‘Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s….’ words Goshen Collegeneeds to remember as it bans ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’.

 




by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

Author’s program note. To get the most from this article and set just the right mood, go to any search engine and find a copy of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” for the words to this, America’s National Anthem, are at the heart of what tiny Goshen College is doing… prohibiting this stirring song from being played because of what college officials call its martial message.
Goshen, Indiana looks, at first glance, to be a typical Midwestern college town. 116 miles from the breakneck pace of the Windy City and all its distractions. Goshen is, particularly in summer, a sleepy place, a place where the pace ambles, and you can still find students sitting comfortably under a tree engrossed in a book.
But first impressions can be wrong… and if you saw Goshen as somnifacient you’d be wrong… for Goshen is more, far more than what you see. It is a land where the Word of God is vital! Living! Omnipresent and Real!
God is not abstract and distant from the collegiate community at Goshen. He is a kind and gentle God, as close as your beating heart. You do not merely think He cares for you… you know it! You see it! It is present reality.
In Goshen, Indiana as in its Biblical predecessor, no armies or any of the paraphernalia of war are allowed to enter… for this is land blessed by God… a land protected by God… a land apart. Glory Hallelujah for ever and ever.
The troubled spirits at Goshen.
For years now, officials at Goshen College have wrestled with something that profoundly bothered them… how could they, in good conscience, play “The Star-Spangled Banner” at sporting and other events when it celebrates everything they abhor and abominate, the chaos, mayhem and destruction of the “rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air”?
One bright idea after another was tried, to serve God as they were sure He wanted…. while not outraging the profound patriotism not merely of their Indiana neighbors but which they themselves deeply felt.
Some suggested playing a tune like “America the Beautiful” (which many of their fellow countrymen in any case prefer) or “This Land is Our Land.” Others recommended playing the National Anthem along with the anthem of another country, perhaps of an international student.
The discussions were long, learned, abstruse, unsatisfactory. There was no idea, no policy that satisfied all and kept Goshen true to its principles. Because a few could not solve the conundrum, Goshen resolved to consult the many. A survey was sent to 4,000 alumni, faculty, and students…  A year was dedicated to finding a solution to a problem that seemed insoluble, how to serve their God and their country, too.
In due course, college officials released their findings… and in minutes the peace of Goshen College and its idyllic community was sundered; officials had decided to ban the National Anthem altogether, thereby returning the college to its strict previous policy….  Obeying God, so they reckoned, was more important than America. It was a decision nicely calculated to produce maximum criticism, outrage, and anger. Peaceful Goshen, where God’s peace abideth, was not peaceful anymore.
Their decision subjected an unhappy Goshen to the scrutiny of America. Officials who saw themselves as stewards of God…. were now pilloried as insular, bigoted, selfish people willing to take the benefits of the Great Republic while insulting the profound symbol of that Republic.
Goshen College, only days before unknown and unacknowledged, was now pummeled and ridiculed, assaulted and demeaned by local townspeople and by the nation. News media helped fan the flames by framing the matter as a debate between those who love country, who honor the military and its sacrifices, and despicable religious zealots and America detractors.
For Goshen these days of June, 2011 were the unhappiest of days. There was no peace in the land where in happier days God Himself found peace.
Waffled.
All of Goshen was on alert now, waiting for the further attacks they knew would come, and bitter, too.  And as the attacks mounted the college officials resolved to do what members of the Academy so often do: abjure inconvenient principle, find a comfortable modus vivendi. In short, they waffled.
It was painful watching these officials, all targets now, twisting in the wind. They wanted the ban to continue; they wanted the attacks to stop. They wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. They wanted the impossible…
But in God, all things are possible.
“And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s. And they marvelled at him.” (Mark 12:17)
Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus was constantly questioned by those seeking to discredit him. The occasion on which he uttered the words above were one of the most important. Here some of his many detractors sought to trip him up by asking a vital question about taxes, specifically should they be paid at all. His questioners hoped Jesus would give a simple “yes” or “no” response. Answering “yes” would have left him open to the accusation that he was in opposition to the Jewish resistance to the Roman occupation and therefore against God, too.
Answering “no” would have given those present an opportunity to report him to the Roman authorities as someone who was trying to incite a revolt. Either way, the questioners supposed, Jesus was trapped.
But he wasn’t.
And neither are the people of Goshen College, for Jesus has solved for them, the problem he solved for the Jews the day they asked the question they were sure would trick him, ending his bothersome ministry.
The flag of the United States and its magnificent anthem are of Caesar. Use them, honor them accordingly, for you have the highest authority for doing so and no cause for dismay and confusion. Confounded you may have been… but can be so no longer.
And so America asks you, Goshen,
“O! say does that star-spangled banner yet wave, O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
Let the flag fly… the great anthem soar… not divisive but uniting and all under God… for in these ways the people see how God loves us and with what munificence He has shed His grace on us all.
About the Author

Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also a historian and author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell CEC http://HomeProfitCoach.com Check out Passive Niche Profits ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=xu7yqVjM

False prophet — again. How Harold Camping’s miscalculations failed to predict the end of the world. May 21, 2011. And why he’ll certainly try again, disrupting many lives.

by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
Author’s note. To get into the right mood for this article, search any search engine and find the well-known gospel tune “I’m on my way (toCanaan land)” (Written by William M. Golden, 1914) . My favorite is the version by the great

