The Lighthouse

Are We Proud of What We Did In Vietnam?

2008-11-01T11:03:00.000-07:00

There has been a lot of talk about John McCain’s “heroic” service to the country in Vietnam. Last night I read a record of America’s adventures in Vietnam, a record made by a man with prophetic vision and voice. Read what we did in

Vietnam

and see if you think John McCain’s or any American’s service there could considered heroic.

Consider the parallels to Iraq and understand that forty years from today someone will be writing about our foolish and unwise efforts in Iraq.

“They must see Americans as strange liberators. The Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence *in 1954* -- in 1945 *rather* -- after a combined French and Japanese occupation and before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh......"

"Even though they quoted the American Declaration of Independence in their own document of freedom, we refused to recognize them. Instead, we decided to support France in its reconquest of her former colony......"

"Our government felt then that the Vietnamese people were not ready for independence, and we again fell victim to the deadly Western arrogance that has poisoned the international atmosphere for so long......"

"For nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Vietnam the right of independence. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to recolonize Vietnam."

"Before the end of the war we were meeting eighty percent of the French war costs. Even before the French were defeated at Dien Bien Phu, they began to despair of their reckless action, but we did not."

"We encouraged them with our huge financial and military supplies to continue the war even after they had lost the will. Soon we would be paying almost the full costs of this tragic attempt at recolonization.

After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement. But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem.

When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace.

The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly corrupt, inept, and without popular support.

Now they languish under our bombs and consider us, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy.

They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into concentration camps where minimal social needs are rarely met. They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs.

So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops. They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees.

They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far we may have killed a million of them, mostly children.

They wander into the towns and see thousands of the children, homeless, without clothes, running in packs on the streets like animals.

They see the children degraded by our soldiers as they beg for food. They see the children selling their sisters to our soldiers, soliciting for their mothers.

What do the peasants think as we ally ourselves with the landlords and as we refuse to put any action into our many words concerning land reform? What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe? Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?

We have destroyed their two most cherished institutions: the family and the village. We have destroyed their land and their crops. We have cooperated in the crushing of the nation's only noncommunist revolutionary political force, the unified Buddhist Church. We have supported the enemies of the peasants of Saigon. We have corrupted their women and children and killed their men.”

Martin Luther King, Jr.

delivered 4 April 1967, at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City

Is this what John McCain is proud of having done in Vietnam?

Pharisees and Republicans, Pt 1

2008-10-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

In the first century of the Common Era the small client state of Judea was an outpost of the Roman Empire. Judea’s major importance to Rome was as a land bridge between Egypt, Rome’s bread basket, and Asia Minor, (modern Turkey), where some of its greatest cities were located.

The religious and political parties in Judea were intertwined and in a sense they were one and the same. There were several of these religious-political parties, but the ones that have come down to us as important are the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were the aristocratic descendants of Zadok, the high priest of King David’s day, and the principal components of the party of the priest in the first century. In the New Testament, the Sadducees are mentioned only lightly and usually in conjunction with the Pharisees.

We know a lot more about the Pharisees, mainly because of their conflict with Jesus of Nazareth, a rabbi from Galilee. This in no wise indicates that Jesus found common cause with the Sadducees and a social and theological untenable situation with their rivals, the Pharisees. It does mean that he had pronounced conflict with the Pharisees and that a record is left for history to examine and make parallels to contemporary groups.

While Jesus did condemned the Sadducees, this condemnation is not at the level of the condemnation that he leveled at the Pharisees (comp. Matt. 16:1,11-12; Matt.23). An examination of the Gospels will reveal that Jesus had four particular areas of conflict with the Pharisees. I think that if we look at them we will see parallels to today’s religious party in America.

1. Jesus’ first problem with the Pharisees is that they did not practice what they preached (Matt. 23: 1-3). They were the kind of people who preached “family values” but did not practice them. They were people like:

Rep. Jon Hinson (A Republican Congressman from Mississippi.) On Aug. 8, 1980, during his first reelection bid, Hinson stunned everyone by announcing that in 1976 he had been accused of committing an obscene act at a gay haunt in Virginia. Hinson, married and a strong conservative, added that in 1977 he had survived a fire in a gay D.C. movie theater. He was making the disclosure, he said, because he needed to clear his conscience. But he denied he was a homosexual and refused GOP demands that he resign. Hinson won reelection in a three-way race, with 39 percent of the vote. But three months later, he was arrested on charges of attempted oral sodomy in the restroom of a House office building. He resigned his seat on April 13, 1981, (washingtonpost.com).
Rep. Robert Bauman, (resigned October 3, 1980), a Republican Congressman from Maryland, a leading "pro-family" conservative, pleaded innocent to a charge that he committed oral sodomy on a teenage boy in Washington. Married and the father of four, Bauman conceded that he had been an alcoholic but had been seeking treatment. The news came as a shock to voters of the rural, conservative district, and he lost to a Democrat in November (washingtonpost.com).
Senator Robert Packwood , (resigned October 1, 1995), Republican Senator from Oregon, resigned his office before expulsion, after 29 women came forward with claims of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and sexual assaults. His claims of no wrongdoing were eventually contradicted by his own lurid diaries boasting of his sexual conquests (Sexual Scandals in Politics, Wikipedia).
Senator David Durenberger, a Republican Senator from Minnesota, denounced by Senate for unethical financial transactions (1990)and then disbarred. In 1995 he pled guilty to misuse of public funds and given one years probation (Sexual Scandals in Politics, Wikipedia).
Senator Jesse Helms Senator, a Republican Senator from, Signed an admission of guilt for election tampering in 1990 but was never prosecuted (Sexual Scandals in Politics, Wikipedia).
Mark Foley, (resigned September 26, 2006), a Republican Congressman from Florida, who sent sexually explicit e-mails to teenage boys who had formerly served as congressional pages. Foley was chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, which introduced legislation targeting sexual predators and created stricter guidelines for tracking them (Mark Foley Scandal, Wikipedia).
Newt Gingrich, (resigned November 6, 1998), a Republican Congressman from Georgia, abruptly resigned his seat after it became apparent that his sexual relationship with a younger woman from a House colleague's staff was about to be exposed. Such a revelation no doubt would be of interest to Gingrich's wife (his second), and it might make the Speaker and the Republicans appear slightly hypocritical since they had spent the better part of a year excoriating Clinton's "character" for his extramarital relationship with Monica Lewinsky (“On the Eight Anniversary of President Clinton’s Impeachment,") Joseph A. Polermo, Huffington Post, Posted December 19, 2006)
Congressman Robert Livingston, (resigned December 19, 1998), a Republican from Louisiana, and Speaker of the House-Designate, abruptly resigned his seat in Congress and the Speaker’s Chair because it was about to be revealed that he was doing the same thing with one of his staff members as he was about to impeach President Clinton for: having an adulterous sexual affair with a consenting adult (See Polermo, above).
Congressman David Vitter, a Republican Congressman of Louisiana, replaced Robert Livingston, A phone number for Sen. David Vitter, R-La., appear. at least five times in the billing records of what federal authorities say was a Washington call-girl operation, the first just four months after he was sworn in to the U.S. House in 1999 and the last on Mardi Gras of 2001. Under pressure earlier this week, Vitter acknowledged committing a "very serious sin" and that his number showed up in the records of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, who has come to be known as the "Washington, D.C. Madam." An attorney for Palfrey earlier said that Vitter's number was found once in the records, but a search of the documents by The Times-Picayune turned up four more calls to a number once registered to Vitter. The attorney said that clients also used phones in hotel rooms, so that not all the numbers can be traced to individual callers (nola.com, “Vitter had five calls with D.C. Madam” Posted by Keith I. Marszalek July 11, 2007).

This is a partial list of the hypocrisy of these modern day Pharisees. The problem is that these leaders do exactly what Jesus said: “They tie up heavy loads and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them” (Matt. 23: 4, NIV). This is the germ of hypocrisy: to preach to people about what they should do and not do and then to practice the opposite of what you preach. This is what the Pharisees did, and this is what people in the Conservative Right Republican base do with regularity.

This blog doesn’t presume that Democrats or other political/religious parties do not commit sin or have transgressions in their lives. The purpose of this writing (and that which will follow over the next several days) is to show that the people, who beat the drums the loudest about morality, are not only the practitioners of that which they say they are against, but they are also the people who are the least concerned about justice.

It’s easy to lay out rules for moral behavior; it’s not so easy to work for justice. I believe that God is in love with justice, not a bunch of rules that even Pharisees can obey.

Definitions and Clarifications

2008-10-14T17:57:00.000-07:00

In my last post I responded to a request by a friend to read a blog and give her my opinion of it. It was an entry entitled, “God is in Control, Pt. 2” by Craige Lewis. In my response I said that the writing as it was presented to me was a heresy. I want to make sure that we have the same definition for some words related to error in Christian doctrine. Therefore I am offering some definitions and clarification of terms:

doctrine: a doctrine is a teaching of Holy Scripture or a revelation from God about a particular line of thought in Scripture concerning essential truths, i.e. the nature and character of God, the nature and ministry of his Son, Jesus Christ, the nature, function and ministry of the Holy Spirit, how we can be saved, etc. Doctrine is always based on God’s revelation from the whole body of revealed truth known as Holy Scripture. Doctrine is always about essential truths, it is always revealed by God to the Church, and it is never private, personal, or secret (2 Pet. 1:20-21). If a person prays for a car and then has a dream about buying a car at a certain place, then goes to that place and is able to buy a car, he cannot therefore come forward and postulate a doctrine of dreams and cars. This is not a doctrine. This is a private revelation. He can, however, proclaim the doctrine of answered prayer.
error: In Christian doctrine, error is the proclamation of a misinterpretation of Holy Scripture, or a making of doctrine out of one text without the support of the whole body of revealed truth, or constructing a doctrine by emphasizing smaller matters while leaving the more weighty matters untouched. This last one is what incensed Jesus (Matt. 23: 23). Many churches and denominations go into error by choosing an area of emphasis that is unrelated to eternal salvation or pleasing God on earth. Churches that emphasize clothes and physical appearance, strict obedience to church hierarchy, choosing dates for the rapture are usually in error.
heresy: a false teaching or misinterpretation of Scripture or a misrepresentation of the revelation that God has given the Church concerning a Scripture or a line of thinking about essential truths in Scripture, and not turning from it to orthodoxy once having been shown the error in it. If an error is preached or taught as being true, it is only an error until it is confronted, and corrected by Holy Scripture and divine revelation. If the person teaching this error refuses to be corrected, then his/her error becomes a heresy.
Apostasy: an open, confirmed and continuous contradiction of the revealed truth of God’s Word. The word “apostasy” means “to turn away,” as in turning away from what is true.
Separation of Church and State: a political doctrine based on the first amendment of the Constitution of the United States, stating that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion...." Together with the Free Exercise Clause, ("...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"), these two clauses make up what are commonly known as the "religion clauses" of the First Amendment” (Wikipedia). This is important because church doctrine is not the same as the law of the land. According to the Constitution of the United States individual Americans are free to have any religion they choose or no religion at all. An individual American can be orthodox, in error, heretical, or apostate in his religious beliefs and not be in violation of any law.

This last point is important because the Conservative Right has wrapped itself in the flag and the Bible, and proclaimed that it alone represents real Christianity. It beats people over the head with its mantra of hot button issues: abortion, sexual abstinence, homosexuality, prayer in public schools, evolution vs. science, etc. The problem with all these issues is that these people are trying to legislate both morality and faith. This is wrong for two reasons:

It is wrong first because Jesus said it’s wrong. The entire 23rd chapter of Matthew is dedicated to Jesus’ judgment against hypocrites who “do not practice what they preach” (Mat. 23:1, NIV). Jesus goes on to say that these hypocrites “tie heavy loads and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift one finger to move them” (23:4).

Jesus then says these are people who “travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are” (v. 15). But his greatest indictment against these hypocrites is in verse 23 where he says: “You give a tent of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”

Jesus said the more important matters of the law are justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Isaiah said that God calls on us to “…undo the heavy burden, and let the oppressed go free” (Isa. 58: 6). The Conservative Right neither believes nor practices these things. Oppression is what they do.

Secondly, attempting to legislate morality and faith is wrong because it violates the Constitution. According to the Constitution there can be no religious test for elective office. The Conservative Right appears to want to establish both a State religion and a religious test for public office. It is wrong in a democratic republic for one religious group to force their religious values on the rest of us. If we do this then we become no better than the Islamic Republics, which I believe are nothing but fronts for dictatorship under the guise of religion.

The present national election campaign is for president of this democratic republic called the United States of America, once known as the "land of the free and the home of the slave." Jesus is not runing for president. His name is not on the ballot. America is not the Kingdom of God. This is a nation that was founded on slavery and exploitation, and hence has been flawed from it's inception. So if you have been crooked from the start, why is it you have to have a perfect leader now?

Any nation and any party that has put up with the bumbling idiot who has lived at 1600 Pennsylvannia Avenue for the last eight years can tolerate someone with a few flaws.

This writer is a Christian who opposes abortion, premarital sex, and homosexuality. But if we make each of these things a crime punishable by law, then we put the government in places where it should not be; in people’s bedrooms. These matters ought to be choices made by the individual and God.

The aim of a democratic republic is to allow its citizens the widest possible latitude in their personal freedoms without allowing them to encroach on the liberties of others. This means that we must give people the room to live their lives and express themselves as they see fit, so long as their lifestyles and behavior doesn’t adversely affect the freedom and expression of others. Real morality can never be legislated.

I would like to see abstinence taught in public schools and be the goal of every high school student. I would like to see prayer in public schools. I would like to see creationism taught along side evolution. But I cannot accept that these things should be coerced on others.

There is a way for our society to deal with the rising pre-marital sex problem, and the vast number of pre-marital pregnancies and abortions; but the churches, pastors, and politicians are too busy playing the blame game to help launch programs that would reduce the rate of first time pre-marital sexual encounters, cut unwanted pregnancies in half, and reduce abortions to almost none.

The first step is to jail the pastors, church men, and politicians who are impregnating the teenagers. I will write about the other nine steps in another post on this blog.

A Respnse to "God is in Control, Pt. 2"

2008-10-13T07:59:00.000-07:00

A friend sent me this blog post from one of her favorite writers. She asked me to read it and respond to it. My response is below:

“God is Still in Control”, Pt. 2 by G. Craige Lewis
The EX Daily Word for October 9, 2008

Genesis 1:28 – “And God blessed them, and God said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it:
and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth..”

Yesterday, we discussed the governments of the earth and how God is not controlling our political leaders, our voting process, or even our monetary systems. I received a lot of emails from folks yesterday that just seem to have fits about what I stated on this subject. Many were Barack Obama supporters and were claiming that he is God's man for this election, and others were just simply hurt because I dared to make the statement that God was NOT in control of our earth's political systems. Well folks, get a grip. First of all, God does not endorse men that are morally bankrupt concerning inclusion, abortion, same sex unions, and hate crime legislation. God destroyed nations over homosexuality and cursed generations over killing unborn children. When Jezebel tried to silence God's prophets, He destroyed her and her husband’s Kingdom! And anyone that believes that there is any other way to God other than Jesus Christ is a thief and a robber according to the scriptures and that man is ACCURSED.

Nita,
I read the writing of G. Craige Lewis entitled “God Is Still In Control, Pt. 2. Mr. Lewis probably means well but what he has written is heresy. It appears to be a combination of several ancient heresies including “deus ex machina,” a corruption of Anselm’s teleological proof for the existence of God, and a brand of secular humanism known as "Semi-Pelegianism."

The first problem appears to be that Mr. Lewis doesn’t understand the historical meaning of the term “God is in control.” It doesn’t mean that God runs things like a foreman runs a job, telling everybody exactly what to do and when they must do it. Our understanding of the nature and character of God was given to us by ancient Hebrew prophets to whom God revealed himself. When they talked about kingdoms and empires, kings and emperors, they said that God Jehovah was in control of them.

What they meant when they wrote passages indicating God’s control over national and international events is that God is the author and executioner of ultimate ends or purposes, and that he, by his will and power, is able to orchestrate human activity, without violating free will, in such a way that his purposes are accomplished in the earth.

The Hebrew prophets never taught that God runs everything, or that God violates free will. The Hebrew prophets taught that while there is evil in the world, this evil does not ultimately supplant the will and purpose of God. God maneuvers, God moves, God arranges, God rearranges, and in every possible way God steps in, around, in front of, and behind the actions of human beings to ensure that his will is performed.

Old Testament theology is very straight forward on this point: the Almighty has purposes or an ultimate purpose, and he is powerful enough and wise enough to use EVERYTHING in the universe, (this means things in earth, hell, and heaven) to bring about that purpose, without violating free will. This is first year seminary instruction.

Moses declared that God used Pharaoh for his glory (Ex. 9:13-16). The story of the Exodus is the story of God being on the side of a weak and enslaved people, and against a mighty and powerful nation in what turned out to be an international economic conflict. Slavery is always about economics. The first Israeli-Egyptian conflict was over economics and theology. The Egyptians said to the Israelis, “You were born to be slaves, and slaves you shall be.” The Israelis answered, “Our God has said, “Let my people go.”

The testimony of Hebrew prophets is that God used the elements of nature (i.e. boils, bloodied water, frogs, flies, disease and death among livestock, darkness, hail, etc.) to such an extent that one million six hundred thousand former Israelis slaves marched out of Egypt as free men. The text says that when they left not “even a dog moved his tongue” in protest (Ex. 11:7). God was saying “I am in control.”

In Daniel chapter five, the prophet says as plane as possible, “the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that he appointeth over it whomsoever he will” (Dan. 21, KJV) This section of Daniel 5:21 is translated as follows by The New International Version: “the Most High God is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and sets over them anyone he wishes.” This is not my interpretation of Holy Scripture. This is black letter on white paper. It’s what the Book says: God is in control of the nations of the earth. He sets over them or allows to be set over them anyone whom he wishes.

How can you say God is not in control of this world and of history, and have a Bible in your hand, a newspaper on one knee and a history book on the other? The person who does so either can’t read or doesn’t understand what he reads.

When God got ready to divide the Northern Kingdom of Israel from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, he caused Rehoboam to resist the advice of Solomon’s (his father) cabinet and Privy Council and take the advice of his age mates who would be in the new government. The kingdom split in two. Then the Bible records these words: “Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people; for the cause was from the LORD” (I Kings 12: 15a, See also I Kgs 12: 24).

If God is not in control of this world we should get rid of the book of Isaiah because this idea permeates his writing;

Isa 40:22
He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

Isa 40:23
He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.
Isa 40:24
No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

Isa 45:7
I form the light and create darkness,
I bring prosperity and create disaster;
I, the Lord, do all these things. rsv

The most outstanding instance of this idea of God being in control of world events is found in Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire.

Cyrus is the Emperor who captured the Babylonian Empire, and afterwards decreed that the Jews could go back to Judah and rebuild the Temple at Jerusalem, sometime after 539 B.C.

Cyrus, being a pagan, worshipped many gods. He came from a culture that practiced abortion or infanticide (killing unwanted babies by exposure to the elements), and probably some form of human sacrifice.

Homosexuality was made popular by the Greeks, but was by no means confined to them. Cyrus knew of it and it was practiced in Persia and in Babylon after he took over.

The Emperor Cyrus was the first conqueror to allow conquered peoples to retain their religion and their culture. It was this tolerance that gave him the impetus to decree that Jews could go home and rebuild both Jerusalem and their Temple.

Now listen to what God calls a man that never knew Jesus, never accepted Jesus, and did not live according to our narrow rules of what we think is right:

“…Cyrus…is my shepherd and will accomplish all that I please…” (Isa. 44: 28, NIV).

“ This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue the nations before him and to strip the kings of armor, to open the gates that will not be shut: I will go before you and will level mountains; I will break down gates of bronze and cut through bars of iron. I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places, so that you may know that I am the LORD God of Israel, who summons you by name (Isa. 45:1-3, NIV).

If God called Cyrus his “shepherd” and His “messiah,” (the Hebrew word for “anointed”), and Cyrus never heard of Jesus, don’t you think he can use Barack Obama who is a Christian? Maybe he is not your kind of Christian but then maybe you are not his kind either. If God could use the ignorance of George W. Bush to get America into this economic mess and into a costly and unnecessary war, why can’t he use the intelligence of Barack Obama to get us out of them?

What we are going through now in America in our financial markets is as much the judgment of God as the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. He is sending someone to show us the way out. How dare we reject God’s deliverer based on such flimsy claims! But, like I said, the fight is always about economics and theology. The question is, “will your understanding of God permit you to enslave, destroy, and exploit other people?” Some people in the Church say God has called them to do it. I disagree.

Come on people! Let’s get real! The SOVEREIGN GOD of the Universe can use anybody at any time in any place to accomplish his purpose. If he can’t then he is not God with a capitol “G.” He is a little “g” god.

The Civil War was basically a church fight between those Christians whose narrow “Pharisee-like” view of the world allowed them to believe that God had ordained them to own other people, and those Christians who had a more prophetic view of human personality, and who could see that slavery was evil from the root to the fruit.

God used whites in the Church, opposing each other on either side, to bring the judgment of the Civil War upon America which resulted in freeing the slaves. This was something that Lincoln did not want to do, but God arranged the circumstances so that it was what he had to do, just as Pharaoh did not want to let the Hebrews go, but he had to. The fight is always about economics and theology.

This teaching smacks of “deus ex machina” because this is a heresy that says that God only comes at the final end and that in between the beginning and the end human beings are left to themselves and the devil to figure out how things work. The Bible doesn’t support this at all. The Bible teaches that God is at work in human affairs, even in human governments, for the purpose of bringing about his will.

This teaching resembles a corruption of Anselm’s teleological proof for the existence of God because it teaches that God evidently made the world but then he has walked off from it. It’s based on the idea of a watch and watch maker: if you see a watch you can deduce that there is a watchmaker somewhere. This is a teleological argument or an argument based on cause. The teaching in question postulates that God made the watch (meaning the world), gave it a good winding and walked off to let it run by itself. This idea cannot be supported ANYWHERE in SCRIPTURE.

This teaching resembles a brand of secular humanism known as Semi-Pelagianism because like Pelagius, (a fourth century British monk condemned by the Church), it teaches that man’s fate in the world is dependant solely upon man. It teaches that God is not active in the affairs of human beings, nation-states, and national and international politics. Further, it raises the power of Satan and man over the power of God in dealing with God’s creation and with God’s creatures.

This brand of heresy was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth century on Native Americans, but especially on African Americans to prevent them from rebelling or in anyway attempting to free themselves from bondage. It says “this is your God-given fate and there is nothing you can do about it.” I wonder where would we be if Martin Luther King, Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, and Rosa Parks had thought like that? They made a move for freedom because they believed that God was on their side and because they believed that He acts in the world. They were right because God does act in human affairs.

Gandhi was not a Christian. Christian Britain had been enslaving and exploiting India for more then 300 years. No one but God, the God of Israel, stepped in to show a little brown man, with no army, how to make an oppressor, who is a world power, let go and be glad to do so. God is at work in this world.

This form of secular humanism would have us divorce ourselves from God because “he is not interested in acting on the world stage anyway,” they say. God would have to be awfully selfish to create a world, send his Son to redeem it, and then not use his power to bring it to his ultimate purpose.

People of limited vision and small minds always attempt to limit God’s work in the world so that they can feel free with doing and saying what ever will limit people, put them in bondage, and make them slaves. Wherever the God of Israel has been worshipped in the world the oppressors have sought first to kill Him, or to kill His influence, or to kill the hope of His people, for they know when his people look to him and cry out to him, he brings liberation.

I have read other writings by this author and they were good and orthodox, especially the stuff about the preachers who have been exposed recently. But this present writing is pure heresy. Maybe he should stick to providing advice to the lovelorn in the genre of a gossip columnist and leave the interpretation of Holy Writ to those who have studied the nature and character of God.

God is in love with justice. God is not an invention of the American Conservative Right. He pre-exists them and He will not fit into their box.

When The Money Fails

2008-10-11T12:28:00.000-07:00

Saint Paul predicted that “in the last days perilous times shall come” (2 Tim. 3:1). When the Apostle describes what these perilous times would look like, the second element in the description has to do with “money.” “People will be…lovers of money”, says the Apostle( 2 Tim. 3:1). The word he uses for "perilous times " is a word that can be translated “covetous,” “avarice,” or “greedy.” Whatever else these “perilous times” will produce, the one thing that is certain is that they will produce people who are fearful hoarders, and greedy for more from fear of running out. I think we are in that time now.

Since the international banks and world-wide insurance companies began to fail a fog of uncertainty and fear is slowly creeping across the nation and across the seas. Banks and bank holding companies are failing---and an infusion of over one trillion dollars by the U.S. government has not put confidence back into the market. I think this is going to last for a while.

Economic depression or the fear of it robs individuals of a sense of peace and security. It turns ordinary human beings into wolves and wild dogs ready to tear into anything and anybody for the sake of survival. When the financial systems fail nation-wide or world-wide, it gives one the sense that the atmosphere is on fire, and one is unsure even about the air that one breaths. Fear, skepticism, trepidation, anxiety, frustration, and doubt are all hall-marks of a failing economy. Since we are unsure who to trust, it’s a safe bet to trust no one. This is true for individuals and entire nations.

This atmosphere of fear and frustration is heightened during a close election. Nothing speaks as clearly about our present situation than the fear and anxiety expressed during this presidential election. The world is going to bed every night and waking up every morning braced for news of an attempted assassination, or an actual assassination. Change is in the air, but so are anger, confusion, and fear.

The Bible records a time of world-wide depression, sort of like the Great Depression of the Twentieth Century, and what we are bracing for now. The book of Genesis says there was a “famine” over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, meaning an empire-wide economic depression. In describing the events of the depression the author of the book of Genesis uses a very peculiar term. Instead of talking about “perilous times” or “hard times” as St. Paul would a millennium later, this writer says:

“And when the money failed in the land of Egypt, and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph, and said, give us bread: for why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth?” (Gen. 47:15, KJV).

