tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-169946372024-02-07T00:15:20.608-05:00Be Alert!Moriel Ministries Be Alert! has added this Blog as a resource for further information, links and research to help keep you above the global deception blinding the world and most of the church in these last days. Jesus our Messiah is indeed coming soon and this should only be cause for joy unless you have not surrendered to Him. Today is the day for salvation!
For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice, - Psalms 95:7Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comBlogger472125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-794171669228692362015-06-09T01:32:00.000-04:002015-06-09T01:32:14.475-04:00Catholic Archdiocese in Minnesota Charged Over Sex Abuse by Priest<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Mitch Smith - June 5, 2015</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">CHICAGO — Prosecutors in Minnesota filed criminal charges on Friday against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, accusing church leaders of mishandling repeated complaints of sexual misconduct against a priest and failing to follow through on pledges to protect children and root out pedophile clergymen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The charges and accompanying civil petition, announced by the Ramsey County prosecutor, John J. Choi, stem from accusations by three male victims who say that from 2008 to 2010, when they were under age, a local priest, Curtis Wehmeyer, gave them alcohol and drugs before sexually assaulting them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The criminal case amounts to a sweeping condemnation of the archdiocese and how its leaders have handled the abuse allegations — even after reforms were put in place by church leaders to increase accountability — and the charges are among the most severe actions taken by American authorities against a Catholic diocese.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Today, we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades,” Mr. Choi said in a statement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Wehmeyer, 50, who was dismissed as a priest in March, was sentenced to five years in a Minnesota prison in 2013 for criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography. He also has been charged with sex crimes in Wisconsin.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The six criminal charges filed Friday, misdemeanors with a maximum fine of $3,000 each, accused the archdiocese of failing to protect children. Mr. Choi also filed a civil petition against the archdiocese that he said was intended to provide legal remedies to prevent similar inaction from happening again.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 44-page criminal complaint states that concerns about Mr. Wehmeyer date to the 1990s, when he was in seminary and supervisors suggested that his past sexual promiscuity and alcohol abuse made him a poor candidate for the priesthood.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fellow clergy members and parishioners voiced repeated concerns about Mr. Wehmeyer after his ordination in 2001, prosecutors said. The archdiocese allowed Mr. Wehmeyer to continue as a priest, and even placed him in charge of his own parish, despite learning about his attempts to pick up young men at bookstores and his encounters with law enforcement at known “cruising” spots where men were known to meet other men for anonymous sexual encounters.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The charging documents also say that archdiocese officials knew that Mr. Wehmeyer used a boys’ bathroom at a parish elementary school instead of the staff restroom; tried to give an elementary-age boy a tour of the rectory in violation of policy; and took camping trips with boys where some of the sexual abuse was said to have occurred.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The archdiocese placed Mr. Wehmeyer in a monitoring program for priests facing complaints of abuse or other problems, but prosecutors said in court documents that the supervision and follow-through was “lax or nonexistent.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The archdiocese’s failures have caused great suffering by the victims and their family and betrayed our entire community,” Mr. Choi said in his statement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Civil cases against the archdiocese and priests have poured in since 2013, when the Minnesota State Legislature passed the Child Victims Act, which opened a three-year window for filing lawsuits involving claims of sexual abuse that were beyond the criminal statute of limitations.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many people have made such claims since that law’s passage, bringing new attention to decades-old cases, and creating public records of accusations against some priests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said he was pleased by the indictment, “but the credit goes to Minnesota lawmakers, not this prosecutor.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An auxiliary bishop for the diocese, Andrew Cozzens, said in a statement Friday, “We deeply regret the abuse that was suffered by the victims of Curtis Wehmeyer and are grieved for all victims of sexual abuse.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He added that the archdiocese would continue to cooperate with prosecutors. “We all share the same goal: to provide safe environments for all children in our churches and in our communities,” Bishop Cozzens said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Criminal prosecution of an entire Catholic archdiocese is rare, but not entirely unprecedented, in American courts.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An Ohio judge in 2003 convicted the Archdiocese of Cincinnati of failing to report sexually abusive priests in the 1970s and ’80s. The judge fined the archdiocese $10,000, the maximum allowed, after the archbishop entered a no-contest plea.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But the Minnesota allegations are especially stark because the sexual abuse is said to have occurred relatively recently, long after sexual misconduct by priests had been widely reported and after Catholic institutions implemented programs aimed at preventing further abuse.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Naming the archdiocese as a corporation implicates the wrongdoing and the failure to protect children by all of the top officials, past and present,” Jeff Anderson, a lawyer in Minnesota who has represented clergy sex-abuse victims, said in a statement.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laurie Goodstein contributed reporting from New York.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Unedited :: Link to Original Posting</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/catholic-archdiocese-in-minnesota-charged-over-sex-abuse-by-priest.html">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/06/us/catholic-archdiocese-in-minnesota-charged-over-sex-abuse-by-priest.html</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml</a>. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-80784158766977768652014-12-02T13:14:00.002-05:002014-12-02T13:14:57.537-05:00Overview of Jacob’s Latest Book<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Jacob’s latest book, titled<i> “HARPAZO: The Intra-Seal Rapture of the Church”</i> has been a work in progress for more than three years. It is no secret that Jacob’s technology and typing skills are so marginal that it gives us hope that he’s human after all, so we have come up with a system tailored to Jacob’s needs when it comes to writing his books, mainly that he temporarily relocates to my town for weeks at a time, literally dictating every word of every chapter to my furiously little typing fingers. Many within Moriel have expressed their envy that I have been present for every word, version and associated discussion that has gone into <i>The Dilemma of Laodicea</i>, <i>Shadows of the Beast</i>, and now <i>Harpazo</i>. As Jacob’s “stenographer”, so to speak, I have derived more benefit from this process than anyone else by literally typing and copy-editing these manuscripts over and over again. So I thought that those who are most familiar with Jacob’s teachings may appreciate an insider’s view of some of the things to expect from his latest and much anticipated work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">From the very outset, we purposely decided <b><i>not</i></b> to write this book using the usual format which it seems nearly all works on eschatology employ. Typically such books spend far too much of their time reviewing the eschatologies which its author does <b><i>not</i></b> support and devotes a tremendous amount of textual real estate in refutation of those things belonging to those “isms” which he/she does not believe to begin with. The reader is most often guided through an almost endless referral to various charts of competing views, not to mention having to know each eschatology well enough to set them apart from each other where appropriate, and at the same time understand how to keep them in alignment when they are congruous with the author’s particular view. An example I often cite is Marv Rosenthal’s <i>Pre-Wrath Rapture of the Church</i>, a seminal work on the Pre-Wrath position originally published in 1990. If it were pared down to contain just those pages exclusively devoted to the author’s eschatology, the book would probably only be about a third of its current size. This is typical of most treatments of eschatology.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Frankly, it is an overall bad teaching technique to focus more on what one does <b><i>not</i></b> believe versus what they do, and can probably be successfully argued that this is not a great approach if one’s goal is more oriented toward Bible exposition and discipleship. So we decided from the outset that the book would be written in two “halves”: the first half would be something akin to someone sitting down across the table from Jacob as he opens his Bible and simply teaches the doctrine of the <i>Harpazo</i> and Resurrection, completely focused on explaining Scripture; the second half would be devoted to a more academic refutation of the various competing eschatologies and address the more technical issues which are more the domain of scholars, scribes and professional critics. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem is that as the first “half” of the book began to exceed 500 pages, we saw how unrealistic it would be to include a second “half” which would have required publishing something like a “Volume 1, 2 & 3” in order to avoid a single 1,000 page book. And would such a voluminous work actually provide the benefits we wanted to impart of plain Bible teaching? Jacob is considering following up with a book specifically addressing the academic and scholarly perspectives most often associated with seminary-level and above discussions, but such will not be found in this book. While there are occasional and sparse references to these positions and the technical terms most associated with eschatology, they are very scarce overall. In fact, we are most proud of the fact that this may be very first book on eschatology <b><i>ever</i></b> which has <b><i>absolutely no charts</i></b> and is written for the benefit of the average believer, not the so-called expert. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What Does “Intra-Seal” Mean? </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every eschatology is first and foremost defined by its proposed timing of the Rapture in relationship to the Tribulation. We will find individual exceptions and nuanced positions, but in general, “Pre-Tribulationism” believes the <i>Harpazo</i> takes place <b><i>before</i></b> the entire final seven-year Tribulation, “Post-Tribulationism” asserts it occurs at the <b><i>end</i></b> (most usually transitioning from the Tribulation to the Millennial Reign), and “Pre-Wrath” that it takes place between the 6th and 7th seals. Eschatology books still give a passing nod to “Mid-Tribulationism” which believes it takes place at the exact midway point, but in truth it’s been a very long time since I met anyone actually holding this position, as they mostly seem to have migrated to the “Pre-Wrath” camp. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many of you familiar with Jacob’s teaching, as you read the above, may have nodded your head knowingly with the notion that Jacob teaches the Pre-Wrath position. Actually, he does not. The problem is that while the timing of the Rapture is the major defining event which gives each position their name, there are many, many, <b><i>many</i></b> other End Times events beside the timing of the Rapture which they all define differently. While Jacob is in fundamental agreement with the Pre-Wrath position as to its definition of “<i>the day of the Lord</i>” and the placement of the timing of the <i>Harpazo</i> between the 6th and 7th seal, there are a significant number of Pre-Wrath interpretations on a wide variety of other things with which he does <b><i>not</i></b>, and some of them result in important doctrinal distinctions. As Jacob overtly states more than once in the book, he shares common points of agreement to a degree with brethren holding each of these competing views, but at the same time experiences disagreement on many other issues, and such sometimes matter significantly to the point of shaping other areas of doctrine and theology. Eschatology is not <b><i>only</i></b> limited to the timing of the Rapture but embraces many related issues and events as well. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For instance, as but one example, while Jacob provides that the Restrainer of 2 Thessalonians 2 is the Holy Spirit, it’s hard to find Pre-Wrath advocates who do not alternatively maintain that this is instead the archangel Michael. In other words, because of a large attraction to the Pre-Wrath position by many holding to Cessationism, there is a fundamental dissimilarity in theology when it comes to the Holy Spirit which, in our opinion, is no small thing. Likewise, there are those subscribing to other eschatologies who affirm that the Restrainer is the Holy Spirit, who subsequently speak of the Holy Spirit “returning” to heaven (which is impossible for a member of the Godhead) and yet asserting that in the Holy Spirit’s absence there will be those who somehow get saved without Him. This is but one example where a position on eschatology undermines the more fundamental doctrines associated with pneumatology (the Holy Spirit) and soteriology (salvation). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So the intention of identifying the book as “Intra-Seal” is to call attention not just to the sole, singular issue of where the timing of the <i>Harpazo</i> falls within Jacob’s overall teaching, but to serve as a platform to establish the scriptural basis for <b><i>all </i></b>the elements related to the doctrine of the <i>Harpazo</i> and Resurrection, or more specifically what Scripture refers to as the “<i>Parousia</i>”—Christ’s appearing wherein “<i>anastasia</i>” (“resurrection”) of those asleep in Christ and “<i>harpazo</i>” of those alive at the time equals “<i>episunagoge</i>”—our gathering together with Him. If the only thing each eschatology addressed was the timing of the <i>Harpazo</i>, it would make the overall discussion much easier, but the fact is that each view proceeds from there to engage contrasting interpretations not just of the identity of the Restrainer, but of nearly every element of the Last Days such as the Two Witnesses, the role of Israel, the 144,000, the identity of the Antichrist, and on and on and on. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All the Other Stuff </span></h3>
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<i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“From six troubles He will deliver you, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even in seven evil will not touch you. — Job 5:19
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Those familiar with Jacob’s teachings on the <i>Harpazo</i> have long known Jacob’s position that the <i>Harpazo</i> takes places between the 6th and 7th seals, the 7th seal being the initiation of what Scripture prolifically describes as the onset of “<i>the day of the Lord</i>”. Jacob selected Job 5:19 as the main theme for the book because it describes the fact that the seals are very different in character and execution from the trumpet and bowl judgments unleashed by the 7th seal. The “<i>six troubles</i>” of the first six seals are judgments which <i><b>everyone</b></i> on earth experiences, believer and non-believer alike, all replaying the same kinds of judgments used by God repeatedly in the Old Testament for everyone. With the trumpet and bowl judgments, however, these all come about through angelic agency through divine direction and are no longer judgments to get mankind’s attention and possibly turn us back to Him, but become the wrath of God poured out on the kingdom of Antichrist. From this point on, things are very, very different both spiritually and doctrinally. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. — 1 Thessalonians 5:9–10 </i></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While one popular eschatology asserts believers will escape all the seal judgments and the whole of Revelation, another asserts we will go through the entire thing, but in yet another a distinction is made within the overall sequence between “judgment” and “wrath”. Here is but one example of what results from different interpretations of the biblical term “<i>the day of the Lord</i>”. There is near universal agreement that this describes the final outpouring of God’s wrath, and that Scripture specifically promises that although believers will be judged they will never experience wrath, but <b><i>great</i></b> disagreement as to <i><b>when</b></i> “<i>the day of the Lord</i>” takes place as well as its overall definition. In this case, Pre-Trib insists that the whole final seven years and “<i>the day of the Lord</i>” are the exact, same thing while both Pre-Wrath and Intra-Seal see the 6th seal (Rev. 6:12-17) as literally fulfilling the oft-repeated descriptions in Scripture of what takes place on “<i>the day of the Lord</i>”. This is no small point of difference.
But this is but the beginning. The fact is that each major side brings to the table certain presuppositions which we cannot confirm when examining them on the sole basis of Scripture alone, especially as they are taught in the many types and patterns of these things provided throughout the whole of God’s Word. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part One: Harpazo Rescues & Their Typology in Scripture </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first third of the book explores the types and patterns which confirm the fundamental doctrine and theology of the <i>Harpazo</i> and Resurrection. The chapters in this section are: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1 • We Shall Be Changed As They Have Been Changed </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2 • Them & Us </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3 • The Rescues in the Old Testament </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">4 • The Rescues in Daniel </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">5 • The Rescues in the New Testament </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">6 • The Historical and Cultural </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">7 • Summary of Part One </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As Jacob has often stated and does so again repeatedly in this book, type and pattern can only <b><i>illuminate</i></b> doctrine, it can never serve as the <b><i>basis</i></b> for it. But Scripture has much to teach not just about how the <i>Harpazo</i> will take shape and be executed, but of the greater doctrinal purposes behind it. Even those familiar with Jacob’s teachings are going to encounter quite a bit of material in these examples they have not heard him exegete previously in this sizable list of examples. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part Two: The Elements & Components of the Harpazo & Parousia </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The middle section of the book contains some titles very familiar to long-time followers of Jacob’s teachings, but there are also things never previously and formally taught. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">8 • The Great Church Robbery </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">9 • Parousia </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">10 • The Vector </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">11 • The Ten & the Forty </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">12 • The Harpazo & Ministry of Elijah </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">13 • The Two Witnesses of Revelation 11 </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">14 • The Interlude Marking </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">15 • Interludes </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">16 • Prelude to “The Day of the Lord” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">17 • What is “The Day of the Lord”? </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">18 • Summary of Part Two </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While there is new material interspersed throughout, entirely new ground is covered where interludes and the Two Witnesses are concerned. It is very enlightening to understand the important scriptural connection between particular things which some might say, at least initially, do not have a direct bearing on the <i>Harpazo</i>, but most certainly and exegetically do. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Part Three: The Sequence of Prophetic Events Climaxing with the Harpazo </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This last section concentrates on the event itself and where it falls within the overall <i>eschaton</i>. </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">19 • The Apostolic Perspective of the Harpazo </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">20 • Daniel 9 and the Timing of the Harpazo </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">21 • These Are Those Who Have Come Out </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">22 • Immanency & the Harpazo </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">23 • Events Leading to the Harpazo </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">24 • The Sequence of Events </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">25 • Summary of Part Three </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the biggest points of contention in the field of eschatology is called by many the “Doctrine of Immanency”, and one of the most significant chapters in this book is Jacob’s exposition of 1 & 2 Thessalonians to show, exegetically, that one of the biggest problems associated with the Last Days is a prevailing<b><i> false</i></b> doctrine of immanency. This final section, as well, is filled with material Jacob has not directly covered in previously published sermons. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additional Materials </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There are several addendums as well as an “Epilogue” and “Appendix”, but the closing chapter is actually: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">26 • The Anti-Climax </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This chapter is devoted to explaining what is to take place of major importance in the wake of the <i>Harpazo</i>, which is an incredible eschatological interpretation of the Book of Esther, and the figure of Mordecai in particular, which Jacob only realized in the final weeks working on the book. (I wouldn’t be surprised to hear him teaching this as a standalone sermon in the very near future.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But What Did I Learn? </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the risk of launching into a full-blown sermon, I am going to pass along what I believe to be the most important and lasting lessons I’ve taken away from these past three years’ of work, and that has to do with hermeneutics.
In researching all of the alternative positions and measuring Jacob’s interpretations against those arrived at by others, I kept coming back to the question, “Why does everyone seem to be wrong at some point? Why are Bible expositors who are right when it comes to most other doctrines so askew when it comes to eschatology?” I have come to believe that one of two things most commonly take place: errors come from so-called “experts” who have never really taught the <b><i>whole</i></b> Word of God but make an attempt to specialize only in certain aspects of prophecy, or those who are regular preachers of God’s Word who make exceptions to their own rules when it comes to prophecy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I believe that those within the Church who will take issue with Jacob over this book will try to make the argument about his hermeneutics, claiming that Scripture cannot be interpreted this way. In fact, we should all be prepared to hear this coming from many who have shared the teaching platform with Jacob over the years, and not just the usual suspects who are always antagonistic. There is going to be those who previously held Jacob’s hermeneutics in high regard when it came to non-eschatology teachings such as “Kashrut and Famine”, “The Rite of Ordeal”, “Simchat Torah”, or many other such signature sermons. But all of the sudden those who approved of previously of Jacob’s handling of Scripture are going to cry, “Foul!” when it comes to this book, because they themselves suffer from the problems I just identified most often having to do with changing their own hermeneutics when it comes to eschatology. They would <b><i>never</i></b> handle the Greek in the way for which they make an exception when it comes to an End Times interpretation, they would <b><i>never</i></b> normally lift a verse out of context in such an egregious manner, they would normally be able to identify when a presupposition is reading<b><i> into</i></b> Scripture (eisegesis) instead of drawing <b><i>out</i></b> what is actually there (exegesis), and a number of other similar things. Although they approved of Jacob’s hermeneutics in other areas of theology in the past, they will now make an exception for eschatology because they are in the habit of making such exceptions themselves. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I consider this to have been my most important function, to constantly test Jacob’s hermeneutics to verify their consistency not only where eschatology is concerned, but that there is no conflict with any other teaching in which he has employed them. Regular readers and listeners of Jacob’s sermons are going to feel very comfortable with the book, but I predict angst, particularly among the “scholars” and self-proclaimed “experts” whose handling of Scripture overall is often found to be irregular at best. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Lesson of Synonyms </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However, to drill down ever more specifically, this was a great, multi-year exercise reaffirming the right hermeneutic where synonyms are concerned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Human writers know that they will lose a reader’s attention if they keep using the same word or phrase over and over again. The great writers make a name for themselves as wordsmiths who manage the most colorful and descriptive substitutes. I would get a failing grade if I turned in to my English teacher something like, “My <b><i>really big</i></b> nose, feeling a <b><i>really big</i></b> itch, experienced a <b><i>really big</i></b> sneeze, ejecting a <b><i>really big</i></b> booger.” Human writers know that they have to replace all the repeated uses of “really big” with much better synonyms to keep the writing interesting. I’d get a much improved grade if I wrote, “My Pinocchio-sized nose trembled at a rumbling itch in anticipation of a hurricane-like sneeze, catapulting into space a capacious booger.” (I don’t care who you are, that’s good writing.) Because there is such an emphasis in Western churches on grammatical-historical exegesis, Scripture is often handled just like any other literature. The problem is that the Bible isn’t “any other literature”, and in particular, the Holy Spirit does not employ synonyms like this. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For instance, “sin” means “to <b><i>fall short</i></b> of the standard”, “transgression” means “to <b><i>rebel</i></b> against the standard”, and “iniquity” means “to <b><i>twist</i></b> the standard”. These are three completely different words in the original languages that have an overall general relationship to sin, but they are describing three independent situations. The Holy Spirit did not simply get tired of overusing the word “sin” and, like a human writer, decide to change it up and occasionally switch to “transgression” or “iniquity”. Bible translators would be doing us a great injustice if they did not literally translate each word exactly as given so we can understand the right and proper context. These are not synonyms which can be exchanged at will for each other, but unique descriptions of different actions with alternate motivations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now as Jacob has pointed out in the course of many of his sermons, when the Holy Spirit uses what appears to look like a synonym, it is actually to highlight a <b><i>different</i></b> aspect of the <b><i>same</i></b> thing. Just as “sin”, “transgression” and “iniquity” differentiate between different actions taken toward “the standard”, an easy example to understand is when God calls His people “Israel” versus when He calls them “Jacob”. When He calls them “Jacob” in Scripture, He sees them in the character of their unsaved forefather before he wrestled with the Lord, coming into a face-to-face relationship with Him and forever changed going forward. “Jacob” is what He calls them when they act in the character of the backslidden conniver; “Israel” is used when they act as the saved person who has come into a right relationship with the Lord and received a new name in the character of a regenerate believer. They both refer to the same people group, but to completely different spiritual states. The same thing occurs in Scripture when it comes to “Jerusalem” versus “Zion”; one is the corrupt earthly version of the more perfect heavenly counterpart. The point is that we cannot simply alternate between what appears to be synonyms or terms which, on the surface, appear to be addressing the same thing. The Holy Spirit is communicating something very specific and unique in each term He repeatedly inspired many authors to employ in all areas of theology including eschatology. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Seven Textual Terms & Eight Expressions of Math </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have come to believe that <b><i>no one’s</i></b> eschatology can hope to be error free if they have not mastered this concept of synonyms and applied it to the key terms associated with Scripture’s explanation of the End Times. Specifically, there are seven textual terms which many expositors, more or less, all too often treat as synonyms and subject to interpretation in the light of human presupposition rather than according to God’s Word alone: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Daniel’s 70th Week </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Tribulation </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Great Tribulation </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Day of the Lord </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Time of Jacob’s Trouble </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Time of the Gentiles </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Fullness of the Gentiles </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even before the first chapter, Jacob provides a basic definition for these terms and then builds upon it throughout the book. Scholars and experts too freely switching in and out among these terms is, I believe, at the root of so much of the theological disagreement and resultant error, not to mention all the really bad and inaccurate charts graphically depicting the <i>eschaton</i>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But sometimes connected to these textual terms, along with other notable End Times milestones, are eight mathematical expressions of time: </span><br />
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“7 years” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“time, times, and half a time” (3-1/2 years) </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“42 months” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“1,260 days” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“1,290 days” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“1,335 days” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“2,300 evenings and morning” </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“three years, six months” </span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It is remarkable how often many of these terms are exchanged for one another as if they are synonyms for each other, or assumed to be equal because of the biblical use of a lunar calendar, when actually they are not. And even if they were, the Holy Spirit would still be using them to describe something spiritually unique and not merely employing synonyms which can be exchanged, one for the other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes, 3-1/2 lunar years could theoretically equal 42 months and 1,260 days, but in reality that is never the case. A lunar month <b><i>may</i></b> be 30 days, but it is very often 29 from moonrise to moonrise. So much so that when the Jewish Temple had to calculate such things in order to conduct the new moon sacrifices and keep the festal calendar, the Talmud explains that a lunar year was never calculated as having more than 10, nor less than 4, 30-day months. That means that a lunar year <b><i>actually</i></b> only had 350-356 days, not 360. During a typical 3-1/2 year period, therefore, in order to adjust for the actual solar years to keep the calendar straight, an additional leap month of Adar was thrown in to make things balance. This not only means that 3-1/2 lunar years in this situation is <i><b>not</b></i> usually “1,260 days”, but neither is it usually “42 months”—it’s actually <b><i>43</i></b> months! (“1,290 days” might simply just be a 3-1/2 year period with a leap month of Adar—1,260+30=1,290.) In other words, these are probably not all time periods starting and stopping at the same time but instead are used to communicate <b><i>different</i></b> aspects of the Last Days. (This brief synopsis does not do justice to what is more fully explained in the book, but I don’t want to permanently side-track us here.) </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Correcting Ourselves </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This all came about because one day, as I sat here taking Jacob’s dictation, he said something he has said a thousand times, I have said a thousand times, and probably <b><i>all of us</i></b> have said a thousand times: “…the 70th Week of Daniel, which is comprised of two halves of 1,260 days…” At the end of the day after Jacob left and I began to edit the text and insert the appropriate Scripture references, I went to look up the “1,260 days” in the Book of Daniel and, to my great dismay and distress, could not find it! Get your concordances out, kids, Daniel <b><i>never</i></b> uses either “<i>1,260 days</i>” nor “<i>42 months</i>”—they are exclusively used by John. And not only are they <b><i>exclusively</i></b> found in Revelation, but it turns out they are used only for very specific things. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It turns out that John only used “<i>1,260 days</i>” with Israel’s escape from persecution in Revelation 12:8 (the woman in the wilderness) and the Two Witnesses in Revelation 11:3; he only rendered “<i>42 months</i>” in conjunction with the Beast in Revelation 13:4-7 and the Times of the Gentiles trampling Jerusalem in Revelation 11:2. When I showed this to Jacob, and after he’d picked himself off the floor after realizing our mutual error of using synonyms, he immediately saw something very significant that had eluded me completely: “<i>1,260 days</i>” is used only with “good” guys (Israel and the Two Witnesses) whereas “<i>42 months</i>” is only used with “bad guys” (Antichrist and the nations). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As we did further research, we quickly discovered the common teaching that “42” is the number most often associated with apostasy. It was 42 youths taunting Elisha over the rapture of Elijah whom the bears came out and snacked on, 42 places the unfaithful generation stopped at in the wilderness between Egypt and the Promised Land, 42,000 apostate Benjamites whom the whole of Israel came against and killed, 42 sons of an unfaithful king of Northern Israel whom Jehu, God’s assassin, killed. “42”, derived at by multiplying the number of man (“6”) times the number of perfection (“7”) so as to represent spiritual corruption is assigned exclusively in Revelation by John to the Antichrist and rebellious nations’ trampling of Jerusalem. There is something very spiritually significant not only when these mathematical quantities overlap and stand apart between Daniel and Revelation, but are teaching us something worth paying attention to far more than just trying to make a calendric chart of the End Times balance out. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If we are going to teach an eschatology devoid of biblical error, I believe it begins by no longer treating as synonyms these terms and quantities which were never actually synonyms to start. This hermeneutic replays itself throughout Jacob’s book not just in the area of these critical terms and expressions of time, but in almost every related area over and over again, but I nonetheless embrace the notion that this is a kind of litmus test we can employ to determine who is/is not properly exegeting Scripture. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oil In Our Lamps </span></h3>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ultimately this confirms the importance of the Olivet Discourse teaching of the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. (Mt. 25:1-13) Hopefully what this book will inspire is the desperate need for each individual believer to seek an ever-deepening understanding of Scripture by the anointing of the Holy Spirit—the greater meaning to the oil in the lamps. This book is not intended to address the esoteric arguments of the scholars and scribes, but hopes to generate within each rank-and-file believer the greater need to be ever more immersed in God’s Word so that the <i>Apokalypsis</i>—“the unveiling” will not merely be about timing, but take root in our most basic Christian behavior. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Him, </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Danny Isom </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="mailto:Servant@WalkWithTheWord.org">Servant@WalkWithTheWord.org</a></span><br />
