Random Thoughts 8/8/14

• How many super-hero movies does it take before the genre wears out its welcome?  We're gonna find out.  In the next six years, comic book publishers Marvel and DC have 33 films slated to be released.  This will include both well-known franchises like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the X-Men and Avengers, as well as lesser known or seldom seen characters like Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, Wonder Woman, Sinister Six, and more that I had to look up on Wikipedia.
• As a nerd, I'm for more comic-book based movies.  But I can't help but think that the majority of people are just going to get worn out on it.  There's also a plethora of comic-based TV shows such as current shows "Agents of SHIELD" and "Arrow," and upcoming shows like "Gotham," "Agent Carter," "Daredevil," and "The Flash," among others.  Too much?
• So former KU one-and-done player Andrew Wiggins finally got traded from Cleveland to Minnesota, as most people expected.  He'll now be in a better position to be the star but that comes with greater expectations and risk of failure.  It's a shame, too, Cleveland is fairly close to Wiggins' hometown, Toronto.
• So I listened to a sermon today online.  The preacher repeatedly cursed from the pulpit, using the f-word and "a**h***" mostly to be edgy, express anger, or to get a cheap laugh.  So disappointing.  It's ironic though, his sermon hinged on using "judge a tree by its fruit" to condemn homophobia, while his own language was dripping in worldliness and profanity.  I think the sermon made a good attempt to express Christian love but it failed miserably at demonstrating Christian holiness.
• I think what surprised me most, besides the cussing, was how the sermon wasn't completely wrong.  I knew it would be from a liberal theological bent, which would dismiss traditional Biblical interpretations with smugness and arrogance to find room to criticize the church and affirm societal norms.  And I figured the tone would be permissive and emotional, self-deprecating and apologetic.  But because of that, I assumed everything the preacher would say would be wrong.  It kept throwing me off balance that he said a lot of truth between the cuss words.  It's a good reminder that the most dangerous lies are the ones wrapped in truth.  You keep nodding your head in agreement and then little compromises that are almost correct are thrown in while your guard is down.  How dangerous.

It May Seem Right…

Proverbs 14:12 says, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death."


I've read this a hundred times before but today it really saddened me.  There are people I know who think they are wise but they refuse to live by God's standards.  They may be very intelligent but they refuse to know God's truth.   Their life choices lead to pain and destruction but they blame others or bad luck.  Evidence of God surrounds them but they just won't see it.

To those dear people:

If you think you are an accident of evolution and your existence serves no real purpose, then have believed a lie about your value.

If you feel a sense of outrage, injustice, or right or wrong, then you cannot deny a moral standard may exist that transcends you.

If a standard exist and you compare yourself to it, then you know that no human being is perfect.

If it's possible that a God exists who really loves you, then you know nothing would be more important than fixing the distance between you and a perfect God.

If you've ever really looked at Jesus, then you know that reconciling us to God was his primary purpose.

If you don't make peace with God through Jesus Christ, then you'll never have peace at all.

Random Thoughts 3/12/14

• My little girl turns FIVE today!  Happy birthday, Anneliese.
• It is interesting to hear the buzz about the injury to KU's Joel Imbiid that will have the 7-foot phenom on the bench through the Big-12 tourney and possibly beyond.  It's ridiculous how the conspiracy theorists and muckrakers are making mountains out of molehills.  Players like Imbiid are very valuable to KU, no one is going to knowingly risk his health for some nefarious purpose.  As valuable as Imbiid may be, Bill Self has no plausible motivation to lie or deceive, because his fate is not tied to one single player.  Bill Self and KU will still earn their millions, even if Imbiid doesn't play and KU loses early in the NCAA tourney.  They are big enough to survive it.
• The Chiefs have seen five players leave the team in free agency, including two guards and tackle (Brandon Albert) and Dexter McCluster.  So far they have not signed a single player from another team.   According to NFL.com they are not even listed as an interested party for any of the top-100 free agents.
• I'm a long-time talk radio fanatic, going back to listening to Paul Harvey as a child.  And, though I still listen to Rush Limbaugh on occasion with a bit of sports radio sprinkled in, I've all but given up the many hours of news talk radio I used to listen to.  First of all, the quality is going downhill fast.  Not just the skill of the local on-air talent, but also the programming.  I'd like to listen to intelligent analysis of the day's news but instead I get moderate-to-liberal, loud but uninformed water-cooler chat.  Bleh.  The last two or three months, I've been listening to Christian talk radio and podcasts through the day and feel much better for it.
• I started a discipleship program at church this year and I have thoroughly been enjoying it.  I picked three guys to work with me through the year, meeting weekly one-on-one, to study Christian disciplines (like prayer, fasting, study, worship, etc.).  Meeting with each of these guys has become the highlight of my week.  Thanks, guys.

