Imus Will Rise Again - May Already Have! April 12, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Culture, Imus, Politics, Racism, Radio.7 comments
Al Sharpton says the other shoe has dropped on Don Imus. The shoe belongs to the liberal black activists in this country and it didn’t drop on Imus. It dropped on CBS and MSNBC.
Within weeks Don Imus will sign a multimillion dollar contract with Sirrius or XM, leaving CBS to figure out how it will recoup the ad revenue from its capitulation to the latest extortion effort by Sharpton and Associates. The only viewers who ever watched MSNBC were the few thousand generated by the simulcast of Imus in the Morning. MSNBCs capitulation to the whining of the liberal black activists is a nail in their own coffin, driving them further down the ratings ladder.
CBS and MSNBC didn’t fire Imus because of what he said. MSNBC repeated the phrase three times in a four paragraph article; if “nappy headed hos” is such a slur (and it is), why are they so freely repeating it? The firing of Don Imus also wasn’t on moral grounds; if that were the case he would have been gone at the first commercial break after he spoke the reprehensible words. And Imus certainly wasn’t fired because he injured the Rutgers Women’s basketball team. Are you forgetting they lost the NCAA final? The way things normally play out, the losing team walks off the court into oblivion. In this case, can you even name the women’s team that won the championship game Rutgers lost? Yet it’s the losers who are paraded out on Oprah for their 15 minutes of fame. We wouldn’t even be talking about the Rutgers women if Imus hadn’t spoken the unspeakable. Other than their feelings being hurt, what real injury have they suffered?
Don Imus was fired because of the extortion pressure put on advertisers by Sharpton and Company. Imus will move over to Sirrius within a month where the listener pays for the content - and will gladly pay to hear Imus in the Morning - no matter how loudly the loud mouth hypocrites on the Left attempt to plug their ears.
Al Sharpton’s Beam v. Don Imus’ Speck April 11, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Culture, Imus, Racism, Radio, Sports.9 comments
Far be it from me to defend Don Imus’ characterization of the Rutgers Women’s basketball team as “nappie headed hos.” Imus himself has characterized his words as “repugnant” and they certainly were. Imus has sincerely apologized. He is being drawn and quartered by the Left and its media machine. He will lose advertisers. He will lose prestige. He will lose in more ways than can be calculated. And in many respects he ought to lose. But should he lose his living - his source of income - because he said something stupid and without racial intent?
And now we hear from the women he ostensibly offended. Do we really need to parade the team out for a press conference, as if putting them on display will somehow prove that what Imus said about them isn’t true? We all know what Imus said wasn’t true. When Imus spoke the words he himself knew they weren’t true. My momma always said that just because someone called you a name didn’t mean that was who you were. The harder you tried to prove you weren’t what they called you, the more you looked like you were. So just let it go. The person you really are will be finally determined by the life you live, not by what others say about you.
Imus isn’t the hypocrite here. Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and the entire leadership of the (liberal) African-American community are the hypocrites. Truth be told, Sharpton and Jackson have more racist tendencies than Imus has compassion for disadvantaged children (and Imus has a TON of compassion for disadvantaged children). And if Sharpton and Jackson were truly concerned about the portrayal of African-American women in the media, they would have used their platforms to rid this country of the deplorable rap music industry.
When talk radio host Glenn Beck pointed out to Al Sharpton that the lyrics of rap songs written and performed by black rappers show more disrespect to black women than Imus’ 30 second comment, Al Sharpton excused the rappers on the grounds that they don’t have nationally syndicated talk shows. What?!?! Here’s a partial transcript of the exchange:
BECK: This is what really bothers you, right?
SHARPTON: Absolutely. I mean, that is what hits me to the core. As I said, I have two daughters. And when I heard that, I heard him calling my daughters, who are not thugs, not in the street, not doing wrong, in college.
It`s like she said, when you excel, people call you that anyway. I had to come forth, and many others have come forth.
BECK: I have to tell you, it`s — I have — I have three daughters, and it`s not just if they excel. Calling your daughters — this is why this story reaches me, is because it is just so offensive on so many levels.
But here`s some women who have really accomplished something and to call them, you know, nappy headed hos is offensive.
However, Ludacris has a song called “Hos”. “Can`t turn a ho into a housewife,” apparently good advice from Ludacris.
How about Tupac: “I get around, all respect to those who break their neck to keep the hos in check.”
Notorious BIG: “Ain`t that a slut who” — and it goes into describing things that she does with her butt, different kinds of showers she likes and calls her a ho. DMX: “It`s all good. I`ve done it all to hos. Dominican hos, country hos, from sister to country hos.”
Three-six Mafia: “I heard it`s hard out there for a pimp. Couldn`t keep up with my hos.” Uses the “N” word. I mean, this is everywhere with rap.
Now I know you`ve given — you know, you`ve gone out, and you just had a press conference a couple of weeks ago. Will you tell me that you are trying to get these guys fired from their record contracts as much as you`re trying to get Don Imus thrown off the radio?
SHARPTON: No, what I will tell you is I`ve said that these record companies — ironically, the same conglomerate owns some of the record companies that you`re talking about, owns the radio station that Imus is on. These record companies ought to be hit so that we will take the profit out of that.
BECK: But you are not saying that with Don Imus. You are saying…
SHARPTON: With Don Imus…
BECK: You are saying, “I want you fired.”
SHARPTON: Don Imus is on a federally regulated radio station and television. If these guys were talk show hosts, I`d be marching to get all of…
BECK: These guys are being played not only on radio stations, but they`re also connected right to our daughter`s ears with their iPods.
SHARPTON: Glenn Beck — Glenn Beck…
BECK: This is much more hazardous.
SHARPTON: I am surprised. You have a good research department. I was surprised that when I met with the FCC about this about 18 months ago…
BECK: What I`m asking you…
SHARPTON: You don`t want the answer to that.
BECK: I do want the answer. Al, you and I have talked about this.
SHARPTON: I`m the guy that went to FCC and talked about this language and violence in hip-hop. “Nightline” even did a extensive report on this. So you don`t have to sell me. I want to know where all the people, including Mr. Imus, who claimed to be outraged by it, where were they when I were raising this, because it was…
BECK: I will be with you any time. We just don`t put people out of business, out of political correctness. Let`s encourage people to shed that.
SHARPTON: You cannot correct the rapper if you don`t have the same courage to stand up to people like Don Imus.
The lyrics of black rappers repeatedly referring to black women as “hos” and much worse, are played on radio stations around the nation and not a peep about those racial slurs from the so-called leadership of the African-American community. Yet Sharpton says that because rappers aren’t talk show hosts he won’t march to stop them from characterizing black women as hos. He blames the lyrics of black rap on the “conglomerates” rather than on the black artists who write them! What a hypocrite!
Shouldn’t the leadership in the African-American community get the beam out of its own eye before it goes messing with the speck of dust in Imus’ eye? Truth be told, it isn’t the speck in Imus’ eye Sharpton and Jackson are after. It’s his wallet. Once Imus’ writes the check to the black activist group of their choosing, this will all go away.
CNS News: Jesse Jackson accused of ’shaking down’ Toyota
Rocky Mountain News: Rev. Jackson’s extortion racket
Divorce: American (Evangelical) Style April 9, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Culture, Politics, Theology.1 comment so far
David Instone-Brewer writing in the April 6 edition of the Wall Street Journal raises a compelling question relative to the evangelical right and the current field of Republican presidential candidates: “Why are evangelicals so willing to accept divorce among their political leaders?” Dr. Instone-Brewer points out: “[A]mong GOP presidential front-runners, only Mitt Romney is in his first marriage.”
Dr. Instone-Brewer offers two answers to his question and a way out of the traditional strict interpretation of Jesus’ teaching on divorce (Matthew 19) which limits the cause for divorce to adultery:
- Many evangelicals have privately abandoned the Bible’s teaching on divorce. Instone-Brewer argues that modern realties (”reasons for divorce go well beyond adultery, and fairly rapid remarriage is common”) and American law have both contributed to the abandonment by evangelicals of what the Bible says about divorce. In was Ronald Reagan, himself divorced and yet also an icon for conservative evangelicals, who aided in shifting the cultural conversation away from marriage’s mutual obligations toward personal fulfillment when as governor of California he signed the nation’s first “no-fault” divorce law in 1970. The worldview of followers of Jesus in the 21st Century are informed more by the realities of the cultural than by Jesus’ own words. Clearly Jesus offers only one exception for divorce in Matthew 19.
