Tag Archives: President Obama

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When Religion & Politics Collide…(Are you watching the debate tonight?)

Hello World,

First of all, are you watching the debate between President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney tonight? This is the first of three debates between Obama and Romney leading up to the election on Nov. 6 …And if you live in Georgia, please remember that Oct. 9 is the deadline to register to vote if you plan on voting in the upcoming presidential election…Below are the details for tonight’s debate courtesy of 2012presidentialelectionnews.com.

Topic: Domestic policy
Air Time: 9:00-10:30 p.m. Eastern Time
Location: University of Denver in Denver, Colorado (Tickets)
Sponsor: Commission on Presidential Debates
Participants: President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney
Moderator: Jim Lehrer (Host of NewsHouron PBS)

The debate will focus on domestic policy and be divided into six time segments of approximately 15 minutes each on topics to be selected by the moderator and announced several weeks before the debate.

The moderator will open each segment with a question, after which each candidate will have two minutes to respond. The moderator will use the balance of the time in the segment for a discussion of the topic.

Although the United States of America aims to separate church and state, that seems to go out of the window during election season…so I have decided to post some of the interesting stories I’ve seen on the Internet that highlight the collision of religion and politics…

1. “Churches using ‘souls to polls’ to rally vote”  by Curt Anderson of The Associated Press

2. “Jim Lehrer: Ask Mitt Romney if He Stands By Mormonism’s Views of Women” by Stacy Solie of The Daily Beast

3. “Jesus Could Be Their Candidate and the Republicans Would Still Lose” by Frank Schaeffer of The Huffington Post

4. “Seriously? Some Black Christians Waver Over Vote” by Associated Press

5. “NAACP working to protect churches following 2012 election” by Sy Becker of 22 News WWLP.com (VIDEO)

6. “Church Endorsements and the IRS” (VIDEO) by Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly on PBS.org

7. “Preachers telling blacks not to vote is sinful” by Bobby Ray Sanders of the Star-Telegram

Any thoughts?

 

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Entering into the Promised Land…

Hello World!!!

It’s November y’all…2010 is on. its. way.out…I can’t even believe it…It seems like it was just last night that I went to Watch Night Service at my church. And the reason I bring that up is because the pastor spoke on Joshua and how finally he led his people into the Promised Land after they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years due to their own fear and disobedience…

What I got from his message is that it is my time to finally enter into the promised land…What does that mean for me? I cannot share all of that now, but someday I will. What I will tell you now is that I am no longer hoping, wishing & praying for my dreams to come true…Instead I am standing on His word and expecting my dreams to come to life right now. (I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Psalm 27:13)

But the pastor did have a word of caution about entering into the promised land…Before God allowed Joshua and his people to enter in, they had some requirements to meet…below is what the Lord said to Joshua…

6 “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do. 8 Study this Book of Instruction continually. Meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it. Only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do. 9 This is my command—be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid or discouraged. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:6-9

I believe the Lord was telling me that if I will enter into my promised land, I must stay in the will of God and be strong, courageous, fearless and unshakable…So yes, the Lord’s promise to me is conditional…He promises, but I have to meet the conditions…

So all of this pondering on promises made and promises kept has me thinking of the elections yesterday…It seems that people are trying to punish President Obama for what they perceive as his unrealized promises of hope and change…And people are now attempting “to take their government back.” I’m no political pundit so I will save all of the thorough analysis for those that are, but I will say a few things from a spiritual point of view…No politician can ever perfectly keep all of his promises – even those that have promised to take their government back. The Bible has many references in which we are warned about lightly making promises because we human beings have a difficult time keeping them. At the end of the day, only God enables us to keep promises…I mean, we cannot even wake up in the morning without His permission…(See Matthew 5:36 and think on that…)

But back to President Obama and his promises of hope and change…I happen to be one that believes that he is diligently working to keep his promises, but we have conditions to meet on our end. He is not our savior and cannot accomplish miracles without our support. Are we supporting his policies with our votes? (I guess this line may be a day late and a dollar short)…Are we attending city council or school board meetings or otherwise taking part in our local government? (All politics begin at the local level.) Are we educating ourselves about the real issues that this country faces or are we latching on to catch phrases and acting like we know more than what we really do? Are we simply voting for a party because we always have instead of paying attention to the actual candidates? Are we praying for those in authority? (1 Timothy 2:1-2)

I must say as I inventory my actions based on these questions, I have a ways to go…

However, although the balance of power has shifted at a national level, I do believe that this shift did not take God by surprise. He is always working behind the scenes in the course of human history…I don’t know what the end result will be. But it seems to me that at the very least,  the opposing powers are now forced to work together and neither power can entirely lay the blame at the other’s feet.

