Christians - Engage Politics and the Public Square

 

I love playing board games, leading devotions, and eating meals with my family. However, if the house is on fire, I'm not gonna keep playing a game and later email my insurance adjuster. I'm gonna shout and get help. I'll do what is necessary to protect the house. No, the house is not the most important thing. The house holds that which is important - my family and friends. But it is important.

In America, the house is on fire. The political-social structure of our nation has burned for years, while the church often stayed silent.

The great preacher Adrian Rogers said, “It’s better to speak truth that hurts and then helps than falsehood that comforts and then kills.”

A misconception persists among Christians that we are ever to be the “nice guy” in the room.  The Mr. Rogers of the group.  The super-positive person who wants everyone to hold hands like Barnie the purple dinosaur and sing “I Love You.”

Or, some Christians warn we should not speak about politics because it will bring division and somehow hurt our gospel witness. Had such advice been followed in the past, the world may have missed the American Revolution and the end of slavery.

Read the entire article, written in 2018, here.

8 Reasons Why Change is Hard for Churches

 

The very nature of leadership requires leading through change. Therein is the fundamental difference between management vs. leadership.

Ron Hefeitz said, "Leadership is the art of disappointing people at a rate they can stand.”

Churches tend to be one of the worst places for embracing necessary change. In an excellent article, Joe McKeever, Southern Baptist pastor for 40+ years, shares 8 reasons why change is so hard for churches - and gives pastors five challenges for leading change:

"I sometimes tease our young pastors that 'in all the world, there are only three people who enjoy change, and none are members of your church.'

It’s a common perception in our churches that the Lord’s people seem to be resistant to change. And there is certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence, as flockless shepherds step up to tell how they lost their pulpits when they tried to change a schedule or a program.

A church has to change or it will die. Do not be one of these shepherds who is afraid to set a new direction out of fear of resistance or concern for his job. Be prayerful, wait on the Lord, pull plenty of leaders in as early in the planning as you can, then stand up and lead the way."

Read the entire article by Joe McKeever here at Outreach Magazine.

Picture used courtesy of Pexels

Christian, Feel Free to Love Politics

 "I love politics because I love people.

Being compelled by Scripture to love others like we love ourselves, provides us further reason for loving politics. Governance affects the lives of our neighbors. Good governance brings blessing. Unhealthy governance brings frustration. Wicked governance brings cruelty. We should desire blessing for our neighbors and to see this accomplished, we must engage the public arena. Engaging the public arena while hating the arena will produce little. Engaging the public arena while loving the arena, knowing that it is ordained by Jesus for our good, will improve the likelihood of producing blessing.

To be sure, there are many opportunities to bring blessing to our neighbors. These opportunities involve each of life's spheres. We can bless though our individual efforts, familial efforts, congregational efforts, community efforts, artistic efforts, and even professional efforts. We have a truncated view; however, if we stop short of recognizing the value of our political efforts. In this, we must understand that politics isn't a necessary evil, it's a sphere God superintends for the good of our neighbors. We should approach and value this sphere the same way we approach and value imperfect spheres like the family, the arts, and the church."

Read the entire article here by Dough Richey at Baptist Press.

Giving Out of a Full Cup - Dan Miller

Dan Miller's wisdom has helped countless people navigate changes in their lives. I love this illustration he used, taken from the Jewish Havdalah ceremony. Dan reminds us that in order to effectively serve others, we must learn to first fill our own cups.

 

Democratic Party: Intolerance and Absolute Control

 

“The Constitution is written to limit the centralization and monopolization of power – that is, the Democrat Party’s present-day power grabs – and the Republican Party, while often anemic if not ignorantly contributory to the Democrat Party’s ambitions, is, nonetheless, an impediment by its mere existence. That said, there remain active efforts within the Republican Party and mostly elsewhere to challenge the Democrat Party’s growing tyranny. Clearly, power-sharing is not, and cannot be, part of the Democratic Party’s agenda. Frankly, like autocratic parties everywhere, the Democratic Party is intolerant of opposition and insists on absolute control.”

