Sermon Suggests Pastors To Select Congregation's Spouses

In a homily posted at SermonAudio, a minister assured that the text detailing how Issac obtained his bride was more descriptive (meaning it details an historical incident) rather than prescriptive (meaning the passage contains binding ethical or doctrinal imperatives).

That in no way prevented the expositor from invoking the text in the attempt to beat the listener over the head with any number of assorted guilttrips.

In the story, Abraham details for the servant the process to find a bride for Issac.

Of this, the homilist remarked that Abraham showed more faith in his servant than most modern Christians do in their pastor.

To craft an appropriately contextualized phrase, what does that have to do with the price of petroleum in the Levant?

In the case of Abraham and Issac, this was to be the genetic line that would result in the Israelite people in general and the Messiah in particular.

However, any Baptist worth his communion grape juice will admit that God for whatever reason does not intervene as explicitly at this point along the time line of redemptive history.

Anyone desiring this degree of pastoral oversight in their lives to the point of selecting the spouses of their children is only asking for trouble on par with the cult tragedies of Jonestown, Waco, and Heaven's Gate.

By Frederick Meekins

Scalia's Name Invoked To Manipulate Average Christians

With the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, those admiring that jurist's particular variety of constitutional originalism stopped to reflect upon his legacy and influence. One thing that the observers of the intersection of the cultural and the theological can count on is the inability of the average Baptist pastor or minister to pass over the opportunity to invoke nearly any event as a rhetorical device for the purposes of berating the congregation as well as anyone else within earshot.

On his website, Russell Moore published a column titled “What The Church Can Learn From Justice Scalia's Life”. For the most part, the analysis is an approving appraisal and explanation of Scalia's philosophy of jurisprudence. However, there are points at which Moore can't resist the urge to get in slight digs.

For example, Moore writes, “One can disagree with Scalia on these principles, and one can argue that he occasionally seemed to contradicted them.” But the same criticism could just as easily be said regarding Russell Moore.

For example, Moore sits on the board of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference. Would Moore sit on the board of an organization titled the National Confederate Leadership Conference?

From there, Moore proceeds to invoke the death of Justice Scalia as a platform and a pretext from which to bash his fellow Evangelicals.

For example, Moore praises Scalia's prescience to foresee or extrapolate where the judicial rulings of the present might nudge the moral developments of the future. Moore contemplates, “Why were evangelicals so slow to advance the pro-life witness? Why were evangelicals caught so unaware by the shifting family structures in the United States?”

Moore answers these questions that he raises rhetorically by noting that the shortcomings he has pointed out in Evangelical social thought were the result of failing to see ahead of time how culture moves and for in part accommodating the “divorce revolution”. Maybe so, but the answer in part goes beyond that.

Many Evangelicals failed to see the direction in which culture moved because for generations probably up until the time Francis Schaeffer came into prominence and in some circles even later most Evangelicals had been indoctrinated and conditioned to have as little to do as possible with the culture whatsoever. The good Christian, it was often expounded from the pulpit, did not seek to investigate the issues and challenges of the day on their own.

Instead, you were simply expected to accept whatever your pastor was willing to tell you about them. An interest in anything beyond the casseroles at the church potluck supper was considered “worldly”.

Media and forms of art were considered evil not necessarily on the basis of content but rather in and of themselves. You can't really subject the students in your Christian school to a curriculum consisting of not much more than grammatically diagramming Bible verses and where about the only professionals exhorted as examples to emulate are missionaries to foreign fields and then sit around dumbfounded as to why so few graduates from such settings go on to careers in strategically important fields such as law, medicine, government, or media.

Russell Moore really strives to bore the assembled a new one as he moves towards the conclusion of his analysis. In particular, Moore praises Scalia's aptitude to befriend his opponents.

Of this tendency, Moore writes of Scalia, “He was certainly one of the most combative justices in print and in argument in history. Even so, he had a strong friendship with liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Was that an inconsistency?”

Moore answers his rhetorical question, “No. This was confidence. He knew that his ideas could prevail, so he didn't see the persons who opposed him as those to be avoided or shunned. He knew that his convictions were clear, so he didn't play tribal politics by isolating himself with an ideological cocoon.”

Speaking of “tribal politics”, once again, it must be asked, if Russell Moore enunciates that phrase in such as say as to imbue it with negative connotations, why does he sit on the board of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference? Moore is likely nothing more than the organization's token gringo. For outfits with such ethnically explicit names are all about tribal politics and don't give a rodent's hindquater about good of the nation as a whole.

Justice Scalia is to be commended for his many contributions in the effort to preserve what little remains of America's constitutional liberties. However, in light of the circumstances surrounding his passing, as with all who achieve lofty status or position (including Russell Moore most likely as well) one will find that his ultimate loyalty was probably to the elite and its continued perpetuation rather than a set of enduring principles necessarily.

For example, the hunting lodge from which Justice Scalia transitioned into the Afterlife was owned by the International Order of St. Hubertus. According to the Washington Post (a mainstream media institution and not Alex Jones mind you), the International Order of St. Hubertu is an order where its exclusively male membership gathers to prance around in silky green robes while slaughtering animals not so much for subsistence hunting but rather for the thrill of taking another creature's life.

Even worse, this organization is itself believed to have ties to Bohemian Grove. For those not familiar with that particular term, that is a place deep in the woods of California were many elites thinking they are so much better than the rest of us that they are the ones that will determine the course of our lives gather before a giant owl statue ritualistically pledging to bring about the New World Order. The ceremonial proceedings usually conclude with drunkenness, occasionally orgies, and (if certain conspiracy theorists are to be believed) sometimes even a human sacrifice or two.

Pastor Moore could have attributed this observation to just an aspect of Scalia's personality that enabled the jurist to find that murky balance between standing for one's principles and the degree of compromise necessary to prevent the political or judicial process from getting eternally mired in interminable gridlock. Instead, Moore utilizes the point to once again bash the mere pewfiller over the head.

Moore writes, “If our friends and acquaintances are all those who agree with us or our politics, then it could be that politics is our god. And if our friends and acquaintances are all those who agree with our theology, then maybe our talk about mission is just talk.”

If this is how Evangelicals in general and Baptists in particular act in Moore's estimation, much of that fault lies in how the leaders of the movement have indoctrinated their respective congregations, followers, and students (not necessarily in error) over the past several decades.

Among churches of a more doctrinally rigorous nature, it is simply not enough to earn the status of good or even satisfactory Christian by attending worship on a semi-regular basis and to attempt to apply what is taught in such gatherings in the normal course of life. Instead, formal organized religious exercises and church attendance are to become the focal point of one's existence.

