You can't make this stuff up. First Baptist Church, Fort Worth has a history better than fiction.

A new, long chapter in the church's history began when it called as pastor John Franklyn Norris, owner-editor of the Baptist Standard from 1907 to 1909. Norris accepted the pastorate in 1909 and remained at First Baptist for the rest of his life. The church lost at least 600 members in 1911 after a division, and the following year lost its building and pastor's home by fire. Though Norris was indicted for arson, he was acquitted after a month-long trial. During his long tenure, the church's personality became inseparably entwined with that of its pastor. It aligned with the prohibition movement, sponsored an interdenominational Bible school, and became the leader of the World's Christian Fundamentals Conference in 1919. That year the church built a 5,000-seat auditorium, and four years later it helped to form the Baptist Bible Union of America. Because of Norris's continued open criticism of the Southern Baptist Convention, his decision to discard SBC literature, his attacks on SBC schools (particularly Baylor University, which he charged with teaching "evolution and infidelity"), and his spirit of noncooperation, the Tarrant County Baptist Association withdrew fellowship from the church in 1922. The Baptist General Convention of Texas refused Norris a seat at the state convention in 1923 and permanently excluded him in 1924.

On July 18, 1926, Norris shot and killed a Fort Worth lumberman, Dexter Elliot Chipps, in the church office. He was charged with murder but was acquitted on a ruling of self-defense at his trial in Austin. Two years later the church and parsonage were burned again. By 1931 the church reported 12,000 members, with 6,000 attending Sunday school, and property valued at $1.5 million. Throughout the next two decades Norris and the First Baptist Church stood solidly against Modernism, Communism, liberalism, evolution, ecclesiasticism, and organized crime. The growing congregation gained notoriety for extreme independence, a controversial and pugilistic attitude, and a flare for sensationalism.

Discord and internal rivalry surfaced in 1945, when Norris's son George became pastor of a dissenting party that split from the First Baptist Church. Norris's health began to fail in 1948, and the Premillennium Fellowship fractured in May 1950, the same month Norris was dismissed by the church in Detroit.

Norris died on August 20, 1952, and the First Baptist Church called Homer Ritchie as pastor four days later. Ritchie served in that capacity until October 11, 1981, much of that time with his twin brother Omer serving as his co-pastor.

Did you get all that?
The pastor was acquitted of arson! Later he shot and killed a man in his church office. He was acquitted of murder on the grounds that it was self-defense. And two years later the church and parsonage burned again.

And here's my favorite part. Four days after he died, Homer Ritchie became pastor. Over the next 30 years, Homer and his brother Omer co-pastored the church. Homer and Omer. Man, even the Coen brothers couldn't make up stuff this good.

Of course the history on the church's official website doesn't mention any of that stuff. I guess I don't blame them.

Temple Grandin, Ph.D., is the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world. Now her fascinating life, with all its challenges and successes is being brought to the screen. HBO has produced the full-length film Temple Grandin, which premieres on Saturday, February 6th on HBO. She has been featured on NPR (National Public Radio), major television programs, such as the BBC special "The Woman Who Thinks Like a Cow", ABC's Primetime Live, The Today Show, Larry King Live, 48 Hours and 20/20, and has been written about in many national publications, such as Time magazine, People magazine, Forbes, U.S. News and World Report, and New York Times. Among numerous other recognitions by media, Bravo Cable did a half-hour show on her life, and she was featured in the best-selling book, Anthropologist from Mars.

Dr. Grandin didn't talk until she was three and a half years old, communicating her frustration instead by screaming, peeping, and humming. In 1950, she was diagnosed with autism and her parents were told she should be institutionalized. She tells her story of "groping her way from the far side of darkness" in her book Emergence: Labeled Autistic, a book which stunned the world because, until its publication, most professionals and parents assumed that an autism diagnosis was virtually a death sentence to achievement or productivity in life.

Dr. Grandin has become a prominent author and speaker on the subject of autism because "I have read enough to know that there are still many parents, and yes, professionals too, who believe that 'once autistic, always autistic.' This dictum has meant sad and sorry lives for many children diagnosed, as I was in early life, as autistic. To these people, it is incomprehensible that the characteristics of autism can be modified and controlled. However, I feel strongly that I am living proof that they can" (from Emergence: Labeled Autistic).

Even though she was considered "weird" in her young school years, she eventually found a mentor, who recognized her interests and abilities. Dr. Grandin later developed her talents into a successful career as a livestock-handling equipment designer, one of very few in the world. She has now designed the facilities in which half the cattle are handled in the United States, consulting for firms such as Burger King, McDonald's, Swift, and others.

Dr. Grandin presently works as a Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University. She also speaks around the world on both autism and cattle handling. At every Future Horizons conference on autism, the audience rates her presentation as 10+.

I watched a bit of the film Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, tonight. Fascinating and moving stuff. I've never thought much of Danes as an actress, but that changed tonight.

I discovered Mississippi John Hurt quite by accident a few weeks ago surfing around YouTube. Started consuming everything of his I could. One difficult night I listened to his songs on repeat, and God really ministered to me through them. There's something about his voice . . . I don't know, maybe it's just me. My friend Jason heard about my newfound appreciation, and being a long-time fan of the man's music, he sent me almost Hurt's entire catalog.

Here's one of the few video clips of Mississippi John Hurt available online, filmed shortly before his death on some television program along with Pete Seeger and Hedy West.



There's a really interesting story here. Hurt recorded a couple of albums in the early 20s that were commercial failures and then basically disappeared into obscurity for forty years, working as a sharecropper and playing the occasional party. Having grown to love the existing recordings, in 1963 a scholar tracked him down in Avalon, Mississippi and brought Hurt into the spotlight. Hurt played the Newport Folk Festival in 1964 and did some more recording, a long time coming. He died in 1966.

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. ~ Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda

I saw this quote as the heading of an editorial a while back... and since we also have it in our quote rotation here at thinklings, it got me thinking, "Did Goebbels really say that? And if so,what did he mean?"

So here's what I found out from some internet research. It is listed at a quote website although I don't know if you can even trust websites anymore. It bugs me to run into quotes without a reference to when it was said or where it was written. (Though I've been guilty of just listing the author without saying where I found it myself.) I wish that everyone would say where and when a quote came from. In this day and age where anyone can say anything on the internet or in an email, it is all the more important. I'm a real stickler for authenticity and I try never to attribute a quote to someone unless I can personally verify it.

And so the quotes website I link to above may be just proliferating a myth. I never found an actual citation for this quote. I did however learn from wikiquote, if that can be trusted, that a similar quote is often misattributed.

Misattributed
* But the most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success. -o Actually from "War Propaganda", in volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf (1925), by Adolf Hitler.

* (multiple alternatives) If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. // If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. // If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. // If you repeat a lie long enough, it becomes truth. // If you repeat a lie many times, people are bound to start believing it.
o no reliable source; probably misquotations of the Big Lie idea

The "Big Lie" idea was not Goebbels revealing some secret of Nazi propaganda. (At least not willingly.) His point in context was that it is the British who are lying. Oh the irony, that this quote has been repeated so often and attributed to Goebbels that it doesn't seem to be questioned anymore.

The following is an authentic Goebbels quote. Or at least I think it is, becomes it comes from wikiquote and the actual original source is cited.

That is of course rather painful for those involved. One should not as a rule reveal one's secrets, since one does not know if and when one may need them again. The essential English leadership secret does not depend on particular intelligence. Rather, it depends on a remarkably stupid thick-headedness. The English follow the principle that when one lies, one should lie big, and stick to it. They keep up their lies, even at the risk of looking ridiculous.

* "Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik" ("Churchill's Lie Factory"), 12 January 1941, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1941), pp. 364-369
* This and similar lines in Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf about what he claimed to be a strategem of Jewish lies using "the principle & which is quite true in itself & that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily," are often misquoted or paraphrased as: "The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed."

Here's my conclusion: It looks like Goebbels never said what is attributed to him at the top of this post, or the more common, "If you tell a lie often enough (or big enough) it will be believed."

And if he did say that or something like it, I don't think he meant it as it appears - Like the inside secret confession of a Nazi propagandist...though that implication makes it rather delicious for the modern day propagandist...er opinion writer. Drawing a conclusion from the actually verifiable quotes and speeches of Goebbels, if he did say anything like this, he most likely meant it as a criticism of what his enemies were doing. (i.e. claiming that Jews and the Allies were the liars.) He was not admitting that he was a purveyor of lies. (Although you and I know he was an evil liar, that's probably not what he meant.)

