Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future

Why Does Never Again Keep Happening Again April 30, 2015

Genocide is the systematic and deliberate attempt to extinguish a race, ethnic group, social group or religion.

After the most well documented and systematic act of genocide in recorded History, the so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Problem perpetrated by the death cult known as the Third Reich, the surviving Jewish people adopted the motto, “Never Again.”  They had been the target of countless pogroms throughout History and this was their vow, this is their pledge to themselves, “Never Again!”

This seems to have been ratified by the victors of World War Two at the Nuremberg Trials where they convicted anyone they could find who was even remotely responsible and convicted them of crimes against humanity.  It has been ratified over and over again since by war crime trials before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

Never Again!  As a world we have all affirmed it.  Genocide is a crime against humanity and it cannot, it will not be tolerated and yet NEVER AGAIN keeps happening again.

Recently we celebrated the 70^th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps by allied forces in WWII.  Standing shoulder-to-shoulder wherever they happened to be world leaders once again joined together to pledge, “Never Again!!”

Yet here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave at a recent commemoration of an earlier act of genocide by the Ottoman Turks against the Armenians during World War One our Mr. O wouldn’t use the word genocide for fear of angering the Turks.  This is like not saying Holocaust for fear of offending those hyper-sensitive Schicklgrubers.

Even the left leaning CNN reporter Jake Tapper noted, “For the sixth year in a row, President Barack Obama has broken his promise to the Armenian community, made when seeking their votes as a senator and a presidential candidate, to use the word “genocide” to describe the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire a century ago.”

In an even stronger condemnation Armenian National Committee of America executive director Aram Hamparian said, “It’s a sad spectacle to see our President, who came into office having promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide, reduced to enforcing a foreign government’s gag-rule on what our country can say about a genocide so very thoroughly documented in our own nation’s archives.”  Mr. Hamparian continued, “We remain profoundly disappointed that he has, once again, retreated from his own promises and fallen short of the principled stand taken by previous presidents.”

Perhaps it is this politically correct mindset on the part of our leaders that allows these great crimes to continue.  It often seems that no one has the courage to say anything until after the fact.  Even when our 24 hour news cycle provides facts, pictures, and even pleas from the victims in the midst of a long and gruesome train of genocidal atrocities.

According to History.com the Rwandan Genocide:

From April to July 1994, members of the Hutu ethnic majority in the east-central African nation of Rwanda murdered as many as 800,000 people, mostly of the Tutsi minority. Begun by extreme Hutu nationalists in the capital of Kigali, the genocide spread throughout the country with staggering speed and brutality, as ordinary citizens were incited by local officials and the Hutu Power government to take up arms against their neighbors. By the time the Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front gained control of the country through a military offensive in early July, hundreds of thousands of Rwandans were dead and many more displaced from their homes. The RPF victory created 2 million more refugees (mainly Hutus) from Rwanda, exacerbating what had already become a full-blown humanitarian crisis.

The left leaning and usually dependable disseminator and supporter of government policies, PBS, had this to say about America’s response to the Rwandan Genocide, “From the very start, the United States resisted intervention in Rwanda because of national interests, higher priorities, and domestic and bureaucratic politics. Moreover, during the three months of killing, the U.S. blocked several opportunities, short of intervention, that could have diminished the slaughter.”

According to Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, “There was only one major editorial in The New York Times, one major editorial in the Washington Post for the entire duration of this genocide. These editorials were editorials that lamented the carnage, that used the word ‘genocide’ even to describe the carnage, but that never dared to suggest that the United States be involved in stopping it.”  We stood by and did nothing when never again happened again.

Today there is a massive multi-country genocide against Christians in the Mideast being perpetrated by fanatic followers of the religion of peace and once again America says nothing.

Dr. Sebastian Gorka, the National Security Editor for Breitbart, said recently, “the West has done much to stand up for Muslims in the past two decades. Whether it was to save the Muslims in Bosnia or the Albanians, Kosovars, and Muslims in Serbia, it is now time for a humanitarian operation to save the remaining Christians in Iraq. It is time for the American people and our representatives to do something for our co-religionists remaining in the Middle East.”

According to Fox News, “Mosul is Iraq’s second largest city and was once the home of Iraq’s most vulnerable and persistent Christian community, tracing their lineage nearly to the time of Christ. Now there are no Christians left.  All of this happened under the watchful eye of West, and while you’d hope that the humanitarian threat alone would have motivated the West to act, you would be certain that Mosul’s strategic importance would do so. Neither proved true.”

