RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Merry Christmas! My Prayer for You is a Place in Heaven

The Word is who the apostle Paul spoke about in Romans 1:20 (NLT) when he said:

“From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.”

Could Paul have possibly understood how utterly profound his statement was, when the sky contains an estimated 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars? Or that our bodies are composed of highly complex DNA, genes and chromosomes, the blueprint of our humanness and God's plan for us? Or that scientists consistently discover more and more things in the universe that exhibit a perfect mathematical precision?

Yet this infinitely powerful Being was the same Word who Paul spoke about when he wrote in Romans 8:38-39:

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Lack of Knowledge of the Bible is Creating a Poor Witness

When we stopped learning about God, then we stopped learning who He is, so it is no wonder that there are so many Christians that live sinful lives. You can't respect or understand someone you don't know, and to boil God down to a set of rules that are meant to spoil our fun does ourselves and God a great disservice.

Yet for many denominations, human wisdom - such as Block's - is being accepted as superior to the wisdom that God offers to us, and the reason is because they simply don't know any better. They stopped learning long ago, or even worse, they never had the education they need to learn who He is in the first place.

As for Block's assertion that religion can't alter human nature? I agree. However, real Christianity isn't a religion, it is a relationship with God. That, in large part, is what Block doesn't understand, and it may well be that it is because she has seen people who call themselves Christian behaving as if they weren't.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Eldridge Cleaver's Story Shows Dislike for Communism

Skousen gave another quote from Cleaver that was even more indicative of his disillusionment with Communism:

Cleaver said, “I was wrong and the Black Panthers were wrong… We (black Americans) are inside the system and I feel that the number one objective for Black America is to recognize that they have the same equal rights under the Constitution as Ford or Rockefeller, even if we have no blue-chip stocks. But our membership in the United States is the supreme blue-chip stock and the one we have to exercise.”

There is a scripture that says that there is nothing new under the sun. At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining momentum and negatively influencing our entire culture (along with an outright rejection of the Constitution by the Democrat party, and to a lesser degree, even the Republican party), perhaps it is time for all of us – whites, blacks, Hispanics, and all of the rest of us who have made America our home – to come to the same realization that our Constitution is one of the greatest gifts God ever gave to mankind.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Fewer Christians Seem to Be Teaching the Bible in Depth

For the same reason, we need to be documenting our church buildings and Jewish temples as evidence of our nation's Christian-Judeo heritage. The day may come when we will do as Nehemiah did, lament the fact that so much time has passed that no one remembers our roots. Architecture has as much value in proving that lineage as any manuscript or printed document has. The fact that a group of people banded together their time and their fortunes in order to build a place of worship testifies that America was indeed founded as a Christian nation.

Having said that, there is more to preserving the church in America than preserving its architectural history. While church architecture is important, it is not the church itself, that is, we know from scripture that the church was intended to refer to a body of believers.

The church in America is making a radical change. Some would say that it is a good change, while others see it as the destruction of the church, and there are valid arguments to be made on both sides. I have struggled myself with the change, seeing both pros and cons. The change I am referring to is the new model of church services and church structure, that is the way it conducts its activities. That new structure comes in two separate forms.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

If America Ceases to Be Good, America Will Cease to Be Great

Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville is one that describes the character and Christianity of people of the former of the two conditions I just described:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Where is America headed now? Most polls show that the majority of Americans believe that we are headed in the wrong direction. The question is, have we been taken so far away from our Christian roots that we are likely never to find our way back again?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

De Tocqueville Saw the Importance of Faith in America

De Tocqueville was astonished that this harmony between religion and government could work, but what he found was that religion could do what laws could not: “The revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not permit them to violate wantonly the laws that oppose their designs… Thus, while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust.”

In other words, because America had a Christian mindset – even if not all of them were necessarily believers, though the vast majority were – they had a conscience that negated the necessity for the creation of laws. This is in stark contrast to the many thousands of laws that we now have, many of them in response to actions by those who have not possessed such a conscience.

Perhaps one of the most striking statements by De Tocqueville was eerily prophetic of America. He wrote, “The unbelievers in Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a (political) party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are allies of government.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Need to Know More About the Constitution

When I returned home from a recent trip, I turned on the television and one of the Fox pundits was complaining that people justify their political beliefs based on the Constitution, but that the U.S. Supreme Court justices couldn't agree on their own interpretations of the Constitution.

The truth is that we need to know more about our Constitution. The knowledge of what our Founders went through to write it, and why they wrote it as they did is a complete mystery to most Americans.

But that knowledge is not lost. It is available in a book that I have mentioned numerous times in my column, The 5000 Year Leap.

When the settlers of Jamestown set foot on what was to become American soil, the standard of living was not much different than it had been for the previous 50 centuries. Socialism was attempted, but it nearly wiped them out.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

A New Madrid Fault Earthquake Could Damage Tulsa

On December 16th, 1811, a major earthquake hit the area of New Madrid, Missouri, then hit again with nearly the same intensity the following January and February.

The vibrations rang church bells as far away as Boston. It was felt as far north as Canada and as far west as Oklahoma.

In the New Madrid area it changed the course of the Mississippi River, caused land in some areas to fall 20 feet, and was responsible for the creation of Reelfoot Lake in Kentucky. Many buildings, especially unreinforced masonry structures, were damaged or destroyed within a 250-kilometer radius. Some eyewitnesses said that the land actually rippled like a wave.

The earthquake was so severe that it was felt in 27 states, a 2 ½-million-square-kilometer area. By contrast, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was only felt over about 150,000 square kilometers.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Have a Fear About What Muslims Might Do

This week, on the Law of the Land website, another case has surfaced. Under the headline of the article Fed. Dist Court in VA Finds Facts Sufficient to Support Substantial Burden and Nondiscrimination RLUIPA Claims, it describes how the Islamic Center of Culpeper (ICC) had been denied a building permit by Culpeper County in Virginia. The complaint alleges that the county used regulations involving the use of septic tanks as a reason for denying the permit, and that the real reason for denial of the permit was to prevent the mosque from being built. The complaint was filed by the United States Attorney's Office on behalf of the mosque.

Not enough information was included in the article to make any bystander judgment on the actual merits of the case, but in a general way I can say that these sorts of things have happened to churches as well. Just one of the more outrageous cases I could point to was the Rocky Mountain Christian Church in Boulder County, Colorado. So in that regard, I could say to this mosque, welcome to the club.

On the other hand, while local governments that attempt to prevent churches from building in their communities do so mostly for economic reasons, there is real and serious fear in allowing Islam to gain a foothold in our communities. It is a problem that we as Americans have to find a way to deal with in a fair way that provides protection for all involved.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans No Longer Understand Our Founding Principles

The premise of the book is that until the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, mankind's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged for the past five-thousand years. Within two hundred years after the adoption of these documents, Americans had made huge leaps in standard of living and in innovation in technologies.

Why this is so important to America is that America has been gradually dumbed down over the past century, and as a result we no longer understand the principles underlying our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and are suffering the consequences. Our economy suffers, our families suffer, and our citizens live in a state of confusion about what it even means to be an American.

In part this is about a systemic and purposeful rejection of God, which is tragic especially when you realize that you don't have to believe in God for the system to work, even though it is a system designed around Biblical principles. It is the ultimate example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – we will reject God even though we know at the same time we would be rejecting all of the good things in life that come with living by these principles.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Unfair Treatment of Churches is a Growing US Problem

The sad thing is that defeating a church that wants to use RLUIPA as a defense is quite easy – if the church does not have the funds or the right counsel available. In addition, there seems to be as many churches that lose their cases as that win, and there is no shortage of attorneys that specialize in defending municipalities against RLUIPA.

In the long term, states need to enact their own versions of RLUIPA, but the effectiveness of this is questionable as long as the federal government has the ability (it does not have the right, just the ability) to override state laws and referendums.

The real solution is for there to be a change of heart and thought in our nation to value our churches again, and perhaps even some courage among our churches to adopt a peaceful “we will not obey” attitude toward actions against them, just as many pastors have already done in their Pledge in Solidarity to Defend marriage (which I would encourage everyone to read and support). The church and its missions are worth fighting for.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Drive in the Country Brings Questions About the Future

How did America become saturated with small towns during the 19th century, only to be given a death blow? If the brave settlers and entrepreneurs of that time had faced the massive regulations and labor costs that we face today, would those towns have ever existed? And if they had never existed, how would the production of goods in the industrial era ever taken place, or could this nation have ever been able to feed itself without the farming communities that now pepper the American landscape?

Even the guru of urbanism, Andres Duany, recently voiced concern, stating, “Our thesis is studying the great American continental expansion of the latter half of the 19th century, when thousands of towns and cities were founded in the absence of financing. We must understand what allowed that and what makes it seem impossible today. Among the constituent elements are a very light hand of government and , often, management genius - as well as normative patterns like the continental survey, the town grid, etc. But the key element is successional urbanism. Start small at the inauguration, and later build well, culminating in the climax condition of the magnificent cities of the 1920's.”

The national debt, regulations of all sorts, and organized labor, all have contributed to the demise of small towns (and even large ones like Detroit). The federal government, and to extents that vary according to each state, state governments, have a stranglehold on American lives and new development in America.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Where will American Churches be Permitted to Build?

Another complaint the attorney asserted was against a church in a residential neighborhood that sought permission to add a fourth floor to their existing three-story building. This was considered particularly outrageous, as though the church was intentionally disregarding its neighbors by adding height to its building.

I don't know the details of this case, but it could be that the church was landlocked and had nowhere else to grow but up. The hypocrisy is that it is a moral and social wrong for this church to add height to its building, but in contrast, new zoning code models actually encourage or even mandate multi-story, multi-family construction in neighborhoods as a means to densify the city and increase its tax base.

Why is one acceptable and the other is not? A bias against churches and their tax status. In fact, the attorney's argument against this example and other similar examples was that the churches were violating homeowner rights by changing the character and intensity of neighborhoods by expanding their facilities and their services, but no complaint was made about zoning codes that would allow only multi-family, multi-story buildings to be constructed in neighborhoods that had been rezoned without homeowner permission.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

You Can Fight Back Against the Use of Eminent Domain

Even before the fateful 2005 Kelo v. New London U.S. Supreme Court decision, governments had been pushing the limits in the abuse of eminent domain to seize personal and business property in order to give it to other private entities for development.

But the great thing about America – at least for now – is that there are ways to defend yourself against eminent domain abuse, even when it is unconstitutionally sanctioned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

There are a number of organizations that will assist property owners - and churches - that are facing the loss of their property to eminent domain abuse, but I would like to draw your attention to one in particular, the Castle Coalition, a part of “The National Law Firm for Liberty”, the Institute for Justice.

On their website, the Institute for Justice states, “Our four pillars of litigation are private property, economic liberty, free speech and school choice. Simply put, we seek a rule of law under which individuals can control their destinies as free and responsible members of society.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Kelo Decision Keeps Casting a Dark Shadow Over Churches

It has been nearly 13 years since the unconstitutional decision by the U.S. Supreme court gave governments the right to abuse the practice of eminent domain.

That 2005 decision not only affects how decisions are made concerning development, but will have long-term effects on the abilities of churches to build new facilities or to keep the ones they currently own.

The decision that gives cities sweeping powers to take privately owned homes, businesses and other properties under the guise of the “public good” is literally a license to steal.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Christian Individuals Must Step Up to Rescue America

As former U.S. Attorney Edwin Meese III recently wrote in support of RFRA in a Washington Post opinion article, “These groups would have the government force citizens to help celebrate a same-sex wedding and penalize them if they try to lead their lives in accordance with their reasonable belief that marriage is a union of husband and wife”.

The problem, however, remains that America is still slipping away from God and its original Christian principles. We were all encouraged at the financial support that the pizza restaurant owners received after they were attacked by gay activists, but if trends continue, someday there will be no one to come to the rescue.

The answer has to start with Christian individuals and the churches of America, who will stand only on what the Word of God says. Otherwise, we will become as the conclusion of the book of Judges described, “In those days Israel had no king, so the people did whatever seemed right in their own eyes.” That will destroy us as a nation.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Don't Push the Global Warming Myth to Advance Goals

President Trump's first few days in office is addressing something that needs to be aggressively pursued – dishonesty in the mainstream press and in government.

For instance, here's something that has been totally ignored since 2009. At that time, Chelsea Schilling posted an article on World Net Daily entitled “History of Climate Gets ‘Erased’ Online.” She wrote, “A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message. Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post's Lawrence Solomon reports.”

Well, it wasn't totally ignored – it was about that time the proponents of man-made global warming began using the phrase “climate change.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Critic of Churches Doesn't Really Understand Christianity

To follow that line of reasoning one would conclude that if only churches in the neoclassical style (along with war memorials and department stores) can be sacred, then a church of any other style is not. Therefore, there is a shortage of sacred spaces in the suburbs and the only real sacred spaces are generally found in urban areas where churches were usually built in the neoclassical style.

The truth is that it does not matter what style a church is designed to be, because it has nothing to do with God's acceptance of the people in that church. It would be equally preposterous to assume that the congregants of a church designed in the neoclassical style were unacceptable to God because their buildings were designed in the style of the Romans who persecuted the church.

There are many churches that have been built to bring glory to man instead of God. Some of them are majestic cathedrals and others are cheap “ugly” metal box churches that have been built demonstrating the best that its congregants could give. If any church were to be called “sacred”, it would be the later, not the former.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Churches Assist Their Communities in a Myriad of Ways

After hearing that the Share Christmas event at my church had provided Christmas presents to more than 260 children from low-income families, it struck me that so few people know just what an impact churches have on their communities.

It's a popular notion that all churches send missionaries to Africa, but it's just that – a popular notion. While some churches do in fact send missionaries to Africa, that is a very small part of the giving that churches do.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Churches Need to be More Aware of Their Physical Locations

When I found myself becoming a student of urban planning, one thing that became immediately obvious to me was that there are those who plan with an agenda, and those who plan for realities.

Several years ago urban planner John Fregonese came to Tulsa to conduct our master plan, PlaniTulsa, and he came to our local AIA (American Institute of Architects) chapter to explain his philosophy. In his presentation, he claimed that Tulsa needed to plan for the new reality that cities were becoming places for single people and less for families with children. Later, as I recall, the surveys his team conducted were conclusive that Tulsa was a family city, even in its urban core, yet the final version of PlaniTulsa still focuses on attracting young people downtown.

Kotkin writes about this topic in an article entitled The Childless City, “Families abandoned cities for the suburbs, driven away by policies that failed to keep streets safe, allowed decent schools to decline, and made living spaces unaffordable” and “Schools, churches, and neighborhood associations no longer form the city's foundation. Instead, the city revolves around recreation, arts, culture, and restaurants – a system built for the newly liberated individual.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Communities Taking the Value of Churches for Granted

A couple of years ago, The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty was helping the Elijah Group, a small evangelical church in Leon Valley, Texas (a suburb of San Antonio) regain its right to hold worship services in its church building on Sunday mornings. The city, through zoning codes it has adopted, had prohibited the church from doing so, claiming that “it can treat churches differently because they don't produce tax revenue.”

Because so many cities are going broke, some city governments are looking for any means available to them to enhance revenues, and that has led to the practice of driving out any organization that doesn't generate property taxes. In cases like the aforementioned one, adopting a zoning code that is hostile to churches, or perhaps even one particular church, amounts to harassment under the guise of law.

What is sad is that these cities are literally driving out the best of their citizens, without recognizing the high value that these citizens bring to their communities. And that leads me to my opening comment about churches being lousy at bragging. Perhaps they're bad at it because they are admonished by Scripture to keep their gifts between themselves and God, and not be like the rich of that day who made a show of their giving to gain the favor of other people. But that's not the kind of bragging I'm talking about.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Honoring God With Your Lips But Not With Your Hearts?

There is nothing wrong with either one, assuming it is done with the right attitude. But what if the people in a worship service don't really know who God is? I'm not talking about unbelievers, but believers? Jesus, in Matthew 15:8-9, quotes a scripture in Isaiah that says, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.”

We have all heard that the church is in decline. At the risk of being as guilty as others, I'll ask the question, are we dumbing down our own kind by not insisting that we learn who God really is? Are we architects, pastors and others trying to accomplish a noble thing without insisting first that believers know who they are worshiping?

In America, the trend is for people to assume that everything must be done for us and that every goal can be achieved through proper planning and execution of the plan. Is that train of thought spilling over into our churches and into the minds of believers? Would we conduct our services and design our buildings differently if we truly understood the real nature of God? Perhaps so.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Youth Leave Their Faith Due to a Lack of Nearby Churches

If there were more churches, all of us, not just youth, but all of us could be more connected with our faith because we had a place to associate with other believers. But that is not the trend.

The number of churches in our country is in the decline for both internal and external reasons. Internal because many of our churches have not purposed themselves to perpetuate themselves. External because our cities are systemically putting regulations in place that will make existing churches disappear and make the formation of new ones impossible. As our churches disappear, the number of the faithful will diminish because they don't have a place to meet together to strengthen each other's faith.

The mantra of the new generation of churchless cities is community; for people to be healthy, they need community; for people to be prosperous, they need community; for people to be happy, they need community; for people to serve mankind, they need community. Not faith, not family, but community. But it was the church that perfected community a very long time ago.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

You Cannot Judge a Church's Spirituality by Its Building

Sometimes I run across articles that are so profoundly ignorant that it hardly seems worth the time to refute them. However, one particular article caught my attention when its author attempted to explain why there was a shortage of quality sacred space in the suburbs, as opposed to the abundance of quality sacred space in urban areas.

I am not going to mention the author's name or even the name of the article. This is not about attacking an individual who has a very warped idea of what sacred space is, but about a growing and pervasive attitude toward churches in general, and toward Protestant churches in particular.

The author defined sacred space as something that connects humans to a higher power, is a place that preserves the culture and traditions of particular people groups, and something that connects the past to the future and mankind with the transcendent.

Examples of sacred space that he gave were a war memorial, “third places” (the places that people go where everybody knows your name), and now defunct downtown department stores that in years gone by had their own cultures and rituals.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘Intelligent Urbanism’ Raises a Whole Host of Suspicions

The webinar invitation said that it would “illustrate the practices of land use planning, placemaking and intelligent urbanism and how implementing these practices can have a positive effect on individuals and surrounding communities throughout the life cycle of a project.”

I had not heard of the specific term intelligent urbanism, so I found a 13-page Wikipedian treatise entitled Principles of Intelligent Urbanism. (PIU) This document described PIU with ten principles: a balance with nature; a balance with tradition; appropriate technology; conviviality; efficiency; human scale; opportunity matrix; regional integration; balanced movement, and institutional integrity.

As with all of the other smart growth plans, there is a focus on making the urban setting a more liveable place through centralized planning. And as with all of the other smart growth plans, I am always suspicious when a movement uses the words smart or intelligent in the context of presentation. It is more than just a presentation, it is a challenge, even an intimidation tactic that immediately sets the stage to prevent conflict or disagreement. In short, how do we know that a plan that is self-described as smart or intelligent really is? Because they say it is.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Don't Sacrifice the Suburbs for the Sake of New Urbanism

Not everyone agrees with the socialists besides me or millions of other Americans. Jacquielynn Floyd of the Dallas News wrote an article entitled Bring on ‘new urbanism.’ but don't demonize suburbs. She writes, the suburbs “have been the devil for decades, but there seems to be a fresh urgency to the hostility…as a spirit of “new urbanism” is making serious inroads in Dallas, its satellite communities are fielding the blame for a host of woes: not just freeways and sprawl but such elemental human failings as greed, bigotry and mindless consumerism…could we please dispense of the haughty stereotype of suburban cities as unenlightened wastelands? If we really want to make our lives more “walkable” and “sustainable”, we need to quit pretending there's one narrow model for virtuous existence, and no others need apply.”

Tomorrow we will celebrate our freedom on the Fourth of July, but the truth is that there is a select minority of people in places of influence who are able to convince the uninformed that the lifestyle they are living – that is, in the suburbs – is morally wrong, outrageous and ridiculous; to them our freedom is what they say it is, not what our Founders and others fought and died for, and certainly not any of us.

Is there anything inherently wrong with walkable sustainable streetscapes? No, but no one has ever been spiritually saved by a walkable sustainable streetscape. Only God can save you.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

How Do We Maintain Religious Freedom and Protection?

Fuch ended his article by writing, “One Islamic Society of Basking Ridge member told NBC News the township's decision to settle was an important vindication of the First Amendment Rights”, and quoted ISBR’s attorney who said “I think justice has prevailed and look forward to moving on together with the entire community of Basking Ridge.”

In support of religious freedom in America, the last thing that we want is for government to begin defining what is religion and what is not. We have already seen numerous cases in which municipalities have discriminated against churches or synagogues in order to prevent them from taking taxable property out of the tax rolls.

But in the wake of the genocide against Christians and others in the Middle East, the recent murders of concert-goers in Manchester and the murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt, all at the hands of Muslims, we must have some constitutional and legislative way to maintain not only religious freedom, but safety and the preservation of our system of laws.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Density is ‘Destruction’ According to Winter Park Architect

In our government today, at all levels, our government has been transformed (slowly at first but much faster recently) into a government that governs over the many at the whims of the few. In all cases it is insidious and unpatriotic, and the pain it causes comes with a price, especially when it affects those who feel powerless to do something about it.

For example, just this week I have read several articles by those who are beginning to question the wisdom of those who espouse the principles of dense development. One in particular on the newgeography.com website by Richard Reep entitled Florida: When Density is Destructive intrigued me because it seemed to me that his article (though I am sure was meant to inform and convince his readers of his viewpoint) was a product of frustration with local government.

Reep, an architect in Winter Park, Florida, describes how dense development has been negatively affecting his community. He wrote, “Like many cities that have a working class enclave that butts up against a newly trendy one, Winter Park has encouraged dense, mixed-use development, while nominally protecting its existing neighborhoods. And this is where the density equation seems to fall apart. The residents who leave the area (because they are being forced out by upzoned development) will no longer participate in the economy of Winter Park. The new residents of half-million townhomes probably won't ride the bus, walk to churches, or otherwise activate the local streets. So a natural piece of the city is lost forever. Urbanism, for all that has been written in favor of this ideology, is diminished for the sake of density.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Must Become More Defensive About Terrorism

If America is to survive terrorism, Americans need to change their culture and attitude toward self-defense.

The truth is that Americans have been taught for decades that any violence is a crime, even if it is for self-defense. In some instances, it has led to greater loss of life in situations where there is one gunman against a crowd of many.

We have been taught that we should run away from danger. We have been taught that we can only use violence as a last resort, and even then we may find ourselves in trouble with the law if we can't prove that letting an assailant get away wasn't an option. And even though concealed carry is the law in most states now, buying pre-paid legal insurance is being encouraged because those who have used their firearms in self-defense are being sued by their assailants or are being prosecuted.

Culturally and legally, we need to change this. When a lone gunman enters a nightclub filled with several hundred patrons and starts shooting, loss of life would have been greatly diminished had enough people known how to neutralize the threat. He could have been subdued before he could kill so many people.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Despite the Critics, America is Still a Christian Country

But then, most Americans are ignorant of the facts, as was I until a few years ago. Not that I did not already believe that America had been formed by Christians as a Christian nation, because I did; but that I did not see hard facts until recently.

I've been urging people to read a book written by Jerry Newcombe entitled The Book That Made America – How the Bible Formed Our Nation to learn the facts about our Founding Fathers. Our schools stopped teaching those facts almost a century ago, and that was the beginning of our country's drift toward Godlessness, liberalism, progressivism and ultimately now toward Marxism.

One of the biggest surprises in the book is the history of an 1892 U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v. the Church of the Holy Trinity, that led to a decision that emphatically held that “This is a Christian Nation”.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

President Trump Made the Right Choice on Our Embassy

The opening of the new US embassy last week was the fulfillment of a promise made not only by President Trump during his campaign, but by previous Presidents and the U.S. Congress.

The embassy move was decided long ago, but for political reasons it has been repeatedly delayed.

On November 8, 1995, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed into law. It recognized that any sovereign nation should be able to designate the city of its choice to be its capital, and that since 1950, Jerusalem has been its de facto capital.

The Act stated the fact that Jerusalem was the “seat of Israel’s President, Parliament, and Supreme Court, and the site of numerous government ministries and social and cultural institutions”, and that “this year (1995) marks the 28th consecutive year that Jerusalem has been administered as a unified city in which the rights of all faiths have been respected and protected”.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Jerusalem Should Be the Israeli Capital Without Dispute

On November 8, 1995, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed into law in the United States. It recognized that any sovereign nation should be able to designate the city of its choice to be its capital, and that since 1950, Jerusalem has been its de facto capital.

Every President since then has signed six-month waivers to prevent the embassy from being moved to Jerusalem. Critics of President Trump are claiming that he made the decision to satisfy Christian Evangelicals, and that it will make the peace process more difficult and create more violence; but Trump has rightfully recognized that the delay is pointless because it has not helped the peace process in the past. The Palestinians have repeated demonstrated that there can be no peace as long as Israel exists.

Israel's land has belonged to the Jewish people since the time of Abraham, when God told him “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you”. (Gen. 12:3) There are many good reasons to stand by Israel, but God's covenant to the Jewish people is reason enough alone.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Story of Jesus's Final Season Marks the End of an Era

It was with mixed feelings last month that I attended the last season of the Story of Jesus passion play in Wauchula Florida.

I have been attending and supporting this play for the last 11 years for a number of reasons. One of them – full disclosure here – is because it is produced by my cousin, Mike Graham, which is how I became aware of this production.

For years I heard from other family members that I needed to go and see the play, and when I finally did, I was completely surprised. This was not a high school skit or even a small community play; it was a full-blown, Broadway quality performance that in its earlier days attracted as many as 20,000 people in its ten performances each year during the Easter season.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Can an American City Be Human Without the Church?

As I have pointed out in previous articles, churches are the last building type that most urban planners think about. The secularism and progressivism that Kotkin spoke of is creeping into virtually all realms of government, and the result is the neglect of an important facet of American culture as it deepens its beliefs in socialism.

Too extreme an accusation, you say? Consider this. There was a time not long ago in America that a hardcore socialist (actually two) could have ever made it through the presidential primaries. Yet it has happened because, if you can believe the polls, the American people are embracing socialism. Perhaps they are doing so because they are looking for social justice, or even because they don't understand what it really means. And many of these Americans would say that they were Christians.

Kotkin writes of the time in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution: “The new Communist rulers sought to build their urban areas by obliterating the civic past – not too unlike, as we'll see, the redevelopers in the West during the '60s and the '70s. Stalin, for example, demolished the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which had been completed in 1882 after 40 years of construction. In its place, the Soviet regime constructed the new Palace of the Soviets. Thousands of other historic buildings also went down under Bolshevik edicts. “In reconstructing Moscow,” proclaimed Nikita Khruschev in 1937, “we should not be afraid to remove a tree, a little church, or some cathedral or other.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 Caused Great Damage

Tokyo was especially hard hit, but one structure survived. That was the Imperial Hotel, designed by none other than American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. After the earthquake hit, Wright received a telegram telling him, “Hotel stands undamaged as monument to your genius. Congratulations.”

I recall one of my architectural history professors at The University of Illinois, who had been an apprentice to Wright, telling us of how Wright's hotel was the only building in Tokyo left standing.

Wright's design for the hotel foundation was unusual for its time, especially in Tokyo. Its walls were thicker at the bottom than the top, and rested on piers driven deep into the alluvial mud. On Wright's construction drawing describing the foundation, he wrote, “Floor slabs balanced over central supports as a tray rests on a waiter's fingers to prevent failure under earthquake strain.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

We Need to Preserve Our Heritage by Saving Church Buildings

Have you ever thought about what it takes and how difficult it is to start a new church? For the vast majority of the churches that exist now or existed in the past, a new church building represented groups of people and individuals who made great sacrifices and took enormous risks to extend and preserve the message of Jesus in the communities. Churches were important, not just to bring the message of salvation, but to enrich the lives of people in their community. Their story is worth saving.

Furthermore, as America grows more secular, so does the popular attitude toward the church. Church architecture is changing. Many new churches look no different than any other building; many would not be recognizable as a church except for a sign and the symbol of a cross. The day is coming, if we do not change, that even those outward signs will not be allowed. We could eventually be “de-churched” in regards to our buildings.

The pile of stones that Joshua made at God's instruction told no unfamiliar passerby the reason for its existence. There had to be someone to tell the story of why it was built.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Fact is: America was Started as a Christian Nation

The Declaration of Independence made it clear that our rights came from our Creator.

Newcombe says that in 1892, there were 44 states, and all of their constitutions, without exception, “contain language which either directly or by clear implication recognizes a profound reverence for religion and an assumption that its influence in all human affairs is essential to the well being of a community”, and he gave numerous specific examples of these.

He also cites some of the lower court decisions that confirmed that this was a religious nation, including one that found that Christianity was the only religion that could be relied upon to maintain our rights, and even specifically called "Mahomet" (Islam) an imposter religion.

In part, the conclusion written by the Supreme Court in this case said that there was abundant documentation, customs, and traditions to lead to the conclusion in their words that, “This is a Christian nation.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Religion and Morality are Keys to America's Prosperity

No one but a fool would entrust his treasure to someone who could not be trusted. When we place our money in a bank, we expect to have more than a reasonable expectation that our money will be safe. Why do we trust people with our Constitution that we know are not going to uphold it?

The American people have for decades been told by our government that our Constitution is a “living document” - one that can be shaped and molded, valued or devalued, or reinterpreted according to our current culture. We have entrusted our treasure to people whose morals are relative to their own particular beliefs.

And so we have this treasure, the Constitution, that we have unwittingly placed in the hands of people who we cannot trust, and their rhetoric over the last hundred years has been so smooth, so logical, so enlightened, that even many Christians have been fooled.

But here is the difference. When honest people realize they have been fooled, they seek out and embrace the truth. That is what has happened to me and to countless other Americans who were never taught the truth about the Constitution in public school. In fact, the truth was deliberately withheld from us, mostly by well-meaning people who were just doing what they were told to do.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Where Will American Churches Be Permitted to Build?

Another complaint the attorney asserted was against a church in a residential neighborhood that sought permission to add a fourth floor to their existing three-story building. This was considered particularly outrageous, as though the church was intentionally disregarding its neighbors by adding height to its building.

I don't know the details of this case, but it could be that the church was landlocked and had nowhere else to grow but up. The hypocrisy is that it is a moral and social wrong for this church to add height to its building, but in contrast, new zoning code models actually encourage or even mandate multi-story, multi-family construction in neighborhoods as a means to densify the city and increase its tax base.

Why is one acceptable and the other is not? A bias against churches and their tax status. In fact, the attorney's argument against this example and other similar examples was that the churches were violating homeowner rights by changing the character and intensity of neighborhoods by expanding their facilities and their services, but no complaint was made about zoning codes that would allow only multi-family, multi-story buildings to be constructed in neighborhoods that had been rezoned without homeowner permission.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Don't Push the Global Warming Myth to Advance Goals

President Trump's first few days in office is addressing something that needs to be aggressively pursued – dishonesty in the mainstream press and in government.

For instance, here's something that has been totally ignored since 2009. At that time, Chelsea Schilling posted an article on World Net Daily entitled “History of Climate Gets ‘Erased’ Online.” She wrote, “A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message. Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post's Lawrence Solomon reports.”

Well, it wasn't totally ignored – it was about that time the proponents of man-made global warming began using the phrase “climate change.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Everywhere in America, Local Churches are Truly Needed

Among those older, more traditional churches are the neighborhood churches, the rural churches and the suburban churches whose members are beginning to die of old age. Their aging facilities are also disappearing without replacement. Church consultants have long held that congregations are born, live and eventually die in a natural progression. This is a fact that some do, but it is neither Biblical or even necessary.

Many cities are rejecting churches in their communities. Many would deny this claim, but the truth is that new zoning codes are making it difficult to impossible to build new churches, at least in the way that churches would like to do so. There are many cities that are in dire financial straits and see the need to place as much property onto the tax rolls as possible, placing churches under more pressure to participate in taxation schemes or even face expulsion under the guise of eliminating blight.

This perfect storm of changes within our churches and our society is still a silent epidemic. I am often met with quizzical looks when I describe this problem because it has been so well hidden. Churches don't want to admit that they have problems and cities don't like admitting that they don't like churches.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

True Science Powerfully Confirms the Existence of God

Metaxas's article begins by pointing out that in 1966 Time magazine ran its famous “Is God Dead?” article, which claimed “that as science progresses, there is less need for a ‘God’ to explain the universe.” He also explained that since that time when famed astronomer Carl Sagan was claiming that only two criteria needed to be met to make a planet support life – “the right star, and a planet the right distance from the star” – science has now shown that more than 200 factors are necessary.

As Metaxas states it, “As factors continue to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn't be here.”

He wrote about the “fine-tuning” necessary for the existence of the universe. “For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever been formed at all.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

High-Density Development is Not What Americans Want

According to Cox's article, home construction in New Zealand has fallen 40 percent since 1973, but its population has increased by 50 percent. He says that this is because “far more restrictive land use regulations have been adopted, including urban containment boundaries (urban growth boundaries), which have been associated with higher prices relative to income. Before the imposition of strict land use regulations, houses typically cost three times or less that of household incomes. Since then, house prices have doubled or tripled relative to household incomes.”

Even though the impacts of more regulations are well known to urban planners and city governments, many cities still push for high density development. Another of those impacts is that it is simply driving people away from these areas simply because they are not within family budgets.

Kotkin writes in his article, “However hip and cool San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston or coastal California may seem, they are not where families are moving.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Founders Made It Difficult to Change Our Structure

Fearful that the Democrats could lose control of the Senate, Obama claimed that one of the problems was “the apportionment of two Senate seats to each state regardless of population.”

Obama was quoted to have said to a group of wealthy supporters at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago, “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage…So there are some structural reasons why, despite the fact that Republican ideas are largely rejected by the public, it’s still hard for us to break through.”

The truth about the Constitution is that the Founders intended to make it difficult to pass laws and to make it even more difficult to change its structure. The reason we have a Senate at all is due to the “Great Compromise” in 1787, when some states refused to condone a system of representatives (where the most populous states would have the most power) without some means of counterbalancing the power they would hold.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Are Americans Losing Their Interest in Self-Governance?

I have been thinking about what freedom means a lot lately. It is more than obvious to me that Americans have lost its meaning, primarily because the Progressives have intentionally wanted us to lose sight of our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. These documents are, after all, rather pesky things that get in the way of a growing government determined to impose their will on our people.

This is what Skousen wrote in his book The 5000 Year Leap: “The centralization of political power always destroys liberty by removing the decision-making function from the people on the local level and transferring it to the officers of the central government.”

But here is also what he wrote just after that: “This process gradually benumbs the spirit of “voluntarism” among the people, and they lose the will to solve their own problems. They also cease to be involved in community affairs. They seek the anonymity of oblivion in the seething crowds of the city and often degenerate into faceless automatons who have neither a voice nor a vote.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Zoning Codes Have Become Tools for Controlling People

The International Building Code is not a law in and of itself, but it can become law when it is adopted as an ordinance by a local jurisdiction. In addition, it can be modified by a local jurisdiction if they choose to do so.

Similarly, zoning codes are made law when they are adopted by a local jurisdiction, and in their infancy in the early 1900's they were intended to help protect property values and property rights of individual land owners, as well as help guide the orderly development of a community.

But at some point, probably in the 1970's as environmentalism and progressivism began to sink deep roots into American culture, zoning codes became attractive tools for controlling what people could or could not build.

The practice of projection – accusing others of what you yourself are doing – was evidenced by those who claimed that our old zoning codes made certain building situations impossible, but were actually substituting their own version of prohibitions with their own zoning codes.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

A Purposeful Rejection of God is Part of America's Downfall

The premise of the book is that until the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, mankind's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged for the past five-thousand years. Within two hundred years after the adoption of these documents, Americans had made huge leaps in standard of living and in innovation in technologies.

Why this is so important to America is that America has been gradually dumbed down over the past century, and as a result we no longer understand the principles underlying our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and are suffering the consequences. Our economy suffers, our families suffer and our citizens live in a state of confusion about what it even means to be an American.

In part this is about a systemic and purposeful rejection of God, which is tragic especially when you realize that you don't have to believe in God for the system to work, even though it is a system designed around Biblical principles. It is the ultimate example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – we will reject God even though we know at the same time we would be rejecting all of the good things in life that come with living by these principles.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

We Should All Be Very Proud of American Exceptionalism

Except for the past decade or two, I think most Americans have possessed a very deep-seated knowledge that America is truly different from any other place in the world. Most Americans can find something to say to articulate why they believe it is so, and most of their comments would likely contain something to do with their freedoms, but most would be unlikely to be able to explain what American Exceptionalism really encompasses.

At America's birth, the Founders set out to do something that had never been done in human history, and that was to create a government that served at the will of its own people. But that alone was not enough to create our exceptionalism. Americans had begun to develop an entire culture that was unlike any other that had ever existed, and the interaction of a new government type and that culture led to a society that did what has been described in another book that I have recommended for years – The Five Thousand Year Leap – after 5,000 years of essentially the same standard of living, within 250 years, Americans elevated that standard of living far beyond what it had ever been.

Murray describes our exceptionalism, or our civic culture, in four ways: our industriousness, egalitarianism, community life, and religiosity.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

We Don't Give God Enough Credit for the Genius of Creation

Metaxas's article begins by pointing out that in 1966 Time magazine ran its famous “Is God Dead? ” article, which claimed “that as science progresses, there is less need for a ‘God’ to explain the universe.” He also explained that since that time – when famed astronomer Carl Sagan was claiming that only two criteria needed to be met to make a planet support life, “the right star, and a planet the right distance from the star” – science has now shown that more than 200 factors are necessary.

As Metaxas states it, “As factors continue to be discovered, the number of possible planets hit zero, and kept going. In other words, the odds turned against any planet in the universe supporting life, including this one. Probability said that even we shouldn't be here. ” He wrote about the “fine-tuning” necessary for the existence of the universe. “For example, astrophysicists now know that the values of the four fundamental forces – gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ nuclear forces – were determined less than one millionth of a second after the big bang. Alter one value and the universe could not exist. For instance, if the ratio between the nuclear strong force and the electromagnetic force had been off by the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction – by even one part in 100,000,000,000,000,000 – then no stars could have ever formed at all.”

He also wrote that the astronomer who coined the phrase “big bang” said that “his atheism had been “greatly shaken” by these developments, ” admitting to the involvement of a “super-intellect” due to the overwhelming odds.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

There is Cause for Optimism Thanks to Trump in 2018

There is a lot to be thankful for, not the least of which was the beginning of what I hope will be an 8-year tenure of President Donald Trump. Though he has much more left to accomplish of his many campaign promises, it is nothing short of astounding how much he has been able to do given the relentless attacks of liberal politicians and a very hostile media.

This coming year promises to be even better than the previous year. The economy is looking better than it has in nearly two decades, primarily due to President Trump's efforts to deconstruct an embedded anti-business and highly regulatory government that was greatly accentuated due to Obama's efforts to “fundamentally transform” America. While I think that the damage Obama did to our Republic is widely understood, it may be some time before we fully comprehend just how severely he expanded and corrupted the bureaucracies of government. The term “deep state” took on new meaning during his tenure, and I am grateful that Trump has made it his mission to undo that.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Christmas is the Perfect Time to Recognize Who Jesus Is

“In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make.” (John 1:1-3 NLT)

The Word is who the apostle Paul spoke about in Romans 1:20 (NLT) when he said:

“From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.”

Could Paul have possibly understood how utterly profound his statement was, when the sky contains an estimated 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars? Or that our bodies are composed of highly complex DNA, genes and chromosomes, the blueprint of our humanness and God's plan for us? Or that scientists consistently discover more and more things in the universe that exhibit a perfect mathematical precision?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's Capital is Overdue

On November 8, 1995, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed into law in the United States. It recognized that any sovereign nation should be able to designate the city of its choice to be its capital, and that since 1950 Jerusalem has been its de facto capital.

Every president since then has signed six-month waivers to prevent the embassy from being moved to Jerusalem. Critics of President Trump are claiming that he made the decision to satisfy Christian Evangelicals, and that it will make the peace process more difficult and create more violence. But Trump has rightfully recognized that the delay is pointless because it has not helped the peace process in the past. The Palestinians have repeated demonstrated that there can be no peace as long as Israel exists.

Israel's land has belonged to the Jewish people since the time of Abraham, when God told him “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you”. (Gen. 12:3) There are many good reasons to stand by Israel, but God's covenant to the Jewish people is reason enough alone.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

America Should Relocate its Embassy to Jerusalem Now

The embassy move was decided long ago, but for political reasons it has been repeatedly delayed.

On November 8, 1995, the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 was passed into law. It recognized that any sovereign nation should be able to designate the city of its choice to be its capital, and that since 1950, Jerusalem has been its de facto capital.

The Act stated the fact that Jerusalem was the “seat of Israel's President, Parliament, and Supreme Court, and the site of numerous government ministries and social and cultural institutions” and that ”this year (1995) marks the 28th consecutive year that Jerusalem has been administered as a unified city in which the rights of all faiths have been respected and protected”.

In 1990, Senate Concurrent Resolution 106 declared that the Congress “strongly believes that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city in which the rights of every ethnic and religious group are protected”. In 1992, the US Congress “unanimously adopted Senate Concurrent Resolution 113…to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, and reaffirming congressional sentiment that Jerusalem must remain an undivided city.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘Freestuffland’ May Be Coming to a Neighborhood Near You

Have you heard of that new city, Freestuffland? If not, you probably will soon if those who are in charge of planning policies get their way.

An astounding article appeared on the Planetizen website this month entitled, “The Truth about Creating Policy: It can't be Evidence-Based.”

The opener of the article read, “You're up there presenting to council the policy you just developed. You're confident in your baby: it's evidence-based, after all. You probably even wrote that in your report. You did your background research, accumulated and consolidated information. You poured over it and whittled down the data into tight policy statements. You completed what's considered the ‘problem-oriented approach’ to writing policy. There was a gap, a problem. You resolved it. That's what your policy is based on. It's likely a failure.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Steps Can Be Taken to Minimize Destruction of Homes by Fire

This drive for density – especially in suburban areas that adjoin rural or forested areas – makes it difficult to prevent large groups of homes from burning when wind-driven fires from forests or grassy fields can expose many homes at a time, starting the chain reaction.

There was a time when natural fires swept across vast areas of our lands, keeping underbrush growth from accumulating. American Indians, I am told, would often burn their campsites and the surrounding areas when they moved on to another place. This practice reduced the fuel load created by the accumulation of brush, and also helped control the insect populations. At some point, presumably out of the fear of causing the destruction of buildings as well as forests, this practice was stopped or at least discouraged. Instead, we either allow the undergrowth to accumulate or we brush hog our properties, hoping that the mulch will decompose before it is exposed to fire. The results are the devastating damage that wildfires have caused when burning undergrowth ignites trees.

Dense development that virtually eliminates landscaping and trees may be an answer to prevention, but who wants that? Even the urbanists want heavy landscaping. Regardless, people who lose their homes to wildfires should not lose their property rights; let them chose how to best protect their property.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Our Schoolchildren Should Study ‘The 5000 Year Leap’

But here is the thing: if millennials are indeed rejecting capitalism, it may be that they are rejecting something that they have little or knowledge about. It is my submission that schools are simply not teaching students about how our country came to be, or our Constitution. In many cases, schools are deliberately degrading capitalism in favor of socialism. That is especially true at the college level, and it is also true for younger students.

But that knowledge is not lost. It is available in a book that I have mentioned numerous times in my column, The 5000 Year Leap.

When the settlers of Jamestown set foot on what was to become American soil, the standard of living was not much different than it had been for the previous fifty centuries. Socialism was attempted, but it nearly wiped them out.

By the time the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had been adopted, the Founders had developed twenty-eight principles that would guarantee the survival of our country, and the impact of those principles over the next two hundred years led to the most advances in standard of living and technology than had been done in the previous 5,000 years.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Best Community is a Church Following the Scriptures

The second unit, the family, is also taking fire. Despite the fact that a monogamous man and woman, united in marriage, especially a strong Christian marriage raising children in a stable home environment, creates more individuals who accomplish more good with their lives than other lifestyles, is ignored.

Instead, planners tell us we need to plan our communities for more two-income, no-children families. This, they say, is the current trend, and we must accept this as a reality.

Finally, the church is no longer seen as an important part of a community. We have allowed atheists and liberals to convince us that Christianity, and therefore the church, must be suppressed and eliminated. Many urban planners and those in government see churches as parasites on community, not the good they bring to it.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Property Rights Are the Key to Equality in the United States

It is true that many cities don't have housing that is within the budgets of those in the middle and lower economic class, but this is not the result of ordinary market forces. Instead, it is a result of so-called “smart growth” policies that limit land by establishing urban growth boundaries.

As demographer Wendell Cox stated in a recent article entitled Progressive Cities: Home of the Worst Housing Inequality, “America's most highly regulated housing markets are also reliably the most progressive in their political attitudes, yet in terms of gaining an opportunity to own a house, the price impacts of the tough regulation mean profound inequality for the most disadvantaged large ethnicities, African Americans and Hispanics. ”

And it's not just those ethnicities that are being affected, but a broader range of those with low to moderate incomes, including those that rent their homes. In an article co-authored by Wendell Cox and Joel Kotkin entitled, Rising Rents Are Stressing Out Tenants and Heightening America's Housing Crisis, they state that, “rents as a percentage of income, according to Zillow, are now at a historic high of 29 percent, compared with the 25.8 percent rate that prevailed from 1985 to 2000”, that “new (apartment) buildings tend to be too expensive for most renters” and that rents were so high that people “couldn't save for future purchases like homes.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

United Nations Leads the Threat Against Personal Property

This seriously flawed but nonetheless serious plan came within hours of being implemented into law in 1993, and would have passed had it not been for one citizen who brought it to the attention of Congress.

We haven't heard much about the Wildlands Project since, but it's an idea that hasn't died among environmentalists. It's just taken on a different form.

The proponents of the Wildlands Project had little regard for the property rights of citizens. Had it succeeded, people would not have been forced off their land at gunpoint, but rather by a deliberate and long-ranging set of regulations that would create the demographics needed to make them willing to give up their property. All of this, of course, was under the guise that protecting wildlife was more important than property rights.

The movement to assault property rights in America was almost two decades old when the Wildlands Project failed. The United Nations began to formulate their land development policies as early as 1976. At the 1976 United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, more commonly known as Habitat I, the concept that personal property was something that must be eliminated was introduced in its preamble, which read as follows:

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Constant Challenge to Property Rights in the United States

An article from the Heritage Foundation expresses this well: “Free trade is imperative to a free society, as it fosters economic growth and improves human well-being.” Free trade, at least between individuals or private companies depends on their ability to maintain private ownership and control of the land they use. Without those property rights, free trade and innovation become highly regulated, as we see in other countries, such as China.

Government, without property rights or free trade, becomes the sole provider of goods and services needed to maintain life. Joe Biden, commenting on President Trump's executive order that cut subsidy funding to insurance companies, lamented how millions of Americans had felt such “peace of mind” under Obamacare knowing that their health care would be provided, but said nothing about the millions of Americans (myself included) that had been priced out of the health insurance market.

Likewise, a country that depends on government instead of individual responsibility and freedom, will extrapolate that same misery in all walks of life if we relinquish our freedoms to the same “logical” thinking that gave birth to schemes like the Wildlands Project.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Was Islam the Motive for Las Vegas Gunman Paddock?

So is the notion that Paddock was actually a Muslim out of the realm of possibility? Not at all, according to the Newsweek article: “ISIS has previously claimed responsibility for attacks only to be later denied by authorities, such as an apparent botched robbery in the Philippines.

Terrorism and security analysis experts, however, such as Kronos Advisory co-founder Michael S. Smith II and the New York Times correspondent Rukmini Callimachi have pointed out that the group is rarely off and such a blatantly false narrative would be out of character for the social media savvy jihadists.”

Whether Paddock was a Muslim or not, the attack should serve as a warning that Islam is the problem, not guns, and not bump stocks. Attacks like this will continue unless more is done to prevent them. Unfortunately, our legislators have taken their eye off the ball yet again by focusing on the gun debate instead.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

America Must Remain Diligent When It Comes to Islam

Here is a quote from Robert Spencer in his book The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran: “It's unfortunate, but true: Islam is the only major religion with a developed doctrine of deception. Many believe this doctrine, called taqiyya, is exclusively Shi'ite, but actually it is founded upon Koranic passages. Chief among these is this one: “Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers. If any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah; except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them.” He also quotes the Koran where Muslims are explicitly directed to fight People of the Book (Christians): “Fight those who believe not in Allah…nor acknowledge the religion of Truth (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya (tax to Islam) with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued…” and” …slay the idolaters where ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush…”

Is there anything legislatively that we can do to prevent Islam from forcing itself on America? Unfortunately, probably not as long as it is considered a religion, and especially considering the impact such laws would unfairly and unconstitutionally have on other religions.

The answer is in education and awareness, so that Islam is unable to withstand scrutiny. With all of the distractions around us – natural disasters and political squabbles – we can never let our guard down on this issue.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

This is a Growing Threat to Our Way of Life in America

After three years of litigation, the township agreed to a settlement. It will grant a building permit and amend its zoning ordinances to be in compliance with RLIUPA, allowing this mosque to be the first in their community.

There is no question that Muslims intend to occupy this country in the same way that they already have in Europe, and they have openly stated that they do not want to be one of many religions in America, but the religion.

In Europe there are now “no go” zones and areas where Sharia law has been allowed to replace native laws. Sharia is totally incompatible with our way of life and with our Constitution. We should accept any immigrant who comes here legally and assimilates to our way of life, but what can America do to prevent our suffering the same fate as Europe, and is it too late already?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Venezuela is an Example of an Unbalanced Government

The article documented how Venezuelans had lined up at a supermarket after a rumor that chicken would be available there. But when the trucks arrived, national guardsmen ordered the trucks to leave. Soon, the crowd turned into a mob that began looting, burning tires, and clashing with Venezuelan security forces. Between January and April of 2016, there were 2,138 such protests recorded by the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflict.

In June of 2016, the New York Times reported that trucks delivering food in Venezuela had to be escorted by armed guards, as hungry people ransacked stores looking for food. It said, “In the last two weeks alone, more than 50 food riots, protests and mass looting have erupted around the country. Scores of businesses have been stripped bare or destroyed. At least five people have been killed.”

That same month, Forbes reported that “Venezuelans are starving, and they are tired of waiting in line. In a revolt against president Nicolas Maduro's failing government, they are increasingly turning to rioting and looting to feed themselves. In the city of Cumana they raided more than 100 supermarkets and other stores last week. Hundreds were arrested; one died.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Hurricane Irma is a test for Florida's building standards

Constructing buildings to meet the hurricane resistance prescribed in the code is more expensive, but is not that difficult to do once builders understand how to do it. It essentially means that, through the use or reinforcements, steel clips, metal straps, anchor bolts and framing techniques, every part of the building is anchored to the foundation. Most homes in Oklahoma have not been constructed like this, but several years ago I began specifying these techniques.

Building codes can do little about the floods that normally occur with hurricanes. Flooding can occur just about anywhere, so if you only constructed buildings where they would not flood, you would never build anything. However, it is relatively easy to identify areas that are likely to flood.

While I am not an advocate of telling someone that they are not going to be allowed to build in such an area, I do believe it should be made clear that relief from flood damage should never come at taxpayer expense. Personal or corporate responsibility will exert a great deal of influence on location decisions when there is no government safety net to cover bad or risky decisions.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

With Common Sense, Houston Can Recover from Harvey

There are several problems with his statements. First, the exurbanism and urban sprawl leaves more ground available to absorb stormwater than dense developments.

Second, there is no evidence that climate change is anything but natural. The earth has not warmed any at all since the early 90's.

Third, no matter what kind of development, Houston's clay soil was impervious.

And fourth, there is no evidence that Harvey was any more intense than earlier storms. In fact, it is arguable that Galveston was hit by a much worse hurricane in the early 1900's, and it has been twelve years since we have experienced a major hurricane.

None of Al Gore's predictions of bigger and more frequent storms have come true.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Who Should Pay for the Damage from Hurricane Harvey?

Although the amount of rain Harvey will eventually produce over Houston and the region around it is unprecedented in Houston's history, heavy rains and flooding events are not.

Houston is a very low-lying area. Hobby Airport is only 46 feet above sea level, and though it is well inland from the Gulf, all flights have been cancelled due to standing water on the runway.

Like most cities, a large percentage of the ground is covered with impervious surfaces such as concrete or asphalt. This also causes stormwater to drain away faster, where it eventually collects with other stormwater in areas that are designed to carry only so much. When rainfalls exceed the design limit, flooding results. Houston's drainage system was apparently designed many years ago to handle a ten-year event, not a 250- or 500-year event, and it was certainly not designed for a city as heavily populated as it is now.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘The 5000 Year Leap’ Details the Constitution's Principles

The truth is that we need to know more, not less, about our Constitution. The knowledge of what our Founders went through to write it, and why they wrote it as they is becoming a complete mystery to most Americans, largely through the efforts of history revisionists who would rather embrace socialism or Marxism.

But that knowledge is not lost. It is available in a book that I have mentioned numerous times in my column, The 5000 Year Leap.

When the settlers of Jamestown set foot on what was to become American soil, the standard of living was not much different than it had been for the previous fifty centuries. Socialism was attempted, but it nearly wiped them out.

By the time the Constitution and the Bill of Rights had been adopted, the Founders had developed twenty-eight principles that would guarantee the survival of our country, and the impact of those principles over the next two hundred years led to the most advances in standard of living and technology than had been done in the previous 5,000 years.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

North Tulsa Moratorium Suggestion is Not a Good Idea

I found last week's City Council meeting to consider a city-wide moratorium on small retail stores disturbing, but I also found it to be encouraging that there seems to be little support for the idea from Tulsa residents.

According to a Tulsa World editorial, the moratorium is an initiative being forwarded by City Councilor Vanessa Hall-Harper in an attempt to stop the spread of small stores (such as the dollar stores) in north Tulsa in order to attract larger stores that offer better food choices.

The author of the editorial wrote, “Hall-Harper's intent is to attract a large-scale store to north Tulsa, a long-sought goal for the area and a legitimate one. A larger store is more likely to offer fresh produce and healthier foods. Large portions of north and west Tulsa are so-called food deserts, meaning there is no source of fresh fruit, vegetables or whole foods within walking distance for residents.”

Some of the residents complained that their only option for food in north Tulsa was “one of 15 dollar stores scattered across communities in north Tulsa”, but from accounts I have read about the meeting, few people thought a moratorium would solve the problem. It was reported that the city councilors discussed applying the moratorium only to District 1, but the city attorney said that ‘could open the city up to lawsuits.’ ”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Forcing Mass Transit on People has Unintended Consequences

Vegter stated, “Worldwide, there has been a fever for building new mass transit systems among those who advocate a ‘new urbanism’ to combat sprawl and reduce pollution.”

Despite the official's confirmation of the fact that mass transit is too expensive, he (the official) proposed the typical solution of social programs that don't work – just keep trying to make it work. Vegter wrote that the official proposed “transit-oriented development” which would “create land use patterns that are able to drive a more sustainable demand for transport.”

Pointing out that government mandates and regulations have made mass transit so expensive that it can only paid for by taxpayers, Vegter contends that forcing mass transit on the public and forcing the public to change its environment to adapt to it has another consequence – undermining innovative services and the economy: “It will also undermine metered taxis, and ride-sharing services such as Uber and Lyft which are rapidly increasing in popularity because they better meet the market's needs. One might have an ideological or public planning preference for mass transit, but it isn't right to use government force to destroy private businesses… ”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Global Warming Theory Does Not Match Up With Science

Now a paper evaluating the report has been published by several scientists, and has been endorsed by a number of other scientists, including one that is a retired EPA Senior Analyst.

The 30-page report entitled On the Validity of NOAA, NASA and Hadley CRU Global Average Surface Temperature Data & The Validity of EPA's CO2 Endangerment Finding – Abridged Research Report is available online.

The portion of the report that is capturing the most attention points to manipulation of data in order to make convincing evidence that the world is warming due to human activity. It reads, “In this research report, the most important surface data adjustment issues are identified and past changes in the previously reported historical data are quantified. It was found that each new version of GAST has nearly always exhibited a steeper warming linear trend over its entire history. And, it was nearly always accomplished by systemically removing the previously existing cyclical temperature pattern. This was true for all three entities providing GAST data measurement, NOAA, NASA and Hadley CRU.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Trouble for Big Retailers Could be a Godsend for Churches

With this giant inventory of buildings available, churches have a great opportunity to expand their facilities quicker and for less money than if they were to build brand new facilities, and to improve their communities as well.

Big box stores typically have the components needed for a church: large open spaces for a place of assembly to worship, sprinkler systems, large parking lots and sometimes commercial kitchen facilities.

But herein lies the rub – communities often don't want churches to take over these properties because of what it does to the tax base, so churches that do try to do so may find themselves in a difficult legal battle as they seek to obtain re-zonings and building permits, or even community resistance.

This is where creativity comes in, or as President Trump would say, it's the “art of the deal.” As the list of closing big box stores grows, there is more incentive than ever for communities to work with churches to take over these properties that will likely never see retail again.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Hyperdensity Doesn't Match Up with American Freedom

It has been my observation lately that there is considerable disagreement between urban planners and authors regarding how cites should be developed.

Consider Andres Duany, the father of New Urbanism, a proponent of dense development of urban areas and the main author of the SmartCode. The SmartCode develops a city through transcects – areas of density that theoretically vary from the least densely developed outer edge to the most dense inner core.

But even Duany has realized that there are too many regulations, stating recently that “the New Urbanism is committing to ‘pink codes’ – a reference to any code that reduces red tape by bypassing bureaucrats.”

Joel Kotkin, the editor of NewGeography.com, has been an outspoken critic of densely developed cities, and has written articles that debunk the concept that for a city to be prosperous, it must abandon the suburbs and develop the inner core of the city. But he also comes under fire from its perpetuators and those who believe in varying forms of dense city development.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘The Day After Tomorrow’ is Entertaining But Fictional

The article's author, Miriam Sitz, wrote “The Paris Agreement originated at DOP21, the 21st Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and went into effect on November 4, 2016. Signatories cannot leave the deal for four years, meaning the United States is committed through November 2020 – the end of Trump’s current term.”

She also quoted Vonier that “U.S. architects have truly been at the forefront of international efforts to address energy and climate issues. The decision to withdraw signals retreat; that hurts the image of the United States and, along with it, its architects.”

I beg to differ. I think Mr. Vonier might be surprised at the number of architects that don't agree with his assessment, albeit quietly. Dealing with problems that don't exist is a burden on business. Trump's plan to renegotiate flawed agreements such as the Paris Accord in order to put America first is the right thing to do. When America is not bound to agreements based on bad science and lop-sided rules that favor polluting countries, America will be cleaner and more prosperous, and along with it, so will the rest of the world.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Minnesota Church Mess Revolves Around Property Rights

In reviewing the case, the court found that the city's own 2015 study had recommended that places of worship be treated the same as theaters, but one report indicated that “the city‚has held firm to the belief that the building needs to remain part of a commercially zoned area, as defined by the city's most recent Comprehensive Plan.”

Planning Commissioner David Dayon was quoted to have said that, “I think what the public really wants is us to stick to the plan. This is a community that doesn't have a lot of space set aside for future commercial development. We do have an amount of land that would be suitable for building a church. In this case, that would be preferable, to me.”

But apparently traffic and seating capacity weren't the only objections to Riverside's use of the theater property. A headline in northwrightcounty.today read “TIF District, Not City, Would Lose if St. Michael Theater Became Tax Exempt.“ The article stated that a school district would lose $5,000 per year, and a TIF (tax increment financing) district would lose around $79,000.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Grenfell Tower Fire Demonstrated What Can Go Wrong

The tower was designed in 1967, and its construction began in 1972 at a time when sprinklers were not required. It contained 127 apartments.

It underwent an extensive renovation that was completed in 2016, which included the application of the new cladding and insulation. Although the smoke detection system was upgraded, the inclusion of a sprinkler system was declined due to the additional cost and disruption to tenant spaces it would require.

The building also had another fatal flaw: it had only one stairway with which to escape a fire. To make things worse, the property manager's published policy to the residents was that they should remain in their apartments and await rescue in the event of a fire.

The U.K. government is being heavily criticized among accusations that officials had ignored repeated warnings about the safety of some 4,000 older “tower blocks” that were not equipped with sprinkler systems.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

London Fire Shows Density Can Have a Terrible Price Tag

With dense, high-rise development come risks, not just to personal safety, but to the places where hundreds, or in some cases thousands of people live. A large number of people were made homeless by what started as a small fire because the chimney effect spread the fire from one apartment to the next so quickly.

Despite this risk, urban planners still see high density as their most desired living arrangements for most of the population, and with that the notion that most people should live in the urban cores where density is more prevalent.

Any time we concentrate people in any environment, we increase the risk that a single event could cause great loss of life. This is true not only in buildings, but also in mass transportation such as aircraft. As the concentration becomes more intense, the greater the need is to create regulations to insure that the construction of those environments are done in a way that maximizes the safety of the occupants and decreases the number of deaths and injuries should an event take place.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘Intelligent Urbanism’ Raises a Whole Host of Suspicions

The webinar invitation said that it would “illustrate the practices of land use planning, placemaking and intelligent urbanism and how implementing these practices can have a positive effect on individuals and surrounding communities throughout the life cycle of a project.”

I had not heard of the specific term intelligent urbanism, so I found a 13-page Wikipedian treatise entitled Principles of Intelligent Urbanism. (PIU) This document described PIU with ten principles: a balance with nature; a balance with tradition; appropriate technology; conviviality; efficiency; human scale; opportunity matrix; regional integration; balanced movement, and institutional integrity.

As with all of the other smart growth plans, there is a focus on making the urban setting a more liveable place through centralized planning. And as with all of the other smart growth plans, I am always suspicious when a movement uses the words smart or intelligent in the context of presentation. It is more than just a presentation, it is a challenge, even an intimidation tactic that immediately sets the stage to prevent conflict or disagreement. In short, how do we know that a plan that is self-described as smart or intelligent really is? Because they say it is.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Trump Was Right in Pulling Out of the Paris Agreement

If you have read my column for any length of time, you know that I don't believe that global temperatures are impacted by human activity at all, or if any, something so negligible that it has no effect. It is an issue so fraught with fraud (i.e. the hockey stick curve) that it should be dismissed outright. In fact, there is real scientific evidence that increased CO2 levels will actually benefit mankind.

In an article written by Robert Zubrin entitled, Carbon Emissions are Good, he states “Putting aside for the moment the question of whether human industrial CO2 emissions are having an effect on climate, it is quite clear that they are raising atmospheric CO2 levels. As a result, they are having a strong and markedly positive effect on plant growth worldwide. There is no doubt about this. NASA satellite observations taken from orbit since 1958 show that, concurrent with the 19 percent increase in atmospheric CO2 over the past half century, the rate of plant growth in the continental United States has increased 14 percent. Studies done at Oak Ridge National Lab on forest trees have shown that increasing the carbon dioxide level 50 percent, to the 550 parts per million projected to prevail at the end of the 21 century, will likely increase photosynthetic productivity by a further 24 percent. This is readily reproducible laboratory science. If CO2 levels are increased, the rate of plant growth will accelerate.”

He goes on: “Now let us consider the question of warming: If it is occurring – I believe it is, based not on disputable temperature measurements but on sea levels, which have risen two inches in two decades – is it a good thing or a bad thing? Answer: It is a very good thing. Global warming would increase the rate of evaporation from the oceans. This would increase rainfall worldwide. In addition, global warming would lengthen the growing season, thereby increasing still further the bounty of both agriculture and nature.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

How Do We Maintain Religious Freedom and Protection?

Fuch ended his article by writing, “One Islamic Society of Basking Ridge member told NBC News the township's decision to settle was an important vindication of the First Amendment Rights”, and quoted ISBR’s attorney who said “I think justice has prevailed and look forward to moving on together with the entire community of Basking Ridge.”

In support of religious freedom in America, the last thing that we want is for government to begin defining what is religion and what is not. We have already seen numerous cases in which municipalities have discriminated against churches or synagogues in order to prevent them from taking taxable property out of the tax rolls.

But in the wake of the genocide against Christians and others in the Middle East, the recent murders of concert-goers in Manchester and the murders of Coptic Christians in Egypt, all at the hands of Muslims, we must have some constitutional and legislative way to maintain not only religious freedom, but safety and the preservation of our system of laws.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

It Is In the Very Best Interest of America to Support Israel

The fact that Israel even exists is a miracle, and many believe, myself included, that it is a fulfillment of prophecy that this tiny country, about the size of the eastern third of the state of Oklahoma, has come to exist.

Reborn on May 14, 1948, Israel began its independence with a population of only 806,000, but now numbers over 7 million, and thousands of Jews still immigrate to Israel every year. Some come to escape persecution, but many others have moved there because they are, as a Jewish friend of mine described it, strangely drawn to the place.

Barely more than a desert in 1948, Israel has become a leader in the middle east in agriculture, and is also poised to become one of the region's leading producers of natural gas and oil, estimating that there may be as much as 122 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 1.7 billion barrels of oil just offshore in the Mediterranean Sea.

With around 300 million enemies surrounding it, Israel has survived several major attacks from neighboring countries.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans No Longer Understand Our Founding Principles

The premise of the book is that until the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, mankind's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged for the past five-thousand years. Within two hundred years after the adoption of these documents, Americans had made huge leaps in standard of living and in innovation in technologies.

Why this is so important to America is that America has been gradually dumbed down over the past century, and as a result we no longer understand the principles underlying our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and are suffering the consequences. Our economy suffers, our families suffer, and our citizens live in a state of confusion about what it even means to be an American.

In part this is about a systemic and purposeful rejection of God, which is tragic especially when you realize that you don’t have to believe in God for the system to work, even though it is a system designed around Biblical principles. It is the ultimate example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – we will reject God even though we know at the same time we would be rejecting all of the good things in life that come with living by these principles.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Have a Fear About What Muslims Might Do

This week, on the Law of the Land website, another case has surfaced. Under the headline of the article Fed. Dist Court in VA Finds Facts Sufficient to Support Substantial Burden and Nondiscrimination RLUIPA Claims, it describes how the Islamic Center of Culpeper (ICC) had been denied a building permit by Culpeper County in Virginia. The complaint alleges that the county used regulations involving the use of septic tanks as a reason for denying the permit, and that the real reason for denial of the permit was to prevent the mosque from being built. The complaint was filed by the United States Attorney's Office on behalf of the mosque.

Not enough information was included in the article to make any bystander judgment on the actual merits of the case, but in a general way I can say that these sorts of things have happened to churches as well. Just one of the more outrageous cases I could point to was the Rocky Mountain Christian Church in Boulder County, Colorado. So in that regard, I could say to this mosque, welcome to the club.

On the other hand, while local governments that attempt to prevent churches from building in their communities do so mostly for economic reasons, there is real and serious fear in allowing Islam to gain a foothold in our communities. It is a problem that we as Americans have to find a way to deal with in a fair way that provides protection for all involved.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Islam's Influence on American Culture Continues to Grow

Per TMLC's announcement, “TMLC represents several Bernard Township residents who were served with intrusive and harassing subpoenas by Islamic Society attorneys. Their only involvement was to make public comments at a public Township hearing. They were nonparties to the lawsuit, had never had an official role in the Township and had no authority to deny the Islamic Society's permit request. Nonetheless, the subpoenas demanded the production of emails, voice mails, text messages and social media posts concerning Muslims, Islam or anything to do with Muslim worship. The subpoenas clearly infringed upon their First Amendment rights to free speech and freedom of association. The only purpose of the subpoenas was to punish residents who dared to oppose the Islamic Society's request.”.

Other reports indicate that the Islamic Society claimed that the Township “kept moving the goalposts by using ever-changing local requirements to effectively deny this religious community the same access as other faiths” to prevent the mosque from being built, and that a Township staffer stated that local officials had made “discriminatory comments” about Muslims.

Thompson also stated in the TMLC announcement that “The Township Committee knows that its motivations for disapproving the proposed zoning changes were completely proper and were not animated by hatred for any person or group. Unfortunately, the tactics of intimidation waged by the Islamic Society and the deep-state Department of Justice attorneys, appointed by former Attorney General Eric Holder to carry-out his left-wing agenda, may have taken their toll‚We filed this open records request to obtain the settlement agreements that we believe have already been tacitly agreed upon by the parties. In doing so, we hope to shine a light on the dark tactics employed by the Islamic Society, its attorneys, and deep-state attorneys within the Justice Department.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Worldwide Persecution of Christians Has Been Growing

Another report stated that “Asia's Christians have been targeted by nationalist religious movements – Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist – in such countries as Pakistan, India and Myanmar. Many of these groups increasingly view Christianity as a foreign, “colonial” import, and believe its practitioners are doing the bidding of the West”.

In places such as Iraq, the Christian population has dwindled down to less than 275,000 as Christians flee the country or have been killed in a genocide that was finally recognized by the Obama administration late last year. In 2003, there were as many as 1.5 million Christians in Iraq.

Ryan Mauro, a national security analyst for the Clarion Project said that “very few people are even aware that Iraqi Christians began organizing to defend themselves and needed our help,” but that “the persecution of Christians has failed to suppress the faith. On the contrary, Christianity appears to be rapidly growing beneath the surface. Persecution will increase as Islamists see Christianity as an increasing problem for them.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Christianity is the Most Persecuted Religion in the World

I would encourage you to go to the Voice of the Martyrs website, www.persecution.com, to get a small sample of the persecution and violence that is being directed towards Christians, much of it from ISIS. Here are a few of the cases they cite that have taken place recently in Egypt alone:

Wa'el Yousef was the owner of a supermarket in Arish. Four masked young men shot him to death after dragging his wife outside by her hair.

On February 11th, Adel Shawky, was shot in the head.

The following day, Dr. Bahgat Welliam, a veterinarian, was shot in the head after masked young men dragged him into the street.

On February 16, Gamal Tawfik Gergis was confronted by two young men in a market where he operated a small business. He was shot in the head after confirming his identity. The killers then stole money from and threatened bystanders who wanted to help him.

On February 21st, Saad Hakim Hanna and Medhat Saad Hakim, a father and son, were murdered in separate attacks. The father was shot in the head, and the son was burned alive.

On February 24th, Kamel Raoof Kamel, a plumber, was shot as his wife and five children watched. They then set their home on fire.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Muslim Terrorists Kill Coptic Christians on Palm Sunday

It was a bittersweet day on Palm Sunday this year when ISIS bombed two churches in Egypt, killing 44 and wounding more than 100 others.

The first attack took place in Tanta, a city in the Nile Delta located about 80 miles southeast of Alexandria and 60 miles north of Cairo. Twenty-seven people were killed by a suicide bomber who entered St. George Church while its Palm Sunday service was taking place. At least 78 people were injured.

A few hours later, a second attack took place at St. Mark's Cathedral in Alexandria, also by a suicide bomber. Seventeen people were killed, including three police officers, and 48 others were injured. Coptic Pope Tawadris II was leading a mass at the time, but was not injured in the blast. The bomber had attempted to enter the cathedral, but when police officers stopped him, he detonated the bomb.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Sometimes Churches Have to Fight in Their Communities

In this case, churches were allowed in the Central Business District zone in which the property was located.

The article described what happened next: “As the Goodwill Church prepared to close on the property in November 2015, the city passed a law removing places of worship as permitted used(sic) in the Central Business District, as well as the city's Service Commercial District. The law, the United States alleged, was passed out of concern that the presence of the Goodwill Church, or other churches, could discourage commercial development, including discouraging establishments serving liquor due to a state law regulating the proximity of liquor serving establishments to places of worship and schools.”

The United States prevailed in the case resulting in a consent decree that required it to “amend its zoning laws and regulations to repeal the ban on the use of property for places of worship in the two zoning districts at issue and to treat religious assemblies or institutions equally with nonreligious assemblies or institutions.” The basis of the consent decree was that the city had violated the church's rights under RLUIPA.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Some of the Basics That American Churches Can Provide

The freedom we get from scripture – by omission – is that we were not given a formula or a directive as to how to accomplish these services. However, we need to be careful that those around us, in particular secular society and government, do not dictate to us how to do so, or more importantly, deny us the opportunity to do so through onerous laws or tactics.

To allow that to happen would be to allow those outside of the church to redefine the church and its purpose. As one proponent of urbanism once told me, “we are opposed to the mega-church isolated in the countryside or suburbs surrounded by acres of parking. This is an unsustainable model; it paves the landscape, it forces driving, it isolates the membership from the rest of the community, and it isolates the non-driver from the church. It is profoundly anti-civic.”

If we were to believe that, it would drastically alter the mission of the church and hamper its ability to accomplish it. If our churches were to be shamed into giving up their responsibilities to care for others, or to allow human “wisdom” to take precedent over direction from God, then the church and its influence on the good of its community would be greatly diminished.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Why Waste $55,000,000.00 On a Runway Nobody Wants?

Despite this massive expenditure, President Trump has begun slashing the federal budget, including Alaska's.

According to a report on the adn.com website, President Trump's “proposed budget would zero out a wide variety of (Alaskan) programs, including the Essential Air Service, which subsidizes rural flights throughout Alaska; the Denali Commission, which coordinates state-federal infrastructure projects; and LIHEAP, a program that helps people pay for high heating bills…The Environmental Protection Agency's funding for water projects in Alaska villages would be gone, and climate change programs across the federal government would be no more. Grant programs that fund weatherization programs and a raft of rural-focused funding would be zeroed out.”

It also reported that “In fiscal year 2016, the federal government sent nearly $8 billion to Alaska through contracts, grants, loans and other types of financial assistance, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.”

Now that Donald Trump is president, Alaskans hope that the his administration will finally make it possible to drill in ANWR, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

What Would it Be Like if Churches Took On a Social Role?

At some point in America's history, America's churches abdicated a vital function to the government, and that function was taking care of those who are poor and in need. The church is far better equipped to handle this role than the government ever could be, and this is being demonstrated by the astounding growth of our entitlement programs.

But it also indicates our nation's drift towards a secular, socialist society that uses entitlements to buy votes, build agendas and exercise control over a population that does not want to be held accountable. In drifting towards this new “enlightened” society, it has also drifted away from the church, and the church has slowly given away its responsibility to help people in a responsible way.

Our pastor described how in the early church, Christians did provide for the poor, but they also did it in a way that held people accountable for what they received and encouraged them to work themselves out of the conditions that caused them to be in need in the first place.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Book Warns About the Fragile, Aging U.S. Power Grid

The third incident was Stuxnet, the joint US-Israeli cyberattack on Iran's main uranium enrichment center in Natanz. The software worm caused the centrifuges to spin at an improper speed, causing them to self-destruct, all while Iranian technicians watched what appeared to be normal indications on their computer screens.

Our power grid is very fragile – it takes serious effort to coordinate the amount of power that crosses each portion of our power grid, and overloading a power line can cause the line to overheat, causing the lines to sag and short-circuit. In addition, there are tens of thousands of decades-old large power transformers (LPT) on our grid. These transformers are as large as houses, and many are more than forty years old.

Koppel quotes a senior Department of Energy (DOE) official who said, “Power transformers have long been a concern for the U.S. Electricity Sector. The failure of a single unit could result in temporary service interruption and considerable revenue loss, as well as incur replacement and other collateral costs. Should several of these units fail at the same time, it will be challenging to replace.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Damage to Our Power Grid Could Be Our Biggest Threat

Now there is another threat that we need to give our attention.

Most of us have heard of an EMP bomb, essentially a nuclear weapon that is detonated at a very high altitude, producing an electromagnetic pulse. The EMP has the potential of knocking out almost all of our computers, including those that run our cars, aircraft, and the power grid itself.

While this is entirely possible, I don't fear that this is likely to happen, and the reason is simple – there is a much easier way for a terrorist to take out our power grid.

Ted Koppel, in his book Lights Out, explains how. His entire book is worth reading, but here are some excerpts from the book and an abbreviated explanation.

“One hot summer afternoon in August 2003, a high-voltage power line in northern Ohio brushed against some overgrown trees and shut down… As system operators struggled to diagnose the problem, three other lines failed in the same way, forcing the surrounding grid to take on additional current. In just an hour and a half these overburdened lines fell like dominoes, resulting in the largest blackout in North American history. Fifty million people lost power for up to two days in an area that spanned southeastern Canada and eight northeastern states.” The cost of repairs was $6 billion and 11 people died as a result of the outage. But the system worked – the repairs were made and power was restored.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Kansas' Brownback Wants a New Kansas City Airport

He was quoted in the Kansas City Star to have said, “I just think in this day and age, you would have so many obstacles that it would be hard to put something together that the federal government would agree to and you could get financing on. At the same time, stranger things have happened, and that's why I think this should be a wake-up call to those of us who want to keep aviation services in Kansas City.”

He may be right, since part of President Trump's campaign was that America needs to modernize its airports.

President Trump met with several domestic airline executives last week. The Kansas City Star article quoted Kevin Burke, the “president and CEO of Airports Council International North America, a trade association of airport directors” who said that “during the meeting (with President Trump) the president stated four times that America must modernize and rebuild our airports. We can quickly fund and undertake these much-needed infrastructure projects with no federal budget impact by giving airports more control of local investment decisions.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Airports are a Definite Advantage to Pro-Business Cities

As I reported last week, the FAA and the City of Santa Monica recently reached an agreement to close the airport by the end of 2028, despite the FAA's previous stance that the airport should stay open in perpetuity. The agreement allows the city to immediately shorten its runway from about 5,000 feet to just 3,500 feet, effectively prohibiting most all jet traffic from using the airport.

The agreement came as good news/bad news to both proponents and opponents of the airport closure. Proponents were disappointed that a date had been set for its closure and that a shortened runway would limit traffic, but relieved that there would be time to get the decision reversed. Opponents were glad to hear that the airport would be closed, but disappointed that the closure wasn't immediate.

The biggest losers are the residents of Santa Monica. I am sure there are many cities that would love to have a pro-commerce asset like an airport, but because of development and unavailability of land are unable to have their own. To deliberately forfeit such an asset seems totally counterintuitive to what most cities want to do, attract business to their communities.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Battle Between Santa Monica and the Airport Rages

According to the article in the LA Times, the City of Santa Monica refused to give aviation businesses long-term leases, but had given long-term leases and lower rental rates to other businesses that were not aviation related. Another report indicated that it had issued eviction notices to two private operations at the airport, but FAA intervention stopped them.

The City of Santa Monica began its efforts to close the airport in 2010 by banning Category C and D aircraft (which include business jets). The FAA ruled that they had no authority to impose the ban, so the City Council took them to court — all the way to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia — losing all the way. In 2011, the court ruled that they could not ban certain categories of aircraft.

The City Council then filed a lawsuit against the FAA in 2013, asking the court to give them free title to the airport so they could close it, claiming that the closure was necessary to respond to complaints by residents about noise. However, a survey done by the AOPA (Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association) indicated that most of the complaints came from people who were not Santa Monica residents, and that 70 percent of those surveyed wanted the airport to remain open.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Fewer Regulations are Needed to Restore Manufacturing

Until the Industrial Revolution came along, the British weren't terribly concerned about Americans yearning for freedom from the Crown. The real threat from America came when Americans began manufacturing things for themselves.

America's current decline in manufacturing capability places us in a very weak state. If the world turned against us, if China and others decided to cut off goods and oil, it would decimate us. I have no doubt that we can rebuild our manufacturing capability, but it is unlikely that we could rebuild it quickly if we were to suddenly need it. That is why it is important for us to begin rebuilding now.

It starts with Americans demanding that the regulations that impede us from being self-sufficient as a nation be repealed. The world is a much safer place when America is strong, but America can't be strong enough to resist all of the evil in this world if it can't feed, clothe and house its own people. That is why I believe President Trump is on the right path in demanding that we eliminate 75 percent of our regulations.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Don't Push the Global Warming Myth to Advance Goals

President Trump's first few days in office is addressing something that needs to be aggressively pursued – dishonesty in the mainstream press and in government.

For instance, here's something that has been totally ignored since 2009. At that time, Chelsea Schilling posted an article on World Net Daily entitled “History of Climate Gets ‘Erased’ Online.” She wrote, “A new report reveals a British scientist and Wikipedia administrator rewrote climate history, editing more than 5,000 unique articles in the online encyclopedia to cover traces of a medieval warming period – something Climategate scientists saw as a major roadblock in the effort to spread the global warming message. Recently hacked e-mails from the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit expose a plot to eliminate the Medieval Warm Period, a 400-year era that began around A.D. 1000, the Financial Post's Lawrence Solomon reports.”

Well, it wasn't totally ignored – it was about that time the proponents of man-made global warming began using the phrase “climate change.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Why is Justice Dept. Suddenly Interested in the RLUIPA?

On the Wallbuilder's website, David Barton posted an updated article entitled America's Most Biblically-Hostile U.S. President, in which he describes numerous examples of Obama's hostility toward Christians and Jews dating back from December of 2009 to present time. One example stated that in June of 2013, “the Obama Department of Justice defunds a Young Marines chapter in Louisiana because their oath mentioned God, and another youth program because it permits a voluntary student-led prayer.”

It was not long ago that I wrote about a report by the United States Commission on Civil Rights that stated that “religious liberty” and “religious freedom” were code words for intolerance, homophobia and “Christian Supremacy”.

It is also widely known that Obama has been diligent to bring thousands of unvetted Syrian refugees to our country, often placing them in communities against the will of their citizens. It is not unreasonable to be concerned that there are terrorists among them.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Obama's Anti-Israel Bias has Been Around for Many Years

Secretary of State John Kerry's disgraceful anti-Israel speech recently belies the anti-Israel sentiment that is prevalent in the Obama administration, especially Obama himself.

Kerry's insistence on a two-state solution without requiring the acceptance of Israel's right to exist by the Palestinians and his insistence that Israel reduce its borders to where they were before the 1967 war (the Six-Day War) indicates that they are too ignorant or too prejudiced to understand how much this endangers Israel.

This misinformation about Israel is nothing new. For example, in June of 2016, a misinformation article appeared on Al Jazeera that read, “On June, 1967, an unprovoked Israel invaded Palestinian, Egyptian, and Syrian territories at once. Six days and over 300,000 Palestinian refugees later, it had occupied the Sinai Peninsula, Gaza Strip, West Bank and Golan Heights.”

In fact what had happened was when Egypt amassed its military on the border of Israel, Israel assumed an attack was eminent and launched a preemptive strike that all but wiped out the Egypt's military. At the same time, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel, but Israel defeated them. As a result, Israel took the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

With God's Favor, the United States Can Be Great Again

2017 looks to be shaping up to be a very interesting year. President-elect Trump is promising big changes, and if the lineup of people he is proposing for key posts is approved, we have a chance to see government abandon the insanity that Obama imposed upon us and our freedoms. A chance, that is, because Obama has made numerous appointments in the federal government that will need to be found and fired.

We should see the economy improve, and one thing that economists never watch but should are our nation's architects. The reason is simple. Architects are one of the first people who see an economic shift based on the number of inquiries about potential projects and the number of contracts signed giving them the go-ahead to begin drawing. When business for architects expands, the economy usually expands and the converse is true. What I have seen in my business in the past month is very encouraging.

I also look to see big changes coming among our nation's churches. We have been in the middle of a major paradigm shift for the better part of a decade now. A lot of churches are closing their doors, and there are some new ones, but there are not as many opening as there are closing. The church at large is reinventing itself, and it is arguable what the end product will look like after another decade of change. My hope for the reinvented church is that it will shift toward the model that was set in the early church.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Experience the Grace of Jesus and Have a Merry Christmas

“In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make.” (John 1:1-3 NLT)

The Word is who the apostle Paul spoke about in Romans 1:20 (NLT) when he said:

“From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.”

Could Paul have possibly understood how utterly profound his statement was, when the sky contains an estimated 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars? Or that our bodies are composed of highly complex DNA, genes and chromosomes, the blueprint of our humanness and God's plan for us? Or that scientists consistently discover more and more things in the universe that exhibit a perfect mathematical precision?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Key to Affordable Housing in America is a Free Market

The new policy would make it possible, for example, for someone to build an additional home on the same lot with their existing home. This could as much as double the number of people living on the lot.

Personally, I am not for or against having a second home on a lot. If you have read my column for any length of time, you know that I believe property rights outweigh the right of a government to restrict its use, so long as the use does not directly harm neighbors.

The Toolkit would encourage a policy to do this, but the administration also knows that not enough people are going to go out and build additional homes on their properties (or other multi-family housing) without some incentive. To provide that incentive, we go to the next one on the list, “establishing density bonuses”.

According to the Toolkit, “Density bonuses encourage housing development and incentivize the addition of affordable housing units by granting projects in which the developer includes a certain number of affordable housing units the ability to construct a greater number of market rate units than would otherwise be allowed.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Oakland Fire Deaths Speak to Building Codes, Not Zoning

If you have been following my last series of articles, in which I am critical of the regulations that have or will come from Obama's Housing Development Toolkit, you might think that I am against rules and regulations. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our Founders were faced with a difficult problem when they wrote our Constitution, but they concluded that our legal system had to strike a medium between two extremes. The first extreme was tyranny, a society ruled by the whims of a dictator or oligarchy. The second extreme was anarchy, a society in which there were no rules or restraints to prevent harm from coming to its citizens. On one hand, misery at the hands of a few, on the other hand misery at the hands of anyone or everyone. The Founders wisely decided that our form of government and laws had to fall somewhere between.

Laws are necessary for an orderly and safe society, and even scripture (Romans 13) explains that we are to obey our government. In our form of government, we as citizens are responsible for the laws we are compelled to obey. My criticism of Obama's Toolkit is simply my way of voicing an opinion about how wrong it is and why I think that we should prevent his administration from imposing laws, rules and regulations upon us in order to further his agenda.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Truth is Americans Still Prefer to Live in the Suburbs

But in a recent article by Joel Kotkin entitled, It Wasn't Rural “Hicks” Who Elected Trump: The Suburbs Were-And Will Remain – The Real Battleground, he makes a convincing case that the well wasn't as deep as Democrats thought it was. He wrote:

“Despite the blue urbanist can't that dense metro areas – inevitably labeled ‘vibrant’ – are the future, in fact, core cities are growing at a slower pace than their more spread out suburbs and exurbs, which will make these edge areas even more important politically and economically in the coming decade. The states that voted for Trump enjoyed net domestic migration of 1.45 million from 2010 to 2015, naturally drawn from the states that were won by Hillary Clinton. Democrat-leaning ethnic groups, like Hispanics, are expanding rapidly, but Americans are moving in every greater numbers to the more conservative geographies of the Sun Belt, the suburbs and exurbs…Despite the wishes of many planners, and their Democratic allies, suburbs and small towns are not about to go away in the near future. ”

He continues, “Nor can blue state advocates continue to claim that millennials will not move to suburbia, because that is clearly happening. Urbanist mythology now holds to a fallback position that millennials move to the suburbs simply because they have been priced out. However, they don't look at other compelling reasons – notably shaped by life stage – for suburban growth. As most millennials will be soon be over 30, it seems likely more will head to the periphery, as did earlier generations to gain more space to raise a family, better schools and safety.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

America Needs Fewer Regulations and Even Less Politics

There is a great deal of pressure brought to bear on cities by the federal government and urban planners to create urban environments that follow their way of thinking. Typically, these include very dense development, reduction or even elimination of parking requirements, and emphasis on mass transit, especially light rail. There is great de-emphasis on single-family homes, churches, and other projects that don't fit the pattern for dense development.

The problem is that most of the demand for this kind of development comes not from the market, but from the federal government and urban planners. Most real demand is for projects that they demonize as “sprawl”, which is actually what we have known for generations as the American Dream.

“Streamlining or shortening permitting processes and timelines” is simply a way of saying to permit seekers, if you do it our way, we will make things easy for you. This instituted path of least resistance is coercive and it discriminates against the very market forces that could give our economy the real recovery we need.

Let's hope our next president will include this latest executive order in his list of those to delete, and that he will lead us through a market driven approach instead. We need fewer regulations, not more. We need more innovation and response to market conditions, not more regulations whose only real purpose is to achieve a political agenda.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Hillary Clinton as President Would Have Been Disasterous

Before I continue with this series on Obama's Housing Development Toolkit, I have to say how happy I was with the outcome of the election. The election of Hillary Clinton would have been far more disastrous than even that of Obama's, and Trump's election promises us a much better chance to return to a market-centered economy rather than one that is driven and ruled by fiat and unlawful regulations.

I would urge everyone to read Trump's Contract with the American Voter. It is incumbent upon all of us not to let him forget the promises it contains and to insist that they all are carried out as expeditiously as possible.

Aside from the biggest promise the Contract contains – getting rid of Obamacare – I am especially interested in the third one on the list: “a requirement that for every new federal regulation, two existing regulations must be eliminated.” After all, even though the Housing Development Toolkit has not been codified yet (or at least if it has it has been kept quiet), it promises to create yet another overbearing set of regulations that will discourage new development that doesn't meet the administration's goals. The strategies to meet those goals are:

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

No Matter the President, Pay-to-Play Will Pose Problems

At the moment I am writing this article we are two days away from the election. We have heard so much about Hillary's pay-to-play tactics to use her office as Secretary of State to enrich herself, but even if she is not elected, we have an uphill battle to end the pay-to-play culture that has become the norm of a government with an agenda.

In particular, I am referring to the document the Obama administration released in September of this year, the Housing Development Toolkit.

The stated goal of this document is to bring about affordable multifamily housing in what it describes as the numerous thriving, growing cities in America. In reality, the number of cities that are thriving and growing in America is small, and the actual goal of this policy is to concentrate populations in city centers with highly dense multifamily housing.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Progressive-Engineered Plan Skyrocketing Health Care Costs

Well, I have to admit I was wrong when I recently wrote about by expectation of a steep increase in my family's health care premiums. I wrote, “I could finance four brand new, moderately priced cars for what my monthly health insurance premium will be.”

I was wrong because I could finance five, not four, brand new moderately priced cars. Five.

Obamacare is right on track to make Americans who are desperate for affordable health care to be willing to accept its end goal, a single-payer system. And it will be so seductive – just think what a relief it will be to finally have “free” health care when all medical bills will be paid for by the federal government.

In reality, the end goal is not just a single-payer system, but a single party system.

First of all, people with entitlement mentalities are almost always registered as Democrats. As the price of health care rises (with the perception that it is rising due to greed by insurance companies), even those who would never have considered accepting anything from the government will be eager to sign up.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Obama's Proposed Policies are About Concentrating Power

According to Obama, “We can work together to break down rules that stand in the way of building new housing and that keep families from moving to growing, dynamic cities.”

This is a curious statement given that GDP is growing at the miserably slow rate of 1.2 percent, and has been for the entirety of his term in office. There are no growing, dynamic cities in America except Washington D.C., at least in comparison to other times in America's history. Some growth is not dynamic growth.

Quoting another source, the publication claimed that “families facing extreme rent burden often suffer lasting trauma resulting from their housing insecurity, destabilizing their lives and marring their prospects for upward economic mobility.”

Trauma? If extreme rent burden causes trauma, why do we not also hear about the trauma that rising health care premiums cause? Should not the same logic be applied? I could finance four brand new, moderately priced cars for what my monthly health insurance premium will be.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Have Much to Fear From a Clinton Presidency

Hillary, on the other hand, is far, far worse.

On the matter of keeping classified information on a private server, the precedent set by other cases is that if you do so, you will be prosecuted, you will be punished, you will go to prison. On that act alone, Hillary should be in prison, but there was obviously a deal with the FBI that prevented her prosecution. At the moment I write this article, it is coming out that another deal requesting the declassification of material she possessed may have been struck in a quid pro quo deal with the FBI.

That isn't the worst of it. For this I would refer you to the movie documentary by Dinesh D'Sousa, an author who was sent to prison after making the movie documentary “Obama's America” in an obvious political retaliation. Now he has produced Hillary's America, which I would urge you to watch.

However, it only skims over the book it is based upon by the same title. This heavily footnoted book provides a much more detailed look into who we would be electing if we elect her. The level of corruption is astounding, and her dedication to creation of a socialistic state will devastate our economy, our freedom of religion, and the freedoms our Constitution guarantees us.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

More Social Engineering to be Forced on the United States

“Taxing vacant land or donate it to nonprofit developers” is a particularly insidious provision because it implies that local governments can increase the taxes of property owners that choose not to build on their own land, perhaps to the point that the owners are unable to pay the taxes. This amounts to a kind of eminent domain without the messiness of involving the courts. And at some point, vacant land could be defined to include the open spaces that can be found in home estates.

Allowing a local government to donate vacant land to nonprofit developers is even worse, because it would require the taking of the property before giving it away.

Kilo vs. New London, despite the fact that it was a completely unconstitutional ruling, gave dishonest governments the ability to steal land for “the good of the community” – another case of abusing eminent domain with impunity.

And who are these “nonprofit developers”? There is no such thing, at least not in the context we are speaking about here.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Obama's Housing Guidelines Spell Trouble for Americans

Before I continue with this introductory statement, keep in mind that when the administration uses the word affordability, it actually means subsidized. Also recall that there has been tremendous pressure on cities of all sizes, but especially larger cities, to adopt form-based codes and other zoning policies that typically include the adoption of codes that create urban growth boundaries that always eventually lead to higher land costs. These codes also seek to create urbanization, meaning that the end goal is to move people from suburban and rural areas to urban areas, and the context of that necessarily includes high-density development. Continuing the introductory statement:

“Locally constructed barriers to new housing development include beneficial environmental protections, but also laws plainly designed to exclude multifamily or affordable housing. Local policies acting as barriers to housing supply include land use restrictions that make developable land much more costly than it is inherently, zoning restrictions, off-street parking requirements, arbitrary or antiquated preservation regulations, residential conversion restrictions, and unnecessarily slow permitting processes. The accumulation of these barriers has reduced the ability of many housing markets to respond to growing demand.”

This paragraph is intended to attract the interest of those who have experienced all of the problems that they enumerate, but it places the blame upon local governments, many of whom have done exactly what the federal government wanted them to do. For someone who has experienced these problems, but who are not well versed on where these regulations came from or came about, it might sound like good news.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Danger for Churches is Increasing in the United States

In pointing out these misinterpretations that progressives use to justify what they personally believe, my point is not that conservatives Christians should declare them the enemy. There is no need. Churches that adopt these beliefs won't last long. Statistics show that those denominations that do are already in a steep decline.

Other churches, however, are undergoing an extreme cultural change that can lead even conservative Christians into a progressive future, and it is being done in response to a serious change in American culture itself. While our technological advances have brought a massive improvement in the quality of our lives, it has also given us short attention spans and impatience for anything that isn't instantaneous. As a result, there is no patience for learning.

While we can easily learn the basics of God's Word in mere minutes, learning the whole of the scripture is a lifetime endeavor; without it, falling to deception and misguided judgment are nearly inevitable. We are warned within scripture many times about the importance of learning, yet because it is so difficult to engage people in learning, American churches are systemically eliminating the role of education from their activities. It is just as damaging to the future of the church in America as any edict that comes from the left, and it is an issue that our churches must address if they are to survive.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Assault on Christianity Continues and is Deepening

His words, in part, were “Christianity is not only ridiculous and repugnant. It is also deeply dishonest. No reasonable earthly father would allow his children to be raped, if he could readily intervene to stop it.”

I have always found this argument against God to be an amazing excuse for rebelling against God. It was God that first gave us free will, and when he did that, it was universal. In other words, he did not give free will to some people, and not to others. So when people like Clark demand that God stop people from doing certain things, he would be quite angry with God if he stopped him from doing what he wanted to do. Evil people are responsible for what they do, not God.

By the same token, liberals who want people to have the free will to do what they want are selective in how they invoke the philosophy. To them, it is allowable to condemn Christians for their beliefs, but it is not allowable for Christians to condemn liberals for theirs. So it is acceptable for people to engage in homosexuality, but it is not acceptable for Christians to say that it is wrong: there is a distinction here – Christians are not telling people that they cannot engage in homosexuality (or any other behavior they believe is wrong), they are simply saying that they should not be forced to believe something or support something that they know is wrong according to God's word.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

America's Assault on Christianity Continues to Deepen

The first event came from the chairman of the Civil Rights Commission, Martin Castro. A CNSnews online report published his public statement as follows:

“The phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance…Religious liberty was never intended to give one religion dominion over other religions or veto power over the civil rights and civil liberties of others. However, today, as in the past, religion is being used as both a weapon and a shield by those seeking to deny others equality. ”

He continued, “In our nation's past, religion has been used to justify slavery and later, Jim Crow laws. We now see ‘religious liberty’ arguments sneaking their way back into our political and constitutional discourse (just like the concept of ‘states rights’ ) in an effort to undermine the rights of some Americans. This generation of Americans must stand up and speak out to ensure that religion never again be twisted to deny others the full promise of America. ”

To their credit, two of the commissioners objected to Castro's conclusions contained in a report entitled Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Progressivism Keeps Destroying America and Its Families

This week the Pope canonized Mother Teresa as a saint. Mother Teresa, though she never had a family of her own, promoted families by promoting adoption and spoke out against one of many acts that destroys families – abortion.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1997, she said (with pro-abortion advocates Bill and Hillary Clinton present), “America needs no words from me to see how your decision in Roe v. Wade has deformed a great nation. The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has sown violence and discord at the heart of the most intimate human relationships. It has aggravated the derogation of the father's role in an increasingly fatherless society. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts – a child – as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience…And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?…Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted, and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child, and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3,000 children from abortions.”

John Locke, a 17th century philosopher whose work was highly regarded by our Founders, wrote this about the parent's role: “The subjection of the minor places in the father a temporary government which terminates with the minority of the child…The nourishment and education of their children (during their minority) is a charge so incumbent on parents for their children's good, that nothing can absolve them from taking care of it.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Levin's Book Calls for Amendments to the U.S. Constitution

Levin makes a compelling case for moving forward with these, and if they were passed it would no doubt preserve our freedoms. My only question was, is it too late? Levin says no, but I am not so sure. Just like the Russians, we have many people in this country that are willing to give up their freedoms for the security of big government.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Eldridge Cleaver's Story Shows Dislike for Communism

Skousen gave another quote from Cleaver that was even more indicative of his disillusionment with Communism:

Cleaver said, “I was wrong and the Black Panthers were wrong… We (black Americans) are inside the system and I feel that the number one objective for Black America is to recognize that they have the same equal rights under the Constitution as Ford or Rockefeller, even if we have no blue-chip stocks. But our membership in the United States is the supreme blue-chip stock and the one we have to exercise.”

There is a scripture that says that there is nothing new under the sun. At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement is gaining momentum and negatively influencing our entire culture (along with an outright rejection of the Constitution by the Democrat party, and to a lesser degree, even the Republican party), perhaps it is time for all of us – whites, blacks, Hispanics, and all of the rest of us who have made America our home – to come to the same realization that our Constitution is one of the greatest gifts God ever gave to mankind.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

If America Ceases to Be Good, America Will Cease to Be Great

Perhaps the most famous quote attributed to Alexis de Tocqueville is one that describes the character and Christianity of people of the former of the two conditions I just described:

“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers, and it was not there; in her fertile fields and boundless prairies, and it was not there; in her rich mines and her vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Where is America headed now? Most polls show that the majority of Americans believe that we are headed in the wrong direction. The question is, have we been taken so far away from our Christian roots that we are likely never to find our way back again?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

De Tocqueville Saw the Importance of Faith in America

De Tocqueville was astonished that this harmony between religion and government could work, but what he found was that religion could do what laws could not: “The revolutionists of America are obliged to profess an ostensible respect for Christian morality and equity, which does not permit them to violate wantonly the laws that oppose their designs… Thus, while the law permits the Americans to do what they please, religion prevents them from conceiving, and forbids them to commit, what is rash or unjust.”

In other words, because America had a Christian mindset – even if not all of them were necessarily believers, though the vast majority were – they had a conscience that negated the necessity for the creation of laws. This is in stark contrast to the many thousands of laws that we now have, many of them in response to actions by those who have not possessed such a conscience.

Perhaps one of the most striking statements by De Tocqueville was eerily prophetic of America. He wrote, “The unbelievers in Europe attack the Christians as their political opponents rather than as their religious adversaries; they hate the Christian religion as the opinion of a (political) party much more than as an error of belief; and they reject the clergy less because they are the representatives of the Deity than because they are allies of government.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Not Understanding Constitutional Principles is Damaging

The premise of the book is that until the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, mankind's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged for the past five-thousand years. Within two hundred years after the adoption of these documents, Americans had made huge leaps in standard of living and in innovation in technologies.

Why this is so important to America is that America has been gradually dumbed down over the past century, and as a result we no longer understand the principles underlying our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and are suffering the consequences. Our economy suffers, our families suffer, and our citizens live in a state of confusion about what it even means to be an American.

In part this is about a systemic and purposeful rejection of God, which is tragic especially when you realize that you don't have to believe in God for the system to work, even though it is a system designed around Biblical principles. It is the ultimate example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – we will reject God even though we know at the same time we would be rejecting all of the good things in life that come with living by these principles.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Need to Know More About the Constitution

When I returned home from a recent trip, I turned on the television and one of the Fox pundits was complaining that people justify their political beliefs based on the Constitution, but that the U.S. Supreme Court justices couldn't agree on their own interpretations of the Constitution.

The truth is that we need to know more about our Constitution. The knowledge of what our Founders went through to write it, and why they wrote it as they did is a complete mystery to most Americans.

But that knowledge is not lost. It is available in a book that I have mentioned numerous times in my column, The 5000 Year Leap.

When the settlers of Jamestown set foot on what was to become American soil, the standard of living was not much different than it had been for the previous 50 centuries. Socialism was attempted, but it nearly wiped them out.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Atheists Criticize Columns on America's Christian Heritage

The other e-mail I received, however, was from a gentleman who courteously disagreed with me. However, I found what he said in his e-mail disturbing.

This man, who identified himself as a historian, claimed that one of the writers I had referred to in my articles (Dr. Jerry Newcombe) was not a reliable source of information, because “having no credible background as a scholar, and the author, apparently, of not even one peer-reviewed article in an academic journal, it is difficult to believe that at any point he subjected his opinions (or were they ever subjected) to any sort of rigorous or critical examination.”

To my reply to him that there was a movement toward revisionist history in this country, he agreed, stating that “it is something that should not be reviled, but instead embraced. Indeed, history is not a thing, that once told or is written down, remains untouchable or immutable. Rather, new discoveries are constantly being made and undiscovered documents and other evidence is coming to light that often-time compels us to re-evaluate and maybe even rewrite our history.”

His qualifications? According to him, “having had my first peer-reviewed article published in 2001, and the most recent one just this year, and having been invited to speak at numerous conferences and other academic gatherings around the world…”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The Founders Understood the Need for Religion, Morality

But real evidence is no obstacle to groups who are intent not only upon separating the church from the state, but to leading the American people to believe in their version of revisionist history.

One only needs to look at the character of those individuals in our governments, from local to federal, to understand how right Adams was. Many of the decisions that are being made on our behalf in the halls of government, and especially in Washington, are being made by men and women who have either lost their moral compass or who no longer fear God, or both. Amnesty, the (un)Affordable Care Act, and our open borders are fondly a few examples of that.

Adams was not just talking about the people who would be governed by the Constitution, but also about who would do the governing. The Framers of the Constitution created a document that was a one of a kind, a rare and valuable treasure that is fragile in the hands of those who can not or will not appreciate its astounding power to empower the individual.

Benjamin Franklin knew how fragile it was, because at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention he was asked, “well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?“, he replied, “A republic if you can keep it.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Despite the Critics, America is Still a Christian Country

But then, most Americans are ignorant of the facts, as was I until a few years ago. Not that I did not already believe that America had been formed by Christians as a Christian nation, because I did; but that I did not see hard facts until recently.

I've been urging people to read a book written by Jerry Newcombe entitled The Book That Made America – How the Bible Formed Our Nation to learn the facts about our Founding Fathers. Our schools stopped teaching those facts almost a century ago, and that was the beginning of our country's drift toward Godlessness, liberalism, progressivism and ultimately now toward Marxism.

One of the biggest surprises in the book is the history of an 1892 U.S. Supreme Court case, United States v. the Church of the Holy Trinity, that led to a decision that emphatically held that “This is a Christian Nation”.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans Must Become More Defensive About Terrorism

If America is to survive terrorism, Americans need to change their culture and attitude toward self-defense.

The truth is that Americans have been taught for decades that any violence is a crime, even if it is for self-defense. In some instances, it has led to greater loss of life in situations where there is one gunman against a crowd of many.

We have been taught that we should run away from danger. We have been taught that we can only use violence as a last resort, and even then we may find ourselves in trouble with the law if we can't prove that letting an assailant get away wasn't an option. And even though concealed carry is the law in most states now, buying pre-paid legal insurance is being encouraged because those who have used their firearms in self-defense are being sued by their assailants or are being prosecuted.

Culturally and legally, we need to change this. When a lone gunman enters a nightclub filled with several hundred patrons and starts shooting, loss of life would have been greatly diminished had enough people known how to neutralize the threat. He could have been subdued before he could kill so many people.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

America Must Protect Its Churches from Terrorist Attacks

In 2009, I was given the opportunity to visit the Fusion Center in Oklahoma City. This is an organization, run by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, whose duty is to help preempt any attack that might be coming to the State of Oklahoma. One of the things they do is watch newscasts from television stations all over the world. For any event they see, they are to ask the question, “Will this pose a threat to Oklahoma?”, and if so, alert the proper authorities to prevent anything from happening.

While there, I was talking with an OSBI agent, and explained to him that one of my biggest concerns in providing safety in my church designs was to provide safe environments and safeguards for children. As I began to ask him for his opinion on how to provide this kind of security, he abruptly stopped me and said, “Are you going to ask me if I carry a gun in church? You bet I carry my gun in church.” With that said, he did not want to discuss it further.

In that conversation, I had no intention of bring up the subject of carrying guns in church, but it left me wondering what he knew that I didn't.

That conversation also leaves me wondering how we could possibly identify every threat that might be coming our way, and especially threats against our churches. As more of the news comes out about the man who attacked the Orlando nightclub, one thing is evident – people knew about him and his hatred and it is likely that at least some of his family members knew of his plans, yet nothing was done to prevent him from making the attack.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Muslim Immigration in America Threatens Our Churches

Granted, not all Muslims are bad people, and many of them come here to escape violence and to gain freedom. But a significant number of them are coming here with the intent of imposing Sharia law or to spread violence against non-Muslims, especially Christians, and so it makes no sense to be willfully bringing them to our country, and willfully leaving our borders porous so that they can come in undetected.

This should be a wake-up call to Christians in the United States, and especially to our churches. The attack in Orlando was motivated specifically out of hatred for gays, but we can't forget that they also hate Christians as much or more. Most, or maybe by now all, of the churches in Syria and Iraq have been destroyed, and America is considered the “Great Satan” specifically because of our Judeo-Christian roots.

If not dealt with, and it is not likely that it will be under our current administration, it logically follows that churches in America will eventually come under attack. The time has come in America for churches to become even more proactive in providing security in their buildings and at their gatherings. The day is coming that a lot of us are going to be killed for our beliefs. Let's not make it as easy as it was for the Orlando killer.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

A Church in Ohio is Denied the Use of Its Own Property

At issue was the city's argument that the city's Master Plan was intended to maximize tax revenues from the properties in the zoning district. According to a post by the Law of the Land website, ADF was successful in alleging that “at least some of these assemblies (day cares, hospitals, outpatient surgery centers, and other institutions) or institutions were situated, relative to the government's regulatory purpose, similar to TOL Christian Schools, in that they would fail to maximize income-tax revenues”.

ADF had been hopeful for a better outcome. Stanley had expected the court to rule similarly to other rulings it had made on previous RLUIPA cases. He stated, “I would anticipate that if the Sixth Circuit follows those decisions, we would be on the winning side. ”

However, in May of this year, the Sixth Circuit ruled against TOL. According to the Law of the Land post, “…the court noted that using eminent domain, Upper Arlington could force TOL Christian Schools to sell the land to the government, and sell the land to a buyer that the government thought offered superior economic benefits: however, it failed to do so in this case. ”

Well, at least they haven't done it yet.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Can an American City Be Human Without the Church?

As I have pointed out in previous articles, churches are the last building type that most urban planners think about. The secularism and progressivism that Kotkin spoke of is creeping into virtually all realms of government, and the result is the neglect of an important facet of American culture as it deepens its beliefs in socialism.

Too extreme an accusation, you say? Consider this. There was a time not long ago in America that a hardcore socialist (actually two) could have ever made it through the presidential primaries. Yet it has happened because, if you can believe the polls, the American people are embracing socialism. Perhaps they are doing so because they are looking for social justice, or even because they don't understand what it really means. And many of these Americans would say that they were Christians.

Kotkin writes of the time in Russia after the Bolshevik revolution: “The new Communist rulers sought to build their urban areas by obliterating the civic past – not too unlike, as we'll see, the redevelopers in the West during the '60s and the '70s. Stalin, for example, demolished the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, which had been completed in 1882 after 40 years of construction. In its place, the Soviet regime constructed the new Palace of the Soviets. Thousands of other historic buildings also went down under Bolshevik edicts. “In reconstructing Moscow,” proclaimed Nikita Khruschev in 1937, “we should not be afraid to remove a tree, a little church, or some cathedral or other.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans No Longer Understand Our Founding Principles

The premise of the book is that until the Constitution and Bill of Rights came into being, mankind's standard of living had remained virtually unchanged for the past five-thousand years. Within two hundred years after the adoption of these documents, Americans had made huge leaps in standard of living and in innovation in technologies.

Why this is so important to America is that America has been gradually dumbed down over the past century, and as a result we no longer understand the principles underlying our Constitution and our Bill of Rights and are suffering the consequences. Our economy suffers, our families suffer, and our citizens live in a state of confusion about what it even means to be an American.

In part this is about a systemic and purposeful rejection of God, which is tragic especially when you realize that you don't have to believe in God for the system to work, even though it is a system designed around Biblical principles. It is the ultimate example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – we will reject God even though we know at the same time we would be rejecting all of the good things in life that come with living by these principles.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Unfair Treatment of Churches is a Growing US Problem

The sad thing is that defeating a church that wants to use RLUIPA as a defense is quite easy – if the church does not have the funds or the right counsel available. In addition, there seems to be as many churches that lose their cases as that win, and there is no shortage of attorneys that specialize in defending municipalities against RLUIPA.

In the long term, states need to enact their own versions of RLUIPA, but the effectiveness of this is questionable as long as the federal government has the ability (it does not have the right, just the ability) to override state laws and referendums.

The real solution is for there to be a change of heart and thought in our nation to value our churches again, and perhaps even some courage among our churches to adopt a peaceful “we will not obey” attitude toward actions against them, just as many pastors have already done in their Pledge in Solidarity to Defend marriage (which I would encourage everyone to read and support). The church and its missions are worth fighting for.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

We Need Constitutional Values at All Government Levels

When and how does this change? Ultimately, it belongs with the average citizens being observant enough to see what is happening and being interested enough in the plight of others to engage in educating themselves and others to the point that the leadership we elect can prevent our Constitution and the rights it gives us from being diminished to its destruction and a point of no return. What price are we willing to pay to keep America free, but even more perplexing is the question, are we really willing to give up our freedoms for a so-called peace? It seems that those in America who are calling for the election of Bernie or Hillary may well be doing just that.

To remain free, and frankly to remain at peace within our nation, this country desperately needs Godly men and women in places of leadership, and men and women who know and understand what the Constitution says and means. There are far too few people left who can do that, because Progressive proponents over the last century have done a spectacular job of infiltrating our school systems, our academic institutions, our seats of government, and especially our courts.

To be certain, the presidency is important, but equally important are those running for state legislatures, city government and school boards. What a vastly different and more wonderful this country would be if those who hold those seats simply had the right values.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 Caused Great Damage

Tokyo was especially hard hit, but one structure survived. That was the Imperial Hotel, designed by none other than American architect Frank Lloyd Wright. After the earthquake hit, Wright received a telegram telling him, “Hotel stands undamaged as monument to your genius. Congratulations.”

I recall one of my architectural history professors at The University of Illinois, who had been an apprentice to Wright, telling us of how Wright's hotel was the only building in Tokyo left standing.

Wright's design for the hotel foundation was unusual for its time, especially in Tokyo. Its walls were thicker at the bottom than the top, and rested on piers driven deep into the alluvial mud. On Wright's construction drawing describing the foundation, he wrote, “Floor slabs balanced over central supports as a tray rests on a waiter's fingers to prevent failure under earthquake strain.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Despite Earth Day, Climate Change is not Caused by Man

Bill Nye, “the science guy” has stated that he is “openly favorable to the idea of jailing ‘global warming’ skeptics at the Hague as “war criminals” and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said that “I wish there were a law you could punish them (climate change deniers) with.” With such gullibility, it's not hard to understand how people become so afraid that they are willing to jettison scientific reason, evidence and constitutional rights for self-preservation.

But some proponents do know better. For some, it's for financial gain and for others it's for political power. Does anyone really believe that Al Gore isn't in it for the money or that Obama isn't in it to promote socialism?

John Coleman, a famous meteorologist, has said for many years that climate change is not caused by human activity.

Writing about Earth Day 2016 and the Paris climate agreement, Coleman said, “On this Earth Day 2016, there is a great deal of frenzy about how our Earth is going to become uninhabitable, as the civilized activities of man allegedly trigger unstoppable global warming and climate change. With the Obama administration set to commit the United States to the Paris climate agreement by signing our nation onto the document on Friday (April 22), it is obvious that science has taken a back seat at the United Nations. The environmentalists, bureaucrats and politicians who make up the United Nation's climate panel recruit scientists to research the climate issue. And they place only those who will produce the desired results. Money, politics and ideology have replaced science. ”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Atheist Tries to Block a Cross at a Corpus Christi Church

In Corpus Christi, Texas, there will soon be a 210-foot-tall, 95 foot wide cross on the grounds of the Abundant Life Fellowship Church. It has taken the church three years to reach this point, but the groundbreaking ceremony was recently held with city dignitaries and State Representative Todd Hunter, who read a statement of support for the project from Governor Greg Abbott.

The inspiration to build the cross, which will be the largest in the Western Hemisphere and the second largest in the world, came from the moment the church's Pastor Rick Milby saw the 170-foot tall cross at Sagemont Church in Houston. At the time, the church was contemplating constructing a building, but Milby successfully convinced his congregation that the cross needed to come first.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that there are those who don't like the idea. Patrick Greene, an atheist who is well-known for filing lawsuits against Christian public displays, has reportedly claimed that the government officials who attended the groundbreaking ceremony have broken the law.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

The 101-Year-Old Armenian Holocaust is Starting Over

While we consider these actions of a century ago brutal, inhuman and demonic, we now find many of the same actions being carried today out against Christians in Iraq, Syria, and other locations.

In a recent news release by CNS News, it was reported that Mark Arabo, a California businessman and Chaldean-American leader, stated that “Christianity in Mosul is dead, and a Christian holocaust is in our midst… children are being beheaded, mothers being raped and killed, and fathers are being hung…there's actually a park in Mosul where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick.”

Despite the fact that thousands of Christians have been murdered by ISIS, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homes to the safety of other countries, the Obama administration has, until recently, refused to call what is happening there a genocide. Several weeks ago, John Kerry finally admitted that ISIS responsible for genocide of Christians in Iraq and Syria, stating during a news conference at the State Department that “My purpose here today is to assert in my judgement (ISIS) is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control including Yazidis, Christians and Shite Muslims.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Housing Supplied by the Federal Government is Not a Right

First of all, nowhere in our Constitution is housing listed as a right - nor does it state that the federal government must provide some minimum level of comfort to all Americans. This blogger laments that Americans cannot afford decent shelter, yet even the poorest Americans have a greater standard of living than most people in the world. And for those in this country who are willing to work hard, decent housing is available without being subsidized by the federal government.

Secondly, the federal government is constitutionally required to provide for the national defense. In case you haven’t noticed, we live in a very dangerous world and the Obama administration is dangerously reducing our military, not prioritizing it over housing.

It would be easy to feel demoralized, discouraged and disparaged by such an attitude that American cannot succeed without the help of the federal government.

The truth is that most Americans want to work for what they get – they just want the federal government to get out of their way.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Christian Genocide in the Middle East Another Holocaust

And on a recent episode of Oliver North's War Stories, it was reported that in northern Iraq, “tens of thousands” of Christians had been killed.

Two weeks ago it became official that the United States formally and legally recognized that a genocide against Christians was taking place. Yet, I have not heard any news beyond that that indicates anything will change. Muslim refugees will continue to flood into our country, but will any Christian refugees be saved?

Though it has been disputed he said it, Winston Churchill has been attributed for saying, “You can depend upon the Americans to do the right thing, but only after they have exhausted every other possibility.”

In fact, it may have actually been the Israeli politician and diplomat Abba Eban who said, “Men and nations do act wisely when they have exhausted all the other possibilities.”

What other choice do we have to save our fellow Christians from genocide?

ISIS has to be destroyed.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

U.S. Finally Recognizes Middle Eastern Christian Genocide

On March 17, Secretary of State John Kerry finally responded to demands that the United States would recognize that Christians were facing genocide in the Middle East. This came in large part to a report from the Knights of Columbus and In Defense of Christians entitled, “Genocide against Christians in the Middle East.”

The report concludes that genocide is, in fact, purposely being carried out against Christians and others, as ISIS is conducting a cleansing of Christians from the Middle East and beyond. Here are but a few things mentioned in the report:

From the official ISIS magazine Dabiq, which is named for the place they believe a final battle against Rome and the “Crusader army”, it states:

“We will conquer your Rome, break your crosses and enslave your women, by the permission of Allah, the Exalted. This is His promise to us; He is glorified and He does not fail in His promise. If we do not reach that time, then our children and grandchildren will reach it, and they will sell your sons as slaves at the slave market.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Persecution of Christians is Growing Around the World

The same RNS report stated that Voice of the Martyrs spokesman Todd Nettleton (headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) agreed that “Muslim extremism is the main source of Christian oppression.”

Nettleton said, “Wherever there is growing Islamic radicalism, there is growing persecution of Christians. Even where moderate Islamic states offer peace - and that is rare - they almost never have freedom to practice their faith and are often marked for death.”

Persecution takes many forms, but one particular insidious form is church burnings. Earlier this month, Muslims in Niger, who were protesting the publication of Muhammad in the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, burned numerous churches and killed many Christians in the process.

One report indicated that in the capital city of Niamey, ten people were killed and six churches were burned. Another report stated that a minimum of 45 churches had been burned, and that some of the victims' charred bodies were found in the ruins of the churches. One Muslim was quoted to have said, “They offended our Prophet Muhammad. That's what we didn't like.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

A Lifeless Church Will Decline in an Ever-Changing Culture

This is where I will lose some of you, if you are not willing to listen to some constructive criticism. I know how dangerous it is to say anything that can be perceived as negative about the church, and how easy for some who don't like criticism to believe me to be attempting to quench the Holy Spirit. Before you think that of me, I beg you to listen.

Many churches are dying because they have become boring and lifeless. New churches are exciting places (as I believe they should be) that are achieving much of their growth through the demise of older churches. The church, I believe, should be modeled after the gifts of the Spirit that the Apostle Paul speaks of in scripture.

But when a church never becomes functional around these gifts, they foster dependency on its leaders. When worship does not include prayer, when scripture is not taught, when commandments of Jesus regarding baptism and communion are neglected or ignored, when truth is not taught because it hurts giving or might affect attendance, then is it a church or just a club?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

‘We are N’ Chronicles Systematic Persecution of Christians

According to a report on The Foreign Desk website, the few remaining Christians that have remained in Baghdad are being forced out of their homes and are leaving the country to escape execution by Muslims. The report, entitled “Ethnic Cleansing: Iran-Backed Militia Seize Christian Neighborhoods in Baghdad” describes the plight of these Christians, which is eerily reminiscent of the treatment of Jews by the Nazis.

“Iran-back militias have seized homes, businesses and cultural sites, including churches belonging to Baghdad's Christian communities, forcing individuals to resettle and forfeit all their belongings…”

It quotes the Chaldean Patriarch Louis Raphael Sacco in the article who said, “Their claim is that the property of a Christian (sic) is halal, meaning it can be seized… We are begging, once again, appealing to the conscience of government officials and authorities from Sunni and Shiite states in order to do something meaningful to safeguard the life and dignity and property of all Iraqis, because they are human.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Excessive Taxation and Regulation Will Prohibit Growth

California has been hemorrhaging business for years, much of it due to the state's love for regulations and taxes, but also because of the inflow of illegals that have been burdening taxpayers with education, medical and welfare costs. Just this week, I heard a commentator on a radio show state that twenty-five percent of new drivers licenses were issued to illegal aliens.

During the last presidential election, Obama held California up as a shining example to the nation, praising its green energy policies at a time when green jobs comprised only 2 percent of jobs in the state and the state had seen no benefits from it. Governor Jerry Brown at the time predicted that it would bring the state a half-million jobs, but in fact the jobs have been leaving the state in mass.

In 2010, Time magazine ran an article to demonstrate how the California model would bring prosperity through environmentalism regulation.

A newgeography.com article in 2010 put it succinctly: “No fundamentalist evangelical speaks with more conviction or faith than a California cheerleader expounding on the economic benefits of environmental purity brought about by command and control regulation… How bad are things in California? California's domestic migration has been negative every year since at least 1990. In fact, since 1990, according to the U.S. Census, 3,642,490 people, net, have left California.” A 2010 USA Today article stated that many of those making the exodus from California were coming to Oklahoma, attracted by a lower cost of living and more stable economy.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Why Does the City of Santa Monica Want to Close Its Airport?

Studies have shown that the airport supports over 1,500 jobs and businesses and generates about $250 million in economic activity each year. More than 275 aircraft are stationed at the 227 acre-airport.

Studies have shown that the airport supports over 1,500 jobs and businesses and generates about $250 million in economic activity each year. More than 275 aircraft are stationed at the 227 acre-airport.

“…many city residents support the airport and some have raised concerns that closing the field would lead to additional high-rise developments, bring more traffic problems to the already congested region. The protection zone around the airport currently prevents high-rise buildings from being constructed within about five miles of the airport.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Trump Used Eminent Domain for Casinos, Golf Courses

CRDA v. Banin was the result of Trump's attempt to take the property of three homeowners adjacent to his newly constructed casino in Atlantic City. Trump wanted their property to construct a parking lot for limousines. The elderly lady Bush referred to was Vera Coking, who had lived on her property for three decades.

Coking didn't want to sell, so after she refused an offer of $1 million for her property, Trump went to the CRDA (Casino Reinvestment Development Authority). The CRDA gave Coking 90 days to leave her property and offered her $251,000.

One of the other property owners was Peter Banin who, along with his brother, had recently purchased their building for $500,000. The CRDA also ordered them off of their property, and only offered them $174,000. Banin, a Russian immigrant, was quoted to have said, “I knew they could do this in Russia, but not here. I would understand if they needed it for an airport runway, but for a casino?”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

A Generation of Voters Without a Conservative President

Now we have an opportunity to reject liberal and progressive policies, but we also are faced with a situation we have never faced before. For the last hundred years, progressives have wrapped themselves with our flag and claimed to believe in the Constitution, when in fact their goal has always been to destroy it and adopt a more European, socialist form of government.

What makes things different now is that we have at least two candidates - Clinton and Sanders (especially Sanders), who are not hiding the fact that they are socialists, and are open to the fact that they believe in high taxes, more government entitlements, and more anti-capitalism business policies. What is more frightening is that so many people are embracing their philosophy. What they will discover, if Clinton or Sanders become president, is how Margaret Thatcher described it. Socialism, she said, worked great until you run out of other people's money. Well, we are already out of money.

It is important, for those of us who remember the conservative times of Ronald Reagan, to speak out and tell our current generation what it was really like. If we do not get a true conservative in office, one who has the wherewithal to clean the progressives and liberals out of our government from the top down, I fear that the United States may never know what it is to be free again.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Trump is Troublesome; I Will Vote for U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz

If there were one issue – and there are others – that gives Donald Trump a failing grade, it would be his stance on eminent domain. It is not surprising that you hear so little from him on this subject, as his belief in the validity of Kilo v. New London tells you much about his belief in the Constitution and property rights.

Kilo was the Supreme Court case that redefined property rights by redefining the meaning of eminent domain. The original meaning allowed for the taking of property for certain infrastructure needs primarily having to do with transportation and vital government interests, but Kilo decided that eminent domain permitted any government agency to take property from one individual and give it to another individual, merely on the promise of producing economic benefits to its community.

However, one of the keystone principles of the Constitution is property rights, including the provision that what a person earns, he can keep. The government is supposed to protect us from robber barons, but that protection is now gone.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Everywhere in America, Local Churches are Truly Needed

Among those older, more traditional churches are the neighborhood churches, the rural churches and the suburban churches whose members are beginning to die of old age. Their aging facilities are also disappearing without replacement. Church consultants have long held that congregations are born, live and eventually die in a natural progression. This is a fact that some do, but it is neither Biblical or even necessary.

Many cities are rejecting churches in their communities. Many would deny this claim, but the truth is that new zoning codes are making it difficult to impossible to build new churches, at least in the way that churches would like to do so. There are many cities that are in dire financial straits and see the need to place as much property onto the tax rolls as possible, placing churches under more pressure to participate in taxation schemes or even face expulsion under the guise of eliminating blight.

This perfect storm of changes within our churches and our society is still a silent epidemic. I am often met with quizzical looks when I describe this problem because it has been so well hidden. Churches don't want to admit that they have problems and cities don't like admitting that they don't like churches.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

High-Density Development is Not What Americans Want

According to Cox's article, home construction in New Zealand has fallen 40 percent since 1973, but its population has increased 50 percent. He says that this is because “far more restrictive land use regulations have been adopted, including urban containment boundaries (urban growth boundaries), which have been associated with higher prices relative to income. Before the imposition of strict land use regulations, houses typically cost three times or less that of household incomes. Since then, house prices have doubled or tripled relative to household incomes.”

Even though the impacts of more regulations are well known to urban planners and city governments, many cities still push for high density development. Another of those impacts is that it is simply driving people away from these areas simply because they are not within family budgets.

Kotkin writes in his article, “However hip and cool San Francisco, Manhattan, Boston or coastal California may seem, they are not where families are moving.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Hope Rising Community Church Wins a Small Victory

This decision seems odd given that there are those in the planning and legal world are stern opponents to allowing churches in residential neighborhoods.

This also is a demonstration of what I have believed would become a trend in city planning. Churches in retail areas? No, that would erode the sales tax base. Churches in industrial areas? No, that would diminish the tax base as well. Churches in residential areas? Of course not, the noise and traffic they generate is most inappropriate for neighborhood environments. Churches at the fringes of communities?

Well, no, that land is reserved for nature or planned community developments.

Where will churches be allowed if this trend continues?

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Merry Christmas! My Prayer for You is a Place in Heaven

The Word is who the apostle Paul spoke about in Romans 1:20 (NLT) when he said:

“From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities – his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God.”

Could Paul have possibly understood how utterly profound his statement was, when the sky contains an estimated 100 billion galaxies, each with billions of stars? Or that our bodies are composed of highly complex DNA, genes and chromosomes, the blueprint of our humanness and God's plan for us? Or that scientists consistently discover more and more things in the universe that exhibit a perfect mathematical precision?

Yet this infinitely powerful Being was the same Word who Paul spoke about when he wrote in Romans 8:38-39:

“And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love. Death can't, and life can't. The angels can't and the demons can't. Our fears for today, our worries about tomorrow, and even the powers of hell can't keep God's love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Attacks on Christianity Keep Coming; Vote for Christians

There are more organizations than these, which I would urge my readers to investigate as well, but I would also urge them to give to these organizations to help them provide the services that Christians need now, and will likely need even more in the near future. These groups need our financial support.

These are not the only ones who need our support. Christians who are running for election or re-election also need out support. I will mention one in particular, Amanda Teegarden, who is running for Oklahoma State Senate.

I would also urge my readers to give over and above what they should give to their own church, and to give throughout the year, not just at Christmas. If the millions of Christians in this country each gave even small amounts to these organizations and individuals, the impact on the defense of our freedoms would be enormous.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

American Christians Need to Realize the Islamic Threat

An acquaintance of mine once asked me why Christians made such a big deal about Islam when Islam had been around for thousands of years before Christianity. He was obviously in error in his knowledge of history, but did you know that the concept of Allah predates the life of Jesus?

In Safa's book he writes, “According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Allah is a pre-Islamic name corresponding to the Babylonian Bel (Baal). According to the Middle East scholar E.M. Wherry, in pre-Islamic times both Allah-worship and Baal-worship of Baal involved the worship of the sun, the moon and the stars, which defines them as astral religions. The crescent moon, which was the symbol of moon worship, is also the symbol of Islam.

It is printed on the flags of many Islamic countries and placed on top of minarets and mosques.”

From the Old Testament, we know that the worship of Baal included fertility cults, child sacrifice, consumption of sacrifices made to the dead, and the persecution and murder of God's prophets.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Attacks on Religious Liberty Continue in the United States

However, she makes no mention (that I have found) of RLUIPA's importance in the Rocky Mountain Christian Church case, in which Boulder County (Colorado) made a determined attempt to prevent the church from expanding their facilities by forcing them to spend millions on needless studies and permits.

Hamilton misses the point about neighborhood churches altogether. While some of the examples she cites of churches harming their neighborhoods by expanding may have some merit, I have difficulty imagining that it is systemic, and she gives little deference to the fact that there are legitimate reasons why neighbors need to be tolerant of churches that need to expand on their own property.

In early American city history, churches were quite often in residential neighborhoods. New zoning codes forced them to move to the city perimeter where neighborhoods grew around them. The churches were there first, and the neighbors around them forget that they conceded to the possibility that these churches could expand their facilities when they chose to live there. So her rancor against neighborhood churches is not necessarily warranted, especially when cities are becoming more exclusionary to churches through their zoning laws and policies.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Americans are Not Informed About the Islamic Threat

Despite all that has happened over the past forty years, many Americans are still completely uninformed about the nature and danger that Islam poses to us and the rest of the world. The information is readily available; there are numerous authors that have written about Islam to their own peril, showing exactly what the Koran teaches and their plan to make Islam the only religion on the planet. It is not difficult to conclude how much danger we are in, nor is it difficult to understand the evil genius of Mohamed. It is also not difficult to understand how the plan created a population of 1.5 billion Muslims on this planet, as many generations of intimidation and population were the result of it.

As to the question of bringing Syrian refugees here, there is no question – we simply cannot create a pipeline for those who want to bring violence to our land to hide among those who are desperate to escape. It is irrelevant that our government has not declared war on Islam – Islam declared war on the world from the time of Mohammed, and a significant minority of Muslims around the world are hard at work carrying out that mission. We are, in fact, at war with Islam. That does not mean we should attack all Muslims, but it does mean making an all-out effort to eradicate all of those who have become militant, including ISIS, at Qaeda, Hezbollah, and others.

It also means closing our borders to all immigrants, keeping many Muslims under surveillance and going back to war in the Middle East. These things need to be done, or the world will sink into a deadly chaos that will make previous genocides pale in comparison.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

American Leaders Refuse to See the Dangers from Paris

It is easy to see a pattern in the way Islam operates, simply by watching the news. Here are a few items that have appeared in recent weeks:

On the thegateway.com website, an article and video entitled, “Angry Muslims Taunt NJ School Officials: We're Going to Be the Majority Soon,” told how Muslims had protested at the Jersey City Board of Education because the board had refused to make Eid al-Adha a school holiday.

It cited an article in The Blaze that said, “At one point, things became so heated that an official urged security to ‘take charge’ of the situation. At least one person was seen on video being escorted from the meeting.” A reporter from WNBC-TV was told by a Muslim, “We're going to be the majority soon.”

Powers-that-be are also busy trying to rewrite history, not just about Christians and Jews, but also about Islam.

From the jewishpress.com website, “UNESCO the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, decided on Wednesday that Rachel's Tomb (Kever Rachel) and the Patriarchs Cave (MaHarat HaMachpelah) are Muslim sites. Yes, that is what UNESCO says, contradicting the Bible that states that the forefather Abraham bought the Cave in Hebron and denying history that shows the tomb was built before Islam existed. UNESCO refrained from listing the Western Wall as a Muslim site, but still managed to get in its anti-Israel licks by accusing Israel of ‘aggression and illegal measures taken against freedom of worship,’ referring to the rights of Muslims and not to Jews.”

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Private Ownership is Vital to Maintaining a Free Society

“The United Nations began to formulate their land development policies as early as 1976. At the 1976 United Nations Conference on Human Settlements, more commonly known as Habitat I, the concept that personal property was something that must be eliminated was introduced in its preamble, which read as follows:

“Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market. Private land ownership is also a principle instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for people can only be achieved if land is used in the interests of society as a whole. Public control of land use is therefore indispensible…

…The implication that land “cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals” means that the land must be controlled by the government, not by the property owners. Eventually, “ordinary” individuals will not buy their own homes if they cannot enjoy its full-intended use or they may ultimately be prohibited by law as has been the case for many centuries in other countries, and still is in some.

RANDY BRIGHT            COMMENTARY

Russian Soldiers Hated the Latvians in World War II

According to Stan, the Russians hated the Latvians, and treated them terribly. After serving about six months with the Russians, one of the Russian commanders became enraged at one of the Latvian soldiers over something that was a misunderstanding, not anything the soldier had done wrong, and Stan feared that the commander was about to kill him. Because one of the languages Stan spoke fluently was Russian, he was able to step forward and calm things down, saving the soldier's life.

But after the incident, Stan and his fellow soldiers realized that the Russians, thinking that the Latvians could not understand them, had said many things in front of the Latvians that the Latvians were not supposed to hear. Suddenly, they knew that all of their lives were in danger.

Getting up very early the next morning, the Latvian soldiers removed the distributor caps from all of the trucks except their own, and drove away in their own trucks as quickly and quietly as they could. Driving as far as their fuel would take them, they eventually abandoned their trucks and fled into hiding in the thick forest.

Stan said that he laid on his stomach motionless for about seven days, and that the Russians nearly stepped on him in their search for him and the other Latvians.