Ichabod

In the Bible, Ichabod refers to the departure of the Glory of God.

In the old testament prophesy of Ezekiel, Ezekiel's wife died and God told him not to let the people of Israel see him mourn nor shed a tear. (Ezekiel 24:16 and following) God told him that the people of Israel had seen the Glory of God depart from their nation and they had not shed one tear. As with America, today's churches have seen the glory of God depart and no tears have been shed. Likewise, the citizen's of America have seen the glory of the republic sink into decadence, and not one tear has been shed.

In 1966, a British film called The Great Pretender describes such ostentatious unbelief. In 1955, one of America’s most famous groups, The Platters, recorded the song: The Great Pretender: “Oh Oh yes, I'm the great pretender, seem to be what I'm not.”

From the “cotton candy” pulpits of Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, Benny Hinn, and other televangelists, as well as spineless, modernistic, play-church, prosperity, popularity, preachers of the Gospel, we have what has happened to churches in this nation.

Recently, October 2011, Southern Baptists announced that they would “plant” 600 new churches in North America. All the wealthy churches of the world are in the Northern Hemisphere. The poverty of the world is mostly below the 30^th parallel. Baptist churches of all type have taken flight from the gospel, once “delivered to the Saints.” Not as much as the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc., who have homosexuals in their pulpits, try to blend in “same-sex marriage” and other perversions with the truth of God, but in general, in my opinion, in my lifetime, the glory of God has greatly departed from the churches... without a tear being shed... without mourning... just conforming to the world, the flesh, the devil.

In like manner, the glory of God has vacated His blessings on the American nation, super power, bankrupt republic of profane decadence. From 1799–1892, even the Supreme Court declared America a Christian nation, without a shot being fired, without any enemy declaring war on us. In my lifetime, this democratic republic has become a totalitarian-socialist state... 47 percent paying no tax, living on the hard-working, God-fearing tax-paying citizens, the other 53 percent. Breathing the articles of the communist manifesto, the average citizen no longer able to own private property, 57 percent subsidized by the government... entitlements more important than accomplishment... in some racial groups, 51 percent of births to unwed mothers. (Mexican and black)

To illustrate the pretension of religion, 70 percent of registered voters are Catholic. It takes 50 million votes to elect a president. Last presidential election, 54 percent of Catholics voted for Obama and probably that many baptists. Obama, the most pro-choice, pro-abortion, anti-life president in history. To further show the Ichabod estrangement, 74 percent of the Jewish vote went to Obama, the most anti-Israel president. Beyond comprehension, 97 percent of the black vote went to Obama, the democrat, whereas Republican's passed the civil rights laws of 1964, led the abolition of slavery in the 19^th century under republican Abraham Lincoln.

In Pat Buchanan's new book: "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?", he states that America's decline started 80 years ago. So, in my lifetime, I am age 81, I have witnessed the CERTAIN decline of America. Like NASACAR race-car drivers, nothing but left turns, “cotton candy” pulpits, cowardice decadent legislative halls, as shown by hippies-occupiers a lack of morality brought on by pornography in the entertainment industries, thievery in the financial and industrial communities, a compromising law enforcement-judicial system at the courthouse, an indifferent indoctrination entertainment mentality at the schoolhouse, spoiled, electronically-controlled-motivated-addicted, (television sets, cell phones, computers) children and parents at your house, all-everything, enslaved-encouraged by a state-controlled news media, God's glory-Ichabod, has left the America-world scene. If there is any doubt in your mind about this, just look around. I am totally blind, 100% disabled, medical officer, veteran, but you are more blind than me if you cannot see what happened to America when the glory of God departed.

Capitulation

With typical ambiguity, compromise, 'lukewarmness', and liberal distraction from their 'first love', the Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Louisville, KY, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first seminary, danced around a resolution of both admiration for and variance against the 44th President of the United States; the most pro-abortion, anti-life, same sex marriage promoter, stem-cell, euthanasia, bailing out with hard working tax payer members dollars, corrupt and bankrupt agencies of every kind, government and domestic, president ever elected. The liberal totalitarian Godless ideology of this president must be a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God...and God himself must be thinking, “Have these followers of Truitt, Criswell and RG Lee gone crazy?” How can any Southern Baptists with eyesight read God's inerrant word, listen to the 'fakery' of this President and his pastor (Rev. Wright), his advisers (Emmanuel, Pelosi, Biden, Sebelius) and still believe the follower of “Rules for Radicals” should be mentioned, let alone honored, by a fundamentalist, evangelical denomination is beyond my comprehension.