For example, you are also obligated to attend Sunday school, Sunday evening, and possibly even a variety of small group studies during a given week if your church is sufficiently large enough where these cell groups are not necessarily so much about studying objective doctrinal content but more about confession and denunciation of shortcomings in a manner not surprisingly different from what might take place in a prisoner of war camp. But if your church isn't large enough to provide an assortment of such groups, fear not. For yours will likely include a midweek service.

This will likely be marketed or specifically presented as a “prayer meeting”. Pewfillers will also be shamed of manipulated into attending from the pulpit as well. The common rhetorical set up for this will begin with explaining how prayer is simply talking with God and who doesn't enjoy talking to or spending time with those we hold most dear. As such, it is concluded, if you fail to show up for prayer meeting, you must not really love God all that much.

But the thing about that conversation is that it really needs to be a two way exchange if the train of thought and ongoing dialog is to consist of more than the equivalent of a telepathic voice message. Furthermore, often what transpires is that pastorally led prayers end up being a combination of an extension of the sermon and newsletter announcements by other means. But at least when the sermon and newsletter announcements are made as sermon and newsletter announcements rather than as extended prayers, you don't have to sit there with your eyes clamped shut for fear of being called out for it by the pastor who must need the privacy to quickly pick his nose.

This extended exposition must seem like an unrelated tangent. However, it does provide a bit of explanation as to why the Christian probably doesn't have much time to hobnob with reprobates outside of the church.

Of course Justices Scalia, Ginsberg, and even Elena Kagin are probably going to hit it off. Though most aren't going to have the courage to say it, both Roman Catholicism and Judaism are two religions that love their booze. So what exactly are upper class Jews supposed to bond over with blue collar Baptists that have had it drilled into their heads their entire lives (and possibly even rightfully so) to avoid alcohol at all costs? A love of pork barbecue that the Jew isn't even supposed to eat unless they are of the variety that invokes that particular identity not so much because of a devotion to Old Testament teaching but rather as something to invoke quickly to justify an often noticeable hostility towards anything even remotely Christian?

In this situation of whether to interact or separate, the mere pewfiller cannot hope to prevail in terms of avoiding some manner of verbal chastisement. For often these clergy live by a double standard that they would not approve of if they saw it manifested in the lives of their fellow believers.

For example, in Spring 2015, there was a bit of ecumenical excitement in the air as it was announced that NBC planned to broadcast a dramatic miniseries titled “AD”. The purpose of the drama was to provide the viewer with a bit of narrative insight into what the early Church centered around the Apostles might have had to deal with following the Resurrection of Christ.

But instead of supporting this undertaking as a respectful attempt by the entertainment industry to present the founding of the Christian faith even if not entirely accurate down to the tiniest painstakingly exact detail but in a way that might spark the curiosity of an individual to investigate further if so inclined, a number of ministers and theologians openly criticized the production. Interestingly, instead of pointing out where the narrative might have strayed from the Biblical record, Pastor Randy White on an episode of “Standing For The Truth” droned on and on about the producer of the miniseries Roma Downey being a Roman Catholic sympathetic towards the New Age movement. White continued on by calling into question Evangelical leaders such as David Jeremiah that set aside differences with this competing system of theological interpretation to emphasize the common first century heritage shared by these distinct brands of Christianity.

From the vehemence of that particular episode, the average listener might come away with the impression of the importance of limiting one's exposure to Roman Catholics if one wants to be considered the kind of person that puts faith first in one's life. But apparently that is the kind of rule Pastor White expects everyone else to abide by with the exception of himself. This particularly seems to be the case when it comes to individuals that can advance Pastor White's own career or rather ministry (to put it in terms that sound less secular and more pious).

For example, on “Standing For The Truth” (the very same program on which nearly one year prior he condemned fellow Evangelicals that had cooperated with a Roman Catholic in terms of promoting a cinematic production inspired by Biblical sources), Randy White deliberately name-dropped how highly he thought of his good friend Brett Baier who just happened to be a Fox News anchor. White also confessed that Baier also happened to be Roman Catholic but one whom White was proud to call his friend because of Baier's sincerity to do the right thing despite the theological differences that White went out of his way to downplay in this instance. So why can't Roma Downey and her husband Mark Burnett be thought of in a similar fashion as an alley with whom Evangelicals can at times cooperate regarding shared aspects of the faith?

Towards the conclusion of his tirade, Russell Moore pontificated, “And if our friends and acquaintances are all those who agree with out theology, maybe talk about our mission is just talk.” In essence, you, average Christian, are to be chewed out from the pulpit if you associate with people that are now Christian as defined in a narrowly dogmatic manner and you are going to apparently be chewed out nor if you don't have any friends that are not Christian in a narrowly defined dogmatic manner.

In response to Dr. Moore's catch 22, is it really the average pewfilling Christian that talks so much about mission? Or is that more so those that run or administer the church and related paraministries?

Missions does have its place in the life of the church and by extension the life of every believer. However, it is the occupational ministerial class that has placed what could legitimately be considered a disproportionate emphasis upon formalized missionary outreach to the exclusion of many other as legitimate Christian undertakings.

For example, back during what seemed the verge of a pending ebola epidemic, Ann Coulter dared question why couldn't those inclined towards acts of piety try rescuing their own homeland from the perils of spiritual destruction for a change rather than these backwards lands from which a single microbe hitching a flight on an unsuspecting airliner could potentially lay waste to much of the industrialized world. For enunciating such insightful speculation, professional religionists castigated and condemned Ann Coulter much more vociferously than they ever did for her apparel of questionable modesty.

If professional clergy such as Russell Moore want to talk up missions but do nothing about it in terms of their own lives, then it is indeed a problem and they should be criticized for it. However, if the average believer hears these admonitions but after reflection conclude that the Holy Spirit is leading them to focus upon other callings and areas of ministry just as essential to the fulfillment of God's will in this world, there really is not anything regarding this matter that the Christian ought to feel guilty about.

Justice Scalia will be remembered as one of the great minds of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It is too bad the lesser minds of this era have invoked this jurist's name for the purposes of manipulating those over whom they have been granted a modicum of authority and influence.

By Frederick Meekins

Insisting The Foretelling Of John The Baptist Is About The Elderly Attending Church Misses The Homiletical Mark

Isn't it a bit of a stretch to invoke the passage regarding the conception of John the Baptist to condemn the ailing elderly that aren't able to get to church as often as they used to?

The text implies that God intervened in regards to the withered reproductive tracts of Zacharias and Elizabeth. So unless God intervenes similarly in regards to dimmed eyesight and crippled legs, isn't He the one to be held responsible regarding this attendance issue?

