Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

SYRIA'S CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY CRIES OUT FOR HELP

Nina Shea reports:

The Vatican news agency Fides reports today that two new mass graves containing a total of 30 bodies were found in Sadad, an ancient Christian town of some 15,000 people between Damascus and Homs, bringing to 45 the number of residents killed there by Islamist militias since October 21.

Surviving relatives and friends uncovered the graves after government forces recently recaptured the town from rebels. Those killed were reported by the local Syriac Orthodox metropolitan, who presided over 30 of their funerals this week, to be Christian civilians, including women and children. A list of their names was provided to the Catholic press.

The Islamist rebel militias of Al Nusra Front and Daash were identified by eyewitnesses as responsible for this war crime.

The battle also resulted in the destruction and looting of the town, including its homes, hospitals, schools, government buildings and electrical, telephone, and water capabilities. St. Theodore’s Syriac Orthodox Church and a number of the 4,000-year-old Assyrian town’s 14 other churches and a monastery have been desecrated.

Some 2,500 Sadad families have fled so far and ten others are missing.

Syriac Orthodox archbishop Selwanos Boutros Alnemeh remarked that this was the deadliest single attack against Syria’s Christian community of the civil war and ranks close to the massacre at Baghdad’s Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic church by jihadists during Sunday Mass on October 31, 2010, when 58 were killed.  

 According to international media reports, rebel shelling has increasingly hit several majority-Christian districts in Damascus. Together with a devastating siege on Maalula that Lela Gilbert reported on last month, this has heightened fears among Syria’s Christians that they are being targeted for religious reasons by Islamist extremists in the rebellion.

C.S. LEWIS - PUTTING FIRST THINGS FIRST ENHANCES ALL PLEASURES

Quote of the day -

When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.  - from a 1952 letter

MARTIN LUTHER ON MUSIC

"I wish to see all arts, principally music, in the service of Him who gave and created them.  Music is a fair and glorious gift of God.  I would not for the world forego my humble share of music.  Singers are never sorrowful, but are merry, and smile through their troubles in song.  Music makes people kinder, gentler, more staid and reasonable.  I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art than can be placed on a level with music; for besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy of the heart . . . the devil flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God."   - Martin Luther

Though the foregoing is often quoted, I have not yet found where it originally appears in Luther's writings. 

OBAMA NOMINATES RADICAL FEMINIST TO THE D.C. CIRCUIT COURT

From the Family Research Council:

Speaking of the courts, President Obama is trying to add to his with one of the most liberal judicial activists the nation has ever seen. Cornelia "Nina" Pillard, the White House's pick for the second most powerful court in the country, the D.C. Circuit Court, could be on the Senate floor for confirmation as early as next week. How dangerous is Pillard? Ed Whalen of NRO's Bench Memos describes her as "less moderate" than the most activist liberal in appellate court history. Apart from calling abstinence education "unconstitutional," the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General argues that abortion is necessary to help "free women from historically routine conscription into maternity."

As if her militant feminism wasn't apparent enough, she takes the opportunity in some of her writings to slam anyone who opposes the abortion-contraception mandate as "reinforce[ing] broader patterns of discrimination against women as a class of presumptive breeders." Just as shocking, Pillard has lashed out at ultrasound technology as "deceptive" and manipulative. Interestingly enough, the Senate is considering Pillard's nomination at the same time as Senate Republicans are circulating a bill to reduce the number of justices on the D.C. court by three.

Considered by many to be a stepping-stone to the Supreme Court, the D.C. Circuit Court is routinely criticized for retaining so many judges with such a light caseload. America can't afford to give a lifetime appointment to a radical ideologue! Contact your senators and urge them to vote no on Nina Pillard.

EVANGELICALS AND IMMIGRATION - NO CLEAR CONSENSUS

The Evangelical Immigraton Table likes to give the impression it speaks for evangelicals, but the Evangelicals for Biblical Immigration contends otherwise.  Read Betsy Woodruf 's article for balance and nots its concluding paragraph. 

The Evangelical movement is huge and, for all that its members have in common, disparate and complex. No single advocacy group can effectively crystallize 90 million persons’ opinions on an issue as messy as immigration reform.

Previous posts on immigration:

IMMIGRATION BILL HORROR - SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS' FINAL SPEECH

BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES ON IMMIGRATION

TEDDY ROOSEVELT ON IMMIGRANTS AND THEIR NECESSARY "AMERICANIZATION"

IMMIGRATION AND FLOUTING THE LAW - WHAT IS AT STAKE?

