Saturday, February 28, 2015

Islamic Muslims Helped Shape The New America

Obama has been bending over backward trying to convince us that Islam has played an important role in the founding and the fabric of our country.

"...Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” June 2009
"Islam has always been part of America," 2010 
"...(the holiday) also reminds us of the many achievements and contributions of Muslim Americans to building the very fabric of our nation and strengthening the core of our democracy," 2014
"Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding," 2015
Barack Obama

Well, technically, He is right; Muslims have been indirectly responsible for a great deal of the early development of the United States armed services.

What Obama fails to acknowledge is that over two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson led the United States in a declared war on Islam.
 
Early in the eighteenth century, pirates terrorized the Mediterranean Sea and large portions of the North Atlantic Ocean.  They attacked every ship they encountered and held the crews for exorbitant ransoms.  Those they took hostage were subjected to barbaric treatment and wrote heart-breaking letters home, begging their governments and family members to pay whatever their captors demanded. 

And guess who those Pirates of the Caribbean were?  They were not the glamorized, politically correct characters as portrayed by Disney (Disney's anti-traditional family, queer tolerant, Muslim loving, anti-Christian, history revisionist PC agenda is another topic for another blog post).  The pirates were Islamic Muslim terrorists.


Those Mohammadan extortionists of the high seas represented the Islamic nations of Tripoli, Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers – collectively referred to as the Barbary Coast – and presented a dangerous and unprovoked threat to the new American Republic.

Before the Revolutionary War, U.S. merchant ships had been under the protection of Great Britain.  When the U.S. declared its independence and entered into war, the ships of the United States were protected by France.  However, once the war was won,  America was faced with the need to protect its own fleets.  So, in a real sense, we can credit the Muslims with the birth of the U.S. Navy.
Beginning in 1784, seventeen years before he was elected president, Thomas Jefferson was appointed America’s Minister to France.  That same year, the U.S. Congress sought to appease its Muslim adversaries by following in the footsteps of European nations which paid bribes to the Barbary States, rather than engaging them in war.   It was a stupid idea then and it is a stupid idea now. Appeasement doesn't work.

In July of 1785, Algerian pirates captured American ships and demanded an unheard-of ransom of $60,000.  It was a plain and simple case of extortion, and Thomas Jefferson was vehemently opposed to any further payments.  Instead, he proposed, to Congress, the formation of a coalition of allied nations who together could force the barbaric Islamic states into peace.  A disinterested Congress decided to pay the ransom.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Great Britain to determine by what right his nation attacked American ships and enslaved American citizens, and why Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.  The two future presidents reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Despite this stunning admission of premeditated violence against non-Muslim nations, as well as the objections of many notable American leaders, including George Washington, who warned that caving in was both wrong and would only further embolden the enemy, for the following fifteen years, the American government paid the Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to over twenty percent of the United States government annual revenues in 1800.

Jefferson was disgusted.  Shortly after his being sworn in as the third President of the United States in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli sent him a note demanding the immediate payment of $225,000 plus $25,000 a year for every year forthcoming.  That changed everything.

Jefferson let the Pasha know what he could do with his demand.  The Pasha responded by cutting down the flagpole at the American consulate and declared war on the United States.  Tunis, Morocco, and Algiers immediately followed suit. 

Until then, Jefferson, had been against raising an American naval force for anything other than our own coastal defense.  But having watched his nation be cowed by Islamic terrorists for long enough, he decided that it was finally time to meet force with force.

He dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean and taught the Muslim nations of the Barbary Coast a lesson he hoped they would never forget.  Congress authorized Jefferson to empower U.S. ships to seize all vessels and goods of the Pasha of Tripoli and to “cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would justify.”

When Algiers and Tunis, which were both accustomed to American cowardice and acquiescence, saw the newly independent United States had both the will and the right to strike back, they quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli. 

The war with Tripoli lasted for four more years and raged up again in 1815.  The presence and bravery of the U.S. Marine Corps in these wars led to the line “to the shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Hymn, and they would forever be known as “leathernecks” for the leather collars of their uniforms, designed to prevent their heads from being cut off by the Muslim scimitars when boarding enemy ships.

Islam, and what its Barbary followers justified doing in the name of Allah and the prophet, Mohammed, disturbed Jefferson quite deeply.  America had a tradition of religious tolerance.  Jefferson, himself, had co-authored the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, but fundamentalist Islam was like no other religion the world had ever seen.  A supremacist religion, whose holy book not only condoned but mandated violence against unbelievers was unacceptable to him.  His greatest fear was that someday this brand of Islam would return and pose an even greater threat to the United States.

It should bother every American, that Muslims have brought about women-only classes and swimming times at taxpayer-funded universities and public pools; that Christians, Jews, and Hindus have been banned from serving on juries where Muslim defendants are being judged.  Piggy banks and Porky Pig tissue dispensers have been banned from workplaces because they offend Islamist sensibilities.   Ice cream has been discontinued at certain Burger King locations because the picture on the wrapper looks similar to the Arabic script for Allah.  Public schools are pulling pork from their menus, and on and on it goes.

It’s death by a thousand cuts, or inch-by-inch as some refer to it, and most Americans have no idea of their history.  This battle is being waged every day across America.  By not fighting back, by allowing groups to obfuscate what is really happening, and not insisting that the Islamists adapt to our own culture, the United States is cutting its own throat with a politically correct knife, and helping to further the Islamists agenda.  Sadly, it appears that today’s America would rather be politically correct than victorious.


For further information, Google Thomas Jefferson vs the Muslim World here.

Edited and commented by Ralph M. Petersen

Most of the above content was accumulated and composed by either Sean Rose or 
Floyd Farar- Cold War Era, US Navy veteran Floyd Farar but I can't tell which for sure.

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

The Great Communicator Speaks About The Great Equalizer


“The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It ensures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. 


And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all. I am not ready to take that risk. I believe that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms must not be infringed if liberty in America is to survive.” —

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

If Your Pastor Is A Woman, You Don't Have A Pastor

It was 1969.  I was fresh out of school and newly married.  That’s when the announcement appeared in the newspaper; the Santa Ana Police Department was recruiting rookie officers.

I had ambitions for police work; I completed what police science and criminology classes were available at my school, as well as some classes in psychology and sociology so I was a little more qualified than most of the other applicants.


I appeared, at the appointed time, in front of the recruiting officers for my interview.  One of the first questions, they asked me was, “What is your height?”  And that was the end of my police career.

You see, the job qualifications required a minimum height of 5’ 9” and I was one-half inch short.  One stinkin’ half inch.  When I answered the question, the recruiting officer asked, “Why would you come down here and waste our time?  You knew what the height requirement is.”

Now it is not my intention to complain about the interview or the stupid qualifications; I simply want to use this story to illustrate a point.  In my lifetime, I have had several occasions to apply for employment and in every case, there have been written qualifications in the job publications.
 
Those qualifications usually divide into two categories – SHOULD haves and MUST haves.  In other words, there are some qualifications, attributes, skills, characteristics, or experiences that could be beneficial to you and your employer for success in your job.  And then there are others that are absolutely necessary or you will not be considered.

I am not a cop because I did not meet the qualifications.  That’s the way it is in the secular business world.  When the posting says, “Must have, shall have, or will have, that’s exactly what it means.  If you do not possess all the qualifications, you do not get the job.  Period!

So what is my point?   When it comes to calling a pastor, most churches aren’t even as cautious as the secular world and too many of them think they know better than God.

The calling of a pastor to a church is a high calling.  It is special; it is unique because it is a calling from God.  Scripture is clear; It is God who calls his shepherds.  He equips them for service and He assigns them to their respective ministries for the edification of His church.  It is not the prerogative of the sheep to choose the shepherd.  It is their responsibility to recognize the one whom God has sent.

How do we do that?  It’s not easy, but the very first things we ought to look at are the qualifications that God has provided in His Word.   God does not give us a bunch of negotiable qualities to consider; He gives us a short list of absolute, non-negotiable, qualifications.  They are listed in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and in Titus 1:5-9 and in both lists, they are MUST HAVE qualifiers. 