Fox News also comments, “The examples of Western inaction are unending. At present, as many as 300 Assyrian Christians remain in captivity having been kidnapped two weeks ago as ISIS assaulted ten Assyrian, Christian villages along the Khabour River in Syria.  That assault was conducted by a group of ISIS fighters travelling in a convoy of more than 40 clearly marked ISIS vehicles directly toward these vulnerable, Christian villages.  How is it possible that Western satellites didn’t spot a forty-car ISIS convoy in route to unarmed Christian villages in Syria, and if it was spotted how is that it wasn’t destroyed?”

The recently displaced archbishop of Mosul, Iraq said, “People in the West say ‘they don’t know.’ How can you not know? You either support ISIS or you must have turned off all the satellites. I am sorry to say this, but my pain is big.”

Recently Breitbart’s National Security Editor and one of the world’s leading experts on asymmetric warfare, Dr. Sebastian Gorka, on Breitbart News Saturday, hosted by Editor in Chief Alex Marlow on Sirius XM Patriot Radio also said, “When U.S. troops invaded Iraq in 2003, there were at least 1.5 million Christians in Iraq. Over the last ten years, significantly in the last few months with the emergence of ISIS, that figure has dropped to about 400,000. In a region where Christians predate Muslims by centuries, over one million Christians have been killed or have had to flee because of jihadi persecution, while America is basically standing by and watching.”

According to Catholic Online, “A massive humanitarian crisis is developing as the newly-formed Islamic State which spans Syria and Iraq, consolidates power. True to their militant, fundamentalist Islamic charter, the state has ordered Christians to convert or die and given them a deadline by which to flee. Those choosing to leave are not allowed any possessions.”

For Christians in the region, they face extermination. Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako, head of the Catholic Church in Iraq, has called for “all who have a living conscience in Iraq and all the world to aid the victims of the Islamic State. The next step for Christians in Mosul appears to be genocide.”

Bishop Yousif Habash, a prominent Iraqi human rights activist living in the United States, has called upon the West to step in and prevent the pending genocide. He pointed out that the West stepped in to stop genocides of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, so he believes they can also prevent genocide in Iraq. However, any involvement there will require a substantial military commitment and so far President Obama has appeared entirely unwilling to commit that kind of force.
Robert Fisk of the Independent catalogs some of the other locations and instances of this inhuman attack upon Christians throughout the Muslim world: the enslavement of Christian women in Iraq, Christian children sold as slaves, the burning of Mosul’s ancient churches or the destruction of the great Armenian church of Deir el-Zour that commemorated the genocide of its people in 1915,  the kidnapping of Nigerian schoolgirls, the latest massacre in Kenya where the numbers of Christian dead and the cruelty of their sectarian killers is of epic, Hollywood proportions.

In the face of all this evidence and all this carnage nothing is done.

Yet every time some poor misunderstood Muslim yells Allah Akbar, climbs up on a table and commits an act of workplace violence, or they set off a bomb at a marathon, or they massacre people for publishing cartoons we are immediately and constantly reminded that the most important thing is to make sure we don’t express our Islamophobia by profiling the young Muslim men who commit all these random acts of mayhem.  Heaven forbid we admit that the source of terrorism and this latest round of genocide are identifiable.

While millions die, are displaced, persecuted, raped and tortured, while the latest round of genocide shows that crimes against humanity are occurring right before our eyes America does nothing, as never again happens again.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

If It Isn’t America First What Is It? April 23, 2015

The very words “America First” have gained a social stigma accorded few things in American History; things such as “McCarthyism,” or “America for Americans,” or “Reverse Discrimination.”  These words that have been made politically incorrect by the media wing of the Progressive Republocrat Party.

The original America First Committee was painted with the broad brush of anti-Americanism for opposing America’s entrance into WW II.  The committee was established on September 4, 1940, by Yale Law School student R. Douglas Stuart, Jr . along with several other students, including future President Gerald Ford, future Peace Corps director Sargent Shriver, and future U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart.  Future President John F. Kennedy contributed $100, along with a note saying “What you all are doing is vital.”  It also attracted many national leaders such as General Robert E. Wood, the aviator Charles A. Lindbergh, and Senator Gerald P. Nye. The committee was dissolved on December 10, 1941 after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the war.

