The Peril of Mocking God

One of the most important aspects of the last 50 or so years in the U.S. has been the decline of organized religion, especially as compared to the surge in population. The combined membership of the so-called “mainline” denominations (United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian [USA], Christian [Disciples], Evangelical Lutheran) declined between 1960 and 2012 by 32% while the population increased by 75%. The largest evangelical denomination (Southern Baptist) increased by 64% but has been losing members, 6% since 2007, at an alarming rate.

The main reason some give for this circumstance is that the culture has changed dramatically and that the church, account its staidness (real or imagined), has been left behind in the progressive, postmodern era just now getting started in spades. This reason may be far too simplistic and over-broad. Movements, including those of the church, are usually begun and perpetuated under the auspices of strong leadership. When that leadership weakens, the movement falters.

The leader of a church is its pastor. The “religion writer” of the Lexington Herald-Leader is a pastor who wrote this in a column of 29 June: “I don't have many strong opinions left: about religion, politics, marriage, economics.” The irony is obvious, to wit, that the writer who is paid to provide serious commentary has few strong opinions even about religion, ergo, nothing he writes is to be taken seriously because he obviously doesn't take it seriously.

By his own admission, this pastor has weak opinions, if any, to offer about things such as politics, marriage and economics. One wonders how an army would function if its generals had only weak opinions concerning the conduct of an operation or the behavior/effort of its soldiers. This question can be directed to churches and denominations. If their leaders have no strong opinions about anything, the obvious conclusion is that “anything goes,” as far as they're concerned.

Therein may lie the main reason accruing to the rise and fall of the church in the U.S., the entity supposedly advancing the cause of Christ, who, along with his followers, had virtually nothing but strong opinions. Christ and the biblical writers were believers in absolutes, which is a dirty word in today's version of Christendom because it indicates some things are absolutely right or wrong, but trying to find middle-ground is impossible. This would be like the platoon leader taking a vote among his squads before an operation—unbelievably silly.

The pastor having few strong opinions decided that the penultimate sin is pride, actually a strong opinion by the pastor's own accounting, which has as one of its definitions this: “a reasonable or justifiable self-respect.” The writer preferred this other definition, presumably: “inordinate self-esteem.” He explained: “Pride makes us feel superior to our fellow human beings.” No...that's arrogance which begets condescension. Or...it may be racism, not pride.

Predictably in the current glorification of homosexuality, the pastor asks if one feels disgust with two men having a romantic relationship, implying at least that he wouldn't be bothered by that...a weakened opinion? Romantic? Egad! The proper question for a pastor would concern what the Bible says about that, but the answer might be an absolute, so the question isn't asked. Both murder and homosexual behavior are unmistakably condemned in scripture, as are adultery and stealing, but the progressive is motivated by – get this – LOVE, according to the pastor.

Love is the most misused and overused term in the current Christian lexicon. It's a wimpish euphemism for tolerance of most anything. So, murder is wrong but sexual perversion, stealing and adultery are socially relative, notwithstanding the absolute that all four are intolerable to God.

In introducing homosexuality into his piece, the writer fingered much of the reason for the decline of the church, namely that biblical absolutes are to be disregarded by the enlightened “religion-mongers,” especially the most sophisticated. The Episcopal and Presbyterian hierarchies (and many church-members) approve of same-sex-marriage. The pressure is on the other “main-liners” to follow suit. The scripture condemns it out-of-hand, thus denominations/churches are at war with God, whom they pretend to worship and obey. Their decline will only accelerate, as those “having few strong opinions” run the churches.

In no small part because of the perverse positions of the church, the nation is in an amoral/immoral tailspin, too. The next thing to be handled with “love” may be bigamy, polygamy, incest or “group marriage.” Not having many strong opinions is the recipe for social and, ultimately, governmental disaster. Anything Goes! The church approves...but God, as promised (Galatians 6:7), will not be mocked.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Another Poison-Pen XO

The president is brandishing his “poison pen” again, this time because the insensitive republican-controlled House has failed to follow his rubber-stamp Senate and make the U.S. a veritable paradise for those who may have problems with sexual orientation or gender identity. This new executive order will add the new species to those of other discrimination instruments, which actually have a purpose, such as referencing ethnicity, gender (not identity), creed, etc.

The word is that he has planned for an XO requiring that any entity with federal contracts must not shut out folks who have oriented themselves toward homosexuality or have a problem deciding which of the human species they belong to—male or female, or maybe some other identification. Who knows, in this day of enlightenment? Maybe there's such a thing as male-fem or fem-male (sets of both gender attributes) or human-canine, for instance. The latter might be good in facing veterinarian charges...Obamacare to the max.

So...the prez headlined the LGBT fund-raising gala in New York on 17 June, landing on the roof of (where else?) the Wall Street heliport – lair of the fat cats he has helped to huge bonuses and successes while talking about the sad state of the “middle class,” like Bill Clinton in feeling their pain. To show the extent of his wisdom, he preached to the crowd that Americans finally understand that “love is love.”

What else could love be but love? His speechwriters let him down again, like when they didn't make sure he would pronounce “corpsman” as “corpsman” instead of “corpse-man” in an earlier speech. Don't teleprompters have margins in which to put the proper pronunciations? Does one need reminding that a nickel is a nickel and not a dime? In any case, what does love have to do with federal contractors?

The prez hasn't said when he will actually sign the order but it probably won't be before the November elections, and then he may have second thoughts, though laws/constitutions—federal, state or local—don't seem to mean anything to him. It's actually the business of Congress to make the decisions about mandatory requirements regarding employment. Can anyone imagine President Johnson just signing the civil-rights entitlements into law in 1965?

At Atherton High School in Louisville, Ky., a male student can officially use both the girls bathrooms and locker-rooms because he identifies himself as a girl, presenting no proof other than his own assessment. This is the stuff that Obama has in mind—total unisex. Does the boy have a gender-identity problem (whatever that is)? Of course not. He knows what he is but he's working an angle.

This is what homosexuals and gender-identity people do...work an angle. According to the centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one in 700 babies has Downs Syndrome, caused by having an extra “21 Chromosome.” There's no such chromosomal imbalance in people who claim to be homosexual or whatever else they claim to be. They usually scream “genetic predisposition” but no such thing has ever been proven. In doing this, they actually accuse their parents of somehow damning (or uplifting) them to their sexual existence.

The LGBT gang is made up of folks who have decided that they desire sexual perversion as a lifestyle, but demand to be treated as normal. There was a time when they were considered psychologically aberrant. They can “love” each other all they want but they are homosexual by choice and not birth, at least in any significant percentage.

Both Hillary and Barack made fools of themselves pandering to the LGBT crowd in 2008 (Biden took a pass), but by 2012 Barack had “evolved” into the belief that homosexual practices are just great, hence the continued pandering eventuating in his new edict. The term for this is “debauchery institutionalized.” He may think his legacy has to do with healthcare but historians will tag him the “Debauchery President,” who led the nation into immorality.

The liberals' hero is Plato, a self-confirmed homosexual, pedophile, pederast. What has Greece been since his time?

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

The NEW Allies

President Obama is now between a rock and a hard place account ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) terrorists, who are accounted consensually as much bloodthirstier than even al Qaeda and who control much of both Syria and Iraq while at the same time moving irresistibly toward Baghdad. ISIS promises Sharia Law for both countries, another way of saying that all the U.S. has done or not done in Iraq has been for naught, as was the case in Vietnam in the 1960s-70s.

Syria is another matter, especially since the U.S. has done virtually nothing there. Obama arrogantly told Syria President Bashir Assad to turn his government over to the “people” in 2011 and get outta Dodge. No one knew who the “people” were – except for Senator McCain, who did a grand photo-op ostensibly with the right “people” a while back – so getting weapons to the right “people” was not actually an option, as was the case with U.S. boots on the ground.

There are a handful of Christians in Syria who don't have to fear for their lives, and girls can go to school there under normal governmental circumstances. In fact, in 2001 Syria adopted a slogan of "education for girls" as part of its participation in the celebration of the annual Women's World Day. Sharia Law would change all of that, the Christians murdered and the girls becoming illiterate slaves to illiterate brutish Muslim/Arab men.

In Syria, Assad and his military are all that stand between Sharia Law and freedom, at least as much freedom as is allowed in any middle-eastern nation. The same is true for Iraq's President al-Maliki and military, which currently is a powder-puff army commanded by a president who seems more interested in establishing an overbearing Shi'ite government in the same sense that Saddam created an overbearing Sunni government, though with only some 35-40% of the population.

This creates for Obama the awkward position of being in the middle in both places. In Syria to prevent ISIS from becoming successful, he's forced to throw-in with Assad, who assuredly hates Obama's guts for all the meddling and mischief he's caused, especially encouraging, at least vocally, the insurgents to throw bodies at Assad—blood in the streets as Assad has more than answered in kind, which is what Obama would also do if faced with the same problem. This is what Lincoln did in 1861.

This is where the rubber hits the road since Assad's well advertised, obviously supportive ally is Russia's Putin, who already has completely outdone Obama in getting Assad to export his WMD, as well as getting Obama off the hook with regard to any further meddling in Syria (the damnable “red lines” never enforced). Much of the ISIS weaponry has already been furnished by the U.S., the “leftover” weapons from Obama's failed attempt to give Libya to the “people,” and the U.S.-furnished materiel in Iraq that has been confiscated as the Iraqi army retreats toward Baghdad.

The plot thickens as Shi'ite leaders in Iran watch Maliki's back, remembering the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, when Muslim-Sunni Saddam used gas on both Iranis as well as Kurds in his own north-country, not to mention his oppression of Iraqi Shi'ites in his south-country. Remember the years-long no-fly zones by the U.S. military? This puts Obama on the ayatollah's side and makes him an ally of Israel-hating Iran President Rouhani.

Cut Obama some slack, though! He's made some terrible decisions about Muslim countries in general and absolutely devastated Libya, but soon after taking office Bush 43 declared that the U.S. would not do nation-building, a wise decision. Then, he reneged in both Afghanistan and Iraq, in both of which countries he had the good sense to intervene but the disastrous judgment that either Muslim-dominated country was amenable to democracy.

If Bush had listened to the historians and religionists he would have known that no amount of treasure or blood could have produced democracies in those countries. When Saddam was captured, the U.S. should have left Syria. When the Taliban and al Qaeda were driven out of Afghanistan in December 2001, Bush should have made a military presence his only goal, not nation-building, never mind all the purple fingers of the people who thought they voted.

So...how will the new allies—Iran, Russia, U.S., Syria, Iraq—make it work? Stay tuned.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Fairness????

The going thing in local governments these days is the passing of “fairness ordinances” having to do with discrimination, real or imagined. These ordinances usually prohibit discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations on the bases of ethnicity, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Essentially, the ordinances award perquisites to certain classes of people that have first been taken from other classes of people. For instance, a property-owner is deprived of choice in the matter of renting accommodations, while applicants are given the right to sue the owner if they feel aggrieved (being turned down) in the process. The owner is not allowed to make a judgment on either past experience or current information regarding the applicants. The government controls his property whether he likes it or not.

Under these ordinances, the factory-owner is required to hire people approved by the government (perhaps even ex-cons guilty of serious crimes), assuming the applicants are qualified, and not on the basis of his experience with certain classes of people or information regarding them or even personal choice. He may be forced to hire a person who is lazy or actually unqualified but qualified according to government, and will find it nearly impossible to get rid of that employee, who is unproductive and represents expense, not profit.

A landlord may prefer not to rent a furnished apartment to homosexuals because he doesn't want it or its appurtenances affected by their behavior, which involves unnatural uses of body orifices and organs. There's nothing filthier or more unsanitary than anal and oral sex or other creepy sexual exercises that impact beds and couches or even the floor. The ordinance, however, removes the owner's right to exercise his prerogatives.

Or, either he or other tenants may feel uncomfortable in the homosexual setting, with other tenants actually moving out, thus costing him financially because the government has taken control of his property and decided to whom he may and may not rent even though exercising his standards does no harm to anyone. He could end up losing his investment. So-called “fairness ordinances” are not fair to all, especially those who stand to lose financially because of them.

Gender identity is now a real problem with regard to “fairness.” Suppose someone operates a boarding house for men and is approached for accommodations by a lady who says she actually is a man. Simple? Just tell her to go away. Not so simple...not in the age of enlightenment.

It's now official at Atherton High School in Louisville, Ky., that an obvious boy who says he's actually a girl may now use the girls bathrooms and locker-rooms. The school-based council approved that permission almost unanimously. Neither the school-board nor superintendent nor any parent nor another student has any say in the matter. He can probably play on the girls basketball and softball teams but not on those of the boys.

The ramifications of this action totally lacking in common sense are evident. Any boy or girl who says (no certified proof necessary) that he/she is of the opposite sex cannot be denied the same privilege, no matter the obvious evidence to the contrary. The fact that this might offend maybe half of the 1200 other students does not signify...the minority MUST rule. Perhaps the process could be slowed if the boy is required to wear a dress in order to exercise his privilege but that probably wouldn't do more than just make him a curiosity...or bully-bait.

According to the prevailing governmental requirements accruing to political correctness, the Atherton fiasco will spread to other schools, where voyeurism by both sexes will get more attention than any academic subject. One can imagine all the senior boys claiming to be girls just for the fun of it. The bathrooms will become orgy-centers as the boys and girls get their exercise and break up the monotony of school.

This won't happen on a large scale and never in most schools but it points up the fallacies connected to fairness. One man's fairness is another man's infringement upon personal liberty, but the minority, no matter if as pronounced as in the Atherton case, will always win the day...until political correctness is replaced by common sense constrained by law to protect minorities while allowing the majority to have at least some modicum of freedom.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark

Eden-of-Deception

The operative term in the media for the behavior of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, recently swapped by the Taliban for five of the most notorious terrorists held at Gitmo, is desertion, defined as “to withdraw from or leave usually without intent to return.” That sounds like an apt description for Bergdahl's action but deserters do not usually desert toward the enemy but away from it. The soldier could hardly have done that, however, since he was surrounded by the enemy.

On the basis of news reports, especially the ones supported/reported by Bergdahl's former comrades, rather than deserting he probably defected, defined as “to forsake one cause, party, or nation for another often because of a change in ideology.” Bergdahl reportedly had sent his belongings home, left a note, badmouthed the U.S., left his weapons and other safety-gear in camp and just disappeared, probably stealthily in a vehicle since there were no signs of passing the checkpoint or cutting the wire around the encampment, according to one observer.

Whether a deserter or defector, Bergdahl is sort of the military equivalent of Edward Snowden, who took his inside knowledge (CIA stuff) to China, then to Russia. Bergdahl had nothing to offer, however, except a warm body, perhaps offering it to be in league with the insurgents, automatically making him an enemy of his own country. Reportedly, he had also wanted to renounce his citizenship and had claimed to be ashamed of being an American.

Bergdahl is not the main story, however. The much larger picture has to do with the precedent set by the president in both negotiating with the enemy, and accepting submission to extortion as American policy. One can see Obama's thinking, perhaps concerning revenge as much as anything else. He promised to have Gitmo closed by January 2010 but the Congress turned him around on that.

He has a gimmick in place now for emptying Gitmo and doing an in-your-face to Congress since any terrorist(s) can grab an American, whether military or civilian, and demand a Gitmo-bird as ransom, ergo, emptying the place. There are American civilians being held by Muslim and other governments now, so they, like Bergdahl, are hostage-bait. The president can hardly turn down any offer for a swap of detainees for Americans, no matter all his hot air about not negotiating with terrorists.

NSA head honcho Susan Rice was picked again to do the TV Sunday morning LIE on 01 June, citing Bergdahl as serving with distinction and referring to him as captured in a war, while all the time she knew she was lying. She did the Benghazi fraud so it seems reasonable that State Secretary Kerry should have taken the hit on this matter. After all, lying should not be hard for him in light of his testimony before Congress back in the day that U.S. GIs killed 200,000 Vietnamese civilians every year. Check the Congressional Record for that.

This is what Kerry said to a Senate committee in 1971: “So what I am saying is that yes, there will be some recrimination but far, far less than the 200,000 a year who are murdered [in Vietnam] by the United States of America …” While still an officer in the Naval Reserve, Kerry also met with North Vietnamese officials in Paris during that time-frame...echoes of Bergdahl? Is it any wonder that Kerry was “Swift-boated” by the navy guys who served with him and helped deny him the presidency?

The piece de resistance occurred in the Rose Garden (where else when fraud is at hand?) when Obama beamed while Bergdahl's father spoke the beginning phrase in most chapters of the Koran—a sort of “Allah Akbar”—the term Major Hasan screamed before killing 13 at ft. Hood and injuring many others. The Rose Garden should be renamed the Eden-of-Deception until Obama leaves office. When he and the intrepid Hillary lied in the Eden-of-Deception that the Benghazi Massacre was the result of a movie, in the certain knowledge they were lying, they blasphemed the Rose Garden and made sport of a horrible tragedy.

The next act (probably soon) will occur when something like the snatching by terrorists of an embassy employee probably somewhere in Africa takes place and the Muslim terrorists present a “deal” to Obama—all the detainees for the American. Stay tuned!

And so it goes.
Jim Clark