Disagreeable Malcontent (DM): I noticed you haven’t posted much on the geopolitical aspects of the conflict.

HPS: And that bothers you?

DM: Yes, I want you to agree with me or else you’re a Nazi just like Putin said.

HPS: Oh, I see.  He said that about me?  He’s been paying attention to me?

DM: So let’s get started.  Do you agree that Putin is the savior of Christianity and all of the West?

HPS: No.  Putin is an assassin who came to power by killing, arson, and terrorist threats.  He has bastard children from a woman who wasn’t his wife, has never sent me Christmas cards, doesn’t care about me, has never met me, doesn’t care about the West, and isn’t a Christian and isn’t defending Christianity.  Besides, Christianity already has a savior.  And beyond that, Christianity isn’t a code of conduct.  It’s a salvific relationship with the Son of God.  Putin is not in that group.

DM: Huh?

HPS: Study the history of the church.  After the death and resurrection of Jesus, who is The Christ, Christians were being slaughtered in vast coliseums by Nero, and then by other emperors.  By the year 325 AD (Anno Domini), Christianity had so taken the Roman empire that Constantine was calling for a church council to settle the doctrine of the trinity.  In 325 they decided against Arius and for Athanasius, and declared Arius a heretic as they should have.  When it looks the most bleak, when Christians are under attack, and when believers pray, trust and obey His law, God uses that to conquer the world.  He is even now calling His people back to Himself and will use that to expand and grow His church.  God doesn’t need Putin for that.  He is the only sovereign.  Jesus Christ is the only savior, the only way to the Father, the perfect lamb of God who takes the sins of His people on Himself and saves them.  There is no other savior.

DM: You mean you want George Soros to win?

HPS: Um … what?

DM: Soros overthrew the last president of Ukraine and helped to install someone else, the current president, for oil, gas, and alignment with the West rather than Putin.

HPS: I don’t doubt it one bit.

DM: So by not admitting that Putin is the destroyer of the wicked, you align yourself with the wicked.

HPS: Have you ever taken a course in formal (classical) or modal logic?

DM: No and I don’t have to in order to know that you’re a Nazi because you don’t love Putin.

HPS: You keep saying that word.  Putin said he was going to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, without any metrics, without explaining what that means to him, and without any idea on how to get it done.  Likewise, one of the Russian billionaires called Putin a Nazi.  Apparently, no one knows what that word really means.  So I think you’re a Nazi.

DM: Am not.  You’re a Nazi.

HPS: No, you’re a Nazi.

DM: Am not am not am not am not … (covers his ears with his hands).

HPS: See what I mean?  You sound like a second grader.

DM: So you don’t think Ukraine needs to be saved from Soros by Putin?

HPS: Ukraine, like Russia, like America, needs to be saved by Jesus Christ.  The outcome of the war won’t matter in the least to the advancement of His kingdom, nor the need for the only savior.

DM: So you actually hope Zelensky wins?

HPS: I don’t hope any leader “wins” anything.  I generally despise all world leaders.

DM: Then who do you want to win?

HPS: The pipefitters, welders, roofers, mechanics and electricians of Ukraine, who did nothing to warrant this, didn’t ask for it, many of whom have lost their homes, livelihoods and places of work, and maybe the lives of loved ones.  I hope they win.  The common man.  I identify with the common man.  Rooting for wicked world leaders in light of the suffering of the victims of war is loathsome, nasty and despicable to me.

DM: But you know that NATO was a threat to Russia and that’s why Putin attacked, right?

HPS: Oh, I thought it was to de-Nazify Ukraine.

DM: Yea, that too, or whatever else he said.

HPS: Yea, well, maybe they are, maybe they’re not, but that’s not the reason for the war.

DM: Okay smart guy, tell me the real reason.

HPS: Well, I’m being patient with your disrespect, but I’ll go ahead.  Everything else is a pretext.  The war is being fought over energy.

DM: ENERGY?