The author uses two different Hebrew words to describe a failing economy. The first word is “tamam” and it’s used in Genesis 47:15: “And when the money failed in the land of Egypt, etc. In this occurrence the word “temam” carries the meaning of “having been spent” or “consumed all.” So this time this word could mean that the money was spent.

The next time the English text uses the term “money fails” (“money faileth”) is at the end of verse 15 which says: “why should we die in thy presence? For the money faileth?” This time the word translated “faileth” is the Hebrew word “‘aphec.” It means “to cease,” “to fail,” “to come to an end.”

In this instance the writer is not saying “we have run out of money,” but rather “the money has no value.” I once saw a picture of a German citizen during the Great Depression carrying a wheelbarrow loaded with about fifty-thousand deutschemarks. This was barely enough money to buy one loaf of bread. The money was worthless. The monetary system had failed. The monetary system was broken and it remained so for ten years: from October of 1929 when the Stock Market crashed to the first of September of 1939 when Adolf Hitler invaded Poland, and started World War II.

What will we do if there is a world–wide depression like the one in the 1930’s or the one described in Genesis 47? There are four distinct things that I think every person alive today should know, believe, and meditate on. Three of them come from this text and the fourth is taken from Roman history:

First, you must know that the history of nation-states is the record of God’s dealings with humankind. The history of humanity is not just a chronicle of market forces and social uprisings, of war, conquest, acquisition and buyouts. Behind the recorded pages of the events, occurrences, heroics, victories, defeats, sufferings, experiments, discoveries, expansions, and inclusions there is the unseen hand of the Sovereign Lord leading, guiding, judging, caring, and redeeming.

Many years ago, I heard the late Dr. Manuel L. Scott say: “God is at work in this world with an agenda to which he allocates the priorities.” We live in a world where evil takes place, but this evil doesn’t stop God from working. Sometimes he is working in the midst of the evil and sometimes he is working through it, or around it, but most often in spite of it. If the Stock Market goes down to zero, if every manufacturing plant closes, and if every bank shuts down---none of this will indicate that God has left his post. God is at work in the world.

Secondly, God never sends a world-wide judgment without a warning. The Prophet Amos under girds this truth with the following declaration:

“Surely the LORD God will do nothing, but that he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7, KJV)

I believe that God has been sending out the call for repentance for the last several generations to America and we have not heard it. I do not mean personal repentance, but national repentance, felt on a personal level. Too many of us claim personal salvation in Jesus Christ while worshipping at the altar of extreme capitalism and prosperity. Far too many American Christians are only Christian by culture and not by conviction. Too many Americans believe that real faith in Christ has to do with their race and not their walk with God.

September 11th was a call for repentance, and for a while we did repent and bind together. Then we allowed ourselves to be lead into the very things that caused the tragedy in the first place: militarism, nationalism, and xenophobia. More than forty years ago, God sent his prophet, Martin Luther King, Jr., who said to the leaders of this nation: “America, God says, ‘If you don’t repent, I will rise up and break the backbone of your power.’” We have been warned again and again, but we did not repent.

Thirdly, you must know that God never allows (or sends) world-wide calamity without a purpose. There is a line in the book of Amos that supports this thought. It says:
“When a trumpet sounds in a city,
do not the people tremble?
When disaster comes to a city,
has not the LORD caused it?” (Amos 3:6).

The Authorized Version of Job 34:29 brings the idea home: “When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? And when he hideth his face, who then can behold him? Whether it be done against a nation, or a man only.” These texts mean that God is still in control. When I say that God is in control, I don’t mean God controls the minutiae of life, I mean that "God is in control of the systems that control the changing energies of existence" (M.L.Scott)

On March 28, A.D. 193 Didius Julianus, (known to history as the Emperor Julian) a wealthy Roman Senator purchased the Imperial dignity of the Roman Empire at a public auction held by the Preatorian Guard. He was divested of the emperor’s crown and his life 67 days later when one of those soldiers from whom he had bought the crown forced him into a room in the palace complex and beheaded him.

The Emperor Julian paid the sale price that he had bid for the throne, and there was nothing wrong with the economy. The act of selling the government to the highest bidder was wrong but the economy was good. The Emperor had not considered that there are some things that even money cannot buy, and one of them is an escape from justice.

Fourthly, you must know that God is in love with justice, and he wants us to be also. The problem with the economy is not a lack of money; it is a lack of justice. Whenever justice is trounched in the street, the money will soon fail. When money is used to buy the lives and hopes of human beings and trample them underfoot, that money will soon fail. When people come to love money, wealth, and power more than they love justice, mercy, and wisdom their money will soon fail. The abhorrence of justice brings judgment. Sometimes the only way God can get us to love justice is to empty us of possessions and wealth, till we come to love what he loves.

An Announcement of Judgment

2008-10-06T21:22:00.000-07:00

There are few biblical stories that find a parallel with modern political situations like the shocking story of the “Emperor’s Banquet” told in Daniel chapter 5. Biblical scholars refer to it as “The Story of the Handwriting on the Wall.”

The background of the story is a simple court ceremony in the Babylonian Empire. The Babylonian Emperor is the “shah-an-shah” or “king of kings” of his time. This means that he is not simply the ruler of a distinct land, culture, language, and people group, not just the chief of a local tribe, but rather a universal ruler. The “king” of Babylon is the king of many peoples, the sovereign of many cultures, languages, tribes, and the lord of many people groups.

In the story the young emperor throws a lavish party for the purpose of emphasizing the extent of his empire and the breadth of his rule. He calls on all his client kings and their retinues, his governors through-out the extent of his empire, and commands their presence at the state banquet. When the guests are saturated with food and drink, the music of the several royal bands has filled the air, and the night’s debauchery was about to begin, the banquet is interrupted by an uninvited guest:

“Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way” (Daniel 5: 5-6, NIV).

Josephus says the king “saw a hand proceed out of the wall, and writing upon the wall” (Josephus, Antiquities, 10.11.2-4). Thus the story tells of an apparition, a vision, a strange other worldly occurrence that defies human explanation: the finger of a hand without a body writes as if inscribing into to wet plaster on a wall. Then the hand disappears but the message, though cryptic, remains: “Numbered, Weighed, Divided.” This was as sure a sign of judgment to any ancient reader as the appearance of an angel with a drawn sworn sword.

We later learn from Daniel that the words are cryptic signs of divine judgment which mean that the emperor and his empire have been judged by the heavenly court and found guilty of offenses against God. The empire’s days have been numbered, meaning “finished.” It has been weighed and found wanting, meaning “guilty.” And the empire has been divided, meaning taken from the young emperor and given to others. The sentence was carried out, according to Daniel, that same night (Dan. 5:24-31).

The unfolding story reveals an emperor and an empire that is rife with pride, arrogance, and insolence, and is condemned by divine judgment (Dan. 5:17-24). The judgment of God has fallen on the empire because neither the people nor their leaders have turned from arrogance and pride, although often warned, and afforded great grace. They did not listen. Then the judgment came (Dan. 5:24-31). This story carries four distinct parallels to the present American political and financial crisis:

The first and most lasting symbol of the supernatural origin of the judgment is the unidentified hand writing on a wall. We are not told whose hand it is; we do not see a body, a form or a face; only a hand writing on a wall, a finger scribbling a message in plaster. When the hand of judgment appears, it often has neither name, shape, nor origin. Often it is the will of Providence to do its work in such a way that none can be blamed and none can take credit. This is a constant refrain in Scripture: common events are guided by the hand of an uncommon God to bring about his purposes in the earth.

Often, in agreement with Josephus, the hand of judgment doesn’t just appear near the wall, it truly comes out of the wall, out of the same situation for which we are being judged. The debacle of the financial markets in the final months of this administration is almost apocalyptic. When our financial and futures markets are failing while being surrounded by financial geniuses, it’s a hand out of no where, writing on Wall Street. The judgment of Wall Street is coming out of Wall Street.

The second similarity between our biblical story and present day America is that the judgment came amidst unlimited hedonism. This is also a theme of Scripture: judgment often comes when the powerful and arrogant are prancing high.

When the people who caused the melt down on Wall Street thought that they would leave in golden parachutes, something happened that has refocused our attention on them and the administration that allowed this rape and pillage to occur. God has an arrest warrant for the rich and powerful just when they are ready to strut and prance.

The third similarity of the text and present day America is the judgment was brought about because of unrestrained haughtiness. In both cases the cause for the judgment is pride, arrogance, and insolence. If you read Daniel’s explanation to the king you will see that the judgment did not come because the king drank from some gold and silver vessels. Rather it was because he used those vessels, once dedicated to Almighty God, to praise his gods of metal, stone, and wood, and never mentioned the God who held his breathe (Dan. 5:23).

Daniel was saying that the king’s arrogance was a pride that treated God like a thing and treated things like they were gods. Herein is the American sin: America has always treated people like things and then treated things like they had the value of people, thereby blaspheming the very image of God, whom America says it loves. No matter how much God has favored us or defended us, mainstream America seems to be addicted to the disease of human exploitation. The nation was founded on slavery and in everything it does it seeks some way to exploit, use, or take advantage of other human beings.

Finally, the biblical story and our present situation in America are similar because both their behavior and ours has one result: the unavoidable humiliation that is judgment. The judgment is unavoidable because when it is made known the decision has already been decreed. The judgment has already been pronounced by the time the principles learn about it. Once judgment has been decreed, it’s irretrievable. God never contradicts himself. When the hand writing appeared on the wall it was not to warn of a coming judgment; it was to say that the judgment had already been made, and to give the ensuing sentence.

There is a great difference between a warning from God that “judgment will come if”…, meaning that there is a contingency and we can do something about it, and an announcement that God has made a decision and here are the consequences. The announcement of judgment will only come after much warning and God’s great patience.

It is our constant turning away that brings judgment; our incessant drive toward evil and away from God that causes him to bring his judgment upon us. “A man who remains stiff-necked after many rebukes will suddenly be destroyed---without remedy” (Prov. 29:1, NIV).

This is what brought the judgment in the book of Daniel. In the biblical text, the Emperor’s father, Nebuchadnezzer had been rebuked by God, and driven out of his mind to live among the animals, until he acknowledged that God alone is the ruler in the kingdoms of the earth. Then God brings him in splendor back to his throne. Daniel implies that the young emperor witnessed this horrific lesson, yet paid no attention.

The horrors of the Civil War, the dead and broken bodies of two World Wars, the deprivations of the Great Depression, the labors of Korea, the shame of Vietnam, the cost of the Iraqi war, the robbery of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans, the exploitation of African-Americans, the humiliation of Hispanics, the abuse of the Chinese, the internment of Japanese citizens, the abuse of women and girls, the turning away of Jews, nor the exploitation of every body’s labor----none of these calls to repentance has brought us to it. That’s why there is a fingering writing against the Wall Street.

The message is, “Numbered, numbered, weighed divided.” Your days have been numbered, you have been weighed and found wanting, and your kingdom has been divided and given to others.

Has Anyone Seen June Cleaver?

2008-10-05T12:27:00.000-07:00

From October, 1957 to June, 1963 America was given a weekly vignette of wholesome, moral, secure, balanced suburban family life in a television situation comedy entitled “Leave it to Beaver.” This was a 30 minute chronicle of the life of the family of Ward and June Cleaver and their two sons, twelve year old Wallace (Wally) and seven year old Theodore (The Beaver) Cleaver. (This was their ages when the show started in 1957).

Ward Cleaver was a successful businessman who worked in an office at something that is not quite clear to the audience; whatever it was it was lucrative: Ward’s income took care of himself and three other people in middleclass suburban style. They lived in a big suburban house, drove nice family size sedans, and dressed well.

June Cleaver was always impeccably dressed, her hair well coiffured, and her string of pearls always around her neck. June Cleaver was in pearls and high heels, and wearing a party dress or a cocktail frock, even when gardening or doing the dishes. It seems that June woke up with her hair in place, already outfitted and ready to go to a cocktail party or be the hostess of one.

June was also impeccably behaved. June never disagreed with Ward Cleaver, for as we had already been told for a while by another television show, “Father Knows Best.” Ward never got on June’s nerves. He never acted in any way except the most noble and the most exemplary actions. June was never frustrated with Ward. She never felt like cussing Ward. June Cleaver was so content with Ward that she was probably the first “Stepford wife.”

Not only did June Cleaver never have any problems, she also never had any answers or solutions. Why should she need them? She was married to Ward Cleaver who did all the thinking and came up with all the solutions to any problems that might arise. June never lost her temper.

For June Cleaver there were no problems anywhere, or at least she did not talk about them when millions of Americans were hanging off her every word. No, there were no outside problems for June Cleaver because her world was Ward, Wally, and the Beaver. And there were no problems on Maple Street or Pine Street in Mapleton, USA.

