restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

The Story of Maple Ridge

Becky Lynn Black  

The story of Maple Ridge begins in 1940. I had an aunt and uncle, Bob and Claire Greve, who were martyred as medical missionaries in southern Sudan. Bob was a young new doctor, and Claire was pregnant with their first child. They were establishing a mission station with a hospital. The buildings were clearly marked on the roof with a red “H.” Europe was already embroiled in the Second World War, but the United States remained neutral. In the weeks prior to their death, Mussolini’s forces from Italy overran the primitive Sudanese government.  The directors of the mission station went to the nearest Italian military post to registrar their presence.  It was emphasized to the Italian authorities that the missionaries had no political agenda, and came from a neutral country. The Italians assured the mission that they would be safe. However, within a few days, fighter planes and bombers attacked the mission station without notice. It was a massive slaughter. Every single person on the mission station, both foreigners and Sudanese, were killed. Only a young boy escaped. He ran through the brush for many miles to bring the news to the outside world. My family in Texas first heard the news on the radio. The United States government’s State Department pleaded with my family to give grace to the Italian government and to allow them to disregard this action as an act of war. 

I say Maple Ridge started at this event because my father, age 13, was at camp when he got the news. As a result of this news, he dedicated his life to mission work. Fourteen years later my father took his young family to Ethiopia as missionaries. At our first mission station (Bobitcho in Hosanna, Ethiopia), we had a guest house. It was a simple two room house with mud walls and corrugated tin roof. Each room had two windows. This little guest house was about 30 yards from our home. Around the outside of the house geraniums were in constant bloom. It was such a simple, beautiful place! I would work my way through the geraniums to peek in the windows.  To me the rooms were so beautiful. There was a single bed, a simple table, a chair, and some candles. A picture or two hung from the wall. The whole aura of the room was one of peace and warmth. It was during one of those little visits to that Bobitcho guest house that God planted in my heart a love of hospitality.

Hospitality is a lost art today, though Christ commands His followers to exercise hospitality. We have confused hospitality with entertainment. Entertainment means showing the guests a good time. Entertainment means trying to keep the guests laughing or amazed. Entertainment focuses on the ability of the host to impress the guests. I have never been drawn to entertainment. I have been drawn to hospitality. Hospitality means sharing what God has given to me with another so that the Holy Spirit can do His work in their hearts. There is no pressure with hospitality as there is with entertainment. What I have I share, but I feel no compulsion to run out and acquire what I do not have.

Maple Ridge came to us on April 30, 2012. The original portion of Maple Ridge is the kitchen area. It consisted of one room with a fire place and a loft. The fire place was used for heating. A kitchen house was built about thirty feet away from the main house. We have found nails, called “T” nails, which date from 1790 to 1820, and we have also found rose head nails which date from 1810 to 1830. Based upon the hand cut wood, the method of joining the beams, and the type of nails used, it is our estimate that the original portion of Maple Ridge was built about 1810. A deep well, fully lined with stones, stands to the north side of the original portion. In approximately 1900 the front portion was built. This consisted of three rooms over three rooms with a back stair case to access the upstairs; a “dogtrot” existed between the front rooms and the back rooms. In about 1950 the front rooms were joined to the original rooms. A full second story was placed over the original and the dogtrot was closed in. Plumbing, electricity, and an indoor kitchen and bathroom were established. At this time, the access to the upstairs was moved to the inside, going up from the entryway. We do not know the original owners, but to the east of Maple Ridge there are three graves. One belongs to Corporal Anderson Boyd. The Boyd family was very prominent in Mecklenburg County, where the county seat is name Boydton. Anderson Boyd served as a corporal in the Confederate Army. He survived the war, and was buried in 1936 on this farm. He and his wife raised their family in Maple Ridge. He also owned the old White House that is to the south of Maple Ridge on White House Road. He gave one house to one daughter and the other house (Maple Ridge) to the other daughter. He continued to live at Maple Ridge with his daughter until his death in 1936. The other two graves belonged to his first wife and his second wife. He had children by his first wife. When she died he married again, but never had children with the second wife. It is not uncommon for the descendants of Anderson Boyd to come to the farm to visit his grave site. 

We bought the farm in August 2001 from Alma and Wendell Hite. The Hites are very prominent in this area. They purchased the farm in 1945, and that was the last survey prior to our purchase.  They raised four children here. These children with their descendants often come back home. It is always a delight to connect with those from bygone years who were associated with this place.  When we took possession of the house in 2012, the back section was gutted. We rebuilt the downstairs room, trying to retain some flavor of the original building. We also added a porch on the back, and established two doors with access to the porch. We incorporated the back patio as the dining room, and installed air conditioner/heater units. We tried to make the kitchen as practical as possible. 

A man named Robbie Dunn was sent by God to help us with the building. He was gifted in construction of old homes. He was a man full of integrity. It was a pure delight to work with him.  He caught the vision of our hearts, and when I was in the hospital for weeks, he just carried on with the work, even without our supervision. How we praise God for His provision through Robbie!