The pastor insisted that, if an elderly individual can make it to the doctors or the supermarket, they can make it to church.

One is reminded of the line from the movie “Dodgeball”, “If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.”

But doesn't such a imperative analogy postulate a weak God bordering on the heretical?

The decrepit of advanced chronology are forced to go to the doctor's or the grocery store because such services are often physicalized in a singular location.

But doesn't the God of the Christian go out of His way to make it known that He is not confined by a structure built by the hands of man no matter how ornate or well intended such dedicated edifices might happen to be?

By Frederick Meekins

Russell Moore Elevates White Guilt As Religious Sacrament

A common refrain in the analysis of the 2016 presidential election cycle is that this particular contest has rubbed a raw nerve in terms of worldview assumptions and even animosities usually left hidden and simmering below the surface. In a column published initially in the New York Times titled “A White Church No More”, Southern Baptist Ethics and Policy Commission functionary Russell Moore tips his hand to reveal the true radical colors beneath his polished pulpit facade.

Moore commences his analysis by detailing the plight of an Alabama church in decline as the vicinity of the congregation's physical locality transitions from a predominantly White to Black population. Moore blames the decline on the fact that during the tumultuous years of the civil rights movement, often marked by shocking and noteworthy acts of violence, the church decided to focus on its primary mission of “simple gospel preaching”.

But how was the activism Moore would hope for in that historic setting appreciably different than the cultural Christianity that this theologian now explicitly celebrates the demise of? Interesting how Moore calls for the law and justice imperatives heralded in Scripture when it is minority lives and property on the line but seemingly downplays the physicalized expression of outage when it is Whitey's or a capitalist's window being shattered.

In mentioning this tragic violence, Russell Moore hopes to link its perpetrators with Donald Trump and any that might vote for the blunt real estate tycoon. As I have mentioned in previous columns, if we are to pursue this line of reasoning, why shouldn't we conclude that Russell Moore through his assorted ecclesiastical relationships must believe pedophile pastors and the churches that shelter them haven't done anything all that wrong and shouldn't be sanctioned so severely?

For at a recent pastor's conference, Moore's mentor and close colleague Albert Mohler did not chastise C.J. Mahaney for allowing a sex abuse scandal to spiral out of control. Instead, Mohler instead assured the megachurch minister that he was in the company of thousands of his closest friends. Mind you, these are the very same kinds of people that will call the validity of your faith into question if you are not in church multiple nights per week or aren't married by the time you are 23 years old.

In the indictment of Trump that reads reminiscent of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, Moore writes, “This election has cast light on the darkness of pent-up nativism and bigotry ...There are not-so-coded messages denouncing African-Americans and immigrants; concerns about racial justice and national unity is ridiculed as 'political correctness'. Religious minorities are scapegoated for the sins of others, with basic religious freedoms for them called into question.”

Daniel Patrick Moniyhan (a Democrat actually) was credited with popularizing the concept of the bigotry of low expectations. Dr. Moore craves nothing more than to be applauded as a Southerner that has come around to the perspective of the Yankee elite regarding racial issues. However, given that he does not apply the same standard to all individuals irrespective of skin color, it must be asked does Brother Moore view minorities as fully human in the same manner as he would his fellow Caucasians?

If Dr. Moore is so concerned about the causes of national unity and racial justice, why doesn't he resign his position from the board of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference? For by the organization's very name, the National Hispanic Leadership Conference is exclusionary of the interests of Caucasians of a non-Iberian ethnography. If Caucasians of a more northern European extraction are not worthy of status and privilege (to invoke the parlance of these crypto-Marxists) on the basis of what color they emerge from the birth canals of their respective mothers, why are Hispanics deserving of such on the basis of Scripture which says that before God there is neither Greek nor Jew?

Despite whatever errors he might have made in terms of his presentation on the Fox News Channel, Glenn Beck is to be lauded for making the public aware that the notion of “social justice” is not about justice at all but rather about in the name of socialism downplaying the rights and protections afforded to the individual in favor of the collective and what is allegedly better for specific groups as determined by largely unaccountable technocrats. That is the kind of threat posed by Russell Moore in his raising the battle cry of “racial justice”.

If persons are not to be considered as individuals and the totality of their accomplishments but rather upon the shortcomings inflicted by and/or on certain groups, what if Dr. Moore's string of highly prestigious positions were seized from him and bestowed upon someone that has hardly cracked a book open a day in their lives but instead knocked over a few liquor stores and sired a number of out of wedlock children by as many women because a life of study and delayed gratification were categorized as acting just “too White”? By the very standards advocated by Dr. Moore, wouldn't a response other than affirmative agreement to such a course of action not only undermine social cohesion but also negate a number of Biblical imperatives such as submitting to authority and turning the other cheek?

Dr. Moore goes on to lament, “The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's 'I Have A Dream Speech' did not envision that more than 50 years later 'Go back to Africa' would be screamed at black protesters.” Probably because, as someone enamored in part with the delusions of socialism, Martin Luther King might not have been able to fathom Black people often lavished with a standard of living enviable by world standards descending into debaucheries most of them avoided when the status of this demographic was at its lowest in terms of material prosperity.

Perhaps Dr. Moore should have provided additional context such as where and to what particular group this directional imperative was being directed. For example, could these have been the sorts of protesters that express their disagreement with particular trial verdicts or police actions by appropriating the latest electronics or haircare products unencumbered by medium of exchange after the proprietors of such establishments have left the premises for the evening or in fear of the repercussions the mob might decide to inflict upon bystanding property owners?

Russell Moore is making quite a reputation for himself regularly publishing tirades against what academics such as himself might lament or denounce as White majoritarian culture. Does he ever intend to speak out as eloquently against outrages such as the knockout game?

In Moore's column, one is given the impression that the remark “Go back to Africa” is a negative or bad thing. Yet doesn't fostering this impression expose Moore's own ethnocentricism or White privilege?

For in a world where, as Moore writes, “The man on the throne in heaven is a dark-skinned, Aramaic-speaking 'foreigner' who is probably not all that impressed by chants of 'Make America great again', who is to suggest America is a more desirable place to live than Africa?

Moore continues, “The center of gravity for both orthodoxy is not among Anglo suburban evangelicals but among African Anglicans and Asian Calvinists and Latin American Pentecostals.”

The first part of that statement that ought to be like fingernails across a chalkboard to the mind of the discerning reader is the way in which “Anglo suburban” is articulated like a slur. What it means is that Moore has a problem with Whites that work hard and save their resources to provide for a reasonably comfortable dwelling where the occupants are able to stay to themselves and their individual families.

What the communitarian new urbanists of whom Moore is probably an enthusiast prefer is to chorale people into congested population centers where the residents probably don't even own their property, where they are more easily controlled, and where it is easy to snoop into someone's private affairs. For nowhere in his comments did Dr. Moore condemn the largely White beatnik hipsters that prefer to habitate in largely metropolitan settings.

While we are at it, even if he does not provide his address outright, perhaps Dr. Moore should describe in which manner of dwelling he hangs his own ecclesiastical robes or clerical collars. It is doubtful it is in a rundown apartment project where English is about as dead as Latin.

For in the mind of this theologian under scrutiny in this particular analysis, Mrs. Moore and the little ones are no doubt deserving of a safe and spacious place in which to live and thrive. It is your obligation, dear pewfiller, however to put your own family at risk for reasons little more than because some pulpit blowhard tells you to in order to assuage his ever expanding sense of racialist guilt.

What must be asked next about this assertion that contends that the center of theological gravity is to be found among African Anglicans, Asian Calvinists and Latin American Pentecostals is why is it acceptable for Christians of these particular phenotypes to clump together for the purposes of religious identity and affiliation but not acceptable for White believers to do so? And if you were to grill members of each of these demographics they would probably admit that they are no more eager for their traditional way of doing things to be overwhelmed by the nebulous “other” postmodernist sociologists are always droning on about as those attending the aging Caucasian congregation.

Furthermore, just how much doctrinal compromise ought the Christian to agree to in pursuit of Russell Moore's demographic amalgamation before we are verbally reamed for abandoning those ballyhooed “Baptist distinctives”? After all, the problem with the church initially mentioned by Moore was not necessarily doctrine but rather because it was “too White”.

The Anglicans no doubt practice infant baptism and don't fly into a frenzy as to whether or not adults seeking membership have been dunked or sprinkled in what is considered this Christian act of initiation. This particular modality of ecclesiology also tends to follow a highly ritualized liturgy many Baptists would denounce for stifling the move of the Spirit.

With the Latin American Pentecostals, at the bare minimum the problem would arise at the opposite end of the decorum spectrum from the Anglicans. For an old joke describing how to tell the difference between Baptists and Pentecostals observes that Pentecostals jump over the pews while Baptists sleep in them.

Wanting to look as multicultural as possible, those such as Russell Moore will respond that Whites more uptight in church will just have to adopt the more exuberant forms of religious expression often practiced in minority communities. For if you ask the overly rambunctious to tone it down a bit, you will be accused of demanding that these other groups “act White” before their worship is deemed acceptable in the eyes of God.

But who was it that taught these aging White Baptists so despised by Moore to stifle the expression of their feelings in favor of an order of worship that emphasizes the rationally didactic over emotionalism? Why none other than the professional religionists and denominational functionaries once holding the kinds of prestigious positions now occupied by the likes of Russell Moore! It is amazing how these leaders seldom take responsibility for the policies or decisions of their particular class without first blaming it on the mere pewfillers and concocting ways to make the common church goer feel that they are nothing more than someone obligated to keep the collection plate filled.

Beyond the Pentecostal tendency towards emotional outbursts, for the sake of ethnographic solidarity, just how much Charismatic buffoonery is the average Baptist expected to put up with to placate the honchos flagellating themselves on the floor of the annual convention? Kenneth Copeland has insinuated off and on over the course of his ministry that those of his theological persuasion can resurrect the dead both feline and human. Joyce Meyers believes that she is so important that she shouldn't have to do her own housework. Todd Bently socked an alleged cancer patient in the stomach in the name of curing that particular affliction.

Critics will respond that each of these is White. Fine, if you want to play the game that character is indeed determined by the color of skin, I will be more happy to comply with such a silly standard.

T.D. Jakes has denied that the Godhead is a unity composed of three distinct persons known as the Trinity. Instead, this particular televangelist holds that the verbal identifiers of “Father”, “Son”, and “Holy Spirit” are rather masks or roles assumed by the singular unitary God.

Frederick Price is yet another Black pastor that espouses doctrinal notions nearly as aberrant. The website LetUsReason.org in an article titled “Fred Price: Is The Price Right Or Is The Price Wrong” examines a number of these. Among these rank the idea that we enjoyed a preincarnate existence (not unlike Mormonism) and that Jesus was rich while He dwelt upon the Earth despite Scripture teaching that he didn't even have a place to lay his head.

As errant as these happen to be, Prince propagates others that are even more dangerous. According to Price, the believer is so assured of bodily healing in this life that the truly faithful can even forbid sickness to enter into one's home, meaning that the Christian is in no need of medical interventions such as surgery. Unless of course you are Mrs. Price who had a cancer operation despite similar procedures being frowned upon for the less prominent amongst their flock.

But hey, that's no big deal. If Russell Moore wants to remain consistent, doesn't he have to assure us that compromise for the sake of superficial appearances and heartwarming photo op is more important than sending the wrong impression resulting from standing for the faith once delivered unto the saints.

Galatians 3:28 says that before God there is neither Greek nor Jew. It is also through the providence of the Almighty that all of humanity that traces its origin back to one single family now finds itself distilled into a variety of nations, tongues, ethnicities, and races largely to prevent for the time being the equivalent of another Tower of Babel. As such, a church should extend kindness and courtesy to anyone showing up on its doorstep sincerely seeking the Lord. Yet if particular varieties of people show up more at certain congregations more than others, there is no reason for controlling snobs at denominational headquarters (whose own offices are described nowhere in the pages of Scripture) to hand down pronouncements as to how ungodly such natural affiliation happens to be in their particular eyes.

By Frederick Meekins

The Pied Piper Of Apostasy?

Throughout the history of His people first in terms of pre-Messianic Israel in the form of the Psalms and then ultimately in terms of the Church following the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, music has played a crucial role in conveying the great truths of doctrine and teaching to the faithful. As such, many of these lyrical works referred to as hymns have endured for decades and in some instances even for centuries.

The Emergent Church movement is a philosophy of ecclesiology holding that much of what Christendom professed throughout the modern era was either in error or in needs of being reformulated as society transitionally progresses into an epoch more postmodern in orientation. However, given that its musical tastes have apparently found it difficult to expand beyond so-called “Seven Eleven Choruses” where songs composed of a mere seven words are sung over and over for what seems like eleven times in a row, this methodology of ministry might have hit something of a roadblock in terms of didactic lyricism.

Emergent Church poobah Brian McLaren announced that he thinks he may have found a way around this formidable impasse. He contends that, if generations of Christians have enjoyed classic songs to such a noticeable extent, why throw out the baby with the bathwater? That might happen more often in a literal sense than you think given the support for the deliberative neo-natal infanticide epidemic throughout the circles of religious leftism.

