There Is No Chaos With God

    

         Chaos Theory revolves around the observation that even the smallest of changes at the beginning of an experiment can produce wildly different outcomes....at least as I understand it. Many people often wonder how their lives would have turned out if they had made one decision differently earlier in life. For instance, what if they had chosen to to attend Penn State instead of Pitt? What if they had taken this job instead of that job? Maybe I had these thoughts earlier in life but no more. In the prior thoughts one would have to believe in chance. In the latter, one would believe in a Creator who determines every event, large and small, in history. The former seems to be the more fair of the two. The latter seems to be robotic. But this assumes that we know all of the variables in....life. In other words. This assumes that we know God's mind.....and thus His mind would be fairly simple where after a certain amount of observation, it can be neatly systematized, characterized and set aside as no longer needful to be studied.
          Ultimately the only thing identifiable in this equation is the human mind...not God's mind. This describes America today. God, if there is a god, and we believe that there very well might not be one, has no greater intellect than we do. We are at least on equal terms. Back to Chaos Theory.... God has the answers to it and to quantum physics because he created them. And so He would also have designed a Unified Field Theory that many are in search of. We in America, many years ago, scientists included, made one seemingly insignificant change in our paradigm of life, We eliminated God as a superior being. God, seems to have permitted that "smallest of changes" in our estimation, to radically change the outcomes, at least as far as our models would have predicted. We are in....chaos....and have no answers, and the answers we believe we have come up with turn out to be just more variables to add to the chaos. We are at the mercy of the bouncing ball on the stone covered street. God knows the outcome. We in America will not like it but it will serve His purposes. The discerning Christian on the other hand is not following the ball for he...she...knows that it will rest in the exact spot that it was designed to before the first atom existed and before the first molecule was formed.

Transformed In Paraguay

         In January of 1987 I went on a short-term mission trip to Paraguay. I have nothing but fond memories of that trip, the Christians that I went with and the people that I met there, but there is one memory that stands out and I purposely come back to it often.
       As a team we had visited a number of Pentecostal churches in our free time. I remember of these services that there were no 'gifts of the Spirit' displayed, as the Pentecostal would define them, and I was told upon questioning this that this was normal. The services were lively with a small band accompanying a worship leader and a worship team, depending upon the size of the church, and I have fond memories also of those services for these were indeed brothers and sisters in Christ.
       It was on an evening after dinner. The temperature had reached 100 degrees just about every day of our stay for it was their summer. Three of us were strolling in a small town adjacent to Asuncion, Paraguay's capital, and there was a lot to take in with the music in the streets, the storefronts and the architecture. I remember glancing off to my right and set back about twenty or thirty feet from the sidewalk was a small church. The front door was open and I could see about a dozen people sitting in fold-up chairs in a circle with bowed heads and an open book resting in their lap. I was fixated on this scene and the others had walked on not knowing that I wasn't with them. A sign on the front of the church identified it as Baptist. I had been Pentecostal since I came into the faith five years previous. I had seen so many of what I thought of at the time as exciting things in the churches but seeing this little group of believers is what transformed me somewhat on this trip.
         I wanted what this group had. I wanted words written in a book more than I wanted songs to sing. This, in my opinion, is what the Christian church in America needs today. We have more books than one can count but unfortunately most of them are nonsense or at best .....non-penetrating as to the cross of Calvary, our sin and our redemption. We have our Christian television screens filled with what essentially is entertainment and motivational seminars disguised as Christian teaching. Many in today's church are 'excited' at the perceived coming Rapture oblivious to what comes before it. Many spend much more time reading the sports pages than reading of the race that we ourselves are in, of the wars of this world rather than the war that we as believers are soldiers in, and far more time studying America's founding fathers than the Reformation's founding fathers. Many, if not most, mistakenly believe that this coming election can change the direction of America.....but it cannot, for without a reformation in the church and a general awakening of the American public, all of this time spent will be for naught.
       I now know that I didn't have to travel to another continent to see what I saw in that small church in Paraguay, and I also know that those type of churches litter the American landscape today and if one looks hard enough they can be found. I attend a church like that. It doesn't have to be small but it does have to be...".sober-minded....and watchful."

        

So Sleazy, A Caveman Could Do It

       
          Today Barack Obama moderated, or chaired, a session of the United Nations Security Council. A head of state chairing such a session was described as rare and seeing other heads of state taking turns stating their concerns on terrorism directly to the chairman, at the chairman's behest, sent chills up my spine. It has been my contention for quite some time that before this is all over Barack Obama may flee this country. At the present moment he has his thumb on every department head, he owns the Department of Justice, still has the allegiance of the mainstream news media, the universities, various professions, most unions and the usual assortment of special interest groups whose whole world revolves around their own particular cause, but when this censoring empowerment ends many will be free to speak. What we saw today may have been a job interview.
          Right now there is no opening for a president of the world as there is no such position but if World War III occurs soon there most likely will be such a position when the dust clears. In his speech to the General Assembly, Barack Obama once again defended Islam, criticized Israel and as for America, Charles Krauthammer labelled it "a continuation of the apology tour."
          It was also odd hearing Attorney General Eric Holder in an interview with Yahoo News "hint" that American ground troops "ultimately" may be going into Syria. In other comments made in that interview he sounded more like a Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense rather than a chief law enforcement officer.
          Barack Obama has had his way in our Congress. Impeachment proceedings should have begun years ago, but the 'cavemen' of the Republican establishment (give them time.and they will 'cave' on the most important issues) actually secured Barack Obama's position by announcing that they will not impeach, thus giving him free reign (A monarch's reign seem more appropriate here than a horse's reins) to bridle the liberties guaranteed in our Constitution, (This piece of equine equipment does seem appropriate as it relates to the citizens of the United States)

Time To Prepare

          I am on the back side of 64 years old right now and I see what is going on in America and in the world as unprecedented. Not even World War II comes close to matching the dangers America is facing. Yet, one would never know it in the workplace or the marketplace, or the university campus, on the television or even in the daily newspaper for the events transpiring are listed but any systematic analysis is absent save for an occasional op-ed piece that is easy to ignore. Chaos reigns supreme everywhere! 
         Author and CIA and Wall Street insider, Jim Rickards raised eyebrows when he said in an interview with one investment and research service "...we can no longer stop this (coming economic collapse) we can only prepare for it."  It seems more apparent every day that that same prognosis might be correctly applied to collapse of America.
         The top levels of our government are littered with political operatives who have no business being where they are at and wielding the enormous influence that they do. Barack Obama not only knows that his free ride is over but that after leaving office is when his real problems would start as the books begin to come out by those who are at this time under the thumb of Obama appointees. We will then find out why decisions were made, why others were not made and what went on behind the scenes as our foreign policy collapsed and our military weakened. 
         While in this fragile and detached condition Barack Obama is being pressured right now to make decisions but decisions usually lead to responses which usually require quick decisions in return which he is not nearly qualified to make. Our debt bomb only needs an exothermic reaction and the result might dwarf the previous economic collapse. Society itself is in shambles. Just today the Air Force announced that the words "So Help Me God" are not required any longer in the administration of the oath of enlistment. We have jettisoned God from American life. Need I go further? Well, I will, There are various signs that even the most secular of scientists consider ominous in the cosmos, the earth and its creatures. 
          Not every generation faces a call to prepare for what is ahead but we may indeed be one of them.
         
