Sunday.....Christianity.....Is God Trying To Tell You Something?

I took up golf when in my teens. I understand very well why so many men have a passion for the game. My father bought me a set of clubs when I was about 15 years old. The putter in my bag today is the same one that I wrapped around a tree on the 18th green at Grover Cleveland Public Golf Course in Buffalo in the mid 60s. The 9 iron is the same one that I waded, chest deep, into the water to retrieve on the 3rd hole of a course in Monroeville. I remember taking the bus to Hughes and Hatcher men's store in Pittsburgh to meet Gary Player and have him autograph his new book Gary Player's Golf Secrets (1964). I also was the only person I have heard of that lugged his clubs on buses to get to a course to play golf. Fortunately for me, I was never very good at the game. There always appeared to be a black hole somewhere down the right side of the fairway that sucked my drive into it. My son plays golf and we have gone out twice. Last summer I thought that I would practice a little bit on my own, and maybe this would be a good pastime that we could share together. I went to a local driving range and put some tokens into the machine for a basket of balls. I guess that I figured that there was someone working inside the machine that would gently lower the basket of balls? With no basket in place, they started shooting all over the place. After looking around to see if anyone was looking, I settled in to hit a few. The first was o.k., the second sailed right, over the fence and on the 18th fairway of the golf course. Has anyone ever yelled Fore! on the driving range before? The third was at least within the acceptable area but the fourth was back onto the 18th fairway! I wanted to practice but cannot put other people's lives in danger doing so. I put every tip that I was given on hitting a straight ball into effect... moving my left foot forward...bringing my right hand over the top....but the ball went back onto the 18th fairway. I left the bucket of balls and came home. If I had straightened out my drive you probably would not have this blog to read. No, I'm not going to take more lessons! I do realize though that ending this blog would probably be one small step for man; but one giant leap for mankind. I may have related this story in a previous blog, I know that I have told it often enough; David Wilkerson was a pastor in a small church in eastern Pennsylvania in the late 1950s. The newspaper stories of gang shootings in New York City stirred him so much that he went there to address these young men himself. The result was a book The Cross and the Switchblade and a movie of the same name starring Pat Boone. The result also, was Wilkerson establishing a church in an old Broadway theater and preaching there to this day, 50 years later. After David started to become established in NYC, his passion for preaching the gospel may have slacked off just a little bit. He read an advertisement for a classic sports car and thought how much he would like zipping around town in it. He and his wife travelled to New Jersey to see the car. It was just what he always wanted. He bought it and felt proud as a peacock on his ride back to the city. His wife asked him if he smelled something burning. Looking into his rearview mirror, he could see smoke coming from his new car. It was then that his wife asked him a profound question that brought David back on course of preaching the gospel...David, do you think that God is trying to tell you something? I would really like to be a golfer but, knowing my tendencies, would probably abuse the blessing. I 'm no smarter than anyone reading this blog, the basket of balls certainly proves that, but anyone would have to put in the effort if they would expect to discern the times, identify the schemes being constructed and garner enough passion to want to make a difference. The Christian faith is no different. The tendency is to become quite satisfied with our born again experience, pat ourselves on the back, and settle into 40 or so years of what may be ignorant bliss. It's a good idea for all of us, on a daily basis, to look into that rear view mirror to see if God is trying to tell us something.

