your fault from here on in. You only have yourself to blame.

They betrayed you during Covid-19 and they will betray you again. Your spiritual well-being is not their concern. Their concern is money and power, power over you, power over society, and they seek to control the Bible for their own personal purposes.

Don’t go to church, follow Jesus instead. With God, his Word and His Spirit, you can work it out as you go along. You are not alone. You are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses urging you to run and look to Jesus the author and finisher of your faith. So, as the writer of the Hebrews says:

‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.’ (Hebrews 12: 1-3).

Michael J. Sutton

Remember, Freedom Matters Today because you Matter to God

What is Freedom Matters Today?

Welcome to the July Newsletter of Freedom Matters Today. The heart of the Christian message is freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1).

Freedom from:
• Guilt and shame
• Sin and death
• Fear and despair
• Past and prejudice
• Fascism and tyranny
• War and conflict.

Pivoting in Post-Covid Insanities

My goal is to challenge the narratives over faith, life, flag, and futures by applying the identity, words, and actions of Jesus to our busy, post-modern lives, struggles and problems. I have no confidence or support for the institutional church, rituals, regulations, and laws that have denied, undermined, or confused the central message of the good news about Jesus.

Every generation Christians take a good look at the current mess, and decide to step out in faith, listen to God, walk in the Spirit, and withdraw their support for the dominant orthodoxy of institutional religion. It is what the Protestants did, and the Pentecostals, the Methodists and those who listened to Whitfield. Over time, those new movements became as corrupt as the ones they sought to replace.

Today, instead of following Jesus, Christians rush to defend the bricks and mortar buildings, the old sectarianism, the outdated cultural creeds, the defunct denominations, and the Culture War. They talk about ‘Christianity,’ ‘Christ,’ ‘the faith,’ and ‘Jesus,’ but they are but footnotes to their main concerns which are moralism, isolationism, money, and power.

These priorities are killing faith across the West and will lead to the eventual demise and decay of Christian witness. Christians will defend the church but not Christ, nor are they interested in the identity, words, and actions of Jesus anymore, as Jesus’ challenge is too deep, too personal, and too real. It is better to keep God boxed up on Sunday, it is better to retreat to the monastery rather than live in the world, and it is better to hide in rituals than embrace a relationship.

What does it mean to follow Jesus today in our busy, post-modern life? This is the question for us today and this is the focus for Freedom Matters Today.

In coming months, we are pivoting away from the problems that face us to the solutions that God presents us, away from the swamp, the mud, and the filth to the light, the path, and the way forward. It is time to look at freedom afresh, it is time to walk out of in faith, it is time to offer a brand-new narrative to our mad world shaped by the identity, the words, and the actions of Jesus.

What does the Bible say about freedom?

There are many Bible verses that speak of Christian freedom. Indeed, it is impossible to talk about Christianity without speaking of freedom. It is surprising because so many in the church condemned the talk of freedom as being unchristian. During lockdowns, many Christians rejected the martial law tyranny and stood against the suspension of democratic freedoms, but the church, overall, supported the martial law, the tyranny, and the mandates. The message of these Christian fascists was that freedom is not important in the Christian gospel, that Christians ought to submit to the state and whatever the state decides. They were, and remain liars and frauds, being morally and spiritually bankrupt. They need to open the Bible they keep closed and think of the God they pretend to believe in.

Here are a few clear passages from the New Testament:

Where the Spirit of the LORD is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17).

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Galatians 5: 1)

If the Son shall set you free, then you will be free indeed (John 8: 36).

We may approach God with freedom and confidence (Ephesians 3: 12)

Live as free people (1 Peter 2: 16).

He has sent me to proclaim freedom. (Luke 4: 18).

Freely you have received, freely give (Matthew 10: 8).

Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free (John 8: 32).

Through him everyone who believes is set free from sin (Acts 13: 39).

All are justified freely by his grace. (Romans 3: 24).

You have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God. (Romans 6: 22).

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins through his blood (Revelations 1: 5).

How did Churches fail in Covid-19 (Part 1 of 2)

Many people have asked me how did the churches fail in Covid-19? These are important questions because these institutions, even though they despise each other, claim to be the sole vehicle for promoting the good news about God in the world.

In the past, churches ran states, much like many accuse corporations of doing today, except instead of social media, bread and circuses, digital passports, and vaccines, the churches simply murdered people who didn’t fit their model of faith, be it Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. The Culture War, which the church had a part in starting, are skirmishes and holding actions compared to the Total Wars of religion in the past, wars that destroyed cities and countries, raged on for centuries, and created the conditions for the rise of true political freedom, which was, in the West at least, freedom from ecclesiastical power.

Let us have a look at how Churches failed in Covid-19, at least in summary form over two months, July, and August.

Religious Apostasy

In Covid-19 most churches closed their doors, adopted vaccine passports, solicited, and received government subsidies which they did not need, ensuring the end of their financial insecurities. Many churches condemned people who stood up to tyranny, they enlisted fascist propaganda the worst we have seen since the days of Franco, they corrupted Biblical texts to suit their political agenda, and they expelled thousands of ministers and priests around the world.

Even today, many of these men and women are still expelled. I have been the victim of bullying by fascists who claim their church stood against tyranny during Covid-19. They remind me of the men after the Second World War who pretended to be veterans but lied about their service.

Churches oppose democratic rights

Most churches have medieval and perverse disciplinary and court systems that have caused the ruin of thousands of ministers, priests, and pastors over the years. Church courts are basically illegal and out of touch with the values of Australian democracy and the rule of law. They are relics of the time when churches had the sword.

These days, the church uses ecclesiastical abuse to keep people in line, expel people, destroy reputations, and exist as an alternative source of the law. It has worked well for centuries. Over the years I have met so many people whose lives were destroyed by the Star Chamber and the Secret Tribunal of this crooked and wicked institution that preys on the vulnerable, while pretending to pray to God.

Whenever their money or position in society is threatened, these hypocrites rush to the secular court to defend their cases. Secular disputes are denounced by Christ, but their money and reputation are at stake, so it is no wonder they go to court to prove to the court their innocence, an innocence they have denied to their own congregation for decades. These hypocrites talk about submitting to authorities but they themselves refuse to do so.

I mention this because so many ministers, pastors, and priests were effectively excommunicated from the faith for daring to stand up to secular and ecclesiastical tyranny. I am not sure whether these hypocrites even bothered to take the expelled through the charade of the church courts or they were dismissed on the spot. The dismissal of the unvaccinated is a matter for the secular courts or civil actions against churches or people in authority.

