Addison Hodges Hart and His Son Making Light of Shia LaBeouf's Conversion to Latin Rite Catholicism

Shameless.  But predictable.

One More From Jerycho

Don't miss this one:

(And see this one below.)

A Much Needed Musical Diversion: Kyrie Eleison

Whatever Does He Mean?

Here is Addison Hodges Hart at his Facebook page today:

The following are a couple of interpretations of what Joyce meant:

"The majority of readers of James Joyce’s Ulysses tend to associate its most famous line, “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake,” with Stephen Dedalus’s intention in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man to overcome his past of rigid national and religious tradition."

"Feeling that some "wisdom" is being expected of him in Nestor (and not just sardonic replies), Stephen weighs an answer to the triumphalist version of history that he has been hearing from Deasy: benighted Jews eternally cursed by enlightened Christians, anarchic fenians held at bay by resolute Tories, spendthrift Catholics bested at the bank by thrifty Protestants. His counter-vision is a simple statement of despair: "History...is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." The metaphor implies that human history is no place to look for enlightenment or justice."

Now, I confess I don't know Addison's intent in posting this meme since he offers no commentary, but a couple of thoughts come to mind:

1) Anyone who follows Mr. Hart on his Facebook page would find it difficult to escape the conclusion that he is a perennialist.  I find little if anything discernably Christian in his posts.  Rather, he seems to embrace the proposition that all religions point back to a universal metaphysical truth which the dogmas of the various religions have occluded, which truth is discerned only by the "wise".  If I am reading him correctly, what he is championing is a modern form of gnosticism;

2) If my interpretation is correct, his religious views seem to be in concert with some of the latest philosophical musings of his brother David Bentley Hart, whose musings have been negatively assessed by a traditional Anglican scholar, Gerald McDermott, and especially those DBH sets forth in his recent book Tradition and Apocalypse.

McDermott:

But in defending his book Tradition and Apocalypse against my “ludicrously inaccurate” review, David Bentley Hart only confirms my accuracy. When he insists that his book “is a defense of tradition” against my charge that he declares the Christian tradition bankrupt, we are tempted to ask which tradition he thinks he is defending. For it is a strange defense of Christian tradition to say that until the apocalypse it is “nothing more than an impenetrable enigma,” that the “Jesus of history” and the “Christ of faith” have no “convincing synthesis,” that the so-called “intrinsic unity” of Christian tradition “is an illusion—or even perhaps a lie,” that “the dogmatic content of tradition . . . appears to be full of odd disjunctions and contradictions,” and that “perhaps, of course, the entire tale is an illusion at the end of the day, a fable Christians have told themselves over the centuries in order to carry themselves through the dark places of this world.”

Hart claims to be shocked that I question his regard for the Nicene creedal tradition. He points to his statement that Nicene orthodoxy was “a genuinely rational and perhaps necessary synthesis of the tradition of the past.” But this self-proclaimed champion of Nicaea also says that Nicene Christology lacked “biblical attestation” and that it’s plausible that the Arians were “more faithful to Scripture” than the Fathers at Nicaea. . . .

Hart concludes his denunciation of my review with some revealing statements. He has “never been especially concerned about terms like ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘heterodoxy.’” He “was never a champion of the kind of Christianity” I believe in, creedal orthodoxy. From the first, he has been “a metaphysical monist of the Neoplatonic and Vedantic variety.” In other words, Hart has never been a man of the Church, devoted to its orthodoxy, dedicated to the emerging wisdom of the Christian community and its Great Tradition. He is an independent religious thinker who urges his readers to adopt his own private method of theological interpretation. Toward the end of Tradition and Apocalypse, he tells believers they can liberate themselves by “a peculiarly modern maxim: sapere aude—dare to be wise.” In the end, he implies, the truth about God is something that individuals must figure out for themselves. Hart is a lonely theologian, and he would leave us alone, apart from the Christian community who have thought together about redemption by the God of Israel.

Their brother Fr. Robert Hart will likely denounce the mere report of the evidence as "libel", as is his wont. I have screenshots of his hurling the charge of libel at critics of DBH's That All Shall Be Saved.  Words mean things, however, and when they've been made public, well, one is stuck with John Adams' observation, "Facts are stubborn things."

But maybe I haven't interpreted the facts correctly.  That's for Addison and David to address if they choose to.   That being said, I think McDermott is on DBH like white on rice, and I suspect if he read Addison's views he would draw similar conclusions.