IMMIGRATION MADNESS - TONY BLANKLEY SPEAKS OF "LUNACY"

THOMAS SOWELL ON THE IMMIGRATION QUESTION

DAN HENNINGER - OBAMA'S CREDIBILITY IS MELTING

It's not only in the U.S. but overseas as well.  Read Henninger's article.  (HT: DRUDGE)  Excerpt:

Bluntly, Mr. Obama's partners are concluding that they cannot do business with him. They don't trust him. Whether it's the Saudis, the Syrian rebels, the French, the Iraqis, the unpivoted Asians or the congressional Republicans, they've all had their fill of coming up on the short end with so mercurial a U.S. president. And when that happens, the world's important business doesn't get done. It sits in a dangerous and volatile vacuum.

THE FOUR GOSPELS - ARE THEY RELIABLE?

I was recently given a DVD of this excellent discussion and am glad to see it available on YouTube.  The DVD allows hearing not only in English, but also in Turkish, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Persian.  The video is especially good for those who labor under the misapprehension that the Biblical gospels have been changed or adulterated through the centuries.   "We have manuscripts of a good type of substantial material from every century. It is one of the great things that separates the New Testament from anything else. Evidence down from the centuries."   -Dr. Peter Head, Tyndale House and Cambridge University

Awards
- CBC Media Awards 2011 (UK) -- Gold prize in the BEST TEACHING PROGRAMME (VISUAL) category

- Finalist, Attic Film Fest, Austin, Texas, USA, March 2011

- Winner, Kingdomwood Christian Film Festival, Atlanta, USA, October 2010

- Winner, Redemptive Storyteller Award, Virginia, USA, November 2010

- Finalist, San Diego Christian Film Festival, La Jolla, California, USA, December 2010

- Semi finalist, Transforming Stories International Christian Film Festival, Cape Town, South Africa, October 2010

The Incredibly Depressing Answers College Students Gave When Asked What the Holocaust Was and Where it Began

Sharon Schwartz writes in The Blaze -

A Pennsylvania woman set out with a video camera to learn what college students in her state know about the Holocaust — and discovered an incredible lack of knowledge not only of the genocide of the Jews, but of basic facts about U.S. history and World War II.

Rhonda Fink-Whitman visited college campuses in Pennsylvania this fall, including the venerated Ivy League institution the University of Pennsylvania, where she was repeatedly faced with a remarkable ignorance about events that took place in the last century. 

Students didn’t know where Normandy was, why U.S. forces landed there, why the U.S. even entered the war or who was president at the time. (Wilson, Eisenhower and JFK were among the guesses.)  One student didn’t know who Anne Frank was, because he said he never read the book.

Another student thought African Americans may have been targeted in the Holocaust.  [more . . .]

Me: The ignorance uncovered by Ms. Schwartz is eye-opening and scary. 

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CAN GMOs FEED THE WORLD?

Since I have a lot to learn about the pros and cons of GMO foods, I found the following article from Hallelujah Acres of interest.  In fact I found it quite alarming. 

Today, October 16, 2013 is World Food Day! And this year’s theme is “Sustainable Food Systems for Food Security and Nutrition“.

With all the promise of sustainable food and nutrition over the years regarding genetically modified foods (GMO foods), one would think that the World Food Day website would be all for GMO foods.

But there’s hardly a mention of GMOs.

Why not? Are GMO foods not all they’re cracked up to be?

As consumers — and especially if you’re on the Hallelujah Diet — we’ve all heard the negative horror stories of GMO foods and how they cause giant cancer tumors in rats, etc. Meanwhile, many others have come against such research claiming it to be inaccurate.

Giant tumors in rats aside, let’s pretend for a moment that GMO foods don’t cause any health effects.

Let’s just get the point: Are GMO foods good for the world, simply from a food security standpoint?

In other words, can they really solve the world’s hunger?

REDOUBT: NORTHWEST A HAVEN FOR DISMAYED AMERICANS

CBN News had a feature today about which I had not known anything previously.  Watch the video and learn of people (conservative Christians among them) moving to the Northwest for safety and a new life.

 

Here's the text of the video:

NORTHERN IDAHO -- You don't hear the word "redoubt" used very much anymore. It means a "fortress" or a "safe, protected place."

Some conservative American Christians are so dismayed with direction of the country that they're looking for a safe place for their families. They call it the "American Redoubt." 

Alarm over the future of America can be seen almost daily in the headlines and on cable news. The loss of privacy, constitutional freedoms, and out-of-control government spending are just a few of the reasons sending shock waves across the country.

 For Christians, there are even bigger concerns. Religious persecution is on the rise, and that's leading many believers to look beyond the ballot box and start voting with their feet.

SEN. TED CRUZ SPEAKS AT THE VALUES VOTERS SUMMIT

The 2,200-plus who attended the 8^th annual Values Voter Summit took a presidential straw pol which Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) won with 42 percent of the votes.  Dr. Ben Carson finished second with 13 percent, with only one vote separating him from former Sen. Rick Santorum. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) came in fourth, with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fl.) right behind at six and five percent respectively.  (Click here for a complete list of straw poll results.)  Senator Cruz's speech to the Values Voter Summit follows:  (Note how deftly he handled his opponents' interruptions). 

 

TONY PERKINS INTERVIEWS MARK LEVIN - "TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK"

Levin has written the recently published and widely praised, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic (2013) and before that a series of important books including Ameritopia: The Unmaking of America (2012), Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto (2009),  and Men in Black: How the Supreme Court is Destroying America (2006).  He also authored the poignant Rescuing Sprite: A Dog Lover's Story of Joy and Anguish. 

Perkins interviewed Mark Levin at the Values Voters Summit held in Washington, D.C. today:

"Today the problem is that the Constitution is not adhered to . . .   We are unmoored from the rule of law. . .    This Congress is not going to fix itself . . .    Unless we rise up, take control of our state legislatures, and fix this thing on our own, it’s not going to be fixed."

"The Republican party today is not the Reagan Republican party, it’s not the Goldwater Republican Party, it is the status-quo, neo-statist Republican party. . .    This is simply unacceptable… "

Levin's website can be accessed here.

MAX LUCADO - "EXPOSED TO A HIGHER STANDARD"

I picked up Max Lucado's book, "Let the Journey Begin," at a library booksale recently and thought the following worth passing on:  (ellipses are in the original)

         Most of my life I've been a closet slob.  I was slow to see the logic of neatness.  Why make up a bed if you are going to sleep in it again tonight?  Does it make sense to wash dishes after only one meal?  Isn't it easier to leave your clothes on the floor at the foot of the bed so they'll be there when you get up and put them on? . . .

         Then I got married . . .

         I enrolled in a twelve-step program for slobs.  ("My name is Max, I hate to vacuum.")  A physical therapist helped me rediscover the muscles used for hanging shirts and placing toilet paper on the holder.  My nose was reintroduced to the fragrance of Pine Sol . . .

         Then came the moment of truth.  Denalyn went out of town for a week.  Initially I reverted to the old man.  I figured I'd be a slob for six days and clean on the seventh.  But something strange happened, a curious discomfort.  I couldn't relax with dirty dishes in the sink.

         What had happend to me?

          Simple.  I'd been exposed to a higher standard.

          Isn't that what has happened with us? . . .

          Before Christ our lives were out of control, sloppy, and indulgent.  We didn't even know we were slobs until we met him . . .

          Suddenly we find ourselves wanting to do good.  Go back to the old mess?  Are you kidding?

              (Romans 6:17-18 - You were made free from sin, and now you are slaves to goodness.")

Me:  Max Lucado never struck me as one who might have had to battle being a slob!  It's a great piece, spiritually true, too. 

MEGYN KELLY INTERVIEWS DR. BEN CARSON WHO PULLS NO PUNCHES ABOUT OBAMA'S RADICALISM 10/9/13

This interview is definitely worth watching.  In this interview Carson talks of the Saul Alinsky tactics Obama is using and of Communist Vladimir Lenin's statement that "socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state."  Carson:  "The fundamental relationship between the government and the people is shifting."

I'm wondering if Dr. Carson will be the burr in Obama's saddle going forward?  He's the most accomplished black person in the United States, well-spoken, and outspoken!  He has just become a Fox contributor.

 

Goldberg: Obama is Responsible for Behavior of Bureaucracy During Shutdown

Of course Obama is responsible!  Can you imagine what all this is doing to the morale of U.S. troops?  Would you want to fight in the armed forces run by a President and an administration that shows only disdain for its fighting men and women?  Remember Benghazi?  President Obama is single-handedly destroying the fabric of a once great nation. 

 

MARK STEYN - RETURN GOVERNMENT PARKS TO THE STATES

Mark Steyn:

There is a sickness in the regulatory bureaucracy that Americans should be ashamed of. The NPS [National Park Service], like the IRS, is corrupt and should be abolished — and the government’s parks (they’re clearly not the people’s) returned to the states.

Me:   Yes.  The Federal Government under the Obama Administration has used thug tactics in shutting down access to the people's parks.  Steyn is right.  The government's parks should be returned to the states.  

OBAMA'S "CASUAL CRUELTY" (HUGH HEWITT)

- (Updated 10/8/13):  Mollie Hemmingway- The Shutdown Government - Powerful, Punitive and Petty.  "The federal bureaucracy tried to show its importance.  Instead it revealed its vindictive cruelty.  - A comprehensive and important post.  Read it all.

- (Original post) - Hewitt is absolutely right.  Obama has no conscience about inflicting pain if he thinks it will further his transformative agenda.  In refusing to allow a vote on National Park funding he is displaying his true colors.  The rest of us wince at a President so callous. 

And don't forget what he is doing to private businesses on federal land.

And then there's this! -Park Service: No to Vets Visiting War Memorials, Yes to Radical Pro-Illegal Immigration Supporters...

A planned immigration reform rally will take place on the National Mall on Tuesday even though the site is closed due to the government shutdown.

Organizers for the “Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform” were spotted Monday setting up a stage and equipment on the National Mall for the rally which will take place on Tuesday.

The Shutdown Government: Powerful, Punitive And Petty

 

The federal bureaucracy tried to show its importance. Instead it revealed its vindictive cruelty.

DENNIS PRAGER OFFERS A RESPONSE TO RICHARD DAWKINS

Talk-show host Dennis Prager writes:

This past Friday CNN conducted an interview with Richard Dawkins, the British biologist most widely known for his polemics against religion and on behalf of atheism.

 Asked "whether an absence of religion would leave us without a moral compass," Dawkins responded: "The very idea that we get a moral compass from religion is horrible."

This is the crux of the issue for Dawkins and other anti-religion activists -- that not only do we not need religion or God for morality, but we would have a considerably more moral world without them.

This argument is so wrong -- both rationally and empirically - that its appeal can only be explained by a) a desire to believe it and b) an ignorance of history.

First, the rational argument.  [more. . .]

BEST BIOGRAPHIES - RECOMMENDATIONS BY NOTABLE EVANGELICALS

From Justin Taylor:

20 Biography Recommendations: Nettles, Haykin, Finn, and Reeves

Tom Nettles is professor of historical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His most recent publication, years in the making, is a major biography of Charles Spurgeon.

Here are his top biography recommendations:

1. Eric Metaxas, Bonhoeffer.

This is a slap in the face for those of us who are always looking for the politically appropriate [safe] time to say something true.

2. George Marsden, Jonathan Edwards.

For the purposes of seminary class, I use Murray’s biography. To show, however, in a charming but serious-minded way to a secular public how seriously and deeply a Christian can think about issues of ultimate importance, this is the book to loan (you could not give many of them away).

3. Roland Bainton, Here I Stand.

A beautifully crafted story of a rough and resolute man whose discovery of truth so melded itself into his soul that he feared to distinguish between his truth-informed conscience and the final claim of God on his life.

4. Sharon James, My Heart in His Hands: Ann Judson of Burma.

Sharon James gives a sensitive and vigorous unfolding of one of the most intensely important lives of nineteenth-century American evangelicalism. Without Ann Judson, American evangelical foreign missions might never have gotten off the ground.

5. Iain Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899-1939 and D. Marty Lloyd Jones: The Fight of Faith, 1939-1981.

This provides great encouragement and instruction for pastors seeking a ministry given to scriptural and doctrinal edification of the Bride of Christ.

[JT note: see also an updated and revised one-volume abridged edition.]

OBAMA CLOSES SCENIC OVERLOOKS

Dictatorial zaniness on display.  From National Review:  (my emphases)

Driving down the George Washington Parkway outside Washington, D.C. today, I noticed that the two scenic overlooks that offer drivers the chance to admire the beauty of the Potomac River below are closed for the government shutdown. These overlooks are just cut-outs from the highway, providing a few parking spaces. That’s it. No little National Park Service kiosk. Nothing. It’s just a parking area that holds maybe 6 cars at a time. 

To close them required someone to come and put up barricades, thus costing taxpayers money. 

Is there anyone in the Obama administration with common sense? Do they not see how petty and over-reaching this makes them look?

From commnts:

 - Here in Idaho they closed down boat ramps by hiring personnel to barricade them. These boat ramps have never had nor ever required any personnel whatsoever.

- They are doing it at scenic turn-outs in the Great Smoky Mountains NP and most likely anywhere a public highway passes through National Park Service Land.

As I said, this represents "dictatorial zaniness."  I don't see how this helps the Obamacrats win the PR war.  It seems their aim is to inflict irresponsible and stupid hardships that make no sense.   These are imperialists who feel no responsibility to serve the people.