The American Spectator

Reader Mail

Making Music

1.3.08 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 3)

Socialism, and its retarded cousin, Communism, on the other hand, is a steady state philosophy that will throw itself against changes in either direction and wear itself down opposing the forces of nature within the physical and economic realms.
-- Danny L. Newton
Cookeville, Tennessee

Even that bastion of Democrat dribble and treason the NY Slimes is beginning to question the pontificating of his boringness Al Gore. When a liberal Democrat automaton like John Tierney begins to question the Democrat talking points on global warming you know the forecast for the prophet's of doom and gloom is not as sunny as it was a few months ago. He's even begun to question the myth that hurricane Katrina Blanco was caused by global warming (I'll truly believe his conversion to truth when he attacks the myth that George W. Bush was responsible for the inept Louisiana Democrats' handling of the flood in New Orleans). Maybe there is hope in 2008 that the scientifically challenged Democrat party and its legion of chicken little Islamist fellow travelers will embrace truth over petty politics. Nah that's just wishful thinking. The party of anti-Americanism, terrorist appeasement and bogus science is still committed to one thing the acquisition of power for the benefit of the few and nothing will change that reality -- just look at Bozos running for the party's presidential nomination they make Nancy Pelosi look almost sane. Note I said almost.
--- Michael Tomlinson
Jacksonville, North Carolina

Since the weather can not be predicted even one day in advance, the idea that anyone can predict years in advance is God like. Last night was supposed to be a hard freeze, only got to 30. Oh well wrong AGAIN.
-- Elaine Kyle

Is Peter Hannaford implying that the Global Warming Pontiff (Al Gore) has been struck on the head by an acorn? This might explain everything!
-- Jack Hughes
Chicago, Illinois

SPEAKING OF WHOM
Re: Enemy Central's Enemy of the Year 2007:

WINTER WONDERLAND, HOORAY!

If you were a global warming alarmist,
Staring down at the white ground below,
Would you be sobbing and chewing your pillow
As you watched it snow and snow and snow?

Would you smash your Nobel Peace Prize
As you threw it across the room?
After all you prophesied relentlessly
The advent of gloom and doom.

Be happy for the ski resort owners.
Rejoice in the sledders' delight.
Skaters gliding on icy, frosty ponds
Are grabbing daylight from your dark night.

Kids play in a winter wonderland.
Be glad it worked out this way.
Laugh and sing. Let the sleigh bells ring.
The hysterics have had their day.
-- Mimi Evans Winship

SHREVE TIDE
Re: Ken Shreve's letter (under "Perfectly Sensible Graham") in Reader Mail's Strike Two and Troy Harmon's letter (under "Graham Weighed") in Mail's Travel Plans:

Mr. Shreve: While I do not doubt Mr. Graham's beliefs or his desire to save the souls of those politicians that he befriended, I still have my doubts about the wisdom of his nearly unquestioning loyalty to them. Mr. Graham seemed to be solidly in the corner of those politicians no matter what their positions on the major issues of the day, and that leads to the perception of his being in their pockets, so to speak. There is a time for subtle persuasion I suppose, but there is also a need for a noted religious leader to take a stand against actions and policies that are contrary to the Word of God. And if you are not speaking out against those policies that stand at variance from what you know to be God's will for us...such as support for abortion...then you are giving your tacit support to those policies.

And I well recognize that it is helpful to have friends in positions of influence, but there is something that simply does not sit right with me about a preacher cultivating those relationships. In order to cultivate those types of relationships it is going to be necessary to compromise something, be it your beliefs or what you are willing to say to those people in order not to offend them. The Word of God is inherently confrontational, as it confronts people with the reality of sin in general, and their personal sins. If Mr. Graham failed to condemn those sins, then he was tacitly giving them his approval...all in the name of being non confrontational, and in so doing he failed those whom he was allegedly serving. His first order of business as a man of God was to save souls, not to build relationships that would serve him in the future.

Mr. Graham has done the work of the Lord in many ways, but he is still just a man with faults and foibles like the rest of us. And as I stated earlier, if he failed for whatever reason to strive for the souls of these men, he failed in his duties an a man of God and if he did it in order to cultivate "friends in high places" he was simply wrong to do so.
-- Eric Edwards
Walnut Cove, North Carolina

I am afraid that Mr. Harmon cherry picks one of the points that I made that he doesn't like, but fails to view the argument that I made as a whole with more than one part. Mr. Harmon also chooses to imply that Mr. Graham should have emulated Jesus and the early church apostles in every particular with no notice being taken of the changed environment that Mr. Graham found some 1900+ years later. I do not know if Mr. Harmon was around and paying attention when Mr. Graham cracked the nut that was the USSR, and took a crusade to the masses behind the Iron Curtain. Either he is unaware of the difficulty of getting into the USSR to bring the message of the Christ to those folks, or he believes that he should simply have preached the Gospel to several tens of millions fewer folks. Again I use the USSR simply as an example, the same type of situation presented itself in parts of Africa, parts of southwestern Asia, other parts of Europe behind the Iron Curtain, etc.

I can also assume that Mr. Harmon would object to the intelligence that our government got from Mr. Graham and/or members of his staff. Mr. Graham was a definite anti-Communist, and I can only assume was not averse to helping our government work toward the demise of that system, that dictatorship, that so oppressed their people. It should also be noted that, with the exception of a couple of phony showcases, churches were shut down and the practice of religion forbidden in the USSR.

Sir, Mr. Graham was not delivering his message in the first century with the rudimentary transportation, rudimentary communication, the differences of views on many, many important issues of the modern times. I guess, Sir, that you would call for active ministers to follow our Lord in minute detail, and if that leads to ministries and missions that last for three years and then see their leaders removed, then so be it. On the other hand, Mr. Graham's ministry lasted for 50+ years and he led millions to Christ. But hey, he didn't do it exactly the way Jesus did, so all those conversions are of no import, right. I wonder how many fewer folks would have heard Dr. Graham proclaim the message of our Lord, if he had to have walked everywhere that he went from his home in North Carolina. After all, that is what Jesus did, and if you are going to insist on complete purity in all aspects, that is what would be demanded. Mr. Harmon, when attempting to bring converts to the Gospel of Christ, you can simply not ignore reality of the environment that you are in, not if you want to be successful as a fisher of men.
-- Ken Shreve

Letter to the Editor

topics:
Transportation, Business, Religion, Islam, Abortion, Environment, Global Warming, Law, Africa, Socialism, Communism