Tag: Christian American

Dems Claim Biden Student Loan Payoff is “Christ-like”…Are You Kidding Me?

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

If you have been perusing Social Media the last couple of days, you have discovered that somewhere in their misinformed heads, Far Left Democrats have decided that dementia-riddled Joe Biden’s unconstitutional act of forgiving college student loans is Christ-like and we “Christian Nationalists” should be ashamed for not supporting it.

It blows my mind how those who claim not to believe in the Triune God also claim to be experts on what Jesus Christ would approve of.

I do not believe that Jesus would support the Marxist Socialist Political Ideology of the Far Left Democrats.

His was and is a soul-saving movement. One that still brings hundreds of thousand of people to individual salvation on this terrestrial ball every day. A movement that, in fact, was embraced by the founders of this cherished land.

In a opinion piece for ChristianPost.com, Christian Talk Show Host Julie Roys gave the following Five Reasons that Socialism itself is not based on  the teachings of Jesus Christ.

1. Socialism is Based on a Materialistic Worldview

According to socialists like Bernie Sanders, the greatest problem in the world is the unequal distribution of wealth.

His website declares: “The issue of wealth and income inequality is the great moral issue of our time, it is the great economic issue of our time, and it is the great political issue of our time.”

This betrays a fundamentally materialistic worldview, which is the basis of socialism.

To socialists, all that really exists is the material world.

2. Socialism Punishes Virtue

Socialists want to distribute wealth to individuals according to their need, regardless of virtue.

As Karl Marx, famously said, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.”

However, whenever any institution provides aid, it runs the risk of removing God-designed rewards and consequences. It can punish those who are industrious by making them pay for those who are not. And, it can reward those who aren’t industrious by giving them the fruits of another man’s labor. This is precisely what socialism does.

Interestingly, Marx mooched off others his whole life, and failed to provide for his wife and children.

As Aristotle once noted, “Men start revolutionary changes for reasons connected with their private lives.”

The Bible teaches that aid should be tied to responsibility. First, anyone who refuses to work should be refused aid.

3. Socialism Endorses Stealing

Barack Obama once defended his socialist policies to a little girl by saying, “We’ve got to make sure that people who have more money help the people who have less money. If you had a whole pizza, and your friend had no pizza, would you give him a slice?”

That sounds pretty Christian, right? What Christian wouldn’t endorse sharing your abundance with someone who has nothing? However, Obama wasn’t endorsing people voluntarily sharing their wealth with others; he was endorsing the government forcibly taking a piece of the pie from one person and giving it to someone else. Put another way, that’s saying that if you have three cars and your neighbor has none, the government has a right to take your car and give it to your neighbor. That’s not Christian; that’s stealing!

But, socialists don’t believe in private property. And, some Christian socialists actually assert that the Bible doesn’t either. That’s preposterous.

Both the Old Testament and New Testament unequivocally affirm private property. We can’t even obey the eighth commandment to not steal, unless we accept the notion of private ownership. Nor, can we steward our money as the Bible commands if the state owns our money, not us.

4. Socialism Encourages Envy and Class Warfare

Socialists demonize the rich, blaming all of society’s problems on them.

Bernie Sanders once posted to his Facebook Page: “Let us wage a moral and political war against the billionaires and corporate leaders on Wall Street and elsewhere, whose policies and greed are destroying the middle class of America.”

Here, Sanders is mimicking Karl Marx, who viewed history as a series of class struggles between the rich and the poor — and advocated overthrowing the ruling class.

Scripture strongly warns the rich and powerful not to oppress the poor.

In fact, Proverbs 14:31 says, “Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for his maker . . .”

But, Sanders — and other Leftists, including Hillary Clinton — go far beyond decrying specific acts of injustice. They basically condemn an entire class of people simply for possessing wealth. And, they encourage those who are poor to overthrow them. In fact, Clinton once said the U.S. economy required a “toppling” of the wealthiest 1%.

The rich are not causing all the problems in American society. People like Bill Gates are not acquiring wealth by stealing from the masses. They’re creating great products, which produce wealth, and actually provide jobs for many people. But, even if they were exploiting the poor, nowhere does Scripture support the have-nots demanding money from the haves. Instead, it teaches that we should not covet (Exodus 20:17) and should be content in all circumstances (Phil. 4:11-13). 