It is easy to find information through the charities commission as to whether churches accepted Job Keeper took the money and closed their churches.

Beyond this, churches need to prove that they did not violate their charity laws by giving medical advice from the pulpit. I suspect many priests, pastors, and ministers told people to get vaccinated and attempted to provide medical advice. If they were not medical doctors or physicians, I cannot see how they were acting in accordance with charity laws.

Churches oppose freedom

The reality is that several denominations are so godless these days they don’t even pretend to believe in God openly. You can believe that there is no God, that Jesus never existed and keep your stipend in the church and your position, but not if you are unvaccinated. This is the wickedness of Covid-19.

When a crisis comes don’t expect the church to be on the side of freedom, they will be making lists of people that are unwelcome and casting them out, they will be reporting to the police church members who oppose government policy. This was done during Covid-19 by many. It will be done again.

Churches attract soul catchers

You can never trust these people again, but you never could anyway. After all, most ministers, priests, and pastors are soul catchers, they want to keep you in fear, guilt, and shame, and prevent you from finding the freedom God gives. The last person they want you to meet is Christ, because then you have no need of them.

Never underestimate the desire for control, for control over others. There are many who are faithful to God, but these days, they are in the minority, and sooner or later, godly men and women must stand for the truth and when they do, the church shows them the door, even the best churches.
In a practical sense, the church is the last institution in society where there are virtually no rules for checking the psychological condition of leaders.

Many priests and ministers are uniquely ill-suited to lead, many have a God- complex, and many are bullies. Many are abused by their congregation and changed forever, many just need help and cry out for help and no help comes, many suffer abuse from their congregations, and many are burnt out because their churches don’t care.

Many priests, ministers, and pastors are corrupt and are in it for the money. These corrupt ministers have come to the right place because money and power are the real goals of the modern Western church anyway.

Churches need to be completely reformed

There needs to be a radical overhaul of the church by the state. It needs to be brought into the economy and the tax system, there needs to be psychological evaluations of all church leaders and adequate training, but many Christian Nationalists lie about the separation of church and state. They don’t want scrutiny or oversight, they don’t want people knowing about the nepotism, the corruption, or the search for power.

In the West, there is no real separation of church and state. This is based on a simple misunderstanding of how the state works. There is no such thing as an ‘national’ institution that exists outside of the legal framework decided upon, negotiated by, and sustained by the state. There is no such thing as a magical ‘separation of church and state,’ not even in the American or Australian Constitutions.

It is not only the provisions or the absence of religious freedoms that influence the conduct, existence and perpetuity of church organizations and bodies. Many laws, many regulations shape, inform, and transform the worship of God when it moves from a simple personal or loosely held private group to a legal entity under the state.

Failure to understand this is profound and it shows deep ignorance of how governments work. It is the state that determines the boundaries of church charities. The constitutional boundaries were not set up to protect the church from the state but to protect the state from the church and religious power, an evil power in history, that plagued the West for a thousand years.

The framers of the American Constitution and the Australian Constitution were careful not to make religious profession a condition of office, unlike the English system where the King must be a Protestant member of the Church of England, regardless of whatever innovative oaths he took when taking office. The English state is subordinate to the Church of England, and they are so closely intertwined that where religion ends, and secularism begins is unclear.

The future of the church will be tyranny, abuse, and decline

I don’t expect any church reform to be forthcoming. Abuse of children will continue unabated especially in Australia where courts are increasingly unwilling to prosecute child abusers because it is alleged, they will not get a fair trial. This is a green to pedophiles. Expect more debased and disgusting cases of child abuse from within the church.

The abuse directed against priests, the bullying, harassment, and toxic relationships with congregations will end up in the courts, where priests will sue churches and individuals for compensation.

Likewise, congregation members will increasingly sue priests, pastors, and ministers for their abuse of power, their deceit, and their corruption. Governments will continue to show a lack of leadership due to the nepotism and cronyism between political parties, religious schools, and a misguided sense of loyalty.

All of this points to the collapse of the church in the West. The churches will continue to act outside the tax system greenlighting fraud and corruption. Efforts to attract parents to religious schools will continue but churches will amend the teachings to maximize profits and children will graduate with a deep sense of moralism and no sense of grace and love. Moralism erodes the authenticity of faith replacing grace with the Law, mercy with inflexible justice, and does away with the need for a Saviour since all that matters is their version of the Law of Moses.

Churches will not let you follow Jesus, so leave

The Jewish followers of the Messiah did not go back into the synagogue system to reform it. They left. They did not protect Jerusalem when the Romans came to destroy it. They left. They did not defend the Temple when the Romans came to burn it. They left.

Come out and be separate, says the Lord, and there is no clearer case than today. Christians are not called to protect the institution or the rituals, or the rites, or the traditions, but to stand together, contending for the good news. Paul writes in Philippians, that we ought to be ‘standing together with one spirit and one purpose, fighting together for the faith, which is the good news.’ (1: 27, New Living Translation).

Most Christians hate each other, and that’s even in the same church, let alone the church down the road.

What should Christians do?

Like the men and women in the past who were confronted with an evil church, we are to leave it and start anew. The answer is simple: don’t go to church, follow Jesus instead. If you want, you can start your own gathering, and you don’t have to pay these crooks and frauds anymore, after all, you’re free, your life does not belong to your church, you are free to make your own choices.

Leave the church and start again. If you have God then you have everything, you are free to set up a home Bible Study, or a café group, or you can simply live out your faith in life.

These days, you know Church-going people in public because all that they talk about is church, they never talk about God, they never make faith real, and for them it is all about the ritual because they don’t have the relationship.

Covid-19 was a terrible time for all Christians but now we see clearly because most churches stood on the side of the state against Christ, stood for tyranny against freedom and revealed their true heart which is a love for money and power because they lack the humility of God and because they have given up on the power of God to change lives. Leave these places of abuse if you can, step out into the light, embrace the freedom for which you have been set free and follow Jesus.

Michael J. Sutton

Remember, freedom matters today because you matter to God.

New Publications, Reflections, Futures

Welcome to the June Newsletter of Freedom Matters Today. The heart of the Christian message is freedom. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. (Galatians 5:1). At Freedom Matters Today our focus is on freedom from:

• Guilt and shame
• Sin and death
• Fear and despair
• Past and prejudice
• Fascism and tyranny
• War and Conflict

Since November 2022, I have published 7 books, four books on faith and life, and three novels. The books on faith have focused on Freedom from Fascism and Tyranny, and Freedom from Fear and Despair.

