CCM 011- Easter’s Lessons in Politics

Call CCM Podcast @ 615-669-930
Welcome to the Conservative Christian Movement Podcast episode 011 titled "Easter's Lessons in Politics".
Today on the Conservative Christian Movement Podcast I’ll give details on  Saul Alinsky’s Tenth rule for Radicals,   We'll see what political lessons we can take from the Easter Story and I’ll begin talking about Johnson Amendment in depth.  I’ll find more examples of liberal melt downs.  Show Notes for this episode can be found at CCMPodcast.com.   Thank you for joining in, without any more Introductions, let's get started.
The verse of the day: Proverbs 12:17 New International Version (NIV)
"An honest witness tells the truth, but a false witness tells lies."
I can't tell you how many people have asked me about the Johnson Amendment.  It's an important topic, one which demands exacting research.  It is also quite powerful.  It is a greatly divisive topic.  Proverbs 12:17 tells us there are witnesses who tell truth and those who tell lies.  Often, lies are shaded with partial truth, or nuggets of lies scattered among facts.  Only YOU can define what is factually accurate and what is not.  My aim with this podcast is not to cast out my opinion, but to help YOU to know how to sort it out and come to your own conclusion.
The Tenth Rule for Radicals—
The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
Just watch the news.  How long did we hear about Russia?  Email Server?  The stained dress?  How about then Presidential Candidate Trump's tax returns.  Each received an absolute bombardment of coverage in the main stream media-- on both sides of the aisle.  The difference may only be in the fury of news coverage between left and right, when it comes to the ideology of the candidates of which the news is speaking.  Fox News, and their Fair and Balanced claim is largely ceremonial, though they do hit President Trump frequently, mostly over tweets.
The key here is that we as Christians do not need to resort to low blows or innuendo.  There are enough facts to share which make your point.  In the days of 24 hour news, there are not enough facts to fill the time.  As a result, you end up with, as I've mentioned before, beyond a couple of sentences worth of news, you get innuendo, opinion and sometimes made up points-- sometimes lies.
Rarely in the news cycle do you find a story full of only documented facts.  I spoke of this in my episode "Honesty Please" available at www.ccmpodcast.com.  Your job as a Christian voter is to recognize how much  of a news story is actually true and how much of it goes beyond sourced information considered factual.  When candidates are being pummeled with such stories, you can almost certainly bet there is money behind the attacks.
Political Lessons from the Easter Story.
Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus walked this earth, the Son of God, accepted by some, rejected by others.  He did good works for those in need, spoke of God and our soon to be home in Heaven.  There is much more to the story than that, but for the purposes of this episode, I'll focus on the politics involved with the crucifixion and put aside the Biblical plan set in motion upon the birth of Jesus and Bethlehem.
Jesus was tried by the government officials, in this case Pilate, the Prefect (or Governor) over Judaea, under powers granted by Emperor Tiberius .  The "Religious people", some who felt threatened by what Jesus represented-- a loss of power in the church wanted Jesus crucified.
Weak politicians will often say one thing and do another.  Some may use Christianity as a business card to garner support from you, the Christian voter.  I happen to take a person at his word but hold them accountable when their promises outweigh their results.

Call CCM Podcast @ 615-669-930

Welcome to the Conservative Christian Movement Podcast episode 011 titled “Easter’s Lessons in Politics”.

Today on the Conservative Christian Movement Podcast I’ll give details on  Saul Alinsky’s Tenth rule for Radicals,   We’ll see what political lessons we can take from the Easter Story and I’ll begin talking about Johnson Amendment in depth.  I’ll find more examples of liberal melt downs.  Show Notes for this episode can be found at CCMPodcast.com.   Thank you for joining in, without any more Introductions, let’s get started.

The verse of the day: Proverbs 12:17 New International Version (NIV)

“An honest witness tells the truth, but a false witness tells lies.”

I can’t tell you how many people have asked me about the Johnson Amendment.  It’s an important topic, one which demands exacting research.  It is also quite powerful.  It is a greatly divisive topic.  Proverbs 12:17 tells us there are witnesses who tell truth and those who tell lies.  Often, lies are shaded with partial truth, or nuggets of lies scattered among facts.  Only YOU can define what is factually accurate and what is not.  My aim with this podcast is not to cast out my opinion, but to help YOU to know how to sort it out and come to your own conclusion.

The Tenth Rule for Radicals—

The tenth rule: The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.

Just watch the news.  How long did we hear about Russia?  Email Server?  The stained dress?  How about then Presidential Candidate Trump’s tax returns.  Each received an absolute bombardment of coverage in the main stream media– on both sides of the aisle.  The difference may only be in the fury of news coverage between left and right, when it comes to the ideology of the candidates of which the news is speaking.  Fox News, and their Fair and Balanced claim is largely ceremonial, though they do hit President Trump frequently, mostly over tweets.

The key here is that we as Christians do not need to resort to low blows or innuendo.  There are enough facts to share which make your point.  In the days of 24 hour news, there are not enough facts to fill the time.  As a result, you end up with, as I’ve mentioned before, beyond a couple of sentences worth of news, you get innuendo, opinion and sometimes made up points– sometimes lies.

Rarely in the news cycle do you find a story full of only documented facts.  I spoke of this in my episode “Honesty Please” available at www.ccmpodcast.com.  Your job as a Christian voter is to recognize how much  of a news story is actually true and how much of it goes beyond sourced information considered factual.  When candidates are being pummeled with such stories, you can almost certainly bet there is money behind the attacks.

Political Lessons from the Easter Story.