         The seventh chapter of Jeremiah begins with this: The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying "Stand in the gate of the LORD's house, and proclaim there this word, and say, 'Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!' " Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Amend your ways and your doings, and I will cause you to dwell in this place, Do not trust in these lying words, saying 'The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.'
          John MacArthur called it a "self-deluding slogan." R. C. Sproul made mention that the phrase, repeated three times, certainly should call our attention to its importance. God gave Jeremiah the words to warn the people of Judah, for they thought, as MacArthur put it, that "the Lord would never bring calamity on his own temple." Have we in America deluded ourselves with just such an exemption, and incorporated a similar saying....God bless America, God bless America, God bless America?

  Have They Already Begun.........2011

          How would we respond if we were asked what we thought God's opinion was of us and our nation; and what would we rate the possibility of there being impending terrible judgments upon us? It's a difficult question for the average American to even contemplate for we as a people are generally certain of only one thing in that area, that being that America will indeed continue to plug on either in good times or possibly bad times, but far removed from utter devastation that other countries and empires of old had experienced. It's not a trait peculiar only to Americans for every empire has felt itself somewhat invincible for a long time after its influence and power had peaked. We are enjoying the fruit of our productivity and liberty while oblivious to predators of that productivity and liberty.

          I worry about our youth. It's often said that every generation worries about its youth but I lived in those infamous 60s and even with the ascendancy of the drug and rock culture, the temptations were tame compared to the diversions that our youth of today have thrown at them. I had a Radio Shack Flavor Radio, a black and white television, a few balls of various shapes and sizes and a 110 pound set of weights to occupy my time. Television is far worse today, far more enticing with many more channels and an accompanying philosophy of life, society and politics that does anything but convey the belief systems that originally encouraged productivity and liberty.

          Even so, television is not the biggest culprit in our decaying society for the Internet dumbs us down to such a degree that we can ingest but not digest, and we can take in vast amounts of information but cannot analyze it or even categorize it for future use. Throw Facebook into the mix and we now have more than one generation who are emulating Narcissus of Greek mythology who looked at his reflection in a pool until he died. We continually update and gaze at that reflection on our Facebook page as that day of judgment nears, for we consider it unlikely that that judgment, should it actually materialize, would be anything more than an economic decline or the results of political bickering that divides and occasional prolongs far off wars.

          We accepted Darwin's flawed concept of the origin of man but this was not enough for God's mercy upon us to end. Our efforts to forbid public schools to have simple prayers to God began in 1962 but that was not enough either unless one takes into consideration the half century of chaos and violence our society has endured since then. We legalized the taking of life in the womb in 1973 which is estimated now to be 50 million lives but we still exist as a nation. Our latest offense may be our last in that in our haste to accommodate the gay agenda through same-sex marriage we would be, in effect, offering up the minds of our children in just about every area of their lives to what God very  clearly calls an abomination. Personal opinion here, it is one thing to permit others in a free society to make choices that effects only themselves but an entirely different matter to validate those choices in impressionable minds to whom God gave express warnings not to lead astray.

          Having said this, it is not the gay agenda, or the liberal agenda or even the radical Progressive/Marxist/Communist agenda that should be our primary concern, for all of these emanate from the consensus of a people, or at the very least from the lack of vigilance. It is our own individual failures that led to such a consensus that we need to deal with. Do we even have any right at all to speak against America's profane dealings with God when we ourselves have added to that considerably over the years?

          The reality is that we indeed are a sinful people...dealing with our own individual sin as we struggle to lessen the temptations all around us that exacerbate that sin in ourselves and add to the decay of our culture. All the while we plead for and expect God's mercy but do we consider that we may have presumed upon that mercy for too long.

          The violence and imminent collapse of our nation should chill us to the bone, yet we continue to call what is good evil and what is evil good. As I have written often in this blog, no political or military solutions will cure us. They need to be addressed but only a sincere, individual and corporate humbling before our Creator can give us any hope for renewed mercy; and we are without excuse... for the evidence is all around us, if only we would look, that God's judgments have already begun!

Brother Rove's Travelling Salvation Show.....Redux

         Karl Rove is concerned because his (the Republican Establishment) candidates are not receiving as much money in campaign donations that they should be. Gee, I wonder why?  The following was originally posted in June of 2012. It appeared that Barack Obama was destined to be a one-term president until the elites of the Republican Party put their show on the road. Ignoring their base once again today, they have vigorously and connivingly worked against good, sound and honorable men and women who had the audacity to challenge their own incumbents.

June 2012

         It wasn't supposed to go like this. Not only was the deck stacked but there were aces up sleeves and no rules to follow. How could it miss, for Barack Obama would appoint cabinet members and they in turn would rule, often beyond the limits of their authority, with strict adherence to Obama's wishes... and the Czars...twenty to thirty new cabinet level operatives, many of whom had no accountability to the United States Congress... and two Supreme Court seats filled through a political culture that was partying in the afterglow of a coronation? Surely the media would stay on board and the indoctrination centers (a.k.a. universities) would permit more than enough frolicking to discourage any real examination leading to legitimate protest. This President gig was to be easy! Golf a little, party a little, sign an executive order, golf some more. No, it wasn't supposed to collapse as a house of cards...but it is! It's now become apparent to many that one has to actually know something about something in order to be President of the United States. Even the Obama Girl recognizes that the emperor has no clothes. Our allies now know what they are dealing with but more importantly our enemies are fully aware that one must strike while the iron is hot. Folks, it is every bit as bad as this....and more!
           But Lo! What light through yonder window breaks? It's an old fashioned revival as Brother Rove's Travelling Salvation Show is offering Mitt Romney's Magical Elixir brought in by Conestoga wagon. It removes taxes, grows hair (look at Mitt's for proof,) cures the gout, builds muscles and balances bodily humors (Tea Party Bile, Social Conservative Phlegm and Choleric Libertarian Paranoia.) He guarantees that this cure-all tonic, if imbibed today, will last at least until November 6th! That's all that's needed folks for then it is back to business as usual! Take this tonic and you'll get a job! Mix it in with a liter of soda pop and you will feel free as a bird. Pack up the babies and grab the old ladies on this coming hot August night in Tampa. 
          God seems to have left us to our own devices for that is what we wanted...no... demanded. I used to cringe when our Pittsburgh Penguin play-by-play announcer shouted "Hallelujah Hollywood" after a goal and I do the same with Neil Diamond's lyrics in Brother Love's Travelling Salvation Show for that hallowed word means praise Yahweh. Therein is our only hope and we trifle with it, ignore it, and seek our own salvation on our own terms. Guest preachers fill the Sunday morning pulpits of Meet The Press and Face The Nation. Wisdom has abandoned us, replaced by Rasmussen polls. How bleak is our future! How rudderless we have become even as a tempest of Biblical proportions builds in the East.