Here's a pretty good selection of Goebbels speeches and articles.

So doubting that he said it in the first place, and believing that if he did, he was actually criticizing Jews or the English, I will never use that quote again. That's my take.

If there's one thing I hate more than a made-up or misattributed quote, it's a quote taken out of context. Imagine how shocked I was when I learned that when Mark Twain said, "It's not the parts of the Bible that I don't understand that trouble me, it's the ones that I do understand." He meant something entirely different than how many pastors and books had quoted it to me. I had heard it quoted as meaning that rather than Christians spending too much time on the difficult passages, we should spend more time dealing with the parts we do understand. i.e. we should spend more time obeying, and less time worrying about who the sons of God were that married the daughters of men.

So in researching the quote for something I was working on to make sure it was authentic, I found out that Twain was actually criticizing the Bible! When he said that the parts he understood troubled him, he was talking about God commanding the Israelites to slaughter men, women and children. He was explaining why he didn't believe the Bible was the word of God, and criticizing how awful it was.

So how about you? Can you shed light on the authenticity and meaning of the Goebbels quote?

Is there another quote that people use all the time that is wrong, misattributed or out of context?

Cryptomundo offers up the Top Ten Cryptozoology Stories of 2009.

My fave, of course, is the Champ video.

Baptists had to flee Massachusets because of the law passed in 1644.

"It is ordered and agreed, that if any persons or persons, within this jurisdiction, shall either openly condemn or oppose the baptizing of infants, or seduce others, or leave the congregation during the administration of this rite, they shall be sentenced to banishment."

Many of them went to Rhode Island where Roger Williams had founded the only colony were Baptists were free to worship without persecution. (He also founded the first Baptist church in America there. In fairness, Williams didn't remain a Baptist however. He later labeled himself a seeker. He decided that there was no "true church" left to administer the ordinances.)

In July 1651, three Baptists from Newport went to Lynn, Massachusetts, where they "preached, prayed, baptized new believers, and served communion - all in the home of the aged Baptist who had invited them." The three were arrested by two constables during a meeting. "After a week or more in a Boston Jail, the three were brought into court, tried int he morning, and sentence int he afternoon 'without' said the pastor, John Clarke, 'producing either accuser, witness, jury, law of God or man'." They were charged with "seducing the subjects of this Commonwealth frotthe truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ" and with daring to baptize those who, as infants, had been baptized before. "All three were fined, with he stipulation that if the fines were not paid they would be 'well-whipped'." Friends paid the fines of two. But one of them, Obadiah Holmes refused to let anyone pay it.

On September 5th, 1651, Obadiah Holmes was "brought to Boston's marketplace, tied to a post, and stripped tot he waist to receive 30 lashes with a three-pronged whip on his bare back. Holmes responded to his persecutors saying: 'I am now come to be baptized in afflictions by your hands.'"

When Roger Williams heard of this he wrote an angry letter to the governor of Massachusetts. What possible justification was there for this barbarism? Why did they have "so little respect, mercy or pity to the like conscientious persuasion of other men?" He said don't try to tell me that this poor Baptist, Obadiah Holmes, sinned against his own conscience. For "that is the outcry of Pope and Prelates, and Scotch Presbyterians, who would fire all the world, to be avenged on the ...blasphemous heretics, the seducing heretics."

Williams continued in his letter. He asked, How can you be so sure you are right and so many millions of others are wrong? How can you be sure that in persecuting the many you do not end up persecuting Christ himself? Listen carefully governor, for you may hear " a dreadful voice from the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords: Endicott, Endicott, why huntest thou me? Why imprisonest thou me? Why so finest, who so bloodily whippest?"

Four years later, while president of Providence Plantations, Williams wrote a letter to his town in an attempt to articulate just what religious liberty meant. He used the analogy of a ship at sea. "Papists, Protestants, Jews, Turks" were free to worship as they chose and not compelled to attend anyone elses. But the captain had to keep peace and justice. The government was like the captain. Citizens had to pay taxes and fulfill their obligations and obey in civil matters. But in religion, their liberty should be complete.

These ideas were kept alive for the next century until it was time for our Constitution to be written. To be continued...

I would be remiss if I didn't point out that thinkling friend Ancient Mariner has written about Roger Williams as well.

Most people, if they even remember hearing of Roger Williams the Puritan and founder of Rhode Island, have a vague memory of him as an early advocate of religious liberty—usually contrasted with those awful Puritans, about whom we have all sorts of negative modern fantasies. The truth is, yes, the Puritans had some things wrong, but they were a lot better than their enemies make them out to be; and as regards Williams, it’s important to understand not just what he believed, but why.

...

He was, in short, a Puritan extremist, a hyper-Puritan; this was at the root of his argument with Cotton and the other leaders of the Massachusetts colony. Cotton in particular tried to reason with him, denying the need for absolute purity as a precondition for joining the church... According to Cotton, the church did not require people to be perfectly pure to be godly; instead, it took godly people and showed them the areas of sin in their lives. He argued that to impose a standard of perfect repentance for church membership was to “impose a burthen upon the Church of Christ, which Christ never required at their hands nor yours.” Cotton finished by arguing that the presence of unclean people within a church did not make it any less a true church.

As odd as it may seem to us, Williams’ surface toleration was rooted in a deeper intolerance, while Cotton’s support of policies that seem intolerant to our age arose out of his belief in grace... By contrast, while Williams’ positions match those of our own enlightened time, we should look carefully enough to recognize that his support for tolerance was rooted in part in a belief in the spiritual inferiority of those tolerated.

There was indeed a serious rivalry between Cotton and Williams. I think AM knows far more about this subject than I. To me it's fascinating.. They wrote about and to each other frequently.

It ought to be well-known that one of the reasons that the Pilgrims came to this country was for religious freedom. After much persecution, they came to this country to worship according to their conscience and interpretation of Scripture.

What is not well-known however is that those first colonies sought freedom for themselves only. They instituted their own “state churches”. Residents of those colonies were required to practice the Puritan version of Christianity.
Even in this country there was not true religious freedom. One of the primary victims of this were the Baptists. Baptists in England in 1614 had declared, "The magistrate is not by virtue of his office to meddle with religion, this or that form of religion, or doctrine; but to leave Christian religion free, to every man's conscience, and to handle only civil transgressions."

Meanwhile a boy named Roger Williams grew up near the plaza where Puritans, who were seeking to reform the Church of England were burned, pilloried, mutilated, whipped and imprisoned. In Europe, some Baptists were drowned for their belief in believer’s baptism by immersion, the method being intentionally ironic.
Roger Williams followed the Puritans to the Massachusetts Bay Colony to minister among those who had themselves been persecuted. But when he was called to be a pastor at a church in Salem he discovered that people were not free to worship God as they chose there either. His preaching against this got him in trouble. He also argued that Indians should be paid for their land. This kind of talk made him a heretic and a threat.

Williams preached that “there was never civil state in the world that ever did or ever shall make good work of it, with a civil sword in spiritual matters.” He was labeled a rebel. Williams quoted the teachings of Jesus who said, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” and “Give to Caesar what is Caesar and to God what is God’s.” Williams argued that the Government should stay out of religion completely.

Authorities in Boston made a law declaring that everyone must swear an oath affirming the right of the magistrates to rule in religion. Williams was convicted of holding dangerous opinions. When Williams got word that the Governor had ordered that 15 soldiers kidnap Williams and ship him back to England, Williams said goodbye to his wife and newborn child and fled into the wilderness. He found refuge with the Indians.

Along with other persecuted Christians, Williams purchased land from the Indians and named it “Providence.” Those who believed in baptism of believers as opposed to infants were banished by the Massachusetts Government in 1644. The Baptists fled from Massachusetts to Providence, Rhode Island. There Roger Williams founded the first Baptist church in America. People with different beliefs than his also fled there and he protected their right to worship as they chose.

Williams’ colony was an experiment in Religious Liberty. He opposed forcing anyone to comply with Christianity or any form of state religion. He believed that people should profess faith in Christ according to their own conscience and will, not by force.

For More Info - Of course, you can always Google "Roger Williams". I would also encourage you to google "Baptists" and "persecution". You'll find that Baptists endured much persecution in this country. This is part of the reason they were such staunch advocates of the seperation of church and state.

Williams' own words

We have Roger Williams and Baptists to thank for the ideas that led to the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom for religion.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

There will be more to come...

In honor of Michael Jordan's induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame, ESPN features the Top 23 Michael Jordan Moments.

Love it.

Even though every few years we hear about the alleged "next Michael Jordan," there never will be another one like him. Not Lebron James, who is phenomenal. Not Kobe, who I admit is a great player.
Nobody else carries the weight of myth on the basketball court.
(And does anybody watch the NBA any more?)

I remember watching what's usually known as "the flu game" live. It might've been the most heroic athletic performance I've ever seen.

She founded the first Birth Control clinic in 1916. Later she founded the American Birth Control League (ABC) which became Planned Parenthood.



From everybody's favorite source:

Sanger was a proponent of negative eugenics, a social philosophy which claims that human hereditary traits can be improved through social intervention. Methods of social intervention (targeted at those seen as "genetically unfit") advocated by some negative eugenicists have included selective breeding, sterilization and euthanasia. In A Plan for Peace (1932), for example, Sanger proposed a congressional department to:

Keep the doors of immigration closed to the entrance of certain aliens whose condition is known to be detrimental to the stamina of the race, such as feebleminded, idiots, morons, insane, syphilitic, epileptic, criminal, professional prostitutes, and others in this class barred by the immigration laws of 1924.

And, following:

Apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is already tainted or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.

Her first pamphlet read:

It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them. Herein lies the key of civilization. For upon the foundation of an enlightened and voluntary motherhood shall a future civilization emerge.

Sanger saw birth control as a means to prevent "dysgenic" children from being born into a disadvantaged life, and dismissed "positive eugenics" (which promoted greater fertility for the "fitter" upper classes) as impractical. Though many leaders in the negative eugenics movement were calling for active euthanasia of the "unfit," Sanger spoke out against such methods. She believed that women with the power and knowledge of birth control were in the best position to produce "fit" children. She rejected any type of eugenics that would take control out of the hands of those actually giving birth.
About placing the responsibility for eugenic control in the hands of individual parents rather than the state, she wrote:

"The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics.... We are convinced that racial regeneration, like individual regeneration, must come 'from within.' That is, it must be autonomous, self-directive, and not imposed from without."
She said, "Only upon a free, self-determining motherhood can rest any unshakable structure of racial betterment".(emphasis mine)

She nevertheless advocated certain instances of coercion, in cases where she considered the parents unfit to decide whether they should bear children:

"The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind."

She was hailed by Gloria Steinem in Time magazine as one of the most important people in the 20th century. But there are some who believe she was a racist and that Planned Parenthood is carrying on her legacy.




Abortion and the Black Community

Minority women constitute only about 13% of the female population (age 15-44) in the United States, but they underwent approximately 36% of the abortions.

According to the Alan Guttmacher Institute, black women are more than 5 times as likely as white women to have an abortion

On average, 1,876 black babies are aborted every day in the United States.

This incidence of abortion has resulted in a tremendous loss of life. It has been estimated that since 1973 Black women have had about 16 million abortions. Michael Novak had calculated "Since the number of current living Blacks (in the U.S.) is 36 million, the missing 16 million represents an enormous loss, for without abortion, America's Black community would now number 52 million persons. It would be 36 percent larger than it is. Abortion has swept through the Black community like a scythe, cutting down every fourth member."

I think Margaret Sanger would be proud.

A while back, I saw this news story.

GENEVA (AP) — The United Nations opens its first global racism conference in eight years on Monday with the U.S. and at least five other countries boycotting the event out of concern that Islamic countries will demand that in denounce Israel and ban criticism of Islam.

The administration of President Barack Obama, America's first black head of state, announced Saturday that it would boycott "with regret" the weeklong meeting in Geneva, which already is experiencing much of the bickering and political infighting that marred the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa.

"I would love to be involved in a useful conference that addressed continuing issues of racism and discrimination around the globe," Obama said in Trinidad on Sunday after attending the Summit of the Americas. But he said the language of the U.N.'s draft declaration "raised a whole set of objectionable provisions" and risked a reprise of Durban, "which became a session through which folks expressed antagonism toward Israel in ways that were often times completely hypocritical and counterproductive."

The major sticking points regarding the proposed final U.N. declaration are its implied criticism of Israel and an attempt by Muslim governments to ban all criticism of Islam, Sharia law, the prophet Muhammad and other tenets of their faith.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — who repeatedly has called for the destruction of Israel and denied the Holocaust — is slated to speak on the first day.

