Reaganomics

Brother Onesimus recently posted an interesting graphic comparing tax-rates during Presidential administrations of the last 40 years.

https://onesimusfiles.wordpress.com/cost to the poor for rewarding the rich?

I'm woefully ignorant about economics. All I can say is that, subjectively, the U.S. economy seems neither as stable nor as equitable as I remember it being before Reaganomics.

I do know that Reagan appointee Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve and disciple of Ayn Rand, testified to Congress after the economic crash of 2008 that the theory he'd pursued the past 20 years was "partially" wrong, and that, "The whole intellectual edifice...collapsed in the summer of last year.” Greenspan doubtless knows infinitely more about the subject than I do; but his mea culpa does seem to coincide with many of my subjective impressions.

http://http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=0

The signature policy of Reagan's governing philosophy was what he called "de-regulation." Government itself being (as he famously proclaimed in his first Inaugural Address) "the problem," it followed that citizens would be best served by government ceasing to "interfere" in their lives. In economics, the premise was that "the market" would sort everything out, and produce a more stable prosperity than government regulation ever could.

(It's worth noting that the Reagan administration instituted "de-regulation" in many other areas previously under federal oversight: environmental actions, air-traffic control, broadcasting, education, housing, food-safety, civil rights law, etc. Again subjectively, it seems we've seen dire consequences in those areas as well.)

What I have to come back to, as the "intellectual edifice" of Reaganism in toto, is its counter-scriptural foundation. Reagan's conviction that "government IS the problem" seems to flatly contradict the teaching that governing authority "...is a minister of God to you for good." (Romans 13:4). His policy of "de-regulation" flowing from that anti-government stance seems the opposite of God's mandate that rulers "...bring wrath upon the one who practices evil." (ibid)

Subjectively, those anti-scriptural teachings have done the U.S. and its citizens a great deal of harm over the last 40 years. That harm continues today in the beliefs of Reagan's followers.

The Problem With Donald Trump

What bothers most people about Donald Trump is his arrogance. Or maybe his demagoguery. Or I should say, "what bothers some people about Donald Trump."

Quite obviously, what the crowd of his followers like about Donald Trump is his arrogant demagoguery.

But there's a bigger problem with Trump's mindset that makes him completely unqualified to be President.

Trump's pronouncements about what he'll do as President should be a warning. They betray his belief that being President is like being a hard-charging business executive: tell underlings what they should do, and they'd better damned well do it...or else.

I think most of us know being President doesn't work that way. I'm quite surprised Trump doesn't. Maybe he hasn't been paying attention.

But Trump's biggest problem is that America's government was set up to NEVER work that way. More than anything else, the founders tried to protect America from one-man rule. That's why our Constitutional government has the toughest legislative, judicial, and popular-vote "checks and balances" they could devise against arbitrary executive power.

Of course, the founders' reference-point of executive power was George Washington. I'm sure they never could have imagined a President like "The Donald" . . . but I'm grateful their foresight formulated our governmental system to make sure there'd never be one.

Ted Cruz

NPR interviewed Ted Cruz this morning. We can't help hearing politicians' sound-bites on the news, but I usually try to avoid listening to that level of "information" as much as possible. So today was the first time I've heard Cruz talk at length, and I listened with interest to form an idea of the man.

He is certainly argumentative. By that I mean a person whose guiding personal motivation is quite obviously to be right, on his own terms. By that I mean a person whose guiding motivation is not objective truth.

It was clear too that his pronouncements all came from a primary operative belief (probably what he'd consider his "truth") that government is evil. Somehow the illogic of that Reaganite principle never deters some politicians' ambition to part of that evil, if they can be in control of it.

None of us in the general public can know what Cruz is like as an individual. I suspect that, like many politicians, his public persona IS to a large extent his personhood. But as a public figure and a politician, the only terms on which I'm able to evaluate him, I wish Cruz "bad cess." His disregard for truth tells me what spirit he operates in: contrary the Spirit of Jesus, Who IS "the Truth." His hatred for government likewise tells me that Cruz is, in scripture's terms, a rebel and a "man of lawlessness." It would be a curse on our nation and people to be led by such a man.

I'm sure his spin-doctors and many of his followers would assert that Cruz is somehow a "Christian:" that is, after all, the politically-correct requirement for all of today's Republican politicians. Cruz' supporters are welcomed to their opinion . . . or the opinion "spin-doctors" craft for them. I say being a Christian means loving Truth and forsaking evil ways, in public or in private life. Cruz doesn't meet that standard.

politically-correct heroes

One of the most persistent themes on facebook these days is that members of America's military are "heroes:" explicitly or implicitly, ALL heroes.

The King James Bible translators used a word in Philippians 3:8 that Christians seldom cite anymore. But what better place to use it than of facebook ? So I say; facebook's repeated tributes to America's military heroes are absolutely "dung."

It's simply dishonest use of language. The only honest use of "hero" is for someone whose valor greatly exceeds the norm. Those who "greatly exceed" in any group or endeavor are very few: by definition. Declaring every member of America's military a "hero" makes no more sense than declaring every student in our favorite school a "genius." Pride is speaking...not Truth.

That proud dishonesty has become the politically-correct "thinking" for many on facebook. I upset an older woman there by comparing the armed, self-appointed, "militia" who showed up uninvited at Ferguson, Missouri,'s riots, to publicity-seeking agitators like Al Sharpton. Her angry response was that these armed "Oath Keepers" were ex-military . . . therefore "upstanding" men, with honorable motives..."heroes."

Here's the truth: there are certainly heroes in the military...people who "greatly exceed" the requirement, whether in combat or other missions. But by definition, exceptional people are few in any group. The vast majority of our military are decent people, who do their jobs well; some, very well. There are also as many bullies, thieves, goldbricks (which term originated in the military), manipulators, back-stabbers, and jerks in the military as there are in any other large, diverse, group of Americans.

That observation won't suit facebook's current "political correctness:" but it's true. Just ask anyone who's been in the military.

Jesus Divides the Sheep and Goats

“But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left.

“Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matthew 25:31-46)

We all know these words of Jesus. We all say, "Amen, Lord !!"...for we're all certain that we are among Jesus' sheep. But the Shepherd's flock includes both sheep and goats. The time comes to separate the one from the other.

This is Jesus' unique statement of the absolute moral clarity by which He judges men. "Unique," because it appears in scripture only this one time: yet I don't doubt it's imprinted on the heart of His every follower. It's the Spirit's wisdom we should measure ourselves by Jesus' measure.

We should measure too all teachings that come before us. The teachings we choose to receive into our hearts are the operative beliefs on which we will act.

What then of todays' "conservative" teaching that we do the poor, the hungry, the sick, immigrants ("strangers") harm when we show them mercy ? Helping such people only makes them "dependent" on others, say the politicians, and encourages their laziness and irresponsibility.

It's commonsense, politicians say. And very many who consider themselves Jesus' sheep echo, "Indeed, commonsense."

So we measure. Does the political doctrine that it's a bad thing to show mercy to those in need teach us to act the ways Jesus' commends in His sheep...or the other way ?

Thank You, Jesus, thank You, Spirit for Your wisdom of moral clarity ! Amen !!

Quote: The Kingdom and The World (John 18:33-38)

"Some might read the popular phrase ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and mistakenly think that Jesus meant, ‘My kingdom is not in this world.’ But Jesus was talking more about essence than location. In other words, he was talking about the ‘real world.’

"Jesus said this while on trial for insurrection. His kingdom had finally collided with the kingdoms of Herod and Pilate…Jesus had, for the most part, stayed on the fringes of public life, insisting that the kingdom he preached and represented be undetectable to the powers. But now he had paraded into the center of power, flipped over its tables, and hosted a public and critical teach-in, creating the conditions for his arrest.

"Jesus didn’t mean that his kingdom has no interaction with or claims to make about the world. Jesus even insisted that his whole life was a thrusting of truth into the world, affronting it. Nor did Jesus mean that his goal was to get people ready to die and go to heaven—as if the earth were just a waiting room for the afterlife. The people who were working for Jesus’ execution understood that his identity wasn’t just an abstract theological heresy…His claims had political import…the titles of King, Messiah, and Son of God (all used in the Gospels’ accounts of Jesus’ trials) were claims competing against the emperor in Rome.

"When Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world,’ he wasn’t saying that his kingdom is apolitical; rather he was saying how his kingdom is political. He clarified his statement right after he made it: the essential difference is that in my kingdom, we do not fight to maintain the kingdom."

-- Shane Claiborne, "Jesus for President,” pp. 109-10 ("he," "his," "him" [sic] throughout)

Manipulator Alert

Most people don't do evil because they love evil. That's pathology. Most people love what's good. But we can be turned from it if we don't "zealously guard" our hearts (Proverbs 4:23). Most of the world's evil is done by people who've been manipulated to think it's good.

Most people know loving God is the highest good. For many, loving our country is often the next-highest good.

