From jefferis at petersonsales.net Sun Aug 2 22:49:27 2009 From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson) Date: Sun, 02 Aug 2009 22:49:27 -0400 Subject: [Roundtable] Anyone read The Shack? Message-ID: I just got back from vacation and while I rarely read fiction, my wife recommended to me The Shack. I found a copy and dug in. As I read it, I was reminded that the Hebrew words for "breath" or "Spirit of God" are feminine in gender, while in Greek, Spirit is neuter. But we don't translate the Greek pronoun as "It" into English because it would make the Holy Spirit an impersonal force rather than as a person, so we use "he" for the Holy Spirit although that it not literally correct. What I liked about the book was that it maintained what Karl Barth called, the "Wholly Otherness" of God. While God in Christ assumed human flesh, God is definitely beyond human nature and gender, not in the sense that he has no gender, but that all human gender differentiation is somehow a reflection of the image of God: ?So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.? Genesis 1:27, KJV. Both male and female humans reflect the image of God, so whatever is essential and perfect in the nature of male and female must have some correspondence with the nature of God's good and perfect love. While it is a work of fiction, it is filled with theology and most of it comes right from classical Christianity. The license to appear in unexpected form while still maintaining a Trinitarian confession was interesting and creative. How God reaches out to the main character in the midst of his sorrows reminds me of Paul's saying: ?To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law.? 1 Corinthians 9:20, 21, NAS95. Thoughts, anyone? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jefferis Kent Peterson http://www.scholarscorner.com Feeling Guilty? Are you "Pardoned or Paroled?" Such is God's economy: "One man gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers lack." - Proverbs 11:24 ?You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor." - Lev 19:15 From jefferis at petersonsales.net Wed Aug 5 10:29:43 2009 From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson) Date: Wed, 05 Aug 2009 10:29:43 -0400 Subject: [Roundtable] An unintentional conspiracy? Message-ID: You have to wonder sometimes whether the leaders of the banking system and the government are just idiots or are being played. While great conspiracy theories point to the "Illuminati," the Trilateral commission, the Council on Foreign Relations and the IMF, usually the major problem with the conspiracy theories is that they give the "leaders" too much credit for intelligence and forethought. Usually what appears to be conspiracy is just the natural confluence of short-sighted people acting naturally in greed and their own self-interest, using corporate interests and power to influence governments in order to expand capitalist markets or to rig the system for profits. However, if you look to the philosophy of George Soros, there is plenty of fodder to feed the fears of conspiracy theorists. Soros, with plenty of money and power, has almost single handedly destroyed the UK Pound, had a hand in the collapse of the Thai Bhat ( http://www.businessweek.com/1998/51/b3609052.htm), and has bet against the US Dollar. He also seeks to influence elections in the US to accomplish his utopian goal of an end to US Nationalism and of Christian and other religious influences in the world of politics. A Jew by birth, he renounces Judaism and Israel, and considers religion an obstacle to world government, world peace, and profits. He is just one player among many. But, if there are a group of people with sufficient resources acting simultaneously, holding a similar world view with a similar economic interest, it would appear to be conspiracy, even if it is not, and yet the outcome of their concerted actions would produce the same result as an intentional conspiracy. However, I ran across the following article today that suggests that the destruction of capital through massive government debt may be part of a socialist agenda that has many adherents. And the plan may be succeeding. You decide if it is an intentional conspiracy or just the chaos and confusion of an entire society putting self-interest above the welfare of the whole. And I mean by ?welfare of the whole,? a recognition that for the society as a whole to prosper, it may require sacrifice on my part and not getting all my needs met by the government... ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jefferis Peterson, Pres. Web Design and Marketing http://www.PetersonSales.com (724)-482-2015 October 15, 2008, Washington Times By Robert Chandler There is plenty blame to go around for the financial crash. Yet, there is a distinct odor of the shadowy Cloward-Piven strategy as the taproot of abusive practices that triggered the crisis. The strategy's goal is to bring about the fall of capitalism by overloading and undermining government bureaucracy. Its supporting tactics include flooding government with impossible demands until it slowly cranks to a stop; overloading electoral systems with successive tidal waves of new voters, many of them bogus; shaking down banks, politicians in Congress, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development for affirmative-action borrowing; and, now, pulling down the national financial system by demanding exotic, subprime mortgages for low-income Americans with little hope of repaying their loans. These toxic mortgages are an important source of the foul smell engulfing the entire financial bailout. Developed in the mid-1960s by two Columbia University sociologists, Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, much of their strategy was drawn from Saul Alinsky, Chicago's notorious revolutionary Marxist community organizer. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) succeeded the National Welfare Rights Organization in the execution of the Cloward-Piven grand tactics of using the poor as cannon fodder to tear down the capitalist system. It was low-income, mostly black and Hispanic people, who were used by ACORN guerrillas to take subprime toxic mortgages. An Obama campaign dispatch on October 6 had the right perspective in observing that "the backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like any other major financial crisis of our time." True enough. The root causes for the 2008 financial panic were sown some 40 years ago when the Institute for Policy Studies, the notorious "Think Tank of the Left," held socialist seminars geared toward undermining the American capitalist system. Beginning in 1964 and continuing to the present day, the Institute for Policy Studies has used seminars especially scoped to influence congressmen and their assistants to support the "progressive," that is to say "socialist," viewpoint. A 1969 "Housing and Property" seminar, hosted by the Institute for Policy Studies, for example, treated Capitol Hill denizens to mind-stretching leftism. Bringing together speakers from big-city tenants councils, neighborhood legal services, FHA insurance, savings-and-loans entities, and the Shannon and Luchs Realty Company, the Institute for Policy Studies "plinked" the first domino that led to the current crisis. At about the same time that the Institute for Policy Studies was holding the 1969 "Housing and Property" seminars, it was also conducting "Experimental Education" seminars in January-April 1969, for federal legislators and their aides that included Bill Ayers, an Obama confidant and Weatherman terrorist, as a guest speaker. According to the Senate Subcommittee on Investigation, 4,330 bombings occurred in the United States, about nine a day, from January 1969 to April 1970. The socialist test case for using society's poor and disadvantaged people as sacrificial "shock troops," in accordance with the Cloward-Piven strategy, was demonstrated in 1975, when new prospective welfare recipients flooded New York City with payment demands, bankrupting the government. As a consequence, New York state also teetered on the edge of financial collapse when the federal government stepped in with a bailout rescue. The 2008 financial crisis has all of the earmarks of a Cloward-Piven strategy assault against the capitalist system. Stanley Kurtz of the Ethics and Public Policy Center recently explained that "community organizers" (1) "intimidate banks into making high risk loans to customers with poor credit," (2) "occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes," and, through these thuggish tactics, (3) compel "financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers." "In other words," Mr. Kurtz explained during a presentation at the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, "community organizers help to undermine America's economy by pushing the banking system into a sink-hole of bad loans." A key element of the contemporary crisis certainly reflects many years of a "backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption" cited by the Obama camp. But much of the associated backwardness and deception were secretly peddled by the Institute for Policy Studies. Its war against the financial system used improvised non-ethical devices (INEDs) designed to destroy capitalism and support Mr. Obama. One of those roadside INEDs was the Cloward-Piven strategy. Robert Chandler is a retired Air Force colonel and former strategist for the White House, the Departments of State, Defense, Energy and Justice, and the CIA. October 15, 2008, Washington Times -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jefferis at petersonsales.net Sat Aug 8 23:34:44 2009 From: jefferis at petersonsales.net (Jefferis Peterson) Date: Sat, 08 Aug 2009 23:34:44 -0400 Subject: [Roundtable] A Prayer for Sarah Palin Message-ID: We just got back from a trip to Alaska, and I jokingly said, "We're going to see Sarah," knowing she would probably not be in Juneau when we were there. I did want to pray for her, though, after all she has been through. The Monday night after we got back, I had a dream in which I embraced her and got to pray for her. And in the dream, it seemed more a prophetic voice than a prayer, but indeed I was praying in the dream while asleep: May the Peace of the Lord be upon you. May you find rest and refreshment far from your enemies. For the Lord has made you a lightening rod to light up the darkness, and as He struck you with His lightening, He revealed the darkening of the gathering clouds. Now may you learn to let Him fight the battles for you as you follow in His train; rejoicing in Him as you go. In Jesus. In the dream, it seemed like a revelation. He has used Sarah to expose great darkness in the land and the gathering storm clouds of spiritual darkness. It is no wonder she is hated so. ?The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined.? Isaiah 9:2, RSV. ?Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about, and see; they all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from far, and your daughters shall be carried in the arms. Then you shall see and be radiant, your heart shall thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea shall be turned to you, the wealth of the nations shall come to you.? Isaiah 60:1-5, RSV. ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jefferis Peterson, Pres. Web Design and Marketing http://www.PetersonSales.com (724)-482-2015 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: