Is It The Republican Party, G.W. Bush or Both?

Chuck Baldwin -- Is It The Republican Party, G.W. Bush or Both?:

Patrick Henry Was Right

Patrick Henry was Right - David Alan Black:

Doug's Blog

Doug's Blog:

The Return of the Good Samaritan

Our Family's Blog

Our Family's Blog:

SMI on The Vision Forum Websites Woo hoo! Bryan

Primetime Christianity

Primetime Christianity - by Eric Rauch:

On the necessity of Youth Ministry - James M McDonald

Subject: RE: On the necessity of Youth Ministry Just before his death, Mike Yaconelli who many consider to be the founder of the modern youth ministry, wrote these words... "So let's be honest. Youth ministry as an experiment has failed. If we want to see the church survive, we need to rethink youth ministry. What does that mean? I don't have a clue. But my hunch is that if we want to see young people have a faith that lasts, then we have to completely change the way we do youth ministry in America. I wonder if any of us has the courage to try." The basis for this statement was that youth ministry does not produce disciples. Every study, from Barna to the SBC, tells the same story - few youth discipled through youth ministries stay the course - few embrace the faith of the youth minister, let alone their parents. Where the SBC reports that 85% of their youth walk from the faith by their second year at university, Brian Ray with the National Home Education Research Institute reports 92% of homeschool graduates claim a faith similar to their parents. This is not a call for home education - but it is a call for home discipleship. Youth ministry fails - I know as a recovering youth pastor. James M McDonald Pastor Family Reformation Fellowship (www.familyreformation.org) a member of the Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly dlr

My Testimony

My Testimony - Jeff Meyers:

My Testimony Date Created: Nov 18, 2004, 04:03 PM I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ or come to him, so my parents carried me to the font as an infant and I was baptized into the Christian faith and united to the body of Christ at Resurrection Lutheran Church (LCMS) in St. Louis. This is how the Holy Spirit called me by the Gospel and enlightened me with his gifts. Throughout my life as a child he sanctified and kept me in the truth faith... ... I have come to realize and appreciate my child-like faith as a boy. I used to say that I wasn't a "Christian" until I came to a mature understanding of my sin and the Gospel. We are so used to making these maturer experiences of grace function as signs and seals of true grace that we have forgotten that God is pleased with the child-like trust of little children. Granted, child-like trust must grow into mature faith. But that doesn't mean that a little boy's untried and simple faith is unreal or counterfeit. Shame on us. Please use the link above to read the rest of the post. dlr

China Preparing For War And Few Notice

This article is very similar to a lecture I heard Howard Phillips give at the Witherspoon School of Law and Public Policy. - dlr China Preparing For War And Few Notice:

By Pastor Chuck Baldwin

The Price of Gold

Doug's Blog:

Weak Dollar, Soaring Oil Brings Gold to 17 Year High The price of gold hit a seventeen year high today at $475.45 an ounce, the highest intraday price since Jan. 25, 1988. Soaring oil prices and news of the deficit spending associated with the massive new $200 billion federal price tag on Katrina relief, are largely to do with the dramatic increase in gold prices. Investors tend to buy gold in response to uncertainty in the economy, instability of the dollar and inflation. Where were you, for example, in 1980 when under the Carter Administration, consumer prices rose more than 12 percent, and gold futures soard to $873 and ounce---an all-time high? Industry specialists are now concluding that Gold may average $470 an ounce next year and perhaps $520 in 2007. In related news, a spojesman for the Heritage Foundation yesterday told National Public Radio that the abusive "New Deal" deficit spending of the Bush Administration, especially in context of Katrina Relief, means that our children will not only pick up the price tag, but inherit an economy in shambles. What does all this mean? "A wise man sees the danger and hies himself." In times of economic crisis unified families, local church, and debt freedom are important concepts. Now is a great time to get out of debt, and to go back to the biblical model of family life which is not only spiritually sound, but economically stronger than the pagan "turn my wife into a careerist and have the government raise my children and care for my own parents in their old age" philosophy of feminism and welfare statism. The Biblical alternative includes as one approach--flexible patterns of families working together to make the home a place of production (instead of merely consumption), advocacy for families seeking the Lord for large numbers of godly children who will be trained through home education to be contributors to the economy of the household; encouragement of entrepreneurship, the ability to live with less, and the importance of joining informed, covenant keeping, godly local churches that encourage debt-free family-integrated home life for the glory of God. -- Doug Phillips dlr

Chalcedon Conference

Here is a great review of the Chalcedon Conference. Dignan's 75 Year Plan: Reconstructing Recontructionism:

Reconstructing Recontructionism dlr

Backwater Report

Backwater Report:

