September 6, 2009

Kopp Disclosure
(John 3:19-21)

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Civility is dying in America.

It's dying as quickly as free enterprise.

I've learned that over the years; especially as a pastor, professor, president of a junior tackle football league, biker, police chaplain, parent, partner, and whenever I've been in the five-items only check-out line at Wal-Mart.

As the black judge said to me when I complained about the black woman in the church who didn't like me because I'm Euro-American, "She's just ignorant."

I think lots of people like being ignorant; especially Democrats, Republicans, and so many mainline churchgoers.

Here's what I mean.

People can't even discuss things, uh, civilly anymore.

All you have to do is ask an honest question about someone/something and people are ready to pick up their swords and start slicing.

Because it's my ghetto, I see it happening in the church with frightening regularity.

We can't even talk about changing worship times or music or, uh, almost anything without somebody dropping to the floor like a Pentecostal in heat.

For example, I just asked a friend what he thought about PBHO's planned address to American public school children on Tuesday (9/8) and you would have thought I'd asked if he was wearing briefs or boxers.

Geez.

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Speaking of PBHO's next/daily/24/7/365 "live from everywhere" mugging on the media which kinda reminds me of a figure in the Left Behind series, I think that's why Jesse Jackson had to come to Rockford to idolize a guy or use a guy as an excuse to demand some attention who had a list of priors longer than Pacman Jones.

Anyway, it's been a long time since any President decided to address our children in the classroom to tell 'em that it's important to get an education; and I think that's a really good idea now because they're gonna need to know how to use a calculator to figure out how little of their incomes they'll get to keep after this administration never stops spending everybody else's money for stuff that hasn't helped anybody yet.

While WJC and GWB never took time from the classroom to further whatever they were furthering - I think the last guy to do that was GWB's daddy nearly two decades ago - I guess it's O.K. for PBHO to get some face time before we add him to Mt. Rushmore or name him as our first President-for-Life.

But I have one question.

Why?

Considering that he's already on television even more than that Shamwow dude, why does he need more attention?

So I asked some folks what they thought; and already knowing that just asking why gets ya into trouble...

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An old friend in New Jersey got ticked at me for asking why.

She started, "Whether you like PBHO or not, he is the elected leader of our country. I think most of the world has gone crazy. I'm not too sure about you lately?"

Well, she'd be sure if she'd just listened to that CSN&Y tune in the 8/30/09 edition of KD that's just been repeated above.

She asked rhetorically, "Do we really want to say to our kids that they shouldn't give the elected leader of our country the time of day? Is there no longer any respect for the men we ask to lead our country?"

Uh, I don't know the answer to the first question; but the second...

She stated emphatically, "I will defend your right forever to disagree with them but you can't disagree very well until you listen to the other side."

Exactly!

Then she said to others because it couldn't be to me because I've said the same thing over and over and over in KDs as well as Fifteen Secrets that nobody read: "If you have come to the point in life where you think you are always right, you better talk to Christ about that."

As my hero Benjamin Button would say, "Absolutely!"

Where's that black judge when I need him?

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A really smart guy in Virginia wrote, "It would seem to me that the problem PBHO is having with this is that many people don't trust him! Other Presidents have done this and students received encouragement; which is good."

"If my premise is correct," he continued, "the difficulty PBHO is having goes back to people not trusting him to stick to encouragement. Somewhere along the way, I read that he will tell the students what they can do to help him. If that is true, it is a very big red flag."

I dunno.

But I do know his staff is releasing the text ahead of time to make changes before he goes on the air.

What's up with that?

The last pastor I know who had his sermons previewed before preaching was fired near Pittsburgh.

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The leading Pentecostal preacher in Rockford - Go back to the Simon song! - declared, "The communists came up with the idea that if they started brain-washing the children, they would soon be the adults and would be easy to control. We are following the same path. I do not favor this and I am angered by this brazen attack on our children."

I will not ask him and my old friend from New Jersey to join me for coffee on Tuesday morning.

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A pastor's wife from Tennessee got the scoop from sources in the know: "Originally, PBHO wanted 30 minutes to tell American children how they could help him. But now that people are catching on to his political motives, he is backpedaling hourly...Several states have followed Texas in threatening a boycott by keeping their children home on Tuesday. This thinly veiled bit of propaganda was meant to use our children to spread the news that any opposition to PBHO's plans are treasonous."

Whoa.

First goes free enterprise, then goes free speech, then goes...

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A pastor near Chicago who has just learned that asking questions of his hierarchy put him on a jingoist's do-do list was kinda cynical/sarcastic; which is why he made this edition's cut: "It's no more appropriate to let the President indoctrinate our kids than it is to let our teachers do it."

He added, "He needs to be working on more important things. He only has three years and few months left to his abomination."

And then getting as personal with PBHO as my friend in the Garden State got with me, "Why the hell aren't his own kids who are in private not public school forced to do this?"

Ouch.

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My dad, who had coffee with my New Jersey friend so long ago, deadpanned, "This is the start of PBHO Youth. Sounds familiar. The problem today is that there aren't many of us who remember what started in the beer halls of Munich. Besides, the media have found their new MJ."

MJ?

I was thinking JC?

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A very, very, very smart entrepreneur who happens to be a friend in our family of faith read the original outline and agenda for Tuesday and then asked these questions: "Why are the students so young? Who decided to choose these particular student groups and why? Why are parents not being provided with a preview or synopsis of the speech? What made PBHO think up such a clever idea while there really is no precedent for what he originally intended before we caught on? Why is the handout addressing what the President wants the students to do for him and not what the country wishes and needs for them to do?"

Why?

How dare anyone question...?

I hear footsteps...

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This is from a West Pointer who moved to the business world: "It's the purple shirts in this era, not the brown shirts. But, yes, they are coming...He is addressing the school children and there are a lot of folks down here [South Carolina] who intend to keep their kids at home on Tuesday."

"1984," he reflects, "did not anticipate the Reagan interlude."

He concludes, "My hope, however, is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. We live in a fallen world filled with false messiahs and shysters; beginning with our politicians and working all the way down. I can't even trust my own heart."

Confession is good for the...

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An elder in our family of faith who recognizes the need for the church to provide more and more and more opportunities to learn about Jesus: "Talk about the dictator coming to speak to his kingdom! Get 'em young!"

Truth is what's happening to America are the unpaid bills of the church.

Because we have failed to look up, stand up, speak up, and act up for Jesus as reported in Holy Scripture...

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From a left-leaning friend in Minnesota (Duh!): "I remember sitting in my home in Canada when some President started his speech, 'My fellow Americans...' I thought to myself, 'Does he think I'm an American? Does he think Canada is part of America?'"

I did; except for the French part.

"I think," he thought which is the goal of KD for better or worse and left or right, "my parents should have pulled me from the TV and written to him to tell him to never broadcast a speech outside the USA; as it was mixing his politics with my future politics."

And now for my next trick, I will take my tongue out of...

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A former intelligence officer who became a pastor for God knows, uh, why, wrote from Florida, "PBHO is more present than Big Brother, more Marxist than Lenin, and more dangerous that Castro."

Tell us how you feel!

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"My first thought," another old friend from New Jersey chimed in, "was my mother-in-law talking about growing up in Germany as part of the Hitler Youth."

She ended, "We'll see."

Yes, we will.

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A professor and mainline judicial officer wrote from Florida, "1984 was written too soon; and it seems truer every day!"

Explaining himself maybe more than him, he observed, "What I find most troubling is some schools will not allow parents to get their children out of the indoctrination. I am very scared of the brown shirts. I am aware that the world learns its politics from the disgraceful actions of the church and the world is much sweeter than the church these days; which is why I pay all the protection money to our denomination!"

"Many years ago," and he's lived long enough to make such a claim, "I found out that the IRS is much more loving to most pastors than the church. They will negotiate with you! A church can take anything except a pastor with needs!"

That's the kinda salt that really stings to...

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From a former military man who shifted to mainline ministry in Tennessee: "There is an old saying, 'If you tell a lie loud enough and long enough, people will accept it as the truth.' PBHO is recycling that approach to advance his socialist agenda."

"However," he theorizes, "any good lie has to have elements of truth sprinkled through it to break down the opposition's defenses. PBHO's speech in its current form appears to be O.K., but any plan, like his health reform disaster, that undermines liberty is a bad plan no matter how nice the guy is who is proposing it."

Getting really personal/prophetic, "If PBHO understood the ramifications of his current actions, he'd surely stop before he destroys the nation that gave him the opportunity to become who he is today."

HD Motor Company has a new slogan for 2010: "Screw It, Let's Ride!"

That just came to mind; and this seems like a good place to plug it in.

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One of KD's best sources of information from California: "The U.S. Department of Education, with direct assistance from the White House, developed a curriculum which included students 'writing a letter to themselves on ways they could help the President.' This reeks of Soviet-style politicization of the classrooms."

"If his message is just a civics lesson and an encouragement to stay in school," he states, "it could be valuable. More than 1 million kids drop out of school annually...There is a sub-cultural excuse in the black community that 'books are for whitey' and academic achievement is pointless. PBHO could step into every such classroom and provide a different paradigm to failing kids everywhere."

Getting back to something more cynical, he suggests, "Let us not forget the bigger media cycle agenda...His school talk is one day before his address to Congress as they take up the health care take-over legislation. Making people talk about anything else - a speech to school kids - deflects attention at a critical moment."

Do you really think anyone would use kids to...?

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"The youth are who got him elected," an Illinois high school government teacher says, "so he should speak to them. Why aren't our children able to hear all points of view and make their own decisions based on broad-based information? I don't want to raise my child where she only hears what I want her to hear."

Why?

Because that's why!

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My favorite devotional writer in Oklahoma: "Our President should always be able to address our school children and can be a positive influence in the furtherance of their education if the motives are honorable and just."

"However," she cautions, "it would seem that the American people have little trust in this President's agenda...He has taken many avenues to promote a very personal agenda that many people believe promotes socialism. Can he be trusted to keep socialist propaganda out of his speech? Parents are asking that question. If he can, then he should be given the chance to be heard."

Amen.

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Another optimist from Maryland: "Presidents often visit classrooms. It's expected of them and good image-making to be seen paying attention to a roomful of little kids."

"But," leaving optimism, "PBHO's televised message and lesson plan differ significantly from the others. It comes with a recommended curriculum plan not so subtly designed to identify PBHO as 'The Great Leader' personality in young minds who've known no other supreme leader types. Compare this venture with the pudgy North Korean 'Beloved Leader's' regular messages..."

"When rightful patriotism becomes a guilt-driven moral imperative," he warns, "the glue that holds us together as a nation will dissolve."

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My friends on the right get mad at me because I don't think PBHO is the false prophet to the Antichrist.

My friends on the left get mad at me because I don't think PBHO is God's other Son.

I think he's a decent guy who's just human.

I don't think he's a demon or divine.

I think he's somebody kinda like you or me; and because he likes Bud Light, golf, and Yo-Yo Ma, I'm rooting for him!

Besides, baseball season is over in Chicago.

That's bad for a Yankees fan in the Midwest.

It's almost as bad as asking why about anything anymore.

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Blessings and Love!

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