See a rich-text bio page (with pics) at: https://www.dougjoseph.net/about/
Doug and LaDonna Joseph recently celebrated 25 wonderful years of marriage, and they have four awesome kids. Rev. Joseph is an ordained minister in the United Pentecostal Church International (since 2003), and pastor of Christian Apostolic Church (since 2002). In 2004, the Josephs led CAC to establish Apostolic Christian Academy (K-12 Christian school). Rev. Joseph served on the board of directors of the WV Missions Department (part of the North American Missions Division), as secretary-treasurer from 2004-2012 and as director/chairman from 2012-2013. His term as director was shortened due to having been elected in 2013 to serve as a district presbyter (for Section 1, WV UPCI), but not before he led the district to an all-time record missions offering in the 2012 “Christmas For Christ” annual fund drive.
Previously, Rev. Joseph was creative director for the North American Missions Division (formerly known as General Home Missions Division), at the United Pentecostal Church International headquarters in St. Louis, MO, where the Josephs were blessed by the friendship and mentorship of Rev. and Mrs. Jack & Elsy Cunningham. Rev. Joseph helped launch the UPCI’s national Men’s Ministry, and was editor for the Apostolic Man magazine. He oversaw the creation of Ready To Be Free, a sweeping evangelism thrust. Before that, the Josephs served on pastoral staff of North Charleston Apostolic Church (WV), blessed by the leadership of Pastor Billy & Shirley Cole.
LaDonna Joseph is a great wife and mom. She is CAC’s first lady, general secretary, school principal, and minister of music. She has served on the board of directors of WV UPCI’s Ladies Ministry. She has also served as the pianist for WV’s All-State Choir. The Josephs helped the Coles to publish their memoirs, entitled “The Life and Ministry of Billy and Shirley Cole” (available at www.amazon.com and www.BillyColeBook.com). Rev. Joseph is also author of “New Immortal” (2009/2013), “Tesseract” (2010/2013), “The Last Bye” (2011/2013), and coauthor of “The Book of Salvation” (2010). All are available wherever great books are sold, including amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and authorstock.com. LaDonna is a native of West Virginia. Doug hails from Shreveport, LA, and is an adopted, honorary West Virginian. Pastor Joseph’s blog is at dougjoseph.net.
Last month, a resolution was presented to the West Virginia legislature proposing to make the “humble pepperoni roll” the state’s official food—at last. In the eyes of most current and former West Virginians (myself included), the law would only formalize what we already held to be true: that this food—basically, pepperoni baked into a soft roll, which is a definition far less satisfying than the product it defines—was as connected to West Virginia as the bagel is to New York or the cheese steak is to Philadelphia. [Read more at: Bon Appétit.]
Our president just finished his State of the Union address. I watched it live on YouTube. (The live link is gone, but archive links abound.) Many statements were laudable. Some represented some degree of obfuscation and thus were irritating. Sometimes I agreed, while at other times I disagreed strongly. However, one phrase in particular both “stuck out” and especially irritated me. There was nothing terribly wrong with the statement itself. What was wrong was the conflict between the statement and the extreme pro-abortion attitude of the man who issued the statement. He indicated that the best thing we can do for our children is to invest in early education (referring to pre-K schooling).
After his speech, his supporters (who organized the follow-through) invited online viewers to go to a White House-operated website and watch while questions from Twitter and the blogosphere were answered by a panel appointed by the administration. The hashtag (to post a question or participate in the conversation) is: #SOTUchat
So, I fired up my Twitter account, put in the hashtag, and tweeted this:
#SOTUchat Mr Pres. does that investment in early education of children include not ripping them to pieces while inside their mothers’ wombs?
Feel free to copy and paste. If you have a Twitter account, retweet it. If you have a Facebook, a blog, or whatever, use your platform say something for the cause of Life. Regardless, do something, even if it’s just teaching your family in devotions or discussing it with a neighbor or coworker. Do something to participate. Be part of the Pro-Life Generation that will see Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton overturned in our lifetime.
Note: If you are looking for solid stats and amazing information to bolster your argument in favor of life—great information that is usable in everything from family devotions to debates with liberals—click to watch the awesome video below.
During quite a few of these frozen days of being snowed in, I spent many, many hours editing the video of a major Pro-Life event, at the request of Dr. Wanda Franz, Ph.D., who is the former head of the National Right To Life Committee, and current President of West Virginians For Life, and Mary Anne Buchanan, who is the Program Director for West Virginians For Life. Recently I finished the DVD production phase, and this past Monday I mailed out the DVDs to the WV For Life office. The next phase was to distill the video stream for YouTube. Last night I finished that aspect of this project, and started the upload to YouTube. Early this morning (in the wee hours) the upload to YouTube was finally completed. Behold:
Share this link to an awesome Pro-Life video: http://youtu.be/Im5pFzDfpWA
The perception of you by others may not be what you think. This isn’t about occasional mistakes; we all make typographical errors on occasion. Typing in Textlish is an ongoing practice—a lifestyle, if you will. Seemingly there is no shame, acknowledgement, or awareness in the perpetrators. You may feel you’re always in too much of a hurry to take the extra 0.3 seconds to type “your” instead “ur.” However, the recipient of your Textlish may think you’re ignorant (as in uneducated). Note the fuzzy logic here: “It’s not that I don’t know better, I’m just always short on time.” Well, whenever the Textlish is not just “shortcuts” but also regularly full of blatant errors, such as “there” instead of “they’re” (or “their,” depending), then you leave readers with limited options about what to think. They might give you the benefit of the doubt, but several gaffes in a single post or message, or ongoing habits in every message, will likely push them toward seeing you as unlearned.
Reason #4
Lowering your own standards to type in Textlish is habit forming. Ever hear of “muscle memory”? Whenever you eventually need to switch on your “real English” for communications related to, say, a job interview, you might let something slip that could be detrimental to your reputation or simply less than putting your best foot forward. The habit of typing in Textlish gets entrenched like nicotine addiction, and slips are as noticeable as—well, let’s just say they are very noticeable.
Reason #3
The future deserves better. Textlish is becoming the de facto language of our tech-oriented culture. We’re all connected. “No man is an island.” Type well, and we all are elevated. Type poorly, and we all are brought lower. Your presentation of yourself in text, tweet, post, etc, has an impact on all who read it. Sadly, some “educators” (including, apparently, the authors of Common Core, a plan for nationwide educational standards being implemented in government schools) have reckoned cursive handwriting to be an outdated relic of the past, with plans to stop teaching it in public schools. If we don’t stand up for proper English in all our typed content, we’re allowing, even opting for, a lazy mishmash of confusing fragments as replacement for our established language’s words. Dictionaries give etymologies, which are the origins and histories behind our words. Imagine when, eventually, noble origins such as Greek, Latin, and Old English must be joined by “Textlish” (or some such description) as the explanation for a single letter being forced to stand in for three or four former words. Our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren deserve better.
Reason #2
It’s just not that hard to type it right to begin with. Sometimes the alleged “time savings” don’t make sense, because, after all, how much longer would it have taken to type out a real word? How much time does one “save” by typing one or two fewer characters of what should have been only a three- or four-letter word? And if we’re abbreviating, contracting, or leaving off letters for effect, how hard would it be to use the requisite periods and apostrophes? Don’t even get us started on the lack of commas and periods to denote where phrases and sentences are supposed to start and stop. The “Princess Leia” of this war between light and darkness is a preprogrammed digital assistant inside our phones. Thankfully, she types with proper grammar and spelling while taking dictation. Or, at least, she tries.
Reason #1
Darth Grammar. You really want to avoid death by strangulation. Some people are just that annoyed by it. (Just kidding.) We’ve given the darkness a name. Textlish. Won’t you join our quest to vanquish an enemy of all that is decent with regard to modern communication?
