Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation.

The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here.

Our Secular World (Part 1 of 2)
Dr. Robert L. Sumner

Did you see the cartoon with Obama saying in the first panel, "You can keep your health insurance. Period.” Then the second panel Obama was saying, "All not named Period are on your own." Alas!

In California, a state senator, Kevin de Leon, has proposed a background check and a $50 annual fee just for purchasing ammunition. In the same land of fruits and nuts, Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner wants ammunition “regulated, taxed and limited,” of course. Others have proposed a 10% tax on ammunition, the purchase to be reported to the California Justice Department so it could be recorded (and an additional five-cent tax on every extra round purchased.

Does anyone remember the furor created to abolish the poll tax, saying it was an infringement on individual rights? And these kind of taxes wouldn’t be?

Was Republican governor Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care law the model for ObamaTax? The president says ‘yes’ and he should know. Is it a rip-roaring success? It all depends on how you spell success.

According to the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission, it is the most expensive in the nation. It reported the cost in 2009 was $9,278 per person, well over one-third higher than the national average of $6,815. The next highest state, good old New York with its ultra-liberalism, was 11.2 percent lower, averaging $8,341 per resident.

And this is the ‘affordable care’ act?

In one of Obama’s political speeches down on the border, he said “the melting pot of immigrants is ‘as old as America itself. E Pluribus, Unum. Out of many, one.’” To which The Patriot editor responded: “Memo to Barry: Our nation's original motto, E Pluribus Unum, proposed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1776, has nothing to do with uniting American citizens and illegal migrants. Instead, it refers to the uniting of 13 colonies into one nation.”

Obama seems to know almost nothing about the background (history) of our country or the backbone of it (the Constitution).

First it was Obama calling on the elderly to die, now Oprah Winfrey has gotten into the act. Plugging one of her movies in England via a BBC interview, she first said America was full of racists (you know, they are racists for not supporting all of Obama’s radical socialist projects), then identified them as ‘older people’ who had ‘been born and bred and marinated in’ racism, adding that these elderly ‘racists,’ mimicking ObamaTax, ‘they just have to die.’

For your information, little lady, I oppose Obama on almost every front, and it has nothing to do with racism. And, if America is such a racist country, why and how did it elect him president and why and how did it make you such a multi-billionaire you probably don’t even know the full extent of your own wealth! 

United States District Court Judge Richard Leon ruled, in a 68-page opinion, that the National Security Agency’s policy of recording and storing almost every citizen’s telephone calls is ‘likely unconstitutional.’ He opined it violated the constitutional ban on ‘unreasonable searches and seizures.’ He further noted Holden’s Justice Department failed to ‘demonstrate’ doing this helped thwart terrorist attacks.

The London Telegraph reported what the Bonnie Prince is saying: "The United Kingdom’s Prince Charles addressed a problem largely ignored by President Obama – Christians are being targeted for persecution in the Middle East and North Africa by fundamentalist Muslims. The prince made his remarks at a reception for religious leaders at Clarence House, the official London residence of The Prince of Wales.” Why is our president ignoring this? He is not a Muslim himself, is he?

Ted “Teddy” Turner is the son of the illustrious media master, Ted Turner. The branch evidently fell far, far from the tree and the son of the unabashed liberal is apparently a happy conservative. Being interviewed by the host of the Steve Malzberg Show on NewsMax TV, Tommy was asked, “What do you think when you watch CNN? Do you think they’re down the middle? Do you think they’re to the left? What do you think?”

And the son of the liberal icon replied, “I think they’re pretty much to the left. I don’t think there’s any question about that. It’s not MSNBC, but they’re not Fox. So I think they’re … I have a hard time watching them a lot of times."

When asked by Steve what he watched on cable news, Tommy replied, “I mostly watch Fox. But I switch around. I think you have to watch a little bit of everybody just to see what’s going on and try to get the real idea of what’s going on…People can have their opinions. If you don’t like it, turn it off and go somewhere else. And I think that’s what’s happening. CNN’s ratings are not great, and I don’t think they’re ever going to get back to where they were.”

Nor do we!

Could a Baptist minister also be a killer? Police in Birmingham (AL) think so. They arrested Richard Shahan – who had been serving as First Baptist's ‘children and families’ pastor – for the murder of his wife, Karen, after her body was discovered in the couple's home.

The church put Shahan on 'paid leave' (i.e., vacation with pay) and he was arrested as he tried to board an airliner for Frankfurt, Germany, at the Nashville International Airport in late December. (He had been accepted by the Bible Mission International in Germany ‘to develop teaching and discipleship materials for former Soviet countries,’ a children's ministry.)

We remind readers that in this country a man is presumed innocent until proven otherwise in a court of law.

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, whom we helped send to Washington for his first term when we resided in that state, did an analysis of what ObamaTax would cost citizens of his Volunteer State. Here are some of his findings:

– Today, a 27-year-old man in Memphis can buy a plan for as low as $41 a month. On the exchange, the lowest state average is $119 a month -- a 190 percent increase. 

