The Reason for the Reason December 16, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Christmas, Dr. Robert Owens, Frosty the Snowman, Its’s a Wonderful Life, Jesus is the reason for the season, the Grinch stole Christmas
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Frosty the Snowman asked Rudolph the Reindeer, “Do you think Christmas is too commercialized?” The Elf on the Shelf interjected, “Is the Pope Catholic?” Santa put down his milk and cookies and added, “Ho, Ho, Ho.”
As loyal media mavens of 21st Century America pop culture our perceptions of the Christmas season have been shaped as much by George running down the main street of Bedford Falls and Scrooge buying the biggest goose in town as by anything in the Bible. We spend our time driving the kids around to see the lights, decorating the tree, and shopping with precious little time left to even mention Jesus or the significance of His birth.
Seeking shelter from a crass and crude culture degenerating from indifference to outright hostility to God many of us retreat into a warm and fuzzy Currier and Ives Norman Rockwell bubble of accepted Christmas traditions based more in a Dr. Seuss Disney media than reality. To ward off the black Friday commercialism that consumes us, we duck behind the “Jesus is the reason for the season,” mantra. As if this alone was enough to lead us not into temptation.
As we hide behind our little Jesus catch phrase with the pious feelings, even this fleeting mention of the Name of Jesus inspires, and we should ask ourselves how often this spiritual sleight of hand gives us an opportunity to share the reality of Christmas. Or has it merely become the Christian version of the oft repeated insincerely asked “Hi, how are you?” catch phrase of Xmas? Is it time we admit this verbal deflection is more about making us feel like we’re doing something to combat the conquest of Christmas by the grasping spirit of conspicuous consumption by making a dent in the cacophony of crass commercialism?
The enemy can’t defeat God. He cannot overcome God’s plan and he can’t snatch us out of God’s hand. Just as in the garden when he confused Eve and led her down the primrose path to perdition, the enemy’s power is based on deception. Afflicted with spiritual ADD most of us careen from one shiny object to the next while falling for fads, trooping after trends and hypnotized by the next new thing. The accuser of mankind has never missed a church service, and his favorite disguise after an angel of light is the puffed-up rituals, ceremonies, and displays of the sideshow religion he pedals in place of the simple gospel.
Peddled by hucksters who prey upon the potatoes who grow so comfortably on our couches, the glitzy glamour and heartwarming familiarity of cultural Christmas might have more spirituality than a Grinch stealing presents but not nearly as much as Linus sharing biblical truth.
So, the next time we use our “Jesus is the reason for the season” shield to deflect the hooey and hype seeking to drown the most miraculous birth in History let’s prayerfully project the reason more than the season. Just in case we’ve missed it here’s the reason for the reason:
Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was with child. So it was, that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling clothes, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Now there were in the same country shepherds living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. And behold, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were greatly afraid. Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. And this will be the sign to you: You will find a Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.”
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying:
“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill toward men!”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Trump Remembers the Forgotten December 10, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, jobs report, record unemployment, The forgotten man, Trump Bump, Trump economy, Trump policies
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Not so long ago Washington all but gave up on our country’s blue-collar workers. They washed their hands of those in the supposedly outdated manufacturing and energy sectors. The message the perpetually re-elected and their bureaucratic “experts” tried to sell us through their media megaphone was that with the rise of globalization these industries were hopelessly in decline. According to them for the vast portions of the country they contemptuously call the “Rust Belt,” there was nothing anyone could ever do to change that.
Mocking then-candidate Donald Trump’s pledge to bring these jobs back President Obama asked, “What magic wand do you have?” It turns out no magic wand was necessary. All we needed is a President willing to fight for the forgotten workers across America with policies that put U.S. industry first instead of ones that sold us out to the globalists.
Beginning as soon as he entered the Oval Office President Trump turned the accepted wisdom of the inside-the-Beltway Deep State on its head. Instead of going along to get along the populist president repudiated the globalist agenda of the Bush-Clinton-Obama triumvirate.
He cast aside the downward trajectory of managed decline and adopted a policy agenda that’s made life easier for America’s working people and the small businesses that employ the majority of them. He passed the biggest employer and worker tax cuts in a generation. He mandated deregulation across the board. And defying the naysayers he’s negotiated new trade deals that have one goal in mind; make America great again by putting the interests of America first.
These bold moves have helped drive the unemployment rate to a 50-year low. And according to Investor’s Business Daily the Trump economy is creating factory jobs ten times faster than under the Obama administration. Blue-collar jobs are surging for the first time in decades. Since President Trump’s inauguration 523,000 manufacturing jobs have been added. Compare that with the 287,000 created during President Obama’s final three years in office.
In August, 2019 while touring Shell’s new Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex President Trump sought to explain that it’s a new dawn for American energy and manufacturing. In his remarks he said, “With your help, we’re not only unleashing American energy we’re restoring the glory of American manufacturing, and we are reclaiming our noble heritage as a nation of builders again. The critics expected you to stay on the sidelines, silence your voices, and surrender the future of our nation.”
