Russian Mysteries I

I have been a Russophile for over forty years now, and a Russian History buff. I have been friendly with the local Russian emigre community  and speak only in the past tense not because of any falling out, but because as is the way of things, I drifted away from my contacts therein. But one of them, name of Ilya, teaches Russian history at the small school attached to the local Orthodox Church, and he told me that my knowledge of the history of his homeland was "good."  I took this as an immense compliment.

Regarding the mysteries I am speaking of  I am only offering my opinion based on what little knowledge, compared perhaps to a trained historian and specialist, I have gathered over the years. This and any companions to it I might feel inclined to offer are opinion piece. The chances are that the truth is lost to history

The first I offer is this: Was Tsar Paul Petrovich the natural son of the one whose patronym he bore, namely Peter III the husband of Sophia of Anhalt Zerbst who later became grand duchess Catherine  Alexeyevna  and then Empress Catherine II?

Many have claimed that he was not as both Catherine and Peter hated each other and the one who became the mad Tsar Paul, so irksome to the Russian nobility that he was murdered in a place coup in 1801, was the son instead of Catherine's lover at the time, who was, if my memory serves correctly one Sergei Saltykov.

But if this is so then the House of Romanov ended in 1762 when Peter III died of Haemorrhoidal
Colic. Of course this cause of death is to me a hilarious irony. He was murdered when Catherine seized the throne, but this was put out as the official story, and a final amusing twist on this story was that when Catherine invited a French philosopher out to visit her in Russia, Diderot, I think, he declined on the grounds that as he himself suffered from piles it would not be safe for him out in Russia. A gracious but fierce rebuke if ever there was one!

Of course the murder of any lawfully ordained monarch is no laughing matter but the historical record can drop some grand ironies from time to time.

So here endeth House Romanov?

Pavel Petrovich resembled his putative father both in looks, unprepossessing, and in character traits, even more unprepossessing, being a military martinet obsessed with trivial detail like the alignment of buttons on a soldiers kit.

But his two parents loathed each other. Peter hated Russia. He regarded his native duchy of Schleswig Holstein as more important to him - he was only heir to the Russian throne as  it was Peter I , the Great\, who started the western practise of marrying off what we call princesses to foreign nobility, in this case one of his  daughters to the Duke of Holstein. Young Karl Peter Ulrich  favoured dolls to real people preferring them while even in bed with his wife. And he once put a mouse on trial for upsetting his toys and hanged it with all military ceremony. Catherine on the other hand made it a point to ingratiate herself with  her Russian surroundings at the court of Elizabeth Petrovna  and inhabitants therein. She embraced Russian culture, was highly intelligent, a patron of the arts, literate, all in  contrast to her boorish boy of a husband.

But I read either in the book Five Empresses by Eugene Anisimov or in a biography of Catherine II by the late  Isabel de Madariaga that a letter was found in archives whereby Catherine II admitted to hardening herself up to do what was repulsive to her and engaged in carnal intercourse with her husband as such was no less than her duty.

Of course this does not prove the issue but in my opinion is satisfactory. But there was on honour in any of it. The son of a father which father  was murdered by agents of his own wife was excluded from power, and he hated Catherine for it with a passion.So on becoming Emperor in 1801 he passed Salic Law forbidding women ever to sit on the Romanov throne. Thus though in the eighteenth century  there was Five Empresses, being four Empresses Regnant and one Empress Regent, Anna Leopoldovna, mother of the baby Ivan VI, the boy whose whose life was unmitigated tragedy. there were none thereafter.

One wonders if Russian history would have been different if Alexei Nikolayevich, son and heir of the Last Tsar of Russia, suffering from haemophilia, could have been passed over for one of his sisters, saving the throne and the nation from 70 years of Bolshevik  horror, if the Salic Law were not in force?

A Lesson in Civics

The waves of protests running through America because of the election of Trump is, though I must it seems spell it out that I am speaking in irony here, a good lesson in civics.

It is increasingly clear that   if they don't like the election result, even if the election was fair in terms of the existing system, they feel - and feeling is the operative word, not reasoned conviction and disciplined action - they feel entitled to shout and scream and carry on like school children and protest. In fact I have just seen a video in which school children were out protesting.

Of course the reason here is plain. They do this is because they, the protesters,  believe  not in democracy but in imposing their will by the ballot box and moreover they have no sense that these are two entirely different things. And this is shown by the outrage: thwarted self will

When we had class elections at primary school in order to teach us about voting and the like we were told  that democracy requires that the voter who did not have his candidate selected must  have sufficient respect for the fact as well as nature of opposing views to accept the result. I was taught this in primary school  more than 45 years ago.

