Why should God bless America?

Courier News (Central New Jersey) ^ | October 23, 2001 | Letter to Editor

[Prodigal Daughter]

And probably just hungry period!

Here's a beautiful essay written about China by a Freeper I heard the bells on Christmas Day

[Prodigal Daughter]

Maybe He hasn't nuked Holland because the ten Boom family still lives there.

[Don Myers]

America must return to God or be plowed under. But the people will not listen.

[Deb]

Oh, shut up.

[Prodigal Daughter]

Don't shut up.

I forgot to Deb above, God doesn't nuke, that was a joke.

[AD from SpringBay]

The first chapter of the book of Romans shows and describes God's wrath as allowing people to have what they want and then allowing them to reap what has been sewn. I think God has been pouring out His wrath for quite some time.

[ArGee]

Why should God bless America?

Three answers come to mind. I believe all are correct.

• There is no reason why G-d should. There is no reason why G-d should do anything. It's not as if G-d needs America and it's not as if any human or any nation can ever do anything so wonderful for G-d that it makes Him obligated to do anything in return. We lift ourselves up too high if we believe we can have an impact on Him.
• It is always good for us to repent of our sins. It would be wrong to point to particular sins, like abortion or homosexuality, and say that those sins caused something like this but not the sins I commit. That is presuming to know the mind of G-d. Many want to presume that G-d destroyed Soddom for the sin of homosexuality, but Isaiah tells us G-d destroyed Soddom for the sin of inhospitality. We are also told that G-d destroyed Soddom because of it's myriad of sins. It wasn't one particular sin but their unrepentant sinfulness that destroyed Soddom. Americans should be repentant, but not for any particular sin. We should be repentant for our willfulness, our sinfulness that says we can decide what we want to do and don't need any of G-d's ideas of right and wrong. Lincoln called the nation to repentance while the Civil War raged. We called the nation to repentance after Pearl Harbor was bombed. It should be a natural response.
• America doesn't owe anything more to G-d than Great Britain. We can think that we are somehow special, but the only revealed nation that has a special relationship with G-d is Israel. On the other hand, the Church does owe much to G-d. America doesn't need to do any soul searching. She is secular. But the Church is sacred. Has she been remembering who she is? Has she been standing fast beside Jesus, her bridegroom? Has she been quick to defend Him, to live as He would have Her live, to be His healing hands and feet in this hurting world? If the Church thinks that the WTC attack may have been a wake-up call from G-d then it is the Church, not America, that needs to answer that call. The 2 Chronicals 7:14 verse everyone likes to quote begins, "If my people..." (emphasis mine). That isn't a message to the secular USA. It is a message to the Church.

G-d blesses and curses for his own purposes, as He told Moses. But we who have taken the LORD's name should not take that name in vain. We should look at any event in our lives, whether the destruction of the WTC towers or winning the lottery and say, "Why me, LORD? What are you trying to say to me?" Then, of course, we should listen. Anyway, just my $.02. I'd have offered more but I don't even play the lottery.

Shalom.

[ArGee]

Why imprison God with relgion?

Can you elaborate? I'm afraid if I assume what your words mean I will respond to the wrong question.

Shalom.

[TrueBeliever9]

One more example of the American "in YOUR FACE" to the LORD God of Israel:

Note #6912 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Title: Bid to block lesbian's ordination fails 22-October-2001 01395

Bid to block lesbian's ordination fails

Not enough COM members object, so Redwoods Presbytery ordains Katie Morrison

by John Filiatreau

LOUISVILLE - Presbyterians who opposed the ordination of Katie Morrison, a lesbian ministerial candidate endorsed by Redwoods Presbytery in Northern California in September, failed in their effort to prevent or delay it. Morrison's ordination took place as scheduled on Oct. 21.

Her ordination could have been blocked if three or more of the 10 voting members of the presbytery's Committee on Ministry had signed a request for a stay from the Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) of the Synod of the Pacific.

Wayne Fuller, the PJC chairman, said on Oct. 20 that only two members had requested such an order, "and that is not enough persons to stay the action" through the process provided in the Book of Order.

Morrison has said she will abide by the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s constitutional requirement that unmarried clergy be "chaste."

Redwoods presbyters on the losing end of the 90-37 vote to proceed with Morrison's ordination charged that the process was illegitimate, voicing a suspicion that her understanding of "chastity" is different from the church's historical position that forbids any sexual activity between unmarried partners.

They questioned whether the examiners in Morrison's case probed deeply enough into sexual matters, beginning with the Committee on Preparation for Ministry and continuing through the floor debate at a presbytery meeting.

Though the stay was denied, the complaint filed by those opposed to the ordination itself will still be heard by the synod's PJC. The hearing has not yet been scheduled.

Redwoods Presbytery voted to approve Morrison's ordination as a "field organizer" for More Light Presbyterians (MLP), an advocacy network for gay and lesbian Presbyterians. She would be MLP's second field organizer.

Mitzi Henderson, a co-moderator of the organization, said it gets so many calls for speakers that it needs another organizer to help congregations learn to provide pastoral care to gays and lesbians and their families and to assist in dialogues about homosexuality - a subject that has been at the center of PC(USA) political debates for nearly three decades.

The constitutional provision at the center of the debate, G-6.0106b, is itself in dispute. The provision, which requires "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness" for church officers, was added to the constitution in 1997. An attempt to delete it was decisively rejected by the presbyteries the following year. It is now facing another challenge: This year's General Assembly asked the church's 173 presbyteries to vote over the next several months to retain or strike it. A majority vote is needed to settle the matter.

The Rev. Chandler Stokes, the chairman of the presbytery's Committee on Ministry, said the examination process in Morrison's case "seemed to be no different from our usual process," and Morrison met "all of the usual criteria" for ordination He added: "We don't ask our heterosexual candidates about their fidelity in marriage, or investigate their sexual behavior. I think to do so in this case would clearly have been discriminatory."

The Rev. Ed Hart, of Napa, CA, a member of the Committee on Ministry, had said he would seek a stay from the synod PJC to stop the Oct. 20 ordination ceremony.

Efforts to reach Morrison for comment were unsuccessful. ------------------------------------------

Send your response to this article to pcusa.news@pcusa.org

[TrueBeliever9]

Punishment comes in many forms, here is an example of excerpts from Safe Money Report by Martin D. Weiss, Ph.D.

157 big-name public companies now have more debt than assets: They have a net value of of MINUS $12.8 BILLION!

652 big companies are bleeding so much red ink that they will have a hard time surviving another year!

It doesn't take a Nobel-Prize winning economist to figure out that unpayable debts at major corporations and thousands of smaller businesses is potentially devastating news for banks. Selah.

[BibChr]

In brief, excellent points. And notice that all the "Yeah-but-what-about...?" subject-changers don't answer her questions.

Dan

[steve-b]

I am amazed at the blame America first sentiment in this thread.

Me, too. If I wanted to read blame-America twaddle, I'd go over to visit the DUmmies.

[steve-b]

Christians, rather, look up and ask, "God, could this possibly be your judgment against us?"

I'm sure that many sincere Christians do take that attitude.

The attitude taken by Falwell, Robertson, and Ms Harrison -- "You see! God smote the nation for not agreeing with my politics!" -- is not at all the same thing.

[TrueBeliever9]

Your thoughts

[mad_as_he$$]

I don't buy it war is war and Hitler had to be stopped. Let me introduce you to the new world of military hardware. IF somebody gangs up on us the US will just go nuclear. It is that simple. WE can fight three Afgan size wars at the same time and still have superiority over all involved. They haven't even gotten into the really big stuff yet. Four or five BUFFS is nothing if you let all 100 of them loose they can make one hell of a mess in one night. I have seen them wortk in SEA and let me tell you it is scary stuff.

[xzins]

Not true. Most of the founding fathers where christians, and those who were deists were christianized deists.

[xzins]

God has not arbitrarily selected those things that he calls sin. Sinful behavior is behavior that inevitably causes injury to oneself, to others, to the community, or to one's relationship with God.

Whether we're talking about adultery or theft, it's obvious that someone is being injured. The same of sexual promiscuity....the biological and/or psychological damage caused by thoughtless sex is a matter of record and research.

Is Afghanistan better off? If the moral damage done to an average individual in America were placed on a balance and the other plate held the moral damage caused against the average by their culture, which would prove to be the worse civilization?

Death for preaching Christ in Afghanistan would weigh heavily against them. The murder of the preborn in America would weigh against us.

Since there is no salvation in Islam, I believe God would still choose America because the message of Jesus is still permitted to be preached here. In other words, souls can be saved.

Also, I believe that the story of the exodus proves that God considers overbearing government coupled with enslaved peoples to be be an evil. Islamic culture doesn't do well in that category. It probably balances out our violence and degradation of spirit.

The bottom line. There is none righteous...no not one. And God does not work with nations in the same way he did in the pre-Christian era. Now, his kingdom is where Christ reigns; i.e., from heart to heart.

[TrueBeliever9]

The Law of Reciprocity "reap what you sow"; it is real!

[Dr. Eckleburg]

God bless Rev. Hart and guide him through this idiotic tribulation.

And may God remind Rev. Stokes that to be discriminatory" means to weigh good and evil, right and wrong, and come to a clear, righteous decision. He obviously missed this lesson in seminary. He'll have to answer for his stupidity.