Whether or not someone is crying at a funeral is not necessarily any indicator as to whether or not the crying individual is lacking in faith regarding their loved one being in Heaven. All it indicates is that the person cries at funerals. One often cries because one is going to miss a loved one. How about commenting that a lack of tears could just as easily mean a lack of love? Even Jesus wept at a funeral. So I guess in good Fundamentalist fashion the preferred modus operandi is to instead suppress the emotion until it manifests in either mental or physical illness. After all, it's the appearance that one is living the “victorious Christian life” that is the most important thing. Besides, the astute homilist can then come back for another round of congregational berating when these symptoms begin to manifest in the the lives of parishoners.
A Lutheran talk show discussed whether or not a church should cancel services for inclement weather. One caller suggested a make-up day be scheduled. One already has. It is called next Sunday. For regulars, there really isn’t much that goes on that can’t be delayed until the following week. And those that close to death, it’s likely they would not have made the canceled service to begin with.
Piers Morgan remarked that vile bigots should be denied First Amendment protections. Shouldn't Piers Morgan rank among the denied?
Bernard Goldberg on the O'Reilly Factor in discussing the Duck Dynasty fiasco ridiculed those that believe something because it is in the Bible. Does that include fawning all over someone in deference just because they happen to be Jewish?
Bernard Goldberg claims the Bible is 4 billion years old. I know he's old looking, but I doubt he was there at the beginning.
On the O'Reilly Factor, media critic Howard Kurtz referred to Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty as a Bible-toting loudmouth. Would Kurtz retain his position as a broadcaster if he referred to someone as a Koran-toting loudmouth?
If gays are suppose to be true to themselves with the rest of us forced to applaud in support, why isn't Phil Robertson extended this same degree of affirmation?
On the O'Reilly Factor, Bernard Magerk remarked Putin was one tough monkey. If he referred to Obama as a monkey, would Imus's minion join Phil Robertson in the penalty box?
Duck Dynasty coot Phil Robertson has in essence come out in favor of institutionalized pedophilia. He is suggesting that men marry 15 or 16 year old girls. Should suitors wait until the young lady has reached a more legally respectable age of at least 20, this rube thinks the gal is already on the downward decline. Some will flippantly dismiss his ramblings as backwoods ignorance. However, these ruminations are not much different than those in a number of more clean cut and technologically sophisticated homeschool circles. The Swansonite sect that produces Generations Radio has even extended its blessing to the concept of the man being older than the young lady not having reached the socially accepted age of majority. And similar ideas are seeping into the more mainstream Evangelical subculture such as through Albert Mohller and James Dobson. For raising these kinds of concerns in other contexts, I was snapped at that these thinkers have no control over me and that is correct. However, I am sure similar things were said about the Warren Jeffes breakway Mormon cult before that group of sickos set up outposts throughout the American far West.
A story in the 12/13/13 issue of The Nation is titled “Solving Gentrification”. Apparently it is proper to prevent rich White folks from moving into certain neighborhoods. But if it is proven you are conspiring in a similar manner against Black people and poorer foreigners, you'd probably be ruined financially as part of a civil rights lawsuit.
The cover of the Jan. 2014 issue of Sojourners reads “Twisted Theology: Churches That Still Treat Women As Inferiors Are Distorting The Image Of God”. On the surface, that is correct. However, will this mouthpiece of leftwing theological radicalism be as bold with a similar headline condemning abortion, unrepentant homosexuals in the pulpit, and gay marriage?
The cover story of a Dec. 2013 news magazine was titled “Starving For Justice...Hunger Strikes Are Erupting Around The World”. Unless those engaged in such are denied food, just let this riffraff deliberately starve themselves to death. Doing so would free up resources for those wanting to live and would probably go along way to cleaning the slime from the gene pool.
I remember back when Whitman's Samplers rather than catheter variety packs were the mainstay of late afternoon television advertising.
At the inauguration of Bill de Blasio as Mayor of New York, has-been entertainer Harry Belafonte lamented that the United States has the largest prison population in the world. Yet this is the very same raving totalitarian suggesting that critics of President Obama should be imprisoned. Thus, the problem is not so much with incarceration but rather with whom should be allowed to walk the streets freely.
As a form of execution, Dictator Kim Jong Un fed his uncle alive to a pack of 120 starved dogs. Given that this occurred in Korea, did the dictator in turn eat the dogs?
At the New York mayoral inauguration, both Bill de Blasio and Bill Clinton claimed that the inequitable distribution of income was unraveling the social fabric. Does that include the $200,000 the former President makes per speech? With his attention focused of such macroeconomics concern, can this aspirant to municipal office be bothered with such mundane concerns such as picking up the trash and filling pot holes?
Since he is spewing environmentalist hysteria on Crossfire how we are suffering ecological catastrophe for releasing an eon's worth of carbon in the span of a century, Van Jones should be asked if he travels by foot from the CNN Washington studios to his fellowship at the Aspen Institute Of course, Gingrich isn't going to have the spine to raise the issue. The former Speaker of The House has been wined and dined or on the payroll himself of the very same New Age boards and think tanks.
