Friday, September 26, 2008

Baseball and Apologetics, etc.

Those of you that know me well, know I enjoy baseball. And this is my favorite time of the year. Hey, what's not to like? Pennant races, pennant chases, the drama. It is like the playoffs. But go figure, the Dodgers are in the playoffs - yeah, the Dodgers. So, it's a strange year right there. Rags to riches Tampa Bay is in. That's wild. The White Sox have imploded and the Minnesota Twins have overtaken them by a half game with three games to play. One of the two teams is staying home. The Mets aren't out of it, but they're moribund. The Milwaukee Brewers, hmm. I just can't figure out the Brew Crew. They could win nine in a row and lose nine in a row at the drop of a hat. The Angels and the Red Sox are still my choices for the ALCS. As are the Cubs and the Phillies in the NLCS. I'm picking the Cubs to beat the Red Sox 4 games to 2 in the World Series.


In other baseball news, my son made the Travel Ball Select All-America Honorable Mention team. (Yay!) We're so proud of him. The "Bambino" is on the national map now, and word comes from his coach that he has been nominated for the Rawlings Defensive Player of the Year Award, too. Congrats, Nile.


Since the beginning of the school year, I have been teaching apologetics to some homeschoolers in the metro Atlanta area and - I must say it - I am very impressed! The questions I get are intuitive and reasoned. Their responses are usually correct. These are some of the brightest kids in Atlanta for whom the "ontological argument for the existence of God" is encountered without raising an eyebrow. They've more or less absorbed most of the basic arguments of the apologetic task, so it is my job to immerse them further into the more sophisticated realms of the apologist's mein. It is on to Big Bang Cosmology, William Lane Craig, and Glenn Miller!

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Race II

More race questions, prejudice examinations, and bigotry analysis....and hey this is only a few strides after the starting gun.

Then there was this at an Obama rally: Blacks Against Obama!

But I feel somewhat exonerated from the self-hate charges that have been levelled against Black people who do not support Obama. Perhaps there are more of us out there. Hmmm. Anyhow, this quote just about sums me up:

Lots of Republicans harbor prejudices, too, but the survey found they weren't voting against Obama because of his race. Most Republicans wouldn't vote for any Democrat for president—white, black or brown.

AMEN.


Give me wise leadership, don't endorse the murder of infants, and lower my taxes. Be ready to fight for our nation Mr. President, and above all - always be proud of our country. OK?


Monday, September 15, 2008

African-American Christians: Race Trumps Life and Immorality

As most folks already know, Barack Obama holds a 95% lock on the favorability meter of African-Americans. (Whether or not they will show up at the polls is another thing. Traditionally, Black turnout is amazingly less than 50% of eligible voters!) The passion his candidacy has raised among all African-American demographics is very strong.

Yet and still, with 85% of all African-Americans living EAST of the Mississippi River, it is not likely their vote will affect an outcome of a state that is not already heavily Democratic and expected to vote Democrat in the November election. For example, New York, Illinois, and D.C. are rock-solid Democratic states whose urban city centers comprise the largest African-American populations anyway.

So now we read that African-American Christians are divided against their White Christian brothers and sisters over Obama. And who is leading the charge over this divide? Black Christian pastors! Amazing. What else is there to say but that this is a continued sellout of the faith? Black pastors, the last bastion of pro-life advocacy and anti-homosexuality in the Black community are jettisoning those positions as fast as Judas Iscariot's kiss and tell, thus proving that the Bible means very little to these people - and race seems to mean everything - in their abandonment of First Principles morality.

Black babies are being slaughtered at a record pace and all these people can do is stump for a politician who calls an unwanted baby "a mistake"?

The Gay Agenda is real, but these pastors seems to think they can play footsie with it and not find their Christianity completely compromised.

Well at least we can say that the end of the Civil Rights took place on our watch. If Obama is elected, which I am pessimistically predicting he will, at least the last crutch from race-based greivance mongering will be gone. We as a people will have "ascended to the mountain-top" of this world and the power of this world. A Black President.

But if Obama loses, the moral suasion of the Black Church will still have been destroyed for thirty pieces of silver and lack of wisdom.

Lord, do not forsake our people! Where is our Jeremiah?!

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Add Father Botros to Your Prayer List...

An article I read in Joel Rosenberg's blog intrigued and inspired me greatly. It is about the Coptic Christian, Father Zakaria Botros. From all accounts, he is an able Christian evangelist and apologist. Please add him to your prayer list because the work he is doing is surely the Lord's work. As any good Christian apologist will tell you, Islam to Christianity conversion is very, very difficult. But he is doing this most effectively and is almost unanswerable by Islam's best clerics.

1 Peter 3:13-16
"And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear: Having a good conscience; that, whereas they speak evil of you, as of evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ."

Are Black people inferior? - Darwin Thought So

Charles Darwin, the naturalist upon whose shoulders evolution sits, thought Negroes were inferior to Caucasians. This is the logical outworking of a Darwinist biological outlook and worldview. And he expected that there would come a day when Whites would so dramatically distance themselves from all other "inferior species". Why is this so shocking? If evolution is true, then racism is a natural response in aiding species survival. Ray Comfort got it right - Darwin was racist!

Thursday, September 4, 2008

Over 700 pages...

Well, the Sarah Palin speech was excellent; at least the British thought so. All kidding aside, the conservative in me just gushed. As far as I am concerned, she has been, by far, the hit of the campaign season. The lady has had five kids but you'd never know it with the energy she displayed. But you know something that really got me to thinking? Amidst the number of zingers and slam dunks she chalked up against the Democratic Party ticket was the fact that while Barack Obama had written two books - he has yet to author a single piece of legislation in either of his elective capacities as a state legislator at Springfield or as a senator in Washington.

