Monthly Archives: January 2023

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Daily Broadside | The Little Squabble in the House is a Good Thing

Friday and here comes the weekend, which will hopefully give us all a break from the drama on Capitol Hill where Kevin McCarthy has now failed in 11 rounds of voting to be elected speaker of the House. Twenty Republican members of the House refuse to vote for him, denying him the 218 votes he needs to be elected.

This is the first time in a century that the vote for speaker has gone beyond one ballot and is now the longest contest for speaker in 164 years. To put you at ease, the longest went 133 rounds and took two months. We’re not even close to that.

There’s a variety of reactions to the fight for speaker. Most of the GOPe and the media are talking about it as if this is a horrible development, putting the Republican party at risk and delaying the start of getting about “the people’s business.”

Others, like me, think this is good for not just the party, but for the country. Our Founders gave us a system of government that is meant to be contentious, with checks and balances that are supposed to keep any one branch or party from becoming too powerful. We’re now testing the limits of that intention across the federal government, but I see this intra-party squabble as a good thing.

What we’re witnessing now is the messy, glorious republican form of government our Founding Fathers laid out in the Constitution. Many Americans are tired of the uniparty that exuberantly passes pork-laden omnibus spending bills in the dead of night and plays by Marquess of Queensberry Rules as our country plunges toward insolvency, immorality, and anarchy.

At least some of the Trump-supporting Republicans have found their cajones and are taking a principled stand against business as usual and are demanding a change instead of just going along to get along. Every moment McCarthy is delayed from getting the gavel is a moment that prevents the feds from robbing us blind and imposing more restrictions on us.

I’ve asked this before, but seriously: when have the Republicans removed obstacles to freedom and let us keep more of our money? When they helped Democrats pass the unconscionable $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill that no one was able to read before voting on it? There was some of that under Trump, but even he signed massive spending bills and made poor choices with the Chinese Lung Pox.

So spare me the hand-wringing over this little tussle in the House. Nobody will even remember it come 2024.

In the end, we’ll probably end up with Speaker McCarthy and it’ll be back to a do-nothing House that will hold showboat hearings that mean nothing while allowing Democrats to skate without consequences for their traitorous behavior the last six years, will fleece the American taxpayers, and will continue doing next to nothing for the people.

The Federal government is not what it was intended to be and I don’t know if it can ever be restored to its former glory. Probably not in my lifetime.

But a nice first step is throwing some wrenches in the gears so that the grifting uniparty gets the message that we’re not happy with them and we’re going to make life as difficult as possible for them if they don’t start listening to us and make some concessions.

Have a great weekend.

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Daily Broadside | Here’s When the Church Stops Being the Church

Although the Chinese Lung Pox destroyed our economy, killed tens of thousands of businesses and allowed our overlords to let their totalitarian freak flags fly, it did come with the benefit of exposing the sexual grooming that exists in our public schools from kindergarten through high school and into college. Because the teacher’s union wanted to join the laptop class by keeping kids out of school indefinitely, parents were able to see just what their children were “learning.”

It seems like ever since the Supreme Court of the United States found a plain but oddly invisible “right” to homosexual marriage in our Constitution, the sexual deviants have come out of the woodwork to demand their appropriate recognition in society, too. Everything from non-binarys to transsexuals to homosexuals to any of seventy-eleven more “genders” are all insisting that anyone who doesn’t support them are “homophobic” or “transphobic” or “cis-normative” or some other defamatory term they fling at us Normals.

Of course, this kind of mental psychosis has been making its way into the church for some time. Now, in the Church of England, the first “gender-queer” priest has publicly stated his intention to normalize such mental confusion among children. (I use the pronoun “his” even though he apparently uses “they/them” pronouns to refer to himself. It will come as no shock that I do not use plural pronouns for a male pretending to be something he is not and will not violate traditional rules of grammar to appease him or his supporters.)

A non-binary gender-queer Anglican priest in the United Kingdom is on record claiming to use the clerical position in hopes of “normalizing” such behavior among children.

“I try to get involved in, not just in my religious work but outside it, with the local secular LGBT youth groups,” said Rev. Bingo Allison, a Church of England priest in the Diocese of Liverpool who identifies as gender-queer and uses “they/them” pronouns, according to an interview with the Liverpool Echo.

“One of the biggest things is just being a visual representation in my community and going into schools, doing assemblies and making a huge difference in normalizing it for children. When I’m wearing my collar it lets children know that is OK and that there is a place in church and the outside world for people like me,” Allison added.

Here we have an agent of the devil who has managed to infiltrate the body of Christ with the evil intention of corrupting the most innocent among us — our children. I believe Jesus warned against leading children astray.