Random Thoughts 2/26/14

• Matt Walsh has a fantastic blog article on why a business owner should have the right to refuse service to gay people.
• 10straight.com.  Ten there.  Done that.
• I took a six-week break from blogging.  After blogging daily for almost nine years I was feeling a bit burnt out and needed a break.  As the weeks wore on I kept seeing great topics, internet videos, and all sorts of stuff that I wanted to share and finally I couldn't stay away any longer.
• Michael Sams may be the first openly gay player in the NFL.  More than that he is being widely celebrated for his profound bravery in coming out.  But how on earth is this courageous?  A good college athlete that may or may not have any future in the pros has catapulted into stardom and become a household name overnight.  He has been universally congratulated and commended from virtually every corner of society.  Doors (both literal and figurative) are being opened to him left and right.  As far as I can tell, he has received almost no negative response whatsoever.  So tell me again, why is this brave in today's climate?
• Is religion the the number one cause of war?  Not even close.
• Although whites outnumber blacks in Mississippi by nearly 2-to-1, 72% of the babies aborted in Mississippi are black.  This is not an accident; abortion has a long history of eugenics and racism.  Today there are about 40 million black Americans and, since 1973, there has been about 13-15 million black abortions.  In other words, more than one out of five black people who should be alive today were killed in the womb.

The Robertsons are Second

Jesus Christ is first.

Watch this with your family; it's worth it.




For clarification, Jep is the youngest (4th) brother and Reed is the oldest of son of Jase (the 2nd oldest brother).

Mandela the Saint?

Former South African President Nelson Mandela has died today.  As expected, there is an outpouring of grief for the 20th century icon and an endless parade of commendation for the man.  President Obama said this afternoon that Mandela was one of the most "profoundly good human beings."

Really?

Now, of course Mandela was a profoundly important individual on the world's political landscape.  And to the point that he helped end apartheid, the official policy of racial separation and discrimination in South Africa, Mandela will always be associated with virtue and goodness to some degree.

But let's not gloss over the whole story in the rush to make him a saint.

First of all, I'm not convinced his own family would call him "profoundly good."  He was a serial adulterer and married three times.  Second, he was a communist.  He was tried and found guilty for treason because of his communist connections, which at the time, and afterward, he strongly denied.  But it has since been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Mandela and his organizations were trained, supported by, and loyal to Communist leaders in Moscow and elsewhere.  Third, he was a terrorist leader.  The US State Department recognized his organizations as terror groups which murdered/executed people for political reasons.  One of the cruelest murders imaginable, "necklacing," where a victim is beaten into submission, tortured, then has a burning tire placed around their neck or body which cooks them alive, began with Mandela's ANC and was openly endorsed by Mandela's second wife, then head of the ANC while Mandela was in prison.

Is Mandela as bad as Adolf Hitler?  Of course not.  In fact, Mandela might be praised for some parts of his life.  But many other people have been long-suffering political prisoners for good causes without the checkered personal morality of Nelson Mandela.

I'm just saying that someone so closely tied to a lifetime of adultery, communist revolution, murder, and violence shouldn't receive such a one-sided eulogy.

