South Carolina Priest Forces Choice

Here’s something to think about.

Sarah Palin was accused of believing Africa was a country. People bought this ridiculous story, even though Governor Palin is a college graduate and an accomplished governor with a high approval rating. Now the story has been proven false; a prankster made it up and presented it to the ever-gullible American media.

Barack H. Obama, on the other hand, DID say there were 57 states. And the press immediately dismissed the error, saying it was caused by fatigue.

How come the press explained the Obama gaffe away, yet assumed the Palin hoax was true?

I apologize for asking such hard questions so early in the morning. I know this will be a tough puzzle to solve. Why would the press assume a Republican was abysmally stupid, while reflexively excusing a Democrat? I just can’t imagine. Maybe if I had a six-figure grant, I could come up with the answer.

I just read another Obama-related story, linked by Drudgebart.com.tv. A South Carolina Catholic priest is refusing to give Communion to Catholics who voted for Obama, who is not only pro-abortion, but in favor of withholding medical care from babies born alive. My response: why did this take so long? I suspect that Catholics have been brainwashed with liberalism for so long, their clergymen just could not force themselves to take a moral stand against a prominent Democrat. Am I wrong? How else can you explain this?

Catholicism opposes divorce. It opposes every known type of fornication (and some things which may not actually be fornication). It preaches unselfishness, sacrifice, and compassion. How can you twist the church’s positions into a platform that supports or even tolerates convenience abortion? I guess once the seminaries filled up with gay men who engaged in sex acts in their spare time, this kind of moral erosion was inevitable. I have been told by Catholics that this kind of thing goes on in seminaries; if I’m wrong, I apologize.

Maybe it’s a crisis of confidence. Catholic churches are losing members and money. These days, no church wants to alienate members, so instead of sticking to their guns, they tell us whatever we want to hear.

I know I’m insane and nothing I say should be taken seriously, but let me tell you the nutty idea I have about churches. I actually believe…no lie…that lay people should get their moral guidance from churches, and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. If not, they should change the way churches are built. They should have a whole bunch of pulpits and only one single-seat pew. Then on Sundays, a preacher or priest could come and sit in the pew while the congregants yell at him from the pulpits.

This priest is a hero. A real leader. A…a maverick. Yes, I said it. You can’t buy his kind of integrity for all the money in the country of Africa, and to find it in America, you have to scour all 57 states.

Back to Church, After a Two-Decade Hiatus

As mentioned in earlier posts, my sister and I decided to start checking out churches together. First on the list: Wayne Cochran’s Voice for Jesus Church, up in Hialeah. We went last night.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you the devil doesn’t know when you’re trying to get to church. While I was getting dressed to go, I managed to fall down the stairs. I’m talking about a set of wooden stairs with a grand total of three steps. I have a pair of shoes with tacks in the heels that aren’t seated quite right, and I forgot all about them. Sometimes when I put my foot down just right, I slide on the hard tacks until something catches. Last night I put my right foot down at the top of the stairs, and it kept going, and the left one went right after it. And they didn’t stop on the next two steps. I went down and nearly broke my entire rear end.

I somehow managed to hit my left elbow very hard, and a lot of my considerable weight came down on my right thumb. If I had hit a little harder, I would have been injured pretty badly. My thumb was pulled upward, putting a lot of force on my wrist. My right hip hit the top step, and somehow I ended up with a pain in the left side of my back, too. After I got up, I checked my elbow, and sure enough, it was bleeding through my nice custom-made dress shirt. The only dress shirt that was ready for me to wear. I put a bandage on it and reached for a blazer. Somehow or another, dust and crud had accumulated on the one I wanted to take. I couldn’t get enough of it off to make it presentable, so I found another one.

My sister has a 335i, and she insisted I drive so she could have something to eat; her day had apparently been unusually frantic. I am not a fan of BMWs. This thing treated me like a prisoner of war. You have to have a Ph.D. to start it, and it has one of those satellite hookup things that allow BMW employees to yell at you while you drive. But I managed. Naturally, there were accidents on the Palmetto Expressway. Ordinarily, a bad time for this run would be about 45 minutes, but we managed to stretch it to over an hour.

We finally sneaked in and sat down. Wayne Cochran was off somewhere, but an assistant named Jose filled in, and he did a very good job. I was impressed.

One of the big problems with Holy-Spirit-centric Protestant churches is that they go off on worldly tangents and tell people crazy things. I quit going to church largely because I was put off by their seeming insistence that every believer had to be rich and free of problems, and that God was a sort of vending machine. Pay ten dollars in, get a hundred out. Wayne Cochran is affiliated with some of the people who offended me in the past. But Jose taught a very solid message. He said it’s not about asking God for stuff; it’s about seeing yourself as an ambassador of the kingdom, and doing whatever you can to advance God’s agenda in the world. The other things will come as they are needed; you can’t expect anything if you show up in church just to get goodies.

You don’t hear this message often from this kind of church. Or at least you didn’t in the past. Maybe things have changed for the better.

One thing surprised me. A yarmulke. A guy a couple of rows in front of me was wearing it. I didn’t know what to think. Had he been dragged there by a Christian wife or girlfriend or relative? Was he a Jewish believer? I guess he was a member, because when they looked around for new people, they didn’t pay any attention to him.

I don’t know all that much about Jewish converts. It’s my understanding that many of them don’t use the term “Christians” to describe themselves, because they reserve that word for Gentiles. And some of them continue to observe the Jewish laws, seeing themselves as plain old Jews who have found the Messiah. You wouldn’t expect an observant convert to hang out in a Christian church as a member. I suppose there is a lot of confusion in this area. I know this: you wouldn’t have seen a yarmulke in a church back when I was going regularly.

This church is not too far from North Miami Beach, which has a big Jewish presence. I suppose it’s very convenient for converts. Just hop on the Palmetto, and you’re there in ten minutes.

