The Betrayal Papers: Part V – Who is Barack Hussein Obama? [+video]

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

Introduction

The Betrayal Papers have thus far investigated and explained the Obama administration and their alliance with the international terrorist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. The articles analyzed several aspects of White House policy, foreign and domestic, and compared them to the objectives of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Parts V and VI will explore the personal ties that bind Obama, as well as the progressive American left, to the Muslim Brotherhood.

This is a portrait of a conspiracy that has reached unprecedented heights of global control.

“A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”

Has there ever been a president whose personal history is so murky, so questionable, and so baffling? All one must do is recall the allegations, still open for debate and research, that checker Obama’s background. Laid out below are some of these allegations, not to be proved or disproved, but to remind the reader that Obama’s personal history is replete with question marks.

• A 1991 promotional literary pamphlet featured a short biographical sketch of Obama, and claimed he was “born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.”

• What is his actual name? The only publicly available school record for Obama lists him as an Indonesian citizen named Barry Soetoro.

• Moreover, on an immigration document from 1965, Obama’s mother included the name “Soebarkah” under Barack Hussein Obama. This is likely a name given to him by the Islamic cult of Subud, to which his mother proudly and openly belonged.

• For a reason yet to be explained, Obama’s Social Security number begins with the prefix 042, which corresponds to Connecticut, a state in which Obama has never lived.

• Regarding his academic records, recall that Obama attended three universities: Occidental College, Columbia University, and Harvard University (his admission to which coincides with a $25 million dollar donation from the Saudi’s to the Harvard Law School). His academic records with these three institutions have never been revealed, despite efforts by investigative reporters. The student body president at Columbia University during Obama’s time there, Wayne Allen Root (once the Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate), has stated publicly that he never met or even heard of Obama while at Columbia, and cannot find any classmates of his who remember him either. Root, like Obama, was a political science major.

• While campaigning for President, candidate Obama presented himself as a “Professor” of Constitutional Law while at the University of Chicago. Yet this turned out to be untrue. In fact, he was a “Senior Lecturer,” a title and position significantly less prestigious than Professor.

• Finally, the best known and most researched of these allegations is the issue of Obama’s birth certificate. From his days as a candidate in the Democrat primary, the place of Obama’s birth has been in contention. While Obama has insisted he was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1961, there are others who claim he was born in Mombasa, Kenya; there’s even a copy of his purported Kenyan birth certificate. Moreover, apparently trustworthy sources swear that the Long Form Birth Certificate is a forgery.

All these questions leave the investigator with only one choice: to define Obama not by his inconsistent biographical details, but by his associations and actions.

The Communist Prelude: Frank Marshall Davis, Obama’s Mentor

As documented extensively in Paul Kengor’s book The Communist, Davis ranks high among Obama’s early life influences. A literal card carrying member of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Davis was considered by the FBI an enemy of the state.

• Frank Marshall Davis, a known Soviet Communist and admirer of Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler, was a friend of Obama’s mother’s father, Stanley Dunham.
• The Communist Davis lived in both Hawaii and in Chicago. He was Barack Obama’s mentor through the 1970s, until his departure for Occidental College in 1979.
• Davis was also a pornographer. In his book Sex Rebel, he wrote excitedly about having sex with minors. Pedophilia was unusual for Communists of the era: Harry Hay, another Communist and associate of Davis, was reportedly an advocate of NAMBLA, the National Man-Boy Love Association.
• In 1995, in a broadcast on Cambridge Municipal Television, Barack Obama described Davis as “a close friend of my maternal grandfather, a close friend of gramps” and “fairly a well-known poet.”

Irrespective of the publicly accepted, sanitized biography of young Obama, the historical facts establish that his primary political mentor was a Soviet Communist sex offender, introduced to him by his mother’s family.

Tell me who your friends are, and I’ll tell you who you are

George Soros

George Soros, aka György Schwartz, is the Hungarian-born billionaire investor and financier behind a tangled constellation of progressive front organizations. Among these front organizations are: The Open Society Foundation/Institute, ACORN, Think Progress, the Center for American Progress, Code Pink, Occupy Wall Street, National Council of La Raza, the Tides Foundation, MoveOn.org, the New America Foundation, and the International Crisis Group. As one writer wrote succinctly in 2011, “Essentially, the entire leftist wing of the Democrat party, including the President can be tied to George Soros in some way.”

• Soros was born in 1930 in Budapest, Hungary, to a Jewish family. He grew up in wartime Hungary and was an admitted Nazi collaborator who turned other Jews over to the Nazi authorities. To this day, he has stated that he has no remorse for his actions of turning in Jews to the Nazis and having their property confiscated. As Soros said to 60 Minutes reporter Steve Kroft it was “the happiest time of my life.”
• Soros is a financial manipulator and breaker of currencies. In 1992, Soros crashed the British pound when he made a bet it would correct against the Deutschemark.
• Soros has a history of using government influence for personal gain. In 1999, (Bill Clinton’s) Secretary of State Madeline Albright blocked a $500 million loan by the U.S. Import-Export Bank to the Russian oil company Tyumen. Tyumen planned to use this money to acquire one of Soros’ companies and a Siberian oil field, and apparently Soros felt his deal wasn’t sweet enough. A few months later, Albright did indeed approve the loan, but only after Soros was guaranteed additional protections for his interests at the expense of Tyumen.
• This pattern repeated in 2009, when the U.S. Import-Export Bank announced a “preliminary commitment” to loan $2 billion to the Brazilian oil giant Petrobras. This caused the shares in the company to rise 27.9% from April 2009-August 2009 (the time of the announcement). Soros, a major shareholder in the company, profited handsomely.
• In 2002, French authorities prosecuted Soros for insider trading. In 2012, the government of Russia issued an arrest warrant for Soros for violating Basel II financial regulations.
• Obama’s foreign policy and the Arab Spring are intertwined with Soros interests. In 2008 the International Crisis Group (aka ICG, a Soros front), issued a paper that urged the Egyptian government to allow the Muslim Brotherhood to form a political party. Anyone with knowledge of the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities in Egypt from the 1940s onward, which include assassinations and terrorism, understands the necessity of the Egyptian government’s hard line on the terror group.
• Interestingly, ICG is also home to Ambassador Thomas Pickering, the Obama administration’s lead investigator for Benghazi, as well as Robert Malley, who was recently appointed by Obama to a prominent position to lead Middle East policy, despite a history of connections to Hamas.
• In a 2011 op-ed for the Washington Post, Soros himself referred to Israel – not Hamas – as the “stumbling block” in Middle East peace. In the same piece, Soros encouraged the Muslim Brotherhood to be given a seat at the table in Egyptian political life, and urged Obama to support the Arab Spring overthrow of ally Mubarak.

Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn

Of all the nefarious personal relationships of Barack Hussein Obama, the bloodthirsty couple of Bill Ayers and wife Bernadine Dorhn are the most unsettling. In the 1960s, Ayers and Dohrn were notorious radicals, anarchists, and terrorists – declared enemies of American society.

Ayers and Dorhn hosted a meet-and-greet and fundraiser for candidate Obama when he first ran for public office. Indeed, Obama’s political career was launched from the couple’s living room in Hyde Park.

• Bill Ayers’ father was Tom Ayers, President of Commonwealth Edison (the power company of Chicago) from 1964-1980, and Chairman from 1973-1980. The Ayers family was close to the corrupt Daley political machine and involved in various philanthropic causes, and Bill was a son of considerable privilege. The Ayers family connection to power production is important to note in connection with the Chicago Climate Exchange, which will be detailed in Part VI.
• Despite his mainstream upbringing, Ayers gravitated to terrorism and revolution. In 1969, he, Dorhn, and other radicals founded the Weather Underground. From its inception until the early 1980s, this group of nihilist anarchists would claim responsibility for targets that included police, an R.O.T.C building, the home of a judge, New York City Police Headquarters, and The Pentagon.
• Dorhn and Ayers lived for a time as fugitives together, and eventually married. But due to legal technicalities neither Ayers nor Dorhn ever served time for their crimes.
• The couple has two sons. Both were, curiously, given Islamic names: Zayd and Malik.
• Ayers has admitted not once, but twice that he is author of the Obama’s memoir, Dreams of my Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, published in 1995.
• On September 11, 2001, a review of an upcoming book by Bill Ayers appeared in the New York Times. In the memoir Fugitive Days, Ayers recounted his time on the lam. Wrote Ayers in the book, the lines which were reprinted in the Times the morning of September 11: “Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,” and “I feel we didn’t do enough.”
• A few hours after that edition of New York Times hit newsstands on 9/11/2001, four planes were hijacked by Al Qaeda. Two of them brought down the World Trade Center. Another crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. And the other slammed into the Pentagon, once a target of Bill Ayers, scarring the symbol of American military might and killing 125 people.
• Consider the psyche of Dohrn (from 1991-2013 a professor at Northwestern Law School) who, upon hearing of the horrific murder of actress Sharon Tate (where a fork was stuck into her nine-month pregnant belly) by psychopath Charles Manson’s gang, stated: “Dig it. First they killed those pigs and then they put a fork in pig Tate’s belly. Wild!” Dohrn then adopted the “fork salute” for the Weatherman.
• Years after 9/11/2001, Dohrn and Ayers would openly associate with Islamic terrorists. First, in connection with the 2010 “Peace Flotilla,” a terrorist smuggling operation originating from Turkey that sought to arm Hamas in Gaza. The rabid couple’s attraction to terrorism was enabled by the Soros front group, Code Pink.
• In 2011, Ayers and Dohrn teamed up with Code Pink once again when they crashed the revolution in Egypt’s Tahrir Square to help oust American and Israeli ally Hosni Mubarak. Reliving their youth, they pulled a page from their old playbook, teaching the protestors how to organize their very own “day of rage.”

Valerie Jarrett

No figure in the administration holds more sway over Barack Obama than his Senior Advisor, Valerie Jarrett. Officially in charge of the Offices of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, her Twitter handle – vj44, as in “Valerie Jarrett, 44th President” – conveys a truer sense of her power. Yet not even one American voted for President Jarret.

• Valerie June Bowman Jarrett was born in Shiraz, Iran in 1956 to James and Barbara Taylor Bowman. An examination of Jarrett’s family is the key to understanding her influence in Chicago.
• Jarrett’s father James, a Howard University graduate, was, at the time of her birth, working as a physician and geneticist in Iran. Her mother Barbara’s family is deeply connected to Chicago politics. Jarret’s maternal grandfather was Robert Taylor, who was on the board of the Chicago Housing Authority, a municipal corporation. To this day the Robert Taylor Homes, a public housing project, bear his name.
• A political appointment, Jarrett was not subjected to confirmation by the U.S. Senate. Yet according to every published account, it is she who is the true center of gravity in the administration. Ranging from healthcare “reform” to negotiating with terrorist Iran, the Senior Advisor, not the President, calls the shots at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
• The few murmurings which have come out regarding Jarrett’s omnipresence in the White House have not been flattering. According to one former administration official, “It’s pretty toxic… She went to whatever meeting she wanted to go to—basically all of them—and then would go and whisper to the president. Or at least everyone believed she did. … People don’t trust the process. They think she’s a spy.”
• Even Obama’s former Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, according to author Jonathan Alter, was “tired of being undermined by Valerie Jarrett” when he resigned from his position.
• Given Jarrett’s political force in the capital, the media’s curiosity about Jarrett’s background, governing principles, ideological beliefs, and business dealings has been conspicuously lacking.
• One of Robert Taylor’s (Jarret’s grandfather) business partners was Rufus Cook. Rufus’s ex-wife, Ann, is a cousin of Jarrett’s. Cook is also a legal counsel for Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, based out of Chicago. In 2007, the country was shocked when a video emerged that showed the pastor of Obama’s church, Reverend Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ, saying of September 11, 2001, “America’s chickens are coming home to roost.” This was a borrowed line, originally spoken by the Nation of Islam’s silver-tongued spokesman, Malcolm X, referring to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
• Indeed, TUCC’s Reverend Wright and NOI’s Louis Farrakhan are thick as thieves. In 1984, Wright and Farrakhan traveled together to Libya to meet the “Mad Dog of the Middle East,” Muammar Gaddafi.
• Another Jarrett cousin is Antoinette “Toni” Cook Bush, daughter of Rufus and Ann. In 2013, Toni, a Chicago lawyer, was hired as the head lobbyist for News Corp, owner of Fox News. This is perhaps why Jarrett has been spotted dining with News Corp CEO, Australian Rupert Murdoch.
• Jarrett’s family has direct connections to Obama’s Communist mentor, Frank Marshall Davis. Jarrett’s father in law, Vernon Jarrett, was a journalist who worked with Frank Marshall Davis Citizens’ Committee to Aid Packing-House Workers. In his younger years, explains Kengor, Vernon Jarrett “had been elected to the Illinois Council of American Youth for Democracy, the CPUSA youth wing.” Finally, Robert Taylor (mentioned above) was on the board of Chicago Civil Liberties Union with Frank Marshall Davis.

Jarrett, who met Obama in 1991 and introduced him to Michelle, is a part of their family. Given her connections and power, is it any surprise that she recently said to The New York Times Magazine, “I intend to stay [in the White House] until the lights go off.”

Tony Rezko

Antoin “Tony” Rezko is the Chicago-based Syrian-American slumlord who arranged a corrupt deal for the Obama’s home. Rezko, who is currently serving a 10 ½ year prison sentence and was known for influence peddling through bribery, crafted a special deal in which he loaned money to the Obamas and donated to their campaign organization … all while setting them up in a mansion in Hyde Park.

• Obama’s relationship with the corrupt Rezko goes back decades. Rezko tried to hire Obama to work for his real estate company Rezmar when he graduated from Harvard Law School. In 2008, Obama stated that Rezko was a “friend” whom he had “known for 20 years.”
• The Chicago Sun-Times estimated that Obama had received “$168,308 from Rezko and his circle.”
• In 2005, Rezko arranged the purchase of the Obamas’ home in Chicago. Because the Obama’s were not in the financial position to purchase the house at the time, Rezko made a deal with the owner to purchase the adjoining empty lot next to the home at above market price to compensate for the Obamas’ below market offer on the home ($1.65 million versus the $1.95 asking price).
• The Rezko case unfolded before the nation as Barack Obama was ascending to the presidency. It embroiled Patrick Fitzgerald (who was previously known for prosecuting Vice President Cheney’s chief-of-staff Scooter Libby), Illinois Governor Rob Blagojevich (who is serving a 14 year jail sentence), Obama, and Rezko.
• The convicted felon Rezko is an associate of international criminal and former Saddam Hussein agent, Iraqi Nadhmi Auchi.

Nadhmi Auchi

The Iraqi operator Nadhmi Auchi is the sort of rarefied sort of gentlemen you would normally come across in a spy novel. On the surface, Nadhmi Auchi is a business magnate, a dynamo philanthropist, and an honored citizen of many countries. As was explained by a former senior official of the Defense, State, and Commerce departments, John A. Shaw, Mr. Auchi made a name for himself as the international financier and arms dealer extraordinaire of Saddam Hussein. By 1980, Auchi was an asset of the British foreign intelligence service, MI6. (So multi-faceted is this billionaire mystery man that he has his own dedicated Wikileaks page.) Auchi and Tony Rezko were partners in real estate and pizza.

• Contemporary to the timeline of Obama’s political rise in Chicago, Auchi was building an influence operation one brick at a time in the very same city. His ties from the Middle East to America’s Midwest made his enterprise a conduit of Middle Eastern money into the United States of America.
• Shaw writes, “Nadhmi Auchi, despite his purchased respectability in England, was the financial eminence behind the Chicago-Arab combine, and the man who, with Rezko, helped invent Barack Obama as a political star.” Through Tony Rezko, his local bagman, Auchi financed and guided Obama (and Jarrett) into the Oval Office.
• While a large shareholder in BNP Paribas, Auchi was involved with the U.N. Oil-for-Food scandal, which was based on the sale of Iraqi oil.
• In 2004, Auchi was banned from entering the U.S. for scamming the Pentagon on an Iraqi cellular deal he helped broker. After securing rights to Iraq’s cellular services, Auchi went on to corner the market on power contracts for the post-war transition, as well.
• If Soros personifies the Progressive wing of Obama’s politics, it is Auchi that personifies the wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Auchi’s stances on litmus test issues tell who he is, politically speaking, in the Middle East. Auchi is anti-Semitic, and led support for the Turkish terror flotilla (an operation which ties him to Ayers, Dorhn, and Soros).
• It may seem an odd dichotomy that two people in low cost housing, Valerie Jarrett and Toni Rezko, and two artful and sophisticated investors, Auchi and Soros (both of whom are convicted of financial crimes in France), ushered Obama to the presidency. Yet each one of these individuals shares one lethal trait: they are masters at using government for their personal gain.
• Auchi has a history of suing his critics, and silencing those who cause too much trouble. His reputation as an aggressive litigator and someone who won’t hesitate to kill may have convinced journalist David Ignatius to think twice about disclosing his knowledge of Auchi’s activities. For instead of a nonfiction book, Ignatius did indeed pen a spy novel, The Bank of Fear, based on Auchi’s career.

Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said

Rashid Khalidi is an anti-Semitic professor and historian of Palestine. Khalidi is currently the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University. During their Chicago years, the Obamas were close friends with Khalidi and his wife, Mona. They were also friends with Edward Said, Khalidi’s mentor.

• Throughout the 1970s, when Khalidi taught at the University of Beirut, he routinely spoke on behalf of Yasser Arafat’s terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization.
• The Obamas and Khalidis have been friends for decades. When in Chicago, the Obamas regularly dined with the Khalidis.
• In 1998, the Obamas attended a banquet which featured Edward Said as the keynote speaker. Said, a Palestinian-American (now deceased), had long been a critic of the State of Israel, which he referred to as being in “illegal military occupation since 1967.”
• In 2000, the Khalidis held a fundraiser for Obama when he was running for Congress. The following year, the Woods Foundation (where Obama served as a Board member) donated $40,000 to Mona Khalidi’s charity.
• As one pro-Palestinian activist phrased it in 2008, when Obama’s views on Israel and Palestine were a subject of controversy: “I am confident that Barack Obama is more sympathetic to the position of ending the occupation than either of the other candidates.”

With the benefit of more than six years of hindsight, it is clear that Barack Hussein Obama (with the eager cooperation of Secretary of State John Kerry) has been the most anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian president in United States history.

Conclusion

A man does not become President of the United States without very high powered connections. Usually these connections are accumulated through a long career of public service, whether in the U.S. Congress, Executive, or on the state level. Obama rose to the Presidency after serving a scant four years in the U.S. Senate, two of which were spent running for President. Prior to that, he served an unremarkable seven years in the Illinois State Senate.

Before launching his political career in the living room of American anarchists, Obama was a community-organizing lawyer for progressive groups. Among them was ACORN, which was instrumental in creating the housing bubble.

With such little authentic biography available, we are forced to define Obama by his friends. They include financial and political manipulators and fixers, corrupt businessmen and international criminals, card-carrying Communists and FBI-identified enemies of the state, terrorists foreign and domestic, and their academic apologists.