In June Cleaver’s world there are no African-Americans, no Hispanics, no persons of Asian or Native American ancestry, no Moslems or Buddhists, no human beings whose sexual preference is not heterosexual, no persons who are physically or mentally challenged, and of course there are no poor people. June Cleaver never has to face challenges about abortion because there is no premarital sex in her “cookie cutter world.”

June Cleaver was never challenged by unemployment, job outsourcing, inflation, rebellious children, balancing home and careing for elderly and infirmed parents, personal healthcare bills that she is unsure how to pay, or any of the problems that face real woman in a real world, even in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

June Cleaver lived in an insulated world. June was on television for six seasons: from the Fall of 1957 to the late Spring of 1963. These were the years that served as the seed bed for the revolutions in thought and behavior that would change America, but you would never know it by listening to June Cleaver.

Between 1947 and 1961 Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin developed vaccines to eradicate polio. With her precious Beaver being in the target age-range for polio you’d think that June would be concerned about this medical miracle. June never mentioned the polio vaccine.

Three years before “Leave It to Beaver” went on television, the Supreme Court handed down its landmark Brown Vs. Board of Education decision against the Topeka, Kansas School Board, outlawing segregated schools in America. In six seasons on television, June Cleaver never once mentioned this historic decision.

About a year before “Leave It to Beaver” began its six year run Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association successfully broke the back of segregated public transportation in Montgomery, Alabama. June Cleaver never uttered a word about it.

In 1960 doctors and scientist seeking to give women control over their reproductive health introduced the “birth control pill.” This simple medical miracle revolutionized dating, sexual habits, and marriage in America and around the world. It was never mentioned by June Cleaver.

In 1960 John F. Kennedy became the first Catholic to become President of the United States. June Cleaver never noticed.

The question is “why?” The answer is that June Cleaver and the other characters of “Leave It to Beaver” are not real people. They are invented symbols of what some one wanted American life to be; they are not a reflection of what American life is or was, ever! June Cleaver and her family are “symbols” or better yet, “projections” of some one’s ideas of what America was in their minds or what America should be.

Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher, the two white men who originated and wrote the “Leave It to Beaver” program were also writers of both the radio and television versions of “Amos N’ Andy” (from 1943 to 1960). (“Amos ‘N Andy” was originated by two other white men, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll in 1928).

Connelly and Mosher were doing the same thing with the scripts for both programs: selling a message of what life in America ought to be. They had a central message for both shows: “This is who we are.” The “Amos ‘N Andy” program reinforced stereotypical bigotry while “Leave it to Beaver” reinforced a message of prosperity and greatness.

It made no difference to Connelly and Mosher that both messages were untrue; it was a message that helped sell products and solidify a nation. In other words Connelly and Mosher were using the media to shape a national consciousness. By their portrayals of ideal personalities, they invited people to either accept these roles, at the least, or aspire to them, at the most. Millions of Americans did both.

June Cleaver said, “Things are good. Your husband is your refuge. Your children are well behaved. There are no problems inside or outside of your home.” This was only true on Maple Street or Pine Street in Mapleton, USA, a make-believe house on a make-believe street in a make-believe town. In the real America people were catching hell everywhere. (During the six year run of the show, the Cleavers lived on Maple St. and Pine St.)

Sarah Palin is June Cleaver all over again. She tells us that all of America lives in Mapleton, and we are all married to Ward Cleaver. In her world there are no problems that a smile and wink can’t change. “There have been some mistakes with this war and with this administration,” says Palin during the debate, “as with all administrations,” never once admitting that the war in Iraq was wrong to begin with and that this administration has been eight long years of bumble and stumble, always going from bad to worse.

Sarah Palin, a.k.a., June Cleaver, wants the world to believe that all is well with Ward, Wally, and the Beaver. This is not true. Mapleton does not exist, not even in Wasilla, Alaska, a place more than two thousand miles from main stream America. Ward is a drunk, and June Cleaver has no idea what her children are doing or with whom they are doing it.

Sarah Palin and June Cleaver are a marketing package. Those who made the package have little or no concern for the content, because there is no content. The package is empty, but it makes no difference as long as it is pretty and makes people feel good. It’s the package that is being sold, not the content. People look at the package, the outer wrapping that is June Cleaver and Sarah Palin, and identify with them, want to be them or to be like them, not knowing that what they are seeing really doesn’t exist. Even the package is make-believe.

There is no June Cleaver. Connelly and Mosher made her up just like the Republican handlers made up Sarah Palin on Thursday night. Palin was as much make believe at the debate on Thursday night as June Cleaver was in her high hills and pearls doing her gardening. Any serious candidate for a national office would know at least one landmark Supreme Court case.

I see June Cleaver every time some slick politician tries to sway my vote by zeroing in on a candidate’s religion, church, or its leader, or sell a package that says “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction,” or tries to convince me that his screw-ups are really “a mission accomplished.”

I see June Cleaver every time I see someone inaugurated to high public office who is not qualified to be county dog catcher, and who won the office because his/her team of magicians were able to distract voters long enough to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

I see June Cleaver every time some “nickel slick, shinny dime” high priced Madison Avenue political advertising machine picks up someone who is as dumb as a box of rocks, stuffs them full of irrelevant facts and figures, and trots them out like a show horse before adoring fans.

It seems to me that the mess that has inundated this nation as a result of eight years of George Bush’s “June Cleaver-like leadership” would be enough to break America from this silly notion that “the person in the office doesn’t matter as long as he/she has the right ideology and the right people around him/her.

It does matter, stupid! June Cleaver doesn’t have enough sense to change from a cocktail frock and heels, into slacks and sneakers when she is doing her gardening. How do you think she can run a nation?

Has anyone seen June Cleaver? No! Even the people who thought they saw her were only seeing the “make-believe.”

Sarah Palin, Marionette

2008-10-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

Webster's New World Dictionary defines a marionette as "a puppet or little jointed doll moved by strings or wires from above..." This is exctly what we saw tonight with Sarah Palin in the "debate" with Joe Biden. As a marionette, she performed well. I think Sarah Palin did exactly what she was hired to do: answer some questions, cloud over the facts and truths of the present Republican administration, and obscure the record of her running mate, John McCain. She did not make obvious gaffes and stumbles as was expected. This was good.

But the truth of the matter remains: Sarah Palin is not qualified to be “a heartbeat away from the presidency.” Governor Palin’s handlers prepped her well and she came out kind of sporty, and some may even say cocky, but in the end it was clear that she is not “the person for the job.”

The other day I heard John McCain talking about “got cha” journalism. Well, tonight Sarah Palin’s talking points were a lot of “got cha” moments. I think that she thought she was good, but what she showed me is plain and simple: she is not qualified.

Let’s put aside all partisan politics and come directly to the issue at hand: Sarah Palin is not qualified to be president in the occasion of John McCain being incapacitated or his unexpected death in office.

Sarah Palin is trying to find herself; she is not sure of whom she is. I think self-discovery is a great thing, but not at the expense of the American taxpayer and especially not at this critical time in our history.

It’s easy to look at her answers, compare these answers to answers that she gave to questions asked earlier by nationally known news commentators, and conclude that this woman is a black board that many people are writing on. She is not answering these questions; the handlers are.

There are plenty of Republican women who are qualified and who would do both their party and the nation good in the contest and in the White House: Jodi Rell of Connecticut and Kaye Bailey Hutchinson of Texas are among them.

There is something awfully sexist and patronizing about choosing a most unqualified woman for this job when there is a vast number of qualified women in business and politics in America from which to choose.

She did do well in the debate tonight. By this I mean there were no obvious gaffes or snafus. But it is possible to teach a dog to sing. I am not saying that Sarah Palin is a dog. I am saying that Sarah Palin is unqualified to be Vice President of the United States, and that her answers tonight before “omteen million voters” were answers designed to appeal to a certain demographic group, i.e. “Middle America,” or the American Middle Class.

This is the demographic group that we will have to thank and curse if John McCain and Sarah Palin win the election. It is frightening to conclude that a whole demographic group of people can be persuaded to vote against their own self-interest based on fear and ignorance. Sarah Palin’s task was not to answer questions about domestic or foreign policy, but to appear to be “like us,” the vast middle class.

At some point America will have to see that what we need in government is someone who is not like us, someone with a worldview broader and wider than our own. Xenophobia and myopic points of view only serve the small minds that conceive them. They never serve the greater good. The middle class must be taught to be unafraid of change, and unafraid of others.

I was particularly put off by her scapgoating of the leaders of the nations of Iran and Cuba. America must walk away from this xenophobic arrogance. What will change in the world if the American President talks with the President of Iran? How Will the ecosystem be altered if the President of the United States has a conversation with the leader of Cuba? Will time stand still? Will the sun stop shining, or grass refuse to grow, or will cattle world wide suddenly miscarry? Stop being stupid! This kind of thinking sounds like people who believe that girls get preganant from kissing.

Just this group of high school, sophomoric answers to important questions was enogh to make me want to gag. I don't think she understands that there is George Bush's "Mission Accomplished" world, where America sets the universal agenda, and people run, hop, and skip at the call of the United States, and then there is the real world, where other nation-states are as kean about seeking their own interests as we are about seeking ours.

And yet I don't believe that Sarah’s answers reflected what she actually believes. I say this primarily because I don't think that Sarah knows yet what she believes. Other than the right to life issue, it will probably take Sarah another five to seven years to develop a real theory of government and a genuine philosophy of public policy.

In the mean-time Sarah was supposed to obey her handlers, take care of her children, and draw her check from the State of Alaska. This would have made for a very comfortable life. Instead, John McCain, a very ambitious man, stepped in looking for an ambitious woman. I do not fault Sarah Palin for seeking office in Wassila, or in the Alaska State House, or even the Governor’s Mansion in Alaska. But she knew she was not qualified to be Vice-President and should have turned the offer down.

Let me make this simple and clear: When inept, unqualified people come to power “Nine-Eleven” happens, the Iraqi War happens, the disaster of Katrina happens, and the Wall Street melt down happens. When unintelligent, inept, unqualified people are given power destruction follows. Vast numbers of people suffer from their ineptness, and answering a few questions from talking points put together by savvy handlers will not mask that ignorance.

For the last eight years (under George Bush) we have not had policies, foreign or domstic, instead we have had stumblings. In short, the American policy has become whatever resulted from the bumblings of the "Idiot-in-Chief," and those around him. Can we afford this for another four years? I think not!

It appears that with Sarah Palin the puppet handler is moving the strings of a puppet. This has been the case with George Bush and Dick Chaney. It will be the case with John McCain and Sarah Palin, if they are elected, or in some other way come to power.

The Best Health Care in the World

2008-10-01T06:16:00.001-07:00

On Sunday I experienced a part of the American dream, even though it started as a nightmare. I’d been without some much needed medication for about a week. Then the problems began to show up: headache, dizziness, problems with my sight------and then the grandmother of all headaches and a toothache to go with it. I called them the “unholy trinity.”

It felt like there was one little guy in my upper left temple with an ice pick trying to cut his way out, and one on my upper left jaw and the other on my lower left jaw cutting themselves in with jack hammers. The pain was excruciating. The problem was compounded by the fact that this pain never showed up when I was with others: it happened only when I was all alone.

All this changed Sunday after church. My wife and I have just come home. I had to pick up my medicine. I took it for the first time in eight days. So I think I am fine. I sit down behind my desk, turn on the computer to do some work, and boom, it hits me. My head feels like it’s about to come off. My left jaw both upper and lower, are going crazy! The throbbing hurts as much as the actual pain. I walk into the room adjacent to my office with my head up as far as I could lift it (which wasn’t very far) and say to my wife, “Honey, that pain is back and I need to go to the hospital.”

Cynthia, (my wife) immediately notices that something is different about me. She cuts her conversation short with Jeffery, my son-in-law, and tells him to come and take me to the hospital, immediately. By now the pain is so great that it is closing my left eye. I am listing to one side like a sinking ship. En route to the hospital the “unholy trinity” is working me over but good. I am two steps from wishing myself dead. I want anything that will stop this pain.

I don’t know if I lost my hearing en route to the hospital or if I was just in so much pain that I cannot remember what my wife and son-in-law were saying. After stumbling into Jeffrey’s SUV, my next memory is being helped into a wheel chair by a tall man who was asking me to squeeze his fingers. By now my balance is gone, even in the wheel chair. I am leaning to my left side, and both light and sound on that side bring great discomfort.

We are rushing now. Wife and I are fumbling with the wallet, trying to get my medical card out; my driver’s license. We rush down the hall. I can hear voices now. Nurses, I hope, giving orders. I cry out like I have been hit in the head with a baseball bat: A great jolt of pain. There is just a hint of a sense that this might be the end.

Then someone says, “Take his clothes off and put him on that bed.” Then I hear, “Can you stand up?” I answer, “Yes.” In fact I want to wax eloquent and tell the nurses and doctors every minute detail of what happen and how it happen, but I can’t. My speech is not gone. It’s simply impeded by the pain. Every time I attempt to speak the triplets go to work. I am hurting in places that I did not know I had. My clothes come off. I am in the hospital gown. The nurses start the I-V’s and my blood pressure begins to come down. The top number was over 200 and the bottom number was over 100. Whew!

