Free book excerpt #32 from "The Middle and Working Class Manifesto Fourth Edition"

It's here! "The Middle and Working Class Manifesto Fourth Edition", by Rev. Paul J. Bern (c) 2011, 2018 all rights reserved

Written in a journalistic, expose' style, this nonfiction book chronicles the ongoing demise of the US middle class and what pastor Bern calls, "the ticking time bomb of inequality". This prophetic 2011 book, now in its 4^th edition, predicted the American people's demand for free health care, free higher education for everyone without qualification, an end to the Drug War that includes prison reform, repealing the federal income tax, and the need for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage. This Christian-based book (yes, it has Bible quotes) is a must-read for everyone who thinks America is headed in the wrong direction.

It is now clear to see that voting various senators and congressional representatives into and out of office, depending on who the incumbent candidate is, stopped working a long time ago. The system is broken down from age and misuse. No matter who is elected to office, they are only puppets being manipulated and controlled by corporate America and all their armies of lobbyists, who work behind the scenes in conjunction with the US military-industrial complex, the federal and state prison systems, and the so-called “war on drugs”, which is really another form of class warfare against minorities and the poor. In point of fact, every economic problem present in the US today that I have already reported on in this book, plus the war on drugs, are actually civil rights issues disguised as social or economic problems. This has been done deliberately and with sinister intent by the same cancerous rogue elements of the US government and intelligence establishments that were behind the Kennedy and King assassinations of the 1960's.

So what can we do if our peaceful revolution somehow doesn't succeed? What will happen if things stay the same as they are into the foreseeable future regardless of our best intentions? A couple of things I can definitely tell you will happen is that prices for all the basics will continue to rise until the cost of rent or a mortgage payment, a tank of gas, a weeks worth of groceries and our utility bills get so expensive that US workers' and retirees' monthly incomes fall well short of their minimum monthly expenses. And that is not counting the skyrocketing cost of higher education, medical care and prescriptions. What will happen if people can't buy fuel to get to work?

The ugly truth is that there are a troubling number of people out there who are already at this tipping point. In a country like the USA, it is inexcusable for our senior citizens to have to choose between their medicine and their groceries to keep from running out of money before the end of the month. In a country like the USA, we have sunk to a new low when inner city school children look forward to their taxpayer-funded free school lunch because it is their only daily meal. In a country like the USA, we have sunk to a new low when one in five homeless Americans is a veteran. We need to elect people to public office whose only focus is to fix these problems and all the others like them that I have previously written about.

But if all that still doesn't work, and if our situation as a united people continues to gradually get worse as is now the case, what will we do? What if we run out of options? We will need to have a plan 'B' in place in case of a worst possible scenario, and armed revolt is out of the question for reasons which I have already stated earlier in this book (although it must not be ruled out in matters of self-defense). Is there a way to simply retreat, to walk away and refuse to be a part of this rigged political and economic system that has us all enslaved, and does this kind of action have a legal precedent? The encouraging answer to both these questions is an enthusiastic yes. The solution is something borrowed from the pages of history, and I am talking about secession.

Kirkpatrick Sale of the Middlebury Institute recently observed that there is presently ”more attention being paid to secession than any time since 1865″ and predicts that “one of the American states will vote for its independence in the next 10-15 years.” Neo-secessionist sentiments are frequently stereotyped as a characteristic exhibited primarily by “right-wing extremists.” Yet there are serious reasons why moderates and progressives should consider secession. Among the most compelling reasons why concerned Americans should consider dissolving the U.S. into multiple nations, regions, or city-states are:

• Break-up of the U.S.A. means an end to the American empire that has killed millions of people throughout the world over the last sixty-five years, including perhaps two million Iraqis, three million Southeast Asians, hundreds of thousands of Central Americans, half a million Timorese, hundreds of thousands of Afghanis, and many, many more.
• Without the support of the U.S., international capitalist organizations such as the IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc. would be much less powerful and influential.
• The collapse of the U.S. Federal Reserve system would mean an end to federal corporate-welfare, bank-welfare, and, above all, the death of the military-industrial complex.
• No more federal regime means no more DHS, FBI, CIA, DEA, BATF, Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Indian Affairs, federal drug war, federal mandatory minimums, or the national police state built up around the war on terrorism. What could be more successful at overturning the “terror war” legislation of the 2001-2017 years than complete disintegration of the federal government itself? Or maybe its economic system?
• An end to federal corporate welfare means a severe weakening of Big Pharma, agribusiness, or local developers utilizing federal money in efforts at gentrification.
• The disintegration of the U.S. means not only the end of federal drug prohibition but an end to U.S. support for the international drug war and the America-centric structure of international drug prohibition, thereby allowing other nations to develop more progressive policies on this matter.

The majority of the U.S. population resides in the 75 to 100 largest urban, metropolitan areas. If these areas – New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Chicago, Miami - were all independent city-states or micro-nations along the lines of Monaco, Luxembourg, or Singapore, genuine progressives would be in a much superior political position than at present. The major U.S. urban areas tend to be the most diverse culturally, racially, ethnically, and religiously. It is also in these areas where the majority of racial minorities, LGBTQ people, persons with counter-cultural values, and those with left-leaning political views tend to be concentrated. The majority of the unfortunate persons fed into the prison-industrial complex also originate from the large cities.

It would be immensely easier for independent city-states of this kind to enact, for instance, single-payer health care, legal same-sex marriage, stem cell research or a genuine living wage. Likewise, it would be much more possible to decriminalize, regulate and tax drugs, prostitution, gambling and other “consensual crimes” along the lines of New Zealand, Portugal, or the Netherlands at present. Such changes would severely weaken and undermine the police state and prison-industrial complex. The likely weakening of corporate power following the demise of federal and state corporate welfare would also provide a more level playing field for activists to take on landlords, developers, bankers, and other plutocratic interests on a municipal and regional level, and perhaps initiate economic alternatives like cooperatives, collectives, communes, land trusts, and so forth.

OK, so we know there is legal precedent for secession, except that if this is accomplished in the early 21^st century we must do so peacefully instead of shelling Fort Sumter like they did back in 1861. But can the act of secession be maintained once it has been initiated? Once the seceded territory has been set up, organized, and its boundaries set, is there legal precedent to set up its own Constitutional legal system, to print its own money or introduce some other medium of exchange, and so to be free and independent from the rest of the US? Once again the encouraging answer is that there is legal precedent for this very thing that dates back to the early years of our country, and this legal precedent is called nullification. An example of this was introduced in the South Carolina General Assembly back in 2010 was House Bill 4509 (H4509), which would make law that “no public official of any jurisdiction may require registration of purchasers of firearms or ammunition within the boundaries of this State.” No caveat for regulations under the commerce clause. No caveat for types of firearms either. This bill says NO to all gun registrations – period. The principle behind such legislation was nullification, which has a long history in the American tradition.

In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, Thomas Jefferson wrote in response to the hated Alien and Sedition Acts: “The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government”, and, “where powers are assumed [by the federal government] which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under the dominion, absolute and unlimited, of whosoever might exercise this right of judgment for them”. 

Now on sale at 1/2 price, was $29.95, now $14.98, exclusively from https://www.authorrevpauljbern.com

The Preservation of Peace in Syria is Not An Option

The Disastrous Consequences of

a U.S. Military Attack on Syria

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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Lately I have been seeing or hearing the Trump administration telling the world that the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Assad government must be answered by other worse weapons, even though the results of satellite surveillance has not proven this allegation – just as the Bush administration refused to wait for the 2013 UN report by the inspectors who had been looking for WMD in Iraq. Secretary of State John Kerry claimed back in 2013 that the UN inspectors “can’t tell us anything that we don’t already know.” President Trump has said that any U.S. attack on the Assad government will be as punishment, not regime change. The strike will be “limited” — but tell that to the civilians who will inevitably die when military attacks take place. President Bush and his advisers either didn’t know or didn’t care about the probable consequences of their decision to invade and occupy Iraq in March of 2003:

• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and over 4,000 Americans dead;
• Millions of Iraqis and Americans wounded physically and psychologically;
• Legions of young men of the region now experienced in warfare and for hire moving from Iraq to Libya to Syria;
• And, the Iraqi “democratic” government unable to control the whirlwind of sectarian violence that now is killing hundreds each week.
• Although the U.S. invaded and occupied Afghanistan under a different rationale, I also want to acknowledge and empathize with the Afghan citizens who have been killed or wounded in the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

President Trump has not spelled out the possible consequences of a military attack on Syria, but U.S. military leaders are warning about the risks. In a letter to the Senate Armed Services committee, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey wrote last month said, “As we weigh our options, we should be able to conclude with some confidence that use of force will move us toward the intended outcome. Once we take action, we should be prepared for what comes next. Deeper involvement is hard to avoid.”

General James Mattis, who is the retired head of the U.S. Central Command and Trump's Secretary of State, said last month at a security conference that the United States has “no moral obligation to do the impossible” in Syria. “If Americans take ownership of this, this is going to be a full-throated, very, very serious war.” As U.S. warships gather off the shores of Lebanon to launch Tomahawk Cruise missiles at targets in Syria, we can make some educated guesses of what the “unintended consequences” could be:

• Syrian anti-aircraft batteries will fire their rockets at incoming U.S. missiles.
• Many Syrians on the ground will die and both the U.S. and Syrian governments will say the deaths are the fault of the other.
• The U.S. Embassy in Damascus will be attacked and burned, as may other U.S. Embassies and businesses in the Middle East.
• Syria might also launch rockets toward the U.S. ally in the region —Israel.
• Israel would launch bombing missions on Syria as it has three times in the past two years and perhaps take the opportunity to launch an attack on Syria’s strongest ally in the region, Iran.
• Iran, a country with a population of 80 million, has the largest military in the region untouched by war in the past 25 years. Iran might retaliate with missiles aimed toward Israel and toward nearby U.S. military bases in Afghanistan, Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar.
• Iran could block the Straits of Hormuz and impede the transport of oil out of the Persian Gulf.
• At this time of crisis, it is worth remembering another time, 35 years ago in October, 1983 when U.S. warships bombarded Lebanon, the country located next to Syria. Within weeks, the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was blown up by a massive truck bomb that killed 241 American servicemen: 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. The truck driver- suicide bomber was an Iranian national named Ismail Ascari, whose truck contained explosives that were the equivalent of 21,000 pounds of TNT. Two minutes later a second suicide bomber drove a truck filled with explosives into the French military compound in Beirut killing 58 French paratroopers.

The U.S. and French military were in Lebanon as a part of a Multi-National force after the PLO left Lebanon following the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, ostensibly to create a 40 km buffer zone between the PLO and Syrian forces in Lebanon and Israel. The Israeli invasion was tacitly approved by the U.S., and the U.S. provided overt military support to Israel in the form of arms and material.

Colonel Timothy J. Geraghty, the commander of the U.S. 24th Marine Amphibious Unit (MAU) deployed as peacekeepers in Beirut, said that the American and the French headquarters were targeted primarily because of "who we were and what we represented…” American support removed any lingering doubts of our neutrality, and I stated to my staff at the time that we were going to pay in blood for this decision.”

Some of the circumstances around the incidents in Lebanon in 1983 and now 35 years later in Syria are familiar. U.S. intelligence agencies were aware of potential trouble but did not report the problems in sufficient time for actions to be taken. Former President Obama said at the time that the U.S. had intercepted signals indicating the Syrian government was moving equipment into place for an attack, but the U.S. did not warn the Syrian government that the U.S. knew what was happening and did not bother warning civilians that a chemical attack was imminent.

On August 31, 2013, 13 former officials of the U.S. government, including Pentagon Papers whistle-blower Dan Ellsberg, retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern, retired US Army Colonel Larry Wilkerson and former Chief of Staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, wrote an open letter to General Martin Dempsey, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, asking him to resign rather than follow an illegal order to attack Syria. “We refer to your acknowledgment.... that a decision to use force is not one that any of us takes lightly. It is no less than an act of war.... It appears that the President may order such an act of war without proper Congressional authorization. Seasoned veteran intelligence and military professionals solemnly sworn to support and defend the Constitution of the United States have long been aware that it is one’s duty to never obey an illegal order. If such were given, the honorable thing would be to resign, rather than be complicit.”

Those words were written five years ago, and the situation in Syria continues to escalate. As I write this, the Syrian government under Bashar Al-Assad has largely prevailed against the various parties of militants, some of whom are backed by the US. and still others by Iran. Syria and Iran are allied with Russia, with the ever-present potential for a clash between Russian and American military forces. A disquieting thought, to say the least. But it was Jesus himself who said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the 'sons of God'.” The flip side of that coin is that those who wage war are cursed. Meaning, if America doesn't cease and desist from her warlike ways, a military disaster will surely befall her. America's violence, killing and destruction overseas will come home to roost. Just let that sink in for a minute, and I'll see you all next week.

The ongoing nuclear disaster at Fukushima, Japan, and why the USA is partially to blame

The Ongoing Nuclear Disaster in Fukushima,

Japan, and the Culpability of the United States

in the Destruction of the Pacific Ocean

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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The worst nuclear disaster to strike Japan since a single bomb fell over Nagasaki in August 1945 occurred on March 11, 2011 at the Fukushima nuclear power plant following the earthquake and epic tsunami of that fateful day. The New York Times reported the disturbing news some months afterwards that a wide area around the Fukushima plant "could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels. The formal announcement was the first official recognition that the March accident could force the long-term depopulation of communities near the plant, an eventuality that scientists and some officials have been warning about for months." Just two weeks later, it was reported that radiation readings at the site had reached their highest points to date. The wide release of radiation, and fear of same, has forced the Japanese and others all over the world to reflect on what happened to the country in 1945, and the continuing existential threat of nuclear weapons and energy today.

In its main story in August 2011 marking the 66th anniversary of the atomic bombings, the Times highlighted the new activism of survivors of the bombing (the “hibakusha”) this year; campaigning against nuclear power, which has provided most of their country's energy needs. No one in the world can relate to the fears of a wide populace terrified that they (and perhaps the unborn) may be tainted forever by exposure to airborne radiation. One may ask how it is possible that Japan, after its experience with the atomic bombings, could allow itself to draw so heavily on the same nuclear technology for the manufacture of about a third of its energy? There was resistance, much of it from Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors. But there was also a pattern of denial, cover-up and cozy bureaucratic collusion between industry and government, the last especially notorious in Japan but by no means limited to that country.

Sumiteru Taniguchi, now 82 and currently director of the Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors Council, recently commented about the above NYT article, "When the conversation turns to the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant it is as if the floodgates open," Taniguchi said. "Nuclear power and mankind cannot coexist. We survivors of the atomic bomb have said this all along. And yet, the use of nuclear power was camouflaged as 'peaceful' and continued to progress. You never know when there's going to be a natural disaster. You can never say that there will never be a nuclear accident." Taniguchi is perhaps the main iconic symbol of the “hibakusha” today, thanks to footage of him taken after the bombing, showing him, months after the attack, still on a floor, spread-eagled, his entire back an open wound, flaming red. It was part of footage shot by a US film crew, and suppressed for decades.

In April, 2011, five survivors' organizations including Taniguchi's Nagasaki group submitted a statement to the Japanese government declaring the collapse of the "safety myth" around nuclear power and demanding a change in the government's energy policy to prevent creating any more “hibakusha”. Their statement further demanded that it distribute health record booklets — similar to the ones that are distributed to atomic bomb victims and can be used as proof of radiation exposure — to nuclear power plant workers and residents living close to them, and also provide periodic health examinations to those populations. It is a well-hidden fact (thanks to the lame stream media) that numerous A-bomb survivors over the decades sought help from the government after falling ill or suffering cancer and other diseases, allegedly from radiation exposure, but by many accounts had been abandoned. Will the people who are suffering from invisible dangers in Fukushima be subjected to the same treatment? Probably, unless more people start speaking up.

As I write this, Japan and TEPCO, the Japanese utility company that has been in charge of this ever-widening disaster, are making futile attempts to stop the gushing leakage of many tons of radioactive seawater that is coming from the three melted-down reactors. The entire northern Pacific ocean is now contaminated by this radioactive seawater. It will remain this way for a very long time afterward – decades at the very least. Contrast this to God's original instructions that he gave to us at the creation of the earth. “Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, 'Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground'.” (Genesis chapter 1, verses 26-28) In other words, God put humankind in charge of the planet right from the start. If a manager did to a company what we have done to the earth, we'd all be in jail!

The book of Revelation states quite clearly what will ultimately happen to those who pollute the earth, such as what happened at Chernobyl in the 1980's and in 2011 at Fukushima – and what America did to Japan in 1945. “And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: 'We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign. The nations were angry, and your wrath has come. The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great – and for destroying those who destroy the earth'” (Rev. chapter 11, verses 16-18). 'Destroy those who destroy the earth'? So much radioactive leakage from Fukishima, Japan has polluted the northern Pacific ocean that it is now effectively dead. All life from Japan eastward to Midway atoll and beyond, all the way north to the Aleutian islands and as far away as the Canadian west coast have been wiped out. And it's all our fault!

When it comes to nuclear issues — from atomic weapons to nuclear power — no two nations could be more irredeemably intertwined than Japan and the US. The United States is the country that 'introduced' the world to the splitting of the atom. This has resulted in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and atomic energy, and it has threatened to wipe us out as a species ever since. After the atomic destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, despite dissenting voices of some of its own citizens, America drew mostly wrong conclusions as it plunged into nuclear expansion. There was a relentless public relations campaign — unleashed by the Truman administration almost within hours of the Hiroshima bombing — that led to the erroneous conclusion that blinded the Americans (and later the Japanese) to the insidious, long-term damage of radiation. Prominent journalists and media outlets of the time embraced, with enthusiasm, the so-called “Dawn of the Atomic Age” and America fell into a kind of nuclear trance that remains with us to this day.

Psalm 24, verse 1 says, “The earth is the Lord's and everything in it”, and Psalm 108 verse 5 finishes the thought with, “and let your (God's) glory fill all the earth”. This planet isn't ours, we're supposed to be caretakers. We didn't make this place, God did. So who are we to just wantonly ruin the earth for the shallow and meaningless goal of profit? Is there anybody who seriously thinks that God is pleased with us because we have ruined the planet? I will tell you this much, because this is all I know about what God thinks. God is furious and thoroughly enraged at what humanity has done. I warn you all with a sternness you don't always see and hear from me that the consequences of our actions will define and make manifest God's response. The first two sets of people God is coming for are the militaries and rich industrialists of the world. They're the ones who financed and developed nuclear power. So, when world war three commences, and it will sooner or later, God is going to let it happen so He can destroy them all at once. That what Jesus really meant when he said, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matt. 5: 5) What a great day that will be!

Free book excerpt #27 from Blogger and Web Pastor Paul J. Bern

Fall of the American Empire: Part One

(Excerpt from chapter 6 of “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” by Rev. Paul J. Bern)

The fourth updated edition of this book will be available this fall

In my previous postings I have outlined the problems of the US middle class, and how it is slowly being obliterated by the top 1% of the financial pecking order. The end result of this is that the country is being ruined, literally from the inside out. Our only hope remaining is to protest, boycott, strike against and Occupy America every way we can. Not with an armed revolt, but a rather massive amount of organized passive resistance.

The plight of the American people is that we are experiencing the systematic confiscation of our wealth and prosperity, and with it our way of life. Many of our jobs, our savings and pensions, our housing and transportation, and our access to higher education and preventative health care, are evaporating before our eyes, and this social injustice will continue unabated until we as a united people rise up as one in a chorus of peaceful revolution. I am convinced that if we do not, the next battle front being entrenched by the top 1% will be against our very freedom. In fact, this latest round of class warfare being thrust against us has already begun, and it has become known as the 'prison-industrial complex'. Record numbers of people, many of whom are either wrongfully convicted or are harmless substance abusers in need of professional help, are being locked up systematically, and the process is slowly getting worse.

The United States, according to the New York Times, has 5% of the World's population and 25% of all people incarcerated on the planet! Currently in the United States, one in every hundred people are in some kind of incarceration. Incarceration is very big business in the United States. Private corrections companies such as Wackenhut, CCA and others charge either the States or the federal government from $65 to $160 a bed per night to warehouse all these people. In 2007, according to the National Association of State Budgeting Officers, states spent $44 billion in tax dollars on corrections. That is up from $10.6 billion in 1987, a 127 increase adjusted for inflation. With money from bonds and the federal government included, total state spending on corrections last year was $49 billion. By the end of 2018, the report said, states are on track to spend an additional $65 billion.

The United States ranks first in prison population. Where did we get all of these criminals? Well the answer comes from the reckless and costly War on Drugs, the new prohibition that makes convicts and criminals of those who are classified in more enlightened countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands as having a medical problem. In 2000 there were 74,276 drug related prisoners. In 2008 it was 95,079. In 2010 it was 99,205. As of 2017 that number is estimated at 56% and it continues rising unabated). We house those with substance abuse problems with professional criminals. What will we get when these people are released after serving an average 55 months in prison?

This is what capitalism has done. People are now profiting by locking up other human beings. And the longer people are are locked up, the more profitable the industry is. Should we be proud that we imprison more people than any nation on Earth? Have we outsourced so many industries along with their factories that we need a giant prison system to keep people employed (or locked out of the job market – literally!)? If we continue to allow such a disproportionate number of poor and minority citizens to be locked up, released without rehabilitation, and locked up again, modern slavery will continue to thrive. We are supporting a modern form of slavery if we do not, at the very least, lessen the punishment for drug offenses, do away with the unconstitutional "three strikes" laws and offer education and rehabilitation as an alternative to incarceration. If we retrain prisoners by paying for their vocational education, we give them a trade. If we simply incarcerate them and release them, all we get are more prisoners.

Remember, this “prison-industrial complex” is bought and paid for, and brought to you by the same "government" that has brought you: The FBI, the DEA, the BATFE, the only Atomic Bombs ever used in War, Three mile Island, Area 51, the Bay of Pigs invasion, Vietnam, Watergate, Iran Contra, Ruby Ridge, ID., Waco, TX., Grenada, Nicaragua, Somalia, FEMA disasters and the Patriot Act. Oh, and let's not forget the wars in Iraq I and II, and now Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and Libya. All of this has been and will be done in the name of “National Security”. When the American war machine finishes its conquests overseas to “acquire” Middle Eastern oil, the final step will be to bring the troops home so the “new world order” can turn their weapons on its own people. The final step, you see, will be the conquest of the Untied States. Only then will the domination and control over everything and everybody by the top 1% be secured by the Shadow Government and the New World Order.

American citizens have a patriotic duty to dissent and to speak out when it is apparent their government is creating policies and taking actions that are in conflict with the best interests of the people and the laws of the land. The right of patriotic dissent has been a part of America since those days that brought us our independence. Yes, anyone can and should exercise the right to dissent when the situation requires it. We find ourselves living in a world where the next terrorist attack could kill everyone in your city or town, where the cost of fuel could skyrocket into the stratosphere with the next conflagration in the Middle East or the next natural disaster, and where you can become the next crime statistic on less than a moments notice.

And as all these things are taking place, the solution being offered by your government, your political and economic system, your media outlets and even your churches are for more security by way of less individual freedom and personal liberty. I think it is high time that “we the people” rose up to challenge this erroneous notion that security is preferable to freedom. And I think it's high damn time to correct the perception of the top 1%, making them understand that people are not expendable, nor are we a commodity to be exploited. We need to take matters into our own hands if we hope to get anything done, and we need to directly confront our terrible economic situation if we hope to get things moving back in our favor. The system is broken, and it's up to us to either fix it, bypass it, or replace it altogether. Anything less amounts to slavery.

The end result of the hijacking of our political and economic system by the top 1% is that the country has been run into the ground. In my opinion, and based on quite a bit of on-line research and a library of saved Internet postings and articles, it is severely damaged but it may be repairable. In the meantime, here is what America is faced with in the short term.
Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can't Recover Anytime Soon

1. Central Banks are Dumbfounded. The usual tricks that U.S. and European central banks use to avoid recessions are long-exhausted.
2. Trade War. For a global economy to grow, global cooperation is needed. President Trump is doing exactly the opposite – imposing tariffs without negotiation.
3. Military War. Foreign war is a good symptom of economic decay. $57,000 a minute – that's how much the United States spends on military adventures overseas, and that's just the ones we know about.
4. U.S. Economy at a Standstill. The most important consumer market in the world, the U.S. is a nation of nearly bankrupt consumers. Over twenty million Americans are unemployed or underemployed.
5. Bailout Capitalism. First it was the banks and other corporations that needed bailing out, and now whole nations. Western nations bailed out their banks by falling into the massive debt that they are now drowning in.
6. Bailout Repercussions. All western nations -- including the U.S. and England -- are grappling with their national debts. Rich bond investors are demanding that these countries drastically reduce their deficits, while also demanding that the deficits be reduced through hidden taxes on working families, instead of rich investors.
7. The Far Right Emerges. To deal with working people more ruthlessly, the radical right is being unleashed. In normal times these bigots yell furiously but no one listens. But in times of economic crisis they're given endless airtime on all major media outlets.

Six more startling facts about the decline of the USA.

[1] In 2000, USA was ranked number one in average wealth per adult. In 2017, USA fell to seventeenth.

[2] USA has lost approximately 42,400 factories and 32 percent of manufacturing jobs since 2000. In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of economic output. In 2018, it represents 11 percent.

[3] Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is lower in 2018 than it was in 1985.

[4] America's trade deficit with China increased 300 percent in last ten years,which could eventually cost half a million jobs this year alone. Half a trillion dollars yearly leave America due to trade deficit.

[5] US 15-year-olds do not rank in the top half of all advanced nations in math or science literacy.

[6] The United States has the third worst poverty rate among all the advanced nations.
So where are US resources being directed? Towards war, of course!




QUICK FACTS ON WARS AND DEFENSE SPENDING

• The National Security Adviser says there are less than 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and we have over 100,000 troops and probably as many mercenaries chasing them.
  
• Maintaining one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year costs one million dollars. This expenditure could be for twenty jobs at home with a salary of $50,000 each.
  
• There are now over 90,000 battlefield casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Over 500,000 veterans patients from the two wars have flooded into VA hospitals and clinics. That's one new war casualty walking into a VA medical facility every five minutes of every day---about 9,000 new patients every month with no end in sight. Also, one third of all returning veterans from these illegal wars wind up on psychiatric disability. They will never work again. That's what war does to people, so why do we continue?
  
• The Iraqis still don't have a government and Christians are being ethnically cleansed.
  
• The cost of the Iraq war alone was more than three trillion dollars according to Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel winning economist.
  
• 190,000 AK-47s handed out by the US Army to Iraqi security force recruits vanished and wound up in the hands of ISIS militants.
  
• The total DOD budget for the current fiscal year is over $700 billion. It is an amount just under what the entire rest of the world spends for defense and most of them are allies.
  
• The Defense Department spends in a few hours more than al Qaeda spends in an entire year.
  
• According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 36 million Americans, including one out of every four children, are currently on food stamps. In the richest country in the world, this is inexcusable.
  

Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not Government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders..... But I don't believe for one instant that this will be the end of the line for the USA. The country itself, the land and its people, its infrastructure, the commercial structures and all the houses, most of the businesses and everything related to them, will all still be here. It will be up to us, the working people of this country (employed or not) who keep things going, to change the system from the bottom up.....

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The problem with modern American Christianity

I Was Just Wondering Why More Christians Aren't Protesting in the Streets Against War and Injustice Instead of Abortion and Gay Marriage

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

For website, phone or tablet viewing, click here :-)

Being involved with a brick and mortar church as a musician as well as this on-line ministry, it's been my experience that trying to get conservative American Christians to join the antiwar, American resistance or Progressive movements is like trying to persuade an orthodox Jew to convert to Islam. My considerable research on the Web and with local ministries here in Atlanta tells me that conservative Christians from other nations are far more politically liberal than their American counterparts. 

 

Why, for example, was there such resistance by conservative American Christians to the Occupy movement? Or to the “we are the 99%” campaigns, for that matter? Why have they not joined the rest of America in protesting the forcible separation of children from their parents at America's southern border? What are conservative “Christians” so afraid of? After all, aren't those who are involved in the 'Occupy', '99%' and pro-immigration Movements trying to speak out for those in need while opposing an economic system based on greed and the abuse of authority? Why would any conservative American Christian not want to join a group that tells us that our future depends on how well we cooperate with each other?