45 Years Ago Today

         A couple of years ago I went back to Pittsburgh's Federal Building to see an old friend. I stood in the lobby and looked towards the glass doors and could almost picture myself walking through them, suitcase in hand, back in 1969. Why God had mercy on one such as I... I will never know in this life. Why would He give blessings to one that He knew would trample them? If you have never had thoughts such as this, you must run out to get them. If you are a Christian and certain talk about God seems a little bit too syrupy for you then you must find out why this is so. I don't believe that it's a litmus test for being a Christian, rather more of an eye test where for some believers only the top few lines are clear.
         The following blog from September of 2011 is about my eight weeks in Basic Training which began forty-four years ago this week! Many memories remain but none as vital as that of a 19 year old who did not know Jesus Christ. It would be roughly 13 years (1982) till the first line on that eye chart became clear enough for me to call out to Him. It would probably be close to another 13 years (1995) until I found out that I had been indeed dead in my sins and could not have called out, and could never call out without first being regenerated from above.... a salvation even more amazing than believing that I had chosen Christ and then been regenerated!!

B-3-2..........July 26, 2011

         It was September 19th, 1969. My aunt had driven me to the Federal Building in Pittsburgh and my mother was also in the car. I said my good-byes as I got out in front of the main entrance. The light was just breaking from the east and I followed the directions given to me and got on the elevator to go up to the floor where enlistments were taking place. There might have been thirty or forty of us there that day. We were given meal tickets for lunch and spent the morning filling out paperwork. At lunch I strolled around the floor that the cafeteria was on for I was not, as of yet, in this man's army.         
         After lunch we took our physicals, the standard turn your head and cough variety, in a line of men standing around in their briefs. We filled out some additional paperwork including signing the enlistment papers and finally were ushered into a small room with the Stars and Stripes proudly hanging at the front. We were told to raise our right hands and repeat the oath of enlistment. Finally in the army?
         Most of the guys were directed to buses with a final destination of Fort Jackson, South Carolina but Harry W. and I were on another bus headed to Pittsburgh International Airport to catch a flight to Philly. Walking around the airport, I still did not feel like I was in the Army. Harry W. was a wonderful guy who resembled Drew Carey only not as good looking, was only a little taller than Danny DeVito and had a bad case of acne. The stewardesses were very pretty and Harry W. was really putting on the moves. The ladies were literally falling all over him...and ignoring me. Now what was wrong with this picture? I figured that personality must have something to do with this girl thing and that maybe I should try to get one...never did though.
         We arrived in Philly and followed directions once again to a limousine that would take us to Fort Dix, New Jersey... one long haired hippy type and a short, balding one who had a way with the girls. It was about midnight when we finally arrived at the wooden framed hut. Once again we were filling out paperwork with others who were arriving one by one. We were given mattresses and a couple of sheets and told to find a bunk....the end of a very long day. Finally in the Army?
         Morning came with loud shouts to hustle across the street for some breakfast and then report back. We were not marched because we had not yet been told which was our left foot and which our right. Next came a longer wooden building where we were issued the standard gear of fatigues, boots, socks, green underwear, a hat and duffel bag to put them all in. One better have the sizes ready for there were no questions taken and no words accepted except small, medium or large. I looked at myself in the mirror. Finally in the army? 
         After lunch it was another cattle drive over to the barber's hut which had six long pew like benches and a long line of guys sliding down one place at a time as the one in front had his head shaved. To this day I wonder if these were actual barbers or if this was a second job after running a backhoe at night for it took less than a minute to run those clippers up and down the scalp. I put my hat back on and now it came down over my eyebrows. There I was, outfitted and bald. Finally in the army?
         We were introduced, if I can use that phrase, to a Drill Sergeant who was cordial and related stories from Vietnam for it seemed that all of them had just returned. This wasn't so bad after all. We spent two days being led around to various stations including the dentist where we established records to be kept until the day we would leave the army. Then came a surprise. We were bused over to another section of Fort Dix where the buildings were all brick. Off the bus we were herded and told to go into the barracks, find a cot to dump our duffel bags on and come right back out. We did this and casually formed some semblance of a line.
         Then Drill Sergeant Carter appeared out of no where. We were told exactly what we looked like and as I remember it had something to do with goats, Gilligan and Bullwinkle J. Moose. This guys jaw definitely jutted out farther than his nose. He was built solid and stood firm as a rock and we were later told that he still had plenty of metal in his back from Vietnam. Back to the barracks and the lights were out at nine. The next thing that I knew I was flying off the bunk into the air simultaneously as the lights came on. I was the unlucky one to pick the first bunk from the door. It was 5 AM and we had five minutes to be outside in formation. I still didn't know what a formation was.
         Left Face was the command and I was face to face with another guy. Panic had set in for one of us turned the wrong way. Fortunately the other guy was wrong and he was questioned as to what grade in elementary he ended his schooling in. We then started out in the darkness on my first actual march which soon became a quick time as we were then repeating, rather yelling, after Drill Sergeant Carter's leading, that we wanted to be airborne rangers...go to Vietnam and kill those Viet Cong. Finally in the army?
         Reaching the mess hall we entered in a rather strange way. One line was released at a time and was to charge the mess hall yelling like banshees. I guessed there was a reason for that. One week followed another of pushing, shoving, marching, running, push-ups, climbing, shouting, singing and lunging with a bayonet. Six weeks into basic we were finally allowed to go to the PX. Most guys bought stationary, candy, cigarettes and paperback books. I bought Ian Fleming's Goldfinger.
         Finally came our week on the rifle range. I had never held a rifle in my life. When a recruit had a rifle in his hands he also had a Drill Sergeant two inches from his ear. They must think that we might turn the wrong way. No one complained. I was firing at targets I could not see and had no idea if I was hitting them but I must have because I did not have to go back. If someone had to urinate...silly comment...there was a large vat buried in the ground. No problem here...until it got filled up and had to be emptied. A small crane was brought in and four unlucky guys had to stand around it, shoveling and shaking it back and forth to get it free all the while standing in four to six inched of urine. Guess who one of those unlucky guys was? Finally in the army?
         We were bonding heavily as the fourth platoon and even more so to Drill Sergeant Carter. We were on a mission to win that PT award and we didn't particularly have any feelings of camaraderie towards the other three platoons, one of which occupied the other half of the floor we were on and one night we wound up in a big scrum, fighting over who got the mops and buckets first.
         Graduation came. It had been eight long, hard weeks. We, the fourth platoon, were psyched as we waited for the announcement of the PT award for we desperately wanted Drill Sergeant Carter to be acknowledged for it. And he was! Our squad leader was to march us back to the barracks and we had a fine idea to form the number four and march in it. The breaks on a car squealed and a Colonel got out who did not appreciate the meaning. He was up one side of that squad leader and down the other with words that one might expect out of the mouth of Hillary Clinton but not an officer in the United States Army.
         We were given the last night off and headed over to the EM Club for our first beers in two months. Walking, if you can call it that, back to the barracks, one of us fell out of a tree in front of us. Now how one could be with us one moment and then fall out of a tree in front of us the next, I never did find out. Finally in the army?
         When morning came we all waited around a slew of buses to take us to our advanced training with most going in different directions. We were given our platoon picture that morning and passed them around to be signed. I still have this picture with about forty signatures on the back. I alone got on the bus that was to take me to Fort Devens, Massachusetts and waved to the guys that I would never see again the rest of my life. Finally in the army!