A team of nurses are working on me now. They all seemed to be saying the same thing: “I am gonna stick you here for this. This is gonna make your so and so do such and such.” As my pressure began to come down, I was able to distinguish one gentle voice out of about five or six people. I could hear this really gentle and soothing voice. She said, “I am Dr. So and So.” (Who hears names when your pain is off the Richter scale?)

“I want you to open your eyes so I can give you some tests,” she said. I opened my eyes. As my eyes followed her finger I realized that the pain was gone. “The pain had gone! Oh, my God, the awful pain was g-o-n-e!!!” She made me follow her finger with my eyes, and then she did a dexterity test for my reflexes. I had not had a stroke. Good! A few more test: Read the EKG. Do the CAT scan. Brain, heart, lungs, liver seem to be O.K.

“I interrupt this program to announce to that The Kid is not dead, and any rumors of my impending demise have been greatly exaggerated! We will now return you to your local stations” (smile).

This doctor took her time and figured out what my problem was and treated it. I went to the hospital thinking that I was having a stroke. This wonderful doctor discovered that my problem was twofold: I was off my blood pressure medication and I had a tooth ache in an left molar that needed to be extracted and replaced. The doctor explained to me that the two problems were driving each other. When the tooth pain kicked in it made my pressure rise, and when my blood pressure rose it made my tooth hurt. A vicious cycle!

I was impressed by what this doctor and her team did, but I was also impressed by what they did not do. I was not shoved into a corner and left to rot in pain. I was not tied up in red tape at the registration desk. I was not screamed at like a naughty child by his teacher caught in a school yard fight. The nurses who waited on me acted as if I was a real person: they asked me questions and responded to what I said. The doctor who treated me made me think that my getting better was the most important thing to her, not when the shift would change.

I have never in my life been treated as kindly, as professionally, and with as much grace and human dignity as I received at this hospital. Every person in America, every person in the world should get this kind of treatment, especially when they are sick. When you are sick and you don’t know what’s going to happen to you next, you get scared. This Doctor calmed my fears. Dr. Soni K. Clubb on Sunday afternoon, September 28, 2008, you kept your oath: you did no harm, and you brought me great relief from suffering. Thank you!

Every person whom I encountered at the University of Connecticut John Dempsey Hospital in Farmington, Connecticut, and every person who worked along side Dr. Soni K. Clubb, especially Diana, and Dr. Dolce Durate exemplified the absolute best in healthcare. Whatever Congress does with healthcare for every American, I hope it resembles Dr. Clubb’s team, their grace, patience and excellence, and their professionalism.

"Of Christ and Culture"

2008-09-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

I guess you’ve noticed by now that I am a Christian. I am not a Christian of the “Let’s get a rope and lynch ‘em,” “I am better than you are,” “I know better than you do,” “They are bound for hell and I am not,” “Not in my back yard” variety. I am more of the “Love your enemies, pray for them that despitefully use you,” “humble is the way,” “forgive your enemies,” “Bless them that persecute you, bless and curse not,” “Don’t seek revenge,” If your enemy hunger feed him” variety of Christianity.

I know, I know, you haven’t heard much of my kind of Christianity. My brand of Christianity is not popular among the “mainline denominations” or the up and coming Pentecostals and Charismatics. It’s certainly not popular with politicians and preachers who want America to have a “whop ‘em up side the head” attitude towards everybody else on the planet. No, in America being Christian means that you are the winner at the other guy’s expense.

For centuries Christianity has been identified with the European thirst for conquest and domination. The first European power to employ the name of Christ for this purpose was the Roman Emperor Constantine who had the Greek letters for Christ emblazoned over a cross and placed on his shield and banner and on the shields of his soldiers. The next day he won the battle of the Milvian Bridge, thus making himself sole ruler of the empire. This was in 312, A.D.

Every since that day Europeans have been invoking the name of Christ in every battle, crusade, war, pogrom, lynching, and pillage in which they have engaged. The Nazis believed themselves to be Christian. The Klan called themselves “the Christian White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.” Whenever Europeans seek to dominate people, promote their own culture and destroy others, Christ is their protector and leader. What a fine general this Christ is.

This country was founded with the same ideology: Conquest in the Name of Christ. This thinking was not that Christ would guide them to the new land, and prosper them in settling it, and give them favor with the Indigenous Peoples, and make them a part of the development and prosperity of the country. No! This ideology said, “Our warrior Christ will help us annihilate the savages, subdue them, and rule the land: in other words, “Manifest Destiny.” (Any civilization that is not like Europeans is savage).

Not quite a century after the founding of the country a Civil War erupted in the nation over the ideas of conquest and domination. The war between the abolitionist and the slave traders was largely a church fight. It pitied the “slaves obey your master” Christians against the “Let the oppressed go free” Christians. The Southern Baptist Convention, presently the nation’s largest Christian church, split from its main body, The American Baptist Churches, not over doctrine, but over dominance.

“The SBC became a separate denomination in 1845 in Augusta, Georgia, following a regional split with northern Baptists over the issue of slavery in the US South….The increasing tensions and discontent of Baptists from the South regarding national criticism of slavery led to their withdrawal from the national Baptist organizations.” (Southern Baptist Convention, Wikipedia) Fifteen years after the upheaval that formed the Southern Baptist Convention, the Civil War erupted at Fort Sumter, and “the best blood of the nation was spilled on its own battlefields.”

There has been no major fight in the nation since then that did not include these factions: those who believe that God has ordained them to subjugate, dominate, and control others, and those who feel that God has called them to set people free spiritually, economically, and socially.

“The John Birch Society,” “The Moral Majority,” “The Evangelical Christian Right,” “The White Citizens Councils” are all names for the group that believes that God through Christ has granted them the right of conquest and domination. The main thread of the ideology has not changed since 312, A.D.: “God is with me. He is not with you. I am ordained to win and you are not. God has called me to subjugate, dominate and rule you, and he has called you to be my servant and slave.”

I watched the debate between Senator Barack Obama and John McCain on Friday night. I saw the classic dichotomy once again; two Christians from opposing perspectives. Every time I heard John McCain say, “Senator Obama doesn’t understand,” I saw the old paradigm: “Boy, God has sent me to be your master and to tell you what to do in order to be safe. You are too much of a child to known what government ought to do. Let me worry about government, because God has left me in charge.”

The language used by McCain when addressing Senator Obama appeared to be aimed at belittling and humiliating him. This attitude resembled the thinking of those people who challenged Lincoln in the abolition of slavery, but more importantly it puts him with the thinking of those who challenged Jesus over the woman caught in adultery. People who think like this are always ready to take lives, belittle destinies, and kill dreams for the sake of proving themselves to be right.

What is real Christianity? Is it a paradigm for cultural conquest? Is Christianity a method of social conquest that will give Nazis the upper hand over Jews, and once again make German bankers the deciding power in the life of German citizens? Is Christianity the organizing force that puts plantations and their inhabitants in right relationship so that “master and slave” have proper balance? Is Christianity that ideology that causes the “have nots” to be content with what they don’t have, so that they will not challenge the “haves?”

I do not believe that Jesus is either Democrat or Republican, but the nature of the Gospel is liberating. The person of Jesus sets one free. The Sacrifice of Jesus makes us free. The teaching of Jesus makes people free. The preaching of Jesus makes people free. The ministry of Jesus makes people free. What Jesus says and does at once makes us free and draws us to him. Bondage, control, slavery, and domination, are as antithetical to his person as witchcraft is foreign to his nature.

I am certain that the Christ of the Gospels and the Christ of Conquest and Domination are not the same person. The one is an invention of those in charge to give them-selves license for racial and cultural superiority; the other is a Person who enables us to live victoriously even in the face of adversity. The real Christ is a liberator, even when the one whom he is setting free is Pilate, Judas, or Thomas; and he would have set them free had they only asked him.

The appeal of “The John Birch Society,” “The Moral Majority,” “The Evangelical Christian Right,” “The White Citizens Councils,” is that they seek to reach “John Q Citizen” in his most visceral area! What is that? Dominance and security! He only feels secure and successful when he/she has dominated and subjugated some one else, even if the other person is another Anglo-Saxon White Protestant. In their mind Success is equal to being over others. This ideology is inescapable when you learn it in your home, at your school, and in your church.

What if Constantine had an authentic vision of Jesus, and what if Jesus actually did intervene on Constantine’s behalf, causing him to win the battle of the Milvian Bridge? And what if our Lord intended that event to be a relief for his Church and not a charter for future generations to effectuate conquest upon other peoples in his name? Jesus has NOT sent us forth to conquer and subjugate political kingdoms, cultures, and people groups in his Name. Political domination is as foreign to the Christ of the Gospel as is murder.

“The Christian Right,” “the Conservative Right,” “The Moral Majority,” “Focus on the Family” brings all of these issues back into focus. These people are basically saying, “God has ordained us to tell you how to think, feel, and act. Your responsibility is to obey; ours is to lead. This is not my idea of Christ or Christian leadership. I reject this thinking. I hope that you will reject it also.

No Immediate Bailout

2008-09-26T11:36:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with the Temptation of Jesus on my mind. This is the story of Jesus being tempted by Satan after he had fasted for forty days and forty nights.

“After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry” (Matt.4:2, NIV).

The text then goes on to describe a tremendous struggle of wills between the Prince of Peace and the Prince of Darkness. It is peculiar to me that the struggle did not begin in earnest until Jesus had fasted for forty days and nights. The fasting had to be preparation for the coming struggle. Did Jesus draw strength from doing without food? How could he? How could the fasting from physical food be preparation for a spiritual struggle if he was not somehow getting renewed strength from the fasting?

The fasting was preparation for the coming struggle. All of Jesus went through the temptation: both his divine nature and his human will. They both had to stand the test. Jesus was strengthening the unused muscles of his human nature so that this nature would not fail at the temptations of Satan. The fasting built up his human nature and prepared that inner man for the coming struggle. This was necessary because the coming struggle had at least three parts:

First there was a test to be given by God. God wanted to know: “Will you go through the great and terrible wilderness were neither my face nor my hand will be seen? Will you rely on what you know about me when you can’t find me? Can you trust me beyond the apparent and the obvious?

Secondly, this struggle represents the temptations of Satan. Notice that all the temptations were based on things that appeal to the appetites and senses, a definition that aptly applies to “carnality.” First, there was a temptation that concerns food. Then one that concerns using divine power to do the spectacular for personal gain; and finally the temptation of power, position, and privilege.

Finally, this struggle also is a great personal trial for Jesus. He is tried in himself. Jesus gets to see what he is made of, what his limits are and how much he can bear. How can he be “tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin,” (Heb.4:15) if he does not go through this trial? The trial refines his motives, and distills his intentions, and focuses his energies.

Notice the preparation for the trial: “he was hungry.” Privation is preparation for the proving. Jesus was not ready to be tested, tempted, or tried until he was deprived, first of the heavenly dignities, and secondly of the earthly necessities (Phil. 2: 5-8). He was hungry!
Hunger does three things immediately to the human spirit:
1). It makes you humble;
2). It makes you teachable;
3). It makes you accepting.

Jesus was already all of these things, but “though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered” (Heb. 5: 8, KJV). When he was hungry he was further humbled and made even more open to the Spirit of God. His spirit was even more teachable and acceptable of God’s direction. It was good for him, but more importantly, it was a lesson for us.

Whether you are a nation or an individual, you won’t be tried until you are hungry. Testing and trials are about bringing out the best that is in you, and making you see what is real, when everything else is gone. A trial, with the necessities of life available at hand, is no trial at all. Deprivation and trials are twins.

Economic hunger and privation will drive this nation from its arrogance. When the rich and powerful loose their privilege and power, as well as their money, they become humble, teachable, and accepting of other people and of other worldviews.

This brings me to the Congressional attempts to bail out Wall Street. I have one message for Congress: Don’t bail them out, at least not in a hurry. They are not hungry. They are simply scared. Let them be hungry for a while. Then let’s see what they are made of.

I am saying this with full assurance that many of the people who will vote on the bail out are heavily invested in Wall Street and some of those failed markets. If it was alright to let millions of people loose their homes, farms, and small businesses in a “free market economy,” let it continue to be a “free market economy,” and let the fat cats loose also.

This is not vengeance; it is cleansing. To be truly hungry, in the sense that Jesus was hungry, is to desire food and NOT be able to satisfy the craving. Wall Street and America have been on a gluttonous rampage for over fifty years. We have slaked our appetites with everything imaginable from around the world. We have devoured whole nations in one all consuming gulp, and washed them down with rivers of oil, and oceans of other luxuries. Now is the time to pay. It’s time to be hungry.

We determined the budgets of nations and continents. For years we told the Afghans, and the Turks, and the people of India how much ground to cultivate for poppy plants depending on our need for morphine. Then we looked the other way when they sold what was left to the drug dealers for cocaine. What difference did it make? The U.S. government, Wall Street, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund were fattening themselves on every transaction. Gluttony at world expense! The feast is over!

Here is my question: If the innocent can be hungry, then why can’t the greedy? Remember that the Prodigal Son did not come to himself until he was arrested by Sheriff Hunger!

