Today We Build Tomorrow

November 20, 2008 Hosted by John and Dee Oster. Over 91,460 visits to date. 

 Nation Elects Barack Obama To Highest Office; Democratic Party Registers Sweeping Victories;

Traditional marriage wins in California

Website News:

 This website has been online since August 14, 2003. Total visits as of this morning are 91,109 for an average of 45.4 hits per day over the five year period. Prior to that we hosted a similar website entitled "Liberty Landing." While we deeply appreciate everyone who has visited this site, when we read about political and entertainment sites reaching 835,096 and more hits in a few months and presidential candidates raising hundreds of millions of dollars via the internet, it is evident that we are not effectively using this medium to spread the idea of supporting the Christian heritage of America. A bold new approach is needed.

After the election Tuesday we plan to suspend this website while we make some revisions. For one thing we plan to reduce the hosting cost (Currently $50 per month) to a more reasonable level and use some of that money to advertise the website on search engines and through links. In addition we will be improving our technical capabilities for research and production.

In addition we will shift our format from being essentially a web-based news magazine to a blog with a regular column written by myself or others supporting the Christian worldview.

When we are ready to resume online, we will have a new web address.  If we have your email address we will notify you of the new address.  This will probably be shortly after the new year. Even if we do not notify you personally by email you can probably locate us by a web search after the first of the year.

We will also be increasing our efforts at book production including our comprehensive 200 page "Vote Your Faith" which has not found a publisher as the 2008 election arrives. We certainly plan for it to be a major factor in the 2010 election and beyond.

We plan some commentary on Tuesday's presidential and congressional elections and then will probably be dormant until we resume webcasting in January.  For those who have been with us, Thanks So Much.

Vote Your Faith!

We hope that Americans will vote their faith at this crucial election. The quotations below give you an idea of the rationale of Vote Your Faith!   Whoever wins this election, there will be another election coming. The content of Vote Your Faith! is not tied to any particular election.

Three paragraphs from Chapter One summarize the message of Vote Your Faith! 

"While the United States has a secular form of government, we have always been a Christian nation. We must remain a Christian nation if we are to remain true to the ideals of our orgin. America's promising future depends on people exercising their faith by voting, enacting, and executing laws that are consistent with their beliefs. In short, forget about what all the prognosticators and media elite are telling you about keeping your faith to yourself. Vote Your Faith!

"The voting booth is a transactional altar where men and God confer in private and then act together for the betterment of all. The genius of our democracy is not vested in a secular state, or powerful special interest groups. No, the genius of our America lies in the power of individuals to pursue their Christian faith privately and then incorporate those principles in public life. The consensus decisions in today's voting booth become tomorrow's march of history.

"When we enter the ballot booth, we enter with prayer and we vote our faith into fact.Each time we vote we show our faith in God. With our every vote we act to insure that as our faith is now, so shall our future freedom be.  May America deserve God's blessing. May His grace preserve our future."

And 200 pages later, just before a set of Sunday School Lesson Guides, the book concludes:

"When we vote our private faith, God enters the equation in an unseen, yet powerful way, and makes surprising things happen in very public ways. The outcome of every election, rests in the hands of the faith voter.  Will you show up?"

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Sarah Palin Video

To watch a unique video of Sarah Palin speaking at the church where she was saved, Wassila Assembly of God, last year after she was elected governor and before she was famous. Click here. The picture of Todd and Sarah below with their infant son Trigg is a prolife statement worth 10 thousand words. Three days before John McCain announced her selection as his running mate, Sarah Palin presented herself to her pastor for annointing and prayer for service without telling anyone in the church what was about to happen.

Culture of Hope

  Sarah, Trig, and Todd

Why Heritage Home Believes in the Christian Culture of Hope

You and I have the power and God's mandate to make this a better world, but for this to happen we must do something in concert to release this power. Power in and of itself just lies there. We have to release its energy. We can tap this energy by acting together in prayer and in the truth of Scripture. This has happened before.

A biblical Christian worldview permeated the minds of the founders of the United States of America in 1776.Today, there is a pressing need to recover that worldview that gave us the mental and spiritual power to create a nation of unprecedented personal liberty. That liberty is endowed by God but it is protected by the United States Constitution. In 2008 we are in danger of losing that priceless personal liberty to a debilitating worldview of secular social pessimism. Our aim is to support restoration of  the  positive Christian worldview of empowering personal liberty. To do this we must return to the Constitution of the United States as originally drafted and understood or as lawfully amended.

  Click on underlined words below for more information on topics  of current interest

LifeStory Writing is a ministry of Olathe College Church, keeping our heritage alive for our children, grandchildren and friends.  These one-page "slices of Life" are unique and powerful. Please check out this effective ministry led by J. Paul and Marilyn Turner. I have been a participant in these groups since their inception. There are over 60 participating writers and the stories are grouped by the writers' names for your convenience.

John McCain stands alone as GOP standard  bearer for president of the United States. Click his name for his stand on abortion from his website.

 Five Choices--Voters in 2008 at every level have essentially five choices that they must make--choices concerning Life, Liberty, Security, Community, and the Economy. Upon these five issues turn our future.

Vote Your Faith Voters are the first responders to national crisis. Each new crisis demands a seasoned response. Joel and I are nearing completion of a breakthrough new book tentatively entitled "Vote Your Faith." 

Waking Up Washington  Sen. Nick Jordan challenges Rep. Dennis Moore in Third District Race in Kansas. 

Christian Worldview --The Oklahoma Wesleyan University  Worldview Institute is located on the OWU campus in Bartlesville, OK. The Institute examines public life and policy from the Christian worldview.

The vision that created America. Liberty is the vision that brought America into being. Read the history of the liberty that we enjoy.

Heart Songs by Alieghya. Our friend Alieghya Clark was murdered May 28, 2006, just short of her 22nd birthday. Before her tragic and untimely death she had entrusted us with her notebook of poems which we have continued to make available in Heritage Home Journal. Please read as she defiantly tells the Devil--"You Have Not Won," her words ringing out as it were from the grave. Take time to read "Outside My Comforting Walls" which is especially poignant in light of  the circumstaces of her violent death.

The Prairie Poet. Our Mother, Edith Grace (Gordon) Oster died Oct. 1, 2007 at the age of 101. She wrote many poems, some serious, some funny, during her long years on the Nebraska and Dakota prairies. She is now buried on the edge of the sandhills near Gordon, Nebraska, but you can read her poems right here in Heritage Home Journal.

 Speaking before prime time at a Democratic National Convention that is reaching out to evangelical Christians, Nancy Keenan acknowledged religion among Democrats. But she said the right to abort a pregnancy is one of the party's "core moral values."

 The platform ratified Monday states: "The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay."

Keenan noted that Democrats also support a woman's right to give birth and raise her child or put her child up for adoption.

America Has Chosen a President

By Albert Mohler Jr.

The election of Sen. Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States came as a bang, not a whimper.  The tremors had been perceptible for days, maybe even weeks.  On Tuesday, America experienced nothing less than a political and cultural earthquake.

The margin of victory for the Democratic ticket was clear.  Americans voted in record numbers and with tangible enthusiasm.  By the end of the day, it was clear that Barack Obama would be elected with a majority of the popular vote and a near landslide in the Electoral College.  When President-Elect Obama greeted the throngs of his supporters in Chicago's Grant Park, he basked in the glory of electoral energy.

For many of us, the end of the night brought disappointment.  In this case, the disappointment is compounded by the sense that the issues that did not allow us to support Sen. Obama are matters of life and death -- not just political issues of heated debate.  Furthermore, the margin of victory and sense of a shift in the political landscape point to greater disappointments ahead.  We all knew that so much was at stake.

For others, the night was magical and momentous.  Young and old cried tears of amazement and victory as America elected its first African-American President -- and elected him overwhelmingly.  Just forty years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, an African-American stood to claim victory as President-Elect of the nation.  As Sen. Obama assured the crowd in Chicago and the watching nation, "We will get there.  We will get there."  No one hearing those words could fail to hear the refrain of plaintive words spoken in Memphis four decades ago.  President-Elect Obama would stand upon the mountaintop that Dr. King had foreseen.

That victory is a hallmark moment in history for all Americans -- not just for those who voted for Sen. Obama.  As a nation, we will never think of ourselves the same way again.  Americans rich and poor, black and white, old and young, will look to an African-American man and know him as President of the United States.  The President.  The only President.  The elected President.  Our President.

Every American should be moved by the sight of young African-Americans who -- for the first time -- now believe that they have a purchase in American democracy.  Old men and old women, grandsons and granddaughters of slaves and slaveholders, will look to an African-American as President.

Regardless of politics, could anyone remain unmoved by the sight of Jesse Jackson crying alone amidst the crowd in Chicago?  This dimension of Election Day transcends politics and touches the heart of the American people.

Yet, the issues and the politics remain.  Given the scale of the Democratic victory, the political landscape will be completely reshaped.  The fight for the dignity and sanctity of unborn human beings has been set back by a great loss, and by the election of a President who has announced his intention to sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law.  The struggle to protect marriage against its destruction by redefinition is now complicated by the election of a President who has declared his aim to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act.  On issue after issue, we face a longer, harder, and more protracted struggle than ever before.

Still, we must press on as advocates for the unborn, for the elderly, for the infirm, and for the vulnerable.  We must redouble our efforts to defend marriage and the integrity of the family.  We must be vigilant to protect religious liberty and the freedom of the pulpit.  We face awesome battles ahead.

At the same time, we must be honest and recognize that the political maps are being redrawn before our eyes.  Will the Republican Party decide that conservative Christians are just too troublesome for the party and see the pro-life movement as a liability?  There is the real danger that the Republicans, stung by this defeat, will adopt a libertarian approach to divisive moral issues and show conservative Christians the door.

Others will declare these struggles over, arguing that the election of Sen. Obama means that Americans in general -- and many younger Evangelicals in particular -- are ready to "move on" to other issues.  This is no time for surrender or the abandonment of our core principles.  We face a much harder struggle ahead, but we have no right to abandon the struggle.

We should look for opportunities to work with the new President and his administration where we can.  We must hope that he will lead and govern as the bridge-builder he claimed to be in his campaign.  We must confront and oppose the Obama administration where conscience demands, but work together where conscience allows.

Evangelical Christians face another challenge with the election of Sen. Obama, and a failure to rise to this challenge will bring disrepute upon the Gospel, as well as upon ourselves.  There must be absolutely no denial of the legitimacy of President-Elect Obama's election and no failure to accord this new President the respect and honor due to anyone elected to that high office.  Failure in this responsibility is disobedience to a clear biblical command.

Beyond this, we must commit ourselves to pray for this new President, for his wife and family, for his administration, and for the nation.  We are commanded to pray for rulers, and this new President faces challenges that are not only daunting but potentially disastrous.  May God grant him wisdom.  He and his family will face new challenges and the pressures of this office.  May God protect them, give them joy in their family life, and hold them close together.

We must pray that God will protect this nation even as the new President settles into his role as Commander in Chief, and that God will grant peace as he leads the nation through times of trial and international conflict and tension.

We must pray that God would change President-Elect Obama's mind and heart on issues of our crucial concern.  May God change his heart and open his eyes to see abortion as the murder of the innocent unborn, to see marriage as an institution to be defended, and to see a host of issues in a new light.  We must pray this from this day until the day he leaves office.  God is sovereign, after all.

Without doubt, we face hard days ahead.  Realistically, we must expect to be frustrated and disappointed.  We may find ourselves to be defeated and discouraged.  We must keep ever in mind that it is God who raises up nations and pulls them down, and who judges both nations and rulers.  We must not act or think as unbelievers, or as those who do not trust God.

America has chosen a President.  President-Elect Barack Obama is that choice, and he faces a breathtaking array of challenges and choices in days ahead.  This is the time for Christians to begin praying in earnest for our new President.  There is no time to lose.