How stark. Still, his "servant of the people" credentials are received by a large segment of the electorate as if it were gospel. Over 700 pages of written material about himself and his ideas, yet not one paragraph in legislative service to his constituents. To me, that was stunning. Yet, a large portion of America wants to make him the President of the United States.


So the battle is joined. May God continue to bless America, and it is my hope that when the world observes this portion of American political process in action they will also see a robust and fair debate. No need to be halt between two opinions. God has a way of flushing His people out for righteousness sake. May the opportunity to glorify God and uplift His name come often in this campaign. We often think we're electing this person or that leader, but the Bible says something differently.

Daniel 2:20-21
"Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God forever and ever: for wisdom and might are His: And He changeth the times and the seasons: He removeth kings, and setteth upkings: He giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:

Daniel 4:17
"This matter is by the decree of the watchers, and the demand by the word of the holy ones: to the intent that the living may know that the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever He will, and setteth up over it the basest of men."


Soli Deo Gloria and Baruch Hashem!

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

She's Keeping the Baby!

What is it with the Main Stream Media? Don't they get it? The unwed pregnancy of Sarah Palin's teenage daughter is a non-story for FIVE good reasons. As an evangelical, pro-lifer, pro-gun, pro-marriage, conservative Black minister, the I see nothing in this story to suggest that Sarah Palin is unqualified to be Vice President of the United States.

1. After all, Bristol Palin is keeping the baby. The liberal MSM cannot fathom this. Why not invoke a little Planned Parenthood action and abort this "mistake"as Obama called a paradigmatic potential pregnancy of his own daughters, right? But Sarah Palin, by virtue of having five kids, has set the example for her daughter that childbearing and by extension - child raising - is a fundamental virtue.

2. Bristol Palin and her boyriend plan to marry. The liberal MSM and the blogs cannot fathom this either. Marriage? They are aghast. Well, welcome to Mainstream America, MSM! In Mainstream America we have babies. We marry and are given in marriage. We would prefer that they were done in the proper order, as Christians ought to prefer, but should some exigency arise, we cover ourselves in Christian love. We don't run from God - we run to Him - and to the family structure He has put in place from the Garden of Eden to Bethlehem to Anytown, U.S.A.

3. The double standard is so alarmingly obvious. Doesn't the media care about being even-handed here? Cut the Palin's some slack. When the Clintons, the Carters, and even the Obamas, said, "Hands off our family!" to the media - they obeyed. And why won't the MSM or the liberal blogs touch the John Edwards "baby daddy" story? What's going on here?

4. What does this have to do with being VPOTUS? Crisis management perhaps? There is not a shred of anything political going on with this story.

5. The liberal bloggers and the MSM have terribly, terribly misunderstood the issues of LAW and GRACE on this story and on human fallenness in general. The MSM and the leftist bloggers think there's a whiff of hypocrisy in Sarah Palin's parenting because of this so-called "mistake". Christian children in a strong, Christian family shouldn't be fornicating, right? Well, let's go there. No one in their right mind - much less a Christian - would want their teenaged daughter pregnant at 18. But if the guy she was with loves her, promises to marry her, and will accept the responsibility of husband, father, and provider - so be it. Christians realize that what this young couple are doing is appealing to God's grace and mercy rather than running from it. Heh, looks to me like Mrs. Palin could enforce a shotgun wedding if she wanted to, know what I mean?.

But God's grace is applied here because in their own way, the Palin's understand the weightiness of the Law and how it's been broken. Their remedy is to acknowledge the kids's failure to abide by the law against fornication by accepting the consequences: have the baby and get married -even before they're fully prepared. Hey, if you're going to act like married folks, then get married. But you know what? God can and will bless them with a recovery - if they would but acknowledge their wrongdoing!

On the other hand, Liberals would flout the Law of God by denying there's anything morally wrong at all with fornication. Then they would compound the moral drama by aborting the baby, and thus destroying a life (tissue, they call it) rather than accept the Law's consequences. Consider this: in Islam, they would kill the young woman for this act - yet among liberals, they would kill the baby. Liberals see the Law of God as the problem and human autonomy as the standard. So since they cannot live within the Law of God, they live without it. Yet, they are exasperated that Christians even try to live within the Law of God - despite obvious human fallenness.

They are exasperated because A) they don't like the gravity of God's Law because they think sinning is much, more fun - or B) they don't like a condemning Deity over them giving them guilt-trips all day long - that's because they don't understand how amazing God's grace really is, or - C) they can't understand why anyone would not want to be like them!

Then there's the Black family that, in Solomon-like tension, tries to cut it both ways. Even the socially Christian among us accept the Law's consequences, but then we push the burden of those consequences onto the rest of the taxpayers by not requiring our sons and daughters to marry and accepting single parenthood and government social services as a matter of course. Or, chillingly, we go to the abortionists at a rate that would make Josef Mengele blush. These are facts. And as long as these remain our primary choices, the Democrats will always love Black people.

But when you understand Law and Grace - as you should if you are attending a Bible-believing church - you're not alarmed at the Palin's predicament 'cause you know it's gonna all work out - especially if you do right by God and His Word. Evangelicals and Christians in general understand this. The MSM doesn't. Liberal Bloggers don't. Black people - in the main - do not.

Yeah, I said it.


1 Corinthians 7:1-2
Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.

2 Chronicles 7:14
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Baruch Hashem and Soli Deo Gloria!