THE CURSE OF CROOKED RIVER

I recently published my seventh book, my third novel, titled ‘The Curse of Crooked River,’ a mystery/crime historical fiction novel set in 1872 in the goldrush town of Gulgong. It tells the story of a former soldier who comes reluctantly to Australia to solve the death of his twin brother, while still grieving the death of his wife in China.

This historical fiction novel is about the kind of world Australia was in the 1870s. People look back with fondness to those days, the good old days, but in many ways, they were very similar to our own. Crooked River was meticulously researched, and looks at the role of the church, the landed aristocracy, the aboriginal people, Chinese Australians, and the gold that brought them all together and yet still divided them.

You might be surprised that my main character, Nathaniel Chambers is an avowed atheist, yet one who respects Jesus the man, and served with General Charles Gordon. Chambers hates the church because he knows that the Jesus of the Bible and the church that acts in his name are completely different.

It is a novel about a man who craves freedom, after fighting his life in a series of wars, and yet death, and the ghosts of the past follow him wherever he goes.

MONKEY AND THE CASTLE BY THE SEA

Before that, I published ‘Monkey and the Castle by the Sea,’ an ancient parable about our lives, seen through the experience of three friends who work together to save their world from us. Monkey’s world is full of life and for some reason, which is pondered by at least three characters in the book, the animal kingdoms are also given the ability to copy and mimic humans almost entirely, so that they know how to fight, how to speak, how to live like us.

This is an ancient world, long before the first emperor of China, a world where there are no dragons and no magic and no fantasy, just animals who live like humans and the chaos that this brings to the world. Monkey sums up his world when he says, ‘one giant is enough for a world of trouble.’

Monkey’s goal is with his friends Rabbit and Fox, to return the world back to the Ancient Order of Things when humans alone could destroy the world and animals left them completely alone. I have a god character in the book. He is never named. The animals thought it impolite to ask him his name but spend a lot of time arguing often in front of him, who he is, and why he has returned.

Monkey is the only one to laugh at the god whose appearance Monkey finds unbelievably funny. There are a series of arguments by characters in the book over religion, faith, and the place of God in our world. You might be deeply offended, but you also might be greatly encouraged.

I am not sure whether it is a book on friendship or on the nature of leadership. I hope my readers will give me their views over time.

THE THIRD TSUNAMI

The first novel is called ‘The Third Tsunami,’ and like Crooked River, it tells the story or tragedy of a Japanese man who served in Iraq only to be dishonourably discharged under undisclosed circumstances. He saw and did things that haunt him, and he is also deeply traumatised by events surrounding the death of his father.

The book starts with Kato killing his best friend because he is dying of advanced radioactive poisoning. He takes his family to Sendai and Matsushima for a holiday while he goes and executes his oldest and best friend. Unfortunately, this all takes place on March 11, 2011, and his entire family are drowned in the tsunami.

This is just the beginning of the story for Masayoshi Kato who quickly realises that his family had a dark history that he knew nothing about. With new friends and old enemies, Kato must face his past even if others will discover his real identity. But his secrets are nothing to be compared to what he discovers on the red bridge at Matsushima, a dark truth that has kept hidden for centuries. These are ten days in Spring, Kato is unlikely to ever forget, if he survives.

The Third Tsunami is set in contemporary Japan, and it is a political and historical parable as much as a mystery thriller. I wanted to comment on the relationships between China, Japan, Korea, and India, and thought the best way to do that with respect is through novels.

I have a great American character, Captain Joshua Tree, who is a US marine, and half-Japanese, half-Native American. I really like Joshua Tree. He is modelled on the men and women I have met over the years who serve or did serve in the American military. I have characters from all nations.

Along the way, I stay as faithful as I can to Japanese culture, etiquette, and values and draw heavily from Japanese folklore and fears. The Third Tsunami walks deeply in the forest of myth and legend, but as Yamaguchi says early on in the book, the real monsters are humans, and if there are ‘monsters’ then they would be trying their best to stay away from people.

Why digress from politics and faith?

I started working on Monkey back in 2003, Crooked River in 2019/20 and the Third Tsunami since probably 2012. The last two are the first in their series, and I plan to release a new volume from each series every year.

Monkey is a stand-alone book, is partly autobiographical, reflective, and some call the novel parabolic metaphysical fiction. I appreciate any feedback or reviews you would like to give as well as any errors if you find them.

Why write them? I don’t know about you, but I am more interested in life, not politics. Life is where we live, and the biggest impact we can make in our life is our own story.

I work to my strengths, and I have the creative desire to put pen to paper. I have created three new worlds of fiction through which I can create stories, and teach about life, faith, goodness and evil, and all the things in between.

All good things come from the God says James, and Paul exhorts us to think on the good things in life, and what better things can there than music, theatre, good books, and good films. In many ways the Bible is also full of stories, parables, narratives, some of them are exciting, some tedious, and yet others inspiring.

God is the great storyteller

God is the great storyteller for his words tell us about the Great Narrative which is about how he sent his Son to reconcile himself to the world and the world to himself. The authors of the Bible wrote well, and many of the books are so profound that scholars have pored over them for centuries and they have found their way into art, into architecture, into monuments, nations, and identity.

Christians are called to live out their faith in the world, not hiding in church, or in tradition, rituals, or rules, but living in real life, in the world, among the trees, in the streets, on the beaches, and in the stuff of ordinary life. Christians are called to listen to God, walk with God, follow Jesus, working it out step by step, each day, surrounded by the people whom God loves so much that he sent his Son for them, all of them.

We need good stories for men today

I write novels because I am compelled to write, and it only occurred to me quite recently that I can publish them myself. I don’t fit the demographic of the popular writers today, and I will lose my personal integrity pretending to be someone I am not. I want to write good fiction, solid fiction, not the dribbling, driveling, sloppy rubbish many people read today, with incipit characters, plotless stories, and ambiguous morality, or worse, the endless fake memoir, or useless books about my day at the beach, or my trip in the beach.

I want to write about pain, redemption, and hope, about real life. Most of my principal characters are men – Nathaniel Chambers and Masayoshi Kato, even Monkey in a way (Monkey identifies as a ‘he’) but I do have major female characters as well. I do believe that a man is a man and make no apologies writing about men, their weaknesses, challenges, and potential. I am rather traditional I suppose, and that is the uphill struggle, either standing for truth and being sidelined, or lying about identity and getting ahead.