God sent many others to help us. Keith Clayton did most of the plumbing. Ted and Joel Bradsher (a father son team) did the electrical and HVAC service, and many students from Southeastern Baptist Seminary did the grunt work of installing French drains, rain gutters, stripping wall paper, scrapping two hundred year old beams,  establishing the back fencing, etc. Danny Chambers was sent by God to help us in many assorted ways, including hauling furniture up through the windows, placing the back gate, and leveling unsightly brick piles. In the process of the work we discovered many things that needed additional attention. So we replaced the tin roof and finished a chimney in addition to the more obvious construction down below. It was a great joy to decorate the inside of the house. I thank God for the many young ladies who offered their counsel and assistance. My mother, Betty Lapsley, sewed curtains and pillows. My daughters Karen and Rachel, along with their friends, did the laborious work of placing the vinyl stencils on the walls and stairs. The Ramiscal family was very helpful in general cleaning and encouragement. While the house was being built, the farm was also being established for the Retreat Ministry. This included clearing paths, placing roadway drains, the campground, signs, etc. The SEBTS students, along with Danny Chambers and Robbie Dunn, were the primary workers in this development.

I praise God that though I was in the midst of dealing with terminal cancer He supplied everything that was needed to envision and to guide the reconstruction of Maple Ridge and the development of the farm. He always supplied me with what was needed even until this day. In the midst of chemo side effects and the fallout of a stroke and blood clot and in the recuperation of a major surgery, God always supplied what was needed and I praise Him for that. As construction came to a finish, my work as painter par excellence came to the fore. I praised Him daily for the strength to roller one more wall and paint one more trim. By the end of 2012, most of the work had been completed. Early 2013 found us doing the final touches and beginning the process of stocking furniture, linens, and kitchen supplies. As already mentioned, I thank God for the many women he provided to help me: Kimberly Bradsher, Karen Ayala, Betty Lapsley, SEBTS students, Rachel Woodworth, Dolores Johnson, etc. God guided the process through this army of women.

Much of the furniture was purchased new; however, a good assortment was given to us new by God’s Pit Crew in Danville, Va. I praise God for their ministry and kindred spirit in Kingdom work. We were able to pull out furniture that had been in storage on the farm and put it to use. This furniture had been in the family already for 30 plus years. God helped us to get just the right colors for curtains and walls. We praise Him for his provision in every detail. One of the things that makes Maple Ridge unique is this: it is a living demonstration of the vibrant body of Christ. Maple Ridge is not “the ministry of David and Becky,” although we were the facilitators. This ministry is much more than simply our vision. God brought people from here, there, and beyond. Each one came with their input, gifts, and abilities, with their strength and joyful spirit. And through the work of many the vision took on form and became what you have today.

Obviously money was needed. But because so many volunteered their labor and because so much material and furnishings were donated, the financial expenditure was eased. Dollars that were needed were taken from our personal savings, from disability payments, and from the sale of properties (purchased by my grandfather 50-60 ears ago.) It is amazing to me to watch God’s provision, it is as if He had this place in His mind long ago and was already creating the needed funds for its restoration many decades ago! I praise Him that we serve a God that knows the end from the beginning, and His faithfulness expands the decades. He is faithful both to His people and to His work. It is a delight to serve such a God, and we look forward to watching His continued hand of provision in the decades to come.

The primary purpose of this home is to be a shelter for those in Kingdom work. The secondary purpose is to serve as a retreat for those in need of such. With three large bedrooms and two and half baths, it has the capacity to serve a family with six children and a baby. The dining room table is oversized, and the kitchen is expansive to serve a large family with ease. As we look to the future, we envision families in crisis or great need coming to stay for three to six months, until they have healed and are ready to return to the Lord’s battleground. It is our joy to provide this shelter not only for the husband and wife but also for their children. The living costs of those who come are eased through the supply of the farm. We raise cattle to supply fresh organic beef, we grow vegetables to supply not only fresh vegetables but also canned vegetables for the winter, we have fruit trees and bushes that likewise we can or freeze, and we are establishing a chicken coop to supply fresh eggs and chicken for those staying in this home. There will be no fees charged to live in this home, and we are doing all we can to supplement the food needs of the family. It will be a journey of faith to watch Him provide in every aspect.

One thing that has impressed me in the process of establishing Maple Ridge is the fact that Christian community is a continuum. To this point I have tried to clearly express appreciation to those who have been involved in giving sacrificially to the establishment of Maple Ridge. Each family that comes to Maple Ridge will bear the benefit of the labor of these people, and when the family leaves Maple Ridge, it is expected to make its own contribution to the next family. Each family arrives as a needy recipient but leaves as a willing sacrificial donor. So the family that stays here will have farm responsibilities, not only collecting the eggs from the chickens, but feeding them and cleaning the coop. Not only eating the organic beef but also feeding the cows hay in the winter time. Not only eating the fish that has been caught by others but also catching fish to be enjoyed by others. Each family arrives to a Maple Ridge that is clean and painted. And when each family leaves they are responsible to leave the property in the same or better condition than when they arrived. Magic eraser and appropriate paint is available to remove scuff and write marks on the walls. A wet-vac is available for water accidents, and routine cleaning supplies are available for general maintenance. Families that come are not coming to a Bed & Breakfast; they are coming to a home. They are coming not only to be served, but also to serve.  And it will be a joy to watch the Spirit of God as He orchestrates the Body in this continuum of ministry.

October 1, 2013

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Stonewall Was Right

David Alan Black

In a remarkable scene in the movie “Gods and Generals,” Confederate General Stonewall Jackson reminds us of the importance of courage in the face of tremendous odds. “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s,” he says. And he is right.

That’s why I am still committed to doing what I can to promote the restoration of a constitutional republic – a republic founded on the ideals of the United States Constitution and rooted in biblical law. Millions of Americans have died to protect and preserve these ideals – which include the right of every citizen to demand that our government respect and defend the Constitution.

Today in America we have become what our Founders feared most – a government-controlled society. When asked after the Constitutional Convention what type of government America was to have, Benjamin Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.” We have not kept it.

Ideas have consequences, wrote Richard Weaver. And what are the ideas prevalent among our politicians? Our current leaders in Washington are intent, it seems to me, on selling out the American Constitution and its republican form of government. In fact, it can be argued that the sellout has already taken place. The result is an ever-expanding federal bureaucracy, and the ultimate result will be the loss of the individual rights of every single American. It is obvious that neither of the major political parties intends to return America to the principles of self-government. Even many so-called conservative politicians pay less attention to the Constitution than you and I do to our junk mail. Even more tragically, there is little evidence that America can or even desires to be saved from the fate that awaits her. A major collision between the true church of Jesus Christ and the secular, anti-Christian state seems inevitable.

The role of lawful government is not open to question or debate. This is clear to anyone who will take the time to read our historical documents. They will see that the role of government is to defend the Constitution and to oppose any and all enactments that violate the supreme law of the land. This explains why so many of us who believe in limited constitutional government have questioned the legitimacy of an Iraqi invasion. Our opposition is not based on a belief in theological pacifism but on our conviction that the only constitutional basis of foreign policy is to serve the interests of the United States, not to police the world. Constitutionally, American troops cannot participate in foreign wars unless U.S. national security is clearly at stake and the constitutional war-granting powers of the Congress are respected.

What, then, is our duty as Christian citizens in the face of this abrogation of power?

1. First and foremost, we need to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. Where necessary, we need to repent of any known sins in our lives, for God will not bless the cause of the proud and haughty.
2. Second, we need to pray for our leaders as the Bible commands.
3. Third, we need to hold our leaders strictly accountable to the Constitution they swore to uphold. If they forsake faithfulness to this oath, then we must decide not to vote for them again – be they “compassionate conservatives,” “Republicans,” “Christians,” or whatever they may call themselves.
4. Finally, we need to get personally involved in the fight for freedom. We must let our voice be heard on taxation, abortion, cloning, federal gun laws – and why it is important that America returns to a limited constitutional government. We must remind our elected officials that when government steals from one citizen to pay for the “needs” of another, such theft is not only unconstitutional but immoral. We must remind them that big government is always bad government. And we must let them know that we will not tolerate the denial of our freedoms in the name of “security.”

General Jackson was right – it’s all about personal responsibility. I fervently pray that all Christians, especially our pastors and other church leaders, will have the courage to “do their duty,” as Stonewall said. If we do so, we can leave the consequences with God. If we don’t, then the demise of our nation will fall squarely on our own shoulders.

January 21, 2006

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Stereotypes!

 David Alan Black  

World War II fighter pilot Tommy Calnan has been recaptured by a dozen shotgun-toting farmers just as he was about to steal a German airplane from a Luftwaffe base near Merseburg. (This, from my escape book,Free As a Running Fox.) Calnan’s description of what comes next is a classic:

“What rank are you?” The question was asked with some suspicion.

“Major,” I answered loudly.

There was a buzz of comment, to which I listened with interest. Many were disbelieving; I was too young to be a major. Another argued that with these pilots promotion came early….

The general effect of my announcement, however, was to make my captors even more proud of themselves. They had made an important capture. A major, no less.

I felt that it was up to me to play my part. These yokels with their dangerous twelve-bores formed a most important audience. I ought to give them what they expected. Their idea of a major would be, I suspected, an arrogant and authoritative man, not a meek scarecrow with his hands above his head. I had to make a quick metamorphosis. Pity I had no monocle.

I addressed the leader of the group.

“Meine Uhr, bitte.”

I tried to sound assured and to reproduce that unpleasant intonation of Teutonic arrogance reserved for addressing inferiors. I was asking for my watch.

I held out my left hand to receive the watch at the same time lowering my right arm to my side.

It was a critical moment. Would the farmer yield and give the Herr Major back his watch, or would he re-assert his own, unchallengeable authority? He had only to raise his gun. As we looked at each other in the eyes, I wondered what he was thinking.

He handed back my watch. My battle was won.

What makes this episode work is its indulgence in stereotypical language: Germans, as we all know, are tough, no-nonsense, humorless automatons. The typecast is not at all true, of course. Nor do all Frenchmen look down their Gallic noses at Americans. Nor do all Americans act like war-mongering, terrorist-frightened bullies.

But how can one know this without traveling abroad?

When 43 took his first foreign trip in 2002, he bristled at what he perceived to be the condescending attitude of the French and Germans. Who can forget the president’s irritation when he called NBC’s David Gregory a pompous “intercontinental” for asking Jacques Chiraq a question in French? I think I may have an easier time understanding Europeans because I’ve lived in Europe. Citizens of every nation are justifiably proud of their national language and customs, and they also tend to be a bit snobbish toward outsiders. When Becky and I lived in Switzerland, it took us a while to realize that the Swiss weren’t being rude or impolite when they didn’t return our greetings on the street. They were just being Swiss.

