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.

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

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

"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

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

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.

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

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

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

Providence and Presidents

 

"The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump represents one of those rare historical moments when fundamental truths are clarified. Yesterday’s attack at President Trump’s rally in Pennsylvania shocked the nation and the watching world, and it instantly revealed so many essential truths.

First, life and death can come down to a matter of a millimeter. The video of President Trump grabbing his ear and then diving onto the platform will be indelibly etched into the nation’s historical memory. Just the slightest deviation in the path of that ammunition round would have changed a bleeding ear into a dead former president, even as Trump is just days from his official nomination as the Republican candidate in the coming election. How can human life be so fragile as that? But the fragility of life is essential to our understanding of the gift of life. In a world of sin and evil, assassins and pathogens, every breath we take is a gift. At some point, a single breath will be our last.

For Donald Trump, his last breath could have come yesterday, broadcast to the entire world. Thankfully, that was not the case. But why? Those who hold to a purely materialistic and naturalistic worldview have no answer but luck, which is a major doctrine of secular theology. But Donald Trump (and the watching world as well) must surely know in his heart that something far greater than luck preserved his life. Speaking to the press, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., acknowledged the hairline distance that separated life and death in the assassination attempt: 'Fate stepped in.' Interestingly, it was President Trump himself who clarified the issue, posting on Truth Social that it was 'God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening.' Indeed, it was God and God alone, for God alone is the sovereign ruler of the cosmos."

Read the entire article by R. Albert Mohler here at World Magazine.

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

Image used courtesy of Pixabay

It’s Worst of Both Worlds for Biden’s Enablers

 

"Competent reporters like Alex Thompson at Axios, Nuzzi at New York Magazine, and numerous reporters at The Wall Street Journal have reported on the president’s cognitive decline only to be attacked by fellow journalists, not just Democrats. Now, they have proved to be correct, and the press corps has turned on Biden.

The situation is not sustainable for the Democrats. But what is most troubling is that Biden and his advisers still think he can not just fight the fight, but win the election. Regardless of his frailty, he and his team have lied to Americans about his condition for quite a while.

Biden has been exposed. Now he is in the worst position possible for an American politician: He is both pitied for his condition and resented for lying about it. That is not something from which one can recover."

Read the entire article by Erick Erickson here at The Daily Signal.

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

Picture courtesy of Pixabay

Enjoy the Long Days of Summer

By the time July rolls around, summer is in full swing. Most people have already experienced a family trip, Vacation Bible School, and pool fun. With the newness of summer worn off, it’s easy for families to fall into a summer slump. The good intentions of the projects we hoped to get done, the books we planned to read, or the family bonding time we envisioned might slip through our fingers.

July is a good time to take inventory. Exactly six months have passed since the New Year tolled and we confidently made resolutions. The holidays seem like eons away from the hot days of mid-summer. In July, children and teenagers may fall into a rut of accomplishing nothing and vegging out on television and video games.

Moses prayed that the Lord would teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. (See Psalm 90:12.) Even in the lazy days of summer, let’s not become sloths. We can model for our children how to use our time productively. Here are four ways we can live intentionally this summer.

Evaluate and organize.

July is a great time for midyear assessment. Are we still on track for any of the goals we set in January? Realistically, what do we hope to accomplish in the second half of the year?

When July heat drives us indoors, we can spend time tidying our lives. Pick a project. Maybe the digital pictures need to be sorted, filed, and saved several times. Make a big stack of clothes to give away.

Set spiritual goals for the remainder of the year. Each summer I evaluate what I hope to accomplish at church in the fall as well as what writing projects need my attention.

Connect with your church.

Though your church’s schedule may be toned down in the summer, don’t let your connection with the Body of Christ wane. One sad reality in our day is that Christians attend worship on Sundays less than they did in past decades.

The Bible says that Sunday is the Lord’s Day — it belongs to Him. Prioritize worshiping with your church family on Sunday when you are in town. Don’t forget to give financially to your fellowship. Summer tends to be the hardest time for a church’s income. Look for ways to serve in your church during the hot summer days. Substitute Sunday School teachers or small group leaders may be needed as families take vacations.

Attempt to get to know some people in your church. Plan to go out to eat together on Sundays. Invite a senior adult or widow in your church over for a meal. Host a short-term prayer group or Bible study in your home. Linger after the worship service and talk.

Take one-on-one trips.

My wife and I schedule same-gender trips with our children one-on-one during the summer. We try to make the get-aways fun without spending tons of money. Last summer, my 14-year-old and I kayaked on the French Broad River in Asheville, N.C., through the Biltmore Estate. One year we went to the National Whitewater Center in Charlotte for some water fun.

We set time aside for much-needed bonding between father and son and mother and daughter. We look forward to the trips all year. We also intentionally use the trips to discuss any pressing issues confronting our children. When my son was 11, we had the “birds and the bees” discussion on our overnight trip, using James Dobson’s Preparing for Adolescence. We try to talk with them about things that matter without making the time too heavy or pushy. It’s one of the few moments during our year that we can leisurely spend time together with no real agenda other than connecting.

Don’t forget to play.

We’ve heard it said that the family that prays together stays together. But it’s also true that the family that plays together stays together. Without the routine of school, ball practice, and music rehearsals, summer provides margin for families. During the school year, parents have to be responsible for keeping our kids on task for all of those engagements. So for the summer, let’s be responsible for making sure our family plays!

Find some local points of interest to visit. Our family takes several Saturdays each summer and finds waterfalls in upstate South Carolina. They provide cool refreshment on hot afternoons. Have “no electronic nights” when you play board games and charades or tell stories.

Get friends together, cook out, eat watermelon, and stay up late chasing fireflies. When our children are adults, they won’t remember much about our work and responsibilities. They will remember times when we played together as a family.

Read Some Books, by Tracey Wilson

I love summer, and I love to read. As a homeschool mom, I treasure summer time to curl up on the couch with a good book. I watch my children nestled in their Enos in the woods, reading a thrilling adventure story.

During summer, we have to catch ourselves from falling into the habit of spending all day watching movies and playing video games. Reading is a fantastic alternative.

We read biographies together. The Christian Heroes and the Heroes of History series from YWAM Publishing provide great treasures for family reading. This year we have George Washington, William Wilberforce, Elisabeth Elliot, Clara Barton, and C. S. Lewis on our list.

Give your older children reading assignments for the summer and then discuss together their reading adventures.

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

How to Spend Time with the Lord

 One of the most valuable habits of the Christian's life is that of what evangelicals have called "the quiet time - spending time alone with the Lord in biblical meditation.

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

Celebrating Flag Day

 

In 1949, Congress approved a joint resolution formally establishing June 14 as Flag Day to commemorate the day that the Stars and Stripes became the official symbol of the United States of America.

Nearly 250 years ago, on June 14, 1777, the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia adopted a resolution to establish the official flag of our Republic. Embroiled in the Revolutionary War, with the drafting of the Articles of Confederation underway, the Founders shifted their focus to pass the Flag Act that read: “Resolved, that the flag of the United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.”

The adoption of the Stars and Stripes as our young nation’s flag was a powerful symbol to the world, representing the unity, determination, and grit of the American colonists as they faced the formidable British Empire.

Read the entire article by Callista Gingrich here.

Also, see Eric Metaxas' Remembrance and Ritual on Flag Day.

Image courtesy of Pexels

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

America Has Its First Show Trial

 

"To understand the damage done by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Judge Juan Merchan, and the Manhattan jury in the Donald Trump corporate records trial, one must first understand the most important rule of modern life: Everything the Left touches it destroys.

The Justice Department and the American legal system are only the most immediate examples. . . .

We are bequeathing our children and grandchildren a completely different country than the one our parents, grandparents and Founders bequeathed to us."

Read the entire article by Dennis Prager here. Dennis Prager here. 

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

Picture used courtesy of Pixabay

The Fake Conviction

 

"Americans are now being forced to think through the first fake conviction in the history of presidential politics.

As an historian, I am really bothered when I hear lawyers on television describe these proceedings as though they were somehow related to the rule of law and the normal legal process.

It is clear that what happened to President Donald J. Trump in Judge Juan Merchan’s court was not a legitimate conviction. Nearly every element of the prosecution was false. Therefore, the outcome is false."

Read the entire article by Newt Gingrich here.

Also, you may find the following articles helpful:

America Has Its First Show Trial

Judge Merchan Threatens the American People

Picture used courtesy of Pixabay

Judge Merchan Threatens the American People

 

Judge Juan Merchan’s dictatorial behavior in rigging the trial against President Donald Trump is not only a threat to the former president.

President Trump is only one person. While the threat to him is real,
Judge Merchan is also threatening 332 million Americans.

Merchan threatens the entire structure of the Constitution and the rule of law. He clearly violated the Eighth Amendment requirement that citizens have the right to know with what crime they are being charged.

Read the entire article here by Newt Gingrich.

Picture used courtesy of Pixabay

Dealing with Change: Attentive Church Leadership Podcast

 

On this edition of Attentive Church Leadership Podcast, Rhett Wilson interviews Jim Singleton as they discuss changes facing the North American church. It's a world we've not known before!

Click here to listen to the podcast based on Kevin Ford and Jim Singleton's new book, Attentive Church Leadership.

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

Billy Graham Statue in U.S. Capitol to Be Unveiled Thursday

 

In 2013, Mr. Graham was named North Carolina’s “Favorite Son” by a unanimous vote of the state General Assembly. Then-Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 540 in to law in 2015, which decreed that a statue of Graham would be commissioned to represent North Carolina in the U.S. Capitol. “There have been many great North Carolinians, but few have impacted the world more than Billy Graham,” the House Bill said.

“The legacy of Rev. Billy Graham is based on his simple message of forgiveness based on John 3:16. His lifelong commitment to preaching the Gospel, his fight for civil rights, his opposition to communism, and his spiritual guidance provided hope to hundreds of millions,” said Senator Ted Budd (R-NC) who was part of the bipartisan effort. “His likeness should stand in the U.S. Capitol forever.”

Read the entire article at BGEA here.

Click here to view the ceremony live on Thursday, May 16.

Picture from BGEA

It Takes a Morally Confused World to Be Anti-Israel

 

The moral confusion of our time is therefore not new.

Almost 3,000 years ago, the Prophet Isaiah lamented, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.”

But at the start of the 20th century, a new form of moral confusion was introduced. While there were always those who called good evil and evil good, shortly after Einstein discovered relativity in the natural order, Western civilization applied relativity to the moral order. As the late historian Paul Johnson wrote in “Modern Times”: “At the beginning of the 1920s the belief began to circulate, for the first time at a popular level, that there were no longer any absolutes: of time and space, of good and evil, of knowledge, above all of value” (italics added).

Read the entire article by Dennis Prager here.

Also, read the following on Israel:

Israel As ‘A Pariah’ Among the Nations

The Genocide Libel Is the Blood Libel of Our Time

Sick Jews

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.

The Growing Graces of Godly Women

 

Rhett teaches from the book of Ruth about what 

Naomi and Ruth model about being godly women.

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

Music from Mother's Day. Rhett, Tracey, and Karen

Rhett sings followed by Tracey and her mother

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

The Founding Fathers on Jesus, Christianity and the Bible

 

"For decades accusations against the Founding Fathers have abounded. One of the common criticisms is that the Founding Fathers were a collective group of atheists, agnostics, and or deists who wanted a strict separation of church and state, resulting in a secular government and public square. Some go as far as foolishly writing that these allegations are so evident that no actual evidence or proof is needed to substantiate their claims. 

While these charges are blatantly false, it can likewise be acknowledged that not every Founding Father or early American leader would fit in the category of born-again Christian (although most of them would). However, the overwhelming majority of Founding Fathers and early leaders wrote openly, and often about the influence of Christianity, the Bible and Jesus on their lives. While the following examples do not give the complete story of the faith journey of the individuals included in this list, these quotes and excerpts do give a glimpse into the thinking of these men. We encourage you to follow the footnotes and dig deeper into the writings of the Founding Fathers!"

Read the entire article by WallBuilders here.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay