Paul Harvey the Prophet?

Anyone who has been around for a while has probably heard or read this, but it is always worth a repeat performance. It's informative and, quite frankly, just a bit scary.

This speech was broadcast by legendary ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965:

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.”   To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”.  In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .

If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an atheist to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, Good Day.

Theological Dung & Integrity

Everybody that can spell Bible is talking the opportunity to comment on a cellphone-size scrap of paper written in a language (Coptic) that about 17 people in the U.S. can translate. Yes, this cynical entry is referring to the “Jesus – Wife” thing.

 

Let’s just get this straight from the start, “It is dung.” It might be theological dung or scholarly dung, but it’s still the same stuff.  We really shouldn’t be wasting our time with this trying to explain why it is dung. All of our scholars in the Ivory Towers should know this.

The bad part about all of this is that when you start playing with this stuff, you get it all over you and it’s hard to get off. Now I’m not saying it should be left alone. It certainly needs to be identified for what it is, however, the religious world is all atwitter (sorry for that) over this controversy.

So, not wanting to be left out of this flap, I’ll sum it up for you in a big nutshell.

Some professor of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School (same university that gave us our current President) translated a 4^th century papyrus that says something about Jesus and wife on it. The problem is even the professor says there are questions about the papyrus. The bigger problem is Harvard Divinity School says it will still publish the prof’s paper in January in the Harvard Theological Review.

Talk about a lack of integrity.

“Git ‘er dun,” SBCEC

My good friends from the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee (SBCEC) have been meeting this week. I guess if you have a committee, you have to meet occasionally. This meeting produced the following headline Tweet of the week – so far. It came from the Baptist Press - @baptistpress.

Frank Page, president of the SBCEC, said, “Git ‘er dun,” while exhorting Southern Baptists to heed the call of God to accomplish the Great Commission. (You can dig that out of your Bible here – Matthew 28.19-20) Well, he actually said, “Get it done,” but it has a better ring when translated into Larry the Cable Guy southern speak.

All that is quite commendable, however, when I visited the webpage to read the report - Baptist Press – I got a little concerned. You see, according to the report, there are apparently over 1,200 missionaries ready to go to the field but no money. Sounds like the milk bottle is clogged at the top to me.

So that got me to thinking. What if the Executive Committee didn’t all go to Nashville for a good old southern get together? You see, there are 83 representatives on the SBCEC (got that number from the website) and I would imagine that most are in Nashville for this meeting. That’s got to be expensive.

What if they all met via one of those fancy computer video conference thingys? Think how much money that would save. Perhaps that money could spring a couple of those missionaries from the milk bottle.

Just keeping my eye on Christianity.

A Conflict of Interest?

This will be short.  I would like to know if anyone else detects a conflict between the reports on these two websites.

Exhibit A is the following: http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2012/08/21/obama-my-faith-jesus-legitimate-and-real.  There should be no real problem here. After all President Obama spent the better part of 20 years listening to and absorbing the preaching of Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

For Exhibit B we present this: http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38672. This is the DNC platform which President Obama has whole-heartedly endorsed. It is typical of the progressive movement with the United States.