Why Is It "Good" Friday?

Why Is It "Good" Friday?

 

A few years ago, I watched a television commentator, probably purely in the interests of affability, extend hopes that his audience would have and enjoy ”a happy Good Friday,” a wish equivalent to hoping Jews would have a fun Holocaust observation or that Ukrainians enjoy reflecting on Russia’s seizure of Crimea. 

Good Friday is only “good” considering what happened over two thousand years ago on Calvary or Golgotha, the site where Jesus Christ was crucified and in the context of what Christians believe happened three days later on what is now called Easter Sunday when He was resurrected from the dead. 

As a child, I was always bewildered as to why the Son of God endured the ignominy of public humiliation and torture and why He allowed Himself to be strapped to a cross like a common criminal and permitted Roman soldiers to pound spikes into His hands and feet when He could have simply vaporized His captors at will and zapped Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas into fiery oblivion. 

Later, as a rebellious, Catholic adolescent, I was equally befuddled by restrictions on what I could and not do on Good Friday such as attending church services and suffering through the onerous burden of being silent between the hours of 12 and 3 PM, the time generally considered the period  following Christ’s condemnation and scourging when He hung, nailed on a cross. 

Today, in my dotage, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36706.)

Glitzy, Glamorous, Gay Grammys

Glitzy, Glamorous, Gay Grammys

 

When the “Popular Christian gospel singer Natalie Grant walked out on the Grammys after witnessing a series of performances that even the mainstream entertainment media admitted were occult in nature” (Prof. Paul Joseph Watson), Ms. Grant made an unequivocable statement concerning her opinion of the awards show.
Despite being nominated for two Grammys, she later obliquely tweeted on the cause of her early departure from the festivities yet made it vividly obvious that what she had witnessed stood in gross conflict with her Christian beliefs.

Professor Watson believes she “was probably referring to Katy Perry, [a daughter of Pentecostal pastors] who was surrounded by demons as she danced around an upside down broomstick before being encircled by fire during a performance of her song ‘Dark Horse’ ” while costumed in a bizarre get-up featuring an illuminated Knights Templar cross.

I don’t know precisely when Ms. Grant took her leave but I’m guessing she hadn’t seen nothing yet!

The 56th Annual Grammy Awards Show, telecast Sunday on CBS starting at 8pm on both coasts and 7pm central time to insure that America’s families and teenagers were tuning in to Katie Perry’s sexually-suggestive performance of ”Dark Horse” in which she first appeared inside a crystal ball and ended with her standing in front of a hellish fire.

Perry had followed the opening spectacle of Beyoncé’s amazingly explicit act.  Semi-dressed in a see-through black thong bodysuit over fishnet tights, Beyoncé sang “Drunk In Love” alongside her husband Jay Z and left no doubt as to their favorite indoor sport. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=35395.)

Hobby Lobby Believes in God over Profits

Hobby Lobby Believes in God over Profits

 

(The following letter written by David Green, founder and CEO of the crafts chain Hobby Lobby, outlining the company’s legal struggles–just one of 63 nationwide–against the federal government’s unconstitutional attempts to run roughshod over religious freedom in America is more than a year old but remains an open case.  It is published here, with a few bracketed clarifications, to alert the American people to the true issues involved and since, as Green observes, President Barack Hussein Obama’s mainstream media won’t publicize his views.
The letter originally appeared as an op-ed piece in USA Today and since then U.S. District Judge Joe Heaton issued a preliminary injunction for Hobby Lobby and its sister company, the Mardel Christian bookstore chain, and granted the case a temporary stay; it may still end up in the Supreme Court. 

Should the government prevail, Mr. Green indicates he would have no other choices but to close all of Hobby Lobby’s 556 stores in 45 states employing almost 23,000 people or effectively submit to demands he and his family abandon their Christian moral beliefs.) 

The Letter:

When my family and I started our company 40 years ago, we were working out of a garage on a $600 bank loan, assembling miniature picture frames.  Our first retail store wasn’t much bigger than most people’s living rooms, but we had faith that we would succeed if we lived and worked according to God’s word.

From there, Hobby Lobby has become one of the nation’s largest arts and crafts retailers, with more than 500 locations in 41 states. Our children grew up into fine business leaders, and today we run Hobby Lobby together, as a family.

We’re Christians, and we run our business on Christian principles. I’ve always said that the first two goals of our business are (1) to run our business in harmony with God’s laws, and (2) to focus on people more than money And that’s what we’ve tried to do. We close early so our employees can see their families at night. We keep our stores closed on Sundays, one of the week’s biggest shopping days, so that our workers and their families can enjoy a day of rest.

 
We believe that it is by God’s grace that Hobby Lobby has endured, and he has blessed us and our employees. We’ve not only added jobs in a weak economy, we’ve raised wages for the past four years in a row. Our full-time employees start at 80% above minimum wage.

But now, our government threatens to change all of that. . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=34561.)