What makes a young man end his life such a flamboyant way? Perhaps the fact that he grew up in the Community of Jesus compound in Massachusetts can provide a clue. The. sect is comprised of about 275 people, 225 of whom “together with another fifty children and young people live as households in thirty privately owned, multifamily homes that surround the church and the guesthouse. This also includes the twenty-five celibate brothers who are living in the ‘Zion Friary’ and the sixty celibate sisters who are living in the ‘Bethany Convent.’”
But are you surprised to learn that the Community of Jesus started to be the target of abuse allegations beginning in the 1990s? Both the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, to which the Community had tried to foster ties, distanced themselves, saying that the sect was not on the same page doctrinally.
Anyway, young Mr. Bushnell joined the Air Force and was working on a software engineering degree. But he also started getting vocal about support for Palestinians after the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7 last year.
Let us never forget the extraordinary courage and commitment of brother Aaron Bushnell who died for truth and justice! I pray for his precious loved ones! Let us rededicate ourselves to genuine solidarity with Palestinians undergoing genocidal attacks in real time! #AaronBushnell#FreePalestine
Cornel West has a lengthy and impressive resume. He’s taught philosophy at both Princeton and Harvard. Currently, he is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary.
Let that sink in. His chair is named for an actual martyr and one of the most exemplary Christians in the history of the faith.
Democratic state Sen. Danica Roem stormed out of the Senate chamber on Monday.
Roem, a biological male who identifies as a woman, left the chamber after asking Sears how many votes would be needed to pass a bill, during which Sears referred to Roem as “sir.” Following Roem’s departure, the legislature went into recess twice before resuming.
“I am not here to upset anyone, I am here to do the job that the people of Virginia have called me to do, and that is to treat everyone with respect and dignity,” Sears said. “I myself have at times not been afforded that same respect and dignity. But in this body, as long as I am president of the Senate, and by the grace of God, I will be treated with respect and dignity, and I will treat everyone else with respect and dignity.”
Sears’s remarks received praise from multiple users on social media, including women’s sports activist and OutKick host Riley Gaines, who joked about living in a time when “it is deemed ‘abhorrent’ to call a man sir.”
This is obviously not the first or even the 500th instance of a person under the delusion that he or she is the sex opposite what the DNA in every cell in his or her body tells us taking offense at not being humored. (In fact, there’s a very good Substack devoted to exposing the trans racket, Reality’s Last Stand. I highly recommend it.)
But it’s a clear-cut microcosm of the whole dynamic.
Someone somewhere has to point out the insanity of indulging people in this destructive delusion. It affects individual lives, families, institutions, even our language, and therefore our ability to communicate meaningfully.
To apply the term “skewed priorities” to this move understates its gravity. It’s not a matter of fitting that in among the actual tending to business with which the State Department is charged. What the hell is that department doing fooling with this garbage at all? Is this among the core principles we wish to present in contrast to the motivations driving our adversaries? I daresay a lot of nations looking to the United States as some sort of bulwark against authoritarian aggression don’t find this encouraging.
But this is where we are as February 2024 draws to a close. It does no good to distract ourselves and pretend it’s not the setting in which we maneuver.