– 7 Times New York Times Bestseller Mark Levin, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HATES AMERICA

"The eight-time #1 New York Times bestselling author, radio host, and Fox News star returns to the page to reveal the radically dangerous Democrat agenda that is upending American life.

In American Marxism, Mark Levin explained how Marxist ideology has invaded our society and culture. In doing so, he exposed the institutions, scholars, and activists leading the revolution. Now, he picks up where he left off: to hold responsible the true malefactors steering our country down the wrong path.

Insightful and hard-hitting as ever, Levin proves that since its establishment, the Democrat Party has set out to rewrite history and destroy the foundation of freedom in America. More than a political party, it is the entity through which Marxism has installed its philosophy and its new revolution.

As in a Thomas Paine pamphlet or a clarion call from Paul Revere, Levin alerts his fellow Americans to the destruction this country is facing, and rallies them to defeat the threat in front of us—more looming than ever. He writes, 'Every legal, legitimate, and appropriate tool and method must be employed in the short- and long- run to defeat the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party must be resoundingly conquered in the next election and several elections thereafter, or it will become extremely difficult to undo the damage it is unleashing at breakneck pace.' ”

- from the Amazon review

"Christian Nationalism," Evangelicals, and the Left

 

"Christian Nationalism" is the new term the Left has created to try to make people who vote based on biblical convictions, a Judeo-Christian worldview, and traditional values look weird. Here are a collection of articles and videos about this new propaganda tactic. Access the videos here.

“What I said was, people will throw that term against any conservative Christian who believes in the importance of nation and conservative political convictions, and will claim you’re a Christian nationalist if you believe Christianity should influence the nation. I said I’m not going to run from that.

But many in the media, and certainly people on the left, they try to discredit Christian influence by saying it’s the radical right. It’s the reactionary right. It’s the Christian right. The latest thing is to say it’s Christian nationalism. Well, unapologetically, I believe in the importance of nation. Our constitutional order is around a nation.”

Albert Mohler in Albert Mohler on Evangelicals and Christian Nationalism at The New York Times via Denny Burk

 

“The 70-year push to eliminate every vestige of religious observance from our public life is precisely the opposite of what the nation needs. We need more civil religion, not less. We need open acknowledgment of the religious heritage and the religious faith that bind Americans one to another.

The campaign to erase America’s religion from the public square is just class warfare by other means: the elite versus the common man, the atheistic monied class versus America’s working people. And it’s not really about eliminating religion, either: It’s about replacing one religion with another.

Every nation observes a civil religion. For every nation is a spiritual unity. The Left wants religion: the religion of the Pride flag. We want the religion of the Bible.”

Senator Josh Hawley at ‘Christian Nationalism Founded American Democracy’: Read Sen. Josh Hawley’s Full Remarks at NatCon at the Daily Signal

 

“As numerous critics have already pointed out, ‘Christian nationalism’ sounds identical to the case for American liberty offered in the Declaration of Independence.

Then again, the idea that man has inalienable, universal rights goes back to ancient Greece, at least. The entire American project is contingent on accepting the notion that the state can’t give or take our God-given freedoms. . . .

It’s also true that the ‘Christian nationalism’ scare is a ginned-up, partisan effort to spook non-Christian voters. And, clearly, to some secular Americans, the idea that a non-‘earthly authority’ can bestow rights on humans sounds nuts.”

David Harsanyi, an atheist, in “If This Is ‘Christian Nationalism,’ Sign Me Up!” at The Daily Signal.

 

“You see, Christian nationalism isn’t the real threat to the free exercise of religion in America today. The real threat is the ideology of the sexual revolution imposed on the people by government force, and Przybyla can’t stand the idea of that establishment being challenged. . . .

The Left isn’t objecting to the Right’s imposing its worldview on Americans by force—it’s objecting to the Right’s finally getting a say on issues springing from the sexual revolution. We’re not witnessing the rise of Christian nationalism, but the weakening of an anti-Christian establishment. . . .