Part VI will conclude The Betrayal Papers with a look at the various interconnected schemes of the above-named Obama associates.

The Betrayal Papers is a collaborative effort by the Coalition of Concerned Citizens, which includes: Andrea Shea King, Dr. Ashraf Ramelah, Benjamin Smith, Brent Parrish, Charles Ortel, Denise Simon, Dick Manasseri, Gary Kubiak, Gates of Vienna, IQ al Rassooli, Jeff Bayard, Leslie Burt, Marcus Kohan, General Paul E. Vallely, Regina Thomson, Scott Smith, Terresa Monroe-Hamilton, Colonel Thomas Snodgrass, Trever Loudon, Wallace Bruschweiler, and William Palumbo.

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My Father Was Gay. Why I Oppose Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage.

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Photo Credit: Daily Signal

Photo Credit: Daily Signal

It took me decades to come to my views on same-sex “marriage” in light of my personal experiences.

From infancy, I was unwittingly identified under the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual (GLBT) umbrella. During the first 30 years of my life, I garnered many personal, social and professional experiences with my father, whom I always loved, and his partners. My father, a successful executive recruiter, taught me a strong business ethic.

My Childhood

I was exposed to a lot of expressed sexuality in the home and subcultures. I experienced uncountable losses. Gender was supposed to be boundless; yet, I did not see my father and his partners valuing, loving and affirming women. My father’s preference for one gender (male) created an inner sense of inequality for me.

As a dependent child and teen, I was not allowed to say anything that would hurt the feelings of the adults around me. If I did, I could face ostracism or worse. During my twenties, I achieved both academic and career goals, but for a long while, I denied the impact my childhood had had and lied to protect my father and his partners.

In 1991, my father died of AIDS. None of my father’s partners/ex-partners are still alive. (Read more from “My Father Was Gay. Why I Oppose Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage.” HERE)

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Funding Fight Against Obama’s Executive Amnesty 2.0 [+video]

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Photo Credit: Eric Gay/AP

Photo Credit: Eric Gay/AP

We are now witnessing the predictable outcome of yet another GOP cave on Obama’s amnesty. With promises of ‘no illegal left behind’ in Obama’s inexorable pursuit of amnesty, yet another wave of illegal immigrants from Central America are teaming across the southern border.

According to the Washington Times, thanks to improving weather, the number of illegal aliens crossing the border from Central America has risen to the highest level since last summer. And despite claims to the contrary, not all of them are the next rocket scientists.

Border agents have arrested dangerous individuals, including sex offenders, gang members, and suspicious foreign nationals from the Middle East. With no effective border fence in place in most of the border sectors, how many more security threats have entered undetected?

But the situation is much worse than the porous border.

Without much media attention or backlash from congressional Republicans, Obama has just implemented another major executive amnesty program. Not satisfied with the number of Central American children crossing our border, Obama is now abusing our refugee program to categorically invite in thousands of children into our country on the taxpayer’s dime. With 75% of refugees on food stamps, we already have a systemically broken system. Now Obama is using the refugee program to ensconce his broader open borders/amnesty agenda. (Read more from “Funding Fight Against Obama’s Executive Amnesty 2.0” HERE)

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Indiana’s ‘Fix’ Gives Religious-Liberty Haters A New Weapon [+video]

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shutterstock_210349615-998x681The legislative “fix” for the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) should have been rejected, not passed by the Indiana Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Mike Pence, as it was on Thursday. The original law did not need to be fixed. The changes distort the law to predetermine (or, should I say, “fix”) the winners and losers in advance in cases when people get sued under discrimination laws. The thinking behind the Indiana “fix” wrongly assumes that discrimination laws are never used improperly to punish dissenters or to force them to communicate messages they don’t approve.

The original Indiana RFRA passed earlier in the week protects people, because it allows people to raise their religious beliefs as a defense—a defense that the court would weigh against the particular state interest at issue in a specific case by using the state RFRA’s four-part test. This four-part test filters legitimate religious claims from phony or extreme ones, granting exemptions only to those claims that pass all four parts. What the original Indiana RFRA (the one enacted before the “fix”) did not do was grant the religious believer total immunity in all conflicts with state law. It, like all the other state RFRAs and the federal RFRA, does not allow a person to get away with anything simply by saying, “My religion made me do it.”

The Indiana “fix” ruinously distorts the workings of the four-part test by prohibiting business owners from invoking their rights under the Indiana RFRA when someone sues the business for discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, etc. No one explained why every application of a nondiscrimination law should always prevail over a claim of religious conscience. Surely, the factual context of what happened in a particular case, what exactly was the charge of discrimination, and what religious belief the defendant asserts would make a difference as to who should prevail.

Not anymore. The Indiana “fix” means that, rather than courts weighing the religious complaint in light of the facts of the case, the new amendment stacks the deck in favor of the person filing the discrimination lawsuit. This new change unjustly deprives citizens their day in court, denies the claim for freedom a fair hearing, by rigging the system in advance. What kind of religious liberty is that? (Read more from “Indiana’s ‘Fix’ Gives Religious-Liberty Haters A New Weapon” HERE)

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Preaching Even When It’s “Out of Season”

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Preaching-priest-1160x480There is a paradox in the exhortation of Saint Paul in his second letter to Saint Timothy: “Preach the word; be diligent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” When “in season,” Christian preaching is plentiful, accepted and easy. It is in the “out of season” time, however, when it is rejected, that Christian preaching is most difficult and most needed.

Today, I will look at marriage as a case study involving huge social attitude changes over the past few years and the task we face in the future. I will look at mistakes that have been made, the impact that rapid changes in the social order have had on society and individuals and I will suggest an approach for preaching on marriage when it is “out of season.”

WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

Before 1997 the place of traditional marriage in the United States appeared assured. The sole controversy, and a brief one at that, was over polygamy in the 19th century when Congress allowed the admission of Utah as a state so long as it prohibited polygamy. In 1997, however, an Alaska judge ruled Alaska’s marriage law unconstitutional because it allowed only marriage between heterosexuals. Several Alaska legislators, in reaction to the court decision, proposed a constitutional amendment declaring simply that marriage in Alaska was between one man and one woman.

An organization was formed to campaign for a “yes” vote. The reaction of many to our efforts then was “why bother” with such a campaign. Support for traditional marriage was surely a no-brainer and the amendment would pass easily. Indeed, the opposition was lightly funded. There were a few newspaper ads by liberal clergy plus a letter-writing campaign and some opinion columns in the local newspaper, but little money. On election day 68 percent of voters approved the amendment and Alaska was the first in the country (and would soon be followed by 30 states through either legislation or the ballot box) to ensure that traditional marriage was the law of the state.

