According to CBS, St. Louis, Pastor Rodney Francis, of the Washington Tabernacle Baptist Church, wants to keep kiddos away from guns, so this summer his church is planning a “toy gun buy back” program. How quaint. I kid you not: A. Toy. Gun. Buy. Back. Sounds like he’s setting up the next generation to be victimized slaves to bad people and policies.
Yep, Reverend Rodney “feels” he needs to do “everything (he) can to not allow our kids to get exposed to (guns) too early.” Aww ... ain’t that sweet? Hey, maybe he could also hand out during that event some “kick me in the butt” signs for everyone’s back.
As a Christian I have a real problem with Pastor Francis vilifying the very tool that helped cudgel off tyrannical oppressors and afforded him the highly prized (and perishable) religious liberty he now enjoys on American soil.
That’s right, Rodney. Our founders, many of them serious Christian men, many of them ministers, took up muskets and turned the despotic Red Coats’ coats a deeper shade of crimson simply because of their life strangling religious oppression and ridiculous taxations.
All of this “anti-gun” bullcrap coming from deluded Christians sounds dreamy and all but it isn’t rooted in reality or the scripture.
Sure, we’re not to shoot someone who de-friends us on Facebook because we like Toby Mac, or makes fun of our bad comb over, or who hammers us with a nasty tweet because of our fish stickered Twitter wallpaper. Indeed, the majority of altercations we Christians go through for our faith we should simply let slide and pray for those who use and abuse us.
However, when an individual or group physically attacks me, my family, my friends or my nation for no other reason than they are no good, greedy, lazy, envious and jacked-up evil tools that hate God and Country, then it behooves me, my brethren, by all that is holy, just and good, to protect my person and the innocent around me. Call me crazy, but I believe that’s what shepherds are supposed to do: i.e. protect sheep.
Check this out naysayers: In Luke 22:36-38 Christ told His disciples that they, in light of His departure, should get a deadly weapon — namely a sword.
Yep, sweet Jesus told them — didn’t ask or mildly suggest — but commanded His buddies to sell their coat and buy a sword. Thus saith the Lord: Make a sacrifice to obtain lethal protection.
The sword that Christ told His compadres to purchase was not a QVC decorative Claymore to hang on their walls to commemorate the good times they had when Yeshua was around. The original word used for sword in this text was a large knife used for killing animals and cutting flesh. It was particularly fashioned for short, deadly thrusts in hand-to-hand combat.
Jesus didn’t tell them to carry a whistle, a shofar horn, or a bag of sand to blow in bad guys’ eyes, but a dagger-like sword — a vicious, nasty and deadly weapon not used for cutting vegetables, spreading butter or splitting a bagel, but for violently tapping a lung or heart in case of an attack.
Now, in a 21st century WWJD context, what do you think He thinks about His followers defending themselves with deadly force, huh, Mr. Francis?
Look, our first parents, Adam and Eve, sucked and caused this sinful mess we’re fielding because they didn’t proactively deal with evil (the serpent). If we take our cue from Christ in raising our kids, then our children will grow up to be slayers of serpents. They will not be a pacifist in the face of evil. They will not roll over and wet themselves when they’re confronted by evil. They will not play the wimp when faced with difficult situations.
I know it’s hard for some of us to square Christ with confronting evil – given all the androgynous, soft- focused paintings of Jesus that we’ve had jammed into our psyches for the last few centuries. However, if, if, we take the scripture straight, the man of peace is painted as an eschatological warrior who has great joy in giving the devil hell.
No matter how hard the softies try to make Christ out to be the benign, bearded lady raconteur, the exegetical fact remains: if you take the holy text in its entirety, He does not fit into the Left’s effete mold of holy tofu for horrible tools.
Therefore, mom and dad, I say, in contrast to Rev. Rodney, to have your kid get use to confronting nonsense – first and foremost in themselves. Gear them up to be a fighter and defender of that which is good. Let them play with toy weapons (if you can find any). They’re not going to turn into a terrorist. It’s not going to warp their wheel. Your kid has to learn that they are growing up in difficult times that demand that they be able to deal with “snakes.” Yes, your kid needs to learn not only to be nice, but also to be strong, sacrificial and courageous.