– Today, a 27-year-old woman in Nashville can also buy a plan for as low as $58 a month. On the exchange, the lowest-priced plan in Nashville is $114 a month -- a 97 percent increase. Even with a tax subsidy, that plan is $104 a month, almost twice what she could pay today. 

– Today, women in Nashville can choose from 30 insurance plans that cost less than the administration says insurance plans on the exchange will cost, even with the new tax subsidy. 

– In Nashville, 105 insurance plans offered today will not be available in the exchange. 

Alexander wondered, as we do, "Why should a 27-year-old male in Memphis be forced to pay nearly three times more than what he pays today for health insurance? Why should a young woman in Nashville have to pay twice as much? This isn't what President Obama promised Tennesseans, but it's what he's giving them – higher costs and less choice – those are two of the most urgent reasons Obamacare must be repealed and our health care system fixed." 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told opponents of ObamaTax to ‘get a life’ instead of fighting it. Does he really think the majority of Americans don’t ‘have a life.’ Apparently.

Economist Walter E. Williams, who is black, commented: “President Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, black state and local politicians, and civil rights organizations are neither naive nor stupid. They have been made aware of the unemployment effects of the labor laws they support; however, they are part of a political coalition.

“In order to get labor unions, environmental groups, business groups and other vested interests to support their handout agenda and make campaign contributions, they must give political support to what these groups want. They must support minimum wage increases even though the increases condemn generations of black youths to high unemployment rates. They must support Davis-Bacon Act restrictions even though those restrictions handicap black contractors and nonunion construction workers.

“I can’t imagine what black politicians and civil rights groups are getting that’s worth condemning black youths to a high rate of unemployment and its devastating effects on upward economic mobility, but then again, I’m not a politician.”

Ed Haislmaier of the National Review offered an interesting bell ringer when he pointed out about ObamaTax:  “[T]he Obama administration has spent longer botching the implementation of Obamacare than the Roosevelt and Truman administrations spent fighting and winning the Second World War. America’s involvement in World War II began on December 7, 1941, with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. It ended 1,365 days later on September 2, 1945, with the surrender ceremony aboard the U.S.S. Missouri anchored in Tokyo Bay. President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010. [Wednesday], December 18, 2013, mark[ed] the 1,366th day of post-enactment Obamacare implementation. Now, it is true that building the Hoover Dam – that icon of activist liberal government – did take a bit longer (four and a half years), but at the end of that process the Hoover Dam actually worked.”

Here is a list of the tax hikes your government gave you in 2013, as reported in The Patriot (with thanks to the Heritage Foundation): “Payroll tax (from 4.2% to 6.2%); payroll taxes on those earning more than $250,000 rose another 0.9% on top of the other rate increase; top marginal rate (from 35% to 39.6%); personal exemptions began phasing out for couples earning more than $300,000; ditto for itemized deductions; capital gains and dividends tax increased from 15% to 20%; the death tax on estates larger than $5 million rose from 35% to 40%; taxes on business investment increased; the ObamaCare surtax of 3.8% kicked in for those earning more than $250,000 per year; medical device manufacturers now pay 2.3% excise tax on their products; the deduction for medical expenses was reduced; the corporate deduction for Medicare Part D subsidy expenses was eliminated; and health benefits deductions for corporate executives were limited.”

Socialist Oscar Ameringer put it like this, “Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor, and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.”

Columnist Ann Coulter wrote during the government shutdown: “Responding to the people’s will, House Republicans first voted to fund all of government – except Obamacare. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. Then the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but merely delay the implementation of Obamacare for one year. Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. Finally, the Republicans voted to fully fund the government, but added a requirement that everyone live under Obamacare … Obama refused to negotiate and Senate Democrats refused to pass it. So as you can see, Republicans are the big holdup here … If you are in the minority of Americans not already unalterably opposed to Obamacare, keep in mind that the only reason the government is shut down right now is that Democrats refuse to fund the government if they are required to live under Obamacare. That’s how good it is!”

Texas Guinan declared, ‘A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.’

What Republicans members joined the Democrats in supporting ENDA in November? According to the roll call vote they were Kelly Ayotte (NH), Susan Collins (ME), Jeff Flake and John McCain (AZ), Orrin Hatch (UT), Dean Heller (NV), Mark Kirk (IL), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Rob Portman (OH), and Pat Toomey (PA). Three GOP senators didn't have the guts to vote.

According to the ObamaTax law, states can opt out of setting up its own health care exchange and about two-thirds of them have done so (a total of 36). Yet the Obama administration has ignored their action and the IRS has been paying subsidies to them in violation of the law.

A group of small businesses united and went to court. The administration filed a countersuit for dismissal. A federal judge refused to dismiss the case although he refused to stop the action while the case is making its way through the courts.

A handful of folks on the New Jersey Supreme Court legalized by fiat Sodomite marriage – the will of the people be hanged!

The United Nations was adopted in 1945, shortly after World War II – a replacement of sorts for the ill-fated, useless League of Nations. It was billed as a humane way to end disputes among nations and prevent war.  In all that nearly 70 years do you know of even one war it has stopped – or even prevented? Yet trillions upon trillions have been spent to fund it, most of those big bucks coming from Uncle Sam.  We still say, “Get the United States out of the UN and the UN out of the United States!”

If people were like the government: when they ‘maxed out’ their credit card they would blame the credit card and demand a higher limit, wouldn’t they, Obama? You know, just like you do when you max out our federal debt limit!

Even the comedians can understand it: As Jay Leno put it: “President Obama is now making his case for raising the debt limit. He said raising the debt limit does not increase debt – you know, like raising the speed limit does not increase speed.”

Former Justice Department attorney J. Christian Adams says there is in excess of 200 counties across the United States with more people on their voter rolls than live in their counties! Imagine that – and it includes all the babies, youth and teens not old enough to vote! Somebody ought to clean up their act! Right?

Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was not signing up for ObamaTax. Kansas Congressman Tim Huelskamp noted that in the first day of signing up not one single one of the 356,000 uninsured Kansans had enrolled.

He said, “These results are stunning. You would think with three years to prepare, President Obama and Kathleen Sebelius could deliver an operational website – at least in the home state of the former Kansas Governor. ObamaCare was and is not ready for prime time.”

In his own case, he reported: “Although Senator Harry Reid and President Obama have attempted to undo the provisions of ObamaCare requiring Senators and Congressman to sign up for ObamaCare, I have been trying to sign up now for 60 hours. Error message after error message, failed security standards, and 60 hours on website hold for just this one Kansan, it is clear that ObamaCare is failing – and embarrassingly so for the former Kansas Governor … This is yet another example of why we need to get rid of ObamaCare. We knew it was unpopular. We knew it was unaffordable. And now we know it is unworkable.”

If humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935) was right, maybe the Democrat Party is not so bad after all. He observed, “No party is as bad as its state and national leaders.”

Did you hear that President Obama issued a presidential directive late Friday (when he releases all his kooky stuff), demanding the NFL allow women to play in the NFL? Really? No, but it is probably right up near the top of his priorities, along with allowing women in combat in the military. He hasn’t learned – and he doesn’t pay any attention to what the Bible says – that women and men are made differently and that the women are the ‘weaker’ sex.

Liz Cheney, running for the Senate in Wyoming, is a pro-life conservative candidate that opposes same-sex marriage (we are rooting for her to win). Her father, Dick Cheney, is a strong pro-Sodomite, same-sex marriage promoter. The Cheney daughter, Mary, boasts openly of her lesbianism (which may explain our former Vice President’s position).

While we do not know that Mrs. Lynne Cheney has the position of Liz (she has never spoken on the subject, to my knowledge), we do know that she is a strong evangelical Christian. In fact, she was Cedarville University’s commencement speaker some time back. I met her then at an informal luncheon with some of the trustees after the service.

As we go to press: Liz dropped out of the race because of family problems. According to insiders it related to serious health problems with her children.

Being an Obama Secret Service man didn’t help! Dan Bongino, a former member of the elite Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service, lost his health insurance along with tens of thousands of others who were promised by the president they wouldn’t. He said, “My plan was canceled, simple as that.” He offers two reasons: “[Obama] was completely ignorant of the ramifications of his own policies or he wasn’t ignorant and he understood the whole time that hundreds of thousands of Americans were going to lose their healthcare plan.”

By the way, Bongino is releasing a new book, Life Inside the Bubble: Why a Top-Ranked Secret Service Agent Walked Away From it All.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, who hopes to be elected governor of Texas next year, released a statement about Texas’ new abortion law, saying, "This unanimous decision is a vindication of the careful deliberation by the Texas Legislature to craft a law to protect the health and safety of Texas women."

On the other side, Amy Hagstrom Miller, president of Whole Women's Health and owner of five abortion clinics, said, "We have regressed backwards about 30 years (three of her clinics were forced to shut down immediately)." What we really need is to regress backward more than four decades!

We received this gem from Jerry Thibodeau: “A Brilliant Prophecy From 93 Years Ago. H. L. Mencken (born 1880 – died 1956) was a journalist, satirist, critic, and Democrat. He wrote this editorial while working for the Baltimore Evening Sun, which appeared in the July 26, 1920, edition:

"As democracy is perfected, the office of the President represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be occupied by a downright fool and complete narcissistic moron." 

When Obama ran for president in 2008 he promised to “fundamentally change America.” It is the one promise he has kept and he has changed the country into a “European-style welfare state.” It is costing taxpayers, reported GOP members of the Senate Budget Committee, $3.7 trillion for welfare since he was sworn in. That does not include programs folks pay into, like Medicare and Social Security. The Patriot reported 80 such hand-out programs.

Tennessee Williams, the southern playwright who wrote such foul literature, was not always wrong. He was right on the money with his observation about politicians: “The only thing worse than a liar is a liar that's also a hypocrite.”