My Disappointment with Justice League no.1

OK. I'll admit it. I'm a Marvel guy. I read comics books when I was Junior High and stopped reading in the late 80's when I went away to college.

Now that I'm older, I decided to get back into comics. When it comes to DC Comics, I only read Teen Titans in the 80's.

So now that DC has decided to relaunch with the New 52, I figure its a good time to see if it's worth jumping into the new DC Universe.

Sadly, I'm a little disappointed with Justice League #1. Why? High expectations and unmet expectations.

From a business standpoint, DC has to bring in new readers. They need Marvel readers like me and they need the general public to give comics books a chance. In my opinion, they failed with the release of Justice League. Here's why...

If I'm going to jump into the DC Universe, I need to be wowed when I read the first issue. The cover of Justice League is great, you entice me with a star studded cover and only produce Batman and Green Lantern. I will say I like the story, but because I only saw two main characters, the end of the first issue left me wanting. I mean, how many issues will I have to buy in order to see all of the League? How much money will I have to invest to get my payoff?

Here's what I might have done. Start this issue a year into the relaunch. Show me all the characters doing what they do and then use the individual comic lines of each character fill in the gaps of the first year. I hate the fact that I have to buy 4 to 5 issues before I can decide whether it's worth following.

I'll try a few of the other titles, but DC had a chance to put their best foot forward. They did not with Justice League.

I'm not going to say DC failed with the relaunch, but I will say they squandered an opportunity.

Sharing the Gospel with the Kid

At some point in my child's life, I would love her to accept Christ into her heart. Well, I think I'm almost there.

Me: Who lives in your heart?

The Kid: Jesus!

Me: Who lives in mommy's heart?

The Kid: Mary.

Me: Who lives in my heart?

The Kid: Jesus' friend.

Me: Who lives in Lexy's (the dog) heart?

The Kid: The donkey.

I think we're pretty close.

Unions - The New Double Standard

Please tell me where I'm wrong in this whole Wisconsin union battle.

Union's sole source of income is membership dues. They take member
dues and spend millions supporting Democratic candidates. These
candidate then win the election and in return negotiate worker
contacts that the state can't afford. Democrats agree to these deals
because they received contributions from the unions.

Is it me, or do you not see a conflict of interest? It's almost as bad
as starting a fake war so that Halliburton can receive millions in
defense contracts.

-----------

Second point. Unions are talking about it's members being stripped of
rights. That's funny. What rights are they talking about? I don't
remember ever having the right to collective bargaining when I had a
job. I should be so lucky.

Sent from my iPad

Things To Do On Long Car Trips

Today I took the kid to my Grandmother's house for Chinese New Year. The trip is about an hour long and I decided to bring my wife's iTouch with us. Why? Because I can load it with Caillou and she can watch a few episodes on the way. Worked like a charm. She watches movies and I can listen to Howard Stern without her hearing anything inappropriate.

It got me thinking about how I handled long trips in the car when I was a kid. I'll tell you we did a lot of long trips. Every Sunday, we'd be at my grandparents for dinner. That's one hour. After dinner, we'd drive my aunt to her dorm room at UCLA, then home, that's a good 90 minutes. Then twice a year, we'd travel 6 hours to San Francisco.

There's was nothing to do in the car. The radio was alway set to the news or classical music. BORING! Reading made us car sick and with six people in the car, it was alway cramped and uncomfortable.

I remember only one thing that made the time pass quickly. It was a device that we called the "Tape Recorder." Good old tape recorder. It was one of those small handhelds. I used the tape recorder three ways:

1. Bootlegging music. Long ago KFI was a top 40 station. In the morning was the comedy duo, Lohmen and Barkley. I'd just record the show and music onto the tape. I could edit out songs that I didn't like and have 60 or 90 minutes of musical pleasure. Illegal yes, but it provided monoral bliss.

2. Bootlegging movies. Junior high was the only time in my life that we had cable television. There was this movie channel called Showtime. I decided to tape record the sound from movies on Showtime. My ambitious plan only allowed me to record only one movie. Only one? Yes, most movies where rated R and I never had the time to sit for 90 minutes and record uninterrupted. My parents usually wanted to watch something else. What was that movie?

The World's Greatest Lover

Starred Gene Wilder as a wannabe Rudy Valentino. I can still remember bits of audio from that movie. Part of me still wishes, I had recorded The Bad News Bears.

3. My Own Radio Show. One day, I discovered that if I plugged our headphones into the microphone input of our stereo, I had a fully functional microphone. This began my first foray into radio broadcasting. I'd grab my parents 70's music albums and spin the hits. I must have made at least 10 broadcasts.

With the handheld recorder, I would also record shows on those long trips. It annoyed my family. They hated to hear me make them and worse, they hated hearing it over again in the same trip.

