Charles Barkley Confused on Theology

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 16 /Christian Newswire/ -- "Charles Barkley revealed an unfortunate lack of understanding of the Bible and Christian morality by attacking pro-life and pro-family conservatives as 'fake Christians,'" said Dr. Gary Cass, Chairman and CEO of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. "Barkley rips one phrase of the Bible from its context, and then asserts that anyone who is opposed to abortion or gay marriage is a 'fake Christian.'"

Dr. Cass continues, "We respect Barkley as an expert on basketball, but he is obviously not an expert on Christian moral theology. The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission calls on Barkley to apologize for his hateful remarks. We are hopeful that he will do the right thing."

Former NBA great Charles Barkley made his remarks in an interview on CNN with Wolf Blitzer. The remarks have been posted on the Drudge Report. When Blitzer asked Barkley to clarify his remarks, Barkley made it clear that he did not misspeak. According to Barkley anyone who judges another person's actions is wrong.

"For Barkley to think that Christians cannot have an opinion about matters of public policy and personal morality is astonishing," said Cass. "Jesus forbids judging by hypocritical double standards, but he requires Christians to make just and sound judgments everyday according to biblical precepts."

"Ironically, Barkley engaged in the very activity of judging others that he condemned in conservatives. Barkley's words reveal an unfortunate, irrational anti-Christian bigotry."

The Christian Anti-Defamation Commission is a non-profit organization devoted to protecting the rights of Christians to confidently live their faith. Dr. Gary Cass has degrees from Westminster Theological Seminary. He previously served as Executive Director of the Center for Reclaiming America for Christ, an outreach of Coral Ridge Ministries founded by the late Dr. D. James Kennedy.

No Honor in Berkeley

I’m still pretty ticked about that Berkeley City Council and Marine Recruiting Station story. Yeah, the Council backed off a little, but did they? Really? You can judge, but one thing for certain Max Anderson hasn’t publicly repudiated or amended his previous comments calling Marines the “President’s own gangsters” and “trained only to kill.” Anderson claims to have once been a Marine but was booted from the Corps and holds nothing but contempt for them since.

This video from The People’s Cube is my answer to the Berkeley City Council and especially Mr. Anderson, who apparently never learned the meaning of Semper Fidelis.

Lesson 6 - History: Whose Story?

The Truth Project continues this week at South Canyon Baptist Church in Rapid City this Sunday from 8:57 am to 10:15 am. Come and join us for Lesson 6 on history.

One aspect of the lesson will deal with revisionism, which is something I dealt with yesterday, from people who say the Founders of the United States were not Christians, and that they wanted no religious influence to be found in our government. That is revisionism, which is another way of saying "lie."

The Truth Project could change the way you look at the world, and maybe even be life changing.



Does the past have an objective actuality and significance? Or does it, as postmodernist philosophy asserts, exist primarily inside our heads? This tour considers the meaning of history as God's story and shows us why remembering is so important.

Visit www.thetruthproject.org for more information.

Hillary Clinton's so-called solutions...

by Carrie K. Hutchens

Just like the undefined "35 years of experience", Hillary is spouting about having solutions. Anyone can claim to have solutions, just like they can claim to have experience. But does the person have either? It's rather difficult to tell when that person -- Hillary Clinton -- doesn't give details that can be checked out and verified. But then, one of her known solutions is mandatory health care. Mandatory? That ought to turn the most loyal working class supporter off in a heart beat.

How is mandatory health care supposed to help people? That's making people do what they would have been doing in the first place if they could have afforded it -- buying health insurance. But I guess Hillary thinks people aren't smart enough to take care of themselves without her telling them how they will spend their hard earned money and on what. Of course, Bill warned us about her making decisions for everybody else, didn't he? He said she was real good at it. Light bulb should go on. We should immediately ask ourselves if we are children or adults? Do we need a president or an over-bearing parent with a seeming fetish for control?

Voting is something none of us should take lightly. It's vitally important that we spend it wisely, especially in this day and age with all the dangers and problems we are facing. There are no returns and exchanges. Once spent -- that's it!

The Clintons are reported to be outstanding politicians. And we really want people playing us to get their way? We really want the games to go on, rather than to have true and accurate information presented to us for our fair consideration?

Please exclude me from the above "we"!

Bill Clinton stood in front of the nation via television and declared that he did not have sex with that woman. Likewise, Bill and Hillary stood in front of the nation, said and implied that Obama said what he did not say. This was from their own lips to our ears -- not some reporter getting it wrong. This leaves me with a question to ask.

How can we trust someone who would so boldly get in front of us and outright lie like that? How can we trust someone, who seems to think we should believe whatever she (or he) says in spite of what we know to be truth?

Obama didn't say what the Clintons claimed that day.

I know. I heard both what Obama said and what the Clintons said he said. I'm still offended that the Clintons thought me so stupid as to fall for that old trick.

