Our Books

If you enjoy this site, please consider purchasing one of our books (as low as $2.99). Click here to visit our Amazon page.

Our Books

Our Books
Books by Trevor Grant Thomas and Michelle Fitzpatrick Thomas

E-Mail Me:

NOTE: MY EMAIL ADDRESS HAS CHANGED! Trevor's new email address: trevorgrantthomas@gmail.com

Latest News/Commentary

Latest News/Commentary:

News/Commentary Archives:

News/Commentary Archives (for the current year; links to previous years archives at the bottom of each page)---PLUS: Trevor's Columns Archived (page linked at the bottom of the table below):

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Liberals, Scientism, and the Politics of Pleasure

Behold the anthem of modern liberalism (Though you’ve probably already seen it, WARNING: vulgar and insanely stupid. After viewing, you’ll probably want to shower, pray, and spend some time with a Rubik’s Cube.):


So I now know who Rachel Bloom is. Tragically, I can’t imagine a worse introduction. As a result of this sorry, sad, sick episode (everyone involved in this video should be forced to turn in any degrees or diplomas they possess), Nye, Bloom, et al have all been thoroughly—and deservedly—ridiculed. That’s what happens when one surrenders three whole minutes of a television program—that is supposedly devoted to “exploring scientific issues”—to a segment that appears to have been written, produced, and choreographed by delinquent 12 year-olds. (Please tell me they are the only ones who will do that.)

Nevertheless, no one who pays much attention to the words and works of liberalism should be too surprised by this. Though, admittedly, I think most of today’s liberals wouldn’t allow themselves participation in such blatant, cartoonish, stupidity. (If this is not the case, the country’s in even worse shape than I imagined.) I suppose Nye and Bloom’s efforts are just further evidence that we are indeed a culture nearly bereft of shame.

Equally shameful were the recent actions of a Philadelphia public high school assistant principal. After encountering a couple of pro-life teenagers on a public sidewalk outside the school where he works, Zach Ruff—dean of academics and student life at STEM Academy in Downingtown, PA—became unhinged. Ruff did not like his students being presented with a biblical, pro-life message. Upon seeing posters of aborted children, Ruff told the young pro-life messengers—16-year-old Conner Haines and his 19-year-old sister Lauren—“They’re not children, they’re cells! ...You’re at a science-based school, those are cells!”

When Conner Haines mentioned Jesus, repentance, and the forgiveness of sin, Ruff called the Bible a “book of fiction” and yelled, “Public school, we don’t believe in that here!” Ruff added, “I’m as gay as the day is long and twice as sunny. I don’t give a f*** what you think Jesus tells me and what I should and should not be doing.” Ruff went so far as to wag his finger in Conner’s face and said, “Shut your mouth and don’t talk to my students. You do not have permission to speak and engage.”

Wow. How “tolerant.”

Imagine that. Another liberal screaming at conservatives to shut-up. I wonder if Ruff ever attended UC Berkeley. Do you think he believes Rachel Bloom and Bill Nye have “permission” to spew their filth? And take note of his profound grasp of “science.” According to the latest spokesman for “the party of science,” this is not a child.

Nearly as stupid as Nye’s video—but perhaps more shocking considering the source—is a new Harvard University “factsheet” on gender dysphoria that is urging students to “fight transphobia.” The propaganda piece declares “Get the facts about gender diversity.” Some of the “facts” it presents:
[G]ender expression, identity, and self-understanding can change from day to day… gender can be expressed through any, all, and/or none of the following ways: speech, mannerisms, clothing, reflecting on one's gender identity, sharing one's gender identity with family, friends, and/or co-workers, make-up, grooming, name and/or sex on legal documents, hormone therapy, and surgery…there are more than two sexes.
The piece concludes by implying that failure to comply and call people by their preferred name or pronoun is a “form of systemic violence.” How ironic. Campus liberals complaining about violence.