But there is Good News: If you go through the hunger, and the testing, tempting, and trail that comes after it, God will send deliverance when it’s over. “Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended to him” (Matt. 4: 11, NIV). God can make the devil leave. Adversity and the continual fear of financial collapse can be a thing of the past.

Neither a nation nor an individual has to exploit other people in order to get on top. Deliverance can be ours without sticking a knife in the backs of others. There is something good about the test, the temptation, and the trail. It is because of what comes after the hunger and the trial that I know they are not all bad: “angels came and attended to him.”

Why is the Bush Family Always Invovled When Banks Fail?

2008-09-24T18:35:00.000-07:00

Go to http://rationalrevolution.net/war/bush_family_and_the_s.htm

The Power of His Passion

2008-09-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

Went to church Sunday morning, and what a morning it was. The pastors have invested thousands of dollars in an organ, but have not yet hired a full time musician to play it. So in absence of a musician the pastor who led yesterday’s worship informs the congregation that the praise and worship music will be by courtesy of a compact disc. He goes to the control room and puts the music on. We (in the pew and congregation) immediately pick up the tempo and cadence.

A little hand clapping and some foot stomping began to rise and spread across the room. By the second stanza of “Hallelujah” the flow is all over the place. “God is high above the heavens,” the sung leader sang, and we repeated her words, tone, tenor, pitch and melody. “Halle, Halle, Halle, luuh-aaah,” we all sang. It was good. It was refreshing!

Then the pastor played a different song. The music was upbeat, but the words did the reaching and grasping of my spirit:

“Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried he carried my sins far
Away
Rising He justified me
Freed me forever
One day He’s coming back
Glorious day.”

While I was feasting on His love for me, made known in his death for me, and his carrying my sins far away, the next verse began to play:

“One day when heaven
Was filled with his praises
One day when sin was as
Black as could be
That’s when Jesus came down
To be born of a virgin
Dwelt among the many our
Example is he.”

We all sang loudly:

“Living He loved me
Dying He saved me
Buried he carried my sins far
Away”…etc.

By now I feel the anointing and I am about to have a shouting good time. The music continued with this verse:

“One day they led Him
Up Calvary’s mountain
That day when they nailed
Him to die on a tree
O’ suffering and anguish
Bearing our sins our example is He.”

(From “One Day,” written by J. Wilbur Chapman around the turn of the 20th Century. Arranged and sung by Donnie McClurkin).

When the singer got to the part where he was singing about how they “nailed Him to a tree,” I felt the King of Glory walk in the room. He walked in and stood right next to me. I had my eyes closed the entire time, only opened far enough for the tears to seep out, but I know it was Him. I could feel his Presence. I knew beyond any doubt that He was there.

I know it was Him for three reasons:

First, I know I was close to the King because the closer he got to me the more my thoughts became filled with Him. My whole being, mind, body, and spirit were saturated with thoughts of how the Lord Jesus is wonderful, loving, merciful, and kind. Every breath spawned a myriad of new thoughts about his goodness. I could feel myself just floating around in his goodness.

The second reason I know that the King Eternal was near me was because he lifted my depression. He brought me ineffable joy! This is not just an aesthetic laughter; it is a renewal of hope, and a renewed certainty that tomorrow will be better then yesterday. This joy is the new wine of life that Jesus gives to the full. He has taught me that you cannot be depressed and be delivered at the same time. Wherever Jesus is, there deliverance is found. When Jesus walks in depression seeks a new address.

Thirdly, I knew that it was truly the King because all this joy was based on his sacrifice at Calvary. I was not joyful about one of my new accomplishment or a personal high achievement; in fact what I was joyful about was something that I had absolutely nothing to do with: Jesus died for me! In a split second I thought about the anguish of Gethsemane, the agonies of Calvary: the bloody sweat, the anguished crying, the lash on his back, the nails in His hands, the spikes in his feet, and the pain he suffered when separated from his Father.

It seemed like someone was standing near me reading out loud the words of Isaiah 53. I hear it even now:

“He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…Surely he has born our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed” (Isa. 53: 3-4). “I get joy when I think about just what he done for me.”

My shout didn’t start in earnest till the singer said:

“One day they led Him
Up Calvary’s mountain
That day when they nailed
Him to die on a tree”

It was the “dying on the tree” part that brought me into the Presence of the King of Glory. Every now and then I have to go back to Calvary. Sometimes the Lord has to remind me that “I am not my own. I have been bought with a price” (from I Cor. 6:19-20). Thinking about Jesus’ suffering at Calvary brought me into the Presence of the Lord. His Presence gave me joy.

If you want your joy back, stop thinking about what you are going through and start thinking about what He went through for you. Forget about your hardship and dwell on the suffering that Jesus experienced for you.

Did you know that the Passion of our Christ is so powerful that you can release deliverance just by contemplating it and praising God for it? If you praise God for the Passion of Jesus he will release great deliverance for you.

Read a portion of Isaiah 53 each day for seven days and think about it. Don’t ask God for a thing. Just read and think about his suffering. (The vision of Isaiah 53 actually begins in Isaiah 52:12).

Day 1: Isa. 52: 12- 53:1-2
Day 2: Isa. 53:3-4
Day 3: Isa. 53:3-4
Day 4: Isa. 53:5-6
Day 5: Isa. 53:7-8
Day 6: Isa.53:9-10
Day 7: Isa. 53:11-12

Submitted to His Sovereignty

2008-09-20T09:45:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, while reading the story of King David just to pass the time, I stumbled upon two very intriguing passages:

“If I fine favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back…But if….[not], then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him” (2 Sam. 15: 25, 26, NIV).
and
“If he is cursing [me] because the Lord said to him, ‘Curse David,’ who can ask, ‘Why do you do this?’….. Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to. It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today” ( 2 Sam.16: 10, 11-12, NIV).

I was arrested by King David’s patient surrender to the will of God in bad times. The background of the story is horrendous: The King and his entire household have been routed from Jerusalem, the capitol city, by his own son and heir, Prince Absalom.

Scholars are divided on why the Almighty allowed the revolt of Absalom to occur, or at least why it has such a prominent place in the narrative. Some say this record is intended to demonstrate God’s punishment in David’s life for his adulterous affair with Bathsheba and his subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah. Others say the rebellion of Absalom occurred because the King refused to do justice when his eldest son, Amnon, raped his half sister, Tamar.

In some eyes David is being punished for something he did do, while in others he is being punished for something that he did not do. In either case, all hell has broken loose in the life of the King, and David has to choose between running like a scared dog and fighting and killing his own son. What a dilemma! David chooses to run.

The first text is in response to a friend, Zadok the priest, who wishes to follow David and bring with him the Ark of the Covenant. David sends both Zadok and the Ark back to the city with these words: “If I fine favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back and let me see it and his dwelling place again. But if… [not], then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him”

The second text is David’s response to Shimei, an enemy, who has come out to curse the King during his darkest hour. The King’s nephew, Abishai, is head of the Secret Service, (captain of the King’s body guard) and a general in the army. General Abishai hears the cursing of Shimei, draws his sword, and is about to take Shimei’s head off when King David intervenes with the words of the second text.

It is in this sad hour, when King David is transformed from a mighty warrior to a man fleeing for his life, that he teaches us some very important lessons (or should I say the Lord uses him to teach us some very important lessons):

1. David saw the events of his life as coming from the Lord, not from Absalom. Here is a major truth: The setbacks and advancements of your life do not come from other people; they may come through them, but they actually come from God. If you and I could bring ourselves to see other people as the conduit or pipeline of our fortunes and not the source of them we would have a whole lot less people with whom to be angry and fewer people to hate. God either allowed the setback, disappointment, or downfall in your life or he sent it. This is the lesson of Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane: ‘Father, you sent this my way. Show me how to endure it. Let your will be done.’ Jesus never prayed for the death of Pilate, the soldiers who beat him, or the destruction of the Jews who tried him. Stop being angry with the person who brought the trouble and get things right with the One who sent it or at least allowed it. “If I fine favor in the Lord’s eyes, he will bring me back…But if [not], then I am ready; let him do to me whatever seems good to him.”

2. David never carried a grudge against Absalom. He did not want revenge against his rebellious son. The Law of Israel clearly gave the father the authority of life and death over his children, especially a son. Absalom’s rebellion was not only high treason against the King’s majesty, it was also a just cause for any father in Israel to have his son stoned to death (See Deut. 21: 18-21). But King David walked away from revenge. He would not even allow it into his heart and mind. This is a tough one because every time someone does something to hurt us it is very easy to begin planning ways to “get back at them,” “to show them.” It’s natural and we do it all the time. When people hurt us, we try to conjure up ways to hurt them back. “Not so!” says King David. Revenge is a waste of energy and it will never get you what you really want, which is victory. Give up revenge. Put revengeful thinking out of your mind. “Leave him alone; let him curse, for the Lord has told him to.” “Be gentle with the young man Absalom for my sake” (2 Sam. 18: 5).

3. David reckoned that not answering the pain that others brought to him was his investment in what God would give him later. David had a peculiar system of justice: it was not “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” It was this: “If you put my eye out, instead of me putting yours out, I will look to God who is able to give me sight in my hands, my ears, and my feet. I will see more and do more with this one eye than you will do with two eyes.” Why? Because God will give me something good for the evil that you gave me. "It may be that the Lord will see my distress and repay me with good for the cursing I am receiving today.”

These three things may be why the Bible remembers David as “a man after God’s own heart” (2 Sam. 13:14; Acts 13:22).

Turn your life around. Start looking to God as the source of your setbacks as well as your advancements. Regardless of what happens in your life submit yourself to the sovereignty of the Almighty God, because only he can turn midnight into noon day. He did it for David. He will do it for you.

Ahab and Jezebel, Again!

2008-09-19T09:28:00.000-07:00

In the ninth century before Christ a corrupt and evil regime came to power in the Kingdom of Israel. Ahab, a scion of the Omride dynasty, became king and his bride, Jezebel became queen (I Kgs. 16:21-28).

King Ahab and Queen Jezebel brought disaster to the Kingdom of Israel through their corrupt religious policy, flagrant disregard for human rights, and unwise foreign policy which sought war as a means of commerce. The totality of the administration of Ahab and Jezebel was gain, commerce, and increase “by any means necessary!” (See I Kgs. 19:1-2; chap. 21; 22:1-40).

When the reign of Ahab and Jezebel was over the Kingdom was morally, economically, and socially weak, and almost bankrupt. Under the Ahab and Jezebel administration the rule of law was abandoned for the rule of the expedient. The currency was devalued and financial markets came to ruin. There was a run on the banks. War and militarism was the government’s stock in trade. Those who approved of the wars were rewarded; those who didn’t were defamed and imprisoned (I Kgs. 22: 8-18).

It is apparent from the reading of the text that King Ahab had little knowledge or stomach to rule. This he leaves to Queen Jezebel. Jezebel’s idolatrous and hypocritical religious policies made Israel morally weak. Jezebel obviously did not know that Israel’s strength was in its moral rectitude, not in its military. Once Jezebel had successfully destroyed that moral defense, the Kingdom was open for attack and subjugation.

It is because of the moral weakness developed during the Ahab and Jezebel administration that Israel became a target for ravenous nation-states around her. This weakness set in motion the total destruction of the nation and the exile of it’s inhabits only a few hundred years later.

The biblical chronicler records that Ahab was the worst king that Israel had ever had. He goes on the say that he was worst than all the other kings of Israel combined (I Kgs. 16: 30, 33).

What happened in ninth century Israel is happening again in twenty-first century America. Again, the son of a great family, George W. Bush, has come to power, and he has brought with him his own Jezebel, Dick Chaney. Like Ahab, Bush has neither the intelligence nor the will to govern a nation. This he has left to his Jezebel, Dick Chaney.

Bush and Chaney’s policies, like Jezebel’s, have resulted in the most disastrous outcomes that the nation has experienced in its history:

Ten billion dollars a month for the war in Iraq that is the result of a planned series of lies for the purposes of personal aggrandizement and increasing the profits of corporations connected to the military-industrial complex.
War on two fronts while this administration is in search of a third theater of war before it leaves office,
International respect for the nation has fallen to its lowest since the nation has been in existence;
Phenomenal mortgage failures: hundreds of thousands of people loosing their homes, thousands more can’t get a mortgage because the lending institutions are going out of business;
The administration has used the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 as a pretext to trample over the civil and human rights of American citizens just as Jezebel trampled over the rights of Naboth and his ownership of the vineyard.
The cost of living is rising beyond the grasp of common people;
Major financial institutions are failing in record numbers.
We are on the brink of a major financial depression that will make the 1930’s look like a picnic.

We are experiencing Ahab and Jezebel again. I wonder if McCain and Palin are intended to be follow ups to this act? Are they to be the new Ahab and Jezebel?

The End Result of the Life of a Racist

2008-09-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

1. Willie Rainach, (1913--1978): Segregationist Louisiana state legislator; founder of the White Citizens Councils in Louisiana. Built his reputation on trying to stop integration in Louisiana 1959-1963. Committed suicide January 26, 1978.

