The Day Everything Changed

 

As I write this it is the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in New York, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon in Northern Virginia. It is one of those times when you remember exactly what you were doing and where you were when it happened. In my case, I had been hired by what we affectionally called "No Such Agency" (NSA) in April of that year. I had retired from the Air Force the previous September after 20 years and 20 days of service. And, ironically, I had been attending a counter terrorism measures presentation in the main auditorium of the Maryland complex that morning. The presentation dealt with measures that the agency was going to implement to ensure that terrorism targeting, if there were to be any, would not be successful against our property or personnel. I remember coming back to my office and seeing people running about in obvious bewilderment. As we now know, the attacks had taken place early that morning and we were all trying to make sense of what had happened.

"Blessed is the Nation Whose God is the Lord"

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Most of us will recognize these lines as coming from the preamble to the Declaration of Independence. The Founding Fathers were well aware of the fact that their revolution, if it was to succeed at all, had to be founded on the ideas of Christianity and Christianity’s God. Although some among them were deists and others were non-believers, the fact is that these were the exception. The great majority of them understood that nothing and no one can overcome whatever obstacles are to be overcome without Divine help.

Socialist Ignorance!

In his book “Animal Farm,” George Orwell tells a fictional story about farm animals who rebel against their farmer. The animals decide that they are being mistreated by the farmer and that their only recourse, if they expect to live good lives, is to throw the farmer out of the farm and run it themselves. Eventually, the pigs rise to the top and make a compact with other humans who provide them with many amenities in exchange for trading with them. Thus, the pigs become a sort of oligarchy within the system that they initially instituted, the original design of which was to make all animals equal and abolish the hierarchy they had previously labored under.

Our Privacy Obsession

One of the issues that are most prevalent in our 21st century society is the obsession that people have with privacy. Take for example the issue of abortion, to name one glaring matter. A primary argument for what some say should be the legality of abortion is that denying a woman the "right" to an abortion is violating her privacy. In many, if not most, cases even the father of the creature being aborted is not afforded the opportunity to have a say in his child's fate.

“God Must Ask Permission”

Years ago, famed “faith healer” and charismatic preacher Miles Monroe, had a conversation with another so-called “faith healer,” Benny Hinn, where he told Hinn that God must ask permission to do anything on earth. According to Monroe, this permission had to be asked of men because, paraphrasing him “God is in charge in heaven but He has given men the rule and power over the earth.” This conversation reminds us that the health and wealth and supposed miraculous healing movement has some extremely strange ideas. Who could possibly believe that God must ask His creation for permission to do anything. In fact, folks who hold such a position should be reminded of Psalm 115 where the psalmist says that “God is in the heavens. He does whatever He wills.”