Instead of composing entirely new songs that may or may not catch on, according to an article published at Christianpost.com, Mclaren has decided to simply formulate new lyrics in compliance with his doctrinal preferences and peculiarities to those tunes that have stood the test of time. It also probably doesn't hurt that most are probably so old that they have also passed into the public domain in terms of copyright status.

The first released by McLaren bastardized in this fashion is “Onward Christian Soldiers”. That particular hymn wasn't good enough to be left alone, in McLaren's view, because of its emphasis of warfare against “the foe”.

According to McLaren, his sensibilities were unsettled by the original version because “the foe” could be interpreted to mean “our neighbors outside of the Church”. McLaren further insists that metaphors of warfare were not in accord with Jesus' and Paul's program of peacemaking.

So once this apostate is finished, will he next turn his cross hairs to explicitly rewriting the Bible? The argument could be made that McLaren is already well down that path in terms of the warped practices he advocates as evidenced by his co-officiating at his son's homosexual wedding.

Like it or not, the Bible is already full of war metaphors. For example, at His Second Advent, Christ does not intend to return as the friend the lowly Jesus, but instead upon a white steed amidst a battle where the blood is prophesied to flow up to the bridals of the horses.

The timid will respond that is merely a metaphor for the ultimate triumph over evil. Maybe so, as the interpretation of eschatological motifs is not the point of this particular analytical exposition.

As such, even if one wants to go that interpretative route, that does not take away from the truth that the Messiah proclaimed in the pages of Holy Writ is not one that turns away from conflict at all costs.

Jesus says in Matthew 10:34-35 that He has not come to bring peace but rather to set son against father and daughter against mother.

McLaren assures that he would not have as much of a problem with the song if “the foe” had been identified with his own preferred bogeymen such as greed, racism, domestic violence, or apathy. But aren't those things that nearly all Christians oppose when these evils are defined in a traditional sense irrespective of whether one views oneself closer to one of the primary dichotomies of either Fundamentalism or Progressivism?

A primary danger of the Emergent Church movement is how it often defines terms in ways that catch the unsuspecting off guard. For example, corporate greed is often defined as little as simply making a profit or those participating in a business undertaking keeping most of their financial reward for themselves without most of it siphoned off in taxes or in the form of assorted bribes more commonly referred to as contributions to mollify an assortment of radical activist groups.

Likewise, “racism” becomes little more than failing to blame Whitey for the preponderance of problems gripping the contemporary world and that certain minorities should be excused for their substandard behavior. Domestic violence is downgraded simply to mean raising your voice in response to a nagging banshee that first raised her voice at you.

Nearly all rational Christians deep down want to diminish the impact of these evils when they actually exist in the world in order to make it a better place the few short years we reside here in comparison to the eons of pending eternity. However, from McLaren's emphasis for a number of years now, one has to stop and wonder if this particular thinker actually believes that this world is all that exists.

For along with “Onward Christian Soldiers”, it seems that Brian McLaren has a particular disdain regarding hymns emphasizing and teaching about Heaven. This vehemence runs so deep that, in this article, McLaren admits that the first lyrics he mangled in the name of propaganda were actually to “I'll Fly Away”.

In that particular song, the composer says that, in a few short days when his life on Earth is through, he'll be flying away to Glory. In the McLarenite reworking, the emphasis is instead placed upon how “I'll Get Involved” in which the theologian urges the faithful “not to evacuate but to engage and transform”. “Transform” is usually a euphemism how everyone else (with the exception of the religious and cultural elites who will continue to enjoy their posh lifestyles as vanguards of the proletariat in classic Soviet tradition) ought to have what they've worked to accumulate redistributed largely to those that often did not toil away in a similar manner.

Admittedly, there are a number of Christians that are, as is said, so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good. However, one must ask is McLaren's problem with songs that misinterpret Biblical doctrine sound teaching and theology itself?

When “I'll Fly Away” says that when life on Earth is through that the composer will fly away, such a declaration is not a call for the passive resignation and detachment of the Eastern mystics. McLaren would probably have little problem with that spiritual methodology when it came to emphasizing existential inwardness over objective creedal dogma or when the time came to separate people from their possessions during the great redistributive upheaval advocated by religious leftists.

Instead, the song is a realization that life here is short at its longest but that we at least have somewhere else worthwhile to go if we profess Christ as Lord and Savior. That is the essence of divine revelation.

James 4:14 reminds that life is but a vapor. Job 14:1 laments, “Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.” Psalm 90:10 establishes that the average lifespan is three score and ten years and four with sorrow and suffering.

Yet Jesus assures in John 14:2-3 that He goes to prepare a place for us and that in His Father's house there are many mansions. If, as McLaren seems to teach and imply, the fullness of Christ's kingdom is in the here and now of this world rather than in the future glory of the Celestial City, we had better see what we can do about getting a refund from the Almighty.

To those steeped and even mired in pious verbal formulations, such a sentiment might sound overly blunt as they claim to be satisfied with a Jesus they perceive to be primarily about tender moral axioms. However, I Corinthians 15:19 boldly declares that, if only in this life we have hope, of all those in the world we are the most miserable and pathetic.

McLaren further conveyed that many of these songs that emphasize the transient nature of this temporal existence plant the worldview presuppositions that lead to the environmental abuse that put the planet in peril. But what about McLaren's own globetrotting lifestyle as he hops from location to location spreading his borderline apostasy?

McLaren doesn't simply sit at home writing books or Internet postings to advance his ideology. An inordinate amount of fossil fuels are consumed to enable him to speak at venues as divergent from one another as Australia and Great Britian.

Nor in his days of pastoral ministry was McLaren merely a humble storefront or country preacher. McLaren's suburban Washington congregation (interesting how suburbs are evil when inhabited by those valuing free market exchange but perfectly acceptable when inhabited by Rolls Royce revolutionaries) took what was once a productive farm and converted it into a religious entertainment complex. Yet, in a podcast a few years ago addressing environmental issues, McLaren lamented how it was somehow an abomination in the eyes of God that people live within four square walls.

Every movement that wants to persuade others as to the superiority of a particular set of values at one point or another utilizes music in order to do so. Perhaps it is a sign of the theological bankruptcy of the Emergent Church that its foremost spokesman feels that the only way to do so is to hijack the joyful noise of a tradition on surer dogmatic footing.

By Frederick Meekins

Technocrats Fret Hitler Quote Exposes Modus Operandi

A popular truism holds that those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

On the surface, that insightful observation might apply to those that know the factual details of history but refuse to embrace that field of study's numerous object lessons.

