Category: Warren Throckmorton

Shrewd move Jerry Jr.
Many will scratch their heads. Some will complaint and maybe stage a protest. Some donors will stop giving to Liberty but The Donald will no doubt make that up going forward.
In a CNN poll dropped today, Donald Trump leads all others among evangelicals with 39% favoring him. I think I understand this now.
Trump is rich and famous. These are two values celebrated among modern evangelical pastors. Trump is the perfect candidate for those who equate wealth and fame with God’s favor. Millions of people have been conditioned to admire wealth and fame as measures of success in the church. A big ministry must mean big blessing. Trump seems made for evangelical prime time.
On one hand, I am glad that a majority evangelicals are so far resisting the dominionist calls of Ted “Anointed” Cruz, but on the other, they are moving toward the new values of the church: wealth and fame. Instead of moving toward an ideologically less pure but experienced candidate like John Kasich, the church is distracted by the promises and pretty lights of Trump Towers.
 
 

Some readers will focus on David Barton praying over LDS member Glenn Beck.
Some readers will focus on Beck and Barton’s certainty that Ted Cruz is really the anointed candidate.
Some readers will wonder why Ted Cruz, if he really is the guy, only gave 1% of his income in charitable deductions from 2006-2010.
Some readers will question David Barton’s role in the Cruz campaign while he is the leader of one of Ted Cruz’s Super PAC.
Some readers will question if the Holy Spirit’s job in the world is to be “turned loose” to energize a political campaign.
Some readers will marvel at the pious prayers while at the same time Beck and Barton mislead the public about why Barton’s book The Jefferson Lies met such criticism.
Watch:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOM6JeXKkFw[/youtube]

In November 2015, I wrote about a special deal Gospel for Asia got from the Indian government. GFA essentially violated wetlands regulations by re-routing a stream and filling in wetlands as a part of the construction of the Believers’ Church Medical College. However, in November of last year, the Times of India reported that the government planned to let the violations slide.
But then, on January 22, the Times of India reported that the federal government reversed the decision:

An order issued by principal secretary (revenue) Viswas Mehta on January 14, accessed by TOI, says the earlier order issued on March 17, 2015 on the basis of a cabinet decision – ratifying the land filling and diversion of a natural stream in the area -has been cancelled after the high court intervened in the matter.
The cabinet note of March 11, 2015, also accessed by TOI, said the illegal filling, though violating the Kerala Land Use Act, could be regularized by considering it as a special case.

The allegation is that GFA willfully violated the law by reclaiming land that was protected by Indian law.

Apparently, the Metropolitan will return to the United States for a missions conference in February. K.P. Yohannan is scheduled to speak at the Downline Summit which takes place at Hope Church in Memphis, Feb. 5-6.
Yohannan’s organization hasn’t had the best year since April 2015. Gospel for Asia lost their membership with the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, was denied membership in the Independent Charities of America, was sanctioned to greatest extent possible by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management for violations of federal guidelines, was reported to the Canadian authorities for violation of GFA’s Canadian by-laws, and may be investigated by the U.K. Charity Commission, among other problems.

 
 
 

Over at World Net Daily, David Barton says that

[Ted] Cruz is the candidate who comes closest to Jefferson and what he believes were the third president’s principles on “debt, religious liberty, and the war on Islam.”

Barton has been elevated to “historian and Thomas Jefferson scholar” and uses his WND platform to assert that the Founders are relevant to politics today. Barton says Cruz and Jefferson hold similar policy positions.
It now seems clear why Barton and WND brought out The Jefferson Lies now. This rather transparent attempt to claim Jefferson as a Cruz supporter comes just as Iowans caucus next week.
Jefferson might have a reservation about Cruz that Barton failed to mention. Cruz’s wife has a significant position with the massive investment bank Goldman Sachs.* Jefferson didn’t think much of banks.

And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. (Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816, in Ford, 10:31.)

Jefferson also expressed misgivings about taxing the poor and suggested that employment be provided to those who had no land. I doubt Cruz will be promoting those ideas on the stump.
I call on Cruz to go on record to say that he will act independently of the Constitution when it is in national interest, as Jefferson did by sending the Louisiana Purchase treaty to Congress.
*As an aside, I think Heidi Cruz has a better resume to run for president than her husband. While she probably has similar Christian nation views, she has a better foreign policy and business background.