Random Thoughts 10/18/13

• I hate being away from blogging for more than a day a two; a week and a half is unacceptable.  But throw in a funeral, some extra counseling, a good book, a migraine or two and other miscellaneous good and/or bad busyness and voila… a week is gone!  But becoming a better writer requires both good reading and practice, practice, practice.
• November 1 and 2 is the men's retreat at Mission Lake Christian Camp.  Be there!
• Our national debt jumped over $300 billion in one day and now tops a record $17 trillion.  We are hopelessly addicted to giving ourselves stuff, promising that our grandchildren will pay the bill.  The old quote goes, "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
• It started the last few years with stores opening late on Thanksgiving evening, to beat the stores that opened at midnight, which were trying to beat the stores that opened at 5am, which were trying to beat normal stores that opened at decent hour.  Now Walmart, Target, JCPenney's, and Macy's, among others, will all be open in the evening on Turkey Day.  Soon enough, Thanksgiving "family get-togethers" will consist of a quick brunch so the dads can watch football alone, the moms can go spend money the family doesn't have, and the teenagers can work their minimum wage retail jobs alone on a holiday.  I guess that's how most of us live most of the year anyway.  Seems we might be doing it wrong.
• I think my fantasy football team is fairly solid and probably deeper than average.  Drafting and trading for good players isn't too difficult, as closely as I follow the game.  Thus I feel like I ought to be doing better than I am, sitting here at a very mediocre 3-3.  But some years are like that, luck runs against you or you realize too late that your strategies are not going to pan out.
• KU is ranked #6 in the USA Today Coaches Poll.  Oklahoma State is at #12 and Wichita State is at #16.  Baylor, K-State, and Iowa St. also received votes but didn't make the top-25.
• In the next month or so, I'll no longer be under contract with DirecTV.  I've been a mostly happy customer with DirecTV for almost 14 years in four different homes but it'll save us a little money to bundle our TV and internet together with Google Fiber.  Doing my research in advance I'm finding a few small issues with Google Fiber TV like equipment issues, missing channels, etc.  Have any of you Google Fiber TV customers experienced any issues?

Random Thoughts 9/24/13

• My eldest turns 13 on Thursday.  That's just bizarre.  That just five years away from the point at which his mother and I were talking marriage.  Five years!!!
• So the new iPhones are selling well.  This is probably the generation that I'll skip.  I've had my iPhone 5 for awhile now and I couldn't be happier with it.  Now I just have to sit back and wait for the iPhone 6.
• I have what looks like a bee sting on my thumb.  I woke up this morning with it itching/hurting.  How did that happen?  Maybe it's some kind of spider bite?  I'll report later if my spidey-sense starts tingling.
• If you wanted to see a list of the Emmy winners from Sunday night, here you go.  Just a note: if your show or its actors are either gay or really liberal, it sure seems to be an advantage in winning awards.  The liberal thing will probably always be a part of Hollywood and the art-scene in general but when is the heroic homosexual meme going to jump the shark?  Just wondering.
• Quote of the Week:  Nancy Pelosi, in regard to the $3.7 trillion budget, said, "The cupboard is bare, there's no more cuts to make."  Really?  There are so many politicians that seem to be crooked liars.  I'll never go into any kind of politics for that very reason, i.e. it seems entirely corrupt.
• There was a story in the news today about a kid that may be suspended from school for a year for playing with an airsoft gun, wait for it… in front of his own house.  The school argued that it has zero tolerance policy on "firearms" (which airsoft isn't) that extends to the home (where the school should have NO authority).  Really?!  Is that even legal?!  Schools don't need to help the government seem creepier and more invasive than it already is.
• Just to clarify: my kids do NOT belong to the government.  I'll raise them myself and do my best to instill my values.  In the meantime, I'll try to avoid contact with the nanny state.  
• Note to self: take kids to gun range with uncle Craig and Grandpa.  Every 10-year-old should know "breathe, relax, aim, squeeze…"

