In defense of his position May 1, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Ethnicity, Media, Theology , add a comment|
Dr. Manning defends his position distorted by soundbites. Notice a pattern? |
http://nofishleftbehind.blogspot.com/2008/05/pastor-manning-explains-his-position.html
Dean may want to scream! April 29, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media , add a comment |
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DNC Chairman Dean Says Clinton or Obama Must Drop Out By June | |
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Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean said Monday that either Hillary Rodham Clinton or Barack Obama must drop out of the Democratic presidential race after the June primaries in order to unify the party by the convention and win the election in November. But Dean didn’t say which candidate should drop out, only that it should happen after primary voters have been to the polls. “We want the voters to have their say. That’s over on June 3,” Dean said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Dean also said that while the party rules say Democratic superdelegates can wait until the party’s August 25 convention to make up their minds, that would be too late to unify the party and defeat the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain. “We really can’t have a divided convention. If we do it’s going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards,” Dean said. “So we’ll know who the nominee is and that’ll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Senator McCain.” |
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Is his attempt to have a peaceful convention going to create even more problems?
Of course this is also Howards brainchild-misinformation that Barack Obama calls the politics of the past (but uses himself):
We released our second national television ad this morning on John McCain and Iraq. Watch it here; http://video.xanga.com/uprisingyouth/a6155729488/video.html
Thoughts?
you can’t make this stuff up! April 21, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , 1 comment so farJust got back from a nice long weekend getaway. check out what was in my Newbusters folder:
Gore Won’t Ask Wealthy Hollywoodans to Alter Lifestyle to Save Planet
“If you needed a better example of the hypocrisy involved in Nobel Laureate Al Gore’s global warming hysteria, read this delicious segment from an article just published by the British Sun (emphasis added throughout):
The man who is now as much part of the Hollywood Establishment as he was a political player with the Democratic Party is very careful not to upset any of his celebrity friends.
He wouldn’t dream of suggesting that their lavish jet-setting and gas-guzzling lifestyles could be reined in for the good of the environment.
Imagine that. But that was only the beginning of the hypocrisy:
When we point out that David Beckham has recently been given the dubious title of having the worst carbon footprint in history – clocking up enough air miles to fly to the moon and owning 15 gas-guzzling cars, Mr Gore shifts uncomfortably in his seat. […]
When asked what he would say to the football icon – a hero to millions – about his impact on the environment, Mr Gore refuses to be drawn.
He gives a huge belly-laugh at the notion that Posh and Becks could invest in an environmentally-friendly hybrid car such as a Toyota Prius.
He careful considers his answer before saying: “I don’t think that’s my place. I don’t want to get into personally criticising anyone.”
It’s not his place? He doesn’t want to personally criticise anyone?
How about your regular references to everyone that disagrees with you as being “deniers” and “flat-earthers?”
And why is it okay for you to travel the world telling governments how they need to alter their energy policies and tax codes, which will end up costing regular people billions nay trillions of dollars, but you don’t think it’s your place to tell the wealthiest members of society to change their lifestyles?
At the same time, Gore’s VERY interested in telling regular people what THEY should do:
“Long-life lightbulbs, recycling, window treatments, extra insulation – these things can all help.
“I appreciate they cost money to begin with but they will save money in the long run.
“But the main benefit of people going green is that they will join a movement to pressure their governments.”
So, let’s add this all up: He doesn’t want to tell the wealthiest people in the world that they need to make sacrifices in order to save the planet, but he’s more than happy telling the common man to spend more money in order to pressure governments to raise taxes and energy prices.
Meet the new Robin Hood, ladies and gentlemen: he steals from the pool so the rich can continue their lavish lifestyles without feeling guilty about imminent planetary doom.
Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. “
Hat tip- Noel Sheppard
Where is the outrage? April 15, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Church/State, culture, Government, Media , 4commentsNotice the press has been quiet as a church mouse protecting one of its own (again) from exposure on this story.
“Bill Maher went on a tirade against Pope Benedict XVI and the Catholic Church, only days before the Pope’s visit to the U.S.. He stated that the Pope “used to be a Nazi” and compared him to a cult leader. He then went on to call the Church a “child-abusing religious cult” and “the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia.” “And that’s the Church’s attitude: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.
In fact, whenever a cult leader sets himself up as God’s infallible wingman here on Earth, lock away the kids. Which is why I’d like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult. Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That’s right, the Pope is coming to America this week and ladies, he’s single!”
Pope Benedict didn’t “used to be a Nazi.” In fact, as the New York Times itself reported after the Pope’s election in 2005, Pope Benedict’s father was anti-Nazi, and “Joseph Ratzinger [the Pope’s birth name] huddled with his father and older brother around a radio and listened to Allied radio broadcasts,” an act that if they were caught doing, they would have been sent to a concentration camp.
f you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If have a billion, they call you ‘Pope.’ It’s like, if you can’t pay your mortgage, you’re a deadbeat. But if you can’t pay a million mortgages, you’re BearStearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the BearStearns of organized pedophilia – too big, too fat. When the current pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul’s Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out. And that’s the Church’s attitude: ‘We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,’ which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: if the Pope was — instead of a religious figure — merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he’d be arrested faster than you can say ‘who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?’
Maher grossly misrepresented the contents of the 2001 letter then-Cardinal Ratzinger wrote to the bishops. He did not tell them to “keep the sex abuse of minors of State of Limitations ran out.” The letter clarified that the Catholic Church’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had jurisdiction according to the Church’s law (canon law) to try clerics concerning abuses of the sacraments, and also, as the letter put it, a “delict against morals, namely: the delict committed by a cleric against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue [thou shall not commit adultery] with a minor below the age of 18 years.” (Quote excerpted)
I am NOT Catholic and I have a different view of the Pope than Catholics. But I take a look at all the people who have lost jobs this past year making statements about people that were considered tasteless or non-professional and then I see this by Maher and not a peep, not a call for his job? That is unbalanced.
