The Land of Ozz

Have you come to the conclusion that Obama’s former pastor had some really bad days in the pulpit? It seems that Obama may have picked a less than stellar spiritual adviser on his first go around. Let’s hope that he does not turn to Oprah as his second choice.

I have received a couple of emails on regarding Oprah’s spiritual activities in recent weeks. The following video does a pretty good job of summing up my concerns over what I have been researching. Oprah Winfrey has an XM radio spot called “Oprah and Friends” that features teachings based on the books by two of these friends of Oprah that are mentioned in the following video.  This video contains footage of Oprah speaking against Jesus being the only way to God even though Jesus told us himself in John 14:6, “…I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”

I cannot validate the numbers quoted at the beginning of the video and I have no knowledge of the book promoted at the end of the video.

I whole-heartedly agree with the subject of the email that delivered to me a link to this video. The subject of the email said “Scary video…” I had already been doing some research on Oprah’s recent “spiritual” book endorsements and the XM radio shows that have followed. In particular I have reviewed dozens of the “A Course in Miracles” teachings. I have reviewed them with the intention of making sure that I could not be accused of taking one or two lessons out of the context of the series. This is the chief argument that Obama supporters have used to defend the Reverend Wright’s controversial remarks. I can assure you that it only took one lesson for me to become concerned about the “Course“. I later found a one hour video ¹ that takes you through the first fifty lessons from “A Course on Miracles“. I warn you not to view or read this “Course” material unless you are firmly grounded in what the Bible says about Jesus Christ and who you are in Christ. This “Course” is psychotherapy and brain-washing to the highest order. The “about” page for the “Course” states pretty clearly in their own description of the program that this is psychotherapy. Here is a quote from Oprah’s XM radio site regarding “A Course in Miracles“:

“According to Marianne, A Course in Miracles is a self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy contained in three books. It is not a religion, but rather a psychological mind-training base on universal spiritual themes. The practical goal of the Course is the attainment of inner peace through the practice of forgiveness…

“A Course in Miracles (often called just “the Course“) is an educational program for retraining the mind that is spiritual, rather than religious, in its perspective. Although it uses Christian terminology, the Course expresses a universal experience, and its underlying ontology is reminiscent of ancient refrains, echoing the world’s most hallowed traditions. …”" ²

The about page goes on to quote the “Course” as it instructs its participants to ignore any leadings to question the teachings. I take this to mean that even if the Holy Spirit prompts you to question this based on your knowledge of the Bible, you should defer to the “Course” anyway.

Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.

Remember only this; you need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required (Workbook, p. 2).

— Excerpted from A Course in Miracles” ²

Many of the quotes in the YouTube video come directly from the daily mind training offered in the “course”. For instance, Lesson 70 states:

My salvation comes from me. It cannot come from anywhere else.

Then devote a few minutes, with your eyes closed, to reviewing some of the external places where you have looked for salvation in the past—in other people, in possessions, in various situations and events, and in self-concepts that you sought to make real. Recognize that it is not there, and tell yourself:

My salvation cannot come from any of these things. My salvation comes from me and only from me. ³

There are some truths in the explanation paragraph in the center of the quote about where salvation does not come from, but the teaching has the participant drill into their own heads by repeating these sayings that salvation comes from within themselves rather than through Jesus Christ.

This stuff is exactly what they say it is, “psychotherapy…psychological mind-training”. While they plainly state that this is not a religion, the teaching has been heavily peppered with Christian terms that make it sound like it may be associated with the Bible. The “Course” even uses terms like “Son of God”, “Salvation”, “God’s will” and frequently references to “God”. The “Course” even goes as far as to capitalize pronouns like “He”and “His” when referring to God. In fact, the “Course” is based on Dr. Helen Schucman’s claim that she was given this information as some sort of prophesy directly from “inner guidance which she had identified as Jesus.” ⁴ It appears that the content for this “Course” came about much the same way that the teachings of the LDS church came from Joseph Smith. While there are some good sounding Christian like principles in both LDS, the “Course” and many other religions, the core beliefs and more importantly the end results of the sinner do not line up with the Bible.

While Oprah and Marianne Williamson may not want to call this “Course” a religion, they are certainly starting to look and sound like a religion. Let’s just hope that Obama does not convert to this non-religion for his future spiritual guidance.

