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James Comey big and strong...

Before this news cycle is completely over, may I just say that Mr. Comey is one of the more pathetic government bureaucrats I've had occasion to witness in my sixty-three years. The juxtaposition of his towering size and manly presentation with his pathetic...


Rooting for President Trump...

Dad was from New York City. Until his sister came to live and die with us in 2001, her abode was the same Flushing apartment Dad found and moved his parents and sister into back in 1940 while he was a student at Wheaton College. Hear tell the building's owners had a blowout party to celebrate Aunt Elaine's departure after sixty years of rent control on her corner apartment.

So I've always known and kept track of The Donald, and for decades the souls I serve as pastor have observed my—shall I say it publicly?—loathing for him. My disgust with the man long predates his entry into politics. But if anything, The Donald's election as president has modulated my loathing. Yes, it continues; but now it's mixed with a certain grudging appreciation (as well as respect for the office of President)...


Pusillanimous: Chancellor Merkel and Gospel Coalition...

Reading Sobran's article just posted reminded me of the word "pusillanimous."

Keep track of the words that have died. They tell us what we've become.

Public leadership in the church and uncivil society today is forevermore pusillanimous. The word had to be killed. If you're fighting under cover of darkness, you don't provide the enemy night vision goggles.

Pusillanimous is the perfect word to describe what Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel did earlier today. After showing her truest heart to a woman's magazine where she answered a question about sodomite marriage by emoting about a recent visit she'd had with a lesbian couple and their foster children, Merkel suggested the issue be put to a vote...


Joe Sobran: Buzz Lightyear for president...

Another great article by Joe Sobran. I pity young men today who work in the pastorate and have to mature in their pastoral care and preaching without benefit of the weekly reading of Sobran I was blessed with in my mid-life.

Here's an excerpt to encourage you to click through and read the whole piece:

Utopian reflexes have become part of the job description of the American presidency. We take them for granted. The idea that the president is merely an "executive," that is, executing the laws passed by Congress, seems pathetic and pusillanimous. Today the president is supposed to think big, like Buzz Lightyear: "To infinity - and beyond!" 

Not so long ago, the writer Henry Allen has observed, politics was a rather narrow specialty: fat guys in three-piece suits cutting deals in those famous smoke-filled rooms. Politics pretty much left you alone. Now it encompasses absolutely everything: the food you eat, the air you breathe, the clothes you wear. Nothing is off-limits. Politics is life! 

 

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Pat Buchanan on the "deep state's" revolution...

When it comes to cultural and political commentators, I'll take Roman Catholics over Evangelical Protestants ninety times out of a hundred. One of the wisest is Pat Buchanan.

Fran Griffin just sent out this Buchanan essay which is a perfect summary of my judgments observing the revolution-by-other-means being perpetrated against our nation by the media and their very supportive deep state fiends...


Politico gets Pence just right...

Excellent profile of Vice President Mike Pence. Summary: "mercurial" Trump rewards Pence's loyalty and humility with exceptional authority.

A couple excerpts:

His governorship in Indiana was derailed by the mishandling of religious freedom legislation, and although he was more likely than not to win reelection in 2016, his approval rating was underwater statewide.

Just right. Not RFRA itself, but the Governor's mishandling of RFRA. Sad, but true. He should have fought Tim Cook and all his filthy-lucre buddies with boldness, not giving an inch. It grieved me when he responded to the attack of the elites by telling everyone...


Lighthouse Christian Academy: a press release...

Here's the press release Lighthouse Christian Academy issued this morning in response to the Huffington Post's faith-shaming of Christians. 1 


This Nunes disclosure...

All bets are off now that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has disclosed that intelligence agencies under President Obama spied on President-elect Donald Trump and his transition staff. From Nunes's statement, it's clear Obama's intelligence agencies refused to black out names in their transcripts of phone interceptions, then circulated those transcripts among those not authorized to see them.

The problem?

It's two-fold.

First, for weeks now, the media hasn't stopped mocking the President for saying President Obama was bugging him. Turns out he was right... 


Neil Gorsuch worships someone at a pagan church in Boulder...

Boulder has better churches than St. John's Episcopal Church attended by President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch. Their rector is a priestess and the congregation is committed to embracing sodomites and lesbians as full members with sacramental privileges.

