The Captain is always pleased to receive free stuff in the
mail.
Having occasionally ordered engraved ink pens for the
church, I get free sample pens in the mail almost weekly.
And some of them are downright nice!
And calendars.
With photos of doe-eyed puppies and kitties!
Today I received a free magazine.
No, I did not subscribe to it.
The Captain hasn’t subscribed to a magazine of any ilk for
at least 20 years!
Having received free magazines from the American Family
Association and other right-wing Christian organizations since my college days,
I immediately recognized it for what it was.
Although I must say they are getting better at disguising
their agenda.
A cover story about the Democratic Primary? Teasers about
the crisis in Hong Kong? Refugees at the Rio Grande?
And even if you didn’t catch on there, all you had to do was
open to the inside cover.
Yes, it was an ad.
For a video series about how to overcome your addiction to
porn.
The ad text leads off with this intriguing – yet confusing –
explanation:
"I had spent 8 years traveling the world filming Ark Hunter, a documentary on my search for Noah’s Ark, when I decided to put it on the shelf and shift my attention to porn. Yes, porn."
'No, really honey, I’m just reading it for my cinematic
small group study to help men find freedom from pornography.'
Mm-hmmm…
That seems like a pretty dramatic change of direction… Maybe
he gave up the search for Noah’s Ark because he realized it doesn’t exist?
But the Captain’s post is not about Noah’s Ark, and is
seldom about porn. It’s about a free magazine I received today.
The publisher was only identified as World Group News, an
organization designed to provide “Biblically objective journalism that informs,
educates, and inspires.”
And we know this is true because the CEO says so in his
opening column, as he talks about less-objective journalists (like NPR) who
only report what they WANT to be real.
"I think this happens with even serious news organizations, because they don’t rely primarily on the Bible to tell them what is real."
Perhaps we should go back to the Noah’s Ark thingy...
Fear not, mateys, the magazine is heavy laden with ads from
Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter tax boondoggle park in Williamstown, KY.
One ad promoted a retreat called “Answers for Women”,
featuring Kay Arthur (among others).
Captain’s Note: As a teen, your Captain once had a weekend
encounter with Kay Arthur and her cult. Never again.
Captain's Note 2: Oddly, I don’t see anything in the ad advising women they
should ask their husbands for permission to attend.
Another advertised retreat took on the ominous challenge of
racism: “One Race, One Blood: Biblical and Scientific Answers”.
The mind reels with possibilities!
The magazine did tackle the sticky issue of slavery in
America and the racism that followed. It did so by taking to task an article in
the New York Times Magazine about the 400th anniversary of the first
slave ship arriving in Jamestown colony. NYTM claims that 1619 was the tipping
point in America, to which all of America’s “sins” could be traced – from slavery
to capitalism to sugar in the American diet.
But the writer of the WORLD article worried that the NYTM would
“rewrite” history. The writer claimed our “original sin” was really “exploitation”
not racism, and exploitation “is not essentially racist… Racism is an
effect, not a cause.”
So the writer concluded:
"What to do?
Proposed solutions are mostly about money. But the problem is spiritual not
material, and so is the solution: forgiveness.
I"s forgiveness
fair? No, but Someone who was owed a much greater debt showed us that
forgiveness is the only way out of the bondage of sin. ‘For freedom Christ has
set us free.’ To forgive centuries of wrong, traces of which persist to this
day, means to lay it down and walk away. The history still stings, but the
farther you walk the less you will feel it, especially when walking toward the
light."
Believe me, mates, it was harder for me to type that than it
was for you to read it!
Seriously! Four hundred years ago, White Americans stole
Africans (and other people of color) from their homelands and brought them here
to live under brutal conditions as we reaped the benefits of their labor. And
once we “realized” it was wrong and set the slaves free, we continued to abuse
and mistreat them, casting them as second-class citizens. And even when we “realized”
that was wrong, we still haven’t come around to fully embracing our
African-American brothers and sisters.
And yet. And yet… they are supposed to forgive us.
Yep. Just forgive and forget.
Just walk away.
The abuse we delivered to you will sting
less the farther away you go...
And here is the author’s final sermonizing:
"What do we want –
fellowship, or alienation? Peace, or warfare? Our Father desires peace and
fellowship with us enough to pay dearly for it. Guilt must be borne, and the one
to bear it was His own son. He considered the gain worth the price. God
willing, may my brothers and sisters, so long out of Africa, make that reckoning.
I can never compensate them, but Christ can."
Yes, it’s their fault. The very descendants of those we
captured and abused – and still abuse. It’s their fault there is no peace. It’s
their fault there is no fellowship.
Back into chains you go then.
Until Jesus something something…
Moving along…
The magazine also contained a brief death announcement for
David H. Koch, the billionaire industrialist who, with his brother Charles, “donated
to many conservative or libertarian politicians and organizations such as the
Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute.”
Obviously a hero.
And there was a brief movie
review, which reminded me of the good ol’ AFA days.
There were a couple articles supporting
Trumpf’s idea of buying Greenland.
I shit you not!
And there was an article about how
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) got it wrong when
they announced that this past July was the hottest ever recorded.
Yes, Roy Spencer, a meteorologist
with a Ph.D. from University of Wisconsin and who is now a research scientist
at University of Alabama-Huntsville, says, “NOAA’s analysis is wrong,
because it’s based on a limited and ‘error-prone’ collection of mostly
ground-level thermometers.”
Spencer’s own research / “critical
thinking”, using data from satellites, shows an increase in temperature of only
2/3 of a degree, instead of 1.71 degrees that NOAA reported.
This article ended with this note:
"The
Bible tells us that God created climates and created humans to be His
designated gardeners. The Bible does not take a position on the current debate.
WORLD will try to report both sides of this story."
The founder of World News Group got his say in a column on page 6, in
which he took on the controversial question of who to vote for in 2020.
Remember: “Biblically objective journalism that informs,
educates, and inspires.”
"I’ll admit as well
that I’ve been a polling booth partisan to the extent that only twice in those
15 elections did I wander across the line and vote for the Democrat candidate…
In recent years, though, the Democrats have made my choice easier, not harder.
When all 26 of the original registered Democratic candidates this time around
warmheartedly maintain their support for abortion on demand, there’s not much
sorting or ranking for me to do."
Was anyone surprised?
He hailed President Trumpf’s “accomplishments”:
"For many
conservative evangelicals, there’s been enough good stuff to accumulate some
pretty long lists of Trump’s positive accomplishments. Such achievements –
usually focusing on personnel appointments (especially judges), on religious
liberty, and on undoing years of silly and costly federal regulations – WORLD has
duly reported here."
Captain's Note: Just to be "fair and balanced", here is a rebuttal from Fox News on Twitter:
And the Founder justified his support for Trumpf with this: “The
great God who rules sovereignly from His heavenly throne has always worked with
flawed leaders.”
He certainly has one here...
Since this magazine was sent to me free of charge, I can
only assume I will be receiving more issues at regular intervals.
Your Captain can hardly wait for the announced January
issue, “our annual Roe v. Wade issue”.
