Daily Archives: December 9, 2021

ByBilly Hallowell | Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Do you struggle with knowing what to say and how to say it when a controversial topic comes up? Challenging Conversations, hosted by best-selling author and worldview expert Jason Jimenez, is a conversational podcast designed to help Christians overcome their fears and learn to respectfully engage people of a different view or belief system.

Brought to you by Edifi, the premiere podcast app to play thousands of your favorite Christian podcasts every day, Challenging Conversations helps you gain insight as Jason and his guests get into deep conversations about the Christian faith and discuss how Christians ought to be defending the gospel as they speak the truth in love to those around them.

Explore this powerful apologetics podcast. Here are the first six episodes:

The Christian Left Hijacking the Church: Are you concerned about the Christian Left's expanding influence over churches? If that is the case, you don't want to miss what Jason Jimenez and Lucas Miles expose about this ideological movement and how you can defend against it. Hear this powerful episode.

Is Progressive Christianity Biblical? Would you say what progressive Christians believe about Jesus and salvation aligns with Scripture? In this episode, Jason Jimenez and Lucas Miles, author of "The Christian Left," discuss several key tenets of Progressive Christianity and explain why they are not biblical truths. Listen to this episode.

Responding to Atheistic Arguments: Why Their Top Claims Don't Hold Up to Scrutiny: Do you have a friend or family member who is an atheist? If so, then you won't want to miss this episode! Jason and world-renowned apologist, Dr. Frank Turek discuss a few of atheism's top arguments and why they don't hold up to scrutiny. Hear this powerful episode.

How to Raise Hard Working Kids: Is it hard motivating your kids to excel in school or map out a plan for their lives? In this episode, Jason talks with his long-time friend, Jason Benham, entrepreneur and Christian speaker and writer, on what parents can do to instill life lessons that are sure to build their kids up to their full potential as they live to honor God. Listen to this episode.

Why Are You Pro Life? How to Defend the Unborn: If someone were to ask you why you are pro-life, what would you say? In part two, Jason Jimenez and Scott Klusendorf (president of Life Training Institute) lay out the case for why they are pro-life. Their conversation will give you the reasoning and the skills to articulate your defense for the life of the unborn. Hear this powerful episode.

What Does it Mean to Be Pro-life? Part One: Many Christians say they are pro-life. But what does that mean? In part one of a two-part series, Jason chats with his good friend and leading pro-life apologist, Scott Klusendorf, to help Christians better understand the pro-life movement. Listen to this powerful episode.

Stay tuned every Friday for more episodes; you can subscribe on Edifi, Apple, Google, Stitcher, Spotify and other platforms!

Plus, want other Christian podcasts you can binge? If so, youre in luck from explorations of spiritual warfare to daily devotionals and deeply-inspiring conversations, six additional new podcasts on The Edifi Podcast Network will help you grow in your faith:

PLAYING WITH FIRE PODCAST: Evil is real. But are demons active today? Can evil inhabit human beings? Is exorcism real? Join investigative journalist Billy Hallowell as he delves into the strange phenomena of supernatural activity through the harrowing stories of people who believe they have experienced ultimate evil, fought a battle they never expected and have found healing. Listen to Playing With Fire on Edifi today!

CANCEL THIS!: Its time to talk with open hearts, open minds and an open Bible about the pressing topics Christians want to discuss without the fear of being canceled. Join author and veteran firefighter/paramedic Jason Sautel as he explores current events, eternal truths and transformational lessons alongside some truly captivating guests. In the age of rabid cancel culture, Cancel This! isnt afraid to ask and answer the tough questions. Listen to Cancel This! right now on Edifi!

COMPELLED: Compelled is a seasonal podcast using gripping, immersive storytelling to celebrate the powerful ways God is transforming the lives of Christians around the world. These Christian testimonies are raw, true, and powerful. Be encouraged and let your faith be strengthened! Listen to Compelled right now on Edifi!

LIVING FEARLESS DEVOTIONAL: Andy, a former Anaheim Police Officer and Hedieh, a former Muslim and Counterterrorism expert who became a Christian, share their real life joys and challenges of following Jesus, with the help of various daily devotional authors. Listen to Living Fearless Devotional right now on Edifi!

BOLD AND BLUNT: Washington Times online opinion editor Cheryl Chumley brings her no-holds-barred take on the big issues of the day. Listen to Bold and Blunt right now on Edifi!

CHALLENGING CONVERSATIONS: Do you struggle with knowing what to say and how to say it when a controversial topic comes up? Challenging Conversations, hosted by best-selling author and worldview expert Jason Jimenez, is a conversational podcast designed to help Christians overcome their fears and learn to respectfully engage people of a different view or belief system. You will gain insight as Jason and his guests get into deep conversations about the Christian faith and discuss how Christians ought to be defending the gospel as they speak the truth in love to those around them. Hear Challenging Conversations right now on Edifi!

Download the Edifi app on the Apple and Android stores to hear thousands of great Christian podcasts today. And be sure to also check out other shows in the Edifi Podcast Network!

See more here:

CP Brand Solutions | Confronting Atheistic Ideas, Debunking Bad Theology and Defending the Pro-Life Position All While Keeping a Christian Tone -...

Emory University will debut a new interfaith center on the Universitys Atlanta Campus in December, a project proposal that was first submitted in fall 2020 and approved spring of 2021.

Dean of Religious Life and University Chaplain Gregory McGonigle said that the University has discussed the centers concept since the early 2000s when increasing religious diversity at colleges in the U.S. began to require sacred space for more religious groups.

Its a way to reflect what the community actually is at Emory, Hindu Chaplain Brahmacharini Shweta Chaitanya said. Its a natural and long awaited next step for Emory.

Photo Courtesy of Emory University

The project was delayed because of the financial recession from 2007 through 2009, McGonigle said. However, with public calls from students like Marwan Nour (20C) and Akshar Patel (19C) in 2019 and the development of a multi-faith chaplaincy at the University over the past two years, McGonigle said the time became right for the spaces creation.

Emorys new interfaith center will become home to around 40 undergraduate and graduate spiritual communities on campus. According to a fall 2020 University survey of student religious and spiritual identity, 49.1% of Emorys student body identify themselves as a part of one of the many religions on the campus.

Emory Buddhist Club President Meha Srivastava (22C) emphasized the importance of a center for shared worship.

Communication and exchange of ideas is the main point of an educational or academic setting, Srivastava said. It inspires growth and acceptance, so much more can come from people exchanging ideas, especially religious organizations.

The same survey found about 18% of students in Emory College identified as Protestant, 11% as Catholic, 10% as Jewish, 4% as Hindu, 3% as Muslim, 2% as Atheist/Agnostic, 1% as Buddhist, 1% as other and less than 1% as Orthodox Christian. About 47% of respondents either chose not to respond or had no religious preference.

Results from Oxford College respondents showed a similar distribution, with a 56% majority of students either choosing not to report or having no religious preference.

While the University has a diverse religious community, Srivastava said that there is a lack of communication between the different religious organizations. The Interfaith Center seeks to tackle this issue.

The point of the Interfaith Center is to be a physical space where all of the religious organizations can do events, communicate with each other, learn from each other and use the same space, Srivastava said. Space inspires communication; if you share the same space, you will communicate.

Architecturally, students said they want a space that can serve the wide variety of practices which take place in our community.

Everyone has different physical parts of their practice so what we would need most primarily is a broad open space that can be easily set up and taken down based on each religions needs, Srivastava said.

Chaitanya hopes for the architecture to encourage both openness and permeability in this new space.

[Theres a] feeling that you can walk in and out of different spaces and feel almost at once like youre in a space to learn about something different than what youve grown up with or what youre familiar with, but then also feel like youre welcome in the space as well Chaitanya said.

The interfaith center, whose site has even been blessed by the Dalai Lama, will provide a central space for religion at Emory.

Students have spoken about it as a home for many types of dialogues, programs, retreats and service opportunities for both particular spiritual communities and when groups gather together, McGonigle said.

McGonigle said the Center will not be restricted to members of specific communities, but that he instead hopes that it will inspire people of all religions, spiritualities and beliefs to come and explore.

All of our chaplains are trying to think about creating a space where anybody of any faith, and even people who dont identify with any faith, can feel like this space is a home for them to take a breather and find some respite from busy college life, Chaitanya said.

Read more:

Emory to debut interfaith center this month - The Emory Wheel

Its Christmastime 1955 among the tensest, coldest days of the Cold War.

Two years removed from a bloody stalemate on the Korean peninsula, the American people are on edge and their military is on hair-trigger alert. A fragile armistice has taken hold along the 38th Parallel, but North Korea and South Korea are far closer to war than peace.

In West Berlin, U.S. troops are literally surrounded by communist armies. Moscow has just forged the Warsaw Pact to consolidate its hold over Eastern Europe and take aim at Western Europe.

In response to artillery attacks by the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) against Taiwan, Congress has authorized the president to use military force to defend the island. President Eisenhower openly declares hes prepared to use atomic weapons against the PRC exactly as you would use a bullet.

At the newly-minted Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD, forerunner to NORAD) in Colorado Springs, Colo., U.S. personnel are scanning the skies above Canada and the Arctic for inbound Soviet bombers.

In the middle of all this tension and danger, a special phone line at CONAD rings. Theres some debate as to whether it was the hotline connecting CONAD to the Pentagon or a less secure line. Either way, Air Force Col. Harry Shoup is the man charged with answering the phone and serving as Americas first line of defense. He braces for the worst. As one history of that fateful Christmas Eve recounts, The caller might be the president or a four-star general warning of an atomic attack on the United States.

Shoup picks up the phone and answers smartly: Yes, sir, this is Col. Shoup. But theres no one on the other end of the line. Sir, this is Col. Shoup, he repeats. Sir, can you read me alright? the worried officer asks.

Finally, a voice breaks the silence and tension, but its not what Shoup expects. Are you really Santa Claus? says a voice on the other end of the line.

Shoup thinks its a joke and a thoughtless, reckless one at that. Looking around the command center for the guilty party, he shifts his tone from that of a ready-to-act subordinate to that of an irritated commanding officer. Would you repeat that? he growls.

Hearing crying on the other end of the line, Shoup realizes this is not a prank but a scared little girl calling Santa. Through no fault of her own, the child has dialed CONAD instead of the Santa Claus hotline featured in a Sears newspaper ad.

They had one digit wrong, and it was my fathers top-secret phone number, Shoups daughter, Terri Van Keuren, explains in a recent interview.

Shoup shifts his tone yet again, from that of an angry commanding officer to that of a caring father and ultimately to that of Santa himself. Yes, this is Santa Claus, the father of four says. Have you been a good little girl?

After finishing the call, Shoup directs AT&T to transfer CONADs once-secret phone number to Sears. But in the meantime, as Van Keuren recalls in a History Channel interview, he had to have servicemen answer the calls.

As the Fort Collins Coloradoan reports, Shoup would even call the local radio station to report on Santas movement across the Christmas Eve skies of North America. This is Col. Shoup, the commander of the Command Operation Center in Colorado Springs We have an unidentified flying object. Why, it it looks like a sleigh.

The right thing

Thus was born whats surely the most enjoyable, least stressful mission at NORAD. The men and women based there are on ready alert every hour of every day even on Christmas Eve for intentional terrorist attacks and accidental missile launches, for natural disasters and manmade chaos, for doomsday and World War III.

Yet when the calendar hits Dec. 24, NORAD becomes a link between Santa Claus and children around the world. According to press reports, some 1,500 volunteers (many of them civilians) field more than 150,000 calls on a typical Christmas Eve. (Brian Earls Christmas Past podcast points out that Shoups children now grown serve in NORADs army of Santa hotline volunteers.) NORAD also processes thousands of emails and millions of visits to its Santa-tracking website, noradsanta.org.

All this exists today all these grownups taking time out of their lives, schedules and missions to help kids soak in the magic and wonder of Christmas because an Air Force colonel did the nice thing, as Van Keuren says. He could have hung up, but he didnt He did the right thing and look what happened.

Whats most striking about the story that made Shoup (aka the Santa Colonel) famous is his humanity, his willingness and readiness to do the right thing, and how living in a free society allowed him to express that humanity and encouraged him to do what was right.

Its unimaginable that a Soviet colonel or today, a PRC colonel would have responded the way Shoup responded. Its not that Soviet military personnel or today, PRC military personnel lacked humanity or a desire to be kind. Its that the communist system bent on control and conformity wouldnt in 1955 and still wont in 2021 tolerate such individuality and independence and initiative, such freedom of action and freedom of conscience.

For that matter, its hard to imagine a Soviet child ever asking a Soviet military man about Santa. The Russian equivalent of Santa (Grandfather Frost) was banned soon after Lenins communist revolution, a step which was logical and inevitable inside the Soviet system. The figures are inextricably linked to a religious celebration and religion is an enemy of communism. As Karl Marx, the founder of communism, once snarled, Religion is the opium of the people. Lenin viewed religion as a powerful and ubiquitous enemy, adds historian Paul Johnson.

Indeed, Lenin built a regime that made war against religion, purged those who refused to genuflect to the state, elevated government above all else and laid siege to the soul. By the end of 1918, Lenins regime had nationalized all church property. By 1926, the Soviet state had murdered 1,200 bishops and priests, shuttered most seminaries, closed down all but a handful of parishes and banned the publication of religious material. Virtually the entire clergy corps of the Russian Orthodox Church was liquidated or sent to labor camps in the 1920s and 1930s. By 1939 only about 500 of over 50,000 churches remained open, according to the Library of Congress.

Similarly, Xi Jinpings PRC is a place where churches are smashed and followers of Christ are sent to reeducation camps, where Buddhist temples are bulldozed, where Muslim men are packed into freight trains and Muslim women are forcibly sterilized, where religious minorities are sent to concentration camps, where bishops and Nobel Peace Prize laureates die in prison.

