Rex M Rogers - Discerning What Is Best

Discerning What Is Best
With Dr Rex Rogers

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Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 19 February 2024

Ever wonder why, in the face of evil, pain, and suffering that God does not return now? Why does he seemingly delay the Rapture and Resurrection, and hence his later Second Coming?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #133 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

I recently wrote a blog for the ministry with which I serve, SAT-7 USA, called “Living in the Worst of Times.” The title is borrowed from Charles Dickens’s introduction to his 1859 novel, A Tale of Two Cities, in which he famously wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.”

Dickens tells us about a time of chaos, conflicts, and despair, as well as some happiness and progress, but mostly contrast and futility, two steps forward, three steps back.

If you were to think about our current time you could draw your own conclusion. Is this the best of times, or is it the worst of times?

I confess that several social developments have occurred in the past few years that I never expected, and not only that, which surprised, maybe shocked, even discouraged me.

It does not take rocket-science intellect to note things like US government overreach in response to the pandemic, i.e., the willingness of political leaders and bureaucrats to take unconstitutional actions, and the willingness of much of the public to accept it.

In 2020, following the tragic death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis, a summer of lawlessness broke out in cities across the country. Then came the nonsensical “defund the police” movement.

Maybe this was predictable, but what discouraged me was the “soft on crime” approach of governors, mayors, and district attorneys, because supposedly the looters deserved to steal and destroy because they were poor or minorities or because discrimination exists.

This refusal to enforce the law continues in California, Portland, Chicago, New York, and many other cities, even as police are at times told to stand down.

More recently we’ve witnessed the President of the US intentionally refuse to enforce the law and therefore has allowed millions of illegal migrants to flow across the southern border, unvetted and unknown. Yes, some are indeed actual asylum-seeking families. But many others are not refugees, but like in Europe, fake refugees, mostly younger men of military age seeking handouts – which again amazingly, so-called sanctuary cities are providing, supported by American taxpayers: cell phones, cash, food vouchers, free rooms, free healthcare.

More mind bending is the President recently saying he’s done everything he can do to stem the tide, forgive me, an outright lie that any attorney can demonstrate. It’s willful dereliction of duty and degradation of American society in the interest of perceived political power.

Last example, and this one really did shock me: Even though I spent my early years in higher education, and even though I have followed the philosophic and moral freefall in public universities and the neo-Marxist ideology promoted in those universities, I still was caught off-guard by the widespread antisemitism, pro-Hamas rallies, and blatant hatred of Jews expressed by American university students in the streets and on campuses – and they had the audacity to yell their antisemitic attitudes not just at a people group half a world away but at fellow students, professors, and others who are Americans, but also Jewish. It’s still happening.

One additional amazing thing is how many of these students or others in the street have no idea what they are protesting or why. Some do, of course, but many are clueless, simply following the maddening crowd.

This made me think of two Scripture passages that detail city riots protesting the Apostle Paul’s ministry:

In Acts 19, “the assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there” Acts 19:32.

Then again in Acts 21, “Some in the crowd shouted one thing and some another, and since the commander could not get at the truth because of the uproar, he ordered that Paul be taken into the barracks” Acts 21:34.

Nearly 3,000 years ago, King Solomon summarized this human issue in a principle, saying, “What has been, will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun” Ecc. 1:9.

This kind of mass hysteria has been evident in cities across the globe. Some say they are protesting for human rights, some because the US or Israel are supposedly “colonialist” or “settler” states – and these people, in particular, don’t know their history.

It’s not unlike the “person in the street” interviews you’ve seen wherein young adults cannot name the country the US fought to win its independence, or whether the North or South won the Civil War, or who is the current Vice President, or even that Hamas radicals butchered innocent Israelis of all ages, and perpetrated even worse, graphic and gross crimes against humanity that I’ll spare you from listing here.

Despite the fact that some Hamas terrorists wore GoPro cameras filming their atrocities, video now released to the public, some protesters deny 10/7 ever happened.

These protesters try to stop traffic on major highways, attempt to shut down LAX, or block vehicle tunnels, risking their lives perhaps in some instances, and certainly not engaging in legal peaceful assembly, yet many don’t know why they are there.

Is this mass hysteria as I mentioned? Maybe. Is this the product of indoctrination, i.e., certainly not critical thinking and not liberal learning, but more like the misled Muslim men we see chanting in the streets not only in Tehran but now in Berlin or London or Paris?

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, he witnessed something like this. In Matthew 9, it says, “Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness.

When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” Matt. 9:35-36.

Americans, or if you wish Westerners in general, despite the vast religious, educational, and political blessings of Western civilization, are today harassed and helpless. We’ve created our own “worst of times.”

Our culture is looking for answers everywhere except in the old, over-sized Bible that nearly every American family maintained during the 1800s and much of the 1900s.

Our culture has been on a 60-year bender rejecting or redefining the religious and philosophic roots that made it possible for Western civilization and specifically the United States to flourish in the first place.

“In God We Trust”? No. God is dead, or at least inconsequential until it’s time to hope “the man upstairs” decides we’ve done enough good things to get into heaven.

Sin is medicalized, redefined as disease, or maybe described in media as “He struggled with his demons,” but either way, set aside is any need to own our moral choices, to take responsibility, and then to seek help outside ourselves in the person of God himself. No, we are told to “trust your heart” and “seek your own truth.”

We’re told to blame the environment, our upbringing, our race or ethnicity or our biological sex – these are the source of our problems, not us and not our heart. The solution is psychology and therapist, not theology and pastor, much less the love and accountability of a nuclear family.

In our contempt for truth, we embrace mendacity, not moral right and wrong.

Crime has decreased only because we now define certain formerly illegal acts as acceptable. Police are turned into social workers. As my friend says, “We’re told to follow the science, political science that is.”

It is not a stretch, not an exaggeration, to describe our culture as “harassed and helpless,” and it will remain hopeless if we continue to jettison Judeo-Christian values, the Church, and most importantly the Gospel of Christ.

So, with all that, why doesn’t Jesus return now?

2 Peter gives us the answer:

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:8-9.

God created freedom of religion, freedom of choice. God waits, allowing more helpless and harassed to hear the Word of Truth and come to Christ.

Well, we’ll see you again soon. This podcast is about Discerning What Is Best. If you find this thought-provoking and helpful, follow us on your favorite podcast platform. Download an episode for your friends. For more Christian commentary, check my website, r-e-x-m as in Martin, that’s rexmrogers.com.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

*This podcast blog may be reproduced in whole or in part with a full attribution statement. Contact me or read more commentary on current issues and events at www.rexmrogers.com/, or connect with me at www.linkedin.com/in/rexmrogers or https://twitter.com/RexMRogers.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 05 February 2024

How many times have you entered personal information online in order to purchase an item that does not have anything to do with the information you shared? Are we really safe in the emerging brave new world of digital existence?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #131 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

We now live in a mass surveillance digital world. Likely, there is not a week goes by that you and I are not recorded somehow someway in what we view, read, purchase online, perhaps were we go.Maybe not a day goes by that we are not under a camera when we are out on our daily routine.

When we spend time online, we leave a digital footprint, the collection of all our online actions and data traces. When this is accessed by corporations to ascertain our interests or inclinations, we then can be subject to online advertising, political propaganda, and more. And if we can be targeted for marketing, what’s to stop governments from targeting us for control?

The pandemic was a chlorine shock to the pool, energizing government’s interest in tracking citizens, including discussions over whether to create a new system of digital vaccine “passports.”

Today, a track-and-trace society has begun rapidly developing on at least five levels:

Mass surveillance with CCTV cameras now located in public spaces in virtually every American city, making possible along with computers, a mass surveillance society.
Geo-location technologycapable of tracking where we are if not what we are doing at any given moment.
Biometric technology, including fingerprints, facial recognition, iris recognition and retina scans, and voice recognition, hand or palm geometry, vein recognition, and behavioral biometrics like someone’s walking gait.
Digital identificationbecoming the fundamental means of commerce and communication, methods and tools used to establish and confirm an individual's identity in cyberspace, especially “PII,” Personally Identifiable Information, which refers to any data that can be used to identify a specific individual.
Digital banking and digital currency, including CBDC, which “stands for central bank digital currency, a digital form of legal tender currency that is issued by a country’s central bank. Like other forms ofdigital currency, such as cryptocurrency, a CBDC is only available in electronic form.”

Mass Surveillance

CCTV cameras, display devices, and data networks are, well, “everywhere.”

“Video surveillance systems are used in public and private sectors, such as schools, homes or public spaces for crime prevention purposes.”

“The average city has 11 surveillance cameras per 1,000 people. The most-watched city, Atlanta, has over 124 cameras per 1,000 people…New York City had the highest number of cameras in total: 70,882.” Only cities in China operate with more cameras per capita than Atlanta.

“Crime rates aren’t reduced by having more cameras in place. In fact, the city that is arguably the most watched of all (DC), has seen violent crime skyrocket recently.”

“In the past decade, the capabilities of surveillance cameras have been transformed by fundamental shifts in how digital data is gathered, analyzed, shared and stored…Deep learning and AI are becoming more prevalent, as cameras are able to more accurately gather data and make predictions based on integrated analytical software manufacturers have developed. While the shift to a ‘smart home’ environment is also playing its role, as consumers have easier access than ever to easy-to-install wireless devices and doorbell cameras.”

But of course, the images and data recorded can be accessed, depending upon security systems, by a wide variety of actors for the purpose of crime, not crime prevention.

