Congress to Cut Key U.S. Missile Defense System

Unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile being launched during an operational test / AP

Congress is poised to significantly cut funding for a key U.S. missile defense system that is slated to be deployed against threats in the Washington, D.C., area, prompting outrage from former military leaders and defense industry insiders.

Congress is seeking to slash $25 million from JLENS, or the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor, an advanced missile detection radar system capable of finding and intercepting missiles, drones, and planes far before they reach the homeland.

Major cuts to the system are coming down the pike just as JLENS is to be deployed in the nation’s capital and integrated into the region’s air defense system.

Former military leaders and defense experts warn that the funding cut will jeopardize the JLENS program at a key juncture and potentially prevent the military from employing the advanced defense system in global hot spots.

The cuts come as rogue nations such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran significantly boost investments in their own cruise and ballistic missile programs, a threat that JLENS is specifically meant to detect and combat.

Taxpayers have invested more than $2.7 billion on JLENS to bring the system to battle-ready levels. The defense firm Raytheon announced earlier this week that it is ready to deploy JLENS anywhere it is needed for “enhanced protection against cruise missiles, hostile airplanes, sea-borne threats, or unmanned aircraft.”

However, the $25 million cut—a very small amount of money in terms of the total U.S. defense budget—threatens to derail the program’s progress and create needless gaps in U.S. national security, former officials say.

Billions of dollars have been invested in the JLENS system, it has been integrated with other systems, and it has been a proven extender of detection and tracking ranges, Chet Nagle, a former Navy officer and Defense Department official, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Nagle said that it makes no sense for Congress to pursue these funding cuts just before the system is deployed for a three-year test run in the D.C. area, a prime target for attack from rogue nations.

“The ultimate danger is that the program will simply wither on the vine and that would be a tragedy” for U.S. defenses, Nagle said. “On the homeland cruise missile defense, we don’t have one. If we were ever attacked by cruise missiles either launched by a surface vessel or a submarine, the only way we’d detect it is when the explosion arrived.”

JLENS was slated to receive just $54 million in fiscal year 2015. However, House lawmakers slashed that allocation in half under the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a sprawling yearly funding bill.

Senate appropriators took the opposite course, keeping JLENS’s funding in tact.

This means that a showdown is set to take place between the House and Senate when lawmakers meet later this year to finalize the NDAA in a process known as conference committee.

The House cut came as a shock to former military leaders and defense insiders, who were expecting JLENS to enter the final testing stage at the Army’s Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, where the system would have been deployed and integrated in U.S. Northern Command’s (NORTHCOM) integrated air defense system for the National Capital Region.

If approved, the Army will be forced to make some tough budgetary decisions about the program.

There would only be enough money left to operate the program in part, meaning that the Army would be forced to choose, for instance, between doing maintenance on JLENS to ensure it is up to par or linking it into the D.C. region’s integrated air defense systems.

“A cut will force the [Defense Department] to make some very hard choices. For example, they might have to decide between maintaining the system or integrating JLENS into the National Capital Region’s defense architecture,” one defense expert familiar with JLENS told the Free Beacon.

“Or they might decide to partially integrate the system and just use one of the aerostats,” the source said. “Those are all bad choices because they defeat the purpose of holding the exercise in the first place and would deprive NORTHCOM from taking full advantage of JLENS’ defensive capabilities.”

Sources close to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which did not support the House’s cut to JLENS, said that some GOP senators are moving to protect the system.

“All I know is that the [House Armed Services Committee] does not like the program” and believes the money should be spent elsewhere, once source told the Free Beacon.

HASC officials did not respond to Free Beacon requests for comment on JLENS.

As the House and Senate quibble over the $25 million allocation, nations such as China are increasing investments in a range of new cruise missiles.

U.S. Navy Admiral Samuel Locklear told Congress in recent testimony that JLENS is just the system needed to counter “sophisticated integrated air missile defense scenarios that we face in the Asia-Pacific.”

Retired Maj. Gen. Howard “Dallas” Thompson, who recently wrote in defense of JLENS, said that cut “could make the U.S. homeland vulnerable to attack.”

“As a former Chief of Staff at NORAD and NORTHCOM I was steeped in highly classified intelligence data on the cruise missile threat to our homeland,” Thompson wrote in a recent op-ed. “When first briefed on JLENS I immediately saw the potential it offered to defend against this rapidly expanding threat.”

Credit to Washington Free Beacon

The United Nations Is Positioning to Lock Down the US

Not on my watch!

I have been writing that my military sources tell me that their greatest fears are beginning to become realized because the United States will be, in the relatively near future, this country will be under martial law and the bulk of the occupation force will be comprised by foreign troops operating under the flag of the United Nations.

Under the heading, “Hiding in plain sight”, the United Nations is advertising for the following position:

Posting Title: Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Officer, P4

Job Title Code: DISARMAMENT, DEMOBILIZATION AND REINTEGRATION OFFICER

Department/Office: Department of Peacekeeping Operations

Duty Station: New York

Job Description: A minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration or related area. Experience working within peacekeeping, peace-building or development programmes operations is desirable. Experience with small arms control, conflict/post-conflict crisis management, economic recovery is desirable. Experience coordinating multiple partner agencies, funds or programmes is desirable.

Analysis of the Job Description

Peacekeeping is normally the euphemism reserved for gun confiscation and population subjugation. If there is any doubt to the veracity of this claim, the following phrase “Experience with small arms control“, should remove any doubt as to what is coming. Further this job description uses phrases such as “demobilization“. Further, the phrase “reintegration” is also significant. By definition, what is a re-education camp designed for? Quite simply put, it is designed for reintegration back into society. Back into society from where? This question can be answered with a pair of four letter words, FEMA Camp.

, UN controlled FEMA Camp

No doubt that some people, wanting to remain in a state of denial, will ignore the term used in the UN job advertisement, “small arms control“, which is significant since because we know that Secretary of State, John Kerry,illegally signed the UN gun ban treaty representing an unconstitutional end run around the Second Amendment.

What is highly significant is that nobody seems to be talking about this illegitimate imposition of foreign troops on our soil and this notion is represented in the phrase “conflict/post conflict management“! What conflict/post conflict management? Conflict management is another euphemism reserved for one of two possibilities. First, this implies there will be a civil war. With over 260+ senior military officers fired by Obama for not embracing the future need to fire on American citizens, speaks clearly to this point. Ask yourself, what would be the one thing that this administration could do that would guarantee a violent response from many of the people? That one thing would be to start seizing private guns. Foreign troops will be operating under the UN flag in the pursuit of this agenda. Obama is in the midst of purging the military leadership who will not indiscriminately fire upon American citizens who would resist having their Second Amendment rights obliterated by this present administration. Secondly, in order to create the manufactured need to impose martial law, the administration would need a pretext, a false flag event. I have been covering the pretext for nearly a year. In fact, the pretext has been rehearsed repeatedly since last fall.

Rehearsing for Martial Law

Last fall, FEMA, DHS and select foreign entities extensively rehearsed for the following contingencies in the following list of preparedness and disaster drills planned and carried out over a six week period:

1. FEMA purchase orders for over $14.2 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Region III by October 1st, 2013.  

2. FEMA purchase orders for 22 million pouches of emergency water to be delivered to Region III by October 1st, 2013.

3. FEMA purchase orders for $13.6 million for MREs and heater meals to be delivered to Austin, TX. by October 1st, 2013.

4. $11 million in antibiotics to be delivered to FEMA region III by October 1st ordered by CDC

5, Nine-week training course for UN Peacekeepers in CONUS to learn Urban Warfare, English, and US weapons systems beginning late July for 386,000 troops to be completed by October 1st

6. Great Shakeout Drill Scheduled for October 17, 2013

7. More Than 1,000 Banks Plan National Cyber-Attack Drill Oct. 16-17, Oct. 23-24

8. Quantum Dawn’ Is a Cyber-Attack Bank Drill –

9. GridEx2 Nov. 13-14 

The Grid EXII drill was the most concerning  of these drills because it rehearsed an EMP attack upon our grid and estimates at the time forecasted a 90% mortality rate, in America, following such an event within two years.

