Perhaps many of you have heard reports concerning the recent illness of Elder Lonnie Mozingo, Jr. At a special prayer service on Br. Lonnie’s behalf on Saturday (8/16/08), the below-listed Elders who were in attendance concurred that it is time to solicit the help of the many people that love this dear servant of God.

It is true that Br. Lonnie is presently under a doctor’s care for various forms of severe emotional distress. He suffered a similar affliction twenty-five years ago involving several months of recovery, but the Lord raised him up. Many of his friends in the ministry and his family members are working with him to help him navigate this dark valley. At Elder Andy Mozingo’s request, a group of Elders met with Br. Lonnie to pray, claiming the promise in James 5 that “the prayer of faith shall save the sick and the Lord shall raise him up”. We feel that the service was blessed by the Lord and productive as an important step in Br. Lonnie’s recovery. Now, however, we want to ask you to join us in earnestly and deliberately petitioning God on this dear man’s behalf.

We are confident that many Primitive Baptists love this faithful servant. He has traveled extensively among our churches, ministering to the Lord’s humble poor. He took the initiative to lead the Gulf Coast relief effort in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He is known for his tireless and attentive labor in visiting the sick and infirm, his zeal for the health and integrity of the Lord’s church, his sound and substantive preaching, and his winsomeness and sincerity. Each of the men listed below feels privileged to call him “friend” and “yokefellow in the gospel”.

Please join with us in making the restoration of Elder Mozingo a priority in your prayers. Fervent, intercessory prayer on Br. Lonnie’s behalf is something concrete that every Primitive Baptist can do to constructively help in this situation.

You may also help by sharing a love offering with Br. Lonnie, Sis. Tammy and their family in this time of need. Sis. Mozingo has carried a heavy load in recent months and faces some difficult financial decisions in the near future. Though the Mozingo family has not requested assistance, we feel that it would be tremendously helpful in terms of relieving at least some of their burdens if the Primitive Baptist people at large would search their hearts and give out of the abundance with which God has blessed. Perhaps you would want to send a note of encouragement and expression of your love and prayers to this dear family. Please address your post to Mrs. Tammy Mozingo, 10500 Turner Road , Roswell , GA 30076 .

We are confident that nothing is too hard for the Lord. This case is no exception. Our prayer is that God would restore him to the level of faithful and fruitful ministry he has given to the Primitive Baptist people over the past three decades. May God richly bless you for your commitment to pray and to share of your substance with this precious servant of Christ and his devoted family. May God be pleased to honor our faith and answer our petitions, for His name’s sake.

In Hope,

Elders Samuel Bryant, David Crawford, Michael Gowens, Ronald Lawrence, Tim McCool, Jon Mizell, Andy Mozingo, Hugh Sanders, Marty Smith

1. Choose one or more of the subjects below and write an essay. (Must be at least 500 words)
2. E-mail me your essay by September 15th.
3. If I have an essay from both sides of the subject, both will be posted here on the site at the same time.
4. The winner of the subject will be declared on September 29th. Whichever post has a higher “Popularity” percentage* (found at the bottom of each post) will be the winner of $20.

I will not write any of the essays myself though the other authors on this blog are eligible. In order for your essay to be published and entered into the contest, the opposing side of the subject must also be submitted. If you know someone who might like to participate and write one or more these essays, let them know. There are no rules against driving up your own essay’s popularity.

Keep the essays on point. Try and not stray from the subject at hand. The essay must fit its title (which are given below). I will not alter/add/delete anything from your essays with the exception of including a link to the opposing essay. Essays cannot include any foul language or offensive material. If I deem anything inappropriate, I will send it back with an explanation and give you a chance to rewrite the trouble areas.

* The “Popularity” percentages are primarily based on the number of visitors with the number of comments and pingbacks (links to the post) counting for a small part of it as well.