Thank God for portable DVD players and Satellite radio. But at the same time, this passive viewing of entertainment really does nothing to stimulate creativity in my child, like it did for me 35 years ago.

Union Hypocrisy

Here's a fascinating segment from the Daily Show. It exposes Union Hypocrisy against Walmart. Essentially, Unions hire temporary workers to walk picket lines for them. They are paid minimum wage without benefits and when the job ends, they no longer can ear a wage.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Working Stiffed
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

Obama's Promise to Save Homes

Source: Associated Press

In 2009, President Obama signed a law to help homeowners save their homes from foreclosure. Must like other federal programs, the law was meant to help but in facts helps very few people. Worse, it gave hopes to millions of home owners and instead left them hopeless and resentful of the federal government and President Obama.

Here's the facts.

• President Obama promised to save 4 million homes whose home value declined in comparison to the principal of the mortgage.
• Only 449,000 homes have been saved thanks to this problem.
• As of August, 680,000 homeowners were denied new loans. This is a 51% disqualification rate.
• This month, only 18,000 homeowners are bothering to apply. Compare it to the 100,000 applicants in the first month the program was available.

This is just another lesson of how useless it is to count on the government to get the economy going again. They pledge millions of dollars but the requirements are impossible to meet for the average American.

Something else to consider, all this stimulus money is earmarked for government and public works jobs. That means if you want to work, you have to work for the government or for the powerful unions.

Obama's Failed Stimulus Package

When Obama first became president, he created and signed into law the largest spending bill in the nation's history. It in fact doubled the national deficit in one fell swoop.

He made certain promises too. He told us that if we passed this spending bill the nation's unemployment rate would not go above 8%. The current national employment rate is at 9.6%. He also said that it would create jobs.

To my Democrat friends, I have to ask you two questions. The first is, he promised the employment rate would not go above 8%. What happened? Why did it go up? There's only two answers you can give. The first is Obama was wrong. This means that from an economic policy standpoint Obama doesn't know what to do about the economy. The other is that Obama is a liar. He just wants to spend money and will say anything and promise anything to get it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's incompetent.

This is why we need to remove Democrats from power, because they have no idea how to get us out of this economic mess. No comes word that he wants to propose another stimulus bill. All they can tell us is that George Bush and the Republicans got us into this mess. Well, they're half right. The economy began to tank in 2007 when the Democrats gain full control of Congress. The problem here is that George W. Bush signed every single spending bill so that he can continue to fight the war in Iraq. To me this will taint my opinion of him. He made the problem by not limiting the Democratic Congress.

This is my second question. Why did the first stimulus bill fail? It's failed because Americans were led to believe that the government would be responsible if they were given billions of dollars. If I gave private industry and government each $1 billion, who would spend it better? If you say the government then you don't know much about the government.

Let's take a look at the city of Los Angeles. According to the International Business Times (and reported nationwide), Los Angeles received $111 million from the 2009 stimulus bill. The money was earmarked to create jobs. Today, the number of jobs it created and saved was 55. That's over $2 million a job. The Los Angeles Department of Public Works received $70 million from the Stimulus Package. They created and save only 45 jobs.

Listen my Democrat friends and please tell me this does not disturb you. I can guarantee that if you gave the "rich" as you call them $181 million, you can damn well be sure they would create more than 100 jobs.

The only response that I hear from Democrats is that the city didn't get the money fast enough or this is George W. Bush's fault. Please someone tell me why they think based on these facts that President Obama knows how to fix the economy.

Mr. President let me tell you how to fix the economy. STOP EFFIN' AROUND WITH THE ECONOMY. That's right stay away. Stop trying to take over Wall Street. Stop trying to tax us for carbon emissions. STAY THE HELL AWAY.

All signs show that the economy is ready to come back. The problem is that no one wants to hire new employees because they don't know how much more money you'll take away because you want to raise taxes on the rich and two, Obamacare is driving up the costs of health care.

I'm just a simple guy and any pragmatic person when given the facts can see that you don't have a clue. We're tired of you blaming Bush. Fix the problem.

TNA is going in the wrong direction.

I know it's been a long time since I've written. Things will change now that I have a little more time and with the election season coming up, I'm sure I'll have a lot to say.

I'm going start a little light on the subject matter. As a fan of professional wrestling one of my greatest memories of wresting was the Monday Night Wars between WWF and WCW. I loved the real drama and competition that existed between the two companies.

As we know, WWE won the war and bought WCW. This left WWE as pretty much the wrestling monopoly. Now comes TNA. They started as a Pay-Per-View only show and then moved to Spike TV. This little company was an upstart featuring Jeff Jarret as the figure head.

Last week after watching TNA, I pretty much had it. To me, here's the main difference between WWE and TNA:

WWE has youth and excitement.

TNA has the elderly and not much more.

I'm watching TNA and I'm seeing my heroes of the past working away the final years of their career. Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Mick Foley, Kevin Nash, and the original members of ECW.

Back in the Monday Night Wars, WCW stole the top talent from the WWF. TNA picks up the used up talent from WWE.

Don't get me wrong, I love seeing my heroes of the past. But at some point it gets pathetic. Although I will admit it's pretty pathetic seeing Bret Hart in a WWE ring as well.

TNA has all these story lines where wrestling legends overshadow the young, original talent from TNA's beginning. AJ Stiles, deservedly, is given a top position in the company, but what happened to everyone else, like Christopher Daniels and why are they intent on destroying Samoa Joe's career.

I'm not seeing anyone new making through the ranks of TNA.

The WWE on the other hand is highlighting their new talent, while at the same time mixing in the veterans. Case in point...Wade Barrett and the Nexus. When did you ever see a group of 9 first year rookies headline a main event. Almost every member of the Nexus deserves to be in the WWE, especially Daniel Bryan, who is undoubtedly exciting to watch.

I know that TNA owes Spike TV ratings, but you're no longer going to draw an audience by resurrecting the past. TNA's problem has always been it's weak ability to tell a story.

And the Diva's are much hotter than the Knockouts with the exception of Tara (vah vah voom).

Double Standard: Helen Thomas and Israel

Another entry in the Double Standard. How is it that Democrats get a free pass on Anti-Semitic comments? What Conservative could get away with making the same statement as Helen Thomas. "Get the hell out of Palestine!"

Wrapping My Head Around Lost

So here is my understanding of what Lost was all about.

There's this island. It's a special island that lives and breathes through a series of intense electromagnetic wells. At the center of the island is its heart.

The island selects a guardian to protect its heart.

A long time ago, the guardian was a woman who we'll call Mother. Bored with her job, she happened upon two babies and decided to raise them as the new guardian. The babies where Jacob and the Man in Black. Being the manipulative mother that she was, she gave both sons certain power. For both they received eternal life, but for Jacob, she gave him the ability to set the rules for which he could govern the island.

The Man-in-Black banishes himself to live with the visiting humans. He discovers that they are evil and want to use the power of the island for their own good. The Man-in-Black allies himself with the visitors in order to use their knowledge of how to harness the island as a way to get off the island.

Mother, disturbed with the news, stops the Man-in-Black and purges the island of the visitors. Thus stopping their efforts. A fight occurs. Mother dies leaving Jacob as the new guardian and the Man-in-Black becomes the smoke monster and determined to see Jacob fail as the guardian. His mission is to kill the island.

Jacob now in charge has set the rules of a new game. There are two objectives: one, prevent the smoke monster from killing the island. Bring more and more visitors to the island to show that man is not inherently evil but can make the right choices.

Jacob brings Richard Alpert, Danielle Rousseau, Widmore and Gang, the Dharma Initiative, Yemi, Desmond, Oceanic Flight 815.

Interestingly enough, the Dharma Initiative is the most evil of the group. As scientists, they've been able to find each of the individual electromagnetic wells and built research stations on top of them. Each station has its own uniques purpose.

At one point they breached a well (The Incident). As a result they had to build the Swan Station on top and punched numbers into every 108 minutes and this caused all pregnant women on the island to die during child birth.

Because the Dharma initiative was getting close to finding the heart of the island. Jacob was forced to purge the island of the Dharma initiative and start over with Oceanic 815.

He carefully selected candidates and got them on the flight. Many of these selected candidates lived sad and troubled lives and they were often met with tragic deaths.

Soon the candidates, were whittled down to Jack and Hurley. After killing the Smoke Monster, Hurley becomes the new guardian after Jack sacrifices himself to resurrect the island from death.

With Hurley in charge and able to set the rules, he honors his friends from Oceanic 815 and especially Jack because he felt that Jacob had really screwed up their lives to play this stupid game with his brother.

Hurley creates the flash sideways. In the Flash Sideways, he gives each of his friends a chance for one week to be with the person they loved. Sayid and Shannon, Sun, Jin and Jeon, Hurley and Libby, Sawyer and Juliet, Ben, Danielle and Alex. Every except Jack and Kate. As Jack moves on from life to death, Hurley brings everyone together to let Jack know that he didn't screw up their lives but made their lives better. Jack even had a son David to show that he was not his father.

Conversations with My Daughter 2

OK, this one is pure torture to me. The kid and I are coming home after shopping at Walmart and Sam’s Club. It’s a 20 minute drive home. I decided to buy some cheese for the kid and a bag of Ruffles for me.

