#david larson

In Ephesians 6 we learn about our Guardian Armor, or the Armor of God! Ephesians 6:17 reads, “Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

There is soo much more I could say, but be blessed with the knowledge that IF you don’t repent, The Lord WILL COME AND FIGHT AGAINST YOU WITH THE SWORD OF HIS OWN MOUTH! STUDY, STUDY, STUDY!!! The better off you will be.

One last scripture for today:

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

-1 Timothy 6:12

The devout and observant Christian is undoubtedly aware of the precarious state of the faith in our modern world and is becoming increasingly open to out-of-the-box solutions. One such possible solution is to take a cue from our bearded Amish neighbors and form rule-based religious communities—but maybe without the horse and buggy.

A brief peak at the current state of American Christianity should disabuse anybody of the notion that this is unnecessarily drastic.

America’s traditional Mainline Protestant denominations are bleeding out so quickly they will likely be gone within 20 years. That is not my prediction, but their own. The ELCA (the main Lutheran branch) projects they’ll only have 16,000 worshippers by 2041; the PCUSA (the main Presbyterian branch) lost almost 40% of their members in the last decade, causing one analyst to note, “At its current rate of shrinkage the PC(USA) will not exist in about 20 years;” and data for the Episcopal Church shows the same 20-year timeline until the denomination runs out of people in the pews.

More conservative denominations used to chuckle at these headlines and say, “If only they preached the Gospel instead of liberal activism, they’d be growing like us.” But they don’t say that anymore. The Southern Baptist Convention, the largest of the Evangelical churches, has lost 14% of their members since 2006; the Methodists are losing members while in the middle of a brutal split; and for Catholics, according to Bishop Robert Barron while speaking at the 2019 bishops’ annual conference, “Half the kids that we baptized and confirmed in the last 30 years are now ex-Catholics or unaffiliated.”

There is one major exception, though: the Amish—a mustard seed that is growing into a large tree in front of our eyes. The Amish arrived in the United States shortly after their founder, Jakob Ammann, split with the Mennonites in 1693 for being too lax on enforcing their communal rules, as laid out in the Dordrecht Confession of Faith. For the next 200 years, the Amish were just a few eccentric families in Pennsylvania that spoke an archaic Swiss German. By 1920, these few families had grown to 5,000 people and since then have doubled about every 15 to 20 years, including between 2000 and 2020 when they doubled to 351,000.

Unless something changes drastically within their culture, this doubling is projected to continue. One demographer, Lyman Stone, showed that at their current rate of growth, they will easily make up a majority of the United States in 200 years. This means the current moment may mark the halfway point between them arriving as a small band of friends and their inheriting the most powerful nation on the planet. They may seem like a backwards remnant of the past, but in reality, they will almost certainly play a major role in the future. This will become more evident after they soon dwarf more well-known churches like the Episcopalians and Lutherans.

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So, when virtually all other Christian groups are seeing plummeting, or at best stagnant, numbers, why are the Amish seeing growth like this? The answers people typically give are that they have a very high birth rate and an over 90% retention rate. But that’s like saying someone is wealthy because they made a lot of money and then saved most of it. It begs the question—how? How do they have such large families—with 6 or 7 children per woman—while the country at large has a below-replacement rate of 1.6 children? And how are they able to keep all those children within their communities?

I believe it all comes down to one thing—the Code—or as the Amish call it, the Ordnung.

The Amish Ordnung is different in each community, but if it strays too far, other communities will no longer associate with that community; so there are limits. While outside observers will just see strict rules about hats and beards and technology use, the Amish see the glue that holds them together as a people.

It’s very important to realize that each rule is chosen as a group and with the goal of strengthening individual virtue (especially humility), family and community ties, and their faith.

As an example, most Amish communities don’t allow phones in their homes, but it’s not because they think phones are inherently evil and ban them completely. They often have shared phone booths at the end of the street to use when necessary and at their places of work. They just don’t have phones in the home because they believe it will take away from the purposes of a home—things like family bonding, chores, and recreation. Nobody who has sat in a room of family and friends all silently swiping at their phones can tell me their concern isn’t warranted.

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The success of this model was discussed by Eric Kaufmann, a political-demography scholar at the University of London, in his provocative 2010 book, Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth?: Demography and Politics in the Twenty-first Century. Kaufmann noted the growth of groups like the Amish and the Haredi Jews (often called the Ultra-Orthodox) and attributed it to their birth rates and strong communities. Haredi Jews, for example, who also live by strict community codes, were only a few percentage points of the Israeli schools in 1960 but are now about a third of students, and he predicts they will very soon eclipse secular Jews. Haredi growth in Brooklyn, New York, is seeing similar growth, with high birth rates and retention.

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Laurence R. Iannaccone’s 1994 study “Why Strict Churches Are Strong,” which has been frequently cited and confirmed since, gives more detail on the success of certain community codes.