Notice again how the issues surrounding sex and sexuality lead liberals to absurd behaviors. Because of the ongoing debates over the moral issues in our culture, liberals often like to paint conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—as prudes obsessed with sex. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither Christians nor conservatives (of course, not mutually exclusive) picked the fights over abortion, homosexuality, marriage, gender, and so on. Not so long ago, for the most part, our culture and our laws reflected sound moral thinking on such issues. It was only after loud, vocal, and well-funded liberals decided that we must abandon the Judeo-Christian ethic on such matters and fight for the “right” (as Bloom sang: Sex how you want it, it’s your g-dd-mn right!) to do whatever one wishes in the sexual realm that we have found our country mired in debating what was once clearly understood: it’s wrong to kill a child in the womb, the only rightful place for sex is within marriage, marriage is the union of one man and one woman, one’s gender is biological and fixed, and so on.

For decades now, liberals have focused much of their perverse political efforts on these matters, and when possible—with real science, it’s getting harder to deny the reality of things such as life in the womb—cloaked such politics with so-called “science.” As I noted (more than once) several years ago, Nye and those like-minded aren’t devoted to science, they are adherents of “scientism.” As I said in 2013, scientism is not science, it is, rather, an abuse of the scientific method and scientific authority. Scientism is best described as a false religion, with many denominations: Darwinism, environmentalism, feminism, hedonism, humanism, Marxism, socialism, and so on.

For far too many liberals, science isn’t an end unto itself. In other words, too often liberals aren’t looking for answers, they’re looking for an excuse or an opportunity to further the perverse (or big government) liberal agenda. Thus, “science” becomes merely a means to a political end.

For this reason, C.S. Lewis warned, “I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent.” Much of the “science” championed by the modern left drips with pretentions. And whether the global warming agenda, the LGBT agenda, the abortion agenda, the education agenda, the socialist agenda, and so on, tyranny looms behind virtually every political effort of today’s left that purports to be supported by “science.”

Exhibits A, B, and C of this tyranny are the litigious homosexual community vengefully suing Christians who don’t want to participate in a perverse redefinition of marriage, riotous campus liberals attempting to shut down speech with which they disagree, and “the debate is over” liberals who want to silence dissent on the “settled science” of man-made global warming.

Of course, the political champion of scientism is the political arm of modern liberalism: the Democrat Party. Sadly, tens of millions of Americans have been duped into voting for democrats for two reasons in particular: the promise of “free stuff” (as Rush Limbaugh puts it, it’s hard to compete with Santa Claus), and the lure of having legal protection for most anything they can imagine to do sexually.

In other words, today’s Democrats, for the most part, are peddling pleasure. Aided by like-minded fools in the media and the courts, their job is made even easier. Conservatives—especially Christian conservatives—must not be deterred. Given the foolish fantasies sold by lying leftists, this fight is not easy. Whether faced with threats, violence, protests, fines, jail, and so on, we must persevere and remain powerful voices for truth in these grave matters.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Sunday, April 23, 2017

To Understand Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection, We Must Understand Sin

In one of my favorite songs—Worlds Apart by Jars of Clay—singing of the death of Jesus, the lyrics ask (at about the 2:29 mark in the linked video) “Did you really have to die for me?” The answer, of course, is a resounding “YES!”

