Tuesday, June 30, 2015

How Will God Judge the World?

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How Will God Judge the World?

by John Ross Schroeder Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

If you or I were to seriously harm another person (hypothetically speaking), in the Western world we would be brought before a judge and jury to receive an appropriate punishment. The prosecuting attorney would emphasize the tragic condition of the innocent victim, and the defense lawyer would point out any extenuating circumstances in a plea for the perpetrator. Motive would be argued by these two lawyers.
Any witnesses would be called to testify either for or against the accused. The judge would disallow inappropriate testimony. Finally the jury would retire to consider the case in private. In due time, if they had been convinced by the prosecutor's arguments, they would return to court with a guilty verdict. The sentence would be handed out by the judge on a later date.
This oversimplified fictional scenario pretty much sums up the way in which many conceive of the subject of judgment—usually with undue emphasis on the final verdict and sentencing. The popular concept runs very negatively.
But what does God's inspired Word teach? The rendering of “eternal judgment” in the Bible is a far more serious matter than, say, ruling on the petty misdemeanors that normally characterize a Judge Judy courtroom. Our final destiny is seriously at stake! Just what does Scripture say regarding God's judgment of the world?

God is the Judge

In pleading for any righteous individuals in wicked Sodom, the patriarch Abraham asked God, “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25). There were not even 10 righteous persons in Sodom, but God spared “righteous Lot” (2 Peter 2:7) and his two daughters from the catastrophe that followed.
The New Testament also tells us that “God [is] the judge of all” (Hebrews 12:23). Jesus Christ revealed that God the Father is “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matthew 11:25). As always, He remains the ultimate authority, presiding over the entire universe and everything in it, visible and invisible. Our eternal destiny is in His capable hands.
Yet the Father delegates the awesome responsibility of judging human beings to His beloved Son: “For the Father judges no one, but has committed all judgment to the Son”(John 5:22, emphasis added throughout). This is because Jesus actually lived as a human being Himself (verse 27), showing God's eminent fairness. Of course, Jesus is of the same mind as the Father, declaring, “I and My Father are one” (John 10:30).
The context of this passage shows that the resurrection from the dead intersects with Christ's coming judgment: “Most assuredly I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God; and those who hear will live” (verse 25). Everyone who has died will hear Christ's voice (verse 28).
Humanity will be resurrected from the dead. We have Christ's absolute guarantee preserved in His inspired Word to mankind. The resurrection will occur! And numerous passages link this with a time of coming judgment.

The plan of salvation

God planned His whole creation. He thought things out well in advance. Human beings figure prominently in the awesome future God is working toward. He made men and women in His own image (Genesis 1:26-27) with the ultimate goal of bringing them into His divine family. People have sinned, but God's purpose is to redeem and save them.
The Bible reveals God's master plan of salvation. It begins and ends with Jesus Christ. Notice what the apostle Paul stated: “He [the Father] raised Him [Jesus] up from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come” (Ephesians 1:20-21).
Earlier in this chapter Paul told the Christians at Ephesus, “He [the Father] made known to us his secret purpose, in accordance with the plan which he determined beforehand in Christ, to be put into effect when the time was ripe; namely that the universe, everything in heaven and earth, might be brought into a unity with Christ” (verses 9-10, Revised English Bible).
Judgment is a major part of that divine plan. “Eternal judgment” follows the “resurrection from the dead” in the listing of six major biblical doctrines that lay a foundation for going on to perfection in Hebrews 6:1-2. It begins with those whom the Bible calls the firstfruits of God (Romans 8:23; James 1:18; Hebrews 12:22-23).
These relative few are privileged to be made aware of God's plan of salvation well in advance of the vast majority of mankind. They will be in the first and better resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:23; Hebrews 11:35). God the Father and Christ the Son are laboring to bring the firstfruits to eternal glory (Hebrews 2:10). As we will see, judgment plays a major role in that work of salvation.