To be good missionaries (and we’re all missionaries, or at leastwe should be), we have to step outside ourselves and our own cultures. We have every right to appreciate the freedoms we enjoy in America and the many blessings we have received as a country, but we have no business thinking that our nation is more “under God” than any other nation. As kingdom-people, we should never allow politics to frame the issues for us. We should seek to evangelize other nations by serving them, not by trying to conquer them. Our fundamental job is to love other people like God loves us – without being a respecter of persons. For the sake of the kingdom of God, we need to show the world around us what Calvary-love looks like.

In the end, there is little place forsolipsism or grandiosity – or perhaps even for the kind of stereotyping that escapee Calnan engaged in, unless perhaps you’ve just been captured by the enemy and want to make life a bit easier for yourself.

February 10, 2009

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

The State Is Not Our Savior!

 David Alan Black 

Orwell tells us that “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” We can add: Big Government is God.

Today the state considers itself the Liberator of mankind, the agent of our salvation. The faithful in the pews believe this lie hook, line, and sinker. They freely give their children over to the state to educate them and to make them into good little citizens of the Empire so that they can rule and reign with Leviathan. As C. S. Lewis once put it in That Hideous Strength: “Man has got to take charge of Man. That means, remember, that some men have got to take charge of the rest—which is another reason for cashing in on it as soon as one can. You and I want to be the people who do the taking charge, not the ones who are taken charge of.”

As I noted in a previous column, America has been engaged in empire building for over a century, consistently ignoring our nation’s original foreign policy of noninterventionism as enunciated by Washington—a foreign policy that changed to interventionism with the Spanish-American War. I wrote:

William McKinley was not the first American president to use the argument of philanthropy toward other “less fortunate” peoples. Lincoln “heard” a similar call and responded with the emancipation of four million slaves—at the cost of 620,000 war dead. But that was within our own boundaries. McKinley saw that the time had come when the United States, no longer a weakling nation, but strong and able, should take to itself the apostolic injunction, “We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please ourselves.” He believed that the unalienable rights that the nation’s Founders had so ardently desired for themselves were not the exclusive privilege of their own countrymen, but were part of the endowment of the people of Cuba, of Puerto Rico, and of the Philippines as well. When the events of history placed the destinies of these peoples within America’s hands, it was its duty to extend to them the same blessings of freedom that it enjoyed.

Since that time Americans have been only too eager to engage in messianic adventures. The invasion and occupation of Iraq is only the latest manifestation of this messianic impulse. In contrast with the Founders’ intent that Congress be vested with very specific and limited powers, our Savior-state now spends the taxpayers’ largess on everything from health care, food distribution, foreign aid, farm subsidies, space exploration, “family planning” (aborticide), and even inheritance rights for dogs. What’s more, federal judges now regularly usurp the law-making authority of Congress. The American republic has become a judicial tyranny.

My friends, we are in a war for the soul of our nation. Our country was birthed in the conflict between the rule of law and the rule of man. Our Founders appealed to the fixed law of God to challenge King George’s arbitrary rule, “appealing to the supreme Judge of the World for the rectitude of our intentions.” Understanding that there is no Savior but God, and no King but Jesus, is the key to understanding why we must reject big government and its messianic claims.

We have two choices facing us this coming election. We can be what Lewis called charge-takers. A charge-taker follows the enlightened dictates of George W. Bush, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, and the powerbrokers of the messianic state. The alternative is to be submission-givers, following the Word of God and submitting ourselves unconditionally to the rule of King Jesus.

As for me, I shall join the remnant in refusing to bow my knee to the sanctimonious geniuses in Washington. And, whether or not anyone listens, I shall continue to cry out:

Congress does not have unlimited authority!

Judges are not lawmakers!

The United States is not a democracy!

And the state is not my Savior!

December 4, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon, will be released next spring.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Starvation Stunts and Authentic Spiritual Discipline

Benjamin S. Cole

David Blaine wants you to believe that he has done something newsworthy. In case you’re not familiar with America’s newest magician, illusionist and stunt-artist, then you simply have not been reading the newspaper or watching your television.

In May 2002, Blaine stood on a 24-meter high flagpole in New York for 25 consecutive hours without a safety net. In November 2000, he encased himself in a six-ton block of ice in New York City’s Time Square for 58 hours. He’s even been known to stop by innocent city-dwellers and levitate himself for kicks and thrills. He’s part Harry Houdini, part David Copperfield, and part Evil Knieval. Some would say he’s part stupid.

And now David Blaine has starved himself. Over the past 44 days, Blaine has lived in a clear plastic box suspended over the River Thames in London, England, without any food and surviving on limited rations of water daily. He began experiencing an irregular heartbeat last week. According to reports from British doctors, Blaine now weighs four stones (25 kg) less than he did when climbed into his box more than six weeks ago.

Since he first entered his box, Blaine has withstood ceaselessly taunts and jeers. People set up barbecue pits and let the smoke waft Blaine’s way. On more than one occasion he’s been pelted with eggs and golf balls. One bystander was fined for tampering with Blaine’s water supply. Others have shamelessly bared their breasts and buttocks in Blaine’s general direction. 

