Lyndon Baines Johnson On Civil Rights

Today the man who claims to be President gave a speech honoring Lyndon Baines Johnson for signing the Civil Rights act. It is the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Civil Rights legislation. Here is a quote from LBJ from a speech in 1948.

“The Civil Rights program, about which you have heard so much, is a farce and a sham… an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty. I am opposed to that program. I fought it in Congress. It is the province of the State to run its own elections.”

In 1957 LBJ added this gem.

“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don’t move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there’ll be no way of stopping them, we’ll lose the filibuster and there’ll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It’ll be Reconstruction all over again.”

These quotes kind of put all the LBJ worship going on in perspective.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2014/04/10/obama_lbj_knew_what_the_hell_the_presidency_was_for.html

Federal Elections Do Not Render Choices For The Voters

For a couple decades now I’ve believed that the political system, especially on the Federal level is rigged. Which is to say I believe that most candidates on each side of the ballot are going to implement much the same agenda. I believe this because the money behind the candidates is largely coming from the same sources. I believe this because of the consistent track record which finds candidates excoriating incumbents only to turn around, upon being elected, to pursue the exact same policies, at a factor of 10, which they previously excoriated with relish during the campaign.

To support this conviction I offer some quotes from an American Governor from 1930. This Governor was hammering away at the proto-Keynsian policies of President Hoover. This Governor eventually ran against Hoover as a Democrat and defeated Hoover in the 1932 Presidential election and turned around and made Hoover’s proto-Keynsian policies look like the kind of stuff that children might do with a Lemonade stand.

This 1930 Governor makes Ron Paul sound like a collectivist and a Statist.

I submit to you he knew when making these speeches he was going to pursue the very same Economic policies that Herbert Hoover was following. In point of fact he made Hoover look like a neo-phyte when it came to Government largess.

I provide a few of the quotes from his March, 1930 speech. If someone didn’t know in 1930 that the system was rigged even then they would have voted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt for President thinking that they would be getting a small Government conservative.

“As a matter of fact and law, the governing rights of the States are all of those which have not been surrendered to the National Government by the Constitution or its amendments. Wisely or unwisely, people know that under the Eighteenth Amendment Congress has been given the right to legislate on this particular subject, but this is not the case in the matter of a great number of other vital problems of government, such as the conduct of public utilities, of banks, of insurance, of business, of agriculture, of education, of social welfare and of a dozen other important features. In these, Washington must not be encouraged to interfere.”

“Thus, it was clear to the framers of our Constitution that the greatest possible liberty of self-government must be given to each State, and that any national administration attempting to make all laws for the whole Nation, such as was wholly practical in Great Britain, would inevitably result at some future time in a dissolution of the Union itself.”

“Now, what are the powers delegated to the United States by the Constitution? First of all, the National Government is entrusted with the duty of protecting any or all States from the danger of invasion or conquest by foreign powers by sea or land, and in return the States surrender the right to engage in any private wars of their own. This involves, of course, the creation of the army and navy and the right to enroll citizens of any State in time of need. Next is given the treaty-making power and the sole right of all intercourse with foreign States, the issuing of money and its protection from counterfeiting. The regulation of weights and measures so as to be uniform, the entire control and regulation of commerce with foreign nations and among the several States, the protection of patents and copyrights, the erection of minor Federal tribunals throughout the country, and the establishment of post offices are specifically enumerated. The power to collect taxes, duties and imposts, to pay the debts for the common defense and general welfare of the country is also given to the United States Congress, as the law-making body of the Nation.”

“On such a small foundation have we erected the whole enormous fabric of Federal Government which costs us now $3,500,000,000 every year, and if we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple Constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more.”

“On such a small foundation have we erected the whole enormous fabric of Federal Government which costs us now $3,500,000,000 every year, and if we do not halt this steady process of building commissions and regulatory bodies and special legislation like huge inverted pyramids over every one of the simple Constitutional provisions, we shall soon be spending many billions of dollars more….”

“The doctrine of regulation and legislation by “master minds,” in whose judgment and will all the people may gladly and quietly acquiesce, has been too glaringly apparent at Washington during these last ten years. Were it possible to find “master minds” so unselfish, so willing to decide unhesitatingly against their own personal interests or private prejudices, men almost god-like in their ability to hold the scales of Justice with an even hand, such a government might be to the interest of the country, but there are none such on our political horizon, and we cannot expect a complete reversal of all the teachings of history.