Judgment begins with the Church of God

The apostle Peter firmly stated: “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17). Then Peter asks, “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and sinner appear?” (verse 18).
Does this passage then mean that truly converted Christians will just barely make the first resurrection into God's family? Not at all!
The word “scarcely” is translated from the Greek adverb molis, meaning “with difficulty” (Strong's no. 3433). In fact, the few other uses of this word in the New Testament indicate the meaning to more specifically be “with such difficulty as to seem that success would be unlikely.” Indeed, Christ said that the way to salvation is a narrow and difficult path (Matthew 7:14). Yet even what is impossible for men is possible with God (Matthew 19:26).
One of the overriding principles of sound biblical study is that we search out all the relevant scriptures bearing on a particular subject. In his second letter Peter points out a number of Christian attributes that we should all be developing: faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love.
He then concludes: “Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble; for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 1:10-11). This majestic event occurs at the time of the first resurrection when Christ returns to planet earth (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54).
In the meantime, the Church is going through a period of judgment—which means a time of evaluation and of disciplinary consequences for disobedience. Such helpful chastening is part of the difficulties a Christian must endure (Hebrews 12:7). In stating what he did in 1 Peter 4:18, Peter was referring to Proverbs 11:31: “If the righteous will be recompensed on the earth, how much more the ungodly and the sinner?”

Awaiting a future judgment

Indeed, what about the ungodly and the sinner in today's world—including those who cavalierly cast aside the Ten Commandments with little regard for the hurt and destruction they cause themselves and others? Clearly such rebellion carries grave consequences. But are such people—most of humanity, in fact—lost forever with no hope of salvation?
The apostle Paul was inspired to write in the Bible of converted Christians: “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”(Romans 5:8). Would not our just and merciful God also demonstrate His love to other sinners in desperate need of real repentance and His merciful forgiveness? God gave His Son because He loved the whole world (John 3:16).
Peter points out, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). This is the loving nature of our God who is filled with mercy. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
Paul writes of “God our Saviour, whose will it is that all should find salvation and come to know the truth”(1 Timothy 2:3-4, REB). A false, satanic gospel has denied many people access to the truth of God.
Jesus Christ said: “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth [crucified], will draw all peoples to Myself”(John 12:32). Christ is going to straighten out this world in His coming reign on earth as King of Kings and Lord of Lords with the assistance of the resurrected and transformed saints (Revelation 20:4).
That is why God is calling them as the “firstfruits” of His divine family during this age of man: “Of his own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures” (James 1:18).
Many more will be called to salvation during Christ's millennial reign and just on beyond. A future second resurrection to judgment will occur just after the Millennium (Revelation 20:5, 11-12). For the most part, this future judgment will not be to condemnation or damnation. Other scriptural passages strongly indicate that the majority of all those who have ever lived will be given the opportunity for salvation—and most will gladly accept it.
Read Ezekiel 37:1-14, which describes this time. The resurrected Israelites described in this passage think their hope is lost—that they are cut off from God (verse 11). But their Creator will give them hope. They will have their opportunity for salvation, and most will receive the Holy Spirit and be saved (verse 14). Centuries after Ezekiel wrote this prophecy, the apostle Paul firmly stated, “All Israel will be saved” (Romans 11:26).
This is true judgment—godly evaluation of human existence with righteous discernment and great mercy (see Isaiah 11:3-4; James 2:13). Unlike a human judge of this world, our Judge loves us! He gave His life for us!
As we might expect, there will be a stubborn few who simply will not repent and turn from sin even after God has given them every opportunity. Even then, however, the permanent penalty will not be everlasting punishing in the fires of hell. The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)—the diametric opposite of life.
After burning up in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14), they will simply cease to exist. This is the second death (Revelation 20:14). You can learn much more by reading our free booklet Heaven and Hell: What Does the Bible Really Teach?

God's magnificent purpose for humanity

The awesome result of our Creator's activities on this earth lies “in bringing many sons to glory”(Hebrews 2:10)—the Greek term here includes daughters as well. As the apostle Paul explains in 1 Corinthians 15:22-23, God accomplishes His plan in stages: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order.”
God is enlarging His family in His own way and according to His own timetable. Many assume that today is the only day of salvation and that the ultimate judgment for humanity at large is determined solely by what happens in this life.
The Bible, however, reveals something far different. The first resurrection represents the first fruits of God's salvation. Judgment for them occurs in this life. But a much larger group, representing the greater part of all who have ever lived, will be offered salvation some 1,000 years later. They will go through their judgment period then. For only then, in that great later harvest of mankind, will they receive their opportunity for everlasting life in the Kingdom of God. GN

Friday, June 26, 2015

The Supreme Court Decision on Sodomy

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The Supreme Court Decision on Sodomy

