Paul Random

Child Corrects First Lady Jill Biden: ‘Happy Christmas!’

First Lady Dr. Jill Biden stepped into the festively decorated East Room of the White House last week to greet those in attendance for the annual Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots campaign.

“Toys for Tots” dates to 1947 when Marine Corps Reserve Major William “Bill” Hendricks’ wife asked him to deliver a handcrafted rag doll to a local agency that served children in need.

Problem: Major Hendrick couldn’t find one. Reporting back to his wife, Mrs. Hendrick responded with two words: “Start one!”

So, that’s what he did.

Bill, whose full-time job was Director of Public Relations at Warner Brothers, reached out to his friend Walt Disney. Walt made the first poster, setting the vision and encouraging the public to join in the effort. Working with his Marine unit, they collected and distributed over 7,000 toys that first year.

Major Hendrick, who eventually headed up the production of The Bugs Bunny Show, has been gone for over thirty years. It’s not clear if he ever made it to the White House, but he’d undoubtedly be proud of the enthusiastic young child who spoke up at last week’s gathering.

Dr. Biden greeted those assembled by waving and then saying, “Happy Holidays!”

You then hear a child’s voice shout from the crowd, “Happy Christmas!”

To her credit, Jill Biden responds, “Yes! Happy Christmas!”

Over the years, “Happy Holidays!” has evolved as a more “inclusive” and politically correct greeting each December.

During his first run for the White House, President Trump regularly assured crows that “We’re going to be saying ‘Merry Christmas!’ again. Indeed, President Trump was never shy about the term, rightly acknowledging that invoking Christ shouldn’t be offensive to those who celebrate Hanukkah or nothing at all.

To be historically accurate, usage of “Happy Holidays!” has been found as far back as the middle of the 1800s, and was regularly used in advertisements beginning in the early part of the 20th century.

R.J. Reynolds Tobacco ran an ad in 1937 with the headline, “Happy Holidays and Happy Smoking!” “Season’s Greetings,” is another term seen as a bit of a catch-all wish that appears regularly in advertisements.

As Christians, we’re called to not be easily offended, but instead to “Bear with each other and forgive one another” (Col. 3:13). The apostle Paul goes on to say we’re to “Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

This principle especially applies to weighty matters, but also minor irritants, perhaps even how we’re greeted at Christmas. Believers should be bold in their witness, and Christmas provides us with a wonderful opportunity to proclaim our faith and express that joy we have concerning the Lord’s birth.

We applaud the leadership this young child exhibited, courage that elicited the perfect outcome, which seemed to give Jill Biden the gumption (or the guilt) to follow suit and acknowledge the reason for this wondrous season of celebrating Christ’s birth.

Please Pray for Senate Chaplain Dr. Barry Black

United States Senate Chaplain Barry Black is hospitalized and recovering from a subdural hematoma – a brain bleed.

Dr. Black, age 76, has been serving as the Senate chaplain for 21 years. Prior to his current role, the Maryland native was a Rear Admiral in the Navy and its Chief Chaplain.

According to reports, the Seventh-day Adventist pastor was prompted to go to the hospital after receiving a call from Dr. Brian Monahan, the attending physician of the United States Congress.

The longtime chaplain told his friend, Pastor Ted Wilson, who is the president of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church, that he believes God had “miraculously intervened in his life to spare him from a potentially much more difficult health situation.”

Pastor Wilson said Dr. Black’s prognosis was promising.

“He is now on the road to recovery. It appears that Chaplain Black may be able to join his family for the Christmas season in a few days. Obviously, God impressed Dr. Monahan to make that phone call to Chaplain Black to save him from a much worse scenario.”

It’s the wise Christian who responds to promptings from the Holy Spirit. Distinguishing between the earthly and the Divine can sometimes prove challenging, but prayer and maturity will help you develop a keen sense of spiritual discernment.

Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast back in 2017, Dr. Black stressed the many benefits of bringing our cares to the Lord in prayer:

“When we pray humanity cooperates with divinity,” he said. “My friends, there are things we will never get, except by request only. There are blessings that hang on silken cords that we will never receive, except by request only.”

He then ended by quoting the words of a hymn written by Edward Mote, a former British cabinet maker turned pastor who ministered in the middle of the 19th Century.

“My hope does not rest in the various branches of government: executive, legislative, or judicial,” Black told those gathered. “My hope does not rest in the alliances that we build. My testimony is simply this: ‘My hope is built on nothing less Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness I dare not trust the sweetest frame But wholly lean on Jesus’ name On Christ the solid Rock I stand All other ground is sinking sand.'”

Please join us in praying for the full and complete recovery of our friend and Senate chaplain, Dr. Barry Black.

Mystery Drones and a Fragile World in Need of Prayer

Speaking from his seaside Mar-a-Lago resort on Monday, President-elect Donald Trump was asked about the “mystery drones” that have been spotted flying over New Jersey and elsewhere since November.

“The government knows what’s happening,” Trump responded. “Our military knows, and our president knows. And for some reason they want to keep people in suspense.”

He then added:

“Something strange is going on and for some reason they don’t want to tell the people. And they should.”

Last week, White House national security communications adviser John Kirby attempted to dampen the escalating unease.

“We have no evidence at this time that the reported drone sightings pose a national security or a public safety threat, or have a foreign nexus,” Kirby told reporters.

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the FBI are investigating these sightings, and they’re working closely with state and local law enforcement to provide resources using numerous detection methods to better understand their origin.” 

Over the weekend, various theories began to gain traction on social media and via select news outlets.

One of the more provocative and serious conspiracies floating around suggests the government is scouring the area for a missing nuclear warhead. This theory claims the flashing and buzzing lights in the sky are HPGe nuclear detector drones designed to detect the presence of gamma rays.

Whether an actual high-stakes mission with dire national security ramifications or a classified high-intensity training exercise, the escalating drone mystery reminds us that we’re living in an increasingly fragile and dangerous world.

President-elect Trump declined to answer whether or not he’s received any security briefings on the drones – a response that makes clear he’s received one.

From our nation’s beginning, the security of the United States has been a high priority. Last year alone, America spent $820 billion on national defense. That adds up to 13% of the federal government’s total spending.

As Christians, we often acknowledge the perilous nature of our freedoms – privileges that were won at the expense of many lives and families.

It was Ronald Reagan who once warned, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

But how often do we consider just how fragile our physical safety is here in America?

Buttressed by two oceans, the United States enjoyed something of a geographic buffer during its early days. Supersonic missiles erased that advantage and now open borders add to the threat.

As Christian citizens of our nation, we should be praying regularly with intensity and specificity.

“So many of our prayers are so vague,” cautioned Dr. Adrian Rogers, “that if God would answer them, we wouldn’t know it. And if God didn’t answer them, we wouldn’t have to admit it.”

As we await word on what’s behind these drones, let’s be lifting up in prayer all those responsible for keeping America safe. Let’s also ask the Lord to bind and thwart the hands of our enemies.

Image from Getty.

Candice Bergen and Murphy Brown – Talking Left and Living Right

Vice President Dan Quayle was in the throes of a reelection campaign back on May 19, 1992, when he highlighted the importance of fathers and ignited a cultural firestorm while doing so.

In a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California, Vice President Quayle stated:

Marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural consensus. Failing to support children one has fathered is wrong. We must be unequivocal about this. It doesn’t help matters when primetime TV has Murphy Brown, a character who supposedly epitomizes today’s intelligent, highly paid professional woman, mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another “lifestyle choice.”

 Murphy Brown, which starred Candice Bergen as a hard-hitting, no-nonsense investigative reporter and news anchor, was a popular sitcom on CBS that ran for 11 seasons between 1988 and 1998. A “re-boot” of the show was cancelled after one season in 2018.

Back in 1992, fans of the show and liberal antagonists immediately pounced on Quayle’s truth that has been understood for millennia.

Diane English, who was the show’s creator and producer, fired back, stating:

“If the Vice President thinks it’s disgraceful for an unmarried woman to bear a child, and if he believes that a woman cannot adequately raise a child without a father, then he’d better make sure abortion remains safe and legal.”

Never mind that Vice President Quayle said no such thing, but facts are often ignored by those who criticize conservative social policies and long-held traditions.

With the exception of a short on-air quip the next season, neither Candice Bergen the actress nor Murphy Brown the character said much about Quayle’s comments – until ten years later.

“His speech was a perfectly intelligent speech about fathers not being dispensable and nobody agreed with that more than I did,” acknowledged Bergen. Not surprisingly, it didn’t get much press. Media are famous for publishing distortions in huge print on the front page and corrections in small print on a page somewhere else.

In real life, Candice was married to Louis Malle, a French film director and screenwriter. In a recent interview with Charlie Rose, the now 78-year-old actress was reflecting on the circumstances that led to her own marriage and daughter.

Meeting Louis at a friend’s picnic in Connecticut, Bergen said she found Malle to be “one of the most fascinating men in the world.” They married in 1980. It would be five years before their daughter was born.

In short, Candice Bergen got married and then had a child, unlike Murphy Brown on the show who had a child but never got married.

“I was very ambivalent about having a child,” she told Rose. “Because I was a creature of my time which was the feminist movement. It was sort of turbulent at the time for women. And many women were missing the moment that they could have children.  And so, I suddenly thought, ‘Oh! … I thought I might have missed it.”

Candice Bergen was 39 when Chloe was born.

If it’s puzzling that a television star whose television show sparked an outrage eventually distanced herself from the controversy, well, then welcome to Hollywood hypocrisy.

It’s Dr. Brad Wilcox, University of Virginia sociologist and Institute for Family Studies founding research fellow, who has regularly pointed out that “elites talk left – but live right.” In other words, they publicly criticize conservative values but privately embrace and appreciate them in their own lives.

In a follow-up interview with Charlie Rose released just this week, Bergen said that she and the show’s producers relished pushing back at Vice President Quayle. It certainly fueled the ratings – but fooled fewer people than liberals may have wished.

Barbara Dafoe Whitehead’s April 1993 Atlantic Monthly cover story, “Dan Quayle Was Right,” became the most discussed magazine cover in decades. Ten years later Bergen acknowledged Quayle was right – and over 20 years later, Charlie Rose was still asking her about the controversy.

Vice President Dan Quayle, age 77, is now Chairman of Cerberus Global Investments, and is a member of the firm’s senior leadership team. He and his wife have three grown children and seven grandchildren.

Image from Getty.

Good Christian Parenting Led to Man’s First Flight

It’ll be 121 years ago this coming Tuesday (December 17) that Orville and Wilbur Wright took their Kitty Hawk flyer to the skies for man’s first successful powered flight.

That first journey covered just 180 feet and lasted 12 seconds. By the end of the day, they had figured out how to soar 852 feet and stay aloft for 59 seconds.

For perspective, the Airbus A380 can now fly 9,200 miles carrying over 500 passengers for upwards of 19 hours without stopping.

In the years following this world-changing triumph, the Wright Brothers were asked to explain how they were able to do what prior to that December day had never been done.

During one interview, a reporter posited to Orville that he and Wilbur were just two young men with “no money, no influence, and no other special advantages” who had somehow managed to pull off the impossible.

Orville politely pushed back.

“It isn’t true to say we had no special advantages,” the now aging pioneering aviator replied.

He continued:

“We did have unusual advantages in childhood, without which I doubt we could have accomplished much. The greatest thing in our favor was growing up in a family where there was always much encouragement to intellectual curiosity. If my father had not been the kind who encouraged his children to pursue intellectual interests without any thought of profit, our early curiosity about flying would have been nipped too early to bear fruit.”

Milton Wright was a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren, a Christian denomination that dates back to the Great Awakening in 1767. Historians credit “circuit-riding preachers” for building the movement, men who would travel on horseback throughout the Midwest preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ.

A strong abolitionist, Bishop Wright preached on the biblical connections of freedom, riding upwards of 8,000 miles a year between churches. It was on one of his itinerant journeys that Milton brought back to Orville and Wilbur something akin to a rubber band-powered helicopter. His sons were intrigued and worked to replicate it.

Despite meager financial resources, no electricity, and no indoor plumbing, Milton and Susan Wright filled their home with stimulating and encouraging Christian conversation, good books on a wide range of subjects, and an uplifting spirit that challenged the children to reach for things beyond their grasp. They were all voracious readers and fiercely curious.

Wilbur was 22 and Orville was 17 when Susan died of tuberculosis, a major blow. But while their mother never saw them fly, it’s been said her care and upbringing nevertheless gave them the metaphorical wings they needed to pursue manned flight. 

Much is said of the importance of formal education, and for good reason. But it would be impossible to overstate the importance of the environment inside the homes we grow up in.

The social science confirms that children raised in a home with a married mother and father perform better on every level. But it’s not just their physical presence. The stabilizing and comforting dynamic of loving and engaged parents improves the quality of everything from mealtimes to casual interactions – everyday occurrences that are the equivalent of making regular financial contributions that compound over time.

“Marriage is the most reliable institution for delivering a high level of resources and long-term stability to children,” writes Melissa S. Kearney, author of The Two-Parent Privilege.

“There is simply not currently a robust, widespread alternative to marriage in US society. Cohabitation, in theory, could deliver similar resources as marriage, but the data show that in the US, these partnerships are not, on average, as stable as marriages.”

At the time they were experimenting with flight, neither Orville nor Wilbur Wright knew just how much of an influence their mother and father had on their efforts. That’s the beauty and somewhat mystical nature of good parenting. Christian mothers and fathers pour into their children, often never seeing the fruit of their heartfelt labor.

But now, when you take your next flight, or hear a plane overhead, perhaps you’ll think of Bishop Milton and Susan, parents who lovingly and committedly brought their boys “up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).

Image credit: Space Center Houston