The Subjects To Choose From:

• Why Socialism Is Better Than Capitalism
• Why Capitalism Is Better Than Socialism (Reserved)

• Why a Fetus’ Right-to-Live Is Protected by the 14th Amendment
• Why a Mother’s Right-to-Choose Is Protected by the 14th Amendment

• Why We Should Pull Out of Iraq
• Why We Should Win the War in Iraq

• Why Big Oil Is To Blame For High Gas Prices
• Why the Government Is To Blame for High Gas Prices

• Why Universal Health Care Is a Good Idea
• Why Universal Health Care Is a Bad Idea

• Why Higher Taxation On the Rich Is Good For the Economy
• Why Lower Taxation On the Rich Is Good For the Economy

• Why Gay Marriage Should Be Legal
• Why Gay Marriage Should Not Be Legal

That should be enough to get us started. Feel free to recommend other topics. If you intend to write an essay for one of the above subjects, please let me know and I will note it here so others will not write one for the same. Send your essays to jeremy@jeremysarber.com.

Good luck!

On August 20th, Katie Andrew “celebrated sexual orientations” by writing an article on Renee DuBose who is a lesbian church pastor. She wrote:

Holy documents such as the Bible, the Torah and the Qu’ran have listed homosexuality as an “abomination”; an “unnatural temptation”; or a “perversion.”

Rev. Renee DuBose is an active pastor and lifelong Christian with a master’s degree in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is also a lesbian.

“I believe I was born gay,” DuBose said. “I believe with all my heart that God creates diversity; my being gay is a mark of God’s diversity.” DuBose is a pastor at Our Hope Metropolitan Community Church in Athens, which specializes in the spiritual needs of the gay community.

Wait, wait, wait. The Bible calls homosexuality an abomination yet a “preacher” of that same Bible says, “My being gay is a mark of God’s diversity.” There seems to be a small conflict here. Either the Bible does NOT call homosexuality a sin or homosexuality is NOT a part of God’s handiwork.

Romans 1:26,27 says “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

Any questions as to what the Bible says on the matter?

I know this has been a topic of discussion so I’ll address it further. The liberal dissenting voices will say I have no place to impose my beliefs on anyone else so I should not oppose legalized marriage between same-sex partners. Of course, most of these voices will oppose prayer in schools and Ten Commandments in Government buildings. I suppose their tolerance of diversity has a limit.

Here’s what this particular conservative believes on the subject. I use the Bible and my God-given common sense to discern what is right and wrong. When it comes to homosexuality, the Bible clearly teaches it is wrong and common sense should tell us that God did not design men to be with men or women to be with women.

All people are born into this world with an evil nature, but what particular evils we commit are ultimately dependent upon our own beliefs and self-discipline. Of course, we will always be influenced by our surrounding environments. This is where my firm stance against legalized homosexual marriage comes in. The nation as a whole will always be affected by every law or bill that is passed or not passed.

Ezekiel 7:27 says, “The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.”

I know people debate whether or not God still judges nations, but either way, we know that sin has the ability to grow and consume a nation. Remember that event most commonly known as “the flood”?

My point is this: Homosexuality is wrong. I will not protest the funerals of gay soldiers or participate in those kinds of insulting practices, but I will stand against it and every political or judicial move to legalize and accommodate it in this country.

I’m voting Democrat because freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

I’m voting Democrat because when we pull out of Iraq I trust that the bad guys will stop what they’re doing because they now think we’re good people.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that people who can’t tell us if it will rain on Friday CAN tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don’t start driving a Prius.

I’m voting Democrat because I’m not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as Government sees fit.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe three or four pointy headed elitist liberals need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would NEVER get their agendas past the voters.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe that when the terrorists don’t have to hide from us over there, they will come over here and I won’t have any guns in the house to fight them off with.

I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.

I’m voting Democrat because I believe oil companies’ profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn’t.

Makes ya wonder why anyone would EVER vote Republican, now doesn’t it?

I have often given long discourses of the way my family bumped our way through life, hitting hard places. Cold places. Barren seasons. I’ve always followed those tho’ts with the way Mama NEVER flinched at hardships or sorrow. And, regardless of our circumstances when asked how things were going, she always quickly responded, “The Lord has been SO gut to me!” What a “spiritual” guide she was even when I wasn’t looking for one…hindsight…20/20.

It always made me kind’a mad that she would say that…I wanted to mutter (mutter, under my breath…’cause she was swift to use the “rod”) “What’s so GUT about OUR life!” We’re poor. We struggle. Never were soft, fuzzies proffered to us. Just hard scrabble. Made fun of at school. Looked down on at church. Never fitting in ANYwhere! What’s so GUT about THAT, Mama!”