Answerable to a Higher Court

Posted on Jul 09, 2003 by Melvin Rhodes Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

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Sodomy is defined in Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary as “carnal copulation in any of certain unnatural ways.” Clarke’s Standard Reference Dictionary (UK, 1982) defines it as “any sexual intercourse held to be abnormal, as between a person and an animal or between two persons of the same sex.”
When most people think of sodomy, they think of sexual acts between people of the same sex, but the legal definition is clearly broader than that. The Bible also shows us that the sins of Sodom were many. The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel described them as “pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy. And they were haughty and committed abomination before Me …” (Ezekiel 16:49-50). Certainly, sexual sins were included among these.
The word sodomy comes from the biblical city of Sodom, notorious for its vice and corruption. Sodom, along with its sister city Gomorrah, were destroyed by God because of the sinfulness of its people.
You can read an account of the circumstances that led up to this destruction in Genesis 18 and 19.
When Abraham realized that God had determined to destroy the twin cities “because their sin [was] very grave” (Genesis 18:20), he appealed on their behalf, bargaining with God's messengers. He asked: “Would You also destroy the righteous with the wicked?” (verse 23). “Suppose there were fifty righteous within the city; would You also destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous that were in it?” Abraham was assured that if there were 50 righteous left in the city, the city would be spared.
On second thoughts, Abraham realized that there might not be 50 righteous inhabitants left, so he asked again, this time wondering if the city would be spared if only 45 God-fearing citizens remained. He was assured the city would be spared. Eventually Abraham got down to 10. And the Lord said, “I will not destroy it for the sake of ten” (verse 32).
In the next chapter we see the cities destroyed. Clearly, there were not even 10 righteous people left.
The incident that preceded the final destruction of Sodom involved homosexual rape. When the two messengers from God were staying with Lot, “the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. And they called to [Abraham's nephew] Lot and said to him, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally [sexually]”. Rebutted, the men “pressed hard against the man Lot, and came near to break down the door” (verses 4-9).
Immediately after this incident, God took action to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (read the rest of the chapter). After witnessing their sin for a very long time, His patience had run out and He chose to remove them from the face of the earth.
Could the same fate befall the United States of America?
Since the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s, America and other Western nations have progressively moved further and further away from God and His standards of morality as defined in His Word, the Bible.
The sexual reforms of the '60s and subsequent decades have contributed greatly to the breakdown of the family, the increased spread of sexually transmitted diseases, millions of HIV/AIDS infections, an epidemic of drug-taking and increased crime and violence. Despite this fact, the greatest legal authorities in the land have reacted with yet another “reform” that takes the country further away from God’s laws for mankind.
As with Sodom and Gomorrah, when will God pull the plug on our immoral society?

Thursday, June 25, 2015

What's Behind America's Growing Dependency Society?

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What's Behind America's Growing Dependency Society?

by Michael Kelley 3 comments Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

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A man holding a $5 dollar bill. — What's Behind America's Growing Dependency Society?

During the first half of October 2013, another epic battle played out in Washington over the federal budget. Narrowly avoiding default, both sides decided to kick the can down the road—again. The contrast between those who believe government must provide ever more services and those who wonder how the nation will ever pay its mounting bills grew starkly defined.
Since the end of World War II, when the United States emerged as the world's greatest superpower, massive change has transformed the fabric of American society. A nation in which millions worked hard to defeat fascism and imperialism has turned into a nation increasingly on the dole.
As of early 2013 a staggering 160 million Americans (out of 325 million)—more than 49 percent—live in households receiving a monthly check from one or more government programs. Federal entitlements have expanded to include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, student education loans, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, and a host of other programs.
Over the past five years these programs have cost taxpayers a shocking $3.7 trillion. This is more than the entire U.S. Gross National Product was in the early 1980s. It's more than five times what the U.S. government spent on NASA, education and transportation during the same period.
Let's take a closer look at America's shift to dependency and what it means for the nation.

Expanding programs, expanding fraud

It all began with the granddaddy of social programs, Social Security. Enacted in the depths of the Great Depression in 1933, the original aim was to set up a plan for older workers to contribute to their retirement.
But today's glut of programs bears little resemblance to the simple program President Franklin Roosevelt had in mind. Today more than 58 million Americans receive a check each month from the Social Security Administration—a number predicted to swell to more than 97 million by 2035.
Many government programs are known for fraud and abuse. One part of Social Security, the disability insurance program (SSDI), has grown especially fast in recent years. Originally intended to pay benefits to the truly disabled, the program is being investigated for fraudulent approvals, enabling perhaps millions of able-bodied Americans to receive monthly checks of up to $2,500 from the government.
While the vast majority of those receiving Social Security disability benefits qualify legally, fraud in the program has been well documented. A typical pattern involves older workers who have lost their jobs due to the recent recession. When unemployment benefits run out, the next logical step for many is to claim a disability that will keep federal checks coming. If the initial claim is denied, there are always lawyers with TV ads claiming to know just how to get those benefits coming.
But the problem doesn't stop there. Frequent exposés reveal thousands of other Americans fraudulently receiving benefits, using ruses such as the names of dead people or people who have left the country. It all adds up to billions in fraud and abuse annually.
Like other entitlements, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, more commonly known as the Food Stamp program, began with a lofty purpose. America has always had an underclass of truly poor people facing chronic hunger. The Food Stamp program was enacted to provide a nutritional “safety net” for these individuals.
But the Food Stamp program has exploded, like so many other federal entitlement programs. Since 2007, the program has mushroomed from a $35 billion outlay to more than $80 billion in 2012, with more than 45 million Americans now getting food stamps. Food stamp rolls are growing at 75 times the rate of new job creation!

Medicare and Medicaid explosion

Almost in lockstep with America's growing dependence on government-provided food is the growing dependence on free or reduced-price medical care. Medicaid, a combined federal-state program set up to provide health-care benefits to the poor, covered an estimated 82.5 million Americans, or 27 percent of the population, as of late 2011.
An additional 46.5 million were on the Medicare rolls for elderly health care and health-care supplements. That number is rising rapidly as millions of baby boomers reach retirement age.
Medicare rolls are growing due to an estimated 3.6 million retiring baby boomers being added each year. A continued soft economy, with higher than normal unemployment, is producing what some observers are calling a permanent underclass, most of whom rely on Uncle Sam for their health care.
Here, too, widespread fraud and corruption compounds the problem. Medicaid fraud, which usually involves a hospital, nursing home, health-care professional, ambulance service or pharmacy overbilling Medicare, has grown into a $30 billion problem, or roughly 10 percent of the program's cost. State-administered Medicaid programs are especially fraud-ridden. New York, for example, budgets more than $50 billion of its $121 billion state budget on the program, and estimates that fraud costs it as much as $18 billion of that amount.
Decades of dependence on Medicare and Medicaid helped pave the way for the newest health-care entitlement, the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, the first major step towards instituting nationwide socialized medicine.
Working on a largely European model, Obamacare continues to remove health-care decisions from doctors and forces millions of basically healthy Americans to buy health insurance to extend coverage to some 42 million Americans who haven't been covered by any health insurance plan. To encourage participation, Americans earning up to four times the federal poverty level are to be given a federal subsidy to buy insurance.
The law's requirements have polarized Americans unlike virtually anything that has come before it. Millions resent being forced to buy health insurance or facing fines if they fail to do so. And other millions of insured citizens are likewise being forced to turn to government “health exchanges” for coverage at rates much higher than they were paying previously.

Why bother to work?

In the face of generous federal benefits, many Americans who lost jobs during the recession and slow recovery have basically given up looking for work. Some have apparently done the math, asking themselves why they should work when they can have as great or greater equivalent income with food stamps, free health care and unemployment benefits for up to two years.
So it's not surprising that the percentage of the adult population working has fallen to 63 percent, the lowest percentage since 1978. Over the past five years, more than 10 million U.S. adults have left the labor force. It's a bad downward trend, and many economists see no indication this is improving.
Economists blame failure to create jobs and the rapid pace of retirements of baby boomers as two reasons for the falling labor participation rate. And a third reason they now give is more Americans going on Social Security disability, with 8.8 million Americans receiving Social Security Disability benefits—a number that has doubled since 1995.
Could it be that many Americans have simply grown tired of working, or see not working as a more attractive financial alternative?

Major shifts in American attitudes

These trends reflect a fundamental change in attitude. A nation that traditionally prided itself on hard work and self-reliance now looks increasingly to Washington as the source for supplying all needs. Uncle Sam has become the “rich uncle” to many.
Seemingly lost in all this social change is the diminished role of the family. Since the dawn of civilization, people looked first to their family, and then to a lesser extent to their neighbors and community, for help when hungry or sick or destitute.
This strong family and community influence was long a part of America, when rural folks would assist each other in clearing land, building houses and raising crops. Families looked after not only their own, but others as well. If families had to leave home for a time, they could count on neighbors to look after their property.
But the central role of the family began to erode rapidly in the 20th century. Beginning with President Franklin Roosevelt's “New Deal” of the 1930s, American attitudes towards governmental assistance began to change. The Great Depression at that time disrupted the lives of millions, bringing hunger, deprivation, and the loss of homes, farms and businesses. As the Depression dragged on in the early 1930s, Americans began to look to government for a solution.
No longer was the role of the federal government limited to keeping the peace and maintaining national security. Now its job, in the eyes of millions, was also to stamp out poverty, provide old-age pensions and health care, pay for college educations, maintain a basic level of nutrition, support illegitimate children, and on and on. The increasing role of the federal government gained more traction with President Lyndon Johnson's “Great Society” of the 1960s, which was promoted as the way to eradicate poverty (in spite of almost $15 trillion spent on anti-poverty programs since then, the U.S. poverty rate remains essentially unchanged).
Over the past 30 to 40 years a country that once prided itself on self-reliance became addicted to government aid. A 2008 study by the Pew Research Center revealed a shift in preference toward a more socially activist role for the federal government, with millions seeing it as government's role to aid the disadvantaged.
The report also noted that this coincided with a diminished role of religion in daily life. More than half said the government should help more needy people even if it adds to the nation's debt. This was up from just 41 percent who felt this way in 1994.

Has America reached a tipping point?

Has America reached a tipping point? Is the nation's growing dependence on government programs—with half of American households getting a check from the government each month—at the point of no return?
At his inauguration in January 1961, newly elected President John F. Kennedy issued a famous challenge to his fellow Americans: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Sadly, millions have reversed that into “Ask not what you can do for your country—ask what your country can do for you.” And to them the answer is— plenty!
Free food, free housing, free cell phones, free education, free health care, free money, and on it goes. So long as it's free, why not?
But as the saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Eventually the bill comes due. America's national debt recently passed the $17 trillion mark—up from $10.6 trillion only five years earlier. But that figure pales in comparison to the federal government's total unfunded obligations for Medicare and Social Security, currently estimated at $43 trillion to as much as $126 trillion, depending on which set of economic assumptions are plugged in.
At the latter figure, each American taxpayer is on the hook for a staggering $1.1 million! But even at the lower number, each taxpayer's share is some $375,000.
Obviously this is an unsustainable path, driven by far too many people who feel entitled to “free” government benefits paid for by the government forcibly taking from their producing neighbors—and abetted by unscrupulous politicians and government officials who have learned that the sure way to get votes is by promising ever more benefits from the public treasury.
Such things are clearly not God's way. Yes, God commands love toward neighbor, and He instituted laws and instructions designed to care for those in difficult circumstances (see “Dependence, Independence and Helping Those in Need “).
But He surely doesn't endorse a society in which half the citizens live off the labors of the other half, with a government incurring massive and unsustainable debt that can realistically never be paid back. This is nothing more than government-endorsed (and enforced) theft—a blatant breaking of the Eighth Commandment, “You shall not steal” (Exodus 20:15).
Where will this end? Sadly, without a major change of heart, the United States will follow the pattern of other great empires that have gone before—disappearing, as the saying goes, not with a bang but with a whimper, victim of its citizens' own spiritual blindness and greed.

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

A Telling Profile of Media Professional

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A Telling Profile of Media Professional

by Good News Estimated reading time: 1 minute

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The entertainment establishment-writers, producers and stars of the movies, TV programs and music we consume-are overwhelmingly liberal in their political outlook. Not so widely known is that voting patterns of American newspaper reporters and editors show a similar overwhelming lean to the left. Consider these findings:

In the 1992 election, 89 percent of journalists who make up the Washington, D.C., press corps and report on national political news voted for the liberal candidate, Democrat Bill Clinton. Only 7 percent voted for the conservative candidate, Republican George H.W. Bush.
Of these journalists, 61 percent saw themselves as “liberal” or “liberal to moderate,” while only 9 percent regarded themselves as “conservative” or “moderate to conservative.”
A poll of 167 newspaper editors found that, in the 1992 and 1996 elections, 58 and 57 percent, respectively, voted for Democratic candidate Bill Clinton (compared to 43 and 49 percent of all other voters).
A 1996 survey of more than 1,000 reporters at 61 newspapers found that, of those with more than 50,000 circulation (primarily large-city papers), 65 percent of the staff members were liberal or leaned to the left.
A 2001 poll of more than 300 media professionals found that those who identified themselves as liberal outnumbered conservatives four to one.
A 1980 study of 240 New York and Washington journalists found that 86 percent never or seldom attended religious services, and half had no religious affiliation at all.
Some 90 percent of these journalists were pro-abortion.
About 75 percent did not regard homosexuality as wrong, and 54 percent did not regard adultery as wrong. Only 15 percent of these journalists “strongly agreed” that adultery, abortion and homosexual practices were immoral.

(Sources: William Proctor, The Gospel According to The New York Times , 2000, pp. 44-46; Media Research Center.) GN

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Should You Believe All the News You Hear?

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Should You Believe All the News You Hear?

by Jerold Aust, Scott Ashley Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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The credo of professional journalists is to report facts and events objectively. Yet several recent books document journalists slanting their reporting to favor their biases and further their prejudices, especially left-leaning agendas.
Longtime CBS News reporter Bernard Goldberg realized how deep media bias can run as he reviewed a February 1996 story presented by fellow CBS reporter Eric Engberg. In his best-selling book Bias, Mr. Goldberg expressed his shock at the way Mr. Engberg's report poked fun at presidential candidate and Forbes -magazine publisher Steve Forbes' proposal for a flat tax rate.
“Steve Forbes pitches his flat-tax scheme as an economic elixir good for everything that ails us,”Mr. Engberg began. He then proceeded to interview three supposed tax experts, all of whom opposed Mr. Forbes' proposal to overhaul the massive U.S. tax code. He then referred to the flat-tax idea as “wacky” and a “giant, untested idea” that should be “test[ed] out someplace-like Albania” (2002, pp. 16-18).
As Mr. Goldberg points out, Mr. Engberg could easily have found respected economists who supported Mr. Forbes'flat tax- especially since two Nobel-prize-winning economists and various conservative university economics professors were on record as supporting the idea.
Mr. Goldberg concludes: “From top to bottom the Engberg piece was breathtaking in its lack of fairness. So how could CBS put it on the air? Well, news fans, here's one of those dirty little secrets journalists are never supposed to reveal to the regular folks out there in the audience: a reporter can find an expert to say anything the reporter wants - anything! Just keep calling until one of the experts says what you need him to say and tell him you'll be right down with your camera crew to interview him.
“If you find an expert who says, 'You know, I think that flat tax just might work and here's why …' you thank him, hang up, and find another expert. It's how journalists sneak their own personal views into stories in the guise of objective news reporting. Because the reporter can always say, 'Hey, I didn't say the flat tax stinks- the guy from that Washington think tank did!'” (ibid., p. 20).
Mr. Goldberg also notes that too many reporters, editors and columnists live in their own insular world, isolated from other views and sources of information. He cites the example of New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael, who expressed astonishment when Richard Nixon beat liberal candidate George McGovern in the 1972 U.S. presidential election. “How can that be?” she exclaimed. “Nobody I know voted for Nixon.”Yet Mr. Nixon had carried 49 of the 50 states in a landslide election victory.

Slanted news reporting

William McGowan, former reporter for Newsweek and the BBC and a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal explains in his recent book Coloring the News that the news media's crusade for a favorite liberal cause-diversity- has corrupted American journalism by promoting homosexual rights, feminism, affirmative action, race and immigration over objective debate and honesty.
He recounts that in December 1992 he attended the Diversity Summit Meeting of the American Society of Newspaper Editors and the Newspaper Association of America. From that point forward, he notes, media coverage underwent a major and lasting change.
“The cause of diversity had become a crusade across the length and breadth of the American media, and would be a defining and dominating force in journalism in the decade to come. Almost every day after that 1992 meeting, one could hear echoes from it in newspaper stories and nightly network broadcasts. Diversity was the new religion, and anybody who wanted to be anybody in the news industry had to rally behind it” (2001, pp. 9-10).

