Frank E Cook Jr

Disciple. Husband. Father. Grandfather. Memphis native, sort of. Retired ops and finance executive, mostly in nonprofits. BS, US Naval Academy. MBA, Stanford.

[Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFree]

One of the most troubling trends in Christian discourse today is the willingness to treat every theological disagreement as if it were heresy. Instead of engaging the biblical argument, too many people immediately move to accusation, slander, and guilt by association. If someone disagrees with them on Israel, the covenants, or eschatology, they are labeled a heretic, a Judaizer, a Zionist, or an enemy of the faith before the discussion has even begun.

That is not how Scripture teaches Christians to contend for the truth.

The apostles argued from the Scriptures. They reasoned. They persuaded. They corrected with patience. They did not replace exegesis with character assassination.

This pattern is as old as history itself. Authoritarian movements have always preferred labels over arguments because labels end conversations. Once a person has been successfully branded, there is no longer any need to answer what they actually said. It is far easier to discredit a person than to refute a biblical argument.

Christians should refuse to participate in that pattern.

We are not called to defend a political party, a nation-state, or an ethnic group at the expense of the truth. We are called to defend what God has revealed because His truth reflects His character.

That is why these debates matter.

When I defend God’s covenant faithfulness, I am not defending Israel because Israel is above criticism. I am defending the character of God because Scripture says, “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). When I insist that Christ fulfills rather than abolishes the covenant story, I am not promoting a political ideology. I am taking seriously the argument Paul spends three chapters making in Romans.

If my interpretation is wrong, then show me from Scripture.

Open the text.

Make the argument.

Demonstrate where I have misunderstood God’s Word.

But calling faithful Christians heretics because they disagree with your theology is not a substitute for biblical reasoning.

Truth matters because God is truth. Christians are not free to sacrifice truth for tribal loyalty, political convenience, or rhetorical victory. Our allegiance is not to a faction but to Christ, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

The Church has always been healthiest when it has welcomed careful, honest engagement with Scripture and recognized that serious believers can disagree on difficult questions while remaining united in the essentials of the faith. If we abandon that principle in favor of slander and scapegoating, we are not defending Christianity. We are destroying it.

[Mike Lee @BasedMikeLee]

Share if you agree that the Senate shouldn’t take its August recess until it has passed the SAVE America Act.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@megbasham Hallelujah!

[John Ʌ Konrad V @johnkonrad]

Guys like @CynicalPublius, @KurtSchlichter, and even @infantrydort give the press hell for nitpicking and running fake news.

The MSM earns that scorn. But here’s the harder truth: praise is difficult to write because sometimes there’s nothing to report.

I just spent two hours aboard USS Arlington. I got nothing, folks.
I walked every major space. Met a dozen crew. Hung around the bridge asking questions.

They answered every one.

The ship was in tip-top condition. Not perfect. The crew had a few gripes, but they’re too inside baseball to matter on X.

And it wasn’t just the big things, it’s never the big things. What they reminded me of was an old Navy motto “Attention to detail”

Small things like stencil marks that don’t bleed, emergency gear properly lanyard, hatch latches not missing those little springs.

All those things that drive an old ship captain like me absolutely bat sh!t crazy not because we care so much about those little tiny things but because we know that if we find little things broken, there are big problems the crew is hiding from us.

So I got hours on a ship and nothing to report. No rust stain that’s going to get me 3M views. No overweight sailor who hasn’t shaved in three days. No sensationalism anywhere.

If I had an editor at a major newspaper, he’d ask why the hell I wasted my time.

I don’t have an editor. So I’ve got nothing.

And nobody wants to read about nothing. There were a dozen story fragments I could have stretched with half truths, but that wouldn’t be fair to a crew that has worked its tail off.

All I’ve got is a BZ. I’m posting it anyway.
Maybe a few patriots make it viral. Maybe not. Fine either way, because the truth always wins.

Bravo Zulu USS Arlington

P.S. Ok one story: Marlon a sharp young officer whose dad cut hair and refilled vending machines on Navy ships in the 90’s. A son who's a razor sharp officer on a ship defending your freedom from the CIC. The American dream lives on 🇺🇸.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@KTB_500 @indytrog @SECNAV @PeteHegseth @us_awc @SeanParnellASW No one whom he interviewed has ever forgotten the experience. Prospective CO’s of “his” ships were on his staff and escorted the interviewees. If he didn’t like an interviewee’s answers, he railed at the escorting PCO for failure to prepare the interviewee.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@BMcGrewvy 😩

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@megbasham Hallelujah and amen. Praying for decades to come!

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@cdrsalamander And the conclusion you draw from that?

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@megbasham How does “I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance…” square with those so swearing retaining citizenship in their country of origin (dual citizenship)?

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@cdrsalamander My dad frequently said that air conditioning ruined the South because its advent led to a Yankee invasion.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@JoelWBerry @megbasham The first sign EEOC is on the right track would be eliminating the EEO-1 reporting requirements.

[City of Bartlett TN @BartlettTNGov]

The CITY OF BARTLETT ANIMAL SHELTER has whooped the kennel cough threat and they are back open for adoptions. Go get a new friend today.

[Megan Basham @megbasham]

That is NOT what he was saying DJ and it is vile that you would suggest it. The abuse crisis claim was not that abuse has happened in SBC churches. We know, that as much as we might wish it, we can't always screen out every predator who looks to the church for prey.

We CAN put in place the best systems to identify them, prevent them from gaining access to children, and report them to police when they are identified. And the SBC has done this. This is why, over nearly 30 years, across 43,000 churches that have played host to tens of millions of members, attenders, volunteers, and staff, the most allegations that a Houston Chronicle reporter could come up with was 700.

Again, 700 allegations over 30 years across 43,000 churches.

That is an incidence rate of of about 0.054% per church per year. Or roughly 5.4 cases per 10,000 churches per year.

That is EXTREMELY low. By comparison, just one Chicago school district of 39k students saw 470 claims against school employees in 2022. One district. One year saw 56 TIMES the number of allegations that the ENTIRETY of the SBC has seen over 30 years.

Of course, we still want every one of those claims investigated and prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And guess what? That happened. Almost every one of those 700 cases that the Chronicle collated had already been adjudicated. Meaning most of the alleged perpetrators had been reported, charged, and in many cases incarcerated.

So the system worked as it was supposed to.

What Pastor Graham is denying is the abuse "crisis" narrative that was based not on abuse of children but primarily questionable allegations from adult women. In fact, in the two highest profile cases, one woman was eventually found to have sent love letters to her alleged abuser (who was married and who she traveled to meet with) and the other said she didn't realize her sexual encounter was abuse until 10 years later, even though she was a mom of 5 in her 30s at the time of the alleged abuse.

These were the allegations that the abuse "crisis" rested on.

And that crisis was then used by Russell Moore and JD Greear to drive their opponents from the executive committee.

Not one claim of cover up by national leadership was ever supported by evidence.

And THAT is what Pastor Graham is talking about. You need to apologize to him brother and take this post down.

[Patrick Henry @PatrickHen1776]

This needs to be reposted a million times. Megan's counter is factual and necessary to defend the 10s of thousands of SBC pastors that faithfully shepherd and protect their flocks. Congregations that number in the millions.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@cdrsalamander Remember the closing verses:

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

The Media Only Loves Us When We’re Dead: Part II

I’m not done with this "reporter" yet. And I won’t stay silent while the media drags warfighters who bled for this nation and are now trying to make it better.

I’ll be honest, I’m ashamed I didn’t look deeper into the story of @SeanParnellUSA sooner. The GWOT cuts too close to my own scars, so I looked away from the broader history. But not anymore.

Media scrutiny isn’t new. Even George Washington was mocked in print. But the latest attacks on Sean Parnell say far more about the press than they do about him.

So pause and remember where you were on June 10, 2006.

1. The most popular song was Hips Don’t Lie.
2. The top movie was Cars.
3. And Sean Parnell was leading 39 men through a mountain ambush by over 250 enemy fighters. He was wounded three times, and stayed in the fight. By the end of that deployment, 85% of his platoon had been wounded.

Funny how you only get one Purple Heart for taking three hits in one battle, but a thousand paper cuts from the press for doing nothing wrong.

So let me get this straight: guys like him are good enough to fight your wars, bury their friends, and carry the silence of it all for the rest of their lives, but not good enough to help fix the institutions that failed them?

Who better than them?

You think you're criticizing one man. But behind every name you recognize is a platoon’s worth of warriors you never will. Quiet. Steady. Carrying the same resolve that got them all home. And whether you realize it or not, the hopes of a generation of warfighters rest quietly on his and @PeteHegseth's shoulders.

You forget: the fire that forged these men didn’t burn them up, it tempered them. And here’s the part you never seem to learn:

If you keep mocking the warriors who came home and tried to lead, don’t act surprised when fewer of them show up next time. Why would they?

Or maybe that’s the media's goal? But it won't work.

Because in this country, it seems the only time the media honors them... is when they’re coming home in a box draped in the American Flag.

***Please share this widely to counter the harmful "media" narratives that exist to malign warfighters who bled in battle and are trying to make a difference.***

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@megbasham Praying you remain cancer free for decades so we can continue to benefit from your great reporting on issues that really matter. 🙏

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@BMcGrewvy Ah, rambly human. Well, the latter anyway. Still, always an interesting read.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@C_3C_3 Ecclesiastes 8:11
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.

[Frank E Cook Jr @FrankECook]

@C_3C_3 Ecclesiastes 8:11
Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed speedily, the heart of the children of man is fully set to do evil.