Join the Ranks!

Apparently March 31 is the day activist groups have designated as one of their special campaign days. This time it is Transgender Day of Visibility. This is not to be confused with the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Transgender Day of No Longer Calling Yourself Gay Even Though Ex-Gays Don't Exist, or Transgender Day of Attempting to Gender Conform Even Though Gender is a Social Construct.

Remember when it was "gay and lesbian" people who were at the forefront of activism? Well, with things like marriage neutering now the nationwide Court-imposed thing that it is, the activists switched immediately to pushing "transgender," "genderfluid," "non-binary," "genderqueer", "gender nonconforming" despite how many of them insisted neutering marriage was "the last great civil rights issue."

A Reminder That Equal Pay Already Exists

There is no "pay gap" or "wage gap". Equal pay has been the law for a long time, long before Obama took advantage of the ignorance of some.

See here for the truth.

If you're really not getting paid the same as your coworker for the same kind, quality, level, and amount of work, then you're a bad negotiator.

Want More Gun Control?

My follow Americans:

Do you want more gun control?

Want to ban private gun ownership entirely?

Let's make a deal.

Certain "blue" cities/counties/states should be allowed to secede. 

Then you can have all of the gun control you want.

You could also have no restrictions on immigration, abortion, euthanasia, drugs, or drug needles, and you could have it all taxpayer-funded. Also, plenty of more taxpayer funding of health care, including "gender confirmation" surgeries and treatments, and daycare, college, housing, and the arts. You can tax the rich all you want, you can more green energy and have more laws to fight climate change, you can reduce the prison population, and you can have mail-in voting for everyone, including anyone still incarcerated, 14 year-olds, and "undocumented immigrants". You can defund the police. You can ban hate speech and misinformation. You can ban and any discrimination by anyone against LGBTQQIA+ people, including ensuring that transwomen can compete in all women's sports.

The minimum wage can be as high as you want it!

No more Electoral College!

Think about the antiracist utopia you can create, without racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, xenophobes, Islamophobes, and bigots.

You can ditch Citizens United and have a Supreme Court with only the right people on it!

Science and experts will guide public policy! Pandemics will be prevented and handled so much more effectively.

Doesn't that sound great???

I will support you if you want to do this. I will advocate for it as much as I can.

Please, secede and form this new utopia. Show the rest of the world how it should be done!

The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword;
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps;
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery Gospel writ in burnished rows of steel;
"As ye deal with My contemners, so with you My grace shall deal";
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with His heel,
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Since God is marching on.

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet;
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free;
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! While God is marching on.

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,
He is wisdom to the mighty, He is honor to the brave;
So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of wrong His slave,
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! Our God is marching on.

Your Employer Owes You Only That To Which You've Agreed

No reasonable person with normal empathy wants someone who is simply minding their own business to needlessly suffer and die prematurely. Emotions well up when we're presented with hard cases.

"This big company that makes billions of dollars a year, pays its CEO tens of millions of dollars per year, yet has employees who are on public assistance. There was even an employee who was living in their car and died an early death in their car, undiscovered for days!"

No conservative or libertarian I know wants people to be on taxpayer assistance. Nobody with any empathy thinks someone should be living in their car and dying an early death.

In publicly traded corporations, CEO pay is up to the Board of Directors and the shareholders. While there have been companies that have tied CEO pay to the wages of employees, in general, there is no reason for most companies to do the same.

That a CEO is getting paid a high salary does not prevent you from being paid more.

It doesn't follow that the company must be doing something wrong if employees are getting taxpayer assistance or once of them is living in their car, or that some other employees have experienced homelessness or are having trouble paying their bills. Some people with very high salaries have trouble paying their bills.

Jesus Is Not a Wimp

Jesus is not a wimp and He doesn't want you to be one, either.

