Monday, June 02, 2008
"How Much Is That E.T. In The Window"
In the center of the picture you can barely make out the shape of an extraterrestrial.
Readers will have decide for themselves whether this story is legitimate or a publicity stunt.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Schaeffer Progeny Kneels At The Feet Of Afrosupremacist Pastor
Charged with relaying the truth of God as revealed through Holy Scripture and rationally applied to more contemporary specific situations through theology, ministers face the unique challenge of uplifting those aspects of culture and society that are in accord with what the Lord intended for mankind while admonishing or criticizing those aspects of human institutions and individual behavior that fall short. As fallen beings themselves stained by the same sin nature plaguing each and every one of us, it can be easy for those aspiring for recognition as mouthpieces of the divine to substitute their own agendas and predilections as God’s own clearly defined will. That is why it is imperative for believers making up these respective congregations --- whether they be sitting in a traditional pew, listening over the airwaves, or even reading a book --- to do their duty not only as Bereans but also as the sons of Issachar by examining the ideas espoused, the implications of these ideas upon the future, and the underlying worldview of the individual expositing them.
Sometimes, our closeness to an individual prevents us from seeing an individual as they truly are. Usually, this causes us to gloss over the faults of our loved ones to remember them in a light probably a bit better than they really were as love covers over a multitude of sins.
However, the very opposite can also take place if something causes a relationship to become strained and if we are not careful the minor faults we all struggle with can cause us to look back upon those we were once fond of in an almost criminal light. This may be the perceptual trap Frank Schaeffer, son of the late apologist Francis Schaeffer, has fallen into when he claims his own father was worse than Barack Obama’s pastor Jeremiah Wright according to a March 21, 2008 WorldNetDaily.com article titled “Francis Schaeffer’s Son: ‘Dad worse than Obama’s pastor’.”
When such a claim is made, those valuing discernment must examine the statements made by the disputed clergy in question and dig deeper into the underlying worldview of each. It is only by doing so that the concerned Christian can determine whether or not the rhetoric under examination falls outside the pale of acceptable orthodoxy.
Most of the Schaeffer lad’s allegations center around the charge that his father was at least as anti-American as Jeremiah Wright and that conservative Christians should be criticized for condemning one of these thinkers while embracing the other largely as one of the primary philosophical supports for the cultural engagement of the Evangelical Right. Central to this debate is what each of these theologians believed would bring the judgment of God upon the United States and why such retribution had been brought.
According to Schaeffer the Younger, inexcusable comments made by his father include the following: condemning abortion, reserving the right of the people to one day revolt as a last resort against a tyrannical government that abridges God-given rights that would otherwise allow the politically active to work for change within the system and that the right to bear arms as expressed by the Second Amendment serves as a mechanism whereby those in government ought to be made to think twice about infringing upon the rights of the people. The Schaeffer offspring also thinks it is unconscionable that his father dared to point out that philosophically very little separated the America secularist system of public education and the Soviet model.
Apparently in the eyes of Frank Schaeffer, the truth is not much of a defense. His problem may not so much be with his father as with the Founding Fathers as the elder Schaeffer was merely echoing in “A Christian Manifesto” many of the ideas forming the foundation of this great republic.
If it is wrong to view the Second Amendment as an “insurance policy” against unlawful intrusions of government power, does that mean that the younger Schaeffer would stand around with a smile on his face while operatives from the government take his property and rape his wife? It was this kind of unbiblical perversion of government that Franky Schaeffer’s father spent the last years of his life warning against.
O such horrible things --- the right to worship God freely, the right to be secure in one’s own person and property, and keeping the government within clearly specified boundaries so that it is strong enough to protect us from those that would do us harm while not making it so strong that it becomes a harmful parasite sucking our God given liberties away from us. Now let’s examine the kind of things believed by Franky Schaeffer’s new best friend Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
For starters, Wright holds to the theory that the United States developed the AIDS virus to maintain dominance over the Third World. Scientists and theoreticians could probably debate as to the origins of the pestilence, but doesn’t saying it was targeted at a specific set of foreign countries undermine the deaths of the many Americans the disease has claimed? Furthermore, isn’t AIDS a rather inefficient means of genocide since to avoid getting it all one has to do for the most part is to keep one’s pants on?