For The Record

Fr. Hart claims in his latest blog entry that I "apparently . . . believe that political support for the former President, of which I am incapable because of my conscience, is the new standard for both conservatism and orthodoxy."

Well, I am grateful that he used the them "apparently", for what "appears" to him is not the case at all.  I do believe, however, that traditional Anglicanism necessarily commits us to some form of traditional conservatism, and I do believe, as Rod Dreher wrote at Touchstone back in 2003, that the Democratic Party is the godless party.  However, the necessity of being a traditional conservative does not necessarily translate into support for any particular GOP politician.  There are other options for tradcons:  voting for a third-party candidate, writing in a candidate, or abstaining from voting altogether with a nostalgic glance at the throne accross the pond. 

I did vote for Trump in 2016 because the godless party's alternative was unthinkable.  I wonder who Fr. Hart voted for in that election.  I sure hope it wasn't Hilary. 

I also believe the persecution of Trump by Democrats and the Deep State during his tenure was scandalous.  However, in the next election I will likely be supporting Ron DeSantis if he runs.

So no, I do not support Trump cultism and I do not believe that supporting Trump is "the new standard for both conservatism and orthodoxy."  My sole beef with Fr. Hart is his over-the-top, vulgar rhetoric that is condemnatory of a huge swath of American voters, namely Republicans (and I would suspect Libertarians too), many if not most of whom are Christians.  "Trumpublican pieces of $#!+"; "children"; "lying pieces of trash"; "vile critters"; "morons"; "corrupt Republican voters".  

Look, I understand political anger.  I harbor a fair amount of political anger myself, but it *behooves us as priests* to try as best we can to temper that anger and control our tongues.  Hart isn't even trying.

"About As Relevant As a Mormon"

And the hits just keep on comin'.  Here's Fr. Hart casting about for help a couple of days ago at The Continuum.

And a screenshot of the comments there thus far:

First of all, my thanks to Dr. Tighe for helping Robert ferret out this "Trumpublican piece of $#!+".  Fr. Hart could have just looked at the "About" page here, but I guess that would have been too easy.

To "Anonymous", it's OAC, not AOC.  An easy mistake to make, I guess, for the careless.  As to whether or not we are "about as relevant as the Mormons", I puzzle at your meaning.  Surely you're not referring to our doctrine.  Not only is the Orthodox Anglican Church unquestionably orthodox and Anglican (hence our name), but we were continuing Anglicanism before Continuing Anglicanism was cool (1964).  Our "footprint" here in the States, Africa, Latin America and Europe is growing, and we continue to receive clergy and parishes from other Contiuning Anglican jurisdictions who have found a true home here. 

G3 Comedy Hour

I received this report today of a short exchange between Fr. Robert Hart and an unnamed member of the G3 Facebook discussion page:

Hart: "It was brought to my attention that I was recently slandered in the Continuing Anglican blogosphere (I hope the pseudonym “Embryo Parson” does not belong to someone in one of our jurisdictions). Anyway, I take the occasion to say, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is still one of the Top Ten for a very good reason. Saint Paul was not ignorant of Satan’s devices. Neither should we be. It is ignorance we cannot afford as we go forward in unity."  ("Libel", Fr., "libel". Not "slander".  Get it straight.)

Respondent: "I'm not sure what was in the post he deleted, but calling a particular purely political point of view "unchristian" speaks more about him than you. I mean, he also has a series calling David Virtue an ally of a demonic plot.

He's OAC. Probably best to just ignore him."

Our respondent is of course referring to this, linked here for reference.  Yes, I called out Mr. Virtue for his irrational rants on the subject of gun control and for his inability to discuss things in a reasonable Christian manner, a gift he shares with Fr. Hart, peppering said rants with references to "AHOLE America" and suchlike. But our respondent couldn't have missed the mark more spectacularly when he says that calling a particular purely political point of view "unchristian" speaks more about me than Fr. Hart.  Hart didn't simply present "a particular purely political point of view".  He presented it by vulgarly demonizing the targets of his ire, as the screenshots I posted from his Facebook clearly show, eg., "Trumpublican pieces of $#!+".  And that's what's unchristian.

I hope our respondent, if he reads this, musters the stones to talk with me about it, whether privately or here in the comments section.

But I won't hold my breath.  He'd spare himself some monumental embarrassment if he just ignored me, and therefore that's exactly what I expect him to do.