‘Christian nationalism’ is the modern equivalent of Southern Democrats’ demonizing Lincoln, kicking and screaming as they lose the ability to foist their beliefs on the rest of the country. If history is any guide, this trend does not bode well for the Left—or America’s civil tranquility.”

Tyler O’Neil in What Is the ‘Christian Nationalism’ Fearmongering Really About? at The Daily Signal

See The Founding Fathers on Jesus, Christianity and the Bible at Wallbuilders

Picture used by permission from Pixabay

Writing Awards - 2024 - Rhett Wilson, Sr.

Encouraging news came last week in the form of notifications of the following awards:

Congratulations! Your entry, Cries from a Cold Bathroom Floor, was awarded Honorable Mention in the Inspirational/Spiritual category of the 93^rd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.

And your entry, God, Roses, and Jiffy Lube, was awarded Honorable Mention in the Inspirational/Spiritual category of the 93^rd Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition.

There were 3,571 submissions in this year’s competition, spanning 44 countries!

You’ve also won a bronze medal in the Living Now Book Awards in the family/parenting category for The 7 Ps of Prayer. 

Christian Nationalism | Voddie Baucham

 

Hope for Elon Musk and Other ‘Cultural Christians’

 

At least part of this secular buyer’s remorse is the rise of “woke” ideology, which bodes ill for a post-Christian society. Sometime in the late 2010s, the so-called “new atheism,” a movement that purported to be all about reason and science, was swallowed up by progressive identity politics. Steadily, science and reason were replaced by moralizing witch-hunts, to the point that atheists like Dawkins now find themselves pushing back against pseudoscience on sex and gender. 

Also, there is a growing realization, Holland’s books are a good example, that Western ideas of human rights, political equality, and science and art are products of Christian theology. They do not occur in most civilizations, and there is no reason to expect that they will endure in the West if Christianity fades.  

It’s good that Musk, Peterson, Dawkins, Holland, and others are recognizing the debt owed to the religion of Jesus. Better to live alongside unbelievers who praise the faith than those who call it a “dangerous delusion.” However, we ought not delude ourselves. Christian influence in the modern world is the result of a lot of people who, for hundreds of years, really believed in Jesus. 

Read the entire article by Stonestreet and Morris here at Breakpoint.

Picture used courtesy of Pixabay

Interview with Lee Ann Mancini - Praying for Your Family

 

During this episode, Rhett shares insight from his book, The 7 P’s of Prayer. He discusses a simple prayer strategy using 7 words that begin with the letter “p” to pray for his children. Rhett also dives into the concept of prayer for purity and the significance of guarding our homes from negative influences. He shares impactful stories and explains the unique approach of his book, offering practical advice for enriching prayer lives. Rhett also addressed the modern challenges that families face, emphasizing the importance of guarding our homes and lives against negative influences.

Listen to the podcast here. Listen to the podcast here.

Sign up for Rhett’s e-newsletter, Faith, Family, and Freedom here

You Don’t Have to Be Christian to Loathe the Opening of the Paris Olympics

"I am a Jew, not a Christian. Yet I found loathsome the mockery of the Last Supper — one of the holiest scenes in the New Testament — during the opening of the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

In fact, it is actually troubling to constantly read the words, 'Many Christians are offended' — as if only Christians are offended by France’s and the International Olympic Committee’s mockery of Jesus’ Last Supper scene.

You don’t have to be a Christian to understand that Christianity — more specifically, Judeo-Christian values and the Bible — made Western civilization. Without Christianity and the Bible, there would be no West. That is why contempt for Christianity and the Bible is synonymous with mockery for the West. The current civil war within Western civilization is a war between the Left and the Bible.

It is crucial to note that the Left, whether in America or Europe, never mocks Islam. One would think that with virtually all religious violence in the world emanating from that religion, the Left would concentrate its antireligious fire against Islam, or at least fundamentalist Islam.

One reason is that leftists fear Muslims. If you mock Islam, you will have to spend your life in hiding or risk being beheaded. On the other hand, the Left has no fear of Christians. No matter how much the Left mocks and undermines Christianity, the Left assumes that not one of the world’s two and half billion Christians will hurt them. And the Catholic pope will not only not issue a fatwa against you, he won’t even speak out against you. Because he, too, is a man of the Left."

Read the entire by Dennis Prager article here.

Picture used courtesy of Pixabay

Christian Nationalism Panel | Voddie Baucham, Tom Ascol & William Wolfe

 

A Great Convention — With One Big Mistake

 

"The reason Biden did so much damage to America was not because he is Joe Biden but because he is a Democrat. And the Democratic Party has been taken over by the Left, which, unlike traditional liberalism, is destroying all that is good and special about our country.

It is completely irrelevant what Democrat runs for president — or governor or senator or representative. However nice they may personally be, as far as policies and values are concerned, they are all virtually identical.

‘The destructive, dangerous Democratic Party has to go.’ That should be — and should have been for decades — the message of every Republican candidate for every office in the land."

Read the entire article by Dennis Prager in A Great Convention — With One Big Mistake

Radical Ideology of the Democratic Party

 

“What Biden has learned, what Roosevelt knew, and what the Democratic Party seeks is the importance of monopolizing the political system. Indeed, this is something Vladimir Lenin wrote about, insisted on, and instituted before, during, and after the Russian Revolution. The Democratic Party has, in fact, largely
conquered America’s cultural, educational, and media institutions, but there still remains resistance. Millions of Americans reject its radical ideology, do not want to fundamentally transform America, and are now awake to what the Democratic Party is doing to destroy the country.” 

– 7 Times New York Times Bestseller Mark Levin, THE DEMOCRAT PARTY HATES AMERICA

On Engagements and Marriage

 

It was lovely.

Almost a decade before the first smart phone and social media. Zero expectation of having the perfect pictures, videos, or staged event. Knowing that the only thing that really mattered was the two of us.

We met almost a year earlier as students and quickly knew we wanted to spend our lives together. I said, “It's like she alone has a key to my heart.”

That Saturday morning, I treated myself to breakfast at Cracker Barrell, a rare treat for a graduate student. At the gift shop, I purchased a ceramic jar with the words “Memories” on the side. Later, I found two dozen roses in her favorite colors – pink and yellow - at a grocery store.

We had shopped together for a diamond so she could show me what she liked. Later I purchased one we thought beautiful at the Service Merchandise in Louisville. We didn’t care it didn’t come from a fancy jewelry store. We liked it, and its shape was unique and beautiful – like our relationship.

Enlisting the help of a friend, I anticipated a lovely evening. She expected me to pick her up for a date. Don showed up at her door about 5pm, instructing she needed to come with him. He chauffeured her to the seminary chapel and brought her inside to me.

She and I climbed the attic stair door, heading toward the actual steeple. At one landing lay the Memories jar, wrapped in a gift box. I told her she would need that later. Climbing higher – which I’m sure was against school policy – we came to the inside of the steeple.

Earlier that afternoon, I prepared that special place. Popping her head into that area as she ascended the ladder, she saw several candles burning, two dozen roses, and a ring box. After we sat down on the hard wood floor, I got on my knees, declared my love and asked her to marry me. We prayed, thanking God, and held each other.

Relishing the moment, we enjoyed a magnificent view of the Louisville skyline. And we later agreed we wished we'd stayed in that steeple longer, lingering in the beauty of just the two of us.

We loved each other and expected that love to grow, mature, and ripen. We anticipated spending life together as best friends, partners, lovers, parents, and helpers.

I told her to keep the rose petals in the Memories jar when they dried. 

No pressure to create the perfect event, picture, or video. Just the satisfaction of loving and being loved by the “love of my youth” (Prov. 5:18-19). I snapped a photo on my camera – one I’ve rarely shared in twenty-six years.

