Thursday, April 25, 2019

In Defense of Kate Smith



Another ridiculous move takes place in our society by the political correctness police. Cal Thomas provides a good commentary about the smearing of yet another past American icon . . .

"The long arm of the PC police has reached back to the ‘30s and arrested, prosecuted and sentenced the late singer Kate SmithSmith, who popularized Irving Berlin’s song 'God Bless America' and was a female pioneer in early television, recorded songs that today in hindsight are viewed as racist.



An old friend, Harry Covert, writes to recall the early days of black-and-white TV when he (and I) watched Kate Smith’s television program. Mr. Covert remembers one show interrupted by a news bulletin announcing the attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman by militant Puerto Rican activists. He notes that today’s Puerto Ricans are not smeared by that incident, so why is Smith being figuratively tarred and feathered?

In 1940, Irving Berlin, the Russian-born composer, established the God Bless America Fund 'for the benefit of the youth of America,' donating the proceeds from the song’s royalties to the Boy and Girl Scouts of America. Yankees baseball great Joe DiMaggio was a trustee on the GBA Fund."

Read the entire commentary here by Cal Thomas at The Washington Times.

Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Types of Bible Translations


Helpful comparison of Bible translations and paraphrases and where they fall on the word-for-word / thought-for-thought / paraphrase approach. I find it helpful to use a combination of all 3.

I study from NASB.

I read from NLT, NIV, and HCSB.

I go to MSG, TLB, and AMP for understanding.


I memorize from NIV and NLT.

I usually preach from NIV, NLT, or NASB.

I meditate with whatever is in front of me!




Easter Worshipers? Why Not Call them Christians?



Lawyer Dennis Prager  as usual gives great insight into the tweets of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama after the Easter Sunday massacres of Christians in Sri Lanka:

"Here’s what’s critical: Neither used the word 'Christians.' And in order to avoid doing so, they went so far as to make up a new term — 'Easter worshippers' — heretofore unknown to any Christian.

The reason neither of them mentioned Christians or churches is that the left has essentially forbidden mention of all the anti-Christian murders perpetrated by Muslims in Europe, the Middle East and Africa and of all the Muslim desecration of churches in Europe, Africa and anywhere else. This is part of the same phenomenon — that I and others have documented — of British police and politicians covering up six years of rape of 1,400 of English girls by Muslim 'grooming gangs' in Rotherham and elsewhere in England.

Essentially, the left’s rule is that nothing bad — no matter how true — may be said about Muslims or Islam and nothing good — no matter how true — may be said of Christians or Christianity."



Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Social madness: Why we cannot be silent


"Go ahead. Ban me. Block me. Get out your nasty dictionary and vilify me. Call me obsessed. Hateful. Bigoted. Have at it.

The fact is, there are a million things I’d rather write about, but the state of the world leaves me no choice. To be silent is to give tacit approval. To be silent is to accept. To be silent is to capitulate. And that’s not going to happen.

Our moral framework is collapsing, and our kids and grandkids and great-grandkids will pay dearly. How can I hold my tongue from speaking or restrain my pen from writing? It is love that motivates me and moves me. Love for God. Love for America. Love for the coming generations. Love for what is best."



Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Saturday, April 20, 2019

The Only Hope for America is a Revived Church



"What happens when a nation loses its conscience? When the light barely shines in the darkness? When truth is obscured by lies? We can answer those questions with another question: What does America look like in 2019?

We are a nation adrift. A nation confused. A nation in danger of completely losing our moral bearings. A nation where right is now wrong and wrong is now right. A nation where evil is celebrated and virtue is denigrated.

But I don’t primarily blame society at large for these problems. I don’t primarily blame the people of the world (although, to be sure, each individual will give account to God for his or her actions)."


Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Thursday, April 18, 2019

How the Left Keeps Me Religious



"Nothing keeps me religious more than the left, not even religion itself.

I am not even particularly 'spiritual.' My religiosity is overwhelmingly rational (the title of my Bible commentary is 'The Rational Bible'). I believe in God because creation rationally suggests a Creator.

The force that has most propelled me to religion is the great (secular) religion of the last hundred years: the left. If most people of the left (the left, not liberalism) — people who have not only rejected but scorned God, Judaism, Christianity and the Bible — were decent individuals, were committed to intellectual honesty and had produced some great art and works of wisdom, leftism would have constituted a serious challenge to my religious beliefs."

Read the entire article here by Dennis Prager


Picture used by permission from Pixabay.


Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Notre Dame: An Omen




"The symbolism of the burning of Notre Dame Cathedral, the most renowned building in Western civilization, the iconic symbol of Western Christendom, is hard to miss.

It is as if God Himself wanted to warn us in the most unmistakable way that Western Christianity is burning — and with it, Western civilization.

Every major Western (and one major non-Western) social and intellectual force has conspired to rid Europe of Christianity and the civilization it produced."



Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

The Greatest Cost of the Collusion Lie



"The collusion lie will go down in history as one of the strangest distortions of reality to dominate the American political scene. For more than two and a half years, the national establishment and news media were fixated on a 'truth' which turned out to be false.

In some ways, this national psychosis is reminiscent of the popular madness which would run through medieval societies from time to time. Think of the flagellants going from city to city beating themselves to exorcise their sins. Think of the madness which surrounded Friar Girolamo Savonarola when he ruled Florence from 1494 to 1498. In our own country, think of the hysteria of the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692 and 1693, when more than 200 people were accused of witchcraft. Fourteen women and five men were found guilty and hanged. A sixth man was pressed to death with stones.

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles terrified millions of Americans with a fake news broadcast reporting aliens had invaded Earth. Based on the H.G. Wells book, The War of the Worlds, Welles presented it so vividly that many Americans panicked thinking they were listening to a genuine newscast of a real invasion from outer space."



Picture used by permission from Pixabay.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

America was Great

I concur with Franklin Graham's facebook post this week!


"A few days ago, President Obama’s former Attorney General Eric Holder said in an MSNBC interview that he would ask the question—“Exactly when did you think America was great?”

Wow—where should we begin? There’s a long list, but I would say America was great on the day our nation was born, the day we declared our independence from oppression and tyranny. We were great when we signed our Constitution. A constitution that ensures freedom to worship God as we feel led; a constitution that gives every citizen the right to the right to bear arms, and much more. America was great when we defended freedom here and around the world by defeating fascism and communism, holding up the beacon of freedom’s light for the whole world to see.


As the article in this link points out about America, “If that nation is not great, then no nation has ever been great.”

Great doesn’t mean perfect. But regardless of who you are, there’s no greater country you could be born in. There’s no greater country for my children and my grandchildren to be born in. Americans need to thank God for His mercies and blessings and work together to make it better.

It’s shameful that Mr. Holder doesn’t get it. What if we all answer his question for him right here and share it with others? WHEN DID YOU THINK AMERICA WAS GREAT?"



Monday, April 1, 2019

Former Laurens County pastor joins Billy Graham ministry


See the article Go Laurens posted about my job change here.


Assume the Left Lies And You Will Discover The Truth: Reflections On The Trump-Russia Collusion Lie



"From the beginning, I repeatedly said the charge that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government to defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election was a lie. The president’s description of it as a 'witch hunt' was accurate.


I regularly acknowledged that I was putting my credibility on the line by stating that it was all a hoax. But how did I know that? After all, I wasn’t privy to any confidential intelligence.

One answer is I used common sense. The Trump-Russia collusion charge and the Donald-Trump-is-an-agent-of-the-Kremlin charge struck me — and tens of millions of other Americans — as absurd. Vladimir Putin’s influence on the 2016 election was negligible, and as president, Trump has been harder on Russia — in supporting Ukraine’s anti-Russian government, in fighting Syria’s pro-Russian government and in confronting Iran’s pro-Russian regime — than Barack Obama was."