Post Time

49-48! Our Buckeyes take their second outright basketball Big Ten Championship in a row! Long live Coach Matta!

I guess this is a celebratory post (and that officially makes me a geek). I know that as your President I will have to show magnanimity (that's a word, right?) in victory. This won't be hard for me personally, since I have so very much to be humble about. But I do love my Buckeyes, and as long as we have Coaches Tressel and Matta I believe I'll have plenty of opportunities to learn this diplomatic skill. Although, the state of Michigan may very well hope to secede come 2020. I promise not to stand in their way.

To continue what I began in the last post, viz. giving you some information you'll need to fix my coordinates on the political map, here's something fundamental to my makeup.

RELIGION- I'm a Christian and believe I will one day stand before God and will have to give an account of how I lived my life. It appears to me that nowadays the majority of my brethen would be quick to tell you that I'm not a real Christian just on the basis of what I've said under FOREIGN AID. To them I say- I'M JUST GETTING STARTED. (In your mind's ear I want you to hear Al Pacino saying that as in the movie Scent Of A Woman.

If you're a Muslim, or a Hindu, or an Atheist- you should prosper under my presidency, every bit as much as Christians or Jews. As your President, I will fight for your right to worship or not worship, as you see fit. But, if your faith or lack thereof, threatens the freedom of your fellow Americans, or if your religion or lack thereof is found to compel you to aid and abet the enemies of this great nation, I will fight you tooth and nail to kick your ass out of this country, never to return.

I have been reading the Bible and taking it seriously for 30+ years, and I have yet to find where God requires Christians, whose homes are ultimately found in heaven, to attempt to influence the nations they providentially inhabit, to adopt suicidal policies. Christians are called to be salt, not arsenic. Good government and peace and security for its citizens has God's stamp of approval.

The Church ought to speak prophetically to the culture. It ought not break the 3rd Commandment (of the Ten) and take the Lord's name in vain. It does this when it speaks as the Church, and therefore on the Lord's behalf, and gets it wrong. It does this a lot when it comes to politics. The leader of my denomination is sure God wants Taco Bell to pay more for its tomatoes and thinks its wise to go around saying so. This is taking the Lord's name in vain.

The Church also ought not break the 9th Commandment. It does this when it bears false witness against its neighbors. I could give more examples of the present-day Church* doing this than I care too, but here's just one. In the parking lot of the church I belong to, during the last election, was to be found the occasional bumper sticker- KERRY/EDWARDS "Truth For A Change". (In some churches, it seemed to be required to have this sticker to park in their lot.) The evidence is such that before most juries it would be very easy to prove that Kerry is a pathological liar and that Edwards is a professional one. To hold them up as the standard bearers for truth is to bear false witness.

Of course, the real objective of that bumper sticker was to malign Pres. Bush as the "great liar". Now maybe he's told us a lie before, though I've yet to detect one. I don't always agree with him, mainly about his presuppositions rather than his conclusions, but I've not found him to lie to the American people ("I did not have sex with that woman!). To many though, whether my christian brother Pres. Bush says he got up on the left side of the bed or the right, he's lying. This is called Bush Derangement Syndrome (BDS), a seemingly untreatable disease, and much of the church has a bad case of it. If you push one of them far enough,you find that they base their belief on stuff they've read that ultimately came from the NYT or the AP. This is called 'bearing false witness on the basis of false witness borne'.

The Church has been such a serial abuser of these 2 commandments that if it wishes to restore it's lost honor and credibility, it ought to shut the hell up for the next 5-10 years when it comes to politics. Probably longer. A minister caught in adultery ought to keep quiet for 5-10 years as part of his/her 'season of renewal. To abuse truth with regard to God and man is far more serious.

There's a little more to chew on. 'Til next time, be well!

* By 'Church' I mean any individuals or any organizations that self-identify as followers of Jesus Christ and who hold the Bible, both Old Testament and New Testament, to be God's Word, in some non-postmodern sense. This includes the Pope, Pat Robertson, Jim Wallis, the Presbys, the Orthodox, the Old Pentecostals, the New Pentecostals and all those in between.