Recorder artist Victoria Rigel played two recorders at once in this 2008 performance of O Come, O Come Emmanuel. I accompanied her on the guitar. She adds the second recorder at the beginning of the second verse.
Update (12/23) – Eric Metaxas just tweeted this YouTube video doubling down on his allegation about vote alteration against Eric Coomer. I wonder who is giving Metaxas advice.
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Yesterday, it was made public that Eric Coomer, a staffer at Dominion Voting Systems, has filed a defamation suit against the Trump campaign, Gateway Pundit, Newsmax, and One America News Network. Of interest to regular readers here is that Bonhoeffer author and Trump court evangelical Eric Metaxas was also named in the suit.
Metaxas’ loose allegations and fight to the death mentality may require him to pay some green to Dr. Coomer. Coomer has received death threats and is in hiding right now. We shall see how confident all of these yahoos are in their accusations about Dominion Voting Systems. If they have proof of algorithms switching votes and fraud, then I say to them: defend yourself in court. They don’t and they won’t is my prediction.
Specifically, Metaxas is included in the suit because he interviewed uncritically Joe Oltmann, the man who said Coomer promised Antifa Trump would lose the election: (The Eric Metaxas Radio Show, Joe Oltmann Discusses How A Security Genius at Dominion Voting Promised Antifa Members a Trump Loss, YOUTUBE (Nov. 24, 2020). According to Coomer, Metaxas did not contact Coomer nor attempt to corroborate any of the information.
It will be interesting to see if Metaxas backpedals on these claims. He has some prior experience on that.
Update: As noted in the update at the beginning of the post, Metaxas has doubled down on his allegation that Eric Coomer altered votes. He posted this video to Twitter as if to say Coomer admitted something.
The problem for Metaxas is that Coomer doesn’t explain anything about changing anybody’s vote. This isn’t going to be any kind of defense for Metaxas. And when Coomer shows the court what kind of rabble Metaxas is rousing (see below for a tiny sampling), it shouldn’t take much to establish that Metaxas has hurt Coomer’s reputation.
Even after the Electoral College voted to elect Joe Biden as the next president, former Christian intellectual Eric Metaxas insists Trump will have a second term.
Buckle your seat belts! it's going to be a bumpy ride to Trump's second Inauguration! https://t.co/MOtNus98kk
The new strategy is for the House and Senate to overturn the vote of the people.
A few Trumpublican Congressmen and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) plan to contest the Electoral College vote. Surely, this won’t go anywhere because both the House and Senate would have to vote to negate the vote. This will not happen.
It is worth noting that one of Metaxas’ new favored resources is the Epoch Times, a newspaper tied to the religious group Falun Gong. On the upside, the Falun Gong opposes the Chinese Communist regime; on the downside, the Epoch Times has embraced QAnon and other conspiracy theories, including the voter fraud claims. Instead of questioning the sources, Metaxas appears to seek sources which feed him what he wants to hear.
It is hard to see where Metaxas goes after this is over. Here is a clue:
If you click the link in the tweet, you go to an ad for a My Pillow “Anniversary Addition” of his Bonhoeffer book.
Bonhoeffer selling pillows; pillows selling Bonhoeffer. Doesn’t seem fair that Bonhoeffer doesn’t even get a My Pillow with him as he is turning over in his grave.
UPDATE: LA County Department of Health informed me this afternoon (12/21) that “No additional outbreaks have been reported by Grace Community Church to Public Health since” the earlier employee related outbreak in October.
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Twitter user and Medium writer Modern Day Zorro posted a piece on Medium with news of another Grace Community Church COVID outbreak (there was one back in October). MDZ is close to GCC and has never been wrong with news on the church. (My question mark in the title is admittedly self-protective, and because I have not been able to get confirmation from Grace’s PR firm. – See the update below) Given the lack of mitigation measures and the ignorance about COVID which have been apparent at Grace, I don’t doubt the report. However, if corrections or modifications are needed, I will make them.
According to the Medium report, multiple Grace members and staff may be infected:
So, two weeks ago at the Grace Staff Christmas party lunch was served and maskless elderly and Elders sat shoulder to shoulder, hugged and shook hands and along with the Filet Mignon, were spoon fed the following from John MacArthur:
COVID PCR tests are inaccurate and should not be trusted.