The most telling part of these drills is that they all have in common the need to impose strict martial law in which the tenets of EO 13603 will come into play.

Last fall, I expressed serious concerns over so many of these drills taking place in such a short period of time. I raised the question of martial law arising from any one of these events going hot. In hindsight, I think I was too close to the truth as to what is coming because even the Russian media invited me on a news show that is distributed in New York City and Washington DC, as well as in 35 other countries.

On October 28, 2013, I was contacted by reporter and producer, Victoria Mashkova, from the Voice of Russia (formerly Radio Moscow), and was invited on to their radio program to discuss the possibility of martial law coming to America. I accepted and in the early morning hours I participated in a 10 minute interview.

Inside of the United States today, there are untold numbers of Russian troops for which I have received reports of sightings from first-hand witnesses. It is quite apparent that Russian troops will be used as a UN force whose purpose is  gun confiscation, American citizen detention and Lord knows what else when martial law is finally declared. The Russians have a vested interest to conceal their true intentions related to why they have thousands of troops inside of our country. As I lay out the events connected to the interview it will become increasingly clear that I was invited to appear on VOR to completely discredit the notion that America would be going into martial law.Now, if I was a merely some crazed conspiracy theorist, this Russian version of the mainstream media would just simply ignore me. However, when they go out of their way to discredit my views as it relates to them, they clearly have something to hide and were operating from a state-sponsored agenda.

Voice of Russia Attacked Dave Hodges to Conceal Russian Participation In Martial Law Preparations

After inviting me to appear on the VOR, the producer, Victoria Maskova, had requested a bio which I provided as detailed below:

“I am a retired college basketball coach. A former mental health counselor. I have taught graduate and undergraduate psychology, sociology and research classes.”

At the beginning of the interview, the Russian host, Kate Zickel, introduced me as merely the “Host of The Common Sense Show” and there was no mention of my academic credentials. Immediately, I felt this was an attempt to marginalize my credibility by ignoring the requested credentials I provided VOR with regard to my background in which I characterized myself as a researcher, someone who is knowledgeable about social systems as well as human nature. Over the past several years, I have done enough mainstream radio media interviews to recognize a “set up” when I see it coming.

Make no mistake about it, VOR is a propaganda instrument of the Russian government and their handling of the interview and post-interview situations pointed to their propagandizing of their interview of me. After the interview, their post-show analysis categorized me as an extremist for stating that America was prepping for martial law. If we were not prepping for martial law then what the hell were the nine referenced FEMA/DHS drills, taking place in a six week period, in which foreign troops played a prominent role, used for ?

Look at item number five in last year’s martial law preparation drills. “5, Nine-week training course for UN Peacekeepers in CONUS to learn Urban Warfare, English, and US weapons systems beginning late July for 386,000 troops to be completed by October 1st“.        

Please note the designation and use of the terms “386,000 troops” and, “UN Peacekeepersin CONUS to learn urban warfare”.  This does not leave much to the imagination now does it?

In Part Two of this series, I will present the evidence about how far this plot has advanced and how we are all in a lot of trouble.

Credit to Common Sense

Iraq Religious War, Ukraine Crisis & Sanctions, GDP Plunges, IRS Targeting Cover Up

Petrodollar Slavery

The impact of the petrodollar system is so utterly fantastic, that it’s hard to fit it all together in a way that makes sense. This is part of the reason why I’ve spent so much time on this subject.

The other part of the problem is that I, myself, have been working my way through this puzzle, and writing about it has helped me see new aspects. You might say that I write these articles to wrestle with difficult ideas. And, the petrodollar is one of the most important ideas that I’ve run into.