 

The Kid: Daddy, hungry.

Me: What do you want?

The Kid: Daddy, hungry.

Me: Do you want some cheese?

The Kid: No…Daddy, HUNGRY!!!

Me: What would you like?

The Kid: Mey Mey!

Me: What is Mey Mey?

The Kid: Mey Mey. Daddy hungry (very high pitch scream).

Me: Do you want chips?

The Kid: Nooooo! (even higher pitch scream)

Me: Do you want Chicken McNuggets?

The Kid: Yeah!

Me: Thank God.

 

Pulled off freeway.

Two Minutes Later

 

The Kid: Daddy Hungry.

Me: I know we’re almost there. Chicken Nuggets.

The Kid: Nooooo!!!! Mey Mey!

Me: What? What the *(&#! Do you want?

The Kid: Mey Mey

Me: Cheese.

The Kid: No

Me: Chips

The Kid: No

Me: Banana

The Kid: No

Me: Crackers

The Kid: No

Me: Orange

The Kid: Yeah!!!

Me: Oh come on. Orange? How in the world is Orange a Mey Mey?

The Kid: Laughter

Me: Say Orange

The Kid: Orange

Me: What do you want to eat?

The Kid: Mey Mey

 

She’s so lucky, she’s so cute.

Conversations with My Daughter

OK, everyone hates these cute-things-my-kid does stories, but here we go:

 

The Kid: Daddy, Tee-Vee

Me: What do you want to watch?

The Kid: Blu-blu

Me: You mean "Blues Clues"

The Kid: Yeah...Blu-blu

Me: Say "Blue"

The Kid: Blue

Me: Say "Clues"

The Kid: Clues

Me: Say "Blues Clues"

The Kid: Blu-blu!

 

We've been having this conversion for 7 days straight.

Today is the First Day of the Rest of My Life

No better way to say this that just to say it. I've been let go. Discharged. Nixed. Axed. Shown the Door. Got my pink slip.

Yes, I've joined the ranks of the millions of unemployed Americans in the Obama-nation.

Before I go any further, I have no ill feelings for the Credit Union. Honestly, they did me a favor. After the most trying time in my 16 year tenure, I just lost the will to grow in my job. I'm not blaming anyone, but I was just got tired and I could not fight anymore.

You know you're done when you work for just a paycheck and health insurance. My joy has always been in coming home, playing with the kid and performing on the weekends.

Now I get to turn my life into a cliche and start a new chapter in my life. I've can live comfortably for a few months and decide exactly what God wants me to do next.

Well, anyways, the first stage of grief is denial. I'm pretty sure this is where I'm at now. I feel like I'm on vacation. I switch between the feelings that I don't have to go to work on Monday and oh, crap, I don't have a job.

Now's my chance to start a new adventure. Time to start something new. Can I find a 9-to-5 in this economy? Can I find a job that I can be happy with?

So what's the first thing I did when I got home? I bought an exercise bike. I was going to do this anyways with the money I made taking photographs on the cruise. No real reason to not do this. I really need to increase my cardio and reduce my gut.

Religious Abuse and Other Factors Leading the Irrelevancy of the Church

Before I begin, I feel I need to make some unnecessary disclaimers. I, Alan Ng, am a conservative born again, evangelical Christian with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. After you read this and the other blog entries, you can call me whatever name you want, it will just fall off my back.

I became a Christian in the 1980's just before graduating from high school. I was swept up and took part in the popularity of evangelicalism. I loved my Christian t-shirts and listened to only Christian music. I drank milk from Christian Cows (Steve Taylor Reference). I listened to Focus on the Family, Chuck Swindoll and Chuck Smith. I protested abortion (as I still do today) and The Last Temptation of Christ. And like all good evangelicals, I'm a Republican.

These last few years though have been trying times, not for my faith but for my faith in the church. My faith that the church can remain relevant and paint an accurate picture of Christ.
Much of my attention today has moved away from church and church involvement to the ministering to the needs of those abused and discarded by the church. The song They Will Know We Are Christian By Our Love comes to mind. What does the world see, when they see Christians.

What I see today from Christians has little to do with showing Christ's love to a fallen world, but more about maintaining a pure and godly lifestyle and forcing others to live that way too.

When I talk to people who have turned away from Christianity, I hear stories of the Church letting them down and the Church constantly judging them. The reason rarely have to do with Jesus Christ himself.

In future blogs, I hope to get into detail with this topic, but before then I would direct you to my writings about Homosexuality and Christianity. All of the criticism that I've received never once treats a gay person as a person in need of Christ, but as a person whos lifestyle will prevent them from ever become a Christian and now their sole goal is to destroy the family. This is a huge leap to take.

