Give us back our Sunday.

Baylor Lariat  March 11, 2021

As a Baptist university, our education is founded on biblical principles, one of which being the concept of the Sabbath on Sunday. One of the very first lessons we glean from the Bible is that God needed one day of uninterrupted rest to recover from the fatigue of creating the universe. Baylor students may not be designing creation throughout their week, but that doesn’t mean we need Sunday as a day of rest and rejuvenation any less.

Genesis 2:3 says “So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.”

Online learning has been a blessing and a curse, and this has never been more evident than in the last year. Although online learning comes with the convenience of doing classes from the comfort of your couch, it also comes with unprecedented 24-hour access between professors and students. This access has come with the invasive idea that it is okay to interrupt a key time in the week with additional work.

While many of our professors remember the times when assignment deadlines were 5 p.m. during weekdays, online learning has allowed present students to work up to the all too familiar 11:59 p.m. deadline (guilty). Not only are these deadlines getting pushed later into the day, but they are also getting pushed farther into the week — into the coveted weekends.

If there’s one thing many of us have learned this year, it’s that there is a certain level of exhaustion that comes with staring at a computer screen for hours on end (the dreaded Zoom fatigue), and for most of us, weekends are a time to unplug, get outside and enjoy the activities that allow us to destress. There might be the occasional unavoidable Saturday quiz or exam, but the one day that should be an assignment, quiz, essay and exam-free day is Sunday.

In a semester with no large breaks and very few intended university-wide holidays in sight, students, faculty, staff and administration need to treat the precious time we have on Sunday with care and not impose work on others so needlessly, especially when the deadline could have waited another 12 hours. The Sabbath is not intended as an obstacle for professors but a necessary gift from God in recognition that our energies and spirits are exhaustive. As such, stop taking away our gift, stop assigning work to be done on the Sabbath and give us back our Sunday.

Let’s keep Sunday sacred

Newsday 27 February 2021

SUNDAY IS the soul of the nation. It is more than just a fanatical religious preoccupation. There is a reason why the day was woven into the fabric of our society. We have to save Sunday.

Historically, the practice of reserving a day for rest was the best thing for a fledging nation. It was biblical in intent and economical in its effect. It offered intangible rewards such as resting from the labours of life and connecting with the divine.

Most of that has changed, somewhat. Like the ebbing tide that erodes our shoreline, the will and ways of men have shaped this part of our existence and changed our perspective on the day. But there are grave consequences for the nation that does not seek their God and prefers to make Sunday like every other day.

It is so sad what has happened to Sunday, once a day of worship. Our fathers failed to instil in us the respect for the divine and the restful time that the day offers. For many it’s only time to play and dingolay, or even to make some more money. While a few faithful find respite in the solemn assembly of prayer, their hands are raised in praise and sometimes in protest at what our Sunday has become.

We have failed as a people to extol the virtues of the day. Although it’s justifiable that we should engage our time and energy towards acquiring wealth, the essence of our lives cannot be trifled away by sacrificing the only day we have for rest. Sunday must be set aside for the purpose of praise and thanksgiving and relaxation.

We must remember the fate of the great city of Rome and the debauchery, the wantonness, the festivities and flagrant disorders of the day. The same demise is certain for our nation if we reject the formula for success that is found in the wisdom of a day of rest.

Ministers begin discipleship Bible studies to lawmakers in the states of Washington, Maine, and Delaware.

 Capmin  OCTOBER 23, 2020

After successfully completing required Capitol Ministries training, newly accepted ministry leaders are eager to begin discipleship Bible studies to lawmakers in the states of Washington, Maine, and Delaware.

The Capitol Ministries Training Conference, which was held in Southern California this month, was intense and delivered more than was expected, said Morris Webster, a retired businessman and newly named CapMin ministry leader to Delaware.

“The training was incredibly impressive, not only from a nuts and bolts training standpoint which was just outstanding, but the most important take away was that Jesus Christ is at the center of everything,” Webster said. “These people are serious about knowing God and sharing Him with the political people who greatly influence our lives.”

Webster will lead weekly Bible studies to legislators in Delaware’s capitol, Legislative Hall in Dover. He will also serve as CapMin’s Delaware director of Local Government Ministries (LGM) which plants Bible studies to city and county elected and appointed public servants.

Ohio Mayor Surrenders City to Christ

Christian Headlines August 27, 2020

Last weekend, Christians from multiple churches alongside elected officials in Ashland, Ohio partook in an act of corporate repentance and prayer before God in calling for a national and global revival.

Hundreds of people from the community gathered at the special event held on Saturday at Ashland’s Freer Field, a 78-acre park near the city, Frontlines Ohio reports.

The gathering is considered to be the first-ever “Sacred Assembly” in the area, as it featured a time of worship, prayer, and remarks from church leaders and several officials.

“There is a sense that GOD is doing many great things. GOD is re-writing the history of Ashland. I believe with all my heart there will be a great harvest by what has been prayed for here tonight. We are beginning to see the activity and orchestration of GOD,” said Pastor David McNeely of New Life Community Church.

State Rep. Darrell Kick, an assembly speaker, acknowledged the spiritual uniqueness of Ashland as his represented district. He also noted how a Bible study is held by several state lawmakers prior to casting their vote at the Statehouse. 

Time to Start Invoking the Ten Commandments in Political Debate

CNS September 14, 2020

God gave Moses the Ten Commandments He engraved on two stone tablets, setting forth the basic principles governing the lives of the Israelites. We cannot repent of our sins unless we know when and how we violate God’s law. We cannot begin to transform the culture without the moral clarity of the Commandments.

Good Christians know the Ten Commandments by heart: There is one God, do not abuse His name, go to church on Sunday, obey your parents, and don’t murder, commit adultery, steal, lie, lust, or covet. It is quite surprising how many of us cannot identify the Commandments with precision. So our views on morality quickly become “private opinions,” swept up in what Pope Benedict XVI calls “the dictatorship of relativism.”

Children, at a very early age, have a budding sense of right and wrong. As they prepare for First Confession, they know that disobedience, violence, evil thoughts, lying, and stealing are wrong even before they learn the Ten Commandments. Young criminals – usually, but not always, from seriously dysfunctional families -- still run away from the police. God inscribed the Ten Commandments on our hearts before He inscribed them on those two tablets. So why do catechists bother to teach anyone the Ten Commandments? As one precocious child responded, “to remind us.” Bingo.

The “Positive” Jesus In The Scandinavian Church

Breitbart 18 Sep 2020

 The Scandinavian church, which is notionally Evangelical Lutheran, earned a substantial backlash for the stunt, with social media users claiming to be former congregants citing such “woke” virtue-signalling as their reason for leaving its dwindling flock.

But Petur Georg Markan, the Church’s media representative defended the advert, saying that it supports diversity and suggesting that having Jesus depicted in different ways is positive, according to MailOnline.

“In this [advert], we see a Jesus who has breasts and a beard. We’re trying to embrace society as it is. We have all sorts of people and we need to train ourselves to talk about Jesus as being ‘all sorts’ in this context,” he insisted.

“Especially because it’s really important that each and every person see themselves in Jesus and that we don’t stagnate too much. That’s the essential message. So this is okay. It’s okay that Jesus has a beard and breasts,” he added.

The Letter by J. S. Washburn

"The doctrine of the Trinity is a cruel heathen monstrosity, removing Jesus from his true position of Divine Savior and Mediator. It is true we can not measure or define divinity. It is beyond our finite understanding, yet on this subject of the personality of God the Bible is very simple and plain. The Father, the Ancient of Days, is from eternity. Jesus was begotten of the Father. Jesus speaking through the Psalmist says: "The Lord (Jehovah) has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee." - Psalm 2:7. Again in Proverbs (where Jesus is spoken of under the title of wisdom, See 1 Cor. 1:24), we read: "The Lord (Jehovah) possessed me in the beginning of his way". - v. 22 

"Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth." - v. 24 

The Son says he was brought forth, begotten, born of His Father (Jehovah). … 

Satan has taken some heathen conception of a three-headed monstrosity, and with deliberate intention to cast contempt upon divinity, has woven it into Romanism as our glorious God, an impossible, absurd invention. This monstrous doctrine transplanted from heathenism into the Roman Papal Church is seeking to intrude its evil presence into the teachings of the Third Angel's Message. … And the fact that Christ is not the mediator in the Roman Church demonstrates that the Trinity destroys the truth that Christ is the one, the only mediator. The so-called Christian Church, the Papacy, that originated the doctrine of the Trinity, does not recognize him as the only mediator but substitutes a multitude of ghosts of dead men and women as mediators. If you hold the Trinity doctrine, in reality, Christ is no longer your mediator. … 

Seventh-day Adventists claim to take the word of God as supreme authority and to have "come out of Babylon", to have renounced forever the vain traditions of Rome. If we should go back to the immortality of the soul, purgatory, eternal torment and the Sunday Sabbath, would that be anything less than apostasy? If, however, we leap over all these minor, secondary doctrines and accept and teach the very central root, doctrine of Romanism, the Trinity, and teach that the son of God did not die, even though our words seem to be spiritual, is this anything else or anything less than apostasy, and the very Omega of apostasy?… 

However kindly or beautiful or apparently profound his sermons or articles may be, when a man has arrived at the place where he teaches the heathen Catholic doctrine of the Trinity, and denies that the Son of God died for us, is he a true Seventh-day Adventist? Is he even a true preacher of the Gospel? And when many regard him as a great teacher and accept his unscriptural theories, absolutely contrary to the Spirit of Prophecy, it is time that the watchmen should sound a note of warning. … [Portions of a letter written by J. S. Washburn in 1939. This letter was liked by a conference president so much that he distributed it to 32 of his ministers.]