B.G. Street (VISIT www.brianganges.com): Politics and Religion

Many times you hear people say, there’s two things I don’t discuss, and that's politics and religion. Well, you can't talk about what you don’t know. That’s the problem we have today, these are two big topics and most people have an opinion about them, rather than facts or convictions based on the truth. Let me forewarn you that these topics do get me livid, so forgive me in advance if I digress and rant a bit. Also let me say that most Churches and Christians won’t address these topics. Most pulpits are silenced by the 501 (c) (3) incorporation laws, and can’t instruct the parishioners according to the Word of God on certain issues. Rev. D. James Kennedy* has stated:

“The federal government has proved a tremendous impediment to the ongoing work of Christians. In all the laws that they have passed against Christian schools, gagging the church, taxation, and all kinds of things that they have done, they have made it harder for the church to exercise its prerogatives and to preach the gospel. "Take the last presidential election. There were numbers of things that I knew that I was never able to say from the pulpit because if you advance the cause of one candidate or impede the cause of the other, you can lose your tax exemption. That would have been disastrous not only for the church, but for our school and our seminary, everything. So you are gagged. You cannot do that. The IRS, a branch of our government, has succeeded in gagging Christians."

Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

So we have a quote from a prominent American preacher saying that his Church has been gagged by the Government because he didn’t want his church to lose its tax status, and the Bill of Rights says that the Government shouldn’t interfere with Church activities. Something is wrong here. The church is supposed to be salt and light. The church is also considered the ground and the pillar of the truth, but it sure doesn’t appear that way. Let’s take a quick look at IRS Publication 557:

Churches

“Although a church, its integrated auxiliaries, or a convention or association of churches is not required to file Form 1023 to be exempt from federal income tax or to receive tax deductible contributions, the organization may find it advantageous to obtain recognition of exemption.”

The church has just fallen asleep at the wheel. Many churches don’t teach the full counsel of God and the parishioners are ill-informed on many issues that are important to us today. For the sake of this article, we will need to use the Bible from time-to-time to substantiate truths, and set a foundation. OK? We’re going to address a few myths and dispel them. Let’s investigate.

People choose sides in political discussions with no substantive reasons, or coherent thought. Christians either don’t know or take the Word of God out of context to make their points one way or the other. Here are a few things to remember when deciphering the Word of God. When God gives instruction, He does so to one of four entities: Individuals, Families, Governments, and the Church. For example, the instruction to Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it- Proverbs 22:6. To whom is the Word of God speaking? To the families. When the Word says “For civil authorities are not a terror to [people of] good conduct, but to [those of] bad behavior. Would you have no dread of him who is in authority? Then do what is right and you will receive his approval and commendation. For he is God's servant for your good. But if you do wrong, [you should dread him and] be afraid, for he does not bear and wear the sword for nothing. He is God's servant to execute His wrath (punishment, vengeance) on the wrongdoer.”Romans 13:3-4 To whom is the Word of God referring? It is referring to the government to execute wrath with a sword. You don’t spank people with a sword; you kill people with a sword. Just a New Testament justification for Capital Punishment, but that’s another topic. Next, when the Word of God offers instructions for Communion in 1 Corinthians 11. Who is supposed to administer the elements? The Church is to serve communion. Lastly, when Jesus preached a repent or perish message to whom was he ministering? He was ministering to individuals. So if we follow the model that God will speak to certain sectors of our society, then we can get a clearer meaning of the Word of God in context on all of today’s political issues. On abortion, for which candidate we should vote, foreign policy, functions of government, military, punishments for crimes, etc.

Now let’s address a few myths, because too often many of our ill-informed brethren pick candidates and parties that are not supportive of the God that we serve. They pick candidates because they provide social programs for needy people. I believe that helping the needy is a great thing. But didn’t Jesus teach the church to help the poor, widows, the fatherless, etc? Or some people will say that these folks are Christians because they are against abortion. It is a good thing to stand against abortion, but that’s just one issue. These politicians are usually against you 9 out of 10 times. Folks, don’t buy the lies, and don’t vote for people because your parents voted for them, your race votes for them or whatever lame excuse people use. You have to know in your own heart that your vote is not being wasting. Remember, the lesser of two evils is still evil.

In the last Presidential election, we had G.W. Bush (R) and John Kerry (D). Although, they were in different parties, they both voted for the war, they are both for gun control, big government, they are members of the same elite organizations, and they are blood cousins. There are a lot of commonalities here folks. Anyway, Kerry wasn’t going to save you either. This game is staged, especially at that level. Just think of WWE wrestling John Cena vs. the Big Show. The crowd goes wild cheering for their man, while in the luxurious suites in the arena, the owner of the WWE gets wealthier no matter who wins. Same thing happens in politics. New boss, same as the old boss and nothing changes in the grand scheme of things. More control, more taxes, bigger government, etc.

Myths

America, during the Clinton Administration, enjoyed prosperous years and many democrats, many of which were African American I might add, laud Clinton as this great president who cared about our plight and caused this great prosperity. It's total fiction! Clinton had nothing to do with the prosperity generated in America during his years in office, and those who credit him with it don’t understand economics. Follow the money folks. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan did a tremendous job of providing the markets with liquidity (printing massive amounts of money). Well, to make a long story short, when the money was printed, it had to go somewhere; it wasn’t going to just sit in bank vaults. Where did the money go? It went into the stock market. Remember the dot com bubble of the 90’s. Little start up companies with little or no earnings had company shares valued at over $100 per share. Folks, that is insanity. These overvalued stocks were unjustifiable and those who were in the game just rode the wave and got rich. So this gave the illusion of prosperity, well it did create prosperity for the people who had 401K plans and other paper assets, because their portfolios kept going up, so they benefited. But not the average and lower wage workers, although lots of jobs were created. So the prosperity came from increasing the money supply, not from Bill Clinton and the democrats. Sorry! Oh and for the record, the same wealthy people that rode the wave got even richer when the market crashed in 2000. Remember that? Trillions of dollars went from many average people’s portfolios into the wealthy people’s portfolios. That’s another topic, but what a game they are running.
The Democratic Party helps minorities is an old and tired cliché that is used when people want to show gratitude to their party for providing services, at our cost. Look folks, it doesn’t cost them anything to provide you with goods and services as long as you pay them and vote for them. These politicians will create an agency that will blow your nose for you if you let them increase the tax base enough. Government creates absolutely nothing, yet they have all of the money. The most inefficient and unproductive entity runs it all, directly or indirectly. Government has just taken advantage of an opportunity because the church is still asleep building edifices and seeing who can grow the largest church. That’s another topic.
School vouchers are good. Yes I thought this way until I started to learn about the government. Let me say that the institution of government is a good thing, because God created it. But human motives in government should definitely be examined. Vouchers are a very cunning thing that has been devised. In short, parents pay tuition to non-publics schools, so they don't want to pay property taxes to pay for a public school to which their child doesn't attend. Sounds fair to me. So the Government created school vouchers to allow the tax money the parents pay to follow the children to his/her school. Again, sounds fair. The caveat is that the money is no longer the parent's money, because now you have a government voucher; it’s the government’s money you’re spending. If you spend that voucher at a school that is teaching things that the government deems are harmful, threatening, or treasonous, they can make that school change its curriculum or shut the school down. Church folks are buying this one hook, line and sinker.
Conspiracy theories-A lot of people want answers for a lot of the “unsolved mysteries of our time.” 9/11 and the JFK assassination just to name a few. Well when the government’s version of a story isn’t acceptable or they won't answer more questions, the government usually marginalizes groups or people as kooks or conspiracy nuts. A lot of times this isn’t the case, but it’s a scare tactic used to keep people from asking too many questions. Now the Osama bin Laden story and the magic bullet theory in the JFK murder are so highly ridiculous, that I think that we should both get a quick laugh. Follow me for a moment. The facts of the day and eyewitness footage of the murder show that Governor Connelly got shot (front seat), and Kennedy (behind him) got shot from the front in the throat and head. We are told the lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, did it. How could a shot from many stories up and behind JFK do this? That magnificent senator from Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter, gave us the “Magic Bullet Theory.” One bullet did all of that. It went in and out of the Governor's body went up, turned right, turned left, went through J.F.K’s throat, came out the back revolved around his head 180 degrees and blew off the top of his head. Hey there’s more! On 9/11, the government told us that a 7’ tall Saudi Arabian trained approximately 19 men to highjack 4 planes from major US airports simultaneously. They bypassed 10’s of billions of dollars of security and surveillance technology and all this was done from a laptop in a cave in Afghanistan. Then they flew 2 planes into the WTC buildings in NYC, and they said that actual IDs of bombers were found in separate piles of rubble at the sites of the blasts. The government presented the flight log with the hijacker’s names on it, and many of the men were alive in another part of the world. Anyway, the other plane supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania (no record of any fuselage or plane debris at the site), and one other supposedly crashed into the Pentagon (again, no record of any fuselage or plane debris at the site). The hole that the plane supposedly made in the Pentagon was no more than 20’ wide. A 20’ wide plane? Is that the mother of all conspiracy theories or what? And they have the nerve to condemn people for questioning them.
Churches supporting the scandal-ridden U.N. and faith based initiative is good. What a joke. I wouldn’t give the U.N., the Red Cross, the United Way, or any of these groups a nickel. The Red Cross sat on most of the $500 million they collected from the 9/11 tragedy and said that they were saving the money to help the victims of the future. All the while they are earning major interest on that money. All a scam! It’s a well-known fact that the further away from home your money goes in these organizations, the less gets to the people you’re trying to help. It gets swallowed up in bureaucracy. Or they just take it and use it on corporate junkets. Another scam is the faith based initiative. It is a way to pay off the churches, control them, and have them dance to their tune. A lot of churches have sold out. Remember what I shared with you about the vouchers, anytime you receive Government money to provide a service, watch out! There’s always a string attached.
Confusion within the church. African American Churches mostly follow the Democrats, and the Caucasian Churches tend to follow Republicans. I remember in the 2000 Presidential election Gore was campaigning and went to TD Jakes church in Dallas, and Bush was being supported by another worldwide ministry in Ft. Worth, Texas- Kenneth Copeland Ministries. Now if these two groups in the same body are both following Jesus, then how is the split of support substantiated. Like I have been telling you all along, it can’t. Some of these churches are paid off and/or uninformed and the congregations get celebrity visits from politicians and everyone is happy and asleep. Good night.
We have a constitutional form of government in the U.S. A powerful quote: FDR’s New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it?" H.G. Wells The New World Order 1939. Lastly, we have the Goals of Communism (from Marx’s Communist Manifesto), most of which we have here in America now.

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
Abolition of all right of inheritance.
Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country.
Free education for all children in public schools.

This was kind of long, but I wanted to show you how ridiculous some people’s arguments can be at times. We must be educated and well-informed if we’re going to have credibility and be the movers and shakers that God has called us to be. Stay tuned for more hard hitting information to come.