Red Flag Warning: Response to Laura C Keeling’s poster about Jesus’ return

Some thoughts in response to Laura C. Keeling's Poster about Jesus' return show below.

General consideration. Typical straw man argument designed to generate a feeling of guilt by Christians.  All Christians eagerly await the return of Christ, but because all Christians hate brown-skinned, non-English speaking, Middle Eastern immigrants, all Christians thwarted Jesus’ return out of His fear of being crucified again by all of His followers.  The unthinking reader is to click ‘Like’ in agreement. Kind of like a universal public confession of sin. Painless and totally meaningless.

Hogwash. Here’s why Keeling’s missive is wrong:

1)   The moral condition of Jesus’ followers has no bearing on the second coming of Christ.  When the Father says it time, it will be done. Period.

2)   Having all followers of Jesus being sinless is not one of the prerequisites to his return.  Actually it’s impossible: For all have sinned. For all will sin. For all will keep right on sinning until the time of Jesus’ return.

3)   God does not change His mind.  Only on one occasion did God do an about face. This was in Exodus, when God decided to blot out the Jew due to their unbelief and start anew with Moses as his model. Moses begged God not to do so, and God relented from His wrath.

4)   God has made it quite plain that He hates those that worship a false god and idols. The Christian and Jewish God is not the same as the god of Islam.  As study of the Islamic god, Allah, would reveal this god has few of the character traits of God of the Bible.  Given that 99% of brown-skinned, non- English speaking, Middle Eastern Immigrants worship in the cult known as Islam to the extreme whereby the slightest negative word regarding their ‘prophet’ results in rioting and beheadings, no doubt God would hate this practice. He would love the people, but abhor their sin.

5)   Jesus was not crucified because of the color of His skin or inability to speak the common tongue of his day.  Those of His own ethnicity crucified him because His theology was radically different than the accepted view at the time. While radical, it still met every test of what it means to be a follower of the God of Abraham, Issac, Moses, David, Solomon, right down to Jesus himself.

6)   Hate is not necessarily a sin. It is how one hates and the action taken therein that may make it sinful.  From the NASB Exhaustive Concordance there are 93 instances of the use of the word “hate” within the Bible. Many of them are things that God specifically “hates”, therefore in general to hate something is not automatically a disqualifier for Jesus’ return, nor for His acceptance of a believer.

7)   Most followers of Jesus do not ‘hate’ brown-skinned, non-English speaking, and Middle Eastern immigrants. What they do ‘hate’ are the actions perpetrated by some brown-skinned, non-English speaking, Middle Eastern immigrants.  Further Christians should hate actions by any ethnic or nationality behaving savagely.  Christians should ‘hate’:

§  Peoples who perpetuate their religion or political theology at the point of a gun, who say, “convert or die”.

§  Peoples who persecute those who align with different views of religion and/or political thought.

§  Peoples who imprison in mass based on race, ethnicity, or political view.

§  Peoples who denigrate women and treat them as chattel.

§  Peoples who organize flash mobs for the purpose of sexually assaulting women.

§  Peoples who physically or sexually assault children.

§  Peoples who deny basic human rights to others different than themselves.

§  Peoples who standby while the above actions and others are perpetrated in the name of their religion or political belief.

§  Peoples whose barbarity is far beyond the pale of acceptable civilized behavior within the community of nations.

8)   Christians who hate these behaviors should use the Gospel of Jesus Christ to turn those who are willing away from such practices and embrace a theology more inline with the character of God the Father as revealed through Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Non-religionist can do likewise in adhering to the golden rule of treating all with respect just as they desire respect.

We are doomed to the future of our pasts and equally our future will become our past, until the Lord of time comes, when He shall make all time new.

Red Flag Warning: I was Wrong.

I was Wrong.

During the presidential election of 2012 the Watchman wrote a blog entry entitled What I see in Mitt that I don't see in Barack (10.19.12). It featured an assessment of the two men running for the highest elected office of our nation and the leader position that is the most powerful one in the world.  I wrote about those aspects of the two men, Mitt Romney and current President Obama, comparing their qualifications and most importantly a judgment as to their fitness for the presidency. My conclusion:

"Lastly, but not completely as I keep finding more about Romney that I admire and less from Obama, I see Romney as a man of faith.  I am not a Mormon, but I am aware of their disciplined lives and their single-minded faith that God is God of the universe and we all must await His judgment. I see Mitt as a humble man before his God. I don’t see that at all in Barack."

However, I was totally wrong. Way off base. As it turned out, with President Obama holding on to his office,  Mr. Romney whom I regarded the better candidate, retired from the field of campaign battle, defeated and slunk back into the shadows of life.  I felt then and recognize today Mr. Romney was the better man for the job, yet he lost.  As the Eagles so eloquently sang, "Get over it".

Yet I can not do so, as my words back then come back to haunt me. I had concluded President Obama did not have, nor display the high character required of a national leader set on the world stage.  That aspect of the conclusion was spot on.  Since January 2013, he has continued to lead at the lowest possible level of acceptance by any modern measure. Where I was wrong in my assessment was the degree of his lack of character. Off by an order or so of magnitude!

The negative evaluation of his lack of character can be summed up in his response to the death of Justice Scalia. His avoidance of the Justice's funeral expresses the callowness of his moral values. It places on display for the entire world just how vacuous his inner core values. Petty and shallow. His absence transcends the death of the Justice, when we should rightly honor the man's service with focused attention on his record, instead, just like a immature child who stamps their feet to get attention, the issue becomes about the absent President.

His action, sets in concrete the certainty his legacy of disdaining basic values of our nation. To honor those who serve, even though one might not agree with their position or opinions. But this is not the first sign of the President's disrespect for American values.  His abuse of the executive order process is a finger in your eye approach to governance. Instead of working with the congress to achieve his goals, he appears to enjoy issuing edicts to circumvent the laws of our nation.  His unilateral recognition of Cuba and renewal of relations with the unrepetant communist nation is a thumb of the nose to American policy and former Presidential leaders who stood for freedom and liberty.  The President's big announcement the United States will take in so called 'refugee' from the Middle East without at least discussing the action with congressional leaders displays his contempt for that body as well as for the States that will be burdened to execute the care and settlement of the refugees. Adding to these examples, we observe a President who enjoys the game of racial division, class warfare, and disrespect for those who serve in law enforcement.  And then there is his fantasy last budget, filled with big promises of wads of cash for his pet projects, most of whom have spectacularly failed in previous efforts, but did enrich his supporters, and adds still more mountains of debt upon the $19T our nation owes to others. A man of character would not demonstrate such attitudes or promote with fanfare his low class actions.

So with realization of error, should we not all examine our decision on electing such a flawed individual and vow not to do so again?  Think before you vote.

The Watchman