June 2006
“If you continue in my word,
then you are truly disciples of mine;
and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.”
- Jesus Christ
Dear Members and Friends,
AIDS is a terrible disease. It is one of
the things that took the life of my 17 year old step-niece.
So it was with some interest that I read
that just this past week, scientists were able to conclusively
prove that the HIV virus originated in wild chimpanzees inhabiting
Cameroon. In other words, the notion that AIDS was actually concocted
by the CIA was finally shown to be a complete lie – a twisted
truth deliberately promulgated in the 1990’s both in Africa
and here in America too.
Perhaps we are no different than previous
generations, but it seems to me that there is an increasing tendency
among some people to use disease and disaster as means of bolstering
a personal or political agenda. Thus we have a small group from
the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, picketing soldier’s
funerals, claiming our best and brightest have been killed as
God’s punishment on the United States for harboring gays.
Never to be outdone, with people still
reeling from the damage, Louis Farrakhan stated that he had it
on good authority that during Hurricane Katrina, the levees in
New Orleans were, “blown up to destroy the black part of
town and keep the white part dry.” And lately we have a
film inflicted on the public, where it is asserted that the planes
hitting the towers on 9/11 were actually cargo jets sent by the
Bush Administration.
From all this, at least we can assume that
the much vaunted massive government crackdown on civil liberties
isn’t going too well! Free speech is doing rather splendidly,
but I think some very good and defenseless people are being badly
hurt. Apparently it is not enough anymore to lose life and limb.
We must also subject victim’s families to increased heartache
with wild and hate-filled speculation that can only add profound
insult to abiding injury. Thus, those who are burdened with the
pain of intense grief are held fast in the bonds of unrelenting
and unresolved cynical speculation and innuendo.
The society in which we live is one where
some use all manner of media at their disposal to enact the philosophy
of Joseph Geobbels, who once said, “If you tell a lie big
enough, and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to
believe it.” This is a world in which we need not be afraid,
yet we cannot afford to be ignorant.
While there is potential danger, I tend
to think the sea of information at our disposal, and the vast
marketplace of ideas, are going to serve us well. Falsehoods can
always be spread, but I have faith in the saying that “at
the length truth will out.” In time, this usually happens
on earth. I know it will take place in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Godspeed,
From Reverend
William J. Keane,
Senior Minister of First Baptist Church of Branford
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