To my family and friends who are watching footage of what’s presently happening in Portland Oregon, allow me to give this brief update and give you leave to quit following me on Facebook or on this site if what I am going to share  offends you. I am going to address a topic which has all the potential to stir passionate responses…The so called Separation of Church and State.

First of all… There is nothing peaceful going on in downtown Portland….It is thuggish, brutal and now…murderous. There are lines in the retail stores that sell weapons. The political leadership has clearly made a decision to let this chaos continue.

I recently attended a prayer meeting at the Bible College in Eugene where I served on the faculty for years. Antifa, after rioting in Eugene and Springfield, threatened that they were coming to tear down a Cross that is a long time landmark in the city that had to be moved to the college campus due to demonstrations back in 1997.

The demonstrators then were citing the separation of church and State as their reason for wanting it removed. Now, 23 years later, I found myself in the amphitheater housing the cross and looking at armed security guards on the perimeter of a worship meeting….THERE WAS A SNIPER ATOP ONE OF THE BUILDING ON CAMPUS!

That same week, the mob in Portland added a new tactic to their clear intent to provoke violence….They dumped a case of Bibles on the ground and burned them. Ever on the lookout for photo ops, they recently added a new twist… a Bible covered by an American flag set ablaze by a woke ‘mostly peaceful’ demonstrator mockingly warming her hands by the fire.

I have been using this pandemic isolation to tackle a project…digitizing twenty years of sermon tapes from my ministry. I have been stunned how pertinent the topics and the messages are to the present situation. More to the point, this message from July 4, 2004 will serve to make clear my position about the Christian and citizenship and and America.

I know this will anger some of you. For others it may lead you to think “So that’s why he turned out the way he did” and you will stop following my posts. I understand completely. For some however, I hope you are encouraged and challenged to engage on this subject. Listen:


The great hymn writer Charles Wesley said it best


A charge to keep I have
A God to glorify
A never-dying soul to save
And fit it for the sky
 
To serve the present age
My calling to fulfill
Oh, may it all my powers engage
To do my master’s will
Pastor Jim

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