What Seest In Me Lord

The following is my Lord's Day offering and was originally posted in November of 2011.

What seest in me Lord,
what makest Thou stay thy hand,
why dost thou give Thy ear to a clanging symbol,
why give light to a worm?

My years pass ere so quickly
and I will never be able to pay,
for even a day in the joy in knowing you,
for a moment of the touch of your hand.

Your blessings have covered me as a flood
and I drown in your mercy,
seeing my life before me
only to be told to turn my gaze towards Thee.

"All of grace" he said
and I understood,
and the first days...wonderful as they were,
are eclipsed.

You made me meek
when I desired power,
and humbled me,
wherein is Thy given strength.

Wisdom is thy breath
and fellowship thy gift,
for souls regenerated
is our meat and drink.

Those gone before,
the memory of whom I treasure,
call out to me
"press on."

Those coming alongside, youthful and budding,
are but reflections of my beginning.
Nurture them through my failings and clip the wings
that were made, not to fly, but cover their faces in your presence.

This world waits for your return,
your creatures for your rule.
Surely you look to that day also.
Come Lord Jesus!

War On The Middle Class

         Almost a year ago something inexplicable happened on Pittsburgh's radio waves. Hugely popular talk show host Jim Quinn and his broadcast partner Rose Somma's employment ended. It made no sense...these people who run the radio stations do want listeners right? Anyway I binked that radio station and really had no where to go but longtime Pittsburgh radio station KDKA. So I'm listening in today on the way to work and one of the hosts tells me to stay tuned "You won't believe who are best friends now!" I was pulling into our parking lot but wanted to hear who these two friends were. It turned out to be former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. They are buddy-buddy. Barbara Bush gushed that she "loves" Bill Clinton and thinks that Bill looks to George (I'm not sure which one) as a father figure...the father that he never had. And this surprises someone? I just shook my head. These people (Democrats...Republican elites....Masters of the Universe....the ruling class in general) are family. The following is from a past post..."We live in a new era concerning the economies of the world. Two books caught my attention on this issue. In the first book SUPERCLASS The Global Power Elite and the World They are Making by David Rothkopf, the author is making the point that this elite that has developed are bonded together, almost as family. Their connectedness is such that they often act in unison because they are part of each other's social lives. They live in a world of finance above the realm we live in. Most disturbingly, we can see this economic force transcending even governments in dictating the direction the economies will go
        It was reported yesterday that Facebook is now worth $200 billion dollars. I've given my opinion on Facebook often in these posts. It is a primary feeder for the narcissism that is destroying America. I remind our son of this often, probably somewhat to his chagrin. Anyway there is a piece on Breitbart.com right now titled. "Facebook Millionaire calls Jeff Sessions 'clinically insane' for support of U. S. Workers'." Senator Jeff Sessions had named Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a speech on the Senate floor. Quoting the  Breitbart article "Sessions singled out Zuckerberg's FWD.us, largely because the pro-amnesty lobby has spent millions of dollars trying to ram through a comprehensive amnesty bill that would give the tech lobby massive increases in guest-worker visas at a time when there is a surplus of American high-tech workers and a record number of Americans out of work."
         Breitbart also carried (that's the same Breitbart the IRS recently decided to audit) an article on Howard University professor of public policy Dr. Ron Hira titled "IT Industry At War With Middle Class." Professor Hira is quoted from an interview with Lou Dobbs "...the tech industry supports executive action by President Obama on illegal immigration in order to depress wages, which he stated amounts to war on the middle class...."
         Wages in America are not going up because Corporate America cares only about the investments of its stockholders and hence their own bonuses, and because Marxist strategists always dutifully wage war on the middle class! We are the enemy! The Global Warming scam is part of this putrid mix of the ideologue, the greedy and the dupe as are many of the ludicrous developments in our society from sports, to politics, to education to entertainments. 

Tall Hats And Gold Watch Fobs

       The Republican elites will be sounding very conservative over the next few months prior to the elections......"We have to take the Senate." yes, but there is something that we need infinitely more than that.....we need to take the high ground, for without it the Senate will remain part of the problem!!! The following was posted before the 2012 elections:

Tall Hats And Gold Watch Fobs

          There's a scene from Ted Turner's Gettysburg where Brigadier General John Buford, played by Sam Elliot, scans rocky heights and farm land that would in one day become a battlefield and he literally spews out these words as he foresees carnage in the Union army if the politicians and generals play their war games as usual, "afterwards men in tall hats and gold watch fobs will thump their chests and say 'what a brave charge it was'..... I've never seen anything as brutally clear as this.... It's as if I can actually see the blue troops in one long bloody moment....as if it were already done....as if tomorrow already happened and there ain't nothin you can do about it..." He went on to lay a plan to change that, "We can block that road till the main body gets here, and deprive the enemy of the high ground!"
          There are a significant number of Americans who feel the same way about our nation today. The Republican elite, or Republican Establishment are the "men with tall hats and gold watch fobs" who are playing their political games while bursting forth all around us have been venomous attacks on our Constitution, our national defense, our financial stability, the American Creed and the very essence of our being, that being a nation blessed by God. Packs of wolves split us and devour those that did not have the foresight to prepare themselves for such an onslaught. The high ground in this coming election, should the Lord even permit us to get there, is at the feet of Jesus Christ, humbly prostrating ourselves for thinking we could do anything at all, let alone succeed and flourish as we had in the past, without reverence to and dependence upon Him.
           The GOP elite seek just the opposite! They avoid the One who guided those ships to these shores so many years ago, who gave us the perseverance to blaze out upon the frontier, who gave wisdom to men in founding a nation, who in spite of our waywardness kept us together and strengthened us as Nazism, Fascism, Communism and all sorts of totalitarianism swept this beautiful ball hanging in the expanse of His universe. This is the answer they give...shun Him, and those who trust Him, and let us make our own paths!
          I turn often to those scripted words given to General Buford, for political pragmatism seeks that ridge and unless we block that road we will lose the high ground of our calling and America will no longer exist in its present fporm. We will have let down our God, our country and our children. The ballot box without our mind stayed on Jesus Christ is worthless and it would do us well to remember David's words in Psalm 18:1-3:

I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock my fortress and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

     Note: as for this coming election, the Senate Conservatives Fund is supporting four candidates, Tom Cotton (AR), Joni Ernst (IA), Rob Maness (LA), and Ben Sasse (NE). Winning these four Senate seats with these types of individuals would be far more valuable that winning the Senate without them!!! Four House candidates are also being supported, Dave Brat (VA 7th), Barry Loudermilk (GA 11th), Alex Mooney (((WV 2nd) and John Ratcliffe (TX 4th).

www.senateconservatives.com

Flight 93 National Memorial

         The following post was written after returning home from attending the Flight 93 National Memorial the day that it was dedicated and first opened to the public on September 11th, 2011.


         Former Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton were gone by the time my wife and I arrived at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The ceremonies were concluding and the families of the heroes from Flight 93 walked from the memorial wall down to the path where Flight 93 made impact. As they were departing the memorial they walked through the midst of the crowd of roughly 4,000 people to gentle, sustained, respectful and heartfelt applause. Part of the crowd then spontaneously and softly started singing  America The Beautiful.  
         Flight 93 National Memorial Park is roughly 15-20 minutes off of the Somerset exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I didn't need to hear the words from the speakers on the dais, moving as I'm sure they were, for I just wanted to be in the spot, or as close to it, to where this remarkable group of people struck back at terrorism before the terrorist's day of infamy was even over, something very similar to those pilots who got off of the ground at Pearl Harbor before Tojo's planes could leave the islands. What happened on that flight, and the aftermath of it, could never have been envisioned by the terrorist minds involved.
          As the crowds were waiting in long lines for buses to take them back to the parking areas, I had the bright idea of walking up and over the field then meeting back up to the road, and then back to Route 30 where our car was parked along the berm with many others. A couple miles into the forced march back I had regretted subjecting my wife to this trek and we still had a couple of miles to go! The line-up of departing automobiles moved at a snail's pace and at times we walked faster than they inched along,  As one vehicle with two men inside came up beside us the driver asked if we wanted a ride. I'm the type that if I was stranded on a deserted island and a cruise ship spotted me and tried to rescue me I would say, "Only if I can work for my fare," but I looked over at my wife and then said "thank-you very much."
         The driver offered us a fruit drink which was a great relief to us and we asked these two men a few questions on where they were from and why they had come. Well, they were two of the four children of Flight 93 passenger Joseph Driscoll who perished on that site and whose widow and many other family members were in other vehicles. I realized that they were probably emotionally spent and tired themselves but I did ask some questions about that fateful day and they very politely answered. One of these two sons of Joseph Driscoll had been working in the World Trade Center only the day before the attacks and he vividly described the scene on the New York City streets as his father was still aboard Flight 93. How typical of all that I had heard of these families of the Flight 93 heroes, that they reached out to help others after they themselves were hurt, and here they were doing it again on this special day.

From The Steel Nib Pen To The Teleprompter

         I, along with many others, have watched America decline to a point where we can only sit as if spellbound as history unfolds before our very eyes in ways that future generations, should Jesus Christ tarry in His return, might ask in amazement "How could they have been so blind...how could they have missed the telltale signs of collapse....how could they have forgotten how God had planted them and watered them and pruned them, watched as they turned away from Him and waited patiently for them to return and heed the signs and the warnings?". The following partial post is from June of 2010:

         Please consider this scenario: Hundreds of miles off of our East Coast, in the middle of a perfect storm, a ship sends a mayday. The captain and many of the crew wait on the bridge for the chief engineer to return and give his assessment. The hatch flies open and he charges in closing off the storm behind him. He does not bother to take off his rain gear but merely says We are going down! He begins naming one problem after another, the ships pumps cannot run, the water level is pouring into the aft compartment and cannot be stopped, the tear in the seam is eighteen yards long and water will continue to fill the lower compartments, the cargo has shifted to the port side where the tear is. The waves now rule this ship... The ship of state of America is going down! 
          This is not a drill! By going down, I mean that all of our history is under water. Our laws are atrophying and there is a tear in our American fabric that exposes a man at a desk with steel nib pen in hand, the words produced fashioned anew and appearing on a teleprompter well over a century later to be read by another man; the seated man's long gray hair covers his ears, his gray beard rests on his chest and his dark mustache covers the lips that have spewed lies that so many have followed. The man dipping the pen in the ink bottle is Karl Marx and the one reading the words is our current president!
        

Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death......

         
Yea, Though I Walk Through The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death........October, 2010      

          OK, I just returned from Gettysburg.......again. It seems like I write that a lot for Gettysburg is like a magnet to me. If I’m going to Ocean City, New Jersey or any points east, the car seems to veer off to Gettysburg for a rest, but this time my wife and I actually had to go to there for reasons other than the battlefield and it also just happened to be our anniversary. We had decided to pick out our own gift to each other as we walked the town and shopped in the stores. My wife picked out a pair of pearl earrings inside a thin sterling loop. As for me, I came across something that signified man and sin, redemption, true glory and everlasting peace.
           I’m not really into relics. Maybe this comes from my Protestant Christian faith that shuns relics like the plague, for the whole concept of a piece of anything that may have belonged to anyone having any intrinsic value other than intellectual or personal interest is way too close to being an occult fetish. Do I compromise this in my great love of visiting historical sites? I don’t think so for I know that it in itself does not make me anything special nor give me any added powers.
          Anyway, I found myself walking slowly past locked glass cases of various Civil War relics that were for sale, most of which had been found on the battlefields of Gettysburg and identified as such. I really wouldn't have even considered asking the price of anything but one of these relics stopped me in my tracks. It was smaller than a quarter and I had to ask for the glass case to be opened to examine it closer. I typically spend about 15 minutes picking out black socks so I was there quite a while just looking at it when the salesperson offered to call the owner of that particular item so I could talk to him. We had a nice conversation and I told him that I wasn’t a collector but was just intrigued by this piece of the Civil War that he owned. He assured me that it was genuine, as best as one can tell for items like this. So I bought it as my anniversary present.

          It is most likely that on that hot July 3rd, 1863 as Picket’s Division of the Army of Northern Virginia came out of the tree line of Seminary Ridge, steel bayonets shining so that even the Army of the Potomac troops were momentarily in awe, that one of those men wore this tiny cross around his neck, and then lost it on the uphill charge to the copse of trees and Union lines, and there it remained until locals scoured the fields years later for just such artifacts. Many times have I visited battlefields but I always tempered my admiration for the heroism with the reality that many of these men did not know Christ nor had any hope in eternity. For instance, as much as I admire General George S. Patton I can’t help but focus in on his mistaken belief in reincarnation and his ultimate standing in front of the judgment seat of the One who is no respecter of persons. On the other hand I know that all of the accomplishments of men such as Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, thankfully, in no way effected their ultimate salvation for it was in their faith in Jesus Christ...alone... that their redemption was secured.