From media darling to pariah

Another revealing book documenting the bias of many in the media was written by Tammy Bruce, longtime advocate of liberal causes. Ms. Bruce, a Los Angeles political figure and talk-show host, was head of the Los Angeles chapter and a national board member of the National Organization for Women (NOW) as well as an avowed lesbian and abortion-rights activist. However, after defending conservative author and talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger and charging NOW with hypocrisy, she found herself a pariah among reporters who had formerly sought her out for interviews.
Based on such experiences, she wrote The New Thought Police: Inside the Left's Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds. In it she explains that “what began so many years ago as a noble cause-ending the scourge of bigotry-has devolved into something far different. It's not bigots that the new Thought Police are after. It's people … who dare to speak their mind and contradict the 'progressive' point of view …
“There is enormous irony in the fact that it is those on the Left-the supposed protectors of all things culturally important-who are imposing severe sanctions on anyone who espouses an idea or expresses an opinion that might be deemed 'offensive' to some favored group” (2001, p. 4).
The result is that “the effects of this new intolerance are felt in the media and in the arts, on college campuses, even in offices and factories. The message is clear: Don't speak up. Or else-you'll be fired [or] sued … Labels such as 'racist,' 'sexist,'and 'homophobe'are routinely used to demonize anyone who utters a word that doesn't support the Left's agenda. Television producers allow their scripts to be edited by groups that purport to represent aggrieved minorities. On college campuses, student newspapers that don't toe the party line are collected and destroyed, and speakers with un-PC views are shouted down” (ibid., pp. 2-3).
Not surprisingly, all three books have been generally ignored in the mainstream media, even though Bias has become a best-seller in the United States.

Bias affects reporting

How do such media biases affect everyday reporting? One notable example involved coverage of the campaigns leading up to a recent national election. The major liberal candidate was consistently portrayed by the mainstream media as a deep thinker and intellectual heavyweight. The leading conservative candidate, on the other hand, was typically portrayed as something of an amiable dunce, a man generally incapable of speaking clearly and presenting ideas coherently.
Seldom compared by the media were details of the academic backgrounds of the two candidates. Both had graduated from Ivy League schools, one from Harvard, the other from Yale. However, from there the “smart” one went to Vanderbilt Divinity School, where, according to a biography and column in The Boston Globe“he received F's in five of the eight classes he took over the course of three semesters” before dropping out. He then enrolled for a brief stint at Vanderbilt Law School before again dropping out and entering a lifetime of politics.
The other candidate, depicted as an intellectual featherweight, went on to earn an M.B.A. from Harvard, no insignificant accomplishment. He flew fighter jets in the National Guard. In spite of an impressive showing since assuming office and the most-sustained high approval ratings of any person occupying that office in history, reporters and columnists still occasionally snipe at President George W. Bush for his supposed lack of intelligence.

Mass-media alienation

Most media firms are, in fact, businesses that promote strong liberal biases. Such leanings reflect a warped worldview and lead them to assume their views are normal while the perspectives of those who disagree with them are abnormal. Significantly, several media corporations have been fast losing audiences, some say because of their profound bias.
Many Americans appear to be increasingly aware of the distorted diet the majority of media outlets feeds them in the name of news reporting. Columnist Jack Kelly's perception of modern mainstream media is telling:
“For people who are convinced we're awfully smart, we journalists can be pretty stupid. We've been driving away customers. In 1980, 75 percent of Americans routinely watched evening newscasts on ABC, NBC, or CBS. Last year only 43 percent did. In 1980, 67 percent of adults customarily read a daily newspaper. In 1999, only 57 percent did.
“Television news has lost 43 percent of its audience, newspapers 15 percent of ours. In other businesses, such losses would trigger massive changes. Heads would roll. If word spread McDonald's was using rat feces as filler in hamburgers, McDonald's market share would drop. Viewers and readers are deserting us in droves because they think our product is shallow and biased” (“Media Is Its Own Worst Enemy,” Jewish World Review Jan. 28, 2002).
But not all journalists remain loyal to liberal biases. Bernard Goldberg, cited above, is perhaps the most popular television journalist who has stood against media bias. Radio-talk-show hosts with countering views, such as Rush Limbaugh, have become nationally popular by riding a wave of dissent against the mainstream media's liberal biases, as have conservative-leaning commentators such as the Fox network's Bill O'Reilly. Fox has been built on mainstream media's abandonment of any vestige of unbiased objectivity. Fox's motto itself is revealing: “We report; you decide.”
Today a sentiment grows that the very media outlets that rose to greatness during World War II through most of the last half of the 20th century have begun to engineer their own demise by failing to fulfill their promise of objectivity in reporting.
There also exists a growing belief that the owners of the vast majority of network news outlets are more interested in promoting entertainment personalities and products, along with issues and views popular in related fields, than in promoting and providing unbiased reporting. As a result,Western society often is informed only of news and issues that harmonize with the opinions of those who control the media. This approach leaves in its wake a distorted view of reality as its most disturbing consequence. GN