Friday.....America.....God Directs Our Steps

It was the summer of 1963 and my mother and I had just moved to Pittsburgh from Buffalo. My parents had separated, and remained only separated until my father's death in 1979. We were searching for a place to live....by taxicab. I remember the day distinctly. As the cab turned the corner on the street where my home would be until joining the Army, a boy my age was riding his bike and perched on his shoulder was a raccoon. Unusual to say the least, for a suburb of Pittsburgh. He would become my best friend. God directs all of our steps and He certainly led my mother to that address that day. My life would be influenced, one way of the other, by the friends I would find there. If they were involved in drugs or crime, I probably would have also. If they had had no desire for higher education, then I doubt that I would have. Eight boys, from three families, lived within five houses of ours. We spent our days eating pizza, playing card games and street football with an occasional movie. Three went on to be PhDs and two of those are college professors today. There's an architect, economist, electrician, nurse, government worker and myself rounding out the team. I'm so fortunate that my mother responded to the classified apartment for rent placed in the Pittsburgh Press that day. The Catholic high school I attended drew boys from numerous surrounding communities. Our Catholic grade school sent eight boys that year. Its Tom that I want to talk about here. He lived up the hill a ways. I never met a nicer young man. He was a true athlete and scholar. If ever anyone had the right to place themselves above others it would be him; a football star who went on to play at Carnegie Mellon, he is the same humble caring person I knew 40 years ago. I have had a small reminder of Tom with me constantly over the years, a bump on my collarbone from a collision in short center field in sandlot baseball. I lost track of Tom over the years. I heard that he was in journalism, an editor of some sort. I later heard that his wife had been killed in a car wreck and I tried unsuccessfully to locate him. I tried again earlier this year and was successful. He was a model for me in my teens and his character is still a model for me today. He struggled for years with depression after the accident. According to his testimony which I found on the web, he used poetry to regain his life and has a wonderful family today that he is devoted to. He recently edited a book on the effect poetry can have on recovery. Previous to this he was the founding editor of the world's most referenced web site in the field that he is now a freelance editor in. These are the young Americans I knew growing up and it was boys like that, and men as they are today, that makes me resist the notion that America is need of a renovation of its principles and an apology for its attempts to bring order to a chaotic world. Yesterday, My wife and I visited the National Museum of the United States Air Force outside of Dayton. One should have to go no further than the sacrifices of so many who have given us the opportunites we have today. We will never be asked to climb into a sphere of steel plate, nuts and bolts for a bombing raid over Nazi territory, or helicopter into a dense forest to rescue a downed pilot, but we are being asked to bring our life into balance and moderate our recreations in order to read and meditate enough to discern a nation in collapse and earnestly seek any way we can be of help.

Thursday.....Politics.....Damage Control

The latest soap opera in government politics might be labelled The Harvard professor and the policeman. Attempts are being made by the President to control the political damage incurred from the Cambridge incident. With health care reform and cap and trade legislation in jeopardy and everything else seemingly in chaos, damage control is in high gear on this issue. When used in its original meaning-damage to a naval vessel, or a more modern usage with corporate struggles of some sort, damage control is a legitimate, logical response to limit damage from a particular accident or problem incurred. When used it politics, it may be logical in that political damage has occurred but its legitimacy should be questioned for its success relies on a public that is gullible and/or too lazy to analyze the diversion in process. President Clinton was a master at damage control, notwithstanding the events that led to impeachment. President Obama is on a pace to dethrone the king of damage control. Republicans also try diversion tactics; they're just not as good at it. It may not be the most important issue in The Harvard Professor and the Policeman but it's what grabs my attention first. One litmus test signaling a possible turnaround in American culture might be when the public immediately recognizes damage control for what it is and instead of it casting a diversion, it applies a magnifying glass to the original problem.

Wednesday.....Culture.....Creation Museum

Did you ever get a few days off and feel like you have to get away? Well, that's what my wife and I did this week, but where to go, north, south, east or west? I heard about Creation Museum before and thought that if the chance came up....well this was the chance so we headed west to Cincinnati. Creation Museum is located in Kentucky at the tri-state border with Indiana and Ohio, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. Answers in Genesis is a creation apologetic organization founded by Australian Ken Ham. I've seen him on television before and he does a good job at presenting and defending the Biblical story of creation. I expected the visit to be good, even very good, but it was more than that! I wish that it had been around about 10 years ago so we could have taken our son here in his early teens. They had over 3,000 visitors at the museum yesterday and today seemed to be at least that many. It's a combination theme park and museum. The parking is set up as in any other theme park with police officers present for security and to direct the parking. We arrived a few minutes before they opened at 10 a.m. and the line for tickets was forming already, but all lines moved fast. They take your picture as you enter and you can purchase it if you want to...we did. The book store is exemplary and I think I know a little bit about Christian bookstores. There were a lot of books for young kids, supplies for teachers and a large assortment of books that ranged from science/technical to easier reading softcovers. It had a very large assortment of teaching DVDs, apparel and toys but the most impressive, to me anyway, was a section of biographies highlighting Charles Spurgeon and Jonathon Edwards to Puritan literature from Banner of Truth publishers. It was recommended to us to view the Stargazer's Planetarium (23 minutes) first, which we did, and it was an enjoyable lay back and look at the cosmos. Dining is good and affordable with an appropriate ambiance looking over the botanical gardens which were next on our agenda, followed by a fun petting zoo and enjoyable nature walk, and there was plenty more to come. Their Special Effects Theater presented Men in White (22 minutes) which had the kids wide eyed and laughing out loud. Probably, from a teaching perspective, the best was yet to come with the Walk Through History, where you follow a maze of exhibits with two theaters. It's an enormous learning experience for a young child, teen and even adults. Give yourself at least an hour to go through this section alone and it probably takes more if you have children with you. We spent about 7 hours at the museum. It's about a 5 1/2 hour trip from Pittsburgh and I can recommend Lawrenceburg, Indiana for accommodations for it's only 5 minutes from the museum. I only had one disagreement with the message given and that was that it highlights, to an extreme degree, a literal six day creation. They obviously feel that they have to hammer this point. We disagree but go for it, for Ken Ham and the others involved in Creation Museum have entertainingly shown multitudes of Christian children the truth that God is also the creator of science, and the more that science is studied, the more God's awesome power and majesty is shown! http://www.creationmuseum.org/

Tuesday.....International.....Six Of Diamonds?

I used to attempt a silly trick with new employees after I got to know them a little bit. I told them that I could read minds, and their response would be what you would expect. I'd say No, really! Pick any card in the deck, in your mind. Don't write it down or tell anyone...got it? O.K. The card you picked was the...and I would name any card in the deck. Now my chances of picking their card was 1 in 52. I never succeeded although I once missed the 8 of clubs by a suit then shook my head and said Now how did I miss clubs? You have to admit that if I ever did hit one, my new friend would have a tough time explaining it away. Parts of Asia are experiencing a total solar eclipse today. It will last longer than recent eclipses, 6 minutes and 39 seconds in one place, and they will not see another this long for about 100 years. Many people in India are very superstitious about this, believing that it portends very ominous occurrences around the world. Women do not want their babies born on this day! Like my little card trick, one of these days a total solar eclipse may bring a day of disaster. Immediately after 9/11 super market tabloids would run articles about self-proclaimed prophets that predicted an attack on us. If you read this type of article, they invariably inform that the prophet missed their last 10 prophesies, but that doesn't really matter. False prophets have continuously given a date for Christ's Second Coming for well over a millennium. A number of economists predicted this financial crisis including Joeseph Stiglitz, written up in today's Newsweek Magazine. People have made a lot of money, and lost a lot of money by predicting trends in the stock market. Some friends have said to me You're such a pessimist! Maybe, but I'm an optomistic pessimist in that, yes we are in trouble as a nation and a people. We have mowed down the hedges that protected us only to get a view of barbarians at the gate. We have failed to heed history, preferring instead to revise it to support our corruptions, but God has all of this under control! Someone once asked Martin Luther what he would do if he knew for certain that Christ was returning the next day. His answer was that he would plant a tree today. I ascribe to his philosophy. America's future has all the signs of turmoil ahead but God has determined what that future will be and although we pray for His mercy upon us, either outcome will ultimately further His plan and bring Him all the glory that is His, which is all the glory that there is!

Monday.....Miscellaneous.....Who Was The Best, Ruth or Aaron?