Here is the link until the video is transcoded.
Also see CNS’s article here
Ted Turner’s elitist selectivism April 3, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Ethnicity, Media , add a commentIf anyone should be given a cup to have their urine checked, it is Ted Turner. Another example of elitist selectivism. This reminds me of the World Health Organization (the irony of that name!) in the 1960’s banning DDT because we were becoming overpopulated, and we would run out of food from all those africans.
Ok, Ted tell us, how are your five kids doing? Which three do you want to sacrifice on the altar of global warming first? And how about grandkids, dont have more than four do you? This disgusts me.
Ted Turner: Global warming could lead to cannibalism
Billionaire environmentalist says world has too many people
http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/news/stories/2008/04/03/turner_0404.html
By MIKE MORRIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/03/08
Failure to address global warming will have us all dead or eating each other by mid-century.
So says Ted Turner, the restaurateur, environmentalist and former media mogul whose controversial comments have earned him the nickname “Mouth of the South.”
If steps aren’t taken to stem global warming, “We’ll be eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow,” Turner said during a wide-ranging, hour-long interview with PBS’s Charlie Rose that aired Tuesday.
“Most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals,” said Turner, 69. “Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state — like Somalia or Sudan — and living conditions will be intolerable.”
One way to combat global warming, Turner said, is to stabilize the population.
“We’re too many people; that’s why we have global warming,” he said. “Too many people are using too much stuff.”
Turner suggested that “on a voluntary basis, everybody in the world’s got to pledge to themselves that one or two children is it.”
Admitting that he’s “always suffered from foot-in-the-mouth disease,” Turner added, “I’ve gotten a lot better, though. It’s been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid.”
Turner went on to say that military budgets need to be cut “way back.”
“Right now, the U.S. is spending $500 billion a year on the military, which is more than all 190 countries in the world put together,” he said.
“The two countries that the military industrial complex and some of our politicians would like to demonize and make enemies are Russia and China,” Turner said. “China just wants to sell us shoes. They’re not building landing craft to attack the United States, and Russia wants to be our friends, too.”
He said that despite the United States’ huge military budget, “we can’t win in Iraq.”
“We’re being beaten by insurgents who don’t even have any tanks, they don’t have a headquarters, they don’t have a Pentagon, we don’t even know if they have any generals,” Turner told Rose.
Turner called the Iraqi insurgents “patriots” who “don’t like us because we invaded their country and occupied it. Nobody likes to be invaded.”
The CNN founder also said he thinks his old network has veered too far away from serious news, instead favoring lighter stories delivered by attractive female “chickies” and opinion-based news such as Lou Dobbs’ show.
Running on Experience March 21, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media , add a commentWe have heard the candidate with the most experience for the White House is the one who lived there and claims that experience. With the recent pastoral controversy perhaps it would only be fair that the “experienced one” relieve some of the pressure off the “eloquent speaker” and admit their political association as well
Upcoming
In the spirit of fairness, I am also going to do a comparison of preachers messages after Easter, as “another gospel” is another gospel and all are equally dangerous. ECD Pilgrim discusses one aspect of this today.
NAFTA
The politician most associated with the passage of NAFTA is former President Bill Clinton. Since NAFTA has become such a liability in the race for the Democratic nomination, Hillary Clinton has attempted to paint herself as being opposed to NAFTA all along. This CNN video of Anderson Cooper with Carl Bernstein shows that Hillary and her campaign were trying to sell the idea that Hillary was opposed to NAFTA and actually argued with Bill Clinton in 1993 not to pass NAFTA. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahXDVLesZSA
In fact, the documents released today show a meeting that Hillary chaired at the White House on November 10, 1993 where she promoted the passage of NAFTA to 120 people. Reports are coming out in every news agency pointing out the contradictions between her stated positions since announcing her bid for the Presidency and everything before that. ABC News’ Jake Trapper on Political Punch interviewed several of the attendees of Hillary’s November 10th meeting http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/03/clintons-1993-n.html. Trapper reports:
Two attendees of that closed-door briefing, neither of whom are affiliated with any campaign, describe that event for ABC News. It was a room full of women involved in international trade. David Gergen served as a sort of master of ceremonies as various women members of the Cabinet talked up NAFTA, which had yet to pass Congress.
“It wasn’t a drop-by it was organized around her participation,” said one attendee. “Her remarks were totally pro-NAFTA and what a good thing it would be for the economy. There was no equivocation for her support for NAFTA at the time. Folks were pleased that she came by. If this is a still a question about what Hillary’s position when she was First Lady, she was totally supportive of NAFTA.
That first attendee recalls that the First Lady’s office in the East Wing put together “the invitation list, who was invited authorizations and all that stuff.”
And what is this attendee’s response to Clinton today distancing herself from NAFTA? “For people who worked hard to pass NAFTA and who support the importance of markets opening for the economy in the long term, they’re very upset. A number of the women who were there are very upset. You need to have some integrity in your position. The Clintons when Bill Clinton was president took a moderate position on trade for Democrats. For her to repudiate that now seems pretty phony.”
Do you believe this ?
Welcome to the “Re-create 68″ website, your virtual activists’ Convergence Center for the Denver Democratic National Convention of 2008. This website was created for all the grassroots people who are tired of being sold out by the Democratic Party.
R-68 agrees with the proposition, POTESTAS IN POPULO, “all power comes from the people.” What stands between the people and power are the party machines. The parties were devised as a means to represent the people. Today they represent nobody, not even party members, but only party bureaucracy. The people have been left without appropriate institutions for their representation. We intend to create those institutions!