Why exactly Blaine wanted to starve himself is uncertain. That he garnered worldwide media attention is unsurprising. Even I have been caught up in the daily reports about Blaine’s health condition. For some reason Blaine has captured our attention, and now he is sipping vitamin-enhanced juice packs in a London hospital.

Not too long ago a number of Southern Baptist pastors were obsessed with the rewards of prolonged fasting. Booklets were published on the subject, each claiming to teach the secret to divine power. I can remember conventions past and the gaunt faces of more than one Baptist preacher who had just emerged from his all-too-public juice diet, I mean, forty-day fast.

In reflecting on this, I am reminded of some things that Jesus had to say about fasting and spiritual discipline.

First, it’s not a publicity stunt.  I seem to remember Jesus saying something about going into your closet for prayer and anointing your head when you fast. Second, it’s not to arrest the attention of God or to force his hand. But if you read what some prominent pastors have written on the subject, you might end up thinking Jesus was some kind of dietary consultant peddling his juice extractor on the Home Shopping Network.

And when I think about Jesus’ own forty-day fast in the wilderness of temptation, I cannot help but recognize just how far removed Blaine’s starvation stunt is from the experience of Christ. Not to mention the juice-your-way-to-power fasts of well-meaning preachers.

Jesus’ fast was a real fast, a total and complete exercise in self-denial. And when he was taunted, tempted and ridiculed by Satan during the ordeal, Jesus demonstrated for all time that man’s source of life is not to be found in bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

So while David Blaine was lifted to a lofty spot above the River Thames, Christ was taken to a very high place and offered the kingdoms of the world. And when Jesus came down, he wasn’t rushed to a hospital; he was led to a cross.

And while some preachers would have you sip your juice and reveal anew that bothersome habit of Christ’s disciples to compromise his teaching, Jesus defeated Satan not with a little food or a little juice, but by the integrity of his life enabled by the Spirit.

October 22, 2003

Benjamin S. Cole is a Baptist minister who recently completed his M.Div. at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, NC, and has returned to his home in Dallas, Texas. He intends to begin doctoral work in church-state studies at Baylor University this coming year. Mr. Cole can be reached for comment here.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Spiritual Fatigue

Becky Lynn Black  

From time to time someone approaches me complaining of the inability to pray, or senselessness in Bible reading, or lack of interest in church and Family events.

These symptoms can come with a rebellious heart. We know in our hearts that God wants something, but we are refusing to obey Him. We refuse to lay down the gauntlet and stop fighting Him. Stubbornness will reap leanness of spirit.

But other people have no known rebellion in their hearts.  They are sincerely, openly crying out to God, but there is no spiritual energy towards Him…nothing is “happening.”  Week after week, month after month there is spiritual desolation.

We need not be afraid to admit these times of desolation. Great men in the Scriptures passed through such times. Look at the struggles of the prophets, of Moses and Abraham, of King David. And in the New Testament, the great Apostle Paul admits to great spiritual stress.

Somehow we’ve gotten it in our heads that living the Christian life is a straight line upward, a broadening utopia, a life of greater ease and strength. Perhaps this is fall-out of the Prosperity Gospel that permeates our airwaves. Perhaps it is the sequel to the American Dream. Whatever the cause of this notion, it is an unbiblical notion.

The Christian life begins with faith… honesty, surrender, yielding. And it continues in that same vein… honesty, surrender, yielding. All of which is absolutely grounded in the Father’s Love for us and the ability of the Lord Jesus to bring us to the Father.

The sinner comes to the Lord Jesus as Savior, honest with himself about his inability to perform and treasuring in himself the warmth of the Father’s love. It is a new experience…this blending of personal inability, utter weakness, complete desolation with the Savior’s strength, the Father’s love, and complete sufficiency.

I think of our flights to Ethiopia. Every time we board an airplane, we are stating implicitly that we trust the “love,” the good-will of the pilots in the cockpit. And when those big jet engines roar with great power at take-off, we are trusting the obedience of those engines to the commands of the pilots, and the strength of those engines to do what the pilots expect. And there is not much sweeter moment than to nestle down in the seat, the lights of the cabin turned down, pillows and blankets in just the right spot, and doze off to the roar of the engines, confident in their ability to hold us high over the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Christian life begins in faith…and it continues in faith.  It begins in honesty, surrender, yielding…and it continues in honesty, surrender, yielding. Just as I step onto the airplane trusting the pilot’s good will and the engine’s strength in obedience, so I continue the whole flight trusting the pilot’s goodwill and the engine’s strength in obedience.

So if today you are suffering spiritual fatigue, you are suffering the natural consequence of trying to fly on your own, and it is just a matter of time before you hit the cold waters of the Atlantic. Now, as always, is the time to rest in the goodwill of the Father, lie back and bask in His love, look for His companionship in Life….and to yield to the ability of the Lord Jesus to carry you spiritually. Trust His work for you. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister medicines to your tired soul, to fluff your pillow, to stroke your back. Listen to His sweet voice soothing your tired, hurting, pummeled soul.

And when it is time, He will bring back into circulation. You will read the Scriptures with enjoyment and life. You will sing the hymns with meaning. You will care for others with warmth. You will have a spring in your step as you go about your duties. But underneath all of this is the firm knowledge, the renewed awareness, that in us dwells no good thing, and apart from Him we can do nothing.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Except revel in His love and trust His sufficiency.

January 15, 2010

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Speaking of Sovereignty

 David Alan Black

Just wondering, but if sovereignty is transferred to Iraq on June 30th, couldn’t the Iraqis kick us out on July 1st? And if they can’t, doesn’t that imply that our “transfer of sovereignty” is in name only—a sort of “sovereignty light”?

The point is moot, of course, since everyone agrees that when we do make the transfer and formally end our occupation of Iraq, the new Iraqi government will receive only very limited authority. For example, the U.S. military will remain in Iraq at full occupation strength. The U.S. and its allies also will retain control over the partially organized Iraqi army, over the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (which has been fighting insurgents), and over the police force they are helping train.

More importantly, Americans will retain control of billions of dollars in reconstruction aid, giving us additional leverage with the temporary government. “The June 30 thing is mostly symbolic,” said Joseph Nye Jr., dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “What you have on June 30 essentially is a transformation of the CPA into an embassy. But it’s mostly in name.” In short, without real economic sovereignty, political independence is a mere formality.

Nevertheless, “sovereignty” will be handed to the Iraqis. So while we’re in a mood to transfer sovereignty, perhaps the federal government would like to consider giving some of it back to “We the People” right here in the good old U.S. I’ll take the lead in demanding it, in fact.

Dear President Bush:

The United States of America was formed as just that—a union of sovereign states into a federal government. The concept behind our government was simple. Our “Creator” gave each of us “unalienable rights,” and we in turn gave some of these rights to our respective state governments. Then the states gave a portion of their rights to a central government that could perform certain wide-ranging tasks—national defense, the conduct of foreign relations, and the like. The framers of our Constitution were careful to make it clear that the powers not granted to the federal government were reserved to the states and ultimately to “We the People.”

Mr. President, all we want is the restoration of a constitutional republic that the Founding Fathers established in this country. They didn’t have in mind some gigantic federal bureaucracy with all this power and control regulating our lives and our businesses. They had in mind a federal government that would abide by the Tenth Amendment. It was small, it had limited powers, it took care of national events, and it defended our borders. It maintained the army and issued national currency. And all the rest of the rights and responsibilities, they said, belonged to the states, respectively, and the people. As Robert E. Lee once put it, “All that the South has ever desired was that the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved, and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth.”

By the way, Mr. President, we argue that it is impossible to have a republic as originally envisioned by our Founders and also have an empire at the same time. We are outspoken in our opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq because we do not believe you can export democracy at gunpoint. We have this radical notion that the U.S. can hold the torch of liberty high without getting involved in military skirmishes around the globe.

In short, Mr. President, we think little of big government with all of its attendant horrors, including an abysmal government “education” system. We feel that the only hope for a rebirth of freedom in America is to restore sovereignty to the states and to the people by getting the federal government completely out of every area where it has made such a mess, including health care, education, law enforcement, foreign aid, corporate welfare, and farm subsidies. Like your Republican colleague from Texas, Ron Paul, we want smaller government, an end to the welfare state, and an end to government intrusions into their lives and businesses.

As you can see, I can get a bit delusional at times. The president would no more listen to my appeals for sovereignty than he would listen to Richard Clarke read from his new book.

It’s enough to make a grown man cry.

May 18, 2004

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. His latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon, will be released this year.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Southern Heritage and the 2004 Presidential Election

Lee R. Shelton IV

“The South.” The mere mention of that term can stir up powerful emotions in just about anyone. For those whose knowledge of American history is limited to a government school indoctrination, the term may be provocative, conjuring up images of fat, lazy slave owners sipping mint juleps or buck-toothed rednecks waving the Confederate flag at a KKK rally. For those who have lived in the South, or who at least have the gift of independent thought, the term can be more evocative, bringing to mind a people rich in culture, history and heritage.

The American South is more than just a geographical location. From food to music, from sports to politics, the South is in many ways the very heart and soul of this nation of states.

For example, American literature wouldn’t be what it is today without the works of Southern writers like Margaret Mitchell, William Faulkner or Mark Twain. Our music would be lacking if it weren’t for Southern musicians like Hank Williams, Charlie Daniels or Elvis Presley. Imagine how bland American cuisine would be without the culinary contributions of Edmund McIlhenny, Justin Wilson or Paul Prudhomme.

And let’s not forget our nation’s humble beginning. A great number of our founding fathers were Southerners – men like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, James Madison and Richard Henry Lee, to name a few. Another Southerner, George Mason, wrote the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which was used as a model for our current Bill of Rights.

The greatest threat to Southern heritage today is the infectious spread of political correctness. One cannot pick up a newspaper without reading about another attack on historic Southern symbols. “Offensive” school mascots are being retired. The playing of “Dixie” at sporting events is discouraged, if not forbidden. The Confederate flag – in fact, any variation of the star spangled St. Andrew’s cross – is being removed from public view. With all that is facing the people of the South, what impact might this year’s presidential election have on the effects of PC intolerance?

As November approaches, Southerners – Southern conservatives in particular – find themselves at a crossroads. Most have resigned themselves to the fact that their hopes and dreams hinge on whether a Republican or Democrat sits in power in Washington; they believe they must decide which of these two parties will have the least negative impact on Southern culture and heritage.

Right now, George W. Bush would appear to be the candidate that best represents the interests of the Southern people. In fact, many Southerners have used the “ Blue-and-Red“ map of the 2000 presidential election to demonstrate that Republican conservatism thrives in the land of Dixie.

However, Bush has been anything but a friend to the South. In the late 80s, as part owner of the Texas Rangers, he championed a sales-tax hike and land-grab scheme to help build the team’s new stadium. Adding insult to injury – as if he hadn’t exploited hard-working Texans enough – he went on to make a fortune when the team was sold for a considerable profit in 1998.

As governor of Texas, Bush shied away from controversial Southern issues. In the midst of the national debate that raged over the flying of the Confederate flag atop the South Carolina Statehouse, Bush only offered a weak, compromising statement, saying, “It’s the right of the state of South Carolina to make the decision on the flag.” In his home state, Bush went so far as to oversee the removal of Confederate memorial plaques from the foyer of the Texas Supreme Court Building. Is that what passes for a defense of Southern heritage today?

It is also wise to note that the Republican Party in general has been rather hostile to Southerners. Look at what happened to Trent Lott. The Mississippi senator, speaking at Strom Thurmond’s centennial birthday celebration, noted that the country might have been a better place had Thurmond been elected president in 1948. Without ever bringing up the subject of race, Lott was branded a racist – he was seen as the embodiment of Southern bigotry – and his Republican colleagues retreated from him faster than Burnside ran from Fredericksburg.

There is no room in the GOP for true Southerners. The Republican Party always has been and always will be the Party of Abraham Lincoln. Many Southerners might remember him as the president who waged an unconstitutional war against his own countrymen that claimed over 600,000 lives. They may also recall how he single-handedly destroyed our founding fathers’ dream of a nation of free and independent states. Is that the legacy Southern conservatives want to pass on to their children?

Maintaining the status quo hasn’t worked. Since 1865, the federal government has been an enemy of states’ rights and the Constitution. It has grown far beyond what the founders could have imagined, and the election of a Republican president in 2000 has given us a bigger, more oppressive and more expensive federal bureaucracy.

Southern culture and heritage can only be preserved if the people themselves take up the challenge to stand and fight. If history is any indication, no help will come from those in government. We must be prepared. We must vocal. We must be ready at all times to stand up to any assault.

To those who value their heritage, let me say this: don’t be afraid to vote according to your conscience this November. Consider supporting a candidate who actually represents your interests. If that means “wasting your vote” on a third party, so be it. At least your principles will not have been compromised. Besides, if voting for one of the two major parties has only proven to be detrimental to this union of once free and independent states, you have nothing to lose except the effects of 140 years of government growth.

Is the independent spirit of the Southern people alive and well or isn’t it? Brave Southerners stood up once before in defense of their homeland and heritage against overwhelming odds. Why not now? Surrendering without a fight is not characteristic of the South I know.

April 29, 2004

Lee Shelton resides with his wife in Minneapolis, Minn., and is the founder and editor of EverVigilant.net. He is a self-described “paleoconservatarian” – someone adhering to the founding conservative and libertarian principles that built this nation of states – and hopes to return to the days when government was small and elected officials actually sought to protect the inalienable, God-given rights of the American people. A native of New Orleans, Lee is currently working on a book that defends the rich heritage and independent spirit of the South. He can be reached via e-mail at editor@evervigilant.net.

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   restoring our biblical and constitutional foundations

Southern Educators Perpetuate Myths When They Should Know Better!

 David Alan Black 

The nature of the stealth campaign being waged today against the Constitution and traditional republican values is much like others we have seen in other places and in other times. When the South was attacked in 1861, Americans witnessed the beginning of what has become a flurry of anti-constitutional views propped up by our educational elites.

Though I am not a trained historian (my doctorate is in theology), for many years I have researched the Civil War—or, more accurately, the War for Southern Independence (“Civil War” wrongly implies that the South was fighting to gain control of a central government). I have seen with my own eyes the vast amount of original documents that back up the illegality of the Northern invasion of the South. Yet even many Southerners who have a Confederate heritage hang their heads in shame because the government schools teach them to. In the documentary, “Africans in America,” an African-American woman put it best when she said, “Slavery was not a Southern problem; it was an American problem.” The South did not create slavery—Northern ship merchants did that.

I recently spent a day examining several widely-used high school history textbooks and discovered that in dealing with the South before 1865 they include numerous false assumptions. Liberals who spread emotional lies about the war and about the South often go so far as to equate the Confederate flag with the Nazi swastika. Historical revisionists who attack the legitimacy of the Confederacy and its cause—and thus the right of Southerners to exist as a people with a unique culture and heritage—usually base their attacks upon falsehoods. The premier myths are the following:

• Antebellum Southern whites treated their slaves cruelly, and nearly every white Southerner had slaves. 

• Slavery was practiced only by white Southerners, and when practiced was a sin, which damned all Southern whites and their descendants forever. 

• The Southern states attempted to leave the Union only to perpetuate slavery.

• The Southern states could not lawfully secede from the Union; therefore they were in rebellion against the Union.

• The Southern states fought a civil war with the intent to overthrow the federal government in Washington, D.C.