On abortion, CNN reports:

"Despite Trump's pledge to pick a 'pro-life' justice, Leonard Leo, who advised the president on Supreme Court nominees, said the issue was never explicitly raised during their discussions. 'Judge Gorsuch wasn't asked about it, and he's not going to make a commitment on it,' said Leo, who has taken a leave from his job heading the Federalist Society while he shepherds Gorsuch's nomination through the Senate."

This is the man who made it worthwhile to vote for Donald Trump? Seriously?

Were Vice-President Mike Pence and the Federalist Society unable to find and recommend any nominee whose work is inspired by his orthodox Christian faith?

PS: Please click through for some criticisms of this post and my responses...


Elizabeth Warren is hyperventilating...

Senator Elizabeth Warren needs to realize she was useful as an alternative to Hillary and Bernie, but it's over. Can someone please tell her to pipe down?

Which the senate did, and we thank them very much.

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You really must read this piece on Trump's closest advisor, Steve Bannon...

Yesterday, I asked Mary Lee if she'd read the piece about President Trump's advisor, Steve Bannon, I'd linked to at the end of the hillbilly post?

The stream of hatred the press passes off as news about Bannon makes him out to be President Trump's Rasputin. Rosie O'Donnell agrees, so this morning she announced she wants to play the man on SNL. The man Bannon, you understand.

Mary Lee said she hadn't read the Bannon profile. If you haven't read it either, you simply must.

Some teasers. After introducing Bannon as a man who is "embracing... a fringe cast of ultra-conservative figures," the piece goes on to define Bannon's fringe ultra-conservatism...


Donald Trump: the hillbillies' president...

Some of you remember the seventies when Alex Haley helped North American blacks get in touch with their African roots?

Forty years later, my wife Mary Lee is helping me get in touch with my Scots-Irish roots.

I'd taken baby steps a couple years ago by reading Senator Jim Webb's Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America. Then, a couple months ago after I'd shocked myself by voting for The Donald, Mary Lee cajoled me into reading Richard Davids's The Man Who Moved a Mountain. Finishing that one, she wheedled me into reading J. D. Vance's Hillbilly Elegy (2016).

Remember the Who's "Who Are You?"...


Peggy Noonan on the Inauguration: nothing like this has ever happened...

Peggy Noonan is a Reagan Democrat. She wrote speeches for President Reagan and her memoir of her Reagan years, What I Saw at the Revolution, is a piece of tender affection for Nancy's Ronnie. Joe Sobran loved Peggy. There was a tenderness when he talked about her you never saw him express for anyone else except Jesus Christ.

What Noonan writes I like and trust. After 9/11 she wrote a short piece titled "Welcome Back, Duke" that I consider one of the most astute essays on sexuality in our time. 9/11 and sexuality? Yup, read it and you'll never forget her contrast between firemen and Woody Allen. Devastating—not just to Woody Allen but also you (if you're a man) and me.

Now Noonan has given us a short piece on the Inauguration of President Donald Trump...


The Inauguration: Donald Trump and his haters...

The king’s wrath is like the roaring of a lion, But his favor is like dew on the grass. (Proverbs 19:12)

The Trump haters are in high dudgeon and they may just succeed in giving us one of the best presidents we've had in decades. Years ago, a friend said it's more important you have the right enemies than the right friends. Trump seems almost a genius in choosing his enemies. The pretty girls and boys of Hollywood. The drug-addled, sexually debauched music stars. The intellectually debauched talking heads of the media. All the Demoncrats united in their three-legged platform of grand theft from future generations, sodomy, and the slaughter of one-quarter of our nation's babies. Some gang, huh? 

So I think we've hit the Thomas principle. You remember what they tried to do to Clarence Thomas during his confirmation hearings? Attack a man relentlessly, trying to keep him out of office, and if he gets the position, you've succeeded in making him your implacable foe. It's bad enough when he becomes a sitting and sitting and sitting and sitting justice of the Supreme Court, but watch out when he's inaugurated the forty-fifth president of these United States...


Does Donald Trump ever apologize...

He who mocks the poor taunts his Maker...  - Proverbs 17:5a

If I have to listen to one more Hollywood chick or chickette who thinks because she can do a good job not being herself on screen and crying on demand, people should listen to her talk about anything other than not being yourself on screen and crying on demand, I'm going to find some lutefisk and eat it. Who gives a rip what Meryl Streep said to the Gob of Goobers last night?

