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"Helping Louisiana Baptists Impact the World For Christ"

Starnes: We must defy Obama’s transgender decree — no matter the cost

By Todd Starnes, FoxNews Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us about a time such as this. "Not to speak is to speak, he once said. Not to act is to act." The Obama administration declared on May 9th that forcing people to use bathroom facilities based on their God-given plumbing was state-sponsored discrimination. Four days later they dropped an even bigger cultural bombshell. The president issued a directive requiring every public school in the nation to accommodate transgender students – under Title IX guidelines. Boys who identify as girls and vice versa must be allowed to use the bathrooms and locker rooms and shower stalls of their choosing. They must also be allowed to play on the sports teams of their choosing. School districts that dare defy the administration’s directives could face lawsuits and lose millions of dollars in federal funding. Resistance, in other words, is futile. “There is no room in our schools for discrimination of any kind, including discrimination against transgender students on the basis of their sex,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said. I warned you in my book, “God Less America” that the fight over transgenderism would be the next battleground. And here we are – a nation where boys who identify as … [Read more...]

EDITORIAL: State government needs to go on a spending diet

By John Kennedy, State Treasurer I have a radical suggestion for you.  Let's pretend that we have a time-traveling DeLorean parked at the State Capitol and go back a few years. Specifically, let's go back to 2015.  Liquid water was found on Mars.  The Brits got a new royal baby.   And, in fiscal year 2015, the state general fund was $8.6 billion. The state general fund is basically the state’s main checking account.  It’s how income is deposited and the bills are paid.  For the most part, the state general fund doesn’t change a lot from year to year unless we’ve had a hurricane or a similar disaster that results in people rebuilding their homes and replacing their cars.  Post-storm years puff up the general fund, but they’re blips. The state general fund for next fiscal year – the state’s budget year runs from July 1 to June 30 – started at $8.2 billion.  Then legislators, at the governor’s behest, raised taxes $1.3 billion.  Everything from that cold beer you drink after mowing the grass to the Girl Scout cookies you buy from the neighbor’s kid is going up in price. But the governor’s not done.  He wants the general fund to stand at $10.2 billion, requiring an additional $750 million in tax increases or maybe it’s an … [Read more...]

Poultry vs. Pinhead: New York City’s mayor says boycott Chick-fil-A

By Todd Starnes, FoxNews NEW YORK CITY (Christian Examiner) -- Mayor Bill de Blasio and members of the New York City Council are calling for a city-wide boycott of Chick-fil-A – urging citizens to refrain from eating plump juicy chicken breasts tucked between hot buttered buns. “I’m certainly not going to patronize them and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them,” the mayor told DNAInfo.com. Councilman Daniel Dromm was even more blunt – accusing the Southern restaurant chain of spreading a “message of hate.” Chick-fil-A opened its first New York City restaurant in 2015 – followed by a second location in April. The mayor’s remarks came after it was announced a third restaurant would be opening in Queens – which happens to be the district represented by Councilman Dromm. So why does the mayor and the city council have a problem with Chick-fil-A – the unofficial chicken of Jesus? Well, Chick-fil-A is owned by a devoutly Christian family. Back in 2012 company president Dan Cathy ruffled feathers by telling a reporter that he believed marriage is between a man and a woman. And Sweet Lord Almighty, but the militant LGBT activists and leftwing lawmakers have been squawking ever since. “What the ownership of … [Read more...]

Ethel Waters: The Sparrow that soared

By Ron F Hale Ethel Waters came into this world unwanted and unloved. Of her early childhood, Ethel said, “No one raised me; I just ran wild.  I never was a child.  I never was cuddled, or liked, or understood by my family.” Her young mother had been raped at knife point by a family acquaintance. At the age of 13, Louise Anderson gave birth to baby Ethel on October 31, 1900 in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her heartrending beginning (on Halloween day) only got worse. Ethel’s biological father, John Waters, has been described as a 23-year-old middle-class mixed-race pianist. Wanting to be the one to steal her virginity, Waters coldly planned the rape of young Louise. Ethel was given the “Waters” name and few of his family could deny their remarkable resemblance. Ethel survived an unbelievable childhood filled with extreme poverty, daily hunger, thieving, disdain, and being shuffled between aunts, uncles, grandmother, and neighbors. She married a man when she was only 12 years old but soon fled the abusive relationship. At 13, Ethel found a job in Philadelphia working as a chambermaid earning less than $5 a week. My generation knew Ethel Waters as the endearing gray-haired gospel singer on stage with Billy Graham, Cliff Barrows, and … [Read more...]

The Centurion’s ministry: Biblical guidance for law enforcement

By Joe C. Guthrie Law enforcement officers have been referred to as the Thin Blue Line, as they are our primary line of defense against anarchy and lawlessness. As a result of current apostate philosophies, law enforcement seems to be under attack by all segments of society. The three branches of government are outlined in Old Testament scripture. For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; he will save us. Isaiah 33:22 Law enforcement is the functional arm of the executive branch of government. Scripture plainly outlines the purpose and responsibilities of our law enforcement agencies. Romans 13 provides for the God mandated need for Godly oriented civil governments and purpose of law enforcement officers. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinances of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilth thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that … [Read more...]