Finally, and humbly of course, I think if Pastor Francis truly wants to make a difference in our SNAFU’ed society he should forego the toy gun buy back and instead host a “Crappy Parent Buy Back” initiative because therein lies the real conundrum.
This past week an episode of Sesame Street set off a firestorm of debate over whether a boy muppet named Telly should be ashamed that his muppet friends caught him playing with dolls.
In one corner "traditionalists" who called out the episode as gender and sex confused. In the other "modern feminists" who were offended by almost everything the traditionalists said and believe.
In light of these op-eds and arguments I decided to do a bit of personal surveying for myself.
I popped the question to my bride and her best friend as the two couples were headed to Gramercy (in Manhattan) for dinner on Friday night.
"What do you think about boys playing with dolls?" I asked.
"If the dolls are laying around (belong to another child), then it's unlikely to bother me," one of them replied. "If they happen to pick it up, if they are at friend's homes that are girls then it's almost unavoidable."
"But would you ever buy a doll for your young son?" I followed up.
"NEVER!!!" came the reply.
The fervor with which they answered the second question intrigued me. In essence it boiled down to the reality that boys are boys, they are designed to do boy things, and grow from boys into men. Throwing feminine play into the mix delays, interrupts, or intrudes on the development of masculine identity.
In one article Caryn Rivadeneira, writing for Christianity Today, in her even more boldly titled piece, "God Made Boys To Play With Dolls," she argues that: "When we say baby dolls are for girls, that only girls should cuddle and coo dolls, we claim that babies are women's domains, that only mothers should rock and coo and play with their children."
Even though I disagree with her premise, I also disagree with her comparison, and the implied conclusion.
She is arguing that boys should play with dolls because men should become the primary or equal caregivers for newborns? Really?
In a world where abject fatherlessness already exists. In a world where that fatherlessness has single-handidly created the largest welfare state in American economic history. In a world where discernment and wisdom about appropriate sexual behavior is threatening the very well being of our children's future...
Do we really need to question whether or not women are--by nature--designed to be--better at nurturing children?
There is a fascination with the theological and political left in America to appear to have an absence of judgment against immorality, while simultaneously attempting to judge the theological and political right so as to win popularity with the culture, to appear to be intellectual, and to imply that God would love it all.
But to be candid, we are entering "stupid territory" now.
I even confessed to the girls last night that I imagine it won't be all that long into the future before someone writes an article for Christianity Today on the idea of allowing the man to carry the baby to term (since it appears to be medically possible) and that in some way some person will write an article defending it as the ultimate sign of feminist justice.
Meanwhile God sits and laughs at us.
Why? Because we are going to such great lengths to go the other way around the universe to arrive at a simple conclusion: "What's best for children?"
No God didn't make boys to play with dolls. God created boys to grow up and become strong men who would provide for their family and would protect them from the harmful elements of this life. That is the true core of manhood at it's most basic element.
But men that I know personally who excel in that, also generally tend to be some of the most tender-hearted fathers I've ever seen. Fathers whose children feel their love, appreciate their sacrifices, seek diligently to obey or to make them proud, and even desire to pass on a similar legacy when they become parents themselves.
Sometimes the modern feminist (someone who believes in "sameness" between men and women and NOT "equality") ties themselves into pretzel-like knots to argue something foolish to replace something traditional--almost always for no good reason.
In life children are a blessing. In training them to become responsible for their own behavior and consequences it is important to groom them with truth. And the truth is few boys who ever became great fathers ever "played with dolls."
Taking responsibility for your future, owning your actions and behaviors, understanding the choices you make in this life will affect those you love, and preparing them to be ready for it, is what our young men most need to learn.
