Why America's Christians Are Under a Carnal Funk

We live in a nation of comfort and security like no nation the world has ever known. We are set apart geographically so that no other nation is necessarily looking down our throat while pounding at the door. Under such conditions we have become very comfortable soaking in all the wonderful things around us but especially material things and fleshly comforts. If you have ever wondered why the spiritual gifts of God and healings do not manifest themselves so widely in America you need not look any farther than the degree to which we are anchored in our flesh.
We in all truth are not maximizing our spiritual freedom. We have choices and we are not making the right choices and I'm refering to true Christians if you want to be known as a true Christian. In all truth the kingdom of God that is in America should be an evangelizing machine. Christian America should be sending armies of missionaries around the world not just groups here and there. The reason we have lost our spirituality or the power of it is because we are not doing what we should be doing choosing rather to live lives like the rest of the secular nation, coveting 2 or 3 cars, 500,000 dollar homes with ultra nice lawns and various accoutrements.
They say we use only 10% of our brain but we surely use much less of our spiritual connection to God only because we have allowed the flesh to take up the rest. The miracles, healings and spiritual gifts that follow Christians are not following Christians in America and it is not because of some immutable destiny for ourselves that we can not avoid it, it is because we have not chosen the life that yields the fruit of real spirituality.
Denominations have arisen bordering on religious cults that have in the name of "life in America" neutered the power of God in our lives for the sake of a more comfortable fleshly peace without real spiritual commitment. What we are left with is spiritually dry lives.
The truth is this: If you are living a life given over to the comforts and fleshly concerns of this world you will not be spiritually fit to manifest the true spiritual power of God and no representative or representatives of God should be lowering the standard of God or what God offers us because they themselves have chosen a religious lifestyle leaving themselves out of shape to live up to it. Churches that promote this very surrender encompass and permeate this land from coast to coast. We are wrapped in a web of encouragment toward spiritual underperformance and our land is reaping the consequences in our secular decent. It is at the core a spiritual war.

In the end you get WHAT YOU GAVE AWAY. That truth is not truly alive in us. It is not in our hearts but is in dire danger of being lost from our conscience and we should be very fearful that it already has been lost enmasse. None of this is comfortable to hear but it is what we need to hear. Each of us who are Christians have known this within our spirits at one time or another and I believe we have a certain lack of the peace we should have because of it and it is not a peace of inaction but the deepest peace you receive when you fully know before God that you are doing what you should be doing.
The Christian leadership of America is not doing in totality what it should be doing. It is soaking up the great life of America, preaching at every turn that you have a right to enjoy it all. In short the prosperity doctrine should be replaced with the missionary doctrine. The goal of your life as a Christian should be to get as many people saved as possible working one on one or in groups. This is why I do not have the deeper peace that I should have in my life and I know it. I have seen myself caught up in the thorns of life and I know so many others are caught up in the acquisition of property and material things with debt keeping you desperately "concerned" with the things of this life. Christians need not and should have not been encouraged in this direction. The prosperity doctrine has led so many into the mentality that binds them into this trap.

My great hope is in the freedom we still have to do the right thing. America should be an evangelizing machine. Becoming a Christian should be like commiting your life to military service but instead commiting your life to an evangelizing endeavor that is vibrant and active in sending Christians out and abroad. Being a Christian should be an activist experience and we will not know the true peace of God until we are in this experience.

It is really odd. You would think it would be like this. The word of God conveys this kind of urgency. Sometimes I just wonder how it is everybody got settled in to the way it is now. We have the largest secular society the world has ever seen with the most dispersion of decadent materials the world has ever seen and literally sees daily.
Do you think we as Christians have done everything the right way?

Would Jesus Christ Support Obamacare?

Jesus would support assisting the poor with desperately needed help so, yes, Jesus would support Obamacare.  He must wonder now how some of His followers could turn such a cold shoulder to low-income families and the poor. Jesus supported paying taxes to the brutal and decadent Roman Empire that demanded it's citizens worship it's leader as God. How pathetic the rightwingers and Tea Partiers must look to Him now when they have a much more benevolent government with the most checks and balances to government power the world has ever seen. Actually He doesn't wonder, He clearly sees that the religious right & Tea Partiers in the midst of prosperity and comfort have substituted their market god for Him.

It's something about the parable of the sheep and the goats. And those of the religious right who thought they were on the spiritual right will say but when did we see You suffering from cancer or heart disease because You could not get help. When did we see You dying or Your family dying because medical coverage was too high and when did we see You losing your home because of medical bankruptcy. Then He will say: You did not see it because you were too concerned about your money, your tax cuts and your market ideology that serves yourself. You did not see it because in your heart you substituted that for Me.

Jesus Christ is about loving people.. He is about bringing salvation to those that will receive it and helping the poor and those in need demonstrating the love of God. He encourages government and it's responsible application and we should accept that our misplaced priorities are no exuse for not doing what we should be doing. When you oppose healthcare help for others YOU are ignoring them as did the goats. When you support healthcare help for others YOU are helping them. You're decision makes the difference in their lives. It's not about politics, it's about people, even the least of us.

Occupy WallStreet - Turn It On Again!

Here it is. Do you see the hope of a nation?
Go to the core of K street where reform of Congress begins and the struggle for the soul of a nation proceeds.

O youth, turn us back from desolation
and till the soil of this stony heart
so that the love of God may spring forth again.

Let us evangelize to salvation and reform toward manifesting the kingdom of God.

Tax Cuts Do Not Equal Increased Revenue

The figures presented here come from the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO); Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The issue being discussed is the relationship between tax cuts, deficits, and revenue.
The benchmark that will be used is a percentage of the gross domestic product (GDP). This allows one to compare relevant figures, such as revenue and spending, in relation to the overall growth of the economy and allows for apples to apples comparisons. Since Reagan lowered taxes and Clinton raised them on the top 2%, I will use these two Presidents to illustrate my points


The claim was made that Reagan tax cuts almost doubled federal revenue over the following decade. When Reagan took office in 1980, individual tax revenue stood at 9% of GDP. That fell to 8% by 1988 when he left office. Corporate tax revenue fell from 2.4% of GDP to 1.9% during the same period. Total revenues for the government fell from 19% to 18.2% of GDP. Even though GDP grew from almost $3 to $5 trillion, government debt grew from 26.1% of GDP to 41%. What actually happened was that federal debt almost doubled, not revenue. The moral of this story: A thriving economy plus tax cuts equals less revenue and increased debt.

On the other hand, Clinton raised taxes on the top 2% of the population. In 1992, individual tax revenues were 7.6% of GDP and grew to 10.2% by 2000. For corporations, it was 1.6% and 2.1% respectively. Total revenues grew from 17.5% of GDP to 20.6%. GDP grew from $6 to almost $10 trillion but total government debt dropped from 48.1% of GDP to 34.7%. Taxes went up, revenue went up, and national debt went down. A thriving economy plus tax increases equals more revenue and less debt.

Revenue is one side of the coin, spending is the other. So how do these Presidents stack up on the spending side of the equation? The charge was made that spending tripled under Reagan because of the Democrats. At first blush, you must wonder if they held a gun to Reagan’s head to force him to sign all of that spending legislation. But what do the facts tell us? Did spending increases cancel the effect of Reagan’s tax cuts? Well, discretionary spending dropped from 10.1% of GDP to 9.3% under Reagan and from 8.6% to 6.3% under Clinton. Mandatory spending dropped from 10.7% of GDP to 10.1% under Reagan and from 11.5% to 10.5% under Clinton. Total spending dropped from 21.7% of GDP to 21.3% under Reagan and from 22.1% to 18.2% under Clinton. In other words, total spending dropped under both Presidents but only under Clinton did tax increases on the top 2% produce enough revenue to reduce the national debt — significantly.
Under both Presidents there was a thriving economy as measured by GDP growth. Both Presidents reduced both discretionary and mandatory spending. One cut taxes and one raised them. One President almost doubled the national debt and one actually reduced it. One President proved that tax cuts along with spending cuts do not reduce the debt. Conservatives can continue to spout the tax cut equals increased revenue manta all they want but they lack an understanding of economic reality. They can continue to beat the drum that tax cuts coupled with reduced spending will reduce the debt but economic history is not on their side.

Jim Fitzgerald

One readers comment:

You, my friend, are being logical and that is your mistake.
(Excuse my use of the second person, but you’ll see it’s use as a rhetorical device that’s central to conservative thought.)
You are assuming that the costs and benefits being referred to apply to the same entities. In conservative land that’s never the case. When conservatives look at what the country owes, their perspective is entirely self-centered and the question they ask is “does what you (the country) owe benefit me?” Thus, the country’s debt is good when the interest on it is paid to “me and my cronies,” as a guaranteed tax-exempt unearned income, and it’s bad when the interest on it is paid into the Social Security Trust Fund as unearned income for people who paid in less than they get out. In conservative accounting, any time you get a benefit, it’s a cost to “me” simply because I didn’t get it. Moreover, in the conservative world view, not having one’s expectations satisfied registers as deprivation. That’s because one person benefitting from another’s cost is the norm.
It’s a matter of perspective. Liberals get confused because the conservative habit of framing a discussion as “objective” is a pretense which involves the substitution of the object of their envy for themselves. The real purpose of their nattering is to get benefits for themselves that they haven’t earned — i.e. at your cost. But, of course, they’re not going to admit that.

Interesting.

Fundamentalist Christianity: Look At Yourself

What evangelist/songwriter Keith Green wrote years ago now comes to pass in the generation that bears the fruit of what he called self-centered Christianity. He believed that when someone becomes a Christian under the modern prosperity themed "bless me richly Lord" preaching, the kind that permeates so many fundamentalist churchs today, that person will seldom bring forth the true fruits of a real convert. "He will remain just as selfish as he always was, only now his selfishness will take on a religious form". Keith Green was talking primarily about the cheap fast track evangelical methods used to attract and get "numbers saved" and here the fruits of that method have been reaped with a definite self-centered fear-mongered church today that will preserve themselves whatever it takes whether it's supporting torture, supporting military invasion or pushing the purchasing of guns to defend oneself.
And since so much of today's preaching has taken believers away from depending on faith in God's protection exchanging it for a more fear based dependency on worldly channels of protection the politics have also followed suit. Green couldn't have been any more spot on about the fruits of prosperity themed preaching than what is written today in the following article:
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"Why Evangelicals Reject Jesus's Teachings"

The results from a recent poll published by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life reveal what social scientists have known for a long time: White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus. It is perhaps one of the strangest, most dumb-founding ironies in contemporary American culture. Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God and His Only Begotten Son at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message.

Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Jesus was very clear that the pursuit of wealth was inimical to the Kingdom of God, that the rich are to be condemned, and that to be a follower of Him means to give one's money to the poor. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of corporate greed and capitalistic excess, and they are the most opposed to institutional help for the nation's poor -- especially poor children. They despise food stamp programs, subsidies for schools, hospitals, job training -- anything that might dare to help out those in need. Even though helping out those in need was exactly what Jesus urged humans to do. In short, Evangelicals are that segment of America which is the most pro-militaristic, pro-gun, and pro-corporate, while simultaneously claiming to be most ardent lovers of the Prince of Peace.

What's the deal?

Before attempting an answer, allow a quick clarification. Evangelicals do love Jesus dearly, but not because of what he tried to teach humanity. Rather, Evangelicals love Jesus for what He does for them. Through His heavenly grace, and by shedding His precious blood, Jesus saves Evangelicals from everlasting torture in hell, and guarantees them a premium, luxury villa in heaven. For this, and this only, they love Him. They can't stop thanking Him. And yet, as for Jesus himself -- His core values of peace, His core teachings of social justice, His core commandments of goodwill -- most Evangelicals seem to have nothing but disdain.

And this is nothing new. At the end of World War I, the more rabid, and often less educated Evangelicals decried the influence of the Social Gospel amongst liberal churches. According to these self-proclaimed torch-bearers of a religion born in the Middle East, progressive church-goers had been infected by foreign ideas such as German Rationalism, Soviet-style Communism, and, of course, atheistic Darwinism. In the 1950s, the anti-Social Gospel message piggybacked the rhetoric of anti-communism, which slashed and burned its way through the Old South and onward through the Sunbelt, turning liberal churches into vacant lots along the way. It was here that the spirit and the body collided, leaving us with a prototypical Christian nationalist, hell-bent on prosperity. Charity was thus rebranded as collectivism and self-denial gave way to the gospel of accumulation. Church-to-church, sermon-to-sermon, evangelical preachers grew less comfortable with the fish and loaves Jesus who lived on earth, and more committed to the angry Jesus of the future. By the 1990s, this divine Terminator gained "most-favored Jesus status" among America's mega churches; and with that, even the mention of the former "social justice" Messiah drove the socially conscious from their larger, meaner flock.

In addition to such historical developments, there may very well simply be an underlying, all-too-human social-psychological process at root, one that probably plays itself out among all religious individuals: they see in their religion what they want to see, and deny or despise the rest. That is, religion is one big Rorschach test. People look at the content of their religious tradition -- its teachings, its creeds, its prophet's proclamations -- and they basically pick and choose what suits their own secular outlook. They see in their faith what they want to see as they live their daily lives, and simultaneously ignore the rest. And as is the case for most White Evangelical Christians, what they are ignoring is actually the very heart and soul of Jesus's message -- a message that emphasizes sharing, not greed. Peace-making, not war-mongering. Love, not violence.

Of course, conservative Americans have every right to support corporate greed, militarism, gun possession, and the death penalty, and to oppose welfare, food stamps, health care for those in need, etc. -- it is just strange and contradictory when they claim these positions as somehow "Christian." They aren't.

- Phil Zuckerman and Dan Cody
____________________________

How could the church have fallen so far? In short and blunt terms it intermingled the message of Jesus with the lust for money and it has been going on and is going on now. Young people today, more informed than previous generations and wiser to money's corruption are tragically rejecting Christianity because of this hypocrisy in the fundamentalist church that is so identified and entangled with the above rightwing politics. These political positions on issues much of the religious right church have fallen into today are clearly a shame and a detriment to the witness of Christianity and a slap in the face of the character of Jesus's teachings. And yes, it is also a disgrace before the kingdom of God that those calling themselves Christians would, in the name of their political ideology, so virulantly oppose desperately needed healthcare help for American families. And brothers and sisters, in the one nation with the most checks and balances on government power the world has ever seen.

Surely if a way can be found for the new healthcare reform to be accepted constitutionally, Christians above all people, should be pushing for that constitutionality, not straining at a knat to oppose it just as the pharisees strained at a knat to catch Jesus in violation of sabbath and other laws when he tried to help people. If court precedent can be found to make a way for the extention of God's love into the life of this land then shouldn't it be embraced? However some want to adhere to strict interpretation of the law of this land as if it was God's infallible word and that speaks volumes itself.

This example of repulsion to the the new healthcare law is just more evidence that some Christians are under bondage to a fearful and false anti-government political ideology. It is such a strong bondage that even when seeing many families losing their homes, their quality and dignity of life and then even their lives because of lack of healthcare these Christians still will not relent from the cult-like power of the false ideology, an ideology that has been elevated to the level of God where the diligence of faith walks hand in hand with political ideology and the pursuit of money has been inshrined with the pursuit of God so that there can be no question of fallability.

Here is an excerpt from the article which is most telling:

Quote:
"In the 1950s, the anti-Social Gospel message piggybacked the rhetoric of anti-communism, which slashed and burned its way through the Old South and onward through the Sunbelt, turning liberal churches into vacant lots along the way. It was here that the spirit and the body collided, leaving us with a prototypical Christian nationalist, hell-bent on prosperity. Charity was thus rebranded as collectivism and self-denial gave way to the gospel of accumulation."

Boy did self-denial give way. Now we have far too much of the church of me,me,bless me lord and how can i integrate the gospel into making more money. We need a lot more of facing and examining ourselves honestly and denying our selves to bless God and giving our lives in honor and worship to Him.

I do not know the motives of the author of the above article but frankly I view the article as, not a condemnation of Christians, but an admonition and opportunity to call Christians to come out of their fear and ignorance. A call to Christians to return to their courageous stands on issues, against the rich and powerful, that they stood on for over 1950 years until fear of communism,socialism, nazism or whatever mutated our theology for us and sandblasted many of us into the more extreme capitalistic ideology of the rich. Christianity should always stand for, as it always did, support for the poor and reproof of the rich, in this society, in other nations or in nations of the future.

We need get over it and get on with the way Christianity is supposed to be, the way we were before all the paranoia hit. The truth is more important than the way you may have been led or what you are afraid of. Salvation is kind of like that. We need to return to the clarity of those first things, first of all, the priority of God's love and mercy which are the only things that will truly restore the souls of men.

Employers Demand Job Seekers Facebook Passwords - Through The Door To 1984

Article - Job Seekers Getting Asked For Facebook Passwords

How in the world did we ever get to the point where any business had the right to pry into and hire or fire you based on your internet personal life. If we as a people do not step in here and stop this through our government representatives then we are no longer deserving of OUR nation or OUR constitution. The notion that a corporation supports you and so then can be into every part of your life eventually telling you in effect by this intimidation what you can and cannot do even in your personal life is a fall on your face surrender to the beginnings of an orwellian world and as if the post 9-11 surrender to fear is not bad enough. Get real people and get real now before you get acclimated and your sons get acclimated to this fools trap.
Corporations seeing an opportunity in the attitude to openess encouraged by Facebook seek to exploit that attitude of millions of Facebook users entering the workplace. Corporations are seeking to convince young applicants and thereby acclimate all future generations to the idea that giving up your personal life information to the corporation is a given and then of course with that your expressed opinions on politics and economics found on these sites, observed and screened by the corporation, become over time conditioned to please the corporation, that is if you want to get or want to keep your job. Essentially political opinion and discourse become captured in favor of wall street corporate politics as the powerless citizenry parrot the powerful corrupt. Not on this watch.

It will be so very interesting to see where the rightwing, the first in line acolytes to corporate power but yet love to quote the U.S. constitution for INDIVIDUAL freedom and liberty, come down on this but then never mind them. Call your congressmen and if that doesn't work this becomes a main pillar in the Occupy Wall Street protests this spring.

So the corporations really think they can own us like this? Let's find out.
CONTACT YOUR CONGRESSMAN HERE
And pray that God will endow people with the fortitude to follow through on this and congressmen will respond to the people.

MONEY Gives Romney Ohio & GOP Nomination

What did Ohioans see prior to the media onslaught from the Romney Super Pac negative ad money? They saw negative news stories on each candidate on a fairly even handed basis. One week something is bringing Romney down, the next week Santorum gets his own media flogging from the beginning in Iowa to Michigan last week. Ohioans seeing this on the broad media palatte of network news coverage got a fairly even handed view of each Republican candidate. In this environment Ohio voter opinion easily put Santorum ahead of Romney. Let me repeat, voter opinion in Ohio easily put Santorum ahead of Romney but once the Romney Super Pac millions came to Ohio and besieged the airwaves with onesided unanswerable criticism of Santorum who was unable to respond because of being outspent 6 to 1 in the final week, Romney ecked out a win by barely 1 percentage point. The consequences? The rich and powerful that favor Romney have bought your election and it is a crucial turning point in the primary election that could determine the future of the nation.
On principle the people clearly favored Santorum but were scared out of it by the 6 to 1 influence of money's bombardment of negative ads which is effective in elections almost every time. It's the principle of belief versus the influence of money but this time like too many times in recent years money has bought our election and determined our future. The Romney campaign now boasts it would take an act of God for them to lose the nomination and no doubt they make the boast because they know their money god has our election under it's control.
When you choose your god you must obey it's ways and suffer it's results. You choose. You chose.

Syrians Trapped In Homs Say World Is Failing Them

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/25/us-syria-idUSL5E8DB0BH20120225

Hate is handed down from generation to generation where war is the answer to war.

People want freedom and deliverence from death and destruction from Tianamen Square to Darfur to here now in Syria. Will we ever see that a callous world is not the answer. Only God's love will deliver us and only from those with the courage to deliver it.

Will we ever learn and will it ever end. This cuts me to the heart.

Taxing The Rich: A Guide To The Controversy

The wealthiest Americans are flourishing, while the middle class falters. Are the rich paying their fair share?