This was no insignificant student organization staging rallies on a few campuses.  At its peak, America First claimed 800,000 due-paying members in 450 chapters.  This was a mass movement of Americans who believed that entering WW II would not be in America’s best interests.  Whether subsequent events lead you to believe that this was a correct position, it was a heartfelt belief of many and was certainly not based on anything other than seeking what they thought was best for America: America First.

Today we face another situation that many believe should lead us to the passionate cry for America First!

What is this situation?  Is it the disastrous foreign and domestic policies of the current administration?  While the first of these is forfeiting our position as world hegemon and the latter is eroding our economy and submerging our population in a migration invasion these are not the issues I am addressing today.

The issue that has me ready to climb on the rooftops and unfurl the flag of America First is the false god of free trade which has been the golden calf for the last four administrations.  Ever since George the First declared that we were instituting a New World Order in 1991 America has been aggressively chasing free trade deals with nations from all over the world.

Using fast track authority to negotiate, wherein Congress cedes their authority to amend, international trade deals such as NAFTA, CAFTA, and KORUS FTA, the United States has opened its markets without tariffs or other barriers.

This has led to a massive flight of American industry overseas.  Savvy industrialists could immediately see the value in manufacturing overseas with lower labor costs and less regulation as long as they still had unfettered access to the American market.  Other countries also saw their new competitive advantage.  They could subsidize home industries and then dump their products below cost on the American market until they wiped out their American competitors, captured the niche, and then raise the prices again.  A good example of this is what Japan did to the American TV industry or what India and China have done to textiles.

Is this free trade?  No it is free in only one direction.  These foreign nations still restrict their markets to American goods.  They also subsidize their industries and dump their products below cost as described above.  Some might say this is good.  Let foreign tax payers subsidize our purchases.  Look at the great deals we are getting.  Now everyone can have a flat screen, a smartphone, and a laptop.

However, it doesn’t seem like such a good deal if you drive through backroads America and you see the shuttered factories: the abandoned remnants of what was once the greatest manufacturing nation in the History of the world.   It doesn’t seem like such a good deal when you look at all the millions of American workers who have lost manufacturing jobs that paid a living wage and have had to accept a lower paying job in the service industry or have adjusted to living on the dole.

We have allowed politicians who masquerade as statesman to follow their belief that free trade will bring about world peace.  This belief can be traced back more than two hundred years and began to make a mark in the world with the repeal of the Corn Laws in Great Britain in 1846.  This led eventually to the British Empire embracing free trade.  They did this believing it would give them a competitive advantage, since at the time they were the number one industrial nation on earth.

However, it acted in the reverse and within a half century America and Germany both with heavily protected markets passed up Britain and took the lead in manufacturing.

Today America is following the British Empire.  We have opened our markets and are being supplanted as the industrial leader of the world by China which protects its markets.  The question is, are we going to follow the British Empire into the trash heap of History?  Or are we going to make the hard choices, shoulder the heavy burden, and re-industrialize America so we can once again stand alone as the industrial behemoth that bestrides the world?

If we believe as my favorite president once said, “After all, the chief business of the American people is business” then we should rise up and demand that our leaders quit sacrificing American jobs and American living standards on the altar of their free trade idol.

For if the business of America is business we must stop the fire sale of our manufacturing sector to foreign nations, many of whom are actually hostile to us.  We must remember that the duty of our government is to protect and enhance the lives and fortunes of Americans.  It is not to promote world peace, raise the standard of living for the citizens of other nations, or create a world government.  We are not an international aid agency.  We are not a free trade advocacy lobbyist before the court of world opinion.  We are the United States of America, and all our policies should work for the benefit of Americans first.

It is easy to complain.  It is easy to say what others are doing is wrong.  It is harder to offer concrete suggestions for how things should be done.  Here are my suggestions for a way to re-industrialize America, end the Great Recession, and improve the living standards of Americans.

I call my program Equitable Trade.  I advocate for 100% reciprocity in trade and 100% equity in international commerce.

Under this program America should deal with other nations on a case by case basis predicated on how they deal with us.  We should impose tariff for tariff, fee for fee, and fine for fine.  Domestically I call for an end to all subsidies.  Let the forces of the market prevail.  At the same time any nation that subsidizes their industries should face a tariff on the subsidized good equal to the subsidy.