HPS: When Russia attacked the nuclear plant, in an odd change of tune for Russia who has thus far mostly refrained from dancing in public (and for good reason, they haven’t had much to dance about), they went to social media and gleefully claimed that they now “own” the plant.  A lot of people have forgotten all about the standoff at the Malheur Preserve and why it happened.  Farmers were being driven off their land on trumped up charges of fire, when the fire was actually an approved, managed burn.  The FedGov wanted that land.  Do you recall the reason they wanted it?  Uranium.  As part of her authority as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton had arranged the sale of a lot of land for which Putin wanted mineral rights.  She had arranged the sale through a Canadian shell company called Uranium One.  She did all of that for a significant donation to the Clinton Foundation.  With his “ownership” (theft) of the nuclear plant, Putin can also confiscate the spent nuclear fuel and reprocess it for use again (Jimmy Carter stupidly outlawed that for the U.S.).  This means money, money, and more money.  Putin wants to control the bulk of the world’s Uranium supply.  His actions demonstrate that.  The oil and gas pipelines are the other huge source of revenue.  This war is being fought over energy.

DM: But Zelensky made his agreements on energy with the West!

HPS: Well, I didn’t say he was a wise or good leader.  I don’t know what was best in that situation.  What’s best is whatever serves the interests of the Ukrainian people.  Given that he is a world leader, I have my doubts that will happen.  As for nuclear energy, Ukraine was about to make a deal with Westinghouse for the AP1000 reactor.  Putin knew that.  I know something about that reactor design.  I also know an awful lot about the RBMK-1000.  It would have been unwise in the superlative for Zelensky to have sided with Russia and ordered an RBMK-1000.  It’s not a safe reactor design.  On that issue, he made the best decision and I support that.

DM: Smart men have observed that history dictates that Ukraine be a buffer state between East and West.  It’s geography man, you can’t deny geography.

HPS: That sounds to me like people who aren’t Ukranian and who don’t live there deciding the fate of people who do live there.  Why should I pay them any attention?  What if Ukrainians don’t want that?  I guess they could either flee or fight.  I wouldn’t blame them for either choice.  But I won’t decide for Ukraine what kind of state they should be – that would be wrong.  That’s their decision.

DM: You’ve said that attacking a nuclear power plant was stupid.  The fire was in an office.  Do you now retract what you said?

HPS: Where did you get your engineering degree from?

DM: Just answer the question.

HPS: Attacking the nuclear power plant was stupid, and did not comport with just war doctrine because of its potential for harm to innocent life and long term harm to the environment.  Fires can spread.  The administration building is appurtenant to the auxiliary building, which is in proximity to the reactor building.  The reactor building is similar to a “Butler Building,” not the hard containment shell designs common here in America.  Furthermore, fires can spread from unit to unit.  This is a multiple unit site.  A fire could potentially take out MCC (motor control centers), power distribution panels, essential power supply load centers or switchgear, or plant power supply (e.g., D/Gs), rendering the ultimate heat sink unavailable for cooling of the core or SFP (spent fuel pool).  In America we have design criteria for fires in 10 CFR 50 Appendix R and NFPA-805.  Russian reactors are not designed to those criteria.  They are very susceptible to fires.  For the unmotivated and ignorant among us, that has nothing whatsoever to do with fire hoses.  It has to do with fire separation criteria, such as not having redundant trains of essential equipment in the same fire zone or allowing essential equipment to be susceptible to a common mode failure.  Attacking the nuclear plant was stupid and ill-conceived.  And go get an engineering degree and nuclear experience before asking anything else about this.  It’s making me tired to explain this to someone who is so totally and abjectly ignorant.

DM: Did you see the article at SWJ where a writer (JAG) justified the attack?

HPS: Yes.  His argument was basically that since the plant wasn’t destroyed and there was no release of radioactivity, the attack didn’t violate the laws of war.  So basically it all boiled down to a post facto determination that since nothing really, really bad happened, it was all okay.  There was no consideration of the fact that really bad things could have happened.  But then, this is the sort of crap I’ve come to expect from SWJ.

DM: Since you brought up the idea of just war doctrine, did you see that the Patriarch of The Russian Orthodox Church justified the war?