I thought the “ambassador” message was great, because it’s an idea I have had in my head for a long time. I think Christians have been wrong to assume “kingdom of God” refers to heaven. I think you can be part of the kingdom of God right here on earth, and because that kingdom isn’t an earthly government, this makes you a sort of foreigner, and your body a kind of embassy. Property and part of the kingdom, regardless of your current location. I had never heard anyone teach this until last night. If different Christians are getting this idea independently, maybe God is behind it. Some things in the Bible don’t make sense unless you understand the phrase “kingdom of God” to have this meaning.

We were planning to visit again on Sunday, but my sister now wants to take a look at Rich Wilkerson’s church, up in Miami Gardens. She has been there before. She says it’s wonderful.

Here’s one of the weird things about all this. In the past, I used to hope that one day, I’d be able to take my sister to church. But she took me. How about that? I figured she would have to be ethered and carried in on a stretcher.

A nice thing about this type of church is that it draws different kinds of people together. This is especially remarkable in Miami, where racial and ethnic tensions are always very high. The guy who did the teaching was probably Cuban. There were a lot of black people in the crowd. There were the usual run-of-the-mill white people. Of course, there were Hispanics. And then there was the guy in the yarmulke. Nobody talks about it, but spirit-filled churches are very good about uniting people. I’ve never been to a spirit-filled church that didn’t have members from all segments of society. As I looked around, I realized this was something Barack Obama, in all his glory, could never achieve. Leftists try to force unity on us from above, but unity, unlike prosperity, is a thing that has to trickle up. You can’t Astroturf it with busing and affirmative action. Of all the pretend messiahs, Karl Marx is the worst and the least effective. He is the Jimmy Carter of messiahs. No, the Windows Vista.

Wow, I didn’t mean to be that harsh. Is it okay to compare a fellow human being to Windows Vista?

Wayne Cochran is a wonderful speaker. He wasn’t around last night, but they had free CDs of his testimony, and I listened to one. He made it just as he was beginning his ministry. Listening to it, it’s hard to believe he hadn’t been preaching for years. As a Southerner whose parents came out of pretty much the same culture, I felt I understood it particularly well.

I don’t know where I’ll end up, but I am now a churchgoer. That is progress.

Christianity Will be Blamed

I got some information about the Nigerian “child witch” crisis.

I contacted World Vision about it, and they informed me that they don’t work in Nigeria. So there goes that option. But I found a few other things.

First of all, there is an organization called Stepping Stones Nigeria, which specializes in helping Nigerian children. It appears to be a purely secular organization, but they are getting things done.

Second, a Nigerian man named Sam Ikpe-Itauma has started his own charity. It’s called CRARN (Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network). He began by taking a few kids into his house, and now he has a school and various projects going. He doesn’t have a donation link up on his site, but there are instructions that will allow you to transfer money. Personally, I’m a little leery of letting my bank information get to Nigeria, regardless of the purpose.

Third, Catholic Relief Services and ADRA work in Nigeria (ADRA is the charitable arm of the Seventh-Day Adventists). It’s not clear whether they are doing anything for these kids, however.

This isn’t just a Nigerian problem. It’s a Christian problem. The people behind this mess are Christian pastors. The most prominent is a woman named Helen Ukpabio. She has a big church, and she sells videos, including videos on witchcraft. She encourages people to bring their children to the church to be delivered. I don’t know whether it’s true that pastors are encouraging torture, murder, and abandonment, but they don’t seem to be doing much to stop these things, and their teachings on witchcraft appear to fan the flames. If Nigerian pastors are taking these kids in and helping them, they aren’t saying much about it on the Internet.

If Christians don’t step up to the plate and put a quick stop to this cruelty, someone else will. Once that happens, it will be very hard to defend ourselves from charges that we caused this problem and did nothing to stop it. We will be accused of approving of it. If our enemies succeed in tarring us as nuts who support the torture and starvation of children, we will find ourselves in a situation in which every Christian who comes forward with an honest testimony about witchcraft or demons will be treated like Josef Mengele.

One famous American Christian has already been sideswiped by this disaster. As you will recall, Sarah Palin was criticized because her church hosted a Nigerian pastor known for his opposition to witchcraft. A lot of conservatives and Christians hope Sarah Palin will do great things in the future, but now she has a Nigerian PR time-bomb waiting to go off. Most people didn’t draw a connection between the pastor and the persecution of Nigerian children, but sooner or later, the dots will be connected. Then she’ll be Sarah Palin the Child Inquisitor.

In God’s Name, no Less

Before I went to bed last night, I read something that horrified me. Drudge linked to a story about Nigeria’s “child witches.” These are kids who have been abandoned because they have been accused of witchcraft.

In Nigeria, Christianity has been combined with sick local idolatry, and the result is a religion in which people calling themselves pastors bring themselves prestige by exposing people they claim are witches. Many of the accused are small children. When they are accused, they are subjected to torture in hopes of correcting them. Many are abandoned. Some are killed. It is beyond belief.

I know the world is full of suffering. I am not ignorant. But when I read this story and saw these lonely kids sitting in a group, one of them holding a sign reading, “We are not witches or wizard [sic],” I suddenly regretted being single, because it meant there was no way I could apply to adopt any of them. I realize how crazy that sounds. Truthfully, I don’t like being around kids. A lot of single men pretend they adore kids, in order to impress women; I am too lazy to put up a front. I don’t know what to do with kids, and they get on my nerves. It’s pretty unusual for me to perceive a kid as cute, or to want to interact with it. I do not understand the urge people feel to hold other people’s babies. But I know how it feels to be a child who suddenly fears he can’t rely on his parents to take care of him, and to worry about being alone in the world, and I can’t even imagine how much worse it is when those fears pan out. And to have your parents participate zealously in your ostracism and persecution? I can’t think of a way to express my amazement and distress. I think that photo will be in my head for the rest of my life.

I sent an email to World Vision, to see if they would put a link on their site so people could send money to help these kids. I don’t know if they’ll answer.