As an evangelical my life's goal is not to protect America's legal definition of a family. My goal is to be salt and light in this world and share the Good News of Jesus Christ.

More on this later.

Three Important Life Lessons I Learned in Seminary

That’s right. Little known fact about me, but I graduated from seminary. If you’ve been reading my blog lately about my support of Gay Marriage and Why I Hate Praise Music, you’re probably surprised that I have a Masters Degree in Christian Education. And not from a liberal seminary. My degree comes from a very conservative seminary. I will keep my school nameless in order to protect the seminary, but all of my friends know which one it is.

So have I turned my back on my religious training? No, I haven’t. I may be “an instrument of the devil,” but I certainly have not turned my back on my training, nor my faith.

You may ask, how can a praise-music hating, gay-loving Christian, still call himself an “evangelical.” It’s easy and I learned it all from seminary. Here are a few truths that I learned in seminary.

God Hates Legalism

Jesus showed compassion and judgment. The problem is that the evangelical church today has it backwards.

Believe me I’ve studied the Gospels for a long time. Please do what I did and look at times when Christ interacted with the lost and when he interacted with the religious leaders, the people who represented God.

Christ showed nothing but compassion to the lost. He NEVER EVER showed judgment to the lost. In John, Jesus meets the woman at the well. She had numerous husbands and was living with a man. Christ came down to her level and told her about living water. She was trying to feel complete in her life through love and sex. Instead, Jesus told her that only God could fill that emptiness in her life. Jesus pointed out that he knew why she felt empty inside and that she used love and sex from numerous men to fill that emptiness.

You also see in the gospels that when Christ healed the sick so that God would be glorified. Christ never had a pre-condition when it came to healing. He did not expect the lost to repent and then be healed. He healed and exclaimed “go and sin no more.”

Christ showed nothing but judgment to Religious Leaders. To the men, who had “God-given Authority” Christ has the harshest words. Why? These men had taken God’s law at this point and interpreted the law to fit their own need and lust for power or as a way to keep themselves on a higher pedestal than their flocks.

The classic is the Sabbath. Being a Religious Leader (the Pharisees), meant that your followers had to listen to you to understand the law. Stop there for a second, that’s a lot of power right there. People come to you to tell them what God says. Whatever you say, people will believe that is what God thinks you should do. My friends, that’s POWER.

The Pharisees criticized Christ for healing the sick on the Sabbath. God can only heal 6 out of 7 days? Christ fed the masses on a Sabbath.

I learned in Seminary that whenever the New Testament uses the term “false religion” the writer was always referring to Legalism (with the exception of 1 John). Christ hated legalism to such a degree that he labeled it false religion. Legalism is the idea the salvation comes from following a set of rules. The Religious Leaders at the time not only had God’s Law from the Old Testament, but over time had twisted and mangled the Law to meet their self need for power.

The Letter of the Law vs. the Spirit of the Law

When I became a Christian in high school, I did not really know that much about God. I didn’t know what it meant to be good. Sure I had ideas, don’t hurt others, don’t lie, etc. but aside from that how was a Christian supposed to act?

I had friends at my church tell me what to do. Here’s how you pray. Start with “Heavenly Father” and end with “In Jesus Name, Amen.”

I was at chapel and I had a stack of books to carry, I was told to place my Bible on top of the stack. This way I was respectful of the Bible.

I was told to dress up every Sunday and wear a tie. I was told that I needed to be baptized. I was that rock music was un-godly. I was told to only listen to secular music. I was told that Amy Grant back-slided because she produced a rock album.

So I rebelled. I wore tennis shoes instead of dress shoes to Sunday service and in my most controversial move, I played Contemporary Christian Music during our High School fellowships end of year slide show for which I was never allowed to choose music again.

If I loved God with all my heart, mind and soul, why was wearing tennis shoes a sign of disrespect? Why was the use of drums and an electric guitar in songs a sign that the artist didn’t love God.

I just protested by saying don’t question my faith because I won’t wear what you want me to wear or listen to the music that you want me to listen to.

Sure plenty of scripture was thrown at me. Many of it had more to honoring God than telling me that dress shoes was more appropriate to tennis shoes. (p.s. this church I attended today uses drums and the majority of people don’t wear ties to worship.)

What about the law? Jesus said that He came not to do away with the Law but to fulfill the Law, meaning he died to free us from the Law. But at the same time the law existed for a purpose. The Law illustrated to us how we could live a Godly life. The problem is that there were thousands of rules to follow and we’d go nuts trying to comply with the minutia of each verse.

God understood this and sent Jesus to come to earth to show us how a person can live a Godly life. Christ lived a sinless life, to show that it was possible. He never violated the law.

This still doesn’t help. I’ll explain. Christ’s example in fact simplified the law down to two important tenants. Once, Love God with all your heart, mind and soul. Two, love your neighbor as yourself. Your interpretation of the law and scripture should be measured on these two tenants. This is why we can eat pork and shellfish without fear of sinning. We should only fear the heart attack and mercury poisoning.

I describe the usefulness of the law this way. The law is a series of brush strokes. As each brush stroke is applied to the canvas slowly the image of God appears. When all of the brush strokes and used and you step back you see a good representation of God and living a Godly life. Up close the individual stroke means very little. But has a whole, we have a good idea of how God is.

Evangelism and Spreading the Word

Ironically, as an Evangelical Christian, this last point should hit us. The Book of Acts tells us to “Go into all the world” preaching the Gospel (or Good News). This Gospel is a message of Salvation and a message of Love that God showed through dying on the cross for our sins, because we were unable to save ourselves.

As people, we have one job. Live a Christ-like life.

As Christians, though, we have one job. Share the Gospel and let other know the joy of the Christ-like life.

I bring this up because on a global level the tale of man’s history, the fate of world so-to-speak, is completely in God’s hand. We have not influence over it. Whether we blow ourselves up in World War III or drown ourselves because of Global warming, this is God’s plan and nothing will change it.

Our job is share the Gospel with God’s children (which is everyone on the planet) and help them grow in their faith. Our job is not to create a Christian world, because I will guarantee you it will not happen. I’m not being pessimistic. Read Revelation and you know a Christian world not nothing going to happen anytime soon.

This is the main reason, why I am for Gay marriage and why I’ve resisted the urge to say whether I believe homosexuality is a sin or not. Because it doesn’t matter. All people are created by God. God desires that all people come to have a relationship and receive salvation. No exception.

You will not find examples of Jesus standing at a street corner holding a “Yes on Prop 8” sign. You will not find Jesus showing up on television calling homosexuality an abomination.

Conclusion

I have not been in a paid role in Ministry for a long time. In fact, I don’t know a ministry that would hire me based on things I’ve written in my blog. That’s fine with me. I have a wonderful wife and family and I hope to raise this family as Christ would.

My hope in writing this is that you understand the stances that I take and things that I do are consistent with everything that I’ve learned and believe about Christianity.

I invite your comments. Even that negative one. And yes, I reserve the right to publish or not publish your comments. This is America for crying out loud.

Intolerance - Not Just a Conservative Problem

As a lifelong conservative, I’ve been labeled as intolerant. In some cases, rightfully so. I think conservatives and Christians have been intolerant of the gay community.

But liberal are even worse when it comes to intolerance. Believe me, I have a lot of liberal friends, who still view me as the enemy for my views.

The dictionary defines “intolerance” as “unwillingness or refusal to tolerate or respect contrary opinions or beliefs, persons of different races or backgrounds, etc.” Here’s the challenge to my liberal friends, whose do you respect that has a “contrary opinion” to yours.

I have a very long list of Liberals, whom I have a healthy respect for.

Let’s look at true examples:

Whole Foods is one of the leading providers of organic and healthy food. Being the meat-eating conservative that I am, I rarely step into a Whole Foods store. The CEO of Whole Foods has recently explain why he is against President Obama’s health care plan. “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

Now Whole Foods is being faced with a boycott of 25,000 Facebook users. This online petition states “Whole Foods has build its brand with the dollars of deceived progressives. Let them know your money will no longer go to support While Foods’ anti-union, anti-health insurance reform, right-wing activities.”

I ask you, how is this not an act of Intolerance. In fact, maybe if we ate more organic food, we wouldn’t have a health crisis. (oh god, did I just say that?)

Glen Beck on Fox News has a boycott campaign launched against him because he called President Obama 'racist" for his remarks about the police acting "stupidly". Fair statement? Who cares. What happens if liberals call President George W. Bush "racist"? Oh wait, they did and did of alot.

Nancy Pelosi called demonstrators at town hall meetings as being “un-American”. Since when does vocally demonstrating at political arenas label you at “un-American”. So if we apply Pelosi’s logic to Code Pink during the Iraq war, then Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan is “un-American”. Liberals, you can’t have it both ways.

I could easily call Code Pink “un-American” since they demonstrated against our involvement in obtaining the freedom of Iraq and defending our nation against terrorists, but I can’t. They have every right to demonstrate for what they believe in. (No matter how wrong they are)

I can cite a few more personal examples of intolerance, such as the time I was hated by my friends when George W. Bush beat John Kerry. But understand, that’s just “the pot calling the kettle black.” Oops, I think that was a racial slur.

The War Ends Now: A call for a real Gay ministry discussion

I recently ran into an old friend on Facebook (not old age, but old having known her almost 20 years. My friend, Misty, blogs about similar issues regarding Homosexuality and Christianity, plush she’s a hellalot smarter than me.

Anyways, she posted a link to this interesting article. In short, a church that almost split and lost their rental property because they allowed a Homosexual family to actively participate in their church. Here’s a link: Covenant Stories: No Right Answers

What makes this sad is that as a whole Evangelicals have no ideal what to do with God's children who are homosexual. We are consumed with purging the church of sin, instead of sharing the gospel. What God do we want to portray?

I feel bad for the pastor as he puts it, “It seemed clear to me that I was a symbol for her of the church that had turned them away.”

I keep mentioning to my critics to consider how Jesus dealt with the lost and sinners. He showed nothing but love and compassion. I defy anyone to show me a time where Jesus spoke harsh words of judgment when speaking to the lost, either in a crowd or individually.

On the other hand, every instance that Jesus had harsh words to say was too the religious leaders, especially when it came to legalism. By legalism, I mean coercing their flocks and followers to behave in “Godly” ways in order to maintain good standing before God and entrance into heaven.

One of the things that I learned at my popular conservative Christian seminary, was the with the exception of 1 John; anytime the writers (Jesus or the disciples) mentioned false religion, they always referred to Legalism as the false religion.

Nowhere in the Bible have I ever been commanded to stand at a corner with a sign condemning homosexuality or to ask homosexual visitors to leave or to “unfriend” them (using a Facebook term).

I was commanded to show love, compassion, share God’s sacrifice to the lost.

So again my evangelical friends, how does God want us to reach out and minister to the gay community.

My Life Invested in Star Wars - Part 1

I was in a discussion recently about all of the time I’ve spent in line waiting for movies. I like to think I’m a movie buff and I know that I’m a huge Star Wars geek. I’m going to document here the amount of time that I’ve spent in line waiting for a Star Wars movie.

Episode 4 – A New Hope. This was the one that started it all and it was only known to me as Star Wars. Released in 1977, I was barely 10 years old. To this day, I am now a huge fan of horror movies and I’m still scared to watch them. I thought Star Wars was a horror film. During the summer of 1977, I was hanging with my Dad at this office in Palos Verdes. Needless to say, I was bored out of my mind. My older brother and his friends were going to see Star Wars and I definitely didn’t want to go. My dad, more or less forced me to go with my brother. We drove down to the South Bay Galleria in Torrance, bought our tickets and walked right in. I instantly became a fan. Also this would be the last time that I walked directly into a theater to see a Star Wars movie.

Amount of time in line: 0 minutes.

Episode 5 – Empire Strikes Back. The rumors were true. There would be a Star Wars sequel. Other rumors included Darth Vader being Luke’s Father and the Millennium Falcon blowing up. Also, that Frank Oz would be the puppeteer behind Yoda. I was a huge Muppet fan. I really don’t remember who was with me for this showing, might have been my younger brother, but we returned to the South Bay Galleria and stood in line for 2.5 hours (a full showing) of Star Wars before barely making it inside.

Amount of time in line: 2.5 hours.

Episode 6 – Return of the Jedi. The end of a saga. I made the mistake of seeing this movie on Memorial Day. It’s 1983 and I’m a sophomore in high school, my friends and I basically took the bus back to the South Bay Galleria. We were prepared for a long line. We brought games to play in line because the frustrating part of the line is that it doesn’t movie until they let you into the theater. We were playing Cosmic Encounter, which I found in the garage the other day. And other role playing games. Yes, I played AD&D. We stood through 2 showings. Arrive at noon and didn’t get our seat until 5:00 p.m.

Amount of time in line: 5 hours.

Times have changed. Every so often I’ll drive by the South Bay Galleria and tell my wife, there used to be a building there and I saw the first 3 Star Wars movies there and spent almost 8 hours in line.

Growing up there as a kid, there were only 4 places to see movies for a total of 30 screens and I traveled by bus to get there. Today, within a 20 mile radius of my home, I can go to well over 200 screens. Blockbusters like Star Wars will play ever 30 minutes, instead of having to wait 2.5 hours between shows.

Times have changed. Next time, but rest of the saga.

Alan Ng - Instrument of the Devil (hazards of Christians supporting Gay Marriage)

I’ve had a few people kind enough to respond to my posts about Gay Marriage. I’ve decided to take a new approach to these criticisms. I found a company that will animate these e-mails for me. So here’s the first one.

Not only am I an “Instrument of the Devil” but I am quite the Svengali with my words. Boy, I wish this was true. Millions would come to Christ with my charismatic, yet hypnotic words.

Bridging the Gap Synchroblog - Christianity and Homophobia

This is my contribution to today’s Bridging the Gap Synchroblog. Today, I’m proudly joining dozens of other Christian bloggers to talk about bridging the gap between Christians and the homosexual community. Please take a moment and check out the New Directions ministry.

I’ve been intentional in my blog about not addressing whether homosexuality is a sin or the spiritual state of homosexuals for two reasons. One, the debate can not be resolved easily nor will it be resolved anytime soon. Two, for the purposes of this blog, it’s irrelevant. Whether you believe it’s a sin or not, as Christians it’s not up to us to stand in judgment over the world and deny the rights of our fellow human beings. We were never given that authority by God.

I’ve always considered myself to be a good Conservative Christian.  I did not grow up in a Christian family. I accepted the Lord in high school. When I turned 18, I became a Republican and voted for Ronald Reagan. I was an ardent supporter of ministries dealing with the family, such as “Focus on the Family.” I went to seminary where I converted from a fundamentalist to an evangelical (if that’s a change at all). All this to say that from the very beginning of my Christian walk, I was told that homosexuality was a sin.  I would listen to Focus on the Family and hear them tell me how homosexual community is trying to destroy the family. I became a Christian in the 80’s at the start of the AIDS epidemic and was told that this is God’s judgment on homosexuals (which I never really believed). And as time passed, I was warned of the Gay Agenda to not only destroy the family but to directly attack Christian churches and my faith.

For the most part, I believed what I was being told. So what has changed?

As I read some of the blog of those participating today, we all share something in common. We all actually know people who are gay. In my other life, I perform improvisational comedy in San Diego. It was there that I befriended my first of many homosexual friends. Then I found that I have close family members who are gay. Every time I have an opportunity to be with one of my friends, I wonder what I have got offer as a Christian?

This brings me to today’s topic: Christians and Homophobia

I used to joke about this. “I’m not homophobic, I’m just afraid of gay people.” Soon this joke became very real to me.  If there’s one thing that I can say to the Gay Community is that “we don’t hate you, we’re just afraid of you.”

So why are we afraid? I’ve was told on numerous occasions, that the last sin of a society before it falls is homosexuality. Then I’m pointed to Sodom and Rome. The truth is that they didn’t fall because they allowed same-sex couples to get married. They fell because they were a god-less society that used sex for god-less reasons, like rape and hedonistic pleasure. It’s a very different picture than two people of the same sex making a lifetime commitment to each other.

I was also told that the Gay Agenda seeks to destroy the family. That’s also not true. Whether or not, we allow same sex marriages to exist, my wife, daughter and myself will still be a family.

But why do we have to share marriage with the gay community? My answer is “Why Not?”

Schools will teach children that society accepts homosexuality as normal.  Yeah, schools are teaching evolution and allowing kids to get abortions without parental notification. Why, as Christians, have we allowed the public school system to teach our children about values, when this is clearly our job as parents.

They are going to revoke tax exempt status, allow churches to be sued, shut down churches that speak out against homosexuality.  Even if this is true and your church is being attacked because of your messages denouncing homosexuality, I have a question for you. Is this why your church exists? To end the scourge of homosexuality? If it is, I would challenge you to rethink your purpose as a church.

In a recent blog, I mentioned that the church has three real goals on earth. Matthew 22:36-40 – Love God and love your neighbor. Act 1:8 – Share the gospel to the world. Ironically, you’ll find an excellent explanation of these goals in Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Church.

I’ve always been bothered by the fact that the message is stop and put an end to the sin of Homosexuality, but never in that message do I hear love your neighbor or share the Gospel. How has it that we’ve drawn the line in the sand and made homosexuality the unpardonable sin? How is it that when we find out a person is gay, that we need to “speak the truth in love” and point out their sin and move no further until they repent. How is it that the evangelical Church has no strategy at all for reaching the Homosexual community with any kind of real plan for sharing the world?

We will risk our lives going into Muslim countries in the name of the Lord, but we won’t bother going into West Hollywood or Mission Hills.

I’ve found that interacting with my gay friends is no different interacting with my straight friends. They are all people with individual stories and with an emptiness that life just can’t fill. And I have a message that Christian is the living water to quench their thirst.

I take that back, there is a difference; I have no church that I can take a gay friend to without being judged or told to repent. Or where they are going to be stared at and in many cases not asked to come back unless they’re willing to repent (believe me if they’ll do it to my divorced friends, they do it to my gay ones).

My Challenge to the Evangelical Church. Let’s get back to what we’re called to do and come up with a real ministry to homosexual community. Let me start you off. Head into the homosexual community. Meet individuals. Talk to them. Listen to their stories. Share with them your story about how God changed your life. Let God speak through you. Let God do the rest. And finally, end the war.