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By Whatever Means Necessary: Has The Time Come To Take Out Kim Jong-un?

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on October 8, 2017| 2 Comments »

Kim Jong Un_Missile

North Korean dictator Kim John-un and one of his missiles.

The conflict between the US and North Korea, long simmering on the back burner, has in recent times threatened once again to come to a full boil, with the war of words between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump threatening to become a war of bullets and bombs and ICBMs.

In August, Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress lent his support to the war option, saying in an interview with the Washington Post
 that God has given Donald Trump the go-ahead to “use whatever means necessary – including war…to take out Kim Jong Un.”

Jeffress justified his stance by appealing to Romans 13, which, he said, “gives the government…the authority to do whatever, whether it’s assassination, capital punishment or evil punishment to quell the actions of evildoers like Kim Jonh Un.”

What are Christians to make of Jeffress’ statements? Do they comport with what the Bible teaches about war and foreign policy or not? Before exploring those questions, a little history is in order.

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There ought to be a law!

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, tagged on October 3, 2017| 4 Comments »

Ever notice that when something really bad happens, let’s call it “X,” the first reflex of many politicians is to demand new legislation “to prevent X from even happening again!”

Our gal Hillary C. is among the greatest champions of this hustle. Just yesterday she tweeted,

Sigh. I do grow weary of this nonsense. In the first place, she actually has the breathtaking gall to call for everyone to put aside politics, while in the very same sentence making a patently political call to action. Does she really think no one notices this?

Second, at bottom her call for further gun regulation is really an expression of an unbiblical view of criminal justice.

You see, there are really only two basic approaches to criminal justice: crime punishment and crime prevention.

Crime punishment, the biblical approach, punishes the criminal, and the criminal only, for his wrongdoing. On the other hand, crime prevention seeks to regulate – that is to say, seeks to punish – everyone in the hope of preventing future wrong doing by a few.

Crime prevention is inherently unfair. Not only does it punish the innocent along with the guilty, but it also requires an enormous, expensive, and freedom crushing regulatory state to implement.

Ought there to be more gun laws? No. Such laws do little or nothing to prevent crime, but they do make it harder for deplorables everywhere to purchase and use firearms. But then, that’s really been Hillary’s agenda all along, has it not?


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Take a Knee: Colin Kaepernick, the NFL, and the Christian Sabbath

Posted in Theology, Uncategorized, tagged , on October 1, 2017| 2 Comments »

Kaepernick_Takes a Knee

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick takes a knee during the pre-game singing of the national anthem. 

It all began quietly enough. The photo that started it all, one tweeted out by Jennifer Lee Chan of Niners Nation, wasn’t even originally about Colin Kaepernick. In fact, you have to look pretty closely at the photo even to see the then San Francisco 49ers quarterback sitting by himself on the bench during the pre-game ceremonies on August, 26, 2016.

After the game in an interview with NFL.com’s Steve Wyche, Kaepernick explained the reasoning behind his protest. He said,

I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.

According to Mike Garafolo of the NFL network, this was not the first time Kaepernick had protested during the national anthem, it’s just that no one had noticed it before.

On August 28, Kaepernick stated that he would continue his protest until he felt that the flag represented what it was supposed to represent and the country represented people the way it’s supposed to represent them.

From there, it became almost a commonplace to see football players, not just in the NFL but even those on the high school and college level, take a knee during the pre-game singing of the Star-Spangled Banner.

The protest movement, having simmered for over a year, was given new life with Donald Trump’s comments at a rally in Alabama last week, saying players who knelt during the national anthem should be fired.

This prompted angry reactions from many NFL players as well as from players in other sports. Remarkably, the uproar this past week following Trump’s comments has been so loud that it even managed to drive North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s threats of nuclear war from the headlines.

Such an explosive story deserves at least some commentary. So here are a few thoughts of my own.

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Charlie Gard’s “Benefactors”

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, tagged on July 30, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Great Ormond

“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those who exercised authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ But not so among you; on the contrary, he who is greatest among you, let him be as the younger, and he who governs as he who serves.” With these words, Christ rebuked his quarreling disciples, who had been arguing among themselves about who should be considered the greatest.

