Good morning!

The fake Jesus of the modern age is a virtue-signaling tool of the elite, urging obedience to the whims of the self-anointed intelligentsia. The real Jesus drove them out with a whip. More on that in today’s Reflection.

First, here is the Texas Minute.

– Michael Quinn Sullivan 

Friday, June 11, 2021
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• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said yesterday in Del Rio that next week he will announce a plan for Texas to build a border wall with Mexico. Jeramy Kitchen has the details.
     
• Interestingly, Gov. Abbott has not expressed interest before now in the state building a border wall. He was notably silent on the issue during the recently concluded legislative session, despite State Rep. Bryan Slaton (R-Royse City) proposing House Bill 2862 – which never even received a hearing – to do just that.
    
• This might seem a bit jaded, but could the governor’s newfound interest have something to do with a growing field of GOP primary challengers all coming at him from the right? That list includes humorist Chad Prather, former State Sen. Don Huffines, and possibly Lt. Col. Allen West.

• The only freshman lawmaker in the Texas House Freedom Caucus wants Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick out of office. State Rep. Cody Vasut (R-Angleton) told the Lake Jackson Business Association that he won’t support Patrick’s re-election because he wants someone more “productive” in the office.
       
• Vasut described a more “productive” lieutenant governor as someone who would ensure more House-generated bills pass out of the Senate. His tirade against Patrick – and the Senate – came after he was asked about the House’s failure to pass the marquee election integrity bill. Despite House Speaker Dade Phelan allowing the Democrats to break quorum and kill the bill, Vasut painted the problem as the making of Patrick and the Senate.
       
• Talk about taking the House’s childish “Us versus the Senate” game a bit far… But then, that came to define the legislative session with House Republicans using it as an excuse to help Democrats kill other GOP priorities.
      
• One of the lieutenant governor’s advisors, Sherry Sylvester, disputed Vasut’s legislative math. She added, “the House didn’t appear to want to pass a great deal of conservative legislation, even when it had the support of the overwhelming majority of Republicans — like taxpayer funded lobbying, social media censorship and the ban on transgender sports.”

• Catty Insight: One of Vasut’s House colleague’s told me yesterday that the freshman entered the Texas Legislature in January determined to be “Dade’s bootlicker” and then spent all session perfecting it.

• As school-aged girls across the country face the threat of losing their sport scholarships and opportunities to boys, lawmakers had multiple opportunities to protect the young women.
     
• In our continuing series of autopsy reports on the 87th Legislative Session, Jacob Asmussen explores the fate of legislation designed to address the issue by keeping males out of female sports.
   
• Legislation ensuring male students would not be allowed to compete on specific women’s K-12 interscholastic athletic teams did pass out of the Senate. It was killed in the House through the scheduling tricks of Calendars Committee Chairman Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). 
   
• At the collegiate level, the NCAA allows biological males to intrude on female sports. The NCAA even threatened to move championship games away from Texas if state lawmakers passed the bills to protect women; predictably, Texas’ Republican lawmakers caved. 
      
• Lawmakers ended the session leaving women’s sports at risk. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick recently called on Gov. Abbott to reconvene the Legislature to address the issue among other Republican priorities.

• Meanwhile, the Florida legislature passed – and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed – legislation banning “trans-identified biological males who identify as female from competing in women’s and girls' sports offered by public institutions,” as the Christian Post reported​ last week.
   
• “In Florida, we’re going to do what’s right and we won’t be cowed by pressure from woke corporations. They will not dictate the policies in Florida – not now, not ever. Florida will stand strong and protect women's sports and opportunities.” – Gov. Ron DeSantis

• It’s not just the Biden Administration that is hoisting the gay-pride “rainbow” flag on federal buildings at home and around the world, local governments in Texas are joining in the rush to promote hazardous sexual behavior and gender confusion. Jacob Asmussen has the details.
   
• In Texas’ capital city, the Austin Police Department recently announced new official rainbow police uniform patches and hats, available to the officers during this month.
   
• Maybe the APD should have been defunded after all…?
   
• Meanwhile, the Dallas City Council last year approved their own rainbow version of the city flag, and earlier this month hoisted it over city hall, the police department, and Love Field airport for the entirety of June. City officials claim Dallas is the only city to have an official gay-pride version of its flag.

• The City of Sundown in Texas’ high plains region has become the 31st city in the nation to ban abortion within its jurisdiction. Mark Dickson writes about how it happened.
   
• Sundown is the second city to pass the ordinance in Hockley County this week; the larger City of Levelland passed its ordinance on Monday.

• Claiming she has a conservative record, outgoing Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price is running to replace retiring Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley. Robert Montoya notes that while she didn’t defund the police, taxes have gone up and the city has been identified as a financial “sinkhole” during her tenure.

Friday Reflection: Overturning Tables

The Jesus of the modern age is a diminutive figure, soft and unassuming. This Jesus doesn’t challenge us; just loves to love. This Jesus never raises his voice, but purrs obediently like a neutered kitty. This Jesus also bears no resemblance to the disruptive Jesus of the Gospels. 

The real Jesus was a carpenter in an age when that meant something. He wasn’t the designer-jeans-wearing carpenter of a home remodeling show, who shies away from dirt and dust. He lifted lumber and chiseled rock.  

The real Jesus was described as a shepherd. This wasn’t a euphemism for a gentleman farmer tending domesticated chickens on an oversized cul-de-sac lot. This biblical sort of shepherd had to fight off fearsome beasts and poachers in the wilderness. 

The fake Jesus of the modern age is a model of woke sensibilities, waving an LGBTQ flag while spouting passages from “Critical Race Theory for Dummies.”

The real Jesus spoke forcefully not only about overt sin, but the sin in our thought lives. When Jesus intervened to spare the life of an alleged adulteress, he wasn’t condoning the polygamous and polyamorous sexual indulgences of our age, but forcefully condemning even our lustful thoughts and unnatural desires.

Where the fake Jesus of the modern age preaches a warm inclusivity of the absolute validity of all contradictory beliefs, the real Jesus points to a single, narrow path to righteousness. 

The fake Jesus of the modern age is a virtue-signaling tool of the elite, urging obedience to the whims of the self-anointed intelligentsia.

The real Jesus openly mocked the ill-gotten gains of the ruling-class who profited by imposing extra-biblical rules on the citizenry. The real Jesus had great respect for people who earned their wealth through hard work, yet spoke with open scorn against those who prospered through government dictates.  

In one of my favorite passages of the Gospels, we find the real Jesus overturning the tables of the moneychangers. To be clear, the marketplace did not need or want these “businesses.” Holy scripture did not call for moneychangers to exist as part of Temple worship. No, these were politically connected people profiting off rules created to serve the whims of the rulers by enriching their cronies. Rather than engaging with debate, Jesus simply drove them away with a whip… A whip Scripture tells us He strategically spent considerable time fashioning Himself.

The fake Jesus of the modern age tells what we want to hear; the real Jesus leads us where we need to be.

The fake Jesus points us to eternal hell, while creating a hellish world of slavery on earth. The real Jesus offers salvation in the hereafter, and freedom in the here and now.

We embrace the fake Jesus to our peril. We follow the real Jesus to real joy.