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<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-60305236772270300852014-11-06T15:47:00.000-05:002014-11-06T15:47:02.280-05:00ISIS or Isis: US Hegemony and Redrawing the Middle East<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Addendum for Be Alert!</span></b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_n__Z7q2Jq0ehWucTVaB3dRs4Ft7F_C_zInKeUwLTM9i8JZ2Y95v9TTjBmN0zyt4b30jnCAd2kbOaK6Xp_klrKppD0QCvzSHghFDS3quQ-Y-p381NckUuyhEfj1KdAX_y2Vx/s1600/Kurdistan+-+Dr+Jawad+Mella+03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_n__Z7q2Jq0ehWucTVaB3dRs4Ft7F_C_zInKeUwLTM9i8JZ2Y95v9TTjBmN0zyt4b30jnCAd2kbOaK6Xp_klrKppD0QCvzSHghFDS3quQ-Y-p381NckUuyhEfj1KdAX_y2Vx/s1600/Kurdistan+-+Dr+Jawad+Mella+03.jpg" height="232" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Middle East as it is Currently</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaMlQHj8aq21-YZ_ANp6nZUUZo-_-8r4vXmzTU0EAgpPo7bP2aY-iyHzUfR8EIJdKo03XwMjp6i2rFONckEFAU84LwPEGjCH6TczVDSoz4-DrPXnXRMNVf04PrbqbzK8x6_vQ/s1600/Kurdistan+-+Dr+Jawad+Mella+04.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoaMlQHj8aq21-YZ_ANp6nZUUZo-_-8r4vXmzTU0EAgpPo7bP2aY-iyHzUfR8EIJdKo03XwMjp6i2rFONckEFAU84LwPEGjCH6TczVDSoz4-DrPXnXRMNVf04PrbqbzK8x6_vQ/s1600/Kurdistan+-+Dr+Jawad+Mella+04.jpg" height="215" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Middle East as it could be in a map drawn by Lt. Col. Ralph Peters in 1996</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-19206603026521774262013-02-12T22:07:00.000-05:002013-02-12T22:07:37.285-05:00Original Report of John Paul II calling Evangelicals and Protestants "Rapacious Wolves"<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Santo Domingo Journal; Shepherds, or Wolves? Whatever, Flocks Grow</b></span></h2>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>NEW YORK TIMES [NYTimes Group/Sulzberger] - By Peter Steinfels - October 27, 1992</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To believe Pope John Paul II, Bienvenido Alvarez-Vega is one of the Protestant "rapacious wolves" who are increasingly stealing Latin Americans from the Roman Catholic flock.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">After the Pope used that phrase in a speech to a meeting here of Latin American bishops in mid-October, Mr. Alvarez talked about religion in his roomy office at the Santo Domingo daily paper El Siglo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Wearing a pink shirt and casual slacks, Mr. Alvarez did not look either rapacious or wolflike. But as an articulate, university-educated Pentecostal Christian who directs one of the Dominican Republic's major newspapers, he certainly represents the dramatic progress of evangelical Protestantism in lands that have been historically Catholic.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Adherents of Protestant evangelical or Pentecostal churches, often with roots in the United States like Mr. Alvarez's Assemblies of God or the Church of God based in Cleveland, Tenn., are estimated at 18 to 21 percent of the population in Brazil, 16 percent in Chile and 20 percent in El Salvador. Estimates for Guatemala range from 18 to 33 percent. The estimate for Latin American generally is 6 to 7 percent. A Topic for the Bishops</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This growth, a major item on the agenda of the Latin American Episcopal Conference meeting here in October, has been bitterly attacked by many Catholic leaders. They have portrayed what they call "sects" as everything from Communist infiltrators to agents of Yankee capitalism, the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One passage of the Pope's official text echoed this vision of a well-orchestrated, well-financed religious invasion by outsiders: "We must not underestimate a certain strategy whose objective is to weaken the links that unite the countries of Latin America and in this way erode the strength born of unity. Important economic resources are allocated toward this goal, to finance proselytizing campaigns aimed at destroying Catholic unity."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But Mr. Alvarez said the Pope's speech actually represented a moderation of the Catholic attitude. The Pope, Mr. Alvarez noted, had also attributed the success of Protestant groups to shortcomings in the Catholic church's own pastoral efforts, including the shortage of priests.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Protestantism in the Dominican Republic has actually lagged behind that in other nations, although the ranks of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians here have included Cabinet ministers and a presidential candidate, Mr. Alvarez said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Most of the growth, now encompassing about half a million of the nation's 11 million people, was occurring among the poor. The new Protestant groups are egalitarian, he said, breaking social barriers and sharing power in the congregations in a way that Catholicism did not.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Anyone can talk, sing or give testimony," Mr. Alvarez said. "The service is spontaneous and indigenous," with local songs and rhythms.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Asked whether his Protestant faith made him feel like an outsider to Latin American culture, Mr. Alvarez said, "Exactly the opposite."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Alvarez grew up in a Catholic home in La Romana, a sugar town with a large number of English and American residents and "a lot of Protestant influences," he said. He joined the Assemblies of God at 12. When he went to the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo to study communications, he joined an evangelical group affiliated with Intra-Varsity Christian Fellowship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"My origins were Pentecostal," he said. "But I received my most solid formation in traditional Protestantism -- Lutheranism and Calvinism but with a Latin American perspective." He met his wife, a member of the Free Methodist Church, through the Intra-Varsity Christian Fellowship.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Nobody has made a greater effort to have a Latin American theology than evangelicals," he said, and before Catholics "we had the liturgy in our own languages."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fact that evangelical services were in Spanish was one of the things that attracted the Rev. Kerry Gonzalez when he was a boy in Cuba. Today he and his wife, Ethel, a native of Kansas, are missionaries with the Assemblies of God at the Trinity Evangelical Church in Santo Domingo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mrs. Gonzalez took leave of an evening Bible lesson, led by a 34-year-old former drug addict who once lived in New York, to explain that the church began in the 1970's in a carport and then moved into rented halls. It now meets in a simple but spacious concrete building seating 300. It runs a dispensary with five doctors and a school attended by 1,000 children in two shifts daily.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mrs. Gonzalez said that only the salaries of her and her husband came from the Assemblies of God in the United States. The Santo Domingo church also welcomes gifts for schoolbooks, medical supplies and other specific items from North American friends and local congregations. But most of the church's funds are raised from its Dominican members, she said.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">While the Bible lesson went from plodding repetition to a shouting, singing crescendo, Mr. Gonzalez spoke of his disappointment with the Pope's words. "He has come from Poland and gone through persecution," the 60-year-old minister said, "Anyone who has gone through that should have a better sense of religious freedom."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the offices of El Siglo, Mr. Alvarez acknowledged that in some countries the evangelical churches, which "often think more of heaven than of earth," he said, had been favored by military leaders and conservative forces as a counterweight to grass-roots protests backed by Catholic groups. But he warned that with the Catholic Church still enjoying special privileges in many Latin American countries, the conflict with Protestants was apt to intensify as the latter grew more numerous.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Alvarez criticized his fellow evangelicals, most of whom, he said, do not recognize Catholics as genuine Christians. "I think that's a tragedy," he said. "It shows a spiritual arrogance, a sense of having a monopoly on the truth which is not real.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"I think there are important differences of theology and liturgy, but what unites us is bigger than what separates us, and both paths are sincere searches for God."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/27/world/santo-domingo-journal-shepherds-or-wolves-whatever-flocks-grow.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm">http://www.nytimes.com/1992/10/27/world/santo-domingo-journal-shepherds-or-wolves-whatever-flocks-grow.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-42795181929137568302012-11-17T17:26:00.000-05:002012-11-17T17:26:51.760-05:00The Israeli Crisis<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>STRATFOR - By George Friedman - August 14, 2012</b></span><br />Crises are normally short, sharp and intense affairs. Israel's predicament has developed on a different time frame, is more diffuse than most crises and has not reached a decisive and intense moment. But it is still a crisis. It is not a crisis solely about Iran, although the Israeli government focuses on that issue. Rather, it is over Israel's strategic reality since 1978, when it signed the Camp David accords with Egypt.<br /><br />Perhaps the deepest aspect of the crisis is that Israel has no internal consensus on whether it is in fact a crisis, or if so, what the crisis is about. The Israeli government speaks of an existential threat from Iranian nuclear weapons. I would argue that the existential threat is broader and deeper, part of it very new, and part of it embedded in the founding of Israel.<br /><br />Israel now finds itself in a long-term crisis in which it is struggling to develop a strategy and foreign policy to deal with a new reality. This is causing substantial internal stress, since the domestic consensus on Israeli policy is fragmenting at the same time that the strategic reality is shifting. Though this happens periodically to nations, Israel sees itself in a weak position in the long run due to its size and population, despite its current military superiority. More precisely, it sees the evolution of events over time potentially undermining that military reality, and it therefore feels pressured to act to preserve it. How to preserve its superiority in the context of the emerging strategic reality is the core of the Israeli crisis.<br /><br /><b>Egypt</b><br />Since 1978, Israel's strategic reality had been that it faced no threat of a full peripheral war. After Camp David, the buffer of the Sinai Peninsula separated Egypt and Israel, and Egypt had a government that did not want that arrangement to break. Israel still faced a formally hostile Syria. Syria had invaded Lebanon in 1976 to crush the Palestine Liberation Organization based there and reconsolidate its hold over Lebanon, but knew it could not attack Israel by itself. Syria remained content reaching informal understandings with Israel. Meanwhile, relatively weak and isolated Jordan depended on Israel for its national security. Lebanon alone was unstable. Israel periodically intervened there, not very successfully, but not at very high cost.<br /><br />The most important of Israel's neighbors, Egypt, is now moving on an uncertain course. This weekend, new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi removed five key leaders of the military and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and revoked constitutional amendments introduced by the military. There are two theories on what has happened. In the first, Morsi -- who until his election was a senior leader of the country's mainstream Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood -- is actually much more powerful than the military and is acting decisively to transform the Egyptian political system. In the second, this is all part of an agreement between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood that gives Morsi the appearance of greater power while actually leaving power with the military.<br /><br />On the whole, I tend to think that the second is the case. Still, it is not clear how this will evolve: The appearance of power can turn into the reality of power. Despite any sub rosa agreements between the military and Morsi, how these might play out in a year or two as the public increasingly perceives Morsi as being in charge -- limiting the military's options and cementing Morsi's power -- is unknown. In the same sense, Morsi has been supportive of security measures taken by the military against militant Islamists, as was seen in the past week's operations in the Sinai Peninsula.<br /><br />The Sinai remains a buffer zone against major military forces but not against the paramilitaries linked to radical Islamists who have increased their activities in the peninsula since the fall of former President Hosni Mubarak in February 2011. Last week, they attacked an Egyptian military post on the Gaza border, killing 16 Egyptian soldiers. This followed several attacks against Israeli border crossings. Morsi condemned the attack and ordered a large-scale military crackdown in the Sinai. Two problems could arise from this.<br /><br />First, the Egyptians' ability to defeat the militant Islamists depends on redefining the Camp David accords, at least informally, to allow Egypt to deploy substantial forces there (though even this might not suffice). These additional military forces might not threaten Israel immediately, but setting a precedent for a greater Egyptian military presence in the Sinai Peninsula could eventually lead to a threat.<br /><br />This would be particularly true if Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood impose their will on the Egyptian military. If we take Morsi at face value as a moderate, the question becomes who will succeed him. The Muslim Brotherhood is clearly ascendant, and the possibility that a secular democracy would emerge from the Egyptian uprising is unlikely. It is also clear that the Muslim Brotherhood is a movement with many competing factions. And it is clear from the elections that the Muslim Brotherhood represents the most popular movement in Egypt and that no one can predict how it will evolve or which factions will dominate and what new tendencies will arise. Egypt in the coming years will not resemble Egypt of the past generation, and that means that the Israeli calculus for what will happen on its southern front will need to take Hamas in Gaza into account and perhaps an Islamist Egypt prepared to ally with Hamas.<br /><br /><b>Syria and Lebanon</b><br />A similar situation exists in Syria. The secular and militarist regime of the al Assad family is in serious trouble. As mentioned, the Israelis had a working relationship with the Syrians going back to the Syrian invasion of Lebanon against the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1976. It was not a warm relationship, but it was predictable, particularly in the 1990s: Israel allowed Syria a free hand in Lebanon in exchange for Damascus' limiting Hezbollah's actions.<br /><br />Lebanon was not exactly stable, but its instability hewed to a predictable framework. That understanding broke down when the United States seized an opportunity to force Syria to retreat from Lebanon in 2006 following the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri. The United States used the Cedar Revolution that rose up in defiance of Damascus to retaliate against Syria for allowing al Qaeda to send jihadists into Iraq from Syria.