Sunday, December 30, 2018
Saturday, December 29, 2018
Friday, December 28, 2018
Thursday, December 27, 2018
Cuomo Christmas Consternation
In one particular closing argument segment of his program, CNN mouthpiece Chris Cuomo declared it rank hypocrisy for Christians who celebrate Christmas to not fling the border gates wide open for the caravan swarm amassing along the U.S./Mexican border. Cuomo pontificated, “No small irony that Christians are getting ready to celebrate the story of Christmas, which is the exact story that we are trying to celebrate here. The poor and unwanted who wound up bringing the savior into this world in a stable, rejected. Just as we are doing now. This is who we are now and it must be exposed.”
Such exegeted buffoonery is to be expected from a theological ignoramus who also revels in the delights of sodomite matrimony and the unbridled infanticide of abortion.
The key to the most complete understanding possible (for no human is capable of understanding all of it) is to take all of the canonical text (both Old and New Testaments) and to synthesize these together rather than to rely upon a single textual portion isolated from the comprehensive whole. On this account, Chris Cuomo is as woefully lacking as his reflections upon the Bill of Rights as evidenced by his pronouncements regarding free speech and the right to bear arms.
First, Mary and Joseph were not the unwanted migrating for the purposes of expecting to find a more prosperous residence in a land in which they possessed no ancestral ties or against which they had a legitimate claim. From Luke 2:1-6, the objective student of theology reads that Mary and Joseph traveled from Nazareth to Bethlehem to comply with the decree of the Roman census for the purposes primarily of taxation. Thus, this narrative had nothing to do with immigration policy.
If a pulpiteer wanted to connect the account with something to make it relatable for contemporary audiences, the homily ought to have referenced the disturbingly intrusive census questions (since that was why a pregnant woman was required to plod across rugged countryside (tradition often depicts, on the back of a burro) or overly burdensome tax regulations such as those threatening small microbusinesses to submit proceeds to every conceivable local revenue jurisdiction in a country that spans the breadth of an entire continent.
Chris Cuomo is correct that Scripture does require compassion. However, he is even more exegetically negligent in failing to point out that this quality is circumscribed with boundaries and requirements not only on the part of the party obligated to extend it but also on the part of the ones considered to be receiving it.
Leftists love to point out how Scripture admonishes fair treatment of the stranger dwelling amidst the children of Israel. Interesting how those exhibiting an enthusiasm for the detailed oracles of God in this particular instance grow noticeably silent or even dismissive of the obligations expected of those not hailing from the Covenant people but extended the blessing of being allowed to sojourn among them.
For example, these aliens were not allowed to carry on in their heathen customs in a manner that would have polluted the sanctified culture. Those granted sanctuary would have been required to comport themselves by a body of standards far more restrictive than anything that would be imposed in Trumpist America.
Leftists priding themselves somewhat as Bible scholars will no doubt respond that these statutory rigors are part of the Old Testament covenant. These provisions do not apply to the New Testament which is based upon forgiveness and love.
So is that really how religionists of a more progressive outlook want it? So in an exaggerated Jim Carrey mannerism, “ALLLLLRIGHTY then!!”
It follows that the parameters of God's fulfilled covenant are circumscribed by the portion of Scripture referred to as the New Testament. Those wanting to invoke its protections are just as obligated to abide by its regulations.
As such, Romans 13:4 says of the magistrate, “For he is a minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain; for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil” Therefore, if Chris Cuomo is going to admonish compliance with the whole counsel of God, shouldn't viewers expect to see the broadcaster deliver an exhortation urging those wanting entrance into the United States to comply with all duly enacted regulations and policies deemed necessary by the American people as enacted through their government as established by a ratified constitution?
In the conclusion of his remarks, Cuomo equated the migrant caravan at the border demanding entrance into the United States or threatening an undefined “or else” with the Holy Family. These two demographic quantities are nothing alike in terms of the responses to their respective circumstances.
For example, the most basic characteristic one cannot help but notice about the caravan is its incessant and forceful making of demands. For it was not the orderly way in which the throng went about filing petitions for entrance that prompted border enforcement personnel to respond with the strategic deployment of the compound colloquially referred to as “tear gas”.
The Holy Family, on the other hand, are not on the record in Scripture as to making any demand whatsoever. The account is not even clear as to whether or not they told anyone else of their plight.
In dramatic interpretations of the Gospel account more likely to give the kids more charismatic than those relegated to the role of shepherds but not quite the apple polisher of the lad usually selected to play Joseph, the innkeeper is made out to be a bigger equus africanus asinus than the one Mary is depicted as riding into Bethlehem on for sticking a pregnant woman in a barn. However, an innkeeper is not even mentioned in terms of explicit divine revelation.
There is next to no background provided as to how it was that Mary and Joseph ended up in the stable. All theories speculating as to whether it was at the suggestion of the innkeeper because of Joseph's pleading or because the sanctified couple quickly dashed in for a modicum of privacy because Mary couldn't any longer keep the blessed event contained within her virgin womb with the alternative being not to lay down the head of the little Lord Jesus gently on the hay but rather letting the crown of glory plop onto the dusty streets of Palestine.
It can be stated with near certainty that Mary and Joseph acted nothing like the migrant horde amassing along the border with Mexico or even the typical hipster millennial mother that demands accolades and extravagant concessions for simply having procreated. At no time did Joseph hurl rocks at the inn, threatening to burst through the door uninvited. At no time did Mary demand that those within earshot alter their routines to accommodate the circumstances in which she found herself or provide her with a lactation room more extravagantly furnished than a five star resort.
As an inherently emotional season, many are prone to turn off for the holidays those defenses that usually protect the discerning from being taken advantage of during other times of year. However, it is in such moments that those bent on undermining both our heritage and our liberty are prone to be at perhaps their most deceptive.
By Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Secularist Elites Long For Proper Decorum After Eliminating Christian Foundation
Tuesday, December 18, 2018
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Saturday, December 15, 2018
Friday, December 14, 2018
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
Sunday, December 09, 2018
Friday, December 07, 2018
Thursday, December 06, 2018
Wednesday, December 05, 2018
From Whence Cometh Christmas Conniption?
In one essay titled “Time For Truce On 'War Against Christmas'”, Leslie Handler goes as far as to call this annual Yuletide dispute “fabricated”. She proceeds to equate those outraged to the point of articulated disagreement against this annual campaign to undermine American culture with the perpetrators of “shootings on ball fields with lawmakers or places of worship filled with people praying or bars filled with our youth who perhaps have not yet learned to hate.”
The sort of naiveté thinking that youth in their early twenties likely to be found in a bar have not already figured out how to hate is proof enough why a number rushing to the defense of the Christmas cause think that these attacks against the holiday serve as proof that Western civilization may be closer to the point of collapse than many realize or are willing to admit. The reasoning is little better elsewhere in the column.
Leslie Handler insists that the movement to expunge the most explicitly sectarian examples of Christmas commemoration from government sponsored venues is based upon the separation of church and state which Handler insists the country is built upon. But from this errant soil springs equally errant fruit.
Though it might be part of the jurisprudence imposed under threat of Waco-style law enforcement for failure to comply, the sort of separation of church and state as advocated by Leslie Handler is found nowhere in the First Amendment as enumerated by the Founding Fathers nor imposed upon the states through the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment. What the First Amendment says is that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..”
What that means is that a non-Christian student cannot be compelled to accept or affirm Christian doctrine against their will under threat of punishment. Nowhere does the Constitution say that the vast majority should be forbidden from articulating their most sincerely held beliefs or that entire aspects of the nation's heritage should be ignored to the point of suppression because a minuscule but highly-organized activist few demand such at the hands of radical secularists or combustible pyrotechnics at the hands of the militant adherents of certain heathen creeds.
In the name of faddish ideologies such as multiculturalism, diversity and inclusion, it is argued that those holding to any number of bizarre notions no matter how far outside the mainstream or even inimical to public order, mental stability and bodily integrity should not only be allowed to have their say publicly. Those within earshot had better not respond with anything but gleeful enthusiastic acceptance if they do not want to face catastrophic consequences such as the loss of employment or the opportunity to advance academically.
Leslie Handler writes in response to a caller of a talk show suggesting that if a parent does not want their children singing “Oh Holy Night” perhaps the child shouldn't be in the school chorus, “Would this woman really want her child singing a religious song honoring a faith other than hers? Would she believe it was OK for her Christian child to sing a Muslim song praising Allah?”
Christian have been forced to do the equivalent of this for quite awhile now. This has been going on for years if not decades.
For example, in Virginia in 2015 and in West Virgina in 2018, students were forced to copy in Arabic the shahada, the ritual proclamation indicating that those that recite the creed have been initiated into the Islamic faith. At least if an atheist whelp reneges on what he sang during a Christmas carol, even among the most die hard of contemporary Christians, the urchin is not viewed as fair game for execution unlike in the eyes of certain Muhammadean sectarians.
Some time ago in Prince George's County, Maryland, pupils studying a unit on ancient Egypt did not simply review the beliefs from the realm of the Pharaohs from the standpoint of “This is what the ancient Egyptians believed, class.” Rather the students composed letters to pagan deities beseeching advice (one might argue that is the essence of prayer) and crafted amulets for the purposes of warding off evil spirits. One must ask would the ACLU let it quietly slide if on a segment on the Middle Ages students would have nonchalantly been allowed to bead their own rosary or paint their own icon?
With so much allowed to take place in the public schools sounding more like something out of the Defense Against The Dark Arts course at Hogwarts rather than the technologically sophisticated curriculum of the twenty-first century public school, it is only natural that Christian parents and students are going to be a little agitated when all manner of heathens, deviants, and subversive foreigners whose primary loyalties lie with the homelands they fled rather than the one lavishing them with an assortment of handouts often denied to those forced to provide these luxuries to newcomers and others refusing to lift a finger are glossed over when the time comes to speak allowed their own truth.
Often the beneficiaries of this public largess are even applauded as superior to those retaining loyalty to the values that made America great in the first place. This sting is made even worse in the cavalcade of diversity when traditionalist, instead of being given their turn in the spotlight that insists no viewpoint is more important than any other, are told to sit down and shut up over alleged atrocities that those alive today had no role in perpetrating.
In the Brave New World in which we find ourselves, Heather has two mommies. Entire classes are often expected to miss recess for an entire month to symbolize solidarity with the Akmed's and Omars of the world during Ramadan. White kids are compelled to feel bad all through the month of February over injustices and that long since been overcome. Female students are now the ones punished over biological males taking leaks trousers down in from of them standing in the little girls' room. These parents ought to be incredulous over claims insisting that somehow the child of the village atheist is irrevocably harmed by lyrics hoping for peace on earth and goodwill to all men.
Leslie Handler in her column admonishes, “Take a moment to listen to someone else. Learning new perspectives can be a good thing.”
Both objective surveys and man on the street comedy interview routines alike prove the disturbing widespread ignorance regarding American customs, institutions, and cultural practices. As such, the education system would doing all children a favor by at least pointing out that there is more to the holiday season than a week off at the end of the year.
By Frederick Meekins
