Where Hate Lives

Dear Evangelicals:

Today, we're accustomed to thinking of hate as an emotion exclusive to the fringes. Hate isn't in us; it's in white nationalists, ISIS, and all those liberals who, uh, scorn biblical teachings by shunning those who think being queer is a sin.

You know how I feel about that last item, so let's talk about the notion that hate is not a first-world problem, that it's not a Christian problem. Truth is, hate runs rampant throughout the Christian community -- left, right, and center.

Even the social justice warriors on the left, the millennials who swore they wouldn't become their parents, fall victim to hate. And why?

Because they worship Americhrist above all else.

Just like their parents, these left-leaning Americhristians chase fame, recognition, and status to the exclusion of all else. Just like their parents, they talk a good game, but are rarely -- if ever -- found in the trenches (Children can't change their religious affiliations? Thoughts and prayers 💗🎈🌈.) And, just like their parents, the new wave of Americhristians will cut you dead if you don't beat the drum for their latest project.

Whether you like it or not, that's hate.

About Jesus, John said, "He must increase while I must decrease." About us, Jesus said, "“Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What good would it do to get everything you want and lose you, the real you? If any of you is embarrassed with me and the way I’m leading you, know that the Son of Man will be far more embarrassed with you when he arrives in all his splendor in company with the Father and the holy angels. This isn’t, you realize, pie in the sky by and by. Some who have taken their stand right here are going to see it happen, see with their own eyes the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:23-27, MSG),

If you withhold liberating, biblical truth from others because telling it would require you to decrease; if you are the focus of all your efforts, you're more about hate than love.

Sooner or later, Somebody's gonna notice.

Real Men

Dear Evangelicals:

It started with the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which sought to save us all from Romans 1:18-20, and the certain knowledge of how God made us. Women are women, and men are real men as the CBMW understands them, the CBMW insists, in spite of what can be seen, both under a microscope and in plain sight.

Enter The Federalist, which seeks to warn us about what they see as the phony masculinity of counterfeits like ... James Comey.

Whither America, friends? Whither America?

It's a darn good thing emo Comey doesn't head up the FBI anymore. You can't very well protect America from her enemies, both foreign and domestic, when you're constantly crying about how she's circling the drain. We need a real leader, who tackles bears, prances around in flight suits, and rides horses while half-naked, not this guy.

I mean, what was emo Jesus's deal, anyway? Weeping and yelling and vandalizing MAJOR religious shrines (Talk about Christian persecution!) And then, He has to go and ugly-cry about NESTING?!? With JERUSALEM?!? Sounds kinda ....

Well, you're the guardians of churchy masculinity and femininity. I'll let you decide.

Random Acts of Nihilism

Dear Evangelicals:

In 1993, Conari Press published a little book called Random Acts of Kindness. The book ignited a movement and, not incidentally in America, an international industry. There are sequels by the score, websites, blogs, and social media accounts. There's even a National Random Acts of Kindness Day next month.

Never mind that people used to do these things for each other without a self-congratulatory social "movement" to prod them along; a world that was already vicious and self-serving has only gotten meaner since the birth of the RAK movement. And you helped. In direct contradiction of Jesus's teachings, you helped.

Not only that, but you're proud of it, because, hey, we're all gonna be raptured before the Great Tribulation, so you might as well paste yourself into your easy chair for family time, because all those grievous sinners who haven't been blessed with families are out there helping. You have better things to do.

Yeah, husband of one wife? Price above rubies woman? That's not what the Bible says.

No, the Bible orders you to take up your cross daily. To die daily. To do good, correct oppression, seek justice for orphans and widows.

Oh, but you, you, you. You always have an excuse. If you don't get your me-time, someone (Read: widows, orphans, the poor, and the oppressed) is gonna pay.

On alternate days, you grant yourselves a luxurious, emotional spa day, marinating in guilt, and telling yourself that your oppressed acquaintances bear so much ill will toward you, for refusing to help up to now, that they'd never accept help -- even if you did offer it.