My “muttering” never affected her acceptance…with gratitude…of whatever life had in store. I know she must’ve felt helpless sometimes. I know she had to have been frustrated…chirren, so many chirren, needing food, clothing, shelter…jobs not available. I’ve commented on her, on a few occasions, taking that old straw hat down from a nail on the wall, putting it squarely on her head, walking from the house to the woods…us chirren thinking she was gone forever…but, eventually, coming back, hanging her hat and going back to the chore at hand. NOW, I’m seeing that she probably fell on her knees and wept bitterly because of her “lot” in life. She might’ve vowed to NEVAH go back to those hungry mouths again. But, I also believe, God applied the balm of Gilead to Mama’s heart when she was exhausted giving her new life and energy and hope.

And, His unction never failed to stir her. I saw it in church. Sitting on that front pew, always, tears glistening on her cheeks. When prayer was offered, Mama slipped from her pew and knelt on her knees…right there in front of God and everybody. She was “washed” in those times of her cares and doubts and fears. She was a GUT Mama, a GUT woman, a Christians’ Christian.

Just recently, I was in a meditational frame and sat and “thunk” about my life growing up in Mama & Daddy’s household, my marriage, my children, my life experiences through the years…tho’t of Mama’s words “The Lord has been so GUT to me!” And, felt this Spirit coursing through my very soul, turning “light” on so MANY dark areas of my heart, causing me to want to shout, “The LORD HAS BEEN SO VERY GUT TO ME!” And, it was not just a chance occurrence. It remains with me, today.

I’ve been writing these soliloquies for many years, spilling my angst into your laps. It has been beneficial to me. Painful layers are being peeled away and the “baby” skin underneath my battle wounds is being exposed to “The Light”. I hope, and have reason to believe, others have benefited from my experiences. And, that’s double the pleasure.

I didn’t challenge God to “speak now or forever hold your peace”….He just came to me in the quietness of my meditation and spoke loudly to my heart. I am His. He is mine. I am blessed beyond measure. Ask me about my life…I have a perfectly REAL response for you. And, no matter WHAT your life story has been, if you’re able to tell it, you are incredibly blessed! And, as I was gently, sweetly led to see, It IS an attitude…not a condition.

Josh, my cousin and lifelong friend, took me on a quick tour of the UGA campus by night. I got to see where the Tom Green Road Trip scenes were filmed and, of course, Sanford Stadium where the Dawgs play. We walked through downtown Athens, which is a really neat college town, and even saw the home of Michael Stipes (lead singer of R.E.M.). Before taking a trip through the campus or strolling among the hippies downtown, we ate at a small Italian joint called DeSomething. Lucky for me, someone left a copy of a local paper on our table called Flagpole.

It took me all of about five minutes of being in downtown Athens to realize it’s your typical liberal, college town. The current issue of Flagpole only confirmed it. I did not know there were people out there who would consider Barack Obama as being a centrist, but apparently they come even farther left than him. Tom Hayden, a political activist and author, believes Barack is not progressive enough (he wrote the article I’m referring to which you can read here). Hayden says:

For many Americans, the possibility of Obama is a deeply personal one. I mean here the mythic Obama who exists in our imaginations, not the literal Obama whose centrist positions will disappoint many progressives.

Really? What more does the man need to do to satisfy the far left? Should he extend his acceptable abortion age to already-born infants? Should he promise to pull out of Iraq within weeks rather than months? Should he support taxing the rich beyond the already talked about fifty-some percent? Seriously. How in the world can this man gain the approval of the progressives?

Dreams of Obama presents Barack, despite his flaws of being too much of a centrist, as the historically necessary candidate. According to Hayden, the entire civil rights movement has all been for this moment…this man.

The early civil rights movement, the jazz musicians and the Beat poets dreamed up this mythic Obama before the literal Obama could materialize.

What does that even mean? This guy writes as though great men like Booker T. Washington would have supported Obama because he’s black regardless of his policies. If you’ve ever read anything by Washington and other prominent leaders in the civil rights movement throughout America’s history, you’d know they believed the color of a man’s skin is never enough. Your skin does not make you great or lesser, but your actions tell all. As far as I’m concerned, voting for a man because of his skin color is just as racist as not voting for a man because of his skin color.

