When Did Black Become A Christmas Color?

It has been said that socially Evangelicalism is five to ten years “behind” the broader culture. John Warwick Montgomery once remarked that America was where old German heresies went to die, meaning that eventually the intellectual refuse of the elite came to infect the American church no matter how reluctant the bride of Christ in the United States might have initially been to such doctrinal fads.

Back in the 90’s, Evangelicals looked on in astonishment as Postmodernists from lofty chairs in academia went about undermining the notion that one should not be judged by the color of one’s skin but rather by the content of one’s character. Instead. these deconstructionists suggested that one should be assessed primarily as a member of one’s herd and judged in light of either the sins or disadvantages of one’s forefathers.

As a result, whereas in years previous those of certain backgrounds struggled to take their place in and recognized as full members of society, the trend reversed itself and those skilled in exploiting past resentments were able to shame the majority into allowing certain demographic classifications to cordon themselves off as they saw fit while denying this proclivity to the members of the most numerous group. Though conservative Christians initially bucked such a trend by admonishing that it is ultimately the individual that Jesus died and rose from the dead for and will whom be judged, they too are now succumbing to this social pressure.

Among Evangelicals eager for the accolades of the elite, one popular refrain invoked to show just how tolerant certain leaders can be is that 11 am Sunday is the most segregated hour in America, bemoaning the fact that most Christians prefer to worship with members of their own ethnicity even if they do not harbor blatant ill will or hostility to their fellow coreligionists of different backgrounds. Upon closer examination, one will see that it is a condemnation few ashamed of being White are reluctant to level at minorities as well.

Despite the fact that many denominations do not have the demographic ratios those so obsessed with race to prove to the world that they are not obsessed with race clamor for, a number of them do have memberships consisting of a variety of ethnic groups. But instead of capitalizing on this situation by not harping on racial differences and allowing believers to find their own dynamic equality, those running these religious associations as their own private ecclesiastical syndicates refuse to let sleeping denominations lie and hope to accrue power for themselves by playing the same racial spoils game popular in more liberal circles.

Commemorating the birth of the Lord of all mankind and the Savior of believers from every nation, tribe, and tongue, one would think that all Christians could celebrate Christmas without reference to color. However, even this cherished festival is degenerating into a front for radical social engineering.

On December 2, 2006, the Mid-Atlantic District of the Church Of The Nazarene held an African American Christmas Dinner. To those conditioned into embracing such directives from their handlers without question, such an affair might not seem all that out of the ordinary. But unless chitterlings and collard greens are going to be the main course on the menu, does an African American Christmas differ all that appreciably from the Christmas of any other American group?

As to whether or not a denomination should be hosting such a function, we should ask ourselves would it be appropriate to convene a “Caucasian” or more precisely, a “European American Christmas Dinner”? If the prospect of such an event leaves you a bit squeamish (as it probably should), then why do we put up with or, shall we say, tolerate such extravaganzas when they are convened for groups more favored by the ruling clique?

In James 2, the believer is warned against showing favoritism and in I Corinthians 11, the church is admonished regarding these matters in reference to the Lord’s Supper and meals eaten in His name. If this command applies to something that may be earned such as wealth, how much more so in pertaining to a characteristic the individual has absolutely no control over.

by Frederick Meekins

A Review Of “Superman In The Eighties”

In light of “The Crisis on Infinite Earths” that rest asunder the parallel dimensions of the DC Comics multiverse, the 1980’s were a time of innovation and reinterpretation for the Man of Steel.

“Superman In The Eighties” is an anthology giving readers a taste of this costumed hero’s adventures on both sides of the Infinite Earths saga.

Rather than a comprehensive chronology, the compilation consists of a series of vignettes providing considerable insight into this beloved icon of contemporary American folklore.

A number of the tales included tug at the heart as much as they regale with action and adventure.

In one story published before the John Byrne “Man of Steel” miniseries where aspects of the Superman mythos were updated or tweaked, aliens transport Jonathan Kent through time to see what becomes of Clark in the future after his adopted father has already passed on.

In another, Superman confronts his own pride when the Specter reminds Superman that they are realms reserved for God Himself.

And in a third, Superman comes face to face with childhood versions of his creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster on an earth where alien invaders have manipulated the timestream to eradicate the concepts of heroism and imagination from human culture in order to make the earth easier to conquer.

“Superman In The Eighties” will make a valuable reference for any graphic novel library or comic collection.

by Frederick Meekins

Merry Bizarromas

In the Superman comics, Bizarro is a twisted clone of Superman that perceives things backwards such as bad being good, up being down, and left being right. As intense as the annual Christmas conflagrations have become over the past few years, it was only a matter of time before those wishing to stand for decency and common sense found themselves in an unsettling situation where the usual roles were reversed.

In a number of short stories I have written such as “The Schauungtown Chronicles” and “An U.N.I.Q.U.E. Individual”, an organization known as the Toleration Fellowship set in a world governed by an elaborate system of homeowner associations suppresses traditional religious expression on behalf of secularists and New Age mystics in the name of inclusion and diversity. The Toleration Fellowship uses as its insignia the upside-down broken-cross peace symbol.

In a case in Colorado, it seems these roles have been reversed. A woman in a homeowner association there was being threatened with a fine of $25 a day for hanging on her home on private property a wreath in the shape of the peace sign. A number of residents took offense because the peace sign can also be interpreted as a Satanic symbol celebrating the defeat of Christ.

And even though the connections between New Age peaceniks and Luciferians are not exposed as nearly as much as they ought to be, so what in regards to what this lady wants to hang on the side of her house? It’s not like she tried to hang this on the side of someone else’s house or painted a naked lady tied to an altar. It’s just a round wreath not that much different than anybody else’s.

This is America and private property should still mean something. However, if we dig below the surface of this story that tickles our Christmas cackles we will see a much more ominous threat here than even whether or not a beloved Christmas decoration conforms to acceptable standards and that issue is about out of control homeowner associations.

Those in the “all rules must be obeyed simply because they are rules even if they say toss your granny into oncoming traffic” crowd will argue that membership in these organizations is voluntary. Is it though?

For if the individual wants to live in a particular neighborhood, they are informed almost as an after thought in many cases once the real estate transaction is completed that they must render homage as a vassal unto his feudal lord if they desire to remain in their newly procured domicile. And like any other serf living on a manor, the member of the homeowner association is bound by a pledge of obedience to whatever rules and bylaws the peasant’s betters might decide to promulgate.

Those enthusiastic to have every detail of their lives micromanaged down to the smallest degree that, if these kinds of rules are not enforced, the order and aesthetics making these developments desirable places to dwell will not be maintained. However, from analyzing just how extensive these kinds of regulations have become over the years, one has to ask are these governing boards more concerned about maintaining order or imposing a uniformity of thought upon the residents.

For what harm can a wreath with a couple extra sprigs of greenery strategically placed cause to property values. However, to the totalist mind such a decoration poses a greater threat to the COMMUNITY than a rusted car up on four cement blocks with rats living in it.

In several press accounts, it was initially reported that a decoration interpreted as being against the war could not be countenanced since it might foments DIVISIVENESS, one of the few remaining offenses worse than INDIVIDUALISM with the only greater wrongs perhaps being “racism” or “homophobia”. Thus, conformity to the group norm even in matters not even related to decorum or safety become even more important than liberties once considered foundational such as free expression and conscience. Specifics of the Second Gulf War asides, funny, I thought those qualities were some of the primary reasons justifying intervention abroad.

So long as no one goes to slashing tires and stuffing dead cats into mail boxes, what’s wrong with a little neighborhood division as it will actually prove good for everyone in the long run. It is in areas where everyone is forced to swallow the expression of their convictions for fear o f incurring some kind of legal penalty or social sanction as authorized under speech codes against “hate speech” and the like that such violence and vandalism usually occur.

Eventually, the homeowners association backed down from taking action against the peace sign. Ironically, that is itself a disturbing sign from a certain perspective.