“If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!” — Matthew 18:6-7

Is teaching children that it’s normal to think you’re the opposite sex or no sex at all and to mutilate your body to “affirm” your emotional confusion causing them to stumble, or nah?

Mr. Allison also claims that he had “an epiphany” at one point when he was writing an essay about Genesis 1:27.

Allison, who claims to be the first non-binary gender-queer priest in England’s established church, also claimed to have discovered a biblical basis for gender fluidity during a late-night reading of Genesis 1:27, which recounts how God created humans male and female.

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them,” reads the verse, which Allison maintained expresses “maleness to femaleness” instead of men and women.

Apparently, this was his discovery that the Bible endorses gender fluidity when instead, it exposes his willful ignorance of the Hebrew language. The Liverpool article doesn’t tell us how he concluded that “the language which the bible originally used in Genesis 1:27 spoke about ‘from maleness to femaleness’ as opposed to men and women.” Any reputable commentary concludes nothing of the sort, and the Hebrew text itself distinctly says, “male and female” (זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה). All Allison says is, “I was sitting there in the middle of the night when I realised I might need to run my life upside down. It was a deepening spiritual experience, I properly felt God was guiding me into this new truth about myself.”

He had a personal interior experience that he claims was “spiritual” based on feelings and a corrupt reading of the scriptures. Is it possible that his corrupt nature led him to conclusions that aren’t supported by scripture but are supported by the culture?

Well, lookee here: how convenient for him that the Anglican Church of England is a woke, liberal institution that caters to the culture.

The Church of England in the Western world is rapidly losing members in its attempt to remain culturally relevant, according to multiple conservative Anglicans and former Anglicans who spoke to Fox News Digital.

“They’re reflecting the culture,” Andrea Williams, chief executive of the London-based nonprofit Christian Legal Centre, told Fox News Digital. “So in order to be in step with the culture, they’re looking to appease the culture instead of looking to what the Bible says and to what the church should be saying.”

Evangelical and conservative Protestants need to know their doctrine and stand against the liars and false teachers who are infiltrating the fellowship of believers.

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Daily Broadside | New Discovery Boosts Christian Confidence in the Bible

As a believer it is helpful to my faith when archeological discoveries reinforce or directly prove the historicity of the Bible. In three scriptures, we read of the Pool of Siloam.

2 Kings 20:20 —

As for the other events of Hezekiah’s reign, all his achievements and how he made the pool and the tunnel by which he brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the annals of the kings of Judah?

Nehemiah 3:15 —

He also repaired the wall of the Pool of Siloam, by the King’s Garden, as far as the steps going down from the City of David.

John 9:7 —

“Go,” [Jesus] told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam” (this word means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came home seeing.

And now, if you want to go see the pool, you can.

The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel National Parks Authority and the City of David Foundation announced days before the new year that the Pool of Siloam, a biblical site cherished by Christians and Jews, will be open to the public for the first time in 2,000 years in the near future.

“The Pool of Siloam’s excavation is highly significant to Christians around the world,” American Pastor John Hagee, the founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, told Fox News Digital. “It was at this site that Jesus healed the blind man (John:9), and it is at this site that, 2,000 years ago, Jewish pilgrims cleansed themselves prior to entering the Second Temple. 

“The Pool of Siloam and the Pilgrimage Road, both located within the City of David, are among the most inspiring archeological affirmations of the Bible…

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The pool was first built roughly 2,700 years ago as part of Jerusalem’s water system in the eighth century B.C. The construction unfolded during the reign of King Hezekia as cited in the Bible in the Book of Kings II, 20:20, according to the two Israeli agencies and the City of David Foundation. 

According to estimates, the Pool of Siloam passed through many stages of construction and reached the size of 1¼ acres.

Atheists, secular humanists and mainline scoffers often characterize the Bible as being mythological or fictional. Yet there has never been an archeological find that has disproved any biblical record; in fact, any archeological discovery relating to a biblical text has only validated the Bible’s historicity.

For instance (and appropriately, as we exit the Christmas season), it was long thought that the Bible was in error when Luke wrote (2:1) that, “In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)” Critics charged that Quirinius was governor at a later date than what the Bible claims, but Sir William Ramsey (1851-1939), historian and archaeologist, demonstrated that Quirinius was twice governor of Syria, the first being at the time of Jesus’ birth.

So, when another bit of archeology verifies the scripture’s record, it serves as a reminder that my faith is based, at least in part, on solid evidence of its historical accuracy. The reinforcement comes in handy when facing a culture that is not just increasingly hostile, but increasingly militant and violent towards Christians in ways that would have been unthinkable just 30 years ago.

The Pool of Siloam is one of those significant historical discoveries that can encourage us.

