More from our fearless leader: does knowing your rights (and their procedures) help get things done?

Her grace in assuming the Great One's mantle was ineffable. Her resourcefulness has expanded continuously since then. Her disgust at bureaucratic intransigence is healthy and natural.... but did you ever dare expect all this and much more from our new Executive Director 21 months ago, considering that she wasn't even political till her life's path haply crossed with this blogger's?

Kris just wrote me again:

Got my driver’s license taken care of. 2½ hours in Fountain Inn DMV. Manager there was very nice and helpful and was liaison to Columbia office that screwed up. YAY!

I guess they didn’t want another lawsuit. Things started turning around when I mentioned applying for an administrative hearing!

"An administrative hearing" -- I confess I'm not sure what that means, but doesn't it have an ossome ring to it? Maybe the DMV guy didn't know either, but the very sound of it clearly gave him pause, especially coming from such a petite, unassuming-looking blonde lady.

I've found it useful to throw scares, too. One employer didn't want to hire me as independent contractor, and it being a fairly small opportunity, I -- by now fed up with corporate kafkaism myself -- volunteered that I might have to sue him in that case. He smiled nervously and ushered me to the president's office, where they quickly found a way to do it.

In another situation I gave them my business number instead of a Social, and -- this being a church music opportunity -- they threw fits and fought me tooth and nail, but eventually decided since the deal had come this far they might as well give in for the moment. But rather than insisting on changing it later on as they'd threatened, the treasurer sent me a Christmas card and no mention of the conflict!

And why shouldn't employers prefer contract over employee status, when it's truly applicable? So much less paperwork and expense!

The glow of Thanksgiving is still in the air. Have you thanked God lately or your Patriot Network leadership for keeping the organization going?

.......Appropriate to the season, this also arrived today -- one in a long string of similar treatises that cross one's desk over the years:

http://godfatherpolitics.com/2250/american-pulpits-and-politics-the-hope-of-our-nation/

It's not a bad commentary despite at least one major flub -- the early reference to Romans 13. In the context of the times, it seems obvious to me that St. Paul was there writing about the young Christian commonwealth's own leadership and polity, while giving the superficial impression of affirming the beastly "civil rulers" of the day and time. (Those creeps, God's ministers unto us for righteousness? OH SURE....) The apostle wasn't lying or playing games; his careful wording is how things work under a brutal dictatorship. You watch every syllable in order to remain at your post for another day or week.

Getting back to the Godfather Politics article, its writer's main point re Romans 13 is quite sound: "There are 30 million evangelical Christians in America, and millions do not participate in politics". Aside from voting, I would guess the number is more like 60 or 100 million, and that would be largely thanks to the poisonous influence of Scofield, Scofield's owners, his forerunners (Ribera, Lacunza et al) and his successors today. These multitudes of brain-addled Christians imagine themselves the faithful guardians of the American way, but they are for the most part politically USELESS, often on the grounds that we don't have to worry about any of this worldly stuff because the Rapture is due here any minute.

Oh, the struggles I've had over this with churches and preachers. Did I mention that I got to speak in a little fundy church a few weeks ago? I of course preached to the folks that they'd better get active because the default position was to let the devil run everything. They didn't know what to say, and then at discussion time some dutifully rose to say that "Only Jeeesus could solve all this political stuff, and we just had to wait on him to do so." I somehow managed not to say "Yuuccchh to that!"

The Bible not political? Open it up, please, and let me know where you find that questions of rulership first arise. How about Genesis 3:11, just 67 verses into the Word, where humanity is already embroiled in a dispute with God over who is God and lawgiver? Or maybe verse 6, where Eve has already accepted the concept of religious diversity and given in to the liberation theology of the first "higher criticism" pundit, the Serpent!

The rest of that chapter of Genesis is taken up with the all-wise Living God's explaining to his children how it's going to be, or else, and rightly so. What happens in the next chapter? Why, it's the story of God very kindly and patiently instructing Cain in the matter of right worship, and meting out due punishment for his rebellion. Cain, too, insisted on learning the hard way who is really in charge of this world -- its creator, a principle still mirrored in today's law codes, e.g. the patent and copyright parts.

Genesis, chapter 5: Yea even amid a genealogical table, more politics. "Enoch walked with God" -- i.e. heeded his merciful and reasonable laws and enjoyed his friendship -- and God "took him", widely held to signify some extra-blessed kind of one-way trip to heaven ahead of schedule. Lamech, who earlier lamented having killed a man, is next heard rueing the wages of sin and seeking solace in the birth of son Noah (quite possibly the first symbolic forerunner of Christ).

OK, randomly flip to a later page and tell me what you see. I seriously with no rigging of it happen upon Genesis 47:1 -- Joseph and his brothers under Pharoah's thankfully mild rule! How could it get more political than this: Joe's brothers committed an unspeakable crime, God used it pivotally for the working out of his master plan for his people against all human odds; Joseph becomes the PRIME MINISTER of Egypt, running the whole then-huge country with Pharoah's beaming approval and forbearance. (Yes, Joseph was the prime minister -- it's how Bible commentaries routinely describe his position.)

Because of these POLITICS entered into by one of the greatest national heroes in history, the seedline of the Christ was given safe haven in a time of bad regional famine. (Big time ecoomics.) The supreme political ruler gave Jacob and his sons choice REAL ESTATE, another intensive legal matter. If Joseph had followed your local Pennycostal preacher's dictates and not gotten "mixed up in the dirty affairs of this world" because "it's all passing away", where would we be!

Again totally without contrivance, I flip further into the Bible.... andrandomly "get" Deuteronomy 31. Bullseye -- Moses "the lawgiver" is formally inducting his successor Joshua before the assembled tribes. Wow, this is the part that I love so much, "this song" (31:30) whereby Moses reads them the riot act, followed by a long prayer that they would do right and know God's blessing instead of his chastisement (chaps. 32-33). This is all historical, doctrinal and spiritual, sure -- but anybody who misses the fact that it's 100% "political" at the same time, I fear they're poorly equipped for the real world. POLITICAL in terms of what was going on -- the leadership of a nation in time of crisis. POLITICAL as an exact, direct paradigm of how countries and virtually any group is supposed to be run today -- yeah, you know, political!

OK, OK, you want New Testament? I get Luke 22:60 next: "And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest." Not much to go on there, but what's this in v. 66? "...the elders of the chief priests and the scribes came together, and led [Jesus] into their council". A religious affair, you counter? No, a trial -- YET AGAIN a contest over who the real ruler is to be, God or man:

69 Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God.
71 And they said, what need we any further witnesses?"

It's politics, and that always means law. And vice versa. By the way, PLEASE don't let your Sunday school teacher try to deny that the chief priests and scribes were politicians. They had the power to throw people out of the synagogue, which amounted to internal exile from the local society and economy.

Come on, how many times has your Sunday School teacher told you that without telling you that?

/\/.\/\/. torpenhow@charter.net (864) 356-9966