Which you won't because, as you've already discovered with these weaklings, suffering is a marathon, not a sprint; and a glorious lambkin of God like yourself ain't got time for no grubby, anonymous marathon. You'd rather pay for the half-caf soy latte that the guy behind you -- who looks just like you, and not the icky poor -- is sure to order.

Voila! A random act of kindness! Aren't you the godly one?

No.

See, God says you extend kindness to those who can't afford to pay you back. No, He says you invite them, so you're looking them in the face, in all their poverty and hardship and suffering and shabbiness. In all their un-awesomeness.

But, muh glory!

As Jesus said of those who spend their lives slobbering after the approval of others, "They have their reward."

But wait; there's more! Of course there is, because God always has more for people like you.

Are you ready? Here we go.

At the end of time, when everyone is being judged by Jesus, He will look at the awesome life you had because you're so in love with Him, and He will say something to you that everyone who's ever been born will hear.

How's that for glory?

Special Rights

Dear Evangelicals:

Have you heard the latest from the A.F.A.'s syndicated hate spewer, Bryan Fischer?

It seems that Fischer and, by extension, the American Family Association, want to put an end to single-use restrooms, because such facilities give transgender people what Fischer terms "special rights".

Let's not beat around the bush: We know you put country over God, so let's see what  U.S. Constitution has to say about extending "special rights" to certain groups.

There's a bogus legal argument equating single-stall restrooms with bills of attainder, easily torpedoed by the simple fact that anyone can use a single-stall restroom. In fact, it's often necessary to use the single-stall facility when the restroom is crowded. But then, Fischer is male, and wouldn't know about such things.

So much for prescribed gender roles strengthening the fabric of society. If you Quiverfull crazies stopped insisting that a mother should be mastering the art of folding dinner napkins instead of the art of drafting legislation, we wouldn't have this problem.

But I digress.

The only other argument is the eternal chicken-or-egg debate over the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. To which I say, scream all you want; the final decision will depend on which judge you get. Deal with it.

Which brings us to that Book you don't want to obey unless you agree it.

The Bible commands Christians to defend the oppressed, the foreign and the foreigner, the persecuted, and the weak -- even if they are, as Fischer says, "a tiny little slice of the population".

Especially if they're a tiny little slice of the population.

Don't believe me? Head on over to Bible Gateway, and do a search for "weak", "oppressed", "stranger", or "alien".

There will be those of you who marshal every legalistic argument in the book -- your book, I mean -- to worm out of obeying the Almighty God. Many of you will retort that it's absurd to call transgender people aliens and strangers because you are cursed with them in your own lives.

The book of James (one of my favorites) would tell you that, if you're so insistent on following the law, you'd better follow every last bit of it, or you are guilty, and will be so judged.

One thing about that judgment: There's no rotating pool of judges who might hear your case. There's only One.

How do you like the sound of special rights now?

Easy

Dear Evangelicals::

Ever feel like you're swimming upstream? Working hard and getting nowhere?

Then, you're probably giving yourself your own assignments, when Jesus says, "Come to Me."

You don't know what God's work is unless you ask him. So, ask; don't assume. "What do you want me to do now?" It's just that simple.

Put Down the Popcorn

Dear Evangelicals:

2 Timothy 1:7 is one of the most popular verses with your crowd. Too bad you only recite it when you're psyching yourself up to grab money or power or influence that doesn't belong to you.

When you have to sacrifice money or time; when you have to change your filthy, proud, unrepentant attitude; when the other side is poised for a win -- then, you forget this verse like yesterday's garbage.

In those times, you luxuriate in your fear. You revel in it as though you're sitting in a movie theater, stuffing your face with treats while terrifying images play across the screen.

Get over yourself.

Christianity is not a life of winning; it is a life of sacrifice. Like the Pharisees before you, you are terrified that you might be forced to shoulder some of the burden. But the Pharisees weren't afraid, and you don't have to be, either.