Geo-Tracking

Geo-tracking is also increasingly more sophisticated and intrusive. Beginning with users turning on the location signal on their phones or their social media apps, combined with GPS technology, it’s possible now to track almost anyone. This is increasingly used in non-military, non-law enforcement scenarios. Have you heard of people tracking Elon Musk or Taylor Swift’s private jets?

Biometric Systems

“We are building near-perfect facial recognition technology and other identifiers, from the human gait to breath to iris. Biometric databases are being set up in such a way that these individual identifiers are centralized, insecure, and opaque. Then there is the capacity for geo-location of identifiers—that is, the tracking of digital “you”—in real time. A constant feed of insecure data from the Internet of Things may well connect you (and your identity) to other identities and nodes on the network without your consent.”

“Ultimately, social credit systems, such as those that are currently being developed in China, will be based on digital ID, thereby enabling or disabling our full and free participation in society.”

Digital Identification

Have you seen the commercial featuring a couple of happy 20-somethings paying for their retail purchase by holding their hand over a palm-reader device?

Amazon One’s palm-scanning payment system was “first introduced in 2020. Amazon’s biometric payment technology works by creating a unique palm print for each customer, which Amazon associates with a credit card the customer inserts in the sign-up kiosk upon initial setup, or with a card the customer has configured online in advance…These palm print images are encrypted and stored in a secure area in the AWS cloud, built for Amazon One, with restricted employee access...”

It began rolling out in Whole Foods stores in the United States since 2021, to pay for her groceries.

“Amazon has argued that palm reading is a more private form of biometrics because you can’t determine someone’s identity just by looking at their palm images. However, the company isn’t just storing palm images — it’s creating a customer database that matches palm images with other information.”

“Amazon said a customer’s palm data is not shared with third parties and is kept safe within Amazon’s Web Services cloud.” But who believes this?

Arguable Benefits of DI:

More security and stronger privacy, banking, health records, travel including digital vaccine passports, insurance, criminal justice, proof of identity for displaced refugees.

Possible Threats of DI:

Dangers to personal and economic privacy and human rights like freedom of speech and expression, geolocation and freedom of movement; facial recognition; residents and businesses are being encouraged to share private security cameras with police but others also have access; public or even home surveillance cameras are increasingly available via websites on the internet; growth of digital authoritarianism, “the use of digital tools to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations” is on the rise globally – this can be foreign governments like China or it can be Big Tech companies like Google, Meta, or others who see ways to use surveillance data to maximize their profits.

Will Digital Identification Data Really Be Safe?

Safety, security, and privacy are touted as key advantages of digital identification. Yet think of the corporations that have experienced catastrophic data breaches in the hundreds of millions of accounts in just the past few years: Equifax, Marriott, Target, Capitol One, SolarWinds, Yahoo, Facebook, J.P. Morgan Chase, Home Depot, and many more. “The Aadhaar program, India’s national digital ID framework—the world’s largest—was recently shown to be compromised.”

If these giant corporations and governments cannot guarantee secure data, why should we believe any organization or government tomorrow can do so?

“Governments around the world have been investing heavily in digital identification systems, often with biometric components. The rapid proliferation of such systems is driven by a new development consensus, packaged and promoted by key global actors like the World Bank, (and globalists like the World Economic Forum) but also by governments, foundations, vendors and consulting firms.”

“We can make another choice. In the design and deployment of Digital ID systems, we must advocate for the principles of data minimization, decentralization, consent, and limited access that reinforce our fundamental rights.”

Mass surveillance and digital identification may not be ipso facto evil or threatening, but they certainly can be. Be aware.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 29 January 2024

Most of us don’t think about aging until, well, we reach a certain age, but whatever your age, have you thought about how to age biblically?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #130 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Hi, I’m from the 20th Century. Who and what I am, for better or worse, was largely defined back then. That might sound funny, but it’s true. I was born in another century, and thus far I’ve spent most of my life in the 20^th Century, which obviously means I am older, I’m aging.

In 1513, Juan Ponce de León searched for the fountain of youth and eternal life. Instead, he found Florida. A lot of jokes come to mind, like maybe Ponce de León found the fountain of you after all, or at least tens of thousands of retirees seem to think so when the head off to Florida each winter.

But hey, time marches on. Youth is irretrievable. Aging is inevitable, inexorable, and irresistible.

Age is an issue in the 2024 US Presidential election – President Joe Biden is age 81, and former president Donald Trump, the likely opponent. will be age 78 at the election in November.

Remember, age was an issue in the 1984 US Presidential election too. Ronald Reagan, who was 73 at the time, was running against Walter Mondale, age 56. Some people felt Reagan was too old. During one of the debates, Reagan nailed it when he was asked about the age issue. He famously said, “I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." The line solicited a huge laugh from the audience, including Democratic opponent Walter Mondale.

But there is one alternative to aging – death, as in “Nothing’s certain but death and taxes.” Scripture says, “Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,” (Hebrews 9:27). Even the Old Testament patriarch Methuselah, who lived to be 969 years old, died.

Death is the “Great leveler.” It comes to great and small, the wicked and the good, all demographics.

One joke common among elderly folks is: “I’m glad to be here. Hey, I’m glad to be anywhere.”

But I’m not here to talk about death. I want to talk about aging, and not just aging, but how to age biblically.

If you are a Christian, as I am, I hope you not only want to “finish well,” as they say, but you want to live into your sunset years in a manner that honors God.

In American culture we sometimes say, “My, she’s aging gracefully.” Mostly what’s being said is that she is aging well physically. In other words, she looks pretty good. Nothing wrong with that, though some people wryly note that aging gracefully is more about gravity than grace.

Much about aging gracefully has to do with DNA and things beyond our control. But there’s also a lot within our control. For example, it’s possible to inflict attitudes and behaviors upon our bodies, minds, and souls that debilitate our physical, mental, and emotional conditions, that not only age us but age us rapidly and distressfully.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Every man over 40 is responsible for his own face,” meaning our choices, our lifestyle, show up in our countenance.

The Bible says this: “A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit” (Proverbs 15:13). What’s on the inside shows up on the outside and etches tracks of its passing.

So here we’re talking not only about aging gracefully – usually the physical – but also aging graciously – which is about the spirit. Aging graciously is how the “real me” interacts with the world.

Some counselors talk about the “More So Syndrome.” This is the idea that what we’re like, that is, how we behave, what kind of personality we have, when we are middle aged or older – including our shortcomings, bad habits, poor attitudes, or sour outlook on life – is likely to be “more so” when we are older and elderly.

So, if I’m a grouchy person at 70, I very well could be an unpleasant, nasty, maybe surly person at 80 or 85 or 90. If I am a kind, compassionate, slow to anger, friendly, and godly person at 70, I am more likely to be more so – kinder and more pleasant – at 80 or 85 or 90.

Who we are inside often heightens or sharpens with age, and it comes out.

Jesus said, “What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them…The things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person” Matt 15:11, 18-20.

Those who study or who work with elderly people say More So Syndrome is a common occurrence.

What’s that mean for us now? Well, this means we need to tune into our attitudes and behaviors. And not we ourselves but we need to submit our hearts and therefore our character and personality to the Lord, for “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Gal. 5:22-23.

But challenging circumstances, what the book of James calls trials and tribulations, always intervene. Life happens. Yet while we experience adversity in life, indeed “to be human is to experience adversity,” still, there is no biblical justification for what are called “Grouchy old women” or “Crotchety old men.” Have you known someone like this, an older person who is just not pleasant to be around? Do you want to me this person who is clearly not aging biblically, or do you want to be a person who honors God and therefore blesses those around them as you grow older?

“Good aging manifests itself a spirit which rises above external circumstances, praying for the grace not simply to endure what must be endured, but for the grace to move through adversity to a deepening of spirit and the will to reach out to others in need.”

As human beings made in the image of God, we are blessed with moral agency, meaning our character and our will are not determined, controlled, or necessarily even limited by our environment or our demography, that is, sex or race or ethnicity. Nor are we the hapless, hopeless victim of fate, destiny, karma, “May the Force be with you,” chance, luck, kismet, or any other conceived impersonal influences.

We are free moral agents, thank God. We are blessed to choose, we are blessed to be used of God, and we can be a blessing to others.

At my age now, in my early 70s, I understand our family verse better than when Sarah and I chose it at the birth of our first child, a “Bicentennial Baby,” in January 1976: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy” Psalm 126:3.

Aging believers know, perhaps better than others what the Psalmist meant when he said, “Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” Psalm 23:6. Who better to proclaim God’s faithfulness than older people?

Aging biblically involves the following:

Trust the sovereignty of God, i.e., facing frailty, disease, decline, death while evidencing faith, joy, grace, wisdom or perspective, peace.
Understand God is not finished with us until he calls us home – God decides, not us, so we don’t quit. “Therefore we do not lose heart.Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.” 2 Cor. 4:16
Live with purpose, intentionality, learning; what does God want me to do now?
Seek to finish well, recognizing that “The glory of a life well-livedis the glory of single days well-lived.”

Aging gracefully is OK, but aging biblically is better, for indeed this means we are aging godly, and if we are doing this, God will bless and work through us till he calls us home.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 22 January 2024

Have you noticed that climate change activists are beginning to sound desperate, hyping their rhetoric with attacks on fuel, food, democracy, and life itself?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #129 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

Back in 1995, Pope John Paul II attracted worldwide attention for calling growing support for abortion and euthanasia a “culture of death.”

“Modern debates on abortion and euthanasia are a symptom and leading edge of something more profound and insidious – an entire view of the world that will lead us to forsake our ideals of human dignity and equality and ‘revert to a state of barbarism.’”