Diplomatically the complimentary policy should be a return to the traditional American position.  Established by George Washington during his administration and enshrined in his farewell address, “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.”  With Jefferson, “Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations–entangling alliances with none, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.”

So if it isn’t America first what is it?  It is politicians seeking their own fame, their own counsel and their own benefit.  It is those who want to be citizens of the world betraying those of us who are proud to be citizens of the United States of America.  If we don’t stand up for what we believe do we think anyone else will?  If we don’t rise up and demand that the leaders of America consider America first they will continue to consider America last. How do you think that will work out for your children and grandchildren?

Will we be the first generation of Americans to leave our posterity a nation poorer than the one we inherited?  We will be unless we join together and declare it must be America First!

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

Is the Culture War Over ? April 9, 2015

Knowing that there is no fool like an old fool, the seasoned citizen trying to prove he hasn’t lost his grip on America’s rapidly changing culture  says to his grandchild, “I’m not exactly your father’s Oldsmobile.”  His grandchild looks at him like he is a dithering old codger and says, “What’s an Oldsmobile?”

If the latest tech wonders seem more like science fiction to you.  If the Apple watch reminds you of Dick Tracey and 3-D printers of Captain Kirk’s replicator then the coming transformed America may remind you of the Oceania Eurasia and Eastasia of Orwell’s 1984.

Then again there are other things that remind me of 1984 in American society today.  For instance the outpouring of vitriol unleashed against anyone who the Corporations Once Called the Mainstream Media finds to have transgressed the politically correct standards of the Progressive Elites.

The case of Memories Pizza in Walkteron, Indiania is a case in point.  A reporter for a local TV station, Alyssa Marino, was out trolling for evidence to support a story she wanted to write.  Crystal O’Connor, the co-owner of Memories Pizza, after being asked if she would cater a gay wedding told WBND-TV she would serve a gay or non-Christian couple at the restaurant, but would not cater a same-sex couples wedding.

How did this media feeding frenzy come about?  According to Scott Ott of PJ Media:

Memories Pizza didn’t blast out a news release. They didn’t contact the media, nor make a stink on Twitter or Facebook. They didn’t even post a sign in the window rejecting gay-wedding catering jobs. They merely answered questions from a novice reporter who strolled into their restaurant one day – who was sent on a mission by an irresponsible news organization.

Next: ABC-57 anchor Brian Dorman leads the evening newscast dramatically with this:

Only on ABC-57 News tonight. We went into small towns looking for reaction to the Religious Freedom Act. We found one business, just 20 miles away from a welcoming South Bend…with a very different view….

Not only did ABC-57 News create that story ex nihilo (out of nothing), but the next day, the station’s Rosie Woods reported on the social-media backlash against the Christian pizza shop owners.

“Our Facebook page has been blowing up with comments after we aired that story last night,” said Woods.

You see, not only did ABC-57 manufacture the story with an ambush interview, it then doubled-down by making the reaction to the story into another story to give the sense of momentum, as if it were growing at its own impetus. Yet, everything about it is a fabrication.

Memories Pizza didn’t “publicly vow to reject gay weddings” as HuffPo says it. The O’Connors were just, quite literally, minding their own business.

Back in the ABC-57 studio, Rosie Woods read three negative social media comments attacking the pizza shop owners, and then said, “And that’s just one side of this debate that’s heating up as more people and business owners speak up about the law.”

She then quotes one (1) person, the owner of another business, who agreed with the O’Connors. Seems that “just one side of this debate” deserves more attention than the other.

Meanwhile, over at Yelp.com, more than a thousand “reviews” of Memories Pizza rapidly accumulated, quickly overwhelming the positive comments from actual customers who like the pizza, the hospitality and the small-town charm. Folks who never heard of Walkerton attacked Crystal O’Connor’s business, her morality, and her Lord. Many of the remarks included racially charged descriptions of genitalia and sex acts. “Reviewers” also posted pictures of naked men, of Adolf Hitler shouting “Ich habe ein pizza” (I have a pizza), and of Jesus gesturing with his middle finger. Over on Facebook, the restaurant’s 5-star average rating rapidly plunged to one star, as non-customers slammed away at Crystal’s little business.

In Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, a manifesto of political power, Rule No. 12 says, in part: Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)

The Left doesn’t care who gets hurt, so long as they get what they want. They’re willing — no, they’re eager — to sacrifice a small-town business, and its owners.