Manipulators know how we think...and use it to get us to think their way. Their most effective seductions are making us think, and do, evil because it's "Christian" or "patriotic."

Smiling people who approach us wrapped in a flag, prominently wearing a cross, may be genuine. But knowing those are manipulators' favored ways of worming their way into our hearts, it's wise to be suspicious of anyone trying too hard to look like a "Christian patriot." Authenticity doesn't need props.

John Bunyan's "Faith" met a manipulator in "Pilgrim's Progress." "Faith's" comment about him (paraphrased here) has always stuck in my mind:

He said he lived in the town of Deceit, and he invited me home with him. But it came burning hot into my mind that whatever he said, and however he smiled, he meant to make me his slave.

Amen. So it is.

The Myth of Redemptive Violence

A few years ago, an angry neighbor came to my door, cursing and threatening to kill my dog.

What I remember most about the incident is that none of that same cursing fury boiled up in my own heart, to spew back in her face. I know I'm fully capable of it, especially when I'm attacked blind-side. The fact that rage didn't erupt from me in response made me aware how much God has worked, and is working, in my heart...even MY heart.

Thinking about it later, I tried to understand where that spirit of rage comes from. What stood out to me was that people kill (or threaten to) in the belief that killing will solve a problem. (People operating on that belief are dangerous to be near. I warned my kids to stay far away from her yard.)

It's an idea the theologian Walter Wink called "The Myth of Redemptive Violence: "...the pattern-of-belief [the strict meaning of the word myth] that wrong can be put right by violence. That myth, he wrote, "...enshrines the belief that violence saves, that war brings peace, that might makes right..."

Human beings have long experience with that thought-pattern. And we have abundant evidence to look back on, how that thought-pattern works in reality. If we believe wars bring peace, our world, today and through all our history, would surely be a place overflowing with the blessing of peace.

But we know that's not true, and never has been true. From pragmatic experience, it seems a good assumption it never will be true. In that regard, the idea of "redemptive violence" is also a "myth" in the everyday sense of that word: a story that's not true.

Scripture tells us to take our “…every thought captive to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5). Even more than our passing thoughts, that must surely apply to the basic operative-ideas on which we act. “Redemptive (or ‘restorative’) violence” is one such idea, deeply ingrained in human hearts.

Jesus testified that He is Himself “…the Truth…” (John 14:6). Our human operative-belief in “redemptive violence" has shown itself every time, all the millions of times, it's acted on, to be a lie.

The test of “redemptive violence” is as simple as I John 2:21 puts it: “…no lie is of the truth.”

You Never Know...But You Should

We underestimate God's unpredictability.

He's always doing what we would never expect. Choosing a gang of slaves for His people. Making a peasant-nobody king. Letting good people suffer (ask Job). Changing EVERYTHING in the world, and life, by the execution of a third-world criminal.

But "unpredictable" is only saying He never does what we think He should, or expect He will. He is "predictable:" but only on His Own terms.

All His ways are always, and will always be, Good. Right. Perfect. Exactly what's needed.

We can expect His every word and deed to be Blessing...for all who will receive them. That's hard for anyone who expects Him to be "predictable," on their terms.

The only thing we can truly expect is that His every word and deed to us is Blessing...His entire unexpected Presence is in them, and He is the only Blessing.

Manipulators

I rail frequently against those I call "manipulators." The "spin-doctors" are constantly working to guide our thoughts in the ways that serve their purposes. I rail most frequently at the blatant political manipulation of Christians' thinking, making them embrace nationalism, hatred, contempt for the poor, for foreigners, for the sick...

But it's taken me a long time to grasp manipulation's deep sinfulness.

It's wrong to use other people for your purposes. It's just wrong.

I know there are people (and I know people) who think they're doing it for our own good. There are certainly those who know it's not; and they are the more culpable. But the purpose is the same: to make us think the way they want us to think, and do what they want us to do.

The manipulator's purpose is to make us his slave.

Bottom-line: manipulation is spiritual warfare. The character-profile of its author is most clearly visible when professional manipulators "spin" truth to their false advantage, in order to get us to do evil.

Bottom-line: resisting manipulation is spiritual warfare.

Amen !

Good Question

How honest is our talk about "God," if that's what we call something that approves our nationalism, our militarism, our love of violence, our hatreds, and our totally-corrupt human politics ?

-- adapted from Shane Claiborne's "Jesus for President"

Commonsense Towards Manipulators

Manipulators want you to think the way THEY want you to think.

When manipulators get you to think the way THEY want, they can make you DO what they want.

