Dear Alt-Righters, Stop cloaking your hate in the Christian flag please.

I saw something that seriously hacked me off, it was in this:

Hannah Gais / Splinter: Leaked Emails Show How White Nationalists Have Infiltrated Conservative Media:

The quote:

Bennett elaborated on this strategy in an email from April 14, 2016. In response to a Commentary article on white nationalist efforts to take over conservative media, he argued that the present political situation worked in the movement’s favor. For one, he wrote, there was no way for establishment conservatives to act as a “gatekeeper” against them. “No one owns the commons of conservatism, and so it’s extremely vulnerable to outside subversion,” he observed. “This subversion would not have been able to occur without the Internet. Praise be.”

That “Praise be” is short for Praise be to the Lord. It is Christian saying, and to see these bigots use this, totally disgusts me.

Therefore, I have an open message to the “Alt-Right”, stop using Christian terms intertwined with your;…. and let’s just be real, it is really….White Supremacist, Anti-Semitic drivel that you all love to spill.

Your beliefs are not Christian, there are not Christ-like and I truly believe that if you actually made it to Heaven, Jesus would truly say, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” (Matthew 7:21-23)

Others: Lawyers, Guns & Money

How to and how not to address the subject of reparations for slavery in America

First the proper, dignified, and intelligent way to argue against reparations for Slavery.

And there’s the is the stupid way, as presented by one of the stupidest people in Conservatism today: (Via the Daily Beast)

If this is the best that the Republican Party and/or The Conservative movement can come up with, we’re screwed. She’s really giving Ann Coulter a run for her money.

Video: Tucker Carlson says, “War with Iran will end Trump’s Presidency”

Looks like me and Tucker Carlson think much alike.

Tucker is right, if we move against Iran, it’s over for Trump and possibly even America.

There goes Rev. Jerry Falwell’s career as a Pastor

Hoo boy, this is going to be a bombshell of a revelation for the Evangelical Christian World. If it is not, it should be.

Via Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Months before evangelical leader Jerry Falwell Jr.’s game-changing presidential endorsement of Donald Trump in 2016, Falwell asked Trump fixer Michael Cohen for a personal favor, Cohen said in a recorded conversation reviewed by Reuters.

Falwell, president of Liberty University, one of the world’s largest Christian universities, said someone had come into possession of what Cohen described as racy “personal” photographs — the sort that would typically be kept “between husband and wife,” Cohen said in the taped conversation.

According to a source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the person who possessed the photos destroyed them after Cohen intervened on the Falwells’ behalf.

The Falwells, through a lawyer, declined to comment for this article.

Cohen, who began a three-year prison sentence this week for federal campaign violations and lying to Congress, recounted his involvement in the matter in a recording made surreptitiously by comedian Tom Arnold on March 25. Portions of the recording — in which Cohen appeared to disavow parts of his guilty plea — were first reported April 24 by The Wall Street Journal.

The Falwells enlisted Cohen’s help in 2015, according to the source familiar with Cohen’s thinking, the year Trump announced his presidential candidacy. At the time, Cohen was Trump’s confidant and personal lawyer, and he worked for the Trump Organization.

The Falwells wanted to keep “a bunch of photographs, personal photographs” from becoming public, Cohen told Arnold. “I actually have one of the photos,” he said, without going into specifics. “It’s terrible.”

Now, Trump loyalists will dismiss this as another lie from someone what’s reputation is in question. But, if that Church Falwell Pastors and the evangelical world is smart, they’ll hold him to account about this.

Others: Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, Splinter, Axios, The Week, Daily Kos, Washington Times, The Daily Caller, ABC News and Mediaite

Sexual Abuse in the Baptist Church

This is something I know too well about.

From the Houston Chronicle:

Thirty-five years later, Debbie Vasquez’s voice trembled as she described her trauma to a group of Southern Baptist leaders.

She was 14, she said, when she was first molested by her pastor in Sanger, a tiny prairie town an hour north of Dallas. It was the first of many assaults that Vasquez said destroyed her teenage years and, at 18, left her pregnant by the Southern Baptist pastor, a married man more than a dozen years older.

In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where she and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers. Vasquez, by then in her 40s, implored them to consider prevention policies like those adopted by faiths that include the Catholic Church.
“Listen to what God has to say,” she said, according to audio of the meeting, which she recorded. “… All that evil needs is for good to do nothing. … Please help me and others that will be hurt.”
Days later, Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform.
The abusers haven’t stopped. They’ve hurt hundreds more.

Read the rest

This story is a personal for me and it does hit home quite a bit. When I was 9 years old; a man, who is now deceased, attempted to molest me in a Independent Baptist Church’s School. This school has been closed for many years. But, the mental scars from this, have never left me.

The Pastor of this now defunct Baptist Church ended up resigning in disgrace over an adultery scandal. What I will say to those conservatives who will dismiss this as an attack piece of Christians, is this: This story is very true and it is one that I know too well about. The abuse, the attempt to cover it up and put blame on the victim are all too real.

The sad part is that there is not much that the Southern Baptist Convention can do about it. As the bylaws of the SBC are designed as such, that the SBC is merely a Missionary Organization and does not control their local Churches. It is simply a missionary support clearing house, of sorts.

My prayers are with these victims and their families. I know the pain, I have been there and it is very terrible.

Others:

Russell Moore and The American Conservative

Inching Closer to the Mark

WSJ reports that now some businesses are refusing to take cash money in America and in the U.K.:

Sam Schreiber was mid-shampoo at a Drybar blow-dry salon in Los Angeles when someone from the front desk approached her stylist with an emergency: a woman was trying to pay for her blow-out with cash.
“There was this beat of silence,” says Ms. Schreiber, 33 years old. “She literally brought $40.”

More and more businesses like Drybar don’t want your money—the paper kind at least. It’s making things awkward for those who come ill prepared. After all, you can’t give back a hairdo, an already dressed salad or the two beers you already drank.

The salad chain Sweetgreen has stopped accepting cash in nearly all its locations. Most Dig Inns—which serve locally sourced, healthy fast food—won’t take your bills either. Starbucks went cashless at a Seattle location in January, and at some pubs in the U.K., you can no longer get a pint with pound notes. The practice of not accepting cash has become popular enough to catch the attention of American lawmakers.

Ms. Schreiber was tempted to wait and see how the Drybar employees would handle the situation with the customer, who had no credit or debit card with her; instead, she intervened from the shampoo bowl. “I said, ‘I can just pay for her and she can give me cash or Venmo me,’ ” she says.
A few moments later, one of the employees came back to hand her the $40 and expressed thanks on behalf of the stranger. The staff also offered her a second mimosa, which are free to customers. “I kind of wanted to be, like, I should get a free updo or something,” she says. “I basically was…the bank for them.” Drybar declined to comment.

Hmmm… Now where have I heard this before?

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live. And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
(Revelation 13:11-18 KJV)

It’s happening, slowly but surely.

Update: Here it is in graphic form:

CBN NewsWatch PM: December 12, 2018

Greg Stier’s warped idea about true Christianity

First of all, let me say this, this isn’t a “Christian Blog” or even a “Fundamental Baptist Blog.” It is a political one, which happens to be owned by a Fundamental Baptist Christian. Albeit, not a very good one, or one that’s active in Church at the moment. In fact, a while back, I removed all the Christian stuff from this blog. I explained it at the time here:

Here are the reasons why I have removed all that stuff. First of all, why I have removed the Christianity part of this blog is this right here: for one, I don’t believe I am even remotely qualified to sit and talk about Christianity in any sort of depth anymore. I am so far removed from the Church world anymore, that it isn’t even really funny. I am also not exactly lined up with the independent fundamental Baptist Church anymore. I have not attended one of those churches since 2006. Don’t misunderstand me I still love the King James Bible and I still am a fundamental Baptist doctrinally and only doctrinally.

I haven’t attended one of those churches in a long time and I’m not exactly enamored with the church world anymore. Some people would say that I am a backslidden Christian. I disagree. I don’t take any illegal drugs ,I do not drink, I do vape instead of smoke. But, I don’t go to church anymore. So, having that sort of section on my blog here; is kind of hypocritical in my book.