Miraculously... Having affection for their flesh and blood, learning to be tender with them when they are little and can't sleep, and loving them with all their heart comes much more instinctually to fathers than most feminists would like to believe.
And I should know...
That humility, affection, tenderness and love grew deeper with all three of my sons, and I never played with dolls.
Woe to any scientist with an interest in objectively researching and reporting on “LGBT”-related issues. If your findings fail the left’s socio-political “butterflies-and-rainbows” litmus test, the “progressive” establishment will try to destroy you – guaranteed. Thus, on these matters, honest scientific inquiry will require courage.
Kansas State University, July 2010: Family Studies professor Dr. Walter Schumm releases the most comprehensive study to date on the effects of homosexual “parenting.” Published in the Journal of Biosocial Science, the study determined, among other things:
Children raised in “gay” households are up to 12 times more likely to self-identify as “gay”;
Of those in their 20s – presumably after they’d been able to work out any adolescent confusion or experimentation – 58 percent of the children of lesbians called themselves “gay,” and 33 percent of the children of “gay” men called themselves “gay.” (Contrast these rates with current studies indicating that around 3 percent of the general population is homosexual.)
Just before the research was released, AOL News reported, “Schumm says it shouldn’t have taken until 2010 to do the meta-analysis. Too often his colleagues impose ‘liberal or progressive political interpretations’ on their studies, which inhibit further inquiry. ‘It’s kind of sad,’” he said.
Sad, yes, but it’s also by design. “I just want to know the truth about something,” he confessed. Unfortunately, there are many with an extreme socio-political agenda who depend entirely upon suppressing the truth.
“As if expecting a political backlash himself,” reported AOL, “Schumm concludes his study with a quote from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. ‘All truth passes through three stages: First it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.’”
Indeed, left-wing backlash was both swift and fierce. Schumm was instantly decried as a “quack,” a “conservative plant” and a “fraud.” Over the past two years, both Schumm and his study have passed through all three of Schopenhauer’s fiery stages, only to emerge unsinged.
But the damage to honest inquiry was already done. The message to anyone else who might conduct such a study was clear: If you dare release research on homosexuality and we don’t like your findings, we’re coming for you.
The study was published in the journal Social Science Research. Its website FAQ page summarizes the findings: “[T]he data show rather clearly that children raised by gay or lesbian parents on average are at a significant disadvantage when compared to children raised by the intact family of their married, biological mother and father.”
Focus on the Family’s Citizenlink distills the research: “According to [Regnerus'] findings, children raised by homosexual parents are more likely than those raised by married heterosexual parents to suffer from poor impulse control, depression and suicidal thoughts, require mental health therapy; identify themselves as homosexual; choose cohabitation; be unfaithful to partners; contract sexually transmitted diseases; be sexually molested; have lower income levels; drink to get drunk; and smoke tobacco and marijuana.”
Again, you could’ve set your watch to the liberal response. They went ballistic.
Notorious homosexual activist Scott Rosensweig (aka, Scott Rose. Warning: link to Rosenweig’s extremist history is profane and offensive) filed a formal complaint, demanding that the University of Texas both investigate and, ultimately, fire Dr. Regnerus for his findings.
A gaggle of homosexualist academics and liberal activists pounced, bewailing the study as “homophobic” and “methodologically flawed.” Darren E. Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, conducted an “audit” of the already peer-reviewed study and arrived at the unassailable, scholarly and poignantly worded conclusion: “It’s bulls–t.”
Except that it wasn’t.
On Wednesday, the University of Texas – no bastion of conservatism – released a highly anticipated report on its findings, summarily dismissing Rosensweig, Sherkat and the dozens of “progressive” critics who couldn’t stomach the study’s game-changing implications. This painstaking inquiry was spearheaded by an independent consultant who formerly ran the Office of Research Integrity at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Noted UT-Austin: “As with much university research, Regnerus’ New Family Structures Study touches on a controversial and highly personal issue that is currently being debated by society at large. The university expects the scholarly community will continue to evaluate and report on the findings of the Regnerus article and supports such discussion.”