Nearly two thousand years ago, Jesus walked this earth, the Son of God, accepted by some, rejected by others.  He did good works for those in need, spoke of God and our soon to be home in Heaven.  There is much more to the story than that, but for the purposes of this episode, I’ll focus on the politics involved with the crucifixion and put aside the Biblical plan set in motion upon the birth of Jesus and Bethlehem.

Jesus was tried by the government officials, in this case Pilate, the Prefect (or Governor) over Judaea, under powers granted by Emperor Tiberius .  The “Religious people”, some who felt threatened by what Jesus represented– a loss of power in the church wanted Jesus crucified.

Weak politicians will often say one thing and do another.  Some may use Christianity as a business card to garner support from you, the Christian voter.  I happen to take a person at his word but hold them accountable when their promises outweigh their results.  Granted there are many factors in the measure of effectiveness.

Take Pilate for example.  He ultimately found Jesus guiltless but proved to be weak in the face of criticism by religious leader.  He also feared the Jewish leaders who claimed allowing Jesus to be free would cause a revolt among the Jewish people, thus also showing Pilate’s inability to govern.

Those same Jewish leaders, in spite of knowing of the power Jesus had, failed to believe he was the Son of God.  That translated into fears their power– and their status with the prefect would be ended.

When Pilate acknowledged his right to free a prisoner for Passover, he offered the public a choice.  Barabbas, a known murder, criminal and thief or Jesus would be set free.  This was a weak leader’s cop out.  We see this today with spending bills, growing debts and inability to live up to campaign promises.  It’s easy to vote yes, simply because someone else does too.  Like Pilate, congress washes their hands of good decision making- taking the easy way out.

Thanks to my pastor for speaking of this today.  The public which was polled about who to spare, Barabbas or Jesus, chose the criminal over the known innocent Jesus.  Must like today when the sinful nature of man is commonly portrayed in Hollywood film, television, magazines– and politics.  Sin is often praised while Christianity shunned (Think Joy Behar, spoken of in the last episode.)

 If you see weakness in your representative, call him out for it.  Vote him out if you must.  We are in desperate need of right-thinking, gutsy people who will fight for what is right– Biblical and Constitutional.

The Johnson Amendment–

What is it?  I’ll say first and foremost, I am not a tax attorney and do not play one on the podcast.  I’m just reading plain English.

Lyndon B. Johnson, back in 1953 was a candidate for Senator from Texas locked in a very tight primary race on the Democratic Party ticket.  Johnson won his primary challenge by only 87 votes, ultimately winning the seat in the general election.  What he knew at the time, was 501 c (3) organizations were funding his opponent in the primary.

True to the style of a politician with personal influence, unashamed to push his influence, he offered an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code.  In two sentence changes, he forever changed the face of political influence from the pulpit.  First, He replaced “Individuals, and” with “Individual” making it specific to all including a single person.  Second, he changed “influence legislations,” with Influence legislations, and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office.”  That was the big change.  Net, a 501 c (3) organization, of which most churches are included, cannot influence legislation or work on behalf of any candidate for public office.  I should add the limits of this appear to be with respect to endorsements and funding of candidates.  The penalty for doing such activities is loss of tax exempt status for the individual or organizations charged with doing either.

My personal opinion, is church funds should not go to any candidate for any reason.  However, calling a candidate out as pro-choice in a sermon is free speech.  Again that is my opinion and I would defend that at all cost.  I’ve found very little evidence where any pastor or church has been charged as such and lost their exempt status.  With President Trump in office this is unlikely to occur.  In the years President Obama served, no substantive examples have been shown as examples of punishment for infractions of this amendment.  However, many applications for 501 c (3) status, particularly with conservative groups such as the Tea Party were artificially rejected, questioned or otherwise scrutinized in the Obama era.  This too is unlikely to occur with President Trump’s administration.

The Liberal Rant of the week…

Perhaps this one may ruffle some feathers.  I’ll bring up what may be considered an “untouchable” with the Pope.  He was quoted as saying “Sinners who die without achieving eternal salvation “are not punished, there is not hell; there is the disappearance of sinful souls.”

Being Easter weekend, it seems fitting to call out the pope who is very liberal in his tendencies.  But as for sinful souls vanishing, I offer the following:

Revelation 21:8 (New International Version)–

“But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” 

Take it for what it’s worth.  That doesn’t sound much like sinful souls simply vanishing.  Now I’m not Catholic by any stretch, but that talk sounds a lot like the Pharisees and the Sadducees who were complicit in Jesus dying on the cross.  Fortunately, Jesus, not the Pope is the way, the truth and the life.  I’d rather believe in hell and be wrong, than to not believe in it and  be wrong.

The only problem with this paragraph, is it is not clear how truthful the report was, or how public the Pope intended his statement to be.  The Vatican scrambled to clean up the mess, created as a result of Scalfari, an atheist (and friend of the Pope) writing of an answer to his question.  The question at hand was “where do bad souls go?”  We may never know how he really answered the question, but the Pope is generally known to be a non-traditional Pope.  Perhaps not out of the question, but again, we may never know for sure.  I’ll trust what I believe.

Join the discussion at CCMPodcast.com.  I look forward to your comments about this week’s show.

Coming in the next episode, I’ll cover Alinsky’s Eleventh rule for radicals and continue looking into the Johnson Amendment.  As always, I’ll find more examples of liberal melt downs.  Hopefully, YOU will share your reaction to my show.  By the way, if you leave a message on Speak Pipe which is found on my contact page, ccmpodcast.com/contact, I may just play it during the show…

Until next time, be blessed.

Links—

Bible Verse from Bible Gateway

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jeremiah%205:21&version=NIV

Pope Comment:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/there-is-no-hell-an-untraditional-pope-an-italian-journalist-and-the-quote-igniting-controversy-1522439904

Fiery Sulfur Pit– AkA Hell

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+21%3A8-10&version=NIV