A Biblical View

Basic remedy for schools - The Washington Times: Commentary - June 12, 2005

2005-06-14T22:06:00.000-05:00

By Cal Thomas

HAWKSHEAD, England.
At the grammar school where the romantic poet William Wordsworth studied in the late 18th century, one can still learn lessons that might, indeed should, be applied in English and American schools.
Apparently in the belief more than 200 years ago that an idle mind can be the devil's playground, Wordsworth and his classmates spent 11 hours a day in school, five days a week, and half a day on Saturday. They didn't study sex education, or the environment, or any of today's trendy subjects that masquerade as a real education.
Instead, says the school's guide, they studied just three academic subjects: Latin, Greek and mathematics. If they missed three church services during the term, they could be expelled. No American Civil Liberties Union existed then, thank God (then, you could).
One nonacademic subject they also studied was a little booklet called "The Rules of Civility; or The Maxims of Genteel Behavior." While many of the rules can be discarded today (such as the proper placement of one's sword at meals), others recall a lost tradition in human relationships designed to protect and honor half the human race and civilize the other half.
There are instructions on how to respect and treat women, often referred to as "ladies." My favorite teaches the "proper" way to greet ladies: "It is not becoming a Person of quality, when in the Company of Ladies, to handle them roughly; to put his hand in their necks, or bosoms; to kiss them by surprise; to tear their fans; to snatch away their Handkerchiefs."
England may not be returning to such days, but it is paying homage to the past by reverting to how it once taught children to read before the social experimenters began using kids as guinea pigs for their untested schemes.
Beginning in September next year, English grammar school children will again learn to read using "synthetic phonics." They will be taught the sounds and letters of the alphabet within the first 16 weeks of school. In recent years, teachers were told to encourage children to memorize words by their shape and guess at them by their context. The results were disastrous.
As in America, phonics in England was abandoned in the 1960s in favor of "look and say." That this approach produced kids who couldn't read, or read up to their grade levels, seemed not to bother education "experts" and bureaucrats who refused all appeals for returning to the old, successful method.
A recent Scottish study found students taught to read with phonics three years ahead of their peers. Politicians are now mustering the political will to roll back the failed "progressive education" approach to reading. It helps that a prominent figure in the pro-phonics movement, Andrew (now Lord) Adonis, is Prime Minister Tony Blair's junior education minister.
Prince Charles has announced plans to set up his own teacher training institute to "fill the gap many in education believe has existed for too long." School vouchers are now debated here, as in the U.S., because of dysfunctional public schools.
It has always been a peculiarity that human beings seem discontent with what works and feel compelled to change, or "improve," what for centuries produced desired results. The English, as well as Americans, managed to successfully instruct generations of children using proven principles. They also believed it was not enough to feed knowledge into someone's head, unless his or her heart and soul were also nourished.
Were parents surveyed and did those surveys reveal they did not want their children educated the way they and previous generations were taught? Who decided that the basic and classic knowledge taught to William Wordsworth and his classmates was not as good as that acquired in our modern age? Who concluded the wisdom of the ages had expired like a "don't sell" label on perishable food?
No one did. It was forced on English and American societies by tiny elites who thought they knew better than everyone else.
An excerpt from Words-worth's "Lines Written in Early Spring" seems an appropriate response to this educational madness:
And much it grieved my heart to think
What Man has made of Man.

GreenvilleOnline.com - More scientists question theory of evolution

2005-05-31T21:31:00.000-05:00

One of the professors quoted in this article was my Geology teacher at Bob Jones University. I didn't much care for the subject matter (required course), but Dr. Henson is a very intelligent scientist. He knows what science truly is. He always said, "Science can only describe, it cannot explain." He also stands on the foundation of the scientific method for everything he teaches as true science. He certainly will though, make you question many facets of life and world-view that we experience every day and decide what is Biblical and what is not, whether it be a matter of science or philosophy.

GreenvilleOnline.com - Religious groups celebrate diversity

2005-05-01T14:17:00.000-05:00

This on the doorstep of Bob Jones University.

Anti-War?? Read this. From "Sykes Writes"

2005-04-14T21:16:00.000-05:00

WEDNESDAY, April 13, 2005, 9:03 a.m.
A MARINE ANSWERS THE PEACENIKS
Anti-war protestors at Ohio University are staging die-ins on campus. But as Best of the Web notes, they are being answered by fellow student Marc Fencil, a senior who is also a Marine currently stationed in Iraq:
"It's a shame that I'm here in Iraq with the Marines right now and not back at Ohio University completing my senior year and joining in blissful ignorance with the enlightened, war-seasoned protesters who participated in the recent "die-in" at College Gate. It would appear that all the action is back home, but why don't we make sure? That's right, this is an open invitation for you to cut your hair, take a shower, get in shape and come on over! If Michael Moore can shave and lose enough weight to fit into a pair of camouflage utilities, then he can come too!
"Make sure you all say your goodbyes to your loved ones though, because you won't be seeing them for at least the next nine months. You need to get here quick because I don't want you to miss a thing. You missed last month's discovery of a basement full of suicide vests from the former regime (I'm sure Saddam's henchmen just wore them because they were trendy though). You weren't here for the opening of a brand new school we built either. You might also notice women exercising their new freedom of walking to the market unaccompanied by their husbands.
"There is a man here, we just call him al-Zarqawi, but we think he'd be delighted to sit down and give you some advice on how you can further disrespect the victims of Sept. 11 and the 1,600 of America's bravest who have laid down their lives for a safer world. Of course he'll still call you "infidel" but since you already agree that there is no real evil in the world, I see no reason for you to be afraid. Besides, didn't you say that radical Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance?
"I'm warning you though--it's not going to be all fun and games over here. You might have bad dreams for the next several nights after you zip up the body bag over a friend's disfigured face. I know you think that nothing, even a world free of terror for one's children, is worth dying for, but bear with me here. We're going to live in conditions you've never dreamt about. You should get here soon though, because the temperatures are going to be over 130 degrees very soon and we will be carrying full combat loads (we're still going to work though). When it's all over, I promise you can go back to your coffee houses and preach about social justice and peace while you continue to live outside of reality.
"If you decide to decline my offer, then at least you should sleep well tonight knowing that men wearing black facemasks and carrying AK-47s yelling "Allahu Akbar" over here are proud of you and are forever indebted to you for advancing their cause of terror. While you ponder this, I'll get back to the real "die-in" over here. I don't mind."

Smackdown, Marine-style

An example for us all - The Washington Times: Editorials/OP-ED - March 07, 2005

2005-03-07T17:38:00.000-06:00

This article has many good points I agree with, however it does not convey a clear message as you will see at the end. More comments at the end. . .