I'm not a follower of professional golf but I am a follower of human interest stories and this year's British Open was one. Tom Watson is 59 years old, a very fine age to be by the way, and was inches away from a major tournament win. From what I have heard it could not have happened to a nicer gentleman. Studies have shown that people who went to kindergarten in 1956 today tend to be the most articulate, clear thinking, doggedly persistent, defenders of what if right and true. They also tend to be quite handsome, but I digress from the issue at hand. Who was the greatest boxer, Ali or Maricano? Would Bill Russell be as dominant in the NBA today? Could Derek Jeter hit off of Bob Gibson or Sandy Koufax? Who had the greater lust for power, Hillary Clinton or Idi Amin? Who was the greatest, Caruso or Pavarotti? By the way the answers are, Maricano, yes, no and Hillary and 'who cares'. It's not often that we get hard evidence on questions like this but this years British Open provided some clues. The old man Tom Watson beat them all, except the bald guy in the green Polo shirt, in what is real golf, British golf with wind, chill and rough higher than the hem on Hillary's Mao pants. I really got to get help with this! In the year that Watson started his PGA career, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Gene Littler, Gardner Dickinson and Miller Barber were winners on the tour and Tom wasn't a winner for three more years. Arnold Palmer won his first tournament in 1955. So without too much imagination we have a generational tie of sorts for the last 54 years. Taking new technologies into consideration, the clue given supports equal talent for the last half century. To continue the point but change the venue, what about the acting profession? This isn't even close. I like a Tom Cruise movie but Spencer Tracy or James Cagney he ain't. There is no news anchor today that could compare to any of the top 20 of yesterday, and I am totaly convinced that there is no grade school whiffle ball player that could carry Curtis Butterfield's Pro Keds. This was supposed to be a serious blog but Hillary can creep into just about anything....except Barack Obama's national security meetings that is. I had a profound point but its gone. It had something to do with this , in some way we seem to think that we are smarter today than those of yesterday, we are wiser, more discerning on the limits of what truth is. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, we are not. The gray matter is exactly the same but Jerry, Kramer and George have to be in the equation somewhere. The Germans have a word for it, bildung, no one knows what it means. Now that's profound! There was intellectual prowess in Descartes' I think therefore I am. United States Senator Al Franken, member of the United States Senate Judiciary Committee now questioning a United States Supreme Court nominee that might adjudicate the most important issues in our future might come up with I think, therefore I thought...I think. No, a dose of humility might be a good prescription for anyone giving opinions on things that will directly affect our lives and that of our children. Well that's the blog. What do you expect from someone who has seen every episode of Everybody Loves Raymond...three or four times!

Sunday.....Christianity.....Imagine...

It is my position that many specific Biblical prophesies are primarily to be viewed after the fact in that it is indeed proclaiming a future event but those involved will not see it until it has occurred. So, if America is the subject of Biblical prophesy, we will see this only as evidence of the veracity of God's Word. On the other hand, there seems to be principles that one can apply to America, and many other nations, and not enter into the realm of prophetic falsehoods. Senator Jim DeMint begins his otherwise excellent book Saving Freedom with an often used Biblical verse 2nd Chronicles 7:`13, 14 If.... My people who are called by My name humble thenselves, pray and seek My face, and turn from their evil ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sin, and heal their land. I disagree with the application of this verse to America. As a nation, we are not God's people nor have we ever been. The defending of America against its enemies, the proclamation of the gospel through the freedoms Christians have had, and the sacrifice and goodwill of its people over the years of its existence have often been a theme in this blog but there are also enough occult origins in our foundation to make the application of this Biblical verse absurd. There are, though, general principles of Biblical prophesy that any nation that once was God-fearing and has turned from that, would be wise to follow. Two Old Testament prophets come to mind. The difference in the essence of these two messages is a sobering thought. Jonah prophesied a warning to Nineveh. Nineveh was given a short period of time in which to repent, which it did, and its future was extended. Some 150 years later, the prophet Nahum did not give a warning but a declaration of doom to Nineveh. So, if America is indeed alluded to in Biblical prophecy, which message would be for us, a warning or a declaration? We are like Nineveh in our violence yet we claim that terrorists hate us because we are good. (please see my blog of December 20, 2008 The Enemy At Home on this concept) We are in need of a deep repentance in this nation and no one more so than I. How does the concept of America's destruction as a punishment from God sit with you? Probably not too well. We always have the unseemly statement The end is near written on a sign carried by a long bearded man in the comics to fall back on to get this thought of national judgement out of our mind. I personally, do feel strongly that at the very least we are being given a warning and urgently need to humble ourselves and seek His mercy.... I'm listening to XM Radio playing softly at this moment and John Lennon's Imagine has just begun... Imagine there's no heaven...no hell below us! I think that I'll end with this. A possible alternative lyric comes to my mind, Imagine that God is warning us....or worse yet....Imagine that God has already declared our punishment!

