Tag: political Expediency

A Country Purposefully Divided

On By kingsjesterIn Politics2 Comments

th (23)You know, I was asked by an NPR reporter once why don’t I talk about race that often. I said, “It’s because I’m a neurosurgeon.” And she thought that was a strange response . . . I said, “You see, when I take someone to the operating room, I’m actually operating on the thing that makes them who they are. The skin doesn’t make them who they are. The hair doesn’t make them who they are. And it’s time for us to move beyond that because . . . our strength as a nation comes in our unity. – Dr. Ben Carson, Closing Statement, GOP Presidential Candidate Debate, Fox News, August 6, 2015

Thursday night, 24 million Americans tuned in to Fox News to watch a multitude of Republican Presidential Candidate Hopefuls attempt to distinguish themselves from one another.

Some are saying that it was the biggest audience ever for a Prime Time Television Program.

Why were Americans so anxious to watch a bunch of professional politicians (with two noteworthy exceptions) preen and pontificate in front of the cameras, reiterating political stances, which they have already taken?

I believe that the answer to that question is a simple one:

The overwhelming majority of Americans are concerned about the future existence of the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.

The same day that a political game of one-upmanship was being played out in front of that huge national audience, a much more serious event was being played out in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee.

Memphis police officer Sean Bolton was remembered Thursday as a man of compassion but “bold as a lion” when it came to the community he swore to protect.

The Marine who excelled in wrestling and football at White Station High School and equally embraced a love of languages and books, was shot and killed Saturday while on duty.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong told mourners inside Bellevue Baptist Church during Bolton’s memorial service that this was the third one of his officers to die in the line of duty over the last four years, and this grim statistic has “devastated” him.

“We all have our relationship with God, and so I talked to God and asked him, ‘Why me, God?’ What are you trying to tell me?’

“And just as clearly as I am talking to you, God said, ‘Son, this has nothing to do with you.’”

Armstrong said he continued to have a “pity party” for himself until he heeded God’s words and thought about Bolton and the other officers in his department.

“I was going to write a speech, but I realized that Sean deserved so much more from me than a speech,” Armstrong said.

He said God told him to deliver a message instead to the Bolton family and the citizens of Memphis.

“I have the awesome responsibility of your public safety. There are 2,000 officers under my command that I demand the best of from each of them every day,” Armstrong said. “Let me make it clear to each and every citizen: We are not your enemy. When most people run away, we run to.”

Armstrong’s words garnered a standing ovation from the officer’s who filled the lower half of the Cordova church that seats 6,500.

Memphis Mayor A C Wharton was the first speaker during the 11 a.m. service. Wharton said “Officer’s Bolton’s death was an offense to God, his family and each of us.” As the mayor spoke, some officers walked out.

One officer, who did not want to be identified, said they left because they are upset with cuts by the city to the pension and benefits, which caused several officers to leave the force.

“We have had so many officers leave because of the cuts,” the officer said. “We are not at full complement. We are angry because we feel if we were at full complement then these young guys like Officer Bolton would not have had to ride alone.”

Last Saturday, while checking an illegally parked 2002 Mercedes-Benz on a residential street in Parkway Village, Bolton was shot multiple times and later died from the wounds at the hospital.

After two days on the run, Tremaine Wilbourn, 29, the man accused of killing Bolton, surrendered to authorities in downtown Memphis Monday.

Wilbourn, charged with first-degree murder, is in jail on a $10 million bond.

Bolton, who would have turned 34 on Friday, was with the department five years, joining the force in October, 2010. He worked on the “D” Shift at Mt. Moriah station.

His colleagues from Mt. Moriah spoke at the service, comparing Bolton’s dedication and high-energy to that of the “Tasmanian devil” and the “Energizer Bunny.”

Some two hour before his service began, officers locally and from far away as New York filled the parking lot at the church.

Dressed in their starched uniforms, wearing white gloves and with black tape or cloth over their badges to honor Bolton, they came to say goodbye to one of their own.

“This hits home for us,” said Officer Raul Dallas with the North Little Rock Police Department. “Officer Bolton was someone’s child, someone’s brother. He was our brother. We are here to support the Memphis Police Department and the officer’s family to let them know we stand behind them.”

Officer Bolton is survived by his mother and three siblings as well as thousands of brothers and sisters in blue, said Rev. Don Riley, a friend of the Bolton family, who delivered the eulogy.

Riley wore pink socks in Bolton’s memory because the officer often wore the socks to church — part of Bolton’s character as a practical joker. Riley told the officers not to be angry about Bolton’s death.

“Jesus was not on vacation last Saturday when he called Sean home,” Riley said. “We are here to honor Sean’s name. His name should be etched in the memory of every supporter.”

During the past several years, there has been an undeniable escalation of the Rhetoric of Racial Animus and Class Warfare, the origin of which can be traced, with very little effort, to the President of the United States of America, Barack Hussein Obama, the “one”, who was supposed to unite us as a nation and make the oceans “rise and fall”

Suffice it to say, neither one of those predictions came to pass.

Instead, we got garbage like this, posted on WashingtonPost.com on March 6th:

In his first comments since the Justice Department released a report earlier this week detailing racial bias in the Ferguson, Mo., police department, President Obama called Friday for “collective action and mobilization” to resolve tensions between minority communities and law enforcement.

“I think that there are circumstances in which trust between communities and law enforcement have broken down, and individuals or entire departments may not have the training or the accountability to make sure that they’re protecting and serving all people and not just some,” he said on the Joe Madison Radio Show on Sirius XM Friday. “…I don’t think that is typical of what happens across the country, but it’s not an isolated incident.”

Since then, violence has erupted in New York City and Baltimore.

Why do we have so many out there who are calling for “dead cops”, while protesting over the deaths of criminals?

Even in Memphis, family and friends of the “alleged” cop killer have started a “GoFundMe”-style fundraising account for his defense, claiming that the cold-blooded murder of Office Sean Bolton was a case of self-defense.

How did we get to this point?

By the time President Johnson came into office, after the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the majority of Americans totally believed that our government always had our best interest at heart.

President Johnson came into office and immediately started his push for the Great Society. These programs were designed to make Americans even more dependent on the Federal Government for their very survival.

As the Vietnam War grew more and more and unpopular, Americans’ trust in the government became more and more compromised.  Protests against the Federal Government became more and more common and it became cool to be a rebel or “hippie”.

Time passed, and while rebellious Americans calmed down, Americans’ dependence upon government programs became generational, as multiple family members from one generation to the next, relied on Uncle Sugar for their daily existence.

Meanwhile, the rebels of the 1960’s got older and began to work within the system, taking jobs within the private and public sectors.

Eventually, they moved into positions of power, becoming heads of corporations and local and national politicians.

It is not really necessary to tell you what the political ideology of these rebels was, is it?

As the last century ended and the new one began, these hippies and their offspring, solidly in place in the halls of power, began to pass more legislation designed to keep generations of Americans enslaved to Uncle Sugar.

In this present situation, what we are seeing is the result of anti-establishment rhetoric, spewed forth by those who are now actually “the Establishment”, taking hold, and spreading Class Envy and Racial Animus in such a way as to inspire violent retaliation for perceived “grievances”, by a fictional “White Establishment”, which is actually no longer in power, and the Police, who are seen as the emissaries of “The Man”.

Meanwhile, the Community Organizer-in-Chief is on vacation in Martha’s Vineyard AT THE EXPENSE OF AMERICAN TAXPAYERS.

It’s reminiscent of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Look it up, y’all.

In conclusion, I believe that the popularity of entrepreneur and showman Donald J. Trump and Dr. Ben Carson’s Closing Statement, which has gone “viral”, are a result of an American Citizenry who are fed up with watching our “House” being divided against itself for the sake of Political Expediency.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Memorial Day Weekend: America’s Chaplain Corp…”Fighting the Good Fight”

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics2 Comments

 

 

Chaplain CorpAs Memorial Day Weekend 2015 continues on this Sunday Morning, across the world, brave men and women, in service to our country, gather to worship the One Who made them.

They are led by a devoted team of men and women, known as “Chaplains”.

Now, these Men and Women of God are under attack, by the very Administration, who is supposed to be supporting them.

Fox News Insider reported in an article, posed on April 26th, that

Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) recently went to bat for an Army chaplain who he claims was wrongly punished for using religion in counseling services.Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn was issued a Letter of Concern that accused him of advocating for Christianity during a suicide prevention training session at the University of North Georgia last November.

Collins, an Air Force reserve chaplain who served in Iraq and who represents Georgia’s 9th congressional district, joined Anna Kooiman on “Fox and Friends Weekend” to share insight on what he sees as a larger movement against religion in the U.S. military.

Collins asserted that the Army’s refusal to remove the Letter of Concern from Lawhorn’s file is indicative of the military’s efforts to intimidate chaplains into not expressing their faith and doing the job they’re supposed to be doing.

“I think right now what we’re dealing with is people who claim to be tolerant are actually the most intolerant, especially when they have beliefs they truly don’t believe in,” Collins said. “Chaplains are there for everyone, whether they have faith or no faith, and the chaplains need to be able to operate under their own faith background and also operate within the military. And right now they seem to be under attack for doing just that.”

“We’re in an environment where our military needs to always be at the top of readiness, and readiness means not only physical well-being but also mental and spiritual well-being. And so that’s why it is important that chaplains are able to continue their role in the guidelines that have already been set forth,” Collins said.

“What you have now is basically a minority group that says this shouldn’t be part of the military.”

The Tyranny of the Minority, Indeed.

As I have written numerous times, especially during the last two years of the Obama Administration, the Faith of Christian Americans has been relentlessly attacked, with Christians basically being considered an “Enemy of the State”

Eric Metaxas nailed the matter in the following article, posted at ChristianPost.com:

In the first century, Jesus was asked whether the Jewish people, who were under pagan, Roman occupation, should pay taxes to Caesar. The Lord, of course, said we are to render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s. But in 21st century America, Caesar is angling for a better deal—and he’s getting it.

Our old friend Chuck Colson sounded the alarm several years ago when certain political figures on the Left—including former secretary of state Hillary Clinton—began downsizing the First Amendment’s guarantee of our God-given right to freedom of religion into a more manageable “freedom of worship.”

Chuck feared—rightly, it turns out—that opponents of religious liberty were seeking to keep religion within the four walls of our churches, synagogues, and mosques—as if religious belief were no more than a purely private opinion with no practical implications for the real world. In other words, “Feel free to worship, if you like, but keep your religiously informed opinions and actions to yourself.”

It’s a totalitarian impulse, and you can see it in the intensifying efforts to force faith groups to pay for abortions, to shut down Christian businesses that don’t want to participate in so-called “gay weddings,” and so on.

And the totalitarians are getting bolder about it. In Victoria, Australia, doctors are required by law to perform abortions when asked, or refer the patient to a colleague who will. In Canada, meanwhile, the Ontario and Saskatchewan Colleges of Doctors and Surgeons want physicians forced to perform euthanasia—which is now a fundamental national “right”—if no one else is available to do it.

And the totalitarians—being totalitarians—will brook no compromise. According to Canadian bioethicist Udo Schuklenk, “The very idea that we ought to countenance conscientious objection in any profession is objectionable.”

Really? And alas, this totalitarian streak is not confined to the Great White North. Mrs. Clinton, who once said that abortion can be “a sad, even tragic choice,” now asserts that a so-called “right to reproductive health care” trumps religious freedom. “Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will,” she said at a recent meeting of the Women in the World Summit. “And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.” Religious beliefs have to be changed?

Now Caesar seeks to regulate not just our actions, but our thoughts as well!

New York Times columnist and gay-rights advocate Frank Bruni thinks we need to change our religious beliefs about marriage, too—since, he says, interpreting the Bible is filled with subjectivity and uncertainty. Therefore believers shouldn’t take it too literally on matters of sexuality. “So our debate about religious freedom,” Bruni says, “should include a conversation about freeing religions and religious people from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of modernity.”

How nice that Mr. Bruni and other sexual totalitarians stand ready to “free us” from our prejudices. What’s next, re-education camps? If you think I’m exaggerating the totalitarian threat, in the same newspaper, David Brooks writes, “If orthodox Christians are suddenly written out of polite society as modern-day Bull Connors, this would only halt progress, polarize the debate and lead to a bloody war of all against all.”

My Earthly Father, whom I shall write more about, tomorrow, was the greatest, most wonderful man, I have ever known.

It was not just because he served in World War II, nor was it the fact that he brought home to me malted milk balls, warm cashews, or chocolate-covered raisins every Friday Night from the Sears Store where he worked.

He led me to Jesus Christ.

It was not just by his words, or the fact that he made sure that I was in Sunday School, every Sunday Morning. And, it wasn’t just the fact that some of my earliest memories of him revolve around listening to his beautiful Tenor Voice, echo through the kitchen, while he sang “The Old Rugged Cross”, as he made my breakfast.

He raised me, my sister, and my step-sister, in “the way in which we should go”.

By now. you’re probably asking, “So what’s the point of all this, KJ?”

On this Memorial Day Weekend, as we remember the sacrifices made by our Brightest and Best, we need to remember those who stand by their side, in the Field of Battle, armed with the Word of God, and a message of Love, Hope, and Fidelity.

America’s Chaplain Corps are out there making a daily difference in the lives of or brave Fighting Men and Women.

Their “Charge to Keep” transcends the cultural shackles imposed upon them by an Administration bowing at the altar of Political Correctness and Political Expediency.

We are given free will by our Creator…will to make choices and decisions on the direction of our lives. Being human, we often don’t make the right decisions and being human, those decisions have the potential to lead us down a dark path.

Whether is in the heat of combat on foreign shores, in the oppressive reality of our humdrum civilian lives, or strictly in the close quarters of our own consciousness, the path we choose to follow is up to us.

However, others, like the Chaplain Corps, our parents, family, and friends, can make a difference in our journey.

I thank God that through His Grace I was given a Father who made sure that I received loving instruction in The Way in which I should go.

We still live in the greatest country on the face of the earth and we still have a responsibility to one another.

The Light or the Darkness. The choice is up to each and every one of us.

America’s Chaplain Corps remain an integral part of the battle for America’s Soul.

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. 1 John 4:14 (ESV)

Until He Comes,

KJ

 

Sunday Morning Thoughts From a Christian American Conservative….And When It’s All Been Said and When It’s All Been Done…

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, Politics3 Comments

Christ on a park benchBlessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

This morning, as I am writing this, I am dictating into my android phone and thinking about my own mortality.

You see, I’m 55 years old. Nowadays, that is considered to be middle aged, I know. However, the fact of the matter is as I’m getting older I’m realizing that life is unpredictable. As I sit here, one of my family members by marriage is losing her battle with cancer.

She is a wonderful young woman, who will be leaving behind three teenagers, a boy and two girls, and a husband who worships the ground she walks on.  They are wonderful Christian people who, before we were married, asked my wife to come live with them, as she took in this young lady, her niece, to live with her years before.

This remarkable young lady was active in her church, sang on the praise team, home schooled her children, and kept the books for her husband’s business.

To say that the effect of her loss on her family will be hard, would be an understatement.

The thing is, just as sure as I’m sitting here, I know where she’s going.

Soon, she will be face to face with the Savior.

There will be no pain…no fear. She will be surrounded by Heavenly Glory, safe in His arms.

But, what about the family? It will be up to those of us left behind to comfort them and assure them that God loves them and we do too.

Of course, everyone has heard that God does not give us more than we can handle. Another member of my wife’s family, her 50 year old cousin said exactly that this week, after losing a leg to poor circulation.

She then proceeded to ask the poor young technician, who came to her room to tell her about her prosthetic leg that they were going to fit her with, if they were going to give her a “sexy” leg to match the other one.

God has gifted her with a indomitable spirit and a determination to go on living.

And, I guess that’s why I’m writing this blog this morning.

God gave us this life. He guides us through it. He presents with opportunities and gives us free will to make choices, right or wrong.

There are so many times I’ve seen Him move in my life .. so many times that he has made a way for me… so many times that He has shown His Gracious Love for me.

I know that I’m not the only person that feels this way. if you look back now and you’re around my age, you realize what I am trying to say this morning.

God wants us to be happy. God wants us to live and enjoy the life which is given to us

He wants the best for us. He also wants us to take advantage of the opportunities which He presents to us throughout our life, so that when we stand before Him, we can hear, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

But what does that mean? does it mean we have to live a life locked away in a monastery somewhere away from the temptations of the modern culture around us? Of course not.

However, we have to keep the main thing the main thing. We cannot sacrifice of Christianity for the sake of political expediency. Heaven is a far bigger tent than any political party could ever be.

I would rather find favor with God than favor with man.

Am I an extremist? You betcha.

God said it. I believe it. That settles it.

For in the end, like the popular Christian song from a few years ago, says,

And, when it’s all been said and when it’s all been done, He’ll ask me, ‘Did you find your way, child? Did you know my son?’ And, when it’s all been said and when it’s all been done, He’ll ask me, ‘Did you find your way within, my son’?

Perfect submission, all is at rest,

I in my Savior am happy and blest,

Watching and waiting, looking above,

Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long;

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long.

A Heritage of Love 2014

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

I have had a lot on my mind today.   Yesterday, my bride and I spent 10 hours moving my stepson, my Daughter-in-Law, and my 6-year-old grandson, Robert “Bo”…(pictured when he was a baby, at our wedding reception, eating a strawberry off my groom’s cake) into their first rental house. As I watched my grandson lose his mind over his new room and huge backyard, I wondered what kind of future he has before him.

As I have been writing a lot about lately, our politicians seem to be of wont to sacrifice our Constitutional freedom and American Christian Heritage on the altar of Political Expediency and Electoral Victory.

They are intent on sacrificing our Christian American heritage to the whims of popular “libertarian/Liberal” (libertine) culture., pulling a Bill Clinton and sticking their finger up in the air to see which was the winds of popular culture are blowing today.

To be blunt, the only hope for our children and grandchildren’s future is if they return to their Christian American Heritage…and a Personal Relationship with Jesus Christ.

In 1912, Memphis Commercial Appeal Editor C.P.J. Mooney, wrote the following as a Christmas gift to his readers.  It remains immensely popular to this day.

Jesus, the Perfect Man

There is no other character in history like that of Jesus.

As a preacher, as a doer of things, and as a philosopher, no man ever had the sweep and the vision of Jesus.

A human analysis of the human actions of Jesus brings to view a rule of life that is amazing in its perfect detail.

The system of ethics Jesus taught during His earthly sojourn 2,000 years ago was true then, has been true in every century since and will be true forever.

Plato was a great thinker and learned in his age, but his teachings did not stand the test of time. In big things and in little things time and human experience have shown that he erred.

Marcus Aurelius touched the reflective mind of the world, but he was as cold and austere as brown marble. …

Thomas a Kempis’ ”Imitation of Christ” is a thing of rare beauty and sympathy, but it is, as its name indicates, only an imitation.

Sir Thomas More’s ”Utopia” is yet a dream that cannot be realized.

Lord Bacon writing on chemistry and medicine under the glasses of the man working in a 20th century laboratory is puerile.

The world’s most learned doctors until 150 years ago gave dragon’s blood and ground tails of lizards and shells of eggs for certain ailments. The great surgeons a hundred years ago bled a man if he were wounded.

Napoleon had the world at his feet for four years, and when he died the world was going on its way as if he had never lived.

JESUS TAUGHT little as to property because He knew there were things of more importance than property. He measured property and life, the body and soul, at their exact relative value. He taught much more as to character, because character is of more importance than dollars.

Other men taught us to develop systems of government. Jesus taught so as to perfect the minds of men. Jesus looked to the soul, while other men dwelled on material things.

After the experience of 2,000 years no man can find a flaw in the governmental system outlined by Jesus.

Czar and kaiser, president and Socialist, give to its complete merit their admiration.

No man today, no matter whether he follows the doctrine of Mill, Marx or George as to property, can find a false principle in Jesus’ theory of property.

In the duty of a man to his fellow no sociologist has ever approximated the perfection of the doctrine laid down by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount.

Not all the investigations of chemists, not all the discoveries of explorers, not all the experiences of rulers, not all the historical facts that go to make up the sum of human knowledge on this day in 1912 are in contradiction to one word uttered or one principle laid down by Jesus.

The human experiences of 2,000 years show that Jesus never made a mistake. Jesus never uttered a doctrine that was true at that time and then became obsolete.

Jesus spoke the truth, and the truth is eternal.

History has no record of any other man leading a perfect life or doing everything in logical order. Jesus is the only person whose every action and whose every utterance strike a true note in the heart and mind of every man born of woman. He never said a foolish thing, never did a foolish act and never dissembled.

No poet, no dreamer, no philosopher loved humanity with all the love that Jesus bore toward all men.

WHO, THEN, was Jesus?

He could not have been merely a man, for there never was a man who had two consecutive thoughts absolute in truthful perfection.

Jesus must have been what Christendom proclaims Him to be — a divine being — or He could not have been what He was. No mind but an infinite mind could have left behind those things which Jesus gave the world as a heritage.

Please allow me to leave you today with an early song from a group that got started at Heartland Church in Southaven, MS, when they were kids. They are now all college age young Americans who tour throughout the South.  Here’s Dave’s Highway.

Until He Comes,

KJ