“…there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly tell their lies about God, turning against even their Master who brought them; but theirs will be a swift and terrible end.”  2 Peter 2:1 TLB

References:

1 - http://www.brightcove.tv/title.jsp?title=823374042&channel=422544479
2 - http://www2.oprah.com/xm/mwilliamson/mwilliamson_about.jhtml
3 - http://www2.oprah.com/xm/mwilliamson/200803/mwilliamson_20080310.jhtml
4 - http://www.acim.org/AboutUs/FIP/PublisherTrustee.htm

I had my eye on Fred Thompson at first, but my wife and I ended up giving our votes to Huckabee in the SC primary due to what appeared to be a lack of motivation on Thompson’s part. Duncan Hunter was the first choice for me based solely on my answers to an online survey. If supporters of Thompson and Hunter were following them for their core conservative values, then those supporters should easily shun the remaining republicats and follow Huckabee now that he is the only real conservative in the race. Here are my two cents on each of the remaining GOP candidates:

Huckabee - The only true conservative left. Mike Huckabee is most likely of the remaining candidates to stand up for core family values and nominate conservative judges who will uphold the constitution. Nominating judges is one of the most important and longest lasting reason to choose a person for president in my opinion. The only real negative things he has going against him are the cheesy campaign ads with Chuck Norris and the notion that Mexicans don’t know how to climb fences.

And now for the Republicrats:

McCain - He is one of the most likely REP senators to side with Ted Kennedy on anything and that is more than a little scary. What he has going for him is war hero status and name recognition due to past presidential race experience. I could stomach voting for him in the general election if he could get on the right side of gun control and tax cuts. I actually like him better than any of the rest when it comes to immigration even though I think that immigration should not even be an issue in the race.

Romney - Not far enough removed from pro choice stance prior to entering this race. Seems a little convenient of a switch if you ask me. How is it anyway that his religious convictions will cause him to abstain from alcohol and smoking but leave him to support abortion? (source) And another thing, how exactly did he single handedly turn around dozens (the numbers were stated as high as 100s) of companies in one lifetime? He didn’t. He was CEO of a venture capital / consulting firm that did the work. Never mind that this is a race for president and not CFO of the USA.

Giuliani - Gun control, LIFE of unborn children, marriage protection. Need I say more?

Pon Raul - Who? Anti-war stance sounds like it came right out of the last DEM debate.

“I hope my friends will follow my lead and vote for Senator Fred Thompson when the polls open in 2008.”

Those were my words, but I am not sure I will be sticking to them. I wrote that at the end of a blog post on November 24th. Then I saw the debate and really liked what I saw from Huckabee and not so much what I saw from Thompson. Just call it a flip-flop if I pull in behind Huckabee. That’s fine with me because I am not running for office. Right now I am firmly on the fence. One of the questions that I had considered for asking Thompson if I had a chance was, “who would you vote for if you were not running and why?” I would like to ask Huckabee the same one and a few others.

I am confident that either Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee will win the South Carolina Republican primary this coming January regardless of what the polls say. Out of all the front runners, these two most closely represent the southern conservative point of view in my opinion. I am pleased to see Huckabee gaining ground on the more liberal Republican contenders. Fred Thompson, definitely not a liberal contender, has been my favorite until recently mainly due to my belief that Thompson is more electable candidate. However, I value my Christian friends’ opinions and have looked closely at Huckabee as a result of some of them leaning in Huckabee’s direction. I am now much more on the fence during this primary election than I have ever been for any election. I am also more knowledgeable about the candidates at an earlier point than I have ever been.

One thing is for certain. I am not going to agree with any single candidate on all of the issues. None of them is a clone of me. I do believe that strong family values and a solid commitment to maintaining the security of this country are the most important issues at stake.

It was really more like Sticky Fingers had Fred Thompson. Presidential candidate Fred Thompson made his rounds in the low country of South Carolina today with stops at a gun show and then a brief visit with supporters at Sticky Fingers in Summerville. I attended the rally at Sticky Fingers and got to hear Senator Thompson speak in person for the first time.

There were no ground breaking surprises in what Senator Thompson had to say today in Summerville, SC, but that is exactly the way he plans to keep things. Senator Thompson is grounded in strong conservative values unlike many of his republican opponents who could have easily switched parties and run on a democratic ticket due to their liberal views. Senator Thompson spoke of his strong support for the idea of appointing federal judges that will uphold the Constitution of the United States above their personal beliefs and prejudices. He ranked the presidential duties of appointing judges right up next to national security in terms of importance.

While appointing judges and national security rank high on Senator Thompson’s list of important presidential duties, it was the immigration issue that seemed to get the most attention today. This grates on my nerves a little since the immigration issues in this country have only been a big concern since September 11, 2001. A large portion of the general population of this country seems to have been put under some sort of hypnosis that makes them think that unsecured borders and illegal immigrants are closely tied to the events of 9/11. I will concede that immigration and border security are valid issues that a president should be concerned about, but in my opinion, these should not be the main issues that determine how people vote in 2008.  The root of the immigration issues did not crop up since 9/11 and will not be solved by the president alone. Unfortunately these issues seemed to be much more of a crowd pleaser than any other issues on the stump today.

I would like to have asked the Senator a few questions, but time and opportunity was not available for more than a few questions. I would like to have heard some specifics on the following:

• Given his experience in Hollywood and in Washington, elaborate on his publicly stated views on how he as president could help strengthen family values.
• What is the first thing he would do as president to help put money back into the hands of the American people the way SC did with the recent sales tax changes that netted my family of five almost enough tax savings to buy a month’s worth of groceries per year.

I have yet to see the heat get turned up on Senator Thompson’s lack of specifics regarding his Christian faith. Many of the front runners claim to be Christians and that may factor into the results here in the deep south when the primary day rolls around. Some big name players in the Christian community have questioned Thompson’s Christianity. I would certainly prefer that our president be a committed Christian. At the same time, I know plenty of self proclaiming Christians who are not qualified to be president of the United States of America. It is entirely possible that many of the presidential candidates are not true believers when they get out from in front of the camera. Regardless of how outspoken Senator Thompson is or not regard his faith, the fruits of his public service support his claims to uphold values that all of my Christian friends hold dear.

Senator Thompson has as good chance of winning SC in the up coming South Carolina Republican primary according to the most recent Rassmussen Poll. I hope my friends will follow my lead and vote for Senator Fred Thompson when the polls open in 2008.

It seems that there is a new tax law in South Carolina. The picture on the right shows a portion of the receipt my wife brought home from Wal-Mart this weekend. I was so shocked by the tax amount, or rather lack of tax, that I called the Wal-Mart store to ask if their registers were malfunctioning. The lady from the customer service center at the Goose Creek Wal-Mart enlightened me on a new tax law that removes the sales tax from our grocery bill.

This new tax code supposedly went into effect on November 1, 2007. Did it get buried on page 23 of section Q of the local paper? While I do not watch much TV, I would have expected to hear about this on the radio or maybe at work among the idle chatter. Is it possible that this tax cut came in so low under the local radar that no one even knows about it?

For a family that spends about $600 per month on groceries, this will help us to the tune of approximately $40 per month*. That is sweet. That is another date with my sweetie each month. If we share a “Tour of Italy” at Olive Garden and only drink water, we might even be able to squeeze out the sitter’s wages for a couple of hours. This tax savings will be put right back into the economy as far I our house is concerned. Thank you SC State Government!

*Note: Not all of our grocery budget is spent on unprepared food so the tax cut will only affect approximately 95% of our grocery budget. This sale tax change only applies to unprepared grocery items “that are eligible for purchase with US Department of Agriculture food coupons.” Source

Blackwater USA is out of business in Iraq according to the BBC News.  This is the same company supplying security forces in Afghanistan.  A friend’s husband who is an Air Force officer serving in Afghanistan was involved in a road side standoff with a Blackwater employee about a year ago.  That case was fill with suspicions of tampered evidence and false testimony on the Blackwater side of that case.   Back in April my friend’s husband was cleared of all charges that could have sent him to jail.

The recent incident involving Blackwater in Iraq has spawned investigations by the Iraqi and US governments.  There are estimates that reports as many 25,000 civilian security employees in Iraq with about 1000 of them working for Blackwater.  All of the Blackwater security forces have been ordered to leave Iraq expect those involved in the recent roadside shooting incident.  It will be interesting to see how Iraqi security forces and the US military respond to this void of such a large number of armed private security forces in the coming weeks. One report says that the US has suspended land travel of US diplomats in Iraq.

Most of the emphasis is given to the US military presence in Iraq that has peaked at nearly 160,000.  The much overlooked number is an estimated 100,000 plus civilians who are working in Iraq.  After subtracting the security forces, the remaining 75,000 US civilians work in variety of jobs ranging from cooks to translators to pilots to engineers to doctors to laborers.

It seems that lines are being drawn within Christian circles with regards to immigration reform. At least one Catholic Church as well as one Lutheran Church in California are offering sanctuary to illegal immigrants. The story also mentions Adalberto United Methodist Church in Chicago as making news for sheltering Elvira Arellano and her son Saul Arellano.