Drawing from experience

My source material is my life experience. I spent a decade in Japan from 2000 to 2010, and I have an interest in early Australian history as well as the Taiping Rebellion and the Opium Wars in China, wars that define China’s fears of the West today. We ignore history at our peril, and we need to reconsider the world of the past to understand who we are, and where we are going.  

All books were published this month by Hidden Road Publishing and are available through Amazon Print on Demand.

Radio Interviews and Brownstone

I have enjoyed the privilege of being interviewed twice, first by Hrvoje Moric on TNT Radio, and Neil Johnson on Vision Christian Media and I will provide the links to the websites below if you would like to listen to these conversations. With Neil, we chatted about my Brownstone article ‘The Fight for Freedom is not over, it is only beginning.’ With Hrvoje, we talked more broadly about fascism, Covid-1984 as he calls it, and the role of faith in life.

The Hrvoje Morić Show – TNT Radio

18 May, 2023

20Twenty – Vision Christian Media

16 May, 2023

I have also had some thoughts published through the Brownstone Institute. You can read the article here.

https://brownstone.org/articles/fight-for-freedom-is-not-over-only-beginning/

Michael J. Sutton

Remember, freedom matters today, because you matter to God.

Can a Christian be a Fascist?

Covid Fascism

Freedom Matters Today is devoted to a Christian understanding of freedom. One of the themes is ‘Freedom from fascism and tyranny.’ Fascism and tyranny take many forms and express themselves in many ways. In recent times, we in the West have lived during martial law, suspension of democratic and human rights, and draconian policies under Covid Hysteria such as vaccine passports, and vaccine mandates. This was tyranny in nations that claimed robust democratic traditions.

The jury is out on whether the West danced with fascism, or whether this was a temporary flirtation with a system of values anathema to democracy. I don’t believe we can be so naïve. Covid Hysteria was a turning point in the West’s democratic demise. The ruling class have tolerated all they can with the pretensions of representative democracy, the die is cast, and it is all downhill from here.

Traditional Fascism

Then we have traditional fascism. I have written a book on fascism called ‘Freedom from Fascism, A Christian Response to Mass Formation Psychosis.’ It is my first attempt to present a different understanding of the origins, nature, fruit, and forms of fascism from a Christian perspective.

It is my view that fascism has its origins deeply rooted in the church-states of Europe, the mixing of faith and flag, and the control of political power by religious power.

Whatever the origins, the Soviet Union, America, Britain and her allies and most of Western Europe went to war against fascism in the Second World War, a terrible, awful, bloody conflict. It brought all nations together to defeat a deep, abiding evil, the likes of which we have not seen for centuries.

Millions of innocent people died because of the evils of fascism and while the war against Axis Powers was deeply flawed, the destruction of Nazi Germany and her allies was one of the few righteous struggles in history.

Fascism was a war on humanity

Fascism was a war on humanity. It was the desire to extinguish the conscience of man. It was designed to build a future based not only on the blood of victims but the promotion of a blood-based future. It was not insanity, it was evil.

There was a Satanic wickedness to the regime we know now as the Nazi regime. It was dark, it was wicked, and not only was it popular within Germany, but the church, the Christian Church in Germany, was overall, on its side.

The church failure to confront evil the main reason for decline.

It is the moral ambiguity within the Church’s attitude to Nazi Germany, and its failure to consistently oppose evil that explains the rapid demise of institutional religion in the West.

The fascists love to blame women or homosexuals or modern values, but none of these movements is relevant. When the church needed to speak, it was silent, when it needed to fight, it surrendered, when it needed to defend, it capitulated.

May 8 and May 9, Days to Remember

Western Europe and America remembers Victory in Europe day on May 8 and Russia remembers it on May 9. In 2023, it passed barely without a mention in Australia, and around the world. The Germans despised the Jews, but they also held a deep hatred for Russia, and the war to destroy Russia was a war of unbelievable brutality and wickedness.

The common view today is that America won the war in Europe, but it was in fact the Soviet Union that played the critical role in stopping the advance of Hitler. Like Napoleon, Hitler failed to destroy Russia, or the spirit of the Russian people. There is not a family today was not affected by that terrible war, and apparently, we are supposed to forget it all, and remind ourselves that only a few Germans were killers. Really, talk to the Russians about what the German army did when they invaded the Soviet Union.

The horrors of the Holocaust

Let us remember some statistics. They come from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum:
6 million Jews.
7 million Russian civilians.
3 million Soviet Prisoners of War.
1.8 million non-Jewish Poles.
312,000 Serbian civilians
250,000 people with disabilities
500,000 Roma.
The list goes on. All these are conservative estimates.

Another estimate says that almost 30 million Russians died in WW2.

Fascism, not Communism was the greatest evil of the twentieth century.

The greatest evil to be produced in the world was not Communism, but Fascism. It began in Italy, flowered in Germany, and bore fruit in Japan, Austria, and many other European nations, and found devoted followers across the West.

The Germans set about reshaping the world in their twisted and sick Aryan nightmare, and this was less than a century ago. The Germans murdered millions of innocent people, mainly Jews, but also many Russians, and others. It was not just Hitler and the SS, they were truly evil, but the scale of this evil was not possible without the complicity, support, and advocacy of most of the population.

The fascists say that this is a lie, that no one knew about the Holocaust, that most were good Germans, and that only a minority committed atrocities. History tells a different story. Indoctrinated or not, responsibility cannot be swept away so easily. Indoctrination does not create robots. It manipulates existing prejudice, fears, and ideas, and channels them for a purpose. The purpose of the Aryan fiction, promoted by the fascists, was to make Germany great again. Sound familiar?

Fascism is becoming more fashionable in the West

There are many who try to make us remember this nightmare, but there are equally many who try to trivialize it, mock it, make fun of it, and insist that we forget. There is an effort underway in the West to rehabilitate Hitler and Mussolini and there are many Holocaust deniers in the ruling class.
Fascism is alive and well in the world today.

In NSW, the former Premier admitted to wearing a Nazi uniform for his twenty-first birthday. He retained his position but lost the next election. The media laughed about it.

In the NSW Customs House in Sydney there are Nazi swastika as part of the paving and the walls, put in in the pre-war years. Due to Australia’s long secret love affair with fascism, these horrific symbols have never been removed and destroyed. Yet, it is illegal to display them in public but still possible to display them in public buildings.

After the War, Australia welcomed with open arms thousands of Nazi officers, and collaborators and even today, Jewish Australians suffer from many anti-Semitic attacks, slurs, and abuse. It is not surprising for thousands of Australian families are directly related to those who served Hitler in the war and have spread their vile ideology in the land Down Under.

Just following orders?

