General

 On February 23, 2010 eighteen American leaders gathered at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate in Alexandria, Virginia to sign an historic document that calls the United States back to her founding principles.

The Mount Vernon Statement is an reaffirmation of the worldview that made America great–and brought the blessings of God for over two hundred years. America was a “unique experiment in liberty”–a nation birthed in Christian revival and the corresponding principles of the God-given rights of individuals and corresponding restraints on government.

I hope we all know that we live in very precarious times–ones in which the biblical worldview and the freedoms that it brings are in jeopardy. 

We need a revival in the Church, an understanding of our history, a reformation in the culture and a change in direction in government. The modern day “tea parties” need to give birth to a new American Revolution that can restore the societal foundations now being dangerously eroded.

I encourage you to study the Mount Vernon Statement below and sign this important call to political renewal. We must be patriots all if this nation is to be reborn.

The Mount Vernon Statement on Constitutional Conservatism: A Statement for the 21st Century

We recommit ourselves to the ideas of the American Founding. Through the Constitution, the Founders created an enduring framework of limited government based on the rule of law. They sought to secure national independence, provide for economic opportunity, establish true religious liberty and maintain a flourishing society of republican self-government.

These principles define us as a country and inspire us as a people. They are responsible for a prosperous, just nation unlike any other in the world. They are our highest achievements, serving not only as powerful beacons to all who strive for freedom and seek self-government, but as warnings to tyrants and despots everywhere.

Each one of these founding ideas is presently under sustained attack. In recent decades, America’s principles have been undermined and redefined in our culture, our universities and our politics. The self-evident truths of 1776 have been supplanted by the notion that no such truths exist. The federal government today ignores the limits of the Constitution, which is increasingly dismissed as obsolete and irrelevant.

Some insist that America must change, cast off the old and put on the new. But where would this lead — forward or backward, up or down? Isn’t this idea of change an empty promise or even a dangerous deception?

The change we urgently need, a change consistent with the American ideal, is not movement away from but toward our founding principles. At this important time, we need a restatement of Constitutional conservatism grounded in the priceless principle of ordered liberty articulated in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

The conservatism of the Declaration asserts self-evident truths based on the laws of nature and nature’s God. It defends life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It traces authority to the consent of the governed. It recognizes man’s self-interest but also his capacity for virtue.

The conservatism of the Constitution limits government’s powers but ensures that government performs its proper job effectively. It refines popular will through the filter of representation. It provides checks and balances through the several branches of government and a federal republic.

A Constitutional conservatism unites all conservatives through the natural fusion provided by American principles. It reminds economic conservatives that morality is essential to limited government, social conservatives that unlimited government is a threat to moral self-government, and national security conservatives that energetic but responsible government is the key to America’s safety and leadership role in the world.

A Constitutional conservatism based on first principles provides the framework for a consistent and meaningful policy agenda.

    * It applies the principle of limited government based on the rule of law to every proposal.
    * It honors the central place of individual liberty in American politics and life.
    * It encourages free enterprise, the individual entrepreneur, and economic reforms grounded in   market solutions.
    * It supports America’s national interest in advancing freedom and opposing tyranny in the world and prudently considers what we can and should do to that end.
    * It informs conservatism’s firm defense of family, neighborhood, community, and faith.

If we are to succeed in the critical political and policy battles ahead, we must be certain of our purpose. We must begin by retaking and resolutely defending the high ground of America’s founding principles.

*Please sign the Statement by clicking here.  Your name will be added to the larger list of signers displayed at the Mount Vernon Statement’s website.

The 18 original signers of the Mt. Vernon Statement:

• Edwin Meese, former U.S. Attorney General under President Reagan.

• Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America.

• Edwin Feulner, Jr., president of the Heritage Foundation.

• Lee Edwards, Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at the Heritage Foundation, was present at the Sharon Statement signing.

• Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council.

• Becky Norton Dunlop, president of the Council for National Policy.

• Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center.

• Alfred Regnery, publisher of the American Spectator.

• David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union.

• David McIntosh, co-founder of the Federalist Society.

• T. Kenneth Cribb, former domestic policy adviser to President Reagan.

• Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.

• William Wilson, President, Americans for Limited Government.

• Elaine Donnelly, Center for Military Readiness.

• Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com.

• Kenneth Blackwell, Coalition for a Conservative Majority.

• Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring

• Kathryn J. Lopez, National Review

 “Love does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out” (1 Corinthians 13:6).

We were all given a unique Valentine on February 14. If we really love the world and the peoples of the world, then we should rejoice that February 14 was a day of truth about global warming. The scientist at the center of the Climategate scandal of the past year–Dr. Phil Jones–has now admitted the real truth:

There has been no evidence of global warming for the past fifteen years.

For fifteen years (1995-2010).

Let that time frame really sink in.  During the past fifteen years:

• Al Gore produced his infamous eco-documentary An Inconvenient Truth which should now be re-named A Very Convenient Fabrication. He also won a Nobel Peace prize–based on a lie.
• Michael Moore produced numerous propaganda flicks and made lots of money based on the notion of global warming. I like Michael Moore’s faith and his heart,  but he, too, got swept up in the fiction-based science.
• We’ve banned off-shore drilling for oil and gas.
• California has ham-strung its economy with wild-eyed environmental policies leading to an exodus of industries and a disastrous multi-billion dollar deficit.
• We’ve become completely dependent on foreign energy sources, losing thousands of jobs in America and allowing the price of energy to skyrocket.
• We’ve place a moratorium on nuclear energy and the multiplication of clean-energy nuclear facilities (President Obama announced today the building of a new nuclear plant in Burke, Georgia which is step the right direction).
• A Cap and Trade bill that would probably produce a depression in this country is still being pushed through Congress mandating carbon credits for business and huge taxes on consumers.
• New EPA regulations authorized by the Obama Administration–if fully implemented–would further cripple our already ailing economy.
• The recent Copenhagen Climate Conference tried to push through draconian environmental measures that would have greatly affected economic growth and prosperity worldwide.

And all of these and hundreds of other global warming initiatives were based on a lie. 

Professor Phil Jones has finally told us the truth. Here’s the story by way of the London Daily Mail on-line (a news story by Jonathan Petre last updated at 5:12 PM on 14th February 2010):

“Professor Phil Jones admitted his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be.’ The academic at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers.

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that sceptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analysed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.

Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones.

According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realised that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.

Asked about whether he lost track of data, Professor Jones said: ‘There is some truth in that. We do have a trail of where the weather stations have come from but it’s probably not as good as it should be.

‘There’s a continual updating of the dataset. Keeping track of everything is difficult. Some countries will do lots of checking on their data then issue improved data, so it can be very difficult. We have improved but we have to improve more.’

He also agreed that there had been two periods which experienced similar warming, from 1910 to 1940 and from 1975 to 1998…He further admitted that in the last 15 years there had been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

Harrabin added that the professor’s concessions over medieval warming were ‘significant’ because they were his first public admission that the science was not settled.”

Wow! How’s that for game-changing blast of the “hockey stick of truth?”

The other hockey stick graph was a fraud–just like the “Evoutionary Tree” in many science textbooks.

This is a Valentine’s Day present we can all rejoice in. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t care for the created world,  be good recyclers, and be looking for ways to clean, improve, and make more efficient the human institutions and industries we serve. 

It does mean that nature and nature’s God have more to do with the weather than we do. We should respect both–but never tell lies for political ends. I have personally written on this subject a number of times during the past year including:

• The Global Warming Dog & Pony Show
• Earth to EPA: “Don’t Worry, We’re Chillin'”

 You might want to peruse those articles again. They make even more sense now.  The very best column I’ve seen on this topic was Charles Krauthammer’s insightful article called “The New Socialism” that we also published.

Krauthammer rightly points out that the hoax of global warming due to man-made causes was all about money and power. It’s that simple.

It was about tyranny–“wearing an EPA cap.”

Truth brings the opposite of tyranny–freedom.

