Samuel Rodriguez

Samuel Rodriguez

president, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

The "On Faith" panelist is a well-known evangelist, author and founding pastor of Third Day Worship Centers. He was born in Newark, N.J., and grew up in Bethlehem, Pa. He attended Penn State University and graduated from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor's degree in education. He earned a Master's degree in educational leadership from Lehigh University. He's also a graduate of Bethany Bible Institute. Ordained by the Assemblies of God at the age of 23, he was elected to oversee the Assemblies of God Hispanic Youth Ministries for the 17 states in the Northeast and Mid Atlantic Region. In 1997, Rodriguez assisted in a church planting initiative where he founded and provided pastoral oversight to churches in Pennsylvania and New York City. In August 2000, the Assemblies of God invited Samuel to speak at the World Pentecostal Congress, Celebration 2000, in the RCA Dome in Indianapolis. In the spring of 2001, he helped start the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, which is affiliated with the National Association of Evangelicals. He is a regular speaker for Promise Keepers, the Assemblies of God, other organizations and a regular contributor to Ministry Today, Outreach, Connexion, and Enrichment Journal. He lives in Sacramento, California with this three children and his wife of 18 years, Eva. Eva is the Senior Pastor of an Assemblies of God Church, Christian Worship Center Close.

Samuel Rodriguez

president, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

Rev. Samuel Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. more »

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Moral Imperative as a Postscript

We do have a moral imperative to stay in Iraq until we secure peace.

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All Comments (25)

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Garyd:

Okay LL what do you think would have happened after Saddam suffled off this mortal coil? I mean the Sunnis didn't even like his kids. Who would. One could argue that Saddam really wasn't a sadist he just did what he thought necessary to maintain power. But by all accounts both of his sons were sadistic little perverts without apparently enough sense to control their bizarre appetites. This is not a combination guaranteed to provide one a long ruler ship.

So what happens next? You think Al queada wouldn't make a try for the place?

melinda:

Dear God,
I am to You forever grateful for Your Creation. You placed Your eternal Hand upon the Earth and created Man. You have created him of every tongue and race, and gave him the capacity to grasp at least some of the vast multiplicity which You precisely engineered.
Thank You, Lord, for bringing us together tonight to celebrate both our achievements and those individuals who have helped lead us to this level of accomplishment.
Also, lest we forget about You in the midst of our individual successes, I ask You impart in us an understanding and remembrance of Your omnipresent power and might.
Lord, I pray that You guide, protect and bless us.
I give You all praise and honor for Your Creation, for Your love, for Your mercy, and for the life that You proffer to us daily. In Jesus Christ's Name, Amen.

Prayer in Jeremy Jerschina's Valedictory Address he was NOT ALLOWED to give.

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LL:

Sure, Gary, sure.

Keep telling yourself that.

Garyd:

The worst we did was bring it on 5 - 10 years early Saddam's death would have almost certainly resulted in the same sort of macabbre death dance that is going on now only without us being in position to affect the outcome.

Anonymous:

"Such obligation requires us to leave Iraq secure with hope for a future."? How do we go about doing this? We have unleashed a radical religious civil war. What hope can we give Iraq?
This is like saying the British should have intevened in the US civil war.

Garyd:

Actually nearly 13 years. No peace treaty was ever signed ergot the war did not end. I'm using historical definitions Not leftist mumbo jumbo. For instance for much the same reason we are still technically at war with Korea though even less shooting has happened there than happened between the ceasefire with Iraq and Bush's election. Simply put what part of purposely dropping bombs on a foreign country isn't an act of war.

Every major intelligence network believed Saddam had WMD or was trying to acquire them after all until the very end Saddam himself indicated as much.

3. Because if you can't prove the argument you shouldn't make it.

Fallucination:

Misanthropisms? Oh, a joke.

Gary D:

Your counters to the "leftists" arguments are not valid, as they make too many presumptions.

1. Did the war really go on a decade? I think you're using some sort of folksy definition; folksy definitions have only a small role in determining the legality or illegality of elected officials' actions. I mean, do you at least see the de facto difference in the state of belligerence between the US and Iraq after Bush II came into power?

2. What overwhelming evidence from around the world? Cite the counterpoint, don't just say something sweeping.

3. Why?

The Editor:

Tenants should be tenets in that first sentence. Misanthropisms drive me up the freaking wall. ;-)

GAryd:

Well its nice to see that the negative impact of Bushaphobia on leftists intellects still continues unabated.

A few questions clowns:

1.Given that the war with the Regime of Saddam Hussein had gone on for more than a decade before GWB took office and it was legal under both his predecessors how can it now be illegal if he fights it?

2.Precisely how is going with the overwhelming majority of the evidence from all over the world cherry picking?

3. Prove that it was about money or about Oil. War was totally and completely illogical if we were only in it for the money or the oil.

Leftists, sheesh.

Diane:

"faulty intelligence" ?

Sammy, Sammy, Sammy the "intelligence" was manufactured and cherry picked. We were mislead by those in power.

The only imperative that ever countted was to make a lot of money. There never was a moral imperative at all.

EvilPostBasher:

This is such a bogus argument it's remarkable the stink doesn't come through the monitor screen.

Absolutely disgusting that this writer could claim that the U.S., after killing half a million Iraqis through its own brand of "making things right" with bombs and guns, has a "moral imperative" to stay. More like a financial imperative. More like a hegemony imperative. More like an imperialist imperative. You complete ass, Rodriguez.