Now, to bring about government by oligarchy masquerading as democracy, it is fundamentally essential that practically all authority and control be centralized in our National Government. The individual sovereignty of our States must first be destroyed, except in mere minor matters of legislation. We are safe from the danger of any such departure from the principles on which this country was founded just so long as the individual home rule of the States is scrupulously preserved and fought for whenever it seems in danger.”

“But what are the underlying principles on which this Government is founded? There is, first and foremost, the new thought that every citizen is entitled to live his own life in his own way so long as his conduct does not injure any of his fellowmen.”

The point is folks, that the whole election process on the Federal level is a tissue of lies. These people are not going to overturn the general direction of the deification of the State. I could provide quotes from LBJ decrying Civil Rights which he later supported. I could provide quotes from Obama bashing Bush for Bush’s practice of Executive power and now Obama makes Bush look like milquetoast.

The election process is a ruse folks to make you think that you have some kind of authority.

You don’t.

Here is a link to the whole Governor FDR speech,

http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/writings/fdr_address.htm

Revolutionary Christianity or Anti-Revolutionary Christianity?


“The movement within which Bavinck rose to prominence, neo-Calvinism, found much of its initial momentum as a rebellion against the influence of the French Revolution across Europe. This struggle to counter this impact of the Revolution exerts a defining influence upon much of Bavinck’s thought on Christianity and culture….

The Revolution was an attempt to cast aside all the old distinctions of class and power: liberty, equality, and fraternity were the new values. Gone were concepts like monarchy, social class, and theism. The new de facto deity, reason, was set in direct opposition to divine revelation. The change attempted in Revolutionary France was highly ambitious: it was a movement of re-creation, an upheaval instigated to change every aspect of French life. The nineteenth-century Revolutionary intellectual Edgar Quinet recognized that such a sudden break with an entire social system could only happen if the preexisting sense of social inter connectedness between citizens was broken: those who have, until now, existed primarily in relationship to each other within a common culture must suddenly think of themselves primarily as individuals. Quinet recognized this has central not just to the French Revolution, but to all evolutionary movements. Thus, in order to change an entire society, all the old social connections had to disappear, and the ‘individual’ had to take their place.

The great irony perceived by the likes of Bavinck and Kuyper was that although revolutionaries were told of their new found individuality, in reality they became far more homogeneous than in the pre-Revolutionary world. Revolutionary France was a place where all were pressured to dress and speak alike, where human worth did not exist beyond one’s social standing (hence the drive for a homogenized society), and where institutions like Christian theism, as pro-social diversity were see as obstacles to those goals.

Having seen these ideals taking hold in France, Bavinck was motivated to combat their influence in Dutch culture. That context sets the scene for his thoughts on the family as a united social entity. His argument was that the family is not an arbitrary collection of individuals, who may or may not have much in common by way of belief. Rather, he argues in favor of the family as an organism made up of distinct but complementary people who together form the building blocks of society.

Introduction — The Christian Family
James Eglinton — pp. XIV – XV

1.) The success of the French Revolution was not limited to the fall of the Bastille. The success of the French Revolution was the beginning of the end for Christendom in the West, for the anti-Christ principles of the Revolution lived on in the turmoil in Europe in 1815, and 1848. The anti-Christ principles of the Revolution came to the states with the work on the Jacobins between 1861-1877. The anti-Christ principles of the Revolution found a permanent home in Russia for 70 years in 1918. The ideals and principles of the French Revolution continue to form and shape the world that we occupy today. The “Liberty” of the French Revolution remains today the attempt of fallen man to find Liberty from God. In point of fact Revolutionary “Liberty,” is lawlessness. The “Equality” of the French Revolution remains today as the ongoing attempt to level all distinctions by insisting that all hierarchy arrangements are merely social constructs to be deconstructed. The “Fraternity” of French Revolution remains today as the bumper sticker meme to “Co-Exist,” and the ongoing recitation of the the Fatherhood of God of all men and the Brotherhood of all men.

2.) For Bavinck the Revolutionary Worldview had to be opposed by all right minded Christians because Revolutionary ideology is part of the disordered sin sick reality that nature was poisoned with. Revolutionary ideology creates sick reality because it identifies sin w/ nature, and creation w/ the fall, and so in order to attack sin and the fall they attack nature and thus seek to pull down God’s institutional created social order that includes family, state, and society, preferring instead a sinful social order where God’s diversity is blended into a humanistic Unitarian sameness. This creates the sick reality that neo-Calvinism has always opposed.

3.) What Eglinton teaches us about Bavinck and the neo-Calvinist school is that they opposed this Revolutionary model that attempted to overthrow God’s ordained social order that was antithetical to Revolutionary “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Fraternity.” This anti-Revolutionary Calvinism of men like Groen van Prinsterer, Bavinck, and Kuyper found later Calvinist Theologians like Dabney in 19th Century America and Rushdoony in 20th century carrying the anti-Revolutionary torch of the Neo-Calvinist founders.

This reminds us that there remains a thread of anti-Revolutionary fervor that has been characteristic of Biblical Calvinism. In this anti-Revolutionary Calvinism we find the insistence that any Christianity that makes peace with the desideratum of the continuing Revolutionary vision is a Calvinism that is no Calvinism.

4.) The press towards individualism that Eglinton mentions as the consequence of Revolutionary ideology, ironically enough, ends up in a vicious collectivism. When all mediating institutions, as created by the Christian social order, with its model of jurisdictionalism, are destroyed by Revolutionary “Equality” the consequence is a bland sameness where individualism is completely lost.

5.) The lack of this kind of basic understanding of how Biblical Calvinism, as the essence of Biblical Christianity, results in the consequence that modern Christianity reinterprets itself through the grid of Revolutionary ideology. When “Calvinists,” and all other “Christians,” refuse to understand what has occurred, with the success of Revolutionary ideology, is that Christianity is interpreted through the lens of “Liberty,” “Equality,” and “Fraternity.” What this means is that modern Christianity is, in the majority report, Revolutionary Christianity. Instead of challenging the continued onslaught of the Revolution, what happens is that Christianity seeks to make peace with Revolution. A modern Church, that is not self-aware that it must be anti-Revolutionary, ends up discipling its people into being “sanctified” subscribers of the Revolution. Christians who are not epistemologically self-conscious regarding the ongoing Revolution are Christians who stand in the way of Reformation.

6.) Indeed, it is not going to far to say that Christianity that is interpreted in the grid of Revolutionary thought is a different Christianity that is interpreted through the grid of anti-Revolution.

7.) Anti-Revolutionary Calvinism finds in the death of Christ the healing of the Cosmos and a deliverance from personal and individual Revolution that results in the healing of social order Revolution.

8.) There is a neo-Calvinism that is claimed by Leftist Christians. They do agree that all things must be interpreted through a biblical gird but their biblical grid has already itself been reinterpreted through a Revolutionary grid. Neo-Calvinist who advocate for a social order that is consistent with Revolutionary goals is not neo-Calvinism.

Sovereignty — Some Meaning & Implications

1.) Sovereignty is totalistic

Absolute sovereignty extends to complete rule. An absolute sovereign means that said sovereign has absolute and total government. God, being absolute sovereign rules so minutely that not even a sparrow can fall without His consent (Mt. 10:29-31). Amos teaches that God’s sovereignty is so totalistic that even if calamity comes to the city that God has done it (Amos 3:6). Isaiah teaches that God creates disaster (Is. 45:7). In Job, Satan must receive approval from God before Satan can touch God’s servant. Acts 17:29 teaches that “we live and move and have our being in God and His government.

We see the State seeking to pick up the prerogatives of Sovereignty when it seeks to create a environment where God’s revealed sovereignty is put into abeyance in favor of the States. The State longs to create a social order where we live and move and have our being in the State.

2.) Sovereignty is characterized by total planning

In the Scripture total planning is called predestination. Isaiah 14:24 teaches, “Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened, and just as I have planned so it will stand…” Elsewhere in Isaiah 46:10 we find, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.'” And again, Psalm 33:9, “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. 10The LORD nullifies the counsel of the nations; He frustrates the plans of the peoples. 11The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart from generation to generation.…

When God’s Sovereignty is denied, predestination does not go away. Some other agency enters in in order to provide total planning. The more godless a people become the more they will turn to some other agency to provide total planning. Typically that is the State and Obamacare is a perfect example of the State seeking to do total planning. This is a example of humanistic predestination and another demonstration of the State’s attempt to seize God’s sovereignty.

3.) Sovereignty is characterized by Omniscience

Of course total planning can not happen without Omniscience. The idea that one can predestine the beginning from the end without knowing the beginning from the end is just absurd. The Scriptures teach that God is Omniscient.

Psalm 139:4
Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.

Proverbs 5:21
For your ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all your paths.

Proverbs 15:3
The eyes of the LORD are everywhere, keeping watch on the wicked and the good.

Jeremiah 16:17
My eyes are on all their ways; they are not hidden from me, nor is their sin concealed from my eyes.

Hebrews 4:13
And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Of course this overturns all other teaching that suggests that God does not know the future, or that God and man are co-operating in order to create a uncertain future.

When we deny omniscience to God omniscience does not go away, but instead it seeks to find itself seized by whatever immanent god seeks to be god. We are hearing of this all the time today. We are seeing reports about NSA — a Government agency — seeking to collect all kinds of information and data on Americans.

A Congresswoman (Maxine Waters) recently noted that,

“The President has put in place an organization with the kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life,” Representative Maxine Waters told Roland Martin on Monday.

“That’s going to be very, very powerful,” Waters said. “That database will have information about everything on every individual on ways that it’s never been done before and whoever runs for President on the Democratic ticket has to deal with that…. It’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

Rushdoony noted here,

“When the State claims sovereignty, the logic of its position requires that a like total knowledge be acquired concerning all men and things, and the result is the inquisitive and prying state which aims at knowing all in order to govern all.”

4.) Sovereignty is characterized by claims of ownership

Deuteronomy 10:14
To the LORD your God belong the heavens, even the highest heavens, the earth and everything in it.

Job 41:11
Who has a claim against me that I must pay? Everything under heaven belongs to me.

Psalm 24:1
The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;

Psalm 50:12
If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it.

Psalm 89:11
The heavens are yours, and yours also the earth; you founded the world and all that is in it.

If we belong to God that means we do not believe to ourselves or the State. However, the State does claim the citizenry as property. We are assets to be used and resources to be exploited.

Jonathan R. T. Hughes in his book, “The Government Habit,” offers this,

“It would surprise most American landowners today, as it often does those who cannot meet their property taxes, to learn that the state owns the land outright. Owners in fee simple have possession only of right in real estate: this phenomenon is part of what historians call the English Heritage.”

But it gets worse than that.

Prior to 1913, most Americans owned clear, allodial title to property, free and clear of any liens or mortgages until the Federal Reserve Act (1913) “hypothecated” all property within the federal United States to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, -in which the Trustees (stockholders) held legal title. The U.S. citizen (tenant, franchisee) was registered as a “beneficiary” of the trust via his/her birth certificate. In 1933, the federal United States hypothecated (pledge (money) by law to a specific purpose) all of the present and future properties, assets and labor of their “subjects,” the 14th Amendment U.S. citizen, to the Federal Reserve System.

In return, the Federal Reserve System agreed to extend the federal United States corporation all the credit “money substitute” it needed. Like any other debtor, the federal United States government had to assign collateral and security to their creditors as a condition of the loan. Since the federal United States didn’t have any assets, they
assigned the private property of their “economic slaves”, the U.S. citizens as collateral against the unpayable federal debt. They also pledged the unincorporated federal territories, national parks forests, birth certificates, and nonprofit organizations, as collateral against the federal debt. All has already been transferred as payment to the international bankers.

So, the idea of ownership inherent in Sovereignty, doesn’t go away when one denies it to the God of the Bible. Instead the idea of ownership is transferred to an immanent god.

5.) Sovereignty is characterized Law

In any social order Law is always reflective of the Law giver. God takes to Himself the authority to establish the boundaries of man’s rule. This includes, of course the issue of taxation (Ex. 30:11-16), (I Sam. 8:7-8). With God as law giver the tax is a tithe. When the State seeks to be sovereign it seeks a far higher percentage rate.

