Please
let us know any ideas you have for how
to improve the service. August 31 2005 | Cal
Thomas advocates double standard for Christian laity, clergy Perhaps
Cal Thomas' real calling was his ministry at Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority where
he served as director of communication in the early '80s? Maybe, like Jonah, he
tried to escape God's assignment, but hasn't been able to get beyond his running
away from it? Or conversely, maybe he's trying to "atone" for that move
that many must consider an indiscretion or poor judgment? Perhaps
he's just another wolf in sheep's clothing who perceives his calling as dividing
the flock? Maybe he's another Bill O'Reilly, an opportunist more interested in
what the conservative movement can do for him than he can do for anyone else? Certainly
his attempt to apply New Testament teachings that were meant for all Christians
as though pertaining only to ordained ministers is a false teaching, as is his
claim that Christ can be Lord of spiritual life or the life to come but not the
material, carnal life, the life of this generation. Christ came as a carnal (incarnate—"enfleshed")
being so that he could save us to the uttermost, including not only our souls
and our worship but our bodies, our world views, our voting, our stands on the
issues of our day. As I said last week, Pat Robertson (who
doesn't present himself as a "minister," despite Thomas' insistence
otherwise, but as a broadcaster and a Christian businessman)...as I said last
week, he erred greivously by letting himself get carried away by his own rhetoric,
but he's recanted his error and it's not to me—or Cal Thomas—to mete
out his penances. Pat Robertson's broadcasts have no doubt
saved many lives of unborn babies who would have been aborted if his witness hadn't
been there; he's inspired hundreds of thousands and his average daily audience
on the 700 Club is larger than Cal Thomas' weekly show on Fox News. His
Operation Blessing has reached and helped untold thousands. What
has Cal Thomas done? Besides point the finger...?
August 30 2005 | Anti-Defamation
League director Abe Foxman 'has a problem with Christianity' If
we are a pluralistic nation, as I advocate and the left pretends to support, there
is no such thing as "the" American ideal. Every American has his or her own ideal
or ideals (religion, politics, ideas), and no one—not even the Anti-Defamation
League—can force his "ideal" on anyone else. That's the
principle that the First Amendment was written to guarantee for as long as this
republic stands. Foxman's one "American ideal,"
if ever allowed to prevail in the form that he believes in it, would constitute
an establishment of religion, and that's what the left, not the conservative
right, is advocating. That religion, of course, is humanist secularism, the same
one that failed in Hitler's Reich, Stalin's gulags, and Napoleon's empire. The
joy of our Judeo-Christian pluralism (simple application of the Golden Rule) is
that we can make a nation out of that pluralism, as we've been doing for over
two centuries, if we act in good will and good nature and are willing, not to
compromise principle, but to co-operate on shared aspirations and values.
Not that we share all, but we share enough (such as, "life is better than murder,"
"family is better than children reared by Fagins") to create effective coalitions
and continue making human progress.
August 29 2005 | Christian
schools file discrimination suit against the University of California Anyone
who denies there is a culture war underway isn't reading the newspapers. And those
who think it's between a Christian west and the Islamic world are whistling in
the dark.
August 28 2005 | Secularists
using terror attacks as occasion to blame all world ills on religion Of
course Parris and Gray and their ilk are trying to snow the public to believe
that their religion isn't just as religious as jihadist Islam or pro-life Catholicsm.
It is, and no less fundamentalist, willing to lie and perpetrate outrageous
assertions as "divisions
between religions, such as whether or not they instruct followers to kill innocent
people, is of little importance" [sic] amply prove. The
secularists have Stalin's gulag and Hitler's Reich as notches on their belts.
One segment of christendom has to explain the inquisition,
but that was child's play compared with either of the twentieth century secularists'
reigns of terror.
August 27 2005 | Despite
political gains, conservative Christians still feel persecution Gee,
how can we claim persecution? Just because our view of origins, held by a
large majority of Americans, isn't even allowed to be aired in the state and court-run
schools throughout our country? Even though the majority of tax payers would prefer
a fair, balanced, moral and godly educational curriculum and the states don't
even consider their cries as worthy of consideration? Just because Pat Robertson's
off-the-top remarks get blown up as a "Christian fatwa" and representative
of the hearts of Christians in general, in the anti-Christian press from Boston
to Los Angeles? How paranoid are we Christians, anyway?
And how ungrateful to our "scientific" and "enlightened" betters
can we be? 2 Timothy 3:12: Yes, and all who desire to live godly
in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
August 26 2005 | CT
weblog reviews Pat Robertson's gaffes, curious investments The
importance of this is not to discredit Robertson but to remind us that none of
us are immune to missteps and misspeakings. And sometimes carrying each other's
burdens means giving and receiving reminders of our shortcomings and failures
to the body. For my longer take on this issue, please check
out today's Jonal.
August 25 2005 | Newsweek's
'spirituality' issue goes after Time's 'angst-ridden intellectuals' Better
39 years late than never? Perhaps. Or is this just the pot calling the kettle
black in a bald gambit to shore up Newsweek's sinking circulation? Regardless,
Dr. Mohler's assessment of it all is as usual intelligent and good food for thought.
August 24 2005 | Many
unintelligent designs in scientists' jihad against Intelligent Design Of
course I chose "jihad" here only because it's the one word conveying anything
like what I meant that would fit in the front page's one-line heading space. This
is the best article of the many I've seen on the topic of President Bush's halfway
endorsement of Intelligent Design. Scientists who don't
believe in academic and First Amendment freedoms? Say it ain't so! Can
you say "fascism"? All together, then— I'm
sure the majority of Germans in Hitler's time thought they were safe because the
greatest scientists in their lives were in charge of Der Fuehrer's human engineering
schemes. Yes, you can always trust the wise, educated, scientific elite. None
of them would sell out for the sake of a government or charitable trust grant.
Would they? And none of them want to play god, ever...right?
August 23 2005 | Columnist
Grant Swank claims the 'apostate church' is spreading AIDS Harsh
but true. The church catholic has always held that heresies like "fornication
is okay for Christians" or even, "fornication based on love is okay" put anyone
perpetrating such anti-scriptural doctrines outside the church and, therefore,
"apostate" is the word for such bodies. But
we must welcome all sinners, including homosexuals, who want to live lives of
repentance rather than rebellion. And especially in our times, that welcome message
must be clear.
August 22 2005 | Pope's
youth day homily, and reaction, get to crux of 'do-it-yourself' religion Though
a majority of the youth attending the pope's World
Youth Day may have been more in agreement with their patriarch than 19-year-old
Malte Schubert (as we should hope), it's more likely that Schubert speaks to the
thinking of a large majority of his young adult peers in Europe and America. Unbridled
sex means more to them than salvation, carnal freedom is more desirable than spiritual
holiness. This stark exposition of the relationship between today's license and
desire for heavenly grounding should bring the issue into perspective. Sex is
the downfall of most would-be believers (youth or otherwise) and it's glorification
by the world and most pointedly by the secular left is their main weapon against
the church and godliness.
August 21 2005 | Jewish
columnist: 'New secular Democrats' becoming strident anti-Semites Interesting
that after encountering "'neocon' is code for 'Jew'" just
four days ago, in an article from Australia, here it is again. I'm a skeptic
about it no longer. Sher
Zieve's essay supports her thesis
ably. And in turn she supports my oft-repeated but seldom "amened" proposition
that it's the left, not the mainstream right, that's really leading us into the
new fascism.
August 20 2005 | Which
religion best supports democracy? Toqueville and Iraq weigh in The
answer to the larger question implied here is, how
much evangelizing power resides in Christianity's supposed superiority when it
comes to enabling democracy to work? How much will Islam be willing to "adjust"
to compete with what Christianity offers the social order? And is Christianity's
emphasis on freewill and freedom of conscience the root of today's insidious secularism?
And if so (for I have to acknowledge at least a tenuous relationship) is more
militant Islam a worthy competitor with Christianity to sway the minds of nations?