Lest you think I’m being too dramatic. Late Wednesday, word comes that Jess Dooley, a female coach at Concord High School 45 minutes away in Elkhart, has been suspended after tweeting:

Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down #memoriespizza w me?

All of this reminds me of the 2 minutes of hate that was a tool of Big Brother.  The Two Minutes of Hate is a ritual observance that is designed to use the collective rage of the people against supposed “enemies of the Party” to strengthen the Party’s position among the people. The ritual serves to unify the people in the observance of the ritual.

The Two Minutes of Hate also serves the purpose of religious observance by deifying Big Brother. It serves to channel the rage that persons may feel toward the lack of control over their own lives away from the Party and against purported enemies of the Party. Because Big Brother is proclaimed to be benevolent and good, any enemy is automatically evil and bad. While it is a “two minutes hate” the desired end result is less hatred of Big Brother.

This is very similar to what some politicians do to strengthen their position when they feel threatened. The politicians will invent an enemy and then channel the public rage against that enemy.

Then there is the double standard that shows this is not really about gay rights or gay weddings it is about attacking the religious liberty of Christians.  For instance Muslim bakeries in Michigan refused to bake cakes for gay weddings. You would think that would be news like Memories Pizza refusing to cater gay weddings. No. Muslims are part of the liberal media protected class. If Muslims want to follow their own religious beliefs and not bake cakes for gay weddings, you don’t hear any big outcry about bigotry of ‘homophobia.’ Instead, these Muslim bakeries in Michigan are given a pass to practice their religion as they see fit, unlike Christians.

Then of course there is the direct opposite of the Memories Pizza case where gay bakers refuse to cater a Christian wedding.

Tim Richards and Cheryl Johnson reported they were recently turned down for a wedding cake by Stewart’s Cakes in Kettering, Ohio.

“When we told the man what we wanted and where we wanted the cake delivered, he turned us down,” said Richards. “We asked if he could deliver a 4-layer chocolate and vanilla wedding cake to the Holy Calvary Church, and he told us it was against his principles to serve us.”

The owner of Stewart’s Cakes, Stephen Hillstrom, who married his partner in Washington D.C. last year, told reporters, “We’re a private business, and we’re allowed to serve or not serve whomever we’d like. It would violate our beliefs to serve people like that.”

Have you heard a media storm about this?  Don’t expect to because it isn’t coming.  This is a one way street and a classic case of Christian bashing by the media.

Thus the culture war of the 80s and 90s has morphed into the triumphant Progressive Elites and their majority hating storm troopers smashing anyone left who dares to stand for values not baptized in the politically correct secular humanism of the of the ascendant minority.  A coalition of Progressives in both parties, the left-wing media, various activist groups that live off the conflict, and the low information voters who empower it all ride rough shod over those who not long ago ruled the roost.

All this signals the last gasp of the once ruling majority as it accepts the control of the Progressive minority without even a whimper.

Let me ask one final question.  If you are treated this way when you are still the majority how will you be treated once you really are a minority?

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens

The Politics of Easter April 2, 2015

I love my country.  I consider myself a patriot.  I believe that the United States has provided more people with more freedom and more opportunity than any other nation that has ever existed.  I think the United States has been blessed by God.

Having said all that I must admit that I am only a citizen of this country in a transitory and momentary way for I am but a pilgrim here, a sojourner whose ultimate home is another city, a kingdom, and that even here my ultimate allegiance is to my King.

Over the years I have had many conversations with people regarding the ongoing Progressive degradation of this great Republic.  Often people will say, “I can’t talk about this anymore it is too depressing.”  And often people ask me, “How can you dwell on this so much and be so happy?”

I’m not really happy.  Happiness is a fleeting feeling that can be erased by not getting your pizza delivered on time.  I have joy and peace and the contentment of security.  I always answer this question with, “I spend a few hours every day immersed in the evidence of the deepening betrayal of America’s experiment in personal freedom, individual liberty, and economic opportunity, and I am never depressed.  Because my hope is in Christ and my home is in heaven.”

