Author Archives

    Dennis Petersen

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    Christmas celebrations Controversy compels Christian considerations

    Let’s Quell the controversy over Christmas and its traditions.

    Every Christmas season many of us are confronted with various notions about the origins of Christmas and many cherished Christmas traditions. But what can we learn from the original writers of history itself about these controversial ideas?

    It’s been called “the most wonderful time of the year.”  Christmas for most of us has enjoyed a long history of traditions that make the heart of the winter season a rich time of festive celebrations.

    For many of us, growing up in America in the late 20th Century, our memories from childhood include the happy songs of Jingle Bells, Deck the Halls with boughs of holly, and “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas.”  There’s nothing wrong with any of that. When I was a child, singing Christmas songs like Silent Night and Joy to the World … around the piano with my grandmother… well, nothing could be more delightful to enthusiastic, ever-optimistic young children. Although Santa, for my generation, played a fairly significant part of the wide array of Christmas traditions… there was never the slightest thought that “the night before Christmas and all through the house…” was ever anything more than an amusing way of celebrating the ‘rest of the story’ that was more fully expressed when we sang “Joy to the world, the Lord is come” and “O Come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant.”  In fact, singing Christmas carols for our neighbors on cold winter nights in December will always be a treasured memory from childhood, through adolescence, and through college days as a young adult. We never lost sight of the real meaning of Christmas. And no one, that I can remember, ever behaved like a Scrooge or a Grinch that stole the heartbeat of Christmas, which was always about the birth of Jesus, 2,000 years ago.

    Many Christians today have lamented the fact that modern commercialized society has made Christmas into a highly secular time of year.

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    Let’s be sure our kids discover the Real Santa Claus

    by Dennis Petersen

    I wanted to write a personal little Christmas letter to all four of my dear kids and 10 grandkids.

    Would you agree that Christmas ought to be far more exciting than the ‘tinsel-town’ fluff that’s typically merchandized so heavily in our desensitized, fast-paced society?

    I wanted my own kids to get this clearly so they’d be able to help my grandkids to personally know the One for whom the original Santa Claus sacrificed his life… but you all might like to use it yourselves in sharing this Christmas season in a life-changing way with your own family. You could even gather your little ones around you to read this short review of how we got some of our Christmas traditions.

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    Americans Rediscovering their Covenant with God

    By Dennis Petersen

    Are you ready to help people rediscover America’s covenant with God?

    America’s people have been dumbed down deliberately by a secular and demonic agenda to make us all ignorant of truth, ignorant of common sense, ignorant of Scripture, and particularly ignorant of our own history.  We should all know the fact that God’s prophet clearly prophesied that His own people (“My people” He said) “are destroyed for a lack of knowledge” (Hosea 4:6). When we speak that message, it can be a prophetic wake-up call for those who might be listening closely to what we’re saying. But another problem is that many, in the true Ekklesia of God, lack the mature personal mentors who can coach them to be guided by the Holy Spirit.  We all need that guidance to discern what is true, and to learn from the events and lives of the past that are able to witness to the incredible grace and power of God.

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    Thanksgiving 4 Centuries after Our Pilgrims’ First Celebration #323

    November every year in America is historically a time of remembrance and Thanksgiving. What other culture in the world has a tradition like that?

    To better appreciate the roots of this special season for us as a people, let’s unravel the chain of events that helps us understand the implications of what led to the divinely innovative beginning of a whole new national identity.

    Nobody I know does that better than my friend Bill Federer – Listen as he describes parallels between the treacherous 16th century time of the Pilgrims and our time 400 years later.

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    Thanksgiving in America – a legacy worth reclaiming #316

     Dr Marshall Foster, the brilliant Christian historian, American patriot, and founder of the World History Institute, was a master teacher of the story of America’s brave pioneers. His remarkable documentary called “Monumental,” produced in collaboration with patriot actor Kirk Cameron, is a profound telling of one of the best kept secrets among the historic places in the story of the birth of the American nation.

    Two years before he died, Dr Foster wrote a brief summary of some of the providential events in the story that 21st century families seldom know about the people that inspired the tradition of American Thanksgiving. It was published in the March/April 2019 issue of the World History Institute as “The Pilgrims: The Untold Story.” See it at: https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.cloversites.com/7b/7b1202d0-06c2-40f6-b287-4071ddc76a28/documents/Mar-Apr_2019_v1r2-singles.pdf

    All of Dr Foster’s journal issues are archived at World History Institute | Journals or https://worldhistoryinstitute.com/free-downloads/journals

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    Our Personal Quest to Reclaim a Legacy of Thanksgiving #367

    by Dennis Petersen

     A lot has been researched and written about the proven personal benefits of living with a habit of expressing genuine gratitude.  It turns out that thankfulness is not typically a result of being happy, but rather, the opposite is true.  People who deliberately and openly confess their thankfulness to others are the happiest of people.  And isn’t it interesting that those who recognize that their lives have a purpose are the ones who are prone to give thanks to their Creator and to those around them.

    Have you discovered your purpose?  Do you have a clear reason why you’re excited to get up in the morning?  If you have a mission to drive your daily goals, you’re a much happier person than those being driven by just a survival mode.

    America is a nation of people with a centuries-old tradition of celebrating annual solemn days of Thanksgiving.  Yet, it seems that our current generation has almost no concept of the deeply personal conviction of the crucial importance of gratitude.  And it’s pretty obvious that that gratitude should most deservedly be directed to the Almighty Giver of every blessing and perfect gift in our lives.

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    Tyranny or Liberty – the Choice is Yours

    True Christians Obey God, Resist Corrupted Governors & Influence Their Nation for Good

    Why, in 1620, did the little congregation of Pastor John Robinson’s English Christ-followers, whom we call Pilgrims, risk their lives, leaving their native land of England, to become unintended pioneers of an untamed wilderness in North America?  In a word, the motivation was tyranny – Religious tyranny.

    Why, in 1776, did 30% of the British colonists in America risk their lives to declare what no people on earth had ever done to resist the ruler who dominated their private lives? Again, their motivation was tyranny – tyranny of their conscience by a greedy monarchy, preventing productive, law-abiding, God-fearing families from common natural rights.

    The Role of Tyranny in God’s Providential History

    Tyranny is a powerful motivator. It naturally evokes our human emotions to resist. In the 4,000 plus years since the Great Flood, almost a thousand generations of humans have experienced the rise of hundreds of tyrants.  Only among God’s chosen people, descending from Abraham, has the human family seen a divine pattern of human government! It began with Moses. It was able to inspire the Christian founders of America to form a model of human government like no other in all history.

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    The Most High God raises up kings and takes down kings

    The entire world of humanity witnessed one of the most pivotal events in history on January 20th 2025.  That reality of what began to happen then was well-expressed in the opening remarks of Donald Trump’s first address to our nation, eight minutes after taking his oath of office as the 47th President of the United States of America.

    TRUMP: “The golden age of America begins right now!” (applause) From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will very simply put America first.

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    Could celebrating Halloween be spiritually dangerous?

    By Dennis Petersen
    “Test all things; hold fast to what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:21-22

    Have you noticed how, even before October begins, when the pumpkin decorations start rolling out in the stores, that the dark side of the celebration becomes more obviously evil every year?

    Did you know that the word Halloween can be translated as holy night? But holy for whom? What happens when a night meant to be sacred is hijacked by rituals of death and darkness?

    The word Halloween comes from something that sounds sacred. It means ‘All Hallow’s Eve,’ meaning the evening before All Saints Day. In the medieval Christian calendar, November 1st was chosen to honor believers who had died as martyrs. The night before became known as the eve of this holy day. When church leaders chose November 1st for All Saints Day, that date was already marked by ancient peoples across Northern Europe. It was a time for rituals far older than any Christian observance. The church tried to overlay a holy remembrance on top of existing pagan celebrations.


    All Saints’ Day, also known as All Hallows’ Day, originated in the early Christian Church as a memorial day for martyrs who were executed for their faith in Jesus by pagan governments, like the Roman Empire. The first known collective celebration occurred in the 4th century. Early believers had reverence for martyrs like the Apostle John’s disciple, Polycarp.  His celebrated model of faithfulness was documented in a written report called the “Martyrdom of Polycarp,” written shortly after his execution in AD 155.  The observance of All Saints Day was moved to November 1st by Pope Gregory III in the mid-8th century when it became a universal holy day (from which we get the word ‘holiday’ which is a festival or feast day).

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    Josiah – Boy King – a model of bold humility

    By Dennis Petersen

    Did you ever discover something you didn’t know that made a big change in your life?

    Have you ever heard of a boy named Josiah?

    He lived over 2600 years ago.  He was only 8 years old when his extremely evil father (King Amon of Judah) was assassinated in his own house by his royal servants after only 2 years of being king of Judah.  Amon had followed in the grossly sinful footsteps of Josiah’s grandfather, King Manasseh. During his 55-year reign, Manasseh seduced a whole generation of God’s people to do more evil than the idol-worshipping Canaanites that the LORD destroyed by Israel’s armies in prior generations. Despite the 29-year flourishing of their people under Manasseh’s father, King Hezekiah, the people of Judah under Manasseh, followed his evil abominations to do more wickedly than God’s wicked enemies, the Amorites. They followed after immorality and idolatry that secularized the people of Israel under false gods. (2 Kings 21:2, 9, 11).

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