Christian college remove "Our Lord" from diploma?

I have heard some hugely asinine things in the past two weeks, but this tops the cake with burning candles...


A Christian university--Trinity University--in Texas is being asked by students to remove "In the year of our Lord" from their diplomas. 


Let's see... what part of Christian University is not understood? What part of Christian leaves out Jesus? 


Naturally it would be a Muslim student who considers it right and proper to even ask that the words be removed from the diploma all because "not every one believes in Jesus". I'm thinking that this person isn't Christian. So what possessed him (or her, I'm not sure what gender) to go to the university in the first place?


Get this...
The school's student government association and a commencement committee already has thrown their support behind the proposal. 


I must wonder if any of those students have ever read 2 Tim 1:8  Then do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me, His prisoner. But suffer hardship with the gospel, according to the power of God...


Or did they ever read 2 Tim 1:12  For which cause I also suffer these things. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that He is able to guard my deposit until that Day. 


They want to "proudly display (their) diploma", which is a virtual admission that if the words "year of our Lord" are on it, they won't be proud to display it. How incredibly sad. 


It leads me to question the intelligence of the student, the student government association and the commencement committee. I understand there are some reasons a non-believer would go to a Christian school. Perhaps, it has the best reputation for certain curricula, but if one goes to Rome, one does not ask the Emperor to change clothes.


Asking an institution to change what is close to the heart of more than one hundred years of Christian identity just because "we want to be proud to display our diploma and not everyone believes in Jesus" is beyond the pale of indignity; it is down right blushing.

What is Social Justice?

I asked this question on Mike Duran's blog at deCompose (see the link on the left). The fact is, there is no definition of it, although the term first appeared in The Federalist Papers and, here's a cougher, in The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbons. 


The emperors of the Roman Empire should know. I found that out when I wrote a paper on it back in 2005. The economy was adjusted to placate the masses which resulted in an economic nightmare. Social justice was just an oxymoron. Here's an excerpt...


Growth, plenty, economic boom and the State had copious revenue, so much so that Augustus began huge public works programs when he “repaired all the roads of Italy and Rome, restored the temples and built many new ones, and built many aqueducts, baths and other public buildings. Tiberius, however, cut back on the building program and hoarded large sums of cash. This led to a financial crisis in 33 A.D. in which there was a severe shortage of money. This shortage may have been triggered by a usury law which had not been applied for some years but was again enforced by the courts at this time” (Frank, T. "The Financial Crisis of 33 A.D." American Journal of Philology, 1935 56(4): 336-41).  “The shortage of money and the curtailment of state expenditures led to a sharp downturn in economic activity which was only relieved when the state made large loans at zero interest in order to provide liquidity” (Thornton, M.K., and Thornton, R.L. (1990) "The Financial Crisis of A.D. 33: A Keynesian Depression?" Journal of Economic History 50(3): 655-62).
 Here we have a perfect example of the “invisible hand of the marketplace” being held by big government.  The time frame between the boom of Augustus and flop of Tiberius was just a year or two.  Did Augustus actually practice hands off policy?  Not really, not when there was an abundance of public works underway, and not when the taxes were lowered.  In the traditional Keynes philosophy, public works and lower taxes are government tactics used to give the economy a burst of energy.  In other words, government induced economic growth.  Augustus employed Keynes theory before Keynes was a twinkle in his daddy’s eye.
 
Did the depression happen because Tiberius hoarded large sums of cash (the economy was based on a cash flow system and credit was not widely used).  Was the zero percent interest a shot in the arm in Keynesian style?  In contrast to the laissez faire classical macroeconomic theorist point of view, yes.  Since the government was not keeping a hands off attitude but was digging deep into public revenues it was the beginning of the fall.  The emperors of Rome began to degrade the amount of gold and silver in coins.  This debasement of coinage caused inflation which led to the population hoarding the more valuable coins and paying taxes with the less valuable coins.  This led to a greater need for revenue by the government so taxes were raised and this resulted in the privately wealthy to be slowly robbed of their wealth.  The natural inclination of the patricians to hide their wealth came in the form of tax evasion. The sights of the government were then turned to the middle class.  These employed the tactics of the rich by tax evasion in various forms mostly by appearing to be poor or by outright selling themselves as slaves to the larger land owners.  (Slaves didn’t have to pay taxes.)  The constant drain on the empire’s coffers by the military caused a greater and greater need for more revenue.  The emperors put less and less gold and silver in the coinage.  It was an economic nightmare. Emphasis because it jumps out at me. It happened 2000 years ago, but could be today's headlines!


Does this sound familiar? Will we never learn???


Russia and other countries found out that there is no way to even or spread the wealth. Jesus said the same thing when He told his disciples when they became angry at the usage of some valuable perfume and an alabaster jar that the poor would always be with us. 


Glenn Beck gave his definition of social justice: Here's my definition of social justice: Forced redistribution of wealth with a hostility toward individual property rights, under the guise of charity and/or justice. 


That's how the Romans defined it, lived and breathed it. So how did that work for them? Not well at all. That kind of thinking brought a 10 centuries old empire to its knees and then flat on its face in the mud. Ours isn't half that old, but we will fall just as hard, and the impact to the world will be just as devastating.

Ex-gays get dissed by Disney

For the longest time I have known that the "tolerant" people are not really tolerant, only belligerent about their agendas. As long as we agree with them and accept them, then we're okay. But, when we diverge from the path, oh my! What a tangled web is uncovered when we open our eyes to truth.

Now we have one of the most militant in promoting homosexual "rights" saying that ex-homosexuals do not have any rights within their company.

Disney did not add ex-gays to the non-discrimination list of people who are not to be discriminated against. Of course this is a very serious matter because it is truly crucial to understand there are thousands who make a conscious decision to turn from their homosexual lifestyle. But, "they" [being that group of people whose opinion matters somehow even though they only make up about 4% of the population] don't want that statistic widely known, for how could anyone possibly turn away from such a "normal" lifestyle as homosexuality? [Please note the tongue in cheek!]

I am thinking, why do we even need a list for non-discrimination? Should we have a list for discrimination? It would most likely be shorter, or should be at any rate.

Then again... Why isn't Micky Mouse and Mini Mouse discriminated against? They never got married, did they? I don't recall... but, it should go down as the two individuals who could never commit.
Shouldn't Goofy be on the non-discrimination list? After all, he is one sandwich short of a picnic...
Donald Duck can't pronounce all his words correctly. He's got to be on there somewhere...
Pluto! With a name like that, how can he be normal?

It just doesn't seem right some how.

Praise report

I have been going through the process of applying to New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to earn my Master's degree. I've been wondering if this is really what God wants me to do because I had not gotten that epiphany or the Light on the road to Damascus that I was indeed treading down God's chosen path for me. A couple of days ago, I filled out the last of the paperwork and noticed for the first time that the insurance question was for hospitalization not  for car insurance.


Well...


I don't have that. So I thought, as I sealed the envelope with my $25 app fee, this is the road block that I was expecting. Nothing ventured, though. This just makes God's job a bit harder if this is the direction I am to go. So, I prayed, "Lord God Almighty, nothing is too difficult for you. If you really do want me at NOBTS, then you will have to provide hospitalization for me and as you know it has to be affordable... or you could give me a beautiful job that would pay and I could take courses off and on...


Yesterday, I received two letters. I opened the most important one first and there in my hand was a very affordable hospitalization plan with the first 2 months paid for me! I said, "Well, Lord, this is my answer. I believe you want me to go to NOBTS!" Then I opened the second letter and there was another plan, not as good as the first one, but that doesn't matter because it was God's 2 witnesses thing going on. I'm not just on the right track, but I am absolutely on the right track, plus this is God's promise that He will provide. Jehovah Jireh, amen. God had answered my prayer a long time ago. He made sure that those two offers which originated in different parts of the country, weeks if not months ago, to arrive in answer to my prayer the next day. In the fullness of time, all according to His perfect timing.

Israel and the U.S.-- problems, problems

I usually follow anything that is happening in the Middle East, more especially in Israel, because it actually is the Center of the Earth in a manner of speaking. God designed it that way when He blessed Abraham, and made Israel and all his progeny the Chosen People.


Now Joe Biden has come down with foot-in-mouth disease again, although it probably isn't his fault this time, bless his heart.


But let's put this into perspective. Pres. Obama has been showing more patience with Iran than I believe is safe. He's been saying, "Let's sit down and talk about it." After all they have all the makings for the nuclear bomb--the same thing that flattened two huge Japanese cities and ended WW2. Iran is not known for its diplomacy or for its calm dealings within the region, plus Ahmadinejad recently accused the U.S. of playing a "double game" in the war against terror in Afghanistan. 


But toward the one democratic nation in all of the Middle East, Biden "goes ballistic" at Israel for starting a housing project in a region that was never on the bargaining table with the Palestinians anyway. Here's a quote from One News Now...



Gary Bauer, president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families, recently returned from a trip to Israel that happened to coincide with the Vice President's visit. He reports that the neighborhood in question had never been on the negotiating table.
"The Palestinians have never demanded that it be given up," he comments. "What we're seeing here is that Iran is building nuclear weapons and the administration has infinite patience. Israel tries to build homes for its citizens, and the Obama administration goes ballistic."

Of course there won't be any true peace in the Middle East until Jesus comes again. However, there isn't any need to antagonize our one solid friend there, especially when God has promised to bless every nation that befriends Israel. This is not shaping up to be a pretty picture.



Protecting children...

The United Nations has a program of sexuality education that is being promoted globally, which I talk about here. On George Barna's blog, I see him asking questions about how churches protect our children, comparing the British law,  Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act of 2006, to what many of us face when we volunteer to work in children's ministry in our churches. We rarely have to do anything, we rarely have to even fill out a form or submit to a back ground check.


The questions asked are simple, but quite frightening to me. Should we take a leaf from British law? 


It terrifies me how much our government has torn from our hands in the education department. We parents, obviously, can't teach our children properly about proliferation. We don't know how to teach about sexual conduct or the sex act, so government in the form of public schools must teach this. 


It is so scary that the president has embraced a person who has an agenda to make everyone in the U.S. accept that homosexuality is a normal lifestyle, and has made him the Education Czar with all the appropriate power to exercise his agenda.


I was incensed that the U.N. is pushing the idea that children as young as five years old should be introduced to sex education and that children should be assured that touching themselves, inappropriately in my opinion, is normal and natural. That just makes me sick at my stomach.


Slowly and insidiously our government is getting too big for its britches. Even now it is changing pants that have bigger and deeper pockets and is looking to fill them with our hard earned money. Big Government is not content with just our money, its long arm is reaching into the future to our grand children and our great-grandchildren. That gives me flu-like symptoms! Are we going to sit silently by and let it happen? Are we like blind Timaeus? Or will we be more like his son, Bartimaeus, who sits by the side of the road shouting for Jesus and asking for his sight?


We can't do anything within our own power, but we most certainly can ask God for help, and for the wisdom to do what He would have us do. 

Opposing Views... atheism rare in prisons

I read an article about atheists and agnostics rare in prisons making up less than 1/3 of a percent of the prison population. You can click on the title of this post to go to the article.

The conclusion of the study which prompted the article was that since there are so few atheists and agnostics in prison, they must live the most moral lives, shunning any criminal acts. The clincher quote is this:
In "The New Criminology", Max D. Schlapp and Edward E. Smith say that two generations of statisticians found that the ratio of convicts without religious training is about 1/10 of 1%. W. T. Root, professor of psychology at the Univ. of Pittsburgh, examined 1,916 prisoners and said "Indifference to religion, due to thought, strengthens character," adding that Unitarians, Agnostics, Atheists and Free-Thinkers are absent from penitentiariers or nearly so.

I think what was disregarded is that when a person is faced with a dead end, when he/she is at the lowest part of the gutter, they only place to look is up. There is an extraordinary number of prisoners who finally meet Jesus. There are also numerous people in the U.S. who profess Jesus but truly do not possess Him.

Another fact that was disregarded, or rather twisted, is that religion does not equal Christianity. I was born a Baptist, but didn't actually meet Jesus and take Him into my heart until I was six years old. Others go to church regularly but never have asked Jesus into their hearts. They are content to set on pews never hatching anything.

It is an erroneous conclusion to some interesting facts.

be still

I get to the screaming point. I want to shout out the truth, but to no avail.
I work and work at trying to be what God wants me to be and I always fail.

Help me, Lord.
Carry me over the fjord.
The chasm is deep and
I weep.

Dry my tears.
Release me from my fears.
Carry the truth to those ears
that refuse to hear
the truth.

Put back that hair that I have pulled out.
Rub the steel bands that are supposed to be my shoulders
for I am done with things as they are, to no longer look back and pout.
Whisper my name, cause me to be still.

Tomorrow I shall go forward,
leaving behind the crumbs and the rust
of broken things.
Tonight I shall snuggle under Your wings
for it is only You that I trust.

Great waste of taxpayer money!

This is an update to yesterday's post... I calmed down a bit and did some research.


I could still go into a diatribe about the stimulus money used to see the effect cocaine has on monkey brains, which was a brilliant idea of one college professor. It has something to do with how addiction works on brains. I am thinking that there are how many rehab centers? How many people who are addicts that would jump at the chance to participate in a study? Why do we need to get a bunch of monkeys high on crack and what how their brains react to the addiction? Give me the grant money. I already know the results. Crack Cocaine is addictive. The addict will do anything to get more to feed the habit. It takes a deliberate decision to want  to quit before breaking the addiction can begin and even then it might not happen. Okay? Where's my money?


However it was brilliant because he wrote a grant and it was awarded. The Stimulus Money is supposed to create jobs. How many did this one create? ZERO. Oh, but it saved one professor's job. Any bets on it was the grant writer's job that was saved? But, that isn't what I'm writing about...


I received my letter from the U.S. Census today. It said that I would receive my 2010 form in about a week and that I should fill it out and return it promptly. It was postage paid by the U.S. Census Bureau. Bulk mail that would be about $.26 each or maybe $.24 each for non-profit status I am not sure how much the government rate is for bulk mail, plus the printing, folding, envelope stuffing, plus the cost of paper, cost of envelope, cost of black ink. Let's just say that it went out to about 115 million households to "Resident".


What are they thinking??? 


Why do I need a letter to tell me I'll be receiving another letter in about a week which will include the form and I should respond promptly???


Are we idiots? Oh, yes, of course we are. We can't think for ourselves... even though we have seen what the effect that crippling debt will have on our own incomes not to mention our great-grandchildren's incomes. We have told our Congressmen that we do not want this health bill to PLEASE start over and do it right! We saw that there were lots of senators bribed, placated, coerced and bullied into passing the present senate bill. But, no one is listening. Obviously. This latest political gaff which has wasted tax payers money is a huge clue that Big Government which H.G. Wells named Big Brother is muscling in on our pay checks so the huge gorilla sitting on our check books can have fun getting high on cocaine. What exactly would a drug crazed monkey do? Oh, sure! Use the political hammer and mash this huge square peg into the tiny round hole of our empty pockets.


We are now paying $57,500,000 if each letter only cost $.50 to print, fold, stuff, mail and the manpower to do it all, and the cost of gasoline to bring the mail to the post office (do you think the mail carrier could carry all that mail?) just to let me know to check my mailbox in one week.

Dictatorship in America

Is it just me or does anyone else get the feeling that our way of life is slipping away, and we are being indoctrinated with a One World System of government and socialistic brainwashing.

Why is it so important to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" of the military? Why are our children being force fed the ideas that capitalism is a bad thing and a person who has worked for his wealth is not entitled to enjoy that wealth, but must "spread it around" at the dictates of the federal government? Why is the ObamaCare thing being rammed down our throats when we've been very clear about how we feel about it? This is not going to create more jobs. No one will truly get excellent care--all we need to do is study England's socialist health care to understand that it is mediocre at best.

I read an extremely good book by A.J. Cronin called The Citadel, which was about the beginnings of organized medical care in England. The subscription cards of workers were held by their preferred physician and the physician was paid by the company, not the patients. Doing research and going outside the accepted, or rather the traditional, way of treatment was not only frowned upon but was punishable by removal of the practicing certificate. If a doctor wanted to practice in a particular geographical area, he must either work for a pittance for the physician who currently held that geographical area, or wait until that physician retired and purchase the practice from him. Free enterprise was unheard of and if it was whispered, then the physician ranks were closed and the interloper was basically run out of town. There was no room for out-of-the-box thinking for the most part.

I kept thinking as I read, how awful that a person had no real choice in who treated his illness nor was prevention promoted. If we are forced down this path of medical mire, then it won't be long until this top heavy government topples America. Since the boxes of tea were tossed into Boston Harbor, we've known as a nation that heavy taxation cripples the economic growth of our pocketbooks as well as our nation. If we add to that a national regulation beyond Medicare to the medical treatment of every person, making it individually and corporately mandatory, then we are allowing Big Brother to take even more of our freedom of choice.

Our founding fathers were ever mindful that our national government not become a Big Daddy...

Though social policies sometimes governed the course of tax policy even in the early days of the Republic, the nature of these policies did not extend either to the collection of taxes so as to equalize incomes and wealth, or for the purpose of redistributing income or wealth. As Thomas Jefferson once wrote regarding the "general Welfare" clause:
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." More...


When I was in college back in 1972, my personal part of the national debt was $18,600. Today, my personal part of the national debt is more than $40,000. That is only $563 per year... but wait! In 2005 my personal debt was $34,000+ which means that the government spending increased at least $1,200 per person per year since 2005. If the growth rate never increases again--don't hold your breath on this--then the burden of debt will increase per person more than $9,000 every five years.

The American people are shouting, Washington D.C., please listen up. No more taxes, we've been taxed enough already. American people, please don't stop shouting, even when our throats are sore and our bodies are tired. Our children are worth the effort and this country is worth it, too!

The OT saints that walked after Jesus rose from the dead

Were the OT saints that came out of their graves when Jesus died on the cross in glorified bodies or were they visible spiritual bodies? Look at Matt 27:52-53

If they were spiritual, then how could there have been witnesses to their "bodies being raised"? There is only one recorded account of a Spiritual body being raised and that is Samuel called by Saul through the witch at Endor. Samuel prophesied what would happen to Saul and admonished him for disobeying the Lord and seeking out the witch and trying to communicate with the dead. This is highly unusual because look at the witch's reaction! She screeches like a banshee! Nope. These OT Saints are not in Spiritual Bodies because that is exactly what God forbids and calls abhorrent.

If they were glorified, then humans could see them. Matthew is careful to record they came out of their graves after Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

They had to be glorified bodies and that means there are at least 2 First Resurrections. Jesus was firstfruits, then the OT saints, next will be the dead in Christ at the Rapture. Paul talks about that twice, I think. First in Corinthians then again in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18.

As I understand it, at death our souls leave our body and Jesus meets us or perhaps angels escort us (Luke 16) to heaven. Then when it's Time and God says, "Go get Your Bride, Son." All the souls will accompany Jesus. Re: 1 Thess 4:14 -- "even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus." In a piece of time that cannot be divided, the bodies of the souls will rise and be changed into incorruptible bodies -- New Temples, if you will, for the souls to inhabit. And in another piece of time that cannot be divided, the human Christians alive in Christ will be changed into their glorified bodies and we will meet Him in the air and will always be with the Lord.

Then next will be those that died during the Great Tribulation. Recall, the souls under the altar that cry out for vengence from God because of their beheadings... "How long, oh Lord? Then they were given white robes and told a little while longer."

According to my count, we have 3 resurrections of the First Resurrection kind or type of resurrection.

If you look at it any other way, those OT saints walking around Jerusalem in front of countless witnesses that recognized them for who they were, sort of sits out there around Pluto with no organized explanation and certainly not Biblical. Unless you have a better explanation?