Random Thoughts 8/29/13

• So the pan-Arab socialists are fighting the radical Islamists in Syria… and we absolutely MUST pick a side and get involved?  And apparently we favor the side affiliated with Al-Qaeda?!  Seriously?  I just can't get over the hypocrisy of the Americans who were against the Iraq war but are now wanting us to bomb Bashar al-Assad, who in every way is only a fraction as evil as Saddam Hussein was.  Did Assad illegally gas hundreds of his own citizens?  Hussein gassed thousands.  In fact, you'd be hard pressed to name any offense or violation of international law in which Hussein was not orders of magnitude worse than Assad.  There's even a chance that the WMD being used in Syria now might have come from Iraq.  So how could you protest war in Iraq and cheer bombing of Syria?
• Worse than that, this particular crisis in Syria feels like it prompted because our own President's vague rhetoric.  Why are we against Syria's regime and for the rebels?  Aren't both sides corrupt and murderous?  Where is the national interest?  Why doesn't our president articulate the goal here?  To me the argument feels non-serious, a bit like amateur hour.  I'm worried Russia, China, and Iran look at it the same way.
• News flash: a job at McDonald's is not supposed to support a family.  They are meant to be low-skill, entry level jobs or second jobs.  If you want $15/hour you need to better yourself and work somewhere else or advance in the company.  Entry-level McDonald's employment should be temporary.  No child's father should work at the bottom rung of a fast food joint as a career.  Raising the minimum wage is the same as paying him to stay there.  If you pay a living wage for entry level work, droves of people will hover at the bottom for a lifetime, unchallenged to better themselves.  How is that good for anybody?
• If we bomb Syria, do we owe starving and imprisoned North Koreans an apology?
• We have our fantasy football league up and running.  My intentions were to draft running back early and often.  So naturally, most of my team consists mainly of wide receivers.  So much for having a plan.

Random Thoughts 8/13/13

• Wow.  You have to read this apology letter to President Obama by Matt Walsh.  To me it seemed the rodeo clown was in poor taste, but not more so than the years of vicious and vulgar abuse heaped on President Bush. [Thanks, Dustin]
• I know I should be preparing for football season but I can't help myself, I'm counting the days until college basketball begins.  Rock chalk!
• I spent over an hour waiting in a government office today.  I accomplished nothing.  I'll have to go back tomorrow.  How every person doesn't walk out of there a limited-government, deregulation libertarian, I'll never know.  I'm normally a law-and-order Republican but being nearly smothered to death by the fat behind of government bureaucracy could make me wish for anarchy.
• 51º tonight… in mid-August.  Stupid global warming.
• New "Duck Dynasty" tomorrow night.  We hadn't watched the show at all until a month ago, then we binge-watched the first three seasons.  It's funny and clean; it's a little dumb at times but it is funny.
• Kris Jenner, of all people, made a great point about the American Dream.  That said, are the Kardashians really a good example of people "working hard?"  As I understand it, Mrs. Jenner married into money and fame, twice.  Her daughter got famous under rather unscrupulous circumstances and, for the most part, none of them have worked in the sense of producing anything or providing any kind of service.  They're just famous for being famous… and apparently that keeps them very busy.  [To be fair, now that they're capitalizing on their fame, they do employ a lot of people.  It's not quite the same thing, but still.]  So, the final score is tied:  President Obama 1 (pop culture icons are usually not good role models = true), Kris Jenner 1 (the "land of opportunity" is absolutely about high aspirations and crazy dreams being achieved through hard work = true).

First Day of Camp Complete

It's Junior High week here at camp and things are going great.  We're having beautiful weather, which in Kansas this time of year means the thunder storms hit the counties on either side of us and spared us… for now.

I'm here as a teacher and sort of the staff chaplain.  I did a devotion this morning for the staff about the envy we sometimes feel toward worldly people who always seem to be healthy, carefree, and prospering while we suffer for no reason.  But then I read from Psalm 73  …yeah, it's better to be on God's side.  And what does this world really offer that's more valuable or more lasting than our God?

Most of of my responsibilities involve trouble-shooting and gopher-ing for the dean, Bart Hinz.  I love that guy dearly and serving him is a breeze.  I'm also so impressed with the staff he's assembled; some I've known for years (like James Garner) and others are new to me.

Two of my boys (Brennan and Tanner) are here with me.  I'm absolutely bursting with pride at what polite and spiritual young men they are.  Having multiple people come to me praising their virtues is a father's dream.

