Category Archives: Law and Faith

Culture News, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics

Culture News: House votes to create ‘International Abortion HQ’

Capital Hill

House Approves Bill to Create ‘International Abortion HQ’
By Lawrence Jones, Christian Post Reporter
Fri, Jun. 12 2009 08:10 AM EDT

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a controversial bill that pro-life groups say would promote abortion around the world on the taxpayer’s dime.

Congressional representatives voted 235-187 to approve H.R. 2410 on Wednesday, with 11 members abstaining.

The bill, known as the “Foreign Relations Authorization Act,” would create a new Office for Global Women’s Issues that would “coordinate efforts of the United States Government regarding gender integration and women’s empowerment in United States foreign policy.”

Concerned Women for America’s Legislative Action Committee called the legislation the “Ambassador for Abortion” bill because it would designate “ambassadors” to implement “women’s empowerment” programs internationally.

Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life Action, meanwhile, said if the act becomes law, “it will be a grave injustice to women around the world.”

“Our elected representatives have no business using the diplomatic strong-arm of the United States to avidly promote abortion expansion overseas and undermine pro-life laws around the world,” she stated. “I call on the Senate to reject this proposal.”

A tide of other pro-life groups – including National Right to Life Committee, Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony List – have voiced opposition against the bill, saying it would work to undermine pro-life laws in other countries.

According to the groups, the Office would be an international headquarters for abortion of sorts. Pro-lifers recalled a recent testimony of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton before the Foreign Affairs Committee, to whom she said the administration would protect women’s rights to reproductive health care, which includes access to abortion.

They also say the bill is riddled with other problem areas, such as the promotion of homosexuality abroad.

[Continue Reading…]

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, Debate, Law and Faith, Politics

Perspective & Proportion: Abortion, Islam and Radical Leftists

Well, for too long in recent days the Liberal Left has been crying about how we need to be kinder to Islam and harder on the U.S. for its past foreign policies. Islam is a “peaceful religion” and its those extremists that are not true Muslims… Right? Don’t think about it… just say, “yes!”

Well, after 10 years and no abortion doctors being murdered… An abortion doctor is murdered at his church and now the Liberal Left are screaming that all anti-abortionists are extremists and spreading hatred with their speech!

OH! Pardon me… I didn’t realize that a small number of extremists meant that all anti-abortionists were extremists! (Let’s play the “double standard” card. That will make us feel better and help us force more people under our thumbs.)

Well, now that I’ve had my say… I mainly wanted to point you over to the St. Johnny blog to encourage you to read an article on the recent Tiller murder. Anthony Horvath has some great insights into what is taking place in the political sphere regarding the Liberal Left and their extreme hypocrisy and fear mongering.

Here is an excerpt from his article:

I indicated that the reason why proportion and a sense of perspective were necessary regarding the Tiller killing was because in the liberal mind, referring to abortion as murder, etc, is inflammatory language that really is ‘hate speech.’

The current hate speech legislation coming through Congress (Matthew Shepherd Act) aims to draw exactly this kind of connection, though of course this legislation is related more to homosexuality.  The idea is the same, though:  if anyone person commits a crime and it can be tracked back to someone who can be perceived to have ‘instigated it’ the person who did the ‘instigation’ is equally guilty and consequently should be punished under the law.

In today’s perusal of the web I found more evidence of this attempt to condemn the entire pro-life movement because of this single event.  The irony is that the day after Tiller was killed, an American soldier was gunned down at a recruitment center by someone we now know was acting on Islamicist principles.

Besides there being little media attention about that, it should be noted that the Left does not apparently have an interest to condemn all Muslims because of this single event.   There is clearly a lack of perspective here:  in ten years one abortionist was killed but in that same ten years thousands of Americans died at the hands of Islamicists and numerous attacks have been thwarted.  But let’s not make any unwarranted generalizations, shall we?  Unless it’s pro-lifers.

But about that evidence I was referencing.  This article on Newsmax describes how the Left is attempting to link the Tiller killing to Bill O’Reilly and the rest of the pro-life movement.   This article on LifeSiteNews illustrates some of the same.