The classic defense is that they were just following orders. What? To murder children? To torture kids? To murder women and shove them in gas chambers, to shoot innocent people on the spot. Just following orders? How convenient.

Every time you hear a defense of the Holocaust, heaven hears the cries and screams of the children murdered by the men and women who say today that it never happened.

Eastern Europe and the dark, long love affair with Hitler.

In Ukraine, Stepan Bandera is regarded as a national hero. He was a Nazi collaborator and was complicit in the killing of Jews. March 16 in Latvia, has many celebrate a march in honour of Latvians who worked for the SS.

Throughout Eastern Europe, the story is the same. Controversial national heroes who also happened to hate Jews and support their death and participated in the Holocaust. The Western media silence over the Nazi-linked Azov Battalion and Right Sector in Ukraine is deafening but not surprising.

Three Responses to Fascism

The first is to rewrite the history of the Second World War to expunge the truth.

We in the West forget the war against fascism because we have been told that it was a war to protect democracy. This is a lie of course. In Asia, the war to protect democracy was in fact a war to restore colonial power to the European nations whose colonial assets were stolen by Imperial Japan. There was no celebration of democracy in Asia in 1945.

As for America, African American soldiers went home to the US only to be treated as less than human. Same in Australia. It would take more than two decades for full political enfranchisement.

The second is to see fascism everywhere, which confuses and dilutes fascism when it truly revives.

For some reason, Trump was seen as a fascist, but Biden a democrat. Their policies are so similar, and they each have their disciples and devotees, so what could be said of Trump could equally be said of Biden or Obama. The Left calls the Right fascists, and the Right calls the Left Fascist. It reminds me of the boy who cried wolf.

The third is to debate the character, origins, and consequences of neo-fascism, the current versions of fascism in the West.

Curiously, both libertarians and Marxists see the West as a collection of fascist states. Their belief is that fascism accurately describes the devolution of the West into a kind of corporate fascist state. Detractors say that the West is not fascist because there is no dictator, and this is essential for the functioning of fascism.

The reality is that this is not clear. The nature of fascism is still misunderstood, and like all political movements, it is capable of evolution. No one can agree on a definition of fascism.

My take on fascism is that it is a democratic and capitalist nation where power has been voluntarily conceded from the majority to the few.

These days there is a lot of talk about Bond villains, the World Economic Forum, Bill Gates and so on. These are sideshows, bread, and circuses for rich people with a lot of time. The UN gets its fair share of hatred as well. Few on the right talk about the Holocaust these days. Few on the left dare mention it.

We can never compromise with fascism.

Why is anti-Semitism on the rise again? We need to affirm the evil of fascism, be vigilant against it whenever it appears and refuse to compromise with it. This seems to be the only way forward. Fascism is evil, and it is the responsibility of the current generation to be vigilant against it. We cannot compromise against traditional fascism, nor can we whitewash history because it might offend our politics, or upset polite people at luncheons with stories of gas-chambers, Auschwitz, and Sobibor. Evil is evil, and it always is, and is always must be opposed. There can be no compromise with the evil of fascism.

Freedom Matters Today stands against religious and political fascism.

At Freedom Matters Today we stand against fascism, in both its religious and political forms. It is impossible to be a Christian and a fascist.
Christians believe in freedom, and they also believe that blood doesn’t matter. All people can have identity in Christ, for the only blood that matters is that blood of God shed on the cross for sin. His blood brings us together, and we all stand together because of Jesus.

A follower of Jesus cannot be a fascist.

There is nothing about fascism that can appeal to a follower of Jesus, for we stand because we could not stand before God, and we could not stand because we are but dust, and pass away like the leaves of autumn, and the morning dew, and yet it was God who stood in our place, in our stead, so we might live, as he died for us.

Fascism has no room for God, but God has room for all, for the love of God extends to all people everywhere, even those whom fascists hated and killed in one of the worst wars in history. Paul tells us that there is neither Jew or Greek, male or female slave or free, but all are one in Christ (Galatians 3: 28). In this one verse Paul, a Jewish believer in the one he calls Messiah or the anointed one of God, demolishes centuries of Christian fascism, the belief that God is on the side of our nation, that our national blood matters, that our tribe is more important than others, that our identity matters.

Our identity is in Jesus Christ, and we are all one.

Paul says the opposite, our identity is in Jesus Christ. He draws the world together, from all its threads and beauty, and weaves in himself one new humanity, where all stand before God as equal (Ephesians 2: 15). Fascists hate the gospel, and they hate the God who sent the Son so we might be free.

Remember that when the specter of fascism arises in conversation, in rhetoric and argument, or in society. We are one in Christ, and we are free.

Remember, freedom matters today, because you matter to God.

Michael J. Sutton

Who is my enemy?

Introduction

I have always had a problem with the idea of an enemy. It is such a strong word, involving such deep emotion, and containing such intimate expectations. The etymology of the word in English is interesting. It derives itself from Latin and French, rather ironic really, since the English have fought both and killed Italians and the French over the centuries in war.

The meaning of the word ‘enemy.’

One meaning is someone who is not a friend, which seems rather extreme to say the least. Does it mean if you end friendship with someone, they become your enemy? Other definitions assert a more demonic perspective, that an enemy is someone who is an adversary, or even the Devil.

None of these European attempts at trying to come to terms with hatred have been very satisfactory. They suggest a nightmarish world of distrust, suspicion, and caution. It is perhaps apt in a way, describing a West run by church states that were killing people down through the centuries and imposing their twisted and ungodly versions of Christianity on those who refused to conform. The list of the enemies of the church was a mile long and it is miracle anyone survived.

What does the Bible say?

In the New Testament, in Matthew 5: 44, the word ‘enemy’ in Greek means an adversary, ‘echthros.’ Strong’s Concordance says that it is a person resolved to inflict harm, and someone with whom reconciliation is impossible, someone with whom a state of hostility exists.

An enemy is someone you want to kill, destroy, undermine, or ignore. Who do you want to kill today? Anyone? Who do you want to destroy? The Left? Trump supporters? Muslims? Migrants? The problem of the enemy is a deep and intimate struggle connected with who we are as people, made in the image of God.

The Bible paints no rosy, idealistic fiction about our true heart, motives, and attitudes. Cain killed his brother Abel, his brother, his own flesh, and blood. Joseph’s brothers despised him and saw him as their enemy, and they sold him into slavery.  Jesus confronted this question head on because the enemies of many in that first century were numerous.

Factionalism, strife, sectarianism, these were the banners the Jewish people held high, even before we get to the issue of Roman occupation. Love your enemies, said Jesus, and do good to those who persecute you.

