Tag Archives: New Testament

political news, religious news

He can’t cite a single verse? What?

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The presumed Republican Party presidential nominee claims to be a devout Christian.

I mean, he says he has “many Bibles” strewn throughout his houses in Florida, New Jersey and … Timbuktu.

Now he’s signing Bibles and selling them for 60 bucks a throw. For what purpose? To raise money to pay legal bills accumulated as he defends himself against multiple felony charges contained in four criminal indictments.

He’s a phony and a fraud, says Mitt Romney among others. Here’s how one can make that presumption.’

When reporters have asked him to cite a “favorite verse or two” from the Bible, the former Bible-thumper in Chief can’t do it. He won’t do it. He says it’s “too personal” to cite a single favorite verse. A reporter once asked him whether he prefers the Old or the New Testament. He answered: “Oh, let me think. They’re equal.”

He is without question, debate or any discussion needed the most un-religious and immoral individual ever to hold the office of POTUS. To think he wants it back simply sends chills throughout my old man’s body.

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Here is a brief video that shows what I am talking about. Spoiler alert: It is admittedly compiled by someone who opposes this individual’s claim of piety.

Donald Trump Can’t/Won’t Name His Favorite Bible Verse (youtube.com)

religious news

This isn’t very biblical

A social media acquaintance posted something I want to share here, and then I’ll offer a brief comment.

It comes from the New Testament:

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men … but when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your father who is unseen.” ~ Matthew 6:5

My friend posted the message along with a picture of Joel Osteen standing before an enormous crowd in the “church” he converted from a Houston sports venue. It’s gawdy and, well, a testament to conspicuous consumption.

It ain’t my kinda house of worship.

I thought Jesus had it right when he instructed us to pray in privately. This sort of glam-worship is a major turnoff … at least it is to me.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

religious news

Keep it in church, not in City Hall

The mayor of Wylie, Texas, a town not far from where my wife and I live, clearly is a 15th-century man.

Eric Hogue is getting some serious criticism for declaring that women cannot lead prayer in public places because the Bible forbids it. What? Eh? Seriously?

Hogue cites passes from 1 Corinthians and 1 Timothy — two books in the New Testament — that says women should remain silent in church. They can’t lead prayer while worshiping, the mayor interprets from Scripture.

Some folks have called on him to resign.

Hogue happens to pastor a church in Wylie, a town of about 51,000 residents in Collin County. He said his congregation interprets the New Testament passages literally.

Fine, Mr. Mayor/Preacher. Here’s a thought for you to ponder.

You are entitled to lead the church any way you see fit, presuming you continue to have the support of your congregants. However …

You took an oath to lead a secular government, led by a secular document — the U.S. Constitution — that expressly forbids the mixing of religion in public policy. If the mayor chooses to disallow women from leading, say, invocations to start city council meetings, I suppose that’s his call to make. He says he can’t go against his “conscience.”

The mayor just shouldn’t allow his religious beliefs to dictate public policy as he is empowered to enact according to the oath of office he took when he became the leader of a secular local government.

International news

Irony just doesn’t disappear

I cannot get past the irony of the U.S. attorney general citing Scripture as a justification for a policy that came from the Donald J. Trump administration.

It is fair to presume that AG Jeff Sessions was speaking on behalf of the president when he cited Romans 13 — a New Testament passage — to justify a policy that allows border security agents to take children from their parents who enter the United States of America illegally.

When Sessions told us how the Apostle Paul instructed his listeners to follow the government’s law, I was struck by this thought immediately: Has there been any U.S. president in the past century who is less familiar with biblical teachings that Donald Trump?

Thus, if Sessions was speaking on Trump’s behalf, are we then to believe that the president (a) endorsed what the AG said or (b) even knows what Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans.

I should note, too, that Romans 13 also has been used to justify human bondage, such as slavery. Given the president’s seeming tolerance of white supremacists (such as what he displayed in 2017 in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., riot) then maybe it’s not such a stretch after all.

I was offended in the extreme to hear Sessions cite New Testament  Scripture to defend the policy that has resulted in roughly 2,000 children being separated from their parents while enforcing this so-called “no tolerance” immigration policy.

It is inhumane, cruel and about as non-Christian as it gets. What in the name of all that is holy and sacred would Jesus Christ himself think of this policy? None of us was around when Jesus walked the Earth, but those of us who know anything about the Bible might conclude he would be aghast at such a policy.

For the attorney general, speaking on behalf of arguably the most amoral president in U.S. history, to use the holy word to justify an inhumane public policy is shameful on its face.

national news, political news, religious news

Scripture does not justify cruelty

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s use of the holy word to justify a cruel government policy simply boggles my mind.

It also boggles the mind of many other Americans.

He stood in front of a nation and declared that the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans said that we all must obey the government. Therefore, the AG said, the Donald Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents who enter the United States illegally is justified by New Testament Scripture.

What an absolute abomination! What a profoundly offensive use of the Bible to justify cruel treatment of children.

Sessions cited Romans 13. Yes, Paul instructed us to obey the government. But that’s not all that his letter said. Paul refers to the Old Testament commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Look, the idea that the attorney general would invoke Scripture as a justification is insulting and demeaning on its face.

The Trump administration has decided to get tough on illegal immigration by taking children, many of them infants, from their mothers and fathers if they are caught entering this country without proper documentation. Hundreds of children have been separated from their parents with no assurance of when they will be reunited — if ever!

Someone has to tell me how that kind of policy is in keeping with the love and compassion that Jesus Christ taught the world while he was walking among us.

And think of the irony here. Sessions is the chief law enforcement officer in an administration led by a man with zero demonstrated commitment to the teachings brought in Scripture.

Therefore, does anyone actually believe that the attorney general is speaking for Donald John Trump while invoking a passage from the New Testament?

Shameful.

religious news

Left hand, meet the right hand

I consider High Plains Blogger to be a forum for commenting on politics, policy and life experience. I use it to comment on those matters with with great glee.

For a moment, though, I want to veer far from any of those topics. Well, maybe “life experience” might qualify.

I learned something today in Sunday school that had me scratching my noggin about our secular world and how we human beings morph the Holy Word occasionally into something quite different.

We are studying Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. Then we ran into this passage from the Gospel of Matthew 6:3. According to Scripture, Jesus Christ instructs us, “But when you give to someone in need, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.”

Given that I am far from a biblical scholar, I wasn’t aware of those words of wisdom — until I saw them today.

Why scratch my head? Because in our contemporary society, we now use the reference to our “left hand not knowing what the our right is doing” as a pejorative. We scold individuals or those who run institutions by saying that “the left hand doesn’t know … ” You get the point, right? Of course you do!

However, according to New Testament Scripture, Jesus Christ himself tells us to avoid letting each of our hands know what the other is doing. How in the name of all that is holy did this bit of divine instruction become a metaphor for criticism?

I might never use that saying ever again when I witness confusion unfolding before my eyes. I’ll have to get creative.

There. Now, back to more worldly matters.

religious news

Oh, yeah, and Mary was a virgin, too

The Amarillo Globe-News published a brief editorial today that takes to task an Alabama Republican politician who sought to defend embattled fellow Republican Roy Moore against accusations that he made improper sexual advances on a 14-year-old girl.

Here’s what the G-N published:

The recent statement by Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler in reference to the scandal surrounding GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore is wrong on many counts.

However, we will stick to one — it is historically wrong, at least according to the Bible.

Zeigler invoked the relationship between Mary and Joseph as some sort of reason not to criticize Moore, who has been accused of sexual assault against a 14-year-old girl decades ago when Moore was in his 30s.

In the Bible, specific ages are not provided for Mary and Joseph, although it can be assumed Mary was a teenager at the time she gave birth to Jesus.

According to Jewish customs at that time, men were also typically young when they were “betrothed.” Therefore, it is quite likely Joseph was not much older than Mary.

The editorial, I need to mention, omits a critical element about Mary and Joseph. It is that Scripture tells us that Mary was a virgin. She and Joseph didn’t produce the child she was carrying, according to the New Testament.

And that, in my mind, makes the Alabama auditor’s “defense” of Roy Moore even more ridiculous.

religious news

Bible gives POTUS authority to blow up the world?

One of the many wonderful aspects of the Bible is that it can be interpreted in countless ways.

My understanding of the Bible I’ve read since childhood is that no one is entirely right or entirely wrong … if they believe in what they are interpreting.

So, when a preacher says that the Bible gives the president of the United States all the authority he needs to blow another nation to bits, well, that’s the preacher’s belief. It doesn’t have to be mine.

