Democracy and Democrats

To you good people who love to say you believe in democracy: democracy is a loose, umbrella term describing the governments of the nations of the “Free World”. The USA is not technically a democracy. We are a constitutional republic. But lets not quibble about technicalities. A better word than democracy is freedom. 

No matter what political party you prefer, all Americans should want freedom, above all. No matter what your political affiliation, if you’re an American citizen, you should want to vote for candidates, laws and policies that represent freedom — freedom not only for yourself, but for all citizens equally — which is precisely what this nation was founded to bring about.

I want to be very clear. Politically, I am an independent conservative. In the past, I was a Republican, but became fed up with them. Then, I joined the Democrats, but got equally fed up with them. For a while I put my hope in the Constitution Party, but finally, I decided that party politics don’t really bring about the governing vision preserved for us in the constitution. Party politics are adversarial, petty, vindictive and detrimental to the virtues of individuality. 

That said, what is happening to the Democrats? They rail against Trump and call him a “threat to democracy”. But while he definitely is a threat to their politics, I wouldn’t call that “democracy”. Historically, conservatives have believed that smaller government is better government, while liberals have supported larger government and greater regulation. But now, in addition to wanting to increase taxation to build government bigger, democrats are supporting crime and criminals and opposing law enforcement. They foster policies that increase homelessness rather than solving it. They raise taxes to throw money at the problem but oppose efforts to root out the fraud that criminally diverts that tax-payer money away from those who need it. 

Please note, that when Nick Shirley began to be effective in exposing fraud the California Assembly quickly passed a law written by the wife of the Attorney General, designed to protect fraudsters. And Governor Newscum quickly signed the bill on a Saturday — supposedly something that he’d never done before. These “lawmakers” were all Democrats. No Republican voted for it.  

Democrat candidates…well, let’s be honest, Democratic Socialists are not really Democrats. They’re socialists, and yes, even communists… those candidates are saying they want to get rid of ICE, get rid of the Senate, get rid of the Constitution, get rid of capitalism — you know, all the things we associate with the history of America. Need I address any of those things?

And they say MAGA is a threat to democracy? They call conservatives fascists, but I don’t see that form of socialism happening in America. They don’t know the meaning of the word. Almost in the same breath they say socialism and communism are good, which is what our “institutions of higher learning” have been teaching young skulls full of mush for decades. And now those young skulls full of mush are old enough to vote.

I have no respect for you so-called good citizens out there who will do nothing and say nothing about what is happening in the “Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave”. It ain’t politics as usual any more! Wake up to what’s going on. If you don’t do your part to stop this move toward socialism/communism and the ignorant tolerance of Sharia law, you will bear the blame for our loss of liberty. 

Stand up for what America has always stood for, or everyone will lose. Don’t let the midterms pass you by. Get out there and vote! 

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

The Last Days

Paul warns in 2 Timothy 3:12-13 that those who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Who are these people Paul describes in the first five verses of this chapter? You can’t miss them. They are all over the media.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.”

Paul urged the people in the church at Corinth: “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” ~ 2 Corinthians 13:5

The issue here is not to point the finger at the “bad guys”, but to be spiritually honest. Are you in Christ? Is he in you? Or are you just playing at religion? In the end, this question will be settled between you and God. What is humanly powerful or humanly popular now won’t make one bit of difference. 

We stand at a dividing line. Do you really choose life, or are you going the way of the world?

There’s Something Funny About This.

It was 1951. I was six years old when my parents bought our first TV set. From the start, one of my favorite shows was Time For Beany, a children’s puppet show that introduced the characters Beany and Cecil, later featured in an animated series. Voiced by Stan Freberg, Cecil’s full name was Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent. 

In a running gag between the two, one would comment, “That’s funny”, and the other would ask, “Funny haha or funny peculiar?”. So, I learned at a very young age that depending on the context, “funny” could mean different things. Just realizing that fact was funny in itself…funny haha, that is. In other words, there’s always been something “funny” about comedy.

Take, for instance, the comedy and tragedy masks: two opposites that together represent Drama as a whole. As art represents the meaning of life, comedy and tragedy alone can only represent half of that meaning. It is when they are taken together that they are able to represent the complete human drama.

The German word Schadenfreude refers to laughing at someone’s else’s troubles or mishaps. That’s why we laugh at pratfalls and bloopers. We see someone else suffering from their own foolishness or vulnerability, but instead of feeling compassion, we laugh. Slapstick acts have capitalized on this phenomenon forever. Think Punch and Judy or The Three Stooges.

It is a fact of reality that our human response to tragedy is very often to laugh. One reason for that is to give us relief from the anxiety life gives us. It is not healthy to take every little tragedy so seriously. We need to be able to laugh at ourselves. Proverbs 17:22 says, “A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.” And that is the true benefit of comedy: keeping our spirit from being crushed.

When I was a child, America was experiencing a golden age of comedy. So many truly gifted comics were everywhere: on TV, radio, stage and screen. Trending jokes and funny bits spread like memes. Everyone laughed at them. It brought us together as a society. Audiences were diverse in every respect: young and old, rich and poor, religious and secular, even — if you can possibly imagine it — Democrat and Republican! We all laughed together — at ourselves and at each other. Despite all the cigarette smoking, we were more socially healthy back then. 

But our social norms were changed. We were told we couldn’t say certain things about certain people. We were no longer to make fun of them. The mask of comedy was removed. The only acceptable option left was the mask of tragedy. First came “political correctness”. Then came “wokeness”. The paradigm changed from freedom of speech to “permitted” or “approved” speech. We went from being open to the idea of every diverse, adult opinion having entrée into the market place of ideas, and respecting the right of everyone to evaluate for himself what was being said, to the dictatorial idea that everyone must be told what they can and cannot say.  

For instance, the word, “himself”, as I’ve just used it, began to be considered sexist, chauvinist and somehow denigrating to women. The so-called women’s lib movement began demanding language changes to reflect “equal rights”. (Although, for thousands of years most languages had used the masculine form to include both genders equally, such as “Man” and “mankind” for the entire human race). That didn’t matter to Progressives. Americans became convinced that we needed to make changes in our language to prevent any perceived discrimination.

But, like all social engineering, they took it too far. When I worked for the Postal Service my official title was “Mail Carrier”. But in personal conversations I referred to myself as a “mailman”. Politically correct friends would correct me by saying, “Don’t you mean a “mail person“? To which I replied, “I’m a man! It’s not sexist to call myself a mailman.” But by that time, a man calling himself a man had become “offensive” and even “toxic” to a significant portion of society. The women’s liberation movement was never about equality. It was about disrupting society by pitting women against men. It was part of the international communist movement’s plan to erode American society from the inside by dividing us into groups. A trend which has been intensifying for well over half a century.

It may seem like I’ve gone off on a tangent, but not so. My point is that the plan of wokeness is to kill comedy by not allowing us to laugh at our foibles. Forbidding certain kinds of jokes is the most insidious form of tyranny there is. It takes away your freedom to laugh. Remember, laughter is how we stay mentally healthy. It’s how we keep from going off the deep end. But that’s exactly what’s happening today. So many young people have no sense of social cohesion. Violence and destruction have become their go-to means of communicating the terror of a tragedy they no longer are allowed to laugh at. 

When I was a young man I had the happy experience of being in a production of the musical comedy, Once Upon A Mattress. First performed off Broadway in 1958, it became a Broadway hit in 1959-60. Our production, several years later, stayed true to the original. One of the characters in this musical is King Sextimus the Silent. As his name suggests, he was a bit oversexed, but unable to speak. He compensated for his muteness by chasing the young ladies in the court across the stage, in the style of the Marx Brothers.  

In those days that type of burlesque schtick was considered funny. The normal, average response of an audience to what we would now call sexual harassment was to laugh. Why? Because normal people know that chasing a girl to pinch her is childish, unacceptable and outlandish. It’s laughable in the same way that comedic portrayals of drunks are laughable. In such cases, no one is seriously making fun of alcoholism or denigrating women. The intent of performance art is to choose to laugh at tragedy, rather than be destroyed by it. 

Modern performances of Once Upon a Mattress are downplaying the business of King Sextimus chasing the girls. It’s considered too offensive. The rule of not being offensive has replaced the rule of being funny, which I see as a cultural loss. It’s a good thing to be free to laugh out loud at “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”. But woke standards are not allowing us that freedom.

Another example — part of that two-mask conjunction of comedy and tragedy — speaks to the poetic license of theatrics that allows serious concerns to be viewed through the lens of the romantic. It is the musical, The Fantasticks. Opened in 1960, it ran for 42 years with 17,162 performances, making it the world’s longest-running musical (according to Wikipedia). 

