TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Why is it that these guys who are “Rehabilitated” always feel led to lead. Doesn’t humility and shame enter into the rehabilitation process?

Ten years after he sentenced to 5 1/2 years in state prison for racketeering and grand theft, the former president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., is vying to lead the denomination once again and insists that he’s a changed man.

“We all, at one time in our lives, have fallen short of the Glory of God,” in a statement to supporters. “My re-election to the Presidency will witness to the world just what a mighty and loving God we serve. It will be the foundation of understanding true forgiveness from Christ Jesus who is faithful to forgive all of our sins.”

More than a decade ago, Lyons was accused of spending church money on expensive jewelry, a Mercedes-Benz and a $700,000 home bought with a woman who is not his wife.

The charismatic preacher was also accused of diverting money intended for the restoration of Southern churches damaged by arson to other church expenses and swindling more than $4 million from companies that wanted to market life insurance, credit cards and cemetery plots to his convention members.

Despite the allegations and even after he was convicted of racketeering and grand theft, Lyons continued to serve as the head of the National Baptist Convention and did not resign until March of 1999 – the month he was handed his 5 1/2-year prison sentence.

The highly publicized scandal dealt a devastating blow to the denomination – one of the largest religious organizations among African Americans and the second largest Baptist denomination in the world, after the Southern Baptist Convention. It also cost Lyons his marriage, his reputation and almost all he had.

Even when there has been forgiveness, reconciliation, retribution, and personal restoration there is also responsibility a fallen spiritual leader needs to realize. There is a difference between personal restoration and positional restoration. With great power and authority comes great responsibility and accountability. Part of that responsibility is understanding what was done to the family, the church, the denomination, and the position.

The total trust will never be there again. The leader will remain a stumbling block to many. The stigma will always be there and the character and integrity will always be questioned. The authority and integrity of the organizational position will be always be affected.

Lyons should have thought, first, about what he would really lose, and let that help motivate him, instead of his worldly greed. Once you betray it will never be the same … and shouldn’t be.

Lyons should be denied this leadership post and any other positional posts … possibly even continuing to pastor.

President Barack Obama is making some dangerous choices in rejecting the anti-terrorism policies of the Bush administration and backing down from confronting North Korea over its threatening missile program. This weakness in foreign policy will embolden America’s enemies.

As well, the effort to treat terrorism as a criminal justice problem – rather than an act of war – will only bog the country down in pursuit of enemy combatants.

“Dick Cheney is clearly right in saying that, between the court decisions about terrorists and the administration actions, the United States is running greater risks of getting attacked than we were under President Bush,” Gingrich said.

Pointing to what he described as a “vivid demonstration of weakness in foreign policy” the former House speaker Gingrich said Obama’s actions, including his proposal for a resumption of nuclear arms limitation talks, reflect “a dangerous fantasy that runs an enormous risk.

The embarrassing denial of the United States appeal to the United Nations Security Council is a vivid demonstration of this weakness. This is resembles the Carter administration’s weakness in foreign policy.

Emboldened by this a North Korean envoy threatened retaliation if the United Nations imposed further sanctions for the missile launch, warning the U.N. Security Council that it would take “strong steps” if the 15-nation body took any action in response to Pyongyang’s launch of a long-range rocket, Reuters reported.

North Korea is a totally irresponsible dictatorship run by a person who is clearly out of touch with reality. They are responsible for the deaths of several million people because of its totalitarian rule, how much longer should such a regime be tolerated?

Under Kim Jong-Il this dictatorship has been so bad it has starved the people and the average North Korean today is several inches shorter than a generation ago. If we do nothing they are going to continue building nuclear weapons and missiles. If they are this aggressive when they are weak what do you think they will be like as the get stronger?

The United States should have shot down the North Korean missile, while making it very clear that any missile launched with a trajectory in the direction of the United States will be met with an overwhelming counter-attack.

The Obama administration is rapidly undermining the U.S. missile defense system while imagining a fantasy world of trust and cooperation. Ronald Reagan believed we had to have a missile defense system to stop any country from breaking free and blackmailing other countries. Then there were only five nuclear powers: the Soviet Union, China, France, Britain, and the United States. Now we have North Korean, Iranian and Pakistani nuclear developments.

Obama is in a world where Hamas is firing missiles every day into Israel, Iran is building nuclear weapons, and the North Koreans are firing missiles, and he has some wonderful fantasy idea that talking to everybody is all that is required.

That is why it is very dangerous to have a fantasy foreign policy, just like refusing to say we have a war on terror … instead they are just manmade disasters.

I’m not comforted with the thought that 9/11 was a “manmade disaster” when it was a “terrorist attack.”

Get real Obama …

This “energy tax” will be devastating to all Americans. Estimates have cap-and-trade adding more than $3,000 a year to every American’s bill for gasoline and energy.

In Pennsylvania, for instance, it would mean the doubling of monthly energy bills, whether it’s natural gas or electricity. In more than half of America that’s a huge deal, because in October there is no choice – you have to turn your heat on and that heat will stay on usually through the month of April.

It is also a reduction in the American standard of living due to the potential for job loss in our country. Businessmen are savvy and preemptive and they are looking at what President Obama wants to do with this new tax on energy. Because that’s what this is, a tax on the right to use and consume energy – as if energy didn’t cost enough already.

You might as well call this the ‘China and India Stimulus Plan’ because China and India have said, they were not going to have any part of a cap-and-trade system. So that means American jobs will leave and go overseas fleeing the United States for other countries..

The only way the cap-and-trade plan can be stopped is if the American people rise up and say “NO!”

Senator Harry Reid plans that by the end of August the cap-and-trade bill go through. That gives you, the American people, a little time. These are very real implications – not just for businessmen, not just for a few Americans, but 100% of Americans will be impacted by this new tax on energy.

If you procrastinate now it will cost you …

Rick Warren disavows support for Proposition 8

Monday night on CNN’s Larry King Live, Rick Warren apologized for his support of Prop. 8, California’s voter-approved marriage protection amendment, saying he has “never been and never will be” an “anti-gay or anti-gay marriage activist.” “During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never — never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop. 8 was going,” Warren claimed.

California mega-church pastor and author of The Purpose Driven Life Rick Warren says he apologized to his homosexual friends for making comments in support of California’s Proposition 8, and now claims he “never once even gave an endorsement” of the marriage amendment.

His words now make him a liar considering just two weeks before the November 4 Prop. 8 vote, Warren issued a clear endorsement of the marriage amendment while speaking to church members. “We support Proposition 8 – and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8,” he said.

The following is a complete transcript of Warren’s comments just weeks before the Prop. 8 election:

“The election’s coming just in a couple of weeks, and I hope you’re praying about your vote. One of the propositions, of course, that I want to mention is Proposition 8, which is the proposition that had to be instituted because the courts threw out the will of the people. And a court of four guys actually voted to change a definition of marriage that has been going for 5,000 years.

“Now let me say this really clearly: we support Proposition 8 — and if you believe what the Bible says about marriage, you need to support Proposition 8. I never support a candidate, but on moral issues I come out very clear.

“This is one thing, friends, that all politicians tend to agree on. Both Barack Obama and John McCain, I flat-out asked both of them: what is your definition of marriage? And they both said the same thing – it is the traditional, historic, universal definition of marriage: one man and one woman, for life. And every culture for 5,000 years, and every religion for 5,000 years, has said the definition of marriage is between one man and a woman.

“Now here’s an interesting thing. There are about two percent of Americans [who] are homosexual or gay/lesbian people. We should not let two percent of the population determine to change a definition of marriage that has been supported by every single culture and every single religion for 5,000 years.

“This is not even just a Christian issue — it’s a humanitarian and human issue that God created marriage for the purpose of family, love, and procreation.

“So I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that word on. I’m going to be sending out a note to pastors on what I believe about this. But everybody knows what I believe about it. They heard me at the Civil Forum when I asked both Obama and McCain on their views.”

During a CNN interview on Monday, Warren expressed regret for backing Prop. 8. “There were a number of things that were put out. I wrote to all my gay friends – the leaders that I knew – and actually apologized to them. That never got out,” he admitted.

Additionally, Pastor Warren said he did not want to comment on or criticize the Iowa Supreme Court’s decision last week to legalize same-sex “marriage” because it was “not his agenda.”

Bryan Fischer with the Idaho Values Alliance says Warren is abdicating his biblical role as a pastor. “For Pastor Warren to say that shoring up marriage is not something that’s on his agenda is just something that’s hard to believe for somebody who believes the Bible is our rule for faith and practice,” Fischer notes.

Dr. Jim Garlow, the senior pastor of Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego suburb of La Mesa, helped spearhead the Prop. 8 effort in California. Garlow admits he is confused and troubled by Pastor Warren’s decision to apologize for supporting Prop. 8.

“Historically when institutions and individuals back away from convictional biblical truth, it is driven primarily by one single factor — and that is the respectability of other people. In other words, much more caring about what other people think about them than what God thinks about them,” he concludes.

Which is it really most important Warren … becoming more Christ-like or angering the gay community? Calling them and apologizing for standing up for God’s truths and principles seems to have won. You have lost all credibility as you revealed what is most important to you … what the gay community thinks rather than what the Bible says? Stick with the word of God … you can still love homosexuals in a biblical context without approving of their lifestyle.

By the way, drop your “Pastor” title … you have lost the privilege to be called “Pastor.”