Okay, let me get off my virtual political soapbox…

We are free to claim the promises of God, but let us not the ignore the conditions that must be met…Delight yourself in the Lord and THEN He will give you the desires of your heart…All things work together for good IF you love the Lord and are called according to His purpose…You will be saved IF you believe in the Lord…

Any thoughts?

P.S. I realize that I haven’t blogged in over a week, and I apologize…I hope I haven’t stayed away too long…I offer Michael Jackson’s “I Wanna Be Where You Are” as a peace offering…lol…love this song!

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Random Ramblings aka I didn’t have a topic but bear with me…

Hello World!!!

As I stated in my title, I don’t have a specific topic, but that’s okay…I think you will be entertained by the random collective of thoughts that have entered my mind lately…at the very least, you will feel sorry for me and perhaps leave a comment to make my day 🙂

1. Just to get it out of the way…What grade would you give President Obama on his first 100 days? Uh duh, if you compare him to our former president, that would be a high “A!” However, financial guru Clark Howard, who truly seems like a nice man, has criticized the Obama administration for its continuing involvement in bailing out GM. Yesterday, he asked his listeners what they want to happen with GM since we are now part owners of the company through our tax dollars…

2. Do y’all think the Craigslist killer’s fiancee had any idea that her man sought the erotic services of women on Craigslist not to mention what he did to them once they hooked up…To be fair, the medical student who had planned to get married in August hasn’t been convicted of the crime, but all of this has got me thinking…When you’re in a relationship with someone, can you really be completely fooled by that person…I mean you may not know that you’re man has a gambling problem for instance, but you wonder why he disappears so much…I briefly dated this old, married man in college…Of course, I was unaware that he was married and once I discovered that, it was over…But even before I discovered that, I could tell he was lying about his age…If you and your girl both sport Jheri curls in your high school prom picture, you were not born in the 7os….

3. A subscriber to this blog (yes, I actually have a few subscribers) said that she notices that black men (and she is black) don’t bother to hold the door open for her and other women while white men or men from other cultures do…she asked me to write about this phenomenon so I decided to pay attention and see if she had a point…I noticed that some men do and some men don’t, but I didn’t notice that one group was any more likely to hold the door open for me…what are your thoughts?

4. Would you think less of a Christian person if you saw him or her get tipsy at a party every now and then? Is it wrong for Christians to drink period? A little champagne never hurt anybody…

5. Should the “swine flu” be called the “Mexican flu” in deference to Jewish people and Muslims?

6. Is it possible to really fall in love more than once in your lifetime?

7. I will have an extended post about this next month, but in the meantime, what do you think of pre-marital sex for Christians? Is it really that bad? Is it just an antiquated Biblical notion clearly not meant for people who have waited well into their ’30s to get married…(Stop looking at me…)

8. Were y’all aware that Rev. Al and Warren Ballentine will be back on the radio in Atlanta as of today? However, their programs will now be broadcast on AM rather than FM…on 1380 WAOK to be exact…that’s good news! It’s soo not true that black people only want to listen to R&B all day long as a radio exec recently told me.

9. Is anyone else a fan of Lil Wayne? I know he seems crazy, but in some sort of impish way, he is cool to death…

10. Does size really matter? If your man presented you with a little bitty engagement ring, what would you do? This was a hot topic discussion among my girls a couple of weeks ago…I don’t have to have a huge rock, but semi-huge would suffice…I would rather have a nice house than a huge rock…But TRUST and BELIEVE, that does not mean I would be happy with a simple gold band…Would it be okay to go behind his back and exchange the stone if it was too small…Steve Harvey was talking about this topic as well…Have y’all read his book? What do you think?

Any thoughts?

P.S. Doesn’t Lil Wayne look like somebody’s baby boy desperately trying to be hard in this pic? Goodness, maybe I’m maternal after all…And I also included a video for his song with Babyface, “Get Too Comfortable.” Face can make anything sound good…