Random Thoughts 6/7/13

• I don't ever want to hear again how supposedly evil George Bush was.  Five years of President Obama's administration has been as corrupt as the day is long, setting new records for welfare and government bloat.  Benghazi, the IRS, wiretapping, NSA snooping, the Arab Spring turned radical, unemployment, guns sold to Mexico… it goes on and on and on.  If you had problems with President Bush, President Obama's administration is doubling down on more of the same.  Or did he close Gitmo while I was reading about all the drone strikes?
• Newly retired NFL star Matt Birk didn't visit the White House this week with the rest of the Baltimore Ravens because of his pro-life stance.  He cited the President's recent speech in which he said "God bless Planned Parenthood."  Sports writers (who seem to be surprisingly liberal politically) are now reproaching Birk because the President actually said, "Thank you, Planned Parenthood. God bless you. God bless America." The writers then assert that this is a "huge difference."  Is it?  Maybe I should brush up on the rules about the closest antecedent, but I believe Birk is essentially correct.  The President said, "God bless you [Planned Parenthood]."
• Birk then clarifies that because Planned Parenthood performs a third of million abortions per year, he can't endorse them in any way.  God bless you, Matt Birk, for making a stand against something plainly evil.
• On the side, does anyone think a politician (such as the President) means "God bless [insert noun here]" the way most religious people do?
• There was a headline today that said, "QB Alex Smith encouraged to make big plays."  Really.  Coaching like that must be worth millions.
• What do I use Evernote for?  Everything.  Photos of my license plates, meeting notes, sermon ideas and illustrations, jokes and funny pictures from Facebook, recording my vehicle mileage, movies I've watched, ideas for blogging, shopping lists, prayer lists, inspirational quotations, business cards, and almost every piece of paper that crosses my desk.  
• And finally, Justin Bieber to be blasted into space?  I'm okay with that idea.

You Are My Sunshine

I know this has been posted a few times on Facebook and such but I thought I had re-post one more time… it's that good.

Ministering to One Another

Today one of our church members had a heart attack while working in her yard.  One of the first things she asked for when she came out of surgery was for someone to go finish cutting up a fallen tree so that her husband wouldn't do it.

Understand, in ministry, we often see people with needs that can't be met or needs that can't be met right now.  Often we find out after the fact that the church missed an opportunity to help someone who was in genuine need.  It causes a lot of disappointment, not only for the people unhelped, but for those who would like to help.

Today, everything fell into place perfectly.  Joe S. was already at the hospital with me and Dale D. received the request for help at his home computer.  In ten minutes, the three of us were in her back yard cutting up tree branches and picking up the mess.  In thirty minutes we were done.  Meanwhile, Chris C. got her husband a late lunch and Ashley T. went to the house and let the dog out, loaded their dishwasher, put the clothes in the dryer, and gathered some personal items for the hospital stay.  Many others called and visited the hospital room to express their concern.  It was a beautiful display of Christian love.

But why did it work out so nicely this time and not other times?  Part of it was timing.  If you're going to have an emergency, do it on a clear day in the middle of the day when absolutely nothing else is happening.  Part of it was proximity.  She was local, had her heart attack at home, and went to the local hospital just down the street.  Part of it was communication.  Her husband let us know immediately.  She identified her needs as soon as possible, so we knew how we could help.  And finally, part of it was example.  This lady is one of the most consistent examples in our church of someone who works hard and eagerly helps others.  She visits hospitals and attends funerals and labors at work days, usually without any recognition.  As a minister, I'm happy to help anyone (even those who don't want it), but it puts an extra skip in your step to help a saint you know has eagerly helped so many others.

So often you say, "Let us know if there's anything we can do," and usually there's not anything to do.  But today it worked out beautifully and it couldn't have been more enjoyable to see God's people eagerly helping each other.

Dear Anonymous…

I got this comment on my post about Top Ten Favorite TV Couples:

Your choice of shows as a Christian are a little quetionable. "How I Met your Mother" a show that glorifies premarital sex and "Modern Family" that shows that their is nothing wrong with homosexualality

It is a little ironic that "anonymous" criticizes me for being questionable on a post where I'm sifting through the moral decay of our culture looking for specks of gold to celebrate.  It's also ironic that the show that supposedly glorifies premarital sex is one of the only shows where the two most promiscuous characters are getting married to each other, suffering (some) consequences for their immorality, and also regularly pale in comparison to the steadfast happiness and satisfaction of the monogamous couple in that show.  "How I Met Your Mother" is a surprisingly convincing argument for finding the love of your life as soon as possible, which is the very theme of the show.