<br /><br />This didn't spark the current unrest in Syria, which appears to involve a loose coalition of Sunnis, including elements of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists. Though Israel far preferred Syrian President Bashar al Assad to them, al Assad himself was shifting his behavior. The more pressure he came under, the more he became dependent on Iran. Israel began facing the unpleasant prospect of a Sunni Islamist government emerging or a government heavily dependent on Iran. Neither outcome appealed to Israel, and neither outcome was in Israel's control.<br /><br />Just as dangerous to Israel would be the Lebanonization of Syria. Syria and Lebanon are linked in many ways, though Lebanon's political order was completely different and Syria could serve as a stabilizing force for it. There is now a reasonable probability that Syria will become like Lebanon, namely, a highly fragmented country divided along religious and ethnic lines at war with itself. Israel's best outcome would be for the West to succeed in preserving Syria's secular military regime without al Assad. But it is unclear how long a Western-backed regime resting on the structure of al Assad's Syria would survive. Even the best outcome has its own danger. And while Lebanon itself has been reasonably stable in recent years, when Syria catches a cold, Lebanon gets pneumonia. Israel thus faces the prospect of declining security to its north.<br /><b><br />The U.S. Role and Israel's Strategic Lockdown</b><br />It is important to take into account the American role in this, because ultimately Israel's national security -- particularly if its strategic environment deteriorates -- rests on the United States. For the United States, the current situation is a strategic triumph. Iran had been extending its power westward, through Iraq and into Syria. This represented a new force in the region that directly challenged American interests. Where Israel originally had an interest in seeing al Assad survive, the United States did not. Washington's primary interest lay in blocking Iran and keeping it from posing a threat to the Arabian Peninsula. The United States saw Syria, particularly after the uprising, as an Iranian puppet. While the United States was delighted to see Iran face a reversal in Syria, Israel was much more ambivalent about that outcome.<br /><br />The Israelis are always opposed to the rising regional force. When that was Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser, they focused on Nasser. When it was al Qaeda and its sympathizers, they focused on al Qaeda. When it was Iran, they focused on Tehran. But simple opposition to a regional tendency is no longer a sufficient basis for Israeli strategy. As in Syria, Israel must potentially oppose all tendencies, where the United States can back one. That leaves Israeli policy incoherent. Lacking the power to impose a reality on Syria, the best Israel can do is play the balance of power. When its choice is between a pro-Iranian power and a Sunni Islamist power, it can no longer play the balance of power. Since it lacks the power to impose a reality, it winds up in a strategic lockdown.<br /><br />Israel's ability to influence events on its borders was never great, but events taking place in bordering countries are now completely beyond its control. While Israeli policy has historically focused on the main threat, using the balance of power to stabilize the situation and ultimately on the decisive use of military force, it is no longer possible to identify the main threat. There are threats in all of its neighbors, including Jordan (where the kingdom's branch of the Muslim Brotherhood is growing in influence while the Hashemite monarchy is reviving relations with Hamas). This means using the balance of power within these countries to create secure frontiers is no longer an option. It is not clear there is a faction for Israel to support or a balance that can be achieved. Finally, the problem is political rather than military. The ability to impose a political solution is not available.<br /><br />Against the backdrop, any serious negotiations with the Palestinians are impossible. First, the Palestinians are divided. Second, they are watching carefully what happens in Egypt and Syria since this might provide new political opportunities. Finally, depending on what happens in neighboring countries, any agreement Israel might reach with the Palestinians could turn into a nightmare.<br /><br />The occupation therefore continues, with the Palestinians holding the initiative. Unrest begins when they want it to begin and takes the form they want it to have within the limits of their resources. The Israelis are in a responsive mode. They can't eradicate the Palestinian threat. Extensive combat in Gaza, for example, has both political consequences and military limits. Occupying Gaza is easy; pacifying Gaza is not.<br /><br /><b>Israel's Military and Domestic Political Challenges</b><br />The crisis the Israelis face is that their levers of power, the open and covert relationships they had, and their military force are not up to the task of effectively shaping their immediate environment. They have lost the strategic initiative, and the type of power they possess will not prove decisive in dealing with their strategic issues. They no longer are operating at the extremes of power, but in a complex sphere not amenable to military solutions.<br /><br />Israel's strong suit is conventional military force. It can't fully understand or control the forces at work on its borders, but it can understand the Iranian nuclear threat. This leads it to focus on the sort of conventional conflict it excels at, or at least used to excel at. The 2006 war with Hezbollah was quite conventional, but Israel was not prepared for an infantry war. The Israelis instead chose to deal with Lebanon via an air campaign, but that failed to achieve their political ends.<br /><br />The Israelis want to redefine the game to something they can win, which is why their attention is drawn to the Iranian nuclear program. Of all their options in the region, a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities apparently plays to their strengths. Two things make such a move attractive. The first is that eliminating Iran's nuclear capability is desirable for Israel. The nuclear threat is so devastating that no matter how realistic the threat is, removing it is desirable.<br /><br />Second, it would allow Israel to demonstrate the relevance of its power in the region. It has been a while since Israel has had a significant, large-scale military victory. The 1980s invasion of Lebanon didn't end well; the 2006 war was a stalemate; and while Israel may have achieved its military goals in the 2008 invasion of Gaza, that conflict was a political setback. Israel is still taken seriously in the regional psychology, but the sense of inevitability Israel enjoyed after 1967 is tattered. A victory on the order of destroying Iranian weapons would reinforce Israel's relevance.<br /><br />It is, of course, not clear that the Israelis intend to launch such an attack. And it is not clear that such an attack would succeed. It is also not clear that the Iranian counter at the Strait of Hormuz wouldn't leave Israel in a difficult political situation, and above all it is not clear that Egyptian and Syrian factions would even be impressed by the attacks enough to change their behavior.<br /><br />Israel also has a domestic problem, a crisis of confidence. Many military and intelligence leaders oppose an attack on Iran. Part of their opposition is rooted in calculation. Part of it is rooted in a series of less-than-successful military operations that have shaken their confidence in the military option. They are afraid both of failure and of the irrelevance of the attack on the strategic issues confronting Israel.<br /><br />Political inertia can be seen among Israeli policymakers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to form a coalition with the centrist Kadima Party, but that fell apart over the parochial Israeli issue of whether Orthodox Jews should be drafted. Rather than rising to the level of a strategic dialogue, the secularist constituency of Kadima confronted the religious constituencies of the Likud coalition and failed to create a government able to devise a platform for decisive action.<br /><br />This is Israel's crisis. It is not a sudden, life-threatening problem but instead is the product of unraveling regional strategies, a lack of confidence earned through failure and a political system incapable of unity on any particular course. Israel, a small country that always has used military force as its ultimate weapon, now faces a situation where the only possible use of military force -- against Iran -- is not only risky, it is not clearly linked to any of the main issues Israel faces other than the nuclear issue.<br /><br />The French Third Republic was marked by a similar sense of self-regard overlaying a deep anxiety. This led to political paralysis and Paris' inability to understand the precise nature of the threat and to shape its response to it. Rather than deal with the issues at hand in the 1930s, the French relied on past glories to guide them. That didn't turn out very well.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/israeli-crisis">http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/israeli-crisis </a></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-70146775893393657592012-10-22T12:02:00.000-04:002012-10-22T12:02:22.800-04:00Judge orders B&B owners to pay 'gays' for hurt feelings<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>WND [WorldNetDaily] - October 20, 2012 </b></span><br />A judge in the United Kingdom has ordered the owners of the Swiss Bed and Breakfast in Berkshire to pay nearly $6,000 to two homosexuals for hurting their feelings by not allowing them to occupy a double bed.<br />The stunning penalty was delivered yesterday to Mike and Susanne Wilkinson, who explain the family lives their Christian life, “not just on a Sunday in church, but in every area of my life – as Jesus expects from his followers.”<br /><br />The Wilkinsons were ordered to pay 1,800 British pounds, or about $2,900, each to homosexuals Michael Black and John Morgan.<br />In 2010, they tried to book a double bed in the inn, which also is the private home for the Wilkinson family. When they were refused, they sued under the U.K.’s discrimination laws.<br /><br />The case was funded by the Christian Institute, which said the Christians have been given permission to appeal.<br />Susanne Wilkinson said she is thinking about doing that.<br /><br />“Naturally, my husband and I are disappointed to have lost the case and to have been ordered to pay 3,600 pounds in damages for injury to feelings. We have the option to appeal, and we will give that serious consideration.”<br />Susanne Wilkinson said: “We believe a person should be free to act upon their sincere beliefs about marriage under their own roof without living in fear of the law. Equality laws have gone too far when they start to intrude into a family home.<br /><br />“People’s beliefs about marriage are coming under increasing attack, and I am concerned about people’s freedom to speak and act upon these beliefs,” she told the institute.<br />She said all she was trying to do was live as a Christian.<br /><br />“It’s quite wrong to punish me for that, especially after enduring over two years of vile abuse and threats,” she said.<br />Wilkinson and her husband say they have received “hundreds of emails an hour” and threatening phone threats and texts because of their faith.<br /><br />Mike Wilkinson said, “One was hand-delivered and handwritten in capitals and said, ‘I am coming to burn your house down.’”<br />“We find this a strange justice in a society that aspires to be increasingly tolerant,” said Susanne Wilkinson.<br /><br />The Christian Institute’s Mike Judge said: “Yes, Mrs. Wilkinson’s B&B is a business, but it’s also a family home. The law should be more flexible in allowing people to live according to their own values under their own roof. A bit more balance is needed, rather than allowing one set of rights to automatically suppress another.”<br />They said they experienced not only arson and death threats, but obscene messages, bogus reviews, canceled bookings and other harassment. They said previously that in a Google review, someone encouraged others to come and smash up the house. ...<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edited :: See Original Report Here</span></i><br /><a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/judge-orders-bb-owners-to-pay-gays-for-hurt-feelings/">http://www.wnd.com/2012/10/judge-orders-bb-owners-to-pay-gays-for-hurt-feelings/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml</a>. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.</span></span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-48455394744551459152012-10-22T11:50:00.000-04:002012-10-22T11:50:48.277-04:00New York Times accused of Catholic bashing, double standard on religion<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>FOX NEWS [News Corporation/Murdoch] - March 15, 2012</b></span><br /><i>The New York Times</i> is being accused of having a double standard when it comes to questioning religion, after it ran an ad calling on Catholics to leave their church, but nixed an ad making the same plea to Muslims.<br />The newspaper published an ad from Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation on March 9 which asked Catholics, “why send your children to parochial schools to be indoctrinated into the next generation of obedient donors and voters?” The ad went on to call loyalty to the faith misplaced “after two decades of sex scandals involving preying priests, church complicity, collusion and cover-up going all the way to the top.”<br /><br />But in a story first reported by <i>The Daily Caller</i>, when Pamela Geller, a blogger and executive director of Stop Islamization of America, offered the same $39,000 for the Old Gray Lady to run an ad making a similar appeal to Muslims, the newspaper passed.<br />"This shows the hypocrisy of The New York Times, the "gold standard" in journalism, and its willingness to kowtow to violent Islamic supremacist intimidation," Geller told <i>FoxNews.com</i>.<br /><br />Geller said her anti-Shariah ad was designed to mimic the anti-Catholic one. In calling on Muslims to quit their religion, the ad asked “Why put up with an institution that dehumanizes women and non-Muslims … <br />Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy referred requests for comment to the letter the paper sent Geller when it declined to publish the ad.<br />"We have not made a decision not to publish the ad you refer to," stated the letter. "We made a decision to postpone publishing it in light of recent events in Afghanistan, ... It is our belief that fallout from running this ad now could put US troops and civilians in the region in danger and we would like to avoid that."<br /><br />Bill Donohue, the president of the Catholic League, called the first ad “vile.” But he said running it was a “judgment call.” However, the decision not to run Geller’s ad shows an agenda, he told FoxNews.com.<br />“It shows the disparate treatment and the duplicity of <i>The New York Times</i>,” Donohue said. “You can trash some religions, like Roman Catholicism, with impunity, but you cannot trash Islam?”<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Edited :: See Original Report Here</i></span><br /><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/15/new-york-times-accused-catholic-bashing-double-standard-on-religion/">http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/03/15/new-york-times-accused-catholic-bashing-double-standard-on-religion/</a><br /> </span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-73830012858910477922012-10-18T08:07:00.000-04:002012-10-18T08:07:24.749-04:00Court: Christians can be ordered to violate beliefs<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Bob Unruh - June 5, 2012 </span></b><br />A ruling from Judge Tim L. Garcia in the New Mexico Court of Appeals says states can require Christians to violate their faith in order to do business, affirming a penalty of nearly $7,000 for a photographer who refused to take pictures at a lesbian “commitment” ceremony in the state where same-sex “marriage” was illegal. ...<br />The women complained under the state’s anti-discrimination requirements and a state commission, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, imposed the penalty, which now has been affirmed by the appeals court judges. The judges explained in the 45-page ruling that the photography company is a “public accommodation” and those cannot discriminate under state law based on “sexual orientation.”<br /><br />“The owners of Elane Photography must accept the reasonable regulations and restrictions imposed upon the conduct of their commercial enterprise despite their personal religious beliefs that may conflict with these governmental interests,” the judges wrote.<br />Officials with the Alliance Defense Fund, which has been representing Elane, said there would be an appeal. ...<br />The judges continued, “The act of photographing a same-sex ceremony does not express any opinions regarding same-sex commitments, or disseminate a personal message about such ceremonies.”<br />They called the state requirement “a neutral regulation of commercial conduct” and said that it does not “infringe upon freedom of speech or compel unwanted expression.” ...<br /><br />The judges suggested the interesting scenario of the photographer accepting the job, and vocally condemning the women while taking pictures.<br />“The owners are free to express their religious beliefs and tell Willock or anyone else what they think about same-sex relationships and same-sex ceremonies,” they said. ...<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Edited :: See Original Report Here</i></span><br /><a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/refuse-to-photograph-lesbians-get-fined-7000/">http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/refuse-to-photograph-lesbians-get-fined-7000/</a><br /> </span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-24313861057962469542012-10-18T07:59:00.000-04:002012-10-18T07:59:58.222-04:00Obama minions: Gov't 'can override your religion'<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Ed. Note:
This is an interesting case because we may be witnessing what the initial battles
between a “beast system” and Mystery Babylon could look like. Legatus is one of
the most powerful Roman Catholic organizations tied to business and funding in