Communist regimes take these actions against faith and people of faith because the common denominator of most every religion is that theres something above, something beyond, something bigger, more enduring and more important than the state. That notion represents a mortal threat to the legitimacy and durability of regimes claiming they have the authority and capacity to do everything, control everything, know everything, provide everything regimes like the USSR and PRC.

Christmas even the commercialized secular stuff such as Santa and his reindeer remains connected to faith. The USSRs communist system, with atheism as one of its pillars, could not (and in the PRC, still cannot) countenance this. Thus, Grandfather Frost was unmasked by the Communist Party as an ally of the priest, historian Karen Petrone explains in an interview with Time, and Christmas was outlawed.

Although Stalin allowed the return of Grandfather Frost, it wasnt to celebrate Christmas. (Christmas trees, for example, were rebranded New Years trees by the commissars.) In fact, the main purpose was to boost Stalins popularity and push communist propaganda down the throats of Stalins subjects. As Time detailed after sifting through old newspaper articles, More than just the giver of gifts, the Stalin-era Grandfather Frost was the giver of pro-communist PR. AP reported in 1949 how the communist version of Grandfather Frost customarily ends his talk with the question to whom do we owe all the good things in socialist society? to which it is said the children chorus reply Stalin.

The difference

Shoups actions during the Christmas of 1955 offer an unplanned, unstaged snapshot of a political system and world view strikingly different from that of Lenin, Stalin and Xi a system founded on the freedom to believe in God or not. That freedom of conscience and the companion notion that there is something beyond the reach of the state makes all the difference. We dont have to worship in the same ways or on the same days or at all to recognize this.

In a flash of cosmic irony and poetic justice, the atheist Soviet Union one of historys most brutal enemies of faith and conscience staggered to its death and expired 30 years ago this month, on Christmas Day 1991.

See original here:

'Why, it looks like a sleigh' | The American Legion - The American Legion

When Russ posted theCHOMP 2tracklist on Instagram yesterday, it felt too good to be true.

Between the insane feature list including guest verses from Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss, Ghostface Killah, Conway the Machine, Westside Gunn and so many more, as well as production credits from some of the most respected and hallowed beatmakers in the game, it was incomprehensible that Russ had gotten so many hip hop legends on one project.

And it seemed even more incomprehensible that Russ landed a feature from the reclusive Jay Electronica.

Despite his pedigree as one of the best lyricists in hip hop history, Electronica rarely puts vocals on wax, and after releasing the full-lengthA Written Testimonyat the top of last year, it seemed like a certainty that it'd be at least a couple years before we heard from him again. But Russ pulled him out of his cave to make "Top Of The World," one of the best tracks onthe new project.

Spitting over silky Harry Fraud production, Russ and Electronica trade verses and describe what it feels like at the "Top Of The World." A laid back track that delivers a powerful message, "Top Of The World" is a record you'll have to run back a couple of times to catch everything you missed during the previous listen, but with Russ and Electronica skating over Fraud's reserved instrumental with poignant lyrics and intricate melodies, running it back feels more like doing yourself a favor than a hassle.

Quotable LyricsEntirely off the recordThe messiahs of society quietly walk with lepersAnd when they plug into the matrix, the babies have dreams of making love on the spaceshipYou can hear atheist cries in the sub when the bass hit

Check out "Top Of The World" below and let us know what you think down in the comments.

Read the original post:

Russ Lands Rare Jay Electronica Feature On "Top Of The World" - HotNewHipHop

Is atheism dead? That is the provocative title of a new book by Eric Metaxas, a prominent cultural commentator from New York City.

The short answer is yes well, except for the spittle-flecked ravings of those in the camp of Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins. I suppose one could call them zombie atheists, those who refuse to die despite the overwhelming proof their position is unsupported by any serious scientific evidence.

Metaxas assembles quite a collection of that evidence.

Atheism, of course, posits that there is no intelligent design of anything. All of the material world, including complex living organisms like human beings, are entirely the result of random occurrences.

To admit there is intelligent design is to admit there must necessarily be an intelligent designer.

Religious folks have a short, three-letter name for that intelligent designer God.

The Christian/Hebrew holy book starts with, In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

When was that beginning? The science says it was 13.8 billion years ago.

We know this because astronomers have been able to determine that a) the universe is expanding at a measurable rate from an initial big bang and b) reverse calculations of that measurable expansion indicate that the bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago.

The Big Bang Theory was articulated by the Belgian priest/physicist Georges Lemaitre, who used Einsteins Theory of Relativity mathematics to prove his case.

Einstein wasnt happy about Lemaitres conclusions, but eventually conceded they were correct.

Other anti-creation scientists like Frederick Hoyle propounded a Steady State Theory and called the concept of a Big Bang ridiculous.

But then two radio astronomers at Bell Laboratories, Robert Wilson and Arno Penzias, discovered evidence of the Big Bang measurable background radiation that represented the partially dissipated heat from the original explosion.

The gamma radiation from that blast was everywhere and measured 2.7 degrees Kelvin.

They got a Nobel Prize for that discovery and poor Dr. Hoyle looked rather foolish.

It was poetic justice that his sneering name for Lemaitres discovery Big Bang, given in a BBC interview in 1949 became the name everyone now uses for what is undeniably a creation event.

Allan Sandage, one of the worlds pre-eminent astronomers and the man who carried on the work of Edwin Hubble (after whom the space telescope is named), had this to say about whether God was at work in the origins of everything, there was an event that happened that can be age-dated back in the past Just the very fact that science [can make] that statement, that cosmology can understand the universe at a much earlier state and it did emerge from a state that was fundamentally different.

Now thats an act of creation. Within the realm of science, one cannot say any more detail about that creation than the First Book of Genesis. Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking agrees.

In his 1988 bestseller A Brief History of Time, he writes, It would be very difficult to explain why the universe would have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.

High-profile atheist Christopher Hitchens once admitted, on camera, that the most convincing argument for a creator was fine-tuning. He also stated that most of his co-atheists admitted as such.

Fine-tuning is the argument that there are certain things about the universe, the solar system and millions of biological systems here on Earth that are so perfectly calibrated that the chances that their fine-tuning is coincidental or accidental is so infinitesimally small as to be ridiculous.

For example, if our Earth was only slightly larger or smaller, life could not exist here.

Too small and the solar wind would strip away our atmosphere.

Too large, and the increased gravity would trap our atmospheric gases and make it unbreathable.

If Saturn and Jupiter were not exactly where they are in the solar system, we would have been pounded into oblivion by asteroids.

The gravity exercised by those two gas giants deflect the majority (but obviously not all) of life-killing asteroids. What about the idea we all learned in science class, that all life arose from inorganic compounds in a primordial soup being zapped by lightning to create life?

Physicist Paul Davies, writing in The Cosmic Blueprint, says, it is possible to perform rough calculations of the probability that the endless breakup and reforming of the soups complex molecules would lead to a small virus after a billion years it would be one chance in 10 to the two millionth power. In other words, a mind-numbing improbability. How ironic that atheists would insist on believing the ridiculous instead of what the scientific evidence clearly demonstrates.

When it comes to creation, God is in the details.

KTW welcomes submissions to its Faith page. Columns should be between 600 and 800 words in length and can be emailed to editor@ kamloopsthisweek.com. Please include a very short bio and a photo.

Go here to see the original:

Faith: God is found in the details when it comes to creation - Kamloops This Week

Robert Jeffress used his Dec. 5 sermon to claim that President Joe Biden has the most ungodly administration in American history.

The Biden administration is ungodly! I dont care how many rosary beads they rub, theyre ungodly, he intoned. This is the ungodliest presidential administration weve had in the history of our country.

Jeffress gave three reasons for his harsh judgment against Biden: opposition to a Mississippi anti-abortion law argued last week in the Supreme Court, efforts toward spreading this immoral transgender philosophy, and rescinding religious liberty executive orders implemented by Trump.

While mentioning his complaint about Bidens support for transgender persons, Jeffress attacked the administration for having as one of their own top officials a man prancing around in a skirt playing like hes a woman. Weve never seen something like that before. He added in his attack on Rachel Levine, assistant secretary for health: Its sick! Absolutely sick and immoral.

Jeffress claims the Biden administration is ungodly, yet he defended a Trump administration that insisted on America First. This contradicts the servant motif of godliness and holiness found in the gospel.

Instead of being ungodly, I argue that the Biden administration may be the most gospel-filled administration since FDR. Bidens family leave provisions have received nothing but disdain and opposition from Republicans and evangelicals like Jeffress. Federal programs that assist the poor opposed by the Trump/Jeffress gang. Scientific research and aid to the nations of the world opposed by Trump/Jeffress.

With Trump, Jeffress endorsed in near erotic excitement moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem because he thinks that brings his beloved fiction of the rapture closer to reality. Jeffress has said that all Jews will go to hell and that Islam promotes pedophilia. Thats not godliness; thats self-righteousness. Jeffress has described gay people as taking part in the most detestable acts you can imagine and also slammed Mormonism as a cult.

Jeffress claims the Biden administration is ungodly, yet he defended a Trump administration that insisted on America First.

As Jeffress gave his heart and soul to the defense of the ungodly Trump administration, Trump gutted the Environmental Protection Agency and the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, and State. In the face of global warming and poverty, Jeffress went with Trump. Jeffress said nothing as Trump insisted on reducing funding by nearly $6 billion for the National Institutes of Health and attempted to reduce or eliminate funding for affordable housing, home heating, homelessness assistance, job training, clean energy, foreign aid and U.N. peacekeeping.

Theres nothing here thats good news for the poor, release for the prisoners, food for the hungry, clothing for the naked, houses for the homeless. Trumps ungodly budget proposals made deep cuts to domestic programs serving the working-class. As Eugene Robinson has noted, Trump attempted to reshape the federal government in his own image crass, bellicose, short-sighted, unserious and ultimately hollow.

Trump, with the complete religious support of Jeffress and his fellow court evangelicals, attempted to bust up and demolish the federal government and especially the social safety net. Jeffress, seeing governments function as punishing the wicked (meaning anyone associated with abortion and gays), has been gleeful of the idea of eliminating services, removing regulations, and cutting taxes for the very, very, very rich. The entire Trump agenda was just status quo materialism designed to protect the interests of the wealthy. It is hard to imagine a more ungodly agenda.

While Trump was dismantling democracy, Jeffress was aiding and abetting this vast criminal enterprise.

Together they were demolishing the gospel of Jesus to care for the widows, orphans, immigrants, children, families, strangers and the poor. They were reversing the gospel of forgiveness for one of revenge. They were going against Jesus severe condemnation of the wealthy in order to go whole hog for the big hogs at the economic trough.

Theres not enough gospel here to save the proverbial church mouse.

The Hebrew prophets would dismantle this charade with biting condemnation. Amos would have Jeffress sermon for lunch: I hate, I despise your Fourth of July festivals, and I take no delight in your patriotic assemblies. Even though you offer me your flag-wavings and fireworks in the sanctuary, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your affluent congregation I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise America is Gods land. I will not listen to the melody of your praise band and orchestra. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

The editors of Leviticus would diss Jeffress with straightforward exhortation: You shall not steal; you shall not deal falsely; and you shall not lie to one another.

When you have a leading evangelical pastor equating Christianity with freedom, patriotism and opposition to abortion, you should know you have a problem. That Jeffress, in a church service, would condemn the president of the United States for attempting to provide for the common good is a sign that he no longer knows how to recognize the gospel. The Christianity represented by the First Baptist Church of Dallas and its senior minister is not, in fact, Christian. It is American nationalism. To paraphrase Stanley Hauerwas, this version of Christianity is neither supported by nor shaped by the gospel.

Reaching deep into the emotional playbook, Jeffress imagined that he and his congregation were being persecuted, and he wasnt going to stand for it. I dont care where that persecution comes from. I dont care where that attempt to muzzle our witness comes from, whether its from some atheist organization like the Freedom from Religion Foundation or whether it comes from this ungodly administration were living under right now in Washington, D.C. Thats right, I said it! I said it, he declared to applause.

Persecution is a favorite trope of evangelicals. With such thin skins, they often mistake criticism for persecution.

Jeffress churns out the emotion of fear: We know if they ever succeed in taking the First Baptist Church of Dallas down, theyre going to go after every church everywhere that preaches the gospel. Were going to preach the gospel here no matter what it does. And if the Biden administration doesnt like it, they can hang it on their beak. (Whatever that means).

We know if they ever succeed in taking the First Baptist Church of Dallas down, theyre going to go after every church everywhere that preaches the gospel.

Jeffress seems to believe that nefarious forces, powerful enemies that are almost invulnerable are trying to take down First Baptist Church of Dallas. After the sermon, the godly dispersed to high-end restaurants across Dallas to revel in how the preacher really let them have it.

Jeffress rankled me deeply. I composed a letter, a preacher-to-preacher letter to my colleague in ministry. I thought I would at least feel better if I could just explain how I felt after reading the sermon about Bidens ungodliness. Heres what I wrote:

Dr. Jeffress, this criticism is not from an atheist organization but a fellow Baptist preacher. You have already served as the temple priest of the ungodliest administration in history the Trump presidency. Does my directness anger you? Good. I can work with that.

The majority of the nation sees President Biden as Americas grief counselor, but you deem him ungodly. And why did you have to attack the Catholics? Your snide anti-Catholic slap at rosary beads puts you on a par with Trumps relentless attacks against almost everyone. You sounded like a preacher who was opposing prayer at a prayer meeting, and if not opposing prayer, opposing prayer aids.

Since you have brought up the subject of being ungodly, let me remind you that with every misstep, every misleading attack, every lie, every misdeed, every disgusting piece of demeaning weaponized rhetoric, there you were smiling and defending the personification of evil.

Robert, do you remember when Trump called some African nations shithole countries? Heres what you said: Apart from the vocabulary attributed to him, President Trump is right on target in his sentiment.

When President Trump called NFL players who kneel for the National Anthem sons of bitches, do you remember your defense: These players ought to be thanking God that they live in a country where theyre not only free to earn millions of dollars every year, but theyre also free from the worry of being shot in the head for taking the knee like they would be in North Korea.

I know this is old news, but I laughed out loud at your defense of Trump when he paid hush money.

Robert, you blast Catholics, Mormons and Muslims with incendiary rhetoric. When you go off on America being founded as a Christian nation (a whopper of a lie), you specifically put Christianity on a higher plane of possessing a righteousness that other religions lack. Did you pay attention to the letter you received from fellow Dallas minister Rev. Eric Folkerth? Eric wrote you after you made such damning comments about Muslim leader Omar Suleiman: Can you not see, dear Brother Jeffress, that YOU have become a Pharisee of our time? Can you not see, dear Brother Jeffress, that leaders like YOU are the reason that so many young people leave our faith, never to return? When will you see the harm that you are not only causing, not to people of a man of peace like Omar Suleiman, but also to the very witness of our Christian faith in todays world?!

I know this is old news, but I laughed out loud at your defense of Trump when he paid hush money. You engaged in a bit of biblical chicanery to add an 11th commandment. Evangelicals still believe in the commandment: Thou shalt not have sex with a porn star. However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him. Your presumption that you can add an 11th commandment is a small-change perversion compared to how you have rewritten the gospel to fit Trump.

When the Democrats hired Derrick Harkins, a senior vice president at New Yorks Union Seminary, as their new religious outreach director, you claimed Harkins was a Trump-hating pastor and that Union Seminary was a liberal seminary that is filled with liberal professors who couldnt find God if their life depended on it. When you run down a fellow Baptist and a historically prominent seminary, you are (in the words of Raney) putting yourself lower than the belly of a hog.

Do you remember the interview on the Lou Dobbs show when you went too far even for Dobbs? Let me refresh your memory: And if the left ever gains control of this country again, I predict its going to be like the French Revolution. Its going to be bring out the guillotines and execute every thought they object to and every person who holds every thought that they object to. That is why what happens in November is so crucial. The future of our nation is at stake here.

Robert, I understand that you are a hyperbole addict. I have read all your sermons and interviews, and the hyperboles have piled up at your door to haunt you. Last Sunday you went too far. Its not President Biden who is ungodly; its former President Trump who is ungodly and evil.

I am convinced there is nothing you will refrain from doing on behalf of Donald Trump. You are his unofficial Secretary of Defense, the prophet of denial, demolition and distraction.

Rodney W. Kennedycurrently serves as interim pastor of Emmanuel Freiden Federated Church in Schenectady, N.Y., and as preaching instructor Palmer Theological Seminary. He is the author of nine books, including the newly releasedThe Immaculate Mistake,about how evangelical Christians gave birth to Donald Trump.

Related articles:

The leap from The Bible says to Believe me and God told me | Opinion by Rodney Kennedy

The Trump Card: How white evangelicals are being played| by Joel Bowman Sr.

Understanding the evangelical civil war| Analysis by Alan Bean

From 2016 to 2020, Trump grew in support from white evangelicals

Continued here:

Dear Robert Jeffress: You've called the wrong U.S. president 'ungodly' - Baptist News Global

The tumult of our recent past has left a lot of collateral damage in its wake. Myriad features on local and national news have covered how family gatherings in the so-called post-COVID era are strained due to vehement disagreement on economic, political, and even religious issues are as predictable as a lunar eclipse.

We may personally have experienced such tense exchanges where harsh feelings and harsher words are fired back and forth at family gatherings, sometimes with only a bowl of mash potatoes keeping some from coming to blows. Sadly, this us against them or me against you mentality has seeped through the cracks in a lot of church doors as well. At a time when we need friends the most, friendship is at greatest risk.

Imagine if our new standard of friendship boundaries existed in the past. Things might have turned out a lot differently. St. Peter and St. Paul were very different people; St. Peter a simple fisherman under the yoke of imperial Rome just trying to make a living and St. Paul, or Saul of Tarsus then, a Roman citizen and a Pharisee. Even immediately after St. Peter took the helm after the Ascension, Saul of Tarsus violently persecuted Christians. Their differences did not end after St. Pauls conversion, but they never threatened their friendship.

Friendship today now has so many transactional elements to it. A friendship can be damaged beyond repair if words are not checked carefully before spoken. It wasnt always this fragile. Some of the most profound friendships in history were forged between people who had very little in common. Some of these friendships even survived two people holding polar opposite views on very important issues.

