This post is dedicated to Colonel Jim Harper of Men’s Fraternity, who first spoke those two words to me. I am disturbed by how we are becoming a Nation of Lemmings. You know, the little creatures who unthinkingly follow the crowd wherever it is going, even if the destination is off a cliff, and to destruction. Two recent stories on CBS’ Sixty Minutes underscore my concern. The first was an interview with Aly Raisman, the U.S. Olympic gymnast, now 23, who was sexually abused for years by the...
I was just in Seattle, and the rumor there is that amazon.com will choose Toronto, Canada for its highly-sought after second headquarters, to poke the President in the eye for his immigration and trade policies. I hope that won't happen, but if it turns out to be true, it will be the latest in the list of counterproductive results from our President’s unfortunate words, tweets and actions. A year ago, worried about the election, I wrote that we had a terrible choice. Separating the choice...
Carmen LaBerge has written a remarkable new book, out this week, Speak the Truth: How to Bring God Back Into Everyday Conversation. The book is full of relevant and practical insights and recommendations on how to engage neighbors, colleagues and families on the central question of life: me or Thee? Carmen has not written a series of lectures to be given to non-believers on how the world, and America in particular, are going to hell, thanks to their secular idolatry. Rather, Carmen starts with...
I suspect that this post will make some readers angry. That's not my intent, but it's probably inevitable, because I want to ask some politically incorrect questions which no one seems to be willing to take on. This year in the Pacific Fleet there have been three collisions and a grounding of combatant ships, a terrible record previously unmatched by the U.S. Navy. A quick search online will bring up several articles about the details of each incident. The two recent, tragic collisions at sea...
Michael Schuman’s reminder in a recent BusinessWeek article is one of the clearest high level observations I’ve read on the perverse and unpredictable nature of too much debt in the short run, never mind the long term requirement to repay it; he focuses on the mounting problem in China, though the same analysis could apply to Illinois, Puerto Rico and other heavy borrowers. It reminds me of the last days of the Soviet Union when factories built widgets that no one wanted and just stacked them...
As many of you know, I recently spent several days in London with a group of wonderful Believers who are originally from Nigeria, at an event for Joshua's Army. We were joined by a pastor from Lagos, Nigeria, and by a pastor in the Nigerian community in London, both strong men of God. Our weekend discussion was about how husbands and fathers can better model Christ with our wives and children. While there were many beautiful facets to the weekend together, the one I want to focus on for this...
In this season of graduation speeches, I thought it would be good to revisit three important words which we rarely hear in public use, and whose original meanings are therefore fast disappearing. I will start with tolerance, defined as a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, beliefs, practices, racial or ethnic origins, etc., differ from one's own. Notice that tolerance requires me to give others the right to believe and to say what they want, though I am not...
This month’s post is written primarily to believers. It will make little sense to others, and even believers don’t typically spend much time focused on Spiritual Warfare, which is exactly what Satan wants, and makes his destructive mission much easier. Satan particularly hates believers because we will spend eternity where he began but can never return: in Heaven with God. He does everything he can to lie and to confuse, insuring that as few people as possible accept Christ’s free gift of...
This Saturday I spent the first part of the day on two unrelated but connected events. In the morning I assisted my talented wife as she visited several Estate Sales on their second days, looking for bargains from the belongings of those who moved to a different place, either to a different home or to the life beyond. And then we attended the Memorial Celebration for a mother, grandmother and thirty-year-career elementary school teacher who I’m sure left behind many physical things, but...
Last week a reader of The President asked me during a group Skype discussion whether I think President Trump can return Christian values to our nation. I believe the answer is “Yes”, for him or for any President, though perhaps not as one might initially think, and certainly not by himself. In answering the question, I think it's important to distinguish between the goal itself and the methods employed to achieve the goal. I am reminded that in the case of the Israelites, that nation’s...
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