Due North In A World Lost

(Letter From Editor)

Here we stand—in 2021—already facing turmoil. That is not a joyous remark by any means, it is only as I feared. I took time away from Truth In Focus and my other writing responsibilities to reflect and regroup. I watched in horror as the Capital was quickly ransacked my QAnon radicals devoted to President Trump all the while radicals of the left scheme their socialist ways forward as they subjugate the House, the Senate, and soon the White House. And I witnessed “Big Tech” eroding free speech under the guise of privatized policies. Failing to see, or accept, that the present public spaces are digital with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube as platforms of speech, economic activity, religious worship, and more. Everything we forewarned in our November Issue (2020) that tyranny is coming in multiple forms all at the service of globalism and the global economy has come. History has witnessed a paradigm shift soon to be completed as the new neoliberal order turns into a monstrous corporatized quasi-socialist beast.  

Now that the four horseman 1) Wokism 2) Socialism 3) Corporatism and 4) Globalism have arrived it is only appropriate to speak against them.

TIF has never been political, but rooted in principles. And this year will be no different. Now is the time to begin the process of renewal for generations to come. Imagination will play a fundamental role as we uncover the requirements for rebuilding society after its collapse in values, family, law, faith, and morality. Together we will embark on a journey just as the pre-socratic philosopher Anaximander who mapped the black sea and lead a colony to Apollonia (modern-day Albania). Transverse the lands as the Apostle Paul establishing the truth of the Gospel throughout the eastern and western worlds. And write as Plato in his Seventh Epistle concerning Italy and the political deluge he witnessed that left him with a revelation, “Wherefore the classes of mankind (I said) will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those  who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy, or else the class of those who hold power in the States becomes, by some dispensation of Heaven, really philosophic.”

A true Christians and Conservatives it is clear that nothing perfect exists in the physical world, and even if it should, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. Mankind is left with a constant preparation for a New Eden while upholding the past including the dead who sacrificed to make the future possible. Indeed, no real eden will come from whence it first arose, but to imagine new beginnings is as American as it is human. Whether they are called colonies or city-states their purposes are designed to bring forth light and hope; justice and peace; law and order to a people. 

Presently the United States of America no longer represents that land of hope. It is therefore paramount to process present discourses in order to learn from failures and successes. This is not a call to rebellion. Rather the opposite. It is a call to dream again a better homeland for our children and grandchildren. Rarely in human history are the opportunity to recreate such a situation. A paradigm such as we have been witnessing, however, allows us to move beyond circumstances as a necessity to preserving sacred liberties and divine freedoms. 

Articles written by me will be focused on specific issues not just people and never on gossip. While there will be political coverage from writers like Kimberly Hagen concerning the Biden Presidency; my focus as the editor in chief is to bring theology and philosophy to the practical world concerning global concerns. 

Digital liberty, Corporate Tyranny, Food Politics, Climate Change, Sustainability, Abortion, Religious Freedom, Free Speech are all matters requiring redress. This year, I will personally be bringing forth concerns from around the world in order to build a coalition in the name of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. 

Virtue is required. Faith in God is a necessity. Truth and justice must be directives for us to obtain liberty. Rediscovering the meaning of education beyond the laptop are as important as defining a true Republic away from broken democracies. Our goal is to accomplish peace, goodness, and morality as means of transcendence for a society desperate for life and purpose; hope and meaning. 

Truth In Focus (TIF), All Things Veritas (ATV), MereBeautyInTruth (MBIT), EKR Report, and the newest to the network, Philosophers Rex, will all be receiving much needed care. In doing so I must split up my time wisely and productively. TIF specifically will become a weekly report minus specials that I shall continue such as my monthly Visual Philosophy series. ATV will turn to monthly posting as well with a TIF podcast and Christ the Coffee series returning. Apologies but I am a one man show still. It takes time. Yet, there is much to be done and added. Lastly, the Substack EKR Report will return to some normalcy as continue to share more of my personal life and thoughts with the world outside of TIF and ATV networks. As Philosophsarus Rex (also Substack), I am proudly beginning this journey with Thomas Doane as we enter a philosophy program together. There are still kinks for us to work out, but expect at least weekly posting to begin tonight.

There is no ship too large for this journey. Join us in helping make a better world for the future. 

Sincerely, 

Edward Kyle Richey

America’s Identity Crisis

(Opinion)

By Kimberly Hagen

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts (Transcript of President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796)

Our democracy works when this nation has a fair balance of power and transparency, but from what we witnessed this election year was a travesty to modern American democracy. 

So as we stand here, looking down the barrel of what appears to be a very long legal battle, Americans are exhausted. Because this election year wasn’t just about the election nor who would be the “lesser of the two evils” and certainly not about America’s soul. You can sell yourself to the devil, you can only freely give yourself to God. 

It is about our identity.

The identity in our freedoms that have been bound so tightly by the blood of men and women who have died for it, that the devil himself would have to tear it apart.

I recently asked a friend of mine who served in the Marines what it meant to him to serve his country. 

America is the light in a world of darkness.  We all owe it to future generations to do something to make the country and in turn the world a better place. There are many ways to serve that are just as important and noble as the military. If we forget the sacrifices made by our forefathers we will no doubt have to relive them.