Are millionaires paying lower tax rates than the middle class?
Most of them aren't. The 238,000 American households with taxable incomes of $1 million or more will pay an average of 29.1 percent in federal income and payroll taxes in 2011, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. That's almost twice the average rate of 15 percent paid by middle-class households making between $50,000 and $75,000. But some millionaires do get off lightly; one out of 10 of them will pay less than 15 percent, and about 7,000 will pay no income taxes at all. Warren Buffett, whose August call for higher taxes on the rich generated a fierce controversy, says he paid federal taxes of only 17.4 percent last year, half the rate paid by his secretary.

How is that possible?
The truly rich usually make most of their money as capital gains on investments and assets, rather than as salaries or other forms of income. Capital gains are taxed at 15 percent, while income beyond $379,150 per year is taxed at 35 percent. The lower rate on capital gains is meant to encourage people to take the risk of investing money in companies, new ventures, and stocks, so as to promote economic growth and job creation. That's why President Clinton lowered the capital gains tax from 28 percent to 20 percent in 1997, and George W. Bush cut it down further to 15 percent. Now there's pressure to raise that rate again, or at least to require hedge-fund and private-equity managers to pay usual income tax rates on their mammoth profits, which can exceed $1 billion per year.

Didn't the rich used to pay more?
A lot more. The top marginal income tax rate was 91 percent during the 1950s, 70 percent during the 1970s, and 50 percent during all but the last two years of Ronald Reagan's presidency, when it fell as low as 28 percent. Today, the rich have historically low tax rates, but are paying a higher share of the U.S. federal tax haul. The wealthiest 1 percent of taxpayers alone pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes, and 21 percent of total taxes, including payroll, state, and local taxes. Meanwhile, the share of the U.S. population that pays no federal income tax at all has shot up to 47 percent, thanks largely to tax credits promoted by George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Why has the burden shifted?
Mostly because the rich are so much richer than they used to be. The top 1 percent of Americans earn 21 percent of total income in the U.S., and hold a third of the country's cumulative wealth. The top 10 percent pull in almost half of total income, and own 73 percent of the total wealth. Due to globalization, technology, tax policy, and myriad other factors, income inequality in the U.S. has soared since the 1970s and is now more marked than in China, according to data compiled by the CIA.

Would raising taxes hurt growth?
Evidence linking high top tax rates to slow growth is thin. President Clinton raised the top U.S. marginal tax rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent in 1993 — yet the economy boomed during his presidency. George W. Bush reduced the top rate to the current 35 percent in 2003, but there was anemic economic growth in the 2000s, and most of it was fueled by the housing bubble. Most economists agree that tax policy has a modest impact on the economy. What really drives job creation and growth, says Bruce Bartlett, a former economic adviser in the Reagan White House, is whether companies think the overall economic climate will reward them for expanding. "Businesses are not going to invest, no matter how low the tax rate is, if there is no demand for their output," he says.

Will taxing the rich fix the budget deficit?
It would help, but with the annual deficit now at $1.3 trillion, the rich alone won't provide a solution. The 5.6 percent millionaires' surtax that Obama recently proposed would generate about $45 billion a year. Ending the 2003 Bush tax cuts on households earning more than $250,000 a year would add about $87 billion a year. Put those two increases together, and the deficit would still exceed $1 trillion. Ending the Bush tax cuts for all tax brackets, however, would yield close to $400 billion per year — and make a real impact on the deficit. Clearly, if the country is serious about getting its fiscal house in order, it will require not only that the rich surrender tax cuts and loopholes, but that the middle class pay more too. It will also require major cuts in spending, primarily by reforming Medicare and Social Security — which inevitably would mean reducing benefits in some way. As former Republican Sen. Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of the White House fiscal commission, recently said, "You can't get this done without hits across the board."

Who makes up the 1 percent?
It takes an annual income of just above $516,000 to qualify as one of the richest 1 percent of Americans. The poster boys of that privileged set, heaped with the rancor of the Occupy Wall Street movement, are bailed-out bankers and securities traders, hedge-fund managers, and other plutocrats from the world of finance. But in fact, only about 14 percent of the richest taxpayers work in the finance sector. Many more of them — almost a third according to Internal Revenue Service data — are executives in nonfinancial firms. One out of six is in medicine, and one out of 12 is a lawyer. The select club of the top 1 percent includes more information-technology specialists and engineers than it does entrepreneurs, and more scientists and professors than celebrities from the arts, sports, and media. Not incidentally: More than half of U.S. senators and members of the House are part of the top 1 percent.
- from The Week

The truth is the rich, middleclass and poor will all need to pay more with the highest rates around 45% and the lowest back up to 15% from 10%. This along with spending cuts around 3 to 4 trillion and in 10 years we will be on our way back to economic viability. When the business community sees a real solution in play they will put their money back in the economy by hiring more employees and thereby with more empowered consumers to buy business's goods business, seeing sustainability will further invest in the economy.
It's not rocket science, it just needs initiation.

Big Stateless Corporations Are Corrupting Capitalism

Newt Gingrich’s latest attack on fellow Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s leadership of a private-equity firm goes to the heart of today’s biggest debate in politics and economics. “If we identify capitalism with rich guys looting companies, we’re going to have a very hard time protecting it,” he said. Protecting—or, more particularly, fixing—­capitalism will be a big topic at the World Economic Forum in Davos this month. With the global economy still sputtering and governments unable to successfully address big issues like income inequality, unemployment and growing debt, it’s a subject that’s front and center not only in the U.S. but also throughout Europe, Asia and the rest of the world.
A key part of fixing capitalism will be reconciling the large and growing imbalances between the public and private sector. National governments have, over the past several decades, seen the most basic pillars of their power erode. Globalization has undermined their efforts to manage their borders. The ability to control their own currency has been lost for all but a handful of major powers. Fewer than two dozen have the ability to sustainably project force beyond their borders. Meanwhile, corporations play nation-states against one another as they venue-shop for more attractive tax or regulatory regimes. This arbitrage undermines nations’ ability to enforce their own laws. Indeed, the rise of big stateless corporations, which now rival many countries in terms of ­economic and political clout, poses special new challenges to governments.

When early corporations were established by royal charters almost a millennium ago, there was no mistaking their purpose. They had been created by the state to serve its interests. But over the centuries, they took advantage of their special status, which allowed them to achieve enormous scale and buy political favor. The result: They helped shape the development of laws that further tipped the balance of power in their favor.

Corporations have morphed from legal entities designed to ensure an enterprise could survive the death of its owners to institutions possessing more rights than people. The 14th Amendment, established in the late 19th century, granted citizens equal protection under the law. Yet most of the times it has been invoked since its adoption were on behalf of corporate rights. Corporations have used the 14th Amendment to do things like block taxes levied “without due process” and define advertising copy as protected free speech. More recently, the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 decision in favor of the conservative organization Citizens United—which relaxed campaign-finance limits on corporations and labor unions and spawned so-called super PACs (political action ­committees)—equated money spent on political campaigns with constitutionally protected speech. The practical effect has been that those with money can crowd the airwaves with their message.

The biggest companies—the Walmarts and Exxons of the world—have financial resources and political reach that rival all but a few dozen states. Even the 2,000th largest company on the planet is at the center of more economic activity than scores of small countries like Mongolia or Haiti. As borderless supercitizens, global corporations have changed the international order, yet our rules and approaches to governance remain the same.

We have also lost sight of the philosophical ideas that historically gave national governments their authority. The current argument that larger government impinges on rather than protects or advances individual liberties is a far cry from the ideas that fueled England’s Glorious Revolution and the American Revolution. It ignores the fact that the void created by smaller government is often not filled by “liberty.” When matters like the global environment or regulation of derivatives trading are left entirely to market forces, for instance, outcomes tend to serve the most powerful because markets neither have a conscience nor do they ensure opportunity. Rather, they seek efficiency, and efficiency loves scale, and enterprises that grow to scale become elephants stamping out opportunities around them. This was well understood by the father of capitalism, Adam Smith. He condemned the abuses of the megacompanies of his day, like the British East India Co., calling them “nuisances in every respect,” since the monopolies they fostered inevitably led to profit-destroying corruption.

- David Rothkopf

To Russia With Love: Power To The People

Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

Say you want a revolution
We better get on right away
Well you get on your feet
And out on the street

Singing power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

A million workers working for nothing
You better give 'em what they really own
We got to put you down
When we come into town

Singing power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on
Now, now, now, now

Oh well, power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

Yeah, power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people
Power to the people, right on

-John Lennon

For Egypt and Syria as well

Many have noted that corruption in Russia is rife and wealth is concentrated in the hands of a privileged few but data show that income inequality has also risen in the United States and United Kingdom over the past 20 years. This income distribution has been a global trend amongst the most powerful nations so a change in mentality must begin everywhere. So in as much as it is incumbent on Russia's people to change direction or Egypt or Syria it is also incumbent on the Occupy Wall Street movement to do the same in the U.S.
World leaders have gotten themselves into this mess with influence from the U.S. so if this world is truly going to change it must change in the U.S. where the example is often drawn. And so we wait.....the American spring.

Since God loves and values the souls of all we should focus on the 99% and show them the compassion and understanding of God rather than curry to the interests of the 1% that reward in this life.

The Will Of God Or the Will Of Money

In our nation today and in almost every way money determines what is right and what is wrong. Rarely does the making of money ever find itself precluded for reasons based on principle. There are of course laws that prohibit acquiring money such as extortion, selling drugs, prostition etc. but are there any uncoerced ethics or principles that we refuse to violate if money is to be made?
You will always find a way around it won't you. The truth is the will of money has superceded any principle or noble purpose that once used to hold sway in our nation.
Money has gotten it's way. It has determined what we will do and will not do. This is the will of money.

God has a will too. Christians often talk of desiring the will of God, to know the will of God, seeking His will and acting upon it. There is a reason why God said you cannot serve both God and money. Above all other things money is the one that competes with God more than any other. Money has a will. It has a will that will try to determine what you do inorder to get more of it, get closer to it. The will of money or the will of God? There is no middle ground. Do we realize that? Money will try to get you to compromise everything it can until finally your eyes glaze over with disgust anytime someone mentions the all so obvious scriptures in the bible criticizing the pursuit of money.

Look at the rise of gambling casino's and the position of the religious right in this country. There was "some" resistance at first but when the religious right realized there was money to be made, money for businesses, money for contractors, tax money for government coffers instead of the religious right's own money, the resistence to casinos melted away. What you get is a corrupt money generator for all and so this is where we are today, living more and more under the will of money.

Imagine the leadership of this country stepping up and saying "i don't care if money is going to be made we are just not going to do this". Can we say that again? Do we have the inner constitution and fortitude to stand up and say this? Don't we have the confidence of God to know that if we do the right things God will honor it. Have we forgotten that when we keep the will of God blessings will come to us many times and from directions we didn't even realize would respond. We have forgotten when so many today have made the making of money under almost any conditions honorable. We now resist the principles that might have made us resist making money for certain reasons in a more honorable past but now it is considered tough, honorable and manly to acquire money in anyway possible. They resist the clear scriptures that admonish about money as they double down and do it anyway.

It takes true faith and confidence in God to resist unethical and corrupt means of making money. If we are faking our faith then what is going on in this country makes sense but if we really mean what we promise to God then far too much makes no sense at all.
So why don't we cling to God's principles like we cling to life. Since when will He not reward us anymore. Has something changed?
I'll ask it again. Has something changed?

Money is not the answer. God is the answer.

It's Christmas, It's About Jesus Christ!, The Way Home

The greatest Gift from God to mankind; The Core of the purpose; The Healer that came to heal the rift between man and God; The Bridge back home; Take it and celebrate it!

Ask God to forgive you of your sins and accept Jesus Christ as His Son and the Way back to God.

Sincerely repent because God only gets real. The bad news is you may have to be going through a terrible time to get yourself to realize all this but there is prayer that you don't do it the hard way. In any event be sincere and God will meet you where you are. Read His word in order to grow stronger in this spiritual regeneration beginning in you and pray to God regularly for help. By leaning onto prayer this all becomes a personal walk between you and God.

God is your Father now so make that reality the most important thing you have ever experienced. In Matthew 18:3 Jesus said that unless you become like a child you will not be able to enter into heaven. This is your chance to fulfill that scripture. With the magnification of your adult self under your feet, of which I know we are all susceptible, secretly lean onto and ask God for help in prayer like a child would ask his earthly father with that kind of magical yet solemn awe that a child experiences when he looks up to his father, then acknowledging this is the Lord of all the universe realize the incredible love of God that can love you as if you are the only one. Honor Him and return the love He has shown you in your limited way because soon you will be stronger in love and faith. Lay your heart before Him for in His hands is the safest place you will ever rest.

Obey God and soon His Spirit will come upon you to help and strengthen you. Be open to all of God's help because you may need it perhaps even as much as those in other countries under severe persecution for their faith. Especially with regard to this follow God's word and resist man's interpretation that springs from those reticent to give up their fleshly comfort and commit to the fullness of God's victorious spiritual reality.
God wants to give you all the help He can. No man will limit Him.

I pray that you will be able to follow God's guidance and direction and resist the limited logic of your own mind and bridge the gap from where you are to where God would have you be. We often cannot figure it out but He knows the best and quickest way to get us where He would have us be to be all that we can be. He knows all the moves that can be made to get there and the more we follow the leading of His Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the quicker we can be where He wants us. The closer you get to God the more sensitive you become to the leading of His Spirit and the more you obediently follow the leading of the Holy Spirit the more shortcuts God will lead you through to get you where He wants you. Such an experience is possible for you if you will commit your heart to God and sincerely desire His will be manifest in your life . Commitment to God allows more of His Holy Spirit to work in your life and the "shortcuts" that get us where He wants us to be will surely make no sense to us at all at the time but this is of course one of the reasons Jesus said not to lean onto your own understanding when depending on God. God will get us there in the most incredible and unpredictable and surely counter-intuitive way. He knows the shortcuts. This is the incredible kind of life we can have with God if we have faith, put our trust in God and realize He has the greatest thing for us if we put His will first.

So pray to and honor your Father in heaven and follow Jesus Christ and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

For this purpose we celebrate Christmas. For this great healing event that can occur in every human being Christmas began. It's the bridge back home, it's Jesus Christ.

Poem For The Occupy Wall Street Movement

The beginning spills through city veins
Into the arteries
And under powers poison clouds
We move like the shadows
Through the alley ways
Through nightmares bought and sold as dreams
Through barren factories
Through boarded schools
Through rotting fields
Through the burning doors of the past
Through imaginations exploding
To break the curfews in our minds

Our actions awaken dreams of actions multiplied
A restless fury
Once buried like burning embers
Left alone to smolder
But together stacked under the walls of a dying order
All sparks are counted
Calloused hands raised in silence
Over the bonfire of hope unincorporated
It's flame restores tomorrows meaning
Across the graveyards of hollow promises
As gold dipped vultures pick at what is left of our denial

And the youngest among us
Stare at us stoned like eyes determined
And say
Death for us may come early
Cause dignity has no price
At the corner of now and nowhere
Anywhere
Everywhere
Tomorrow is calling
Tomorrow is calling
Do not be afraid

-Zack de la Rocha

Abomination From The Obama Nation

The Obama administration extended the influence of it's domestic failings into the global sphere by insisting human rights for the gay global populace be tied to foreign aid. It was the first time an American administration had gone this far and we are supporting and thusly spreading an abominable doctrine into the larger global arena.

What is the basis for this objection?

God strongly opposes homosexuality. The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah clearly demonstrates this. It is an in your face exclamation mark in history about how God feels concerning homosexuality, sexual perversion and for that matter greed, corruption and wicked suppression of the truth. That is the old testament but that is not the end of it. The new testament in Romans 1: 26 - 27 clearly and unambigiously condemns homosexuality with regard to both men and women.

26- For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature;
27- and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameful acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

Herein is the Democrats failing; the notion of complete personal freedom and rights for all in all situations without direction. This rationale covers many good endeavors but in trying to appeal to everyone and every desire they lose the salt of discretion that keeps us well and in the favor of God. It is a wide net but not a wise one.
The promotion of this policy into the global arena will likely mean trouble for the Obama administration. It need not be done and even now a dark cloud seems to fall around Obama.

Again, it is one thing managing Babylon in Babylon but reinforcing or spreading it's sickness around in places heretofore free of it will get attention and wrath where you do not want it.

Now however having said all that the Democrats and several plans for an independent party stand, all things considered, well above the rightwing Republican agenda of falling prostate to the ground in pathetic service to the rich and powerful and a powerful cult-like paranoid false biblically fiction based fear of government as they deny death-avoiding health insurance to a real non-fiction 50 million Americans, poor and middleclass. They bear the fruit of their error in exuding a reeking hypocrisy on almost every issue they support and as I have said before it is a wonder the GOP still remains as a viable political party but I digress.

In summation the Obama adminstration should relent and repent of this new policy. They should back off it and drop it. Pray that they do. I understand the left see all this as extremist right and the right see it as extremist left but let those that are free of uncompromised committment to fallen agendas focus on God and pray on through for what is best and for the good of all. May the Love of God that seeks to deliver the captive from the snares of this world prevail.

Hypocrisy Becomes The Default Position Of The GOP

The GOP has become the brunt of a national joke-fest with their circus-like election primary of political clowns and incompetents but worse than that hypocrisy has become their default position on almost any issue from -

voting for deficits under Bush to feigning abomination for deficits under Obama to

supporting individual mandates to feigning abomination for individual mandates under Obama to

rejecting the need to pay for tax cuts for the rich to feigning abomination for "unpaid" tax cuts for the middleclass offered under Obama to

accepting Newt Gingrich's arguably more agregious issues of personal impropriety as he runs for president even though they wailed abomination over Clinton's personal issues of impropriety as he ran for president and oh yes, they forgave Clinton too but insisted the personal impropriety disqualified him as a matter of character and integrity.

and thats just this year yet the list could go on and on.....and on should we cover all of the last 10 years.

It is a wonder that such a political party should even still exist but it was a wonder even before all this latest degradation on their part and moreover with establishment media censorship aside and the correct articulation of the issues, the Senate and House of Representatives should be almost exclusively Independent and Democrat.

How to vote on almost any political issue-
With the exclusion of the abortion issue and gay marriage.....ahhhh but wait a minute, they had their religious right president and fully Republican controlled congress and still did not vote to ban abortion and they also supported gay "civil unions" and we know what the Bible says about that so......yep, forget the exclusions, you should find out how the Republicans vote on any issue and
vote the opposite.

Rarely has a guideline been so sure.

We Must Take Our Country Back From This

We must take our country back from this.....

and return it to this....



Corporations and their excess desire for money(greed)have taken over our nation and it embarrassingly and shamefully shows. More and more prominent buildings that once were named for our heros and human leaders are now being named for corporations. Our honor and legacy is being traded for money. Our parks and places of interest are being named for corporations. If the trend continues our schools will be named for corporations and then our streets because a buck can be made for selling out our identity. We are being taught that the corporate entity and the desire for money trumps honor and integrity, morals and principle. Increasingly the outward appearance surely reveals the inward surrender.
This has all been going on since the 1980's when the rightwing took over, when we began to be taught taxation was an overarching evil, when the income gap began it's expansion and when the power of people in the form of effective consumer groups and unions began to decline. It is when we began to sellout to money, but....

There is a capitalism that works. The capitalism of the 50's, 60's and 70's when the rich were taxed well above 50%, schools, sports stadiums and our identity did not have to be sold out and named for corporations and the middleclass and common man prospered, consumed and lifted all of our nation. We became a superpower and we were not afraid of our government because the people more so owned and influenced our government and we had much to be thankful for.

When we cut back the ties of money influence between corporations and our politicians we will have our nation back.

Money should not be equal to speech. Corporations should not be endowed with personhood and Corporations should not be able to contribute unlimited amounts of money to elect anyone they want to rule over all of us. These are the decisions that have been rendered over us the last few years by a government nurtured into place by the servants of money but........

A change is coming people, a change is coming!

GOP / Tea Party Anti-Tax Ideology Should Be Busted

The time has come to name names and put the blame where it should be put. The mainstream media is loath to do this because they fear being labeled as liberal but for crying out loud the truth is the truth and the time comes to finally stand for the truth and nail the culprit down.

This truth that should be plastered right front and center is that the intransigent anti-government, anti tax ideology of the Tea Party/Republican rightwing is driving this nation right down the tubes. There is no compromise coming out of the debt crisis super-committee because of one primary front and center reason;

the Republicans will not compromise on their stupid, misguided, embarrassing servile to the rich pledge not to raise taxes.

The Democrats have offered up to 4 trillion in budget cuts which is an incredible compromise on their part but the Republicans refuse to budge one inch to raise taxes. Their refusal is risking sending the entire global economy into the ditch because the european economy is looking for guidance from the number one economy in the world and it is not getting it. With each passing day the fragile world economy is teetering closer and closer to global economic disaster and the Republican party should be ready to accept complete responsiblity for it. Frankly the specific culprits in this budget impasse are the newly elected Republican/Tea Party freshmen congressmen in the House of Representatives and the truth is they should be recalled by their voters, stripped of their citizenship and marched right across the border into anywhere but here. Yea, kind of extreme but they need the crapola scared right out of them so their brains can wake up, think and get real.
If not for their intransigience we would have had a budget deal by now avoiding the S & P downgrade from last summer and with revenues and spending cuts and an overall plan for the business community to launch their record profits into we would be on our way out of this deficit debacle.

Again, the media hem & haw around about really nailing this down and properly blaming the Republicans with what I would say is rightly placed tons of proper condemnation. The Republicans should be so embarrassed and so blamed that they will finally relent or as I said before be recalled by their voters. This force of blame must be released now so that motivation will be imparted to those that need it, desperately.

It is incredible what is being played out across the nation's stage before us now; protestors against the indifferent 1%, representatives of the 1% sending the nation onto the economic razor thin ice of disaster. They try to destroy the movement of the young and courageous that want to save the nation from corruption and uphold the servants to the rich that would tear this nation down.

I think that God is so ready to intervene here that it probably would not take too much prayer to bring Him on.

Pray!

Fill The Streets People, Fill The Streets - BE THE RAIN

YOU as a concerned American citizen should not be leaving this up to college students and the unemployed, YOU should be in the streets with the protestors. YOU and I and all of us as informed individuals should be in the streets. The influence of money has corrupted our government and our society. Today we have come to the point that if any principle of integrity is to be emphasized, reinforced or established it must first pass the litmus test of the present establishment's money interest where it must not violate or inhibit in any way money's dark gravity-like self-center. These protests are the reaction to this far too long-suffered tolerated corruptive force in our society. If you are sick of it this is your chance to say so and demonstrate so. You don't see anyone else in the halls of the establishment doing anything about it do you?
This is the chance of a lifetime. It may be our last chance because I just don't see it happening any other way than through this protest movement. After all the spineless politicians we have been through we should know that by now and we should also know that these politicians, against the mighty forces of the love of money, will not heretofore develop a spine unless the people provide them with one in the form of protest against essentially the love of money.
It is up to us.

At some point the message penetrates and will not be stopped.

BE THE RAIN, BE THE RAIN

Romney Campaign Running On Pure Grace

To most political observers it should be fairly obvious that Mitt Romney's campaign for president is on life support. It is week by week positioning itself as a political phantom. My analysis of this is that with a nearly guaranteed minority he has little or no chance of getting the Republican nomination even though the Obama campaign is running a ruse to the contrary.
Why not Romney? There is a solid wandering in the wilderness mass, 74% of Republican primary voters, that will not support him. They will light anywhere except on Romney and we all have a fairly good idea of why that is, his relatively moderate position on issues and the Christian right's correct view of Mormonism as a cult. Because of this his relevant presence as a real nominee is hanging by a thread dependent on both Perry and Cain tanking and no other nominee rising and the latter is no longer an option or so they say. Now Romney could become guerilla militant extreme right Republican and with the garbage Cain and some of the others are getting away with and the Republican debate crowd reactions I wouldn't be surprised but beyond that I don't think he can pull it, so...

The likely scenario: as soon as Cain stumbles enough times the wandering mass will finally light on Perry. That of course is contingent on the fact that Perry and his campaign will carefully buoy him back up. Perry has 15 million to campaign on so it is just a matter of time. You might say the nomination is Perry's to lose and even if he doesn't do the buoying up as I say he should still be the recipient of Cain's eventually disappearing support. Then again if Cain should maintain his lead, develop a campaign strategy and come up with millions in donations it in no way benefits Romney.
Republicans are very good at lining up for their eventual candidate so when and if this race comes down to two leaders Romney and Perry or Romney and Cain the dependable 25% will still be with Romney and where will the majority of the other 75%be?

The only real logic I can see for the Democratic strategy pretending to prematuraly present Romney with the nomination is so that the Republican primary voters will be more inclined to support Perry giving the Obama campaign the real constrast it desires in the gift of George W. Bush II aka Rick Perry, the following governor of Texas.

I wrote off Barack Obama with an article before he was elected so America surprised me and I'm glad they did. This time and in this regard I don't think it matters.

The Reasons "Occupy Wall Street" Protestors Protest

You here it all across the corporate owned media that the protestors are not clear about what they want. You here it from the rightwing news media that the protestors are all bums. The Republicans with the rest of their hypocrite rightwing, so supportive of the Tea Party and it's all too prevalent gun toting racist placard protestors, turn around and mock and belittle the Occupy Wall Street protestors as violent and unruly because why? They are a threat to the rightwing's "Holy Seat". And the reason the Wall street protestors are not clear to the rightwing is that foolish lackey acolytes to the power of money will not see what they do not want to see.

The truth is, after all we have been through, no one can pretend they do not know what a protest on Wall Street is about. If you take the time to ask many of these protestors you will find they are more informed than most of us and they do know exactly why they are there.

First, they have had it with corporate greed corrupting our government and they want accountability on Wall Street. From President Clinton, Wall Street and the Republicans took a healthy economy and gave us 9 percent unemployment. They destroyed 20 percent of our national wealth in the course of 18 months from the middle of 2007, to the end of 2008, destroyed 20 percent of our national wealth accumulated over the course of two centuries.
And the result? Nobody`s been prosecuted for it. Nobody`s been indicted. Nobody`s been convicted.

The second reason the protestors protest is that Wall street and it's bought off government have created a system that is enormously unequal and the result of that is people are struggling to find a job to pay their bills, to pay their rent, to pay their credit card bills.
There are only five countries in the entire planet that are more unequal than the United States in the distribution of our wealth. That`s a system that Wall Street created, that Wall Street maintains, and that Wall Street enforces.

And the way that they enforce it is the third complaint. The third complaint is Wall Street controls and dominates our political system. One party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street and the other caters to Wall Street all too much.

Wall street received over 2.02 trillion dollars in bailout money from the political system (Republicans and Democrats) and what did they do? They spent much of it lobbying congress to water down the "punishment" of themselves (Wall Street) for their greed and corruption that brought down the nation and they succeded much under the cover of the Gulf oil spill of 2010. But frankly as agregious as that is it pails in comparison to what they did to the millions of Americans that suffered at the hands of their corruption. They, Wall Street, proceeded after receiving hundreds of billions in bailout money, to do all they could to lobby congress to hinder any help for the millions of Americans that needed help to avoid the foreclosure of their homes and for many losing their life savings. I will say it again, it is this one point that should have had protestors out in the streets back in the spring of 2010. Their presence then may have put the fire under congress to make Wall Street accountable but then many were not aware of the unscrupulous lobbying tactics being employed by Wall Street and most surely believed that after all we had been through congress would surely ignore the power of Wall Street influence and money and properly punish corruption. If there is not reason to protest here then there is no reason for you since you are probably an amoeba.

For over 20 years now Wall Street has made record profits with the top 1% of income earners rising from year to year but wages for employees increasing zero and upward mobility for Americans dropping at an alarming rate as we fall farther and farther behind other countries. So, people are in a situation right now where they feel that the system is completely unresponsive and they`re driven deeper and deeper into debt and misery.

The economy has been grossly mismanaged by Wall Street and by others and people see that Wall Street is running our economic policy. That big oil is determining our energy policy, and that the military industrial complex is determining our foreign policy and miring us in these endless costly wars.

And so what do the Wall Street protestors want? They want the frigg'in above situations rectified. They want integrity, honor, justice and fairness to be a working enliven part of our system again. They don't want to launch a coup and take over the government. They want their/our government to be responsive and correct the problems that have brought us to the pathetic place we are at.
Our government representatives know how to fix this, they just lack the spine. Consider the persistent Wall street protests a spine implant and take the chance of a lifetime.

Take this chance to stand and walk tall again.

Occupy Wall Street Calls All Of Us To The Street

Finally a protest that should make sense to everyone that has paid attention to the last 6 years of political and economic events in this country. Finally a protest that should even make sense to some on Wall Street. But what do you get from the rightwing media when such a protest occurs, nothing but negative coverage as if the protestors are communists and we should just let ourselves keep "gett'in it" from Wall Street. Rightwing media loves to overprotect and "prepare the way" for unbridled greed as they cast the protestors as out of work actors, liberals, bums and uninformed college students but if anything is true it is that the informed should be protesting on Wall Street.

Anyone that has been through the financial trouble of this nation and anyone with a sense of justice or make that, mere rational thought and especially those that have lost their homes along with their retirements because of the economic meltdown should be supportive of the general thrust of these protests.
Everyone that has witnessed Wall Street receiving billions in bailout money only to turn around and lobby tooth and nail to oppose financial help for those with foreclosed homes, the unfortunate recipients of wall street recklessness, should be supportive of these protests. This one fact should have had people in the streets long before this. These are protests against the recklessness of callous unbridled greed that bring us all down and yes, even those at the top that will not help themselves.

There are those that may still not know just what the Occupy Wall Street protestors are all about but here are a few things we do know.

When they stand with the poor, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand with the hungry, they stand with Jesus.

When they stand for those without a job or a home, they stand with Jesus.

When they are peaceful, nonviolent, and love their neighbors (even the ones they don’t agree with and who don’t agree with them), they are walking as Jesus walked.

When they talk about holding banks and corporations accountable, they sound like Jesus and the biblical prophets before him, who all spoke about holding the wealthy and powerful accountable.

Pray for those out on the streets and think of ways that you or your church can be Jesus to them. And do one of the things that church folks do best: Bring them a covered casserole!

Take your church potluck down to the occupations. Sit, eat, and talk with the protesters. Offer them the gifts of hospitality, company, and friendship. Offer them the love, understanding and witness of Jesus so that in this way they realize that God cares about people.

The Occupiers' desire for change and willingness to take action to do something about it should be an inspiration to us all.


********

To a people's entrepreneur that hung with us during the "strange years" of Reagan and rightwing conformity.





Steve Jobs 1955 - 2011

Republicans Reject Sanity & Will Of American People

One might surmise that the Republican/Tea Party is losing it's mind. After all the public opinion polls that show clearly the American people demand tax hikes be considered along with spending cuts and after all that has happened with the budget crisis,the S&P downgrade and stock market shocker you might think that the Republicans in congress would hear the American people and place members of their party on the new "super budget committee" that will seriously consider all options for reducing the deficit. You might surmise and you might think but you would be wholly wrong because what has happened is the Republicans have again intentionally doubled down(a political buzz-word that really means demanding you get your way regardless of clear proven facts and consequences, that is, like a prideful spoiled brat unable to face the truth by reasoning intelligently) and placed anti-tax ideologues on this "super committee" that have again promised not to raise taxes of any kind. What!!!

Look at any poll and it is very clear that the American people overwhelmingly favor raising taxes as part of a budgetary solution. Even Standard and Poor's analysis of our economic prospects, relative to the downgrade, states that we must end President Bush's tax cuts, returning the tax rate to President Clinton's tax rate. History demands we raise taxes as part of a budget solution.
So why do the Republicans still push their anti-tax absolutism? Because they are ideologically committed to an anti-government agenda. They believe if you feed the beast it will grow. Their rightwing religious base has been so fed with dramatic presentations of biblical prophecies demonizing government in books and movies such as the "Left Behind" series and then when mixing that with the constant demonizing of President Obama their religious base can no longer separate reality from fiction and now truly believe that anything government is everything evil. One problem with that is that it is delusional meaning that reality and history are not on their side, especially recent history or should I say in-your-face reality. Democratic President Clinton inherited a recession and economy from two Republican presidents under which federal spending rose to an all time high. In the 8 years of Clinton's presidency he RAISED TAXES,lowered federal spending and gave us a long awaited and elusive economic surplus.

I mention absolutism because that is the result of what has happened with the Republican religious right. They have transfered the diligence of their faith onto their politics causing them to carry out their politics with the same rightful absolutism of their faith. Just look at them right now in the political arena and you see them, against all factual reality, stuck in an anti-tax, anti-government absolutism born of transfering their religious born fears of an Anti-Christ led government into present reality. This is the strange kind of inner paranoid not always concious glue that is driving the present state of mind of new right wing politicians being brought into the congressional arena. They are wholly, completely, fully,whatever adjective you can think of, against government and knowing these people very well I would say we are stuck until the 2012 elections.
They can reject the strong and clear will of the American people now, and I know they don't mind because they are "republic" politicians" meaning they do not believe in responding to the will of the American people except at election time, but they will have to answer later to the clear will of the American people unfortunately that will be too late for responsible and sane economical policy or rhetoric and too late for us. I hope I'am wrong but history is not on our side as of now. Better wakeup now! Better wakeup and pray NOW!

Serious Tax Hikes & More Spending Cuts Needed NOW

The global uneasiness with the economic markets is primarily driven by the perception that the number one economy is not taking serious enough measures to restore it's viability. The magnitude of the 2008 economic collapse demands we take much more drastic but perfectly reasonable measures, historically, to re-establish the U.S. economy yesterday. The tiptoeing around about tax hikes and the Tea Party must come to a screeching halt.
We need to blow right through the feigning,fawning and fainting over discretionary tax breaks and loopholes straight into restoring President Clinton's economically successful tax rate meaning 39%for the wealthiest and 15% for the lowest income. In fact that probably is not enough considering the fall we have taken. Efforts to lower the deficit through lower taxes has historically proven less effective and especially in an environment like we have now. Revenues at this time must be raised with serious tax hikes and spending cuts as serious as in 4.7 trillion as President Obama originally proposed. The tax rate should actually be raised to 42% this year and in two years raised to 45% or 50%.
More on free trade later.

Now, this is August and as all market analysts know the market is vulnerable to market drops because volume is low when investors are on vacation(well established market seasonality that the movers would have you not realize so that they can shake you out). The lower the volume the more susceptible the market is to large singular moves but because the "failed" budget talks have preceded it there is real increased anxiety this time. If the U.S. does not take precautions quickly one can expect the market, U.S. and global to slide right into September at least and perhaps into the end of the year or farther. The bottom line is that keeping the Bush tax cuts is abomidibly stupid. The 2008 economic collapse resulted in the bankruptcy of virtually all U.S. banks of any significance - AIG,Lehman Bros.,Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Citibank, thousands of businesses, need I it go on. Had we not learned from history and taken the measures that we did the economy would have dove into a severe depression/complete economic collapse but the bailouts were not the whole answer. The whole answer is also following up this economic disaster with measures we have applied in our past economic crisis and make no mistake this is in the top 5 of the last 200 years. The government must set the backdrop for the near future so that businesses, although disliking taxes, will have a playing field with a real solution to put their record profits into.
We have become too complacent with business as usual during our two wars and we have tried to treat the economic collapse as business as usual as possible and the latest debt talks in congress have been painfully strained attempts to remain business as usual but business itself will wake up to face the day and realize there is no easy way out of this one.
Free trade is going to be a problem but we will do what we have to do. If everyone understands the problem and understands it is also in their self-interest to solve it we should be able to move ahead.

The price you pay now if you are anathema to larger government is the possiblity that you will in fact have larger government but that is the ironic price you pay for trying to virtually eliminate government and it's oversight that earlier in the decade would have stopped the corrupt mortage practices that gave us the 2008 economic collapse.

We all have to pitch in now.

Americans Overwhelmingly Favor Obama's Budget Plan

A chart straight to the point dedicated to the willing deluded or unwilling captive viewers of Fox news and the suffocating rightwing radio network that illustrate the American people overwhelmingly favor Obama and the Democrat's cuts and revenue budget plan over the Republican/TeaParty cuts only budget plan:

The blue column is the public's support for Obama and the Democratic plan. The red column is the public's support for the Republican/Tea Party Plan.

If that's not enough take a dose of these widespread polls that show clearly the American people are on the side of Obama and the Democrats in this budget debate. http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm

Here is one poll question you gotta love:

"Who do you trust more to make the right decisions about how to reduce the federal budget deficit: Barack Obama or Republican leaders in Congress?"
Barack Obama - 46% Republican Leaders - 34%

You probably never hear about this chart, multiple charts like this or these national polls on Fox news or on the onesided cyclopean rightwing radio network.
Republican politicians regularly flat out lie on these rightwing media outlets about the American people being on their side in this budget debate because they know without the truth to contradict them they can get away with it. The result is the lemmings of these media outlets remain in the dark about the truth at the hands of this strange and hypocritical Soviet-like censorship.

The truth is the American people clearly favor the Obama/Democratic plan including both spending cuts and tax/revenue hikes.
The truth is also something that should be vital to anyone calling themselves Christian.

What A Drug Called Money Does To All Of Us

How Today's "Conservatives" Have Lost Touch with Reality

"Conservatism is true." That's what George Will told me when I interviewed him as an eager student many years ago. His formulation might have been a touch arrogant, but Will's basic point was intelligent. Conservatism, he explained, was rooted in reality. Unlike the abstract theories of Marxism and socialism, it started not from an imagined society but from the world as it actually exists. From Aristotle to Edmund Burke, the greatest conservative thinkers have said that to change societies, one must understand them, accept them as they are and help them evolve.

Watching this election campaign, one wonders what has happened to that tradition. Conservatives now espouse ideas drawn from abstract principles with little regard to the realities of America's present or past. This is a tragedy, because conservatism has an important role to play in modernizing the U.S.

Consider the debates over the economy. The Republican prescription is to cut taxes and slash government spending — then things will bounce back. Now, I would like to see lower rates in the context of tax simplification and reform, but what is the evidence that tax cuts are the best path to revive the U.S. economy? Taxes — federal and state combined — as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest level since 1950. The U.S. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. So the case that America is grinding to a halt because of high taxation is not based on facts but is simply a theoretical assertion. The rich countries that are in the best shape right now, with strong growth and low unemployment, are ones like Germany and Denmark, neither one characterized by low taxes.

Many Republican businessmen have told me that the Obama Administration is the most hostile to business in 50 years. Really? More than that of Richard Nixon, who presided over tax rates that reached 70%, regulations that spanned whole industries, and who actually instituted price and wage controls?

In fact, right now any discussion of government involvement in the economy — even to build vital infrastructure — is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. Meanwhile, across the globe, the world's fastest-growing economy, China, has managed to use government involvement to create growth and jobs for three decades. From Singapore to South Korea to Germany to Canada, evidence abounds that some strategic actions by the government can act as catalysts for free-market growth.

Of course, American history suggests that as well. In the 1950s, '60s and '70s, the U.S. government made massive investments in science and technology, in state universities and in infant industries. It built infrastructure that was the envy of the rest of the world. Those investments triggered two generations of economic growth and put the U.S. on top of the world of technology and innovation.

But that history has been forgotten. When considering health care, for example, Republicans confidently assert that their ideas will lower costs, when we simply do not have much evidence for this. What we do know is that of the world's richest countries, the U.S. has by far the greatest involvement of free markets and the private sector in health care. It also consumes the largest share of GDP, with no significant gains in health on any measurable outcome. We need more market mechanisms to cut medical costs, but Republicans don't bother to study existing health care systems anywhere else in the world. They resemble the old Marxists, who refused to look around at actual experience. "I know it works in practice," the old saw goes, "but does it work in theory?"

Conservatives used to be the ones with heads firmly based in reality. Their reforms were powerful because they used the market, streamlined government and empowered individuals. Their effects were large-scale and important: think of the reform of the tax code in the 1980s, for example, which was spearheaded by conservatives. Today conservatives shy away from the sensible ideas of the Bowles-Simpson commission on deficit reduction because those ideas are too deeply rooted in, well, reality. Does anyone think we are really going to get federal spending to the level it was at under Calvin Coolidge, as Paul Ryan's plan assumes? Does anyone think we will deport 11 million people?