Saturday.....War On Terror.....What A Difference A Day Makes

I want to reflect a little bit here on the personal and talk radio conversations I have been in and heard over the years on the war in Iraq and also the various editorials, op/ed pieces and political comments I have read on the subject. There seemed to be a steady stream of concern for civilian casualties and anger over the danger our military personal were in, and added to that can be the outrage over incidents such as Abu Ghraib. General McChrystal and his black ops were a deep concern of Senator Barack Obama. The effect that this overall concern on Iraq had was to put the President of the United States under constant pressure to answer the charges against him even as he had a full plate in front of him in directing the war. What a difference a day makes, November 4th, 2008, as the tone and topics seemed to have changed drastically. I have heard no concern over civilian deaths in personal conversations since the inauguration in January even though there has been a significant increase in these last few months. General McChrystal has been promoted to military commander in Afghanistan by President Obama. In fact, the war that tormented so many, is rarely mentioned. The media,which had perfected innuendo, frowns, scowls and a keen sense of finding any and every mistake the United States had made, sounds more like Walter Cronkite in the early days of the Vietnam War. I won't generalize here for surely there are those who have remained consistent but they are not nearly in the majority. The current mission by marines in Afghanistan would be extremely hazardous under any American president. In 1953 the French sent a large military force into an isolated city of Vietnam named Dien Bien Phu. After they did, General Giap seemed to bring in every fighter from around the country to that tiny piece of landscape. He had a few surprises for the French in the artillery they were able to transport to the area and in the tactic of encirclement rather than a head on confrontation. The result was a military defeat with thousands of French soldiers dead or captured, the end of the French in Vietnam, and consequently our beginning. The constant criticism of President Bush served to embolden our enemies. I personally would like to see a constant concern for the ongoing conflicts today and also for the rapid departure of our military from many areas in Iraq.

Friday.....America.....Mainstream vs. Fringe

There is a misconception that moderates are the mainstream and in the middle of American society, while the right wing and the left wing are on the fringes. I think that it would be more accurate to say that both wings and the moderates comprise the mainstream of America. I related once before that some Christians consider the Puritans as giants, but J. I. Packer, a Puritan historian and great admirer of them, stated that they were, in actuality, normal Christians; we are Pygmies and that is why we perceive them as giants. In the same vein, both the right wing and left wing of our political parties have substance, good or bad, and it might be that the moderates are often tasteless, odorless and formless making others appear as fanatics and on the fringe. It is the fringe element of society that is the problem. People on the fringe kill abortion doctors, demonstrate at soldier's funerals, desecrate cemeteries and churches and start cults. The political fringe uses tactics developed by Lenin and Goebbels, The Christian fringe ordains homosexuals into its clergy, the corporate fringe sells out its employees and customers in a covenant with their stockholders and the labor fringe ignores the public good for its own benefits. There is work being done on the bridge that I travel over on my way to work. The thought came to me while driving over it the other day that if the barriers on both sides were not there, I would cross at a crawl if at dared cross at all. If we have no rules and regulations, no barriers and commandments, we are in danger of travelling outside the areas where our protection is, and are also in danger of the fringe crossing lines and endangering us. God has given commandments, and rulers that give laws for our protection. The Lord's Day was given us as a hedge that not seven days would pass without our repairing to Him for strength to go another seven days in this world. The question of importance has always been the width of this fringe. It is most certainly not always the same proportion to the mainstream. When traditions are abrogated, laws ignored, constitutions sidestepped and mores jettisoned, the fringe is emboldened and grows and society hurtles towards chaos.