Most brainwashed today by government officials and leftwing propagandists into believing that firearms are evil by default rather than a neutral tool taking on the motives and characteristics of the individuals wielding them will have trouble swallowing the distinction between Schaeffer’s defense of the use of force over any that might be advocated by the likes of Jeremiah Wright. However, there is a world of difference when it comes down to just whom these two would be aiming at and why.
In his condemnation of certain aspects of government and society, Francis Schaeffer was calling upon a defense of the individual created in the image of God possessing rights no institution or other individual has the right to infringe upon. As such, under “Schafferianism” it does not matter what color you are.
The ideology espoused by Jeremiah Wright is much different. In his thinking and those like him, one’s value is not determined as a distinct individual made in the image of God but rather as part of a larger group or COMMUNITY. One can see this in his hostility towards America in general and Whites in particular largely through the company he has often kept.
If you examine Wright’s associations carefully, one sees he does not oppose violence per say but apparently only when it is America or Western powers that have resorted to force in pursuit of policy objectives as Wright certainly has no qualms about those advocating and using violence against Americans and our national interest. For example, it has been documented that Wright thinks highly of Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
What is it exactly that Farrakhan and his sect believe? Quite a bit more than selling pecan pies and newspapers on metropolitan street corners.
For starters, Nation of Islam doctrine postulates that White people are an inferior race genetically engineered by an ancient mad scientist. The Nation of Islam also contends that a UFO-like vehicle is circling the earth to whisk away Black folks and to rain down nuclear annihilation on the White ones left behind for no other reason than that they happen to be White.
So why is it, ladies and gentleman, that liberal malcontents of various stripes will stand around and applaud this kind of foolishness when it is directed against Whites yet condemn it with such vehemence when such blather flows from the lips of the Ku Klux Klan to the point that it is those professing tolerance and understanding that actually perpetrate these days the acts of mayhem and destruction at Klan rallies rather than the Klan nitwits.
Wright’s association with Farrakhan does not stop at the level of a friendly “what’s up” as they pass each other on the Chicago streets. Wright actually accompanied Farrakhan to visit Muammar Qaddafi. For Americans that have forgotten since the Libyan leader has buried himself in the sand for awhile hoping most won’t notice him, before the advent of Al Qadea and Osama Bin Laden, Qaddafi spent many years atop terrorism’s superstar list.
This is not Wright’s only endorsement of Western civilization’s Islamist enemies. In his church bulletin, Wright ran an op-ed written by a high-level Hamas functionary.
Ladies and gentleman, what kind of pastor worthy of respect as such is going to hang out with and lend credence to the ideas of such human debris? Some modernist and postmodernists will whine, “Well, Jesus went to the publicans and sinners.”
That is correct. However, Wright was not ministering to those in the Arab street whom most leftists believe we are to pander these days in terms of our foreign policy. Rather, Wright is expressing a sympathy for those whose ultimate goal is nothing less short of the destruction of human liberty and freedom as understood in a traditional context.
Wright is able to get up there and condemn the use of force on the part of the U.S. government through its armed forces while lavishing accolades upon scumbag tyrants and terrorists because Wright is a proponent of liberation theology. Essentially what that is is revolutionary socialism or Communism dressed up in a religious garb.
According to Marxist doctrine, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with the use of force if it is used to appropriate property from those deemed unworthy of utilizing it according to the vanguard of the proletariat who whoever else occupies that distinction these days such as radicalized minorities, environmentalists, or home owner associations. In fact to some revolutionaries these days, such acts are not even categorized as acts of violence as evidenced by World Bank protestor-types who insist they are nonviolent despite the looting, vandalism, and destruction of property for which those in this movement have become synonymous.
Liberals, especially White ones, have flocked to the Obama banner in part to pat themselves on the back just to show how progressive they are by backing a Black candidate and in so doing they freely embrace all of the anti-American baggage that make up the foundation of Barack Obama’s worldview. When either marauding mobs or minions of the state come to take what’s Whitey’s in the years and decades to come, it will be interesting to see if the younger Schaeffer comes back around to his father’s way of thinking or if he has grown so accustomed to his role that cannot be described as anything other than a useful idiot.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Swansonites Suggest Pastor's To Police Congregants Reproductive Motives
According to Generatons Radio, if you don't want a boatload of kids, it is up to your pastor to snoop as to why you don't.
