Ending poverty must be done one person at a time

Commentary this week on the Progressive Christian Blog with Author & Web Minister Paul J. Bern; Living out the commands of Christ by helping the poor whenever we can -- https://www.pcmatl.org/weekly-commentary #compassion #empathy #realChristianity

 

Silver, gold and Bitcoin will be of no value during the End of Days

Worried About Your Investments?

Place All Your 'Stock' In Other People Instead

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

For a website view, click here :-)

I stream videos on my computer in the evening when I'm not busy with the on-line ministry God has entrusted me with. I don't bother with cable or satellite TV, they want too much money for those subscriptions, especially the broadband providers like Comcast and Charter. One of the social media outlets I use is You Tube (not a plug or an ad here, OK?), where there exists a proliferation of survivalist and/or “prepping” channels, as well as many more devoted to hawking the benefits of investing in silver and gold instead of stocks, bonds, futures or commodities, etc. The common theme of all these videos is that the US dollar is going to crash due to its impending replacement as the world's reserve currency, most likely by the Chinese Yuan.

So the idea behind these videos I've watched (I'm not naming names) is to get out of the stock and bond markets altogether, which may not be such a bad idea. But their 'solutions' are not so hot, if you ask me. Take the money from the liquidation of your investments, they're saying, and put it all into silver, gold, and digital currencies, of which Bitcoin is probably the most well-known. Still other videos, who have these self-appointed doomsday specialists as their paid sponsors, urge their viewers to stock up on weapons, ammunition, water and nonperishable food, plus things like first aid supplies and barter items. It's not that I find anything wrong with their ideas, but what disturbs me about this is that most of these purveyors of gloom and doom are Christians. If they are in fact Christian, then why don't they read their Bibles? Yes, I know there is much written about the End Times, or Last Days, throughout the Bible. The Book of Revelation, the prophets Daniel, Ezekiel and Zechariah, the prophetic chapters of Matthew 24, Luke 21 and Mark 13 in the Gospels – all have much to say. The problem I'm having is that the above Scriptures are only a part of the story, and the remainder isn't being emphasized enough.

The gold and silver everyone is hoarding will crash, right along with the currencies that they are traded in, as it is written in Ezekiel chapter 7, verse 19: “They will throw their silver into the streets, and their gold will be treated as a thing unclean. Their silver and gold will not be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath. It will not satisfy their hunger or fill their stomachs, for it has caused them to stumble into sin.” In times past when disasters struck, the first thing people would take as they were fleeing would be their silver and gold. It was the one thing they could use for a universal currency. But this time around, when the debt-based economies fail that set the price of precious metals and other related commodities (such as crude oil or natural gas), the value of any given commodity will also evaporate. The only thing that precious metals and natural resources and related commodities will be good for at that point will be for bartering purposes.

All right then, you may say, if gold and silver will have no value during the End Times, and assuming Ezekiel was right (which he was!), then what will be left? Food and water? Guns and ammunition? How about fuel, weapons, or tools? Granted, all of these have value during good times and bad, but these things are not all there is to life, nor to preparedness. There is one thing that is far more valuable than all of the above, and that is the human soul, as it is written in the books of Moses: “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.” (Deuteronomy 7: 6) Now the word “holy” means to be set aside, or to be held in reserve, for only the most special of occasions. That's how God views us – we are his “treasured possessions”!

Silver and gold have no value in God's sight, because God has already made them both. It would be like expecting Henry Ford to buy himself a Ford Model A when he already had a Lincoln or two. In a somewhat similar way, we can't expect God to value gold or silver more than the human soul, as the apostle Peter explained so well: “18) For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, 19) but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. 20) He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. 21) Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 22) Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” (1^st Peter 1: 18-23)

Verses 18 and 19 explain what I'm trying to say here so perfectly that I will simply move on with little comment, except to say that instead of investing in silver and gold or digital currencies – all of which are tied to the US dollar, either directly or indirectly – should be supplanted with an immense investment in human capital. Square One of that people-investment should be the salvation of Christ, who gives us all our sense of worth by being purchased with his blood, which he shed on a cross. No silver or gold was required. “22) Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. 23) For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” We are to obey Jesus and follow his commandments because Jesus Christ is truth personified. We have been born again as imperishable, whereas before we had all received a death sentence.

I have one more thought about the fruitlessness of investments here in the Last Days, and it comes from the apostle Paul: “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.” (1^st Corinthians 7: 23) If the blood of Jesus is the only real investment that will still hold its value after our lives are over, investing in gold, silver, Bitcoin, antiques, collectibles and anything else you can think of will ultimately turn out to be a waste of time and money. The only worthwhile investments are the giving of our hearts and minds, first to Christ because he has died for each of us, and secondly to each other. In both cases, they are to be done unconditionally and without reservation. That means we are charged with the duty of loving those who are unlike us, such as those with different skin color, or of a different religion. So if you aspire to be a big-time investor, let's start investing in the most precious commodity of all – the human soul.

My 7 Reasons Capitalism is Done (with free book excerpt)

Seven Reasons Why Capitalism,

As We Know It, Has Run Its Course

Free book excerpt #33 from, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto 4th Edition” by Rev. Paul J. Bern

For a website view, click here :-)

As world trade continues its anemic 1.2% average annual growth rate, politicians in most industrial countries, and particularly in the US, have an incentive to make exaggerated claims about the alleged ongoing economic recovery. The government wants us to think the Great Recession is over, and that we're on "the road to recovery," while the American people and other nations look on skeptically. The ugly truth is that more and more people have lost confidence in – and consequently no longer trust – the federal government. To make matters worse, 2015 turned out to be the year when the American public lost confidence and trust in law enforcement (think Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., and Eric Gardner in New York, and that's just for starters). The street protests in Ferguson, New York, Chicago, L.A., Atlanta, Baltimore and elsewhere attest to the authenticity of that mistrust, which continues to get progressively worse. Below are seven important social phenomena that point to a more realistic economic and political outlook for 2019. Let's start where it matters most by beginning with the economy.

My Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can't Recover

1) The Central Banks are clueless. The usual tricks that U.S. and European central banks use to keep their debt-based economies going are long-exhausted. Interest rates cannot get much lower. And because cheap money wasn't working, the printing press was turned up a notch, into what the U.S. federal reserve calls quantitative easing -- injecting hundreds of billions of dollars into the world economy, escalating an emerging trade war. Most recently, the Fed is raising rates at the insistence of investors and retirees, who have been seeing zero income from their “investments” for many years. This is bound to end disastrously one way or the other.

2) Trump's Trade Wars. For a global economy to grow, global cooperation is needed. But in a major recession all countries engage in a bitter struggle to dominate foreign markets so that their own corporations can export. These markets are won by devaluing currencies (accomplished in the U.S. by quantitative easing), installing protectionist measures (so that a nation's corporations have monopoly dominance over the nation's consumers), or by waging warfare (a risky but highly effective form of market domination).

3) The Pentagon's Military Wars. Foreign war is a good symptom of economic decay. The domination of markets – every inch of them – becomes an issue of life and death importance. Wars have been unleashed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. America is fighting scores of clandestine wars in numerous other countries as well. "Containing" economies like China and "opening" economies like Iran and North Korea become more urgent during a major recession, requiring brute force and creating further global instability in all realms of social life.

4) The U.S. Economy is going nowhere in a hurry. The most important consumer market in the world, the U.S., is a nation of totally bankrupt consumers. Nearly 18 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, while further job losses are certain due to nearly every state's budget deficit. States are bracing for more painful cuts, more layoffs, more tax increases, more battles with public employee unions, more requests to bail out cities. And in the long term, as cities and states try to keep up on their debts, the very nature of government could change as they have less money left over to pay for the services they have long provided." (date 12-05-10; the problem with state government budget shortfalls has since gotten far, far worse – PB)

5) Bailout Capitalism Emerges. First it was the banks and other corporations that needed bailing out in 2008, and now whole nations want the same. Western nations bailed out their banks by falling into the massive debt that they are now drowning in. Greece and Ireland have been bailed out, with eyes shifting to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. With the emergence of “Brexit”, the entire European Union is being called into question as the Euro takes a beating in the bailout spree. If the EU is dismantled, the shock waves will quickly reach other economies globally.

6) Bailout Repercussions. All western nations -- starting with the U.S., Canada and Great Britain – are grappling with their own national debts. Rich bond investors are demanding that these countries drastically reduce their deficits, while also demanding that the deficits be reduced on the backs of working families instead of rich investors. This is tearing the social fabric apart, as working and poor people see their social programs under attack. In Europe mass movements are erupting in France, Spain, Portugal, England, Greece, Ireland, Italy, etc. Social stability is a prerequisite for a recovered economy, but corporate politicians everywhere are asking much more than working people are willing to give.