Then, we descended the ladders into the real world. It would be the world of ups and downs, appointments and disappointments, triumphs and tears, laughter and heartache, helps and hurts. But we descended into it all – together - one step at a time.

Dining at the Tumbleweed Mexican restaurant, the same one as our first date, we remembered that night. A bitterly cold winter Saturday, we were strangely warmed by the first blossoms of our budding relationship. Seated at a small table for two that first date, we both awakened to the reality we might spend our lives with this stranger that felt like an old friend.

Returning to her apartment the night of the engagement, we made four phone calls to tell the good news to our parents and grandmothers. And we reveled in the beauty of her diamond – and looked forward to beauty yet to come.

She’s still my favorite, more than a quarter of a century later. And we’d do it all over again.

It was lovely.

"Christian Nationalism," Evangelicals, and the Left: Videos

 

A Discussion about the Rise of the Term "Christian Nationalism"

What is Christian Nationalism? | Stephen Wolfe

A Christian response to nationalism? - Albert Mohler

Christian Nationalism Panel | Voddie Baucham, Tom Ascol & William Wolfe

David Closson: Media Using "Christian Nationalism" to Discourage Christians 

from Civic Participation

Trump, Biden, Christian Nationalism, and the Future of America 

It's Okay to Love Jesus and Your Country with Guest The Hon. Michele Bachmann

Tony Perkins links the Left's use of "Christian nationalism" with the rise in hostility to churches

What the Legacy Media Won’t Tell Us, Part One

We’re living in abnormal times. The news outlet The Epoch Times gave themselves that title, because an “epoch” (not “epic”) means a distinct period of time in history marked by particularly defining events. An epoch refers to an altering of the times.

Painting by Matthew McGahee

Unfortunately, deception marks our era. Deception has become billion-dollar business. We live in days of corruption, where many basic institutions and organizations we should be able to trust have betrayed us. Hardly a month goes by without another revelation of a Christian leader marked by sexual scandal. Government agencies like the FBI, the CIA, the IRS, the Justice Department, and others have been compromised and weaponized in alarming ways. (See The Political Weaponization of the CIA and FBI from Michael Waller at Hillsdale College.)

The term gaslighting, when someone manipulates circumstances or evidence to deceive another, has become common vernacular.

It doesn’t take a brain scientist or Ph.D. to understand something is badly amiss. When the Justice Department and other agencies continually protect and prop up the Clinton-Obama-Biden machines while trying to annihilate conservatives, Lady Justice has dropped her scales.

Regular people – small business owners, accountants, homeschool moms, farmers, mechanics, pharmacists, and 1000s of others – have realized what we hear and see on legacy media – and from some of our politicians – does not always line up with reality. And authors like Eric Metaxas keep warning us to wake up before we lose our liberties. (See his book and movie, Letter to the American Church.)

“Legacy media” refers to the old ways we received news in the 20^th century: newspapers, nightly television broadcasts, radio shows, etc. The presentation can be easily manipulated in those outlets – and many of them are owned, if you follow the money trail, by a few large conglomerate corporations.

Legacy media outlets are easily controlled.

The nation didn’t know FDR was in a wheelchair until after his death. With traditional, legacy media, it was easy to plan staged events and present fabricated news. That’s also why the sexual trysts of several U.S. Presidents – like FDR and JFK – were unknown from the majority of the public until well after their deaths. FDR was actually spending the weekend with his longtime girlfriend when he died. The secret service had to get her out of the place quickly before his family arrived.

Today it is much harder to keep such secrets from the public – but oh how they try.

During the 2020 pandemic, several employees of CBS news stations across the nation resigned. These whistleblowers revealed CBS corporate kept sending instructions down the line about what they were allowed and not allowed to say about the pandemic, the vaccinations, remedies President Trump suggested that were later proved helpful (like Hydroxychloroquine).