2. Theodore Bilbo, (1877—1947): Rabid racist Governor of and later U.S. Senator from Mississippi. Eloquent speaker. Champion race baiter. Whenever issues were too complicated Bilbo yelled racial epithets. Died of mouth cancer 1947.

3. Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connors, (1887---1973): Segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety of Birmingham, Alabama during height of Civil Rights Campaign. Brutalized civil rights protesters, including women and children, with high powered water hoses and police dogs. Confined to a wheel chair by a stroke from December 7, 1966 till his death 5 years later. Second stroke February 26, 1973. Died March 10, 1973.

4. George C. Wallace, (1919—1998): Segregationist Governor of Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement. Nemesis of Dr. Martin L. King and President John F. Kennedy. Famous for standing in school house door at University of Alabama on June 11, 1963 to prevent the university from being integrated by two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. Federal marshals and the Alabama National Guard federalized by President Kennedy made Mr. Wallace move and the students where admitted. Shot in Laurel, Maryland in an attempted assassination on May 15, 1972 by Arthur Bremer, a white man. Paralyzed thereafter from the waist down for the rest of his life. Died of septic shock from a bacterial infection in Montgomery, Alabama on September 13, 1998.

5. William James “Bill” O’Reilly, (1949----): Radio and television commentator with the attitude of Rainach, the verbosity of Bilbo, and a desire to use the tactics of Connors and Wallace. Threatened to “organize a lynching party for Michelle Obama.” Rabid racist under a thin sheet of respectability. Demise: choose from above.

“I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.”

From the February 19 edition of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly.

Nearly 400 years of slavery.

100 plus years of segregation and unequal treatment before the bar of justice.

Systemic social injustice designed to favor one group while disenfranchising others.

The reservation system imposed on Native Americans.

Is America a bad country and a flawed nation?

“The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine.”

The Testimony of a Man Who is Waiting

2008-09-14T14:39:00.000-07:00

How can a person who is praying and hoping that God will do something continuously go around proclaiming that God will do it when it hasn’t happen yet? I mean, put yourself in this situation: Let’s say you’ve praying for something for years and nothing is happening. Instead of things getting better, they seem to actually be getting worse. Why should you greet each person you see a smile, and the comforting words, “It’s alright. God will deliver. He will make it alright? I know that God will answer?”

A series of questions like these came to mind as I sit in church this morning. The power of the anointing was flowing all about me. People were praising God in every square inch of the place. The praise music and the singing brought us as near heaven as we dared to go without assigned seats. As I was enveloped in praise these thoughts came to my mind,

“Why are you praising God and you’ve been waiting on Him to move for so long and nothing has happened. Why should you praise God? It seems like he has forgotten you. You have fasted and prayed, and fasted and prayed, and nothing has happened. He has given you a train load of ideas for ministry and no resources or opportunities to make the ministry happen. Mrs. Lot was right. You oughta curse your God and die…or at least die to the idea of ministry.”

But in the midst of these thoughts another voice invaded my thought life. I could hear this voice clearly. It said simply,

“Wait on the Lord because he has come through before!”

When I heard that in my spirit I went to “jump-city.” I went to praising God like there was no tomorrow. When I thought about how many times he has come through for me in times when I thought He had forgotten me, I said:

“It’s alright that he has not answered up till now. I am willing to wait.”

Before I could stop rejoicing over that reason another good reason to wait on God came to my mind; and that reason is simply because he promised.

The character of the Person making the promise is so good and upright that his promise is good even if he does not fulfill it for twenty years. When he does fulfill his promise, no matter how long it takes, it’s worth the wait.

Bristol Palin's Baby's Father Speaks

2008-09-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

While I am not in favor of supporting or not supporting political candidates based on their bedroom decisions or the sexual actions of those around them, I do hope the main stream media pursues the alledged paternity of Bristol Palin's baby as much as they pursued the Jeremiah Wright matter.

If Kevin, the African American young man on the video, is the baby's real father it should be known. Gov. Palin, her husband Todd, and Bristol should be asked why Levi Johnson was paraded on the world stage of the Republican National Convention as the baby's father, and not Kevin (if Kevin is the real father).

I was sent this video today and was told to check it out before it was pulled off the Internet.
Click here: Father of Bristol Palin's baby speaks - Related Indian Videos, Bollywood Videos - SmasHits.com http://utube.smashits.com/video/VELIG92GDXw/Father-of-Bristol-Palin-s-baby-speaks.html

"Let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream" Amos 5:24)

John McCain: Hero of the Republicans

2008-09-11T17:47:00.000-07:00

John McCain is the same Senator from Arizona who was a part of “The Keating Five, a group of five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s” (See Keating Five, Wikipedia). On April 9, 1987 John McCain was present and involved in a two hour meeting where he and four other Senators tried to persuade federal regulators to back off a corrupt savings and loan that later collapsed and cost people their life’s savings and coast the federal government about 2 billion dollars.

The group was named after Charles H. Keating, Jr., a fat act who owned American Continental Corporation, and who later spent five years in prison for his crimes of corruption. American Continental Corporation owned Lincoln Savings and Loan of Irvine, California. Mr. Keating turned Lincoln Savings and Loan into his own slush fund and got the Senators to help keep the regulators from taking it over until it was too late. “More than 21,000 mostly elderly investors lost their life savings. This total came to about $285 million” (Wikipedia).

“McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981.[8] Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.[14] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[6][15]”

“The Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of McCain in the scheme was also minimal, and he too was cleared of all charges against him.[17][16] McCain was criticized by the Committee for exercising "poor judgment" when he met with the federal regulators on Keating's behalf.[6]

On his Keating Five experience, McCain has said: "The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."[6]

The people who planned the Republican National Convention did not remember the Keating Five. They did not mention it once. They never once mentioned those 21,000 people who lost their savings because John McCain was pushing for the fat cat and not the underdog. I wonder why?

The convention planners baptized us with repeated reverences to John McCain as a war hero and a prisoner of war. But at no point did anyone say that the Vietnam War was another unprovoked and undeclared war that represented American adventurism and raw aggression.

No one dared say that “the root eating slant eyed Viet Cong” whipped the Americans and sent them home with their tails between their legs. No one dared say that we lost the war because the Viet Cong were fighting for their homes and families while most Americans saw the war as unjust blatant raw aggression.

And no one dared to point out that John McCain was most likely spewing napalm and Agent Orange over Vietnamese villages to kill foliage, women, children, and livestock; in short anything that breathed. I am befuddled by the constant attempt to make service in the Vietnam War equal with service in World War II or any other noble conflict.

Just because the nation’s leaders decide to go to war in some foreign land does not make the war just or right. The Vietnam War was wrong. It cost Lyndon Johnson the goodwill of the people and a second term in his own right. And it cost America a generation or two of healthy minded young men and women. It scarred us internally and around the world.

A person of no social consciousness and no moral compass was sitting in the White House just as the nation was being healed from the bubonic plague of Vietnam. What does he do: He takes the tragedies of 9/11 and uses them as a pretext to re-invent Vietnam. Iraq is our new Vietnam.

So now instead of two generations of prosperity and hope, the Republicans are getting ready to give us two generations of quagmired suffering as we pick the sores and bury the dead from this plague also.

The Republicans talked a lot about the “surge” and how it’s working. But no one at any time said, “We should not be in Iraq in the first place. What we are doing there is wrong and it cannot succeed. The war is based on a lie and “no lie can stand.” Even if we win the war, we have planted such seeds of hatred and vengeance that our children and grandchildren will pay the price for this aggression.”

Not one Republican had enough guts to say that in Iraq even the people who like us also hate us and want us to leave. Not one Republican had enough guts to say that when we leave all that we have gained will be lost. Utter chaos will ensue as soon as the American troops have left. So then the trillions of dollars that we have spent there and the thousands of lives that we have lost there will be in vain. What difference does it make if the surge is working? The desert will reclaim what you have spilled your blood to build.

Martin King told us two generations ago that if America did not repent from its arrogance “God will rise up and break the back bone of her power.” We are almost there.

What McCain did in 1989 with the Keating Five, he is now doing with the Bush Four (Bush, Chaney, Rumsfield, and Rice): he doesn’t actually do the work of the wolf; he just keeps the sheep looking the other way until its too late for the sheep to escape. McCain tells sheep that wolves are safe. They are not; they are wolves!

* All the material in this article referring to the Keating Five is from "The Keating Five" article at Wkipedia.

"Let justice roll down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream."

Nonsense

2008-09-10T11:25:00.000-07:00

The speechifying, pontificating, and parading of the politicians and the punditry of the Republican National Convention has been over now for about five days. As expected John McCain and his running mate, Governor Sarah Palin, have received a “bump” in the polls. In some polls McCain-Palin lead Obama-Biden by 5 to 10 points. McCain and Palin have unleashed new television ads proclaiming themselves as “mavericks.”

This is pure nonsense. How can anyone who has voted for foolishness 90% of the time be a maverick from the same foolishness? It seems that Sarah Palin may have been a maverick from her husband a couple of times, but that’s about as far as her maverick moves have gone.

The Republican Convention was nonsense. It claims to be the party of morality and “Christian values;” yet it paraded before the country a list of people with the worst moral records of anybody in politics. Rudy Giuliani was one of their main speakers. This is the man who declared war on African Americans in New York City by basically telling the police, “If he is black, shoot to kill.”

When the nation and the city of New York went on a natural cycle of decrease in crime (probably occasioned by fewer births 18 to 20 years prior), Giuliani said that his polices brought about the decline. In other words, there were fewer criminals in New York City because the police killed all the black suspects on the street.

Every time I think of Giuliani I think of Abner Louima, a man brutalized by Giulinai’s ploice; and Amadou Diallo an innocent man killed by the same highly praised “men in blue.”

Giuliani is also the guy who began dating Judith Nathan (his present wife) while he was still married to Donna Hanover. He filed for divorced from Donna while they were both still living in Gracie Mansion. I happened to be in New York City on the day when Donna Hanover heard that Rudy Giuliani had filed for divorce: she heard it on the news the same as the rest of the city.

Don’t be angry with Giuliani. He was just following the pattern set down by his mentors Newt Gingrich and John McCain: both divorced their wives to marry younger women. At least Donna Hanover was not on her sickbed when she discovered that her sanctimonious husband was breaking vows that he made to God and her to marry a hot young thing.

Remember this is the party that gave us Mark Foley whose reputation with young boys is as bad as any Catholic priest. They also gave us the pit bull dog Tom Delay who flaunted the Constitution and tried to ignore the courts until someone showed him that not everybody was stupid.

Corruption. Speakers: DeLay, Cunningham, Cheney
Incompetence. Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney
Hypocrisy. Bush, Cheney, Foley, Craig, McCain
Constitution trampling. Bush, Cheney, Gonzales
LMAO
(I copied the above from a www.politico.com).

There was a speech by George W. Bush, the “Idiot-In-Chief.” Every time I see or hear of this guy I wonder, “How is it that Clinton could get impeached for having sex and lying about it and this guy lied to lead the nation into an unnecessary war where billions of dollars are wasted and thousands of lives are destroyed and few people in Congress have even pronounced the word “impeachment.”

Congress will have to pay for this misjudgment. But I hope that Bush doesn’t think that getting by and getting away are the same thing. They are not! “There is a law of justice and of retribution at work in the world. The arch of the moral universe is long but it bends towards right.”

The biggest piece of nonsense offered by this party was Sarah Palin. John McCain must be an artist because he found a canvass with nothing on it. She has absolutely no experience of any note to do anything like lead a sizeable government. And like most moralist, her biggest failings seem to be in the one area that she champions most: fidelity and family life. The internet blogs and the tabloids are full of stories of her infidelities.

The mainstream media is beginning to check her on some of her outright lies, such as her supposed opposition to the so-called “bridge to no where.” Maybe by the time the media gets through investigating her lovers, lies, and the ongoing investigations about her abuse of power we will know if she is really a “pit bull” with lips stick or just another term for a female dog in the heat of ambition.

While Sarah Palin and Giuliana made fun of Obama’s work as a community organizer I was waiting to hear some one describe anything that she had done to bring about community or to organize anything. Sarah Palin is a rubber stamp for someone and we have to find the identity of that person.

At the Republican Party Convention the fat cats from Halliburton, Citibank, Exxon, Texaco, BP, Boeing, Countrywide, Texas Instruments, and a thousand other multinational corporations said to the majority of American voters, “We think that you are so stupid that we can nominate a ham sandwich and win the election as long as the sandwich is the right color and repeats the right catch phrases.”

Looks like there maybe some truth in the assertion.

“Let justice roll down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.”

Four Reasons Why America Needs John McCain

2008-09-02T07:51:00.000-07:00

After eight years of the most disastrous foreign and domestic policy this country has seen since the Great Depression, America needs John McCain for the following reasons:

1. Eight years of George Bush has not made America economically or morally weak enough. We need fewer jobs, a smaller tax base, and millions more poor, desperate and hungry people. We need more home mortgage failures, more bank closers, more failing schools, and more factory closers. John McCain will give this to us.

