Glorieta leaseholders took risky gamble
The Glorieta lawsuit by Kirk and Susie Tompkins sounds more like “Oops, I made a bad business decision and someone needs to pay for my mistake.”
The property where they built a house was leased, not owned. They never did and never would own the land on which they built. I can’t imagine a riskier situation.
Observations:
• The trustees of any Southern Baptist Convention entity are empowered to act in the interest of the entity and the SBC. Sale of the property was clearly within their right.
• Lifeway tried to sell the property to several other buyers without success.
• Given the homeowners’ lack of property ownership, the offer to let them continue to live there and then have the house go to Glorieta 2.0 seems the most equitable. But they rejected that offer, which smacks of greed, not an equitable solution.
• I’d be curious to know the market value of a house built on leased property. They wanted to be paid what they thought it was worth or invested. Sorry. Real estate doesn’t work that way.
• Two courts have now found no wrongdoing. It’s time to “let it go, let it go.” The homeowners are the ones costing the SBC money for legal fees, since the judge didn’t award legal fees to the SBC.
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• They “believed” the lease was recurring? Did they have a lawyer read it before they built a house? This is the part of the problem that continues to amaze me.
Larry E. Collins
McKinney
Guns and ‘the home of the brave’
A number of issues among some state governments as well as some religious organizations are mostly political hot buttons. Remove the hot button aspect, and reason might prevail. Among these issues are, but not limited to, abortion, birth control, carrying guns in public, people born with a different sexual orientation and the death penalty.
During my 27 years in the military, I was paid by the government to carry a gun and kill people. I never pointed a gun at someone and fired, but crew members on aircraft I commanded killed a number of the enemy. Since retiring 33 years ago, I never have felt the need or desire to carry a gun in public, openly or concealed. I own some guns, but they stay in my home.
Last month, the Texas Senate voted to allow college students to carry guns in class. Alabama is wanting to allow kids under 18 to be able to own and carry guns. Some states no longer require permits for carrying a concealed weapon.
Do this many paranoid and fearful people live in America? Or do they think they must bow down to the merchants of death in the NRA to demonstrate their hatred for the president? Is America no longer “the home of the brave”?
We might remember it only takes a couple of seconds for a “good guy with a gun” to become a “bad guy with a gun.”
Carl Hess
Ozark, Ala.
Talk about Jesus, not sin
Regarding homosexuality, a Christian is not intended to accept or comment on another person’s lifestyle, especially homosexuality or any other form of sinful living.
I was saved and baptized when I was 11 years old. It is not my responsibility to tell anyone what a sinful life they are living. It is my responsibility is to tell them about Jesus.
Actually, I have seen that old devil back off and make a 180-degree turn when you mention Jesus instead of the sins you see. The devil wants Christians to have a discussion about the sinner man’s or sinner woman’s sins. When I learned that concept, I won the battle on how to bring Jesus into my conversation first real fast.
Furthermore, I pray for family and friends or anyone else I might meet who needs salvation every morning, before my day’s work starts.
Joyce M. Brumley
Grand Prairie
Tax laws & clergy freedom
Regarding Ted Cruz’s presidential announcement at Liberty University …
In my travels in the military, I had the opportunity to visit the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, Germany. It was the first concentration camp used to collect German clergy and journalists who spoke out against the Hitler regime. I stood next to the wall where they were shot. A few feet from the wall was a “blood ditch” to drain away blood from the massive executions. Close by were the ovens to cremate the bodies.
It seems they did not have the First Amendments we have—protecting freedoms of speech and religion. However, it would seem that our tax laws have restricted our clergy from exercising these amendments.
Fred Rosenbaum
Gainesville
God requires justice for guilty
Regarding “Latino evangelicals call for end to death penalty,” I can’t believe people who claim to know God would dogmatically insist on only focusing on his “love” side and either ignore or minimize God’s “righteousness” side.
Throughout Scripture, God shows himself “slow to anger” and “patient” toward men, but never do we read of him being devoid of ability or doing away with his requirement of carrying out justice and furthermore, actually demanding it from men even to the point of death to the guilty one.
It is a well-known fact that many innocent people suffer the death penalty, but that does not take away from God’s demand to put to death the guilty one. “He that smites a man, so that he dies, shall be surely put to death” (Exodus 21:12).
Many will disagree on account of this quote being from the Old Testament, yet at the end when Christ returns, how will he bring victory to his church and bride if not through the killing of all the unbelievers and rebels who consciously and repeatedly refuse his love and offer of salvation.
God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He does not desire the death of the sinner, but that does not mean he will not bring it to pass upon the guilty.
Jose R. Abad
Sinton
Jon Randles ‘grew me in my faith’
It has been a long time since I’ve been shocked by a death, as I was by Jon Randles’.
Oh, my! That man grew me in my faith, inspired me in my ministry, and was my friend. What else can you say of someone?
I worshipped at View Baptist Church when he was pastor, was in the same association when he was at Oak Street Baptist Church in Graham, and had him do a revival as well as a building campaign weekend. Oh, my; oh, my!
“And Elisha saw it, and he cried, My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof. And he saw him no more: and he took hold of his own clothes, and rent them in two pieces” (2 Kings 2: 12).
I have already begun a very good cry. Thank you, LORD, for Bro. Jon.
Earl Powell
Bedford
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