For the governing board did not ultimately back down from its position having realized they had infringed upon the property rights and the dignity of the individual homeowner but rather because of the intensity of the response to their initial decision. Thus, things are not determined to be right or wrong by their relation to some eternal unchanging standard but whether or not they conform to the group consensus. Or as my family, who even though they don’t live in a homeowners association, were informed by a neighbor with whom we had gotten into a verbal altercation that they did not have to respect our property because, “No one likes you all anyway.”

This year, the unorthodox Yuletide decoration will be allowed to remain. But what is to protect its hanger when public opinion turns; does it really then become wrong to hang whatever greenery one wants on the side of their domicile?

Apart from the salvation found only in His Son Jesus Christ, God’s greatest gift to humanity is none other than the freedom we enjoy as beings created in His image. Thus one of the most profound yet subtle forms of blasphemy is none other than handing this precious heritage over to either individuals or organizations that were never meant to exert control to such an extent over our lives.

by Frederick Meekins

Now Your A Bad Christian If You Don't Let Folks Rummage Through Your House

According to Kevin Swanson, now you are a rotten Christian if you don't let neighbors and strangers rummage though your house.

Swanson discusses the issue of hospitality in light of the Christmas season.

As expected, much of this is advocated from an intelligence gathering perspective so that ecclesiastical overseers and the like may gather a dossier as to what the individual under surveillance (er I mean being visited) is like away from more formal settings such as work or church.

I think some evangelist, pastor, or apologist ought to do a series on the neglected "mind your own business doctrine".

Frankly though, if you've had nothing to do with me the remainder of the year, don't bother with me at Christmas time (as well as with funerals and the like) because obviously you are not reaching out in friendship but rather out of some expectation of that I assuage your guilty conscience for treating me like dirt the rest of the time.

by Frederick Meekins

Mike Gallagher Sugguests Tossing Critics Of Bush Regime Into Detainment Camps

And I was called a nut and worse for my recent column pertaining to this under-reported topic.

"Putin Youth" Take To The Streets

To learn more about this movement known as the Nashi, check out their wikipedia entry. Sound a bit like a cross between the Hitler Youth and the SA or Freikorps.

Brezhnev Era Heralded As Russia's Golden Age

New Animated Star Trek

Syfyportal.com is reporting that a new web-based animated Star Trek is being proposed.

The six minute episodes will be set 150 years after the time of Next Generation in the aftermath of a war with the Romulans where something happens and vast sectors of the galaxy can no longer be reached by warp drive.

From the description, it sounds a bit like Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda.

Rumor Circulates Mel Gibson Fathered Illegitimate Child

Interestingly, more condemnation will be heaped upon him over a few impolite comments to slip from his drunken lips than that he fathered a child outside of marriage.

County Admits Illegals A Drain On The System

Radio 2015

This broadcast of Generations Radio of Kevin Swanson is creative and comical as it is presented as radion in the year 2015.

Apparently Not The Thought That Counts

In a land as prosperous as that of the United States, from time to time parents must remind their offspring that the Christmas season is not suppose to be as much about the gift as about the sentiment behind the present. However, as charities themselves degenerate into bloated bureaucracies more concerned about perpetuating themselves than about assisting the downtrodden, those administering these organizations no longer view the giving public as the real heroes behind what use to be considered grassroots eleemosynary but rather as dimwitted cogs to be lectured as to how the acts once perceived as selfless are actually reactionary gestures undermining the progressive vision of their enlightened betters.

Even within my own short life thus far, at one time Toys for Tots was grateful to receive any new toy or even a good used one in reasonable condition (as from my own experience I can tell you that a second-hand Millennium Falcon is as nearly as much a delight as one fresh out of the box). However, like a spoiled child getting too much at Christmas, now not only aren’t second-hand toys not good enough for these philanthropic agencies, but now they also dictate what kinds of new ones may be donated as well.