We need conservative ideas to modernize the U.S. economy and reform American government. But what we have instead are policies that don't reform but just cut and starve government — a strategy that pays little attention to history or best practices from around the world and is based instead on a theory.
It turns out that conservatives are the woolly-headed professors after all.


By Fareed Zakaria

Do Solar Flares Temporarily Affect Temperatures

There are two problems with the possible full truth getting out on this one. First, if it is true it is a scary proposition and the last thing anyone in authority wants is being responsible for causing mass chaos and fear of a real "Knowing". Next is the downward pressure from scientists trying to salvage their progress with the public on Global warming. Of course the rightwing would irresponsibly use this to try to debunk the idea that global warming is primarily influenced by man and so many scientists will probably try to resist venturing into this theory until more short term gains are made in reducing CO2 emissions. I mean solar flares are not going to stop and they up to this time have not caused a catastrophe so why should scientists give man's selfish nature an out.

But this is not about longterm effects, it is about the short-term effect of solar flares.
The reason i even write about this is because we have had many unseasonal heatwaves in recent years and on many of those occasions a large solar flare, directed toward earth, has preceded them. I don't need to tell you this, you should of course be aware but are we connecting the dots.

Frankly the incredelousness out there is unbelievable. For instance the concern about using planes to "bomb" targets in the U.S. was a discussed possiblity among my fellow associates but when that actually occured the reaction from the establishment, the government, whatever was "wow we never thought any thing like that could ever occur". The point being made of course is that authorities cannot always be trusted to be honest or perhaps even responsibly perceptive when it comes to our protection. I know they must be connecting the dots but letting the rest of us in on it is another story as recent history fully reinforces and their public disinterest over this should not define our concern about it. Maybe all these heatwaves preceded by solar flares are just coincidences but I wonder if you or anyone else really believes that and I cannot say that all of the major solar flares have seemingly preceded heatwaves but a significant number have. In the last 10 years this has really ramped up and I wish I would have recorded these dates but I really didn't expect such blantant disregard of this phenomenon. I mean it's like they really don't want to give this theory any legs.

Here is something to help visualize the effect of coronal mass ejections or solar flares on earth including an actual image from the The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satelitte:

Ok, visualize a tennis ball on the goal line of your typical football field. 6.5 yards away is the earth as a speck. Now the size of the earth in this scale is very small but it's size is really irrelevant, what is important is the size of the sun and the distance to earth. Now using the image below from the The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory satelite imagine the tennis ball ejecting this material as you see in the image towards earth 6.5 yards away remembering this is approximate size and distance to scale. The material ejected by the sun is around temperatures of several million degrees and the space it travels through quite frigid, as in - 270 degrees Celsius, or -455 Fahrenheit frigid however we are talking about millions of degrees being reduced to no temperature effect on earth, that is, according to authorities.






Now in the image you see the coronal mass ejection or solar flare flinging out and seemingly spreading out. What if the coronal material is ejected in a more linear compact trajectory? In that form if general physics prevails it should maintain it's temperature longer on it's way to earth giving us perhaps a little more heat.

Just some thoughts in this most active 11th year of the 11 year solar flare cycle.

Eisenhower Knew What He Was Talking About

In the last speech President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave before the nation he warned about the dangers of the military industrial complex. When George Washington was president he said he had a vision/dream about the important future of the nation he was beginning to guide and I know few Christians that have a problem with that.
God has worked with leaders of great nations many times in history through prophets, dreams and visions so it is quite possible that President Eisenhower had a very profound dream or vision about the future of our nation and felt he should warn us about it's meaning.
Going before the country and proclaiming he had a vision from God probably was a bit much for him in the stoic nature of the 50's so he would surely just give it as a warning. You have to admit that the delivery of that line about undue influence from the military industrial complex, was kind of unusual. It was as if it was something he had been strongly warned about himself and needed to get it into the speech. One can easily believe this because such a dream/warning would have correctly portended the future. The influence of the military industrial complex has run amok. Their influence has is in fact become undue, unwarranted and dangerous in expanding itself into unnecessary war and empire mentality but the rightwing establishment and religious right are lost in it. They fully believe in this expansion of the military.

Somehow God warned President Eisenhower about the future where even His own people would fall under the ideology of military expansion and influence. It is not, NOT a road we need go down and as Christians we need to face where we are and correct ourselves before it is too late.

Pray it is not already too late. For this nation is on a road that can easily lead into a darker future and frankly sheer utter stupidity so abounds one can only wonder what it will take to wake us up once again into an alert and knowledgable citizenry. If we had an ounce of wisdom, and i mean Godly wisdom not worldly wisdom, about human behavior we could avoid it and if we would give God an ounce of our obedience to Him, avoid it we will.

But don't hold your breath.........pray!

What's Wrong With The Gospel?

To the question, "What's wrong with the Gospel?" I can easily answer, "Absolutely nothing!" That is, of course, if you're talking about the Gospel of the Bible - the very message that Jesus preached - what the apostles Peter, Paul, John, and the others devoted their very lives (and deaths) to. (Phil. 1:20-21)

No, there's nothing at all wrong with this message from heaven. But what about the stuff that's being preached today? Is it truly "gospel-preaching"? Are the evangelists that preach in churches and arenas, on radio and television - are they preaching what Jesus called the Gospel?1 And what about the mountains of modern "gospel literature"? You know, the tracts, pamphlets, comic books, newspapers, etc. Do they really contain the same message - the whole message - about the salvation that Jesus offered? How are we answering the awesome question that people are still asking the Church, as they asked on the day of Pentecost, "Men and brethren, what shall we do to be saved?"


Is Our Gospel The Gospel?
I believe with all my heart that Jesus would be ashamed of most of the "gospel" messages and sermons that are being preached today, mainly because they lack almost every major point He Himself preached on. (Mark 8:38; Rom. 1:16; II Tim. 1:8) How dare we try to change the Gospel. We remove most of its vital parts, and replace them with artificial limbs of our own. (Gal. 1:6-7)

Isn't Jesus the master evangelist? Shouldn't we judge our evangelism by His example? Was His message anything like what we're hearing today? It is my intention to try to briefly cover in Section 1 each of the major parts of the Gospel that have been "surgically" removed in most of today's preaching. And in Section 2, we will go over each of the "new additions" that have become a very part of our modern gospel.


The Removed Parts Of The Gospel
The Blood of Jesus. It's a fact that the very word blood scares people. It's also a fact that the blood of Christ scares the devil, because it is the only cleansing agent for a sin-sick soul.4 Can you imagine what the preaching and writings of Paul would have been like, if he had been as squeamish in proclaiming the magnificent power and beauty of the blood of Jesus as our generation of preachers are? What we have now is a bloodless gospel!

Today, people are afraid to think and preachers are afraid to make them. The whole concept of Jesus being the Passover Lamb of the Old Testament5 has been lost - "It takes too much time and thought to explain," you will hear some say. (Heb. 5:11-14) "We need to simplify the Gospel so that we can reach the masses." Oh, what logic! Remove the blood from the preaching of the Gospel, and you remove the power to conquer the devil for the souls of men!

The Cross of Jesus.
Paul said, "I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." (I Cor. 2:2) Nowadays it's "Jesus Christ and what He can do for you!" You cannot have more exact opposites than the Bible's Christ-centered Gospel,6 and our modern, cross-less, me-centered gospel.

Today, if anyone preaches self-denial as a condition of discipleship, you can hear the comments afterwards: "old-fashioned," "harsh," "legalistic." I dare say that our Lord would have as much trouble finding acceptance among our preachers as He had among the religious leaders of His own day.

Here's what A.W. Tozer says about the cross...

"The cross is the most revolutionary thing ever to appear among men. The
cross of Roman times knew no compromise, it never made concessions. It won all
its arguments by killing its
opponent and silencing him for good. It spared
not Christ, but slew Him the same
as the rest. He was alive when they hung
Him on that cross. and completely dead
when they took Him off of it. That
was the cross the first time it appeared in
Christian history.

"With
perfect knowledge of all this, Christ said, 'If
any man will come after Me,
let him deny himself take up his cross and follow
Me.' So the cross not only
brought Christ's life to an end, it also ends the
first life, the old life
of every one of His true followers...this and nothing
less is true
Christianity. We must do something about the cross, and there's
only one of
two things we can do - flee it or die upon it!"

Pages could be written on this subject, but there is room for only one brief example. When the rich young ruler came to Jesus, he asked a very direct question: "Good Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Can you imagine what our preachers would answer him today? "Just admit you're a sinner, accept Jesus as your Personal Savior, go to church, pay your tithes, try to be good, and you're in!" But what was Jesus' answer? "You know the commandments... if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments." (Matt 19:17; Mark 10:19) The commandments?? Why they went out with Cecil B. DeMille! Isn't this the "age of grace"?

Well, the truth is Jesus wasn't preaching the commandments to him as the way of salvation, He was using the commandments to specifically convict him of his particular sin - greed. That rich boy loved the bucks, and Jesus knew just how to flush him out of the bushes - preach the Law! And that's exactly what the Law is for- "For through the Law comes the knowledge of sin" (Rom. 3:20), that's what Paul said. The Law must be preached - not as the way of salvation, but as a searchlight put on the sinner's heart, so he can see how utterly rotten he is, compared to the way God requires him to be. (Gal. 3:24)

But today again, we are wiser than God. Our preaching isn't filled with "dos and don'ts." No, we don't want to scare the "liberated generation" away. Why, if we said that fornication was wrong, or drugs, or abortion, or any other specific sin, people would feel all condemned and then how could they get saved? But that's just it, Jesus preached the Law to the rich young ruler so that, after feeling condemned about his greed, he could turn and obey Jesus and find true treasure in heaven. "Go and sell all you possess and give it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven, and come, follow Me." (Mark 10:21) Unless people are truly convicted of sin, if they do not fully see that they are totally condemned by the requirements of God's Law, then it is virtually impossible to show them the need for a savior. Why, what would they need to be saved from? Fun?