Another item of interest: I keep thinking about Against All Odds, and the many stories of Jews defeating powerful enemies in the face of overwhelming military superiority. When you read stories like that, it’s easy to be encouraged. You think, “Look what God does for people he favors. This can happen to me.” But last night, I thought about the other side of the sword. What if you’re the Arabs, and you don’t even know it?

Think about those military battles. The Jews had fewer weapons. They had fewer troops. They had every reason to lose. I grant you, modern Muslims are generally sorry soldiers. Nonetheless, they should have beaten Israel by now. They did a lot of things right. They came in superior strength. They used surprise. And so on and so on. And they failed, utterly.

A lot of people, including Christians, are like the Arabs. They live under curses, for one reason or another. They do things right, yet they fail. Over and over. If God can help a few Israelis rout a huge number of angry Syrians, he can prevent you from getting a job. He can keep you from marrying or having kids. He can make your enemies win. The Psalms are full of this stuff. If you want peace and abundance–the lasting kind, not the fleeting or illusory kind some people get in spite of their bad behavior–you have to clean up your life.

I’m going to keep that in mind. I already knew wrong living would bring me problems, but somehow, looking at it like this makes the principle more real to me. Maybe it will be of use to you, too.

At Last

Here is a peculiar aspect of my new relationship with my sister. She keeps providing me with educational materials and information she has found, relating to Christianity.

The latest item: Bill McKay’s series of documentaries, Against All Odds.

I don’t know much about it. I’ll say that up front. But it’s fascinating. McKay is a Christian, and he interviewed Israelis who served in the IDF. The common thread? They experienced miraculous victories and rescues. And by “miraculous,” I mean “miraculous.” Example: they’re trapped by landmines. The mines are buried about a foot down. A wind rises, and it blows the sand off the mines, and the soldiers walk out. Apparently, some of these guys heard voices–presumably angels–telling them what to do. And supposedly, a number of atheist Jews turned to God as a result of these experiences.

McKay says the scholars at West Point study every military battle they hear about, to learn about waging war. He claims they have thrown up their hands over Israeli battles, because the odds the Israelis overcame were so great, the battles didn’t make sense. That happened in the Bible, and it is still happening today, as 1.2 billion Muslims often tell us.

The trailer is really neat, and you can see it at this site: Against All Odds. Take a look and see what you think.

Another interesting thing: she wants to go to Wayne Cochran’s church on Wednesday. If you don’t know who he is, I’ll tell you. He’s a former rock star, and he started a church here many years ago. My sister had forgotten about it. She and my mother checked it out, back in the 80s. They were impressed by his kindness and concern, but they didn’t join the church. A few years later, I went with my mother, and the church had grown so big, you could barely see the man from the back rows. Anyway, she wants to go, so we may make a run up there.

Tonight a commenter said something about me believing in a “comic book God,” because I believed God and the angels could influence voters and machinery and so on, to alter the outcomes of elections. I deleted the comment because it seemed like it was unnecessarily rude, and an ad hominem, and an attack on my beliefs, and I just didn’t want to fool with it. Maybe that was wrong; I’m trying to change the tone of this blog, and I don’t see how I can do that if I publish obnoxious comments. Maybe I took the wrong approach. But it’s hard to have patience with people who suggest, condescendingly, that God is some sort of detached, aloof being who is too important to involve himself in our business. That’s not how God was in the Bible, and if the Bible is wrong, then the people who wrote it were idiots, and we shouldn’t believe in God to begin with. God is a person, and he is crazy about each of us, and the angels are real, and so are demons, and they intervene directly in people’s lives. I once got a good long look at a demon; I saw it very clearly, in the middle of an ordinary day. I know supernatural beings are real. I don’t want to hear about the silliness of my beliefs. You might as well tell me my feet aren’t real, and I can see one of them right now. The fact that something hasn’t happened to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.

How am I supposed to deny that God exists as we know him from the Bible, when he has done so many remarkable things to prove himself to me?

It’s past my bedtime. I’m out.

Let’s not Oversell It

The other day I said some religious people were fasting and praying, in hopes of securing a McCain victory. And a reader criticized the effort, believing that the existence of free will made it pointless to pray for an election outcome. Votes are cast by people with free will, so it makes no sense to ask God for victory. That is the theory.

There are a lot of things wrong with that theory. First of all, the Apostle Paul pointed out that secular authorities are placed over us by God. And the Bible is full of leaders who were chosen by God. David, Saul, and Moses are obvious examples. Gideon, Noah, Jeroboam…you could list such leaders all day. Second, if you’re God, you don’t have to control voters and take away their free will in order to change an election. You can discourage people from voting at all. You can send rain to keep people from the polls. You can make cars break down. You can make voting machines malfunction. You can cause damaging news about candidates to be released. Third, free will is way overrated. Our sovereignty over ourselves is very limited. If you think free will is inviolable, ask a recovered crackhead what he thinks. Ask him why free will didn’t prevent him from becoming addicted, and from using crack even after he tried to change. The truth is, people yield to persuasion and temptation, regardless of free will. And sometimes external influences (including God’s) are so powerful, it is almost as though free will did not exist. Think of Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened by God himself.

So, yes, it makes sense to pray that God will change the outcomes of elections. And it makes sense to pray that God will change people’s ways, and that he will help you to be good.

I am thinking about this because I read Psalm 119 this morning. It’s a whopper. In my King James it runs several pages. I had heard that Psalm 119 somehow summarized all the psalms, and I wanted to see for myself. I didn’t see it, but I did notice this: the psalmist kept asking God to help him refrain from sinning. He didn’t say, “I have free will, so let me fix it myself.”

Here are some excerpts.

10 With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments.

11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

12 Blessed art thou, O LORD: teach me thy statutes.

28 My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.

29 Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.

35 Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight.

36 Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness.

37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way.

93 I will never forget thy precepts: for with them thou hast quickened me.

94 I am thine, save me: for I have sought thy precepts.

95 The wicked have waited for me to destroy me: but I will consider thy testimonies.

132 Look thou upon me, and be merciful unto me, as thou usest to do unto those that love thy name.

133 Order my steps in thy word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.

For that matter, Jesus told us to pray that we would not be tempted. Why did he do that? He could have said, “You have free will, so don’t ever sin, regardless of temptation.” Obviously he did it because he knew that even good people are subject to influence.

The above verses also underscore the importance of memorizing scripture. The psalm talks a great deal about learning God’s law and word and testimonies.

I remember studying physics. Instructors always said it was bad to memorize laws and equations. They were completely wrong. When these things are imbedded in your mind, they are available for use at all times. You understand them more deeply. It’s easier to apply them, because your conscious mind is like a box with a limited capacity, and you can only hold so many things in it at once. If you’re thinking about quantities and measurements while you’re also trying to keep a complicated equation in mind, you will not think as well as a person who has the equation memorized. Doing physics with equations you haven’t memorized is like trying to speak French out of a dictionary and grammar book, without putting the words and rules in your heart.

The Bible is the same way. It’s good to run to it and open it when you need information. But it’s better to have the information inside you, so it comes to mind instantly. Many Christians call this “the sword of the Spirit.” Satan comes to you with a problem, and you remember an applicable verse, and you pull it out and throw it at him, and you win. This is what happened when Jesus was tempted in the desert. Satan told him to turn rocks into bread, and Jesus remembered his scripture: “It is written, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Deuteronomy 8:3.) Satan finally started using scripture, himself. He told Jesus to jump off the temple, saying, “For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11). Jesus responded, “It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Deuteronomy 6:16).

If you read the Bible a lot, you’ll find that it has the answers to many modern questions. For example, convenience abortion is very clearly wrong. John the Baptist moved in his mother’s womb when Mary approached (Luke 1:44). And the Bible speaks of God consecrating a prophet who is yet in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5).

I know abortion supporters will claim I am citing “talking points,” but I came up with these citations all by myself, on the spur of the moment. I simply thought about the issue, and they came to mind.

One of the unfortunate things about Christianity is that we cheapen it by making it an easy religion, involving no study. It will probably never be as cerebral as Judaism, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn as much as we can, and try to understand.

I used to know a little bit about the Bible, but when I stopped going to church and fell away, I forgot a great deal. I see now how I cheated myself.

Anyway, don’t let anyone tell you free will is the whole story. God is a motivator and persuader.

We Cannot Risk Damaging the Self-Esteem of Thousands

I am reading up on the GM/Ford mess. It seems to me that the US economy is running into landmines and booby-traps we put in our own path in years past, and now there is very little we can do to prevent them from blowing us up. And what’s going on at GM and Ford seems typical.

There are a number of economic time bombs that are now going off and blowing us in the direction of socialism. The most obvious one is the mortgage crisis, which was caused by a government policy of coercing lenders to give money to unqualified minority members and people who were just plain poor or irresponsible. The carmaker problem is another example. Social Security is still plugging along on imaginary money, but it will eventually fail unless we go completely socialist and enslave the young to pay the old.

If GM and Ford go bust, they will have a hard time paying their pensioners. They are supporting 600,000 people who no longer work. If it happens, the federal guarantee program will kick in, and that’s where the pensioners will get their checks. I have seen analysts say that we should bail out GM and Ford because if we don’t, we’ll end up paying off the pensions anyway. But is that true? I’ve been reading about the guarantee program, and apparently, it seizes the assets of failed companies to pay off pensions, and it has other funding sources, and it isn’t funded from general tax revenues. If that’s correct, then you would think letting these companies fail would be the smart move. We would lose 450,000 jobs in the short term, but that’s not catastrophic. And we would gut the parasitic UAW, which apparently drove us to this crossroads. If you include benefits, unskilled autoworkers pull down about $75 per hour, according to web sources. That’s insane. That’s as much as SEVERAL prosecutors, who go to college for seven years and then have to pay off student loans. Many doctors earn less than that.

And who is to say that if GM and Ford die, someone else won’t swoop in and buy the plants and start making cars people actually want and can afford? We don’t know that. Without the UAW, you could pay people what their skills are worth, which is what GM and Ford should have been doing all along.

My dad is a labor lawyer. When he was a student, he used to work in Detroit during the summers, to get money for school. This was in the Fifties. He was shocked by how lazy and overpaid the workers were. When a new hire worked at a normal pace, that person would be taken aside and ordered to slow it down. My aunt worked up there, too, and she said she eventually ended up taking her knitting and sewing stuff to the plant, because she finished her quota in half a day.

In those days, the Big Three had no competition, and America was prosperous, so the carmakers paid the UAW pretty much whatever they asked. Then the Japanese came along, and the UAW still had the Big Three by the throat, and you know the rest of the story. It has been about 38 years since Datsun and Toyota invaded, and we still pay unskilled workers five times what they deserve. On top of that, the management is corrupt and inept, and the people who design the cars simply can’t compete with foreign talent. Many American models are very nice, but overall, we are in fourth or fifth place.

The best thing is probably to let these companies fail. If we need cars, someone else will come along and build them correctly. Haven’t Toyota and Honda already done that in their US plants? Overpaid workers and incompetent executives will have to take one for the team, but that’s what they deserve. On the whole, they will come out way ahead, because we have been subsidizing their ineptitude and laziness for decades.

If what I say makes you angry, relax. You’re going to win. These companies will be bailed out, and others will follow. Pelosi and Reid and Obama will take care of it. And you’ll pay the bill.

I am extremely optimistic about my own life, but my gut tells me the country is going socialist, and it will happen very quickly. The landmines we buried are going off, one after the other. The stimulus didn’t work. The interest rate cuts didn’t work. The bailouts we have seen so far have not worked. We still haven’t seen the full extent of the mortgage mess. We are setting precedents by bailing out the irresponsible and the dishonest, and we will have to honor those precedents in the future, with more bailouts. It might even be possible to force the government to pay up, using an Equal Protection argument. That kind of thing flies in Florida state courts, to some extent. Economies are tanking all over the place, and that means a bad market for our goods and services. Obama is going to be a very powerful President, and he is going to do everything he can to expand entitlements. Taxes are going to go up, and if you think it’s going to stop at 39%, well, you’re probably the kind of shrewd customer who believed Obama when he said he was going to rely on public campaign funding. Obama knowingly says things that are not true. Why would that change once he’s in office?

This is how the supernatural works. You do something bad, and you think everything is fine, and then after a while, things start going wrong very quickly, and you can’t do anything about it. You do the smartest things you can, but it doesn’t help, because there is more to success than human effort and human ability. You have to be blessed, and you can’t be blessed when you do as you please.

I think America is washed up. I really do. God just looked at our report card and cut off our allowance. Tens of millions of abortions. Gay marriages, officiated by gay clergy. Arrogance and cruelty and greed celebrated as virtues. Increasing anti-Semitism, even among so-called Christian churches. A warped Republican-conceived plan to achieve Mideast peace by carving up Israel and passing it out to barbarians. With our eyes wide open, we elected a new President who sat for twenty years in an anti-Semitic church, approving of everything his pastor said. And the God-fearing among us haven’t done a very good job of winning souls; we don’t seem to work very hard at making people understand the peace and blessings of Christian life. We’re better at turning people off by telling everyone we’re more righteous than they are. I’ve certainly done my share of that, whether or not that was my intention, and whether or not I realized I was doing it. I helped bring us here.

We flunked, by any sane measure. And we flunked consistently, over a period of decades. What possible reason could God have to help us now? “Give us more money, so we can take more drugs and have more extramarital sex and flaunt our wealth and have more abortions!” Who would listen to that? “Give us more money, so we can buy tickets to Urinetown and The Vagina Monologues, while we stiff charities and the church!” Crazy.

I suppose we can make a difference if we change our ways, but I don’t see that happening. I think we’ll be lucky if we only end up as messed up as Europe. I think our enemies are going to push us around with ease, our standard of living will plummet, and when the nations of the world have a problem, they won’t come to us any more, for the same reason they don’t try to get help from India or Mexico. We’ll be just another second-rate nation, trying to be heard at the UN.

I think our only hope lies in the individual. Change your ways, let God fix your life and your family, and hope the effect will spread to your community and the rest of America. Or go rent East of Eden and have a look at our future.

Let the Socialist Looting Begin

What happened last night is a reminder that human beings are less powerful and capable than they think. Civilization is very complicated. There are millions of very slippery and unpredictable factors that influence its function. Although we try, no one–especially not voters–really understands how it works. Voters are incompetent; they always have been. They vote based on things like looks and charm, or because of crazy, discredited ideas they refuse to let go of, or because they make conscious choices to believe proven lies uttered by dishonest candidates. We often talk about the common sense of the American voter and how it will save us, but the truth is, that’s pride talking. We are just as clueless as people in hellholes like India and Haiti, when it comes to choosing leaders. Think about it. SOMEBODY elected Cynthia McKinney and David Duke. If people like that can be elected, Americans are capable of electing the next Hitler or Castro.

We are not prosperous and safe because we’re smarter than Europeans and Africans and Asians. It’s not because we’re a mongrel master race, although we tell ourselves that all the time. We do well because God guides us and watches over us. Last night, we saw how stupid we can be when he withdraws his influence. We elected a nobody with very poor qualifications. A man who was largely sponsored (and openly supported) by our enemies. It was one of the dumbest things ever done by voters in a democratic nation.

Why did this happen? It’s obvious. We begged for it. We are proud and venal and rebellious. We have killed millions of our children in their mother’s wombs. We think sexual morality is obsolete. We are greedy and cruel. We like to go to church, but many of us only feel that way as long as pastors tell us Jesus is more or less like Oprah; a warm, maternal, fawning, obsequious presence who wants us to have tons of self-esteem regardless of our immorality. We are exhausting God’s patience.

Obama’s election is a bad sign. If God can permit us to choose a flashy liar over John McCain, he can also permit us to have an economic depression. He can permit us to be conquered militarily. He can allow Al Qaeda to explode nuclear weapons here. He can take his blessings elsewhere; maybe to Africa and South Korea. We could end up like Greece or Italy. Or Cuba. This may be the beginning of our decline into true socialism and the misery it always brings.

I feel pretty good today, but it has nothing to do with the election. I am not optimistic about America. We may have jumped the shark. This may be our Samson moment. Our divine protection may be gone, and we may be entering into a new age of mediocrity and humiliation.

Obama will get to appoint a large number of federal judges, and they will reinterpret our laws, including the Constitution, to advance Obama’s Marxist notions. Maybe he won’t get to appoint Supreme Court justices. So what? Non-lawyers never seem to realize that the district and appellate judges are much more powerful in the daily lives of Americans. What if he does appoint a couple of justices? Kiss the second amendment goodbye. Forget property rights. And the first amendment will be gutted.

Obama’s underlings will work to bring back the LBJ era. Look forward to higher taxes, more handouts, more damage to our national work ethic, and soaring deficits.

I’m not depressed, because I know my welfare is not directly dependent on the welfare of the nation. I know where the good things in my life come from. But I hate to see America get a spanking like this.

My advice for the next four years is to be astute and zealous in your dissent, but to keep it respectful. Don’t permit the existence of Obama Derangement Syndrome. We have to try to win people over; we’re not going to do it by mimicking Ann Coulter. Pray that God will guide Obama and his administration. Pray for America. Try to be good. Be a witness for God, to increase the number of his people here. And look out for yourself and your family, because very hard times may be right around the corner.

I am Sitting This One Out

I am getting ready to turn off the computer. Not because I am too nervous to watch cable and read websites and blog the election, but because I am tired and I have things to do before bed, and I have no interest in what is happening at the polls. Once again, I have to say how grateful I am. I don’t understand it at all, but I am not looking a gift horse in the mouth. For years I have not slept well, so I am very sensitive to my need for sleep, and I resent anything that keeps me up late. I am extremely pleased to know I won’t be getting out of bed to check the TV at 3 a.m.

It has occurred to me that this could mean our prayers for a McCain victory are going to be answered in the affirmative, and that somewhere inside me, I know better than to worry. On the other hand, it could be the result of a deep realization that I am becoming separate from the world, and that my security comes from God, not politicians.

I would say I have been conservative since about 1980. But since the mid-80s I’ve been more of a religious conservative than a political conservative. I mean that I’ve been conservative mainly because Christianity is inherently conservative. A lot of confused liberal Christians think the personal generosity and forgiveness taught in the Gospels is somehow supposed to be applied through government. That’s crazy, because forcing the government to practice virtue for us, and to take our money to practice it, deprives us of the ability to decide to be virtuous on our own. It takes the virtue out of virtue, by making it compulsory and not heartfelt. It also deprives us of money we could direct to God’s work. Jesus would not have approved of drug abuse, homosexuality, sex outside of marriage, civil disobedience, immodest dress, profanity, high taxes, or socialism, and he encouraged his disciples to go about armed with swords. He would have fit in better in Texas than in Massachusetts. His respective influence and presence in those states probably reflects that.

I think that in the past I worried too much about man’s efforts to influence the world through politics, and not enough about getting my own life in order so that I would not rely so much on our government to protect me. It’s very important to vote for politicians whose policies are least offensive to God, but in the end, the only way to take care of yourself and your family is to put your religious duties first and exercise faith. So I voted and cajoled and prayed and fasted, but I am not going to worry. I am going to be all right, and I will have the power to help others get in the lifeboat with me, over the course of my remaining years. I wish I could be sure I would continue to live in a nation blessed with prosperity and security; a nation which nurtures Christianity and protects the Jews and pleases God. But other nations have fallen and lost their blessings, and I accept the fact that America may be beginning to deteriorate at an accelerated rate. Maybe we’ll end up like France. As far as I know, Israel is the only nation destined to endure forever. I’m glad I got to see America in its glory. If the destroyers and wasters and barbarians manage to loot her until she falls, at least I’ll have memories of an America that is beyond their reach.

My advice to you is to turn off the TV, turn off the PC, pray, and go to bed early. And if you can’t do it, maybe you need to ask yourself where you can find the strength next time.

It’s a MADDDDDDHOUSSSSE!

I have always loved Bible movies. This was true even before I became more religious. I don’t know what it is about Bible movies. I love watching Victor Mature beat on Philistines. I like watching Charlton Heston race chariots. How can you beat this stuff? It’s like superheroes and Jedis, only the miracles are based on truth.

Today a package arrived from Amazon. A Chuck Heston double feature! The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur! I can’t wait!

I just put a Costco rib roast in the oven at 250. It should be ready right when my McCain/Palin fast ends. What could be better than slow-cooked rib roast, a baked potato, garlic butter, horseradish, and Charlton Heston? Not hardly anything I can think of.

I also made a horrible impulse buy. Sarah Lee now makes little cubes of cheesecake in an ice cream carton. I know it’s not as good as homemade, but fasting has a way of altering your standards at the grocery store.

I’m not nervous at all about the election. In fact, I’m having a great day. Does that mean God is going to answer our prayers, or just that he helps Christians relax right before their countries go socialist? Hard to say. Whatever the explanation is, I’ll take it.

I think I’ll do the Ten Commandments tonight, with my rib roast. Oh, YEAH.

I Need a Standing Eight Count

Here’s a tip for people who are fasting and praying for McCain. Do NOT work with food during your fast. And don’t do yardwork.

You can guess how I came across these bits of advice.

I moved a huge planter full of wet dirt, from one end of the yard to the other. Then I salted down a rib roast and applied minced garlic to it. It’s obvious why doing manual labor was a bad idea. The food thing is harder to explain. I’ve noticed this before. If you fool with food during a fast, your blood sugar will drop. I knew better.

I plan to enjoy the hallucinations while they last. And I’m satisfying my hunger with a delicious glass of iced water! MMM…tasty water! What a treat!

Hurry up, sundown.

I am not an Authority

I am encouraging people to fast and pray for McCain, or at least for an Obama loss. Democrats are praying for Obama to win; don’t worry about that. You can’t expect God to pay attention to prayers for a pro-abortion victory or a far-left, anti-Israel, anti-Christian administration. Just pray for McCain to win, and that he and his Vice President and administration will rule in a way that pleases God.

People are asking how to fast. I used to think a fast meant bedtime to bedtime, 24 hours minimum, no calories. Then I learned that a lot of people fast differently. Jews often begin fasting one evening and break the fast the following evening. I think. Some people will skip one meal. Some will eat only fruit. It’s up to you, I suppose.

As for me, I won’t be having any calories until an hour after sundown. Today that’s 6:38 p.m. Hmm…that’s pretty easy. And as luck would have it, I have a nice rib roast aging.

I am taking Communion every morning now, early. I did that today; it’s too important to skip. But it doesn’t amount to much, as food goes. And I took vitamins and fish oil.

Incidentally, I got up at 5:30 today! Amazing! You will never fully understand what an achievement this is for me. I am not a natural morning person. When I was in college, sometimes my roommates would get me up at 1:00 for lunch. And in the past, when I got up early (or late), I felt miserable for at least an hour afterward. I’m not having that problem now. I get up, and I’m ready to go. I look forward to it.

Here is something Christians are very familiar with. Circumstances arise that seem to be unfavorable or inconvenient. And you feel as if things are going wrong. Then you find out that these circumstances lead to a pleasant surprise. That’s what happened to me, with regard to getting up in the morning.