However, for the aspiring tyrants, oligarchs, and elites eager to exert their control over a targeted population, it can be just as easy to censor and oppress those examples most likely to arouse suspicions those advocating nefarious agendas might otherwise prefer remain dormant.

Through the horrors of the Holocaust, the lives destroyed or ruined as a result of the Second World War, and the nightmarish curtailment of civil liberties that took place in Germany under the auspices of the Nazi Party's, mere utterance of the name “Adolf Hitler” stops the discerning and reflective in their tracks to take stock of what is being said so that life and liberty might be preserved.

For what happened under the oversight of this particular dictator saw one of Europe's most advanced nation's transformed into one of the most brutal regimes this world has ever known.

Given the scope of the atrocities perpetrated during the Nazi era, the average person often concludes that this organization must have must have stormed into office with only the most brutal and violent of tactics that only the most courageous were willing to withstand.

And while these were always the stock and trade of the most diehard of Nazis, the movement was also able to warp for its own purposes those aspirations of the human heart towards which nearly all have a desire.

Some of the dicta propagated sounded disturbingly similar to the public service announcements of our own day.

In the attempt to draw attention to the subtle spiritual war waged at the worldview level, Life Savers Ministries sponsored an Alabama billboard that consisted of a picture of a group of children and two contrasting quotes.

One attributed to Adolf Hitler read, “He alone who owns the youth gains the future.”

The second from Proverbs 22:6 admonished, “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Put up on a Friday in June 2014, the billboard was taken down by the following Tuesday as a result of the ensuing hullabaloo.

The ministry's founder was quoted in an account appearing in the Columbia Ledger Enquirer as responding, “We are pulling the billboard and actually never intended to cause confusion...Herbert Hoover would have been a far better one to quote when he said, 'Children are our most valuable resource'. We are a children's organization and had honorable intentions and nothing else.”

Granted, it is easy to cave when tolerancemongers are eager to rip out one's throat (possibly even literally with the threats of violence such fanatics often make in the name of peace, understanding, and inclusion).

However, what this pastor or evangelist should have done is to use this incident as what President Obama would call a “teaching moment” when the Chief Executive desires to lecture the American people in an exceedingly condescending manner.

Glenn Beck's yeoman's efforts to the contrary in struggling to educate the population as to the dangers of 20th century Progressivism, but why doesn't anyone get all exercised over this Herbert Hoover quote?

For shouldn't those seeing this alternative quote get jacked out of shape over children being dehumanized to the level of a resource like coal or, in this era of mass legalization, industrial hemp?

A resource, after all, has no will of its own and little to no rights.

The purpose of a resource is to be shaped, utilized, and discarded by those to whom in belongs once the owner or those holding title to it see fit for their own benefit.

Perhaps failure to notice that is an indicator of just how conditioned many of us have become to the statist mindset. Such a concern is similar to that unsettled by how dangerously close our world in general and our country in particular are on the verge of mirroring the early days of Nazism.

Of course, at this point, we are not close to placing the assorted undesirables onto boxcars.

But there are signs all around that such a worst case scenario is not beyond the realm of plausibility.

Government agencies whose sole distasteful purpose is to simply and dispassionately collect revenue are use to suppress speech prevailing elites find distasteful.

Millions of the unborn are snuffed out as an inconvenience by those who apparently didn't find it inconvenient to find the time for the carnal pursuit through which new life is brought into existence.

Thousands concerned over the revolutions in morality and lifestyle remain silent for fear of an act as innocent as a donation to a perfectly legal organization could one day be used against them as grounds for terminating employment.

Swarms of supposedly “youthful” foreigners are detained for who knows how long in government warehouses because a militarized or enclosed border is supposedly less humane.

By contrasting the rhetorical similarities between the Book of Proverbs (a source of world religion's most profound wisdom) and Adolf Hitler (a personification of fallen man in his most unredeemed states), one is forced to confront the two basic paths a child can be led down as they make their way towards their eternal destination.

Parenting is not a spectator sport.

Like it or not, the soul of each child will end up in the hands of one of the two great forces waging war for the ultimate allegiance of mankind.

Without a doubt, once in Satan's grasp, though not an impossibility to be freed by the infinite compassion of the works of Christ's death upon the cross and His resurrection from the dead, it becomes all the more harder and complex for the individual to accept this free gift of salvation there for the asking.

By Frederick Meekins

Baptist Functionary Suggests Popularity A Standard In Culpability

In a podcast, Southern Baptist intellectual Albert Mohler praised the conviction of former House Speaks Dennis Hastert on assorted financial manipulation charges resulting from little more than withdrawing below a certain amount of his own funds in the attempt to avoid triggering certain reporting mechanisms.

Mohler said the case is an example of the principle of your sins finding you out. The funds were part of a coverup linked to carnal improprieties Hastert allegedly took with the underaged decades ago.

Interesting how Mohler lets things slides by when his pal C.J. Mahaney was involved in a similar scandal.

Of the pastor that ought to be disgraced, Mohler heralded Mahaney as one of the great Evangelical leaders of the 21st century.

Given that Mohler seems to indicate that leniency should be extended to Mahaney because as Mohler declared at a pastor's conference attended by both of them that Mahaney has “10,000 friends”, one must ask would Mohler side with Barabass over Jesus?

By Frederick Meekins

Headline Potpourri #88

One of the murdered at the Orlando night club was a 49 year old mother of eleven. It was tragic that she was murdered. But shouldn't she have been at home taking care of her children instead of partying in a sleazy bar until the wee hours of the morning?

The transcripts of the Orlando terrorist's call to 911 have been released, but not without delay and controversy. Interestingly, in his tirade not a word was uttered against homosexuality. This raises a number of concerns for Christians as our freedoms are continuously curtailed in the name of security and social cohesion. For example, how long until believers are accused of anti-gay hate speech for merely saying all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and that Jesus is the way and the truth and that no one comes to the Father but through him without even referencing a particular lifestyle orientation?

There is no pleasing some people. In a commentary transcript posted on his website, columnist Cal Thomas confesses that he has grown weary of the constant attacks on the part of certain conservatives in general and Christians in particular against Donald Trump. How soon some forget history, including their own. For not long ago, was not Thomas at the head of the pack lamenting the danger of the American electorate seriously considering a reprobate like Trump? Thomas writes, “The virtue of critics is supreme.” It has certainly earned Thomas a comfortable living. Apparently so much so that the pundit quite regularly brags about his vacation home in Ireland. In “Blinded By Might” did not Thomas warn of the dangers of Christians compromising and diluting their principles for the sake of short term electoral advantage? Perhaps Thomas ought to explain why this is apparently no longer the case within the span of a few short weeks.