the US. It has also been tied to a number of stock market crashes by some
observers due to enormous and sudden withdraws of funds, which were then transferred
to Rome.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: 12pt;">BE/\LERT!</span></b> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Court brief says corporations not allowed to reflect faith of their owners<br />WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Bob Unruh - September 6, 2012</b></span><br />The Obama administration today argued in court that the government can make a requirement that violates religious beliefs and that a company cannot reflect the religious faith of its owners.<br />The administration’s statements came in a court filing that asserts the federal government has the authority to order private companies to provide abortifacients for their employees.<br /><br />A case against the order was brought by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of Legatus, the nation’s largest organization of top Catholic business leaders, and Weingartz Supply and its owner. ...<br />The plaintiffs argue that the federal order conflicts with the U.S. Constitution by requiring them to violate their religious faith.<br /><br />The Michigan case is just one of dozens nationwide that raise similar issues.<br />The federal attorneys contend that allowing employers to direct the activities of their entities with a respect for their own religious faith would be unworkable.<br /><br />“It would also cripple the government’s ability to solve national problems through laws of general application,” they wrote.<br />Erin Mersino, the Thomas More Law Center attorney handling the case, said the federal attorneys’ arguments essentially suggest that a Christian faith is just fine as long as it’s inside a private home or private worship center, but not in society.<br /><br />The brief contains “a complete and utter disregard” for religious rights, she said. <br />The next step, she said, could be for the government to demand that private companies not only pay for abortifacients, but under Obamacare’s “counseling” provision to pay for those who would try to convince employees to have abortions - at company expense.<br /><br />“It’s very frightening, facing this,” she said. “We just hope the judge makes the right decision.”<br />If such a concept would be upheld by a court, it could have a far-reaching impact, such as on the decision by Chick-fil-A owners to close their stores on Sundays to allow their employees to go to church. ...<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edited :: See Original Report Here</span></i><br /><a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/obama-lawyers-govt-can-require-what-religion-forbids/?cat_orig=us">http://www.wnd.com/2012/09/obama-lawyers-govt-can-require-what-religion-forbids/?cat_orig=us</a></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-66409781345793165172012-10-08T11:12:00.001-04:002012-10-08T11:12:52.656-04:00Iraq's Assyrian Christians find temporary home in Kurdistan<div _mce_style="font-family: Arial Narrow,Arial MT Condensed Light,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS - By Adam Ashton - August 5, 2009</strong></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">AINKAWA,
Iraq - For 35-year-old Rajo Qardaq Palander, a church security guard,
the breaking point came last year, when insurgents demanded that he pay
$20,000 or abandon his home in Baghdad's Dora neighborhood. <br />The
choice was easy. He slipped out of Dora in the dead of night, joining
the exodus of Assyrian Christians from Baghdad and Mosul to this haven
in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled north.<br /><br />"I held on as long as I could," Palander, 35 said. "I have no future in Iraq." <br />One
of Iraq's most ancient national groups, the Assyrian Christians, who're
Eastern Orthodox Christians, have largely quit their ancestral home in
Arab Iraq and fled to the Kurdish region, where tens of thousands now
live, or abroad.<br /><br />The pressure on the Assyrians continues: Five
churches were bombed in Baghdad in early July and killings continue in
Mosul. In Ainkawa, a city of 40,000 on the outskirts of the main city of
Irbil, there's sanctuary, castle-like churches, which dominate entire
city blocks, and liquor, a trade that Christians dominated in Baghdad,
is for sale openly.<br />Still, refugees and others who're choosing to
stay in Iraq fear the days ahead. They're hoping to make political gains
in Iraq's Kurdish provinces and to reclaim lost land.<br /><br />"For the
time being, it's a better place. But it's a dark future," said Father
Isha Najiba, an Eastern Assyrian priest in Ainkawa who served in Dora
until 2002.<br />He stresses that everyone in Iraq has suffered because of
the war. The numbers of Assyrians make the pain especially acute for a
minority proud of its history as the descendants of an empire that
covered much of northern Iraq, Syria, Turkey and parts of Iran in
pre-Biblical times.<br /><br />"If 100 Muslims die, it will have the same impact as the killing of one Christian because there are so few of us," Najiba said.<br />The
number of Assyrians and Chaldean Catholics remaining in Iraq -
including Kurdistan - is hard to pin down, with estimates ranging from
150,000 to 800,000. It's accepted that the war has driven as much as
half the former population to seek refuge outside Iraq.<br /><br />Najiba
said that only 150 of the 1,100 Assyrians who lived in his Dora
neighborhood before the war are still in Baghdad. The others are in
Syria, Jordan, or cities such as Ainkawa, in Iraq's Kurdish provinces.<br />They
leave a visible mark in Ainkawa. Residents say a third to half the
people living here fled Baghdad or Mosul since the war started more than
six years ago.<br /><br />A huge poster showing Pope Benedict XVI greeting
Kurdish President Massoud Barzani looms over the main intersection
leading into the city, reflecting Barzani's overtures to the growing
community.<br />Green banners for Heineken beer hang from restaurants and
bars, advertising a hidden vice in the Muslim cities that surround
Ainkawa.<br /><br />The Kurds "don't do anything to harm us, and that's
enough," said Samir Francis, 35, whose home in Dora was blown up two
weeks after he abandoned it in 2006, a message telling him not to
return. ...<br /><br />Assyrians have been scattered across the globe since
the Ottoman Empire flushed many of them out of Turkey in the early 20th
century. They've lost territory in Iraq to Kurds and Arabs alike. Many
Assyrians who could afford to leave fled the country under Saddam
Hussein's Baath Party, settling in Europe, the U.S. and Australia.<br />Many
now live in Southern California and the San Joaquin Valley, two primary
destinations for Assyrians seeking refugee status in the U.S.<br /><br />Under
Saddam, politically active Assyrians faced targeted threats. Others
were pushed off their land, particularly in the countryside. Yonadam
Kanna, the only Assyrian member of Iraq's current parliament, had been
sentenced to death by the late dictator.<br /><br />Assyrian Christians and
Chaldean Catholics describe Saddam's tenure as a time of persecution,
but it was the sectarian violence that ripped apart Iraq between 2005
and 2008 that drove them from Baghdad and Mosul.<br /><br />Refugees in
Ainkawa said they were targeted either for their religious identity or
to seize their money and property. They blame mostly Sunni Muslim
insurgent groups for the intimidation that evicted them from Baghdad's
Dora neighborhood.<br /><br />Their main concern in Ainkawa today centers on
the power of the two leading Kurdish political parties, Barzani's
Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Assyrians
say their job prospects are limited if they don't join the KDP or the
PUK, a concern shared by some Muslims in Irbil. ...<br /><br _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; color: #000000;" align="left" style="color: black; font-size: 10pt;" />"Christians
have been separated into many parts," he said. "There's no hope for the
people who have emigrated. They won't come back."<br /><br /><span style="color: #444444;"><b><span style="font-size: x-small;">ABOUT THE ASSYRIANS</span></b></span><br />Assyrians
are said to be the oldest ethnic group to live in the region known
today as Iraq. Three millennia ago, they controlled an empire that
extended from modern-day Syria to Turkey, included northern Iraq and
parts of Iran.<br />Their native language is Aramaic, which is thought to
be the language Jesus spoke. Assyrians are Christians and belong to the
Assyrian Church, a Catholic rite, the Syriac Orthodox Church and the
Chaldean Church, both eastern Orthodox rites.<br />Prior to the U.S.
military invasion in 2003, Assyrians in Iraq numbered 1.5 million, or
some 8 percent of Iraq's population. At least half of them have since
fled the country, however, after Assyrian churches, shops and businesses
were attacked.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Edited :: See Original Report Here</i></span><br /><a _mce_href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/08/05/73147/iraqs-assyrian-christians-find.html" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/08/05/73147/iraqs-assyrian-christians-find.html" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none ! important;">http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2009/08/05/73147/iraqs-assyrian-christians-find.html</a></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-80891650860081433242012-10-08T10:52:00.001-04:002012-10-08T10:52:30.724-04:00Fifty Christians Burned Alive in Pastor's Home in Nigeria<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #660000;"><b>"Nigeria is truly becoming the new killing field for Christians ..."</b></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>THE CHRISTIAN POST - By Stoyan Zaimov - July 16, 2012</b></span><br />As the attacks on Nigeria's Christians continued in full force this past week, a particularly grisly attack saw fifty believers burned to death at their pastor's home, where they had fled for refuge from a terrorist attack.<br />Reports disclosed that over 100 people were killed by armed terrorists this past week, who went on a 12-village killing spree in Nigeria's Plateau state. Islamic extremist group Boko Haram has once again taken responsibility for the assaults.<br /><br />Different sources have shared various reports of the number of lost lives from last week's assault on Christians, which have been occurring on a weekly basis for many months in Nigeria. But a story last week by the Baptist Press confirmed that about 50 members of the Church of Christ in Nigeria in the village of Maseh were burned alive after they took refuge in their pastor's house following a terrorist raid.<br />"Fifty of our church members were killed in the church building where they had fled to take refuge. They were killed alongside the wife of the pastor and children," said the Rev. Dachollom Datiri, vice president of the Church of Christ in Nigeria, in a July 11 interview.<br /><br />Officials from the church confirmed that over 100 members were killed through various villages in Nigeria, which included Maseh, Ninchah, Kakkuruk, Kuzen, Negon, Pwabiduk, Kai, Ngyo, Kura Falls, Dogo, Kufang, and Ruk.<br />"Nigeria is truly becoming the new killing field for Christians. Hundreds of Christians have already been brutally murdered – including women and children – by the Boko Haram," said Open Doors, USA spokesman Jerry Dykst. "The Boko Haram earlier this week said that all Christians need to turn to Islam or 'they would never know peace again.' Their goal is make all of Nigeria a country run and dominated by Shariah law." ...<br /><br /><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Edited :: See Original Report Here</span></i><br /><a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/fifty-christians-burned-alive-in-pastors-home-in-nigeria-78303/">http://www.christianpost.com/news/fifty-christians-burned-alive-in-pastors-home-in-nigeria-78303/</a><br /></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-30181081601344855452012-10-08T08:20:00.000-04:002012-10-08T08:20:46.079-04:00Muslims trying for revolution in Nigeria<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Analyst warns ultimate goal is 'Islamic government that rules by Shariah law'<br />WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Michael Carl - June 21, 2012</b></span> <br />Reports are documenting how more than 100 people have been killed as a result of gun battles between Muslim Boko Haram guerrillas and Nigerian soldiers in the northern state of Kaduna in recent days, following another series of bomb attacks against Christians.<br />Those included three bomb attacks in Kaduna and Zaria this week killed at least 50 people.<br /><br />What’s going on, according to Heritage Foundation Africa analyst Morgan Roach, likely is an attempt at a revolution that would turn Nigeria into a Shariah-practicing Muslim nation.<br />“The first reason is ideological. [Boko Haram] wants to overthrow the Christian state and replace it with an Islamic government that rules by Shariah law,” Roach said.<br /><br />But she said the Muslims also have a political motive.<br />“Attacks against Christians undermine the authority of President Goodluck Jonathan (a Christian) and exploit the government’s lack of will or ability to protect Nigerian citizens,” Roach said.<br /><br />Yet another reason is simply to create intertribal and inter-religious strife.<br />“The attacks are a useful tool to create sectarian instability. It must be said that in many parts of Nigeria, Muslims and Christians get along quite well. However, this dynamic is marred by Boko Haram’s ability to instigate violence,” Roach said. <br /><br />“As the Nigerian government has proven ineffective at defending its Christian population, Christians are losing patience and either taking up arms to defend themselves or retaliating outright through violence,” Roach said. ...<br />“Nigerian security forces are already a major part of the picture. They’re often a source of grievances [for] both Muslims and Christians as they are unprofessional and tend to maintain a ‘shoot first ask questions later’ mindset,” Roach said. <br /><br />Christian human rights group International Christian Concern Africa analyst Jonathan Racho says government security is lacking.<br />“The Nigerian security forces have failed to protect Christians from the attacks. We are afraid this trend will continue unless the international community, particularly the U.S., put pressure on Nigeria to protect the Christians,” Racho said. ...<br /><br />Racho says that there is one other factor that would stop Boko Haram’s operations.<br />“Boko Haram has said that the only way in which they will stop the attacks against Christians is if the Christians convert to Islam. This is an unacceptable condition,” Racho said.<br /><br />“We are observing a very dangerous trend in Nigeria where members of the radical Islamic group, Boko Haram, has been bombing churches during Sunday worship services,” Racho said. <br />“We urge Nigerian security forces to come up with strategy to stop this dangerous group from wiping out Christians from northern Nigeria,” Racho said. ...<br /><br />”During my recent visit to Nigeria, I met several Christians who left their homes in the north due to attacks by Boko Haram. In some areas, members of Boko Haram go door-to-door hunting Christians,” Racho said.<br />Racho compares Boko Haram’s operations to genocide.<br />“In my opinion, what we are seeing in Nigeria amounts to religious cleansing and warrants serious consideration from the part of the international community,” Racho said.<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Edited :: See Original Report Here</i><br /><a href="http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/muslims-trying-for-revolution-in-nigeria/">http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/muslims-trying-for-revolution-in-nigeria/</a></span><br /></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-31645220011837819122012-10-08T08:01:00.000-04:002012-10-08T08:01:52.456-04:00Yale University May Revoke Fraternity's Charter Due to Its Christians-Only Bylaw<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>THE CHRISTIAN POST - By Katherine Weber - October 3, 2012 </b></span><br />Reports from Yale University indicate that the largest Christian fraternity in the nation is struggling to attain official recognition at the prestigious school because its religion-based bylaws conflict with the school's non-discrimination policy.<br />Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX), the largest Christian fraternity in the nation, opened its new chapter at Yale University in New Haven, Conn., in mid-September. Just days after its opening, however, the school newspaper reported that the fraternity "will have to change its membership rules if it intends to comply with Yale's anti-discrimination policies."<br />The fraternity only allows men who are Christian to join, although it welcomes all students to its events. ...<br />Yale's non-discrimination policy does not allow student groups to carry the Yale name if they in any way discriminate against "sex, race, color, religion, age, disability, or national or ethnic origin," although, as Christian student news source World on Campus points out, there are exceptions, such as the student group Yale Law Women barring men from membership. ...<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Edited :: See Original Report Here</i></span><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.christianpost.com/news/yale-university-may-revoke-fraternitys-charter-due-to-its-christians-only-bylaw-82598/">http://www.christianpost.com/news/yale-university-may-revoke-fraternitys-charter-due-to-its-christians-only-bylaw-82598/</a></span></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-26397135394436168442012-10-02T10:11:00.001-04:002012-10-02T10:11:49.920-04:00American "Mainstream Media" changing war-on-terror terminology<br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span _mce_style="font-size: 12pt; color: #660000;" style="color: #660000;">Leftist media employ devious, sinister tactic</span><span _mce_style="color: #660000; font-size: 12pt;" style="color: #660000;"> to deceive Americans, alter perception</span></b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Joe Kovacs - September 5, 2011</b></span></span></div>
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American news media are deliberately reshaping war-on-terror terminology
for propaganda purposes to prevent radical Muslims from being perceived
in a negative light in the wake of the 9/11 attacks a decade ago. ...
