Behold, The Future Church Of America

This is a pastor yucking it up about how cool it is to play profane music during the worship of the Holy One.

 

Was "Sympathy For The Devil" really played during a worship service in the video below? Unfortunately for this age, "Elevation Church" is not the only Church hopping onto the the rock and roll entertainment band wagon.  This, I think, was from North Point Community Church:



The middle ground is some of the most comfortable ground there is... until one side seeks to devour you.  Increasingly in our zeitgeist, this ground is becoming increasingly precarious.  Sides demand allegiance.

Much more on this here.

The Spirit Of Big Mother, Also Known As Feminism.

To be funny, humor is always dependent on an element of truth.  That's why this clip from "The Christmas Story" qualifies as humor:

 

It's a great caricature of the "Mother" spirit that gives us a little chuckle.  But the Mother Spirit, in reality, is far from funny.  It has bound the American people, much in the same way that this Mom bound up her son, in "protection"... for his own good you see.

I took this picture at a construction site in Charlotte, North Carolina:

Unfortunately, this is not a Caricature, it's real life.  This poor man is living the invasive oversight of his overly protective "Mama" government.

Yesterday I went for a walk with my daughter.  We needed to cross the street and we saw big Mother advising us that it was not safe to do so just yet, even though there was no car in site in either direction.  I took our lives into my own hands and broke her protective law.  I crossed the vacant street against Big Mother's lighted hand, and hoped to not get arrested for child neglect, reckless endangerment, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, or Jaywalking.  Even though that dangerous adventure came nowhere close to the adrenaline high that I got from skydiving, I did succeed in saving a couple of minutes.

I was in Canada recently and when the moving sidewalk in the airport ended I felt a certain peace that didn't belong.  I wondered what it was, then realized Big Mother wasn't there warning me that if I didn't pay attention I might skin my knee because the sidewalk was ending.  I began to pay attention elsewhere and you know what, I noticed that big Mother was also absent on the escalator.  There was no voice warning me that if I didn't hold onto the handrails I might fall down... and to beat all, I actually survived without a scratch.  It was very strange in a very good sort of way.  It made me think of the possibilities.

The effects of Big Mother are many, and far-reaching.  I have a large storage building in my backyard for example.  I desire to take the existing roof off, increase the pitch, and add a loft office.  This improvement would require the purchase of resources like lumber, sheet-rock, wire and that sort of thing.  But, as you might have guessed, Big Mother stands before me, arms folded.  It seems that my outbuilding was built before Big Mother's liberty stealing and economy crushing encroachment had reached it's current extreme.  She is worried you see that because it was built too close to the property line, and IF it caught on fire, why it might burn down Little Tommy's utility shed next door.  We certainly can't have that!  Poor little Bobby down at the hardware store will just have to forgo my purchases at his little shop, because Mother knows best.  Besides, if Bobby goes out of business because Big Mama has prevented my purchases, why Big Mom will take care of him anyway.

On 911, Big Mother promised to protect us, but she failed.  A few real men with box cutters took over airplanes filled with castrated men, and killed them.  These castrated men had been trained by Mom to depend on her for their wellbeing.  By the time the dormant manhood had been awakened in the hearts of the men on flight 93, it was too late.  Not to worry though, Big Mother created a whole new bureaucracy called "Homeland Security" so that we don't have to worry about anything like that ever happening again.  Men can now re-enter their sedated castration without concern.

And then we have this:

These are soldiers fighting the war on terror in, you guessed it, camouflage.  We can all hope that these poor souls were not required to wear them in places that would have made them excellent targets for snipers, but who knows. To do that would require common sense, and when it comes to mother, and her child's safety, such sense is in short supply.  She's going to protect her little boys if she has to kill them to do it. (Very interesting article here chronicling bureaucratic feminine madness. )

There is always a price to pay for everything.  To hand our security and freedom over to big Mother is a fool's errand.  She will not provide for us, nor will she protect us.  She will only enslave us.  She is no different than the average feminist who devotes her life to castrating men and then despising them for letting her do it, all the while swooning over the men who refused her knife.

The little boy in the video, I'm afraid, is a symbol of a reality that has become a little too real for comfort.  Our present reality has us gathered under Big Mother's skirt... for our own good, and this has happened so slowly that we don't even realize that we have become the very boy bound up in her protective clothing, who when he falls, is too encumbered with Mom's loving protection, to even get up.

At Least They're Honest

First there was liberal theology that diminished God and raised man.  Then there were liberal Churches that did the same thing.  I suppose this is the logical next step. It will be interesting to see how all the false teachers will compete with a church that is only distinguishable from their own by, of all things, a little honesty about their atheism.

Christian Simplicity

Some things that are believed to be true for years can be proved false in an instant with the smallest amount of evidence.  It was believed for years, for example, that there was no such thing as a black swan.  Then one turned up.  All it took was one.

But there does appear to be a way to hold on to cherished beliefs, even after they are proved false.  This is done through language.  It might be said, for example, that there is no such thing as red bluebirds.  That's easy enough to believe, and easy enough to fix too if you think no bird should be denied blueness.  This is done simply enough by redefining the word blue to include red.  Then we can look around and find that there are lots of blue birds, many of which had never existed before.  But then we might well discover that we have extinted the red bird, which is good I suppose, if you don't happen to care much for red birds.

This is much like what is happening to marriage.  When we decide that marriage means something that it has never meant, we might well discover our language to be inadequate to describe something that had up to now always been.

So much of life is much simpler I think than we give it credit.  It is the language, it seems, that tends to turn in on itself.  There are many Christian teachers, for example, who somehow confuse many by their teaching.  But like the black swan, one verse in the Bible can easily make them false teachers, unless, of course, you change the meaning of the words.  At that point, while you might then find a planet full of Christians, you might be hard pressed to find a Muslim, or a Buddhist.

I find myself similarly dismissing more and more "truths" out of hand these days by simply holding them up to the mirror of scripture.  What's left is not all that complicated really, as long as the language you're thinking with is trustworthy.  It is a difficult and wonderful battle, both within and without, for sure, but there again, the assurance of victory and glory does not weigh on our ability to fight it, and that's some excellent news, ain't it?  
 

Divided

This documentary is definitely food for thought:

Modern Christianity's Confusing Message

God loves you.  Oh, he loves you so much.  You just need to know just how much he loves you!  (whisper)  Oh, and by the way, you really ought to accept His love by saying this little prayer here, or he will burn you for eternity in Hell.

Does this make sense to anyone?  Anyone at all?

Darwin Quotes

I don't personally like bumper sticker wars.  Some put an ichthys on their bumper, then others put a response, then others put a response to that response.  I personally find it all petty and missing the majesty and indescribable awe of an all powerful, omniscient, immanent, transcendent, holy and Righteous God.

But, all of that notwithstanding, the next time you see one of these:

...let it remind you of a couple of quotes.  These are excerpted from Darwin's book "The Descent Of Man" chapter 6:

“With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed. The aid which we feel impelled to give to the helpless is mainly an incidental result of the instinct of sympathy, which was originally acquired as part of the social instincts, but subsequently rendered, in the manner previously indicated, more tender and more widely diffused. Nor could we check our sympathy, even at the urging of hard reason, without deterioration in the noblest part of our nature. The surgeon may harden himself whilst performing an operation, for he knows that he is acting for the good of his patient; but if we were intentionally to neglect the weak and helpless, it could only be for a contingent benefit, with an overwhelming present evil. We must therefore bear the undoubtedly bad effects of the weak surviving and propagating their kind; but there appears to be at least one check in steady action, namely that the weaker and inferior members of society do not marry so freely as the sound; and this check might be indefinitely increased by the weak in body or mind refraining from marriage, though this is more to be hoped for than expected."