- An emphasis on the rights of individuals encouraged by the current crop of evangelical preachers. This is an insightful observation. Instone-Brewers specifically mentions Joel Osteen and Joyce Meyer with their emphasis “on promoting individual development,” which for some married persons may require they leave their spouse. If you are going to merely market the gospel rather than proclaim it, the message is highly dependent on the consumer. And if point number one above is true, the message is by necessity driven by the whims and desires of hearer. The prominent “pulpits” in America today look more to the culture than to the word of God for their authority. Success in ministry is defined more by audience response than by faithfulness to the character and calling of the Church, a character and calling defined by Scripture, not by polling data. The authoritative gospel is abandoned because it doesn’t play well to the focus groups. Personal fulfillment trumps moral obligation in the 21st Century.
How can we have our cake and eat it to? How can we abandon the Bible’s teaching on divorce, fulfilling our own desires, while at the same time saying we have not abdonded the Bible’s teaching on divorce? Dr. Instone-Brewer offers this way out of the evangelical dilemma: “new scholarship.”
As it happens, new scholarship supports a slightly less strict biblical understanding of divorce than the traditional one. Scrolls found near the Dead Sea, which confirm indications found in ancient Jewish authors like Philo and Josephus, show that the key phrase “any cause” was actually the name of a type of divorce. That is, Jesus did not reject divorce for any cause but rather, he rejected “Any Cause” divorce.
This “growing scholarly consensus” expands Jesus exception for divorce from adultery only to also include abuse, neglect and abandonment. In 1 Corinthians 7:15 Paul seems to support this view when he says that marriage partners who are abandoned by their spouses are “no longer bound.”
None of this quite explains why evangelicals are letting their divorced conservative candidates off the hook. Most, if not all, of the divorced candidates in the current presidential race - both Republican and Democrat - do not meet even the “new scholarships’” interpretation of the grounds for divorce. When were Giuliani or Gingrich or McCain ”abused, neglected, or abandoned” by their spouses?
David Instone-Brewer is senior research fellow in rabbinics and the New Testament at Tyndale House in Cambridge and the author of Divorce And Remarriage in the Church: Biblical Solutions for Pastoral Realities
The Message of the Cross April 6, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Church History, Church Life, Culture, Death, Emergent, Megachurch, Theology.1 comment so far
In the Introduction to his new book (Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
“To me, people who claim to write ‘objective’ history - that is, history without bias - are almost invariably people who, when writing on religious history, have a strong bias against evangelical belief, the existence of the supernatural, or the guiding hand of God in providence. Our political prejudices are man-made, however strongly we believe in them, and I am always careful to try to weed out such opinions from my analysis of the past. Christianity is God-made, not human, while, say, a Baptist or a Methodist bias might be unfair regarding other equally good Christian perspectives. But a strong belief in the truth of the atonement, of God’s very existence, and of a meaning to history because God is in charge of it is surely to adopt a biblical rather than human interpretation of what happens and why. As Christians living in postmodern times, we ought to reclaim the idea that there is a final truth that God has revealed through Jesus Christ on the cross and that we live in a universe of which God is in control, and therefore it has meaning.”
This is precisely what we are fighting for in these postmodern times: objective, timeless truth centered in a God-intoxicated view of history. No soldier in this battle for truth is properly equipped to fight on its frontlines without a proper understanding of history. It is precisely because of that deficiency we find ourselves emersed in a philosophical/theological debate over what it means to be God’s people in a postmodern context.
And no defintion of what it means to be God’s people is complete without the cross. The cross stands at the center of human history. How you view the events of Good Friday and Easter Sunday informs everything you believe and do. The cross makes demands to which a majority of this world’s citizens are not willing to submit; and yet the word of God prophetically warns that “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.” Immediately preceeding this stern prophecy is the declaration of the humility of our Savior - the One who is by very nature Life - Himself being humbled by obedience to Death, even the death of the cross.
The exaltation of Jesus Christ - His declaration as the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead - was a direct consequence of his humiliation by the cross (Philippians 2:5-8). The cross is the focal point. It is the preaching of the cross exclusively which opens the hearts of unregenerate men and women to the things of God. Regardless of the cultural context in which we find ourselves, this message ALONE - without the assistance of human ingenuity in packaging it - is the message which truly saves.
When the Apostle Paul found himself in the midst of the spiritually dark and immoral culture of Corinth, he purposed to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and him crucified. There were no attempts by Paul to make the message of the cross understandable to the culture; he specifically points out in 1 Corinthians 2 that he intentionally avoided couching his message with enticing words, lest their faith stand merely in the wisdom of man rather than in the power of God.
The primary enemies of the cross today are within the church, just as they were in Paul’s day. Having focused the attention of the Philippians on the centrality of the humiliation of Christ in the cross, and thus the importance of keeping the cross central to the life and mission of the church, the Apostle warns the Philippians against those among them who, while walking with them, are themselves “enemies of the cross of Christ” (Philippians 3:18). Those enemies of the cross still walk among the church today, calling the church to speak the language of the culture rather than the soul-saving message of the cross. These enemies may indeed be well-intentioned, but knowingly or unknowingly they are robbing the church of the one thing that makes it distinctive from every other belief system and religious worldview: a sinless Savior willingly laying down his life for His sinful people in order to purchase them for God out of every kindred, tongue, tribe and nation so that He might present them to God holy and blameless and above reproach. In place of this message, the enemies of the cross have offered a message of promising your best life now and heaven, too. Nothing could be more antithetical to the message of the cross, and more detrimental to the life and witness of the church in our postmodern culture.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ Grandson on The Paul Edwards Program April 6, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Church History, Church Life, Culture, Emergent, Megachurch, Radio, Theology.3 comments
Christopher Catherwood, grandson of the late Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, will join me TODAY (Good Friday, April 6) to discuss his new book Church History: A Crash Course for the Curious
John MacArthur on The Paul Edwards Program April 6, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Church Life, Culture, Emergent, Megachurch, Radio, Theology.1 comment so far
John MacArthur, Pastor-Teacher at Grace Community Church of Sun Valley, CA will be my guest on Tuesday, April 17th on The Paul Edwards Program, heard locally in Detroit on AM 1500 WLQV from 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm ET and around the world via streaming audio at http://www.am1500wlqv.com.
Our conversation will focus on the Emerging Church vis-a-vis his new book The Truth War: Fighting for Certainty in an Age of Deception
An Update from Alistair Begg on His Health April 4, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Church Life, Culture, Megachurch, Theology.2 comments
Alistair Begg, pastor of Parkside Church in Solon, Ohio and teacher on the Truth for Life radio broadcast, was a guest on The Paul Edwards Program on Monday, April 2. As many of you are aware, Alistair was diagnosed with prostate cancer several weeks ago. I asked him to give us an update on his health:
Alistair: Well, you’re very kind to ask. My health is ostensibly fine. I have no symptoms or anything. That cancer in the prostrate was picked up due to the very careful work of my doctor, for whom I am very grateful. And so, yeah, I’ll be with you, what is it, on the Wednesday? And then the following Monday (April 23) I have this radical prostatectomy surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. I’m anticipating a very exciting day on Monday the 23rd and hopefully a very successful one from the doctor’s perspective. And then a few weeks of trying to recover from that and get on an even keel again. I’m in the best of hands in the Clinic in Cleveland, and of course I believe the surgeon’s hands are held by higher hands than his, so that’s where I rest.
Hear the entire interview with Alistair Begg here.
The Tale the Polls Tell April 4, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Church Life, Culture, Megachurch, Theology.24 comments
NEWSWEEK: 91% of Americans believe in God
TIME: Biblical llliteracy on the rise
BARNA: 100 Million Americans never attend church
So if it’s true that 91% of American’s believe in God, why aren’t they reading His word and attending His church?
The conventional answers to these questions derive from sociology rather than spirituality. Ask today’s church leaders why people don’t read the Bible or attend church and they will immediately blame the Bible and the church! I recently interviewed a theology Ph.D. candidate on my program who told me that even he couldn’t understand the King James Version of the Bible! Really?
One megachurch pastor recently released a book in which he cites four possible reasons why the church fails to draw a crowd: God, the Message, the World, or the Church. God is off the hook because, well, he’s GOD! The Message is off the hook because it’s supposed to be timeless and transcend culture. The shocking point he makes is that the World is also off the hook because without the darkness there would be no light! By process of elimination it is the CHURCH that is the problem, even though the Church was founded by Jesus Christ with the promise that the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. The problem with the church is that it doesn’t know how to relate and it is using outmoded methods to accomplish the task of drawing lost sinners. Nothing is ever mentioned about the theological truth that lost sinners in their natural state will never find the true gospel of the cross attractive (1 Corinthians 1, 2).
The fact is, the reason why so many Americans say they believe in God and yet live lives of practical atheism as demonstrated by their lack of church attendance and Bible knowlege is because America’s understanding of God is civil and not relational. American’s believe in God the way they believe in the sun coming up tomorrow: they know God is there, they know He makes some difference to their lives, but for the most part they’re oblivious to the real implications of who God is. God makes no conscionable difference to they way they live their lives, unless and until tragedy strikes, because American’s honor God with their lips but their hearts are far from Him. American’s may know God (or think they know God) but the critical factor is whether or not God knows them (John 10:27; Matthew 7:23). And the people God has identified as His sheep will not fail to grow in grace and in the knowlege of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and they will not fail in assembling together as God’s redeemed people. God’s people love God’s word and God’s people. People who ignore God’s word and God’s people, even though they say they believe in God, are not God’s people. Let’s stop kidding ourselves when the secular polls give us so false hope that America is in revival. “By their fruits…”
‘24′ and the 25th Amendment April 2, 2007
Posted by Paul Edwards in Culture, Politics.3 comments
Quite by accident I began watching ‘24′ about a month ago. I found the last 30 minutes of the episode I happened upon addictive, and I have seen every episode since, except one. The more I watch ‘24′ the more I find myself laughing out loud at the obvious hokiness of it all.
For instance, two weeks ago a former President (on a tether!) meets with his crazy ex-wife in order to get her to place a call to the wife of the president of Russia in an effort to get the Russian president to crack down on the Russian embassy in LA where Jack Bauer is being held. Long story short - the crazy former First Lady plays with a paring knife which ends up in the chest of her ex-husband - in a room full of Secret Service agents! LOL!
Tonight’s episode was more of the same. Jack Bauer’s president is Wayne Palmer. Five hours ago President Palmer was severely injured by a terrorist planted bomb that exploded in a cassette recorder at a podium where he was standing. The Vice-President is notified that he will assume the powers of the presidency as acting president.
In tonight’s episode, five hours after being nearly mortally wounded by the terrorist bomb, the president resumes his duties over the objections of the vice-president. The VP initiates a power play to keep the powers of the presidency for himself by invoking Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:
Section 4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
As you can see, the process for declaring a president unfit for office is not as simple as taking a vote among the cabinet members, which is precisely what was portrayed on tonight’s episode of ‘24′. The VP gathered the cabinet, and the president’s chief of staff polled the cabinet by raise of hands, which ended in a tie. The tie was contested by the VP, as one of the cabinet members - the National Security Advisor - had resigned prior to the assassination attempt on the president, but had recinded her resignation after the attempt and before it had been acted on by the president. The VP challenged her standing as a cabinet member, ruled her vote invalid, and declared that a majority of the cabinet had declared the president unfit for office - by a vote of 7 - 6.
But the process isn’t that simple. It literally takes an act of congress to declare the president incapacitated, not merely a vote of the VP and a majority of the cabinet. The VP and a majority of the cabinet must “transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office” at which time the VP can assume the presidency.
HOWEVER!! The president may then also communicate to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House his written declaration that no inability exists, and immediately upon doing so he regains the office from the VP. Then it gets interesting! If the VP and the president’s cabinet still insist the president is incapacitated, within four days they must communicate that to the congress, at which time the congress has 21 days to decide.
‘24′ put the decision solely in the hands of the vice-president, the cabinet, and the Supreme Court, which suggests the writers of tonight’s episode didn’t even bother to READ the 25th Amendment. The Supreme Court is no where to be found in the 25th Amendment.