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"A big part of the problem facing America today is the obfuscation and
disinformation fed to the American people as a daily diet of slow
poison," says Geller, publisher of the popular <a _mce_href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;" target="_blank">AtlasShrugs.com</a>. <br /><br />"Today the left is manipulating language to make Americans ignorant or complacent about the Islamic threat."<br />She says one simple example can be seen with how the word "extremist" is now utilized in news stories. <br />"It
is commonly used of both Islamic jihad terrorists, and those who fight
against them and against Islamization in general," Geller explains. <br />"So for the mainstream lapdog media, the Fort Hood jihad assassin Major Hasan is an 'extremist,' and so am I.
The word is used to claim that Islam has nothing to do with jihad
terrorism - it's all just 'extremism,' and every religion has its
'extremists.' ...<br /><br />Geller says in case you've ever wondered why
you never got the straight story on Islam directly after Sept. 11, 2001,
and still haven't, as well as "why the media seems in the tank for
jihad, here's a clue." <br />"A couple of weeks after 9/11, the <a _mce_href="http://www.spj.org/index.asp" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.spj.org/index.asp" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;" target="_blank">Society of Professional Journalists</a> (SPJ) issued a directive about how to cover Islam. For sheer propaganda, their 'Diversity Guidelines'
are hard to beat. In fact, the enemy who attacked our country in an
attempt to bring it down may just as well have been writing the
narrative."<br /><br />The guidelines, adopted less than a month after the
terrorist attacks, urge journalists to "take steps against racial
profiling in their coverage of the war on terrorism and to reaffirm
their commitment to use language that is informative and not
inflammatory." <br />Some of the recommended steps include seeking out
people from a variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds when
photographing Americans mourning those lost in New York, Washington, and
Pennsylvania, and seeking truth through a variety of voices and
perspectives that help audiences understand the complexities of the
tragic events.<br /><br />The translation, says Geller, is "despite the
horror, murder, and bloodshed of jihad, don't tell the people. That is
what is important: the scrubbing of the truth. In effect, they are
aiding in the self-enforcement of the Shariah (blasphemy laws)." <br />Another
recommended step to deflect attention away from the Islamic character
of jihad, reporters have been instructed to "portray Muslims, Arabs, and
Middle Eastern, and South Asian Americans in the richness of their
diverse experiences." <br /><br />"Portray the beheaders, the homicide
bombers, and the infiltrators in the 'richness of their diverse
experience'?" asks Geller. "You mean the stonings, amputations, Shariah
law, clitorectomies, Jew-hatred, Hindu-hatred, the brutal conquests of
India and Persia, and the caliphate? Yes, infidels, that is the
poisonous fruit of the revered institution of multiculturalism."<br /><a _mce_href="http://superstore.wnd.com/books/Current-Affairs/Stop-the-Islamization-of-America-A-Practical-Guide-To-The-Resistance-Autographed-Hardcover" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://superstore.wnd.com/books/Current-Affairs/Stop-the-Islamization-of-America-A-Practical-Guide-To-The-Resistance-Autographed-Hardcover" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;" target="_blank">In her book</a>,
Geller gives an in-depth examination of how those who work at American
news agencies are being turned against the very people for whom they
report. <br />"The SPJ is telling journalists to throw Americans under the
bus and kiss the adherents to the Islamic ideology that murdered our
people and want to take over this country."<br /><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em></span><br /><a _mce_href="http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=341749" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=341749" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;" target="_blank">http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=341749</a><br /><br /><ul>
<li _mce_style="color: #323232;" style="color: #323232;"><em>Related News</em></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b><span _mce_style="font-family: Georgia,Palatino; color: #660000;" style="color: #660000;">"Courageous effort" leads to resolution banning "I-word"</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><b><span _mce_style="color: #001a81; font-family: Georgia,Palatino; font-size: 12pt;" style="color: #001a81;">SPJ Diversity Committee Caps Exciting Week</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>WHOS NEWS DIVERSITY EVERY DAY > a blog of the Society of Professional Journalists - By Curtis Lawrence - September 30, 2011</b></span></div>
This
has been a great week for the Society of Professional Journalists'
Diversity Committee. We had a successful Diversity Leadership Program
including six stellar women. We also were able to pass two resolutions -
one including diversity hiring and one urging journalists to cease the use of "illegal alien" in news coverage.
The resolution urging the end of the "I-Word" was the result of a
courageous effort led by Diversity Committee member Leo Laurence over a
two-year span. ...<br />Below is a description of last week's events by
Diversity Committee Member Jeremy Steele. He mentions some of the key
players and includes the resolution at the end. ...<br />The following is a memo from Jeremy Steele to the SPJ Diversity Committee:<br /><br /><div _mce_style="margin-left: 30px;" style="margin-left: 30px;">
Good morning, everyone,</div>
<div _mce_style="margin-left: 30px;" style="margin-left: 30px;">
Yesterday's
closing business session was certainly interesting and packed with
thoughtful debate on a lot of big issues. I wanted to give members of
the Diversity Committee an update.</div>
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...
Then we began the work on four other resolutions, including the
resolution put forward by the diversity committee on the use of "illegal
alien" and "illegal immigrant," support of a federal shield law
(passed), two resolutions attempting to bring back the Helen Thomas Lifetime Achievement Award (both failed) ...</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em></span><br /><a _mce_href="http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/diversity/2011/09/30/spj-diversity-committee-caps-exciting-week" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="color: #003366; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;" href="http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/diversity/2011/09/30/spj-diversity-committee-caps-exciting-week" shape="rect" style="color: rgb(0, 51, 102) ! important; text-decoration: none ! important;" target="_blank">http://blogs.spjnetwork.org/diversity/2011/09/30/spj-diversity-committee-caps-exciting-week/</a><span _mce_style="color: #660000; font-size: 12pt;" style="color: #660000;"> </span></span></div>
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-32006335732388899032012-09-20T21:27:00.000-04:002012-09-20T21:27:51.504-04:00Meshing realism and idealism in Middle East<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>THE WASHINGTON POST [Wash Post Group/Graham] - By Henry A. Kissinger - August 2, 2012</b></span> <br />The Arab Spring is often celebrated by reciting the roll call of overthrown autocrats. But revolutions, in the end, will be judged primarily by what they build, not what they destroy. And in this respect, a year of revolution has refashioned exhilaration into paradox.<br /><br />The United States applauded the demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square. Blaming itself for too protracted an association with an undemocratic leader, it urged Hosni Mubarak to step down. But once he did so, the original exultant demonstrators have not turned out to be the heirs. Instead, Islamists with no record of democracy and a history of hostility to the West have been elected to a presidency they had pledged not to seek. They are opposed by the military, which had buttressed the previous regime. The secular democratic element has been marginalized. Where do we go from here?<br /><br />Contrary to recent conventional wisdom, at no point was the internal structure of Egypt the United States’s to determine. For millennia, monarchs and military autocrats have held sway. In the 1970s, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat abandoned the Soviet alliance forged by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s military regime 20 years earlier. Sadat made peace with Israel, with the United States acting as mediator. These events helped to transform the Cold War. They reflected a hard-headed assessment by all parties of the relation of forces that emerged from the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Sadat was assassinated in 1981 by Islamist extremists, whose continued terrorism was used by his successor, Mubarak, as justification for prolonged emergency powers.<br /><br />Throughout, Egypt and its government were facts of international life; American administrations of both parties, faced with the Cold War and looming turmoil in the region, judged it crucial to work with a major Arab country willing to take risks for regional peace. As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton affirmed in her recent Cairo press conference, “We worked with the government of the country at the time.”<br /><br />At what point, faced first with Soviet adventurism and then the consequences of the Soviet Union’s disintegration, did the United States have an option to intervene directly in the region’s domestic politics? From Nixon through Clinton, American presidents judged the risks of such a course to outweigh its benefits. The George W. Bush administration did urge Mubarak to permit multiparty elections and criticized his suppression of dissent, and President Obama affirmed a similar direction early in his administration. U.S. foreign policy is neither the cause of, nor the solution to, all shortcomings in other countries’ domestic governance - especially in the Middle East. <br /><br />With a constitution yet to be drafted, the function of key institutions in contention between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military, and an electorate closely divided between dramatically different visions of their country’s future, Egypt’s revolution is far from its end. U.S. policy is torn between competing imperatives. The Muslim Brotherhood has emerged by electoral processes called for by democratic values, while the military stands for outcomes that are closer to the the U.S. concept of international security (and possibly of domestic pluralism). If the United States erred in the Cold War period by excessive emphasis on the security element, it now runs the risk of confusing sectarian populism with democracy.<br /><br />Amid these tremors, the debate regarding the determinants of U.S. foreign policy is reigniting. Realists judge the events from the perspective of security strategy; idealists see them as an opportunity to promote democracy. But the choice is not between the strategic and the idealistic. If we cannot combine both elements, we will achieve neither.<br /><br />In that context we must face, and not fudge, the following questions: Do we stand aloof from these internal processes, or do we try to shape them? Do we back one of the contestants or concentrate on advocating electoral procedures (knowing that this may guarantee a strategically repugnant result)? Can our commitment to democracy avoid leading to a sectarian absolutism based on managed plebiscites and one-party rule? <br /><br />In Egypt, backing a military council composed mostly of Mubarak associates offends democratic sensibilities. Postulating shared values with an explicitly Islamist party, which for generations has advocated an anti-Western course for the entire region, substitutes hope for experience. Military regimes have proved fragile; ideologically driven organizations have used democratic institutions for undemocratic ends and to challenge regional order. We should be open to genuine moderation shown by ideological opponents. But we should not be reluctant to affirm our security interests. In this narrow passage, U.S. policy must navigate without deluding itself that the key players are waiting for our instructions.<br /><br />In Syria, even more complex comparable dilemmas loom. (On one level, Syria contradicts the argument that the United States could have promoted a more democratic outcome in Egypt by withholding cooperative relations. U.S. aloofness surely did not moderate the Assad family’s authoritarianism.)<br /><br />In our public debate, the crisis in Syria is generally described as a struggle for democracy, and its culmination is presumed to be the removal of Bashar al-Assad. Neither attribute fits the essence of the problem. The real issue is a struggle for dominance between Assad’s Alawites, backed by many of the other Syrian minorities, and the Sunni majority. <br /><br />Assad himself is an unlikely leader with a reputation for indecisiveness. Having settled in London as an ophthalmologist - a profession that usually does not attract the power-hungry - he was drafted into Syrian politics only after the death of his elder brother, the designated heir to their dominant father. The conflict in Syria is therefore likely to continue - probably even intensify - upon Assad’s welcome and all but inevitable removal. With their front man gone, Assad’s clan and the Alawite minority, dominant in Syria’s military, may consider themselves reduced to a struggle for physical survival. <br /><br />Constructing a political alternative to the Assad regime will prove even more complex than the course in Egypt or the other Arab Spring countries, since the contending factions are more numerous and less clearly delineated, and their differences more intense. Without creative leadership to build an inclusive political order - a prospect not yet clearly in evidence among the combatants - Syria may break into component ethnic and sectarian entities, whose strife would then risk spreading by means of affiliated populations into neighboring countries.<br /><br />On all sides of the Syrian conflict, the commitment of the belligerents to democratic values and alignment with Western interests is, at best, untested. Al-Qaeda has now entered the conflict, effectively on the side that the United States is being asked to join. In such circumstances, U.S. policymakers encounter a choice not between a “realistic” and an “idealistic” outcome but between competing imperfections, between considerations of strategy and of governance. We are stymied on Syria because we have a strategic interest in breaking the Assad clan’s alliance with Iran, which we are reluctant to avow, and the moral objective of saving human lives, which we are unable to implement through the U.N. Security Council. <br /><br />Since the Arab uprisings began, four governments have fallen, and several others have been seriously tested. The United States has felt obliged to respond to and occasionally to participate in this drama, but it has still not answered fundamental questions about its direction: Do we have a vision of what strategic equation in the region serves our and global interests? Or of the means to achieve them? How do we handle the economic assistance which may be the best, if not the only, means to influence the evolution?<br /><br />The United States can and should assist on the long journey toward societies based on civil tolerance and individual rights. But it cannot do so effectively by casting every conflict entirely in ideological terms. Our efforts must also be placed within a framework of U.S. strategic interests, which should help define the extent and nature of our role. Progress toward a world order embracing participatory governance and international cooperation requires the fortitude to work through intermediate stages. It also requires that the various aspirants to a new order in the Middle East recognize that our contribution to their efforts will be measured by their compatibility with our interests and values. For this, the realism and idealism we now treat as incompatible need to be reconciled.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-meshing-realism-and-idealism-in-syria-middle-east/2012/08/02/gJQAFkyHTX_print.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/henry-kissinger-meshing-realism-and-idealism-in-syria-middle-east/2012/08/02/gJQAFkyHTX_print.html</a></span><br />