We did not call this "Civics" for my homeland  is New Zealand, a country I have never left in my entire life, but that was the purpose and I for one never forgot it even if those who did pout when their best friend was not elected class captain ignored it at the time.

I do not know what they teach in classes they all "Civics" in the USA these days, but even if they try and instil this notion of  respecting, or at least acquiescing, to  the undesired result , the culture at large has become too selfish, too glutted with the self gratification  of endless entertainments and too narcissistic to pay attention.

They fail to see that this behaviour after an election where  their man, or in this instance, woman,   lost is an even bigger subversion of a democracy they profess to believe in than such things as electoral fraud, silencing  or marginalizing third party candidates, superdelegates, and a whole system so awash with the dirty money of corporations that only the business friendly  are likely to win

But of course real political engagement requires more effort than angry noise making, which is why democracies do not last. It is easier to make some noise, smash some windows, ignite some litter bins and show that we have nothing to express but blind outrage

So they who protest think that Trump is dangerous? This may be. But do you make noises the elites will ignore simply because they are ill mannered? Believe me I have seen the objects of protest deny what we were on about as we were ill mannered. Of course in their depravity they will ignore any protest we make if it is polite and peaceful

If they believe in the political system (and whether it is worth believing in is a separate question) they are to engage in it. Party machines will go corrupt if left alone. The truly committed and engaged must flood the party memberships and agitate from within the machine.  They need to see to it that the system does not select two candidates so noxious as Trump and Clinton again

Unless of course such effort  really is a waste of time and violence leading to frenzied blood letting is all that will come, proving that democracy was only ever an impossible and naïve ideal for man never could govern himself.

But crying like children? If they are that infantilized then the situation may very well the lost already

On Masses for Peace and the like

I was listening to a movement from Benjamin Britten's War Requiem just now, and I remembered that I played in a  concert performance of Karl Jenkins' "L'Homme Arme, a Mass for Peace".

The Title L'Homme Arme" is French and means the Armed Man. There are two applications of this  that I can see. Most certainly, in terms of musical history, early pieces of music, and I mean those of  the medieval and renaissance periods, regularly based works on pre existing compositions. This is the original sense of a parody in that they were all parodies but it  implied no sense of mockery at all. The Armed Man was a French popular song at the time and many composers built masses at time that around that tune. Mr Jenkins is merely adding to this ancient and venerable tradition.

But I suspect that his intention is to contrast the military cast of the tune the Armed Man with his impassioned cry for peace, hence his subtitle and my reason for writing this.

It was a cry for peace, and impassioned one in a work that I found at times  beautiful and deeply moving. I will never forget the Benedictus with its cello solo of pure ecstasy underneath which I poured out all the passion I could at the time with a solid and rich bottom D pedal note.  But to whom was the cry being made?

"God," one might say. But which one? If a God really exists this makes all the difference imaginable; and if there is no God then the very exercise is futile. They are merely crying to the empty ether and no rational answer will ever come. It is or at least should be a truism that people do not become peace loving by hearing music, so serenading the violence is a total waste of effort.

When the religions are theist, by which I mean that the God in question actually involves himself or claim to involve himself in the creation by way of answering prayer requests, - in contrast with what I might call Deist religions - which God is supplicated is crucial. And to try and cover all bases by adulterating a catholic mass with prayers to another God is utter blasphemy.

I mean in this instance the second movement of this Mass for Peace in which a Muslim
Muzzein made his call to prayer, the ritual oration that issues from minarets and their modern equivalents five time a day. I was deeply discomforted and had I the zeal of my convictions I may have walked out. But I did not.

Not only that  but this Mass had no Credo. If Jenkins knew what a mass was he knew what a credo was. But he chose not to incorporate one.

So the Mass was a limp cry of the unbelieving to the empty ether, believing  nothing  it achieved  nothing real other than hoping desperately against hope that something might come of it. And something did, but nothing of real value. Secular modern men might shed a tear or tow and think they are thoroughly good people for being so moved. This was a piece of catharsis which lasted all of a few minutes and would have no bearing on how they lived their lives the next day.

I commented on this work as I know it rather well, having performed it as a musician. But this is what such performance arts "for peace" boil down to.

Some time ago I heard a peace on my concert programme. All I remember was that it had famous rock singers in it. It was some kind of classical rock crossover, not that I necessarily disapprove for the Jenkins was one also. But the only other thing I remember was that it cried to every god imaginable. This was utterly tragic and I dissolved in tears. This I all modern men can do when they seek to get spiritual. It was not a cry for or of hope but, being with no basis in hope at all, an expression of despair masquerading as the contrary

The Britten  Requiem mention of which I started this piece with also committed blasphemy by adding to the text as regards the story, which I am my brethren take to be literal history. When Abraham was told not to sacrifice his son the poet I think it was Wilfrid Owen, took over the narrative "But Abraham would not, and half the seed of Europe perished one by one.

And why are we Christians offended by this? Such antics as this are jeering at the only thing, or only One who will give anyone true peace. But at least we are not obliged to slaughter anyone who blasphemes in this way. Vengeance for that  and all other evil belongs to God and God only and He will repay after He has exhausted, due to the defiant unbelief of men refusing his amnesty, all other avenues.


Everyone wants peace and they pray for it, some even to the Christian God, Himself  but overall no one will acknowledge that not only is war sin but their own combatitive response to violence against them is sin as well. thus they will not repent.

As there is no peace for the wicked, as scripture says, and as righteousness in Christ is the only way to peace they will pray and sing and supplicate in vain.

Not because God has no answer to the thing but because we refuse this and seek peace on our terms, a magical intervention whereby the inner violence of men's hearts is not addressed at all.

If we want peace we seek the only God in Christ, and only through Christ  do we seek Him, and not only that but we seek to repent of our sins  genuinely rather than some token gesture or a dismissive ignoring of the whole business by lame appeals to the "love" of God. There is a love of God but it is through this that He would lead us to repent, and is not a substitute for repentance. Rather this repentance, which gift of grace  I discovered in my darkest extremity years ago and which is still outworking, is the  highest expression of God loving us there is.

But the tragedy of it is that the huge majority will not do so, nor even seek it, for it is written and demonstrably true that "strait - ie small- is the gate and narrow the way ands few there are who find it." And if Christians think they have found this way then let us all realize that few are called many are chosen.

He is rich in mercy to lead all who come to him to repentance but without repentance, which is not luxuriating in fear or guilt, far from it, there is nothing.

Nothing at all but the farce which will continue to play itself out to the bitter end

Why I am not a pacifist

I am not a pacifist. But here are my reasons why.

I am too violent, too fearful, to angry, too easily provoked, too unforgiving.

I lust for vengeance, and this is vengeance I crave not justice for it is not in love that I seek it. I have a cruel streak. If my friends have not seen it it is only because in my fear and pride I have very carefully hidden it.

In short I know myself too well

Scripture is most clear. The anger of men does not work the righteousness of God. When men covet something but have it not they fight wars. I should love my enemies, turn the other cheek and resist not evil.

But of course as a sinner I am incapable of doing these things, especially when I see that my efforts, being repression of the impulse I would oppose, is by that very nature hypocrisy

And of course I do not have the God given right to bear arms that I might blow away any who would rob me or harm me, my family  or my friends. Self defence, as we dare call it,  of this kind is not even remotely biblical. Look at the Sermon on the Mount and see how utterly opposed to human nature, my nature, that it is

The state might indeed have the right to execute criminals - I have no principled objection to the death penalty, only profound concerns about the innocent being murdered by the state due to incorrect verdicts, as happens all too often. But that any state claim to be the policeman of the World as Tsar Nicholas  I first himself up as the Gendarme of Europe from the 1830's onward, is arrogant hypocrisy. No country is so saturated in mercy and justice that it has the right to enforce what it calls morals on any other land

War is sin and the fiction of the just war was invented by that heretic Augustine, falsely in my opinion called "saint" of Hippo, the man so out of touch with his own past which included rank heresy as a Manichaean, that he required state persecution of those who were as he was as a young man.

So I am not a pacifist. Not because the contrary line  of doctrine  is even remotely justified, but because it goes against my own nature, as every commandment of God does. For I will not start from the standpoint that my impulse is right and that all doctrinal cloth must be cut to fit this presumption. If it opposes my own nature and thus exposes my own sin it may very well be true. But I cannot oppose my own nature by brute force of will any longer. Thus knowing what I should be I know that I am not and cannot be what I should be, and even my effort is a blasphemous outrage. So I would fight back like any one else

But pacifism is an ideal and by God's grace, when I have confessed and repented, and only by his grace, will He bestow it on as violent and evil a heart as mine.

And if I ever become spiritual what will I do if attacked by an armed man or some such similar?