The enemies of the church

The church which fights against Christianity in every age, pays lip service to the good news of Jesus Christ and then turns around and promotes hatred, bigotry, and sectarianism. The churches are bastions of hate, memorials to bigotry, and testaments to sectarianism.

Churches spend most of them time hating not those who have no faith, but those who have faith, but not the right sort of faith, not the faith expected or desired, and not the faith that is good enough. Hatred, not love, is the language of most Christians today and that is why churches are collapsing, it is why denominations are dying, it is why chapels are closing. Love your enemies, said Jesus, but the response of the church is a middle finger to the heavens.

Who does the church hate today? Well, the usual suspects: Muslims, migrants, poor people, gay and lesbian people, transgender people, the list goes on. Pulpits are no longer where the good news is preached, but they are training grounds for religious terrorism, many religious schools are not places when children are taught, but where kids are indoctrinated, and I am sorry, but God notices it all, and he is not on your side.

God doesn’t take sides in our Culture War. He is not a Liberal Party supporter, nor does he vote for Donald Trump, nor is Christ an American or an Australian. God is God and this God tells us to love our enemies. It means you don’t have any enemies.

Enemies of the nation

Recently, Australia celebrated what they call ANZAC Day, a controversial Memorial Day for all soldiers who served and who serve in war and during peacetime. Australia usually does the bidding of two nations: England and America.

In the early 1870s, the colony of New South Wales had no army, and no military presence from England. They left and wanted the colony to raise its own militia, which for some reason, they found difficult to do. After twenty years of dithering and paranoia, the colonies sent their first soldiers abroad to fight in the Sudan, on the other side of the world, then the Boer War, then the Great War, and so on.

ANZAC Day is not a Christian festival. In fact, there is nothing Christian about it. It is an ideological event to brainwash a population to love war, to enjoy fighting and to promote the next war. It is not bad as other nations. All the Australians do is march down the street, play two-up and then go to the pub.

In other nations, they bring out of the tanks, the nukes, the soldiers, and march proudly down the street, showing their real power. Australia has no real power in the world, it is a minor player in world affairs, with a really large mouth, and tiny ears, and is really happy that America has promised eternal protection which means that Australia does not really need to bother getting to know other nations in the Asia Pacific.

Which side does God take in war?

Don’t get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with being a soldier, it is an honorable profession as far as God is concerned. Serving one’s nation always is. But God doesn’t take sides in war. As I explained in more detail in my book ‘Is Russia Our Enemy?’ God honors the day, and his purposes are hidden from our sight.  

If Christians want to support anything, they ought to support those who came home and the families of those who do not. It is also a disgrace that churches associate themselves with ANZAC Day, applying the privileges and benefits of faith to those who have none. I have heard some disgraceful talks at ANZAC Day over the years. Many priests, pastors and ministers cannot tell the difference between their flag and their faith.

I was asked to give an ANZAC Day address a few years ago when I served as a priest, and I was happy to do it as long as they realized that I would talk about Jesus Christ and not sing their song of patriotism and war. They loved it and asked me to come back the next year and on November 11.  In fact, I discovered many Christians in their ranks except that all of them had been cast out of the church for one reason or another, and all that was left in the church was a tiny, angry group of people who hated each other and God most of all.

The enemies of God

This is the pattern across the land. Christians will talk about whom they hate faster than they will tell you about Jesus Christ. We are told to encourage each other daily, and the greatest encouragement we can have, is talking about the Saviour, Jesus Christ. He is the antidote to all our enmities, all our hatreds, and all our bitterness. Love your enemies, says Jesus to us all today, love them as I have loved you. As Paul says, ‘while you were the enemies of God, Jesus died for you (Romans 5: 10). How much more ought we to resist the temptation to see other people as our enemy?

God takes enmity away

An enemy is a way of talking about a person before the arrival of God on the scene, for it is impossible to see that anything is impossible for God, and it is impossible for God to fail. All things are possible for God, says the Bible.

The true direction of enmity is not between those made in God’s image, but between people and God, for it is God whose light shines in the hearts of people and this light is so pure, so revealing, so loving and so true that it upsets all our priorities, all our dreams, and all our hopes, for it is God saying to us, put them aside, leave them alone, let them be, and come and follow me, and we don’t like a distraction, and we don’t like being forced to change and we don’t like being told what to do, but this is God, this is the God who speaks, this is the God who listens and this is the God who acts to bring us home.

This is the God who proved his love by dying for those with whom there was only enmity, this is the God who proved his love by dying in our place, in our stead, on the cross, this is the God who said, no, this one is not beyond my love, this one is not beyond my mercy and this one is not to be forgotten. Love your enemies because God loved us.

Remember, freedom matters today, because you matter to God.

Michael J. Sutton

March 2023

What is Freedom Matters Today?

Freedom Matters Today looks at freedom from a Christian perspective. True freedom comes from God. This is freedom from fear and despair, freedom from fascism and tyranny, freedom from guilt and shame, freedom from sin and death, freedom from past and prejudice, and freedom from war and conflict.

At Freedom Matters Today, we will make our stand for freedom, for without freedom we have nothing. Freedom is at the heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, a Christian.

A New Year and a New Podcast

The format for the podcast will be slightly different from last year. Our most popular podcast episode was the last one, Following Jesus when the church has lost its way. This podcast went on to become a book with the same title available through Amazon POD.

Our faith is not dependent on the failure of institutional religion. Our faith is in God and God expects us to take responsibility for the choices we make, and the most important choice we are given is in the form of an imperative from Jesus when he tells us to follow him.

Future topics in this series include the relevance of Jesus today, Following Jesus when the church shows you the door, postcards from Ukraine, Following Jesus in a time of war, putting the fear of God back into the church, Church and Taxation, Covid Theology, and faith and flag.

Our recent history is but an epilogue

I was asked a question a month or so ago by a listener after he read my op-ed piece on the Brownstown Institute titled ‘Covid Theology in the Australian Church.’ He asked ‘why is the church dying?’

What we saw in Covid Hysteria was mass apostasy in the church, the promotion of vaccine passports, mandates, and lockdowns were grievous sins against God. We saw the true heart of the church revealed, even evangelicals, that what they care about the most are money and power.

Why is the church dying? The answer is simple. The decline of the church, and its inevitable collapse is great for faith and the future of Christianity. It is better if the past is let go, and we can turn a new page, step out in faith, and follow Jesus.

