Month: October 2013

Death Benefit Denial: Enough Is Enough

Of all the outrages being committed in the name of government “shutdown” this past week, perhaps the most disturbing have been those directed against the military. By now, we all have pretty well rehearsed the attempt to keep WWII veterans from their memorial. Barring wheelchaired veterans from visiting the memorial wasn’t one of this administration’s best optics. But it’s as if they didn’t really care how it appeared to the public. All they were interested in was inflicting pain: A… Read more »

Making Life Difficult: It’s Disgusting

“It’s disgusting.” Who said that? A National Parks ranger when asked to comment on the directives the National Park Service has received from the Obama administration with respect to shutting down national monuments and parks and closing off access to the public. Here’s his full quote: It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation. We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting. I commented last week on the shutdown of the WWII… Read more »

Finney: Truth & Prayer

Personal confession time: sometimes reading Charles Finney makes me extremely uncomfortable. He seems to have a knack for pointing out my weaknesses. Perhaps this is because some weaknesses are more widespread than others and focusing on them brings conviction to a large audience. Whatever the reason, when he writes about prayer vs. simply bringing truth into people’s lives, I see myself far too much. Here’s what Finney says in his Revival Lectures: Some have zealously used truth to convert men,… Read more »

Lewis: The Intrusive God

A lot of people don’t mind the idea of a god of some kind; they just don’t want him/it/whatever to be too personal or make any demands. Avoiding accountability for one’s actions is a very human trait, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. C. S. Lewis touched on this issue in his book Miracles: Men are reluctant to pass over from the notion of an abstract and negative deity to the living God. I do not wonder. Here… Read more »

Retiring the New Order

Barack Obama’s pledge to fundamentally transform America wasn’t an empty promise/threat. While this transformation has been obvious to anyone paying attention over the past 4+ years, sometimes it takes a really foolish act—like closing the WWII Memorial—to highlight his basic break from all of American history and tradition. Whether you realize it or not, we are now living in a new America under this president. It’s an America we’ve never seen before: Those who normally would be seen as patriotic… Read more »

Obamacare & Other Despicable Acts

It has become rather obvious that President Obama is using this government slimdown to inflict as much annoyance/pain on the general population as possible, in the hope that they will rise up against Republicans, accusing them of being the cause of all the pain. I’m not making an illogical leap here; he did it previously when the sequester went into effect, shutting down even the relatively inexpensive White House tours. The most glaring example of the ridiculous nature of this… Read more »

The Real End of the World

So here we are: October 1, and the government is in limbo with its funding. The way it’s being portrayed, we’re in sight of the end of the world. Well, I’m not of that opinion. I have it on very good authority that the end will look something like this: And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. …. Read more »