Thursday, September 3, 2009
Israel: The Canary in the Coal Mine
A very prescient article. Cliff May quotes liberally from the eminent scholar, George Gilder. Gilder is not a theologican, not an evangelical, not even a zionist, but he is someone who "gets it" with Israel in a different way than many have posited before. As I have said on many occasions on this blog, America and Israel are joined at the hip. As one goes - so goes the other.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Religion Under Attack II: Homeschooler ordered to Government school
Since I teach American History, Western Civilization, and Christian Apologetics to homeschoolers, I am keenly interested in this story. Divorced parents who cannot communicate usually wind up with a government solution that satisfies no one.
In this case it is being held - incredibly - that the daughter, under her mother's influence, holds her beliefs too "sincerely" and that this is a threat to her "socialization". I don't know if the ex-husband is a Christian or not. Perhaps he is or was. But the courts are to blame here. What exactly is the compelling government interest in this above-average student's socialization? Since when did the government get into the business of deprogramming beliefs?
From where I sit, this appears to be nothing short of a transparent government intervention against the deeply religious beliefs of a parent being transmitted to a child. What a shame the suit was brought in the first place, but the court's behavior in this situation is certifiably shameless.
What these government secularists don't realize is that once Judeo-Christianity is gone, America will fall.
In this case it is being held - incredibly - that the daughter, under her mother's influence, holds her beliefs too "sincerely" and that this is a threat to her "socialization". I don't know if the ex-husband is a Christian or not. Perhaps he is or was. But the courts are to blame here. What exactly is the compelling government interest in this above-average student's socialization? Since when did the government get into the business of deprogramming beliefs?
From where I sit, this appears to be nothing short of a transparent government intervention against the deeply religious beliefs of a parent being transmitted to a child. What a shame the suit was brought in the first place, but the court's behavior in this situation is certifiably shameless.
What these government secularists don't realize is that once Judeo-Christianity is gone, America will fall.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The cure for disease, etc., etc.
Seems there is no frontier science won't cross without rushing past an ethical boundary. From embryonic stem cell harvesting to human/animal "chimeras" to human cloning and now on to three-parent embryos. Ethics is virtually non-existent among scientists.
"The market" seems to determine the research. Whether privately funded or publicly funded - the issues are ethically very thorny. That is to say if governments who are answerable to its voters get involved with these types of bioscience endeavors it (or at least voices of conscience) can place limits in the name of bioethics upon certain types of forays into the bizarre. On the other hand if governments do not get involved, it becomes an "anything goes" laboratory. But when governments do get involved who have no qualms about killing the unborn - as is the case with our own government in power - the power to fund the bizarre and race past the ethical boundaries of life is made manifest.
Consider this latest breakthrough.
Another thing: was there ever any frontier science crossed that was not done using the "curing disease" catchphrase? People may argue that all research is worth a try to see if it can cure disease, but isn't it equally possible for the chemotherapy to be worse than the cancer?
Just thinking...
"The market" seems to determine the research. Whether privately funded or publicly funded - the issues are ethically very thorny. That is to say if governments who are answerable to its voters get involved with these types of bioscience endeavors it (or at least voices of conscience) can place limits in the name of bioethics upon certain types of forays into the bizarre. On the other hand if governments do not get involved, it becomes an "anything goes" laboratory. But when governments do get involved who have no qualms about killing the unborn - as is the case with our own government in power - the power to fund the bizarre and race past the ethical boundaries of life is made manifest.
Consider this latest breakthrough.
Another thing: was there ever any frontier science crossed that was not done using the "curing disease" catchphrase? People may argue that all research is worth a try to see if it can cure disease, but isn't it equally possible for the chemotherapy to be worse than the cancer?
Just thinking...
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Race V...or III
John Stossel's ABC blog article points out what I've already said would happen. What I did not predict is this president's thin-skinned reaction to criticism. In defense, his supporters have chosen to bring out the "big guns" early by branding his critics "racists".
Granted, there are racists in America who are critics of the president. But there are also - and I would be willing to say the vast majority of - critics that are not racist. But the presidents supporters haven't made this clear distinction in his defense. I am African-American. I am a critic of a biracial president's policies. Am I also a racist? Are my motives for criticism racist? Am I racist against his white half or his black half? Not sure.