An Example For Us All

By Patrick M. Garry

What starkly different views of life were on display this past Sunday. From Rome, despite a deteriorating health condition, Pope John Paul II appeared at his hospital window and blessed the crowd of well-wishers. It was a sight that has become all too familiar: a man whose zest for life has been so publicly apparent these past 26 years now trapped in a body that causes him constant suffering.
On the same day, half a world away, cameras were being aimed at public figures of a different sort. Like ducks scrambling for scraps of bread thrown by giggling little children, the media flocked to catch a glimpse of the parade of Hollywood celebrities bedecked in dresses costing more than most people can make over years of hard labor. But all the jewelry and thousand-dollar hairstyles at the Academy Awards were just the veneer of something far more real -- something diametrically opposed to what was being shown half a world away. Beneath the glitter, behind the hospital window, underneath the faces of smiles and anguish were two drastically different views of life.
In the Hollywood view, life is measured in a materialistic sense. What are we wearing? Where are we living? What are our pleasures? How satisfying is our sex life? It is a view that is obsessively self-centered -- a view that sees self-gratification as the highest aim of life.
This view considers any restrictions on self-indulgence to be acts of injustice, an unacceptable oppression of our right to do whatever we want and say whatever we want. As the TV commercials proclaim: "Forget the rules." "Unleash the desires within you." "Indulge yourself." Pleasure becomes the measure of life. But if self-gratification is the whole point of life, then what is to happen when one's self is no longer being gratified? That's a question for which the only answer Hollywood can provide is: more Prozac.
The Hollywood view may have its fleeting glamour, but it is as empty as a water bowl left out too long in the sun. Hollywood celebrities are all smiles when they are walking the red carpet; they are so emphatic when denouncing moral rules and religious values that warn against self-indulgence and sexual promiscuity; they speak so certainly when they talk of their own importance and how everyone should live as they do. But when those celebrities are no longer as famous or popular, when they are flocking to psychiatrists and self-esteem gurus, when they are clamoring for anti-depressant drugs, that certainty is gone. That self-indulgent love of life is gone. And then begins their retreat from life, as if they no longer have any reason to live. What a contrast it is from John Paul II, who is living as profoundly in his suffering as he did during his youthful vigor.
There is something inspiringly consistent about John Paul II. He has always preached the value of life in all its forms, and now he is a living example of that message. He endures every day the pain and sickness of Parkinson's Disease, but he does not let this suffering diminish his life. The pope does not shrink from public life because of his suffering, nor does he treat it as an unfair injustice visited upon him. Instead, he uses it to teach the lesson of compassion, because only through suffering can we truly experience compassion. Only through suffering can we experience true hope.
In the pope's 1984 treatise on the redemptive power of suffering, "Salvifici Doloris," he wrote that suffering is not a punishment imposed for some transgression; it is a fact of the human condition. And it is a path through which persons can transcend their materialistic world and their egocentric selves.
Hollywood portrays suffering as a wrong, as something that turns us into victims. The pope, however, shows us that we cannot love life without accepting its suffering. Instead of making us a victim, it can help us to reach past our physical life and into our souls, where our true humanity lies.
Through his suffering, John Paul IIreveals the true meaning of a pro-life view. While Hollywood activists crusade for the ending of all prohibitions on stem-cell research, even though the usefulness of such research for diseases like Parkinson's is highly questionable and even though such research involves the destruction of human life, John Paul II shows us how to live during times of pain and sacrifice. The question is: How does he do it? What does he have that enables him to go on so courageously? What does he have that Hollywood celebrities who fall into despair once their stardom ends don't have? This pro-life view tells us that life is not cheap; it does not come free of sacrifice. It is a message so broad that it can even provide the answer to Social Security reform. It tells us that life is precious -- not something to consume in careless indulgence, but something of which to be careful. It is a message that can stop calloused violence, drug use, cultural degradation and environmental waste. It is a message which, if we listen closely, can answer all the questions of life.

The "message" I get from the article is that suffering means you are a wonderful person. Those who don't suffer are bad. OK, maybe a seemingly naive assumption, but some may get this from the text. If the reader does not already understand the "message" this will only further confuse him. Therefore, I will state what is this message, even if it does not follow Mr. Garry's conclusion. Message: Only God can answer all the questions of life through His written Word, and through the leading of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church in general doesn't convey this message, but the Scriptures do. The Pope may have the answers, but they have nothing to do with anything Roman, they are in front of him in the Holy Bible.

Supreme Judge and the Supreme Court / The Washington Times INSIDER

2005-03-06T16:45:00.000-06:00

CAL THOMAS
Supreme Judge and the Supreme Court
From the Commentary section

In the latest culture war battle, the Ten Commandments have reached the Supreme Court. One federal court has ruled that displaying the 10 standards God requires for righteousness is constitutional as it is part of the country's legal heritage. Another federal court has ordered them removed from public property because their presence implies government endorsement of religion. The justices will decide if displaying the commandments in government buildings is constitutionally "kosher."
There are some amusing things about this case. First, a group of conservative Christians is behind the effort. Not many, if any, Jewish groups are petitioning government for this right, though the Ten Commandments are uniquely Jewish. Moses was Jewish: The commandments preceded all the other laws.
No one ever obeyed them all. That's why the ancient Israelites had to slaughter so many animals and offer blood and other sacrifices and once a year slaughter the Passover lamb to atone for their sin (for younger readers, sin was our condition before we became dysfunctional).
Christians, who sometimes seem so bellicose about these things, believe Jesus Christ fulfilled every one of the Ten Commandments and thus became the perfect "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).
Christians also believe "a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ" (Galatians 2:16) and "all who rely on observing the law are under a curse" (Galatians 3:10). They believe anyone who wishes to be judged by the law falls short and is condemned.
If Christians believe such things, why would they "settle" for posting the Ten Commandments through which they believe no one can be saved? Why not lobby for the display of their favorite verse: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16)? The display of that verse on public property would surely be ruled unconstitutional, but at least Christians would be consistent with what they actually believe.
What puzzles me is how those who want government to endorse their faith seem so ready to compromise their true beliefs to receive an honorable mention from the state.
Some seem willing to settle for a moment of silent prayer in government schools, a type of religious Miranda right, in which believing students have the right to remain mute.
Others are willing to place their God as co-unequal with almost anything, just to have his name publicly mentioned, even if that tends to dilute him so much he wouldn't recognize himself, much less be familiar to others.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor defended the "under God" clause in the Pledge of Allegiance case the court dismissed last year, calling those words "ceremonial deism." She defined the term as the use of religious idiom for "essentially secular purposes," thus satisfying the court's requirement that basically says Rudolph, Santa and Jesus may co-mingle on public property at Christmas (X-mas?) and Rudolph or Santa may be displayed separately or together, but not Jesus alone.
Is this what conservative Christians wish to settle for: a governmental genuflection or acknowledgement they exist? Do Christians wish government not only to set the parameters for pubic expression of their faith but to define the faith itself?
The courts have been wrong for at least a half-century in limiting religious expression, but the way to win back that right of expression is not mainly through courts, but through hearts.
The first option offers limited power and no guarantee of compliance. The other offers unlimited power and the possibility of changing lives. Which seems better from a biblical standpoint? WWJD (What would Jesus do)? WWMT (What would Moses think)?

What if Bush has been right about Iraq all along?

2005-02-01T16:47:00.000-06:00

By Mark Brown, Chicago Sun-Times Columnist

Maybe you're like me and have opposed the Iraq war since before the shooting started -- not to the point of joining any peace protests, but at least letting people know where you stood.

You didn't change your mind when our troops swept quickly into Baghdad or when you saw the rabble that celebrated the toppling of the Saddam Hussein statue, figuring that little had been accomplished and that the tough job still lay ahead.

Despite your misgivings, you didn't demand the troops be brought home immediately afterward, believing the United States must at least try to finish what it started to avoid even greater bloodshed. And while you cheered Saddam's capture, you couldn't help but thinking I-told-you-so in the months that followed as the violence continued to spread and the death toll mounted.

By now, you might have even voted against George Bush -- a second time -- to register your disapproval.

But after watching Sunday's election in Iraq and seeing the first clear sign that freedom really may mean something to the Iraqi people, you have to be asking yourself: What if it turns out Bush was right, and we were wrong?

It's hard to swallow, isn't it?

Americans cross own barrier

If you fit the previously stated profile, I know you're fighting the idea, because I am, too. And if you were with the president from the start, I've already got your blood boiling.

For those who've been in the same boat with me, we don't need to concede the point just yet. There's a long way to go. But I think we have to face the possibility.

I won't say that it had never occurred to me previously, but it's never gone through my mind as strongly as when I watched the television coverage from Iraq that showed long lines of people risking their lives by turning out to vote, honest looks of joy on so many of their faces.

Some CNN guest expert was opining Monday that the Iraqi people crossed a psychological barrier by voting and getting a taste of free choice (setting aside the argument that they only did so under orders from their religious leaders).

I think it's possible that some of the American people will have crossed a psychological barrier as well.

Deciding democracy's worth

On the other side of that barrier is a concept some of us have had a hard time swallowing:

Maybe the United States really can establish a peaceable democratic government in Iraq, and if so, that would be worth something.

Would it be worth all the money we've spent? Certainly.

Would it be worth all the lives that have been lost? That's the more difficult question, and while I reserve judgment on that score until such a day arrives, it seems probable that history would answer yes to that as well.

I don't want to get carried away in the moment.

Going to war still sent so many terrible messages to the world.

Most of the obstacles to success in Iraq are all still there, the ones that have always led me to believe that we would eventually be forced to leave the country with our tail tucked between our legs. (I've maintained from the start that if you were impressed by the demonstrations in the streets of Baghdad when we arrived, wait until you see how they celebrate our departure, no matter the circumstances.)

In and of itself, the voting did nothing to end the violence. The forces trying to regain the power they have lost -- and the outside elements supporting them -- will be no less determined to disrupt our efforts and to drive us out.

Somebody still has to find a way to bring the Sunnis into the political process before the next round of elections at year's end. The Iraqi government still must develop the capacity to protect its people.

And there seems every possibility that this could yet end in civil war the day we leave or with Iraq becoming an Islamic state every bit as hostile to our national interests as was Saddam.

Penance could be required

But on Sunday, we caught a glimpse of the flip side. We could finally see signs that a majority of the Iraqi people perceive something to be gained from this brave new world we are forcing on them.

Instead of making the elections a further expression of "Yankee Go Home," their participation gave us hope that all those soldiers haven't died in vain.

Obviously, I'm still curious to see if Bush is willing to allow the Iraqis to install a government that is free to kick us out or to oppose our other foreign policy efforts in the region.

So is the rest of the world.

For now, though, I think we have to cut the president some slack about a timetable for his exit strategy.

If it turns out Bush was right all along, this is going to require some serious penance.

Maybe I'd have to vote Republican in 2008.

Victor Davis Hanson on National Review Online

2005-01-09T14:40:00.000-06:00

The Disenchanted American
Are we growing world-weary?

There is a new strange mood of acceptance among Americans about the world beyond our shores. Of course, we are not becoming naïve isolationists of 1930s vintage, who believe that we are safe by ourselves inside fortress America — not after September 11. Nor do citizens deny that America has military and moral obligations to stay engaged abroad — at least for a while yet. Certainly the United States is not mired in a Vietnam-era depression and stagflation and thus ready to wallow in Carteresque malaise. Indeed, if anything Americans remain muscular and are more defiant than ever.

Instead, there is a new sort of resignation rising in the country, as the United States sheds its naiveté that grew up in the aftermath of the Cold War. Clintonism may have assumed that terrorism was but a police matter, that the military could be slashed and used for domestic social reform by fiat, that our de facto neutrals were truly our friends, and that the end of the old smash-mouth history was at hand. The chaotic events following the demise of the Soviet Union, the mass murder on September 11, and the new strain of deductive anti-Americanism abroad cured most of all that.

Imagine a world in which there was no United States during the last 15 years. Iraq, Iran, and Libya would now have nukes. Afghanistan would remain a seventh-century Islamic terrorist haven sending out the minions of Zarqawi and Bin Laden worldwide. The lieutenants of Noriega, Milosevic, Mullah Omar, Saddam, and Moammar Khaddafi would no doubt be adjudicating human rights at the United Nations. The Ortega Brothers and Fidel Castro, not democracy, would be the exemplars of Latin America. Bosnia and Kosovo would be national graveyards like Pol Pot's Cambodia. Add in Kurdistan as well — the periodic laboratory for Saddam's latest varieties of gas. Saddam himself, of course, would have statues throughout the Gulf attesting to his control of half the world's oil reservoirs. Europeans would be in two-day mourning that their arms sales to Arab monstrocracies ensured a second holocaust. North Korea would be shooting missiles over Tokyo from its new bases around Seoul and Pusan. For their own survival, Germany, Taiwan, and Japan would all now be nuclear. Americans know all that — and yet they grasp that their own vigilance and military sacrifices have earned them spite rather than gratitude. And they are ever so slowly learning not much to care anymore.

In fact, an American consensus is growing that envy and hatred of the United States, coupled with utopian and pacifistic rhetoric, disguise an even more depressing fact: Outside our shores there is a growing barbarism with no other sheriff in sight. Any cinema student of the American Western can fathom why the frightened townspeople — huddled in their churches and shuttered schools — almost hated the lone marshal as much as they did the six-shooting outlaw gang rampaging in their streets. After all, the holed-up 'good' citizens were always angry that the lawman had shamed them, worried that he might make dangerous demands on their insular lives, confused about whether they would have to accommodate themselves either to savagery or civilization in their town's future, and, above all, assured that they could libel and slur the tin star in a way that would earn a bullet from the lawbreaker. It was precisely that paradox between impotent high-sounding rhetoric and blunt-speaking, roughshod courage that lay at the heart of the classic Western from Shane and High Noon to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and The Magnificent Seven.

The U.N., NATO, or the EU: These are now the town criers of the civilized world who preach about "the law" and then seek asylum in their closed shops and barred stores when the nuclear Daltons or terrorist Clantons run roughshod over the town. In our own contemporary ongoing drama, China, Russia, and India watch bemused as the United States tries to hunt down the psychopathic killers while Western elites ankle-bite and hector its efforts. I suppose the Russians, Chinese, and Indians know that Islamists understand all too well that blowing up two skyscrapers in Moscow, Shanghai, or Delhi would guarantee that their Middle Eastern patrons might end up in cinders.

So an entire mythology has grown up to accommodate this false world of ours — sadly never more evident than during the recent tsunami disaster, a tragedy that has juxtaposed rhetoric with reality in a way that becomes each day more surreal. The wealthy Gulf States pledge very little of their vast petrol-dollar reserves — swollen from last year's jacked-up gasoline prices — to aid the ravaged homelands of their Islamic nannies, drivers, and janitors. Indeed, Muslim charities advertise to their donors that their aid goes to fellow Muslims — as if a dying Buddhist or Christian is less deserving of the Muslim Street's aid. In defense, officials argue that the ostracism of "charities" that funded suicide killers to the tune of $150 million has hampered their humanitarian efforts at scraping up a fifth of that sum. But then blowing apart Americans or Jews is always a higher priority than saving innocent Muslim children.

So even in death and misery, the world's pathologies remain — as Israel is disinvited to help the dying as the most benevolent United States, which freed Afghanistan and toppled Saddam, is supposedly under scrutiny to "regain" its stature for its "crimes" of jailing a mass murderer and sponsoring elections in his place. Last year alone the United States gave more direct money to Egypt and Jordan than what the entire billion-person Muslim world has given for the dead in Indonesia.

China, flush with billions in trade surplus, first offers a few million to its immediate Asian neighbors before increasing its contributions in the wake of massive gifts from Japan and the United States. Peking's gesture was what the usually harsh New York Times magnanimously called "slightly belated." In this weird sort of global high-stakes charity poker, no one asks why tiny Taiwan out-gives one billion mainlanders or why Japan proves about the most generous of all — worried the answer might suggest that postwar democratic republics, resurrected and nourished by the United States and now deeply entrenched in the Western liberal tradition of democracy, capitalism, and humanitarianism, are more civil societies than the Islamic theocracies, socialist republics, and authoritarian autocracies of the once-romanticized third world.

In the first days of the disaster, a Norwegian U.N. bureaucrat snidely implied that the United States was "stingy" even though private companies in the United States, well apart from American individuals, foundations, and the government, each year alone give more aggregate foreign aid than does his entire tiny country. Apparently the crime against America is not that it gives too little to those who need it, but that it gives too little to those who wish to administer it all. When the terrible wave hit, Kofi Annan was escaping the conundrum of the Oil-for-Food scandal by skiing at Jackson Hole, so naturally George Bush down in 'ole Crawford Texas was the global media's obvious insensitive leader — "on vacation" as it were, while millions perished.

The U.S. military is habitually slurred even though it possesses the world's only lift and sea assets that could substantially aid in the ongoing disasters in Indonesia and Thailand. Blamed for having too high a profile in removing the Taliban and Saddam, it is now abused for having too meek a presence in Southeast Asia. No doubt America should have "preempted" the wave and acted in a more "unilateral" fashion. Meanwhile we await the arrival of the Charles De Gaulle and its massive fleet of life-saving choppers that can ferry ample amounts of Saudi, Chinese, and Cuban materiel to the dying — emissaries all of U.N. and EU multilateralism.

All this hypocrisy has desensitized Americans, left and right, liberal and conservative. We will finish the job in Iraq, nursemaid democratic Afghanistan through its birthpangs, and continue to ensure that bandits and criminal states stay off the world's streets. But what is new is that the disenchanted American is becoming savvy and developing a long memory — and so we all fear the day is coming when he casts aside the badge, rides the buckboard out of town, and leaves such sanctimonious folk to themselves.