If you listened to our podcast last year, you would be familiar with one of our slogans: ‘don’t go to church, follow Jesus instead.’ If Christians followed Jesus instead of putting their faith in a building, a denomination, or a ritual, then Christian witness and faithfulness would not be in rapid decline.
When I talk about the church, I am talking about the buildings, the rituals, the denominations, and the meaning of the word ‘church,’ in Western contemporary usage. The Western Church is absolutely dying and is on its last legs.

In English, the word ‘church’ means a physical entity, a building, or a place designed for the worship of God. The word ‘church’ is found nowhere in the Greek New Testament. Some people have said, you are quibbling over semantics. But we are to faithfully proclaim the full counsel of God. That is after all, what the fascists claim to defend on Sunday, but it is fascinating how inaccurate they often are, at least in the West.

Jesus never went to church. The apostles never went to church. The apostles gathered daily for encouragement and treated no day as special. ‘Encourage each other daily, as long as it is called ‘Today,’’’ wrote the author of Hebrews, composed before the fall of Jerusalem in AD 70. There was no infant baptism in Acts, nor was there the evil of the Mass, or the Magic Show of the so-called Holy Communion. Breaking bread for Christians was a phrase not to denote a ritual but a meal. God communes with his people every day, even with sinners such as you and me. It is possible because of the death of Jesus on the cross for sin.

Early Christians, before the government stepped in and replaced Christian freedom with tyranny, sought to follow Jesus, they lived by the power of the Holy Spirit, and in that first generation, walked with God even though they did not possess the scriptures beyond the text of the Hebrew Bible. Remarkable.

Giuseppe Garibaldi, the American founding Fathers, and many European thinkers rediscovered freedom and rebuked a state church that was too busy murdering people that there needs to be clear limits on ecclesiastical power. For over 1,000 years, the church states murdered their way through history. Religious freedom or the separation of church and state was never to protect the church from the state but to protect the state from Christian Fascism.

The Russian Revolution was terrible and awful, but nothing compared to the Hell on Earth that was Russian Orthodoxy under the Czars who kept Russians in utter misery, poverty, and suffering for centuries, while the church was completely corrupt.

The French Revolution, the English Civil War, the American War of Independence, the Protestant Reformation, and Garibaldi’s war against Rome were all wars to secure freedom, echoes of the freedom that God brings. The church had kept freedom locked away behind ritual and religion for centuries.

These revolutionary movements rediscovered what the church states wanted to keep secret – the truth about freedom. The twentieth century was not a new beginning, it was part of the epilogue of a West that had finally wrenched itself free from a Satanic religion called Christendom, that replaced the peace of Christ with a sword, the love of Christ with sectarian hatred, and the joy of Christ with inflexible intolerance. If you want to return to the days of Christendom, you will have to give up your freedoms, because they didn’t have any at all.

You will not find freedom in the church. You will find it fully expressed in the identity, the actions, and the words of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
The church is dying. The church is not Christianity. The church is a thing, while Christianity is about people.

God leaves no one behind

While the church is dying, there is no one sought and found by God who is ever lost again. There is no one who is found by God who is misplaced, forgotten, excluded, marginalized, or cast out. No, that describes the church. The church’s MO is forgetting, marginalizing, excluding, and excommunicating.

But God is rich in mercy, and he does not reject anyone who comes to him in faith. God will not let anyone slip through his fingers, and he will enable, through his Spirit, to ensure that even the frailest of his children, is able to endure. That is God, that is an insight into his kingdom.

God will not rebel against his word that all who believe shall have eternal life. He is not fickle like us, he is not two-faced, like us, and he is not weak, like us. He is God, he doesn’t change his mind. All who come to Christ are never turned back.

Why is the church dying?

The church is dying because it hates freedom, and it hates the God who brings freedom. Christians are simply called to follow Jesus. It is a lifestyle, not a rule. It is a relationship, not a ritual. It is not a Sunday service, but a daily experience.

The church is dying because it is irrelevant, inauthentic, and corrupt. It is irrelevant because it has nothing to say to people beyond ritualism, it is inauthentic because people know hypocrisy when they see it, and it is corrupt because the church only cares about money and power. Why do people refuse to go to church? Because they know the people who do.

The churches are dying because they are fake. They either become inward-looking monasteries or museums for outdated values, mausoleums for the dead. They keep their Bible closed, they don’t listen to God, and they don’t follow Jesus.

The church is dying because they have given up on God, the God they pretend to believe in. When Christians give up on God’s power, they return to human power, and they become fascists. The fascist will say: ‘what would Jesus do,’ but the Christian says, ‘what did Jesus do.’ The Christian tells people about God, and the Christian fascist tells people what to do.

Why is Jesus relevant?

These days in the Culture War, I hear Christians say little about Jesus. We are told that he has his place, and the good news is important, but we need to return our nation to its Christian roots. I would rather talk about freedom, and really explore what that means for us today. To do this, we really need to reconsider the identity, the actions, and the words of Jesus Christ.

If you have time, listen to our podcast, check out our books, comment on our posts or subscribe. Remember, freedom matters today, because you matter to God.

Michael J. Sutton, CEO of Freedom Matters Today, March 2023

February 2023

Remember, freedom matters today because you matter to God.

Happy New Year!

Welcome to the first newsletter of Freedom Matters Today for 2023. Happy New Year! For many, it is the Year of the Rabbit or the Year of the Cat. I hope this year brings God’s blessings of safety, peace, and joy to you and your families.

It has been a busy time for Freedom Matters Today since the end of our first podcast series in August. Since then, four books have been published by our imprint Hidden Road Publishing, available through Amazon in paperback form. These books cover the themes of fascism, Covid Hysteria, the war in Ukraine, faith and flag, and Christian Nationalism, all from a Christian perspective. They were originally based on the blogs and podcasts but were also extensively rewritten, revised, and updated. I also have an author page set up on Amazon.

Freedom from a Christian Perspective

Freedom Matters Today looks at freedom from a Christian perspective. I believe that freedom goes to the very heart of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. The liberty that Christ brings has been a light to the world and has shone out over the centuries into all the dark places such as the church, the state, and tradition.

Jesus said: ‘If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed.’

Paul wrote, ‘the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.’

Paul also wrote, ‘it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.’

These three verses from the New Testament make it very clear and unambiguous. God is in the freedom business. He did not come to bring slavery, servitude, or submission to tyranny, in fact, quite the opposite. All the movements for freedom in the West have been echoes, ripples, aftershocks, tremors from history’s great event which was the rescue God wrought through Jesus against spiritual tyranny, sin, death, and evil, at the cross where he died for sin, in our place, where we could not stand, so we can stand with him, free, and in liberty.