          Today, the wearing of a cross means little to nothing, even attendance at church on Sundays can be done by the most rebellious against God, but that farmer or even landed gentry in the antebellum South would only have donned such a religious item to proclaim their faith in their Saviour! The bearer may have been clutching this small cross as he walked into the hail of bullets and canister fire, maybe even ripping it from its chain in the process. It’s certainly not the small piece of flat metal with no marking whatsoever on it that interests me but the location that it was found, and that the wearer was most probably a brother in Christ, now free of all conflict and praising his Saviour, and also that America today is once again torn apart only much more so than in 1863. The man who dropped this cross was a soldier twice over, a pilgrim and soldier of Christ Jesus, doing his best to protect that which he loved but clinging to that which is infinitely more important, to a freedom immensely more valuable, and to a King whose victory is already accomplished, a King who will one day have every knee bow before Him and separate those whom He knows from those who will be surprised that they are not known by Him!

......This Has Been A Test......

          Most likely the reader of this post visited the Christian blogs section of blogspot.com, something they probably often do to read encouraging posts on the Christian faith, and came across my posts. Or maybe the reader saw my bumper sticker and were just curious to see what it was about? To those readers....you are living in a time of epochal history. By that I mean it is a supercritical time period, surreal, as the eye of a hurricane, almost suspended animation where we watch the events occurring but feel detached from the dangers.
         This post will most likely change nothing in your perception of the dangers facing us as Americans. What I hope that it will do is become wedged somewhere in the recesses of your mind to be recalled at some later date.
         We have a "Manchurian President' whose actions are so strikingly similar to Vladimir Lenin's philosophy of revolution that it cannot be coincidence. Lenin was constantly surveying the Russian culture looking for the right move to make, the right time to play the endgame. He knew that it could not just be his comparatively little cadre of revolutionaries that could establish a dictatorial Communist state but that various stratums of society must be ripe to, on the one hand help and on the other hand be blissfully ignorant dupes, but eventually, true power was to reside only in the party for the people were not capable of making decisions.
       Barack Obama's window of opportunity is closing fast but there are things in his favor. The media is mad at Obama but nothing near dangerous to him yet. It's the beginning of football season. The Republican Establishment class of Elites are helping greatly. They are so fixated on winning the Senate that they are oblivious to the fact that Capitol Hill is collapsing into a sink hole.
       Back to my original statement, this is this generation's Pearl Harbor multiplied many times! The threat to the Republic is real. Communism is real. A collapse of the economy of epic proportions is real. The expanding threat of Islamic terrorism and a Caliphate is real. Pandemics are not out of the question. Volcanic and seismic problems are more than a concern. A porous border and shrinking military both in numbers and leadership is more than alarming, and a culture that has no discernment and is on a narcissistic binge..... is real.
       All of this started with cutting God from the squad and trading Him for John Dewey, Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin, Charles Grandison Finney and a player to be named later.

       ****This has been a test**** please click on the 'next blog' at the top of the page you will be returned to the original programming.

The Greatest Treasure On Earth

      
     The following past post is short and terse but easily discernible enough to either consider or reject:
  
The Greatest Treasure On Earth

          America is shipwrecked, taking on water for decades, adrift and sure to sink if the director of the universe and of all being does not intervene, but Americans view this unfolding disaster with detachment! I see it every day in people's faces...."This can't possibly be as serious as it appears! Surely the cycle will return to one of prosperity and....normalcy!"
          The further one's mind is from God on a daily basis the less one will feel imminent judgement. The Bible was once an American's most valuable possession. Today it is either an artifact, a talisman for prosperity, simply an aid to innocuous bible studies and Sunday School lessons, or a rather large and bulky ticket one must have in their possession to enter heaven...should heaven really exist.
          In reality it is the Omnipotent God's Word to fallen man, the greatest treasure on earth, which brings the greatest joy, draws forth the most ardent love and applies a devastating guilt followed by a torrent of mercy that elicits praises upon praises for mercies undeserved...all given because of faith, faith in the One who took our sins to a tree on Calvary. If my words seem overly pious or even syrupy, might I suggest that there may be an underlying cause for your hesitance to shout praises yourself; or if the Bible does not literally captivate you as God's Word to you, overwhelm your objections and gratify beyond your wildest expectations then you might never have truly discerned the words therein.

Highly recommended...24/7 Internet radio www.refnet.fm

Star-Spangled Banner

         This post is from last October:

          I've researched this time and again and cannot come up with the particular person. It wasn't too long after the terrorism of 9/11, maybe a year, that a famous American rock star returned from touring in Europe. As he travelled around the United States after being out of the country for a while he was amazed at how many American flags were being flown in front of individual homes. I cannot remember his exact quote but in essence, seeing so many flags flown.....seeing such evidence of nationalism....of love of country....well, it made him ill! I think that his remark made me ill, for I may not remember the quote verbatim but I have never forgotten his admittance of revulsion at seeing the Stars And Stripes flown from so many homes!
          Let me set the scene for you that I experienced tonight. The setting was a church....in a fairly conservative community...a community where even today many American flags are flown on the front porches of people's homes.....mine being one of them. It was a benefit where classical music artists, both professional and students of the genre, donated their time and extraordinary talents with the proceeds in the form of donations going to a very good cause. Just about all of the people were seated and chatting with neighbors and friends who sat around them. Two very young, pretty and talented girls set the ambiance for such an event by playing their violins very softly. So softly that the music was barely discernible over the conversations and laughter.
          They played one piece after another and included in this was the Star-Spangled Banner. One by one the people in the audience turned to the two young violinists and stood up until all in attendance were standing. The girls must have thought that the main concert was beginning and they stopped playing. The audience laughed at this to ease the violinist's embarrassment and someone must have told the girls to begin playing again. They did and we softly sang along... the words penned by Francis Scott Key during another period when our nation was under attack. It was an emotional moment for me, a stark change of tempo and attentiveness, so natural, yet so almost out of place today depending on the venue, an audience picking up on the faint notes of our national anthem and immediately standing. It was a beautiful moment really, and an encouraging one!

America Unravelling.....Redux

       


The following post is from December of 2011 and we are far worse off then when it was written.

America Unravelling

          Charles Spurgeon, the great 19th century London preacher of Christ and His Gospel, wrote these words over a century ago, The yoke of affliction, disappointment, and excessive labor is by no means to be sought; but when the Lord lays it upon us in our youth it frequently develops a character which glorifies God and blesses the church. Come, my soul, bow thy neck; take up thy cross. It was good for thee when young, it will not harm thee now.
          America is heading at breakneck speed in acquiring such a yoke. We are but a shell of what we were. Where the aroma of our freedom and liberty once wafted throughout the world it is now the stench of our culture that permeates much of the globe. There should be no surprise here for when a civilization becomes so prosperous that its economy is totally dependent on what its malls can sell, its influence for good becomes depleted in proportion to the disgust that is generated. We have become a seller to the world of that which makes it vomit. Given time, all these nations would have generated their own pollution, we just accelerated the situation. It's the nature of man without God. They don't hate us because we are good, they hate us, many of them, because we once gave the appearance of it and have since, in their eyes, let them down.