HPS: Yes, I saw that.  Be careful, though.  There is no doctrine of just war in the Russian (Eastern) Orthodox Church.  The differences between me, as a Calvinist and of the reformed tradition, and the Eastern Church, don’t stop with the doctrine of the trinity or even other doctrinal differences.  The Eastern church has no doctrine of just war because they have always seen the church as subservient to the state.  How do you think the Eastern Church has survived all of these years under Russian/Soviet rule?  The idea extends to the body of Christ too.  Not just the leaders, but the entirety of the church, the body of believers, should have nothing to say about proper and Godly governance in politics.  They see the church as subservient to the state.  The Roman Catholic Church has always seen the state as subservient to the church, thus they have always wanted to ordain rulers with their approval.  Only the reformed tradition sees sphere authority, with every sphere answerable to the Almighty.  Family, Church and State, all accountable to God and His laws, with the people of God teaching proper doctrine in all spheres, family, church and state, demanding obedience to the law of God (thinkers like Gary North would add Economics as a Sphere, but I disagree and see that as subsumed by family, church and state).  As for the “Patriarch,” I don’t care what he thinks.  Neither does God.  Oh, and by the way, I reject his Disney costumes, his gems and jewels and accoutrements, his wild and unseemly and fatuous getups, his puerile and pretentious clothing and crowns, as part of his station.  It won’t save him from his sins, and what he does, even when administering the sacraments, is no more spiritual than when a farmer plows his field for his family.  This is part of my reformed tradition, to see the common task as done for God’s glory and as a spiritual service.  I would sooner be around the farmer than the Patriarch, or for that matter, any “church leader” in the West.

DM: This has been a weird conversation.

HPS: Good.  Maybe it will cause you to think a bit more before trying to force me into decisions I needn’t make or pigeon hole me into geopolitical categories that don’t describe me in the least.  Don’t be dumb.

DM: Would you agree that Russia has tried to limit casualties?

HPS: By shooting at apartment buildings and hospitals?

DM: You’re just listening to fake news and propaganda.  Okay then, would you agree that Putin is a military genius and that the war is going swimmingly for Russia?

HPS: Only an idiot would claim such a thing.  They have lost more than 400 tanks now, and many aircraft and APCs, apparently cannot logistically support an army further than 90 miles from its own border, have no field hospitals and are having to transport their wounded and dead to Belarus to be cared for or incinerated because they have no refrigeration.  Mothers won’t even get to bury a body back in Russia.  If you lose support at home, the war is over.  Their tires are dry rotting, their tanks lack reactive armor, the APCs are death traps, they are having to rely on untrained conscripts who don’t want to be there and don’t know why they’re there, and they’re having to beg the Syrians for help.  How could anyone call that good for Russia?

DM: Well, do you think Putin has accomplished some of his goals?

HPS: Only if the goal was to rocket Ukraine to rubble and make even deeper enemies right on his own border.  And force NATO to think about re-arming.  Poland wants more jets, and Germany has just doubled its defense budget.  Seems like a pretty dumb move to me, but hey, I’m not the savior of Christianity and all of the West.

DM: Okay well as I said this has been a strange interview.  I can’t seem to get you to take a geopolitical stance and become a cheerleader for anybody.  Do you have any parting words for us?

HPS: I side with the pipefitters, welders, roofers, mechanics and electricians of Ukraine.  I don’t side with world leaders.  Ever.  In anything.  I don’t need another savior.  I have the perfect savior, and He is all I need.  As I’ve said before, “The desire to control others is the signal pathology of the wicked.”  The common man wants the controllers to leave him alone, and so do I.  The common man won’t be saved by Putin, Zelensky, Soros, Biden, or any sinful man.  He will be saved only by the perfect lamb of God, the Son of God, Jesus, who is The Christ.  Only he can take away sin.  Our bodies will all perish – but that’s not the end.  It’s only the beginning.  God is even now controlling the hearts of the rulers to bring about His will.  See Isaiah 46:9-10.  Stop panicking.  Have faith.  Prepare yourself and your family.  This has become distracting for you, and most of the world.