That’s Right Nate

Friend of the blog Jack Kimble got in some trouble yesterday when he posted this seemingly innocuous post on twitter:

There’s a war going on between traditional America and those who would like to take Christ out of The 4th of July 3:36 PM Jul 3rd via web

Wow, was he attacked unmercifully by the secular humanist mob that tends to congregate at these social networking sites.  Long time enemy of this site Roger Ebert immediately retweeted the post.  Soon after, Shannyn Moore who is better known for her constant attacks on Sarah Palin and the good folks at BP also was retweeting Kimble’s comment.  What I want to know though, is Representative Kimble really off base?  I mean when he suggested that shrimp, oysters, and crawfish would be unharmed in the BP spill because they had shells he was simply wrong, but in this case I don’t think he is.

Think about you traditional 4th of July.   Maybe, you’ll be lucky and there will be a good patriotic movie about American soldiers blowing something up.  Then there are parades, barbecues, and fire works.  It seems like all the Christian imagery has been removed from the day.  As long as you are shooting the fireworks up in the air, would it be too much to ask to have fireworks shot off in the shape of Christ’s face.   According to Congressman Kimble, fireworks were first used to create loud noises and bright lights to get God’s attention.

According to Kimble, “When Marco Polo brought fireworks back from China to Italy, they were immediately turned over to the Papacy.  Gunpowder was very rare and fireworks were only used in religious services such as Christmas and Easter.   In fact, that is why to this day Papal guards do not carry guns.   It is also why firecrackers are sometimes called Roman Candles.”

So, if you consider myself or Congressman Kimble to be square so be it.  The point remains that the religious imagery has almost been completely stripped from July 4th.  Let’s bring it back to it’s original meaning before it’s too late.

Brit Hume reminded us all of something very important on Sunday.   We are in no position to judge Tiger Woods simply because he fooled around on his wife with a dozen women.   We can’t really put ourselves in Tiger Woods’ place and it isn’t fair for us to pass judgment on anything he does.  The only way really to judge Tiger Woods is the same way we judge everybody–by whether or not he is willing to accept Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

Some people belittled Brit Hume for having the guts to say what we all were thinking.   That’s why I am posting his explanation and not just the small clip that a lot of people took out of context.  I think his explanation makes a lot of sense.

Now, as the son of a woman from a third world country, Tiger has misguidedly chosen Buddhism as his faith, but like most people he chose his faith at a young and impressionable age.   As an adult, I urge Tiger to shop around.   As Brit and Bill O’Reilly point out in the above clip, pound for pound you won’t find a more redemptive and forgiving faith than Christianity.   Some of the worst criminals in history have been Christians.   This isn’t a coincidence.

I applaud Brit Hume for letting Tiger know that Christianity is an option and that we would welcome him with open arms.   A lot of priests and ministers like a good game of golf.  I hope Tiger considers it.   Just look at some of the Christians have have found salvation after marital infidelity:

• John Ensign
• David Vitter
• Mark Sanford
• Larry Craig
• Neil Bush
• Rush Limbaugh
• Newt Gingrich

There’s always room for one more.

Some people believe that rather than being judgmental, God is all loving.  However, you have to believe that by now God had a love/ hate relationship with Oral Roberts who died yesterday at the age of 91.    Their contentious relationship began in 1977 when a 900 foot tall Jesus appeared to Oral and told him to build the City of Faith Medical Center and guaranteed it would be a success.   Roberts did what he was told and supposedly God was pleased.

God realized that Oral was a man who could get things done and Jesus appeared to him in person, not as a vision, to tell him to find a cure for cancer.  Unfortunately, 26 years later and Jesus must have gotten quite impatient.  In fact, God threatened to kill Roberts in 1987 if he didn’t raise an $8,000,000 ransom.   Fortunately, Roberts was able to raise the money, which he used to create scholarships for City of Faith.  Unfortunately, Roberts had to shut down City of Faith two years later.   To say God was peeved would be an understatement.

Also, in the late 1980s God was dragged into the whole Jim Bakker scandal when Roberts claimed that he had direct revelation from Jesus that Bakker was innocent.   This despite the fact that God has always preferred to avoid the limelight and work instead through intermediaries and burning plants.   With Roberts dead, he clearly has a lot to answer for.   He has left his ministries in the capable hands of his son, Richard “Anal” Roberts who will presumably carry on his father’s good works.   Unfortunately, at the time of writing this, Jesus could not be reached for comment.

My friends, I don’t mind telling you that we find ourselves in a culture war.  The forces of radical atheism again threaten to rob this great country of the symbols of it’s freedom and it’s proud Christian heritage.   If these people have their way all traces of Halloween’s Christian roots would be erased and all references to Jesus would be stricken from Halloween parades, store displays, and the hopeful mouths of trick or treating Christian children.    We must all stand together against this atheistic tyranny.

One of the stories, atheists don’t want you to know is the story of the Jack O’Lantern.   In Ireland, Christians were persecuted for many centuries.  One of the reasons that St. Patrick was celebrated for driving the snakes from Ireland is because they used to feed Christian children to the snakes.   Christians were kept poor and not allowed to hold jobs.  Their possessions were simple, but their faith was mighty.

As the Irish traveled along the countryside at autumn harvest time looking for work picking crops, they were frequently met with signs that said Christians need not apply.   Even a non-Christian who hired a Christian to pick his crops faced persecution from the Irish King.   The Irish  needed a subtle symbol to let others know that they welcomed Christians and that the light of Jesus shined within them.   They came up with the idea of taking a pumpkin and carving a smiling face on it.   They then placed a candle inside the pumpkin and placed it in the window.

The Irish named this pumpkin Jack of the Light or the Americanized version, “Jack O’ Lantern”.   Nowadays, pumpkins are carved into the most grotesque and hideous shapes imaginable and the original meaning of the Jack O’Lantern has been lost.   This Halloween if you carve a pumpkin with your children I hope you’ll tell them the story of how the Jack O’Lantern saved Christianity in Ireland–one of the most Christian nations in the world today.

The Liberty University Bookstore is ready for all students' academic needs

In a bold move, Jerry Falwell and Liberty University have decided to rid the Liberty University Campus of the Young Democrats because of the immoral views of their parent organization.  The Liberty University Young Democrats had been on double secret probation since they had worked on the Obama campaign beginning in October of last year.  The Liberty Democrats are now prohibited from using the university name, advertising their events on campus, or using campus facilities.

Liberty University is an amazing place.   Whether you wish to study creation sciences, religion, theology, or a couple dozen other majors students can study knowing that they are in a moral environment.  Whether you’re studying in their library of non-banned books, attending prayer services, or just sitting out on campus with your friends waiting on the rapture, you know that you’re at a very special place.  College can be a confusing time in a young adults life when their beliefs are challenged by new experiences and ideas.   Fortunately, at Liberty, students are protected from those strange new ideas.

Is a university really the best place for political discussion anyway?  It seems to me, when it is time to pay my daughter’s college tuition, I don’t want to be wasting it on those kind of discussions.   As long as I’m paying her bills, I will expect her to vote the way I tell her too.  I’m not footing the bill for her to question my beliefs.   She can do that when she’s in her forties.

If the Democrats are so upset about this, they should try reorganizing themsleves as the Young Socialist Democrats and see if that helps.  Anyway, I wish the students on both sides of this debate all the best.   Remember the Liberty University rule–If your roommate is raptured, you get straight A’s for the semester.

Movies like Groundhog Day have helped to secularize Candlemas.

Like many people this season I enjoyed the heartwarming story of how Christianity’s message was spread using the Christmas Carrol The Twelve Days of Christmas.  There are a lot of seemingly secular holidays and traditions in our society that have a Christian tradition behind them.  In the middle ages Christians throughout Europe were persecuted and in many countries the teaching of Christian doctrine was forbidden.  The Christians of the time being men and women of good faith looked for a way to pass the story of Christ’s resurrection down to their children.