          Where did it begin? Hugh Hefner is as good a guess as any but what difference does it make? Our television screens rage against God! Our streets are violent and we as a people have become desensitized to it. Our pulpits preach peace when there is no peace; thinking they are building faith in God, they are concealing His righteous anger. Gone almost, is the statesman, replaced by the pure politician. Government runs our lives, obsessed and drunken with power. I see no way that God will have mercy upon us as we exist today without a radical reformation. It would be ludicrous as evidenced from many examples in Scripture, that God would give us, as a nation, more time to sell our wares while profaning His name, refusing to let our children come to Him (those that we do not abort,) destroying His creation of the family and demanding that we are masters of our own fate.

          It doesn't matter what I, or anyone so inclined as I, might say. For they are just words. God has blinded us to a world hastening to destruction. We read the news as much as to say "Things are dangerous....over there!" We have become insulated by our entertainments. Our motto has become Red Solo Cup...Let's Have A Party. We cannot see a day past the Super Bowl and when that is over everything will be put on hold until the end of March Madness, and so on. We are to be pitied, but pitied only by those who do not know the majesty of God and His omnipotent power, for His mercy is as abundant as His judgments are strict, but only in response to repentance! There may very well be a yoke of affliction coming upon us for we have made it abundantly clear that only such a yoke can awaken us and even then, will our response be one of rending our garments and seeking God's mercy, to grow once again as a nation and church, or will we then blame God and those who did warn us?
          Do we really want to hear peace and safety when we are at the edge of the abyss? The same Scripture that recorded God's judgments upon nations recorded his mercies. It would behoove all of us in America to look into that Word to be informed of our creator, our benefactor, our sustainer up until now, our shepherd and the ruler of all the nations.

Pittsburgh Conservative Talk Radio

         I've listened to talk radio for longer than I would like to remember, into the 60s anyway. It wasn't talk radio as it is today but it was still one or two people talking and me listening. What with XM Radio, iHeart Radio and Tunein Radio I can listen to someone, somewhere, anytime that I want to. So I have an opinion on who are some of the best conservative talkers out there.... no surprise here huh? By 'the best' I mean the most effective at presenting their case, not necessarily the most well-known. A lot of men and a few women out there are very good and I'm thankful for their voice, but there are only a few chosen others who are so....effective... that they cannot be ignored by those in the liberal/progressive wing of the American Leninist/Marxist fan club, a.k.a. the Democrat Party.
         Most of our youth go off to college and are captive audiences to professors who usually hold to a strict liberal/progressive ideology. This is accepted as the legitimate passing on of information from one person with a podium to those in the seats, otherwise known as teaching. What, I might ask, is the difference between the college or university professor and the radio talk show host who does the same thing only with a microphone? One might answer, well the former is a member of academia and well prepared for what they do. They are.....learned.... and usually have lots of letters after their name. My response to this would be "and you are using this to.....bolster.....your case, right?" In many of the social sciences and even some of the physical sciences, this advanced learning in academia is actually a hindrance to acquiring wisdom and knowledge.
        Anyway, back to the topic at hand, the two biggies in conservative talk radio in my opinion, are Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin, but there is.....or I should say....was....a third name, far behind both Levin and Limbaugh in 'celebrity,' but in 'effectiveness' not all that far behind! His audience may have been much smaller but the percentages of people forced to actually think if they listened in were probably very close.
        That third name is one that you may never have heard of, it's Jim Quinn who paired on the air with Rose Somma Tennent (www.warroom.com).  He was hugely popular in the listening area of the local station they broadcasted from, and also through syndication and other means.  Let me segue a little here. Pittsburgh's, hence Western Pennsylvania's, major conservative talk station was a 15,000 watt FM station and the opinions put forth on it were a major reason that the area was moving in the right direction! Most everyone that I pal around with listened to it. I'm not going to speculate on why, but late last year Jim Quinn and Rose were taken off of the morning slot. Yes, there was an uproar, I personally haven't listened to the station since that day, and we all just waited for them to appear somewhere else. But more was to come in Pittsburgh talk radio. The conservative talk FM station suddenly changed its programming to all Country Music! And what about Limbaugh, Hannity and the others? Well, not to fear we were told, for they would all be moved to another local Pittsburgh station...which turned out to be a 7,000 watt AM station that I can pick up along with a little static!
         I'll give you a little anecdote here: I'm a union member and wear a hardhat at work. Last week a coworker and I were getting on an elevator and talking about when and where Jim Quinn would reappear. We got on the elevator and there were two contractors from a different union on board already, and lo and behold they were complaining about Jim Quinn no longer being on the air. And then today....I was once again getting on the elevator and there were two more contracted union workers, this time they were ranting and raving about Barack Obama! I mention this to show where Western Pennsylvania is moving politically, and in no small thanks to its talk radio. But the long and short of this post is that Western Pennsylvania has had its supply of news and legitimate commentary severely limited!

Who Is The Evangelical

               
          I picked up my brother-in-law yesterday at Pittsburgh International Airport. He lives in a very liberal state and makes it home about once a year to visit family. I always volunteer to pick him up because those few minutes waiting in the terminal for him are some of the most exciting moments of my life! Have I let the cat out of the bag? We do travel a lot but where's the intrigue in setting up a beach umbrella? The circular baggage claim areas are the real hotspots. Surely there's at least one spy whose eyes meet yours only long enough to determine if you are a threat. How many CEOs look at their watch incessantly and grasp tightly that valuable briefcase as their travelling companion does the elbowing for the bags? Is that a movie star behind those dark sunglasses? What is that guy wearing the Fedora carrying? It looks like a bar stool with Rick's Cafe Americain written on edge of the seat? Here's a guy with t-shirt lettering Penn State in Dublin. Is that a black eye? I like to try to get a quick peak at the baggage tags....Morocco...Paris... Rome... Belgrade... Singapore... Cleveland! And the service men and women! I would come here just to see those desert camo uniforms and shake a few hands!
         The ride home is icing on the cake for that's where the real intrigue settles in. I ask him about his church situation at home. I've researched his local churches more than once and it's not pleasant for he would have to travel quite a distance to hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached on a regular basis. I wish that he lived here but even in areas where the Gospel is preached one needs discernment to wade through the smorgasbord of modern evangelicalism.

