Friday, August 18, 2023

Notes from Karen Stokes: The South as a Christian Civilization


From the book: The Attitude of the Northern Clergy Toward the South, first published in 1942. Its author, Chester S. Dunham, wrote Southern Christianity or the theological position of Southern Christian churches was thoroughly orthodox.


Religion in the South supported the civilization, culture and social order south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Southerners saw themselves primarily as a Christian people and their civilization was the outworking of that view…In the decades prior to the War Between the States, Southerners were also aware that their peculiar institution of slavery was coming under increasing attack by the rest of Western Civilization. During this period, Southern clergymen and laity urged southerners to bring slavery more in line with biblical principles.


Northern churches were moving toward more liberal positions on original sin, human depravity. Unitarianism, transcendentalism, atheism, Utopian Socialists. These flourished in the north.


It is not the narrow question of abolition or slavery, whether we should emancipate our Negros or not. The real question is the relationship of man to society, of states to the individual. 


These are the mighty questions that are shaking thrones to their centers, rocking the solid pillars of this union. The parties in this conflict are not merely atheists or communists, red Republicans, Jacobins on the one side and the friends of order and regulated freedom on the other. The world is a battleground. Christianity and atheism the combatants.  The progress of humanity is at stake. 


It was a clash of orthodox Christianity in the south against Northern liberals who professed Christianity while they did their best to destroy its central doctrines… 


Some of the radical abolitionists in the North reviled the Bible because it did not condemn slavery and admired John Brown for his violent murderous rampage and raid at Harpers Ferry in 1859.


After Lincoln’s election, the South Carolina legislation passed an act Nov. 11, 1860 calling for a state convention to deliberate the question of secession. Soon afterward the governor proclaimed a day of humiliation and prayer. 


On that day, Nov. 21, Dr. Thomas Smyth preached a sermon entitled the Sin and the Curse. It laminated the death of this Glorious Constitutional Union and identified America’s true source of this union as “the infidel atheistic, French Revolution, Red Republican principle embodied in the egalitarian ideals of the Declaration of Independence. All men are not born equal. The equality is that all men are born in sin. The nation is divided because of the influence of a group of Americans rejected the divine inspiration and infallibility of the Bible and who developed their own code of morality, or higher law principle. They were an overwhelming mass of atheists, infidels, Communists, free lovers, rationalists, Bible Haters, Anti-Christian levelers and anarchists who held a self-developing morality, and who decided that a majority of His creatures can decide for God and against God that slavery is in its essential nature absolutely sinful that it is so essentially and heinously wicked, that in order to overthrow it, compacts may be broken, and robbery, murder, arson, treason, rebellion, massacre, with all the hellish crew of bigotry, hatred, uncharitableness, are let loose to devastate and destroy. They pervert the great doctrines of personal responsibility, liberty of conscience, opinion and action. This they do by requiring all others to adopt as God’s truth, that which is contrary to scripture, and by assuming that they are responsible for the conduct and conscience of other men. And what could be the result of this “higher law?” that is the majority and equality principle, but anarchy, prodigality, profanity, Sabbath profanation, vice and ungodliness in every monstrous form. In the end, the corruption and overthrow of the republic and the erection upon its ruins of a bloody despotism of which coercion is the bloody principle. An anti-slavery Bible must have an anti-slavery god, and a god anti-law, order, property and morality. That is no god but the god of this world (Satan). 


Many Northern clergymen believed that the civilization of what they called the semi-barbarous and religiously orthodox South should be done away with.  


As one historian put it, Northerners sought to make regnant in the South the Northern way of life. 


One religious journal of Boston, The Christian Register editorialized in 1865, The present condition in the South to a great extent is a result of its religious teaching.  She needs men who preach the practical righteousness and aim to build up the church  of the divine humanity. The South is missionary ground and needs a new gospel. Its theology and preaching must be changed. The South, in order to be thoroughly regenerated, must have a religion which shall conform to the essential ideas, aims, and spirit of liberal Christianity. 


That writer is urging a kind of cultural genocide, making Southerners give up their traditions and beliefs and making them over in the image of the North. 


There were also calls by the radicals, for the actual extermination of the Southern people.  


The South as a Christian Civilization




Saturday, August 12, 2023

Jay & Donna's 60th Anniversary, Donna's 90th Birthday Celebration


Donna & Jay


Passing on the Baton


Guy honored his parents and prayed for them.
His music and singing made the evening a delight.

David & Esther
We had a lovely time.