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<div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-41655402315357863502012-05-25T09:49:00.000-04:002012-09-23T15:30:57.184-04:00Hillary Clinton : We created Al-Qaeda<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml</a></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-34588667195144663322012-05-01T18:05:00.000-04:002012-05-01T18:05:02.115-04:00The Painful Truth About "CHEMTRAILS"<br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>SOVEREIGN MIND MAGAZINE - By Jerry E. Smith - May/June 2009</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I have been aggressively researching "chemtrails" since 1996. I first heard the phrase in 1995 and witnessed them in 1996 while working on my book "HAARP: The Ultimate Weapon of the Conspiracy." I devoted 100 pages to this subject in my next book on the subject: "WEATHER WARFARE: The Military’s Plan To Draft Mother Nature."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In "WEATHER WARFARE" I documented (from the open scientific and military literature and other mainstream sources) that there are indeed extremely high altitude atmospheric releases for scientific and military purposes (mainly releases of barium and aluminum). These are primarily used for Surveillance and Communications, such as for over-the-horizon radar and creating artificial radio bounce spots. These releases are at altitudes two or three times higher than commercial jet aircraft fly and do not leave visible "trails." ...</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml">http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml</a>. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-43887712349128539792012-02-10T08:53:00.000-05:002012-02-10T08:53:00.948-05:00Number of faithful Mormons rapidly declining<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><b>KTVX-TV ABC 4/40 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH [Newport Television, LLC] - January 31, 2012</b></span><br />
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and the Media</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">LIFEWAY REASEARCH BLOG - By Ed Stetzer - July 23, 2011</span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The phrase "Christian fundamentalist" is all over the news today. Anders Behring Breivik (the Norwegian mass murderer) appears to be one, according to many news sources, but particularly </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a _mce_href="http://www.theatlantic.com/" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;" href="http://www.theatlantic.com/" shape="rect"><i>The Atlantic</i></a></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">. Fair enough-- he very well may identify himself that way, but I'd like to know why that term has now been so readily embraced.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Before getting to that, let me say that this is a tragedy of enormous proportion. A nation is grieving. My discussion of labeling and terminology should not distract us from that. Please pray with me for the families of the victims. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;" class="definitionterm" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin: 0in;"><span _mce_style="font-family:
Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Yet, there are concerns here-- and I think they point to a growing perception among the media and elsewhere that "Christian fundamentalists" are a looming threat. Many are beginning to notice and comment on the "fundamentalist" connection. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">The Atlantic</span></i></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> headline shouts, "</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a _mce_href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-charged-death-toll-norway-soars-past-90/40321" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;" href="http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-charged-death-toll-norway-soars-past-90/40321" shape="rect">The Christian Extremist Suspect in Norway's Massacre</a></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">" and later gives the reason why ... </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">My concern is that this narrative has quickly caught on because, for many, some have been expecting such a thing from these "crazy Christian fundamentalists." As such, you can expect more articles and commentaries like the one from </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a _mce_href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151751/christian_jihad_why_we_should_worry_about_rightwing_terror_attacks_like_norways_in_the_us_" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;" href="http://www.alternet.org/story/151751/christian_jihad_why_we_should_worry_about_rightwing_terror_attacks_like_norways_in_the_us_" shape="rect">Frank Schaeffer, comparing "Christian fundamentalists" to the Taliban</a></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Some might say (and with some justification) that this is how Muslims feel (see </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><a _mce_href="http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/07/23/nyt" _mce_shape="rect" _mce_style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;" href="http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/opinion/greenwald/2011/07/23/nyt" shape="rect">Salon.com for more on that</a></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt;
font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">). And, there are some Christian fundamentalists that do indeed live and act in intolerant ways. Yet, the quick embrace of this label by many drives me to ask, "What is going on here?" ... </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Edited :: See Original Report Here</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
<a _mce_href="http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-and-t.html" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-and-t.html" shape="rect">http://www.edstetzer.com/2011/07/christian-fundamentalist-and-t.html</a><br />
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<strong><i>See Also:</i></strong><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 12pt;
color: #000066;"><span style="color: #073763;">Anders Berhring Breivik (Norway Killer) - Christian Fundamentalist or Religious Tyrannist?</span></span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span _mce_style="font-family: Arial Narrow,Arial MT
Condensed Light,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH PROJECT/FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE BLOG - The Blog of Lighthouse Trails Research - July 25, 2011</span></span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[...] We know that many in the world will now blame "Christian fundamentalism" on this act in Norway. In time, and escalated because of these types of violent acts driven by demonic forces, Bible believing Christians will be told they can no longer say Jesus Christ is the only way to God. It will be a hate crime. As was the case in the 911 terrorist attack in 2001, the Norway shootings will be used to further the progress of a one-world unified religion that will have no place for the Bible-believing Christian.<br />
In 2006, Rick Warren helped set the tone for animosity and marginalization against Bible-believing Christians (Fundamentalists) when he stated that fundamentalism will be "one of the big enemies of the 21st century. . . . Muslim fundamentalism, Christian fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, secular fundamentalism - they're all motivated by fear. Fear of each other. ...<br />
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<em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em><br />
<a _mce_href="http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=6957" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=6957" shape="rect">http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blog/?p=6957</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 12pt;
color: #000066;"><span style="color: #073763;">A Christian Response to a Deranged "Crusader"</span></span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span _mce_style="font-family: Arial Narrow,Arial MT
Condensed Light,sans-serif;">DEFEND CHRISTIANS.org - July 25, 2011</span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">[...] For those looking to bash the right, especially the Christian right, the predictable "tar and feathering" is on its way. But, is it logical to blame the right for the acts of a deranged man? It is no more justifiable to blame the right as it is to blame the left for all the carnage of it's mad men, like the Tucson Arizona left wing lunatic, Jared Lee Loughner, who killed six and wounded fourteen, including Democratic Congresswoman Gifford. ...<br />
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<em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em><br />
<a _mce_href="http://defendchristians.org/commentary/a-christian-response-to-a-deranged-crusader/" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://defendchristians.org/commentary/a-christian-response-to-a-deranged-crusader/" shape="rect">http://defendchristians.org/commentary/a-christian-response-to-a-deranged-crusader/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span _mce_style="font-family:
Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt; color: #000066;"><span style="color: #073763;">Media wrong to label Breivik as a Christian </span></span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span _mce_style="font-family: Arial Narrow,Arial MT
Condensed Light,sans-serif;">THE POST-STANDARD, Syracuse, New York [Advance/Newhouse] > The Readers' Page - August 2, 2011</span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><span _mce_style="text-decoration: underline;"><u><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Letter to the Editor: Breivik not a Christian</span></u></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br />
To the Editor:<br />
I am appalled by the media elite portraying Anders Behring Breivik, the man behind the horrific slaughter of 60 plus innocent children at the youth camp on Utoya Island, Norway, as a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian.<br />
Apparently, the media elite have no clue what a Christian is, but delight when one describes himself as one and commits atrocities such as Breivik did. Yes, it makes great headlines.<br />
If anyone had the sense enough to do just a little digging, he would find out what Breivik meant when he termed himself a Christian. By Breivik's own admission in his self-published 1,500-page manifesto, he describes himself as a cultural Christian, and not a religious one. He writes, "If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God, then you are a religious Christian. Myself and many more like me do not necessarily have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and God. We do, however, believe in Christianity as a cultural, social, identity and moral platform. This makes us Christian."<br />
Wrong. It makes you someone who likes the perks that comes with union membership but does not want to join.<br />
Breivik is a terrorist, nothing more, nothing less.<br />
- Lance Hillyer <br />
Fayetteville [NY]<br />
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<em>Unedited :: Link to Original Posting</em><br />
<a _mce_href="http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/08/tuesdays_letters_auburn_waste.html#incart_mrt" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/08/tuesdays_letters_auburn_waste.html#incart_mrt" shape="rect">http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2011/08/tuesdays_letters_auburn_waste.html#incart_mrt</a></span><br />
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</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-41219045511258225732011-12-31T18:16:00.000-05:002011-12-31T18:16:40.907-05:00Reprint of Frankie Schaeffer's "Christian Jihad"<div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ed. Note: Obviously, the author below has not the slightest clue the content of the Scriptures in context. Sadly, what he is observing is a group of people who call themselves “Christians” who suffer from the same blindness as he does, some who are well intentioned but just deceived and others who are just following the culture they have always known. One thing is for sure, Frank Schaeffer (Jr.) is wrong in his observations, but he is doing much for the anti-Christ, truth-hating establishment that he works for and his father of lies to whom he currently belongs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Christian Jihad? Why We Should Worry About Right-Wing Terror Attacks Like Norway's in the US<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">There is a growing movement in America that equates godliness with hatred of our government -- in fact, hatred of our country.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">ALTERNET - By Frank Schaeffer - July 23, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The Norwegian police on Saturday charged a 32-year-old man, whom they identified as a Christian fundamentalist with right-wing connections, over the bombing of a government center and a shooting attack on a nearby island that together left at least 91 people dead.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">In my new book "Sex, Mom and God" I predicted just such an action. I predicted that right wing Christians will unleash terror here in America too. I predict that they will copy Islamic extremists, and may eventually even make common cause with them.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">There is a growing movement in America that equates godliness with hatred of our government in fact hatred of our country as fallen and evil because we allow women choice, gays to marry, have a social safety net, and allow immigration from other cultures and non-white races.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">According to the Guardian newspaper, the killer wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">"Today's Protestant church is a joke," he wrote in an online post in 2009. "Priests in jeans who march for Palestine and churches that look like minimalist shopping centres. I am a supporter of an indirect collective conversion of the Protestant church back to the Catholic."<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">It seems Anders Behring Breivik longed for a "pure" and ultra conservative religion. He was a man of religious conviction, no liberals with their jeans need apply! Liberals beware.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Norway is just a first taste of what will happen here on a larger scale.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">A HISTORY of VIOLENT ACTION <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">There is a history to the far right, religious right extremism on the rise today, extremism so extreme that in its congressional manifestation it is risking the good faith and credit of the US in the debt calling fiasco. The Tea Party activists also want purity of doctrine.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">My family was part of the far right/violent right's rise in the 1970s and 80s when we helped create the "pro-life" movement come into existence that in the end spawned the killers of abortion providers. These killers were literally doing what we'd called for.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">The terror unleashed on Norway - and the terror now unleashed by the Tea Party through Congress as it holds our economy hostage to extremist "economic" theories that want to destroy our ability to function -- is the sort of white, Christian; far right terror America can expect more of.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">THE "CHRISTIAN BROTHERHOOD"<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Call this the ultimate "Tea Party" type "answer" to secularism, modernity, and above all our hated government. Call this the Christian Brotherhood. From far right congress people, to far right gun-toting terror in Norway and here at home, our own Western version of the Taliban is on the rise.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">Foreigners, visitors from another planet and Americans living in a bubble of reasonable or educated people might not know this but the reality is that the debt ceiling confrontation is by, for and the result of America's evangelical Christian control of the Republican Party.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">It is the ultimate expression of an alternate reality, one that has the mistrust of the US government as its bedrock "faith," second only to faith in Jesus.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">To understand why an irrational self-defeating action like destroying the credit of the USA might seem like the right thing to do you have to understand two things: that the Republican Party is now the party of religious fanatics and that these fanatics -- people like Michele Bachmann -- don't want to work within our system, they want to bring it down along the lines of so-called Christian "Reconstruction." (See my book for a full account of what this is.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;">In the scorched-earth era of the "health care reform debates" of 2009 and beyond, Evangelicals seemed to believe that Jesus commanded that all hospitals (and everything else) should be run by corporations for profit, just because corporations weren't the evil government. The right even decided that it was "normal" for the state to hand over its age-old public and patriotic duties to private companies -- even for military operations ("contractors"), prisons, health care, public transport, and all the rest.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151751/christian_jihad_why_we_should_worry_about_right-wing_terror_attacks_like_norway's_in_the_us_">http://www.alternet.org/teaparty/151751/christian_jihad_why_we_should_worry_about_right-wing_terror_attacks_like_norway's_in_the_us_</a></span></div><br />
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</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-23433117643561734912011-12-31T10:02:00.000-05:002011-12-31T10:02:39.589-05:00'Occupy' protests sending sharp anti-Jew message<div class="MsoCommentText"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">WND [WorldNetDaily] - By Bob Unruh - October 21, 2011<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">The dark scourge of anti-Semitism has reared up at many "Occupy" protests across the country, and the subject could well become a campaign 2012 issue as Republicans have been quick to point out to voters that many Democrats, including the president, are aligning themselves with the protests. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">The protesters generally are expressing a viewpoint that rich people need to pay much more in taxes and they, the protesters, need more from government; big banks need the heavy hand of Washington to help spread their wealth and make things "fair" and they have a "message" or want to "make a point" for the wealthy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;"> But there's also a current of targeting Jews. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">Protesters have proclaimed that "Zionist Jews" still "need to be run out of the country," and they condemn "Nazi Bankers Wall Street." And Barack Obama's perspective? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">"I think that it [the movement] expresses the frustrations that the American people feel," he said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">And the ranking Democrat in the U.S. House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said "I support the message." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">Statements such as those opened the door for Republicans to launch their criticism of the Democrats' endorsement of the encompassing message of the "Occupy" protests - going on across the country now - that includes anti-Semitism. ...<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoCommentText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoCommentText"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt;">Edited :: See Original Report Here<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><a href="http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=358449">http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=358449</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of religious, environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-49155349989138275432011-10-16T15:48:00.000-04:002011-10-16T15:48:20.752-04:00Pachamama Wants Your Children<strong><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow";">TRUTH X CHANGE - Dr. Peter Jones - May 5, 2011 :: InsideOut article IO 78</span></strong><span style="font-family: "Arial Narrow";"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Two years ago, President Evo Morales, of Incan/Aymaran descent, claimed the rights to all three branches of government, and his goons were eliminating opponents in the dead of night. At the time, I was teaching pastors in Cochabamba, Bolivia and so witnessed the rise of indigenous paganism as a <em>political</em> force. In January 2011, Morales introduced legislation that grants <em>legal rights</em> to the Earth and provides an ombudsman to <em>hear nature's complaints</em> as voiced by the all-knowing high priests of deep ecology, who claim to be spiritually in touch with Nature!</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">The worship of Pachamama, the fertility Goddess of Nature, is now a fundamental element in the law code of Bolivia, and Morales (in his commitment to Pachamama and to the ancient Incan religion of Bolivia) is supported by a shadow cabinet of shamans, who sacrifice llamas as part of this spirituality.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Bolivia is perhaps the first example of a Marxist state that is <em>religiously, occultically </em>pagan. Is Bolivia a picture of our global future-a spiritual, nature-worshiping collectivist state, where Caesar is Lord? Will <em>ecology</em> be the "power shift" (Van Jones's words to 10,000 young climate activists-to thunderous applause!) that joins <em>pagan spirituality</em> to <em>coercive politics</em>? An earth-worshiping "green agenda" will open the minds and souls of our youth to the iron grip of Pachamama. As Mary Poppins knew, "Just a spoon full of sugar makes the medicine go down!" Our urgent task is to teach our young people to worship the Creator, not Mother Earth.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">You may think me overly sensational. Consider the fact that Bolivia just tabled a treaty at the United Nations, giving "Mother Earth" the same <em>global</em> rights as humans-complete with enforceable laws, by 2014. On April 22, 2011 the UN declared the second International <em>Mother</em> Earth Day, which the White House heralded on Easter weekend in an eight-paragraph statement-while making not one mention of Easter!</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">The international <em>Pachamama Alliance</em>'s mission is to "empower indigenous people of the Amazon rainforest to preserve their lands and culture... [and] to bring forth a sustainable world." Notice the move from the Amazon "rainforests" to "the world." Van Jones, President Obama's 2010 "green jobs czar" is a board member of the <em>Pachamama Alliance</em>, whichclaims a close relationship with the UN Development Program. Clearly, these ideas are circulating in the highest circles of political power. Jones is also a member of the <em>Institute of Noetic Sciences</em>, which merges ecology, politics and "progressive" spirituality. Other members include the UN's Maurice Strong, Deepak Chopra, Michael Lerner, Matthew Fox, Stanislav Grof, Jean Houston, Starhawk, Brian Swimme, Richard Tarnas, Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson and Barbara Marx Hubbard, names known to those who read my books on spiritual One-ism.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">This agenda is more advanced than we might imagine, thanks to the very spiritual Maurice Strong and Mikhail Gorbachev. Their 2002 <em>Earth Charter</em>, a document determining environmental and ethical life on the planet for all nations, was received at the UN as the "new law" for the global age. Housed in "the Ark of Hope," it was clearly meant to replace the Law of Moses. In a public lecture I attended, one of the drafters of this document showed how placing phrases in the<em> Preamble </em>of <em>The Earth Charter</em> introduced an animistic spiritual interpretation of reality (e.g. "Humanity is part of a vast evolving universe...Earth, our home, is alive with a unique community of life"). The "native peoples" on the committee exulted because, "<em>for the first time</em> an international document expressed <em>their </em>[religiously pagan] <em>worldview</em>." For now, the <em>Earth Charter</em> is "soft law," but proponents are working to make it "hard law" for the entire planet.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">Back in Bolivia, God, the Father and Creator of nature, who calls us to care for His creation, is now identified with the "alien" religion of the <em>gringo</em>/Spanish who exploited Bolivian land (some of which is true, alas). Christianity must be marginalized to make way for the now legal and obligatory ancient animistic worship of Mother Earth. This is the same conflict Elijah faced, between the Lord the Creator and the worship of the forces of Nature represented by Baal and Asherah (1 Kings 18).</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">I remember a tiny, deeply tanned Aymaran Christian lady, dressed in the typical billowing skirt and bowler hat perched on the top of her head, who was seated on the front row of the church where I was preaching. After the service, with tears in her eyes, she gave me a hug of Christian affection, having heard once more of the Gospel of the Savior she loves. Pray for our Bolivian Christian brothers and sisters, to speak God's truth courageously to all. And let's pray for our youth as we teach them the crucial difference between care for the earth and worship of it.</span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: Times-New-Roman;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br />
</div><div _mce_style="font-family: Times-New-Roman; color: black; text-align: left; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><strong><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;">About the author:</span></strong></span><span _mce_style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial;"><span style="color: black; font-family: Arial;"> <a _mce_href="http://truthxchange.local/author/peterjones/" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://truthxchange.local/author/peterjones/" shape="rect">Dr. Peter Jones</a> is Director of truthXchange, and Adjunct Professor of New Testament, as well as Scholar in Residence, at Westminster Seminary California. He has written The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back (1992), Spirit Wars (1997), Gospel Truth/Pagan Lies (1999), Capturing the Pagan Mind (2003), Cracking DaVinci's Code (2004, co-author, James Garlow), Stolen Identity (2006) and The God of Sex (2006). Peter Jones is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and is married to Rebecca Clowney Jones. They have seven children and twelve grandchildren. For recreation, Dr. Jones enjoys playing jazz piano and golf.</span><o:p></o:p></span></div><br />
<em><span style="font-family: Arial;">Unedited :: Link to Original Posting</span></em><span style="font-family: Arial;"><br />
<a _mce_href="http://truthxchange.com/articles/2011/05/05/io-78-pachamama-wants-your-children/" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://truthxchange.com/articles/2011/05/05/io-78-pachamama-wants-your-children/" shape="rect">http://truthxchange.com/articles/2011/05/05/io-78-pachamama-wants-your-children/</a></span><br />
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</span><div class="blogger-post-footer">BE ALERT!</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17501686086115509798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16994637.post-19916117862584673302011-10-15T16:19:00.000-04:002011-10-15T16:19:31.849-04:00Iran's Christians urgently need the West's support<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH [Barclay] - By Fleur Brading - September 30, 2011</span></span></strong><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;"><br />
For the first time in 20 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has issued a formal death sentence for a Christian. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, leader of the Church of Iran denomination in Rasht, was arrested in October 2009 while seeking to register his church. He has been on death row since being found guilty of apostasy, conversion from Islam, in September 2010. ...<br />
Although apostasy does not carry a formal death penalty under Iran's penal code, judges in Rasht were able to use the supremacy of Islamic jurisprudence in Iran's constitution to sue for the death sentence based on religious fatwas, or Islamic rulings, by leading Ayatollahs. ...<br />
There have been over 300 arrests of Christians in 35 cities across Iran since June 2010. Detainees are typically held in unsanitary prisons, sometimes in solitary confinement, with evidence of torture and interrogation tactics being used against them on account of their faith. Excessively high bail demands, some as great as $30,000, see title deeds to detainees' houses being given in return for their liberty. Those inmates whose families cannot meet these demands, such as Pastor Farshid Fathi, who was detained in a brutal crackdown against evangelical Christians over Christmas of last year, remain detained. ...<br />
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<em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em><br />
<a _mce_href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8799149/Irans-Christians-urgently-need-the-Wests-support.html" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8799149/Irans-Christians-urgently-need-the-Wests-support.html" shape="rect">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/8799149/Irans-Christians-urgently-need-the-Wests-support.html</a></span></span><br />
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ISTANBUL - Seven Algerian churches face closure this week after the governor of their province sent them written notice that they were operating "illegally." <br />
The notice on Sunday (May 22) from Police Chief Ben Salma, citing a May 8 decree from the Bejaia Province governor, also states that all churches "in all parts of the country" will be closed for lack of compliance with registration regulations, but Christian leaders dismissed this assertion as the provincial official does not have nationwide authority. <br />
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"All buildings permanently designated for or in the process of being designated for the practice of religious worship other than Muslim will be permanently closed down in all parts of the country, as well as those not having received the conformity authorization from the National Commission," Salma stated in the notice. <br />
On Sunday (May 22) the governor of Bejaia sent a statement to the president of the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA) informing him that all churches in the province were illegal because they were unregistered. Registration is required under controversial Ordinance 06-03, but Christians report the government refuses to respond to or grant their applications for registration. <br />
The controversial law was introduced in 2006 to regulate non-Muslim worship. ...<br />
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According to the governor's statement, if the churches do not comply, authorities may use force. The leaders of the churches in Bejaia have decided to conduct church services this weekend as scheduled and "see what happens," said Krim, who also expects police to show up. ...<br />
There are more than 99,000 Christians in Algeria, less than 0.3 percent of the total population of 35.4 million people, according to Operation World. Muslims make up more than 97 percent of the population.<br />
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<em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em><br />
<a _mce_href="http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/13314/article_113076.html" _mce_shape="rect" href="http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/13314/article_113076.html" shape="rect">http://www.compassdirect.org/english/country/13314/article_113076.html</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
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VENICE - Middle East Christians are struggling to keep hope alive with Arab Spring democracy movements promising more political freedom but threatening religious strife that could decimate their dwindling ranks.<br />
Scenes of Egyptian Muslims and Christians protesting side by side in Cairo's Tahrir Square five months ago marked the high point of the euphoric phase when a new era seemed possible for religious minorities chafing under Islamic majority rule.<br />
Since then, violent attacks on churches by Salafists - a radical Islamist movement once held in check by the region's now weakened or toppled authoritarian regimes - have convinced Christians their lot has not really improved and could get worse. ...<br />
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The Chaldean bishop of Aleppo, Antoine Audo, feared the three-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad spelled a bleak future for the 850,000 Christians there.<br />
"If there is a change of regime," he said, "it's the end of Christianity in Syria. I saw what happened in Iraq."<br />
The uncomfortable reality for the Middle East's Christians, whose communities date back to the first centuries of the faith, is that the authoritarian regimes challenged by the Arab Spring often protected them against any Muslim hostility.<br />
Apart from Lebanon, where they make up about one-third of the population and wield political power, Christians are a small and vulnerable minority in Arab countries.<br />
The next largest group, in Egypt, comprises about 10 percent of the population while Christians in other countries are less than 5 percent of the overall total.<br />
Under Saddam Hussein, about 1.5 million Christians lived safely in Iraq. Since the US-led invasion in 2003, so many have fled from Islamist militant attacks that their ranks have shrunk to half that size, out of a population of 30 million. ...<br />
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<em>Edited :: See Original Report Here</em><br />
<a href="http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=226236">http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=226236</a></span></span><br />
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