Articles by Herschel Smith

Pinnacle.  With daughter and middle son.  They hike like gazelles.  But I kept up with them.  Mostly.  I was ready for dinner.

It was bound to happen.  Most of the American Church is already utterly irrelevant, having declared that they no longer believe in the infallibility of Scripture, the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, the substitutionary atonement, and other necessary doctrines to be considered relevant and orthodox.  After defenestrating doctrine, they picked up parity in income as their raison d’être.  In other words, they adopted full orbed Marxism.

The Salvation Army has followed suit.

The Salvation Army wants its white donors to give it more than just money this Christmas season. Its leadership is also demanding they apologize for being racist.

It’s part of a push by the Christian charitable organization to embrace the ideas of Black Lives Matter, an activist group working to, among other things, “dismantle white privilege” and “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.”

The Salvation Army’s Alexandria-based leadership has created an “International Social Justice Commission” which has developed and released a “resource” to educate its white donors, volunteers and employees called Let’s Talk about Racism. It asserts Christianity is institutionally racist, calling for white Christians to repent and offer “a sincere apology” to blacks for being “antagonistic.. to black people or the culture, values and interests of the black community.”

“Many have come to believe that we live in a post-racial society, but racism is very real for our brothers and sisters who are refused jobs and housing, denied basic rights and brutalized and oppressed simply because of the color of their skin,” one lesson explains. “There is an urgent need for Christians to evaluate racist attitudes and practices in light of our faith, and to live faithfully in today’s world.”

Here is one response, but it doesn’t go far enough.

Entitled An Open Letter to The Salvation Army, Koukl prefaces the post by informing TSA that he is terminating his monthly donations and directing them to another organization. Koukl is also the founder and president of the Stand to Reason, a non-profit religious organization that “trains Christians to think more clearly about their faith and to make an even-handed defense for classical Christianity.”

“There is a massive number of academics—Black and white, Christian and non-Christian, atheist and theist—who have raised the alarm against the aggressive indoctrination and, frankly, bullying of CRT—not to mention the racial essentialism inherent in the view, the false witness it bears against virtuous people, and the general destruction it continues to wreak on race relations in this country. CRT has set us back 50 years,” he continued.

[ … ]

General Brian Peddle, CEO of The Salvation Army announced the initiative in February through a video in which he said “it examines racism through the lens of scripture, church and world history and guides gracious discussions about overcoming the damage racism has inflicted upon our world and yes, on our Salvation Army.”

“As we anticipate having courageous conversations about race please join me in working toward a world in which all people feel included, valued and loved on Earth just as they are in heaven,” Peddle stated in the one-minute video.

[ … ]

“Repentance solely for the fact that you’re white, we don’t think that’s very productive,” Xu told Newsweek, who also noted that 60 percent of those served by The Salvation Army are from ethnic minority communities. That’s a statistic he told Newsweek he discovered by talking to Commissioner and TSA National Commander Kenneth G. Hodder.

“Here’s the thing with the SA that’s so crazy—these people spend their entire lives serving the poor,” said Xu. “There is absolutely no reason to even suggest or insinuate repentance for their supposed complicity in racism.”

“I have a real problem with that website and the resources that are suggested readings—to my mind they do not accord with what I’ve seen at the SA,” said Theroux, who has spent more than 25 years in a governing role.

“They’re silly notions that are not going to resolve the disparate conditions of people.” Rather, Theroux said there are concerted actions people can take rather than “spending a lot of time and effort in training or gnashing of teeth.”

“I don’t think it advances real solutions and real solutions are needed,” added Theroux. “Jargon like systemic racism and whiteness being a sin is a smokescreen for correctly diagnosing the problems and addressing them in a meaningful way that will resolve them.”

You see?  Even responses to the Salvation Army are poor.  And note again that the Salvation Army wants people to feel as loved on earth as they are in heaven.  This is universalism and it is false doctrine.  If a man is not saved by grace, through faith, he is not loved in heaven.  He will suffer eternal damnation.

So here is the proper response.

This false doctrine is in vogue everywhere, from unattenuated Marxism (Marx was an atheist and is in hell today), to black liberation theology (James Cone, who was an unbeliever), to it’s disinfected and cleaned up white man version by N. T. Wright.  Tom Wright teaches warmed over Wesleyanism, but replaces the doctrine that you can lose your salvation and need to be able to say “I don’t drink, smoke or chew or date girls who do” (thus you partner with God in your salvation) with the doctrine that justification is based on the “life lived” (rather than now through the shed blood and substitutionary atonement of Christ).  Rather than chewing tobacco, Tom Wright is concerned with whether you help the poor and erase disparate incomes.

It’s all heresy.

The Gospel isn’t about disparate conditions of people.  That has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

The Gospel isn’t about finding what’s productive in your estimation.

The Gospel isn’t about diagnosing what man thinks are his problems.

The Gospel is about teaching man his real problems.

He is lost.  He is a sinner because he has violated the laws of a Holy God and thus committed cosmic treason.  He cannot save himself.  He is dead, and dead men don’t approach God.  God redeems His own by sending the Holy Spirit to quicken their hearts and receive Christ.  Salvation is of by grace, through faith.  Man is justified only through the shed blood of the ultimate substitutionary atonement, the death of Christ.  He is assured of the resurrection because of the resurrection of Christ.  He is assured of ultimate and final victory because of the ascension of Christ to the Father.

Any further discussion of things he does after salvation is because a man loves his Lord and shows the fruit of faith; works are not the cause of justification.  All real problems are so because God says they are, not because man says so.  Proper world and life view is based on the Scripture, and only on the Scripture.

Your income, or the income of someone else, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether you’re saved, or how you should treat them.  God is no respecter of persons.  He is the creator of the universe, and His only begotten Son is truly God and truly man, the only savior and way to the Father.

That is the Gospel.

Nothing that was said by the Salvation Army even approaches that, and thus they have become a sinful organization.

Refrain from giving them your hard earned money.  Save it for those in need around you – friends who have lost work, church members, missions, and so forth.

News.

A Kentucky liquor company was “disheartened” to learn some people had been using one of its whiskey brands to celebrate the not guilty verdict for 18-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse.

Heaven Hill Brands said in a statement posted to Twitter it was unhappy to learn some people were using the company’s Rittenhouse Straight Rye Whiskey to “celebrate” the verdict of Rittenhouse, adding there was “no cause for celebration” after the teenager was acquitted on five counts last week.

“We have been disheartened to learn that some individuals and businesses have been using our Rittenhouse Straight Rye Whiskey brand to celebrate the Kyle Rittenhouse case verdict,” the liquor company said in the statement. “There is no link between our Rittenhouse Rye brand, which was started post-prohibition to commemorate Rittenhouse square, and this case.”

The company said there was “no cause for celebration” following the 2020 incident when “lives were lost” and people were left “deeply affected.”

Instead of celebrating the verdict, the world needs “deep reflection on how” people “can make the world a more peaceful and respectful place for all,” the company added.

That sounds like a load of utopian crap right there, something someone would say if they had imbibed a little too much of their own liquor, or wokeness.

I celebrated Kyle’s exoneration because he was defending his life against those who intended him evil.  He was Biblically justified in what he did.  For the jury to have made any other decision would have been a miscarriage of justice.

Apparently Heaven Hill wants to be the next Black Rifle Coffee.

Michael Yon.

I knew that the author of “Three Cups of Tea” was lying when I read excerpts from his book.  It was proven to be complete crap.

Mattis is as bad as the rest of them, or at least he proved to be over the long term.  McChrystal is a murderer and should crawl on his hands and knees to the surviving families from the dead at Ganjgal (from where he lives to their homes, each and every one of them) and beg for forgiveness.

And yes, the entirety of the academy is lost.

Tim from MAC.

I am thankful for work, for family, and for too many things to catalog.

Most of all I am thankful that my Heavenly Father loved me enough to give His only begotten Son for my sake.

Happy Thanksgiving 2021!

Any video with Ryan Muckenhirn is worth watching.  I love his podcast videos.

Simple.  I like simple.  G96 + Isopropyl Alcohol.

The vaccines are causing “breakthrough” Covid infections.  Also, they cause HIV.

Source.

You haven’t heard this in the American legacy media, have you?

Take it all under advisement.

While I’ve never had to use it, Kyle explains that his AR was out of battery before he tapped the forward assist.  It probably saved his life.  I don’t know why it didn’t go into battery – bad tolerances, failure to lube the gun, bad ammo, or what.

Here’s another part of the interview where it’s simply astonishing the level of unscrupulous behavior the DA got away with.

And finally here’s some more of the interview.

Saddle River Range (via Ken).

The Saddle River Range in Conroe sent a text message to customers about the “Pre-Black Friday clearance sale” which started Saturday and will last through Thanksgiving.

“We would like to clear up some confusion, the post states. “We are celebrating the life that Kyle Rittenhouse now gets to live because he was able to defend himself without being penalized for it. This is a big win for the Second Amendment and cause for celebration. For those of you who think we are celebrating “the death of innocent people”, we apologize that you didn’t take the time to gather and evaluate the actual facts from the case.”

Black Rifle Coffee.

The veteran-founded coffee company had distanced itself from Rittenhouse after the teenager took a post-bail photo wearing a Black Rifle Coffee T-shirt and BlazeTV host Elijah Schaffer posted the photo along with the caption, “Kyle Rittenhouse drinks the best coffee in America.”

Schaffer, whose podcast was sponsored by Black Rifle Coffee, deleted his tweet, and a company spokeswoman said to the Salt Lake Tribune, “We did have a conversation with Schaffer, and he understands that the post was a mistake.”

The company’s CEO Evan Hafer also issued a statement disavowing any relationship with Rittenhouse that said, “We do not sponsor nor do we have a relationship with the 17-year-old facing charges in Kenosha, WI.”

Breitbart News reached out to Black Rifle Coffee on Friday for comment but received no response.

While Black Rifle Coffee remained silent, conservatives torched the company on social media.

Since its disavowal of Rittenhouse, the company has been under fire from the right, which comprises a large portion of its consumer base.

The company has tried to do damage control, only further antagonizing the right.

After its initial statement, Hafer released a video statement saying that the company believed in the Constitution, the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms, and that a person is innocent until provided guilty, but reiterated that the company did not sponsor Rittenhouse.

The company then dug itself into a hole further after Hafer and the company’s Executive Vice President Mat Best granted in-depth interviews to the New York Times in July, where they disparaged the right.

Best compared January 6 Capitol protesters wearing Black Rifle Coffee products to “terrorist organizations that wear American brands when they go behead Americans.”

Black Rifle Coffee chose poorly.