So now, we not only have Hillary claiming the 35 years of experience that she never truly defines and clarifies -- we have her claiming she has solutions?

Are these solutions like the mandatory health care? The health care she wants to make us pay for whether we can afford it or not -- because Hillary knows best?

Are these like telling us that Obama said what he never said?

Maybe they are the solutions that kind of change depending on the particular audience at any given moment?

One does have a right to wonder.

The Clintons supposedly excel as chameleons -- I mean politicians. They supposedly have politics down to a science. So when they claim an obvious lie as the truth -- I think we have a right to wonder about the validity of the solutions Hillary is suddenly claiming to have in mind. Are they also an illusion and distortion to dangle before the American people she seems to think she has a right to herd, rather than hear?

One can only wonder and I do!

Republican challenges and the politics of unity

BY STAR PARKER
FOUNDER & PRESIDENT
COALITION ON URBAN RENEWAL & EDUCATION

Unity is one of the big themes of the current election.

People get unified in two different ways. Unity comes either from a common threat from the outside, or from leadership emerging from the inside.

Who can forget the shock and the surge of patriotism that followed the 9/11 attacks? The political and social divisions that define calmer times disappeared and we all became Americans.

We were united behind our president, whose approval ratings went beyond 90 percent.

Over the few short years since that shock, circumstances have changed. President Bush, once wildly popular, is now wildly unpopular.

Last month, polling showed that concerns about the economy moved past concerns about terrorism as the nation's top issue.

If we look at the two parties, the Democrats appear far more unified than Republicans.

But this Democratic unity is driven primarily by the outside-in variety. Democrats are deeply unhappy with the status quo in the country, Republicans far less so.

Only about 25 percent of Americans express satisfaction today with the direction of the country.

But the gap between Republicans and Democrats is huge. Only about 15 percent of Democrats are satisfied with how things are going, but almost 50 percent of Republicans are satisfied.

Democratic Party unity is being driven from the outside, a common dissatisfaction with the status quo, with the party uniformly defined by liberalism.

The Democratic nomination contest is about personalities, not issues. Regardless of which candidate gets nominated, Sen. Barack Obama or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, 85 percent of Democrats say they will be satisfied.

It's probably the reason why Obama will be the Democratic nominee. Despite Clinton's efforts to distinguish herself from him on issues, the truth is that there is very little difference. It's a contest that will be won on personality, and he is beating her hands down in this department.

Republicans, on the other hand, are driven by an entirely different reality. Republicans are far less put off by the status quo in the country and party unity must come from the inside out. Whereas outside-in unity is driven by a commonly perceived external threat, inside-out unity must be driven by internal leadership.

As a result, the GOP contest has been far more one of issues than of personalities.

The problem is, no one Republican candidate has been able to appeal with equal strength to the major party concerns of national security, traditional values and free-market economics.

Given that 86 percent of Republicans say that "defending the U.S. against terrorism" is their No. 1 concern, perhaps it is not surprising that Sen. John McCain has emerged as the front-runner.

But, although national security is the top concern of Republicans and remains at the top of concerns for all Americans, social and economic concerns are also strong.

The unavoidable conclusion is that, if one assumes that McCain prevails as the party nominee, his choice for vice president will be crucial both for unifying the party and for the general election. He's got to pick a running mate who will bring strong credentials that satisfy the social and economic concerns of Republican conservatism.

What will this mean for the general election?

There's a sense that this is going to be a year when a Democrat will be returned to the White House.

An election year in which general public dissatisfaction is high does not bode well for the party in power. Plus, Democratic fund-raising and voter turnout is far outstripping Republican efforts.

The decisive battleground for the general election will be the third of the electorate in the middle -- independent voters and those without strong party affiliations.

These voters have migrated to the Democratic side over the past couple years. But polling indicates that this migration has been more defined by disillusionment with Republicans than with a surge of new enthusiasm for the Democratic Party and liberals.

This is supported by the fact that despite the Democratic blowout in the 2006 congressional elections, the approval ratings for the Democratic Congress are abysmal.

It is most reasonable to conclude that the Republican tent that housed party loyalists and independents for so many years is still the tent where most Americans want to be. They just need to feel comfortable that it's a tent that will be standing dependably once they are inside.

A Republican ticket that is balanced and strongly representative of concerns for national security, traditional values and a free economy can still be the winning formula.

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Star Parker is president of the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education and author of the new book White Ghetto: How Middle Class America Reflects Inner City Decay.

Prior to her involvement in social activism, Star Parker was a single welfare mother in Los Angeles, California. After receiving Christ, Star returned to college, received a BS degree in marketing and launched an urban Christian magazine. The 1992 Los Angeles riots destroyed her business, yet served as a springboard for her focus on faith and market-based alternatives to empower the lives of the poor.