Peter Kinder

NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯 Verified account @japan_nobunaga · Nov 1

Captain William Callaghan walked onto the scorched teak deck of the U.S. battleship USS Missouri off Okinawa and silenced his angry crew.

On April 11, 1945, a nineteen-year-old Japanese pilot named Setsuo Ishino slammed his Zero fighter into the starboard side of the 100-million-dollar warship.

The impact tore the plane in half and threw the young pilot's broken body onto the deck. Furious American sailors moved in to wash his remains overboard with fire hoses.

Nobody on that ship had more reason to hate Japan than Captain Callaghan. Just three years earlier off Guadalcanal, Japanese naval gunfire had killed his own brother, Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan.

Yet Callaghan stepped in front of the body and stopped his men cold.

He ordered his sailors to gather red and white cloth from the ship's signal lockers and sew a Japanese Rising Sun flag by hand overnight.

Some asked why an American captain would waste cloth and honors on a kamikaze pilot during an eighty-two-day battle. Callaghan told his officers that the young man had done his duty to the very end, and in the U.S. Navy, a dead warrior is no longer an enemy.

The next morning, wrapped in canvas beneath that hand-sewn Japanese flag, the nineteen-year-old pilot received a full U.S. Marine rifle salute and Taps before sliding into the Pacific.

Decades later, Japanese townspeople from Chiran came to Pearl Harbor to bow on the deck of the Missouri.

Any nation can hate in the middle of a war. Only a great civilization remembers its honor when the deck is still burning.

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Jay Fontana Verified account @jayquintana_jr · Nov 1

@Jimfrombaseball Joe and Ted Williams, unlike the Babe or Mickey Mantle, seemed like miserable human beings. Not saying they were worse, but they seemed to live such sour lives.

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Nick Schroer Verified account @NickBSchroer · Oct 31

The “tolerant” left strikes again - slicing signs up from St. Charles County to Cape Girardeau.

VOTE YES ON 3
VOTE NO ON 6

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Walter Kirn Verified account @walterkirn · Oct 30

Louisiana, Missouri, just south of Hannibal, Mark Twain's boyhood home. The spirit of Huck and Jim persists there in a way that makes a joke of modernity. I think I saw them fishing together on my walk along the river. They didn't notice the time-traveler watching them.

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Rod D. Martin Verified account @RodDMartin · Oct 30

If politicians can silence a pastor merely by calling a biblical issue "political," they can silence him on anything.

The murder of infants becomes "political." Marriage becomes "political." Canada euthanizing more people than die in America from gunshot wounds becomes "political." Even castrating kids: "political".

If a pastor can't speak to that stuff, why bother to have one at all? Honestly. This is the very definition of fiddling while Rome burns. It is Hananiah in front of Zedekiah (and you pastors should know that story).

The pastor who promised to preach the full counsel of God needs the Democrat Party's permission to finish his sermon? No.

Pastors too often act as though the Christian life extends no further than your church services, your life group, and your quiet time. Bunk. Not one word of Scripture supports that nonsense.

Scripture has a LOT to say about our individual responsbility to push back against evil. But it has LOT more to say about the King's responsibility.

Guess what: in America, the people are the King. We are ALL responsible, and our pastors MUST equip us.

Pastors owe their congregations moral instruction that reaches beyond their "private" lives (and what is that anyway?). Your children attend schools. Your business operates under laws. Your neighbors suffer when government protects evil or punishes good.

Loving those neighbors includes caring about what government does to them. And too often, the key phrase is "to them".

A Christian doesn't stop belonging to Christ when he enters a voting booth. The Ten Commandments don't expire at the statehouse door. Murder doesn't become acceptable when a legislature authorizes it. Theft doesn't become righteous because an official benefits.

Public officials need to hear what God requires of them. But public officials who are advancing evil need to be replaced. If you saw a criminal about to murder a woman you would be required to act. How is a politician who wants to castrate kids and murder babies (or old people) any different?

Church members are also citizens. They live in the world even if they aren't of it. They need to understand what they are supporting and vote accordingly. If they don't, they just hand power to people who hate them and hate Christ.

We know what is required of faithful believers when it comes to the King. Nathan confronted David. John the Baptist rebuked Herod. In America, we are the King. We must confront and rebuke our neighbors who support sin, and we must confront and defeat our leaders who advance it.

Pastors must also preach repentance and forgiveness through Jesus Christ. Your preferred candidate can win every election for the rest of your life and still never save your soul.

When pastors tell the truth about these things, some people will call that divisive. Some will leave.

They left Jesus too. Didn't stop him from preaching against the evils of the authorities, or of individuals, or anybody.

A shepherd cannot let the most easily offended person decide which parts of Scripture everybody else gets to hear.

Pastors answer to Christ for what they teach, but also for what they leave unsaid. When their people face public demands to approve what God condemns, those people should already know why they must refuse.

And if you're hiding behind your "tax status", you're a coward. The apostles weren't tax-exempt, and I'm sorry, but they were all better preachers than you.

Preach the whole Word. Apply it to the lives your people actually live. Christ's authority reaches all of it.

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