In 1938, Bette Davis starred in the movie “Jezebel”, along with Henry Fonda. In the movie, Jezebel, in her red dress, proclaimed that she had deliciously evil hands. I firmly believe that Jehu, arriving in his chariot at the Louisville Center, would have thrown President Hunt (who happens to be originally from this city) and his fellow resolution-revolutionists in the street for daring to proffer such a despicable act in the face of God's people, laboring in the vineyards, giving as to God their time, talent and tithes, expecting better at this time in our country's history.

Every liberal denomination that has stooped to women preachers, same-sex marriage, acceptance of homosexuality, and flirted with the theories of recapitulation, embryology and abortion, have lost church membership and influence even among antagonists of the church. Jesus was never ambiguous in dealing with deception and deceptors, “Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” (Matthew 23:33) Why not honor Dr. Katherine Hancock Ragsdale, Episcopal priest of a Boston Seminary who considers abortion as a 'blessing'? (President Episcopal Divinity School, NARAL member, Re: her recent speech in Birmingham, AL link: http://www.prochoicetexas.org/news/headlines/200708172.shtml )

For most of my life, hanging on by my very fingernails in a world of compromise and atheism, the spiritual foundations of the Southern Baptist Convention, the cooperative program, support for evangelical seminaries, support for both foreign and home missions, the knowledge that one denomination was left, true to the theology of God's inspired Word, kept me active and alive. I thrilled at attendance at SBCs, such as Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, etc Like the slow, deadly, encroachment of cancer, I saw liberalism besmirching and beguiling local churches, but I held on to the belief that the same faith that led a Christian lady in my community to leave the questionable practices of the Quaker church and with the help of her husband, build and start a small Baptist church in the community. Where, after taking mail-order lessons in playing the piano, and did all things in regard to the church until it grew and could afford a pastor. (this church is still around and alive and well; not infected yet by liberal thinking)

My family, who landed from England in New Jersey and founded Morristown, adept at the modern thinking of SBC. "Fines, confiscation of property, imprisonments, assaults by mobs, deprivation of civil rights and of educational opportunities" were a part of life for a dissenter in England. Many Baptists and Quakers were thrown into prison because they would not take the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy. They "followed the clear imperative of Jesus (Matthew 5:34) and James (James 5:12) to 'swear not at all.'" The dissenters offered to declare their loyalty, but that was unacceptable to their persecutors. The first refusal meant prison. The second meant the penalties of praemunire, or confiscation of all property, suspension of all rights, and indefinite length of imprisonment. The Act of Toleration (1689) brought religious freedom for all except Catholics and Jews, but the Baptists "made no special gain in numbers during the decades of larger freedom which followed, and they actually declined in zeal and spirituality."

Part of the early family left Morristown and centered in eastern NC, not exactly immune from persecution (several baptist preachers were hanged by the Episcopalians who ruled and had been given much land by Anglican, England along the coast, check out Tryon Palace, New Bern). I doubt that John the Baptist would feel fellowship with the southern baptist of NC. This writer, active at Bellevue, Memphis, churches in Alabama and NC, was asked to leave a local liberal southern baptist church because after returning from a convention I made the statement that,”I feel sure it is strange to God that southern baptists are so concerned about black people across the ocean and yet they walk by the church doors here everyday and we show no concern at all.” Was Dr. James Baker Cauthen, SBC secretary, joking when I heard him say in Memphis at a mission conference, “The black population USA needs evangelizing.” I left First Baptist, Wilmington, where I had been very generous, and my only child was on the foreign mission field.

People, like denominations, do what they do because they believe what they believe. Do you really believe in honoring an abortionist? (Killer of babies) Since January 1973, the only denomination that has tried to stop this holocaust is the Catholic church. Does it bother this liberal SBC convention at all that most of your families send children off to college who forsake their church? (estimated 75%) Does it bother the SBC that 37% of all children born in this country are born to single mothers? Does it bother SBC, that many with talent, time and ties like this writer, has left your convention because like most young people, we can recognize hypocrisy. The truth is the truth whether anyone believes it or not. You need to learn again, if you ever knew, “Faith is the victory that overcomes the world.”

I am a totally blind, 100% disabled, service-connected veteran of the Korean Conflict, for over 40 years. I kept trying to teach, speak, give, whatever, for the work of God's Kingdom. On the tombstone of Fanny Crosby, (writer of 8,000 hymns) totally blind, are these words: “She hath done what she could.” (Mark 14:8)

Don't Worry, Be Happy

Here is a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don't worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
- Don't Worry, Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin

20 years after McFerrin wrote this song, we should all start singing it again. Because, there is little information on the state controlled news broadcasts to make anyone happy.

I was on a gorilla safari in the Congo. I have described this safari in other blogs, I have marvelous photos of the gorillas. My Congolese guide asked me, “do you know how to capture a monkey?” It seems the entrapment of a monkey is the same as the entrapment of a rabbit, a human being. He said, “get a net to throw over the monkey, hide behind a bush, put some thing the monkey likes such as fruit or nuts in a large container, preferably a large jar where he can see the food. Tie the container down so he cannot move it, he will put one of his arms into the container, grabbing the food. When you come out with the net, he will not let go of the food, so as to free his hand from the jar, he will not fight or run. From the first “no-no” tree in the garden, Eve, yielded to temptation, Adam, the first hen-pecked husband, blaming her for the entrapment, all genus fauna, man or animal, has fall into the same trap, forbidden fruit. We can not let go.

There is a many-specied animal called the salamander, with variety of morphology that allows it to live in water or sand. When the pond dries up, the salamander can, with it's hard head, burrow down deep into the dirt until it finds water. Pour water into the pond and the salamander will come to the surface. Again, very much like the hard-headed homo sapiens, who just stick their heads in the sand, instead of facing what goes on in the real world.

Many years ago, after the Korean war, believe it or not, I was a very active Democrat, knowing that the Democrats controlled the state of North Carolina. Family and friends, knowing my ambitions, told me I would never go anywhere in the state with regards to profession, business, or anything else unless I was a member of the Democrat party. Back then, like Helms and Reagan, both Democrats, Democrats were conservative in the south. I became state president of the young Democrats. One day, the governor and a congressman (Sanford, Fountain) told me that the Democrats would always rule the state of North Carolina because they would always get the liberal vote.

I was born a conservative, conservative in everything I do, every thought. At a meeting, I made the following statement, “if the Democrat bosses in North Carolina were to tell the blacks, the unionists, the school teachers, those who draw a government check, those who always vote the “big D”, to go jump in the river, we would hear water splash. If the liberal Democrat party bosses were to tell these same Democrats to go jump in a fire, we would smell clothes burning.” The Democrats asked me to leave their party. The truth will set you free (John 8:32).

For many years, I always attended the southern baptist convention: Dallas, Atlanta, LA, etc. The last SBC convention I attended, mind you I was a well-known baptist speaker, board member; The First Baptist Church, Wilmington, asked me to speak about the convention. I said, “it always amazes me how concerned southern baptist are about people of color across the ocean, but how unconcerned we are about the many who walk by the doors of this church, every day, even on Sunday...our church services, the most segregated time in America.” Mind you, I knew the worst of segregation, bigotry. The ruler of the church, a man by the name of Parker, public health director, asked me to leave the church. I left the church and have never been back. My opinion has not changed about this elitist congregation, or the SBC.

Christianity has been marked by paradox, how well I remember the baptist church in which I was reared, built by my ancestors in 1874. It's still there, a choice, holy ground on Earth. When I was a child, the lines still went down the midpoint of the church, even though by that time, things had changed, the women sat on the left hand side, the men on the right hand side, the black people who worked on the farms in the back or in the balcony. Same as southern movie theaters, until 50 years ago. The only time men, women, blacks sat together was at a funeral. People always come together in times of sorrow, and often in times of joy.

This old soldier remembers the time, when at the military movie theater, we all came to attention for the playing of the national anthem. Something was wrong with the sound system, the anthem abruptly stopped. Someone shouted “at ease”, so we were no longer at attention, enlisted, as well as officers, and we all finished the anthem by singing it. This was real patriotism. I attended many plays in London, even at Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare's home and theater). Always in the British empire, at every performance, they always sing “God Save the Queen”, this is a real spirit of stability.

If there is one society or culture of people who should not worry, who should be happy, it is the Christians of the world. We have a faith, not only to live by, but one to die with. We are winners because the price has already been paid. Christ himself said we can be happy and content in spite of the world, the flesh, the devil. These things I command you, that ye love one another. If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. (John 15:17-21)