Category Archives: Uncategorized

American Scripture: Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

Posted on by

In his second Inaugural Address, which contained only 703 words, Abraham Lincoln referred to “God” six times, to “the Almighty” once, and quoted directly from the Bible three times. Lincoln addressed himself to the paradox of a nation divided by American slavery, yet the opposing sides each reading the same Bible and praying to the same God. In what has to be one of the best examples of an American president recognizing the sovereignty of God, Lincoln said:

Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God’s assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men’s faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. “Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.” If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

Read the entire Second Inaugural.

Media and Senate Judiciary Committee ignoring Hillary’s ‘pay for play’ scandal

Posted on by

From the Associated Press:

Secretary of State nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton intervened at least six times in government issues directly affecting companies and others that later contributed to her husband’s foundation, an Associated Press review of her official correspondence found.

The overlap of names on former President Bill Clinton’s foundation donor list and business interests whose issues she championed raise new questions about potential ethics conflicts between her official actions and her husband’s fundraising. The AP obtained three of the senator’s government letters under the Freedom of Information Act.

From Bill Bennett’s Morning Report:

…no Clinton Foundation entity should be able to take foreign contributions during Mrs. Clinton’s tenure–that ought to be airtight, especially when you see the Foundation donor list of countries that include Kuwait, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Saudi Arabia.  One gets concerned about such things–especially when the recipient is named Clinton.

Do I think there could be an appearance of purchasing political favor from abroad?  Heck, can I give two words: Rod Blagojovech.  We just went through two weeks of Democrats not wanting to seat a Senator based on allegations of selling favors for a Senate seat–and that didn’t involve foreign contributions.  Might the same concern be relevant with a Secretary of State?  Might the same concern be relevant with a Secretary of State who’s husban has raised a lot of money from foreign entitites?  Yes, the appearance and reality here matter.

Obama’s Treasury Secretary-designate owes $34,000 in back taxes

Posted on by

Amazingly, this is from the LA Times:

Uh, it seems that Democrat Barack Obama’s secretary of the Treasury-designate owed something like $34,000 in back taxes when he was picked to head the nation’s financial system.

Uh, it seems Timothy Geithner owed the back taxes because the would-be member of the president’s new Cabinet employed a housekeeper who became an illegal immigrant while working for him. And Geithner did not pay self-employment taxes for several years until the IRS audited him.

It seems the Obama transition team discovered the back-taxes while researching the nominee, unlike the federal grand jury investigation of now former would-be secretary of Commerce-designate Bill Richardson.

It seems that such legal problems have derailed would-be Cabinet members in the past–think, Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood for Bill Clinton and Linda Chavez for George W. Bush.

It seems that Obama spokesmen are calling the non-payment of thousands of dollars in back taxes for years a minor thing. One news report described it as “a speed bump.” Sam Stein over at HuffingtonPost calls it an “embarrassing public relations headache” but really a mistake “quite common in nature.”

For a secretary of the Treasury? A Federal Reserve president? Somebody who, now that Bill Richardson is stuck in Santa Fe, is gonna mastermind the economic recovery?

Oh, and for someone whose department includes the Internal Revenue Service?

What’s on your teenager’s cell phone?

Posted on by

A disturbing story from the Cincinnati Enquirer: the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com have revealed the results of a study that showed 20 percent of teens say they have sent (via text messaging) or posted (online) nude or semi-nude pictures or videos of themselves.

Known as “sexting,” teenagers are taking nude photos of themselves or others and sending them on their cell phones through text messaging or posting them online.

If you have a teenager with a cell phone, as soon as you pick them up from school today or when they arrive home, ask to see their cell phone. Every parent should know what their teenager is sending and receiving on their cell phone. Do you?

Richard John Neuhaus

Posted on by

I have endured an avalanche of email on my honoring the late Father Richard John Neuhaus on my program when he passed away on Thursday of this week.

Both callers to the program and emailers have expressed the thought that Richard John Neuhaus had an unbiblical view of salvation through faith by grace alone based on the merits of Christ alone, therefore no genuinely evangelical Christian would see any redeeming value in honoring his memory. That assumption is made because, after all, he converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism in 1990, therefore he could NOT have had a biblical view of salvation.

Here is Richard John Neuhaus in his own words from one of his spiritual writings, Death on a Friday Afternoon: Meditations on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross.  (Thanks to Russell Moore, dean of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, for posting this at his blog):

When I come before the judgment throne, I will plead the promise of God in the shed blood of Jesus Christ. I will not plead any work I have done, although I will thank God that he has enabled me to do some good. I will plead no merits other than the merits of Christ, knowing that the merits of Mary and the saints are all from him; and for their company, their example, and their prayers through my earthly life I will give everlasting thanks. I will not plead that I had faith, for sometimes I was unsure of my faith, and in any event that would be to turn faith into a meritorious work of my own. I will not plead that I held the correct understanding of ‘justification by faith alone,’ although I will thank God that that he led me to know ever more fully the great truth that much misundertood doctrine was intended to protect. Whatever little growth in holiness I have experienced, whatever strength I have received from the company of the saints, whatever understanding I have attained of God and his ways…these and all other gifts I will bring gratefully to the throne. But in seeking entry to that heavenly kingdom, I will, with Dysmas, look to Christ and Christ alone.