Join us in the streets of Denver as we resist a two-party system that allows imperialism and racism to continue unrestrained.
“Re-create 68″
August 24 - 28, 2008
DO IT IN DENVER!
SEE YOU THERE!
WORKING MEETINGS
Every Thursday at 6:30 pm (until further notice)
Gypsy House Cafe, 1279 Marion St., Denver
read more about what Recreate 68 means
Dream Ticket?
The discussion of the dream ticket of Obama/Hillary or Hillary/Obama most likely won’t happen. The best chance for the democrats to get elected this fall may well be the dream ticket of two firsts- Obama/ Governor Bill Richardson. The first black and the first Hispanic would be a much more believeable ticket and one that people who supported Senator Clinton would probably back. It could put a tourniqet on the anger of the supporters of whomever does not get the nomination from defecting.
Not dedicated to democratic ticket
As Democratic Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Clinton of New York slug it out for the nomination, many of their supporters — at least in Pennsylvania, site of the next major primary — aren’t committed to the party’s ticket in November, according to a Franklin & Marshall College Poll.
Among Obama supporters, 20 percent said they would vote for Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican nominee, if Clinton beats their candidate for the nomination. Among Clinton supporters, 19 percent said they would support McCain in November if Obama is the Democratic nominee. (See poll)
The significant number of potential defectors underscores how divisive the Democratic primary has been.
Democrats won Pennsylvania in the 2000 and 2004 presidential races, but it was a competitive state in both election cycles. McCain, meanwhile, has touted his appeal to swing voters.
“Pennsylvania is a must-win state for a Democratic presidential nominee,” Nathan Gonzalez, political editor of the Rothenberg Political Report, told Cybercast News Service. “If there is a significant weakness for a Democrat in Pennsylvania, it could indicate a weakness in Ohio or other key states.”
Why is Pelosi sabre rattling , is she insane?
US Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi made one of the highest-ranking U.S. official visits ever to Dharamsala, India, the exile home of the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Llama, today.
While standing next to the Dalai Llama, she denounced “China’s oppression of people in Tibet.”
“If freedom loving people don’t speak out against China’s oppression of people in Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak out against any oppressed people.”
This visit by 10 members of Congress to the Dalai Lama’s home in exile was planned long before the current protests in Tibet began.
But Pelosi said, “Little did we know, we would be coming at such a sad time. Perhaps it was our karma, perhaps it was our fate … it was our karma because we are here to help the people of Tibet.”
Pelosi and the rest of the congressional delegation were welcomed by the equivalent of a state visit, including 2,000 monks and other supporters waving Tibetan and U.S. flags. Pelosi and the rest of the congressional delegation were having lunch Friday with the Dalai Lama and will later hold pose for photographs, and perhaps take questions from the press.
| US lawmaker demands Tibet inquiry | |||||
A senior US lawmaker, Nancy Pelosi, has called for an independent investigation into China’s claims that the Dalai Lama instigated the violence in Tibet.Ms Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, also called on the international community to denounce Chinese rule in Tibet. She spoke out while holding talks in northern India with the Dalai Lama. China says 16 people have been killed by rioters in Lhasa, the main city. The Tibetan government-in-exile - headed by the Dalai Lama, regarded by many Tibetans as their spiritual leader - says at least 99 people have died in the crackdown by Chinese troops. Chinese Troops Converge in Tibetan Areas
ZHONGDIAN, China (AP) - The government stepped up its manhunt Friday for protesters in last week’s riots in the capital of Tibet, as thousands of troops converged on foot, trucks and helicopters to Tibetan areas of western China. The violence in Lhasa - a stunning show of defiance against 57 years of Chinese rule - has sparked sympathy demonstrations in neighboring provinces, prompting Beijing to blanket a huge area with troops and warn tourists and foreign journalists to stay away. Good News If there has ever been a time for Christians in America to refocus that we serve a King and a Kingdom and that our hope is not in the government or political but in the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Passion Week is such a time. Worship the King Who is our blessed hope |
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Nancy Pelosi 
Once a mistake, twice a rank idiot March 21, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Church/State, culture, Ethnicity, Government, Media , add a commentDr. Jeremiah Wright told us a year ago who shaped his worldview and his theology. If any of the “news people” had bothered to simply check out who Dr. Wright named there would be no ‘real shock’ at the rhetoric of Dr. Wright. Mind you, “no shock” does not equal agreement with a statement, rather it means you understand a state of an existence of a theology being taught in our seminaries and in some churches.
Lets do for ourselves what the paid MSM failed to do. James H. Cone, is a Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary. First, Union Theological is not some backwater , obscure institution, but rather has been in existence since 1836. But many are not quite aware of the fact they proudly state:
“Our ecumenical, interfaith commitment grows and strengthens through programs of exchange with churches and seminaries throughout the world. Informed by the insights of liberation theologians, the Seminary embraces and addresses the richness and realities of religious pluralism. “
If people grasped religious pluralism then Wrights rhetoric would be no surprise.James Cone has been featured in PBS’s This Far by Faith Series
A CRISIS IN FAITH
It was the voice of Malcolm X that first made James Cone question his theology. Malcolm X proclaimed loudly that “Christianity is a white man’s religion,” and said that blacks should adopt an understanding of God that grew out of their own history and experience. He railed against a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus and a belief in the delayed rewards of heaven.
Still, Cone, then on the faculty of Adrian College in Michigan, continued to believe in the nonviolent, Christian love of Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was the northern riots and Stokely Carmichael’s call for “Black Power!” during the Meredith March in Mississippi that led him to a crisis in faith.
CHRISTIANITY AND BLACK POWER: REINTERPRETING HIS FAITH
“For me, the burning theological question was, how can I reconcile Christianity and Black Power, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s idea of nonviolence, and Malcolm X’s ‘by any means necessary philosophy?’” (Preface to Black Theology and Black Power, p. viii.)
Christianity, as he understood it, no longer explained or held meaning in the turbulent years of the late 1960s. “I was within inches of leaving the Christian faith.” If he were to remain a Christian, Cone would have to reinterpret his faith to respond to such demanding times.
Not exactly what most of us would find to be common in church on Sunday Morning, but how can the informed Christian be ignorant of the existence of this? Corruption of the seminary has ahistorically been the beginning of the theological shifts in denominations to a more liberal stance.
It would be good to note, both Dr. Wright and James Cone comes from the generation prior to the American Civil Rights Movement and their experiences shaped a worldview of resentment towards the treatment blacks had received in that area. That their rhetoric reflects that should no more surprise us then the rhetoric of the colonial pastors inspired the American Revolution.
Dr. Wright also mentions , Dr. Dwight N. Hopkins, whose works include: Being Human: Race, Culture, and Religion; Walk Together Children: black and womanist theologies, church and theological education; Another World Is Possible: Spiritualities and Religions of Global Darker Peoples; Loving the Body: Black Religious Studies and the Erotic (coeditor); Heart and Head: Black Theology-Past, Present, and Future; Introducing Black Theology of Liberation; Down, Up and Over: Slave Religion and Black Theology; and Black Faith and Public Talk: Essays in Honor of James Cone’s Black Theology and Black Power (editor). His previous texts include Black Theology USA and South Africa: Politics, Culture, and Liberation; Shoes That Fit Our Feet: Sources for a Constructive Black Theology; and We Are One Voice: Essays on Black Theology in South Africa and the USA (coeditor). He is an editor of Religions/Globalizations: Theories and Cases; Changing Conversations: Religious Reflection and Cultural Analysis; and Liberation Theologies, Postmodernity and the Americas.
Dr. Hopkins is a Professor of Theology in the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. This school is well known and respected for it’s scholarship in the study of religion and religious tradition.
Chicago reflects only one orthodoxy: that the rules of evidence and argument must discipline conversation, and that such rules are especially important when the topic is religion. Our faculty and students present a remarkable range of attitudes about religion as a force for good and for ill in the world. These attitudes bespeak the shared view that religion is one of our most fascinating and enduring windows into central truths about human life and being. The School aims to develop out of that conviction the richest possible conversation, and direct it to the central, complementary ends of scholarly excellence and moral engagement.
Dr. Hopkins is more of an academic than James Cone, but whose worldview is certainly shaped by the James Cones and the Jeremiah Wrights he grew up under. Dr. Hopkins , an American Baptist minister believes,
The descendants of American slaves are due reparations. Their foremothers suffered oppression because of the slaveholding structure of American society, and they suffered injustice at the hands of individual Americans, both those who owned them and those who acted like they owned them. White Americans forced these women to work as house and field laborers, and white American men treated these women as objects, not humans, when they raped them. The ancestors of today’s Americans even suffered the additional outrage of rape as a form of profit maximization: If an enslaved woman gave birth, her child would increase her owner’s wealth and provide him with yet more free labor. The psychological damage that these women and their families suffered is incalculable. Yet enslaved American black women did not retreat into passivity. They forged a theological understanding of their relationship with a God who would one day pass judgment on the slaveholders and compensate the enslaved-In Heaven and on Earth. What we need now is a discussion of how we can best compensate the descendants of these women and thus strengthen our society today.
None of this is secretive information, but rather readily available in a google search, yet people are “shocked”. Some will even say, well that is racist and I won’t even acknowledge racism . That is like not talking about sex, 
STD’s , drugs or alcohol with our children will make it go away. It has the same effect, you leave people unprepared. And “shoocked” it even exists, instead of armed and prepared.
In all probablity this type of theology and the black experience had more effect on shaping Michelle’s worldview than it did Barack’s. This is reflected in her Princeton thesis which you can read here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.
Barack on the other hand was raised in a mixed cultural environment that was not walled in by the black experience (which why many claim he is not black enough). He was taught Islam, but from a political more than a religious standpoint in his home in Indonesia as a child. But Barack has more of a antropological view and reaction to society than his wife Michelle does.
I am much less concerned about Dr. Wright’s view than most, it is what it is. I tend to believe the social political aspect of Trinity UC church is part of the political reality of a Chicago politician more than a true indicator of Barack Obama’s belief system. I believe even though Dr. Wright had a lot of influence on Barack and is loved and respected by Barack as a fatherly type figure, he is intelligent enough to hold Wright’s radical (to us) views in tension and keep them in perspective.
Why? Because of his mother. HIs mother and his grandmother and his wife are powerful influences in his life. But not so much that he married a white woman. He married a true black woman-nobody will ever question if Michelle is black enough. Barack loves and respects her and she runs the house.Never underestimate the influence of a wife who b-slaps her husband in public. Early in Obama’s campaign, Michelle Obama could not restrain herself from belittling the senator.
”I have some difficulty reconciling the two images I have of Barack Obama. There’s Barack Obama the phenomenon. He’s an amazing orator, Harvard Law Review, or whatever it was, law professor, best-selling author, Grammy winner. Pretty amazing, right? And then there’s the Barack Obama that lives with me in my house, and that guy’s a little less impressive,” she told a fundraiser in February 2007.
