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All posts for the month July, 2012

REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE

Posted by whatyareckon on July 25, 2012
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REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE!

Proverbs 22:1 “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches…”

Almost anyone who follows American football or surfs the internet knows the name Joe Paterno. Paterno, now deceased, was accused of burying child sex abuse allegations against the retired assistant coach[1], Jerry Sandusky. It is unthinkable the sexual abuse Sandusky committed against at least ten young boys over fifteen years[2].

According to one report at least two times Sandusky was seen by others; once having anal sex with a young boy and another time he was seen performing oral sex on another young boy. Both of these instances were reported but nothing happened. That is where Paterno comes in; there was a cover-up!

In spite of the evidence against him Paterno does have his supporters who say “He was a good man. It wasn’t that he was an evil person. He made a mistake.” This is the Balance Theory which says if a person’s good deeds outweighs their bad deeds (or mistakes) then forget the bad no matter who was hurt.

However, in spite of his great sporting legacy and some continued support Paterno’s statue has been removed from the Penn State football stadium. This may only be a save face act for Penn State but at least they are aware others are looking on.

So what can Christian organizations learn from the Paterno affair and the removal of Paterno’s statute? The first is, in spite of the evidence some Christians whose sins are found out will still have their supporters. These supporters generally work on the Balance Theory. The second thing Christian organizations can learn is not to build statues or name buildings after anyone within the organization who has been involved in the cover-up of a pedophile. Of whom may this be referring to, Wendell Kempton of course. REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE.

Wendell Kempton was the president of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) during the time missionary doctor Donn Ketcham was having adulterous relationships with nurses and then turned his eye to a twelve year old girl.[3]  Did the churches know any of this? Ketcham’s pedophilia was his demise for it wasn’t an adult who reported Ketcham’s sin but the girl herself.[4] REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE!

Let it be known that nothing occurred in ABWE land without Wendell Kempton’s knowledge or approval and Donn Ketcham’s adultery, pedophilia and cover-up was no exception! Wendell Kempton had to know! Nevertheless, in spite of this cover-up during Kempton’s presidency, ABWE is asking for funds (5.5 million) to build the Wendell Kempton Medical and Ministry Center.[5]  Now, this is not to say a medical center is not needed but it is to say it should not bear the name of a man who was complicit in the cover-up of a pedophile under his leadership. There should be a name change in this medical center! REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE!

The honoring of Wendell Kempton with concrete memorials doesn’t stop with ABWE. Wendell Kempton was involved for many many years with Baptist Bible College (BBC) of Pennsylvania. Kempton was an “alumnus, athletic director, administrator and trustee” of BBC.[6] He graduated from BBC in 1957 and returned in 1961 where he continued until 1971 when he accepted the presidency of ABWE.

However, he may have left BBC but he was not forgotten and in 1976 he was elected as a trustee. It was during Kempton’s time as president of ABWE (1971 – 2001) and that as a BBC trustee that ABWE missionary Donn Ketcham had several adulterous relationships with nurses. For one of these he was sent home for counseling and for the other he was moved temporarily to another location in Bangladesh. Did any of the churches know about this? STOP AND THINK, ALL of this occurred under the leadership or lack of leadership of Wendell Kempton.

Undoubtedly Wendell Kempton and BBC had a long amicable history and therefore it is not a strange thing that BBC would name a new structure, “Kempton Athletic Center”[7] in his honor. As the web site for the Kempton Athletic Center says BBC believes Wendell Kempton left “…a legacy of service and leadership”[8].  But did he? Did he leave a fine legacy of leadership?  Do those in the high places of BBC really believe this or will Wendell Kempton’s name bring in the money? REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE.

Surely those in high places at BBC would know of the Donn Ketcham pedophilia affair by now! Those in leadership at BBC are not so cloistered they have not read or heard somewhere concerning this terrible travesty. Wendell Kempton was the Boss over Russ Ebersole and it was Ebersole who with counselor Russ Lloyd who physically so mishandled the sad saga of Donn Ketcham’s pedophilia. In fact it would have been Russ Ebersole along with Wendell Kempton’s advice or knowledge that allowed Ketcham to have at least two adulterous relationships while on the mission field and continue as a missionary before his pedophilia! Remember we are talking about a Christian organization here. REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE!

It was Ebersole who was the field administrator over Bangladesh but he was always answerable to Kempton. There was a chain of command in ABWE and Kempton was at the top. One would have to be very very naïve to think Ebersole was dealing with a pedophile incident in Bangladesh and Kempton not know it!!

What kind of leadership covers up a missionary having at least two adulterous relationships with missionary nurses? What kind of leadership covers up a fifty some year old man having sex with a twelve year old girl? What kind of leadership allows a fifty some year old man to sexually abuse a twelve year old and then allows him to return back to the states to begin a new medical career? How many others may have been abused by this man after his departure from Bangladesh because of the lack of Christian honesty, character and leadership in ABWE under Kempton! REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE!

It should go without question that those in authority at BBC and ABWE must recognize they are a Christian institution whereas Penn State is not and doesn’t claim to be. THEREFORE THE BBC AND ABWE LEADERSHIP MUST REMEMBER PATERNO’S STATUE and do the Christian thing!

THE BALANCE THEORY

Posted by whatyareckon on July 20, 2012
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THE BALANCE THEORY

It seems that many Christians today will over look sin in the camp as long as the Gospel is preached and decisions for “Jesus” are made. This sounds like what my wise wife calls the BALANCE THEORY.

Now, what is the BALANCE THEORY? THE BALANCE THEORY says if the good outweighs the bad, overlook the bad and promote the good. Kind of sounds like “the end justifies the means” doesn’t it?  Whatyareckon?     

AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE?

Posted by whatyareckon on July 17, 2012
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Well, if the United States of America hasn’t enough financial problems of its own it has now agreed to guarantee the new Tunisia ruling Islamist Ennahda party “the repayment of principal and interest on the seven-year bond” worth $485 million US dollars!

Several thoughts here, and the first is, since an Islamist party is ruling in Tunisia, is there or can there ever be what we westerners consider true democracy, in Tunisia? Secondly how in the world does a debtor nation such as the USA guarantee another’s loan?

Am I missing something here? Whatyareckon?

The whole article can be read at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/business/breaking-news/tunisia-gets-us485-million-from-bonds/story-e6freuyr-1226427720671 .

HOW SHOULD A GOVERNMENT HANDLE REBELLION?

Posted by whatyareckon on July 12, 2012
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The Daily Telegraph for the 13th of July, 2012 ran the following article SYRIA USES TANKS, HELICOPTERS IN MASSACRE of which only a portion is posted for this blog. The entire article may be read at http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/more-than-100-killed-in-syria-massacre/story-e6freuz9-1226425037674 . The article said “Earlier on Thursday the Britain-based observatory reported that “regime forces pounded Treimsa” killing eight civilians and one Free Syrian Army rebel.

The Syrian Revolutionary General Commission had reported that one of the Treimsa victims was a doctor shot dead while trying to help the wounded.

“The village school was totally destroyed,” a Hama-based activist calling himself Abu Ghazi told AFP via Skype.

“Every month, there is a major attack somewhere in Hama province. Arbitrary detentions happen every day,” the activist said.

The observatory said more than 17,000 people had been killed since the uprising erupted in March last year.

It is not possible to independently verify death tolls. The United Nations stopped compiling figures at the end of 2011.”

Now all of the above is quoted to say what is occurring in Syria is sad but what does the world expect? A government, whether democratically elected or not is under threat. Think about it. If several thousand Australian citizens rebelled in a war-like manner against the government in power, as the Syrians have, what do you think would occur? If several thousand American citizens rebelled in a war-like manner against the present government, as those in Syria have, how do you think they would be dealt with? Whatyareckon?  

IS THERE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN AMERICA?

Posted by whatyareckon on July 9, 2012
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If you are a born-again Christian as I am you may or may not agree with the way those in Dearborn, Michigan confronted the Muslims at the Arab Festival but did these Christians have the Constitutional freedom to do what they did?

Consider this; “Say what you want about Ruben Israel, his group or his tactics. You may not agree with the things he said at the festival, but it was nothing that I haven’t said on my radio show or in my articles.

The so-called “antagonizing” that Ruben engaged in consisted of statements like “Islam is a lie,” “The Prophet Mohammed was a pedophile,” and “Your religion is a religion of hate.” Bad things to say to a crowd of Muslims, perhaps, but all arguably true statements and statements that citizens of this country have a right to say.

I can only put this into my own perspective and I keep coming back to Skokie, Illinois in 1976. The Nazi party as part of the Nationalist Socialist party wanted to have a march in Skokie. Skokie had a population at the time of 69,000 people of whom 40,000 were Jewish. After a two-year battle for the Nazi’s First Amendment rights to speak and to assemble involving the ACLU, the Illinois Supreme Court and the United States Court of appeals, they were permitted to march through Marquette Park, Illinois and called off the Skokie march. On June 20, 1978 a handful of Nazis showed up for the demonstration. Far outnumbered by opponents, they completed their march, and left under police protection.

The bottom line is this: the police were there to protect the Nazis and made sure they were escorted out of the area safely.

Nothing that Ruben and his group, the Bible Believers, did gave anyone the right to throw things or physically attack them. Last time I checked this is still the United States of America and what Ruben and his group did is still under the rubric of freedom of speech — and what the Muslims did was assault with intent to do bodily harm.

If Ruben and his group said and did the same things at a church, no one would have said it was wrong. Why all of a sudden does that change because they were in an area that has a large Muslim population? It doesn’t. The law is the law and our rights are still our rights. Currently, Dearborn is only 46% Muslim and by the way, they were at the Arab International Festival not a Muslim Festival. As I have explained before, 80 percent of Arabic-speaking people in the U.S. are not Muslim.

This video may be the best thing to happen for people in this country to finally wake up and see the truth about the real nature of Islam.”  

Whatyareckon?

The whole interview and article may be read at http://frontpagemag.com/2012/adelman/stoned-dearborn-christian-speaks/2/  .  

 

 

FIRST AMENDMENT; WHAT IS IT EXACTLY?

Posted by whatyareckon on July 6, 2012
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ImageThe first Amendment of the United States Constitution says “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.”

However, “A Wisconsin man who wants to hand out Bibles at the 40th Annual Twin Cities Pride festival in Loring Park this month will have to confine himself to a booth just outside of the event.

Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis issued a 41-page order Monday denying Brian Johnson’s request for an injunction that would force the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board to allow him unfettered access to the festival grounds, reasoning that his constitutional challenge was unlikely to succeed.”

The Judge went on to say “Courts therefore recognize that, when the government seeks to regulate the time, place or manner of speech in a public forum and does so in a content-neutral manner, its actions are constitutional so long as they are narrowly tailored to serve a significant interest and allow alternative channels of communication (Emphasis added)”.

Whatyareckon?

The entire article may be read at; http://www.startribune.com/local/minneapolis/158501815.html .

MISSIONARIES, SIN, MISSION BOARDS AND THE LOCAL CHURCH

Posted by whatyareckon on July 5, 2012
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I have written a couple of papers concerning the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism and their lack of properly handling the paedophile Donn Ketcham. Recently I also produced a Power Point presentation of the time line as given on the web site http://bangladeshmksspeak.wordpress.com/ .

Surprisingly the Power Point gleaned a negative response by a missionary to Zambia. My reply to this missionary follows.

“Brother …,

Dr. Waite sent me your email since I am the author of the ppt to which you are opposed.

I am surprised you have taken offense at the ppt concerning Donn Kethcam’s pedophilia while a medical missionary in Bangladesh.

I was with ABWE for fourteen years and personally saw the Good ole Boy’s Club at work. If you took the time to look at the whole presentation you will note (firstly) the home church pastor was not invited to go to the field to appraise what really was occurring with their missionary. No, the situation was dealt with by a mission staff member and a counselor. Not the pastor of the home church! In fact it was March 27, 2011 that Donn Ketcham’s sending church pastor of 1989, said publicly that he was told moral failure was adultery, and pedophilia was never mentioned!

Secondly, when Ketcham was terminated from the mission not once was pedophilia mentioned in the termination letter to the supporting churches. In fact one of my then supporting pastors has written saying he was on the ABWE board at the time of Ketcham’s termination and none of this was known to him or the others on the board. My question is why?

Thirdly, the web site by the MK’s http://bangladeshmksspeak.wordpress.com/2011/03/31/abwe-confession-and-grace/ was begun by MK’s who had been abused by Donn Ketcham. It wasn’t until this web site was started that ABWE finally in March, 2011 reported Ketcham to the Michigan medical Board. Ketcham turned in his license early in 2012. Also since reading the material on that web site it has been discovered that New Tribes has been covering up pedophiles for years! This is all too often what churches receive for turning their missionaries over to mission agencies.

Finally it is amazing to me that so many pastors, churches and missionaries are silent on these sins. Shame on them!”

It is of interest (at least to this blogger) that on http://www.abwe.org/churches/abwes-position/  point #6 says “We believe in supporting the duly constituted leadership of the local New Testament church through its pastor(s) and deacons.”

Note the Pastor of the church which sent out the missionary was not invited to go to the field to hear firsthand what the situation was.   Words are cheap. Whatyareckon?

OBAMA, PUTIN AND ISRAEL!

Posted by whatyareckon on July 5, 2012
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Image

In Genesis 12:3 God said to Abram “And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.”  

It is of interest then as a born again believer and dispensationalist that Putin’s visit to Israel is viewed “…in contrast to President Obama, who has yet to visit Israel. The Russian leader’s visit to Israel might have been an attempt to align himself with America’s ‘best friend’ in the Middle East ahead of the US presidential election in November; laying the groundwork to either face a second Obama term or change the course of American policy, should Romney win, together with Israel.”

Yes, America’s “…Obama chose to reach out to Islam and the Palestinians during his famous 2009 speech in Cairo, Putin chose to appear as the defender of Christianity in the Middle East, outreaching to Judaism and playing down the Palestinian case. Putin’s gestures gave a clear signal to Syria, where the Christian minority is standing behind Bashar al-Assad in opposition to the advent of the Muslim Brotherhood (and, possibly al-Qaeda) to power.”

We are definitely living in interesting days! Whatyareckon?

http://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/12021/wjc_analysis_after_putin_s_visit_are_israel_and_russia_inching_closer_together_

GEOCENTRICITY; REALLY?

Posted by whatyareckon on July 5, 2012
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Not many of us desire to be thought of as an ignoramus but as time goes by it seems there are many things that cross one’s path in life that causes the “intelligent” crowd to think he is one. So it is with the subject of geocentricity. So you have never considered the fact of geocentricity? Well, not until a preacher friend sent an article concerning geocentricity and Scripture verses did I. The following is from http://www.geocentricity.com/  but due to space only a portion will be quoted.  

“To hear tell, geocentrism, the ancient doctrine that the earth is fixed motionless at the center of the universe, died over four centuries ago. At that time Nicolaus Copernicus (picture below), a Polish canon who dabbled in astrology, claimed that the sun and not the earth was at the center of the universe. His idea is known as heliocentrism. It took a hundred years for heliocentrism to become the dominant opinion, and it did so with a complete lack of evidence in its favor.”

“Yet the victory of heliocentrism has been less than total. Over the years geocentrism has had its spokesmen. Among scientists who adhered to the centrality of the earth were three generations of Cassinis: a family of astronomers who dominated French astronomy from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries. Astronomers, pastors, and educators in the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church maintained the geocentric truths well into the twentieth century. They, with the reformers such as Luther, saw that the embracing of heliocentrism would weaken not only science, but also the authority of the Bible.”

“Perhaps the strongest geocentric verse in the Bible is Joshua 10:13:

‘And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.’”

“About the immobility of the earth the Bible seems clear enough. The nineteenth-century logician and mathematician Augustus de Morgan, whithout whose theorem (de Morgan’s Theorem) there would be no digital computers, put it quite succinctly when he wrote that those who try to get around the Bible’s wording:

‘… make strange reasons. They undertake a priori, to settle Divine intentions. The Holy Spirit did not mean to teach natural philosophy: this they know beforehand; or else they infer it from finding that the earth does move, and the Bible says it does not. Of course, ignorance apart, every word is truth, or the writer did not mean truth. But this puts the whole book on its trial: for we never can find out what the writer meant, unless we otherwise find out what is true. Those who like may, of course, declare for an inspiration over which they are to be viceroys; but common sense will either accept the verbal meaning or deny verbal inspiration.’ [De Morgan, A. 1872. A Budget of Paradoxes, second edition; edited by D. E. Smith, 1915, (Chicago & London: The Open Court Publishing Co.), Vol. 1, p. 36.”

“In other words, either God writes what he means and means what he writes, or else he passes off mere appearances as truths and ends up the liar. The ultimate issue is one of final authority: is the final say God’s or man’s? This is brought home again and again by humanists, such as the twentieth-century philosopher Bertrand Russell and astronomer Ivan King, who point to the church’s abandonment of geocentricity as having “freed” man from the ancient God-centered outlook on life to the modern man-centered outlook (Emphasis added).”

“Despite the testimony of all the equations, and despite the published testimonies of top scientists to the viability of geocentricity as a model of the universe, and despite the inability of experiments to establish its truth or falsity; some will still scoff at geocentricity. How can one ever determine which is the truth? Only by going outside the universe and taking a look around can one ascertain the truth of the matter. Without that ability to “look around outside,” physics cannot resolve the debate. However, since God does know what is beyond the universe, should His word not be taken as the final authority? It is the testimony of God as found in the Bible which constitutes the foundation of modern geocentricity. May it ever be so (Emphasis added).”

Whatyareckon?

 

A WIFE’S WISDOM!

Posted by whatyareckon on July 3, 2012
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How should one interpret the Bible? It has often been put this way; “When plain sense makes good sense seek no other sense lest it result in nonsense.” Now, in Matthew 19:4 Jesus said “And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female.” Then Paul wrote in 1Corinthians 11:8, 9 “For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man. Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” These verses are quoted here to show that man and woman were made for each other. They complement each other.

Why is it then that some that claim to be “Christians” and once held to the fact that homosexuality was sin according to the Bible have now changed their view? My wife has said for a long time that people become soft on certain sins when it is in their own family. She is a pretty wise woman!

At http://arestlessfaith.com.au/blog/  it says a well-known Australian Anglican leader changed his thinking on the matter of homosexuality when he discovered “…that his son was gay. I can’t remember his exact words, but they were something along these lines: ‘This experience forced me to re-think my theology and to re-assess the adequacy of earlier understandings.’” NOTE; the rethinking of homosexuality came about due to this man’s son living that lifestyle.

Does the teaching, interpretation and truth of Scripture depend what my children are into?  Whatyareckon?