So, now that I have gotten that out of the way, I was looking at my RSS reader and I happened across an article at the Christian Post, the original is here and I felt the need to comment on it. A one Greg Stier seems to have a warped idea about Christianity and Salvation, and even Spirituality:

Traditionally, most Christian schools (in my opinion) tend to produce little legalists or hell-bent hedonists. Students either buy off on the rules of said Christian school (and begin to gauge their spirituality by adherence to the list of do’s and don’ts) or they rebel against the list and, often times, the Lord.

I experienced this personally in the small Christian high school I graduated from in the 1980’s.

My school had a lot of rules that the students were expected to keep. The guys had to have their hair super short and the girls had to have their dresses super long. Even the cheerleaders had full length skirts (but the weird double-standard was that the guys on the basketball team wore shorts that were so short they would make George Michael of Wham! fame blush.)

While these words were never said out loud it felt like they were constantly being preached, “If you keep our rules, read daily from the King James version of the Bible, memorize verses of Scripture word for word (as well as the verse references), go to church every time the doors are open, don’t have sex before you’re married and share Christ at least once a week then you’ll be holy…like us.”

I kept the rules, memorized the verses, shared the Gospel weekly, was there every time the doors were open, and just said “no” to drugs, drink and sex. My ability to adhere to the list was how I gauged my spirituality.

Down deep inside I had turned into a little legalist.

This legalism led to a consistent struggle with pride and lust in the deep dark crevices of my soul. It was a constant battle with the flesh, fueled by the aphrodisiac of legalism. As Colossians 2:23 reminds us, “Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom…but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

And many of my fellow Christian schoolmates didn’t even try to fake a facade. They just gave into the flesh. They cut sail and turned into hedonists. They mocked the rules. They drank and partied. They rebelled against the list as well as the Lord.

Not much has changed since the 80’s. I still believe that, for the most part, Christian schools tend to produce legalists or hedonists.

Oh, where to begin with this bunch of nonsense! First of all, I have a problem, with a so-called “Spiritual Leader” who refers to serving The Lord Jesus Christ as “gauging one’s Spirituality.” You are either Saved by the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ or you are not. There is no gauge, there is no good works versus Salvation. That is false doctrine.

Furthermore, I take offense to someone who mocks the King James Bible and those who happen to believe that it is the Word of God and mocks those who think that memorizing it, is a good idea. This man’s view of Christianity, the Bible, and Holy Living has become distorted and he is, as far as I can see it, an apostate. Now, is it the fault of that Christian School that those kids decided to rebel against the Word of God and the Lord? I think not. Is it the King James Bible’s fault that this kids decided to walk away from what they knew to be right? I think not. The truth is these kids CHOSE THEMSELVES to rebel and go their own way. Just like I did, when I backslide in 1992, after becoming bitter at a “Worship Leader” at Grace Assembly of God. I made that choice and nobody else.

Therefore, I make this statement, this man is blaming the wrong things and is attempting to promote a new, and possibly flawed way of promoting the gospel. There’s nothing new under the sun and this man’s attempt to place blame at the feet of King James believing Christians speaks of itself and him.

Erick Erickson writes a good one

I woke this morning and saw this piece here from Erick Erickson and he is anti-trump, I get that. But, this is much more than that. The part, I really can relate to, is this here:

The last year has reminded me that life is not fair, but God really is in the trenches with us. It reminds me of 2 Samuel 7. David intended to build a temple for God. But God says he does not need one. He was perfectly fine living in a tent, wandering a desert with his people. Our tent dwelling God wants a personal relationship with us. And frankly, after this past year, I crave that relationship more than any relationship with a politician, fan, or friend.

My time here is fleeting. So is yours. There’s no reason to hold on to grievances, no reason to avoid forgiveness, and no reason to devote our time to wasted idols. We are not all going to agree all the time on right and wrong. But life is too short not to show each other grace freely and move on.

This past year, I have recognized something important. The people who have turned politics into their god are the most miserable, malcontented people I know. Not everything is political and when you think it is, you have turned politics into religion. Life is not supposed to be political and death coming to visit me showed me how much more to life there is.

I can relate. When my Dad was on that ventilator and I didn’t know if I would ever see him alive again or now; my outlook changed and this blog, took a backseat, as did politics.

I wish Erick the best.

