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U.S. diplomat attributes Bible verse to JFK
World Magazine ^ | 13 Sep 2013 | Emily Belz

Posted on 09/13/2013 6:12:45 PM PDT by Southern Partisan

Joseph Torsella, a U.S. representative to the United Nations, on Thursday delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly commemorating the 50th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy’s final speech to the UN. It was a routine statement, a speech honoring a speech.

But Torsella attributed something Jesus said to Kennedy.

He concluded his speech on Kennedy: “The very best way we can honor the extraordinary legacy of an extraordinary man is not to look back but to look ahead. To rededicate ourselves to his vision. To continue to answer his call in our time. To—as he said it better than any of us ever could—put our hands to the plow without looking back, and move the world to a just and lasting peace.”

Perhaps the first person to say that phrase said it better: Jesus, in Luke 9:62 (ESV), says, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Biblical phrases are common in the English language, and biblical literacy is so low broadly speaking, that it’s not surprising the U.S. Mission would attribute Jesus’ words to Kennedy.

But Kennedy, when he delivered the speech to the United Nations in 1963, attributed the phrase to the Bible.

“Let us complete what we have started,” Kennedy said. “For, ‘No man who puts his hand to the plow and looks back,’ as the Scriptures tell us, ‘No man who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”


TOPICS: Current Events; General Discusssion
KEYWORDS: bible; jfk; scripture; unitednations
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To: ansel12

That was a very long time ago, and another generation. I doubt that many of today’s Catholics revere JFK, and I suspect that few under they age of 50 know much of anything about him, or ever think of him. History has not, and will not be kind to Kennedy’s performance.


21 posted on 09/14/2013 4:37:39 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: ansel12

True enough. However, the clergy needs to repent. Teddy sent a letter to the Pope when he was heading out the door. No doubt a plea for mercy for a life lived in the sewer and without true repentance. God will judge, but judgement begins in the church. Allowing apostates like Kennedy, Kerry, Pelosi and a slew of others to claim affiliation with the holy church is a slap in the face of Christ. Responsible clergy needs to be ashamed and repent.


22 posted on 09/14/2013 4:47:59 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: trisham

Kennedy was to Catholic voters then as Obama is to black voters today.


23 posted on 09/14/2013 4:48:56 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: trisham

You should talk to some people under age 50, they worship the man and consider him to have been just what they have been taught to think he was, an heroic man, and an heroic president, and to the Catholics, we can see from the recent Ted Kennedy burial how respected he is as a Catholic leader.

JFK’s legend endures. Engage some random people under 50, and insult JFK, see if they come back at you with some shocked passion.


24 posted on 09/14/2013 4:57:07 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: WorkingClassFilth
Teddy sent a letter to the Pope when he was heading out the door. No doubt a plea for mercy for a life lived in the sewer and without true repentance.

There is no reason to do that, a pope gave Teddy his first communion and a Cardinal helped bury him, and some of that letter was read.

The Kennedy family has always served the Catholic church in the big political issues of power and immigration to reshape America from what it was before the Kennedys.

25 posted on 09/14/2013 5:01:48 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: ansel12
You should talk to some people under age 50, they worship the man and consider him to have been just what they have been taught to think he was, an heroic man, and an heroic president, and to the Catholics, we can see from the recent Ted Kennedy burial how respected he is as a Catholic leader.

JFK’s legend endures. Engage some random people under 50, and insult JFK, see if they come back at you with some shocked passion.

********************************

? I don't know who you're talking to, but no one that I know under the age of 50 or so has ever mentioned the man. Even the movie by Oliver Stone is too old for most people to recall well, and I doubt it ever comes to mind. The JFK fans are mostly gone.

26 posted on 09/14/2013 5:35:38 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: ansel12

The Kennedy family is corrupt to the core. To the degree that the church aligns itself with them is the degree to of its corruption, too. What hath light and dark to do with each other?


27 posted on 09/14/2013 5:42:23 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: ansel12

P.S. Our troubles today with out immigration are due to Ted’s 1968(?) Immigration Reform Act which shifted immigration emphasis from European and Western allied nations to those of the third world. Fine - at limited numbers. Today, we are reaping the whirlwind of unfettered flooding from non-Western nations and alien cultures at odds with our Judeo-Christian heritage.

Thanks, Ted.

Thanks, Kennedy legacy.


28 posted on 09/14/2013 5:46:47 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: trisham

Evidently I’m discussing presidents and politics with people under 50 different than you claim to be talking to. You evidently believe that it is a handful of senior citizens that keeps JFK constantly among the most popular presidents.

The movies, documentaries, TV shows, school book lessons, cultural references, articles and books on JFK have never stopped, especially around election time.

This year we will slews of them.

“”There are thoughtful TV shows planned about Kennedy, such as the National Geographic Channel’s “Killing Kennedy,” a two-hour film airing in November and starring Rob Lowe as JFK, Ginnifer Goodwin as Jacqueline Kennedy, Will Rothaar as Lee Harvey Oswald and Michelle Trachtenberg as Marina Oswald. PBS has a new two-part “American Experience” documentary, “JFK,” airing Nov. 11 and 12. And there will be many other films to come between now and Nov. 22.””


29 posted on 09/14/2013 6:40:39 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: WorkingClassFilth

The 1965 Immigration Act, JFK’s baby, passed on his death.

From unionizing government, to Vietnam, to the 1965 Immigration Act, JFK was the end of us.

“However, if there is one man who can take the most credit for the 1965 act, it is John F. Kennedy. Kennedy seems to have inherited the resentment his father Joseph felt as an outsider in Boston’s WASP aristocracy. He voted against the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, and supported various refugee acts throughout the 1950s. In 1958 he wrote a book, A Nation of Immigrants, which attacked the quota system as illogical and without purpose, and the book served as Kennedy’s blueprint for immigration reform after he became president in 1960. In the summer of 1963, Kennedy sent Congress a proposal calling for the elimination of the national origins quota system. He wanted immigrants admitted on the basis of family reunification and needed skills, without regard to national origin. After his assassination in November, his brother Robert took up the cause of immigration reform, calling it JFK’s legacy. In the forward to a revised edition of A Nation of Immigrants, issued in 1964 to gain support for the new law, he wrote, “I know of no cause which President Kennedy championed more warmly than the improvement of our immigration policies.” Sold as a memorial to JFK, there was very little opposition to what became known as the Immigration Act of 1965.”


30 posted on 09/14/2013 6:44:09 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: ansel12

I know that you’re smarter than that. I’ve seen your posts.


31 posted on 09/14/2013 6:47:08 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: trisham

I can’t believe your insistence to be ignorant, post 29 pointed out the absurdity of your strange claim.


32 posted on 09/14/2013 6:54:23 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: ansel12
I can’t believe your insistence to be ignorant, post 29 pointed out the absurdity of your strange claim.

*****************************

God bless you, friend.

33 posted on 09/14/2013 6:57:09 PM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
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To: ansel12

Discuss the issues all you want, but do not make it personal.


34 posted on 09/14/2013 6:59:38 PM PDT by Religion Moderator
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To: trisham
I forgot this was religion and/or that absurd and ignorance was so personal, but JFK is the favorite president of the under 50 crowd.

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_US_0915513.pdf

35 posted on 09/14/2013 7:28:00 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: trisham
Here is a Marist poll.

The young have clearly been extremely well indoctrinated on JFK, they have strong positive feelings on his presidency.

"President John F. Kennedy: His Legacy 50 Years Later, A Multi-Generational Perspective"

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

36 posted on 09/14/2013 7:52:08 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: ansel12

Yeah, what you said. My dates and attribution to the wrong Kennedy is inaccurate, but accurate. The Kennedy’s were, and still are, a blight on our nation and faith.

That said, there are some sound apples in their tree. It’s just those who rise to “public service” that are a pox. The church has never had the courage to deal with them squarely as Peter would have.


37 posted on 09/15/2013 5:18:41 AM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: WorkingClassFilth
The church has never had the courage to deal with them squarely as Peter would have.

We clearly disagree, I think that the Kennedys have done more for the Catholic church than any other American family, and that in return,m the Catholic church treats the Kennedys as Catholic royalty and loyal Catholics, an example to American members of the denomination to fight America as it was founded, and to turn it into something else entirely, something the left and the Catholic bosses want.

38 posted on 09/15/2013 8:03:58 AM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: ansel12

We’ll just have to disagree. No matter what the Kennedy’s might do (money or political effort) is not going to do it from a Biblical perspective. By that measure, I see no repentance and no form of Godliness in any of the political Kennedy’s. On that, I’ll rest my case.


39 posted on 09/15/2013 4:14:13 PM PDT by WorkingClassFilth (You hear it here first.)
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To: WorkingClassFilth

Read post 38 again, I have never said the Kennedys served God, they have served the American left and the Catholic church.


40 posted on 09/15/2013 5:19:00 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet. Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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