When it comes to the broader idea of the Law, we see that what the State invokes is called Positive Law

“There is no logic to the law in the “traditional” sense: it does not reflect in any meaningful way a constant standard of right or set of moral absolutes. Rather, the “path” of the law is historical in nature, weaving and winding through changing cultural norms and varying political circumstances. Thus judges (and now executives) who alter the law by fiat only hurry along the next stage of progress.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

When you rid yourself of God’s transcendent law you don’t rid yourself of Law. Instead what you get is legal Positivism. The key to legal positivism is in understanding the way positivists answer the fundamental question of jurisprudence: “What is law?” The word “positivism” itself derives from the Latin root positus, which means to posit, postulate, or firmly affix the existence of something. Legal positivism attempts to define law by firmly affixing its meaning to written decisions made by governmental bodies that are endowed with the legal power to regulate particular areas of society and human conduct. If a principle, rule, regulation, decision, judgment, or other law is recognized by a duly authorized governmental body or official, then it will qualify as law, according to legal positivists. Conversely, if a behavioral norm is enunciated by anyone or anything other than a duly authorized governmental body or official, the norm will not qualify as law in the minds of legal positivists, no matter how many people are in the habit of following the norm or how many people take action to legitimize it.

CNN Belief Blog Goes All Emotive & Irrational

Here is another brilliant commentary on sodomite marriage by Rachel Held Evans at CNN Belief blog. I don’t know who she is. I am told she is another influential writer.

How evangelicals won a war and lost a generation

How evangelicals won a culture war and lost a generation
Opinion by Rachel Held Evans, special to CNN

(CNN) – On March 24, World Vision announced that the U.S. branch of the popular humanitarian organization would no longer discriminate against employees in same-sex marriages.

It was a decision that surprised many but one that made sense, given the organization’s ecumenical nature.

But on March 26, World Vision President Richard Stearns reversed the decision, stating, “our board acknowledged that the policy change we made was a mistake.”

Supporters helped the aid group “see that with more clarity,” Stearns added, “and we’re asking you to forgive us for that mistake.”

So what happened within those 48 hours to cause such a sudden reversal?

The Evangelical Machine kicked into gear.

Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the decision pointed to “disaster,” and the Assemblies of God denomination encouraged its members to pull their financial support from the organization.

Evangelicals took to Twitter and Facebook to threaten to stop sending money to their sponsored children unless World Vision reversed course.

Within a day of the initial announcement, more than 2,000 children sponsored by World Vision lost their financial support. And with more and more individuals, churches and organizations threatening to do the same, the charity stood to lose millions of dollars in aid that would otherwise reach the poor, sick, hungry and displaced people World Vision serves.

So World Vision reversed course.

Stearns told The New York Times that some people, satisfied with the reversal, have called World Vision headquarters to ask, “Can I have my child back?” as though needy children are expendable bargaining chips in the culture war against gay and lesbian people.

Many of us who grew up evangelical watched with horror as these events unfolded.

As a longtime supporter of World Vision, I encouraged readers of my blog to pick up some of the dropped sponsorships after the initial decision. I then felt betrayed when World Vision backtracked, though I urged my readers not to play the same game but to keep supporting their sponsored children, who are of course at no fault in any of this.

But most of all, the situation put into stark, unsettling relief just how misaligned evangelical priorities have become.

When Christians declare that they would rather withhold aid from people who need it than serve alongside gays and lesbians helping to provide that aid, something is wrong.

There is a disproportionate focus on homosexuality that consistently dehumanizes, stigmatizes and marginalizes gay and lesbian people and, at least in this case, prioritizes the culture war against them over and against the important work of caring for the poor.

1.) Why does Evans believe that all because Evangelical dollars were taken away from World Vision because of their change of policy that therefore those dollars were no longer going to go to the poor? There are many many relief ministries out there and it is not unreasonable to think that Christians withdrawing money from World Vision would not take that same money and support some other relief agency that was not compromising on the Gospel. The poor would still be aided. True … different poor but poor all the same.

2.) Why are Evangelical principles misaligned? Why should they support with their monies a ministry that is contrary to their convictions? What would it take for Evans to conclude that people could withdraw their money, once designated for a set ministry, in order to protest the direction of the company the monies were formerly designated? What if World Vision had come out in favor of Pedophilia? Would that be a good enough reason? By what standard does Evans adjudicate that withdrawing support is commendable?