“For some reason this guy still can’t manage to put the butter up when he makes toast, secure the bread so that it doesn’t get stale, and his five-year-old is still better at making the bed than he is.” New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported at the time, “She added that the TV version of Barack Obama sounded really interesting and that she’d like to meet him sometime.” Her handlers have convinced her to be more tactful since then.
Michelle Obama speaks with great warmth of her mother-in-law . “She was kind of a dreamer, his mother,” Michelle Obama was quoted in the January 25 Boston Globe. “She wanted the world to be open to her and her children. And as a result of her naivete, sometimes they lived on food stamps, because sometimes dreams don’t pay the rent. But as a result of her naivete, Barack got to see the world like most of us don’t in this country.” How strong the ideological motivation must be of a mother to raise her children on the thin fair in pursuit of a political agenda.
I think time has come to put this whole Trinity church affair in perspective and realize it is what it is. However, lets learn the lesson from it. Let’s not wake up a year from now and realize someone told us something and we missed it.Words have meanings and do not trust the Sean Hannity’s and the Fox’s and the CNN’s to do their research, do your own.
I would be much more concerned about the effect Michelles worldview has on Obama than Jeremiah’s.
Arrogance or ignorance ? March 17, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Church/State, culture, Government, Media , 3commentsHow can the news media look into the camera with a straight face and act shocked by Dr. Jeremiah Wright? If anyone should be the source of controversy, it should be Fox News and Sean Hannity. This is the story behind the story in this “news event”. Let’s go back to Friday night the 14th of March.
With all the drum beats of the videotape of Dr. Wrights sermons, and then Sean Hannity turns up the shrill that if this is all true then Senator Obama needs to withdraw from the race and resign his seat in Congress.. I thought to myself they must be onto something really hot for Hannity to look like George Bush was just elected for a third term and picked Mitt Romney for his running mate. But the truth of the matter is, Sean Hannity and Fox News had this story a year ago and were either too ignorant or too arrogant to even realize it. I realize that is quite a statement to make, but it is well founded folks. They just failed to listen and to be able to discern what they were being plainly told.
Sean announced as they came on air that they are going to be interviewing Senator Obama on their program on Friday evening so I watched their show to see that interview. While I am waiting to hear the interview (actually done by Major Garrett) Sean starts bragging that he had interviewed Obama’s pastor a year ago and they were going to play it in full. As I sat there and watched the interview my jaw dropped in disbelief. No, not at Dr. Wrights answers but at Sean Hannity’s incompetence as a investigative journalist. Dr. Wright was telling him a year ago what he is just now understanding and Sean was too busy wanting to one up him to get the real story, that Dr. Wright was trying to give him! Sean was too busy telling him he studied theology to even grasp it and Dr. Wright was even telling him what theologians world view shaped his. But due to either arrogance or ignorance (or both) everyone missed the story.
Ok, Sean Hannity is not the best investigative journalist, that isn’t breaking news. But what about the entire staff at Fox or CNN, NBC,ABC, CBS or MSNBC for that matter? After I saw this I emailed “my group” and tagged Fox as being “Hillary’s do-boys” and not realizing it. (Mc Cain endorsers worldviews were also being compared in argument that night but not a word about Hillary’s and I started to laugh thinking, Hillary’s team actually listened to that interview a year ago and compiled this for the right time -purely my speculation-educated guess)
On March 6, I posted “How can you cure what you don’t understand?” (link) referencing the false claim of Senator Obama being a Muslim, and examining his judgement on issues. I also asked readers to examine the doctrines of his church. While it seemed to be liberation theology, it did not appear to be the classic liberation theology I was familiar with so I made reference to the social gospel and compared their doctrines to biblical doctrine, and left the reader to draw their own conclusion. Again, once I saw the interview from a year ago, I understood it was indeed liberation theology and that most people don’t understand it.
Today, while reading Asia Times Online,I saw Spengler had run a column on “The peculiar theology of black liberation“.
Spengler, in his own style and worldview,explains black liberation theology. In the event you are not familiar with it nuances, and are trying to reconcile it with your own Christian beliefs I have included excerpted pieces of the article below:
” Senator Barack Obama is not a Muslim, contrary to invidious rumors. But he belongs to a Christian church whose doctrine casts Jesus Christ as a “black messiah” and blacks as “the chosen people”. At best, this is a radically different kind of Christianity than most Americans acknowledge; at worst it is an ethnocentric heresy.
What played out last week on America’s television screens was a clash of two irreconcilable cultures, the posture of “black liberation theology” and the mainstream American understanding of Christianity. Obama, who presented himself as a unifying figure, now seems rather the living embodiment of the clash.”
He references the interview that Hannity was bragging about and I referenced:
Wright asserted the authority of the “black liberation” theologians James Cone and Dwight Hopkins:
Wright: How many of Cone’s books have you read? How many of Cone’s book have you read?
Sean Hannity: Reverend, Reverend?
(crosstalk)
Wright: How many books of Cone’s have you head?
Hannity: I’m going to ask you this question …
Wright: How many books of Dwight Hopkins have you read?
Hannity: You’re very angry and defensive. I’m just trying to ask a question here.
Wright: You haven’t answered - you haven’t answered my question.
Hopkins is a full professor at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School; Cone is now distinguished professor at New York’s Union Theological Seminary. They promote a “black power” reading of Christianity, to which liberal academic establishment condescends.
Obama referred to this when he asserted in a March 14 statement, “I knew Reverend Wright as someone who served this nation with honor as a United States Marine, as a respected biblical scholar, and as someone who taught or lectured at seminaries across the country, from Union Theological Seminary to the University of Chicago.” But the fact the liberal academy condescends to sponsor black liberation theology does not make it less peculiar to mainstream American Christians. “
Spengler further notes, (and please note when he says black theology he means black liberation theology)
During the black-power heyday of the late 1960s, after the murder of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr, the mentors of Wright decided that blacks were the Chosen People. James Cone, the most prominent theologian in the “black liberation” school, teaches that Jesus Christ himself is black. As he explains:
Christ is black therefore not because of some cultural or psychological need of black people, but because and only because Christ really enters into our world where the poor were despised and the black are, disclosing that he is with them enduring humiliation and pain and transforming oppressed slaves into liberating servants.