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. The message of the far right promotes all the rottenness not yet eradicated by education: racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, violence, and a backward nationalism that fears all things "foreign." These core beliefs effectively divide working people so that a concerted campaign against the corporate elite is harder to wage. Meanwhile, labor unions, progressives, and other working class organizations are instead targeted.

America imports twice the dollar amount of manufactured goods than it does oil. Since 2000 the US experienced a rapid increase in the imports of advanced technology products. A country dependent on foreigners for manufactured and advanced technology products is not a superpower. When it comes to Americans ages 18-24, 63% could not locate Iraq, Iran or Israel on a Middle East map. Fifty percent could not locate New York City. Moreover, 30% of respondents thought US population exceeded one billion. Forty-seven percent of all urban school children do not possess basic grade level skills. Is there any doubt as to why the jury system is a sham? Despotism and dictatorship reign when ignorance and nonsense rule societies. Society will divide itself into exploiters and exploited. In the early 1800's, complex literacy in New England exceeded 93%. A small farm nation, without newly built schools, sport stadiums, and "prestigious" universities had a much better track record. They keenly observed the American ideal of independence while never watching TV or indulging in Virtual Reality.

A country that has too many lacking in native knowledge is not a superpower. Countless industrial plants have been closed as 3.5 million jobs in manufacturing have been outsourced in the last ten years. In that time 7 million less jobs have been created than what population growth required. The high tech jobs never appeared as touted. Information Technology, computer system designs, and telecommunications in fact lost 17%, 9%, and 25% of its work force respectively. Even wholesale and retail trade experienced job losses, mainly at the managerial levels. As several hundred thousand engineers languished in unemployment lines for years, salaries for law school graduates continue to skyrocket. Firms in Philadelphia and New York are offering newly trained ruling class members over $125,000.00 in annual salaries. A country that does not fully utilize and reward its productive citizens and instead caters to the parasitic and marginal sectors is not a superpower. A country whose populace has been reduced to chattel by the special interest-driven 'health care for ransom' system is not a superpower.

Unfortunately, lawsuits for unproven and astronomical monetary amounts are pursued as the main recourse. These acts obviously fuel the healthcare crisis. Senator Hillary Clinton, who received $4.6 million from a trial lawyer group, helped to block medical lawsuit reform during her 2016 campaign. This mild bill would have saved her constituents $800.00 a year in premiums. A country that allows legalized bribery to plutocrats to influence law and policy is not a superpower. A country in which 4-7% of its people are illegals who now choose to dictate terms is not a superpower. This is clearly a breakdown of law and order.....”

In closing, the various reasons for capitalism's impending failure I have just elaborated on do not happen in a normal economic cycle of boom and bust. These symptoms point to a larger disease in the capitalist economic system, a disease that cannot be cured by politicians who swear allegiance to this deteriorating system and to the wealthy elite who benefit from it. To ensure that the economic system is changed so that working people benefit, the ones who do the real work every day to keep things moving, large-scale collective action is necessary based on demands that unite the majority of working people. The ongoing fight for a $15.00 per hour minimum wage is one good example of large-scale collective action. What America needs is a massive job-creation program at the expense of Wall Street, an expansion of Social Security and Medicare, and a moratorium on home foreclosures. If the Christian community worked cooperatively with the unions in promoting these demands, working people could put up a real fight. After all, the Bible says, “The workman is worth his/her wages”.

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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Is the American Dream Dead Already, or Is It Just Asleep?

The American Dream Has Become a Nightmare

by Pastor Paul J. Bern

To view this on my website, or for small screen viewing, click here :-)

The “American Dream” has at its core an escape from the real world to build a personalized utopia, a custom-made fantasy island of sorts. When we were taught to pursue this dream back when, we were 'taught' that if we work hard and diligently enough we'll be able to make enough money to buy a house in the 'right' neighborhood so our kids go to the 'right' schools and buy enough stuff so as to please ourselves, stay even economically with our neighbors and relatives, and shut out the rest of the world so we can keep it all to ourselves. But the house and our neighborhood are not the only part of our island. Our cars and our Internet gives us the power to choose almost everything such as where we work, or where our houses or churches are. Not to mention who our friends are, too. Our cars allow us to escape what we don't like about the neighborhoods we must sometimes live in.

