Christian Activism in Massachusetts: A Presentation by Michael King of the Massachusetts Family Institute
The Greater Boston Friends of Camp Constitution recently hosted Mr. Michael King of the Massachusetts Family Institute. Mr. King demonstrates the Biblical basis for Christians to participate in civic affairs, and reports that conservative Christian churches are coming together around Massachusetts to fight the agenda of the Left.
Camp Constitution Offering a $50. “Early Bird” discount for its 2021 Family Camp
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George Washington’s Farewell Address
Today, we observe what is now known as “President’s Day” but once called Washington’s Birthday to honor the birthday of the Father of our Country who was born on February 22, 1731. While the Marxists-Cultural and otherwise, have been working to denigrate the memory of Washington and other founders, we at Camp Constitution, true to our motto, honor their memory.
We reprinted George Washington’s “Farewell Address” and make it available on our website in a PDF: https://campconstitution.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/George-Washington-Farewell-Address.pdf
And here is a reading of Washington’s Farewell Address conducted by the late Pastor Garrett Lear at our 2014 annual family camp:
Truth from The Youth: A Review of ” Rescue Mission Planet Earth: A Children’s Guide to Agenda 21″
Back when the members of the Deep State used the term “Agenda 21,” the United Nations published Rescue Mission Planet Earth: A Children’s Guide to Agenda 21. It is one of the most vile pieces of propaganda that I have ever read. Gus and Stephen, hosts of “Truth from the Youth” review the book: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2021-02-12T17_11_49-08_00
And a link to a PDF version of the book: https://campconstitution.net/files/2019/rescue-mission-planet-earth-agenda-21.pdf
The Weekly Sam: Government Schools are Putting Children at Risk-a Lecture by Sam Blumenfeld
Sam predicted back in the 1980s that the government school system will only get worse. How right he was. This is another timeless lecture entitled “Government Schools are Putting Children at Risk”:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2021-02-10T16_43_31-08_00
Camp Constitution’s Answer to Greta Thunberg-The Agenda 21 Challenge
During our closing ceremony at our 2019 family camp, Camp Constitution instructor Debbie Bacigalupi, an expert on Agenda 21, launched the Agenda 21 Challenge where she challenged campers to expose Agenda 21 in their communities. A number of campers agreed to participate in her challenge. I called the challenge, our answer to Greta Thunberg.
Debbie started weekly conference calls with the campers to educate, motivate and plan activities. Campers made presentations to their class, distributed flyers and, two of them Gus and Stephen, started a Podcast on YouTube entitled “Truth from the Youth: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAm6jrvu82rdDwvdQ4HXj3w We also uploaded the Podcasts on our Podomatic page: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2021-02-12T06_25_47-08_00
We encourage readers to help promote the efforts of our campers. Please subscribe to their channel, our Podomatic page, and share their Podcasts. Let folks know that there is a growing number of young people who do not accept the propaganda of the Left and are taking a stand for truth and liberty.
Columbus – The Real Story by Steve Weidenkopf
In popular myth, Christopher Columbus is the very symbol of European greed and genocidal imperialism. In reality, he was a dedicated Christian concerned first and foremost with serving God and his fellow man.
Peering into the future, Columbus (1451-1506) could not have anticipated the ingratitude and outright contempt shown by modern man toward his discovery and exploration of the New World. Few see him as he really was: a devout Catholic concerned for the eternal salvation of the indigenous peoples he encountered. Rather, it has become fashionable to slander him as deliberately genocidal, a symbol of European imperialism,[1] a bringer of destruction, enslavement, and death to the happy and prosperous people of the Americas.
In the United States, the vitriol directed against Columbus produces annual protests every Columbus Day. Some want to abolish it as a federal holiday, and several cities already refuse to acknowledge it and celebrate instead “Indigenous Peoples Day.”[3]
This movement to brand Columbus a genocidal maniac and erase all memory of his extraordinary accomplishments stems from a false myth about the man and his times.
The so-called Age of Discovery was ushered in by Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460) of Portugal. Prince Henry and his sailors inaugurated the great age of explorers finding new lands and creating shipping lanes for the import and export of goods, including consumables never before seen in Europe. Their efforts also created an intense competition among the sailing nations of Europe, each striving to outdo the other in finding new and more efficient trade routes. It was into this world of innovation, exploration, and economic competition that Christopher Columbus was born.
A native of the Italian city-state of Genoa, Columbus became a sailor at the age of fourteen. He learned the nautical trade sailing on Genoese merchant vessels and became an accomplished navigator. On a long-distance voyage past Iceland in February 1477, Columbus learned about the strong east-flowing Atlantic currents and believed a journey across the ocean could be made because the currents would be able to bring a ship home.[4] So Columbus formulated a plan to seek the east by going west. He knew such an ambitious undertaking required royal backing, and in May of 1486 he secured a royal audience with King Fernando and Queen Isabel of Spain, who in time granted everything Columbus needed for the voyage.
On August 3, 1492, Columbus embarked from Spain with ninety men on three ships: the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria.[5] After thirty-three days at sea, Columbus’s flotilla spotted land (the Bahamas), which he claimed in the name of the Spanish monarchs. Columbus’s modern-day detractors view that as a sign of imperial conquest. It was not: it was simply a sign to other European nations that they could not establish trading posts on the Spanish possession.[6]
On this first voyage, Columbus also reached the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola. He stayed four months in the New World and arrived home to fanfare on March 15, 1493. Unfortunately, the Santa Maria ran aground on Hispaniola so was forced to leave forty-two men behind, ordered to treat the indigenous people well and especially to respect the women.[7] Unfortunately, as Columbus discovered on his second voyage, that order was not heeded.
Columbus made four voyages to the New World, and each brought its own discoveries and adventures. His second voyage included many crewmen from his first, but also some new faces such as Ponce de León, who later won fame as an explorer himself. On this second voyage, Columbus and his men encountered the fierce tribe of the Caribs, who were cannibals, practiced sodomy, and castrated captured boys from neighboring tribes. Columbus recognized the Caribs’ captives as members of the peaceful tribe he met on his first voyage, so he rescued and returned them to their homes.[8] This voyage included stops in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
The third voyage was the most difficult for Columbus, as he was arrested on charges of mismanagement of the Spanish trading enterprise in the New World and sent back to Spain in chains (though later fully exonerated). Columbus’s fourth and final voyage took place in 1502-1504, with his son Fernando among the crew. The crossing of the Atlantic was the fastest ever: sixteen days. The expedition visited Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, and was marooned for a time on Jamaica.
Most accounts of Columbus’s voyages mistake his motives by focusing narrowly on economic or political reasons. But in fact, his primary motive was to find enough gold to finance a crusade to retake Jerusalem from the Muslims, as evidenced by a letter he wrote in December 1492 to King Fernando and Queen Isabel, encouraging them to “spend all the profits of this my enterprise on the conquest of Jerusalem.”[9] In this, he believed he was fulfilling conditions for the Second Coming of Christ. Near the end of his life, he even compiled a book about the connection between the liberation of Jerusalem and the Second Coming.[10]
Columbus considered himself a “Christ-bearer” like his namesake, St. Christopher.[11] When he first arrived in Hispaniola, his first words to the natives were, “The monarchs of Castile have sent us not to subjugate you but to teach you the true religion.”[12] In a 1502 letter to Pope Alexander VI (r. 1492-1503), Columbus asked the pontiff to send missionaries to the indigenous peoples of the New World so they could accept Christ. And in his will, Columbus proved his belief in the importance of evangelization by establishing a fund to finance missionary efforts to the lands he discovered.[13]
Contrary to the popular myth, Columbus treated the native peoples with great respect and friendship. He was impressed by their “generosity, intelligence, and ingenuity.”[14] He recorded in his diary that “in the world there are no better people or a better land. They love their neighbors as themselves, and they have the sweetest speech in the world and [they are] gentle and always laughing.”[15] Columbus demanded that his men exchange gifts with the natives they encountered and not just take what they wanted by force. He enforced this policy rigorously: on his third voyage in August 1500, he hanged men who disobeyed him by harming the native people.[16]
Columbus never intended the enslavement of the peoples of the New World. In fact, he considered the Indians who worked in the Spanish settlement in Hispaniola as employees of the crown.[17] In further proof that Columbus did not plan to rely on slave labor, he asked the crown to send him Spanish miners to mine for gold.[18] Indeed, no doubt influenced by Columbus, the Spanish monarchs in their instructions to Spanish settlers mandated that the Indians be treated “very well and lovingly” and demanded that no harm should come to them.[19]
Columbus passed to his eternal reward on May 20, 1506.
For more on European exploration and missionary activity in the New World, or to learn the facts about many other anti-Catholic historical myths, check out Steve Weidenkopf’s new book, The Real Story of Catholic History, available now from Catholic Answers Press.