The funny thing is, no matter how long you believe, and no matter how many times things like this happen, it’s always a big surprise.

My TV’s clock has been failing to work, so I’ve been relying on a backup clock radio set to go off five minutes later. On Sunday, I forgot about Daylight Saving Time, and I also forgot the backup, which I had set to 6:20 because I got to bed late on Friday. So the TV was set for 6:00 (which was actually 5:00), and the clock radio was set for 6:20. The TV failed again. I woke up at “6:20” and felt like I had blown it. Later I realized it was an hour earlier than I had realized. So I had actually gotten up at 5:20.

I have been trying to force myself to get up at 5:30 for quite a while, but it has been hard getting to bed early enough. Thanks to DST and my mistakes, I ended up doing it unintentionally. So here I am, on the schedule I wanted to begin with.

I already mentioned this, but no one reads anything I write on Sunday, so I thought I’d mention it again.

I got a comment from Carl the pagan, on yesterday’s post. I wanted to publish it, but there was so much pagan content, I didn’t feel right about it. Sorry, Carl. Like Hebrew National, I have a higher authority to answer to. I don’t want people reading my comments and thinking, “Wow, paganism looks swell.”

A year or two ago, I went to see furious atheist Christopher Hitchens speak, at a reformed Jewish synagogue. I was disgusted with the rabbi, for bringing an atheist in to proselytize and to condemn God, in a house of worship. I was fairly disrespectful to the rabbi in my post; that was wrong. Anyway, I can’t allow myself to make the same mistake the rabbi did. Does this make me close-minded? Yes, absolutely. On this issue. I’m proud of it; it’s the right position to take. G.K. Chesterton said, “Merely having an open mind is nothing. The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.” I am open-minded by nature, but continuing to entertain clear error once you know the truth is the worst kind of foolishness.

I am close-minded on many issues, such as whether the sky is blue and whether two plus two equals four. This only proves I’m not an idiot.

I guess now I’ll get comments from people who think two plus two equals five, calling me Eurocentric and intolerant.

Believe it or not, there are people who actually feel that way. Read Robert Bork’s book. There are far-left wackos who believe logic is a Eurocentric, patriarchal construct used to…I don’t know…legitimize rape or something. I know many of you will think I’m kidding.

Get out there and fast. God decides who wins elections.

Pull Out the Stops

I was IMing with Aaron tonight, and he mentioned his plan to fast tomorrow, in hopes of helping McCain win. I had been thinking of doing the same thing. He’s going from one hour before dawn until sundown.

I say we go for it.

WHO’S WITH US?

Pray too, of course. Otherwise you’re just dieting badly.

We’re not Alone!

Look!

Was Not Arrayed Like a Banana Flower

Here is intesting Bible stuff.

Lately, from time to time, I have thought about the fact that Jews pray toward Jerusalem. I figured it was one of those things that don’t apply to Gentiles. Maybe it was hyper-religious super-observance rooted in the Talmud, or maybe it was one of the many commandments which only apply to Jews. That was my guess.

Today I read from the books of Chronicles and Kings. Look what Solomon said as he prayed to dedicate the temple:

41 “As for the foreigner who does not belong to your people Israel but has come from a distant land because of your name- 42 for men will hear of your great name and your mighty hand and your outstretched arm—when he comes and prays toward this temple, 43 then hear from heaven, your dwelling place, and do whatever the foreigner asks of you, so that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your own people Israel, and may know that this house I have built bears your Name.

That is from 1 Kings 8.

Incidentally, earlier on, he said this about his own people:

33 “When your people Israel have been defeated by an enemy because they have sinned against you, and when they turn back to you and confess your name, praying and making supplication to you in this temple, 34 then hear from heaven and forgive the sin of your people Israel and bring them back to the land you gave to their fathers.

I guess I’ll catch a lot of flak for recommending praying toward the temple, but come on. This isn’t Elmer Gantry’s prayer. This is SOLOMON. How can you not take him seriously?

When I was on the kibbutz, I had something like a vision. I won’t call it a vision, because I wasn’t completely awake. It happened in the funny state between sleep and waking. I found my bed turned sideways, and at the foot, I saw an angel in a white robe. It was a female angel (some believe all angels are male), and she had grey hair, and there was a wide silver belt around her waist. She had her hands raised in worship, and she was praying and looking up. The bed had a quilt I did not recognize (I didn’t have a quilt over there), and there were arms and legs attached to the edges of the quilt, and they were flopping frantically as she prayed.

Now, here is something I can only tell you because Google Earth now exists and permits me to view the building where I lived, from the air. My bed was parallel to a wall, but in the vision, my feet were pointing at Jerusalem, and I was facing it. The angel, on the other hand, faced the other way. She was facing me.

I think it probably means something; I think it was about something stupid I did years later. But I won’t go into that. Of course, it may have been the tail end of a dream. But I’ve had a few of these things in my life, and they don’t feel like dreams. There is a kind of turbulence to them, as if I were being thrown around. Makes me think of Jacob and his dream of wrestling the angel.

In other news, I have some plant photos. A commenter was asking for them.

First of all, you have to see my prik ki nu bush. This is the pepper the Thais call “bird’s eye,” among other things. This is one bush, I swear. A tiny bit of the lime tree behind it is visible at the top, but there is only one pepper bush in the frame. To establish scale, let me point out that it is against the fence behind it, which is standard chain link.

I know it’s incredible.

Here are some of the peppers.

Now some other stuff. Here is the key lime tree I planted the other day, with the little wire string-trimmer shield I made:

The older tree is behind it. I am now getting limes. It’s yellow. I’m not sure why. Many things can cause this, and only one of them is fatal.

Here is one of my banana trees, with smaller “pups” around it. The big tree is around fourteen feet tall, which is about twice what I expected.

Now take a look at the bananas. the flowers haven’t dropped off yet.