So, let’s go wrestle with the petrodollar idea in part two of this series.

Orders from Riyadh – Part 2 – Petrodollar Slavery

Yesterday, we talked about how and why the Petrodollar System started. It was the brainchild of one of the most diabolical men in US history, Henry Kissinger, and his petrodollar idea rescued America from the consequences of the corruption of Lyndon Johnson and paved the way for America to become the greatest empire the world has ever known – making slaves of anyone who wanted oil.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself, because I haven’t shown you how this worked out so dramatically in America’s favor.

Remember that the deal America made with Saudi Arabia in 1973 – and then OPEC in 1975 – meant that no one in the world – NO ONE – could buy oil in any currency, except the US dollar. If you didn’t have oil, you needed US dollars to buy it.

Please keep that thought firmly in mind as we talk about how important oil is.

The Importance Of Oil

You’ve heard me rant on and on about the importance of oil, how vital it is to the continued existence of our civilization – at least, as it is organized now. So, humor me as I talk a bit more about how important it is. When we get to the end of this discussion, you will be blown away as the pieces come together for you.

(And no, you do NOT need to believe in Peak Oil
to understand the significance of what I am talking about.)

I know of no better discussion on the importance of oil than this video:

There’s No Tomorrow (peak oil, energy, growth & the future)

YouTube shortlink: http://youtu.be/VOMWzjrRiBg

That video is a masterpiece in describing just how vital oil is to our society. Other films and videos might be more thorough or comprehensive, but none communicate the fundamental facts and ideas better than this one – in such a short amount of time.

And, like I said, you do not need to agree with the Peak Oil conclusion to understand the film’s point about how important oil is. (But, you will forgive me if I question your sanity in refusing to see the obvious.)

Oil And Population Size

To put the importance of oil in an even broader perspective, just take a look at this picture:

A Brief History of Oil & Humans (peakprosperity.com)

You can argue all you want about all the other factors that led to the current size of the human population, but you CANNOT ARGUE with the fact that oil is the chief cause. Everything else is just detail.

So… to make the understatement of the year… oil is important.

Because Oil Is About Food

According to agweb.com, the average US farmer feeds 155 people. But, that wasn’t always the case. In 1940, one farmer could feed 19 people. More than a century ago, one farmerfed two and a half.

The difference?

Oil.

Without oil…

…a farmer cannot produce enough food to support all the factory workers, teachers, engineers, scientists, judges, policemen, garbage collectors, sewage workers, physicians, hospital administrators, day care workers, film makers, programmers, librarians, writers (especially writers), construction workers, soldiers, pilots, truck drivers, sailors, plumbers, newscasters, and anyone else that I missed.

Without oil, all those people (at least 90%) need to become farmers.

That’s right. Without oil, we go back to what life was like back in the 1790s when 90% of the population were farmers. Although, a nation of clever farmers might be able to produce enough food so that only a little over 50% of the nation were farmers – like it was in the 1870s.

The Farm Tractor

By then, the first farm tractor had already been produced. And, in 1901, we had the first commercially successful light-weight petrol-powered general purpose tractor. And, once THAT happened, it was all over. Oil was here to stay.

Oil-powered tractors gave farmers a decisive advantage over farmers without them.

From that point on, a nation without oil could not compete with a nation that had it…

…because everyone needs to eat. Everyone.

So, you got it. Oil is important… no… VITAL if a country wants to prosper.

Here Comes The Petrodollar

Fast forward from 1901 to the 1970s and the petrodollar system.

This petrodollar system meant that, if you wanted to buy oil to fuel farm tractors (and anything else) , you had to have US dollars to buy your oil.

Why?