God is not a harsh, unreasonable God. He gives you a choice, the way anyone would, if they were as sensible as you are.

You're being harangued daily to share the load, and you don't have to; Jesus Himself says so. He saw, long ago, how hard you work, and He knew what a drag it is to give up the lush life to labor in the trenches with the great unwashed.

"Relax," He says. You have your reward.

The Joke That Is God On the Cross

Dear Evangelicals:

Every atheist, skeptic, agnostic, and practitioner of other faiths -- all those who've proven immune to your evangelizing, in other words -- would say the same thing as John Stott says in that quote.

You're out there "living your best life now" while people are suffering, bleeding, and dying right in front of you. Yes, the war within is every bit as bloody as the wars over there in the global south.

If non-Christians are immune to your pitch, it's because you're immune to their pain. You're going to kick and scream and struggle against the goads. The fact remains that saying the words without getting down in the mud with the suffering is exactly who you are, and it is literally killing your evangelism.

Judging by those of your fellow evangelicals who've changed their hearts about what you consider non-negotiable, "Bible-based" teachings, it's going to take trial by fire to teach you what Jesus wept over: You. Lack. Empathy.

You are cold-hearted and hard-hearted. You'd rather fight to the death to uphold the law than die to your churchy friends because you've extended grace to women, people of color, the poor, lgbtq folks, the disabled, the orphaned, the friendless, the jobless, the homeless -- you know, all the unlovely types who must surely be sinning, else they'd have the perfect life that you have. Right?

I've said this a million different times in a million different ways, but you can't learn empathy by reading a blog. You have to go through something -- something that will cut you off at the knees and humble you before those you fear and hate most.

I've compared you to alcoholics and addicts on a dry drunk, and, like them, you'll have to hit bottom in order to get well. You'll have to be hit hard by circumstances that completely overpower you, and strip you of every preconceived notion you have.

And preconceived notions are all you have.

Everyone you've ever known will have to turn their backs on you. You'll have to be stripped of everything and everyone you've manipulated to serve your twisted, hateful, entirely un-loving and un-Christian agenda.

So, you're living off the kindness of strangers in some bedroom community shoe-horned against the backside of a hill, where you can't even smell the ocean. You're stuck in a rented room; eating your landlady's crappy, vegan cooking; miles away from all your fabulous, Jesus-y friends -- just as an example. But, you're so full of yourself that you can't possibly imagine anything worse.

Let me give you an example of something worse: jobless, homeless, hungry, and friendless, with no one to take you in and feed you because they know you treated your last benefactor like garbage.

Yes, no matter how bad things are, they could always, always, always be worse.

I pray it happens soon.

Tired Of Compassion-Free Christians

Dear Evangelicals:

Owing to the lousy punctuation and capitalization, I take it that this meme is the work of some smug, apple-polishing, pain-in-the-neck teen, who no one would dare accuse of  being heartless because s/he smiles so darn much.

Ugh!

I further deduce that this meme-maker is no atheist -- well, not in the conventional sense, anyway. As Frederick Buechner once wrote, “Many an atheist is a believer without knowing it just as many a believer is an atheist without knowing it. You can sincerely believe there is no God and live as though there is. You can sincerely believe there is a God and live as though there isn't."

This, dear reader, is the work of a Christian atheist.

Where do I get that?

Let's start with Solomon, who wrote, "[There is a] time to mourn, [a]nd a time to dance." (Ecclesiastes 3:4, NKJV)

Let's continue with the apostle Paul, who told us exactly when that time occurs: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep." (Romans 12:15, NKJV)

So, "Cheer up; lots of folks have it worse"? Wrong answer.

What Really Happens "Without God"

Dear Evangelicals:

Oh, hey, good job, Christian meme-maker! Especially the biblical illiteracy part. See, the Bible says rain falls on the just and the unjust, so there goes your argument that non-Christians have crap lives.

Then there’s this delusion that we Christians always have great weeks because we’re Christians.