And also from the same chapter:

“At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked (18. ‘Anthropological Review,’ April 1867, p. 236.), will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.” 

Such quotes demand a defense by those who cling to his theories.  They are weak, and they are here.

Picking Sides

In April 2008 Todd Bentley was invited to preach at a revival meeting that would become known as the Lakeland Revival. It would end six months later with an adulterous affair between Bentley and a staff member.  Bentley began an attempt at restoration with a committee made up of Rick Joyner, Jack Deere and Bill Johnson, but the committee abandoned the restoration when Bentley refused to comply with the process.

Bentley divorced his wife, left his children, and married the other woman.

Here are 4 Youtube clips.  The first one is of Todd Bentley being rebuked by several pastors during one of his meetings:

 

 Here are those who did the rebuking after they were ushered out:

 

Bentley has since moved to Fort Mill South Carolina where Joyner's Morningstar ministries are located.  Here is an interview with Bentley and his new wife conducted by Rick Joyner:


We are no doubt living in confusing times.

The name of this post is Picking Sides.  In the first video those two sides are shown.  Whether wittingly or unwittingly, we who consider ourselves Christians watch that video and take one side or the other.  If you pick Bentley's side, that would be an easy emotional decision as long as you don't think about it too much.  For sure you would not want to think about Bentley's forsaken wife, or his children and their view of this "Jesus" their Dad preaches.  On the other hand I find it striking how easy it was to make those rebuking Bentley look bad, like the angry ones, the haters, the unforgiving.  But does not love demand that someone do this?

Here is Bentley's new wife... "ministering":

Slavery And Abortion, Sisters In Revolution.

As the contemporary Christian reads Frederick Douglas's quote below, he will easily empathize with his words as Douglass levels his guns at the Church of his day. But depending on a person's worldview, he will either accuse with Douglass or empathize with him.  In the thinking of some, nothing has changed since Douglass penned these words long ago and racism remains the defining issue of our day.  Douglas was a radical against a real issue in his day.  There is nothing radical today about taking a stand against slavery and racism in our day.  There are no laws that sanction either.  But there are laws that sanction the killing of unborn babies, most of which are black.  In this quote Douglass addresses the Church of his day:

"What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the —slaveholding religion— of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason, but the most deceitful one, for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clearer case of “stealing the livery of the court of heaven to serve the devil in.” I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies, which every where surround me."  ¹

Douglass was a radical in his day dealing with the issues of his day by confronting a faux Christianity of his day. It was not necessary that he peer ever backward to the days of old to dredge up a bases for his complaint, indeed, as a man born a slave he lived it.

But what has happened to the issue of Douglass's radical stance?  Slavery has been outlawed and anti-racism amendments have been incorporated into our constitution.  Racism against those with black skin is no longer instituted by the laws of the land. Since then it has become a conservative, as in a desire to conserve those laws.  To be sure, there are politically based assertions that "political conservatism" is racist, but America's stance against racism is as American and conservative as apple pie. The fact that politicians are so ready to level the charge against their opponent in order to hurt their election chances is a testament to that fact.  If we were a nation of racist, it would seem to me that such charges would bolster their standing in the land of racism.  But it doesn't.

This is not to say that racism is dead.  No, it is alive, and given the sinfulness of man, like all other sins that plague man, it always will be. But corporately, and institutionally, the racism against which Douglass fought is on life support at best; kept alive by the likes of the Reverends, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Jim Wallis, whose victim-factory enterprises have built a profitable industry of the sin.

But the conservativeness of standing against racism makes it safe, acceptable, and even popular to do so.  In the day of Douglass it was not unifying nor popular to stand in the midst of a pew filled church and decry slavery and racism.  Douglass is a historical figure because he did just that.  Now Douglass is dead as is the slavery and racism against which he, and his brothers of every skin color, took their valiant stands.  It is now warm, cozy and safe to stand in their shoes and decry what they decried.

But this raises another question.  Where is the battle being waged today?  What is the Devil up to these days against which the Christian must make that unpopular stand?  The modern radical knows that the answer is to stand against the slaughter of the unborn.  The conservative clings to the glory days of former radicals as he safely rails against the straw men of slavery and racism while remaining silent on the less safe but current issues.

Try this.  Go back and reread the words of Douglass.  Except this time exchange "slave holding" with "abortion defending".  This should cause a light to come on.  Liberal, or progressive Christianity, such as that preached by the Rev. Jim Wallis and other progressives, is becoming increasingly conservative.  That is, the passage of time and their success in making the murder of the unborn corporately acceptable in the land has morphed them from radicals fighting for acceptance, into defenders hoping to "conserve" their gains in the American mindset.

But the more one knows about abortion, the more one realizes that it is indefensible.  A strategy of distraction is therefore employed to avoid having to defend it.  We are distracted away from the body of the baby to the body of the mother.  We are distracted from the beating heart by claims of personal choice, or privacy.  We are distracted by strawman arguments and name calling.  And, we are distracted, interestingly enough, by counter-charges of racism; I say interestingly enough because the founder of planned parenthood, Margaret Sanger, saw abortion as a means to rid society of blacks. And also interestingly enough because of the staggeringly disproportionate rates of babies with black skin that are having their lives legally blotted out by the abortionist's knife.  Sanger must smirk.  And, lest we forget, some of the same person-hood arguments used to keep slavery legal are used to keep abortion legal.

I admire Douglass because he did not reject Christ because of fake Christians.  He knew enough of the Christian religion to know that the religion was real and the fakes were hypocrites.  He also did not shrink back from pointing out that some claiming to be Christians were in fact fakes.  In fact this excerpt is taken from an appended message to his book entitled "Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass".  It seems that, after reading his own finished work, he felt it necessary to insert a disclaimer stating that he was in fact a Christian.  But he painted a logical and clear delineation between his Biblical Christianity and the "Christianity of this land" that accepted the legal ownership of humans:

"...[b]etween the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked."

I've seen this very quote used in these days as a stick with which to beat over the head political conservatives after baseless assertions that they are racists.  But it only serves to distract from the blood laden hands of the pro-abort "Christians" that so expertly wild that club.

Unfortunately for the cause to outlaw the crushing and dismemberment of the unborn person, we have very few Douglasses in our day.  We do not fight slavery, which was generally survived, we fight the murder of the innocent, which is rarely survived... but some do.  Gianna Jessen is one.


Please take the time to watch this video to see the handy work of those who preach love and tolerance, and, oh yes, abortion.  Like the stripes worn by the ex-slave, this young girl wears cerebral palsy caused by the saline solution used in her failed abortion.  If our current, self-professed Christian president had his way, this young lady would be dead, legally murdered outside the womb because she was unwanted.  For such reasons I oppose Barack Obama, who happens to be black.  But ironically enough, because he is black, and I am white, I find myself being judged a racist because of that opposition.  Better for his ilk that I defend myself against a strawman charge than point out, as Douglass unashamedly did, that his "Christianity" is bad, corrupt and wicked.

There are perhaps other ways in which we might gain new insights from the interchange of historical issues and perspectives with current ones.  One of those ways is to project modern action onto historical times. One of the tragedies of our day concerning abortion is the response from the pro-life Church, which is mostly silence.  To be sure we have our abolitionist equivalents at work today, Crisis Pregnancy Centers, James Dobson and National Right To Life, to name a few, but these sorts of organizations are stop-gap at best.  Like their historical counterparts, such as the underground railroad, they are only able to save a few.  What is needed, as Gianna Jessen pointed out earlier, is a national reformation of mindsets concerning the sanctity of life.  That can only happen through the transforming work of the true Gospel.