If that is not enough, our TVs and our Internet connections allow us to filter out whatever else could intrude on us. Not that we need help to filter out what is unpleasant, the 'lame stream media' does that for us already. All one has to do is talk to those who are from other countries such as Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria and Israel/Gaza. Our media protects us from the real life negative stories about what our country and corporations do to others. In lieu of the unpleasant truth, our media reports only that which does not interfere with our consumption of their sponsors' products. And out of that small selection that is left from all of this filtering, we use the remote to choose shows based on how they make us feel. What a dumb life this is! Ever considered turning off your cable TV and pocketing that money each month? Thank God we have the alternative media outlets such as Israeli News Live, We Are Change, SGT Report, Jason A and many, many other high-quality channels or websites to choose from!

Christendom as a whole sees this self-imposed isolation by its secular fellow Americans as an affirmation of his own similarly withdrawn theology. For example, I rarely see any articles or postings that call into question the extreme immorality of waging war. In its place their articles, Christian books and TV shows are concerned with fine theological points, pointless evangelical arguments, how to better manage church services, all about miracles real or imagined or engineered, and all the while oftentimes overemphasizing fund raising.

But it is not just the articles that show how we distance ourselves, but we use our gospel of individual salvation to shut out what we find disturbing. We so reduce our standing before God – in our own eyes – to our current state of inner self and beliefs that we become hyper vigilant over ourselves while ignoring the needs of others. As a result, we become agitated and even panicked when the concerns of the world ask for our time. And it isn't just the negativity of the news that disturbs us, it is its complexity. Since things are simple when we only have to care for ourselves, we prefer to pay as little attention as possible to others. The apostle Paul wrote, “we have the mind of Christ”, but some 'Christians' aren't acting like it.

And when we do see and respond to the suffering of others, it is only to a chosen few fellow Christians or to those whom we cannot avoid. But such an approach to helping others goes against what the Bible teaches. Isaiah chapters 58 and 59 and Jeremiah 22:16 (“He defended the cause of the poor and the needy, and so all went well. 'Is that not what it means to know me', says the Lord?”) closely tie helping those in need with having seen the light. Likewise, Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats (see Matt. 25, verses 21-46) not only taught that those who helped others in need were the sheep who received eternal life, it also showed that those who neglected the needy, looking after only themselves, were banished from heaven forever! He also demonstrated this latter principle in his parable of the rich man and Lazarus.

In Jesus' parable of the rich man, who built extra barns to hold the excess of his harvest and told himself to eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow he could die – well, sure enough, he did. He begged Lazarus from the fires of hell to give him just one drop of cool water, but Lazarus could not. Last in my list is the book of Proverbs, containing such tasty nuggets of wisdom as, “He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God” (chapter 14, verse 31), and “Do not exploit the poor because they are poor, and do not crush the needy in court, for the Lord will take up their case and will plunder those who plunder them” (chapter 22, verses 22-23).

But perhaps the most pathetic way that Christians fail in their missions of service, prayer and worship is by blindly submitting to authority. It is not that Christians are not called to submit to those in authority – quite the contrary! But many of today's Christians do so as a way of shielding themselves from the risks that come with confronting evil, such as opposing corruption and speaking truth to power (think Rev. Dr. King, the Kennedy brothers, Huey Long, Malcolm X, and many more like them). Submission to authority, then, is sometimes practiced not in order to love God and others, but to secure for oneself the kind of world that is most comfortable.

And so when evil prevails in either the private or public sector, this legitimate command to submit to the authorities is used to hide the very ones who are perpetrating evil and mayhem, and especially government and workplace corruption. But not only are we negligent in our Christian duty when we fail to confront those who abuse their power, we also become complicit in their evil ways. And we do so in order to ride on the coattails of evil and power rather than risk any reprisal for challenging it. If we as a people – regardless of religious affiliation or the lack thereof – continue to allow abusive and corrupt authority to run our country, we will soon lose it forever.

Martin Luther King faced this very dilemma when he stood up to the legalized racism and racial hatred that was rampant in the American South. He wanted to honor and follow the commandment in Romans 13 that told him to submit to the authorities. At the same time, he knew that many authorities were enforcing unjust laws while allowing abuse and even murder. He could have submitted and just gone along with the status quo and he would have avoided making himself a target. But that would have been the coward's way out! Had he remained quiet, others would have continued to suffer horribly. So King concluded that he could meet both responsibilities by using political dissent and organized passive resistance as forms of peaceful protest. When arrested, he made no effort to resist. He did not challenge the authority of the police, but he most definitely did challenge the validity of unjust laws and the society that profited from that authority. The institutionalized racism that Rev. Dr. King stood against exists to this very day! What are white or Caucasian Christians doing about this?

There is a Biblical reason why the American Dream is so desirable to Christians. It is because we see the American Dream as the Garden of Eden restored and thus it's our Christian duty to make it so. In fact, some think that the purpose of God's Word is to make Paradise accessible again, not understanding that we who call upon the name of the Lord are destined for a Paradise that will put the Garden of Eden to shame. Such Christians argue that basing one's life on God's Word is like following the right blueprints when constructing a building, and they have a point. The more we follow God's Word, the more we can avoid the hazards of sin. But the big question becomes, did God give us His word to return us to the Garden or to help us through the wilderness? But before answering that question, we must understand why would Jesus commanded us to collect our treasures in heaven rather than on earth, and why the writer of the book of Hebrews tells us we are to look for a new home to come rather than a home here.

To believe that God's Word tells us how to regain Paradise is inaccurate, to put it nicely. By the same token, the real attraction to the American Dream isn't the opportunity to restore what was lost but to worship what can be found – the twin false gods of money and materialism. The American Dream is a monasticism with benefits. Its preachers assure us that we can be righteously selfish. The “prosperity gospel” is taught in churches like a canned sales pitch, and is gleefully and mistakenly received as truth by the gullible. It allows us to flee from what is unpleasant and distasteful in the world while enjoying its corruptible fruit. This makes America a trap for 21^st century Christians. For when we try to take what we want instead of waiting on God, we become deaf and blind to both the world God wants us to share His love with, as well as our own depleted spiritual conditions.

My conclusion, then, is to reject materialism and the pursuit of economic gain! Jesus said, “One cannot serve two masters. He/she will either love one and despise the other, or cling to one while rejecting the other. You cannot serve both God and mammon (materialism)”. Choose today whom or what you will serve in life. You can either pursue wealth and material goods, or you can pursue a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and all that goes with it. There is so much more to choosing Christ than there is to choosing riches, which can be here one day and gone the next without warning. One cannot serve them both, since from the vantage point of the believer they are in opposite directions from each other.

Our wealth and possessions die with us or are willed to others after we are gone, but Jesus Christ lives today, tomorrow, and forever! It is He and he alone that is the correct choice for us to make. It is Christ alone who offers us the eternal salvation our souls urgently need. Right now would be a perfectly good time to do this (for those readers who haven't already done so). Simply pray within yourself to Jesus and ask Him to take charge of your life. It doesn't matter how you surrender to him, just do it. He always does a perfect job anyway, so there is no profit in resisting him. Ask Jesus now, he is waiting eagerly for you! And he loves you unconditionally!

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.

This week's ongoing Bible study will be part 3 of Acts chapter 4

The First Believers Unity in Prayer and Purpose

[Acts chapter 4, verses 23-37]

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Last week as we continued our in-depth studies of the writings of the apostle Luke, we left off at Acts 4 and verse 22. Peter, John, plus a fair amount of their compatriots, had just been let out of jail after being ordered by the court not to speak or preach in the name of Jesus. In response, as they left the courtroom, Peter and John said to the authorities present there, “'Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.'” Today as we pick up at verse 23, Peter and John have just returned together from the proceedings to an enthusiastic welcome, so let's go to the Word to see what happens next.

“On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices in prayer to God. 'Sovereign Lord', they said, 'you made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant David: 'Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his Anointed One.' Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and to perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.' After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly.” (Acts 4, verses 23-31)

What's the first thing the early Christian converts did when Peter and John returned? They didn't throw a party, they didn't have a banquet in the form of a giant potluck dinner, and they didn't go out to Red Lobster either. They prayed, and they did so as an example to everyone as to what authentic prayer really looks like. Their prayer was passionate, it was very thankful, and it was filled with gratitude! One more important thing about this prayer – it was prayed directly to God just as he is, which is on his throne as creator-ruler of the whole universe. Although it was formal in that the prayer quoted the first 2 verses of Psalm 2, it was personally directed at God, but not with face-to-face familiarity since that is not possible for any human. Instead, just as Jesus intercedes at the Father's right hand in heaven, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us here on earth. Their prayer was directed at the Holy Spirit. The impartation and constant presence of that same Holy Spirit among the true believers was the reason for the occurrence of Pentecost – so that a communications channel between humanity and God could be opened and maintained!

“Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.” This particular verse is where the phrase 'conspiracy theory' originates, and the conspiracy against Christ was real just as the conspiracy surrounding the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert and that of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It's a tragic fact that, until the return of Christ, there will always be people who crave money and power to such an extreme as to kill someone to get what they want (or what they don't want someone else to have). They are all like spoiled little brats who will take the life of anyone who stands in their way – the ultimate temper tantrum. Like other unbelievers, they risk eternity in hell if they don't repent of their violent lifestyles and callous attitudes.

“....Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. Stretch out your hand to heal and to perform miraculous signs and wonders....” Peter, John and company didn't have a 'board meeting' to decide on a counterattack against those who had jailed them unjustly, even though there would be sufficient justification for doing this in the eyes of many. They prayed about it and gave it all up to God instead – they put the Lord in charge and submitted themselves to God's will rather than their own. As I wrote above, if everybody did this we could all avoid a lot of costly and sometimes-stupid mistakes! “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly.” If the Holy Spirit can shake an entire house, just think of what that kind of Spiritual power can do for you! Moreover, consider what that kind of power could do to anyone or anything that opposes it! And now let's move on to part 2 of this week's lesson, starting at verse 32.

“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all. There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need. Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called 'Barnabas' (which means Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostle's feet.” (Acts 4, verses 32-37)

These five verses describe exactly what happened when Christianity as it was originally taught was put into practice for the first time. Ownership did not disappear entirely, since some of the land that was owned by the members was used to grow food. Others owned houses so the people could have a place to meet, or for anyone in need of emergency shelter (yes, they took in homeless people with few questions asked, if any!). Everyone's basic needs were met 24/7 (“No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.”). Food, clothing, shelter, medical and social needs, and unity of purpose were the primary things that mattered. They still are. There was no Internet, phone, television or radio, and no one cared because they already had everything they wanted! I doubt the early believers would have been interested in any of our modern technology anyway. Let's not forget that all this was occurring about 2 months after Christ had been crucified and resurrected, and so the memory of Jesus was still very fresh for all who had known him. But by this point they were equally knowledgeable about the extreme significance of what Christ had done.

“There were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need.” When's the last time you ever heard a sermon on Acts 4 and verses 34-35 preached here in fabulously wealthy North America? Never!! Nor with much of the rest of the Capitalist world, either. Capitalism is a code word for organized, systematic greed. Capitalism is also a grievous sin (see Nehemiah 5: 1-13, Exodus 5: 22-27). The ugly truth for the proponents of capitalism is that the first Christians, the 1^st century Church that endured an enormous amount of persecution, is that the first Christians were practicing Socialism via a laterally-managed organization of peers. There was – and is – no hierarchy present in authentic Christianity except for that of Christ as the head of his Church. As you saw during my previously published studies on the writings of the apostle Paul, neither he nor any of the other apostles took a salary for their work. They did it all for free, a lesson that modern preachers and TV evangelists have yet to learn.

Moreover, the distribution of church resources was unconditional and free of charge! As I wrote before, the First Century Church was socialistic by modern standards, except that it was apolitical. This tells us without a doubt that the early Christians, the first generation believers who had either known Jesus personally or knew others who had, were practicing their faith as it was originally meant to be practiced. It's also an instrument of measurement as to how far off base the modern church actually is. The ugly truth is that the modern church, particularly here in the western hemisphere, and the early churches are polar opposites of one another! And, the early churches were apolitical. They certainly never called themselves “conservative” or “liberal”. Those two words are labels arbitrarily slapped onto the population by people whose job it is to divide us. Christ didn't come to divide us, he came to unite us collectively with himself. Let's unite with Jesus instead of our economic system, which is dying of old age anyway. Jesus, on the other hand, lives forever! Anything else, if carried to its logical conclusion, ends up being idolatry. It makes no sense to pledge allegiance to any flag if we already have allegiance with Christ. And next week we'll move onto chapter 5 of the Book of Acts.

Who, then, do you say that you are?

Some Very Hard Questions for 'Christian America'

By pastor Paul J. Bern

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The United States has always had a time-honored tradition of being a Christian nation founded by Christians for Christians. This tradition was only recently brought into question by none other than former president Obama, who said back in 2010 that “America is no longer a Christian nation”. Contrary to what our President thought, our great country was in actuality founded on religious freedom by the early Pilgrims, who were Protestants escaping religious persecution by the church of England, not to mention the Vatican. Ever since then, the tradition of Christianity (regardless of whether you belong to a church denomination or not) has been passed down through the generations until modern times. Within the last generation or so, particularly within the last 10 or 20 years, there has been a noticeable drop in church attendance throughout North America and much of Europe. People have been turning away from their faith in droves. Protestant churches are losing members at about the same rate in which they are gaining new ones, the Catholic church is doing even worse, with the end result being what amounts to a revolving door of membership and participation. I have been aware of this for some time and, speaking as a minister, this has really been bothering me lately. So, I have been contemplating the reasons for this diminishing of faith and commitment, within the church and without, in order to try to change them.