The bland U.N. draft statement does not mention Israel by name, but it reaffirms the Durban statement and its reference to the plight of Palestinians. That document was agreed after the United States and Israel had walked out over attempts to liken Zionism — the movement to establish a Jewish state in the Holy Land — to racism.

At first it shocked me to be talking about the destruction of Israel at an "anti-racism" conference. But then I learned something...

Muslims believe that Israel is racist. So an anti-racism conference would naturally be against Israel. Read this article from a "reasonable" apologetics type website that attempts to inform people about Islam. Read this:

It is really interesting to see that the Americans and the Europeans, who support the claims of Israel based on their racism, call themselves the apostles of human rights, freedom and secularism! They have no qualms at all in sending their financial and military aid to deny the Palestinians their birthright to their homeland.

Muslims consider Zionism "racist" because it favors Jews residing in the Promised Land, not the other "Children of Abraham".

It is considered "Haram" (sinful because it is forbidden by Islam) to make peace with Israel.

Allah (S.W.T.) and His messenger Muhammad (S) have defined well the conditions and rules of making peace. The case of Israel does not qualify under those conditions because of the many violations committed by Israel against the Palestinians, the Muslims and the International agreements. Therefore, It is Haram to do peace with them under the current circumstances.

Check out this point of view.

For long, Zionism was equated with racism, as it is a doctrine based on the concept of "the chosen people" and the Promised Land. Only recently, due to pressures, which Zionists have exercised over people and governments, along with their basic abuse of the suffering of the Jews, during the Nazi era - that Zionism ceased to be equated with racism, in the decrees of the UN. This is despite the fact that it is still equated with racism, within the global civil society.

Here's why Muslims view Israel and Zionists as "racist":

The key point of the Palestinian issue is closely related to this idea of the “uniqueness” of the children of Israel. In fact the Torah does speak of God’s gift of Palestine to the children of Abraham; but the Jews believe that since they are the “chosen” of God, the other children of Abraham have no right to the land! Particularly, they argue that the children of the firstborn of Abraham have no right to this land, since the mother happened to be a slave.

Even in this modern age, when so much is heard about human equality, brotherhood and human rights, the Jews and also the Evangelical Christians of America, hold fast to this obscurantist view. They maintain that the Arabs, who are the children of Ishmael - the firstborn of Abraham - have no right to the land of their birth, as that land had been promised by Jehovah to the children of Abraham - by his second son.

Muslims look at the world, history, and words like "racism" through a different lense.

Any sensible person can see that justice is the key to world harmony and peace. Indeed human equality and justice are the bases on which all human rights are founded. This is a fact acknowledged by all those who value human dignity.

Whereas we can see that Zionism denies human equality, as it is founded on the racist idea that by birth the Children of Israel as "God's Chosen People" are a cut above the rest of the world. They claim that the Land of Canaan (Palestine) is promised to them exclusively by none other than God Himself.

In fact, their own Torah says that the Land of Canaan is given to Abraham's "seed" (Genesis 17:8-9), who should reasonably include all the children of Abraham. But from the angle of Zionist interpretation, Abraham's firstborn Ishmael and his children have no right to the Promised Land.

What is funny is that the "secularist", postmodern "civilized" world led by the self-styled upholders of "democracy, freedom and human rights" supports, for all practical purposes, the racist claim that YHWH (God) about four thousand years ago had granted to the Israelis exclusive right to Palestine now occupied by the Zionists.

And the State of Israel illegally founded on Arab land in 1948 is allowed to hold hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs ransom. Their atrocities began with the massacre of over 250 Palestinian men, women and children of Deir Yassin committed by terrorist gangs led by Menachem Begin.

The systematic occupation of more and more of Arab land by Israel has been going on all the while. It was made easy for Israel to do this by the United States. It is interesting to note that Israel goes on changing its border as it needs more and more land for its planned expansion at the expense of the Palestinians.

The "Intifada" (the Uprising) and the recent "martyr-operations" of the Palestinians is the last ditch battle of a people for their basic human rights. But the world media distort the facts to tell the world a different story.

Now the original news story makes more sense to me. Muslims viewed the UN declaration at Durban as a victory, because Israel was finally condemned. And this point of view is not just from the "radical Islamists". I found this same point of view in basic Islamic textbooks written for the general public.

I wondered how one who is "Anti-Israel" could be "Anti-Racism". It seems like an oxymoron to me. But to Muslims to be anti-racism is to be anti-Israel and those of us who claim to be against Racism, but are for Israel are the actual hypocrites. We think they are hypocrites because they claim to be against Racism and hate Israel, and they think we are hypocrites because we claim to be against Racism and support Israel.

That's what Doug Phillips says.

On July 10, six days after our own Independence Day, the world will celebrate the birthday of John Calvin, the man most responsible for our American system of liberty based on Republican principles of representative government.

It was Founding Father and the second President of the United States, John Adams, who described Calvin as "a vast genius," a man of "singular eloquence, vast erudition, and polished taste, [who] embraced the cause of Reformation," adding: "Let not Geneva be forgotten or despised. Religious liberty owes it much respect."

Calvin, a humble scholar and convert to Reformation Christianity from Noyon, France, is best known for his influence on the city of Geneva. It was there that his careful articulation of Christian theology as applied to familial, civil, and ecclesiastical authority modeled many of the principles of liberty later embraced by our own Founders, including anti-statism, the belief in transcendent principles of law as the foundation of an ethical legal system, free market economics, decentralized authority, an educated citizenry as a safeguard against tyranny, and republican representative government which was accountable to the people and a higher law.

In time, these ideas were imported to America. Certainly, the cause of American independence did not begin in 1776, but well over a century before as the first settlers arrived. These included the Huguenots of France, the Presbyterians of Scotland and Ireland, and the Puritans of New England. A common denominator of all these groups was their adherence to Reformed and Calvinistic confessions of faiths and a common heritage forged in the midst of civil and ecclesiastical tyranny. This is one reason why historians like Leopold von Ranke have observed that "Calvin was virtually the founder of America."

King George once dismissed the American War for Independence as a mere "Presbyterian rebellion." He did so because it was the colonial pulpit which most vociferously drew from Calvin's legacy as the pretext for independence.

Preachers from New England to South Carolina invoked the Calvinistic doctrine of interposition as the biblical pretext for lower magistrates holding renegade and tyrannical higher magistrates accountable to the law. Principles of interposition had been vetted and defended by men like Calvin and Scotland's John Knox and Samuel Rutherford, the latter of whom defended the doctrine in his seminal work, Lex Rex. These writings and others (like Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos written by another Calvin disciple) were widely read by our Founding Fathers and even presented to students at the College of New Jersey by Declaration of Independence signer John Witherspoon.

Despite the overwhelming influence of Calvinism on the founding of America, the last century has brought a backlash of anti-Calvinistic sentiment from modern and postmodern historians who have largely ignored Calvin's or presented the scholar from Geneva as harsh and intolerant.

The execution of anti-Trinitarian agitator Michael Servetus by Genevan officials is often cited as proof of the religious intolerance of John Calvin. This analysis does not hold water. Servetus had a death sentence on his head in multiple European cities. Along with Geneva's magistrates, dozens of important civil leaders outside this Swiss city called for the execution of Servetus. Calvin was not one of them. Calvin neither sat on the council which passed judgment on Servetus, nor was he even a citizen of Geneva at the time.

One need not be an adherent to Calvin's theology to acknowledge his mammoth contribution. Even Jean Jacques Rousseau, a fellow Genevan who was no friend to Christianity, observed: "Those who consider Calvin only as a theologian fail to recognize the breadth of his genius. The editing of our wise laws, in which he had a large share, does him as much credit as his Institutes.... [S]o long as the love of country and liberty is not extinct amongst us, the memory of this great man will be held in reverence."

As we celebrate Independence Day, let us remember the 500-year legacy of liberty bequeathed to us by John Calvin, even as we stand with Harvard historian George Bancroft who wisely stated: "He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty."

Doug Phillips is a constitutional attorney and is spear-heading the Reformation 500 Celebration to be held in Boston on July 1-4.

So what do you think?

Until Neil takes that first small step . . .

With a nod from John Calvin, the Geneva city council in 1553 burned Michael Servetus at the stake. Servetus was a heretic who denied the Trinity of persons within the Godhead and denied paedobaptism. While Calvin preferred to give Servetus a quick death via decapitation, he had to compromise with the council who preferred to let Servetus burn to death.