Before having their rears handed to them and deciding to reverse their position as a result of the public humiliation, Toys for Tots initially turned down a donation of 4,000 Bible quoting Jesus dolls not because the figurines might be seen as a tad tacky but rather because the doll might offend non-Christian families such as Jews and Muslims. As a charity distributing its beneficences based upon the destitution of the intended recipients, when was the last time a Jewish family even qualified for goodies from Toys for Tots?

Seriously though, if an individual finds Christmas (and more importantly) the Christ inspiring this particular celebration so odious, why are they accepting gifts anyway? If this charity is being thrust upon the recipients against their will in the same spirit of “we’re doing this for your own good whether you want it or not” characterizing many of the programs directed at manipulating those targeted into accepting their status as “underprivileged”, perhaps its is Toys for Tots that needs the cliched lecture about not imposing its values on others rather than the American people receiving a lecture on the matter from Toys for Tots.

If those paraded before us these days as destitute can be as selective of the charity bestowed upon them as Jabba the Hutt at an all-you-can-eat buffet, it’s about time that a civic dialogue was convened to consider whether or not Toys For Tots has outlived its usefulness. For in the current retail environment with a Wal-Mart in nearly every county and a dollar store in almost every other strip mall, frankly if you can’t afford to buy your kid a small toy, a $0.75 pack or notebook paper, and a Snicker’s bar or two, one really ought not to be doing the kinds of things that result in children in the first place.

No where does it say your progeny are entitled to Lionel Trains, Tonka Trunks, or Nintendo Sets under the Christmas tree. Maybe if these parents didn’t spend their money on gold teeth, pierced noses, and nightclub boogie dances, they wouldn’t need the Marines (or at least the Reservists) to charge in to save Christmas.

Over the past decade or so, one has come to expect secularists to get their dander up over Christmas. Surprisingly, even Christian organizations that don’t have all that much of a problem using the Christmas season as an excuse to pander for handouts are now themselves thinking they are too good for the religious underpinnings of Christmas.

Over the last several years, Franklin Graham has earned a reputation for being outspoken about certain trends prominent in the world today. However, if certain developments within the family’s ecclesiastical domain are any indication, it seems Junior may have developed a touch of daddy’s degenerative spine disorder where one becomes so accustomed to the accolades of world leaders and the influential that such praise slowly becomes just as important as standing for the uncompromised truth.

As part of Samaritan’s Purse, Operation Christmas Child is a program organized to distribute Christmas gift boxes to children in impoverished nations around the world. One would think little controversy would erupt as theoretically the program involves little more that the distribution of gift boxes assembled by well-meaning believers and delivered to enthusiastic youngsters.

However, even this has turned into yet another scheme for fostering political correctness around the globe. In being taught a lesson in gratitude and appreciation, most children learn to say a polite thank you and not to complain in front of the giver should they find something they don’t care for when they open a present (after all, you can always regift if the giver is not that close of an acquaintance). Yet now contemporary Christian leaders are so concerned about offending international sensibilities (i.e. afraid a Muslim is going to riot) that these ministries have issued elaborate decrees on what the average believer may or may not give.

For example, according to a Daily Mail story entitled, “Christian charity bans Christian themed children’s gifts”, Samaritan’s Purse has expressly banned “war-related items such as Action Man-type figures.” So basically anything a young heterosexual adolescent boy would want to play with. Sure, toy cars and planes might still be allowed, but if Ted Haggard hadn’t gotten caught letting another man shift his gears, one wonders how long it would have been until these had been banned as well since, according to the limpwristed pansies coming to predominate the ranks of Evangelical leadership, these modes of transportation are coming to be seen as just as evil as the implements of war (unless of course you happen to be one of those bigshot leaders who will still be permitted to jet around the world telling the rest of us just how evil we are for manifesting the disease of individualism as embodied by driving our own automobiles to work and refusing to carpool).

Peaceniks will respond that the last thing boys need in these mudhole countries is additional encouragement to make war. If that’s the case, I hope the girls will be denied baby dolls as the last thing they need to be encouraged to is to have more kids, though it might be politically incorrect to say, the rest of us are going to have to pay for in terms of foreign aide or as the result of one too many missionary sob stories playing on the guilt pounded into our own psyches over the fact for simply being American.

