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HAPPY NEW DECADE! – and why you should take the PAG Online Course

–By Ben Gilmore

What a decade it promises to be!  In the next ten years, historians will have written volumes about the last ten years.  Though there is a massive effort to mold and shape accounts of historical events, truth has a nasty way of fighting its way to the surface.

Many believe this to be America’s, “Post-Christian” era.  That view I repudiate. That which the hand of God begins, it finishes.  Shortly after our high point of ratifying the US Constitution and its first ten amendments, our nation started a backslide right into a civil war.

While the rest of the world was peacefully doing away with slavery, America chose to fight a bloody war over it.  A war, one could say, was between “Pride” in the south, and “Self-righteousness” in the north.

I believe our nation has yet to blossom into that which the Lord had in mind two centuries ago.

Whether my view, or that of the cynics, turns out to have been the correct one,  I choose to focus upon what is true, honest, just, pure and lovely!

The cynic will be awed by the size and scope of the problem.  Attempting to alert others to the danger, the cynic will seek ever more sensational examples of the problem.  The result will be frustration, hopelessness , anger and (hopefully) an activist opposition effort.

On the other hand, a better approach.  Recognize that the “problem” is a “consequence“.  (The result of drifting away from the principles that served us so well during our two hundred year backslide.)  Relearn those principles.  Instill them into the next generation.  Apply them to the problems we face.

Test yourself:

  1. Build a one line sentence defining the God of the Bible.
  2. What is a “law” according to Sir William Blackstone, “father of the legal profession“.
  3. What is behind the Declaration’s wording, “…Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.”
  4. “Family, Church, State” are all governmental.  Upon what government rests the quality of each?
  5. If you have not learned sound principle, how do you evaluate alternative choices?
  6. If God’s Principle of Individuality is violated, why does the effort fail?
  7. Why the difference?  “God’s principle of individuality” and the, “Christian principle of self-government.”
  8. What is your measure of Quality Character?
  9. Without the principle of “Private Property“, has the 10th Commandment any meaning?
  10. What three forms of government were combined into ours for the first time in human history?
  11. Why is “Local Authority” preferred over centralization?
  12. “Law without liberty is slavery.  Liberty without law is anarchy”.  What is law with liberty?
  13. Can you recognize “situation ethics”?
  14. Have you learned how to never lose a debate?

Soon (See Schedule for course dates) we begin our next “Principles of American Government” online course*.  There is still time to enroll.  Please Contact Ben for information.

*24 each, 75 minute interactive classes, offered twice (9AM & 6PM Pacific time) on Monday and Wednesday.  Participants commit themselves to one class Monday and Wednesday plus guided reading assignments requiring 5 hours a week outside class.

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HAPPY NEW DECADE! – and why you should take the PAG Online Course Read More »

A Time for Cool Heads and Critical Thinking

–By Ben Gilmore

The music plays nostalgic Christmas carols. The traditional joy of the season is all around us these days. We should enjoy it! The environment (economy, income, misuse of civil authority,…) all present a cause for gloom. This is NOT a time to consider the “half empty glass.” We MUST focus on the half full glass!

If you permit the externals to influence your internals, you are on a downward spiral. GET OFF THAT TRAIN! To quote the closing lines of Rudyard Kipling’s well known poem, “If”.

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

There is one God working, The glass is NEVER empty!

—- —- “We interrupt this message for a shameless commercial!” —- —-

For the past four or more generations, the art of critical thinking and sound reason have been systematically bred out of our society. Along with it, revisionist history (lies) has drained patriotic enthusiasm about the most magnificent example of Biblical civil government structure on earth. REMEMBER: “The question is NOT, ‘Was America formed by Christians?’ The question is, ‘Has America a Christian form?’ —- Indeed it has. We must relearn what we have forgotten.

I have just completed teaching my first online course in “Principles of American Government.” We use a virtual (computer) classroom. This course was first taught at San Jose Christian College, then at Shiloh Bible College. What a thrill to have teens and adults discovering the incredible significance of what they did not know they did not know!

Please, for the sake of what the hand of God has accomplished on this continent – LISTEN UP!

95% of those who read this (you know who you are!) will gloss over and say, “That is good for those other people.” This commercial message is addressed to you.

On January 18, 2010 we will begin the next online “Principles of American Government” (PAG) class. It consists of 24 interactive 75 minute classes. Each class is presented twice a day (miss one catch the other) on Monday and Wednesday at 9AM & 6PM Pacific time. Homeschoolers wanting academic credit may register with Harrington College Prep online school. Tuition is $195.

I will be pleased to put you in touch with those just finished with the course. Let them persuade you of your need to attend. There are several places you can go for such training. PAG is taught by a master teacher who was discipled in the principle approach to education by the founders of Foundation for American Christian Education (FACE).

Unless enough individuals take dominion of the principles that guided our founders, our efforts to repair and rebuild will be futile! Please take this invitation seriously. Phone and chat with me about it.

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Contact Ben for more information or to get his phone number.

A Time for Cool Heads and Critical Thinking Read More »

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Ben Gilmore 1929-2023

On March 30, 2023 Ben Gilmore, the co-founder of ACHStudyGroups (co-founded with his wife Fran), went to be with the Lord in Glory.

A Memorial: https://www.mykeeper.com/profile/BenGilmore/