And, yes, "Modern Family" makes me cringe in disgust sometimes but I started watching the show because I'm acquainted with the parents of one of the main actors on the show.  I also believe that "Modern Family" is on the cutting edge of normalizing homosexuality in our culture and I find it incredibly useful to be familiar with the show and its themes.

I realize when I write about our culture that it's going to make some people uncomfortable.  Perhaps if I pretended to be above it all it would be more reassuring.  But as a Christian I should not be above it all.  I need to seriously have a heart for promiscuous people and homosexuals and shallow potheads and bitter atheists and wounded church-goers.  It's my job to be as expert as I can be on both God's Word and this culture because I'm fighting everyday in a war of ideas.  A war that the Church is losing in this country, by the way.

God has called me to love people who live in this culture and effectively reach them.  I'm a fisherman; I occasionally smell like fish but please believe me that I don't desire to be a fish.

Random Thoughts 11/27/12

• The Discovery Channel canceled "Dirty Jobs" with Mike Rowe.  It's curious that it happened just weeks after the pro-work spokesman was accused of stumping for Mitt Romney.  Hmmm.   "Dirty Jobs" was one of the few shows on TV that promoted an actual virtue… with a twelve-year old's sense of humor.  And now it's gone.
• Jeff Withey had a triple double, i.e. double digit points, rebounds, and blocks, last night!  That's only the second time (officially) in KU history that a triple double has happened (although there may have been three other instances in the 1950's before blocked shots was an official statistic).
• Speaking of KU, the team is losing one of its freshmen players.  Zach Peters who played well this summer but has been suspiciously absent is leaving Kansas and the game of basketball due to injuries.  He's had multiple concussions and a rotator cuff injury and, after visiting home for Thanksgiving, decided to leave school and stop playing sports.  Peters was a 6-9 forward.
• The Chiefs are in position to get any quarterback they want in the draft.  But this isn't going to be a good draft for number-one-overall QBs and Kansas City has been reluctant to draft first round QBs in the past.
• Christmas shopping for my 3 and 6-year olds is a thousand times easier than shopping for my older boys.  The desires of the older boys are significantly more sophisticated, i.e. expensive and particular.  The little guys aren't too picky. We have a limited budget and a big family, so those older kids are going to have to lower their sights a bit.
• College conferences are changing again and there's lots of speculation.  I love the version that adds to the Big 12 two football schools (like Florida State and Clemson) and two basketball schools (North Carolina and Duke).  I can't imagine that actually happening but, still, it would be amazing.

The Last Stage: Acceptance

I promised myself I wouldn't blog while I was angry…

As an American patriot and amateur historian, I'm genuinely heartbroken and disappointed.  As a Christian, I had really low expectations of human folly government to begin with, so like the British told their citizens during the blitz, I'll "Keep Calm and Carry On."

The Bad News:

My new iPhone wallpaper.

So how badly did I misread the tealeaves?  Yikes.  In part, I suspect that I was hoping.  I was hoping that a decent number of Americans wouldn't vote for themselves more stuff, wouldn't desire more government interference, would understand basic economics, and wouldn't believe silly propaganda promoting envy and bitterness.

*sigh*

Remember, elections are more thermometers than thermostats.  If we determine that our society has an increased desire and tolerance for a welfare state, central planning, and/or class envy, then this election didn't cause it, this election revealed it.

I feel like this election confirms what we've known for a long time: the influence of Christianity on this culture is diminishing.  The Christianity that gave us laws and freedom and science and culture is being shown the door; the Christianity that protected women and children and ended slavery is being dismissed.  Our society seems to be turning away from God and toward Government and that change has been a long time coming, long before President Obama was ever on the scene. 

Who do you blame for cultural rot over the last century?  Hollywood?  The Democrats?  The Republicans?  No.  The blame falls squarely on the Church.  While the Church grows in places like communist China, it shrinks in America – not because of real persecution but because of laziness and disobedience.

The Good News:
• You weren't waiting on perfected government to give a green light to the Church, were you?  Christianity is still true as nations, cultures, and languages come and go.
• This isn't the end of America; Christians won't be thrown to the lions tomorrow.  America is huge and resilient.  If things get very bad, we can peaceably change our government every four years.  And next time, more people may be convinced of conservative values.
• A little persecution is a good thing for the Church.  Peace with the world is often a result of compromised values.
• Perhaps some Christians will stop placing hope in a false god that makes promises it can't keep.
• Perhaps some Christians will be shocked into action, to evangelize and pray like they never have before.
• Christians in the first century were told to pray for their leaders, Roman emperors, who were much worse than any president we could ever elect.  This Sunday at church we'll pray for God's blessing on our leaders.  And we'll mean it.

A Republic, Not a Democracy

This was written by Ron Paul a few weeks ago and makes a great point.  If you think Ron Paul is a nut (which I sometimes do), please try to put that out of your mind and focus on the very sound argument that he makes.

Last week marked the conclusion of the grand taxpayer funded spectacles known as the national party conventions.  It is perhaps very telling that while $18 million in tax dollars was granted to each party for these lavish ordeals, an additional $50 million each was needed for security in anticipation of the inevitable protests at each event.  This amounts to a total of $136 million in taxpayer funds for strictly partisan activities - a drop in the bucket relative to our disastrous fiscal situation, but disgraceful nonetheless.  Parties should fund their own parties, not the taxpayer.

At these conventions, leaders determined, or pretended to determine, who they wished to govern the nation for the next four years amidst inevitable, endless exaltations of democracy.  Yet we are not a democracy.  In fact, the founding fathers found the concept of democracy very dangerous.

Democracy is majority rule at the expense of the minority.  Our system has certain democratic elements, but the founders never mentioned democracy in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence.  In fact, our most important protections are decidedly undemocratic.  For example, the First Amendment protects free speech.  It doesn't - or shouldn't - matter if that speech is abhorrent to 51% or even 99% of the people.  Speech is not subject to majority approval.  Under our republican form of government, the individual, the smallest of minorities, is protected from the mob.

Sadly, the constitution and its protections are respected less and less as we have quietly allowed our constitutional republic to devolve into a militarist, corporatist social democracy.  Laws are broken, quietly changed and ignored when inconvenient to those in power, while others in positions to check and balance do nothing.  The protections the founders put in place are more and more just an illusion.

This is why increasing importance is placed on the beliefs and views of the president.  The very narrow limitations on government power are clearly laid out in Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution.  Nowhere is there any reference to being able to force Americans to buy health insurance or face a tax/penalty, for example.  Yet this power has been claimed by the executive and astonishingly affirmed by Congress and the Supreme Court.  Because we are a constitutional republic, the mere popularity of a policy should not matter.  If it is in clear violation of the limits of government and the people still want it, a Constitutional amendment is the only appropriate way to proceed.  However, rather than going through this arduous process, the Constitution was in effect, ignored and the insurance mandate was allowed anyway.

This demonstrates how there is now a great deal of unhindered flexibility in the Oval Office to impose personal views and preferences on the country, so long as 51% of the people can be convinced to vote a certain way.  The other 49% on the other hand have much to be angry about and protest under this system.

We should not tolerate the fact that we have become a nation ruled by men, their whims and the mood of the day, and not laws.  It cannot be emphasized enough that we are a republic, not a democracy and, as such, we should insist that the framework of the Constitution be respected and boundaries set by law are not crossed by our leaders.  These legal limitations on government assure that other men do not impose their will over the individual, rather, the individual is able to govern himself.   When government is restrained, liberty thrives.

What Preachers Ought to Say on Politics

Amen.

Doing the Right Thing

A good friend of mine posted this on Facebook recently and words can't describe how I much I appreciate it.  This is the attitude that Christians should be working toward: an increasing desire for worship, Bible study, and fellowship.  I see so many Christians skipping church, or coming late and leaving early… I pray this appetite would increase in their lives.

Had a rough start this morning. I overslept so I missed church service. Then that mean ol' conscience of mine kept telling me I could still make it to Sunday School. I didn't have time to wait on a fresh shirt so I wore the grubby one I had on (and brother, it was grubby!!!).  After Sunday School they had a baptism, and, grubby or not, I don't miss baptisms. It was then that God shined a light on me. One of the little guys of the church decided he wanted to sit with me during the baptism service. I can't even begin to say how absolutely thrilled and honored I was at that. Thank you my Dear Heavenly Father for the rewards we receive for doing the right thing.