First Baptist Church

If you are a sports fan you have endured the pain and rage experienced when it becomes clear the officials are favoring “the other team.” Admittedly it is hard to be completely fair all the time, but you know as well as I do that often little effort is made! I have witnessed it in virtually all sports on all levels but a few instances stand out by their digression to new lows. Sometimes one game is so brutally biased against the team you are pulling for you just don’t want to watch anymore. On January 1, 1985 the annual Orange Bowl was played in Miami, Florida with Oklahoma playing The University of Washington. Not only was the officiating the worst I’ve ever seen, the announcers calling the came on national television clearly hated Oklahoma. I believe unequivocally they were wearing Washington Huskies’ underwear under their suits!!! Washington went on to have the most points on the scoreboard at the end of the game but, almost 24 years later, I am still convinced they did not win the game! Well, as much as I have done my fair share to cheer on the Sooners over the years I have to admit, albeit reluctantly though, that football is just a sport (it’s almost a way of life though in Oklahoma and Texas, in my defense!).

What about more serious matters? Some wonder why I have such a bur under my saddle where the mainstream media is concerned. Well the answer is quite simple. The mainstream media is proudly undermining everything I stand for as a Christian, as a Conservative, and someone who plays by the rules.

Sarah Palin has all the credentials the media should be drawn to – mainly that she is a woman in politics, and has shirked the political establishment and is a Washington outsider deluxe. So what then is the problem? The problem is that in the mind of the media and other liberals, you cannot separate being a woman from being a feminist, and if you try to do so, you position yourself to be the punch line of jokes, never to be taken seriously (Maybe what Sarah Palin needs is a hyphenated name!).

When Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate Joe Biden makes one of his famous gaffs, the media laughs and makes it out to be no big deal. When Sarah Palin makes reference to being a hockey mom (as opposed to the soccer moms of past election cycles) and “Joe Sixpack” suddenly this is suspicious. Her apparent lack of experience is questioned right and left for the number two office while Barak Obama has gotten the biggest pass I have ever seen in the history of American politics. Considerable questions remain about his eligibility to even run due to questions about his place of birth, ties to terrorist Bill Ayers, his associations with other shady characters, and most blatant of all his sitting under the teaching of Pastor Jeremiah Wright for 20 years! He is the least known candidate of modern history!

Do you believe that if John McCain had attended a church where the pastor was even remotely as radical as Rev. Wright, that the media would let that go? How about if there were questions concerning his place of birth and he simply would not release his birth certificate, college transcripts, medical records or all the other documents the Obama campaign will not come forth with. What if McCain had launched his presidential campaign in the living room of an abortion clinic bomber (another form of terrorism) since Obama launched his in Pentagon bomber Bill Ayers’ living room. What about if McCain had almost no experience like Obama? Do you think the media would simply just leave that alone? I think not!

The first Presidential debate was moderated by a Gwen Ifill of PBS’s Washington Week who is scheduled to release a book about the Obama revolution on inauguration day (Jan. 20, 2009). She is an unapologetic democrat and stands to profit financially if Obama wins. Is this fair? Of course not. If the tables were turned, there would have been an outcry like has never been heard before!

I have watched every presidential and vice-presidential debate since 1980 live on television and have heard the mainstream media declare the Democratic candidate the winner almost every time. After the media gives 30 minutes of analysis criticizing the Republican and praising the Democrat, then a poll is taken by their organization, of the populace, and not surprisingly then the Democrat holds the edge. Clearly they have shaped the reality in their favor. One wonders what the polls might show if they kept quiet and just took the poll! After this year’s first debate, ABC news’ George Stephanopoulos literally gushed for Obama like a schoolboy with a major crush as he gave his two cents worth!

Take note of how the media uses the word “backlash.” I am not sure I have ever heard it used once as a possible problem for the Democrats in any situation, but time and time again something, they claim, is going to cause a “backlash” against the Republicans. Even in the midst of the Clinton sex scandal, the media warned of their being a backlash against Republicans. Listen carefully for that word by the mainstream media.

One has to wonder why the media is not praising President Bush right now for the incredibly falling gas prices, after all they blamed him for their rise, even though the sharp rise which began in 1999 and 2000 under the Clinton administration has been forgotten. Also it has been forgotten that the economy was in recession when President Bush took office in January 2001. All the media remembers from the 1990s is the boom of growth. The media fails to mention every President in recent memory has dropped in popularity about half-way through their second terms. President George W. Bush is, in fact, the only one who has not done so as a direct result of a scandal like Nixon and Watergate, Reagan and Iran-Contra, and Clinton and the Monica Lewinsky ordeal. The media overlooks the fact that their has been no further attack of terrorism on U.S. soil in over 7 years. We are being kept safe. The media is virtually ignoring the cause of the financial crisis in the stock, credit, and housing markets, knowing that simply the crisis, overall in general terms, favors their guy Obama. When this is fully investigated in the months ahead, it will be found that Fannie May and Freddie Mac were in the back pockets of some high ranking Democrats. The media loves to talk about President Bush’ low approval rating, while rarely mentioning, by the way the democratically controlled congress has the lowest approval rating of any congress in U.S. history. Why is it not pointed out more often by the media that the economic woes we face are worldwide, rather than limited to America? Is it really President Bush’ fault the Tokyo stock exchange is down? Why do they fail to report on the enormous progress which has taken place in securing Iraq and how casualties have dropped sharply since implementation of the troop surge which President Bush and John McCain supported and Obama opposed? Or that people all over the world are having to pay outrageous prices for gasoline and not just Americans?

It is OK for the media to question John McCain’s age but not Barak Obama’s associations, certainly not his race, nor his lack of experience. Comedians cannot even get away with cracking a joke about his big ears! The media loves to accuse others of racism, and defamation but they fail to see themselves doing it. Race is, in fact, hardly mentioned in this race unless the media starts gushing about how Obama is the first black nominee of the two major parties and how they thought they would never see it in their lifetimes. Why, in a recent week, did the front page of The National Enquirer have a headline about Sarah Palin having a supposed secret affair with some other man, and The Globe have as its cover a story about Cindy McCain’s supposed secret drug addiction? Also, why at the same time was Michelle Obama was featured as one of People Magazine’s best dressed women of 2008? I just don’t think this is a coincidence.

If the financial advantage Obama now has were the financial advantage of the Republicans the media would be accusing them of buying the election. The media could be exposing the hypocrisy of Al Gore, the staunch environmentalist who lives in anything but an environmental-friendly home in Tennessee, or the hypocrisy of most of Hollywood who cashes their multimillion dollar checks while dumb Republicans pay good money to see them on the big screen! I guess Obama can be proud he has secured the endorsements of Rosanne Barr, Lindsay Lohan, Madonna, Bill Maher, and Muslim leader Louis Farrakhan while our American veterans and active U.S. servicemen favor McCain about 3 to 1, or how a poll of Baptist clergymen showed support among them for McCain at about 94 percent!

If liberals and media types really wanted to make a point and get people’s attention, I might have suggested they have had public, ceremonial, burnings of their economic stimulus checks mailed out late last spring rather than cashing them. That would have been putting their money where their mouth is! They hate President Bush so much, why then accept a gift from him?

Verse after verse of scripture sheds light on the conditions we now see in our world. We are nearing the end folks! It makes perfect sense that the media would be what they are in the days leading up to the end. The Bible does not necessarily name the media by name, but it is clear that mass communication like we see today is integral to the mass deception which will accompany the final apostasy, the rise of the Antichrist, and finally the return of The Lord Jesus Christ. Until my dying day I will strive with all I have to shed the light of Biblical truth on the culture in which we live. It is not hard to do, however it does take courage. Will you join me in this undertaking?

In Christ,

Pastor Allen Raynor