 The following post is from August of 2011:  

Who Is The Evangelical 

         So just who, and what, is the Evangelical that we hear about so often in the mainstream media? Today the term is used as a pejorative and if it were possible to do, would flash red to alert the reader to pay particular attention to what they are up to. Evangelicalism is a very big tent, a revival tent of sorts, with room enough for many diverse church goers. At times, most recently at the Iowa straw poll, it's more like a huge tailgate party. I was an Evangelical for the better part of the 1980s, my high water mark when I went to $100 a plate fundraiser for Pat Robertson's 1988 bid for the presidency. We needed a Christian president, I thought, who was also informed and intelligent and Pat filled that bill.
         Contrary to the accepted opinion on the Left, Evangelicals do not merely march in lock-step to the commands of their favorite televangelist. They all hold to the same social issues because those issues are very clear in God's Word. They tend to back candidates that openly admit to going first to the Bible. They are generally, model citizens. They pay their taxes, give generously to charities and proudly send their sons and daughters off to the military making our armed forces America's most distinguished and honorable group! The Evangelical ushered in Ronald Reagan while keeping Al Gore and John Kerry out of the White House although it obviously failed with Bill and Hillary Clinton, and with Barack Hussein Obama. Evangelicals are red state, or would it be more apropos to say red states are evangelical? Without the resurgence of the fear of God within the evangelical community from the 1970s to today, America might be already past tense as I write this.
         As if at a state fair, they can easily move from the Evangelical tent to the Tea Party tent and mingle without any questions. When they enter the Libertarian tent, they can be viewed suspiciously even though they tend to feel at home. On Saturdays in the fall they fill Ohio Stadium, Notre Dame Stadium, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Bryant-Denny Stadium and Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. They fly the Stars and Stripes (as I do) in front of their homes. They often have blended, interracial families. They coach youth athletics and swarm to coastal beaches (when they're not repairing homes in Appalachia) without littering the sand with bear cans. They read, read, read and are more at home, in politics anyway, listening to the spoken word on radio rather than watching carefully crafted television news reports. They hunt, they fish and they vote. Their children tend to be polite and respectful of their elders. For all of this, they are feared and ridiculed.
         The other day, while watering the flowers, my cell phone rang. I rarely get phone calls on my cell phone for to me it is more of a constant conduit of news with a quaint app that lets you make phone calls in an emergency. It was a Gallop/USA Today pollster and I was as excited as a Democrat chief-of-elections 'finding' a box of votes under the ice cream maker in the back of the hall. One question asked of me was if I were an Evangelical. Futilely, I attempted to explain the problem with the concept of Evangelical but had no other choice than to answer...yes. Such is it with much of America. All who are part of "Christianity," who apply Biblical truth to social issues, are labeled...Evangelicals.
         C. S. Lewis once said "The problem is not so much the de-Christianization of England, as the de-Christianization of the church." This is the problem with much of Evangelicalism today. The American pulpit, to a great degree, has failed the church. Christianity and Christendom have become united. The cross of Calvary is seldom preached, rather the felt needs of the congregation. The name of Jesus is ever-present but the person of Jesus Christ is unknown, the blood shed on Calvary for our sins ignored. One glaring example of our lack of discernment is Glenn Beck. Here is a man who saturates his broadcasts with biblical terminology and a near worship of the state of Israel but exalts a false christ of Mormonism, but this doesn't seem very important to the Evangelical. In fairness, if they were properly discipled in their churches they might still respect Glen Beck the citizen but not be so enamored with the evangelist Glenn Beck. The Evangelical is weak on doctrine and thus we have a weak church The Evangelical comes too close to thinking of America as God's nation thus failing to separate the declaration of our redemption in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ from the Declaration of Independence. Politically the Evangelical can be naive, as I was with Pat Robertson.
         The media often points to the belief in a Pre-Tribulation Rapture where the Christians are taken away, leaving the unbeliever to face the Antichrist. This false doctrine permits the Christian to adopt the attitude expressed on a t-shirt I saw in a Christian bookstore where a pair of sneakers was all that was left as the basketball fan was taken up and out of his seat at a basketball game. Prophesy can be a best seller but it often excites for the wrong reason. It can warn others but fails to adequately turn the warning inwards, something which Christians, and I as much as anyone, are in need of doing! The Evangelical voter can all too easily be taken in by the evangelical rhetoric of a run-of-the-mill establishment politician whose evangelical words are so strong that vetting of their history is not necessary. Mike Huckabee comes to mind here. Still, the Evangelical has been a blessing to America as they are citizens who still have their heads above water in a culture that is drowning. Unfortunately, because of the confusion enhanced by the media and the failure of our pulpits to consistently preach the cross, the unbeliever thinks that he must necessarily enter that Evangelical tent (become an Evangelical) if he were ever to consider his fallen condition before God.
         Should God have mercy on us as a nation and should His Spirit move over this land with His convicting power of irresistible grace, that Evangelical tent, as the word 'evangelical' has come to be known in the last 40 years, will not even be noticeable in the mass of humanity seeking the mercy of forgiveness through faith in the name that is above every name.

Henry Kissinger

         Henry Kissinger made news yesterday in a Wall Street Journal piece warning that the quest for a New World Order was hitting some bumps in the road. Yes, this is the same New World Order that Christians have been warning of in books and DVDs and even VHS tapes for many decades. The globalist desire for a New World Order is pretty much old hat to older Christians. The world elites started to come clean on this concept a while ago and obviously Henry Kissinger has no problem with laying it clearly on the table.
          I had written in a past post that the major roadblock to a New World Order were Christians in America and Conservatives in America who know that in order for a New World Order to come about the old world order has to end.......uh, that would be us in America. Our borders have to be open, our Constitution must become null and void, families must give their authority to the state which will educate them in a sterile and atheistic environment.
         Here are some of Henry Kissinger's thoughts.....fundamentalist armies are building a caliphate, Iraq and Afghanistan are in trouble and Russia and China might become problems to us. I think that Henry might have been reading this blog over the last five years but it was disconcerting that he chose not to use the word Islamic.
         Kissinger applauded the good effort made by Western nations with their "amalgam of American idealism and traditional European concepts of statehood and balance of power" but he argues that other areas of the world never quite cozied up to this strategy and thus a new concept is necessary.
         Kissinger gives three failings of the current world order. Europe has been trying to transcend the nation-state concept with a soft power based on ideals while in the Middle-East everyone just ignores boundaries and in the Far East states still hold to their own borders but that in itself may cause future confrontations. Kissinger adds to this the gloablization of the world's economy that actively works against states trying to solidify their independence. He concludes with a paradox in that there are so many organizations whose primarary purpose is to bring problems to the table that there is no one mechanism in place that can actually do that.
         Kissinger gives his recommendations for solving these problems and they revolve around the United States which is where I began this post. We see the same problem for a New World Order but our conclusions are different. He treds softly in this area but the hints are there. America must come to grips on its need for a "comprehensive geopolitical strategy" and determine whether our traditions, conservative values and Christian Faith are an asset or an obstacle. He doesn't use these words, the New World Order people have not quite become that transparent. The future of the New World Order essentially lies in the battle within the Republican Party for one side will give in on this and the other will not.