The day which the Europeans called Candlemas Day was full of symbolism.  For those of you that need a refresher, on February 2nd the groundhog comes out of his burrow and looks around.  If he sees his shadow there will be 6 more weeks of winter.  If not there will be an early Spring.  This story was used to teach children of how Christ exited the tomb after 40 days.  Those 40 days are represented by the 6 weeks.  The shadow represents the shadow of sin.  Of course Spring represents the new life that Jesus calls us all to.

I suppose the obvious question is why a groundhog?  The groundhog was chosen because the European groundhog is considered a noble animal and the combination of white and gray fur can sometimes give the appearance of a robe like Jesus’s burial robes.  Also, the early Christians needed an animal that hibernated and the only two animals native to Europe that hibernate are the bear and the groundhog and you sure wouldn’t want to be waking up a bear for this.

For many centuries, European Christians used this holiday on February 2nd to keep their faith alive in the face of great persecution.  When the earliest settlers came to Pennsylvania they brought Candlemas with them.  Unfortunately, much like in our own times there was a battle over Candlemas between those for whom it was a sacred religious holiday and those who wanted to call it Groundhog Day and remove all religious significance from the day.  Sadly, Groundhog Day won that war and much of Candlemas’s religious significance was lost.   My goal is this year to remind everybody of the religious significance of Candlemas.

The Reverend James Dobson of Focus on the Family has thrown down the gauntlet at Barack Obama saying, “I think he’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the Bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology,”

As usual, Rev. Dobson is right.  The criticism stems from comments that Obama made to a Christian group in 2006.

“Even if we did have only Christians in our midst, if we expelled every non-Christian from the United States of America, whose Christianity would we teach in the schools?” Obama said. “Would we go with James Dobson’s or Al Sharpton’s?” referring to the civil rights leader.

I believe the answer is obvious.  If it is in the Bible that is the law that Christians should obey.  I personally refuse to eat shrimp or wear cotton/polyester blends.  By interpreting the Bible literally we’re left with an interpretation we all can agree with and get behind.  The problem liberals have is that they try and pick and choose which laws they’ll follow.

A great new website has openned up and unfortuntely I only have one post now because I’ve been spending all morning using it to write mails to Catholics I know, liberal politicians, and people who have questioned my religion in the past.  www.youvebeenleftbehind.com is the world’s first (for all I know) post rapture emailing system.  When us believers are called up to Heaven, we’re still able to send one last taunt to the non-believers from Heaven.

According to the website, “We have set up a system to send documents by the email, to the addresses you provide, 6 days after the “Rapture” of the Church. This occurs when 3 of our 5 team members scattered around the U.S fail to log in over a 3 day period. Another 3 days are given to fail safe any false triggering of the system.”  I wonder who the 2 team members that they are pretty sure aren’t going to be saved are.

The only problem is it only saves us to 62 email addresses and I’m on 59 and I’m just at Pelosi in the alphabet.   Looks like good news for Gloria Steinem and Barbara Streisand.  I’m basically using the service to taunt people, but if you have a friend who won’t be saved (why?) the site explains “You will also be able to give them some help in living out their remaining time. In the encrypted portion of your account you can give them access to your banking, brokerage, hidden valuables, and powers of attorneys’ (you won’t be needing them any more, and the gift will drive home the message of love). There won’t be any bodies, so probate court will take 7 years to clear your assets to your next of Kin. 7 years of course is all the time that will be left. So, basically the Government of the AntiChrist gets your stuff, unless you make it available in another way. You can also send information based on scripture as to what will happen next. Each fulfilled prophecy will cause your letter and plea to be remembered and a decision to be made.”

The site also offers a wonderful selection of letters from people using their service (None of these letters have bank account information) at http://youvebeenleftbehind.blogspot.com/