Monday, May 19, 2008
Friday, May 16, 2008
Swansonites Insinuate Those Living Alone "Less Christian" Than The Wedded
In this edition of "Generations Radio", the Swansonites continue their drumbeat of compulsory matrimony by arguing this is the lonliest time in human history because the number of single person households have never been higher.
Maybe so, but I imagine people decades ago were lonely too when married couples at best hardly ever even held hands or at worst the wife was little more than a bunching bag there to clean your cloths.
As my mom has observed, for all the kids they had, there certainly didn't seem to be a whole lot of love back then.
One wonders among this particular brand of fundamentalism if the concern is so much about the psycho-social well being of the individual or that there are not multiple eyes watching over the individual that lives by themselves as evidenced by their condemnation of motels.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Iraqi Police Endorse Honor Killing Of Teen Girl Infatuated With British Solider
Seems some cultures refuse to be lifted out of the gutter.
Muslim Gets Guide Dog Banned From School
Today Muslims are getting the animal companions of the handicapped banned,
Wonder how long until these radicals get the handicapped banned.
There is an easy solution regarding Islamic immigrants offended by companion animals; these immigrants can either leave this country or, even better yet, not come here in the first place.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Friday, May 09, 2008
Monday, May 05, 2008
Friday, May 02, 2008
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Does Winfrey Ride The Beast?
At one point in her career, Oprah Winfrey was pretty much seen as a harmless crank as to the casual viewer catching the show in passing assumed that the program dealt primarily with her seesawiing weight and whether or not her shackup might secretly prefer to be paid in three dollar bills. However, as she has amassed considerable power and influence during her 20 plus years in the public limelight, this broadcaster is no longer an innocent afternoon distraction filling the time between when one arrives home from work and when dinner is set on the table but rather has intentionally set out to subvert American culture and the spiritual well being of the nation.
Not content with the worlds of television, publishing and politics now that she has taken an interest in Barack Obama only because he happens to be Black, Winfrey has now set out to establish her web presence as well. According to the March 3, 2008 edition of USA Today in an article titled “World Is Oprah’s Classroom”, Winfrey plans to lead an online interactive book discussion.
However, there is more to the book being studied than the typical feminist drivel one would expect women of the upper income bracket to be sitting around and reading. The title of the book alone is enough to send a chill down the spine.
The book is titled “A New Earth: Awakening To Your Life’s Purpose” by Eckhart Tolle. It is through this text that Winfrey hopes to be the False Prophet to Obama’s Pseudo-Messiah.
According to USA Today, “Winfrey calls the book ‘a wake up call for the entire planet...It helps distance ourselves from our egos, which of course, we all have, and to open ourselves to a higher self, which he [the book’s author] calls consciousness’.” As with most New Age bunk, it all basically boils down to socialism, no doubt wreaking of the smell of dope and unwashed hippies.
For when the likes of Winfrey and her literary vassal Eckhart Tolle criticize ego, they are not really talking about curbing their own arrogance or astonishing appetites. Because if they really did want to downplay notoriety of the self, why did the author even put his name on the book and accept the proceeds from the royalties?
Though it is doubtful that Obama and Winfrey are the Psuedo-Messiah and False Prophet, from the philosophy promoted in her webcasts, one could very well make the argument that the Old Deluder and his minions pulling the world strings behind the scenes are no doubt using the duo as a test run for the future global delusion.
According to the USA Today article, Tolle’s philosophy includes “Buddhist, Christian, and Islamic influences’” yet he is not “offering a religion or set of beliefs, but appeals to peoples of different faiths or no faith at all.” However, Tolle (as well as Winfrey for that matter) fancies himself as a “spiritual teacher”.
If anyone falls for this, that what Eckhart and Winfrey are offering up is not inherently religious, I have a bridge to sell them or a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. By claiming to be dogma free (itself a dogma), what Tolle hopes to accomplish is to unify as many as possible under a single banner of the flavor of the moment --- be that Obama and Winfrey for the time being or a duo far more ominous once the powers that be are through with them.
From this, one is very much reminded of the Great Harlot mentioned in the Book of Revelation that conditions the world into embracing the Devil’s chosen one but who is herself betrayed by the Beast once he solidifies his power.
Those interested by what Winfrey and Tolle have to offer can get a more in depth introduction through an exert of the text posted in the lifestyle section of MSN.com. The following analysis is from a portion titled “A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle (Part 1).”
The gist of the text is the wonder that will come about once more and more of us reach the threshold of enlightenment, defined by Tolle as “...a leap to an entirely different level of Being and, most importantly, a lessening of materiality.” Akin to punctuated equilibrium or the hopeful monster theory in biology where the evolutionists hope to cover their tails (both prehensile and otherwise) by claiming such advancements just occur spontaneously without leaving any proof behind, Tolle claims this state can come about as a result of ”discontinuity in its development”(thus only available initially to a select elite). In the plant world, this is a likened to the first flower.
However, in humanity the process is more existentially profound and contemplative as enlightenment occurs when one becomes aware of “...the underlying one Life, one Consciousness”. When enough people realize this, a “...profound shift in the planetary consciousness that is destined to take place in the human species” will occur.
It is through this monistic pantheism that New Agers or expanding perception types will be able to justify the deprivations they plan to inflict upon the remainder of humanity while continuing to enjoy their standard of living. Since Oprah is “every woman” as her theme song arrogantly intoned one season, she feels well within the bounds of propriety to tell the average person subsisting on ramen noodles several nights a week that their lifestyle is “too materialistic” whereas she vacations on David Copperfield’s private island resort for $24,000 per night.
Since Oprah is our avatar and embodiment of the collective consciousness, it is actually her metaphysical obligation to wallow in such luxury and up to us to provide a similar standard of recreation for her minions in government such as Senator Obama.
More importantly, by undermining individuality as in the case of Hinduistic New Age spirituality (atman is brahman) by claming that we are just a temporary cellular manifestation of the One Consciousness, when the time comes those accustomed to this mindset won’t have all that much of a problem with mass roundups and ultimately executions of those doing nothing more that questioning the worldview of those holding power. After all, one does not lament the removal of an infected hangnail or the cutting of hair since such an act benefits the overall body --- or as in the case of the global community --- the One Consciousness as Tolle calls it.
Such wayward intellects, according to Tolle, have failed to evolve to the point of enlightenment and “identify only with their own physical and psychological form”. Thus, for the sake of the COMMUNITY, it is imperative that such impediments be removed. Besides, doing such really wouldn’t be wrong (a concept itself outdated and bigoted since transcendent absolute standards don’t exist anyway) since distinct individuals don’t really exist and by hastening their return to the universal consciousness one may in fact be doing them a favor by expediting them onwards towards their next incarnation.
Progressives will no doubt ridicule conservatives speculating how close Obama, Winfrey, and their crowd might be to the revelation of the psuedo-messiah foretold in the pages of Scripture. However, it probably wasn’t a conservative artist that painted for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine a portrait of the Senator with the kind of reverence categorizing portraits of Christ nor was it a conservative that appointed Oprah as the herald of the so-called “new spirituality”.
by Frederick Meekins
Dalai Lama Allowed To Brainwash School Children
I wonder if public school children would have been taken to an audience with Billy Graham.
Ravi Zacharias Loses Backbone
The speaker known for facing down both Hindu and Islamic mobs is caving to the liberal American Jew.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Consumers Duped Into "Eco-Friendly" Products
Guess all that New World Order conditioning will pay off for the elites.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Star Wars & The New World Order
An interesting podcast examining the links between Star Wars and the New World Order.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Wednesday, April 09, 2008
Will Leftist Evangelicals Demand Believers Get On Obama Bandwagon?
Just because some white liberals are going out of their way to vote for Barack Obama for no other reason than that he happens to be half-black, some within the Evangelical leadership are once again beating on their drums about congregations being too split along racial and ethnic lines.
However, it they are the ones noticing this, isn’t that proof that those patting themselves on the back for their embrace of racial diversity are in fact the ones looking at the color of skin rather than the content of character?
So long as a church sticks to Bible basics and welcomes those showing up at the front door, what does it really matter if a particular congregation appeals more to a particular group of people?
Has anyone ever stopped to think that, provided so long as no one is blatantly mistreated or rights to affiliate and peaceably assemble not infringed upon, maybe God is pleased as after all it is believed He is the one that caused different racial and ethnic groups to come about to begin with as a protection against the human tendency to unify and lavish accolades upon pseudo-messiahs?
Before Evangelicals rally behind Obamaism as some kind of miracle cure to a contrived problem more in the minds of elites than actual practice, perhaps they should take a look at the kind of ecclesiology many of Obama’s supporters in theological ranks would impose upon Christendom.
Though someone cannot be held accountable for every inappropriate comment that might fly out of the mouth of their pastor, there comes a point where if the congregant does not disassociate himself from a particular church by either speaking out against incorrect doctrine or, even better yet, by taking their religious dollar elsewhere, it essentially means that one is tacitly endorsing the stance taken by a particular ministry.
If that is the case, then those taking seriously the notion that the Gospel message is for all of mankind really need to take a look at the sort of thing Mr. Obama has no problems allowing to slide by (like the Che flag hanging in one of his offices) for nearly 20 years and even more closely at the heretical poisons poised to infiltrate the nation’s houses of worship.
According to a transcript of the March 2, 2007 edition of Hannity and Colmes, the church where Obama attends does not promote universal values but is rather distinct in standing up for the “Black family” (not just families) and the Black value system (not universal values).
It should also be pointed out that this so-called “Black value system” heralded by religious liberals are not exactly the same characteristics the rest of us may be use to hearing from the pulpit week after week. The things making up the foundation of Obama’s worldview sound like they come more from the pages of the Communist Maniifesto than the verses of Holy Scripture.
For example, prior to having its seditious radicalism exposed in the broader media, the website of Trinity United Church of Christ provided a ten point program which included some of the following points.
“A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.” Ladies and gentleman, this is code for confiscatory socialism. I wonder if Obama’s friends in emergent church circles and the like are willing to surrender their bank accounts and property or like most of their other demands, that is something to be imposed upon we doofuses sitting in the pews.
“A congregation seeking RECONCILIATION.” That may sound nice, but in liberal circles that doesn’t mean everyone striving to be polite to one another despite past hurt feelings but rather that Whites are suppose to stand up and ring their hands for being “White devils” as Lousi Farrakhan, a good friend of the pastor of this church by the way, calls Caucasians and to dig into our pockets to fork out reparations payments.
“A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA” because as the preamble to this document reads before it mysteriously disappeared, “Africa is ‘our native land‘.”. Well, if you are going to harp on the need for multi-ethnic congregations, why should Caucasians care about Africa as it is not our native land. If you were born here, that distinction belongs to the United States.
Frankly, why would any white person want to subject themselves to such nonsense? Furthermore, if a church propounded the so-called “White family” and so-called “White values”, wouldn’t it be lambasted as crypto-Nazi and the presidential hopes of anyone holding membership in such a den of doctrinal iniquity rightfully dashed?
by Frederick Meekins
Communist Tactics Employed To "Protect" Olympic Torch
On what grounds are protestors and even torchbearers obligated to obey these tyrants?
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Friday, April 04, 2008
Not The Only Smithsonian Mistake
A fifth grader is being heralded for pointing out a mistake in a Smithsonian display.
However, it is not the Institution's only fast and loose use of the English language.
Recently, I looked into the docent program at the Air and Space Museum.
The brochure made it sound as if they were in desperate need of volunteer guides.
However, when I contacted them, it was like, "O, we have no need for anymore at our facility in Washington, try Chantilly."
Thus, isn't it false advertising to say in the brochure, "Frankly, we could use your help" when they really have no need for it?
Frankly, what person in there right mind is going to travel 30 or 40 miles for a gig that doesn't pay one dime, especially the way gas prices are?
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Mohler's Male Bashing Rhetoric
In the April 1, 2008 edition of the Albert Mohler program, the host lambasts the trend in Italy where fewer men (a title Mohler himself denies them) are getting married in favor of remaining in their parent's home.
Since a marriage is made up of two partners, is Mohler "man" enough to also criticize young women also for being partly responsible for this trend as so few of them are fit partners these days either.
Maybe if more of them showed more of an interest in homemaking rather than tattoos and boozing, young men would be more inclined to marry.
Provided these young men in question have jobs and keep their pants on, I don't really see where they reside being a matter for the clergy. Perhaps Mohler thinks he's better than the likes of Issac who did not wed until his 40's.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
Flash Gordon Cancelled
Though I despised the show at first, it did improve markedly over the course of its run. Especially improved once the show switched focus from Earth to Mongo. Producers did a surprisingly superb job in exploring the nature of dictatorship in referring to Ming as "Benevolent Father" and how he did not live up to the purity of his own genetic code as he was himself the Deviate rather than his ex-wife whom he pinned blame for the adnormalities on.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Boozer Finds Christ & Now Takes It Out On Doctor Who
Just because this rocker can't hold either his liquoer or his sci fi is no reason the rest of us can't enjoy one of TV's best crafted programs.
Why is it that the most debauched end up being the ones telling the remainder of us Christians what innocent pleasures we have to give up after such spokesmen have themselves gone out and lived like hell?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
Theologian Letting Toddler Stuff Himself With Easter Candy Insinuates The Rest Of Us Eat Too Much
More of the don't do as I do, do as I say mentality prominent among the "Crunchy Con" elite.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
World Missions Invoked As Excuse For Ecclesiastical Socialism
During the 1980’s, Phil Donahue use to get on his show and wring his hands about how guilty he felt for being an American while much of the world languished in poverty and despair. While Donahue was noted for being an avowed secularist, similar tactics are often invoked in churches across the United States in order to manipulate good natured parishioners into forking over their incomes in what amounts to a shameless redistribution of income that would make many IRS agents blush.
The pastor of Arlington Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland spoke on the July 8, 2007 broadcast of the congregation’s Sunday morning service about his missions trip to the Ivory Coast in Africa. And now possessed of the irritating fervor characterizing those just having given up what they now consider to be vices such as cigarettes, booze, or even fattening foods, the pastor of this particular congregation is now bent on condemning the American way of life in light of that endured by the Africans he met while on his expedition to the Dark Continent.
It is one thing to compare how much we as Americans have to be grateful for in comparison to those living in abject squalor. However, the homily goes too far and reveals less than altruistic motives when it goes beyond the purpose of making such observations into condemning Americans for things that are not sins in themselves and for matters over which those hearing the message bear little direct personal responsibility.
From the pastor’s remarks, one comes away with the impression that, if one owns more than one pair of shoes or happens to subscribe to Direct TV, one is somehow the culprit behind Third World disease or malnutrition. According to the pastor, Americans enjoying such niceties need to be rebuked, in large part, for failing to submit to what would amount to a massive income redistribution where we would be the ones ending up with a diminished standard of living and its doubtful the Africans would be much better off either since such programs, though more efficient than when the government steals from you under threat of violence or incarceration through the tax code, still have considerable overhead.
Some will respond, well it’s good to speak out against excess. Maybe so if one is railing against the golden thrones such as the name it claim crowd sit upon on the TBN soundstage.
But what is being condemned from this particular pulpit in question is not any kind of blatant debauchery. Coming dangerously close to the Al Gore and Evangelicals Against Climate Change perspective, this pastor --- a Bob Jones graduate --- shows the extent to which collectivism has infiltrated what was once considered the impenetrable bulwark of Christian Fundamentalism when he derides those claiming they need three automobiles in case something happens to the other vehicles.
While that may sound like a ostentatious number, when you think about it, it really isn’t especially if --- unlike many among professional religionists --- you keep your cars decades on end until they wear out. So technically, for a married couple, three cars is simply one spare if the husband drives one to work and the wife drives hers to wherever she goes during the day either to work or the kids to school or to the supermarket as part of her duties as a domestic engineer and child rearing specialist inside the home. Press some of the more strident Fundamentalists on the issue and they’d probably come out saying women shouldn’t be allowed to drive at all as an increasing number at the fringes of the homeschool movement will tell you young women should be discouraged from attending college.
Back to the issue at hand, if this pastor is going to sit in judgment on an issue no where delineated in the pages of Holy Writ and attempt to lay a guilt trip on the congregation as to how many cars they might own, is the pastor going to provide an ironclad guarantee of refunding tithe money should the one family car breakdown or that the church will provide a ride to work. Unlike the rest of us, the pastor only has to get to work on time one day a week.
In most centralized economic systems where priorities are not spontaneously ordered through the complex interplay of self-interest on a variety of levels but rather as the result of edicts handed down from on high, those at the top do not adhere to the standards they seek to impose upon the rest of us. As such, one must ask does this minister and the church he pastors adhere to the levels of asceticism he expects from those sitting under his preaching.
If a fuss is going to be made as to how many cars the average Christian owns, why doesn’t the pastor put it on the line and tell those in the listening audience just how many automobiles he owns. Normally, I’d say such information isn’t anyone’s business, but I am not the one making the issue a measure as to the sincerity of one’s Christian walk.
In his sermon, the Arlington Baptist pastor bemoans the wages of his missionary counterpart totaling to about $4.00 per day as if it is somehow wrong for the average American to have higher wages because of the destitute conditions prevailing in other parts of the world. However, like most other institutional mouthpieces lamenting such alleged excess, austerity is not something to be expected from himself or the bureaucracy that he oversees.
Such is not an accusation without foundation. For the pastor’s own comments betray a lifestyle above that of the average American Christian he is so eager to heap condemnation upon.
For example, in his exposition, the pastor mentions it costing $50 to go out and eat. Frankly, I’ve never had a meal that I know of costing $50. So before he goes about ready to accuse me of crimes against humanity, he should be sure to put his money where his mouth is.
And while the rest of us are suppose to feel ashamed that we have more than one set of clothes because the pastor’s missionary acquaintance had to borrow his own son’s sneakers, the pastor is himself pictured on the church website in at least two changes of apparel. Furthermore, since we are suppose to embrace a degree of austerity that make the Amish look like Hollywood moguls, aren’t photographs a frivolous luxury?
For while one appears to be a headshot taken around the church, there is a much larger professionally-taken one of the pastor’s entire family that just happens to scream “Look at me. Aren’t I a bigshot?” Is there any reason why visitors to the website need to see him all posed with the wife and kids; the assistant pastor’s family isn’t depicted in such a manner.
Furthermore, if as the pastor recommends, we are obligated to cancel our subscriptions to ESPN and satellite TV, shouldn’t the money going for his family’s photoshoot have gone to African missions instead? Or is this one preacher so vital to the cause of Christ that it is worth a few African children starving to death just so the world can see just how adorable his are?
Don’t be the one to shoot me (or spear me through if we are to hoist the African way of life as inherently more spiritual than the ways of the West) for pointing this out. For am I not only being a good little pew warmer and applying the pastor’s own words?
For that matter, what does a church need with such an ornate website and radio ministry anyway? In the pastor’s remarks, it is pointed out that most churches in Africa don’t even have their buildings so I doubt they have websites or radio broadcasts either.
When most pastors get back from their ecclesiastical safaris, one often gets the impression that their goal was not so much about elevating the plight of Africans but rather about having something to bash Americans over the head about. As with their environmentalist counterparts, to many in the Evangelical missions movement, while holding those living in these foreign lands in higher esteem than in previous centuries, one still gets the impression that Africans are still regarded more as adorable pets than as mental equals.
For if Africans are to be viewed on par with those of us living in the West, why does a monoglot English-speaking pastor think a largely French-speaking audience will want to sit around and listen to him? Wouldn’t it be a better use of resources to send clergy that already know how to speak the local language?
Upon their return to the United States, the image most short term missionaries paint of Third World populations is something akin to Rousseau’s noble savage existing in an almost sinless state unsullied by the evils characterizing the so-called civilized world. While such an outlook might assuage White guilt, it is largely an un-Biblical position.
For despite the vast differences between cultures enjoying 21st century standards of living and those still several centuries behind, human nature is quite similar within an established continuum the world over. Just as much evil lurks within the heart of the primitive as the rest of us. One African person I know of can quote scripture one minute and then the foulest dialogue the next.
When asked by one African (with an outstretched hand) why Americans did not send more missionary support, the pastor responded because of our greed. But why is this destitution the fault of the average American Christian?
Shouldn’t Africans bear some of the responsibility themselves and don’t their own forms of greed impact the situation they find themselves in? For example, in some parts of Africa, polygamy is still practiced.
Can’t one argue that is also a form of greed? So in stressing the need for African missions, why is their the need to snuggle up with anti-American liberalism with its incessant tendency to bash our way of life?
Wouldn’t you be more successful by appealing to the inherent tendency of most Americans to want to make the world a better place by exposing the backwardness and degraded practices of most foreign cultures and the need to emancipate the individual from such conditions? That is of course unless the purpose is not to set the individual free but rather to further bind all the people around the world with tighter chains of authority regarding issues over which God intended no priest, pastor, or potentate to exercise power.
In his exposition, the pastor of Arlington Baptist used as an illustration the plight of a pastor there with six children and his struggle to raise them due to a lack of support. For starters, if one is going to sire that many children, it is questionable whether they should be on the mission field in the first place.
Of course, to most possessed of this kind of zeal, normal domestic life is not glamorous enough. This attitude itself points to perhaps of Evangelicalism’s little talked about shortcomings, namely the greed of many missionaries who don’t seem to mind continuing to pester you with their own outstretched hands in the form of direct mail fundraising letters even if they no longer consider you a friend worthy of human contact beyond a standardized financial solicitation.
Secondly, if one finds oneself living in such dire poverty, isn’t it a bit selfish to go out and have that many kids? Some will stand their aghast with their jaws dropped saying why that means using birth control.
Not necessarily if what you mean by that term is assorted chemicals and what not. However, it might mean birth control if what you mean by birth control is a little self control if one finds oneself in a situation where you as a parent cannot secure a reasonable standard of living for one’s offspring.
In such circumstances, one should refrain from those activities where one could potentially bring new life into the world. No one is going to get shot if you don’t fire or unholster your weapon.
Those even more ostentatious about their piety will respond, “But such an attitude is not relying upon God to provide.” However, from II Thessalonians 3:10 we learn that in the context of the parent/child relationship God provides by expecting us to provide for our own.
From the tone often taken in the sermons emanating from the pulpit of Arlington Baptist Church, one gets the impression that it might not be as much about serving God as about surrendering to the hierarchy of the church institutional. For example, in this sermon as well as others at one time available on the Arlington Baptist website, the pastor condemns and chastises parents reluctant to hand their children over for fulltime missionary service, claiming that to exhibit any kind of hesitation or sadness is “standing in the way of God’s will”.
While God’s will should always be sought after, if the young adult in question has grown up in a Fundamentalist or conservative Evangelical milieu, one really has to stop and question is such a decision is really the call of God on their lives or merely a desire to live up to the expectations pounded into their heads morning, noon and night. Often in Christian day school and church Sunday school, one is presented with the message that any other career choice other than fulltime missionary work is giving God your second best.
If parents are to keep their mouths shut as to whether or not their children go to the mission field, how much more so the pastor should keep quiet as to this decision. At least the parents have a vested emotional and financial interest in the ultimate well being of their children whereas the pastor is just another credentialed professional who ought to have no more say in their lives in areas not definitively spelled out in the pages of divine revelation than a doctor, lawyer, or Indian chief.
Though one can say without equivocation that the pastor of this prominent church would never engage in acts of violence, one cannot help but almost detect seeds of an “unbalanced zealousness” (fanaticism perhaps being too strong and unfair of a word) removed only by a matter of degrees from that exhibited by the cultic adversaries of the Christian faith. For while this pastor would not bomb nor stone those he disagreed with, one unfortunately finds the shared tendency between these diametrically opposed religious viewpoints to disdain the liberty that would allow the individual to decide for themselves matters not clearly settled between the pages of divine revelation and any wholesome pleasure that might be enjoyed between the miseries that plague this life.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
20% Of Teens Have STD's
Maybe Al Mohler should address this rather than those that don't get married young because a hardly any suitable, apparently disease free, partners available now.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Pediatricians Gather Intelligence For The State
From the story, it sounds like these doctors are asking children about whether or not they have been touched inappropriately.
They are also gathering dossiers as to whether or not parents had guns or alcohol in their homes, two perfectly legal consumer products citizens have every right to own under current law.
Chavez Continues To Follow Hitler's Playbook
And no one thought Robertson knew what he was talking about.
Maybe The Rest Of Us Shouldn't Pay Our Bills Either
The Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board is urging that not only should interest rates be relaxed for those struggling to make mortgage payments, but that those struggling to make their housepayments should also have part of their principle forgiven as well.
Maybe the rest of us who make our payments on time shouldn't pay our bills either.
Consumers were not forced to take out these loans and if they cannot pay them, why shouldn't they be left to face the consequences rather than once again leaving Americans meeting their obligations once again holding the bag?
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Monday, March 03, 2008
Battle Of The Planets Intro
One of the greatest animated series of all, ranking up there with Robotech and G.I.Joe.
Foreshadows Of The Beast & The False Prophet
Just thought this was a creepily interesting picture with propehtic overtones, especially with all the hoopla about Oprah teaching from a book titled
.Friday, February 29, 2008
President Confirms He May Be As Stupid As Suspected
This is an even bigger embarassment than the time Pappy Bush confessed to have never having seen a supermarket barcode scanner.
Kind of makes you wonder what other vital information the President is willfully ignorant of.
