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The Red Cross has threatened to prosecute gamers for war crimes. Forbes - 9 hours ago But the very fact that the Red Cross decided to investigate video games is deeply, almost incomprehensibly, absurd. ...
Israel allows Gaza athletes to cross into West Bank, but bars ... Haaretz - 19 hours ago Don't worry - when he gets married and the two have children, we'll make sure they don't settle down in the West Bank. ...
Red Cross chapter used 2011 to prepare in case of disaster LaSalle News Tribune - 10 hours ago Having fewer natural disasters this year than in previous years helped the local Red Cross adjust to a larger coverage area and ...
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SHE IS A AFRICAN ISLAMIC SLAVE, OUR STATUE OF LIBERTY .... FALSE FREEDOM
THEY SAY THAT JUSTICE IS BLIND, WELL THAT IS NOT TRUE, AND SHE HAS NO BLINDERS ON EITHER, JUST FEAR OF DEATH, AND HER WORLD OF MONEY, POWER AND ILLUSIONARY RESPECT .... DISAPPEARING
The Statue of Liberty, Our Beloved Landmark
The
statue of Liberty Enlightening the World is an icon, a cliche, a beloved landmark. She is a work of art. She is colossal statuary. She is recognizable worldwide. She is a beacon, a light in the darkness, and a symbol of freedom. She is inspiring and she belongs to us, the people of the United States, a gift from the people of France. The Statue of Liberty was built to commemorate the hundredth year of American Independence and to celebrate the friendship of our two great republics. Keep reading for some great quotes about the Statue of Liberty as well as some little known facts.
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
Thoughts on the Statue of Liberty The Historical Record by Andrew Jenson
"The statue of Liberty Enlightening the World on Bedloe's Island is the offspring of a sublime idea, and its progress was watched from its inception to its final completion with great interest by all the civilized nations of the world. It was on an evening in the summer of 1865 that the idea of the Statue of Liberty was first conceived. There was on that occasion, a gathering of prominent French politicians and journalists, and the talk fell upon international relations, and in alluding to the friendly feelings which had always existed between the French and American people, it was suggested that a monument be built in America as a token of this friendship.
Frederic Bartholdi, one of the ablest sculptors and artists of France, was enlisted in the cause, and was told: "Go to America, study it, bring back your impressions. Propose to our friends over there to make with us a monument, a common work in remembrance of the ancient friendship of France and the United States."
Edward Moran's Painting of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World
Statue of Liberty Stamp Edward Moran's Beautiful Painting
Unveiling The Statue of Liberty 1886 by postagestampsplus More Statue of liberty Postage
Statue of Liberty Poster Lady Liberty with her torch held high.
Title: Statue of Liberty Artist: Whitney Sevin Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed Mounted
Webmasters Make $$$
Bartholdi's Inspiration for the Statue of Liberty Immigrants
Fired with the idea which he embraced with all the ardor of his French and artistic temperament, Bartholdi started for America. No sooner had he reached the harbor of New York than he discovered what he thought the proper place for the monument - Bedloe's Island.
It is said that the statue is the result of an impression made upon Bartholdi during that voyage to the United States, by the eagerness with which the immigrants crowded the decks for a first glimpse of the new land to which they were coming with such hope.
He traveled extensively in the United States, met with much encouragement, made a sketch of his project, and on his return to France, placed it before his friends. An appeal, which met with a hearty response, was issued throughout France, and the birth of the work was celebrated Nov. 6, 1875, in Hotel de Louvre by a grand banquet, at which prominent Frenchmen and Americans were present.
Liberty Rising: The Story of the Statue of Liberty How the Statue of Liberty was built and transported.
Grade 1-4-Using the concept of building a house or an office building, Shea introduces the size and scale of creating such a large object. Readers meet Edouard de Laboulaye, the law professor who first had the idea of building a monument representing freedom that would be a gift to the people of the United States from the people of France. His early planning with Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi is highlighted. Each step in the process, from small model (four feet high) to full size is told in simple text. The dismantling of the statue, the 214 train cars that transported it to Rouen for the trip across the Atlantic, and its arrival in New York Harbor in 1885 are mentioned.
Liberty Rising: The Story of the Statue of Liberty by: Pegi Deitz Shea Amazon Price: $5.00 (as of 12/26/2011)
Finally, the unveiling of the statue on October 28, 1886, is highlighted. The book is easy to read, with three-quarter spreads of illustration and single columns of text. The stylized graphic art is fairly realistic with bold colors and unusual angles to create a sense of excitement. They often have a collage effect. A time line, pronunciation guides for French names, and titles for further reading will be appreciated by teachers and young researchers alike.
Fundraising for the Colossal Lady Liberty A monetary appeal to the people of France and America
In order to raise the necessary funds a great number of festivals and exhibitions were held in different parts of France, and in 1879 all the funds necessary had been gathered. The head of the statue was exhibited at the Paris exposition of 1878.
Bartholdi needed an engineer to help him with the structural framework of the statue. He hired Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel who would later become famous for the Eiffel tower which now stands in Paris.
Oct. 24, 1881, the anniversary of the battle of Yorktown, the committee invited Mr. Morton, who was the new U. S. Minister to France at that time, to come and drive the rivet of the first piece of copper plating which was to be mounted. It was the left foot of the statue.
The statue was nearly finished in 1883, but as the work on the pedestal was not far enough advanced to permit its erection, it was decided to leave it on display in Paris for the time being.
Arrangements were eventually made for the shipment of the statue to America. It was carefully taken down, and the several pieces packed in frames of wood, being first properly marked. They were then brought on board the transport steamship Isère, which had been chartered to carry it to America. The ship arrived in New York harbor June 17, 1885, after a leisurely trip of 25 days. On the 19th of June was the formal reception of the Isère and her precious freight, and the occasion was made one of the grandest festivities in the history of New York City.
In the meantime the Americans were taking steps to do their part of the work in the erection of the pedestal on which the statue was to stand. The necessary legislation had been done by Congress, providing for the reception of the colossal statue and its future maintenance as a beacon.
An appeal was sent out to the American people and they responded. The contributors for the pedestal included all classes of people. The wealthy banker's $500 was matched in spirit by sums ranging from 5 to 10 cents from school children, and the occasional $5 and $10 from a working man or woman.
Tall Girls ROCK! Statue of Liberty Tee
A word from the designer, "Are you, or do you know, a vertically blessed female?Stand tall and show your pride alongside the most famous tall lady of them all in your original custom funny tees and hoodies! Click the customize it button on any tee to choose from dozens of colors and styles for men, women, teens, and kids! Long and short sleeve tees and hoodies -choose your favorite!"
T
The Statue of Liberty, Our Beloved Landmark
The
statue of Liberty Enlightening the World is an icon, a cliche, a beloved landmark. She is a work of art. She is colossal statuary. She is recognizable worldwide. She is a beacon, a light in the darkness, and a symbol of freedom. She is inspiring and she belongs to us, the people of the United States, a gift from the people of France. The Statue of Liberty was built to commemorate the hundredth year of American Independence and to celebrate the friendship of our two great republics. Keep reading for some great quotes about the Statue of Liberty as well as some little known facts.
CONTENTS AT A GLANCE
Thoughts on the Statue of Liberty The Historical Record by Andrew Jenson
"The statue of Liberty Enlightening the World on Bedloe's Island is the offspring of a sublime idea, and its progress was watched from its inception to its final completion with great interest by all the civilized nations of the world. It was on an evening in the summer of 1865 that the idea of the Statue of Liberty was first conceived. There was on that occasion, a gathering of prominent French politicians and journalists, and the talk fell upon international relations, and in alluding to the friendly feelings which had always existed between the French and American people, it was suggested that a monument be built in America as a token of this friendship.
Frederic Bartholdi, one of the ablest sculptors and artists of France, was enlisted in the cause, and was told: "Go to America, study it, bring back your impressions. Propose to our friends over there to make with us a monument, a common work in remembrance of the ancient friendship of France and the United States."
Edward Moran's Painting of the Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World
Statue of Liberty Stamp Edward Moran's Beautiful Painting
Unveiling The Statue of Liberty 1886 by postagestampsplus More Statue of liberty Postage
Statue of Liberty Poster Lady Liberty with her torch held high.
Title: Statue of Liberty Artist: Whitney Sevin Buy at AllPosters.com
Framed Mounted
Webmasters Make $$$
Bartholdi's Inspiration for the Statue of Liberty Immigrants
Fired with the idea which he embraced with all the ardor of his French and artistic temperament, Bartholdi started for America. No sooner had he reached the harbor of New York than he discovered what he thought the proper place for the monument - Bedloe's Island.
It is said that the statue is the result of an impression made upon Bartholdi during that voyage to the United States, by the eagerness with which the immigrants crowded the decks for a first glimpse of the new land to which they were coming with such hope.
He traveled extensively in the United States, met with much encouragement, made a sketch of his project, and on his return to France, placed it before his friends. An appeal, which met with a hearty response, was issued throughout France, and the birth of the work was celebrated Nov. 6, 1875, in Hotel de Louvre by a grand banquet, at which prominent Frenchmen and Americans were present.
Liberty Rising: The Story of the Statue of Liberty How the Statue of Liberty was built and transported.
Grade 1-4-Using the concept of building a house or an office building, Shea introduces the size and scale of creating such a large object. Readers meet Edouard de Laboulaye, the law professor who first had the idea of building a monument representing freedom that would be a gift to the people of the United States from the people of France. His early planning with Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi is highlighted. Each step in the process, from small model (four feet high) to full size is told in simple text. The dismantling of the statue, the 214 train cars that transported it to Rouen for the trip across the Atlantic, and its arrival in New York Harbor in 1885 are mentioned.
Liberty Rising: The Story of the Statue of Liberty by: Pegi Deitz Shea Amazon Price: $5.00 (as of 12/26/2011)
Finally, the unveiling of the statue on October 28, 1886, is highlighted. The book is easy to read, with three-quarter spreads of illustration and single columns of text. The stylized graphic art is fairly realistic with bold colors and unusual angles to create a sense of excitement. They often have a collage effect. A time line, pronunciation guides for French names, and titles for further reading will be appreciated by teachers and young researchers alike.
Fundraising for the Colossal Lady Liberty A monetary appeal to the people of France and America
In order to raise the necessary funds a great number of festivals and exhibitions were held in different parts of France, and in 1879 all the funds necessary had been gathered. The head of the statue was exhibited at the Paris exposition of 1878.
Bartholdi needed an engineer to help him with the structural framework of the statue. He hired Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel who would later become famous for the Eiffel tower which now stands in Paris.
Oct. 24, 1881, the anniversary of the battle of Yorktown, the committee invited Mr. Morton, who was the new U. S. Minister to France at that time, to come and drive the rivet of the first piece of copper plating which was to be mounted. It was the left foot of the statue.
The statue was nearly finished in 1883, but as the work on the pedestal was not far enough advanced to permit its erection, it was decided to leave it on display in Paris for the time being.
Arrangements were eventually made for the shipment of the statue to America. It was carefully taken down, and the several pieces packed in frames of wood, being first properly marked. They were then brought on board the transport steamship Isère, which had been chartered to carry it to America. The ship arrived in New York harbor June 17, 1885, after a leisurely trip of 25 days. On the 19th of June was the formal reception of the Isère and her precious freight, and the occasion was made one of the grandest festivities in the history of New York City.
In the meantime the Americans were taking steps to do their part of the work in the erection of the pedestal on which the statue was to stand. The necessary legislation had been done by Congress, providing for the reception of the colossal statue and its future maintenance as a beacon.
An appeal was sent out to the American people and they responded. The contributors for the pedestal included all classes of people. The wealthy banker's $500 was matched in spirit by sums ranging from 5 to 10 cents from school children, and the occasional $5 and $10 from a working man or woman.
Tall Girls ROCK! Statue of Liberty Tee
A word from the designer, "Are you, or do you know, a vertically blessed female?Stand tall and show your pride alongside the most famous tall lady of them all in your original custom funny tees and hoodies! Click the customize it button on any tee to choose from dozens of colors and styles for men, women, teens, and kids! Long and short sleeve tees and hoodies -choose your favorite!"
T
FALSE DOCTRINES, FROM CATHOLIC AUTHORITIES
Apostasy in the church and false doctrines of men
By Don Koenig
The reason for this article
Most of the major Christian denominations have deviated from biblical Christianity in one way or another. It is not the purpose of this article to point a finger at any one group, or to tell true Christians to get out of their denomination or not to fellowship. I understand that this article will not win me any popularity contest but very few others are talking about the apostasy in the church institutions identified with Christianity and the false doctrines of men within these church institutions that now deviate from true biblical Christianity.
The one true Church of God is interwoven in all Christian denominations. I have noticed in my own experiences that there is at least a small core of believers in just about every church in every denomination. I have at one time in my life been part of all the major groups listed below and I have first hand knowledge of what they practice (except the Orthodox Catholics).
My purpose is to expose the darkness so that the true light of the gospel of Christ will shine. I do not believe that true Christians can significantly change an overwhelmingly apostate carnal Christian church. What we can do however, is not be deceived by Satan's devices or support what is not of God in our churches.
Who is a Christian?
There are two billion people on the earth who identify themselves as Christians, but there are significantly fewer that are really part of the body of Christ.
Jesus said you can not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you are born of the Spirit. The new birth from the Holy Spirit occurs when a person truly believes that Jesus is the son of God and trusts in the finished work of Jesus on the cross to atone for their own sins and to justify them before God.
The scriptures say you are saved by faith, not by your own works, lest anyone should boast.
We cannot judge if a person who identifies with Christianity is really trusting in Christ or in their religion to save them. If they are trusting in their religion to save them they are no more part of the body of Christ than a Jew or Moslem or any other religion.
Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus. This relationship does not depend on having all the correct theology but correct theology will result in more fruitful Christianity.
Religion is basically satanic.
All religion contains methods, rituals and practices for man to become righteous enough to ascend or evolve to God. All religion thus believes in the need for one to become self righteous. True Christianity is the complete opposite. True Christianity believes in God's righteousness. Because of His righteousness, Jesus the creator, died for our sins and breached the gap between God and man. True Christianity believes God provides a free gift of eternal life to anyone who trusts in Him (has faith) that God is graceful and sent His Son to save those who believe in His righteousness.
Apostate Christianity (departure from true biblical Christianity) in its final analysis cannot be distinguished from any other religion in the world in its quest for God. No wonder apostate Christianity will be willing to join with all the other religions of the world. These nominal Christians think they are Christian just because it is part of their culture and because they believe in a higher power. Even demons believe in a higher power. Apostate Christianity has nothing to do with a born again experience with the evidence of a Holy Spirit changed life.
Some in religious training were taught that Jesus died for their sins and that they are saved or justified, but in their lives there is no evidence by works of the Spirit. Do they really have Jesus or do they only have head knowledge about Him?Do they have Churchianity or Christianity?
Those that trust in their own good works to save them are self deceived and still in their sins. If there ever was a religion that could allow man to fellowship with God it was Judaism but the requirement was to keep all of God's law. The laws of Judaism did not achieve salvation because in man's fallen state he could never keep the whole law. Man's righteousness and good works can never bring about eternal life with God because man always falls short of the required perfection necessary to dwell in the presence of a Holy God. Yet Judaism did not fail because through the tribe of Judah a Savior from God was born.
True Christianity
Jesus being born a man but being also God perfectly fulfilled the law. He Himself had no sin but He obediently paid the price for the curse on man under God's perfect law. Atonement for sin brought into the world by Adam's disobedience was paid for by the obedience of God's Lamb by death on the cross. At the cross He took the curse upon Himself for it is written "cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal 3:13). Death could not hold the Creator and He rose to begin a new creation and in doing so condemned the old fallen creation to its eternal destruction. Those who trust Him are born again into this new new creation of believers called the "Body of Christ". After we are born into this new creation, God no longer sees us as the sinners we were but He sees us as the sinless "body and bride of Christ". (The scripture says in marriage the two shall become one flesh - Paul used this as the example of Christ and the Church - Eph 5: 31- 32.)
"True Christianity is then believing that God's promise to provide a Savior was fulfilled in His Son Jesus." This promise of a Savior and Messiah to restore man's fellowship with God is integrated throughout all scripture.
What do the large Christian denominations now confess?
Unfortunately, Most of the large Christian denomination leadership has become infiltrated by the elite of Satan and much of the institutional church has fallen away from the true faith and have followed doctrines of men. Some have a different Jesus then the Jesus of scripture. After the rapture of the faithful Christians the apostate church will go on without skipping a beat. In the following paragraphs I give my reasons for saying there is now apostasy in the church throughout the major institutional churches that identify with Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church.
The membership of this church is more than half of all that are identified as Christianity (over one billion people) but the majority of Catholics baptized into the denomination do not even regularly practice their religion. Additionally, many Catholics know little about their own beliefs or they ignore the doctrine. Many integrate it with native pagan religions.
This denomination teaches that you are saved by grace, faith and works of merit. God's grace is something you must earn by keeping the church sacraments, traditions and rituals and by doing good works. The priests of the church are successors of the apostles and have all of Christ's authority on earth. The priests are grace dispensers and the church is infallible. If you accumulate enough merit you will go to heaven. Otherwise you will have to go through the fires of purgatory or to hell. The writings of the church fathers and the traditions of the church have equal weight with the holy scriptures. The members of this church are in the process of being saved by their works of merit.
Problems:
Many of the church's traditions and practices are contrary to scripture proving that this church is far from being infallible. Satan with his wolves in sheep's clothing has infiltrated this church and corrupted it. The Catholic Church has become like the corrupted Judaism that Jesus condemned. It is largely a church of Pharisees and of blind ritual -- a church of idolatry, rote prayer, and traditions of men. To rid most of Christianity of apostasy in the Church we first would have to go to the root of apostasy and purge out most of the doctrines that have infiltrated the Catholic Church.
The seven sacraments
The seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church are rituals for grace. The church believes that the ritual itself will dispense grace from God. It appears that the church puts the cart before the horse. No spiritual grace come from ritual, but power from the Holy Spirit is given to those who listen to God and obey Him.
The sacrament of the baptism of infants is not scriptural or logical. The ritual of baptism is for identifying believers with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Babies do not believe. True baptism is dying with Christ and by faith being born into a new creation called the "body of Christ". The sacrament of the Eucharist should be a memorial and remembrance of Christ's broken body and shed blood for us. There is no place in scripture that says we are to offer Christ's body on the altar daily or that the bread and the wine actually becomes the body of Jesus, and by putting these elements in your stomach you will receive Him into your body and get grace from Him. The Sacrament of contrition and penance is contrary to scripture. The scriptures say that Jesus is the only intermediator. between God and man. The doctrine that you can have your sins forgiven by confession to a priest who then intermediates and gives absolution if you do the penance he dictates, abolishes what Jesus did for us on the cross for all sin. Who is sinless enough to intermediate for us with God except Jesus, and which sin did Jesus not pay for?This church teaches that the sacrament of confirmation is where you get the power of the Holy Spirit. The scriptures however, teach that you get the Holy Spirit when you believe and you get power to do His will when you earnestly pray for it. Marriage is a union between two people. There is no reason given in scripture for it to be a Church sacrament or for the ceremony to be performed by a priest or clergy -- not that the practice of getting married by the elder of any church is wrong. The ordination of a special priesthood is contrary to New Testament scripture. The scripture teaches that all in Christ are kings and priests. The sacrament of Extreme Unction indicates that the dying get some special grace by having a priest say some ritualistic prayers over them. This is a distortion of the true biblical practices of elders praying over the sick.
The cult of Mary
A large sect in this church teaches that Mary is co-Redeemer and that she was without sin. The scripture says that there is salvation in no other name than Christ Jesus. The scriptures also say that all have sinned including Mary. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all born of women. Why did He not say His mother was if she was without sin? When the natural mother of Jesus and His brothers (yes, Jesus had brothers according to scripture) thought He went crazy and wanted to talk to Him, Jesus said His mother and brothers are those that do the will of His Father. Mary is not the mother of God, she is the mother of the natural body that God incarnated. Mary is not the mother of the Church. She had to believe to be saved and had to receive the Holy Spirit and become a member of the "body of Christ" like everyone else. How can Mary be the mother of a membership that includes herself?
The idea that Mary is interceding for the Christians and appearing to many and giving statements to people that are often contrary to the scriptures is an insult to Mary. The bottom line of these apparitions at the very least is a message of salvation by works which will save no one. Furthermore, many Catholics are now into witchcraft and things forbidden in the Bible because they believe in these lies. Much of what is being said by apparitions attributed to Mary parallels pagan new age teachings and doctrine of demons. Those into Mariology like to reduce the God of the Universe to a child on Mary's knee but He is a consuming fire and the only intermediator. between God and man.
Saying the Rosary with its "Hail Mary's" is rote prayer to someone other than God. This is idolatry! Jesus said to pray to the Father. If He wanted people to pray to his earthly mother He would have said so. Furthermore, how in the world could anyone really believe that Mary would want to hear the same prayer over and over and over again? Do people think that she or they get power from their chanting? This is witchcraft! Even common sense should tell them that no one wants to hear the same thing over and over again. I am sure the real Mary of the Bible would tell the people who chant these prayers to please shut up.
Many times the real reasons for the rote prayer is not even addressed in the prayer service. For example, when Catholics pray "Hail Mary's" in front of abortion clinics. Their ritualistic chanting leaves the body of Christ open to much ridicule by unbelievers and all of this is a counterfeit substitution for real prayer to God about the real situation that is needing prayer. The scripture tells us not to say rote prayers as the heathen do that think they will be heard for their many words. We are told that God knows what we need before we ask. Our requests should be like a child toward his Father. Try saying the same thing fifty or more times to your earthly father or mother daily and note their response to you.
The "queen of heaven" was worshiped in ancient Babylon. She also had a child in her arms. This was not Mary and Jesus but they were demon gods. God did not have anything good to say about the people who worshiped her (see reference). Obviously some Catholics have used the blessed name of Mary of scripture to incorporate pagan Babylonian practices and beliefs into the Church.
The doctrine of purgatory
The doctrine of purgatory is an insult to Jesus and the finished work that He did on the cross to pay for the sins of the whole world. If we sin He is faithful to forgive us our sins if we confess them to Him. Scripture says that there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Jesus either paid for all sins past, present, and future or He paid for none of them. Scripture teaches no other doctrine.
A few of the many other heresies:
In much of the third world Catholicism has been integrated with pagan witchcraft and no major correction is coming from Rome. Yet the Vatican rails against those who teach true Christianity to those doing such things. The scapular is worn by some Catholics who believe that salvation can come from something they hang around their neck. Expecting power by using Holy water, medals, holy pictures and objects blessed by a priest is simply belief in the occult. It simply is witchcraft. Many Catholic churches allow gambling and drinking on the church premises to raise funds. The Pope as the vicar of Christ is not scriptural and many Popes have been anti-Christ. Peter was not the first Pope. The first real Pope was Leo 1st about 400 years later. Peter was an apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the gentiles from which most post first century Christianity descended. The former Pope called Moslems brothers, kissed the Koran and said that Moslems are on a path to God. He had a close friendship with the top leader of Eastern Pagan religion and said they were on the same path. He told Catholics that salvation of the earth comes through Mary. Further, he warned Catholics about the dangers of Christian evangelicals that teach the Bible. He welcomed non believers in Christ as brothers but did not rescind the one hundred anathema's made by the Catholic Church against all Protestant believers. (In catholic theology the anathema's mean all Protestants will go to Hell. The anathema's came from a infallible papal decree so it can never be rescinded. Thus, the only hope of salvation for Protestants within the Catholic theology is for Protestants to return to the Catholic Church). This is not Christian leadership it is the type of anti-Christ leadership that Paul warned true Christians to beware of but this church wants to declare this Pope a saint. The present pope is apparently is no wiser about salvation theology he seems to think that all people of good will are saved and many religions like Islam worship the same God as Christians even though Islam doctrine says that God has no Son. Some Catholics are now calling him an anti-pope because some of his views conflict with the views of other infallible popes. Oh, the Joy of blind Religion! The Catholic Church has a wretched history and continues countless heretical teachings. Read "The Women Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt for detailed information on the history and practices of this church in apostasy.
The bottom line about Roman Catholicism
The Roman Catholic Church as an institution is mostly apostate. Only each individual Catholic can truly know if they are trusting in Jesus as He is define in the Bible for their salvation or if they are just trusting in a false hope of following Catholic doctrine to save them. The doctrines of the Catholic Church are convoluted and their doctrine of salvation is contrary to the clear teaching of New Testament teaching. The majority that claim to be Catholics do not even practice Catholicism.
Some in this church have found the path to salvation and have been born of the Holy Spirit but many of these are not producing the fruit that they should. The good works they think they do in many cases are nothing more than empty rituals and practices contrary to God's will. Many are building on the house of God with straw. After the rapture of true believers, what is left of the Roman Catholic Church will become the head of the great harlot religious system that will bring in the Antichrist and his false prophet. The majority of this church (Thyatira in the book of Revelation) will be tried by fire in the great tribulation (the real purgatory for Catholics).
Commendations:
+ Catholic charities + They preserved the scriptures + Church discipline + Strong community orientation + Social Programs + Hates abortion + Teaches against the faithless practice of birth control + They still teach some of the essential doctrines of the faith + Strong school system that still teaches moral absolutes + Believes scriptures are God inspired
The Orthodox Catholic Churches
These churches have about one hundred fifty million followers.
This church is much the same as the Roman Catholics although some of the Roman Catholic heresies are not taught. However, they have added heresies of their own. They teach that members are saved by the teachings and traditions of the church, by the sacraments of the church, and through praying to icons. The essential doctrine of being saved by faith is not taught. This institutional church is mostly apostate and the church in general has done few good works on the earth. I doubt if there is a significant number of true Christians within the Orthodox Catholic Church.
I believe this is Jesus' message to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic Church.
Rev 2:18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like unto burnished brass: 19 I know thy works, and thy love and faith and ministry and patience, and that thy last works are more than the first. 20 But I have this against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess; and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her time that she should repent; and she willeth not to repent of her fornication. 22 Behold, I cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works. 23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto each one of you according to your works. 24 But to you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, who know not the deep things of Satan, as they are wont to say; I cast upon you none other burden. 25 Nevertheless that which ye have, hold fast till I come. 26 And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations: 27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers; as I also have received of my Father: 28 and I will give him the morning star. 29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
for additional references check my scripture references and see: "all the letters of Paul in the New Testament"
By Don Koenig
The reason for this article
Most of the major Christian denominations have deviated from biblical Christianity in one way or another. It is not the purpose of this article to point a finger at any one group, or to tell true Christians to get out of their denomination or not to fellowship. I understand that this article will not win me any popularity contest but very few others are talking about the apostasy in the church institutions identified with Christianity and the false doctrines of men within these church institutions that now deviate from true biblical Christianity.
The one true Church of God is interwoven in all Christian denominations. I have noticed in my own experiences that there is at least a small core of believers in just about every church in every denomination. I have at one time in my life been part of all the major groups listed below and I have first hand knowledge of what they practice (except the Orthodox Catholics).
My purpose is to expose the darkness so that the true light of the gospel of Christ will shine. I do not believe that true Christians can significantly change an overwhelmingly apostate carnal Christian church. What we can do however, is not be deceived by Satan's devices or support what is not of God in our churches.
Who is a Christian?
There are two billion people on the earth who identify themselves as Christians, but there are significantly fewer that are really part of the body of Christ.
Jesus said you can not enter the kingdom of heaven unless you are born of the Spirit. The new birth from the Holy Spirit occurs when a person truly believes that Jesus is the son of God and trusts in the finished work of Jesus on the cross to atone for their own sins and to justify them before God.
The scriptures say you are saved by faith, not by your own works, lest anyone should boast.
We cannot judge if a person who identifies with Christianity is really trusting in Christ or in their religion to save them. If they are trusting in their religion to save them they are no more part of the body of Christ than a Jew or Moslem or any other religion.
Christianity is a personal relationship with Jesus. This relationship does not depend on having all the correct theology but correct theology will result in more fruitful Christianity.
Religion is basically satanic.
All religion contains methods, rituals and practices for man to become righteous enough to ascend or evolve to God. All religion thus believes in the need for one to become self righteous. True Christianity is the complete opposite. True Christianity believes in God's righteousness. Because of His righteousness, Jesus the creator, died for our sins and breached the gap between God and man. True Christianity believes God provides a free gift of eternal life to anyone who trusts in Him (has faith) that God is graceful and sent His Son to save those who believe in His righteousness.
Apostate Christianity (departure from true biblical Christianity) in its final analysis cannot be distinguished from any other religion in the world in its quest for God. No wonder apostate Christianity will be willing to join with all the other religions of the world. These nominal Christians think they are Christian just because it is part of their culture and because they believe in a higher power. Even demons believe in a higher power. Apostate Christianity has nothing to do with a born again experience with the evidence of a Holy Spirit changed life.
Some in religious training were taught that Jesus died for their sins and that they are saved or justified, but in their lives there is no evidence by works of the Spirit. Do they really have Jesus or do they only have head knowledge about Him?Do they have Churchianity or Christianity?
Those that trust in their own good works to save them are self deceived and still in their sins. If there ever was a religion that could allow man to fellowship with God it was Judaism but the requirement was to keep all of God's law. The laws of Judaism did not achieve salvation because in man's fallen state he could never keep the whole law. Man's righteousness and good works can never bring about eternal life with God because man always falls short of the required perfection necessary to dwell in the presence of a Holy God. Yet Judaism did not fail because through the tribe of Judah a Savior from God was born.
True Christianity
Jesus being born a man but being also God perfectly fulfilled the law. He Himself had no sin but He obediently paid the price for the curse on man under God's perfect law. Atonement for sin brought into the world by Adam's disobedience was paid for by the obedience of God's Lamb by death on the cross. At the cross He took the curse upon Himself for it is written "cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree" (Gal 3:13). Death could not hold the Creator and He rose to begin a new creation and in doing so condemned the old fallen creation to its eternal destruction. Those who trust Him are born again into this new new creation of believers called the "Body of Christ". After we are born into this new creation, God no longer sees us as the sinners we were but He sees us as the sinless "body and bride of Christ". (The scripture says in marriage the two shall become one flesh - Paul used this as the example of Christ and the Church - Eph 5: 31- 32.)
"True Christianity is then believing that God's promise to provide a Savior was fulfilled in His Son Jesus." This promise of a Savior and Messiah to restore man's fellowship with God is integrated throughout all scripture.
What do the large Christian denominations now confess?
Unfortunately, Most of the large Christian denomination leadership has become infiltrated by the elite of Satan and much of the institutional church has fallen away from the true faith and have followed doctrines of men. Some have a different Jesus then the Jesus of scripture. After the rapture of the faithful Christians the apostate church will go on without skipping a beat. In the following paragraphs I give my reasons for saying there is now apostasy in the church throughout the major institutional churches that identify with Christianity.
The Roman Catholic Church.
The membership of this church is more than half of all that are identified as Christianity (over one billion people) but the majority of Catholics baptized into the denomination do not even regularly practice their religion. Additionally, many Catholics know little about their own beliefs or they ignore the doctrine. Many integrate it with native pagan religions.
This denomination teaches that you are saved by grace, faith and works of merit. God's grace is something you must earn by keeping the church sacraments, traditions and rituals and by doing good works. The priests of the church are successors of the apostles and have all of Christ's authority on earth. The priests are grace dispensers and the church is infallible. If you accumulate enough merit you will go to heaven. Otherwise you will have to go through the fires of purgatory or to hell. The writings of the church fathers and the traditions of the church have equal weight with the holy scriptures. The members of this church are in the process of being saved by their works of merit.
Problems:
Many of the church's traditions and practices are contrary to scripture proving that this church is far from being infallible. Satan with his wolves in sheep's clothing has infiltrated this church and corrupted it. The Catholic Church has become like the corrupted Judaism that Jesus condemned. It is largely a church of Pharisees and of blind ritual -- a church of idolatry, rote prayer, and traditions of men. To rid most of Christianity of apostasy in the Church we first would have to go to the root of apostasy and purge out most of the doctrines that have infiltrated the Catholic Church.
The seven sacraments
The seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church are rituals for grace. The church believes that the ritual itself will dispense grace from God. It appears that the church puts the cart before the horse. No spiritual grace come from ritual, but power from the Holy Spirit is given to those who listen to God and obey Him.
The sacrament of the baptism of infants is not scriptural or logical. The ritual of baptism is for identifying believers with the death and resurrection of Jesus. Babies do not believe. True baptism is dying with Christ and by faith being born into a new creation called the "body of Christ". The sacrament of the Eucharist should be a memorial and remembrance of Christ's broken body and shed blood for us. There is no place in scripture that says we are to offer Christ's body on the altar daily or that the bread and the wine actually becomes the body of Jesus, and by putting these elements in your stomach you will receive Him into your body and get grace from Him. The Sacrament of contrition and penance is contrary to scripture. The scriptures say that Jesus is the only intermediator. between God and man. The doctrine that you can have your sins forgiven by confession to a priest who then intermediates and gives absolution if you do the penance he dictates, abolishes what Jesus did for us on the cross for all sin. Who is sinless enough to intermediate for us with God except Jesus, and which sin did Jesus not pay for?This church teaches that the sacrament of confirmation is where you get the power of the Holy Spirit. The scriptures however, teach that you get the Holy Spirit when you believe and you get power to do His will when you earnestly pray for it. Marriage is a union between two people. There is no reason given in scripture for it to be a Church sacrament or for the ceremony to be performed by a priest or clergy -- not that the practice of getting married by the elder of any church is wrong. The ordination of a special priesthood is contrary to New Testament scripture. The scripture teaches that all in Christ are kings and priests. The sacrament of Extreme Unction indicates that the dying get some special grace by having a priest say some ritualistic prayers over them. This is a distortion of the true biblical practices of elders praying over the sick.
The cult of Mary
A large sect in this church teaches that Mary is co-Redeemer and that she was without sin. The scripture says that there is salvation in no other name than Christ Jesus. The scriptures also say that all have sinned including Mary. Jesus said that John the Baptist was the greatest of all born of women. Why did He not say His mother was if she was without sin? When the natural mother of Jesus and His brothers (yes, Jesus had brothers according to scripture) thought He went crazy and wanted to talk to Him, Jesus said His mother and brothers are those that do the will of His Father. Mary is not the mother of God, she is the mother of the natural body that God incarnated. Mary is not the mother of the Church. She had to believe to be saved and had to receive the Holy Spirit and become a member of the "body of Christ" like everyone else. How can Mary be the mother of a membership that includes herself?
The idea that Mary is interceding for the Christians and appearing to many and giving statements to people that are often contrary to the scriptures is an insult to Mary. The bottom line of these apparitions at the very least is a message of salvation by works which will save no one. Furthermore, many Catholics are now into witchcraft and things forbidden in the Bible because they believe in these lies. Much of what is being said by apparitions attributed to Mary parallels pagan new age teachings and doctrine of demons. Those into Mariology like to reduce the God of the Universe to a child on Mary's knee but He is a consuming fire and the only intermediator. between God and man.
Saying the Rosary with its "Hail Mary's" is rote prayer to someone other than God. This is idolatry! Jesus said to pray to the Father. If He wanted people to pray to his earthly mother He would have said so. Furthermore, how in the world could anyone really believe that Mary would want to hear the same prayer over and over and over again? Do people think that she or they get power from their chanting? This is witchcraft! Even common sense should tell them that no one wants to hear the same thing over and over again. I am sure the real Mary of the Bible would tell the people who chant these prayers to please shut up.
Many times the real reasons for the rote prayer is not even addressed in the prayer service. For example, when Catholics pray "Hail Mary's" in front of abortion clinics. Their ritualistic chanting leaves the body of Christ open to much ridicule by unbelievers and all of this is a counterfeit substitution for real prayer to God about the real situation that is needing prayer. The scripture tells us not to say rote prayers as the heathen do that think they will be heard for their many words. We are told that God knows what we need before we ask. Our requests should be like a child toward his Father. Try saying the same thing fifty or more times to your earthly father or mother daily and note their response to you.
The "queen of heaven" was worshiped in ancient Babylon. She also had a child in her arms. This was not Mary and Jesus but they were demon gods. God did not have anything good to say about the people who worshiped her (see reference). Obviously some Catholics have used the blessed name of Mary of scripture to incorporate pagan Babylonian practices and beliefs into the Church.
The doctrine of purgatory
The doctrine of purgatory is an insult to Jesus and the finished work that He did on the cross to pay for the sins of the whole world. If we sin He is faithful to forgive us our sins if we confess them to Him. Scripture says that there is now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. Jesus either paid for all sins past, present, and future or He paid for none of them. Scripture teaches no other doctrine.
A few of the many other heresies:
In much of the third world Catholicism has been integrated with pagan witchcraft and no major correction is coming from Rome. Yet the Vatican rails against those who teach true Christianity to those doing such things. The scapular is worn by some Catholics who believe that salvation can come from something they hang around their neck. Expecting power by using Holy water, medals, holy pictures and objects blessed by a priest is simply belief in the occult. It simply is witchcraft. Many Catholic churches allow gambling and drinking on the church premises to raise funds. The Pope as the vicar of Christ is not scriptural and many Popes have been anti-Christ. Peter was not the first Pope. The first real Pope was Leo 1st about 400 years later. Peter was an apostle to the Jews. Paul was the apostle to the gentiles from which most post first century Christianity descended. The former Pope called Moslems brothers, kissed the Koran and said that Moslems are on a path to God. He had a close friendship with the top leader of Eastern Pagan religion and said they were on the same path. He told Catholics that salvation of the earth comes through Mary. Further, he warned Catholics about the dangers of Christian evangelicals that teach the Bible. He welcomed non believers in Christ as brothers but did not rescind the one hundred anathema's made by the Catholic Church against all Protestant believers. (In catholic theology the anathema's mean all Protestants will go to Hell. The anathema's came from a infallible papal decree so it can never be rescinded. Thus, the only hope of salvation for Protestants within the Catholic theology is for Protestants to return to the Catholic Church). This is not Christian leadership it is the type of anti-Christ leadership that Paul warned true Christians to beware of but this church wants to declare this Pope a saint. The present pope is apparently is no wiser about salvation theology he seems to think that all people of good will are saved and many religions like Islam worship the same God as Christians even though Islam doctrine says that God has no Son. Some Catholics are now calling him an anti-pope because some of his views conflict with the views of other infallible popes. Oh, the Joy of blind Religion! The Catholic Church has a wretched history and continues countless heretical teachings. Read "The Women Rides the Beast" by Dave Hunt for detailed information on the history and practices of this church in apostasy.
The bottom line about Roman Catholicism
The Roman Catholic Church as an institution is mostly apostate. Only each individual Catholic can truly know if they are trusting in Jesus as He is define in the Bible for their salvation or if they are just trusting in a false hope of following Catholic doctrine to save them. The doctrines of the Catholic Church are convoluted and their doctrine of salvation is contrary to the clear teaching of New Testament teaching. The majority that claim to be Catholics do not even practice Catholicism.
Some in this church have found the path to salvation and have been born of the Holy Spirit but many of these are not producing the fruit that they should. The good works they think they do in many cases are nothing more than empty rituals and practices contrary to God's will. Many are building on the house of God with straw. After the rapture of true believers, what is left of the Roman Catholic Church will become the head of the great harlot religious system that will bring in the Antichrist and his false prophet. The majority of this church (Thyatira in the book of Revelation) will be tried by fire in the great tribulation (the real purgatory for Catholics).
Commendations:
+ Catholic charities + They preserved the scriptures + Church discipline + Strong community orientation + Social Programs + Hates abortion + Teaches against the faithless practice of birth control + They still teach some of the essential doctrines of the faith + Strong school system that still teaches moral absolutes + Believes scriptures are God inspired
The Orthodox Catholic Churches
These churches have about one hundred fifty million followers.
This church is much the same as the Roman Catholics although some of the Roman Catholic heresies are not taught. However, they have added heresies of their own. They teach that members are saved by the teachings and traditions of the church, by the sacraments of the church, and through praying to icons. The essential doctrine of being saved by faith is not taught. This institutional church is mostly apostate and the church in general has done few good works on the earth. I doubt if there is a significant number of true Christians within the Orthodox Catholic Church.
I believe this is Jesus' message to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Catholic Church.
Rev 2:18 And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like a flame of fire, and his feet are like unto burnished brass: 19 I know thy works, and thy love and faith and ministry and patience, and that thy last works are more than the first. 20 But I have this against thee, that thou sufferest the woman Jezebel, who calleth herself a prophetess; and she teacheth and seduceth my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. 21 And I gave her time that she should repent; and she willeth not to repent of her fornication. 22 Behold, I cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of her works. 23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he that searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto each one of you according to your works. 24 But to you I say, to the rest that are in Thyatira, as many as have not this teaching, who know not the deep things of Satan, as they are wont to say; I cast upon you none other burden. 25 Nevertheless that which ye have, hold fast till I come. 26 And he that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give authority over the nations: 27 and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter are broken to shivers; as I also have received of my Father: 28 and I will give him the morning star. 29 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.
for additional references check my scripture references and see: "all the letters of Paul in the New Testament"
BROKEN PROMISES, PROMISES
Forty Acres and a Mule The Ruined Hope of Reconstruction
By Danielle Alexander
"Reconstruction was a failure, but a splendid failure," says historian Leon Litwack.
An NEH-supported documentary provides a new examination of the twelve years that followed the Civil War, when America struggled to reunite and to extend rights to former slaves. It was a time that saw new hope for Southern blacks as citizens and officeholders and sweeping changes in laws and government. But it was also a time of violence and terror, white racist retrenchment, and broken promises. In the end, the goal of Reconstruction--equality before the law for black citizens--would not be fulfilled until the next century.
"It didn't fail for the reasons people expected it would fail," Litwack contends. "It failed because Radical Reconstruction tested the limits of what was possible, the limits for egalitarian reform in the United States. The challenge of racial equality overwhelmed the American imagination."
The film describes the period through the people who lived through it, among them a black minister from New Jersey who begins his own experiment in democracy in Georgia; an actress's daughter who tries to run a rice plantation without slaves; and a Vermont soldier who finds both wealth and ruin in Louisiana. Reconstruction: The Second Civil War,produced by PBS affiliate WGBH-Boston, will air on the American Experience on January 12 and 13.
Reconstruction began before the war ended. A few weeks after Union General William T. Sherman concluded his march to the sea in Savannah, he met with twenty black men, including the Reverend Garrison Frazier, to discuss how to deal with tens of thousands of freed blacks who had left inland plantations and followed Sherman's forces to the coast. Frazier was asked, "What should we do with all these refugees?" He replied that the "best way we can take care of ourselves is to have land." Sherman responded with Special Field Order 15 to deliver "forty acres and a mule" to each freed slave.
The order gave abandoned plantations on the barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia to freed blacks; forty thousand resettled there. One of the new settlers was Tunis Campbell, an African Methodist Episcopal minister from New Jersey, who became superintendent of the Georgia islands for the Freedman's Bureau, which was coordinating a national relief program for refugees. Campbell took it one step further. Under Campbell, St. Catherines Island became a separatist democracy for four hundred blacks with its own constitution, congress, supreme court, and armed militia. They planted food crops and started schools.
With the assassination of Lincoln at the end of the war, the experiment on St. Catherines ended. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, ordered the confiscated lands returned to their former owners. "Johnson's aim," historian Eric Foner points out in the film, "is to bring the white South and the white North back together. African Americans just do not play a role in Johnson's vision of the postwar South, other than to go back to work and be landless . . . and rightless . . . plantation laborers."
The federal government forced the residents off the islands, and the former owners reclaimed the plantations. The promise of land was lost. Most blacks had no alternative except to work for the returning plantation land owners. For the chance to put in his own crops, a black farmer would work twenty or more acres of cotton or rice for the owner. The system of sharecropping was born. Campbell bought land inland and became the workers' advocate.
His activities brought him into conflict with Fan Butler, whose family had owned a rice plantation in Georgia for generations. Her mother, actress Fanny Kemble, had returned to England years before to show her disgust with the slave culture in America. Fan Butler returned after the war with her father, and was struggling to keep her plantation afloat. Campbell advised Butler's workers to resist exploitation, infuriating Butler. "There seems to be no remedy for this evil," she said, "the Negroes throwing all our authority to the wind, and following Campbell wherever he chose to lead them." Butler lodged a complaint against Campbell for fostering rebellion--it would be the first of many suits against him.
Butler was frustrated by having to negotiate with people she had considered property a short time earlier. "For six mortal hours I sat in the office without once leaving my chair," Butler wrote, "while the people poured in and poured out. . . . One wanted this altered in the contract, another that."
Butler's attitude was not atypical. "Neither she nor the other members of her class know how to handle free labor," says historian Clarence Walker. "What they want is a docile, disciplined labor force."
Campbell had other ideas. In the words of historian Russell Duncan, "He often stood behind the pulpits in black churches on Sunday and said, 'Under the new acts of Congress, we're going to be allowed to vote. You're going to be protected in that vote. We have a great majority in this district. We are going to elect black judges. We are going to elect black sheriffs. We are going to elect black senators.'"
In Louisiana, at the state convention in New Orleans in 1866, a white mob attacked Republicans and their black supporters. Thirty-four blacks and three white Republicans were killed before federal troops restored order. The riot made headlines in the North and South and turned the midterm elections into a referendum on President Johnson's policies. His opponents, the Republicans, took three quarters of the seats in both houses of Congress, enough to override any veto Johnson might attempt and to pave the way for the Reconstruction Act of 1867, initiating the period known as Radical Reconstruction.
Under the new act, to be readmitted to the Union the rebel states had to register all qualified voters, create new state constitutions, and ratify the recently passed Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black citizenship.
"For all its significance, it's important to remember what the Fourteenth Amendment did not do," says historian Brooks Simpson. "It did not enfranchise blacks. It did not prevent Southern whites from maintaining racial superiority. Frederick Douglass was one of the many critics of the amendment who failed to see how American citizenship could be guaranteed without the right to vote."
Radical Reconstruction attempted to protect black suffrage in the South with the deployment of thirty-eight thousand federal troops. They oversaw the 1868 presidential election, which brought the Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant, a moderate, to the White House. Five hundred thousand blacks voted, presumably for the Republican Party. Grant won by only three hundred thousand.
According to Foner, this time was "a remarkable leap in the dark for world history. It was the first large-scale experiment in interracial democracy that had existed anywhere." Throughout the South, black candidates were elected to state and federal posts. One quarter of the delegates responsible for drafting the new state constitutions were black. Altogether, more than fifteen hundred black men would hold elected positions during this period.
One was Campbell, who served in the Georgia state senate from 1868 to 1872, until he lost his seat on charges of election fraud. "The presence of black officeholders and their white allies," Foner points out, "made a real difference in Southern life, ensuring those accused of crimes would be tried before their peers, and enforcing fairness in such prosaic aspects of local government as road repair, tax assessment, and poor relief."
There were other benefits. Free public education, for both blacks and whites, was brought to a region where less than a decade earlier it had been illegal to educate a slave. The Freedmen's Bureau established more than 4,300 freedmen's schools by 1870, with nearly a quarter of a million students.
"Black voting carried with it an enormous meaning," says Walker. "It meant that political power was going to be shared between blacks and whites. This is a very frightening thing for many white Southerners because they have, in effect, lost control over what they had deemed their birthright, which is the right to run these governments."
Whites responded with campaigns of organized terror. Secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White League flourished. "They basically began to forge the Confederate Lost Cause as not a story about loss but a story about victory," says Blight. "They might have lost the war, but they were now winning the ultimate victory . . . against Reconstruction."
One of the Klan's targets was black state representative Abram Colby, who had been elected to the Georgia legislature along with Tunis Campbell. In October of 1869, after failing to buy his acquiescence, the Klan kidnapped Colby and whipped him. Colby later testified, "They said to me, 'Do you think you will ever vote another damned radical ticket?' I said, 'If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the radical ticket.' They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more."
The Georgia legislature was often a tense scene. When black representatives spoke, according to Duncan, many white legislators "put their hands on the butts of the pistols they wore into the chamber. They shuffled their feet. They banged on the desk. They talked about the 'Congo senator's insolent harangue.'" Within two months the legislature voted to expel its thirty-two black members. "You may drive us out, but you will light a torch never to be put out," Campbell swore, and headed to Washington to lodge a protest.
In the North, a majority of states still did not allow blacks the vote and showed no inclination to change. The solution from Congress was the Fifteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1870.
By 1871 incidents of Klan violence had become so common that congressional hearings on the problem were convened. In the U.S. Senate it was reported that fifty thousand murders had been committed in the South since the war. "This was a war of terror," says Blight. "The Ku Klux Klan . . . is an original American terrorist organization." Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, suspending habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina and leading to the arrest of hundreds on charges of conspiracy to deny rights to blacks. The trials wiped out the Klan in South Carolina and helped Grant's popularity in the North.
However, violence continued elsewhere towards those that supported Reconstruction. In Louisiana, it was directed at a Northern interloper. Marshall Twitchell, a former Union soldier from Vermont, had gone to northern Louisiana immediately after the war and become a prosperous planter. He married a young local woman, twenty- year-old Adele Coleman, and acquired a 420-acre cotton plantation. The Coleman family helped him learn the cotton business.
Twitchell was resented by many in his Louisiana parish as a carpetbagger. The term, says Twitchell's biographer Ted Tunnell, was coined by conservative papers to describe "a lowlife Yankee. He packs his scanty belongings in a carpet bag and takes the first steamship south, to profit upon the misery of a defeated people."
That impression is wrong, says Foner. "In fact, most carpetbaggers tended to be well-educated and middle class in origin. The majority were veterans of the Union Army, and their ranks also included teachers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, and men who had invested tens of thousands of dollars in cotton plantations."
As an administator for the Freedmen's Bureau, Twitchell appointed blacks to local government and placed his three brothers-in-law in choice local posts: sheriff, tax assessor, and clerk of court. Twitchell ran for the state senate in 1870, and with black enfranchisement won handily. One of his neighbors, B.W. Marston, said of Twitchell, "I consider him a tyrant."
"This is the most violent place in Louisiana and probably the most violent place in the South," says Tunnell. While Twitchell was in New Orleans for the Republican state convention, his brother and three brothers-in-law, along with twenty blacks, were threatened by the White League and shot in the back as they were trying to leave Louisiana.
No one was brought to trial for his family's murder. Twitchell moved away from the parish, but his neighbors' memories were long. Two years later, when Twitchell returned to Coushatta on business, a disguised assassin believed to be his old rival Marston approached Twitchell's ferry as he arrived. In broad daylight, the gunman shot Twitchell repeatedly; he escaped by feigning death and floating face-down in the water. Twitchell survived but lost both his arms; he fled with his remaining family back north. Tunnell says Twitchell's "real crime was that he made Radical Reconstruction work at the parish level in Louisiana."
All over the South, proponents of Reconstruction were losing ground. In Georgia, Tunis Campbell was defending himself against his accusers: "Just before every election they commence to intimidate by arresting all the prominent colored men. As usual they have arrested me again."
"Democrats are relentless in their efforts to depose him," says Duncan. "He's too famous to kill. . . . They're afraid of what might happen in the local community. So they keep him involved in a myriad of lawsuits, charging him with abusing his office." The charge was commonly to "give the Negro supremacy over the white man." The entire black community of Darien, Georgia, would turn out to protest Campbell's trials. One witness said that if they put him in jail his supporters "would have put that jail in the river." Eventually, one of the charges caught up with him. In 1875, Campbell was indicted for falsely imprisoning white men and sentenced to a year on a chain gang.
For Campbell and others, times were changing. After he was released, Campbell returned North for good. Twitchell was appointed the U.S. consul at Kingston, Canada. Fan Butler, broke and disheartened, gave up planting and departed for England with her British husband.
The nation had lost the political will to support Reconstruction. A depressed economy had made the North weary of the South's problems. Many saw the federal government abusing its power. When Grant sent federal troops marching into the Louisiana statehouse in 1874 to throw out the White League and restore the Republican government, it alarmed everyone. "If this can be done in Louisiana," said a senator, "how long before it can be done in Massachusetts and in Ohio?"
In 1877, the Presidential election was so close it went to the House of Representatives for a decision. Reconstruction became a bargaining chip: in exchange for the Democrats' agreement to accept Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 would be rescinded and federal troops withdrawn from the South. The deal was struck. Without the military to enforce racial equality, the era of Reconstruction was over.
By Danielle Alexander
"Reconstruction was a failure, but a splendid failure," says historian Leon Litwack.
An NEH-supported documentary provides a new examination of the twelve years that followed the Civil War, when America struggled to reunite and to extend rights to former slaves. It was a time that saw new hope for Southern blacks as citizens and officeholders and sweeping changes in laws and government. But it was also a time of violence and terror, white racist retrenchment, and broken promises. In the end, the goal of Reconstruction--equality before the law for black citizens--would not be fulfilled until the next century.
"It didn't fail for the reasons people expected it would fail," Litwack contends. "It failed because Radical Reconstruction tested the limits of what was possible, the limits for egalitarian reform in the United States. The challenge of racial equality overwhelmed the American imagination."
The film describes the period through the people who lived through it, among them a black minister from New Jersey who begins his own experiment in democracy in Georgia; an actress's daughter who tries to run a rice plantation without slaves; and a Vermont soldier who finds both wealth and ruin in Louisiana. Reconstruction: The Second Civil War,produced by PBS affiliate WGBH-Boston, will air on the American Experience on January 12 and 13.
Reconstruction began before the war ended. A few weeks after Union General William T. Sherman concluded his march to the sea in Savannah, he met with twenty black men, including the Reverend Garrison Frazier, to discuss how to deal with tens of thousands of freed blacks who had left inland plantations and followed Sherman's forces to the coast. Frazier was asked, "What should we do with all these refugees?" He replied that the "best way we can take care of ourselves is to have land." Sherman responded with Special Field Order 15 to deliver "forty acres and a mule" to each freed slave.
The order gave abandoned plantations on the barrier islands of South Carolina and Georgia to freed blacks; forty thousand resettled there. One of the new settlers was Tunis Campbell, an African Methodist Episcopal minister from New Jersey, who became superintendent of the Georgia islands for the Freedman's Bureau, which was coordinating a national relief program for refugees. Campbell took it one step further. Under Campbell, St. Catherines Island became a separatist democracy for four hundred blacks with its own constitution, congress, supreme court, and armed militia. They planted food crops and started schools.
With the assassination of Lincoln at the end of the war, the experiment on St. Catherines ended. Lincoln's successor, Andrew Johnson, ordered the confiscated lands returned to their former owners. "Johnson's aim," historian Eric Foner points out in the film, "is to bring the white South and the white North back together. African Americans just do not play a role in Johnson's vision of the postwar South, other than to go back to work and be landless . . . and rightless . . . plantation laborers."
The federal government forced the residents off the islands, and the former owners reclaimed the plantations. The promise of land was lost. Most blacks had no alternative except to work for the returning plantation land owners. For the chance to put in his own crops, a black farmer would work twenty or more acres of cotton or rice for the owner. The system of sharecropping was born. Campbell bought land inland and became the workers' advocate.
His activities brought him into conflict with Fan Butler, whose family had owned a rice plantation in Georgia for generations. Her mother, actress Fanny Kemble, had returned to England years before to show her disgust with the slave culture in America. Fan Butler returned after the war with her father, and was struggling to keep her plantation afloat. Campbell advised Butler's workers to resist exploitation, infuriating Butler. "There seems to be no remedy for this evil," she said, "the Negroes throwing all our authority to the wind, and following Campbell wherever he chose to lead them." Butler lodged a complaint against Campbell for fostering rebellion--it would be the first of many suits against him.
Butler was frustrated by having to negotiate with people she had considered property a short time earlier. "For six mortal hours I sat in the office without once leaving my chair," Butler wrote, "while the people poured in and poured out. . . . One wanted this altered in the contract, another that."
Butler's attitude was not atypical. "Neither she nor the other members of her class know how to handle free labor," says historian Clarence Walker. "What they want is a docile, disciplined labor force."
Campbell had other ideas. In the words of historian Russell Duncan, "He often stood behind the pulpits in black churches on Sunday and said, 'Under the new acts of Congress, we're going to be allowed to vote. You're going to be protected in that vote. We have a great majority in this district. We are going to elect black judges. We are going to elect black sheriffs. We are going to elect black senators.'"
In Louisiana, at the state convention in New Orleans in 1866, a white mob attacked Republicans and their black supporters. Thirty-four blacks and three white Republicans were killed before federal troops restored order. The riot made headlines in the North and South and turned the midterm elections into a referendum on President Johnson's policies. His opponents, the Republicans, took three quarters of the seats in both houses of Congress, enough to override any veto Johnson might attempt and to pave the way for the Reconstruction Act of 1867, initiating the period known as Radical Reconstruction.
Under the new act, to be readmitted to the Union the rebel states had to register all qualified voters, create new state constitutions, and ratify the recently passed Fourteenth Amendment, guaranteeing black citizenship.
"For all its significance, it's important to remember what the Fourteenth Amendment did not do," says historian Brooks Simpson. "It did not enfranchise blacks. It did not prevent Southern whites from maintaining racial superiority. Frederick Douglass was one of the many critics of the amendment who failed to see how American citizenship could be guaranteed without the right to vote."
Radical Reconstruction attempted to protect black suffrage in the South with the deployment of thirty-eight thousand federal troops. They oversaw the 1868 presidential election, which brought the Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant, a moderate, to the White House. Five hundred thousand blacks voted, presumably for the Republican Party. Grant won by only three hundred thousand.
According to Foner, this time was "a remarkable leap in the dark for world history. It was the first large-scale experiment in interracial democracy that had existed anywhere." Throughout the South, black candidates were elected to state and federal posts. One quarter of the delegates responsible for drafting the new state constitutions were black. Altogether, more than fifteen hundred black men would hold elected positions during this period.
One was Campbell, who served in the Georgia state senate from 1868 to 1872, until he lost his seat on charges of election fraud. "The presence of black officeholders and their white allies," Foner points out, "made a real difference in Southern life, ensuring those accused of crimes would be tried before their peers, and enforcing fairness in such prosaic aspects of local government as road repair, tax assessment, and poor relief."
There were other benefits. Free public education, for both blacks and whites, was brought to a region where less than a decade earlier it had been illegal to educate a slave. The Freedmen's Bureau established more than 4,300 freedmen's schools by 1870, with nearly a quarter of a million students.
"Black voting carried with it an enormous meaning," says Walker. "It meant that political power was going to be shared between blacks and whites. This is a very frightening thing for many white Southerners because they have, in effect, lost control over what they had deemed their birthright, which is the right to run these governments."
Whites responded with campaigns of organized terror. Secret societies such as the Ku Klux Klan and the White League flourished. "They basically began to forge the Confederate Lost Cause as not a story about loss but a story about victory," says Blight. "They might have lost the war, but they were now winning the ultimate victory . . . against Reconstruction."
One of the Klan's targets was black state representative Abram Colby, who had been elected to the Georgia legislature along with Tunis Campbell. In October of 1869, after failing to buy his acquiescence, the Klan kidnapped Colby and whipped him. Colby later testified, "They said to me, 'Do you think you will ever vote another damned radical ticket?' I said, 'If there was an election tomorrow, I would vote the radical ticket.' They set in and whipped me a thousand licks more."
The Georgia legislature was often a tense scene. When black representatives spoke, according to Duncan, many white legislators "put their hands on the butts of the pistols they wore into the chamber. They shuffled their feet. They banged on the desk. They talked about the 'Congo senator's insolent harangue.'" Within two months the legislature voted to expel its thirty-two black members. "You may drive us out, but you will light a torch never to be put out," Campbell swore, and headed to Washington to lodge a protest.
In the North, a majority of states still did not allow blacks the vote and showed no inclination to change. The solution from Congress was the Fifteenth Amendment, which was ratified in 1870.
By 1871 incidents of Klan violence had become so common that congressional hearings on the problem were convened. In the U.S. Senate it was reported that fifty thousand murders had been committed in the South since the war. "This was a war of terror," says Blight. "The Ku Klux Klan . . . is an original American terrorist organization." Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act in 1871, suspending habeas corpus in nine counties in South Carolina and leading to the arrest of hundreds on charges of conspiracy to deny rights to blacks. The trials wiped out the Klan in South Carolina and helped Grant's popularity in the North.
However, violence continued elsewhere towards those that supported Reconstruction. In Louisiana, it was directed at a Northern interloper. Marshall Twitchell, a former Union soldier from Vermont, had gone to northern Louisiana immediately after the war and become a prosperous planter. He married a young local woman, twenty- year-old Adele Coleman, and acquired a 420-acre cotton plantation. The Coleman family helped him learn the cotton business.
Twitchell was resented by many in his Louisiana parish as a carpetbagger. The term, says Twitchell's biographer Ted Tunnell, was coined by conservative papers to describe "a lowlife Yankee. He packs his scanty belongings in a carpet bag and takes the first steamship south, to profit upon the misery of a defeated people."
That impression is wrong, says Foner. "In fact, most carpetbaggers tended to be well-educated and middle class in origin. The majority were veterans of the Union Army, and their ranks also included teachers, Freedmen's Bureau agents, and men who had invested tens of thousands of dollars in cotton plantations."
As an administator for the Freedmen's Bureau, Twitchell appointed blacks to local government and placed his three brothers-in-law in choice local posts: sheriff, tax assessor, and clerk of court. Twitchell ran for the state senate in 1870, and with black enfranchisement won handily. One of his neighbors, B.W. Marston, said of Twitchell, "I consider him a tyrant."
"This is the most violent place in Louisiana and probably the most violent place in the South," says Tunnell. While Twitchell was in New Orleans for the Republican state convention, his brother and three brothers-in-law, along with twenty blacks, were threatened by the White League and shot in the back as they were trying to leave Louisiana.
No one was brought to trial for his family's murder. Twitchell moved away from the parish, but his neighbors' memories were long. Two years later, when Twitchell returned to Coushatta on business, a disguised assassin believed to be his old rival Marston approached Twitchell's ferry as he arrived. In broad daylight, the gunman shot Twitchell repeatedly; he escaped by feigning death and floating face-down in the water. Twitchell survived but lost both his arms; he fled with his remaining family back north. Tunnell says Twitchell's "real crime was that he made Radical Reconstruction work at the parish level in Louisiana."
All over the South, proponents of Reconstruction were losing ground. In Georgia, Tunis Campbell was defending himself against his accusers: "Just before every election they commence to intimidate by arresting all the prominent colored men. As usual they have arrested me again."
"Democrats are relentless in their efforts to depose him," says Duncan. "He's too famous to kill. . . . They're afraid of what might happen in the local community. So they keep him involved in a myriad of lawsuits, charging him with abusing his office." The charge was commonly to "give the Negro supremacy over the white man." The entire black community of Darien, Georgia, would turn out to protest Campbell's trials. One witness said that if they put him in jail his supporters "would have put that jail in the river." Eventually, one of the charges caught up with him. In 1875, Campbell was indicted for falsely imprisoning white men and sentenced to a year on a chain gang.
For Campbell and others, times were changing. After he was released, Campbell returned North for good. Twitchell was appointed the U.S. consul at Kingston, Canada. Fan Butler, broke and disheartened, gave up planting and departed for England with her British husband.
The nation had lost the political will to support Reconstruction. A depressed economy had made the North weary of the South's problems. Many saw the federal government abusing its power. When Grant sent federal troops marching into the Louisiana statehouse in 1874 to throw out the White League and restore the Republican government, it alarmed everyone. "If this can be done in Louisiana," said a senator, "how long before it can be done in Massachusetts and in Ohio?"
In 1877, the Presidential election was so close it went to the House of Representatives for a decision. Reconstruction became a bargaining chip: in exchange for the Democrats' agreement to accept Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House, the Reconstruction Act of 1867 would be rescinded and federal troops withdrawn from the South. The deal was struck. Without the military to enforce racial equality, the era of Reconstruction was over.
Abraham to Paul, the good news (gospel)
The Gospel From Abraham to Paul
article by Greg Sargent
Do you understand what the gospel really is?Many have never comprehended this most important truth.
A gross misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ has kept sincere students of the Bible from comprehending other biblical teachings for centuries. A proper understanding of the message Jesus brought is necessary for an accurate understanding of the whole Bible.
The apostle Paul not only pronounced a curse on anyone who would teach a gospel different from the one he taught; he pronounced a double curse. Obviously important to Paul was that people correctly understand the gospel; he felt it vitally important that it not be misunderstood, twisted or distorted.
To help our understanding of the gospel, which is simply an old word for "good news," let's take a journey through God's Word, beginning with God's promise to Abraham and ending with Paul's experiences while in jail. This excursion through the Scriptures will show us the undeniable meaning of the gospel.
Four verses only The gospel is best understood when the rest of the Bible is used to describe it. Yet some insist on defining it through only one brief passage of four verses: "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians:15:1-4).
Paul stresses that he is declaring the gospel to the church in Corinth, that he preached that same gospel to them before and that they received it from him. Paul had heard the gospel from Christ personally (Galatians:1:12, 15-18). What the Corinthians received, and what Paul received, is the gospel.
Which gospel did Paul receive?Did Paul teach the entire gospel in these four verses of 1 Corinthians 15? Is the gospel only a message about the death of Jesus Christ for our sins, His burial and His resurrection?
In writing to the Galatians, Paul said he marveled at how quickly they had turned from the grace of Christ to a different gospel, a perverted gospel. He twice pronounced a curse on any, including even angels from heaven, if they taught any gospel other than that "received" by the Galatians from himself (Galatians:1:6-9).
A cursory biblical search of the word gospel can be confusing. The "gospel of God" or the "gospel of the grace of God" is used nine times in the New Testament. We find "gospel" used by itself on more than 60 occasions, connected with Jesus Christ more than a dozen times and as part of the terms "gospel of the kingdom" or "gospel of the kingdom of God" five times.
Paul used gospel in every letter he wrote to the churches and to the ministry, except his letter to Titus. The writers of the Gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—used the word only some 17 times. The books of Hebrews and Revelation and the general epistles combined use the term only six times. If we want a solid understanding of what the gospel is, we certainly have to refer to Paul's writings, in which he used the term more than 70 times.
To grasp the full story, we need to begin with the first record of the gospel being taught. We find this information in a New Testament quote from an Old Testament passage appearing in Paul's letter to the Galatians. As a percentage of the book's size, the term gospel is used more often in Galatians than in any other book in the Bible.
The gospel to Abraham "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed'" (Galatians:3:8).
Did you catch what this says? The gospel was preached to Abraham. As a foundational statement for the gospel, this is significant, since it shows that the gospel was known from an early time, and it was spoken to Abraham directly by God.
As we study this subject, we find two elements frequently repeated:
Nations will be blessed. The blessing of the nations comes through Abraham. The quote we just read in Galatians comes from Genesis:22:18: "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." The blessing was not to come from Abraham himself, but from the "seed" of his body, his offspring.
This passage records a second time that God appeared to Abraham through an angel. The first occurrence is found in Genesis 12, when God told Abraham to leave his father's country and go to a land He would show him. God promised He would make of Abraham a great nation and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
The gospel was the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through his seed. So far we don't know what the blessing is, and we don't know who the seed is. But let's take one step at a time.
Land, inheritance, world Thousands of years later, in the early days of the Church, Stephen was on trial before the Sanhedrin. There he related the story of Abraham, and the promise given to Abraham becomes clear in Stephen's narrative:
"The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, 'Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.' Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it [the land] to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him" (Acts:7:2-5).
Although Abraham had no child, no seed through whom the promised blessing could come, God promised the land to him as his inheritance. Abraham was to inherit and possess the land God allowed him to live in, through Abraham's promised seed. Paul told the congregation in Rome that Abraham was promised to be "heir of the world" (Romans:4:13).
These verses make it clear that the blessing promised Abraham included the inheritance of land, a heritage ultimately circling the world.
But, while Abraham lived, he didn't inherit one square foot.
Another passage that clearly concerns this blessing can be found in Hebrews:11:8-13: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance . . . By faith he dwelt in the land of promise . . ." Abraham, along with Isaac and Jacob, "died in faith, not having received the promises." They "waited for the city" whose "builder and maker is God."
The gospel message is in part about land; it's a message about inheriting the world. And it's good news about a world whose builder and maker is God.
Through Abraham's seed Now we come to a seemingly insoluble difficulty. Abraham has an inheritance coming, but he's dead. How, then, can he possibly receive this inheritance, of which he never in his lifetime received "even enough to set his foot on"?(Acts:7:5).
Let's look more closely at the promise of Abraham's seed. What is this seed, and why was it necessary? How would this promised seed bring about an inheritance to a dead Abraham?
First we need to establish who is the seed of Abraham. The line of Abraham has spanned 42 generations by the time we come to the New Testament. Galatians:3:16 makes clear that the promises were made to Abraham and to one seed, "who is Christ." Christ is the seed of Abraham.
Jesus Christ is the "heir of all things" (Hebrews:1:2). When we become Christ's, "then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians:3:29).
In Galatians:3:18 we find that God gave the inheritance to Abraham as a promise, not because of a law. God looks at an inheritance the same way we might look at an inheritance from our earthly parents. Their property was theirs—they earned it —yet they are pleased to give it to their children. They may have specified certain conditions in their will, but the inheritance was not earned through any efforts of the children.
Our inheritance from God differs from an earthly inheritance in two significant ways:
We will perish, never to live again, unless God forgives our sins. Unless God resurrects our mortal bodies to immortality, our spiritual inheritance is of little benefit. Problems solved Paul explained to the Galatians how these problems can be overcome—how the penalty of death has been nullified and how we can become inheritors forever. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us . . ." Paul explains that this "curse" is the death penalty, which Christ freely took on Himself for us (Galatians:3:13).
Why did Jesus Christ do this? Paul explains that our Savior assumed the death penalty so that "the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles [all nations] in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (verse 14).
Paul describes the prospect of our living again because Christ took our death penalty upon Himself. Because of this, he writes, we can be raised to immortality because we receive, through faith, the promised Holy Spirit.
Paul added when he later wrote to the Ephesian church that we are marked "with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, [which] is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance . . ." (Ephesians:1:13-14, New International Version).
To the congregation in Rome, Paul explains that we are Christ's if we have the Holy Spirit—that, just as Christ was resurrected from the dead, we will be raised to immortality through that Spirit (Romans:8:9-11).
No wonder Jesus Christ said Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing His day (John:8:56). Christ fulfilled the promise to Abraham.
Back to Corinth Paul's definition of the gospel didn't change when he wrote to the Corinthians. In the letter to Corinth Paul describes the good news using different phrases but conveying the same message, the same two elements that he wrote about to the Galatians. First, Christ (the seed of Abraham) died for our sins. Second, He rose from the dead to receive the blessing of His inheritance, the Kingdom (1 Corinthians:15:3-4, 20-24).
The resurrection to an inheritance is a major theme of 1 Corinthians 15. Note how often the words resurrection, rise, rose, risen, raise and raised appear—a total of 23 times. Paul goes to great lengths to describe how many people witnessed Christ's resurrection (verses 5-8), the importance of Christ's resurrection (verses 12-19), the order of the resurrections (verses 20-28), the moral implications of Christ's resurrection (verses 29-34) and the bodies of the resurrected dead (verses 35-49).
Confirming and defending the resurrection Let's approach the study of the gospel from an entirely different standpoint to prove that the gospel is really about a resurrection through Jesus Christ to inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul told the Philippian church that he was in prison because of the gospel, that he was defending and confirming the gospel while in chains (Philippians 1:7, 16-17). Scripture records why Paul was being judged. What did he defend and confirm? Did his defense have anything to do with the hope of the promise to the fathers, an inheritance or a resurrection through Christ?
Before Ananias he said that "concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!" (Acts:23:6, emphasis added throughout).
Before Felix he said, "Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me . . . I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead . . . Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am being judged by you this day" (Acts:24:13, 15, 21).
Before King Agrippa, Festus said concerning Paul's accusers: "When the accusers stood up, they . . . had some questions against him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, who had died, whom Paul affirmed to be alive" (Acts:25:18-19).
Before the king, Paul said, "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers . . . For this hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?" (Acts 26: 6-8).
Inheritance in God's Kingdom Continuing with King Agrippa, Paul recounts his conversion and the mission Jesus Christ gave him. Paul was told "to turn [the gentiles] from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God" (verse 18). Paul told the Colossians the same thing, that he prayed they would receive knowledge, wisdom and spiritual understanding by God's power since they had been delivered from the "power" of darkness and were then subject to the power of the Kingdom of the Son of God (Colossians:1:9-13).
We are not already in the Kingdom of God. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. But we do have the power of God's Kingdom within us, the Spirit of God, by which He will raise us to eternal life.
Again to Agrippa, Paul explained that the repentant could "receive forgiveness of sins [the first element] and an inheritance [the second element] among those who are sanctified by faith in [Christ] . . . To this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come-that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead . . ." (Acts:26:18, 22-23).
The whole of the Bible confirms the story of the gospel. The Law details the account of the gospel given to Abraham. The Prophets foretell the coming of the Christ to fulfill the promises. The Writings proclaim Christ's return to restore the Kingdom to spiritual Israel.
The books of the New Testament likewise record witness of His message as well as His death, burial and resurrection so we can also inherit the Kingdom of God. From the beginning and throughout the book of Acts, Christ told His apostles to proclaim their witness of His resurrection so the world would understand that He brought the fulfillment of the promise to the fathers (Acts:1:8; 4:2, 33; 13:31-33).
What the gospel is Paul received the gospel; in turn he gives it to us. Polluting or wresting the gospel twists our thinking. A distorted gospel teaches that repentance is not really necessary because Christ did everything for us and nothing other than belief is required of us. A twisted gospel teaches that the Kingdom of God is already here and our reward is to go to heaven when we die. Perverting the gospel brings a double curse because it robs us of for-giveness of sins and our inheritance of God's Kingdom.
The gospel is the promise of an inheritance to Abraham through his seed, Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of God, Jesus Christ, grace and the Kingdom of God knit together in one beautiful package: grace through Jesus Christ so that we can inherit the Kingdom of God for eternity when we are resurrected.
Let's all praise God for His promises and, as Paul wrote in Philippians 1:27, let our conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ. GN
article by Greg Sargent
Do you understand what the gospel really is?Many have never comprehended this most important truth.
A gross misunderstanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ has kept sincere students of the Bible from comprehending other biblical teachings for centuries. A proper understanding of the message Jesus brought is necessary for an accurate understanding of the whole Bible.
The apostle Paul not only pronounced a curse on anyone who would teach a gospel different from the one he taught; he pronounced a double curse. Obviously important to Paul was that people correctly understand the gospel; he felt it vitally important that it not be misunderstood, twisted or distorted.
To help our understanding of the gospel, which is simply an old word for "good news," let's take a journey through God's Word, beginning with God's promise to Abraham and ending with Paul's experiences while in jail. This excursion through the Scriptures will show us the undeniable meaning of the gospel.
Four verses only The gospel is best understood when the rest of the Bible is used to describe it. Yet some insist on defining it through only one brief passage of four verses: "Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you-unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians:15:1-4).
Paul stresses that he is declaring the gospel to the church in Corinth, that he preached that same gospel to them before and that they received it from him. Paul had heard the gospel from Christ personally (Galatians:1:12, 15-18). What the Corinthians received, and what Paul received, is the gospel.
Which gospel did Paul receive?Did Paul teach the entire gospel in these four verses of 1 Corinthians 15? Is the gospel only a message about the death of Jesus Christ for our sins, His burial and His resurrection?
In writing to the Galatians, Paul said he marveled at how quickly they had turned from the grace of Christ to a different gospel, a perverted gospel. He twice pronounced a curse on any, including even angels from heaven, if they taught any gospel other than that "received" by the Galatians from himself (Galatians:1:6-9).
A cursory biblical search of the word gospel can be confusing. The "gospel of God" or the "gospel of the grace of God" is used nine times in the New Testament. We find "gospel" used by itself on more than 60 occasions, connected with Jesus Christ more than a dozen times and as part of the terms "gospel of the kingdom" or "gospel of the kingdom of God" five times.
Paul used gospel in every letter he wrote to the churches and to the ministry, except his letter to Titus. The writers of the Gospel accounts—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—used the word only some 17 times. The books of Hebrews and Revelation and the general epistles combined use the term only six times. If we want a solid understanding of what the gospel is, we certainly have to refer to Paul's writings, in which he used the term more than 70 times.
To grasp the full story, we need to begin with the first record of the gospel being taught. We find this information in a New Testament quote from an Old Testament passage appearing in Paul's letter to the Galatians. As a percentage of the book's size, the term gospel is used more often in Galatians than in any other book in the Bible.
The gospel to Abraham "And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand, saying, 'In you all the nations shall be blessed'" (Galatians:3:8).
Did you catch what this says? The gospel was preached to Abraham. As a foundational statement for the gospel, this is significant, since it shows that the gospel was known from an early time, and it was spoken to Abraham directly by God.
As we study this subject, we find two elements frequently repeated:
Nations will be blessed. The blessing of the nations comes through Abraham. The quote we just read in Galatians comes from Genesis:22:18: "In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice." The blessing was not to come from Abraham himself, but from the "seed" of his body, his offspring.
This passage records a second time that God appeared to Abraham through an angel. The first occurrence is found in Genesis 12, when God told Abraham to leave his father's country and go to a land He would show him. God promised He would make of Abraham a great nation and that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed.
The gospel was the promise to Abraham that all nations would be blessed through his seed. So far we don't know what the blessing is, and we don't know who the seed is. But let's take one step at a time.
Land, inheritance, world Thousands of years later, in the early days of the Church, Stephen was on trial before the Sanhedrin. There he related the story of Abraham, and the promise given to Abraham becomes clear in Stephen's narrative:
"The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him, 'Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.' Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it [the land] to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him" (Acts:7:2-5).
Although Abraham had no child, no seed through whom the promised blessing could come, God promised the land to him as his inheritance. Abraham was to inherit and possess the land God allowed him to live in, through Abraham's promised seed. Paul told the congregation in Rome that Abraham was promised to be "heir of the world" (Romans:4:13).
These verses make it clear that the blessing promised Abraham included the inheritance of land, a heritage ultimately circling the world.
But, while Abraham lived, he didn't inherit one square foot.
Another passage that clearly concerns this blessing can be found in Hebrews:11:8-13: "By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance . . . By faith he dwelt in the land of promise . . ." Abraham, along with Isaac and Jacob, "died in faith, not having received the promises." They "waited for the city" whose "builder and maker is God."
The gospel message is in part about land; it's a message about inheriting the world. And it's good news about a world whose builder and maker is God.
Through Abraham's seed Now we come to a seemingly insoluble difficulty. Abraham has an inheritance coming, but he's dead. How, then, can he possibly receive this inheritance, of which he never in his lifetime received "even enough to set his foot on"?(Acts:7:5).
Let's look more closely at the promise of Abraham's seed. What is this seed, and why was it necessary? How would this promised seed bring about an inheritance to a dead Abraham?
First we need to establish who is the seed of Abraham. The line of Abraham has spanned 42 generations by the time we come to the New Testament. Galatians:3:16 makes clear that the promises were made to Abraham and to one seed, "who is Christ." Christ is the seed of Abraham.
Jesus Christ is the "heir of all things" (Hebrews:1:2). When we become Christ's, "then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise" (Galatians:3:29).
In Galatians:3:18 we find that God gave the inheritance to Abraham as a promise, not because of a law. God looks at an inheritance the same way we might look at an inheritance from our earthly parents. Their property was theirs—they earned it —yet they are pleased to give it to their children. They may have specified certain conditions in their will, but the inheritance was not earned through any efforts of the children.
Our inheritance from God differs from an earthly inheritance in two significant ways:
We will perish, never to live again, unless God forgives our sins. Unless God resurrects our mortal bodies to immortality, our spiritual inheritance is of little benefit. Problems solved Paul explained to the Galatians how these problems can be overcome—how the penalty of death has been nullified and how we can become inheritors forever. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us . . ." Paul explains that this "curse" is the death penalty, which Christ freely took on Himself for us (Galatians:3:13).
Why did Jesus Christ do this? Paul explains that our Savior assumed the death penalty so that "the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles [all nations] in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (verse 14).
Paul describes the prospect of our living again because Christ took our death penalty upon Himself. Because of this, he writes, we can be raised to immortality because we receive, through faith, the promised Holy Spirit.
Paul added when he later wrote to the Ephesian church that we are marked "with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, [which] is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance . . ." (Ephesians:1:13-14, New International Version).
To the congregation in Rome, Paul explains that we are Christ's if we have the Holy Spirit—that, just as Christ was resurrected from the dead, we will be raised to immortality through that Spirit (Romans:8:9-11).
No wonder Jesus Christ said Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing His day (John:8:56). Christ fulfilled the promise to Abraham.
Back to Corinth Paul's definition of the gospel didn't change when he wrote to the Corinthians. In the letter to Corinth Paul describes the good news using different phrases but conveying the same message, the same two elements that he wrote about to the Galatians. First, Christ (the seed of Abraham) died for our sins. Second, He rose from the dead to receive the blessing of His inheritance, the Kingdom (1 Corinthians:15:3-4, 20-24).
The resurrection to an inheritance is a major theme of 1 Corinthians 15. Note how often the words resurrection, rise, rose, risen, raise and raised appear—a total of 23 times. Paul goes to great lengths to describe how many people witnessed Christ's resurrection (verses 5-8), the importance of Christ's resurrection (verses 12-19), the order of the resurrections (verses 20-28), the moral implications of Christ's resurrection (verses 29-34) and the bodies of the resurrected dead (verses 35-49).
Confirming and defending the resurrection Let's approach the study of the gospel from an entirely different standpoint to prove that the gospel is really about a resurrection through Jesus Christ to inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul told the Philippian church that he was in prison because of the gospel, that he was defending and confirming the gospel while in chains (Philippians 1:7, 16-17). Scripture records why Paul was being judged. What did he defend and confirm? Did his defense have anything to do with the hope of the promise to the fathers, an inheritance or a resurrection through Christ?
Before Ananias he said that "concerning the hope and resurrection of the dead I am being judged!" (Acts:23:6, emphasis added throughout).
Before Felix he said, "Nor can they prove the things of which they now accuse me . . . I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead . . . Concerning the resurrection of the dead I am being judged by you this day" (Acts:24:13, 15, 21).
Before King Agrippa, Festus said concerning Paul's accusers: "When the accusers stood up, they . . . had some questions against him about their own religion and about a certain Jesus, who had died, whom Paul affirmed to be alive" (Acts:25:18-19).
Before the king, Paul said, "And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers . . . For this hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?" (Acts 26: 6-8).
Inheritance in God's Kingdom Continuing with King Agrippa, Paul recounts his conversion and the mission Jesus Christ gave him. Paul was told "to turn [the gentiles] from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God" (verse 18). Paul told the Colossians the same thing, that he prayed they would receive knowledge, wisdom and spiritual understanding by God's power since they had been delivered from the "power" of darkness and were then subject to the power of the Kingdom of the Son of God (Colossians:1:9-13).
We are not already in the Kingdom of God. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom. But we do have the power of God's Kingdom within us, the Spirit of God, by which He will raise us to eternal life.
Again to Agrippa, Paul explained that the repentant could "receive forgiveness of sins [the first element] and an inheritance [the second element] among those who are sanctified by faith in [Christ] . . . To this day I stand, witnessing both to small and great, saying no other things than those which the prophets and Moses said would come-that the Christ would suffer, that He would be the first to rise from the dead . . ." (Acts:26:18, 22-23).
The whole of the Bible confirms the story of the gospel. The Law details the account of the gospel given to Abraham. The Prophets foretell the coming of the Christ to fulfill the promises. The Writings proclaim Christ's return to restore the Kingdom to spiritual Israel.
The books of the New Testament likewise record witness of His message as well as His death, burial and resurrection so we can also inherit the Kingdom of God. From the beginning and throughout the book of Acts, Christ told His apostles to proclaim their witness of His resurrection so the world would understand that He brought the fulfillment of the promise to the fathers (Acts:1:8; 4:2, 33; 13:31-33).
What the gospel is Paul received the gospel; in turn he gives it to us. Polluting or wresting the gospel twists our thinking. A distorted gospel teaches that repentance is not really necessary because Christ did everything for us and nothing other than belief is required of us. A twisted gospel teaches that the Kingdom of God is already here and our reward is to go to heaven when we die. Perverting the gospel brings a double curse because it robs us of for-giveness of sins and our inheritance of God's Kingdom.
The gospel is the promise of an inheritance to Abraham through his seed, Jesus Christ. It is the gospel of God, Jesus Christ, grace and the Kingdom of God knit together in one beautiful package: grace through Jesus Christ so that we can inherit the Kingdom of God for eternity when we are resurrected.
Let's all praise God for His promises and, as Paul wrote in Philippians 1:27, let our conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ. GN
INHERITING THE HERITAGE OF RACISM
THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINTS
The New Testament presents God as Father, Christ as Son, and the saints as children of God. Christ is also the "first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). Just as in a human family, the father provides an inheritance for his children (Prov. 13:22), so it is in the family of God:
Rom. 8:16-17: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."
The saints, then, are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Whatever Christ inherits, the saints will inherit also. What do Christ and the saints inherit together?
All Things (The Universe)
In Heb. 1:2, we learn that Christ has been "appointed heir of all things". The saints will share in this inheritance, for in the book of Romans, we read:
Rom. 8:32: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"
The Greek word, pas, translated "all", means "all, every, the whole" (Strong's Concordance). The following scriptures show that "all things" refers to the universe:
Eph. 3:9: ... "and to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ" ...
Heb. 1:3: "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power." [RSV]
Thus, with Christ, the saints inherit the universe.
The World
As the seed of Abraham, the saints inherit the world:
Rom. 4:13: "For the promise that he would be the heir of the world (Greek: kosmos) was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith."
Gal. 3:16: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, 'And to seeds', as of many, but as of one, 'And to your Seed', who is Christ."
Gal. 3:29: "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, andheirs according to the promise."
Why is "the world" stated as the inheritance of the seed of Abraham? The Greek word "kosmos" means "orderly arrangement" (Strong's Concordance); and thus refers to the world as an ordered system in all its variety of created things (both animate and inanimate), and including all of its inhabitants. The original promise made to Abraham is noteworthy:
Gen. 22:17: "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore;" ... [KJV]
Thus, it is only in Christ that Abraham's seed will be so multiplied. This vast number refers to those redeemed in Christ, which in the fullness of time will include all humanity (1 Cor. 15:22). There is a connection here with Christ's words as recorded in John's gospel:
John 3:16: ... "for God did solove the world, that his Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during." [Young]
God so loved the people of the world that He sent his Son to save them from sin and death. In context, this mention of the world -- the kosmos -- refers to all the people of the world throughout the ages, and confirms God's plan for the salvation of all mankind. As heirs of the world, the saints will judge the world (1 Cor. 6:2). Thus, the first-born saints participate in God's plan for the salvation of all mankind.
The Kingdom of God
The saints inherit the kingdom of God. The inheritance of the kingdom is directly connected with the inheritance of incorruption and immortality:
1 Cor. 15:50,53: "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ... For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."
Incorruption and immortality are related to eternal (aeonial) life. Incorruption and immortality refer to endless life. Aeonial life refers to the quality of this endless life; for aeonial life is that life which God imparts in accordance with his purpose or plan of the ages:
Rom. 2:5-7: ... "righteous judgment of God, who shall render to each according to his works; to those, indeed, who in continuance of a good work, do seek glory, and honour, and incorruptibility -- life age-during;" ... [Young]
Eternal Life (Aeonial life)
In many translations of the Bible (KJV, NKJV, NIV, etc.) we read of "eternal life". Robert Young (Young's Literal Translation) speaks of "age-during life"; R.F. Weymouth (New Testament in Modern Speech) speaks of "life of the ages"; and Andrew Jukes (The Restitution of All Things) speaks of "aeonial life".
In scripture, God is called both the "King of the Ages" (1 Tim. 1:17; Weymouth) and the "God of the Ages" (Rom. 16:26; Weymouth). As such, He has a "purpose of the ages" (Eph. 3:11; Weymouth; footnote). According to this purpose, He imparts Life of the Ages to the saints.
Titus 3:5-7: ... "He did save us, through a bathing of regeneration, and a renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been declared righteous by His grace, heirs we may become according to the hope of life age-during." [Young]
Andrew Jukes, in his Restitution of All Things, (pp. 65-68), speaks of "aeonial life":
"Aeonial or eternal life therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on for ever and ever. It is rather, as our Lord defines it, a life, the distinctive peculiarity of which is, that it has to do with a Saviour, and so is part of a remedial plan. ... Nor does this affect the true eternity of bliss of God's elect, or of the redeemed who are brought back to live in God, and to be partakers of Christ's 'endless life' (Heb. 7:16), of whom it is said, "Neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection (Luke 20:36); for this depends on a participation in the divine nature, and upon that power which can 'change these vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself'" (Phil. 3:21).
Salvation
By Christ's sacrifice, the saints have been saved from sin and death (Rom. 8:2), and thus inherit salvation:
Heb. 1:14: "Are they [angels] not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?"
The Promises
Paul refers to the saints as "heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). The saints inherit the promises:
Heb. 6:12: ... "that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
There are many promises mentioned in the New Testament, and all the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ:
1 Cor. 1:20: "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us."
The Holy Spirit has come by promise (Eph. 1:13). The eternal (aeonial) inheritance of the saints has been promised also (Heb. 9:15).
Sealed with the Holy Spirit
Eph. 1:12-14: ... "for our being to the praise of His glory, even those who did first hope in the Christ, in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth -- the good news of your salvation -- in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, to the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory." [Young]
The indwelling Holy Spirit is the guarantee (earnest) which secures the inheritance of the saints "to the redemption of the acquired possession". Peter refers to the saints as a "people acquired" (1 Pet. 2:9; Young). The saints, then, are the "acquired possession" who will be redeemed "at the last trumpet" (1 Cor. 15:51-54). The saints have been both purchased and redeemed by the blood of Christ:
1 Cor. 7:23: ... "with a price ye were bought, become not servants of men" ... [Young]
Eph. 1:6-7: ... "He did make us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have the redemption through his blood" ... [Young]
Conclusion
By promise, the saints have received both the Holy Spirit and salvation. At the last trumpet, the saints will be changed or raised to immortality and incorruption (1 Cor. 15:51-52), and will thus inherit aeonial life. As heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, the saints will judge the world; and thus participate in God's plan for the salvation of all mankind. Even as Christ now sits at God's right hand in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3), the saints, with Christ, will reign in the kingdom of God, which encompasses the universe.
[All scriptural quotation are taken from the NKJV unless marked otherwise.]
The New Testament presents God as Father, Christ as Son, and the saints as children of God. Christ is also the "first-born among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). Just as in a human family, the father provides an inheritance for his children (Prov. 13:22), so it is in the family of God:
Rom. 8:16-17: "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."
The saints, then, are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Whatever Christ inherits, the saints will inherit also. What do Christ and the saints inherit together?
All Things (The Universe)
In Heb. 1:2, we learn that Christ has been "appointed heir of all things". The saints will share in this inheritance, for in the book of Romans, we read:
Rom. 8:32: "He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"
The Greek word, pas, translated "all", means "all, every, the whole" (Strong's Concordance). The following scriptures show that "all things" refers to the universe:
Eph. 3:9: ... "and to make all people see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ" ...
Heb. 1:3: "He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature, upholding the universe by his word of power." [RSV]
Thus, with Christ, the saints inherit the universe.
The World
As the seed of Abraham, the saints inherit the world:
Rom. 4:13: "For the promise that he would be the heir of the world (Greek: kosmos) was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith."
Gal. 3:16: "Now to Abraham and his Seed were the promises made. He does not say, 'And to seeds', as of many, but as of one, 'And to your Seed', who is Christ."
Gal. 3:29: "And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, andheirs according to the promise."
Why is "the world" stated as the inheritance of the seed of Abraham? The Greek word "kosmos" means "orderly arrangement" (Strong's Concordance); and thus refers to the world as an ordered system in all its variety of created things (both animate and inanimate), and including all of its inhabitants. The original promise made to Abraham is noteworthy:
Gen. 22:17: "That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore;" ... [KJV]
Thus, it is only in Christ that Abraham's seed will be so multiplied. This vast number refers to those redeemed in Christ, which in the fullness of time will include all humanity (1 Cor. 15:22). There is a connection here with Christ's words as recorded in John's gospel:
John 3:16: ... "for God did solove the world, that his Son -- the only begotten -- He gave, that every one who is believing in him may not perish, but may have life age-during." [Young]
God so loved the people of the world that He sent his Son to save them from sin and death. In context, this mention of the world -- the kosmos -- refers to all the people of the world throughout the ages, and confirms God's plan for the salvation of all mankind. As heirs of the world, the saints will judge the world (1 Cor. 6:2). Thus, the first-born saints participate in God's plan for the salvation of all mankind.
The Kingdom of God
The saints inherit the kingdom of God. The inheritance of the kingdom is directly connected with the inheritance of incorruption and immortality:
1 Cor. 15:50,53: "Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. ... For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality."
Incorruption and immortality are related to eternal (aeonial) life. Incorruption and immortality refer to endless life. Aeonial life refers to the quality of this endless life; for aeonial life is that life which God imparts in accordance with his purpose or plan of the ages:
Rom. 2:5-7: ... "righteous judgment of God, who shall render to each according to his works; to those, indeed, who in continuance of a good work, do seek glory, and honour, and incorruptibility -- life age-during;" ... [Young]
Eternal Life (Aeonial life)
In many translations of the Bible (KJV, NKJV, NIV, etc.) we read of "eternal life". Robert Young (Young's Literal Translation) speaks of "age-during life"; R.F. Weymouth (New Testament in Modern Speech) speaks of "life of the ages"; and Andrew Jukes (The Restitution of All Things) speaks of "aeonial life".
In scripture, God is called both the "King of the Ages" (1 Tim. 1:17; Weymouth) and the "God of the Ages" (Rom. 16:26; Weymouth). As such, He has a "purpose of the ages" (Eph. 3:11; Weymouth; footnote). According to this purpose, He imparts Life of the Ages to the saints.
Titus 3:5-7: ... "He did save us, through a bathing of regeneration, and a renewing of the Holy Spirit, which He poured upon us richly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been declared righteous by His grace, heirs we may become according to the hope of life age-during." [Young]
Andrew Jukes, in his Restitution of All Things, (pp. 65-68), speaks of "aeonial life":
"Aeonial or eternal life therefore is not, as so many think, the living on and on for ever and ever. It is rather, as our Lord defines it, a life, the distinctive peculiarity of which is, that it has to do with a Saviour, and so is part of a remedial plan. ... Nor does this affect the true eternity of bliss of God's elect, or of the redeemed who are brought back to live in God, and to be partakers of Christ's 'endless life' (Heb. 7:16), of whom it is said, "Neither can they die any more, for they are equal to the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection (Luke 20:36); for this depends on a participation in the divine nature, and upon that power which can 'change these vile bodies, that they may be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue even all things unto Himself'" (Phil. 3:21).
Salvation
By Christ's sacrifice, the saints have been saved from sin and death (Rom. 8:2), and thus inherit salvation:
Heb. 1:14: "Are they [angels] not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?"
The Promises
Paul refers to the saints as "heirs according to the promise" (Gal. 3:29). The saints inherit the promises:
Heb. 6:12: ... "that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises."
There are many promises mentioned in the New Testament, and all the promises of God are fulfilled in Christ:
1 Cor. 1:20: "For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us."
The Holy Spirit has come by promise (Eph. 1:13). The eternal (aeonial) inheritance of the saints has been promised also (Heb. 9:15).
Sealed with the Holy Spirit
Eph. 1:12-14: ... "for our being to the praise of His glory, even those who did first hope in the Christ, in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth -- the good news of your salvation -- in whom also having believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of the promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, to the redemption of the acquired possession, to the praise of His glory." [Young]
The indwelling Holy Spirit is the guarantee (earnest) which secures the inheritance of the saints "to the redemption of the acquired possession". Peter refers to the saints as a "people acquired" (1 Pet. 2:9; Young). The saints, then, are the "acquired possession" who will be redeemed "at the last trumpet" (1 Cor. 15:51-54). The saints have been both purchased and redeemed by the blood of Christ:
1 Cor. 7:23: ... "with a price ye were bought, become not servants of men" ... [Young]
Eph. 1:6-7: ... "He did make us accepted in the beloved, in whom we have the redemption through his blood" ... [Young]
Conclusion
By promise, the saints have received both the Holy Spirit and salvation. At the last trumpet, the saints will be changed or raised to immortality and incorruption (1 Cor. 15:51-52), and will thus inherit aeonial life. As heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, the saints will judge the world; and thus participate in God's plan for the salvation of all mankind. Even as Christ now sits at God's right hand in the heavenly places (Eph. 1:20; Heb. 1:3), the saints, with Christ, will reign in the kingdom of God, which encompasses the universe.
[All scriptural quotation are taken from the NKJV unless marked otherwise.]
PLANNED BEFORE OUR TIME, OUR GOVERNED DESTRUCTION
Occupy Movement offers ‘The 99% Declaration’… Sounds like a plan!
From DANGEROUS MINDS
The 12-member congressional “Super Committee” failed, as we all knew it would, when Republicans stood firm in their craven, lickspittle fealty to the wealthiest Americans. Everyone knew, everyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to these clowns—and their Democrat “enablers”—that it was going to fail. No one was surprised. No one at all. Failure WAS the expectation from day one (Is there even a single dissenter to that opinion, on the right or left out there? Anyone? I didn’t think so).
The Occupy Movement has been criticized by small-minded types for “having no plans” etc, but what did they expect after merely a few weeks, anyway?
Today a full page ad appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle that led readers to this text online with the Occupy Movement’s plan for reducing spending, creating jobs and mitigating the wealth divide.
And then there is this extraordinary document (below) in which the Occupy Washington, DC peeps throw down the gauntlet in style. Reproduced here in full. I encourage you to read them both carefully and then share these documents with everyone you know, on FB, on Twitter and everywhere else.
WHEREAS THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION PROVIDES THAT: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in order to form a more perfect Union, by, for and of the PEOPLE, shall elect and convene a NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY the week of July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia to prepare and ratify a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES on behalf of the Ninety-Nine Percent of United States citizens.
I. Election of Delegates: In or about March 2012, the People, consisting of all United States citizens who have reached the age of 18, regardless of party affiliation and voter registration status, shall elect Two Delegates, one male and one female, by direct vote, from each of the existing 435 Congressional Districts to represent the People at the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY. The office of Delegate shall be open to all United States citizens who have reached the age of 18.
No candidate for Delegate to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY will be permitted to run on a party line or use any party label while running for or serving as a Delegate. No candidate or Delegate may take private money from any source except to fund his or her trip to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Election Committees in the 435 voting districts, consisting of volunteers, shall organize, coordinate and transparently fund this election. The voting process shall be free from the corrupting influence of corporate money and all funds raised by the Working Group on the 99% Declaration shall be used for the purpose of funding the election of Delegates and providing a venue for the Delegates to meet in Philadelphia.
II. Meeting of the National General Assembly and Approval of a Petition for a Redress of Grievances: In addition to ensuring a free and fair election of the Delegates to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, the Working Group on the 99% Declaration shall be responsible for raising sufficient funds to secure a venue wherein the 876* Delegates may convene, deliberate and ratify a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. The ratified PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES will be signed by the Delegates and presented to all 535 members of Congress, the 9 members of the Supreme Court, the President of the United States and each of the political candidates seeking to be elected to federal public office in the November 2012 general election. Because the time in Philadelphia will be limited, between March 2012 and July 2012, the elected Delegates shall meet electronically, or in person if possible, to confer and write the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. Subject to the voting procedure regarding the final vote for ratification of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES as set forth in section III, the Delegates of the National General Assembly shall implement their own rules, procedures, agenda, code of conduct, internal elections or appointments of committee members to efficiently and expeditiously accomplish the People’s mandate to present a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES to all three branches of the government of the United States of America and political candidates before the 2012 general election.
III. Content of the Petition for a Redress of Grievances: The PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES ratified by the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY shall be non-partisan and specifically address the critical issues now confronting the People of the United States of America. The PETITION shall be a product of the 876 elected Delegates who will confer with the American People during its creation. While attending the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in July 2012 the Delegates shall deliberate and vote upon grievances, proposals and solutions to be included in the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES and, if necessary, adjourn for further consultation with the American People as our founding fathers did during the first two Continental Congresses. The final vote ratifying the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES shall be by a simple majority vote of the 876 delegates. A duly elected chairperson of the National General Assembly shall determine the outcome of the final vote on ratification in the event of a tie. Upon ratification, all of the Delegates shall affix their signatures to the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES so it may be served upon all candidates running for national political office in the 2012 general election and the seated members of the three branches of the United States Government.
IV. Suggested Content of the Petition for a Redress of Grievances. In order to facilitate the timely election of the 876 Delegates to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY by July 4, 2012 and submission of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES before the 2012 general election, the Working Group on the 99% Declaration, shall include with this Declaration a suggested list of grievances to be submitted to the Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY no later than April 30, 2012. The final version of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES, to be written and ratified solely by the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, may or may not include the following issues currently suggested by the Working Group on the 99% Declaration:
1. Elimination of the Corporate State. The merger of the American political system of republican democracy with the economic system of capitalism has resulted in the establishment of a corporate government of, by and for the benefit of domestic and multi-national corporations. Therefore, the 99% of the American People demand an immediate ban on all direct and indirect private contributions of any thing of value, to all politicians serving in or running for federal office in the United States. This ban shall extend to all individuals, corporations, “political action committees,” “super political action committees,” lobbyists, unions and all other private sources of money or things of value, including but not limited to, promises of employment. Private funding of political campaigns from concentrated sources of wealth have corrupted our political system. Therefore, all private funding of political campaigns shall be replaced by the fair, equal and TOTAL public financing of all federal political campaigns.
We, the 99% of the American People, categorically REJECT the concepts that corporations are persons and that money is equivalent to free speech because if that were so, then only the wealthiest people, corporations and entities possessing concentrated wealth would have a meaningful voice in our society. We demand the immediate and complete elimination of all private political contributions through the enactment of new campaign finance laws and Constitutional amendment if necessary. It has become clear that politicians in the United States cannot regulate themselves and have become the exclusive representatives of corporations, unions and the very wealthy who indirectly and directly spend vast sums of money on political campaigns to influence the candidates’ decisions when they attain office and ensure their reelection year after year despite historically low disapproval ratings by the American People. It has been estimated that 94% of all federal political campaigns are won by the candidate who spends the most money on the campaign. As a result, our elected representatives spend far too much time fundraising for the next election rather than doing the People’s business. This constant need for more and more money, causes our politicians to labor under obscene conflicts of interest that make it impossible for them to act in the best interests of the American People. Indeed, the current system’s propagation of legalized bribery and conflicts of interests has reduced our democracy to a greed driven corporatocracy run by oligarchs who represent .05 to 1% of the population but own 38% to 40% of the wealth. Through their exclusive control of politicians, the incomes of the top 1% have increased 275% since 1979 while most other salaries have remained virtually flat or declined.
2. Abrogation of the “Citizens United” Case. The immediate abrogation, even if it requires a Constitutional Amendment, of the outrageous and anti-democratic Supreme Court holding in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and its progeny. This heinous decision proclaimed by the United States Supreme Court in 2010 equates the direct and indirect payment of money to politicians by political action committees, corporations, wealthy individuals and unions with the exercise of protected free speech. We, the 99% of the American People, demand that this institutional bribery never again be deemed protected free speech and all direct and indirect private payments to politicians end immediately.
3. Elimination of All Private Benefits and “Perks” to Public Servants. The 99% of the American People demand the immediate prohibition of special benefits to all federal elected officials, public employees, officers, public servants, officials or their immediate family members including a corrupt “revolving door” in and out of our government. Elected and unelected public officials and their immediate families shall be banned from ever being employed by any corporation, lobbying firm, individual or business that the public official specifically regulated while in office. No public employee, officer, official or their immediate family members shall own or hold any stock or shares in any corporation or other entity that the elected or unelected public official specifically regulated while in office until a full 5 years after their term or employment is completed. There shall be a complete lifetime ban on the acceptance of all gifts, services, money or thing of value, directly or indirectly, by any elected or appointed public official or their immediate family members, from any person, corporation, union or any other entity that the public official was charged to specifically regulate while he or she was in office.
The term “specifically regulate” shall mean service or employment on a committee or sub-committee or service within any agency or department of the federal government responsible for the regulation of the person, union, corporation or entity in question. To root out corruption and restore integrity to our political system, all elected politicians and public employees must ONLY collect their salary, generous healthcare benefits and pension. To enforce these policies, Congress shall immediately pass new criminal laws banning the aforementioned private benefits to politicians and public officials. Any person, including individuals connected directly or indirectly to corporations, lobbyists, or unions who violate these new criminal laws shall be sentenced to a term of mandatory imprisonment of no less than two years and not more than ten years. Special benefits shall include the use of insider information by elected and unelected public officials to profit in financial markets or investments.
4. Term Limits. Members of the United States House of Representatives shall be limited to serving no more than four two-year terms in their lifetime. Members of the United States Senate shall be limited to serving no more than two six-year terms in their lifetime. The two-term limit for President shall remain unchanged. Serving as a member of Congress or as the President of the United States is one of the highest honors and privileges our culture can bestow. These positions of prominence in our society should be sought to serve one’s country and not provide a lifetime career designed to increase personal wealth and accumulate power for the sake of vanity and hubris. The lengths that today’s politicians will go to for the sake of clinging to power demonstrate the critical need for term limits and making career politicians the exception rather than the rule.
5. A Fair Tax Code. A complete reformation and simplification of the United States Tax Code to require ALL individuals and corporations to pay a fair share of a progressive, graduated income tax by eliminating loopholes, unfair tax breaks, exemptions and unfair deductions, subsidies and ending all other methods of evading taxes. The current system of taxation unjustly favors the wealthiest Americans, many of whom pay fewer taxes to the United States Treasury than citizens who earn much less and pay a much higher percentage of their incomes in taxes. Any corporation or entity that does business in the United States and generates income from that business in the United States shall be fully taxed on that income regardless of corporate domicile or they will be barred from earning their profits in the United States. This will allow honest companies and individuals who pay their fair share in taxes to take over those markets in the United States economy. Businesses that pay taxes in other countries will no longer be permitted to use that excuse to justify their failure to pay federal income tax in the United States.
6. Healthcare for All. Medicare for all or adoption of a universal single-payer healthcare system. The broken Medicaid program will be eliminated as redundant. Affordable healthcare shall be a human right.
7. Protection of the Planet. Human greed, exponentially magnified by corporations, is destroying the only habitable planet known to humanity. Multinational corporations have purchased so much influence in Congress (and other governments in the world) that they can secure the passage or blockage of regulations to maximize profits and minimize conservation of the environment. The evidence of climate change due to human activity can no longer be denied by rational people. New comprehensive laws and regulations must be immediately enacted to give the Environmental Protection Agency, and other environmental protection regulators, expanded powers and resources to shut down corporations, businesses or any entities that intentionally or recklessly damage the environment, and to criminally prosecute individuals who intentionally or recklessly damage the environment. No corporate veil should protect any employee, officer or director of a corporation who is directly or indirectly engaged in the intentional or reckless decimation of the planet for profit. The amount of profit a corporation can make must be balanced (by conflict-free regulators) with the inevitable damage that human activity inflicts on the environment. The 99% of the American People demand the immediate implementation of new and existing programs to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to reusable or carbon neutral sources of energy and higher greenhouse gas emission standards so that something will be left for our children and grandchildren. The rights to clean air, water, and conservation of the planet for future generations shall no longer be infringed by greed-driven corporations and selfish individuals.
8. Debt Reduction. Adoption of an immediate plan to reduce the national debt to a sustainable percentage of GDP by 2020. Reduction of the $15 trillion national debt to be achieved by BOTH fair progressive taxation and cuts in spending that benefit corporations engaged in perpetual war for profit, inefficient healthcare, pharmaceutical exploitation, over-prescribing medications for profit, the communications industry, the prison and military industrial complexes, banking and finance, the oil and gas industry, and all other entities that have used the federal budget as a private income stream resulting in our $15 trillion debt. We agree that spending cuts are necessary but those cuts must be made to facilitate what is best for the People of the United States of America, not corporations who care for nothing except profit.
9. Jobs for All Americans. Passage of a comprehensive job and job-training act like the American Jobs Act to employ our citizens in jobs that are available with specialized training. The American People must be put to work now by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure and building other needed public works projects. In conjunction with a new jobs act, reinstitution of the Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps and similar emergency governmental agencies tasked with creating new projects to provide jobs to the 46 million People living in poverty, the 8.6% unemployed and 16.2% who are underemployed.
10. Student Loan Forgiveness. Our students are more than $1 trillion in debt from education loans and have fewer employment prospects due to the financial collapse directly caused by the unbridled and unregulated greed of Wall Street. Banks receive virtually interest free loans from the Federal Reserve Bank and then charge upwards of 6% interest to our students for profit. Because education is the only way to ensure our future success as a nation, interest on student debts must be immediately reduced to 2% or less and repayments deferred for periods of unemployment. Subject to the provisions of point five herein, the tax code will be amended so that employers will receive a student loan repayment tax deduction for paying off the loans of their employees. Moreover, to reduce the principal on all outstanding student loans, a financial transaction surcharge, similar to those fees charged by banks on consumers, will be introduced. This surcharge will serve as restitution and reparations for Wall Street’s intentional and reckless conduct leading to widespread unemployment after the economic collapse in 2007-2008. This economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, resulted in the $1.5 trillion dollar bail out of Wall Street, secret Federal Reserve loans, and unknown losses to the economy estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. Banks and the financial institutions they are permitted to own (see point 16 infra) have caused the current worldwide recession, debt crisis and ongoing turmoil in the international markets.
11. Immigration Reform and Improved Border Security. Immediate passage of the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration and border security reform including offering visas, lawful permanent resident status and citizenship to the world’s brightest and most highly skilled People to come, stay and work in our industries and schools after they obtain their education and training in the United States.
12. Ending of Perpetual War for Profit. Recalling all military personnel at all non-essential bases including but not limited to Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Cuba and refocusing national defense goals to address threats posed by the geopolitics of the 21st century, including terrorism and limiting the large scale deployment of military forces to those instances where Congressional approval has been granted. New laws must be enacted to counter the Military Industrial Complex’s mission of perpetual war for profit. The United States has engaged in war after war only to later to discover that the pretexts relied upon to enter these wars were false or exaggerated to generate profits for the Military Industrial Complex and other corporations and individuals. The annual savings created by updating our military posture and ending perpetual war will be applied to the social programs outlined herein to improve the quality of life for human beings rather than facilitating and assisting corporations engaged in mass-murder for profits distributed to the top 1% of wealth owners.
13. Emergency Reform of Public Education. The education system in the United States is a resounding failure. New educational goals to train the American public to perform jobs in a 21st century economy, particularly in the areas of technology, infrastructure repair, water and resource conservation and green energy must be mandated as national security issue. These reforms must be accomplished by taking into consideration the redundancy caused by technology and the inexpensive cost of labor in China, India and other developing countries. Tenure should be eliminated in primary public education in favor of merit performance and paying our teachers a competitive salary commensurate with the salaries in the private sector. These salaries must be based upon similar skills found in the private sector because without highly-skilled teachers, there will never be a highly-skilled workforce and the United States will fall further and further behind its competitors.
14. End Outsourcing. Subject to the elimination of corporate tax loopholes and exploited exemptions and deductions as stated in point five, limited tax incentives will be permitted to entice businesses to hire our citizens rather than outsource jobs. Conversely, an “outsourcing tax” should be introduced to discourage businesses from sending jobs overseas and tax incentives should be offered to companies that invest in reconstructing the manufacturing capacity of the United States. This country must again competitively produce everyday products in the United States rather than importing them from countries like China and India. To do business in the United States, corporations must make slightly less profit by hiring American workers and paying them a living wage rather than maximizing every penny of profit to the detriment of our society.
15. End Currency Manipulation. Implementing immediate legislation (see e.g. H.R. 639) to encourage China (which undervalues its currency by an estimated 25% to 40%) and our other trading partners to end currency manipulation, reduce the trade deficit and end clearly identified unfair trade practices.
16. Banking and Securities Reform. Immediate reenactment of the Glass-Steagall Act and increased regulation of Wall Street and the financial industry by the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, the Justice Department and the other financial regulators including the recently established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We further demand an immediate investigation by the Justice Department into the potential criminal practices of the Securities and Banking industry that directly led to the collapse of markets, bank bail-out and firm failures in 2007-2008. To facilitate the aforementioned student loan debt relief, banks and securities firms shall pay a small financial transaction fee, also known as the “Robin Hood Tax”, on each and every stock trade and other financial transactions without passing these costs onto consumers. Uniform regulations will be enacted to specifically limit what banks may charge consumers for ATM fees and/or the use of debit cards and other so-called miscellaneous fees. There will be an end to the $4 billion a year “hedge fund loophole” which permits certain individuals engaged in financial transactions to evade graduated income tax rates by treating their income as long-term capital gains which are taxed at a much lower rate (approximately 15%) than income tax.
17. Foreclosure Moratorium. Adoption of a plan similar to President Clinton’s proposal to end the mortgage crisis. The privately owned Federal Reserve Bank shall not continue to lower interest rates for loans to banks that are refusing to loan to small businesses and consumers. Instead, the federal government shall buy all mortgages in foreclosure and refinance these debts at an interest rate of 1% or less because that is the interest rate the Federal Reserve charges the banks who hoard the cash despite ample liquidity. These re-financed debts will be managed by the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an independent foreclosure task force appointed and overseen by Congress and the Executive Branch to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether foreclosure proceedings should continue based on the circumstances of each homeowner and the propriety of the financial institution’s conduct when originating the loan
18. Ending the Fed. The immediate formation of a non-partisan commission, overseen by Congress, to audit and investigate the short-term and long-term economic risks in eliminating the privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank and transferring all its functions to the United States Treasury Department.
19. Abolish the Electoral College and Enact Uniform Election Reforms. The 99% demand the abolishment of the Electoral College in favor of the Popular Vote in presidential elections to avoid situations where the Electoral College elects a candidate who does not receive a majority of the popular vote. Subject to the above-referenced ban on all private money and gifts in politics, Congress shall immediately enact additional campaign finance reform requiring the Federal Communications Commission to grant free air-time to all federal candidates; total public campaign financing to all candidates who obtain sufficient petition signatures and/or votes to get on the ballot and participate in the primaries and/or general election; implementation of nationwide uniform election rules applied to all voting districts requiring equal access to third parties to appear on ballots; abolition of “gerrymandering” by utilizing non-partisan public commissions so that third parties may fairly compete in elections, shortening the campaign season to three months; allowing voting on weekends and holidays; issuance of free voter registration cards to all citizens who are eligible to vote so that they cannot be turned away at a polling station because they do not have a driver’s license or other form of identification; a review of the exclusion of voters with non-violent criminal records, and expanding the option of mail-in ballots and verifiable internet voting.
20. Ending the War in Afghanistan and Care of Veterans. An immediate withdrawal of all combat troops from Afghanistan and a substantial increase in the amount of funding for veteran job training and placement. New programs dedicated to the treatment of the emotional and physical injuries sustained by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our veterans are committing suicide at an unprecedented rate of one person every 80 minutes and we must help now.
21. Repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). Immediate passage of Senate bill, S. 598, and House bill, H.R. 1116, to repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act because all human beings have the right to love and marry another human being regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
22. No Censorship of the Internet. The Internet and its related technologies foster free speech, innovation, and a global human consciousness. We believe that the Internet and its related technologies are the joint property of humanity, and as such, it must not be censored or regulated in any manner without the consent of the people who utilize and contribute to its vitality. We therefore demand the immediate withdrawal of the Stop Online Piracy Act or “SOPA” (H.R. 3261) and the Protect IP Act (S. 968). These bills, if enacted into law, would grant the government broad new powers to curtail speech on the internet, block domain names, track internet protocol (“IP”) addresses, dramatically increase the cost of using content on the internet, chill innovation and creativity of web entrepreneurs in favor of media corporations that already own or control most online content. Furthermore, any future action by the government to censor, dismantle or interfere with, any other future technology that promotes communication between human beings, will be deemed by the people as a violation of the First Amendment and the universal human right to free speech and assembly. We also call upon the United States government to vociferously condemn any country that represses the speech of its people including the censorship of the Internet and related technologies.
V. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that IF the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES approved by the 876 Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in consultation with the NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE, is not acted upon within a reasonable time and to the satisfaction of the Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, said Delegates shall reconvene to utilize the grassroots network established in the election of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY to organize a new INDEPENDENT POLITICAL PARTY to run candidates for every available Congressional seat in the mid-term election of 2014 and again in 2016 until all vestiges of the existing corrupt corporatocracy have been eradicated through the power of the ballot box.
From DANGEROUS MINDS
The 12-member congressional “Super Committee” failed, as we all knew it would, when Republicans stood firm in their craven, lickspittle fealty to the wealthiest Americans. Everyone knew, everyone paying even the slightest bit of attention to these clowns—and their Democrat “enablers”—that it was going to fail. No one was surprised. No one at all. Failure WAS the expectation from day one (Is there even a single dissenter to that opinion, on the right or left out there? Anyone? I didn’t think so).
The Occupy Movement has been criticized by small-minded types for “having no plans” etc, but what did they expect after merely a few weeks, anyway?
Today a full page ad appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle that led readers to this text online with the Occupy Movement’s plan for reducing spending, creating jobs and mitigating the wealth divide.
And then there is this extraordinary document (below) in which the Occupy Washington, DC peeps throw down the gauntlet in style. Reproduced here in full. I encourage you to read them both carefully and then share these documents with everyone you know, on FB, on Twitter and everywhere else.
WHEREAS THE FIRST AMENDMENT TO THE UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION PROVIDES THAT: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
BE IT RESOLVED THAT:
WE, THE NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in order to form a more perfect Union, by, for and of the PEOPLE, shall elect and convene a NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY the week of July 4, 2012 in the City Of Philadelphia to prepare and ratify a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES on behalf of the Ninety-Nine Percent of United States citizens.
I. Election of Delegates: In or about March 2012, the People, consisting of all United States citizens who have reached the age of 18, regardless of party affiliation and voter registration status, shall elect Two Delegates, one male and one female, by direct vote, from each of the existing 435 Congressional Districts to represent the People at the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY. The office of Delegate shall be open to all United States citizens who have reached the age of 18.
No candidate for Delegate to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY will be permitted to run on a party line or use any party label while running for or serving as a Delegate. No candidate or Delegate may take private money from any source except to fund his or her trip to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY. Election Committees in the 435 voting districts, consisting of volunteers, shall organize, coordinate and transparently fund this election. The voting process shall be free from the corrupting influence of corporate money and all funds raised by the Working Group on the 99% Declaration shall be used for the purpose of funding the election of Delegates and providing a venue for the Delegates to meet in Philadelphia.
II. Meeting of the National General Assembly and Approval of a Petition for a Redress of Grievances: In addition to ensuring a free and fair election of the Delegates to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, the Working Group on the 99% Declaration shall be responsible for raising sufficient funds to secure a venue wherein the 876* Delegates may convene, deliberate and ratify a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. The ratified PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES will be signed by the Delegates and presented to all 535 members of Congress, the 9 members of the Supreme Court, the President of the United States and each of the political candidates seeking to be elected to federal public office in the November 2012 general election. Because the time in Philadelphia will be limited, between March 2012 and July 2012, the elected Delegates shall meet electronically, or in person if possible, to confer and write the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES. Subject to the voting procedure regarding the final vote for ratification of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES as set forth in section III, the Delegates of the National General Assembly shall implement their own rules, procedures, agenda, code of conduct, internal elections or appointments of committee members to efficiently and expeditiously accomplish the People’s mandate to present a PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES to all three branches of the government of the United States of America and political candidates before the 2012 general election.
III. Content of the Petition for a Redress of Grievances: The PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES ratified by the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY shall be non-partisan and specifically address the critical issues now confronting the People of the United States of America. The PETITION shall be a product of the 876 elected Delegates who will confer with the American People during its creation. While attending the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in July 2012 the Delegates shall deliberate and vote upon grievances, proposals and solutions to be included in the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES and, if necessary, adjourn for further consultation with the American People as our founding fathers did during the first two Continental Congresses. The final vote ratifying the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES shall be by a simple majority vote of the 876 delegates. A duly elected chairperson of the National General Assembly shall determine the outcome of the final vote on ratification in the event of a tie. Upon ratification, all of the Delegates shall affix their signatures to the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES so it may be served upon all candidates running for national political office in the 2012 general election and the seated members of the three branches of the United States Government.
IV. Suggested Content of the Petition for a Redress of Grievances. In order to facilitate the timely election of the 876 Delegates to the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY by July 4, 2012 and submission of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES before the 2012 general election, the Working Group on the 99% Declaration, shall include with this Declaration a suggested list of grievances to be submitted to the Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY no later than April 30, 2012. The final version of the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES, to be written and ratified solely by the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, may or may not include the following issues currently suggested by the Working Group on the 99% Declaration:
1. Elimination of the Corporate State. The merger of the American political system of republican democracy with the economic system of capitalism has resulted in the establishment of a corporate government of, by and for the benefit of domestic and multi-national corporations. Therefore, the 99% of the American People demand an immediate ban on all direct and indirect private contributions of any thing of value, to all politicians serving in or running for federal office in the United States. This ban shall extend to all individuals, corporations, “political action committees,” “super political action committees,” lobbyists, unions and all other private sources of money or things of value, including but not limited to, promises of employment. Private funding of political campaigns from concentrated sources of wealth have corrupted our political system. Therefore, all private funding of political campaigns shall be replaced by the fair, equal and TOTAL public financing of all federal political campaigns.
We, the 99% of the American People, categorically REJECT the concepts that corporations are persons and that money is equivalent to free speech because if that were so, then only the wealthiest people, corporations and entities possessing concentrated wealth would have a meaningful voice in our society. We demand the immediate and complete elimination of all private political contributions through the enactment of new campaign finance laws and Constitutional amendment if necessary. It has become clear that politicians in the United States cannot regulate themselves and have become the exclusive representatives of corporations, unions and the very wealthy who indirectly and directly spend vast sums of money on political campaigns to influence the candidates’ decisions when they attain office and ensure their reelection year after year despite historically low disapproval ratings by the American People. It has been estimated that 94% of all federal political campaigns are won by the candidate who spends the most money on the campaign. As a result, our elected representatives spend far too much time fundraising for the next election rather than doing the People’s business. This constant need for more and more money, causes our politicians to labor under obscene conflicts of interest that make it impossible for them to act in the best interests of the American People. Indeed, the current system’s propagation of legalized bribery and conflicts of interests has reduced our democracy to a greed driven corporatocracy run by oligarchs who represent .05 to 1% of the population but own 38% to 40% of the wealth. Through their exclusive control of politicians, the incomes of the top 1% have increased 275% since 1979 while most other salaries have remained virtually flat or declined.
2. Abrogation of the “Citizens United” Case. The immediate abrogation, even if it requires a Constitutional Amendment, of the outrageous and anti-democratic Supreme Court holding in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission and its progeny. This heinous decision proclaimed by the United States Supreme Court in 2010 equates the direct and indirect payment of money to politicians by political action committees, corporations, wealthy individuals and unions with the exercise of protected free speech. We, the 99% of the American People, demand that this institutional bribery never again be deemed protected free speech and all direct and indirect private payments to politicians end immediately.
3. Elimination of All Private Benefits and “Perks” to Public Servants. The 99% of the American People demand the immediate prohibition of special benefits to all federal elected officials, public employees, officers, public servants, officials or their immediate family members including a corrupt “revolving door” in and out of our government. Elected and unelected public officials and their immediate families shall be banned from ever being employed by any corporation, lobbying firm, individual or business that the public official specifically regulated while in office. No public employee, officer, official or their immediate family members shall own or hold any stock or shares in any corporation or other entity that the elected or unelected public official specifically regulated while in office until a full 5 years after their term or employment is completed. There shall be a complete lifetime ban on the acceptance of all gifts, services, money or thing of value, directly or indirectly, by any elected or appointed public official or their immediate family members, from any person, corporation, union or any other entity that the public official was charged to specifically regulate while he or she was in office.
The term “specifically regulate” shall mean service or employment on a committee or sub-committee or service within any agency or department of the federal government responsible for the regulation of the person, union, corporation or entity in question. To root out corruption and restore integrity to our political system, all elected politicians and public employees must ONLY collect their salary, generous healthcare benefits and pension. To enforce these policies, Congress shall immediately pass new criminal laws banning the aforementioned private benefits to politicians and public officials. Any person, including individuals connected directly or indirectly to corporations, lobbyists, or unions who violate these new criminal laws shall be sentenced to a term of mandatory imprisonment of no less than two years and not more than ten years. Special benefits shall include the use of insider information by elected and unelected public officials to profit in financial markets or investments.
4. Term Limits. Members of the United States House of Representatives shall be limited to serving no more than four two-year terms in their lifetime. Members of the United States Senate shall be limited to serving no more than two six-year terms in their lifetime. The two-term limit for President shall remain unchanged. Serving as a member of Congress or as the President of the United States is one of the highest honors and privileges our culture can bestow. These positions of prominence in our society should be sought to serve one’s country and not provide a lifetime career designed to increase personal wealth and accumulate power for the sake of vanity and hubris. The lengths that today’s politicians will go to for the sake of clinging to power demonstrate the critical need for term limits and making career politicians the exception rather than the rule.
5. A Fair Tax Code. A complete reformation and simplification of the United States Tax Code to require ALL individuals and corporations to pay a fair share of a progressive, graduated income tax by eliminating loopholes, unfair tax breaks, exemptions and unfair deductions, subsidies and ending all other methods of evading taxes. The current system of taxation unjustly favors the wealthiest Americans, many of whom pay fewer taxes to the United States Treasury than citizens who earn much less and pay a much higher percentage of their incomes in taxes. Any corporation or entity that does business in the United States and generates income from that business in the United States shall be fully taxed on that income regardless of corporate domicile or they will be barred from earning their profits in the United States. This will allow honest companies and individuals who pay their fair share in taxes to take over those markets in the United States economy. Businesses that pay taxes in other countries will no longer be permitted to use that excuse to justify their failure to pay federal income tax in the United States.
6. Healthcare for All. Medicare for all or adoption of a universal single-payer healthcare system. The broken Medicaid program will be eliminated as redundant. Affordable healthcare shall be a human right.
7. Protection of the Planet. Human greed, exponentially magnified by corporations, is destroying the only habitable planet known to humanity. Multinational corporations have purchased so much influence in Congress (and other governments in the world) that they can secure the passage or blockage of regulations to maximize profits and minimize conservation of the environment. The evidence of climate change due to human activity can no longer be denied by rational people. New comprehensive laws and regulations must be immediately enacted to give the Environmental Protection Agency, and other environmental protection regulators, expanded powers and resources to shut down corporations, businesses or any entities that intentionally or recklessly damage the environment, and to criminally prosecute individuals who intentionally or recklessly damage the environment. No corporate veil should protect any employee, officer or director of a corporation who is directly or indirectly engaged in the intentional or reckless decimation of the planet for profit. The amount of profit a corporation can make must be balanced (by conflict-free regulators) with the inevitable damage that human activity inflicts on the environment. The 99% of the American People demand the immediate implementation of new and existing programs to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels to reusable or carbon neutral sources of energy and higher greenhouse gas emission standards so that something will be left for our children and grandchildren. The rights to clean air, water, and conservation of the planet for future generations shall no longer be infringed by greed-driven corporations and selfish individuals.
8. Debt Reduction. Adoption of an immediate plan to reduce the national debt to a sustainable percentage of GDP by 2020. Reduction of the $15 trillion national debt to be achieved by BOTH fair progressive taxation and cuts in spending that benefit corporations engaged in perpetual war for profit, inefficient healthcare, pharmaceutical exploitation, over-prescribing medications for profit, the communications industry, the prison and military industrial complexes, banking and finance, the oil and gas industry, and all other entities that have used the federal budget as a private income stream resulting in our $15 trillion debt. We agree that spending cuts are necessary but those cuts must be made to facilitate what is best for the People of the United States of America, not corporations who care for nothing except profit.
9. Jobs for All Americans. Passage of a comprehensive job and job-training act like the American Jobs Act to employ our citizens in jobs that are available with specialized training. The American People must be put to work now by repairing America’s crumbling infrastructure and building other needed public works projects. In conjunction with a new jobs act, reinstitution of the Works Progress Administration, Civilian Conservation Corps and similar emergency governmental agencies tasked with creating new projects to provide jobs to the 46 million People living in poverty, the 8.6% unemployed and 16.2% who are underemployed.
10. Student Loan Forgiveness. Our students are more than $1 trillion in debt from education loans and have fewer employment prospects due to the financial collapse directly caused by the unbridled and unregulated greed of Wall Street. Banks receive virtually interest free loans from the Federal Reserve Bank and then charge upwards of 6% interest to our students for profit. Because education is the only way to ensure our future success as a nation, interest on student debts must be immediately reduced to 2% or less and repayments deferred for periods of unemployment. Subject to the provisions of point five herein, the tax code will be amended so that employers will receive a student loan repayment tax deduction for paying off the loans of their employees. Moreover, to reduce the principal on all outstanding student loans, a financial transaction surcharge, similar to those fees charged by banks on consumers, will be introduced. This surcharge will serve as restitution and reparations for Wall Street’s intentional and reckless conduct leading to widespread unemployment after the economic collapse in 2007-2008. This economic crisis, the worst since the Great Depression, resulted in the $1.5 trillion dollar bail out of Wall Street, secret Federal Reserve loans, and unknown losses to the economy estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. Banks and the financial institutions they are permitted to own (see point 16 infra) have caused the current worldwide recession, debt crisis and ongoing turmoil in the international markets.
11. Immigration Reform and Improved Border Security. Immediate passage of the Dream Act and comprehensive immigration and border security reform including offering visas, lawful permanent resident status and citizenship to the world’s brightest and most highly skilled People to come, stay and work in our industries and schools after they obtain their education and training in the United States.
12. Ending of Perpetual War for Profit. Recalling all military personnel at all non-essential bases including but not limited to Europe, South Korea, Japan, Australia and Cuba and refocusing national defense goals to address threats posed by the geopolitics of the 21st century, including terrorism and limiting the large scale deployment of military forces to those instances where Congressional approval has been granted. New laws must be enacted to counter the Military Industrial Complex’s mission of perpetual war for profit. The United States has engaged in war after war only to later to discover that the pretexts relied upon to enter these wars were false or exaggerated to generate profits for the Military Industrial Complex and other corporations and individuals. The annual savings created by updating our military posture and ending perpetual war will be applied to the social programs outlined herein to improve the quality of life for human beings rather than facilitating and assisting corporations engaged in mass-murder for profits distributed to the top 1% of wealth owners.
13. Emergency Reform of Public Education. The education system in the United States is a resounding failure. New educational goals to train the American public to perform jobs in a 21st century economy, particularly in the areas of technology, infrastructure repair, water and resource conservation and green energy must be mandated as national security issue. These reforms must be accomplished by taking into consideration the redundancy caused by technology and the inexpensive cost of labor in China, India and other developing countries. Tenure should be eliminated in primary public education in favor of merit performance and paying our teachers a competitive salary commensurate with the salaries in the private sector. These salaries must be based upon similar skills found in the private sector because without highly-skilled teachers, there will never be a highly-skilled workforce and the United States will fall further and further behind its competitors.
14. End Outsourcing. Subject to the elimination of corporate tax loopholes and exploited exemptions and deductions as stated in point five, limited tax incentives will be permitted to entice businesses to hire our citizens rather than outsource jobs. Conversely, an “outsourcing tax” should be introduced to discourage businesses from sending jobs overseas and tax incentives should be offered to companies that invest in reconstructing the manufacturing capacity of the United States. This country must again competitively produce everyday products in the United States rather than importing them from countries like China and India. To do business in the United States, corporations must make slightly less profit by hiring American workers and paying them a living wage rather than maximizing every penny of profit to the detriment of our society.
15. End Currency Manipulation. Implementing immediate legislation (see e.g. H.R. 639) to encourage China (which undervalues its currency by an estimated 25% to 40%) and our other trading partners to end currency manipulation, reduce the trade deficit and end clearly identified unfair trade practices.
16. Banking and Securities Reform. Immediate reenactment of the Glass-Steagall Act and increased regulation of Wall Street and the financial industry by the SEC, FINRA, CFTC, the Justice Department and the other financial regulators including the recently established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We further demand an immediate investigation by the Justice Department into the potential criminal practices of the Securities and Banking industry that directly led to the collapse of markets, bank bail-out and firm failures in 2007-2008. To facilitate the aforementioned student loan debt relief, banks and securities firms shall pay a small financial transaction fee, also known as the “Robin Hood Tax”, on each and every stock trade and other financial transactions without passing these costs onto consumers. Uniform regulations will be enacted to specifically limit what banks may charge consumers for ATM fees and/or the use of debit cards and other so-called miscellaneous fees. There will be an end to the $4 billion a year “hedge fund loophole” which permits certain individuals engaged in financial transactions to evade graduated income tax rates by treating their income as long-term capital gains which are taxed at a much lower rate (approximately 15%) than income tax.
17. Foreclosure Moratorium. Adoption of a plan similar to President Clinton’s proposal to end the mortgage crisis. The privately owned Federal Reserve Bank shall not continue to lower interest rates for loans to banks that are refusing to loan to small businesses and consumers. Instead, the federal government shall buy all mortgages in foreclosure and refinance these debts at an interest rate of 1% or less because that is the interest rate the Federal Reserve charges the banks who hoard the cash despite ample liquidity. These re-financed debts will be managed by the newly established Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and an independent foreclosure task force appointed and overseen by Congress and the Executive Branch to determine, on a case-by-case basis, whether foreclosure proceedings should continue based on the circumstances of each homeowner and the propriety of the financial institution’s conduct when originating the loan
18. Ending the Fed. The immediate formation of a non-partisan commission, overseen by Congress, to audit and investigate the short-term and long-term economic risks in eliminating the privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank and transferring all its functions to the United States Treasury Department.
19. Abolish the Electoral College and Enact Uniform Election Reforms. The 99% demand the abolishment of the Electoral College in favor of the Popular Vote in presidential elections to avoid situations where the Electoral College elects a candidate who does not receive a majority of the popular vote. Subject to the above-referenced ban on all private money and gifts in politics, Congress shall immediately enact additional campaign finance reform requiring the Federal Communications Commission to grant free air-time to all federal candidates; total public campaign financing to all candidates who obtain sufficient petition signatures and/or votes to get on the ballot and participate in the primaries and/or general election; implementation of nationwide uniform election rules applied to all voting districts requiring equal access to third parties to appear on ballots; abolition of “gerrymandering” by utilizing non-partisan public commissions so that third parties may fairly compete in elections, shortening the campaign season to three months; allowing voting on weekends and holidays; issuance of free voter registration cards to all citizens who are eligible to vote so that they cannot be turned away at a polling station because they do not have a driver’s license or other form of identification; a review of the exclusion of voters with non-violent criminal records, and expanding the option of mail-in ballots and verifiable internet voting.
20. Ending the War in Afghanistan and Care of Veterans. An immediate withdrawal of all combat troops from Afghanistan and a substantial increase in the amount of funding for veteran job training and placement. New programs dedicated to the treatment of the emotional and physical injuries sustained by veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Our veterans are committing suicide at an unprecedented rate of one person every 80 minutes and we must help now.
21. Repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (“DOMA”). Immediate passage of Senate bill, S. 598, and House bill, H.R. 1116, to repeal the Defense Of Marriage Act because all human beings have the right to love and marry another human being regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
22. No Censorship of the Internet. The Internet and its related technologies foster free speech, innovation, and a global human consciousness. We believe that the Internet and its related technologies are the joint property of humanity, and as such, it must not be censored or regulated in any manner without the consent of the people who utilize and contribute to its vitality. We therefore demand the immediate withdrawal of the Stop Online Piracy Act or “SOPA” (H.R. 3261) and the Protect IP Act (S. 968). These bills, if enacted into law, would grant the government broad new powers to curtail speech on the internet, block domain names, track internet protocol (“IP”) addresses, dramatically increase the cost of using content on the internet, chill innovation and creativity of web entrepreneurs in favor of media corporations that already own or control most online content. Furthermore, any future action by the government to censor, dismantle or interfere with, any other future technology that promotes communication between human beings, will be deemed by the people as a violation of the First Amendment and the universal human right to free speech and assembly. We also call upon the United States government to vociferously condemn any country that represses the speech of its people including the censorship of the Internet and related technologies.
V. BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that IF the PETITION FOR A REDRESS OF GRIEVANCES approved by the 876 Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY in consultation with the NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE, is not acted upon within a reasonable time and to the satisfaction of the Delegates of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY, said Delegates shall reconvene to utilize the grassroots network established in the election of the NATIONAL GENERAL ASSEMBLY to organize a new INDEPENDENT POLITICAL PARTY to run candidates for every available Congressional seat in the mid-term election of 2014 and again in 2016 until all vestiges of the existing corrupt corporatocracy have been eradicated through the power of the ballot box.
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