There’s that pesky biblical illiteracy again! There’s not a single righteous person in the Bible whose life was free of trouble.

When you say that life’s problems would all go away if we only had enough faith, you spit in the face of every Christian who is dealing with a mental or physical disability, sickness, job loss, infidelity, death of a loved one, homelessness, abuse, abandonment, bullying … I could go on.

How about, instead of spewing un-biblical, unsubstantiated nonsense about people you’ve never met, you break out of your conservative, evangelical bubble; start following Jesus instead of Americhrist (You, too, rest of the planet. Have you heard the kind of un-biblical filth they're spewing on your evangelical TV programs?); and learn what the Bible actually says instead of what your pet preacher keeps cramming down your throat?

Emotional Understanding

Dear Evangelicals:

It's heartening to see some of you at long last digging out from church culture to get closer to Jesus, who demonstrated profound emotional understanding here on earth.

Too often, Christian culture teaches us to treat our emotions like the monster under the bed. This approach is designed to instill emotional maturity. Instead, it has the opposite effect; Christians often display the hallmarks of narcissism when, in truth, they've simply been terrorized into foregoing their emotional development.

For those who seek to enter emotional adulthood, to be like Jesus on an emotional level, the following books are trustworthy guides.

The Enneagram: The first book I ever read about the Enneagram, and still my most treasured -- maybe because, like me, Palmer is a Type One. Initially, I found the questions at the conclusion of the chapter on my type to be almost unbearably-challenging. Now, I find Palmer's reasoned, ecumenical approach grounding as well as honest. (left)

The Enneagram in Love and Work: Helen Palmer applies her adjudicatory skills to the Enneagram in business settings and love relationships. The best part? Substantial discussions of how each type relates to the another in both settings. I consult this one more often than her first book these days. (above left)

Personality Types: Like Palmer, Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson were part of the first wave of teachers of the contemporary Enneagram. This book was a classic when it was first published, but has benefited immeasurably from a major revision in 1996. The Levels of Development are key to identifying red flags for each type. The division into 18 types with wings is interesting, although I find myself using both wings, depending on the situation.

For conservative Christians, the most crucial reading will be the portion that debunks the theory of the Sufi origin of the Enneagram. FWIW, even before I became a Christian, I thought the Enneagram symbol of a nine-pointed star looked, if anything, like a crown of thorns. (above left)

Sincerely

Dear Evangelicals:

It looks like some of you are waking from the fever dream of arrogant ignorance that Christian culture markets to us night and day. This is a relief.

For those of you who have never been taught what a sincere apology looks like, the above meme is an excellent start. But sometimes, even this is not quite enough. Members of your inner circle need a little more.

With them, share as much as is safe about what was going on in your life when you misbehaved. Tell them you are offering an explanation, not an excuse, for your behavior. Internalize the difference between the two, and the urgent need for yourself to know the difference, as though your life depended on it -- because it does. Excuses are what narcissists make. Don't be that person -- even though narcissism runs rampant in the evangelical church.

Anyway, God bless you and keep you on your journey back toward the sunlight. We're waiting to welcome you with open arms.

Pity the Poor Billionaire

Dear Evangelicals:

The first picture on the left was painted by American artist and icon, Norman Rockwell. It depicts young Ruby Bridges being escorted by federal marshals to her first day at an all-white school in Louisiana.

The second picture was tweeted by Bree Newsome, who became a national hero when she climbed the flagpole in front of the statehouse in South Carolina, and removed the Confederate flag. It is an editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy of the Belleville News Democrat. It depicts Betsy DeVos, a white, adult billionaire, and the recently-confirmed Secretary of Education, imagining her to be the victim of persecution as terrifying as that experienced by little Ruby Bridges.

The first word that came to my mind was one you evangelicals generally apply to the American and allegedly-unbelieving Left -- "whiny".

Blacks who dared to claim rights equal to those of whites were imprisoned, beaten, tortured, and murdered. Their homes and churches were burned and bombed. To you, a mere difference of opinion and the healthy, peaceful exercise of dissenters' Constitutional rights is just as oppressive and terrifying.