Manipulators want power over you for THEIR good...not yours.


Manipulators like you to think you ONLY have two choices.

Manipulators like you to think THEIR way is absolute Good, and the other choice they allow you is totally evil.

When manipulators get you to think this way, it's easy to make you DO what they want.


Reality is that manipulators give us false choices:

that we don't have to accept the choices they give us:

and that we can choose NOT to think the way they want us to.


Above everything else, manipulation is spiritual warfare;

and resisting manipulation is spiritual warfare.

What Heaven Will Be Like

There is a sea of ignorant, sentimental, speculation about what heaven will be like.

I'm as ignorant as everyone else what heaven will be like, and sentimental too. So I speculate:


Yes, you may see your mother in heaven. You may see Abraham Lincoln. You may meet Mother Teresa, or the apostle John, or Moses.

But if you do, the only, overwhelming, cry of your heart will be, "GLORY TO OUR BELOVED GOD !, Who is merciful even to the vilest sinner !"

Evil Ravings of a Brain-Washed Traitor

Obama is not the issue. People are not issues. (Issues are much bigger, and more important.)

Obama has done some things that are good for the country. All Presidents do.

Obama has done some things that are not good for the country. All Presidents do.

Obama is not personally directing every action of government. No President does.

Obama is not personally causing everything bad, or everything good, that happens in America. No President does.

Obama was not born in Kenya.

Obama is not a Muslim.

Obama is an ordinary, flawed, well-intentioned, fallible, human being.


The only thing incredible about these commonsense statements is that millions of people can only perceive them as evil ravings of a brain-washed traitor.

The Poor in Spirit

" 'The baptism of John was from what source, from heaven or from men?” And they began reasoning among themselves, saying, 'If we say, "From heaven," He will say to us, "Then why did you not believe him?" But if we say, "From men," we fear the people; for they all regard John as a prophet.' And answering Jesus, they said, 'We do not know.' He also said to them, 'Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things...Truly I say to you that the tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him; but the tax collectors and prostitutes did believe him; and you, seeing this, did not even feel remorse afterward so as to believe him.' " (Matthew 21:25-27, 31b-32)


The second day of His final Passover in Jerusalem, Jesus came to the Temple-grounds, where worshippers from throughout Judea and the diaspora were gathering. Amidst the tens of thousands with their sacrificial animals, the loud praying of the crowds and bleating sheep being slaughtered, the "chief priests and elders of the people" sought Jesus out and challenged His authority.

These were not men who did the ordinary work of the Temple; not the workaday priests continually slitting animals' throats and splattering their blood on the altar, or those who chanted psalms to the dusty, noisy crowds. Jesus' challengers were men of the wealthy, politically-connected establishment from whose families every High Priest was selected: the Bushs, Kennedys and Rockefellers of Judaism.

Jesus expertly challenged His challengers: could they recognize authority, spiritual authority, when they saw it ?

I'm impressed that the Jewish rulers' referred first to their public-image. They knew any straight answer, either for or against John's ministry, would let them be bested by a rustic trouble-maker, or lose them popular support. To save their public image, they dared not answer.

Jesus pointed out that their dishonesty went deeper than playing to the crowds. Even "afterward," He said: even after seeing that God changed the lives of repentant tax collectors and prostitutes who believed John, even after John's threat to your religious establishment was ended by his murder: you dare not admit you were wrong. To preserve your self-image, you dare not, even now, honestly admit to yourself that John was preaching God's message.

I doubt the chief priests and elders acted any differently than any of us would. What we perceive as ours is hard to give up. The "rich young ruler" was crestfallen when Jesus said, from love for him (Mark 10:21), that he must give up all his riches. The chief priests and elders had even more to lose: wealth, but also status, power, reputation, public esteem and self-esteem.

Those who welcomed God's rule in their lives at John's preaching, had none of these. Pariahs, despised by all who met them, the prostitutes and tax-collectors had no status to forfeit, no power nor wealth, no reputation or self-respect to lose.

Bob Dylan got it right: "When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose."

God, give us the BLESSING to have nothing to lose !

How to Live in the Kingdom of God

The only way to give reality to confessing Christ is

to love The Truth,

to love The Good,

from an honest heart...

and sincerely repent each time we miss it.


This is how we live in the Kingdom of God.

"Stealing Our Freedom"

All those angry people parroting every N.R.A. and Tea Party talking-point as their own "opinion," and complaining their freedom is being stolen from them... ?

They prove it's true.