In saying that the best defense against terrorism is love and unity, what Attorney General Loretta Lynch is really saying is that we aren't to vocalize opposition to either Islam or homosexuality or question the incompetency of the Obama Administration.

The church pastored by Stephen Anderson has lost its lease over callous remarks he articulated regarding the Orlando terrorist attacks. Stephen Anderson is often a buffoon. However, in this instance, that is secondary. Why should this business be allowed to take a stand for its principles but a Christian baker can be financially ruined for failing to provide the cake for a wedding that is just as much an affront to their particular convictions? Secondly, if one landlord can refuse to no longer rent to a particular church, what is to prevent another landlord from refusing to rent property to a mosque? Furthermore, if this is to be allowed, why should those in the real estate market be required to do business with racial minorities that the person for whatever reason might not be all that fond of?

If Second Amendment rights can be abridged by the placing of a citizen on a watch list, what is to prevent the government from placing alleged subversives on a “No Food List” or a “No Utilities List” in the name of maintaining social order and public safety?

Congressional Democrats not getting their way staged a sit in on the floor of the House of Representatives. You try refusing to obey the rules that the body imposes upon you and see what happens to you.

Regarding the Democrats that staged a sit in on the floor of the House of Representatives. Deny those old coots and biddies access to the toilet and see how long such foolishness would last in light of aging bladders and decaying prostates.

Interesting. The phrase "new world order" was articulated on Fox News over Britain's leaving the European Union. Yet if one invoked the phrase in relation to the formation of that transnational bureaucratic monstrosity you would be dismissed as a conspiracy theorist.

A Washington Post headline asks, “Is White Rage Driving Our Racial Divide?” Those weren't blond Swedes that flew the jetliners into the World Trade Center. Likewise, those weren't freckled Irish redheads that looted wig shops and liquor stores in Missouri.

Liberals ranging from Bernie Sanders to Loretta Lynch are insisting that we will never know why Omar Mateen went on a homicidal rampage in an Orlando nightclub. If so, don't they have to retract the allegations that the atrocity was a hate crime? For by its very definition, a hate crime is determined on the basis of motivation. It has been claimed that Mateen frequented the establishment. For all we know, given that he had a documented temper, he might have flown into a rampage because the proprietor watered down the booze.

The National Cathedral is to remove depictions of the Confederate Flag from its stained glass windows. The previous dean of the establishment considered himself a “Christian atheist”, meaning he's not to fond of God but doesn't dislike the Heavenly Father enough to give up his posh salary. Coupled with the fact that the Episcopal Church is well down the road of outright debauchery in terms of a number of moral and theological issues, how long until the edifice's Christian symbolism is also removed for offending the denomination's allied heathens?

If as a child you enjoyed playing with the Cobra toys over the G.I. Joe ones in that particular collection, will that be enough to land you on the no fly or gun registries?

Speaking on the depraved nature of Afghanistan, homeschool activist Kevin Swanson remarked that Jesus has not been pronounced there for centuries and that the land is in desperate need of missionaries. But as an Orthodox Presbyterian, doesn't he have to admit that, according to his own soteriology, if Jesus has not been there for that long isn't that the way the Savior wanted it with Him having little interest in Afghan souls?

In regards to the Attorney General's insistence that the best defense against terrorism is unity of opinion, did not Hillary Clinton once screech like a banshee that dissent was patriotic?

By Frederick Meekins

Will Russell Moore Become A Theological McLarenite?

It is often remarked that history appears cyclical in nature. By that, it is meant that, if one watches long enough, one can detect certain patterns that come back around from time to time. And with certain social currents seeming to speed by faster than ever before, often these “temporal ebbs” pour over a society or movement before those watching are even aware.

Today, Brian McLaren has branded himself as a Christian that advocates a number of positions that many other Christians would have a hard time accepting. For example, one can follow his spiritual path from a stance downplaying the relevance of the Afterlife such as the eternality of Hell and that the Kingdom of God is not so much about everlasting life in Heaven but rather about establishing utopia here on Earth to co-officiating at his son's gay wedding.

However, about 25 to 30 years ago, one would have probably have had to have been quite skilled at socio-theological forecasting to predict how far McLaren would have fallen off the deep end. For at around that time, McLaren was an academic with a specialty in literature laboring to establish a post-denominational church with the desire to get back to the simplicity of the Gospel truth all sincere Christians profess.

Those wanting to get in on what is near the ground level of a similar phenomena only need to watch Southern Baptist Commission On Ethics & Public Policy President Russell Moore. For while at the moment holding to a foundational theology sounder than Brian McLaren's, one can now hear Moore's articulation of a certain number of beliefs that is setting him down a path not all that markedly different than the one Brian McLaren has previously trodded.

This is evident in the column published by Russell Moore titled, “Why This Election Year Makes Me Hate The Word 'Evangelical'”. In those remarks, Dr. Moore announces that he no longer wants to be known as an “evangelical” because the connotations that have accrued surrounding the term subverts the cause of Jesus. Instead, Moore clarifies that he is a “Gospel Christian”.

As in regards to the other word games played by those in the arenas of public policy, who could possibly object to the term “Gospel Christian”? For such a phrase, much like the founding motivations of McLaren's Cedar Ridge Community Church, brings to mind the primary narrative of Scripture though which the remainder of divine revelation is understood and brought to life in the heart and soul of each professing believer.

But as in the case of other terms bandied about in the media such as “choice”, “equality”, and “tolerance”, those invoking the term “gospel” often do so for the purposes of imbuing it with meanings altered enough to undermine the traditional understanding as well as support for those one must view as one's opponents or adversaries.

Moore writes, “Part of the problem is that more secular people have for a long time misunderstood the meaning of 'evangelical', seeing us almost exclusively in terms of election-year voting blocs or our most buffoonish television personalities.” Moore is himself tottering close to becoming one of these if he is not careful.

What is so wrong if activist Evangelicals are seen primarily as a voting bloc and why is it the fault of the average Christian that realizes that now is the time for all good men to come to the aide of their country? For apparently Dr. Moore has no problem with reducing Evangelicalism or “Gospel Centered Christianity” to a set of platform positions when it apparently advances the agenda preferred by Russell Moore.

Moore continues, “The other problem is the behavior of some evangelical leaders. I have watched as some of those who gave stern and windy speeches about 'character' in office during the Clinton administration now minimizing the spewing of profanities, .... race-baitingm and courting white supremacists ... [and] debasing public morality and justice through the casino and pornography industries.”