Bruce Ashford is right, Christians should give President Trump a chance

I saw this over at Fox News Channel and I must say, that I do agree with it.

Bruce Ashford writing over at Fox News Opinion says this:

We owe President Trump the benefit of the doubt. For Christians who supported his candidacy, this imperative can be taken for granted. But for others of us who did not support his candidacy, this imperative is a necessary reminder.

During the election cycle, we opposed Mr. Trump’s nomination and candidacy for a variety of reasons, including reservations about his ideological framework, policy stances, temperament, and rhetoric. Yet Mr. Trump was victorious, and after his inauguration, our pride might be tempted to justify our pre-inaugural opposition. It may be easy to interpret his post-inaugural words and works in a worse light than the evidence demands and, in doing so, say “See, I told you so.”

But we owe it to President Trump and to our fellow citizens to hope that he does well, to give him the benefit of the doubt, to affirm him and his Cabinet when they do well for our nation. We owe it to President Trump because he is our President, and one of the Bible’s few political imperatives is to give leaders the respect that is due to their office (Rom 13:1-7). We also owe it to our fellow citizens not to perpetuate the dishonest, disrespectful, and even toxic nature of this year’s political discourse.

He also writes:

We owe President Trump our honest criticism. Christians who opposed his candidacy will probably have no trouble recognizing the merits of this imperative. At the same time, Christians who cheered his candidacy might be tempted to ignore it, to their own detriment and to the detriment of our nation.

Our nation’s political discourse has broken down, in part, because many citizens and commentators have given up on politics. They’ve given up on the idea of politics as a bipartisan attempt to achieve the common good. In the place of it, they’ve embraced a winner-takes-all mentality that demonizes the opposition and lionizes one’s own party or candidate. Pro-Trumpers could be be lured into embracing everything Trump does, and agree with everything he says.

Just as the kings of Egypt and Persia needed Joseph and Daniel to speak hard truths to them (Gen 41; Dan 2), so President Trump needs us to speak our minds with honest criticism. The Proverbs remind us that we should speak the truth, even when the truth hurts, and that our truth-telling will bring healing (Prov 12:16-18). Because we are Christians who are committed to truth, and because we are citizens of a democratic republic in which we are encouraged to speak up for the common good, we owe him our honest criticism.

I believe this to be very much true; this blog exists for that purpose. I do not intend this blog to be a Trump defense site at all. I have blogged since 2006. I began as a left of center blogger; and ended up where I am now. I started blogging, because I was very unhappy at the way President Bush was managing with Iraq War back then. I was not then, nor am I now, a partisan blogger. I do not allow my political opinions to be swayed by emotion or by popular trends. I am man of principles. Some might disagree with those principles; but I do intend to stick to them, whether I have many hits on this blog or none. I will be compromise my principles for the sake of being popular.

Let me also add that we can criticize the President, without being personal about it and without the gutter sniping. I did criticize President Obama and Bush. But, I never said a WORD about their wives or their Children. There are bloggers who do this; and it is immoral. Just as well, if I have something to write about Trump, when I disagree with his actions; I will keep that criticism about policy, never about the man.

Most importantly ALL Christians of all stripes should be doing this:

For those of us who are interested in our nation’s politics, it’s easy to forget the importance of prayer. Ask yourself: when is the last time you prayed for President Obama, or for members of Congress? When is the last time you prayed for Mr. Trump or his incoming Cabinet? For many of us the answer is, “not very often” or “never.”

But the Bible is clear that Christians should seek God’s guidance for those in authority. The apostle Paul wrote to his protégé, Timothy, “Therefore I exhort first of all that all supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence” (1 Tim 2:1-2). That’s a direct command, one of the few clear imperatives the Bible gives us concerning government and politics.

We should be careful not to get so caught up in discussion and debate that we forget to appeal to the King who rules over the world’s rulers. “A king’s heart is like streams of water in the Lord’s hand: he directs it wherever He chooses” (Prov 22:1). Rather than trusting in a new President or in an opposing political party, we should be trusting the One in whose hands they govern.

I think sometimes it is easy to forget that God puts leaders in their place for a reason. It is the duty of the Christian believer to keep those leaders in our prayers, at all times; whether we agree with them or not.