Ulysses S. Grant won the Civil War. James Longstreet, a general on the losing side, was Grants friend before the war. He was Grants friend after the war. You would think if two men such as these could maintain their friendship during what they went through, why cant two cousins get along, even though they have different views about polar bear populations above the Arctic Circle?

Other examples of famous and unlikely friendships abound. Groucho Marx was a pen pal and friend of British Nobel Laureate T.S. Eliot. Granted it was a strained friendship at times, but one that lasted in one form or another until Eliot passed away in 1965. Marx summed up the relationship in a way only Marx could by stating he and Eliot had only three things in common: love of literature, a penchant for puns, and cats.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were friends when Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Lewis was an avowed atheist. It was due in no small part to this friendship of opposites that a great Christian thinker was born.

Henry Fonda and James Stewart in "The Cheyenne Social Club." (IMDB)

During the Golden Age of Hollywood you could not find two bigger stars than James Stewart and Henry Fonda. They were responsible for some of the greatest films ever made, such as Its A Wonderful Life, The Grapes of Wrath, Vertigo, and Mister Roberts. The list of their great movies is a lot longer, but you get the idea.

Stewart and Fonda were lifelong friends. They met in Hollywood when they were both promising young actors struggling to make it big. They made it big, very big, and their friendship stayed intact. Besides their talent and star power, they had other things in common. They both served their country during World War II, Stewart in the U.S. Army Air Corps and Fonda in the U.S. Navy. Stewart took it a step further, becoming the Commanding Officer of a bomber group in the U.S. 8th Air Force, where he flew many missions in harms way.

Politically, Stewart and Fonda could not have been further apart. Stewart was the rock-ribbed Republican and Fonda was the New Deal Democrat. I can only imagine the private discussions these two men had.

Things must have gotten more tense when, during the Vietnam War, Stewarts stepson served and was killed in action and Fondas daughter became famous as a war protester. Miraculously, their friendship survived.

We may not all have the ability to star in major Hollywood movies, fly B-24 Liberator bombers over Berlin, or powerfully portray Abraham Lincoln, but we can and should emulate Stewart and Fonda when it comes to the care and feeding of friendship. They were bigger than the things that divided them, and we should be, too.

Read more:

The care and feeding of true friendship - Angelus News

The holidays have different meanings for everyone. For some its a good excuse for a well-needed rest. For others its a time for traditional religious values and rituals. For many of us, its a time for reflecting on what needs to be different in our lives.

Because of the time of year, many countries have a cold and dark climate during this season. The holidays are a way to bring light into that darkness. No matter how you were brought up, whether it be Jewish, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, atheist, Sikh I could keep listing different belief systems, but my point is that this time of year is just a time where people, whoever they are, wherever they come from, can find a way to bond together and share the universal need for hope.

Many religious rituals involve light. Whether its the lighting of a menorah candle, stringing up a strand of Christmas lights around a tree, or lighting oil lamps for the Diwali festival of lights, all involve bringing light into dark, therefore allowing ourselves to hope for better times.

The consumerism and commercialism that has seeped into this time of year has, of course, made it difficult to remember the original meaning of hope and grace. There are line-ups and fistfights in Walmart aisles; theres pressure to get the toy that the offspring has to have, because theyll face ostracization at school if it isnt gift-wrapped in glitter and tissue paper under the tree on Christmas morning. (Tissue paper that inevitably gets eaten by the dog or shredded by the cat anyway.)

Then theres the really hard part to reconcile: the people outside roaming the street who hope that maybe there will be some generosity because its the holidays. There are shelters that are full because of the temperature; what makes me feel ill is that often as a society we condemn the homeless for their hygiene or addictions. What other choice do they have? As people, we are all looking for comfort, and that can come in many forms. I so admire the volunteers that march to Our Place to dish out a real holiday feast to those who have ended up there.

So, we continue to hope. We look forward to the holidays because thats what it offers, whether its shredded tissue under a tree or putting $5 into someones hand who needs it far more than we do. We light lamps, we bake pastries, and we enjoy the families that we were born into, or the families that we have chosen.

Its fascinating looking into all the different cultures and how they celebrate this time of year, not only because of the beautiful rituals and traditions, but because they all involve stories of renewal and hope. Stories that tell you to do things a little different or a little better this time around. Every culture celebrates light in some way, and we should all celebrate having the vigilance to let go of what has been bringing you down. Traditions and rituals started for a reason, and the holiday season is a wonderful way to celebrate hope and light and the future of better things to come.

Happy Holidays.

Go here to see the original:

Open Space: Celebrate the light this December - Nexus Newspaper