Ze’ev Orenstein, director of international affairs for the City of David Foundation in Jerusalem, told Fox News Digital, “One of most significant sites affirming Jerusalem’s biblical heritage — not simply as a matter of faith, but as a matter of fact — with significance to billions around the world, will be made fully accessible for the first time in 2,000 years.”

The Pool of Siloam doesn’t prove that Jesus was who he said he was but taken with hundreds of other pieces of archeological evidence, we can trust that the biblical authors were accurate in what they wrote about the times and places in which they lived. And if they were accurate in those details, then a person could reasonably conclude that they were accurate in other details — like Jesus being the Son of God.

I thought Rev. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders, nicely summarized what the discovery of the Pool of Siloam means for us.

“In the Pool of Siloam, we find evidence of history preserved for us, revealed at just the right time. This is a truly historic event. Theologically, it affirms Scripture, geographically it affirms history and politically it affirms Israel’s unquestionable and unrivaled link to Jerusalem. Some discoveries are theoretical. This one is an undeniable. It is proof of the story of the Bible and of its people, Israel.”

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Daily Broadside | It’s My First Post of 2023 …

… and yesterday was New Year’s Day (Observed) at my office, so I had another day off. I hope your Christmas and New Year’s celebrations were wonderful and meaningful and full of warmth and pleasant memories …

… because it might be a new year but it’s the same-old same-old in the world of politics and culture and faith. Just because everything is “merry and bright” doesn’t mean we begin with a completely clean slate once the calendar turns a new page. Well, unless you’re in Christ, then “his compassions never fail. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22-23) and, by extension, every year.

We’ll have to learn how to live in a country that is not just fraying at the edges, but is tearing down the middle. The FBI is still the Gestapo we learned about over the last six years; the Democrats are still the political mafia they exposed themselves to be; the GOP is not the opposition party but part of the swamp (with a few notable exceptions); our economy is being destroyed by the Church of Perpetual Climate Fear as war is waged on our abundance of natural gas and oil resources for some fantasy of “carbon-neutral” energy (go back to nuclear energy!); the border is still porous and getting worse because we live under a lawless regime whose sole purpose is to destroy the United States as founded; the judiciary has become a court of rubber stamps that enable progressive lawlessness; our elections are no longer free or fair, but hopelessly suspect; the DOJ and Brandon himself have demonized patriotic Americans and keeps hundreds of them locked up in violation of their due process rights; and normal Americans should be gathering by the millions to protest and agitate against all of it but such behavior is only allowed on the Left and prosecuted against the Right.

My political awakening came a couple of decades ago and I’ve invested more time in speaking out against the lawlessness than I ever have over the last three years. I sometimes see myself as a guy running up and down the brow of a rocky island jutting up out of the sea, waving a red flag, setting off flares, and yelling at an approaching luxury cruise ship, trying to get the attention of anyone on board, warning them that they’re about to run aground and sink the boat. Unfortunately, even though I’ve gotten the attention of a few people on the promenade deck, the captain and crew don’t seem to notice or care.

It’s dawning on me that there is no solution that will immediately fix the dire circumstances we find ourselves in. What I didn’t want to grant, but what has become most apparent, is that our freedoms and homogenous cultural assumptions can no longer be taken for granted. Speech is being curtailed by political and technological ideologues; deeply evil people lie and conspire to get the political outcomes they want. The spirit of our Founders once held us together as a nation, along with deeply religious communities of faith. Those have now been relegated to specialized institutions like the Heritage Foundation or Hillsdale College or to the church or the synagogue or the mosque. You’re certainly not going to find them in the halls of congress or our schools, which regularly and naturally reinforced our national values.

The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
    he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
    the purposes of his heart through all generations.

Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
    the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down
    and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches
    all who live on earth—
he who forms the hearts of all,
    who considers everything they do.

Psalm 33:10-15

Nothing escapes the Lord’s notice. He’s aware of all that is taking place in our country’s capitol, in each of the legislatures in each state, of every person in a position of authority. He’s aware of the lies, the cheating, the oppression, the hatred, the incitement conflict among the people, of the favoritism and the graft and the greed.

His purpose among the nations will prevail because his plans “stand firm forever.” How I wish that we would be known as a “nation whose God is the Lord.” But those in power disingenuously say they fear a “theocracy,” even though a return to the Judeo-Christian principles that this nation was founded on would be the right thing.

They reject them at the cost of their own destruction. They are blind fools and, one day, they will shrink in horror and shame as the full weight of their foolishness bores down on them.

In the meantime, Christians should be doing three things: actively opposing the evil being done in this nation, preparing for persecution, and winning as many to Christ as they can, while they can.