Mahalia Jackson. Chances are over the last few days you’ve heard of a zealot named Harold Camping. He’s the originator of Oakland, California based Family Radio… and he’s got a bee in his bonnet for sure.He’s a man so fervently longing for the world to end, so that righteous rewards and punishments can be meted out,  that he’s willing to risk (over and over again)the public ridicule and mockery that inevitably follow when his specific world-ending predictions fail to occur.Today he’ll be especially busy explaining to his discombobulated flock just why he goofed on this occasion and why his absolutely precise prediction for the end of terra firma — 6 p.m. May 21, 2011 — was erroneous… but not, he’ll ever, wrong,really….in fact perfectly reasonable once you understand the minute horological calculations and Biblical truths he will be, today, explicating a mile a minute, without apology,embarrassment or any excuse whatsoever.For you see, divinely appointed prophets like the egregious Camping are never,ever wrong. On occasions when they seem to be, it is simply the case that they have, for an instant, misunderstood God and His purpose. But now, God has corrected their misapprehension and given them, yet again, total clarity, complete understanding,and a vision which cannot be doubted of how and  when rapture will occur — this (next) time for sure. Eternal damnation and total perdition will come to those who doubt… never mind the muddle that just occurred and the complete chaos and disruption to the lives of the disappointed True Believers who were certain today they would awake to eternal bliss in the bosom of the Lord… but instead heard nothing but the insistent assurances and renewed certainties of the prophet they trusted… the prophet who mislead them, again.Camping’s legacy: lives high jacked, disrupted, shattered without compunction or remorse. When one is a prophet, with a speed dial to God, one has better things to think about and deal with than the tiresome, annoying but essential realities of life. Those are beneath the notice of the Elect of God. The job of such is to seize your body and soul; to  prepare you for revelation, exaltation, rapture, for total immersion in eternal God. These prophets,with the stern message and visage of their ancient prototypes, are masters of agitation,fulmination, damnation and submission.They — and Camping is very definitely one of them — tell a parent whose children are not believers that they shall not be together in the infinity of Paradise, because the children are on Satan’s path. Prophets want total submission…. and so, obsessed by their mission, they are happy to spread fears, terrible fears, and profound anxieties, the better to achieve their objective. Believers in a household have an obligation to cause pain to those still at risk… if by so doing they can capture the soul and shepherd it to Heaven and bliss. They are under a moral obligation to do this…and they must act promptly since their leader and prophet has revealed God’s specific date when personal choice ends…And so, with the complete support of Harold Camping believing wives tell still disbelieving and unsaved husbands that they shall be separate through eternity if the husband will not submit. Day and night this argument is made, made again, insistently made, made with sincerity and profound belief, disrupting everything until it is resolved and the soul garnered…. Believing children turn the tables on non-believing parents and, speaking of eternal love and togetherness, work their will on wayward parents… and so, worn down, these parents announce, for love of child, their born-again belief. Hallelujah!And so it goes as each family member using the potent threat of eternal loneliness and isolation, of alienation, despair, profound miseries and the unspeakable pain of Hellfire work tirelessly to capture the souls of the people they most care about. For so important are these people, that the pain Camping encourages you to give must be the greatest pain of all; you love them so and must, therefore, do everything, anything to harvest their souls. And the date, the date when you will be irrevocably placed through eternity is coming, coming… a God-given certainty, Prophet Camping says so… and he is a good Lyman. About Harold Camping Harold Egbert Camping, born July 19, 1921, is a Christian radio broadcaster and president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the  United States as well as website. Educated at the University of California, Berkeley, he earned a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering in1942.Camping early saw the potential of using media to establish a ministry without walls.His first acquisition was station KEAR in San Francisco; his mission to broadcast traditional Christian Gospel to conservative Protestants. During the 1960s, Family Radio acquired six additional FM stations and seven other AM stations under guidelines established by the Federal Communications Commission (FTC).Camping went on the air at once and made an impression with his deep, sonorous voice coupled with a slow, emphatic cadence. Right from the start he was fascinated by and often broadcast about Bible-based numerology to predict dates for the end of the world. Central to Camping’s teaching is the belief that the Bible alone and in its entirety is the Word of God, absolutely trustworthy. However, he emphasizes, this does not mean that each sentence of the Bible is to be understood only literally. Rather the meaning of individual Bible passages also need to be interpreted in the light of two factors. The first is the context of the Bible as a whole. The second is its spiritual meaning.With these guidelines, Camping has moved step by step towards ever more radical beliefs, including his oft broadcast assertion that the date of Christ’s second coming can be worked out to a precise moment of time. He regards three factors as essential to this precise determination:1) Jewish feast days in the Hebrew calendar, as described in the Old :Testament,2) the lunar month calendar (1 synodic month = 29.53059  days), and3) a close approximation of the Gregorian calendar tropical year (365.24219 days,rounded to 365.2422.)He projects these into modern times and combines the results with other informationin the Bible. His predictions, based as they are on the infallible Word of God, followas a matter of course, including both his original
prediction that the Lord’s return would be in 1994; then when that failed, he lay low for a while, before announcing the amended prediction that this return would be May 21, 2011 with the entire world destroyed in a fiery inferno, October 21, 2011.Nothing that Harold Camping has predicted with such absolute assurance and ringing clarity has come to
pass. But hundreds of people revere him anyway and still pay credence to what he says, no doubt his voice of certainly assisting. But I say this unto these poor souls. Is what you are being asked to do truly what a loving God would ordain? “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves”.
(Matthew 7:15).
About the Author
Harvard-educated Dr. Jeffrey Lant is CEO of Worldprofit, Inc., providing a wide range of online services for small and-home based businesses. Dr. Lant is also the author of 18 best-selling business books. Republished with author’s permission by Howard Martell <a href=”http://HomeProfitCoach.com“>http://HomeProfitCoach.com</a>. Check out Massive Auto Traffic ->  http://www.HomeProfitCoach.com/?rd=hi76Cl4e