I have had one Christian man inform me that after visiting A Crooked Path he felt dirty and in need of a shower. I have had other folks, Christians, inform me this place is too negative, or too religious, or too political, or too this, too that.

I was informed by the man who felt dirty and in need of a shower I needed to add more happy, upbeat, positive material here. Such is the view of someone who sees, opens, and reads only a narrow category or theme found here.

I understand. Yet each of those individual’s views reveals more about the condition and place of their hearts, their minds, their souls, and their individual experiences and place on this earth. Just as what is published here reveals mine. And I keep at this even though misunderstood as to the reasons why much of what is published here appears here. We all view things, everything according to our place in our earthly status, daily experiences, where we live, and especially regarding where we are in our walk with the Lord. Our spiritual growth and development, and our level of discernment. Our level of faith and where we place our priorities. On and in this world, or on and in the heavenly spiritual matters of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the whole inerrant infallible living Word of God.

Everything here is done from the sole position of merely being a watchman on the wall and crying out as to the signs of the times. The true nature of human nature, which is inherently evil and at enmity with God, in rebellion against God and all this talk and writing of good people needs to be understood in its proper context.

I subscribe to what the Scriptures declare in such clarity and plain speech that even a child can understand, while most adults, and even most pastors appear not to understand. There are no good people, no not, one, save for the Lord Jesus Christ who when He was on earth fully truly a man while also fully truly God was spotless, blameless, sinless, pure, holy, and truly good.

But no one else — no one else — is good by nature, by birth into the sinful human family;

“None is righteous, no, not one;
     no one understands;
    no one seeks for God.
 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;
    no one does good,
    not even one.”
 “Their throat is an open grave;
    they use their tongues to deceive.”
“The venom of asps is under their lips.”
    “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.”
 “Their feet are swift to shed blood;
     in their paths are ruin and misery,
 and the way of peace they have not known.”
     “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Romans 3:10-18

And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone.

Mark 10:18

Incredible the number of people that call themselves, think of themselves as good people when even the Lord they profess to be disciples of, thus not greater than the Master, declared Himself not good — though He was the only good person to have ever lived on earth, or to ever live on earth.

Why all the “I’m a good person, oh she is a good person, he is a good person” talk and belief? Because of deeds done? Money given. The tone of a person’s voice, what they do? How they may appear in front of you or others?

But I digress…

Perhaps coming upon something in the past, found in many places here, wherein I have written and will now reiterate, nothing published on ACP is done out of a political agenda. a political ideology — other than my continued mentioning I am a very conservative man who once was a very liberal man — and while content appears here that is always construed as political it is here to shed light, to those folks who might only turn to mainstream news, or no news at all, who only turn to information and current events provided to them by an utterly political ideology passing itself off as a journalistic outlet.

I publish, as in the article below, merely the signs of the times. No different than reading the sky and being able with more success than not in predicting the weather for the day, the night, and the next few hours.

With only the intent and purpose behind every item found here to reveal the spiritual warfare every person is enjoined in, and how the most important part of every person’s life, their spiritual self that goes on eternally is facing everyday decisions needing to be made in order to understand the times, see the signs, to persevere in the faith, be steadfast in the faith, to actually grow and strengthen in the faith of the Lord and the whole Word of God as a result of the escalating spiritual war raging before every person on earth.

I do not view things in the New Age [Pagan] driven lexicon and context of everything is either positive or negative, and that which a person doesn’t want to hear, see, face, admit, or consider and weigh, to think objectively and critically and rationally about is thus either being negative, or positive.

It may appear a great negative that at an intersection near you, there are an inordinate number of vehicle accidents, with even some people injured or even killed. And on the surface, it would appear that way — but once the reality is finally seen, by enough folks to actually take action and take the time, to invest what is necessary to install a large traffic signal in that intersection, accidents are greatly reduced, and lives are saved.

We cannot see, know, or understand what is required to do good, to appear to do good, and to be positive in our thinking and actions unless we acknowledge and understand, do what is required in facing and understanding the bleak things, the horrible things, the difficult things, the tribulation and suffering things of this life. What the New Age indoctrinated in their speech, writing, and thinking call being negative as reality and truth are to them what placing the same polarity of magnets near each other. The truth, reality is resisted, repelled similarly.

Anything of a current event nature, a historical nature that appears here is merely shedding light on a sign of the times. Some signs almost unnoticed and appearing subtle, nothing, others confronting us like having a thug appear and clobber us a good one in the gut, over the head.

But everything is leading, heading all of humanity to a specific time in world history, a result of all the prior actions, lack of actions, refusal to be truthful, honest, objective, ethical, moral, whether an individual responded to the touch of the Holy Spirit, the awareness of God and the truth of the Lord Jesus Christ — or if that individual loved its darkness, its lies like a cocoon encasing it, loving the deluded and sin-filled world more.

There is nothing to fear for the true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the true child of God, the true lover of the Word of God, and hater of what this world ultimately offers up.

Oh, such a beautiful, awesome, incredible world is it not? A wonderful world. Imagine what it was like, Paradise, Perfection, prior to our willful rebellion and disobedience that began to turn on the rotting process from within leading to the time the rot becomes so vast and consuming it all must be trashed and made anew.

For those who through the darkness, the muck and lies and distractions, the temptations and evil believed and remained steadfast.

Not feeling dirty, not in need of a shower, not living in such a state that in seeing, hearing the realities of life here they did not want to hide, deny, run from them, but could through the muck, the awfulness of it all as the rot escalates in the final days exactly as the pace of rot increases daily in a piece of fruit — nothing to fear for the faithful.

Except to displease the Lord.

But nothing to fear of this world as this world falls further, deeper into violence, confusion, lies, and the evil it has wrought and brings about daily by the true inherent nature of men, women, and yes, even children.

The world has so rapidly changed for the worse in such a short span of time most have not paid attention. Bring it to their attention and they recoil, deny, turn away, and refuse to accept and believe.

Exactly as every lost sinner refusing the truth does. Every single day, Every single night. Always preoccupied, always beating the drum of delusion within their ever darkening spirit and soul.

Is it any wonder, dear ones, and friends, is it any wonder why the daily reality is as it is and what the only course of action to truly remedy matters is neglected, not spoken or written about? Even by most professed Christian writers, speakers, and preachers? Who instead are as stuck in the tar pit of it’s all political, a certain worldly ideology, it’s purely cultural, always pointing an accusing finger in the direction of those who think differently than them in worldly terms and ways — never addressing the woeful state of the spirit and soul, never writing, speaking, preaching of the spiritual war, the spiritual and eternal aspects. Of heaven and hell.

Of the real reality — the spiritual realm.

As they almost all are mired, stuck, loving their positions in the temporal, vanishing world that appears real but will be rolled up like a scroll and forgotten forever.

Only the spiritual realm is reality.

Eternal.

The most neglected, mocked, refused to acknowledge part of man, of woman, of child.

Imagine that…

Now go take a shower if so inclined, well, after reading the article below…

…but it would be much better, eternally better, if first you cleansed yourself, made yourself clean in the belief and obedience of the shed blood of God Himself, the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and placed faith in Him and all His Word from the Beginning to the end in Revelation.

And if a professing Christian? Why is it so distressful, so revolting, so irritating to face the reality of the evil and sin of this world? When that validates daily every word within the Word. Ought to aid in increasing our being resolute and preparing for the times ahead so as to not get caught unawares, or unprepared. And I am convinced many professing faith are going to be caught unawares and unprepared and they will crumble and fall. Not having put on and kept on and maintained the whole armour of God daily, nightly, perpetually.

Perhaps in need of a wash in One Pure Spotless Blameless Person’s blood as well, rather than tip-toeing around faithfulness, belief, and attempting to have one’s cake while eating it too. Loving the world, putting more time in the pace of this world and all its distractions, delusions, and din to keep one from going someplace silent to face the reality within our individual souls as learned in going to God’s Word and having Him speak to us.

If not some truth to this, why then are we where we now find ourselves?

Nothing to fear due to politics, cultural shifts, and election outcomes. What appears as news.

Everything to fear with regard to the place an individual heart, spirit, soul, and mind find themselves before God, before the Lord Jesus Christ, before the Holy Spirit, and before the Word of God.

Ken Pullen, A CROOKED PATH, Tuesday, August 22nd, 2023

Violence-plagued schools hit reverse on post-George Floyd decisions to kick police off campuses

Sunday, August 20, 2023

By Matt Delaney 

Reprinted from The Washington Times

Political leaders who raced to kick police officers out of schools after the death of George Floyd three years ago are quietly bringing them back because of growing concerns about brawls, drugs and weapons on campuses.

Nearly three dozen school districts in the U.S. removed police officers from schools within a year after Floyd’s death in May 2020. Some of the nation’s largest school systems, including the Los Angeles Unified School District and Chicago Public Schools, slashed funding for police programs by as much as half.

Motivating many of the decisions was a perceived racial bias in campus police enforcement.

The American Civil Liberties Union cited 2017 data showing that non-White students had disproportionate interactions with in-school police and were more likely than their White counterparts to face legal troubles on school grounds. The activism unleashed after Floyd’s death prompted school systems in Oakland, California, Columbus, Ohio, and elsewhere to remove school resource officers, the formal name for the campus cops.

“The country was reeling from the George Floyd killing,” Jacque Patterson, an at-large member of the District of Columbia State Board of Education, told The Washington Times. “There’s a trigger there for many people who live in communities that are underserved or marginalized, and so that trickled into the schools itself.”

The void of campus police has been filled by disorder and violence. Without law enforcement, many districts have found wild fights, rampant drug use and an alarming number of guns and knives on school grounds.

School districts across the country that slashed campus police budgets have restored those funds for the upcoming school year.

“We were seeing a spike in the number of weapons coming into school, and we needed to take a proactive approach to addressing that,” Scott Baldermann, a member of the Denver Public Schools Board of Education, told The Times.

The impetus for Denver’s policy change was a March shooting at East High School.

Police said 17-year-old student Austin Lyle shot two administrators while being patted down for weapons. According to local reports, the teen agreed to the search because of past behavioral issues but fled the area and later killed himself.

Mr. Baldermann, who was part of the board’s unanimous vote to remove police from schools in 2020, led the charge in June to bring back a hybrid fashion of law enforcement.

The Denver school board has allowed the system’s superintendent to determine whether a police officer needs to be stationed at a given school. Under the board’s updated structure, elected officials craft policy limits but don’t micromanage day-to-day operations.

Denver’s reversal is similar to the about-face in the District of Columbia and neighboring school districts.

Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland voted to remove police from schools beginning in the 2021 school year. After a student shot a 15-year-old at Magruder High School in January 2022, the school board didn’t waste time revising the district’s relationship with police.

The Montgomery County school system’s new Community Engagement Officer program operates much like Denver’s. Police are dispatched from a central location as needed.

Alexandria City Public Schools in the Virginia suburbs made it only a few months into its officerless academic year before school administrators pleaded for police to return.

The school board and city council voted to remove cops from schools before the 2021-2022 academic year. Several incidents during the first two months of class, including the arrests of two students accused of bringing a knife and a gun to campus, influenced a reinstatement of resource officers.

Public schools in the District of Columbia are gradually winding down police presence. All resource officers are scheduled to be phased out of D.C. schools by 2025, regardless of a report from the D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety. The report said officers recovered 77 knives, 15 tasers and five guns at schools during the 2021-2022 school year.

Mayor Muriel Bowser has pushed for a restoration of funding for the school resource officer program in the past two budget cycles. Some school leaders say the D.C. Council’s refusal stems from ideological rather than practical reasons.

“It’s all about politics. I’m not going to lie to you,” Mr. Patterson told The Times. “I think a lot of times we try to act like politics don’t play a part in the decision-making of actual politicians.”

Mr. Patterson said council members are trying to navigate constituent groups adamantly opposed to police in schools. The State Board of Education member, who also serves as an executive for the KIPP DC college preparatory public schools, said local lawmakers are “making sure that we appear responsive to the entities that don’t want our SROs and not just arbitrarily reverse course.”

Still, he said, families living in areas most affected by the city’s crime issues were far more supportive of keeping cops in schools than those who live in safer areas.

Nationwide, parents are broadly in favor of school police programs, according to one trade association.

“Some of the feedback we were seeing on community surveys were parents, in large numbers, were saying they want the SROs,” Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, told The Times. “But some of the school boards, apparently, were so caught up in the activism, maybe they ignored that.”

Mr. Baldermann, the Denver school board member, said the community response to bringing police back to campus was “overwhelmingly supportive.”

He said police made fewer arrests and issued fewer tickets during the final two months of the past school year than in the 2019-2020 school year. Officers returned to campus after the East High School shooting.

Mr. Baldermann said the numbers of arrests and tickets before Floyd’s death were higher partly because school administrators asked school resource officers to handle incidents that others should have addressed.

Madison Metropolitan School District in Wisconsin removed school resource officers from their hallways in June 2020.

The state’s second-largest school system wanted to focus more on restorative justice by having practitioners build relationships with troublesome students and get to the root of their behavioral issues instead of trying to discipline them.

Eugenia Highland Granados, who works for the YWCA Madison, a nonprofit with restorative justice workers in three Madison middle schools, said keeping cops in schools creates a culture that “perpetuates punishment and fear and racism … all these systems of oppression.”

“There’s tons of research that shows how having a police officer in school disproportionately impacts students of color and the criminalization, arrests and violence toward the students of color,” Ms. Highland told The Times. “It’s key in the school-to-prison pipeline.”

A January survey on safety in Madison public schools found that some students, parents and teachers were concerned about fighting and drug use. Some respondents said students brought weapons onto campus with little or no consequences.

Ms. Highland said it’s hard to determine whether these sentiments are linked to shortcomings of restorative justice practices. To her, the hiring of only one justice worker per school isn’t enough to produce the change needed for a positive culture.