Nobody Tells ME What to Do

The first problem of rebellion, the mindset that "nobody tells ME what to do," is that it rejects all authority except its own. The rebel is his own god, with one worshipper.

The second problem of rebellion's "nobody tells ME what to do" is that it's categorically, continually, definitively, EXPERIENTIALLY contrary to reality.

Sold to the highest bidder

Jesus says, "I AM...the truth..." (John 14:6).


Hearts not completely sold on TRUTH will be sold to a clever liar.

But it's amazing that so many sell cheap to any tawdry lie they're offered.

Facebook yet again

Being on facebook has seemed, from the first minute, like standing in a sewer. All the filth and lies, all the manipulators' manufactured opinions they want the unwise to "like" and pass on to all their friends, flow around you continuously. My Christian "friends" are just as much a part of the problem as anyone else: but the problem is infinitely more serious for those who are supposed to be operating in "the mind that is in Christ."

That discouraging fact, and how little my speaking against it lessened the flow, had brought me to the place that I was considering leaving facebook. The thought that's become stronger, however, is that a sewer is the best place to study pathogens. The best place to find what's making people ill, so they can be healed. That thought seems to be from God, and seems to be what He requires for hearing His healing word of prophecy.

Good and Evil: letter to a friend

In a message dated 1/21/2015 12:45:43 P.M. Central Standard Time, xxxxxxxxxxx writes:

-- Unfortunately, we are stuck with the politicians the majority chooses

You've put your finger on the BIGGEST question of all: how is it that "good" people choose to follow evil men and bad principles ?

And of course, when you talk moral issues, "good" and "evil," it's really a spiritual question. It's only about politics to the extent that everything people do is a reflection of the spirit that is in their hearts. (Proverbs 4:23. Not a version I use a lot, but the NIV Reader's
Bible puts this verse really well: "Above everything else, guard your heart. Everything you do comes from it.")

How does the enemy get people who have "the mind that is in Christ" (I Corinthians 2:16, Philippians 2:5) to "like" lies, violence, and hatred ? The same way he always has: manipulate their thinking and operative attitudes (what scripture calls "the heart") to confuse what is good and what is evil. ("God is not the author of confusion"...which tells us who is.)

Politics is the worst possible way to sort out that moral question: but it definitely comes into play in manipulation. It's the essential job-skill of politicians to manipulate people's thinking, to their own advantage. Satan's main tactic of deception is also manipulating people's thinking; so politicians are perfect tools in "spinning" evil ideas as "good." (Which God curses in Isaiah 5:20.)

Christians "hearts" have been manipulated by politicians (but actually by you-know-who) to think (for example) that it's good to "give the
poor the dignity of helping themselves." That it's good to kill your enemy before he can kill you. That it's good to demand your "rights." When Christians' "hearts" operate on these thoughts and attitudes entirely contrary to "the mind of Christ," they will inevitably follow
bad leaders and evil principles. And it becomes questionable if people operating in the enemy's spirit should be called "Christians" at all.

This is pretty much the political (but behind it, the spiritual) state of "the Christian majority" today. It's not a hopeful situation, when God's moral law is that following bad men and evil principles can only ever lead to disaster.

Knowing who they work for, I keep a sharp lookout for manipulators, and speak out against them wherever I find them. It's what Christians'
spiritual warfare comes down to: recognize and resist the enemy. Otherwise we become part of the spiritual problem of "good" people who follow the evil one.

God, against this darkness, convict those who love You to shine all the brighter ! AMEN

My Sheep Hear My Voice

Jesus' word that "My sheep hear My voice..." has always been a comfort to me, the key by which I test myself to see if I am truly following Him. But what if we hear Jesus' voice...in brother Rick Frueh's words...crying out against us ?

Rick has written about that jarring experience.


I will have been saved for forty years this March. I have seen other people saved under my witness, I have experienced God’s wonderful presence, and I have read His Word many times. But as I reread His words I cannot help but confess I am wading into convicting waters. I do not mean some slight “I am far from perfect” waters. I already knew that. But I am now faced with some unimaginable truth which when taken without compromise from His lips indicts me on so many levels...I rejoice in the Spirit’s dealings with me, but I also am partially broken as well. I do not relish being utterly and completely broken, but I desire it.

http://judahslion.blogspot.com/

Tozer on the Need for Prophets

God blessed me this week when a brother sent around, and another brother blogged, this prophetic word from Tozer. If we needed prophets 50 years ago, how much more so now !


A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.

Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits. It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God's position, and to tell us what is actually going on.

Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?

What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present. Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now.

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the-synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

- from 'Of God and Men'.