I can very well assume that the silence that plagues the modern American church concerning this somber issue is very similar to the silence that plagued the 19th century Church.  It was well enough to be anti-slavery, I can imagine, but who wants to discuss divisive political issues.  "I can't end slavery" I can hear a pastor say.  "To take a stand will cause a Church split", or "there are people in this congregation who have owned slaves, we must be mindful of that".  But these were conservative stances, in the Twainian sense of conservative, just as those who have no problem being all about diversity today take their "valiant" stands against dead straw-men are Twainian conservatives of today.

Lastly, perhaps we might garner some insight into future events and maybe get a glimpse of our own times from the perspective of the future.  I grow weary of hearing Christianity blamed for slavery, and a host of other evils.  Any group of people, whether it be a nation, political party, religion or so on can be cherry picked to death by focusing on infractions committed by rogue or fake constituents.  And, the larger the group the larger the cherry tree.  It is better to look at the group's charter if possible, as in the instance of religion.  Does the evil committed make the person committing it a rogue member in contrast with the rest of the group or their charter, or does it make him a devout adherent?  Are the actions that you are aware of seen through the hazy distance of time, or are they recent?  Are the channels through which you received your knowledge objective, or are they hostile cherry-pickers?

With this in mind, should the Lord tarry, and should He grant America revival and reformation, I have no doubt that Christianity will one day be blamed for the horror of abortion.  "What!", you say?  "How can that be?"  That's easy.  One need only to look at the voluminous writings of so-called "progressive" Christians.  Those writings will not go away, and, may well be used in the future in attempts to prove that Christianity is evil.  In my mind now those writings fall under the same description leveled by Douglass: "[It] is of necessity to reject [them] as bad, corrupt, and wicked."  But wicked hearts are our make-up.  And those same wicked hearts might one day easily point to those very writings, and based on them blame Christianity for abortion.

Do you think this is far fetched?  If so read the first paragraph of this site concerning a more recent history:

To deny the influence of Christianity on Hitler and its role in World War II, means that you must ignore history and forever bar yourself from understanding the source of German anti-Semitism and how the WWII atrocities occurred.

Talk about ignoring history, that is one plump cherry right there.

Finally, those who frequent this blog know that I am a proponent of studying history. ³ To not; to be ignorant of what occurred before, in the words of Cicero ² "is to remain always a child".  History gives us wise perspective, wisdom in general, and knowledge, without which our minds might well be herded like cattle into any kind of foolish thinking. It should not surprise us therefore that the majority of the Bible reads more like a history book than a law book, for indeed it is God's history of His glorious Acts among men, and deserves study above all others.

______________________________

Note 1: Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, (appendix page 93-94)
Note 2: Marcus Tullius Cicero
Note 3: When I advocate the study of history, I do not mean watch the History Channel.  The only true way to study history is to read historic writings and then endeavor to understand the historic mindsets that led those of history into their future, our present.  Man is hopelessly biased.  Even reading old books only gives you a view of history through the biases of the writer's own times, yet one can hope and endeavor to escape the powerful biases of his own time, and even perhaps getting a glimpse of history by examining the biases of the historic author's work on history.

Facebook

For those of you who know me on facebook,  I have deactivated my account.

Thanks

Danny

A Few Simple Tips To Help Make Sure That What Happened To Trayvon Martin Does Not Happen To Your Child

From my Facebook Friend, Michael Johnson: 

Here are a few simple tips to help make sure that what happened to Trayvon Martin does not happen to your child... 

1. Don't raise a thug.

2. Teach your children to be polite and respectful to the people they may encounter.

3. Know where your kids are, and what they are up to.

4. If your child is already a thug, has his own burglary tool kit, has been suspended from school, and your neighborhood is experiencing a rash of burglaries, take him around and introduce him to the local Neighborhood Watch members, and give them your phone number.

5. Keep Skittles in your house at all times.

If you are a teenager, and you want to avoid Trayvon Martin's fate yourself, here are some tips for you... 

1. Don't be a thug.

2. Be polite and respectful to the people that you may encounter.

3. If you are walking around alone in the dark, and someone is following you, go home.

4. If a person confronts you while you are walking around alone in the dark and asks you where you are going, politely tell them where you are going,and then go there.

5. Under no circumstances should you ever start beating on random people you know nothing about. You could get yourself shot.

6. If you live in a neighborhood that has been plagued with a rash of burglaries, you are suspended from school, have your own burglary tool kit, and you are out of Skittles, try to get by with Raisinettes, or M&Ms, or whatever else you may have in the house until you can go to the store in the daylight. 

By following these simple tips, you can help to avoid a repeat of the Trayvon Martin tragedy, and if this saves even one life, then it will have been worth the time it took me to write it.

Teaching Our Children Well

While our times are especially harsh for the young--our airwaves being filled with filth, immorality, and iniquity--we also have at our disposal a great tool for teaching our children: the internet.

YouTube, besides the fact that the owners are no friends of Christianity, is a great resource for showing in real life footage the hand of Satan in politics, entertainment, and the news media.

Below is a great example.  The slaughter of babies advocated by the Democrat party is Satanic. Below is a great video that will help you to indoctrinate your children against evil while they are still young and open to your instruction.

The pro-abort Dems are chanting "Hail Satan" as the pro-lifers are singing Amazing Grace.  'Nough said.


H/T Wintery Knight

"Tolerance", The Horse Through Which Acceptance Was Invited Through The Gate

Amazing video. Amazing because the anchor actually notices the irony. I'm convinced that she is actually shocked at the lack of tolerance. A couple of things to note.

1. The victims were preachers, not protesters.

2. One of the most fascinating quotes comes at 2:20.  The anchor quotes someone as saying: "[I know] society has come a long way tolerating different lifestyles, but I think this video shows we have a ways to go".

How does one interpret that statement.



3. And, speaking of tolerance and hate, who are the tolerant ones, and who are the hateful ones the above video, and video below?



4. Remember, Christianity is about tolerance, as it has historically been defined.  The Christians in these videos are examples worth following of, not only love, but tolerance.

John 3:19-21
"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.  "For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.  "But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."
NASU

What Does The Modern Day Pharisee Look Like? The Answer Might Surprise You.

When Jesus came preaching the Kingdom Of God, he was opposed by the religious community; the Pharisee, and Sadducee. For those who preach the Kingdom Of God today, they are opposed likewise by the religious community.

The Pharisees opposed Jesus with a mixture of their traditions and some scripture.  But it wasn't their use of scripture that made them His enemy and He theirs, indeed Jesus used scripture as well. It was their hearts that he looked at.  They were comfortable with things the way they were and had no intentions of letting this prophet change anything.

Jesus, on the other hand, had compassion for the lost souls who he said were condemned unless they turned to Him, and believed on Him. (John 16:18).  They were sinners and were under God's wrath. That was their state, and they desperately needed a Savior to escape that wrath.

He was not trying to win a popularity contest, nor was he being pragmatic by looking for something that "worked".  He  was clear to those who would follow Him, that they, the unbelievers, hated Him and the Father without cause, (Jn 15:25)  and that they would hate them also... without cause. (Jn 15:18)


Below is a video. This poor soul doesn't oppose the street preacher with an appeal to scripture but rather with appeals to emotion and pragmatism.  She even asks those who are heckling the preacher to support her in her opposition to the Gospel he is preaching.   The enemy is crafty, and always glad to tell us how we may best be His enemy.

The preacher, on the other hand, responds to her every point with sound scripture, logic, reason, and compassion.  But she is not swayed from her emotional and pragmatic positions.  This woman is a product of the modern American Church.  She knows no better.  She has been "loved" into oblivion  by our more sensible, pragmatic, and peaceful times and preachers.  But these are not peaceful times. These are radical times.


  

"To Me", When You Hear These Words... BEWARE!