Let’s rejoice in the liberating truth we’ve heard this week that the world has not been warming in the past fifteen years and let’s throw all our might into drilling, building those nuclear plants, scrapping the Ethanol subsidies, loosening the chains of environmental laws and regulations, spurring innovation and invention, and achieving energy independence and blessing for our own nation and others around the world.

“When the earth experiences Your judgments the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness” (Is. 26:9)

In the book of Revelation, the Bible describes a time when God will judge the sins of earth with natural catastrophes and supernatural signs including earthquakes. The result of these catastrophes is stated in Revelation 16:9, “They cursed the name of God who sent all these plagues. They did not repent and give him glory” (New Living Translation).

It seems strange that people wouldn’t confess their sins when faced with the power of nature’s God. But is the response to the recent Haiti quake instructive of the secular mind-set that Revelation tells us will be prevalent one day?

The politically correct (secular) view of the Haiti quake was that God was not involved in the calamity–only (maybe) in the relief efforts. How do they know? Why was there such a strong aversion to even considering that God could be a part of this natural disaster?

Here’s the obvious reason: Secularists want to convince the world that there is no God–that they are the ultimate authorities and their forms of human government, including humanitarian relief, are the main things that should be trusted and appreciated. The atheistic interpretation of reality instructs people that there is no God, no such thing as sin and thus no sins to be repented of.

From that vantage point a future Revelation 16:9 taking place in an atheist dominated world makes total sense. No God–no repentance–even when it’s a smart thing to consider.

Now you know why the secular press and blogs went so spitefully after Pat Robertson’s interpretation of the Haiti earthquake.  The The Huffington Post was quick to criticize his perspective on January 14, 2010 saying that “Pat Robertson said Wednesday that earthquake-ravaged Haiti has been “cursed” by a “pact to the devil.” Others said the remarks were insensitive, out-of touch, and had no place in the post-earthquake debate.

Here’s what Pat Robertson actually said. “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.”

“Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after the other. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It is cut down the middle; on the one side is Haiti on the other is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etc. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island. They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we are helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.”

One cartoonist condemning Robertson’s words drew a map of a fault line running through Haiti and another one traversing the lips of the CBN founder. It was a cheap shot.

Pat Robertson was not saying as fact that the earthquake was God’s judgment. He was just trying to understand the disproportionate aspects of suffering that have visited the Haiti portion of the island of Hispaniola. Could there be some spiritual reasons? Fair question if you believe in God, Satan, blessings and curses.

I worked with Pat Robertson during the 1980’s and spoke to his staff at the Christian Broadcasting Network on a number of occasions. He is a wise and compassionate Christian leader and entrepreneur. He’s not an  uncaring hell and brimstone preacher–but a high profile prophetic individual with a traditional Christian worldview. For this reason he’s regularly quoted out of context, just like Jerry Falwell was for years. He’s one of the favorites of the Christian-bashing crowd.

Pat Robertson and CBN and its Operation Blessing arm are one of the world’s most effective private charities. They don’t wish curses or difficulties on anybody, but rather for over thirty years have served numerous catastrophes and relief efforts on a global scale. They are one of the key organizations now working to help rebuild the lives of the Haitian people.

Pat Robertson simply mentioned the checkered past of Haiti’s history. I’ve read that same history and have also deeply pondered why Haiti has experienced such unusual poverty and suffering over the past three hundred years. I’ve never been to Haiti–but I travel to Puerto Rico every November to train young people. I have a number of friends who work in Haiti, and our organization–Youth With A Mission–lost one staff member in the horrible quake. We are currently using our YWAM properties in St. Marc as emergency housing for refugees.

Haiti has marvelous resources–the same as the Dominican Republic and shares the same beautiful island–but it is the poorest, most corrupt nation in the Western hemisphere. 80% of the Haitian people believe in witchcraft (Voodoo), and the average Haitian makes $1400 per year compared to seven times that amount on the other half of the island.

Is Haiti under some kind of supernatural curse? Or, at the very least, have some very bad human decisions brought darkness, unbelief, poverty, and physical judgements to a people who could be as faith-filled and prosperous as many nearby neighbors (e.g. forty percent of Puerto Ricans attend church)?

