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Schools-I-AK

26 Jul

Some States are beginning to mandate that the Ten Commandments be taught in the public schools and many people are saying it violates the teaching of religion. However, the Ten Commandments are not strictly a product of Judaism and Christianity. Just about every culture has laws that forbid killing, stealing, lying, and others. The difference  between the Ten Commandments and other laws is that the Ten Commandments are given by God. It is generally accepted that those who make the laws can change them. If God made them, no man can change them. Those made by man may be changed by those that make them, or by those called to interpret them. We are seeing the difference in the United States today.  Judges who believe in the Constitution and the rule of law restrict themselves to interpreting the laws passed by Congress and the people while those who believe laws are man-made feel they can ignore the law when it interferes with what they want to do, or they can use it to harass their opponents and overlook it when it affects their friends. In the mid-1900’s, the Ten Commandments were firmly imbedded in our government and judicial system and people generally respected the law. There were those who disobeyed the law and they were usually punished but they made up a small portion of the population. Today, the Ten Commandments is banned from many schools and court rooms and the Constitution and laws passed by Congress and the people are often ignored or twisted to fit the person’s purpose. As a result, we see widespread lawlessness on our streets and in our political arena. Many judges and politicians feel they are above the law and the people follow their leaders.  The police can only do so much.  Laws may prevent killing or stealing, or lying when they are enforced, but they cannot prevent the hatred that produces killing, the greed that produces stealing, or the deceitfulness that prevents lying. Those feelings can only be contained when a person respects his neighbor, their property, and their reputation. It is that respect for man, his possessions, and his reputation that are taught in the Ten Commandments. If a person does not respect his neighbor, he will lie, steal, and even kill if he thinks he can get away with it. I wrote a series of study courses based on the values set down in the Ten Commandments to illustrate the difference between man’s values and the values God set down in the Ten Commandments.

 

 
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Posted in Schools

 

Eleventh Sunday of Pentecost-July 28

25 Jul

 Children’s activities  My wife and I have lived in Trailer parks (now called Mobile Home parks) throughout our marriage. Previously, trailers were usually small and easily moved and many residents moved frequently. People rarely bother to get to know their neighbors because they would move soon although more trailers are becoming bigger and harder to move. There is rarely anything for the kids to do. Many parents let their children roam the neighborhood without any supervision and they often get into trouble trying to create their own activities. The same goes for large apartment complexes where there are a lot of families. Parents and managers of mobile home parks and apartment complexes are often happy to see someone organize supervised activities for children to keep them out of trouble. Managers may be reluctant if an outside group wants to start it but are more willing if it is headed by a family in the park. Other managers may just be glad someone wants to start it. Many mobile home parks and apartment complexes now have community rooms for activities but they are seldom used because there is no one to organize activities. Such activities draw kids and provide contacts with their parents that open the door to developing a relationship with the parents. People in general are becoming more isolated from those around them, even in  neighborhoods o permanent houses. Many neighborhoods have become more dangerous and parents don’t want their kids running the neighborhood without supervision and keep them cooped up in the house. As a result, many people in permanent housing neighborhoods are becoming as isolated as mobile home parks and apartment complexes and need children’s activities as well. Such activities should be out of concern for the lost, not just to keep the kids out of trouble. When I first went to work with the Salvation Army, I saw a lot of clients from a low-income housing project. I knew from experience that there was little for the children to do and little contact between mothers and so I organized an after-school program for the kids during the summer. I enlisted a church nearby to run it and enlisted a woman from the church to assist me in visiting the mothers to organize a mother’s club. The after-school program attracted a lot of kids who eventually started attending the church’s Wednesday night children’s program. Unfortunately, the church did not support the work to reach the mothers in the complex. It also dropped the after-school program once they got a good number of kids from the project attending their Wednesday night program. Unfortunately, while having active children’s programs make churches look good, the programs are expensive and not very effective if they don’t work to reach the parents as well. It has often been difficult getting churches to support the trailer park ministries. Many churches don’t do outside ministries because they don’t want “THOSE” kind of people (the unchurched) in their church and unchurched kids are often unruly since they weren’t raised by Christian parents.

 
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Posted in Children's Ministry, Church ministry, evangelism, Pentecost

 

Education-I-AJ

25 Jul

Kids need to be taught to think critically on issues. Many public schools and universities today seek to indoctrinate kids in what is politically correct by telling them their view and demonizing those who hold an opposing view. Liberal teaching is based on emotion based theories not science and need to be exposed with scientific facts. Kids needs to be taught to seek out and evaluate both sides of an issue so they are not led blindly to accept false liberal teaching. I feel that my class on debating in high school was one of the most important classes I took because it taught me to back up my beliefs with facts. I vividly remember a debate I had over the value vs the dangers of smoking. This was in the early 1960’s when smoking was popular, before the dangers of smoking became public. My opponent argued that it helped him relax and made him look “cool”. My research however, produced numerous studies showing close ties of smoking to heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, and a multitude of other diseases which were withheld from the public because of pressure from cigarette manufacturers. He defended the popular socially accepted view based on feelings, but I defended the opposing view based on facts backed by numerous studies. When I taught Sociology in college, they used liberal textbooks based on politically correct theories and not facts and I felt I needed to present the facts so they could learn the truth about relationships, health and financial issues, government, education, and public welfare. I had to go back to books published before 1960 which were written by experts and reviewed by panels of their peers. While teaching, I wrote the lectures to include both sides of the issue and later published what I learned under the two volume  series, “Truly in the World But Not of it”, which is still available from LULU Press.

 

 
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Posted in Schools

 

Politics-AB-AW

25 Jul

It is hard to understand why Democrat voters are not outraged at the way the Democratic leadership has run their primaries this year. All opponents were shut out of the Democratic primaries in a lot of the States so only Joe Biden’s name was on the ticket. As a result, voters did not get to express a preference for anyone else, in spite of the fact that numerous top Democrats said he was unfit to run. It seemed there was doubt in the beginning whether he should run, yet voters were not allowed to express their views.  Now suddenly, at the last moment, Biden removed himself from the running so the voters will not have an opportunity to express their preference for anyone else, and Biden’s replacement is being picked by party leaders with no input from voters. Was that the plan all along? It seems that the Democratic Party is not being very democratic. It remains to be seen if Democrat voters will rebel against their leadership in November.

 

 
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Posted in Politics

 

Politics-AB-AV

25 Jul

Hillary Clinton used her own private server as Secretary of State to avoid scrutiny, a clear violation of law. When exposed, she destroyed the computer, phones, and laptops to prevent them being used as evidence against her, but she has never been held accountable. The FBI began investigating Donald Trump knowing that the evidence they used to get permission to investigate him was fake, and it was leaked to the press to discredit Trump so  Hillary could win. Fortunately it failed and Donald Trump won. When it came out that the Clinton Foundation produced the fake evidence, they were not investigated, and the Democrat controlled House continued to investigate Trump to discredit him and prevent him from getting a second term.  They then impeached him in spite of evidence that he was innocent. On Jan 6, 2020, Trump ordered his followers to go home and urged Congress to call out the National Guard to help the capital police but Nancy Pelosi refused their help.  Yet they impeached Trump again for encouraging his followers to riot when clear video evidence proved otherwise. When a laptop was found with incriminating evidence against Hunter Biden, the FBI claimed it was fake news and a number of FBI staff attested to the lie. When it became clear that the story was true, no attempt was made to prosecute Hunter Biden. The FBI raided Trump’s Florida residence and seized sensitive government documents even though as President he was legally allowed to possess them and they were in a secure place. The Justice Dept then proceeded to publicly trumpet his supposed guilt. When it was found that President Biden had such documents from when he was a Senator and when he was Vice-president, which was illegal for him to possess and they were laying around his garage where anyone could access them, they felt it was not worth prosecuting him. I think we are seeing a clear pattern here where politicians and unelected government agencies are acting to interfere with the election process through a media campaign to discredit their opponents and protect their friends and that is eroding public confidence in our government. Those responsible need to be prosecuted but it is apparent that they won’t be by the current administration.