One of the most important questions in the history of the universe is “Why did Jesus have to die?” (After beginning this piece, I discovered that The Christian Post recently published “Why Did Jesus Die?”) This is especially the case as we are in the throes of what many are referring to as the “post-truth” era, where “Everybody Wants to Rule Their World.” The late-great Oswald Chambers provides one of the best descriptions of why Jesus went to the cross:
The Cross of Christ is the revealed truth of God’s judgment on sin…There is nothing in time or eternity more absolutely certain and irrefutable than what Jesus Christ accomplished on the Cross— He made it possible for the entire human race to be brought back into a right-standing relationship with God. He made redemption the foundation of human life; that is, He made a way for every person to have fellowship with God. 
The Cross was not something that happened to Jesus— He came to die; the Cross was His purpose in coming. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). The incarnation of Christ would have no meaning without the Cross. Beware of separating “God was manifested in the flesh…” from “…He made Him…to be sin for us…” (1 Timothy 3:16 ; 2 Corinthians 5:21). The purpose of the incarnation was redemption. God came in the flesh to take sin away, not to accomplish something for Himself. The Cross is the central event in time and eternity, and the answer to all the problems of both. 
The Cross is not the cross of a man, but the Cross of God, and it can never be fully comprehended through human experience. The Cross is God exhibiting His nature. It is the gate through which any and every individual can enter into oneness with God. But it is not a gate we pass right through; it is one where we abide in the life that is found there. 
The heart of salvation is the Cross of Christ. The reason salvation is so easy to obtain is that it cost God so much. The Cross was the place where God and sinful man merged with a tremendous collision and where the way to life was opened.
One of my favorite Scriptures that explains the death of Jesus is near the end of the first chapter of the book of Colossians. (Colossians 1:15-20 is one of my favorite pieces of Scripture. It is a great answer to the question “Who is Jesus?”) Colossians 1:19-20 reads:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
In other words, Jesus was, in the words of C.S. Lewis, “The Perfect Penitent.” As Lewis puts it,
We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.
Christ dying for our sins is an amazing (and necessary) act of love and sacrifice, but it is not the end of the matter. Just as important as Christ dying for our sins is His resurrection. As I have noted for many years,
The physical resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of Christianity. British theologian Michael Green said it well when he noted, “Without faith in the resurrection there would be no Christianity at all.” Noted biblical scholar, professor, and author Wilbur M. Smith said that, “The resurrection of Christ is the very citadel of the Christian faith. This is the doctrine that turned the world upside down…”… 
C.S. Lewis notes that, “In the earliest days of Christianity an ‘apostle’ was first and foremost a man who claimed to be an eyewitness of the Resurrection,” or more accurately, a witness of the resurrected Christ. He adds that, “to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection.”
The facts of Jesus’ birth, life, death, and resurrection all are, of course, central to Christianity. For millennia, each of these events has been celebrated, studied, and sermonized. Most everyone—from the fervently faithful to the lukewarm to the “near Christian” to those outside Christianity—at least admires the loving life, work, and words of Jesus. However, for a complete understanding of the events of Jesus’ life—especially His death and resurrection—one must seek to understand sin and its sorrowful, destructive, and deadly effect upon humanity.

Unless you have a proper understanding of sin—especially the sin in your own life—you don’t really understand why Jesus came into this world, why He said the things He said, why He did the things He did, and why He died and was raised to life again. The first act of Jesus’ public ministry was His baptism by John. As Jesus came to the Jordan River, John declared (John 1:29), “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

Since the first humans decided that they wanted to “be like God,” the world has been plagued—literally cursed—by sin. In the healing of the paralyzed man at Capernaum (recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke), Jesus reveals the “sickness” from which human beings are in most need of a cure. After his friends went through the difficult work of getting their paralyzed friend to the roof of a crowded house where Jesus was teaching, and after they labored to lower their friend into the room so that he could get closer to Jesus, what were the first words out of Jesus’ mouth? As the Book of Mark records, Jesus, seeing the faith of the paralyzed man and his friends, immediately declared to the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

If you’re an adult and you haven’t suffered yourself, you’ve probably at least witnessed a loved one go through a difficult time with his or her health. Imagine him struggling with an injury or illness and when he visits a physician he believes can heal him, the first thing he is told is that his sins are forgiven. Unless one understands that his or her greatest need is spiritual, such a statement would probably fall very flat. Jesus spent His entire life on earth trying to get people to see what they really needed.

More so than any other human who has walked this planet, Jesus knew—and knows—what we need most. He understood perfectly the sin-sickness of humanity and that He alone had—and still has—the cure.

People don’t like hearing that things in their life need to change; that they are on the wrong path; that the things they are currently enjoying are really quite evil and deadly. (Being the father of four children—ages 8, 11, 13, and 15—I’ve experienced this often firsthand.) In other words, people don’t like being told that they need to “repent.”

As I noted several years ago, the greatest lie ever told is that there is no God. The second greatest lie ever told is that the devil does not exist. The third greatest lie ever told is that your (and my) sin is not really sin. One of the greatest debates within the church today surrounds the question of what is sin. If we can’t answer that question well and accurately, then we will fall short of understanding and appreciating all that Jesus did for us.