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is following a different line of thinking in regards to immigration. The final sentence in a report titled REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE ORTHODOX PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH TO STUDY THE PROPRIETY OF THE RECEPTION OF ILLEGAL ALIENS INTO CHURCH MEMBERSHIP pretty much sums up this denomination’s kid-glove approach to illegal immigrants.

“It seems wise that presbyteries and sessions ought to delay ordination and installation until matters relating to being an illegal alien have been satisfactorily addressed.” Source - http://www.opc.org/GA/aliens.pdf

I found the OPC document by way of La Shawn Barber’s Corner in a post titled Christians and Illegal ‘Immigration’. La Shawn has been very outspoken in favor of dropping the hammer on “lawbreaking illegals”. I don’t see the issue as cut and dry as she does and that leaves us two Christian bloggers on different sides of a very complex issue. La Shawn left a comment on a previous post here on this blog titled Amnesty for Illegals.

“Disagreement isn’t a bad thing…What I’m waiting to hear, although I think I’ll be waiting in vain, are more Christians speaking out against illegal aliens who profess Christ. How does their defying government authority and making DEMANDS on their “host” country square with their profession?”

La Shawn went own to ask a very similar quesiton on her own blog this week.

“I asked those same critics, sometimes in the post itself, sometimes in the comment section, if they’ve ever admonished illegal aliens who say they’re Christians, and if not, what they’d say to them about crossing our borders in violation of our laws and showing little compassion themselves.”

I want to offer a response to La Shawn’s questions. First, there seems to be an assumption by La Shawn as well as a host of other Americans that illegals in this country had prior knowledge of the US immigration law before entering this country. Let’s make a different and probably more accurate assumption by putting ourselves in their shoes prior to entering the US. To do this, take a moment to write down on a piece of paper some notes from your knowledge of the immigration policy of any other country on this planet. The average American will likely not leave a single mark on the paper during this exercise.

Is it the fault of the illegals that our borders were not protected? Is it the fault of the illegals that the system allows for them to drain tax dollars without contributing in all the ways the rest of us contribute? Is it fair that many illegals have taken more than they have contributed. Ask your average native American Indian if they feel like their ancestors were given a fair deal during the forming of this country. Ask them if they think the settlers gave much attention or even had knowledge of tribal laws of immigration during the settling of the Americas. No one wants to talk much about how the settlers busted in on the native American Indians for some reason.

Let’s consider another question. How many Christians complain about aliens families taking their tax money yet wouldn’t think twice about filling the offering plate to help the same families if they were still suffering in their own country?

As Christians, how should we be responding to illegals in this country? The answer is simple. We should be displaying the character of God as seen in his son Christ Jesus. How? By rejecting the prideful, selfish, judgmental, condemning and unforgiving attitudes that are dominating the fight against illegals.

Do my suggestions mean that I believe we should continue to allow illegals to pile into this country? Absolutely not! We have learned in recent years how bad border security really is and we need to fix it. We also need to work on streamlining a process to make legal all those who want to become legal. I have used the word amnesty and that may be a little strong. As Christians trying to operate in a Christ-like manner, we need to exercise forgiveness ahead of admonishment.

I suggest that many illegals immigrants may not understand that the average American tax payer is bearing the burden for the services that they are receiving mostly for free. I say “mostly for free” because even illegals have to pay some taxes (i.e., sales taxes) that do end up funding some of the services they are using. Even if they do understand now that the average American is footing the bill, it is entirely possible that they had no idea how our government was structured and funded prior to their arrival into this country.

The bottom line on this whole issue is that many Americans, Christians included, are making a boat load of assumptions about who knew what and when. What we as Christians can do is demonstrate a face of forgiveness and comfort to these illegals and let God worry about who sinned when and how bad. For those Christians who disregard any notion of forgiveness in this immigration issue and are dead set on punishing these illegal alien lawbreakers, I repeat the words of Jesus in John 8:7 (NLT), “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!”

The hype on this story has settled in the mainstream media, but it has not left my mind in the past week. I am as knowledgeable as a man can be on abortion without being a physician. I wrote about my history and my personal position on abortion a little over a year ago.

My wife is now approximately 23 weeks pregnant with our third child. She is at about the same place in this pregnancy as she was when we learned about or son Caden’s life threatening heart defects. The heart defects (four of them) were so prominent that an amniocentesis has highly encouraged. I wrote about this experience in the draft for a book that I have been working on.