Iannaconne found that groups can be strict on items as long as they provide a “close substitute.” Think, for example, of banning social media but then providing a lot of new in-person social opportunities to make up for that sacrifice.

“Strictness works,” he says, but the rules can’t be so strict they make people miserable and drive them away, or as Iannaconne says, “Arbitrary strictness will fail just as surely as excessive strictness.” The rules do have to be strong enough, though, to keep “free-riders” from claiming the benefits of the community without participating. He called these rules “costly signals,” like the sacrifices the Amish make by limiting their clothing styles and technology use. A person would be very unlikely to go through all of those costly steps for community benefits they could get more easily elsewhere. By eliminating free-riders—whose “mere presence dilutes a group’s resources, reducing the average level of participation, enthusiasm, energy, and the like”—they see the reverse, very high levels of participation, enthusiasm, and energy.

It’s not just Amish and Haredi Jews that have seen success with following a community code beyond the laws of the state—think of the monastics who survived in far-flung places relying on The Rule of St. Benedict; knights that followed the Codes of Chivalry; bands of cowboys on the American frontier who stuck close to the Code of the West, which gave detailed guidance on passing strangers on the trail, when to tip your hat, and with which hand you should hold your whiskey; and the tribes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border who have followed the Pashtunwali code since pre-Islamic times.

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Modern Christians interested in starting a rule-based community would need to create some real benefits that are harder to come by in society at large. I’d suggest the basic benefits of a traditional community (help with childcare and schooling, coherent customs on dating and marriage, providing purpose and companionship to the elderly, cultural celebrations and gatherings, friendship, and assistance during hardship) would be plenty.

Then, they could agree together on some basic rules that are costly enough to separate the serious from the free-riders while not being arbitrary or unnecessarily strict. Targeting the rules toward areas that are particular downfalls for modern Americans (promiscuity, pornography, social media, screen-addiction, substance abuse) would be a good start. Agreeing to forego these in this time and culture would almost certainly be a costly enough signal.

Also, many of the rules should take into account issues like abuse of power, cults of personality, convenient personal revelations from God, sexual abuse, and a host of other issues inherent to tight-knit communities (and larger ones for that matter). The ability for a trusted leader to turn out to be an evil psychopath should never be underestimated, so rules should take that likelihood as a given and guard against it. The Amish, for example, draw straws to choose their leaders to avoid jockeying for power.

One last consideration is to what extent “walling yourself off from the modern world,” as Kaufmann said, is appropriate. Kaufmann said that was the best strategy for growth, but growth is not the only thing to weigh. There are also things like loving your neighbors, having an influence on the greater culture, and not stifling curiosity and creativity. Some walls are necessary, like between a teen boy and pornographic websites or between a child and an activist teacher, but a balance between walls and open spaces should be carefully pursued as a group. For example, language is used as a wall for the Amish (who speak Pennsylvania Dutch) and the Haredi Jews (who largely speak Yiddish), but that would likely be a step too far for most communities, as would their highly-detailed clothing restrictions.

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Aren't you forever 26 or something? You're not THAT old, get a grip.

-Says the guy who sits like a shrimp every waking moment.-

Freak Occurrence February day 5 - Celebratory Fire

@freakoccurrencefeburary

CWs: Gunshot wounds

"We really are doing this, huh?" Patrick said.

"Yeah! I mean, what else are we gonna do on New Year's?" David shrugged.

"I don't know. Shoot some fireworks like normal people?"

"It'll be fine, Pat. We're just gonna shoot 'em in the air. It won't even hit us!"

"Okay..."

As the timer ticked down, the two boys raised their guns in the air. Patrick looked around, hoping that no officers would see them.

"Alright! Five... Four... Three... Two... One! Happy new year!" He fired his shot.

Patrick just lowered his gun. "David, this isn't a good idea! What if we get caught?"

"Patrick, it's gonna be fine! We're not even shooting at anything!"

"Still! I think we should go!"

"C'mon, what's the worst that could happen? An anvil is gonna fall on my head?"

David suddenly jerked and slammed his hand on his shoulder, dropping the gun in the process. "Ah fuck!"

"David!" As Patrick ran, he saw blood starting to spread on his shirt. "What did I tell you?"

"Just shut up and help me!"

Patrick nodded, sighing as he gave him a cloth. "Here. Press on it. I'm gonna call an ambulance."

"This is so fucking stupid..." David muttered.

The Last Jewish Gangster: The Early Years by David Larson

In 1944 Brooklyn, newborn Michael J. Hardy is rejected by his mother so she can run with gangster Bugsy Siegel, Hardy’s godfather. Shirley Rook quickly rose to the top of the criminal ranks. As the Queen of New York City crime, she laundered Mob money, ran the city’s largest bookmaking operation, and handed payouts to dirty cops, politicians, and judges. To win his mother’s love and respect,…