[Continue Reading…]

Culture, Culture News, Current Events, False Religion, Law and Faith, Politics, Theology

Obama declares June ‘LGBT Pride Month’

Just another example of the sad and perverse thinking of the current Presidential Administration leading the White House today. This is one more testimony to the judgment of God that has fallen and continues to fall on the United States of America:

“For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.” (Romans 1:21-32)

Culture, Culture News, Current Events, Law and Faith, Politics

Culture News: No more home Bible studies?

UPDATE: San Diego withdraws Bible study warning
‘The weekly activity is within the scope of the residential use’

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Home: No place for Bible study

County demands pastor spend thousands

on ‘Major Use’ permit to host friends

Posted: May 22, 2009, 5:13 pm Eastern

By Drew Zahn at WorldNetDaily.com

A San Diego pastor and his wife claim they were interrogated by a county official and warned they will face escalating fines if they continue to hold Bible studies in their home.

The couple, whose names are being withheld until a demand letter can be filed on their behalf, told their attorney a county government employee knocked on their door on Good Friday, asking a litany of questions about their Tuesday night Bible studies, which are attended by approximately 15 people.

“Do you have a regular weekly meeting in your home? Do you sing? Do you say ‘amen’?” the official reportedly asked. “Do you say, ‘Praise the Lord’?”

The pastor’s wife answered yes.

She says she was then told, however, that she must stop holding “religious assemblies” until she and her husband obtain a Major Use Permit from the county, a permit that often involves traffic and environmental studies, compliance with parking and sidewalk regulations and costs that top tens of thousands of dollars.

And if they fail to pay for the MUP, the county official reportedly warned, the couple will be charged escalating fines beginning at $100, then $200, $500, $1000, “and then it will get ugly.”

Remind the world who’s really in charge with the “Worship GOD, not GOV” magnetic bumper sticker from WND.

Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy, which has been retained to represent the couple, told WND the county’s action not only violates religious land-use laws but also assaults both the First Amendment’s freedom of assembly and freedom of religion.

“The First Amendment, in part, reads, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,'” Broyles said. “And that’s the key part: ‘prohibiting the free exercise.’ We believe this is a substantial government burden on the free exercise of religion.”

He continued, “If one’s home is one’s castle, certainly you would the think the free exercise of religion, of all places, could occur in the home.”

[Continue Reading…]

Apologetics, Culture, Debate, Denominations, Ecclesiology, False Religion, Homosexual Agenda, Law and Faith, Politics, Theology

Homosexuality and the Church

James Grant says:

In the previous post regarding the Church of Scotland and the appointment of a practicing homosexual to a particular ministerial post, someone left a comment stating that this is a healthy move for the Church of Scotland, and American Christians should follow their lead, referencing this article by Walter Wink: “Homosexuality and the Bible.” In this article, Wink provides several arguments as to why the church should not condemn homosexuality, but at the heart of his article and argument is this statement: “The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is simply that the Bible has no sexual ethic.” Indeed…that is a crucial matter on several levels (not to mention an significance difference of opinion on the nature of Biblical revelation).

I do hope Christians can have open and civil discussions, even about this controversial matter, but it is important to realize that Wink’s arguments will not persuade Christians who oppose the practice of homosexuality and have thought through the textual, biblical, and historical issues. It is not as if Christian’s haven’t dealt with Wink’s arguments both throughout church history and in our more recent cultural situation.  Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics is one of those books that helps Christians get the right perspective on this issue. It is the most comprehensive book-length response to the interpretive assumptions that go into this type of discussion.

Robert A. J. Gagnon

I would also encourage you to check out Robert Gagnon’s website. Gagnon is Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and his credentials are superb: a B.A. from Dartmouth College, an M.T.S. from Harvard Divinity School, and a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also an ordained elder in a Presbyterian Church (USA) in Pittsburgh. His website is a comprehensive response to the homosexual movement within the church, which he faces in the PCUSA. You can view some of his specific responses to particular articles and reviews here. This includes a response to Walter Wink’s arguments from Christian Century. Scroll to the bottom of the page and you will see links to the pdfs. If you prefer to hear Gagnon, Issues, Etc., has a two part interview with him (Part 1 & Part 2).

Apologetics, Culture, Current Events, False Religion, History, Humanism, Law and Faith, Politics, Prayer Requests, Theology

Obama to Notre Dame Grads: Babel is our goal, not God

1 Comment

obama

Yesterday, I watched President Obama address thousands of attendees at the Notre Dame graduation day as he received his honorary doctorate. Now, I was not surprised by anything he said, except for a couple of references he made to the Bible and God in order to “connect” with the Catholic School’s traditional theology… but what disturbed me MOST was the apparent ECHO of the Tower of Babel episode in the Genesis account. Notice, from the online transcript, the wording of the Presidents comments in one section of his speech:

“And when that happens — when people set aside their differences, even for a moment, to work in common effort toward a common goal; when they struggle together, and sacrifice together, and learn from one another — then all things are possible.”

Now, notice the Tower of Babel incident from Genesis 11:4-7:

“Then they said, ‘Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.’ 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, ‘Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.'”

Now, please hear me correctly, I understand and affirm that the great commission and the spread of the Gospel is God’s divine plan to gradually (and finally at the return of Christ) reverse what He did at the Babel by confusing mankind with various languages. But understand this:

President Obama DID NOT even talk about the Gospel or the Great Commission in his entire speech. Thus presenting the dilemma: What was he talking about?

He was talking about compromise. And this compromise was not merely between different cultures, but between different religions and faiths! This was not about the Church and the Gospel, it was about uniting together as humanity and working to find “common ground” in our OWN strength, doing it without God!

So, my conclusion about President Obama’s speech is this: It was the most practically atheistic speech a “Christian” could ever give. And to top it off, the people at Notre Dame cheered him on in doing it!

For myself and hopefully many other Christians, yesterday was a sad, sad day, having seen that so many “Christian” people are now willing to say ‘YES’ to the offer of Satan that Jesus Christ so powerfully said ‘NO’ to on that high mountain (Matt. 4:8-10):

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written,

“‘You shall worship the Lord your God
and him only shall you serve.’”

President Obama has already said yes to Satan’s temptation by rejecting the Gospel and he’s looking to promote it to EVERYONE ELSE. But, as Christians, are we willing to COMPROMISE on the Gospel for the sake of “progress” and making  “all things possible”?

I pray that those students at Notre Dame will reconsider the offer President Obama gave to them yesterday and that they will look to Christ for their help and not rely on themselves to get things done and to find “common ground” in our common humanity. If our common humanity is not rooting in the Gospel of Jesus Christ saving a people for himself from every nation and toungue, then it is only rooted in our fallenness and our hatred of God and His glory.

Please pray for our President and ask God to keep this atheism from spreading further into the hearts of Christians in this country and around the world.

Culture, Current Events, History, Homosexual Agenda, Humanism, Law and Faith, Politics

Britain: The First “Modern Soft Totalitarian State”

british-flag-640

LifeSiteNews.com
By Hilary White – May 6, 2009

A deliberate campaign to enforce “diversity” and political correctness by “unelected or quasi-governmental bodies” is turning Britain into the “the first modern soft totalitarian state”, an Australian political science expert and author says.

Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch, an Australian historian, author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer, has warned in an editorial in the Australian that while there may as yet be no concentration camps or gulags in Britain, “there are thought police with unprecedented powers to dictate ways of thinking and sniff out heresy, and there can be harsh punishments for dissent.” He points to the dozens of cases over the last ten years in which Christians and others who hold traditional moral views, have been targeted by police and other governmental agencies for their beliefs.

Colebatch warned of legislation that is currently being pushed through Parliament that will outlaw the telling of racist, “homophobic” or politically incorrect jokes, with a potential sentence upon conviction of seven years in prison. An attempt in the House of Lords to insert a freedom of speech clause was shot down by Labour Justice Minister Jack Straw.

Colebatch cited “innumerable cases” over the last decade in which public employees such as nurses, policemen, teachers, marriage commissioners and others have been threatened with the sack or suspension or disciplinary measures for sharing, or even privately revealing, their religious beliefs. Colebatch also mentioned arrests of school children for allegedly uttering racist remarks, and police warnings to a bishop who had failed sufficiently to “celebrate diversity” in his ministry.

…

In an editorial last week in the Church of England Newspaper, [Martin] Beckford wrote that the public sector in Britain is engaging in an all-out campaign against Christianity. It is “no coincidence that most of these cases are occurring in the public sector, where it is easier for political leaders to spread their ideas of what is not culturally acceptable,” he wrote.

The operating principle, he said, is government suppression of freedom of speech and religion, and once the legal mechanisms exist, even those groups, such as the National Secular Society that have been used to promote the government’s agenda, will not be safe. Once the laws are in place, he writes, “there will be little to stop future governments or local authorities interpreting ‘equality and diversity’ in different ways to silence other groups – atheists, perhaps, or climate change skeptics.”

Read Colebatch’s editorial in the Australian

Read Martin Beckford’s Article in the Church of England Newspaper

Culture News, Homosexual Agenda, Law and Faith, Politics

Culture News: British teacher gets suspended after walking out on homosexual training

Charlie Butts – OneNewsNow – 5/6/2009 7:40:00 AM

A Christian teacher in England has been suspended after complaining about the use of classroom time to promote homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle.

Kwabena Peat

Kwabena Peat was one of several teachers who walked out of the school’s compulsory indoctrination and training day, and he did so based on his Christian beliefs. LifeSiteNews.com reports Peat wrote a letter to three staff members who organized the session at Park View Academy, disagreeing with featured speaker and co-founder of Schools Out pro-homosexual program Sue Sanders, who said in her “aggressive” presentation that people who believe homosexuality is abnormal need to sort out their “issues.”

Following the letter, Peat was suspended with pay until the school decides his fate as an employee.

Matt Barber, director of cultural affairs at Liberty Counsel, says the incident is representative of the homosexual activist movement.

“They are not interested in just being left alone, as one of their most influential leaders in the homosexual community recently said,” he points out. “What they’re really after is silencing any opposition to the homosexual lifestyle — even if it’s rooted in seriously held religious belief — and they are willing to do anything to do that.”

Apologetics, Culture, History, Law and Faith, Politics, Science

Abortion: The NEW kind of slavery

8-week-unborn-baby

If you stop to think about the past, sometimes you can gain really great insight. Now, this is not my idea, but Craig Carter has thought about something very significant in this whole debate about abortion.

In the past, you might recall that pro-slavery legislation ultimately defined a “person” based upon societies decision/will that slaves were not persons, they were more like cattle. The same thing applies to pro-abortionist legislation and thinking today. The only reason that someone can say that a baby in the womb is not a person is through an “act of will” that denies the reality that the baby in the womb IS a person in and of themselves! In other words, it’s the 19th century all over again!

Or, as someone once told me, “post”-modernism is the drunk after he’s wrecked his car into a telephone pole and the resultant fire is about to burn him to death while he waves his last, shiny bottle in the air thinking nothing about his impending death… The lesson? Today is not a new mindset, it’s just the fulfillment of and, at the same time, a denial of what has come before!

So, here is what Mr. Craig Carter had to say:

“The Globe and Mail tiptoes carefully through the semantic minefield in this story on an unborn baby having heart surgery in utero. Notice the terms used [my bolding]:”

“TORONTO — In what’s being called a Canadian first, Toronto doctors have successfully performed a heart procedure on a fetus inside the womb.

A team of doctors at the Hospital for Sick Children and Mount Sinai Hospital expanded one of the baby’s heart valves using a balloon catheter. The device was inserted through the mother’s abdomen and then into the fetus to reverse heart failure before delivery.

Sick Kids Hospital says the procedure allowed the baby to remain safely in utero for a crucial extra month before her birth on April 15.

Within an hour of Oceane McKenzie’s birth, she had another procedure, and a third followed a few weeks later. Doctors say Oceane is well on the road to recovery and will soon be going home.”

Carter concludes:

Now the pro-abortion types are going to hate this article. It refers to this little girl as “fetus-baby-fetus-baby-Oceane McKenzie.” This is clearly a fetus, which is also a baby, who also has a name.

But under Canadian law her mother could have changed her mind after the heart operation and had Oceane killed by an abortionist at any moment up to the moment the baby emerged from the birth canal. So how can the pro-abortionists say that abortion is not killing a person? There is only one way to do it: Oceane was a person because her mother wanted her. So one human being can bestow and remove personhood from another by an act of will. The last time that sort of thing was legal was in the days of slavery. How “progressive” we are – not!

[HT: James Grant]