It’s a wonderful musical about love, family, and the romantic urge of youth to explore all possibilities versus the painful reality of life’s struggles. For me, it epitomizes the “magic” of theater”.  One song in the Fantasticks (It Depends on What You Pay) used the word “rape” to describe a staged kidnapping. The singer (El Gallo) clarified that what he meant by “rape” was in the literary sense an abduction — a staged abduction. The idea was that by pretending to abduct the girl and letting the boy rescue her, she would be impressed and see him as a hero. 

But PC thinking – the parent of woke thinking – found this unacceptable. Just the word “rape” itself was enough to make it too offensive to continue. When they made a movie of the musical (1995) the word (and the song) had been removed. By now, our society was reaffirming the conviction that we must not laugh at (or even discuss) anything that can be considered offensive.

However, there is one irreconcilable, glaring problem to this type of censorship. What is offensive to you may not be offensive to me. And what is offensive to me may not be offensive to you. I may not laugh at your jokes, and you may not laugh at mine. So, the question arises, how do we deal with such conflicts? Traditionally in America, we have balanced freedom of speech with our prevailing social mores. That is why Progressives have used a two-pronged attack of both restricting freedom of speech while changing social mores.

In order to obtain protection against offense, you must belong to an approved minority group with the status of being discriminated against by the majority. The majority has no such protection. It is deemed perfectly OK to say anything offensive against the majority. They are ridiculed and mocked for their religion, their morals, their appearance, their behavior, the way they talk…no jokes are seen as unacceptable as long as they are about men or whites or heterosexuals or conservatives or anything traditional.

Where we used to have true “community” — the naturally diverse blend of all who comprise a neighborhood or city — now we have mobs of unhappy, unhealthy people so focused on those who offend them that they cannot be civil in their dealings with any other human beings outside their group. When they are by themselves they won’t even acknowledge or return the greetings of passersby. They say nothing and don’t even look at you. This is not healthy. It’s not normal. But it’s exactly what the social disrupters want.

We have a generation of people now who have no idea how to constructively interact with others. They know how use their devices but they don’t know how to be a human being. When they get together, they are drawn to violent, destructive, anti-social behavior. They don’t know how to be concerned for the good of all. They’re too offended to laugh at each other. Too focused on themselves to laugh at life’s little tragedies.

This is nothing to laugh at.

It’s a Spiritual Thing

My faith is a spiritual thing. It’s not a mental thing, though thinking is involved. It’s not an emotional thing, although I cannot deny that I have deep feelings about it. It’s not a social or moral or ethical thing, either. All those avenues are Man’s attempt to make himself “better” or more acceptable to God. But my faith says that nothing I am capable of doing will ever be good enough to make me acceptable to God. 

It’s not about being religious or what lifestyle I choose. It’s a spiritual thing, meaning of the Spirit. As the Bible says, “God is Spirit”. So, if you do not believe in God or anything “spiritual”, please accept the fact that my faith is not any of those other things that people seem to readily understand. It’s strictly spiritual — something that perhaps you cannot accept right now. 

What does “spiritual” mean? The definition in my dictionary starts off, “1. Of, relating to, consisting of, or having the nature of spirit; not tangible or material.” So, it all depends on what “spirit” means to you. If you believe in God, “spiritual” means one thing, and if you don’t believe in God, it means something else. Look up the definition of spirit. If you can’t accept the idea that a supernatural reality exists, then “spirit” is merely a broad term referring to the intangible essence of a thing. And as such, its usefulness in conveying meaning is limited to a subjective and even nebulous sense — more a feeling than an understanding.

Yet, my faith is definitely not nebulous. It is realistic and universal. Let me start with the specifics of the gospel. The sin of humanity made us dead to God. Since he is perfect in holiness, our sinfulness separates us from him and we cannot enter into his presence. In order to restore his fellowship with us, God came to earth in human form to sacrifice himself for the forgiveness of our sins. He died, was buried, and on the third day rose again. He died on earth that we may eternally live with him in heaven, on the one condition that we, in faith, receive him as Lord and Savior. 

As a Christian, my desire to worship God is personal, not religious. I don’t worship him because it is a prescribed thing to do. I do it out of love for Jesus, who loves me so much he died for me. Faith in Jesus Christ is something more than just religion. It is our relationship with God — a personal relationship marked by obedience (“If you love me you will keep my commandments”).

It’s spiritual because Jesus told us he would never leave us or forsake us. So, when God the Father raised Christ and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, Christ sent us his Spirit to be our Helper and Comforter. And at the same time, God raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. And this is the mystery: Christ is in us and we are in Christ, fulfilling the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17:21: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”

Now, that’s spiritual. And if it makes no sense to you, that’s because, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14). Keep in mind that just because something spiritual is beyond our understanding doesn’t mean it isn’t real. Yet many people today not only deny the existence of the supernatural, they have little tolerance, or even respect, for those of us who do. 

In his book, STOP IN THE NAME OF GOD, Charlie Kirk wrote, “…the turn toward secularism is about control. The very idea that, ‘there is a God and He wants you to live a certain way‘ is now considered offensive — ‘judgmental’ or ‘harsh.'” But to Christians, that reaction  is inexplicable. To us, the gospel (“good news”) of salvation in Christ is a message of the greatest joy, and sharing it with others is an act of love. We don’t understand how something so good and meaningful to us can be seen as negative and irritating by non-believers.

Charlie Kirk began his book by pointing out a great divide in worldviews — something he called, the “Western Binary”. He said you either see yourself as a created being with a purpose or as  “the product of random mutations and molecular coincidences, a ‘happy accident’.” Bottom line, if you believe in God, then you value the things of God. But if you don’t believe in God, you might find consider the Christian message tiresome make believe, offensive or just a waste of time.    

As Charlie pointed out, we are separated by our worldviews. But my worldview changed after I received Christ as Lord and Savior. I was 31 years old. And as I read and studied the Bible, my worldview was changed. Before I was saved, I believed in evolution. Now I believe that God made everything that has been made. Before I was saved I saw nothing wrong with abortion, and in fact talked my girlfriend into getting an abortion. After being saved I faced the fact that I had helped murder my own child. Before I was saved I considered homosexuality a matter of personal choice. After being saved I saw that homosexuality, like other forms of narcissism, is a sin. 

These are just a few examples. My entire worldview changed after I received Christ. So, it seems reasonable to conclude that if God changed my worldview, then he could change anyone’s. That being the case, my hope is to bridge the gap between belief and unbelief. And that requires a spiritual bridge — beyond my control, and beyond your control. (Please remember what Charlie said, “…the turn toward secularism is about control“). How much control does a person have who refuses to consider anything that challenges his assumptions?

God’s love for us is unexplainable. We did nothing to deserve it, nor can we do anything to earn it. God has made our salvation possible. He has done it all. What is left is to humble ourselves before him, ask his forgiveness and trust in Jesus. It’s a spiritual thing.   

No Politics As Usual Anymore

Why don’t the Democrats stop pretending and just admit they are communists — not the old-fashioned kind, but a non-binary, trans, antifa, anti-Zionist, TDS-driven, violence-loving, one world championing, kill-the-infidel kind of communist? And we’ve been told that McCarthyism was a bad thing. Frankly, I wish we had more like Senator Joseph McCarthy around today.

According to Romans 13 governments are instituted by God to be his agents of good. God is sovereign. But communism takes God totally out of the equation and sets the State up as the ultimate authority. The move we are seeing toward communism today is coming about because, as a people, we have abandoned faith in God. Our world view no longer places God at the apex of reality. Instead, we increasingly look to government for our provision, justice and happiness.

Communism is an idealistic fantasy that has never succeeded in the real world.

The Marxist slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” presupposes the authority to “take from” one person and “give to” another. That authority is vested in the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. But in reality, the proletariat never has any authority. A few dictators at the top do. And they are the ones who have the first pick of how their “needs” will be met. They have the good jobs, the nice cars, the affluent lifestyles. Under communism, the proletariat is always left with the dregs.

This contrasts with the American claim that we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Our ultimate authority to “take from” and “give to” is God. In America, our constitutional form of government has created an economy that provides the opportunity for the poorest of workers to better themselves and work out of their poverty. It has been called the American dream and for generations that dream has been realized by immigrants from around the world.

America is a “classless society” in the sense that if you are born into poverty, you aren’t condemned to stay there. Many who choose to take advantage of the opportunities move up from lower class to middle class and upper class. With God all things are possible. And in America, nothing short of your own efforts can hold you back. But those who are attracted by the promises of communism just want a hand out. They don’t want to put in the work.

Under communism the State takes whatever it deems necessary from whatever you are able to produce in order to redistribute it to where they consider it is “needed” most. Under communism the government does not recognize your God-given freedoms, but instead enslaves everyone to their political agenda.

In communism, the State does not recognize God’s authority. A sense of higher calling does not exist beyond the political party. Communist idealism is a lie. The way to succeed as a party member is by taking capital from workers, convincing them it’s going to improve life for everyone, and then keeping it yourself for your own needs. It’s legalized theft.

The main difference between American “democracy” and communism is two-fold. They both claim to want to make life better for everyone, but one seeks to achieve that end through the principle of God-given freedom, and the other through replacing God with a one-party government.

Citizens who identify as “Democrats” need to be reminded that democracy is not the same as mob rule. But mob rule is exactly how communists seize power. And mob rule is what we see happening on the Left. The anti-ICE movement: mobs breaking the law (Obstructing law enforcement officials in the performance of their duty is a crime.) And the prominent Democrat leader, Hakeem Jeffries, doesn’t want that to stop. He’s calling for “maximum warfare” and “whatever it takes”.

He doesn’t care what laws are broken, what crimes are committed. He is unfazed when mentally unstable individuals try to assassinate the President, when innocent, unsuspecting citizens are attacked and killed by illegal aliens who should never have been allowed in our country in the first place. No. He wants “maximum warfare” and “whatever it takes”.

Those who identify as “Democrats” need to closely examine what you stand for. To me, it looks like you no longer love America. You love something else. A lie. A fantasy. It’s not real. You are not the loyal opposition. You want to destroy the essential freedom America has always stood for.

Communism will destroy America if it is not stopped. But not just communism. Islam will also destroy every remnant of freedom if it is not curtailed. Islam is not just another religion. At it’s core is a commitment to “kill the infidel” and by so doing, put an end to all other religions, Christianity and Judaism in particular. That isn’t my opinion. It’s written in the Koran and Hadith.

Santayana said, “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” In our country we seem to have forgotten our own history, the history of Western Civilization, and the influence that faith in the God of the Bible has had in the development of our national identity. All great civilizations have collapsed. Is that collapse now happening to us? Does it have to happen now? What can we do?

Get back to the Bible. Jesus is the answer.

Therefore say to them, Thus declares the LORD of hosts: Return to me, says the LORD of hosts, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts. ~ Zechariah 1:3

“Don’t Vote. Just Pray” ???

Have you heard this — Christians saying they shouldn’t vote? As if citizenship in heaven (Philippians 3:20) is somehow intended to cancel out our earthly obligations. This is an example of professing Christians who don’t really know what the Bible teaches. Rather, they’ve decided they don’t want to put the effort into voting so they cherry-pick verses to justify their position. 

The bulk of self-professing Christians today have never read the entire Bible, nor do they spend  much time studying Scripture. Neither do they know very much about Church history, doctrinal issues or theological schools of thought. Most Christians simply go along with whatever their church leaders say, rather than taking it upon themselves to follow Jesus and learn what he wants of us. That attitude continues to weaken the Church’s spiritual influence on society to the point where it hardly seems to matter any more.

The question of voting — as opposed to not voting — is one of engagement. Does Jesus want us engaged in the world around us, or separated from it? Jesus said, “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden” (Matthew 5:13-14). How can we be the salt of the earth? How can we be the light of the world? How can our Christian witness or even our prayers be of any value if we do not put our faith into action and vote?

James 1:22 says, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.” Hearing God’s word yet not doing it isn’t much different from praying to God while not doing anything about it, expecting God to do the work for you. It’s a form of self-deception. I believe strongly in prayer, but our prayers should never be divorced from putting our faith into action.

Our culture is in a contest between right and wrong. Right now there is no such thing as “politics as usual”. The very foundations of Western Civilization are being shaken because on the whole, society has abandoned a biblical world view, turned away from the God of the Bible and rejected the authority of Scripture. 

Something as basic as gender is being challenged. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” But many — even so-called Christians reject this. And somehow, we are all expected to accept the godless “non-binary” argument and let men compete in women’s sports. And it was not so long ago that homosexuality was universally considered sin (as explained in the Bible). Yet, now same-sex marriage has been made legal. These are only the tip of the ice berg.

We find ourselves torn between the idea of letting our light shine and being separate from the sinful practices of the world. A passage used to justify “separation” is found in 2 Corinthians 6:14-18. You be the judge. What exactly are we to be separate from?

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.

Voters are only “yoked together” when they belong to the same voting bloc. Voting is an individual expression. While unbelieving voters may vote for unjust laws or unprincipled candidates, Christian voters should be voting for moral laws and honest candidates. These two types of voters are not working together. Rather, they are competing in order to influence government according to their respective values. There is no “touching” of any “unclean thing” here. Voting is purely an official, recorded value statement which is used in deciding what laws are enacted and what law makers are elected in a government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

The primary reason Christians should vote is found in the often-repeated but seldom understood words of Jesus, “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Luke 20:25). When Jesus said this Caesar was sovereign and represented governmental power and authority. Today in America we have no Caesar. Our ultimate sovereignty is “We The People”. The power and authority of our government ultimately derives from the votes of all our citizens. 

So, “rendering unto Caesar” doesn’t mean just paying taxes and obeying laws. It means participating in our self-governance. That not only includes voting, but also contacting your representatives to tell them what you expect. It also includes running for office yourself. We don’t have a special “ruling class” in America. We the People are supposed to rule ourselves.

Examine the thirteenth chapter of Romans. It begins by saying that ruling authorities have been instituted by God. This does not justify tyrants. It makes those in authority subject to God, just as we are subject to those authorities. In other words, the government is supposed to be an instrumentality of the will of God. And specifically pointing to the government designed by the Constitution of the United States of America, John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

When the Constitution was agreed to in 1787 Benjamin Franklin was asked by Elizabeth Willing Powel, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” His response was, “A republic, if you can keep it.” In this day and age of increased violence, lawlessness and political unrest, it doesn’t seem like we’re doing a very good job of “keeping it”. Respect for the law and dignity of civil discourse seem to have been tossed aside. “Politics” has become less a process of solving problems and more a means of fraud, corruption and personal aggrandizement.  

Where are the “moral and religious people” who are supposed to be keeping this republic? The millions of “Christians” who fail to do their civic duty and vote are failing to represent Christ in government. The numbers are staggering — enough to swing any election. It isn’t a matter of wanting to create heaven on earth. But why do we pray, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” if we don’t want to point to salvation in Christ by championing virtuous causes in this life? 

“America Reads the Bible”

Spread the word about this national event — reading aloud through the the entire Bible for a week, 12 hours a day from Sunday April 19 to Saturday the 25th. Welcoming ceremonies on Saturday the 18th. Read about it at https://www.jubileecast.com/articles/35985/20260415/america-reads-the-bible-washington-dc-april-2026-livestream-lineup.htm

How Evil Are They?

How evil are the Iranian leaders who are placing women and children around their power plants? This isn’t the same thing as a “protest” or “demonstration” in the West. It is something terrorists do — use the most vulnerable of civilians as a last-ditch effort to survive. They don’t care for the lives of their own people. An estimated 45,000 Iranians have been executed for speaking against the policies of their ruling death cult.

But those same fanatics in charge of Iran know that Christians and Jews don’t want to kill civilians. They know Western Civilization sees human life as sacred, so, unlike us, they hide behind women and children. They surround their power plants and bridges with human shields, counting on the Amereican forces to cancel their planned attack.

Notice what these terrorists have done. Trump said that he wants to make a deal with Iran, and to that end, they have been in negotiations. But, just as they have previously failed to negotiate in good faith, Iran has continued to be resistant and slow to make an agreement. So, about ten days ago, the President gave Iran a deadline — a deadline to agree to a deal. But this would be their last opportunity. He warned them if they would not agree to make a deal in that time frame, we would bomb all their nation’s infrastructure.

Let that be clear. Rather than making a deal, they chose to “protect” their infrastructure by putting innocents in harm’s way. This is how terrorists work. They make no distinction between combatants and non-combatants — no distinction between military and civilian. In terms of principle and of doing the right thing, this situation is like a paradox. Resolution is only possible if one side relents.

To those who think attacking Iran’s infrastructure is a “war crime”, please be aware that the strategic plan for Desert Storm was to start by destroying infrastructure first, prior to military targets. Or what about Bill Clinton’s bombing bridges on the Danube? No war crime there! But since Trump is in charge now, people who think with their emotions are convinced that everything he does is criminal. And, by the way, what do those same people think of Obama undermining US policy by directly contacting NATO behind Trump’s back? Do they even understand that’s treason? Nope. In their TDS, all they can think of is, “Orange Man Bad”.