Just Leave Christmas Alone (washingtonpost.com)

2004-12-22T21:24:00.000-06:00

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, December 17, 2004; Page A33

"Holiday celebrations where Christmas music is being sung make people feel different, and because it is such a majority, it makes the minority feel uncomfortable."

-- Mark Brownstein, parent, Maplewood, N.J., supporting the school board's ban on religious music in holiday concerts

"You want my advice? Go back to Bulgaria."

-- Humphrey Bogart, "Casablanca"

It is Christmastime, and what would Christmas be without the usual platoon of annoying pettifoggers rising annually to strip Christmas of any Christian content? With some success:

School districts in New Jersey and Florida ban Christmas carols. The mayor of Somerville, Mass., apologizes for "mistakenly" referring to the town's "holiday party" as a "Christmas party." The Broward and Fashion malls in South Florida put up a Hanukah menorah but no nativity scene. The manager of one of the malls explains: Hanukah commemorates a battle and not a religious event, though he hastens to add, "I really don't know a lot about it." He does not. Hanukah commemorates a miracle, and there is no event more "religious" than a miracle.

The attempts to de-Christianize Christmas are as absurd as they are relentless. The United States today is the most tolerant and diverse society in history. It celebrates all faiths with an open heart and open-mindedness that, compared to even the most advanced countries in Europe, are unique.

Yet more than 80 percent of Americans are Christian, and probably 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas. Christmas Day is an official federal holiday, the only day of the entire year when, for example, the Smithsonian museums are closed. Are we to pretend that Christmas is nothing but an orgy of commerce in celebration of . . . what? The winter solstice?

I personally like Christmas because, since it is a day that for me is otherwise ordinary, I get to do nice things, such as covering for as many gentile colleagues as I could when I was a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital. I will admit that my generosity had its rewards: I collected enough chits on Christmas Day to get reciprocal coverage not just for Yom Kippur but for both days of Rosh Hashana and my other major holiday, Opening Day at Fenway.

Mind you, I've got nothing against Hanukah, although I am constantly amused -- and gratified -- by how American culture has gone out of its way to inflate the importance of Hanukah, easily the least important of Judaism's seven holidays, into a giant event replete with cards, presents and public commemorations as a creative way to give Jews their Christmas equivalent.

Some Americans get angry at parents who want to ban carols because they tremble that their kids might feel "different" and "uncomfortable" should they, God forbid, hear Christian music sung at their school. I feel pity. What kind of fragile religious identity have they bequeathed their children that it should be threatened by exposure to carols?

I'm struck by the fact that you almost never find Orthodox Jews complaining about a Christmas creche in the public square. That is because their children, steeped in the richness of their own religious tradition, know who they are and are not threatened by Christians celebrating their religion in public. They are enlarged by it.

It is the more deracinated members of religious minorities, brought up largely ignorant of their own traditions, whose religious identity is so tenuous that they feel the need to be constantly on guard against displays of other religions -- and who think the solution to their predicament is to prevent the other guy from displaying his religion, rather than learning a bit about their own.

To insist that the overwhelming majority of this country stifle its religious impulses in public so that minorities can feel "comfortable" not only understandably enrages the majority but commits two sins. The first is profound ungenerosity toward a majority of fellow citizens who have shown such generosity of spirit toward minority religions.

The second is the sin of incomprehension -- a failure to appreciate the uniqueness of the communal American religious experience. Unlike, for example, the famously tolerant Ottoman Empire or the generally tolerant Europe of today, the United States does not merely allow minority religions to exist at its sufferance. It celebrates and welcomes and honors them.

America transcended the idea of mere toleration in 1790 in Washington's letter to the Newport synagogue, one of the lesser known glories of the Founding: "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights."

More than two centuries later, it is time that members of religious (and anti-religious) minorities, as full citizens of this miraculous republic, transcend something too: petty defensiveness.

Merry Christmas. To all.

Arafat's Legacy (washingtonpost.com)

2004-11-20T20:05:00.000-06:00

Great insight from Krauthammer on intentions and actions of Arafat.

'Moral Values' Myth (washingtonpost.com)

2004-11-14T13:05:00.000-06:00

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 12, 2004; Page A25

In 1994, when the Gingrich revolution swept Republicans into power, ending 40 years of Democratic hegemony in the House, the mainstream press needed to account for this inversion of the Perfect Order of Things. A myth was born. Explained the USA Today headline: "ANGRY WHITE MEN: Their votes turn the tide for GOP."

Overnight, the revolution of the Angry White Male became conventional wisdom. In the 10 years before the 1994 election there were 56 mentions of angry white men in the media, according to LexisNexis. In the next seven months there were more than 1,400.

At the time, I looked into this story line -- and found not a scintilla of evidence to support the claim. Nonetheless, it was a necessary invention, a way for the liberal elite to delegitimize a conservative victory. And, even better, a way to assuage their moral vanity: You never lose because your ideas are sclerotic or your positions retrograde, but because your opponent appealed to the baser instincts of mankind.

Plus ca change ... Ten years and another stunning Democratic defeat later, and liberals are at it again. The Angry White Male has been transmuted into the Bigoted Christian Redneck.

[so, should I change my name to redNECKconservative??]

In the post-election analyses, the liberal elite, led by the holy trinity of the New York Times -- Paul Krugman, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd -- just about lost its mind denouncing the return of medieval primitivism. As usual, Dowd achieved the highest level of hysteria, cursing the Republicans for pandering to "isolationism, nativism, chauvinism, puritanism and religious fanaticism" in their unfailing drive to "summon our nasty devils."

Whence comes this fable? With President Bush increasing his share of the vote among Hispanics, Jews, women (especially married women), Catholics, seniors and even African Americans, on what does this victory-of-the-homophobic-evangelical voter rest?

Its origins lie in a single question in the Election Day exit poll. The urban myth grew around the fact that "moral values" ranked highest in the answer to Question J: "Which ONE issue mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?"

It is a thin reed upon which to base a General Theory of the '04 Election. In fact, it is no reed at all. The way the question was set up, moral values were sure to be ranked disproportionately high. Why? Because it was a multiple-choice question, and moral values cover a group of issues, while all the other choices were individual issues. Chop up the alternatives finely enough, and moral values are sure to get a bare plurality over the others.

Look at the choices:

• Education, 4 percent.

• Taxes, 5 percent.

• Health Care, 8 percent.

• Iraq, 15 percent.

• Terrorism, 19 percent.

• Economy and Jobs, 20 percent.

• Moral Values, 22 percent.

"Moral values" encompass abortion, gay marriage, Hollywood's influence, the general coarsening of the culture and, for some, the morality of preemptive war. The way to logically pit this class of issues against the others would be to pit it against other classes: "war issues" or "foreign policy issues" (Iraq plus terrorism) and "economic issues" (jobs, taxes, health care, etc).

If you pit group against group, the moral values class comes in dead last: war issues at 34 percent, economic issues variously described at 33 percent and moral values at 22 percent -- i.e., they are at least a third less salient than the others.

And we know that this is the real ranking. After all, the exit poll is just a single poll. We had dozens of polls in the run-up to the election that showed that the chief concerns were the war on terrorism, the war in Iraq and the economy.

Ah, yes. But the fallback is then to attribute Bush's victory to the gay marriage referendums that pushed Bush over the top, particularly in Ohio.

This is more nonsense. George Bush increased his vote in 2004 over 2000 by an average of 3.1 percent nationwide. In Ohio the increase was 1 percent -- less than a third of the national average. In the 11 states in which the gay marriage referendums were held, Bush increased his vote by less than he did in the 39 states that did not have the referendum. The great anti-gay surge was pure fiction.

This does not deter the myth of the Bigoted Christian Redneck from dominating the thinking of liberals and infecting the blue-state media. They need their moral superiority like oxygen, and they cannot have it cut off by mere facts. Once again they angrily claim the moral high ground, while standing in the ruins of yet another humiliating electoral defeat.

Using All of a Mandate . . . (washingtonpost.com)

2004-11-06T20:12:00.000-06:00

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, November 5, 2004; Page A25

Later than most two-term presidents, George Bush got his mandate. To be sure, he did get one on Sept. 11 from Osama bin Laden but, until Tuesday, not from the American people. The bin Laden mandate gave him freedom of action on a very large scale (two wars, the Patriot Act). With it he produced a remarkable success in Afghanistan and a still-unresolved war in Iraq. Above all was the one inescapable if unspoken fact, greatly overlooked in explaining this election: Three years had passed since Sept. 11 and, against all expectations, we had not been attacked again.

This election was a referendum on Bush's handling of his first, accidental mandate. The endorsement was resounding. First, his electoral college victory was solid. He went over the top without a single state being closely contested. He won all but three with a majority of 7 percentage points or more, and the others -- Ohio by 2.5 points, Nevada by 3 and Florida by 5 -- he won comfortably.

Second, there was the popular vote. Bush supporters should not gloat too much about the popular vote, given the fact that they lost it last time. Nonetheless, if you have already won the electoral vote, it is okay to talk about the popular vote as a kind of adjunct legitimizer. And a 3.5-million-vote margin is a serious majority.

Third, he increased his party's representation in both the House and the Senate. The sweetest victory of all was the dispatching of Tom Daschle. Winning control of the executive branch while at the same time overthrowing, indeed retiring, your chief congressional antagonist enlarges the mandate. This will be particularly important for the main business of this Congress, which will be repopulating an aging and ailing Supreme Court.

What will Bush do with his mandate? Second terms can be very treacherous. They generally die of inertia. With the president a lame duck, there is not much on his agenda. There is only power, and power without purpose corrupts.

Which is why second terms are particularly prone to scandal. It is no accident that the major scandals of the last three decades have all happened to second-termers -- Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

Bush will not choose inertia. Obviously on foreign policy that is not even an option, since he has the war on terror and a job to finish in Iraq. It is in domestic affairs, however, that he is likely to surprise.

Many popular political leaders hoard their political capital. For leaders in their last term, that is a sign of vanity. It is the mark of greatness to be willing to spend your remaining political capital on something important rather than good press. Harry Truman left office scorned and unloved. History has been very kind to him. He spent all of his political capital, his account so depleted by Korea that he did not have enough to run for reelection in 1952.

Reagan and Clinton, on the other hand, left office popular, which to me is a great failing. They retired rich in political capital. What a waste.

Bush will not waste his. As he said explicitly during his news conference yesterday, "I earned capital on the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it." After all, in his first term, with his political career at stake, he undertook Iraq, something that no one asked him to do and that promised only terrible political risk. He knew that he was wagering his presidency but did it nonetheless because he thought it necessary for the safety of the nation.

If he did not hoard his political capital then, he will not now. Knowing he will never again run for office, he is going to attempt several large things, most notably reforming Social Security and perhaps radically simplifying the tax code. He was careful to mention both in his speech on Wednesday when he claimed the election, and during his news conference yesterday when he claimed his mandate. These tasks carry such political risk that politicians rarely talk about them, let alone attempt them. In his first term Bush devoted no political capital to these domestic issues because he had spent it all on Afghanistan and Iraq. With a second term and a solid mandate, his account is replenished. He is not a man to sit on it, collecting coupons.

Whatever you think of Bush, he can hardly be accused of playing small ball. His first term was all about large projects. And this time he has a popular mandate, increased control of both houses of Congress, no worry about reelection, and obvious and long-avoided generational problems staring the country right in the face.

Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion. Bush appears bent on exertion.

A new game - The Washington Times: Commentary - November 03, 2004

2004-11-03T21:16:00.000-06:00

By Cal Thomas

Kerry's Afghan Amnesia (washingtonpost.com)

2004-10-30T21:35:00.000-05:00

Kerry's Afghan Amnesia (washingtonpost.com)

By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, October 29, 2004; Page A23

In the 1990s, Afghanistan was allowed to fall to the Taliban and become the global center for the training, indoctrination and seeding of jihadists around the world -- including the mass murderers of Sept. 11, 2001. This week, just three years after a two-month war that destroyed the Taliban, Afghanistan completed its first free election, choosing as president a pro-American democrat enjoying legitimacy and wide popular support.
This represents the single most astonishing geopolitical transformation of the past four years. (Deposing Saddam Hussein ranks second. The global jihad against America was no transformation at all: It existed long before the Bush administration. We'd simply ignored al Qaeda's declaration of war.) But perhaps even more astonishing is how this singular American victory has disappeared from public consciousness.
Americans have a deserved reputation for historical amnesia. Three years -- an eon -- have made us imagine that the Afghan war was easy and foreordained.
Easy? In 2001, we had nothing there. What had the Clinton administration left in place? No plausible military plan. Virtually no intelligence. No local infrastructure. No neighboring bases. The Afghan Northern Alliance was fractured and weak. And Pakistan was actively supporting the bad guys.
Within days of Sept. 11, the clueless airhead president that inhabits Michael Moore's films and Tina Brown's dinner parties had done this: forced Pakistan into alliance with us, isolated the Taliban, secured military cooperation from Afghanistan's northern neighbors, and authorized a radical war plan involving just a handful of Americans on the ground, using high technology and local militias to utterly rout the Taliban.
President Bush put in place a military campaign that did in two months what everyone had said was impossible: defeat an entrenched, fanatical, ruthless regime in a territory that had forced the great British and Soviet empires into ignominious retreat. Bush followed that by creating in less than three years a fledgling pro-American democracy in a land that had no history of democratic culture and was just emerging from 25 years of civil war.
This is all barely remembered and barely noted. Most amazing of all, John Kerry has managed to transform our Afghan venture into a failure -- a botched operation in which Bush let Osama bin Laden get away because he "outsourced" bin Laden's capture to "warlords" in the battle of Tora Bora.
Outsourced? The entire Afghan war was outsourced. How does Kerry think we won it? How did Mazar-e Sharif, Kabul and Kandahar fall? Stormed by thousands of American GIs? They fell to the "warlords" we had enlisted, supported and directed. It was their militias that overran the Taliban.
"Outsourcing" is a demagogue's way of saying "using allies." (Isn't Kerry's Iraq solution to "outsource" the problem to the "allies" and the United Nations?) And in Afghanistan it meant the very best allies: locals who had a far better chance of knowing which cave to storm without getting blown up. As Kerry himself said on national television at the time of Tora Bora (Dec. 14, 2001): "What we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will" -- i.e., not throwing American lives away in tunnels and caves in alien territory. "I think we have been doing this pretty effectively and we should continue to do it that way."
Now, as always, the retroactive military genius says he would have done it differently. Yet in the same interview, when asked about how things were going overall in Afghanistan, he said, "I think we have been smart; I think the administration leadership has done it well and we are on the right track."
Once again, the senator's position has evolved, to borrow the New York Times' delicate term for Kerry's many about-faces.
This election comes down to a choice between one man's evolution and the other man's resolution. With his endlessly repeated Tora Bora charges, Kerry has made Afghanistan a major campaign issue. So be it. Whom do you want as president? The man who conceived the Afghan campaign, carried it through without flinching when it was being called a "quagmire" during its second week and has seen it through to Afghanistan's transition to democracy? Or the retroactive genius, who always knows what needs to be done after it has already happened -- who would have done "everything" differently in Iraq, yet in Afghanistan would have replicated Bush's every correct, courageous, radical and risky decision -- except one. Which, of course, he would have done differently. He says. Now.

A Less Than Ideal Choice (washingtonpost.com)

2004-10-24T16:24:00.000-05:00

This is a good, non-partisan look at the two presidential candidates. No edorsement by this columnist.

A Less Than Ideal Choice (washingtonpost.com)

22 Questions for Kerry

2004-10-24T13:58:00.000-05:00

This article is from the Washington Post dated October 22, 2004. To read this, you must click the link and then create a log-in when prompted on the Washington Post website. It is free to join, but you must have a log-in name and password.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55919-2004Oct22.html

No commentary from me on this, other than to ask Why Kerry never would respond to these questions if he really "has a plan" for everything.

My comment on Scrappleface.com

2004-10-23T20:06:00.000-05:00

It still amazes me how 46+ percent of Americans (referring to averages of election polls) are so blind/deceived/stupid... and still think Kerry is just fine, even fine enough to lead this wonderful nation of ours. It is OUR nation isn't it?? Maybe we ought to be most concerned with holding onto what is ours: our freedoms, security, general well-being. JFK #2 is certainly not proposing any legitimate plan (despite "I have a plan" plug-in) to secure everything it is we as Americans hold dear

Bush, Kerry turn to religion in final weeks

2004-10-23T18:48:00.000-05:00

Update: 10:07 p.m.--Kerry doesn't have a clue the difference between works and a relationship with the Savior. Accepting the free gift of salvation, I believe GWB has done, but JFK2 is merely relying upon his rosary beads and some good works to get himself into Heaven, or the White House anyway.

By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041022-120845-2752r.htm
Both presidential candidates, one a Roman Catholic and the other an evangelical Protestant, are conversant about their faith, with each man making religious pitches down the stretch. This Sunday in Florida, Sen. John Kerry will speak on the values that "would shape his decision-making as president," says Mike McCurry, the candidate's spokesman on religious affairs. Although President Bush is not planning such a singular speech, he constantly refers to God on the campaign stump and did so again yesterday at a rally in Pennsylvania before a private meeting with Roman Catholic Cardinal Justin Rigali of Philadelphia.
"In changing times, we will support the institutions that give our lives direction and purpose: our families, our schools, our religious congregations," he told an enthusiastic crowd in Downingtown. "We stand for a culture of life, in which every person matters and every being counts. We stand for marriage and family, which are the foundation of our society," he said, using a phrase culled from the 1995 papal encyclical Evangelium Vitae to appeal to the state's large Catholic constituency. Jim Towey, director of the White House Office of Faith-based Initiatives, told a group of religion reporters recently that Mr. Bush's faith naturally informs his values. "What I like about President Bush is he's open about it," Mr. Towey said. Mr. Bush's well-documented conversion to born-again Christianity after a conversation with evangelist the Rev. Billy Graham in 1985 first came to the nation's attention in December 1999, when, during a debate among presidential hopefuls in Des Moines, Iowa, he was asked to name his favorite political philosopher. "Christ," Mr. Bush said, "because He changed my heart." At least three books have come out in the past 17 months on Mr. Bush's faith, but none is out on Mr. Kerry's beliefs. However, Mr. Kerry has sketched out his values on the Democratic National Committee's new Web site, www.kerrysharesourvalues.org, which debuted Oct. 7. It touts a "Kerry/Bush values comparison chart" comparing the senator's ideas on the environment, the war in Iraq, health care, the minimum wage, prescription drugs and other issues unfavorably with those of Mr. Bush. Under the "work with dignity" category, the Web site used the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan to compare the president to one of the men who walked by a robbed and beaten man. "For four years, George W. Bush may have talked about compassion, but he's walked right by," the site quotes Mr. Kerry saying. "He's seen people in need, but he's crossed over to the other side of the road." Mr. Kerry would raise the minimum wage and keep U.S. companies from exporting jobs overseas, the site said. Mr. Kerry's increased mentions of God on the campaign trail have included noting at an Ohio town-hall meeting on Saturday that he brought his rosary beads into battle during the Vietnam War. He also vowed to "bring my faith with me to the White House, and it will guide me." The religious talk inspired a tongue-in-cheek press release on Tuesday from the Family Research Council (FRC) asking the senator to "team" with them to sponsor a House of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act upon his return to the Senate. Such a bill would clarify a 1954 law passed by Congress forbidding nonprofit groups to engage in political activity. The FRC noted Mr. Kerry's presence on Oct. 11 at a Miami church, where several black religious leaders endorsed the Massachusetts Democrat for president. "Given his new approach to the campaign and new interest in churches, we thought this would be a perfect opportunity for him to work with us," said Connie Mackey, FRC vice president of government affairs. What really interests the senator is the Catholic social-justice tradition, Mr. McCurry says. "What resonates with him is the community-building notion of the common good," he said. "It's the way we measure faith both through the works we do and the way faith informs works as we lives our lives," based on James 2, which the senator frequently quotes. But Gerald Bradley, a University of Notre Dame professor of legal ethics, says the senator is making an end run around the fact that many of his positions on "life" issues, such as abortion, embyronic stem-cell research and euthanasia, run counter to church teaching. Mr. Bradley says Mr. Kerry is stressing his concern for the poor, "because he will fix those social conditions which under Bush have been a breeding ground for abortion. This is a big thing for Catholics who vote for Kerry. He's the most pro-choice person in the Senate, so there's some angst there." The Kerry-values site states that Mr. Kerry will work to make "abortion as rare as possible," while pursuing child and maternal health, adoption and teen-pregnancy programs. "People are saying, 'You're Catholic; don't you know that Bush is causing more abortions than Kerry would?' " Mr. Bradley said. He and Princeton University scholar Robert George posted an essay on National Review Online earlier this week rebutting this argument. "Nothing is stopping Kerry from attacking joblessness, etc., and the social conditions conducive to abortion and at the same time opposing abortion," Mr. Bradley said. "When we attack the root causes of violent crime or terrorism, no one suggests in the meantime we make murder legal or declare a general amnesty for terrorists." The Rev. Kirbyjon Caldwell of Houston, the president's spiritual mentor, said Mr. Bush's views on faith and public policy are "terribly misunderstood and misrepresented." Countering some published accounts, the minister said, "He doesn't believe God told him to run, he doesn't believe God told him he'd win, and he doesn't believe God told him to drop bombs anywhere in the world." According to "A Man of Faith" published this spring by former Time magazine correspondent David Aikman, "compassionate conservativism" is the president's Christianity translated into public policy. "Bush's faith convictions were leading him to look at politics through a lens that, while keeping conservative political convictions in focus, soften their edges with an expression of social conscience," the book says. But Mr. Towey reports the president is "all business" in the Oval Office. "He doesn't talk about his personal faith with staff, at least not with me," he said. "I haven't seen him walking about the Oval Office immersed in prayer or levitating." There are few nonpartisan sources that explain both candidates' positions on issues important to religious people. When the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sent both candidates a questionnaire earlier this year asking their stands on dozens of issues, conservative Catholics criticized it as making issues such as immigration and broadcast regulation morally equivalent to the church teaching on abortion and human cloning. The USCCB abandoned the questionnaire in September, saying neither campaign had responded on time for it to be printed and distributed in parishes nationwide. •Joseph Curl contributed to this report while traveling with the Bush campaign in Pennsylvania

Number 10

2004-10-23T17:42:00.000-05:00

Found this on another Christian blogger page. Pretty good illustration, or parable, as he calls it. sgtusmc1ea.blogspot.com