I have met John McCain, and I happen to like him as an earthy sort of guy. But I am constantly aware that he bombed Vietnam at least 25 times before being shot down in a war that never should have been fought, in a defeat that still cannot say its name…McCain wants to reignite the Cold War…

I believe we had reasonable justification for invading Iraq. I also believe we have accomplished a lot of good by our involvement there. Regardless of what anyone thinks of President Bush, we have not had a single terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. No one can say whether or not that would have been had we not begun the Iraq War.

John McCain’s proposed mission to leave Iraq only after we have accomplished victory does not make him a war-monger. We are winning and he’d like to see it through to the end. But Hayden, like so many others, paint McCain as being a war-hungry lunatic who’s anxious for power so that he can continue the war and even start new ones.

Hayden specifically criticizes McCain’s involvement in Vietnam which is an insult to our entire military. He didn’t begin the war in Vietnam. Don’t be ridiculous. John McCain has certainly given no one reason to believe that he’s wanting to reignite the Cold War. Where do people come up with this stuff? Come back to reality where sometimes war is necessary and just because you support certain military actions that does not make you a war-monger.

But there is the improbable hope that the movement set ablaze by the Obama campaign will be enough to elect Obama and a more progressive Congress in November, creating an explosion of rising expectations for social movements - here and around the world - that President Obama will be compelled to meet in 2009.

That is a moment to live and fight for.

I really don’t know what’s made me more upset to my stomach; this article or the disgusting pesto spaghetti I accidentally ordered. I’ll be in Athens through Friday. I’m sure there will be more to come.

The left half of the nation woke up pleased to finally see a text message from the Obama campaign with Barack’s running mate choice. He chose Senator Joe Biden. Why Joe Biden? Well, it seems Obama has found someone to hopefully plug all of the holes in his sinking ship.

What has been the most common accusation against Obama as a Presidential contender? Inexperience. So, Barack has found him a vice-president with lots of experience. Biden is 65 years old and has been in the United States Senate since he was 30. Where else has Obama shown himself weak? Foreign relations. Biden has served as the head of the Senate foreign relations committee for some time now. Holes plugged, right? I’m sure that’s what Obama was thinking.

What about Biden voting in favor of the Iraq War? What about the message of change? As far as I can tell, Obama basically picked the closest thing to McCain he could find in a liberal democrat. There is absolutely nothing about Joe Biden that expresses changes. He certainly doesn’t have anything exciting about him. Isn’t that what Obama’s entire campaign is based on? Biden ran for president twice before and I’m guessing the majority of people who saw the headlines this morning thought, “Who’s Joe Biden?”

It’s not just the inexperience that people don’t like about Obama. Lots of people get excited every election for the candidate of “change”. They offer so much and make many promises. But in the end, it is the candidate who stands up for American principles that wins. Everyone thought Al Gore and John Kerry were sure things, but as the election drew closer, the numbers shifted. Ultimately, the majority of America wants a true leader who is a solid patriot. In this case, that’s not Barack Obama.

I must get some breakfast before I think anymore about this.

It’s really that simple.

On Sunday, four Americans with the organization Vision Beyond Borders arrived in China from Thailand. They brought 300 Pastor’s Study Bibles, which were confiscated as the group went through customs. Pat Klein and the three others spent the night at the airport, and eventually found out from the U.S. Embassy that a new law in China allows only one piece of religious literature per visitor.

The Chinese Constitution supposedly affords religious freedom but, as we can see, that is obviously a joke. Article 36 of the Chinese constitution states that:

1. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of religious belief.
2. No state organ, public organization or individual may compel citizens to believe in, or not to believe in, any religion; nor may they discriminate against citizens who believe in, or do not believe in, any religion.
3. The state protects normal religious activities. No one may make use of religion to engage in activities that disrupt the public order, impair the health of citizens or interfere with the educational system of the state.
4. Religious bodies and religious affairs are not subject to any foreign domination.

Is it just me or is confiscating Bibles a bit unconstitutional even by Chinese standards? Klein says, “What they’re doing is presenting an image to the West and to America that they’re free, that there is religious freedom and everything else here. There is no religious freedom here.”