And the OSCAR goes to… That is the line we heard over and over again Sunday night March 5th at the Academy Awards. This year there is a Best Picture Oscar nomination for Broke Back Mountain! And.. Broke Back Mountain is NOT the story of an overweight cowboy injuring his horse Beauty while riding her across the switchbacks of Hump Back Mountain.
The Oscar is Hollywood’s honor of movie excellence which you may be struggling with the same thought I have.. Is HOLLYWOOD EXCELLENCE an oxymoron.. like skinny Baptist preacher? Further evidence is that the Oscar winning song is.. It’s hard out here for a Pimp, and then with the previously mentioned Broke Back Mountain I must exclaim like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz … “Hey Toto.. we’re not in Kansas anymore.. we are in Hollywood.“ Add to this the winner for best supporting actor George Clooney in his acceptance speech shares “I am proud that Hollywood is out of touch with mainstream .” Next, let’s step back one year, the movie the Passion of the Christ was not even nominated for best picture. So let me get this straight… Broke Back Mountain .. the story of unnatural (gay) cowboy lust is embraced by Hollywood, while The Passion of the Christ.. sharing the true story of Jesus amazing love and sacrifice, is shunned by Hollywood because it is too controversial. I guess then George.. I feel sorry that you would choose to be a part of the Godless self-affirmation society we now call Hollywood. I don’t even intend to be mean.. I truly am sorry.
Does me sharing these opinions make me a right winged Christian homophobe wanting to start round two of the Crusades? No, but prayer and perspective needs to be the order of the day. The Oscars are just another sign of an which is increasingly Godless. I do love and the freedoms of my life here, BUT I am concerned our society is so tolerant of WRONG (aka sin) and intolerant to God’s truth. Separation of church and state in America seems to be distorted from protecting the church from the state.. to telling the church SHUT UP. The Ten Commandments, and phrases like In God we Trust are legal battles in a land founded on freedom of religion. We were founded as a Christian nation with the goal of tolerance of our differences, BUT now the media and Hollywood mocks these founding values, twisting them into a place where we are expected to apologize for being Christians, or at least SHUT UP about what we believe.
Honoring God at the Oscars is trivial in a nation that sugar coats the act of abortion with the ‘nice’ term CHOICE. We have 3 major TV networks not concerned about truth, but instead spreading their vindictive distorted story telling of the news to promote their Godless biases and agendas. Then we have the ALMIGHTY INTERNET.. nuff said about the moral diseases of porn, gambling, and hatred that are spewed out as internet free speech. Let’s not confuse tolerance of people with tolerance of sin.
So let me conclude my opinion piece on the Oscars. The Oscars are IMO just an indicator of a society that celebrates Sodom and Gomorrah perversion of excellence. The answer is simple. There is ONE GOD ONLY. It is not ok to believe in just any god though we all the right to. It is like sincerely believing 1+1=anything but 2. The same truth hold true regarding faith.. sincerely believing in any god rather than the God of our bibles is also wrong. THIS IS ALSO SIMPLE MATH. It matters what we believe. There is one God, and his truths as taught in the Bible are timeless. THIS IS THE ONLY BENCHMARK THAT MATTERS. May God find each of us respectful and honoring of his TIMELESS TRUTHS and uncompromising in the face of Hollywood and secular media that scoffs at us, and at the one true God.
"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to man. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book." --Abraham Lincoln
"For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw his present help from us, we shall be made a story and a byword throughout the world." --John Winthrop, Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 1630
"America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness, which are derived from the revelations of Holy Scriptures. Part of the destiny of Americans lies in their daily perusal of this great book of revelations. That if they would see America free and pure they will make their own spirits free and pure by this baptism of the Holy Spirit." --Woodrow Wilson
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here." --Patrick Henry, original member of the Continental Congress
It's a bittersweet day in the ancient Near East thousands of years ago: The thrill of being home again after years of exile is tempered by the humiliation of still being vassals of Persia. A tattered band of Hebrews gathers for several days of prayer, worship, and teaching.
Nehemiah leads the former exiles in a time of national confession and repentance. Then they pledge themselves in a binding agreement to live for God and obey His commandments. Nehemiah draws up a new governing charter for Israel, drafted in accordance with God's laws.
It would be a pattern for generations to come. Thousands of years later, in 1620, the Pilgrims draft yet another governing charter-the Mayflower Compact. They open their Bibles and read the account of Nehemiah. In imitation of the covenant pattern described there, they draw up their own set of mutual obligations.
The Mayflower Pilgrims saw themselves as the New Israelites building a New Jerusalem in the American wilderness. So the Old Testament pattern of government by charter seemed only fitting.
The tradition started by Nehemiah continued throughout the settlement of the New World. Every Puritan colony drew up its own constitutional charter following the pattern of the Mayflower Compact.
It began in 1639, when the great Puritan evangelist Thomas Hooker directed the drafting of Connecticut's constitution. The Reverend Hooker required that each article in the constitution be justified by references to Scripture.
This document became the blueprint for the constitution of every other colony in the New World. When it was time to construct a national constitution, the drafters imitated the pattern already set in the colonies.
So we can trace a straight line from Nehemiah, dedicating himself and the people to God in ancient Israel, to the founding of our own nation and form of government.
It's good to remind ourselves that the constitutional freedoms we enjoy did not come out of nowhere. They did not come from the ancient Greeks, who contributed in many other ways to our Western heritage. Nor did they derive from secular philosophies, though these, too, have contributed to our heritage.
No, America's most fundamental ideas about law and freedom stem from the biblical idea of a covenant, an agreement freely entered into between God and His people, outlining their mutual duties and privileges.
The great statesman Daniel Webster, on the 200th anniversary of the Pilgrims' landing, noted that the American Founders sought to base all our institutions, civil and political, on the truths of the Christian religion.
History textbooks often ignore the biblical roots of the American system of government. Under the banner of so-called "separation of church and state," our school books are silent about the religious influences that shaped our nation's history-to the point where many Christians do not even realize the enormous impact our faith has had on the American heritage.
Let us commit ourselves to educating ourselves and our children on the impact the Christian faith has had on America's constitutional form of government. And then let's recommit ourselves to the practice of confession and prayer for our nation. For there's truly no greater hope in times like these.