This is the politics of Easter:

Paul, after warning us what the so-called leaders of this world are really all about said, “There are many out there taking other paths, choosing other goals, and trying to get you to go along with them. I’ve warned you of them many times; sadly, I’m having to do it again. All they want is easy street. They hate Christ’s Cross. But easy street is a dead-end street. Those who live there make their bellies their gods; belches are their praise; all they can think of is their appetites.”  Paul also tells us, “But there’s far more to life for us. We’re citizens of high heaven! We’re waiting the arrival of the Savior, the Master, Jesus Christ, who will transform our earthy bodies into glorious bodies like his own. He’ll make us beautiful and whole with the same powerful skill by which he is putting everything as it should be, under and around him.”

I am a Christian, unabashedly and unashamed.  Jesus is my king, my Lord and my God.  I look about me and I love my country and I love those about me.  However at the same time I take to heart what Peter said “Friends, this world is not your home, so don’t make yourselves cozy in it. Don’t indulge your ego at the expense of your soul” and I realize that as a Christian, we are visitors in this world of unbelievers.  We may be the same on the outside as everyone else, but on the inside we are different.

1. We don’t think like them.
2. We don’t act like them.
3. We don’t have the same customs as they do.
4. We don’t have the same goals and desires.
5. When they want to go partying and getting drunk and go carousing, we don’t want to join them…
6. They use the Lord’s name in vain, participate in the deeds of darkness and are, essentially, the walking dead.  We are not like them.
7. They glorify themselves.  We glorify God.
8. Some glorify false gods.  We glorify the true God.
9. We are different inside. And it shows. Or at least it should.

If there was a trial today and we were charged with being a Christian would there be enough evidence to convict?  Or are we secret agent Christians?  Instead of hiding in the shadows we should be holding aloft the light of Christ in a darkening world so that as Peter admonished us we, “Live an exemplary life among the natives so that your actions will refute their prejudices. Then they’ll be won over to God’s side and be there to join in the celebration when he arrives.”

This world and its politics is a soap opera. Following the ins and outs of the progression from colonies to empire to utopia keeps us occupied and obsessed.  We need to keep it all in perspective.  Yes, it is good to stand for freedom for God created us to be free so that we could freely choose Him.  Yes, it is good to stand for personal liberty and economic opportunity so that all people will have the opportunity to become all that they can be and so that they are not oppressed by the utopians in their mad drive toward a heaven on earth that will never and can never be reality.  However it is the height of folly to allow the false god of ideology to cloud our vision until we become as doctrinaire as the utopians holding aloft democracy or national prestige as goals in and of themselves.

We must keep a godly perspective striving always to remember we are sinners saved by God’s unearned grace and so avoid becoming the Pharisees who drive people away from God.  There is a band named Casting Crowns.  Their lyrics touch me in the spirit, and I believe they express the situation that we believers find ourselves in when we try to be that light instead of reveal that light:

Jesus, friend of sinners, we have strayed so far away
We cut down people in your name but the sword was never ours to swing
Jesus, friend of sinners, the truth’s become so hard to see
The world is on their way to You but they’re tripping over me
Always looking around but never looking up I’m so double minded
A plank eyed saint with dirty hands and a heart divided

Jesus, friend of sinners, the one who’s writing in the sand
Made the righteous turn away and the stones fall from their hands
Help us to remember we are all the least of these
Let the memory of Your mercy bring Your people to their knees
Nobody knows what we’re for only what we’re against when we judge the wounded
What if we put down our signs crossed over the lines and loved like You did

You love every lost cause; you reach for the outcast
For the leper and the lame; they’re the reason that You came
Lord I was that lost cause and I was the outcast
But you died for sinners just like me, a grateful leper at Your feet.

Jesus said, “I am the world’s Light. No one who follows me stumbles around in the darkness.”  He also told us to take our testimony to the world, to share with them what has happened to us.  It is as if Jesus told us to take this light (Him) to the world and we have spent two thousand years building a lamp and berating everyone who does not call the lamp the light.

Remember, we are citizens of Heaven. We are Pilgrims here, strangers in a strange land.   As Easter approaches remember “Living He loved me, dying He saved me, buried He carried my sins far away, rising He justified freely forever, one day He’s coming oh glorious day, oh glorious day”

I pray with Casting Crowns, “Oh Jesus, friend of sinners open our eyes to the world at the end of our pointing fingers let our hearts be led by mercy help us reach with open hearts and open doors oh Jesus, friend of sinners, break our hearts for what breaks yours.”

This is the politics of Easter: vote for Jesus who has already won the war and join the winning side.

Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2015 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens