Sunday, July 31, 2016

Why Voting for Donald Trump Is a Morally Good Choice


Very thoughtful article by Dr. Wayne Grudem, one of my favorite modern theologians. I have used his Systematic Theology since 1997.  Grudem also authored the excellent resource Politics According to the Bible.

"Some of my Christian friends tell me they can’t in good conscience vote for Donald Trump because, when faced with a choice between 'the lesser of two evils,' the morally right thing is to choose neither one. They recommend voting for a third-party or write-in candidate. 

As a professor who has taught Christian ethics for 39 years, I think their analysis is incorrect. Now that Trump has won the GOP nomination, I think voting for Trump is a morally good choice. 

American citizens need patience with each other in this difficult political season. Close friends are inevitably going to make different decisions about the election. We still need to respect each other and thank God that we live in a democracy with freedom to differ about politics. And we need to keep talking with each other – because democracies function best when thoughtful citizens can calmly and patiently dialog about the reasons for their differences. This is my contribution to that discussion." 

Read the entire article here.

Remember Our Heritage


Looking forward to talking at church this morning about our national motto: "In God We Trust," which has been on our coins since 1864 but was officially adopted 60 years ago this weekend by Congress and President Eisenhower. 

 "We claim to be a Christian nation - why should we not vindicate our character by honoring the God of Nations . . . . Our national coinage should do this. Its devices should declare our trust in God - in Him who is King of Kings and Lord of Lords." - Director James Pollock of the US Mint in Philadelphia, 1863

Saturday, July 30, 2016

In God We Trust



60 years ago today, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law a resolution passed by Congress to make “IN GOD WE TRUST” the official national motto of the United States of America. Prayer and Bible reading is considered essential to the proper education of our youth, and the U.S. Supreme Court repeatedly declares that the U.S. is a distinctively Christian nation.

Read more about it here at Watchmen on the Wall or here at Fox News.

Friday, July 29, 2016

Sliding Rock - The Wilson Boys



Book Review: Crisis of Character



Being assigned to Hillary Clinton was a form of punishment, so says former White House Secret Service agent Gary Byrne in his new best-selling book, Crisis of Character: A White House Secret Service Officer Discloses His Firsthand Experience with Hillary, Bill, and How They Operate.

This young couple embodied the hopes of their generation yet were as fake and corrupt as a three-dollar bill.

Byrne began working in the White House during the Bush, Sr., administration.  When the Clintons moved in, the spirit of the house dramatically shifted.  A spirit of honor, respect, and decorum left and was replaced by a team that disregarded rules, busted budgets, and had a “helter-skelter approach” that had “deadly consequences.”  

Byrne and other officers traveled to Arkansas in 1992 to meet with Arkansas law enforcement as the Clintons prepared to move to the White House.  One sheriff told Byrne, “Everything – everything they say about them is true.  The Clintons are ruthless.  And [the media] don’t even know the half of it.”

Byrne was often assigned to stand guard at the door of the Oval Office.  He and other officers would at times be assigned on patrol to follow Bill or Hillary.  Byrne shares numerous examples of their erratic, psychotic behavior, as well as many instances that caused him to question their integrity and judgment.  

The following is just a sampling of his thoughts about the First Lady:

·       She threw massive tantrums, which worsened as Bill’s tenure lengthened.

·       There was a huge gap between the public Hillary and the “real” one.

·     “Hillary’s behavior never surprised me – I never let it surprise me.”

·       Hillary was “always calculating. . . .  Her private leadership style was based on pure fear and loathing – and I never saw her turn that off.  Even in the president’s presence, Mrs. Clinton operated at far greater than arm’s length – a cheerless grafter always on her scheming way to someone or something else more important than the person directly in front of her.”  Unable to relax  or have real relationships, she “was always wound up, an unhappy captive of her own sense of mission.”

·       Privately, the Clintons showed no affection, no connection, and no physical contact.  They habitually had loud screaming matches in the private quarters, heard by many workers in the White House.  The workers learned to just ignore them and not talk about them.  Byrne even describes one day when Hillary destroyed a blue vase by throwing it across the room at Bill and giving him a black eye.  When the camera turned on or a “fat-cat donor” showed up, however, “ice suddenly melted”:  “they could flip that emotional light switch whenever they had to, then switch it back off again when the crowds and cameras departed.  It was all a business for them: Clinton, Inc."

·       Byrne says he never even saw the First Couple hold hands without cameras present: “Once in the spotlight, they were warm.  But that was a lie.  Portraying the Clintons as a warm, middle-class family was a calculated marketing ploy, more political theater. . . .  The president and Mrs. Clinton were purely business partners.”

·       For all of their repeated scandals, “they blamed everybody except themselves.”

·      Mrs. Clinton would “berate anyone.”  She showed much contempt for the SS agents, occasionally cursing at them.

Byrne contrasts the way the Bushes treated the SS agents with the way of the Clintons.  The Bushes treated them with love and respect.  But to the Clintons, “we were like furniture to them.”

Byrne describes Bill as “secretive, corrupt, and a womanizer.”

Byrne shares in detail his part of the Monica Lewinsky scandal, including having to secretly dispose of lipstick and semen-stained White House towels.  He believes the famous “blue dress” actually saved his life.  When the affair went to court, Byrne was subpoenaed to testify.  He had first-hand knowledge of the extent of contact between the President and Ms. Lewinsky.  Byrne believes the Clintons would have had him killed before testifying if the blue dress had not surfaced.

He writes that Lewinsky was young, inexperienced, and immature.  The Clintons weren’t:  “They were just immensely arrogant.”

Byrne writes about the many girlfriends the President had in and out of the White House: “We wondered how he got any work done and joked that he would have been better at running a brothel in a red-light district than the White House.”

As has surfaced in Hillary’s recent Presidential Campaign, Byrne writes that the “Clinton pattern was deny-deny-deny.  Behind the scenes, the Clinton Machine slut-shamed accusers, impugned their integrity, and supposedly even paid them off and intimated them.”

Byrne wrote Crisis of Character to warn our nation that Hillary Clinton should not be trusted with the power that accompanies the President of the United States.

I literally read the book in one sitting.  I spent three hours one Friday night devouring it.  I could not put it down.

Reading his book, I was reminded that Byrne is not a professional writer but a security officer.  The writing is not of exceptional quality.  It reads more like sitting across the table from someone at lunch and listening to them tell you stories from work.  It's not polished and polite, but it is highly informative into the Clinton scandals.

Read this book – and then pass it on to someone else.

Disclaimer - the book contains a fair amount of profanity.  Just warning you!

Also, watch Sean Hannity interview Gary Byrne:

 
 

Thursday, July 28, 2016

David Clarke: Milwaukee Country Sheriff



"The problem in America is the divisiveness that has been caused by President Barack Obama and some of these other liberals."

On "FOX & Friends Weekend," Sheriff David Clarke slammed the president and the left, claiming that they're trying to maintain a chaotic state in order to "insert their socialist agenda."

How Skipping Church Affects Our Children, Part Two

Evangelist Dwight Moody said, "Church attendance is as vital to a disciple as a transfusion of rich, healthy blood to a sick man."  

However, in our day, studies show that American Christians attend church less and less than in previous generations.  

In the home of my youth, only sickness kept us from being at church.  If Mom was sick, Dad and I headed to church.  If I was sick, one of them stayed home and the other went to church.  Sunday was the Lord's Day, and the idea of not going or taking a Sunday off was unthinkable.  Except for vacations and sickness, I recall one Sunday in 17 years of my youth that we did not go to church on Sunday.


Once, my parents taught me how much they valued our going to church on the Lord's Day.  I was a part of a neighborhood swim team, and that summer weekend they planned on having a swim team lock-in on Saturday night at our pool.  I assumed I would participate.

I vividly recall my mother saying, "No, son, you won't be going.  We are Christians, and the Bible says that Sunday is the Lord's Day.  We worship God on Sunday morning.  That takes priority over a lock-in."

I remember walking to the back of our yard, sitting under an apple tree, and pouting for a long time.  In my disappointment, I pondered what Mom had just said and how important my parents took participating in our local church.   I did not realize at the time that they were teaching me a valuable life-lesson and spiritual discipline.

Just because that was my experience does not make it right or wrong.  It just makes it my experience.  You may choose to let your child go to the lock-in.  But the point is that my parents had a conviction - as have Christians historically - that Sunday belonged to the Lord.

Albert Mohler, President of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes, We are to make it a priority of our lives that on this day we will be with God’s people, we will be with the redeemed, we will be with the saints, and we will gather together to prepare for eternity, to be confronted with the Word of God, to edify one another and to yearn for that eternal rest which is promised unto us by the grace and mercy of God."

He writes, “I am convicted as I am confronted about the fourth commandment not about Sabbath keeping but about Lord’s Day breaking.  I am convicted that as I read the fourth commandment, Israel’s responsibility to keep the Sabbath was, if anything, less important than the church’s responsibility to keep the Lord’s Day.”

I remember talking with our former Minister to Children when I was in seminary - about 1996.  She said something like, "In the fifteen years since you were in our children's ministry, the attitude of parents has changed.  Church is no longer the priority - it is just one of many things they juggle in their schedule.  They think nothing of missing church to go to a ball game, school function, or entertainment.  Your parents wanted to know what we were teaching the children and how they could help.  Parents today want to drop their children off.  It is a different day."  That conversation took place twenty years ago, so I know the culture has shifted even more.      

The discipline of church attendance is not in order to make us all legalists.  Instead, it is to train our families up in the ways of the Lord, to provide weekly opportunity to sit under the Word of God, to teach our children to listen to God's Word, to encourage other believers, to pray together, and to teach our kids that our lives are a part of something much bigger than our personal pleasure.

Quote of the Day

"It’s better to speak truth that hurts and then helps than falsehood that comforts and then kills." - Adrian Rogers

Behind the Scenes, Democrat Ethics are AWOL

Cal Thomas, as usual, is spot-on . . .

Thanks to WikiLeaks, which has released nearly 20,000 emails hacked from the Democratic National Committee — with promises of more to come — we have proof the party that styles itself as inclusive, diverse and tolerant isn’t.

Among the delectable tidbits on which Republicans are feasting are these: One male DNC staffer wrote to another male staffer, saying, “I love you,” and added, “no homo.” Another DNC email referred to Latino voters as “taco bowl outreach.” Now-ousted DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is exposed as a liar for falsely claiming she was not working behind the scenes to defeat Sen. Bernie Sanders and secure the Democratic nomination for Hillary Clinton.

DNC chief financial officer Brad Marshall violated what is for Democrats a sacred doctrine of church-state separation when he wrote in an email to DNC CEO Amy Dacey about Mr. Sanders’ religious beliefs: “Ask his belief. Does he believe in a God. He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. I think I read he is an atheist. This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”

Read the entire article by Cal Thomas here.