On Faith Party
22 March 2025 Update: See the post On Carpentry.
Initially, I had the name Restore Faith Party in mind, but the domain name restore.faith costs over £500, and I could barely afford a cup of vanilla latte with coconut milk. By the grace of God, I managed to secure the domain name FaithParty.org earlier this morning for $7.66 (£5.91), the price of a cup of vanilla latte with coconut milk at London RPI with spare change. As a Rust developer, I’m also a gigantic functional programming (FP) fanboy.
I am working on the RP1 GB form (Application to register a political party in Great Britain). Due to my poor history of managing personal finance, I would raise more than a few eyebrows if I signed up to be the treasurer. I asked a faithful new friend if he would like the honour. I want the Lord to be the party leader, but I do not have the postcode for His current address. I am also reluctant to ask for His telephone number and email address. Therefore, I disgracefully nominated myself for the interim position. Hopefully, this will be the last time I try over-employment. I almost threw myself off the balcony when I did that last time.
Draft Launch Manifesto
We make zero effort to pretend we have the answers and solutions to all our problems. No single human being in our party makes any final decisions. Only God has the final say. We reason within the boundaries and understanding He gives us. We will make mistakes. We are all flawed and imperfect, like the first man who sinned against God. We operate on one and only one law - love.
The definition of love is the greatest sacrifice one is willing to make. Just ask any father what they are willing to sacrifice for their child.
Romans 13:8–14
Fulfilling the Law Through Love
[8] Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. [9] For the commandments, “You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” [10] Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
[11] Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. [12] The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. [13] Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. [14] But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. (ESV)
Our long-term goal is to restore faith in everyone’s heart so that we don’t, by default, assume the worst of each other. We want to build a society where we, by default, presume the best of each other. We don’t know how to achieve that (yet), but we can start with a tiny step at a time.
The three not-so-tiny steps we currently have on the agenda are the following.
Shelter God’s children by taking them off the streets, feeding and putting a roof over them.
Reunite communities, including but not limited to LGBTQIA+, with God and let them know they are loved too.
Prepare humanity to defend against the socioeconomic tsunami brought about by Artificial Intelligence we have never seen before. We sincerely hope we are wrong, but we face significant unemployment rates and suffering globally for the bottom 90%.
Matthew 6:25–34
Do Not Be Anxious
[25] “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? [26] Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? [27] And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? [28] And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, [29] yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. [30] But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? [31] Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ [32] For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. [33] But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
[34] “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. (ESV)
Isaiah 58
True and False Fasting
[1] “Cry aloud; do not hold back;
lift up your voice like a trumpet;
declare to my people their transgression,
to the house of Jacob their sins.
[2] Yet they seek me daily
and delight to know my ways,
as if they were a nation that did righteousness
and did not forsake the judgment of their God;
they ask of me righteous judgments;
they delight to draw near to God.
[3] ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not?
Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’
Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure,
and oppress all your workers.
[4] Behold, you fast only to quarrel and to fight
and to hit with a wicked fist.
Fasting like yours this day
will not make your voice to be heard on high.
[5] Is such the fast that I choose,
a day for a person to humble himself?
Is it to bow down his head like a reed,
and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him?
Will you call this a fast,
and a day acceptable to the LORD?
[6] “Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
[7] Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
[8] Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.
[9] Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
[10] if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
[11] And the LORD will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
[12] And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in.
[13] “If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath,
from doing your pleasure on my holy day,
and call the Sabbath a delight
and the holy day of the LORD honorable;
if you honor it, not going your own ways,
or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly;
[14] then you shall take delight in the LORD,
and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth;
I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father,
for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (ESV)
Draft Party Emblem
I have been working on the party emblem and have three draft designs. ChatGPT kept rebelling against my instruction to reflect the full party slogan—”Love in Action. Faith in People. Hope for the Future.”—in the design. I resorted to asking my faithful new friend again if he had any faithful artist friends who might be interested. The gig would be fully credited. The down payment is in the form of a bestseller with a full invoice paid on an unknown future date if they charge above-market premium rates.
Edit
After checking out the emblems of existing political parties and double-checking with ChatGPT, I learned that party emblems submitted to the Electoral Commission for use on ballot papers must be in black and white. So here is the fourth draft. ChatGPT was reluctant to clean up the image for me again. It’s seriously starting to annoy the heck out of me. 🙄
Edit Again
I took a nap and just woke up feeling annoyed again at ChatGPT. It kept refusing to clean up the 2020s on both sides of the emblem and arrange the slogan as I instructed. As I was lying in bed listening to Ed Sheeran’s Thinking out Loud, I remembered the year 2020 was when I had my first calling. It was the first and only time I tried MDMA in my life, and I messaged my friend. We matriculated at Keble College, Oxford together. Her father is a Christian missionary in mainland China, who He told me to talk to, and He said the answers are there. As someone with a pretty severe OCD, I like keeping records, and I found the messages I sent five years ago on WeChat. I had not even touched a humanity’s bestseller before then, let alone reading it. If you don’t read simplified Chinese, I used the pronoun ‘It’ rather than ‘He’. The mobile app version of Google Translate has a camera function that you can use. You tell me if He exists.
I had to do a reality check every morning, even in January this year. I would contemplate whether the last several months did happen, whether I had gone batshit crazy and if I should check into a mental hospital. Dude unscrewed and removed the door for me at this point. I cannot shut the door even if I want to. There is no going back. You cannot run away from God.
Now you know why I don’t do MDMA.
And yes, I am fully aware of the implications of what I just publically admitted to. What did I say about telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and getting fucked in the ass by talented Germans in FickstutenMarkt for 4hrs+ non-stop whilst listening to sick Berlin techno?
Draft Party Constitution
I cheated again by asking ChatGPT to write the draft party constitution. Frankly, I could not have done it better myself. It’s slightly longer than one page, but considering the legal and formal language involved, it’s still better than Conservative’s 58 and Labour’s 146. You have to give credit where credit is due. The full version and more details can be found on humanity’s bestseller.
Born to Be Wild - Steppenwolf
Meme