Bumping This for Some Necessary Context

Peter Hitchens on Anglicanism and Traditionalist Conservatism.

"Trumpublican Piece of $#!+"

These are the words of a priest, Robert Hart, who claims to be "in good standing" with the Anglican Catholic Church and whose standing there, moreover,  is "excellent in fact."

A priest.

Just let that sink in. 

Educating Robert

Fr. Hart uses the terms "libel" and "slander" alternatively in his complaint that I have made further public his already public Facebook posts in which he hurls coarse invective against Republicans, Trump supporters and critics of Anthony Fauci.  He seems oblivious to the fact that slander and libel are two different things:

"Though many people use 'slander' and 'libel' interchangeably, the words have distinct meanings—libel is written, while slander is spoken."

So, the term he should consistently use is "libel", but he should understand as well that making further public his already public inflammatory posts is not libel.  He can ask his attorney if he doesn't believe me.  I haven't defamed him; he's defamed himself, and I'm just pointing it out.  As I noted in a post below, if you play stupid games on your public Facebook page, expect to win stupid prizes.

E-Mails Received from Fr. Hart Tonight

Update, 8/27 - the plot thickens?  E-mail No. 3:

"Name: Fr. Hart

Your Email: _____ @_.com

Subject: Another one more thing

Message: My Ordinary is Archbishop Haverland, Metropolitan of the ACC. I also received very supportive word yesterday from Bishop Chad Jones, Archbishop of the APA, who has launched an inquiry into what you did to me. Brother: I am not not the one in hot water. Whatever your problem is with me, you had better sort it out for your own sake. My standing is good, excellent in fact. But you are now on the fringe."

 SMH.

_____________________________

I just received these two emails:

"Name: Fr. Hart

Your Email: _____ @_.com

Subject: Identify yourself

Message: Inasmuch as you have committed slander against an ACC priest in good standing, I ask for you to stop hiding behind a pseudonym and identify yourself. If you are a priest it is up to your bishop to censure your behavior. Such slanderous posts as that trash by you is utterly sinful. Some bishops are aware of the post, and one launched an inquiry to find out who you are.  You are currently on thin ice. Your public conduct is a slander and a disgrace. It is necessary for you to post a retraction and make a public apology to me. The rest is for your bishop to decide. Probably you should be suspended from active ministry for a time. But that is his call."

"Name: Fr. Hart

Your Email:_____ @_.com

Subject: One more thing

Message: Your slanderous post had better be removed from your blog now if it’s still up. You’re in enough trouble as it is. By the way; nobody with any moral character uses the stupid term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” anymore; no one with any sense of right and wrong could be foolish enough to still be using it. Now remove your slanderous post. Then post the retraction and apology. It will be better for you to do it prior to being compelled to do what’s right."

As I said in a comment at that post, the irony is rich.  Absolute la-la land.  A sad case indeed.

Anyone who spends just a little time and energy poking around my blog a bit will find my name and the jurisdiction in which I serve.  If it is true that some unnamed bishop has "launched in inquiry" into me, which I doubt, I challenge him to chime in here publicly and comment on the screenshots I have posted from Mr. Hart's Facebook page, and then explain to us all whether he has been admonished to tone down his unchristian public rhetoric, and if he has been so admonished why he isn't under discipline.  This SHOULD be an internal ACC matter, but since Fr. Hart has long been behaving  like this online, it's time to force the issue publicly.

8/27 Update -   Commenting in a Facebook discussion in which I am involved, a Contining Anglican bishop concurs:

"I gave up on that hate-filled narcissist ages ago. His rants and rage are an obsession, and his damage to the image of the ACC is shameful. . . . Nowhere in most of his writings can you sense the love of Christ; just the anger of a bitter and sad man."

Addison Hodges Hart on Christian Nationalism

On his Facebook page Addison identifies as a "Member of the Anglican Communion (Diocese of Europe)".  It's always a hoot when left-leaning Anglicans such as Mr. Hart  decry white Christian Nationalism when Anglicanism was the creation of white Christian Nationalism, including the book from which they pray.  These folks never fail to amuse.  

Also . . .  The Real History of the Crusades.

Addison further amuses me by posting on his Facebook page a tribute to St. Bernard of Clairvaux.  The irony is rich.  You can't make this stuff up.

Fr. Robert Hart: Facebook Screenshots Speak a Thousand Words

Absolutely delightful public Facebook posts from Fr. Robert Hart, a priest canonically resident in the Anglican Catholic Church, where I was received as a layman into Continuing Anglicanism but am now canoncially resident as a priest in the Orthodox Anglican Church, and in saying that I mean to cast no aspersions on the ACC.  I have fond memories of my time there, especially of my interactions with now retired bishop Denver Presley Hutchens, who would have likely ordained me a deacon if I had stayed there, and my time at St. Mary's Anglican Catholic Church in Denver.  Please do not construe the following as any kind of reflection on the ACC.

Anyway, last night I posted a blog entry containing these screenshots with commentary, but since Fr. Hart complained to me that my commentary was both "sinful" and libelous (which it wasn't), in order to "repent" of my "sin" and assuage his petulant indignation I have decided to take down that post and post here instead the  sceenshots, and let them speak for themselves without the prior commentary.  No doubt he will construe this as an admission of wrongdoing; I know his online antics too well, but I concede nothing.   So here I ask my readers just to focus on the content of the screenshots, devoid of the commentary to which he objected, and draw their own conclusions.

You know, Hart's Facebook page is public and I'm guessing has been for quite some time, so when you post what you post on a public page and you play stupid games there, expect to win stupid prizes.

By the way, if anyone thinks that Christians who are critical of Anthony Fauci are guilty of bearing false witness, he needs to read RFK Jr. on the matter.  (No "Trumpublican POS" he.)  This is the definitive work on Fauci's corruption.  He is not a good man, and the fact that Fr. Hart thinks otherwise is yet one more position he holds that is illustrative of his overall political delusion, which he shares with his two left-leaning brothers.  All three of them come down on the wrong side of almost everything, but then, that's what socialism and other forms of leftism demand.

"All organizations that are not actually right-wing will over time become left-wing.^" - O'Sullivan's First Law.  True of individuals as well.   Related musings of mine here:  Peter Hitchens on Anglicanism and Traditionalist Conservatism

Anglicanism

Collect for the 10th Sunday of Trinity

The Collect for the 10th Sunday after Trinity from the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), set to the beautiful music of Thomas Mudd.

For those not acquainted with Anglicanism, a "Collect" is a short prayer that appears in our liturgy and daily offices (Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer). Last Sunday was the 10th Sunday after the feast of the Holy Trinity, and we prayed this prayer near the beginning of last Sunday's Holy Communion service and it will continue to be prayed in our Morning and Evening Prayers from the BCP this week.

"LET thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open unto the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

What's Up With Fr. Robert Hart?

I'm not sure what has happened to him, but it seems to be in concert with the spiritual fall of his two brothers, David Bentley Hart and Addison Hodges Hart,  who seem to have departed from orthodox Christianity for some sort of perennialism.  Robert, while apparently still orthodox and a priest canonically resident in the Anglican Catholic Church, is going into some dark, angry place.  He seemed to be a mostly kind, reasonable and scholarly fellow when I first met him online back around 2008.  His older articles at the blog The Continuum are still today very valuable to those who are seeking to learn about Continuing Anglicanism, but something seems to have happened to his spirit a few years ago, and these screenshots are indicia. Nowadays, in my experience anyway, he just snarls at his critics and rarely if ever engages them rationally. I know several priests who have blocked him on Facebook.  I had to remove him from my own Facebook discussion group on Continuing Anglicanism. Today I deleted the link to The Continuum blog from my sidebar and a few other references to him in my blog articles.  (It's not because The Continuum isn't an excellent Anglican blog.  It is.  It's just that I no longer want to send people his way.)

Where is his Ordinary in all this?

As these recent screenshots from his Facebook page indicate, he apparently has a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndome (TDS), hates Republican voters and has absolutely no sense of priestly bearing. 

Are all his parishioners Democrats?  Are they all TDSers like him? That's hard to imagine since the Anglican Catholic Church and other Continuing Anglican jurisdictions tend to be very politically conservative.  Since I live in North Carolina I just might pay a visit to his parish St. Benedicts in Chapel Hill one day to observe, hoping he doesn't throw me out as a "Trumpublican piece of $#!+".

Let us pray he snaps out of it.  Seriously.

P.S.:  If anyone of you out there thinks that Christians who are critical of Anthony Fauci are guilty of bearing false witness, read RFK Jr. on the matter.  This is the definitive work on Fauci's corruption.  He is not a good man, and the fact that Fr. Hart thinks otherwise is illustrative of his overall political delusion.

