Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

CHRISTIANS IN BRITAIN DEEMED UNFIT TO BE FOSTER PARENTS UNLESS THEY HOLD POLITICALLY CORRECT VIEWS ON HOMOSEXUALITY

Charles Colson:   "When do homosexual “rights” trump religious rights? Whenever a court says so."  Colson writes:

For 15 years, Owen and Eunice Johns served as foster parents to British children. Social workers praised them as “kind and hospitable people” who “respond sensitively to” children.

But London’s High Court has just ruled that the Johnses are unfit to foster.

The reason: The Johnses are devout Christians, and their views about homosexuality may harm the children in their care. This opinion echoes that Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission, which, according to the Daily Mail, claimed foster children risked becoming “infected” by the Johnses’ Christian beliefs.

The case came about when the Johnses re-applied to the Derby City Council to foster children after taking a break. But instead of welcoming them back with open arms, social workers expressed concern that the couple’s beliefs were in violation of the new Equality Act Regulations, which protect the rights of homosexuals.

THE LATEST "SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE REVIEW: THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO PRO-FAMILY NEWS, MARCH 31, 2011

These compilations from a variety of sources by the Family Research Council continue to offer interested people a gold mine.  A new edition appears every two weeks.  Readers will find in each a wealth of information not readily found elsewhere. For previous reviews I've posted, click here.   For a complete list of articles from this latest edition,  click "continue reading" below.

DERSHOWITZ - "NORWAY TO JEWS: YOU'RE NOT WELCOME HERE"

That's the title Alan M. Dershowitz gives his article published in today's Wall Street Journal.  Dershowitz, a professor of law at Harvard, chronicles his recent visit to Norway.  What he says is sad, but more than sad.  It is utterly dismaying.  Where is that independent, robust spirit that Norway exhibited during World War II, when it was a friend of the Jews?  Dershowitz writes:

I recently completed a tour of Norwegian universities, where I spoke about international law as applied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the tour nearly never happened.

Its sponsor, a Norwegian pro-Israel group, offered to have me lecture without any charge to the three major universities. Norwegian universities generally jump at any opportunity to invite lecturers from elsewhere. When my Harvard colleague Stephen Walt, co-author of "The Israel Lobby," came to Norway, he was immediately invited to present a lecture at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Likewise with Ilan Pappe, a demonizer of Israel who teaches at Oxford.

My hosts expected, therefore, that their offer to have me present a different academic perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be eagerly accepted. I have written half a dozen books on the subject presenting a centrist view in support of the two-state solution. But the universities refused.

The dean of the law faculty at Bergen University said he would be "honored" to have me present a lecture "on the O.J. Simpson case," as long as I was willing to promise not to mention Israel. An administrator at the Trondheim school said that Israel was too "controversial."

The University of Oslo simply said "no" without offering an excuse. That led one journalist to wonder whether the Norwegian universities believe that I am "not entirely house-trained."

Only once before have I been prevented from lecturing at universities in a country. The other country was Apartheid South Africa.

THE SCARIEST TSUNAMI VIDEO YET?

Update 4/23/11 - A friend e-mailed me this video which is a new one to me.  It shows the huge tsunammi wave making it's way across farmland, plus a lot more.

 Gizmodo (HT: Allahpundit) describes the video below:

We've seen a lot of scary videos of this month's deadly Japanese earthquake and tsunami — but nothing like this. Watch as the waves ravage the port of Kesennuma, destroying everything in it's path.

First watch as the tsunami begins by tossing cars around like toys at the port parking lot — and then watch how terrifyingly fast the rest of the city becomes enveloped in water. In the end, only a couple of buildings survive.

 

FISCAL CRAZINESS

From FRC:

Right now, the federal government is borrowing 42 cents on every dollar it spends--in part, because the Left insists on funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to abortion groups like Planned Parenthood. Decisions like that one have helped rack up more than $14 trillion in U.S. debt. That's a $45,500 "birth tax" to every child born in America this year!

Why is there even an argument about fiscal restraint?

REP. MICHELE BACHMANN (R-MN) HOLDS HER OWN AGAINST DAVID GREGORY - AND THEN SOME

What a formidable woman!  Bachmann is awake to what is going on in this country, knows the crucial issues, and is more articulate than Sarah Palin (whom I admire).   She would make a powerful president - a true "hope and change" candidate.

 

Click here for previous posts related to Michele Bachmann.

DR. D. MARTYN LLOYD-JONES ON THE "CLEAN POWER" OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd Jones, the renowned Welsh minister who pastored the famous Westminster Chapel in London for 30 years, recounted an incident from his early ministry that struck me as I read it.  He wrote:  (my underlining)

"I remember a woman we who was a spiritist, and even a medium, a paid medium employed by a spiritist society.  She used to go every Sunday evening to a spiritist meeting and was paid three guineas for acting as a medium.  This was during the thirties, and that was quite a large sum of money for a lower middle-class woman.  She was ill one Sunday and could not go to keep her appointment.  She was sitting in her house and she saw people passing by on their way to the church where I happened to be ministering in South Wales.  Something made her feel a desire to know what those people had, and so she decided to go to the service, and did so.  She came ever afterwards until she died, and became a very fine Christian.  One day I asked her what she had felt on that first visit, and this is what she said to me; and this is the point I am illustrating.  She said, 'The moment I entered your chapel and sat down on a seat amongst the people I was conscious of a power.  I was conscious of the same sort of power as I was accustomed to in our spiritist meetings, but there was one big difference; I had a feeling that the power in your chapel was a clean power.'  The point I am making is simiply this, that she was aware of a power.  This is this myserious element.  It is the presence of the Spirit in the heart of God's children....   (From Preachers and Preaching, p. 44)

APPLE CENSORS "EXODUS INTERNATIONAL" APP

The Family Research Council has the story:

Apple's old logo was colored by the rainbow--and it looks like their business philosophy still is! In a stunning decision, Apple withered under pressure from the gay community and censored an application that offers help to people struggling with homosexuality. The ex-app for ex-gays was created by Exodus International--and before this week, it had a 4+ rating from the iTunes store. Even though Apple's own store gave Exodus a thumbs-up for content, the app vanished overnight--another victim of growing campaign to silence Christianity in America. Until yesterday, Apple declined to comment on the decision. Finally, spokesman Tom Neumayr told Fox News that the free app "violates the developer guidelines by being offensive to large groups of people." He was referring to the 146,000 people who signed a petition to kick Exodus off the store. "There is no place for 'ex-gay' therapy on the Apple platform," said Mike Jones, whose fringe group started the uproar.

Ironically, there seems to be plenty of room for applications like the Gay/Lesbian News Reader, HRC Buying for Workplace Equality Guide, Jack'd gay "social network," Grindr "gay, bi & curious guy finder," or Gay Dance Radio. What about the millions of Americans who are offended by those apps? Would 146,000 signatures be enough to rid iTunes of them? For an industry that is supposedly on the cutting edge, it's shocking that Apple would be a part of any movement whose goal is gagging free speech--the very foundation of the mainstream media. It's an amazing double standard, but hardly a new double standard where Apple is concerned. Last November, the same company booted the Manhattan Declaration from its store because it held to a biblical worldview of marriage. (Of course, Apple made no secret of its agenda in 2008 when it donated $100,000 to defeat Proposition 8.) In this instance, all Exodus does is offer compassion and help for people who choose to seek it. No one is forcing homosexuals to download the application and change their lifestyle. And now, Apple has decided that even customers who want help won't get it! How sympathetic is that?

Jeff Buchanan of Exodus is tired of the app being misrepresented in the press. "It's being touted as a 'gay cure' app," he says, "and nothing could be further from the truth. We present a redemptive, Biblical worldview on sexuality... it's a message of love and acceptance of those [who] are struggling with same-sex attraction." In other words, Apple's censorship has nothing to do with "tolerance." This is about silencing anything and anyone who challenges homosexuality. Americans need to wake up and realize that religious liberty is heading in the same direction as Exodus's app--toward extinction! In this environment, it doesn't matter what the facts are. If they contradict the homosexual agenda, the Left will do everything it can to muzzle them. Our form of democracy will not long survive if the freedom of speech and religion are lost.