Wednesday.....Culture.....Press On

Merriam-Webster defines a demagogue as a leader who makes use of popular prejudices and false claims and promises in order to gain power. It defines a tyrant as an absolute ruler unrestrained by law or constitution; a usurper of sovereignty. It defines a despot as a person exercising power tyrannically. A free people will prosper only as long as they choose good, wise and able leaders. This is not as easy as it might seem for we don't always look for wisdom in those we put into positions of power. We may selfishly opt for someone who promises things that benefit us without regard to how it effects others. We may cast our vote against someone we dislike without regard to the abilities of the person that can serve this purpose, and we might simply be taken in by a slick charlatan who doesn't reveal his intentions or show his lack of wisdom until he has power. In any of these cases, we find ourselves ruled by a poor leader at best, and unfortunately, maybe a wicked despot. We often have no one to blame but ourselves when this happens. We tend to sit back, wring our hands and wonder how this came about. They gave no indication that they would be a tyrant. They seemed to respect my opinion when they wanted my vote. I was taken in by Jimmy Carter in the fall of 1975. He seemed honest..and he was. He seemed capable...and he wasn't. He was naive, as was I, and I had no excuse. I served three years in the army and had just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, was a reader, yet had no clue. I knew how to formulate an opinion, but not an argument, for a sound argument demands a full understanding of both sides of a subject. I was unjustly confident in my abilities of discernment. I have been humbled more times in my life than I could even attempt to document. Maybe you have seen a book marker in Barnes & Noble that has five words on it spoken by Winston Churchill...Never, never, never give up. Stonewall Jackson was more aggressive than any general that this nation has ever produced. As difficult as the task was, as tired as his men were, he set the gaze of his steel blue eyes on them and said just two words...Press on! I'm reading John Bunyan's A Pilgrim's Progress again, for the umpteenth time, for there is no better arrangement of words within the English language, with the obvious exception of the Word of God, that describes the frailties of man, the need to never, never, never give up and press on, and the only source of strength to accomplish this, than his book. Have you found yourself in the predicament of having a poor leader, even a disastrous one? If you live in the United States of America you have. Is there another situation in your life where decisions made in your stead have not been wise? Learn from it and keep on going. If this country survives, it will be because of unrelenting determination, humility and a reverential countenance toward the God that blessed it to begin with.

Tuesday.....International.....International Law And You

One of the concerns with the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor is the attempt today, by some judges, to take international judicial decisions into account as if they are a precedent of sort. The Wall Street Journal has an excellent article on this tendency in today's paper and can be accessed at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1247530852583358.html. To even consider doing this is revealing in that it shows that the particular judge believes that our law is only one reference to take into consideration in making judicial decisions, along with the laws of other nations and as we have seen of late, the empathy the particular judge may hold. A while back I wrote that the best thing we could do with the Sotomayor nomination was to turn the hearings into a teaching tool for the American public on the role of judges and the encroaching activist judge that attempts to set policy rather than interpret law. Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama is doing an excellent job bringing this out. The next Supreme Court judge will sit on the court for life and it would be little comfort after a number of years of bad decisions to say Well, at least the few days of hearings on their nomination were not contentious! An editorial in the same paper was also revealing. We have all heard of people who put money into Swiss bank accounts, and some reasons for it. The IRS, Timothy Geithner's IRS, has come up with an idea. The IRS and Eric Holder's Justice Department are petitioning the Swiss bank UBS to turn over the names of 52,00o Americans with accounts in Switzerland. Currently, if there is evidence of tax fraud, the Swiss will comply and help with the information. Otherwise, the Swiss have bank-secrecy laws and the United States would be asking the Swiss to break their own laws. Again this is revealing in that one of the concerns on "radical liberalism leading to Fascism" is that when they attain power, Katie bar the door, they look like a hyperactive seven year old swinging at a Pinata. The WSJ article also points out that this could also run afoul of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable search.

Monday.....Miscellaneous.....It's About Time!