Biblical theology teaches that even the most terrible events to befall Israel, such as the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BCE, embody the workings of divine justice, even if humankind cannot see God’s purpose. James Cone sees the matter very differently. Either God must do what we want him to do, or we must reject him, Cone maintains:
Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community … Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. [1]
In the black liberation theology taught by Wright, Cone and Hopkins, Jesus Christ is not for all men, but only for the oppressed:
In the New Testament, Jesus is not for all, but for the oppressed, the poor and unwanted of society, and against oppressors … Either God is for black people in their fight for liberation and against the white oppressors, or he is not [Cone].
That is the “biblical scholarship” to which Obama referred in his March 14 defense of Wright and his academic prominence. In his response to Hannity, Wright genuinely seemed to believe that the authority of Cone and Hopkins, who now hold important posts at liberal theological seminaries, was sufficient to make the issue go away. His faith in the white establishment is touching; he honestly cannot understand why the white reporters at Fox News are bothering him when the University of Chicago and the Union Theological Seminary have put their stamp of approval on black liberation theology.
Whether Obama takes seriously the doctrines that Wright preaches is another matter. It is possible that Obama does not believe a word of what Wright, Cone and Hopkins teach. Perhaps he merely used the Trinity United Church of Christ as a political stepping-stone. African-American political life is centered around churches, and his election to the Illinois State Senate with the support of Chicago’s black political machine required church membership. Trinity United happens to be Chicago’s largest and most politically active black church.
Obama views Wright rather at arm’s length: as the New York Times reported on April 30, 2007:
Reverend Wright is a child of the 60s, and he often expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism and the struggles the African-American community has gone through,” Mr Obama said. “He analyzes public events in the context of race. I tend to look at them through the context of social justice and inequality.
Obama holds his own views close. But it seems unlikely that he would identify with the ideological fits of the black-power movement of the 1960s. Obama does not come to the matter with the perspective of an American black, but of the child of a left-wing anthropologist raised in the Third World.”
1. See William R Jones, “Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology”, in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology, ed Cornel West and Eddie Glaube (Westminster John Knox Press).
Again, my inclination is that Senator Obama does not really hold to the same doctrine of Dr. Wright but to watch him squirm in that interview and carefully parse his words, makes me leery. Why? I served with people in churches who never wanted to offend anyone, by using a pluralistic formula of agreeing with everyone. In the end you not only offend more people but become known as standing for nothing. I managed businesses where people were afraid to make a decision and run with it for fear it is wrong or would hurt someones feelings. They never see their failure to take a position is in itself a position and makes one question their judgement.
In conclusion, the MSM, Fox News really blew this story a year ago. Now we will have a examination of ministers and what they believe and have to hear denials in which I have no interest and is a distraction. I believe this may have ended any chance of a VP position for Mitt Romney as well-if you can’t live with liberation theology, KOBOL, and Mormon doctrine may be too much as well. Ironic as it may be, I thought the press pushed a separation of church and state and we were for the right to believe what we wish, rather than bring our pastor to be interviewed.
Spengler concluded, with what well may be the question of the convention:
“It is possible that because of the Wright affair Obama will suffer for what he pretended to be, rather than for what he really is.”
How can you cure what you don’t understand? March 5, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : Government, Media, Theology , 2commentsLooking out of my window I respond indifferently to the presence of dirt on the ground. Should that dirt makes its way into my home, however, my feelings change and I proceed to sweep it out because it does not belong there.
Sin was in the world while Jesus was here and he witnessed it throughout His life. His life did not seem to be one of marching on Rome to bring an end to social injustice or even telling His followers how to vote. Corruption was running rampant in government when Jesus was here, and people were being taxed heavily. When they attempted to entrap Jesus on the government and tax issue, he asked to see the coin that would be using to pay this tax. He asked whose picture was on it. The Jews had accepted the rule of the Romans and were subjected to their government and taxing authority. As long as they were not neglecting or violating their responsibilities to God. He told the people they should give the government what was owed and to give God what was His.
But when it came to His Father’s House, He showed He was serious about His Father’s House.
And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
While God opposes all error and sin, He is especially passionate about expressing this opposition when error and sin come into his house and when his children are affected. Paul models the heart and actions of a servant of God responding to an internal corruption of the church as he says “I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.” The intensity of his response is dictated by his zeal for God and his love of the Church. Servants of God feel the inappropriateness of God’s house being defiled. God’s shepherds feel responsible for guarding the flock. This divinely inspired, holy passion compels an appropriate response when God’s house is trashed and his people are deceived.
Fast forward to today
Today we live in what most theologians agree is postmodern America. We have had Christians involved in politics heavily for the past generation urging Christians to make their voice heard and politicans responding by at least paying lip service to this block of voters and citizens. There is nothing wrong about that, and I encourage everyone to exercise their civil right and duties to vote.
However, we have many who look to the government to be their solution, rather than God. Many churches have becomes social gathering points, activism centers and the social gospel, rather than the gospel of the Bible.
All the candidates have at one time or another cited their faith openly during the campaign. John Mc Cain has even castigated some for their misuse of their faith, calling them agents of intolerance and hurting the ideals and principles of the party. Obama has teamed up with Rick Warren of Saddleback Church previously in a world AIDS initiative
Political season is upon us, and we recently saw photo’s of Senator Obama in the dress of tribesmen while on a visit and the use of his middle name Hussein, a name given to him. Many wrongly have tried to assert or leave a impression that he is Islamic, which leaves another impression, that he is a terrorist or is sympathetic to terrorists. No wonder people don’t want to run for public office and we have a hard time gtetting good choices for the office of leader of the free world!
Obama disavows false claims
Obama replied that he is a devout Christian and prays to Jesus every night and has belong to the same church for twenty years. Politicians bring faith into elections so you can get an idea what values they embody aned what they believe, so the voter can identify with their core values. Senator Obama belongs to Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago .
The Trinity website is clear about what they believe:
We are a congregation which is Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian… Our roots in the Black religious experience and tradition are deep, lasting and permanent. We are an African people, and remain “true to our native land,” the mother continent, the cradle of civilization. God has superintended our pilgrimage through the days of slavery, the days of segregation, and the long night of racism. It is God who gives us the strength and courage to continuously address injustice as a people, and as a congregation. We constantly affirm our trust in God through cultural expression of a Black worship service and ministries which address the Black Community.
The Pastor as well as the membership of Trinity United Church of Christ is committed to a 10-point Vision:
- A congregation committed to ADORATION.
- A congregation preaching SALVATION.
- A congregation actively seeking RECONCILIATION.
- A congregation with a non-negotiable COMMITMENT TO AFRICA.
- A congregation committed to BIBLICAL EDUCATION.
- A congregation committed to CULTURAL EDUCATION.
- A congregation committed to the HISTORICAL EDUCATION OF AFRICAN PEOPLE IN DIASPORA.
- A congregation committed to LIBERATION.
- A congregation committed to RESTORATION.
- A congregation working towards ECONOMIC PARITY.
The church is also clear about their mission
Mission Statement: What Trinity Is About
Trinity United Church of Christ has been called by God to be a congregation that is not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ and that does not apologize for its African roots! As a congregation of baptized believers, we are called to be agents of liberation not only for the oppressed, but for all of God’s family. We, as a church family, acknowledge, that we will, building on this affirmation of “who we are” and “whose we are,” call men, women, boys and girls to the liberating love of Jesus Christ, inviting them to become a part of the church universal, responding to Jesus’ command that we go into all the world and make disciples!
We are called out to be “a chosen people” that pays no attention to socio-economic or educational backgrounds. We are made up of the highly educated and the uneducated. Our congregation is a combination of the haves and the have-nots; the economically disadvantaged, the under-class, the unemployed and the employable.
The fortunate who are among us combine forces with the less fortunate to become agents of change for God who is not pleased with America’s economic mal-distribution!
W.E.B. DuBois indicated that the problem in the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. He was absolutely correct. Our job as servants of God is to address that problem and eradicate it in the name of Him who came for the whole world by calling all men, women, boys and girls to Christ.
Clarification
Clearly, Senator Obama is not Islamic and it is unfair to incinuate that. At the same time when someone calls themself a devout Christian, there are inferences and values attached to that term. What Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Mc Cain and Dr. Ron Paul view as Christian may be different.
It is my educated guess that what Senator Obvama and his Church deem as the mission of the church, as stated in their mission statement is radically different than the other candidates.
W.E.B. DuBois indicated that the problem in the 20th century was going to be the problem of the color line. He was absolutely correct. Our job as servants of God is to address that problem and eradicate it in the name of Him who came for the whole world by calling all men, women, boys and girls to Christ.
When Jesus was alive racism was alive and well. The descendants of Abraham were the Chosen People of God. Roman citizens enjoyed different rights than non-roman citizens and could be treated different. Jesus did not set out to change the culture or the government, but used a grass roots approach of changing a mans heart. Jesus was counter-cultural . Jesus left us with a misson statement:
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Given all authority needed
Jesus Christ gave orders to the eleven remaining apostles on a mountain in Galilee regarding the spiritual conquest of the whole earth, the first thing that He did was to declare the foundation for this mission. The imperatives of the Great Commission are based on the fact that Jesus Christ has received all authority. Christ’s reception of “all authority” is emphasized in the original language. The verb is in the emphatic position: “Given to Me was all authority.”
Pay attention, this is the Risen Christ who has completed His earthly ministry and accomplished His mission. He is giving His orders. Now you may ask, “If Jesus Christ is God how could he receive all authority? Didn’t He already have infinite power?” When discussing the humiliation and exaltation of Christ, one must keep in mind that we are discussing the divine-human Mediator.
Christ’s humiliation consists of laying aside the divine majesty; assuming a human nature (body and soul); coming in the form of a servant; and subjecting Himself to the demands and curse of the law (Gal. 4:4). Berkhof writes: “On the basis of the passage in Philippians [2:7,8] it may be said that the essential and central element in the state of humiliation is found in the fact that He who was the Lord of all the earth, the supreme Lawgiver, placed Himself under the Law, in order to discharge its federal (covenant) and penal obligations in behalf of His people. By doing this He became legally responsible for our sins and liable to the curse of the law.”
After Jesus Christ the Mediator and federal head of His people merited eternal life (by perfectly obeying the law and by taking on Himself the full penalty for the guilt of sin at the cross) He received exaltation. His exaltation is the reward for His perfect obedience. It is “the judicial result of the state of humiliation.”
Thus, Christ is referred to in Scripture as: “the first fruits of them who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20); “the first among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29); “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18). As the Mediator, Jesus secured a judicial re-creation. Christ’s resurrection and exaltation is a judicial declaration by the Father of a perfectly achieved salvation by the Son. Therefore, although as God Jesus already had all power and authority (metaphysically), as the divine-human Mediator He received all power and authority to complete His judicial mission of taking the elect unto glory. As the pre-incarnate Son He created the earth and as the mediator He created the church (Col. 1:15-22).As Ken Gentry puts it, “In the Great Commission the claim of Christ to have received from God ‘all authority in heaven and on earth’ formalizes judicially what was already true metaphysically: God’s rulership over all.”