2. Only rich and powerful people (who can afford seven homes) deserve the best healthcare. To provide healthcare to everyone is both un-Christian and un-democratic. Universal healthcare is an evil plot hatched by the devil to create a level playing field for everyone. If this country adopts universal healthcare the child born to poor parents will have the same chances of growing and being healthy as the child born to rich parents. John McCain will stop this evil plot.

3. The idea of American imperialism must be preserved. We must preserve the idea that the whole world will jump when America says “jump.” Therefore any common sense approach such as “diplomacy” must be shelved. In order to retain our greatness we must be at war in everyplace on the globe where people are not doing as we want them. We rejoice at seeing our sons and daughters brought home in body bags, or with their limbs blown away, or with their minds destroyed by war. John McCain will go to war at the drop of a hat.

4. Our standing as a moral leader in the world has not been sufficiently damaged by the Iraq war. We need John McCain, Dick Chaney, and Donald Rumsfeld to come back and finish assuring the world that America is a nation led by the immoral, doing the unconscionable, for reasons that are unwise, while proclaiming that which is untrue. John McCain will continue the polices of our present “Idiot-in-Chief,” and soon no nation on earth will respect us for our “moral leadership.” Go McCain!!! Take us all the way down.

Kick the Government and the Media Out of Your Bedroom

2008-09-01T16:15:00.000-07:00

By now you have heard about John McCain’s V.P. choice, Governor Sarah Palin, and her 17 year old daughter’s pregnancy. The first news I heard was that Governor Palin’s youngest son, Trig, is actually her daughter Bristol’s child.

The rumor went on to say that Governor Sarah covered her daughter’s pregnancy and pretended that daughter Bristol’s baby was actually the governor’s. Now the blogosphere, cable, and network news are a-wash in Hurricane Gustav and “whose pregnant” stories.

I am greatly relieved that the story about Governor Palin and her son, Trig, is not true, at least I hope that it is not. I am glad that this story is not true because had it been there is no doubt that the media would have focused our attention away from issues of substance to intricately investigate every fleck and speck of what is now being called “baby-gate.”

We will still be feted with unsolicited information about 17 year old Bristol and her soon to be husband Levi: who he is, where she got pregnant, how many times they had sex, did they use a condom?, etc, etc.,

My problem with this kind of information as it regards a presidential campaign is two-fold. First, I am sick and tired of bedroom issues defining who is and who is not qualified to lead or be a part of government.

What happens or doesn’t happen in a person’s bedroom life should not be the factor to determine his/her eligibility for public office. I would like to see politicians move away from building their careers on decisions about what goes on people’s bedrooms, either other people’s or their own.

Does anyone remember Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and the fifty million dollars that Kenneth Star spent investigating the affair? President Clinton lied when asked about the affair and was then the subject of impeachment proceedings.

The most important matter that led up to the impeachment was whether or not the president lied about the affair. But for me that is not the most important matter. The most important matter is that the president should not have been asked if he was having an affair in the first place. Government has no business in the bedrooms of free people.

My only problem with the supposed arrangement concerning Governor Palin’s son, Trig, (when it was supposed that the baby was actually her daughter Bristol’s child), is the element of lying, deception, and hypocrisy. While I believe she should have the same privacy I would accord Bill Clinton, I think it would be wrong to pass off a baby as yours to conceal that your daughter has had a child.

This would be a deception not for privacy, but to buttress a certain image, and thereby to gain political advantage. But absent these factors, I see no problem with her adopting and raising her grandson, if he is her grandson.

My second problem with this story is why the media had to make Bristol’s pregnancy “news.” If the only news is that Governor Palin’s 17 year old daughter is pregnant, I do not see this as news at all, “except…!” It’s not news except that Governor Palin’s positions on sex education, use of condoms and other birth control measures, makes it news.

She opposes every measure that would give women and girls, especially poor woman and girls, a fighting chance at succeeding in life, without the struggle to raise unwanted children. If Governor Palin had supported measures that would have allowed her daughter and her boyfriend (and others) to get the proper information, Bristol might not be pregnant today. "An ounce of prevention is worth..." At least its worth not being pregnant and not having to consider abortion.

In my opinion Governor Palin is the quintessential “bedroom issue politician.” The crux of this kind of politics is this: “Don’t think about the senseless war, or the failing mortgage situation, inadequate healthcare, and the crumbling infrastructure.

Don’t put your mind on the ten billion dollars per month that we are wasting in Iraq, while Americans are loosing their standard of living and being put out of their homes; don’t think about failing schools and the fact that America has one of the highest dropout rates in the Western world---just keep your mind on this one important truth: “If you elect me, I will stop all this illicit sex!!!” That’s a key plank in the Republican platform.

I don’t care who had whose baby or who is having a baby for whom. When it comes to government I want to know, “How are we going to stop this senseless war that is draining our young people of life, limb, and sanity, our families of sons and daughters, and our pockets of much needed treasure?”

I want to know, “How are we going to stop the endless flow of jobs out of America, and when are we going to begin creating good jobs in America that will pay a living wage?” Forget who had a baby or who is going to have one.

I want to know when is government going to make the oil companies do what is right and responsible: stop price gouging the public with gas prices so steep that the average American can hardly afford to drive a car if they own one?

When is every American going to have adequate healthcare? When will sick people no longer have to choose between buying medicine or buying food?

When is government going to scrap the policy that if your elderly parents are sick and need nursing home care, they have to be broke and penniless before the government will help?

When will the American government use its considerable resources to train people who want to work and then put them to work rebuilding the crumbling infrastructure of our nation?

When will I be able to fly from Chicago to St. Louis without having to go to the airport two days before my flight leaves and then have to take off my clothes in public in order to board the flight?

Why does my government supply millions of dollars for students from foreign countries to go to college here but I have to mortgage my rear and my future to get a bachelor’s degree?

Not long ago in Minnesota a bridge spanning the Mississippi River collapsed. Many people died and many were injured. Here we are in the midst of a campaign to elect the person who will set the agenda for our nation and the priorities for our spending, and what’s in the news? Sarah Palin’s baby or Sarah Palin’s baby is having a baby! Give me a break!

Get out of people’s bedrooms and do the work the media was created to do: expose government so that it will do what it is supposed to do.

Falling Into Your Own Pit

2008-08-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

“God did not deliver on Republican Prayers: In a good Christian Manner, James Dobson’s Republican Organization, Focus on the Family sent out a notice 2 weeks ago requesting that all Republican Christians pray for rain in Denver to disrupt Obama's acceptance speech at the outdoor Invesco Field."

The above is an e-mail that I received from a friend last night telling me that James Dobson and his right wing followers were summoning people to pray that Denver would be inundated by a storm, thus disrupting the Democratic National Convention, and most importantly Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on last Thursday night.

It seems that God did not hear their prayers, but instead turned their prayers against them. Senator Obama did make his acceptance speech on Thursday night to a capacity crowd of almost ninety thousand people at Invesco Field, while millions watched (and cried as I did) around the world. But since the right-wingers sought injury to others through a storm, now they have had to cancel portions of their convention and revelry because of a storm. “Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein…” (Prov. 26:27, KJV).

The questions in my mind are: “When will powerfully placed preachers realize that God is not a Republican or a Democrat?” And “when will fundamentalist believers of any ilk, (Christian, Muslim, LDS, etc.) cease to invoke the name of God to support their personal agendas?” When celebrity preachers lead already narrow minded people to believe that God is as narrow minded and as petty as they are the outcome is an embarrassment for them and an insult to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When unbelievers see people who are supposed to be followers of Christ pleading with God to ruin the events and purposes of their opponents it makes a mockery of the teachings of Jesus.

I also wonder if the fundamentalists think that it is wrong for me or other believers to disagree with them? I am sure that many of the people gathered to hear Senator Obama speak considered themselves to be Christian. So was God supposed to punish the believers at Invesco Field for supporting Senator Obama, and pass over George W. Bush and John McCain for engaging in an ungodly and unjust war? No body died at Invesco Field, while Gorge Bush’s policies, supported by John McCain, have caused countless numbers of lives.

If Dobson’s actions in this matter are a reflection of the character of his god, it seems to me that his god is more like a bad dog than the God of the Bible. You can sic a dog on your opponent, but you can’t sic God on your political opponents. Maybe Dobson’s Bible doesn’t contain this verse “If your enemy hungry, feed him…” (Rom. 12:20).

We must remember that rabid, irrational Christian fundamentalism is never about Jesus any more than the fundamentalism of the Pharisees was about God or the Law. Fundamentalism is about fear and power; fear of the larger world outside and beyond the control of the fundamentalist; and using that fear and any other fear to control others. Fundamentalists once taught that God created African peoples to be slaves, that women should never be educated or given the right to vote, that Jews are habitually filthy and manipulative, that Chinese people were law breakers, that Native Americans were alcoholics by nature, and on and on the list goes.

Now the question is, “What is the difference between a fundamentalist in Jerusalem or Baghdad who straps on an explosive belt and walks into a crowded market and ignites it and one who sits at home in America praying for rain on Invesco Field?” They both mean to cause harm. The difference is only in degrees. Today he calls for them to pray for rain because someone opposes his politics; tomorrow he will call them to spill blood for the same reason.

Lynching used to be a Christian exercise.

McCain’s Choice: Sarah Palin Compared to Barack Obama?

2008-08-31T13:12:00.000-07:00

McCain’s Choice: Sarah Palin Compared to Barack Obama?

The Republican presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain, announced his choice for vice-presidential running mate on Friday, August 29, 2008. He chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Immediately, the McCain Campaign and the right wing media pundits began to spew out comparisons between Gov. Palin and Sen. Obama that highlighted Gov. Palin’s “executive experience.” Now let’s get this straight: they want the voters to compare the experience and background of Sarah Palin to that of Barack Obama.

There is no comparison. Sarah Palin has not lived as much, seen as much, felt as much, run as fast, reached as high, grasped as much, accomplished as much, or come as far as has Barack Obama. There is absolutely no comparison between the life of cookie cutter suburbia and a black man born of interracial parents, raised by a single white mother, schooled in various countries and cultures around the world, mentored by white grandparents, got a degree from Columbia and has a Harvard Law degree. A suburban soccer mom who became governor cannot be compared to a person who has struggled all his life to succeed and did so, choosing higher education and public service over drugs, prison, and failure.

Sarah Palin also fails the comparison test when it comes to experience in government. She fails because experience is not just about the position that you hold, but it is also about the quality of problems you have faced. The governor of an entire state with less than one fourth the population of the city of Chicago cannot encounter the same depth of problems and challenges as a State Senator from the Southside of Chicago (population of Alaska: 670,000; population of Chicago: 3 million).

Sarah Palin has been mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, a suburb of Anchorage. Wasilla has a population of 8,500 whereas Hyde Park, the district that Senator Obama represented in the Illinois Senate, has a population of 29,920. This Chicago neighborhood is three and half times larger than the town of Wasilla. The point is that this nation and the world are now beset with the kind of problems that one is not prepared for by being a mayor in “soccer-mom suburbia” or the governor of a state with a population equal to that of Memphis, Tennessee.

John McCain did not choose Sarah Palin for her so called “experience,” but to try to capture the disaffected “Hillary Clinton voters.” This means women who wanted to break the glass ceiling of American politics by making Hillary Clinton the first female presidential nominee from a major party, and hopefully the first female president of the United States. What’s wrong with that?

The problem with the choice and the thinking behind it is that John McCain, and those around him, act as if any woman is the right woman. Hillary Clinton won the millions of votes that she did because, like Barack Obama, she has worked outside of “white bread America” and “soccer mom heaven” long enough to be acquainted with the problems that everyday Americans face. She has seen the face of America up close. She has seen the affects of racism and bigotry, sexism and the glass ceiling. She has witnessed the results of inadequate healthcare, and like Obama she has studied ways of solving these problems. There is no evidence that Sarah Palin even knows these problems exist.

Every person who believes in women’s rights should be up in arms over this selection because it makes a mockery of women’s progress and female leadership. This selection says the best person to be a heart beat away from the presidency is a woman who doesn’t believe in a woman’s right to choose,* has no established policy on healthcare, knows nothing about foreign policy, and has no known domestic policy. In other words she was chosen simply because she was a woman governor of relatively unknown background. It’s like replacing Thurgood Marshall with Clarence Thomas simply because Thomas is black. This is like replacing a roaring and majestic lion with a tabby cat simply because they are both of the feline family.

Any woman voting for John McCain because Sarah Palin is on the ticket is not thinking, and may even be siding with her own ideological enemy.

*The writer of this blog is not a proponent of abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or the mother’s life is in danger.

The most unfortunate fact about abortion is that it occurs whether legal or illegal. When abortions are illegal poor woman are butchered in back alleys, while rich woman are listed in hospital registrations as having appendectomies. The author believes that spiritual, governmental, and academic communities should promote programs that teach abstinence as well as safe sex and thereby reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. The author does not believe that teaching safe sex encourages sexual promiscuity, but that in many cases it prevents a person from being faced with a choice that includes abortion.