Wow.

That sickening realization reminded me of the quote at left. The truth is, you, and most other political and social conservatives, don't really believe that the oppressed people of this country are all that oppressed. You call them "whiny" in the wildly-dysfunctional belief that they're exaggerating, or worse, faking altogether.

No.

It's way past time that you yanked the beam out of your own eye instead of bellowing about the speck in someone else's.

First-World Problems

 Dear Evangelicals:

It must be nice to have so much that you can demand of God that He let you have your cake and eat it, too.

Equality In the Bible

Dear Evangelicals:

How, oh, how can Paul say this to one church, while he tells another that women should just shut up in their church?

Hmmmm.

The key is in the wording.

That link will take you to the relevant passage, which Paul begins by saying, "I do not permit ...." (emphasis mine).

Note that Paul doesn't say "God does not permit". He's speaking of personal choice, and maybe personal animus, but not of a commandment from God. Hence "[Y]ou are all one in Christ Jesus".

Then again, there's this, in 1 Corinthians 14:34-37 (NKJV):

"Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church.
 
"Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord."

How is this possible? How is it possible that the man who wrote Galatians 3:28; the man who wrote about the distribution to all of spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12; the man who commends a whole host of women in Romans 16 -- not as submissive weaklings, but as fellow laborers in God's work -- how is it possible that this same man could write 1 Corinthians 14:34-37?

How is it possible that the man who wrote an entire epistle admonishing the Galatians not to adhere to Mosaic law, the man who wrote a letter to the Romans that's known as "the Christian Constitution", would drag an entire church, kicking and screaming, back to the law -- clear back to Genesis 3:16?

How is it possible that 1 Corinthians 14:34-37 is even in the Bible, when Peter famously wrote this in 2 Peter 2:21-22?

"[I]t would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: 'A dog returns to his own vomit,' and, 'a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.'"

Isn't Paul dragging the Corinthian church, like dogs, back to their own vomit by dispensing with grace and insisting on the law?

The answer may be in Hebrews 5:12-14 (NKJV), where Paul says this:

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil."

I don't believe that Paul is contradicting himself in 1 Corinthians 14 at all. I believe the Corinthian church, like the Hebrews, had been spiritually lax, relying on force of habit instead of study and prayer. I believe that the Corinthian church had regressed so profoundly that Paul was forced to take them back to the law -- to break them down and build them back up again, as they say in the U.S. military.

If you read only a few pages of Green Eggs and Ham, you believe that Sam spent the rest of his life refusing to eat green eggs and ham for good reason. If you read only a few passages of the Bible, you believe that women are inherently inferior to men in every way, that they must be silenced, shamed, disciplined, and broken lest the church fall apart.

Some of you will continue to take that view because, unlike Jesus, you don't think it pays to give up your power for the greater good. Looking at the way the church is going, and knowing that God is sovereign, I have to ask, how's that working out for ya?

P.S. Here's a little pro tip: Put your parents or guardians through the Equality In the Bible filter. From whom do you get your notions about gender roles?

Ten to one it's dear, old mom.

Can Christians Really Bring Someone To Christ?

Dear Evangelicals:

Provocative question, isn't it?

Is it really the "Christian" thing to convert people? I mean, everybody -- even non-believers -- thinks that's the Christian thing to do.

Everybody except me. And, no, it's not the first time I've been asked why I "don't believe in the Bible" but "call yourself a Christian".

Sure, I believe in the Bible -- the whole Bible. That means context is everything -- a view that irritates the nuance-averse to no end.

Back to the subject of converting non-believers to Christianity. What are we to make of Jesus's words in Matthew 28: 19-20:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

... when He also says this, in John 6:44:

"No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him."

... and this, in in John 14:6:

"I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

How about this -- "Preach the Gospel, then step back, and let Me and God do our jobs"?

That's how I read it, anyway -- a symbiotic relationship between God and Christ, that works to open people's hearts in God's time; not ours.

 There's one last thing. When Jesus sent the disciples out to preach the Gospel for the first time, He said:

And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet.

Shaking the dust off your feet signified being over and done with a place and its people.

So, if you wanna be converted, you'll have to hit someone else up.

Have a nice day.

Money Management

Dear  Evangelicals:

Do you really think this passage in Haggai only has to do with money for the church?

In John 15:5, Jesus says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing."

That "without Me you can do nothing" thing would include making and spending money. Yes, even during the Christmas season.

If you typically have too much month at the end of the money, maybe it's because you don't ask the One who gave you the money in the first place how, when, and if you should spend it.

I mean, if "Jesus is the reason for the season," and all, why do you spend money like you never even heard of the guy?

You want people to tell you "Merry Christmas"? Then start living like Christ is the point.

Oppression Is Really Depressing

• Dear Evangelicals:

Ecclesiastes is pretty depressing. No, scratch that; Ecclesiastes is hugely depressing.

What's even more depressing is the way you choose, daily, to join up with the oppressors instead of siding with the oppressed.

There are other books in the Bible where God makes plain the consequences to those who cheer on the oppressors and pile on the oppressed; Jeremiah and Ezekiel come immediately to mind. Those books are depressing, too.

In Matthew 7:13-14, Jesus says:

"Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it."

If, by some weird mischance, you think siding with the oppressors counts as the narrow way (because you're perverse and stubborn like that), go on with your bad selves. It's more than likely you won't see where it gets you until you're on your deathbed.

You know the most depressing thing of all? Some of you are counting on it.

When Narcissists Ride Too High

Dear Evangelicals:

You're not going to like this, because it's about an individual you are apparently willing to defend to the death.

His name is Donald Trump.

Politics aside, the crux of Trump's problems is the pathology of narcissism. If you're still reading, it's because you know at least one narcissist who is ready, willing, and able to ruin your marriage, your family, your company, or your church.

What you can't understand, what keeps you up at night, is this: Why are things getting crazier and crazier when you and everybody else caters to this monster's every whim?

Michael Kruse doesn't exactly answer that question in The Trouble With Peak Trump, his piece for Politico. Instead, his harrowing story serves to validate what so many of us have known without knowing -- about Trump and every other narcissist in our lives: If we don't yank them off their high horse and back down to earth at the first sign of narcissistic behavior, they will destroy our sanity. Giving them what they plead for only drives them to exploit us further. As the old saying goes, "Give 'em an inch, and they'll take a mile."

There's only one guaranteed method for stopping Trump and every other narcissist in your life. It is this.

Godspeed.

Charles Marsh Reclaims Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dear Evangelicals:

If you think you know Dietrich Bonhoeffer, think again.

The vast majority of you learned the name of Bonhoeffer -- but little else -- from Eric Metaxas' revisionist, right-wing fantasy, Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

Very dramatic, I'm sure, but all it's really done is convince you to martyr your common sense for an antichrist named Donald Trump.

Wanna know the real story? Read this piece, "Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer Delusion", by legitimate Bonhoeffer scholar, Charles Marsh.

Open Your Mouth

Dear Evangelicals:

Funny thing about you: Invariably, the only reason you open your mouths is to put something in them. If you're speaking up at all, it's for yourselves and the imagined oppression you're going through. Not being able to pray in school is not does not count as oppression.

If you're slightly more evolved, you're speaking up for the oppressed, but only as long as they're living on the other side of the world. Only as long as all you have to do is send money. God forbid you should have to take a risk. God forbid you should have to open your mouth for someone whose religion, ethnicity, gender identity, financial situation, or disability will embarrass you in front of your powerful friends and colleagues.

Only, God doesn't forbid it. He commands it, with no exceptions.

If you don't look out, He'll put you in a position where your very life and health depend on someone speaking up for you. But, don't believe me; ask Christians who've been through it. Seriously, go ahead; I'm right here. All you have to do is comment on this post.