Still, observed the report, the research was properly conducted and “no formal investigation is warranted into the allegations of scientific misconduct lodged against associate professor Mark Regnerus.”
Experience of the millennia, indeed child-like common sense, frequently informs reality. Children are best served – vastly so – when raised by a mother and father.
Although there are sometimes unavoidable circumstances that short-circuit the mom-dad gold standard (single parenthood, etc.), this undeniable truth, to borrow from Schopenhauer, has, heretofore, been “accepted as being self-evident.”
So why on earth would we intentionally and selfishly sabotage it?
While we don’t necessarily need studies to reaffirm that which is so obvious, it is helpful to find a fast-growing body of research available to refute the “new-normal-modern-family” propaganda that sits tendentiously atop today’s moral-relativist house of cards.
Still, those who seek to deconstruct legitimate marriage and the natural family will always endeavor to suppress honest inquiry. They must.
Even so, whether liberal or conservative, “gay” or straight, the scientific community should be allowed to pursue truth in an environment that holds objective scientific inquiry sacrosanct. They should be free to follow the evidence wheresoever it may lead, even when such ends prove unfashionable.
But alas, the lie shall forevermore seek to imprison truth. So it was in a world once flat; and so it remains in a world with throwaway parents.
But take heart. In the end, truth does prevail. For it is the promise of Truth Himself: “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:30-32)
God bless cell phones. With them we can chat with our friends; we can watch the grossest zit since the dawn of time being popped via YouTube; and our kiddos can record their bat crap crazy teachers attempting to mitigate their First Amendment rights!
This week audio surfaced of a North Carolina teacher, Tanya Dixon-Neely (black), berating 13-year-old Hunter Rogers (honky) for criticizing president Obama (hate crime). Neely said Rogers could be arrested for slandering Obama. What a crock! Children cannot be arrested for criticizing Obama—at least not until his second term when we will truly see our First Amendment rights vanish like a pack of raw wieners at Rosie’s house.
Thankfully, Hunter hit the record button on his iPhone when this blathering big government gal started spewing lies to the kids—via North Carolinians’ tax dollar—exposing her incredible bias, and thereby getting her suspended. Hopefully she’ll get fired.
Parents in Hunter’s school district should demand she get canned. Why? Well, one reason is she doesn’t know what the hell she’s talking about and is teaching your children. Hello. What kind of Bozo screening process is in place that people like Tanya get the keys to your tadpole’s future? I wouldn’t let her sell fried chicken gizzards at a carnival much less school one of my offspring.
The only positive upshot to this sordid socialist scenario is that Hunter turned his cell phone on this mental schoolmarm. Hallelujah. Now parents and the planet can get a dose of the propaganda that’s regularly doled out in public schools.
With this in mind I think parents should tell their progeny each day before they send them off to school, “Now, honey, when Ms. Smith starts saying psycho stuff and threatening you with prison if you don't madly love on Obama, it is okay for you to record her and then upload this mess to YouTube. Don’t be afraid of these bullies. Don’t punch ‘em in the nose but instead punch record and then forward it to Jesse Watters and see if he can get Bill to run it on The Factor.” * Check your state's laws to see if two party consent is needed before YouTubing your audio or video.
Which brings me to a vision I just had. I have had a dream … a dream where the Hunter Rogers of the nation will point their iPhones and Blackberries at their scary teachers en masse and with one voice yell to these anti-American propagandists the words of Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister—“We’re not gonna take it!”
I have had a dream … a dream where sellers of progressive swill are fearful of publicly braying their biased beliefs before an army of God- and country-loving kids.
According to CBS, St. Louis, Pastor Rodney Francis, of the Washington Tabernacle Baptist Church, wants to keep kiddos away from guns, so this summer his church is planning a “toy gun buy back” program. How quaint. I kid you not: A. Toy. Gun. Buy. Back. Sounds like he’s setting up the next generation to be victimized slaves to bad people and policies.