On the other hand, President-elect Donald Trump seemed to care very much what Ms. Streep said and tweeted this in response:

Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him.......

This man is a bully and a liar. It's going to be a long four years.

If someone has his ear, they should tell him it's unmanly to mock another person's disability. I've watched it and this is precisely what he did.

They should also tell him that when a woman calls him out publicly for being a bullying cad, responding by insulting the woman and lying about what he did is to act like a junior high school girl.

If The Donald has one real friend, he should put his friendship on the line to get Trump to admit what he did and apologize.

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The financial legacy of Governor Pence's administration...

In all the years my dear brothers Chris Atkins and Brian Bailey have worked for Governors Daniels and Pence, I've never made it up to the State House to see them. Yesterday was Brian's next to last day as State Budget Director, so he kindly allowed me to visit him and meet the men and women he's worked with. (Brian's leaving civil service to start a solo private legal practice in Bloomington.)

When I entered Brian's office, this chart was propped against a chair, so I asked its significance? Brian said something to the effect that it was his final performance review by the Governor.

Brian introduced me to a number of the men and women he worked with. I said to several of them that I have been very thankful to pay my taxes knowing the money was going to support their work at the State House. This chart tells you...


Democrats dearly love shame...

Chicago Tribune says the Democrats lowest clout since 1928 is due to "Democrats' destructive politics of righteousness."

Right. Sodomy and baby slaughter.

"Their rulers dearly love shame." (Hosea 4:18b)


Russ Moore and Donald Trump: a northern presbyterian view...

The Federalist very much wants Russ Moore to continue working inside the Beltway. They tell us Russ is an effective ally in their work lobbying D.C. on behalf of conservative policies. They say he shouldn't be penalized for being unflagging in his opposition to our President-elect, Donald Trump. In their view, "There is no more effective evangelical leader than Moore."

Here are a couple comments from a northern presbyterian who knows and has worked with Russ, Al Mohler, and their SBC's patriarch, Paige Patterson.

First, I commend Russ for not caving in his opposition to our President-elect (and I say this having myself voted against Hillary Clinton by voting for Donald Trump). Opposition from conservatives will be a healthy antidote to the relentless pressure Trump and Pence will face after taking office to... 


Hillary Clinton: follow the money...

But I have this against you, that you tolerate the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols. (Revelation 2:20)

President-elect Donald Trump says he's worth billions and Hillary is worth around $350 million. So who spent what in their respective presidential campaigns, and where did it come from?

Trump raised $340 million and he himself gave $66 million of it. Clinton raised $581 million and she herself gave none of it.

This is the soul of that species who have usurped for themselves the name "Democrats." They love you and have a wonderful plan for your life.

Not their lives. Your life.

You give them money and they...


Is there a Christian ghetto in our future...

This is a talk given by ruling elder Ken Patrick at a conference held this past Saturday at his church, Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA), in Ludlow, Kentucky. Titled "Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture," the conference's other speakers were Trinity's pastor Chuck Hickey and an attorney from the Alliance Defending Freedom, Jeff Shafer. I attended the conference with my son, Joseph, and his fellow pastor Paul Belcher (both serving Christ Church in Cincinnati). Hope you find this talk as wise and helpful as Joseph, Paul, and I did.

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Maintaining a Christian Witness in an Increasingly Pagan Culture

by Ken Patrick

Before we begin, let me talk about my qualifications to divine the future: I’m not a prophet; I don’t have a “word from the Lord” in the sense that I’m about to share any divinely sourced revelation with you; God didn’t appear to me in a dream.

What I’m going to share are simply observations on what may come to pass if current trends continue, and what I would do if I were in charge. If you find yourself disagreeing with what I say, hopefully you’ll stay until I’m finished. We’ll have a Q&A session where you can ask a question, and of course you can pigeon-hole me afterward.

So, to answer my own question right up front—is there a Christian ghetto in our future?—I think the most likely answer is “of course, yes” at least in an intellectual sense and perhaps in a real, physical way as well. I think it’s very possible that we’ll see both. Before I begin describing what these Christian “ghetto” scenarios might look like, let’s establish why many of us think...