5. Socialism Seeks to Destroy Marriage & Family

A little known fact about socialism is that, from its beginning, it has sought to destroy marriage and family. Grove City Professor Paul Kengor explains this in detail in his book, Takedown: From Communists to Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Marriage and Family. Essentially, what socialism seeks is for the state to replace the family. That way, it can indoctrinate children in its Leftist way of thinking, and remove from them any notions of God and religion.

Friedrich Engels, co-author with Marx of the “The Communist Manifesto,” once wrote that the society he envisioned would be one where “the single family ceases to be the economic unit of society. Private housekeeping is transformed into a social industry. The care and education of the children becomes a public affair.”

Similarly today, Bernie Sanders calls for a “revolution” in childcare and for the government to provide early childhood education beginning with children as young as six-weeks-old. And, he’s a proud supporter of gay marriage — what Kengor calls “communism’s Trojan Horse” to secure the final takedown of traditional marriage.

To socialists, what Bernie describes is a utopia. But, to Christians, it’s a dystopia. That’s because there’s nothing Christian about socialism — and there’s absolutely no way Jesus would ever support it.

America was not founded to be a Socialist Nation.

The following is courtesy of adherents.com:

There were 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence. There were 48 signers of the Articles of Confederation. All 55 delegates who participated in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 are regarded as Founding Fathers, in fact, they are often regarded as the Founding Fathers because it is this group that actually debated, drafted and signed the U.S. Constitution, which is the basis for the country’s political and legal system. Only 39 delegates actually signed the document, however, meaning there were 16 non-signing delegates – individuals who were Constitutional Convention delegates but were not signers of the Constitution.

There were 95 Senators and Representatives in the First Federal Congress. If one combines the total number of signatures on the Declaration, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution with the non-signing Constitutional Convention delegates, and then adds to that sum the number of congressmen in the First Federal Congress, one obtains a total of 238 “slots” or “positions” in these groups which one can classify as “Founding Fathers” of the United States. Because 40 individuals had multiple roles (they signed multiple documents and/or also served in the First Federal Congress), there are 204 unique individuals in this group of “Founding Fathers.” These are the people who did one or more of the following:

– signed the Declaration of Independence
– signed the Articles of Confederation
– attended the Constitutional Convention of 1787
– signed the Constitution of the United States of America
– served as Senators in the First Federal Congress (1789-1791)
– served as U.S. Representatives in the First Federal Congress

The religious affiliations of these individuals are summarized below. Obviously this is a very restrictive set of names, and does not include everyone who could be considered an “American Founding Father.” But most of the major figures that people generally think of in this context are included using these criteria, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Hancock, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and more.

Courtesy adherents.com

Religious Affiliation of U.S. Founding Fathers

# of Founding Fathers/% of Founding Fathers

Episcopalian/Anglican 88 54.7%
Presbyterian 30 18.6%
Congregationalist 27 16.8%
Quaker 7 4.3%
Dutch Reformed/German Reformed 6 3.7%
Lutheran 5 3.1%
Catholic 3 1.9%
Huguenot 3 1.9%
Unitarian 3 1.9%
Methodist 2 1.2%
Calvinist 1 0.6%
TOTAL 204

The Founding Fathers were, I do not doubt, aware of the following passage:

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. – 2 Corinthians 3:17

The Liberal Atheist Democrats who try to intimidate average Americans on Facebook, Twitter, and other Social Media insist that Crosses and other Christian symbols have no place in the Public Square.  They wish for Christians to remain unseen and unheard from, worshiping in private, and for Christian Americans to  “compromise” our Faith…i.e., shut up about Homosexual Marriage and other sins, being used as political expediencies to further an agenda to “radically change” America into something that it was never meant to be.

Well, y’all can wish for a unicorn to magically appear in your backyard…but that ain’t gonna happen, either.

As a free nation, all you who are non-believers have every right to exercise your faith.

However, as Orthodox Rabbi Daniel Lapin of the Jewish Policy Center clearly explains:

[I] understand that I live . . . in a Christian nation, albeit one where I can follow my faith as long as it doesn’t conflict with the nation’s principles. The same option is open to all Americans and will be available only as long as this nation’s Christian roots are acknowledged and honored.