This nation is being divided and sifted in so many unhealthy ways. We are very near to reaching the point of no return, of permanent division between Left and Right, between Red State and Blue State, between belief in God and unbelief, and between possessors and professors.
God grant us the discernment in these days of trial!
Granted, there are racists in America who are critics of the president. But there are also - and I would be willing to say the vast majority of - critics that are not racist. But the presidents supporters haven't made this clear distinction in his defense. I am African-American. I am a critic of a biracial president's policies. Am I also a racist? Are my motives for criticism racist? Am I racist against his white half or his black half? Not sure.
This nation is being divided and sifted in so many unhealthy ways. We are very near to reaching the point of no return, of permanent division between Left and Right, between Red State and Blue State, between belief in God and unbelief, and between possessors and professors.
God grant us the discernment in these days of trial!
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Physician, Heal Thyself!
You knew this was coming. Another attempt at capturing the moral highground on the health care debate. As a Black minister, I am not persuaded by a suddenly evangelical President's emotional plea for "righteousness" in the health care debate. Unfortunately there are too many liberal left preachers for whom the gospel is only a social gospel and far too many fellow conservative Black preachers who've traded their moral birthright for a mess of leftist porridge. Obama only preaches verses the Left likes.
In invoking a type of Good Samaritan or Cain & Abel principle of "I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper", he's attempting to biblicize the debate, when in fact the debate is solidly political. No one anywhere is against health care reform, Mr. President but a solid majority of folks are against his version of it.
Moreover, since President Obama has framed a political issue in moral terms and brought it to the table of the moral leaders of the nation, he must assume that the pastors agree with him on the role of government tout court. These few pastors may, but the congregations of most churches largely do not. I'd even say the Bible does not. In a cursory search of the scriptures, nowhere does Jesus appeal to Herod or Caesar to be that "brother's keeper" - but His appeal is rather to individuals in their everyday walk. Private people making private decisions to love their neighbors and provide for their needs is what the Saviour was appealing to.
In attempting to appeal to their hearts, Obama seems to have misread the wisdom of the American public, because in the minds of the vast majority of Americans, government cannot be the moral answer to moral problems.
Besides all that, when or if this president ever finds a church - then perhaps I'll listen to his biblical pronoucements. Until then it's "Physician, heal thyself!"
In invoking a type of Good Samaritan or Cain & Abel principle of "I am my brother's keeper and I am my sister's keeper", he's attempting to biblicize the debate, when in fact the debate is solidly political. No one anywhere is against health care reform, Mr. President but a solid majority of folks are against his version of it.
Moreover, since President Obama has framed a political issue in moral terms and brought it to the table of the moral leaders of the nation, he must assume that the pastors agree with him on the role of government tout court. These few pastors may, but the congregations of most churches largely do not. I'd even say the Bible does not. In a cursory search of the scriptures, nowhere does Jesus appeal to Herod or Caesar to be that "brother's keeper" - but His appeal is rather to individuals in their everyday walk. Private people making private decisions to love their neighbors and provide for their needs is what the Saviour was appealing to.
In attempting to appeal to their hearts, Obama seems to have misread the wisdom of the American public, because in the minds of the vast majority of Americans, government cannot be the moral answer to moral problems.
Besides all that, when or if this president ever finds a church - then perhaps I'll listen to his biblical pronoucements. Until then it's "Physician, heal thyself!"
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Health Care Debate - an Abortion update
This is the latest from Culture of Life about the abortion language and what is and is not in the health care bill currently.
Beware the "Health Advisory Board". If ever there was a dark, bureaucratic, amoral group under President Obama - it's this group. They are the Abu Ghraib prison guards of health care for the rest of us (Congress excluded). They will make Josef Mengele-like decisions that determine life or death over your aged parents and mine. And because Health Secretary Kathleen Sebellius - a staunch pro-abortionist - will appoint them, the group will be stocked with pro-death, amoral, bureaucratic judges whose decisions will have enormous power over Christians.
Pray for the salvation of many in these last days!
Beware the "Health Advisory Board". If ever there was a dark, bureaucratic, amoral group under President Obama - it's this group. They are the Abu Ghraib prison guards of health care for the rest of us (Congress excluded). They will make Josef Mengele-like decisions that determine life or death over your aged parents and mine. And because Health Secretary Kathleen Sebellius - a staunch pro-abortionist - will appoint them, the group will be stocked with pro-death, amoral, bureaucratic judges whose decisions will have enormous power over Christians.
Pray for the salvation of many in these last days!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Race IV...Gates as race victim
The media has been awash with talk about race since the arrest of Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in Cambridge Mass., last week and with President Obama's summary judgment of the whole affair as "stupid". To his credit the president has retracted his words as ill-chosen and wrong. But as I've said in a few earlier posts, race talk will not go away during the Obama administration. Why? For three good reasons:
1. The racial narrative of "African-Americans as victims" plays into white guilt
over issues of slavery and Jim Crow. Many Whites want to redress and fix these
historic grievances in the here and now and be absolved of guilt. And so long as
there are racial imbalances in life - perceived or real - they are judged to be caused by White privilege and advantage, thus Whites have something to continually "fix" or "repair" in the race "problem".
2. The racial narrative provides a powerful and convenient excuse for African-
American underachievement in many arenas - educational, economic, social, and cultural. Many Black conservatives, like John Mcwhorter and most notably the economist Thomas Sowell, have pointed out the failure of anti-achievement thinking where the racial narrative fuels a type of cultural defeatism. Why work hard to achieve and overcome if "the system" is perceived to be solidly rigged against you? Sadly, far too many African-Americans continue to think and act as if this is true.
3. Black liberals and intellectuals have vast economic interests to protect in the
racial spoils industry. Anti-discrimination is now big business.
This is not to say racism does not exist in the United States of America. It does exist - but nowhere near the extent to which it has existed in this country historically. But well beyond the extent it does exist, no matter how small it exists, there are entrenched social and political interests driving the amplification of race, racial grievance, racial profiling, and racial discrimination. With Blacks starring as perpetual victims, coupled with an industry geared to profit from racial thinking and racial bias, as the old Carpenter's song put it..."we've only just begun...."
One Day in the not too distant future, the nations of the world will be at peace under the banner and guard of the Prince of Peace. Only then we will see "race" for what it is and was - an artifice of difference designed to poison and undermine godly brotherhood.
Oh, by the way...the arresting officer, an Irish white guy named Sgt. Crowley, and the arrested professor, Henry Gates, an African American with an Irish heritage - are related!
John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
1. The racial narrative of "African-Americans as victims" plays into white guilt
over issues of slavery and Jim Crow. Many Whites want to redress and fix these
historic grievances in the here and now and be absolved of guilt. And so long as
there are racial imbalances in life - perceived or real - they are judged to be caused by White privilege and advantage, thus Whites have something to continually "fix" or "repair" in the race "problem".
2. The racial narrative provides a powerful and convenient excuse for African-
American underachievement in many arenas - educational, economic, social, and cultural. Many Black conservatives, like John Mcwhorter and most notably the economist Thomas Sowell, have pointed out the failure of anti-achievement thinking where the racial narrative fuels a type of cultural defeatism. Why work hard to achieve and overcome if "the system" is perceived to be solidly rigged against you? Sadly, far too many African-Americans continue to think and act as if this is true.
3. Black liberals and intellectuals have vast economic interests to protect in the
racial spoils industry. Anti-discrimination is now big business.
This is not to say racism does not exist in the United States of America. It does exist - but nowhere near the extent to which it has existed in this country historically. But well beyond the extent it does exist, no matter how small it exists, there are entrenched social and political interests driving the amplification of race, racial grievance, racial profiling, and racial discrimination. With Blacks starring as perpetual victims, coupled with an industry geared to profit from racial thinking and racial bias, as the old Carpenter's song put it..."we've only just begun...."
One Day in the not too distant future, the nations of the world will be at peace under the banner and guard of the Prince of Peace. Only then we will see "race" for what it is and was - an artifice of difference designed to poison and undermine godly brotherhood.
Oh, by the way...the arresting officer, an Irish white guy named Sgt. Crowley, and the arrested professor, Henry Gates, an African American with an Irish heritage - are related!
John 13:34-35
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
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