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[1] Carol Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem (New York: Free Press, 2011), xii.
[3] Marilia Brocchetto and Emanuella Grinberg, “Quest to Change Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day Sails Ahead,” CNN.com, October 10, 2016, accessed April 7, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/09/us/columbus-day-indigenous-peoples-day/.
[4] The sailors of Columbus’s day did not believe the earth was flat, as is commonly believed, but were afraid about the ability to get home after sailing across the ocean.
[5] Columbus demanded a patent of nobility, a coat of arms, the titles of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy and Governor of all discovered lands, plus 10 percent of the revenue from all trade from any claimed territory. Isabel agreed to these terms and both parties signed the Capitulations of Santa Fe on April 17, 1492. See Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 68.
[6] See Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 92.
[7] Ibid., 109.
[8] Ibid., 130.
[9] Ibid., vii.
[10] The book was titled Libro de las Profecías or the Book of Prophecies.
[11] Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 83.
[12] Daniel-Rops, The Catholic Reformation, vol. 2, 27.
[13] Ibid., 159.
[14] Ibid., 97.
[15] Columbus, Diario, 281. Quoted in Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 107. Columbus was a literate man, which was rare for the day. He recorded his observations of the New World in his diary and ship’s log, at a time when keeping logs was not standard practice.
[16] See Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 181.
[17] Ibid., 142.
[18] Ibid., 153.
[19] See Samuel Eliot Morison, trans. and ed., Journals and Other Documents on the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, vol. 1 (New York: Heritage Press, 1963), 204. Quoted in Delaney, Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, 125-126.
Protect the Flock with a Glock: The Biblical Mandate for Self Defense
Hal Shurtleff and Rev. Steve Craft from Camp Constitution discuss the Biblical mandate for self defense and the need for clergy to insure that their churches are safe from violence. Rev. Steve discuss Luke 22: 36 “Jesus told them but now if you have a money bag take it with you. Also, take a traveling bag, and if you don’t have a sword, sell some of your clothes and buy one” Hal and Rev. Steve encourage Christians to be able to defend themselves, their family, and church members.
George Washington Elected President February 4, 1789
George Washington was unanimously elected President of the United States by the electoral college February 4, 1789. At that time, as there was no Vice President, the Senate elected John Langdon as President of the Senate, “for the sole purpose of opening and counting the votes for President of the United States.” George Washington learned of his election on April 14th. He then wrote John Langdon, and Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Congress.
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From George Washington to John Langdon,
Mount Vernon April 14th 1789.
Sir,
I had the honor to receive your Official Communication, by the hand of Mr. Secretary Thompson, about one o’clock this day. Having concluded to obey the important & flattering call of my Country, and having been impressed with an idea of the expediency of my being with Congress at as early a period as possible; I propose to commence my journey on Thursday morning which will be the day after to morrow. I have the honor to be with sentiments of esteem Sir Your most obedt Servt
Go: Washington
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Address to Charles Thomson, 14 April 1789
Sir, I have been long accustomed to entertain so great a respect for the opinion of my fellow citizens, that the knowledge of their unanimous suffrages having been given in my favour scarcely leaves me the alternative for an Option. Whatever may have been my private feelings and sentiments, I believe I cannot give a greater evidence of my sensibility for the honor they have done me than by accepting the appointment.
I am so much affected by this fresh proof of my country’s esteem and confidence, that silence can best explain my gratitude—While I realize the arduous nature of the task which is conferred on me and feel my inability to perform it, I wish there may not be reason for regretting the choice. All I can promise is only that which can be accomplished by an honest zeal.
Upon considering how long time some of the gentlemen of both houses of Congress have been at New York, how anxiously desirous they must be to proceed to business and how deeply the public mind appears to be impressed with the necessity of doing it immediately I cannot find myself at liberty to delay my Journey—I shall therefore be in readiness to set out the day after to morrow, and shall be happy in the pleasure of your company. For you will permit me to say that it was a peculiar gratification to have received the communication from you.
© 2020-2021 Clifford Olsen/250YearsofLiberty
The Weekly Sam: First Lecture at the South Boston Heights Academy
Not only was the late Sam Blumenfeld, a pioneer, in the modern homeschool movement but in the early to mid 1970s, Sam helped to start a number of private schools including South Boston Heights Academy in South Boston, MA, and Hyde Park Academy also in Boston. I Here is a link to the first lecture he gave at South Boston Heights where he discusses how he discovered the deliberate dumbing down of America:
https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2021-02-04T15_44_23-08_00