Requiem for David Bentley Hart

First Things recently posted these two articles by The Rev. Dr. Gerald McDermott, a traditional Anglican priest and scholar, on the downward trajectory of David Bentley Hart:

Hart's Turn To Heterodoxy

A Lonely Hart

I urge you two read both articles, including DBH's response linked in the second one, which only illustrates McDermott's point about DBH's penchant for vituperation in response to his critics.  DBH is a great mind; just ask him.  But he's a nasty soul. (Seems to run in the family.)

More unfortunately, it appears he's run off the rails, abandoning Orthodoxy for perennialism.  Keep an eye on his future to see just where he ends up.  I hope it is back in Orthodoxy, I mean true Orthodoxy, but I am not optimistic.  

Man Up

"What he essentially says is: man up!"

And buy and learn to use an AR-15.

David Virtue's Irrational Hoplophobia - Postscript

I don't know whether I should expect a response from David Virtue to this series of rebuttals.  He has banned me from his Facebook page and has apparently prohibited me from commenting at the Virtue Online web site and his Facebook page dedicated thereto, but I won't respond in kind.  I will keep the comments section here open for him should he muster the resolve to reply.  That goes as well for anyone who takes his side on this issue.  If he chooses to reply publicly elsewhere, I will copy and post that reply here for dissection.

For those of you who may be wondering why an Anglican priest is so adamant about this hot button political issue, I will repeat what I said here:

All liberals and some conservatives (religious and political) will write me off when I say that American gun control activism is of the Evil One. I don't give a tinker's damn about their opinions.  I really do believe that my former and present gun-rights activism constitutes a war against the devil. That's my story and I am sticking to it. Hear me out.

First, for the devil to achieve his goals against traditional Christian culture, he is going to have to wage an intense war against those parts of the former Christendom that harbor gun cultures. He has been largely successful throughout the Commonwealth due to its benighted Hobbesian deference to government. The citizens of the UK, Canada, Austrialia, New Zealand et al. have essentially surrendered their arms to the state. And that having been done, just look at how that those states are now coming against the traditional rights of Englishmen and the Church. Our American Founding Fathers knew this could happen, they warned us about it, and they therefore set some things into fundamental American law, arguably the most important of which is the right to keep and bear arms.

Second, in John 8:44 Jesus said that Satan "was a murderer from the beginning." And so he takes GREAT delight in advancing his war against traditional Western culture, liberty and the Church by sending crazed gunmen to slaughter children. He gets two for the price of one.

I am convinced that I am accurately assessing this thing. Change my mind.

And that being what it is, I excoriate conservative Christians who are in a dalliance with liberal hoplophobes, including a few trad Anglicans I know.  For some inscrutable reason they find themselves hauling water for religious leftists.  I find it just absolutely astounding.

So I will just come out and say it right here with reference to C.S. Lewis' "The Last Battle": if you support banning weapons like the AR-15, you serve Tash (though you might get let off the hook if you're Puzzle).

You need to understand that I absolutely believe disarmament laws of the type Virtue supports *are of the devil*.  That is a belief based not only on historical observation, but yes, even on biblical principles and the mind of the Church with respect to the issues of self-defense and just wars.  I welcome all comers who demur, provided they do so with a commitment to facts and logic.

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ 

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Communitarians, Neorepublicans and Guns:  Assessing the Case for Firearms Prohibition, David B. Kopel and Christopher C. Little, Maryland Law Review, Volume 56, Issue 2 (1997)

David Virtue's Irrational Hoplophobia - Part 6 in a Series

This is the latest tirade from David Virtue in his quixotic campaign to move the United States to enact the kind of draconian gun control legislation other countries have.  Here he rhetorically turns his back on us "AHOLE Americans" and addresses his friends in the countries mentioned in a condescending attempt to explain us to them.   Again, I respond in italicized bold:

"TO ALL MY FRIENDS IN ENGLAND, EUROPE, CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, SOUTH AMERICA AND AFRICA. . . .

You write and ask me why is there such an obsession with guns in this country.

Many who die are suicides which, if there were not the easy availability of guns most would still be alive today. I knew two fathers who lost sons to suicide because loaded hand guns were in the home. In 2021 that figure was 24,000 and rising, about 70% of all deaths. The total number of killings topped 45,222 in 2021. At the present murder rate, it could easily reach 50,000 by the end of 2022. That’s the equivalent of the city of Nelson, NZ or Horsham, England."

I wonder how "Dr." Virtue reaches the conclusion that most deaths by suicide wouldn't have happened had it not been for the easy availability of guns.  I'm calling on him here to publicly explain that.

I also wonder why Virtue, in accordance with logical consistency, doesn't address the easy availability of alcohol, which "causes" three times as many deaths annually as the easy availability of guns do.  I'm calling on him here to publicly explain that one as well.

As to why guns are easily available, well, I have addressed in previous parts of this series, but Virtue sums it up in the next sentence:

Guns are held in the name of freedom and something called the Second Amendment.

Yes, "something" called the Second Amendment.

"The 2nd amendment was written at a time of single shot flintlock rifles. The 2nd amendment never envisaged the general populace buying or owning an AR-15 or AK 47."

I have addressed this silly argument in Part 3.

It never envisaged an 18-year-old who is too young to buy liquor walking into a gun store and buying a loaded semi-automatic AR-15 and then walk into a school and slaughter children.

I wonder how Virtue knows what the Founding Fathers envisaged. Perhaps he should public explain this one too.  As I've already demonstrated, the Founding Fathers were learned and intelligent Englightenment men who were aware of all manner of developing technologies, some of them involved in that development (Benjamin Franklin and electricity).  As to firearms, they knew of the Puckle Gun and the Giradoni Rifle, both prototypes of automatic fire weapons. They knew what primitive firearms technology was, how it was evolving, and where it was likely to go, and I maintain that if they were alive today they'd be on the side of us "gun nuts." Their political philosophy would demand it.  The likely knew that evolving technologies would in many cases mean increased dangers, but they would accept those potential dangers, especially when rights are involved, in accordance with a cost-benefit analysis.  In other words, they knew that liberty could be dangerous, but they chose liberty over security instead.

Today, these slaughters are the Republicans’ human sacrifices to the 2nd amendment. The most recent killing in Illinois, a 21-year-old white male bought not one but five weapons, two were semi-automatic AR-15s. 

"These slaughters are the Republicans’ human sacrifices to the 2nd amendment."  Here again, as is his wont, Mr. Virtue resorts to angry invective and inflammatory language, which while not technically libelous, is libelous in spirit.  It is a form of false witness.

We are repeatedly told that guns don’t kill people, people kill people, probably the stupidest one liner in the history of one liners. The killers are both black and white. Black on black killings predominate in cities; in the broader populace killings it is white and people of different ethnic groups. Another fiction is that there are more deaths in Democratic states than Republican. A person wanting to go on a killing spree in Illinois can buy a gun in Indiana and cross state lines with nobody checking.

Yet in all that dog of a comment he never explains why the slogan is stupid.  Is it not the case that metallic manufactured items don't do things unless used or set in motion by people?   What a strange metaphysical notion to argue otherwise.  In his 11th Homily on Romans, St. John Chrysostom uses weaponry as an analogy with respect to the role of the flesh in spiritual warfare:

"'Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin...but as instruments of righteousness.'

The body then is indifferent between vice and virtue, as also instruments (or arms) are. But either effect is wrought by him that uses it. As if a soldier fighting in his country's behalf, and a robber who was arming against the inhabitants, had the same weapons for defense. For the fault is not laid to the suit of armor, but to those that use it to an ill end."

So, the argument that guns don't kill people but people kill people is not so stupid at all.  It is true on its face, and even The Goldenmouth would apparently agree.

The US Supreme Court recently upped the ante allowing concealed carry laws in some states thus allowing men and women to carry guns which, on an impulse, or an argument over a parking space one or both parties can pull out their hidden hand weapon and shoot. The gun has now replaced the middle finger. You have been warned. The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide.

And here we are treated to yet another of Virtue's hysterical assessments.  Perhaps it has escaped his notice that 38 states have legalized concealed carry, yet shootings involving licensed carriers over parking spaces and suchlike almost never occur.  Back in the day when we gun-rights activists were fighting for concealed carry, the hoplophobe left predicted mayhem on the streets.

It didn't happen. We proved them wrong, and David Virtue is wrong with them.

Apparently, Jesus wants Americans to be armed to the hilt to kill nonexistent communists living in Boise, Idaho but willing and able to kill their neighbors because any moron can buy and own a gun. Many of the killers write manifestos declaring their intention and nobody challenges them because of free speech issues. Threats abound to people who oppose the NRA an organization so corrupt it is under investigation by the attorney general of New York State in connection with its lawsuit that seeks to dissolve the NRA for an alleged pattern of self-dealing.