When you say “banana flower,” it can refer to one of at least two things. One is the giant purple blossom which gives rise to all the fruit and blossoms. Another is an individual blossom, which turns into a banana.

Here are the “petals” which have already fallen off. I’m going to use these as mulch for the new trees. These things are actually called bracts. They are not real petals.

The flower or bunch or whatever you call the entire fruit/flower thing drips with sweet fluid all day. It’s always full of bees. It turns out you can eat the last bit of the main flower (bracts) which remains on the plant after it quits producing hands of bananas. Eventually you end up with several hands plus a knob at the end of the bunch, and the knob, made up of bracts, is the part you eat. You soak it in something or other and then chop it up. Asians dip it in sauce.

I won’t show you my smaller pepper bushes, which look awful. They’re in the same bed as the prik ki nu, and I expect them to grow very well once they get used to the dirt. They used to be in pots, which they outgrew.

Let’s Call Things What They Are

I have a reader named Carl. Today Carl announced in a comment that he is a pagan, and he explained the pagan significance of Halloween.

Take a look at what Carl said in my comments, back in August, without mentioning his religion:

I am not going to comment anymore on your blog because you have become way too crabby and intolerant since you found religion.

You have lost your sense of humor. I wish the old Steve would return!

You tell me. Is it ethical for a person who believes in a religion which is inherently hostile to Christianity to complain about a Christian’s turn to God, without identifying his own religion? I’ll give you my opinion. It is not. To a cynical person, it would appear that Carl was trying to discourage me from telling about my faith and experiences, for the benefit of his own religion. And that he didn’t want me to know why he was doing it. Of course, that’s just a possibility. Maybe he just didn’t think it was important to tell me his beliefs.

I have lost my sense of humor; in other words, I no longer write R-rated posts or write in an approving way about things like lust or drunkenness. In the old days, I was harmless. Now I am a problem. That is true of any Christian, but it’s especially true of a happy Christian who sees the power of God working in his life. People like that can make nonbelievers jealous and cause them to consider accepting salvation.

If you’re a Christian and people are giving you a hard time about it, think about their motives. Thanks to Carl, I’ll be a lot more wary for the rest of my life. It’s hard to believe there are Americans out there who seem normal, yet who worship demons or trees or other strange “deities.” But they’re among us. Might as well keep it in mind.

I hope some of you will pray for Carl. He probably means well; I doubt he became a pagan in order to ruin his life. Funny thing; I was much crabbier before I turned around, and it’s very obvious in my writing. Life seems brighter every day, and I say so, over and over. What is it that causes Carl to perceive things differently?

I have to wonder what kind of kooky, evil rites and prayers I have inspired by blogging about God. For all I know, there are lost people out there trying to cast spells on me or praying that various spirits will thwart me or help me see how “wrong” I am.

This morning I was thinking about the rotten things that have happened to me all my life. Some people can slide through life without too many obvious problems, regardless of whether they worship God. My life has never been like that. My family has been under constant attack since before I was born, and I have always felt that I was especially hated. When I was a kid, my life was completely miserable. Until I was maybe eight years old, I had nightmares nearly every night. Many times, I dreamed of a white, hairless demon who came out of a sort of manhole under my bed and tormented me. The manhole was the mouth of a long tube that led down to hell, and there were other demons like him there. Once I dreamed I was outdoors at night, and I looked up at a star, and it was actually a hole, and I could see his eye through the hole, watching me. When I didn’t dream of him, I dreamed I was in Kentucky (my favorite place at that time), and that relatives I loved were approaching me to greet me; as soon as they got close, they began to twist and deform and melt into grotesque shapes, and I couldn’t stop it. It happened over and over. Many times I would wake up, and I would see giant lizards and insects and centipedes crawling all over the walls and ceiling, and even over the bed.

The days weren’t much better; my family was a mess. My father always made good money, but other than that, nothing went right for us.

Christians take prayer seriously, and I know that those who oppose Christianity take their faith seriously, too. They use supernatural means to try to harm and distract Christians. I’m sure I’m on their radar; I wonder how long that has been the case. Two of my great-grandmothers were heavy-duty Christians. Who knows whose attention they attracted back in Kentucky?

For a long time, I think my family has been punished for growing cigarette tobacco; we killed a lot of people that way. We might as well have sold crack. Apart from that, my great-great-grandfather was supposedly a witch. That’s just about the worst thing you can do to yourself and your family and descendants.

I guess none of this matters; God is God, and compared to him, all other spirits are powerless and insignificant. The Bible shows this over and over. In Egypt, God humiliated the gods of the Egyptians by attacking the things they supposedly ruled over, and showing his complete and effortless control over them. He turned the Nile to blood, he darkened Ra’s sun, and so on. He gave the Hebrews victory after victory over the heathens and drove them out of Israel. He continues to help a few million Jews defeat over a billion furious Muslims. I am on the right team. The team that has already won.

Here’s something crazy. I have been up for four hours. Am I the only one who forgot the time change?

I have been getting up at 6 a.m. lately, and I’ve been enjoying it tremendously, because it cuts the crummy part (the nights) out of my day, and it lets me get a head start on my relationship with God. Over the last week, though, my TV (which I use as an alarm) has been failing to turn on; I’ve had to use a clock radio as a backup. And because I got to bed late the other day and re-set the TV and radio to compensate, the clock radio was set for 6:20 this morning. I forgot to change it back. And the TV did not go off.

I woke up and saw the clock radio, and I was angry, because I thought I had blown it. I have been trying to arrange my evenings so I could get to bed at nine and get up at 5:30, and when I thought I had gotten up twenty minutes late, it seemed like a setback. Later in the morning, I turned on the Weather Channel for a couple of minutes, and I saw “6:20” on the bottom of the screen. Suddenly I realized two things. Not only had I not failed to get up on time; I had managed to succeed in getting up earlier than usual. Fantastic. Maybe tomorrow I’ll manage 5:30.

Enjoy your Sunday.