Thoughts to ponder about Textlish:
While this method of typing in a hyper-abbreviated “digital shorthand” seems to have resulted originally from limits imposed on the number of characters permitted in SMS text messages and tweets on Twitter.com, use of it has spread beyond SMS texting and tweeting, even into areas where there are no limits on the number of characters. Examples abound in nearly all typed content, including emails, Facebook posts, and blog articles, etc.
Its use in digital domains that do not limit users on the number of characters supports the observation that the practice is often based on factors other than the original (and potentially obsolete) need to stay under a character limit. These factors may include:
Once a habit has formed, the behavior happens even when and where it is not needed.
People who were never subject to character limits learn the behavior from others, and emulate it to “fit in.”
People who were never subject to character limits may be undereducated and may learn the behavior as a common practice, possibly being unaware that it is not proper English.
People may take up or maintain the habit simply out of either laziness, desire to conform to trends, or desire to rebel against “the establishment.”
These potential factors support the concern that the practice could become ubiquitous, displacing proper grammar and spelling with ill-advised, confusing fragments that are a poor substitute for the language structure slowly being replaced.
Brilliant, as always, C.S. Lewis did a tremendous job in this novel, although Bible-believing Christians will notice frequently that Lewis went further out of his way than usual (seemingly) to force into this work both some of his “orthodox” (if unbiblical) “Christian” doctrines, and some of his “unorthodox” (and unbiblical) ideas such as a systematic theology that ponders (allows?) a fairly complete merger of pagan mythology (and extra-biblical writings in general) with various aspects of “the Christian tradition” in a combined sphere of thought. There is much wisdom and wit in the story that makes it worth tolerating some areas where the concepts are “off” biblically speaking.
Note: the following points are perhaps not major elements of the story, but at the least they are certainly themes found in the underlying backstory, and they are worth considering.
I’m a fan of Lewis, and thus I tend to try to tolerate those areas where his “Christian” ideas stretch far beyond what the Bible says or even allows, such as his view that certain personal beings created by the One True God are to be called “gods” (lower case ‘g’), some of whom God may have used as agents in getting aspects of the Creation, well, created. In this installment in his Space Trilogy, Lewis bluntly puts forth that an immortal, angelic being that is the “guardian” over Perelandra (the planet we call Venus) was actually the “personal being” who created the planet called Venus—a task that was accomplished under God’s instruction and at God’s bidding. Thus we’re to accept that if God created the cosmos “via” multiple lower beings, it is still God who should be credited as the Creator, even if someone else did the creating. This is a serious contradiction with what the Holy Scriptures teach about the One True God—He plainly stated He did all the creating “alone” and “by Himself.” (See Isaiah 44:24: “I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself….”)
Lewis’ overall scheme here, when taken to its logical conclusion, is that each of the planets in our star system was created by a different angelic being, with each of these angelic planet-creator-beings corresponding to one of the “gods” of Roman mythology. To wit: Malacandra (the planet we call Mars, which was the focus of book #1 in the trilogy) was thus presumably originally created by its own Oyarsa (a title of status that is a version of an ancient word essentially meaning “arch angel” or “boss angel”). In book #2, Lewis openly proposes the notion that the Oyarsa of Mars (ruler and guardian of that planet) is essentially the Roman “god of war” (called Mars in ancient Roman religion and myth), and likewise that the Oyarsa of Perelandra (ruler and guardian of the planet we know as Venus) is an angelic being who is the Roman “god of love” (called Venus in ancient Roman religion and myth). The correlations would continue with a creator-guardian-being that rules over Jupiter as being the personal creature whom the Romans worshipped as Jupiter. In such a fashion, Lewis simultaneously “slaps” the ancient Romans in the face for worshipping under-shepherds instead of the Great Shepherd, while also “validating” their religion as possibly having some basis in reality instead of being merely ideas invented “out of whole cloth.”
Furthermore, Lewis’ concept here is that the head devil of our world, also known as Satan, began as the Oyarsa over planet Earth (also known as Tellus), and later chose to rebel against God and became the “Bent Oyarsa.” (Satan is now pure evil, and his followers likewise are pure evil, but they were not always so.) Satan was once free to roam the “Deep Heavens” (interplanetary space), but after his sin he and his angelic followers have for a very long time been imprisoned on Earth, in order to keep the other planets safe from him. Parts of this seem biblically sound, but the Bible does not say (at any place, as far as we are aware) that Satan was once the ruler/guardian of Earth. In the Scriptures, the only angel who is called an archangel (“head angel” or “boss angel”) is Michael, who was summoned to make war with Lucifer after his sin and rebellion. Satan is described as having been cast down from heaven to Earth.
We then see (by putting two and two together to get four) the twist here is the notion (or hint?) by Lewis that our own world was actually created by Satan, while he was still a good Oyarsa, in obedience to God. Of course, the above-mentioned verse in Isaiah, taken on its face, nullifies all such notions. I don’t recall Lewis specifically stating the concept that Satan was supposedly the Oyarsa whom God used to create the planet Earth (Tellus), but all his hints point in that direction as his intended thought. Throughout the first and second titles in the series, Lewis paints a very strong tie between Satan (the “Bent Oyarsa”) and Tellus (Earth, the Silent Planet).
On the one hand, I don’t wish to put stronger Christians “off” from reading this book/series, as the wit and wisdom within are wonderful and there is much to be learned if someone is capable of “eating the meat while spitting out the bones.” On the other hand, whenever Lewis waxes into some of the underlying ideas he proposes here, it is safe to say that disclaimers are warranted. Any recommendation of such titles without a note of warning could be mistaken as support for all the notions contained within. This series is excellent overall, and this title is no exception. This installment’s dialogue of satanic deception, waged as spiritual warfare against the innocent, human First Mother on the island-world of Perelandra, and Dr. Ransom’s valiant battle to aid the woman against the demonic seduction, are “delicious” portions that are wonderful to provoke deep thought about all that really matters. Nevertheless, the above-mentioned concerns make it difficult for me to give a recommendation without some reservations regarding any “faint of heart” Christian who is easily confused about what he or she believes (essentially anyone who is not well grounded in what the Holy Scriptures teach).
While some may over-simplify the concept of “writing the zeitgeist,” there are more possibilities than merely portraying or capturing the spirit of one’s age (simple digestion and regurgitation). Reflecting upon or illustrating the prevailing attitudes (or spirit) of one’s day may well mean contradicting some or all of it, as in, finding fault with it.
C.S. Lewis certainly revealed what he perceived as the flaws of problematic attitudes of his day (although perhaps not “prevailing” as of yet), as he took to task the “bent” mindsets arising then and compelled his contemporary readership into needful contemplation while he corrected what he saw as crucial errors. In so doing, he preserved for modern readers (of many decades later) a glimpse into just what sorts of attitudes and issues were around way back then; the thought processes of that day, the questions, issues, debates, etc., are in various ways answered or addressed or at least mourned as they are somewhat memorialized in this well-written sci-fi. The degree to which Lewis accurately described “the sin problem” (which is persistent in any age of sin-cursed humans) is the degree to which the problems he described (and errors he challenged) transcend his day. In this regard, he nailed it. Thus the book has long outlasted his day’s zeitgeist.
The “science” of this fiction is in some ways so antiquated it seems absurd to modern readers, yet the skillful writing, wonderful wisdom, and timeless wit serve to make some now-inane sci-fi premises (e.g. of Mars, in book #1, and Venus, in book #2, being habitable places with atmospheres hospitable for humans) into mere trifles worth overlooking and easily overlooked. Outdated? In certain aspects, yes. Still worth reading? Absolutely.
My good friend, John F. Harrison, an alum of Berklee College of Music, just let us know that some students from his alma mater, together with Boston musicians, did a Christmas flash mob at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Their rendition of “O Holy Night” is so beautiful it left me in tears. Enjoy!
From the description of the video on Youtube: “On Saturday, December 14, 2013 Berklee students and Boston musicians furnished the MFA’s Shapiro Family Courtyard with song, featuring soloist Mark Joseph & a full choir and string section. The nostalgic Christmas tune rang through the MFA amongst hundreds of unsuspecting onlookers and brought bustling and chatting crowds to silence in a bid to capture the essence of the holidays.”
By now you’ve no doubt heard that A&E, the company that produces “Duck Dynasty,” is trying to censor Phil Robertson, a patriarch in the show’s central family. A&E took exception to some comments Phil made in an interview with a men’s magazine (a completely separate company), about what constitutes sin, and whether homosexuality is a sin. A&E seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth. On one hand, they are trying to act as though they side with homosexual activist groups, by placing Phil on an indefinite hiatus because he gave honest answers to baited questions posed by people who doubtless already knew what he believed before they asked. In essence, A&E kicked Phil off his own show because he has the courage and commitment to say in public that what the Bible teaches is what he believes. On the other hand, however, A&E has not cancelled the show. They seem to think they can have their cake and eat it too. They want the money the show’s viewers bring to them via advertising dollars, but they don’t want to be seen as even tolerating the fact that Phil has publicly made a statement of faith that is biblically based. So not only is Phil supposed to speak only what A&E tolerates while he is being filmed for their show, but he is also supposed to speak only what A&E tolerates even while he is elsewhere, minding his own business with regard to what he chooses to say in public.
First, let me say that A&E is certainly within their rights to kick him off. They are free to side with the homosexual agenda. They are even free to try to continue airing the show, if their contract allows and the family members are unable to legally stop it. However, viewers and all other people in the American society are also free to make some choices as well. Below is a petition you may choose to sign. While I am not personally a consumer (viewer) of cable network programming, I agree in principle with the content of the petition, and support the message it sends to A&E.
Here’s the full petition:
PETITION TO THE A&E NETWORK DEMANDING THE IMMEDIATE REINSTATEMENT OF DUCK DYNASTY’S PHIL ROBERTSON — #ISTANDWITHPHIL
Dear A&E Network,
I am writing to you regarding your network’s intolerant, discriminatory, and punitive treatment of Mr. Phil Robertson, star of A&E’s #1 hit show, Duck Dynasty.
Mr. Robertson’s comments in GQ Magazine are simply reflective of a biblical view of sexuality, marriage, and family—a view that has stood the test of time for thousands of years and continues to be held by the majority of Americans and today’s world as a whole.
Many members of the LGBT community may not agree with this view, but the notion that a free-thinking American should be discriminated against simply for expressing a perspective that is in conflict with another is patently un-American and flies in the face of true tolerance and civility. A&E’s position, which in your own words is “championing” the gay and lesbian community—which I believe you have the freedom to do—excludes the views of Faith Driven Consumers and effectively censors a legitimate viewpoint held by the majority of Americans.
As a Faith Driven Consumer, I am signing this petition to demand that my views be treated with equality and respect in America’s rich rainbow of diversity.
I am asking your network to immediately reinstate Mr. Robertson to Duck Dynasty, and to formally apologize to him, his family, and the millions of viewers who tune in every week, stand by him, and share his worldview. While the LGBT community may be offended by his opposing viewpoint, your rash, discriminatory, and unfair treatment toward Mr. Robertson—a recognized symbol of the faith community—is a slap in the face to Faith Driven Consumers and everyday Americans alike.
There are 46 million Faith Driven Consumers in America today who spend 1.75 trillion dollars annually. Should you refuse to equally respect and welcome our legitimately held views, we will gladly stop watching this and all other A&E programming and turn to any reformulation of Duck Dynasty on another network—while simultaneously supporting brands that stand with the show and the Robertson family.
Of all the words in the Bible, perhaps one of the most misunderstood in modern times is “adultery”—and if we had to list other misunderstood Bible words, “fornication” would probably rank right up there.
