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Good morning,

It is an uncomfortable thought, but I have come to believe that if our republic is to die, it will have been preceded by whimpers of ecclesiastical acquiescence. I end the week wondering whatever happened to the black robe regiment.

This is the Texas Minute for Friday, October 4, 2024.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan [[link removed]]

Paxton Sues TikTok for Breaching Parental Consent Law Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the Chinese-owned social platform TikTok for violating a new parental consent law aimed at protecting children online. As Brandon Waltens reports [[link removed]], the law prohibits tech companies from sharing minors’ identifying information without parental consent.

TikTok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, employs Chinese Communist Party members and has a subsidiary partially owned by the CCP. The app has more than 150 million users in the United States. Concerns about TikTok’s data harvesting led Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to ban the platform from state-issued devices and networks in 2022.

The Texas law requires digital service providers to register the age of users, prevent harm, create parental control tools, and block advertisers from promoting adult content to minors.RELATED NEWS

Texas is suing major insulin manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers over an alleged conspiracy to inflate insulin prices. Will Biagini has the story [[link removed]].

According to the Office of the Attorney General, insulin manufacturers raised the prices of their insulin drugs up to 1,000 percent by using a pricing scheme that violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The defendants include Eli Lilly, Express Scripts, and CVS Pharmacy. Fort Worth ISD to Pay Outgoing Superintendent Nearly $1 Million Even though Angélica Ramsey resigned as the superintendent of Fort Worth Independent School District as of Oct. 1, she will be paid nearly $1 million until she departs on August 30, 2025. Emily Medeiros details [[link removed]] the lucrative deal taxpayers in Fort Worth are funding.

Ramsey’s brief time at Fort Worth ISD has been plagued with controversy, as many parents and teachers expressed their outrage with Ramsey’s leadership, accusing her of creating a toxic environment and failing Fort Worth students.

Until her employment ends next year, Ramsey's title will be “Ambassador for Public Relations” but she will be on leave until her final day with the district. When asked what duties Ramsey will perform or services she will render, the district did not respond.

The next time someone complains about there not being enough money for teachers, ask them to explain Fort Worth ISD. And, for what it's worth, I'd do no work for FWISD for half that price...RELATED NEWS

Meanwhile, Jorge Arredondo appears on track to serve one of the shortest school superintendent stints in Texas history. Hired by Grand Prairie ISD on July 1, Erin Anderson reports [[link removed]] he has been on paid administrative leave since September 4.

The district had remained tight-lipped about the nature of the suspension, but now it appears related to the district's policy regarding discrimination, harassment, and retaliation against district employees.

Arredondo was given a three-year contract paying him $317,000 annually. He did not attend the board meeting this week. Poll: Texas Voters Believe Colin Allred, Kamala Harris Will Restrict Gun Rights A new poll has found that Texas voters believe Vice President Kamala Harris and U.S. Senate candidate Colin Allred would work to hamper Second Amendment rights. Luca Cacciatore reports [[link removed]] 76 percent of likely Texas voters think a Harris presidency would “work to restrict access to firearms or limit the type of firearms available to the public.”

Meanwhile, 58 percent said that Allred would help the administration to restrict gun rights. 'Republicans for Allred' Stacked With Former GOP Losers Democrat Senate hopeful Colin Allred has unveiled [[link removed]] a new "Republicans for Allred Coalition" as part of his campaign against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. Ironically, many of the "Republicans" listed [[link removed]] in the coalition have been roundly rejected by Republican voters.

Adam Kinzinger, a former Republican congressman from Illinois who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump, will lead the coalition. Kinzinger moved to Harris County after deciding not to run for re-election.

Former State Rep. Jason Villalba will join him as co-chair. Defeated in the Republican primary in 2018, Villalba also ran an unsuccessful campaign for Dallas mayor in 2019, coming in seventh place out of nine candidates on the ballot.

Other has-been washouts in the "coalition" include disgraced former state lawmakers Bennett Ratliff and Todd Smith. Friday Reflection

Where is the Black Robe Regiment? [[link removed]]

by Michael Quinn Sullivan

The Reflections Podcast [[link removed]]

Shepherds were tough, hardy men. They guarded their flocks patiently, passionately, and—when necessary—brutally. Among the last things a ravenous wolf or thief would feel when threatening a flock of sheep would be the crushing blow of the shepherd’s staff or a rock striking their head. The protection of the flock was of paramount importance.

The soft shepherds leading most Christian churches today amount to little more than an ironic joke. With iced decaf soy lattes filling their Stanley mug, they seek after the faint applause of the godless elite. Our church leaders have abandoned their flocks to the spiritual and physical dangers of a fallen world.

Pulpits have long fallen silent on calling out the “fashionable” sins of the cultural elite—and when they do, it is brief and delivered with an apologetic tone. Far too many pastors have resorted to the safety of sermons that treat Scripture like a second-rate self-help book.

The left has been pulling out the threads of the nation’s moral fabric with the tacit approval of our clergy.

Jesus spoke forcefully against the political and religious corruption of His day. On page after page of the Gospels, we find Him speaking out against those ravenous wolves who used their power to abuse the people. In today’s Christian churches, such talk by Jesus Himself would have Him labeled a “troubler.”

Meanwhile, in the name of “peace and purity,” a sadly large number of pastors avoid confrontation by making a soft capitulation to the ruling elite. Criticism of the government is verboten; honest discussions about confiscatory taxes, abortion, and government schools pushing gender-bending ideology are avoided.

Too many pastors have become unwilling to speak uncomfortable truths in the face of governing power. They do not want to risk offending the sensibilities of the soft leftists in their congregations or the hard leftists in government bureaucracies.

Indeed, critiques of government policies are silenced in most 21st-century churches unless they can be framed in a way that denigrates social and political conservatives.

Congregations get fed an earful of false equivocation about the political parties, “whether you vote for a Democrat or a Republican…” Yet, never is voting for a gender-swapping, gun-grabbing, pro-abortion Democrat criticized as an exercise in Baal-worship, but most of these pastors will happily accuse their congregation of following a “false idol” if they vote for any Republican pledging to cut taxes or protect children.

Worst still, too many pastors have been actively ushering their flocks into the arms of thieves and the mouths of wolves. When they aren’t discouraging political engagement, they are pimping for government programs.

Shepherds should be made of better, sterner stuff. When the Hellenists were kicked from Israel in the second and first centuries B.C., it was a country priest and his sons who led the fight. The life of liberty in America began with exhortations from the pulpit. In the American Revolution, pastors stood literally on the front lines—often armed with a musket in one hand and a Bible in the other.

If liberty is to die here, that death will have been preceded by whimpers of ecclesiastical acquiescence.

We must not allow that to happen. Parishioners must demand unflinching leaders in their churches. Our times demand physical and mental boldness from our pastors, not spiritualized cowardice. We need the land’s pulpits filled with shepherds willing to kill the wolves threatening their flocks.

Now, more than ever, our republic needs a muscular church unafraid of earthly powers and principalities. America’s legacy as a self-governing people will survive and thrive only to the extent our churches are willing to speak truthfully, even forcefully, to and about secular government.

Quote-Unquote

"The Bible tells us there is a time for all things and there is a time to preach and a time to pray, but the time for me to preach has passed away, and there is a time to fight, and that time has come now. Now is the time to fight! Call for recruits! Sound the drums!"

– Rev. John Peter Muhlenberg

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