Previous   Stop Video   Columns & Essays   About Christ   About Us   Prayer Requests   Catechism   Contact Us   Donate   Privacy Policy / Terms Of Use   Play Music   Next

stop/reset  audio

PraiseNet Video

Ron Paul Racist Newsletters

Racism In Media

Obama & Black America

The Two Michelles

The Problem With "The Help"

The New Jim Crow

Christians & Revenge

Urban Gun Violence

Slavery Revisionism

Where Is Felycia Barnes?

Trashing The Stimulus

NAACP Resolution On Tea Party

The Tea Party & African America

Clips Copyright ©
Respective Copyright Owners

No. 372 January 22nd, 2012

this week

East of Eden
This Week In God's Word

A Dangerous Unselfishness
Dr. King's Case For Relevance In Ministry

Paul's Letter
To The American Christians

by Rev. Neil Brown

Thy Brother's Keeper
The Unrelenting Tragedy of Haiti

Not Christian Enough

These People Are NOT Christians

150 leading evangelical pastors met in Texas last week to decide which Republican presidential candidate they, as a group, would support. There is simply no biblical model for this. These men, most of whom are dogmatic, hard-line biblical literalists, routinely violate their own professed beliefs by organizing politically and involving the church in the political process. Look all you want, there is not one single example of Jesus Christ organizing a rally to overthrow Herod or Caesar. Not one instance of the Apostle Paul painting up “Vote Romney” signs and encouraging the faithful to throw their support behind an ordained elder of a false religion that prostitutes the Gospel of Jesus Christ as its veneer of legitimacy in order to deceive. Seeing the Reverend Franklin Graham, son of renowned evangelist Billy Graham, make a mealy-mouthed case for supporting Romney, a Mormon, while continuing to encourage doubt about President Obama’s profession of born-again Christian faith, marks this man—who comes off as unhinged and irrational, as most extremists, Christian or not, do—as blatantly unstable. But white conservatives, lost in a Matrix of their own, see what they want to see and will grasp at any rationale possible to make a case for their blatant, unbiblical and unprincipled hatred, yes hatred, of Barack Obama that does not include the word “racism.” This is how deeply in denial these people are. So co-opted by hate they’d send forth their chief priest to crucify Christ afresh with this complete abdication of biblical principles and grudging, indirect validation of antichrist heresy while showing hate to one of God’s children—all of this in clear violation of the bible these phonies profess to follow. Wasn’t it just last week that these very same people were saying they couldn’t support Obama because he’s a Muslim? And here’s Franklin Graham, Friday, making excuses for Romney’s Mormonism— “…after all, we’re not voting for a pastor-in-chief.” Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. [Matthew 23:13] These folks remind me of people who are clearly and obviously drug addicts who are in denial about their disease. Everybody can see it. Everybody knows what the problem is. But when you confront the addict, they fly into a rage of denial. These people are racists. It is clearly and plainly obvious. They are addicted to hate. But they have money and power and the company of millions of evangelical racist homophobes whose conscience is assuaged by this veneer of righteousness even as they blithely go about violating the very word of God they portend to espouse. They don’t hate Obama because he’s a liberal. They hate Obama because he’s black. And, because he’s black, Obama could not possibly be a Christian or, at least, not Christian enough for them. But these lying, phony, self-righteous hypocrites lack the courage to confront the disease of hatred which holds them in its grip. Worse, no one seems willing to call these phonies on the obvious source of their opposition to the president. Nobody wants to stand up and say, "Hey, that guy is a drug addict," even though his condition is obvious.

A January 8th CBS News Poll said that 60% of Republican voters said it was important to them that a presidential candidate share their religious beliefs. If what they are saying is true, they should be supporting the president—a born-again Christian self-made bootstraps family man with an unassailable, solid track record of church-going who demonstrates, more than any candidate in any party in any field, Christian values and the imitation of the personal example of Jesus Christ. But these same people not only do not support the president, they openly revile him. Why? Is it his political positions? Abortion? Gay rights? Healthcare Reform? Mitt Romney has held all of those very same positions, and here’s Franklin Graham making a case for him. These conservatives are simply liars. Their bigotry has nothing to do with politics or values. Barack Obama Is A Black Man And They Hate Him. And I believe I’d actually respect these people more if they’d just come to terms with that. The group compromised on the racist, gay-hating, contraception-banning lunatic Rick Santorum, a Catholic who is not a born-again Christian and who has absolutely no shot at the nomination and even less at a general election win. That there was even a conversation about Romney proves, beyond any shadow of doubt, that, despite their righteous claims, These People Are Not Christians.

