Satanic Victories

One of my favorite professors at the university, world scholar in analytical chemistry, author of the college text on analytical chemistry, Dr. James Talmage Dobbins, was in his pew at the First Baptist Church every Sunday. He said to me one time, “There should be a corollary in Our Lord’s Prayer.” “Lead us not into temptation.” “Deliver us from evil.” (corollary help us not to put temptation in anyone else’s path). A mystery to me, a one time (Christian nation 1799 - 1892 US Supreme Court) we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourself. Why then do we tax our weaker neighbor who is addicted to cigarettes and alcohol and gambling to pay our bills?

North Carolina and Oklahoma were the two last states in the Union to pass enabling legislation for open bars and liquor by the drink. As a committed Christian, I led the fight against open bars just as I led the fight against the Lottery. I will never forget going to one Episcopal minister seeking his assistance in the fight against liquor stores and bars. He said, “You are wasting your time with me. I see no more harm in taking a drink of liquor than in eating an ice cream cone.” I remember speaking at one Baptist church where I was well known and on leaving the church a Mr. Marriner, whose wife was an alcoholic, and who knew me well, said, “Who does he think he is? Adults should do whatever they want.” Someone told me a physician friend of mine was very anti open bars. Seeking his help, he said to me, “I will make no public commitment, I would have to leave the country club.” So is the attitude by Baptists, Methodists and other evangelicals who know the tragedy liquor, gambling, and other addictions have brought to the public yet they go right along with the “Unbelievers” in supporting these sins.

The “sin tax” has long supported much of the government largess. I know school board members who go to church every Sunday and proclaim with loud voices in the hymn “Yield not to temptation” yet break their necks to get to the voting booth to vote for these sin taxes because they feel this is the only way they can keep the schools going. This week, the North Carolina Governor, in this financial crunch, announced that we could get 5.5 million additional tax dollars by selling liquor on Sunday from the liquor stores and having open bars on Sunday. Twenty states do not permit the sale of liquor on Sundays just as most states do not permit the sale of liquor on Election Day. Twelve billion tax dollars are made each year in this country on the sale of liquor (and liquor is a drug).

Prisons are running over, rehabilitation clinics are in high gear and one of the greatest problems of 21st Century America is the “so-called War on Drugs”. In the US House of Representatives, many words are not used but the one word that is not permitted is the word “hypocrisy.” They know, just as you know, that in describing one another and their activities, this would be one of the most used words in their vocabulary. Can you even imagine more hypocrisy than selling drugs legally from the liquor store and filling our prisons with people selling drugs illegally on the streets.

I was reared on a tobacco farm. There has never been any doubt in my mind that tobacco is a killer. The plant which grows with a sticky gum on the leaves , from the time it is put in the ground, must have a regimen of poisons applied to it because like smoking addicts, insects and worms love tobacco. The leaves are removed from the stalk, put in a curing barn, subjected to much heat which cooks the poisons, the gum and all other residual toxins into the leaves. The leaves are then sold to the cigarette manufacturer, chopped up, put in small papers and people “light up.” Anyone who has ever seen the cadaver of a smoker has seen the yellowish lungs. The only people who profit from tobacco are the farmers who grow it (and most of them have enough sense not to use it), the tobacco warehouses where the auctions are held, the cigarette manufacturing companies owned by some of


the countries wealthiest families (Duke, Reynolds, etc.) but they have the graciousness to contribute much of their profit to the building of large institutions such as Duke University, Duke Hospital, Wake Forest University, etc.

One out of every 16 people who take the first drink of alcohol will become an alcoholic. Even the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous, divorce, bankruptcy, etc. will not cure an alcoholic. Many have quit smoking but it is the hypocrisy of all hypocrisy that we continue to raise the price on a pack of cigarettes through taxes to pay for the care of non-smokers as well as smokers.

Perhaps the greatest sin tax the greatest satanic victory is that involving legalized gambling. Those who promote the Lottery most of the time are smart enough not to buy lottery tickets. Rather, they do their advertising in the poorer inner city areas of the country where the less well informed, who only have a hope of redemption from their status in life through money, spend money which should be used for family necessities on gambling. The problem with alcohol, cigarettes and gambling is the psychiatric condition of compulsive neurosis or addiction. Food is a compulsive neurosis addition particularly “fast food” or sweets. This is the reason that 68% of the American population is overweight and nearly 50% are diabetic. But one with an addiction to food usually will not lose control of an automobile, use a gun, endanger others with second hand smoke which might kill themselves as well as others. Most of the prison population involves drugs. Most of the hospital population involves drugs, cigarettes and food. The lack of temperance and the abuse in all areas are very expensive to the tax payer.

Another minister who gave me an answer about the problem of legalized gambling, a Methodist Bishop said, “It is none of my business how Methodists spend their money.” And so, it is none of our business how anyone spends their money. But I believe it is our business to stand up against evil particularly the evil of neglected children, abused wives and the uncontested fight that most of the hard working tax papers’ tax dollars are going to support by housing, health care, rehabilitation, etc., those who are victims of addiction.

Forty billion dollars is spent in this country every year on dog food, more money than is given to all churches, more money than is spent on all baby food. The great hotels in Las Vegas were built by losers. For many of these people, Christianity and the Christ of temperance we represent has been cheapened by the mockery of television preachers particularly such as Benny Hinn who puts on a display of healing but who reportedly makes 100 million a year and lives like a king.

If prostitution were legal in North Carolina, I am sure our Governor like Nevada and other places, would tax prostitution also. You can be sure, and I understand the legislation is already in the hopper, your computer will be taxed. But more important than the taxing of your computer with its porno sites, your rental movies, an increased tax on your food, decide now to keep the demonic, satanic influences from your home. Most church buildings now are just country clubs with steeples. Your home must become your sanctuary of worship, escape from the frenzy of addictive behavior, the foundation of stability in your life. As I tell my doctor/professor son about my two university student grandsons, “Satan wants them.” Satan has taken over Washington, Raleigh and most of the world. If the crust of the earth were gold, men would lie, cheat and steal for a handful of dirt.