As Oswald Chambers reveals above, Jesus came for no other reason than to redeem us, to save us. Save us from what? From the sin that leads to death, hell, and eternal separation from God. We don’t get to come to God and accept Jesus on our own terms. It must be unconditional surrender. We must be willing to lay down everything that is an affront to God. He created us, He sustains us, and He alone can save us.

Instead of recognizing Jesus as savior, many seem to come to Him thinking He is a divine Santa Claus, there merely to give them what they want if they only go through the proper channels. Others seem to see Jesus as some sort of cosmic yes-man, there to make them feel good about any and every decision they choose to make.

Still others—believers and non-believers alike—see Jesus simply as a powerful do-gooder, one that we are to emulate. While it’s true that Jesus healed, fed, and cast out demons because of His great love for those in need, such good deeds were not the final objective for His earthly ministry. In other words, these acts alone did not save anyone. Those healed of one disease or sickness would someday die of another. Those fed would someday be hungry again. Christ’s ultimate goal was to bring people into His Kingdom.

The ministry of God—feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick—should never be separated from the message of God—to repent of our sin and believe that Jesus was who He claimed to be: the Son of God and the savior of the world. The ministry of God and the message of God—both together complete the mission of God. In other words, God became man not simply to improve us, or to help us out of a jam, or to give us what we ask for, or to make us feel better, but to make us into new creatures.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Saturday, April 15, 2017

The Power of the Resurrection

At this time of year Christians celebrate Easter, or as I prefer, Resurrection Sunday. As one scans history, no other date put such a mark in time as when Jesus Christ shed His grave-clothes and departed the tomb.

Of all the religions of the world, only Christianity claims an empty tomb for its founder. The physical resurrection of Jesus is the cornerstone of Christianity. British theologian Michael Green said it well when he noted, “Without faith in the resurrection there would be no Christianity at all.” Noted biblical scholar, professor, and author Wilbur M. Smith said that, “The resurrection of Christ is the very citadel of the Christian faith. This is the doctrine that turned the world upside down…” Indeed it did.

C.S. Lewis notes that, “In the earliest days of Christianity an ‘apostle’ was first and foremost a man who claimed to be an eyewitness of the Resurrection,” or more accurately, a witness of the resurrected Christ. He adds that, “to preach Christianity meant primarily to preach the Resurrection.” And preach they did.

The transformation of the disciples of Jesus is one of the greatest evidences of His resurrection. For decades following Jesus’ death and resurrection they preached His “good news.” Biblical references and strong extra-biblical sources have almost all of the disciples dying martyrs’ deaths. James, the son of Zebedee, according to Scripture was, “put to death by the sword (probably beheaded).” According to early church historians Peter was crucified in Rome, and Paul (of course not one of the original 12, but an apostle nonetheless) was beheaded there. Strong church tradition has Thomas, the “doubting” disciple, being run through with a spear.

The manner of martyrdom of the other disciples is less clear, but strong evidence suggests all, save John, died horrific deaths because of their faith. Their unwavering efforts spread the gospel to many regions of the world, including Rome, Greece, Armenia, Persia, Syria, India, Egypt, Libya, Arabia, and North Africa.

The faith of Jesus’ Apostles spread to thousands upon thousands in a relatively short period of time. As the “good news” of Jesus spread, many of the early believers suffered intense persecution. Fulton Oursler, in The Greatest Faith Ever Known, notes that “Thousands of these men and women would die themselves in the arena, burning on pitch-soaked pyres, crucified, they would die for Jesus Christ, and for the Faith, the Church that Christ founded.”

The persecution of the church continued for centuries. Nevertheless, Christianity endured, and the number of Jesus’ followers continued to multiply. After Constantine’s conversion in the year 312 the church passed from persecution to privilege. Councils were called, the Scriptures were translated into various languages, and faithful missionaries carried the gospel to ever farther reaches of the world.

The impact of the resurrection of Jesus extends far beyond religious institutions. The influence that Christianity has had on the world can be measured in practically every facet of life. Everything from the family, to science, government, medicine, art, literature, business, and so on, has felt the impact of the message of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The world’s first university, birthed in 1088, was The University of Bologna in Italy. It was founded to teach canon law. The second oldest university, The University of Paris, grew out of the cathedral schools of Notre-Dame and soon became a great center for Christian orthodox studies. Dr. Alvin J. Schmidt, in his book Under the Influence: How Christianity Transformed Civilization, points out that every college established in colonial America, except the University of Pennsylvania, was founded by some denomination of Christianity. He adds that, preceding the Civil War, 92 percent of the 182 colleges and universities in the U.S. were established by some branch of the church.

By around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg had nearly perfected his printing press. Making use of movable metal type, Gutenberg’s press became the world’s most efficient means of large-scale printing. This process of printing remained virtually unchanged for four centuries. The first major work mass-produced on Gutenberg’s press was the 42-line Bible (or “The Gutenberg Bible”). This magnificent work ushered in the age of the printed book, and the era of mass communication. Soon, millions of homes, schools, and churches had their own copies of God’s Word, and news of the resurrection of Jesus now spread faster than ever before.

Many of the greatest artists in history—Rembrandt, Michelangelo, Donatello, Da Vinci, Salvador Dali—were followers of Jesus. This is evident in that many of the great works they produced were scenes or characters from Scripture. Beethoven, considered by many to be the world’s greatest composer, wrote some of the most profound Christian masterpieces of history. Johann Sebastian Bach was, as one scholar put it, indeed “a Christian who lived with the Bible.”

Some of the most famous and influential founders of what is considered “modern science”—Galileo, Kepler, and Newton—were Christians who operated from a strict biblical worldview. For example, in 1595, in Kepler’s first major work, he thought that he had discovered “God’s geometrical plan for the universe.” As a Christian, Kepler believed that the universe was designed by a Creator and thus should function in a very logical fashion. He went as far as to define his view of “science” as “thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”

Kepler had a rather strained relationship with Galileo, but they shared a belief in the Copernican model (planets rotate around the sun, and so on) of the universe. This, of course, is what placed Galileo at odds with the Catholic Church and is what many—especially those who worship at the altar of science—point to for evidence of the backwardness of those who operate from a biblical worldview.

However, just as Kepler, Galileo was a Christian who believed in the trustworthiness of the Bible. As Dr. Thomas Schirrmacher puts it, “[Galileo] was fighting against the contemporary principles of Bible interpretation which, blinded by Aristotelian philosophy, did not do justice to the biblical text.”

Isaac Newton is considered by many to be the greatest scientist who ever lived. He is most famous for his laws of motion and universal gravitation. On gravitation he noted that, “Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who set the planets in motion. God governs all things and knows all that is or can be done.”

Recognizing that “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it…” and knowing that we are merely stewards of the Creator of all things, those who follow Jesus are the most generous people on the earth. Take note of the number of influential charities inspired by Christianity. Among them are The Salvation Army, Campus Crusade, Catholic Charities, Compassion International, Habitat for Humanity, World Vision, and the YMCA. Despite being only about five percent of the world’s population, through charities such as these, and through the efforts of tens-of-thousands of U.S. churches, and tens-of-millions of individual American Christians, the citizens of the United States of America account for nearly half of all charitable giving worldwide. In addition, the U.S. government gives away more resources than any other nation on earth.

Christians lead the world in caring for the sick and dying among us. As Virginia Health Information notes, “Some of the earliest hospitals existed in ancient Rome in 100 BC as important centers for the emergency care of sick and wounded soldiers. With the spread of Christianity, hospitals grew as part of the church's mission and became part of the community as they tended to health care not only for soldiers but also for all who needed it.”

The first hospital in North America, the Hospital de Jesus Nazareno (the “Hospital of Jesus of Nazareth”), was founded by Cortés. With the aid of Benjamin Franklin, the first hospital in the U.S, Pennsylvania Hospital, was founded by a Quaker, Dr. Thomas Bond. The Catholic Church alone operates over 1,100 hospitals and long-term health care facilities in the U.S. What’s more, a 2010 study revealed that Christian hospitals in the U.S. outperform all others. About 25% of U.S. hospitals are Christian.

The great nation that we inhabit was founded almost exclusively by Christians and upon Christian principles. On July 4, 1837, in a speech delivered in the town of Newburyport Massachusetts, John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, and the 6th U.S. President, proclaimed,
Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day? [Independence Day] Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth?
Witnessing the events of the Revolution as a boy, and no-doubt hearing from his father of the raucous debates that gave us the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and then going on to serve his country in many various capacities, John Quincy Adams saw that Christmas and Independence Day were fundamentally linked. And of course, the “Redeemer’s mission” was not complete until He hung on the cross, died for our sins, and then left His earthly tomb. Adams understood well that the Founders took the principles that Christ brought to the world and incorporated those into civil government. This is what makes the U.S. government so distinctive, why it has been so durable, and why, to this day, we are the greatest nation the world has ever known.

Supported by the “pillars of Christianity” (see: The Miracle and Magnificence of America), the United States has become the world’s wealthiest, most powerful, most influential nation in human history. Standing for freedom and justice and operating out of love, whether through our government, military, or private citizens and institutions, the United States of America has come to the aid and rescue of billions of people around the world.

The current year is 2017. This is not 2017 years from Caesar, Buddha, or Mohammed, but from the birth of Jesus Christ. As Dan Flynn notes, “The attempt to replace Anno Domini (AD) and BC (Before Christ) with BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) is yet another exercise in futility. Doesn't this Common Era, after all, begin with the life of Christ?”

The impact of Christ’s resurrection can be seen in individuals and institutions, in art and entertainment, in science and industry, in calendars and carols, in tribes and in nations. All of human history—from Creation to Christmas to the Crucifixion—culminates in Jesus leaving His earthly tomb. As I implied earlier, and as history clearly reveals, the resurrection of Jesus stands aloft every other event the world has ever known. Again, virtually every facet of our lives has been impacted by the empty tomb left by Jesus. Though we may acknowledge Him on our currency, and measure our years from His birth, our only real hope is in His resurrection. In the end, the only things that will matter, the only things that will be truly lasting and good, are the things we did in His name.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Will Liberals Stand for the “Right” to Plantation Weddings?

It seems that Jordan A. Maney is not as committed to “diversity” and “love” as she would have us believe. Recently, Ms. Maney, the black owner of a San Antonio event planning business, “All The Days Event Co.,” got a bit upset when she was asked to plan the wedding for a couple whose chosen venue contained the word “plantation.”

Here’s the exchange as reported by ATTN:















As ATTN also notes, Maney also told the inquiring customer on the receiving end of her discrimination, “You’re having a wedding at a grave-site essentially. How are you going to laugh and celebrate on so many people’s blood, and sweat, and suffering?” Of course, built in 2011, strictly for the purpose of hosting weddings, Kendall Plantation has never had anything to do with slavery. Yet, like many who are so easily offended in these sensitive times, the mere mention of “plantation” was enough to rile Ms. Maney.

Furthermore, after rejecting her plantation client, Maney went to her Facebook page, and in a post that is no longer available, declared (yes, in all caps):

“DON’T CALL MY BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS ASKING ME TO PLAN YOUR PLANTATION WEDDING.”

Now imagine for a moment the tables were turned. At the bottom of the homepage of All The Days Events’ website is a cute little logo:











The logo, which is also a link, is an indication of an “LGBTQ-Friendly Wedding Vendor.” Additionally, the blog on Ms. Maney’s business website has a recent post entitled “Honey, Marry Whoever You Want.” (I guess, just not wherever you want.) What if Kendall Plantation wants nothing to do with planners like Maney and her “progressive” values? What if Kendall Plantation—like so many other small businesses across the U.S.—wants nothing to do with the LGBT agenda? What if they publicly declared, in all caps:

DON’T CALL MY CHRISTIAN-OWNED BUSINESS ASKING US TO HOST YOUR HOMOSEXUAL “WEDDING.”

How quickly do you think the lawsuit would be filed? How long before the media caught wind and sought to make an example out of another “bigoted” Christian?

As most of us well know, many Christians—especially those in the wedding industry—have effectively declared that they refuse to participate in the immoral act of same-sex “weddings.” (My wife and I have encouraged all Christians to take a stand for biblical marriage.) As a result, the list of Christians who have been targeted by the homosexual gestapo and their allies in the Democrat Party, the media, and the judiciary is long and growing longer.

As long as same-sex “marriage” has the force of law, Christians will continue to be targets of those who seek revenge upon the defenders of biblical marriage—what used to be known simply as “marriage.” What if a photographer, a florist, or a baker in the blog of his business website declared that marriage is only the union of one man and one woman? How long would it be before a couple of lesbian or homosexual activists made them a target? As we have well seen, and as we were warned, “live and let live” is not a hallmark of the homosexual agenda. Yet, no doubt that is exactly how Ms. Maney expects to be treated.

In fact, she probably imagines her position to be the morally superior one. Someone should ask her, upon what moral code she bases her unwavering business stance. However lacking I find Ms. Maney’s moral position to be, I also think she has a clear right to make such a business decision. What is most interesting in this scenario is how liberals—ignoring the necessary hypocrisy and duplicity, which is often very easy for most of them—will defend her, if it even comes to that.

This episode has received little media attention, and I’ll be surprised if it goes much beyond that. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC)—the largest newspaper in Georgia—on Thursday, April 6, did have a sympathetic article on Ms. Maney and her decision prominently placed on the homepage of their website. The piece began, “A black San Antonio-based event planner is speaking out against the racial undertones connected with plantation weddings.” Almost certainly the aim of the piece was to cast “plantation weddings” in a bad light and Ms. Maney as the gallant crusader standing against such wickedness.

The similarities between Ms. Maney’s decision and those of Christians who’ve declined wedding services to same-sex couples seemed lost on the AJC author. Unless they are forced to see the similarities, virtually every liberal in the media, the courts, and the Democrat Party will be just as blind. The hypotheticals that wise defenders of Christian small-business owners have presented—a black baker refusing to cater for the KKK or a Jewish florist refusing to decorate for Nazis—are no longer mere hypotheticals. What say you, liberals?

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

A Preview of How Liberals Will React If Roe is Overturned

A Texas State University student provides us with an example of the fits of anger that often result when liberals are confronted with the truth on abortion. [WARNING: Foul language! (Which, sadly, should surprise no one familiar with these kinds of situations.)]


I wouldn't be a bit surprised that the reason this young man is so angry is because the pictures hit too close to home for him. In other words, he's likely had an up-close and personal experience with killing a child in the womb. This is one of the reasons why so many on the left are so passionate when defending the "right" to abortion. They simply can't bear the thought of what they've really done.

Also, whether or not this young man is partially responsible for the death of an unborn child, he may just be (selfishly) thinking of his future. Keeping abortion legal and as widely available as possible allows those devoted to a "theology of self" to conduct themselves as they wish in the sexual realm. As David French noted a couple of years ago, "A person who is willing to kill another person for the sake of preserving their own prosperity or emotional health is declaring that their life is supreme — their existence is at the center of all things."

Thus, we could just be witnessing a hedonistic young heathen who just wants to continue his sexual exploits as unhindered as possible. Merely seeing photographs of unborn humans—especially those who were killed in the womb—are too much for him to ponder.

And keep in mind, if the speculation about another vacancy on the Supreme Court is accurate and President Trump gets to make another appointment (and even a third one), we could soon see the end of the nation-wide "right" to an abortion. If this happens, the angry fits by those corrupted by liberalism that you see above will be commonplace and likely more violent.

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

Monday, April 3, 2017

Children Have the “Right” to Weapons of Mass Imagination

Given the apprehension and suspension of the “notorious” playground “menace” Caitlin Miller for committing random acts of make-believe at her Hoke County, North Carolina school, I recently felt compelled to do a soft-target search of our home. Suspecting that our house was riddled with the same type of “weapons” that got five-year-old Caitlin in such trouble, I wanted to make sure that the minor residents with whom I share this home would not find themselves in the same situation as little Miss Miller.

Alas, the search of our home—that was cleverly dubbed “Operation Slow and Curious”—had shocking results. The ghastly evidence (“TRIGGER WARNING!”) is shown below.