I also can't imagine why any rational person would have a problem with people who are protesting against firmly entrenched economic inequality and endless wars. And why would any American Christian not want to join a group that promotes a more participatory and balanced democracy than what we have now? I chronicled all these things in my 2011 book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” (a 4^th updated edition will be published in the fall), Jesus preached against social and economic injustice (see Luke 6, verses 20-26, Matt. 5: 6), and so we Christians should be doing the same.

Lately, some leftist writers and social media movers and shakers have attributed the political convictions of American conservative Christians to their faith, as if faith in God and opposition to social or economic injustice are mutually exclusive of one another. I insist that quite the reverse is true, that in fact those who care for the poor and needy, or for the sick or the hospitalized, or for the incarcerated, the institutionalized, and the homeless – the very least of humanity – it is they who do God's will here on earth, not hoarding for themselves but ministering and empathizing for all of the above! It is they who maintain their only source of faith and grace as being none other than Jesus Christ himself.

But what we have instead is a cadre of people mixing their man-made religion with extremely conservative politics for personal gain instead of worshiping the one true Almighty God for Spiritual gain. The majority of such Christians, however, are not American, which should give us a hint as to why many conservative American Christians are not out in the streets protesting as they should. 

 

The reason why right wing Christians are not out in the streets protesting is not because of their faith. It's because when one is raised as a conservative Christian in America there are certain associations made with that 'brand' of Christianity. Many of us were taught since birth that our nation was founded as a Christian nation by Christian Founding Fathers. Therefore, the American way, at least back when America was still an allegedly Christian nation, is the Christian way and vice versa. To criticize our Founding Fathers is to allegedly ridicule Christianity and Christ. Protesting against any part of this Christian nation of ours, by conservative standards, must be tantamount to attacking the Gospel and therefore constitutes betrayal of one's country as well as a great sin against God for which there will be divine retribution.

Any attempt at reconciling our nation's history with the notion that America was ever a Christian nation places enormous demands on one's logical skills. While it is true that many of our founding fathers were Christians, the genocide and ethnic cleansing of North America's indigenous people, combined with our nation's enslavement and abuse of African-Americans, doesn't jibe with authentic Christianity. From long before the start of the US Civil War up until the 1964 Civil Rights Act, along with our emerging American Empire and its use of dictators as proxy rulers over other countries, all these things make it problematic to attempt to reconcile American history with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And even when our history is partially acknowledged by these conservative American Christians, there seems to be an emotional disconnect that protects such individuals from the dissonance of racism that would otherwise be clanging like a fire alarm.

That is, we might acknowledge some of the abuses from back in the past, but can we still seriously call ourselves a Christian nation and a "city on a hill" without batting an eye? Knowing what I've seen and heard about America lately, I certainly can't. And yet I love my country. It's my government and it's unequal and unfair economic system that I'm having some genuine problems with. In the end, what patriotic American Christians are saying to the world is that, despite the evidence, they must feel good about themselves and what they have accomplished. Well-to-do right-wing Christians demand their Constitutional right to exalt so-called “American exceptionalism”, forgetting Jesus' warning about this very thing when He said, “Those who exalt themselves will be humbled, but they who humble themselves will be exalted”. Meaning, “American exceptionalism” is a sin against Christ.

And the same thing goes for capitalism. Since capitalism is our economic system and we are a Christian nation, right-wing logic seems to dictate that capitalism has become God's preferred economy, as if God needed an economic system in which to operate. Many conservatives, whether Christian or secular, are rationalizing that since the greatest prosperity in the history of the world has been enjoyed by Americans and we practice capitalism, capitalism must also be God's chosen economy. But the problem I see with this is that it compels us to ask a very damning question: When in the history of capitalism has it prospered without exploiting large numbers of people? Many times those who were exploited were hidden from the view of most Americans, but the invisibility of capitalism and militarism does not contradict the fact that they exploit untold multitudes.

And so what originally caused the Occupy and the “99%” Movements to emerge in 2011 continues to this day unabated. The fact is that far too large of a percentage of Americans have now become the victims of the same capitalist economy that they helped create. All of our hard work was for nothing. In fact, it has backfired on us all in the worst possible way by making homeless people out of formerly middle class workers. These throngs of disenchanted and disenfranchised Americans are transforming American patriotism and public dissent by opposing the military and prison industrial complexes while challenging capitalism by insisting that people and their needs have priority over profits. 

 

Suggesting that being patriotic includes being capitalistic, which is conservative Christianity's true religion, has spread more evil than good. As before, that's because of the close association many conservative Christians have made between both patriotism and capitalism. They that do this are forgetting the historical reasons for Jesus' crucifixion. He preached against organized government, which infuriated the Romans, and against organized religion, which enraged the Jewish ruling council of that time. If Jesus came back today and walked into a mega-church unannounced, one of two things are guaranteed to occur. Either the conservative Christians, “hawks”, Evangelicals, and Charismatics would crucify him all over again, or the entire church would fall out of their pews face down on the floor, crying like children and begging for mercy. That's who the real Jesus Christ is!!

There is one final reason why conservative American Christians have still not joined the Resistance movement. That is because the Resistance movement is seen as a protest movement that does not respect authority. From an early age, conservative American Christians were injected with spiritual steroids when being taught to respect authority, mostly from Romans 13 while ignoring the Four Gospels. It is one thing to learn to respect authority, but it's an entirely different matter to be compelled to worship it.

On the other hand, that command cuts both ways, as it is written in James chapter 5, verses 1-6: “Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay your workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered innocent men, who were not opposing you.”

And just as self-exaltation (American exceptionalism) is the reason why we equate American patriotism and capitalism with Christianity, so self-interest is the reason why we have a hyper-regard for those in authority. That self-interest tells us to be good little boys and girls so that those in charge will reward us rather than incarcerate us. And perhaps, it is a desire of some – you know who you are – to remain child-like while in authoritarianism's embrace, seeing surrender as preferable to a personal relationship with the Son of God.

Self-interest is the desire to spend more time playing around with what-or-whom-ever than making responsible decisions, from spend more time enjoying our trivial pursuits than being engaged with the serious issues of life – such as how we relate to each other and profit for the good of all concerned – that causes selfish people to prefer rule by elites over autonomy. The reason why most conservative American Christians won't resist the New World Order (and the Antichrist that is to follow) isn't because of their faith or a lack thereof. It is because of the extra ingredients added to their faith. Meaning, their faith is polluted with worldly things and concerns, another thing Jesus warned us about when he said, “A man cannot serve two masters. He will either cling to one and despise the other, or he will serve the other and reject the former. You cannot serve both God and materialism”. (Matt. 6: 24)

Prospects for Peace on the Korean Peninsula and Biblical Prophecy

Will the Peace in Korea Last? Maybe, or Maybe Not

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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There can be no question that the news of an impending peace agreement on the Korean peninsula is very exciting – no, make that electrifying – news. We have already seen the highly publicized 'love feast' between the North and South Korean leaders, their wives, and probably each other's security details and entourages. What we have yet to see is a signed agreement, which is apparently being readied for formalization when president Trump visits North Korea next month. Let's also keep in mind that this is timed with the formalization of the relocation of the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Although I am no big fan of Donald Trump's, if he succeeds in getting both agreements signed in the same month – and that appears to be a high probability at this point – he will have scored a major foreign affairs coup that will silence all but his most virulent critics.

This led me to wonder if the Bible, which is the Word of God and a reliable predictor of the future, has anything to say about this. Although I can find no specific mention of either of the Korea's anywhere in the Bible – and I've been a student of it for over 25 years – the Word speaks about many episodes of war, peace and turmoil. One of the most famous passages is a quote from Christ himself. “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginnings of birth pains.” (Matthew 24, verses 6-8) 

 

The entire world is currently having to endure these very things, which is why I maintain that these words have prophesied our 'here and now'. Moreover, we have as a people all been dragged through the muck of war for generations – WW1 ended 100 years ago this coming November – and the overwhelming majority of the world's population has had a belly full of warfare and killing. That is, the ones who have survived it. Since the end of World War 2, wars have not been waged by nations and peoples so much as by well-monetized special interests. These special interests with virtually unlimited funding include the Pentagon and its covert ops branches known as the NSA and the CIA, the City of London and its attack dog known as MI5, the international bankers such as the World Bank and the IMF, the Rothschild banking empire, the US Federal Reserve (which in actuality is none of the above) and the Vatican. Seriously. The Vatican. You can find out more about this topic from my Web acquaintance and fellow author Dean Henderson from his book page.

The probability of impending peace between the Korea's of north and south does not guarantee that this will snowball into a global love fest. In fact, this could have exactly the opposite effect, like a cease-fire in wartime that doesn't last. I sincerely hope not, of course, but peace in Korea and Israel could usher in such a momentous event, even if it is only temporary, as the apostle Paul predicted nearly 2,000 years ago: “Now brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'Peace and safety', destruction will come upon them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you, brothers, are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like the others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled.” (1^st Thessalonians 5, verses 1-6)

The apostle Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica that, first and foremost, they should not become concerned over the “times and dates”. This has been a sticking point for Christianity's entire history, and this includes the upcoming 70^th anniversary of the formal founding of the nation of Israel by the United Nations (May 14^th, 1948). Many pastors and religious 'teachers' are now saying that Jesus will come back on May 14^th, 2018, which is only 16 days away as I write this. This is simply not possible, based on the same Bible from which they are basing their claims of Christ's impending return. Those who see Christ's 2^nd coming as being imminent are misled because their suppositions are based on denominational 'teachings' instead of what the Bible actually says. 

 

“....for you know very well that the Day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'Peace and safety', destruction will come upon them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.” "The Day of the Lord" is a biblical term and theme used in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, as in "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come" (Joel 2:31, also cited in Acts 2:20). But Paul's admonishment to the Thessalonian church was an echo of the words of Christ, who further remarked, “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” (Mathew 24, verses 42-44)

So to come full circle the entire planet has, hopefully, within its collective grasp the ability to have a lasting peace, or at least it will seem that way for at least a short while. But I decline to speculate on any dates or times except to say that all indications are we are living in the authentic 'last days' or 'end times', take your pick. One thing is for sure; the chances of nuclear war on the Korean peninsula involving South Korea, the US and Japan, which would bring in China to North Korea's defense, is far, far less today. (The situation in the South China Sea between mainland China, the Philippines, Vietnam and the US is completely separate from the Korean peace initiative, but it has an equal chance at future volatility.) What underscores this past week's Korean peace agreement between North and South Korea is its timing to coincide with the relocation of the American embassy to Jerusalem. Will this dedication of America's new embassy in Jerusalem be coming in tandem with another peace agreement on the Korean peninsula as well? If it does, it could usher in the era Jesus talked about with his apostles, “While people are saying, 'Peace and safety', destruction will come upon them suddenly....because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.” Let's all be very watchful, because just when you think things are going really well, that's when the whole ball of wax could blow up in our faces.

There's a lot of different things we can devote ourselves to, but only One of them is real

The Only God That's Real

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

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Like nearly everyone else, with the exception of the 'war hawks' in the Pentagon who obey without questioning, I too am appalled by the fighting in the Middle East and northeastern Africa over natural resources, politics and religion. The missile strike ordered by president Trump this past Friday night, although probably justified, does nothing at all to improve the situation there. Moreover, I find all the bickering between the peaceful 90%, which is us, and the war hawks (the top 10%) to be little more than a sideshow considering what's at stake. I am equally put off by all the sniping and infighting here in North America between religious denominations over man-made dogma and traditions steeped in pomp and circumstance while they remind everyone constantly to “support our troops”. They are all in favor of combating and killing Muslims while calling themselves “pro-life”.

I will use the Scriptures to prove that the one true God is above and beyond all wars, churches and organized religions, in keeping with the theme of this website. The first thing that I want to remind you of is that there are many false gods in the modern world. The most egregious example that comes to mind is the worship of money and material goods and all the evils that come with them. In the apostle Paul's first letter to Timothy, Paul wrote that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”. That means money in and of itself is not always evil, but greed and the insatiable lust for money most definitely are. Jesus said in the four Gospels, “No one can serve two masters. He/she will either love one and reject the other, or cling to the latter while despising the former. You cannot serve both God and materialism.” (Luke 16: 13) I think this would apply to, among other things, the sales of military armaments.

The “love of money” appears in many forms. Let's ask ourselves these questions – do we sometimes find ourselves in automotive dealerships every time a new model comes out? Do we shop for new clothes, electronics, mobile or “smart” phones, the latest computers, and new decor for our homes whether we need them or not, just because they're “on sale”? Do we sometimes find ourselves shopping for a new house whether we need one or not? Are any of us in debt up to our eyeballs (not counting student loans) because we owe too much on our credit cards and everything else? If anyone answered “yes” to any of these questions, and particularly if you prioritize these things at the expense of your Spiritual lives, then you are worshiping a false god(s). It is Jesus Christ and he alone that must be at the top of our priorities. Anything else takes a back seat to Jesus in the order of our lives. Most of the things I just mentioned (excluding greed) are not evil in and of themselves. But false and futile worship of anything other than God, while bypassing or not including Jesus Christ as our Savior, amounts to idol worship. A similar line of questioning was presented to the apostle Paul nearly 2,000 years ago, and it is well documented in the book of Acts in the New Testament. I will begin with a quote from chapter 17, beginning at verse 16.

“While Paul was in Athens.... he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. A group of..... philosophers began to dispute with him. Some of them asked, 'What is this babbler trying to say?' Others remarked, 'He seems to be advocating foreign Gods.' They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus (which was basically a temple for idol worship and a town meeting place), where they said to him, 'May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean'.... Then Paul stood up at the meeting of the Areopagus and said, 'Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He himself gives life and breath and everything else. From one man He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth.... God did this so that men would seek Him and perhaps to reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each of us.... as some of your own poets have said, “we are his offspring”. Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone – an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent....when they heard about [Jesus] resurrection from the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “we want to hear from you again on this subject”. (Acts 17, verses 16-32)

This passage is just one of numerous examples of the apostle Paul's teaching about the one true God. I especially appreciate that Paul made two distinct points about God. The first is that God is above and beyond all nationalities, races and religions because he preached the same message equally to Jews, Greeks and other Gentiles. The one true God is also above and beyond all the material possessions money can buy. These things were considered to be radical teachings at the time because all these groups believed that their version of God was the correct one to the exclusion of everything and everybody else. This very mistake continues to be made today by certain church denominations who I will decline to name. Nobody has the exclusive path to God. No one has the right to claim that they are any closer to God than anyone else. It's just not true and it never was. Moreover, nobody has the right to condemn another person's religion, so long as their beliefs don't hurt or restrict the freedom of anyone else. And we can't buy our way into heaven either.

The second point that catches the human eye and captures my imagination is what Paul said about where God lives. “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And He is not served by human hands, as if He needed anything, because He himself gives life and breath and everything else.” What an awesome statement! Think about how many religions there are in the world. There are over 4000 Protestant denominations alone, and that's just in the USA. All are called churches or houses of worship regardless of which religion they represent. And yet God doesn't live in any of them. Instead, for the true believer God lives in the minds and hearts of all individual believers. Never mind all the spiritual sophistry that's being “taught” in some modern churches, because it's largely based on money.

God doesn't care who you are, where you live, what you have done (or not), what country you are from or what church you are connected with (or not). He doesn't care where you have been, and He doesn't care about what is in your past. Unlike many men and women who attend church regularly, God doesn't care what you look like, or how much money you give to your church or to charities, or what your social or economic status is. God couldn't care less what church you go to, or even if you go at all. The one true God doesn't even live in church, although a lot of phony religious leaders and related clergy will no doubt insist that He does. Instead, God wants to live and breathe in our hearts and minds. He wants you to become a church in and of yourself, a church that walks and talks. Not only does God want to live inside you, He wants us all to pay that forward by unconditionally sharing our faith with others. That means that He wants us all to have a sound conscience and to learn how to use it most effectively. Also, to quote the apostle Paul, God wants us to “continue to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord” (Philippians 2: 12).

In closing, let me add that there is absolutely nothing wrong with going to church no matter what religion you identify with. If you currently attend, I'm certain that God wants you to continue to go so long as you keep hearing messages from the pulpit that are encouraging, uplifting and positive, and most importantly based on Scripture. I don't want this message to be a reason for those who are attending church to stop going. God forbid! On the other hand, please keep in mind that the church is just a building and nothing more. I acknowledge that churches are built as meeting places for like-minded believers and that they should remain so. But now that you have read today's message I hope I have given everyone a better perspective, whether in church or out. You can look at organized religion with skepticism as I do, but do not let that compromise your most deeply held beliefs. The one true God is greater that all the religions in the world combined. He is truly above and beyond it all. 

 

Let me bring up one more thing before I go, and I really wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't point this out. If we are going to have God living inside of each of us then we should be living and acting as if He did. Watch what you say and how you say it. Clean up your life and the language that you use. Be mindful of anything that you are doing to excess because this is the root of all addictive behavior. Live your life as if God is watching what you do and listening to everything you say because He really is. Until next time, then, be a believer that walks and talks the good example of Christ for others to follow, especially those who look up to you. And the almost incomprehensible peace that is the very embodiment of Jesus Christ – the Savior of the world – will remain with you all permanently. Amen.