Saturday, September 17 2005 Happy Constitution Day Carmon Friedrich @ 8:47 pm Today is the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution in 1787—Constitution Day. In an act of “supreme irony,” last year Congress passed, hidden in an appropriations bill, the following law: The law requires every school that receives federal funds – including universities – to show students a program on the Constitution, though it does not specify a particular one. The demand has proved unpopular with educators, who say that they don’t like the federal government telling them what to teach and that it doesn’t make the best educational sense to teach something as important as the Constitution out of context… Educators have received guidance from the Department of Education about how to implement the law and have been directed to various Web sites with lessons and information about the Constitution from which they can craft programs. The law offers no money to help with the lessons. Now, the common folk at the Backwater Report happen to be fans of the Constitution. It would tickle us no end if every man, woman, child and relevant incrementalist carried a copy of that venerable document in his hip pocket and committed large portions to memory. This law may give some conservatives warm fuzzies, but it leaves me cold. Here are three reasons, off the top of my bonnet and without any coffee since this morning: 1) There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the Congress the authority to legislate what students should learn in schools. 2) There is nothing in the Constitution that allows for federal funding of education. 3) Robert Byrd, the King of Pork, authoring a law “honoring” the Constitution and sneaking it into an appropriations bill, is going too far. As Gilbert and Sullivan would say, “Oh, the irony!” I have three humble suggestions, off the top of my bonnet, for those scalawags in Congress who put their hands on Bibles and pledge to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” 1) Abolish the Department of Education, something which the Republicans in their 1994 Contract With America promised to do when they gained the reins of power in the legislature. 2) Remove all federal funding of and involvement with education, giving the people of the states a chance to have real educational choice. 3) Require that every elected official write out the Constitution by hand, like the kings of old were once required to copy God’s law (maybe that would be a good idea, too, see Deut. 17:18-19 ) and be tested on it before taking his oath of office. One of our friends, who used to be our assemblyman in the state legislature, once visited the nation’s capital with his wife, while he was still in office. He talked with his congressman and expressed concern that the Constitution was being ignored by the legislators there. He was told that if anyone in Congress appealed to the Constitution, they were mocked and treated as a pariah. Apparently, that attitude was bipartisan.

A Quick Note from Atlanta

Just a quick note from the Chalcedon 40th Anniversary Conference in Atlanta. Gary DeMar gave a lecture on the connection between Zechariah's prophecy in chapters 9-14 and the fulfillment in the book of Ester. Doug Phillips spoke for over two hours on R. J. Rushdooney's influence on our current culture and the impact Dr. Rushdooney has had on Doug and his father, Howard. Ted (my boss) and I are looking forward to hearing Mark Rushdooney later today. dlr

the Mail online | Mail - news, sport, showbiz, health and more | We had to kill our patients

the Mail online :

We Had to Kill Our Patients 'These people were going to die anyway'

dlr

Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan

Please read the entire article. President Bush is now given the ability to determine "intent". "The first example for potential nuclear weapon use listed in the draft is against an enemy that is using "or intending to use WMD" against U.S. or allied, multinational military forces or civilian populations." Wow!

Washington Post:Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan Strategy Includes Preemptive Use Against Banned Weapons By Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, September 11, 2005; A01 The Pentagon has drafted a revised doctrine for the use of nuclear weapons that envisions commanders requesting presidential approval to use them to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction. The draft also includes the option of using nuclear arms to destroy known enemy stockpiles of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. dlr

New Orleans & Nuclear Threats

New Orleans & Nuclear Threats | September 6, 2005 from Howard Phillips Blog

September 1 — This afternoon I participated in a two-hour Claremont Institute Workshop being held in the context of the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association at the Wardman Park Marriott Hotel in Washington, D.C. During the panel Michael Ledeen, who has an office adjacent of Mrs. Dick Cheney at the American Enterprise Institute, said he opposes military action against Iran but believes that the United States should take active measures to support an internal democratic revolution against the incumbent Iranian regime.

On a separate matter, I challenged the comments of one of the panelists who argued that the government of the United States is less subject to destabilization than any government in recorded history. I said that events in New Orleans should be a lesson to us all, in that a single nuclear warhead on a scud missile launched 100 miles offshore could, via electromagnetic pulse, make the entire country similar to post Katrina New Orleans, except for the problem of flooding.

I said that destabilization could similarly be the consequence of a nuclear or chemical or biological attack on U.S. soil, or a nuclear strike against U.S. population of the sort which has been promised by leaders of the Communist Chinese People’s Liberation Army should the U.S. government intervene to preserve an independent democratic government on Taiwan in the face of an attack by Beijing. - Howard Phillips

dlr

Random Thoughts On Socialism

From the Backwater Report Blog

Tuesday, September 06 2005 Random Thoughts On Socialism posted by - Bret McAtee

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism", they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened".

Norman Thomas - Socialist Presidential Candidate

“America is getting socialism on the installment plan through programs of the welfare state…. Americans may not be willing to vote for a program under the name of ’socialism,’ but put on it another party label — whether liberal, Republican or Democrat — and they’re by and large in favor of the idea…. We have no real socialist party, no socialist ideology, but we have a large and growing degree of what 50 years ago would have been recognized as socialism.”

Earl Browder -Former Head of the US Communist Party

Read Bret's comments here.

dlr