Archive for the ‘Freedom’ Category

Rejecting liberty

We have chosen a candidate who has publicly stated that he will appoint judges who, like him, view the Constitution as fundamentally flawed because it reflects a blind spot of the Founding Fathers.

That the Constitution of the United States has been universally recognized as the greatest political document ever written evidently means little. That it has ensured the greatest amount of liberty to the greatest amount of people of any political document in history means next to nothing.

What do you think the future holds for the people who elected a candidate who seeks to remake it in the image of the document that has brought about the greatest destruction to humanity? Do you think liberty will increase or decrease?

To this writer, the answer is obvious.

This really happened

…in my new state

This morning, I somehow stepped into the quicksand of going cleaning out my old e-mails. I came across one about a minister opening the Kansas Senate with a very forceful, profound prayer.

I verified that it was essentially factually correct. Here is the story and the prayer according to Snopes.com:

Back in January of 1996, the Rev. Joe Wright, senior pastor of the 2,500-member Central Christian Church in Wichita, was invited to offer the opening prayer at a session of the Kansas House of Representatives (not the Kansas Senate, as claimed in the text), and the prayer he offered was this one (which differs somewhat from the version cited in the text above):

Heavenly Father, we come before you to ask your forgiveness. We seek your direction and your guidance. We know your word says, “Woe to those who call evil good.” But that’s what we’ve done.

We’ve lost our spiritual equilibrium. We have inverted our values. We have ridiculed the absolute truth of your word in the name of moral pluralism. We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it an alternative lifestyle.

We’ve exploited the poor and called it a lottery. We’ve neglected the needy and called it self-preservation. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. In the name of choice, we have killed our unborn. In the name of right to life, we have killed abortionists.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it political savvy. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it taxes. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, oh, God, and know our hearts today. Try us. Show us any wickedness within us. Cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent here by the people of the State of Kansas, and that they have been ordained by you to govern this great state.

Grant them your wisdom to rule. May their decisions direct us to the center of your will. And, as we continue our prayer and as we come in out of the fog, give us clear minds to accomplish our goals as we begin this Legislature. For we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

The prayer Rev. Wright used wasn’t of his own crafting; it was a version of one written in 1995 by Bob Russell who offered it at the Kentucky Governor’s Prayer Breakfast in Frankfort, Kentucky.

Rev. Wright had been invited to serve as the House’s guest chaplain by Rep. Anthony Powell, a Wichita Republican who was also a member of Wright’s church. Accordingly, Rev. Wright read the prayer at the opening of the legislature on January 23, and departed, unaware of the ruckus he had created until his church secretary called him on his car phone to ask him what he had done.

Reportedly, one Democrat (not “a number of legislators”) walked out in protest, three others gave speeches critical of Wright’s prayer, and another blasted Wright’s “message of intolerance.” House Minority Leader Tom Sawyer (also a Democrat) asserted that the prayer “reflects the extreme, radical views that continue to dominate the House Republican agenda since right-wing extremists seized control of the House Republican caucus last year.” Rep. Jim Long, a Democrat from Kansas City, said that Wright “made everyone mad.” But Rep. Powell, who had invited Wright in the first place, claimed that House Democrats were only trying to make political points with their criticism and affirmed that he supported the theme of the prayer.

Rev. Wright said afterwards: “I certainly did not mean to be offensive to individuals, but I don’t apologize for the truth.” His staff stopped counting the telephone calls that came from every state and many foreign countries after the first 6,500. Wright appeared on dozens of radio shows and was the subject of numerous TV and print news reports, and his prayer stirred up controversy all over again when it was read by the chaplain coordinator in the Nebraska legislature the following month.

Wright later explained, “I thought I might get a call from an angry congressman or two, but I was talking to God, not them. The whole point was to say that we all have sins that we need to repent — all of us . . . The problem, I guess, is that you’re not supposed to get too specific when you’re talking about sin.”

Would that be called a lie?

If the media reports that a certain ministry has refused to respond to Senator Grassley’s “request for information,” and it turns out that ministry actually sent the good Senator a 3 page cover letter, a 23 page single-spaced response to every question, provided 291 pages of exhibits and formally REQUESTED that the IRS audit their books, would that be called a lie?

It’s his way or the highway

Freedom in the United States is reeling!

It has been taking body blows for about 150 years and l’m not sure it can take much more before it falls.

Senator Charles Grassley, a Republican senator from the state of Iowa, is using his authority as a member of the Senate finance committee to demand that six Christian ministries turn over all of their financial receipts for the past five years.

You might think if I am overstating the problem.

I don’t think that it is a coincidence that all six of the targeted ministries happen to share the same theology. They are Pentecostal and preach what is known as “the word of faith.” They preach that God wants people to be healed, to prosper financially, etc.

What particularly bothers the good senator is that the leaders of these six ministries fly to their next speaking engagement in a corporate jet. He doesn’t think that is right. I don’t know how he explains away the fact that Billy Graham flew to his events in a private jet.

Oh, that’s right…Billy Graham is a Baptist!

Senator Grassley happens to be a Baptist. Surely, his version of Christianity is correct. And since the Lord has seen fit to made him a senator, he intends to use the power of government to at least intimidate people who believe differently than he does.

The United States was established primarily for religious freedom. The Pilgrims left the motherland to escape religious persecution. And now, a man who has personally benefited from this freedom is attempting to squash it.