Monday News in Late February 2020.

Oral Roberts was one of the greatest defenders of the World Faith/Prosperity Gospel movement. He passed away in the year of 2009. For long decades, he has been a worldwide famous Charismatic televangelist. He worked in both the Pentecostal Holiness and United Methodist Churches. He is considered one of the godfathers of the modern day Charismatic movement. He founded both the Oral Roberts Evangelistic Association and Oral Roberts University. He was born in Ada, Oklahoma. He was educated at Oklahoma Baptist University. He preached the seed faith doctrine for over six decades.  He said to Larry King Live that he has Cherokee descent. Roberts was a card carrying member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. In 1977, he claimed to have had a vision from a 900 foot tall Jesus telling him to build the City of Faith Medical and Research Center (and the hospital would be a success). He was controversial to claim that his son had seen his father raise a child from the dead in 1987. The practice of speaking in intelligible tongues have existed in ancient Egypt and in the ancient Greek world of various Sibylline priestess plus the woman of Delphi. Oral Roberts believed that the seed of faith movement can cause people to get money. Oral Roberts have written over 120 books on his religious views. His ministry was heavily focused on miracles. Roberts is right that each person does sin, but he is wrong to say that God promised prosperity materially to all. Carlton Pearson and Benny Hinn are similar theologically to Oral Roberts.


Joel Osteen is the quintessential positive preacher. He is similar to Oral Roberts. He is very young preacher who has his church in Texas. He left Oral Roberts University in 1981 to start up his own Lakewood Ministry. His father was a preacher too. His shows are aired worldwide in over 100 countries. John Osteen was his father who taught the World Faith movement's views for years. This same teaching is embraced by Kenneth Copeland and Kenneth Hagin. John Osteen sadly passed away in 1999. Lakewood's sermons are shown by TBN. The church is located in the Houston area. One of the problems is involving Joel Osteen is that he promotes love but he de-empathizes the importance of morality too. There is nothing wrong with love, but you have to condemn evil forcibly to save souls too. In other words, stealing is wrong and harming innocent people is wrong. Imperialism is wrong. These evils should be exposed in the pulpit without any apology from any preacher or congregant. He refuses to talk about hell a lot when even Jesus Christ spoke about hell and which types of people are going to Hell without repentance. Talking about such things will be unpopular with the world. It is better to be unpopular and right than popular and wrong. Joel is similar to Norman Vincent Peale. Years ago, Bill O'Reilly (the fired racist, sexual harasser, and liar) asked Joel Osteen if he believed that Jesus Christ was the Way, the Life, and the truth  Joel Osteen ignored the question. Joel later apologized. Like other Prosperity preachers, Joel Osteen believes in the falsehood that Jesus Christ was held captive in Hell for a time: "...For three days Jesus fought with the enemy. It was the battle of the ages, light versus darkness ,good versus evil. But thank God Satan was no match for Jesus (Joel Osteen, Discover the Champion in You, TBN, April 26, 2004). It is true that Hebrew 9:14 that Jesus Christ was offered himself as a sacrifice without blemish. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 said that Jesus Christ died for our sins, was buried, and rose from the dead. Osteen told Chris Wallace on December 23, 2007 that Mormonism is Christianity when Mormonism came from Joseph Smith. Mormonism teaches a works based salvation, that Jesus is a creature in heaven, and humans can be gods on their own planets. Therefore, Joel Osteen preaches a half truth. He is right that God is love, and we should promote goodness. Yet, he is wrong to ignore the other half of the gospel which is about exposing sin, being disciplined, and following righteousness. There was the Hurricane scandal in Houston involving him years ago too.



Kobe Bryant was born in Philadelphia. He was the youngest of three children. His father was the former NBA player Joe Bryant and his mother is Pamela Cox Bryant. He was the maternal nephew of basketball player John Cox. His parents named him after the famous Kobe beef of Japan that they saw in a restaurant. Kobe's middle name was Bean after his father's nickname of "Jellybean." A lot of people don't know that Kobe Bryant was Roman Catholic and his parents are Roman Catholic. By the time that he was 3, Kobe played basketball. When he grew up, his favorite team was the Los Angeles Lakers. His father retired from the NBA when he was six. His father moved his family to Rieti, Italy to continue his basketball career in a lower level. After 2 years, the family moved to Reggio Calabria and then to Pisoia plus Reggio Emilia. During this time, Kobe Bryant spoke Italian fluently. He adjusted to his surroundings. Kobe loved the place of Reggio Emilia. At that place, he made a decision to place basketball on a serious level. That is why his grandfather would mail him NBA games for Kobe Bryant to study. Kobe played soccer and A.C. Milan was his favorite soccer player. During the summer time, he would go to the States to play in a basketball summer league. His family moved back to Philadelphia when he was 13 years old. Kobe Bryant's high school basketball career was extraordinary. He gained national attention. He played at Lower Merion High School at Ardmore, which is a Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion. As a freshman, he was on the varsity team. He was the first freshman in decades to start for Lower Merion's varsity team. Yet, the team finished with a 4-20 record. That would change. During the next 3 years, the Aces had a 77-3 record. Bryant played all five positions. During his junior year, he averaged 31.1 points a game, 20.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists. He was named Pennsylvania Player of the Year and earned a fourth team Parade All-American nomination. Many recruiters from Duke, Michigan, North Carolina and Villanova wanted him to play for their colleges. This was after Kevin Garnett came into the 1995 NBA Draft. Then, Kobe Bryant later decided to go into the NBA. .


At the Adidas ABCD Camp, Bryant earned the 1995 senior MVP award. He played alongside future NBA teammate Lamar Odom. During high school, then 76ers coach John Lucas invited Kobe Bryant to work out and scrimmage with the team. He played one on one with Jerry Stackhouse. During his senior year of high school, Bryant led the Aces to their first state championship in 53 years. During the run, he averaged 30.8 points, 12 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 4 steals, and 3.8 blocked shots in leading the Aces to a 31–3 record. Bryant ended his high school career as Southeastern Pennsylvania's all-time leading scorer at 2,883 points, surpassing both Wilt Chamberlain and Lionel Simmons. During his senior year at Lower Merion, he received many awards for his outstanding skills. He was named Naismith High School Player of the Year, Gatorade Men's National Basketball Player of the Year, a McDonald's All-American, a first team Parade All-American and a USA Today All-USA First Team player. Bryant's varsity coach, Greg Downer, commented that he was a "complete player who dominates." He praised his work ethic, even as team's top player. In 1996, Bryant took the  singer Brandy to his senior prom . The 17 year old Bryant to make the decision to go directly into the NBA combing only the 6th player in NBA History to do so. The news was met with much publicity. His basketball skills and SAT score of 1080 would have made him admissible to any college that he wanted. He didn't visit any campuses officially. In 2012, Bryant was honored as one of the 35 Greatest McDonald's All-Americans. By the 1996 NBA Draft, he was in a new era. Before the draft, he worked out in Los Angeles. He scrimmaged against former Lakers players Larry Drew and Michael Cooper. According to then Lakers manager Jerry West, Kobe Bryant defeated these basketball players badly. The Lakers were looking to trade their starting center Vlade Divac for a player's draft rights to free up salary cap space to make an offer to free-agent center Shaquille O'Neal. Bill Branch, the Charlotte Hornets' head scout at the time, said that the Hornets agreed to trade their draft selection at #13 to the Lakers the day before the draft. Before the trade agreement, the Hornets never considered drafting Bryant. During the draft, the Lakers told the Hornets whom to select minutes before the pick was made.  Bryant was the first guard drafted directly out of high school. After the draft, the trade was put in jeopardy when Divac threatened to retire rather than be traded from Los Angeles. However, on June 30, Divac relented on his threat and the trade was made final on July 9, 1996, when the league's off-season moratorium ended. Since Bryant was still 17 at the time, his parents had to cosign his contract with the Lakers until he was able to sign his own when he turned 18 before the season began. Bryant signed a three-year rookie contract totaling $3.5 million.



There are many issues found in boxing. Boxing is filled with risks. Knocking a person unconscious of even causing a concussion, it may cause permanent brain damage. From 1980 to 2007, more than 200 amateur boxers and professional boxers plus Toughman fighters died due to ring or training injuries. Many medical associations including Dr. George Lunberg wanted a ban on boxing. Boxing is a sport where a victory is determined by hurting a person and causing a win by points or knockout. The 1997 American Association of Professional Ringside physicians was formed to create medical protocols via research and education to prevent injuries in boxing. Professional boxing was forbidden in Iceland, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and North Korea. Sweden banned it in 2007. Also, boxing training can contribute to fat burning, increased muscle tone, strong bones, strong ligaments, increased cardiovascular fitness, muscular endurance, improved core stability, more strength, stress relief, improved co-ordination, greater confidence, etc.

Joe Scarborough is truly a hypocrite. He has shown his ways of trying to lie about Sanders, but he wants some moderate to control the Democratic race. First, Castro made mistakes, but Joe is silent on Batista who was a brutal dictator. Why didn't Joe express angry at Barack Obama praising Cuba's educational system. Obama made normalizing relations with Cuba a reality. Joe seems to want the CIA to assassinate Castro decades ago when that is against international law.Obama was called a Communist and a Marxist, but Obama won 2 terms in office. Joe knows very little of the Soviet Union, because before the Soviet Union, Russia was a dictatorship with the czars (filled with pogroms, serfs being oppressed, and violations of liberties). The Soviet Union was wrong not because of socialism. They were wrong because of their authoritarianism, their suppression of democratic rights, and their over excessive militarism at the expensive of economic growth in their lands. Also, Joe doesn't realize that Communism isn't monolithic.

Joe wants to criticize socialism, but fails to mention that democratic socialism is the social democracy found in many nations of the world. Morning Joe and some in MSNBC care more about tokenism than revolutionary solutions. Joe made the disrespectful comment that people are not vetting candidates. The media and other places have vetted Bernie Sanders. There are many stories showing legitimate critiques about his campaigns. They always send out Al Sharpton out there. People aren't overly sensitive. People are tired of Bernie Sanders supporters being compared to Brownshirts, Nazis, and other evil people done by so-called journalists and TV commentators. This hasn't been from FOX News extremists, but by MSNBC hosts. We know which candidates the mainstream media wants. The question is how the voters will respond in the future. The voters have decided that we don't want a moderate. Buttegeig lying in saying that progressives want no inclusion or call people names. Criticizing policies is not calling people names. It is about standing up for truth.

By Timothy