Meanwhile, liberals are on a crusade to end bullying--when the biggest bullies are the ones in their own movement! Decisions like Apple's are rooted in the same anti-Christian prejudice that's led to the Left's persecution of donors, businesses, voters, churches, and even students. What do you call 146,000 people ganging up on a company because they don't like someone else's point of view? Bullies! They have to resort to intimidation because they know the rest of the country isn't with them. They also know that if they had to debate conservatives out in the open on issues like marriage and morality, they'd lose! If you're an iTunes user, contact Apple and tell them that squashing free speech is bad for business. Ask them to show real tolerance and reinstate the Exodus app! For more on the topic, check out Peter Sprigg on Fox 5 News. 

Me:  Apple's opposition to Exodus Int'l and the Manhattan Declaration constitutes sufficient reason for me not to consider buying an Apple product.  They have self-consciously positioned themselves in opposition to the Christian worldview.  Why would I want to support that kind of intolerance?

"BLESSED ARE THE POOR IN SPIRIT... BLESSED ARE THE MEEK" - OH YEAH?

As a matter of fact, yeah!    Philip Yancey claims to have discovered that Jesus' Beatitudes unveil "a plain formula of psychological truth, the deepest level of truth that we can know on earth."   Yancey writes in The Jesus I Never Knew:

"The Beatitudes reveal that what succeeds in the kingdom of heaven also benefits us most in this life here and now.  It has taken me many years to recognize this fact, and only now am I beginning to understand the Beatitudes.  They still jar me every time I read them, but they jar me because I recognize in them a richness that unmaskes my own poverty.

Blessed are the poor in spirit . . .  Blessed are the meek.  A book like Paul Johnson's Intellectuals sets out in convincing detail what all of us know to be true: the people we laud, strive to emulate, and feature on the covers of popular magazines are not the fulfilled, happy, blanced persons we might imagine.  Although Johnson's subjects (Ernest Hemingway, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Edmund Wilson, Bertolt Brecht, et al.) would be judged successful by any modern standard, it would be difficult to assemble a more miserable, egomaniacal, abusive company.

A PRAYER IN TIME OF [THEOLOGICAL] CONTROVERSY

From Justin Taylor's blog:

Even as we desire unity, there will be controversy within the church until Christ returns. Here is one wise way to pray when conflicts and divisions arise:

Gracious Father, have mercy on your children in disputes. We are sorry for any root of pride or fear of man or lack of insight that influences our stance in the controversy before us. We confess that we are not pure in ourselves. Even as we strive to persuade one another, we stand in need of a merciful Advocate. We are sinners. We are finite and fallible.

On both sides of the matter at hand, we take refuge together in the glorious gospel of justification by faith alone through grace. We magnify Jesus Christ, our Savior and King for all he has done to make us his own. We are a thankful people even in our conflict. We are broken and humble to think that we would be loved and forgiven and accepted by an infinitely holy God.

Forbid, O Lord, that our spirit in this struggle would be one of hostility or ill will toward anyone. Deliver us from every form of debate that departs from love or diminishes truth. Grant, Father, as Francis Schaeffer pleaded in his last days, that our disagreements would prove to be golden opportunities to show the world how to love—not by avoiding conflicts, but by how we act in them.

Show us, O God, the relationship between doctrine and devotion, between truth and tenderness, between biblical faithfulness and biblical unity, between standing on the truth and standing together. Let none of us be unteachable, or beyond correction. May the outcome of our dispute be clearer vision of your glory and grace and truth and wisdom and power and knowledge.

By your Spirit, grant that the result of all our arguments be deeper humility, more dependence on mercy, sweeter fellowship with Jesus, stronger love in our common life, more radical obedience to the commands of our King, more authentic worship, and a greater readiness and eagerness to lay down our lives to finish the Great Commission.

In all this, Father, our passion is that you would be glorified through Jesus Christ. Amen.

