LEGATO...

Reflections on the Rwandan Genocide in the Light of James 3:7-9 John Barber, Ph.D. Most of us know of the genocide in Rwanda that began in April, 1994. The Hutu tribe, in a mission of ethnic cleansing, committed itself to thoroughly wipe out the minority Tutsi tribe that had ruled Rwanda for many years. In a period of 100 days the Hutus killed one million people: 800,000 Tutsi and 200,000 Hutu sympathizers. To accomplish that required the death of one person every second for 100 days! In August of 2013, I had the distinct pleasure of traveling to Kigali, Rwanda to conduct a 3-day pastor’s conference on the Cultural Mandate. Before I arrived, I read widely on the genocide, watched “Hotel Rwanda”, and a movie my son suggested, “Sometimes In April.” Although my reading and movie-watching helped set things in context, none of it answered the fundamental question that bewildered me. How? How could marauding bands, led by the Rwandan government, systematically slaughter one mill...

The Traditional Dowry-System in Africa [1] Arguments for traditional dowry   1.       It stabilizes the marriage and prevents the wife running away from her husband. 2.       Payment of dowry demonstrates that the husband-to-be is capable of supporting a wife. 3.       Payment of dowry makes the wife feel that she is worth “something” and that her husband considers her valuable. It can be considered a proof of love. 4.       Christian missionaries have often supported and encouraged the dowry system as a safeguard to the stability of marriage. 5.       The parents of the girl feel repaid for all their expense of caring for her and educating her. 6.       Bride Price enables the girl’s parents to provide similar dowry for their sons to marry wives. Thus the bride price becomes a kind of revolving fund in the family. 7.  ...

Although Christians know the gospel, many cannot articulate it. Here are two different "30-second" gospel presentations (give or take) you can learn quickly and present to friends, family, or to strangers.  Version 1 God says “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  Maybe you lied, took something that didn't belong to you, or simply lived for yourself rather than for God.  Regardless, once you sin, God says “the wages of sin is death.” That means  eternal separation  from God in a place Jesus called Hell. Now most people don’t want to admit they’re sinners. But God says, “If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”   But here’s the Good News. Jesus did three very important things for us. First, he lived the perfect life all of us were supposed to live, but did not.  The Bible calls Jesus the “spotless lamb of God.” Second, he died on a cross and there paid the penalty for our sins so that we d...

( In addition to my article which is taken from my book Earth Restored, 2002; that's how long ago I warned people of a plan to overcome private property rights, PLEASE watch the full video below of how the city of Vero Beach, FL, overcame this anti-American agenda ).  In his booklet,  The Decline of Property Rights and Freedom in America , Dr. Michael S. Coffman, president of Environmental Perspectives, details the original intent of the Founding Fathers, who saw our God-given right to own land as one of the foundational elements to freedom. Coffman also provides an overview of the systematic erosion of the right to private property in America, which has come at the hands of government interference and its usurpation of individual rights. I strongly recommend the reader get a copy of his booklet. The gist of Coffman’s thesis is that America is presently witnessing a move toward a “new feudalism.” Complete centralized control over most of this nation’s landscape will h...

Frederick Edwin Church (1826-1900) was a devout Trinitarian and Congregationalist. Ministers and theologians were among his closest friends throughout his life. For years a student of Thomas Cole, he left his tutelage in 1846 and established his own studio in Hartford where he heard the sermons of Horace Bushnell at North Congregational Church. In those years Church would have been exposed to the ideas of the young Christian Romantic minister that had just published Discourses on Christian Nurture . I will comment briefly on only one of his paintings. Niagara (1857) is a monumental piece both in physical size and meaning. Painted at a time when America was transitioning from an agrarian to an industrialized economy, and when a new sense of nationalism was in search of an identifiable cultural icon, the significance of Church’s picture of Niagara Falls found a ready audience. While Niagara Falls had been painted many times, even by his mentor Cole, Church brought a fresh a...

Ten Reasons Why “Same-Sex Marriage” Affects Your Marriage John Barber, Ph.D. Supporters of same-sex marriage often ask its opponents, “How would same-sex marriage negatively affect your marriage?” Here are just ten ways: 1. Same-sex marriage reduces the worth of your marriage Redefining marriage to include people of the same sex is a legal endorsement of the fungibility of a man and woman in marriage. To set “any two persons” on a par with a man and a woman in marriage is to reduce the worth of their roles. To draw an analogy, if a government declared the price of coal to be equivalent with the price of gold, would the cost of coal go up, or would the cost of gold come down? The price of gold would come down. Traditional marriage is the gold standard of marriage. People who affirm gay/lesbian marriage as equivalent in worth to the marriage of a husband and a wife devalue the worth of your marriage. 2.  Your marriage will be forced to abide by the social str...