The United States of America is the longest standing representative republic in the world, and if your happiness is riding on if “your guy” wins the election, you will be nothing but constantly disappointed. Liberty does not come from man, it derives from the Creator. The maker of Heaven and Earth; the Alpha and the Omega; the First and the Last; the Beginning and the End. 

All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For our friends who are on the other side of the nation’s identity crisis, I suggest you take a walk around a local military cemetery. If possible, may I suggest Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. Atop a hill sits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The white marble sarcophagus depicts three carved Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. Inscribed on the back of the Tomb are the words:

Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God

The guards are changed every hour, on the hour, from October 1 to March 31. From April 1 through September 30 another change is added to the half hour. The tomb is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. During nighttime hours the measured and precise step of the on duty sentinel remains unchanged into the daylight. The guard takes 21 steps and then pauses for 21 seconds after his about face to begin his return walk. The significance of ’21’ reflects the twenty-one gun salute, the highest honor given to any military or foreign dignitary. 

This is my message to my countrymen:

It is time to rise up. Rise up and show this nation what our forefathers died to protect. We need to not only speak our truth but to live it out in our everyday lives. Show the world the goodness and love that we learn, not from man, but from the teacher Himself, Jesus Christ.  The promise that he made when he died on that cross; bound by nails, and blood ran red, so that we can have real freedom. It is time to drink from the streams of liberty my friends and rediscover that source has, and always will be, God. 

In closing I leave you with Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

 Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

“For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

TIF Podcast: November 3rd Is Here

Click Link: November Issue 2020

The Left’s Feminist Narrative Killer

(November Issue 2020)

By Kimberly Hagen

“Her very existence repudiates the left’s binary thinking about womanhood, that women have to deny what makes women different from men to achieve professionally. And that’s why they hate her.” – Joy Pullman

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is debunking all the leftist well spun narratives. She goes against everything the anti women coalition and what they stand for with her husband, 7 kids, and her unfaltering faith and her quickly advanced career. ABC poked holes into their well manicured doctrine as the lefts finely crafted web of lies began to unravel. 

During their anti-women’s marches, some stand with signs saying, “I want to break glass ceilings!” Yet, when a woman is being considered for the highest court in the land, we begin to see the irony drip from their playbook. They can’t wrap their “open minds”  about how Christianity isn’t something one can simply define. With all of its ambiguity and “rules” they would have to follow. 

It should be no surprise to the left that in fact not only do Christian women have their own minds but they can also choose to be mothers and doctors; teachers and scientist; lawyers and even a Supreme Court Justice.

The hearings continued on about how a Justice Barrett would force us back to a time where women will be fearful of strong work force discrimination and the rights of women would be rolled back. Conclusions were drawn from a woman, who has four daughters, will somehow take the power out of the lawmakers hands into her own. Democrat leaders poked and prodded at ACB to see if she would crack under their hypotheticals and tiresome questioning over the Second Amendment, Affordable Care Act, and Roe v. Wade. Under the Code of Conduct for US Judges are included the ethical canons that apply to federal judges and provides guidance on their performance of official duties and engagement in a variety of activities. Barrett stated, “Judges can’t just wake up one day and say ‘I have an agenda. I like guns. I hate guns. I like abortion. I hate abortion.’ and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world.” She said she’d “keep an open mind” on any case coming before the court.

As a self described originalist, like her mentor Justice Antonin Scalia, Senator Chris Coons claimed that she will follow suit to how he has ruled. “I hope that you aren’t suggesting that I don’t have my own mind,” Barrett said, “or that I couldn’t think independently or that I would just decide like, ‘Let me see what Justice Scalia has said about this in the past.’ ” I assure you I have my own mind.”

In a recent Vogue article, Michelle Ruiz writes, “white women voters are establishing themselves as maddeningly, confusingly . . . unsisterly.” 

“It’s tempting, in light of all this, to want to give up on white women. But even if we see history for what it is and adjust our expectations accordingly, the fact remains that white women make up a voting bloc that is too massive to ignore or simply write off.”

The goal post of equality has moved from rights over our own body and equal pay to abortions on demand and free birth control. Without them, they will divert to some perverted idea of the Handmaids Tale and must stay submissive. They assume white Christian women go aimlessly into a voting booth, checking the red box like our patriarchal husbands who command over us (sarcasm insertion complete). 

The goal post of equality has moved from rights over our own body and equal pay to abortions on demand and free birth control.

Since the beginning Satan has tried to drive a wedge between God and His creatures. Genesis 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Satan deceived Eve by causing her to make her decision based on what she could see and not what her emotions and reason told her to be right, even when it was contrary to what God had already told her. Eve thought that if she and Adam ate the fruit they would gain infinite wisdom and live forever.

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide you a way out so that you can stand up under it.” 

For Christ to accomplish God’s will, he had to face Satan and prevail. In Matthew 4, Christ is presented as one who served faithfully regardless of opposition. Showing temptation doesn’t mean to succumb to failure. It should be an encouragement to all that find themselves as pawns in Satans clever underhanded plans. 

Just like the wedge of the enemy the unsuccessful attempts to make ACB one of their own was a devastating blow to feminists everywhere. It should be no surprise to the left that in fact not only do Christian women have their own minds but they can also choose to be mothers and doctors; teachers and scientist; lawyers and even a Supreme Court Justice. That we can choose to show our large families love and stand firm in a boardroom. It is a loud cry for Christian woman to stand true to who you are. Do not let anyone create a narrative other than the one God has written for you and your life.