The U.S. never intends to leave Iraq, so that's what this bought-off little HoPo booty-shaker is hired to put a gloss on.

Of all disgusting things, a MORAL, RELIGIOUS gloss on an oil grab. One has to wonder whose silk-and-cashmere so-bright angle idea this was. Probably a lot of help from Miz Karen of Dubya House.

This stinks so high it's practically the new incense.

Bert:

This is EXACTLY the kind of thing that's wrong with the country today, in my view. One reason for your support of the Iraq war is that it's become VERY lucrative for, yes, Mexico. Why/how?
Because you take poor people from Mexico, instead of off of america's streets, take them basically off the streets of Mexico, promise them lots of money, dress them up in uniforms, and send them off to Iraq, and they'll shoot anyone you tell them to, constitution, laws of war etc. be damned.
Bush made it so that you only have to serve in the military for ONE DAY to become a US citizen,
and that's not the only place he's been fiddling.
Money, machine guns, AND citizenship?!?!?! Who can say no? Who, indeed.

If you really want to exercise moral imperatives, how about taking direct issue with the corporate interests who are doing all the heavy breathing to basically take over Iraq, and putting a cork in their greed? Referring back to our notes, both Bush, and Cheney are oilmen. Yes, THAT stuff. Pe-to-leum. Mmm, hm. Yeah. I've got your moral imperative. In my PANTS.

In my view, Iraq is pretty much a story about a Pentagon gone runaway, corruption on an almost incomprehensible scale, and a breach of good faith with the american public in general, the employment of mercenaries, itself a morally questionable practice, and the common denominator for the entire mess remains petroleum, and the shady motives and blatant avarice of the people who want to seize control of as much of it as possible. Why, you ask? Simple. That there oil is Black Gold, Texas Tea, money in the bank, in so many words, and people WILL kill for money. That's what a mercenary is, that's what a mercenary does. Do we want An Army Of Mercenaries? No thanks.

So, if we're going to start talking about moralizing, then let's DO pull that Bible off the shelf, and page over to where it talks about serving god, and serving mammon. Oh, and then we can get into a long, and convoluted discussion about the systemic and decades-long advancement of corruption and political ambitions within the walls of the Church. For dessert, we can go on and on about Geneva Conventions, laws of war,
and the whole 9 yards, and letting a walking, talking conflict of interest like Dick Cheney start a foreign war so that his oil company can cash in big, not just off oil sales, but also off the US taxpayer like there's no tomorrow.

National Hispanic Whatever, your motives are pretty painfully apparent, and if you had any self-respect, you'd close the doors on your propaganda factory for good.

For shame, sir, please take off your collar, and go re-earn it at a seminary.

Boscobobb:

You start with the assumption that "we", by which you mean the US, can actually do anything useful. My, aren't WE important and omniscient!

I suggest you consider that we may have a stronger moral imperative to consider that by leaving we can more quickly secure peace. We are the irritant. We are also alien to the Sunni-Shia-Kurd traditions. We certainly have no proven competence in negotiating Shia-Sunni issues. To date this assumption has been demonstrably proven false. Perhaps it's time for us to empower the Iraqis to face their own dilemma. This choice, one you have not considered, removes our sense of omnipotence masquerding as moral imperative.

lespool:

YOU are morally obligated to stop using morality as a guise to religiously crusade on befalf of Christendom.

Olav Smith:

But can't you see that your plea of a moral imperative to secure the peace simply plays into the hands of an administration that started an unjust and illegal war for their own ulterior motives? We have no moral standing in Iraq. How can we pretend to? And how can a Christian of any sort but the name-only variety advocate for the continuation of the occupation? What kind of "peace" can an occupation army dictate? In your kind of Christianity, you're advocating a Pax Americana that hearkens back to the Pax Romana of old. Can the Empire ever see itself as "just" in the midst of its blatant expansion of imperial power? And just where does Jesus fit in on the side of the Empire in such a scenario, except to go weaponless amongst the people and beseech them to love one another until he is murdered by the war mongers? I see no real peace in your "euphemistic" peace.

Tom Keller:

Is there really any reason to believe the United States can, in any way, contribute anything to the cause of peace in Iraq? We must look at this question honestly before we commit our selves -- and the men and women of our armed forces -- to staying in the middle of the anarchy that exists in Iraq, anarchy we very well may not be able to address in any positive way even though we are responsible for releasing it.

Robin Barr:

Beyond the morality of leaving a dangerously unstable Iraq lies the morality of what we are doing to the men and women soldiers of this country who continue to sacrifice themselves for this most uncertain cause. Is it moral to send troops into a country when their presence is as likely to provoke violence as it is to bring peace?

Garyd:

How else was he going to end a war that by the Time He took office had been going on for a decade and in which the shooting had already restarted.

Oh and peace in Iraq is by any rational thought something the Iraqis must eventually secure for themselves and their posterity. We can help if they will let us but we cannot do it for them. The most we can do rght now is buy them the necessary time to get their act together.

taildrag:

Moral imperative or no, I don't know anybody who thinks "we" will secure peace in Iraq. Where does that leave us, deciding when to leave if peace is not secured?

We lost our moral authority, courtesy of the Commander in Chief, when he unilaterally decided to invade and occupy Iraq.

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