This passage is key, not only for teaching Christians how ought to treat one another, but also for establishing a Christian theory of politics. The world taught that governments were the masters of their subjects. Kings were expected exercise “lordship” and “authority” over their people. That’s just the way it was, and the way it was supposed to be. To add insult to injury, these same ungodly and arrogant authorities wanted to be called “benefactors.” This was literally the case for several kings in the ancient world, who took the title “Euergetes” (Greek for “benefactor”) as part of their name.

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The Week In Review 6/9/2017: Not Another Blog Post About James Comey

Posted in The Week In Review, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 10, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

Comey

Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before Congress. 

I’m sick unto death of hearing about James Comey. But no more than I’m sick of hearing about Russian collusion, FISA warrants, special prosecutors and impeachment. Enough already! Anybody with me on this?

 

After watching Democrats and the mainstream media – I know, they’re substantially one and the same thing – work themselves into a tizzy about supposed Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, I just can’t take it anymore.  They had high hopes that their new found fair-haired by James Comey would deliver a death blow to the Trump presidency, but that appears not to have happened. 

Even liberal commentator Chris Matthews (no relative) admitted as much.  Said Matthews, “But the big story has always been the assumption of the critics of the president…that somewhere along the line in the last year, the president had something to do with colluding with the Russians…And yet what came apart this morning was that theory.” So for you Democrats, take it from one of your own and just stop it with the Russia, Russia, Russia thing, ‘k?

Here’s the deal: you guys lost the election, not because of the Russkies, but because you had an epically horrible candidate. And you had an epically horrible candidate because the epically corrupt DNC epically rigged the primaries to ensure Hillary was your nominee, paving the way for the Trump administration, the very thing you hate the most in all the world.

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Dear Britain, We Need To Talk

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 4, 2017| Leave a Comment »

 

Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire; your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. – Isaiah 1:7

 

London Bridge Terror Attack_3

Police respond to the terrorist attack on London Bridge, June 3, 2017.

 

 

Dear Britain, we need to talk. I know, I know, talking about sensitive subjects, that’s the very sort of thing we’d all prefer to avoid. And yet, sometimes the very things that are most difficult to discuss are the very things that most need to be discussed. In this case, the uncomfortable subject I have in mind is your ongoing, painful-to-watch civilizational collapse.

For my part, I’d rather not bring up the topic. It would be much more comfortable to keep my nose to the grindstone and carry on as if nothing were happening. And yet, after watching news of the third major terrorist attack in Britain in less than three months, I simply cannot hold my peace any longer. In the words of Isaiah, strangers are devouring your land in your presence. But for all that you do nothing. How can this be?

But in truth, your response is worse than nothing. For not only are you failing to address the collapse of your civilization, each new disaster seems to strengthen your leaders’ resolve to hasten the day when Great Britain, at least as it has been understood for centuries, no longer exists.

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The Week In Review 6/2/2017: We’ll Never Have Paris!

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 2, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Trump_Paris Accord Speech“We’ll always have Paris.” Those words, uttered by Humphrey Bogart, are among the most iconic in film history.

Fast forward seventy-five years and Donald Trump flips the script, saying Thursday in so many words “We’ll never have the Paris Accord!”

Well, praise the Lord and amen!

The Paris Accord was a disaster for this nation, and Trump was absolutely right to reject it.

Let’s take a closer look

Trump’s Thursday Speech

Running about 27 minutes, Trump’s speech was music to the ears of his supporters and a trigger to his foes.

Said Trump, “Therefore, in order to fulfill my solemn duty to protect America and its citizens, the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord…As President, I can put no other consideration before the wellbeing of American citizens. The Paris Climate Accord is simply the latest example of Washington entering into an agreement that disadvantages the United States to the exclusive benefit of other countries, leaving American workers – who I love – and taxpayers to absorb the cost in terms of lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production…Compliance with the terms of the Paris Accord and the onerous energy restrictions it has placed on the United States could cost America as much as 2.7 million jobs by 2025…I cannot in good conscience support a deal that punishes the United States – which it does – …while imposing no meaningful obligations on the world’s leading polluters…In short, the agreement doesn’t eliminate coal jobs, it just transfers those jobs out of America and the United States, and ships them to foreign countries…This agreement is less about climate and more about other countries gaining a financial advantage over the United States…The agreement is a massive redistribution of United States wealth to other countries…The fact that the Paris deal hamstrings the United States, while empowering some of the world’s top polluting countries..the real reason why foreign lobbyists wish to keep our..country ties up and bound down by this agreement: It’s to give their country an economic edge over the United States. That’s not going to happen while I’m President…The Paris Agreement handicaps the United States economy…I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris…Foreign leaders in Europe, Asia, and across the world should not have more to say with respect to the U.S. economy than our own citizens and their elected representatives. Thus, our withdrawal from the agreement represents a reassertion of America’s sovereignty..AS President, I have one obligation, and that obligation is to the American people.

Not only were Trump’s words a stinging rejection of the globalist Paris Climate Accord, but conversely they represented the single strongest statement of American sovereignty by a president in my lifetime.

Well done, Mr. President. Well, done.

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Unbelievable: A Quick Look at Bill Nye’s Views on Evolution, Science and Creation, Part 2

Posted in Creationism, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 28, 2017| 3 Comments »

Nye_UndeniableLast week we looked a Chapter 1 of Bill Nye’s book Undeniable, Evolution and the Science of Creation. This week’s post will examine Chapter 2 of that same book, a chapter titled “The Great Creationism Debate.”

Bill Nye Debates Ken Ham

On February 4, 2014 Bill Nye and Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis (AiG) debated the question “Is creation a viable model of origins?”

The debate must have made a big impression on Nye, for he states at the beginning of Chapter 2 that “in many ways it [the debate] was the impetus for me to write this book.

According to Wikipedia, the origin of the debate were in a video posted by Nye on Big Think titled Creationism is Not Appropriate for Children.

In the video, Nye laments the that “Denial of evolution is unique to the United States.” This is a problem, Nye tells us, because it threatens to retard our progress and prosperity as a nation.

What’s interesting about Nye’s remark about the unique failure of the United States to bow down before the altar of Darwin is that he immediately follows it by saying “We are the world’s most advanced technological [civilization?]. I mean you could say Japan, but generally the United States is where most of the innovation still happens. People still move to the United States. And that’s largely because of the intellectual capital that we have, the general understanding of science.”

As Nye sees it, the stubborn resistance of Christians to accept Darwinian evolution is a threat to all this.

Without getting too far ahead of ourselves, it may be worth asking, just why is that, at least according to Bill Nye, the one nation where there is strong resistance to Darwinism is also, in Nye’s opinion, at the same time the most technologically advanced civilization?

These two ideas appear to be in conflict. If believing the Bible is really the social retardant Nye thinks it is, would it not follow that the US would be among the world’s most backward nations, not among its leading lights?

It seems to me that Nye, who claims to have a great curiosity about the world around us, would be curious enough to look into this strange [according to his world view] phenomenon, but the thought does not seem to occur to him.

For those interested, a video of the 2014 debate can be seen here.

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The Week In Review 5/13/2017 – You’re Fired!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 13, 2017| Leave a Comment »

.Youre-FiredThe big story this past week? Pretty obviously it was Donald Trump’s decision to reprise his role on the Apprentice, issuing a “Comey, you’re fired” to the now former FBI Director.

As with any decision of this sort, the was a sharp divide along party lines. Some Republicans cheered the news. Democrats, on the other hand, railed against the decision.

Writing in The New Yorker, John Cassidy opined, “At a time like this, it is important to express things plainly. On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump acted like a despot.”

Oh, spare me. The republic will survive.

Generally speaking, the hiring and firing of federal bureaucrats is not a terribly interesting topic. But in Comey’s case, a few words are in order.

For my part, I lost all respect for the man last summer when he failed to recommend charges against a clearly guilty Hillary Clinton in the Servergate scandal.

Then, just a week before the November vote, Comey claimed he was reopening the investigation, only to shut it down just a few days later. This made Comey appear indecisive.

A third failure of judgment on Comey’s part was his decision to launch an investigation into Trump’s dealings with Russia, based, as it was, in part on the debunked “Golden Shower” dossier.

So we have an FBI Director who wouldn’t recommend charges against Hillary Clinton, against whom there was a mountain of evidence suggesting serious wrongdoing during her term as Secretary of State, but who continued to doggedly pursue the case against Donald Trump, a case notable for its complete lack of actual evidence.

So, should Comey have been fired? Yes.He failed the biggest test of his career when he refused to recommend charges against a clearly guilty Hillary Clinton. Thankfully, the American people showed better judgment than he did by refusing to put her in office.

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