A journalist once asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of Western civilization and Christianity. He answered: "It's a good idea. They ought to try it". Similarly, we might urge followers of world religions: "Those are some nice moral principles. You ought to live by them." Reliable polls tell us that America is the most religious nation in the industrialized world. More that 90 percent of our population say they believe in God, and that they pray regularly. In his New Testament Epistle, James expressed the Christian view that "faith without works is dead." Similarly, Judaism calls for "mitzvah's" -- good deeds. And Islam also requires acts of charity. How do these sentiments translate into action? Let's look at our national religious behavior report card for a reality check.

• America is the world's richest nation. Yet the U.S. Census Bureau reports that 54 million Americans live in poverty. That includes one in four children. If another country was doing this to ourselves and our children, we'd be at war. Why aren't we doing more to help out the weak, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, and the weary? Why do so many prosperous people keep it all to themselves?
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The U.S. poverty rate is the absolute worst among developed nations according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Demographers say that the poverty rate will rise this year from 21 percent to 27 percent, which will be the highest percentage since the government began calculating poverty figures in 1959. Fifty four million Americans are on food stamps (the highest ever) and the number is expected to rise above fifty six million by the end of 2019.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: According to the Census Bureau, 19 million people lived in working-poor families in 2008. The 2010 census showed a much higher figure approaching 24%. As of 2016, the last year demographics are available, that number is approaching one third. Things are close to becoming exponentially worse! The Feeding America Network reports that only 36 percent of their client households have one or more adults working. These are people who want to work but can't find jobs, or who can't feed their kids or themselves because they only make minimum wage. For this to happen in the richest country in the world is inexcusable!!
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty estimates that 700,000 to 2 million people are homeless on any given night in America. Here in Atlanta where I reside, estimates of the homeless population on any given night range from 3,000-10,000 people. Also, a new class has emerged in America: the working homeless. The current minimum wage of $7.25 hourly here in Georgia and elsewhere (primarily “right to work” states like Georgia) is pitifully insufficient income for a single person to rent an apartment, let alone a family.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The elderly, the poor and others on fixed incomes are often forced to choose between food and medicine. Speaking as a retired technology professional and an Internet pastor who worked for 35 years in the professional world, this is a social outrage and an economic injustice that I have personally experienced. Speak up for the less fortunate, because you have a better than even chance you may wind up that way yourself some day!
• We are a religious nation, and yet: 56 million Americans, including 26 million children, experienced hunger or the risk of hunger in 2016. That's more than a fourth of all households. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, hunger in American households has nearly doubled in the last five years. As I write this in early 2018, this number has swelled to at least 54 million, and the number of underfed American kids is approaching 28%. In the richest country in the world, this is simply inexcusable! We have to do something, and by writing this I'm trying to help accomplish exactly that.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: American restaurants throw away more than 6,000 tons of food every day and grocery stores discard an estimated thirty million pounds of food daily. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Loss Project estimates that Americans throw out 25.9 million tons of food each year. More disturbing: a University of Arizona study reports that 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten. America's wastefulness is downright sinful in the sight of the Lord; there is no better way to describe it.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The United States is the only industrialized nation that doesn't provide very low cost health care for all its citizens. So-called “Obamacare” promised to correct much of that, but it is nowhere near enough. All the president and Congress had to do was to put the whole country on Medicare. Doing so would eliminate the need for Medicaid, saving over half a billion dollars annually, and if Obamacare were to be merged together with Medicare, the extra expenditures for Obamacare would be eliminated as well. And, we would have one health care system for the entire country.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: We have the best medical technology and treatment capability in the world. Yet the United States ranks 37th for health care system performance by the World Health Organization. Why is this so?