MLK's Dream:
The Generation Gap


James Eng / MSNBC
In its ninth annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day report, titled “State of the Dream 2012: The Emerging Majority,” the Boston-based group United for a Fair Economy says that racial disparities are increasingly becoming influenced by age. “Increasingly, elderly Americans do not identify with young Americans who are far more racially and ethnically diverse, leading to reductions in future-oriented public investments,” the report says.
     According to the report, almost half of today’s U.S. residents under 18 are members of minority groups, while 80 percent of retirees are white. By 2030, the majority of U.S. residents under 18 will be youth of color. And by 2042, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders and other non-whites will collectively compose the majority of the U.S. population.
     “If current trends continue, the racial wealth gap will continue to be massive, as it is now, and as the non-white share of the population grows it will become unbearable for the economy as a whole,” Tim Sullivan, one of the authors of the report, told msnbc.com.   READ FULL ARTICLE

US To Change Quote
On King Memorial


MSNBC
A quotation inscribed on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial will be changed following months of complaints that the statement was edited out of its original context, a spokesman said Friday. The quotation on the left side of the memorial, which opened in August in a park near the National Mall in Washington, reads: "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."
     Advocates have complained since then that the quotation makes King appear self-righteous or arrogant, pointing out that what King actually said in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968, was this:
     "If you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter."
     Rachel Manteuffel, a columnist for The Washington Post, wrote in an opinion piece Friday that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had given the National Park Service 30 days to consult with the King Memorial Foundation and others, including members of King's family, to find a better quotation.  READ FULL ARTICLE

PraiseNet Essentials
PraiseNet 101
The Black Church
Church Growth
Music Essentials
Essentials Sisters
Christians & Sex

 

Thy Brother's Keeper

The Unrelenting Tragedy of Haiti

Two years after it was rocked by a devastating earthquake, Haiti is struggling just to get back to being one of the most impoverished nations in the world. For every inch of progress, there are many, many miles of devastation and despair. Much of the capital Port Au Prince is so battered that it is difficult to tell whether the destruction was caused by the earthquake or decades of grinding poverty. The national government palace in the heart of the capital lies virtually untouched since it collapsed two years ago. That, as much as anything else, is a potent symbol of what has not happened here. Throughout the capital and surrounding area, where some 80,000 buildings collapsed, one of the most striking things you see are the tents. Some camps of them sprawl for acres and acres. Some are smaller, tucked into a corner. Many people live in wood or cardboard framed structures with plastic sheeting or perhaps a piece of tin for a roof. It's hard to see how people survive the tropical storms and the intense rainy season. Some of the camps have taken on an air of "semi-permanence," run by aid groups, and organized into little self-contained communities. They're not going anywhere anytime soon. --Ron Allen, NBC News.   READ FULL ARTICLE

America has moved on from places like Haiti, Sudan and Somalia, places which demanded our attention with breaking headlines while testing our compassion by the unthinkable scale of the misery visiting developing nations. These are places trapped in a perpetual cycle of tribalism whereby a nation, liberated at great expense of foreign (often U.S.) blood and treasure, becomes a black hole of foreign aid as mismanagement, ignorance and corruption inevitably co-opt relief efforts. Two years later, billions in foreign aid remain undistributed even as relief groups, including the initiative helmed by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, struggle to keep America from forgetting Haiti. But America is growing tent cities of its own and Americans are circling the wagons, fearful of this brutal economy and this man Obama who's brought all this misery upon them. America has an extremely short attention span, our impatience with this devastating economic recession a key example. Haiti has been long ago swept off the front page, our limited capacity for compassion not having yielded instant results.

The sad record of these situations: at the end of the day these impoverished, under-developed nations inevitably choose yet another unhinged bully to lead them. They do this because unhinged bullies are all they've ever known. The cycle is sadly obvious: strongmen overturning the previous dictator by promising liberation and change, only to bring neither. While his early intentions may have been noble, his focus and drive inevitably becomes only about amassing more power and more wealth for himself. We've seen this time and again: King Saul, King Solomon, no different from Charles Taylor, Robert Mugabe, Issayas Afeworki, or any number of thousands of tribal warlords roaming a continent afflicted by poverty and disease, robbing, raping and killing at will. And, right now, America has problems of its own.

About Us


PraiseNet.Org is an Internet-based Christian forum with a focus on the African American Christian experience. Views expressed here are sole those of the authors. By viewing this website you agree to our Terms of Use. All Music and Art, Websites and Text are Copyright © and/or Trademarks of their respective owner(s). PraiseNet.Org does not make a profit from this website. This site in no way challenges the exclusive ownership of copyrighted images, sounds or text. See our Terms Of Use for more information. Media clips are the property of their respective copyright owners. The omission of specific copyright information in no way challenges or diminishes the exclusive rights of the respective copyright owners. “PraiseNet.Org,” “eStyle,” “Holla! At Neil Brown,” “Riverside,” “LifeLines,” and “Contextual Criticism For The African American Church” Copyright © 2001-2013 PraiseNet Electronic Media. All Rights Reserved.   TOP OF PAGE.