When heaven touched Earth: except Louisiana

By Randy Willis I got the idea for my headline from Dr. Roy Fish's wonderful book When Heaven Touched Earth: The Awakening of 1858 and Its Effects on Baptists.  Dr. Fish and I were both members of the Board of Trustees of the Joseph Willis Institute for Great Awakening Studies.  He was in declining health and was never able to attend a meeting. I only met him once and that was while he was having breakfast in the same hotel I was staying.  Dr. Rod Masteller introduced us.  Not long before his death I contacted him concerning how I could obtain a copy of his book. A few years ago someone asked me,  "Why did the 1858 revival skip Louisiana?" This was my answer.... In 1857, sixty years after my 4th great-grandfather Joseph Willis first preached Jesus, in the Louisiana Territory, and just three years after his death, materialism pervaded America.  The fact that the young were growing up without God, caused many Christians to begin to pray that God would break the love of money over people's lives and send another revival to the nation.  "Concerts of Prayer" began to spring up throughout the United States and Canada.  Materialism was broken in many lives by the Bank Panic of October 1857. Due to the long, hard winter of 1856-1857, … [Read more...]

Reviving a Dying Church

By Randy Adams, Executive Director of Northwest Baptist Convention Thirty years ago this April I began my first pastorate. It was a dying church – dead really. Today we would call it a “legacy church plant.” There were ten people who attended our first Sunday, all but one retired, with the one being a teenage boy. I’m not sure why the boy was there, except that he lived on the other side of the cemetery. The cemetery, church, and a small school building, long since closed, bordered each other. The Thurmond family gave the property for these three entities in the 1890s, each deemed important for a community in those days. My wife and I served that church for 3 ½ formative years, formative for us and for that church and community. I soon learned that the former pastor recommended that the church disband and give the building to the local Baptist association. He had reasoned this was their best option since they hadn’t baptized anyone in four years, only had a Sunday morning worship service with few attenders, and little prospect of seeing things turn around. The few attenders, most of whom had lived there all their lives, considered his suggestion, but decided to give it “one more try,” which meant giving one more seminary … [Read more...]

Our founding fathers and the sanctity of human life

By Ron F Hale The United States Declaration of Independence gushes with life liberating language supporting the sanctity of human life for all U.S. citizens. The second paragraph begins with these remarkable words: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. We can’t understand what it feels like to be born in a time when America was divided up between freeman and slave. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery around 1818, and escaped human bondage becoming a famous orator in the American antislavery movement. After serious study of the text of the Declaration of Independence, Douglass grew hopeful while other abolitionists assailed the document as bygone dribble. Douglass held high the precepts and promises of the Declaration of Independence and spoke truth to power. Like a Jonas Salk holding up his miracle vaccine against poliomyelitis (polio) before the American people on March 26, 1953, with all its curative promise, years before, Douglass held up the Declaration of Independence to all America and spoke so eloquently of its benefits and blessings (for … [Read more...]

Is America too far gone ever to be redeemed?

"The church is too far gone ever to be redeemed," wrote John Marshall (chief justice of the United States Supreme Court) in a letter to Bishop James Madison, in the early 1800s. Is America too far gone ever to be redeemed? After the end of the Revolutionary War, in 1783, Christianity plummeted in America. The effects of The First Great Awakening were still seen as late as the 1770s when as much as 40 to 50 percent...of the population attended church. But by the 1790s only 5 to 10 percent of the adult population were church members. Christianity hit an all time low in 1794 in America. In the same year missionaries from six different denominations were welcomed into the Cherokee Nation for the first time. The overall situation seemed so hopeless that a friend wrote to George Washington in 1796, near the end of his two terms as president, "Our affairs seem to lead to some crisis, some revolution; something that I can not foresee or conjecture. I am more uneasy than during the war. " Washington replied, "Your sentiment...accords with mine. What will be is beyond my foresight." The Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, wrote to Bishop Madison of Virginia and said, "The church is too far gone ever to be redeemed." The … [Read more...]

On medical marijuana, should we trust ‘sense’ over science?

By Will Hall BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Senate is considering a bill that would expand the list of diseases which would qualify for treatment with medical marijuana in Louisiana. Unfortunately, the Senate Health and Welfare Committee which moved the bill out of committee without objection April 13 did so largely on the basis of Sen. Fred Mills' call for good "sense" – which argued against the prevailing body of scientific research that overwhelmingly does not support his position. Mills, who chairs this committee and authored SB 271, is a pharmacist who owns a pharmacy in Marks, Louisiana. But despite coming from a medical background, he seemed to eschew the science which should have contributed more heavily to the decision. It's fair to say his position can be represented in part by comments from his opening statement in support of his own bill. Talking about the "memory lane" of how this bill came to the committee in its present form, Mills talked about the various constituents who had some say in the process. "We would expand on disease states," Mills said they promised each other. "We would find an opportunity that we would not open the door for every single solid disease state that didn't 'make sense' – which is not … [Read more...]