August 19 2005 | The
decline of Christianity in Europe pressages things to come to the U.S. Yesterday's
linked article and comments feed directly into this provocative analysis by Baptist
theologian Albert Mohler of USA Today's study of Europe's religious situation
today. "Believing without
belonging" seems to describe much of the American population already, and it may
be accompanied by another slice of the demographic pie that "belongs" without
attempting to live out the implications of believing. In
this scenario, militant Islam or Islamic "fundamentalists" may be the means of
our cultural salvation. If...it isn't already too late for that. Today's
link also leads to a second column by Albert Mohler (following the one being discussed)
that also is well worth considering. In it he examines the reasons behind the
New Republic magazines jihad against "intelligent design." He thinks the
leftist magazine's over-the-top reaction to the "threat" of Intelligent
Design indicates panic.
August 18 2005 | Single-parent
homes are now the most common type in United States Despite
studies and speculations about how "believers" shaped the last national
elections, and despite polls showing high belief in God in the United States,
nothing speaks more eloquently and pointedly about the real spiritual health of
the United States than this development.
August 17 2005 | Another
orthodox Jewish scholar advocates 'Judeo-Christian' culture The
"seven Noahides" are worth the price of admission, or the time for reading. I
had never encountered them, but wish Braham had included source chapter and verse
references ...which perhaps just demonstrates my biblicistic evangelical upbringing.
And his prognosis that those who (like "Judeo-Christians") live by the "Noahides"
will fare well in the world to come, is heartening and generous. Unlike Madonna,
I can take his word for it that it's not necessary to become Jewish to benefit
from it, especially as a Christian. Gentiles may want to
stop reading at "Misunderstood." I know saying so will likely pique your curiosity
and result in your reading on...but when you're done you'll say you got a lot
more from the first third than the latter two. Braham is not quite as optimistic
(at least in this talk) about Judeo-Christian co-operation as Dennis Prager is
in his series of columns (discussed in this forum earlier), but there's good thinking
and historical background here.
August 16 2005 | Purpose
Driven Life author calls on the church to lead fight against AIDS For
those who don't read to the end of Rick Warren's essay, I wouldn't want you to
miss this: This fall, Bill and Lynne Hybels, the outstanding
ministry couple who founded the pacesetting Willow Creek Community Church, are
going to join Kay and me, along with an impressive roster of the leading HIV/AIDS
authorities in the world for Disturbing Voices: An International HIV/AIDS Conference,
Nov. 29—Dec. 1, 2005, at Saddleback Church, in Lake Forest, Calif. It will
be an historic and world-changing conference that we don’t want you to miss. Together,
we’ll examine why and how your church can be a leader and your members can model
for others what it means to care for the sick the way Jesus did and commanded.
Amen.
August 15 2005 | Justice
Sunday II speakers rail against the left's 'judicial autocracy' I
was all set to commend Reuters for a fair and balanced report, until I came to
"a procedure that its critics call 'partial-birth' abortion...." The
Bible makes clear that the most dangeous wild beasts come in "sheep's
clothing." So Reuters set up its readers by soft-pedaling its animus.
The abortions that Reuters doubts exist are described in detail as follows: Brenda
Pratt Shafer, a registered nurse from Dayton, Ohio, assisted Dr. Haskell in a
Partial Birth Abortion on a 26-1/2 week (over 6 months) pre-born baby boy. She
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee (on 11/17/95) about what she witnessed.
According to nurse Shafer, the baby was alive and moving as the abortionist “delivered
the baby’s body and arms - everything but the head. The doctor kept the baby’s
head just inside the uterus. The baby’s little fingers were clasping and unclasping,
his feet were kicking. Then the doctor stuck the scissors through the back of
his head, and the baby’s arms jerked out in a flinch, a startle reaction, like
a baby does when he thinks he might fall. The doctor opened up the scissors, stuck
a high-powered suction tube into the opening and sucked the baby’s brains out.
Now the baby was completely limp.”
It took me less than 10
seconds to find
this description, along with much additional information (surely Reuters has
heard of Google?). Why is Reuters withholding this information fiom its readers
and misleading them by pretending that only kooks believe that partial-birth abortions
exist? I had the impression Reuters was a family owned operation, but now
I can't help wondering how much "stock" Ted Kennedy and NARAL own in
it.
August 14 2005 | At
last: a one-volume encyclopedia helps make sense of Protestantism I
can't wait to see it. Back in my Stanford years I was commissioned by a New York
publisher to compile a book about the evangelical movement that was envisioned
as a Protestant answer to the first Jewish Catalog, which was a runaway best-seller
at the time. Unfortunately, Jimmy Carter's rise to national prominence ended and
nose-dived, so the New York publisher became skittinsh, not sure there really
was an evangelical subculture out there, so abandoned it after I'd filled some
800 manuscript pages. So I can appreciate the work J. Gordon Melton has put into
this one-volume compendium. If it's close to how Richard
Ostling describes it, I hope every newspaper editor's office in the country will
have one.
August 13 2005 | Opposition
to high court nominee based on leftist policies, not Constitution What
more need I say? David Limbaugh nails it.
August 12 2005 | Mormons
excommunicate author who used DNA to debunk Book of Mormon Many
Mormons, I'm convinced, believe that they are Christians, but their church and
its doctrines are far from biblical Christianity. Quests like that of former bishop
Simon Southerton should be supported
by Christians who desire the best for these well meaning but misled children of
God, and they should be made known in order to raise the consciousness, and the
questions, of those locked in this cult to the issues dividing Mormonism and the
Truth.
August 11 2005 | Add
the Red Cross to 'companies' that promote homosexual agenda While
I don't condone discriminating against homosexuals, I find it curious that
an organization dependent on public goodwill for accomplishing its mission would
risk offending a wide cross-section of that public by endorsing and condoning
behaviors and social goals that all civilizations since the fall of ancient Greece
(and most of those with histories predating ancient Greece) have condemned. Where's
the public relations value in this, and what virtue? Tolerance is one thing; promotion
is another, and an other that I strongly suspect is politically motivated and
aimed at social disruption. Is that part of the Red Cross mission?
August 10 2005 | Archaeological
find of Pool of Siloam shuts down theological naysayers The
liberal "theologians'" position that the Apostle John was a liar and that his
lies were "pure theology" indicates the bankruptcy of liberalism (i.e.,
secular humanism wedded to Enlightenment philosophy) generally. And the tradition
of the church has long thought that the residence of Jesus' grandparents, Anna
and Joaquim, was adjacent to the Pool of Siloam. Why would the naysayers introduce
a purely speculative claim like "he was 'just another pilgrim coming to Jerusalem'?"
Did someone mention "conceit"?
August 9 2005 | Mattingly: major
Orthodox body quits the National Council of Churches This
is heartening to all who believe the National Council of Churches is more about
post-Christian culture than it is the living church of Jesus Christ. The
Antiochian Archdiocese is the third-largest Orthodox communion in North America,
after the Greek Orthodoxox and the Orthodox Church in America (the successor of
the Russian Orthodox Church in America). And in the interests of "full disclosure,"
I have been a lay member of the Antiochian Archdiocese for more than a decade.
August 8 2005 | Two
millennia after church's birth, mainline Protestants still debate adultery To
the Apostles and church fathers, it was so simple. To those brought up in just
about any church catechism prior to our generation, it was a no-brainer. But,
"A scorner seeks wisdom, and finds none: but knowledge is easy to those who
understand" (Provberbs 14:6). It would seem this faithless generation is
looking for an escape clause.
August 7 2005 | Black
liberal columnist Crouch links moral breakdown to church failings Only
a liberal would describe this period as one of "hysterical conservativism."
But some of Crouch's points are well taken and I hope many heed them.
August 6 2005 | Dennis
Prager on why Judeo-Christian values reject transgenderism trend Getting
to the roots.
August 5 2005 | Liberal
columnist says 'separation of church and state' has gone too far I
chose this one mainly for its great "spare tire in the trunk" analogy to describe
the way many think of their religion! But it is rare evidence that at least some
liberals don't swallow their majority's interpretation of church-state separation.
(And yes, I realize the writer is Canadian, but I don't think it matters...sadly,
even in England which has an established church, the same interpretation holds
sway among today's liberal secularists.)
August 4 2005 | Sect
suing to have the 'seven aphorisms' put beside the 10 commandments Under
pluralism (which is a Christian norm for government; Matthew
7:12) the sect has a point. Does the size of the sect (proportion of the general
population of Pleasant Grove) matter? I venture the proposition that the size
of its monument could justly be scaled, vis-à-vis the 10 Commandments monument
based upon its population share. The next question is,
do we count just Mormons (in a "Mormon state") as the advocates of the 10 Commandments,
or do we count all Judeo-Christian groups? I lean to the latter. But the question
could even be put to a referendum and the monument be scaled according to its
vote share. Under pluralism, the vote would not be whether to allow a monument
but only its proportional "presence" in the public square. There
is the point, also, however, that the 10 Commandments has a direct succession
to modern law in British and American jurisprudence. No such claim can be forwarded
on behalf of the "aphorisms." The historical claim may trump the "equal
rights" one in this case.
August 3 2005 | 'Book
of Daniel' on NBC next season will combine gay and Christian themes Its
"Jesus" sounds blasphemous (an assessment that has nothing to do with
the gay subtheme). Shall we wait and see? Or boycott before
the fact?
August 2 2005 | Book
proposes a compromise to untie the state/church separation knot I
probably constitute a minority even within the Christian right. I supported Judge
Moore’s Ten Commandments monument not for its religious significance (whatever
that means) but for its secular meaning. That is, Moses was a historical human
being who went to the top of a historical, geographical mountain and came down
with a physical set of tablets on which were engraved Ten Commandments that are
the root of all civil law in the Western (if not the entire) world. Now I admit
that to say that is in a sense “religious,” but to say that “the existence of
Moses is debatable” is also “religious” if we’re going to apply that standard.
That is: Life is religion to those who know Jesus Christ.
I support “faith initiatives” not because they support denominations or religions
like Judaism and Islam that I don’t subscribe to myself, but because they support
things that the government would be doing directly and do it at greater expense
to the tax-paying citizenry and with inferior motives (the "big brother"
motive to rule by "helping") than the religion-affiliated institutions
like Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army can do it. No one that I know of
has been supporting tax-based initiatives to underwrite Bible studies, but to
help underwrite anti-drug programs and mental health as well as physical health.
This the government should do just as it should be of no
business of government who educates the children, so long as they
end up at 18 qualified for at least junior college admission, and therefore government
should support the child at the same rate of reimbursement they now support state-“public”
schools. I certainly do not endorse the root thinking in
the linked article, but to the extent that it is a genuine attempt to think about
these matters without falling back on “we’ve always done it this way” that makes
it good conversation starter, so it’s worth reading and discussing. Both Feldman,
whose book Wolfe is reviewing, and Wolfe fail to acknowledge that giving the state
the right to tax parents to educate their children in schools the parents believe
to be blasphemous in their philosophical roots (as more than a few of us do),
is a religious, anti-Christian but even anti-humanist position for the state to
be taking. And the principle carries over to anything else the state raises taxes
to support and provide, except for the highways which cost as much for all riders
regardless of creed, the military and the prisons, which provide spiritual support
(through chaplaincies) to all (theoretically, at least) regardless of creed.
August 1 2005 | Christianity
Today: The original feminists fought to get laws against abortion Surprise
to me that abortion was not "always" illegal in all the the Christian
west. This information should rank alongside the not widely known fact that early
Christians made many convents among women on the basis of their then new and unique
opposition to abortion in a Roman Empire where infanticide and abortion were widely
practiced and promoted, even as it is in today's American liberal establishment.
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