9 Ways To Not Be Deceived, Yea 10 Ways To Not Be Sucked In.

Let's face it, we are all deceived to one degree or another but there are things that we can do to reduce this deception and gain wisdom in the process.

Such is life I guess... we created beings are even willing to lie to our own selves.  One would think that honesty with one's self would be easy, but it can be surprisingly difficult when truth reveals things we'd really just as soon weren't true.  I guess there are some things we'd rather not face.

But beyond the act of willing self-duping, sometimes all we need is a plan.  Well... below are just a few things we can do to keep deception at bay.

1. Admit the deception.

This is number one.  We can't fix a problem until we admit that one exists.  And, when it comes to interpreting reality, we can bank on the fact that we have misinterpreted it in some ways.

2.  Broadening your horizons helps ward off deception.

Judging reality using our personal experience as a baseline is a sure-fire way to ensure deception.  Study history.  Ponder how and why, say a Communist, or a Liberal, or a Muslim, would see things differently.  

4. Emotions are reactions to stimulus and not a source of truth.

To ensure deception just "following your heart".  Feelings, or emotions, obscure reality; they do not clarify it.  

5. Hammers know no truth, so don't be a hammer.

There is an old saying, "for the hammer, every problem is a nail."  We humans are created to serve something bigger than ourselves.  Once our creator has been rejected, something else will fill that void so that every problem man faces is the result of the problem our cause seeks to solve.

6.  All ignorance is not deception, but all deception is ignorance.

There's nothing wrong with ignorance. We all don't know vastly more than we know.  In fact, in keeping with number 1, admitting ignorance is a good thing, because it is better to "know that thy know not" than it is to "know not that thy know not".

7. Plausibility is not truth.  Know the difference.

If a story can be concocted wherein it is proven that A can be true, that does not make A true, only plausible. 

8. Remember, deception is contagious.

There are many things accepted as fact in any given society that are not true.  In my own society it is accepted as fact that man can cool off his planet, that his existence started from nothing, that right and wrong are relative, and that it is wrong to believe otherwise.  If we do not develop antibodies to combat such deception, it is almost guaranteed that we will be deceived by "going with the flow".  The best antibodies start with self examination, thinking and questions.

9. Listen, Think!

Listening is a lost art, especially if we feel our deception being challenged.  But building walls around our pet deceptions only ensures deception.  It also helps to listen to someone we deem as deceived.  Really try to understand why this person is deceived, and always be willing to discover, regardless of the emotional pain, our own deception.  Think about what others say, especially when they say something with which you disagree.

10.  Words have the power to deceive.

The meanings of words like love, marriage, family, religion, justice, greed, good, tolerance, peace and many many more are morphing.  If things don't seem right, or don't make sense, ask that words be defined.  Clarity is good medicine for fighting the disease of deception. 

Rome And The USA

Having completed over half the book "The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire", I have struggled to articulate the parallels with Rome and America.  Rome was cutting edge in technological advances, yet it was an ancient civilization.  Violence marked its relationship with its neighbors and its politics because its neighbors were savages, and arms paved the way to the Purple Robe.  The closest thing we have today to the "savage" is Islam, which remains, for the time, a half planet away.  But the illusion of safety that such distance gives us is just that, an illusion.  The fact is that it takes less time to travel to the other side of the planet today than it took to travel to the next Roman city then.

All of this to say that Victor Davis Hanson did an exelent job of articulating some conclusions that I'd already drawn regarding the similarities between Rome and America.

Some notes of interest.  From a merely materialist's angle, I drew some encouragement from the book.  All that means is that I don't think anyone is going to be starving anytime soon.  Here's why:

[In Rome, a]s long as the sea was free of pirates, thieves were cleared from the roads, and merchants were allowed to profit, few cared whether the lawless Caracalla or the unhinged Elagabalus was emperor in distant Rome. Something likewise both depressing and encouraging is happening to the United States. Few Americans seem to worry that our present leaders have lied to or misled Congress and the American people without consequences. Most young people cannot distinguish the First Amendment from the Fourth Amendment — and do not worry about the fact that they cannot. Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln are mere names of grammar schools, otherwise unidentifiable to most.

Not that there will not be Hell to pay for our children, and not that that doesn't keep me up at nights, or that it doesn't make me angry... but nevertheless the decline of America will be just that if it goes as did Rome. "Normal" will simply continue to morph unnoticed by those pacified by electronics and relative plenty. I have mentioned before on this blog of the luxuries that ignorance affords. We can apparently, so ignorance would dictate, cast off all restraint without worry of the proverbial consequences. But this is an illusion maintained by the capital, both materially, but especially spiritually, laid up by our ancestors.

As in Rome, there is a vast disconnect between the elites and the people. Almost half of Americans receive some sort of public assistance, and almost half pay no federal income tax. About one-seventh of Americans are on food stamps. Yet housing prices in elite enclaves — Manhattan, Cambridge, Santa Monica, Palo Alto — are soaring. The wealthy like to cocoon themselves in Roman-like villas, safe from the real-life ramifications of their own utopian ideology.

Thomas Sowell said that diversity for liberal elites really meant black leftists, hispanic leftists, asian leftists... and so on (I paraphrase). Yet real diversity is happening for what its worth, which is not much. a majority, albeit slim, still get married, have children and try to make ends meet. They neither see it as a benefit nor a threat that a "diverse" person just moved in down the street, just so long as they don't trash their yards and their children don't go wild with spray paint and destroy property values. The shabby framework of America, just as it was with Rome, remains for some time after all else collapses. People will generally do what they have done up until everything changed drastically, even if they no longer know why.

About half of America and many of its institutions operate as they always have. Caltech and MIT are still serious. Neither interjects race, class, and gender studies into its engineering or physics curricula. Most in the IRS, unlike some of their bosses, are not corrupt. For the well driller, the power-plant operator, and the wheat farmer, the lies in Washington are still mostly an abstraction. Get up at 5:30 a.m. and you’ll see that your local freeways are jammed with hard-working commuters. They go to work every day, support their families, pay their taxes, and avoid arrest — so that millions of others do not have to do the same. The U.S. military still more closely resembles our heroes from World War II than it resembles the culture of the Kardashians.

For the historian establishing the exact fall of Rome is difficult. Gibbons puts it at the crossing of the Danube by a tide of Goths pushed southward by the Hun, at least for Western Rome.  In this same way, establishing the fall of America may be difficult. While I don't think the actual fall has occurred just yet, I think it is imminent.  We have pulled out our ancestor's financial and spiritual credit card and are on a reckless binge.  That credit will run dry.  Davis speaks of American life between then and now:

If Rome quieted the people with public spectacles and cheap grain from the provinces, so too Americans of all classes keep glued to favorite video games and reality-TV shows. Fast food is both cheap and tasty. All that for now is preferable to rioting and revolt.

Not to slight Mexicans by referring to them as barbarians.  I could just as well call them foreigners.  But just as the Goths entered Rome, not to become Romans, but as Goths, so too do Mexicans enter America; not so much to become part of America as much as to feed off its dying carcass.  Most bring their ideals with them, intack, and as such vote for the same sort of government that governed their homeland without realizing that it is not the dirt on the north side of the Rio Grande that made America great.  It was her foundations and ideals, just as it is not the dirt south of the Rio Grande that makes Mexico prone to poverty.

The real question for Americans is how much is left on this line of credit that our leaders have put on the tab?  I honestly have no idea, but after reading well past the "Fall of Rome" in my book, I'd say that there is still a little while just yet.  But keep an eye on the rate at which things change.  There have been massive changes in only a few decades, most of which seemed to have happened in the last couple, with promises of even more than all that in the current one.  My guess is that there will be no real warning when the line of credit runs dry.  The thing to look for is when those who have been indoctrinated in government schools with hatred, relativism and entitlement are told that they will no longer be receiving  the bread and cable that they've grown use to.  I think that will mark the end.