Unfortunately, there is even more at stake than the lads of the Third World being feminized to the same degree as their counterparts here in the West. For not only is male vitality to be removed but the strength of explicitly Christian convictions as well.

We rubes sitting in the pews with our limited mental capacity would no doubt conclude that the primary reason for sending Christmas boxes overseas would be to tell the children there about Jesus Christ since, as unpopular as the idea might be, those without Him still die and go to Hell even in this age of runaway tolerance. However, our theological betters (at least those in endowed positions that keep reminding us they are our theological betters) would tell us that the best way to tell someone about Jesus is to not tell them about Jesus at all.

For while Christians are free to jam the boxes with assorted miscellany, items of a religious nature are promptly removed. Despite claming to do it for fear of offending non-Christians, it makes you wonder what percentage of objects attained through this pious five-finger discount end up under the trees and in the stockings of the offspring of Samaritan’s Purse personnel.

Frankly, if those these gifts are being sent to are all that hostile towards information about Jesus that mere mention of His name is going to send the recipient into homicidal conniptions, perhaps missionaries to these countries in question should pullback to the lands of the West and fortify our borders by refusing to let anymore from these nations into our countries and work on converting those already here.

Those studying institutional change over time will note that usually religious organizations with even the best of intentions inevitably slide towards theological liberalism. And like the fate that befell the mainline denominations, eventually confusion and distorted purpose will come to grip the administration of Operation Christmas Child and Samaritan’s Purse if steps are not taken now to curb the “sensitivity” tide.

Most of the time, a good Christmas story rings with an eternal truth that cannot be denied. It seems the truth in this tale is that you are better off donating your charity dollar to an organization that you yourself have direct contact with such as a reliable church, a family that you know, or maybe your own savings account for when you’re old the way Social Security is headed the only charity that will be there to lend you a helping will be you yourself.

Those duped by the professional altruists might be shocked by such a statement. Such noble outrage would be better directed towards those manipulating our sympathies through direct mail fundraising and the like.

By Frederick Meekins

Transgenic Engineering

Dr. Stan of Radio Liberty interviews Tom Horn of Raiders News.

Government Eggheads Consider Taxing "Virtual Assets"

This basically means that if you conqueor a nation or take a castle in an on-line role playing game that one day you might be held liable for taxes on it as if it was a physical piece of property.

I guess next those of us with blogs, websites, and e-groups will be charged tax on each hit or page view.

Feminist Hag Doesn't Consider Motherhood Work

Apparently Lesbian Cheney Likes What A Man Has To Offer

Lifelong Learning & The Totalist State

An informative discussion with Doc Montieth and Nancy Levant.

Black Collegians Rally In Support Of Racial Preferences

Kevin Swanson Says Bloggers Ungodly & Unaccountable

One might say the same thing of talk radio hosts such as Swanson.

According to Swason and his sidekick, Christian Internet service providers should block blogs that do not have established ecclesiastical oversight.

Of these fans of Luther and Calvin, I ask did these Protestant forefathers bend their knees to their clerical betters when the truth was on the side of the outsiders?

Contract Granted For American Concentration Camps

For years, whispers have ebbed and flowed across the currents of cyberspace that the U.S. government had plans on the drawing board for the establishment of detention and relocation camps to heard massive swaths of the population into during times of declared national emergency.

Haughty sophisticates regularly dismissed such nuggets of information, claiming such warnings were the ravings of kooks and the paranoid. However, at last more mainstream news sources are willing to admit such holding pens of dubious constitutionality are in the works.

According to a FoxNews.com report titled “Critics Fear Emergency Centers Could Be Used For Immigration Round-Ups”, a contract has been granted to a subsidiary of Halliburton no less for the establishment of emergency relocation centers for use during a national disaster or immigration crisis. Though marketed as a way to house illegals as they are processed back to their countries of origin, the American people need to be warned this might not be the only purpose for such facilities.