“Many balked at St. Pope John Paul’s metaphor. Too harsh, they said. Too negative. Too closed-minded. Even worse, too religious. The world, they assure us, will be fine left to the immanent-value frameworks of secular humanism. We don’t need a theological perspective to know how to take care of ourselves: We have science. We have experts. We can predict the problems coming and beat them when they arrive. Technology saves. We have the data. Trust us.”

The conservative Pope John Paul II was sounding the alarm that a distinctly Satanic worldview was advancing, promoting not life but death.

Now we’re told by the President of the United States that climate change “is the challenge of our collective lifetimes. The existential threat to human existence as we know it.”

“The problem here is unmitigated scaremongering. A new survey shows that 60% of all people in rich countries now believe it's likely or very likely that unmitigated climate change will lead to the end of mankind."

Some people now say they will not have children because they're convinced that climate change will destroy the world. But Bjorn Lomborg, Director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, points out how counterproductive that would be: "We need your kids to make sure the future is better."

“For saying this, Lomborg has been called ‘the devil.’ The Danish government even targeted him for his views on climate change.”

America’s “climate czar” John Kerry recently tipped his hand, saying, “The real enemy, then, is humanity itself." Kerry is giving us a peak at the anti-family, anti-human culture of death now motivating climate elites.

“Key Club of Rome member, Dennis Meadows, hopes the ‘necessary’ depopulation of the planet, down to one billion—an 87.5% reduction from today’s population—can (get this) ‘occur in a civil way’.” How, one wonders, do we eliminate 7 billion people “in a civil way”?

Meadows channels the old Malthusian idea – “the theory that population growth is potentially exponential…while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline.” Never mind that Malthusianism has long been discredited, climate change activists are now calling for the depopulation of the earth.

Meadows said, "If you want more liberty, and more consumption, you have to have fewer people. And conversely, you can have more people. I mean, we could even have eight or nine billion, probably if we have a very strong dictatorship." Another peak at what climate change proponents really want – power through big government control.

Where once we talked about climate change hyperbole as “climate fear porn,” an ever-ratcheting-up hysteria, now we’re hearing it’s not just the weather we need fear, it is human beings who must be reeducated, reduced, probably eradicated. Sounds like a culture of death to me.

Climate change activists include not only pompous John Kerry and screeching Greta Thunberg, but the likes of Bill Gates, Joe Biden, Canada’s Justin Trudeau, King Charles III, the UN General Secretary, Al Gore, and many other mostly Western, globalist wealthy class.

These people are not just elite; they are elitist, philosopher-kings in their own minds. Meeting annually at the Word Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, they articulate an hysterical anti-humanity message.

“Key member of the (World Economic Forum’s) Board of Trustees' and deputy PM of Canada, Chrystia Freeland, openly declares war on the concept of democracy, in the name of tackling ‘climate change’.

"Our shrinking glaciers and our warming oceans,” she said, “are asking us wordlessly but emphatically, if democratic societies can rise to the existential challenge of climate change."

Climate con man extraordinaire, John Kerry, argues the farming industry must be destroyed in order to achieve Net Zero (eliminating all human produced carbon emissions). “Agriculture contributes about 33% of all the emissions of the world,” Kerry says, “And we can't get to Net Zero—we don't get this job done—unless agriculture is front and center as part of the solution.” Now it’s not just people and democracy that are the problem, but farms and farmers, the food supply itself.

Croatian MEP, Mislav Kolakušić, warned the EU parliament, “The EU is using the ‘man-made global warming’ hoax as a pretext to seize agricultural land from farmers, with the ultimate goal of creating deliberate food shortages. Remember, starving and desperate people are a lot more likely to comply with tyranny, in exchange for enough calories to avoid death, than people with easy access to an abundance of food, even if the source of those calories is insects—or fake, lab-grown ‘meat’.”

Meanwhile, climate change is a hoax. “The ‘climate crisis’ is based on computer models that predict hurricane, tornado, flood, drought, sea level rise and other disasters vastly greater than the world is actually experiencing. The models also ignore five great ice ages and interglacial periods, the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age, the Anasazi and Mayan droughts, and other inconvenient climate truths.”

“Topping it off, China, Russia and India are burning cheap coal to industrialize, lift their people out of poverty, and leave climate-obsessed Western nations in the economic and military dust. Even if the West went totally Net Zero, it wouldn’t reduce atmospheric greenhouse gases even one part per million.”

“The climate catastrophe Cassandras have been wrong for decades. In the 1960s, professor Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb,” predicted widespread starvation for most of humanity. Didn’t happen. In the 1970s, the “experts” were predicting a new “ice age.” Didn’t happen. ‘Global cooling’ became ‘global warming’ and Al Gore, one of its most famous prophets, relied on computer models to predict that arctic ice would be melted by 2013. Didn’t happen.

Rampant hypocrisy gives a glimpse into the dystopic future these megalomaniacs are planning. The seas are supposedly rising, but they own beachfront properties.

You shouldn’t be driving a car, but they fly everywhere -- including into Davos -- on private jets. Your modest family home is a problem, but they own multiple mansions that sit empty most of the time. Politicized science coupled with propaganda is a recipe for disaster. In the hands of those who seek global power in the name of ‘climate change,’ it is a prescription for an actual catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.”

“Our school kids are being terrorized with misinformation. This, in turn, is leading to all sorts of maladies, including a rise in teen depression, suicide, lower productivity and drug addiction. Worst of all, we are seeing the opposite of a population bomb. We are experiencing one of the most severe birth deaths in American history. The birth rate is plummeting and no surprise. Who wants to bring kids into a world that will be uninhabitable in 50 years? Psychologists are attributing these dysfunctions to a new syndrome called ‘eco-anxiety.’ It's a fear that Mother Earth is going to punish us in a brutal way -- and very soon.

The irony of all this is that today's children and teens are inheriting a living standard, a cleaner planet, and a level of goods and services and technologies and medical care that is far superior to anything anyone in history -- even the richest kings and queens -- had access to even 100 years ago.”

“’Human-induced climate change’ is a monumental scam, fabricated as a pretext for unelected globalist bodies (including the United Nations and World Economic Forum) to wield absolute control over every aspect of our lives, under the guise of ‘saving the planet’?” There is no ‘climate emergency’, and never has been.” (@wideawake_media on X, 1/15/24).

So, in sum, climate change activists believe they, not God, can control the weather and the future, they prefer big government and dictatorship over democracy, and they wish to reduce the human population while controlling fuel, farms, and food.

This is all about politics, more government control of our lives, and the loss of individual freedom. It’s not about Global Warming. It’s about Global Government. It’s not about life but a culture of death.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 15 January 2024

Has the self-induced “immigration crisis” on the US southern border caused you concern? Is there no way out of this nightmare?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #128 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

With the invasion taking place on the US southern border, I feel I must circle back and discuss immigration. I referenced immigration in a podcast last year, June 2023, in which I noted that 16.8 million illegal aliens reside in the U.S. The number is now over 18 million.

This is the direct result of President Joe Biden’s actions, literally since his first day in office, Jan 21, 2021, when he signed several proclamations and Executive Orders either rescinding Trump Administration immigration policies, for example, stopping the building of a border wall, or instituting new, wide open policies of his own. “There have been more than (10 million illegal entries since President Biden took office, a number larger than the individual populations of 41 of the 50 states). Each night Americans see video clips of thousands of foreign nationals crossing the border en massewith complete impunity—as if the entire corpus of federal immigration law has been dynamited.”

“The Federation for American Immigration Reform published a comprehensive report last year showing that federal, state, and local expenditures for illegal immigration are approaching $200 billion annually.” Who but our own progeny is going to pay the bill for Mr. Biden’s irresponsibility, and what will happen if they cannot pay the bill?

“Whatever the cause of this nihilism, (scholar Victor Davis Hanson lists) several ways an open border is insidiously destroying the United States”:

Immigration – “Does legal immigration even exist? Are we still requiring those who would enter the U.S. legally to provide required documents, undergo audits, and complete background checks? Is not the current policy de facto punishing those who follow the law by tying them up in bureaucratic red tape for years as we reward unlawful behavior by greenlighting amnesties for lawbreakers?”

Lawless US – “Does the utter lawlessness at the border contribute to the general coarseness and current mockery of the rule of law in general—an epidemic that plagues our cities with homelessness, smash-and-grabs, car-jackings, and random assaults?”

Dependency – “If the first thing a foreign national does is to violate the law by crossing the border without permission, and the second is to reside illegally in the US, and the third is to apply for some sort of food, housing, medical, legal, or educational subsidy, then is that really the type of new resident we desire?”

Hanson also lists a broken relationship with Mexico, danger from drug cartels, the destruction of the idea of citizenship, enormous budget cost implications, ending the idea of deterrence of wrongdoing, an increase in racism.

We really have no clue what this massive number of illegals will mean for our country and culture’s future. We do know what impact it is making right now.

“We do not have sufficient affordable housing for our own citizens. Veterans and the elderly have been forced out of housing to make way for illegal immigrants. Our own homeless population is exploding, many of whom need treatment for addiction and/or mental illness. In Chicago, migrants have been living in the O'Hare airport. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey has asked citizens to take migrants into their homes. Just this week, a New York City high school was closed, and its students were sent home for "remote" learning so that nearly 2,000 migrants could be housed at the school during a winter storm.”

“Illegal immigrants also distort congressional representation…their presence increases congressional representation for states with more of them. That reduces the voting power of citizens in states with lower populations.”

“Open borders facilitate human trafficking, including child sex trafficking.”

“Illegal immigration also burdens our criminal justice system. According to the 2023 Annual Report of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office, more than 170,000 illegal immigrants were arrested in this country last year. Nearly half already had criminal records; on average, four prior charges and convictions.”

Interestingly, many European articles now replace the word “immigrant” with the term “cultural enricher,” usually ironically or sarcastically. It refers to invasion or general violence caused by people of different cultures. The phrase has roots in Germany in WWI and was used by Hitler derogatorily to refer to Jews.

The so-called “cultural enrichers” have been admitted en masse to European countries under the false philosophy of multiculturalism, along with the equally ill-advised ideas captured in the DEI acronym, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. These cultural enrichers in Europe are now acting out violently, making economic and religious demands, daily disturbing public events, and harassing local citizenry.

Please understand. In making these observations or raising questions about immigration, I am notpreaching bigotry or prejudice. Nor am I against legal immigration. Actually, I have always been a proponent and can point to stellar examples of legal immigration that have brought wonderful, decent, hard-working, creative people to the American society.

But what we have today is neither legal nor immigrants per se. What we have is illegal invasion, fake refugees, cultural enrichers bent not on assimilating or becoming Americans but bent on demands, dissension, demonstrations, and destruction of America and its defining ideals.

Too many illegals are coming across our open borders, as they have in Europe, with entitlement mentalities or political disruption on their minds. Week after week, videos of cultural enrichers – not always just young men but also young women – attacking vulnerable people without provocation in the streets, harassing retail store clerks then stealing whatever they want, defying police, blocking traffic, praying in the middle of public thoroughfares even though there are many mosques available in their city, going door to door asking not for a job but for money, desecrating monuments or other public sculpture. The list is endless.

We could fix our problems in the U.S., of course. It is not rocket-science as they say. It’s politicians on the Left cynically opening America’s borders in order to intentionally change the political culture in a way they believe will reinforce their power. And it is politicians on the Right who do not seem to have the pollical will, to do anything about this.

What should be done? Well, that’s easy:

1 – Close the borders to all would-be immigrants until immigration policy and procedures can be reinvigorated for security, order, and fairness.

2 – Enforce legal immigration policy presently in place.

3 – Reform U.S. immigration policy, something this country has done periodically, under Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, for example, so that it reinforces legal due process.

4 – Vet would-be immigrants to identify who they are, who really does require and deserve asylum, who will bring new talents and skills, who wants to assimilate by learning English and contributing to the American culture and economy.

It was T.R. in 1907, who said, “In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag…We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language…And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

There need be no animus in any of this. All these improvements in US legal immigration policy can be enacted with compassion for those who truly need asylum, and with preservation of the opportunity to immigrate for those who wish to assimilate and contribute to the American society.

Without this kind of concerted effort, I truly fear for the future of America.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

Details: Written by Rex M. Rogers; Published: 08 January 2024

If you’ve been listening, you’ve probably sensed things aren’t right on campus, or for that matter in the American street, so what is this game of truth or consequences we seem to be playing?

Hi, I’m Rex Rogers and this is episode #127 of Discerning What Is Best, a podcast applying unchanging biblical principles in a rapidly changing world, and a Christian worldview to current issues and everyday life.

When I was a kid there was a long-running television game show called “Truth or Consequences.” This was in the days of black and white TV. Borrowed from an earlier run on radio, this program was the “first game show to air on broadcast television, airing as a one-time experiment on the first day of New York station WNBT’s commercial program schedule on July 1, 1941…(but) the series did not appear on TV again until 1950,” when the new boob tube caught on commercially.

The program gimmick was that contestants would be ask goofy trivia questions and if they did not answer correctly, which they almost never did, then they had to pay some kind of consequence, usually being the object of a prank. The public loved this show, and it ran for years in the 1950s, then much longer in syndication.

I reference this illustration because it harks to a time, even in jest, when “truth” was considered a real and immutable thing, a time when truth, not “alternative facts,” not “truthiness,” not “true for you but not true for me” existed.

Today, we regularly witness the brazen rejection of scientifically demonstrable, biologically determinate, seen-with-your-own-eyes truth in favor of, well, untruth.

And we think there are no consequences. Consider these examples:

Abortion– For thousands of years into the primordial past, families, clans, tribes, countries, empires, and civilizations acknowledged that the baby in its mother’s womb was indeed a human being, and thus to be protected. Then came our time, when officially since 1973 we’ve said, “Nope, it’s just a fetus.” Somehow, we know more about truth than all who’ve come before us. The moral, social, political confusion since are the consequences.

Immigration – Well, actually we could now call it “invasion” on the southern border, tens of thousands coming into the U.S. without being vetted, with no concern for vaccination status, yet more than 8,000 U.S. military personnel were dismissed for refusing a COVID vaccine, with no idea who these mostly military age males are, and with the glaring example of the non-assimilation problems now being experienced in Europe,yet each week current Administration personnel look into cameras and argue the southern border is secure. And media, if they report on this travesty at all, tell us there’s no consequences.

LGBTQ – The big news in Canada is that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the Parliament building restrooms would now provide free women’s hygiene products in the men’s restrooms. “Menstrual products must be in ‘all toilet rooms, regardless of their marked genders,’ according to Canada’s Employment and Social Development website.” So, just like that, Canadian taxpayers are being required to pay for transgender ideology.

But let’s think about this for a moment. If a woman wants to be a lesbian or a man wants to be gay, they can take this immoral step without fundamentally wrecking the social order. But a so-called transgender person, a man who thinks he is and must act like a woman, a woman who “identifies” as a man, in most cases demand to be treated according to their sexual proclivities. Consequently, these spiritually troubled individuals drive a deep rift into what has been since the Garden of Eden a biologically binary world, “male and female created he them.” The consequence of transgenderism, and Satan the Father of lies knows it, is division, among families, friends, churches, and governments.

Plagiarism– Since three ivy league university presidents testified before Congress Dec 5, 2023, regarding their university’s woeful campus inaction with respect to open antisemitism, fallout from their atrocious, arrogant, aloof responses has continued.

The three privileged academy presidents cited free speech and so-called “context” as defenses of their university’s lack of response, apparently attempting to make the public believe, based upon principle, that they were powerless to intervene as student groups sometimes harassed and threatened local Jewish students or personnel, and then shouted for the genocide of Jewish people in Israel.

But Hey, we have a problem, Houston. “Such excuses were blatantly amoral and untrue. In truth, ivy-league campuses routinely sanction, punish, or remove staff, faculty, or students deemed culpable for speech or behavior deemed hurtful to protected minorities.”

Anyone who follows higher education knows that public universities, especially the Ivies, have all developed strict codes limiting free speech, requiring use of trans pronouns, pushing racist ideas in the name of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and otherwise forcing out people, including faculty, who hold non-progressive or conservative views, which are considered unacceptable ideology.

Two of these presidents have now resigned, the first largely due to her clueless comments and her university’s inaction to protect Jewish students, and the pushback pressure this triggered among wealthy alumni, and the second, Claudine Gay of Harvard University, resigning only in small part due to pressure generated regarding her similarly callous testimony.

It took a month of obfuscating, distraction, and defense by the university Board and a group of 700+ faculty members who rallied around President Gay, before she finally resigned. This was after Harvard claimed to have investigated not Gay’s congressional testimony, not the university’s non-existent policies regarding antisemitism, but charges that had emerged alleging Gay plagiarized material used in her published scholarly work.

Plagiarism, it should be noted, is or has been one of the mortal sins of academia. Yet at Harvard, rather than dismissing Gay outright, powers that be looked for ways to dodge this bullet.

Harvard attempted to protect President Gay by inventing a wheezily phrase, “duplicative language,” which in everyday colloquialism means cheating, copying someone else’s content. There have now been more than 50 examples of plagiarism lodged against Gay—meaning not once but repetitively, including in her dissertation, she lifted entire paragraphs, copying and pasting another’s work, and then wrote and passed them off as her own, yet Harvard “cleared her of actionable plagiarism.”

“Harvard and its supporters further embarrassed themselves by alleging that if the victims of Gay's plagiarism didn't object, then why did her expropriation matter that much?”

Meanwhile, Dr. Carol M. Swain, and award-winning Black scholar has sent a letter to the Harvard Corporation asking them what remedies they intend to apply in recognition of the fact Gay plagiarized passages of Swain’s work for use in Gay’s 1997 dissertation.

“In the respective press releases from both Gay and the Harvard Corporation, racial animus was cited as a reason for her removal. Gay did not even refer to her failure to stop antisemitism on her campus or her own record of blatant plagiarism.”

In the past month, we’ve heard from other left-leaning pundits that plagiarism is not really a problem, just another example of white supremacy, that Gay’s plagiarism was just “technical attribution issues” or “sloppiness,” so now in an effort to protect their politics, scholars, journalists, university administrators and board members are willing to redefine plagiarism, which is to say, falsehood has no consequences.

This is little more than Orwellian doublethink, or what later was called doublespeak, the “use of euphemistic or ambiguous language in order to disguise what one is actually saying.” It’s like being pro-abortion is just prochoice, or choosing to be sexually immoral is choosing to be gay.

Cal Thomas noted that “(Claudine Gay) and many other university presidents are only a symptom of what's wrong with our system of education, from bottom to top.”

“American public schools have followed the path of these universities, incorporating subjects that have little to do with a proper education, and in too many instances indoctrinating young people with a secular progressive worldview.”

Ultimately, deeper, restorative changes must be made in education, as well as government and commercial America.

This involves rediscovering and reaffirming the reality of objective truth, the sacred value of morality and ethics, and the desire to do right and do well because we know God who is truth. The future of Western civilization is at stake.

And remember, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm.

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