Fast-forward to today, a mere 17 years later. Everything has been reversed. The homosexual marriage movement is aggressive and well funded. State legislatures have enacted same-sex marriage laws; states which had adopted traditional marriage laws have reversed course; and, most importantly, the judiciary has moved aggressively to trump any democratic decision by the people, imposing homosexual marriage on the nation by judicial fiat. Polls show the rapid change in public attitude, leading many public leaders to “evolve” from their previous support of traditional marriage and follow the new trend.

Now the liberty of individuals, business and churches is being challenged. Laws have been enacted and more have been proposed in the name of tolerance to suppress any objection to same-sex behavior. Those who support traditional marriage or disapprove of homosexual activities, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church does, are labeled bigots. In a world turned upside down, a no brainer in 1998 is bigotry in 2015.

SILENCE HAS CONSEQUENCES

This brings me to the second part of this case study. In 2012 Anchorage residents had to vote on a ballot initiative that aimed to enshrine sexual orientation as a prohibited discrimination classification to the Anchorage civil rights law, placing it on the level of race and religion. Proponents, who gathered thousands of signature to place the proposal before voters, falsely claimed that churches would be unaffected by the change. Ten days before the election, the polling margin of those in support of the change shrank from over 20 points to just 9 points in favor. Then on election day the initiative was voted down by a 14-point margin — a 23-point switch in just 10 days.

As this case illustrates, we see rapid and contradictory shifts in public attitudes on issues involving legal acceptance of homosexual behavior. A vital factor has been the relentless pressure of post-modern culture. The culture has vigorously adopted a libertarian view of sex, totally divorced from and opposed to traditional standards of sexual responsibility and fidelity, which was accompanied by a clear set of rules passed on from generation to generation. We, and particularly our children, have been bombarded with a broken notion of sexuality dressed up as liberation.

But homosexual “marriage” is not, by itself, what is destroying marriage. Homosexual marriage merely contributes to the rapid deconstruction of society’s most basic institution. Consider the changes that have long been underway. In 1970, 95 percent of all births were to married couples — last year that had dropped to only 59 percent. Less than half of all kids today (46 percent) live with traditional married parents in their first marriage, down from 73 percent in 1960.

Let me issue an indictment against the churches, the Catholic Church in particular. I can count on the fingers of one hand the times I have heard a homily on marriage or the Christian principles of sexuality in the last 40 years. In truth, the debate over marriage was conceded to the post-modern culture by simply not showing up. We have been living on accumulated moral capital, assuming it would hold, only to see it run out. The silence has had severe negative consequences. In the public sphere it is difficult for the laity to make the case for the church’s teaching on marriage and the family.

More importantly, the failure to transmit Christian moral teaching is a disaster for family and social life. The devastating impact falls on children for whom the family is created in order to provide stability and transmit to them spiritual life.

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

It has been my privilege for the last 26 years to be on the board of Covenant House Alaska, an international Catholic charity for runaway and thrown-away youth ages 13 to 20. Most of these youth have never had parents to teach and mentor them for adulthood. They don’t know how to be parents, but someday they will be and their children will grow up without having acquired that spiritual life which is so necessary for the healthy life of families and nations.

We have a brand new building for our at-risk youth, but it can’t heal the culture that they come from. Preaching on marriage and fidelity, however, can reach people who are aware — thanks to their lived experience — that the culture’s promise of glamour and happiness is false.

For the larger picture, I am pessimistic. There is no standard today by which rival moral claims can be judged. Our modern culture has divorced faith from reason and eliminated the transcendent as the final standard, leaving reason as the sole means of coming to any moral agreement. Although the moral language used today sounds like the old moral tradition, the words have been emptied of their former meaning. Moral decisions — if you can still call them that — are made by autonomous individuals. All that is left to resolve public moral disputes is power, including, the fiat of an activist judiciary and, to suppress dissent, the use of law and public pressure.

ABUSE OF POWER

As you know, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide the marriage question sometime this summer. Overwhelmingly, the federal courts, including in Alaska, have ruled against traditional marriage. It is likely the U.S. Supreme Court will decide 5 to 4 that traditional marriage laws are unconstitutional because they violate the equal protection clause.

Equal protection became part of the Constitution in 1868 as part of the 14th Amendment, one of the three reconstruction amendments adopted after the Civil War. Congress enacted a Civil Rights Act to outlaw the black codes adopted by southern states to isolate and deny rights to the newly freed slaves. Congress feared that the law would be found unconstitutional as beyond the power of the federal government, hence the 14th Amendment.

The Equal Protection clause is now 147 years old. Only in the last few years have some imagined that it now or ever could be used to redefine civil marriage to include same-sex couples. The Constitution has been reduced to an historical document. It has nothing to do with constitutional law today. So the Constitution is created, re-created, changed and altered beyond description by five unelected lawyers. With this case you have four liberals on one side and four conservatives on the other. The fifth vote is Anthony Kennedy who has been the leader in this revolution.

A PREACHER’S POWER

Despite the long odds, there remains a sliver of optimism. Earlier, I described the swift, unexpected changes in public consensus surrounding the Anchorage sexual orientation ballot initiative. Two significant things happened just before that election day in 2012. The archbishop of Anchorage wrote a letter to all parishes along with a newspaper column that carefully explained the church’s position and the dangers that the sexual orientation initiative posed to religious liberty. After the election people told him that he had clarified the issue for them. They believed the ballot measure was wrong but couldn’t express why. Proponents had repeatedly claimed that sexual orientation discrimination was the new civil rights issue. Just before the election, eight prominent black pastors held a news conference. They denied that this issue had any connection with the historic civil rights movement and urged a “no” vote. People still listen to religious leaders. But you can’t influence minds if you don’t speak.

The laity fit in by engaging the culture in the myriad of ways, in ordinary professional and family life and in the public sphere. I would add another duty — pester your pastors. Tell them we need and want preaching on the family, sexuality, responsibility and fidelity. It works. Recently one of our great friars at Holy Family Cathedral in Anchorage preached on the family. I complimented him and he said he remembered my complaint about hearing little such preaching in the last 40 years.

