Easter 2009: Sardis & America

He is risen! Hallelujah! In reading the letter of Jesus Christ to Sardis (Rev 3:1) , I came across this: "I see right through your work. You have a reputation for vigor and zest, but you're dead, stone-dead!" The meaning for us today is clear! Even though some of these massive "Community Churches" may have large youth groups and a growing fellowship, they do so by making compromises with secular world, to be considered “modern” and to avoid condemnation and persecution! In other words, by turning their back on the Gospel! They tend towards the feel good fast food spirituality: "Let’s help people with their lives...God wants you to buy your wife some new lingerie! Let’s all hold hands, be one with nature, and sing Kum-ba-yah"!

What else can you call the ordination of practicing sodomites, or the silence regarding abortion that murders 3500 souls a day anything but compromises with secularism for the sake of popularity? Or worse, the rewriting of Holy Scripture to delete the miracles and to change God the Father to "Mother Nature" ?

Certainly the church in Sardis avoided persecution as do many of these massive Community Churches! Satan figures that things are progressing nicely enough in his favor that he doesn’t have to bother with them!

I attended a funeral at one of these churches. Over the lectern was the sun disk of the ancient Egyptian god Ra, complete with the emanating winged rays that encompassed the entire worship space! No Gospel here!

I can't help but think that the Islamic threat to Western Civilization is no more than a warning to us to change our ways. Prior to the destruction of the Temple in 586 BC, the Israelites considered themselves "bullet-proof" owing to God’s residence in the Temple’s Holy of Holies. They ignored the prophets who warned the Israelites that this wasn't true! (see Ezk. 10:18)

Today, as Islam encroaches on our society like a growing cancer, we are ignoring the threat as did the Israelites the Assyrian threat. The secularists assume that since America won its war in 1945, it will remain invincible forever! In the age of open borders and smuggled suitcase nuclear weapons, how can this be true!

One can only think that as our society is set ablaze, it will serve to burn away the dross of complacent secularism and leave only a purified remnant to carry on with the true foundations of our civilization: faith, perseverance, responsibility and integrity.

GOP must keep defending marriage

Standing up for your principles is as important as knowing what they are. That's a key post-election lesson for Republicans. After 2008 we’ve learned that we need to know who we are and then not betray the party faithful. But that also means we must be careful to choose wisely the principles we adhere to and defend. For political expediency, and to increase the size of the tent, our political leaders condone, and some even advocate, abandoning some long-standing social principles (i.e. Log Cabin Republicans). We should take pause and carefully consider our individual action or abstaining in this area. We must be thoughtful when we stand up and take ownership of this party.

Bending with the gale of social passions is something the left is comfortable doing. Power is their only purpose and the fuel with which to feed itself more power. They abandon any principle they feel will hamper their drive for complete social power. For example, in Ben Smith’s recent blog on civil unions and marriage, he writes how in a few short years, the political correctness of gay rights has moved dramatically ‘pro’ and become more socially acceptable. He writes:

“Here's a marker of the warp-speed change in the politics of same-sex marriage: Back in 2000, Howard Dean was a gay rights hero for signing a civil union measure -- forced on him by the courts -- into law. Four years later, civil unions are the fallback for the center-right, and Vermont is considering same-sex marriage, and Dean was campaigning for it in Burlington last weekend.”

Those who are agnostic with their social principles will continue to hammer on those who are not. Why should anyone take a stand and go against the tide of social convenience? Because it matters.

Obama may abort the American dream

I have been looking for "the sign" that the good times are over for good. It came in a Denver Post headline: "Abortions increase in face of economy". Family planning has a new definition. In the words of country singer Merle Haggard, "Are we rolling downhill like a snowball headed for Hell?" Good ol' Merle said things would be better when Ford and Chevy made cars that last ten years like they should.

Gone are the days of procreating children to help run the family farm or business. The word "family" has been destroyed by cultural revolution. The most famous family today depicts a welfare mother prostituting the images of eight new babies. Now there is a retirement plan.

President Obama and Democrats will do what they want now that they can. It's frustrating. Plans for retirement for most of us now must consider a future of massive inflation to repay more debt than all the nations previous presidents had accumulated. Charge today! No payment till next year!

President Obama talks about the urgent need to pass his oversized-credit-card economic plan, some of which already passed without a chance to readthe fine print. Congress deserves a pay cut. Withdrawal is the new plan for the Middle East. Our Mexican border leaks immigrants and drugs, both of which are killing us in their own way. Shall we expect "amnesty and legalization" as a bold border plan? It would fit the mold.

Mortgaging a nation on "false appraisal" is worse than mortgaging our homes for 125 percent of speculated value was. U.S. taxpayers have been conned into bailing out bad-banking behavior. Our creditors have noticed. The Chinese are abandoning the dollar because they fear our inflation will erode their investments. The international Ponzi scheme has been outed.

Optimism is our only choice

Editor: One of the great things about blogging is the way it brings forward new voices, bypasses credentialism, and stirs the currents of thought in valuable, unexpected ways. I never expected that lunch in the university dining room with CCU's young soccer coach, newly transplanted from Wisconsin to the Rockies, would connect me with a conservative kindred spirit and fiery patriot who also blogs entrepreneurially on personal finance issues. But that's how it went on the day I met Josh Caucutt. Backbone America is delighted to welcome him as a new contributor. Optimism is our only choice

“Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.” “I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” --The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien

I believe we are in difficult days. I believe that history shows us that we might be headed for some of the worst days that the United States has ever known. This Congress has added a huge weight of debt around the neck of every man, woman and especially every child. Furthermore, all of the talk of the future seems to hold only the dim promise of new taxes, higher taxes, more debt and greater levels of government involvement in our daily lives. We are on the precipice of socialism. In the name of crisis, our government is choking the lift out of small businesses, entrepreneurs and all who desire to pursue life, liberty and happiness with as few government entanglements as possible. Even a great thinker like Thomas Sowell is in the clutches of pessimism.

These forces conspire to pull us ever closer to total government dependency and inevitable total government control. Sometimes it seems like we are caught in that frequent science fiction movie plot where the townspeople are slowly being turned to zombies or possessed by aliens until the hero is the only person left with his senses intact. He runs around looking for help, but everyone to whom he turns is already working for the evil that he seeks to defeat. He struggles and flails until some glimmer of hope motivates him to act and eventually he obtains the Hollywood ending that we all expect. Except we are not guaranteed an “ever after” ending in real life.

Yet American culture has always held that glimmer of hope - that belief that everything is going to turn out all right. We find it in our history, our literature, in our movies and in ourselves. We must be optimistic about the future, it is our only choice. To wallow in pessimism or apathy is to give up and admit defeat. Optimism spurred the War for Independence, optimism emancipated a race of people, optimism carried the day on June 6, 1944 - optimism and a commitment to duty no matter the cost.

It's true that recently my own little blog has focused on what is wrong with the direction of our country -- but while I believe there is cause for concern, I want to personally act optimistically and I hope that my readers will do the same.

Don’t make excuses for coming up short. Find a way to get it done. Fear can be a good motivator. We don’t know how far we can stretch until we are really pulled. Quitting never fed a family, never ran a business, and never got someone out of debt. Avoid allowing government to take credit for your success. Be the difference in your life and the lives around you. Don’t let government be your excuse for failure. Government can make things difficult for people, but government can never squelch the drive, innovation, creativity and independent spirit that is alive and well in this country.

Freedom is difficult to win and difficult to keep, but if there is any group of people on the earth who can accomplish both, it is us.

Joshua Caucutt blogs three times a week at Rocket Finance.

Teacher’s Desk: Attendance & Motivation

Colorado High School Charter, where I teach, has an amazing culture, says a former teacher who came back as our discipline coach (called dean or advisor in some schools). We have an at-risk designation at our charter school. Our students are parents or are returning drop-outs or don’t fit into regular district schools or have been expelled elsewhere or have a relationship with the juvenile justice system or are English language learners or special education students and almost all qualify for free and reduced lunch. Like many urban high schools, large and small, we had a growing problem last year with student attendance. By the end of the school year, most days, we had only about 25 students attending out of 165.

Yikes! The School Improvement Committee got busy! We came up with a plan that placed high expectations, personal responsibility, adult follow-through, and consequences in place. “Ditching” school becomes an irresistible elixir, and like the alcoholic trying to quit “cold turkey,” it is just as difficult for students not used to attending class regularly, or anyone really caring if he or she is missing, to come to every class every day.

This year we instituted a new attendance policy. When a student first enters our school, he or she is required to attend 80% of his or her classes. We all have a group of students we mentor and see daily in “homeroom.” The mentors check the student’s attendance regularly and keep each student informed of his attendance status and advocate for the student if there is a family illness or death that prevents the student from attending classes.

If after the student’s six week period (called a “block"), the student has more missing classes than allowed, the student is placed on attendance probation for another block. Most of the time, this second six-week period helps the student change a poor behavior and gain a positive replacement behavior: acceptable, regular attendance.

However, if a student still cannot commit to coming to class daily, we place them on our waiting list for two blocks and ask them to look for another school that may be a better fit, GED program, straighten out personal problems, or get a job the student can commit to. If the student returns, we require them to have read a book (250 pages or greater) and write a five page book report. After handing in the report, the student thoughtfully discusses what he learned while he was not at our school. Only if the student commits to graduating by attending every day, do we ask the student to join us again.

When our returning teacher noticed a change in the culture, what he saw was students committed to attending class, following the rules, and committed to earning a high school diploma.

Kathleen Kullback is a licensed special educator with an M.A. in educational leadership and a former candidate to the Colorado State Board of Education.