John Howard Morgan

Today I naively attended a BLM public hearing on its “proposed” new venting and flaring rules for oil and gas producers. I assumed the agency was there to hear a balanced input from the community. What happened was an orchestrated and colluded three ring circus between the BLM and every liberal, socialist environmentalist freak show they could attract from Durango, Santa Fe and Albuquerque. They played tricks with moving rooms to weed out some of the pro-production crowd, and then they stacked the speakers list with the wacko crowd for so long that very few could stay into the evening hours to continue listening and being heard. It was infuriating to watch mid-level Washington D.C. functionaries playing this charade in their march to impose another round of government anti-carbon job-destroying overreach on us.

“Abolish the BLM,” is my new mantra. Good hardworking American workers have no chance in the arenas of these rigged government “hearings.” The only way we can win is by winning the battle at the ballot boxes and in public opinion by getting the truth out there. So, here is the statement that I was prepared to make but was unable to because of the way they drag these things out. I submitted it to the BLM in writing and I will seek to get it out there. Feel free to share it you like it.

Statement to BLM Hearing on Natural Gas Flaring Restrictions

February 16, 2016

My name is Rev. Dr. John Morgan. I am the senior pastor of Pinon Hills Community Church here in Farmington, New Mexico. We have a constituency of 2,500 members and attenders and a broader coalition of many like-minded evangelical churches in the Four Corners and around the country.  My areas of study have been Theology, Philosophy, Political Economy and Leadership. I’d like to express my views in three major points.

#1. From a Christian theology point of view, we have to balance three things: God created us to create and produce things that make life better (Genesis 1:27), we are supposed to be good stewards of the environment (Genesis 1:28) and all productive work creates some messes. Proverbs 14:4 says, “Where there are no oxen, the stall is clean.” In other words all productive work creates some messes. So the question is whether the good we gain from the productive work of oil and gas production is worth the messes we are making in the process. Specifically the question is whether venting and flaring natural gas is acceptable within this balance of producing better lives and causing a tolerable degree of mess. This room is full of people who will be on both sides of that question. Of course some are on the extreme side of letting oxen make all the messes they want with no responsibility to clean it up. And others are on the extreme side of killing all oxen everywhere because they want no messes at all.

#2. My view is that natural gas flaring is a tolerable mess for the good that oil & gas production gives us. This is especially true during this time when the central government is overreaching to kill carbon based energy. The problem with this policy is that it threatens the livelihoods of everyone: those who gain their livings from private employment and those who gain their livelihoods from government employment or government entitlement. Killing the wealth of our nation due to centralized destruction of industry is ruinous to the national moral fabric and to our national security. So I believe the best policy is for the BLM to withdraw its new proposed venting and flaring rules.

#3. However, if the American people believe that natural gas venting and flaring is too damaging to the environment or too wasteful of a natural resource, then the best policy would be to solve it with good political and economic principles. The most important political principle is freedom and the most important economic principle is opportunity to create. So if the American people agree to end flaring, then they should do so by offering incentives to those who solve it. Fast track drilling approval on BLM lands to companies who will solve flaring. Give tax incentives and royalty discounts to companies who will solve their current flaring practices. This solution would maximize the values of environmental protection, freedom, and the productivity that creates wealth for both the private sector and the public sector. Those who would oppose this would be exposing their commitment to the extreme positions of out of control oxen or killing all the oxen of production.

One final point. The second most important political principle is accountability. The BLM should not be legislating a law of such scope and consequence because it is not accountable to the people. If this is the will of the people it should come through the accountable legislature. It will experience the approval or the wrath of the people at the ballot box where charades are hard to manufacture.

Source: A Christian Vision of Civilization

The vision of Christianity is salvation and civilization.

Salvation is for the individual soul to find rest in God and life in him for eternity.

Civilization is for societies to find peace among their people and with other societies here on earth.

To be civil with one another is to grant to others the same values and rights that God grants to everyone. First, all people are of high value as persons because they are created in the image of God. Second, all people are the focus of God’s redemptive love and potentially redeemable. Third, all people are granted moral choice by God. We can love God, hate God, or deny that he exists. God gives us the choice and he does not violate the boundaries of our personhood by forcing himself on us. God is not a rapist. God is love and that requires us the freedom to choose whether to love him or to reject him. So faith, in Christianity, by definition, is a free choice.

Since faith is a free choice and since some will freely choose to not accept God and since they still retain value as God’s created image-bearers and since they are still potentially redeemable until they die, the Christian vision of civilization is true pluralism. I am not talking about the false perverse pluralism of modern academia where we talk about your truth and his truth and my truth, as if there are many truths that are contradictory of each other. That is nonsense. No one really lives that way. I am talking about true pluralism where we honestly disagree on what the truth is, yet we treat each other with basic human dignity and respect, the way God treats us.

Then there are those who reject basic principles of civilization. They deny human value, human redemption and human freedom. In the least, they are totalitarian. In the worst, they are blood-thirsty murderers. The latter is the case with the barbaric uncivilized ISIS State.

Christianity has been at the forefront of working for civilization at its highest levels that are represented in the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The moral certainty of Christianity to shape civilization for good led America to take leadership roles in World War I and World War II while the growing atheist culture of Europe left it less spiritually armed to fight against its physical enemies.

Now America is led by a president that has out-Europeaned the Europeans in his liberal philosophies. And he is a product of America losing a critical mass of people with a Christian worldview who vote. So, we find ourselves in a strange place.

The barbarians are at the gates of western civilization and France, which was liberated from Nazi Germany in World War II by Americans who were morally certain, has to step up as the leader in the fight for its survival.

America is dithering because its president is morally uncertain about the fight because it involves war. He is only certain about his liberal ideas that morally certain Christianity is the enemy, that supporting Islam is a great way to stick it in the eye of Christianity and promote his brand of multi-truth pluralism and that the long arc of history bends towards justice.

Young Christians are even dealing with the moral uncertainty of fighting for civilization because they have been raised on multi-truth pluralism in our culture and on the religion that Jesus is a happy pill in their churches. They have easy-belief salvation and three steps to a better self image but no biblically grounded Christian vision of civilization.

A true pluralistic coalition of people from various philosophies, cultures and religions can and must join together and defeat ISIS. Christians should be at the front of that fight because we have a godly heritage of fighting barbarism because it denies every divine purpose for humanity. Christians should lead through their vision of civilization which blesses everyone.

This morning I gave the opening address to our Christian School, Pinon Hills Academy, to kick off the school year.

To the parents: Christianity has been the most important influence on literacy and education worldwide for the last 1,000 years. The university system was created in Europe by Christianity. The motto of Oxford University, which was founded by the Church, is Dominus Illuminatio Mea or “The Lord is my Light.” It is the first phrase of Psalm 27:1. It is a confession that God is the source of all knowledge and all truth is God’s truth. So your investment in your children’s education will provide a spiritual and intellectual foundation that your children will draw on for the rest of their lives.

To the students: God knows you are here and God has important things for you to do in your life. But, you will need certain tools to do those important things. You will need things in your heart, like faith. And you will need things in your mind, like knowledge and skill. So study hard this year. You will have a lot of fun here at Pinon Hills Academy, but it is also important that you study hard to be ready for what God has for you to do.

To the teachers: Love your students. Pray for your students. Demand important things of your students. Demand that they obey you. Demand that they show you respect. Demand that they do their best work for you.

We are creating leaders here that will change the world. So let’s have a great year.

Prayer: Lord, bless these students this year that they may grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Amen.

Help! I have written a children’s book to use with the Christian communities that we train around the world who have a need to escape poverty and gain the resources they need to support their families and their ministries. The training program is called The Prosperity Project, International and the children’s book is called I Can Do That!: How Mia, Sanjay and Joseph Escaped Poverty.

The book is about three children who live in poverty in a developing country. The story is about how they learn the three core principles that are rooted in the Bible about how to create, own and grow prosperity. Then the story follows the children as they grow up and follow their individual paths to create, own and grow prosperity.

I need a publisher and an illustrator. Ideally, I would like a publisher to pick up this book and publish it and help connect the right illustrator to this project. Another route is to contract with an illustrator then to self-publish this book.

If you have a contact that could help, please let me know.

Mr. Obama just got pantsed at the Persian Bazaar, the same way British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain did at the German standoff in 1938. God help us if the results are similar.

On September 30, 1938, British PM Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Pact along with Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and French Premier Daladier. The Pact gave a militarily and economically strategic portion of Czechoslovakia to Hitler after he had bullied his way into it and annexed it. Our ambassador to Great Britain, Joseph Kennedy, supported the plan to appease the aggression of Hitler. In contrast, the Member of Parliament Winston Churchill could see the writing on the wall and he opposed it. We have a standoff between the Chamberlain/Kennedys versus the Churchills again, and for the same essential reasons.

Mr. Obama and five nations, of which Russia and China are part, signed an agreement with Iran that gives them massive concessions and protections and opportunities to grow their nuclear technologies, their war machine, their economy and their regional power. This was done despite Iran’s aggression, deception, expansion and stated purposes of annihilating Israel, dominating the Middle East and defeating America. This was also done in spite of the fact that this agreement leaves our most important allies in the region, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Afghanistan, flapping in the wind and exposed to the aggressions of Iran.

On September 9, 1939 Hitler invaded Poland. That began World War II. The death toll was six million Jews systematically murdered and sixty million souls lost to war-related causes.

Mr. Obama has justified his position on the false argument that the only options were peaceful negotiations or war. There was another way and that was the coercive negotiations and sanctions that were working. Instead Obama naively gave away the store or the Persian leaders shrewdly pantsed our president who was too eager to appease the aggressors.

Mr. Obama also argued that future presidents would have the exact same options that he has of war if that iss necessary in the future. Really? Future presidents will face an Iran that has expanded nuclear capabilities, expanded conventional war capabilities, expanded economic capabilities and expanded regional power and a greater thirst for more. There may not be future coercive negotiation possibilities and if war is necessary it could be at a catastrophic cost. Mr. Obama has appeased the monster on the bet that the monster will become tame and he has done so with the help of two countries who are not our friends; China and Russia.

What kind of man would do such a thing? In the worst case, an evil man who has colluded with evil. In the middle case a man so drunk with ambition that he will take a wild gamble on the chance of a game-changing legacy. In the best case a naïve man who is ignorant of the reality of evil.

Evil appeased grows and in time it demands a greater price. The time is now for American leaders with moral clarity and courage to rise up, hike their pants up and hit evil straight on with unwavering opposition.

PARCC or CRAPP? I’m For Freedom

By John H Morgan   March 3, 2015

I have good friends who are students, parents, teachers and administrators on both sides of the debate over the college and career readiness testing that is going on now in the public schools to meet the Common Core standards. On that topic and many others, I’m for freedom. I base that on several principles.

First, I believe freedom from unnecessary coercion by the state or any entity is a basic human right that is given to us by God. It allows us to live our lives following His leadership. Those who co-opt freedom try to take the place of God in our lives.

Second, I believe in defusing power away from central control because fallen human nature drives corruption wherever human power is concentrated. So, I am for taking power away from Washington D.C. and from Santa Fe and putting it into the hands of local communities and specifically, parents.

Third, I believe competition drives innovation and cost reduction. It does everywhere it exists. It is the power that has driven American ingenuity and competitiveness.

So, I believe parents should be able to choose whether they believe their children and school systems are better off with or without the PARCC testing and to act accordingly. In fact, I would challenge all parents to keep moving forward on the principles of freedom, personal choice and competition and revolutionize education in New Mexico by demanding a school choice voucher system.

A voucher system would give all parents from the poor to the rich equal choice to send their children to schools that had the academic philosophies and testing strategies of their choice. They could choose the schools that evaluated teacher performance by the methods of their choice. Teachers and administrators could choose careers in the schools that had the environments and opportunities of their choice.

The same principles should apply to healthcare. Every user and provider of healthcare should be free to participate in the state monopoly of requirements by Obamacare or to opt out of it to freedom in their healthcare choices. All insurance companies, doctors, hospitals and drug companies should have a choice to opt out into a system of freedom. Those who prefer the socialist model could live the socialist model. Those who prefer the freedom model could live in freedom.

Isn’t funny how those who deny freedom for themselves want to control the system for everyone? They demand that everyone financially pay for their system of coercion? Doesn’t it make sense that people should be free from coercion?

We are choosing that our daughter participate in the PARCC testing. We believe that the testing is good for her and we want to see how she does. We are encouraging her to do her best. Someday she may take an oral exam or have to write a thesis or take a state bar exam, which are not easily done. For sure she will face many very difficult tests in life. So we choose to have her take these tests. However, our preference would be to have a voucher to send her to a school that had even more rigorous academic philosophies and practices along with training in a Christian worldview of faith, freedom and prosperity. We would love for her to be educated in freedom and to become an advocate for freedom.

We Need a Patriot in the Oval Office

By John H Morgan   February 1, 2015

American Sniper, the film about Chris Kyle and his four tours of duty in Iraq, shows the nature of warfare, the nature of human nature and the nature of peace through strength.

Warfare is barbaric. It always has been. And it shows the depth of human depravity. From the earliest records of warfare, the objective has been to win. Each culture sets its limits of what it will or will not do to win. Some will seek to protect non-combatants. Some have no moral boundaries at all. But regardless of the rules of engagement, the objective of winning requires killing a sufficient amount of an enemy to subdue him and his people. Most who engage in a war of aggression or defense seek the most efficient route to winning the spoils they want or protecting what they have.

There will always be war because there will always be aggressors because human nature is fallen. Aggressors who initiate war may or may not have any limits to their barbarism. General Patton was excoriated for slapping and demeaning a wounded soldier in World War II for his “cowardice.” The American sensibilities saw that as abusive. Other cultures view that behavior as a picnic compared to how they treat their own warriors much less what they are willing to do to the enemy. American Sniper shows a scene of an Al Qaida enforcer torching and killing a man’s young son out in the street in front of him and all his neighbors with a drill. The film The Patriot showed a scene of a British officer shooting and killing Benjamin Martin’s son in front of him and his family for rushing him. It was the outrageous act that moved Benjamin Martin to become a militia leader.

There will always be war and there will always be those who are willing to go to almost any extreme act of barbarism to win their desired prize over others, whether it is real estate, wealth, power or world domination. Peaceful people do not like war but they have to face the reality that war exists and evil people exist and they have to be ready to protect their peace through strength. History is filled with examples of peaceful naïve people becoming the sheep who got slaughtered by aggressive warriors. The Jews of Europe were naïve and shocked all the way to the gas chambers of the Nazis. Neville Chamberlin, the British prime minister, was naïve in thinking that appeasement with Hitler was going to preserve peace for Great Britain in 1938. Thank God Britain had a man of peace with a warrior’s spirit in Winston Churchill who stepped up to that moment of history.

From the time of Solomon, who armed Israel with the most advanced weapon systems of his time, which were Egyptian chariots, warhorses, and warriors, to modern times, those who prepare for war with the strength of a warrior’s spirit and the most advanced weapons systems are the ones who preserve peace against the endless stream of evil human aggressors. As John Bolton, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations has correctly said, “Weakness is provocative.” Weakness is provocative because it encourages the evil aggressor to attack with the promise of an achievable victory. Strength is a repellant because it discourages the evil aggressor with the promise of a painful cost.

Our president has foolishly cut the U.S. military budget to transfer large amounts of the government’s spending to social welfare entitlement programs. He has withdrawn from opposing aggressors in Iraq, Syria and the Ukraine. He is pursuing an appeasement strategy with Iran who is working toward creating a nuke to destroy Israel. And Israel is only the proxy for democratic Europe and America. He portrayed himself as a warrior who calls drone strikes and approved the SEAL raid on Bin Laden. The truth is that he is an appeaser who is exposing America to the barbarian warriors of the world.

Chris Kyle was a good warrior who opposed evil aggressors and advanced peace. His story exposes the current truth that this war is not over and we will not win it until we have a patriot who defends peace with a warrior’s spirit in the Oval Office. History is calling again.