And God doesn’t give us the option to overlook some of them; a pastor MUST be qualified in all. 

If any man ever wonders if God is calling him to pastoral ministry, the first place he should look is in these two passages.  Years ago a friend of mine objected, “Just because I made a mistake when I was younger and divorced my first wife, does that mean that I am not qualified to serve God?” 

“Of course not,” I answered, “It just means that God is not calling you to a pastoral ministry.”

Your pastor may be a very fine man (or woman) but if he does not meet all of the qualifications, you can be sure that God did not call him, equip him, and send him to you.




Monday, February 23, 2015

****Final Authority: Is The Bible Really Enough?

We believe that the Bible is the final authority
in all matters of faith, and practice.


That is an interesting statement. In one form or another, it appears in thousands of church statements of faith and doctrinal statements. It has been a foundational statement in every church in which I have been a member.

But that statement is a subtle, modern liberal attempt to limit the authority of scripture.  Even though many give tacit approval, the emphasis on Faith and Practice deliberately omits matters of science, sociology, sexuality, politics, etc.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to work with a few men to rework our church's constitution. After considering that statement, we expanded it as follows:

His Word is the church’s supreme and only guide in all matters of membership, organization, purpose, faith, doctrine, order, ethics, morality, Christian living, and discipline.

I liked that.  For us, it was a declarative reminder that everything we did in our church should be established in and guided by the Word of God.  Unfortunately, that statement on authority was soon relegated to the back of a file drawer somewhere and was soon forgotten. 


The reformers stated it differently – Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone). But is that really enough? Do we need more? Do we need tradition or new revelations or experiences?


I don’t know who Tim Staples is, but I recently came across an article, written by him, titled, According To Scripture. In it, he denies and attempts to refute sola Scriptura as a biblical teaching. In his opening paragraphs he states:
"If a teaching isn’t explicit in the Bible, then we don’t accept it as doctrine!" That belief, commonly known as sola Scriptura, was a central component of all I believed as a Protestant. This bedrock Protestant teaching claims that Scripture alone is the sole rule of faith and morals for Christians. Diving deeper into its meaning to defend my Protestant faith against Catholicism about twenty years ago, I found that there was no uniform understanding of this teaching among Protestant pastors and no book I could read to get a better understanding of it.

What role does tradition play? How explicit does something have to be in Scripture before it can be called doctrine? Does Scripture tell us what is absolutely essential for us to believe as Christians? How can we determine the canon using sola Scriptura? All these questions and more pointed to the central question: Where is sola Scriptura itself taught in the Bible?

Most Protestants find it in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The fact is that this passage (or any other) does not even hint at Scripture being the sole rule of faith. It says that Scripture is inspired and necessary—a rule of faith—but in no way does it teach that Scripture alone is all one needs to determine the truth about faith and morals in the Church. My attempt to defend this bedrock teaching of Protestantism led me to conclude that sola Scriptura is unreasonable, unbiblical, and unworkable.

In his article, he continues to expand and defend that premise in detail if you care to read it.


Well, I am just a simple-minded, dumb, uneducated, and theologically challenged Christian but I trust in sola Scriptura, the written Word of God alone.  And I don’t have a problem defending that. I will try to be clear and succinct.

I fully agree with Tim Staples that II Tim 3:16-17 is not sufficient to prop up “sola Scriptura.” But that was not the Apostle's intent.  The real questions you need to answer are these - Do you believe that God means what He says and says what He means? Can You depend on Him for Truth? Do you believe His Word? If any of the answers are NO, then you are going to be really frustrated and messed up.

All of this settles, in my mind, on one very simple (or maybe one extremely profound and complicated) concept - Final Authority. God has spoken and His Word is the final authority. You can see that everywhere in Scripture when God speaks in absolute, unarguable, and authoritative terms like, “I Am the Lord,” “Thou shalt not,” and “The Word of the Lord came…”

In the garden, He said to Adam, “Do NOT eat of this tree or you will die."

That sounds straightforward and simple enough but then the serpent comes along and entices Eve into a discussion or dialogue about it. “Did God really say that? That doesn’t make logical sense. Surely He didn’t really mean that you would really die. The fruit looks so good and, after all, God created it; it can’t be that bad.”

Between the serpent and Eve, they reached a reasoned consensus based on their opinions but it wasn’t what God said.

Similarly, when He was tempted in the wilderness, Jesus spoke in the same authoritative manner. He didn’t attempt to argue or reason with Satan; He simply said, “It is written.”

There is a popular phrase that goes like this, “God said it; I believe it, and that settles it.”

I would submit to you that, frankly, it doesn’t really matter one bit whether or not I believe it. The fact is, God said it and that settles it. His Word is the final authority and He often doesn’t take the time to explain it or try to convince us about truth. He just declares it.

So how does that play out practically in our lives? Here are a few random thoughts and I am sure, if you really want to, you can think of many more.

Jesus said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.”

That sounds pretty final. There is no other way. It really doesn’t matter if you think Him not to be fair or reasonable about that.

The Word of God declares, “There is none righteous; No, not one.” and “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

So it really makes no difference if some of us choose to believe that, somehow, there may be some exception to “All” by means of some kind of immaculate conception or ages of accountability or untainted innocence or primitive ignorance.  All means All.

On homosexuality, I have heard all kinds of arguments from people with different opinions about the same texts. But the Word of God is very clear; it is an abomination and a sin. Our opinions, objections, and arguments are irrelevant.

Is there a second chance after death? God’s Word says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and then the judgment.”

That fact doesn’t change simply because we all agree otherwise, by consensus, that there must be some kind of holding tank where we can be purged of our sins and prayed into heaven by our relatives.

I really don’t have a problem with God’s Word being the “final authority.” My problem is disobedience and rebelliousness. God is God; I’m not and, frankly, He doesn’t care how I feel about truth or whether I agree with Him. The bottom line is, “Thus saith the Lord.”

You would be surprised at how simple the answers are when we stop trying to wrap our hearts and our heads around tough theological, psychological, or emotional questions and simply listen to the final, authoritative Word of God.


 

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Do We Really Have Free Will?

Do you remember the movie, “Free Willy?” It’s a story about a captive Orca that was confined to a tank in a marine park. "Poor Willy" longed for freedom (at least that was the premise of the story line). At night he would cry out to his family in the bay outside the park. Finally Willy’s cries reached the ears of a young boy who felt and empathised with Willy's agony and found a way to free him from his captors.

Now that makes for a nice heart wrenching, touchy-feely, and sentimental story but the real-life star of the film, Keiko, the killer whale, rejected freedom and actually preferred captivity. Keiko died in 2003 but before his death, his caretakers wasted millions of dollars over a ten year period trying to free him. They took him out to sea more than 60 times in hopes that he would rejoin wild killer whale pods in his natural arctic habitat near Iceland. But every time they release him, Keiko came back to the familiarity of captivity.

People are like that too. I think it is ironic that the title of the movie, Free Willy, is so similar to the phrase, free will. We are in bondage and need to be liberated. God’s Word teaches that we are prisoners of sin and we cannot free ourselves; we need a Savior to come along, understand our need, and make a way for us to be free.

That is exactly what Jesus Christ did for us. He has opened the gate wide and put freedom easily within our reach. But, just like Keiko the killer whale, people actually reject the freedom God has offered because, in our sin nature, given a choice we will always choose to remain captive to sin.    Until God changes our nature, we cannot be set free.  And once that happens, then we truly have the free will to reject sin and obey God.

Jesus said to the people, “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” But they said, “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘set free’?”Jesus replied, “I assure you that everyone who sins is a slave of sin. But if I set you free, you will indeed be free” (paraphrased from John 8:31-36).
reposted from 11/07

Saturday, February 14, 2015

The Rhinoceros


Rhinoceros, your hide looks all undone,

You do not take my fancy in the least;

You have a horn where other brutes have none;

Rhinoceros, you are an ugly beast.


Hilaire Belloc