Have not Moore and his closest associates not done the same thing? Donald Trump has verbalized gruff things that have gone over the line, particularly in reference to Megyn Kelly, Karli Fiorinia, and Heidi Cruz. However, at no time did Donald Trump “race bait”.

In regards to “race baiting”, all that Donald Trump did was call for the enforcement of U.S. immigration law and proffer as suggestions a number of proposals such as a wall that might protect the lives of Americans living in what has become a dangerous area. How is this any different than the policies implemented by the Jewish State of Israel which so many Evangelicals are so chummy with that they conveniently overlook the hostility of this competing world religion to Christianity's most fundamental tenet that Jesus is both Messiah and God?

If Russell Moore is going to stand rigorously by the principle that it is essentially sinful for ethnic groups or nationalities to advocate policies that are more favorable to the particular group in question, instead of sitting on the board of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, shouldn't he resign from that position and publicly repent of the organized ethnocentricism he goes out of his way to condemn when it is supposedly engaged in by White people? For in his column, Russell Moore condemns Donald Trump for courting White supremacists.

Mistaken as that pernicious ideology is on a number of points, perhaps disaffected Conservatives and even Evangelicals have decided to give that disreputable element a hearing because many average Americans that have never done a thing to injure a Black person or another minority are fed up with churches and denominational leaders that live higher up the socio-economic ladder beating the mere pewfillers over the head about how horrible Black folks and illegal aliens have it. That message is further compounded by the assumption promoted that somehow the average American is at fault for the misery allegedly endemic among these supposedly oppressed demographics when in reality such is often the result of many in these particular ethnicities failing to exercise self control and a little delayed gratification.

The sincere Christian is obligated to admit that Donald Trump is hardly a role model when it comes to important aspects of his individual character. However, it seems that bold “Gospel Christians” such as Dr. Moore are as guilty of the selective outrage that he has accused his coreligionists of when it comes to certain celebrities and public figures.

Some Christians might have gotten a little cozy with a candidate that wasn't quick enough to distance himself from those perceived as White supremacists (which in this era run amok in political correctness can be defined as little as failing to commence the automatic self-denunciation for simply being White as command of entrenched elites and social engineers). However, a number of Southern Baptists with whom Moore is closely associated are disturbingly reluctant to distance themselves from C.J. Mahaney.

To say that C.J. Mahaney is a controversial pastor would be an understatement. Not only under Mahaney's ecclesiastical leadership did child molesters get by relatively unscathed. He also ran the Covenant Life Church he pastored in Gaithersburg, Maryland along the lines of a cult.

For example, it was not enough for members to show up regularly for the Sunday morning and even the Sunday evening services. They were also expected to participate in a number of prisoner of war style encounter groups referred to as discipleship meetings where they were to spill their innermost secrets included as to how they kept their homes.

Moore writes, “We have been too willing to look the other way when the word 'evangelical' has been coopted by heretics and lunatics. This sort could deny creedal Christianity and gospel clarity with impunity, as long as they were on the right side of the culture war. Thankfully, this sort of evangelicalism is not the future.”

Perhaps Dr. Moore might prefer an Evangelicalism where believers are to overlook any number of abuses on the part of those that articulate not only the required doctrine but also a number of additional peculiarities to let it be known in the process how much they despise the traditional American way of life. Usually such statements take the form of detailing how horrible White people are and how the institutionalized church ought to exercise direct control over areas of your personal life over which God did not originally provide much detail other than a few broad principles He'd probably rather you figure out on your own how to implement.

Like Brian McLaren that went down this path before him, Russell Moore possess the ability to articulate his particular understanding of the Christian faith before a number of generational demographics. It is just unfortunate that each of these figures has grown increasingly liberal as this ability has earned each of them wider circles of acclaim.

By Frederick Meekins

Audio: Hipster Nazarene Insists Daily Bathing Perpetuates Western Imperialism

Audio: Headline Potpourri #85 A

Anti-American Rhetoric Pervades Even Conservative Denominations

On an episode of Issues Etc. examining pop culture apocalypticism, Lutheran Minister Jonathan Fiske admonished that believers need to get away from an American Republican view of Christianity that we are meant to live a good life here and now to a ripe old age after which we go on to our eternal reward in Heaven.

Interesting how the default term to denigrate these days out of the mouths of so many professional relgionists is “America”.

Furthermore, is his enunciation of the term “Republican” also invoked to besmirch the ideological proclivity of those assembling under the banner of the GOP to believe that the path towards the broadest swath of prosperity for the greatest number is to be found in individuals for the most part left alone to pursue their own well being, dreams and callings?

Does Rev. Fiske intend to cast as much aspersion upon an American Democratic view of Christianity that instead sees the path to a society approaching something akin to justice as one where the individual is nothing more than a cog in whatever group one happens to be a part of for the purposes of the government dispersing its largess to favored demographics and constituencies?

Furthermore, is the desire to maximize pleasure and evade misery necessarily a distinctively American characteristic?

Or is it that America through the blessings of the Almighty has been more successful than most regimes in achieving this most desirable yet elusive state of affairs?

For one will find that the average Third Worlder (unless brainwashed by the likes of fanatic Islam) is usually as averse to pain as most Westerners.

It is just that their respective society has not been as successful in alleviating these vicissitudes.

Often those given towards ostentatious verbalized declarations of their own piety articulate a willingness to welcome increased suffering.

However, was it not the God such souls claim as their primary loyalty the one that imbued part of His creation with that mysterious quality known as life along with a desire to see that distinct gift continued for as long as possible?

Though it may be ended as a result of a wide variety of intervening contingencies, if the believer strives to live by these principles God has established in the social sphere, won't the odds be in your favor for a life characterized by a bit less trouble?

After all, does not Scripture urge one to honor your mother and father so that your days upon the Earth might be long?

That text even admits it is a Scripture that dangles before the hearer a carrot in order to encourage compliance.

By Frederick Meekins

Pope Downplays Islamist Invasion

In an interview downplaying the Islamist invasion of the West, Pope Francis assured in a La Criox interview that he has seen “Muslims come to venerate the Virgin Mary and St. George.”

That doesn't cut it.

Unless you believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved, you are still going to Hell no matter how highly you think of His earthly mother.

She was, after all, a sinner in need of a savior like every other human being.

In the same interview, the Pope went on to assert that the state must be secular and that the ones that are confessional in nature in that they adhere to an established creed end badly.

So, as a sovereign state of its own, does this assessment also apply to the Vatican?

Will those of a mindset similar to Ian Paisley or Jack Chick at their most militant be invited to establish a print shop on Vatican territory as a symbol of this dedication to pluralism?

by Frederick Meekins