Because Henry Kissinger convinced the Saudis in 1973 (and then OPEC in 1975) to ONLY accept US dollars for their oil. No other currency would be allowed. If you didn’t have dollars, you didn’t get oil. And, if you wanted dollars, there was only one place that you could go to get them:

The United States of America

How You Get US Dollars To Buy Oil

Okay, so all you have to do, to get US dollars is to go and ask for them.

Right?

Um… no. If you want US dollars from America, you’ve got to offer Americans something that they want, at a price that they like. If Americans don’t like what you have, you don’t get US dollars.

Well, how about the foreign exchange markets?

That’s just the same thing, except this time you have to go to ANOTHER country that has been selling stuff to America and get THEM to cough up their dollars. And, they won’t do that, unless you offer to give them something that they want more than oil – since they are using those dollars to buy oil.

You Need To Please America To Get US Dollars

All of this means that you have to be really clever and work really hard if you want…

• …your farmers to produce more food (farm tractors need fuel).

• …more workers for your factories so that they can make things that Americans want.

• …better education so that your workers can make better stuff that Americans want.

• …good healthcare so that your workers can keep making stuff that Americans want.

You get the picture. From the moment of the birth of the petrodollar, if you didn’t please America, you didn’t get oil, and that meant you stayed an under-developed country.

Why do I say that you stayed under-developed?

Otherwise You Stay Under-Developed

Without oil to power tractors, your farms produce only enough food to feed the farmer and just two or three other people. And, THAT means you have a highly agrarian society without sophisticated healthcare, education or manufacturing.

Really, it’s as simple as that.

Track the progress of technological development and you will find that it closely follows the agricultural yield curve. Or, maybe I should put it another way:

Everyone needs to eat, especially scientists, engineers and doctors.

Let’s Make This Personal

Now, my lovely wife ambushed me today with a rather thorny question:

No one is going to understand all that, if they aren’t a currency trader.

Why did I have to marry such a smart woman?

So, let’s try to work our way through an example of how this works. And, since I live in Taiwan, and since Taiwan has essentially no crude oil reserves, let’s use Taiwan.

The Taiwan Example

Taiwan buys a little over 400 million barrels of oil a year. The price of oil is about $106 a barrel, which means that Taiwan needs $42.4 billion. Taiwan has a population of about 23.34 million. This means that each and every man, woman and child needs to come up with $1,816.62 – each.

That’s a lot of money for the average citizen of Taiwan, but you hafta do what ya hafta do. So, that would be about NT$54,500… but, wait… Americans don’t want New Taiwan dollars.

What? Really?

Yes. Really. Americans can’t buy anything with New Taiwan dollars. They can’t buy eggs, milk or steak with the currency of Taiwan. (Remember that the Arabs won’t give you oil if you don’t give them US dollars.)

So, what are the Taiwanese going to do?

Hey. Maybe the Japanese would give Taiwan some US dollars. A lot of Japanese come here for visits and…

What? Why are youe giving me that look again?

Let me repeat this again. The Arabs ONLY take US dollars, and the Japanese have the same problem that the Taiwanese do. They need to get their US dollars from the only people who print them: The US.

Oh.

So, how do you get dollars from the US?

You sell them stuff. And, right now, America likes the electrical machinery made by Taiwan.

Doesn’t America make electrical machinery?

Taiwan MUST Sell Stuff To America

Of course. But, remember that Taiwan needs dollars to buy oil, so the Taiwanese work really, REALLY hard to make the best and cheapest machinery that they can so that they can sell it to the US and get dollars. To get an idea of what that means, per capita GDP for Taiwan is US$20,900, while for America its US$53,100. The average American, even now, makes more than two and a half times more money than the average Taiwanese.

Or, maybe I should put it this way…

…The average Taiwanese is two and a half times POORER than the average American – partly because Taiwan must get as many US dollars as she can, so that she can buy oil. And yes, I can personally tell you that the Taiwanese are much, much poorer than the average American, and work absolutely insane hours for what little money they get.

Are you starting to see how America has enslaved the world?