For starters, as Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi points out in the FoxNews.com story, “An emergency is basically anything DHS (the Department of Homeland Security) deems an emergency.” Thus Americans could theoretically be herded into such facilities over reasons far less ominous than natural disasters and calamities.

This is especially dangerous in light of rulings such as the Kelo decision that imbue the rich and powerful with a nearly unimpeachable infallibility. What’s to stop some unscrupulous developers from getting their puppets in government from declaring an “aesthetic emergency” or something just as ridiculous in a less than picturesque area and cart the residents off to some holding area while their houses are torn down? Or since feigned concern over obesity is all the rage, what is to prevent the government from declaring a “nutritional emergency” and haul the chronically gluttonous off to mandatory fat camp?

Don’t laugh. When he was drug czar, Bill Bennett toyed with the idea of snatching kids from their parents in drug-plagued neighborhoods. And at this very moment, the United States is in the middle of any number of declared national emergencies.

Basically, most of the Executive Orders --- regulations promulgated by the President with dubious legality since they were not authorized by Congress --- are already on the books permitting authorities to seize your property, drop you in a camp, and force you to perform slave labor. All that has to be done is to set up facilities and for the President (or whoever might be running the show on that dark day for our country) to give the go-head.

Secondly, shouldn’t the American people be concerned that this so-called “civil defense” matter is being farmed out to the private sector. Many so-called Conservatives kneel so worshipfully at the altar of big business that they claim that protections such as the Bill of Rights and other legal niceties should not apply in a private sector context.

From the tone of the FoxNews.com article, one gets the impression that these proposed facilities will be administered along the lines of a for profit enterprise. As such, are there any guarantees that those corralled into these slaughterhouses will be guaranteed the fundamental liberties and protections we currently enjoy as Americans? Or will the first occupants, when they arrive, be told that they are no longer under the jurisdiction of the United States but rather under the authority of what amounts to the monster offspring of a prison and an out-of-control homeowners association.

Have a complaint about the food. Get back handed across the face. Object to the guards pawing at your buxom wife or teenage daughter, and you get a broom handle up your rectum.

“You’re out of your mind,” the mentally delicate will respond. Am I?

Such abuses already take place by rogue elements of law enforcement. Won’t such behaviors be even more widespread when that annoying Constitution and Bill of Rights are finally done away with once and for all?

Frankly, these kinds of places are hardly run properly when theoretically subject to public scrutiny. Americans would do well to follow the ongoing saga of Katrina recovery as it serves as a kind of experimental case study of the kind of future being planned for the vast majority of us.

According to a WorldNetDaily story titled “FEMA Lifts Reporter Ban”, it has been discovered that until exposed FEMA was forbidding those living in trailer parks set up by the government relief agency from talking with the press without having a Homeland Security handler present. FEMA goons kicked a reporter out of a trailer to which the reporter had been invited by the resident and ordered --- ordered mind you --- another resident back into her trailer that dared to speak to a reporter through a chainlink fence. The last time I checked, losing one’s home in a natural disaster did not make one a felon that had forfeited his rights.

Perhaps the most disheartening thing about the Fox News story bringing this neglected issue to the attention of a more generalized segment of the news-consuming public is that of all the sources researched are prominent names on the left side of the political spectrum such as AlterNet, The Progressive, and two Democratic members of Congress. Claiming to have a political philosophy taking into account the depravity of man unlike their progressivist counterparts given over more to utopian delusions, shouldn’t Conservatives be the ones warning of the dangers to human liberties posed by these detention facilities. For aren’t some of the most fearful words in the English language, “We’re from the government and we’re here to help”?

Conservatives backing these facilities because their guy is currently in office should be ashamed of themselves. Shouldn’t they realize that their man won’t always be in office. And even if the party of your choice held power now through the end of time, why does a proposal under consideration suddenly become immoral based upon which party backs the policy? Conservatives wouldn’t countenance plans openly plotting to establish civil detention camps under Clinton, then why accept such a measure under Bush?

By Frederick Meekins