The Rev. Robert Jeffress is an avid Donald Trump supporter who went on “Fox and Friends” — the president’s favorite TV show — to proclaim that Romans 13 gives the president justification for attacking North Korea in the wake of that country’s threats to the United States.

I looked up Romans 13 in the Bible on my desk. I scoured through it and I don’t read anything of the sort. Then again, I’m not a biblical scholar. I’ll give Jeffress credit for studying the Bible more than I have. But as I noted already, we ultimately are left to our own value systems to interpret words written thousands of years ago. Believers can differ in their understanding of the holy word.

Some of them take the words literally; others — such as yours truly — take a more interpretive view of its contents. I won’t challenge Rev. Jeffress’s faith. I’ll just stand by a different view of the Bible’s contents.

The Bible I’ve read tells me Jesus Christ preached love and tolerance. I don’t know where he says it’s all right to destroy thousands of human lives because of a political dispute.

Is it in there? Somewhere? I don’t believe it is.

national news, political news

Should ‘short-circuited’ remain a talking point?

Clinton-and-Trump

A former colleague of mine scolded me once a few weeks ago over my criticism of Donald J. Trump’s gaffe when he referred the Apostle Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians as “2 Corinthians.”

My critic reminded me that people who speak for a living could be excused for saying things improperly on occasion. He made an interesting and thought-provoking point.

So, I’m left to wonder about Trump’s opponent in the presidential campaign, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who said she “short-circuited” when answering questions about the e-mail controversy that continues to dog her.

She’s been pilloried for the statement by her foes, led by Trump, who’s now questioning whether Clinton’s got the intellectual snap she needs to be president of the United States.

Trump and Clinton will square off soon in the first of three joint appearances. It’s seems a good bet that Trump will bring up the “short-circuited” comment. He’s hired a new campaign CEO and manager, both of whom vow to “let Trump be Trump.”

Is the criticism of Clinton fair? Or did she — as a politician who makes her living these days talking constantly — merely say something in a less-than-artful manner?

As my ex-colleague/critic reminded me: He knows “how easy it is to say something wrong and even incredibly stupid despite knowing better.”

Politicians, though, usually aren’t allowed — for better or for worse — the luxury of a simple misspeak.

national news, political news

Oh, yes, and then there’s the Golden Rule

Golden-Rule-1

“Do to others what you want them to do to you. This is the meaning of the law of Moses and the teaching of the prophets.”

Matthew 7:12

Ah, yes. You’ve that said before, yes?

The New Testament of the Bible attributes that admonition to none other than Jesus of Nazareth.

I am extremely nervous melding Scripture with contemporary American politics. But the Golden Rule seems somehow appropriate to mention in this context.

Ted Cruz last night stood before the Republican National Convention and delivered a stem winder of a speech that said almost everything he was expected to say … except for this: “I hereby endorse Donald J. Trump for president of the United States.”

He didn’t go there. And why do you suppose he declined to take that step?

Because of what he described as the “slander” and “defamation” of this wife and father. Trump tweeted that unflattering picture of Heidi Cruz during the primary campaign. Then he implied that Sen. Cruz’s father might have been complicit in President Kennedy’s assassination. Sen. Cruz told the Texas convention delegates this morning that he couldn’t endorse someone who had treated two of his loved ones with such cruelty.

“I am not in the habit of supporting those who attack and slander my wife and my father,” he said.

It’s fair to ask: How do you suppose Donald Trump would react if someone had said anything like that about his father and his wife?

The Golden Rule can be found in many religious contexts, be it Judaism, Hinduism and Islam … in addition to Christianity.

Trump has said he is a “religious person.” Well, someone who knows and follows the teachings provided in the Holy Bible might be aware of what Matthew’s Gospel tells us about how to treat others.

The Golden Rule seems always to take a beating during the heat of a fierce political battle. Politicians say things about their opponents that they never would tolerate from others and none of this is unique to the current campaign.

Trump’s way of tossing out insults and innuendo as weapons against his foes — and against their family members — puts the Golden Rule into sharper-than-usual focus during this election cycle.

I know that critics of this blog will respond with rejoinders about how politicians dating back to the beginning of the Republic have said far worse than what Trump has uttered.

Fine. Bring it on.

However, at this very moment my particular focus is on a major political party’s nominee for the presidency of the United States of America. This man has failed to abide by the Golden Rule.