Anyone who studies what the Bible actually says about Jesus, especially when considering cultural/historical context, can see Jesus is anything but soft. Compassionate to those who humbled themselves? Yes. But "soft" does not apply to someone who confronted the corrupt powers of the day (not just the religious ones, either... He publicly called a secular leader a "fox" and that was NOT a good thing), overturned tables, and chased powerful people with whips.

He chose to be born into a family that did carpentry, knowing, of course, how He'd be killed, which meant He worked day in and day out with wood and nails, knowing that He was going to be nailed to a cross.

He knew He would endure lifelong taunts about being a mamzer.

A wimp would have invoked the powers at his disposal to dispense with the people who opposed him, but Jesus endured.

He does not call on us to be wimps.

"Let he who is without sin..." is not a call to abandon discernment.

"Judge not..." is a call to avoid judging hypocritically or self-righteously, not a command to to abandon sense.

"Turn the other cheek..." is not a call to pacifism or to accept abuse, but rather to let insults roll off your back, as He did. That is made clear with His instructions to the disciples to get swords for protection.

Aslan is not a tame lion.

The Left's Reaction To the Passing of Successful Republicans or Conservatives

I am posting this the day after the passing of Rush Limbaugh, but it has applied so many other times and will apply again.

The way many on the Left publicly react to the death of successful Republicans and conservatives is more evidence as to why they should be denied the power over others they so desperately seek.

What did Rush Limbaugh do that was bad? He said some mean things? Said a few incorrect things? Engaged in some distasteful humor? 

Who hasn't?

Really, who hasn't?

Limbaugh was on radio for three hours per day, five days per week, for decades. (He also wrote books and had a television show for a while, and engaged in public speaking.) Of course he said things he shouldn't have or got a few things wrong. So what??? For some of the things, he apologized. I've seen the lists of supposed sins of Limbaugh circulated by the Left. Many items on the list aren't even a problem, especially when taken in context. It's just that Leftists don't like them. 

There's the real "problem." Limbaugh very effectively articulated a conservative, America-loving message, and defended and promoted Republicans, and what's worse to Leftists is that he did it to tens of millions of people because he was so entertaining while doing it. What's even more, he paved the way for so many other conservatives in talk radio and other media, so that people were exposed to something other than the Leftism-Democrat Narrative they were getting from media, academia, etc. Leftism can't abide dissent. Facts, logic, and true history, discussed openly, obliterate Leftist narratives. That's why Limbaugh, and those he inspired, are hated by the Left. 

They hate him because he was successful. And they hate you just the same. These people want you to shut up, they want to control you, and they want you dead. They have provided the evidence themselves. 

This is why Leftists should never have any control over anyone other than themselves.

AIDS Wasn't Reagan's Fault

[I'm bumping this up.]


It's been over 30 years since the onset of AIDS. Bob Smagula of Santa Barbara wrote in a couple of years ago to the Los Angeles Times to do the requisite swipe at President Ronald Reagan.

I remember vividly how Ronald Reagan's administration chose to ignore this plague. His followers created a poisonous atmosphere by blaming the victims. His indifference was such that he never publicly uttered the word "AIDS" until his seventh year in office.

He goes on to attack President George W. Bush, morality, and even those who doubt that the universe, despite everything we know, magically created itself and that life, despite a complete lack of evidence, magically arose from nonlife through some process yet to be discovered.

The chief complaint about these types appears to be that with the onset of HIV/AIDS in the USA, Reagan didn't drop everything and focus on something striking a tiny portion of the population, a disease that is almost entirely avoidable through some basic morality. Yes, there were people infected through tainted donated blood or through accidental or malicious needle pokes, but the vast majority of people acquired HIV through shooting up illegal drugs with a needle already used by another junkie, or through engaging in rough sex, especially receiving bleeding and/or anal sex from someone who had been having sex with someone else or shooting up illegal drugs. These Reagan-bashers wanted Reagan to take money by force from Watchtower followers and everyone else in the nation, and throw it - not at other diseases less preventable and killing more people - but HIV/AIDS, mostly because it was making it scarier for them to get high or engage in orgies.

Am I saying that people who did those things "deserved" to get AIDS and die, more than then next guy? Nope. But let's not pretend that people hadn't been warned to avoid such behavior. Be honest. How many of these people have sympathy for chain smokers who get lung cancer and want Obama to do more about lung cancer?

As far as Reagan's lack of focus on HIV/AIDS, I can see why people are so upset to this day. After all, it is right there in Article II, Section 5 of the Constitution of the United States:

The President shall respond to new diseases spread by behavior typical of junkies and homosexual males by taking money by force from everyone and spending it on treating and preventing the spread of the disease, all other issues, including diseases killing more people, be damned.

Oops. That part of the Constitution doesn't exist. Which means it wasn't Reagan's place to do anything. I suppose he could have used his bully pulpit to look into the camera and say:

It is your duty to yourselves, your family, your country, and our God that you stop buggering different people and stop sharing needles. If you're a man and refuse to stop engaging in homosexual behavior, then stick to true monogamy. Not that “monogamy” where you can still have sex with other people as long as your partner is there, or your partner is out of town, or you are out of town, or you're in a club, or in a restroom. If you're a junkie and refuse to stop shooting up, then use clean needles.

Somehow, I don't think those whining about Reagan's refusal to take unconstitutional action on this matter would have been happy with that.

Meanwhile, most people recognize that Reagan did a lot of good for the world, even if they don't like everything about his Presidency.

And here's a hint before we’re hit with the next new disease: Avoid substance abuse. Do not share needles. Save sex for marriage, marry someone who will be faithful, treat that person right, and stay faithful to them.

Also: Under GWB there was more AIDS funding than under Clinton or Obama.

Happy Thanksgiving

I'd love to see President Trump serve another term. The chances of that look very slim. Hopefully, the Senate will remain Republican-majority and, if President, Biden will stay away from Leftism.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this Union. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

What's The Truth About the First Thanksgiving?

Lincoln and Thanksgiving: Origin of An American Holiday

Tap Tap - Is This Thing On?

I have neglected his blog for a long time, but that might be changing.

I've remained very active on Twitter, and now now also on Parler (@PlayfulWalrus)

I've also remained active on Facebook.

Disunited Methodists

I'm not a member if a United Methodist Church, but my family does have multiple ties to the UMC denomination. UMCs vary widely from place to place. For example, my wife grew up in a UMC in California, and she doesn't recall ever hearing presentation or explanation of the core Gospel until she was attending a university and went to a Christian event with a classmate. She was a bit embarrassed that she'd grown up in a church and yet has missed the central point of Christianity: a proper relationship with Jesus Christ.

The LGBTQQAICDEFGHJKMNOPRSUVWXYZ activists within the denomination are trying to move the organization away from applying what has traditionally been understood as the Biblical teachings of there being men and women, marriage uniting a man and a woman, and reserving sex for marriage.

Remember when the activists said that marriage neutering wouldn't have any effect on churches?

There was a conference in February that address this. If you want the bottom line, skip down to my comments at the end.

Here's what Katherine Jackson reported for Reuters, as I found at Yahoo News (which really got crappy after the most recent corporate acquisition).

The United Methodist Church voted on Tuesday to uphold and strengthen its ban on same-sex marriage and LGBT clergy in a move likely to alienate large numbers of followers who had pushed for reform.

Ban. Ban is loaded language. We're not talking about secular law here. This is a supposedly Christian organization. There's no more a van on "same-sex marriage" than a ban on squared circles or kosher shrimp.

Also, as we'll see, there is no ban on LGBT clergy.

Happy New Year

Yes, I'm still around.

I still plan to update this blog from time to time.

I am very active on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy Thanksgiving

The midterm election season is behind us, kind of, with the GOP retaining the Senate.

There is so much for which we should be thankful.

Personally, I have so many things for which to be thankful it would take me all day to list them. I thank Jesus Christ for what He did and what He continues to do – He's my Lord and Savior. I thank the saints for persevering in handing down the faith. I thank those brave souls who established this Union. I thank our military men and women for preserving this nation. I thank my ancestors for making the difficult journeys to American soil. I thank my parents for birthing and raising and supporting me. I thank my wife for marrying me and birthing and mothering my children. I could go on and on, but I won't.

Some Leftists go into their theatrics this time of year, braying about how horrible it was for Europeans to bring western civilization to the Americas. It makes me wonder why the ones in the U.S.A. who are European ancestry haven't moved to Europe.

This idea that the native peoples living here (who, by the way, were also newcomers at one time) were all peaceful and noble and that the Europeans who settled here were horrible, evil people who always mistreated the natives is ridiculous. All over the world, people have been overtaken and either killed off or integrated. Yet only in certain parts of the English-speaking world is the integration portrayed as evil and celebrating anything remotely connected to it is stopped.

But notice that the Normans didn't give the Anglo-Saxons any sovereign territory, nor casino operation exemptions. Such concessions are not typical of victorious peoples.

Don't let the Leftists take away Thanksgiving. Celebrate proudly.

It is time for us to pause and consider that there is much for which we should be thankful, and we should thank Him. If you're not inclined to do that, then consider all of the people in your life who have been there along the way, providing emotional support, friendship, guidance, and goods and services.

The modern American Thanksgiving meal is an overly bountiful one, a testament to how somewhat free markets and capitalism have produced plenty. From the farmer to the importer to the grocer, participants in the market have allowed us to splurge.

I bid you a safe, pleasant, and reflective Thanksgiving Day.

We Should Defend Our Borders

Remember when the latest Leftist panic was guns (again)? As I type this, the Left's panic-du-jour is "children separated from their parents" at the nation's borders. The Left is desperately pushing this panic with everything they have. This is probably an effort to derail momentum for border security (because the Left doesn't actually believe in national borders but will gladly use them to their advantage anyway) and distract from devastating things like the IG Report and Hearings.

Plenty of people generally not the Left have hopped onto this bandwagon, and understandably so. We can all agree it is sad that kids are placed in the position of being detained in a different location than their parents. It looks awful and it sounds awful. But how did things get this way?

It's really awful when a surgeon has to cut into somebody, especially a kid. It looks bad. It's going to cause a lot of pain. It would be great if the surgeon never had to do that. But the surgeon is reacting to events that were set in motion when someone assaulted someone else. Then the victim was brought to the surgeon, who has to deal with the mess with no perfect way forward that looks tidy and won't cause any pain.

What's really going on?

Absurdities in California

Time for the March of the Criminals and Commies again, since it is May 1. And of course it is pure coincidence that the Caravan of Wannabe Invaders came all the way to the California portion of the border and arrived at this time. Riiiiiiight. What a bunch of stupid theatrics.

Someone forgot they were supposed to be in the shadows!

Speaking of stupid cultural appropriation of kabuki theater, Larry Lopez, appearing under his stage name Nativo, is still doing a very poor imitation of Jesse Jackson. Or maybe Gloria Alred? Whichever. Larry, whose attempt to beat a criminal prosecution had him either feigning dementia eight years ago, or making a miraculous recovery since, or perhaps is still demented (I'll let you decide), made it into the Orange County Register and either the reporter was too lazy or agenda-driven to note the paper's previous coverage of Larry, or the editors decided to cover for him. It even appears to me that they have prevented comments from being made on the article.

If you're not interested, at least scroll down for a reminder that rioting has lasting negative consequences.

Tax Day is Tomorrow

With income taxes due tomorrow, here are some of my entries dealing with taxes:

Wrong Turns on California Roads

Dear Progressives, Socialists, Liberals, Leftists, and Democrats

Funding Government: Of Fees and Taxes

If You're a Social Network Professional or Investor

I hope you can still read this. Certain large tech companies have been silencing or at least restricting content creators and users who aren't in lockstep with the Leftist*/SJW/victicrat doctrines and practices. Some fire or push out employees who deviate from the groupthink.

A viable social networking platform is needed that won't be hostile to conservatives, libertarians, moderates, classical liberals, observant Jews, and conservative/evangelical Christians. Facebook and Twitter are two huge examples of services that have been engaging in problematic practices. A long time ago, Townhall.com, which hosted user blogs, might have been able to evolve into such a service, but that's a long dead issue.

So, if you're a "Silicon Valley", tech, or social network person with technical expertise and/or managerial skills and/or money to invest and you're NOT a Leftist, it behooves you to give the majority of us who aren't Leftists a viable alternative, once that will protect privacy. People will be willing to pay a small monthly or yearly fee or pay for extra services as long as they know they aren't being shadowbanned or otherwise restricted and that the information they've set to "private" won't be shared. People have been leaving Facebook, Twitter, and certain other services. Many more would be willing to jump ship for a viable, user-friendly alternative, or at least would add an account at the new service. Even some Leftists would join, and they should be welcomed as long as they can be prevented from trolling/harassing staff or other users.

I think such a service would offer the ability to:

• network
• form and maintain groups
• schedule/plan/invite to events
• post and share short comments/updates as well as longer-form commentaries and analysis, text, audio, images, videos
• follow/block content and other users
• commenting on content
• private messaging 

The terms of such a service could still prevent or remove activity that encourages or facilitates crime, terrorism, or even actual racism (regardless of the source).

So how about it??? Who will take advantage of the opportunity that is before them???


*Leftism is distinct from classical liberalism. An important difference is that Leftists do not support free speech. There are other examples.

If Friday Was Good, Sunday Was Spectacular

A carpenter, with questionable parentage, from an unremarkable town, walked the countryside. He attracted followers, keeping twelve with him closely and three of those especially close as he spoke to groups large and small. He was part of an oppressed group - a Jew in a Roman-occupied part of the world. He said and did things that confounded the dominant religious authorities of the day. People flocked to him for a miracle. There was something he claimed that was outrageous to his fellow Jews: He was God. Arrogance? Insanity? Fraud? From a man who urged people to forgive each other and love each other?

For thousands of years, it had been pounded into the minds and hearts of the Jews that there was ONE God and that He was spirit, not an idol that could be kept in a room. He was a unique, personal being, not a "force" or something we all could be or have if we meditated enough.

And yet here was a Jew, this guy who was extremely familiar with the Scriptures – including the ones that said there was just one God - walking around claiming to be God. He wasn't part of the recognized system of priests and religious leaders, so he posed a threat to them and their comfortable, established way of doing things. This guy even had the nerve to disrupt their moneymaking schemes.

Enough was enough!

They handed this guy over to the Romans and demanded that he be executed. He was a threat to the religious leaders, and since he'd claimed to be a king, he must be a threat to the Romans, too. Furthermore, anyone claiming to God was being blasphemous, right? The Roman leader, while spooked a little, didn't find anything wrong with the man, especially after the man explained that his kingdom wasn't of this world. Yet the Romans needed to keep order, and people were demanding that this "king" die. The "king" was taken and scourged - whipped so brutally that his skin was shredded. That wasn't enough. The people wanted this "king" to die. And so this carpenter, who had worked with wood for years to make useful things for other people, was forced to carry the very wood he'd be nailed to so that he could hang on a cross bleeding and losing his ability to breathe.

This man who'd preached loved and forgiveness, who had urged people to turn from their sins, who had healed the sick, who had done some controversial things but never anything wrong, was beaten and executed, all in excruciating pain.

That was what we now call "Good" Friday.

If that was all that happened, most of us would never have heard of Good Friday. Someone may have mentioned this carpenter in an obscure list of Jews who claimed to be the Messiah, but most of us would never have heard of this Nazarene.

But it wasn't all that happened.

On Sunday morning, once the holy days and feasts were over, some people who loved this carpenter were returning to care for his body as a final sign of respect.

The body was gone, though. Nobody ever found the body. To their shock, this Jesus, who had been scourged and killed, was alive and well - very well - though he still had the holes in his hands from the nails and the hole in his side where a spear had shoved into him to make sure he was dead. He talked with them, they embraced him, they felt him, they ate with him. He'd come and go as he pleased over the next several weeks. Finally, having done what he'd set out to do, he was taken away in a "cloud"... probably a description of what appeared to be a blindingly bright light.

Because of that Sunday when Jesus was first seen alive after being killed, we now have Good Friday. Why is Friday "Good"?

It is no coincidence that Jesus was executed during the Passover season (the Last Supper was a Passover Seder). Many years before, when the Jews were enslaved in Egypt, there was a night when they slaughtered lambs "without defect" and placed the blood of a lamb on their doorways. Overnight, when the Lord passed through Egypt with righteous judgment, the firstborn of every household was struck down - but the Lord "passed over" the homes with the blood. The Jews were subsequently freed from their slavery.

John the Baptist referred to Jesus as "the Lamb who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus was the ultimate Passover Lamb "without defect" who shed his blood to free all of us from our enslavement to sin. That Friday was Good because it is the day that our sins against God were paid for... by someone other than us!

But that Sunday...

We've all dealt with death in our lives. We've all had loved ones that have died. Thousands of years of recorded history tell us that dead people stay dead.

Yet this miracle-working carpenter was seen alive after his death. People touched him, talked with him, ate with him. They stuck their fingers in his wounds.

Being modern people, we are understandably skeptical of this. We don't have video proof. But what we do have is history, and the testimony of those who were there. Good Friday had left the followers of Jesus afraid and feeling defeated. They had shown themselves to be cowardly, and their leader was dead.

If Easter (Resurrection) Sunday did not happen, how did such people go on to change the world? Unless they actually encountered a resurrected Jesus, these people would have no reason to face ostracism and martyrdom to proclaim that resurrection and spread the teachings of Jesus. It is easy to deny the truth to save your life. Would people be willing to give up everything they had and die for something they knew to be a lie? No way!

So what does this all mean for me today? It means that I have a way to be right with God, because even though I have done things against Him, Good Friday was the day that those sins were paid for. I am forgiven. I also have someone who is my friend, my advocate, someone who knows what it is like to live life on Earth and knows what it is like to feel pain, suffer loss, and to die. And that Someone has promised me that if I follow Him, everything will be okay. Death is not the end. He has conquered death, and someday death, pain, and sorrow will be taken away from me. He has backed up His "blasphemous claims" with action, showing them not to be blasphemous at all.

He doesn't want me to cut the heads off of people just because they don't believe in Him. He doesn't want me to fly airliners into skyscrapers to kill people going about their lives. He wants me to do things like love others and take care of the needs of others. This is why so many have built hospitals, universities, and charities in His name.

It isn't about going to church regularly. It isn't about trying to convince people that my life is perfect. It isn't about making sure I can retire wealthy. It isn't about getting everyone else to see things the way I do. It isn't even about keeping a checklist of rules and sticking to that checklist. It isn't about "getting it right" on my own before I can approach God, because that will never happen.

It IS about having a peace with God, knowing that He forgives the horrible things I've done and may yet still do if I simply ask Him to, having sincerely repented. It is about having fellowship with that Nazarene who rose from the grave and still lives, because He deserves my allegiance and because He did life right.

There are people who believe that everything is an accident, a series of extremely unlikely coincidences. Sunsets. Surf. Waterfalls. Roses. Redwood trees. Chocolate. Wine. Galaxies. Eagles. Puppies. Kittens. Sex. Newborn babies. Mozart. DaVinci. Those are all accidents? I don't think so. All of the complexity in the cells of our own bodies, all of the symbiotic systems of the natural world, where organisms depend on each other for survival. Those all "just happened"? I don't think so. The world is beautiful and amazing, and it is not accidental or inconsequential that a Jew who was without sin and claimed to be God suffered and died at Passover and then rose from the dead.