I was astounded, horrified, and shocked during Covid Hysteria to hear many of those who used to walk with Jesus out themselves, betray their Lord for money or power, or both, and denounce freedom as antithetical to the good news of God’s grace. Those in the church who stand up and say that freedom is a lie, are themselves liars, and it is not surprising for they work for their master diabolos, the master of tyranny, the king of deceit, and the pimp of power. I wrote about this more extensively in ‘Is Russia our Enemy?’ and ‘Following Jesus.’

Freedom matters today because you matter to God. In fact, everyone matters to God, and there is no one for whom God does not matter. This is a great relief, especially to those who feel that they have wandered too far from the love and mercy of God, but it was for such people who have wandered, for those who were lost, for those who sit in darkness that Jesus came.

How can we understand freedom?

Freedom comes from God and all other freedoms we enjoy are derived from God’s freedom. True freedom comes from knowing God and being known by God, so we might know who we are, and know each other.

Freedom Matters Today is also in the freedom business. We seek to bring clarity and hope to many who seek freedom, and encouragement to those who enjoy freedom. That is why I decided in 2021 to focus on six themes that arise from my understanding of the Bible, the New Testament, and the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament:

• Freedom from fascism and tyranny.
• Freedom from fear and despair
• Freedom from guilt and shame.
• Freedom from sin and death.
• Freedom from past and prejudice,
• Freedom from war and conflict.

Three Years of Covid Hysteria

Last year, from February to August, we focused on freedom from fascism and tyranny and freedom from fear and despair. Covid Hysteria was a great and terrible evil. It has been three years of deceit, three years of fear, and three years of corruption. Fear and despair have become the new languages of our society along with the stifling of debate and the end of diverse opinions.

Once claiming to represent the freedom of Christ, the churches, overall, embraced with enthusiasm a malicious apostasy that we have not seen for a generation. As we saw, those who supported Covid Passports, Lockdowns, and Martial Law directives from within the Christian Church were those who apostatized from their faith and betrayed the God who brings freedom.

I was astounded by the apostasy, the betrayal, and the capitulation. So many famous Christian leaders outed themselves, that they do not, in fact, believe a word of what they preach. They are in it for the money, the reputation, and the power. Those who say that they only follow the science deny the resurrection, and if they don’t believe in God, why do these hypocrites turn up every Sunday at church in their robes or their tailored suits and draw a salary? They are in it for the money, the power, and the influence over others.

Three years of Covid Hysteria have ushered in the revival of political and religious fascism, and a world of fear. Most in the church want to pretend that the last three years didn’t happen, and they want the church to go back to business as usual, which is a life of tax exemptions and profiting from exploiting vulnerable people.

Life is real, so faith needs to be real as well.

Paul wrote his letters because he had his ear to the ground. James wrote his letter because his readers struggled with what it meant to be a Christian in Jewish communities. John wrote his epistle and his letters because he lived in the real world, and they resonated because he spoke to people where they were.

When they are not killing, slandering, or fighting each other, the churches of today live in a world of abstraction, a world of detachment, and a world of obtuse reasoning. They are out of touch, inauthentic and irrelevant. They refuse to admit their complicity, corruption, and collusion with the state. With centuries of tax-free benefits and exemptions, the churches have no idea about the lives of ordinary people. Offered mammon so early on, it is difficult to say no, and most do not. Churches covet wealth and power that comes from wealth for money is the language of power, but it is not the kingdom of God, nor is it true spiritual power.

Jesus rejected the opportunity to convince Pilate at his trial, and he had no interest in even speaking to Herod. For Jesus was interested in ordinary people, rich people, poor people, insiders and outsiders, but he repudiated and rejected institutions and all they stand for. Jesus did battle with the author of politics, the crafter of the state, the authority of institutions, diabolos, in the wilderness after he was baptized, and prevailed.

All that matters to the church is its money and political power, and it has no intention of connecting the teachings, work, and identity of Jesus with the real problems people face every day. To do that ministers, pastors, and priests need to extend their hand in friendship but that is not possible, for under their whitened knuckles is the money they covet so dearly, the properties they protect so feverishly, and the power they secured so deviously.

The reality is that in the first century, Judas Iscariot was the apostle of shame. He was in it for the money. Two thousand years later, the church holds Judas up as their model, betrayal is their language, and secrecy is their diet. In Australia, the going rate for bribing a church is $500 a week, a small price to pay for one’s eternal soul.

Brownstone Institute

Thank you for subscribing. I know that many of you have joined due to the recently published Brownstone Institute article, on the third of this month. Thank you. The Brownstone Institute article can be found here for those who have not read it. I believe in making a stand, nailing one’s colors to the mast, of standing for the truth.

https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-theology-in-the-australian-church/

The article is a succinct distillation of one of the themes of my first book, Freedom from Fascism, A Christian Response to Mass Formation Psychosis, published on November 7, last year. I have been greatly encouraged by the incredible response to this article. Thank you for your honesty in sharing your stories, and your experiences.

New Publications!

As I mentioned in the beginning, Freedom Matters Today has published four books exploring freedom from a Christian perspective. If you are interested, we would welcome reviews of one or more of the books. They are reasonably priced ($9.95 US). The titles of the books are as follows:

• Freedom from Fascism (November 2022).

http://Freedom from Fascism: A Christian Response to Mass Formation Psychosis (Freedom Matters Today): Sutton, Dr. Michael John: 9780645567106: Amazon.com: Books

• Is God on America’s Side? (November 2022).

http://Is God on America’s Side? (Freedom Matters Today): Sutton, Dr. Michael John: 9780645567113: Amazon.com: Books

• Is Russia Our Enemy? (December 2022).

http://Is Russia Our Enemy? (Freedom Matters Today): Sutton, Dr. Michael John: 9780645567120: Amazon.com: Books

• Following Jesus when the Church has lost its Way (December 2022).

Following Jesus: When the Church has Lost its Way (Freedom Matters Today): Sutton, Dr Michael John: 9780645567137: Amazon.com: Books

Moving Forward: A New Podcast Series

Our podcast will recommence in March this year. I hope to spend time talking about what freedom means from a Christian perspective in more detail. The Western Church, in my belief, is dying, but not the word of God, for it lasts forever. The message of the good news of God’s grace found in Jesus Christ is a message for all generations, and for all people, for it is for freedom that Christ has set us free.

Best wishes,

Michael J. Sutton
CEO and Founder of Freedom Matters Today.

February 2023