Hey! It's about time that you stopped in! I've had this blog up and running for over seven months waiting for you. Don't look around, I'm talking to you. You weren't late for work today were you. You always find yourself rushing around getting ready for work every day, don't you? I have some heavy things to talk to you about and don't want other things to be on your mind. Do you still have a problem person at work? I'll bet you handled that perfectly! How's the family? Hey, nice watch...present? You can see me, right? Push that little button right above the delete, no... above the delete. How old is your computer? never mind, I guess you'll just have to read this without the video. Uh, you got a little something on your chin... a little to the left. Never mind, it fell off. Anyway, you want to get a coffee first? I'll wait. Oh, you got one. So do I so here goes. I'll make this short. The country needs your help! We can't afford to just sit back and complain to others of like mind anymore. You're an intelligent person. If you had a problem, you wouldn't sleep until you found an answer to it, would you? We can't be followers anymore and leadership will take care of itself, but we need men and women who will step out of line and say count me in! In this present crisis we don't have the luxury of just giving support to someone else that is doing the work. I have no doubt that Americans will respond when needed. I do have doubts that they have the discernment anymore to know just when they are needed, for that time is now. Do you really feel confident that things will just go on as usual? Are the concerns of socialism, a porous national defense, a disasterous economic strategy and a plethora of other ominous trends just figments of an overactive imagination? I ask you to examine these claims apart from personalities, comfort zones and what you want to happen. If you do come to the conclusion that we are at a precipice, you might want to conduct a personal inventory and gut check for things may indeed get worse before they get better and every hand is needed on deck! This is one of the ways the I chose to get involved but I'm sure that you can come up with something a lot better. You have the ability to make a difference in your own sphere and maybe even further. Great to see you!

Sunday.....Christianity.....If It Be Thy Will

Expanding a little bit on Friday's blog, here is a very short summary of my view of the religious history of America. A true Christian faith permeated most of the colonies in the century and a half before the American Revolution. The power of Puritanism was beginning to wain towards the end of the 1600s. Jonathon Edwards and the First Great Awakening of the 1730-40s transformed America such that Benjamin Franklin remarked that it seemed that one could not walk down a street in Philadelphia without hearing psalm singing coming from this house or that. A hardness to the gospel set in and ran through the Revolution. George Washington remarked, towards the end of the century, that he was concerned if religion might even survive in America (or words to that effect.) The Second Great Awakening in the first half of the 1800s saw another resurgence but this time, some very unsound evangelistic methods crept in to the church that would have a disastrous effect as time wore on. There was theological soundness before the Civil War but only pockets of it afterwards. The New England Puritan was no more, now the New England Yankee would rule, and the strength of the church was dissipating fast. It has been downhill after that, but that spark just won't go away. It couldn't be snuffed out through ridicule in the Monkey Trial days, prosperity could not drown it, and the social gospel could not hide it. Higher Education gets a hold of the kids too late to stop it and there are far too many school teachers who are Christian, to eliminate it there. Like Darwin, science wants the glory all for itself and is running out of bushels to put over sparks as they arise in the scientific community. Literature thought it could write it out of the script, no such luck. The heat from the embers is everywhere throughout America but it is often weak and the flame discolored. But still the atheist paces back and forth for he knows the potential there for a forest fire if the conditions are right. God has control of those conditions. We are part of those conditions so would not it be wise to ask of Him to start with us?

Saturday.....War On Terror.....All Aboard!

America is about to be taken on a short train ride. There was a counterterrorsim program that Vice President Cheney allegedly told the CIA to keep secret from the congress. It is my contention that those who will, with all diligence, bring this to the fore, do so not for anything to do with ethics, laws or even Dick Cheney, but because it is a political strategy needed at this time. President Obama's poll numbers are dropping, his economic program is not working, his foreign policy initiatives are coming under strong condemnation, his Supreme Court nominee is in for tough questioning and other initiatives he has put forth are struggling and shedding light on his real agenda. The handbook says that at times like this, go on the attack against anything that is available and get the attention off of us. Tickets please?