That is why our modern gospel must dwell on "all the good things God'll do for you if you'd just accept Him!" We can't convince a sinner that he needs a savior by just getting him to admit that, "Well, generally, yes, I am a sinner." He must see how the Law of God totally condemns him as a sinner,9 and then the beauty of the Gospel, the glory of the cross, the marvelous power of Christ's blood will be able to penetrate his anxious, waiting mind and heart. Only by the preaching of the Law can a man fully desire to be saved from his sin. For, "I would not have come to know sin except through the Law. "(Rom. 7:7)

Repentance as Necessary for Forgiveness.
It has always amazed me how the Church could have evolved to such a state as it is in now, with such clear, direct teaching from the Lord Jesus as to what is necessary to be right with God. Please read the first five verses of the 13th chapter of Luke. Here, Jesus is told the news about some Galileans who were executed by the Romans. He then says, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Using another example, He then repeats the same exact sentence.

I cannot conceive of conversion without repentance. The teachings of Jesus and the apostles are full of commands to "repent and be saved!"11 Repentance is not just "being sorry" - that is only conviction. Repentance is not merely a change of heart and a change of mind, it is a change of action! God requires that if we are sincerely convinced that sin is wrong, then we will turn from it to God, and commit ourselves to not take part in sinful deeds any longer. God blesses such decisions and commitments with abundant grace. And it is by that grace that we can fulfill the desires of the Spirit within us.

But because there is so little real conviction of sin brought about by the preaching of our modern gospel, we cannot truly require repentance anymore. If we did, no one would "come forward" at all. For repentance is easy to him who sees how ugly and horrible sin is, but repentance is impossible where the Law does not convince the sinner of his wicked heart, compelling him to turn from his sin into the arms of a waiting, compassionate God. You see, all these removed parts of the Gospel are connected. In God's wisdom, every aspect of the appointed way of salvation is irreplaceable.

It is true that without God loving us first, we could not be saved. He made the first move, He always does. But He will not do what He requires of the sinner himself to do - and that is to repent!

God's Sorrow and Broken Heart Over Sin.
The picture of God as presented today by evangelists is that of an optimist - a positive-thinking good ole boy who lives in heaven, high above the trouble on earth, where everything is rosy, "and the skies are not cloudy all day." Why, how could anything bother the living God? He isn't really troubled by all the mess down here, He has everything under control!

But again, the Bible paints a different picture of our King. Just look at Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41), or the pleadings of God with the nation of Israel through the prophets Isaiah or Ezekiel.12 This God, the one in the Bible, is continually striving with men through His Spirit. It says in Proverbs, "The eyes of the Lord are in every place, watching the evil and the good." (Proverbs 15:3) That means that God saw every rape committed today, He saw every murder, every person that starved to death, every pornographic film and book, every abused and battered child. How can anyone believe that He sees this and does not grieve? Of course God can grieve. Doesn't the Bible implore us not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God"? (Eph. 4:30)

You see, God is the most hurt and dishonored being in the universe. He could stop all this mess, all the perversion and crime and corruption any time He wishes, but He doesn't! Why? Because He waits for the souls of men and women. "Regard the patience of our Lord to be salvation," Peter said. (II Peter 3:15) But the Church, which doesn't have one millionth of the compassion that God has, has turned around and created a god in its own image and likeness. A carefree, cheerful, above-it-all God. And then the Church has conveniently removed from the "gospel" it presents all reference to the pain and sorrow in God's heart. The Church doesn't want a God who's grieved with sin, because then this God would be grieved with them... (and He is!)13

The Necessity of Holiness to Please God.
Hebrews says without holiness "no one shall see the Lord." (12:14) It is true that Jesus commands us to be perfect. (Matt. 5:48) It is also true that you most likely have never met a perfect person, nor do you probably ever expect to be perfect yourself. Nevertheless, we still have those uncomfortable words of the Lord, "Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect"!

Now, because of our dilemma in finding ourselves to be such numskulls, and seeing the demands of Jesus, we have invented some pretty interesting and caraaazzeey doctrines. Some Christians have said, "Well, when God looks at us, He doesn't really see us anymore, He sees Jesus instead. And when there's ever sin in our hearts, if God should happen to look at the wrong moment, He'll see a smiling face of Jesus there, instead of seeing our sin. So God sees me as holy - even though I'm not! But...I really am...er, well, you know what I mean!" (I don't happen to believe that God is that easily fooled, not even by Christians.)

Another stranger-than-truth doctrine is that blessed refuge of backsliders called "the carnal Christian." In this example of pretzel-logic, we are led to believe that any "believer" who isn't really "walking with the Lord" at the present time, and is indulging in the things of the world and the lusts of the flesh, can still be considered a "Christian," but not a Christian of the 1st class, no, a Christian of the 2nd class... a "carnal Christian." Here we have a case of the "believer" who doesn't believe. Oh, he still "believes" that God is God, and that there is a heaven and hell, and so on (but don't forget, the devil believes all these things too!-James 2:19). He knows all the right things to say to convince granny, the pastor, and his Christian friends that he's still hanging in there. He even sort of believes it himself. Seems he's got everybody fooled - everybody that is, except God! The Bible is clear that "If we say we' have fellowship with Him, and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. " (I John 1:6)14

Today, possibly the greatest insult to the Gospel has been the almost total neglect of the preaching of holiness for the Christian. Jesus doesn't want to make believe that we're holy, He wants to impart His holiness to us by the Holy Spirit. But because people are not being driven to the cross, convicted by His Law to repentance and real rebirth, then we have to spend hours in our seminaries trying to find suitable, complicated ways to explain away the obvious meanings of Scripture.

To all this you might be saying, "But what about all those people getting saved by the efforts of good men and ministries out there? They're not preaching the way you say they should, and they still have converts!" Well, the immediate answer to that question is, "The people are not getting saved because of their messages, they're getting saved in spite of them." But unfortunately, many of the people who make "decisions for Christ" through large evangelistic crusades, do not even attend church regularly in the years that follow. (And as you probably well know, "attending church regularly" does not guarantee that one is a true believer.) But let's take a closer look at what kind of "converts" today's gospel usually produces.


What's Specifically Wrong With Our Modern Gospel?

It's Me-Centered Instead of Christ-Centered.
First and foremost, it is the gospel that appeals to the selfish. Instead of honoring God, it places the sinner at the center of God's love and plan. But the Bible places Jesus at the center of God's plan, not the sinner.

One of the most well-known phrases of modern evangelism is "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!" But the sober, biblical truth that needs to be presented to the sinner's mind is "You have made yourself an enemy of God, and in your present state of rebellion there is absolutely no hope for you." In fact, God's "plan" for the sinner at this point in his life is to separate him from His presence forever, in hell. However unpopular or unlovely that may sound, it is the only truth and reality about anyone who is an enemy of God through sin.

The whole line of reasoning in our modern gospel continues on and on in this mistaken way. "Sin has separated you from God, 'and His wonderful plan for your life.' Jesus came and died on the cross, so that you may experience 'His wonderful plan for your life.' You must accept Jesus now, so that you will not miss out on 'His wonderful plan for your life!'" You, you, you, you!!! It's all for YOU! I'm not sorry to say this, but Jesus did it all in obedience, for His Father's glory. (Phil. 2:8-12) Of course, it infinitely benefits those who love, serve, and honor Him, but that was a secondary consideration, not the primary one. (Please read Ezek. 36:22-32.) If people come to Jesus mainly to get a blessing, or only to get forgiveness, they will ultimately be disappointed. But if they come to give Him their lives in honor and worship, then they will truly have forgiveness and joy - more than they could ever imagine! (I Cor. 2:9)

It's Shallow, Cheap, and Offered as a "Bargain."
Our gospel reduces the good news to a "come and get it while you can" sale. We make every effort to take all the bones out - everything that might offend someone, might make them hesitate or put off their decision. Jesus didn't do this. He never lowered the requirements for anyone. One had to be completely sincere, totally humbled, having counted the cost, willing to leave everything, family and property, "count all things loss" so that they might "gain Christ." (Phil 3:7-8) When that same rich young ruler "went away sad, for he had many possessions" (Matt. 19:22), Jesus didn't go running after him shouting, "Hey, wait a minute! Let's talk this thing over, it isn't as bad as it might sound. Maybe I was a little too harsh!"

Maybe we're so eager to "see the converts," to publish "how many got saved at our last concert" in the bulletins to our supporters, that we'll do anything to rush someone into a "decision" before he's had a chance to really make one. The problem is, if you have to rush him into it, he probably will change his mind later anyway. For as a friend of mine says, "If somebody can talk them into it, somebody can talk them out of it!" (I Cor. 1:17)

Salvation is Shown as a Barter or Trade, Instead of the Result of Obedience by Faith.
We offer forgiveness of sin like on "Let's Make a Deal." I've even heard, "You give Jesus your sin, and He'll give you salvation in return!" No one in the Bible ever thought so low of the grace of God to talk about the gift of eternal life like it was for trade. It is a gift! You can't earn it, or buy it, or give anything in return for it. How it must offend the Holy Spirit to hear people talk of His Jesus so. (Acts 8:18-23)

It Produces Selfish, "Blessed," and Feelings-Oriented "Converts."
Anyone who is made to believe he becomes a Christian under such preaching will seldom bring forth the true fruits of a real convert. He will remain just as selfish as he always was, only now his selfishness will take on a religious form. If he wants something for himself, he will say he "has a burden" for something, or he will say, "It is the desire of my heart," or some other religious-sounding phrase like that. He will pray selfishly, desiring blessings for himself, and even if he does pray for others, it usually will be for selfish reasons. After all, when he "accepted the Lord," he was told how much Jesus wanted to bless him and how much God had stored up for his account, and how the Bible was like "a checkbook full of promises, just waiting to be cashed!"

Such a person always seeks to "feel" good about himself, his own church, his own pastor, etc. His whole world is built on feeling blessed. He was never shown how he was created to bless God... God was not created to bless him. (Psalm 149:4; Phil. 2:13)

As you can see, the "converts" described above are not like those pictured in the book of Acts, when the Church was new and the fire was hot. Take a look at Acts 2:41-47 and 4:31-35, and you will see the tender spirit of love, and the mighty spirit of power that prevailed among the brethren in those early days. I believe that one of the great reasons that "everyone kept feeling a sense of awe" (Acts 2:43), was because "they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to prayer. "(vs. 42) I believe that Peter and the others made every effort to convey the whole message of the Gospel when they preached and taught, and that is why the Spirit of God could anoint and bless the new converts so powerfully- God always anoints the truth! (Isaiah 55:11)

by Keith Green