THE LATEST "SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE REVIEW: THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO PRO-FAMILY NEWS, MARCH 17, 2011

These compilations from a variety of sources by the Family Research Council continue to offer interested people a gold mine.  A new edition appears every two weeks.  Readers will find in each a wealth of information not readily found elsewhere. For previous reviews I've posted, click here.   For a complete list of articles from this latest edition,  click "continue reading" below.

 

SEN. CHUCK SHUMER (D-NY) ATTACKS FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL

Sen. Shumer attacked FRC on the floor of the U.S. Senate.  Leftists (and pro-abortionists) like Shumer need to be engaged and defeated.  I very much like FRC's response:   (my bolding)

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Family Research Council Action (FRC Action) President Tony Perkins responded today to direct attacks on the floor of the U.S. Senate by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Sen. Schumer took to the Senate floor today railing against FRC for its opposition to yesterday's vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on a three-week Continuing Resolution that sustains taxpayer funding of abortions in the District of Columbia and fails to cut federal funding for scandal-plagued Planned Parenthood. He compared FRC's efforts to a "heavy anchor bogging down the budget."

In response, FRC Action President Tony Perkins said:

"With all due respect, it is Senator Chuck Schumer and his allies on the Left that mean to not only impose their radical social and fiscal agenda on Americans, but also force Americans to pay for it. Nearly three-quarters of Americans are opposed to the government forcing them to fund abortion. How is respecting the majority's wishes and cutting spending in a budget a 'right wing' move? Removing federal funding of abortion is a centrist move, since the vast majority of Americans hold that policy position.

"Senator Schumer should come clean and tell the American people why six months into the year Congress has yet to adopt a budget for this year. Why would the last Congress which was totally controlled by Mr. Schumer and his party not pass a budget? They failed to pass a budget because they were too busy forcing their far left social agenda on America including taxpayer funding of abortion, government control of health care and open homosexuality in the military. They were busy forcing taxpayers to pick up the tab for a 'far-ranging social agenda.' What was that tab? Annual deficits in the last two years alone that total almost three trillion dollars.

"There is a time and a place to address the misguided policies and deficit spending that Mr. Schumer and his liberal colleagues have been forcing Americans to pay for. Mr. Schumer is wrong. Now is the time and this is the place.

"Of course, the Senator is right in one regard. FRC Action, Heritage Action and the Club for Growth are an 'anchor' in this process. We will do our best to ensure this country drifts no further to the Left and out into the sea of irrelevance where the irresponsible spending he and his colleagues have promoted would send us."

DR. RALPH C. WOOD GUEST LECTURES AT GORDON COLLEGE ON FLANNERY O'CONNOR

I've had time to listen to only 34 minutes so far, but it's been very worthwhile.  Wood is the author of Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South.  (This Amazon review offers an excellent overview).  While at Gordon he also gave a lecture on Tolkien.

 
i

RENTING GOATS TO CLEAR PROPERTY OF WEEDS AND BRIARS

Interesting article. 

Cheryl and Ron Searcy of Mills River run Wells Farm which rents herds of goats to clear overgrown areas of dry grass, kudzu, briars and hard to reach places.

MEANING OF "YAHWEH" - "I AM PRESENT"

Kenneth Way of the Talbot School of Theology writes:

I recently read an article by a renowned scholar in an obscure publication that really got me thinking.  The article was by the prolific Jewish commentator, Jacob Milgrom (“The Desecration of YHWH’s Name: Its Parameters and Significance” in Birkat Shalom: Studies in the Bible, Ancient Near Eastern Literature…Presented to Shalom M. Paul, eds., C. Cohen, et al., 69-81. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2008).  Towards the end of the article Milgrom makes some compelling suggestions about the  meaning of the name YHWH based on the testimony of God himself in the account of the burning bush (Exodus 3:9-15).

Basically, Milgrom suggests that the significance of the name Yahweh revealed here is not so much about God as the Existent One (“I AM”) or as the Creator (the “One Who Causes to Be” [this was D. N. Freedman’s interpretation published in Journal of Biblical Literature in 1960]).  Rather, the significance of the name YHWH which is revealed in this passage for the first time is that God is the Present One (“I AM PRESENT”).

ALBERT MOHLER - "WHY SAME-SEX MARRIAGE MAKES SENSE TO SO MANY"

Mohler writes about the mental landscape we currently inhabit:  [same article here]

[...] We can trace the acceptance of same-sex marriage to at least three major ideas that have been shaping the modern mind for some time - and are held to some extent by both social liberals and conservatives.

A Progressivist Understanding of History

One of the ideological engines of our social revolution is the idea that history reveals a progressive liberation of peoples who have suffered oppression. . . .   But the problem with the progressivist understanding of history is that it cannot stand alone. It cannot be the only narrative. There has to become means of identifying what is truly a manifestation of oppression and what is a structure necessary for human flourishing. . .  Should children be liberated from the authority of their parents? Should all prisoners be liberated from their cells? Should human beings be liberated from the obligations of family and kinship?

The progressivist understanding of history must be checked by a recognition that liberation from oppression is not the only true and compelling narrative. The affirmation and preservation of moral obligations and commitments must be the companion narrative. . .

PAUL BORTHWICK SPEAKS ON "SIMPLICITY"

I appreciate this talk Paul Borthwick gave recently to students at Gordon College.

 

After talking about Veggie Tales' Madame Blueberry, Borthwick develops his talk around four questions:  Am I controlled?  Am I covetous?  Am I choked?  Am I content?

IRANIAN CHRISTIANS SENTENCED FOR "CRIMES AGAINST THE ISLAMIC ORDER"

Lila Gilbert reports:

In recent weeks, a series of abuses against Christians has swept across the Muslim world. There has been a murder in Pakistan, attacks on churches in Ethiopia, an attempted assassination of the Ecumenical Patriarch in Turkey, and repeated pogroms against the Copts in Egypt.

Now, rights groups are reporting new developments in Iran’s anti-Christian crackdown, which has swept up nearly 300 Christian believers since June 2010.

In late January 2011, Elam Ministries released a detailed briefing document announcing a “severe intensification of arrests and imprisonment of Christians in Iran.”

Two days ago, on March 9, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) reported that five Iranian Christians had been sentenced to one year’s imprisonment for “Crimes against the Islamic Order.”

Pastor Behrouz Sadegh-Khandjani, Mehdi Furutan, Mohammad Beliad, Parviz Khalaj and Nazly Beliad, all members of the Church of Iran, a Jesus-Only Pentecostal denomination, were found guilty by the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz. They have 20 days to appeal the sentence.

CSW also confirms that 282 Christians have been arrested in 34 cities since June 2010: “At least 15 of these Christians remain in prison, while others have been released, generally after posting large amounts of bail.” According to Elam’s report, Yousef Nadarkhani, pastor of a church in Gilan province, has been sentenced to death. He was arrested in October 2009 and is being held in Lakan prison while his case is appealed.

An earlier (August 2010) report from Elam describes Iranian clerics’ hostility to the country’s Christian population. It quotes Ayatollah Seyed Hosseini Bousherhri, who calls house churches the work of the “enemy”: “Today the global aggressors have accurately planned and invested resources for these purposes. This why in our country there is a strong inclination towards Christianity.”

— Lela Gilbert is an adjunct fellow of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.

 

MARC THIESSEN - AL-QAEDA'S AMERICAN-BRED LEADERSHIP

Thiessen writes:

[...]   Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). The spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen born in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Awlaki lived in the U.S. until he was seven, moved to Yemen, and then returned to the U.S. to attend college, earning a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Colorado State University and a masters degree in education from San Diego State. He went on to become one of the most influential radical preachers in the Muslim American community, leading mosques in Fort Collins, Colo., San Diego and Falls Church, Va.. While serving as an imam in California, Awlaki consulted with two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Nawaf al Hamzi and Khalid al Mihdhar, and has been linked to the Fort Hood shooter, the Christmas Day bomber, group of Canadian Muslims who were charged with plotting attacks on the Parliament building in Ottawa, the six men convicted of planning an attack on Fort Dix, N.J., and the 2005 London subway bombers, among other jiahdists. He is now hiding out in Yemen with other AQAP leaders, plotting new attacks, and is considered so dangerous that President Obama has reportedly authorized the CIA to take him out with an unmanned drone. According to Obama counterterrorism advisor John Brennan, AQAP is "the most operationally active node of the al-Qaeda

SEN. RAND PAUL DECRIES GOV'T COERCION RATHER THAN PERSUASION

From Jim Loft's Gateway Pundit:

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) went off on big government bureaucrats during the Energy and Natural Resources Committee this week. Paul questioned the Department of Energy’s commitment to protecting consumer choice during consideration of Appliance/Light Bulb Energy-Efficiency Legislation. 

You'll enjoy this!

 

Paul, a Republican, blamed his plumbing conundrum on federal legislation that forces Americans to buy more energy efficient appliances.

“Light bulbs, refrigerators, toilets, you name it. You can’t go around your house without being told what to buy,” Paul said.

“You restrict my purchases. You don’t care about my choices. You don’t care about the consumer.

“Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house, and I blame you and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house. I find it insulting.”

Paul was speaking during a hearing on a bill to improve appliances’ energy efficiency and another proposal to repeal a 2007 law that phases out traditional incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient options.

WISCONSIN: LEFT'S WAR ON DEMOCRACY

Michael Walsh has it right:  (my emphases)

(...) Let’s call this what it is: a campaign to nullify the 2010 election, by a sore-loser party that doesn’t like the results.

The Democrats are trying to cast themselves as the heroes — noble prisoners of conscience engaged in an act of civil disobedience by denying Walker a quorum so the vote can be held. But, like the sheriff played by Cleavon Little in “Blazing Saddles,” the gun at their heads is being held in their own hands.

But this fight is no longer simply about Walker’s attempt to balance Wisconsin’s wobbly budget, or even about whether public-employee unions ought to have the right to collective bargaining — they shouldn’t, and in fact they shouldn’t even exist, as FDR himself warned.

It’s now about whether we are to have an orderly democracy or legislative and executive anarchy, whether elections can be delegitimized and even overturned by the daily plebiscites of the polls, by the flouting of sacred oaths of office and by the trampling on the laws of the state.

What the Democrats are doing in Wisconsin is more than just a disgrace. It’s a danger to our republican form of government, a formula for permanent, no-holds-barred combat long after the polls have closed and the people have spoken.

QUICK TAKES

From HotAir:

Study: Relationship start to fade after about three years

Poll:   Public still has basically no idea what's driving America's gigantic budget deficits

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/03/09/poll-public-still-has-basically-no-idea-whats-driving-americas-gigantic-budget-deficits/

MARYLAND DEBATES "GENDER IDENTITY ANTI-DISCRIMINATION" BILL

Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council testified at the Maryland Capitol today against the bill which tries to blur the lines between males and females by creating special rights for cross-dressers.  He testified:

I am sure that many of the witnesses testifying before you today on this bill will address various legal, political, commercial, practical, and personal implications of it. I would like to address something much more fundamental-the psychological meaning of the phenomenon of men who wish to be called women and women who wish to be called men.

I would like to quote extensively the words of someone with far more expertise and experience in dealing with this issue than I have. His name is Dr. Paul McHugh. Dr. McHugh is the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University . For twenty-six years, he served as director of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at the Johns Hopkins University and as psychiatrist-in-chief at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Here is part of what Dr. McHugh wrote in an article for the journal "First Things", copies of which I supplied with my testimony:

END OF THE WORLD SET FOR MAY 21st

Here's the UK Daily Mail headline:  

'Awesome, it's the end of the world': Doomsday campers travel the country preaching the Apocalypse...on May 21

Those who believe in Jesus will be carried into heaven, while the rest of humanity will endure 153 days of 'death and horror' before the world ends on October 21.

You'll want to check the photos, the "Biblical reasoning" (cough!), and the video.  The Daily Mail has complete coverage. 

Me:  I don't believe this apocalyptic judgement/rapture date for a minute.   Christ will indeed return, but not on the basis of an arcane "Bible code" allegedly penetrated by Harold Camping or anyone else.  

THE RELIGIOUS LEFT INDICTS GOV. WALKER FOR HIS EVANGELICAL FAITH

Mark Tooley, President of the Institute on Religion and Democracy (www.theird.org), writes: 

                        "Scott Walker: A Bad Christian?"

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is a bad Christian for standing up to government unions, according to the Religious Left.

Religious Left author Diana Butler Bass, writing for The Huffington Post, is the most explicit in faulting Walker’s ostensibly simplistic evangelical beliefs.  Butler revealed that Walker belongs to a nondenominational church with “boilerplate” evangelical theology about sin and salvation, with apparently none of the statist political demands that the Religious Left believes are more central to faith.

Bass derisively described Walker’s one-time testimony to Christian businessmen in which he shared the Gospel story of the Apostle Peter sinking into the water because of doubt.  She also mocked his favorite hymn of “Trust and Obey.” According to Bass’ breathless analysis, Walker believes only in blind “obedience,” just like the terrifying “evangelical spirituality” of George W. Bush, which resulted in two wars.  “In this theological universe, hard-headedness is a virtue, compromise is the work of the Devil, and anything that works to accomplish God’s plan is considered ethically justifiable,” Bass explained.  Walker is listening only to Jesus and ignoring the wise spiritual voices on the Religious Left he should heed, Bass fretted. “Jesus speaking directly to him,” she alleged.  “God, evidently, has directed him on his current path.”  And not just Jesus, but also Libertarian philanthropist David Koch,” Bass sarcastically quipped.

OBAMA VOWS TO VETO ANY BILL THAT DEFUNDS PLANNED PARENTHOOD

That doesn't surprise me, since Obama is the most pro-abortion President in U.S. history.  Jim Loft reports:

In 2008 Obama told Pastor Rick Warren during the presidential campaign that he wasn’t sure at what point a baby gets human rights. It was above above his paygrade.

 

But that was before Americans went to vote.
A funny thing happened after the election.
Obama suddenly figured it out.

In 2009, Barack Obama has signed several pieces of abortion legislation including funding foreign abortions. He also signed legislation to use taxpayer money to kill embryos in research. And, democrats are pushing legislation that will force healthcare providers to perform abortions even if it violates their moral or religious convictions.

Barack Obama is the most radical pro-abortion and infanticide president in the last 35 years. Barack Obama even voted 4 times to support infanticide during his political career.

But, that didn’t stop Barack Obama from promising Pope Benedict in 2009 that he would reduce abortions. That was another lie.

This week Obama announced that he would veto any bill that did not fund Planned Parenthood.
Life News reported:

President Barack Obama would veto the House-approved long-term spending bill for the federal government that contains the Pence Amendment, a measure that would de-fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Because of that provision and other pro-life riders that stop abortion funding globally and in the District of Columbia, the Washington Times indicates “Obama has issued a veto threat on that bill, saying House Republicans’ cuts are unacceptable.”

“Senate Democrats said the non-spending provisions of the bill — such as restrictions on Planned Parenthood and on Obama administration rules and regulations — will also have to be struck,” the Times continues.

EGYPT'S COPTS SUFFER MORE ATTACKS

From Nina Shea, director of the Hudson Institute's Center for Religious Freedom:

Copts in Egypt are begging for Egyptian Armed Forces protection today after a Muslim mob of several thousand attacked their church in the village of Soul, about 30 kilometers from Cairo, last night. The Church of St. Mina and St. George was torched, and its clergy are unaccounted for. The fire department and security forces failed to respond to Coptic pleas for help during the arson attack.

According to a report from the Washington-based Coptic American Friendship Association, the mob, chanting “Allahu Akbar,” pulled down the church’s cross and detonated a handful of gas cylinders inside the structure. The ensuing fire destroyed the church and all its contents, including the sacred relics of centuries-old saints. It is reported that a romantic relationship between a Christian man and a Muslim woman, which sharia forbids, and the refusal of the woman’s father to kill her to restore the community’s “honor,” aroused the Muslim ire. An account of this incident is here. (I also received a message from a Coptic friend that this week members of the Muslim Brotherhood, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” stormed a Christian school on Thabit Street in downtown Asyut and attempted to take it over. Egyptian security forces, including an army unit, intervened and routed out the Brotherhood members. The school had been built by Presbyterian missionaries in the early 1900s, and is now directed by Presbyterian Pastor Naji. Christian leaders from this southern area expressed a deepening sense of insecurity as the Muslim Brotherhood emerges from the underground.)

This incident follows separate brutal attacks by armed forces using heavy machine-gun fire against two monasteries, ostensibly for zoning problems, on February 23. Compass Direct, an American-based Christian news agency, reported that one monk and six church workers were shot and wounded when the Egyptian Army attacked the Coptic Orthodox Anba Bishoy Monastery in Wadi Al-Natroun, 110 kilometers north of Cairo, in order to destroy a wall monks had built to defend their property from raiders. On the same day, it reported that, in a similar incident, the army also attacked the Anba Makarious Al Sakandarie Monastery in Al Fayoum, 130 kilometers southwest of Cairo. Under an Egyptian law carried over from Ottoman times, state permission is required to build or repair church property and such permits are rarely issued.

There are growing concerns that Egypt’s 10 million or so Coptic Christians are being targeted under the cloak of political chaos during these uncertain times. A friend reports that the local Egyptian police have abandoned their posts in the provinces and thus many churches no longer have armed guards protecting them as they did following the al-Qaeda-inspired church bombing of New Year’s Day in Alexandria. Egypt’s army is one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid.

CHECK OBAMA'S PRE-PRESIDENTIAL STATEMENTS TO KNOW WHAT HE REALLY BELIEVES

This applies to same-sex marriage as well.  Cf. Stanley Kurtz - "Obama's Past Tells the Truth" [my emphases]

About a week before Obama’s inauguration, the Windy City Times (“the voice of Chicago’s gay, lesbian, bi and trans community”) revealed that on February 15, 1996, in the midst of his first campaign for the Illinois State Senate, Obama told a local gay paper in answer to a questionnaire: “I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.”  That was news in early 2009, because Obama maintained steadfast opposition to gay marriage throughout his 2007-08 presidential run.  (The Windy City Times reporter who found the original questionnaire with Obama’s statement claims to have stumbled upon it only just after the election.)  So it turns out that if you unearth previously hidden documentary evidence of what Obama believed about same-sex marriage in 1996, you have a better guide to his actions as president than his own campaign promises or early presidential statements from 2007-2010.

. . . That Obama favored gay marriage in 1996, disguised that fact during the 2008 campaign, then effectively reverted to his original position when president, doesn’t prove that the same pattern applies to other issues.  Yet it certainly does make my argument in Radical-in-Chief more plausible.  -[i.e. only the president’s past reveals the full meaning of his plans for our future.]   more ...

Me: Utterly persuasive

Other articles on DOMA or homosexuality (from the FRC's Social Conservative Review)

• "The President's Unconstitutional Two-for-One," Rob Schwarzwalder, Family Research Council
• "Evolutionary Law," Cal Thomas, The Patriot Post
• "DOMA move helps President Obama with gays," Josh Gerstein, The Politico
• "President Obama's DOMA Outrage Will Backfire," Maggie Gallagher, National Catholic Register
• "Obama's Past Tells the Truth," Stanley Kurtz, Ricochet
• "The Conversation Our Culture Cannot Have, But Must Anyway," Matthew Lee Anderson, Mere Orthodoxy
• "Why do so many Americans support same-sex 'marriage'," R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Baptist Press
• "Obama's Unreasonable Abandonment of DOMA," Gerard V. Bradley, The Public Discourse

THE LATEST "SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE REVIEW: THE INSIDER'S GUIDE TO PRO-FAMILY NEWS, MARCH 3, 2011

These compilations from a variety of sources by the Family Research Council continue to offer interested people a gold mine.  A new edition appears every two weeks.  Readers will find in each a wealth of information not readily found elsewhere. For previous reviews I've posted, click here.   For a complete list of articles from this latest edition,  click "continue reading" below.