Friday, June 19, 2015

Gun Control - The Big Issue

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Gun Control - The Big Issue

by Steve Myers, Darris McNeely Listen

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Before any gun control measure can be totally effective there must be a change of the heart of man.

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[Steve Myers] Gun control is on everyone's minds these days after the Sandy Hook shootings at the end of last year. The President is about to make some announcements, propose legislation, perhaps even presidential orders regarding gun control. Now as Christians, what do we do about this issue? How do we handle the whole concept of gun control? And how do you get to the heart of the issue to know where to even begin, where to stand on an issue like gun control?
[Darris McNeely] We recognize that gun control in the United States, this debate we are presently having, is a very divisive issue. It is one that just continues to be a part of our culture. We have a very violent culture, not just with shootings and murders, mass shootings or otherwise. In America today we have a violent culture that even touches many other aspects of life, but this is the one that has come to the fore at this particular time. It's not the first time in history. Gun control and guns in the United States is rooted in the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which does guarantee the right to bear arms by the citizens. This was rooted back - put into our documents at the beginning of the United States because of many issues.
[Steve Myers] Well, in and of itself it's not a bad thing to have a gun and you want to use it…
[Darris McNeely] No, no.
[Steve Myers] For the right purposes: hunting, those kinds of things.
[Darris McNeely] That's not what we're addressing here in this one and that is another part, facet of the whole issue. That's true. However, it is with us. How do we approach it? What should we do? I think if we turn to God's word and begin to frame our thoughts with certain questions. We talk about gun control. Perhaps the issue really ought to begin with the matter of self-control and looking at what the Bible says about that is the place to begin.
[Steve Myers] But maybe as we think about this - we're going to hear a lot about it I'm sure over the next days and weeks as well - that as we hear this debate go on, for you and I, we have to understand where the challenges come from. And it's not from a right source. In James chapter 4 it says, “Where do wars and fights come from among you? Don't they come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members?” (James 4:1). And so you talk about self-control. You know are these issues something that I have a handle on, that I know how to deal with issues? In other words, where do I put my trust? Where do I put my trust? Do I put it in myself, my own defense? Or do I put my trust where it belongs in God?
[Darris McNeely] And also when you look at a verse like this and you're talking about gun control, self-control, I think anyone who's wanting to live by the word of God has got to ask themselves whenever they pick up a weapon, whether it's a gun, whether it's a knife, or any other type of an object, what's in your heart? And why are you picking it up? And what do you intend to do with it? Christ spoke to this in Mark chapter 7 and in verse 20 he said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceeds evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness,” verse 23 he says among other things, “All these evil things come from within and defile a man” (Mark 7:20-23). Why do we pick that weapon up? What do we intend to do with it? That's the first question that has to be answered for anyone in framing their position and their place on this matter.
[Steve Myers] And so as you hear that debate on gun control, turn it around a little bit and think about yourself, self-control, in all those issues.
[Darris McNeely] We'll come back and address this in another BT Daily , but for this time I think this gives us some framing thoughts to consider as this on-going issue becomes a part of the cultural fabric of the United States.
[Steve Myers] That's BT Daily . We'll see you next time.

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

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God is the Judge

The plan of salvation

Judgment begins with the Church of God

Awaiting a future judgment

God's magnificent purpose for humanity

Friday, June 26, 2015

Answerable to a Higher Court

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Thursday, June 25, 2015

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Expanding programs, expanding fraud

Medicare and Medicaid explosion

Why bother to work?

Major shifts in American attitudes

Has America reached a tipping point?

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

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Tuesday, June 23, 2015

by Jerold Aust, Scott Ashley Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

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Slanted news reporting

From media darling to pariah

Bias affects reporting

Mass-media alienation

Friday, June 19, 2015

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Before any gun control measure can be totally effective there must be a change of the heart of man.

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