Author Archives: michaeljsutton@freedommatterstoday.com

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