Christianity

Lisa Miller Surrenders Into US Custody

After more than a decade in hiding, Lisa Miller turned herself in.

Today, January 18, 2021, I am voluntarily surrendering myself to the U.S. Authorities by walking into the U.S. Embassy in Nicaragua.

Lisa Miller’s plan was thwarted by a holiday. She and Isabella (and a friend) arrived at the American Embassy in Managua only to learn it was closed due to Martin Luther King Jr Day.

They returned the next day and followed through with their plan.

Lisa and Isabella Miller

The officials at the embassy just couldn’t see why she would turn herself in! “Why are you here?” they asked. “Why do you do this?” 🙂

This past Wednesday (January 27), Lisa finally returned to the US after leaving the country in 2009. (For more details about her case, see two links I’ve included at the end of this post.) What happens to her now in the American justice system remains to be seen. Read it all

How I Find Peace Amidst All the Pandemic, Tyranny, Fraud, and Instability

My one-step plan in dealing with covid-19, gubernatorial tyranny, authoritarian oppression, electoral fraud, economic instability, media manipulation, and societal destabilization

For us all, 2020 has been an amazing, disconcerting, troubling, troubled year on a variety of fronts.

  • Early on, we had the beginnings of a global pandemic which has swept up the rest of the year.
  • That pandemic may have been unleashed on the world by _____.
  • Politicians all over seem to have indulged their inner tyrant under the pretext of dealing with the pandemic.
  • Economies have staggered and shattered as a consequence.
  • Millions have been infected with the coronavirus (aka, COVID-19). Thousands have died from it.
  • Now the flu is down and suicides are up.
  • Then came the American elections with its shifts in political power and overpowering whiffs of fraud, deceit, and other criminality in the results.
  • And then there are the American news blackouts and tech giant censorships.
  • Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the rioting, looting, and anarchy in various American cities, often tolerated or endorsed by those who should have been putting them down.
  • And what about disrupted, restricted, and/or forbidden social interactions, religious events, and family fellowship?
  • Oh, yes, and the injustice and disregard for law across all segments of society.

2020 — the year of big-time Wow! Read it all

Antidote for Turmoil, Fear, and Unrest

Just what many of us need in the wake of the 2020 US Presidential election

Three days have passed since America’s Presidential election of 2020. Even now, not all ballots have been counted yet. Others have been counted at least twice. And probably hundreds of thousands have been counted that shouldn’t count toward any official tally.

At this stage, only God knows who will be the next President of the United States. And only God knows why He has chosen that man and for what purposes. Of this we can be sure: God’s will shall certainly be accomplished. The man He has chosen in absolute righteousness will be the next United States President.

I remember the Bush-Gore election Florida mess of 2000. Gore’s litigation dragged on for over a month before the US Supreme Court stepped in and essentially forced the whole thing to end. And finally Bush was certified the winner.

Over a month and in only one state, folks! And what is happening now is on a far greater scale than that. So…we shall see. Meanwhile, here are some excerpts from a piece I wrote on November 12 of that year: Read it all

How One Anabaptist Christian Looks at Civil Elections

Why I do not participate in the honorable civic calling of voting in civil elections...

Welcome to Election Day USA 2020! (Or any day thereafter.)

Are you ready for what comes next? Have you voted yet? Are you troubled at the possibilities? Does the potential selection of Mr. _ _ _ _ _ frighten you or cheer you? Do you worry about the state and direction of the United States? Do the polls trouble you? Are you afraid at the prospect of civil unrest, fraudulent shenanigans, riots, anarchy, or totalitarianism?

Perhaps you are a Christian and you just aren’t sure how to vote. Perhaps you think Mr. Trump is vile and vicious. Perhaps you think Mr. Biden is vicious and vile. Maybe you think one of them is a con artist and should be a convict.

Perhaps one of the selections below will help you…or make you feel worse. Whatever the case, let me tell you a little of how I look at politics and/or elections. (I think “normal” American citizens have the duty, honor, and high calling to vote.) Read it all

15 Facts About Personal and Church Drift

Fifteen significant things about drifting in individuals and in churches

Drifting -- a booklet by Clayton Yake, 1943; Mennonite Publishing House

Is your home congregation drifting? Maybe your entire denomination is adrift. Perhaps your concern has more to do with drift you see in individual people.

It might even possible that someone told you that you or your church are drifting…and you are wondering what that means and what you are supposed to do about it!

In the middle of the previous century, someone compiled these significant things about drifting: Read it all

The Church Assembling: The Community of Believers

How to tell if your church has too many regular services?

Interesting to shoehorn this

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,
as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another:
and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

(Hebrews 10:25)

into the historical context of these verses from this morning’s SS lesson:

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship,
and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple,
and breaking bread from house to house,
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,

(Acts 2:42,46)

Maybe by the time of Hebrews 10 they were slacking off to three services on the Lord’s Day, another on Wednesday night, and a Bible study on Friday night. So God had the writer issue His warning/command. 😳 😯 Read it all

“You’re a Premillennialist?”

Do you leave skid marks where the rubber meets the road?

In my freshly minted opinion, premillennialists are a dime a dozen. Amillennialists, on the other hand, fetch a nickle for two quarter-dozen.

Twas the morning of April 24 when, in a post to Facebook, I called attention to an article from World magazine (“No Path to Normalcy”) and added some comments of my own. I closed my brief comments with this:

An unmet-in-real-life friend commented, “Let me guess… You’re a premillennialist?” I have no idea where he stands on the matter, so I don’t know if he asked hopefully or incredulously. Probably just curiously. Read it all

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Above all, love God!