…Without a vibrant and vital Christianity, America is doomed, and without America, the west is doomed. Which is why I, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, devoted to Jewish survival, the Torah, and Israel am so terrified of American Christianity caving in. God help Jews if America ever becomes a post-Christian society! Just think of Europe!

Is the Rabbi prophetic? I pray that he isn’t.

I have, however, noticed in the last several years, a propensity among those who have not been raised in a Christian home, to be intolerant toward those who have…as witnessed in public forms, ranging from Collegiate Classrooms to Social Media.

Americans’ Christian Faith, which the majority of Americans still anchor our lives around, has been the Solid Rock upon which our nation was built. To deny that, is to deny reality, to re-write history, and, to, quite frankly, endanger “the Shining City on a Hill”.

As President Ronald Reagan said,

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under. 

This November, Americans face a critical choice once again.

Do not be fooled.

Today’s Far Left Democrat Party are the “useful idiots” which Marxist Leaders have built their political power and bank accounts on for over 100 years

They just hide it better than Lenin and Stalin did.

Pay attention to their actions…and their words.

Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. – Matthew 7:20

Until He Comes,

KJ

Keeping the Faith: Lighting a Candle in the Darkness (A KJ Op Ed)

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics4 Comments

WashingtonPrayingThere are times that I feel like  an anachronism.

I have been told that, in no uncertain terms, over and over again, by  self-identified “Libertarians”, and Modern American Liberals, both groups who worship at the altar of Popular Culture and Political Correctness, which these individuals so vociferously “evangelize” for on Political Facebook Pages on the internet…all day and all night long.

My crime?

I refuse to sublimate my American Heritage of Christianity to situational ethics and relative morality, which they have embraced with a Jim Jones-like cultish fervor, while sacrificing their individuality to become a part of the “Hive Mind”.

Dictionary.com defines an anachronism as

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

I suppose that’s me.

I started this Blog as a way to vent my frustrations with the ever-evolving “societal norms” and political mayhem around me. A lot of things just grated on my nerves. They still do.

I was “reared” (as we say in Dixie, a term that is now under attack by the “Hive Mind”) by a Mother and Daddy (Southern colloquialism for a Male Parental Unit) who were members of the Greatest Generation. In fact, I was born 3 days before my mother’s 40th brithday. To this day, I believe that they were going to name me “Oops”.

My view of the world around me was shaped and nurtured by my Daddy, a Christian American, and the finest man I’ve ever known, who served with an Army Engineering Unit, as a Master Sergeant, in World War II, and who jumped off of a perfectly good boat into a hail of gunfire to join his American Brothers in the tide-turning American Victory known as “D-Day”.

Between him and my Mother, they taught me what it was to be a hard-working, Middle Class Christian American Conservative….and, to be proud of it.

But now, at 56 years old, living in a nation whose president, an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, card-carrying Communist, got re-hired for a job in which, if he were in the private section, his butt would have gotten canned  within the first 7 months, I feel as if I’m beating my dadgum head against the wall until it’s bloody, and for no cotton-pickin’ reason at all.

Why am I feeling that way?

Well, there are several reasons.

1. This country re-elected an idiot. Now, I realize that’s been done before. But, they all paled in comparison to this guy. I believe that “Scooter”, my pet name for Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm), burnt up the vast majority of his gray matter during his “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, and now, as an old friend, a former Meth-head, who, sadly, later committed suicide, used to tell me, he has “2 brain cells left and they’re fighting to the death”. I pray we survive until the end of his tenure, which, praise God, is coming quickly.

2.  Evidently, Americans, at least the majority of the ones that actually got up off the couch (Pookie, included) to vote on that November 6th, wanted the Federal Government to take care of them, cradle to grave. Rush Limbaugh labelled this symptom, “The Baracky Claus Effect”.  I pray, that, just as the Proletariat eventually figured out in the old Soviet Union, Americans are going to wake up one day, to find that mega-dependence on The State to run your life, leads to the loss of personal freedom. And those, who believe that they are “the most enlightened people in the room”, will be the first ones hollering, when they discover that their freedom has been taken away.

3. America seems to be devolving into a collection of Libertines. Notice, I did not say “Libertarians”, although, both descriptive words come from the same root word. A Libertine is, per Merriam-Webster.com,

a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality: one leading a dissolute (lacking moral restraint) life

Being a Libertarian used to mean you wanted less Government in your life and less restrictions on your personal happiness. Notice I said used to mean. Now, Libertine and Libertarian both seem to mean the same thing to the majority of posters self-identifying as members of the latter group on Internet chat boards.

Caligula’s Horse approves.

I suppose I could pontificate on the fallen nature of Man at this point, but, that’s fairly self-evident…and, as the late Freddie Prinze used to say, “Ees not my yob, man.”

4. Finally, but not the least important observation, by any means, I have watched The Faith upon which our nation was built, come under attack, by this president and his Administration, and by the “smartest people in the room”, who seem to empathaze more with those who wish to tear this country asunder, our enemies, both internally and externally.

A while back, I was asked to define what it means to be a Christian American Conservative.  After all, that’s how I identify myself and that is what it says on the top of this blog, since I began this exercise in ranting and raving in April of 2010.

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

I was raised as a Christian by my parents and accepted Christ as my personal Savior many years ago.

Here are some interesting things about Christianity to consider, written by Dr. Ray Pritchard and posted on christianity.com:

1) The name “Christian” was not invented by early Christians. It was a name given to them by others.
2) Christians called themselves by different names—disciples, believers, brethren, saints, the elect, etc.
3) The term apparently had a negative meaning in the beginning: “those belonging to the Christ party.”
4) It was a term of contempt or derision.
5) We can get a flavor for it if we take the word “Christ” and keep that pronunciation. You “Christ-ians.”
6) It literally means “Christ-followers.”
7) Over time a derogatory term became a positive designation.
8) Occasionally you will hear someone spit the term out in the same way it was used in the beginning. “You Christians think you’re the only ones going to heaven.”
9) There was a sense of suffering and reproach attached to the word in the New Testament.

In working my way toward an answer to “What is a Christian?” I decided to check out the dictionary. I found these two definitions:

1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.”

That’s actually quite helpful because it gives some content to the word. To be a Christian means that you . . .

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something
A Fully Devoted Follower To borrow a contemporary phrase, we could simply say that a Christian is a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” As I think about that, two insights come to mind.

1) It doesn’t happen by accident. You are not “born” a Christian nor are you a Christian because of your family heritage. Being a Christian is not like being Irish. You aren’t a Christian simply because you were born into a Christian family.
2) It requires conversion of the heart. By using the term “conversion,” I simply mean what Jesus meant when he said that to be his disciple meant to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). The heart itself must be changed so that you become a follower of the Lord.

Second word: American – A citizen of the United States of America.

Stephen M. Warchawsky, wrote the following in an article for americanthinker.org:

So what, then, does it mean to be an American? I suspect that most of us believe, like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, that we “know it when we see it.” For example, John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Cosby definitely are Americans. The day laborers standing on the street corner probably are not. But how do we put this inner understanding into words? It’s not easy. Unlike most other nations on Earth, the American nation is not strictly defined in terms of race or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. George Washington may be the Father of Our Country (in my opinion, the greatest American who ever lived), but there have been in the past, and are today, many millions of patriotic, hardworking, upstanding Americans who are not Caucasian, or Christian, or of Western European ancestry. Yet they are undeniably as American as you or I (by the way, I am Jewish of predominantly Eastern European ancestry). Any definition of “American” that excludes such folks — let alone one that excludes me! — cannot be right.

Consequently, it is just not good enough to say, as some immigration restrictionists do, that this is a “white-majority, Western country.” Yes, it is. But so are, for example, Ireland and Sweden and Portugal. Clearly, this level of abstraction does not take us very far towards understanding what it means to be “an American.” Nor is it all that helpful to say that this is an English-speaking, predominately Christian country. While I think these features get us closer to the answer, there are millions of English-speaking (and non-English-speaking) Christians in the world who are not Americans, and millions of non-Christians who are. Certainly, these fundamental historical characteristics are important elements in determining who we are as a nation. Like other restrictionists, I am opposed to public policies that seek, by design or by default, to significantly alter the nation’s “demographic profile.” Still, it must be recognized that demography alone does not, and cannot, explain what it means to be an American.

So where does that leave us? I think the answer to our question, ultimately, must be found in the realms of ideology and culture. What distinguishes the United States from other nations, and what unites the disparate peoples who make up our country, are our unique political, economic, and social values, beliefs, and institutions. Not race, or religion, or ancestry.

Third word: Conservative -A person who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America’s best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988:

Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people.

In conclusion, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

So, where do I go from here? Do I run away, with my tail between my legs, and live out the rest of my days in quiet desperation?

To any of you who repled, “yes”…you don’t know me very well.

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

My Creator, while endowing me with certain inalienable rights, also endowed me with an indomitable will. Then, somewhere along my journey, He gave me the gift of being able to express my thoughts and feelings on this computer keyboard.

I will not give up. I will not surrender my Christianity, my love of the greatest nation on God’s green Earth, or my Conservatism, to appease those who wish everybody would just get in line and acquiesce to the prevailing “societal norms”.  I follow another set of guidelines, written a long time ago, but which remain as relevant as the moment in which the Hand of God guided those who wrote them down.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, – Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

I pray that you, the reader, are able to glean that from my blogs.  Because, as Matthew 6:21 tells us:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ

“Who am I? Why am I Here?”: KJ’s 2014 in review

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

AFBrancoObamaPolicies12302014I am an anachronism.

I have been told that,  by “libertarians”, repeatedly, on Internet Chat Boards, on the World Wide Web.

Dictionary.com defines an anachronism as

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

I suppose that’s me.

I started this Blog as a way to vent my frustrations with the ever-evolving “societal norms” and political mayhem around me. A lot of things just grated on my nerves. They still do.

I was “reared” (as we say in Dixie) by a Mother and Daddy (Southern colloquialism for a Male Parental Unit) who were members of the Greatest Generation. In fact, I was born 3 days before my mother’s 40th brithday. To this day, I believe that they were going to name me “Oops”.

My view of the world around me was shaped and nurtured by my Daddy, a Christian American, and the finest man I’ve ever known, who served with an Army Engineering Unit, as a Master Sergeant, in World War II, and who jumped off of a perfectly good boat into a hail of gunfire to join his American Brothers in the tide-turning American Victory known as “D-Day”.

Between him and my Mother, they taught me what it was to be a hard-working, Middle Class Christian American Conservative….and, to be proud of it.

But now, at 56 years old, trying to survive the presidency of an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, racially-dividing, card-carrying Communist, who went golfing this weekend, displacing the wedding of two Army Captains (an actual male and female!), while more than 3,000 of our Brightest and Best, are serving in Africa, being exposed to a disease which has landed on our very shores, threatening our citizenry, I wonder if at times, if my self-assigned duty of writing this blog everyday, is actually worth the effort.  I’m beginning to feel like I’m beating my dadgum head against the wall until it’s bloody, and for no cotton-pickin’ reason at all.

Why am I feelng that way?

Well, there are several reasons.

1. This country re-elected an idiot. Now, I realize that’s been done before. But, they all paled in comparison to this guy. I believe that “Scooter”, my pet name for Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm), burnt up the vast majority of his gray matter during his “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, and now, as an old friend, a former Meth-head, who, sadly, later committed suicide this time of year, used to tell me, he has “2 brain cells left and they’re fighting to the death”. I pray we survive the next 4 years.

2.  Evidently, Americans, at least the majority of the ones that actually got up off the couch (Pookie, included) to vote on November 6th, want the Federal Government to take care of them, cradle to grave. Rush Limbaugh labelled this symptom, “The Baracky Claus Effect”.  I pray, that, just as the Proletariat eventually figured out in the old Soviet Union, Americans are going to wake up one day, to find that mega-dependence on The State to run your life, leads to the loss of personal freedom. And those, who believe that they are “the most enlightened people in the room”, will be the first ones hollering, when they discover that their freedom has been taken away.

3. America seems to be devolving into a collection of Libertines. Notice, I did not say “Libertarians”, although, both descriptive words come from the same root word. A Libertine is, per Merriam-Webster.com,

a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality: one leading a dissolute (lacking moral restraint) life

Being a Libertarian used to mean you wanted less Government in your life and less restrictions on your personal happiness. Notice I said used to mean. Now, Libertine and Libertarian both seem to mean the same thing to the majority of posters self-identifying as members of the latter group on Internet chat boards.

Caligula’s Horse approves.

I suppose I could pontificate on the fallen nature of Man at this point, but, that’s fairly self-evident…and, as the late Freddie Prinze used to say, “Ees not my yob, man.”

4. Finally, I have been told by Liberal Trolls on the Worldwide Web, that my blog was considered a “joke”. I used to allow this to hurt me very deeply. You see, since April of 2010, I have devoted a lot of time and effort to putting my ideas, however old-fashioned and cornball they are, down on paper. I truly enjoy doing it. I must. I haven’t made a dadgum dime off of it.

Have you ever stood back on New year’s Eve and tried to remember what you accomplished during the past year?

Since I began this blog in April of 2010, I have not had that problem.

jesterluteThe WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 51,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 19 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

For those of you who have not figured me out, yet, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

So, where do I go from here? Do I run away, pummedled into submission by “The Smartest People in the Room”, with my tail between my legs, and live out the rest of my days in quiet desperation?

To any of you who repled, “yes”…you don’t know me very well.

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

My Creator, while endowing me with certain inalienable rights, also endowed me with an indomitable will. Then, somewhere along my journey, He gave me the gift of being able to express my thoughts and feelings on this computer keyboard.

I will not give up. I will not surrender my Christianity, my love of the Greatest Nation on God’s Green Earth, or my Conservatism, to appease those who wish everybody would just get in line and acquiesce to the prevailing “societal norms”.  I follow another set of guidelines, written a long time ago, but which remain as relevant as the moment in which the Hand of God guided those who wrote them down.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, – Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

I pray that you, the reader, are able to glean that from my blogs.  Because, as Matthew 6:21 tells us:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

May God bless you and yours in 2015,

KJ

Shining the Light? Or, Just a Quixotic Folly? Why Do I Keep Blogging? (A KJ Sunday Morning Reflection)

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

American Christianity 2I am an anachronism.

I have been told that,  by “Libertarians”,repeatedly, on Internet Chat Boards, on the World Wide Web.

Dictionary.com defines an anachronism as

something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, especially a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

I suppose that’s me.

I started this Blog as a way to vent my frustrations with the ever-evolving “societal norms” and political mayhem around me. A lot of things just grated on my nerves. They still do.

I was “reared” (as we say in Dixie) by a Mother and Daddy (Southern colloquialism for a Male Parental Unit) who were members of the Greatest Generation. In fact, I was born 3 days before my mother’s 40th brithday. To this day, I believe that they were going to name me “Oops”.

My view of the world around me was shaped and nurtured by my Daddy, a Christian American, and the finest man I’ve ever known, who served with an Army Engineering Unit, as a Master Sergeant, in World War II, and who jumped off of a perfectly good boat into a hail of gunfire to join his American Brothers in the tide-turning American Victory known as “D-Day”.

Between him and my Mother, they taught me what it was to be a hard-working, Middle Class Christian American Conservative….and, to be proud of it.

But now, at 55 years old, trying to survive the presidency of an anti-American, Muslim-sympathizing, political-pandering, class warfare-preaching, card-carrying Communist, who went golfing yesterday, while sending more than 3,000 of our Brightest and Best, to Africa to be exposed to a disease which has now landed on our very shores, threatening our citizenry, I wonder if at times, if my self-assigned duty of writing this blog everyday, is actually worth the effort.  I’m beginning to feel like I’m beating my dadgum head against the wall until it’s bloody, and for no cotton-pickin’ reason at all.

Why am I feelng that way?

Well, there are several reasons.

1. This country re-elected an idiot. Now, I realize that’s been done before. But, they all paled in comparison to this guy. I believe that “Scooter”, my pet name for Barack Hussein Obama (mm mmm mmm), burnt up the vast majority of his gray matter during his “Choom Gang” days in Hawaii, and now, as an old friend, a former Meth-head, who, sadly, later committed suicide this time of year, used to tell me, he has “2 brain cells left and they’re fighting to the death”. I pray we survive the next 4 years.

2.  Evidently, Americans, at least the majority of the ones that actually got up off the couch (Pookie, included) to vote on November 6th, want the Federal Government to take care of them, cradle to grave. Rush Limbaugh labelled this symptom, “The Baracky Claus Effect”.  I pray, that, just as the Proletariat eventually figured out in the old Soviet Union, Americans are going to wake up one day, to find that mega-dependence on The State to run your life, leads to the loss of personal freedom. And those, who believe that they are “the most enlightened people in the room”, will be the first ones hollering, when they discover that their freedom has been taken away.

3. America seems to be devolving into a collection of Libertines. Notice, I did not say “Libertarians”, although, both descriptive words come from the same root word. A Libertine is, per Merriam-Webster.com,

a person who is unrestrained by convention or morality: one leading a dissolute (lacking moral restraint) life

Being a Libertarian used to mean you wanted less Government in your life and less restrictions on your personal happiness. Notice I said used to mean. Now, Libertine and Libertarian both seem to mean the same thing to the majority of posters self-identifying as members of the latter group on Internet chat boards.

Caligula’s Horse approves.

I suppose I could pontificate on the fallen nature of Man at this point, but, that’s fairly self-evident…and, as the late Freddie Prinze used to say, “Ees not my yob, man.”

4. Finally, I was told the other day, during the before-mentioned “discussion” on that Facebook Page, that my blog was considered a “joke”. I allowed this to hurt me very deeply. You see, since April of 2010, I have devoted a lot of time and effort to putting my ideas, however old-fashioned and cornball they are, down on paper. I truly enjoy doing it. I must. I haven’t made a dadgum dime off of it.

A while back, I was asked to define what it means to be a Christian American Conservative.  After all, that’s how I identify myself and that is what it says on the top of this blog, since I began this exercise in ranting and raving in April of 2010.

Let’s perform a dissection, shall we?

First word:  Christian – A follower of Jesus Christ.

I was raised as a Christian by my parents and accepted Christ as my personal Savior many years ago.

Here are some interesting things about Christianity to consider, written by Dr. Ray Pritchard and posted on christianity.com:

1) The name “Christian” was not invented by early Christians. It was a name given to them by others.
2) Christians called themselves by different names—disciples, believers, brethren, saints, the elect, etc.
3) The term apparently had a negative meaning in the beginning: “those belonging to the Christ party.”
4) It was a term of contempt or derision.
5) We can get a flavor for it if we take the word “Christ” and keep that pronunciation. You “Christ-ians.”
6) It literally means “Christ-followers.”
7) Over time a derogatory term became a positive designation.
8) Occasionally you will hear someone spit the term out in the same way it was used in the beginning. “You Christians think you’re the only ones going to heaven.”
9) There was a sense of suffering and reproach attached to the word in the New Testament.

In working my way toward an answer to “What is a Christian?” I decided to check out the dictionary. I found these two definitions:

1. One who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus. 2. One who lives according to the teachings of Jesus.”

That’s actually quite helpful because it gives some content to the word. To be a Christian means that you . . .

Believe Something
Follow Something
Live Something
A Fully Devoted Follower To borrow a contemporary phrase, we could simply say that a Christian is a “fully devoted follower of Jesus.” As I think about that, two insights come to mind.

1) It doesn’t happen by accident. You are not “born” a Christian nor are you a Christian because of your family heritage. Being a Christian is not like being Irish. You aren’t a Christian simply because you were born into a Christian family.
2) It requires conversion of the heart. By using the term “conversion,” I simply mean what Jesus meant when he said that to be his disciple meant to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow him (Luke 9:23). The heart itself must be changed so that you become a follower of the Lord.

Second word: American – A citizen of the United States of America.

Stephen M. Warchawsky, wrote the following in an article for americanthinker.org:

So what, then, does it mean to be an American? I suspect that most of us believe, like Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in describing pornography, that we “know it when we see it.” For example, John Wayne, Amelia Earhart, and Bill Cosby definitely are Americans. The day laborers standing on the street corner probably are not. But how do we put this inner understanding into words? It’s not easy. Unlike most other nations on Earth, the American nation is not strictly defined in terms of race or ethnicity or ancestry or religion. George Washington may be the Father of Our Country (in my opinion, the greatest American who ever lived), but there have been in the past, and are today, many millions of patriotic, hardworking, upstanding Americans who are not Caucasian, or Christian, or of Western European ancestry. Yet they are undeniably as American as you or I (by the way, I am Jewish of predominantly Eastern European ancestry). Any definition of “American” that excludes such folks — let alone one that excludes me! — cannot be right.

Consequently, it is just not good enough to say, as some immigration restrictionists do, that this is a “white-majority, Western country.” Yes, it is. But so are, for example, Ireland and Sweden and Portugal. Clearly, this level of abstraction does not take us very far towards understanding what it means to be “an American.” Nor is it all that helpful to say that this is an English-speaking, predominately Christian country. While I think these features get us closer to the answer, there are millions of English-speaking (and non-English-speaking) Christians in the world who are not Americans, and millions of non-Christians who are. Certainly, these fundamental historical characteristics are important elements in determining who we are as a nation. Like other restrictionists, I am opposed to public policies that seek, by design or by default, to significantly alter the nation’s “demographic profile.” Still, it must be recognized that demography alone does not, and cannot, explain what it means to be an American.

So where does that leave us? I think the answer to our question, ultimately, must be found in the realms of ideology and culture. What distinguishes the United States from other nations, and what unites the disparate peoples who make up our country, are our unique political, economic, and social values, beliefs, and institutions. Not race, or religion, or ancestry.

Third word: Conservative -A person who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

J. Matt Barber wrote in the Washington Times that

Ronald Reagan often spoke of a “three-legged stool” that undergirds true conservatism. The legs are represented by a strong defense, strong free-market economic policies and strong social values. For the stool to remain upright, it must be supported by all three legs. If you snap off even one leg, the stool collapses under its own weight.

A Republican, for instance, who is conservative on social and national defense issues but liberal on fiscal issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative socialist.

A Republican who is conservative on fiscal and social issues but liberal on national defense issues is not a Reagan conservative. He is a quasi-conservative dove.

By the same token, a Republican who is conservative on fiscal and national defense issues but liberal on social issues – such as abortion, so-called gay rights or the Second Amendment – is not a Reagan conservative. He is a socio-liberal libertarian.

Put another way: A Republican who is one part William F. Buckley Jr., one part Oliver North and one part Rachel Maddow is no true conservative. He is – well, I’m not exactly sure what he is, but it ain’t pretty.

Even the Brits understand what American Conservatism is.

Per blogs.telegraph.co.uk:

Conservatism is thriving in America today because liberty, freedom and individual responsibility are at the heart of its ideology, one that rejects the foolish notion that government knows best. And its strength owes a great debt to the conviction and ideals of Ronald Reagan, who always believed that America’s best days are ahead of her, and for whom the notion of decline was unacceptable. As the Gipper famously put it, in a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in 1988:

Those who underestimate the conservative movement are the same people who always underestimate the American people.

In conclusion, I, a Christian American Conservative, am a follower of Jesus Christ and a citizen of the United States of America (by the Grace of God), who holds to traditional values and attitudes.

So, where do I go from here? Do I run away, with my tail between my legs, and live out the rest of my days in quiet desperation?

To any of you who repled, “yes”…you don’t know me very well.

Greater is He who is in me, than he who is in the world.

My Creator, while endowing me with certain inalienable rights, also endowed me with an indomitable will. Then, somewhere along my journey, He gave me the gift of being able to express my thoughts and feelings on this computer keyboard.

I will not give up. I will not surrender my Christianity, my love of the greatest nation on God’s green Earth, or my Conservatism, to appease those who wish everybody would just get in line and acquiesce to the prevailing “societal norms”.  I follow another set of guidelines, written a long time ago, but which remain as relevant as the moment in which the Hand of God guided those who wrote them down.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, – Colossians 3:23 (ESV)

I pray that you, the reader, are able to glean that from my blogs.  Because, as Matthew 6:21 tells us:

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

May God bless you and yours,

KJ