I will do what scripture commands, and simply die, moreover, by His grace, I will die well.

But not today.

My sin is too intractable till He act, for this  to happen today

Deep Logic

C S Lewis spoke of a "Deep Magic" in his Narnia stories. I speak of a Deep Logic. The atheist account of scripture is that it is a tissue of priestly lies to control and exploit a gullible population of peasants - and this is true insofar as this has been done for millennia.

But this is abuse, not use, and abuse does not detract from proper use. For digging into the text of the Bible I see this cannot be so as pertaining to the scriptures themselves. The logic of it is something that cannot have been dreamed up by men. It is both beautiful, almost terrifying and awe inspiring. A super intelligence and wisdom lurks within the pages.

As such I have a growing conviction, not yet clear enough to really articulate properly. that the Bible itself is proof of God's being and character, that the Bible is logically self authenticating.

And the only of this is that I only became eligible to even begin to see this after repenting of Protestant Bible worship which abuses the truth of Verbal  Plenary Inspiration of the text to read it with rigidity incapable of drawing logical links within it.

However this conviction of mine is not clear enough for me to be able to articulate further than I have here at this time

Reflections on the subversion of democracy

Every one is commenting on the most recent US presidential election. This is a small part of what I could say on it

Because I never supported either Candidate in the US election (a brief flutter of hope  on the night as it became clear Trump had won notwithstanding) I did not have to justify my emotional conviction by making myself believe that my choice (for I never had one) was in any way a good person, and because I did not have such a choice I did not have to justify to others said choice by presenting the corollaries of my emotional convictions as evidence for my convictions.

To do such is to assume the truth of what one tries to prove which is to argue in a logical circle , the fallacy of "petitio principii" - lit to appeal to the principle, or begging the question. Of course such argument proves absolutely nothing. What stuns me is that intelligent people on both sides, those with degrees and university education, have argued in exactly this way subverting all rules of logic and evidential observation for the sake of emotional passion. Does anyone else see that the hysteria on both  sides, the refusal to rationally consider from the basis of what both candidates said, that THIS is more damaging to the democratic ideal than anything else?

The double standard beggars belief. Clinton supporters denied her gloating, "We came we saw HE DIED," called it opposition propaganda or out of context because they knew full well that as it clearly demonstrated that this woman is a war monger as did her destruction of Libya and her consistently hawkish record., all of which are matters of public record yet which they were too lazy to consult. But while denying her words in this manner they  insisted on  focussing on Trump's "grabbing pussy" talk or his "Mexicans are rapists" talk, or his inciting of violence talk, his offering to pay the legal fees of any who assaulted anyone who dared protest at his rallies.


But Trumpists did the same thing. The Don was "joking" "using rhetoric'- but they all call rhetoric like this  lies  when the other candidate does it -  or he was "taken out of context."  His obscene talk about women  was "locker room talk" etc and more egregiously, they insist that the media spread lies. Not when Trump is  on video saying these things. He did not mean it? This is no defence of the man, for if he really did not mean what he said  his speeches were  a cynical pandering to the redneck vote who clearly believed that Mexicans were rapists  on his cue and voted accordingly

Integrity, intelligence, reason, evidence? Even a consistent application of the standard that "the mouth speaks the fullness of the heart"'and that what a candidate might say would therefore indicate their evil? Forget it.  Even if those who argue such are Christians who profess to believe the quote from the gospels  I just gave, they have thrown away even the attempt to apply the scripture properly and instead will come up with half baked notions that Clinton was the Queen of the Witches or that Trump was chosen of God as Cyrus the Great was chosen for the Jews , forgetting that the promises of the New Covenant are more excellent than such and national protection only really applied to the Jews who have always been under the Old Covenant.

So much for belief in the gospel, when Old Covenant thought is appealed to on one hand, or rank superstition justified by blasphemous appeals to divine revelation on the other.

In the passion of this moment even the highly intelligent became part of the mindless mob. I fear for Western civilization when this becomes the nature of political discourse.

And why do professing Christians do this? Clearly they do not believe  that we are strangers and sojourners on this earth. They do not believe that heaven is our home and that the Kingdom of heaven is not of this world. So they fear like unbelievers  because ultimately they, and I insofar as I still do so, think like unbelievers. These are scriptural quotes, and if any reader calling himself a Christian does not know them he demonstrates my point.

We Christians are the salt of the earth? Not when we surrender to such hysteria as this. We have lost our savour, as well as rejected our Saviour, and risk being thrown out to be trampled  by men