People in our modern society have a different meaning in mind for “adultery” than what the word meant to the Bible’s writers and to its original readers. Also, the meaning of “fornication” is pretty much just as “muddy” in modern minds as well.
Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible, by Jay E. Adams, available on Amazon.com
In an excellent book titled “Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage in the Bible“ author and scholar Jay E. Adams shows the original meanings of these words, and sheds light on Scripture verses that are often misunderstood because our modern meanings of the words don’t match the original ones.
The book is only 100 pages long, and well worth its weight in gold. Every Christian should read the book, and especially every minister and/or pastor should read it.
In biblical use and meaning, “fornication” refers to any and all sexual sins (not just “unmarried people having sex” – which is the modern misunderstanding of the term). “Fornication” refers to and includes all types of sexual sin: incest, rape, homosexual acts, lesbian acts, bestiality, any sex act by a person who is not married, and, of course, any sex act by a married person to/with someone other than their spouse.
Also, in biblical use and meaning, “adultery” refers to a sin against a marriage vow (that which violates it, or damages, undermines, or weakens it). Such sins can be “lighter” or “heavier” in the nature of the transgression. Jesus taught that a man simply looking with lust upon a woman who is not his wife, is committing a sin against the marriage vow – Jesus said that lust is adultery. He did not say it was “like” adultery. He said it is adultery. (See Matthew 5:27-28.) For a married person to even flirt suggestively with someone other than their spouse is an act of adultery. Even simply becoming emotionally entangled with someone of the opposite sex other than your spouse is a violation that undermines your vow.
There are many, many ways to sin against a marriage vow. Just to name a few: lying, abuse, abandonment, mind games, inciting jealousy, etc. You get the idea. There are lighter attacks and heavier attacks. However, of all the ways a person can sin against their wedding vow, the worst would be to include the sin of fornication (sexual sin) in the “cheating,” which is actually two sins: adultery by fornication. This is the worst kind of adultery. And it is the only kind that Jesus said could qualify as proper grounds for one believer to divorce another. To wit:
In Matthew 5:32, Jesus said, “But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of _____________, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
If you recite this verse and ask someone to fill in the blank, most people will say “adultery.” But that is not what Jesus said! He said “fornication”!
“But I say unto you, That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery: and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.”
By our Lord requiring fornication as grounds, that means not just any act of adultery (such as lusting in the heart, or flirting with someone else, or inciting jealousy, or instances of dishonesty) warrants two believers severing their marriage vow. It has to be that worst kind. However, just because the lighter kinds of adultery are not grounds for divorce does not mean they are not wrong and harmful. Over time, repeated instances of the lighter violations of the marriage vow can slowly destroy a marriage relationship.
While we are at it, another misconception in modern society is that an unmarried person cannot commit adultery (since they are not married). That is simply not true. If an unmarried person has sexual relations with a married person, the unmarried person is sinning against the marriage vow of the other two people who are lawfully married to each other. Both the cheating spouse and the sexually involved unmarried person are committing two sins: adultery and fornication.
As you can imagine, the book contains much more than just these words explained. It is a wonderful resource about marriage and the complicated topics of divorce and remarriage, which are covered in Scripture in much greater detail than many people realize.
PS: Below is a description of the book from Amazon.com:
“If the church is going to use the Bible to decide whether divorce is legitimate in certain cases and whether divorced couples have the right to remarry with the approval and blessing of God’s people, then the Bible must be studied without prejudice toward a particular answer. The author examines the relevant passages in both the Old and New Testaments so that his readers can consider the many issues and interpretations that arise in trying to establish a consistently biblical position. As a result, readers can see more clearly and accept more firmly the truth of Scripture. The book succeeds at being exactly what the author wanted it to be: ‘a comprehensive, lucid, accurate study presented in a readable and practical style. . . .’ It is a valuable resource for the pastor, counselor, church leader, and others who are struggling to understand and apply scriptural principles to the problems of divorce and remarriage.”