Note that several of the weapons in the foreground of the above photo, like young Caitlin’s “stick gun,” are of a wooden variety. However, the wooden guns possessed by the four Thomas children shoot real projectiles (rubber bands). In addition, the plastic guns and bows shown above fire “air-soft” pellets, along with foam darts, arrows, and discs. Also note that with the use of colors such as pink and purple, some of the guns seem to be—GASP!—gender specific! And the two swords at the very front of the table appear to be of the “lightsaber” variety—the preferred weapon of the legendary Jedi.

What’s more, I also found (shown below) what appear to be elaborate battle plans (staged by toy soldiers) and detailed model designs for large ground and aerial assault vehicles. I believe our home needs a “safe space.”


But seriously, to paraphrase the immortal words of Slim Pickens, what in the wide-wide world of sports is going on in North Carolina?! It’s as if invaders from Bizarro World have taken over many of the government and academic officials in the Tar Heel State. After liberals in the city of Charlotte—predicating their moral outrage upon a cause that runs contrary to biology that a three year-old can understand, and that is championed by an unrepentant registered sex offender—launched the nation into an absurd debate about bathroom use and “transgenderism,” those deceived by liberalism in Hoke County seem to think that a five-year-old with a six-inch stick is some kind of a threat.

Upon suspending Caitlin Miller, a spokesman for the Hoke County School System declared, “Hoke County Schools will not tolerate assaults, threats or harassment from any student. Any student engaging in such behavior will be removed from the classroom or school environment for as long as is necessary to provide a safe and orderly environment for learning.” I suppose that we shouldn’t be surprised that those who seem unable to tell the difference between male and female anatomy would have trouble distinguishing between play and assault, or between a stick and a gun.

And again we see, liberalism corrupts. The suspension of cute little Caitlin adds to a growing list of young children across the U.S. punished by their schools for nothing more than the possession of a harmless toy. In some cases, that toy barely even resembles a gun. Last year, a seven-year-old Virginia boy was suspended 10 days for possession of a water gun and a Nerf gun (which are plentiful in the first photo of this piece). Both were brightly colored and could’ve never been confused for real guns—even by a liberal.

A little over a week ago we learned that bringing a spent .22 caliber shell casing to his preschool was just the latest in a long line of pro-gun behaviors for four-year-old Hunter Crowe. The empty casing—described by a gun-ignorant teacher at the Troy, Illinois preschool as a “shotgun bullet”—earned little Hunter a seven-day suspension.

After being found with the “bullet,” Hunter’s preschool sent his parents a letter that ominously declared that, in addition to secretly hoarding harmless shell casings, the little guy had frequently attempted “to make guns out of other toys.” The letter further warned that “guns, hunting, etc., are not subjects that are to be discussed at school,” and despite “multiple attempts to redirect” his “behaviors” toward “other activities,” Hunter continued with his gun-playing ways.

As I’ve noted before, from the time I was Hunter’s age until my mid-teens, if I was not playing with some sort of ball, I was most likely engaged in some sort of battle. Using scraps from my uncle’s woodshop—and yes, sticks from the ground—along with duct tape, electricians tape, and a few well-placed nails, very often my playmates and I would fashion excellent gun replicas. We would then spend hours in the woods and pastures around my home hiding, stalking, building forts, and blasting away at one another. Sometimes we even employed dirt-clods (grenades), and smoke bombs (tear gas). If we had possessed the likes of air-soft or paintball guns that are widely available today, my brother and I, along with our like-minded cousins and friends, would have spent much of the late 1970s and nearly all of the 1980s nursing welts.

Additionally, on the school bus during our elementary school years, my cousin Bart and I nearly drove our driver crazy making fighter-plane and machine-gun noises pretending that we were Pappy Boyington and T.J. of the Black Sheep Squadron. As our big yellow bus wound its way home, we would hold a school book on our laps and pretend we were piloting our F4U Corsair through the skies battling Japanese Zeros. Such behavior would probably get a little fella banned from the bus these days.

This anti-toy-gun foolishness—as we’ve seen in the debates over marriage, gender, life in the womb, the climate, and so on—is simply another example of liberals “struggling against reality.” Children, especially young boys, are going to engage in “battles,” and they’re going to use “guns” when they do so. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

(See this column at American Thinker.)

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com