I hope all decent, sensible citizens get out and vote in the coming elections, because if good people stand by and do nothing we will have a government of, by and for the foolish and deceived. There is a diabolical effort being made to destroy everything that made the United States of America the most free and godly nation the world has known. But America’s vision of hope will die unless its citizens work hard to keep it. There is a lot of confusion in the world. We can only be free if we know the truth, speak the truth and stand for the truth.

Loving God, loving freedom and loving our great constitution does NOT lead us to commit national suicide by giving free reign to those who want to kill us. May God’s will be done.

Conceived In Liberty

Abraham Lincoln said we are a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal”. “Created equal” doesn’t mean we are all the same. It means for liberty to prevail, we should all be treated equally under the law.

Before Abraham Lincoln, John Adams had said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” This means that Lincoln’s reference to liberty and equality applied uniquely to a people described as “moral and religious”.

Let me break that down. “Created equal” doesn’t mean we all deserve the same blessings. What we have in life should be what we achieve. Liberty means the freedom to pursue our own happiness and make the best of our opportunities. It’s up to us to make that happen. The government’s role is neither to direct that process nor hinder it, but to allow us the liberty to pursue it ourselves.

That’s what liberty is: the freedom to do our best. No one is owed an affluent lifestyle. It must be earned. What liberty provides is dignity, respect and honor for all things honorable, respectful and dignified — those things that are desired by a moral and religious people.

Liberty does not mean that evil is equal to righteousness or that a lie is equal to the truth. It does not mean that licentiousness is equal to self-control. It does not mean that lawlessness is equal to virtue or that ignorance and foolishness are equal to reason and rational morality.

And yet, look at what’s going on right now: the assault on ICE and other law enforcement in favor of criminals; the Democrat’s partial shutdown of DHS; the idiocy of accusing Trump of being a “King” while he is forced to take action because congress is failing to do its job. The hatred of President Trump by the Left vividly demonstrates their opposition to the vision of our founders. 

Lincoln also said our nation’s government was designed to be “of the people, by the people and for the people”. But unless and until “We The People” repent of our sins, come to Jesus, return to our roots and be that “moral and religious people”, we will not be able to understand the vision or values of the constitution our founders gave us. Rather, we will continue to dumb ourselves down, be more childish in our understanding, and increase in our irreverence and immorality, eventually self-destructing into an equality of hopelessness, where liberty does not exist. 

Speaking For Himself

The Pope has said, “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war.” I wonder how many Catholics believe that to be true. They look to the Pope to speak authoritatively regarding God and morality. As the Vicar of Christ, where did the Pope get the authority to say this?

Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (Matthew 5:17) and “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35), which echos Isaiah 40:8, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

In other words, holy Scripture could be the authority for the Pope’s statement. But that cannot be the case because Scripture is full of examples of God answering prayers for victory in war. So the Pope’s statement does not come from the authority of Scripture. 

Still, the Catholic church has two sources of authority: the Scriptures and the Magisterium (a big word that means their church traditions). This poses an interesting contrast because while God and his word never changes, church traditions do because they are man-made. The history of the Catholic church includes the Crusades, a series of wars against radical Islamists — a tradition that has changed for them. 

If the Pope takes the Magisterium as his authority, we can conclude it is simply the product of a change in church tradition, because at one time you can be sure that Popes prayed for victory against the Muslim marauders. Therefore the Pope was just speaking for himself.

A person has every right to be against war, and, as a moral opinion, it has become very popular — particularly on the Left —  to be opposed to war in general, while supporting various terrorist organizations… and somehow excusing their warlike behavior, ascribing to them virtues of “freedom fighters”. But the Pope isn’t just a regular person. He represents the head of a major religion and purports to speak for the Savior of the world, as revealed to us in the Bible. He has a sacred duty to accurately reflect God’s revelation.

Instead, assuming sovereign authority, Pope Leo XIV made an opinionated political statement that went beyond the purview of either a scriptural or historical basis. He has either chosen to be ignorant or defiant — ignorant of where his authority comes from, or defiant against God. He is a fallible sinner with no more credibility than anyone else.

The religious zealots who have ruled Iran with an iron fist for 47 years just recently murdered 32,000 of their own people for the crime of protesting against the state. President Trump recognizes that anyone who would do such a thing, cannot be trusted to possess nuclear weapons. The only rational attitude toward such a rogue regime is to take all steps to prevent that from happening. Anyone who cannot see that this must be done is not dealing with reality. 

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: …a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build …a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.”  (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 3, 8) 

Everyone hates war, but sometimes it’s the best choice for our survival and freedom. Pray to God for his will to be done.