A new way of receiving news emerged with the digital age. No longer do I wait for the 6 o’clock news to hear the weather report. An app on my phone shows it instantly. With the explosion of digital communication means, information flows through social media, podcasts, texts, emails, videos, and dozens of other sources. New technology makes us not dependent on legacy media. Thus, many traditional outlets are drying up – newspapers, magazines, traditional television shows, and old-fashioned news broadcasts.

During the last four years, we’ve lived through significant events – civilization changing events – that leave millions of Americans with more questions than answers. Take the recent attempted assassination of President Trump, for example. We don’t trust the narrative. And we’ve realized much of traditional legacy media props up the Left’s agenda and narrative.

The Left and Deception

The Left thrives on deception. It lies continually. Dennis Prager explains, “The first example is what is known as political correctness. Leftist denial of what is true is so widespread that we have a term for it, political correctness. There is no comparable right-wing political correctness, i.e., denying truths so as not to offend right-wing values or certain groups.

For example, among many on the left, especially academics, it has been almost impossible for decades to tell the truth about the innate differences between men and women because of the leftist dogma of innate similarities between the sexes. So deep is the left’s hostility to truth regarding the sexes that a president of Harvard University was forced from office after suggesting that men’s and women’s brains process math and some science differently.”

Bill Clinton lied his way through Arkansas on to the White House. Newt Gingrich once said of Clinton, "He is one of the finest story-tellers in American politics. Clinton spent his entire life telling you whatever you needed to hear to make you like him." And, he added in 2016, “"Hillary Clinton is the most corrupt person ever to run for President of the United States."

Modern leftist politicians like Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Joe Biden have taken Crooked Bill’s deception and institutionalized it. They are students of the Saul Alinsky playbook for politicians. Alinsky trained his students to master deception, create chaos and division and use them to your advantage, and to organize social upheaval.

Josh Hammer writes, “The corporate media, whose 21st-century raison d’etre is propping up the Regime Party (Democrats) and punishing the Deplorable Party (Republicans), often joins the fray. The Russia-collusion delusion disinformation operation was laundered by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign to seedy ‘intelligence’ firm Fusion GPS and law firm Perkins Coie LLP. For years, the corporate media then dutifully pushed the false narrative. Indeed, it is unclear to this day whether MSNBC has ever read the Mueller report.

But after [the recent] CNN presidential debate in Atlanta, in which President Joe Biden delivered a catastrophic performance for the ages, there is only one conclusion . . . . For years, Democrats and the corporate media lied through their teeth about the blatant decline of the president’s physical and mental faculties.”

These players are masters of manipulation, gaslighting, getting the crowds to focus on their right hands while doing their real work with their left, and creating diversions to cast blame. Their key to success is libeling the Right. They know the Right will stand in their way of totalitarianism and their globalist agenda. So they must vilify and destroy the right.

Many of them – certainly Obama – were mentored in Communist ideals with the intent of turning America away from her fundamentals. Since his election, Obama has struck me as a type of the future antichrist prophesied in the Bible. A charismatic leader with supernatural (not from Jehovah) sway and influence, who hides his real intentions from the masses masterfully.

Newt Gingrich said, “We have watched the hard left, the America-hating totalitarians who want to define acceptable speech, as they took over the academic world. The college boards – made up of supposedly sound community leaders – refused to fight. Public universities and colleges continued to hire vehement anti-American professors, the state legislatures and governors refused to fight. Alumni continued to give to schools, which were teaching their own children and grandchildren to despise them.

We did not think through the eventual reality that graduates who had been taught systematic falsehoods would take those falsehoods into their jobs. As President Ronald Reagan said, “the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so. . . .  This educated ignorance has now infested our news media, bureaucracies and corporate headquarters. These are sincere fanatics.”

And David Lane writes, “There are very real consequences to having allowed secularists - those in rebellion against God - to imbue the minds of America’s youth with their profane propaganda for the last 75 years.”