An amniocentesis is a procedure where they use a very large needle to collect fluid from the area around the baby. This fluid can be used to determine if the baby has a chromosome abnormality. We had but one question, “what is the benefit of gathering this information?” The answer was long and consisted of a lot of beating around the bush. Finally, the answer we got was that the amniocentesis results would empower us with information to help us make a “choice” on what to do next. We determined that what they really meant was that they wanted to know if we were interested in terminating the pregnancy.

Obviously we chose to move forward with the pregnancy. It is my understanding that many parents choose to end the life of their child if defects like these are found and often the decision is made as a result of pressure put on them by the prenatal clinics to consider the termination.

I really did not understand what a partial birth abortion was until a little over a week ago. What makes me sick to my stomach is that my wife and I were highly encouraged to consider our “options” in regards to her pregnancy with Caden. A choice to terminate at that late point in the pregnancy would have resulted in what I now understand to be a partial birth abortion.

Before you follow the links I am about to give you I want to give a firm WARNING that the information you will see and read is very graphic and it is very disturbing. It is all truth and I believe every parent who is considering an abortion should be required to see or read something like this at a minimum. La Shawn Barber has brought together a couple of the best posts on this subject that I have seen. The first post is titled ‘Intact’ Infanticide [WARNING, this is a very graphic description of late term abortion as witnessed by a nurse]. The other post provides a graphical representation of the procedure and is titled Supreme Court Upholds Ban On Partial Birth Abortion[Visual WARNING]. La Shawn has been one of the most faithful bloggers in producing dozens of sobering reports on abortion in a category she has named “child killing”.

It grieves me to think that children’s lives could be taken in this way. What grieves almost as much is the number of U.S. citizens who are sitting on the edge of the seat to cast a vote for a presidential candidate who criticizes the most recent Supreme Court Decision to stop partial birth abortions.

The Senator Hillary Clinton’s Response:

“This decision marks a dramatic departure from four decades of Supreme Court rulings that upheld a woman’s right to choose and recognized the importance of women’s health…”Source

From the Senator Barack Obama Camp.

“I strongly disagree with today’s Supreme Court ruling, which dramatically departs from previous precedents safeguarding the health of pregnant women…” Source

Did they get together for lunch to come up with matching opening sentences that read like they are in stereo surround sound?

Well Senators Obama and Clinton, our experience and many others is that many of the folks recommending this procedure have little if any concern for the woman’s health. The folks giving us the option to bow out of a late term pregnacy simply wanted us to consider reversing a CHOICE we made at conception.

A few months ago I was contacted by the founder of a great outreach project for those parents who face a difficult prenatal diagnosis like we faced with Caden. I almost forgot about this until Mrs. Ozz reminded as we were discussing this subject this past week. Please visit this site and pass it along to any parents who may be getting pressure to terminate a pregnacy as a result of prenatal screenings or tests.

BeNotAfraid.net

“Benotafraid.net is an online outreach to parents who have received a poor or difficult prenatal diagnosis. The family stories, articles, and links within this site are presented as a resource for those who may have been asked to choose between terminating a pregnancy or continuing on despite the diagnosis. The benotafraid.net families faced the same decision and chose not to terminate. By sharing our experiences, we hope to offer encouragement to those who may be afraid to continue on. “

Check out other ProLifeBlogs.

It sounds like President Bush is getting heat to fire a top general in addition to the calls to fire US Attorney General Gonzales. I did not know citizens actually wrote and sent letters like the one shown above on Congress.org, but this guy is letting it all hang out. A concerned veteran want President Bush to fire General North. I do believe there is some fishy stuff going on with this case in Afghanistan, but I do not know all the facts and will hold my personal opinion to myself regarding General North.

I previously wrote about my friend Stacey Brown’s husband being charged due to a run in with a Blackwater employee named Jimmy Bergeron. The investigating officer found and reported to General North on suspicions of evidence tampering and witness bribing. There has been little more said publicly since the Brown was cleared of the charges.

I have also run across more information on the alleged victim in this case thanks to IragSlogger. Jim Bergeron is the President and founder of a Canadian company E.P.D. Tactics Inc according to his web site. The web site reports that he is a former Marine with a BS in Criminology who has worked for as many as 12 U.S. Government agencies.

My related posts:

Charleston AFB Officer Cleared of Charges
Air Force vs Blackwater - Round II
Air Force vs Blackwater