Number 10
Beloved Number Ten:I am a multi-billionaire and You are my headstrong child. You and your 9 brothers/sisters have gone out and stolen the crown jewels from the queen mother, sold them and frittered away the money in various sinful ways. Subsequently you were all caught and the government of the United Kingdom worked a deal where they would not execute you if the sum of a Billion dollars in reparations were paid for each of you. You have been released on your own recognizance but have been made well aware of the fact that a judgement day is coming at some point in the future?My sacrifice was given At the New York Stock Exchange when I publicly set up 10 irrevocable trust accounts with a Billion dollars in each then laid out some simple rules for claiming the money:You must acknowledge the FACT that I am your father and love me accordingly.You must realize the FACT that what you?ve done was wrong and STRIVE to change for the better.You must acknowledge and receive my sacrifice and be thankful for it.The Money was a free gift already paid and not refundable yet statistically so far 90% of the money goes unclaimed for some very strange and convoluted reasons.*Your first sibling denied the fact that I even existed despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Maybe the delusion was comforting up until the time they strapped him into the chair and pulled the switch.*Your second sibling acknowledged I existed but thought she had come about by an accident with the Primordial Pool guy or an alien Mailman. This in and of itself did not disqualify her as long as she recognized my hand in raising her but it caused her to have terrible problems grasping rules 2 and 3. Seemed a shame to see her scream her way into the gas chamber because of misguided guesses and suspicions about her heritage.*Your third sibling knew I was her father but Hated me for some wrong her siblings did and falsely claimed I put them up to. I loved her so and it was difficult to hear the gruesome details of her hanging.*Your fourth sibling knew that I was his father and loved me greatly, but had rationalized his actions and could not see where he had done anything wrong. Those stuffy Brits never used those jewels anyhow and it is unfair how everyone was getting between him and the pleasure he deserved. The firing squad shot him as he extolled the unfairness of it all.*Your fifth sibling accepted the offer willingly, paid the Billion dollars and, when judgement day arrived, he received a full pardon for his transgressions and came to live happily with me at my mansion. You probably find him extremely annoying because he tries to sell you on doing the same thing and sometimes makes you feel self-conscious because of his naiveté in Striving to change for the better clashes with your own lifestyle which is more mainstream.*Your sixth sibling Found your fifth sibling utterly annoying because he knew five was not perfect and continued to make mistakes and seemed to be just plain "holier-than-thou". "Sure I drink my Liquor, lie, cheat and steal, but at least I don't condemn other people like that nasty hypocrite--I would rather die than live like that fake" .....He did.*Your Seventh sibling was prideful, had a good job and decided he wouldn't accept this charity. He determined that he would work the off the debt himself. The $137,423 dollars he came up with was a bit short of the Billion required but he figured he might be able to cut some sort of deal. He rehashed his thinking as they were giving him the lethal injection, but it was too late.*Sibling Eight acknowledged me as the father and loved me accordingly. Eight was a generally upstanding and moral citizen give or take the crown jewels thing and a little greed, pride and envy. He realized that what he did was wrong and had no problem with the "Strive to do better" concept. His only problem was that he doubted whether or not there was a billion dollars there. He doubted that the sacrifice had occurred, after all there were only a few thousand eyewitnesses there at the stock exchange at the time and since he was not there himself he could only rely on the secondhand and written accounts of the occurrence. There were even a lot of highly educated and intelligent people writing about how it was all a fake. Why would his father do this for him? Why should He waste his time attempting to claim this gift which to his mind probably did not exist. Once he actually pulled up outside the NY stock exchange but changed his mind at the last second. Would it not be totally embarrassing to walk down the aisle at the stock exchange with all those people watching? Number Five told him "Trust me it?s there. I accepted it and it paid for my crimes and now I'm living happily without the burden of judgement hanging over me". The answer "Poor number Five, you are probably delusional. Haven't you read your science books? Psychologically speaking people just don't make sacrifices like that and I don't think there will be a final judgement anyhow. ". He mused that even if there were a judgement obeying the first two rules would probably keep the stiff necked Queen off his back. "I love my very rich father and I am being good now, sort of...well, at least better than number three and six!" he was heard to say. "Sorry, that may be so, but the debt is still unpaid for you refused to accept the gift" was heard as the axe fell on his neck.*Your Ninth sibling was politically connected and relied on some rich relatives to raise the money so he would not have to depend on me. Uncle Mohammed and Aunt Krishna Promised him the full amount and, although they had a lot more rules for claiming the money (which he followed religiously) on execution day they were determined to be bankrupt and were accordingly burned at the stake with sibling Nine.**Where do you stand number ten. I am indeed your father. I want to cleanse you of your wrongdoing and clothe you in righteousness. I Love you and do not want to see you die. I want you to acknowledge and accept this gift. I want to give you life and love. It breaks my heart what has happened to my other children and I want more for you. The gift is free, No strings other than love attached. Is loving so hard? Will you reject me too on equally senseless grounds? Please come to my mansion and into my compassionate arms!YOU are LOVED number TenThe FatherThis is a modern day parable for the Plan of Salvation.The Father is indeed GOD.The Sacrifice-Infinetely more precious and harder to match than a Billion dollars is The Lord Jesus Christ who died painfully on a cross for Your sins.The three simple rules remain the same.The Mansion is Heaven.The various methods of death represent an eternity in Hell.The Love is real.*Number one is an atheist who believes that the complexity of the universe was derived from the chaos of nothingness and people evolved from rocks in direct contravention to the second law of thermodynamics, mathematical probability and common sense in knowing that complex things do not come from simple things without outside intelligent influence.*Number two believes that there is some higher being out there, but has become confused by societal beliefs in evolution, un-testable theories of origins and modern interpretations of miraculous phenomena. There are many in this world who make their best guess about what happened thousands, millions, or even billions of years ago and then present it as absolute fact. Combine this with the opposition of the Catholic (read organized/political/traditional religion) Church in the past to some known scientific facts (I.E. round world etc...) and you have created a skeptical hearer if they group all Christians or religions into one lump.*Number three blames GOD for all the problems the sin nature of man creates (I.E. the Inquisition/IRA bombings etc...) and/or personal problems which all men face (financial difficulties, death of loved ones etc...). A perfect Just and Loving God has to allow men the free will to choose Between good and evil, otherwise we would be mere tools or robots incapable of Love, Programmed in all our actions. Unfortunately many men choose to do evil and disobey GOD. This choice of man to do evil is the cause of almost all human suffering. Death and sickness are a natural side effect of the original sin and everybody's health will eventually fail them. Most of our problems can be traced back to some failing on our part or to the failing of another human.*Number four cannot see that he did anything wrong. He looks around at all the other sinful humans and finds somebody he can compare himself to favorably then pronounces himself as "A good person" who deserves more out of life. Rationalization can cover many different topics: "I may have killed two people in a barroom fight but at least I'm not a serial killer like that guy!", "I cheat a little on my income taxes but I am not an outright thief like him.", " I may tell little white lies but that guy is a pathological liar". All people are capable of finding something they are not as "bad" at when compared to another flawed human. The problem is GOD does not measure us against other humans, but by a GODLY standard. That is why he provided the gift of grace. Acceptance of the sacrifice of the sinless Jesus is the only thing that can bring you up to the standard.*Number five is the basic believer. Not perfect but forgiven. Not Righteous but cleansed by the righteousness of GOD. Having been delivered from certain death there is a natural desire on their part to share the good news. Often we do not do it well and sometimes we offend. We cannot understand why any would reject this free gift. We have nothing personal to gain by your acceptance of it, we do not get part of your salvation or "billion" as the case may be. It should not be said that you have to give up drinking, smoking, extramarital sex, drugs and gambling to obtain the kingdom of heaven, You do not, although once delivered from a lost condition there are varying degrees of desire to do so. These are just outwardly visible sins that get the most attention from other people. Even believers continue to have inappropriate thoughts and actions, it is just that usually the outward sins are tended to first because of human nature and wanting to "appear" less sinful. The Drug addict male prostitute who has accepted the salvation of Jesus Christ will make it into heaven while the Bishop, Preacher or Pope who has not will find himself in Hell. You just follow the three simple steps provided:Love GODRepent of Your Sins. Strive for sinlessness. (notice I did not say you would be sinless)Appreciate and Believe in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ as payment for the sins YOU have committed and will commit. Receive him into your heart.*Number six has many of the same problems as number four. He has also mistakenly condemned and judged all Saved people as being hypocrites and fakes who are "judging him" while ignoring the hypocrisy required for him to make such a judgement. He operates under the delusional concept that people who go to church are supposed to be, and claim to be, perfect and when they are not perfect he has proven all of Christianity to be fake. In reality the people that are born again believers are drawn from the community at large and as such are representative of that community with the same frailties and tendencies. In some way or another all people are hypocrites. The only difference is; The Saved ones recognized the fact that they were imperfect sinners and have been forgiven and tried to change. It has been said and I agree " I would rather be in Heaven with the Saved hypocrites than in hell with the rest of them". Double standard: A secular president has an affair and the atheist says "So, that's his personal life" but when an Evangelist has an affair they Scream "Lying Hypocrites, They don't practice what they preach" Despite the fact that they were both flawed human beings fighting the same temptations and sexual opportunities that fame causes. The truth is that Pride, greed, Drunkenness and Promiscuity and many other things are wrong and sinful and a Christian should identify them as such, but while we are to hate those sins in ourselves and others we are to love the sinner, since we all fall into that category. The hypocrisy defense is a form of deluded self preservation since it allows the sinner to go on sinning without feeling convicted about it because "The Perfect People" are sinning to. The problem is it doesn't work since the defensiveness of the person involved is a way of dealing with guilt that is already there causing a wound that only GOD can heal..*Number seven - Pride has blinded him to the possibility of getting anything so easily. He is trying to work out his own way to heaven. He failed to realize the impossibility of the task. No matter how good he is he can never attain the goal on his own. GOD is a perfect and just GOD who has set down the rules and made them simple so that any person may attain them. GODS perfect justice demands that the price be paid in full and HE has already provided you with a means to pay it asking only love and trust in return. If he allowed any thing less than full payment he would no longer be a perfectly just God and would become a "depends upon the situation" situational ethics sub-god. There are many church going, godly seeming people who have not grasped the basic fact that you have to believe with your heart in all of these three easy steps or all the church functions and charitable giving in the world will not keep them out of Hell. GOD does not grade on a curve. Some have the mistaken impression that there is a large cosmic karma scale where you heap the good deeds on one side and the bad on the other and if the good outweighs the bad you go to Heaven. The problem is in this scenario is that a perfect GOD cannot allow any sin into his perfect Heaven and thus one bad deed would far outweigh a billion good ones. The only way to win in this situation is to have the blood of the sacrificed Christ scrub clean the bad side of the scale, once freed from the counterbalance of evil the good side will float with you on up to Heaven when judgement day comes. The only alternative is that you should consider those tiny un-scrubbed sins as the satanic Mafia's concrete shoes dragging you and your good deeds into the depths.*Number Eight is pretty much your average citizen who has done a few bad things here and there. He Claims to be a Christian because it's a family tradition and he believes in God, Prays when in trouble and on the appropriate holidays and goes to church when the fancy strikes him. Eight sees the Bible as a good book, maybe a little flawed or mistranslated since it was written by men and figures Jesus must have been a pretty swell guy. On occasion he has felt convicted and almost committed his life to Christ but held back because he might get embarrassed or have to give something up or did not feel worthy or became confused by satans' many pseudoscientific and seemingly logical lies. Be very aware! This one short life you have is neither horseshoes nor hand grenades. Hell is not one degree cooler for the one who squeaks "I Almost didn't deny Christ's sacrifice". If you wait until you clean up your life or drop some bad habits first you'll never make it to heaven. Get saved first and Christ will clean up your life for you if you are willing. Over 50,000 eyewitnesses to the Miracles of Jesus were available by the time he allowed himself to be placed on the Cross. His greatest enemies, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, did not deny his miracles but instead tried to attribute them to the devil. Non Religious historians verify Christ's existence and miracles. Only in the last 300 years has a pervasive and growing secularist science made up of atheists started trying to belittle the facts doggedly and they rely on a gap of 1800-2000 years to blur the lines and make sure their guesses or lies seem credible. Trust your heart not the guesses of other fallible humans. Smart as they are their minds, like yours and mine, cannot grasp infinity of time nor space nor GOD. QUESTION: "Gee Who put all that material out there to blow up in the "Big Bang"? ANSWER: "Uhmn...It was just there" ...."Big Bang" of material that was "just there" makes rocks, rocks make amoebas, amoebas make man! Now that takes a real leap of faith to believe. Talk about a weird religion.
*Number Nine has fallen into the trap sprung by the religious tolerance in America. He believes that tolerance of other religions (which by the way is usually only allowed in predominantly Christian nations) means that they are just as viable as Christianity. They are all fine and dandy except for the fact that chanting on prayer rugs, humming mantras to crystals, wanting to come back as a sacred cow, and communing with trees have absolutely nothing to do with getting in to heaven and in fact distract you from the only true path. GOD is not the author of confusion and he would not make it something that only the well educated, super intelligent, highly focused or ultra dedicated could accomplish. Even a child is capable of understanding what the One true GOD has dictated to us. No special equipment is required. Salvation does not have to take place in a church or on your 13th birthday. You do not have to be circumcised or dunked or have a special bible. Anybody can be saved anywhere at anytime just by following the three steps above...Just by having the right heart condition. The best Part is that if you do it right the first time-It is permanent. No more candles to light, No messy cleanup, no salesmen will call and Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all of the days of your life. GOD Bless.
Where Do You stand Number Ten?No matter where you stand, Remember:YOU are LOVED Number Ten!Robert Todd JohnsonA.K.A. "Number five"

From Sykes Writes on WTMJ.com

2004-10-22T21:54:00.000-05:00

http://www.wtmj.com/620programs/charliesykes/weblog.asp
FRIDAY, Oct. 22, 2004, 2:51 p.m.
COMPASSIONATE LIBERALS: UPDATE (AGAIN)
Note: On Thursday night, an antiwar protestor in Milwaukee spit on a returned Iraqi war veteran, Marine Major Jerry Boyle. Boyle is a Republican candidate for Congress in Milwaukee. Boyle served in Operation Iraqi freedom and was posted to Baghdad shortly after the invasion. Although he is an underdog in the race, he has shown up for every campaign forum, where he's won high marks for his civility and willing to face hostile audiences...On my show this morning, Boyle described himself as "livid" over the incident, but had restrained himself from responding in any way...Here's the story as relayed to me by one of his campaign aides:Charlie:I would like to relay to you a disturbing and unsettling incident which happened tonight at the Alverno College debate between Gwen Moore and Jerry Boyle.Boyle has attended every debate and forum he has been invited to, even ones where it has not been the friendliest of audiences receptive to his Republican message.Last night's debate at Alverno College was one attended by mostly people which will not vote for him in next month's election, but was a well run and fair debate none the less.The questions were pointed and thoughtful and the answers were equally to the point. The topics ranged from foreign policy to the economy. The stark contrast between Moore and Boyle was pretty clear to those in the audience. Boyle was to the point and made it evident that although his was not the most popular opinion in the room, this is what he believed in.Many people approached him following the debate to discuss the topics and their views and several said although they did not agree with his stance, commended him on making great arguments and being forthright in his presentation.One man, unfortunately took the opportunity to ruin the evening.As Boyle was walking from the stage to the reception, a graduate student from UWM spit on Boyle as he passed by.Boyle, restraining himself, went to the restroom to clean up let this incident go.I, however, did not.After seeing Jerry wipe the spit from his jacket, I asked him what was going on and asked the young man why he spit on him.Although it was witnessed by several people (at least five) he denied it and approached me looking for a confrontation. He walked up to me and got right in my face.I asked him why he spit on Jerry and he said he didn't but should have because Jerry didn't answer his question to his satisfaction.He called me an imperialistic pig and said that I was a puppet for an imperialistic regime. I asked him if that was a new term he had just learned in school and that I was very proud of him for using it in a complete sentence.To make a long story short, after a little more verbal back and forth, he was ushered away by his teacher and escorted from the building.My point is this. Are we now at a time when, even at a debate with dissenting views have the right to spit on each other?Will he go home and brag to his friends that he spit on an Iraqi War veteran?Is that the culture we live in now? This is not Kerry vs. Bush, its a small debate at Alverno College on the south side of Milwaukee.He liked that fact that Gwen Moore is against bunker busting bombs (which she repeated) but will spit in the face of someone who helped liberate a country of 25 million people from a homicidal madman and made the world a safer place in the process.To their credit, the people at Alverno apologized, but the damage was done. If there are any liberals listening to your show, please ask them to take a step back and think before they act like this. Political discourse is what our country was formed on, but actions like this are all too common and its time to rein it in.This was indeed a sad day for Milwaukee and America as a whole.Sincerely yours,Matt Lambert

Umm. . .What happened to loving your enemies?? Guess no one acts maturely these days. (my comment)

In response to comment by "dave bones": How do I square Bush's attitude to my Baptist beliefs and Jesus' message to Love one another, do good to those who hate you, blessed are the peacemakers etc? Well, simply put, Muslims hate us because they hate our God. Our God does not tell us to kill those who don't believe what we believe, but God has established human government with one of its purposes to hold those accountable who take human life. Saddam Hussein was responsible for the deaths of countless numbers of his own people, let alone the numbers of people who died or were tortured by terrorist organizations funded by Saddam. Saddam would not have stopped if we had told him to. Wasn't the First Gulf War kind of a slap-on-the-wrist? Now he is out of power, and the remaining insurgents are slowly, but surely, being taken captive, or killed. This is Bush's plan. It will be done when the Iraq democracy is able to stand alone with no outside help. There is no timetable, because it is impossible to predict every step in a war, namely the War on Terror. I hope I answered your question "dave bones".

New Blog for Christians

2004-10-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Welcome to "A Biblical View". I am making my venture into the blogosphere today. How Exciting!! Thank you for joining me. Please return as I continue to post my thoughts, and please make your comments. I can't wait to see what you have to say.