They are experts at capitalizing on people’s good intentions (related to race, equality, liberality) and manipulating them for other agendas. Look no further than the Black Lives Matter movement for an example.

Leftism is the single greatest natural threat to liberty, religion, and America.

The Left loathes Western Civilization.

The Left does not value truth.

The Left dismantles free speech.

The Left destroys more than it creates.

Whatever the Left touches, it ruins.

The Left hates conservatives.

And, Leftism is not liberalism. But the Left has hijacked the Democratic Party. Obama, Clinton, Biden and the like – Pelosi, Newsom, Schumer – these are not liberals. They are Leftists. And the legacy media largely bows to their agenda.

But many people are no longer deceived. People have woken up. And they are warning others.

 

Read What the Media Doesn’t Tell Us, Part Two, coming out the week of 07/22

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"A Providential Moment" - Quotes on the Attempted Assassination

 

"It was a Providential moment. . . . He has been vilified by Joe Biden, the Democrats, and the Left wing more than any President since Abraham Lincoln. This was a political act. It was a deliberate act. And I've said for four months . . . that when all of the legal bologna fails, and when they begin to realize that he is going to win, that violence is the next thing, because they are that desperate." - Speaker Newt Gingrich

Painting by Matthew McGahee

“The Democratic Party, the Deep State, they hate Trump so much. He’s an existential threat to them, to their power, and they will do anything and say anything to get rid of him. The Russia collusion hoax was just the beginning. Any lie, any narrative they can grab onto. They will do anything. They will prosecute him. They will make up laws. They will do lawfare, anything they can do. And if that doesn’t work, they will try to put a bullet in his head.” - Eric Metaxas

"I refuse to accept these types of blame-shifting responses from the Secret Service. An American died, and others were injured yesterday because you allowed a shooter to access an unsecured rooftop perch a mere 140+/- yards from the stage. The bottom line is that the security perimeter was inadequate, as security coverage should be beyond 500 yards or more.” - U.S. Rep. Jeff Duncan

"These lies about Trump explain why an assassination attempt was inevitable." - Dennis Prager

"It's shocking the core of a nation." - Sean Hannity

"Clearly, our political system is not well. The stakes in the coming election are genuinely high. Both sides know it, and yesterday’s events will not bring about a kinder and gentler political culture. The 2024 election looms large as we consider the future of our nation. Those who see no higher plane than politics are increasingly desperate. Christians cannot share that kind of desperation.

Why? Because the Christian faith underlines the two realities of divine sovereignty and human responsibility. Both are absolutely necessary to Biblical Christianity, and both are absolutely necessary to the Christian worldview in every respect. But though both are necessary, they are not equal. Human responsibility is real, but it exists only within the transcendent reality of God, and within the context of his unconditional providence. The reality of God’s providence is something many Americans, and no doubt many Christians, think about with far too little seriousness. But I dare to ask, how do you look at yesterday’s events in Butler, Pa., and see it all merely as a lucky miss? If that’s all there is to it, our luck will one day run out. Thank God that day was not yesterday." - R. Albert Mohler

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Attempted Assassination - "They will do anything to get rid of him."

Here are some good resources regarding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, which the legacy media immediately tried to downplay.

The Eric Metaxas Show 07/15 - on the attempted assassination

The Candace Owens Show 07/15 - Trump Assassination Attempt

An Assassination Attempt Was Inevitable - by Dennis Prager

Assassin Heard the Left’s Relentless Chant: Trump Equals Hitler - by Deroy Murdock

CNN Downplays Trump Assassination Attempt by Emma Colton

Secret Service Had Eyes on Trump Shooter for Thirty Minutes by Pamela Geller

Gunman Spotted 30 Minutes Before Shooting by Todd Starnes

Congressman Duncan Calls for Independent Commission to Investigate Systemic Failures in the Protection of Donald J. Trump - Press Release

An Inside Job - David Harris, Jr.

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Project 2025 - Combatting The Left's Lies and Libels

 

“The Left is in a frenzy because, for the first time, more than 110 conservative organizations are uniting to provide personnel and policy solutions that prioritize the American people’s best interests. Unlike the Left, we embrace transparency and welcome public engagement: Our policy recommendations are publicly available on our website." The Heritage Foundation posted that statement in June.

The Heritage Foundation (THF), one of the most respected ones in the conservative movement, exists to to formulate and promote public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense. Founded in 1973, they work as a conservative think-tank, who heavily influenced the Reagan era of conservatism.

Heritage historically has formulated a plan of action for conservatives in critical times. For years, The Heritage Foundation has compiled and released a book prior to Presidential elections.

"First published in January 1981, Mandate for Leadership served as a conservative plan of action for the Reagan Administration. By the end of Reagan’s first year, he had implemented nearly half of its ideas. This first edition of Mandate for Leadership appeared on the Washington Post’s paperback bestseller list, and the Post called it ‘an action plan for turning the government toward the right as fast as possible.’

The 2016 edition of Mandate for Leadership earned significant attention from the Trump Administration." I have a copy on my shelf of their release in 2020 called Mandate 2020. 

It's a sort of manifesto for the conservative movement. They assemble several hundred conservative scholars, thinkers, and practitioners and they make proposals for how the conservative movement should move forward. Obviously, the hope is that they can influence the next President and his or her cabinet in making decisions.

THF does this project independently of any Presidential nominee. It is is not way binding on anything. 

In 2023, THF released their next project, called Project 2025. On Heritage's main page about the project, Spencer Chretien, Associate Director of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project, writes, 

“With the Biden administration half over and with the immediate dangers inherent to one-party rule in Washington behind us for now, it’s past time to lay the groundwork for a White House more friendly to the right. For decades, as the left has continued its march through America’s institutions, conservatives have been outgunned and outmatched when it comes to the art of government.

One reason is because the Republican establishment never moved on from the 1980s. Beltway conservatives still prioritize supply-side economics and a bellicose foreign policy above all else. Belief in small government, strangely enough, has manifested itself in a belief among some conservatives that we should lead by example and not fill all political appointments. Belief in the primacy of the national security state has caused conservative administrations to defer political decisions to the generals and the intelligence community.

The result has been decades of disappointment.”

Foaming at the Mouth

Project 2025 is a well-constructed attempt at building now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training.

The response from the Left has been somewhat like a rabid, hungry dog who knows he is cornered and out of luck. As usual, they have resorted to misinformation, libeling, and trying to stir people up emotionally. 

The Left is enjoying the fruit of a several-decades long vision of radically changing our culture and politics. Communist-leaning thinkers were strategizing decades ago about how to influence our Ivy League schools, our New York businesses, and our Hollywood entertainment industry. Conservatives have sometimes tended to be short-sighted in only thinking about the next election. In recent years, however, in part due to good thinkers, as represented by The Heritage Foundation, conservatives are beginning to think more strategically. As Ben Shapiro has said, we need to have a forty-year plan of how to influence our country. 

That is exactly what Project 2025 attempts to do. And that is exactly why the Left is foaming at the mouth about it. With Donald Trump accelerating, the Left and the Deep State are deeply afraid their plans may come undone. And so they do what they do best: deceive, manipulate, gaslight, libel, and create diversions.

Here are a few articles worth reading about Project 2025 and the Left's response:

Why Is Everyone Talking About Project 2025 - The Heritage Foundation

Project 2025: Fact-checking Democrats’ misleading and overly dramatic claims - Sarah Bedford

FACTCHECK: Does Project 2025 ‘Terminate the Constitution’? - Tyler O'Neil

Top 5 Things the Left Gets Wrong About Project 2025 - Evan Maguire

The Promises of "Project 2025" - Cal Thomas

Project 2025 Responds to House Democrats’ Unserious and Misleading Task Force - The Heritage Foundation

Project 2025 Reaches 100 Coalition Partners -  The Heritage Foundation

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