Yes, there is something broken about the world, as evidenced by all of the suffering. But the fix is in. The victory was demonstrated almost 2000 years ago. I can't ignore that. That has to have an impact in my life, how I view life, and how I live life. My Lord humbled Himself, suffered and died for me. And then, He beat death, and someday, He's going to kick death - and its parent, sin - down the stairs, and shut the door on them. The world won't be broken anymore. I can't know everything about what the future will bring, but as long as I'm holding on to Him, I'll be in the best company there is. And since I love Him, as long as I'm around, I should seek to love others, meet their needs, and follow His lead.

May you have a Joyous Resurrection Sunday.

The Good Thing About Good Friday

Unless you are living under sharia law and are kept ignorant of such matters, you know that this coming weekend is the weekend during which Christians especially commemorate the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The books of the Bible claim that that both of these events were historical events - that they actually happened.

If both of these events did actually happen, then they are the most significant events in all of history.

The resurrection of Jesus is not a mere resuscitation of a man destined to later die and decompose, but rather a restoration of life to His dead body and a transformation into a glorified state in which He will never die again - eternal life. He is the first human being to resurrect to eternal life.

It was the resurrection of Jesus that confirmed the significance of His crucifixion. As C.S. Lewis put forth, Jesus was either "a liar, a lunatic, or Lord".  Since then, "legend", as in never having existed, has been added to the "possible" choices by the scholars and philosophers who seriously discuss these matters. The assertion that Jesus never really existed requires ignoring or "explaining away" quite a bit beyond just the books of the Bible, it also requires a discounting of the non-Christian references to Jesus in Roman, Jewish, and Gnostic writings, and an alternate explanation for the emergence of a sect of Judaism into the Christian church.

Over the years, people have tried to explain away the resurrection, attacking it as impossible (as if they have ultimate knowledge that God can't ever have performed miracles), a hoax, or a legend.

Hoax theories have included such claims as "Jesus didn't really die on the cross, he merely passed out", "the disciples stole his body", and even "Jesus had an identical twin" to explain away the basic documented facts of the death of Jesus on the cross, the empty tomb in which He had been buried, the appearances of Jesus alive after the crucifixion, and the rise of early Christianity among a group of Jews.

But for it to be a hoax, it would have been a hoax perpetrated by a powerless group of ordinary people who then maintained the secret of the hoax in the face of hardship, persecution, and death. We've witnessed the willingness of people to die for what they believe to be true, but would a group of people be willing to die for what they knew to be lie, when they could save their skins by recanting?  Plus, why didn't the non-Christian Jewish authorities ever record that Jesus had a twin? As for the "legend" theory of the resurrection, it requires an elaborate alternative explanation for how a group of ordinary Jewish people started Christianity in the first place and why they would do it in the face of opposition from the Jewish and Roman authorities.

I'm convinced that both events – the crucifixion and the resurrection - happened, and that changes everything.  Jesus' resurrection proves Him to be Lord. It means that Jesus is Messiah, Christianity is true, Jesus is God, and Jesus is Savior, and all of us who follow Him have been forgiven of our sins and will fellowship with God, having eternal life.

Nothing could be more significant.

Have you asked Him to be your Lord and Savior? Have you cast your sins and burdens at His feet and bowed down before Him? It's the best decision you could ever make.

More on this can be found here:

http://www.christiananswers.net/dictionary/resurrectionofchrist.html

Disneyland Unions Have Been Talk But Little Action For Decades

Margot Roosevelt is one of the few reporters still employed (last I checked) by the Orange County Register's latest parent company, and she wrote that paper's coverage of the latest Big Labor griping about Disneyland. Someone wrote the headline as "Disneyland Resort workers struggle to pay for food, housing and medical care, union survey finds."

I'm going to assume that the words in this article were chosen and reviewed very carefully.