 

 
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Posted in Politics

 

video-Value of Family and Gender Study course

22 Jul

I am offering my course on The Value of Family and Gender for only $12.99             until August 4, 2024 with the following link https://www.udemy.com/course/value-of-family-and-gender/?couponCode=FA05B1A

 

 
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Posted in Marriage, promos, Study Courses, Videos

 

video-Value of Family and Gender Study course-promo

22 Jul

 
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Posted in Marriage, promos, Study Courses, Videos

 

Tenth Sunday of Pentecost -Jul 21

18 Jul

 Reaching the Lost in your neighborhood-Pentecost is a good time to renew your resolve to reach those who have never heard the Gospel. While many Christians still think of the United States as a Christian nation, since the 1960’s, many children have grown up with no contact with the church. Many families don’t attend church and usually won’t send their children to Sunday School but will allow them to attend neighborhood activities. Many members have no idea that many of their neighbors have no church connection. The best place to start is where they are. Now is a good time to begin planning ways to reach those in your neighborhood who have never heard the Gospel. While many Christians feel that unbelievers are generally resistant to the Gospel, most have never heard the Gospel and see no reason to attend church, but would if they had a reason to. Possibilities for getting to know your neighbors include visiting neighbors to get to know them, starting a neighborhood children’s Bible club, having a backyard BBQ for the neighbors, and many more. You won’t know who doesn’t go to church until you meet them. While some may attend church somewhere, the chances are that the majority have no church connection, let alone actually attending.

 
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Posted in Church ministry, evangelism, Faith in practice, Pentecost

 

Politics-AB-AU

18 Jul

The media has been saying that the Supreme Court decision exempting presidents from legal action concerning actions they take in their official duties will make Trump a dictator is a blatant lie. It has been generally understood for over two hundred years that the President was immune from prosecution by civil courts for carrying out his official duties, until Democrats began attacking Trump with frivolous lawsuits to turn voters against him in an outrageous attempt to influence the election. It would subject the president to tremendous pressure since he would be afraid to act on difficult decisions because he would be constantly afraid of getting sued after he leaves office.  The decision is to Biden’s benefit since his crimes are openly known (refusal to close the border as required by law, influence peddling while in office, supporting terrorists with taxpayer money, using the justice department to investigate and prosecute those who oppose him (particularly Christians who oppose abortion, and parents who object in school board meetings), promoting abortion in violation of federal law, forcing federal agencies to circumvent State laws, and forcing school boards and State agencies to violate their State laws).  Biden has followed President Obama’s lead and enacted executive orders without authority and in open violation of federal laws and the Constitution and threatened States with law suits if they didn’t comply, even though executive orders have no force of law and do not override State laws. He has distorted the truth and sought to scare uninformed voters and attacked the separation of powers which seems desperate and unethical. He has also sought to increase the Supreme Court to enable him to pack it with judges who will ignore the Constitution and make laws from the bench like Roe vs Wade which the framers feared most and why they made justices positions for life. If he hasn’t been able to get things by legal means, he has sought to do it by force.  Those sound more like something a dictator would do.  They attacked President Trump for canceling President Obama’s executive orders that violated the Constitution and federal law and claimed he had no authority to do so, yet feel President Obama had the authority to issue them.  Either the President has the authority or he doesn’t.  The Constitution says he does not. President Obama  violated the constitution by issuing them, so President Trump was well within his authority and had a responsibility to remove them and restore the rule of law. In addition, President Trump was within his authority to pressure State and federal agencies to obey the law and carry out their duties in accordance with law. The Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach a president if he neglects his duty or violates his oath of office, but to open him to lawsuits by any and every stray court would tie his hands and make it impossible to function. That is why it is so important to elect representatives  to Congress who will carry out the law and the will of the people. They are responsible for seeing that the President carries out his duties faithfully and they have been negligent in doing so.

 

 

 
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Posted in Politics

 

Previous Posts

18 Jul

From time to time people want to access old files without going back through all the postings. As a result, I placed a link at the bottom of each posting with a link to previous postings on that topic. Simply click on the link to access past postings on that topic. To access topics I have not dealt with recently, I posted a series of twelve postings under “Previous Posts”. Each lists several topics and has links to those topics. This posting has a link to those posts so you can view the whole list. Simply view the list, select a topic, and click on the link at the bottom of that post to access previous posts on that topic.
I will post periodic links to the “previous posts” series like this one for your convenience.

 
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Posted in Previous Posts

 
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