And are Trump's tweets appreciably more corrosive to the vitality of the Republic than Bill Clinton attempting to pin the blame for the Oklahoma City Bombing on Rush Limbaugh or insisting that the only reason Rush stood up for Janet Reno in one particular instance was because “she was attacked by a Black guy”? And more recently, are Trump's remarks really any more outrageous than those of Barack Obama blaming America's problems on those bitter clingers unwilling to surrender their guns or their God?
As part of his condemnation of Alex Jones, Kevin Swanson quoted from a work on conspiracies by Gary North. If we are to disbelieve in the existence of shadowy powers and forces manipulating events, people, and institutions largely from behind the scenes, do both Swanson and North repudiate North's opus “Unholy Spirits: Occultism & New Age Humanism”? For in that work is a chapter examining from a Christian perspective the very UFO's that Swanson's podcast derided the believers of.
Fuss has been made over the drama that unfolded regarding a resolution submitted by a Black pastor at the Southern Baptist Convention calling for the condemnation of the so-called Alt Right. Do the proceedings of predominately minority denominations come to a screeching halt with accompanying media coverage if the token White in these typically leftwing ecclesiastical affiliations offers a proposal that has been submitted primarily to thumb one's nose at the prevailing demographic of the organization's membership?
In his condemnation of Alex Jones, homeschool activist Kevin Swanson hypothesized that the appeal of conspiracy theories is a form of gnosticism. By that, he did not mean the traditional heresy amalgamating Christian terminology with various Greco-Roman mystical philosophies in order to create a spirituality that denies orthodox doctrines such as those regarding the incarnation. Rather, Swanson meant that those drawn to these speculations enjoy the thrill of secret knowledge most fully understood by those within the particular group. And how is that much different than predestinarian Calvinism that holds Christ is only accessible by those already selected to rank among the soteriological elite?
Regarding the increasing number of Christian leaders advocating that youth not go to college. Are they going to provide decent paying jobs for those that heed this admonition? More importantly, are they going to provide jobs for those that heed this advice but disagree with them on some asinine secondary issue that some of these hardline sectarians are infamous for espousing? After all, you are less likely to openly disagree with the benighted leader if doing so strands you up excrement's tributary without a paddle.
In an analysis of the Southern Baptist resolution against White supremacy, the pastoral staff of Berean Baptist Church on their SermonAudio podcast equated racialist sentiment with commemorations beloved by traditionalist American Christians such as Mother's Day and the Fourth of July. These clerics insisted that neither has a place in a Sunday morning worship service. So does this church pass over Martin Luther King Day and Black History Month as well? More importantly, does this church ever intend to remove from its SermonAudio profile page the photo of the congregation's building surrounded by multiple American flags?
For an unproduced Wonder Woman screenplay that might have emphasized the “woman” over the “wonder”, it has been stated that even an alley of women (meaning he lavishes boatloads of money on infanticide fronts such as Planned Parenthood) such as Josh Whedon must be held accountable. It was an UNPRODUCED screenplay! That means his take on the story was already deemed not good enough to proceed into further development Isn't that accountability enough? It's not like he committed a war crime deserving of a human rights tribunal at the Hague.
In the discussion of his book “The Vanishing American Adult” at the Hoover Institution, Senator Ben Sasse provided the anecdote regarding students of the college he served as president of not climbing twenty feet up a ladder in order to decorate a campus tree for Christmas. Given that Senator Sasse's academic specialty is America's Jude-Christian foundations, perhaps he would care to elaborate where in holy writ maturity is defined by a willingness to risk one's life and well being for the sake of decorating yuletide shrubbery. Should someone fall from such a height and profoundly disable oneself, is Senator Sasse and his merry band of radical freemarketeers going to deny the injured coverage for ongoing care?
Leftwing religionists are shocked at the reluctance of the few discerning Southern Baptists that remain to get onboard the resolution to condemn the alleged White supremacy of the Alt Right. That reluctance is probably because those that study these sorts of things realize that often this kind of rhetoric is commonly invoked to frighten into silence and compliance those refusing to applaud radical minority supremacism and professional agitation. Maybe certain Whites were not so keen on the Alt Right resolution because they are weary of Convention propagandists constantly praising minorities but going out of their way to foment Yankee varieties of White guilt.
If Neil de Grasse Tyson is supposedly qualified to hand down opinion on nuanced environmental regulation and policy when his expertise is in Astronomy, why aren't Donald Trump's pronouncements regarding science when the President's expertise is in businesses negotiation?
It was said in a sermon that, after you die, whatever sins you have not confessed, you will be held accountable for. And how exactly will these sins be held against us if we are not blocked entrance to Heaven on the basis of what we have done but rather allowed entrance on the basis of what Christ did? If it was announced earlier in the year that Baptists should be all gungho for Lent, this almost sounds like the acceptance of Purgatory is not far behind.
Outrage has erupted over Donald Trump Jr clandestinely meeting with a Russian lobbyist with ties to that state's military intelligence agency. Shouldn't the outrage be even more with the administration under whom such a person was allowed to take up residence in the United States? If you are so stupid as not to realize such an individual is going to continue their life's work of subterfuge and subversion, you really ought not to be working in government especially in regards to national security. In a podcast discussion about finding a church, a pastor remarked that he was leery of the average Christian that comes into a church with an agenda to fix the things that are wrong with a congregation from their particular viewpoint. But shouldn't the same sense of vigilance be applied to new pastors storming in when things prior to their arrival weren't necessarily out of whack to begin with?
In condemning the Wonder Woman movie because of the character's pagan origins, does homeschool activist Kevin Swanson also intend to condemn the study of mythology and authors such as C.S. Lewis and Tolkien that employed such motifs in their fantasy narratives?
To some, it's apparently a greater outrage that President Trump doesn't own a dog than that President Obama used to eat them.
For converting to Eastern Orthodoxy, broadcaster Kevin Boling insinuated that Hank Hanegraaff was a heretic. The episode discussing such was bluntly titled at SermonAudio, “Hanegraaff's Theosis Heresy”. So if a rigorous separation is to be maintained between Evangelicalism and Orthodoxy to the point that there can be very little in terms of good relations between the adherents of these differing interpretations of Christianity, shouldn't Boling have been more critical in his interview of Rod Dreher when interviewing that author about the “Benedict Option”? After all, Dreher is an adherent of Eastern Orthodoxy just like Hanegraaff.
If Jenner did not want his “transition” turned into late night comedy fodder as the former Olympian lamented to host Jimmy Kimmel, he should have confined his escapades to prancing around in frilly lingerie at home with the curtains closed.
An episode of Generations Radio celebrated the demise of liberal arts colleges in the role of educating young minds. Apparently it's not enough simply to teach these disciplines from a Christian perspective. Rather the entire system of classroom instruction is flawed. All well and good. However, if this is the route that conservatives and Evangelicals want to go, there must also be protections put in place so that access to knowledge is not restricted to the few preferred by the cliques that run most churches and religious institutions.
Regarding these ministries, theologians, and pundits opposed to college education. They are awfully specific in getting their point across that the truly pious and devout ought not to go. However, these same “authorities” startlingly nebulous in detailing what alternative path one is expected to pursue in order to secure a reasonable living.
Michelle Obama has once again chastised the American people. Now she claims we never saw past her skin color. Probably because either a functionary directly a member of the Obama regime or a propaganda lackey in the mainstream media had to inform the American people about this fact nearly every hour on the hour.
By Frederick Meekins
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