And there he goes again with his emotive rhetorical overreach.  We gun owners believe "Jesus want's Americans. . . etc., ad nauseam."  Yet another unchristian caricature of American gun owners.

As for the NRA, while some reforms are needed, our organization will survive.  Even one of its critics says so:

But while it may be tempting to cheer the organization’s troubles, the NRA isn’t dead yet. “It will reconstitute itself without a problem,” an anonymous former Trump adviser told Politico on Friday. The NRA isn’t the only gun-rights organization in the U.S., either; the Politico piece even mentions a few, like Save the Second and Gun Owners of America, and some view the NRA as being unacceptably moderate. Even if the NRA did shut its doors, it seems entirely likely that some other group will attract the group’s donors. As long as the money flows — and it will — gun-rights lobbyists will find jobs.

This past weekend on July 4. . . . (long, meandering rant snipped here in the interest of brevity.  You can read it at his site.  It's basically a litany of woes about gun violence.)

With all the guns already in existence there is no stopping the killings. None. Not only can teenagers buy semi-automatic weapons, rising illegal drug use with its own gun culture, and the easy purchase of guns, no one is safe anywhere any more in America. Red flag laws will be flouted. Gun laws in some states are as open as a colander, the massacres will continue, they will never stop.

Well then I guess there's no stopping the killings, because all the guns already in existence are not going to magically disappear, though Virtue may rant and rave and wish otherwise until he's blue in the face.  Nor will the sale and purchase of millions of fireams be prevented in the future.  That being the case, Virtue and his fellow hoplophobes in the the US, the Anglosphere, Europe and South America are going to have to find another narrative, you know, a narrative that is far more realistic, like praying for national spiritual renewal and hardening targets.

My wife and I never shop together any more in big box stores, only in open farmers markets where you can duck behind a tree if some NRA loving gun slinger pulls out his semi-automatic weapon and starts shooting.

Poor David and his wife, living in such abject, irrational fear of us "NRA loving gun slingers".  But now that he's alerted us publicly, I'm going to tell all my fellow NRA members to start frequenting open farmers markets and look for the Virtues hiding behind a tree.  ;)

Seriously, here once again Virtue resorts to an unchristian, vituperative attack on American gun owners, most if not the vast majority of whom are Christians of one form or another. Like I said, this is standard fare from him.  If Virtue were not an Anglo-Protestant but rather an Anglo-Catholic, as a priest I would enjoin him to repent and go receive the sacrament of Confession.  But he is an Anglo-Protestant, so as a priest I would counsel him to confess to God for his sinful acerbic rants which are devoid of any degee of Christian reason or charity.

The future of America is all downhill. Our politics are a mess, evangelicals are mostly vacuous, theologically empty-headed “Christian” nationalists who can’t figure out the difference between the Kingdom of God and the “Kingdom” of America, while a former president controls the Republican Party. Democracy is on the line. Civil War is a real possibility if people continue to promote and believe the Big Lie. And America has millions of guns to make it happen.

Three things:

1) We're treated once again to an instance of Virtue's unchristian inflammatory rhetoric, devoid of all reason, and what's more, it's an instance of the ad hominem fallacy;

2) It's also an instance of the hasty generalization fallacy.  Virtue can't pretend to know the mind of Evangelicalism at large on the basis of his limited experience;

3) And I always laugh at modern Anglo-Protestants who rant and rave about "Christian Nationalism", when Anglo-Protestantism is the natural offspring of English Christian Nationalism (Erastianism).  Virtue prays his Offices and observes the service of Holy Communion from a book that emerged from English Christian Nationalism.

But that is a topic for another day

FOOTNOTE: England, NZ and Australia all banned semi-automatic weapons after mass shootings. They have never had a repeat mass shooting.

FOOTNOTE: Causal fallacy, and once again, the US is not England, NZ, Australia, Canada or any other statist nation in the Anglosphere, Europe or South America.  We are the United States of America, and in the United States of America the right to keep (possess) and bear (carry) arms is settled constitutional law. That means hundreds of millions guns including so-called "assault weapons" with their proper furnishings, and an untold number of stockpiled rounds of ammunition.  No gun control laws patterned after the law of New Zealand and Australia will ever be enacted here.  Get used to it, Dr. Virtue.

Postscript