An Important Letter

The media has long since abandoned any pretense of objectivity, but when they attack traditional values that many Americans still believe in, they need to be called out. On Tuesday, Newsbusters posted an article about a letter that MRC founder and president L. Brent Bozell III sent to ABC News after they did a hit piece on Speaker of the House Mike Johnson after he took his daughter to a purity ball, which celebrates the idea of delaying sex until marriage.

This is the content of the letter:

We write to object to an article attacking House Speaker Mike Johnson and his daughter Hannah for engaging in “notoriety” when he took her to a “controversial” event when she was 13.

At issue was a “Purity Ball,” a common celebration within the evangelical community to honor the ideal of chastity. The father aims to model how a Christian husband and father should behave. The daughter often signs a pledge to remain chaste until marriage. The daughter wears white to symbolize purity.

ABC could have, and should have, praised Speaker Johnson for his strong Christian faith. But you chose to go in the opposite direction. “This looks like a wedding,” your reporter Will Steakin wrote, quoting a news reporter from a German news segment in 2015. “But they are not bride and groom — but rather father and … daughter,” implying they are engaged in something dark. In that same dark tone, ABC projects as extremist Johnson’s wife Kelly stating “We don’t talk to her about contraception. Sex before marriage is simply out of the question.”

ABC could have, and should have, found Christian leaders to explain why many Christians believe in the importance of chastity and the beauty of the Purity Ball. But you chose the opposite. ABC selected as its expert someone who wrote a book touting how she “broke free” of “purity culture,” and argued Christian parents who teach their children to pursue abstinence are pushing “eternal girlhood” within a patriarchy.

Continuing the attack, ABC found another ex-Christian author who “sparked” the purity movement, but then “pulled his once-popular book from circulation and has apologized for any role it may have played in causing harm.” This article is pure religious bigotry. 

We call on ABC News to retract this story and apologize to Speaker Johnson, his wife Kelly, and their children.

Only a society that rejects virtue views the pursuit of chastity and holiness as controversial. Perhaps that is why no society on Earth endorses ABC’s world view.

Somehow I believe that we would have a much more stable society if more people endorsed the view celebrated at the purity ball.

American Ingenuity At Work!

The Daily Wire posted an article yesterday about a very unique church service.

The article reports:

In footage of two instances that went viral on Thursday and Friday, Christians gathered in the government-approved venues of a Pennsylvania Wal-Mart and a Las Vegas casino to engage in the worship that authorities have deemed non-essential.

In a Thursday tweet that was retweeted by Vice President Mike Pence, Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed posted footage of a worship service in a Vegas casino, writing, “Packed house at #EvangelicalsForTrump prayer & praise event in Las Vegas. NV Governor banned church services but casinos can operate at 50% capacity. So we are praying in a casino.”

…According to The Post Millennial, a similar event also took place recently in the grocery section of a Wal-Mart in North Versailles, Pennsylvania, a town near Pittsburgh. In April, Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolfe urged churchgoers to find different ways to practice their religion than gathering in churches. “Religious leaders are encouraged to find alternatives to in-person gatherings and to avoid endangering their congregants,” he advised. “Individuals should not gather in religious buildings or homes for services or celebrations until the stay-at-home order is lifted.”

Wolf took flak when he broke his own state’s coronavirus lockdown restrictions in June by marching in solidarity with hundreds of protesters in Harrisburg following the death of George Floyd. In Harrisburg’s Dauphin County, gatherings were restricted to 25 people or fewer at the time, according to Pennsylvania’s color-coded reopening plan.

The article concludes:

The coronavirus pandemic has increased the tension between civil and ecclesiastical authorities nearly to the breaking point in states such as California, where many congregations are defying Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s July 13 order that re-instated lockdowns for churches and other establishments deemed non-essential by state authorities.

This week, Ventura County sued Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Thousand Oaks, California, for holding no-mask, no-distance indoor services. Rob McCoy, its senior pastor, said, “We would be the first to be masked and distanced, and willingly so, if this were meriting it, and it doesn’t. This isn’t a health issue, it’s an ideological issue.”

Grace Community Church, a congregation in Los Angeles pastored by prominent author and theologian John McArthur, also made headlines last month when he and the church elders penned an extensive statement explaining why they believe the secular government did not have legitimate authority to forbid in-person assembly indefinitely.

Explaining how they complied with state mandates at first, the church leaders justified their civil disobedience in part by claiming that the lockdowns done in the name of public health were causing spiritual damage to their parishioners. “Opportunities for believers to serve and minister to one another have been missed,” they wrote. “And the suffering of Christians who are troubled, fearful, distressed, infirm, or otherwise in urgent need of fellowship and encouragement has been magnified beyond anything that could reasonably be considered just or necessary.”

We need to be very careful not to give up our civil liberties in the name of preventing the spread of a virus. We know a lot more about the coronavirus now than we did at the beginning. We have developed a few successful protocols for treating the virus, and we have a fairly good idea of who is at risk from the virus. It is time to reclaim our civil liberties before we lose them for good.

The Logical Next Step

We have seen a lot of statues come down in recent days. Some of the statues defaced or removed have no relation to what those removing them claim to be the problem. An abolitionist statue was defaced in Philadelphia and a statue of U.S. Grant was torn down. This really makes no sense. So where is it going?

CNS News posted an article today with the following headline, “Activist Shaun King Calls for Statues of ‘White European Jesus’ to Come Down.”

The article notes:

As Black Lives Matters protesters have targeted and torn down the statues of Confederate soldiers and any other historical figure they deem to be racist, leftist activist Shaun King is calling for “the statues of the white European” Jesus to be torn down.

In a series of tweets on Monday, King said that when Jesus’ family wanted to hide and blend in they went to Egypt, not Denmark.

“Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been. In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down,” he tweeted.

…King considers himself “a practicing Christian.” He said he is “an ordained minister and was a Senior Pastor for many years.”

“I am a practicing Christian. I am an ordained minister and was a Senior Pastor for many years.If my critiques of the white supremacy within the Christian world bother you to the point of wanting to kill me, you are the problem.Christian whiteness has ALWAYS been dangerous,” King tweeted on Tuesday.

Wow. I totally agree that Jesus probably did not have light hair and blue eyes. That characterization was made (I suspect) to make Him more relatable to the European population and eventually to the American population. He was Jewish. He probably looked Jewish (whatever that looks like).

Isaiah 53:2 says:

New International Version
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Statues and stained glass windows of the ‘white European Jesus’ do not need to come down. They are there as a visual aid. Hopefully most Christians know that they are historically incorrect. Anyone who reads the Bible can easily figure that out. I am sorry that Mr. King is so offended by these statues. If he is a Christian and a former Pastor, I am sure that he can find it in his heart to forgive the people who originated this idea and to leave the statues and windows alone.

Why The U. S. Constitution Matters

We are in the midst of a major health crisis. We need to be intelligent in handling this crisis. However, we also need to remember that our Constitution applies in ALL situations–crisis or not. Unfortunately some of our elected leaders have forgotten that.

The Federalist posted an article today about some of our elected leaders who have chosen to ignore the Constitution in dealing with the coronavirus.

The article reports:

The most egregious example of this outpouring of authoritarianism was an attempt by Louisville, Kentucky, Mayor Greg Fischer to ban drive-in church services on Easter. On Holy Thursday, one day before Christians were to begin their most important religious celebrations of the year, Fischer declared that drive-in Easter services would be illegal.

To remove all doubt about his seriousness, he also threatened arrest and criminal penalties for anyone who dared violate his order, and in an Orwellian twist, invited people to snitch on their fellow citizens. Fischer justified this by saying it was “to save lives.”

Thankfully, a federal judge made short work of the mayor’s idiotic power-grab, issuing a temporary restraining order against the city of Louisville on Saturday, writing so as to remove all doubt, “The Mayor’s decision is stunning. And it is, ‘beyond all reason,’ unconstitutional.”

There are other examples of this overreach:

…That’s a good start, but the targeting of churches, while undoubtedly the most offensive overreach by state and local governments, is hardly the only instance of government gone wild. In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has taken it upon herself to declare what items are and are not “essential,” dictating to grocery stores what they can and cannot sell as part of a sweeping order issued Friday.

Among the nonessential, and therefore banned, items are fruit and vegetable plants and seeds. Never mind that growing fruits and vegetables at home right now would help maintain social distancing during the pandemic, the governor has spoken and her word is law. (Lottery tickets, on the other hand, are still permitted.)

Beyond the fruit and vegetable ban, the governor’s order is an object lesson in the absurdity and inconsistency of arbitrary power and rule by fiat. Michiganders are banned from traveling “between residences” if they own a cottage or a summer home, but the ban only applies to Michigan residents, so an out-of-stater with a cottage in the Upper Peninsula could presumably still visit. The ban also still allows travel between states, so if a Michigander has a cottage in Wisconsin or Ohio, he can travel without fear of being arrested or fined by state police.

The article concludes:

Why did Whitmer tailor her order this way? Probably because she knows she has no authority to ban travel between states, or issue orders to Americans generally—no more than a mayor has the authority to shut down drive-in Easter services in his city.

That these officials need to be reminded of that, and in some cases restrained by federal judges, bodes very ill for America. Now more than ever, we need leaders who don’t just care about protecting us from the pandemic, but also care about preserving liberty in a time of crisis.

When we vote in November, we need to remember who was willing to abide by the Constitution and who used the coronavirus as an excuse for a power trip.

The West Needs To Realize That Not Everything Is A Two-Way Street

As the invasion of Europe continues, some European leaders are waking up to the threat. For anyone who does not believe that Europe is being invaded, look at the demographics of the ‘refugees’ seeking asylum there.

The following is taken from a WND article from Marcy 2016:

The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about what is happening in Austria. Austria has deported more than 50,000 Islamic illegal immigrants. The article states that Austria plans to shut down seven mosques and deport 60 Turkish-funded radical imams. Turkey is outraged.

The article reports:

Turkey immediately condemned Austria’s move to close the radical mosques as ‘racist’ and anti-Islamic.

Of course, this comes just weeks after Islamist Turkey seized ALL Christian churches in city and declares them ‘state property’

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took control of six churches in the war-torn southeastern city of Diyarbakir in his latest move to squash religious freedom.

It seems to me that if Muslim countries are not willing to allow religious freedom for Christians, western countries with their roots in Christianity should not allow religious freedom for Muslims. This might slow down the attempt to take over western culture by ‘refugee’ invasion to change the demographics of western countries. If you doubt the impact on demographics, compare the birthrates of western countries to the birthrates of the Muslim immigrants settling in them. In twenty years (or sooner)  Europe will no longer be part of western civilization.

 

 

Turning A Blind Eye Or Taking Action?

According to CBN News:

The Center for Global Christianity reports that around 90,000 Christians were killed for their faith in 2016.

Release says many of those deaths came in Islamic countries. The ministry says persecution of Christians has been increasing from Islamic militants, and from the governments in Islamic countries as well.

“Around the world Christians face an increasing array of violent persecutors. These include the brutal Islamic State in the Middle East, heavily armed militants in Nigeria and Hindu extremists in India,” warns Release Paul Robinson.

Recorded attacks from Hindu militants increased dramatically in India in 2016.

And the trends don’t look good in China either, where the communist regime has been cracking down on unregistered churches.

There is no reason to believe that persecution against Christians will decrease in 2017.

The Washington Examiner posted an article today with a few suggestions as to how various nations could make a difference:

A few actions nations are, or should be, pursuing in 2017 include:

  • Persuading countries such as Canada, Sweden, the Netherlands and others who have previously voted against genocide declarations to recognize the situation of Christians in Iraq and Syria as genocide.
  • Prosecuting members of the Islamic State (especially those returning to Europe and North America) for being a member of a terrorist organization, as well as for the genocidal crimes they have participated in.
  • Prioritizing Christian and other victims of genocide in their respective refugee programs.
  • Supporting the creation of a semi-autonomous safe haven for religious and ethnic minorities in the Nineveh Plain region of Iraq. In the U.S., this idea is being supported through Congressional Resolution 152.

These are just a few meaningful ways nations can get involved in supporting the persecuted in Iraq and Syria. Opportunities exist to do the same in other areas of the world.

The article at The Washington Examiner concludes:

Ignorance of the situation faced by Christians and other religious minorities is no longer an excuse for inaction. The time for debate is over. As Nuri Kino, journalist and founder of A Demand for Action, an international organization that advocates on behalf of Assyrian Christians, asked of the Dutch Parliamentarians we testified before last month, “Will you help us or will history only record your silence?”

The United Nations has largely ignored the genocide of Christians in the Middle East. Part of the reason for this is the fact that one of the largest voting blocs in the United Nations is the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). One of the goals of that organization is to implement Sharia Law worldwide (including its application in non-Muslim countries). Since part of Sharia Law includes the killing of infidels, the OIC would not have a problem with the killing of Christians. This is one of many examples of reasons why the UN has outlived its usefulness.

The Double Standard At Work

From Twitter:

bathroombillLet that sink in a minute. Michael Moore, Bruce Springsteen, and a few other celebrities have decided to boycott North Carolina because of House Bill 2, which says that men should use men’s bathrooms and women should use women’s bathrooms. That is their privilege. However, if they have the privilege of doing business (or not doing business) with whomever they choose based on whatever reason, do Christians have to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding? Do they have to host a homosexual wedding? Do Christians have the same freedom of association that Michael Moore and other celebrities do?