America Has Enslaved The World

It has, more powerfully than any other empire has ever enslaved the world. The Petrodollar shackles that America put on the world are truly amazing. But, there’s something else that happened as a result of this fantastic Petrodollar System.

The Petrodollar Is Why US Manufacturing Died

As you think about the need for the world to manufacture stuff to get US dollars to buy oil…

Could this explain why all the manufacturing jobs in America left the United States?

The only way that ANY country in the world was going to get ANY US dollars to buy ANY oil… was to take manufacturing jobs away from Americans. So, if you want to blame someone for the hollowing out of the US manufacturing sector, the one to blame is Henry Kissinger.

But wait, there’s more.

Henry was very, very clever in how this diabolical agreement was set up. So, you do NOT want to miss the next installment in this series. And yes, all of this will be leading up to those Orders from Riyadh that will lead us straight to nuclear war.

Credit to The Omega Shock

BLOOD ON THE ALTAR Part Number 11

PART 11 - AS WAS PROPHESIED: DAYS OF LOT BECOME LINE IN THE SAND

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This past Thursday, the top legislative body of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted by large margins to recognize same-sex marriage "as Christian" in the church constitution, adding language that marriage can be the union of "two people," not just "a man and a woman."

This is the latest in a landslide of "Christian" organizations positioning themselves against traditional, bible-based morality.

How did we get to this point and what role will it play in the Antichrist's Christian vs. Christian war?

In 1987, two homosexual political strategists, Marshall K. Kirk and Erastes Pill, published an article titled “The Overhauling of Straight America.” An important part of their strategy was to avoid trying to persuade fundamental churches in the hopes that they would moderate their opposition to homosexuality, but rather to try to reach churches that would perhaps waffle on their views. “We can use talk to muddy the moral waters. This means publicizing support for gays by more moderate churches, raising theological objections of our own about conservative interpretations of biblical teachings, and exposing hatred and inconsistency.”^[i]

Since the publication of “The Overhauling of Straight America,” this strategy has worked extremely well:

The California Council of Churches, representing twenty-one member denominations, elected as its president the “Reverend” Gwynne Guibord, an open lesbian.

In Dallas, Texas, a $35-million “church” facility, called the Cathedral of Hope, was dedicated as the world’s “gay and lesbian mecca”: a symbol of “gay Christianity” equivalent in the eyes of its creators to Vatican City for Catholics and Salt Lake City for Mormons.

The Reverend Troy Perry, founder of the three-hundred-“church”-strong homosexual denomination called the Metropolitan Community Church, was appointed to the board of trustees of Chicago Theological Seminary and invited to lead chapel service at Yale Divinity School.

Soulforce, the “gay Christian” pressure group, now with chapters in many states, gained national publicity for its campaign against “spiritual violence” (i.e., failure to affirm homosexuality as normal) by physically invading the Southern Baptist Convention on June 11, 2002. Anti-Baptist “civil disobedience” tactics have continued, including a March 26, 2007, incident in which a dozen homosexual activists were arrested for staging a sit-in at the office of Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

In 2008, the bishops of the Episcopal Church in California actively campaigned against Proposition 8, which defined marriage as only between one man and one woman in the California Constitution.^[ii]

Because of the lack of training and commitment to the authority of the Bible, many churches and congregations easily transition from nominally Bible believing to strong supporters of the gay lifestyle. “Almost inevitably the congregation yields to pressure and changes its status to an ‘affirming’ one in which homosexuality is deemed morally neutral or a positive good.”^[iii]

In a report titled “Case against Anti-Gay Minister Scott Lively Still Being Pursued,” we read:

On Feb. 24, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed that country’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill into law. The law, according to executive Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights [CCR], Vincent Warren, instantly outlaws the ability of LGBT people to advocate for their rights. [Vincent] Warren says…that “such a fundamental denial of rights to an entire class of people is illegal under international law as well as the Ugandan constitution.” For that reason the CCR is continuing to pursue the anti-gay minister Scott Lively for the role he played in getting the legislation passed.^[iv]

Compounding the tension is the fact that some pastors who have taken a stand for the support of traditional marriage have backtracked and “repented.” This makes those pastors and churches that don’t “repent” of their position and maintain a biblical stance look very intolerant and vicious. Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church fame publicly stated that he regrets supporting Proposition 8, California’s anti-gay “marriage” proposition.

Conservative Evangelical pastor Rick Warren expressed regret for instructing his congregation to support Proposition 8, California’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.… Warren attempted to downplay his endorsement of the provision, claiming that he intended to communicate his private support to church members and was not trying to take a “public” position on the issue.^[v]

Warren was interviewed by HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamon Hill. Evidently, Warren teaches two messages, one for the church and another for the world. The following is part of the transcript:

WARREN: I never made a single statement on Prop 8 until the week before. In my own church, some members say, “Where do we stand on this?” I released a video to my own congregation…

HILL: When you have a church of 20,000 people and you have a book that 32 million people have read and that 60 million people have accessed, to say, “I was just giving a message…”

WARREN: You’re exactly right, Marc, and I learned a lesson from that. What I learned from that is that anything I say privately is now public. And I actually learned from that mistake.… Everyone took that to mean I was pontificating to the whole world.

HILL: If you could do it again, would you not have made that statement a week before Prop 8?

WARREN: I would not have. I would not have made that statement. Because I wanted to talk to my own people. As a duty, as a shepherd, I’m responsible for those who put themselves under my care. I’m not responsible for everybody else.^[vi]

As the interview continued Warren reiterated his position that he was against same-sex couples, and stated that while “it’s not a sin to love somebody, it might be a sin to have sex with them.”^[vii]

Warren wanted to take some of the pressure off, but his liberal critics weren’t merciful and present him as confused and vacillating. “Warren seemed to back away from his endorsement in 2009, telling Larry King that he never once even gave an endorsement of the proposition. Now that the majority of Americans consistently support marriage equality, he regrets that people actually paid attention to his anti-gay views.”^[viii]

HuffPost Live host Josh Hepps quoted from Joel Osteen’s new book: “It doesn’t matter who likes you or who doesn’t like you, all that matters is God likes you. He accepts you, he approves of you.” Zepps followed up by asking if that included homosexuals. “Absolutely,” Osteen insisted. “I believe that God has breathed his life into every single person. We’re all on a journey. Nobody’s perfect.”^[ix]

Osteen pastors a congregation of forty-five thousand and stated that all people must be acknowledged for who they are. He expressed reluctance to “categorize” sin. “I believe every person is made in the image of God, and you have to accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to be preaching hate, pushing people down. I’m not here telling people what they’re doing wrong,” said Osteen.^[x]

We shouldn’t be preaching hate, but we should be preaching truth. There’s hate on the other side, too. In an essay titled “Is Hating Haters Hurtful?” Scott Lively affirms that he doesn’t hate homosexuals, though they don’t seem to be believe him. So, he tried “walking my talk” by taking an ex-“gay” man who was dying of AIDS into his family. Lively and his wife and children loved and cared for the man during his last year of life. However, Lively says “They [the homosexual community] hated me even more.”

Then I began asking for guidance from homosexuals themselves: “Tell me, where is the line between homophobia and acceptable opposition to homosexuality?” I asked. “What if I just agree with the Bible that homosexuality is a sin no worse than any other sex outside of marriage?” “No, that’s homophobic,” they replied. “Suppose I talk only about the proven medical hazards of gay sex and try to discourage people from hurting themselves?” “No, you can’t do that,” they said. “How about if I say that homosexuals have the option to change if they choose?” “Ridiculous” they answered. “Maybe I could just be completely positive, say nothing about homosexuality, and focus only on promoting the natural family and traditional marriage?” “That’s really hateful,” they replied.^[xi]

So, as we have seen, there is a section—a rather large one, at that—of the professing church that views God’s covenant with Israel as conditional, and in the past, and now we are seeing how the professing church is becoming increasingly oriented towards accepting the gay lifestyle. But others are feeling pressure as well, such as military chaplains who are coming under increasing pressure now that the military’s “Don’t-Ask-Don’t-Tell” policy has been repealed. Does the normalization of homosexuality require that all military chaplains join the radical moral evolution, even if doing so compromises their basic Christian convictions?

R. Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Southern Seminary, reports that the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the endorsing agency for Southern Baptist chaplains, has formulated policy guidelines on these issues. SBC chaplains—the largest single group of non-Catholic chaplains—have been advised that they cannot minister in any context that “would give the appearance of accepting the homosexual lifestyle or sexual wrong doing.”^[xii]

On Monday, September 16, 2013, Tom Carpenter, identified as the co chair of the Forum on the Military Chaplaincy and an elder in the theologically moderate (some would say “liberal”) Presbyterian church (PCUSA), vociferously argued that Southern Baptist chaplains must resign immediately from military service.

The North American Mission Board [NAMB] has turned the Army motto on its head. They have forced their endorsed chaplains into the untenable position of either serving God or country. Given that choice, as men…of God the only honorable course of action for most will be to resign their commissions and return to civilian ministry.… If these Southern Baptist chaplain s were civilian pastors, there would be no problem. As civilians, they undisputedly have an absolute First Amendment right to believe, preach and counsel in accordance with their denominational tenets. But they are not civilians, and have a duty to not only God, but also country. It is instructive that they are not salaried by the NAMB but by the American taxpayer.^[xiii]

It is widely conceded that Western culture has entered a post-Christian era. As a result, the Christian church is deeply polarized. Although some mainline churches include evangelicals and charismatics, the mainline Protestant churches are a group of churches that contrast in belief, history, and practice with evangelical, fundamentalist, and charismatic Protestant denominations. The dividing line is the authority of Scripture. On the right, one finds conservatives who uphold the doctrine of biblical inerrancy and embrace God’s moral truths as timeless. On the left, one encounters folks who believe the Scriptures are an imperfect human work bound to anachronistic culture and that one must revise one’s interpretation in light of today’s sensibilities.

The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) counts 26,344,933 members of mainline churches versus 39,930,869 members of evangelical Protestant churches in the United States.^[xiv] Instead of being Christ’s missionaries to the lost world, mainline liberals are now ostensibly the world’s missionaries to the church. They devote their energy to social issues like trying to legitimize same-sex marriage; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) equality; feminism; and being inclusive of non-Christian religions. Mainline churches include the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA), the United Methodist Church (UMC), the American Baptist Churches, the United Church of Christ (Congregationalist), the Disciples of Christ, and the Reformed Church in America, amongst others. Many of the above reject core doctrines of classical Christianity like substitutionary atonement, leading H. Richard Niebuhr to famously surmise their creed: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”^[xv] Evangelicals stand in sharp relief.

Evangelicalism is defined as “the movement in modern Christianity, transcending denominational and confessional boundaries, that emphasizes conformity to the basic tenets of the faith and a missionary outreach of compassion and urgency.”^[xvi] The name derives from the Greek word for “gospel,” euangelion, and verbeuangelizomai, “to proclaim the good news.” Examples of evangelical denominations are: Assemblies of God, Southern Baptists, Independent Baptists, Bible Church, Black Protestants, African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion; Church of Christ, Churches of God in Christ, Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, National Baptist Church, National Progressive Baptist Church, nondenominational, Pentecostal denominations, and the Presbyterian Church in America. Some of these are called fundamentalists.

Often maligned, those who will be separated for extreme persecution in the coming war on true Christianity will be known as “extreme fundamentalists.” Part of how they will be ostracized is playing out now, fueled by the same spirits that wanted to rape angels in the days of Lot. Even the new Pope, Francis I is sympathetic to their cause, declaring: "Who am I to judge?"

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