I did not know that Rosalynn Carter requested that John Lennon's song....Imagine.....be sang at her funeral. I would presume that most everyone knows by now that President Carter made the same request of Garth Brooks....and he and Trisha Yearwood honored that request today in the Washington National Cathedral. I need to segue a little bit here. I posted the following back in a 2018 post:
"You may remember that the Washington National Cathedral and the Washington Monument were badly damaged in the Virginia earthquake of August 23, 2011. Three of the four grand pinnacles of the cathedral...each weighing 50 tons....collapsed. Gargoyles were damaged with one decapitated by falling debris. Today....seven years later....they are only half way finished with the repairs. That earthquake was a message to us from God. The Washington Monument was closed for three years for repairs. It reopened but is closed again due to chronic elevator problems and not expected to be open to the public again until 2019. I wrote these words in a preface to this post a few years ago...."I love America and that sentiment is written throughout these posts but I love it as the gift that has been given to Americans and to the world. It is the Gift-Giver that deserves our adoration! God will either save America for His purposes or He will let us fall in our own delusion. He will not be mocked nor can we convince Him to see it our way. We will either prostrate ourselves before Him or He will prostrate us before our enemies.....Just as those gargoyles were shaking....a hurricane formed in the Caribbean....that would in the next few days bounce a couple of times off our east coast....from the Outer Banks....To New Jersey....To Brooklyn....and even into Vermont....and this as the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument in our capitol had to be postponed."
It was reported last week that lightning struck the Washington Monument and the Capitol.....and also the Empire State Building and the One World Trade Center. Back to former President Jimmy Carter...the following was first posted in July of 2015....as my wife and I returned from a cruise to Bermuda. What's not in this post is that Jimmy Carter thought that Mormons were Christians. This helps explain why he has no problem with John Lennon's song. You cannot do the simple American staple of Bible study....and ignore the necessary doctrine on what happened on the cross and in the tomb and on the mountain. If you do not have that knowledge and understanding....then that is what you do first! This is what Jude referred to when he wrote....."I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once delivered to the saints."
Fiercely Ineffectual
Jimmy Carter was quoted in the news today. The title of the CBS article is "Jimmy Carter: Jesus would approve of same-sex marriage." His actual words verified choosing this title. It's not the first time that he showed complete and utter ignorance of his own Christian faith for which he is known.
Part of my preparations for a vacation, even before a toothbrush and underwear, is books. One of the books for last year's cruise to Bermuda was Redeemer, The Life Of Jimmy Carter by Randall Ballmer. I never wrote a post on it but I'm going to reference it in this post.
Jimmy Carter was and is a good man. As naive as he had been on foreign policy during and after his presidency, as destructive to our economy as he was as a United States President and as unknowledgeable as he is of the Bible that he teaches, I could at least see a Christian man and respect him in his many errors. Carter, like his political nemesis Jerry Falwell, never backed down on his Christian faith but there is something that we are woefully unaware of today in most of the American Christian church, that being that there is both, apart from the radically liberal church that is Christian in name only, a strong vibrant Christianity, albeit relatively small.... knowledgeable of the truth contained in God's Word, vigilant and ever learning and ever reforming when necessary, and there is a simplistic Christianity, saving but atrophying at the same time, fighting fiercely only to remain in the infancy of the "four spiritual laws" and Daniel and the lion's den. Our former president is part of the latter and fiercely defends it.
Carter was raised in this atmosphere and he is even on the lower end of it as to discernment. Throughout the book, which I recommend, you see biblical doctrine pushed aside, distorted and ignored by good works that are elevated, not as evidence of salvation, but as part of 'justification' itself. As far as race relations and bigotry is concerned one would have to look far and wide to find a stronger representative of Christian love than Jimmy Carter. He is a model in this area, but his failures in Christian doctrine are as remarkably bad as his love for fairness and equality is good.
Why is this important? One reason is that our leaders and members of Congress that watched, and continue to watch, as our Constitution is shredded, our heritage besmirched, our enemies emboldened, our military weakened and dependence upon and reverence for Almighty God cast aside....these men and women come from these churches. The culture has defined the church. Rebuild the church America! Carry the lumber from old books, catechisms and confessions, use the labor of only those that are faithful and pound the nails with the same hammer Luther used at Wittenberg.