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The latest report on life expectancy shows a slight drop in the United States that will place us even lower than the current ranking of 49th among nations of the world – a lower life expectancy than many less developed countries. A Columbia University study attributes our decline from 11th place in 1950 to the much lower present ranking to our inadequate profit-driven health care system.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The current US minimum wage of $7.25 hourly for roughly two thirds of the country, which was raised from $5.15 four years prior to that, still keeps families stuck at or below the poverty line. France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, England, the Isle of Man, and many other nations – particularly Australia – have a much higher minimum wage than we do.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The latest census figures show the gap between rich and poor widening to the largest margin ever. The top 20 percent of workers earning more than $100,000 a year received 49.4.percent of all income compared with the 3.4 percent earned by the bottom 20 percent. The richest 1 percent pockets more than 30 percent of total income which is greater than the total amount earned by the bottom 50 percent combined. Economic inequality – not just in the US but globally – is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, and when it does, the greed-based capitalist economic system we are currently stuck with will have to submit to a complete make-over or face extinction.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: The wealthiest segment of the population is fighting tooth and nail for lower tax rates and other tax breaks while joblessness, poverty, crime, homelessness and hunger are rampant in America.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: In 1994 a million innocents were slaughtered in Rwanda. We watched and did nothing. Similarly, we did little to stop the genocide in Darfur. Further slaughter is now ongoing in Syria, Somalia, Iraq and Yemen while the world watches and does nothing. Will U.S. “leadership” intervene on humanitarian grounds? History does not suggest a positive answer. Nor do the Scriptures, where regarding such people it is written, “Let the blood of our sins be on ourselves and our children!” (Matthew 27: 25) And so it is, unless God starts seeing some major changes of heart among us all.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: There are at least 59 Holocaust museums in the United States dedicated to raising awareness of the Nazi genocide and to help prevent similar horrors from ever happening again. Add to that the numerous holocaust museums and memorials around the world. Yet genocides, mass murders, school shootings and other atrocities such as child sex slave trafficking persist. Who are the customers for these pimps? Who is supplying the weapons to these mass shooters?Who is taking decisive action, who is pretending, and who is doing nothing except complaining? Some of us need to put our Christian money where our mouths are.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: Americans make up 5 percent of the world's population, and yet our country produces 25 percent of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions, which are raising the earth's temperature ("greenhouse effect") to dangerous levels. How is it that we are trashing the planet God created for each of us, while continuing to profess our love for its Maker?
• We are a religious nation, and yet: Fossil fuel consumption is destroying the planet, but we refuse to develop a "Manhattan Project" for alternative energy, nor do we have one for battery technology so we can park the majority of our gas and diesel burning cars and trucks, something that is sorely needed.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: Scientists warn that the environmental doomsday clock is ticking. The icebergs are breaking away and melting before our eyes, revealing islands we never saw before. We watch and debate but do too little to preserve the environment for ourselves and future generations. In our hubris we forget that we are guests on a tiny rock floating – in an infinite universe of rocks – that uniquely supports life in a delicate balance of natural and mysterious forces.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: Smoking continues to compromise the health of more than 20 percent of our population. The Surgeon General tells us that cigarette, pipe and cigar smoking, in addition to contributing to a number of cancers, increases the risk of almost every known disease. The American Lung Association reports that each day nearly 6,000 teens under 18 years of age start smoking. But we refuse to put an end to tobacco use. At the same time, medical and recreational marijuana is still illegal at the federal level while having been proved to be not only harmless, but with significant medical uses and benefits. In so doing, we have criminalized a creation of Almighty God's (see Genesis 1: 11) that does no harm, while allowing the use of one that does!
• We are a religious nation, and yet: Leaders of some of our biggest corporations and privately held firms, as well as prominent investment advisers (men and women of "faith"), have cheated, deceived and destroyed their companies and clients, ruining the lives and futures of untold numbers of individuals and families for their own profit.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: We have the largest prison population in the world. Currently more than 3 million people are incarcerated, 1 in every 18 adults is in prison, on parole or probation adding up to a total of over 10 million. One out of every eight Americans you see on the street or in traffic has a criminal conviction in their background. The U.S has a greater prison population (in percentage of population) than many countries that we consider to be in violation of human rights.
• We are a religious nation, and yet: According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, world military spending for 2012 reached $1.531 trillion, a six percent increase over 2008 and a forty-nine percent increase over the year 2000. The United States accounted for forty-six percent of the total world military expenditure ($661 billion). China was a distant second accounting for 6.6. percent followed by France's 4.2 percent, the UK's 3.8 percent and Russia's 3.5 percent. The proposed U.S. military budget for 2018 is $886 billion. Nice job, Washington!

What is religion? Organized religion is a multi-billion-dollar business disguised as a honeycomb of non-profits (actually, more like a hornet's nest). On the other hand, followers of Jesus – who Himself was crucified mainly because he preached against organized government and organized religion – exercise the very essence of true Spirituality by showing love, caring, serving, giving, sharing, oneness, brotherhood and sisterhood, compassion, empathy and selflessness. Summed up: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." I'm so glad that we are a religious nation. If only we were all Christian too....