Please
let us know any ideas you have for how
to improve the service. February 28 2005 | Buddhist
priest calls the Ten Commandments 'absolute nonsense'
Why
should the terrorist Islamist fringe get all the bad press and badwill?
A
press release to lambaste the Ten Commandments? Is this spiritual ewarfare?
Or a bid for attention? Better
be careful, "Rev.," you may attract more bees than you can handle with
all this honey.
February 27 2005 | Latest
NY Times sop to Christians: Putting God back into American history
Such
departures from liberal orthodoxy make it seem the New York Times is playing
a new game of volleyball. Perhaps, spiraling down in circulation and credibility
among all population segments other than the far left after the Jayson Blair scandal
and the paper's extreme partisanship in last year's election, it's trying to get
our attention again.
And
I grudgingly concede, it's working.
February 26 2005 | Movie rating board
grants PG-13 for film with normally R-rated language
Funny/odd
how these things work. "Bush41's" front-page boast
"we'll kick Sadam's a--" led to making that particular anatomical obscenity
acceptable to CBSNBCABCFOX to the extent that it soon became David Letterman's
favorite junior highism.
Now
because the obscenities are part of soldiers' normal patois rather than really
talking about sex and scatology, the MPAA condones their use for movies playing
to children.
February 25 2005 | 'When
it comes to religion, this show spews 21st century fire and brimstone'
I
like this program and hope it success, so this is my second attempt to widen its
exposure. If you haven't checked it out yet, put it on your calendar. Not sure
if it's scheduled uniformly around the country, but in my market it's PAX-TV at
10 p.m. Saturdays. As they say, check your local listings.
February 24 2005 | This
week's 'public' school discriminating against Christians is in Ohio
There
are almost as many "public" schools being sued for anti-Christian discrimination
are there are having teachers arrested for sex with minors.
I
put "public" in quotes because of course any truly public instution
in the United States would be defending, rather than destroying, the First Amendment
liberties of all segments of our publics which our sacrifices and struggles have
won. Instead, the so-called Public Schools are interested in the rights of only
those they have managed to recreate in their own image and likeness so they can
perpetuate their power and franchise. No, these are not
"public" institutions and the sooner our national publics realize it,
the better off we'll all be.
February 23 2005 | The
Pope's new book calls homosexual marriages part of an ideology of evil
The
fire has not been extinguished.
February 22 2005 | Comedian-pundit
Bill Maher calls Christianity—all religions—neurological disorders
Maher
is merely saying what we've been claiming for years is the liberal position, the
logical extension of Enlightenment principles (such as man is his own god). Would
that all liberals were as consistent...or truthful. Then there would be only one
"blue state."
February 21 2005 | Hollywood
output of R-rated films down; now outgrossed by PG releases
Also
noteworthy: Of the four biggest money-making R-rated movies last year, one was
Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ and another was Michael Moore's
"mockumentary" Farenheit 9/11.
February 20 2005 | NY
Times sensationalizing pre-presidential secret tapes of George W. Bush
There
is nothing surprising, much less sensational, here. But it should disappoint liberals
looking for a smoking gun proving that W is another Hitler, a good thing.
Some
evangelicals will be disappointed that their President uses "hell" as
a profanity, but he is, after all, a Texas evangelical.
February 19 2005 | Catholic
newspaper touts growing closeness between RCs and evangelicals I
would cite changes in both camps as contributing to this sea change. The Catholic
Church, especially under Pope John Paul II, has become far more evangelical in
its doctrine and preaching. Especially important to evangelicals in this is the
new emphasis on religion as relationship between God in Christ and the individual
Catholic believer. And on the evangelical side there has been widespread discovery
and recovery of the history of early church and newfound appreciation of the church
fathers.
February 18 2005 | New
York college dismisses 'A' student for defending his personal views Can
you say academic freedom?
February 17 2005 | New
US Attorney General takes up pornography decision as his first case Many
politicians go after public obscenity during election campaigns and lose interest
after elections. Is this new wrinkle an instance of delivering on the Bush administra-tion's
pledge to protect the nation's family values?
February 16 2005 | Columnist
describes the Democrats' outreach for values voters as quagmire Many
good points here. These Limbaugh men show much skill, talent
and occasional insight. Though both are Republicans, I think of David as the conservative
one.
February 15 2005 | Public's
fascination continues with ancient materials linked with the Bible More
compelling evidence that much of what claims the mantle of "science"
is really in the business of attemping to dismantle the belief in the Bible, miracles,
God, and everything supernatural.
February 14 2005 | Chicago-area
evangelicals come under scrutiny of local newspaper The
major effect of the November '04 elections may have been that, at last, the American
press has come to know what evangelical means, and how to use the word in a sentence.
Seems just yesterday most of them couldn't tell you the difference between "evangelist,"
or "evangelism" and "evangelical."
February 13 2005 | New
York Times considers Abraham Lincoln as major theological thinker First
a Peter Steinfels
story in the Times sided with evangelicals when they were savaged by Bill
Moyers. Now the Steinfels/Times cohort builds a compelling story around
a thesis propounded by an evangelical scholar, Mark Noll, and even introduces
him as "an outstanding historian of American religion." Is this a Times
strategy to grease Hilary Clinton's slide into the White House? Has the Times
gotten religion, or at least is it finally "getting" evangelicalism?
Or is Peter Steinfels putting one over the Times editors and risking banishment
to the obit beat? Stay tuned. And meanwhile, this is both
a compelling story and a stunning rejoinder to all those who've been saying religion
has only become a major factor in American politics since the Bush administration.
February 12 2005 | Book,
God on the Quad, probes sex at colleges where anything doesn't go This
is an apt complement of the February 5 and February
7 linked items and comments.
February 11 2005 | A
gentler version of The Passion of the Christ will be in theaters by Easter Welcome
back.
February 10 2005 | Minister
who compared abortion killings to war deaths questioned by FBI As
"hate crimes" laws become more widespread, such police actions will become commonplace.
All crimes, as Tess, the senior angel in Touched by An Angel said in a
recent rerun, are hate crimes. The purpose of passing "hate crimes" laws is specifically
to target Christians who preach biblical standards of morality and ethics, as
pastor Steele's sad experience demonstrates. Assuming that the citizen who "turned
in" this minister to the FBI is not a crackpot, he must have wanted to get a jump
on the laws not yet on the Illinois books.
February 9 2005 | Praeger:
Judeo-Christian view of humanity 'higher' than the humanist view Dennis
Praeger's views, as usual, need no embellishing from me.
February 8 2005 | Blog:
Moyers op-ed smear of Christians makes Jayson Blair look like a pro Seems
I read somewhere recently that Bill Moyers has retired from PBS, but knowing them
I'm guessing they'll continue using his extant material, if no longer getting
any new input, for years to come. Bill Moyers has long
since been discounted as a serious adversary among Christians for his baiting,
misrepresenting and, in the process, hating us. But the motivations for PBS (not
to mention the Minneapolis Star Tribune and Washington Post) continuing
to promote such hateful untruths is worth considering. (And no, I'm not considering
"conspiracy.")
February 7 2005 | RC co-ed:
sex behavior of church-attending students equally debauched As
moral essay I'm not sure I get Julie's point, but maybe never having been Catholic
I couldn't. Or maybe it's more because I was nowhere near my 20's in the 2000s. The
article is offered, however, mainly as a seconding of Vigen Guroian's
coverage of similar terrain.
February 6 2005 | U.
Colorado professor plans no apology for comparing 9/11 victims to Nazis Many
are questioning whether any tax-supported institution should have to retain purveyors
of such sentiments. I think it's also an open question whether anyone who admits
to not being able to edit "a gut-reaction speech" in four hours has
the professional skills appropriate to the job.
February 5 2005 | Vigen
Guroian weighs in on campus debauchery and colleges that foster it I'm
now in the middle of writing a series on sexualizing
our culture via the debauching of our younger generation, and find this lengthy
look at the campus scene highly enlightening and culturally frightening. I believe
that the major secular media, whose gatekeepers consider their mission to be the
continued promotion of secularism for our culture, deliberately promote promiscuity
as recreation in support of their belief that no other option will be more powerful
in undercutting the morals and the commitment to God and family in the next generation
than moral debauchery (sometimes known as the "how will you keep them on
the farm after they've seen Paree" syndrome). And the educational establishment
from Harvard and Stanford down to the gay tolerance in the first and second grades
are in lockstep with the media.
February 4 2005 | Study
confirms that voters were religiously polarized in November's elections Finally,
some strong evidence that a sizeable portion of perfessed Christians are voting
according to a biblically formed worldview.
February 3 2005 | LA
Times: Culture war is heating up in post-modern, post-Christian Europe 'Nothing
like a little competition to bring light and life back into people's priorities.
February 2 2005 | Hollywood's extreme
left is pushing the envelope of kids' sex in movies Hard
evidence from the industry's veritable main communications medium that liberals
equate sexual anarchy with "progress." File this
one under cultural war propaganda admissions or revelations.
February 1 2005 | USA
Today provides partially balanced report on gay themes in kids' TV Stephen
Bennett reports in a letter to his ministry constitu-ents that the episode of
Postcards From Buster has been pulled from PBS in the wake of widespread
protests from parents and PBS viewers (but "Even though PBS has officially
pulled the episode, several stations—including those in Boston, New York
and San Francisco—are being defiant and will air the show anyway." Turning
to the USA Today "balanced reporting": the headline implies that
our conservative society is perpetrating evil by forcing gays to "stay in
the closet" when it comes to children's TV programming. It suggests so strongly
as not to be missed that "sensitivity" is a hallmark of PBS children's
programming and that the sensitive thing to do here is to let gays hang out their
sex lives all over programs like Postcards From Buster. But
on the other end of the balance scale, it almost, almost, raises the fact
that the real issue is sexualizing elementary-school-age children. It even, even,
lets Stephen Bennett speak two lines of his own thinking without censuring him,
which is more than faux conservative Bill O'Reilly or Good Morning America have
done in dealing with Bennett. Balance? No. But on the other hand, it is so much
closer to being balanced than the widespread press
reports (one example linked at left; a search page finding 500,000 hits, here)
headlining falsely last week that spokespersons from Focus on the Family and the
American Family Association are calling Spongebob Squarepants gay, that I guess
we have to give USA Today a bit of credit for restraint and at least asking
for a comment by an AFA spokesperson. Again I have to reiterate:
The issue is sexualizing children. Has any PBS children's show, or any on Disney,
Nickoledeon, or the other channels programming mainly for children, had an episode
about "my big sister's shacking up with her boyfriend" or "Dad's
new mistress"? I hope not, even though we don't have to be as "sensitive"
to the feelings of promiscuous older sisters and parents as the liberal establishment
wants to require us to be toward the poor beleaguered discriminated-against gay
minority.
|