On a related note, a few years earlier, Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli, and his council, persecuted Anabaptists by giving them their "third baptism": a death by drowning. Zwingli would later die by the sword, fighting Catholics in neighboring counties.

Sadly, the history of Christianity is rich with bloodshed. Thankfully, these days we don't kill guys like Joel Osteen and whoever the guy is who wrote The Shack, but I think the history of dealing with heresy should teach us that orthodoxy -- right thinking -- really matters. To be sure, I don't condone certain ways the church has dealt with heresies in the past; in fact, I find many of those ways appalling. While I'm not a pacifist, I tend to think that the Anabaptists had a lot of right ideas when it came to their aversion to violence.

Heresy is serious, and an appropriate response to heresy is something the evangelical church needs to grapple with in this age of pluralism, "tolerance," and sweltering anti-Christianity. As far as an appropriate response goes, violence is not the answer.

The Nicene Creed was born this day in 325. One of the oldest and most widely used confessions of the universal Christian faith, the Nicene Creed was formulated at a time when the heresy of Arianism threatened orthodox Christianity with the denial of Jesus' deity. Thus the strong Christology in the creed.

I believe in one God,
the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only begotten Son of God,
begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light,
very God of very God,
begotten, not made,
being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who for us men and for our salvation
came down from heaven,
and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost
of the Virgin Mary,
and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again
according to the Scriptures,
and ascended into heaven,
and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory,
to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Ghost the Lord, and Giver of Life,
who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son];
who with the Father and the Son together
is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. AMEN.

Element's statement of faith credits the affirmations of the Nicene Creed.

Many thanks to the Spyglass for reminding me that today is the 200th birthday of my favorite President.

I'm reprinting below a portion of his second inaugural address, one of the greatest speeches ever delivered. You can read the whole thing at the Spyglass.

Neither party expected for the war, the magnitude, or the duration, which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has his own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offences! for it must needs be that offences come; but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh!" If we shall suppose that American Slavery is one of those offences which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South, this terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a Living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope—fervently do we pray—that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue, until all the wealth piled by the bond-man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash, shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said: "the judgments of the Lord, are true and righteous altogether."

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

I had a dream once, too, Dr. King, and you
Were in it–only, and here is the miracle,
That early morning, April 4, had never happened,
And you had lived on to a venerable old age,
A silver-tongued, silver-haired preacher of peace.

And here’s the thing: You walked into Cricket’s
With all those Southern gentlemen you wrote from your
Birmingham jail, just like the beginning of a bad joke
My subconscious was telling me (some preachers
And a rabbi walk into a bar, and…)

And even though you were all men of the cloth
I brought you a round of drinks and proposed
A toast unsolicited but welcomed: “Here’s to the
End of all things not eternal.”

Then all you old men dreamed your dreams and
Saw them come to pass–every gesture of
Reconciliation, every brown-skinned boy with
A blue-eyed girl–no longer apathetic, no longer
Afraid of what was behind your fences.

So I brought around the bread and wine like you asked
And you feasted the feast of deliverance.
Then I woke up–winter morning, January 15,
and I remembered, and gave thanks.

- Amanda McClendon

Reprinted with Mander's permission

I realize that I've been posting too many videos lately. Hopefully that's not a trend, but as the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the Apple Macintosh nears, I thought a little retrospective was in order.

First there's this article on what critics thought of the Mac when it was released. My favorite quote is from famous techno-grouch John Dvorak. He wasn't too thrilled with that needless gadget, the mouse:

The nature of the personal computer is simply not fully understood by companies like Apple (or anyone else for that matter). Apple makes the arrogant assumption of thinking that it knows what you want and need. It, unfortunately, leaves the “why” out of the equation — as in “why would I want this?” The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a ‘mouse’. There is no evidence that people want to use these things. I dont want one of these new fangled devices.

Here's that great "1984"-themed commercial that aired during the '84 Superbowl:



Finally, here's Steve Jobs introducing the Mac on January 24, 1984. The oohs. ahs, and rapturous applause coming from the crowd are illustrative of how far we've come in personal computing over these past 25 years. My favorite part is when the Mac "talks" (this was actually pretty advanced stuff for personal computing in 1984).



Note: I'm not a Mac-bigot. But I do really enjoy having one.

The Internet Monk's annual Halloween rant is here.

Trick or treat.