Wednesday.....Culture.....Two Purposes

Our culture is experiencing some phenomenons of late. The projections for Facebook are nothing short of remarkable, and I can't keep up with the capabilities of cell phones. Blogs seem to be another phenomenon. I don't even visit other blogs and really do not know what the norm is. I only know what my purpose is here. I feel that after 233 years, this nation is in danger of collapse. We are not a socialist people and would fail at it even more miserably than everyone else does. We are a religious people whose traditions and beliefs were different from Europe since before we shed the shackles of monarchy. They (Europe) are on the way to a One World Government, or as near it as as they can get, and they have little discernment as to what disaster and tyranny that will lead to. As liberal Christianity from Europe, which is no Christianity at all, ravaged the American church in the 19th century, rampant secularism, socialism and a mother earth paganism are today sucking our lifeblood like a leach. This nation that once amazed the entire world with its concepts of freedom and liberty is turning into a lemming. We cannot spot false prophets, our unity has disintegrated into a tribal mentality; we were drunk with our own prosperity and when attacked by enemies, we struggled to keep resolve. As of today, we still have a Constitutional Republic, and although our election process seems to be at the mercy of manipulators, we have to work within that framework. More importantly, the substance of our religious traditions has diverted from where its true strength is. We have become an America of the Community Church. Our doctrine is strong, aggressive and highly defensive but it is strong in its demand that there is little of it, aggressive in its calling anything that goes beyond it legalism, and highly defensive when given the suggestion that we are in a weak church age and may have to retrace our steps. There are two mysteries that perplex me: Why did God extend His grace to me who deserved His wrath, and, how long will He withhold His wrath from America as it labors diligently to push Him into the furthest room, and then close the door? You will find no theological treatises in this blog for they are out there for whoever wants to find them. These are conversations, albeit my side alone, where there may be an idea or two that you have not heard, and then continue the conversation with your own thoughts. As for America, it is our home. It was built by others with much sacrifice and I for one am not in favor of renovation with materials that are not as strong and a design that will not hold up in high winds. As for the church, everyone who has trusted in Christ, and in Him alone is my brother and sister but to respect their person, over whose person they are, is not love.

Monday.....Miscellaneous.....Television On Your Computer

A la carte Cable Television, I have written about this at least once a month for I'm convinced that the implication of this change in regulations could be culture changing. The American public is in bondage to the cable broadcasting industry. We have to purchase bundled packages of stations thereby supporting television programming that, in many cases, promotes everything that we do not believe in. It plays upon our weakness of surfing the channels, the result is wasting time and killing discernment on important issues of the day. Slick political campaigns that utilize every area of television programming and play upon a gullible public, are putting people in Washington D. C. that would never get there without this medium as it exists now. How many times a week do you find yourself reading the headlines on issues that are essentially cultural themes and just shake your head? Please consider the cable packages that enter about 80 million American homes the next time you wonder where we are going. This issue of a la carte cable has been in the news in the past week. A Wall Street Journal article of July 6 reported this situation: The cable broadcasting industry is concerned that if consumers begin to go to their PCs for television programming, en masse, they would be dropping their services, receiving television programming for free, and the cable industry may collapse. Therefore the industry wants regulations to enable them to tie package deals on the Internet into their customers regular cable subscription. At present this is being called TV Everywhere. The result would be the same bundled packaging on the Internet only you will be paying for it. A number of consumer groups are active on this issue with the hope of lowering cable bills through a la carte cable. There are also groups that want a la carte cable for the reason that I do and that is to give Americans a chance to bring only programming they want into their home which would also send a strong message to television execs to change their programming. Next year at this time, as the new round of Congressional races are heating up, there will be Republican candidates that will need fresh ideas to win. This concept of paying only for televisions stations that you want has the potential to reverberate through the conservative community and even outside of it. I hope to contact these candidates as they announce and implore of them to bring this issue out into the open.

Saturday.....War On Terror.....Golan Heights

The Iraq Study Group was a bi-partisan commission co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton. It released its final report in December of 2006. It touched on just about every conceivable area of the Iraq War. Concerning Syria, it was very receptive to Israel returning the Golan Heights to Syria and in return Syria would give the usual promises of being good and the United States would also give promises of defending Israel if Syria did not live up to its promises. The strategic military importance of the Golan to Israel is enormous. It's the high ground, a barrier, and now an important economic, agricultural and water supply concern to Israel. Bashar al-Assad previously said that any negotiations with Israel would not be mediated by the United States while George Bush was President because he had no real vision for peace. An article released yesterday by the Associated Press was given the headline Syrian praises Obama's values and quoted a telegram sent by Assad to Obama that said The values that were adopted by President Obama during the election campaign and after he was elected president are values that the world needs today. Some commentators are wondering why Assad is making this gesture. Does he realize that he overplayed his hand in recent years? Is he concerned about the turmoil in Iran and backing away from them? I don't think so. He wants the Golan and believes that it is within his grasp with the present administration in power.