So I end where I began: “Preach the word; be diligent in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.” (See “Preaching Even When It’s “Out of Season” HERE)

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Obama Screws the World with #IranDeal: “If You Like Your Nukes You Can Keep Them” [+videos]

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IranThere is something surreal about the media and the far-left tearing up our nation the past two weeks over the right to force religious business-owners to bake a cake, for example, for gay marriages. Meanwhile, their ideological leader, Barack Obama, has just forged a deal with the most genocidal and regressive regime that will pave the road for them to build a nuclear bomb and afford them more latitude to fund and export global terror – unencumbered by sanctions that have been in place for years. For the Left, it’s all about priorities.

While the media and Obama will continue to try to sell a different story in an attempt to paint the deal as one of Obama’s biggest ‘achievements,’ here is what the mainstream media isn’t reporting about the deal:

• Allows Iran to keep reactors, centrifuges, and infrastructure: No existing nuclear reactors or centrifuges will have to be dismantled. All of Iran’s activities will continue at their main facilities in Natanz, Fordow, Isfahan and Arak. Iran will keep its entire base infrastructure. In return, all the sanctions will be removed, granting Iran more economic breathing room to help develop a bomb and proliferate terror. Obama claims: “if Iran cheats we will know it,” but the only way we will know it is when it’s too late. And at that point, the decision to reinstate sanctions is in the hands of the UN Security Council, which means that there is no incentive for Iran to comply with the deal. Russia will never agree to reinstate sanctions.

Iran will be allowed to maintain its underground Iranian enrichment facility in Ferdo with 1,000 centrifuges spinning. According to the terms of the deal as espoused by the White House, those centrifuges must only spin non-nuclear materials, which will be almost impossible to verify in the long-run once they are allowed to keep all the nuclear infrastructure spinning and operating in a bunker. As late as 2012, Obama said “we know they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordo in order to have a peaceful program.”

[Author David Horowitz was interviewed on The Joe Miller Show and talked about endemic problems in the US political system]

In an Orwellian twist, Iran will rename the facility the “nuclear physics and technology center.” This facility was originally built in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970. Now it will be allowed to develop far more advanced centrifuges than it currently holds.

• Obama goes back on his promise to dismantle Arak: Obama also said in the past that the Iranians “certainly don’t need a heavy-water reactor at Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program.” Well, the Arak facility will be intact, even according to the White House’s version of the agreement.

• The Fox Guarding the Henhouse: One of the selling points of the agreement from last Thursday was that Iran would have to surrender its current stockpiles of enriched uranium. But those stockpiles would have to be shipped to….Russia! They are the biggest supplier of Iran’s nuclear program. Now, Iran is denying that they agreed to surrender their uranium at all.

• Terrorism and threat to Israel: There is not one word in this agreement about Iran’s appalling sponsorship of terror. In fact, this agreement, and the legitimacy and economic benefits that are bestowed upon Iran therein, implicitly blesses and enables them to continue building Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal.

Obama said that “if Israel were to be attacked by any state, that we would stand by them.” The problem is that Israel will likely be attacked with rockets from the north by Hezbollah, which is not a state (although they are supplied and trained by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard). Obama chose his words carefully because we all know that he would be the first world leader to condemn Israel for counter-attacking Hezbollah, much like he did with Israel’s campaign against Hamas last summer. In fact, Iran is already restocking Hamas with rockets and materials to rebuild their network of terror tunnels. Not to mention, Hezbollah’s leader voiced his support for the deal, rightfully noting that it will help them in their struggle against Israel. Obama also rejected Netanyahu’s request that Iran be forced to recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of the agreement to lift sanctions.

• Conventional Weapons: There is absolutely no mention in the framework of Iran’s continued development of long-range ballistic missiles or ICBMs. In fact, they have continued to test long rage missiles throughout the entire duration of the negotiations. The relief in sanctions will only grant Iran more resources to continue developing their military assets, which will not only threaten Israel but Europe and the U.S. as well.

Taken as a whole, this deal will allow Iran to keep all of its nuclear infrastructure and come within arm’s length of the breakout point by the time the deal expires. And this all assumes that they will allow in the weapons inspectors and comply even with the cosmetic changes to their nuclear program. In reality, once the sanctions are taken off in such spectacular fashion, there will be no incentive for them to comply with anything, much like the North Koreans did in the ‘90s. It’s akin to the deals of ‘amnesty now, promises of security later’ or ‘tax increases now in return for spending cuts later.’

Furthermore, the Iranians are refusing to recognize the White House talking points on the agreement and have made it clear that their version of the agreement is a national victory for their country. They actually have their own version of the tentative agreement circulating domestically in Persian. This means that the agreement is worthless because Iran will pocket the relief on sanctions but never agree to any of the supposed accountability measures in the White House’s version of the framework.

It is clear that the entire dog and pony show at Lausanne last week was designed by the White House and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif to serve as a dilatory tactic to block sanctions indefinitely. If there is this much public ambiguity over the details of the framework, one can only imagine what Obama has told the Iranians privately in order to secure the support of Ayatollah Khamenei.

In short, Obama has essentially told the Iranian Mullahs that if they like their nukes, long range missiles, and terror networks they can keep them. No wonder the Iranians are declaring victory.

The time for Congress to act is now. (See “#IranDeal: If You Like Your Nukes You Can Keep Them”, originally posted HERE)

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I Was WRONG About Same-Sex Marriage [+videos]

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SorryBy John Zmirak. President Obama, and each of the Clintons, has made a public statement parallel to my own on this volatile topic, so I stand in illustrious company as I say it: I wish to reverse my previous public statements on same-sex marriage. The progress of law, the statements and actions of gay advocates, and the movement of public opinion have rendered my old views repugnant to me, and I now I offer a full and public retraction. Thanks to the hard work of Apple, Walmart, and the national media, I have changed my mind on same sex marriage.

I now oppose it.


Less than two years ago, I wrote that conservatives and Christians probably ought to chalk up the legal battle for natural marriage as lost, and offer a “grand compromise.” Instead of relying on valid, truthful, but unpopular arguments from nature, tradition and the well-being of children to stop the progress of same-sex marriage, I thought that we should switch to arguments from freedom of association. We should agree to allow same-sex couples in each of the 50 states the benefits of the tenuous, temporary sex contract that “marriage” had become in the wake of no-fault divorce — but only if we received two important concessions in return:

1. Laws permitting “covenant marriages” in each of those states, granting couples who wished it access to the protections that covered marriage and the family circa 1940 — when divorce was hard to obtain in most American states, and only for provable cause such as physical abuse, abandonment or adultery. The same arguments from individual liberty that would permit same-sex couples to obtain flimsy, secular marriages must allow couples to contract more durable bonds, if they chose to. The state that would enforce the gay contract (a) should be willing to likewise enforce “covenant” contract (b).

2. Repeal of laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation — which otherwise would impose a crushing burden on religious believers in particular, violating their freedom of association.

I thought that such a compromise might end the legal battle, and even strengthen marriage, provided that:

3. Christian churches rallied to defend marriage within their own denominations. As a Catholic, I thought that my church could light the way by tightening up its own treatment of marriage — demanding extensive religious instruction for couples who wanted to marry in church; insisting that wherever “covenant marriages” were available they must contract them; and making annulments (Catholic declarations that a marriage had never existed) much, much harder to get.

Well, wasn’t I a prophet?

As things turned out, the Supreme Court instead of the voters will dictate same-sex marriage, as it dictates everything else of importance in our democracy. The only question remaining is how many Republican appointees will vote like Democrats. So Christians and conservatives have no horse to trade.

Nor do many libertarians — with honorable exceptions such as John Stossel — really seem to give a hoot about freedom of association. At least when it comes to Christians trying to run religious schools or make a living in peace, rather than pot dealers grooving with their clients.

Nor does my own church seem likely to tighten up the sacrament of marriage — not when powerful cardinals such as the head of the German bishops’ conference are threatening schism if they don’t get approval for de facto Catholic divorce.

So I was wrong about everything. Let’s pause to analyze why. I think the central reason is that Americans are not nearly as concerned about real liberty as they pretend to be. People are not switching their opinions on same sex marriage because they have suddenly realized that freedom of contract is implied by a view of human freedom that they consider sacred.

Far from it. Instead, they have been convinced by a two-decades-long barrage of TV programs and Facebook status updates that gay couples aren’t “gross” and “weird,” but “charming,” and “sometimes really funny.” Meanwhile, Christians and others who object to such sexual practices are no longer normal and sensible, but “bigoted” and “mean.” So Americans want the government to promote, using its full coercive power, the presumed interests of the charming funny people at the expense of the scowling killjoys.

Once the moral status of homosexual behavior has been surrendered, it’s easy, if you don’t think too hard, to smoosh together the moral objections to that behavior with the old-time visceral loathing that racists felt toward “race-mixing.” And how concerned should we be with the rights of bigots, anyway? They should be reluctantly, barely tolerated, so long as they don’t frighten the horses. And the state really should protect their kids from imbibing their hateful views.

To abandon the argument on the moral merits of homosexual relationships, as I foolishly advocated, is to freely accept the position of disenfranchised crank in today’s America. And given Americans’ very tenuous grasp on the meaning of freedom, such a position isn’t safe.

So I think we should support “religious freedom” bills as a last-ditch firewall against gay totalitarianism, though this issue is not just about religion; but it’s much more important for those who value marriage to rally their forces and try again to convince the public of the meaning of natural marriage. Our opponents started selling their argument three decades ago, and they’ve largely succeeded. That’s proof that effecting a fundamental change of mind on core issues is possible. So is the growing acceptance of pro-life views among college students. It’s past time that we launched a counter-offensive of real truth and real love. We have the advantage of nature and reason on our side, and every day, we have fresh evidence of what same-sex “marriage” does to children and to a free society.

We will probably need to launch a campaign for a constitutional amendment to ratify the truth about marriage, at least as a focal point. That might seem quixotic, but remember how quickly things change: Ten years ago, Democratic candidates didn’t feel safe advocating same-sex marriage. Now Indiana pizza makers cannot feel safe opposing it. To assume that this change is irreversible “progress” is simply to surrender, and hope for toleration inside a poorly-defended ghetto.

To put it briefly and starkly: In the fight against gay totalitarianism, we need to get back to critiquing the “gay” part. It’s an easier sell. Too many Americans have a soft spot for totalitarianism. (See “I Was Wrong About Same-Sex Marriage”, originally posted HERE)

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#HitlerReacts To Denied #GayWeddingCake

By Louder With Crowder. Listen, here at LouderWithCrowder.com we hate comparisons to Nazis as much as the next guy. Especially Hitler. But this recent deal with bakeries, pizzerias and religious freedom has created a line in the sand. When people want the government to be able to tell its citizens exactly HOW they should do business… or be allowed to put them out of business… that’s the definition of fascism. It’s that simple? Where do you line up?

(Read more from this story HERE)

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A Veteran Commits Suicide Every 65 Minutes: Paws4Warriors Attempts To Provide Relief [+video]

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Paws4Warriors4-PRINTHow many of these soldiers could be assisted by forming a bond with their own service dog? Common sense and multiple studies show service animals have a tremendously positive impact on the recovery and happiness of those individuals in need. Service dogs are now even provided for many prisoners, yet soldiers are denied service dogs en masse upon their return.

Labpups.com and Paws4Warriors.org have now teamed up to offer some immediate relief for many of those veterans that have been denied service dogs by the Administration.

Buried deep in the woods, and yet in city limits, Labpups.com has multiple lineages of non-hyper Family Labradors that have been three decades in the making. They also have a ten acre farm, complete with state of the art kennels, horseback riding, three houses consisting of 11 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, and a full garden.

Veteran Dominic Davila, after being severely injured by an IED under his Humvee, spent years in the hospital, recovering from loss of limb, TBI and other complications caused by the sudden detonation. Dominic knows only too well what his own service dog meant to him during the dark hours of recovery.

Wanting to give a hand up to fellow soldiers, he has founded Paws4Warriors, a non-profit (status applied for) organization located in Charlotte, NC in order to facilitate raising and matching service Labradors with wounded veterans.

The farm will provide temporary shelter for many veterans, allowing them to stay and participate in the training of their own Labradors, while volunteering to clean kennels and participate in activities such as horseback riding, gardening, or just talking around the fire pit.

While Labpups.com will donate everything possible to this ambitious program, including their lineages, training, and some land, Paws4Warriors has a need for immediate funding for handicap access ramps, buying out the mortgage, supplies for Labradors and veterans, and a host of other items. They have started an Indiegogo campaign, to commence on April 6th at 2:30 pm Eastern time, and are attempting to raise enough funds to take the over the entire farm within the next 40 days. They need your help.

Paws4Warriors can’t spill the beans yet on the first approved recipient, but that in itself will be another amazing story.