Let’s be even more basic. What are some of the possible realities behind natural disasters and environmental catastrophes that we experience on earth, including Haiti? I can think of four possibilities or combinations or them:

GOD

The Bible is clear that the God of the Universe uses weather and physical events on earth to reveal truth and draw people to change their lives. In the 8th century B.C., God brought a vision through the prophet Amos “two years before the earthquake” (Amos 1:1)  during the reign of King Uzziah that spoke of the land being shaken by God (8:8), houses being smashed (6:11), altars being cracked (3:14) and even the Temple at Bethel being struck and collapsing (9:1). As Stephen Austin writes, “The prophet’s repeated contemporary references to the earthquake is why it bears his name. ‘Amos’ Earthquake’ impacted Hebrew literature immensely. After the gigantic earthquake, no Hebrew prophet could predict a divine visitation in judgment without alluding to an earthquake. Zechariah says “Yes, you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah” (Zechariah 14:5). The panic caused by Amos’ earthquake must have been the topic of legend in Jerusalem because Zechariah asked his readers to recall that terrifying event 230 years later.”

The prophets said for centuries that God used famines, earthquakes, invading armies, and pestilence to bring people to repentance. This is why even insurance companies categorize natural disasters as “acts of God.” This is a valid, historical view. As C.S. Lewis famously stated: “Judgment is a severe form of mercy.” When we don’t listen to God in our hearts, he uses environmental means to get our attention. The goal is always repentance i.e. a changed life and hope for the future.

SATAN

The Bible also records that the devil, Lucifer or Satan, has some delegated powers to bring physical calamities upon people. This was the case of the trials of Job whom God allowed Satan to sift to prove and strengthen his faith (Job 1:12-19). In this particular story, fire, invading tribes, and violent winds were used by the enemy to test and impoverish Job. In the end, God used Satan’s physical testings to bring Job to repentance and actually expand his prosperity (42:5-10).

NATURE

We also know that we live in a fallen world where accidents, both of man and nature happen to people in every culture. The world is no longer a Paradise, but one where “the whole creation groans and travails in childbirth” until it is set free from its fallenness (Romans 8:18-30). Thus many of the physical disasters and calamities we face might not be the direct hand of God or Satan, but simply the fruits of a fallen and imperfect world that are allowed by the Creator.

HUMAN SIN

A final possibility for human suffering is the curse of human sin. Notice the graphic word picture in Isaiah 24:1-6: “Look! The Lord is about to destroy the earth and make it a vast wasteland. See how he is scattering the people over the face of the earth. Priests and laypeople, servants and masters, maids and mistresses, buyers and sellers, lenders and borrowers, bankers and debtors–none will be spared…The earth dries up, the crops wither, the sky refuses to rain. The earth suffers for the sins of its people, for they have twisted the instructions of God, violated his laws, and broken his everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and its people. And those who live in it are guilty.”

This possiblity involves God but stresses man’s part in the curse of creation. None of this scenario is God’s fault. It’s the direct result of man’s sin.

So why was there a devastating earthquake in Haiti on January 13, 2010? We don’t know for sure, but it clearly could have been an act of God, or influenced by Satan, or simply involved fallen creation, and/or was a direct result of a curse because of people’s sins.

We have to be very careful in our assessments and words–but let’s not deny that God and supernatural forces could have been involved.  

From our ponderings and prayers, we might be wise to give the same answer that Jesus gave when he was asked why a tower fell killing eighteen people. He replied, “Were they the worst sinners in Jerusalem? No, and I tell you unless you repent you will also perish” ((Luke 13:4-5).

It would be helpful for us, and the people of Haiti who were devastated by the earthquake, to seek the face of God for the reasons for their misfortune. In response to their repentance and faith, God just might use this terrible tragedy to break an awful and unusual curse on a nation and for the first time, establish it  in righteousness, increased safety (better buildings), godliness and prosperity.

A repentant attitude, along with compassionate acts of mercy, can bring true hope to the people of Haiti.