The Great Commission has three participles: go, baptize and teach. That is precisely what the apostles and evangelists did in that first generation of the church. In only one generation churches were established throughout the Roman empire and beyond. “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the gospel of peace…. Their sound has gone out to all the earth, and their word to the ends of the world” (Rom 10:15, 18; cf. Ac. 17:6; Rom. 1:8; Col. 1:5, 6, 23). As A.W. Pink said, “Christ expected His New Covenant people to go, that is, to be militant in their promotion of the true faith.
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Wrong Diagnosis
Senator Obama has told people judgment is key. He cites he was not for going to Iraq. Hillary says she hoped that the President wouldn’t use the authority she gave him, and John Mc Cain said they messed up after they were there, but offered a new approach. But he has told us we should look to his initial call to not go to Iraq in the first place as why he has superior judgment.
Using that same criterion, and the fact that Obama is a devout Christian, we look at his churches diagnosis of our problem; racism and it’s cure, eradicating it, and see no where does the Bible indicate that this is the case.
He is offering behavior modification as the cure, where Jesus had this to say about hatred: “If the people of the world hate you know that they hated me before they hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love his own: but because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember what I told you, the servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have understood and kept what I have taught them, they will understand and keep your teachings too. But they will do all kinds of evil things to you for my names sake, because they don’t know He who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would no be guilty of sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin.
To offer hope for a cure, one must first understand the problem. I am not sure the Senator does. You decide.
“Trust Me” February 20, 2008
Posted by reformedville in : culture, Government, Media , add a comment2008 looks like it is going to be a great year for American politics. And yes , as a year of change! It is a great time to be alive, and to be able to participate in the greatest experiment in freedom and liberty that has ever been conducted in the history of the world.
New people are being energized to get involved in the political process and if trends remain true, more people will vote for President in 2008 than ever. Political apathy tends to be most common among those least affected (or more insulated) by government. The political parties have done a good job of getting out the vote among those on both the lower and upper end of the economic ladder.
This is most likely the most important election cycle for senior citizens ever, as the boomers enter into retirement, after years of the federal government (starting with the LBJ Great Society) “borrowing” from the Trust Fund to cover-up Congresses continual overspending. Both parties were indictable on their lack of fiscal discipline. The “who done it’s” is not going to replace the money. It is gone. In the real world, we arrest people who embezzle pension funds, in Congress we re-elect them because they bring home the bacon.
American’s have been dissatisfied than ever with job the Democratic Congress who hold the purse strings, and are just a bit more satisfied with the outgoing Republican President . So people want change and people are motivated to get out and participate as they affect the proposals of change will somehow directly affect them. Most people tend to want others to chage so it will benefit them, so realize that if they do not participate, they mat be forced to change the most..or in layman’s turn, it could cost them.
The question now looms, what to do. While we may differ on exact methodology of fixing the debt overload on the back of government, which is our debt, (and that is a good debate for another time); we must take a very close look at this election cycle. Who best represents the change we really want?
While this is being foisted off as an image election, rather an a issues one, this is the most important issues election I can remember. First, take this quiz to match you to the candidate who closest matches your views. See what questions you may want to ask of your candidate and who most closely represents you before you choose a candidate.
Secondly, understand the job of the President, namely what he does not do. Most of the issues in the debates and the stump speeches have nothing to do with the article II powers delegated to the President of the United States. So let’s look to the Constitution for a minute.
The link gives the full language, I will shorten it: Commander in Chief, Chief executive, grants pardons; he makes treaties , appoints ambassadors, public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, cabinet officers, appellate judges and other offices that all require Senate approval.
Section 3 requires him to give a state of the union to congress, and that he may advise and admonish them on issues he feels strongly about. He may convene or adjourn Congress. He is charged that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States to do such.
Article 1, Section 7 All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills. It also designates, Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States. In other words he may sign it or refuse to sign it and it become law, or may veto it. which can be overridden by a two thirds vote of Congress.
In other words, when you hear the spin that the focus of the election is on the economy and what is the President going to do to fix it, you must realize it is a intentional diversion from the duties of the job of the President actually is. The President signs bills or vetoes bill the Congress Passes. They can’t give us Universal Health Care, change abortion laws, sodomy laws or immigration laws. They are mandated to either approve or reject new laws; but to enforce all existing ones.
Case in point; In twenty of the last twenty eight years we have had a Republican President and those Presidents were all against abortion, yet you can still get an abortion in this country. So just because a President is for something or against something doesn’t mean he can change anything. He must protect and defend the constitution and enforce the laws that congress passes.
It is distressing when I hear it is time for honesty in government to listen to two lawyers sell people an idea that voting for them will somehow bring about a change that only the Congress or the Supreme Court can bring.
I was on Walter Williams’ George Mason University website this morning and saw a quote that could be a thesis for this election:
“Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny.” —Barry Goldwater
Last night in trying to listen to the returns I tuned into a 45 minute commercial for one candidate where I listened to promises of change, of no more poverty, no more taxes for those making under 50k, promise after promise. I missed the speech before in which Senator Mc Cain’s said asked are we going to return to the failed premise that trust government more than people.
We are going to have a real choice to make this fall. Are we going to look to government for utopian change? Our coinage states in God we trust. The choice is really that simple, in whom do we place our final trust. This is an election that will determine the amount of control and trust that we place in the hands of our government. In whom will we trust?