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A veteran commits suicide almost once an hour. Check out the links below to help stop these tragedies:

Paws4Warriors FB https://www.facebook.com/paws4warriors?fref=ts
Labpups.com FB https://www.facebook.com/LABPUPSDOTCOM?fref=ts
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/paws-4-warriors/x/10437783

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A City on a Hill, If You Can Keep It

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CThe history behind the religious observances known as Passover and Easter are not just foundational to the Jewish and Christian faiths, but also to the founding of the United States of America.

The story of the Passover displays the awesome power of the one, true living God in whose image we are made. Through a series of plagues He inflicts upon the tyrannical kingdom of Egypt and its pagan pantheon, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob demonstrates that He alone is God—and there is no other. That the state is not god, despite Pharaoh’s claims to the contrary, nor are the false idols the state demands the people worship.

To make plain His sovereignty, the God of Israel selects a defrocked member of the Egyptian court, who is now a lowly shepherd because he defied the state and stood up for his fellow Jew, to be His people’s deliverer.

His name is Moses.

Since Pharaoh refuses to obey God’s command to “let my people go” throughout the course of the plagues, God raises the stakes on the stubborn and wicked Egyptian government. After many years of shedding innocent Jewish blood, even decreeing forced abortions to keep the Israelite population down, the oppressive Egyptian regime faces a reckoning. So God sends a plague of death on the first-born sons of Egypt as justice for their mass murder and enslavement of the Jews.

For their own protection, the Jews are instructed to paint their doorposts with the sacrificial blood of a precious lamb, which was an animal that signified innocence. That way, the plague would “pass over” the Jewish families and spare them from the judgment. This is the plague that finally breaks Pharaoh’s will, and he agrees to allow the Israelites to leave.

There is more to the story, but once their “exodus” is complete the Jews are finally free.

However, even a free people need order. So God gives Moses “the law” beginning with the “Ten Commandments.” This is how the Jews will live so that they will be a light to all nations. Modeling the character, holiness, mercy, and justice of God to the rest of the world as His covenant people.

It is from this story the founding generations of this country established what our Declaration of Independence refers to as “the laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” In fact, the original basis for our civic laws comes right from the law revealed through Moses:

1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
Every state Constitution mentions and thanks God for its existence, freedom, or both.

2. You shall not make idols.
The state is not god. Only God is God. Therefore, the state cannot establish a religion, nor restrict it.

3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
The name of God is so sacred, we make every elected official swear an oath of integrity and loyalty “so help me God.” A reminder that by betraying your promise to your countrymen, you’re really betraying God.

4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Days of remembrance (Saturday for Jews, Sunday for Christians, religious holidays, observances, etc.) are protected and made accessible by law.

5. Honor your father and your mother.
Parents were the ultimate arbiter of how best to raise, educate, and prepare their children to become adults. Only in extreme situations would the state interfere.

6. You shall not murder.
The “unalienable” right to life mentioned in the Declaration of Independence.

7. You shall not commit adultery.
The civil law so revered the sacrament of marriage that it originally criminalized sexual behavior outside of the marriage covenant.

8. You shall not steal.
Private property rights were protected by law.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Perjury is a crime. We even impeached a president for it.

10. You shall not covet.
You don’t have a “right” to that which you didn’t earn and doesn’t belong to you, but instead have the same opportunity to succeed and fail in our meritocracy as everyone else does.

Then there’s Easter, which is so integral to Christianity there isn’t Christianity without it.

Either the God of Israel supernaturally intervened into human history to raise from the dead His only begotten Son named Jesus Christ, himself a Jew, or He did not. Christianity leaves no middle ground for interpretation here, but simply puts the onus on each individual to believe or not believe based on the evidence (faith and reason).

Making each individual responsible for their belief or unbelief demonstrates how individualism is prioritized in Christianity. While the Jews were given a covenant as a people reconciled to God as a distinct culture, Christianity says every individual in the world can now be reconciled to God through Christ—who paid for their sins at the Cross. No matter where they live, how they look, or what language they speak.

As the lamb’s blood once protected the Jews from God’s wrath at the Passover, Christ has become the “the lamb of God.” God has shed the blood of His own son to atone for our sins that separated us from Him (what Christians refer to as “Good Friday”). Thus protecting us from the judgment we deserve. As a result, a relationship between individual believer and the most powerful being in the universe is now possible.

The emphasis Christianity places on the individual was a great influence on our Founders, many of whom were Christians. Hence, they established a government where rights and liberties were granted by God to individuals, not through a collective like government, and were not based on a group identity or social status.

Both Passover and Easter prove the God we serve is not a passive being, nor does He turn a blind eye to sin and injustice. That He will go to great lengths to put rebellious regimes in their place, but also to seek and save those who are lost. These two events are not merely religious theory, but actual history that transformed the world and inspired the founding of the world’s greatest nation—the United States of America.

And we will suffer consequences for abandoning these truths. As the great Puritan Founder John Winthrop said in his famous “City on a Hill” speech, citing the words of Moses from the Torah:

“But if our hearts shall turn away so that we will not obey. But shall be seduced and worship other gods of our pleasures and profits and serve them, it is propounded to us this day we shall surely perish out of the good land whether we pass over this vast sea to possess it. Therefore, let us choose life that we and our children may live. By obeying His law and cleaving to Him. For He is our life and our prosperity.” (See “A City on a Hill, If You Can Keep It”, originally posted HERE)

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America Is in REAL Danger and You’ll Never Guess Who’s to Blame

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Photo Credit: Politichicks

Photo Credit: Politichicks

An ABC News & Washington Post poll showed that the majority of Americans support a nuclear deal with Iran. The poll demonstrated that Americans were willing to welcome a deal that restricts Iran’s nuclear ambitions in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. In addition to this finding, according to the report, “Nearly six in 10 say they are not confident that a deal will prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.”

However, these issues are not what has the United States of America, in real danger, it’s the following information that sent alarm bells ringing. A Pew Research Center survey released on Monday showed that only 62 percent of the public believes Congress, and not the President, should have final authority in establishing a treaty with Iran. If that does not alarm you let me explain a little more what that means.

The power to grant treaties with foreign nations is one specifically outlined in the U.S. Constitution and it was made clear that no one person could create such a treaty. While it is true the President takes the lead role in establishing a relationship and treaty with foreign nations, it is equally true that any document he or she draws up must then be reviewed by the Senate. The Senate, after reviewing the document, will give advice for changes or by a two thirds supermajority, approve the treaty. Any document not approved by the Senate is not a binding treaty with the United States but merely an executive agreement…powerless beyond the Presidents sphere of influence. (Read more from “America Is in REAL Danger (and It’s America’s Fault)” HERE)

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