Don’t take the vaccine as it’s just a money ploy.
Grace is welcoming 400 new members.
The giving is the best it’s ever been.
There are no long-term side effects to COVID.
Then, he acknowledge and thanked Clayton Erb for his many years of service, and that was that. Everyone there was exposed to COVID:
Bill Brandenstein, Mark Zhakevich, Clayton Erb, Elders and staff. John MacArthur.
**One week later, 7 in attendance, now have symptoms and have tested positive for COVID.
Yes <hits mic and blows into it> 7 people, elders and staff, have COVID symptoms and have subsequently tested positive as a direct result of going to a Staff Christmas party.
While I await confirmation of specific numbers, I can note that one pastor at Grace, Will Varner, has tested positive for COVID and announced this publicly. He also said a musician affiliated with GCC’s Sojourners ministry tested positive.
As someone who has had COVID, I certainly wish the best for these folks. I post this because I sincerely doubt that certain church leaders at GCC will provide the congregation with appropriate information. At least, it hasn’t happened so far.
UPDATE: Julie Roys has an article out on Sunday with reporting that people at Grace are being discouraged from telling anyone about their COVID diagnosis. She also has much more documentation of GCC members and staff who have COVID. It seems pretty clear that MacArthur’s rosy picture of a church meeting indoors without caution and without cases of COVID is false.
During church on Sunday morning, MacArthur did not comment on the cases identified by the sources noted above and by Julie Roys.
Another update from Modern Day Zorro:
Last night at the Christmas Music Service:
I was informed by a musician friend that Clayton Erb was directing it on behalf of his nephew, Bill Brandenstein, who was ill. The final rehearsal for Friday night was cancelled. Ultimately, the adult choir was too sick to attend, so pic.twitter.com/u538OR93W3
— Modern Day Zorro: Reporter and Muppet of the #WCT (@ModernDayZorro) December 22, 2020
MacArthur said everybody has a bug.
they had a few soloists. No…distancing, no masks when so many on that stage had been exposed to the virus.
John MacArthur in the video explains that people have the flu or the bug, "aside from this COVID thing".@reachjulieroys@wthrockmorton
— Modern Day Zorro: Reporter and Muppet of the #WCT (@ModernDayZorro) December 22, 2020
Yes, due to a copyright claim, the awful “Biden Did You Know?” parody is gone from YouTube. The video featured just about all of the false conspiracy theories about voter fraud making the rounds.
You knew this was coming. I am surprised it took so long.
I emailed Pentatonix yesterday and asked them for comment about being featured in the video. Metaxas used the group singing, Mary, Did You Know? in his parody presumably without their permission. I have not heard from their publicist and don’t know if that email had anything to do with the copyright claim.
Eric Metaxas has become a parody of himself. Others have chronicled his journey down the Trump rabbit hole over the past weeks (see links below). This post returns to the fake Bonhoeffer quote he made famous. Now he apparently wants it for himself.
“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. God will not hold us guiltless.”
— Eric Metaxas
Metaxas has bought into the election delusion of Donald Trump and taken a leadership role among those who are promoting it. This quote somehow is meant to vindicate his action supporting Trump. What is odd about it that he appears to be taking credit for it.
To my knowledge, he has never fully acknowledged that he attributed the quote falsely to Bonhoeffer in his books on the subject in the first place. He minimized his role in spreading the false attribution after I published a series ofposts showing that the quote cannot be sourced to the great German pastor.
Now instead of to Bonhoeffer, he falsely attributes the quote to himself. Anything but set the record straight, I guess. What should we expect from a guy who has put his faith and trust in Donald Trump?
Others who have written regarding Eric Metaxas’ journey into election madness include:
I haven’t posted for awhile because I tested positive for COVID-19. It started out mild but then hit me hard. While I was able to stay home, I did feel pretty sick for about a week. While I am off quarantine now, I am still tired and don’t feel quite back to normal. Overall though, I feel blessed to have stayed out of the hospital.
I feel more certain than ever that mask wearing is necessary and churches should stop clutching their rights to meet together. We only have a few more months until a vaccine is widely available. Surely, we can wait a few more months to get together in large groups.