According to the Jesuit publication La Civilita Cattolica, at a Vatican gathering in Nov. 2013 Pope Francis warned against the danger of descending into a doctrinaire and strident fundamentalism. He is correct in his observation that the best way to attract the seeking to the faith is to live it out rather than to beat over the head with it. However, shouldn't denying participation in this religion's most solemn expression in Communion or the Lord's Supper to anyone that disagrees with your understanding of that ritual or denies that you are superior above everyone else as a result of the office that you occupy itself a form of fundamentalism?
To prove the extent of her recovery three years after the mass shooting in which she was severely brain-damaged, former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords parachuted from an airplane. The question is, though, following such a severe neurological trauma has she regained control of her bladder and bowels. Wouldn't that be a more accurate assessment of the extent to which she has healed?
Fascinating. Apparently Chris Christie's minions orchestrating a traffic jam to get revenge on a political adversary is proof that the New Jersey Governor is unfit for presidential office. However, if one points out that Obama attended a church for two decades advocating the destruction of the White race, that he began his political career at a fund raiser held in the home of a domestic terrorist, or that he had millions kicked off their health insurance policies to prove the need for the establishment of a nationalized system, you are the one at fault for even bringing these things up.
So apparently it's an outrage to artificially manipulate traffic patterns for political purposes when that goal is to get back at an electoral rival but it's perfectly acceptable to arbitrarily manipulate traffic patterns in order to get motorists to abandon their individualized vehicles in favor of public transportation.
Gov. Christie insists "I am what I am." But doesn't he look more like Brutus than Popeye?
So if Dennis Rodman sang Happy Birthday to the North Korean dictator Marilyn Monroe style, does that mean he is being "bedded" by the North Korean dictator as well?
An activist on the radical end of the homeschooling spectrum quipped that one can either choose Communism or COMMUNITY. COMMUNITY is in many instances merely just a diluted form of Communism. Granted, it might not at this juncture result in systematic executions, but both ideologies view the group rather than the individual or a transcendent morality governing the behavior of the individual as the highest source of authority and the criteria through which justification for decisions is arrived at.
Isn’t blaming road rage on motorists driving below the posted speed in the left lane akin to telling a victim of sexual assault she shouldn’t have been dressing like a tramp?
In a Washington Post Op-Ed, Southern Baptist Convention functionary Albert Mohler is highly critical of Evangelical acceptance of birth control. However, he himself has only reproduced twice. The position Mohler has enunciated leads us to two likely conclusions. Either he is as impotent as a proverbial Nevada boxing commissioner. Or, as in the case of many Evangelical leaders that miraculously came out in opposition to Halloween once they enjoyed their own childhoods of Trick-Or-Treat revelry, the use of these pharmaceuticals just happens to become wrong once he and the Mrs squeaked past their own years of fecundity. Apparently, screwing yourself away from the dinner table is a moral obligation only for the lesser breeds of humanity.
Same churches that gripe about folks having fewer kids will cry and scream even louder should tithe dollars dwindle as congregants would make the rational and ethical decision that the higher moral priority is that they keep their own progeny fed than whether the church gets new carpeting or that the pastor goes on “pilgrimage” to Israel or the savannas of Africa.
Cal Thomas apparently shills for Liberty University during his WMAL commentaries. Wonder who had to pay off who to sweep his scathing criticism of Jerry Falwell in “Blinded By Might” under the rug.
A convicted Ohio murderer and rapist gasped as it took him nearly 15 minutes to expire during his execution. Critics warned that the combination utilized to carry out the sentence would cause the felon to die in agony and terror. And the pregnant woman (and thus also her baby) that he raped and murdered did not? Are we to suppose he lulled her to her eternal rest through tender caresses and verbalized sweet nothings?
I guess the Let's Move Campaign sponsors public service announcement promoting fitness targeting the demographic with names such as Mya and Miguel so they can swiftly violate the border and to later evade immigration enforcement officers.
Interesting in his condemnatory oration of the evils of collegiate sexual assault President Obama gave no advice about staying away from frat house booze parties and not dressing like an outright slut. These don't excuse wandering hands, but isn't it akin to sleeping with your door locked? It's not something you should have to do, but it is just the way it is in such a wicked world.
On The Five, Bob Beckel remarked that the Pro-Life Movement is becoming more Northeastern and urbanized. Would it thus be more illegitimate if it was a movement more Southern and rural?
And exactly what part of his former Fox News program and related undertakings does Glenn Beck consider to have torn the country apart? Was it the flow charts that dared spell out for the American people the intricate global conspiracy bent on destroying our constitutional liberties? Or does Beck lament his own plans to destroy human freedom through the promotion of his own shoddy Mormon theology and the establishment of a Jonestown-like compound with a sign overhead demanding all who enter in to forget their previous way of life and where residents were have to been denied backyards in order to condition them away from their individualistic proclivities?
Frederick Meekins is an independent theologian and social critic. Frederick holds a BS in Political Science/History, a MA in Apologetics/Christian Philosophy from Trinity Theological Seminary, and a PhD. in Christian Apologetics from Newburgh Theological Seminary.
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