You Just Can't Fight Some Things

My 10 year old son came home from Sunday School a few weeks ago and told me that they discussed "taking care of the environment" in their class.  I gave up on fighting such things a good while back.

It is difficult to fight some things, like the mixing of the religion of environmentalism with the religion of Christianity.  I can imagine it now.  "What's wrong with conserving resources?" Or: "Are you FOR polluting the planet?"  Can you see how easy it is to create a strawman out my unwillingness to turn Sunday School classes into another venue for anti-Christian Environmentalism?

That's why I love this commercial.  It portrays a warm pro-life theme that the most caustic and murderous abortion advocate of them all would not dare challenge.  (though I would be surprised if the management of Publix are anything but pro-abort liberals)



Hat tip Neil

You Must Connect The Dots. Here, I'll Help

Who is the left?  Put simply, it is a conglomerate of groups of people who have coalesced around one grievance or another.  "Everyone has a grievance", you say.  Well, true, but not everyone internalizes their grievance and turns it into a religion. Those who have, however, join with others and then become a giant conglomerate of victims that we call leftists, or Democrats.  Since left means more government control, it is only natural that leftist would love government, for government is the one entity that can make everything right.

There's only one problem.  Man's existence is imperfect.  He is fallen. He has been evicted from Eden.  That's why leftist are so angry.  They are not OK with it.  Their ultimate grievance, therefore, is with God.  That might explain why they never see an anti-God bandwagon that they're not willing to jump on.  See?  Connecting the dots.  Let's look at the prominent grievances of our day:

Environmentalism?  Did you ever wonder why so many rich people jump onto the we're-the-party-for-the-poor Democrat bandwagon?  Are there any multi-millionaire Hollywood types not riding this one?  They're as close to paradise as anyone's going to get, and yet, they look around and see all us nasty plebes messing it up.  Government to the rescue!  Connect the dots my friend.  Your job could be the next one that falls prey to the government's onerous EPA regulations.  And if you think that that rich millionaire gives a rip, I have a great paying job as a servant for you. The only catch is that you'll have to wait for a few years to get paid, though I can't say exactly when.

Abortion?  Why did God make it so that women have to bear the burden of the gestation phase of sex?  Why, in fact, does there even have to be a gestation phase to sex?  Why can't we just do it with whomever whenever we we want and not be "punished" with babies?  Government can fix that too... for free now.  So have fun you sexy thing you.

Social Justice?  This one will throw you a little if you're not careful.  It pretends to be for the downtrodden among us.  But if you look close, those who advocate the loudest for it don't practice what they preach.  So something else must be going on, right?  So, connect the dots.  Us plebes love a man of the people to administer our grievances.  So what better man of the people than one who promises us plebes that we can live as if we were in Eden again off the backs of the rich... someday.  But be patient please.  It's hard work fighting all those rich and powerful forces (who fill my campaign coffers with money ha ha) and it ain't gonna happen over night.

Meanwhile, those rich people we hate so much--you know, the ones who are living it up off our backs--keep getting richer, and we keep getting poorer.  What's up with that?  Oh, I know, we need to give that "man of the people" a little more power... then he'll fix it for us.  He'll fix it real good.

Homosexual marriage?  Marriage period, Pfft!  But what is a world without love... and sex?  Lots of sex?  Damn the children, we want sex with whomever and whenever... right?  Oh, but there's one more ever: how-ever.  But that "however" introduces a grievance doesn't it?  Shame.  Government to the rescue!  Government can legitimize whatever urges suit your fancy.  That's easy.  Just teach it in the schools and much to our surprise--but not theirs--wha-la!  Suddenly what was once shameful is not.  So, message to you Moms and Dads.  If you put your children into a mad-scientist's petri-dish, don't be surprised if they don't turn out quite like you had expected.  Best connect the dots on that one.

"Gun Control" Was Going On Long Before Gunpowder

Following is an excerpt from the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire.  Of interest, and in bold, is a reference to the Roman government's outlawing of armes for its citizens.

To set it up, in this passage Gibbons is in the midst of explaining the relationship between the Hun and their slaves; some, evidently, of which are Romans.  In explaining this relationship he is citing the historian Priscus, who had by chance encountered an expatriate in the camp of the Hun.  A discussion ensues in which the once Roman, then slave, then freedman gives an overview of his experience as a Roman during the fall.

The historian Priscus, whose embassy is a source of curious instruction, was accosted in the camp of Attila by a stranger, who saluted him in the Greek language, but whose dress and figure displayed the appearance of a wealthy Scythian. In the siege of Viminiacum, he had lost, according to his own account, his fortune and liberty; he became the slave of Onegesius; but his faithful services, against the Romans and the Acatzires, had gradually raised him to the rank of the native Huns; to whom he was attached by the domestic pledges of a new wife and several children. The spoils of war had restored and improved his private property; he was admitted to the table of his former lord; and the apostate Greek blessed the hour of his captivity, since it had been the introduction to a happy and independent state; which he held by the honorable tenure of military service. This reflection naturally produced a dispute on the advantages and defects of the Roman government, which was severely arraigned by the apostate, and defended by Priscus in a prolix and feeble declamation. The freedman of Onegesius exposed, in true and lively colors, the vices of a declining empire, of which he had so long been the victim; the cruel absurdity of the Roman princes, unable to protect their subjects against the public enemy, unwilling to trust them with arms for their own defence; the intolerable weight of taxes, rendered still more oppressive by the intricate or arbitrary modes of collection; the obscurity of numerous and contradictory laws; the tedious and expensive forms of judicial proceedings; the partial administration of justice; and the universal corruption, which increased the influence of the rich, and aggravated the misfortunes of the poor.¹

One of the first things that presses itself upon the modern mind as it encounters this work of history is the civility to which the modern western mindset has grown accustomed.  There seem to have been almost constant raids conducted by the "barbarians" into the provinces of Rome, as well as from the provinces into the barbarian villages.  These raids involved sieges of walled cities, rape, murder, pillage rapine and captivity.  Modern Western civilization is simply not faced with the same problems in terms of the mere violence.  But there are many parallels still, once the savagery is set aside. As the expat describes his experience, the parallels hit much too close to home... in fact.

Notes                                              
1. Gibbon, Edward (2008-07-24). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Kindle Locations 19451-19463).  . Kindle Edition.

How Do The Arts Affect A Culture's Thinking About Church?

One of the things we do in our family is discuss how the producers of entertainment use it to manipulate our emotions and program our minds.  I picked up a season of The Big Valley off a bargain shelf recently and it provided us an excellent teachable moment.  

In an episode entitled "Fallen Hawk", one of the sons in the wealthy Barkly Family, Heath, (Lee Majors) maliciously challenged an old acquaintance who had always had a habit of mooching, to ride an unbroken horse in exchange for a financial favor. During his attempt to ride the horse he was thrown and was paralyzed.  Heath then felt that it was his duty to care for the injured man and his wife.

Heath's benevolence, especially as it pertained to the wife, were ridiculously imprudent.  And though there is purposeful ambiguity as to the possibility of a budding scandal, in the end, the reality that everything was on the up and up is firmly established.  But in the midst of this ambiguity, the scene below is inserted.  It advances the story line not one bit, but it does allow for the caricaturization of Christians as self-righteous, judgemental. 

This scene is obviously meant to elicit disdain. Nevermind the fact that, to be obedient to scripture, the deacon would have approached Heath if there was a concern, not his mother.  Worse, the deacon admits basing the conclusions on "the talk" around town.  What an easy church person to hate and ridicule.  But the Church doesn't get to defend itself in these kinds of scenes; or does it?  

This episode was aired in March of 1966.  