In December of 2018 the Wall Street Journal reported, “The U.S. became a net exporter of oil and refined fuels last week for the first time in decades, a symbolic milestone that would have seemed unthinkable just 10 years ago.” Today America is the largest crude oil producer in the world. Until the Trump Bump none of this was considered possible. Now the world is filled with possibilities.
On August 19, 2019 while speaking at the Detroit Economic Club Vice President Mike Pence said “Wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than a decade. And maybe most important of all to the President and me: that wages are rising fastest for blue-collar working Americans. The forgotten men and women of America are forgotten no more.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
He Touched Me December 9, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Religion, Uncategorized.Tags: Dr. Robert Owens, encouragement, Faith, He touched me, Hope
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God’s immediate immensity overwhelms me. He’s present everywhere and yet He’s present to me. There are more planets, and stars, and galaxies than we have a number to describe. God created them all. He upholds them by the power of His word. And yet He touched me. He touched me and now I’m no longer the same.
The God shaped hole in my life ached for Him even when I denied Him. Stumbling like a blind man in a world filled with light I couldn’t see what was around me and I couldn’t see where I was going. Landing in a ditch I thought the fetid water was clear and the over grown wilderness of weeds was a garden. Then He touched me and oh what joy filled my soul.
Raising me up from my graveyard of sin He gave me a new life, gave me my soulmate as a wife, and allowed me to work in His garden. And since I’ve met this blessed savior, since he’s cleansed and made me whole I’ll never cease to praise him I’ll shout it while eternity rolls, “He touched me, Oh He touched me, and oh the joy that floods my soul! Something happened and now I know He touched me and made me whole.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens
Trump Negates a Nasty Narrative December 4, 2019
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics, Politiocal Philosophy, Uncategorized.Tags: bigotry, Charlottesville hoax, Dr. Robert Owens, racism, white supremacy
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Remember journalism? This was an archaic art form once practiced by investigative reporters who tried to discover the truth and then inform others of what they found.
While true objectivity is a mirage or an Historian’s joke, once upon a time there were people who attempted to present the facts and then allow readers, viewers, or listeners to decide for themselves. We called them jour·nal·ists. In today’s hyper-partisan world of Spy vs. Spy corporate tit-for-tat attack media, true journalism has been abandoned. People like James O’Keefe of Project Veritas who actually investigate and report are treated as tinfoil hat wearing denizens of the fringe by the hacks infesting the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media.
As a case in point one of the most virulent myths that have metastasized through the chatocracy bouncing like a Ping-Pong ball from talking head to talking head is the lie that President Donald Trump is a racist who described the neo-Nazis who rallied in Charlottesville, Va., in August 2017 as “fine people.” This Faustian fabrication twists the words of the President whose statement with regards to the tragic incident in Charlottesville clearly related to those on both sides of the Confederate monument debate.
Judge for yourself. Here are the actual words of the President at a news conference shortly after the Charlottesville incident:
“Excuse me, they didn’t put themselves down as neo-Nazis, and you had some very bad people in that group. But you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group – excuse me, excuse me, I saw the same pictures you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of, to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.” Then, in answer to a misleading follow-up question, the President further clarified his meaning by stating, “I’m not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.”
The Democrat Media’s blatant rewriting of history in this case has been so outrageous it has even earned a challenge by CNN’s political commentator, Steve Cortes, when he stated, “As a man charged with publicly explaining Donald Trump’s often meandering and colloquial vernacular in highly adversarial TV settings, I appreciate more than most the sometimes-murky nature of his off-script commentaries. But these Charlottesville statements leave little room for interpretation. For any honest person, therefore, to conclude that the president somehow praised the very people he actually derided, reveals a blatant and blinding level of bias.”
And if the President was not clear enough about his views at the news conference his words in a subsequent statement condemning the attack that killed a counter-protestor at the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia should have laid the racist talking point to bed. In that statement the President said, “Racism is evil, and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.”
Later after the shooting in El Paso the President said, “In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy. These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America.”
In their epic battle to maintain the chains of their nearly universal hold on the Black vote the democrats masquerading as journalists will go to any lengths to keep the Charlottesville hoax alive. Repeating their lies over and over on every network and in every newspaper they hope the width, depth, and volume of their calculated cacophony of criticism will fulfill the cynical belief espoused by Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels when he said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
Those who refuse to believe the truth will believe the lie. The denizens of the Deep State swamp know this and the second part of Goebbels’ quote clarifies the goal of their efforts; “The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Truth is their enemy. Truth is our ally. Turn away from the false narrative of the echo chamber commentary and read for yourself the words of our President and watch as Trump Negates a Nasty Narrative.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, Global Studies, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2019 Contact Dr. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens or visit Dr. Owens Amazon Page / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens