Sundays, for many of us, are a time of reflection, as we think about the world around us, and the blessings which God has given us, including our family, friends, our jobs, and the privilege of living in the greatest country on the face of the God’s Green Earth.
As we go through the current Presidential Campaign Season, we, as Americans, need to pay close attention to what the candidates are saying, for the sake of our Children’s and grandchildren’s futures.
This past week, Susan Stamper brown wrote the following article, found on Christianpost.com…
Apparently, the Democratic Party’s latest strategy to win the White House in 2016 is “Let’s pretend to be religious.”
Now it’s all about Hillary’s faith, according to Democratic Party Vice Presidential hopeful Tim Kaine, who told a group in New Orleans that Hillary Clinton’s faith is at the “root of everything she does.” That’s quite a statement, considering all the years she’s been in the public’s eye.
Most likely, though, Kaine was referring to Hillary’s attachment to the “Social Gospel.” The Social Gospel is a cheap counterfeit for the real thing that liberals conjured up to promote socialism and at the same time relieve people from any guilt associated with living life according to their own standards, not God’s.
The Social Gospel crowd concentrates on scriptures that instruct us to help the poor and feed the hungry. They ignore the ones where Jesus told those he helped and fed to “go and sin no more.”
But, here’s the rub. If liberals really wanted to do things the right way, they’d do it themselves and not pass personal responsibility off to the government. Jesus never said governments are an acceptable replacement for lazy, no-good followers who refuse to do what he asks.
Obviously, Kaine was trying to paint Hillary in a softer, nicer light while at the same time courting right-leaning anti-Trump evangelicals. It’s a political ploy.
In May, Slate magazine ran a piece by Ruth Graham, “Can the Christian Left Be a Real Political Force?” — suggesting that Donald Trump’s rise in the GOP makes 2016 the perfect opportunity for the Democrat Party to win over anti-Trump evangelicals if they can find a way to lop their horns and replace them with halos to make them look like the “party of God.”
What the author, Tim Kaine and Democrat Party strategists fail to understand is that anti-Trump conservative Christians would never vote for Hillary. Nor will they be tricked by those bearing faux religion in the name of politics.
Graham did her best to make a case for liberal Christianity, writing: “It must first be said that despite the empty pews, there’s reason to believe that liberal Christianity has been dormant, not dead.”
In reality, those empty pews are what happens when we do things our way and cherry-pick the Gospel. A a Pew poll rolled out last year backs that statement finding that mainline church denominations embracing the Social Gospel like Hillary Clinton’s Methodist denomination are in decline across the United States. In sharp contrast, the same Pew poll found that conservative Christian churches are vibrantly alive and growing.
The Slate magazine author accidentally answers why “liberal Christianity” is little more than an oxymoron when she wrote: “There’s a cost associated with membership … churches that ask more from their followers tend to be stronger … Many progressive churches, by contrast barely demand a pinky toe … They don’t pressure me when I skip; the sermons rarely suggest it matters whether I believe the creeds … By contrast, when I visit conservative churches … they feel alive: People are there because they think it matters for their everyday lives and for their eternal souls.”
Those churches “feel alive” because they are … alive. It’s impossible to be truly excited about something that isn’t there. And it’ll never be there if it’s about politics rather than a personal, saving faith.
Graham concludes: “If there is to be a resurgent Christian left, it will need to learn a trick or two from the very movement [conservative Christian] that overtook it a generation ago.”
Tricks cannot revive that which never existed in the first place.
As C.S. Lewis wrote: “Once you have made the World an end, and faith a means … it makes very little difference what kind of worldly end he is pursuing.”
It’s a slippery slope, that road to Hell we’re headed, that American politics has deteriorated to this.
I also do not believe that Jesus would be a part of the Social Justice movement, advocated by the Far left Radicals of the Democratic Party, including Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton. 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.
The Social justice Movement is an offshoot of Marxist Theory, named for the radical who conceived it, Karl Marx. it’s basic tenet states,
From each according to his ability to each according to his need.
The modern translation, provided for us by Sitting President Barack Hussein Obama, during his 2008 Presidential Campaign, is that working Americans need to “share the wealth”.
That, boys and girls, is “Socialism” and, in Marxist Theory, Socialism is the step before Communism.
A simple definition of Socialism describes it as
a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
In a recent 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 Liberals and Atheists who reply to my blogs on Facebook and other Internet Sites 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 few years, a propensity among those who have not been raised in a Christian home, to be intolerant toward those who have….staring with the individual who sits at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, DC.
Americans’ Christian Faith, of which approximately 3/4ths of us, according to Gallup, 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.
Isn’t it interesting that those among us who claim to be the most tolerant are actually the least tolerant of all?
And, those who claim to be champions of “personal freedom” are enemies of the religious freedom secured for us in the United States Constitution?
Watch the next two and one half months leading up to the Presidential Election in November and see who talks about Freedom and Responsibility and who talks about the right of “citizens”, both legal and illegal, to “free stuff”.
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. – Matthew 7:20
Until He Comes,
KJ
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