Another way we are manipulated is by music.  Two years after the airing of this episode a song written by Tom T. Hall and sung by Jeannie Riley entitled "Harper Valley PTA" topped the charts. The song is very similar in sentiment to this Big Valley clip.  With an ad hominem argument ¹ the song effortlessly brushes aside the folly of a mother wearing immodest clothing, and "drinking, and a-runnin' 'round with men and going wild," in front of her teenaged daughter.  It simply accuses the accusers of being hypocrites. There.  Done.  One is left to presume that since everyone else is doing wrong too, evidently, it must be okay, and no one dare say anything for fear of being thought a hypocrite.  

This little musical ode, like the video clip, are just two examples of many.  They covertly program us to judge anyone as a hypocrite who dares to challenge our behavior while at the same time giving us aid and comfort in our own sin. After all, it does get one thing right, and that is that none among any of us is without sin.  But the idea of judging ourselves; or of a righteous God judging us, vanishes. 

But non-believers are not the only ones being affected by the arts.  The American Church has also been impacted.  Could it be that American Christianity now so desires to say, "We're really not like that", that it is willing to tailor its outreach, its worship services and its sermons around proving it?  Could this mentality be at the root of "Emrgent-ism" and "Seeker friendly-ism", and avoiding certain doctrines as one might avoid mention of a pink elephant?

I am one of those who sees the Church as the only hope in responding to all that ails our society.  While I doubt that the majority of preachers of the 1960's understood what was happening during that time, they certainly didn't understand it enough to teach their congregations how to mentally navigate the powers of the media, or the cultural shifts that that media was bringing about.  But such ought no longer to be the case.  It takes so little time to understand a few logical fallacies, and only a little more to teach on how to apply them to the predominant thinking of our day.  Perhaps if love tempted us to protect the unwitting, there would be fewer of them who are misled by the arts. 

More interesting reading    

If life imitated art

Notes                                

1. Ad hominem is the act of attempting to discredit the argument by discrediting the person making the argument.  

The 14th Amendment And "Marriage Equality"

I just read a blog post entitled "why are Christians opposed to marriage equality?"  The post explains that "marriage equality" is simply a word game meant to make opposition more difficult. But the author's reasoning from the perspective of history, as well as the current popularity of cohabitation, in his response to a commenter who disagreed with his post is most interesting.  The exchange: 

Commenter:  Alternatively, the phrase ‘marriage equality’ is intended to convey the principle that its advocates actually see as the issue. It relates directly to the argument that failure to recognize gay marriage constitutes a substantive violation of the 14th Amendment equal protection clause. You will dismiss this of course, but it is hardly the deceitful re-branding of the issue which you pretend it to be.

Response:  Thank you for visiting my blog and for your comments. Both are greatly appreciated.

Firstly, you say “alternatively, the phrase “marriage equality” is intended to convey the principle that it’s advocates actually see as the issue.” Tell me then, Daniel, “what was intended to be conveyed as the principle by advocates when they used terminology (phraseology) as gay marriage / same-sex marriage / homosexual (gay) union?” The concept of “Equal Protection of Law” of the 14th Amendment has been with us since the period of Abraham Lincoln. Yet only now are these advocated of same sex marriages challenging traditional marriage with Constitutional Law and “Equal Protection.”

For many years there was what was referred to as the “Common Law.” In Ohio the Common law encompassed “equality of marriage.” It was referred to as “Common Law Marriage” and until (I believe) October 10th, 1991 the Common Law Marriage Laws remained in full-force. specifically the Common Law Marriage gave equal rights to cohabitating persons who would claim to be married. Though they’d not undergone any ceremony or received license certifying their union. I do not believe, at this writing, the Ohio Common Marriage Laws specifically stated that it be between a man and a woman. At the time of such writing legislators would have no need to be gender specific as to who qualified as a married couple. yet, I find no record of any gay couple taking advantage of such legislation, nor if questioned as to the legitimacy of their union, giving rise to the Common Law itself as it’s protector. The fact is clear, gays have always, in one manner or another, been allowed to become married.

Homosexuality pre-dates the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and yet no gay advocate utilized this possible free pass founded in Ohio. If indeed it existed to the extent of permissibility of homosexuals and homosexuality, whether knowingly or not, we cannot be certain as it was never challenged. and Perhaps other states as well held similar laws upon their books.. I believe that this new challenge to traditional marriage and the notion of gays being both a minority and disenfranchised is yet another attempt to demoralize America and break down Christian values held in our nation for nearly 400 years.

“Cohabitating heterosexuals” aren’t seeking special treatment, nor benefit, under the law yet they reside together as man and wife. If their living in a happy, sinful life-style is good enough for them why then shouldn't it be for gays? I would venture to say that at this time in our lives there are more people cohabitating than are married. Gays posit themselves as a minority and a disenfranchised people in need of “Equal Protection under the Law.” Your counter-part, the cohabitating heterosexual, does not see it that way. When counting, worldwide, the number of gays cohabitating and cohabitating heterosexuals, it is we, the traditional married couple, who are a minority and soon to become disenfranchised. And therefore in need of “Equal Protection of the law” in order to preserve our traditional way of life..”

The phrase “marriage equality” is intended to convey the principle that it’s advocates actually see as the issue.” I stand on my principle that God ordained marriage to be between a man and a woman and too; homosexuality is an unnatural act and an abomination before God Almighty.

Abortion Roman Style Versus Canadian Style

The degradation of the meaning and sanctity of life has its consequences.  An infant who finds himself in the birth-canal can be murdered with impunity, and in some cases, perhaps, with celebration.  Just inches and moments later that same baby has acquired all the rights of a citizenship and his life is protected by law... or so we may suppose.  But even a child knows that inches and seconds do not human rights make.

So it should not surprise us that, given the modern mindset among modern elites, an elitist Canadian Judge would defend a mother who strangled her newborn child.  Judge Joanne From "The Blaze":

“The fact that Canada has no abortion laws reflects that ‘while many Canadians undoubtedly view abortion as a less than ideal solution to unprotected sex and unwanted pregnancy, they generally understand, accept and sympathize with the onerous demands pregnancy and childbirth exact from mothers, especially mothers without support,"

 So what is the punishment for a mother killing her newborn?

“Every female person who commits infanticide is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.”

This article brought to mind a passage from "The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire" wherein Gibbons paints a similar picture, but with different motives.  A practice that had become somewhat common during Rome's decline was the killing of newborn infants.  But pay attention to the motivations.  Gibbons explains as follows:

There are many of [Constantine's] laws, which, as far as they concern the rights and property of individuals, and the practice of the bar, are more properly referred to the private than to the public jurisprudence of the empire; and he published many edicts of so local and temporary a nature, that they would ill deserve the notice of a general history. Two laws, however, may be selected from the crowd; the one for its importance, the other for its singularity; the former for its remarkable benevolence, the latter for its excessive severity. 1. The horrid practice, so familiar to the ancients, of exposing or murdering their new-born infants, was become every day more frequent in the provinces, and especially in Italy. It was the effect of distress; and the distress was principally occasioned by the intolerant burden of taxes, and by the vexatious as well as cruel prosecutions of the officers of the revenue against their insolvent debtors. The less opulent [well off] or less industrious part of mankind, instead of rejoicing in an increase of family, deemed it an act of paternal tenderness to release their children from the impending miseries of a life which they themselves were unable to support. The humanity of Constantine; moved, perhaps, by some recent and extraordinary instances of despair, * engaged him to address an edict to all the cities of Italy, and afterwards of Africa, directing immediate and sufficient relief to be given to those parents who should produce before the magistrates the children whom their own poverty would not allow them to educate. (*)

So in Canada, murdering your offspring is understandable because having babies can be depressing and onerous while in ancient Rome it was considered acceptable because the parents didn't want their children to experience the same distresses of poverty and enslavement by government.  It would seem that ancients rationalized it out of compassion for the child, while in modernity it is rationalized out of the compassion for the self.

It would seem to me that the charge of murder against the Canadian girl is a little too severe for our modern sensibilities.  Perhaps practicing medicine without a licence would be more agreeable to our palate.  After all, it's not like she murdered her child with a gun.
 
Notes:
______________

* Gibbon, Edward (2008-07-24). The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Kindle Locations 6406-6414).  . Kindle Edition.

The Language Of Racism

When we think about water pollution we generally judge a body of water as polluted or not.  If a polluted river meets an equally sized unpolluted river we would not then consider the water "half" polluted.  That's just not a term we would use to describe polluted water.  We simply think of it as polluted or not.  How polluted is another discussion entirely.

It would seem that race is seen the same way in our time.  The truth of this can be seen in the words we use.  This language betrays beliefs so deep that most are not even aware of them, yet, once we look more closely it becomes glaring.

We now have the first "black" president of America.  But wait.  Is he the first black president?  Actually no, he is the first half white president.  But wait.  Like water pollution, we don't speak in those terms do we?  When was the last time you heard of a river that was half clean?  No, in the mind of the racist, our president deviates from purity of white in the same way polluted water is in some degree less pure than clean water.  This is, of course, non-sense.

You see, our language reveals that we think in these terms when it comes to race. Any deviation from the pure standard of white is... well polluted... so our language would suggest.  Why else would a half-white president be referred to as black?  \

Worth noting is the fact that non-whites do not challenge whites on this obviously racist standard.  That's because they have been conditioned to accept this standard themselves. I had a non-white youth-group member in our church recently ask me, where do black people come from?  Do you see the culturally ingrained premise in that question?  An equally fair question would be, where do white people come from?  I wonder why he didn't ask that?

Marin Luther King envisioned a day when all the people of the world would be judged, not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.  I now personally think that to be a lost cause.  The very people who are supposed to be the champions of such a cause, and those who have the most to benefit from that cause,  are so fixated on skin color they are blinded to their latent racism.  The white "protectors" seek their own redemption for the wrongs of others.  They also glory in self-righteousness by making themselves out to be the saviors of those whom they obviously see as inferiors.  And we now know that there is no class of people more loyally devoted to a party they see as their saviors as those who have been made unwitting victims by that same party.

As for me, I reject that Obama is the first "black" president.  He is simply the 44th person to hold that office. Not until we all see it that way will King's dream be realized.

The FOUR "R's"?

I heard a homeschooling advocate say in an interview recently that history was more important than math and language.  The interviewer's response was the same as mine, which was that it's not one of the three "R's".  He went on to make his case but it gave me reason to wonder.

In thinking about this I found that I could make the case that deficiencies in any of these four areas would result in various barriers to a more fulfilled life.  I decided that the "R" representing "reading" probably trumped history, because if a person can read he can teach himself the other three.  But there is another reason that we have the 3 "R's" and not the 4 R's... which I now think should include  "Retrospect".   (Hey, if Arithmetic can start with "r" then why not "retrospect" for history?)

Education's primary goal, it might be said, is to provide the opportunity for a more prosperous life.  If a person, at the very least, cannot read, write and do math, his prospects of being productive are weak.  He brings only his brawn to the marketplace.  But while the impact that ignorance of history makes on well-being is of more of a secondary nature, the consequences of such ignorance when it is more wide-spread can actually be more severe than ignorance of just reading, writing and math.

The reality of this is not as readily obvious for if only one person finds no reason or purpose to think outside his own time, society can easily absorb his ignorance into itself and the society, as well as the one, will probably be no worse off.

But when masses of people become ignorant of history the impact changes drastically.  A culture that is predominately ignorant of history lives in a time bubble devoid of the stabilizing influences it offers to the present.  History provides a culture with a reference point beyond its own time by which it can judge its own direction.  If a person knows history he can observe and discern the course of events according to that history.  He need not endure the trials and tribulations of his ancestors, or have a faulty view of the nature and proclivities of himself and his fellow man.  He is able to judge with clarity those who offer security in exchange for liberty.  But without a predominance of that knowledge, a culture becomes lost in time, and consequently, ripe for the oppressor's picking.

The prospects, therefore, of prosperity. that give us reason to apply ourselves to the 3 "R's" can all become nullified by our culture's whole-scale ignorance of history.  The Despot's restraints are first loosened by that ignorance, then broken.  And while the Despot lures the hapless citizen into deeper captivity with promises of a brighter future, the need and desire for that future grows ever more desperate as the cultural state of being declines.

This is of course why we homeschool our children.  The men who lust for power know that the opportunity to achieve that unfettered power lies in the classroom of the masses with the chief focal point being history.  They know that they must detach the child from the actual past and provide for him a past that is more conducive to the garnishment from them of power.  While our children may not escape the oppression of the tyrant, with a clear understanding of history, they won't have to fall prey to his wiles, and may possibly become a voice of reason in a dark and desperate culture.

The Prudish Homosexual

Sometimes the juxtaposition of words can shine a light on things. While it might easily be said, or perhaps even expected, that a disciple of  Christ would be a prude, somehow the idea of a prudish Homosexual has the feel of an oxymoron.  While we can and should admit, given the breadth of the dispositions of mankind, that there are instances of devoted and monogamous homosexual relationships, we also must realize that even in such cases the idea of a prudish homosexual falls short. ⁽¹⁾ There is a reason for this.  To discover that reason let's take a look at the definition of the word "Prude":

The online dictionary defines it this way:

"One who is excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous. "

Considering this definition one word pops out at us right away: righteous.  This word is probably a good reason why the word prude is not considered to be a complement.   Le'ts take a closer look at that word, righteous as well to see why.  Merrian Webster defines it as "acting in accord with divine or moral law".

So we can see now why there is no such thing as a prudish homosexual.  The term prudish homosexual introduces cognitive dissonance.  Cognitive dissonance is like saying that it is forbidden to forbid, or, there is no truth... and that's the truth.  These statements are inconsistent with logic. In the same way, accusing a person who rejects the existence of absolute moral law of being excessively concerned with being or appearing to be proper, modest, or righteous, is also inconsistent with logic.

Interestingly enough, the online dictionary goes on to say this:

"Being called a prude is rarely considered a compliment, but if we dig into the history of the word prude, we find that it has a noble past."

This "noble past" points to a time when it was generally accepted that there was such a thing as righteousness.  While the Christian perspective is that there are none righteous, no not one, this does not wipe away the existence of righteousness from which mankind falls short.  It remains that being a disciple of Christ, and thus being transformed into his righteous image, and being sanctified, ought to be the out-workings of that relationship.  The word prude, therefore, while causing us to be an object of contempt to the world, ought to give us reason for thankfulness in our hearts to God who has seen fit to transform us by the renewing our minds.
_________________

Note 1:  From the Christian perspective there is no such thing as a Homosexual Christian no more than there is such a thing as an adulterous Christian. Christians find their identity in Christ, not whatever garden variety of sin that happens to be "besetting" them.  "Homosexual Christian" does not describe, therefore, a Christian who struggles with same-sex attractions.  Such a Christian could easily be considered prudish, and given the shame all mankind inherently feels about his sinful behavior, Christians, above all, would not be desirous of waving as a banner, or claiming as an identity, their shame.

The Drawing To A Close Of The Emotionian Revolution Against Information

Few realize it but a 60-year revolution of a different sort is showing signs of closure.  The re-election of Barack Obama was a signal that a victor in this revolution, brought about by the proliferation of the television set, is now beginning to emerge.  Since it is an un-named revolution, hidden perhaps within other simultaneous, but not entirely disconnected revolutions like the sexual revolution, I'll simply suffice to call it the Emotionian Revolution.

It's clear that information has always played a crucial role in struggles, whether armed or cultural.  But this revolution is different for it has been the very concept of information that appears to have been at stake.

Historically, as it involves information, strategies have centered on its control; bluffing opponents and deceiving enemies with false information, as well as propagandizing the populace to arouse passions against enemies, have all been effective utilities of information.  The American founders understood this well and so enshrined the freedom of information into the Constitution as a defensive bulwark against those who would control information for their own gain. But the television set has changed all that.  The control of information has been rendered irrelevant because information itself has been rendered irrelevant.

A glimpse of the new battlefield upon which this revolution would take place occurred in 1960 during the first televised presidential debate between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. This debate, it so happened, occurred as the  TV set was becoming increasingly prevalent in the American home. These debates are noteworthy, therefore, not because of the ideas that were debated, but rather because of the impact the medium would have on the outcome of the election.  Nixon, it was said, looked old, pale, unshaven and sweaty while his opponent appeared young, tan and energetic.  That none of these qualities have any bearing on presidential capabilities is very much a foreign thought today.  That we would cringe at the thought of voting in a primary for a profusely ugly candidate is a testament to the revolution and its success.

The famous Lincoln-Douglas debates, in contrast, remain noteworthy to this day for their ideological content.  They embody the battle of the mind and worldview of that day between contestants wielding weapons of ideas bolstered by information.  But this occurred during a time when people drew conclusions from ideas and experience.  But because of the advent of the television set, the Nixon/Kennedy debates would not be a battle of minds, but rather of images.  They would therefore forever change American and global politics.  Television would lull Western societies into a false sense of intellectual grandeur and glamor while at the same time actuality relieving them of reason and the toil of thinking.

The power of the moving image accompanied by emotion-arousing music, complete with caricatured, easy-to-hate strawmen, was not a new concept, to be sure. It was developed and used effectively during World War II.  But the migration of that arrangement from the scarcity of the big screen to daily ingestion by the family while congregating in the living room would prove to be an extremely powerful weapon that would bring about previously unforeseen or imagined changes.  Information, and then informed reasoning, would become a thing of the past for the collective society.  It would become a thing akin to a strategically ill-placed fort, bypassed and ignored by conquerors while its inhabitants fawned for logic-based intellectual battle.

The very concept of an informed citizen experienced a sort of reverse petrification process.  He would be transformed from an individual anchored by truth and reality into a caring, feeling and malleable citizen, one who hates and loves the correct ideas no matter how dissonant they may be. He wouldn't bother to consider the origins, reasonableness or consequences of his feelings, for to do so would require contemplation. Since these new feelings--not ideas--were installed by a medium that bypassed the cognitive filter of the mind, their installation went unnoticed.  As far as this modern new man was concerned, the mindset originated within himself.  Truth itself would be a casualty as these feelings, rather than an informed, principled and thoughtful position, would increasingly become the basis of a new kind of "truth".

The Nixon/Kennedy debates marked a beginning of the revolution by providing the discovery of a new means of conducting warfare through the image-driven campaign and the power of the TV.  It was quickly realized by some that with this new medium the political ground rules had drastically changed.  A projected image could now trump ideas. This fact ceded enormous amounts of power to television journalists and executives.  It was an opportunity that leftists immediately began to exploit.  But it wasn't by any means limited to just the news media.  All programming became a tool by which feelings-based values could be implanted.  The left was successful in populating every aspect of the medium with liberal ideology and ideologues.  Within 12 years, to even their own surprise I am convinced, they were able to take down a sitting president, all while successfully projecting an image of themselves as fair, objective, bystander journalists.

The media continued to consolidate this power and appeared to have been home free with their agenda when they met with their first counter-attack from the unlikeliest of corners, AM radio.  In August of 1988, Rush Limbaugh launched his syndicated radio show, the first of its kind.  A society in decline does not lack an awareness of its decline, only an awareness of exactly why it's taking place.  It is disoriented.  How it thinks -- or perhaps better put in modern times, if it thinks -- will determine how it responds to reality. Limbaugh simply articulated things that many people intrinsically knew but were unable to articulate. He was simply able to cut through the fog of liberalism. Within a few years, he would become a household name across America.  Not surprisingly he was immediately attacked from media strongholds.  Nevertheless, he was arguably instrumental in a major political upset for leftists in the battle of ideas in the Republican revolution of 1994.  With the mimicking of his success by like thinkers and communicators, AM radio would become a lone beacon of conservative dissent.  This conservative outpost would eventually pave the way for Republican majorities in both houses of Congress and control of the White House.  Unfortunately, conservatism itself would be successfully blocked.

The left's failed attempt to mount a counter offense in AM radio is in its own right telling.  Talk radio, as it turned out, is a poor medium for manipulating emotions. It is a medium for the mind.  In response to radio's inroads, TV media, which had begun 24-hour cable news programming in 1980, dared to up the ante as it began to test the waters of shedding the pretense of objectivity.  Any boundaries that once existed against biased propaganda, they discovered, had long since vanished. They found themselves free to transition their "journalism" to an emotion-based, biased bullhorn.  The "news" media, for all practical purposes, was no more.  It had become a de facto state-run propaganda machine.  The lines between the Democrat party and other power players like the entertainment media, government unions, universities and public education had solidified into a nation-wide machine that would by comparison make New York's Boss Tweed operation look like a playground bully.

As this revolution draws to a close, AM radio, like the reason and logic based ideas it trumpets, is being reduced to a mere nuisance.  The emotions of voting for a man of the people, so vacuous of real content that anyone's Utopian hopes can easily fit inside his created image, has proven impervious to pertinent information.  The logic-based facts of America's very real financial predicament, for example, simply bounce off the walls of closed minds. No fiscal hole is so deep, it is evidently felt, that the pockets of the rich can't be raided to fill it. Interestingly enough, and also telling, is the fact that so many rich, who are the supposed causes of all that ails us, are on board with the soak-the-rich scheme.  That would give a thinking society reason for pause, but not this one.

The 2012 election was a milestone for several reasons, the most relevant of which was that President Obama did not attempt to hide, and in fact was refreshingly forthcoming with his revolutionary Marxist inclinations. He even removed the facade of his stance on marriage, a milestone in its own right. The conservative media had become prevalent enough so that the availability of information about his views and intentions were plentiful.  It wasn't a lack of unbiased news outlets that brought about his success, for it was not as if his positions were cognitively considered, and then embraced in the minds of his supporters.  And it wasn't like any views that opposed leftist views were refuted either. Such would have meant the thoughtful consideration of valid information, and then the ramifications of that information.  No, for the first time, a  growing number of the people based their choice on how they "felt" about the image of Barack Obama that was projected.  The sad reality of this election was that only a minority of his voters actually shared his revolutionary ideas.  But that minority, coupled with those who had projected their Utopian ideas onto an image, were enough to breach the last remaining barrier between a free nation and tyranny, that bulwark being the voting booth.  He was able to gain a majority of voters without hiding his true identity, and he did it in spite of numerous and disastrous scandals and decisions, any one of which would have had a Republican falling to an embarrassing defeat.

To be sure, this revolution was not about Barack Obama, nor was it about conservative versus liberal ideology.  The name and face of the man in this past election are irrelevant, as they will be in the next.  What is relevant and revolutionary is the ability of someone unseen to create an image with any smart looking and sounding face by the manipulation of emotions and feelings through entertainment, social, and news mediums, while at the same time quelling critical thought in the majority of the voting population.  What had been the minority has now become the majority.  There is now a new frontier before us.  The only question is, where will the image manipulators take us now?