Thursday, January 27, 2022

Great Wedding Music



Engagement/Invitation Photo

 Rehearsal Dinner 


Our Parents
~Joy of Man’s Desiring by Jane Sheldon, on organ

~ Ruth (Currier) Lee played John Denver’s Follow Me on her flute -  https://youtu.be/Gcu8XgWePMM  

~ Janice Danelle Lester McCartney Kelly 
played Morning Has Broken on Violin

~ Dave Tubbs sang: You Fill up My Senses, “Annie’s Song” by John Denver https://youtu.be/Ch7JGUIx1WU

~ Wedding Song, [God] is Love, sang by Dave Tubbs
We changed the words slightly: If loving is the answer, then whose the giving force? Do you believe in someone that you’ve never seen before? God is love.

~ Daniel Stoops read the love chapter, I Corinthians 13

~ Dave Tubbs sang Communion Song as we took communion, which was a beautiful song, though we now understand is not appropriate in a wedding for just two. It is for the ecclesia, the gathering of the Church body: “This is My Body I give to you”

~Exchange of Rings, Prayer 

Andrae Crouch’s Our Tribute sang by Dave Tubbs and Cindy Smith https://youtu.be/0iZm9__sJL8.   

~ The Kiss, Presentation of the Mr. & Mrs. David Seppi

~ My [Our] Tribute played on the organ by Jane Sheldon

~ Music Box Dancer played by Tom Douglass, piano

~ I was sure this was one of our wedding songs, but I don’t see it on the program. Ruth Currier played it on her flute: Carpenter’s-We’ve Only Just Begun, https://youtu.be/__VQX2Xn7tI


Monday, August 23, 2021

Anthony Trimino, Christian Governor for California

Dear Pastor Hibbs, 

Although I am not a member of your congregation, I am well aware of your fight to maintain our constitutional rights to assemble and worship our Lord Jesus Christ. You are a leader in our nation standing for these rights and I have deep respect and gratitude for your sacrifice and example.  Thank you!

This week a friend of mine sent the link to your recent message: Comeback California with Larry Elder. I was very excited to listen to this message because of your proven constitutional knowledge, integrity and position as a pastor.  At the conclusion of this message I was deeply saddened.  Please allow me to explain my disheartened response.

Larry is a man of integrity and as he explained in this interview, he has a strong family history of overcoming injustices done to man. He appears to be a very qualified choice for the secular world.  As Christians we are called to have a different perspective.  We are called to have a Biblical worldview.  Across this country believers have had to fight for marriage and family values and the God given rights detailed in the Bible.  Scripture is very clear what marriage and family positions are.

During the message my concern rose when the entire congregation was asked to raise their hands to God in prayer for Larry Elder and his long time girlfriend.  God was asked to bless Larry and his girlfriend in their pursuit to becoming California's governor.  Our future governor will be called on to make decisions concerning marriage and families as well as many other topics.  I believe Larry's personal lifestyle choice shows he does not share Biblical family values.  

"If my people, who are called by my name, humble themselves, pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, forgive their sins and will heal their land."

Before we can expect God to heal our broken land, we must turn from our wicked ways.  Who we chose as leaders and influencers in our life is a reflection of our core values.  I believe Larry does not share the indisputable family values God has made so clear in Scripture.

There are other candidates who exhibit a biblical worldview.  God always gives a way to come back to him.  None of us is perfect, but living a life of "high handed sin" is not something which believers should overlook.  I am including a link to one candidate who has a strong business history, integrity and biblical core values.  This is not a political statement, I simply wish for you to know there are righteous choices for governor.  I do not believe we need to pick based on popularity or even skill.  I believe if we wish to ask God to heal our land, we MUST pick based on biblical values.  A perfect example of this is when God chose David to slay Goliath.  In God's hand all things are possible.  We must be obedient to God's holy and true word.

https://anthonytrimino.com

I wish no disrespect in this letter, as I have stated, I respect and appreciate you.

May God continue to guide, direct and keep you safe.

In His service,

Maggie Troutman



Tuesday, April 28, 2020

Mary (Frances) Bailey Stoops

Mary (Frances) Bailey Stoops was born 100 years ago. The Bailey family got their water from a spring, and hauled it down not too far from the house where they held it in a cistern, something like a small pool.


The Great Depression was not too bad for them since there was very little they needed to buy. The administration paid farmers to shoot their cattle, evidently to create shortages. Seems to be a parallel with the one we are diving into.


Mom made her wedding dress.
One photo of Mother, when she was about 40, shows her hiding behind a very young cypress tree. She was small in her own eyes, like Saul hiding among the baggage when they went to crown him as king. But the good part is, she never became proud. Mother walked with God. Several in the retirement home in Visalia rebuked us for taking her away, when my sister-in-law had her transferred to Fresno.




Mother loved vegetable and flower gardening: roses, irises, black-eyes, green beans, corn, okra... She jarred apricots, so we could enjoy them all year. She blanched corn and headed up her children to help cut it off the cob to freeze for the winter. Mother or Daniel who milked the cow each morning and evening at six. Mother was a faithful neighbor, visiting each of the five homes surrounding us, and sold certain ones a gallon of fresh cow's milk for 30 cents, though she was allergic to it herself. 

One day, Mother was transferring our “Bossie” Guernsey cow up our road toward the highway, when it broke into a run, dragging Mom down the side of the road. Mom was about ten feet behind, holding onto the chain.

Mother faithfully bathed at the end of her life, Mrs. Cole, an old Indian woman who claimed that she was 119-years-old.

Neighbors, John Whittington, Sr. and Mrs. Cole, also it was Mr. or Mrs. Myers, I don’t recall which, who prayed with mother, to receive Christ as their savior, when their life came to an end.



Sometimes people gave us used clothing. Once, when Mother was out, I put on a pair of short-shorts and a matching sleeveless top that did not cover my abdomen. When Mother spotted me, I was down the street attempting to sell orders for imprinted Christmas cards. Boy, was I in trouble!



Here Samuel and I are with Grandma Bailey, Mom's mother.

During my years in college and beyond, Mother’s words never left me. I knew in each circumstance, just what Mom would say: “I wouldn’t want to be in their place on the Judgement Day...   Marry in haste, repent at leisure... Babies would not take so much of our time if we did not spend so much time looking at them... Necessity is the mother of invention... A stitch in time saves nine... A willful waste makes a woeful want... Esther Lee, as sweet as she can be... Notice that all the food on the table, we have either raised [beef, milk] or [garden] grown.”


Mother encouraged me when there were heartbreaks, “If you are not the right one for him, then he is not the right one for you.” Or, cautioned me, “Esther, I don’t think he is the right one for you.” When David asked Dad if he could marry me, Mother said, “I’m so happy for you.”

And it was Mother, who pressed us in 1982 with urgency that we listen to Focus on the Family. There we learned from Raymond & Dorothy Moore that homeschooling gives more interaction with adults, therefore can be like the "making of kings." 

Here are our first five children with Mom & Dad, their grandparents.


Mother’s favorite chapter in the Bible, Psalm 103, is also mine: “His kingdom rules over all.”
Here is Mother with six of her seven grown children.

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Dave Seppi

David's Father, Dave Seppi was born on this day 7-17-1917
Dave was born July 17, 1917 in Sunnyside, Utah, to Max and Aurelia Seppi, the only son after three daughters. He was only three pounds at birth and not knowing if he would live, his parents named him Dave with no middle name. Dave grew up in the mining camps where his father, Max, worked. Dave was the only one of his family to finish high school. His sisters left school to earn money for the family while their father was sick with (miners) Black Lung.
Around age 13, Dave Seppi, began working at Labouri’s service station, in Helper UT, where he learned mechanics. During a trip to California he got a job at a service station, later, as crane operator for American Forge Co.,
He met Betty Hagerty, a young nurse from South Dakota, in Oakland. They were married September 1, 1946.
Dave drove a commuter bus for Key Systems till he was drafted into the army. He was chosen as a cook at Beal Air Force Base in Marysville. After the war, Dave tested for the California Highway Patrol while driving for Key Systems. Dave and Betty’s first baby, David Robert, was born in 1947 in Berkeley, The Seppi family moved to Bakersfield California where Dave patrolled the grapevine. In Bakersfield the Seppi’s were blessed with Lance Richard, 1950, John Leonard 1951, and Mary Jane 1952. Dave was promoted in the CHP to Sgt. and moved the family to Sacramento. When promoted to Lieutenant, he moved to Jackson CA, where he helped build their home where he lived until Christmas Day 2005. After retiring, Dave served 16 years on the irrigation board for Amador County.
Dave was known for his warm greetings, Italian cooking, art, woodcarvings, gardening, golfing, hunting, fishing, woodworking.
Son of an Austrian immigrant coal miner...