But the most insidious myth is that of the “great and good” North marching into the “cruel and evil” South for the sole purpose of freeing the slaves. There are many quotes from Northern leaders (Lincoln, Grant, Sherman, and others) that show clearly that the main purpose of the North was not the eradication of slavery but the subjugation of the Southern people. If you will take the time to study these commonly accepted myths, you will easily find them to be false and spread either accidentally, through ignorance, or else deliberately, with contempt towards Southerners.

Contrary to what most Americans are taught in school, Lincoln did not launch the war in order to make blacks equal with whites. In the Lincoln-Douglas debates he said, “I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races, and I have never said anything on the contrary.” In a speech in Illinois in 1858 he said that he was not in favor of making voters or jurors of blacks, or qualifying them to hold office or to intermarry with white people. In his own words:

I will say, then, that I am not now, nor never have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social or political equality of the white and black races. I am not now, nor never have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor of intermarriage with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I believe, will forever forbid the two races living together in terms of social and political equality. Inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be a position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white man.

Lincoln supported the Illinois law that prohibited the immigration of blacks into that state and advocated sending blacks to Haiti, Central America, or Africa. In his eulogy to Henry Clay in 1852, he said, “There is a moral fitness to the idea of returning to Africa her children….” In a message to Congress in 1862 he said: “I cannot make it any better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.” In a famous letter to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, on August 22, 1862, he wrote, “My paramount objective in this struggle is to save the Union and is not either to save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it.” That was Lincoln’s position.

Another common misconception is that Southern blacks were all slaves and could own no property. However, blacks themselves held slaves throughout the war. According to Roger D. McGrath, in “Slavery’s Inconvenient Facts,” Chronicles Magazine, November 2001, in 1860 some 3,000 blacks owned nearly 20,000 black slaves. In South Carolina alone, black slaveholders owned more than 10,000 blacks. Born a slave in 1790, William Ellison owned 63 slaves by 1860, making him one of Charleston’s leading slaveholders. In the 1850 census for Charleston City, the port of Charleston, there were 68 black men and 123 black women who owned slaves. In Louisiana’s St. Landry Parish, according to the 1860 census, black planter Auguste Donatto owned 70 slaves and farmed 500 acres of cotton fields. Of course, black slaveholders were the exception to the rule, but so were white ones. According to McGrath, only a small minority of Southern whites owned slaves—little more than five percent of the white population if calculated by individual owner, or twenty to twenty-five percent if all the members of the slave owners’ families are included. This means that seventy-five percent or more of Southerners neither owned slaves themselves nor were members of families who did.

Those who claimed that the war was not about slavery stretched from the Virginia farmer defending his humble home, to the first Southern commissioners seeking Britain’s recognition of the Confederacy, and even to Union generals. During the summer of 1861, the federal Congress passed resolutions saying that war would be fought only to “preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired.” And General Ulysses S. Grant, who accepted Lee’s surrender on behalf of the Union at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, in April, 1865, once said that if he “thought this war was to abolish slavery, I would resign my commission, and offer my sword to the other side.”

Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was issued well into the war with the purpose of preventing foreign intervention. The Proclamation freed slaves only in parts of the Confederacy where Lincoln had no legal authority. Slaves in the North where the federal government had legitimate authority were freed only after the war. Robert E. Lee did not own slaves, but many Union generals did. When Lee’s father-in-law died, he took over the management of the plantation his wife had inherited and immediately began freeing the slaves. By the time Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, every slave in Lee’s charge had been freed. Yet some Union generals didn’t free their slaves until the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868.

When the schools of the South were reopened after the war, the great majority of the youth of the land were fed with a literature created by Northerners. Publishers whose sole purpose was to secure the great market now opening in every school district in the South issued books that were found to be full of error and misrepresentation. The aims of the people of the South and of their state governments were falsified, and the characters of the great men who had led the South were belittled and defamed. Hence a generation grew up with conceptions of the motives of their fathers that were not only mistaken but altogether dishonorable. The result was that the youth of the South were robbed of a glorious and proud heritage.

Little has changed today. That slavery was the cause of the war; that prisoners of war held in the South were treated barbarously; that Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee were traitors to their country; that the young men who died willingly on a hundred battlefields were rebels against a righteous government—all these falsehoods continue to be taught and perpetuated. Even schoolteachers in the South, ignorant of their own history, accept the Northern view that slavery was the cause of the war. They take this position despite the fact that the quarrel between the North and the South began when slavery existed in all the States.

In 1898, 34 years after Sherman’s army burned Atlanta to the ground, a Union veteran visited the city. The veteran addressed the Georgia legislature, praising the valor of the Confederate dead and offering federal aid in the care of their graves. Georgia rose up to welcome him and with Georgia the whole South. It was a magnificent gesture by President William McKinley, who had been a teenager at Antietam. The scene has been recreated by biographer Margaret Leech in her book In the Days of McKinley:

He sprang to his feet when the band played “Dixie” and waved his hat above his head. He reviewed the marching ranks of gray-clad troops….His voice was fervent as he said that the old disagreements had faded into history and the nation would remain indivisible forever. Gen. Joe Wheeler often stood beside the president, swelling the ovation by his immense popularity.

My friends, if this veteran of four years of fighting could stand out of respect for the flag of his foes, what’s our problem 105 years later?

September 23, 2003

David Alan Black is the editor of www.daveblackonline.com. He is currently finishing his latest book, Why I Stopped Listening to Rush: Confessions of a Recovering Neocon.

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