Held writes,

Evangelicals insist that they are simply fighting to preserve “biblical marriage,” but if this were actually about “biblical marriage,” then we would also be discussing the charity’s policy around divorce.

But we’re not.

Furthermore, Scripture itself teaches that when we clothe and feed those in need, we clothe and feed Christ himself, and when we withhold care from those in need, we withhold it from Christ himself (Matthew 25:31-46).

Why are the few passages about homosexuality accepted uncritically, without regard to context or culture, but the many about poverty so easily discarded?

1.) We should discuss the Charity’s policy around divorce if it needs discussed.

2.) Held misinterprets the Matthew 25 passage. The passage is referring to ministry to the Brethren of Jesus — that is those who wear the name of Christ. Secondly, Held assumes that all because monies were going to be withheld from World Vision that necessarily means that those same funds were going to be withheld from the poor. That is a very tenuous assumption. People can withhold money from the poor of World Vision and still help the poor of some other organization that they believe is more faithful to their convictions.

3.) Who says that the passages about poverty are easily discarded? Held doesn’t get what she wants and she throws a fit insisting that the passages that have to do with poverty are neglected?

4.) The “without regard to context or culture” comment of Held is suggestive that she likely dismisses the passages forbidding sodomy.

Held writes,

As I grieved with my (mostly 20- and 30-something) readers over this ugly and embarrassing situation, I heard a similar refrain over and over again: “I don’t think I’m an evangelical anymore. I want to follow Jesus, but I can’t be a part of this.”

I feel the same way.

Whether it’s over the denial of evolutionary science, continued opposition to gender equality in the church, an unhealthy alliance between religion and politics or the obsession with opposing gay marriage, evangelicalism is losing a generation to the culture wars.

A recent survey from Public Religion Research Institute revealed that nearly one-third of millennials who left their childhood faith did so because of “negative teachings” or “negative treatment” of gay and lesbian people.

1.) If the Church must lose people because it is faithful to the message of Scripture than it must bear that loss. What will it profit the Church, Rachel, to gain the whole world but lose its own soul?”

2.) Rachel’s comments above demonstrate that “Evangelical” means both nothing and everything. We are better off being done with the whole word and movement. Let the various splinters go their various ways and find another orbit to circle around.

Held holds,

Christians can disagree about what the Bible says (or doesn’t say) about same-sex marriage. This is not an issue of orthodoxy. But when we begin using child sponsorships as bargaining tools in our debates, we’ve lost the way of Jesus.

So my question for those evangelicals is this: Is it worth it?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage really worth leaving thousands of needy children without financial support?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage worth losing more young people to cynicism regarding the church?

Is a “victory” against gay marriage worth perpetuating the idea that evangelical Christians are at war with LGBT people?

And is a “victory” against gay marriage worth drowning out that quiet but persistent internal voice that asks, “what if we get this wrong?”

I, for one, am tired of arguing. I’m tired of trying to defend evangelicalism when its leaders behave indefensibly.

I’m going AWOL on evangelicalism’s culture wars so I can get back to following Jesus among its many refugees: LGBT people, women called to ministry, artists, science-lovers, misfits, sinners, doubters, thinkers and “the least of these.”

I’m ready to stop waging war and start washing feet.

1.) This is an issue about orthodoxy. See Romans 1, I Cor. 6, Jude 1, Galatians 5, etc.

2.) When other poor are being still helped because previously designated money is going to different poor people, it is not holding the poor as bargaining chips when money is no longer sent to merely one of dozens of agencies for the poor.

3.) Held seems to hold that the money that is committed to World Vision is automatically World Visions whatever it does and that somehow there is some immorality in someone deciding that they are going to support someone different than World Vision with their monies. That is a most tenuous assumption.

4.) All because people are not interested in supporting an agency that supports the LGBT movement doesn’t even get close to meaning that we have lost the way of Jesus. That is just more emotive language to try to get people all verklempt.

5.) As to Held’s questions

#1 — Does not apply. Withholding money from World Vision does not equal withholding that money from the poor.

#2 — Yes

#3 — Yes

#4 — We are not getting this wrong.

6.) As to Held’s “least of these comments” she should try being a White Male Biblical Christian Minister. Talk about the least of these.